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By Donald Sensing
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Saturday, June 28, 2003
One study by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, predicts that the median age in the United States in 2050 will be 35.4, only a very slight increase from what it is now. In Europe, by contrast, it is expected to rise to 52.3 from 37.7.In case you haven't read WOC's post on 12 under-rated global trends, do so. One of the 12 is Europe's looming pension crisis, where we find the following tidbit from the UK Independent: The implications of ageing on the European social welfare model, where the current generation of working people pay the benefits of the current generation of retirees, have been so widely recognised that there is a danger of "pension fatigue" overtaking electorates. The core problem is that welfare systems that were developed at a time when there were more than four workers for every pensioner cannot function when there are fewer than two. (In the case of Spain and Italy, there will actually be fewer workers than pensioners when the present 20-somethings retire.)But that's not all. Not only is Europe's population aging, it is growing smaller. Either Europeans need to increase their own birth rate (perhaps, as it has increased in France recently) or they will need to increase immigration. But anti-immigrant sentiment is rising there. Governments' suggestions to raise the pension-eligibility age are strongly resisted. "In reality, a legal retirement age of 80 is what we should aim at," Erich Streissler, an Austrian economist, wrote in a newspaper article.Fat chance. In fact, more than half of men across Europe stop working between age 55-65.  
Friday, June 27, 2003
The fish was unveiled in 2001, but it took another year and a half to develop a technique to render the animal sterile. It cannot cross-breed with natural fish. 
We should have known that entertainment would be a leading result of DNA engineering.
God has given all those so called Muslim countries enough time to apply His book (Quran), but they deserted the Quran, denied the basic life principles to their people, took away the freedom to , think, speak, write, move, work, worship, choose their leaders, make decisions concerning their life and future ...etc , defying God's law. They established governments based on dictatorship, that gave no place to the people to express themselves or run their countries. They gave the wealth of these countries to a few and left the rest of the people starving. They put aside God's Book (Quran) and its laws and made their own man-made laws that is full of contradiction to God's system. Therefore, God is fulfilling His promise in Sura Muhammed. 47:38(Italics original) I recall that many commentators, including myself, have said since Sept. 2001 that if Islam is not a unified block of America haters, then Muslims who live here need to say so. It seems to me that Sayed Abu Mandoor, the author of this piece, is saying so quite clearly. Those of us who have asked for such renunciations are obligated to publicize them when they are made. So I do, and I thank you, Mr. Mandoor.
The historic meeting between Mr Kim and his northern counterpart, Kim Jong-il, in the North Korean capital Pyongyang in June 2000 was the crowning moment of Kim Dae-jung's presidency, with both countries pledging to end 50 years of bitterness and pursue a path to eventual reunification.As others have pointed out, when North Korea finally falls - and it will, we just don't know when - the South's graft and corruption in its dealings with the North will take our breath away.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Employees must keep the weapon concealed and employees who legally use a concealed weapon on school grounds do so in their individual capacities, not their scope of employment.
The roots of Islamic extremism lie not so much in religion but in repressive societies with economies too anemic to provide livelihoods for their fast-growing populations. Despite much talk of reform, most Arab countries remain museums of state capitalism. There's no sign of a leader who could shake things to the core. "Those who expect a new, reformed Islam are asking the wrong questions. We don't have a Luther. We don't have a Calvin," says Tahseen Bashir, a former Egyptian presidential spokesman and diplomat.Compare this pessimistic attitude of that Middle Eastern Muslim with that of the Western Muslims in the earlier post. I think it's revealing.
. . . labeled well-meaning Christians "inexcusably naive" in their dealings with their Islamic interlocutors.Even Tibi's challengers agree that Islam must become pluralistic and tolerant. It's a good article, but you will notice that none of the Muslim scholars cited live in Arab countries, though some hail from them. Hat tip: Chris Noble, who also links to the Time story on why and how Muslims are now seen by American Christian evangelicals as the mission field of choice.
Indeed, many of the achievements can be measured in the postwar potential catastrophes that were prevented. There has been no refugee crisis. There has been no humanitarian crisis. Starvation has not occurred. And a health crisis has not developed.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
But in Pakistan, many Islamic radicals hold equal (and sometimes more) animosity toward dissenting Muslims (particularly Shiites) than toward westerners. The Sipah-i-Sahaba have even killed many of their own Sunni clerics, because the clerics rejected their divisive agenda. Often, implementing a skewed understanding of Islamic sharia (religious law) -- and not hatred of the West -- is their prime motivation.Commentators have written since Sept. 11, 2001 that there is a "struggle for the soul of Islam" going on among Muslims today. Like "fundamentalism," it is really an inapt phrasing. It presumes that there is some essential Islamic definition or essence that is presently hidden somehow, and that reactionary Muslims are struggling with moderates to redefine it. Not really. The struggle, including violence, is of course real. Islam does not exists apart from its adherents, any more than Christianity exists apart from Christians. I have previously written that Islam is what Muslims do, as essay in which I carelessly mentioned the "soul" of "real" Islam. ("Soul" is a Western-Christian metaphor, not an Islamic one, and "real" Islam assumes that there is an ideal form of Islam that exists independently of Muslims. Clearly, this cannot be so. I recant.) What it really being contended is not merely whose practice of Islam will dominate, religiously speaking, but who will rule politically as the result. (Again, it is we who bifurcate religion and politics, Islam has not for most of its history.) However, this American Muslim does write about the "soul of Islam" and insists that "the Muslim world" has already lost true Muslim authenticity: First, we have to recognize that Islam in America is probably closer to the true teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, may he be blessed, than at any other time in the last five hundred years. No, I'm not saying that Muslims are better believers today. I'm saying that the access to pure Islamic teachings and the ability to live them to their fullest moral and social potential is more pronounced here, in North America, than in Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria or anywhere else. The Muslim world: forget about it. It's too bogged down in stupidity, corruption, nationalism, racism and every other kind of ailment you can imagine. The light of Islam has been put out in the Muslim world and has been reborn in the heart of the secular, faithless West. (Allah is truly great!)This is a pretty entertaining essay, especially in the analysis of the three main groups of Muslims in America, but I can't vouch for the accuracy of the writer's exposition. It is not really accurate to speak of "fundamentalist" Muslims. Fundamentalism is a term that originated in American Christianity about 90 years ago. American Christian fundamentalism sprung from sets of theological writings centered out of Princeton Theological Seminary. A reaction to theological liberalism and scientific modernity, the movement took its name from its attempts to identify the fundamentals of Christianity, meaning the faith claims and affirmations without which Christianity would lose its essential identity. However, Muslims generally object that "fundamentalist" is an inappropriate term when speaking of Islamic movements. According to Mr. Macksood Aftab, managing editor of The Islamic Herald, to apply the term "fundamentalist" to Muslims is "neither fair nor valid": Because in the case of Islam all Muslims believe in absolute inerrancy of the Quran, since it is a basic Islamic tenet. Therefore the media would have to use the word fundamentalist for all Muslims! which it does not do. It only uses the word Fundamentalist for both the extremist and terrorist groups, and the true moderate Islamic revivalist movements. Both these definitions are incompatible with each other.Mr. Aftab also points out that there are numerous Islamic revival/renewal movements, and only a small minority are violent. While I understand his objections to using "fundamentalist" to describe only certain Muslims and not others, it is the best we can do for now. So I will keep using it, always attempting to distinguish between the violent and non-violent.
The chief lobby group of the nation's major recording labels today said it would file hundreds of lawsuits against Internet users who illegally trade copyrighted music files.I am not defending copyright infringement, but these kinds of stories indicate to me that the RIAA is neither very commercially nor technologically savvy. A news report I heard this week said that there are four billion files swapped every month. I'm guessing that a few hundred lawsuits won't stem the tide. What they should do is figure how to ride the wave rather than turn back the tide. That's what Apple is doing with its iTunes service. The revolutionary iTunes Music Store puts 200,000 songs at your fingertips. It’s built right into iTunes 4 and lets you search or browse genres, new releases, exclusives and more. Preview any song for free. When you find a song you want, buy it for just 99¢.Now you may ask, "Why pay a buck per tune at iTunes when you can download tunes free from Kazaa?" - or another P2P service? One reason is that iTunes lets you preview a tune before you d/l it, so you don't waste time trying downloading a tune of which you are uncertain of the name, but will recognize the music. Another reason is that P2P services are rife with incomplete files in which the song cuts off in the middle. A third reason is that with iTunes, what you download is what you get. Some P2P users are known to take their porn files and give them the names of in-demand music, just for kicks. Apple expects the cost per song to fall, perhaps as much as by half, in the reasonably near future. Unfortunately, iTunes is available now only for Mac users, so Apple is guilty of business short-sightedness, too. NPR did a very good segment on iTunes and online music-file downloading yesterday.
somebody whose worldview is “naturalistic” -- “free of supernatural and mystical elements.” In other words, I do not believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, nor do I believe “on faith” that there’s some big guy in the sky who’s about to squash me under his big thumb for crossing against the light.Funny, I don't believe that either. I guess the standard of "brightness" is pretty low. So here we have a woman who claims to be free of all that religion stuff, but who calls herself a "goddess." Okaaay . . . . 'Scuse me while I just laugh my head off. But this woman really, really hates religion and holds in contempt anyone whose religion doesn't agree with hers - which is everyone religious, of course, because no one will worship at the temple of Amy as much or as well as Amy will. The worst god of all is Ego.
Monday, June 23, 2003
The Americans for Gun Safety Foundation positions itself in the middle of the United States' long-running debate over guns. While it promotes strong support for the right to bear arms, it advocates equally strong enforcement of the gun laws on the books.Well, here is AGS' Home Page, and they frankly don't seem very moderate to me, especially since they repeat the lie about the non-existent "gun show loophole." ! don't see any evidence at all that AGS "promotes strong support for the right to bear arms." But their web site claims they are moderate, so that's good enough for a writer at the Tennessean, I guess. I am less than surprised. Dave Kopel has some other facts about AGS. Also, the Pennsylvania State Police debunks AGS's claim that state-run background checks of gun purchasers are poor; the state police calls AGS's research "shoddy."
With respect to Iran, it appears that all we really need to do is get rid of a relatively small number of mullahs and Iran will fall to some sort of democratic style of government, especially with the uprisings currently underway. But aren't those mullahs rather public people compared to say, Saddam with his doubles and ever changing locales? Couldn't we hit them with one cruise missile and effectively change the government overnight? Sure, we'd take some flack for this "unprovoked" attack, but if we got most of the mullahs with one shot wouldn't the uprising succeed without further intervention on our part?We are not at war in law or in fact with Iran. Before the Iraq campaign began, we had been at war with Iraq in fact since 1991, and in law since last October, when the Congress declared war against Iraq. (President Clinton, though, stoutly maintained throughout his presidency that the congressional war authorization of 1991 never ended, and attacked Iraq several times using the 1991 resolution as authoritative.) And there is no casus belli with Iran, either now or in the offing that would lead to congressional authorization for military strikes, however limited, against the country. Absent such authorization, Furthermore, and just as important, the people of Iran seem presently pro-American (I would emphasize the word, "seem.") We should support them in more than symbolic ways. But the best way to turn them against us would be to strike militarily at their country in the manner suggested. Jeff Jarvis has done a lot of blogging about Iran, potential courses of action, and especially keeping touch with Iranian bloggers (there are more than a few). This pretty much sums it up: . . . the theme of every Iranian weblog I have read and it can all be summarized in three little words: Do not invade. . . . In Iran, we are clearly better off if democracy is a domestic product and if we are able to provide appropriate support.I think that Iranian pro-Americanism is at bottom really more anti-ayatollahism than actual pro-Americanism. Proclaiming admiration for America is a good way of letting the ayatollahs know how much they hate them. Remember, it was Ayatollah Khomeini who made a career, practically, out of calling America the Great Satan. Khomeini's successors have hardly softened the rhetoric. There is also much more of a targeting problem than my correspondent seems to think. The chances of all the key leaders being in one place at the same time, plus the likelihood we would know about it far enough in advance to program a cruise missile or three, plus the likelihood that they leaders would stay put long enough to be hit - all add up to a very remote chance, IMO. Not only that, the sudden evaporation of national control would not necessarily be a good thing. There is no group actually prepared to take the reins of government, at least not yet. And not all anti-cleric groups are pro-democracy, and not all get along with one another. So chaos in Iran would serve no one's interests, including our own. When the ayatollahs are toppled, it is critical for America's interests that Iran's weapons stay under control and not come into the possession of terrorists. In addition to potential WMDs (say, atomic material for a dirty bomb), terrorists would be thrilled to get hold of explosives and modern arms such as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, or get more of them. I have written before that Britain is critical to dealing with Iran. Not long ago Steven Den Beste emailed me the link to a Telegraph article that says so, too. The Brits have better, deeper contacts in Iran than we do.
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Friday, June 20, 2003
We are going to be in Iraq for a long time. It's a worthwhile mission, on many counts, but it won't be a short one or a small one. And long after Rumsfeld's K-Mart commissars have moved on to cushy private-sector jobs, Sgt. Jones, faced with his fourth unaccompanied tour in Baghdad and his second divorce, is going to call it quits.General Edward C. Meyer, Army chief of staff in the early 1980s, pointed out, "The Army enlists soldiers but reenlists spouses." He meant that unless wives (and nowadays, husbands) of the troops are happy with their spouse's chosen career, the career won't last long. And Meyer was the chief well before the percentage of married soldiers rocketed upward. Last I checked, almost 60 percent of the Army's enlisted members are married. The percentage of married officers is very high, more than 80 percent as I recall. Obviously, it is the lower ranking enlisted troops and officers who tend to be single. Mid-grade and higher NCOs and officers have a much higher married percentage. This is the chink in the argument that Trent Telenko makes about restoring the draft as a way of furnishing a constabulary in Iraq. Says Trent: If we must deploy large numbers of American occupation troops anyway, which can't be our existing, expensive and limited ground combat specialists who are needed for further operations, we must create a new force structure as cheaply as possible -- AKA draftees -- to provide the staying power we need for long-term nation building.That may be fine for junior enlisted troops (privates through specialists, E1-E4) whom we could send on a two-year tour to Iraq, after which they would come home and be discharged. But the critical ranks are the staff sergeants and higher. They can't be drafted, they have to be grown from below. And, as Peters points out, they will leave the Army in droves if they foresee nothing but deployments and family separations for years to come. So will mid-grade officers. This is a serious problem. The main key to the success of American forces has been the seasoned professionalism of its troops, especially the NCOs. I wrote in more detail about this aspect here. We won't have competent privates without thoroughly professional NCOs, and we won't have the NCOs without personnel stability and high reenlistment rates. "Shake and bake" schools, as they were called in the Vietnam War, can churn out large numbers of NCOs with little time in service, but they can't teach maturity or experience. Those come only with the passage of time and a variety of experiences. The only way to alleviate the problem is to grow the force structure in whole units, reducing the amount ratio of deployment time to at-home time each unit has. This doesn't mean that we should add combat divisions. We need more support units, especially military police, civil affairs and engineers. These can't be grown quickly with an all-volunteer system, it's true. But we need to start quickly. Otherwise our combat troops will wind up doing catch-all jobs for which they are nor trained or equipped, and the next time we need them to fight the results could be bad. Related posts: I said at the end of a post before the Iraq campaign started that "the peace to follow will probably be a mess." If the situation in Iraq seems messy, Phil Carter explains why: we war-gamed the war, but not the peace. However, the American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, writes today that progress is being made, there is a plan, and much work is yet to be done. Meanwhile, "Two top U.S. defense officials signaled Congress yesterday that U.S. forces might remain in Iraq for as long as a decade and that permanent facilities need to be built to house them there."
WINNING NOTICE FOR CATEGORY B WINNER: KP6821873DLThis is just as authentic as the Nigerian oil minister's widow's email, of course. The genuine UK lottery is warning people that it is a scam. Of course, all lotteries are scams.
U.S. military sources say she is unable -- or unwilling -- to say much about anything that happened to her between the morning her Army unit was ambushed and when she became fully conscious sometime later at Saddam Hussein General Hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq.As you may remember, initial accounts of Lynch's actions said that she had fought like an Amazon, shooting all her ammo and killing a number of Iraqi soldiers, being wounded herself. How could anyone not remember that? Now it turns out that her injuries - very severe ones - resulted from a "catastrophic" collision of her Humvee into a wrecked truck after the Humvee was struck by an RPG. A U.S. tractor-trailer with a flatbed swerved around an Iraqi dump truck and jackknifed. As Dowdy's speeding Humvee approached the overturned tractor-trailer, it was hit on the driver's side by a rocket-propelled grenade. The driver, [Pfc. Lori] Piestewa, lost control of the Humvee, swerved right and struck the trailer.Now her loss of memory seems entirely credible to me. In March 1998 I was injured in a near-catastrophic collision of my own: 
I was driving my 1995 VW Jetta to class. It was raining and I took a shortcut down a farm road. I did not know that the road had been somehow impregnated with agricultural chemicals that rain made about as slick as Teflon. (This is what a county deputy sheriff told me later.) I rounded a gentle curve at 30 mph. The car fishtailed violently. I reverse steered energetically to no avail. In two eyeblinks it was obvious that I was in the arms of Isaac Newton. I remember saying, "Well, I'm really screwed now." That's the last thing I remember between that moment and between 15-20 minutes later when I opened my eyes and saw the bent-double dashboard and heard an ambulance crew trying to get inside the car. My injuries were not as severe as Lynch's - my left arm was shattered, my legs were crushed and the left side of my head was cut up by flying glass, but that's all. A surgeon repaired my arm with steel and screws, my head repaired itself (some would argue not!) and my legs recovered after about 18 months. I took physical therapy for some weeks afterward. The road, btw, continued to claim other victims, including one of my professors, whose van was totaled but she was uninjured. Three years later I went to assist at another wreck at almost the identical place mine had been in my capacity as a volunteer sheriff's dept. chaplain. A Volvo has spun out in the rain, being driven by the adult daughter of a county official. She was uninjured, but her 16-year-old brother, sitting unbuckled in the right-front seat, was covered in blood from head to knees. Two other, younger siblings in the back seat suffered internal injuries. None died, but two of them were badly hurt. Within two months the county tore the road up down to the dirt and rebuilt it. Amazing that several years of regular wrecks along that stretch, including some fatalities, drew no official attention, but one wreck by a county official's family got action.
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
. . . I do not favor extreme remedies – unless no moderate remedies can be found. I asked the interested industries to help us find those moderate remedies.So, extremist measures to destroy our constitutionally-guaranteed rights are okay if moderate measures to prevent some wrong fail. Silly me, I thought that rights were "unalienable," as a certain jeffersonian revolutionary put it. So I guess that if the police want an indisputably guilty perp to confess to the crime, they should try "moderate" measures of interrogation first, but if those fail, then extreme measures should be used. Orrin, politicians are supposed to know that when they get to the bottom of a hole, they should stop digging.
Alderwoman Cynthia A. Carter, Democrat, said the law would ban all toy guns except for clear, brightly colored plastic guns. Mrs. Carter said the law also would give prosecutors more leverage against defendants who use toy guns to hold up banks or other establishments.She says she was inspired to propose the law when a seven-year-old boy carrying a silver toy gun entered a video store an announced he was holding the place up. Okay, that's not good, but is one occurrence the basis for sweeping new legislation? Ms. carter seems to have a fixation on toy guns, revealing her real target is real guns. Mrs. Carter is known for her efforts on toy guns. In 2000, Mrs. Carter organized a toy-gun buyback that yielded 12 toy guns. . . .Fathers are the enemy here. Could Ms. Carter harbor anti-male bias? Maybe? Ya think? Mrs. Carter said she would eventually like to see a ban imposed on the possession of all real-looking toy guns. "Anything that looks like or resembles a weapon of any kind or was altered to look like, even the cigarette lighters, they are not going to be acceptable," she said.But the story says she supports her son, 38, an "avid hunter and a member of the National Rifle Association." I wonder whether his dad taught him to hunt.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
. . . see a profession that acts excited about a lot — Laci Peterson, The Matrix Reloaded, political horse races — but cares about nothing. . . .Hmm.
Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.Attention Utahans: do not vote for this man again! (Hat tip: Chris Noble)
This bill is essentially a $400 billion bribe, designed to buy votes in next year's election. At a time when it has become more obvious than ever that the Medicare program is destined to bankrupt the federal treasury, this bill features no structural reforms, no real means testing, and no economic logic.Well, I already pointed out that governance in America today means nothing much more than who benefits from the money funnel that we call the federal government. Whether Left or Right, whether Democrat or Republican, the only real questions of American government and governance are, "Who will be be the beneficiaries of government spending? How much shall we exact from the public for it, and by what means?" Now we know how they are answering the question: they take money from the demographic groups of people who vote less and give it to the groups who vote more. In America today, there is a direct correlation between age and voting. More older people vote, and vote more regularly, than younger people do. The number one objective of every elected official is to be reelected. That's why both the Democrats and the Republicans want to buy seniors' votes with a prescription-drug plan. Update: Steven Antler points out that the drug plan won't actually help many seniors, and the ones it doers help, it won't help a whole lot (via Bill Hobbs). This is, of course, the usual Congressional shell game. They tell a chosen constituency of the great things they are doing for them, make huge political hay out of how compassionate and caring they are, and then it finally sinks in that what was actually done was not all that much. Both parties do this. The only real difference is that the Democrats do it with money more than the Republicans, who tend to do it with legislation or, just as commonly, empty symbolic gestures such as the constitutional amendment to forbid burning the flag (don't get me started on that stupidity). But both will use your money to buy someone else's votes, quite readily. If you read the details of the bill in the WashTimes piece, you can see why it's probably more a con game than real aid: Under the Senate bill, a senior would pay $275 annually and then would have to pay only 50 percent of drug costs up to $4,500. Seniors then would have to cover their full costs until about $5,800, when Medicare would cover 90 percent of costs. . . ."We're from the government, and we're here to help you."
They like the American troops - and their families - and want them to stay.Yep. Everyone loves American dollars. But I don't think that there remains a good raison d'etre to keep American troops based in Germany.
Afghans and Pakistanis who were detained for many months by the American military at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba before being released without charges are describing the conditions as so desperate that some captives tried to kill themselves.Their chief complaint: they were mostly surrounded by Arabs who didn't speak their language, and they did not know how long they would be detained. Also they were depressed by the conditions of their confinement, very spartan at first, then better as the Navy built better facilities. Altogether, 41 prisoners have been released, 32 of them Afghans. None of the released prisoners complained of physical mistreatment. Let's see - they lived in difficult physical conditions, but only temporarily. They didn't get a lot of exercise, but they got at least as much as most American convicts imprisoned in a state-run maximum-security prison. The Navy assigned a Muslim chaplain to minister to them. They were called to prayer five times per day as their Muslim faith requires. They eat darn well. A Gitmo cook told some reporters about a meal he was preparing, "It's chicken, and it's Halal, which means it was slaughtered in accordance with Muslim traditions, so the detainees can eat it. We make all their meals here, in the same kitchen where we make the military meals.So the real beef of the released prisoners is simply that they didn't know how long their would be confined and that they were surrounded by people who spoke a foreign language. That's it. And for that, some of them attempted suicide. What a bunch of wimps! Let's compare their tale with that of almost any American captured by any enemy force since 1950, or by the Japanese during World War II. Take, for example, Marine Maj. Craig Berryman, who was in the tender care of the Iraqis during the Gulf War: Iraqi guards broke Berryman's left leg, beat him repeatedly and threatened him with shooting and mutilation. A lighted cigarette was twisted into an open wound on his neck, and his requests for medical attention were ignored.Or Col. Cliff Acree, "who was captured after his aircraft was shot down over Kuwait on just the second day of the war." Acree and the others ended up in the basement cells of the Iraqi secret police headquarters. Nicknamed the "Baghdad Biltmore" by the American POWs, it was a place of unrelenting torture and misery.The Iraqis wanted Acree to tell them about US Marine seaborne assaults that they assumed were planned. Acree actually knew some details but was determined not to reveal them. (No landings were actually made.) Acree recalled: "The gun was loaded. Door closed. Now it's real quiet. And I'm told one more time, 'Lt. Col. Acree, you are not cooperating with us now. You tell us where the amphibious landing is going to take place, or you will die, right here, right now. What is your decision?' … And, that's when you count the seconds remaining in your life, one heartbeat at a time."There are tens of thousands of similar stories that could be told by former American POWs over the decades. Some Americans broke, it is true, but they comprise a small minority. The rest endured casual and deliberate brutality with grit, determination, courage, prayer and an unshakeable faith in their fellow Americans and their country. Sometimes they even treated their captors kindly. Ernest Gordon was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp. In his book, Through the Valley of the Kwai, he wrote of a train trip he and his fellows made while in the hands of the Japanese. At a stop in Burma, a train carrying Japanese wounded pulled alongside. They were in a shocking state. I have never seen men filthier. Uniforms were encrusted with blood, mud and excrement. Their wounds crawled with maggots. The wounded looked at us forlornly as they sat waiting for death. They had been discarded as expendable, the refuse of war. These were our enemy.I find it difficult to feel sorry for the Guantanamo prisoners. They certainly don't have it worse than the average American convict in the US.
Monday, June 16, 2003
In Iran today, several hundred dissident intellectuals, including several clerics, issued a statement supporting the right of Iranians to criticize their government. Further, the statement denounced as "heresy" the possession of absolute power — a reference to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Fox news quotes a reformist newspaper: "People [and their elected lawmakers] have the right to fully supervise their rulers, criticize them, and remove them from power if they are not satisfied," said the statement, which was published in the reformist newspaper Yas-e-nou on Monday.Which sounds an awfully lot like this: That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.Iran has several advantages over Iraq when it comes to establishing democracy. One is that even though the mullahs keep themselves in supreme executive power, the Iranian parliament remains elective. Another is that the Iranians are much more homogeneous than the Iraqis. Not being Arabs, the Iranians are more amendable to democratic institutions than the Iraqis. (It is not so much Islam that is non-concordant with democracy as arabism.) I am really curious whether the US and UK are at work covertly in Iran. My guess is yes, very much so. The Brits maintained contacts there after the overthrow of the Shah, when the US presence was basically shut down during and after the seizure of the American embassy in Teheran. In fact, I wondered during the runup to the Iraq campaign whether the Bush administration's patience with British politics was due to the fact that Britain is much more essential to facing up to Iran than it was to Iraq. The problem with the unrest in Iran, though, is this, says the Times: But there is no collective vision of a viable alternative. "The problem with reforms is that Iranians know what they don't want, but they do not know what they want," said Muhammad, a 24-year-old student. Many students interviewed did not want their full names or schools published, saying they feared subsequent harassment.Opposing the mullahs and Islamic law is not the same as being an Jeffersonian democrat and child of the Enlightenment. Remember than Iran's population is very young, a huge majority are under 30. They seem to be less interested in building a just society, as we understand the term in relation to democracy, than getting government off their backs in daily affairs. They are tired of sharia law regulating such chicken-do as whether they may chew gum. That means that a less intrusive but non-democratic government might be quite accepted by the people. The question is whether the mullahs understand that or are willing to relinquish control of daily minutiae in order to remain in power - and an even bigger question is whether such a thing is even possible with the current regime.
Saddam Hussein was all about secrecy, a whole regime built around deception and denial, secret organizations, secret police, secret guards, and for all I know secret scharma food vendors or secret camel jockeys or even a secret hair dresser.Yep. See also Sen. John McCain's eminently sensible essay on the topic. Thanks to R. Heddleson for finding the chief's site and telling me about it.
This was never really a way of decreasing buyer risk. It was always a way to convince the buyer that the risk was lower. Its purpose was to counter a growing suspicion on the part of buyers that EBay was risky. But it does little to actually reduce the risk. The $1000 protection is a joke.Indeed. eBay has become fraud central.
Friday, June 13, 2003
We must decide whether to hand over power to Begin or to order him to cease his separate activities. If he does not do so, we will open fire! Otherwise, we must decide to disperse our own army.He ordered the IDF to confiscate the ship's cargo and authorized the IDF commander to use lethal force to do so, if necessary. The commander of the IDF's Alexandroni Brigade, David Epstein, sent an ultimatum to Begin that nakedly threatened him if he failed to comply with the government's decision. If you do not agree to carry out this order, I shall use all the means at my disposal in order to implement the order and to requisition the weapons which have reached shore and transfer them from private possession into the possession of the Israel government.But Epstein gave Begin a mere 10 minutes to respond affirmatively, extremely impractical, and though the message was a model of clarity it was also very insulting to send to someone of Begin's stature. Begin made no response at all. Egos came to the fore. Believing his honor tarnished by Begin's silence, Epstein immediately began combat operations. Casualties ensued but the fighting did not last long as the two sides soon negotiated a ceasefire. Begin boarded the ship and set course for Tel Aviv. Ben-Gurion directed the IDF chief of staff to fortify the Tel Aviv beach. When the ship came into range of IDF artillery, it was taken under fire and was struck. When the ship's captain saw the fire was spreading, with the holds packed with explosives, he ordered everyone to abandon ship. All in all, 16 members of the Irgun were killed, along with three IDF soldiers. The ship was destroyed. Sovereignty carries the authority of command Begin seems to have been amenable to transferring his forces to the IDF. He probably boarded sailed the ship to Tel Aviv in order to negotiate anew the disposition of its valuable arms and ammunition. But Begin failed to recognize that he no longer had the political authority to negotiate anything anymore with Ben-Gurion and the new Israeli government. For his part, Ben-Gurion was determined for Begin and his subordinate commanders to understand that henceforth, there was one government of Israel, and the government would give orders that must be obeyed, not offer opening gambits of negotiations. The lesson for Abbas This is a lesson that Abbas needs to study well. If there is ever to be an independent Palestinian state, under Abbas or anyone else, there must be a truly sovereign Palestinian government holding the monopoly on the use of force. I said earlier there was one important difference between Ben-Gurion's 1948 problem and Abbas' problem today. It is this: in 1948 both the IDF and the Irgun, along with their commanders Begin and Ben-Gurion, each had the same political objective: a free, independent Israel within the terms of 1948's UN Mandate (which basically recognized the Jews' territorial claims). Hence, for Begin and the Irgun to surrender their armed sovereignty was not for them to abandon their dream. All the Jews wanted the same thing. But no such agreement exists between Abbas and Hamas. Let us allow that Abbas truly does desire a West Bank Palestinian state and is truly willing to surrender the claim of the "right of return" of Palestinians. These are exactly the things that Hamas opposes with every violent fiber of its being. Hamas wants to destroy Israel as a political entity and establish a Palestinian-Muslim state there. Hamas rejects any idea of a permanent Palestinian state anywhere else. That is why I said that Hamas must be crushed in order for the Roadmap to Peace to have a chance of success. There is no correspondence between what Hamas wants and what the Roadmap calls on the Palestinians to do. Abbas surely must realize this, but is paralyzed and won't do anything about it.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
What the casinos also saw was the financial doom spelled by a gambling population that was increasingly tipped toward the middle-aged and male. "Weekends, our typical customer has been in the 30 to 50 range," said Mr. Rappaport. "Attempting to be a pseudo-Disneyland didn't work out."So, at the street-side lagoon at the Treasure Island hotel (renamed T.I. to distance it from its fusty Robert Louis Stevenson theme) a hugely popular three-times-nightly battle between the British Navy and buccaneers will be shut down come July, in order to rechoreograph it for an October return as an entirely different sort of show. Gone will be the muscled actors playing at being 18th-century gobs; in their place, half-clad "sirens" will swing from the rigging and sashay down the plank.And other things more explicit than that. Ya know, it often seems to me that in a free society the lowest common denominator always eventually wins. (hat tip: Geitner Simmons.)
. . . has been reporting that the forces are now under orders to "completely wipe out" Hamas.This afternoon Hamas said that it would not make any distinction between Israeli military targets and women and children (as if it does now). A Hamas spokesman today, . . . warned foreigners to leave Israeli soil and pledged to bomb the Israeli state into "rubble."Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas has already announced that he will not attempt to rein in Hamas. Look for an even higher level of violence now. At least the White House seems to have dropped its brief descent into moral equivalency: In the United States, the White House singled out Hamas as being the main obstacle to the peace effort recently launched by President George W Bush.Yes, but we knew that.
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
I made my choice, and have no regret whatsoever, despite the personal pain and suffering of my family, friends, Ibn Khaldun associates and students.This information is several months old. I am trying to find more current info.
"Abu Mazen (as Abbas is commonly known) does not represent us, and we refuse to meet with him because there is no point to it," Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi told AFP.I said last week that for peace to be achieved, the "right of return" would have to be abandoned by the Palestinians. Hamas won't do it. And Abbas won't crack down on Hamas: "Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said Mr. Abbas would never use force against Hamas and risk civil war, meaning Hamas' decision could derail the peace plan." Hamas put the punctuation point on its rejection of peace today: A Palestinian suicide bomber killed 16 people and injured more than 100 on a Jerusalem bus on Wednesday to avenge an Israeli bid to kill a Hamas leader; Israel struck back within minutes, killing seven Palestinians.This bombing sent a message to both Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and to Abbas. To Sharon: we will never accept peace, we will only accept victory as we define it. To Abbas: You are impotent, nothing but a figurehead for the Americans and Europeans. Abbas' weakness is material and moral. He does not have operational control over Palestinian security forces nor does he have the will to use them even if he did. So right now, Hamas is in control of the Palestinians' future. And in the understatement of the year, President Bush said today, "It is clear there are people in the Middle East who hate peace." Update: The insistence of the right of return is Yasir Arafat's core position. Almost a year ago, Arafat's appointed Mufti Dr. Ikrimah Sabri said in a sermon that the right of return cannot be negotiated at all, by anyone, period. The sermon was carried live on June 21, 2002 by Ramallah Voice of Palestine, official radio station of the Palestinian Authority. Sabri preached at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem: "O Muslims, O brothers in faith everywhere. We must also affirm that the land of Palestine is an Islamic endowment and that the refugee who does not want to return or cannot return has no right to obtain any compensation for his house or land. His property returns to all Muslims. Therefore, there is no shari'a solution to the refugee issue except by their return to their homes and lands. They will not lose their right no matter how long it takes."Dennis Ross, who personally knows Arafat very well, was President Clinton's special envoy to the Middle East peace process. Ross has said that Arafat has no vision for a Palestinian state at all. All he knows how to do is fight. All he wants to do is fight. It needs to be understood that Hamas and Arafat are ideological allies, if not formal allies. His call today for an all-around ceasfire is vintage Arafat baloney. For Hamas, continuing the war is itself their only real objective. The Palestinians are suffering because they cannot choose their own destiny. The sooner the Palestinian people realize this, the better off they will be. I wrote a year ago that when the Bush administration froze out Arafat from diplomacy that a civil war might erupt over who his successor might be. Three days later George Will wrote: Palestinian patriots may find that the only way to statehood requires civil war. The majority of residents of Gaza and the West Bank dream of a peaceful and productive life in a free country. They are denied this today not by Israel nor by America, but by the minority of terrorists among them who want totalitarian control of all Palestinians as well as Jews.(The link to Will's column is now dead; it's a NYT for-pay archive column now). Hamas will never case its colors voluntarily. Until it is crushed there will never be peace. And only the Palestinians themselves can crush it.
Comes now "Living History," another book "by" Hillary Clinton. Set aside whether this much-hyped marketing vehicle contains so much as a single sentence that rises above the level of statements of the obvious regarding events that have already been reported in excruciating detail. Once again, Clinton is presented as the author of what is actually a ghosted book. The world learned that Barbara Feinman Todd wrote "It Takes a Village," because the publisher inadvertently issued a press release announcing the true author; Hillary threw an ego fit and demanded that all reference to Todd's existence be removed from the book and its press materials, which was presented to the world as if it were the product solely of Clinton's late-night labors. This time around, the pages of "Living History" thank three people -- the much-admired former White House speech writer Alison Muscatine, veteran ghost Maryanne Vollers and researcher Ruby Shamir -- who are assumed to be the actual authors. But the cover and the frontispiece still boldly state, "by Hillary Rodham Clinton." . . .I said before that Living History will start strong and it has, but I also said it would fade fast. I still say so. We'll see.
Monday, June 09, 2003
Friday, June 06, 2003
There were a couple of occasions when the linesperson didn't call the ball out and Serena stopped in the middle of a point to circle the mark and the chair umpire confirmed that the ball was out. Serena was completely in the right, but the crowd reacted negatively toward her. After that, they proceeded to cheer when Serena would miss the first serve, which is completely inappropriate.Quite. But that's not my point here. My point is, who was Roland Garros and what is his relationship to tennis? The answer is he had no relationship at all. Garros, a Frenchman, of course, was the first hero of aerial combat of any nation. Until Garros, all pilots were mere flyers. Garros was the first air warrior. Roland Garros was the first-ever air combat ace. Garros' initial wartime achievement - a notable one - was his development of a forward firing machine gun which despatched bullets through the rotating blade of his Morane-Saulnier L aircraft; to protect the propeller he attached steel deflector plates, a somewhat crude if effective safety device.The next month Garros was downed over German lines. He landed his plane safely and was captured before he could destroy it. Noted Dutch airplane designer Anton Fokker, working for the Germans, examined it and decided that Garros eventually would have destroyed his propeller by continuing to fire through it because the steel defelctor plates ultimately would have failed. Such a failure would probably kill the pilot, of course. Fokker decided that it would be better to invent a mechanical linkage that would automatically stop the guns from firing when the prop blade was in front of them, and automatically resume firing when the blade passed on. He invented such an interrupter gear in short order. (Ironically, the French air force had already started work on such a linkage when Garros got tired of waiting for them and began using the deflector plates.) Very soon, all air powers of the war adopted interrupter designs and air combat became a widespread reality. Garros escaped captivity in February 1918, resumed combat flying, downed more German aircraft and was killed in action just over a month before the war ended. So perhaps it is ironic that the French crowd jeered the American player because of her country's successful war against Iraq - in a stadium named for a French airman lionized by the American press and public.
My comment: think about it. Terrorists are universally, heavily propagandized. That's easier to do to people who have high literacy skills and the leisure time to attend rallies, work for the cause, undergo training and the like. Poor, semi-literate people are frankly working their buns off just to keep their noses above water, and don't have the time or inclination to join someone else's organized violence, and are less likely to be affected by propaganda campaigns anyway. In the Bible are many references to loving God (Deuteronomy 6:4-5: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."--the opening of the Jewish Shema or profession of faith); in the Qur'an are constant references to serving Allah (20:14: "Verily, I am Allah: There is no god but I: So serve thou Me (only), and establish regular prayer for celebrating My praise." 29:56: "O My slaves who believe! truly spacious is My Earth: therefore serve ye Me!") . . .Read also the essay about family life in Islam. However, I would point out that more accurately it is a discussion of family life in Arabic Islam, because the pre-existing social and family structures of the Arabs, springing from Bedouin culture, shaped how Muhammed wrote the Quran, not vice-versa. (Yes, I know that Muslims claim that Muhammed didn't write the Quran, that is was given to him verbatim by the angel. I don't think so.) Well, we know for a fact that the Russians defrauded them by selling them "GPS jammers". . . .
Thursday, June 05, 2003
The architects of the war might be forgiven for misgauging the number of troops required had the war come a dozen years ago, when the United States had little experience in modern nation-building. But over the course of the 1990s America gained some hard understanding, at no small cost. From Port-au-Prince to Mogadishu, every recent engagement taught the lesson we're now learning again in Iraq: America's high-tech, highly mobile military can scatter enemies which many times outnumber them, in ways beyond the wildest dreams of commanders just a generation ago. But it's not so easy to win the peace.How prescient seem the words of a Marine brigadier general when Bush the elder began shrinking the armed forces after the USSR disappeared. I don't recall the general's name. A reporter asked him whether the upcoming smaller Marine Corps meant that the Marines "would have to do more with less." His reply: "You can't do more with less. You can only do less with less."
Therefore, aside from one brigade of the 82nd airborne, and two brigades of the 10th mountain, the regular army's manpower is essentially ALL either in use in Iraq, in use in Afghanistan, in use for peacekeeping, or needed for Korea contingencies. . . .See also this post of mine from yesterday, and especially read the comments. (I am continually astonished at how many really smart people read my blog, for which I am grateful and take as a compliment.)
To many veterans, the government’s pledge to provide medically for those who served our nation during war has been broken. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled last fall that, though the government made a promise of free health care to enlistees, it was unenforceable because Congress neither authorized it nor allocate the money. Yet, many veterans have trusted across the years in that promise of health care, and made decisions about their lives around it. . . .
So here this woman is, screaming like a banshee on this bullhorn, with her friends clapping along with her, and down came a bunch of businesspeople downtown like me to see what the commotion was. To a man (and to a woman), they all picked up one of the flyers, read it over, and then, again, to a man (and, again, to a woman), walked into the Starbucks to get a cup of joe. People were lined up out the door, feeling, like me, "what the heck, I'm down here anyway, I think I'll get some good coffee." The line was out the door...longer than I have ever seen it. All these guys did was drum up business for their corporate foe.Heh!
Yeah, they hate us. The autocrats running the fake states hate us because they fear the liberty that empowers us will encourage their oppressed to topple them.Which brings to my mind the words of Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams, Sept. 12, 1821: I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance... And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them...The flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.I wrote in March of last year that our greatest psychological weapon is these words: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.And we need to lay it on thick. Update: Today's Winds of Change carries this instructive paragraph by a Syrian-born and raised student in an American university: "They have never known the humiliation of living under the iron rule of an Islamic despotism. I have. They have never tasted the cruel bitterness of forced silence in the shadows of a dictatorship. I have. They have never seen the face of evil. I have. For I was born and raised in Syria, the country enslaved by Hafez El-Assad. I was one of the fortunate victims of this tyranny because my family was able to emigrate to American a land of freedom. Yet in the free universities of this country legitimacy is bestowed on the very forces that oppress my former countrymen and I am instructed to be compassionate towards my own oppressors and to be hostile to the country that has liberated me..."America's ideological enemies are not found only overseas, of course.
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
The publisher of Hillary Clinton's memoir wanted people guessing about her revelations before publication, but those plans were spoiled on Wednesday as some of the book's most colorful details were splashed around the U.S. media. . . .Yeah, right. Just more of the spin machine whirling away. Anything to peak interest to give the book legs. Actually, the book is ranked second in sales on Amazon, right behind the new Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (Amazon announced yesterday that it has presold one million of the Potter book, to be released June 21.) I said on April 29 that S&S would take a major bath on this book and that we'll see it in stores' remainder bins by the end of June. Subsequently, an industry insider emailed me that the end of June timeframe was too aggressive a prediction for the book to start being remaindered, although he was less than optimistic about the book's blockbuster potential. We don't know whether the AP got a whole copy of the book or just some pages. If they got a whole copy and the passage cited is the juiciest one there is, then the book will be in trouble for sales. My industry source, who has not seen the book, said that Hillary's book will sell very well if it provides salacity about Bill Clinton's love affairs, what was her real relationship with Vince Foster, etc. In other words, it needs to offer information about the scandalous side of the Clinton administration (of which there is a lot of ground to cover!) and the juicier it does so, the better it will sell. But if it turns out to be a policy-wonk kind of book, or ducks the hard questions even when discussing their contexts, it will not do well in the marketplace. Despite the fact that Hillary is a serving United States senator, for book marketing she is really a celebrity author. He said celebrity-written books tend to die pretty quickly unless they provide gossipy stuff. We'll see.
Former Army secretary Thomas White said in an interview that senior Defense officials "are unwilling to come to grips" with the scale of the postwar U.S. obligation in Iraq. The Pentagon has about 150,000 troops in Iraq and recently announced that the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's stay there has been extended indefinitely.Bill Quick said that White's piece was "sour grapes" and wondered what White's point was, especially considering (I presume Bill meant) now that White is out of office and can't affect policy any more. Specifically, Bill asked, "So what is White's point? That we shouldn't have taken out Saddam?" This sparked a lively 13-comment debate in which Howard Veit and I both pointed out that neither White nor Shinseki ever argued against the war itself. The minor point of Shinseki's testimony was that a larger invasion force would be better than the one envisioned. The major point was that post-war occupation would require enormous personnel and material resources for a long time. Events since the end of offensive action show that Shinseki was more right than Rummy, though Rummy was correct that the invasion force could be substantially smaller than the Army seemed to want. Phil Carter sums up the the status quo nicely. Pay particular attention to how the active-duty force is badly strained by the postwar commitment in Iraq: The problem today is that we built a nation-building plan with insufficient flexibility to react to a changing situation on the ground. America has no more "9-1-1" force it can rush to Iraq to add combat power on the ground. Fully 50 percent of the Army's combat power is already devoted to Iraq. Add in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Korea, and other missions, and you soon have an Army stretched to the limit. We do have reserve formations capable of nation-building. However, those troops require extensive time to mobilize and deploy -- on the order of 3-6 months. We needed to call these troops up months ago to make a difference today. The right plan would have called these soldiers up as a contingency force, just in case. I realize that would have meant hardship for thousands of reservists like me. But it would've been the prudent strategy for America to pursue.Phil's prescription? A much larger mobilization of reserve components is needed, especially of the National Guard. The stakes are too high in Iraq to try to do the job on the cheap. Get NATO involved. And come clean with the American people that the tasks before us are critical but will require much more resources and personnel than we have so far counted on. I wrote in October 2001 that the job ahead was huge: "We and our western allies must lead the way out for those people. It will take a new kind of national commitment. It will cost a fortune. It will require new kinds of armies, armies not of soldiers but of engineers, agriculturalists, financiers, administrators and educators. It will take decades and there are no guarantees. But the alternative is to fight culture and religious wars generation after generation." And yes, I still stand by "decades" overall. My grandchildren will be coping with these issues in some way, and I don't yet have a child out of high school.
The Palestinians say their diaspora - uprooted from their homes ever since 1948 and scattered around the globe - is the greatest and most enduring refugee problem in the world.What Bush said this morning is that the US government will oppose anything that threatens the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. Ergo, what the Palestinians must accept is that their devotion to "the right of return" must be abandoned if there is ever to be peace. Israelis believe with good reason that the right of return would be the death knell for the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland. The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights & the Environment says, As the "Jewish people" concept is central to Israel's discriminatory policy towards Palestinians and an intrinsic part of its legal institutions, one of the most common arguments to prevent the return of the Palestinian refugees is that it would "endanger the Jewish character of the State." . . . By legalizing and maintaining the "Jewish people" concept in its state policies, Israel opposes one of the basic principles of the United Nations Charter and breaches good faith.There is no doubt from this and other Palestinian/Arab writings and proclamations that the very existence of a Jewish state has always been rejected by them. Of all the problems of the conflict today, I think this one is the most intractable. The Palestinian population bomb But there is an irresistable force at work that make it urgent that Israel achieve a permanent solution, and soon, that gaurantees its Jewishness. It is the Palestinian population bomb. Looking at the demographic data on the CIA World Fact Book site, I find that the demographic pressures against Israel are severe. Here's why: There are six million Israelis. Only 4.8 million are Jewish. Fifteen percent of Israel's citizens are Muslim Arabs, 900,000 people. They are Israeli Palestinians. They are, or are descended from, persons who did not become refugee in Israel's war for independence in 1947-1948. They are Israeli citizens and some have held public office in Israel. (The other five percent of Israelis are neither Muslim nor Jewish.) There are more than three million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. There are some Jews who live in the West Bank, but the Palestinians consider them invaders and kill some of them from time to time. (The Israeli government agreed to restrain Jews from living in the West Bank but isn't doing so. And the settlers, as they are called, are often highly militant themselves.) Right now there are four million Muslims in Israel/West Bank/Gaza. Jews outnumber them by a mere 800,000. At current growth rates of each (see end notes), in 14 years the ratio will be reversed: 6.7 million Muslims and 6 million Jews. This cannot be good news for the future of Israel as a distinctively Jewish state. Population pressures cannot be resisted. And these data indicate to me that a purely military "solution" is not possible for the Israelis to accomplish. The only effective thing that Israel can do, politically and militarily, is create conditions that force the Palestinians to abandon violence so that socio-political agreements may be reached. But even if this happens, the Muslim population bomb will keep ticking. Endnote: Israel's overall growth rate is 1.58 percent. But the growth rate of the Muslim Israeli population is higher. The Palestinians' growth rate in Gaza exceeds four percent, and is just under 3.5 percent in the West bank. Note: it is growth rate, not birth rate. Growth rate takes into account all factors: births, deaths, immigration and emigration. I figured the overall Palestinian growth rate in the Holy Land at 3.7 percent. If it is actually lower or higher, it is only by a little, and does not change the outcome. It just changes when the outcome occurs. No doubt the Israeli government knows these data very precisely.
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Unique features include a mirror polished finish, stainless steel construction, and figured select walnut grips with inlaid gold plated medallions. Special and unique gold-filled engraving includes the signature of Beretta's President, Cav. Ugo Gussalli-Beretta. The 470th Anniversary logo is engraved on the top of the slide and the back of the magazine. Each pistol is identified by a "1 of 470" (through "470 of 470") gold filled individual number.I have never purchased a firearm promoted as a collector's edition. I just don't have the money to spare. And it seems as if every month a new commemorative gun is hyped somewhere for some reason. (I expect that any day I'll get junk mail for the Special Vaudeville Comedian Commemorative .45 ACP.) So I cast jaundiced eyes upon any such announcement. But this Beretta is sorely tempting. I'd never fire it, of course. Beretta is not merely the oldest gun maker in the world, it is literally the oldest coporation in the world. This pistol is never going to depreciate, and since only 470 will be made for worldwide sale, it almost certainly will appreciate a lot, very rapidly. There is no easy-payment plan, BTW, unless you consider 100 percent down and nothing per month easy. From strictly an investment viewpoint, I think this pistol has great potential. What do you think? Leave a comment! And oh, don't forget to drop by my own BANG fund opportunities at Amazon and PayPal (see upper left)!
"However, most attacks by the group — and especially by associated extremists — probably will be small-scale, incorporating relatively crude delivery means and easily produced or obtained chemicals, toxins or radiological substances," the report said.To produce a true atomic weapon rather than a dirty bomb, al Qaeda would need to obtain Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU, U-235) or plutonium. HEU is suitable for a gun-assembled weapon (GAW) and plutonium for an implosion weapon (IW). Once sufficient fissile material is obtained, the hard part is over. For the terrorists' purposes, HEU is more desirable. HEU is easy to smuggle and thus easier to obtain than plutonium; Kazakhstan is practically a farmers' market for the stuff. Unlike weapons-grade plutonium, (which is typically contaminated with Pu-240, a spontaneous neutron emitter), U-235 is difficult to detect without active probing. It emits alpha particles and some energetic gamma rays, but these can be shielded with lead. So the HEU could be shipped into the country and federal agents wouldn't detect it unless they were tipped off. The Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bombs in World War II, produced one HEU GAW and two plutonium IWs. (There was not enough processed uranium to produce another bomb.) The uranium bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the first city attacked. At one end of the bomb was a mass of uranium with the center section missing. At the other end of the bomb was the center section. Between the two uranium masses was a tube, basically a small cannon barrel. When the bomb's altimeter fuze system determined that the bomb was the correct height above the target, it triggered a propellant charge behind the smaller uranium mass, shooting it at high speed into the larger section. A catalytic alloy of beryllium and polonium was set at the other end of the hole; this alloy is a neutron emitter just sitting on a table. When the moving center section smashed it at high speed, it flashed neutrons out like crazy and initiated the uranium chain reaction. Instantly, the whole bomb fissioned. This design was never tested. Scientists considered the design so reliable, and the physics so well understood, that they thought no test was necessary. They were right. The potential threat of such a weapon in terrorists' hands will not go away for a long, long time.
Almost all interviewed stated all firefight engagements conducted with small arms (5.56mm guns) occurred in the twenty to thirty (20-30) meter range. Shots over 100m were rare. The maximum range was less than 300m. Of those interviewed, most sniper shots were taken at distances well under 300m, only one greater than 300m (608m during the day). After talking to the leadership from various sniper platoons and individuals, there was not enough confidence in the optical gear (Simrad or AN/PVS-10) to take a night shot under the given conditions at ranges over 300m. Most Marines agreed they would “push” a max range of 200m only.Believe it or not, those ranges were almost exactly the same as in World War I, according to General of the Army Omar Bradley, reported in his autobiography, A General's Life. As commanding general of the 82d Infantry Division early in World War II, Bradley invited Medal of Honor recipient Alvin York to visit his troops. (The 82d was not yet an airborne division at that point.) York was a legendary Tennessee marksman who had earned the only Medal of Honor awarded to an 82d Division soldier in the Great War. Bradley hosted York in his own quarters. I queried him closely on his experiences in France. One important fact emerged from these talks: most of his effective shooting had been done at a very short range - twenty-five to fifty yards.In World War II, long-range rifle fire in combat was unusual in either Europe or the Pacific. Why so little change in infantry engagement ranges over the last 85 years? I would say it is because the factor limiting actual engagement ranges is visibility, not the capability of the rifle itself. After all, Sgt. York's Springfield '03, Willie and Joe's M1 Garand and the modern M16A2 rifle can all be accurately fired out to 500 meters or so. But it is extremely rare for a grunt to see an enemy soldier, much less see one long enough and clearly enough to aim and fire. Smoke, dust, rain and blowing sand obscure enemy troops and positions at long ranges, and the enemy camouflages himself and his positions to boot. Troops in combat obviously don't want the enemy to see them! Most infantry firefights start as movements to contact. Even if the advancing infantrymen know that the enemy is, say, down this street, they don't know exactly where. They go forward until they are fired upon. Think about the opening of the last battle in the movie, Saving Private Ryan, when the Germans moved into the town defended by the Americans. They knew they would be shot at, they just didn't know when. Such is battle. Our enemies know they must let our infantry get close before they open fire. From only a few hundred meters, American combat vehicles such as Army Bradleys or Marine LAVs will bring heavy weapons to bear for which the Iraqis and our potential future enemies have no equivalent. American infantry fired upon by an enemy only a few hundred meters away reach for the really big stick: American artillery. There breathes not one infantryman who has been in a close-range firefight who would not be delighted to let the artillery do the work every time. But if the enemy lets our men get within 100 meters before shooting, artillery fire is not a good option for the Americans, and the Bradleys or LAVs can be taken under accurate RPG fire. It is not smart for the US infantry to withdraw to a safe distance, then call in fire support, because withdrawal under fire is both very dangerous and very demoralizing. (Actually, RPG gunners can hit Bradleys reasonably reliably at about 300 meters, and would take American dismounted infantry under machine-gun fire as well. American Bradleys and machine gunners would return fire, of course. But experience shows that riflemen do not. Rifle combat is a close-in thing.) Omar Bradley took York's lesson to heart and devised training courses for his soldiers to move through. Torso-sized targets would be suddenly, partially revealed for a short time. The soldiers had to detect them and shoot them before the targets disappeared from view. Alone among the services, the US Marine Corps requires its recruits to qualify using 500-meter targets. The Army's greatest qualification distance is 300 meters. High marksmanship at long range is part of the Marine mythos, but the fact is that riflemen in combat don't shoot at that range. In fact, individual rifle-qualification firing in either the Army or the Marines is pretty much unrelated to combat shooting for a number of reasons, chief among them that it is individual. Combat, however, is a team effort. The kind of training infantrymen need for modern rifle combat is best done in units, using fire and movement techniques and incorporating machine guns and pistols. Qualification-range firing is needed to teach basic rifle marksmanship, but it does not prepare a soldier or Marine for the realities of combat. Update: It bears recognizing also that the rules of engagement in Iraq were very restrictive and tended to suppress one of the principal uses of machine guns in previous conflicts: to conduct recon by fire. When units located a terrain feature that seemed useful for enemy defenders, they would hose it down with MG fire. If return fire came back, the battle was on (more likely, they would call for artillery and blow it away). Historian T. R. Fehrenbach documented how this practice was the norm in the first year of the Korean War, resulting often in the wholesale destruction of entire villages. Protests by the South's government and allied powers at this wantonly destructive practice caused it finally to be ended, but in open areas it continued. But infantry couldn't do recon by fire in Iraq, at least very much, because the potential for civilian deaths was too great. So Iraqi defenders retained the initiative of when to begin the firefight. As far as I can tell from my readings, firefights began at close range. That meant that half the advantage of machine guns, their longer accurate range, was usually obviated. Still, though, I find it pretty interesting that whether the rules of engagement were restrictive or permissive, the typical engagement ranges for rifle fire in combat have remained virtually unchanged since World War I.
Monday, June 02, 2003
We began with this basic proposition: Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to develop nuclear arms, poison gas, biological weapons, or the means to deliver them. He has used such weapons before against soldiers and civilians, including his own people. We have no doubt that if left unchecked he would do so again.Second quote: The Cabinet Room, The White HouseThird quote: Never again can we allow Saddam Hussein to develop nuclear weapons, poison gas, biological weapons, or missiles to deliver them. He has used such terrible weapons before against soldiers, against his neighbors, against civilians. And if left unchecked, he'll use them again.Fourth Quote: The secretary of state responds to the question, "Has the president made a decision yet to attack Iraq and when?" The Secretary: Well, the president has all the options, and we are watching very carefully, and we have basically said that this cannot go on indefinitely, and as the president said yesterday, the Iraqis do not need any further warnings. . . . You know, it's quite typical of the way they've been operating. They will not accept responsibility themselves for what is going on. They are the ones that have had the opportunity since the end of the Gulf War to comply. You know, this has been one of the clearest sanctions regimes with the clearest road maps that have ever existed in terms of how to get from Point A to Point B, . . . And it is not the US' fault; it's not the UN's fault; it's Saddam Hussein's fault. . . . .Fifth Quote: Second, if Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction. And some day, make no mistake, he will use it again, as he has in the past. . . . .Sources: 1. TRANSCRIPT: CLINTON REMARKS ON IRAQ DECEMBER 19, 1998 2. VIDEOTAPED REMARKS BY PRESIDENT CLINTON TO THE ARAB WORLD December 19, 1998 3. RADIO ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT CLINTON TO THE NATION, 19 December 1998 4. SECRETARY OF STATE MADELINE ALIBRIGHT, PBS interview, Nov. 12, 1998. 5. STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT CLINTON, 16 December 1998, on Iraqi Air Strikes. Before the Left attempts to paint President Bush with the paint of prevarication or incompetence, they need to remember that his predecessor was as equally convinced and equally strident about the danger Saddam's weapons programs posed. The only difference - the only difference - is that Bush actually did something about it, for which one would think he should be commended rathefr than denounced. As William Safire concludes, When weighing the murky evidence of an aggressive tyranny's weapons, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair were obliged to take no chances. The burden on proof was on Saddam. By his contempt, he invited invasion; by its response, the coalition established the credibility of its resolve. There was no "intelligence hoax."The charges of intelligence hoax or incompetence really wind up where the Left has been all along: accusing Bush of ulterior motives in invading Iraq. How long before the "blood for oil" shibboleth raises its head again?
The multinational war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed more lives than any since World War II -- at least 3.2 million, according to the International Rescue Committee. The contending armed forces are not huge, and military casualties are light. But the civilian death toll rises by more than a thousand per day. . . .Got that? The Brits were victorious with a force one-tenth the size of the UN force that was routed. Fact is that any UN peacekeeping force is no better than the troops who make it up. You can list in short order the names of the true high-quality militaries in the world: Britain, America, some European countries, India, Australia, Canada and maybe a couple of other nations. I would also add Japan and South Korea, except the Japan does not send combat troops abroad and I don't recall South Korea ever doing so for the UN. The upshot of this is that successful UN peacekeepers are from precious few countries. It is telling that in places those countries have held to be critical to their own interests, they have taken action outside the UN. Think Kosovo and Bosnia, where UN peacekeepers are able to work only because military power was employed there under NATO's auspices, not the UN's. Recall also the US infantry battalions that have rotated in the Sinai for 25 years, keeping between Israeli and Egyptian lines. That operation stems from the Camp David Accords, an arrangement between the two nations brokered by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. To be fair, most UN PKO (peacekeeping operations) mission are woefully undermanned. As poor quality troops as most countries send on such missions, were they well resourced and equipped many might have enjoyed much more success. After all, their enemies were hardly more competent and often have been simple brigands, not organized military units. Few countries actually train their forces in PKO. For example, the UN's miserable failure in Rwanda's 1994 genocide resulted from "a failure by the UN system as a whole" of which the "fundamental failure" was conditions such as these (link): Some of the troop contingents that arrived were not fully equipped to guarantee effective operation should the need arise. “A full battalion from Ghana was deployed for two weeks without equipment” (Shawcross, 2000: 108). The mission had no stocks of water, food, ammunition, fuel, lubricant or spare parts. Similarly, the Bangladeshi troop required twenty Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) but had only five in working order with no spare parts, manual, or mechanics to service the vehicles (UN 2000). These reduced the overall effectiveness of the mission. . . .There are several ideas afloat for reforming the capability of the UN to perform PKO effectively, but as the Post's op-ed writer points out, Plans for reforming U.N. peacekeeping are at least a decade from fruition. Until then, the status quo is a death sentence for millions.
The Defense Department, which employs more than 700,000 civilians in more than 900 occupations, has set up a new office to help lure job applicants to the federal workforce.Somehow, the marketing theme just doesn't grab me.
''If you were just casually listening to country radio in the last year, you would think it was the music of Republicans,'' says Beverly Keel, country music journalist and Middle Tennessee State University associate professor. ''That's (been) reinforced with the way the Dixie Chicks have been treated.''"Self censorship" is a euphemism for "no guts." Or perhaps the persons concerned - assuming anyone actually feels such a predicament, of which I am unconvinced - have suddenly had to choose between political protest and making a living. Or more accurately, choosing between political protest and making gobs of money or not protesting and making really huge gobs of money. I have a difficult time being sympathetic with actual and near millionaires who complain they aren't making quite as much money as they used to. Gee, welcome to the real world. Times are tough all over. CMT editorial director Chet Flippo says, ''The country audience has always been intensely patriotic, but it didn't refuse to listen to dissenting voices before,'' he says.Chet, wake up, please. Have some coffee, First, there were hardly any "dissenting voices" before now, and what there were didn't make it onto the public's radar scope. Second, practically no one has felt fan wrath but the What Flippo et. al. don't get is that the public's "tolerance" for dissenting voices is still there, but what we are becoming intolerant of is grandstanding by entertainment figures, whose sole source of income is the hard-earned money we make and spend on their tickets and CDs. In fact, I say you have not "dissented" at all, you have merely insulted and protested and sniveled and whined, not offered alternatives that would serve to keep us safe. And you can keep insulting and protesting if you want. Go right ahead, I won't try to stop you. But you won't do it on my dime. That's the new reality, bub.
Sunday, June 01, 2003
For a film that just last week, people were predicting $400 million, Matrix Reloaded might struggle to cross $300 million. This is one of the sharpest and most unexpected drops in recent memory. Still, Matrix Reloaded did top the original’s box office in only 9 days, and became the year’s biggest hit the next day. So there are some bright spots.The amount of hype that MR received was unreal; it got most of a Dateline primetime show devoted to it, for example. But hype gets 'em in only the first two nights, then viewer word of mouth has to take it from there. And the word of mouth for Matrix Reloaded? It needs giant Sta-Puft Marshmallow Men! The Memorial Day weekend's big winner was Bruce Almighty, grossing almost $86 million, double its pre-release estimates. Movie figures for May 31-June 1 are not yet available. My prediction: look for MR to be hard to find next weekend.
Another challenge for the Army command is morale, which has waned as the Third Infantry Division's deployment has been extended. Many soldiers say they believe that the way home was through Baghdad, and they fought their way to the capital only to find out just a few days ago that the Army had another mission for them.For all the grief that the New York Times has been deservedly getting, Gordon is a solid reporter who has covered military affairs almost exclusively since before I got to the Pentagon 13 years ago. He also reports that 3ID's combat vehicles have been run to death and that maintenance has gone a-glimmering due to lack of spare parts. One of the division's brigades has "put 2,000 miles on its vehicles, an enormous distance for an armored unit" since it arrived in Kuwait. Some company commanders say none of their vehicles fully meet the Army's maintenance standards. While many of the vehicles can still operate, soldiers are concerned that they may break down, leaving troops exposed in dangerous parts of town.Sadly, this rings true to me. I spent a few years in armor and heavy mechanized units, and anyone else who has done so can confirm what maintenance monsters such units are.
My philosophy is simple. If an individual or a family has a disproportionate part of the wealth, money or whatever you want to call it, they have the responsibility to pay a disproportionate part of the federal taxes.Well, they already do. To be in the top one percent of annual income, you need make only $208,000. I say "only" $208K because while that is an awful lot of money, it is quite within the reach of ordinary Americans who work hard and invest wisely, especially if they begin an IRA young. Contrary to populist belief, One Percenters actually pay more in taxes than others and have done so for years. And while liberals have long derided the notion that tax cuts lead to more tax revenues, experience proves otherwise. When President Reagan cut the top income tax rate from 70 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 1988, the tax burden of the top 1 percent increased from 17.6 percent of total taxes to 27.5 percent. Today, the top 1 percent pays about 30 percent. Two Percenters pay a lot, too. So do Three, Four and Five Percenters. In 1998, the top 25 percent paid 80 percent of the total tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based research group. Even more sobering, the top half of all taxpayers (with taxable incomes exceeding $100,000) pay 95 percent of all state and federal taxes. [link]The letter-writer betrays what seems to me to be a common misunderstanding: that because paying taxes is a civic responsibility, hence a civic virtue, it is therefore also a moral responsibility and a moral virtue. Not so. Taxes are exactions by force by the government from the people. Taxation is the coercive appropriation of private property for purposes held to be the public good. But the government does not have a right to the people's money, it has only a need for it. We established a government of limited, delegated powers, and have authorized the government to exact taxes - but the government has no right to do so, it has only the authority to do so. All rights remain solely the possession of the people, who may, if they wish, revoke the taxation authority of the government altogether. (In theory, of course, since in practice it could never be done.) Everyone is legally obligated to pay the taxes s/he rightfully owes - but not one cent more. As Justice Learned Hand wrote in Helvering v. Gregory (1934), Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.The wealthy always pay more in taxes. They have to, because, as Willie Sutton famously explained why he robbed banks, "That's where the money is." Government is expensive and only the comparatively wealthy have enough money to fund it. Hence, about half of all citizens pay practically nothing. In large measure, the federal revenue system is designed to transfer money from the top half to the bottom half. As I wrote before, . . . the federal government really is a money-distribution organization. We govern ourselves by the way we spend each others' money. How much gets spent and for what is determined by how much agreement can be reached by a majority. But whether Left or Right, whether Democrat or Republican, the only real questions of American government and governance are, "Who will be be the beneficiaries of government spending? How much shall we exact from the public for it, and by what means?"Nineteen years ago the Grace Commission was formed by President Reagan to examine where tax revenues disappear to inside the great government money maw. The commission reported that none of the money collected by income taxes paid for services - all income-tax revenue serviced the national debt. The commission said that one third of income taxes, . . . is consumed by waste and inefficiency in the Federal Government as we identified in our survey. Another one-third of all their taxes escapes collection from others as the underground economy blossoms in direct proportion to tax increases and places even more pressure on law abiding taxpayers, promoting still more underground economy - a vicious cycle that must be broken.According to a slightly breathless web site owned by an outfit called The Solutions Group, income taxes were never intended to pay for services. Although personal income taxation dates to the early 20th century, income-tax withholding was instituted in World War II, conceived of by then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Beardsley Ruml. To explain the new tax, and its purposes, Chairman Ruml wrote an article which appeared in the January 1946 issue of "American Affairs," the "newsletter" publication of the Council on Foreign Relations. Appropriately enough, the article was entitled, "Taxes For Revenue Are Obsolete." . . .These are the reasons I say that no one has a moral duty to pay taxes, just a social-contract and legal obligation to do so. The moral imperatives pertaining to the wealthy lie elsewhere. But that's a topic for another post.
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