They Hate Us. So?

Sgt. Mom has several trenchant observations today. Here's one:

9/11 shook loose a certain insularity, a tendency by Americans to undervalue ourselves; as Tom Wolfe once observed, the cry of the American artist and intellectual was “They do everything better in Europe!” The true path to enlightenment was to mimic our bettors and import the toys and maybe then we would merit enlightened approval. The outright glee in some quarters, and the barely-veiled schadenfreude from others in the wake of 9/11 was a dash of ice-water in the face. Americans looked at recent and not-so recent events and institutions, and began wondering if we really, really wanted the approval, after all. The UN? A matchless combination of corruption and incompetence, singularly unable to prevent a massacre in so-called safe zones in Bosnia and it’s own employees in Rwanda. The European intellectual set? Considering that they’ve been on their knees for the last 80 years, performing intellectual fellatio on Uncle Joe Stalin and his heirs and ilk, their approval of our works and ways was never a likely thing; nor do they relish the reminder of the human costs of Marxism’s various brave new worlds—especially since so many of the fortunate survivors of the various national experiments finished up here. And the manner by which millions of Europeans-- Jew, Romany, gays, retarded, religious and political dissidents--- were loaded into the gas chambers by their peers and neighbors is a living memory to many Americans; the survivors of that adventure in totalitarianism must relish the pious lectures on toleration and racism received from the same direction as their initial persecution. We have also noted the tendency of certain nations, or political sub-sets of same, to swoon into the arms of a political dictator, or at the very least, sell him nuclear reactors. And now, another collection of rigid religiously-orthodox fascists with imperial ambitions has decided that we--- all of us who do not wish to submit--- are suitable candidates for mass murder by any means available, while the usual suspects rejoice and cheer them on.

It's the Economy

Steven Den Beste has an interesting, and typically long, post about the trade deficit, why paper money is accepted, and how hard it is to control complex systems like the world economy.

The part of that which most interests me is how money acquires and retains value. Barter is easy enough to understand: I have something you want; you have something I want; let's trade.

But barter is not a useful monetary system outside of very limited cases. For example, take an economy 10 people where one wants something no one has, one has something no one wants, and the rest are involved in a series of interlocking relationships of supply and demand. How does this balance? How do people find how to get what they want with what they have? What incentive is there to produce something that's not currently produced, when only one person wants it, and what incentive is there to consume what the one person has, when he can't discount it and you can eventually get it for free by letting him starve to death? Worse, what if I have a pig, and want a comb. Either I butcher the pig, which immediately reduces its time-value to me (since it won't keep long now) and future value (since it won't get any fatter now), or I find someone who can give me lots of little things for my one pig, so that I can trade one of the little things for the comb. Then what do I do with the other little things?

Using precious metals as a store of value was useful, because it was tangible. For the same reason, you could use acres of land as your store of value (except that land is not particularly portable, while precious metals are). Ah, you say, but you can trade in titles for land, can't you? And the titles are both portable, and as valuable as the land they confer ownership of. As long, that is, as someone is willing to use armed force to protect the land from claim jumpers, and enforce contract in court should you try to keep the land after transferring the title.

At that point, a title is just paper money backed by a commodity, as our paper money used to be backed by gold or silver (you can see examples of both in the money museum in Chicago's Federal Reserve Bank). And unlike precious metals, property rights must be defended by the government to have portable value. And since it is the promise of the government to protect the titleholder's right to the land that makes the title valuable, why do you need the land?

Really, this is what the value of our currency comes down to: US paper currency is valuable because the US government is willing to accept it as valuable, and to exchange it for other items of value as necessary, and to repay every debt ever incurred by the United States. (The US has never defaulted on a debt.) In other words, what you give in exchange for a house or for lunch or for labor is nothing more than a government promise that it regards certain pieces of paper as valuable.

I still find that amazing.

The Truth and the Story of the Truth

It's becoming more and more clear that the mainstream "news" services are simply untrustworthy. Take the NY Times, where more than one reporter was caught red-handed making up stories, or CNN, where Eason Jordan admitted reprinting Saddam Hussein's propaganda in order to stay in the country (and hopefully repeat their blockbuster ratings from Desert Storm). Reuters and the BBC are so transparently anti-American, anti-Blair and (as far as I can tell) against freedom of any kind that one has to look out the window and verify when they report the sky to be blue. This story, from a Marine reservist returned from Iraq, points out major issues with the Washington Post's coverage of the situation in Iraq.

I long ago stopped trusting the major media, because I realized that every time they put out stories on areas where I know a great deal, they were generally flat-out wrong, and frequently appeared to be deliberately misleading to serve an agenda. If that is the case with what I know about, why should I trust their opinions or editorial choices on any other issue? It's sad that it has come to this, but at this point I take nothing reported in a major news source without a large helping of salt.

The Danger of Anecdotes

I wasn't going to write about Farenheit 9/11: I don't have time to scorn Michael Moore the way it is needed. But something from The New Republic (Hat tip: Pejmanesque) got me thinking. here is the quote in question:

Moore's argumentative strategy, however, rests on tricking audiences into believing otherwise. Having laid out his mostly unconvincing cases against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and having presented compelling scenes of Lipscomb grieving, military recruiters preying on the ignorance of teenagers, and congressmen fleeing questions about their children's military service, he pulls an intellectual sleight of hand that goes by so quickly--and indeed, that sounds so logical--that many viewers won't realize they've been tricked. In a voiceover, he says (and I'm paraphrasing pretty roughly here): I've always been amazed that in America the poor and working class do most of the fighting. That is their gift to us. And all they ask in return is that we don't send them to war unless we absolutely have to. The logical connection between the two thoughts here is patently absurd. (Is Moore implying that it's okay for the poor and working class to do most of the fighting as long as they are only sent to fight in necessary wars? Would it be okay to fight unnecessary wars if the military burden were properly balanced?) But it's also central to Moore's argument. He needs to be able to place his movie's best point--the brazen immorality of Lipscomb having to grieve her son while elites make no similar sacrifice--in the service of his larger argument, which is that Bush's wars have been unjust. So he eloquently conflates them, pumps up his soundtrack, and hopes viewers don't bother to think about what he's actually done.

I am sad for Mrs. Lipscomb's loss: it is the most terrible thing I can imagine to lose a child. Several people I know - including a couple of my closest friends - have been and/or will soon be in combat postings, and none of them are poor, though they also can't be classed as "the elites". But what about Pat Tillman's mother? Doesn't she disprove the case that it's only the poor fighting and dying in this war? Pat Tillman was nothing if not among the country's elite, by income and public acclaim if nothing else.

And if one anecdote can prove Moore's case, it only takes one to disprove it.

The Common Good

Hillary Clinton, at a fund-raiser in California, said this:

"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

That about sums up why I am forced to support Republicans so frequently: "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

I despair over many of the Republicans' agenda items - particularly the religiously-motivated ones - and find President Bush to be a less-than-stellar standard-bearer for Reagan's legacy, particularly since he has allowed government to grow larger and more intrusive with bare lip service to stopping it. At least Bush's character is good: he's not a thief and he's not an egregious liar and he's determined to defend the US against its enemies.

But as long as this is the attitude of the Democrats, I cannot support them at all. Hillary Clinton wants to take things from me to give to others. She wants to decide whom to take from, and what to take. She wants to decide whom to give to, and how much to give. And our existence, in her universe, is to sit back and be quiet, so that she can get on with it. She wants my money, because she feels entitled to it. Even disregarding the kind of corruption that breeds, what makes her think that she knows the common good so well that she can magnanimously spread only good? Has she learned nothing from history? Does she know nothing of economics or psychology? Has she even read the Constitution?

Stupid questions, of course, she knows nothing, and thinks she knows everything, and the mere fact of my disagreement with her agenda is proof that I'm a terrible horrible person who is stupid and smirks like a chimp and kills babies and - bah! Enough! No voting for Democrats until the Republicans start posting guards inside my bedroom or outlawing non-Christian religions!

Cheney's outburst was mild in comparison to what I'm not typing right now.

UPDATE: Steven Bainbridge has thoughts on this, along with a couple of good quotes.

Let Freedom Reign!

Ramblings Journal has a photo essay of how President Bush and Prime Minister Blair found out that the sovereignty of Iraq had been reestablished.

Time to Invoke Godwin's Law

The other day, in comments to this post, I castigated the Bush administration for putting out an ad which had shots of Hitler, alongside shots of several prominent Democrats. Yes, the shots of Hitler are from MoveOn (a Democrat advocacy group) comparing President Bush to Hitler, but by using such short clips of them, the association is naturally between Hitler and the Democrats. Sure, it's defensible, but we're not stupid and we can tell the intent was to take advantage of the association while being able to deny it.

However, the Democrats' response is astonishing. I got a letter from the DNC, and apparently the Kerry campaign is sending other ones, criticizing Bush for comparing Democrats to Hitler. Yes, I realize this is basically the charge I make as well, but it's disingenuous at best to castigate one's political opponents for doing something wrong, when what they are doing is showing clips of you doing the things you are accusing them of! In other words, the Democrats are saying the clips from their own advocates are morally wrong, and that is somehow the Republicans' fault. Gah! I would go on at some length, but Josh Chafetz saves me the trouble.

Now We're ALL NAZIs?

Al Gore yesterday called anyone who doesn't agree with his policy ideas, and posts about it online, "digital Brown Shirts":

In an hour-long address punctuated by polite laughter and applause, Gore also accused the Bush administration of working closely "with a network of 'rapid response' digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for 'undermining support for our troops."'

Note that Reuters' focus was on what Gore was accusing the Bush administration of, rather than what he is accusing me and thousands of his fellow citizens of: Al Gore called all of those who write about politics online, and who disagree with Gore's political views, Brown Shirts.

Should the reference escape you, the Brown Shirts were NAZI enforcers - street thugs, really, who beat up Jews and Communists and opponents of Hitler, sent kids to concentration camps and basically did the dirty work of the NAZI party prior to the rise of the SS.

What bugs me most about this, actually, is not even that Al Gore is calling me a NAZI, per se. What bothers me is that Al Gore; and people who write Bushitler, Bush=Hitler and so forth; are cheapening the inhumanity and tyranny of the NAZIs. You see, if Bush and the NAZIs are alike, then the NAZIs weren't brutal tyrants who gassed and shot and worked to death over 6 million people while starting a war that consumed some 20 million people; instead, the NAZIs just disagree with "right-thinking people" about the growth rate of government spending.

Erasing the memory of the NAZIs (or the Communists, if you want to think of this from the other side of the aisle) is dangerous: what happens if a true fascist tyrant begins to assume power in the US? What can you call him? How can you get your message out? How do you warn those who are ignorant of history what their future may hold if they are incautious?

The real result of Al Gore's insults is that it shows how careless he is with the freedom and values we all care about (or at least say we do). Maybe I shouldn't have written any of this, since Lileks already said it better:

[T]oday Al Gore upped the ante. He coined a new term for the Internet critics of his positions: digital brownshirts. Yes, yes, it’s over the top. But it’s not the sentiment that raises eyebrows, it’s the position of the person who’s saying it. We don’t expect presidential candidates past or present to indulge in Usenet flame-war lingo. We don’t expect serious party elders to call the other side Nazis, and for good reason: it’s obscene. The brownshirts were evil. The brownshirts kicked the Jews in the streets and made the little kids put their hands on their heads as they stumbled off to the trains. The brownshirts were not interested in refuting arguments. They were interested in killing the people who dared argue at all.

At some point, I fear, the political discourse of 2004 is going to seem horribly irrelevant and misplaced in the face of some loud new wretched horror; it will seem as oddly disconnected from reality as the Condit / Killer-Shark news reports of August 2001. An indolent luxury.

Digital stormtroopers. Tell me again who’s stifling debate? Remind me again who’s questioning people’s patriotism?

Find me again the story where Bob Dole called the Dixie Chicks “musical Mukhabarats”? Look. We don't have to agree on the big hard issues, but we can certainly agree that we share common values that set us apart, and that it profits no one to identify the opposition as something outside the American experience. Liberals are not Communists. Republicans are not fascists. We have a nice window of opportunity here where we can come together by choice, instead of being thrown together by events. I say we get a head start on national unity, and turn on anyone who floats the Nazi analogy. Shun 'em. No links, no reviews, no radio interviews, no newspaper pieces, nothing. From now on, the Nazi parallel buys you bupkis. This means that the right doesn't get to parade around the mutterings of high-profile wackjobs as illustrative of the heart of everyone who votes D, and the left doesn't get to do the whole "he's wrong in his overheated critique, BUT" dodge. Enough. ENOUGH! For Christ's sake, enough!

Splitting Hairs, and Texans

There's an interesting discussion on Daly Thoughts about whether Texas should split into 5 states, as it is Constitutionally entitled to do. Four of the five states would almost certainly be Republican, with the fifth tending somewhat Democrat, so the Republicans would certainly have a short-term incentive in doing this. However, it won't happen.

As one commenter on Daly Thoughts noted, which state would get the Alamo? Besides, there's the fact that the things we love about Texas are usually things we love about Texas, not the particular part of the state that we are in. I love the smell of the prairie when the Spring winds are blowing, and the large amount of personal freedom that is granted and personal responsibility that is expected. I love the bluebonnets and the indian paintbrush. I love the attitude. I love the Alamo, and the Gulf coast, and the desert river with the dinosaur footprints fossilized in the riverbed. I love Austin. I love how everything is huge and new. I love the hills and trees in the trailing edge of the Ozarks. I love the way that the people are friendly and helpful. I love the almost universal patriotism and the limited whining. I love the longhorn cattle and the bison that are pastured, respectively, within two blocks and two miles of my house. I love the food. How much of this would remain in a state cut apart? Some of it, certainly, but not all.

I've thought about it - I suspect most Texans have - but I don't want to see it happen.

My Particular Friend

I am very much enjoying Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels. I just finished the 14th (there are about 20) and it is the best story (the series as a whole, rather than just the 14th book) that I've read in a long time. The characters are maddeningly human (like Dr. Maturin: naturalist, music lover, unparalleled physician, lover of liberty and hater of tyranny in any form, nice guy, drug addict from time to time and it almost destroys him repeatedly and why can't he get a handle on his life!?) and the events frequently random (like when Captain Aubrey comes home expecting public acclaim and is court martialled instead because of political maneuverings connected to his radical father). In other words, it's a lot like real life.

So I was particularly thrilled when I found My Particular Friend, which is entirely themed along the lines of the Aubrey/Maturin series. Lady Aubrey is a fellow Texan, a fellow baseball fan, and an entertaining writer.

UPDATE: Silly me: I didn't realize that this was Sharon Ferguson's site. Sharon, formerly of the excellent Los Brazos Cantina (if I recall correctly), is a frequent and welcome commenter here. I gotta learn to stop posting after midnight.

Just a Bit Outside

Wizbang has an excellent post, with a bunch of stories from one day's "news" of Democrats bashing President Bush for everything from slashing Federal science spending (actually, up dramatically under President Bush) to somehow making a Democrat-advocacy group hire convicted felons to register voters. The last story, though, is the kicker, that one that takes this into the realm of the surreal.

OK, I realize that Republicans are not innocent babes, but why is it that the real vote fraud (as opposed to hysterical allegations of keeping minorities from voting by "looking intimidating" at the polling places in their suits keeping track of the people trying to stuff the ballot boxes - not that I'm bitter) always seems to come from the Democrats, as well as much of the ... interesting ... interpretation of electoral law in the courts?

An Appraisal of the Clinton Presidency

I never would have thought it possible so soon after the end of his Presidency, but James Taranto and Leonard Leo have written a remarkably balanced summary of the Clinton Presidency. The summary presents both what made Bill Clinton so popular and what made him so exasperating.

Steph is Ranting...

about homeschooling and being a mother to four young boys and the things people ask you and how to answer. It's good. Go read.

Unconvinced

Michael Totten points to a serious case for voting for John Kerry if you are, for lack of a better term, a liberal hawk. The case is from Anne Cunningham of One-Sided Wonder, in three posts, here, here and here. It is a serious argument for Kerry, in a campaign where so far there have not been many such arguments, and it deserves to be addressed seriously.

First, I'd like to pull apart Ms. Cunningham's posts to group the related points together, and address each of these individually afterwards. Please note that as a result the context of the quotes might be slightly off. The "point" column is my distillation of the arguments. The "arguments" column is text from Ms. Cunningham's posts.

Point	Arguments
1. Bush is not worthy of the office of President because of the abuses at Abu Ghraib.	The more that comes out about Abu Ghraib and torture and unmuzzled dogs, the further out on a limb Bush seems to be. A few months ago he could have persuasively presented himself as the defender of civilization, the tough-minded liberator, but he abandoned that role, or compromised it so severely that this ground is now open territory. Bush/Hitler is, similarly, not going to be given the benefit of the doubt. (Especially when his team are, you know, stealing pages from the Nazi playbook and interrogating people using dogs.)
2. The world will not see a Bush electoral defeat as a win for terrorism.	I used to have a similar worry [to Roger Simon's: If John Kerry is elected in November, it will be interpreted by the world as such a repudiation of the WoT it will make the electoral defeat in Spain seem like a student council defeat in Iowa.], but Bush himself has changed the meaning of the election. I don't think the election will really represent a repudiation of the main thrust of Bush policy.
3. President Bush's policies are fine, but his execution is terrible.	[Kerry]'s not against the war on terror, or even the war in Iraq, so much as Bush's method of conducting these wars. Bush has validated Kerry's hesitation and concern. [A]lthough I supported the war, I don't think all of Bush's principles are sound. We are fighting a propaganda war as well as a military one, and in that sense "bad execution" encroaches on principle. It does so because bad execution here really amounts to bad faith.
4. A new administration is more likely to be able to win the goodwill of Iraqis.	Our legitimacy in Iraq is at a low ebb, much of the goodwill from the removal of Saddam having been squandered. A new administration can take a fresh approach with the various parties and factions in the country.
5. The Bush administration is too close to Saudi Arabia; a Kerry administration would be tougher on the Saudis.	And a Kerry administration would have a much less cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia. Various Democratic policy makers already see the war on terror much more in terms of our problematic relations with allies like the Saudis and Pakistan, which are indeed likely to be trouble spots in the years to come.
6. A Kerry administration would have as much credibility in fighting the Terror Wars as the Bush administration.	We issued an ultimatum, carried through on it, and the effects of that will last beyond this administration. Our hard power is not in question. Kerry would have to backtrack a lot to undo that. What he can add to it, though, is some serious soft-power cultivation. We have addressed the question of state sponsorship of terror, to the extent of getting rid of a potential sponsor and delivering a warning elsewhere. Kerry will be seen as having less political will on this score than Bush did, but I think the show of American resolve will still have effects beyond the current administration.
7. "Soft power" is now more important than "hard power" in the remainder of the terror wars.	What [Kerry] can add to [Bush's use of military force], though, is some serious soft-power cultivation. We have addressed the question of state sponsorship of terror, to the extent of getting rid of a potential sponsor and delivering a warning elsewhere. Kerry will be seen as having less political will on this score than Bush did, but I think the show of American resolve will still have effects beyond the current administration.
8. Kerry would be a more credible war leader domestically than President Bush.	For the last few weeks I have been thinking that there may be some Nixon in China quality to the War on Terror. Only instead of having enough tough credibility to be soft, it's the other way around. Is it that only someone who does not come off as a warmonger can rally the whole nation?
9. President Bush and at least some of his cabinet are simply evil. [I don't regard this as a particularly serious point, but it needs to be addressed.]	I was thinking of this after reading Clarke's book, because I agreed with his portrait of John Ashcroft as a terrible Attorney General - in a symbolic sense, if nothing else. Whatever he is or is not doing under the Patriot Act, he is the wrong type to be in the role, because he has no natural affinity for civil rights. He doesn't seem to have too many internal checks on his behavior. Bush/Hitler is, similarly, not going to be given the benefit of the doubt. (Especially when his team are, you know, stealing pages from the Nazi playbook and interrogating people using dogs.) If I seem to be harping on the dog thing, it's because that combined with the sexual humiliation is so reminiscent of accounts I have read of Klaus Barbie's interrogation style that I cannot get past it. I realize that both methods were probably designed to touch on specific taboos of Islam, dogs being unclean to Muslims, &c. But still, it's so very very Klaus Barbie.
10. Kerry's claims of waging the Terror Wars only with law enforcement and intelligence will not survive his coming into office.	I also think that Kerry will inevitably become more willing to use force once in office. It's when parties are out of power that they appear in their most dovish light.
11. John Kerry is more realistic and more moderate than President Bush.	And good execution is not nothing. A Kerry administration would no doubt be less ideologically driven than the Bush team (given that several of his advisors are moderate Republicans), and so might have a more realistic picture of the challenges in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond.

The overarching point of this case is that John Kerry, if elected President, would be better - or at least no worse - than President Bush at prosecuting the Terror Wars, and that we would not lose ground in the war in a Kerry administration. I'm not convinced. To show why, I'll address each point in order, then talk about one critical issue that remains unaddressed by Ms. Cunningham: character.

Point 1: President Bush is not worthy of the office of President because of the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Ms. Cunningham's use of active language to relate President Bush to the Abu Ghraib scandal implies that President Bush was responsible for the offenses:

The more that comes out about Abu Ghraib and torture and unmuzzled dogs, the further out on a limb Bush seems to be. A few months ago he could have persuasively presented himself as the defender of civilization, the tough-minded liberator, but he abandoned that role, or compromised it so severely that this ground is now open territory.

As President and Commander in Chief, President Bush is responsible for preventing such acts; fair point. How is a President to prevent such acts? No sane person would claim that any President can personally oversee every member of the armed forces or the civilian government. As a result, the President has to be judged based on the means available to him: policy and enforcement. By setting policy, a President lays out the expected behavior of those people working for the executive branch. By enforcing that policy, as well as the various laws, the President signals how much tolerance he has for misbehavior.

So it would be fair to hold President Bush personally accountable for the Abu Ghraib offenses if either his policies allowed this behavior, or his enforcement was lax or non-existent. Have either of these occurred? Um, no.

President Bush was told by legal counsel that he could authorize torture for prisoners, because the Geneva Conventions and certain US laws don't apply in this case. Ignoring the soundness of the legal advice (some of it appears highly suspect, to say the least), the President accepted the legality of the advice but explicitly chose to not use torture. The President has taken a very firm policy stance that torture is unacceptable.

"Look, let me make very clear the position of my government and our country," Bush said Tuesday in the Oval Office.

"We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being."

Bush's comments to reporters came as the White House released a raft of documents that administration officials say show there was no policy allowing the abuse of prisoners.

Bush accepted advice from the Justice Department that the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of prisoners of war did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees captured in Afghanistan, but he ordered the military to follow the conventions "to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity," according to one of the memos released by the White House.

"Our values as a nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment," Bush wrote in the memo dated February 7, 2002. "Our nation has been and will continue to be a strong supporter of Geneva and its principles."

The policy prohibited the acts carried out at Abu Ghraib by US soldiers, so the only way that the President could be held accountable was if he failed to enforce the policy. Was there a cover-up? No, the first reports of the abuses came from CentCom in January, 2 days after the first investigatory interviews were conducted.

If there was no cover-up, was there a lack of enforcement? Again, no. The day after reporters were notified, and just three days after the beginning of the investigation, the prison commander was formally admonished (ending her chances of career advancement forever) and the commander of the MP battalion was relieved of his command. Investigations continued, and prosecutions began.

Perhaps the law was being evaded by picking low-level scapegoats and absolving the commanders? Again, no. Recently, a 4-star general was given charge of the investigation (taking over from a 2-star), which can only mean (under the military's rule against junior officers questioning a senior officer) that the entire CentCom command hierarchy is under investigation. It is likely that charges will be brought against at least one general officer, or this upgrade of rank would not have been necessary.

I see no way that President Bush, his administration or the military can be fairly accused of covering up the events, not enforcing the law, or picking scapegoats to avoid enforcing the law on anyone important.

I'm actually not going to take up the moral equivalence argument ("stealing pages from the Nazi playbook" and "it's so very very Klaus Barbie") until point 9, but I did want to point out here that it is clear that the President explicitly forbade any such methods from use, so absent any indication that the President granted an exception in this case or failed to enforce the law or policy, knowing there had been an offense, such an argument is reprehensible at best.

Point 2: The world will not see a Bush electoral defeat as a win for terrorism.

Yes, yes it will. The Spanish elections were seen as a clear win for the terrorists, as the new government pulled out of Iraq as quickly as it could (and awarded medals for bravery to the high-level commanders who co-ordinated the pullout!!), and leaving the field of battle to the enemy is a defeat by any standard.

Would a President Kerry leave Iraq to the enemy? It's unclear what he would do, because Kerry is in favor of every option, and against every option, depending on the day; but it is unlikely that Kerry would be able to pull out of Iraq in less than two or three years without being impeached, and it's unlikely that he would want to do so even if that were not the case.

But there are other ways in which a Kerry victory would be seen by the world (and many Americans) as a defeat in the war. For example, the terrorists and the world will conclude that the US does not have the will to win. Not only is that how we got into this mess in the first place, but a Kerry victory almost certainly would mean that the electorate lacks the will to win. Unless it can be shown that Kerry would be stronger on the war than President Bush, there is no other way to see it. And given his past actions, pronouncements and Senate votes, no reasonable person could conclude that Kerry is more devoted to agressive national defense than President Bush.

If "Bush himself has changed the meaning of the election" in regards to Abu Ghraib, it can only mean that any imperfection on our part - even if detected and punished - cancels out every other issue, including whether or not we win the war, instead of taking the Johnson approach of looking grave while ignoring the war, so as to focus on the "Great Society" instead. Well, we all know how that worked out. In any event, this statement by Ms. Cunningham can only be evaluated as saying that the US only deserves victory if we are perfect, which is clearly an impossible standard.

Moreover, while Ms. Cunningham may not "think the election will really represent a repudiation of the main thrust of Bush policy", the rest of the world will certainly see it as such. Kerry has already made so many statements (as well as past actions and votes) against taking resolute action abroad, even going so far as to dismiss democracy in Iraq as an unimportant goal, that it is clear he would not follow the main thrust of Bush policy: attacking our enemies before they attack us, holding terrorist havens and sponsors as accountable as the terrorists, preventing unstable states from obtaining nuclear weapons. From the standpoint of someone not impelled by domestic US politics, the election of John Kerry will look like a repudiation of these policies.

My personal guess is that a Kerry foreign policy will look like a Clinton foreign policy; my fear is that it will look like a Carter foreign policy. I suppose for the terrorists, you'd have to say "hope" instead of "fear" in that last clause.

Point 3: President Bush's policies are fine, but his execution is terrible.

[Kerry]'s not against the war on terror, or even the war in Iraq, so much as Bush's method of conducting these wars. Bush has validated Kerry's hesitation and concern.

Again, the standard seems to be perfection, and again it is simply not possible. So the comment about "validat[ing] Kerry's hesitation and concern" is bogus. How long should we have waited? What methods short of war were available to us which we did not first try?

If you don't dispute the policy, then you must provide a vehicle for obtaining it. As George Will said, "Who wills an end must will a means to that end." If you desire an outcome (the removal of Saddam) you must provide a vehicle. Kerry voted for the war and argued against it. He criticized the execution before it began. He makes unrealistic claims - totally at odds with the statements of the French, German and Russian governments - about what he can obtain via diplomacy. What is the vehicle? How else do we obtain the end of removing Saddam without the means of war?

And frankly I'm not even sure if Kerry is for or against prosecuting the war as a war. He's said before that it should be an intelligence and law enforcement operation. It's pretty clear to me that he would not be willing to use force to take on Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia - if he wouldn't use force against Saddam without UN acquiescence, why would he use it against less immediately threatening countries with far less of a record of UN censure behind them? Perhaps Kerry would be willing to make war once there was another September 11 - perhaps this time with nuclear weapons supplied by Iran or N. Korea - but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

While I agree that the Bush administration has been less than perfect in its understanding of some of the dynamics that we need to use to win, I'm not convinced Kerry would do better. If this is a propaganda war (as differentiated from any other war how, exactly?), and if Bush has been less zealous about prosecuting the war of ideas than one would like, how does one find that Kerry would do better? His refusal to support the Varela Project certainly is not encouraging. Nor are his past actions, statements and votes.

I believe that Kerry would be unable to articulate an ideology of American greatness or even the superiority of representative government and rule of law, because I believe that he does not believe in the superiority of representative government and the rule of law. Certainly, his past actions, statements and votes have not indicated any such view on his part.

Point 4: A new administration is more likely to be able to win the goodwill of Iraqis.

I've not seen much evidence that this administration does not have the goodwill of Iraqis. I've seen interviews with high-ranking Ba'athist officers, former(?) Mukhabarat and Fedayeen officers and a few people who have lost their high status in society, in which those people expressed their anger, disappointment and hatred of George Bush and America and the Jews and democracy and individual liberty and such. I've seen the opposite from the Iraqi people themselves; that just doesn't get on the evening "news".

As far as a new approach goes, it has been very clear for some time that the approach is to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi government, then stay to provide that government with teeth to beat down the jihadis and ensure that the transition to democratic rule takes hold. This would be followed by a political disengagement, probably like with Germany and Japan, where the new government asked us to station forces there. What new approach would you suggest?

Point 5: The Bush administration is too close to Saudi Arabia; a Kerry administration would be tougher on the Saudis.

And a Kerry administration would have a much less cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia. Various Democratic policy makers already see the war on terror much more in terms of our problematic relations with allies like the Saudis and Pakistan, which are indeed likely to be trouble spots in the years to come.

I don't buy it. The Clinton administration was hardly tough on the Saudis or Pakistanis, even while Pakistan was developing the nuclear program that is causing us so much grief now. How would Kerry be different? I suspect that most of his statements against the Saudis are just posturing, because it's a way of making the accomplishments in Afghanistan and Iraq look less amazing if he keeps pointing out what hasn't been done yet.

And besides, what would Kerry do? He's not willing to go to war against Saudi Arabia. He's not willing to compel them to carry out law enforcement on our behalf. He's not willing to shut down their oil industry, and thus their ability to fund Wahabbi Islam missionary activities. He's not willing to ban Saudi "charities" or keep Saudi citizens out of the country. What would he do?

Point 6: A Kerry administration would have as much credibility in fighting the Terror Wars as the Bush administration.

No, it wouldn't. Kerry is willing to kowtow to France and the UN for crumbs of approval, unwilling to aggressively wage war, unwilling to defend American interests abroad except in very narrow circumstances and unwilling to confront our enemies or truculent neutrals like Germany and Russia. This is hardly invisible abroad. Certainly the French, the Germans, Hizb'allah, Iran, North Korea and others have made statements that they would prefer Kerry for just that reason.

And while perceptions of American weakness (Viet Nam, Lebanon, Somalia, refusal to put in ground troops in Kosovo, vaccilation on Bosnia, refusal to retaliate meaningfully against attacks on the World Trade Center, Khobar Towers, the African embassies, the USS Cole) last and are taken as lessons, perceptions of American strength (Gulf War, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, OIF) are seen as momentary fits of a failing giant, lashing out in desperation. I don't believe that's what we're doing, but our enemy does believe that, and says so regularly.

The only way for Kerry to gain that credibility is to aggressively defend American security and interests, and he has shown repeatedly that he is unwilling to do so.

Point 7: "Soft power" is now more important than "hard power" in the remainder of the terror wars.

When polls are taken about whether people are satisfied or unsatisfied with the Bush administration's direction in the Terror Wars in general or Iraq in particular, an interesting point emerges. If the question is just "satisfied/unsatisfied", Bush doesn't come off well. But when the question is whether we should be tougher, less tough, or about the same, the preponderance of opinion is that we should be tougher (it even outpolls "about the same"). How could "soft power" answer that desire?

More importantly, how could "soft power" deter the Iranians from using nuclear weapons against Israel or the US, or giving them to terrorists to use, or even developing them in the first place? How could "soft power" stop the beheadings and mutilation, the rabid pathology of jihadi beliefs that it is their religious duty to kill non-Muslims (and even Muslims who aren't the right kind of Muslim) or large-scale terrorist acts like the African Embassy bombings or 9/11?

Point 8: Kerry would be a more credible war leader domestically than President Bush.

"Is it that only someone who does not come off as a warmonger can rally the whole nation?" Um, no. Just how, pray tell, is Kerry supposed to rally the nation, and to what end? "I want all Americans tonight, to unite with me in averting our eyes to the statements and actions of the peaceful Muslim freedom fighters who butchered 10 civilian hostages in Iraq." Doesn't ring true to me, and I wouldn't put it past Kerry.

Let's face it: Kerry is not seen as credible on the war by hardly anyone outside of the fringe who want to end it outright by surrendering, or the few centrists who are more concerned with beating Bush than winning the war. As James Lileks said the other day, "I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated." By Ms. Cunningham's comparison of Bush to Hitler and his administration to the NAZI party, I'm guessing she falls into that category.

Point 9: President Bush and at least some of his cabinet are simply evil.

I was thinking of this after reading Clarke's book, because I agreed with his portrait of John Ashcroft as a terrible Attorney General - in a symbolic sense, if nothing else. Whatever he is or is not doing under the Patriot Act, he is the wrong type to be in the role, because he has no natural affinity for civil rights. He doesn't seem to have too many internal checks on his behavior. Bush/Hitler is, similarly, not going to be given the benefit of the doubt. (Especially when his team are, you know, stealing pages from the Nazi playbook and interrogating people using dogs.)

If I seem to be harping on the dog thing, it's because that combined with the sexual humiliation is so reminiscent of accounts I have read of Klaus Barbie's interrogation style that I cannot get past it. I realize that both methods were probably designed to touch on specific taboos of Islam, dogs being unclean to Muslims, &c. But still, it's so very very Klaus Barbie.

This is the only deeply unserious point that Ms. Cunningham makes, and it is so offensive that I almost didn't respond to her other points at all. If you need help telling the Bush administration apart from the NAZIs, or President Bush from Adolf Hitler, then I don't have enough time to do more than say "Read some bloody history, would you?" I can't really say anything more about this without launching into a tirade. This kind of moral equivalence doesn't show the immorality of the target (President Bush) but of the accuser (Ms. Cunningham).

Point 10: Kerry's claims of waging the Terror Wars only with law enforcement and intelligence will not survive his coming into office.

I also think that Kerry will inevitably become more willing to use force once in office. It's when parties are out of power that they appear in their most dovish light.

That's a big hope to cherish there. It goes against Kerry's entire past history of actions and votes, and against his statements both in the past and in the current campaign. I'd really like to see some evidence that this would happen.

Oh, sure, Kerry would respond to a direct attack on US soil. No doubt he would react at least by bombing someone somewhere and making tough statements and looking grave and concerned on TV and in many funereal photo ops. But Kerry has shown no interest in preventing such attacks by preempting them. He would rather defend locally than globally, and that is going to get people killed if he's elected.

Again, if you will an end (preventing attacks on the US), you have to will a means to that end. Hope is not a plan. Grave concern is not a method. How are we to prevent terrorism against us except by killing the terrorists and destroying their havens and sources of supply? Unless Kerry is willing to do that - and he shows every indication that he is not so willing - there is little hope of preventing attacks. And if you have already ruled out doing these things to prevent attacks, how do they help in response to attacks?

In an era where our enemies want to die, want to kill us in large numbers, and are on the path to acquire nuclear weapons, turning away from the problem invites genocide on one side or the other.

Point 11: John Kerry is more realistic and more moderate than President Bush.

A Kerry administration would no doubt be less ideologically driven than the Bush team (given that several of his advisors are moderate Republicans), and so might have a more realistic picture of the challenges in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond.

Interesting point. Utterly false, but interesting. First, Kerry himself is rabidly Leftist - more so even than Ted Kennedy. Second, his advisors also include a number of far-Left types, and the pool from which he could draw for expertise on foreign policy contains mostly ex-Clinton and ex-Carter staffers - not really a hopeful sign for either moderation or competence.

Moreover, it ignores the problem that it's pretty difficult to get more moderate than George Bush. Bush hasn't taken extreme right-wing positions on any issue I can think of. (John Ashcroft has, and I'm not particularly a fan of him as Attorney General, but Bush himself has not.) There are areas where I'm unhappy with his positions, such as the FMA, but I don't find them extreme.

Of course, it depends upon your point of view, as well. If Dan Rather is a moderate in your world, then George Bush could be considered an extremist. But looking at a 3-d bell-curve of how citizens' view fall, with libertarian/collectivist on one axis, and capitalist/communist on the other, Bush is almost dead-center on libertarian/collectivist (perhaps slightly collectivist overall) and significantly towards capitalist. On the other hand, Kerry is significantly collectivist and somewhat communist (in the economic sense - not the political ideology, but the economic theory).

And as for John Kerry's realism, well, I will just let that one go. I think he's living in a fantasy world where everyone is good and nice, as long as we jingoistic Americans - particularly if we are conservative, white and/or male - are appropriately humble and apologetic.

In the end, what matters most about the quality of a President is his character. Will the President act according to solid principles, or will he waver and weasel and stick his finger in the wind? If we cannot predict what he will do, he may or may not act as we hope. And given Kerry's tendency to be on every side of every issue, I simply cannot trust the man. This November, I will vote as if my life depends on it. And since I cannot trust Kerry to take actions either to safeguard my life or, if necessary, to make meaningful my death, I'll be voting for George Bush. And it will be the first vote for a Republican for President that I will have cast since 1988.

UPDATE: Andrew Olmsted comments.

Important Question

Does this (hat tip: Edge of England's Sword) mean that I own a part of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary Rumsfeld (after all, I'm a shareholder in Exxon Mobil). Will Greenpeace publish instructions on how I might exercise this control?

And is there a similar map of Greenpeace? I bet there'd be a much simpler map than the one they're trying to foist on us as somehow damning, and which shows Greenpeace connected to all kinds of ecoterrorists, unreconstructed stalinists and the like.

A Reason to Watch Star Trek Again?

Two of my favorite science fiction TV series are Babylon 5 and Star Trek.

Babylon 5 is one of the best TV shows ever done, set in one of the most compelling science fiction universes ever created, with some of the most interesting characters ever put on TV. Yes, it's science fiction, but that's almost beside the point: the story is universal. Despite being set in space, in the future, with magical new technologies and thoroughly alien races, the story was real - it was plausible. The characters acted like people really act, and the events of the plot interacted with the personalities in believable ways.

Star Trek also created a compelling science fiction universe, though it always suffered from shallow characterizations. The original series had some excellent shows, exploring themes of race (Let This be Your Last Battlefield) and human relationships (The City on the Edge of Forever) and unintended consequences (A Piece of the Action) and so on in a very entertaining way. With the arrival of Star Trek: the Next Generation and its follow-ons, the stories got progressively less interesting, though, and even the universe got boring. (The Cardassians and Bajorans? Please! How unimaginative!) The preaching got out of hand as well, such as in the Next Generation, where at one point religion of all kinds was simply mocked out of hand. I have an idea, let's insult our viewers! That would make us really cool!

I watched exactly two episodes of Voyager and only one of Enterprise. They were interesting ideas, crippled by the insipid writing, unimaginative stories, retreads of past plots and utterly uninteresting characters and situations. It had become unreal - unbelievable - plastic.

If anything can revive Star Trek at this point, it is the creation of compelling story lines in an interesting universe with characters we can care about and events that don't always turn out for the best. If anyone can revive Star Trek, that person would be the creator of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski.

(hat tip: Peeve Farm)

An Enemy With Dozens of Heads

Apparently the Catholic Hierarchy is worried about Madonna embracing (a probably very twisted and unrecognizable) Kabbalah, and about Paganism as well.

[T]he Vatican is holding a special summit with Catholic leaders from around the world, hammering out a way to deal with so-called “New Age” religions and fads that pose a “threat” to Christianity.

(hat tip: The Wild Hunt)

Here's a better article on the topic.

the greatest challenge may be in England and North America, "where the New Age began ... and where it has become such a part of everyday life that we don't notice it". That makes it harder to attack, he says: "Where one sees a threat, it's easier to battle it."

This is an enemy with dozens of heads: the version of the Jewish kabbalah espoused by Madonna, the Enneagram personality-reading cult, ancient Egyptian occult practices, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, medieval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Yoga, Zen Buddhism, and many more.

The report acknowledges the strength of the Enemy Within: "In Western culture in particular, the appeal of 'alternative' approaches to spirituality is very strong .... New forms of psychological affirmation of the individual have become very popular among Catholics."

[snip]

New Age is getting a grip on Christians because many are failing to find authentic spirituality in the Church. They are failing to find, as the report put it, "the importance of man's spiritual dimension and its integration with the whole of life, the search for life's meaning, the link between human beings and the rest of creation, the desire for personal and social transformation, and the rejection of a rationalistic and materialistic view of humanity."

While one of the two "pontifical councils" involved in taking up the challenge is that for "inter-religious dialogue", suggesting that the New Agers be dealt with on a similar footing to Muslims, Jews, and indeed Anglicans, the Pope himself appears to see the issue as a simple matter of right and wrong.

"We cannot delude ourselves," he says, that "this return of ancient Gnostic ideas" "will lead toward a renewal of religion." It is, he said, "a way of distorting His Word ... in distinct, if not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian".

OK, just to be sure I'm clear, the position of the Vatican is:

Must be crushed	Pagans and those who follow "new age" religions and various other non-Judeo-Christian religions, peacefully practicing their beliefs.
Must be engaged in dialog	Muslims, many of whom have been searching through groups of people in Saudi Arabia and Iran looking for non-Muslims, then brutally murdering them on the spot

So, basically, Islam is compatible enough with Catholicism to be engaged in dialog, because it poses little threat of drawing Catholics away from the Church, while various forms of Paganism are so threatening to the Church, because they offer a spirituality the Church cannot, that they must be stamped out.

I think I'll just leave off without comment here.

Stupid Protesters

Expat Yank has a post on the "war is not the answer" bumper sticker. I walk past protestors many days on my way to work. My favorite sign so far is "You can't teach democracy through the barrel of a gun". As the Germans and Japanese their opinion on that one.

Another good one is "Only peace matters". Really? More than freedom? More than life? What peace did Paul Johnson have as he was beheaded? Is the peace of the grave acceptable?

Finally (at least for now): "One year later, war is still wrong". Three years later, war is still horrible. But it was forced upon us, and many of us choose not to die. Even just looking at the Iraq war, is war more or less wrong than averting your eyes while women are beheaded in front of their children because their husband fled the country, or hundreds of thousands are tortured, mutilated and killed to satisfy the bloodlust of a megalomaniac tyrant? I suppose for some, anything is preferable to admitting you might have been wrong. After all, it's not the protestors' lives which are in danger...today.

The Don't Torture Memos

It is likely that this won't get much media time: the Bush administration has released a raft of memos regarding how much pressure is permissible when interrogating prisoners taken in the Terror Wars. As I wrote (twice):

Say that Secretary Rumsfeld were to ask Undersecretary Smith to write a memo justifying the use of torture just because we feel like it, Undersecretary Jones to write a memo explaining why even looking unhappy in the presence of a prisoner is unConsitutional regardless of circumstance, and other undersecretaries were asked to write intermediate position papers. Now, we don't know what policy was adopted, nor what other memos may have been written, so how can we conclude from the existence of this memo that in fact it represents ANYTHING about government policy?

Sure enough, the government has concluded that it is more damaging to our cause to have some believe that we use torture, than it is to release the details of our policy on interrogations (which allows the enemy to train to resist those techniques). So, good job, all of you who called the President or Secretary Rumsfeld monsters: you've now made it less likely that the US will be able to obtain useful information from captured enemies. I don't think that was the intent of most of you (some I'm not so sure), but it was the effect.

I hope that at some point we can all move past the assumption that our domestic political opponents must be murderers and drug runners (of which Clinton was accused) or monsters who demand we torture prisoners and who rob the country blind (of which Bush is accused). I'm really, really sick of a political atmosphere that believes such horrible slanders, and a media which propagates them as plausible.

I Don't Understand

It appears that the enemy has beheaded yet another person, this time a Korean man, in an attempt to sow terror in our midst. I am very sad for his family, and for the agony he must have suffered in his last moments.

There are two things here that I don't understand, though, one about the reporting and one about the man himself.

The headline of the article I linked above is "Iraqi Militants Behead Korean Hostage". It's old news that the Western media cannot call a person whose intent is to terrorize, a terrorist. It's an unpleasant situation that the press has so lost track of objectivity that they prefer willful blindness (as long as the objects of the words they use are enemies of America, Israel and freedom in general, anyway), but it's hardly shocking. So, they have called these monsters "militants" - they didn't use the quotes of course. Hmmm, OK, first, how do they know that the "militants" are Iraqi? The AP seems to accept without any doubt that they are, yet it is well-known that most of the hardcore resistance in Iraq to the government and the coalition forces comes from non-Iraqis who came there for the purpose of fighting us. I just don't understand why the media could be so sceptical of the nature of the group, but so sure of their identity: any objective analysis would put the odds at the nature and identity of the group as likely the opposite of the AP's choices.

Unless, of course, the AP has intentionally chosen terms such as this because they want to minimize the horror and revulsion naturally felt at a terrorist (one who engages in acts of terrorism, which acts in turn are "use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."), while simultaneously making the terrorists seem like indigenous freedom fighters. After all, a militant is someone who has "a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause", and after all, sometimes we can all be militant, can't we? In other words, the only reason I can see behind the obviously deliberate choice of terms that are wrong or misleading, is that the AP is consciously "with the terrorists": they want us to lose.

It's a sad realization, even if it's one I've been coming to for a long time, that there is no logical rationale behind the editorial choices of Western "news" organizations but that they are on the other side. Perhaps I understand what they are doing, but I really don't understand why.

The other thing I don't understand is the passivity: the pleading on camera just plays into the enemy's hands; it won't spare your life. Sadly, I've seen many examples of Westerners - and of Muslims - being killed by jihadis, and what's striking is how seldom they fight back. If you know you are going to be horribly killed, why not try to run every chance you get: better to be shot trying to jump out the window than beheaded. Why not try to fight? Why would you ever sit barely resisting as they position you and begin to kill you? Yet people seem to do that. Fabrizio Quatrocchi was a brave and laudable exception. Most people just seem to sit there and take it. I don't get that at all.

UPDATE: And on the "on the other side" track, note Tom Gross' essay on BBC bias. (hat tip: Silflay Hraka)

UPDATE (6/23): Wizbang has a list of links covering the beheading of Kim Sun-Il.

"Just Kill the Damn Dots"

One of the most egregiously-overlooked blogs around is Brian James Dunn's The Dignified Rant. To give an idea of what I mean, here is an excerpt from a recent article in which he discusses the 9/11 Commission's "connecting the dots" commentary:

And one last bit of information for those who insist on blaming the Bush administration for not connecting dots before 9-11; and for those who like to pretend that the unilateral Bush administration caused the 9-11 attack: the planning may have begun in mid-1996. (The panel report discusses this, too.) I’d love to hear administration critics discuss the state of the dots in the last half of the 1990s.

We indeed have traveled a long way since 9-11. Too many people are back to 9-10. They hate us, people. All of us. Not just the current administration. Not just the Red State citizens. Owning a bongo and tie-dyed shirts won’t save you. Nor will spouting sympathy for their cause. We’re all targets and they’ll dance over our graves if we let them.

Stop debating to the point of paralysis over what dots should have been connected and what dots existed. The dots keep killing us in the most gruesome manner thay [sic] can come up with. Just kill the freaking dots! We are at war and we must win.

Or you can read his fine rant on North Korea and Bill Richardson, or his depressing observation on the dim chance of Venezuela escaping the Communist dictatorial thumb without bloodshed, or trenchant observations on China or Europe or - what are you still doing here? Go!

Climbing Down Into the Hole

James Lileks' Bleats are frequently insightful, often wonderful, and almost always worth reading. Today's Bleat is one of the best yet. In fact, it's so good I'm going to quote a large part of it.

Sometimes the disconnect between the editorial page and the real world is so vast I wonder whether we can ever agree about anything any more. I mean, I’m reading “The Connnection” by Stephen Hayes, the book that spells out all the information and intel about Saddam and Al-Qaeda. I’m old enough to remember when this was conventional wisdom. Why, I even remember back to the end of 2001, when the general mood seemed to favor bold action to forestall future catastrophe. If we hadn’t deposed Saddam, and Bush had won a second term, and there had been a terrorist attack in 05, this book would be the Democrat’s brief for impeachment. BUSH KNEW and did nothing.

And it’s not going to get better. I don’t think the next attack will bring us together like 9/11. Last time a small portion of the nation went straight to blaming us for enflaming poor Mo Atta and his motley crew; the last three years have seen that poison spread and flourish, and blaming America for the ravings of medieval theocrats is now a legitimate argument in polite society. I’d almost venture to say that a third of the country would conclude that a radiological device exploded in Manhattan would be Bush’s fault, because he made the “evil doers” (roll eyes) super-extra-fancy-grade-AA mad.

For the last few weeks I’ve had this gnawing belief that bin Laden got lucky by attacking during Bush’s term. Conventional wisdom says the opposite, because Bush fought back. But he’s the enemy now. I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated. (They’re quick to insist that they’d want Kerry to get bin Laden ASAP. Although the details are sketchy.) Of course this doesn't mean they're unpatriotic, etc., obligatory disclaimers, et cetera. But let's be honest. People are coming up with websites that demonstrate ingenious technology for spraying anti-Bush slogans on the sidewalks; it would be nice if they sprayed "DEFEAT TERRORISM" or "STOP AL QAEDA" now and then. Wouldn't it?

Is that too much to ask?

Perhaps this is why I haven’t written much about the subject lately with the usual chest-thumping brio: I think it’s going to have to get much worse before we get clarity. Most days I just don’t know what to say anymore. There are fiends out there chopping off the heads of Americans for their god, and we have cartoonists who think it’s the height of insight to show the Neocon cabal as port-swilling fat men bothered by baggy pants on insolent teens.

I understand the desire to whistle when passing the graveyard; it’s human nature. I don’t understand climbing down into the hole, crossing your arms on your chest, feeling the first few warm clumps of dirt on your face, and puckering your lips for the first few bars of “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Or "Le Marseillaise."

Milestone

Congratulations to Mike Melvill and the folks at Scaled Composites on the successful flight of Space Ship One today, becoming the first non-governmental spaceflight.

The "Unbiased" Media

I try to be very careful about naming people as enemies, because I believe that no quarter nor respite should be given to enemies: they should be killed, or compelled to surrender, and be quick about it. The BBC is coming very close to being an indisputable enemy in this war.

The Roots of the Terror Wars

Steven Den Beste links to and comments on this must-read analysis of the roots of the Terror Wars by Haim Harari. Because of who he is - really, his nationality, as he is Israeli - this will be ignored by many who should take it seriously. In brief, Harari carefully and convincingly:

• shows that Israel is not a primary cause of the troubles in the Middle East, nor is America or poverty or Western civilization;
  
• demonstrates the utter failure of Arab/Muslim societies in the area between Pakistan and Morocco;
  
• notes that "[i]t is also a fact that almost everybody in the region blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except themselves", and that "the vast silent majority of these Moslems are not part of the terror and of the incitement but they also do not stand up against [Islamist terrorism]" and as such "become accomplices, by omission";
  
• makes a case that the coming together of four issues has created the current wars: suicide bombing, lies and Orwellian double-speak, money, and complete disregard for laws and for civilized norms of human behavior;
  
• discusses each of these four issues in detail, and in the process describes the structure of Arab/Muslim society and how it creates hatred and xenophobia and terrorism, and effectively constructs a superstructure of terrorism as a primary social institution;
  
• points out the dilemma between our notions of honor and decency and humanity and civilization, and the situations we find ourselves in because of terrorists exploiting these notions:

  Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist ammunition storage? Do you return fire, if you are attacked from a hospital? Do you storm a church taken over by terrorists who took the priests hostages? Do you search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances to reach their targets? Do you strip every woman because one pretended to be pregnant and carried a suicide bomb on her belly? Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, standing deliberately behind a group of children? Do you raid terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital? Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one location to another, always surrounded by children? All of these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What do you do? Well, you do not want to face the dilemma. But it cannot be avoided.

  
  
• delineates the shortcomings of international law in the changed world;
  
• discusses the physical surrounding of Iran and Syria while the US is engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan;
  
• names Iran as the primary threat abroad in the world today [editorial note: I concur], and lists some of the reasons why this is so;
  
• discusses some of the necessary changes in Western society in order to fight the terrorists (including such subtle ideas as not giving money to people who give money to terrorists);
  
• and points out that democracy is only a long-term solution if it means creating a culture of Enlightenment values, rather than just putting elections into place.

The author does neglect the fundamental nature of Islam which lies at the heart of the social, cultural and political behavior of the Arab/Muslim world, and including a bit on this would have strengthened his presentation immensely. Nonetheless, this presentation is a critical step in understanding the nature of the current war, and I hope that you will read it in its entirety.

Islamintern

I've been struggling to come up with the right name for our enemy, and failing really. (I'm not the only one; the US hasn't formally named the enemy and we've been at war for 3 years!) Clearly, neither all Arabs, nor all Muslims, nor all Arab Muslims are our enemies; this rules out using either Arabs or Muslims or Arab Muslims as the proper term.

The problem with coming up with a good term, really, is this: the actual description of our enemies is "those Muslims who act according to a particular form of Islam which requires them to make war (jihad - a war specifically to obtain the approval of god, for lack of a better definition) against non-Muslims, and encourages any brutality against non-Muslims, and in particular those who accept the strictest interpretations of Shari'a law; as well as those who support, fund and shelter them; but only in the case that those people are attempting to make war against non-Muslims outside of their home area". Clearly, some way of shortening that is needed.

Islamists is suggestive, but not definitive, because you can be an evangelical Muslim without similarly believing that non-Muslims must be killed or forced into dhimmi status. Granted that there are significant tenets of Islam which would lead an evangelical Muslim to also believe that non-Muslims must in fact be killed or forced into dhimmitude, the term is useful, and I've used it quite a bit. Plus, it has the association with Fascist and Communist as ideologies divorced from explicit religion, which is nice since the enemy perverts Islam so thoroughly.

Islamo-fascist is useful, as it combines the personal ideology with the governmental ideology, as indeed the enemy combines them. The problem is that they are not two separate complementary ideologies for the enemy, but a single all-pervading whole. For the enemy, their god mandates that they kill us, as their god mandates every aspect of life, down to the most trivial. Indeed, anything not mandated by their god is not real to them. So the term is not very accurate, since it combines two Western idea-types to approximate one non-Western idea-type.

Fundamentalist Muslims used to be the term, but really it's inaccurate in that the brand of Islam at issue is not particularly true to Islam, per se, but draws extensively from the tribal customs of some particularly brutal tribes. In particular, the Taliban were an example of this, drawing from the Pashtun tribal heritage, which is among the most horrible set of customs I've come across.

Perhaps taking it from the point of view of a common doctrine will work, which is why I believe that the US government uses the term "terrorists and those who support them" as an all-purpose designation. Of course, that's pretty clumsy, and jihadi is better, as it incorporates both those who practice jihad and those who preach it as a mandatory duty. In fact, jihadi is one of the terms I've most commonly used.

I think Dan Darling, though, has just come up with a really useful referent: "Islamintern". By analogy to Comintern, it suggests a social (and in this case also religious) and governing structure which co-ordinates otherwise unrelated (but sympathetic) groups to further the ideology of the central leadership. That just about fits the bill.

Dan's actual quote, by the way, that got me thinking on this line is:

The complete lack of mention of Abdullah Azzam here is one of the first things that comes to mind. Azzam was bin Laden's mentor as well as the spiritual leader of the Afghan Arabs who were fighting the Soviets (I believe Hamas also claims him as one of their founders) and he was the man who first came up with the idea of establishing an Islamist internationale and helped to establish connections that went beyond traditional ethno-nationalist divisions that had previously divided various Islamist groups. There is also no mention of bin Laden's prior role in assisting the Saudi government in setting up jihadi groups to fight against the communists in South Yemen, which is how he first forged his ties to Prince Turki, who was then the head of the Saudi Mukhabarat. These would all seem to be rather important details.

(The references are to the 9/11 comission report, which I believe to be so deeply flawed as to be embarrassing and useless.)

"You Don't Appreciate What Happened...Until You See It"

The title of this post was Aaron Brown's justification for CNN showing the images of US troops humiliating prisoners (Saddam's former torturers, thugs and enforcers, mostly) at Abu Ghraib prison. Yet this justification is very one-sided: the media's ability to suppress squeamishness and decency to convey Truth only applies, apparently, when the "Truth" reflects badly on America in general, and President Bush and his policies in particular. National Review's Nick Schulz used Aaron Brown's theme to showcase that discrepancy, but was too decent to show the truth himself, and only described it.

I feel that it is necessary to know the enemy, to understand the moral difference between them and us, to have a defense against the constant media drumbeat of defeatism and moral equivalence. As a result, I've seen some of the horrors undertaken by our enemies, and have a context for viewing actions seen through the dim and deliberately clouded lens of Western media coverage. In this post, I intend to expose the full horrors of our enemy.

Warning

Do not go beyond this point unless you are prepared to be shocked and outraged, and frankly, sickened. There is evil and horror here beyond what most people's lives have prepared them for.

National Review's article describing the contents of a video showing a few clips of torture inflicted by Saddam's loyalists. Here is the video. If you can watch this and not see a moral difference between that and what the US soldiers have done - horrible at it is - stop reading now and stay off of my property. I don't want you here.

The beheadings of Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg and Paul Johnson. Note the similarity of display between the Paul Johnson photographs and the beheading of the prisoner by Saddam's fedayeen. Does anyone doubt that the people who do this are evil? Does anyone think that this is limited to one group or subculture? Do you think they would show you more pity?

Lest you think that this method is reserved for Americans, here are a Russian soldier beheaded, a Russian civilian beheaded, and a Muslim civilian impaled.

Here is Frank Gardner, a BBC journalist, shot repeatedly in Saudi Arabia and left to die. Though calling out (in Arabic) "Help me! I am a Muslim!", the crowd standing around did not attempt to help him, even after the terrorists who attacked him had left.

War Nerd has a column on the genocide ongoing in the Sudan. (hat tip: Instapundit) This is text only, and while it describes a horrible situation, it is not as graphic as what is above. Unless you count the picture of the dying boy with the vulture waiting nearby. Basically, the Arab northerners are killing off the black southwesterners of the Darfur tribe (they've already pretty much done in the Dinkas), who are also Muslim but who are of a different racial type. This genocide will likely surpass Rwanda's ethnic slaughter of the mid-1990s, which killed about 1 million people.

So remember these when you hear people - frequently our own elected officials (I'm looking right at you, Ted Kennedy) or our own media (I'm looking right at you CNN) or our own columnists (I'm looking right at at you Christopher Hitchens) - tell us how terrible we are. I think we compare pretty damned well, myself.

In the Arab world, there is the concept of an "honor killing", where a woman who has dishonored the family is killed to restore their "honor". In many of these cases, the woman was raped, frequently by a male family member such as an uncle. Somehow, this makes the woman - or little girl - unclean and dishonored. Then her family kills her - sometimes because they are forced by social pressure and sometimes because they are genuinely outraged, at her - in order to preserve their "honor". This is sadly common in the Arab/Muslim world. Frankly, even after having to check the other images and videos in this post, I could not bring myself to post images of some of the dead girls, one as young as 7, that I found while researching this. I'm going to go off and drink heavily for a while now.

(I hope the links work: I couldn't bear to check them and thus see them again.)

The Silent Defeat of Palestinian Terror

In case anybody cares, Israel's policies of disengagement from and isolation of the Palestinians, and actually killing its enemies (the top leaders of the Palestinian terrorist gangs) is working, as was foreseen. The next step, which seems to me almost inevitible, is the descent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip into internecine warfare, ripping apart the remains of Palestinian society in a last gasp for power.

Focal Points

It has been said of war that amateurs talk about tactics, while professionals talk about logistics. There has been a lot of talk about tactics in the war on terror lately: to what extent were Iraq and al Qaeda co-operating, where are the rest of the Iraqi WMD programs dismantled before and during the war, how extensive is the Darfur genocide going to become, has Zarkawi taken over operational control of al Qaeda in the greater Mid-East, will NATO contribute troops to Iraq, and so forth. The answers are actually utterly meaningless to determining the course of the war - no more important really than Midway was to determining the outcome of WWII in the Pacific.

Since Midway was the turning point, and resulted in the gutting of the Japanese Navy, most people assume that we would have lost the war in the Pacific if we had lost Midway as badly as the Japanese did. In fact this is not the case. Japan lost 4 carriers at Midway, of the 20 total it produced from the 1920's to the end of the war (some of which were never deployed due to lack of air crews). We had 3 carriers at Midway, of which we lost 1, but produced 15 carriers (not including escort carriers) in 1943 alone (by V-J day, we had commissioned 34 CVs and CVLs, had a good half-dozen being build, and had already cancelled many more). Even if we had lost all three carriers at Midway, and the Japanese had lost none, Japan would have been outnumbered and outclassed by the middle of 1943. Similarly, how many troops are in Iraq from which nations is a sideshow: unless we withdraw because of a moral failure, the US has enough troops committed to prevent Iraq falling apart.

In this war, logistics per se is not really at issue: the US can move its forces and those of its allies about, and keep them remarkably well-supplied. The jihadis are bound to supply more like medieval armies than modern ones, foraging off the civilian societies where they take root. There are a few issues which are key to the eventual outcome, however, in the same way that industrial production and the means to move supplies are key to a total war between industrial nations:

• The morale of the US public in particular, and of the publics of free-market democracies in general (Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, and Canada foremost among them). If the American will to fight collapses, the war will eventually be lost. This is why it is so frustrating to watch Western press coverage, which frequently seems to be hoping for our defeat, apparently without realizing that this is not Viet Nam: the enemy will follow us home this time.
  
• Control of oil. The world needs it; the US protects its supply for the rest of the world; the major sources are largely on the jihadis' home ground. The oil for food scandal at the UN, the attacks on Western oil workers through the Mid-East and the attacks on oil tankers all figure in to who controls the oil. If the jihadis succeed in taking control of a large fraction of Mid-East oil, they will be in a position to dictate terms to most industrial nations, and to wreck many industrialized economies. If they are merely able to disrupt supplies extensively, they can wreck many industrialized economies.
  
• The jihadi religio-cultural value system. In order for the democracies to win the Terror Wars, this ideology must be as thoroughly discredited as the Japanese militant nationalism of WWII.
  
• The continued existence of states which sponsor, arm and/or protect terrorists. Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, at least, will need to be dealt with. As long as such states exist - or lawless areas like much of Africa where jihadis can find sanctuary - the war cannot be won by the West.
  
• Nuclear proliferation. Should nuclear weapons ever come into the hands of the jihadis, the only likely outcome is genocide on a scale of millions.

These factors are key to the Terror Wars, and without understanding where we stand on these points, it is not possible to understand the state of the war. Sadly, our media is not well-equipped to evaluate and report these stories, because they aren't nearly as exciting as those few places where we are imperfect - or can be made to appear so. Nor are such stories nearly as likely to bring professional renown to a reporter as a hit piece on an American politician.

My I recommend Belmont Club, Little Green Footballs, USS Clueless and Winds of Change as good places to get such information?

In the Meantime

Bill Roggio posted a more detailed look at the status of Iran's nuclear program (hat tip: Winds of Change), catching onto the same statement I noted here. I have been thinking a lot about what we can do about Iran, given the inevitability of the eventual success of their nuclear program (unless we stop it) and the current state of the Terror Wars and of our forces. (Certainly the UN can't and won't stop the Iranian program.)

I believe that it is time for the US to strike at Iran's nuclear capability. I do not believe we can afford to wait for the elections; I do not believe that time is on our side; I do not believe that we can wait for Israel to act.

Iran is currently building centrifuges to enrich uranium, and apparently has had some success already. High-enriched and low-enriched uranium have been found in trace quantities, and the best guess that can be made from this is that Iran is within 2 years of having a real, ongoing enrichment capability. Nuclear weapons designs of Chinese origin (the same as were used by Pakistan in its successful program) are apparently already in Iran's hands. This means that within 2 to 3 years, Iran will have a nuclear weapon, and within 5-7 years, it could have a nuclear arsenal comparable to North Korea's.

OK, so why not wait for next Spring and then invade Iran? Mainly because it is unclear that Iraq will be stable enough by that time, particularly because Iran and Syria and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia are trying very intently to ensure that Iraq never becomes stable and democratic. Unless Iraq is stable, there will be a need to keep a substantial portion of our Army and Marines in Iraq; there are simply not enough troops left over to invade and occupy Iran.

If we began mobilizing the Guard and Reserves now, we would likely be able to mount a sufficient force, sufficiently equipped and trained, some 18 months from now. Needless to say, this move would be political suicide unless the President could explain the reasoning for it, and he could not do so without risking that the mission would fail to be launched, because Iran would have a great deal of time to prepare, and the Western media would have a great deal of time to bring down the morale of the voters and the public's will to support the attack.

If invasion of Iran is not possible before their program is complete, what other options are there? There are four that I see: bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities, allow the Israelis to take care of the problem, bomb Iran generally, or incite revolution. (The North Korean option - bribe them outrageously in exchange for promises that they will, at some point, decide to not assemble nuclear weapons - has been exposed as the fraud that it has always been and I therefore do not consider it a reasonable attempt at actually solving the problem. Playing "kick the can" with nuclear weapons kept Clinton from having to make hard decisions, but it's playing havoc with our foreign policy in SouthEast Asia now.)

Bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities is likely already somewhat futile. There are two problems: the critical facilities are underground - deep, deep underground - and we don't have the kind of weapons necessary to reach them. Destroying what facilities they do have above ground might buy us some time, perhaps 2 or 3 years, and so is perhaps reasonable. Certainly, if we allow more time for Iran to harden their facilities, and to complete the work for which the above-ground facilities are suited, this option will be pretty much useless. For this reason, we must strike soon if we are to have much hope, and waiting until after the elections reduces our changes of success.

We can, of course, simply wait until Israel decides to take care of the problem. Iran has already stated that as soon as it obtains a nuclear capability it will strike Israel. Israel knows this, and has probably the fourth- or fifth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Rather than submit to their own destruction, they would certainly use the arsenal. (What would you do in their place?) There are two problems with waiting for Israel, though. The first is that range and other factors make a sustained Israeli conventional bombing attack infeasible; at the least, they make it unlikely that such an attack would seriously hinder Iran's nuclear weapons program. The second problem is that Israel would (because of the first problem) likely strike with nuclear weapons. At the point that Israel was going to take the political and social hit from using nuclear weapons to defeat an enemy, it would be in their best interest to take out some other pernicious enemies: Syria, Hizb'allah, Saudi Arabia and perhaps Egypt spring to mind. I don't think we want to make such an attack - and the consequent near-genocide it entails - more likely.

Bombing Iran with the intent to force them to submit (as opposed to trying to destroy or hinder their nuclear program) has some merit. While the air campaign against Serbia shows that the US, given favorable conditions, can bring enough pressure to bear on a nation to cause it to surrender territory or other claims, the importance of the Iranian nuclear program is such that Iran would likely consider abandoning their nuclear program as tantamount to giving up their sovereignty and their form of government (and thus, the power of those who would have to make the decision to abandon the program). It is simply not possible to compel a stubborn enemy to surrender using only air power, though it is possible to destroy an enemy and his population from the air, particularly if that enemy sees surrender as being equivalent to or worse than its destruction.

Waiting for - even helping along - an Iranian revolution would perhaps be the best possible solution, though there's no guarantee that a new government would be either pro-US or likely to give up the nuclear program. In addition, any help given would be as likely to backfire (horribly and publicly) as to work, and supporting revolutions is, somewhat ironically, profoundly distasteful to Americans in general. Ignoring the distaste, the low probability of success is such that we cannot rely on such an option.

Given the options, I think the best course for the United States to take is to bomb all of Iran's above-ground nuclear facilities - even research labs at universities using F117s and B2s (so as to attack these targets without waiting for the suppression of enemy air defenses to be completed), to attack the enemy air defense infrastructure to allow our non-stealthy aircraft free range, and to target locations housing terrorists (such as al Qaeda and Taliban personnel and Hizb'allah headquarters). During the initial campaign, we would tell Iran in no uncertain terms that we next will attack oil export, military and leadership targets, should Iran fail to abandon - verifiably, permanently and completely, in the manner than Libya has - all of its nuclear programs. (While we're at it, we may as well demand the handover of terrorists in Iran and the cessation of support for terrorism. We're not likely to get it, but why start small?)

Such a strike also has the side benefit of concentrating Iran's attention, and thus likely reducing Iranian interference in Iraq over the short-term. And it is over the short-term that such a reduction is most needed, to allow the Iraqi government an easier birth.

This would not make us popular - as if we were anyway - but it would certainly make us safer for a little while. With complete success, should we be able to attain it, it could make us safer for a great while. And at the very least, such a campaign would reduce the eventual resistance when we finally get around to invading Iran, which would still be necessary at some point, unless the Iranian leadership suddenly completely changes their entire philosophy of life and governance. Further, even should John Kerry take office and cease actively fighting against terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation (presumably, he would at least continue law enforcement efforts against terrorists), we may have bought ourselves enough time to last through such an administration before facing a nuclear-armed, fascist, totalitarian, terrorist-supporting, fundamentalist Islamist state which considers Israel an abomination and the US "the Great Satan".

The domestic political effect would likely be in the President's favor. Those who would most be offended at such a campaign would not support the President in any case. The President's current supporters would be more likely cheered than dismayed, and the undecided would likely (given the public response to Afghanistan and Iraq) break in the President's favor.

I hate thinking of the domestic political angle here, but the reality is that the only way we can lose this war is to lose our will, and that is a matter of domestic politics.

UPDATE (6/21): Brian James Dunn of the Dignified Rant has some very interesting and useful comments. I perhaps was unclear, in that I agree with Brian wholeheartedly that regime change in Tehran is the only long-term solution; it's what we do in the meantime that I was trying to address. If we can realistically facilitate revolution, I am all for it.

"We continued in the search for the infidels, and we slit the throats of those we found among them."

I have not yet reached Francis Porretto's conclusion, that there are no moderate Muslims. However, I'll be the first to say that Jim Miller's MEMRI find - an interview with the leader of a recent brutal attack on non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia - shows beyond a doubt that there are some Muslims who we need to kill, because if nothing else, September 11 taught us that when our enemies say they want to kill us to glorify their god, they mean it.

And let me be clear: I certainly support killing, in cold blood and in advance of their doing anything to actively carry out attacks, any person who maintains this attitude, including the preachers of jihad and the sycophants who chant "martyrs'" names in the street after a particularly brutal act of wanton destruction. This is a war, not a law enforcement action, and the end goal is victory - which sometimes just means survival - rather than justice.

Yes, this means I'm willing to accept that innocents will be killed. Here's a news flash: innocents are being killed, but right now they're mostly on our side. My only complaint about President Bush's conduct of the war is "faster, please."

UPDATE (6/17): Francis Porretto responds, and Michael Williams responds to that.

The Torture Memo - Take 2

Glenn Reynolds has a post about the "torture memo" and it's meaning (which I discussed here as well). I sent an email to him, but since his volume is too high for there to be much likelihood of it getting out otherwise, here is the email:

You note:

I find it hard to respond to these things in terms of cost-benefit. My law school mentor Charles Black once said that of course you can come up with scenarios -- the classic ticking-nuclear-bomb example -- where torture might be justified. And you can be sure that, in those cases, if people think it'll work they'll use it no matter what the rules are. But there's a real value to pretending that there's an absolute rule against it even if we know people will break it in extraordinary circumstances, because it ensures that people won't mistake an ordinary remedy for an extraordinary one.

It seems to me that it is clear that there are moral cases where the doctrine of least harm compels the use of torture. The ticking nuclear bomb scenario is one, but let's take a more personal one:

If my wife were kidnapped, and I had in my possession someone whom I absolutely knew to have the information of where she was held, I would not stop to consider whether or not to torture the person. I would ask the question once, then cut off a finger, then ask again, and so forth. I would be perfectly willing to face th