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By Donald Sensing
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Wednesday, December 31, 2003
In another incident, one of my guys got hit (luckily, in the plate of the vest he was wearing) with a 9X19 pistol round at close range. He immediately returned fire with his M9 (issue 9X19 hardball) and hit the guy five times close to the body midline. All hits were above the waist: one in neck. The bad guy was still able to close the distance, grab my guy, and try to choke him. MP came up and pumped two 12ga rounds (00Bk) into the bad guy him at pointblank range. That finally ended the fight.For auto combat pistols there is no peer of the .45-caliber ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) for knockdown power. There is only one handgun superior to it, the .357-magnum, but this is a revolver round and the Army gave up issuing revolvers about 100 years ago; handling them is too unwieldy in battle. In fact, the .45 Colt was developed to replace the .38-caliber revolver used by US soldiers fighting the Moros, tribesmen in the Philippines who rebelled against US rule (and Spanish rule before that). The .38 couldn't be relied on to put the Moros down; they would go into battle well fortified with homemade booze and local drugs. Some American soldiers were killed after pumping all six shots of the cylinder into a Moro, who was so anesthetized he couldn't feel the pain and so lean muscled that the weak .38 round often would not penetrate deep enough to drop him. And of course, reloading a revolver then - before speedloaders were invented - was a lengthy task. Hence the .45 Colt, M1911 (later product improved and redesignated M1911A1), was introduced. As combat sidearms go, it was spectacularly successful. I was issued one myself when I was on active duty and carried one until I was assigned to 3d Battalion, 27th Field Artillery in 1987. That was when I was issued the M9. IMO, the M9 has only two advantages over the M1911A1. It's lighter and repoints quicker after a shot because its recoil is less. Which sort of indicates the problem - its recoil is less because its throwing a lighter load, using less propellant. And that means less knockdown power. I used to tell my troops that they would not need their weapons until they needed them real bad. This is urgently true with a handgun because that means the enemy is very close. Pistols are practically a principal weapon in urban fighting because they can be pointed more quickly than any other firearm. Close range gunfighters require maximum lethality to be standing at the end of the fight. The 9mm just does not cut it. The Army should buy new .45 pistols (there being many models more modern than the old M1911A1) and re-adopt it as the standard sidearm.  
I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today.And he does. I've heard genius described as being able to see patterns, relationships and possibilities that others can't. I'm starting to think that "genius" apllies to Crichton. Update: Braden also posts the text of "great article by Tex DeAtkine, an old PSYOP and Middle East Guru who's been coaxed out of the school house at Bragg for one last hoorah. Great reading. His insights can't be discounted." Absolutely true. Read the whole thing. Update: Belmont Club comments about and links to a piece by Ralph Peters who explains, says Belmont, that "anything short of disaster will be good enough, because the Middle East will always be a holding action. The real future lies in Africa and Latin America." Well, I would certainly add Asia, too.
So I pull for the Skins except when they play the Titans, which they've done once since the former Houston Oilers moved to Nashville (Titans won).
Basically, though, apart from those two games and maybe two others per season, Spurrier could be quite confident that Florida would pretty much crush their opponent. (But I remember one game they played against cellar-dweller Vanderbilt in Nashville in 1998 or so. Florida barely won, 12-7. Florida QB Danny Wuerffel, last year's Redskins QB, got clobbered with clocklike regularity. Spurrier was a portrait of fury at his offense, and his verbal thrashing of his own team at the post-game press conference was awesome to behold. This was a year when Vandy had one of the worst-ranked offenses in the nation, but its defense was ranked about fifth-best. A lot of those guys play for the NFL now.) Anyway, what Spurrier has to consider now is that there are no off weeks in the NFL. He is playing the equivalent of Tennessee or FSU every week. There are no rankings, there is only the cold, cruel ledger of the win-loss ratio. Not only is every NFL team going to play him at a consistently high level he is not used to facing week after week, at some point he will realize that the other head coaches are just as good as he is, or better. The other coaching staffs are just as good as his. College ball has as many layers of skill and talent as a Black Forest cake, but not the NFL. The NFL has only two layers: playoff teams or stay-home teams. And all the teams are hungry, and all the teams are good. What's next for Spurrier? D. Climer, sportswriter for The Tennessean, said last night on a radio show that he thinks Spurrier will take a year off and reappear in college ball. What about going to take over the Nebraska ball team, he was asked. Not a chance, says Climer, Nebraska has too deep a tradition and love of the running game while Spurrier is enraptured with the passing game, and there are far too few golf courses there for Spurrier, who is a devoted player during the off season. I am still a Redskins fan, and I wish them well (right behind the Titans). Hail to the Redskins!Update: Allen Barra says that NFL head coaches don't really get fired, "they get exchanged."
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.Around my neck of the woods, there was this Christmastime a TV ad for Jared jewelry store in which a woman tells her husband of the diamonds another woman was given by her husband. “He got it a Jared,” she tells him rather accusingly, the unspoken implication being that the crummy necklace he got her elsewhere is second class. Like much advertising, this ad is mostly nonsense. But reflect a moment how much Christmas advertising tries to convince us that only certain products are worthy and everything else is second best at best. Then reflect whether in Bethlehem long ago God gave us the best that he could give us. “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son,” is the way Jesus explained it. God didn’t send a UPS package or a greeting card to let us know he was thinking of us, now and then, and hoped we would all get by okay. God had already sent his customized, holy Word in the inspiration of the Scriptures and the announcements of the prophets – advance notice, so to speak, that he was coming in person. Because, after all, when you really do care enough to send the very best, you go yourself. The Word became flesh and lived among us. We have seen God’s glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son. God’s glory is the presence of God with us. We see God’s presence in Jesus of Nazareth. The incarnation of God as human being was the decisive event in human history because the incarnation changed God’s relationship to us and our relationship to God. The incarnation means that human beings can see, hear, and know God in ways never before possible. The relationship of God and Jesus as Father and Son is the key to our changed relationship. The relationship between divine and human is transformed, because the incarnation gives us intimate access to the eternal reality of God. It is through Christ we best know God. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus told his disciple Philip. The Incarnation of God in Jesus means that in Christ, God placed himself at the mercy of all the things which we endure. Jesus became tired and hungry. He was dependent on the charity of others for food and shelter. He lost his patience with other people and became angry; the Gospels record both. There is nothing we experience that Jesus did not know. In every way that we are human beings, so was God in Christ. Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us. By acknowledging this fact, we recognize the bond that God has established with us, and its revelation in Jesus. God did not stay distant from us, remote and isolated. In Jesus, God chose to live with humanity in the midst of human weakness, confusion, and pain. To become flesh is to know joy, pain, suffering, and loss. It is to love, to grieve, and someday to die. The incarnation binds Jesus to the “everydayness” of human experience. When someone receives Christ as Christ was sent – the unique embodiment of the eternal God – and when someone believes in the name of Jesus, God makes him a son or her a daughter of God. It takes a second birth to be made a child of God, a birth of the spirit, not of flesh. We are reborn from above. Jesus tells Nicodemus a few pages after our passage, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:6-7). So we are brothers and sisters of Christ in the family of God. It’s not mere metaphor. The book of Hebrews teaches, “Both the one who makes people holy [that’s God] and those who are made holy [that’s you and me] are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11). In a way, the Nativity is the adoption ceremony of you and me as God’s children. This new identity God has given us matters in how we live our lives with one another. I have two brothers and now have three children, so I am under no illusions about the fights that brothers and sisters of the flesh have. That is the way of flesh. But I wonder sometimes whether we model our family of faith and kinship with Christ after our families of flesh. We should instead live as sons and daughters of God, born of the Spirit, living in love as ones Jesus calls his brothers and sisters. “In the beginning,” says John, hearkening us to recall the creation stories. In Genesis, God was here on the surface of the earth. With his hands, God stooped on the ground to fashion humanity. He gave us life with his own breath. He walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, talked to them, guided them. In the manger, God was here on the surface of the earth. In Christ, God stooped to the earth again. With his hands, Jesus healed the sick, brought sight to the blind and made the lame walk, right here in person, in the flesh. Jesus walked among the people, talking to them, guiding them. Jesus gave up the breath of his life on the cross to give to us eternal life. “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory.” During Advent, we see God’s glory as a newborn baby, some shepherds visited by angels, and wise men come from afar. God is here, and Christmas is a family reunion.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
U.S. Sister City ProgramI simply do not understand why this seems acceptable to some people. It is a shockingly immoral proposal. I have been blogging since March 2002, and I have consistently pointed out that the purpose of war is never war itself. That is, simply inflicting destruction upon the enemy or the enemy’s people is never a just end in war. Some may respond that I invoke just conduct of war only upon our own side, that the Islamists reject our Just War model and feel no compunction or moral restraint in the wholesale slaughter of American noncombatants. Their objections are correct. We are self-restrained, our enemy is not. That’s what makes them terrorists. But we are not to become terrorists in response. (I recognize that Islam is uniquely vulnerable to the kinds of attacks Dean proposes. Unlike Christianity (or Judaism, too), Islam is a religion of place. One of the five fundamental duties of all Muslims is to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once. If Mecca was atomically removed from the earth, would it even be possible to be a faithful Muslim? Perhaps Muslims would adapt in the same way the Jews adapted to the multiple destructions of their Temple in Jerusalem.) Nonetheless, with the domestic threat alert is at its highest since May. Sober warnings have come from the mouth of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge that al Qaeda is " ‘anticipating near-term attacks that they believe will either rival or exceed’ the events of Sept. 11." So let us accept Dean’s first premise, that an American city might suffer a catastrophic strike by al Qaeda that would kill many, many thousands of citizens. Imagine an atomic truck bomb in an American metropolis. Imagine 30,0000 dead and 60,000 injured, or more. What should America do in response? I reject a nuclear response that seeks simply to lash out at presumed enemies and make Arabs suffer for suffering’s sake. Killing just to kill would not be warranted even under such grievous circumstances. Such an attack must evoke a severe American response, but the first question is whether al Qaeda’s attack would mean that we should change our basic strategic aims , the foundation upon which everything else depends: ... to inculcate far-reaching reforms within Arab societies themselves that will depress the causes of radical, violent Islamism. This task shall take a generation, at least; President Bush has said on multiple occasions that the fight against terror will occupy more presidencies than his own.I say that a K-strike against America would make this objective more urgent, not negate it ("K-strike" being shorthand for "catastrophic strike," borrowing from old military abbreviations). Therefore, the American response to such an attack must do two things: 1. Dramatically reduce, hopefully eliminate, the possibility of such an attack being repeated, 2. At least not harm the furtherance of the basic American strategic goal in the Middle East. Therefore, there are two levels of responses that should follow immediately, political and military. Politically, the president must seek an actual declaration of war against Iran and North Korea. It is hardly credible that an atomic attack could take place on American soil without the actual support of either or both countries. They are members of the original Axis of Evil for good reasons. Some persons may wish to add Syria to the list, but I say they can wait. The Congress must immediately authorize the expansion of our armed forces to a level sufficient to conduct full-tempo, overwhelmingly powerful campaigns in three theaters (the Middle East, the west Pacific and one for reserve and contingency). The American ambassador to NATO should inform the alliance that the United States is invoking all the combined-defense provisions of the alliance. America should make it plain that NATO’s failure fully to join offensive actions against the enemy states, including the deployment of combat troops and materiel, will lead to America’s withdrawal from the alliance and the formation of other security measures with other countries. The Saudi royal family should be told in certain terms that the US will no longer tolerate the hatred and venom their society spews against America. They face a choice: the Wahabbis must be tamed and the Saudis must ally with America in deed, not just in word, or the United States will list Saudi Arabia for regime change by military force. Every Arab in America who is not a legal permanent resident should be deported. Every Saudi-sponsored school in America should be closed. Persons of other nationalities should be deported as necessary according to the DOHS’s threat profile. Militarily, all of Iran’s nuclear facilities must be destroyed without delay. Once Congress declares war against Iran (and it will so declare) the country must be invaded, defeated and occupied as soon as force buildup permits. Action against Iran would invoke no other nation’s meaningful opposition and Iran cannot project power effectively outside its borders. Between Iran and North Korea, Iran is the "low hanging fruit" that should be plucked first. Strategic action against its military and its leadership should begin immediately. North Korea is a very difficult problem and will still be one even if America suffers a K-strike. Any move by the US against North Korea would invite massive retaliation by North Korea against South Korea, and possibly a strike against Japan. Furthermore, the US armed forces are magnitudes too small to tackle both Iran and North Korea at the same time. I consider Iran the more urgent task. So the North Korean theater must be a holding action. If finessed properly, American measures against North Korea, short of actual combat, could even receive Chinese acquiescence, perhaps even actual support. While I think the destruction of North Korean nuclear facilities would be best, that may not be possible in the near term because of the relative paucity of American power in the region. But the fact that we will not be able to do everything there does not mean we should do nothing. At the minimum we should blockade North Korean ports. We could announce that any expansion or mobilization of North Korean forces will lead to American attack to destroy them. Direct psyops against both the North Korean military and people should be used until forces in the region are sufficient to force North Korean submission. Pakistan is another very difficult problem. It’s entirely credible that an atomic terrorist strike against America could have Pakistani support, just not that of the Musharraf government. The Pakistani government is more like a system of baronies than a strong, federal system we have. There are Islamist sympathizers within the government and society who are motivated to aid al Qaeda and may well do so despite Musharraf’s dicta against it. So I don’t have much useful to say about what to do if a K-strike becomes known to have received support from Pakistani elements. If we bomb its nuclear facilities, Musharraf will fall and be replaced by a virulent anti-American. So my "what to do" page is pretty blank for Pakistan, if its radical Islamists are found to be complicit in the K-strike. There are a lot of other measures the US could and should take if we are attacked by an attack of 9/11's destruction or worse. But draining the swamp that breeds Islamist alligators will remain the foremost goal, even as we intensify efforts to kill the alligators. Update: Michael Williams has posted that Mutual Assured Destruction is moral and he wonders whether I even understand it, which I found rather amusing since I was trained as nuclear target analyst at the height of the Cold War. For anyone who thinks that a nuclear attack by the US, even in response to one against us by terrorists, could possibly be sane, much less proper, I tell you bluntly: you aren't thinking at all and I am profoundly grateful you aren't setting national defense policy. Do you think that nuking any Arab city would make al Qaeda stop attacking us with every destructive means at their disposal? How many millions of innocents are you prepared to immolate before you try something else? Except then there will be nothing else to try. NO ONE anywhere in the world would take our side on this. No one would rationalize the destruction of a third-world city and its people as their getting just desserts. There is no act we could take that would isolate us more, enrage the entire world at us more, make more uncountable new enemies, and convince billions of ordinary people around the world, not just Muslims, that America must be destroyed. I add that Michael, like me, professes Christian faith and I have to wonder whether he has considered how America's use of nukes against an Arab city would harm the cause of Christ in the world. Far from convincing the Muslims that their faith is bankrupt, it would cause untold millions of people in the second and third world to abandon the Church altogether. Christians in the third world, already uinder severe persecution in many places, would suffer immensely and the Church would be outlawed in places it is now gaining converts. People need to take off their blinders and try to think strategically. A nuclear response by us would completely destroy countless innocent lives - or do you actually condemn all Muslims, of any age or disposition? Do you really?. It would also destroy every alliance we have in the world. NATO would dissolve. The UK would withdraw all support wholly; Blair's government would fall immediately, to be replaced by the most virulent anti-Americans in England. We would lose all basing rights in every country in the world - Japan, Korea, Europe, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Central Asia, all the rest. Americans across the world, including Europe, would be dragged from their homes or attacked on the streets and killed; scores of our embassies gutted. Muslim populations in Europe and the Americas would riot relentlessly. Every Iraqi would turn completely against us; our forces there would come under constant attack from everyone, and in Afghanistan also. Pakistan would turn wholly Islamist. The entire Muslim world, not just Arabs, would be convinced that what bin Laden has been claiming is indeed true - that the US wishes either to colonize or destroy Muslim nations and destroy Islam itself. Tens of millions of new fanatics would sign up for al Qaeda's jihad against us. I can't begin to list the nations that would sever diplomatic relations with us and expel our diplomatic staff, even the UK. All the intelligence relationships with the UK and other European nations - the most valuable we have - painstakingly built up since World War I would be aborted instantly. Same with Asia-Pacific countries. China would begin militarizing faster than ever. Russia would re-target American cities because its people would demand it. The world's economy, including America's, would plunge into the deepest depression in history with the consequences too horrific to imagine - social dislocations, fall of governments (their replacements rabidly anti-American), civil wars on every continent except, maybe, North America and Australia. Not only is MAD today a "strategy" of failure, it would be the means of our self destruction.
Monday, December 22, 2003
Since Saddam’s capture, commentary has focused on who should put him on trial. I strongly believe this is the wrong question. The primary question is, "What constitutes justice, and how shall it best be achieved?"I argued against a UN-sponsored court to try Saddam. The International Criminal Court can't try him for his crimes prior ot July 2002 because that's as far back as the ICC's jurisdiction goes. An International Criminal Tribunal, such as that slogging its way through Slobodan Milosevic's trial now, has not been established by the UN Security Council for Iraq. With either Britain or the US certain to veto any UNSC resolution establishing one, the chance of a UN court trying Saddam is nil. The WSJ Online provides other, excellent reasons to freeze the UN out of meting justice to Saddam: Exhibit No. 1 is the trial of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, currently going on at The Hague. The Milosevic follies have been playing for 22 months and are still going strong.'Nuff said. The only venue for trying Saddam that is both realistically achievable and just is the Iraqi Criminal Tribunal system, established by the Iraq Governing Council before Saddam's capture.
Several Clinton administration national security officials told THE WEEKLY STANDARD last week that they stand by the intelligence. "The bottom line for me is that the targeting was justified and appropriate," said Daniel Benjamin, director of counterterrorism on Clinton's National Security Council, in an emailed response to questions. "I would be surprised if any president--with the evidence of al Qaeda's intentions evident in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the intelligence on [chemical weapons] that was at hand from Sudan--would have made a different decision about bombing the plant."The Bush administration stands by the intelligence estimate of its predecessor. Neither administration has claimed, though, that the interest in the factory both al Qaeda and Saddam had means that they had interests in common with the factory. There is, say Bush officials, "highly suggestive" evidence of such linkage, but nothing conclusive.
Saturday, December 20, 2003
Friday, December 19, 2003
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Today, according to UN membership, there are 191 states in the world. According to information from the US State Department, roughly 60 of these nations are free democracies. Almost a full two thirds of the nations in the world do not respect the rule of law in their own countries.The great fallacy of the UN is that it is a collegial collection of equal states, where every member state's opinion not only does, but should, have equal weight with every other state. This is nonsense, of course, but that is how the UN General Assembly is structured. Fortunately, the UNGA is mostly toothless. It is the UN Security Council that wields real authority. It resolutions are not passed to the UNGA for approval; they are binding when passed by the UNSC. And five states - the US, Britain, Russia, China and France - have veto authority over any USC resolution. No veto can be overturned by other states' votes. Vetos are final. Why this is so springs from the reason the UN was founded in the closing year of World War II. The UN was the brainchild of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. International assemblies of various kinds had been established long before. The League of Nations was the immediate predecessor. The United States never joined the League and the League fizzled away in the face of Italian aggression before World War II. Once America was an active belligerent in WW II, Roosevelt wasted no time in promoting his idea of a successor to the League. As early as January 1942, Roosevelt began using the name, "United nations." In fact, it was during that month that the US, Britain, the USSR and China signed a Declaration of the United Nations "to defend life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands." Twenty-two other nations later signed it and the name stuck in its formal founding session years later in San Francisco. This is key: Roosevelt conceived of the UN as a means by which the Great Powers (the above-named four nations; note that France was excluded) would enforce order and discipline upon an unruly world. He stated this intention clearly to British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden and Churchill in the spring of 1943. That fall the four governments signed the Moscow Declaration in which they agreed to maintain international peace after WW II ended. Membership in the UN was to be open to any sovereign state, but in Roosevelt's mind the responsibility for policing the world would belong to the four Great Powers. The other three powers evidently agreed. FDR discussed this postwar role with Churchill and Stalin at their conference in Tehran in November 1943. He actually called the group of the US, UK, USSR and China "The Four Policemen," who would have the authority on their own to use force against any threat to peace. It seems the four governments never discussed or considered that one of them might be such a threat. By August 1944 France had weaseled its way into Great Power status. What we know as the UN Security Council was at first called the Executive Council, with the five Great Powers as permanent members. At first there were to be six other member states, which would serve a term and rotate off. The grant of veto authority to the permanent members was discussed then as well and was finalized the next year. In April 1945 the United Nations was formed in San Francisco. While it was intended to be an agency for resolution of disputes without war (and other purposes) its charter specifically said that regional alliances or other arrangements for security are not precluded. Animosity between the western powers and the USSR began almost as soon as Germany surrendered. Roosevelt's dream - that the UN would be a means of preserving the Great Powers' cooperative hegemony - was stillborn as the UN became an ideological battleground of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War has not brought peace and harmony to the world, obviously. Nor has it brought the end of ideology. The time is now ripe to consider whether the UN is still a suitable arrangement of an internationalist system. Personally, I think it is not.
It is unfortunate that many in the Arab and Western press have bestowed on the perpetrators of attacks against coalition forces the grandiose label 'the Iraqi resistance.' Such a categorization, whether purposely or inadvertently, creates an impression of a universal phenomenon supported by most Iraqis. Nothing could be further from the truth. ...And not just in Iraq. Bill Hobbs cites a Christian Science Monitor piece that says Saudi Arabians are starting to awake from their oppressed stupor: Everywhere, it seems, from sidewalk cafes to women's salons behind closed doors, Saudis are talking about societal changes. Religious extremism and democratic and educational reforms, as well as women's issues, are paraded for public discussion in what has long been one of the most tight-lipped and tightly controlled lands in the Middle East. While actual political reform may be moving at a snail's pace by Western standards, the new degree of openness is earthshaking here.Turbaned Jeffersonians they aren't, but the whole region's strongmen must feel a chill wind now. At least, I hope so.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Why is it that a "fair" trial must somehow ignore all that is known about Saddam's crimes? I just can't wait for Reuters and the BBC to start referring to Saddam's alleged crimes once he has been indicted. In some bizarro world corollary to suspending disbelief while watching the cinema, these illiberal utopians seem to want us to suspend belief in order to "keep on open mind" or to be "fair and impartial". Nonsense. This is a false dichotomy. One can easily have an open mind and be fair and impartial without pretending to have developed no opinion about Saddam and his crimes. It's almost as if there can be no fair and impartial trial unless there is a sizable possibility, if not probability, that Saddam may be found innocent.Since Saddam's capture, commentary has focused on who should put him on trial. This is the wrong question. The primary question is, "What constitutes justice, and how shall it best be achieved?" Rendering a judicial verdict against Saddam is not the most important goal because Saddam's murderous guilt cannot be rationally questioned. In even the fairest trial possible, "guilty" is the foregone conclusion, at least for Saddam's major offenses. Any other verdict would mock justice rather than uphold it. The real value of a judicial proceeding against Saddam is to render a fair, accurate, public accounting of the terror of Saddam's regime (thanks to Bill Hobbs for this insight). Fully exposing Saddam's deeds to the Iraqi people and the world is the point. Enabling the Iraqi people to face their horrors so they may grow out of them is the point. Discovering the truth of Saddam's ties to nations and international agencies that propped him up is the point. Saddam's trial "must be an opportunity to educate the nation and make the psychological transformation from the past to the future," said Laith Kubba, a prominent Iraqi expatriate who is now a senior program officer for the National Endowment for Democracy. "What is important in these trials is not to put on trial the person of Saddam Hussein, but his deeds." Only by learning the full truth, vetted to judicial standard, can Iraqis have a real hope of transcending Saddam. Only by such discovery can there be a hope that America, other nations and international agencies never repeat their errors or sins that left Saddam in power for so long, at the cost of so much blood and misery. So the foremost consideration of a trial is whose jurisdiction can best achieve these just ends. A large number of UN-member states, including some European ones, are deeply complicit in shoring up Saddam’s power for the last decade. That a UN court could render an accounting of Saddam’s regime that is full, public and accurate is highly doubtful on its face. Too many nations have too much at stake in keeping their secrets. Comes now an outstanding post by Bill Hobbs, exhaustively sourced, on just who is complicit. Thanks to Saddam's regime, Iraq owes billions to France, Germany and Russia. For what? For weapons and for components needed to develop weapons of mass destruction. A public trial may well allow the world see the real reason France, Germany and Russia actively opposed efforts to remove Saddam from power.Quite so. The pressure from Old Europe on the United States and Britain to agree to a UN-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal will turn immense. There is more blood on their hands than at any time since World War II.
... the ICC fundamentally and explicitly violates the Constitution. Were a United States citizen to be brought before the ICC, he would not have the rights secured by the Bill of Rights that many in this country take for granted. The right to a speedy trial, for instance, would not necessarily be applied in the ICC. Though the Court’s bylaws say that defendants shall be tried without “undue delay,” Hague prosecutors for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia have stated that anywhere from one to five years is not considered undue delay. This practice clearly mocks the systematic presumption of innocence which remain an integral part in the trial of an American. In the U.S., a prisoner cannot simply be held without trial. If a federal defendant is not brought before a jury in three months, he must be released. Other inconsistencies such as the right to a jury trial, the right to face one’s accuser, the ban of double jeopardy and the inadmissibility of hearsay evidence all point to one larger problem: by ratifying the Rome Statute and becoming party to the ICC, the citizens of the United States relinquish a portion of their inalienable rights.That is one big reason the United States is not a signatory to the ICC and is making bilateral treaties with nations not to turn American citizens over to the ICC. Seventy such treaties have been signed already; the US goal is to sign one with every country in the world.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
... it's the willingness of Kofi Annan, Mohammed el-Baradei, Chris Patten, Mary Robinson and the other grandees of the international clubrooms to give "legitimacy" to Saddam, Kim Jong-Il, Arafat, Assad and co that disqualifies them from any role in Iraq.Exactamundo, as they say.
In Tikrit, about 700 people rallied in the center of town Monday chanting "Saddam is in our hearts, Saddam is in our blood." U.S. soldiers and Iraqi policemen yelled back: "Saddam is in our jail."Pretty snappy. But the demonstrations weren't peaceful. There was some shooting, and US troops killed three protesters in Ramadi after they were fired upon.
Ann Strickland-Clark (letter, Dec. 15) says she's "taking bets on a Jack Ruby type incident" against Saddam Hussein before his trial, because he "has a lot to reveal" that the U.S. government may find embarrassing. Considering the country where most of Saddam's weaponry and political support came from, any assassin will more likely be named Jacques Ruby.It's already happened! 
(From Politicalhumor.about.com)
I couldn't make myself believe this was the same Saddam that slaughtered hundreds of thousands and plundered my country's wealth for decades. The humiliation I experienced was not out of nationalistic pride or Islamic notions of superiority or anything like that as some readers suggested. It was out of a feeling of impotence and helplessness. This was just one old disturbed man yet the whole country couldn't dispose of him. We needed a superpower from the other side of the ocean to come here and 'get him' for us. I was really confused that day I went out and almost got myself killed by those Fedayeen and angry teenagers in the Adhamiya district.But we are very happy he made it.
Few hundreds of Saddam fanatics and loyalists decide to face the IP [Iraqi Police] and the American army in an open fight in Adamiah (the major stronghold of the Ba'athists in Baghdad) samara, Fallojah, results were killing and injuring most of the attackers, and some injuries among the IP. It is better for the IP and the US army, that those criminals are this desperate. Much better than trying to dig them out as before, when they used the hit and run tactics.Yeah, baby, give us the old banzai charge - please! Omar also reports that the Iraq Governing Council "proposes to announce the 14th of December a national anniversary and an official holiday. The idea is much welcomed by the majority of Iraqi people." (via Jeff Jarvis, who excerpts from several Iraqi blogs) Update: It was probably this battle.
In short, the romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things, but they still kill the animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to live. If they don't, they will die.Which brings immediately to mind the experiences of some people of Boulder, Colo., related in the book, The Beast in the Garden, by David Baron. It has this story, which I am paraphrasing: Lynda Walters, 28, had always had benign encounters with wild animals. So when mountain lions returned in number to the hills around Boulder, she wasn’t alarmed, even after the lions were seen in residential neighborhoods, even after lions had killed family pets.She got her wish. As she was running through the hills one day in 1990, two mountain lions drove her up a tree; one followed and ripped open her leg. "This is it," she thought, "I’m going to die." She stomped her foot on the cat’s face, tumbling it to the ground. Eventually, the two lions lit out after a deer that appeared on a hillside, and Lynda escaped. There were a couple of other close calls not long afterward. The Colorado Division of Wildlife hosted a public meeting on the problem. Some residents who had lost pets to a lion wanted the division to remove it. But the division refused, saying that if it took the one away, another would move in and take its place. District wildlife manager Kristi Coughlon said she shared the parents concern for the safety of their children playing outside, "but contended that the solution lay on changing the behavior of people, not cougars." It was clear, though, that the main concern of many people in the audience was not the safety of people, but of the lions. A couple who had had a close call with a lion said that they didn’t want open season on all mountain lions, they just wanted this one eliminated. A man stood and shot back that if they didn’t like it, they should move away. Nothing got resolved. Then Scott Lancaster, 18, was killed and eaten by a mountain lion. Scott’s friends and family consoled themselves that his death, sad and untimely though it was, had somehow been kind of fitting for him. As James Valdez put it, "He was a real outdoorsy guy."Crichton’s case is hereby closed.
There are a number of facets of the problem, not least of which is what context justice is to be found, and whose claims for justice predominate. Also, what is the legal framework for putting a former head of state on the docket? It's never been done in modern history and at least since the Treaty of Westphalia heads of state have been held to be literally sovereign figures, not subject to foreign justice. Not even the trials of Nazi or japanese war criminals faced this issue, since Hitler was dead and Hirohito was put off limits by Douglads MacArthur. So there are some substantial issues, as I see it: 1. Under what legal authority can Saddam's trial be conducted> 2. What are the crucial issues constituting what justice means in this case? 3. What entity is best suited to administer justice in this case? I welcome your thoughts and links! Please leave a comment. Update: A key fact, as pointed out by commenter Allen Glosson, is that the ICC has no jurisdiction over any crimes committed before its founding date of 1 July 2002. This according to ICC President Philippe Kirsch at a symposium last week in Syria. Kirsch, says the cited article, affirmed that "criminal ad hoc tribunals for specific situations have had an important role to play" because of the very recent beginning date of the ICC's jurisdiction. Hence, the president of the ICC itself had a chance to object to special tribunal for Saddam Hussein, and not only did not do so, but actually affirmed such a tribunal's place in international justice. Update: Phil Carter has an outstanding piece on this topic on CNN. com.
Monday, December 15, 2003
MATTHEWS: A lot of states have right-to-work laws. You would get rid of them?ORDER states to change their laws? Really? No president has ever had the authority to order states to change their laws. Many state laws have been struck down by judicial review after suits were heard, but it simply is not possible for the president to order state laws to be changed. Or federal laws, either. Does Dean not know that? It's a serious question. A little history is in order: American unions received substantial legal protection with the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935. In 1947, the Congress passed amendments to the act called the Taft-Hartley amendments. One of the provisions of the Taft-Hartley amendments was "section 14b," which enabled states to prohibit mandatory union membership by workers of unionized trades. Section 14b became known as the "right to work" provision. Again, the merits of the law are not my issue here. It is Dean's stated contention that he thinks as president he can simply "order states" to change their laws, no not order them, as he sees fit. Dean for King of America? But wait! There's more! MATTHEWS: So you wouldn’t repeal 14B?Then, three questions later, Dean answers: DEAN: If I got a bill on my desk that repealed 14B, I’d sign it in an instant. I’m just not going to push it hard...Dean says he would not repeal 14B, then says he would, practically within the same breath. But Dean isn't through, apparently ignoring the dictum that when you get to the bottom of the hole, stop digging. He continues on, DEAN: I hate right-to-work laws.Why didn't Matthews, who enjoys a reputation as a tough interviewer, zero in on Dean's self-contradictions? His show is called "Hardball" fer crying out loud!
But our real targets in all three nations are the people, not their rulers. We want the people to become dissatisfied with their lives, and we want them to believe that something better is possible. That's best done by showing them that alternative, tantalizingly real, and that's what we're going to do in Iraq.And this is exactly why we must not turn Iraq over to the UN or other entity. That would guarantee failure and Iraq's slide back into despotism.
Pointing a finger at the media, [actor John] Rhys-Davies went on, “What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is, and what a jewel it is ... The abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.”Rhys-Davies plays the dwarf warrior Gimli in the LOTR trilogy.
The reward was tempting. But the deciding factorHT: R. Heddleson
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist, was murdered on the orders of Saddam Hussein after refusing to train al-Qa'eda fighters based in Iraq, The Telegraph can reveal.Which is kind of interesting because a lot of Western observers (including me) were skeptical that Saddam would be inclined to make an alliance with al Qaeda because Saddam and regime modeled their politics after Nazism and their modus operandi after Stalinism, neither of which are amenable to radical al Qaeda-style radical Islamism. It now transpires that Saddam was hoping to take advantage of Abu Nidal's presence in Baghdad to persuade him to use his considerable expertise in terrorist techniques to train al-Qa'eda fighters.When Nidal refused to train other terrorists, Saddam had him taken out? Tell me another one. I have no doubt Saddam did have Nidal bumped off - not because he would not train al Qaeda, but because he did, in a very particular way, and Saddam wanted to eliminate the trail. Via Glenn Reynolds, the Iraq Governing Council says that Nidal in fact did train al Qaeda terrorists - specifically Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11, 2001. Iraq's coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist.There is ironclad proof that al Qaeda and Saddam were formally allied after 9/11. Osama bin Laden publicly urged Muslims to fight alongside Saddam’s forces against the Americans. (I wrote a lot about al Qaeda and Iraq, start here .) But the sticking point has always been whether al Qaeda and Saddam cooperated with one another before 9/11. The evidence, including this revelation from the IGC, is mounting that they did. But why would Saddam have Nidal shot because he trained Atta and perhaps other terrorists? Recall that in July-August 2002, the Bush administration began turning its attention in earnest toward Iraq. Janes.com said it confirmed Nidal was killed by Saddamites, then explained, So why has Saddam acted now? The best explanation is that the Iraqi dictator is now feeling the pressure from the ongoing US deliberations over a potential invasion to topple his regime. In any such adventure, the anti-Saddam elements within Iraq would most likely play an important role in turning the tide against Saddam. He has therefore moved to eradicate those dangerous elements, both as a pre-emptive measure to protect his position and as an example to other prospective internal enemies still at large.If the documents the IGC says it has uncovered are indeed authentic, it make sense to attribute Nidal’s murder to Saddam’s desire permanently to silence a man who was the key link between Saddam, al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks. Saddam surely knew that no one in America of either party could or would oppose toppling him if the 9/11 link could be verified. The story of the IGC documents needs to be followed closely. If authentic, the documents provide ironclad proof that Saddam was complicit in killing 3,000-plus Americans and other nationalities on Sept. 11, 2001, even to the point of at least co-selecting the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and whatever the fourth target was supposed to be. The Bush administration never directly claimed such a connection as a justification of the Iraq campaign. But it didn’t try to dissuade Americans from believing it, either. At the time, the administration’s dissembling was attacked by its opponents as deceptive. But it may now turn out that there were excellent reasons, known to the administration soon after 9/11, to believe Saddam was complicit in al Qaeda’s terror activities - and that the administration later had credible, though not conclusive, evidence that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Even so, the real significance of the IGC documents - again, I stress that American agencies have not authenticated them - is not merely providing an ex-post-facto, concrete inclusion of the Iraq campaign into the anti-terror war. It is the web of al Qaeda connections that Iraqi documents will almost certainly reveal, and from what other countries al Qaeda received actual assistance in the form of money, materiel, training or other resources. I’d say at the top of the list is either Syria or Iran, with the other occupying second place. Another thing a confirmation of the connection will do is completely cut the rug from under France’s and Germany’s opposition to America in Iraq. Both nations’ governments are slimy in their collusion with Saddam over many years. French President Jacques Chirac was personally so much in bed with Saddam that he should be charged with political prostitution. Neither Chirac nor German Chancellor Gerhard Shroder are very secure in their offices; such news cannot improve their standing among their own constituents. What this means is that Old Europe will be less able to oppose America’s next steps in the anti-terror war than before, whatever those steps turn out to be. Iranians opposing the mullah’s regime will be likely be emboldened as the mullahs find their apologists in Europe are muted. Syria’s dictator Bashar Assad has long been fearful his regime is next on Bush’s list; even retroactive additional justification for Iraq’s invasion will shake him badly. He may attempt to walk the straight and narrow placate America. That won’t be good news for Hezbollah, which relies on Syrian patronage to sustain its anti-Israel terrorism. Finally, a verified connection between Saddam and 9/11's infamy may drive the Saudi royal family decisively toward crushing al Qaeda within its borders. A lot of rot inside the royals has yet to be exposed. It may never see the light of day outside the kingdom, but the jolt of the revelation of how deeply into Arab governments al Qaeda infiltrated itself could cause a real change in how the royals decide to shape their future. I expect to see pro-al Qaeda princes increasingly frozen out, some perhaps even mysteriously vanish. But all this depends on whether the IGC’s claims can be verified. There are interesting days ahead.
Saturday, December 13, 2003
I am STILL trying to figure out a way to get payments to Iraqi bloggers. HELP! Xoom.com is a very cool service that lets you Western Union money via PayPal but, guess what, Iraq is not on the list.I hereby pledge $50 to support this effort, just as soon as Jeff posts where to send it. In the meantime, would other bloggers please take up this torch also? As Nick Kristoff observed from China, when the peopl;e have the technological means of mass communication, tyranny cannot survive. In that light, I call to your attention journalist Bill Johnson's column today of life in Baghdad: Come to the balcony with me. Ignore, for a moment, the gunships. What do you see?No, indeed. Marx was wrong. It is not when the worker control the means of production that brings freedom, but when the people control the means of communication. Democracy will be assured by many things in Iraq, but getting ordinary Iraqis online with text and cameras will be a huge part.
Friday, December 12, 2003
America is a problem to be fixed, and Americans are a people to be managed.A couple of days ago, Michael Barone wrote, Many conservatives are complaining that George W. Bush is a big-government conservative--or not a conservative at all. They complain about the Medicare prescription drug law he and the House and Senate Republican leadership pushed through, the first major expansion of Medicare since 1965. They call him a big spender, noting that discretionary spending has been rising more rapidly than under Bill Clinton. They complain that he pushed through the first education bill giving the federal government a role in setting standards. They complain about the farm bill he signed in 2002 and the energy bill he championed this year. ...This is not a good thing, although Barone thinks it is. What Bush has done is fed raw meat into the red maw of big-government activism. Big-government activism is definitionally power hungry. Big-government activism confiscates political power from the people by regulation and taxation; its appetites for both are near unlimited. Yes, I know that Bush pushed through some serious tax cuts, and I wrote on this site that unlike his predecessors, he actually cut, rather than redistributed, the tax burden. But be not deceived: NFL linemen are small when they are babies, and we see today only the infancy of Bush’s brand of big-government activism. Inevitably, its hunger will grow. A friend of mine emigrated here from Romania after Ceaucescu’s regime fell. He told me the other day that Americans are over-regulated. Think about that; a man coming from a communist country believes that Americans are over-regulated. It chills. A long time ago Steven Den Beste observed in an essay, "The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left to themselves, they will regulate everything they can." Celebrated author Robert Heinlein wrote, "In any advanced society, ‘civil servant’ is a euphemism for ‘civil master.’" Both quotes are not exact, but they’re pretty close. And they’re both exactly right. Big government is itself apolitical. It cares not whose party is in power. It simply continues to grow. Its nourishment is that the people’s money. Its excrement is more and more regulations and laws. Like the Terminator, "that’s what it does, that’s all it does." I do not believe Bush’s domestic policies are in the best interests of our long-term freedom. I do not think that Bush’s domestic legacy will, in the long run, be good for the country. Hence I cannot urge anyone to vote for Bush in 2004. Which is not to say that I endorse any of the Democrats running for president; they are more strident big-government activists than Bush, and won’t protect us from terrorism to boot. So I feel caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
2004 Will Be the U.S.'S Best Year Economically in Last 20 Years, The Conference Board Reports in a Revised ForecastYes, it's the economy . . . well, you know.
"It's very simple. Our people risked their lives. Friendly coalition folks risked their lives, and therefore the contracting is going to reflect that, and that's what the U.S. taxpayers expect," Bush said.Does anyone else think this matter calls to mind the fable of Little Red Hen? Folks, if you didn't help take the hill, ya don't get to march in the parade. (HT: Richard Heddleson) Update: Free Market offers a cutting perspective from across the Pond.
This is not the Baghdad everyone has told us to fear, the one they for months have shown on television at home. Not a single car exploded. There were no dead bodies that needed to be stepped over.His point being, of course, that the mainline media have reported a skewed picture. Not all Iraqis are entirely happy with the Americans; one man complained to Johnson of waiting for hours to get gasoline, pointing out that under Saddam, there was plenty of gasoline. Then, as the rally began, It is shortly before noon when we reach Furdoise - or Paradise - Square. Atheed knows an Iraqi policeman standing at a nearby intersection, and he allows us to park beyond the barricade of cordoned-off Furdoise Street.
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
I ask them what their agreement contains that will ensure Israeli security, and the answer is, pretty much, "bubkes." On the question of whether their agreement addresses the question of a Palestinian right of return, they're similarly lacking in answers. On the two questions that have most vexed peacemakers in the past, these two fellows have absolutely nothing to contribute. But these kinds of questions aren't important in the world of the Geneva Accords; we're supposed to be just accepting that this plan is new and important and a platform for peace -- we're supposed to be sippin' Geneva juice.The heart of the ongoing conflict is simple to understand, as-yet-impossible to resolve. Israel desires to continue to be free and independent as a sovereign Jewish state. The entire Arab world wants Israel to lose both. It’s true Egypt has made formal peace with Israel, but its desire remains. I certainly don’t have a solution, except to point out that one side or the other will have to surrender its basic position. For Israel to surrender its position is literally national suicide. The Palestinians want national independence for themselves, but the problem is they want the same land that Israel now occupies. Both sides say that the present territory of Israel is their homeland. The fantasy of the Geneva Accord is only in the second place that it does not really resolve this basic conflict. In the first place, the fantasy is that it fails to reflect a basic fact: the Arab nations do not want a sovereign Palestine existing in the present West Bank. I do not think they will support a resolution that results in an independent, Palestinian West Bank. They’ll continue to give it lip service, but will not take concrete steps to make it happen. So the war will continue.
Papua New Guinea is fantastic. Very balanced. full flavor. I read in a coffee book that PNG got its coffee plants from Jamaica Blue Mountain plantations. JBM is generally acclaimed to be the best coffee in the world. I haven't had any yet (cheapest I've found is $20/lb unroasted), but if it's better than PNG, I might have to try it. The book said that PNG was 90 percent as good, but PNG costs $3.50 per pound from CoffeeMaria.com.All that Indian Malibar Monsoon coffee has going for it is an exotic name. Otherwise, it is quite unimpressive compared to the others. I've also found that setting the roaster about three minutes below my best guess for roasting time is best. My roaster's cooling fan kicks in when the timer hits five minutes left. At six minutes, I manage the roasting time by adding a minute at a time until the correct color is achieved for the roast I want. The I let time expire. It just takes practice.
Monday, December 08, 2003
As the convoy raced through the ambush, an RPG rocketed into a personnel carrier. Staff Sgt. Robert Stever, who had just fired more than 1,000 rounds from his .50-caliber machine gun, was blown back into the vehicle, killed instantly. Shrapnel tore into Chief Warrant Officer Angel Acevedo and Pfc. Jarred Metz, wounding both.This is the first birdseye account of the battle to appear in the public media, and is well worth your time. After you click on this link, login and password using laexaminer for each. Hat tip: Raising Sand via email from Richard Heddleson.
Asked to name his favorite philosopher, Dean named Lao-Tse because "my favorite saying is, 'The longest journey begins with a single step."' That might make a better bumper sticker than anything David Hume said, but if that measures the depths of Dean, he and his supporters should take a sabbatical from deriding Bush's supposed shallowness.We might also ask why the media give him a free pass, such as the marshmallow interview he got from Chris "Hardball (not!)" Matthews.
The coffins are hardly ever flag-draped and an honor guard is rarely present when the coffins are offloaded and driven over to the mortuary. You see, those things are public displays done for the benefit of the public. If the powers that be wish the offloading of a coffin to be publicized, then everything is set-up to accomplish that. Perhaps an air crew and an aircraft are picked for the honor, the gaining base does all the logistics for spectators and press, Public Affairs does a few releases and publicizes the Event and all the higher-ups on base manage to get out of their flight suits, put on a real uniform and show their faces. A speech by the base commander may be made. As the aircraft approaches, all other air traffic is held and the ramp observes noise restrictions. The lone plane lands, taxis and is parked in a conspicuous location. The honor guard approaches and a sleek coffin draped with the American flag is slowly carried off the aircraft with dignity and respect.But the routine way of offloading human remains is that the GI coffins are carried off the airplane by ground crews and loaded onto a truck or other mortuary vehicle that has been pulled up to the airplane, then the truck drives away. No flags, no band, no airmen in dress blues. All this occurring while fuel trucks and other support vehicles and personnel do their usual jobs at the aircraft. There's a ton of maintenance, cargo loading and flight crew personnel running around all over the plane and we all look alike to outsiders, so you're pretty much SOL. The photographers would probably leave in disgust, not knowing which, if any, of the planes they photographed had HR aboard.So the whining of the media should be ignored (again).
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Saturday, December 06, 2003
Update: Steven Weiss solicited questions on his blog to ask the principal negotiators at a public Q&A period in Geneva Friday evening. He is posting the questions that he and others asked and got answered, in sections as he transcribes the recording. He wrote, There was some wacky stuff going down at this event; you're not gonna believe what Tom Friedman did. More details to come, as I transcribe.I recommended he ask, 1. Will there be both freedom of access and freedom of worship at all holy sites in Jerusalem for all faiths?But I don't yet know whether he asked any of the three. Anyway, whether he did or didn't, this is one of the best examples of how blogging interactivity is changing news-gathering and news reporting while major media slumber. Can you imagine Dan Rather, for example, going online to solicit people's suggestions for questions to ask during an upcoming interview? Nope, neither can I. Geitner also emailed me the link to BillO’Reilly’s column in which Bill claims that the entertainment industry will be the Dems’ secret weapon for swaying the minds of young people to vote against Bush. But a Salon piece explains why it doesn’t seem likely. Thanks to Bruce Reid of 2d Battalion, 11th 2-11 Field Artillery, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) for the reminder! The artillerymen of the armies of western countries all honor St. Barbara. The United States Field Artillery Association keeps the Order of Saint Barbara, of which I am a member. John at Argghhh! has more. CSA’s strategic vision for the Army:In other words, the Army is going to focus primarily on the business at hand: warfighting, not transformation. I wonder how Donald Rumsfeld likes that poke in the eye? John also emailed me, I've got an Operation Iraqi Freedom Lessons Learned Report that I'm trying to see if the blogosphere will give a big boost in distribution. It's clean, legal, unclassified, just Good Poop. I've got a link to the whole document. It's just a good bite-sized chunk of wisdom that the CS and CSS guys would be well served to have, and while it's propagating via military email, that doesn't always hit the Guard and Reserve. Then, from behind the camouflage netting, the President of the United States came around. The mess hall actually erupted with hollering. Troops bounded to their feet with shocked smiles and just began cheering with all their hearts. The building actually shook. It was just unreal. I was absolutely stunned. Not only for the obvious, but also because I was only two tables away from the podium. There he stood, less than thirty feet away from me! The cheering went on and on and on.Update: Not only does Snopes validate this email as authentic, it adds some other soldiers' stories worth reading.
Friday, December 05, 2003
An investigation by WKMG-Local 6 reveals Vanlester has filed 16 previous claims of injuries at Wal-Mart stores and other places she has shopped or worked, according to Wal-Mart, court files and state records. Her sister, who accompanied her Friday on the visit to Wal-Mart, has also filed a prior injury claim against Wal-Mart, with Vanlester as her witness, a company spokeswoman said yesterday.Yes, 'tis the season. (hat tip: Jeff Jarvis)
The Geneva Accord, negotiated by Israelis and Palestinians who have been involved in years of failed negotiations, attempts to leapfrog the current stalemate by dealing with tough issues long deferred by the official efforts, including the U.S.-backed "road map." The Geneva plan would require the removal of most Jewish settlements from the Palestinian territories, divide Jerusalem into the capitals of both Israel and a Palestinian state, and require that most -- but not all -- Palestinians give up their claim to return to land in Israel they left during and after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.The chief Israeli at the talks is Yossi Beilin, principal leader of ultra-left Meretz party. The principal Palestinian is Yasser Abed Rabbo, whose presence is not officially sanctioned by Palestinain dictator Yasir Arafat, although Rabbo has long served Arafat. The Accord is so unworkable that even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has said it will lead to further bloodshed on both sides. Barak, you may recall, offered Arafat almost everything Arafat wanted in negotiations sponsored by the Clinton administration - including Palestinian nationhood, sovereignty over the Temple Mount, equal control of Jerusalem and the dismantlement of almost every Jewish community in the West Bank. What Barak's offer did not include was acceptance of the Palestinian's claim of the "right of return," by which they mean they get to occupy Israel and disestablish it as a Jewish state. Not only did Arafat flatly turn down Barak’s offer, he shortly authorized the commencement of the present intifada against Israel, which has taken more than 1,000 Israeli lives and at least as many Palestinian lives. The Geneva Accord breaks no new ground that Barak did not break in offering the store to Arafat. There is no reason to believe he will be any more disposed to endorse the Accord than Barak’s offer. Certainly the Sharon government never will. There is a grand soiree today in Geneva to celebrate the Accord. Heads of state and our own Colin Powell will attend; Powell will even meet with Beilin and Rabbo, pretending they actually represent anyone other than themselves. Yesterday former President Bill Clinton himself explained why the Geneva Accord will never work. He said that the Geneva meetings are an "encouraging sign," then wrote, After three years of intense violence, we know what needs to be done. The Palestinian terrorist infrastructure must be thoroughly dismantled and the Palestinian Authority reformed. Israel needs to evacuate settlement outposts, freeze settlement activity and withdraw from reoccupied territory. Both sides must cease acts of provocation.Mind you, Clinton thinks the Accord is a good thing. But his article actually serves as a "hostile witness" to the Accord, because almost everything he says must be done would have already been done if they were both possible and desirable by the parties concerned. A mild fisking of Clinton’s piece: » al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Arafat’s personal terrorist SS which provides his security and is behind most of the suicide bombings. The Brigade is an offshoot of -Each one of these groups' main objective has always been to dis-establish Israel as a Jewish state, drive the Jews out of Israel and open Israel to occupation by the Palestinians. These are exactly the same goals of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people themselves, whose schools use maps showing the West Bank and Israel as a single political entity, marked "Palestine." To use the word "moral" in the same sentence with Arafat is nonsensical. And if Arafat really thought quashing the terrorists was "politically imperative" to gaining his goals, he would already have taken measures to do so. But there are three factors here that both Clinton and the Bush administration are ignoring: 1. The terrorist networks do not stand between Arafat and his goals, they are how he is hoping to achieve his goals. Arafat is himself a terrorist, always has been, always will be. 2. If Arafat began by dismantling al-Aqsa he would not live to the end of the week because Hamas would kill him. Hamas hates Arafat because in their minds Arafat is too moderate. Hamas wants no peace agreement with Israel of any kind; they simply want to destroy the Israeli state and the Jews who live within it. They have said so many times. So does Hezbollah. 3. Arafat can’t sic al-Aqsa against Hamas or Hezbollah because (a) al-Aqsa probably wouldn’t obey, (b) Hamas and Hezbollah are stronger and certainly more fanatical, (c) it would start a Palestinian civil war, and (d) Hamas’ first act would be to kill Arafat, barely beating Hezbollah to the punch. Recall that according to Clinton’s special envoy to the Middle East peace process, Dennis Ross, Arafat said at the Barak-Arafat conference that if he accepted Barak’s offer, Hamas would kill him within a week. Which is to say, Israel won’t be persuaded until Arafat is permanently gone from power, at the least. Moreover, what Clinton says the Palestinians must demonstrate to Israel is that they have abandoned what they hold most dear. To believe that the Geneva Accord will cause such a sudden and dramatic change of heart among the Palestinian people - to say nothing else about Arafat - is to move to lalaland. The insistence of the right of return is Yasir Arafat's core position. Last year, 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, 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, Hezbollah and Arafat are ideological allies. Their differences are not about what to do, but about who will be in charge after it is done. Later in his article, Clinton writes of the terrorists, Those responsible for the suicide bombings do not want a negotiated peace; they want Israel eliminated. They do not want the refugees resettled in Palestine; they want them to flood Israel. They do not want to share Jerusalem.This misses the point altogether: 1. It is the terrorists who perpetuate and make the war. Clinton seems to imagine a day when the terrorists wake up, have their coffee and are astonished to read the headline that the conflict is ended, dang it all. But as long as there are terrorists, the conflict will continue. 2. Arafat is the terrorist-in-chief of the Palestinians. He has for literally decades shown that he will not make permanent peace with Israel. Remember, the Barak government already offered Arafat everything Clinton here enumerates the Sharon government must do. In fact, there seems to be nothing new about the Geneva Accord, as Jeff Jacoby notes. The premise of the Geneva agreement is that Israeli surrender will bring Mideast peace. It would require Israel to relinquish land, weaken its security, and yield tangible assets to the Palestinians. In exchange, the Palestinians would pledge to stop killing Israelis. Sound familiar? It's the 1993 Oslo formula all over again: Israel trades concessions on the ground for unenforceable Arab promises of peace.Or as an Israeli commentator once observed, "We give up land now for a promise of peace later." It has never worked yet. Update: Israpundit basically agrees. Robert Locke has a lot to say about why the peace process can't work. Charles Krauthammer blasts the Accord, too, noting, "This is not a peace treaty, this is a suicide note -- by a private citizen on behalf of a country that has utterly rejected him politically. That it should get any encouragement from the United States or from its secretary of state is a disgrace." Indeed.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
"I haven't seen Reynolds write about getting a gold plated rocket car recently."Well, no, not a rocket car, unless you count his new RX8, which, btw, I bought for him.
"We're going to go to the wealthiest Americans, those making $200,000 a year and above, we're going to ask them to give back the Bush tax cuts. ... I've talked to a lot of wealthy Americans, and, you know, when you're making above a certain income level, those extra monies, they buy you security, they buy you options, but they don't buy you the necessities. ...Exeter is, of course, one of the most exclusive prep schools in the country. Its students’ families are, shall we say, "comfortable" financially. So a student asked Clark what he would do to head off higher taxes for him when he becomes an adult, and Clark promptly answers, "I’ll raise your taxes." And he seemed to wonder why no one applauded. If anyone making less than $100K per year is one emergency away from bankruptcy, then I must be hanging by a thread over the flaming pit of financial ruin. If someone making $100,000 per year is struggling with car payments, then he’s so dumb you have to wonder how he has the brains to make that much money. What was Clark thinking? Perhaps the better question is whether he was thinking at all. Here’s a link to the audio clip of that segment of Clark’s speech. It didn’t work for me, but maybe it will for you.
The new French nuclear carrier "Charles de Gaulle" has suffered from a seemingly endless string of problems. The 40,000 ton ship has cost over four billion dollars so far and is slower than the diesel powered carrier it replaced. Flaws in the "de Gaulle" have led it to using the propellers from it predecessor, the "Foch," because the ones built for "de Gaulle" never worked right. Worse, the nuclear reactor installation was done poorly, exposing the engine crew to five times the allowable annual dose of radiation. There were also problems with the design of the deck, making it impossible to operate the E-2 radar aircraft that are essential to defending the ship and controlling offensive operations. Many other key components of the ship did not work correctly, and the carrier has been under constant repair and modification. The "de Gaulle" took eleven years to build (1988-99) and was not ready for service until late 2000. It's been downhill ever since.No further comment needed.
... concludes that international sanctions designed to block funding for al-Qaida are becoming ineffective. Al-Qaida's assets no longer move through the international banking system - the focus of sanctions - but are generated through the illegal trade of drugs and arms and carried by private couriers.Which is what criminals do. It's difficult to say that for al Qaeda to evolve into a mere criminal gang will be an improvement, especially since for the present the thrust of its drugs and arms black marketing is to fund its terrorist activities. But the more difficulty it encounters just funding itself, the fewer attacks it can fund. OTOH, as the UN report points out, it may try to husband its funds for the most terrible attacks. The report "concludes that al-Qaida is actively planning a catastrophic, 9/11-style strike and the only thing stopping it is a lack of technical expertise." However, before we run in circles and scream and shout in terror, we should remember that al aeda has always wanted to carry out another catastrophic attack against its enemies, mainly America. The remarkable thing about the UN report is not so much what it says, but that the UN itself finally says it.
There is none. The basic concepts of both civilizations are in total contrast with each other. When I say this I do not address Western civilization as Christianity. I speak of a man-made system completely devoid of divine guidance. Our concepts of God, human beings, the universe, are totally in contrast with the concepts of the Western world. We cannot segregate human lives into private and public, our lives are ruled by divine guidance, not by man-made rules based on his own prejudices and specific mindset characterized by its own dilemmas and shortcomings. Our concept of the universe is not materialistic, and the result of an 'accident'. Instead, it was a very well thought out process envisaged by the creator of the universe with a plan.I keep in mind Douglas MacArthur's dictum that "he who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted." Hasan confirmed what I first wrote about only two weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in my essay, "Why We Were Attacked: Religious Motivations for Anti-Western Violence," posted on my church's web site since then. The threat that the West (the USA being the foremost western nation) presents to the Taliban and their religious ilk is the West's world view, scientific epistemology. They perceive our scientific-technological world view as an overwhelming threat not merely to their way of life, but as an actual affront to Allah, and indeed, reality itself.There are many points of contention and conflict between Arab Islam and the West, but the chief religious contention is not really between the Islamic East and the Christian West, but between Islam and the scientific-materialist West. Scientific materialism is the decisively dominant world view of the West today, and scientism is the religion of vast numbers of westerners who consider themselves otherwise non-religious. See also my June 2003 essay, The Soil of Arab Terrorism (PDF document). Update: TMLutas fisks the claims made by Hasan.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Turning the other cheek actually could well have been Jesus’ admonishment to the people under oppression by the Romans and class structures to stop being passive and start resisting, but never to be the aggressor and to provide an opportunity for the oppressor to ponder the evil of his ways.Says the Pax Christi piece, As it stands, this saying seems to encourage being a complete pansy. If your husband punches you on one cheek, turn the other; let him pulverize you. If you are sued for a piece of clothing, give all your clothes voluntarily, as an act of pious renunciation. And if a Roman soldier forces you to carry his pack one mile, be a chump: carry it two. And the crowning blow: don’t resist evil at all.Which is what I was saying, I just didn't elaborate on that part as much or as well. It also makes the same point I did make: By turning the other cheek, the “inferior” is saying, in no uncertain terms, “I won’t take such treatment anymore. I am your equal. I am a child of God.” This is not submission - it is defiance.The piece also explains Jesus' admonishment to give someone your tunic as well as your cloak when he sues you, and why carrying a Roman soldier's pack an extra mile placed the soldier in jeopardy of punishment at his commander's hands.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network says that six other high-level, Arabic speakers have been barred from defending America because they are gay. According to SLDN spokesman Steve Ralls, "none of these additional cases involved on-base conduct."Okay, let's take this a step at a time. The contention that the other cases did not involve "on base" conduct is irrelevant. The law is the law, no matter where you are located on the surface of the earth. What law, you ask? Title 10, US Code, Section, Subtitle A, Part II, Chapter 37, Sec. 654. - Policy concerning homosexuality in the armed forces. The law was enacted in the early years of the Clinton administration. Obedience to it is not optional for the armed services. In the language of the statute we discover that the US Congress found: The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.You may agree or disagree with whatever intensity you desire, but it does not change the fact that this is what the Congress says. Please remember, Section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States commits exclusively to the Congress the powers to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a Navy, and make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.And that Pursuant to the powers conferred by section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States, it lies within the discretion of the Congress to establish qualifications for and conditions of service in the armed forces.Section 654 requires the services to discharge homosexuals as follows: A member of the armed forces shall be separated [emphasis added] from the armed forces under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense if one or more of the following findings is made and approved in accordance with procedures set forth in such regulations: That the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts . . . .There are limited and very specific exceptions allowed by the law (i.e., coercion), but "speaks Arabic" is not one of them, nor is possession of any other critical skill. There is, however, an allowance that permits homosexuals to be retained on active duty if "separation of the member would not be in the best interest of the armed forces." Mr. Murdock said that the need for Arab linguists is so critical that it outweighs the clear intent of the Congress to exclude homosexuals, as defined in the law, from service. I believe the Congress is correct, the DOD implementation of the law is correct, and the Army was correct in these cases. But this is an issue for which changed minds are extremely rare. I wonder whether Mr. Murdock or Dean Esmay would be so energized to protest if the persons concerned had been cooks, not linguists. If someone says that not even homosexual cooks should be discharged for homosexuality, then national security isn't the point, is it? But this is not a civil rights issue, because, says the Congress, There is no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces.Perhaps the Congress will revisit the law one day, perhaps not. But excoriating the armed forces for being too law abiding is quite strange.
As a rule, soldiers are convinced that every shot they fire hits and kills its target. The spot reports that come in, therefore, are loaded with kills. I've been in (training) battles in which my platoon has told me they killed a dozen enemy vehicles when we were only facing four. ... Who knows how many people you actually killed or wounded when you spray a concentration of enemy infantry with machinegun fire? Tankers, as a rule, simply report that they engaged and destroy a squad or a platoon of dismounts and continue looking for targets. It's an easy report, but tankers know that it doesn't actually mean that there's a dead squad or platoon lined up on the ground now. It's just shorthand, because it's too hard to really count how many dismounts you're facing or how many you killed, and it really doesn't matter anyhow. If I know I'm facing a squad-sized element, that's really all the information I need to fight them. But that can lead to reporting difficulties after the battle, if someone up the chain takes the reports at face value.My guess is that the commanders on the ground in Iraq know that they don't really know the number of enemy dead and wounded. And they'll be a lot more circumspect about announcing such counts again.
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
MATTHEWS: Well, would you break up GE?GE owns NBC and MSNBC. But a little later: Matthews continued:Sorry, Doctor, but the answer is quite clear. You want to break up some media conglomerates and not others, and you want to do it on ideological grounds. We get it, sorry. As Jeff Jarvis, a genuine Big Media figure, said, He's going to meddle in news. He's going to decree who can and can't own media outlets. He's going to break up companies for sport and political pandering. He's not concerned with the First Amendment. He's not concerned with the realities of the media business today (if you don't allow some level of consolidation, then weak outlets will die). ... I cherish our freedom of speech; I am a First Amendment absolutist. I do not want to see government meddling in our free speech. This isn't Europe, Howard. Not yet, anyway.In other campaign news, which person running for election or reelection as president said this about Iran's nuclear problem? ... the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons.The SOVIET UNION? Four times in one breath the candidate said "the Soviet Union." The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, formerly known as the Soviet Union, dissolved about 10 years ago. Oh, yeah, it was Dean, same interview. Observed Andrew Sullivan, If Dubya had said this, all [heck] would have broken loose. It's an astonishing lapse - and the incoherent grammar only adds to the impression of rank amateurism. Yes, I know Dean means Russia. But anyone who cannot distinguish between Russia and the Soviet Union has no business running for president of the United States.What almost as dismaying is that Matthews didn't give Dean a chance to correct himself; either Matthews didn't notice himself (so why is anyone listening to him?) or he ignored it. If so, why?
But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matt 5:39)The consensus among New Testament scholars both liberal and conservative is that Jesus is referring to receiving a backhanded blow. Then as now, right-handedness was predominant, so for someone to strike you on the right cheek means that he would most likely backhand you with his right hand. In the culture of the day, backhanding someone was a gesture of contempt. It was how you treated someone who was beneath you in class and status. To give someone the back of your hand was to say by gesture, "Remember your place! I am superior to you!" It was how a father rebuked his son, a brother his sister, a husband his wife and a master his slave or servant. That being so, Jesus’ advice to turn the other, or left, cheek to be struck is loaded with symbolic meaning. It is certainly not advice to be submissive to evil. It has at least two loaded meanings: Turning the other cheek actually could well have been Jesus’ admonishment to the people under oppression by the Romans and class structures to stop being passive and start resisting, but never to be the aggressor and to provide an opportunity for the oppressor to ponder the evil of his ways. In the honor-shame codes that prevailed then (and still do now in the Middle East) the oppressor would then be faced with two choices, neither very good. One, he could forehand the cheek turner, but that would fairly explicitly grant him the right to fight back with full force - but fighting an inferior on equal terms is beneath the dignity of the oppressor and diminishes him in the eyes of his social peers. Two, he could ignore the gesture, but that makes him lose face by morally retreating from the challenge of his inferior, who by the oppressor’s lights has no right to offer such a challenge at all. Such an illegitimate challenge must not be ignored. So the oppressor is caught by the horns of a dilemma: he can’t let the challenge go unanswered but he can’t accept it, either. What to do? Turning the other cheek, as Jesus taught it, is really literally a subversive gesture, though one fraught with risk, to be sure.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"St. Paul wrote that people seeking godliness should "clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you" (Col 3:12-13). And he wrote that doing kindness to your enemy is clever strategy: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head" (Rom 12:20, quoting Prov. 25:21-22). Yet doing this teaching also requires victims to shun the status of victim. To challenge the offender, either physically or in law, is really to admit you are beaten by the offender, at least for the present. The resolution really becomes not a matter of right redeemed and wrong suppressed, but one of power: who has the quickest fists or the dirtiest lawyer. But doing good to those who offend you is actually to claim a victory, not admit defeat. "Do not repay anyone evil for evil," Paul wrote. After all, "we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." It’s certainly not easy to do, but neither is going to court. And it returns the personal activity of the resolution to the center, where it belongs. But we are far from the Kingdom of God. Update: See my follow-up post immediately up the page on why Jesus' teaching to turn the other cheek was likely an admonishment to stop being passive and start resisting evil, but without being the aggressor.
Much of present-day French politics springs from the panic of April 21, 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen's fascistic National Front outpolled the ruling Socialist party to finish second in the opening round of France's presidential elections. Jacques Chirac, of course, easily won reelection two weeks later, with 82 percent of the vote, by rallying the entire left around his moderate-right party. But the first order of business for Chirac's prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, was to reassure voters that he had taken full account of what a close call it had been for France. "If in 200 days we have not seen real change," he said, "the risks of tension in this society will be high."France’s problems are both economic and philosophical: Today France has the highest youth unemployment in Europe, at 26 percent; only 37 percent of its over-55 population works, a world low. Its employment rate of 58 percent is at the bottom of the developed world. (The figure is 62 percent in the European Union and 75 percent in the United States.) And this grim employment picture is worsened--some would even say caused--by a political inequity. Over the past decade, public-sector employees have been able to enrich themselves in ways that private-sector ones cannot. Government employees can retire after 37.5 years on the job, versus 40 for private workers; they get 75 percent of their salary as a pension, versus 62 percent in the private sector; and the salary in this calculation is based on the best-paid six months for government workers, versus an average of their last 25 years for workers in private industry. So the latter wind up subsidizing the former. ...France is increasingly irrelevant to the world scene, and even they are starting to realize it.
Monday, December 01, 2003
In contrast to Giap, Saddam's Ba'athist strategy could have come straight from the pages of the Republic Serials. Episode to episode with nothing leading to anything else. His donkey rockets, so beloved by the Western press, did not help his fancy uniformed feyadeen in the slightest when it attempted to ambush the 4th ID. His earlier campaigns against Iraqi infrastructure in their turn had no connection with the donkey rockets. His attacks on Iraqi policemen did not materially assist his campaign to shoot down American helicopters. And his campaign against the helicopters no connection with the attacks on the police. You can almost imagine the stupid working of his mind: 'after I kill the Spaniards and the Japanese and the Koreans, I will crown it all by destroying two 4th ID columns like Groupment Mobile 100'. But no military thread ran through them; simply a media thread. Giap knew that strategy has meaning only if it is cumulative. He would have asked, 'how will killing Spaniards help me destroy a 4th ID column?' without which he would have left the Spaniards alone. But then Giap was a genius, whereas Saddam is ... well, his donkey rockets impress the media.-- Why "a cumulative catastrophe is swamping" the enemy in Iraq. Read 'em all.
"Once we connect with them, the interrogators slowly hand them over to a more moderate cleric, who sits with them and goes over what the Quran says and discusses what the traditions of the prophet (Mohammad) are," one Saudi official explained.The technique does not work on hardcore al Qaeda leaders, only on its rank and file. But it has worked so well that the Saudis have been permitted to send such teams more than once to Guantanamo Naval Base to work there. Speaking of the Saudis, their security agencies just "foiled a planned terrorist attack in the capital Tuesday, killing two militants and seizing a car bomb ready for detonation on the first day of festivities marking the end of Ramadan" (link).
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