War, atrocities, training, boredom, and infantry tactics

Contrary to popular belief, soldiers don't simply obey their commanders. Officers and soldiers have a relationship of mutual dependence, though the officers sometimes don't want to admit it.

Atrocities are unfortunately committed during war. The worst atrocities are usually committed by poorly trained and incompetently led troops, often replacement troops of little combat experience. A defensive posture of digging into bunkers and hoping to be rotated out before a bad guy finds you is a short formula for creating the sort of unit which can easily commit atrocities.

Right now, roughly 130,000 American troops are in Iraq, most with orders to stay out of sight until the election on November 7, 2006. At that point, they will likely go through Baghdad on a well-publicized sweep. Of course, the bad guys can read The Washington Post too, so they will take their vacations beginning on November 7, 2006 and make trouble someplace else.

In the meanwhile, bored, lonely soldiers far from home are not playing to win, but rather, they are playing not to lose. In their frustration of not living in the discipline of real combat but being exposed to danger, when one of their number gets caught by an improvised explosive device, it is too easy to commit atrocities.

Unless the Bush administration gets out of the bunker mentality itself, this situation is going to get uglier before November. There will be a growing "credibility" gap; that's one aspect of the Vietnam War that can and will be repeated in Iraq if the civilian and military leadership does not learn to think outside the box of the Beltway. Napoleon was right: "Imagination rules the world."

Mary Ann Glendon speaks on immigration...

And she is right as usual:

'Opinion leaders in the aging societies of Europe and the United States have generally avoided mentioning the relation between the birth dearth and the need for immigration. Consequently, there has been little discussion of what should be obvious: An affluent society that, for whatever reason, does not welcome babies is going to have to learn to welcome immigrants if it hopes to maintain its economic vigor and its commitments to the health and welfare of its population. The issue is not who will do jobs that Americans don't want. The issue is who will fill the ranks of a labor force that the retiring generation failed to replenish.

'Meeting the challenge of the declining ratio between active workers and retirees will require many sorts of adaptations, but replacement migration will have to play a part in crafting effective responses. The good news is that America enjoys several advantages over Europe. To begin with, the United States has a fertility rate of 2.08 babies per woman, while in the European Union the estimated 2005 fertility rate was 1.47, well below the replacement figure of 2.1. More, the United States has a long history of successful experience in absorbing large numbers of new citizens from many parts of the world. (While the absolute number of new immigrants is currently the highest in United States history, it is proportionately less than in previous eras of large-scale immigration.)'

Read it all here.

Hurricane Katrina and human error

It appears from an independent report that Hurricane Katrina was not as bad as some of the civil engineering practices tolerated in the only major American city below sea level.

Where to go from here in Iraq?

Here is an interesting discussion by someone who is skeptical about the entire endeavor.

I must say what scares me is the fact that American troops are keeping low profiles in occupied Iraq in order to cut down on casualties. High casualties hurt the Republicans in the November 2006 election. (Does anyone else see an analogy to 1864?) Low levels of military activity hand the initiative to the insurgents. According to the linked article, there is a broad coalition against us. The theocrats want to keep modernity from the heart of the Islamic world; the autocrats want to keep out democracy.

This low level of infantry activity tells me that the politicians are running this war without listening to their infantry commanders. In world history there are few examples of wars being won in such a way.

Hammering a compromise on immigration

We have to control the border, create a viable and workable guest-worker program that reflects current labor markets, create incentives for rogues and outlaws to obey the tax and labor laws, and not grant general amnesty.

And like combat engineers, our politicians must work these solutions while under fire!

Judge Roy Moore is running for Governor of Alabama

I'm afraid the Alabama voters are their own worst enemies. My father says he will emigrate if Judge Moore becomes Governor.

Nancy Pelosi is strangling progressive initiatives...

At least she is according to this linked commentator, who says she ordered members of the Congressional Black Caucus to shut up about impeachment, lest white racists and right-wingers be aroused to campaign and vote for Republicans. She might have really done so, but it was tactically wise.

Andrew Bacevitch on the overstretching of American power

Linked above is an interview with Andrew Bacevitch, West Pointer and career Army officer who is now a professor at Boston University's school of international relations. He is a conservative but not a hawk.

His positions on the war in Iraq I believe are in the tradition of Russell Kirk's thoughts on American power. Now that David Hackworth is dead, there are few prominent voices which are patriotic, knowledgeable of military affairs, suspicious of neo-conservative ambitions, and committed to U.S. constitutional traditions. The anti-war crowd, with many sober but relatively quiet exceptions, is unfortunately dominated by the crazy ones. The deterioration of American culture and language has unfortunately put us in a position so that very few people are capable of carrying on a mature and realistic dialogue about American military capabilities, responsibilities, and risks.

Missed opportunity or misinformation planted by our enemies?

The writer says that Iran made a broad proposal for diplomatic recognition and an end to support for terrorism in 2003 which was ignored by the Bush administration. The proposal as he found it, however, is of uncertain origin and authority.

What if your retirement ranch was a crossing point for illegal aliens and drug smugglers?

'Ms. Maharis had no idea of the extent of the chaos when she moved here from Las Vegas in 2004. A schoolteacher turned filmmaker with three master's degrees, including one in Latin American studies, Mercedes and husband Robert bought a beautiful home atop a precarious road that winds into the Huachuca Mountains. The view encompasses 30 miles of desert under the earth's bluest sky. They thought they'd found Eden.'

Read the whole thing.

From Here to Eternity...

Peggy Noonan's tribute for Memorial Day.

Medal of Honor for Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith

President Bush's praise for Sgt. Smith is on the link above. Here is more detail about a brave man who died saving his company.

As we approach Memorial Day...

Let us remember those who left their homes in service to our country and did not come back alive. Below is the Medal of Honor citation for a young man my father knew in Korea:

*MOYER, DONALD R.
Rank and organization: Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army, Company E, 35th Infantry Regiment. Place and date: Near Seoul, Korea, 20 May 1951. Entered service at: Keego Harbor, Oakland, Mich. Born: 15 April 1930, Pontiac, Mich. G.O. No.: 19, 1 February 1952. Citation: Sfc. Moyer assistant platoon leader, Company E, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against an armed enemy of the United Nations. Sfc. Moyer's platoon was committed to attack and secure commanding terrain stubbornly defended by a numerically superior hostile force emplaced in well-fortified positions. Advancing up the rocky hill, the leading elements came under intense automatic weapons, small-arms, and grenade fire, wounding the platoon leader and platoon sergeant. Sfc. Moyer, realizing the success of the mission was imperiled, rushed to the head of the faltering column, assumed command and urged the men forward. Inspired by Sfc. Moyer's unflinching courage, the troops responded magnificently, but as they reached the final approaches to the rugged crest of the hill, enemy fire increased in volume and intensity and the fanatical foe showered the platoon with grenades. Undaunted, the valiant group forged ahead, and as they neared the top of the hill, the enemy hurled a grenade into their midst. Sfc. Moyer, fully aware of the odds against him, unhesitatingly threw himself on the grenade, absorbing the full blast of the explosion with his body. Although mortally wounded in this fearless display of valor, Sfc. Moyer's intrepid act saved several of his comrades from death or serious injury, and his inspirational leadership and consummate devotion to duty contributed significantly to the subsequent seizure of the enemy stronghold and reflect lasting glory on himself and the noble traditions of the military service.

Richard Cohen on Saddam Hussein's crimes and our growing moral incoherence

'I suppose the handwriting was on the wall when Michael Moore failed to mention Hussein's crimes at all in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11." Years from now, someone coming across the film could conclude that the United States picked on the Middle Eastern version of Switzerland....

'After all, aren't some of the people who want Washington to do something in Darfur the same people who so rigorously opposed the Iraq war on moral grounds? What if we could pacify Darfur -- immense, arid and without population centers -- at the cost of 139 American lives?

'What is the morality of that? Two hundred thousand have already died there. Should we intervene?

'Pardon me for raising the question without answering it. I do so only to discomfort, if I can, some of the people who are so certain of their moral righteousness when it comes to the Iraq war. I want to know why the crimes of Saddam Hussein never figure into their thinking and why it was morally wrong -- not merely unwise -- to topple him.'

The economics pushing low birth rates

Glenn Reynolds comments.

Universalism v. nationalism...

'Here's a question: Why do Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and The Wall Street Journal editorial page have such similar views on immigration?

'The answer is that all four of the above -- Mahony, CAIR, the ACLU, and the Journal -- have chosen universalism over nationalism. The four embrace different visions of universalism, to be sure, but each one of them is similar insofar as it seeks to transcend passports and borders.'

Jim Pinkerton comments.

Immigrant labor and union wages and protections

One proposed provision of the Senate immigration bill would place all guest workers under the Davis-Bacon Act, thereby requiring that they be paid on the union wage scale. The provision added that they should not be "at will" employees either, so they couldn't be fired without cause.

Perhaps this killer amendment should be enacted. Illegal immigration would be strangled by the sort of Federal employment laws that drive up labor costs. Legal residents and U.S. citizens would gain a cost advantage over the illegal competition.

Robert Novak comments but misses the law of unintended consequences.

Agriculture controlled by those who have the means to secure Federal subsidies and supports

We need to quit kidding ourselves that farm subsidies save the family farm. Farm subsidies fund the big players who are far less nimble than family farmers. Farm subsidies mean that almost every store-bought tomato tastes bland, whether it's grown in California or Texas. If you abolished farm subsidies, greater numbers of resourceful, hardworking, and entrepreurial people would enter the agricultural field. There would be new products and new methods of marketing. There would be more companies like Harry and David. There would be more variety, more taste, and better nutrition.

Even Rep. Barney Frank knows this and said so in a House speech this week against agricultural subsidies:

'So I have been forced to conclude that in all of those great free market texts by Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and all the others that there is a footnote that says, by the way, none of this applies to agriculture. Now, it may be written in high German, and that may be why I have not been able to discern it, but there is no greater contrast in America today than between the free enterprise rhetoric of so many conservatives and the statist, subsidized, inflationary, protectionist, anti-consumer agricultural policies, and this is one of them.'

Spengler reviews Melanie Phillips' "Londonistan"

'Britain, Phillips warns, is reaping what it has sown. A large minority of British Muslims are disaffected at best and seditious at worst. Phillips cites a 2004 Home Office survey finding that 26% of British Muslims felt no loyalty to Britain, 13% supported terrorism, and about 1% (up to 20,000 individuals) were "actively engaged" in terrorism or support for terrorism.

'Another poll found that 32% of British Muslims agreed that "Western society is decadent and immoral and that Muslims should seek to bring it to an end". In the event of a violent collision between the West and Iran, for example, civil conflict might arise in Britain on a scale resembling that in Northern Ireland in the 1970s....

'The British establishment may have recoiled in horror from the prospect of religious war precisely because it has sufficient institutional memory to know just what such wars entail. Religious war, however, is precisely what it will have, on the worst possible terms, and with an extensive fifth column in place. '

How to be half-wrong about everything...

Here is a writer making comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam. Despite the fact that the wars are thirty years apart and involve different enemies, different ideologies, and different tactics, the writer makes predictions and conjectures based on this analogy without looking at an alternative analogy.

This current war needs plenty of criticism. Lives are at risk and being lost, and the resources required are stupendous. The war may very well not be worth the sacrifice, but if it is not worth the blood and treasure, let us come to such a conclusion based upon the breadth of human experience and an understanding of our own culture and history, not based upon one generation's characterization of a war thirty years ago in Southeast Asia.

One problem in Vietnam never faced in Iraq is resistance organized on the battalion level. U.S. forces in Vietnam often faced the North Vietnamese Army in strength. There were protracted fire fights, infantry maneuvers, airstrikes, and artillery bombardments.

The war in Iraq today involves attacks by forces no larger than a company or platoon and use of dozens of improvised explosive devices, the weapon and tactic of choice. Deployments of large formations and heavy weapons are rare. (The Vietnam War was a guerrilla war against Viet Cong in black pajamas in the popular memory, but after the Tet Offensive, much of it was against regular North Vietnamese Army units. In just a few years, you will see a barrage of revisionist histories of the Vietnam War, and the story is going to be quite different from the images in the popular mind.)

There are other U.S. military interventions more analogous to the situation in Iraq than the Vietnam War, but none is completely on point. We could start with the Barbary pirates and discuss U.S. interventions in Nicaragua and the Philippines, but every war is different, and the outcome of the current one is not predestined by prior ones. The above-linked article is a good example of thinking trapped in the Vietnam box. If generals are prone to "fight the last war," then protesters seem to be doing the same.

Doubt about story of dress codes for non-Muslims in Iran

From Asia Times, which is difficult to label.

More on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Persian Islamic messianism

The Waffen SS had a creed: "We accept death, and we hand out death." Islamic radicals have a similar creed. When you mix that creed with Persian pride, a Shiite worldview, and nuclear technology, it becomes even more problematic.

George Will on immigration

He is pretty much right this time.

Harvard's admissions and yield

'Harvard scores lowest in student satisfaction and enjoys the highest yield (% of students admitted who attend) of any leading American university. How can the same institution be so desirable and so disliked at the same time?'

Jane Galt reports.

Lloyd Bentsen, R.I.P.

There used to be a lot of Democrats with his moderation and temperament. In the 1988 election, he was more impressive than any of the other three men at the top of the two tickets.

Flannery O'Connor and Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone Ritchie

Flannery O'Connor had a gift for making a humorous lesson in humility and grace out of the grotesque. Perhaps no one baptized a Catholic in America today has made a profession of the grotesque as well as Madonna.

I doubt that Miss O'Connor would have been long offended by Madonna. I have a hunch that Madonna would have avoided Miss O'Connor because Miss O'Connor would have come up with a witty phrase that both described and disarmed Madonna's exploitation of Christian sacraments and symbols. Miss O'Connor also would have found literary inspiration in a woman who builds a public persona as an icon of human freedom when she really is a narcissist. Miss O'Connor would have laughed her head off and written a story as good as "Parker's Back."

Linked above is a prayer that Ms. O'Connor passed on just before she died in 1964. Her humor was always mixed with the certainty that we are nothing without the grace of God.

Is Madonna worth $350 per ticket?

I know. I'm not with it. I'm still hoping to find a good new car for less than $10,000 and a good lunch for $3.50. But it shows the dearth of our culture that people pay that sort of money for what amounts to a quasi-religious experience.

Madonna's talent is to fuse catchy tunes and rhythms, religious symbols, moral taboos, sex, pop culture, fantasy, and mystery into what seems to be, at least for a moment, a coherent whole as stepped out by a team of athletic and attractive dancers. In a cultural landscape of poured concrete and nihilism, that is quite an achievement.

Something for nothing?

I was always taught that you can't get something for nothing, but apparently in this Brave New World, a young woman doesn't need to ever have menstrual periods, at least according to the doctors in this article.

Perhaps I'm an oppressive, patriarchal papist, but I have a hard time believing such chemical manipulation of the human reproductive process is exempt from the law of unintended consequences.

A soldier's story

While I'm writing letters, memos, briefs, deeds, and easements and taking my daughter to the park, some people half my age are risking everything because they know that freedom is not free.

PFC Joshua Sparling could have sat out this war, but he dropped out of college and joined the 82nd Airborne Division.

John McCain's commencement address at New School

I am not a great admirer of John McCain, but this commencement speech raises the great issues facing America today: How do we deal with those who wish to kill us? And can we remain a nation of vigorous and healthy debate about policy rather than a nation of demagogues racing for the lowest common denominator through ad hominem attacks which skirt real issues?

Ronald Reagan on immigration...

though not necessarily illegal immigration. He was by no means a nativist, but he believed the laws shouldn't be flaunted. He never allowed fear of the immigrant to obscure his vision of America as a great nation of immigrants.

Five books on English usage

This article confirms that the study of great writing, rather than meticulous entries into a stiff workbook full of exercises and drills, is the best way to learn how to write.

The Naked Guy of UC-Berkeley dies of apparent suicide

During the early 1990s he postured as the nudist champion of free expression at a university not exactly known for its strict rules. He wasn't expelled for his nudity until some female students charged that his nudity constituted sexual harassment through a threatening environment. (How do you take notes and pay attention to the professor when there's a six-foot tall naked man in the room?)

Andrew Martinez was his name, and he apparently suffered from pretty severe mental illness. Resquiescat in pace. Saint Dymphna, pray for us.

Better training for U.S. infantry

Modern technology has made it possible to stage more realistic training for infantry in urban tactics. This is crucial for keeping casualties low, especially considering that the kids in the infantry units which won the conflict in 2003 are now largely out of the services and replaced by more kids.

Sunnis in the minority and out of power...

They are not getting used to it.

Are the Saudis our friends?

Perhaps the isolationists are right. With friends like the Saudis, we probably need to rethink all of our alliances in the Middle East.

Clauswitz v. Sun Tzu on Iran

Symmetrical warfare or asymmentrical?

"The Da Vinci Code" and human weakness for conspiracy theories

It's been said that L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics on a bet that he couldn't creat his own religion and get people to believe in it. Considering his truthfulness over a lifetime, the story is plausible.

Is it also plausible than Dan Brown was challenged to write the most farfetched murder mystery he could imagine based upon the Gnostic gospels and an alleged cover-up of Jesus' child through Mary Magdalene? It's just as plausible. And people love it because it means they have special knowledge or gnosis, and the rest of the world is wrong.

Roger Scruton on John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism

I once heard Roger Scruton give a speech about how he came to be a conservative. (The symposium was to honor Russell Kirk.) As he watched the campus riots in Paris in 1968, he was far more sympathetic to the blue-collar cops who had to put down the riots than by the spoiled and pampered brats who were making all the demands, breaking all the windows, and throwing stones at the police.

The article linked above is an excellent critique of utilitarianism, which, whether you think about it or it, pervades many if not most of our Western institutions and thought.

More on Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is a fine writer still in the land of the living. Russell Kirk admired Mr. Bradbury's work.

'Russell Kirk feels that the greatest strength of The Martian Chronicles is its ability to make us look closely at ourselves. In Enemies of the Permanent Things: Observations of Abnormality in Literature and Politics, Kirk states: "What gives [The Martian Chronicles] their cunning is ... their portrayal of human nature, in all its baseness and all its promise, against an exquisite stageset. We are shown normality, the permanent things in human nature, by the light of another world; and what we forget about ourselves in the ordinariness of our routine of existence suddenly bursts upon us as a fresh revelation.... Bradbury's stories are not an escape from reality; they are windows looking upon enduring reality."'

Bush fatigue

Stephen Bainbridge comments on "Bush fatigue" and conservatives who have grown tired of the President and his administration.

Spengler's advice column for the leaders of Italy and the USA

I always think Spengler is a hoot when he answers these "letters" from world leaders.

An Islamic Oliver Cromwell

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is very determined and very able. He says what he means and means what he says. Moreover, he is a true believer in the Islamic Republic and committed to the idea that it should be implemented by laymen.

His apparent willingness to talk should be accepted, but only with the silent understanding that he wants to appear reasonable and open-minded to the Islamic masses, especially the hundreds of millions of non-Arabs in Pakistan and Indonesia, then claim to be a victim when his impossible demands are not granted.

Iran is Persia, and the Persians were great and ruled the world when the Celts lived in mud huts and the Germans hunted the haunted forests beyond the Rhine and Elbe. Persia has a messianic understanding of itself in the Islamic world, a vision of it saving Islam from Western infidels, Sunni heretics, Arab incompetence, and monarchal corruption. Mr. Ahmadinejad personifies that messianic vision.

Last time Great Britain had such a leader (Cromwell) there were massacres at Drogheda and other places. No quarter was given those whose religion supposedly made them infidels.

Detachment of the elites: What the Bush Administration and the makers of "The Da Vinci Code" have in common...

Peggy Noonan writes in her weekly column:

'I continue to believe the administration's problem is not that the base lately doesn't like it, but that the White House has decided it actually doesn't like the base. That's a worse problem. It's hard to fire a base. Hard to get a new one.'

Monotheism, rational inquiry, and the rise of the West

Rodney Stark has published The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. Stark denies the persistent denigration of Christianity and anti-Catholic bias of recent centuries and states boldly that the West's cultural success was made possible by the rational inquiry of Christianity. Here is a review, an interview in The Boston Globe, Stark's essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Stark's homepage.

Mao's legacy

The "Great Helmsman" has followers in Nepal who are nihilists more than revolutionaries.

Janice Karpinski and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal

She once was a general. Now she's been demoted to colonel. She defends her actions and command at Abu Ghraib and claims everything that happened was caused by others.

Some see her as a female scapegoat in a male military culture. I disagree. The commander is responsible for everything that happens under her command. She didn't take responsibility. She pointed fingers and claimed a conspiracy of others and malfeasance by intelligence agencies. It was her responsibility to make sure that her lowest enlisted soldiers were trained and ready to do their duties in the best traditions of the U.S. Army.

Read the story for yourself.

Conspiracy theories and 9/11

Conspiracy theories seldom hold up. Charles Colson once said that if there was a Watergate cover-up, it lasted less than two weeks. Once respectable middle-class people faced the prospect of prison, any hope within the Nixon Administration that they would resist interrogation like Mafiosi or CIA professionals was lost.

Above is an article in Popular Mechanics debunking the conspiracy theories of 9/11.

The short horizon and memory of social scientists

Linked above is an article about management gurus and their utopianism. I'm afraid social scientists in general, from economists to sociologists, suffer from meliorism and neoterism.

Howell Raines on Paul "Bear" Bryant

Howell Raines (former editor of The New York Times), like Bear Bryant, made some mistakes, but no one can say he was not brilliant in his chosen field, at least as a reporter. (As editor he turned the Gray Lady into a partisan ragsheet.) Here is Paul Finebaum's review of Raines' new book. (Finebaum is Alabama's most controversial sports writer. Of course, he's a University of Tennessee graduate, so I don't how he ever got hired to cover sports in Alabama.)

Gen. John Batiste v. Sec. Donald Rumsfeld

My gut tells me that you don't want a naval aviator as Secretary of Defense during a protracted infantry war.

Should we talk directly to Iran?

Why not? Let's just not forget that we are dealing with crazy people suffering from cognitive failure and religious delusions.

How much good will a border fence do?

The conservative's calling is to conserve, but a fence might be an expensive finger in the dike.

I'm shocked, shocked to find there's fraud in academia!

The report is out on Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado.

China ignores the 40th anniversary of its "Cultural Revolution"

I don't want to see pictures of myself in 1966, much less 1976, the year of Mao's death, but the Cultural Revolution, with its mobs of fanatics destroying China's history and molesting teachers, engineers, children of landlords, etc., is not something that should be buried.

"America: An Ode to Immigrants"

A poem by Ray Bradbury, who was admired by his friend Russell Kirk.

Judith Miller on the dismantling of Libya's nuclear program

Realpolitik won out in this case.

John Kenneth Galbraith, R.I.P.

He was a better writer and wit than economist, but he loved to think and talk and befriended his opponents such as William F. Buckley, Jr. Sometimes he was very right. As Jane Galt says:

'But he did have a gift for skewering the more elaborate pretensions of laissez-faire economists: possibly my favourite line of his is "The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself." This, incidentally, was written in the fifties, for those who think that there was some kinder, gentler era of corporate governance in the distant past.'

Michael Totten reports from Jaffa...

Jaffa is the ancient city on the Mediterranean coast populated by Israeli Arabs. Tel Aviv is next door, the Israeli Jewish metropolis, "Miami of the East." Mr. Totten discusses the complex relationships of Israeli Arabs with their native land and democratic government. (1/5 of Israeli citizens and voters are Arabs.)

"Socialism is the only path."

Just when Fidel Castro becomes an octogenerian, Hugo Chavez takes over Venezuela and gives the Western hemisphere another true believer in red.

Judith Miller on Libyan nuclear weapons program

We have disarmed one rogue state. Can we learn from the experience to disarm others?

How to stop Iran without firing a shot...

Linked above is an article by someone thinking outside the box. It makes sense to me. As dangerous as Iran is, attacking Iran militarily is risky. Moreover, public support for our adventures in Mesopotamia and Afghanistan is waning and not likely to last past the 2008 election. I won't say this administration doesn't have the audacity to attack Iran, but it would be nice to see the Islamic Republic implode on account of its internal contradictions.

Opps! BBC interviews cab driver...

instead of a computer/intellectual property expert which the cab driver had just brought to the studio! The cab driver was miked and on television before the BBC knew he was the wrong guy.

"Tell me sir: What are the long-term implications of this litigation against Apple Computer?"

(Perhaps my cousin in Buenos Aires, who has been both a cab driver and computer expert, should have been called by the BBC.)

Dick Morris says Republicans are heading over a cliff...

... and that the nationalization of campaigns, consultants, and message prevents the sort of tactical retreats, countermarches, and flank marches on the local district level that have saved Congressional majorities during other decades.

I think he could well be right. Nonetheless, the voters will not find the Democrats to have superior cognition, only a different set of cognitive dysfunctions. America's challenge is as much educational and cognitive as it is military, diplomatic, and financial.

Judge Posner on the need for an American MI5

According to Judge Richard Posner, what we need is an agency that can spy on U.S. citizens but has no power to make arrests. The CIA is a foreign intelligence agency. The FBI is a law-enforcement agency whose agents want to make arrests, not follow "moles" for years at a time.

Happy Mother's Day!

Today is about things other than my itch to write. Saint Monica, pray for us.

Lewis Grizzard, a man of great humor and admitted flaws, wrote a great little book, Don't Forget to Call Momma: I Wish I Could Call Mine. The title is taken from a very effective long-distance telephone company advertisement featuring Alabama Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. (My guess is that Grizzard's mother, Bryant's mother, and St. Monica have much in common!)

Top-down education reforms won't work, whether pressed by Democrats or Republicans

American public schools are locally funded and centrally controlled. Until they are locally controlled and centrally (state, not nationally) funded, the people in the best position to improve them, i.e., the local teachers, parents, and boards, will not be able to do so.

Environmentalism crippled by elitism

In particular, when environmentalists stand against immigration because Mexican women in the U.S. tend to have more babies than if they stayed in Mexico, they're playing the very dangerous game of telling others that they shouldn't breed. Let's not kid ourselves: population "stability" can be achieved three ways: (1) totalitarian government; (2) a loss of morale through war or famine so devastating that the country quits procreating, e.g., France; or (3) a rising economy which raises millions of paupers into the middle class. Only the third alternative is desirable and not tragic.

I'll speak for every family in the world that wishes to bring forth children without being told they are burdening finite resources as calculated by elitists in rich countries that have quit procreating: You can keep your contraceptives! As G.K. Chesterton said, "Fortunately, those of us who do not believe in birth control will soon outnumber those who do."

Spengler on Sigmund Freud...

'The psychiatric profession observed the 150th anniversary of Sigmund Freud's birth on May 6. My modest proposal for the event is to exhume his body and put a stake through his heart. Freud's Viennese contemporary Karl Kraus quipped that psychoanalysis was "a disease posing as a cure". Kraus was closer to the truth than he could have imagined.'

Read the whole thing.

A look back at Robert Oppenheimer... genius

Conventional people usually don't change the world.

A response to Shelby Steele's Wall Street Journal piece

I cited Shelby Steele ten days ago. He wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal, and I dug up another article he wrote about African-American culture. Here is Margaret Kimberley's recent response to the May 2 WSJ piece in Black Commentator.

More plain talk from Michael Yon

He says Afghanistan is getting worse. Mr. Yon quotes Joe Gallaway extensively, who criticizes Donald Rumsfeld quite bluntly.

Michael Totten on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

'The freshly constructed wall between the Israelis and Palestinians isn’t inviolable, but it’s yet another hideous wall of partition. Tiny formerly-Ottoman countries are still being sliced into even tinier countries and statelets based, more or less, on ethnic identity. It happened in Cyprus. In happened in Yugoslavia. It almost happened in Lebanon. It might happen soon in Iraq, and it already has happened informally in Iraqi Kurdistan. And it’s happening in Israel and Palestine now. While Europe moves to integrate its parts into a peaceful multinational federation, the Middle East still hasn’t finished breaking apart....'

'The old city was left to itself. It was mostly just me, the bricks, the stones, and some ghosts. The narrow passages, the stone walls, the stairs that twist around corners…these places are thousands of years old, older than Christianity. Jerusalem makes most places in Europe seem spanking new like Los Angeles or Vancouver by comparison....'

'What country is this place in? It is claimed and counterclaimed. Most of the world recognizes Jerusalem’s old city as belonging to no one in particular. During the day when the streets are packed with shopkeepers and tourists, questions like this are far away. But at night when no one’s around, being in a twice-claimed neighborhood with so very much beauty and history and tension feels totally crazy. There will be a lot more violence there in the future, for sure. You can’t stop it any more than you can stop an earthquake gearing up to explode from two tectonic plates that slowly but inexorably push against one another....'

'Israel is a great country. And Jerusalem is a great city despite the conflict, the uber-controversial politics, the terrorism, and the anxious history bearing down on the place. I want to go back. Life is lived more intensely there than it is other places, just as it is in Beirut. But Israel is a haunted country. It is not where you want to go to relax.'

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to George W. Bush

Read it for yourself. What makes Mr. Ahmadinejad doubly dangerous is that much of what he says is at least half-true. Nonetheless, his tack is to be reasonable and point to the teachings of Jesus in order to inspire everyone to submit to Allah. I'll give Mr. Ahmadinejad an "A" for excellent propaganda.

What is the CIA today?

Just another government bureaucracy full of cynics who think they're smarter than their bosses, the Congress, the President, the people they serve, and their mission.

Columbia University takes the moral high ground

Yes, I know it's hard to believe.

Peggy Noonan on political blindness and amnesia in today's WSJ

'The oddest thing about Republicans and Democrats in power is that they always know the technical facts, always know about fund raising, always know what the national committee is saying about getting turnout. But so often they don't know the message or even have a message. Which is funny, because they're in the message business. They're like shoemakers who make pretty shoeboxes but forget to make the shoes.'

Cheap shot on Ralph Reed

I'm not a fan of Ralph Reed. The borderline Gnosticism of evangelical Protestant political activists scares me. But Mr. Reed should be criticized for his record as a political activist and fundraiser, not for his personal wealth. Mr. Reed has become extremely good at what he does: raise money for, create interest in, and define the dialogue among political candidates. In America that means he makes more money than most of the elected officials and candidates he serves.

The above-linked article takes a pot shot at Mr. Reed for having more than $600,000 in personal property along with millions in real property, and implies that anyone who calls himself a devout Christian should shed himself of such wealth.

To my knowledge, Mr. Reed has not become a member of a holy order and taken a vow of poverty. He is a Protestant layman. Plenty of Christian laymen are very wealthy and own boats, furs, and luxury items more valuable than my house. There are plenty of reasons for not voting for Mr. Reed for public office, mainly because he is a polarizing figure. To say we shouldn't vote for a man who is wealthy but calls himself a Christian (as do most candidates for public office) is a cheap shot.

Commuter rail in the South

Whenever gas prices go up sharply, there gets to be more chatter about commuter rail in our larger cities. I like Europe's public transportation as much as anyone. I like the New York, Boston, and D.C. subways too. I like the Chicago El Train.

The economic statistics, however, for public transportation are very discouraging. The taxpayers subsidize every ride, sometimes at a rate twice what the commuter actually pays. Buses are more economical than commuter trains, but the utility and visibility of commuter rail is obvious at sporting events, fine arts attractions, and tourist spots. Moreover, the suburbanites paying the bills will more likely support commuter rail, which they are likely to use, than buses, which many commuters, rich and poor, don't trust for safety and efficiency reasons. (Waiting for a bus in America is a form of penance. In Germany, you can set your watch by them. In Japan, if a train is late, the transit authority prints out an explanation for your boss!)

Why can't we build major rail infrastructure today for less than $1 million per hundred yards?
(1) Land acquisition costs. Unless you want a train to nowhere, your land is going to cost a fortune.
(2) NIMBY (Not in my backyard). Before you break ground, you will spend millions on lawyers fighting back the folks who would rather die than have such a railway in the neighborhood.
(3) Tort liability. Don't forget that tens of thousands of immigrants, Irish, West Indians, Italians, etc. as well as low-paid natives died during those Social Darwinistic times when America's railroads, subways, bridges, and canals were built. Today you wouldn't bury them and forget them; you would actually have to settle significant wrongful death claims. You would also pay for every broken window from blasting. (Until 1969, New York's subway constructors only had to pay for property damage if a rock physically flew into a house. Shaking, even the severest shaking, was not compensible.)
(4) Public employees' unions.
(5) Union labor for construction.
(6) Political polarization. Let's face it: public transportation is spending largely supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans.
(7) Rider behavior. I've never seen riders in Europe as poorly behaved as riders in America.
(a) Once on a Chicago commuter train, my wife and I had to listen to a co-ed group of college kids speaking loudly about one another's body parts and sexual prowess. When my wife asked them to keep their voices down, they were abusive and narrowly avoided an altercation with my friend from Louisiana, who usually packs a pistol.
(b) Last time I road a subway in Atlanta, I was wearing a suit and carrying an armful of folders in a largely empty car. I was vulnerable. All the riders were older than 40 except three teenagers dressed in hip-hop clothing. While the train moved, they sang loudly the lyrics of a raunchy hip-hop song. It was about copulation with and abuse of "bitches." I wasn't scared out of my boots, but after the train broke down in a bad end of town, I determined that I would not likely ride MARTA again. Moreover, my wife, because of similar experiences with public transportation, will not likely allow my daughter to ride. That's a shame, but nobody should pay $2 and be serenaded by such a song and feel threatened. In the language of employment law, it was a harassing environment.
(8) Racial prejudice and culture clash. Notice I place these together. Incident (a) above involved white kids. Incident (b) above involved black kids. If one is inclined to bigotry, the kids in incident (b) confirmed every racial stereotype about menacing black teens.
(9) Geography. You will notice that public transportation is most economical if a city is hemmed in by mountains, lakes, or oceans and contains a logical transportation corridor, e.g., Boston, NYC, Chicago, San Francisco. Unless geography forces people to live on expensive land where room for roads and parking is severely limited, public transportation cannot be built fast enough to keep up with sprawl. Atlanta's MARTA (which would not have been built if President Jimmy Carter had not pushed it) is Exhibit 1A. Less than half of metro Atlanta is served directly by MARTA.

So public transportation will never be efficient or cost-effective in most of America, though there might be solid public policy reasons to pour money into it, despite the costs. I might even vote for tax money to pay for public transit, but I doubt I'll ride more than occasionally.

In agreement with Cynthia Tucker

Like Ellen Goodman of The Boston Globe, I disagree with Ms. Tucker, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution most of the time and agree with her a few times a year. Here is a good piece.

One foot in Vietnam and one foot in Woodstock

The world's oldest political party has reason to be optimistic regarding its possible success in the 2006 elections. With cooperation from the terrorists, the Democrats could take control of both houses of Congress. (Historically and demographically it is almost impossible to take over the House without also taking over the Senate.)

The problem for the Democrats is that the terrorists are going to have to do nothing major outside of Iraq and Afghanistan until November. If terrorists strike dramatically this summer anywhere in the West, but especially in the U.S., Democrats are going to have to explain how they will secure the nation when they have opposed almost everything President Bush has done since 9/11.

As much as I wish the Democrats were a coherent and forceful opposition, they are not. They are against the war in Iraq because they were against the war in Vietnam. They are against Bush because he is in their eyes the reincarnation of Nixon and comes from the party which was in power back when the protesters were shot at Kent State in 1970. They think they are smarter than they are because the professoriate, The New York Times, and Hollywood agree with them. They lack a coherent and practical theory of when to use military force overseas that actually corresponds to America's stature and responsibilities in the world. So long as Americans believe such force is needed around this world, the Democrats will be out of power, or at least out of the White House.

How to lose a war...

The Battle of France began on this day, May 10, 66 years ago. Winning and losing is all about leadership: in politics, at the high command, at the battalion level, and among the platoon commanders and squad sergeants.

Here is a link to some of General Erwin Rommel's remembrances.

Sidney Blumenthal on the Church and the last election

I am reluctant to cite and link to Manichean partisans, whether to the right or the left. But, having cited Ann Coulter below and having been alerted by a commenter ("Ex-Communication" below) to an article by Sidney Blumenthal, I now link to Mr. Blumenthal, who is just as sure of a Republican conspiracy to steal elections and recreate the 1950s by theocratic fiat as Ms. Coulter is that liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, crooks, and dummies form one united party bent on totalitarian collectivism.

Mr. Blumenthal in the above-linked article says that the 2004 election was turned by Cardinal Ratzinger's letter to U.S. bishops after President Bush's audience with Pope John Paul II. Ratzinger's election as pope, according to Blumenthal, is a great cultural calamity for the West:

'The new pope's burning passion is to resurrect medieval authority. He equates the Western liberal tradition, that is, the Enlightenment, with Nazism, and denigrates it as "moral relativism." He suppresses all dissent, discussion and debate within the church and concentrates power within the Vatican bureaucracy. His abhorrence of change runs past 1968 (an abhorrence he shares with George W. Bush) to the revolutions of 1848, the "springtime of nations," and 1789, the French Revolution. But, even more momentously, the alignment of the pope's Kulturkampf with the U.S. president's culture war has also set up a conflict with the American Revolution.'

I beg to differ. I do not think any man living today is more keenly aware that the past cannot be recreated than Benedict XVI. He is an historian and theologian without any sentiment. His opposition to modernist ideas and all their twists are consistent with Church teaching for centuries. (We are still waiting for the new pope to morph into Darth Vader as predicted.) He is of like mind with John Paul II, who rejected Polish Catholic chauvinism (as well as Nazism and Communism) in favor of religious freedom for all. Benedict's vision is to confront the problems of modernism intellectually, catechetically, and aesthetically. Moreover, he is a realist regarding secular power. The Church does not have much secular power and is unlikely to gain any in the foreseeable future. It does have the power to raise the conscience, not just among the Catholic faithful, but among all those of good will. This power is easily exhausted when the Church wrestles with individual politicians such as Mario Cuomo and John Kerry.

(Leave them to the nuns. When a bishop threatens an elected politician with excommunication, the Church turns into the heavy, and the politician looks like the underdog. When Mother Teresa speaks at the Washington Prayer Breakfast, the powerful sit contritely and look at their shoes!)

For those who fear a theocracy in America, a true theocracy is impossible because America's culture is essentially Protestant. Protestants cannot agree on much of anything. The schism initiated by Martin Luther continues to diffuse our separated brethren. There is not a single Protestant denomination in America that includes more than 7% of the total population. Even the Puritans' dominance of New England was shortlived and constantly undermined by immigration, emigration, separatists, and royal pressure.

Those evangelicals prominent today in America such as Ralph Reed have a knack for political organizing and fundraising, but their successes result not in unity but diffusion and conflict. There is no Protestant pope, and anyone who attempted to elect himself Protestant pope and seize political power would become the punching bag for everyone, including the evangelicals. That's not to say that some evangelicals, both laymen and preachers, don't say some foolish things about America's religious heritage. (Does any group have an exclusion to the rule that all people who talk a lot, no matter how brilliant, at least occasionally say foolish things?)

For those who fear a Papist theocracy in America, (1) the Protestants wouldn't let it happen; (2) you cannot name a single archbishop in a major American archdiocese who has the stature and ambition to be a major political player in the secular sense; (3) almost every American bishop grew up in a large family full of Democrats, usually blue-collar Democrats of strong ethnic identity (Sidney Blumenthal has obviously spent little time with Catholic bishops); (4) Catholic bishops, even those with elitist tendencies as clergymen, have zero talent or inclination to ally themselves with elitists from other parts of the cultural spectrum to exercise political power; (5) Catholics in America consider themselves just as American (and Jeffersonian) as Catholic, so there never has been and probably never will be an American Cardinal Richelieu. (In contrast, bishops in many countries such as France and Spain have long histories of political meddling and catering to temporal authorities.)

So what is the danger presented by American religion to the American republic? Religion is about charity and justice in this life and eternal unity with God in the next. Politics is about who's in charge, and what his party can do now. There is strong human tendency to project politics to have more eternal meaning than it really has.

The danger is that American Christians, Catholic and Protestant, will take their eyes off the real issues such as poverty, abortion, infanticide, prisons that warehouse and punish rather than rehabilitate, a tax code for sale at the expense of those in need, industrial production and corporate organization that diminishes our humanity, children without adequate healthcare and schools, a national obsession with consumption and looks, a culture that encourages copulation without procreation, immigrants who are treated as criminals, and moral degradation accelerated by the long-term state of war.

When Christians worry about which politician from which party wins the next election rather than these and other serious issues as set forth by the Old Testament prophets and Jesus himself, there is danger for the republic. If religion simply becomes a different type of political activism, it is not faith and becomes easily twisted for political ends.

Which is a worse racket: the oil companies or the universities?

Ann Coulter makes a case that the universities produce little of value yet jack up their tuitions, fees, and salaries faster than inflation. (I think they prey on the middle-class fear of falling.)

Ms. Coulter is a bomb thrower whose bombastic broadsides tend to polarize rather than inform, but she's probably right about this one.

V.E. Day, May 8, 1945

The Germans gave up. Hitler was dead. It was only sixty-one years ago.

Winnie the Pooh turns 80 this year!

If you wake up and feel like Eeyore, then read A.A. Milne's classic stories about Christopher Robin and his friends.

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs)

The IED is the only weapon available to the insurgents that causes significant casualties to U.S. forces in Iraq. IEDs are terrible on troop morale and the biggest single cause of sagging support at home.

The problem is with the Pentagon's leadership, which is still fighting the Balkans war. American troops, when properly led, have always fought very well, and if supported at home, have always been ultimately victorious. Beating the IED threat is vital to our mission in Iraq, and it will be accomplished through leadership which carefully learns the lessons of every attack of the enemy and trains every infantryman and truckdriver to counter the threats. We must accept the fact that we have lived with the Iraqis for three years. They know our habits, so we must change our habits and take the fight to the enemy.

The Marian Church

It's May, the month to celebrate the Mother of God. (It's also my mother's birthday. Next Sunday is Mothers' Day.)

Pope John Paul II taught that Marian discipleship predates Petrine authority in the Church. He was not trying to diminishing the role of the clergy, but to place the clergy upon a proper foundation of Mary's obedience, humility, and love:

George Weigel writes:

'The work of the great Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar had suggested that four biblical images of the Church, based on four great New Testament figures, shape and reshape the Church in every age. The Church of evangelization is formed in the image of Paul, apostle to the gentiles. The Church of contemplative prayer is formed in the image of the apostle John, who rested his head on the Lord’s breast at the Last Supper. The Church of office and jurisdiction is formed in the image of Peter, to whom the Lord consigned the keys of the Kingdom. And then there is the Church of discipleship, formed in the image of Mary, whose “be it done unto me according to your word” was, in a sense, the very beginning of Christian discipleship.

'Speaking to representatives of the “Petrine Church,” who not infrequently think themselves the center of the Catholic world, John Paul suggested that the “Marian profile” in the Church is the most fundamental of Christian realities. Mary, the Pope said, was the first disciple, whose “yes” made possible the incarnation of God’s son. The incarnation was “extended” in history through the Church, which is the mystical body of Christ. Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven prefigures the glorification of all those who will be saved.

Thus, John Paul taught, Mary provides a “profile” of what the Church is, of how the people of the Church should live, and of what that redeemed people’s destiny is.

The Pope then gave the screw another gentle twist. The “Marian profile” in the Church, the Pope said, is even “more...fundamental” than the “Petrine profile.” The two cannot be divided. But the Church formed in the image of Mary — the Church of disciples — preceded and made possible the Church formed in the image of Peter — the Church embodied by the distinguished churchmen present at the Pope’s address. Indeed, the “Marian Church” made sense out of the “Petrine Church,” for, as the Pope insisted, office and jurisdiction in the Church exist only “to form the Church in line with the ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in Mary.” The Church formed in Peter’s image and the Church formed in Mary’s image complement each other. But, the Pope insisted, “the Marian profile is… pre-eminent,” and is certainly richer in meaning for every Christian’s vocation.'

This vision of Marian discipleship is revolutionary, but not in a "liberal v. conservative" paradigm. Marian discipleship will swallow and digest the current "liberal v. conservative" paradigm in the Church. A Church founded upon Marian humility and obedience will produce a sacramental priesthood which will transform the world. In fact, Marian discipleship, rather than Petrine swords upon unbelievers' ears, will heal our world.

(To my Protestant readers: I don't worship Mary. She is not my savior, but she is the Mother of God, Theodokos. As such, "every generation shall call her blessed.")

The Church shall outlive the Da Vinci Code

Without all due respect to Francis Cardinal Arinze, the Church should look at The Da Vinci Code as a catechetical opportunity. Muslims in Cardinal Arinze's native Nigeria would probably kill a few Christians and burn down some churches or theaters if someone, e.g., Salmon Rushdie, published something on the lines of the "Muhammad Code." Let's presume that such a book were published and a movie released alleging that the Prophet married a Jew, converted to Judaism, and lost control of the movement he founded to sinister, patriarchal anti-Semites. We know that riots would erupt.

However, we Christians, led by Pope John Paul II, know that true conversion is about asking questions, informing the conscience and the imagination, and responding to the sacrificial love of God.

The Da Vinci Code has captured the imagination of a large readership in several continents, both Catholic and non-Catholic. Yes, the book is wrong. Its "history" is dubious at best and appeals to those who want Christianity to be something besides a sacramental religion with a celibate priesthood and Truth with a capital T. Why should I care about the teachings of the Church if the Church conspired during the early centuries to hide Jesus' marriage and family? That's the comforting message of The Da Vinci Code to all doubters and scoffers: The Church is a fraud.

The novel, however, is only a great suspense story if you suspend belief that the story itself is implausible if not impossible. A frontal attack or a flailing defense against our secular culture is not effective. Let people come to the movie and read the book. Don't act as if The Da Vinci Code is credible. It's not.

Then let the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Light, intervene. She opens her arms to all the world and then whispers, "Do as He tells you!" Let her bring her children back to the Church.

It's Cinco de Mayo!

It is also my daughter's birthday. I'll be taking a holiday from blogging.

Saint Athanasius, May 2nd

Saint Athanasius is often overlooked, but he is one of the greats who articulated the doctrine of the Trinity and defended the Incarnation as truth rather than symbol. He attended the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 and in A.D. 367 was the first to list the 27 books now known as the New Testament as the new covenant scriptures. The Council of Hippo in A.D. 393 and the Council of Carthage in A.D. 397 eventually confirmed the 27 books as canonical scripture. Martin Luther questioned whether James and Revelation should be canonical scripture, but I am not sure on whose authority but his own that he did so. (If soli scriptura is true, how is it that Catholic bishops defined what the scriptures are? Moreover, the scriptures are not a case of res ipsa loquitur, "the thing speaks for itself." The scriptures are not self-defining and self-authenticating.)

Zacarias Moussaoui and the death penalty

Is it likely that someone will be killed by someone trying to free Zacarias Moussaoui from jail? Is it likely that Mr. Moussaoui can plot more murder from prison? These are the questions I ask when someone is a candidate for the death penalty. It is not a question of how bad an apple he is, but whether the world is safer with him dead rather than alive. Thus, today I disagree with Peggy Noonan's column in the WSJ.

Here's the Catholic Catechism on the subject. I believe I've cited this passage before:

'2267. Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm -- without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself -- the cases in which the execution of the offender is an abolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent." (John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 56)'

I won't go so far as to say "practically non-existent," but you can make a good argument that Mr. Moussaoui can be rendered harmless in a federal prison. But on the other hand, you don't have to be a lawyer to say that such an unrepentant and hateful man who has captured the imagination of terrorists on several continents will always be dangerous to those guarding him. To this I respond two ways: (1) He wanted to be a martyr; let's make him be an old, lonely terrorist; and (2) it's the jury's call. If the death penalty were automatic, we would not need or have juries.

Excommunication: a radical but necessary course of action

The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which is the state-controlled church in China that pretends it is Catholic without being in union with the Holy See, has just ordained two new bishops. The Holy See in Rome, faced with the attempt of a secular and atheistic government to pack the local episcopacy with its own pawns, excommunicated the two new bishops and the two bishops who ordained them.

This excommunication brings to memory two huge issues in Western history: lay investiture and the caesaro-papacy. Does the Holy See have autonomy to ordain bishops, or does the secular government have control or at least a say? St. Augustine of Hippo in The City of God presented a vision of a heavenly city outside of secular power. This vision was timely because the Goths overran the Western Roman Empire within a few decades. The Church and the papacy survived the fall of the Empire. In the East, the Emperor continued to reign until 1453, and the bishops often deferred to his wishes. The Eastern model, most famously practiced in Russia before 1917, was a caesaro-papacy, where the Emperor had a divine mandate to rule.

With the rise of the nation-state, secular kings in the West sought to control the Church, the bishops, the monasteries, the schools, the tithes, and the Church's lands. The French kings largely succeeded before the Reformation. Though France did not become Protestant during the 16th-century Reformation, its Revolution in 1789 was violently anti-clerical in nature, partly because the high clergy in France had become identified closely with the secular regime that was overthrown. (Saint Vincent de Paul's statue and remains in Paris were not desecrated because of his known love for the poor, though those of many other saints were.) France today is more secular than many of its Protestant neighbors.

The lesson for the Holy See from the Reformation and the Age of Revolution is that the clergy, starting with the bishops, must be independent of secular authority. To compromise on this issue is to lose the moral authority to challenge injustices and sacramental abuses perpetuated by the rulers.

Thus, the Holy See has no choice in the face of secular authorities to control the Church and substitute a pseudo-church in China. The Holy See must excommunicate all those who have the power to ordain clergy who are not in union with the Holy See. Not to do so is to allow the Chinese government to ordain bishops who can appoint hundreds of bishops and clergy to perpetuate a church which claims to be Catholic but is really a puppet to a secular government.

This is another reason to have a celibate clergy. If a bishop is a family man, the secular authorities can physically threaten his wife and children in order to shake his loyalty, orthodoxy, and sacramental integrity. The celibate priest, in contrast, belongs to all and knows (or should know) that martyrdom is one of the risks of his ordination, when he lies on his face on the floor of a cathedral with his arms out in the shape of the cross. The Church was built by such priests. The "suburban social worker" model popular in America and Europe is a relatively new invention. Saints Maximilian Kolbe and John Vianney, pray for us.

Limited government, conservatism, libertarianism [Post No. 600]

Professor Stephen Bainbridge quotes David Frum and comments on the problems of limiting government, especially through the Republican Party, which has expanded government activity considerably in less than six years. He also cites Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk, making this link an appropriate milestone post:

'True conservatism, after all, is not about temporary battles over Medicare - important as those battles may be - but about the "Permanent Things." It's as though Frum never read Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. Conservatism was around long before the era of Goldwater and Reagan and it will be around long after they are memories. "What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" The battle against limited government was a means to and end - limiting government's ability to pursue the new and untried - not an end in and of itself. Even if Frum is right that the battle for limited government is lost, the war to defend the Permanent Things against the designs of Burke's "sophisters, economists; and calculators" will rage on forever.'

Afghanistan, poppies, deserts, Taliban, and politics

Michael Yon reports from Afghanistan on poppy cultivation, the bumper crop, the cash which goes to the Taliban and bandits, and the resources needed to eradicate the crop:

'The Afghan farmers are only trying to grow a living. Their goal is not to make kids in Italy and Indiana into heroin addicts, but simply to scratch a life from the desert. When crops like wheat and corn are eschewed for poppy, the people who make the real dough will not be the farmers, but those higher up the profit chain who are willing to undertake the risk of a nefarious enterprise. So, much of the money flows into grimy hands. Not only that, but the people who deal in legal agricultural products are also damaged. No economy-of-scale benefits can be derived from products such as wheat when those products are relegated the minority market-share: In 2006, opium will bring more money into Afghanistan than all other revenues combined.'

Security troubles in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a tough place, even when the country is at peace. Getting rid of the Taliban regime was important and wiping out al-Qaeda bases was a top-priority after 9/11. There are signs of progress: new construction, elections, relative press freedom, etc. But Afghanistan is still a dangerous place. Michael Yon reports. He likes The Wall Street Journal as I do, but Afghanistan is not as peachy as a recent WSJ report portrays it.

Review of Mark Bowden's new book on the Iran hostage crisis

If the Second World War began at Versailles in 1919, the current war perhaps began in Iran in 1979. Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down (1999), has recently published Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War With Militant Islam. Here is an excerpt from Reuel Marc Gerecht's review in the WSJ:

'This is perhaps the most striking and underreported part of the hostage crisis: how angry the Americans became toward their jailers. Some of the Americans were treated very roughly indeed--periodic beatings, mock executions--and they lived with the constant fear that in the end they were going to die. But the Iranian actions led to ever more American defiance....

'The most brazen and hard-edged of the hostages is Michael Metrinko, a streetwise former Peace Corps volunteer and Persian-speaking diplomat who declares war on the gerugangirha, the hostage-takers. Using his vast knowledge of Persian culture, psychology and slang, Mr. Metrinko fights back. Beaten repeatedly, held in solitary confinement, hooded, tied up and denied food, he never stops searching for means to annoy and emasculate his captors. At one point he tries to derail the interrogation of an Iranian friend before him by baiting his interrogators to beat him (he succeeds). Even on his last day of captivity, on the bus to the airport, Mr. Metrinko verbally lashes out at a guard's offensive behavior by making a very Persian reference to the guard's mother and the procreative act; he is again beaten and then thrown off the bus. (A last-minute intervention by Iranian officials gets him on the plane to Germany.) Throughout, Mr. Metrinko is a proud, outraged man whose anger grows more intense precisely because he loves Iran so profoundly.'

Spengler makes another argument for preemptive war in Iran

His analogy to July 1914 is intellectually and morally challenging, though I don't think he's right. He says that if the USA does not eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat now, a new "Thirty Years War" will be the likely result.

It is a bold argument made by a man who is not an American and writes for an Asian publication that is largely anti-American and libertarian. I don't know if he's Cassandra or a madman. I will add that airpower alone will not destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Ground forces will have to capture facilities, and combat engineers will have to destroy those facilities. To destroy Iran's nuclear research and production facilities will require a bold act of war and the risk of significant casualties.

Eve Tushnet on "3rd Party Reproduction"

What is technologically possible is not always socially healthy.

Shelby Steele has a new book

Linked above is his attempt to define the black conservative:

'A black woman journalist I met recently for lunch said, “I don’t think we can tell the story of our victimization enough.” We were talking about an article she was writing. She was young, Ivy League educated, and, sitting across from me in the patio restaurant, she might have been an advertisement for any number of blessings—good health, good upbringing, good fortune. Politely we argued about how much victimization blacks were still subjected to. I said it was number three or four on the list of things that held blacks back. She said it was number one. And here we had arrived at one of the most telling impasses two black Americans can reach. Her number-one ranking aligned her with the explanation of black fate on which black group authority rests. For her, victimization was not a fact of black life, it was the fact. It was a totalism—an ultratruth that not only supersedes but that makes a taboo of all other truths. My lower ranking of racism as a barrier violated this taboo, put me at odds with black group authority, and made me, alas, a “black conservative.”

'Very simply, then, a black conservative is a black who dissents from the victimization explanation of black fate when it is offered as a totalism—when it is made the main theme of group identity and the raison d’être of a group politics.

'The young journalist was a liberal and in harmony with black group authority because of a predetermined willingness, even commitment, to seeing two things: that black difficulty in America was the result of ongoing racial victimization and that white America was responsible for bringing change. The only time she transgressed her natural politeness was when she smugly said, “Well, obviously we have a different time schedule as to when white people ought to be let off the hook.” Certainly even a black conservative would not want to let white people off the hook. And yet, as time marches on, I can’t help but feel that a far greater danger for blacks is the belief that doing so makes a difference. What is clear is that a group politics devoted to keeping whites on the hook also requires that victimization be a totalism in black life—that it define group identity, become a part of the self-image of individual blacks, and keep in play a permanently contentious relationship with whites.

'I said to her that when victimization is treated as a totalism, it keeps us from understanding the true nature of our suffering. It leads us to believe that all suffering is victimization and that all relief comes from the guilty good-heartedness of others. But people can suffer from bad ideas, from ignorance, fear, a poor assessment of reality, and from a politics that commits them to the idea of themselves as victims, among other things. When black group authority covers up these other causes of suffering just so whites will feel more responsible—and stay on the hook—then that authority actually encourages helplessness in its own people so that they might be helped by whites. It tries to make black weakness profitable by selling it as the white man’s burden.
'“But isn’t it really about power? And if victimization brings power, it’s the power that counts.” She surprised me. I hadn’t realized she was even listening. “I mean, you could say that whites got power by killing the Indians and enslaving the blacks. That’s worse than using your history of victimization to get power. People get power all sorts of ways.”'

Perhaps some would say I'm audacious for wanting to discuss issues of race and entertaining viewpoints which do not put blame and responsibility solely upon white people and their descendents, but if the historian's mission is an "aversion to falsification" (see prior post below on Bernard Lewis), then the aversion to falsification must also challenge the groupspeak and orthodoxies of the victims as well as their traditional rulers. Steele elaborates further on this theme in today's WSJ, "White Guilt and the Western Past."

For a contrary view, see Black Commentator, which is sometimes linked on this blog.

"What's Good for India is Good for US"

Charles Wheelan writes:

'China is a geopolitical problem waiting to happen, whether it's Tibet, Taiwan, encroachment in the South China Sea, selling weapons to nasty regimes, or any number of other problems that stem from being an autocracy on the move. Which brings us back to our new ally in that part of the world: India.

If China is the bad drunk at a party where a lot of liquor is being served, then India is the muscular guy in the corner quaffing mineral water. He looks like a good person to get to know.'

Read the whole thing.

Bernard Lewis and the historian's mission

Bernard Lewis published "The Roots of Islamic Rage" in The Atlantic in 1990. I read it then and immediately understood it to be prescient, but I didn't fully understand its prophetic nature and keen analysis until 9/11.

Today's WSJ linked above includes an excellent article about Bernard Lewis by Fouad Ajami. Here is the money quotation:

'A pain afflicts modern Islam--the loss of power. And Mr. Lewis has a keen sense of the Muslim redeemers and would-be avengers who promise to alter Islam's place in the world. This pain, the historian tells us, derives from Islam's early success, from the very triumph of the prophet Muhammad. Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land; he had led his people through wilderness. Jesus had been crucified. But Muhammad had prevailed and had governed. The faith he would bequeath his followers would forever insist on the oneness of religion and politics. Where Christians are enjoined in their scripture to "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's," no such demarcation would be drawn in the theory and practice of Islam.'

You have likely heard a paraphrase of that statement, but the next one is even more candid and speaks about the addiction to relativism and skepticism now afflicting the West:

'The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which once translated one of Mr. Lewis's books into Arabic, said that his book was "the work of a candid friend or an honest enemy." Either way, the Brotherhood said, it was the work of "someone who disdains falsification." And this, to me and to his countless readers, runs to the core of this historian's craft--the aversion to falsification. He has been, always, a man of his own civilization and convictions--a fact that accounts for the deep reservoirs of reverence felt for him in many Muslim and Arab lands. In the American academy, he may be swimming against the currents of postmodernism and postcolonial history; he has given up his membership in the Middle East Studies Association, of which he had been a founding member. But countless Arab and Iranian and Turkish readers recognize their tormented civilization in what he has written. They know that he has not come to the material of their history driven by bad faith, or by a desire for dominion. They take him at his word, a man of the Anglo-Saxon world, convinced that the ways of the West today carry with them the hopes of other civilizations. In one of his many splendid books, "Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Age of Discovery," he gave voice to both his fears and to his faith. "It may be that Western culture will indeed go: The lack of conviction of many of those who should be its defenders and the passionate intensity of its accusers may well join to complete its destruction. But if it does go, the men and women of all the continents will thereby be impoverished and endangered."'

The West today is schizophrenic in its need for scientific certainty and its habitual skepticism regarding anyone's moral convictions. Are we going to defend ourselves, or simply try to cash in on the fire sale of our own civilization?

George Shultz, labor negotations, counter-terrorism, and gardening

'"But gardening is something you have to do if you're going to be effective in foreign affairs . . . come around reasonably frequently and get rid of the weeds before they get too big." In any event, Mr. Shultz reminds me, the most useful lessons for dealing with a hostile world didn't emerge from his long years in diplomacy, but in labor, in the experience of collective bargaining: "You show me a union that will never strike, and I'll show you a union that isn't going to get anywhere. You show me a management that will never take a strike, and I'll show you a management that's going to get pushed around." Or nations: "Our basic problem is that the Iranians are convinced that they can do anything and there are no consequences."

Mr. Shultz returns to his core preoccupation, the reality of global terror: "The law-enforcement mentality is not going to do the job for us. You have to have a war mentality. You have to have an offense and defense; you have to be active about it." This diplomatic gardener is no shrinking violet.'

Read on in the WSJ.

Jane Galt on gasoline prices

Besides the link above, she has another post on the subject and one about the "stupidist tax cut ever."