The Review

One of the best blogs going

(Review) If you haven't found the QandO blog yet, you are missing a real treat. John Henke and McQ are just putting out one heck of a blog. It's just chock-full of good, good stuff.

If I was setting up a group blog, I'd want these guys to be part of it.

Pretty much the exact opposite of Halo

(Review) Soothing, relaxing--and yet, somehow, still addictive Flash games.

Lock 'em Up and Throw Away the Key

(Review) US Soldiers are being held on charges of mistreating prisoners.

In one photograph obtained by the program, naked Iraq prisoners are stacked in a human pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English. In another, a prisoner stands on a box, his head covered, wires attached to his body. The program said that according to the United States Army, he had been told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. Other photographs show male prisoners positioned to simulate sex with each other.

"The pictures show Americans, men and women, in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners," states a transcript of the program's script, made available Wednesday night. "And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing or giving the camera a thumbs-up."

The CBS News program said the Army also had photographs showing a detainee with wires attached to his genitals and another showing a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner. The program also reported that the Army's investigation of the case included a statement from an Iraqi detainee who charges that a translator hired to work at the prison raped a male juvenile prisoner.

I hope the courts-martial for these guys slam them into Leavenworth for years. This is unconscionable and wrong. We are there to liberate these people, not heap abuse on them.

Now, granted, a lot of these Iraqi prisoners were Ba'athist thugs, and in a Karmic sense, probably deserved what they got. But we aren't in the business of balancing Karma. Our job is to detain these prisoners, not punish or abuse them.

Oh, and this really ticks me off, too:

"This case involves a monumental failure of leadership, where lower-level enlisted people are being scapegoated," Mr. Myers said. "The real story is not in these six young enlisted people. The real story is the manner in which the intelligence community forced them into this position."

Mr. Myers represents Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick of the Army Reserve, who has been charged in the case and who was interviewed by "60 Minutes II." He complained of a lack of training and admitted that dogs had been used to intimidate prisoners.

How about a nice hot cup of STFU, counselor? Your client is a Staff Sergeant. That means he isn't some innocent young soldier who was led astray. He's a freaking non-commissioned officer with, in all probability, at least 6+ years of experience as a Military Policeman and police supervisor. Don't give me that "innocent young soldier" crap. I was a Military Police Staff Sergeant and I know exactly what his level of experience was.

He got caught, red-handed, and now he's about to get boned by a court-martial. Cry me a river, counselor.

However, I do think we can find partial agreement on one thing. What is going to happen to the officers in the chain of command, and when do their courts-martial start?  

UPDATE: OH, and by the way, Guess what SSgt Frederick's civilian job is? He is...wait for it...a prison guard.

I hope you'll find your stay at Fort Leavenworth to be a learning experience, SSgt (soon to be Pvt) Frederick.

It appears the chain of command is in trouble, too:

Brigadier General Janice Karpinski is among seven officers being investigated following claims that soldiers under their command mistreated detainees.

Good riddance.

What the President should be saying

(Review) Victor Davis Hanson writes a speech for the President, which says everything that needs to be said. In fact, everything that needs to be said can be found in one paragraph:

What are the values for which hundreds of Americans have now fallen in Afghanistan and Iraq? They are not new or hard to fathom, nor are they the easily caricatured images of American popular culture. Rather they are the same principles for which Americans died at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Iwo Jima, and Pusan: the guarantee of free association and expression, the tolerance of different ideas, a respect for the rule of law, and the right to enjoy equality under the aegis of consensual government. So this is what we believe in and this is what we have made it our mission to preserve.

Powerful stuff.

Debunking the Outsourcing hysteria

(Review) In a long and scholarly article in Foreign Affairs, Daniel Drezner points out the fallacies of the Chicken Littles who are, once again, predicting a "huge sucking sound" of jobs being destroyed by outsourcing.

If only the rest of the Left were like him

(Review) Christopher Hitchens. Man, that guy is good.

I continue to be amazed at the way in which so many liberals repeat the discredited mantra of the CIA to the effect that Saddam Hussein's regime was so "secular" that it not only did not collaborate, but axiomatically could not have collaborated with Islamists. If you can imagine a Hitler-Stalin pact (which, admittedly, a lot of American leftists still cannot), you can probably imagine collusion between discrepant factions with common interests.

In any case, the Saddam regime was not as "secular" as all that. The campaign of extermination waged in northern Iraq by Saddam's army was titled "Anfal" after a verse in the Quran that supposedly licenses total war. The words "Allahu Akbar" were placed on the Iraqi flag after the defeat in Kuwait. The Baath Party became the open patron of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine. The rhetoric of the Saddamist leadership was exclusively jihadist for the last decade, with special mosques built all over the country in honor of the regime. Now comes a document from the files of the Iraqi secret police, or Mukhabarat, dated March 28, 1992, and headed routinely, "In the Name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate." It is a straightforward listing of contacts and "assets," quite unsensational until it comes to the "Saudi front," where we find the name "Osama bin Ladin/he is well-known Saudi businessman, founder of Saudi opposition in Afghanistan, had connection with Syrian division." Of course, this is not a smoking gun.

No, and nothing we find will ever be a smoking gun. We could find secret hardcore gay video footage of Saddam and Osama fellating each other, and the Left would decry it as a digital illusion like Jabba the Hut and Jar-jar Binks. We could find buried stockpiles of VX gas, nuclear bombs, and sealed jars of botulism spores, and the Left would claim that the US had staged the whole thing.

There's just no convincing some people. Not because we don't have adequate evidence, but because they refuse to be convinced. There will always be those people for whom it is all about "Bushitler" and "American arrogance", and for whom Pat Tillman was a "Rambo" who got what he had coming to them.

These people are simply cranks. They heard Noam Chomsky once, and decided he was such a brilliant linguist that he must also be a messianically powerful political analyst. Well, you know what? You can't reason with cranks. The best thing to do is simply tell them they're cranks, then do your best to ignore them.

Breaking the Veil of Silence

(Review) I haven't blogged on Michael Jackson before. It's not the type of thing I usually take too much interest in. In fact, the only reason I'm doing it now is to repeat a Dennis Miller joke.

"Jackson has requested that, if convicted, he be allowed to serve his time in a juvenile detention facility."

Heh.

You know, it's weird how people respond when it's a celebrity that's getting hammered by the legal system. We see these celebrities all the time in movies, or on TV, and in interviews, and we become so familiar with them them that we think we know them. So, we respond often as if they were friends or family members, and we delude ourselves into thinking that we have insights into their character.

Paul Thomas, a 25-year-old student who arrived in California from London on Wednesday, said he planned to be at the courthouse by 7 a.m. Friday.

"I didn't come here to gawk at him. I just want to support him," he said. "I think he is a good role model. He has a lot of morals. You can see he's a nice person, always giving to charity."

And Adolf Hitler loved dogs. John Wayne Gacy bought joy and laughter to the children he entertained as a clown. The fact that Jackson, or anyone else, isn't completely evil doesn't mean they don't do evil things for which they should be punished. I don't see the connection that Mr. Thomas does. Is he saying that someone who gives to charity can't bugger pre-adolescent boys? I'd like to see the peer-refereed studies on that.

Oh, and I like this bit:

Thomas said he told his college he was sick for the week and estimated that he spent about $700 on the trip.

Whereupon he told his story to a news service of worldwide scope, practically ensuring his school's master back in London knows he isn't sick at all.

Good, thinking, buddy.

In any event, Mark Twain once captured the weird dichotomy between good and evil existing in the same person in a brief passage in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which, by the way, if you haven't read, you should.

Twain describes how the nobility would be prone to elaborate rituals of Christian devotion, yet were shockingly ruthless. They would kneel and thank God humbly for their victory on the battlefield, right before slitting the throats of the wounded.

People can have good and evil impulses living side by side inside themselves, and they are perfectly capable of acting on both.

The fact is that we don't know these celebrities. What we know is the face they present for public consumption. And we're fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.

Now they get all sensitive

(Review) Al Jazeera has finally found a piece of terrorist video that even they won't show.

Al-Jazeera is noted for showing some of the most gruesome scenes in TV history in reports on U.S. or Israeli military action. But since a videotape of the shooting of Fabrizio Quattrochi came into its possession on April 14, the network has withheld it on grounds of taste.

Nor would al-Jazeera give a copy of the tape to the Italian officials who were permitted to watch it. The tape reportedly shows two figures with their backs to the camera standing behind Quattrochi. One shoots after Quattrochi shouts, "I'll show you how an Italian dies" and attempts to tear off his hood.

The sudden squeamishness of al-Jazeera prevents the world from seeing a clear depiction of the Italian's bravery and defiance and the appalling cruelty and cowardice of his Arab abductors, whose voices are clearly heard on the tape.

I guess showing Westerners displaying their contempt for the terrorist cowards is to at variance with al-Jazeera's propaganda slant.

Fabrizio Quattrochi, R.I.P.

Ah, the sensitivity of the left

(Review) Observe, if you will, the exquisite compassion of Rene Gonzalez, who says of Pat Tillman:

True, it's not everyday that you forgo a $3.6 million contract for joining the military. And, not just the regular army, but the elite Army Rangers. You know he was a real Rambo, who wanted to be in the "real" thick of things. I could tell he was that type of macho guy, from his scowling, beefy face on the CNN pictures. Well, he got his wish...This was a "G.I. Joe" guy who got what was coming to him.

Ah, the Left. They just care so darn much.  

Where's Wyatt Earp when you need him?

(Review) Ralph Peters thinks it's time to show the Iraqis that we are serious.

Bring order to the streets, no matter what it takes: If you shoot plunderers and the Arab world wails, too bad. If we won't pay the price of unpopularity in the short-term, we'll fail and be despised for decades to come. Changing the direction of the Middle East is not about immediate popularity - it's about go-the-distance effectiveness.

Never interrupt an ongoing military operation for "negotiations": Finish the job, then talk. In the Middle East, strength, not chitchat, elicits respect.

Add the stick to the carrot: Stop this nonsense of trying to bribe terrorists and murderous Ba'athists to love us. Instead of pouring money into cities and town that kill American soldiers, expend development funds on the communities that behave. The present policy of rewarding those who assassinate our troops is as unacceptable as it is counterproductive.

Nice guys, especially in the Middle East, finish last. Unless we can enforce law and order, and bring security to the streets, we can forget about fostering any sort of secular democracy in Iraq. It won't happen.

All of our nice, Western concern for humane action is blowing up in our faces there. We're trying to coax terrorists and thugs who hate us to try and play nice. Instead of doing what we should be doing, which is rooting them out and shooting them down in the streets like dogs.

Victory consists of killing your enemies, breaking their will, and destroying their means of attack. Until we do that, we will never solidify democracy in Iraq.

Indeed, it may too late even now.

Of course, I am a reasonable person. I understand that for the president to allow such a realistic policy to be implemented, the wails of anguish and cries of "Fascism" from the French, the Left, and their various toadies, would be deafening. The Arab world would rend their garments and gnash their teeth as well.

But if we expect to win there, we have to understand that it won't happen through cease-fires or negotiations.

Sorry about the blogging

I haven't been feeling well today. I even took off from work. So I guess today has been pretty useless.

The excuses have already started

(Review) James Ridgeway's "Mondo Washington" column for the Village Voice is already starting to make excuses about why john Kerry lost the 2004 election.

And the election is still 5 months away.

With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party's got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can't exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.

With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner.

So, what do the Dems do? They can already smell the week-old dead mackerel odor of defeat on his political corpse, but he has the Convention delegates locked up. Like it or not, this guy is the presumptive nominee.

And, if they do try to drop him, it makes them look like a pack of morons for not being able to figure out how to nominate a presidential candidate. Unless Kerry cooperates by dropping out of the race for "health reasons", they have to take the huge risk of publicly stabbing their own nominee in the back.

Not good strategy. It's hard to elect your guy as president when you can't organize a simple nomination.

Terry McAuliffe may now be the most hated Democrat in America among his fellow democrats. Because this all looks like his fault. The nomination process was rushed, and the game was called early. Sure, they have a a nominee, now, but the shortness of the campaign didn't give the American people long enough to take a hard look at these guys under prolonged stress. And it didn't give the other democratic contenders enough time to uncover little weaknesses among the contenders.

It was too short, the winner wasn't fully tested, and now his vulnerabilities are hanging out for all to see five months before the election. Five months for Karl Rove to play with.

So, now, the Democrats are thinking about blowing Kerry off and drafting...who? Howard Dean? Oh, God, please, please, let them pick him! Hillary? No, she's to smart to board the Titanic, and this would look too much like that. No, she's saving herself for 2008.

Yep, it's quite a pickle the democrats have got themselves in.

Rotsa ruck, guys.

All you need to know about America

(Review) Dennis Prager was talking about his Pat Tillman column today, and as he did so, he came up with a profound point. All you need to know about America and it's most deeply-held values, can be learned from looking at a coin.

On one side you will see "Liberty" and "In God We Trust", and on the other, you'll see E Pluribis Unum, which is Latin for "From Many, One". The three most important ideals that animate our society are displayed on every coin.

Says Dennis, show this to your children, and tell them that's all they need to know about America.

Mark Steyn, The Anglosphere's Brightest Treasure II

(Review) This time, Steyn ponders why the Bush-Bashing of the last several weeks hasn't weakened his standing in the polls.

In today's phony-baloney world, nuanced inertia is the simple choice, the default mode of international diplomacy, of the U.N. and the European Union. When you dig into what's holding up American resolve on Iraq, the people seem to be making more subtle distinctions than their elites.

Thus, the president's numbers aren't affected by the sob sisters of CNN's Baghdad bureau filing their heartrending reports on how thousands of Baathist apparatchiks haven't been paid since they were made redundant from Saddam's Department of Genital Mutilation and Electrode Clamping last April.

U.S. public opinion is hardheaded about this: The welfare of the Iraqi people is a bonus, but the welfare of the American people is the primary objective. That's why the United States went to war.

That's the problem for the Democrats. If ''resolve'' is the issue, can you beat it with ''nuance''? If I had to name the definitive Kerry campaign headline it would be this, from Britain's (left-wing, Kerry-backing) Guardian last week: ''Kerry Says His 'Family' Owns SUV, Not He.'' That Chevy Suburban in the yard has nothing to do with him. Who you gonna believe? A respected senator or your lying eyes?

His statement is true in the sense that his ''family'' (i.e., Teresa) also owns the house and the grounds, and indeed a big chunk of his presidential campaign. But it's hard to claim that your powers of diplomatic persuasion would have won over the French and Germans when you can't even win over your ''family.'' And do Americans want to hand over responsibility for Iraq to someone who won't even take responsibility for the car in his driveway?

Simple answer: No.

Mark Steyn, The Anglosphere's Brightest Treasure

(Review) Just read this. Savor it.

There was an hilarious piece in the Washington Post on Sunday, under the plaintive headline, "Why Did Bush Take My Job?" The author was Saeb Erekat, and the job he claims Bush has taken from him is "senior Palestinian negotiator" with the Israelis. The other day, speaking in support of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, President Bush stated the obvious: it was "unrealistic" to expect a return to the armistice lines of 1949, and there’s no point wasting time discussing the Palestinian "right of return" to what’s now Israel, because it’s never going to happen.

Mr Erekat’s real job is to look good in a suit and go on television and sound reasonable when, as on September 11, the excitable chaps in Ramallah are dancing in the street and singing the Arabic version of Happy Days Are Here Again. And he is, of course, "democratically elected", being presently in the ninth year of a five-year term. So Yasser keeps him around to do the CNN-BBC interviews when Hanan Ashrawi is washing her hair and they need someone to do the autopilot drone of "root causes", "desperation", "cycle of violence".

What a strange world the Middle East is. For 10 years, in northern Iraq, the Kurds have run a pleasant, civilised, pluralist, democratic de facto state, but external realities require them to be denied one de jure. For the same period, in the West Bank and Gaza the Palestinian Authority’s thugs, incompetents and bespoke apologists have been lavished with EU aid and transformed their land into an ugly, bankrupt Arafatist squat. But external realities require the world to defer to the "Chairman" as a de jure head of state, lacking merely a state to head.

Meanwhile, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN’s special envoy to Iraq, has told French radio listeners that "the great poison in the region" is Israeli "domination" and told American television viewers that the Israelis "are not interested in peace, no matter what you seem to believe in America". Well, he certainly hit the ground running. A week in town and he is already sounding like any decades-old Arab despot. In The Spectator a year ago, I warned against handing over Iraq to the UN: it would simply "install as high commissioner a non-Iraqi Arab bureaucrat" who’d "effectively wind up as an Arab League minder, there to ensure that the Iraqis didn’t get any funny ideas (rule of law, representative government) which might unduly discombobulate the Egyptians, Saudis et al." But even I didn’t think they’d ship over such a walking, talking cliché of Arab League man as Mr Brahimi.

Or, as John Kery calls him, apprently under the misapprehension that he is Italian, "Mr. Brandini."

Of the Milano Brandinis, no doubt.

Kaus goes for the jugular

(Review) Mickey Kaus, who is, by the way, a Democrat, is just merciless in his savaging of John Kerry.

Which, I gotta say, makes for fun reading.

Heh. I'll bet the Democrats would be happy to have Mike Dukakis back over Kerry if they had a choice.

A close election? Hah!

(Review) John Podhoretz, like me, doesn't believe the 2004 election will be as close as conventional wisdom says.

Kerry has been the presumptive Democratic nominee for two months now. Ask yourself: Aside from fund-raising success, has he had a good day? Has he come up with a winning soundbite? Has he made a policy proposal you've heard people talking about?

Bush has had about as bad a time as he could have had these past two months, and he's not only still standing, but doing better than he was a month ago. And why? Because when he takes center stage, as he did in the press conference last week, he usually helps himself.

Not so for Kerry. To put it mildly.

Yes, he has time, plenty of time, six months' worth of time. Kerry will surely get better, but that's only because he can't get much worse.

Kerry is the kind of candidate who will either depress democratic turnout, or drive Democrats over to the Nader camp. He's that bad.

Win, or come home

(Review) Ralph Peters writes the following in the New York Post.

[W]hen the revolt began in Fallujah earlier this month, our Marines, supported by the U.S. Army, hammered the terrorists into the dirt. We took casualties - but the losses were overwhelmingly on the enemy's side, as they always should be.

The Coalition Provisional Authority's response? And the Bush administration's? They made the Marines stop well short of the goal post. Listening to Iraqi leaders who have their own personal power - not Iraq's interests or ours - at heart, our civilian leadership ordered the Marines to break off combat operations before the job was finished. We let the terrorists off the ropes, granting them time to recover for another, inevitable round.

Next, I suppose we'll establish a DMZ.

Since the cease-fire, our troops have had to endure the ludicrous charade of "negotiations" with the Fallujah city fathers - breaking the rule that we never negotiate with terrorists or their surrogates. The resulting "agreement" to turn in heavy weapons led to the mockery of sending the Marines a pick-up truck full of junk while the terrorists gained weeks to prepare their defenses, construct ambushes and organize a far tougher resistance than they could have presented two weeks ago.

Our enemies are laughing at our folly, while creating a myth of heroic resistance in Fallujah - for which we will pay dearly in the months and years ahead.

Make no mistake: There can be no compromise in Fallujah. If we stop one inch short of knocking down the last door in the last house in the city, our enemies will be able to present the Battle of Fallujah to their sympathizers as a great victory: They fought the Americans to a stalemate (with the implication that, next time, the Americans will be defeated and driven from the Middle East).

This whole Fallujah deal is starting to get me steamed. Cease fires and negotiations are a loser's game. Losers sue for peace. Losers ask to open negotiations.

Every minute we wait to flatten Fallujah makes us look like losers who don't have the stomach to win. Every minute we pause our operations is another minute the enemy has to consolidate his defenses. Every minute we wait to strike increases the number of casualties we'll eventually take attacking increasingly strong defenses.

And what do our cease-fires gain us? Increased respect from the insurgents? Goodwill from Iraqis? Hardly. The insurgents and Iraqis in general both see it as a tactic of weakness. They both wonder why we don't put an end to it.

We have to stop worrying about how we can make our enemies like us. That is both stupid and counterproductive. We didn't try to gain the respect of Germany in World War II. Instead, we simply started killing Germans, and we kept killing them until they asked us to stop by offering us an unconditional surrender.

Supposedly, one of the lessons we learned from Vietnam was that, if you use American military power, you use it all the way. You cry "Havoc," and slip the dogs of war. And you kill anyone who opposes you until they are ready to surrender, or are all dead. You fight, in other words, with no end save victory.

As far as I can tell, we are in serious danger of forgetting that lesson.

My Trip to the Zoo

This weekend, it appeared that a family emergency would require a trip out of town. As it happened, the trip fell through. The family emergency is still there, but The Lovely Christine decided that the trip wouldn't really solve the problem, so we ended up not going. Well, since we weren't going out of town after all, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we live in the city containing the best zoo in the world. So, we went to the San Diego Zoo. Here are a couple of pictures from the trip.

The Red Panda: These guys are just as cute as buttons.

Orangutan: The ugliest, yet paradoxically, the most photogenic of the primates. Well, except for Catherine Zeta Jones.

Polar Bear: The green tint is due to the exceptionally thick glass through which I took this shot.

Not only are the animals cool, but some of the flora they have is just amazing.

Gao-Gao, Panda of Amazing Virility: According to the zookeeper, Gao-Gao is about 75 pounds underweight for a male panda. But evidently, when they got the female Panda, Bay Yun, from China, Gao-Gao got busy. Pandas are notoriously hard to breed in captivity, but evidently, Gao-Gao, despite his small size, is the Don Juan of the Panda world. When they put Gao-Gao in with Bay Yun, it took about five minutes and she was beggin' for it. The result was little Hua Mei. Unfortunately, I didn't get a pic of the little tyke. In any event, the zookeeper kept going on about Gao-Gao's sexual prowess until it got a little uncomfortable and creepy, frankly. It just seemed like he was taking a little too much interest in the process.

Another flower

Tree Wallaby: Kangaroos that climb trees. Australia must be a freakish place. I think the zoo is a little boring for these guys. Even the tiniest animals in Australia are insanely vicious, so the safety of the zoo is probably pretty tame for these guys. I mean, I shot this picture at about three o'clock in the afternoon, and this guys is still yawning and scratching his belly.

Alaskan Brown Bear: They look cute, until you realize they're 10 feet tall and weigh about 1200 pounds.

Peacock: This guy was just wandering around the zoo unsupervised. Someone, a long time ago, released a buch of peacocks in San Diego, and so you see them all over the place. The Lovely Christine used to live in an apartment where there were about 4 of them wandering the property. They're great to have around, especially at about 6:30 on Saturday morning when they start with their 140 decibel banshee shrieking. You really love 'em, then.

King Buzzard: Chris got a much better shot of this guy than I did with this photo.

And now, without further ado: The Parade of the Meerkats!

Why, yes, I do like meerkats. Why do you ask?
     

I wish I could say that this was a complete satire

(Review) The Onion a publication that takes no prisoners, reports that Iraqis are gleefully preparing for their June 30 independence.

"True Iraqis know that our enemy has never been the U.S.," said Hakmed Butti, a Sunni who has been "saving my joy and weaponry" for the day America returns power to his country. "Our enemy has always been each other. It took an American invasion to teach my people that, but I do not think it is a lesson we will soon forget..."

Iraqi leaders expressed optimism about the future of democracy in Iraq.

"I am certain that this democracy will be a flash point of social and political change," said one Najaf-based Iraqi cleric who asked that his name and the location of the tanker truck he was loading with diesel-soaked nitrate-based fertilizer not be printed.

Shi'ite leader Dzhan al-Juburi said difficult days are ahead, but that the people of Iraq are "not strangers to challenge."

"The path to re-deconstructing Iraq will not be easy," al-Juburi said. "But if we remember to draw on the strength of our people and their massive stockpiles of automatic weapons, then, Allah willing, we will turn Iraq into the country it once was in no time at all."

I bring this up because of a point that McQ at QandO directs me to from Ralph Peters New York Post column.

Operation Iraqi Freedom has been, among other things, an attempt to give Arabs hope for a better future. The ultimate outcome won't be known for years, but we must prepare ourselves for the possibility that the Arabs are going to fail themselves again.

With sufficient troops, we can force Iraq's Arabs to behave. But we can't force them to succeed.

Ultimately, Iraq is not a test of the limits of American power. When necessary, we can do whatever must be done for our security and prosperity. Our use of force, in Iraq and elsewhere, has been remarkably - even foolishly - restrained.

If Iraq collapses into medieval fantasies and blood feuds, we still may be proud of having given this crippled civilization a last, great chance to heal itself. We've made mistakes, but their impact is minor compared to the unwillingness of Iraq's Arabs, Sunni or Shi'a, to build a free and civil society of their own.

In the end, whether Iraq succeeds is building a civil society is not a measure of American failure or success. We can't build a civil society for them. They have to do it.

We can help, and offer them all the assistance they ask for, but we can't force them to act peaceably toward their fellow citizens. And even if we could, we can't stay there forever.

It is Iraq's success or failure that will count, not ours. We can liberate them from a cruel dictator, and we can assist them in building the legal and constitutional structure their society will need. But it is the Iraqis themselves that will determine whether or not they will supinely allow their country to deconstruct.

That's why I think the President is right, after having given it a lot of thought, to keep to the June 30 date for transfer of sovereignty. Frankly, I've been ambivalent about it. I've veered between staying there for a decade and rebuilding the country brick by brick, turning the whole mess over to the UN, and just about everything in between.

But, at the end of the day, this is an Iraqi, not an American struggle. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him count to eight by tapping his hooves on a rock.

Or something like that.

Rangers Lead the Way

(Review) As you probably already know, former NFL star and current Army Ranger Pat Tillman was KIA today in Afghanistan.

I have to admit to a little discomfort highlighting his death. Each of the people who've died in the War on Terror is a tragedy, and an irreplaceable loss. It should also go without saying that anyone who serves in the armed forces makes a sacrifice. If you don't believe it, take a look at the military pay chart. Often, you can count on being deployed 6+ months a year away from your family. Even peacetime service is hazardous. I live in the Camp Pendleton area, and deaths through aircraft crashes or training accidents are depressingly common.

But, it has to be said that Tillman sacrificed much more than the average person. He left behind $3.5 million a year to join the army. He gave up those things that are are so weirdly honored by our society--athletic prowess, fame, amazing amounts of money--to be an Army Ranger.

That is unusual in today's America. And today, Tillman gave that sacrifice in the ultimate measure.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
---Capt. (Dr.) John McRae, MD RCAMC   

VDH Speaks

(Review) Go read Victor Davis Hanson right now.

The Disqualification of Religion

(Review) As anyone who knows me can tell you, I'm not a religious guy. Still, when I see stuff like this, it irks me.

Actor Richard Gere has joined in the chorus led by Ralph Nader and others condemning President Bush for mixing his faith with his governance. "One thing I've learned in my life is never to trust anyone who thinks that he exclusively has God on his side," said Gere to a crowd of like-minded Hollywooders.

Gere's brilliant insight followed a recent statement by perennial presidential aspirant and equal opportunity nuisance Ralph Nader lambasting Bush for not divorcing his faith from his public service. Nader was apparently disturbed by a passage in Bob Woodward's new book.

Woodward reports that when Bush was in the process of deciding to attack Iraq he prayed "for the strength to do the Lord's will." This "revelation" reportedly prompted Nader to tell the Christian Science Monitor,

"We are dealing here with a basically unstable president … a messianic militarist. A messianic militarist, under our constitutional structure, is an unstable office-holder. Talk about separation of church and state: It is not separated at all in Bush's brain, and this is extremely disturbing."

Sometimes, the weird crap the Left gets caught up in amuses me just as much as it irritates me.

First of all, the constitution is silent about whether a "messianic militarist" should hold office. I think it says that all religious tests for holding office are prohibited. Presumably that includes testing for messianic militarism.

Second, if Bush was a messianic militarist, it would mean that he perceived himself to be the messiah. That's the definition of "Messianic". My understanding, however, is that Bush considers someone else to have been the messiah.

In any event, the thing that really bugs me is the idea that so many on the Left has that the US is just one step away from turning into a Christian theocracy. Cripes, they talk about it all the time, as if we're about to install an American pope, and that Jerry Falwell is on his way to your house right this minute to start peeping into your bedroom.

That's just completely delusional and paranoid.

Turn on a freakin' TV set. Friends? Will & Grace? Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? Is this really the television of an incipient theocracy? I mean, when you can't even turn on NYPD Blue without getting a flash of Andy Sipowitz's ass, then a return to Puritan morality doesn't really seem to be in the cards.

And, by the way, who wants to see Sipowitz wagging his schlong around? Even if you like guys, you gotta prefer that hunky Ricky Schroeder, don't you? And, why do we have to look at naked guys in the first place? Why wasn't it Kim Delaney and full frontal? Or that blond chick that's on CSI: Miami, Hottie Hotterson, or whatever her name is?

But I digress.

Go take a look at the local theater, and count the ratio of G-rated to R-rated movies. Lippity-lop over to the 7-11 and take a look at the copies of Maxim, FHM, Stiff...uh, I mean, Stuff, and Maxim Blender arrayed in front of the sales counter, conveniently at eye-level for 6 year-olds. Maybe I'm going to the wrong 7-11, but I ain't seein' copies of Faith Today, Christian Living, or the Christianity Today Sunday Suit Edition displayed anywhere.

Hey, If I lived in Iran, I'd be making a whole different argument, but I gotta tell you, if you got a big concern about the US turning into some sort of Plymouth Rock Puritan society, then you're a paranoid freak.

See a professional. I mean, really.  

Bring our Boys home!

(Review) Ralph Nader is calling for a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq.

Way to go, Ralph! You keep it up, and you'll be the only genuine anti-war candidate! I'm hoping you get 10 or 12 percent of the vote, frankly.

Let's see, that would give Kerry about 37%, and Bush about...uh...

Go, Ralph!!!

Today's Big Question

Everybody's trying to figure out the answer to one question: Why has George W. Bush' poll numbers been rising, even as he's been pummeled over the past three weeks by the 9/11 commission, trouble in Iraq, Bob Woodward's and Richard Clarke's books, etc.

Jonah Goldberg Thinks it's because people think of W as a war president, but don't see John Kerry that way.

Josh Marshall thinks that it's because the public doesn't want to lose in Iraq. Or something.

Howard Fineman has a politics junkie's laundry list of reasons, all of which sound plausible.

But, really, it's not all that hard to figure. As Kevin McCullough pints out, Kerry's just not a likeable guy.

American's tend to elect people that we like, or who excites us, or brings us a vision of the future that we find compelling. But, in the end, we can usually dispense with the big vision thing, we can dispense with excitement.

But a likeability deficit? That's a hard, hard, row to hoe. Dick Nixon managed to do it, but only because the Democratic Party imploded in 1968 over Vietnam and in '72 over the Tom Eagleton fiasco. Well, actually, the whole George McGovern thing was a fiasco, now that I think about it.

It's hard to get people to vote for you when they dislike you. Kerry can't even get Democrats excited about his campaign, because, frankly, a lot of Democrats don't like him either.

So, it's not rocket science trying to figure this stuff out. Sometimes the correct answer is the obvious one.

No Photos Allowed

(Review) The Pentagon is clamping down on people trying to take photos of the flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover AFB. Pentagon policy is that any such photos are a violation of DoD Policy.

The purpose of this policy, and it was upheld by the DC Court of appeals in 1996, is that the privacy of the families should be protected.

Now, there is a lot of clamor on the left about this. The hideous Rep Jim McDermott--who, if you'll remember, went to Baghdad prior to the war with David Bonior, in order to lecture us from Iraq about the immorality of our policy there, and to give aid and comfort to one of the world's most infamous tyrants--piously declared yesterday that we need to see the pictures of dead servicemen, so we can mourn over their loss, as is our national duty.

This is as sickening as the trail of slime that McDermott leaves behind him everywhere he goes.

Because I think we all know that his primary concern isn't "mourning" over our honored dead. His primary purpose is to get those photos out there with a suitable caption, like "Our brave soldiers, murdered by George W. Bush's immoral policy in Iraq." Let's not pretend otherwise.

Pentagon policy prevents this, just as it prevents the President, or anyone else, for using photos of our fallen soldiers for political purposes.

But there are, it appears, no depths to which the Left will not sink, even to exploiting the bodies of our dead servicemen, if it helps them in their struggle to get W kicked out of office.

The perennial spoiler

(Review) Jim Glassman writes that Nader may do even better this year than he did in 2004. Which is, incidentally, a huge help for Bush.

Good article, and definitely worth the read.

What really caught my attention though, was this little, almost offhand statement:

The war [in Iraq] is not going well. In the first 18 days of April, 99 U.S. soldiers were killed, and, at that rate, another 1,000 will die before the election.

This hits me wrong, in a way that's difficult to articulate.

Mainly, I think it's because it indicates an unrealistic view of war that seems to be prevalent in America. I get the impression that Americans today thinks that every day there should be progress, and that every day we can show that we're winning just a little bit more. And, if they don't see that, they get easily discouraged.

In early April, Gallup found that 28 percent of those surveyed wanted all U.S. troops out of Iraq, compared with 16 percent in January.

That just doesn't display much constancy at all.

The truth is that war is not about constant progress. Never has been. Never will be. There are always setbacks. Our planning is faulty at times. Our intelligence misses signals about enemy intentions. It's tragic, and our boys die because of it.

And there is absolutely nothing whatsoever we can do about it. We try as best we can, but war is not predictable. We do not control our enemies actions, they do.

The situation in Iraq, it seems to me, is much like the situation the allies faced in December of 1994. The Invasion of France had been successful, and the country liberated. Montgomery was clearing the Germans out of the Approaches to the Belgian ports. Much of Holland had been liberated.

Then, all the sudden, German tanks--tanks that weren't even supposed to exist--were pushing the allies back in the Ardennes forest, kicking off the Battle of the Bulge (starring Henry Fonda and Robert Shaw).

December became a very hard month for the allies. The 101st Airborne Division was cut off and surrounded at Bastogne. German Tanks were driving toward the Scheldt Estuary, threatening to cut the allied army in two. Even worse, bad weather kept the allied air forces grounded. This resulted in many, many casualties on the allied side.

But--and this is the important bit--even though it looked like we just barely beat the Germans by the skin of our teeth, from their point of view, it was a disaster. It crushed their last reserve of tanks, and ended, for the rest of the war, Germany's ability to fight anything other than a purely defensive battle.

Yes, it was a slap in the face for those who had watched the German Army in France break down completely in August and September. It was a huge surprise to see a massive German armored assault just 60 days after it had looked the Germans were ready to collapse completely.

But that's how things happen in war. Fortunes shift. New commanders come up with innovative ideas. Old commanders fall into complacency.

Clausewitz wrote that the exercise of battle consists of doing just a few simple things, but that even the simplest of things on the battlefield is extraordinarily hard. Commanders miss information they should have. Enemy commanders do the unexpected. Things are never precisely what they seem.

I think that there is every possibility that the last month in Iraq has been the Ba'athist/Islamist "Bulge". Like Hitler, they thought they saw a chance to hit is hard and fast, and beat us by surprise. All I've heard from individual marines caught up in it, tells me that they are killing hundreds of these insurgents, and breaking their fighting strength, ending their ability to resist as organized units.

It doesn't strike me that things are going badly in Iraq. It strikes me that things are going about as well as can be expected, considering the chaotic nature of warfare, and the immense difficulty of the world-historical task upon which we are engaged.

Could the Bush Administration done some things better? Sure. So could the administration of FDR. We don't elect machines to office, we elect people. They make mistakes. They follow misguided policies. I wish it were otherwise, but there it is.

The point, however, is not to look at those mistakes, throw up our arms, and declare, "Well, it's a quagmire, just like Vietnam! We should just leave!" The point is to correct those mistakes, and complete the task we've embarked on. Vietnam became a quagmire because we made it one. IF we do not wish Iraq to become a quagmire, then we have to implement policies that lead to victory, rather than stalemate or defeat.

We have all the power--and more--to impose our will in Iraq. The only question is whether we have enough will to impose it.

And we'd better, because we simply can't quit now. A withdrawal in Iraq will do the same harm to our national interests that our failure in Vietnam did in the 1970s, when it looked like the commies would take over the world.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-KKK) gave one of his hysterical stem winder speeches yesterday, calling on us to leave Iraq immediately. In a way he's right. It would certainly save the lives of some soldiers or marines there. But at what cost? Saving the lives of 1,000 soldiers at the cost of 3,000 or more civilian deaths in another 911 attack doesn't strike me as an economical trade.

The harsh truth--and I know it because I spent 10 years as a professional soldier--is that the purpose of a soldier is to fight, kill, and die for his country. If 1,000 soldiers must die so that 1,000 civilians can live, then, good. That's the soldier's job.

If we leave Iraq with the job unfinished, if we just turn tail and run, like Byrd suggests, then we'd better prepare ourselves for the deluge of death and destruction that will follow. Because Our enemies will see it as the start of an open season on Americans.

No, we have to stay there, and we have to do whatever is necessary to win. It's that simple. 

Taking the King's Shilling

In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that, as of Tuesday, I've been working for the Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign. I'm not getting paid, but I have volunteered to do surrogate writing and speaking.

So far, this isn't the most organized part of the campaign, since they're just kicking it off. For instance, on Tuesday, they asked me if I could do an Op/Ed for Earth Day. Usually, it takes more than 48 hours to place an op/ed in the paper, so the deadline was tight. But, I did it.

And, of course, they scrambled on Wednesday, trying to find a state legislator or congressman under whose name to submit the article. The thing is, they should've placed it on Monday, not less than 24 hours before deadline. Then, just before 11:00 am on Wednesday, they called me to ask if I would try to place it if they couldn't get in touch with a legislator to do so.

At that point, I gently tried to tell Camille Anderson, the Communications Director of the Bush-Cheney office in LA that it wasn't gonna happen. She apologized for being disorganized, and said they'd try to get on track better in the future.

So, naturally, the article didn't get placed. So, since the article will be dead after today, anyway, I decided to post it here.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESULTS, NOT RHETORIC
By Dale Franks

Earth Day is often a time that we focus on threats to our environment. We worry about things like biodiversity, energy, forests, and clean water. It should, however, also be a time when we celebrate the environmental progress we’ve achieved.

Over the past thirty years, we’ve made enormous strides in environmental protection and conservation in practically every area. Since the 1970s, overall air quality has improved by over 40%, and the elimination of leaded gasoline has reduced the ambient level of airborne lead particulates by 99.9%. Industrial pollution has declined substantially, leading to cleaner streams, rivers, and lakes. Since 1980, the US has seen no net loss in wetlands areas, and protected wilderness areas have increased. Recycling of paper, cardboard, plastics, and glass has also increased tremendously. More than 35% of paper products and 23% of glass products are recycled.

Yet, to note that impressive environmental progress has been made is not to ignore the fact that many environmental problems are still waiting for effective solutions. At the heart of creating these solutions, though, lies a debate about the philosophy used to achieve them.

The traditional model for US environmental regulation has been a centralized, bureaucratic model. While this may be an easy regulatory regime to implement, it has often led to too much inflexibility. Bureaucratic regulation is, by nature, a “one size fits all” type of regulation that focuses on procedures, rather than actual results. As a result, it often does not account for local environmental variables. Even worse, it can enshrine bad policy that causes, rather than relieves, environmental problems.

A perfect of example of the bureaucratic model’s failure is the lax forest management which led to the huge wildfires of 2002-2003. At that time, federal land management programs were so complex that they prevented timely action to address problems in our national forests. For example, in 1995, a severe winter storm knocked down trees on 35,000 acres of California’s Six Rivers National Forest. Federal land managers spent three years struggling with the paperwork requirements of bureaucratic regulation. By 1999, only 1,600 acres of the forest had been treated. In September of that year, a forest fire burned through the area, and also consumed an additional 90,000 adjacent acres before it could be controlled, at a cost of $70 million.

In essence, the regulatory burden on forest management prevented timely thinning and clearing operations. This resulted in exceptionally dense forest areas that were heavily overgrown with highly flammable underbrush. Additionally, damage to forests through disease and insect infestation increased the risk of fire by leaving thousands of acres of dead trees uncleared. The compliance difficulties that traditional environmental regulation placed on land managers was a major contributing factor to the nearly 11 million acres of forest that were destroyed in wildfires in 2002-2003.

In contrast, the Bush Administration has pursued a flexible environmental policy that is geared towards achieving results, rather than focusing on bureaucratic procedures. As part of this philosophy, President Bush launched the “Healthy Forests Initiative”. Since then, the Forest Service has implemented at least 46 high priority thinning and restoration projects, and the Bureau of Land Management is currently implementing more than 20 projects. In addition, the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior have improved environmental assessments for priority forest health projects.

Part of the Bush Administration’s philosophy is to provide incentives to industry to improve environmental performance. The administration has offered $4.2 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy and hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles to spur the use of clean, renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies. In addition, the administration has also requested major budget increases for a number of clean-air and zero-emissions energy programs, including the President’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative; FutureGen, coal-fired, zero-emissions electricity generation, and fusion energy. Additionally, President Bush has increased funding for climate change-related programs by 15%, bringing total U.S. Government spending this year to $4.3 billion.

It does the environment no favors to focus more on bureaucratic procedures than on the actual goal of a cleaner environment. All too often, the primary concern of the bureaucracy is the enlargement of its budget instead of the environmental goals it is supposed to achieve. That might work out just fine for the bureaucrats, but the rest of us deserve more. An environmental policy like that of the Bush Administration, which emphasizes tangible results rather than compliance with arcane paperwork requirements, is both cheaper, and more effective.

As we celebrate this Earth Day, it behooves all of us to remember that it is, after all, the results that count.  

Judicial Filibusters

(Review) Terry Eastland writes that John Kerry could be hoist on his own petard if he becomes president, when it comes to judicial nominations.

Kerry is part of the filibuster against the president's nominees. If he's elected, he'll probably learn what it's like to be on the receiuving end of it.

And they said Reagan was the Teflon President

(Review) Richard Cohen Wonders why, despite all the bad news for Bush in the last month, the president is doing better and better in the polls. And more bad news for Bush, and he'll win by a landslide. Of course, some of that can be traced to Kerry's faults.

Money undoubtedly will matter in the presidential campaign. But what will matter just as much, if not more, is Kerry's message. At the moment, it is nowhere to be found. If anyone out there can complete the following sentence, please let the Kerry campaign know: Vote for John Kerry because.... The only thing that comes to mind is that he is not George Bush.

Significantly, in one area where Kerry is demonstrably not Bush, it works against him. Bush is minimally articulate; Kerry is downright verbose. When Kerry opens his mouth, whole chunks of paragraphs fall out and hit the floor with a clunk. He truly knows too much - a charge that cannot be leveled at Bush.

Actually, it's more precise to say he talks too much. Which isn't really the same thing at all. But when you listen to what he says, you certainly don't get the impression he knows too much. In fact, you often get the impression that he knows very little.

Of course, you don't really listen to what he says, because he says it in such a soporifically verbose way that your eyes glaze over about 5 seconds into a Kerry statement.

A competitiveness struggle

(Review) Tom Friedman beleives that the struggle against Islamofascists isn't the only thing we should be worried about. There's always the Yellow Peril.

The bottom line: we are actually in the middle of two struggles right now. One is against the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, and the other is a competitiveness-and-innovation struggle against India, China, Japan and their neighbors. And while we are all fixated on the former (I've been no exception), we are completely ignoring the latter. We have got to get our focus back in balance, not to mention our budget. We can't wage war on income taxes and terrorism and a war for innovation at the same time.

Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, noted that Intel sponsors an international science competition every year. This year it attracted some 50,000 American high school kids. "I was in China 10 days ago," Mr. Barrett said, "and I asked them how many kids in China participated in the local science fairs that feed into the national fair [and ultimately the Intel finals]. They told me six million kids."

For now, the U.S. still excels at teaching science and engineering at the graduate level, and also in university research. But as the Chinese get more feeder stock coming up through their high schools and colleges, "they will get to the same level as us after a decade," Mr. Barrett said. "We are not graduating the volume, we do not have a lock on the infrastructure, we do not have a lock on the new ideas, and we are either flat-lining, or in real dollars cutting back, our investments in physical science."

Well, this is certainly a problem. But the problem is not one that the Federal Government can do do much about. The problem lies in the local schools in the hearts of our communities. Our education system is doing something horrific to our children.

Kids in the first through third grades love school. They're just pleased as punch. But, by the time they get to high school, they absolutely hate it. Whatever love of learning these kids have going into school, our teachers somehow manage to beat it out of them between grades 3 and 8.

That's not a problem money can fix. That's a problem of methods and philosophy. And, a lot of it's popular culture, too, that assigns the smart kids to the "geek" category, and values popularity and looks more than intelligence.

So, no, we don't have a lot of science club geeks, compared to the the Chinese. And I'm not sure what a government "Competitiveness Strategy" can do to change that. But we don't have one, and Friedman closes by telling us that it's all the Bush Administration's fault.

But, you expect that. He does, after all, write for the New York Times.

Happy Earth Day

Once again, it's the day we're supposed to get all gooey over the environment. And, Of course, we'll hear a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Sierra Club types about how everything in the environment is going to hell in a handbasket.

In the real world, however, things simply aren't that bad.

Over the past thirty years, we’ve made enormous strides in environmental protection and conservation in practically every area. Since the 1970s, overall air quality has improved by over 40%, and the elimination of leaded gasoline has reduced the ambient level of airborne lead particulates by 99.9%. Industrial pollution has declined substantially, leading to cleaner streams, rivers, and lakes. Since 1980, the US has seen no net loss in wetlands areas, and protected wilderness areas have increased. Recycling of paper, cardboard, plastics, and glass has also increased tremendously. More than 35% of paper products and 23% of glass products are recycled.

Ok, sure, an Earth Day slogan of "Good Job, Keep it Up!" won't bring contributions flooding into the Natural Resources Defense Council, but it comes a lot closer to the truth than anything they'll be peddling today.

Hunt them down like the animals they are

(Review) At some point, you'd think that you'd be to emotionally numb to let things like this bother you.

Five homicide attackers detonated simultaneous car bombs Wednesday, targeting police stations and a police academy and killing 68 people, including 16 schoolchildren.

I'd love to see the animals who perpetrated this swinging from the gallows.

Half-Loyal

(Review) In the wake of Bob Woodward's new book, the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum--a newly hatched Pulitzer Prize winner--writes that Colin Powell has some things to answer for.

In the fall of 2002, however -- right when Bush was pushing Powell's preferred "diplomatic solution" to the Iraq problem at the United Nations -- the U.S. secretary of state was nowhere to be seen. In the run-up to the Persian Gulf War in 1991, then-Secretary of State James Baker spent weeks at a time in Europe and the Middle East, including most of November 1990. Powell, by contrast, went to Europe once in the autumn of 2002, to the NATO summit in Prague, and then only on very brief trips the following spring.

More importantly, he didn't play the role that he could have played in the European media, defending the decision to go to war. That is hardly surprising, because he opposed that decision -- and has never been shy about letting us know. His opposition would have been perfectly legitimate, of course, had he been an ordinary citizen, say, or even a member of Congress. But because he was secretary of state, his half-loyalty undermined further the diplomacy of an administration already inclined to scoff at the views of foreigners, and has continued to do so in the year since the war was launched.

I admire Colin Powell tremendously. Always have. But Applebaum has a point.

What the president needs when he is going to take the nation to war is a cabinet that is ready to give the president all the support they can. There isn't another single thing the government does that is as important as putting the lives of our citizens on the line.

Now, I don't know how Powell felt about the war. But I do know that he seemed not to be filled with urgency when it came to the task of rounding up allies.

If, in fact, the Woodward charges are true, then he simply should have quit, or been fired. And, while it says a lot of good things about the president to keep a cabinet member on who openly agrees with his policy, I think that, in the end, it's too great a liability to keep a guy like that around if you're trying to drum up international support for a war. Especially is the dissenter is the guy who bears the lion's share of responsibility for rounding up that support.

I'm sure that no one wanted to see Colin Powell ran out of the Cabinet like Al Haig. It would've looked bad. "See," the president's opponents would have said, "Colin Powell, the most trusted man in America, thinks the war in Iraq is a mistake. And Bush's firing of him is just another example of the administration's crushing of dissent!" We'd still be hearing that from John Kerry two years later.

But it's hard to see how keeping him in place, and allowing his attitude of dissent to infect the State Department does the administration any good either. It certainly makes it harder for the president to accomplish his foreign policy goals.

Look, if you can't agree with the Boss' policy, and publicly support it, then you shouldn't be on the team. If Powell did, in fact, feel that strongly about Iraq, then he should've resigned.

Pour Encourager les Autres

(Review) Daniel Pipes notes that Israel's tough respose to terrorism has gotten a lot of Palestinians thinking second thoughts about this whole terrorism thing.

In a word, Sharon's tough policies have established that terrorism damages Palestinian interests even more than it does Israeli ones. This has led some analysts deeply hostile to Israel to recognize that the ''second intifada'' was a grievous error. Violence ''just went haywire,'' says Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University. An ''unmitigated disaster,'' journalist Graham Usher calls it. A ''crime against the Palestinian people,'' adds an Arab diplomat.

After the execution of Hamas' other leader, Ahmed Yassin, last month, 60 prominent Palestinians urged restraint in a newspaper ad, arguing that violence would provoke strong Israeli responses that would obstruct aspirations to build an independent ''Palestine.'' Instead, the signatories called for ''a peaceful, wise intifada.''

Ordinary Palestinians, too, are drawing the salutary conclusion that murdering Israelis brings them no benefits. ''We wasted three years for nothing, this uprising didn't accomplish anything,'' says Mahar Tarhir, 25, an aluminum-store owner. ''Anger and disillusionment have replaced the fighting spirit that once propelled the Palestinian movement,'' finds Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, a reporter for Knight Ridder.

I think there's a lesson there for all of us.

ur "Friends" in the "International Community"

(Review) James Lileks wonders why John Kerry--and the Left in general, really--is so enamored of the UN.

In the same interview, Kerry repeated his constant campaign theme: his intention to drop to one knee, Jolson-style, in the United Nations General Assembly and beg for forgiveness. "Within weeks of being inaugurated, I will return to the U.N. and I will literally, formally rejoin the community of nations and turn over a proud new chapter in America's relationship with the world."

It plays to the base. The left is terribly worried about what the popular kids are saying about them in the United Nations. "We've alienated the world! For heaven's sake, we've alienated China! Oh, and Free Tibet!" The right couldn't care less, but what can you expect out of a party that would rather get married to Great Britain than have an affair with France? The undecided middle -- defined at this point as "people who aren't paying attention" -- is waiting to learn why we'd be safer trusting an organization whose response to Rwanda was to send not armies, but condolences. And even that took years.

The answer, of course, is that we wouldn't be safer. The Left acts as if all the UN member states share common goals and aspirations. Well, they don't. You'd think that it would be blindingly obvious that Syria, being a one-party dictatorial state has an entirely diffeent set of interests than, say, Great Britain.

You'd think that, but evidently, you'd be wrong.

Bad day for blogging

Busy, busy, busy. My shcedule was just too jam-packed to allow for any blogging today.

Yeah, it's a rarity, but hopefully, I can be back on track tomorrow.

Air America

(Review) LA Times media critic--and liberal--David Shaw sat down to listen to a whole day of Air America, giddy at the thought of left-wing radio.

His conclusion: It sucks.

So, what else is new?

Photo: AP Photo/ NBC Meet the Press, Joe Amon

Politics does make strange bedfellows

Photo: AP Photo/J.Pat Carter

If it'll help, he'll even remove all Spanish troops from Spain

Photo: Reuters/Stringer/Spain

Defense Transformation

(Review) Military historian Frederick Kagan writes that, so far, defense transformation has mainly done nothing but transform the US armed forces from a large force into a smaller, less capable one, and that doing so has worked to our disadvantage.

In Iraq, the price has been even higher. Failure to get ground forces rapidly into the Sunni Triangle allowed more than 15,000 Republican Guard soldiers and other of Saddam Hussein's troops to melt away into the countryside -- with their weapons and expertise -- and form the nucleus of the resistance to the United States and the new Iraqi government. Failure to take immediate and full control of Baghdad permitted looting and disorder that began the process of discrediting the U.S. presence in the country. Failure to maintain adequate force levels since then has led to a failure to quell the growing insurgency and critical delays in reestablishing stability and civil society in Iraq.

All these failures flowed from a greater failure of understanding. This administration came to office with a belief that war is all about destroying targets, that ground forces are unnecessary and that technology is supreme. Much to our sorrow, we have experienced the fact that none of those beliefs are true. Wars of regime change cannot be fought mainly with missiles. Ground forces that can interact with people, perform police functions and maintain order must be present in large numbers during and after hostilities. Excessive haste in withdrawing the inadequate numbers of troops the United States sent to Iraq has only exacerb