REALTIME

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As I begin this series, I must caution my readers that this series is going to be a bit different from my usual discussions. To present an image of alternative future, and to satisfy my own curiosity on the question, I will be presenting a narrative, largely fictional, on how a nuclear war might be fought here in the post-Cold War days of the Global War on Terror. I cannot promise a high quality of storyline, nor will the detail be comprehensive. This is going to follow a framework I learned some years ago, in a scenario simulation game called “REALTIME”.

REALTIME was a role-playing game developed in the mid-1980s for the purpose of preparing mid-level business and government leaders for crisis management. As is the case in a real crisis, complete knowledge is not possible, and rumors are inevitably mixed in with true facts, and confusion is a real factor which hinders an effective response. REALTIME was as much a psychological test to see how managers and officers handled unexpected stress and sudden high-paced decisions as the quality of those decisions. With the decline in likely confrontation between the USA and USSR, the popularity of such simulations declined and there was never a significant commercial market to turn REALTIME into a recreational game, especially as this RPG emphasized dialogue and strategic decisions, rather than action in the gaming sense.

REALTIME was played as a civilian component to a hypothetical military event, where participants would be alerted to actions as they happened, in real time. Reponses and decisions had to made on the fly, with little chance for preparation or deep inspection. It has been speculated that various versions of the simulation helped to convince world leaders that a nuclear event must be avoided at all costs, because of the strong likelihood that such an event would pressure all involved parties to escalate quickly, out of a “use it or lose it” mentality. Theater warfare was the most common end result of these simulations.

That said, conditions have changed with the fall of the USSR, and so there may not be the same desperate fear of annihilation which pervaded previous scenarios. The scenario I will create here will be far from complete, and should in no way be taken as an indicator of likely decisions and actions. What I am hoping to do here is combine the scenario which the program will produce, and submit it for comment by the readers. Stealing shamelessly from the writers of ‘24’, I will be presenting the scenario in segments of an hour each.

UPDATE: I will cotinue to present hourly installment,s but interruptions at various timestamps will also continue.

Shooting At Our Friends

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"The terrorists want our nation to become distrustful," England said. "They want us to become paranoid and isolationist, and my view is we cannot allow this to happen. It needs to be just the opposite."

- Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, former Secretary of the Navy, also the first Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. England is completely correct, and this whole episode of false accusations against DP World and the U.A.E. has done more damage to American long-term interests in the Middle East than the last year of terrorist operations, because it supports the charge that Americans are racist and cannot discern between their friends and enemies in the Middle East.

Whether or not the deal goes through now, damage has been done, and the questions now revolve around how to prevent a recurrence of this type. Obviously, port security needs a closer look than it has received, but it should be cast in something more mature than a panic-filled collection of worst-case possibilities. Most people don’t realize that port security has been a significant element in national security since the days of Sir Francis Drake, who reportedly hired Basque workers to sabotage the Spanish Armada in 1588. A few action movies based on faulty information (and really, do we want to give the enemy solid information on how we protect our ports?) and Hollywood’s poor opinion of the United States military have managed to scare people into thinking that our docks are under the collective management of some variant of the Three Stooges. But I leave that discussion for now, if for no reason beyond the fact that few people have cool heads to discuss it.

But the issue also brings into question the matter of the Middle East as a whole. To win the War on Terror, we essentially have three options, none of them easy:

1. Kill everyone in the Middle East, except for Israel.
2. Pick a border and hide behind it, a la “Fortress America”.
3. Destroy enemies, make friends, and establish democracy

That’s it folks, you have to choose one of them. There really is no viable fourth option that I can think of. Option one is, of course, not really feasible. It might be possible to wipe out the entire Middle East if one were truly determined, but not without killing off Israel as well, and a lot of other people. But the big reason is simply that the United States recognizes individuals, and while it may be necessary to kill some innocent individuals in order to win a necessary war, it is inconceivable that the United States would knowingly wipe out a region of the world in order to eradicate terrorism, even if we did not have allies in those countries as well. The second option has been tried before; it was popular with Jimmy Carter, for instance, and through History by a number of nations. It’s never worked, and always leads to the enemy kicking in your door.

So we are left with the third option, as was obvious from the beginning. Our military is very, very good at the ‘destroy enemies’ part – so much so that a declassified intercept of Al Qaeda’s transmissions (thank you Austin Bay) includes warning that AQ’s operatives “are experiencing one setback after another and have gone from misfortune to disaster.” In simple terms, it means we have killed a lot of Jihadists, and a lot of the ones left out there have to wear come variant of Depends as they become better acquainted with American military doctrine.

But there remains the larger job, of establishing a stable alternative to the whacked-out hysteria of praising Allah by killing people. For some reason, maybe Michael “Feed Me” Moore and his ilk, far too many people still do not understand that nations in the Middle East are not identical to one another, and even within a given nation, you can find a wide range of individuals and groups. Certainly not as wide as in the United States, but even so, those who see only in monochrome miss a lot of what is going on. Iran, for instance. On one level there can be no question now that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as unbalanced as Adolf Hitler, or at least on the level of Josef Stalin – a canny but extraordinarily cruel man who delights in planning death and destruction. This nutcase truly believes, for instance, that he was surrounded by a green halo when he spoke at the United (Socialist) Nations in 2005, and is on record as claiming the Holocaust never happened. He also blamed the bombing of an historic Mosque on the United States and Israel. Sounds a bit like his version of the Reichstag fire, don’t you think?

Yet in that same country there are thousands of young students, risking their safety to protest against the government, and to demand freedom and rights, even when they are imprisoned and beaten for doing so. This, in Iran! Imagine the possibilities, if the youth in Germany had protested against Hitler in 1937 in this way.

Also, there are nations whose records in how they act towards Americans and to our government, are distinctly worth recognizing. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, are scorned in public as somehow unstable or untrustworthy, but their record shows strong support for U.S. policies and the military, and their courage standing up to Osama Bin Hellbound when the name meant a real threat is not something which should be forgotten.

Yes, two of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks came from the UAE, but they had no government connections, and cannot be said to accurately represent the government’s policies anymore than Timothy McVeigh, an American citizen who served in the Army, reflected American citizens’ views or the governments policies when he set off his bomb in Oklahoma City.

Yes, it was official UAE policy to recognize the Taliban, but the United States still officially recognizes only the Communist “People’s Republic of China” as the legitimate government of China, but not the freely elected leaders on the island which we call Taiwan.

Context matters; Hysteria is quite unwanted.

A reader earlier this week mentioned that the United States has treated our allies in the Middle East as disposable. Perhaps in a military sense and in the short-term, you can get away with that, but in the long run, the only way we win in the Middle East is to establish permanent and serious ties with the good guys over there.

Such good guys do exist. I know this because I have met some of them, and heard from more, and know about many more. And our military and our government people know them, as well. They include people in their militaries, the police in their cities, even their businessmen. I’m not pretending that your average Arab looks forward to the day when he can work a 40-hour week for a corporation, have hot dogs and beer for lunch and watch baseball on TV, but I can promise you there are Arabs and Middle-Eastern men who want to take care of their families, who want honest government and even-handed laws, who want to practice their faith without fear of violence or repression, and who want a decent chance to succeed on their own skills. I know this, because I have talked with such men. And there are places where they have hammered out something not unlike a decent nation.

In the end, the United States can only build a solid and successful Middle East by creating and building strong alliances. Not out of fear from a Communist or Fascist enemy, but by stressing common ground and purpose, by disproving the lie that Americans hate Arabs and Islam, and by showing we are willing to trust those nations to a certain degree. We already are, you know, by putting some of our bases in their hands and trusting our servicemen to their people in many ports of call. I am not saying we should become naïve about real security issues, but the terrorists win if they get started shooting at our friends.

Fear Not, You Who Are Just

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Liberals are cowards. Yes, I know how that sounds, but I have been scrolling through some of the threads on liberal blogs (stopping to take a shower every so often, or read a bit from the Federalist papers to re-orient my mind in proper order) and a few of the more popular liberal websites which discuss the War on Terror, the 9/11 attacks, and the political climate since President Clinton was in office. And what I see, is a collective paranoia which pervades every issue and infects every discussion. I’m actually surprised that the Avian flue has not yet been designated a Rove/Dubya conspiracy by the Aluminati, but maybe that’s just waiting for the “right” time.

Not that all conservatives are brave, though. I realize that a portion of those 62 million voters who gave Dubya a second term in 2004 did so out of fear of terrorism, fear of Jihadism, and fear of losing our way of life. To some degree, both Liberals and Conservatives share that sense, that the world we know is gone, and this creates a sense of the unknown, which in turn generates and feeds fear.

Of course the Jihadists know about that fear. They wanted to create it, for it to grow, and to drive our decisions and actions. If the United States begins to do what the Jihadists expect us to, then the Jihadists believe that they will gain the upper hand, and inevitably gain victory over the West, whom they see as too weak and flaccid to prevail in the long term. This is why the Jihadists reacted so badly to the invasion of Iraq – they never expected a military to win on those terms, nor the President of the United States to show steel in his resolve and focus. Bin Laden is quoted as saying “We love death. The US loves life. That is the difference between us two.” If that were so, then both of us are getting what we love. But in actual fact, the Jihadists only love death because they think they will mostly be the ones delivering it, not receiving it. The US Military has dissuaded tens of thousands of them from that fallacy.

The Jihadists cannot win, except they convince us to give up and leave. That was the game plan for Vietnam, and for South America and Africa, and so it remains the plan used by our enemy here. If we keep the course and stand by our friends, we cannot lose, and whatever the press says of America’s image, enough real democracies and we will enjoy great profit, whether in business terms or our political alliances. The Jihadists know this, and they are greatly afraid.

All through History, there is usually one power which enjoys the most power, but only a few truly supreme powers. With the end of the USSR, the United States is just such a power, unmatched in any significant measure. The Jihadists make the mistake of believing their own propaganda, and so believe that wealth has made America weak, that comfort has made America timid, and that victory has made us stupid. Certainly some of our politicians have helped to feed that image. But the Jjihadists are also limited. In the past, when a power was truly supreme, other nations found it necessary to try one of four basic strategies to deal with it. They would make alliances or treaties if they could, but not only do the Jihadists hate such a notion, they actually have nothing to offer in the way of a treaty, anyway. And of course, by now negotiation is quite out of the question.

The second means is to form alliances against the superior power, to hold them back or to attack a flank to weaken the power. Unfortunately for the Jihadists, this too is not a viable option. The United States, contrary to the lies from people like Moore and Gore, has established a firm reputation for honoring its commitments and keeping its word, certainly better than many other nations and the traditional empires of the past. This makes treaties and agreements with the United States much more attractive to most Middle East governments than aligning with the Jihadists, whatever their leaders may say to Al-Jazeera. And so the Jihadists, partly due to American integrity and partly due to their own radical agenda, find themselves largely alone in their cause. They can rouse a mob to create a riot, and they can kill innocent people here and there, but in military terms, they are not in a position to launch a true offensive, even if Iran throws in officially behind them.

The third way is guerilla warfare, and on first glance this may appear to be the Jihadfists’ plan in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet their plans in those countries are failing. Yes, they can kill civilians and the occasional soldier or two, but they are continuing to lose not only territory, but support among the people. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are coming to terms with the reality that they truly own their own country, and what happens is up to them. If the United States stays resolute, then inside of four years these nations will be thriving and self-sufficient. And an absolute nightmare for the Jihadists.

So, only one weapon remains for the Jihadists: fear. That was why the September 11th attacks were planned as they were. Bin Laden ignored military bases and a direct confrontation with US forces, and went after office buildings and landmarks. He was hoping to cause fear and terror among ordinary people, and so to foment a demand for retreat. The Democrats obliged him, but not the President, nor the American people. And as time passes, even as the cost rises the determination remains strong, and by the time the last Jihadist leader comprehends the scale of his blunder, it will be about the same time that free governments are installed in the last of the Middle East nations which presently think suicide bombing is a valid means of conducting policy.

Open message to the Jihadists: You’re going to lose, and the only thing you love which will remain to you in the end, will be the death you so admire and pursue. But I would not desire death, were I you. You have already murdered innocent people, including women and children, and for such as you there is no Paradise, only the torment of a just resolution. But as you desire death, rest assured we will bring yours to you as soon as Allah allows.

Seaport Security – Tip of the Iceberg or Another Verse From Chicken Little?

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The proposal to sell long-term leases to six U.S. seaports to Dubai Ports World, a company from the United Arab Emirates, has raised the important question of seaport security. A great many people assume that the sale, if it goes through, would weaken US security and potentially allow terrorists access to the United States through our ports. The debate has generated a lot of noise and anger already, making it difficult to sort out the facts from the paranoia.

First, what was the reason for suggesting the deal in the first place? Basically, a British-owned company, P&O Ports, wants to sell operating leases to six of the ports it controls in the United States. And this is important when you look at the makeup of U.S. seaport operations.

There are 361 seaports in the United States. The Top 25 by freight weight (2003) are in the following locations (tonnage in ‘short tons’):

South Louisiana, LA (198.8 Million Tons)
Houston, TX (190.9 Million Tons)
New York, NY-NJ (145.9 Million Tons)
Beaumont, TX (87.5 Million Tons)
New Orleans, LA (83.8 Million Tons)
Huntington, WV (77.6 Million Tons)
Corpus Christi, TX (77.2 Million Tons)
Long Beach, CA (69.2 Million Tons)
Texas City, TX (61.3 Million Tons)
Baton Rouge, LA (61.3 Million Tons)
Plaquemines, LA (55.9 Million Tons)
Lake Charles, LA (53.4 Million Tons)
Los Angeles, CA (51.3 Million Tons)
Mobile, AL (50.2 Million Tons)
Valdez, AK (49.9 Million Tons)
Tampa, FL (48.3 Million Tons)
Pittsburgh, PA (41.7 Million Tons)
Baltimore, MD (40.2 Million Tons)
Duluth-Superior, MN-WI (38.3 Million Tons)
Philadelphia, PA (33.2 Million Tons)
St. Louis, MO-IL (32.4 Million Tons)
Pascagoula, MS (31.3 Million Tons)
Norfolk Harbor, VA (31.2 Million Tons)
Freeport, TX (30.5 Million Tons)
Portland, ME (29.2 Million Tons)

Of these, Peninsular & Oriental navigation (P&O Ports) has part or whole ownership of the operating leases in eleven of the top U.S. ports. P&O Ports is a British company based in London, which has part or whole ownership in 85 seaports worldwide. And P&O Ports has decided to divest itself of about half of its U.S. seaport investment. Why?

Because seaports are expensive and sometimes difficult to run. American seaports often have environmental and operational restrictions which annoy the lease owners and chase away capital investment. The whole reason for the leases, in actual fact, is that there are four classes of people working through the ports:

· Ship owners and operators, who want to move freight
· Property owners, who often build warehouses near the port facilities
· The Port Authority for each port; and
· Operations Management companies

At the risk of sounding trite, port operation is not all that different from running a very large grocery operation – you have to move a lot of items, some fragile, some time-sensitive, some just plain difficult to move, in a very short frame of time. You have to keep ship traffic flowing and you have to keep all kinds of inspectors and officials happy. And no one pays any attention to you, unless and until something goes wrong.

I suspect this was how the deal was pitched to the President – as a change only in operational management, with no change at all in the substance. The Department of Homeland Security still holds authority for security, with the Coast Guard and the Customs Service as the first responders to any concerns, regardless of who holds the operations lease. The individual ports each also stipulate conditions for ship traffic, cargo documentation and handling, and these are based on long experience and attention to practical feasibility. The Port of South Louisiana, for instance, the largest U.S. port in terms of tonnage, notes that the requirements and restrictions on port operations of any kind are subject to the terms agreed to by the Gulf Seaports Marine Terminal Conference, whose members are all American citizens and all with direct and specific experience in ports and shipping, represented by members of Port and Navigation authorities from thirteen separate U.S. ports or navigable waterways.

As for the fact that two of the 9/11 terrorists were from the U.A.E., this is in no way a valid indicator to pretend U.A.E. is not a staunch ally of the United States. After all, Timothy McVeigh was a U.S. citizen and served in the Army, but that hardly means that the Oklahoma City bombing was popular with or sanctioned by the U.S. Army. Same lack of logic, you see.

Also, there is a trade problem with the deal. The British held the leases without any restriction about selling them, and so it will come across to many nations as unreasonable for the United States to now say a British company must abide by a condition not stipulated to in any of the agreements, and on no better basis than the fear that an ally of the United States would fail to use good judgment in their oversight of DP World. Imagine, as a counterpoint, if the People’s Republic of China retaliated by demanding the immediate redemption of U.S. Treasury Bonds in specie. No, that condition is not mentioned anywhere in the bond sales, but if national interest without evidence can be so used, what would stop China from making just such a demand?

Also, there is an historical component to the deal. Most Americans do not realize that foreign investment was not only common to the early American industry, but was actually essential. More than seventy percent of the First Bank of the United States was owned by foreign investment, at a time when such investment could easily have led to manipulation of U.S. policies. So too the case for our railroads, which were largely made possible by capital investment by other countries. So, foreign ownership of strategic resources is by no means new or unreasonable in most cases.

Yet I am not willing to say we should rubber-stamp the deal. I do not think it is right to immediately castigate the deal, but neither do I agree that we should ignore the action. Certainly, it is a good idea to explain how the operating lease works, what must be done by the buyer to protect security and what prevents the buyer from causing or allowing actions which put the United States in danger. I am one of those people who believes the U.A.E. is a good ally to America, who should be encouraged to invest here and take part in our mutual future. Yet I also believe it is best for the foreign investor, whatever his homeland, to be transparent about his intention and policies.

It is also important to understand the scale of our danger, however. The Department of Transportation notes that freight comes into and out from the United States in a number of ways, including seaports but also airports, trucks, and rail. So in addition to ships, you have to worry about trains, planes, trucks and automobiles bringing in bad people and dangerous weapons. And as for the ports, I personally worry less about the most significant ports, which also attract the bulk of attention from law enforcement and the DHS, than I do about the hundreds of small ports which get very little attention at all. If I was going to sneak in a WMD, for example, I wouldn’t try New York or Houston or Long Beach, but rather one of the places no one ever thinks about. Just like the coyotes who have been bringing illegals across the border have done for more than a century.

And let’s not forget about who could be helping terrorists besides port lease operators. Remember I mentioned that ports have a lot of warehouses in their territory? Well, those warehouses are not inspected nearly as closely as the cargo coming in through the port. In fact, if I wanted to have a chemical weapon go off at, say, the Port of Houston, instead of trying to sneak it in through the Port, I would just truck it in over the border, park the trailer in one of the port warehouses, and boom. Or, I could just rent storage near one of the major airports, if I preferred, say, to take out Bush Intercontinental Airport. Not that hard to do, because there is a lot of unmonitored storage space at seaports, docks, airports, and railyards.

And let’s not get too happy on the idea that Arab countries are the only source of terrorism. Sure, the Jihadists are a pretty nasty bunch, but let’s not forget that Spain’s home-grown ETA helped plan and carry out the Madrid bombing, and that British Muslims helped carry out the London bombing. So we really don’t need to worry about the U.A.E., whose doctrine and policies have always been very pro-U.S., when we can find so many dangerous types very close to home.

I still haven’t made up my mind about whether the deal is a good idea or a bad one. But we should try to keep separate the assumptions from the facts, and the prejudice from better judgment.

Why The Threat Is Good News

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Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (sanity free since 1978) has been making a name for himself over the past year, by making statements which may charitably be described as inflammatory and perjorative. Among the most commonly cited quotes are the ones which deny the occurrence of the Holocaust during World War 2, which demand the destruction of the nation of Israel and imply the destruction of America, and which give strong support to the belief that Iran is pursuing not just nuclear power, but nuclear weapons, and that once such weapons are possessed, they will be used on Iran’s enemies.

I have long puzzled over these remarks, as they are not something which any reasonable man would say in public, even if they exactly match his sentiments. Some people have claimed that Ahmadinejad made these comments because he is truly a madman, and honestly believes what he says. Others mention that they believe Ahmadinejad is the puppet of other men, who desire that he should make such statements. Certainly, the immediate effect of such bombast is to embolden the Jihadists, many of whom lack the capacity to understand the cost and peril of their quest, and there is a certain political logic to such rants, in line with what we have heard before from Hamas, Hizbollah, and other terrorist groups. The recent election of Hamas to leadership of the Palestinian Authority demonstrates that for many in the Middle East, there is no concern about choosing murderers to stand for the government. Yet I still read these statements as provocative, as if Ahmedinejad is goading the United States and Israel, trying to provoke something, and I wonder why that is so.

It came to me then , that what we are seeing and hearing, is actually good news, further confirmation that we are winning in Iraq. To explain that, I will have to step back and provide a brief overview.

In 1979, Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq, just about the same time that the Ayatollah Khomeini grabbed control in Iran. The two men were very much like predecessors in Europe, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. In both cases, the men each held near sole control of a major military and economic power. Both coveted the other nation, and plotted to invade. Both believed they could bluff their way into gaining a position from which to strike. And just as Hitler struck while Stalin was still getting ready, so Hussein struck Iran while the Ayatollah’s army was still preparing. Everyone pretty much saw the fight coming.

Of course, the fight between Hitler and Stalin didn’t work out the same way that the fight between Saddam and Khomeini did. Both Saddam and Khomeini were angered that the Middle East largely wanted to stay out of the war, and both men were further upset by the way the U.S. played the middle – selling weapons early to Saddam because they (correctly) believed Khomeini meant to invade Iraq, then pulling that support and even selling a few weapons to Iran to prevent Saddam from taking over Iran. Reagan understood that neither dictator could be allowed to win, and mad sure of it. This was also a reason why the first President Bush did not “finish the job” and take out Saddam in 1991; he knew that the United Nations might allow the U.S. to remove Saddam, but not to select his replacement, leading to a power vacuum which would most likely be resolved by Iranian tanks.

So, as of 1991 the Middle East appeared to be going as it always had, but with two significant changes. The Soviet Union was fading away, and was already irrelevant in military terms to the Middle East. Also, the Middle East was plagued with regional warlords and terrorist groups, and neither President Clinton nor any of the European leaders showed any interest in cleaning up the mess. So both conditions festered, allowing the Jihadists to believe that they had been the ones to kill the Communist Empire, and that the West was weak and cowardly. And so this led to a cowardly attack on September 11th, in the stupid blunder of believing that the United States would not strike back, and would be forced to negotiate on terms favorable to the Jihadists, or simply abandon the Middle East altogether. As has been said about other people, the Jihadists ‘misunderestimated’ George W. Bush and the United States military.

Iran was actually very well-behaved on the surface during the early parts of the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the Mullahs were clearly upset at the installation of what must have seemed a pro-Western regime in Baghdad, the overall impression given by Iran’s diplomats and representatives was one of reserve and calm. However, even as early as the summer of 2003, the State Department was worried by signs of Iran’s non-compliance with IAEA requirements, particularly facilities designed to enrich uranium and experiments involving Polonium-210, which is a nuclear weapons initiator with no commercial value. Personally, I have no doubt that the President was aware of such developments long before they were released to the public, and that a secondary reason for the invasion of Iraq was to prevent an invasion by Iran. Certainly a free Iraq is a thorn in the side of the Jihadists, not only because an occupied Iraq would have been a great economic prize for Iran, and would have fueled the military adventure which the Mullahs so clearly want to pursue. Instead of a weak army headed by an unpopular and apostate tyrant, Iran now looks to Iraq and sees a free nation with a duly elected legislature and framework for a strong future on many levels, guarded by the world’s best-trained and most-advanced military force. Even Ahmadinejad understands that he cannot win a war against the United States as things stand, especially if he is foolish enough to strike the first blow by invading Iraq. Even if he acquires nuclear weapons, it hardly brings Iran equal to American capabilities, and there are few nations which would choose to stand alongside the Mullahs against the Marines. It’s one thing to wear masks and carry signs, knowing the police will protect a “right” to burn flags and riot, up to a point. It’s quite another to believe that the United States, already aware of how many IEDs and terrorists are brought into Iraq from Iran, would not crush Iran at the first opportunity. More than a few American generals are hoping for a chance to take out the fascists in Teheran, rather than let them breed the way Al Qaeda did during the 1990s.Not that the Americans are gun-happy, but they are well aware that the threat wil lonely grow with time or apathy.

And that brings me to why Ahmadinejad is playing his hand the way he has chosen. Direct military confrontation with America is not a good choice for the Jihadists right now, so they greatly prefer to keep the fighting at the “insurgent” level, which is to say Iran denies any hand in the murders of civilians and police and the occasional soldier with its roadside bombs and other low-level attacks. And Iran is far too much the pariah to fool anyone into believing that they would be a good citizen, to be trusted with agreements and treaties; Ahmadinejad understands that after Kim Jong-Il’s little stunt, the United States is not going to take Iran’s promise of good behavior at face value. So he has fallen back to what appears to be his most promising tack; the annoying madman. In President Ahmadinejad’s eyes, the history since 1979 shows the United States as vacillating, weak-willed and unwilling to carry a burden for very long. Within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, Democrats were already complaining about preparations for the American response, and within months of the fall of Baghdad, the press and the liberals were screaming for us to leave. Ahmadinejad is presenting himself as unstable, in order to frighten the gullible in the United States, and to show up the Americans in Muslim eyes. If he succeeds, the pullback from Iraq will allow Iran to plan and eventually carry out the invasion of Iraq, just as they planned all along. This invasion can only succeed if the Americans can be tricked into leaving before Iraq is truly self-supporting. This is the prime hope of the Mullahs in Teheran.

The second possibility, in the Jihadists’ eyes, is almost as appealing. If the United States invades Iran and appears to be the aggressor, the Mullahs will scream that such is an invasion not of a terrorist sponsor and rogue power, but an invasion of one of Islam’s strongest defenders. Count on Al-Jazeerah to make extensive use of a lot of video of “attacks” on mosques, even if it has to blow them up itself to create the image of American attacks. This, in the mind of the Mullahs, would expand the war by pulling in Islamic allies from all around Iran, from Syria and from Saudi Arabia and from Sudan and from Egypt; great pressure would be brought against any nation with a Muslim majority to support the “defense” of Iran, which would then be used as the pretext to invade “apostate” nations like Iraq and Jordan, and of course Israel if the opportunity seems ripe. As unrealistic as the plan sounds, this is precisely what the Mullahs are hoping will happen.

Why is this good news? Because fanatic though he is, Ahmadinejad has seen video of Saddam on trial, of women voting in Afghanistan and Iraq, of children getting to learn about the world as it really is in the 21st Century, rather than how Mohammed or Ali or Saladin might have envisioned it, of private citizens getting to live freely, and he understands that the Americans just might be able to do what they promise, and that his own future might also include hiding from Americans in a hole, while the world moves even further away from his dream of Jihad. He is forced to gamble on a desperate move, and one which shows no comprehension of the character of his opponents or their ideals. He senses defeat in Iraq, just as it is settling down in Afghanistan. Two or three more years of practicing democracy in Iraq, and no mullah may be able to shake the Iraqi people from it, and no Iranian army may matter in the decision between Jihad and personal rights, between a culture of repression and one of self-expression, between the old tyranny of the past and the bright hope of the future. Ahmadinejad screams his threats out of fear and despair, because he knows he is losing and the clock is running out. God willing his nightmare, a truly free and peaceful Middle East, will come to pass just as he fears.

There’s Immigrants and There’s Immigrants

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One area where President Bush is admittedly weak with his base, is the issue of Illegal Immigration (the capital letters let you know it’s important). Many conservatives are unhappy, verging on outrage, that Bush has not proposed a plan to eliminate illegal entry into the United States, and to raise the issue of Border Security to a higher alert status, as it were. The problem I have with that criticism, is that it doesn’t offer much of a comprehensive alternative to the Bush plan, and it doesn’t address the concrete steps the Bush plan will take to focus DHS attention on the truly dangerous criminals and likely allies to terrorists. It also fails to address a significant political reality.

This morning I had the pleasure to hear Stephen Moore discuss President Bush’s proposal with William Bennett on “Morning in America”. Mr. Moore, no cheerleader for the White House, was quick to point out just what I have been saying all along, and to add a question he asked his own parents, when they objected to the way new citizens come to America. ‘Why don’t they come here legally, the way our ancestors did?’ Moore says his parents demanded. ‘How sure are you that they did come here legally?’ countered Moore, reminding Dr. Bennett that the immigration and entry laws of the United States have varied widely over the years, and many now-respectable families started out by skirting the law to some extent. At one time or another, immigration was severely restricted or even illegal for such groups as Chinese, Catholics, Jews, Irish, Africans, and religious minorities. And social attitudes were only recently broadened to allow employment and education to all citizens. My own father told me tales about Philadelphia businesses which would neither hire nor serve blacks, Jews, or Irish. So it should not surprise people to discover that U.S. law was capricious in its treatment of people wishing to enter the country, and more than a few who live here permanently had to bend rules to do so. It hardly means I am excusing illegal entry, but we should be careful to understand that the United States has never yet practiced a consistent immigration system. Until the past century, immigrants, whether legal or not were considered as a group to be valuable to the economy and no threat to the government. While certain groups have been considered undesirable, like the ban on Asian immigration enacted by Teddy Roosevelt’s Administration (note that the ban was not especially effective), and the restrictions imposed during World War 1 and World War 2 set the tone for not only necessary security actions, but also perjorative social engineering.

I have written on this issue before, and now as then I will doubtless find few enough minds open to the need to begin ab initio in developing a comprehensive and fungible policy for immigration, otherwise whatever is decided now will simply create a new set of problems in the years to come.

Democrats Fooling Themselves – Par Nauseum

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Like the passing traveler who can’t help but gawk at the train wreck, I looked at the Washington Post’s online Op-Eds, and learned once again why the Left continues to lose despite itself. The irony this time, was that the writer was attempting to discover the Democrat’s misstep, but repeated it himself at the very start.

In a piece titled “Precriminations”, Dana Milbank was trying to present a wry suggestion that Democrats will be unable to convert “their biggest advantage over Republicans in 14 years” into election gains, because of the public perception of up to eleven Democratic leaders, plus the now de riguer tinfoil presumption that Karl Rove is somehow directing the Democrats’ missteps. While Milbank’s piece appears to be intended as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the Democrats’ higher order strategies, it demonstrates the blindness of even the Democrats’ allies. Milbanks supposes that four “issues” in particular – “Hurricane Katrina, Iraq, Jack Abramoff and now Harry Whittington” – are potentially huge assets to the Democrats, which is just short of completely wrong. Even the polls, which themselves are less than totally accurate in measuring opinion these days for reasons of weighting, acknowledge that the average American is aware that the response to Katrina was as much a local and state blunder as it ever was a federal mistake, that Jack Abramoff had connections to high-level Democrats as well as Republicans (Harry Reid, paging Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid), and that the Whittington accident was just that – an accident which hardly rises to the level of an “issue”. As for Iraq, Americans are not happy about the cost of the conflict, but in the last two elections they made their preference clear, and it’s not ‘cut n run’ – personally, I would love for the Democrats to keep trying that tack, seeing the results it has brought thus far, though part of me really does wish the Democrats would show some of that patriotism and support for the troops they so often vow is present.

Yet even where Milbanks correctly identifies Democrats who are likely to torpedo their own party, he misses the reasons for this self-destruction. For instance, Milbanks identified Gore as a problem for falsely accusing President Bush of criminal acts, yet he completely ignored his lies and near-seditious statements made just over a week ago in Jeddah. Granted, the entire MSM seems to be keeping the lid, as best they can, on Gore’s outrageous claims, but if you want to know why Gore is hurting the Democrats, let’s at least be clear about what he is saying, and how Americans react to it.

Next up, Murtha. Milbanks claims “[n]obody doubts that Jack Murtha, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, was acting on principle when he called for an immediate pullout from Iraq.”. Maybe on the Left that’s true Dana, but I know a lot of uniform-wearing Americans who took that demand as a cheap shot and political stunt. And that’s a really bad idea if you want Americans to see your party as in tune with the people, much less the patriots you keep claiming to be.

Yet some of Milbank’s would-be scapegoats seem ill-suited to the role. Joe Lieberman? Sure, Democrats hate him but a lot of reasonable people applauded his stand, which for once showed a Democrat with focus and principles. Yet Milbanks thinks he is a liability? As for Kerry, Biden, or Bill Clinton? Sorry Dana, but no one outside the DNC pays much attention to them. Has-beens, you know, seldom get the stage and for good reason. People laugh at these sorts, they do not take them seriously, so it’s a stretch to claim they are a factor in any real sense.

As long as Democrats don’t even recognize where their weaknesses are, they cannot hope to repair them.

Different Eternities

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One of the truly significant differences between the Jihadists and the West, is the question of rewards. It has been said, correctly, that Jihadists are promised great sensual rewards in a Muslim Paradise. Small wonder, since it’s pretty obvious that dying for the cause is hardly going to mean comfort and success in this life. But looking through the Scriptures uised by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it becomes apparent that the three religions have significantly different ideas for what happens after death.

Some theologians try to explain the differences in how the Tanakh addresses life after death as an evolving concept of Heaven and Hell. I find it striking that the Jews have the plainest explanation right from the start; do what is just, and you will not be ashamed. It’s not very hard at all to believe that is the word of God. Of course, the problem with Good and Evil is that there is some of each in everyone, which makes an absolute judgment difficult for people to accept or describe. It’s one thing to believe that you will be treated fairly, but an absolutely perfect delight or perfect hell makes people wonder where they will fall out. That’s why I have always found the Christian heaven a bit more believable; justice for those who can bear it, but mercy for everyone who needs it. I also think the Tanakh implies that same mercy from God, so it’s not as though the Christian heaven is directly in conflict with the Jewish one.

Islam, however, is quite another matter. The Quran makes clear that the afterlife, for Muslims at least, is a very sensuous and rather mortal-life amusement park. And I at least would become bored beyond belief in a very short order with such a trivial and petty version of eternity. As much enjoyment as a man might find with virgins, abundant food and drink, and whatever sexual or physical pleasures the conditions might afford (many Muslim apoligists seem unable to clarify on that point), the physical existence is only one dimension, and I should expect a blessed eternity to offer something for the mind at least, to say nothing of the emotions, heart, and of course the soul. Sorry to sound flippant, but it sounds as if Hugh Hefner and Donald Trump opened a combination grocery store/Halal deli/brothel and kept it supplied, Islam could literally have its heaven on earth right now.

But of course, that would lack the blood. Islam has a lot of that. Judaism was never big on forcing people to convert, and Christ taught His disciples to teach by the example of their love. But Islam was spread by the sword, indeed it only caught on because Mohammed himself went around killing anyone who wouldn’t convert to his belief. I understand that the men of his day were tough and ruthless, so maybe he just did what he had to, but it set a pattern which led to bloody conquest of dozens of countries, and which is used to justify countless atrocities by terrorists now. And the end-days ‘sayings’ attributed to Mohammed and other early Muslims are pretty darn violent. Most involve the coming of ‘al-Mahdi’ (literally, ‘the guided one’) who kills unbelievers in large numbers and in a greta variety of ways, the coming of an evil leader called ‘Dajjat’, kind of like the AntiChrist, who also goes around killing folks, and the Second Coming of Jesus, whom the Muslims call ‘Isa’. Only the Muslim version of Jesus defers authority to the Mahdi and to Mohammed, and is not heard to speak about being One with the Father, as He is quoted in the Gospels. And in the Muslim accounts, Isa goes around killing evil-doers and also personally kills Dajjat. All that violence makes it hard to sort out how they are the religion of peace, and their ‘Allah’ the deity of mercy and compassion.

Your goals often define your methods. Accordingly, it might do Islam a bit of good to reconsider Paradise, and give its believers a better focus.

Reunion At Need

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When self-described ‘experts’ discuss religion, they often speak about the three ‘great’ religions, meaning Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This is done, I think, to establish at the beginning a moral equivalence between the three; Moses equals Jesus equals Mohammed, right? Anyone who has actually studied something of the histories of each of these three faiths would disagree with such a misleading presumption, to say nothing of anyone who has studied the applied doctrines they live by. But the equivalence is an important element in Liberal blame-politics; the ‘blame-America’ crowd has to pretend a war against terrorism is a war against Islam, and rather than criticize Islam for its flaws, the faith must be presented as equal or superior to other faiths.

I mentioned the ‘great three’ lie, because it ignores a number of significant faiths, such as the Hindus and the Sikhs, and of course the Buddhists. Not so very long ago, the Taliban (I heard somewhere that they were Muslims) was going aroud blowing up large statues of the Buddha, in order to erase some inconvenient Afghan history. It helps to recall that Buddhism has been around for longer than Islam, and certainly long enough and with significant numbers in worship to be considered a major religion. Frankly, the practices of Buddhism stack up well historically with almost anyone. For instance, when was the last time anyone heard of a devout Buddhist who was a murdering despot? When was the last time that anyone heard of a bunch of Buddhists taking over a nation and then invading its neighbors in a conquest to impose Buddhism on other people by force. Sorry, doesn’t happen.

A religion becomes popular for any number of reasons, but it only survives a millenium because it has at least one basic truth to it. The reader will know by now that I find much in Islam to praise; a conviction of fundamental truths, a commitment to moral character, respect for tradition and spiritual growth. But the reader will also understand that Islam has ben hijacked a number of times in its history, and the present Jihadist is just such a situation. I cannot believe but that the latest fake ‘Mahdi’ will fail just as his predecessors did, and will cost many people their lives and security in doing so, to say nothing of once again killing the promise of Islamic culture as it was meant to be. But there is something which, oddly enough, the Jihadist movement may do to make a difference in the world for the better. I am speaking about bringing Christians around the world closer to the beliefs which Christ intended.

Hugh Hewitt interviewed author Robert Ferrigno about his book, “Prayers for the Assassin”, and linked to it on his site. In the interview, it was chilling how matter-of-factly Mr. Ferrigno mentioned that in the fictionalized America under Sharia, gays and lesbians would be summarily executed. I have no doubt, at all, that he is absolutely right,and this is one of those ‘flashbulb’ moments where a moral lesson becomes indelibly etched into my mind. Granted, in years past the Church has not been particularly kind to the GLBT community. I have always considered that, personally, to be a grave misreading of Scripture. Not because I am GLBT myself or believe that the lifestyle so often promoted by GLBT activists is a good moral choice, but when I go driving around and see the things which are available for entertainment - I could go to a bar and drink, and if I had the mind to, go to a bar where there were women in various stages of undress, all the way down to nude. I could pay to watch movies with extreme violence, or if that was not good enough, the web offers films of all kinds of real violence, up to real killings. And then there are casinos, where a hard-working man can ruin his life in one night if he’s stupid enough, and all sorts of similar temptations. But that’s America, liberty and pursuit of happiness assured, even if that pursuit destroys your life and soul.

Don’t think I’m arguing to take that freedom away, though. Making the U.S. a prison where you are compelled to do the right thing is useless, and more than a little hypocritical, since some people are always in position to do as they please, and in any case, forcing people to do the right thing when they don’t want to, does nothing to make them desire virtue. Sharia does not understand this, and the imposition of brutal punishment for effectively trivial offenses and personal choices is the mark of evil. even the strictest ‘God hates homosexuality’ ranter I know, stops short of wanting them dead, but Sharia would kill them quick as the Mullahs could find them. And facing that fact might wake up a lot of Christians. The differences between believers and followers of the Messiah Jesus quickly dissolve when we see real evil. Not Islam, but the perverted message of Jihad which thinks to take over the world. The ‘Caliphate’ they desire must be opposed, not because it is Muslim but because it serves death instead of life, fear instead of hope, and terror instead of understanding. The tools identify the spirit behind the mask. And if there is any good to such a vision, it is that we can quickly identify the people who are just like us where it really counts, and put away some of the things which have only led to factions and bickering in the past.

The Deadly Song Of Fascism

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The Jihadists are insane. Seriously. Not in a clinical sense, necessarily, but in any pragmatic review of the facts their cause must be regarded as uniquely ill-suited to their goals. Yet, the statements by such men as Iran’s Presidentr Ahmadinejad carry the evidence that they mean to win. And the election of terrorist groups like Hamas to leadership of the Palestinian Authority also play that same two-edged game, running against reason by supporting leaders they know the world at large will not respect, but putting the hopes of millions behind such thugs all the same. We should be uneasy when facing such evidence of insanity, especially knowing the history of such behavior.

Fortunately, there is also a bright side to such madness. The Jihadists have essentially locked in the philosophy and methods of Fascism, which makes them predictable to a degree, and which reminds me of a fatal flaw in their plans.

Rage.

Rage is a powerful emotion, and the Nazis rode it. They used it to gain seats in the German government, then to blame the Communists for the Reichstag fire, then to support preparations for the invasions of Austria, then Czechoslovakia (we only want ‘living room’, promised Der FruitLoop ) and finally Poland before the West came to its belated sense. Rage whipped the troops into a frenzy, especially the Stormtroopers (yes Virginia, there were Stormtroopers before ‘Star Wars’), and the ‘blitzkrieg’.

But rage runs out, and is ultimately no match for a hard resolve. The Nazis could not finish the job in Russia, and never even crossed the English Channel to roll the dice against Churchill. And this was no one-time blunder. Long ago, the early Muslims raged across the Middle East and into Europe, finally being stopped at Poitiers in 732. Yes folks, Europe was saved from the Jihadists in 732 by the French army.

Rage also ran out for the Hun, whose armies were unstoppable until they simply tired of always fighting, and stopped to enjoy what they had. Contentment drains rage, as does doubt. Many empires have slowed down and stopped because their subjects began to doubt the purpose of their conquest. Even Rome could not spur the legions in simply because there was more land and more people out there.

Also, as I have noted before, Islam has a serious problem with its Jihad. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Jihadists enjoyed a culture which was as technologically advanced as any on the globe, and a religious doctrine which was comparatively honest. Not so now, where the Jihadists face weaponry and orders of battle against which they literally cannot prevail without hope of Divine intervention. That divine intervention is less likely than they believe, because the Jihadists’ version of Sharia is corrupt, manipulated by Mullahs in every situation where it serves them to change the practice. Stoning a woman to death for showing her face may feed the rage of some of the men, but others will wonder where the Mercy and Compassion of Allah, so often written of in the Quran, is to be found, where even a minor indiscretion is brutally treated, and where the powerful can replace traditional law with personal interpretations. This is one reason why so few Muslims ran to support the Taliban in Afghanistan, or to prop up Saddam’s regime; these men were apostates in actual fact, and to my mind many Muslims view a Jihad of conquest in much the same light. Not that many will protest in the street about it, but there is not the support for the campaign that the Jihadists envision, and so if they move to take over other nations, the Jihadists will certainly overstep their mark. As heavy as the price will be to stop such men, it is nonetheless a comfort to know this fact.

What Will Iran Do?

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Earlier this week, I suggested that the United States might do well to remind Iran and it’s Jihadist puppetmasters, that the US possesses both the means and the will to totally eradicate their nation from the planet, and to destroy every “holy” site known to Islam. But in actual fact, that is not really necessary; it only needs saying that Israel also has that same capacity.

Somewhere after the Six-Day War in 1967, acquiring nuclear weapons became a top priority for Israel, as the government believed the survival of their nation depended on that ability to deter invasion. And it’s worked; despite continuing rabid hatred against Jews and many acts of violence, no nation has attempted to invade Israel, because of Israel’s nuclear capability. This needs to be understood, because Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons stands as both a motivation for an Islamic nation to also acquire nukes, and as an effective restraint on Jihadist actions.

A lot of people seem to have this mental image of those nations with nuclear weapons as some kind of exclusive club; the press has often mentioned the “Nuclear Club”, as if the US and the old USSR sent officers to play golf together and discuss polo scores, instead of practicing the immolation of their enemy. But in fact, a prime reason for many members of the “club” for joining, was the fear or hatred of an enemy which had or was pursuing a nuclear bomb. And nations have discovered that acquiring nuclear capability was not, in fact, the peace of mind they hoped to find. In Israel’s case, for instance, the desire of so many Islamist regimes to destroy them has hardly abated because Israel has nukes. And the ability to destroy large cities has not prevented individuals and small groups from committing terrorist acts within Israel’s borders. Also, as a nation equipped with nuclear weapons and significant delivery systems, Israel finds that every other nuclear-armed nation has an eye on their actions – and quite possibly a few missiles aimed at them. I imagine that Iran is likely to be quite surprised by the reality of having nuclear weapons, as opposed to what they imagine. But I also imagine that allowing Iran to actually achieve that level of capacity is quite out of the question.

I also mentioned, earlier this week, that Ahmadinejad has probably considered the tactics of Saddam Hussein in his calculations. Certainly the mullahs who put him in office have done so, but quite possibly they have neglected to look far enough back in history to consider the matter in proper context. I am referring not only to the resolve of Ronald Reagan, whom the Jihadists still do not understand, but the 1981 raid on Osirak.

To this day, the official version of the air raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak is suspiciously thin on detail and curiously coincidental in its assumptions. More than a few writers have speculated, though with little corroboration from American and Soviet authorities, that the situation constituted a sufficient provocation that collaboration between arch-enemies was the most prudent course. The most reasonable theory which I have heard, is that the Soviet Union provided HUMINT, the US provided satellite data, and the Israelis did the heavy lifting, sending in a squadron of specially-equipped F-16s to attack the Osirak Nuclear reactor. An interesting situation existed – a militant Middle East leader, speaking in angry tones, attempting to quickly gain access to a nuclear bomb. Sound familiar?

Of course, the likelihood that Israel would run another mission, this time to attack Iran, is on a low level of probability, for a number of reasons. My personal favorite method, if I had to choose and I thought most options were equally feasible, would be the ‘accidental’ meltdown of a major Iranian reactor. This could be accomplished in a number of ways, and if done right could not only cause concern within the Iranian regime about the feasibility of the enrichment program, but bring serious public pressure against the militarization of the nuclear reactors. Never forget, the 1979 Revolution against the Shah was fueled by a popular uprising, and every Mullah since Khomeini has found it necessary to continue the appearance of listening to the people, so a sudden discontent among the average Farsi speaker is something the Mullahs would have to deal with. Kind of a secret weapon, that. Look what happened in Lebanon when Syria suddenly had tens of thousands of angry protestors, just a wee bit upset because someone in Assad’s family had their leader killed. It can happen anywhere, and oligarchies are singularly ill-equipped to address such things; they will almost necessarily have to retreat, unless they put down the uprising brutally, in which case the possibility of counter-revolution goes way, way up in the long run.

Another problem for Iran is one thing I mentioned very early on – not everyone in the military or among the young, approves of what the Mullahs in Teheran are doing. This means that, however unlikely it seems, the possibility that a finished nuclear bomb could be hijacked by forces hostile to the regime. If that happens, all bets are off and the stakes go up very quickly. The possibility of military intervention, to prevent something far worse, is a real contingency, and I suspect a game or two has already been played out to see how to handle such a scenario.

But skip ahead to the meat of the question: Suppose Iran actually gets a nuke, or has one? What do they do with it? Ahmadinejad is a very angry man in his speeches, but does he really believe he can destroy the United States or Israel? Certainly not with one nuke, or even a small stockpile. If Ahmadinajad wanted, for example, to destroy Israel with a nuclear attack, he would need at least ten nuclear weapons of better than 100kt potency, and a dependable delivery system. At the moment, Iran lacks even one of the three traditional arms of a nuclear strike capability; missiles, bombers, subs. Oh yes, Iran has all those things, but ‘dependable’ they are not. The missiles Iran has are either short-range, or they are effectively Scud variants, with CEP far beyond even the ball-park accuracy needed for nukes. The Iranian idea of a bomber is little better than target practice for the IDF (the story of Iran’s desperate attempt to maintain and repair the F-14s left after the Americans fled Iran is very funny, but also speaks volumes about the complete lack of support for any sort of high-technology air force), and Iran’s subs are noisy and slow, with effectively no confidence that they could be made missile platforms. That leaves Iran with an old favorite – the terrorist infiltration bomb. The problem there is, Iran cannot coordinate the kinds of simultaneous strikes necessary to decapitate the Israeli response – and unlike most nations, Israel has never wavered about what it would do in response to a nuclear attack, no matter who was in office.

So, maybe the U.S.? Certainly Iran has reason to hope for good results if it strikes while a Clinton, a Gore, or a Kerry is in the White House. But that would amount to short-term political gain, and a general feel-good condition for terrorists everywhere, such as the period from 1994 to 1999 offered. But it is difficult to imagine a terrorist nuclear bomb not getting the response it earns, especially given the improved ability of the US to sort out the culprit. While Ahmadinejad may hope for it, I don’t see the “destruction” of the United States by Iran.

This explains the stance taken by the French, because the more I look at it, the more likely Iran is to strike Paris. The Jihadists clearly would like to make gains in Europe, and the best way to do that (they believe) would be to destabilize a major European government. Russia is out of the question; too big to topple, and the Russian Mafia would become a dangerous enemy. Poland and Italy and England have shown far too much resolve and spirit for the Jihadists to believe they could win there, but France? A much different story, and with a long history of capitulation to back up the impressions given by the current Franco regime. I am not trying to insult France; any serious examination of France shows the prowess and courage of the Resistance and the French Foreign Legion, but must also reveal the complete lack of principles in international responsibility. This is a weakness at the core of the French identity, which the Jihadists have certainly identified and are targeting, as the recent riots demonstrate. France is now forced to come to some difficult terms, or face a long and difficult conflict with a merciless enemy. In either case the public confidence will be tested, and in such a condition a devastating blow from a terrorist group using a nuclear bomb provided by Iran could lead to a complete dissolution of the French infrastructure. In the ensuing chaos one of two conditions is extremely likely – either France would fail to respond with sufficient military force, or would over-react, using its own nuclear arsenal in an attack which would set off a conflict they could not well survive. The invasion of France itself by an Iran/Syria alliance is not unlikely in such a situation, and this would provoke some hard decisions in Washington and Tel Aviv.

But back to Israel. Israel remains the key to everything, because Iran fears Israel, as they should. Because Israel is close enough to Iran, that on the one hand it will take no action without careful consideration of the consequences, but on the other hand Israel will allow no adventures which endanger its survival. If Iran knows this, they will not move to a more active role in their campaign against Central and Western Europe until they are satisfied they will not be attacked by Israel. If they do not, then there is a war coming, which will be between the proxies of Iran and Israel. America and China will essentially broker that war, if it falls that way.

More Thoughts On War

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Yesterday, I wrote that the United States should make clear to Iran and like-minded regimes, that the full military might of the United States is sufficient to literally obliterate any nation in the Middle East, an option which no other nation possesses. Part of that article was a simple emotional vent, a certain frustration that our State Department cannot express the clear intentions and requirements of American foreign policy and the applied Doctrine of the Administration. And I am forced to concede that the effectiveness of any initiative or policy directed by the White House runs into dilution and opposition from a host of petulant egos and rebellious malcontents. In peacetime this is bad enough, but in war it is to my mind nothing short of seditious. Unfortunately, as things stand this concern must be set aside for another time, with the hope that the reforms intended by Goss, Negroponte, and Rice will improve the conditions under which we must fight.

Returning to the question of a possible Iranian nuclear weapon, however, I believe our best course is to explore the matter with an open mind to all the possibilities and the most effective means to preventing the most undesirable events. Among the possibilities, must be considered the chance that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad understands the West well enough to lay a trap for us, or at least that he plans to use our various factions against each other. Certainly we have fallen for such tactics often enough, that such an effort would seem reasonable.

But to the essentials. First off, we can start by separating the question into whether Iran does or does not already have the Bomb. A great many people seem to have forgotten that Iran has had a large amount of weapons-grade uranium on hand, ironically ever since we started to invade Iraq in 2003, but I will leave off that interesting speculation for another time. The second question surrounds why Ahmadinejad would make the statements he has, in the light of either already having the Bomb, or not having it. An object lesson for this condition can be found by studying the recent decisions by Saddam Hussein.

Bearing in mind that tyrants are not known for peer review or serious consideration of their judgment, it is still interesting to me, to examine the motivation behind Hussein’s refusal to cooperate with the terms of the 1991 Cease-fire. After all, acting as if you have WMD when you know the United States is particularly sensitive to threats from terrorists is just about as stupid as bathing in beef broth and then dancing in front of a pack of pit bulls, and the reaction is also pretty much a foregone conclusion. And yet there he was, the Butcher in Baghdad acting as if he was in complete control of the situation. From his transmissions and recorded statements, Saddam kept up the act almost as long as Baghdad Bob did.

Well, that is until he did his ‘dictator in a hole' routine, the international signal for ‘coward caught running away from justice’. My point is, that Ahmadinejad seems to have caught the same fever, believing that if he can just not be as stupid as Saddam, he can beat the West at the game of brinksmanship. In his eyes, Saddam made the mistake of trying his run without Islam behind him, and even then he almost got away. To Ahmadinejad, having Allah at your back means you can’t lose. And yes, I think he really believes that.

Since I am one of those who believes Iran already has a nuclear bomb, I will start by examining what if Iran does not yet possess a nuclear bomb. In such a case, a person might reasonably ask why Ahmadinejad is raising such a ruckus. One must conclude either that the President of Iran has a more subtle method in mind, or else he is simply stupid beyond what we normally experience from elected officials. Of course, it must be recognized that in the light of Al Gore’s recent rhetorical attack on his own homeland, presumably for reasons involving a hefty honorarium and a bitterly wounded pride, that Ahmadinejad seems almost reasonable in implying that getting a nuke means he would use it on America and or Israel, as if a bomb or two could rid him of his two most enduring enemies.

Of course, if one presumes that Iran has already constructed such a bomb, Ahmadinejad could be testing the waters of regional opinion to see what would happen when he tests the thing. Because that is the next stage of the process; whether or not he has the bomb, Ahmadinejad’s science guys are sure to have told him that the weapon must be tested, for yield and fallout and all the things a Jihadist needs to know.

It should be understood, that for a great many years Muslims had no taste for Chemical Weapons, to say nothing of Bio-weapons of Nuclear bombs. This is because Islam requires a ritual cleanliness in all matters of importance. Sharia, for example, is quite strict about how to treat a body for burial and interment . It speaks to just how much the world has changed, that a Muslim should not only be willing to destroy his body in the pursuit of Jihad, but that such men should be praised for it. Aside from the little moral question of murdering innocents en masse, the sacrifice of one’s body to a condition unsuitable for traditional burial must either mean that the deceased was an abomination to Allah and a great fool besides, or else a hero willing to accept the disgrace of unclean demise for the greater Jihad. While opinions change over time, it should be understood that an unclean death is still a great taboo for many Muslims.

Of course, the Jihadist has no qualms about causing others to die an unclean death, and so it suits the men so willing to hijack the Will of Allah to their own ends, to hope for and plot a nasty demise for their enemies. And yet, if WMD were the ends to their objective, one must wonder why the Jihadists did not simply use some of the available Bio-weapons they had developed, or some of the Chemical weapons available? In a word – cowardice. For the use of any WMD will bring a response. Knowing this, the Jihadists hide their intent, greatly preferring a battle where their victim cannot strike back, and so they settle for women, children, innocent passersby where they may find them, while they hope for a lucky break, a moment of weakness on our side, or a lapse in attention.

It should be noted that the Jihadists are often described as ‘Islamo-Fascists’, and there is ground for that comparison. For one thing, religion is usually an intensely personal practice and a path to peace for many people, but Fascism is about death – the adoration of murder, and the bloody path to power through the blood of your enemies. It hardly matters whether the present Jihadists are echoing the mantra of the Nazis, or the Nazis echoed the Hashashin so many years before, they are kindred spirits – demons all.

And so, just as many ritualist Muslims find themselves praying to Allah by way of a rock in Mecca, the Fascist Muslims find themselves praying for their victory by way of another sort of idol – the talisman of death embodied in a nuclear weapon, the quintessential peak of technology, violence, purity of hatred and racism contained in an elegant case, as if a terrible genie waiting to be unleashed upon the infidel.

Yet the Jihadists pause – because the Americans have such genies as well – and so also do the Israelis. And there are many of those genies, and the Americans know so very, very much about war, and when roused they are fierce beyond the ability of any nation to restrain. And so Ahmadenijad watches how we react and speak among ourselves, trusting to boredom and affluence to blunt the edge of our weapons and our vigilance, and his speeches are consequently made to inflame passion, hoping it will die all the quicker when there is no immediate attack. Enough times with the call, and he will both embolden his troops and lull the West, thinks Ahmadenijad. Time and our counsel will tell whether this evil man is clever, or a great fool doomed by his pride.

Valentine’s Day? Then It’s Time To Talk About Nuclear War Again

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I hate Valentine’ Day. Not the day so much, as all the false expectations imposed on us. After all, if you really love her, you will blow at least a couple pay checks on trinkets and baubles to impress her, as if the love of your life should be considered simply a more expensive call girl. That is what the jewelers and florists and restauranteurs demand, after all – only a cad would forego financial ruin when he can – momentarily at least – sate his companion’s material appetite and personal ego. But the expectations have been there so long, that young men as early as preschool are told what to do, and how. It’s beyond gauche you see, because now it’s tradition.

There are political equivalents, of course, and one of those shows up whenever nuclear war is considered. You see, one of the reasons we are so different in resolve from the generation willing to do whatever was needed to defeat the Fascists from Germany and Japan and Italy, was that the resolve extended all the way to using nuclear weapons. No regrets, pal. You didn’t want Hiroshima vaporized, maybe you should have reconsidered your treatment of prisoners during the Bataan Death March. Unhappy that Nagasaki became flatter than Nebraska in winter, maybe you shouldn’t have raped and/or murdered every civilian in a sizable portion of China. Uncle Sam might take a while, but he always delivers, brother, and so you might want to think about what you’re ordering in your package. We had only 2 bullets in that gun but we shot ‘em both, and made like we had plenty more. So the Emperor in Tokyo blinked, and more than a million people got to keep breathing because the damn war the Fascists started was ended by a bold use of a weapon of unparalleled devastation. Small wonder that just a couple years later, President Truman was able to bluff Josef Stalin out of Iran. Um, well, at least I think Truman was bluffing. He did have a stockpile of nukes by then, and a rather direct approach to addressing Soviet aggression.

Anyway, here we are in 2006, and we are still whining about nukes. The press and Hollywood are no help, not that anyone with a brain figured those low-lifes would be stand-up when the nation was at stake. George Clooney would sell the corpse of Patrick Henry if there was a movie deal in it for him, and everyone else out there in Havana West pretty much thinks the same way. I can only figure the few who have brains and love for their country, like Bruce Willis, only stay there on orders from Cheney, to report what America’s enemies are planning. Democrats have completely lost any sense of National Security in their leadership, and far too many “moderates” want to negotiate with the enemy, even when they admit that diplomacy will fail.

President Bush is doing the right things on the strategic level, and he’s listening to most of the right people and applying the right kinds of pressure, for the most part. But we cannot be shy about our big gun, especially since the enemy doesn’t have one yet. But even if the sheetheads out of Qum get themselves a nuke, that hardly means we can’t make clear that they are making things harder on themselves, not easier. A simple review of the basic facts explains the stone-cold reality:

· With the demise of the Soviet Union, the single most advanced nation in terms of the theoretical knowledge and practical application of nuclear warfare, is the United States. We are so advanced, second place does not exist in any realistic sense.
· The United States has more delivery systems and weapons scale selections than you can imagine. The US can choose to destroy part of a city, part of a country, or everything you know. If they get a nuke, Iran can destroy a city, maybe part of Israel if they build a stockpile and the missiles China sold them work as promised. Or maybe they can sneak in a bomb into a city like New York or Los Angeles, and hit the ‘Great Satan’ in a way which kills a lot of people, but does nothing to prevent America from a truly devastating response.
· Nuclear weapons are hardly immune to defenses or detection. The United States has been working for two generations and more to discover and defuse nuclear bombs, and no one knows as much as America about missile defense and nuclear detection.

If I called the shots, I would send an emissary to President Ahmadinejad, and speak “frankly”, as the diplo’s call it. Here would be my working text:

‘For more than half a century, the United States has respected the other members of the Nuclear Club, and since your country is intent on joining, let me say ‘welcome’. You now have, by virtue of the hostility and instability of your regime, the full respect, attention and operational focus of a nation which possesses upwards of twenty thousand nuclear weapons, and the practical knowledge of their use in scenario modeling and scaled retribution options.

You have expressed the desire, perhaps rhetorically, to remove the nations of Israel and/or the United States from existence. I tell you now, quite clearly, that we will not allow this potential to approach reality. If Iran pursues the eventual ability to hurt the United States, be advised that we hold the power to destroy Iran utterly, and to end Islam as you know it if this should be required.

The United States has never sought to utterly destroy any nation; even where we have occupied enemies in the past, we always restored them and brought them to economic health and stability. But we will never surrender to threats, and if our survival requires the end of another nation we will not hesitate to use that power, and restraint will not overrule self-defense.

If you attack America with a nuclear weapon, we will destroy you.

If you attack Israel with a nuclear weapon, we will destroy you.

If a terrorist nuclear weapon goes off in either Israel or America, we will presume from your statements that you directed the attack, and we will destroy you.

Congratulations, we respect you. Enough to have thousands of megatons aimed at everything you hold dear.

Oh, and happy Valentine’s Day.’

The Sum Of All (Liberal) Fears

[ r ]

Well, I finally saw “Sum Of All Fears” Sunday night. I skipped it in theaters, since I heard the plot was redone to avoid offending our Jihadist friends. And brother, did that mess up the story! The original design was elegant; the reader could easily imagine the glee with which Jihadist terrorists would use an Israeli nuclear weapon made with American plutonium, on an American city in order to foment a devastating war between the United States and Russia, their two most hated enemies. The convenience of finding their weapon on Islamic soil also fit the theme well, and anyone with even a cursory knowledge of headlines knew about the Jihadists and their plans; since the movie was released by Hollywood in 2002, it would have been exceptionally timely as well.

But no, Hollywood chose a different path; a cowardly, weak, and stupid one. They had to make up a mythical cabal of worldwide neo-fascists, who appeared to have nothing to gain but to somehow avenge Der Fuhrer’s death by wiping out two of the nations most responsible for his demise, even though Europe post-fallout would hardly be a charming spot for the Fourth Reich. Never mind those facts, there’s a story to sell, and never mind that the story they chose was far less powerful than the original. Hollywood, once again, chose the road that was less controversial with their liberal friends, even though it produced a poor product, and less revenue than it should have made.

The box revenues for the four Tom Clancy movies released so far are as follows:

Hunt for Red October (1990) $200.5 Million worldwide
Patriot Games (1992) $178.1 Million worldwide
Clear and Present Danger (1994) $207.5 Million worldwide
Sum of All Fears (2002) $193.5 Million worldwide

Adjusted for inflation, however, in 2005 dollars those grosses become less balanced:

Hunt for Red October (1990) $340.66 Million worldwide
Patriot Games (1992) $277.76 Million worldwide
Clear and Present Danger (1994) $302.52 Million worldwide
Sum of All Fears (2002) $216.0 Million worldwide

(Inflation data source)

In comparable monies, the most recent film was the least successful of the four. Well, at least they managed to avoid making SOAF an action film about gay sheepherders, “Brokeback Mountain”, Oscar nominations or not, has only pulled in $97.6 Million worldwide, and does not appear to be gaining strength at the box office. For comparison, the much-snubbed ‘Narnia’ movie has already grabbed $511 Million at the box office.

Of course, it didn’t help that some 'genius' thought Ben Affleck would make a good Jack Ryan. Sorry, but Ben Affleck is such a poor actor, the only suitable roles for this guy would involve hair products, Canadians, the French, or over-priced skin care products. Affleck tries to look tough, but only manages a slightly constipated look, as though Richard Gere finally talked him into giving the gerbil treatment a try.

But maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on Hollywood. They’ve hard a hard time of it, if you look at their last few decades. We should have known it was coming, this hyper-sensitivity to avoid offending the truly evil. The French influence alone is telling. After all, when Hollywood decided to tell the story about heroin traffic into New York, they called it “The French Connection”. Then, realizing the French might be offended by a straight-action policemen, Hollywood mended fences by making Inspector Clouseau their new hero in “The Pink Panther”. Hollywood seems to have always copied the French, whether in matters of style and fashion, or an unhealthy infatuation with Socialism coupled with Narcissm, or in a peculiar eagerness to submit to thuggery; when the Mob finally began to lose its grip on Hollywood, in came the Culture Police, which demanded supremacy for those outcasts of Society, especially anyone versed in Moral Turpitude. If an act is noted in the Bible as a sin, Hollywood has featured it in film. That sort of thing for so many years can make it hard for a director to understand Reality as most of us understand the concept.

I have noticed that movies which hate America seldom do better outside the United States; indeed, quite the opposite. For whatever reason the ‘Rambo’ movies are still quite popular in Southeast Asia, and many films with strong Western values, like "Chariots of Fire", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and "Saving Private Ryan", did just as well outside the United States as in, but Hollywood films which flop in the U.S. also flop outside it.

It seems if you want to make money in movies, you ought to make sure thoe story is told the way the audience wants it, and sorry Liberals, your version doesn't cut it.

“McCain Is Courting Bush Loyalists”

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Yeah, good luck with that.

Meanwhile, in related news Iranian President Ahmadinejad said he hopes Jews will rally behind his program for a new Middle East.

Also, Iraqi social activist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi said he was looking forward to meeting with Americans at some point in the future.

Faded Heroes

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It’s no surprise that Democrats, especially Liberals among them, have been exceptionally unhappy with President George W. Bush. Besides the obvious self-pity that they exude at every opportunity, and the ill-chosen flight from maturity in their choice of descriptions, there seems a genuine note of desperation. And that got me thinking.

When 2009 rolls in, two of the last three Republican Presidents will have been 2-termers, and very successful in the more important parts of their job. In between them is a Republican who won a solid majority in his election, and generally did an above-average job in the Oval Office. Even the most disgraced Republican President in memory had achievements in his work which commiserate his historical position.

Compare with them the Democrats; the last Democrat to serve as President was impeached, and later admitted to the essential facts in the charges against him. The last Democrat before him to win election, was a one-term Democrat who managed to create two simultaneous conditions which economists previously thought impossible; Consumer Price Index showing Inflation above ten percent, at the same time as wager-earner Unemployment above ten percent. The last Democrat before him to hold office, chose not to run for re-election because his own party said they wouldn’t support him. Not a happy string of terms and results.

Also, there is recent history. Nine of the last fourteen Presidential elections have gone to the Republicans, and five of the last seven. Census reports and public opinion polls show a steady drift from a Democratic preference among party identification to a an even balance. And if trends continue among minority shifts, the exurban control by conservatives and the political death of the liberal bastions at union halls and college campuses, the Republicans may expect to see an effective permanent majority.

When someone mentions the “Bush Doctrine”, people know what he means. Same for Reagan. But no one can explain what, if anything, was addressed by the “Clinton Doctrine”, or the “Carter Doctrine”. No Democrat since Kennedy has been an effective speaker on his foreign policy, or defined a realistic economic program. And no Democrat since FDR has been able to show the promised results. Republicans can point to modern history and current events, once the MSM spin has been corrected. Democrats cannot, even with spin in their favor, show anything for their promises.

Democrats need a hero, because all the ones they could point to on their side have faded into obscurity. And it sure looks like the only heroes on the horizon today, are on the Right side of the issues.

George W. Bush; Global CEO

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I’ve been getting a lot of opposition this week to things I have written, so what better way to cap off the week than by pointing out the 1776-pound elephant in the room?

Readers will know that I have begun to pursue my Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA), and so I have also taken interest in the history of that degree’s development and certain related developments in which the MBA plays a part.

The MBA is a quintessentially American degree, so much so that in the world’s leading accrediting body for business schools, the AACSB International (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), which lists 515 accredited business schools, 434 are American (84.27%). The MBA was actually created in the United States more than a century ago, and has developed to meet the changing needs and increasing demands of the business world. This is because the world of business operates at a scale and pace unimagined just a generation ago, and so the stakes for effective management of operations has risen commensurately.

The political significance of the MBA then comes into focus, when it is considered that George W. Bush is the first holder of an MBA to be elected President of the United States. This means that unlike the lawyers and diplomats who held the office in the past, Bush carried real-world knowledge of economics and practical application of theory into the Oval Office. While prior Presidents had applied their experience to the job, Bush understood a perspective never before applied to the world order, and since he came in at a time when the United States was essentially a free actor, a significant force in any matter it chose to pursue, Bush naturally understood that the selection of doctrine would set the tone for a long time to come, provided he was wise in his choice.

As we know now, history chose Bush’s course for him, as the 9/11 attacks required a commitment to defeat Global Terrorism, and to defeat the more pernicious opponents likely to choose such weapons. This determined the need to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, and to replace the tyrannies in those nations with freely elected republics.

But Bush has done a great deal more than that. Where past leaders might have intervened in one place or another, or expressed an American interest in one part of the world at one specific time, the Bush Doctrine establishes the American intention to act wherever and whenever American interests are at stake. This effectively forces other nations to either accept that the US will act as it sees fit in any situation, or to oppose the United States through restraint. The United States, one may reason, will act within the terms of agreements and treaties, but will not allow foreign interests supremacy over American sovereignty. The effect of the doctrine establishes de facto US sovereignty over sea lanes and strategic territory, through the sole ability of the United States to back up its intentions with sufficient force at need in any single scenario. As a consequence, the doctrine also makes the American President the effective Chief Executive Officer of the planet. We don’t own the world, but we manage it.

Does it sound arrogant? Yes. Is it appropriate? Looking at History, yes. Is it the right course? Again, looking at the results so far, yes. But it must be understood that I am not suggesting an 'Imperial' America at all, but rather a sort of regency, where the US accepts (as it so often must) the role no one else wants, to protect what everyone needs. Ever since 1917, the world has pretty much called on the USA when bad guys start trouble. And ever since 1800 the world has gotten used to "Yankee Ingenuity" to come up with all sorts of things to make life better, and yes that includes new business paradigms. Before you laugh to think that a CEO can directly affect your life, consider how many people work in salaried or hourly-wage positions, for a company in a network of businesses. The better business runs, the better life is for these billions of employees and their families. And Bush is the first man to not only think about the operations of the world as though they were part of a broader plan, but also the first man to be in a position to make the changes needed to set the course for where we need to be.

That course can be described in 2 words: Ownership Society. We already know that people take better care of things they consider their property than what they consider public use, that people respect something they worked to receive more than what was handed to them. So yeah, that applies, even to the government level, even to the law we create and live by.

Something to think about.

Islam and Jihadism, part 5

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Why Islam Is Not The Enemy, and The New Mid-East

[ part 1 here ] [ part 2 here ] [ part 3 here ] [ part 4 here ]

We do not war against Islam, nor should we. Let’s begin with the practical side. As I said early on, almost a billion and a half people call themselves Muslim. Stop right now and think about that number. If even one percent of Islam took up arms against the West, it would create an army number 14 million strong. Islam counts in its numbers a great many brilliant minds, including scientists in medicine, mathematics, engineering and chemistry. That is, a corps capable of creating WMD and their delivery systems in very short order. If such an army were formed and competently led, the resulting war would be more destructive and precipitous than anything history could show in our past. Spread around the globe as Muslims are, they would also be capable of launching coordinated raids in literally every first-world country, so that the conventional notion of battlefields and fronts would become meaningless. Such operational capability, as it happens, is exactly what the Jihadists have hoped to create. Yet, for all their planning and efforts, it has not turned out that way at all. One of the ironies of the Jihdists is that their very aggressiveness comes from a deep-seated cowardice, a fear that they are already losing. I exchanged emails this week with some Muslim colleagues, who explained that the angry protests against the Danish cartoons of Mohammed rise from a feeling of helplessness. “There is a belief, and it is popular, that the United States is attacking Islam by taking away one Muslim country at a time” he wrote. I explained that we are fighting a war against Terror rather than Islam, and emphasized the protection given to Mosques and Muslim clerics, but the Jihadists, as you might expect, continue to paint themselves as victims of Infidel aggression, and as defenders of Islam, instead of acknowledging the brutality and evil of their doctrine. But it is also telling, that the removal of the Taliban and the regime of Saddam Hussein are creating such disquiet and worry among the Jihadists. Because the Jihadists know, and fear, the power of personal freedom and the identity which is crated by the exercise of open discussion. This is why they fear ‘freedom’, to the point that editorial cartoons must be shut down and entire governments threatened for the offense of letting people make up their own mind. I have read the Quran, many times, and there is little in it that can be claimed to justify murdering children, as the Jihadists have done so often for more than a generation. Certainly nothing in the context it presents. Small wonder so many of the protestors hide their faces. They fear Allah might see them as they are, hiding behind the pretense of the faith.

I am not saying that I believe in Islam. As it happens, I am a Protestant Christian, so my faith and mind both convince me that the way of Islam is not true. Yet I am also a believer in freedom of choice, and I am an individualist. I recall that although Jesus was an observant Jew, when He chose to praise a man for faith, he praised not a fellow Rabbi or priest, but a Roman Centurion. His example of the loving neighbor who pleases God, was a Samaritan. Even if your belief is false, your heart can be true, and your faith pleasing to God through the character of your soul. It is the doctrines which we have problems accepting, not the faith. As readers have noted, anyone who personally knows Muslim believers, finds that many of them are quite humble and peaceable, unlikely to raise their voice, much less act in anger. Some readers have observed that this is most common in parts of the world where Muslims are a small minority, but it is also true that we do not see such violence in Maylasia, where Muslims are the majority, or in most parts of Pakistan, or in Egypt, or in Jordan, and so on. The many images we see all tend to come from urban centers of large cities, and they are supported or sponsored by radical groups. It occurs to me that another reason these mobs hide their faces, is because so many of them might be like American protesters, unemployed except to show up at “spontaneous” rallies and feign outrage at the West. The doctrines do not come from the Quran, but are Sharia, which is to say they are the conventional wisdom of the Imams in a given place and condition, and those interpretations some times reflect the prejudice of the men who deliver them. It is, therefore, these doctrines which need correction, not to Western values, but in reflection of Islam’s better ideals. Anwar Sadat was a Muslim, and a man of peace. The ink-stained women who voted in Iraq are Muslims, and women of courage. The students in Iran who have demanded reform from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ‘s regime are Muslim, and men of valor. Ahmadinedjad speaks for Islam in the same way Tookie Williams spoke for Dr. Martin Luther King; falsely.

So, if they are basically good people, why haven’t Muslims risen up against Jihadism, why has there not been a wave of outrage against this manipulation of their faith for such malice? Well, in a word: History.

Take Slavery, for instance. Nowadays we take for granted that owning another person is morally abhorrent and should be illegal with very harsh penalties in any country, period. Yet for literally thousands of years Slavery was a common and legal practice, present in every country fortunate enough to enjoy a measure of wealth and power. It was a status symbol. It was so prevalent, that Christ Himself did not waste His time decrying it, except to warn slave owners to be accountable, and slaves to be obedient. The few people who challenged the practice were largely ignored, or when inconvenient put down.

Take the Reformation of Christianity. I’m not saying, at all, that Christianity is morally the same as Islam, yet I am all to well aware that the catholic Church in Europe was guilty of some very nasty excesses, what with prohibition against lay people reading the Bible on their own, and against personal ownership of Bibles. I recall reading of arrests and trials and tortures of innocent people, for the purpose of advancing the fortunes of favored individuals and punishing their enemies. I recall the histories of indulgences granted by the Church, manipulation of governments and heavy tax burdens levied on the people with no choice but to endure it. These injustices lasted for centuries with very few dissenters, and small wonder – the Church hired men to devise means of torture, to literally wrack confessions from malcontents and so suppress any thought of revolt. Few men indeed had the courage to speak up during those years.

Or what of America’s history? Before Martin Luther King, there were a few other black activists, but few indeed spoke up for their legitimate rights between 1865 and 1964. And few white men indeed, ever rose to shout down the evils of the Ku Klux Klan. How many protested for the equal rights of women to vote and to hold equal jobs prior to the 1920s? How many people put their ideals to the test, and stood for justice when it was unpopular, or was perceived to be? Should we decry all that George Washington did, or Benjamin Franklin, because they allowed Slavery to endure? Shall we condemn Teddy Roosevelt, even though he fought for the rights of the Black man, because he opposed the rights of Asians and against women? Shall we deride FDR, because his attention to the Depression and the Fascists took his attention away from Civil Rights and equal pay? If we give these honored men their due for the good they did, then should we not also be willing to consider the difficulty and stakes which the Muslim faces?

The Muslim perspective is greatly different from the Western one, but it should be understood. Al-Jazeera, for example, is a joke by reasonable standards for journalism, but they represent the Arab world reporting actual events. Even when they hide the motive and character of events, the fact that actual events are being reported is a step forward. We should not call this a finished product, but we should understand where the medium used to be. Muslim politics is an even weirder brew, with religious imprecations applied to otherwise –secular issues, in order for leaders to be seen as humble yet in control. This is not very different from the practices used by the Sultans and Sheiks in the past. As for Sharia, it really comes down to a consistent and static code of law – the horrid decisions we used to see from the Taliban, and the most recent excrement coming from Iran this week, are the common reaction from thugs. Far more reflective of Islam’s traditional teachings are the verdicts coming down in Iraq and Afghanistan, which generally punish only intent to harm, and the only death sentence is a suicide decision made by pointing a rifle at a Marine. It is important as we move forward, to differentiate between the Muslim faith and the Jihadist’s plans. There is no need to point a rifle at a man because he points his prayer rug to Mecca; but there is no reason to hesitate shooting a terrorist because he claims he speaks for Mohammed. In time, more and more Muslims will support the right course, but the historical model is for Muslims to wait and see who wins.

This brings us back to the case model of Afghanistan and Iraq. Franky, Ahmadinejad is very upset at the US-led invasion of Iraq because he had hoped that Iran could invade Iraq and lay the foundation for an Arab Superstate. Instead, he has the worst of threats at his very doorstep – a nation of free-thinking Muslims, with fresh experience from a tyrant in their memory and dreams of their ideals in their heads and hearts. This is very similar to what the Nazis must have felt when they realized the US Third Armored Division had freed France (yes, I know the British helped, but for some reason no British general was feared by the Germans the way they dreaded Patton), or if France had suddenly acquired the spine and mind of Churchill. Worse, the resolve shown by President Bush in spite of complete cowardice on the part of the Democrats, and quisling complicity by the MainSquirm Media, is showing results in Middle East elections and in opinion about the mission. So why can’t we predict exactly when the war will be won, or pinpoint a scoreboard of where we are? Michael Yon said it best:

“This may not be the war some folks had in mind a few years ago. But once the shooting starts, a plan is just a guess in a party dress.”

Michael Yon has also explained the Bush Doctrine in succinct fashion, though I know he was talking about a specific incident.

“three more shots through the front hood, the universal sign for “stop.”

I’d like to see us start taking that tactic as a diplomatic measure in a certain number of situations. Just to avoid, hmm, possible future misunderstanding of our intent and resolve?


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It boils down to this. There are a lot of ways we could screw this up. All it takes is a Clinton or a Kerry in the White House, and we will pull out of the Middle East rather than consolidate what has been paid for in such bloody cost. All it takes is a sufficient number of RINOs to put their silk-suited interests ahead of the nation’s future. All it takes is a nation which trusts the lies of the MSM instead of getting the straight facts. Scary, that. But the trend is promising. Americans are proud of our nation, who we are, what we stand for. And they trust the men who fight for our nation far more than the elitists who sneer at a code of “Duty, Honor, Country”. And more and more they vote for a party that, however imperfectly, stands for more than getting by and playing by someone else’s rules, for an ideal that we make a difference, and that there is a purpose to our identity which requires strength and diligence, on a road to bettering the world as a whole.

The Middle East is, some say, impossible to change. That is a malicious lie. The Middle East has been in constant change for well over a half century, and the only question is choosing its direction. Millions of people with dreams and hopes deserve the chance only America can offer, and that includes people whose voice cannot be heard while madmen steal the stage and pretend that a merciful God demands blood and horror. There will be a new Middle East, and it depends on the will of the American people, executed through the President and the Congress and the American military, to ensure that the fleeting but substantial promise we see shall not be lost. With a stable Iraq and Afghanistan, the proof of democracy in the Arab world will be irrevocably established, and the opportunity for an alliance of moderate and democratic republics will be well underway. Under such conditions, a Jordan/Iraq/Afghanistan/Lebanon/Kuwait alliance is distinctly foreseeable, with benevolent relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Emirates. The governments which now support the Jihadists will be as much the pragmatic outcasts as they are the moral minority, and the futility of violence will be clear to them to such a degree that only the most insane could deny it.

Insh’Allah.