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 Sunday, January 25, 2004
January Classes, Bruce Schneier, and Other Miscellany: "News A few quick bits of news and short essays, that don't quite fit anywhere else"
Please do see the website; it's being updated rather often.
posted by Joel Sunday, January 25, 2004
Monday, November 03, 2003
Hussein Was Sure Of Own Survival (washingtonpost.com): "BAGHDAD, Nov. 2 -- Saddam Hussein refused to order a counterattack against U.S. troops when war erupted in March because he misjudged the initial ground thrust as a ruse and had been convinced earlier by Russian and French contacts that he could avoid or survive a land invasion, former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has told interrogators, according to U.S. officials."
Clearly, there are some virtues to French and Russian perfidy.
posted by Joel Monday, November 03, 2003
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
U.S. News: Graffiti on history's walls(11/3/03): "Such questions are prompted by an unprecedented reversal of history: Arab terrorists, incredibly, have managed to inspire more sympathy than their victims."
Sigh.
posted by Joel Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Read Mark Steyn: "The Palestinian death cult negates all the assumptions of western sentimental pacifism..."
Just read it.
posted by Joel Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Monday, September 29, 2003
3-Year Mideast Conflict Shapes Life on Both Sides: "3-Year Mideast Conflict Shapes Life on Both Sides"How typically narrow-minded of the Times to see the ongoing campaign of Arab terrorism as only being three years old.
posted by Joel Monday, September 29, 2003
: "Said owes his fame to having become the most articulate apologist for the « Palestinian cause », something that wasn't all that difficult when one considers that most of his rivals in this field, whenever they're not too busy blowing up school buses and pizza parlours, satisfy themselves spreading anti-Semitic forgeries like « The Protocols of the Sages of Zion »"
Courtesy of LGF and, yes, read the whole thing.
posted by Joel Monday, September 29, 2003
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Friedman, Occasionally, Does Have a Keen Eye for the Obvious: "It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy."
posted by Joel Thursday, September 18, 2003
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
How Wahhabis fan Iraq insurgency | csmonitor.com: "Tahma made the attack 'because of Western ideals,' says the intelligence officer. 'He said: 'You are bringing Western culture and satellite images into our society. You brought nude magazines and distributed them.'"Well, that justifies it, then.
posted by Joel Wednesday, September 17, 2003
This Just In: Adel al-Jubeir's Pants Have Burst Into Flame:"'It's a ridiculous accusation; no Saudi government money goes to Hamas, directly or indirectly,' said Adel al-Jubeir, the foreign affairs adviser to Prince Abdullah."
posted by Joel Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Sunday, September 14, 2003
One Wall, One Man, One Vote: "But to build a fence without a border, and without facing up to the contradiction of having Jews on both sides of it, will only bring more troubles."
Okay, if it's a "contradiction" in having Jews on both sides of the wall, isn't it also a "contradiction" in having Arabs on both sides of the wall? I think Friedman needs to think about some other "unintended consequences."
posted by Joel Sunday, September 14, 2003
Thursday, September 11, 2003
September 11, 2001:
Never forget? Yes.
Never forgive? Of course.
Never again? Perhaps. Probably not, alas.
posted by Joel Thursday, September 11, 2003
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Israel Stays the Course: Results Count: "JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom warned Palestinian prime minister-designate Ahmed Qorei will be judged by his willingness to dismantle the infrastructure of militant groups."
posted by Joel Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Gotta Love LileksIt is more likely that a true unalloyed Democrat will be elected than a brass-tacks Republican. Get used to it. The number of people who want a particular Government program exceeds the number who want none. You want the NEA abolished? That will require two nuclear attacks on American soil. After the first the NEA will be more important than ever, as we sort out our feelings about the event through a nationally coordinated series of interpretive dances. After the second, the economy will be so far down the crapper-pipes that someone will point out that we shouldn't fund the Mimes-for-the-Blind symposium when we really need the money for anti-radiation drugs.
posted by Joel Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Monday, September 08, 2003
lgf: active anguish in a context of flux: "Hamas vows to kill Ariel Sharon. Because apparently they'd rather deal with a pissed-off Binyamin Netanyahu."
Nicely put, Charles.
posted by Joel Monday, September 08, 2003
Sunday, September 07, 2003
Frederick Forsyth: What terrorists said to America, and how America replied
Frederick Forsyth: What terrorists said to America, and how America replied
Frederick Forsyth
Published September 7, 2003
Until the mid-1990s terrorists always wanted something. The IRA wanted a united Ireland, the ETA wanted a separate Basque state, the PFLP wanted a Palestinian state and the extirpation of Israel, the Tamil Tigers wanted a Tamil state in part of Sri Lanka . . . and so on.
Some wanted separation, some unification, some (like the Kurds) a state of their own, others (like the Red Brigades) a fully Communist state. Precisely because of that, they wanted to stay alive and see their vision come true, and therefore the Establishment could, if it wished, negotiate.
Then a small group arose who said this: "We do not want anything of you but your deaths. In thousands, in hundreds of thousands and eventually in millions.
"We say this because we hate you. We hate you with an all-consuming passion, not just for what you have done (though that is bad enough) but for what you are.
"There is no point in negotiating, for there is nothing to negotiate. We are going to kill you whenever, wherever and in as great a number as we can.
"We do this because Almighty God has commanded it. We have His texts to prove it. We do not fear death, we welcome it, for we are guaranteed eternal bliss if we die while killing you."
It was a weird message. It did not come in the mail, nor was it enunciated on Al Jazeera television. It came from a thousand imams in a thousand mosques. It was directed at the United States in particular and the West in general. Its source can best be described as Islamist fundamentalism, a tiny but virulent incubus within the body of that great, billion-devotee religion, Islam. Not unnaturally, no one took it particularly seriously -- at first.
In 1993 a group of Islamists in New York tried to demolish the World Trade Center by driving two vans packed with explosives into the underground parking garages. The towers were too strong. A few were killed, many more injured. The United States began, slowly, to wake up to a new and bizarre peril.
For eight years, under Bill Clinton, a fairly lethargic hunt was mounted for a shadowy body of religious "ultras" behind the new message. Two embassies in Africa were blown up, then a destroyer in Aden Harbor. Then came Sept. 11, 2001.
The rest of the world has, despite the ritual condolences at that time, not even begun to understand the transformational trauma that has gripped the United States since 9/11. That is why so much of what has been written is exasperated anti-Americanism.
Sept. 11 happened to coincide with a new, tough, no-nonsense and hugely underestimated (by Europe's intellectual snobs) president. Under Bush the United States thought things over and came back with a reply.
Broadly, it is this: "What the devil are we supposed to do? We have no choice. You leave us no choice. For 50 years of Cold War we practiced deterrence and kept the Soviet threat at bay. Even in their most paranoid moments, the Politburo did not want to die. But you do not fear death; you welcome it. So be it.
"We Americans can either sit and wait for the next bomb, the next carnage, the next wipeout of our citizens and then try to track down the perpetrators. Or we can identify you and use our considerable resources to hunt you down and take you 'out of the frame' before you strike, not after.
"That is called preemption, and that is what we choose to do."
Ever since 9/11 that is what has been happening. But the so-called war on terror goes further than the occasional eruption of secret agents into an apartment in Pakistan to arrest or kill another fanatic. The American message is more ample than that.
It continues: "Terrorists cannot eat and drink fresh air. They need a place to live, camps in which to train, money to spend, equipment to turn into bombs, officers to recruit. These have to be situated on someone's land, in someone's country.
"So to all those who think it might be fun to arm, train, shelter, feed, finance, hide, furnish diplomatic facilities or false papers prepared in government laboratories -- or even to touch with a 10-foot pole -- those sworn to kill our fellow Americans, we say this: The party is over. Desist now, or be lumped with the terrorists and die with them. That includes the tyrant states and the failed states. Expel them or be classed with them."
Far enough? The American message to the tyrant states includes one extra proviso. It is: "There are some weapons so foul yet so simple that they may be developed in basic government programs and yet can wipe out cities. There are agents based on the filthiest and fastest-moving diseases known to man. Medieval plagues, incurable scourges. There are gases and nerve agents so strong that a vacuum flask released in a crowded place can destroy thousands.
"None of you need research, develop, produce and store these weapons for self-defense. They simply cannot be used for self-defense. But they can, if suicidal fanatics are used as the delivery system, be brought to our cities and detonated. This we will not permit. Therefore, stop manufacturing these hideous weapons, destroy what you have got, and do it now."
Saddam Hussein fit both categories. He manufactured some of the grisliest killer toxins known to man: He sponsored, paid for and sheltered terror. He was warned repeatedly. From 1991 he ducked and weaved, defying a flaccid, timid U.N. Security Council through 16 resolutions. But after 9/11 he was just a fool. He should have known. The United States was not joking. Not anymore.
The real outrage of the European left and the Third World is that they are horrified; apparently when the White House says "Enough is enough," it means it. Clinton was never like that.
So the horrified may shout, like the Scottish congregation, "We didna ken" ("We didn't understand").
But the message from Washington is "Well, ye ken the noo" ("Well, you understand now").
Frederick Forsyth, author of "The Day of the Jackal" and other novels, writes a foreign affairs column for the New York Times Syndicate.
posted by Joel Sunday, September 07, 2003
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
No keen eye for the obvious in CrystalVandals hit the Adath Chesed Shel Emes Jewish cemetery in Crystal during the Labor Day weekend, overturning 140 monuments and causing $20,000 in damage, police said Tuesday. No grafitti or evidence was left to indicate that the crime targeted Jews, Crystal police Capt. Dave Oyaas said.
posted by Joel Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Friday, August 29, 2003
Bomb Explosion Reported in Najaf (washingtonpost.com)NAJAF, Iraq -- A massive car bomb exploded at the Imam Ali mosque during Friday prayers in this holy city, possibly killing one of Iraq's most important Shiite clerics and at least three other people, witnesses said. Time for Muslims in Iraq who don't support the terrorists to step up to the plate. It's not just the men and women of the 4th ID that have their lives on the line.
posted by Joel Friday, August 29, 2003
There are days when I'm proud to be a MinnesotanHundreds of Minnesota's political leaders, religious leaders, and business executives have come together to make a statement; to ensure that those who commit terrorism are never placed in a higher moral category than the one that defines them. Terrorism is terrorism whether the victims are Americans in the World Trade Center or Israelis in a shopping mall.
posted by Joel Friday, August 29, 2003
Allah's Very Own Blog"Allah Is In The House!"
posted by Joel Friday, August 29, 2003
Dennis Ross: Arab Leaders Must Act (washingtonpost.com)The money quote: But after the Jerusalem bombing, the Israelis will no longer settle for half measures. This is, as far as I can tell, the first time that a support of the appeasement process is admitting that, at least up until now, Israel was expected to settle for half measures by PA authorities in putting down Arab terrorism.
posted by Joel Friday, August 29, 2003
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Operation Rid-o-Rat ContinuesCoalition officials Wednesday released a new series of 'most-wanted' posters for Saddam Hussein, announcing the $25 million reward for the former Iraqi leader whose image is shown next to photos of his sons, killed last month by U.S. forces.
posted by Joel Thursday, August 28, 2003
Far Too Little; Far Too LateThe Palestinian Authority said Thursday it has frozen bank accounts of Islamic charities and would administer the money itself, prompting Palestinian street protests. Geez, even when Arafat and his gang do something right, they manage to line their own pockets.
posted by Joel Thursday, August 28, 2003
Israel is fighting a war on terrorPublished August 26, 2003 As a native Minnesotan who has lived in Israel for 20 years, I try to keep up with Minnesota news by regularly reading the Star Tribune. Your Aug. 21 editorial 'Blood in Jerusalem / The road map is in jeopardy,' prompted this response: Israel's war against Hamas and the Islamic Jihad is the same war that the United States is fighting against Al-Qaida and the perpetrators of 9/11. Our demand that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas strike down Muslim terror organizations is a rational and essential step to the realization of any road map to peace. His continual refusal to do this is a green light for these fascist murderers to re-arm and strike innocent Israelis. He is not as fearful of a civil war, as you stated, as he is of angering Yasser Arafat and his Fatah organization. More of a rift between the two of them would further harm the Palestinian Authority in the eyes of the Western world, and this is what Abbas is trying to avoid. Israeli lives do not concern him as much as his image in the eyes of the Western world does. A recent suicide bomber tore apart the bodies of little children who had just made a pilgrimage to the Temple Mount, burning some of them beyond recognition. Abbas' claim that any crackdown would cause a Palestinian civil war is a mere excuse for inaction, and an appeasement to Arafat. Until Abbas takes the steps against these terrorist organizations that he promised to do as part of the road map, do not expect Israelis to allow these terrorists free entry into our nation, nor to live in peace. That would be committing suicide. If the United States is justified in warring against terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel is justified in taking all necessary measures to defeat terrorism that targets us as victims. If Abbas refuses to take the steps he promised to defeat terrorist organizations, Israel must take them, or more of our children will be slaughtered. This is an unfortunate lesson we learned during the days of the Oslo Accords, when Arafat promised to high heaven that he would crack down against Palestinian terrorist groups, but never did so in any meaningful manner. The integrity and sincerity of Abbas with Israel are what is at stake here, and in my eyes he has none until he takes a stand against Palestinian terrorists. David Friedman, of Jerusalem, is a professor.
posted by Joel Thursday, August 28, 2003
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Pointed in the Wrong DirectionCharles Chi Halevi's Aug. 22 commentary, 'How ignorance of Islam might be dangerous,' is a disgusting attempt to indict Islam in the guise of educating readers about the Islamic calendar with reference to 9/11 anniversary. Those terrorists were as close to Islam as Hitler was to Christianity. To condemn the second-largest religion in the world based on few terrorists who claimed to be Muslims is very unfair and dangerous. This only increases the mistrust between East and West. Maybe that is what 'experts' like Charles Chi Halevi want. Nadeem Iqbal, Woodbury.
No, Nadeem, it's not just "few terrorists who claimed to be Muslims." It's many terrorists and their supporters who are Muslims. As Daniel Pipes keeps pointing out, the remedy for extremist Islam is moderate Islam. It's very much not putatitively moderate Muslims trying to pretend that extremist Islam is some fringe variation with only a few adherents. The entire Saudi entity's state religion, for example, is Wahabbiism -- which helps to explain why the majority of the 911 hijackers came from the Saudi entity.Moderate Muslims have both the obligation and the opportunity to do something about extremist Muslims; writing letters to the Strib complaining about those who point at the problem of Muslim extremism isn't going to help.
posted by Joel Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Gee, Let's Not Rush Into AnythingKingdom, US Gear Up for Joint Anti-Terror Force Mohammed Alkhereiji
Arab News StaffJEDDAH, 27 August 2003 The Kingdom and the United States will this week launch a joint task force in an effort to investigate terrorist funding, David Aufhauser, the US Treasury Department's general counsel, announced on Monday
posted by Joel Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Huh? "Arafat asks militant groups to resume cease-fire Wednesday, August 27, 2003 (08-27) 05:35 PDT RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat asked militant groups Wednesday to reinstate a unilateral truce they formally abandoned last week, after an Israeli missile strike killed a senior Hamas leader.
"Unilateral truce"? You mean, the "hudna" for which Israel had to make an appalling series of concessions? That "unilateral truce"?
posted by Joel Wednesday, August 27, 2003
And What's He Saying Out of the Other Side of His Mouth?Arafat urges for renewal of truce Wednesday, 27 August , 2003, 18:41 Gaza City: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called Wednesday on hardliners to renew their commitment to a ceasefire which was shattered by last week's Jerusalem bus bomb... Sounds like Yassir figures that that same old tune can stand to be played again, and might fool somebody.
Wrong. Well, it'll fool the French, sure, but . . .
posted by Joel Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Grant me martyrdom but not yet: Hamas leaders go undergroundGotta love that title. Meanwhile, the IDF is helping Hamas leaders go underground, permanently.
posted by Joel Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Not Quite
The Washington Post writes:
Yet the fundamental reason Israelis and Palestinians now face another descent into open warfare is the same one that wrecked the Oslo peace process three years ago and that since then has prevented the two-state peace settlement both peoples want. That fundamental cause is the practice of terrorism by Palestinian extremists and the failure of moderate Palestinian leaders to confront it.
So far, so good. But:
Mr. Abbas seems genuinely committed to stopping the bombers. Yet his method for doing it -- pressing the extremist groups to observe a "cease-fire" -- has not worked.
In this context, that's a "method"? Nah. There's a simple way to tell that that Abbas isn't serious about stopping the terrorists: he isn't having the terrorists' dead bodies dragged through the streets.It's really that simple.
posted by Joel Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Monday, August 25, 2003
At Least 45 Dead as Bomb Blasts Hit Crowded District of BombayIn case the Indians aren't listening, Mark Steyn should be saying, "I told you so" about now.
Which isn't totally fair. The Indians have been C students in learning the lessons of the War on Islamic Terror; time to upgrade to straight As, guys.
posted by Joel Monday, August 25, 2003
Sending the Fox to Watch The ChickensAug. 25, 2003
Arafat appoints ally as national security adviser By ASSOCIATED PRESSYasser Arafat has appointed a new national security adviser in his latest move in a power struggle with his U.S.-backed prime minister over control of security forces. Arafat and Abbas have been clashing over Arafat's refusal to relinquish control over security forces. Abbas and security chief Mohammed Dahlan have said they need control over all security forces to confront militants, a key demand in the U.S.-backed peace plan that envisions Palestinian statehood within three years. However, Arafat still controls several security forces and has been accused by Israel of hindering efforts to crack down on militants. The United States has pressed for Arafat to relinquish control of the security forces, making a rare public plea following the deadly suicide bombing in Jerusalem last Tuesday. Geez. A "rare public plea." That'll shake things up, you betcha.Rajoub said he and Dahlan would be equal members of the national security council and would share authority, as would other members. Asked if he will start cracking down on militants in his new role, Rajoub told The Associated Press: 'Lets wait and see. We're still starting up.' He refused to elaborate further, but added that the activities of the council will focus on reorganizing the Palestinian Security System, as well as coordinating Palestinian relations with the international quartet. Arafat said in his order that he appointed Rajoub 'for the public interest.' It was unclear whether the appointment would lead to concrete changes in the work of security forces."
posted by Joel Monday, August 25, 2003
More Peaceful Coexistence with the ReligionOPeaceAug. 25, 2003 Muslim worshippers scuffle with Police on Temple Mount By ETGAR LEFKOVITS A brief confrontation broke out Monday morning between a group of Muslim worshippers and police on the Temple Mount after the Muslims tried to prevent groups of Jewish and Christian visitors from entering the holy site, police said. There were no injuries or arrests made in the scuffle, and police said that the group of 15 to 20 Muslim worshippers involved subsequently quit the site while the police supervised visits continued. Since the bitterly contested holy site was reopened last Wednesday to non-Muslim visitors more than 1000 people have toured the ancient compound. While most of the visits have passed without incident, there have been sporadic instances of non-violent confrontations. The Temple Mount is, of course, holy to at least three religions; apparently only the adherents of one religion insist on not playing well with other.
posted by Joel Monday, August 25, 2003
Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet EditionAug. 25, 2003 Iran-Britain relations cooling over Jewish center bombing By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS TEHRAN, Iran
The arrest in London of a former Iranian diplomat wanted for his alleged role in the bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina will harm Iranian-British ties, Iran's foreign minister was quoted as telling his British counterpart Monday. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi made the comment in a phone conversation Sunday with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Iran's official news agency, IRNA, reported. IRNA quoted Straw as saying talks over the issue would continue.
Also Sunday, President Ali Mohammed Khatami said Britain should apologize and end the detention of the former diplomat, and the British charge d'affaires in Iran was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for the second time in two days. Both Britain and the United States severed diplomatic ties with Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution, but Britain and Iran resumed ties in May 1999 and Straw visited Tehran for the fourth time in June. U.S.-Iranian ties remain ruptured.
Argentine intelligence had implicated Iran in the Buenos Aires bombing in 1994, when Hade Soleimanpour was Iran's ambassador to Argentina. Iran has denied involvement in the bombing, which killed 85 people and wounded some 200. Soleimanpour, now a student in Britain, was arrested Thursday in London. He appeared in court a day after his arrest and was ordered held without bail until his next appearance, scheduled Friday. British police said the arrest warrant alleges that 'on or before' July 18, 1994, Soleimanpour conspired with others to murder people at the community center. Argentine federal judge Juan Jose Galeano had asked for the arrest of Soleimanpour and 11 other Iranians, including four diplomats, in connection with the probe. It was not immediately clear in what countries the other suspects lived.
On Saturday, Iran informed Argentine Charge d'affaires Ernesto Alvarez of its decision to suspend economic and cultural ties with Argentina following the arrest of Soleimanpour. Note that, of course, the ReligionOPeacers in Iran aren't embarrassed by their former ambassador being a murdering terrorist, but, instead, angry at his arrest.
Figures.
posted by Joel Monday, August 25, 2003
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys Don't Have a Keen Eye for the Obvious'France expressed objections to placing Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the European Union(EU)'s list of 'terror organizations', according to an Israeli report on Monday. In related news, the French government objected to referring to the Grand Canyon as "somewhat largish" and the smell of a skunk as "unpleasant."
posted by Joel Monday, August 25, 2003
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Friedman Agrees With Steyn; Film at 11We are attracting all these opponents to Iraq because they understand this war is The Big One. They don't believe their own propaganda. They know this is not a war for oil. They know this is a war over ideas and values and governance. They know this war is about Western powers, helped by the U.N., coming into the heart of their world to promote more decent, open, tolerant, women-friendly, pluralistic governments by starting with Iraq — a country that contains all the main strands of the region: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
posted by Joel Sunday, August 24, 2003
Sunday's letters from readers: Terrorists ended truce The front page of the Friday Star Tribune read, 'Palestinian militants end truce after deadly Israeli raid.' I thought they did that a few days earlier when they blew up a bus, killing 20 innocent civilians. Terry Roepke, St. Paul. Not that there ever was a truce, but: yeah.
posted by Joel Sunday, August 24, 2003
Notice of Termination
"Never Again" was our first principle and is now our final position. This memo serves to note the end of all negotiations with the Palestinian People.
Your problems and your issues as of this date are yours and yours alone. You must solve whatever bipolar instability and manic-depressive disappointment and psychotic tendencies towards homicidal violence plague your society among yourselves. You will not, from this date forward, use the People of Israel as targets for your own internal demons.
August 22, 2003
Read the whole thing.
posted by Joel Sunday, August 24, 2003
Iraq is battlefield for war vs. terrorFrom Mark Steyn. The terrorists watch CNN and the BBC and, understandably, they figure that in Iraq America, Britain, the UN and all the rest will do what most people do when they run up against someone deranged: back out of the room slowly. They're wrong. There's no choice. You kill it here, or the next generation of suicide bombers will be on buses in Rotterdam, Manchester, Lyons, and blowing up the UN building in Manhattan. This is the battlefield.
Yup.
posted by Joel Sunday, August 24, 2003
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
And What's Been Happening?
Blogging has been very light, of late; I've been working rather a lot getting the AACFI course and most particularly Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota ready.
But writing and beta-testing the course is finished, and book is being printed at this moment (the folks at First Impression Group in Eagan are doing a terrific job with the production, and should be available on Friday, or Monday) I'm teaching classes M-W-F for the next few weeks, and I've been talking and writing about this change a whole lot.
Early classes are, unsurprisingly, being attended almost exclusively by longtime gun owners, although I did get a call from somebody who doesn't know anything about handguns, doesn't want to know more than necessary about handguns, but has a serious personal safety issue. I sent her to the police, a lawyer, a battered women's advocate, and an NRA Basic Pistol instructor. If, after all that, she wants to take my course, that's fine. Getting a carry permit will give her some options, and the combination of her permit and a handgun might save her life, but it won't solve the problem.
It's about choice, really. As I say in the book:
Do you want to carry a handgun in Minnesota?
Are you sure?
Don't be too quick to decide.
There are lots of reasons not to, after all—particularly if you listen to the often well-intentioned people who bandy about phrases like “there’s already too many guns on the street,” “every fender-bender will turn into a gunfight,” “what if there’s a pistol in that parka?” Even if you listen to people in the self-defense-rights movement, you’ll hear that getting a carry permit may not be right—for you. Because that’s what you’ve got to decide.
Not: is allowing citizens to get carry permits a good idea?
Not even, yet: Do I want to carry a handgun in public?
But:
Should I get a carry permit?
After you decide that, then you have other decisions to make. The Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act of 2003 changed the law in Minnesota about what’s formally known as a “Minnesota Permit to Carry a Pistol,” and usually just called a “carry permit.”
Until it was passed, Minnesota was one of the minority of “may-issue” states—those states where handgun carry permits may be issued at the discretion of government officials. In some Minnesota counties, permits were issued to any adult who applied for one; in some cities, they were issued only to security guards, or to nobody at all.
Minnesota is now part of the majority: it’s a “shall-issue” state, where any objectively qualifying adult can get a carry permit simply by taking and passing the appropriate training, filling out and filing a form with the local sheriff, and paying a fee. It’s like a driver’s license—if you qualify, you can receive a carry permit. And it’s like a driver’s license in another way: a driver’s license allows you to drive a car; it doesn’t require you to.
There’s an important distinction between getting a carry permit and carrying a handgun in public. Some people who don’t ever plan on carrying a handgun may well get a carry permit—a permit gives you a choice about carrying a handgun, not an obligation. But, just as with a driver’s license and driving a car, having a carry permit and carrying a handgun is a responsibility you should take very seriously.
It wouldn’t be accurate to say that it’s easy to get a handgun permit in Minnesota, just as it wouldn’t be accurate to say that it’s easy to get a driver’s license: you have to train and qualify for either. There’s work involved, and some expense—although not a lot—and there should be some careful thought, as well.
And about the only thing we can promise you about carrying a handgun is this—and it’s a theme we’ll return to regularly in this book:
A gun never solves problems. Really.
posted by Joel Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Saturday, May 03, 2003
Oh, relax, the sky isn't falling.
For those who missed it, on Monday, the Minnesota State Senate passed the "Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act of 2003," which was signed into law. Thirty days from then, competent, law-abiding adult Minnesotans will be able to apply for, and receive, handgun carry permits.
Things have gotten awfully loud.
Truth, in Minnesota, will be the same truth as elsewhere: violent crime will drop, slightly, but measurably; property crime will increase even more slightly; and a year from now, most folks will wonder what the fuss was about. Some people are predicting that there will be about 50,000 permits issued in the first year -- up from about 12,000 issued now.
I have a permit. I've had one for five years, going on six. I didn't come out about that until a couple of years ago, when I was asked to testify in front of the MN House's crime prevention committee on all the hoops I've had to jump through to keep my permit -- including having to go to court on year, when the sergeant at the Minneapolis Police Department in charge of /d/e/n/y/i/n/g issuing permits said, "well, you aren't dead yet, which means that [your stalker] is harrassing you," before he denied it. (My attorney took the city to court, and got my permit issued. After that, I haven't bothered to keep it a secret -- my stalker can follow the televised testimony.
In the years I've carried a handgun regularly -- how often? I won't say -- I've never taken my handgun out other than to put it away. That's both fine with me, and very typical for permit holders.
And, yes, I think that objective standards for issuing handgun permits is a good idea, and something I feel very strongly about. See this. I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing about these issues, and seeing how "shall-issue" permit laws work in other states.
And, on that subject, more on Monday, with a new link. Meanwhile, I'd better go answer the phone; it's ringing again.
posted by Joel Saturday, May 03, 2003
Monday, April 14, 2003
And Maybe the Horse Has Learned How to SingMuslims save Baghdad's Jewish community centre from looters
April 14 2003
Iraqi Muslims came to the aid of Baghdad's tiny Jewish community yesterday, chasing out looters trying to sack its cultural centre in the heart of the capital.
"At 3am, I saw two men, one with a beard, on the roof of the Jewish community house and I cried out to my friend, 'Hossam, bring the Kalashnikovs!'" said Hassam Kassam, 21.
Heither Hassan nor Hossam, who is the guard at the centre, was armed at the time but the threat worked in scaring off the intruders.
Two hours later, the looters returned again and Hassan Kassem used the trick once more.
The centre is located in a freshly-painted white house on a lane off Rashid Street in Baghdad's old town.
Two days ago, amid rampant looting in the capital, neighbours removed the sign reading 'Special Committee for the Religious Affairs of Ezra Menahem Daniel' to make the premises less conspicuous.
On Saturday at about 10.30am, two men seized an opportunity created by the guard's mid-morning break to try to force open the door in a first attempt to burgle the centre.
"We came over right way and asked them what they wanted," said Abdallah Nurredin, 50.
They tried to explain that they wanted to talk to the guard, Nurredin said, "but when they saw the look we were giving them, they left without saying another word".
Yesterday, Hossam the guard left to look for a real gun in case the persistent thieves returned.
"The Jews have always lived here, in this house, and it is only normal that we should protect them," said Ibrahim Mohamad, 36, who works in a small undergarments factory near the centre of town.
Although the majority of Jews fled the country in the early 1950s, many of their Muslim tenants come each week to pay their rent to an old woman at the centre, Mohamad said.
In the Batauin district near the Saddun commercial artery, the entrance of a large synagogue is blocked by an immense iron portal.
The way onto the street is obstructed by trees and chairs. A self-defence militia formed on Saturday to fight back against bandits.
"We are defending the synagogue like all houses on the street and we will not let anyone touch it," said Edward Benham, a 19-year-old computer science student.
The young Christian said that Jews normally came each Saturday but because of the lingering security problem, no one came last Saturday.
Wow.
posted by Joel Monday, April 14, 2003
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Whining About the Victory in Iraq: It's not Just for the Left ...today I want to take a closer look at some of the serious mistakes the Jewish supremacists are making in their ever-growing Mideast war.
Kevin Alfred Strom, the slightly-lisping mouthpiece of the neonazi "National Alliance", is busy having a hissy fit over the US victory in Iraq. As always, of course, it's the fault of the Jews. He and the folks at International ANSWER should get along real, real well.
posted by Joel Saturday, April 12, 2003
Baghdad protest against looters Iraqis have held a protest in central Baghdad today calling for an end to the looting and lawlessness that has broken out across the city since US forces overthrew Saddam Hussein.
About 100 Iraqis, many of them students, protested outside Baghdad's central Palestine hotel, where most foreign journalists are based.
They held a banner that read "We want a new government as soon as possible to ensure security and peace".
"We want to cooperate with the new Iraqi government and American troops to keep peace and security," Dhargham Adnan, a 25-year-old student from Baghdad university, told the Reuters news agency.
It's clear that some people in Iraq are already getting this whole "protest" thing.
posted by Joel Saturday, April 12, 2003
A Domino Starts to TipAn official from North Korea's foreign ministry has hinted the secretive communist state will accept United States demands for multilateral talks.... North Korea is thought to be worried that it will be targeted next by the US after Iraq.
Hmmm...
Do you think that perhaps there's some recent event that could help to explain this reversal of North Korean policy?
posted by Joel Saturday, April 12, 2003
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
A Tale of Three Doctrines
No URLs this time; just me.
There have been three military doctrines that have influenced and informed US foreign policy over the past few decades.
The first was the Weinberger Doctrine. When Casper Weinberger's Department of Defense was asked for military options to solve a problem, they would respond with "no, we can't do that," rather than "here's what we need to do that, and here's what the risks are." Edward Lutvak has written and spoken extensively on it.
The Weinberger Doctrine was a failure. It guaranteed that US military power could not be used in the US's interests.
The second was the Powell Doctrine. Colin Powell's belief, shaped by the experience of Vietnam, is that if the US is going to war, to throw everything into it. It's what influenced the massive buildup before the Gulf War. And it does have some advantages. No general is going to say, "Gee, I've got too many divisions." Nor, for that matter, should they. The more force that's immediately brought to bear -- and I emphasize immediately -- the quicker the victory.
There is an important feature of the Powell Doctrine: it argues that if you can't afford to throw everything you've got at a problem, you don't go to war. If you've got massive troop commitments elsewhere, you can't credibly threaten to go to war with Crucialistan -- because the Crucialistani government won't believe you.
And then there's the Rumsfeld Doctrine. Donald Rumsfeld appears to believe in the notion of using a sufficient force, but no more. Instead of a deployment like Desert Storm, under the Rumsfeld Doctrine you figure out what you really need to accomplish the mission -- counting on your machinery to do what it's supposed to most of the time and your people to perform professionally and effectively damn near all the time -- and leave it at that.
No general will ever love the Rumsfeld Doctrine -- nor should they. I find it impossible to believe that General Franks didn't really want the 4th Mechanized Infantry Division at the outset, and had no use at all for the 1st Armored. But, it seems, he was asked to have his staff to come up with a working battle plan that didn't depend on unreliable Turkish allies letting the 4th ID sweep down from the north, nor prepositioning the 1st Armored.
And the most significant thing, at least with regard to what I'm still calling Operation Sans Weasels, is this:
Donald Rumsfeld was right.
posted by Joel Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Thursday, April 03, 2003
An Interesting Admission from the Saudi Entity, Courtesy of Arabnews
Saudis Want a Piece of the Iraqi Pie
Mahmoud Ahmad, Arab News Staff....
"The most important question here is how to get more contracts for Saudi companies. We must get a share of the rebuilding job," Al-Jeraisy added.
The most important question?
posted by Joel Thursday, April 03, 2003
An Interesting Fatwa
No, it's not the usual "kill the Americans one."
In Kut, an Iraqi military town on the Tigris River, Marines were going building-to-building to battle Iraqi fighters....
Other Kut residents said they're afraid Saddam's forces will unleash chemical weapons on Shiite Muslim towns like theirs.
At a Baath Party building flying Iraqi flags, a small group of men sat clustered in a grassy area around a woman dressed in a black chador and waving a white flag of surrender.
Many groups of Iraqis sat down by the roadside, waving and smiling at the Marines to show they were not combatants.
Brooks said that Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, a Shiite leader who had been under house arrest in Iraq, had issued a fatwa urging Iraqis to remain calm and not to interfere with coalition troops.
"We are seeing evidence of other religious leaders who have had enough of this regime," Brooks said. I don't know how important this particular Shiite cleric is -- but it's definitely a positive development.
posted by Joel Thursday, April 03, 2003
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Then Again
Arabnews reverts to form: doubletalk.
Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal has urged Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to make a war-ending "sacrifice" for his people.
"Since Saddam has asked his people to sacrifice for the country... he should be the first to sacrifice for his country," the prince said in an interview with ABC News, aired late Monday.
Prince Saud made the comments to correspondent Barbara Walters who asked him whether the Iraqi leader had to be removed from power.
The Saudi minister later clarified that he did not call on the Iraqi president to step down, but only advised him to make a "sacrifice" if that was the only way of ending the on-going conflict.
So, let me get this straight: Saddam should, say, sacrifice a goat? Or would Tarik Aziz do?
Inquiring minds, and all that.
posted by Joel Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Department of Man Bites Dog: Arabnews Publishes a Balanced Report on Treatment of Injured Iraqis, Both Civilians and POWs
Honest.
The USNS Comfort is a state-of-the-art medical and surgical care floating hospital presently situated offshore from where war is being waged. Ironically, its hospital facilities are currently caring for more Iraqis, including POWs (Prisoners of War), than Americans. The Geneva Convention stipulates that journalists may not have direct contact with POWs. However, Arab News was able to speak with the doctors and nurses caring for the injured POWs and Iraqi civilians who came on board shortly after the war began.
Yesterday, after being flown in on a CH-46 helicopter from the USS Boxer, Arab News was allowed to observe the injured Iraqis.
The POWs reside in one ward, not far from where the "detainees/civilians" are located. There are approximately 20 patients in each ward. Both rooms have been stripped of anything that could be used as a potential weapon. They are given 24-hour medical attention, and significantly, neither group is handcuffed or restrained in any way. Several unarmed security personnel are present in both wards.
Chief Petty Officer Caesar Salicrup, leading chief for the POW wards, told Arab News that the POWs have not been restrained because they are cooperative. "Some are already asking if they can smoke and want to know when they can go home. I'm sure we'll soon be able to take them out for a cigarette, but they can't smoke here because of the oxygen tanks."
Salicrup said the men don't speak English, but have started to learn words like "thank you", "ok", "USA" and, of course, "cigarette."
Something must have gone wrong. The usual Arabnews headline would have been "US Threatens to Give Cancer to Iraqi POWs".
posted by Joel Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Enter the 4th
SHUAIBA PORT, Kuwait (AP) The U.S. Army's most lethal and modern heavy division is weeks away from joining the fight in Iraq, a top division officer said Tuesday. But read on: Speakes said parts of the division could go into battle without waiting for all its troops and equipment to arrive. Already 5,000 soldiers from the division have arrived by plane to Kuwait in recent days. What's going on? It could be that the Battle of Baghdad is still weeks away; it could be that General Franks has other things going on.
But it's a safe bet that Saddam Hussein isn't going to like it.
posted by Joel Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Sunday, March 30, 2003
Get Rid of the USAF
Well, that's not quite what the New York Times editorial says. It's what I -- fully acknowledging that, as a general, I'm strictly armchair -- am saying.
Still the Air Force persists in committing much of its future budget to these gold-plated but unsuitable planes at the expense of bombers, unmanned aircraft and the unglamorous but badly needed C-17 cargo transports, which can ferry large numbers of troops to distant battlefields. The lessons learned from this war should guide us in rethinking the way we should equip the military of the future. Me, I'm not knocking the high-tech, multipurpose fighters. The F18 and F15 have proven themselves, not just at air-to-air combat, but at strike missions.
But for close air support, the Army is still hampered by that ancient Key West agreement of 1948, which restricts the Army's armed armed aircraft to rotary-wing (read: helicopter) ones, regardless of what the best platform for the mission is. I'm not knocking helicopters -- the Apache has proven itself, too. But the notion that, when the Army is planning for close air support, they've got to use only things that have propellers spinning on top of them -- rather than whatever the best vehicle for that sort of mission might be -- is just plain wrong. The A-10 Warthog, for example -- a plane that the Air Force keeps wanting to get rid of -- is apparently eminently suitable for close air support, as is the Harrier that the Marines have been using.
These days, the Air Force has basically three missions. Air supremacy is the one that, as the Times implicitly points out, gets undue attention. The Air Force is, in practice, in competition for that role with the Navy -- carriers are a lot more transportable than airfields, and don't have to rely on unreliable allies (read: Turkey) for permission to launch fighters, or anything else.
Bombing is the second. I'm tempted to call it "strategic" bombing, but that has resonances of SAC -- what I'm talking about here is what both the Air Force and the Navy are doing in Iraq: using precision weapons, regardless of which platform they're being launched from, to take out targets of strategic importance. Given air supremacy -- note that, as expected, the Iraqi radars and other air defenses are now smoking holes in the ground, and that even JDAMs and other smart munitions can be dropped many kilometers from being right over the target -- that makes things very different from even twelve years ago.
The third is close air support. That's the mission that the Air Force is, historically, least interested in. Close air support requires a very close, working relationship between commanders in the field -- down to the company level, at least -- and while both the Army and Air Force have been working at that, the Marines have had that for, literally, fifty years, simply by using Marine Air. It's not just that the Marine aviators and company commanders wear the same uniform and have crawled through the flies and the mud together during training -- although that helps. They're part of the same outfit, and both train and work together, and get evaluated and promoted based, in part, on how well that all works.
The third, MAC, is airlift: the very unsexy notion of planes-as-trucks, able to deliver soldiers, tanks, APCs -- and, very importantly -- supplies to where they're needed. It's not easy to tell where the choke points in that are -- save that when Donald Rumsfeld cancelled the Crusader Artillery program, he did so because basically all of the C5 fleet would be needed in order to put it in place, should it be needed.
Right now, what do you think: would General Franks like to be able to have the 4th Mechanized Infantry -- complete with its equipment -- sitting stateside, able to be airlifted within a couple of days to the airfield that the 173rd has just seized, or is he happier with the troops stateside, and the tanks, APCs, etc. making their way slowly through the Suez and down around to the Gulf, after bobbing off the coast of Turkey, waiting for the politicians to make the right deal?
Who really runs a war, when we have a war? With all due respect to the other services, it's the Army. Reincorporating the Air Force back into the Army would be an acknowledgment of that.
posted by Joel Sunday, March 30, 2003
Saturday, March 29, 2003
And So It BeginsSuicide Bomb Kills 4 U.S. Troops in Iraq
1 hour, 14 minutes ago
By ALMIN KARAMEHMEDOVIC, Associated Press Writer
IN THE IRAQI DESERT - A suicide bomber killed four Americans in an attack Saturday north of the city of Najaf, U.S. military officers said.
It's not a totally new thing for the US to deal with, mind; a truck bomb suicide was what drove the US out of Lebanon during Operation Peace for Galilee, when US forces were sent in to protect Arafat's forces, trapped in Beirut, from the advancing Israelis.
But suicide bombing has been developed to an art by the Palestinians, and rather more than has been reported on most of the US press, which pretty much exclusively reports only on "successful" ones, where one Palestinian jihadi manages to actually kill as many Jews as possible. For every one that succeeds, several -- many -- more fail. The IDF has been taking measures to minimize the damage, and the US military is either going to have to learn from what the IDF has been doing, or this will only become more common. Better security procedures at checkpoints, and more of them; good intelligence to locate those who equip and encourage suicide bombers; strikes on the leadership, understanding that nobody wakes up one morning, says, "Hey, today I want to be a suicide bomber", goes down to the local Al-Target and buys a bomb vest and heads out to the nearest checkpoint, or shopping mall, or bar mitzvah.
And not just the IDF -- the US will have to look to the Israeli government's success. Success? Yes. Despite the supposed increased "frustration" and "desperation" of the Palestinians -- and make no mistake, the combination of Arafat's kleptocracy and the intifada continues to lower the standard of living for Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza -- the frequency is dropping.
Why?
Because the Israelis are committed, and are seen to be committed, to making no concessions to terrorism.
At least arguably, these suicide bombings against uniformed combatants aren't technically "terrorism". Okay. But the intent is the same -- to remove the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, and leave the US military with no choice except for retreat or wholesale slaughter. And the same is true for the Iraqis using mosques and hospitals for snipers, and combat troops, and of using nonuniformed soldiers.
There is, of course, a third way, and the IDF has pointed the way to it, and the US military is perfectly capable of executing it. The first and most important step is the utter destruction of Saddam's regime, even if that means that some of the exquisite care to avoid civilian casualties needs to be relaxed.
Meanwhile, with the war just over a week old, and the Iraqi regime in control -- and weak control -- of only part of a country the size of California, people are already trotting out the "quagmire" metaphor. There definitely have been problems -- but how much? I dunno, and you dunno either. To an embedded reporter in a Bradley that's taking fire from Iraqi irregulars, and slows down to shoot back, it's obvious that the company he's with is being intefered with -- but the real question, which isn't easily answered, is how much the supply lines are really being interfered with.
Pfui. Yes, things would be better if the 4th Infantry was slicing down from the North, but the ships carrying their equipment are moving rapidly toward the Gulf; it's only a matter of time. The 173rd captured an airfield in Kurdish territory, and it's fair to guess that General Franks has some purpose in mind for it.
The only thing that makes sense to me, at this point, is to trust the professionals running this to do their jobs. They are; they will.
posted by Joel Saturday, March 29, 2003
Monday, March 24, 2003
Double Standards
Others do a better job than I am -- or can spend the time doing -- on keeping up with moment-by-moment reports of the war.
Me, I think I'm better off pointing to things like this:
So here's the US, about to end a regime that puts dissidents feet-first through plastic shredders and uses their corpses for fish food, and it stands accused of abandoning its moral standing. A while back, when the US was air-dropping food and medical supplies into Afghanistan, Britain's Guardian saw fit to ponder the questions: "Who asked Mr. Bush to 'save civilization'? Which bits of the planet does Mr. Bush term uncivilized? Some would say Afghanistan; others might nominate west Texas."
No doubt, if the US succeeds in installing a progressive regime in Baghdad, Bush will be accused in some quarters of installing an American puppet.
"Pardon the sardonic giggle," writes Nicholas von Hoffman in the New York Observer, "it arises from the thought that George W. Bush, the unelected president, is going to teach democracy to the Iraqis." Presumably, if Bush were to go to Baghdad personally to hand out Oreo cookies to Iraqi orphans, he'd be seen as a shill for Nabisco.
posted by Joel Monday, March 24, 2003
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Blix's House of Cards Falls
The story of the Iraqi chemical weapons plant has been picked up by Foxnews, and acknowledged by the Pentagon. It's true. It's the first. It's not likely to be the last.
And now the cover-up starts. "Why didn't the US simply tell Hans Blix?" will be the obvious spin.
"Because his tiny, incompetent, compromised bunch of UN inspectors wouldn't have been able to find An Najaf in a month."
"Because that's not the only one -- it's the first one we found."
"Because the idea was to get the fucking CBW out of the Iraqis' hands, not move them to Al Boogabooga instead."
Nah.
Try this: "The highly-trained, supposedly-competent, UN-endorsed inspectors weren't there to actually inspect. They were there to validate Iraqi compliance. The Iraqis didn't comply. The French and Germans insisted on unending delays. The disarmament of the Iraqi WMD programs -- I repeat: programs -- was never going to be done by a small bunch of inspectors dependent on cooperation from a lying, deceptive, tyrannical government. It's being done by the professionals. Now shut the fuck up."
posted by Joel Sunday, March 23, 2003
U.S. Army Muslim chaplain questions duty
Actually, despite WND's reputation as being a Muslim-bashing site -- one that I think is overstated -- it's a pretty sympathetic piece.
Still, it doesn't directly address the main question: given that Muslims engage in war with Muslims every day, why should US Muslims who have voluntarily enlisted in the US Army have some particular concerns?
Some of the quoted fatwas -- religious rulings -- seem to be almost offensive in their unintentional black humor:
"All Muslims ought to be united against all those who terrorize the innocents, and those who permit the killing of non-combatants without a justifiable reason," it said. "Islam has declared the spilling of blood and the destruction of property as absolute prohibitions until the Day of Judgment.
Tell it to Osama. Tell it to Hezbollah. Tell it to Hamas. Tell it to the Saudi Wahabbis who screech their calls for murder from mosques every Friday.
You don't need to tell it to Sheikh Palazzi; he's already worked it out.
posted by Joel Sunday, March 23, 2003
Worldnetdaily picks up the chemical weapons story
(Courtesy of LGF)
U.S. Lt. Gen. John Abizaid told reporters: ''I'm not going to confirm that report, but we have one or two generals officers who are providing us with information.'' Sounds like they're being a little conservative, until they've figured out exactly what they've got.
posted by Joel Sunday, March 23, 2003
Scoreboard: Third Infantry 1; Blix 0US TROOPS CAPTURE CHEMICAL PLANT
Caroline Glick Mar. 23, 2003
About 30 Iraqi troops, including a general, surrendered today to US forces of the 3rd Infantry Division as they overtook huge installation apparently used to produce chemical weapons in An Najaf, some 250 kilometers south of Baghdad.
One soldier was lightly wounded when a booby-trapped explosive went off as he was clearing the sheet metal-lined facility, which resembles the eery images of scientific facilities in World War II concentration camps.
The huge 100-acre complex, which is surrounded by a electrical fence, is perhaps the first illegal chemical plant to be uncovered by US troops in their current mission in Iraq. The surrounding barracks resemble an abandoned slum.
It wasn't immediately clear exactly which chemicals were being produced here, but clearly the Iraqis tried to camouflage the facility so it could not be photographed aerially, by swathing it in sand-cast walls to make it look like the surrounding desert.
Within minutes of our entry into the camp on Sunday afternoon, at least 30 Iraqi soldiers and their commanding officer of the rank of General, obeyed the instructions of US soldiers who called out from our jeep in loudspeakers for them to lie down on the ground, and put their hands above their heads to surrender.
Today's operation is the third engagement with Iraqi forces by the First Brigade of the US army's 3rd Infantry Division, since Saturday afternoon.
So far in the campaign, the brigade has suffered no losses. But two were wounded Saturday night in an ambush on the outskirts of As-Samwah in southern Iraq. It is, of course, possible that this was merely an aspirin plant, commanded by an Iraqi general -- the Iraqi regime has had some serious headaches of late.
But don't bet on it.
posted by Joel Sunday, March 23, 2003
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Minnesota Nice During WartimeAs the antiwar marchers moved away from the U.S. Courthouse down S. 4th St., a squad car bolted past drum-beaters and sign-carriers to the head of the line. The passenger window lowered and a plainclothes officer called out:
"Which way are you guys going to turn? I want to go ahead and stop the traffic for you."
...
"Our whole thing is public safety," Allen said. "And public safety has, in part, to do with traffic downtown. But it also has to do with the people protesting. We want to make sure they're safe, too."
Metro Transit officials had asked the protesters for their route ahead of time to avoid jamming up buses.
As the line made its way down Hennepin Avenue on Friday, an organizer called out over a megaphone: "Please stay in the bicycle lane and not the bus lane. We don't want to hold up the buses."
And the people, banging drums, carrying signs, stayed in their lane.
I don't think I have to say that I'm in disagreement with the protestors -- but, in this, at least, good for them, and good for the authorities.
posted by Joel Saturday, March 22, 2003
Friday, March 21, 2003
Human Shields Demonstrate Learning Behavior Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."
I'd like to think that the next time -- say, when the evil, Joo-controlled neocons say that the new Assad is another Saddam -- they'll listen.
But, no, they won't.
posted by Joel Friday, March 21, 2003
Iraq 'N Roll
The antiwar protestors in the US don't have to answer to me; this is America, after all.
But what are they going to say to the Iraqis who ask -- as they're already starting to -- "Why did you do everything you could to delay our liberation?"
Inquiring minds . . .
posted by Joel Friday, March 21, 2003
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Not Open for Business Yet
On the Iraq-Kuwait border, where British and US forces are now massing, Saddam's unwilling soldiers are being turned back on an hourly basis.
"We are seeing Iraqis trying to come across the border, saying they want to surrender, but we are having to turn them back and telling them that they must wait until the war begins," said an intelligence officer.
Still, seventeen have already surrendered.
The interesting figures from the Times stories are the projected quick surrenders, and the desertions: 75 per cent of regular soldiers, depending upon their regiment, have already fled. Iraqi tribal leaders in the region have also abandoned Saddam and defected to the Kurds in the Northern No-Fly Zone....
In and around Baghdad the desertion rate is lower, but even among Saddam's elite Republican Guard divisions -- whose loyalty to their leader has been unquestioned until now -- 23 per cent have deserted A quarter? Before the first shot has been fired? Looks like the reports of the Republican Guard not being quite what they were claimed to were right.
Hope it continues that way.
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Ship sinking? Check. Rats deserting? Maybe.
(Courtesty of Instapundit) The Foreign Office is investigating rumours that Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, has defected to Northern Iraq. Who knows? What's certain is that, if he has defected, he won't be the first one.
Love to see the CNN interview.
Update: Nope. Aziz is alive, and talking on Baghdad TV. Oh, well. Give it time.
Realistically, there will be lots of misinformation and presumably disinformation coming out over the next few days. And what else is new?
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Why?
...authorities discovered suspension lines on 13 of 25 parachutes had been cut and repacked in such a way as to avoid detection.
This happened last September. Two marines, Lance Cpl. Julian Ramirez Lance Cpl. Antoine D. Boykin, have been accused, and are now undergoing an Article 32 hearing -- in effect, a military grand jury -- to determine if they should be court martialed for attempted murder and other crimes.
Okay: let's start off with the basics: these two guys are just accused, and from the information publicly available, there's no reason to rush to judgment about their guilt. People not directly involved in the legal process have no more obligation to assume that they're not guilty than to assume that, say, Richard Jewel or Sirhan Sirhan were, at this stage. It's only reasonable to suspend judgment. They could be every bit as innocent as Jewel was, after all, or as guilty as Sirhan.
But somebody cut those lines, and went to some trouble to do that, and repack the chutes so that they would kill.
Why?
I'm not a conspiracy buff, but it seems to me to be rather unlikely that a guy woke up one morning, and said to himself, "Gee, what a lovely day to cut some suspension cords, repack some chutes, and kill some marines." And -- assuming that the accusers have the numbers right, if not necessarily the perpetrators -- two?
Nah.
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Blix Says He Won't
Pentagon Says He Might
... use chemical/biological weapons.
The Pentagon caution is based on this:
Intelligence reports ... indicate Saddam has given field-level commanders the authority to use chemical weapons on their own initiative, without further directives from the Baghdad, Pentagon officials said.
The Blix reassurance is based on this:
The reason, he said, was world opinion would turn in favor of the United States if Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction.
And even on the brink of defeat, when using such weapons might be a last resort, Saddam's government would still care about public opinion, Blix said. "Some people care about their reputation even after death," he said.
After four and a half months of inspections, Blix utters his definitive prouncement on whether or not Saddam actually has these weapons:
"I think they would be able if the weapons were there -- and I'm not saying they are. And I'm not saying that they have means of delivery -- but they could have it."
Well, that clears that up, eh? After months of inspections, Blix is, yet again, admitting that he doesn't know, one way or another, if Saddam has chemical weapons or the means to deliver them.
"The inspections were working"?
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Later, perhaps.
Interesting snapshot of Major General David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st. (I keep hearing it referred to, somewhat interchangably, as the 101st Airborne and the 101st Air Assault.)
We're not all caught up in the international diplomacy. No cheap shots, please. A general commanding a division ought to be concentrating on his job. The diplomacy is for the diplomats and politicians.I'm not teaching international relations right now. Although, it should be noted, he is professionally qualified for that, too.
posted by Joel Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Chilling Quote from Michael Ledeen
The whole symposium is worth reading, but this struck me as being terribly important:
And finally, if I am right, we are going to come under attack — in Iraq — from Iranian-and Syrian-sponsored terrorist groups, and if we understand what is going on we will find ourselves in a regional conflict. My only quibble is that I think we are, and have been, and will be, and that the regional conflict is only part of it.
posted by Joel Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Monday, March 17, 2003
I Always Meant Those Polish Jokes Affectionately, Honest
Well, that's my story. WARSAW, Poland -- Poland would send up to 200 soldiers to take part in a U.S.-led war with Iraq, President Aleksander Kwasniewski announced Monday.
"We are ready to use a Polish contingent in the international coalition to contribute to making Iraq comply with the U.N. resolutions," Kwasniewski said.
"It's a difficult decision but necessary."
The decision allows a contingent of several hundred Polish troops to deploy to the Gulf region from March 19 until Sept. 15.
Poland backs Washington's tough line on Iraq and was among eight European countries that signed a letter pledging solidarity with the United States in its efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein.
Who's next?
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Krugman: The sound of a man missing the point
Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease. I'm not a military expert, but I can do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military budget was $400 billion, while Iraq spent only $1.4 billion....
Will Iraq really be the first of many? It seems all too likely — and not only because the "Bush doctrine" seems to call for a series of wars. Regimes that have been targeted, or think they may have been targeted, aren't likely to sit quietly and wait their turn: they're going to arm themselves to the teeth, and perhaps strike first.
Run those numbers again, but substitute "Iran" or "Syria" for Iraq. It's not just a matter of the numbers, but of the will. "Arm themselves to the teeth"? Very dangerous to play the WMD game -- the US can play by those rules, too. Conventional weapons? Let's not be silly -- run the numbers again.
No, they're not going to sit quietly and wait their turn: the sensible ones will likely publicly bluster, and privately see what they can do to move down on the list. Perhaps the superstitious ones will take out ouija boards and consult with Hitler and Saddam and Bin Laden and the Taliban, or see if they can get a visit with Milosevic.
But they'll deal. When it comes to not choosing to be an enemy of the US, they have a choice, and dealing is the more palatable one. Even the tyrants of the Middle East have been shocked by how foolishly Saddam has been choosing destruction over cooperation. Much more sense to speak loudly and put the stick away.
You could ask Ghadaffi about that.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Former Iraqi Air Defense Chief Weighs In
Saddam Hussein must be toppled, says the Napier-based former chief of Baghdad's air defences...
Majid believes that it should be only a year or two until the Iraqis are ready to go to the polls. I think he's wrong, by a lot.
But we'll see.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
And the Aussies Are In
Australian troops will fight in a war against Iraq if the United States launches military action to disarm Baghdad of alleged weapons of mass destruction, Prime Minister John Howard said on Tuesday.... Australia, a staunch ally of Washington, has sent a 2,000-strong force, including elite SAS troops, fighter jets and warships, to the Gulf to join a heavy U.S. and British military buildup, but had not previously committed them to war.
The Australian commitment is less than 1% of the total number of soldiers involved.
I guess that should mean that they're not important.
It doesn't. They are.
John Howard is, as is Tony Blair, bucking his own local popular sentiment. It would be easy to have his soldiers sit on the sidelines. He hasn't. It would be easy to insist that they serve noncombatant roles. He hasn't. He has insisted that they serve under Australian command, and operate by the very strict Australian rules of engagement, and has even criticized the US rules.
He hasn't asked for a bribe; he hasn't engaged in negotiations for a role in Australia after the war as a precondition for helping out his US ally.
This is what an ally does.
This is what a US ally shouldn't have to point to, should Australia, some day, need US help -- there must be Americans to do that pointing.
Remember.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
And it's Good for the Economy, Too
No, I don't think we should go to war to boost the economy. That said, that getting this done will improve the economy is -- from my POV -- a feature, rather than a bug.
Needless to say, the antiwar folks will find this very disappointing.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
For the record, courtesy of The Times (The one in England, that is.)
Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, today said that military action against Iraq was legal without a second resolution. This is his written parliamentary answer in full
"Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of resolutions 678, 687 and 1441. All of these resolutions were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allows the use of force for the express purpose of restoring international peace and security:
1. In resolution 678 the Security Council authorised force against Iraq, to eject it from Kuwait and to restore peace and security in the area.
2. In resolution 687, which set out the ceasefire conditions after Operation Desert Storm, the Security Council imposed continuing obligations on Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction in order to restore international peace and security in the area. Resolution 687 suspended but did not terminate the authority to use force under resolution 678.
3. A material breach of resolution 687 revives the authority to use force under resolution 678.
4. In resolution 1441 the Security Council determined that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of resolution 687, because it has not fully complied with its obligations to disarm under that resolution.
5. The Security Council in resolution 1441 gave Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" and warned Iraq of the "serious consequences" if it did not.
6. The Security Council also decided in resolution 1441 that, if Iraq failed at any time to comply with and cooperate fully in the implementation of resolution 1441, that would constitute a further material breach.
7. It is plain that Iraq has failed so to comply and therefore Iraq was at the time of resolution 1441 and continues to be in material breach.
8. Thus, the authority to use force under resolution 678 has revived and so continues today.
9. Resolution 1441 would in terms have provided that a further decision of the Security Council to sanction force was required if that had been intended. Thus, all that resolution 1441 requires is reporting to and discussion by the Security Council of Iraq's failures, but not an express further decision to authorise force.
I have lodged a copy of this answer, together with resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 in the Library of both Houses.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Hmm... seems that the inspectors missed some...
Iraqi troops south of Baghdad are armed with chemical weapons, Fox News has learned.
Senior Defense and other U.S. officials confirmed that intelligence reports indicate that Saddam Hussein's troops are armed with chemical munitions.
"The information is raw … and hard to confirm ... but we are seeing -- using different methods -- that Saddam Hussein has armed troops south of Baghdad with chemical weapons," one official said.
Officials say it's hard to tell how many of these weapons are being distributed, but the intelligence reports indicate that "some chemical shells" have been provided to troops.
Senior Defense officials say they expected the Iraqis to use these weapons, and they predict more movement by Iraqi troops in the South and the West in the next day or so.
But I thought that the inspections were working? Nothing but a few empty shells, right? All the thousands of liters of chemical weapons destroyed, right?
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Kofi Annan Has, Occasionally, a Keen Eye for the Obvious
from CNN:
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated his stance that, should military action occur in the region without the blessing of the world body, "Its legitimacy would be questioned."
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
A Reminder, courtesy of Glenn Reynolds
Yeah, I know: Glenn is Instapundit; you've already been there before you checked my blog out.
But . . . listen to Mohammed. "How does leaving Saddam Hussein in power promote peace and justice in Iraq?" he asks, over and over again.
Listen to an angry Muslim Arab Iraqi, who is clearly worried about -- "Allah forbid," as he says -- his cousins being killed in the coming attack. Listen to how difficult it is for him to control his voice.
In anger at the Bush administration? No. In anger at the idea that if the "so-called peace movement" got its way, the Iraqis would still be left to the mercies of Saddam Hussein.
"How will bombing Iraq help bring peace and justice?" she asks.
He answers. Slowly, angrily, impatiently, he answers. He listens to the evasions and script of the "peace activist," and he returns to question, over and over: "How does leaving Saddam power promote peace and justice in Iraq?" His voice shakes; it's all he can do to keep his words under control. But he comes back to the point, over and over again, until he's done.
Well, not quite. He pleads for just a little more time. To rant at the "peace activist" some more? No. He wants to wish Bryan Suits, the radio host, well; it's Suits' next-to-last show -- he's been called up. He was in Desert Storm; he hopes he's not going to be in Desert Storm II, Suits says. (He won't. Suits is off to OCS; it'll be twenty weeks before he graduates. Things won't be over by then, but the war will be.)
"If, God forbid," Mohammed says to the host, "you personally end up going to the Gulf, Allah will bless you."
Yup. There's that Muslim outrage. No claim that Allah will protect him -- Mohammed isn't an impious Muslim. Just a call for God's blessings.
(You know, there may be some would-be jihadis in the Seattle area... hope they're clumsy enough to try to enlist Mohammed.)
I spend a fair amount of time on this blog blasting Islamofascists and their sympathizers.
Feels good to say to Mohammed: "Peace be on you." And best wishes to your family.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Department of "Have Mercy on an Orphan, Your Honor," cried the Patricide
Israel argued that the Palestinian Authority still maintains civic responsibilities in those areas, where Palestinians have held frequent pro-Iraqi demonstrations that included shouted calls for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to "bomb Tel Aviv".
"They (the Israelis) are occupying us so they must give us masks. I cannot afford to buy a mask even if I worked for a week," said Sami Bazzar, a taxi driver from Ramallah. Why would they want gas masks? It's not like the Iraqis have, or would use, poison gas, after all.
Even the Arab News seems -- strangely -- devoid of sympathy. The outrage seems surprisingly pro forma.
Me, I think that Arafat should have some of his kleptocrats sell a dacha or two, and use the money for gas masks, duct tape, and plastic sheeting.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
I doubt it
DEBKAfile’s Military Sources: Full-scale US-British offensive against Iraq is scheduled to begin Monday, 24 hours after Azores summit. It's possible, I suppose, but I doubt it.
Here's my guess for the schedule:
Tonight: Bush tells Saddam to get out of town, and sets a deadline, probably 48 or 72 hours. It's not that Saddam needs that long to hop on a plane, but that tells all the noncombatants stationed in Iraq -- reporters, real diplomats, UN officials, French diplomats -- that it's time to go, or at least find a place to hunker down that's not next to a target. The Pentagon's Bugsplat program may have a few bugs, after all. (The Germans already have told their people to leave.)
Tomorrow: the Iraqis and their French allies call for a UN Security Council meeting. The Iraqis push for a resolution forbidding an allied attack; even the French don't try to table it. Loud threats abound, very few of them coming from the alliance. No real point anymore.
Next few days: more movement of Special Forces folks into Iraq. The Iraqis are, of course, going to try to destroy their own oil fields, and close spotting for the attack aircraft is going to be necessary.
Some pilots get a real good night's sleep; last one they're going to have for awhile.
Off-chance: the Iraqis either attack some of the advance forces, or try to jump the gun, and that acts as the start signal. The allied forces are at their most vulnerable when they're moving toward their start lines. Realistically, the Iraqis have no chance of beating the alliance -- but their chance to do the most damage is before it launches, not after. Even if their is going to be house-to-house fighting in Baghdad -- and I'm hoping that there's little or none -- that exposes only a limited number of combat soldiers, who will have huge support both behind them, in terms of artillery, and overhead.
Deadline: Things get very quiet.
Deadline plus one hour: Things get very noisy.
____________________
*I've been referring to the coming attack as Operation Sans Weasels for some time. My, err, guess is that the Pentagon will come up with a somewhat different term.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Mark Steyn on Rumsfeld
At one Pentagon briefing, some showboating reporter noted that human rights groups had objected to the dropping of cluster bombs and demanded to know why the US was using them. "They're being used on frontline al-Qa'eda and Taliban troops to try to kill them," replied Rumsfeld.
Me, I like the man's instincts. On September 11th, his first reaction was to start pulling people out of the rubble of the Pentagon. Took him a few minutes to realize that, under the circumstances, there really were other things that the Secretary of Defense ought to be doing, instead.
And he went ahead and did them.
What's unforgiveable to his critics, I think, is that he says what he believes are true things, unshaded, although with a sometimes wry sense of humor. When discussing nations that had been "unhelpful", he listed Cuba, Libya, and Germany; when asked about the importance of the UK contribution to Operation Sans Weasels*, he honestly said that it could be done without the UK, although he also made it clear that he'd much rather do it with the UK. (Eminently true, on both counts -- the First Armoured Division, the UK's main landing fighting force, is a Big Deal. So are all the UK Special Operations folks.)
He isn't afraid to take on the Pentagon, either. The Crusader artillery system, he decided, was too big and too expensive. He cancelled it.
And he isn't afraid to buck the conventional wisdom on other matters, either:
When Colin Powell was traipsing round the Middle East on his fool's mission last summer, Secretary Rumsfeld (who served as Reagan's envoy to the region) was asked about the "occupied territories" and made you wish he had been sent over to Yasser's boudoir: "My feeling about the so-called occupied territories," he replied, "is that there was a war, Israel urged neighbouring countries not to get involved in it once it started, they all jumped in, and they lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict."
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Onward . . .
I'm listening to Jeremy Greenstock announcing that the UK, US, and Spain are not going to ask for a vote on a new Security Council resolution.
Negroponte's on now. "It has been nearly four and a half months since the Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1441, which declared Iraq in material breach . . . we advocated a second resolution, because a united council would have shown it was intent on enforcing Resolution 1441, and disarming Iraq." But that wasn't going to happen, he says.
Can the UN Security Council recover from this? Possibly. Should it? Probably not.
The French ambassador's presentation was rather pro forma. He sounds tired.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
The Fifth Column
No, I'm not talking about the US protestors carrying signs that say, "We Support Our Troops When They SHOOT Their Officers."
I'm talking about this.
Open acts of defiance by opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime have intensified in the past week, with saboteurs carrying out attacks against Iraq's railway system and protesters openly calling for the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator.
And, for that matter, about this.
Saddam Hussein’s most important Kurdish ally has defected to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq in what officials here say is an indication that the Iraqi president’s internal support is beginning to crumble.
It's starting.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Good as His Word
An emergency meeting of Tony Blair's cabinet is to be held on Monday...
The meeting, which the prime minister promised to hold before any military action, comes amid growing opposition from Labour MPs.
I watched Tony Blair commit political suicide, live and on television, yesterday. He stood up, made the case for ending the endless cycle of negotiate and renegotiate, and did it with grace and dignity.
And killed his own political career.
The war goes off this week, over overwhelming objections from the UK public. It's just this side of certain that the devastation to the innocent will be an order of magnitude less than even the less hysterical antiwar folks are saying; it's utterly certain that there will be more than enough -- brought to us live by the BBC, CNN, and others -- that will help to obscure, as it did in Afghanistan, that this war will save Iraqi lives, among others. The soon-to-be-commonplace "man in the street" interviews in Baghdad could be written now -- the woman saying, "Why did you let this monster persecute us so long?" balanced by the man who lost his family.
As I've said, I remain skeptical about Iraq being turned into some real democracy, but confident that whatever replaces Saddam will be markedly less bad. What's bad about the new regime will also be much more visible -- criticizing the US occupation won't result in having one's family whisked off in the night. (That is, I'm sorry that I feel I need to have to say, a good thing.)
But Tony Blair won't survive politically; his career is dead.
Then again, at one point in time, the same thing could have been said about another career British politician, Winston Churchill.
So, let's deal with two theories. One is that Blair is "Bush's poodle" -- this is the common view in the British press, and in the UK public. In this view, Bush is constantly performing some sort of Jedi mind trick on the weak-minded Blair, who would otherwise be far more sensible and responsive to UK public opinion.
The other one is that he sees a danger, sees the necessity of meeting it with force, and thinks that doing that is far more important than the political career of one Tony Blair.
I'll sign on to the second, myself.
Putting it crudely, the clicking sound you heard during Blair's speech was the sound of brass balls.
posted by Joel Monday, March 17, 2003
Sunday, March 16, 2003
And now, with war looming, I turn to the real problem: Jewish neoconservatives.
Okay, seriously. It started with this.
The writer wants to know"about the best way to clearly distinguish legitimate criticism of neocons from mere anti-semitism." (Some very good discussion ensued on
Gary Farber's blog.)
In aid of that, he puts forward a few "relevant facts."
Lots of neocons are Jewish.
Sure. And a lot of neocons aren't. A lot of liberals are Jewish; a lot aren't. So?
Neocons are rabidly pro-Israel.
Generally speaking, accusing somebody of being "rabidly" anything is, well, perhaps just a little insulting. But, okay, neocons -- Jewish and nonjewish -- are very much pro-Israel. Conservatives generally -- for a variety of reasons -- tend to be very much pro-Israel. True for old-style Buckley conservatives, Christian religious right conservatives, neocons, and most other flavors. The common factor appears to be that, well, they're conservatives. For some reason or other, American conservatives -- regardless of their ethnicity -- see Israel as a Good Thing, more than liberals do.
It is reasonable to infer that they are pro-Israel largely because they are Jewish.
Why is that even vaguely reasonable? What explains the large number of nonjewish neocons who are pro-Israel? Think, maybe, they're just passing? How about the nonjewish non-neocons who are pro-Israel?
There's some laziness here. Instead of trying to figure out why a large and influential political movement takes a given position, it's just plain easier to blame the Jews, if they're around.
They have a strong influence in the current administration.
I'm getting lost here. Which "they" is it? The Jewish neocons in the adminstration, like Wolfowitz, Perle, and Abrams? Or their bosses like Rumsfeld and Cheney and that George Bush guy?
Lots of people have a strong distaste for the whole neocon agenda of remaking the Middle East in America's image. Sure. And that's a fair issue to discuss. You could, if you liked, discuss the problems with that agenda. You could argue that an American style democracy has never worked and imply that it can never work in an Arab country, or that it can work, somehow or other, but that removing Saddam Hussein is a step away from it, rather than a step toward it.
I forget, though -- what is it about Richard Perle's ethnicity that contributes to that discussion?
One hint as to why many conservatives might be pro-Israel is going on right now. At this moment, the ships bearing, among other folks, 4th Infantry Division, are bobbing off the coast of Turkey. Those people who have followed the news may have noticed that the bribe to Turkey to let the US use their bases and land to stage troops for the coming operation was not, apparently, quite big enough.
It's not going to happen, alas, but if you were George W. Bush, and you wanted the nearest port where you could be sure that your soldiers would be welcomed, and instantly provided with access to modern military airfields from which the could be airlifted to where ever they need to go, where would you direct your ships to go? Who would you call?
"Arik?"
posted by Joel Sunday, March 16, 2003
Tick, Tick, Tick
Britain insisted its Sunday summit with the United States and Spain would not be a council of war...
Sure it is.
What's holding things up? Nothing much. General Franks doesn't even have to wait for the last of his troops to be in place. He's got some tricks up his sleeve:
A brigade of the 82nd Airborne is stationed at Camp Champion in Kuwait. It is not commanded by V Corps, however. It is controlled by Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the land war commander and is presumed to have a special mission suitable for its speed, mobility and other light infantry skills. I think it's more than a presumption.
The British First Armoured Division is in place.
At this point, it's not quite too late, in theory, for Saddam to do what's necessary to call it off -- but he won't. At this point, it's not quite too late, in theory, for the French and Germans and Russians and Chinese to buy Saddam more time to do what's necessary to call it off -- but they won't.
Despite the hysteria that's characterized her writing on the issue, Maureen Dowd has it right on this.
They never wanted to merely disarm the slimy Saddam. They wanted to dislodge and dispose of him. Well, describing Saddam as slimy is an insult to slime, but, sure. And it's at least possible to make the argument that dislodging and disposing of thise particular "slimy" guy will have worse results than leaving him in place. I think there's risks to either course of action, but at least some very real possible benefits to regime change, and, at best, there is some avoidance of some particular real risks while adding other real risks to leaving him in place.
Choices -- even if the choice is to wait some more -- have consequences.
Meanwhile: it's going to happen. We will have plenty of time to discuss how or if it could have been avoided. (I'm not sure, mind you -- I think that if the French and Germans and Russians and Chinese had all lined up with the US and made it clear that 1441 really was Saddam's "final opportunity", rather than just the latest in a series of Official Vacuous UN Warnings, some Iraqis might have decided to save themselves by removing the "slimy" guy. But I do say "might.") And we'll have even more time to analyze the results.
But it's a matter of a few days.
And, in the US, the vast majority of the people -- both those who think that this is the right thing to do and those who think it's wrong -- will be, quietly or noisily, privately or publicly, sending prayers and/or good wishes for the men and women in uniform who will be doing it.
posted by Joel Sunday, March 16, 2003
Saturday, March 15, 2003
More French Bashing
Worth reading -- and this doesn't spoil the story.
Anyway, the French are across the RED LINE with their half-dozen Mirages, two of which now sport big white "UN" labels on the tails. They're the photo recon birds that will fly over Iraq. (Lots of speculation on what would happen if the Iraqis were to shoot one of them down -- what would happen after the French surrender, that is.)
posted by Joel Saturday, March 15, 2003
Must Be Something in the Water
Afnan Fatani, "professor of stylistics at King Abdul Aziz University and currently a visiting professor at Dar Al-Hekma College, Jeddah", explains it all.
Powell first used the method in his PowerPoint presentation to the UN when he tried to convince us that the rabbit shape we see in the moon really is a live gigantic rabbit.
Honest, I can't make this stuff up.
More seriously:
In a CBS-TV interview, Pentagon planner Harlan Ullman revealed Bush’s “Shock and Awe” military plan, designed to kill millions in 48 hours using 800 cruise missiles.
Wow. That's at least 2500 killed per missile.
Actually, for those who have been following such things, "Shock and Awe" is intended to do the maximum to psychologically weaken the will to resist, rather than killing as many people as possible. Cruise missiles are very accurate weapons; if what you want to do is kill as many people as possible, conventional dumb bombs are much easier to use, and a lot cheaper. Last I heard, cruise missiles run about $2 million per each. What they're going to be used for are command and control centers, power stations, and the like. The idea is to isolate the military leadership from the troops, and to scare everybody in Baghdad shitless by making the opening attack very dramatic.
Not a pretty thing, no. But likely -- and intended -- to result in a quick surrender.
And then there's "Bugsplat." It's a software program intended to minimize civilian casualties, by mapping out what damage a specific strike will do to surrounding buildings. If, say, through some coincidence, Republican Guard HQ happens to be situated with a bunch of day care centers and mosques next door -- okay, there aren't a lot of real day care centers in Baghdad, but you get the idea -- and what you want to do is kill a bunch of babies and blow up a bunch of mosques, you don't write or use such a program.
Kind? Gentle? Nah. Less cruel than other alternatives? I certainly hope so -- and that's the idea.
Hey, if somebody's got a few shiploads of smart bullets -- something out of a Verner Vinge novel, which can discriminate between the target you want and somebody who just happens to be nearby -- call the Pentagon. They'd love 'em.
I don't mean to be blase about the war. There's no question that there will be innocents dying, just as there were in Afghanistan. But I think it's also fair to predict that, just as in Afghanistan, the number of innocent lives saved by the US attack will far outstrip the numbers taken.
That's an awful calculation to have to make, but it's a necessary one.
For more on Shock and Awe, look at a good article in the St. Pete Times< a href=http://www.sptimes.com/2003/03/02/Perspective/In_wartime__shock_and.shtml>here, or read this , the DoD paper on it. It's interesting reading, to say the least. Will it work? I dunno. It's hard to say.
It's easier to write things like: Too bad that Powell and the Bush administration have between them tainted the white wholesome goodness of Uncle Ben’s Rice.
posted by Joel Saturday, March 15, 2003
Watching the Defectives
One of my guilty pleasures is my Saturday morning listening to the weekly rantings of Kevin Alfred Strom -- the present mouthpiece of the neonazi "National Alliance", right here.
This hasn't been a good half-century for the neonazis, and while I've got a lot of misgivings about things like the Patriot Act, nowhere among them is the added attention that's being given to our domestic fascist types, along with the islamofascists.
Watching them squirm and listening to them whine, well, that's just good clean fun.
But a guilty pleasure. (What's interesting to see, though, is how some of their argumentation shows up -- usually cleaned up some -- from folks like Buchanan.)
Today's show is a lot of fun.
Short form is this: Chester Doles, a former Grand Dragon of the KKK and one of the "National Alliance" spokesmorons, has been arrested and indicted on federal felony weapons charges. Doles, a convicted felon -- he went to prison in 1993 on an assault conviction; he dragged a black man from his vehicle and beat him for having a white woman sitting in the truck with him -- is barred by federal law from possessing firearms. (His defenders claim that it was a misdemeanor; misdemeanors, in the law, are those crimes for which one can't be sentenced for more than a year. His sentence was seven years; he served two. I guess doing simple arithmetic is beyond the folks in the National Alliance.)
Doles is, to put it mildly, an unsavory character. He's apparently a fifth-generation KKKer, and a sound argument for better education in birth control -- he has eleven children. He's also led protests against the Martin Luther King holiday, immigration, and such. None of that's a crime, and the proper punishment for that sort of thing is social sanction, not legal sanction. Much as it bothers me, I really don't like the idea of prohibiting firearms ownership even to people with such noxious associations as the KKK, the National Alliance, ANSWER, whatever. Realistically, the solution to armed political nutcases is good law enforcement and, in extremis an armed population. Violent crimes by KKK types used to be common, when they were tolerated; they're rare now, because they're not.
Still, it's not at all unreasonable, it seems to me, to bar firearms possession by convicted violent felons. (Again, being fair and accurate: US law bars firearms possession to people convicted of nonviolent felonies, as well, and permits states to restore firearms rights if they choose.) Unreasonable or not, it's the law: anybody convicted of a felony would be wise to either jump through the appropriate legal hoops to have gun rights restored, or stay away from guns. How far away? I dunno -- that's Doles' problem, not mine.
Doles is a convicted violent felon, and the Feds found -- unsurprisingly; Doles has been publicly complaining that the various white "separatist" groups, including his, have been infiltrated by the Feds -- at least five firearms in his house. It was, by all accounts, a sizeable raid -- which both inhibited any resistance, and made it, err, somewhat difficult for Doles to tamper with the evidence, a very real possibility. It would be, err, difficult to flush a shotgun down the toilet, but if, for example, all of the firearms were locked in a gun safe, his wife could testify that he hadn't been given the combination, and therefore wasn't even arguably in possession.
Ooops.
Well, he's entitled to due process, and he's going to get it. It's a fair guess that his lawyer will argue that he wasn't, technically "in possession." They may argue that, legally speaking, a seven-year sentence is a "misdemeanor". (Lotsa luck.) They've also trotted out the argument that somebody in Maryland -- where he was convicted of his assault, and served his sentence -- told him that his firearms rights had been restored. He'll have the opportunity to present any and all of those defenses in court.
I doubt it'll be carried on Court TV, though. Pity.
posted by Joel Saturday, March 15, 2003
Friday, March 14, 2003
Kristof Notices the KurdsThe world has turned its back on the Kurds more times than I can count, and there are signs that we're planning to betray them again. The U.S. was so desperate to bribe Turkey into our coalition that it was willing to allow tens of thousands of Turkish troops into Iraq's Kurdish areas. And we still seem ready to acquiesce in this. The Turks, having broken the back of Kurdish resistance within their borders, plan to expand their efforts and "disarm" Iraq's Kurds to block their control of oil fields.
Yup. It sucks. And, I think, it's also unnecessary. State's blunder in the Turkish deal opened the door -- perhaps just a crack -- for an Iraqi Kurdish state; I'm afraid that it's now being quietly closed.
posted by Joel Friday, March 14, 2003
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Oh, Screw It
The fact that Elisabeth Smart has been returned to her parents -- alive, an apparently in good health -- has nothing at all to do with the focus of this blog, but fuck that:
Yay! It's just one kid, granted, and it has nothing at all to do with much of anything else -- and yes, I know that the majority of child abductions don't involve strangers, honest -- but I sang, and I danced, and I'm so happy that what was returned to the Smart family was their daughter, rather than their daughter's body, that it's all that I can do not to sing and dance some more.
Matter of fact . . . I'm not going to restrain myself. Don't know the kid; don't know the family, and if they were my next-door neighbors I'd give them the privacy that they need and deserve, but:
Again: yay!
posted by Joel Thursday, March 13, 2003
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
I Certainly Hope NotUS Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to Saudi Arabia next week is not intended to notify Riyadh on the date of a possible war on Iraq, Okaz reported yesterday.
Well, maybe he should -- just not directly. "Abdul, when you hear a lot of big, loud bangs -- I mean a lot and loud -- that means it's started."
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Why it's Hard Not to Love Christopher Hitchens
One wonders what it would take for the Vatican to condemn Saddam’s regime.... I suppose if Saddam came out for partial-birth abortions or the ordination of women or the acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle he might be hit with a condemnation of some sort. (Until recently, one might have argued that his abuse of children would get him in hot water with the Vatican, too. But even that expectation now seems vain.)
Oh, go read it.
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Department of "I'm Not Making This Stuff Up, You Know"
Pat Buchanan clears Jim Moran of charges of antisemitism.
Alas, the transcript of Buchanan's latest 60 Seconds on the Buchanan/Press show is not available on the web, but the short version is that it's the usual Buchanan screed, informed by the belief that the only kind of antisemitism that is legitimate to criticize involves herding Jews into concentration camps for death in the gas chambers that Buchanan -- never one for consistency -- denies existed. Anything less than that, apparently, must be given a bye, as the real problem is the charge of antisemitism. The problem isn't that Moran is blaming the Iraq war on the Jews; the problem is that Jews are calling Moran an antisemite.
Bill Press, of course, thanked Pat for his commentary.
Ah. Glad we cleared that up.
Meanwhile, with less than his usual careful coding, Buchanan is busy blaming the war on the Jews in his own magazine.
Pace Molly Ivins, it probably read better in the original German. Bet it translates nicely into French.
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Earn Big Money In Guantanamo
An Egyptian radical will get $27 million as a reward for giving the United States information that led authorities to alleged September 11, 2001, mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, government sources said Wednesday. It gets even better. The informant was a captured Al Qaeda "foot soldier."
Carrots and sticks. Way to go, guys.
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
When?
I dunno. The World Tribune -- courtesy of Meryl Yourish and Diane E. -- is saying March 18th.
I doubt it, if we're talking about Shock & Awe, particularly if the decision has been made to start the ground attack at the same time that the air war goes off.
(As I've made clear before, I'm confident that the opening moves are already going on.)
Operational security is important, but some of it can't be kept secret. Those marines are still floating off the coast of Turkey, and if -- as I hope -- lots of them are going to be deployed to Kurdish Iraq, that won't happen without word getting out.
Given the failure of diplomacy, it's going to go off, and what will drive that are, I hope, operational matters that are being closely held. Still, remember that Rumsfeld does have a sense of humor . . .
"April Fool, Saddam."
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Is This WWI All Over Again?BELGRADE, Serbia (CNN) -- Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who played a key role in the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, has been shot dead by a sniper. Nah. It's not like he's an Archduke, or something.
More seriously, this is the sort of thing that can act as the starting gun for another war in Europe. Djindjic had eschewed expansionist Serbian ambitions. His replacement will, almost certainly, not be as interested in things like handing over Serbian war criminals to the Hague -- something that he did, by the way, in violation of the Serbian constitution, and in return for massive aid payments.
Well, if it's necessary to handle Serbia militarily -- as it was, not too long ago -- let the French and Germans do it. Let them get a UN resolution, and be joined by the armed forces of the Canary Islands, Zimbabwe, and Cuba.
The US message to Serbia has to be "you leave our actual allies alone -- what you do beyond that is a European problem, for a European solution."
Lotsa luck.
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
The German Branch of the Axis of Weasels Are Our Friends -- They'll be There When They Need Us
...people like Mr. Fischer have been spelling out the ways in which the German-American alliance continues to function. Several weeks ago Germany announced that it would assign 2,500 German troops to guard American military bases, releasing that many American troops to fight in Iraq. Err... I'm unclear. The purpose of these American military bases in Germany is exactly what? Yes, they pour millions and millions of dollars into the German economy; sure, they were there to defend Germany from the Soviets.
But there's no Soviets anymore, and what exactly is the US interest in supporting the German economy? I forget.
And that is why, for some observers here, reminders by Mr. Fischer and others of German-American cooperation from the Persian Gulf war to Afghanistan seem to miss the point.
"Participating in Afghanistan and Kuwait means that they participated in projects," said John Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany, now the head of the German branch of Lazard Frères, an investment banking company. "But an ally is a friend who sticks by you when you have a problem." Rather than, as the Germans and their, err, traditional French allies have done, making the problem worse.
If it looked like the Balkans were about to boil over, would the Axis be satisfied with 2,500 US soldiers defending their bases while they sent Axis troops off to fight? I dunno, and I've no doubt we'll find out; the next time -- and there will be one -- that there's a military crisis in Europe, persuading the US administration and public that it's important to come to our allies' aid will be very, very difficult.
Unless, of course, we're talking about, the Czechs, say. The French and the Germans? Let them eat the Sudetenland.
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Friedman Doesn't Read Friedman
One of the things I find most frustrating about Thomas Friedman's writings is that he often says demonstrably true things, then doesn't think them through to their conclusions.
Iraq is the Arab Yugoslavia. It is a country, congenitally divided among Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, that was forged by British power and has never been held together by anything other than an iron fist. This is absolutely correct. And note what's happened -- good and bad -- in post-Tito Yugoslavia: it's been split up into smaller states. The problems of Yugoslavia -- particularly in some of the mixed-ethnic areas -- were huge, granted. But, all in all, it made sense to split it up. I'm a big fan of multiethnic societies, myself -- and not just for the restaurants, although that's the way it affects me most often, most directly, in Minneapolis -- but that's not a one-size-fits-all solution that's right for every bunch of people, everywhere.
Part of the problems of the Middle East and Africa are a legacy of British and French -- and Belgian, for that matter -- colonialism. (It's hardly the only source of the problem, of course; it's not like the Levant was peaceful before the colonial era.) National lines were drawn not based on geographic or ethnic boundaries, but on former colonial divisions. Iraq is hardly the only example.
The obvious thing to do is to split Iraq up. Let the Kurds, finally, have their own state, and ditto for the Shiites in the south and the Sunnis the central areas.
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Department of "Go Ahead, Make My Day"The European Union could withhold funding for the reconstruction of Iraq if the United States went to war without United Nations approval, the European Commission said on Wednesday. This seems only reasonable, actually. If the EU is choosing to play Sergeant Schulz over the Iraqi danger, it's only right that they stay out of the reconstruction, both in terms of spending money, and of getting contracts from the new Iraqi government.
Somehow or other, I think that they'll not want the latter. Ya think?
posted by Joel Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
More on Torture
Dammit, the practical arguments I've been hearing against the selective use of torture -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being the present poster boy -- have more than halfway persuaded me that it's practical. (Moral? I still dunno -- but let's think about that. Let's stick to practical for the nonce, or maybe a nonce and a half. I'll get back to it, but I hope you don't like the answer I come up with. I really don't like it myself.)
Let's start with the single most common objection.
Torture just plain doesn't work. People being tortured will tell you what they think you want to hear. I don't know if that's true -- but, if so, it's an argument for it, not against it. (I'll keep returning to this theme.) Just persuade them that what you want to hear is useful, verifiable information. "Khalid? I want names, addresses, phone numbers, dates, bank account information. You can give me stuff you think I won't be able to verify, but if any of it turns out to be false, I'll show you how unhappy I am. And, remember, I'll be torturing all of the folks you've pointed me at, and they'll talk, too -- if you cause me to torture some innocent, I'll be very unhappy. Remember, I'm the sadistic bastard who just snipped off one of your toes with the kitchen shears, just to establish my credibility. I really want to hear the names of your associates, and get an understanding of their roles -- I don't want people who you've picked out of a hat." (Err... do I need to point out that the threat to torture his whole shopping list can -- and should -- be a fib? We don't have to argue about whether or not it's immoral and impractical in itself to tell Khalid Sheikh Muhammed a few lies, do we?)
Then there's the weaker version of the above:
What if you're not sure? What if the person about to be tortured is sympathetic -- a twelve-year-old girl, say? Even if you're sure, you could be wrong. You bet. Which is why I'm suggesting that it may be practical in some specific circumstances, rather than saying that it ought to substitute for handing out parking tickets -- and I'm not yet ready to handle the moral issue. Just because it may not be practical -- let's get back to the moral question -- in some circumstances, that doesn't mean that it's not practical in any circumstances.
Torturing causes psychological damage to the torturer, and we'll have to let the torturers back into society, eventually. It's bad for us. Yup, it does; and yes, it will. So does combat. Assume -- which doesn't seem unlikely -- that two people torturing information out of Khalid Sheikh Muhammed will make it possible to keep a single platoon out of combat, it's a profit.It's mean and ugly. Yup. It is. So? There are some necessary things that are mean and ugly -- you make your list; I'll make mine. But until your list is empty, don't argue if others' isn't.It's a slippery slope. Probably. But there are lots of slippery slopes -- and we have to walk along them all of the time.
If anything, the slippery slope argument militates in favor of US standards for torture, and the US employing systematic, monitored, torture of many Al Qaeda suspects, and not just Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, just as the moral argument -- that torture is always wrong -- does.
Huh? You say.
Yup. Right now, Al Qaeda suspects are being tortured on behalf of the US -- and while my guess is that it's not being done to KSM now that he's apparently in US hands, there's no question that it's being done by other countries cooperating with the US -- it's being done just-sort-of-deniably, and without any monitoring or supervision. Do you really think that the Syrian Secret Police are holding back at all? The Egyptians? Anybody think that the Pakistani ISI's interrogation rooms are run to extract the maximum useful information with the minimum cruelty?
I don't think so. And it's going on.
If there's been a widespread demand -- from the US administration or from antiwar groups -- that Al Qaeda suspects be handed over by the various Arab countries where many are now being held, I've missed it. If people -- both in the Administration and critics outside -- believe that the sort of lawful duress now going on at Guantanamo is more effective than real torture -- I don't think we have to argue about whether or not it's more humane -- then why the lack of outcry? Where's the insistence -- right and/or left -- that the CIA refuse to listen to the putatively unreliable information coming out of Syria and Egypt and Pakistan?
Doesn't the lack of an Official US Torture program mean that more people are being tortured -- and tortured more? Where is the moral validity in saying, in effect, it's okay if our "friends" in Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Oman, Jordan and Syria torture Al Qaeda suspects? Can we eat meat and sneer at the butcher? If torture is so ineffective -- and I'd love to believe that it was -- where's the outcry from the anti-torture folks to turn over suspects to the US for more effective, humane interrogation? Have I missed it?
Here's the dirty secret: we all know that can torture work. Not always, of course. But it can, and it does. That's why it's being used not only for punishment and to make an example of people -- but to extract information. It's going on right now, and the information is being forwarded along to our government, and you and I know it.
Which is why I think that the moral question is so clouded.
Or worse than clouded.
Assume that torture is always morally wrong, regardless of the circumstances -- I'm not sure that it is, but I'm willing to go along with the assumption -- doesn't that necessarily mean that reducing the incidence of it is morally necessary?
Or is it okay if we simply close our eyes and pretend? Maybe that's what's morally required.
I've got to go wash my hands now.
Hey, Pontius -- don't bogart the soap.
posted by Joel Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Harmless Silliness WatchThe cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings will change the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries," a culinary rebuke of France, stemming from anger over the country's refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq.
And then there's "freedom kissing," and the "freedom tickler."
posted by Joel Tuesday, March 11, 2003
When in Doubt, Blame the Jews
"If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this.... the leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should."
And, if not, perhaps Mr. Moran would want them to wear yellow badges?
And then there's this -- from the same appearance --
"I need to be more blunt and more bold and that's why I'm here saying what I'm saying..."
Got it.
The predictable backpedalling started quickly:
Mr. Moran said that his comments were misunderstood... Me, I think the problem is that his comments weren't misunderstood.
It's a staple in the anti-war crowd: blame the Jews. No, not everybody -- but look at the signs at your choice of antiwar demonstration. Listen to the antiwar folks from Pat Buchanan on the right to ANSWER on the left. That the antiwar movement is about as friendly and accepting to antisemites as as McDonald's is to folks who, say, like filet-o-fish sandwiches isn't really up for reasonable debate, is it?
Moran's just more outspoken than most. On the right, Pat Buchanan has -- most of the time -- been more clever -- at least in public -- about cleverly encoding his own antisemitism. Remember "Israel's amen corner"? Moran's been equally eliptical -- until he let his hood slip, just a little.
Trent Lott was pilloried by right and left for, at Strom Thurmond's birthday party, giving a tribute that suggested that Lott thought -- to the extent that he does much thinking -- that the US would be better off if a Dixiecrat segregationist had been elected President. And deservedly so. If he said it but didn't mean it, he's a moron; if he meant it, he's a bigot and a moran -- err, a moron. It -- quite appropriately -- cost him his leadership post.
Yet, so far, there's no suggestion among Democrats that Moran's similar idiocy and/or or bigotry will cost him his leadership post in the House.
Okay, there's a double standard: is it for Democrats, or antisemites?
Inquiring minds want to know.
posted by Joel Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Thursday, March 06, 2003
Should We Torture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
I dunno. How's that for a definitive answer? I think it sucks, myself.
Of course, it's just a thought experiment; nobody's going to hand me a set of bolt cutters and lead me to the room where the pig is tied down. I can be either deeply principled and sacrifice doubly hypothetical innocent lives, or cold-bloodly practical and equally hypothetically effective without getting my hands dirty. It's just a thought experiment, after all.
A few preliminaries out of the way: let's forget about the legalities, just for the moment; whether or not it's legal is a different question than whether or not it's moral. Let's also not make much of a distinction between the morality -- practicality is another matter -- of handing him over to one of the many countries where torture is practiced routinely. In practical terms, it probably makes a difference -- the Pakistanis, for example, would likely want to be sure that some information doesn't get out to the US even more than they would want to make sure that it does -- but let's not eat meat and sneer at the butcher.
Maybe technology will come to the rescue. Maybe it's possible to apply duress effectively without going over the line into torture, and get just as good, or better, results?
That'd be easy. Too easy to be likely.
It's not an easy question. The simple hypothetical -- you know that he has useful knowledge that SomeVeryBadThing will happen very shortly, and the only way you have to get that information out of him in time for it to matter is by torture -- doesn't apply. KSM has a lot of information, more than likely -- but how relevant is it? How time-sensitive is it? How sure can we be that it would save lives? How much more effective would torture be than lesser forms of duress. I've got my suspicions, but there's no way to know. In a spy movie, it would be easy, but we don't get a lot of good looks at the real-world script. Note that in "The Siege", the Denzel Washington/Bruce Willis movie, the torture used was ineffective -- the terrorist they tortured and then killed probably didn't have, and certainly didn't give out, any information. Made it all nice and pat, eh? Willis was the bad guy, after all, and Denzel the good guy, and the bad guy wasn't allowed to save lives. Switch it around a bit, and have the final blast actually go off because Denzel interfered with Bruno's operation, and what do you have? Maybe, just maybe, you have a smaller-scale version of what KSM has been working on.
It's as sure as you'll get in the real world that he has important information -- which will save more lives the fresher it is. I'd love to hear somebody without an axe to grind and some expertise (never mind how they got it, although I guess we'd have to think about that) that non-torture interrogation will get information as quickly and reliably...
But, since we don't have that expertise handy, let's not go there. Let's dispense with another easy answer, as tempting as it is: that, since the tortured will say anything he thinks you want to hear, it's useless. That's just not universally true -- you could ask John McCain about how much he talked, for example.
It is at least arguable that, say, if some interogator cut off one of KSM's toes, explained that he wanted some verifiable information, or another toe would follow -- before going on to more intimate parts -- the interogator would likely get some. If that experiment were to be tried, my strong guess is that some useful information would be extracted, and more quickly than via legal interrogation techniques.
Would I trade all of KSM's toes and pain for the lives of just one of my countrymen? Hell, yes.
But -- and here's my point -- we're in the world of guessing. There are costs to a society to doing that sort of thing, and there are -- particularly in a case like this -- quite likely some very real benefits. KSM is Al Qaeda's Operations Chief, and it's not at all unreasonable to believe that he knows a lot that would be useful in saving innocent lives, and not utterly crazy to think that some of that could be pried out of him via torture.
So do you spend those possibly entirely hypothetical innocent lives for the sake of maintaining a principle?
I dunno. I think that I'm going to hope that, on balance, forms of duress that don't rise to torture are likely enough to get that information out of him anyway, and I know that I don't like the idea of some official of my government coming home to live in, say, my neighborhood after taking a blowtorch to a guy's fingers and toes.
And still . . .
If there is -- as there could be; I dunno -- a canister filled with ricin, even now, hours away from exploding during rush hour in a NYC subway, and if KSM could give a clue to who planted it, and perhaps even where, in time for it to be found . . .
. . . and that, of course, is just an unlikely dramatic example. No question that previous interrogation -- at least largely not involving torture -- has extracted a lot of useful information out of Al Qaeda murderers. Would torture do it faster? Maybe. Maybe not. If so, there's a moral problem.
How do you know?
Solving the legal problems are easy, at least in theory. "Mr. Atkins: I want you to torture information out of KSM. It's violating the law -- lots of laws. Here's your pardon -- I'll sign and date it when you're done. I'm copying the Speaker of the House and the Majority and Minority Leaders on this, and recommending that they consider impeaching me." "Thank you, Mr. President."
That's easy. Oh, it would still be a crime, but a crime for which one has been pardoned isn't a crime, legally speaking.
Morally? Again: how necessary is it? What are the moral costs and benefits?
About the only thing I'm sure about is that people who come down strongly on either side of the issue make me nervous. It isn't, I'm sorry to say, a clear cut issue to me.
It's not a question of punishment -- I'm comfortable with the notion that the worst punishment my country dispenses is a painless death. We can't possibly make KSM die three thousand times over, even though it's clear he deserves that -- the most we can do, in terms of punishing him, is to either lock him in a cage forever, or just kill him. That's fine.
But what about his knowledge? Who should die because of my moral qualms, or yours? As long as they're only hypothetical deaths -- after all, we don't get to make the call, you and I -- it's not that important, I guess.
Put a face on it, and it gets easy, for me: I'd hack off his toes myself if it could bring back Jeremy Glick, or Barbara Olson, or any one of the babies on those flights, and what's the moral difference between those faces and hypothetical ones? That they're hypothetical? No, I don't think so -- they're not; they're just unknown. KSM wasn't in hiding to plan anything but murder -- and, by preference, mass murder on a huge scale.
The real question is worse, really: what risks should be taken that some innocents, their names unknown, will die because of understandable and even laudable qualms? It's not like, in practice -- I said I didn't want to talk about law -- we're dealing with an innocent man. KSM is as guilty of multiple murder as Jeffrey Dahmer -- he's just got more blood on his hands and face, and the problem of what he's done isn't solved -- although the problem of what he can do is certainly meliorating -- by locking him up.
Damn. Wish I had an answer, because I think the least satisfactory one -- both practically and morally -- is where I come down: I dunno.
And that said, either it will be done or not. There is no maybe. And the only reason that my equivocating is even vaguely okay is because it's not my call, either legally or in practice. It's not yours, either. You're free to take the moral high road, and not be responsible for the dead bodies, or take the down-and-dirty possibly practical one, and not have turned a possibly decent man into somebody who will, forever, be a torturer.
I'm sure of this: whatever's done or not done will have costs.
posted by Joel Thursday, March 06, 2003
Monday, March 03, 2003
Safire Channels Barzani
Barzani: Of course — and nearby is the base that my son Massoud and my old aide Jalal offer you in the north of Iraq. You could put your huge jets down in our airfields with over 5,000 troops and armor in time for your invasion up from Kuwait while the Brits slip in through Jordan. And we'll be at your side --
It is devoutly to be hoped.
posted by Joel Monday, March 03, 2003
Sunday, March 02, 2003
Good news from Turkey, Kinda
I know that the standard take is that the refusal of the Turkish parliament to authorize the US's use of Turkey for what I've been calling Operation Sans Weasels is a bad thing, and there's certainly more than some truth to that. The presence of something like 60,000 soldiers and Marines on -- and quickly inside -- the northern border of Iraq would complicate Saddam's war plans, at least a little, although it's looking increasingly like his plans are what many people, me included, have been saying that they would be: retreat damn near everything to Baghdad, and hope that world public opinion rescues his regime before the US can dig them out.
Well, nobody -- nobody sane -- ever said that he's a military or political genius.
Moving the forces in is going to be difficult without an easy land route, no question. The solution that would be most satisfactory in the long run isn't politically viable, so we won't see the troops being deployed to Israel, and driving through Syria en route to Iraq, settling President-for-Life Assad's hash along the way.
I'll leave the logistics issues to people who know more about that than I do, although I'm sure that there are, granted, less easy things that can and will be done since staging from Turkey is now moot.
That's the bad part.
But there are some good things to this. For one thing, there's the bribe -- Turkey had been promised billions of dollars in cash, and more billions in guarantees, basically as rent. That's gone.
More importantly, Turkey had clearly been promised a say in how Kurdistan is handled after the war. For "say", read: "No Kurdish state in Iraq."
The Turkish veto is gone, and that's a good thing.
Think that the Kurdish Republic might offer the US free access to its territory?
Me, too.
Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but it seems to me that now is the time for the Kurds of northern Iraq to formally declare independence from colonial Iraq, and make their deal, publicly, with the US.
(If that happens, the sounds of anuses clenching at State will be the twang heard 'round the world. . . . )
[Update 3/3/2003]
Call off the good news. The Turkish government has apparently worked out the problem with not being able to have a veto over the future Iraqi Kurdistani Republic, and is scheduling another vote. The fact that the Turkish market took a nosedive after the refusal vote may have something to do with it, too.
posted by Joel Sunday, March 02, 2003
Thursday, February 27, 2003
[Updated 3/3/2003] And now, for something completely different.
It's no secret that I'm involved in the carry permit reform movement in Minnesota, and it's pretty clear that, this year, Minnesota's antiquated, bureaucrats-know-best handgun carry law is going to be changed into a more mainstream one, permitting trained, law-abiding adults to receive what is called, in law, a "Minnesota Permit to Carry a Pistol", roughly in the same way that people who want to get drivers licenses. For more information, see this. Not one of the prettier websites that you'll see, but lots of good links and information.
Onward . . .
A bit of background, for those folks both in the US and elsewhere, who aren't familiar with the issues.
In the United States, by and large, adults who don't fit a few narrow categories are allowed to own firearms -- handguns, shotguns, rifles, whatever. In a few states, all of the firearms have to be registered with the state; in all states, for firearms bought in a store or from a federally licensed dealer, the purchaser has to go through the famous "Brady Check", where the purchaser's name and usually Social Security number are run through a Federal database.
The Brady law also specifies a seven-day "waiting period", although some state law, in effect, trumps that.
In Minnesota, for example, somebody who wants to buy a gun can apply for a "Minnesota Permit to Purchase a Pistol", which acts as the seven-day waiting period for a whole year. You go down to your local police department, fill out a form, and let them do the background check and issue you a permit card -- no fee at all, by the way. No fingerprinting, either. It's just a bureaucratic hoop to jump through, but not a big one.
Private sales are a different deal, with no red tape -- in Minnesota, you don't need a purchase permit to buy a gun from somebody who doesn't have a federal firearms license.
Owning and carrying, of course, are different things, and there state laws vary widely. In a very few states -- and the District of Columbia -- civilians are prohibited from ever carrying a gun in public; in a few more, permits to carry a gun are issued only when and as various officials decide is okay. Minnesota, at present, is one of those.
Two-thirds of the states -- see this -- have what are called "shall issue" laws, as above, and that's what's in the process of happening in Minnesota.
Yup -- read that again: in the majority of US states, containing the majority of the US population, most adults can, as a matter of right, get a permit to carry a handgun in public, and some millions have done just that.
Now, any issue involving law gets very complicated, very quickly, and carry laws are no exception.
Already, in Minnesota, no permit is needed to carry a gun at one's home -- whether owned or rented -- on land one owns, at one's place of business, or when travelling between home and the place of business. (The gun does not have to be unloaded. Honest. See this.)
But in terms of generally being able to carry a handgun in public, Minnesotans have to go down to their local chief of police -- or sherrif, if there's no police chief in the town where they live -- and apply for a carry permit, if they want to do so.
In fact, it's the same application used for the purchase permit -- you just have to check and additional box, fill in a reason that you want the carry permit, and pay a $10 fee.
Thousands of Minnesotans do that every year, and something like twelve thousand people are given permits. All permits are valid statewide -- somebody who lives, say, in East Grand Forks and gets his permit there can carry his gun in Minneapolis.
Permit issuance varies widely, depending on who's making the decision. In some counties -- Otter Tail is the best-known example -- the local sherrif simply issues the permit to anybody who asks for it. (He's been doing this for more than a dozen years, and has never, he says, been given any reason to regret it.) In some cities, chiefs of police simply refuse to take applications, or deny them automatically. Minneapolis, where I live, is one of the latter -- there are a very few civilians in Minneapolis who have been given permits, but almost all of them are uniformed security guards, who are only allowed to carry when on duty.
Typically -- as is true nationwide -- places with the highest crime are the places where it's most difficult to get a handgun permit.
There's also some, well, strange things about Minnesota law. Unlike many other states, Minnesota law doesn't distinguish, legally, between open carry -- where the gun is visible to anybody and everybody who looks -- from concealed carry. It's legal -- in principle -- to carry openly anywhere it's legal to carry concealed.
(There's been moments of unintentional humor in this, during the various hearings at the Capitol. Wes Skoglund, my state senator, is fairly famous for asking stupid questions on this, like, "Does this mean that somebody would be allowed to tuck a .44 Magnum in his Speedos at the beach?" Well, yes, Wes, you would, if you had a carry permit -- under present law or the MPPA -- but, please, spare us the sight. Please.)
There's some other interesting things about present Minnesota law. Carry in schools, churches, etc. isn't prohibited for permit holders -- the only prohibited places are Federal buildings (prohibited under US Federal law), as well as prisons, jails, and state hospitals.
Much of that is likely to change under the "Minnesota Personal Protection Act of 2003" -- you can read the bill here . The permit age will be raised from 18 to 21; training -- rather than just qualification -- will be required; permit holders will be prohibited from carrying with a BAC of half of the legal limit for drivers; permit holders will be prohibited from carrying in schools; business owners will be allowed to prohibit carrying of handguns on their premises...
... all changes from the present law, all more restrictive.
Which makes it strange, of course, that a bunch of gun nuts -- like me -- are pushing for it, and the gun grabbers (hey, if I call us gun nuts, I can call them gun grabbers) are having hissy fits.
Of course, there's a trick: the key part of the change is that permits will now be issued on a "shall-issue" basis, rather than an "if I feel like it" basis.
And that's the key to the whole thing. Statistics show, clearly, that in the shall issue states, when permits are issued, violent crime goes down. (Not to zero, alas, but it does drop.) It switches, just a little -- some criminals switch to property crimes, rather than mugging and robbery; others go to neighboring, non-shall-issue states, where the pickings are perceived to be easier.
Why?
Well, that's an interesting question. It isn't, apparently, because of a lot of shot-dead robbers. There's just no evidence that shootings, justified or otherwise, seem to go up at all after carry reform goes into effect, and it's pretty clear that the number of shot-dead-in-public robbers doesn't go up dramatically, if it goes up at all.
It's hard to get any useful anecdotal evidence, but it doesn't look like there's a lot of additional defensive gun uses in the "shall issue" states -- although there certainly are some. Fairly hard to tell; in the vast majority of times that a gun is used defensively, no shot is fired, and these incidents are rarely reported.
(I didn't even put my finger on the trigger during my own gun defense; it was pretty typical, all in all.)
So what's going on?
My guess is that it's just economics. Criminals react to information in the criminal marketplace, just like stock investors. When a particular buy looks like a good deal, and the risks look low enough, the investor, well, invests. Increase the apparent risks, and fewer do.
Works that way for criminals, as well. There's quite a lot of stuff of value in a police car -- including the car itself -- but reports of somebody attempting to hijack a cop car are, well, basically nonexistent. It just seems too risky.
And that's what I think is the main reason for why "shall issue" laws are so effective.
In any case, activists on both sides of the issue are gearing up. MNCCRN, the group to which I belong, is a grass roots organization, with a large mailing list; groups on the other side are smaller, and financed by a few rich folks. Both have the ears of lots of politicians at the Capitol. We -- the good guys -- have enough votes in the State House and Senate to pass the bill, and enough votes and support from the majority in the House to easily bring it to the floor there; the governor has said he'll sign the bill when it reaches his desk.
The bill has gone through two committees in the House -- and passed, overwhelmingly -- and only has Ways & Means to go through before it goes to the House floor, where it's expected to pass by a huge majority.
The hearings have been fairly dramatic. The /t/h/r/e/e/ /d/e/p/r/e/s/s/e/d Million Moms have shown up in force, in their pink color scheme, generally getting about ten or fifteen of their supporters to sit in the gallery, while their professional lobbyists run the testimony of their speakers; the good guys, under the leadership of Joe Olson, David Gross, and Tim Grant -- who aren't getting a dime for their work on the issue -- typically outnumber the /t/h/r/e/e Million Moms by two-to-one or better, wearing Have Gun: Will Vote stickers. Joe and David -- both lawyers -- have put in a humongous amount of work on the text of the bill, and put it through more revisions than I care to think of, and we're down to arguing with some of the borderline representatives on issues involving school parking lots. (Honest -- the present complaint is that the MPPA would allow permit holders to drive into a school parking lot with the gun on them, even though it removes the ability of permit holders to legally walk into a school. The antis very much want permit holders to have to park on the street. Then again, the antis will still vote against the bill, no matter how many accomodations there are, so there's not much point in trying to appease them.)
All the fussing and fighting, the noise to the contrary, is about the Senate.
The Senate is closely split between the Democrats and the Republicans, with the Democrats having a thin majority. When it comes down to this issue, we have 29 solid Republican Senators' votes, and around 8 Democratic Senators' -- it takes 34 votes on the floor to pass.
So, of course, the opposition is focussed on making sure that the bill never comes to the floor for a final vote-- bottling it up in committee, adding amendments so that even if it is passed, it can be killed in conference committee, etc.
And, on that, another essay, another time.
Meanwhile, a quick Fisking.
I got the following from state Senator Larry Pogemiller, one of the less virulent opponents.
Dear Joel,
Thank you for contacting me regarding your support of the Minnesota Personal Protection Act. I appreciate you taking the time to voice your opinions on this issue.
So far, so good.
The idea that more guns lead to safer communities does not resonate with me. Two obvious problems: carry reform may not lead to "more guns"; it does, demonstrably, lead to safer communities. I'm not sure whether or not it resonates with Larry should have a lot of importance. The possibility of an increase in violence as a result of more access to guns is of much concern. And that's an interesting theoretical concern, belied by the experience of thirty-three states. The only question ought to be why that concern is wrong, not whether it is.The current law on the issuing of permits makes sense. Unless, of course, you want either a permit or the lowering of violent crime.Under this law, people still have the right to keep a gun in their home or place of business. True. A person may also carry this gun between their home and place of business if the gun is unloaded and in a secured box or package. Sure. They can also, as shown, carry it loaded, and either openly, or concealed. Although we do not share the same views on this issue, I am sure there are many other issues in which we do agree. Again, true. Then again, I'm one of those lifetime Democrats who voted the straight Republican ticket in the last election, helping to participate in the increasing Republican majority in the House, the slipping of the Democratic majority in the Senate, and the Republican gubernatorial win.
And I'm not alone, Larry. Think about it.
posted by Joel Thursday, February 27, 2003
Robert Fisk: How the news will be censored in this war
25 February 2003
Well, at least Fisk has the date right.
Already, the American press is expressing its approval of the coverage of American forces which the US military intends to allow its reporters in the next Gulf war. The boys from CNN, CBS, ABC and The New York Times will be "embedded" among the US marines and infantry. Let me get this straight. Fisk -- and other reporters -- complained in Gulf War I that reporters were kept too far away from the action. Now, he's complaining that they get too close.The degree of censorship hasn't quite been worked out. Yup. There will be censorship within combat zones. So:But it doesn't matter how much the Pentagon cuts from the reporters' dispatches. A new CNN system of "script approval" – the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised Now, actually there's a shocker -- do you mean to say, Bob, that CNN has editors? The horror! – suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about. Nor do the Israelis.
The Israelis? Try to stay on subject, Bob. The IDF will have no troops involved in Operation Sans Weasels.
Indeed, reading a new CNN document, "Reminder of Script Approval Policy", fairly takes the breath away. "All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval," it says. "Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved... All packages originating outside Washington, LA (Los Angeles) or NY (New York), including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW in Atlanta for approval."
And, finally, we get to the awful truth: the ROW. Let's let Bob tell it:
The date of this extraordinary message is 27 January. The "ROW" is the row of script editors in Atlanta who can insist on changes or "balances" in the reporter's dispatch. Yes, they're editors. CNN has editors. Alert the media. "A script is not approved for air unless it is properly marked approved by an authorised manager and duped (duplicated) to burcopy (bureau copy)... When a script is updated it must be re-approved, preferably by the originating approving authority."
Note the key words here: "approved" and "authorised". CNN's man or woman in Kuwait or Baghdad – or Jerusalem or Ramallah Err, Bob? Operation Sans Weasels won't take place in Jerusalem, or Ramallah, and probably not much from Kuwait. The idea of attacking Iraq, see, is to attack Iraq. – may know the background to his or her story; indeed, they will know far more about it than the "authorities" in Atlanta. But CNN's chiefs will decide the spin of the story.
CNN, of course, is not alone in this paranoid form of reporting. Other US networks operate equally anti-journalistic systems. Yup. These "editors" must be some secret Jewish plot. As we all know, Bob, the word "editor" comes from a Hebrew phrase that means "somebody who messes with words in air of the Zionist conspiracy." Well, actually, it doesn't. But don't let that stop you.And it's not the fault of the reporters. CNN's teams may use clichés and don military costumes – you will see them do this in the next war – but they try to get something of the truth out. Next time, though, they're going to have even less chance.
Just where this awful system leads is evident from an intriguing exchange last year between CNN's reporter in the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah, and Eason Jordan, one of CNN's top honchos in Atlanta.
The journalist's first complaint was about a story by the reporter Michael Holmes on the Red Crescent ambulance drivers who are repeatedly shot at by Israeli troops. "We risked our lives and went out with ambulance drivers... for a whole day. We have also witnessed ambulances from our window being shot at by Israeli soldiers... The story received approval from Mike Shoulder. The story ran twice and then Rick Davis (a CNN executive) killed it. The reason was we did not have an Israeli army response, even though we stated in our story that Israel believes that Palestinians are smuggling weapons and wanted people in the ambulances."
Heavens! You mean that the CNN executive insisted on some real balance, and an honest attempt to let the the accused party speak in their own words?
What is the world coming to?
The Israelis refused to give CNN an interview, only a written statement. This statement was then written into the CNN script. But again it was rejected by Davis in Atlanta. Only when, after three days, the Israeli army gave CNN an interview did Holmes's story run – but then with the dishonest inclusion of a line that said the ambulances were shot in "crossfire" (ie that Palestinians also shot at their own ambulances).
"Dishonest" = "facts that embarrass Fisk."
The reporter's complaint was all too obvious. "Since when do we hold a story hostage to the whims of governments and armies?We were told by Rick that if we do not get an Israeli on-camera we would not air the package. This means that governments and armies are indirectly censoring us and we are playing directly into their own hands."
The relevance of this is all too obvious in the next Gulf War. We are going to have to see a US army officer denying everything the Iraqis say if any report from Iraq is to get on air. Oh, say it isn't so!Take another of the Ramallah correspondent's complaints last year. In a package on the damage to Ramallah after Israel's massive incursion last April, "we had already mentioned right at the top of our piece that Israel says it is doing all these incursions because it wants to crack down on the infrastructure of terror. However, obviously that was not enough. We were made by the ROW (in Atlanta) to repeat this same idea three times in one piece, just to make sure that we keep justifying the Israeli actions..."
But the system of "script approval" that has so marred CNN's coverage has got worse. In a further and even more sinister message dated 31 January this year, CNN staff are told that a new computerised system of script approval will allow "authorised script approvers to mark scripts (ie reports) in a clear and standard manner. Script EPs (executive producers) will click on the coloured APPROVED button to turn it from red (unapproved) to green (approved). When someone makes a change in the script after approval, the button will turn yellow." Someone? Who is this someone? CNN's reporters aren't told.
I take it you're still not clear on this whole "editor" thing, Bob.
But when we recall that CNN revealed after the 1991 Gulf War that it had allowed Pentagon "trainees" into the CNN newsroom in Atlanta, I have my suspicions.
Me, I suspect that your brain has been eaten by chipmunks. You're not the only one with suspicions, Bob.
posted by Joel Thursday, February 27, 2003
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Ike was outraged and did to the Europeans what they are trying to do to us now: He forced the invaders to retreat and solve the crisis peacefully. "The United States is committed to a peaceful solution," he declared. Yup. And just as the Axis of Weasels is promising that inspections -- by, theoretically, as many as three hundred compromised UN inspectors, to cover a country the size of California -- will do the trick, Eisenhower promised that the Suez Canal would remain open.
And both, of course, completely missed the core of the problem: the tyrant in charge.
posted by Joel Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Saturday, February 22, 2003
Rare French Battle Flag for sale on ebay
Up for bid is something unique. A very very rare French Battle Flag. My grandmother was a nurse with the Red Cross during WWII. Helping our brave American soldiers after they stormed the beaches of Normandy under heavy German fire. She was then ordered to go inland to see if she could help there.
While driving alone across France she became lost and drove into a large French village to get directions. Once there she discovered three battalions of Elite French Commandos who had been hiding in the village since 1939 practicing their very special kind of battle tactics. "Evasion'on" I think they called it.
She was surprised to see that as soon as she step out of the jeep, the commandos quickly retreated and hid. They were very good at hiding it seemed. She started searching for someone to give directions when the French commander sent a twelve-year-old girl out into the street waving this very French Battle Flag to seek "Terms of Surrender".
Confused, my poor grandmother said she only wanted directions so she could help some real soldiers. These terms were accepted and the commander immediately surrendered. The French immediately began to complain that under "Rules of Engagement" they were now her prisoners and she would have to defend them.
Too her surprise 3 German soldiers also surrender. Well they weren't really soldiers but 3 German Boy Scouts out hiking before the war but they had uniforms and one had a pen knife. Seems they had captured the village 5 years earlier and were now glad to rid themselves of the whining French peasants. The Germans were shock to learn the French Commandos lived in the same village. Never once had the Germans seen a French soldier, but each now notice all the ugly French women were missing. Seems they were really good at hiding.
On a side note, pure white French Battle Flags like this are hard to come by, seems that the bed linden used to make these flags usually had a yellow tint to them for some reason. Grab this item while can.
Thanks to Ian for sending along the URL.
posted by Joel Saturday, February 22, 2003
Monday, February 17, 2003
The Analogy is Suez, I Think
There's been a lot of facile comparisons between Iraq II and either WWII and Vietnam -- and on both sides.
I think the better historical warning comes from the Suez Crisis of 1956.
Short history: in response to what was accurately perceived as a threat by the Nasser government in Egypt against, among other things, free passage through the Suez Canal, a coalition of Israel, the UK, and France decided to handle the problem militarily, without asking for a by-your-leave from the UN.
The coalition, needless to say, won -- the large-but-incompetent Egyptian military wasn't a match for modern Western military forces, and Operation Musketeer was a dramatic military success.
(One historical side-note: Musketeer was spearheaded by the Israeli 202nd Parachute Brigade, under the command of a young IDF Colonel named Ariel Sharon. Make a note of that; you'll see that name again. When you look at the Yom Kippur War, you'll note that it was won by General Ariel Sharon crossing the Suez against orders, and preparing to to do a Sherman on Cairo; when you look at Operation Peace for Galilee, you'll see that the dramatic IDF victory over the PLO -- not merely chasing them away, but ending the "Fatahland" of south Lebanon permanently -- was accomplished by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon sending his forces further and faster than anybody had thought he could, and that the major political reversal came when he permitted the international community to rescue Arafat. If you want to understand Arik Sharon, you should understand that all of his major victories came as a result of ignoring cautions -- or orders -- from putatively reasonable authority.)
It was also a political failure. Contrary to the allies' expectations, the Eisenhower Administration threw a hissy fit, and President Eisenhower insisted that the allied forces be withdrawn, throwing in a fig leaf of a US guarantee that the US would protect international passage through the Suez Canal. (Those of us who have noted the Arabist dominance of State wouldn't have been surprised at the bad advice that Eisenhower got, and I think it's fair to say that anybody who had followed his career wouldn't have been surprised that he would take it.)
Fast forward to the present, with the US/UK/European/other alliance substituting for the French/UK/Israeli one, Saddam taking the place of Nasser, and the UN and particularly the Axis of Weasels taking the place of the Eisenhower Administration.
It's by no means certain that it'll play out in parallel -- although, certainly, that's what Saddam's counting on, perhaps taking too seriously the many and varied protests and polls that show that support for Iraq II is, at best, limited in allied countries themselves, as well as largely being denounced by countries outside the alliance.
The analogy, otherwise, seems to largely work. Part of Eisenhower demanding that the French/British/Israeli alliance give back the Suez to Egypt was the US would guarantee that the Canal would remain open to all.
That, of course, didn't happen.
Part of what the Axis of Weasels is doing in demanding that Iraq II be put off indefinitely is their implicit and often explicit guarantee that the inspections will work.
That's not going to happen, either.
Let's see what happened after Suez.
The big winners out of the Suez crisis were the Nasser government and the Soviets. Nasser got a US guarantee that he would be allowed to stay in power; Soviet warships got passage through to the Suez for the first time since WWI, and increasing influence in the Arab world, having been seen as supportive and effective in facing down the West.
Israel made modest gains -- access to the Red Sea at Eilat, and the beginning of the increasing respect/fear of the IDF. France's go-it-alone tendencies were exacerbated, and this was probably the first big push toward their demolition of NATO, as it brought them a better sense of how it was in their vital national interest to be both politically and militarily independent.
The obvious immediate loser was the UK, and at least arguably the US, which became ever more tightly involved as the only even vaguely credible guarantor in the region, credibility that seems to be waning as every year goes by, despite the "hyperpower" status.
It could have been worse, I suppose, if Eisenhower hadn't put the US's
credibility on the line to force the alliance to back off from the Musketeer victory, and doing so did enhance US importance in the region -- although moreso for the Soviets, who pretty deftly moved into the vacuum.
But, make no mistake: the absence of a credible threat of outside intervention left a power vacuum. France and the UK had been blunted; the US, while giving lip service, was clearly not interested in actually enforcing the Eisenhower promises, and nobody really thought otherwise.
There are some who will argue that it would be best if the British and French had been left not only responsible but able to act to handle the mess that they'd made of the Levant. (Me, I'm of two minds about that.)
Historical parallels are, of course, tricky things, but if things play out in
2003 in parallel with how they did in 1956, the UN will guarantee Saddam will remain in power, with various UN resolutions/inspections/threats ongoing, in a sort of neverending approach to war that never gets there, and with an enhancement of Saddam's status in the Arab world, a la Nasser; with increased
influence and political power by the meliorating parties -- the Axis of
Weasels, in this case, who move into the power vacuum that US hesitancy creates -- and they already are with their ongoing ties to Saddam; and decreasing influence of the allies.
It's fairly easy to predict that that's how a backing off from Iraq II would work out, although it will certainly be much, much worse. One problem, both then and now, was the importance of the oil fields in the Arabian Gulf to the West, and Nasser's Egypt was only peripheral to that; Iraq and its neighbors are central, and Western dependence on Gulf oil has grown.
But, it'll be worse now, for other reasons. In 1956, the recrudescence of militant Islam was only a distant, theoretical problem. That's not true any more. Authority in and around the Arab Muslim world isn't attained by elections and consensus; it's attained, and established, by both the use and the credible threat of force, a la Hama, where Assad crushed a rebellion by turning a city into a parking lot.
Yes, that's obvious: even Thomas Friedman of the NYTimes has noticed that.
Will the US back off? Possibly. Certainly, if the Bush Administration listens to the counsels of the Axis of Weasels, of UN bureacrats, to polls, and to the small numbers of hundreds of thousands of marchers, who may as well be carrying signs that say, "Support Saddam" -- although, obviously, they don't. (Should Iraq II happen, they'll get to explain that to the liberated Iraqis. I strongly suggest that they don't do so in person.)
Does Saddam think that'll happen? Quite possibly.
The Axis of Weasels? I dunno. They've bet a lot of their credibility on being able to stop Iraq II, but they've coppered their bets very effectively, so that they can take credit for anything that goes wrong during Iraq II, and enhance their own power and influence that way, even as they lose out by having been proven so easily gulled when the reams of paper and tons of WMD stuff starts being hauled away. (Even then, they can claim that the American cowboys could have had all that if they'd just given the inspections more time.)
And if it doesn't go off, they've won -- at least in terms of being able to face down the US the way Eisenhower faced down the UK/French/Israeli coalition in 1956.
Me? Well, no. I think it could happen, but I think it's unlikely.
I think that the key to this all is George W. Bush.
I think that he really means it, and that he has sufficient support in the US to make it happen.
And soon. The sooner, the better.
posted by Joel Monday, February 17, 2003
Saturday, February 08, 2003
It all started with Adnan Abdul Karim Enad. On January 25th, the Iraqi leaped into the jeep of a UN inspector in Iraq, shouting, "Save me!" Iraqi guards moved into take the 29-year-old man in custody, but the UN inspectors stood firm, and explained in fluent Arabic that this man was under their protection, and would be returned to the Iraqis only after a full debriefing -- and only then if they were certain of his personal safety. While they objected strongly, the Iraqis backed off.
The story that Adnan Abdul Karim Enad had to tell was fascinating. It seemed that he knew --
-- well, that's alternate history.
In our timeline, yes, on January 25th, the Iraqi leaped into the jeep of a UN inspector in Iraq, shouting, "Save me!" Iraqi guards moved into take the 29-year-old man in custody, and the UN inspectors just sat there as the Iraqis hauled him away, kicking and screaming.
He has not been seen since.
The Times has been covering it.
Aziz Al-Taee, chairman of the Iraqi-American Council, said that the incident would discourage other dissidents from trying to seek sanctuary with UN inspectors. "They did not even listen to him. They just pushed him to the security forces. The security forces took him away and he has disappeared," he said.
posted by Joel Saturday, February 08, 2003
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
More on the C.E.S.M
France is no longer an ally of the United States, and NATO "must develop a strategy to contain our erstwhile ally or we will not be talking about a NATO alliance," the head of the Pentagon's top advisory board said today.
I think Les French are likely to be more than a little frommaged off. Good.
posted by Joel Tuesday, February 04, 2003
No Frogs for Oil
... which should really be "No Oil for Frogs." Unsurprisingly, the French will go along with Iraq II, as long as they get paid off sufficiently. The French, along with Russia and China, also permanent members of the UN but not expected to vote, have extensive oil rights in Iraq and want those guaranteed before agreeing to any UN resolution.
posted by Joel Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Daniel J. Pipes explains why peace plans are bad ideas At the heart of the problem, in other words, stands Arab rejection. However cunningly conceived, plans that attempt to outflank, leap over, or otherwise finesse this stubborn fact are doomed to failure....
If moreover, we have learned anything over the past decade, it is that interim Israeli concessions are counterproductive and must be discouraged. I think Martin Sherman -- see below -- put it better, but the principle is still the same. What will change things isn't clever packaging, but the contents. The contents of any workable peace plan must be an unambiguous acceptance by, at the very least, the Palestinians of Israel's right to exist -- not resolutions adopted half-heartedly by the Arafatopians while saying other things out of the other side of their mouths, but a widespread consensus that any hope of things turning out otherwise are as forlorn as German aspirations for the Sudetenland.
What's been driving Arab terrorism isn't loss of hope, but hope -- the hope that if the "armed struggle" continues, it will continue to be met with not only demands for Israeli concessions, but with concessions on the ground. That's where, as Pipes points out, all of the various accomodationist plans fail.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Joel Sunday, February 02, 2003
"We pray for one last landing,
"On the globe that gave us birth
"Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies,
"And the cool green hills of Earth."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
It almost certainly wasn't terrorism. Maybe it was the wing damage on takeoff; perhaps too many tiles broke loose this time. But it wasn't terrorism, almost certainly.
Still, I'm confident that an old warrior sitting behind his desk in Jerusalem has looked his staff in the eye and said, very quietly, "Make sure that it wasn't the terrorists."
"And if it was?"
"Kill them."
posted by Joel Sunday, February 02, 2003
Thursday, January 30, 2003
Jerry on Empire
I read Jerry Pournelle not because he's a friend -- although he is -- but mainly because we often disagree on conclusions, and sometimes (more rarely) on facts.
One of the places we disagree is how little the US can involve itself with the rest of the world; another is how much it should. It seems to me that the Monroe Doctrine made a lot of sense in the time of Monroe, when the Atlantic (and, for that matter, the Pacific) militated against the necessity of involvement with the rest of the world. I think that time is long gone, and the only question is how deeply involved we have to be.
Which brings to mind Netanyahu's Peace of Democracies riff. While democracies don't quite never go to war with each other, if you use fairly loose values for "democracy", generally speaking, they find other ways to work out problems with each other, just as -- generally speaking -- they find other ways than rebellion and suppression of rebellion to work out problems internally. I'm no fan of the French -- obviously -- but it seems to me to be vanishingly unlikely that the US and France, despite their serious rivalry (which, from this side of the pond, mainly comes across as the cheese-eating surrender monkeys being uppity), will go to war over it, although lesser political conflict is ongoing.
The spreading of democracy, it seems to me, is a long-term investment in US security. Former Soviet bloc countries -- including Russia -- are now, by and large, weak or strong democratic allies. India and Japan are the two rocks of stability in Asia, and so forth. There are even signs that democracy is -- slowly, gradually, and with fits and starts and more setbacks than I like to think about -- taking hold in Africa.
The one place where democracy -- either present or rising in potential -- is utterly lacking is the Arab Muslim world. There's never been an Arab democracy in any real sense, although at times Jordan and pre-Syrian Lebanon have done something of a simulation.
Iraq provides a real threat right now, but the possibility of an Iraqi democratic republic provides a real opportunity. I don't think it can be done in a month or a year, but it seems to me that a sufficiently powerful occupation administration could start to turn into an authentic democracy in a decade or so.
Part of what makes democracy work are the expecations that it will. A loser of a political fight or an election has to have the sense that he can lose, and live to fight or run again. Creating that expectation doesn't require getting rid of all tribal or regional loyalties -- see Mississippi -- but it is a very different thing than has been seen in the Arab world, since before Mohammed. The tradition is that the losers die, and that their wealth is distributed among the winners. In practice, that's wasteful -- it makes much more sense, all in all, to simply create more wealth than fight about redistributing it, but a whole bunch of societal expectations simply have to be created for that to become part of the social understanding.
The Iraqis can't do it alone, not now. Iraq is, at best, a loose confederation of battling tribal cultures, from the obvious ones -- the Kurds in the North, the Shiites majority in the South, the Sunni minority -- but of very small-scale ones. It's not accidental that Saddam's tiny number of Tikritis dominate Iraq's government. Changing that set of expectations will require supervision, for some time to come. How close it needs to be, and for how long, isn't clear yet.
But there is one huge advantage: there's wealth to spend on it. Unlike, say, post-WWII Japan and Germany, Iraq has something to sell to finance its reconstruction -- and reconstruction needs to include secular schools every bit as much as it will electric power plants.
"No blood for oil" can become "oil for democracy."
posted by Joel Thursday, January 30, 2003
Know Your Enemy - On Point Commentary by Austin Bay StrategyPage.com But the big blow to Al Qaeda will be the loss of Baghdad. Baghdad is a counter-terror intelligence trove. Saddam's fall will loosen knowledgeable tongues. Al Qaeda will have fewer alleys to inhabit.
But the big loss will be access to Saddam's WMD. A WMD spectacular is the kind of operation that can reverse Al Qaeda's international propaganda decline
Yup. Iraq is a trap for Al Qaeda, and they've fallen into it. What's left of them in Afghanistan are either running or dying, and the Taliban regime that gave them such aid and comfort is now fly food. Cells are being rolled up all around the world, and many of their mid-level leaders are now in Rumsfeld's Kennel Club, humiliatingly being guarded by female Marines. At least some of the payments from the Saudis have been stopped -- more on that another time -- and Binny himself is reduced to sending written messages rather than making pompous films. (This may have something to do with him being dead -- I don't think that they'll be able to get Industrial Light and Magic to make any tapes.)
What they desperately need is a major terrorist attack in the US to rally the Islamists. Every day that goes by without that is a defeat for them, and a victory for civilization.
posted by Joel Thursday, January 30, 2003
No, it's not unilateral.
DEALING WITH IRAQ
United We Stand
Eight European leaders are as one with President Bush.
Thursday, January 30, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
(Editor's note: This article is written by Jose María Aznar, Jose-Manuel Durão Barroso, Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair, Vaclav Havel, Peter Medgyessy, Leszek Miller and Anders Fogh Rasmussen.)
The real bond between the U.S. and Europe is the values we share: democracy, individual freedom, human rights and the rule of law. These values crossed the Atlantic with those who sailed from Europe to help create the United States of America. Today they are under greater threat than ever.
The attacks of Sept. 11 showed just how far terrorists -- the enemies of our common values -- are prepared to go to destroy them. Those outrages were an attack on all of us. In standing firm in defense of these principles, the governments and people of the U.S. and Europe have amply demonstrated the strength of their convictions. Today more than ever, the trans-Atlantic bond is a guarantee of our freedom.
We in Europe have a relationship with the U.S. which has stood the test of time. Thanks in large part to American bravery, generosity and farsightedness, Europe was set free from the two forms of tyranny that devastated our continent in the 20th century: Nazism and communism. Thanks, too, to the continued cooperation between Europe and the U.S. we have managed to guarantee peace and freedom on our continent. The trans-Atlantic relationship must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's persistent attempts to threaten world security.
In today's world, more than ever before, it is vital that we preserve that unity and cohesion. We know that success in the day-to-day battle against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction demands unwavering determination and firm international cohesion on the part of all countries for whom freedom is precious.
The Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security. This danger has been explicitly recognized by the U.N. All of us are bound by Security Council Resolution 1441, which was adopted unanimously. We Europeans have since reiterated our backing for Resolution 1441, our wish to pursue the U.N. route, and our support for the Security Council at the Prague NATO Summit and the Copenhagen European Council.
In doing so, we sent a clear, firm and unequivocal message that we would rid the world of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. We must remain united in insisting that his regime be disarmed. The solidarity, cohesion and determination of the international community are our best hope of achieving this peacefully. Our strength lies in unity.
The combination of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism is a threat of incalculable consequences. It is one at which all of us should feel concerned. Resolution 1441 is Saddam Hussein's last chance to disarm using peaceful means. The opportunity to avoid greater confrontation rests with him. Sadly this week the U.N. weapons inspectors have confirmed that his long-established pattern of deception, denial and noncompliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions is continuing.
Europe has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. Indeed, they are the first victims of Iraq's current brutal regime. Our goal is to safeguard world peace and security by ensuring that this regime gives up its weapons of mass destruction. Our governments have a common responsibility to face this threat. Failure to do so would be nothing less than negligent to our own citizens and to the wider world.
The U.N. Charter charges the Security Council with the task of preserving international peace and security. To do so, the Security Council must maintain its credibility by ensuring full compliance with its resolutions. We cannot allow a dictator to systematically violate those resolutions. If they are not complied with, the Security Council will lose its credibility and world peace will suffer as a result. We are confident that the Security Council will face up to its responsibilities.
Messrs. Aznar, Durão Barroso, Berlusconi, Blair, Medgyessy, Miller and Fogh Rasmussen are, respectively, the prime ministers of Spain, Portugal, Italy, the U.K., Hungary, Poland and Denmark. Mr. Havel is the Czech president.
posted by Joel Thursday, January 30, 2003
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
The following was forwarded to me from the Women in Green mailing list. It's not on their website at http://www.womeningreen.org, or I'd link to it.
But I do think that it's important; comments after.
Unleashing the Dogs of War
by Martin Sherman
With each passing day, the macabre reality of death and destruction wrought upon the nation by the Palestinians is making one thing increasingly clear: something is dreadfully amiss with the way Israel is handling its affairs.
Afflicted by an inexplicable impotence, the country is sliding inexorably
into an abyss of self-annihilation. Israel's continued restraint in dealing
with the onslaught upon its citizens is rapidly becoming morally untenable.
It is sending a clear message to both its Arab adversaries and the world at large: "Judacide" is tolerable - and hence morally acceptable - for if it
were not, a far more assertive response would be forthcoming.
No people can adhere to such a policy of self-disparagement without
forfeiting its claim to sovereignty as an independent nation. No country can command the respect of others if it consistently fails - or worse, refuses - to employ all means at its disposal to protect the lives and property of its citizens against concerted attack from foreign entities.
In such circumstances, restraint will not be construed as strength, but as
weakness, inviting more aggression from foes and growing alienation from friends.
Only a dramatic change of policy can turn back the inevitable tide of events relentlessly washing away the awe-inspiring achievements of the Zionist revolution and eroding the very foundations upon which the nation-state of the Jews was founded.
The Arab attack must now be met with a response of ferocity and force that will leave a traumatic scar on the collective national consciousness of the Arabs.
Israel must now unleash upon its assailants a fury akin to that which the
democratic powers unleashed in World War II on those who dared threaten their survival.
Nothing less will quell the violence. Only when a terrible, disproportionate price is inflicted for attacks on Jews will such attacks cease.
However, for such a martial initiative to succeed, it must be combined with an equally resolute assault on public opinion, both at home and abroad.
This is, in many ways, a far more challenging task than the military one,
for Israel will have to contend with years of neglect in this field.
It will have to roll back perceptions that have been inculcated in the
public consciousness over the last three decades. This requires a totally
different approach to Israel's public relations efforts ("hasbara") from
that which has been adopted up to now.
Instead of the self-effacing apologetic endeavor of trying to explain away current events, what is required is a new assertive attitude aimed at
changing the public perception of the overall context in which these events take place.
Instead of allowing Israel to be portrayed as a cruel plunderer and a
callous oppressor, motivated only by territorial avarice and religious
egotism, it must be depicted for what it really is: a valiant and
beleaguered democracy, locked in a deadly struggle for its very survival,
and assailed from all quarters by vicious aggressors who subscribe to
values that are not only divergent from, but diametrically opposed to, those of the pluralistic, libertarian nations of the world.
This is an undertaking of daunting proportions, which should not be
underestimated. But neither should the difficulty be overestimated. In fact, the very erosion of Israel's image in world media is proof that
international perceptions of the protagonists in the Arab-Israeli conflict
are not immutable. Moreover, those who claim that it is an insurmountable task are, in fact, saying that the truth cannot be disseminated and that falsehood must inevitably triumph over veracity.
For Israel is still both a bastion and a beacon of immeasurable importance to the West - even after the fall of the Soviet empire.
Indeed, in the brewing clash between radical Islam and the democratic
nations, Israel's geo-strategic significance for the West is likely to be
even greater than it was in the days of the Cold War.
Thus, it is demonstrably counter-productive and self-defeating folly for the democratic world to side with those likely to identify themselves with its potential foes and against those who are likely to be among its strongest allies.
The Jewish people have taken their peace-making efforts to irrational
extremes to prove to the world that they yearn for peace, they have meekly offered the other cheek, abjectly bent over backward in an attempt to accommodate Arab demands, and demeaningly beseeched their adversaries to accept, as a craven peace offering, large tracts of their ancient homeland in which the history, tradition and heritage of the nation were forged.
All to no avail. This policy of excessive appeasement has done nothing to placate the animosity of foes, nor to rally the support of friends. Indeed, it seems that quite the reverse is true.
The time has come for Israel to assert its fundamental right to self-defense and for the Jews to remind the world that they can be fearsome warriors when pushed to the wall.
It is time to convey to the public at home and abroad that Jewish patience is at an end, that Jewish lives are not cheap and the letting of Jewish blood will no longer be acceptable. It is time for this embattled nation to arise, to cry "FOUL!" and let slip the dogs of war. Only then will it be clear that the present policy of restraint was indeed a noble gesture of benign strength and not of ignoble faintheartedness.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Sherman is a senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, and served for seven years in Israel's defense establishment
Bingo.
posted by Joel Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Operation El Dorado Canyon
In mid-April 1986, in response to Libyan terrorist operations including the bombing of a Berlin discotheque, Ronald Reagan ordered Operation El Dorado Canyon. A task force in the Med headed by the aircraft carriers America and Coral Sea provided both A-6 bombers and more than 100 supporting aircraft; twenty-four FB-111 took off from bases in the UK.
The attack started at 0200 Libyan time, and lasted less than twelve minutes. In that time, the attack aircrafts dropped sixty tons of munitions.
But let's back up for a moment, before we skip forward. France had refused permission for the FB111s to fly over French territory, adding thousands of miles and hours of flight time. France didn't want to get involved, even to the minimal extent of permitting the US to use its airspace.
Now, let's skip forward. Before El Dorado Canyon, Libya, under the dictatorship of the charismatic and insane Muammar Qaddaffi, Libya was one of the prime purveyors of state terrorism. Since then, he's still in power, but his support for terrorism has been muted. Not reduced to zero, alas -- the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Scotland was a Libyan operation -- but definitely reduced.
I think there are some general principles that can be derived from all of this.
1. Doing something, even unilaterally, is more effective than talking about considering the possibility of discussing negotiating doing something. What has taken Libya largely out of the terrorism game hasn't been UN demands, or stiff diplomatic notes, but the sense by The Leader (as Qaddaffi is known there) that he's in the crosshairs, personally.
2. That said, there is no such thing as "unilateral." El Dorado Canyon was done with the active cooperation of the UK, and likely with all sort of help from friendly intelligence services.
3. Sufficient evidence to persuade "the world" and "the Arab street" is a luxury, not a necessity.
4. There are no perfect victories. One of the unintended casualties in El Dorado Canyon was, apparently, Qaddaffi's adopted daughter. Nor was Libya perfectly deterred -- there was still Pan Am 103 to come.
5. Victory requires treating the French as an obstacle to go around.
posted by Joel Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Sunday, January 26, 2003
It's the Sex, Stupid In my drinking circles when the question of Scott Ritter came up it was never in the context of "Why did he change his mind?" but always, "What do the Iraqis have on him?"
I think we've got a good clue, now.
posted by Joel Sunday, January 26, 2003
ArabNews: STC is probing legality of many SAWA connections
Has the Saudi entity finally gotten serious about terrorism? Nope -- they're searching for unregistered cell phones.
Saudi Telecom Company has started investigating the legality of many SAWA mobile connections. It has discovered that many connections, though sold by authorized agents, were irregular and did not match the iqama details of the subscribers. Hundreds of subscribers are still not aware of this.
posted by Joel Sunday, January 26, 2003
Thursday, January 23, 2003
Czech it out
Looks like the Czechs are in, too, and seriously so.
The Czech parliament last week agreed to let the unit stay in Kuwait during any hostilities with Iraq, and Defense Minister Jaroslav Tvrdik said it could accompany invading U.S. troops if needed.
Unilateral, apparently, does mean "without the cheese-eating surrender monkeys and their Hun friends."
posted by Joel Thursday, January 23, 2003
Putin Joins the Axis of Weasels
By Steve Holland and Hassan Hafidh
Reuters
Thursday, January 23, 2003; 3:41 PM
WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD - Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Bush in a telephone call Thursday that the key to future action on Iraq would be found in next Monday's report by U.N. arms inspectors, joining leaders of China, Canada, France and Germany in opposing any rush to war.
On the other hand:
Fleischer said other countries that might support a U.S.-led strike on Iraq included Britain, Italy, Spain, eastern European nations and Australia, which dispatched a troop ship toward the Gulf Thursday in case they are needed.
Maybe it's time to suggest to Putin that he should be handling Chechnia with diplomacy? Anything for a laugh, eh?
posted by Joel Thursday, January 23, 2003
A Keen Eye for the Obvious, Part II
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, declaring Iraq's failure to disarm is "a challenge that must be met,'' said Thursday many nations would fight alongside American forces if the United States went to war without U.N. Security Council approval.
Remember "unilateral"? That was the, err, war cry of the antiwar movement not too long ago: the US must not engage in "unilateral" action against Iraq. Never mind whether or not it's in the US interest; never mind that the cease-fire -- not a truce, not a peace treaty -- that ended Desert Storm has been violated by Iraq on a daily basis. Every time they fire up their antiaircraft radars, much less shoot at US planes, that's another, new violation.
But action must not be "unilateral."
Well, okay. Right now, there's something like forty-five nations represented at CentCom. The British are apparently getting ready to commit the First Armoured Division, their main land fighting force -- they're committing just about thirty thousand soldiers and marines and sailors, all in all. The gallant Australians are sending their SF people, a troop ship, and F18s. There are apparently going to be bases and logistical support available in Turkey, Qatar, and probably the Saudi entity, although only reluctantly, and at the last moment. And there's the rhinocerous in the corner: while the IDF is staying out of it -- very embarrassing to Arabs to be defeated by the evil Joos yet again -- it would be silly to think that the Israeli intelligence services aren't providing every bit of targetting data and other useful intelligence that they've got.
Unilateral? I think there's a compound etymological fallacy. It's as though the antis think that the word comes from that latin "uni", meaning "without", and "lateral", meaning "the French."
We don't hear much about "unilateral" from the antiwar folks these days, eh?
Speaking of a keen eye for the obvious, this from the New York Times
On Wednesday, the president warned of ``serious consequences'' for Saddam and his generals should the United States attack.
Yeah, I guess being blasted into fly food is a serious consequence, at that.
posted by Joel Thursday, January 23, 2003
A Keen Eye for the ObviousMOSCOW - Russia's Interfax news agency says the U.S. has decided to proceed with a military campaign in Iraq that would begin in mid-February.
Looks to me like the dark of the new moon at the beginning of February isn't a key factor in US plans. I guess that Valentine's Day isn't going to be national holiday in Iraq this year.
Theoretical question: what is the mininum that would it take to call things off? The Iraqi and French and German maneuvering isn't going to do it; when the President said that last year's UN resolution was Iraq's last chance, he meant it.
Inspections fandom has proposed an interesting Catch-22: where the inspectors don't find anything, they offer that as proof that there's no need for an attack; where the inspectors do find stuff -- and they've found, to date, both prohibited weapons and at least some of the plans for Saddam's Abomb project -- they cite that as proof that the inspections are working.
Well, no. It's sort of like combing a kid's hair for lice. If you only look at part of the head, and don't find any, that doesn't mean much; if you do find some, that means that there's a lot that you haven't found.
The only way inspections would have had a serious chance to work would have been if there had been enough inspectors to look everywhere, and they had found nothing beyond what the Iraqis declared. Obviously, neither hasn't happened -- the inspectors have fewer than ten helicopters to cover a mass of land the size of California, and the Iraqis have been threatening to shoot down U2 overflights. But still, with the aid of Western intelligence (and if you see the hand of the Mossad here as well as the CIA, you're probably right), they've found what can only be termed "material breaches."
So let's forget the inspections scheme; that won't work.
The Saudis have -- deniably, of course -- floated a Saddam-exile trial balloon. DEBKA argues that that's just a part of Saddam's confuse-and-delay campaign, and whether or not that's the intent, that is the effect that both the Saudis and the Iraqis would like.
Would that work? Possibly, in terms of making it politically expedient to call off the go order. But it's hard to think that a new strongman from Saddam's inner circle would want to actually cancel the WMD programs, and a Saddam-free Iraq with Abombs would be just North Korea with oil.
My take -- take it for what it's worth -- is that the only thing that can cause the President to call it off is a preemptive surrender, following a coup.
And that is unlikely but doable -- assurances would have to be given to enough high-ranking subdictators that they'd avoid war crimes trials if they participate. They've got a lot to lose, after all. They've got good chances of surviving a US attack and invasion, but their chances of surviving Saddam's suspicions about them are nil, as long as he's alive. Even if they get killed in the US attack, it's liable to be quick and relatively painless, and not involve watching their families tortured in front of their eyes, before the eyes are pulled out.
It could be collaborative. The simplest way for, say, Tariq Aziz to manage it would be to arrange for contemporaneous intelligence about the location of Saddam and his two sons to be given to the US. Not an easy thing -- Saddam goes to some trouble to keep his moves secret -- but possible. More to the point, from Aziz's point of view, the successful effort would likely be enough to spare him from a war crimes trial.
A half dozen F117s take off from Qatar late at night, and hit the targets simultaneously. . . and a few hundred cruise missiles and some B52 flights make the rubble bounce, just in case. Aziz declares himself the interim President of Iraq, and invites the US in to supervise the disarming and rebuilding, and Iraq II turns into something resembling Haiti more than Desert Storm. No way to avoid the US occupation, but the preemptive surrender makes it all go much more lightly on the Iraqis.
Could it happen? Sure. Will it? I doubt it.
posted by Joel Thursday, January 23, 2003
Likud on a Roll
Despite an ongoing scandal involving Ariel Sharon and his sons, it looks like the Likud is going to have a strong win in the Israeli elections next week. People will, no doubt, have a whole bunch of explanations as to why, but perhaps the simplest explanation is that that Labor and the left have been looking to find the right payoff for Arafat and his gang, while the Right has been working to disable their terrorist infrastructure -- and increasingly effectively.
With Iraq II about to kick off, it looks like the Israeli public, understandably, wants "the Bulldozer" in charge.
There's been some preemptive panic in the usual quarters, about how Sharon will use the opportunity for "ethnic cleansing". While I'm a proponent of transfer as a necessary -- although not sufficient -- thing to establish a viable relationship between Israel and a Jordanian/Palestinian entity, that's not on Arik Sharon's drawing board for the next month, or the next year.
But while US warplanes are dropping JDAMs on Iraqi military installations, I wouldn't be at all surprised if IDF artillery batteries are laying in fire on legitimate Palestinian military targets, of which there is no lack.
posted by Joel Thursday, January 23, 2003
Saddam’s Sacked Bodyguard: I know where the weapons are…
It's always risky to depend on DEBKA for information. They've pretty clearly got real sources that speak on deep background, but their sources aren't exactly always accurate.
Still, the interview with "Jassem Abdullah" is well worth reading.As a member of the elite trusted group of five to six men sworn to defend the Iraqi ruler with their lives, he claims to know where Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are hidden – and points to three sites. Note: nowhere in the interview is any suggestion that UNMOVIC has spoken to this guy. Seems they have to be led by the hand.
posted by Joel Thursday, January 23, 2003
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Palestine Chronicle - Disturbing Trends in IsraelMore Israelis than ever before are thinking the unthinkable. An April poll found that 44 percent of Israeli Jews support "transfer" of the Arab population. Posters throughout the country proclaim, "Transfer = peace and security." "Us here, them there" and "Jordan is Palestine" are popular slogans. An hour of school time was devoted to the teachings of Rehavam Ze’evi, chief exponent of the idea, who was assassinated last year. "Transfer" is discussed openly on talk shows.
Gee, I wonder why?
posted by Joel Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Blair: Attack on U.K. is ‘inevitable’
Yup. Whether or not one likes it, there is -- and has been -- a war going on between Islamofascism and the rest of the world. Accepting that reality shouldn't require a massive serin attack in London, anymore than it should have required fifteen Saudis and four others ramming hijacked planes into buildings in the US.
What's particularly disturbing about the raid on the notorious Finsbury Park mosque was that the police treated the rooms where the Korans were stored as a hands-off zone. Uh-uh. Encouraging Islamofascists to hide behind the Koran is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
posted by Joel Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Sunday, January 19, 2003
Just to be clear, Michael J. Totten got there first.
You'll have to scroll down most of the page to "Saddam's Bomb".
Onward . . . .
The importance of this is hard to overstate. People on the right and left have been saying that if the President has proof, he should take it to the UN. I think there's already been more than adquate proof of Saddam's dangerousness, and of his unwillingness to abide by the conditions of the cease-fire (and it was a cease-fire, not a truce, not a peace treaty that not-quite-ended the Gulf War), but in case anybody missed the intervening twelve years, what Blix's inspectors, aided by US intelligence sources, found was, apparently, more than adquate. They're from Iraq's Ministry of Military Industrialisation (MMI), run by run by Saddam's son Qusay.
If the President wants a UN resolution -- and my belief is that he will proceed with or without it -- he can now go there, sheaf of documents in hand. He might say something like this:
"The folks who work for me, and for the American people, in the CIA and the other intelligence services are awful smart folks. Part of their job is to find things out that other people don't want found out, and another part of that job is to keep those secrets as tight as they can. They don't much like it when what they've found out becomes public, as the enemies of freedom can use that to find out who has been talking to us.
"Usually -- and I take a lot of heat for this, but taking heat comes with my job; I'm not complaining -- I listen to them, and make the decision not to share most of the critical intelligence that comes across my desk.
"This time, we did things differently, though I'm not going to make a habit of it. This time, we told the UN inspectors what we knew about two of the scientists involved in Saddam's nuclear bomb program. We told them that they had, at Saddam Hussein's personal orders, hidden the plans for that campaign -- the plans that Iraq swore didn't exist for a program that they swear doesn't exist -- in their homes.
"And they went there, and they found them. There's no question that Iraq is developing nuclear weapons, and that their claims otherwise are simply a lie, a lie that stinks more every time they repeat it.
"This will not be allowed to stand. It's my hope that the UN will immediately undertake the necessary steps to remove from Saddam's Iraq all the capabilities necessary for making nuclear weapons.
"But, regardless, those capabilties will be removed. Saddam's brutal, lying, murderous regime will be removed, if not by the UN, then by a coaltion for survival, comprised of the US and like-minded nations. Right now, forty such nations are represented at Central Command headquarters -- nations that see the necessity of removing the Iraqi threat.
"Both to the United Nations, and to all the decent, freedom-loving nations represented here, I have only this to say: you've asked for the proof; we've provided it; join us."
posted by Joel Sunday, January 19, 2003
Bingo, Part II: UN inspectors uncover proof of Saddam's nuclear bomb plansUN inspectors uncover proof of Saddam's nuclear bomb plans
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 19/01/2003)
United Nations weapons inspectors have uncovered evidence that proves Saddam Hussein is trying to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons, The Telegraph can reveal. The discovery was made following spot checks last week on the homes of two Iraqi nuclear physicists in Baghdad.
Acting on information provided by Western intelligence, the UN inspection teams discovered a number of documents proving that Saddam is continuing with his attempts to develop nuclear weapons, contrary to his public declarations that Iraq is no longer interested in producing weapons of mass destruction.
The revelation follows last Thursday's discovery of a number of warheads at an ammunition storage facility south of Baghdad that had been designed for carrying chemical and biological weapons.
Although UN officials say that they have no comment to make at present on the documents found at the scientists' homes, a Western diplomat closely involved with the investigation into Saddam's nuclear capability yesterday confirmed that the documents showed that Iraq was still attempting to develop its own atomic weapons.
"These are not old documents. They are new and they relate to on-going work taking place in Iraq to develop nuclear weapons," the official told The Telegraph.
"They had been hidden at the scientists' homes on Saddam's personal orders. Furthermore, no mention of this work is made in the Iraqi dossier that was submitted to the UN last December."
UN nuclear experts are this weekend continuing to examine the seized documents. Officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have also been informed of the discovery.
The revelation that Saddam is working on nuclear weapons in defiance of the United Nations is further evidence that Iraq is failing to comply with the terms of UN Resolution 1441, which requires Baghdad to make a complete disclosure of its weapons of mass destruction programme.
A false or incomplete disclosure or a failure fully to co-operate with the inspectors would constitute a material breach of the resolution and result in military action against Baghdad.
Although Dr Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspections teams, was made aware of the discovery last week, he failed to mention it during talks with Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and Jacques Chirac the French president.
British officials are particularly concerned that Mr Blix appears to be playing down the significance of last week's breakthroughs.
He indicated that he did not feel the discovery of the chemical warheads was an issue that needed to be reported to the Security Council.
The inspectors' discoveries follow a radical improvement in relations between UN officials and Western intelligence which had been reluctant to hand over sensitive information for fear that it might fall into the hands of Iraqi officials, thereby risking the lives of agents working in Iraq.
In particular intelligence officials were keen that a team of UN inspectors visit the homes of two Iraqi nuclear scientists living in the outskirts of Baghdad.
This followed information from high ranking officials at Iraq's Ministry of Military Industrialisation (MIO) that suggested Saddam had ordered that top secret nuclear documents should be hidden at the homes of scientists working on the project.
As one inspection team discovered the empty chemical warheads, nuclear weapons experts were cordoning off the street where two scientists lived in Baghdad's al-Ghazalia neighbourhood.
They searched the homes of Faleh Hassan, a specialist in laser equipment, and Dr Shaker alJibouri, a nuclear scientist. Inspectors also accompanied the scientists to sites known to have been used for nuclear research. There are a few real surprises here, and a few non-surprises. Among the surprises is that the UN inspectors were allowed to actually listen to the Western intelligence folks in the first place; to live to get to the homes where the nuclear plans were stored; and to get out alive with them. My guess as to the latter two is that the secrets of what's being hidden where are tightly kept, and that word didn't get up the line to somebody who knew fast enough to arrange an "accident."
The nonsurprises, of course, are how Hans Blix is, so far, playing this down; how this smoking gun isn't the lead story on every newspaper and news broadcast in the world; and the coming nonsurprise as to how the Iraqis are going to try to talk their way out of this.
posted by Joel Sunday, January 19, 2003
The Smoking Gun
(courtesy of Michael J. Totten and lgf)
On the same morning that a team of inspectors had found the 12 artillery shells, another team of nuclear weapons experts had paid a surprise visit to the homes of two of Saddam's leading nuclear physicists .. they found what one Western official has described as a "highly significant" batch of documents which, on closer inspection, revealed that Saddam's scientists were continuing development work on producing an Iraqi nuclear weapon.
Bingo.
posted by Joel Sunday, January 19, 2003
Lacking a Keen Eye for the Obvious . . . While all the polls show Mr. Sharon's Likud Party gaining the most votes ... Thomas Friedman says, before getting back to trying to explain that away. I think that we can turn to William of Occam for better guidance on why that is. It's not terribly complicated: the Likud coaltion -- plus parties sympathetic to it, that can reliably be counted on to help the Likud form a government -- are going to make gains simply because, all in all, the Israeli polity thinks they've got the least-bad handle on how to proceed, concentrating on making things difficult for the terrorists, rather than trying to find the right payoff for them.And it's worth noting that neither major party is even considering the status quo ante Arafat's restarting of the intifadeh, with arabs from the territories able to come and work in Israel and bring home much-needed cash.
posted by Joel Sunday, January 19, 2003
Immature
Martin Peretz, writing on the Palestinian movement. I haven't noticed anybody writing in detail on the coming civil war -- but he's edging toward it.
The Palestinian civil war, by contrast, is yet to come, and it will be vindictive. Like Spain's. And the society it produces won't be kind, regardless of how it ends or who wins.
That said, I think he makes too much of a muchness of the immaturity of the Palestinian polity as opposed to the skill of the Israeli intelligence services with regard to the ability of Israel to get intelligence from informants. He's right, of course, in that the ongoing conflicts among the various factions leave plenty of opportunity for that -- but it also give plenty of opportunity for the sort of false, self-serving accusations. The US got badly burned by that sort of thing with Operation Pheonix in Vietnam, and similarly -- although less so -- in Afghanistan.
Remember the terrorist convoy that turned out to be a bunch of tribal elders on their way to pay homage to the Karzai regime? Local rivals took the opportunity to pay off some old scores, using the US forces as the triggerman. I'm not knocking US intelligence, or the military -- Afghanistan is not an easy place to operate, and the US doesn't have a wealth of intelligence agents who speak the local languages and have a lot of experience with the locals. Israel, on the other hand, manifestly does, and the number of reports of terrorists stopped speaks volumes to how many, and how smart, those folks are.
So, yeah, I think they are "that smart and that brave."
posted by Joel Sunday, January 19, 2003
Well, They Would Say That, Either Way, Wouldn't They? Intelligence chief denies Kingdom pushing for Iraq coup
RIYADH, 19 January 2003 — Director of Intelligence Prince Nawaf denied in remarks published yesterday reports that the Kingdom had proposed an amnesty for top Iraqi generals to encourage a coup against President Saddam Hussein. Which means, basically, nothing. The Saudis are doing their best to persuade State that the Saudi entity is on the US's side, while doing their best to persuade everybody else that they're not. A bit of behind-the-scenes pushing for a new dictator in Iraq -- without the danger to the Saudi entity of US forces stationed in a Democratic Iraqi Republic next door, much less the greater danger to the Saudi entity of a democratic Iraq -- is the sort thing that they can reliably be counted on to do, and even more reliably be counted on to deny in public.
posted by Joel Sunday, January 19, 2003
Saturday, January 18, 2003
Even the Arab News Actually Has a Real Story Every Now and Then
WASHINGTON, 18 January 2003 — Two Al-Qaeda suspects were arrested this week as they tried to enter the United States. Their fingerprints gave them away.
Looks like the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System is working. So far, it's only been applied to visitors from some Arab and Muslim countries, although it will eventually be applied to all visitors to the US. It's a matter of priorities; as culturally insensitive as it seems, somebody in the Administration noticed that the Islamofascist terrorists are rarely, say, Swiss.
posted by Joel Saturday, January 18, 2003
Friday, January 17, 2003
Let's Blame The Jews, Part 393823
Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi, a prominent figure of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, on Tuesday, January 14, appealed to Palestinian children to refrain from attacking Jewish settlement. Because, say, it's wrong to try to murder Jews? Nah. It's because it's all an evil Israeli plot. The Hamas official warned that Israeli agents are encouraging Palestinian children to infiltrate into Jewish settlements so that they will be an easy catch for the Israeli occupation troops. He makes a few obligatory Dr. Spock comments -- apparently he's worked out that it's not healthy for children to try to stab Jews with guns, who will shoot them -- and then tries to turn into Mr. Spock:"Palestinian children who attempted to attacked Jewish settlements were armed with nothing but knives. And it is not logical that Hamas wants to see those children slain for the fun of it."
Well, we knew that these people were crazy.
posted by Joel Friday, January 17, 2003
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