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Former BUFF driver; self-styled military historian; paid (a lot) to write about beating plowshares into swords; NOT Foamy the Squirrel, contrary to all appearances. Wesleyan Jihadi Name: Sibling Railgun of Reasoned Discourse

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Katrina



I apologize to my loyal readership (both of you!) for being off line lately. Hurricanes have been much on our minds here. Fortunately, the real hurricane missed us -- Katrina was just a minor wind event in central Alabama. I wish I could say the same for friends down along the coast. My own personal and professional whirlwinds have kept me from posting lately, however.

Please pray for the millions affected by this storm!

The military's Joint Task Force Katrina includes Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. (Four amphib carriers on the way -- big generators, as Yes would say.) Our base is being readied as a FEMA staging site, as it was during Hur. Ivan. I don't need to reiterate what everyone has seen on the news, of course, but what's happening in New Orleans may give us a small taste of what a terrorist nuclear event might look like in a major city: three-fourths of the population gone (thank God just evacuated in this case!), the quarter remaining in need of rescue, basic shelter and sustenance (and probably soon to be ill as well), most of the city's smaller structures destroyed, most of the major ones still standing but heavily damaged, the government unable to respond to localized emergency needs or to secure what's left from feral swarms of looters (many of whom -- not to excuse them -- are just looking for food and drink that will spoil anyway). I don't intend to be callous here, but there are many valuable lessons about crisis response, damage mitigation, and homeland security that we can probably learn from this. Since it's happened anyway, let's (us'n's in the gub'ment, anyway) learn we can from the experience.

In the realm of good news, a correspondent at Responsive Obedience reports that one of Vita ab Alto's friends and Official Spiritual Advisors, Nolan Dynamite, is safe, sound, sans a big tree, and no doubt busily feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and doing all that other voodoo that he do so well down on Mobile Bay. (Bow to Jeff of The Armchair Coach for the news.)

We have other friends and relatives down in the worst-hit areas that we still haven't heard from. If anyone from the Prattville or Responsive Obedience crowd is reading this: has anyone heard from or about Ron & Gail Baughman? Their home and church are right on the MS-AL border near I-10, so they would have been directly under the eastern eyewall when the storm passed. Needless to say, there's no communication with that area and the roads are impassable. We'd appreciate any word.

In terms of relief, we're giving to the Red Cross and UMCOR (check out the "materials needed" page). The Red Cross site is very slow, so be prepared to wait. This is good news, I think. Samaritan's Purse also comes highly recommended.

And please don't forget to pray.

Monk

Update
: That was thankfully quick! Nolan writes:

Thanks for the prayers and concerns, and thanks, Jeff, for the update. Life here is going to be fine. I actually stayed for this one, and now I know why people evacuate! I've just talked with the insurance agent, and the ball is rolling on the major clean-up (100 ft. tree in the backyard). For the folks in Pratt-vegas, Ron and Gail evacuated but are home now. They had trees down and some minor damage, but they will be fine too. More to come (including pictures)

Yea! Please let your collective fandom know what y'all, the Baughmans, et al, need....


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Friday, August 26, 2005

Another "Gotta See"


Unlike America's heroic anti-war demonstrators,
the man in the center has three bullets in him,
but h'es still not out of the fight


Just like last week's "Porn Star," "Gates of Fire" is another must-read. Michael Yon, an independent journalist imbedded with an Army unit in Mosul, reports on the very human real-world war being fought in the streets of Iraqi cities. It's a far cry from the body-counting anti-war screeds coming from the reporters lounging by the hotel pools in Baghdad.

Take particular note of this:

About two weeks ago, word came that Nohe's case had been dismissed by a judge on 7 August. The Coalition was livid. According to American officers, solid cases are continually dismissed without apparent cause. Whatever the reason, the result was that less than two weeks after his release from Abu Ghraib, Nohe was back in Mosul shooting at American soldiers.

LTC Kurilla repeatedly told me of--and I repeatedly wrote about--terrorists who get released only to cause more trouble. Kurilla talked about it almost daily. Apparently, the vigor of his protests had made him an opponent of some in the Army's Detention Facilities chain of command, but had otherwise not changed the policy. And now Kurilla lay shot and in surgery in the same operating room with one of the catch-and-release-terrorists he and other soldiers had been warning everyone about.

As it turns out, the terrorist mentioned above winds up shooting LTC Kurilla. Seems we have a problem with liberal judges wherever we go these days.

"Gates of Fire" is long, but as with "Porn Star," it will richly reward your attention.

Monk



Update: On a related topic, Victor Davis Hanson takes up his rhetorical hammer and hits the anti-war nail right on the head:

It is becoming nearly impossible to sort the extreme rhetoric of the antiwar Left from that of the fringe paleo-Right. Both see the Iraqi war through the same lenses: the American effort is bound to fail and is a deep reflection of American pathology.

An anguished Cindy Sheehan calls Bush "the world's biggest terrorist." And she goes on to blame Israel for the death of her son ("Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel").

Her antiwar venom could easily come right out of the mouth of a more calculating David Duke. Perhaps that's why he lauded her anti-Semitism: "Courageously she has gone to Texas near the ranch of President Bush and braved the elements and a hostile Jewish supremacist media."

See, for example, this and this and compare them with this and this. Proof again of the old political proverb that the extremes of right and left meet at the back somewhere.

What do they all have in common? Yep: It's all the fault of them Damjooz and Christers! Git ridda them and the world would be safe for Lyndon LaRouche and Ward Churchill -- jus' like B'rer Schicklegruber an' B'rer Dzhugashvili said, back in the day!

Moonbats of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your minds!

Monk

PS
: Here's what passes for witty, urbane civil discourse from the.....well, I'm not really sure what this guy is.....could be a Neo-Nazi or a Raelian -- all one can tell is a) he really doesn't like VDH (aren't threats such as his actionable in law?) and b) he hasn't washed his hair in about sixteen years.

Another Update: So when do our courageous, "speak-truth-to-power" hippie-wannabe "troop supporters" start spitting on our troops and yelling, "baby killers!" Can't be long now. Unbelievable. (Bow to With Cheese for the link):

CARBONDALE, Ill. - For two years, Carbondale residents have been riveted by the writing of a little girl imploring her father in Iraq: "Don't die, OK?"

Only now are they learning there was never any danger of that.

The Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois University's student-run newspaper, today will admit to its readers that the saga - of a little girl's published letters to her father serving in Iraq - was apparently an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a woman who claimed to be the girl's aunt.

Carbondale readers devoured it. Letters to the editor begged the newspaper to keep Kodee's story coming.

"Everyone who comes into my office reads her story and they all talk about this little girl. I tell everyone I meet about her because she has touched my soul so deeply. She has touched more lives than she'll ever know," read one letter submitted by Chad Anderson, a Carbondale doctor.

"I'm rily mad at you and you make my hart hurt,"' she purportedly wrote in one published letter to the president. "I don't think your doing a very good job. You keep sending soldiers to Iraq and it's not fair. Do you have a soldier of your own in Irak?"

The story began unraveling this month, when the woman contacted the paper and said the girl's father had been killed in Iraq.

Staff members began gathering background for a story on the girl's father's death - the kind of backgrounding that hadn't been done in the two years the paper had written about Kodee and carried her column. They quickly discovered that the military had no record of Dan Kennings.

I guess they teach the CBS brand of journalism at SIS Carbondale. This woman and her cohort on the Daily Egyptian are Pulitzer material. American Mainstream Journalism -- Setting the Standard!

Monk


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Iran So Far Away, Part 6


The illustrious and beautiful Kanh responds to Iran So Far Away, The Novel:

...Reading your post, a few things came to mind. What is it we are trying to accomplish in the Middle East? Peace, OK maybe just stability, in the Middle East? Uninterrupted oil flow? Freedom for oppressed people? Security here at home? Big boys getting a chance to use big toys? Or could it be all of the above?

I find it interesting that those that are the first to complain about oil prices are the first to complain about our actions in the middle east, or drilling off their coast, or about the pollution refineries create. They want the gas, just not everything that goes with getting it. Talk about hypocrisy. I also find it interesting that those who exploit free speech the most are the ones that don't want others to have it (i.e. a little girl in Iran, Afghanistan or where ever they aren't free). More hypocrisy?! I also find interesting, people that say they support our troops, just not their actions. HELLO! We are what we do.

I'm not saying everything I do lines up perfectly with what I believe, but at least I'm striving for that. Not by making everyone around me validate what I believe by agreeing with me. Rather by putting it to the fire. Using the reason God gave me and not the boob-tube Satan controls. Reason tells me freedom is not free at any level. I grieve for Ms Sheehan. I can't imagine losing a child. But don't let his death be in vain. Celebrate that he was willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for an ideal. I know she has to miss him terribly, but don't take away what he and others like him are doing.

OK, maybe Iraq isn't going how we (the general public) thought it would, but guess what: that's life. I think we only see a piece of the big picture. Maybe if the administration would come off their thrones of intellectual supremacy and tell John Q. Public why we are doing what we are doing and what we hope to accomplish they would have more support. It's kinda like fighting disease...the treatment may be excruciating, but you'll willing to go through it in hopes of overcoming the disease. Most people are willing to go through it even if the odds are against it. But they need the info and what to hope for. That's why people were willing to wear shoes with holes, repair old panty hose, have sugar rationed to them, give up tires off their cars to fight evil in WW II.

We like to think we are so enlightened now that we don't have to fight. I think we are just fat cats that don't want to sacrifice and share. I guess what I'm saying is the administration needs to paint a picture us average simpletons can understand... Here is what we hope to accomplish... Here is what will happen if we don't take action. Maybe with a clearer picture Ms. Sheehan could use her grief to celebrate her sons life not use it for blame and anger.

In His Love,

Kanh

The answer to your first set of questions is, "yes." "All the above" works quite well, thank you, to which I'd add a few more reasons:

Miltary presence and a demonstrated willingness to endure sacrifice, casualties, and political unpopularity adds credibilty to any deterrent threat we may use to hold the interests of Middle Eastern nations like Iran and Syria at risk.

Concrete military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, the Stans, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean is intimidating, particularly to Iran, the largest and most powerful adversary in the region.

I reiterate that freedom for oppressed peoples currently under the yoke of islamist jihadism and the regimes that support it should also reinforce our security. That's the theory anyway. Could be that many of these nations, as they become more like modern states, will go through a "second wave" warlike phase, as Europe did during the later industrial era. If so, then it's even more imperative that we maintain our hegemonic predominance. We don't want the world plunged into a hundred World War I's as every emerging industrial power jockeys for regional domination. (Of course, such conflict is not a foregone conclusion: the first half of the "second wave" in Europe was largely peaceful under Britain's regime of hegemonic stability -- a telling lesson for us today. Things only started to get ugly when near-peer competition arose.)

Oh, yes: And everyone -- I mean everyone, including the UN -- was fooled by Saddam on the WMD issue. We probably would have detected his best-ever maskirovka if we'd had inspectors in the country after 1998. (Thanks again, Bill!) Bush only made it the lynchpin of his justification for invading because WMD is what the UN itself had cited as justification for intervention in Iraqi affairs in half a dozen pronouncements between 1991 and 2002. Bush and Powell both were desperate to involve the UN (in part, ironically, because Clinton had thumbed his nose at it and sought NATO-only approval for his War on Impeachm...excuse me, War on Serbia in '99. How's that for a kick in the head?) The Admin. should never have been so concerned about the delicate sensibilties of the UN's pooh-bahs and goat-grabbers in the first place. "Try twice to be nice and then go about your business" should have been their motto.

Now, I grant you that the administration has done precious little to help the public understand why we are doing what we're doing, even though there are good reasons. This is a little bit understandable (but only a little bit): the subject is complex and not easily explained. They'd lose most people long before the first "hegemonic" rolled out. There's another thing fighting against disclosure that I touched on in "War and Peace, Iranian Style:" Rebublicans in general, and the Bushes in particular, are a secretive lot. There's a bit of arrogance to this. There's always a whif of, "the public are cattle; they'd never understand and have no right to know anyway." That's Bush the Elder, at least. Unlike the Clintons, who were very much this way, too, in an in-your-face, nouveau riche way, the Bushes would never be so gauche as to say something about your "inferiority" to your face and I think W is much more populist, but I still don't think he appreciates how much having his smartest and most ariticulate advocates make the case would do for him at this juncture. He's tried to make the case himself, but he just isn't up to the task as a public persuader. What's more, W carries so much baggage with the MSM that his efforts may actually be hurting national strategy in the long run. The Admin. needs to game this and make "sales" an explicit part of that strategy. They need to take a page from the Democrats' playbook on this one. (The latter are too good at it -- they're all presentation, with no real agenda or strategy behind their flash and jimcrack other than, "let's get back in power.")

In short, your "come off their thrones of supremacy" remark is spot on. They need to make the case better before it's too late. We already have have protestors heckling our wounded outside Walter Reed hospital. I sense that impatience is gaining ground around the country (perhaps just because I listen to too much MSM) and the stakes are far too high for us to pull out prematurely and lose everything we've gained on the ground in Iraq. I think you are right to point out that we are spoiled, but the President and his staff need to be making a better case for why the sacrifices we're making are worthwhile.

I will be posting some notional examples of what I think a comprehensive strategy should look like in the near future.


Monk


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Thursday, August 25, 2005

My Funny Valentine



Seems that Billygoat the POTUS and I have pretty similar tastes in music. The Bill Clinton Collection looks very decent. Well, okay......maybe "decent" isn't quite the right word, considering who we're talking about here, but.....

It contains Coltrane's My One and Only Love (Bill's song to himself, no doubt), Miles' My Funny Valentine, David Sanborn's Harlem Nocturne, Zoot Sims' Summertime, and other favorites of mine. Judy Collins' Chelsea Morning (or, as Hillary probably calls it, "Chelsea No Morning-After Pill" is there too, but is NOT on my favorites list. Surprisingly, there's no Barry White, no Devil with a Blue Dress On, nothing from Monica's All Eyez On Me.... Hillary's Theme (Miles' Bitches Brew) is also conspicuously absent.

I suspect Dr. Iz-Iz loves Miles' My Funny Valentine as much because of the political context that the concert was part of as because of the music. Still, the whole concert was uniquely inspired -- it's one of the finest live jazz performances ever recorded -- and that may have been a small part of God's gift to the civil rights movement. (Unfortunately, the concert is not available in unadulterated form any more. The one "complete" recording isn't...and mucks with the order the tunes were played in. Still pretty good, though.)

Anyway, the album will be out in about a month. Y'know....if you care....

Monk


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Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Iran So Far Away, Part 5


Kanh comments in the ongoing conversation concerning Iran, responding to Chefjef's remarks in this post:

OK ChefJef,
You make some great points. I would like to comment... I am not calling everyone in Iran a criminal. I don't think everyone in Iran has nukes. I think it's the government. I also (and I very well could be mistaken in this) thought the UN made some distinction as to what kind of nuclear components they may posses. We, the American government, as the leading world power have some authority, or maybe responsibility to uphold the bargain. I think other's even look to us for that?! You and Monk are better versed in history and current events...but it seems to me when we choose to ignore rogue, emerging, evil, sovereign whatever nations it always ended very badly. Again I don't pretend to understand all that is happening in the middle east. But I do understand left to it's own devices the whole world will suffer. But I also doubt we can ever bring peace to the Middle East. I personally believe that will take the second coming. I don't believe we can "eminentize the eschaton", by our actions. But we have a responsibility as sovereign nations to keep each other accountable for that which we have agreed upon. Sovereign nation or not we must have standards. As the worlds leading power, richest nation and freedom spreader, we have a responsibility to see those standards are upheld. I think to do otherwise would be hypocritical and selfish. By the way, you may be less than perfect and our great nation may be less than perfect, but where else could a male Euro-African descendant discuss issues of this nature with a female Euro-Slavic descendant. You're great and this "great experiment" we are living is great.

In HIS Love,

Kanh


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California News

This just in...

SAN FRANCISCO — In the latest ruling to recognize rights of same-sex couples, the California Supreme Court has said gay and lesbian couples who raise children are lawful parents and must provide for their children if they break up.

In related news, California announced today that will be changing the animal on its state flag from a bear to a gerbil.



Monk







Lord? I apologize, Lord. I'm real sorry for that one...and please be with them pygmies down in Borneo....


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Iran So Far Away, Part 4

A fisking! A fisking! (And after the fisking....)



This is a very long post. I didn't set out to make it that way, but it just sort of took on a life of its own. Please click on "Read more" to view it in its entirety. (Note: although this tag appears now on all posts, only this particular post has expanded text.) A few excerpts are extracted for your reading pleasure...

Monk

________________________________________________________


"Chefjef," he said, rolling up his sleeves, "you wanted commentary? You got it, brother!" Let's go:

Wendy Sheehan is a granola Lefty, but Bush is a truth-stretching scaredycat.

Right on both counts. Sheehan was an ichabodnik even before her erstwhile vigil made her "the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement." So now she's just another leftist grief pimp. I hope her son forgives her.

Bush may be what you say, although I'm not certain why you think he's a "scaredycat." If he is these things, it makes him indistinguishable from every other American politician of the last hundred years. I seem to recall that this guy was pretty good at bending veritas past its modulus of elasticity, and he ran scared for most of his presidency (at least until he outran his impeachers, at which point he was a lame duck....)

And the ChimpyHitlerFuehrer crowd should be reminded that the Real Schicklegruber, a) told the truth about his intentions (in Mein Kampf, for instance), and b) was never particularly fearful (in fact, he was renown for his courage under fire in WW I). Dubya doesn't quite seem to fit the mold...

None of this is at all relevant to the topic at hand, but I thought it was interesting. Let's proceed:

...Let’s broaden the scope of the “Iraq issue.” I think Iraq is B.S., but there is definitely a larger issue of “Us. vs. Terrorists” that requires direct and prolonged action by the U.S...

Yes, and Iraq is an inextricable part of it. It's not "B.S.;" it's the 'central front,' if you will, at least for now. I'm getting a whiff here of the Establishment-Leftist idea that Iraq is somehow separable from the larger context of the war. It's not. It's one campaign of many.

The war is global. It involves all instruments of national power (diplomatic, informational, military, economic, cultural...) and all media (land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace). It potentially affects all nations and non-national actors (regardless of their seeming neutrality). It is not new (Tours, the Fall of Constantinople, Lepanto, the Reconquista, and the Siege of Vienna were all earlier battles in essentially the same conflict or series of wars) and it will outlive this Administration. It is not fought against a tactic ("terrorism"), a nation, a people, or even a religion--it is fought against an idea and an ideology; one that, by its own internal logic, mandates violent conflict with all who actively oppose its spread (the "Dar al-Harb" or "House of War").

I suspect you'll agree, but it doesn't hurt to put things in perspective.

...and I think we are behind the eight-ball in terms of when we got started.

Couldn't agree more. Let's be clear, though: Lying-Liar-Fraidycat-Fuehrer-Chimp-Who-Lied isn't the only one at fault for that--and is no more at fault than his predecessor, Perjury Boy. And the hypocritical ol' US is not the only country at fault, either. The West as a civilization failed to seriously address the challenge of resurgent islam for decades, despite overwhelming evidence (never mind the common-sense insight) that something like 9-11 (or worse) was inevitable --

You, of course, believe that the Iraq effort is a necessary element in the “Us v. Tangos” thing.

I believe that Iraq was and is a necessary element in the "us vs. the enemy" thing -- "tangos" aren't the enemy; they are just some of its foot soldiers. In any war, the real enemy is the leadership that wills the conflict. Enemy soldiers are just a means to their ends. There are many aspects to our current enemy beyond the "tangos." Let's keep this straight, because it's important in understanding the larger context that includes Iran.

Okay, well regardless of the position one takes on the relevance of Iraq to “U v. T,” the media focus on Iraq is as distracting to the broader issue as the Roman Gladiator games (in the later years) were to the state of the Empire – that is, they sort of purposefully kept folks’ minds off of things.

Your statement allows three interpretations:

- The media are focusing on Iraq for some purpose of their own (ratings: war and bloodshed are interesting, or whatever) and are distracting the people from things they should be aware of and pay attention to, but not with any underlying motive beyond their own immediate interests;

or

- The media are deliberately diverting attention from large issues for some underlying, unrevealed purpose of their own (an anti-war bias: dead Americans undermine support at home, or whatever) that attention given elsewhere would detract from;

or

- The media is deliberately diverting attention at the behest of some other agent, presumably to keep people's minds off a real, but underlying and unrevealed agenda. This also implies a degree of control by the agent, or deliberate collusion on the part of the media, or both. Presumably, the agent would be the government or some overarching "Establishment."

The first is plausible, assuming you accept the premise that Iraq is an unnecessary distraction from some more important task. I do not, but assuming your premise, the idea is plausible.

Many on the right believe that the second is true. Again, I do not. I admit the leftist bias of most of the media and acknowledge its hostility to this administration, but I do not believe it is capable of acting conspiratorially as a corporate body, nor do I believe this is necessary to explain its coverage of Iraq.

The third premise is purest bayou swamp gas. I have served the government long enough to know that it cannot conspire effectively even among those agencies that are chartered to do so. A government that is capable of constructing such an elaborate, effective, and long-lasting ruse would not have given us NASA. Or $900 hammers. Or the B-1. Or Amtrak. Or Ted Kennedy. The idea that it is conspiring with a media establishment that feigns implacable hostility (all part of the deception!) in order to keep the hoi polloi in line belongs in the comments section of DailyKos, not out in the open air, where the pungent reek of Amorphophallus titanum might cause those of delicate sensibilities to gag.

I'm surprised at you: Your use of "purposefully" and the bread and circuses metaphor suggests that you believe this. If so – if a liberal of obvious intelligence and insight can seriously believe such a thing (without it just being a bit of rhetorical flourish) – then that shows the level to which reasoned discourse has sunk in this country. Dementia politicus has caught hold of the left the way it did the right during Billygoat's reign (when even mainstream Republicans became part of the "Hillary-killed-Vince-Foster-in-Mena-to cover-up-the-Whitewater-gunrunning-money" crowd).

Get a grip, people! Aliens didn't land at Roswell, Area 51 is just part of the Nellis test and training range, the moon landing wasn't shot in a television studio, the Ark of the Covenant isn't stored in a government warehouse in DC, and ChimpyHitlerLiar didn't personally order Circus-Freak Cindy's lil' baby boy shot. Okay? Are we straight on this?

(Incidentally, panem et circenses was not a "later" Roman innovation. Juvenal wrote of it around 100 and he was referring to what he saw around him (remember that he was an officer w/ Agricola in Britain over 20 years before). It certainly applied to the later Empire (and even to Byzantium following Rome), but was well established by the time Augustus croaked. Rome: Decadence without end, amen.

Again, not relevant……but interesting…..)

So what say we get some Monkster analysis and insight on Iran. I’ll give you a starting board. You can post some of it as a sounding board, and perhaps it’ll generate some discussion from other correspondents on the issue (an issue which, I think, us common folks need to prod the establishment in spending more time discussing with the public).

Deee-lighted to (as Teddy would say)…

Well, this weekend President Bush made a thinly veiled threat to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities or even invade the country as a last resort. The comment was sparked by Tehran's troubled negotiations with the West over its nuclear program.

It wasn't so thinly veiled, nor was it meant to be.

This Administration has been pi$$-poor at articulating and selling its strategy, but there is actually some good strategerizing going on. I guess this isn't surprising, since Dubya learned governating from his dad, who was real fond of keeping secrets, and Dubya hizownsef is about as articulate as a minnow. Still, he has bright, articulate people working for him (including his speechwriters, who are some of the best ever – if only they had a speech-deliverer who was better on the stump than Stephen Hawking's talking computer; Bush's malaprop fumbling was refreshing at first after Clinton's uberglib lies – now it's just old….). He should use these people to make the case better than he does.

.....

Bush's statement was a very deliberate, in-your-face showing of the big stick and it was meant to be seen that way in Iran. I agree with the decision to make the statement and applaud the well-thought-through timing, manner, and place in which it was made. This is how the game is played.

It is telling that Bush made the comments on Israeli television, which makes them even more provocative. Israel is, of course, not only Iran's archenemy but is also probably the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the immediate region.

Yes, indeed it is and good on you for picking up on this. The message was aimed directly at Iran's new leadership: "We know the first target of a mullahnuke will be Israel, so we are making this threat from ground zero; Israel will certainly respond, but we will too." This is perfectly appropriate and was part of the context I mentioned above. This, as I said, is part of how the game of nations is played.

Bush seems to not only want to rattle his saber at Tehran's hard-liners, he also wants to ensure that he infuriates and publicly embarrasses even moderate Iranians.

Look, Iran's moderates (and all mullah-haters, moderate or not) are on our side, simply by virtue of, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." The Iranian government is and will always be a much greater, more immediate threat to Iranian dissidents than anything the US is or does.

The Administration's strategists are smart enough to know that no regime with significant hard-core domestic opposition has ever been able to rattle its own sabers and unite the people behind it, even if the "enemy of their enemy" is a brutal autocracy too. Talk to a few old Ukrainians about the Soviets and the Nazis and which side they fought on in the Great Patriotic War. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians died along side the Germans, even as the latter's Einstatztruppen were killing Ukrainian families behind the front. Same-same the Croatians in Yougoslavia (as it was then spelled); they hated the Germans, but hated the Serbs more (& still do). Russian nationalism during WW I didn't stop the revolutionaries from signing a secret accord with Imperial Germany to take Russia out of the war (and they kept their promise).

Iranian "liberals" and "moderates" may hate us, but they hate and fear their own government more. They will be content to thumb their noses at us once they're in power. Further, no matter how ham-fistedly we goof up our public statements, pro-democracy groups around the world will still be attracted and beholden to our soft power – the force of our culture in the world will still sway them.

At the same time, Iran is a nation-state, run by a government with definable interests, that is coercible in ways we understand pretty well. We've gotten fairly good at this nation-state coercion thing; what we haven't gotten our minds around yet is how to manipulate the non-state actors and trans-national cultural movements. Unfortunately, that's whom we're fighting in this war. Since we understand better how to manipulate nation-states, when the enemy manifests himself in the form of a national government, as he did in Iraq and is doing in Iran (and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, and…..), we need to use the mechanisms we do understand to best advantage.

Intimidation is one of the most effective tools in the national toolbox. It has a pretty good track record, especially when, a) the threats used are credible and, b) it is coupled with friendly overtures from someone seeking the same end state we are. In this case, Europe has been dangling the carrot, while the US has kept its big stick in sight (and, all things considered, has spoken pretty softly too).

Intimidation can be a very effective tool for conveying, "this far and no farther" – setting the boundaries of acceptable behavior on the part of one actor or another. That is how it is being used in support of diplomatic initiatives with Iran today.

.....

Bush has been content so far to let Europe play good cop – to have them say, "Mon Dieu! I don't know how long I can keep El Chimpo restrained. You know he's bloody well insane!" A thing that adds credibility is that many who are negotiating with Iran believe this. Good. America has used the perception that it's the crazy-dumb cowboy before – even to the extent of pulling off brinkmanship twice (Cuban Missile Crisis and October War in ’73); not an easy thing to do. Bush is the perfect vehicle for conveying this idea. I'm sure he wishes it were otherwise, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one," after all. (Sorry……/trekkie geekmoment.)

I think this Administration should be complemented for how well they've played the game so far. I'm not saying their approach to Iran will work, but it's a pretty standard set of moves in the national IOP playbook and it's certainly worth a try.

Or……perhaps Bush wants to undermine his whole policy WRT to Iran and the world just 'cause saber rattlin’ gives him a hard-on (he is, after all, insano-Cowboy BushyFuerherChimp). Besides, the damnjooz made him do it anyway with their Zionist mind-control beams. They all drink muslim blood and sacrifice black welfare babies to a statue of Alan Greenspan.

Y'know, Chefjef, sometimes Occam is right.

If diplomacy fails, "all options are on the table," Bush said. "You know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country." But it was precisely Bush's use of preemptive force against Iraq that now makes it so difficult to pressure Iran to abandon its worrisome nuclear program.

Iran's hardliners would be implacably hostile to us regardless of what we did or did not do in Iraq, because we are the principle stumbling block on the track to the world they want to see. I'm not suggesting that they are bent, Dr Evil-like, on world conquest, but that they want a world run under their interpretation of sharia every bit as much as any radical Wahabbi does. (They get to kill each other over whether PBUH or PBUH&HF is right once we're out of the way, just as in the time of Hazrat Abbas). I seem to recall a little fracas back in '79-'80. "Amerika the Great Satan"…..Hostages…..all that….. Yep. They're itchin' to be our buds. They were just waiting for us to make the first move.

To continue the lecture on IR (let me get back up on my soapbox), Bush was making a point that may have been lost on you, but certainly wasn't on Iran's rulers (public and otherwise): our Iraq takedown and the pain we're enduring now adds credibility to our threats. We will do something more than just fling a few billion dollars in cruise missiles at empty camps. We will pay some prices and bear some burdens many thought we wouldn't to secure ourselves. Our enemies watch every Cindy Sheehan, look at every popularity poll, count every American body, listen for every whiff of dissent among our troops – and note that over 100,000 are still in Iraq. And that 30,000 coalition troops are still in Afghanistan. And that a third of the US Navy and Air Force sit within CENTCOM’s AOR and in Turkey. Believe me, these facts are not lost on the country that is bracketed by these forces.

My friend,that, even in the absence of a dozen other good reasons for doing so (yes -- including WMD), was reason enough for invading Iraq. If it helps denuclearize an Iran or a Syria in the long run, it will have been worth the lives of 2,000-odd Americans and 10,000+ Iraqis, because the alternative is a "huge $hi* sandwich and we'll all have to take a bite:" hundreds of thousands dead in Tel Aviv, the Holy Land poisoned, millions of roasted Iranians, more campaigns with more ground deaths, more Cindy Sheehans and clothes-rending grief-pimping on CNN……and perhaps then a moral repugnance that leads to our withdrawal from the world……at least until the death-flash and blast overpressure in LA or Houston or Norfolk claims a million American lives and we swarm forth again to do what we could have – should have – done in the first place, only this time with more anger, violence, and destruction.

Never mind that our security is best ensured by fostering governments that look more like those of the developed, democratic world. We have had disputes with France and Japan in the last 30 years that would have led to war in a different age (if you don't believe that, read Mahan's Influence of Sea Power Upon History), but which were resolved peacefully, even amicably. This is not possible with any current muslim nation-state, nor will it ever be as long as islam remains what it is today.

The existing nation-state veneer over islam may be useful to us in the short run as a coercible instrument, but islam will have to change fundamentally (no pun intended) in the long run if we are to have peace. Jihad will have to become an internal, personal struggle and more modern-looking nation-states (or some peaceful transnational successor) will have to spring up in the muslim world….eventually, if islam is to move beyond its current destructive self-indulgent blame-everyone-else hatefest.

Why not start now? The model we create today may not succeed, but it may plant seeds. Iraq was a great candidate for one of the first plantings because it had the muslim world's largest, most secularized bourgeoisie. Afghanistan was fertile ground because nothing else was there – it was the other end of the islamic spectrum. The government that, with Saudi aid, morphed into the Taliban was put in place by the Pakistanis. They hoped to bring some order to the factious rabble of warlords who threatened the Silk Road, which covered the same ground and traded many of the same goods that caravans crossed there for 2,000 years ago. If we can create the context of the rule of law in such diverse settings, we can give every muslim who wants a better life something to look toward; undermine the appeal of jihadism as an ideology, and make every surviving muslim nation-state quake in its boots (and thus be willing to play ball with the Great Satan as long as it still exists).

In any case, we don't have a lot of choice. I'm no messianic Wilsonian. I have no illusions about such a task being anything but pain and travail, but I also see no effective alternatives. We focused on the negative far too long. We worried so much about restraining things like nuclear proliferation and radical islam that we forgot completely (or were philosophically opposed to) positive ends that obviated the need for restraining force. And this made things worse. Negative ends can motivate tepidly, but they cannot inspire. This is something Dubya’s dad never got – the “vision thing.” Dubya, rightly or wrongly – only time will tell – gets it.

We may get so discouraged by Iraq or whatever that we go back to policies of malignant neglect, but if we do, islam will remain what it is, the islamist ideology will continue to spread – quite literally like a cancer – and their "T" footsoldiers will be back on our shores, this time with bigger weapons, better plans, more effective maskirovka….

Some on the Left believe that the US is too evil to live and deserves what it gets. I have nothing to say to such people. They are part of the problem, not part of its solution. They are in the enemy camp and may eventually have to be dealt with as such. I hope it doesn't come to that.

Still our greatest vulnerability stems from the government's accountability to the people. I'm very glad we have this vulnerability – it's really one of our greatest strengths culturally – but we must also realize that enjoying it entails a cost.

Wars where public will is an actor (which, for America, is any war longer that six weeks, or any war involving more than 30 casualties) are won as much in the domain of public perception as they are on in-theater ground truth. In Vietnam, we won every battle we chose to fight (even though we didn't choose to fight the ones we should have), but finally lost to Giap, who used Hanoi Jane, Gunboat Kerry, and their ilk as his weapons. All the NVA's military offensives (at least from '68 on) merely supported the real battle going on in Washington, carried on in infospace and the minds of US leaders. The occupation of Saigon was just a confirming gesture. Vietnam was and will remain one of the finest examples of information warfare (IW) ever fought.

We studied and learned from it, but our enemies did too. It taught us how to win big and fast on the battlefield because we couldn't sustain long wars unless they were fought for national survival. It taught our enemies that a technologically challenged, resource-poor actor could defeat a superpower by adroit application of other instruments of power than pure military force. Unfortunately, the second lesson was the most important. Those seeking to challenge us already knew that they couldn't defeat us in open combat. Even Saddam's goofy decision calculus in 1990 was based on the belief that he could inflict enough casualties on us to make us want to go home; he just went about it the wrong way. He never thought he could defeat us outright – he just wanted to outlast us. He almost did.

Today's enemies learned from that, too, and they learned from their defeat of the world's Other Superpower in Afghanistan. Superpowers can be defeated asymmetrically if forced to pay a high-enough price. Countries where the government is accountable to the people are especially vulnerable to high costs, particularly in terms of lives.

Neither the security of the Iranians nor of the world is enhanced by any nuclear program that includes weapons capabilities.

You're kidding, right? The world's security was most certainly enhanced by the US nuclear program and the weapons that resulted from it, and it is to this day. The US nuclear umbrella was one of the biggest components of the hegemonic (and demi-hegemonic) stability that the world enjoyed for fifty years following World War II. If not for that umbrella, the Soviet Union would probably still exist and Western Europe and Japan would probably be under its (and Red China's) thumb. Hundreds of millions would probably live in poverty under crushing tyranny as the SU staved off collapse from its internal contradictions by absorbing rich capitalist nations. The US would be isolated and greatly diminished, if it hadn't already succumbed to a Red Dawn-like fate.

Nuclear weapons can be force for good, as can any form of military power, if they are used properly. Nukes are most useful as a deterrent, which is the stated US policy and doctrine. Iran would use them as a deterrent too, but would do so to give them leverage in pursuing their foreign policy goals, which are inimical to ours. Nukes would also greatly enhance Iran's relative regional power, which is also not in the interests of the world that is at war with islamist jihadism.

More dangerously, Iran would almost certainly sell or make nuclear technology and materials available to non-national actors, who cannot be deterred by traditional means and who would certainly use nuclear weapons if they had them. This would be in Iran's interests, so long as Iran the nation still had "plausible deniability." Once that genie's out of the bottle, it will be very hard to put it back in. And nothing would please islamic jihadists the world over than a mushroom cloud over Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, or Baltimore.

Iran insists that it only wants peaceful nuclear power, but we cannot assume it is telling the truth. If Tehran refuses to be transparent and open to inspections, the U.N. Security Council can take up the issue of imposing sanctions and start that whole weapons monitoring rigmarole.

Right. In fact, we have an obligation as the lynchpin of hegemonic stability to assume that they aren't and to act on that assumption, if necessary.

"Hegemonic stability" is clearly part of the world model that the Bush Administration is working with in developing its overarching strategy, as well it should be. (I just wish the Administration would explain this to the public in simple terms!) The theory emerged from the work of Charles Kindleberger in the 1970s, who used it to partially explain the Great Depression in terms of the dissolution of the British Empire's monetary and trade hegemony after World War I.

Hegemonic stability comes about in conditions of economic asymmetry when one uniquely innovative and dynamic nation or actor becomes the dominant power and gains a substantial degree of control over the international system. Preconditions usually include monetary and trade dominance (even to the extent of providing the main means of exhange: the Pound Sterling, the dollar, Roman coin). It also often involves keeping international order militarily (Rome's legions, Byzantium's fleets, the Royal Navy, our whole military today).

If the hegemon is dominant enough (no near-peer competitors), it comes to see that a liberalized international system is in its interest (one that is based on freer trade, fewer internal barriers, etc). It is really only under conditions of hegemonic stability that liberal international systems have flourished (Rome, China internally from the Three Kingdoms era to the mid-19th century, the dar al-islam under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, the Dutch trade and naval system in the early 16th century, the British Empire from 1815 to 1914, the US-based system after 1945...)

The hegemon usually bears most of the costs of creating the infrastructure for this system, but all benefit from it. The diffusion of liberal order sometimes allows the rise of peer competitors or successors (the Dutch, then the Brits). Sometimes the hegemony is broken by external threats (Rome, Byzantium). In any case, these conditions are rare islets of peace, prosperity, and relative stability in the world's sea of war and dark, bloody barbarism.

Any UN regime of sanctions and weapons monitoring is only as good as the force (which is always to say, the US forces) that back it up. This was the case in the 90s. When Clinton lost interest in the Iraqi weapons program in '98 and all the progress that had been made up to '96 (when Saddam apparently decided to start hiding his stuff in other countries) was lost. Fortunately for (and unbeknownst to) us, Saddam made the wrong decision (again) and got rid of his "stuff."

The US may not want its role as hegemon, but it has it by virtue of its cultural and economic preeminence. Many on the left and the right do not want this responsibility. Too bad. We have it, wanted or not. Letting it go will lead to the fragmenting of the international order and probable war between smaller peer competitors, to the rise of another hegemon (or perhaps regional hegemons) who isn't as nice as we are, or will plunge the world into a new dark age. None of these alternatives are very appealing.

Should we be willing to see our current liberal order undone by a barbarian culture that's the nastiest since the Huns? If you want that world, buy a ticket to Islamabad or Algiers. I'm staying here and fighting for civilization.

Yet as the head of the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on human beings and the one currently devising the next generation of "battlefield" nukes, it would seem that Bush should be a little more careful about trying to seize the moral high ground. This is especially the case because we have accommodated the nuclear programs of three allies (Pakistan, India and Israel).

I address the actual use of atomic weapons further down.

We have no need to worry about the moral high ground, because we (the developed, democratic world, that is, not just the US) already occupy it. Islam offers only a return to sharia medievalism. The rest of the undeveloped world offers life that is equally poor, crowded, nasty, brutish, and short. Whose moral credibility are we talking about, anyway? Of Galois-smoking French intellectuals? Of Cindy Sheehan? Michael Moore? They only live as free people because they enjoy the benefits of the world order they excoriate. Sorry, this makes them moral ciphers. They have no credibility themselves. Of Iranian mullahs and Wahabbi prayer leaders? Give me a break.

Of the nations you mention, Pakistan is part of islam, is an ally in name only (but is usefully coercible), and did not receive help for its nuclear program from us (that came primarily from China). India is emerging both as an ally (against islam and especially Pakistan) and as a democracy, but we did not assist it in obtaining nukes, either (Russia did, but they did most of it on their own). Only Israel is really an ally. It is part of the developed, liberalized world that participates in the benefits and responsibilities of hegemonic stability. It has had nukes for decades, but has not used them. Can we expect the same of Iran or Syria?

Incidentally, the new family of "battlefield nukes" are extremely low yield and are designed precisely to help deal with buried, super-hardened facilities like and Iran or North Korea might put their nuke programs into, without killing everything around it and contaminating large areas.

The timing of Bush's bombast is particularly fortunate. Last week the world the mayor of Nagasaki, at the 60th anniversary of the A-bomb bombing, pointed out our hypocrisy in his comments, saying "[T]o the citizens of the United States of America: we understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks…." "Yet, is your security enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons?" While I do think that the answer to that question is “hell yeah,” it doesn’t change the hypocrisy inherent in our position nor the fact that Bush's Iran policy is rife with contradictions and idiocies.

Short answer to the Mayor of Nagasaki: "Yes." Our security is significantly enhanced, and so is yours. In fact, that US nuclear security enhancement is one of the main reasons you're the democratically elected mayor of a large prosperous city in a free nation, rather than the slave of some Russian or Chinese commissar.

That's assuming, of course, that you or your parents wouldn't have been among the two million or so Japanese dead that we estimated would result from Operations OLYMPIC and CORONET – the Allied invasion of Japan. Or weren't killed in the continued B-29 fire bombing (that inflicted far more casualties than both atomic bombs put together). Or didn't starve to death due to the total blockade on Japan.

The use of atomic weapons was a humane choice then and the US' continued nuclear superiority is a necessary precondition for international stability now. In what way is this "hypocrisy?" We have had nuclear predominance for decades and have used it only to protect the liberal international order we helped foster outside the communist and islamic worlds (that is now taking tenuous hold in some corners of both those other areas).

Does this sound like hypocrisy to the mullah who is dreaming of turning Tel Aviv to glass? Probably. But see this period: . ? My give-a-damn is contained entirely within that dot. When the leaders of these countries have run a hegemonically stable world order that ushered in prosperity and progress unparalleled in human history for half a century, then they can lecture us on "hypocrisy." In the meantime, tell them to shut up and color. Questions?

What, for example, is the point of publicly threatening Iran when doing so immeasurably strengthens the hand of hard-line nationalists and religious fundamentalists in Tehran? These are the people who, for more than a century, have secured much of their appeal by posturing as the “protectors of the Muslim populace against Western imperialism.” And it seems to me that the reality is that we are in a much, much weaker position vis-a-vis Iran than we should be because of our invasion and disastrous occupation of neighboring Iraq.

If you mean "immeasurably" as in, "too small to measure," you're right. If you mean it as in, "way big," you're way off base.

The point of publicly threatening Iran is to make it clear that they have been publicly threatened. And that the threat is credible and is part of a larger campaign of engagement (that includes many incentives as well as threats). I think I made this clear already.

Again, no amount of cajolery on our part will make them hate us more or less; as members of a government with concrete interests, they may be persuaded to go along with us or retrain certain behaviors if we hold certain things they value at risk. But threats are a necessary part of holding things at risk. Their hostility is implacable; they must be engaged based on their objective interests.

Again, they've thought they were protectors of the Shia's unique holy sites since Imam Hussein's standard bearing was cut down, just as Saudi princelings and Wahabbi radicals have thought they protected Mecca and Medina. Today, they all couch this in anti-imperialist rhetoric, but any true jihadi believes this and will search around until he finds a threat to defend these shrines against, even if that winds up being other muslims. Nothing we can do about it.

.....

And again, I maintain that we are in a stronger position vis Iran and other similar nations because the threat we pose to them is now more credible and we have very significant military presence within immediate reach of them.

I imagine you get the idea that Iraq is "disastrous" from the mainstream media. You really shouldn't believe everything you read or see, especially if it flatters opinions you've already decided upon. Talk to some folks who have actually been on the ground in Iraq. Go places like this or this to get perspective that doesn't flatter the MSM's preconceived worldview.

If Iraq is your idea of a disaster, I'm sure glad you weren't around to give us advice in World War II after, say, Dieppe, or Kasserine, or the fall of the Philippines. Our troops and the Iraqis themselves haven't given up. Why should you? And…oh by the way….things may get messy there at times, but the job's not finished yet and won't be for quite awhile.

Iran now holds some high cards: It is closely allied with the most powerful force in post-Hussein Iraq (Shiite religious leaders). Any invasion of Iran might break our already strained military machine. If Iran were to send its fanatical revolutionary guards into Iraq as saboteurs, they could make the current carnage more reminiscent of Vietnam-era losses.

News flash: the Revolutionary Guards (who are not as fearsome as you seem to think they are; they're not professional soldiers; today they're more like commissars) are already in Iraq in some numbers, both in the Shia south and the Kurdish north. The Badr Brigade is heavily infiltrated, for example, although it is mostly killing Sunni insurgents these days and has pledged to disarm, which helps show how ambiguous the political situation is, even among the Shiite clergy. Our nuclear negotiations with the Iranian government aren't going to change that. Only changing the ground truth in Iraq will change that. The Iranians own the fealty of some Iraqi Shia groups, but my no means all of them. Iraqi Shia are Arabs, with close affinity to Arab Shia in southern Iran. The government, Rev. Gds., mullahs, etc. are Persians and they haven't treated their Arab Shiite minority much better than Saddam did. Iraqi Shiites are well aware of this and are no more trustful of the Iranians than they were of Saddam (or than they are of us).

In short, I'm not sure how these are high cards. They're already making life harder in some ways (and easier in others) in Iraq. If all goes to hell and the Pasdaran come pouring across the border in human wave attacks (like they did in the Iran-Iraq War), a three-ship of B-52s with some spotters on the ground can deal with them. Not a problem.

Finally, Iran is one of the world's biggest oil exporters. At a time when oil prices are soaring, much of the rest of the world would be hesitant to back the United States in any adventure that could cut off the flow. (Well, not that there is much of the world left that would support us even if they believed it were the right thing to do; it is fashionable to be an American-contrarion. Hey! I think I invented a new word. How about this: instead of “Euro’s” we can now call them “HAC’s” – Hypocritical American Contrarions.....hmmmm, I’ll have to work on that, especially since “contrarion” isn’t a word.)

Well, maybe we're not in this for oil, despite what Michael Moore thinks, and maybe we can only really rely on a few trusted agents in the maintenance of the developed world's order anyway. By strange coincidence, these TA's seem to be the other English-speaking nations, especially the Brits and Aussies – the "Anglosphere."

But then, we're the ones who created, paid for, and maintained the infrastructure of stability for fifty years. NATO's forces are much weaker today, but ours are much more capable. The Brits, Aussies, and Israelis are the only other nations with truly modern militaries; the first two because they've fought along side us for decades; the third because they've had to have one to survive. Why should we expect, or even want, that to change? If anything, we should expect less cooperation today, when we are relatively stronger and those who enjoy our diffused, liberal hegemonic stability are weaker than ever before in our relationships?

Finally, invasion is not really on the table. For one thing, there's no need for it. Iran is an emerging industrial state with developing infrastructure. A nuclear program requires a significant amount of industrial support. It's a big engineering project, especially for an emerging industrial power. We have gotten pretty good at analyzing how to take apart such systems. In fact there's a whole joint agency, with truly amazing computing power behind it, devoted just to that (and no, I don't mean the CIA). Airpower would be the principle form of power used against the Iranian nuclear program and we have some weapons today that can even shut down such a project without major loss of life. Of course, in the grand game of nations, we might want to make such a strike hurt, to make a point about the seriousness of the "crime," but that's a different issue.

Adding troops on the ground would just horribly complicate things. First and foremost, Iran is a much bigger and less open country than Iraq. Movement isn't easy and cover and bottlenecks abound. Secondly, we don't have nearly enough troops to pull off an occupation, even if we might be able to shut the Iranian military down and drive to Tehran and a few other places. Third, immense amounts of airpower would have to be diverted to support any ground effort, which would seriously degrade our ability to take down Iran's government, industrial infrastructure, and strategic systems.

No: Iran can be rendered fairly harmless from the air. The Iranians know this and know there's not much they can do to prevent it. Fortunately, Iran is not like North Korea, which knows that we can take down its nuke program any time we want, but which has Seoul held hostage with 5,000 gun tubes. We flatten Yong Byon and they turn Seoul into an abattoir. Iran has no similar leverage. Remember: They're already playing all their cards in Iraq save open invasion, which they know we could easily stop.

Constructive engagement (as the Clinton NSC would have called it) is the way to go – and the way we are going – with Iran. If the fact that such engagement entails an occasional reminder of what lies behind our words makes you uncomfortable, so be it. It makes the Iranian government and mullahs uncomfortable too, and that, finally, is the point.

PS: "HACs" works for me – and "contrarian" is a word (despite what my Word spellchecker says). ("You shall be called 'the Contrarians'…….with an 'A' ".)

What say you Monkster?

Chefjef

I think I've said more than enough for now. Let me just end on a personal note, Chefjef. You claim that you are not troubled by the logical and philosophical inconsistencies in positions you take, because human nature is fallible and inconstant. This sounds like an excuse. It has the ring of "I don't have to get a job because God will provide" about it. If you acknowledge the logical inconsistency of certain beliefs (presumably, that you don't want Iran to have nukes, but somehow think that this entails unacceptable "hypocrisy" on our part), then why do you hold them? Pure emotion? Haven't thought far enough through your premises? Just like to be a "contrarian?"

God doesn't expect us to apprehend him with reason alone, or even primarily, but he did give us reason as a tool. I'm sure He knows well that we are but mad north-by-north-west. He still expects us to know a hawk from a handsaw when the wind is southerly.

Monk

Update, 25 Aug
: I knew I'd seen this somewhere. I said in the original post that Cindy "You Klingon Bastard You Killed my Son!" Sheehan had been an ichabodnik for some time and I meant to show that she opposed the war even before we went into Iraq, but couldn't find the relevant quote. Powerline obligingly provided it this morning:

AMY GOODMAN: Cindy, what were your feelings when your son Casey went to Iraq? Are they the same as now? And what were Casey's feelings about the invasion and occupation?

CINDY SHEEHAN: Right. Our family was against it from the beginning. Casey was against it, but he felt it was his duty to go because he was in the Army. And he felt that he had to go to protect his buddies, to be there for his buddies, to be support, and they are brainwashed into thinking that even if they don't agree with the mission, they're brainwashed into just blindly following it. I begged Casey not to go. I told him I would take him to Canada. I told him I would run over him with a car, anything to get him not to go to that immoral war. And he said, “Mom, I wish I didn't have to, but I have to go.”

Sounds like she would have taken up an AKM and killed her son herself in order to make her Grande Pointe if she'd had to. So much for moral credibilty.

America's favorite grief pimp also keeps interesting company. The linked interview contains remarks with Karen Kwiatkowski, an uberlibertarian moonbat who barks about how the DamJieu Neocon Zionists control everything even more than Paddy Buchanan does. Nice.

PS: Layman reading the Wikipedia entry on Kwiatkowski may think her credentials sound pretty impressive. I can speak a little more authoritatively than most on this subject: She was a loggie for most of her career (which is how she had the time to obtain her impressive-sounding array of degrees; most in this career field are far removed from the operational job of the Air Force. She worked as a PA hack and protocol droid for the director of the NSA. She had no more access to the supersecretsquirrel material she claims than the janitors at the NSA do. Her fantasy about Bill Luti, the NESA, and the OSP "gaining control of military intrelligence" is pure Lyndon LaRouche stuff.


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Say What!?


According to Fox News, Pat Robertson, the defining expression of "right-wing idiotarian," openly called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez:

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

This really shouldn't surprise me, coming from the guy who advocated that the State Dept should be "blown up with a nuclear device" and said that the Supreme Court is a greater threat than Nazi Germany was.

Don't get me wrong: I have no philosophical or moral problem with removing Chavez, but Robertson purports to be a minister of Christ (he isn't really; he just plays one on TV). What an absolute disgrace.

Monk

Update, 24 Aug
: A reader at NRO's Corner has some good perspective:

I know you’re sick of hearing about him, but a few words from an evangelical are in order.

First, Pat Robertson is often misunderestimated. He has a law degree from Yale Law School, and the monolith organization “700 Club” was started by him from scratch. He’s a very smart and shrewd man.

Second, he relies strictly on the paranormal / emotional / ”miraculous” to forward his ministry. The 700 Club tracks what type of segments on their shows produce the most calls for people to donate, and over the years they’ve figured out it’s not “Jesus came to save that which was lost” that produces the cash, but rather “Ma boy Tommy, he busted-up his leg real good, but this angel come while he was sleeping and he healed it up real nice.”

Third, Robertson is an absurdly rich man. He has made tens of millions off of para-ministry investments with 700 Club funds, including mines in Africa in countries where he has had “revivals”. This is all documented, but he hasn’t done anything illegal, yet.

Lastly, his theology is perfectly awful. I don’t care if you’re Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, or whatever, you don’t have to be Augustine to see how shoddy his doctrine is, or how he uses his aberrant form of Christianity to make himself famous (which no apostle ever did).

Amen to all that, brother: famous and fabulously wealthy. On that note, here's The Door's article on him from last year:

"I'm still a little overwhelmed," Robertson told reporters outside George's Restaurant before the ceremony. "To think that a poor little rich kid like me could amass an even bigger fortune simply by following my most mercenary instincts – and by saying it was the will of God! My obscene wealth is proof once again, as a wise man once said, there really is one born every minute."


Monk


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Sunday, August 21, 2005

Iran So Far Away, Part 3


Chefjef responds to Kanh's response to Chefjef's post....or something like that.

Here's the original post.

Here's Kanh's response:

Chefjef,

I don't pretend to understand what is happening in the middle east. But, I would like to speak to your calling the American government hypocritical because we possess nuclear weapons and don't want Iran to have them. Let me ask this...You have a gun, does it make you hypocritical to not want criminals in Montgomery (or anywhere else for that matter) to possess them? God forbid you should ever have to use the gun on another human being, but would it make you even more hypocritical? I think not.

In His Love,

KANH

Here's Chefjef's answer:

Good point, Kahn. But I have a small reservation regarding your premise. In order for it to apply outright, one has to presume an entire nation to be criminals and also presume tha the U.S. has the same authority over sovereign nations that a duly appointed police officer has over the citizens who granted him that authority in the first place. In your hypothetical, it would not be hypocritical of me to not want criminals in Montgomery to have weapons, but it would be critical of me to want a ban of all Montgomerians, save the police, to have weapons. Like it or not, Iran is a sovereign nation and has been long before we were. The fact that we, as a nation, seem to forget that sometimes probably pisses other people off.

Now, do I want Iran to have nukes? Of course not. I don't trust them anymore than I trust a dope dealer or a gang member. Do I really care what pisses them off? Nope. But just because I hold a particular position doesn't mean I also have to fool myself into believing that it is (1) logically and philosophically sound and (2) completely jibes with every other position I hold. While I would like both of those things to be true, if it were so it would mean I am perfect, and despite extreme delusions of grandeur I am still a little dubious about my own perfection.

Please keep the comments and analysis coming! This is an important issue.

Chefjef


Keep the conversation going (Please -- 'cause I'm still working on my reponse to the initial post. It's long and getting longer. Sorry....that doesn't sound quite right, does it?)

Monk


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Saturday, August 20, 2005

Cindy Sheehan: Now We Know

The truth will out!

Chris Muir has uncovered the final truth concerning the KosKids' poster girl and the Democrats' tar baby:


We should have known. It was there all along, staring us in the face!

Monk


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Friday, August 19, 2005

Wife Beating


Got your attention? Good. Check out this excellent article at Evangelical Outpost concerning the "culture of critique" and doctrinally bashing other Christians. I think he's right on:

Jonathan Barlow believes that the problem stems from the “critique-culture” within evangelical circles:

We [evangelicals] rarely do anything positive, and when we do, positive just doesn't sell. I don't have a good answer for a way forward, but I think a good first step is trying to lay off of brothers in other Christian traditions for the most part, especially those who hold to Nicene orthodoxy. Secondly, when our bright students are interested in a thinker outside of our circles, we teachers and pastors should model a kind of engagement that praises where it can, and suggests alternatives where it cannot.

There was a time when the issues was merely about the correct doctrine, the acceptable teachers, and the denominationally-approved books. The advent of the blogosphere, though, has not only expanded the reach of the critique-culture but has added new ways in which we can criticize each other’s activities. I can’t think of a single blogging initiative – the GodBlogCon, Blogs4God, the Blogdom of God – involving Christians that hasn’t been roundly criticized by our own brothers and sisters. This is not to say that any venture should be immune from criticism. But there comes a point when the knee-jerk critiques simply lead to paralysis.

Where does it end? When will we stop being “wife beaters” of Christ’s bride? And when will we finally heed the exhortation of Titus to, "Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless."

Follow the links. I think Barlow's evangelical self-critique is interesting -- and true. I have seen it myself. Not just among "evangelicals," of course (however that group is defined), but in all denominations -- and I have contributed to it as well. I think the "rarely do anything positive" remark is revealing, too. It's easier to be a Pharisee and use the church as a crutch in doing so than it is to really demonstrate Christ's love.

Monk

Update
: Reader Teresa writes:

I agree that any Christian who condemns another Christ-based religion is being very un-Christ like. We are not here to judge, only to be as Christ like as possible, (which is almost impossible) but we must strive to this, you cannot win over someone with critisism, only love.

Teresa

Amen. This can be a hard teaching to live, though; I have certainly been part of the 'critique culture' at times, and have been part of churches that encouraged it. I refer all back to this week's capstone post, "Porn Star" -- a lesson in judging and finding Christ (link is to part 1 of 8).

Monk



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Iran So Far Away, Part 2


We have a winner!

Yes, folks, Kanh is the first to take Chefjef's bait and rise to his challenge. She writes:

Chefjef,

I don't pretend to understand what is happening in the middle east. But, I would like to speak to your calling the American government hypocritical because we possess nuclear weapons and don't want Iran to have them. Let me ask this...You have a gun, does it make you hypocritical to not want criminals in Montgomery (or anywhere else for that matter) to possess them? God forbid you should ever have to use the gun on another human being, but would it make you even more hypocritical? I think not.

In His Love,

KANH

Indeed.

Monk


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Iran So Far Away, Part 1



Chefjef posts the following. It needs to stand on its own amd ripen a bit, especially if it is to provoke the commentary Chefjef and I would like to see.

Izmud, Hans, Red Leader, et al...wanna take a crack at it? Nolan, wanna roll summa that "enemy lovin" stuff Iran's way? All: Cast no personal aspersions upon the author, please.

I am loath to fisk Chefjef outright (since he is a de facto blog partner), but this piece is tendentious enough to warrant it (and I suspect he deliberately wrote it with that in mind...)

So here's the deal: I will give other correspondents one day to post responses and then I will completely fisk the piece, paragraph-by-paragraph, if not sentence-by-sentence. I'll leave it at that for now.

Monk say: Comment away!

Monk

**************************************************************


Wendy Sheehan is a granola Lefty, but Bush is a truth-stretching scaredycat. Still, let’s broaden the scope of the “Iraq issue.” I think Iraq is B.S., but there is definitely a larger issue of “Us. vs. Terrorists” that requires direct and prolonged action by the U.S., and I think we are behind the eight-ball in terms of when we got started. You, of course, believe that the Iraq effort is a necessary element in the “Us v. Tangoes” thing. Okay, well regardless of the position one takes on the relevance of Iraq to “U v. T,” the media focus on Iraq is as distracting to the broader issue as the Roman Gladiator games (in the later years) were to the state of the Empire – that is, they sort of purposefully kept folks’ minds off of things.

So what say we get some Monkster analysis and insight on Iran. I’ll give you a starting board. You can post some of it as a sounding board, and perhaps it’ll generate some discussion from other correspondents on the issue (an issue which, I think, us common folks need to prod the establishment in spending more time discussing with the public).

Well, this weekend President Bush made a thinly veiled threat to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities or even invade the country as a last resort. The comment was sparked by Tehran's troubled negotiations with the West over its nuclear program.

It is telling that Bush made the comments on Israeli television, which makes them even more provocative. Israel is, of course, not only Iran's archenemy but is also probably the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the immediate region.

Bush seems to not only want to rattle his saber at Tehran's hard-liners, he also wants to ensure that he infuriates and publicly embarrasses even moderate Iranians.

If diplomacy fails, "all options are on the table," Bush said. "You know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country." But it was precisely Bush's use of preemptive force against Iraq that now makes it so difficult to pressure Iran to abandon its worrisome nuclear program.

Neither the security of the Iranians nor of the world is enhanced by any nuclear program that includes weapons capabilities. Iran insists that it only wants peaceful nuclear power, but we cannot assume it is telling the truth. If Tehran refuses to be transparent and open to inspections, the U.N. Security Council can take up the issue of imposing sanctions and start that whole weapons monitoring rigmarole.

Yet as the head of the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on human beings and the one currently devising the next generation of "battlefield" nukes, it would seem that Bush should be a little more careful about trying to seize the moral high ground. This is especially the case because we have accommodated the nuclear programs of three allies (Pakistan, India and Israel).

The timing of Bush's bombast is particularly fortunate. Last week the world the mayor of Nagasaki, at the 60th anniversary of the A-bomb bombing, pointed out our hypocrisy in his comments, saying "[T]o the citizens of the United States of America: we understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks…." "Yet, is your security enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons?" While I do think that the answer to that question is “hell yeah,” it doesn’t change the hypocrisy inherent in our position nor the fact that Bush's Iran policy is rife with contradictions and
idiocies.

What, for example, is the point of publicly threatening Iran when doing so immeasurably strengthens the hand of hard-line nationalists and religious fundamentalists in Tehran? These are the people who, for more than a century, have secured much of their appeal by posturing as the “protectors of the Muslim populace against Western imperialism.” And it seems to me that the reality is that we are in a much, much weaker position vis-a-vis Iran than we should be because of our invasion and disastrous occupation of neighboring Iraq.

Iran now holds some high cards: It is closely allied with the most powerful force in post-Hussein Iraq (Shiite religious leaders). Any invasion of Iran might break our already strained military machine. If Iran were to send its fanatical revolutionary guards into Iraq as saboteurs, they could make the current carnage more reminiscent of Vietnam-era losses.

Finally, Iran is one of the world's biggest oil exporters. At a time when oil prices are soaring, much of the rest of the world would be hesitant to back the United States in any adventure that could cut off the flow. (Well, not that there is much of the world left that would support us even if they believed it were the right thing to do; it is fashionable to be an American-contrarion. Hey! I think I invented a new word. How about this: instead of “Euro’s” we can now call them “HAC’s” – Hypocritical American Contrarions.....hmmmm, I’ll have to work on that, especially since “contrarion” isn’t a word.)

What say you Monkster?

Chefjef


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Thursday, August 18, 2005

Salty Dogma


This is pretty cool. It's an interview with U-2's frontman, Bono, concerning what he believes. (Bow to The Funky Presbyterian for the link, and apologies for stealing his post title, which was too good to pass up...)

Some have assailed Bono's faith, doubting whether he is a Christian because of his iconic pop star status. I certainly disagree with him on many temporal issues myself, but you won't find me disagreeing with a word of this:

Bono: My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean? What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor. I don't let my religious world get too complicated. I just kind of go: Well, I think I know what God is. God is love, and as much as I respond [sighs] in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that's my religion. Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love. Now that's not so easy.

Assayas: What about the God of the Old Testament? He wasn't so "peace and love"?

Bono: There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend. When you're a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

...Or this...

Bono: It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.

Bono: I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.

Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

Amen, brother. Amen


Hello Hello
We're at a place called Vertigo
Lights go down and all I know
Is that You give me something...
I can feel Your love teaching me how...
Your love is teaching me how...
How to kneel.

--Bono, Vertigo

Monk

Update, 22 Aug 05
: Chefjef writes:

Awesome article. I didn't know Bono was a Christian, especially since he took a lot of flack from the right about some of his humanitarian and environmental activisim. I do like the song "Vertigo," and some of the lyrics made me wonder if he was a Believer.

Chefjef

Yeah, he's been pretty roundly criticised by many in that "evangelical critique culture" I wrote about here. One can differ with any Christian's conclusions regarding temporal matters (that's what this blog is about, after all!), but disparaging such a testimony of faith in Jesus is Pharisaical and not in the Spirit of Christ.

Monk


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She Does Not Speak For Me



A brilliant and moving article in WSJ's Opinion Journal today concerning that Sheehan...woman:

I grieve with Mrs. Sheehan, for all too well I know the full measure of the agony she is forever going to endure. I honor her son for his service and sacrifice. However, I abhor all that she represents and those who would cast her as the symbol for parents of our fallen soldiers.

It's a must read.

Monk


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Christian Carnival LXXXIII



This week's Christian Carnival is up at All Kinds of Time

Many interesting posts. Here, Dadmanly points to an interesting attempt at intellectual synthesis in the intelligent design: "Divine Evolution." At the bottom of the post, Joe Katzman of WindsofChange fame adds a valuable perspective and touches on a theme that parallels some of my own thinking on the evolution conundrum: If the evolution of the spirit is a thing God insists on and if nature routinely exhibits fractality (recapitulation of essential structures at many levels 'up and down the chain'), how can evolution of some type not exist in nature external to the spirit? If it does, how does this reconcile with what we regard as "doctrine" on the subject today?

More to the point: Who cares? What's important in terms of "evolution," as Katzman puts it, is that

Spiritual progress....at its core [is] very simple: "be and become more like God."


Monk


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