Archive for May, 2004
Today on the Twisted History sidebar feature:
1647: The first Salem, Massachusetts, ‘witch’ is executed today. (No, Joe McCarthy isn’t there.)
Isn’t it interesting how such a large percentage of Americans equate Joe McCarthy and HUAC with the Salem Witch Trials? Sure, many of the tactics used by the prosecutors and the defendants were similar to the Witch Trials. And, sure, overzealousness by some individuals and over-reaction by many others led to errors and mistakes.
But I see one significant difference.
I feel confident in saying that no one charged in the Salem Witch Trials was actually a witch.
Army drops some environmental protections
The Army has instructed commanders to cancel some environment-friendly programs and cut temp workers in order to save money during the war.
“This is an order to base commanders authorizing pollution of American soil when it saves money,” PEER’s executive director, Jeff Ruch, said of Aadland’s use of the phrase ’take additional risk.’“Protecting America’s land, air and water is not a secondary mission that should be shirked when budgets get tight,” Ruch said.
Did I read that right? “Protecting America’s land, air and water is not a secondary mission”? Ruch doesn’t think protecting America’s land, air, and water is a mission secondary to protecting America’s soldiers and America’s citizens? He really didn’t mean that, did he?
Now, I’m all for protecting the environment, and there’s no doubt that big entities like the US Army need to be more careful about what they do to it. We all have to live here.
But let’s get a little perspective here, boys and girls. There’s no estimate in the story of how much money can be saved by temporarily cutting some programs, but Interceptor Body Armor costs about $1500 per copy. Where should the Army’s priorities be?
MO mentioned in January that the Sierra Club is opposing the deployment of Strykers to Hawaii due to environmental concerns. While I think the Army should take the Sierra Clubs concerns into consideration when designing the training programs for the unit, if the Army thinks we need Strykers in Hawaii, then put the Strykers in Hawaii. I don’t want the Army’s ability to perform its mission jeopardized in any way. Even if it means tearing up some trees or harming nesting territory of some rare bird.
I know that a lot of people either don’t realize it or elect to ignore it, but our nation is at war. Let’s take care of our people first. After we win? Then let’s take care of our birds.
Expat Yank reports on a BBC interview of American University professor Allan Lichtman this morning. The BBC interviewer, Dermot Murnaghan, seems to think that if Iraqi elections produce a government that is oppressive or threatening and we oppose them, we will be hypocrites. Apparently, “majority rules” is the only rule that matters.
Expat Yank points out that Germans were free to elect whoever they wanted after the end of the Second World War, even though free elections had produced that one short guy with the funny mustache. How did the Allies deal with the threat of a repeat performance by the Germans, who didn’t really have a good track record with the neighbors?
After the war, the Nazis were banned. (West) Germans reformed and reorganized their parties of the left, and on the center-right new parties arose. And if the (West) Germans ever considered for a moment re-empowering a version of another Nazi party, does Murnaghan and the BBC really believe for an instant that the Allies — the British, Americans and French — would have permitted it? Or should have permitted it?The same is probably going to be true for Iraq. With the smashing of the dictator, the goal is now to being to help regularize Iraq’s politics over the years to come.
Of course, Iraqis will be free to vote and organize political parties. And their new government will have real power.
But will they be free to elect a government espousing the same views, and dedicated to the same causes and planning similar actions as the ousted Hussein regime? Yes, Iraqis will probably have to be permitted to elect to posts former, low-level regime members, as Germans were permitted to empower former low-level Nazis, and former Nazi soldiers whom the Allies had considered non-threatening. But “hard core” Nazis were prevented from ever re-entering political life. The same is likely to be the case in Iraq.
We must remember that we are not freeing Iraq and helping them convert to a democracy for the sake of it. We are doing it because it is in our interest that Iraq (and the Middle East in general) become a stable place where the people have more to look forward to in life than suicide attacks against civilians or US Marines. If it was in our best interest to rule Iraq with an iron fist, we would do so. If it was in our best interest to turn Iraq into a sea of glass, we would do so. If it would have been in our best interest to leave Saddam in power, we would have done so.
Democracy can be a wonderful thing. As long as the Iraqis play nice, they’re invited to the party. If they get out of line, we will not stand by and let them revert to their former state. Remember, Saddam enjoyed overwhelming victories at the polls. To suggest that we honor such elections, or any elections which threaten us or the world at large, is not rational.
Johno at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy has what I consider to be a top-notch summary and commentary on Bush’s speech. Yeah, he credits the speech-writer with what he considered the best parts, but that same logic applies all the time to everyone so I’ll say no more. I encourage you to go read it. (Please note that this is quite unusual. Generally, when I direct you to the Ministry it’s to read a post by Buckethead.)
He points out my claim that what Bush said last night is the same thing he’s been saying all along, and disagrees. He and I certainly don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and this is bound to be one of those issues. I’m willing to grant that the message has been tweaked and spun, and that the direction we’re sailing has been adjusted and modified as the situation has changed, but I don’t believe that the President’s plans for a significant Iraqi army or for providing the military with the troops or equipment it wants are “180 degree” changes of tack.
It’s obvious that using former high-level Iraqi military personnel wasn’t part of the original plan, but I honestly don’t think that it signals the end of the de-Ba’athification process.
And when did Bush indicate that the military wouldn’t get what it needed? Most of what I’ve heard indicates that the military commanders were happy with their force levels until the fighting in late March erupted. It was the military talking heads, for the most part, that railed on and on about manpower shortages in Iraq. Sure, there’s spin and bound to be pressure to make do, but I certainly wouldn’t call Bush’s words a major change in policy.
Still, even though I think he missed the mark about Bush’s change in plans, Johno’s right on the money in his analysis.
The Strategy Page article about the Chinese sub-building program was posted on Free Republic a few days ago, and the card-carrying members of the VRWC sounded off on the subject. A lot of good stuff in there, as well as the typical partisan fare you’ll usually find on FR.
Since I had noted the post myself, I commented and pointed out my earlier post about plans to possibly reduce our own attack sub force by up to a third. I wrote “I know that “Cold War weapons” are out of fashion, but they can come in handy when fighting superpower wanabees.” The Freeper who originally posted the Strategy Page story responded:
The enemy will come at us asymmetrically. It’s all he can do. If we give up the weapons that won the Cold War for us, he’ll come back at us from that angle again.
And he’s right. We have a degree of control over the tactics of our enemies. No one is even close to challenging us on a large-scale battlefield, on the high seas, or in the air. So they use car bombs instead of cruise missiles, suicide bombers instead of artillery, women and children instead of body armor, schools and mosques instead of stealth technology, and hijacked airliners instead of nuclear bombs.
But if they get access to the good stuff, they’ll use it. We’ve done a fairly good job keeping them from amassing armies, navies, or air forces. And we’ve been successful (so far) keeping them from being able to employ so-called WMDs against us, but setting off a small nuke in a major Western city or nerve gassing a crowded urban center is certainly a far easier task than training and equipping tens of thousands of foot soldiers or building a carrier battle group.
We’re now adjusting our strategies and tactics to combat insurgents and terrorists, and that’s as it should be. But we must be careful not to over-correct. If we leave any door open even a crack, someone will notice and make us pay. Dearly.
UPDATE: Picked up from a Freeper is this link to The Rising Sea Dragon in Asia, a summary of China’s current and planned blue-water naval strength. With pictures. This issue must be watched carefully.
World’s Smallest Political Quiz
Your Personal Self-Government Score is 50%.
Your Economic Self-Government Score is 60%.
About what I figured, though I know my dad must be just shaking his head. (via Random Nuclear Strikes)
Murdoc Online is ON THE MAP.
Politburo Diktat has put together a detailed map of Kablogh, the Holy City of Blogistan. In the words of the Commissar:
War has been raging in Kablogh, the holy city of the Ri’ight sect.
Many prominent neighborhoods and locations holy to the Ri’ight are identified and linked to. Missed by yours truly earlier is the Murdokh River, which flows past the French Embassy, Simon Stadium, the Ministry of Luv, the Vodka Mosque, Skillzy Bazaar, and the Zeyad Hotel before emptying into DGCI Lake south of the city. Or maybe the Murdokh flows uphill in Blogistan. Who the hell knows?
In any event, I am truly honored to be among such great company.
Coalition Provisional Authority Briefing (May 22, 2004)
Via Chuck Simmins comes this from General Kimmit about that wedding party so ruthlessly targeted by American imperialists:
We found a significant number of identity cards, ID-making machine, capability to make exit visas for Iraq, a couple of passports — in this case, one from Sudan. We could go on and on and on about the significant amount of pocket litter that was found and all the other intelligence that was found, but let me go over a little bit of it and just hit the highlights.There were a couple of other items that we found quite interesting. None of the bodies had identification of any kind on them — no ID cards, no wallets, no pictures — they had watches, and that was about the only way you could identify one person from another, was by their type of watches. We feel that was an indicator that this was a high- risk meeting of high-level anti-coalition forces. There was a tremendous number of incriminating pocket litter — a lot of telephone numbers to foreign countries — Afghanistan, Sudan, and a number of others.
This was purportedly a ranch, but there was no indication of ranching activities. Most of the homes in the remote desert exist to support sheep ranching operations. There was no evidence of livestock, however, present at that location. There were large farm trucks present, but there was no indication that they had ever been used for ranching. Bedding for over 300 people, a medical treatment room, a number of terrorist training manuals, suspected forged Iraqi IDs, and to the allegation that there was a wedding going on, there was no evidence of a wedding. There were no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration, no gifts. All the men were almost all military-age; no family elders that one would expect to see at an event of this type. Contrary to media reports, there was no wedding tent, no nuptial tent present within a kilometer of the objective.
But what about the video available on most of the major news sites showing the wedding?
Q Have you matched the footage at all to this area? I mean, does it appear to have been taken there?GEN. KIMMITT: No, in fact, as I understand, the film was taken in Ramadi — that they had brought all the bodies from that location over to Ar Ramadi. That was my understanding. But nonetheless, none of the geography in those videos matched the geography of this open area.
Now, having said that, there are still some inconsistencies. We still remain open-minded about this. We will continue to look into everything that is provided to us in the way of evidence.
Kimmit scores major points by describing the military’s efforts to understand a foreign culture:
There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too. Bad people have parties, too, and it may have been that what was seen as some sort of celebration or spoken to as a celebration, may have just been a meeting in the middle of the desert by some people that were conducting either criminal or terrorist activities, and that’s the conclusion that we are continuing to draw the more that we look at the material evidence, the intelligence evidence, the post-strike intelligence, the follow-up intelligence.
“Bad people have parties, too.” Indeed they do. They celebrate things that invite destruction.
I just finished watching the speech. I missed the first couple of minutes, but I can already hear the criticism.
“It’s the same thing he’s been saying all along!” the critics will claim.
Exactly.
Without looking at the new resolution the US and the UK have sent to the United Nations, I can also hear the reason that it will be rejected.
“It’s the same thing they’ve been proposing all along!” certain members of the Security Council will claim.
Exactly.
This weekend I was talking with a friend about the nations that support the United States and those that oppose us. France, of course, and several other countries were at the middle of our conversation.
One point I made is that once upon a time many of the best and brightest in Europe crossed the ocean to live in America. This was, I believe, a fourteen-point swing. Not only did America benefit greatly from an influx of great minds and hard workers, but Europe, already teetering on the verge of stagnation, sank even lower into its swamp of mediocrity and decadence. I think they’re still pissed.
As the years have rolled by, though, much of America has shown a tendency to drift toward the European model of civilization. Large segments of our population seem to be enthralled by the European mentality and the UN-worshiping nationalist-less outlook.
If we built a couple of big steamships and paid for one-way tickets in steerage class, do you think we could encourage a sort of mass emigration to send those that are, underneath it all, really Europeans in American’s clothing back? Those folks obviously aren’t happy here.
I’m not for kicking anyone out, mind you. I’m just wondering if it might not be in America’s best interest to help a good percentage of her citizens on their way to the greener grass.
