Will the Saudis buy sand next?
Zing! Colombia, one of the world's leading coffee producers, is now going to import coffee from New York.

And here's an interesting article on Wine Spectator's web site that explains how coffee growing and production is far more demanding than that of wine and how coffee is far more chemically complex than wine. It includes this tidbit I didn't know: coffee is "the second most-traded commodity in the world, after oil."

Oh yeah, I posted an extensive guide to home roasting your own coffee beans.

by Donald Sensing, 7/31/2004 08:30:00 PM. Permalink |

Kerry's glaring omission of Israel and the Palestinians
Am I the first to notice that nowhere in John Kerry's speech Thursday night did he mention the Palestinians? Or Israel?

I haven't seen this omission mentioned in other commentary, but I admit I haven't read them all by a long shot. But my Google search came up empty.

No matter where you stand on the Palestinian issue, you can't deny it is going to remain prominent in the Oval Office's inbox for many years to come.

That Kerry completely omitted the subject is revealing. But what does it reveal? Some possibilities:

1. He doesn't think it's important.

2. He thinks we should abandon Israel but knows he can't say so.

3. He know his ideas about America's policy for the dispute are not much different President Bush's policy and are no better, anyway.

It's hard to imagine Kerry thinks the issue is unimportant or that the US should abandon Israel. Choice three is credible, but it leaves voters with no reason to vote for him rather than Bush.

What do you think? Leave a comment (and please read the commenting rules at the top of the comment box)!

by Donald Sensing, 7/31/2004 07:31:00 PM. Permalink |

A record month at OHC
July 2004 has turned out to be a record month for readership of this blog. The graph shows more than 190,000 page views for this month, easily eclipsing last month's all-time high of ~148,000.

As any blogger knows, links are everything for readership. Only the very top-tier blogs for traffic enjoy very large numbers of readers who visit daily. The rest of us enjoy much lower consistent reader numbers (and I am thankful for everyone!). This month, OHC got linked to by a number of high-volume sites in addition to those such as Instapundit. Michelle Malkin, a syndicated columnist, frequent cable-news-show guest and fairly recent blog starter, linked. USA Today linked. The WSJ's Best of the Web Today linked. Criminy, even a page on ESPN's site linked! As a result, my links to other blogs have skyrocketed, too.

To all new readers, welcome! And to everyone who has linked here, many thanks!

Yet the upward trendline of the SiteMeter graph also is found in top-tier blogs, too. Glenn Reynolds, for example, just posted that this month was a record for his site, too.

What do the higher numbers all around mean? I think the numbers indicate how deeply blogs are penetrating public consciousness as alternative news sources, and especially analysis resources. It's important to know what happened, but what do the events mean? More and more people are discovering that blogs are providing expert, well-written insights about daily events and trends.

Blogs are also able to serve topics that only a relatively small number of people want to read about, such as, well, the relative merits of different calibers for infantry rifles.

All that's what I try to do. I hope I succeed.

by Donald Sensing, 7/31/2004 05:28:00 PM. Permalink |

Caption contest!
Not here, over at Mudville Gazette. I laughed well at the ones already posted.

by Donald Sensing, 7/31/2004 02:42:00 PM. Permalink |

Ah, the the-uh-tuh
A TV news report this morning said that the Paramount movie, "The Manchurian Candidate" (an advertisier on my blog for two weeks) has garnered excellent review but is expected to haul in only about $24 million during this, its opening weekend. OTOH, "The Village," M. Night Shyamalan's latest flick, has gotten unfavorable reviews but is expected to take in twice as much.

I haven't seen either movie. Second Hand Clapping saw The Village last night, but inexplicably didn't invite me to go along on his date. He said it was very good but not very original.

Author Tom Donelson saw The M. Candidate and reviewed it:

... it lacks the complexity of the original. For one, the original was written as cold-war thriller and while John Frankenheimer version directed his ire at the McCarthyites of that era, the movie does make it clear that the bad guys did exist and really did try to take over the United States. Frankenheimer understood evil existed but that extremism in fighting it created its own problem. Jonathan Demne’s version lacks Frankenheimer nuances and simply just made an anti-Bush film and disguised it as a thriller. In Demne’s world, the bad guys are not the Islamic fundamentalists terrorists that have killed thousands of our own but corporate America.

Which is pretty much what Frank Rich of the NYT said, too, saying the movie was even more nakedly partisan than Fahreheit 9/11, Michael Moore's latest fictionalization of history.

Interestingly, New Democrats Online wrote of Michael Moore's book, Dude, Where's My Country?, in terms echoing Donelson's review of M. Candidate:

Moore's answer is to create a culture of conspiracy theories in which the real terrorists are not outside forces like al Qaeda but the boardroom denizens who rule America.

It seems the Left is having a hard time these days identifying the true enemy.

by Donald Sensing, 7/31/2004 12:03:00 PM. Permalink |

More on the infantry rifle
I posted in June of last year how US Marine infantrymen reported that in Operation Iraqi Freedom,

... all firefight engagements conducted with small arms (5.56mm guns) occurred in the twenty to thirty (20-30) meter range. Shots over 100m were rare.

This typical engagement range, btw, was almost unchanged since World War I. Early in WW2, Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley, then a division commander, talked at length with the famed Sgt. Alvin York, Medal of Honor recipient and said by the French high command to have performed the most outstanding deed of the war. Wrote Bradley,

I queried him closely on his experiences in France. One important fact emerged from these talks: most of his effective shooting had been done at a very short range - twenty-five to fifty yards.

Today Geitner Simmons emailed me the link to a post on Buscaroons blog, "Assault rifle ammo: the British were right." Pointing out that the US Army is now developing a 6.8mm infantry-rifle round and rifle to replace the current, Vietnam-era 5.56mm round, the writer states:

the Americans are adopting a new rifle cartdige- the 6,8 mm because their combat experiences have highlighted the 5,56mm does have enough killing power at distinances of 500-600m.

This is competely wrong, as far as I can tell. Accurate fire from the present M16-series rifle at those ranges is very dificult. The problem with the 5.56 round is not its killing power at 500+ meters, but its power at ranges a tenth of that. Many soldiers and Marines have reported it just doesn't have enough hitting power to smack down an enemy fighter with one shot.

The 5.56 round is approximately .223 caliber, while a 7mm round is approximately .30 caliber. I would agree with Buscaroon's claim that this caliber has proven through hard experience to be the best for infantry rifle. There are many reasons to replace the 5.56mm rifle, but they are not the reasons Buscaroons states. He is correct, but only by accident. For example:

The 5,56 mm might be an ideal bullet for the jungle where combat engagements are between 10-50 m under very heavy forest cover but the round itself lack sufficent kinetic energy to kill an armed man at 400-600m. In other words, the 5,56 mm would be problematic if NATO ever fought the Warsaw pact in the central German plains.

Wrong, really, on both counts. The 5.56 round is so lightweight that in jungle combat, it is easily deflected by foliage that doesn't affect a 7mm/.30 caliber round so much. As for European battlefields, I quote myself again.

Why so little change in infantry engagement ranges over the last 85 years? I would say it is because the factor limiting actual engagement ranges is visibility, not the capability of the rifle itself. After all, Sgt. York's Springfield '03, Willie and Joe's M1 Garand and the modern M16A2 rifle can all be accurately fired out to 500 meters or so. But it is extremely rare for a grunt to see an enemy soldier, much less see one long enough and clearly enough to aim and fire. Smoke, dust, rain and blowing sand obscure enemy troops and positions at long ranges, and the enemy camouflages himself and his positions to boot.

Machine guns are so numerous in present-day Army and Marine units that they do almost all the long-range, small-arms work. The US Army is right to move toward a larger, heavier caliber for its basic rifle, but its imperative is to improve the close battle, not the long one.

by Donald Sensing, 7/31/2004 11:26:00 AM. Permalink |

Out on a limb?
Bill Quick makes a few very interesting abd bold "off the cuff predictions."

1. The Easter Kerry will get no more than a four-point "Bunny Hop" in the polls coming out of the Convention.

2. Islamofascists will pull off some sort of atrocity in Athens, and forcibly remind Americans of who the real enemy is. More Americans, of course, will be paying attention to the Olympics than the political campaign, so the attack will be doubly shocking. It will also signal the final death knell for the Kerry campaign as America at last gets serious, and decides it needs a serious President, not a waffling lightweight leftist.

3. The Official Prediction: Bush 58%, Kerry 42 % of the two-party vote.

4. Daschle defeated.

5. By the end of the year, in a flood of recriminations, the left-most sector of the Democrats will split and form a new party. The most interesting thing about the event will be watching the mainstream liberal media try to figure out what it thinks about it.

6. Dick Cheney will not serve a second term as Vice President.

7. Late this year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will begin the process of pushing forward an initiative to reduce the California Legislature to part-time status.

8. By Christmas, mysterious "insurgents" will be fanning the flames of open rebellion in Iran.

9. One of the Big Three - Dead Osama, One-Eyed Omar, or Ayman al-Zawahiri - will be revealed to be either captured or in a corpse-like condition.

10. YGB will admit he voted for George W. Bush

Browse to Bill's site and leave a comment what you think about these. You sure can't accuse him of not taking a stand!

by Donald Sensing, 7/31/2004 11:16:00 AM. Permalink |

Pondering George W. Bush
Via La Shawn Barber's excellent blog, I find an essay on Esquire.com by liberal writer Tom Junod, who openly proclaims his severe dislike for George Bush. In "The Case for George Bush," Junod writes of his "greedy pleasure of hating him." But . . .

Still, I have to admit to feeling a little uncertain of my disdain for this president when forced to contemplate the principle that might animate his determination to stay the course in a war that very well may be the end of him politically. I have to admit that when I listen to him speak, with his unbending certainty, I sometimes hear an echo of the same nagging question I ask myself after I hear a preacher declaim the agonies of hellfire or an insurance agent enumerate the cold odds of the actuarial tables. Namely: What if he's right?

...

The reason he will be difficult to unseat in November—no matter what his approval ratings are in the summer—is that his opponents operate out of the moral certainty that he is the bad guy and needs to be replaced, while he operates out of the moral certainty that terrorists are the bad guys and need to be defeated. The first will always sound merely convenient when compared with the second. Worse, the gulf between the two kinds of certainty lends credence to the conservative notion that liberals have settled for the conviction that Bush is distasteful as a substitute for conviction—because it's easier than conviction.

One more excerpt, for I urge you strongly to read Junod's whole essay. Here is Junod on the moral imperative of the war launched on Sept. 11, 2001:

We were attacked three years ago, without warning or predicate event. The attack was not a gesture of heroic resistance nor the offshoot of some bright utopian resolve, but the very flower of a movement that delights in the potential for martyrdom expressed in the squalls of the newly born. It is a movement that is about death—that honors death, that loves death, that fetishizes death, that worships death, that seeks to accomplish death wherever it can, on a scale both intimate and global—and if it does not warrant the expenditure of what the self-important have taken to calling "blood and treasure," then what does? Slavery? Fascism? Genocide? Let's not flatter ourselves: If we do not find it within ourselves to identify the terrorism inspired by radical Islam as an unequivocal evil—and to pronounce ourselves morally superior to it—then we have lost the ability to identify any evil at all, and our democracy is not only diminished, it dissolves into the meaninglessness of privilege.

Read the whole thing, really.

by Donald Sensing, 7/30/2004 07:00:00 PM. Permalink |

An Abe Lincoln thought experiment
One of the most important speeches in American history was Abraham Lincoln's 1858 speech in Springfield, Ill., in which he proclaimed, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Today in Springfield, Mo., President Bush launched his campaign counteroffensive. Gerard Van der Leun posted a thought experiment on how Honest Abe might have given the speech were he giving it today in a race for the White House.

It's a zinger. RTWT.

(The "house divided" declaration, btw, was first said by Jesus of Nazareth in reply to some opponents who accused him of being an ally of Satan. Pointing out that he had banished demons, Jesus said the phrase to show the self-contradiction of opponents' accusations.)

by Donald Sensing, 7/30/2004 06:19:00 PM. Permalink |

Kerry on pre-emption: Yes, No, Maybe
Bill Hobbs, among others, has chastised John Kerry for these lines in his speech last night.

I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.

Bill quotes Hugh Hewitt and Charles Johnson as saying that the Kerry Doctrine is that Kerry will wait for America to be struck before dealing with the striker. In a time when our terrorist enemies openly say they seek atomic weapons, says Hugh, the position amounts to this: "Wait to get slammed again, perhaps with tens of thousands dead this time."

As they say on As-Seen-On-TV ads, "But wait! There's more!" Kerry also said,

As President, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: "I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values from a threat that was real and imminent." So lesson one, this is the only justification for going to war.

Here Kerry is saying (I think, but who knows?) that he will wage war pre-emptively: "to protect the American people ... from a threat that was real and imminent" (itals added), that is, not an immediately present threat. Furthermore, pre-emption of an imminent threat is a "justification for going to war," although it's the only justification.

So just what is Kerry's basic defense doctrine? Apparently it is that Kerry will make war upon those who actually attack us, as would any president, and against those who threaten us, but only if the threat is imminent.

Yet I want the candidate to answer this point:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.

Kerry took pride last night in his ability to comprehend complexity ("nuance," as the commentati have put it):

Now I know there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities - and I do - because some issues just aren't all that simple.

But I can't see where Kerry understands the complexities of defense policy. Why did he verbally bifurcate his apparent doctrine of response to attack and pre-emption of imminent threat? They are heads and tails of the same coin, joined at the self-defense hip, but Kerry seems not to have made the connection.

Let's move from generalities, though, to specificities. Say, Iraq. I think George Miller got it right:

Kerry was unable to actually articulate what the "job" in Iraq is. He wants to talk about strategy while leaving the objectives nice and fuzzy.

And just what was Kerry's deep complexity on Iraq? Nothing except that he will do a better job than Bush, with not one detail how he'll do so except a promise to involve other nations. (Apparently the 19 nations standing with us in Iraq today don't count.)

And what about this line, the only line that addressed the subject:

We need to lead a global effort against nuclear proliferation - to keep the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the most dangerous hands in the world.

That's it. No mention of Iran or North Korea. No hint of what he will do that Bush is not doing, what he would urge the International Atomic Energy Agency to do that it is not doing, certainly no syllable that Libya abandoned its atomic-weapons programs because of the Bush administration's actions, not a scintilla of revelation of how he will lower the nuclear tension between Pakistan and India. Nope, none of that. Just, "We need a global effort," as if the globe has been asleep at the switch since 1945.

So after hearing the keynote address of his entire campaign past or future, I don't know what John Kerry's defense doctrine or guiding philosophy are other than proclaiming every other breath, "I served in Vietnam!" Nothing Kerry said last night or any other time has enlightened me further than that.

Update: Matthew May pointedly observes,

Specifics are necessary. How would President Kerry respond to a major domestic attack? What of the growing threat in Iran? When do we go to war and when do we not? How will he reform the crisis among the intelligence agencies? How will he get the troops home from Iraq? Nobody knows what Kerry would do. "I have a plan," and "Go to johnkerry.com" is not enough. He asks us to judge him on his record, but he has been on every side of every issue.

In the end, Kerry demonstrated again that he does not realize, or cannot properly convey, that he fully realizes the severity of the situation facing the United States. ...

Yes, it's not whether Kerry can grasp complexity that really counts. It's whether he can understand the relative importance of matters that land in the Oval Office inbox. So far, I am not heartened.

Update: Bill Hobbs, via email:

Kerry's version of pre-emption is not very comforting. Basically, Iran has to have the nuclear missiles on the launch pad, being fueled, before he'll take military action.

It all depends what "imminent" means, doesn't it?

Also, Lawrence Kaplan, senior editor of The New Republic rips the speech pretty harshly for its illiberal militarism and bland generalities.

Update: Wretchard at Belmont Club springboards from these thoughts into other worthy ones to ponder, taking a look at what seems to be, but really isn't, the key question: what might in Kerry's mind make a threat actually imminent, and thus worthy of pre-emption? Wretchard is pessimistic that "imminence" has any real meaning for Kerry at all and says that "the real question" is "whether he is at minimum someone who will retaliate after a first strike."

by Donald Sensing, 7/30/2004 03:19:00 PM. Permalink |

Did anyone like Kerry's speech?
The Washington Post was underwhelmed by John Kerry's speech at the DNC last night. The New York Times hardly did handsprings, either; it's editorial today is certainly no hearty "well done" piece.

Are you aware of any media outlet that gushed praise for the speech? I haven't seen one yet. Leave a comment with the link if you know of one.

IIRC, Harold Ickes, formerly of the Clinton White House, said earlier this week that Kerry would have to "know one out of the park" with his acceptance speech. Judging from the media reaction this morning, it seems he got a slide-in double at best.

Then again, it could be the cabal of the right-wing major media are simply conspiring to keep Kerry down. At least that's what Paul Krugman thinks.

by Donald Sensing, 7/30/2004 02:46:00 PM. Permalink |

Why Berger's breach matters
Trent Telenko paints some of the grim possible outcomes that may come about from the grievous security breaches of former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger. Not an optimistic read, I'm afraid, but it's far from clear that DOJ or the Congress is taking this case nearly as seriously as they should.

by Donald Sensing, 7/30/2004 02:38:00 PM. Permalink |

"Worst of the web"
While OpinionJournal.com labors away daily identifying the Best of the Web Today, Tasty Manatees goes to the other end and offers candidates for the worst. I think its nomination for "Disturbingness" is indeed disturbing.

by Donald Sensing, 7/30/2004 10:58:00 AM. Permalink |

Kerry's speech
A bit of trivia. I took the "as prepared" text of John Kerry's speech that Drudge posted last night and pasted it into WordPerfect. According to the document details feature, Kerry's speech was 5,157 words, consisting of 318 sentences. The average sentence length was 16 words, the longest sentence was a whopping 112 words. There were 111 paragraphs and with one-inch margins all around the text consumes 11 pages of single-spaced text with one blank line between paragraphs.

I thought Kerry's delivery was the best I have heard him give. That means either I'm in a distinct minority, judging from commentary around the internet this morning, or Kerry's previous rhetorical performances have been pretty dismal. I incline it's more toward the latter than the former. Kerry was much more energetic than I've seen previously. He'd obviously rehearsed it well, rarely straying from the prepared text except for the "reporting for duty" ad-lib at the very front. Having the standard dual teleprompters helped, of course. (Wish I had them at my pulpit!)

Thomas Oliphant of the Boston Globe panned the delivery, though:

Desperate to stay within the broadcast networks' paltry 60 minutes, Kerry stepped on his best thoughts and lines and blurred important proposals and distinctions, committing the sin of interfering with his own ability to communicate with an electorate eager to learn much more about President Bush's opponent.

At a Democratic convention planned to showcase a candidate and his basic approach to two huge situations -- a bogged-down military adventure in Iraq and a fragile economy -- Kerry obscured his presentation in a blizzard of hard-to-follow verbiage dictated by the clock.

As for content, I guess if you were already for Kerry, you loved the speech. If not, you didn't. If you fall into the fought-over "undecided" group, I'm guessing you probably weren't swayed. The reason I say that is because I was wondering most of the way through the speech whether Kerry was mostly reassuring the party faithful or reaching out to the undecided or even the weak Bush leaners.

I guess I agree with T. Bevan: "John Kerry didn't hurt his chances of becoming president last night. Problem is, I don't think he helped them very much either."

But wow! Did you know that John Kerry served in Vietnam?!?!

Update: Geitner Simmons gives the speech a mixed review, saying on the one hand, "It was a major plus for him and the Democrats," but on the other, "Much of the speech was boilerplate, the reciting of ancient platitudes." He has a lot more analysis and as I have enphasized before, is always worth reading.

by Donald Sensing, 7/30/2004 08:49:00 AM. Permalink |

Will Kerry say these words?
Justin at Rightside Redux says these lines of the released text of Kerry's "as prepared" remarks made him cringe.

by Donald Sensing, 7/29/2004 09:01:00 PM. Permalink |

Edwards' absent governor
I have just learned from the North Carolina side of my family that North Carolina's Democrat governor, Mike Easley, has not attended the Democratic National Convention, saying he had "other things to do."

by Donald Sensing, 7/29/2004 08:22:00 PM. Permalink |

"The First Reformed Church of Journalism"
Jeff Jarvis has evidence and observations about the deeply-seated concern oldline journalists have about blogs. J. Prof. Thomas L. McPhail of the University of Missouri-St. Louis calls the bloggers covering the DNC "pretend journalists." He assails them for having no accountability.

Well, sorry Prof, but you need to read this.

by Donald Sensing, 7/29/2004 08:09:00 PM. Permalink |

Statistical dead heat
Before John Kerry gives his speech tonight, I invite you to peruse over to Election Projection blog and examine the numbers. As best as I can tell, the polling numbers are statistically a dead heat.

Gallup reports that

An analysis of Gallup Polls from the last 10 elections suggests that presidential candidates enjoy an increase in support, or a “bounce,” of between five and seven points after their party’s convention. Everything else being equal, John Kerry can be expected to gain in the horse-race polls after this month’s Democratic convention, and George W. Bush can be expected to regain positioning after the Republican convention in late August and early September. The interpretation of the success of each party’s convention will thus be largely based on the size of the bounce -- not in absolute terms, but compared to expectations.

Post-convention expectations are low for both candidates' bounces.

John Kerry will get a boost after the Democratic Party's convention in Boston next week and President Bush will gain some momentum in the polls after the GOP's pre-Labor Day convention. Both parties will try to play down expectations so as to exceed them. ...

... Several pollsters say that Bush and Kerry are unlikely to see significant gains because few undecided voters are out there.

"In this closely divided electorate, it is probably unrealistic to expect Bush or Kerry to get much of a bounce," said American Enterprise Institute polling expert Karlyn Bowman.

So the cosmic wisdom of Yogi Berra seems apt about this: "It ain't over 'til it's over."

by Donald Sensing, 7/29/2004 07:59:00 PM. Permalink |

Arab terrorist or beautiful woman?



No further comment.

by Donald Sensing, 7/29/2004 07:55:00 PM. Permalink |

A Marine moment
The dress hat (the kind the Army used to call saucer caps, the round flat kind) of US Marine officers is decorated on top with a gold insignia called a quatrefoil. It is a sort of stylized Greek cross and "first appeared on the top of officers' caps in 1859 having been copied from French uniform embellishments then in vogue."

Marine lore has it that Marine officers placed the insignia atop their hats so that Marine sharpshooters in the riggings (it was the age of sail) would not accidentally target their own officers in the smoke and confusion of battle.

There is an old story about a civilian lady who asked a grizzled Marine gunnery sergeant whether the US Navy officers on decks also sported distinctive insignia to avoid inadvertent targeting.

"Who cared?" snapped the gunny.

Braden Files, whence this story, has some more such stuff.

by Donald Sensing, 7/29/2004 07:39:00 PM. Permalink |

Edwards on going it alone
John Edwards said at the DNC tonight that members of America's armed forces will know that under a Kerry administration they will never have to "fight the war on terror alone." The fact that we are not alone in Iraq or Afghanistan seems unknown to him.

The contributions of individual NATO Allies as well as the support of the NATO Alliance as a whole has been vital to the ability of the Multinational Force to carry out its mission in Iraq.

NATO Allies. In addition to the large U.S. contributions in Iraq, 15 of the other 25 NATO Allies contribute more than 17,000 troops to Iraq stabilization operations.

— The United Kingdom and Poland command multinational divisions in the Southeast and Central-South regions of Iraq, respectively.

— Forces from NATO Allies make up almost the entire U.K.-led division, including the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Romania.

— The Polish-led division includes national forces from such NATO Allies as Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Slovakia, as well as NATO Partners Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Estonia has forces in Baghdad and Al-Nasiriyah.

— The numerous contributions from individual NATO Allies range from brigade headquarters and multiple battalions to engineering companies and cargo handlers. ...

Future Roles. Alliance leaders agreed today to offer NATO's assistance to the Government of Iraq with the training of its security forces, in response to a request from the Iraqi Interim Prime Minister. They therefore also encouraged Allied nations to contribute to the training of Iraqi armed forces.

Alone? There are 19 other nations listed as participating in Iraq operations: The United Kingdom, Poland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Estonia. Yesterday Russia promised to help stability operations in Iraq with economic and materiel assistance that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "will be no less than the the contributions of the participants in the multinational forces."

Who is missing? Oh, yeah. The French. Without them all is lost because we're going it alone.

Kerry has long promised to have the best possible relations with European allies. So why does he never acknowledge the contributions all the above-named nations have made? Seems a curious way to start a revolution in diplomatic affairs.

by Donald Sensing, 7/28/2004 09:51:00 PM. Permalink |

More suppression of speech
This time in Britain.

A distinguished writer and academic has accused leading publishers of turning down his latest book because it is too critical of Islam.

David Selbourne, who has written more than a dozen books, and his literary agent suspect that publishers are shunning The Losing Battle With Islam because it could provoke anger from Islamic extremists and other critics.

The author remarked,

"The reaction of the publishers is unprecedented. The subject is very contentious. I think there are some people who have fixed views which don't permit them to look at the matter dispassionately.

"It is controversial because it is a record - written without fear or favour - of what has actually happened during the Islamic revival. My book has been turned down because there is hesitation about looking at these matters, especially in Britain."

But not just in Britain, I'm afraid.

by Donald Sensing, 7/28/2004 06:04:00 PM. Permalink |

Saddam has had a stroke
According to cable news reports, Saddam Hussein's lawyers have announced that he has had a stroke and may not live to see trial. Developing, as they say.

by Donald Sensing, 7/28/2004 06:01:00 PM. Permalink |

Lying about Iraq
We expect Michael Moore to lie about Bush, but is prevarication a virus infecting all Bush's opposition?

I listened on the radio this morning to an interview with Lee Walloski (I don't guarantee my spelling) a former NSA official under both Bush the elder and Bill Clinton. He served as director of transnational threats and now advises John Kerry.

Lee said that America's invasion of Afghanistan was the correct thing to do. He said that going after al Qaeda was the first priority, and he complimented President Bush's leadership in that operation. But, he said, Bush got seriously "off track" when he sent American forces into Iraq. (He said he supported the Iraq invasion at first. However, he didn't say, "I supported the invasion of Iraq before I didn't support it.")

Lee repeated the two falsehoods that Bush's critics seem to think will magically become true if they just keep chanting them:

1) The only reason the US invaded Iraq was because of its WMD programs, and

2) Bush emphasized Iraq was an "imminent threat" to American security.

In fact, Iraq did have active WMD programs, which even the UN's special commission, UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission), confirmed this summer.

The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as [forbidden] medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war.

The Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed this summer as well that Iraq was seeking to acquire "yellowcake," uranium ore, from Africa, just as British intelligence had claimed all along, and President Bush used 16 words to declare in his 2002 State of the Union speech. Since the end of the invasion, chemical-filled munitions have been found and one chemical artillery shell was used as a roadside bomb against American troops.

Iraq, of course, used massive quantities of chemical weapons against the Kurds in the 1980s, killing thousands. Following 1991's Gulf War, the UNSC resolved - repetitively - that Iraq must divest itself of existing stockpiles of unconventional weapons (meaning nuclear, chemical or biological weapons), certain kinds of long-range attack weapons such as missiles with a range longer than (from memory:) 100 kilometers, and cease development programs thereof. Furthermore, the burden of proof for compliance with these resolutions rested on Saddam's government. The weapons and weapons programs' materiel had to be destroyed by the United Nations inspection teams or Iraq had conclusively to document its own destruction of its WMDs and WMD programs.

Significant progress was made over the ensuing years, but increasing and finally total resistance and evasion of the requirements finally led the UN to withdraw its inspection teams in late 1998. That December, citing grave danger from Iraqi WMDs and WMD programs, President Bill Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, an intensive bombardment of Iraq that lasted four days. The UK participated also. Clinton did not seek authorization from Congress to conduct this brief war; he said that the 1991 Gulf War resolution was still in effect and inherently authorized whatever military actions he ordered against Iraq.

Over the next four years every Western intelligence service and many others (i.e., Russia) and the UN itself concluded that Saddam had restarted WMD programs and was making significant progress in several areas. The UNSC passed Resolution 1441 in December 2002 that gave Saddam an ultimatum: admit the UN inspection teams for unfettered activity or face "serious consequences;" the resolution authorized member states to enforce its terms. All diplomats understood this resolution was diplo-speak for threat of war.

That Iraq possessed actual nuclear, chemical or biological weapons by early 2003 was hardly doubted by any Western nation. Since the invasion the existence of forbidden weapons and weapons programs has been conclusively proven, although except for some chemical shells no actual weapons have been found.

However, that Iraq had active WMD programs, forbidden by the UN, has been decisively proven, as I related above. So I would like to ask Mr. Walloski and others scoffing at the WMD-related rationale for the invasion to say whether they think President Clinton was right or wrong in December 1998:

We began with this basic proposition: Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to develop nuclear arms, poison gas, biological weapons, or the means to deliver them. He has used such weapons before against soldiers and civilians, including his own people. We have no doubt that if left unchecked he would do so again.

Saddam must not be prepared to defy the will -- be permitted -- excuse me -- to defy the will of the international community. . . . So long as Saddam remains in power he will remain a threat to his people, his region and the world. . . .

Why, if this claim was right and just in 1998, was it less so in 2003? Why, if Clinton was right and just to attack Iraq in 1998 - and not resolve the issue!- was Bush wrong to attack in 2003 and conclusively resolve the issue?

Now let's turn our attention to the "imminent threat" canard. The president's opposition, Mr. Walloski being the latest example, continues to claim that Bush said Iraq posed an "imminent threat" to the security of the United States.

But Bush said no such thing. I quoted Kerry supporter Andrew Sullivan last October:

The administration claimed that Saddam had used WMDs in the past, had hidden materials from the United Nations, was hiding a continued program for weapons of mass destruction, and that we should act before the threat was imminent. The argument was that it was impossible to restrain Saddam Hussein unless he were removed from power and disarmed. The war was legally based on the premise that Saddam had clearly violated U.N. resolutions, was in open breach of such resolutions and was continuing to conceal his programs with the intent of restarting them in earnest once sanctions were lifted. Having read the report carefully, I'd say that the administration is vindicated in every single respect of that argument. This war wasn't just moral; it wasn't just prudent; it was justified on the very terms the administration laid out.

Here are some pertinent facts laid out by John Hawkins, for which I am providing the original citations and other commentary. Bush explicitly addressed the Iraqi threat in his State of the Union Speech in January 2002:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

There was no claim of an "imminent threat" there, but instead an explicit continuation of Bill Clinton's existing policy , that the threat posed by Saddam's weapons programs must not be allowed to become imminent.

Furthermore, the potential WMD threat was only one point of the casus belli laid out by Bush before the invasion. On Sept. 12, 2002, President Bush addressed the United Nations General Assembly. In this speech, Bush concisely explained the case against Iraq:

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles, and all related material.

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans, and others, again as required by Security Council resolutions.

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait, and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues, as required by Security Council resolutions.

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program, to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

Finally, consider the words of this prominent American political figure in 2002:

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

Who said that? Hillary Clinton, Oct. 10, 2002, who said in the same speech on the Senate floor that if the UNSC passed a "strong resolution" requiring Iraq's compliance, then,

I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 UN resolution, as President [Bill] Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998.

What this means is that that her position was that no further Congressional authorization was needed for President Bush to force Iraq's compliance by military power.

A final point: Mr. Walloski said in the interview that the world is better of without Saddam in power and that the liberation of Iraq was a good thing. Yet now he calls the liberation and Saddam's removal a mistake. I can't explain the cognitive dissonance found in these kinds of statements, especially when they are coupled with claims that freeing the Iraqi people was sort of beside the point of the war (it was either all about Dubya-Emmm-Deees or the ooooiiiiiiiiiiiilllllll). Somehow, this explicit statement by Bush to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 12, 2002 has escaped their attention:

Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq. ...

If we fail to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq will continue to live in brutal submission . The regime will have new power to bully and dominate and conquer its neighbors, condemning the Middle East to more years of bloodshed and fear. The regime will remain unstable -- the region will remain unstable, with little hope of freedom, and isolated from the progress of our times. With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September the 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors. [italics added]

Twice in as many paragraphs the president emphasized the liberation of the Iraqi people as both a moral and strategic imperative of the United States, yet his critics now claim this goal was retrojected onto the campaign after the occupation seemingly turned sour and after stockpiles of WMDs were not located.

Yet it is blindingly obvious that as early as this speech's date, Bush was not claiming at all that Iraq had a storehouse of WMDs; note well his language: "With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons... ."

An objective consideration of the facts shows that the administration never claimed that Iraq posed an imminent threat because of its WMDS or WMD programs, and that in fact the president pretty clearly indicated the threat was not imminent. But he also was clear, as were previously both President and Senator Clinton, that Saddam WMD programs must not be allowed to come to fruition.

by Donald Sensing, 7/28/2004 03:14:00 PM. Permalink |

"The Marine view of life . . ."
In honor of the end of my son's first day at Parris Island, I urge you to read Fred Reed's piece on his time assigned to a philosophy battalion there.

I spent a summer there long ago, in a philosophy battalion. All battalions at PI are philosophy battalions. The chief philosopher was named Sergeant Cobb, and he was rough as one. His philosophy was that at oh-dark-thirty we should leap up like spring-loaded jackrabbits when he threw the lid of a GI can down the squad bay. Then, he figured we should spend the day at a dead run, except when we were learning such socially useful behavior as shooting someone at five hundred yards. He didn't care whether we wanted to do these things. He didn't care whether we could do them. We were going to do them. And we did. The drill instructors had a sideline in therapy. They did attitude adjustment. If the urge to whine overcame any of us, Sergeant Cobb took his attitude tool -- it was a size-twelve boot on the end of his right leg -- and made the necessary adjustments. It was wonderful therapy. It put us in touch with our feelings. We felt like not whining any more. I kid about it, but it really was philosophy. We learned that there are things you have to do. We learned that we could generally do them. We also learned, if we didn't already know, that whimpering is humiliating.

There's more, so RTWT. BTW, my BA degree is in philosophy. No, really, I mean it.

by Donald Sensing, 7/27/2004 10:26:00 PM. Permalink |

Driving through Escher mazes
An Audi does it. Pretty clever! HT: Braden Files

by Donald Sensing, 7/27/2004 10:17:00 PM. Permalink |

Hometown bloggers
Bill Hobbs works in Nashville but lives in Franklin, Tenn., as do I. Now I find a third Franklin blogger is on the scene since April, Franklin Skyline, by attorney J. Todd Moore.

by Donald Sensing, 7/27/2004 10:03:00 PM. Permalink |

Islamic law in Canada
In examining whether British Prime Minister Tony Blair lied about WMDs in Iraq London blogger George Miller mentions that Islamic (sharia) law has taken effect in Canada for civil matters.

He's right. Al Jazeera reported last winter:

Canada's Islamic Institute of Civil Justice plans to begin arbitrating family and business disputes early next year using Muslim personal law in Ontario.

The plan is for sharia law to be used across the entire country eventually. Wrote the Globe and Mail month before last:

Sharia law in Canada? Yes. The province of Ontario has authorized the use of sharia law in civil arbitrations, if both parties consent. The arbitrations will deal with such matters as property, marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance. The arbitrators can be imams, Muslim elders or lawyers. In theory, their decisions aren't supposed to conflict with Canadian civil law. But because there is no third-party oversight, and no duty to report decisions, no outsider will ever know if they do. These decisions can be appealed to the regular courts. But for Muslim women, the pressures to abide by the precepts of sharia are overwhelming. To reject sharia is, quite simply, to be a bad Muslim.

But - alert, here is an potentially offensive question - does being a "good Muslim" who obeys sharia law make you a good person? I'd say the evidence is muddled at best. With impressive understatement, the G&M; observes, "The one common denominator is that it is strongly patriarchal" wherever sharia is practiced in the world.

The G&M; also reports in the same story of a well-educated, Canadian Muslim woman who decided to keep $50 of her own salary rather than give it all to her skinflint husband.

They took the matter to an uncle, who decreed that because the wife had not been obedient, her husband could stop sleeping with her. (This is a traditional penalty for disobedient wives.) He could also acquire a temporary wife to take care of his sexual needs, which he proceeded to do. Now the woman wants a separation. She's fighting for custody of the children, which, according to sharia, belong to the father.

Does it occur to anyone else how sex-obessessed Muslim men tend to be? Al Qaeda and Palestinian terrorists promise male martyrs they will spend eternity with 72 ever-virginal houris, a sharia court rules a man can have a sex wife (temporarily, understand).

The institution of sharia rulings in Canadian justice is based on a 1991 law that enabled diversion of certain kinds of civil cases to nonjudicial, but legally binding, arbitration, including religious-based arbitration. "Jewish courts," says the G&M;, "have operated in the province this way for many years."

Not all Canadian Muslim women are thrilled about sharia, though. One Muslim woman points out that sharia is not appropriate for Canadian justice and that such provisions were flatly rejected in Britain. Says another Muslim woman,

"I chose to come to Canada because of multiculturalism, but when I came here, I realized how much damage multiculturalism is doing to women. I'm against it strongly now. It has become a barrier to women's rights."

Take heed, multiculturalism advocates!

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women has spoken against implementation:

We are concerned that, in deference to their religious beliefs, some Canadian Muslim women may be persuaded to use the Muslim family law/Sharia option, rather than seeking protection under the law of the land. The argument is that to be a good Muslim one must live under Muslim family law, and that this is an issue of religious freedom or human rights. Although none of these statements is accurate, they may sound convincing to some.

We share the anxieties of being new immigrants and a minority, but fear that these can drive Canadian Muslims to construct an identity which incorporates all sorts of elements, including living under Muslim law, so as to demarcate what it is to be Muslim. But not all of these elements are essential to living in Canada as practising Muslims.

Wikipedia has a basic introduction to sharia.

FrontPageMagazine.com raised some cogent concerns last May, chielfly (and IMO logically) that allowing purely religious law to supplant secular law, however limitedly, is a nose under the camel's tent. How long before settling criminal matters are demanded by Muslim activists? Good question.

Update: Canadian reader Scott W. emails some details:

1) This is being done in Ontario, not nationally.

2) It is not the implementation of Sharia law, it is the accreditation of Sharia-based mediation services. A substantial difference, I'm sure you will agree.

3) This is part of a comprehensive effort to provide alternatives to to litigation, and includes other services tied to specific religious groups (Christian, Jewish) as well as non-faith-based mediation services.

4) As with all alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, it does require that both parties agree to use the service in lieu of the civil courts.

All in all, it looks like a pretty reasonable policy to me.

To which I respond, first, thanks for writing, and second, point by point --

1.) The numerous news articles I have found say that Ontario is the pilot program and the intention is implment it nationally. I stand by my assertion thereof.

2.) I do not agree there is a "substantial difference" between authorizing sharia-based mediation services and implementing sharia law for matters cognizable by the mediation. The Muslim activists impelling this development are clear that their idea of sharia is what will hold sway, not what non-Muslims think sharia is.

3.) This may be true but it is also irrelevant. Jewish and Christian mediation services spring from traditions that have always been woven woof and warf into the culture and Canadian law itself. Sharia is not. It is literally alien to all systems of law derived from English jurisprudence, like Canada's.

4.) The idea that truly free consent to sharia mediation will always be given by all parties is simply ludicrous. Islam is a heavily authoritarian and patriarchal religion in which women and even adult children are bound by religious tradition to honor the male head of the household. Imams and husbands will almost certainly simply ignore a wife's non-consent and issue a ruling anyway.

That this "looks like a pretty reasonable policy" to Scott and other Canadians is exactly what is so troublesome about it. They apparently think that Western habits of compromise and individual right and self-assertion just magically transfer over to sharia-bound Muslims. But there is no Arabic word for "compromise."

by Donald Sensing, 7/27/2004 09:09:00 PM. Permalink |

Just wondering
Drudge reports (no further link yet):

NETWORKS IN RATINGS FREEFALL AT CONVENTION, OPENING NIGHT ALL-TIME LOW: ABCNEWS JENNINGS WITH 3.5 RATING/5 SHARE [DOWN FROM 4.5/8 IN 2000]; NBCNEWS BROKAW 3.3/5 [2000:4.8/9]; CBS DAN RATHER 3.2/5 [2000:3.8/7... TRAIL ALL OTHER PRIME-TIME MONDAY PROGRAMMING [CSI:MIAMI RERUN ON CBS PULLS 8.6 RATING/13 SHARE]... DEVELOPING...

And ABC News reported on the Convention's opening day,

The critical convention season begins with John Kerry losing momentum at just the hour he'd like to be gaining it: President Bush has clawed back on issues and attributes alike, reclaiming significant ground that Kerry had taken a month ago.

I wonder whether these two items are related somehow. Just wondering, you know.

Update: The previous blurb has disappeared from Drudge, but now there is a link to this story, which quotes Dan Rather:

"We’re very close now to putting on conventions only for people whose life’s work is politics," Mr. Rather said. "And the audience has spoken by saying, 'This doesn’t have anything to do with my life. I’ve got better things to do.'."

Rather also asks, "The real question is whether this is among the last conventions. That’s what’s important." Umm, why?

by Donald Sensing, 7/27/2004 03:07:00 PM. Permalink |

A liberal Catch-22
Some immigration lawyers are suing to have federal courts declare an unborn child conceived, but not born, inside the United States a person and a US citizen.

But for a federal court to declare a fetus to be a person would pretty much destroy the entire pro-abortion case.

Both pro-immigrant and pro-abortion issues are solidly in the liberal camp. "So many causes, so many nuanced shades of truth and morality. What to do?"

by Donald Sensing, 7/27/2004 02:33:00 PM. Permalink |

Convention blogging
I have not seen one minute of TV coverage of the Democratic National Convention, and Lord willing will have a similar viewing experience for the Republican one. A political junkie I am not, preferring to focus more on religious issues, foreign policy and military affairs (and all three intertwine).

But I suppose I'll tune in some tonight and the duty of a citizen will impel me to watch at least Kerry's speech on closing night.

In the meantime, Geitner Simmons (who on-site covered both 1988 conventions in 1988) has some brief observations about last night's events.

And read Geitner's post about how "creative destruction" underlies economic health and prosperity, and why avoiding creative destruction has sent Old Europe's economies into free fall.

by Donald Sensing, 7/27/2004 01:49:00 PM. Permalink |

New US Marine
My eldest son, Stephen, took the oath of enlistment into the US Marine Corps this morning. His grandfather, Col (ret.) George Stephens, USAR, administered the oath. My son is en route now to Parris Island,SC, for 13 weeks of boot camp.

Semper Fi!

Update, July 27: There were eight recruits to ship to PI from Nashville. They went by contracted van. The driver stopped at a gas station five miles from PI and everyone got a chance to call home. We thus heard from Stephen last night at 10:20 CST.

He'll have inprocessing of one kind or another through Monday. The first day listed as a training day on the boot camp training schedule is Aug. 3.

BTW, a civilian work year consists of about 2,000 - 2,100 hours on the job, including paid vacation hours (22 days per month average times 8 hours per day).

The training at USMC boot camp consists of 1,518 hours in only 12 training weeks. So in less than one-fourth of the days, the recruits are "on the job" just under three-fourths of the hours they would be with a normal, full-time job back on the block. And civilians get weekends off, recruits don't.

A little perspective: the apotheosis of USMC boot camp is a 54-hour exercise of war simulation called The Crucible. It features high-stress tasks, little sleep, cold chow and not much of it. Once recruits successfully complete it, they are awarded the Eagle, Globe and Anchor insignia; then for the first time they are addressed by the drill instructors as Marines, not recruits.

After reading about the Crucible and talking with active-duty Marines who completed it in their own training, I explained to my son that as challenging as it looks to him now, he will discover that its pace and difficulty will be routine for training with the fleet force, and those exercises will last weeks at a time, not a mere 54 hours.

And actual combat will make the Crucible look like a stroll in the park.

Case in point: close friends of ours have a Marine infantryman son with two years' service, now deployed to Afghanistan. His last letter home explained his unit spends a straight 60 days or so on foot, in the mountains, chasing Taliban and al Qaeda. They come in for awhile to recuperate and refit, then head out again.

It's become a cliche to ask, "Where do we get such men?" Quite honestly, I just stand in awe of them, and I look back at the rigors of my own service and wonder how I did it, too. God bless them all, and see them safely home.

Update 2: South End Grounds posted about this experience with the voice of one who has been there. This part about the Crucible kind of got to me:

And in about 12 1/2 weeks he is going to embark on a 54 hour journey where he will walk 40 miles, run night infiltration courses, complete mentally and physically challenging warrior stations. He will fight his fellow recruits in small rings with pugil sticks. He'll do it all on about 5 hours of sleep and two small meals. Stephen, sweaty and beaten, will look across the bay and see vacationers on a nearby beach and yearn to join them. But he won't because he has a job to do. About 53.9 hours into that Crucible, at the end of a 10 mile force march with blisters screaming from his feet, an empty stomach and heavy eyes, he will turn a corner and see the Iwo Jima Monument and a band will begin to play. With all of the fear and weakness forever gone from his body, his heart will swell and his eyes will moisten. He'll drop his 70 pound pack, stand shoulder to shoulder with his brothers and the Depot Sergeant Major or another senior enlis