"Let's call the whole thing off"
Does the bin Laden tape signal an approaching end game? Bin Laden can't prevail against "the Chicago way."

This morning, reviewing the transcript of Osama bin Laden's videotape appearance this week brought to mind a scene from 1987's hit crime drama, The Untouchables:



Police Officer Jim Malone to Eliot Ness: "If Capone comes at you with a knife, you go after him with a gun. If he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone!"

I am wondering whether bin Laden has started to realize that since 9/11, America has been fighting al Qaeda the Chicago way. Consider the evolution of his rhetoric until yesterday.

In an interview with Osama bin Laden in 2002, conducted by Jamal Isma'il in Afghanistan and broadcast on Middle East television, 'Abd-al-Bari 'Atwan, editor in chief of the London-based Al-Quds al-'Arabi newspaper, the terrorist leader said,

We think that the United States is very much weaker than Russia. Based on the reports we received from our brothers who participated in jihad in Somalia, we learned that they saw the weakness, frailty, and cowardice of US troops. Only 80 US troops were killed. Nonetheless, they fled in the heart of darkness, frustrated, after they had caused great commotion about the new world order.

Isma'il added,

The first point in this strategy is that the US Administration or the US forces, which he considers occupation forces in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, are a prelude to a comprehensive Israeli-Jewish hegemony over the region with the aim of looting its wealth and humiliating its Muslim people. One senses this as the essence of his creed and strategy.

Therefore, he believes that expelling these US forces from the Arab world is a top priority.

In an interview between Al-Jazeera television correspondent Tayseer Alouni in October 2001, bin Laden said,

We believe that the defeat of America is possible, with the help of God, and is even easier for us, God permitting, than the defeat of the Soviet Union was before.

Q: How can you explain that?

Bin Laden: We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America -- the United States -- that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedin in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.

America left faster than anyone expected. It forgot all that tremendous media fanfare about the new world order, that it is the master of that order, and that it does whatever it wants. It forgot all of these propositions, gathered up its army, and withdrew in defeat, thanks be to God.

Note the contempt for America in his words, and the absolute confidence he radiates that he can defeat anything America throws at him. America has "no power worthy of mention."

Last year, about this time, al Qaeda threatened catastrophe upon America:

In regard to rumors about a large-scale attack against the U.S. during the month of Ramadan, [top al Qaeda commander Abu Salma] Al-Hijazi said that "a huge and very courageous strike" will take place and that the number of infidels expected to be killed in this attack, according to primary estimates, exceeds 100,000. He added that he "anticipates, but will not swear, that the attack will happen during Ramadan."

He further stated that the attack will be carried out in a way that will "amaze the world and turn Al Qaida into [an organization that] horrifies the world until the law of Allah is implemented, actually implemented, and not just in words, on His land... You wait and see that the balance of power between Al Qaida and its rivals will change, all of a sudden, Allah willing."

In February of last year, al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape by bin Laden in which he recounted of jihadists withstanding American bombardment in Afghanistan:

If all the world forces of evil could not achieve their goals on a one square mile of area against a small number of mujahideen with very limited capabilities, how can these evil forces triumph over the Muslim world?

This is impossible, God willing, if people adhere to their religion and insist on jihad for its sake.

Note the triumphalism in his rhetoric, especially that Allah is shepherding his cause. In the same tape the triumphalism continued as he threatened some Islamic countries:

The most qualified regions for liberation are Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the land of the two holy mosques [Saudi Arabia], and Yemen.

And he ended with more assurance that Allah will see him through:

God, who sent the book unto the prophet, who drives the clouds, and who defeated the enemy parties, defeat them and make us victorious over them.

Now compare these fighting words with what bin Laden said in this week's video release and hust as importantly, how he said it.

You American people, my speech to you is the best way to avoid another conflict about the war and its reasons and results. I am telling you security is an important pillar of human life. And free people don't let go of their security contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom. He should tell us why we didn't hit Sweden for instance. Its known that those who hate freedom don't have dignified souls like the nineteen who were blessed. But we fought you because we are free people, we don't sleep on our oppression. We want to regain the freedom of our Muslim nation as you spill our security, we spill your security. ...

Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your hands. Each state that doesn't mess with our security has automatically secured their security.

The Islamist triumphalism is absent. In fact, if Osama bin Laden could dance he might be imitating Fred Astaire: "Let's call the whole thing off!" Or maybe Greta Garbo, "I want to be let alone." What he was certainly saying boiled down to this: if you leave us alone now, we'll leave you alone. No matter how insincerely he means it, he did say it, and it can't be gaining him new recruits to jihad. Jihadis don't die to be let alone, but to defend Islam itself.

No longer does bin Laden call America the "weak horse." No more is he threatening to humiliate America and force its soldiers to flee homeward in fear and disgrace. Now he is practically doing a Monty Hall routine, asking, "Let's make a deal."

The words on the videotape are not the words of a man who thinks the light at the end of the tunnel is anything but the headlight of the proverbial oncoming train. This was the tape of a man who knows his tail is getting whipped from one end of the world to the other. He's now out of ideas and even out of new threats. The extensive quotes of the Quran as in tapes of yore seem AWOL now.

I think it's telling that al Jazeera only broadcast a very short excerpt of the whole tape and only summarized what it didn't broadcast. One US newscast said that al Jazeera explained its snip of a broadcast by saying that it didn't want inadvertently to broadcast secret codewords for terrorist attacks in the tape, a concern that seems never to have bothered the network before. Evidently al Jazeera is no longer awed by the great and mighty Osama bin Laden anymore; maybe it is even trying now to hedge its bets. Or maybe the arabist network was just too embarrassed by bin Laden's new humility to show it all.

If, as news reports indicate, US and Iraqi forces are going to clean up Falluja by the end of the year (or sooner), then al Qaeda's prospects must seem even worse to bin Laden than they appear to us. Despite the attention paid to the 1,000-plus American deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, the cruel calculus of war is overwhelmingly in our favor. As Jim Dunnigan wrote earlier this month,

Al Qaeda no longer exists. Al Qaeda means “the base” in Arabic. ...

Al Qaeda was always feared for the loose relationship the many small Islamic terrorist groups, spread all over the planet, had with each other. What made these many groups (mostly composed of eager amateurs) really dangerous was their access to professional terrorists via al Qaeda. The eager amateurs no longer have an easy to find base. In fact, since September 11, 2001, the police have been more successful at finding these terrorists, than the terrorists have been in finding the many bits of al Qaeda out there. The base is no longer the base.

Just as I wrote in September 2003 I would write again today, only more so:

The US is making progress against them on too many fronts - military, economic, ideological, logistical, political - for al Qaeda to count on the stability needed to plan for long-ranger operations. Bases, personnel, resources and government support needed to conduct effective attacks against high-value targets just can't be forecast very far ahead. They face a much higher uncertainty about who might have been "turned" by the US to work against them.

They have lost too much major talent either to death or capture. Their first team is pretty much off the field and the benchers trying to carry on aren't up to the job. They don't have the personal renown of the terrorists who have been killed or captured, and among the societies they most need assistance from, personal reputation is extremely important. But they are virtual unknowns for the most part.

Al Qaeda is still dangerous, but the danger of a spectacular attack by them is much lower than ever.

Syndicated columnist Austin Bay, who just returned from several months in Iraq, wrote about how we are winning in August 2003. To students of this war, it is no surprise that many of al Qaeda's claws have been pulled. I say as always, we must not let down our guard but neither should we relent in the attack to crush al Qaeda now once for all. I think that there is a good chance the new bin Laden tape shows the corner has been turned. President Bush said after 2001 that the war against al Qaeda would occupy several successive administrations after his. I myself wrote in Sept. 2001 that the task ahead would take decades. Now I am more confident than ever. The collapse of Islamist terrorism may well come very quickly, especially as an internationally-coordinated effort. Casual Islamist terrorist groups will still work death, as in Chechnya, but the days of central resourcing and coordination out of al Qaeda are pretty much done. And I would emphasize that the problems of Iran and North Korea must still be resolved, Syria too. But I think that regarding al Qaeda, the bin Laden tape signifies we are no longer at the end of the beginning, but the beginning of the end.

I am reminded of the old story of two schoolboys fighting. One pushes the other to the ground and starts to kick him. A teacher rushes over and yanks the kicker back, admonishing, "You shouldn't kick him when he's down!" The boy exclaims, "What do you think I got him down for?"

Al Qaeda is down. It's time to kick, kick hard, and keep on kicking until there is nothing left to kick.

by Donald Sensing, 10/30/2004 03:10:50 PM. Permalink |   

President Bush, Vice President Edwards?
Michael Barone explains how it is Constitutionally possible for Bush to be sworn in as president on Jan. 20, and Edwards to be sworn in as the veep.

Under the Constitution, if no candidate gets an absolute majority of the electors, the president is elected by the House, with each state's delegation getting one vote.

If the electoral vote is tied when all the returns are certified by the states (and assuming, of course, that the election isn't tied up in courts), then, says Barone, the new House elected on Nov. 2 will vote when the next Congress convenes on Jan. 3. He says the House is almost undoubtedly going to remain majority Republican. Ergo, its 50 votes will be cast to elect Bush.

But what about the vee-prez?

If the electoral vote is 269-269, the vice president is elected by the Senate that assembles on January 3. If Democrats have a majority, they will elect John Edwards.

Fascinating!

by Donald Sensing, 10/30/2004 01:13:15 PM. Permalink |   

Worth repeating
"The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them..." -- Mark Twain

by Donald Sensing, 10/29/2004 10:37:12 PM. Permalink |   

Bin Laden transcript
A transcript of al Jazeera's broadcast of part of Osama bin Laden's new videotape is here.

by Donald Sensing, 10/29/2004 09:57:55 PM. Permalink |   

Bin Laden mouths off
Frankly, I have a hard time getting very exercised about Osama bin Laden's new videotape. Like Mark Steyn, I have thought all along that OBL has been pushing up several million tons of Afghan mountain since Operation Anaconda in the spring of 2002. But if this tape is authentic, as indications seem to confirm, then it would seem OBL dodged the bullet, or bombs. MSNBC reports,

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Francona, a Middle East specialist and former military official at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, said the tape appeared to have been made very recently. He noted that bin Laden refers to Kerry and to the possibility of election problems next week in Florida.

I would imagine that the FBI and CIA are trying to discern whether there are cuts, edits or voiceovers laid atop the video. But let me for the nonce assume that the tape is truly authentic in every regard.

So what? It's a yawner.

Apparently an attempt to influence American voters, the tape is the best al Qaeda can do. A videotape is their pre-election surprise. Last March, just before the Spanish elections, al Qaeda killed 200 Spaniards and wounded thousands more. But for the far more important American elections, all al Q. can do is pimp a couple of videotapes (recall the so-called "Azzam the American" tape this week).

Please don't misunderstand. I am not claiming victory over al Qaeda has been won and I am not saying we should let down our guard. Al Qaeda is still dangerous - but everything of recent months (well, the last two years) I know about the situation affirms that they are dangerous outside, not inside, the territory of the United States.

It's true there are still significant weaknesses in domestic security, especially ports and American life-support infrastructure such as water supplies. But al Qaeda can't get to them because we've attacked it so hard overseas. And not just militarily. One reason President Bush has refrained from criticizing the French is because while Chirac's government is no ally in Iraq, it is an important ally in Francophone Africa, where French intelligence is very active and effective. Africa, you may recall, is the coming thing in al Qaeda's operational base.

I pray no more catastrophes befall an American city and pray likewise for a swift end to the war on terrorism. But the new OBL tape should encourage us that we are winning. Before 9/11, bin Laden acted, not blustered. Now bluster is about all he's got against America, though al Qaeda sadly still kills abroad.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" -- Wendell Phillips.

"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men"-- Edmund Burke

Update: Belmont Club says that this tape is "Osama Bin Laden's Surrender Proposal."

Captain's Quarters says that OBL "has been watching too many Michael Moore videos."

by Donald Sensing, 10/29/2004 05:26:04 PM. Permalink |   

Islam's adaptability
I mentioned before that I had argued against some proposals that the United States hold Mecca hostage as a deterrent to future terrorist attacks against US cities. James Bellinger sent me the link to his own post about it from last June, worth reading if the topic interests you.

by Donald Sensing, 10/29/2004 05:14:16 PM. Permalink |   

A heartfelt thanks
I hope that everyone who emailed good wishes and kind words about my son's graduation from USMC boot camp will see this post. We are all very grateful for your messages. There were so many that I just can't answer them individually, though I wish I could.

Today a member of my church took Stephen to lunch at O'Charley's. I accompanied. As we were waiting to be served a man I'd say still in his 20s (young guy, by my lights!) walked up and handed Stephen an O'Charley's gift certificate for $20. He explained that he had tried to join the service after 9/11, but his hearing disqualified him. Even so, he wanted to show support for those who were serving. It was a very kind, generous gesture.

by Donald Sensing, 10/29/2004 03:38:29 PM. Permalink |   

What would you do?
Robin Burk asks,

But what would you do when Ba'athists and jihadists ambushed your car, injuring your brother and trying to kill you, and when they later killed your 24 year old sister thinking she was you -- pumping 60 AK47 bullets into her body? Or when you received a letter saying, "We know we missed killing you, but we will be back" and then your home was blown up, injuring another brother and killing the Iraqi policeman guarding it?

If you were Iraqi Humalia Akrawy, 23,

you would help your remaining family members move to a safe area in the far north of the country and then return to your job. And this time, instead of insisting on a lower profile role, you would eagerly agree to become the translator for Lieutenant General Petraeus himself, the commander of the 101st - despite all the media exposure that entailed - and you would proudly do that job in the face of continued death threats against you.

This woman's story is breathtaking. Read the whole thing.

by Donald Sensing, 10/28/2004 07:54:00 PM. Permalink |   

Terrorist tape underwhelms
ABC News and other outlets, including FoxNews, have aired portions of the videotape in which an American member of al Qaeda, speaking in English, threatened destruction on America that would dwarf Sept. 11, 2001. ABC News reported,

A man describing himself as an American member of al Qaeda says a new wave of terror attacks against the United States could come "at any moment," according to a videotape obtained by ABC News.

FoxNews claimed to have obtained a copy of the tape independently from ABC.

I saw the excerpt that Fox broadcast, and it was a real snoozer. "Azzam the American," as the hooded figure called himself, might as well have been narrating a chess match. No fire and brimstone, no passion, no intensity. I've heard people order lunch at a McDonalds drive-thru with more energy.

While this tape may well have its source in al Qaeda, my opinion is that it was an audition tape or a practice tape. I think that if it was actually intended for release it would have been handed over to the usual Arab-media suspects such as al Jazeera, which has faithfully served as the repository of beheading videotapes. If Azzam's somnolent speech really had been intended for American audiences, surely it would have gone through the well-established channels.

More than ever, I am convinced that there is nothing behind this tape. At worst, it's an exercise of fantasy ideology, a sort of "Gee, wouldn't it be nice."

by Donald Sensing, 10/28/2004 07:31:15 PM. Permalink |   

Brit schools to teach atheism
Atheism will now be part of the religious-education curriculum in Britain.

by Donald Sensing, 10/28/2004 03:39:18 PM. Permalink |   

Entertainment news
Off the beaten track, here's some good news. Andrew Lloyd Webber's, The Phantom of the Opera, has been made into a movie. The IMDB page is here. Now, it's good news that the movie is being made only if it turns out to be a good movie. I hope so. POTA is my favorite work by Webber. I have seen the touring Broadway production twice.

The teaser, viewable online, says the release will be this Christmas. The movie's web site says Dec. 22 "in select cities," with wider release no doubt coming after the first of the year. Uusally a limited release at the end of a year means the producers think it's a strong contender for Oscars against that year's other releases. I'm speculating that the producers pushed the release date some to get it under the wire for release in Los Angeles, the only city that counts for Oscar purposes for a 2004 release.

You can catch up on a lot of movie news at, natch, The Movie Blog, where I also found the link to E! Online's list of the "101 Most Awesome Moments in Entertainment." Not restricted to movie entertainment, the list is sadly weighted toward recent moments. It inexplicably omits the release of the first "talkie" motion picture, for example. But it's fun to browse through nonetheless, although I'm not sure why Pretty Woman's shopping spree on Rodeo Drive ranked as the fifth most-awesome moment. It maybe should swap places with #97, Airplane's jive talking. . . .

by Donald Sensing, 10/28/2004 02:27:37 PM. Permalink |   

Terror tape authenticated
Drudge is now reporting that the al Qaeda-linked videotape that surfaced a few days ago has been authenticated by the FBI and the CIA. I posted yesterday why the threats are very likely empty.

by Donald Sensing, 10/28/2004 09:41:10 AM. Permalink |   

The dullest Series ever
The 2004 World Series just ended with the BoSox running the games 4-0. Boston fans are ecstatic, but this Series has to be the dullest I've ever seen.

by Donald Sensing, 10/27/2004 10:40:03 PM. Permalink |   

A short history of jihad
Jihad means "struggle" and has both martial and non-martial applications. It means to suppress one's own desires in order to follow the true path of righteousness revealed in the Quran. Jihad conceptually has both individual and communal aspects, always oriented toward the triumph of Islam, an orientation that forms the basis for military jihads. According to Farida Khanam, the arabic word, "jihad," by itself,

... does not connote the sense of reward or worship in the religious sense of the word. But when the word jihad became a part of Islamic terminology, the sense of reward or worship came to be associated with it, that is to say, if struggle is struggle in the simple sense of word, jihad means a struggle which is an act of worship, the engagement of which earns reward to the person concerned. As the Quran says: Strive for the cause of God as you ought to strive.(22:78)

Hence, for Muslims to wield weapons in a war in which Islam itself is defended is literally an act of worship. The Muslim jihadi has the right to expect reward proportionate to his sacrificial worship. In military jihad, the ultimate sacrifice is to die, which deserves the ultimate reward, immediate entry by the slain jihadi's soul into Paradise. This belief springs from the words of Mohammed himself, who during the battle of Badr told his soldiers,

"I swear by the One in whose hand Muhammad's soul is, any man who fights them today and is killed while he is patient in the ordeal and seeks the pleasure of Allah, going forward and not backing off, Allah will enter him into Paradise."

Hence, military jihad arose from Mohammed himself, although the word appears in the Quran only four times, none of them in a military context. (Qital is used to refer to combat and war.) The battle of Badr in the year 623 (some sources date it in 624) was pivotal in Mohammed's later successes. This battle was the first between Mohammed's followers and others, or as Muslims put it, between believers and non-believers. With only about three hundred foot soldiers, Mohammed defeated an army of several hundred Meccan infantry (some sources say one thousand) plus a hundred cavalry.

As battles go, the butcher's bill was not great. Of the thousand enemy troops, only seventy died, but twenty-four of them were key warlords. Muslims believe that there were crucial interventions by Allah at key moments, including a heavy rain upon the enemy the night before, making their movements difficult. Mohammed's side, though, was refreshed by only a light drizzle. Then, at a key moment in the battle, Mohammed threw a handful of sand toward the enemy, and though none were hit by it, they were blinded. At that, unable to fight, they were defeated.

The lessons of this battle are very obvious. An army outnumbered three to one was victorious because it was fighting in the path of Allah, because it stood firm to raise the banner of Allah and to defend Allah's religion, so Allah helped them. Anyone who stood on the same principle, the result would be the same.

After this battle, convinced that Allah would uphold him, Mohammed marched against Mecca in 628. However, he and the city's remaining leaders (Meccans had been the principal vanquished at Badr) negotiated a truce. Called the Treaty of Hudabiyah, after the town where it was finalized, Mohammed and the Meccans agreed to a ten-year truce. By 630, though, Mohammed had made other conquests and had recruited very large numbers of new troops. He decided to march against Mecca regardless of the truce, using as his excuse the deaths of several Muslim men in a tribal feud at the hands of some Meccans. So large and impressive was Mohammed's army that the Meccans surrendered without a fight. Again, this outcome was seen as ordained by Allah.

Contrary to typical Western belief, general military jihads are quite rare in Muslim history; one source cited only four since Mohammed's day. This is probably the main reason that the declaration of a general jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan had such great impact in 1980.

One of the problems with the concept of military jihad, though, is that Islam does not have a clear "chain of command" of clergy. Religious leadership of Islam was fractured immediately after Mohammed died. Sunni Islam, of which the great majority of Muslims are adherents, has no formal "ordination" or theological education requirements; mullahs are recognized by acclamation of a mosque's members based on their learning, wisdom and leadership. In theory, any Sunni Muslim can issue a fatwa , or religious decree, but unless the issuer already has significant religious standing, it will be meaningless.

Saudi clerics have a generally high standing across Islam because Saudi Arabia is the keeper of the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca (where all faithful Muslims are obligated to visit at least once) and Medina, Mohammed's home town. A fatwa from Saudi clerics, then, carries great weight.

One of the earliest issuers of a fatwa for jihad against the Soviets, though, was a Palestinian, not a Saudi. He was Abdullah Azzam. Azzam had fought with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1970s but became disillusioned with its secular outlook. Trained in Islamic law, he moved to Saudi Arabia and began teaching at a university. Osama bin Laden was one of his students. After the Soviet invasion, Azzam published a series of books and articles stating that every Muslim was duty-bound to fight the Soviets.

The Saudi royal family, ruling the country, embraced the fatwa probably less from religious fervor than as a means to enhance their Muslim credentials. Long criticized by other Muslim countries and their own people for pro-Western, secular politics and extravagant lifestyles, the royals saw the Afghan war as a means to deflect criticism. Self interest always guides foreign policies of nations, and Saudi Arabia's was no different. The Saudi royals were careful to instruct the country's clerics to issue a jihad against only the Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan, not against the whole Soviet Union.

Like Azzam, who seems to have originated the idea of an Afghan jihad, the Saudi clerics expected that once the infidel invaders were defeated and expelled from Afghanistan, the jihadis who answered the call would pack up and go home. However, said Saudi Islamist Saad al-Faqih, the war in Afghanistan dragged on for much longer than anyone expected and so "created a longer-term 'mentality of jihad' which some found hard to abandon."

One of the men who decided never to give up the jihad was Osama bin Laden, a Saudi man of privilege whose family had amassed an enormous fortune in construction contracts paid for by the luxury-loving Saudi royals.

by Donald Sensing, 10/27/2004 08:40:07 PM. Permalink |   

"Streets will run with blood" - I don't think so
James Joyner posts about the latest apparent threat from al Qaeda. Citing a story on Drudge:

In the last week before the election, ABCNEWS is holding on a videotaped message from a purported al Qaeda terrorist warning of a new attack on America, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The terrorist claims on tape the next attack will dwarf 9/11. "The streets will run with blood," and "America will mourn in silence" because they will be unable to count the number of the dead. Further claims: America has brought this on itself for electing George Bush who has made war on Islam by destroying the Taliban and making war on Al Qaeda.

I didn't see anything about this on ABC News' web site.The tape apparently features and American Muslim named Adam Pearlman, long thought by the FBI to possess deep-insider information about al Qaeda operations.

I will be the last to say that al Qaeda no longer has lethal designs for the attacks inside the United States. But and historical analysis of al Qaeda's threats reveals that it blusters "A" and then does "B". Back in early August, I listed a long series of unfulfilled threats that al Qaeda has made since the 9/11 attacks. My conclusion was that al Qaeda does not threaten attacks that are actually in the works. (Al Qaeda even promised in December 2003 to destroy New York City within 35 days)

Based on this record, I will assay that Pearlman's threat is also empty. Yes, I could be wrong, God forbid, but that's their record. As I wrote almost three months ago, Al Qaeda makes threats all the time, but threats of specific actions, such as nuke New York or poison US water supplies, don't get carried out. Very vague threats - a "bloody war" in Europe - are so vague that any bombing can be seen as fulfillment.

Al Qaeda seems to have two categories of threats:

1. "Hear us roar" threats that are mostly bluster designed to let us and their ideological allies know they are still fighting.

2. Misdirection threats of significant specificity designed to increase the fog of our counter-terrorism measures.

Actual targets - Khobar barracks, African embassies, USS Cole, the 9/11 targets, the Bali disco, Madrid trains - are not pre-threatened . They are simply attacked. So I'm not unduly alarmed by Pearlman's tape. It's what they aren't talking about that worries me.

Update: The WaPo points out that neither the FBI nor the CIA have authenticated the tape.

by Donald Sensing, 10/27/2004 07:56:51 PM. Permalink |   

Bloggers' heads explode
It's called Hyper-Cerebral Blogosis, and it's happening more often.

by Donald Sensing, 10/26/2004 07:05:58 PM. Permalink |   

NBC reporter tells of Iraqi ammo depot visit
Dana Lewis is an NBC News reporter who was embedded with the second brigade of the US Army's 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Dana accompanied the brigade to the massive ammunition depot from which the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, just told the New York Times approximately 380 tons of explosives are missing. The explosives had been under IAEA seals that were placed on the storage bunkers in January 2003.

Dana Lewis was interviewed late this afternoon by Brit Hume, an anchor for FoxNews. Below is the close-caption transcript of the interview, unedited except to capitalize proper nouns, which close-captioning often misses. Otherwise, the text is verbatim.

Tue Oct 26 17:22:32 2004 CDT

BRIT HUME: Dana, tell me what happened. This was the day after Baghdad had fallen. You were with the 101st. You were making your way up the spine of Iraq toward Baghdad. How did you come to stop there, and what happened?

DANA LEWIS: Well, Brit, I mean, you know, put it into context of what was going on at that moment. The fighting wasn't over. There was chaos everywhere on the roads, and we were with the 101st as it was pushing north to take the southern suburbs of Baghdad. And as we were driving up the road I can remember seeing this amazing wall that just seemed to go on forever. This thing was about 10 feet tall and it went on for at least a mile or two. I've never seen such a big compound in Iraq since I've been there for two years now. It was a tremendous compound. The 101st was ordered to go into the compound and spend the night there. They were not ordered to search that compound there. They simply used it as a pit stop so that they could then continue their mission on to Baghdad. In fact, I can tell you I was with the colonel of the strike
brigade, the second brigade, Colonel Joe Anderson. He was frustrated they had to spend the night there because they wanted to get on to Baghdad.

BH: So you got inside the facility. I suppose some members of the unit might have heard of the place. What did you see when you got in there?

DL: Sure, they may have had information on what may have been in there, because they generally had that kind of information. It was a tremendously large facility. You got in and saw all sorts of bunkers atomic agency and the weapons inspectors used to identify and to close off the bunkers where some of these explosives were believed to have been kept. Did you see any of those seals as you were walking through there?

DL: I had those seals described to me, and I can tell you that as we went from the bunkers, certainly there were wires and there were locks. But I don't recall ever seeing an iaea stamp on any of them. It doesn't mean that there weren't any of them.

BH: I got you. Now, in addition to -- you saw evidence of bombing, obviously, [garbled] was there any sign that this facility had been looted that you could see?

DL: I would say at that point, no, Brit. I mean, as we went north, you could certainly see looting in Baghdad. And I know what looting looks like. Hundreds of kids and hundreds of people everywhere. This facility was basically abandoned at that point. There were lots of Russian
tanks abandoned on the road around it. But it looked like it had been well guarded till the army got in there. But I don't know what happened between the point that the Iraqi army left that facility and then the U.S. Army came in there. There would have been a gap. And who knows what would have gone on in there? But when I was there, we didn't see any looting. And that's not to say there couldn't have been looting after we left, either.

BH: Describe if you can -- obviously, we're talking about a fairly large amount of explosives. The IAEA says it was 380 tons, that would be, we estimate, about 38 truckloads. That's quite a lot. Was the situation --

DL: A lot.

BH: Was the situation that you witnessed around the facility such that it would have been easy for somebody to spear it, 38 tons of explosives, or 38 tons of anything else out there, undetected by U.S. forces in the area?

DL: I think it would have been pretty tough. I mean, the roads for the most part were closed down. Not very many people were driving those roads, because there was still shooting going on and people were worried about getting caught in the crossfire. It would have been hard to move trucks in there right under the army's nose. But certainly there were vehicles moving on the roads as we got closer to Baghdad. At that moment I certainly didn't see any lines of trucks heading for that facility. And remember, who would have been ordering those trucks down
there? For all intent and purposes, the regime had fled.

BH: So it would have taken an operation of some size, if the stuff was still there, to get it out of there. And you didn't see any indications that such a thing could easily have been done.

DL: We didn't see any sign of that when we were there, no.

BH: Glad to have you. Thanks very much for staying up late in Moscow to be with me. Thank you very much.

So there you go; decide for yourself what Lewis's information means in the issue.

by Donald Sensing, 10/26/2004 05:55:34 PM. Permalink |   

American legitimacy and the UN
TM Lutas beat me to writing about an essay in in Foreign Affairs called, "The Sources of American Legitimacy." Usually a source of probing, scholarly articles, FA's editors must be scratching their heads and pointing fingers, wondering how this one got by them into print. The authors have traditional credentials; "Robert W. Tucker is Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University. David C. Hendrickson is Robert J. Fox Distinguished Service Professor at Colorado College." The summary reads thus:

Summary: Throughout its history, the United States has made gaining international legitimacy a top priority of its foreign policy. The 18 months since the launch of the Iraq war, however, have left the country's hard-earned respect and credibility in tatters. In going to war without a legal basis or the backing of traditional U.S. allies, the Bush administration brazenly undermined Washington's long-held commitment to international law, its acceptance of consensual decision-making, its reputation for moderation, and its identification with the preservation of peace. The road back will be a long and hard one.

There are two matters, at least, I would take issue with just from the summary:

"Gaining international legitimacy" has arguably not been the "top priority" of American foreign policy "throughout its history." As far as the Founders were concerned, "international legitimacy" at the time of the Revolution and for many decades afterward was wholly gained by the Revolution's success in throwing off the British yoke. Immediate recognition by France (the irony is dripping, yes?) helped a great deal, but once Britain and France accepted the fait accompli of an independent, self-governing United States, there was no other legitimacy needed in what then passed for an international "community." England and France were the world's sole Great Powers; Spain had been a Great Power only a couple of centuries before, but its star was descendant. Germany was not unified but a collection of squabbling principalities, Italy likewise. As for the Asian powers, they were irrelevant to the entire West. None of the landlocked European countries were consequential. The Ottoman Empire was descendant and America never considered that it might be a source of "legitimacy" anyway, nor Russia.

Apart from England and France, no countries mattered much, politically speaking, to the United States for many decades after the Revolution. France conferred legitimacy before the end of the Revolution; after the War of 1812, England perforce fully accepted America's permanent independence.

During those decades (I'm playing it safe by measuring decades; I'd really prefer to say at least until World War One), America's foreign policy was, politically, mostly isolationist, not internationalist, except for the few years around the Spanish-American war and T. Roosevelt's presidency. George Washington's warning against "foreign entanglements" as he left the presidency was taken seriously well into the twentieth century. Commerce was the main focus of American foreign policy and commerce is not much dependent on diplomatic legitimacy. Sellers sell and buyers buy without regard to much but the market.

It's noteworthy that after claiming that the search for international legitimacy was the driving force behind American foreign policy throughout our history, the authors ignore all our history except that since World War Two. For that period, the authors do attempt to document American internationalism or its lack, even bemoaning that, "The United States, to be sure, did not always scrupulously adhere to the rules of the charter in its conduct of diplomacy, as for instance when it quarantined Cuba to prevent the arrival of further Soviet nuclear armaments in 1962."

This sentence betrays the authors' real view: that the UN Charter is some sort of uber-law, trumping the US Constitution and American sovereignty. But this is an ideological wish, not a position derived from studying American history or Constitutional law. Hence, the next point.

Consider this sentence: "In going to war without a legal basis or the backing of traditional U.S. allies, the Bush administration brazenly undermined Washington's long-held commitment to international law, its acceptance of consensual decision-making, its reputation for moderation, and its identification with the preservation of peace."

This sentence proves not a dispassionate historical analysis, but betrays the authors' ideological bias toward, well, foreign entanglements. Let's consider its elements seriatim:

1. The war had no legal basis. This canard, repeated by other critics as well, springs from the fact that foreign entanglers erroneously believe that only the United Nations can sanction American military action because the UN Charter forbids use of American power except in actual "self or collective defense against an armed attack," as the authors put it. (In this claim, the authors simply skip over the Balkan War by the Clinton administration, which was never endorsed by the UN, as well as the invasion of Haiti in 1994.) As a signatory to the charter, so the argument goes, the United States cannot shoot a bullet without prior UN approval.

The argument is spurious because it proceeds from an ideological basis, not an historical or legal one. In fact, treaties are nothing but legislative acts and differ from other legislative acts only in that they require the consent of a foreign government - this according to none other than Thomas Jefferson. Furthermore, every time the issue of the authority of treaties vis-a-vis the Constitution has come before the US Supreme Court, the Court has always held the Constitution to be superior. For example, in the case of Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957). The Court ruled:

[N]o agreement with a foreign nation can confer on Congress or any other branch of the Government power which is free from the restraints of the Constitution. . . .

This court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the constitution over a treaty.

Hence, the Congress can negate a treaty in part or whole at any time by subsequent legislation. That being so, the legality of a war is derived not from a war's conformity to a treaty du jour, but solely from whether the Congress authorizes it. This the Congress did, regarding Iraq, in October 2002. No other instrumentality of legality is needed, or indeed even possible, without obviating two centuries of American law and practice.

Berkeley Law Professor John C. Yoo wrote in 1999 in "Kosovo, War Powers, and the Multilateral Future," (see here),

As demonstrated by the Clinton administration’s bombing of Serbian targets without U.N. sanction, international law places no constraints upon the President’s exercise of his Commander-in-Chief or executive war powers. The constitutional text and structure seems to indicate that the executive branch enjoys the constitutional freedom to exercise its foreign affairs powers consistent with, or in conflict with , international norms. [italics added]

So much for the grievously uninformed argument that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. Whether the invasion was wise is not the topic here, the authors uestioned its legality, and its legality was certified by the Congress. I posted a summary of the Congressional authorization, Public Law 107-243 of October 16, 2002.

2. As for the rest of the sentence, the authors explicate it in the article by repeating the mantra of United Nations approval. Their rhetorical point is clear: any exercise of American power not prior blessed by the UN is illegitimate.

It would have been nice for the authors to define exactly what "international legitimacy" means in terms more certain than UN approval. But I am actually forced to conclude that such approval really is all that they mean. They seem to view the UN as a sort of world legislature that grants permission, or not, to member states who wish to exercise sovereign state powers. They are explicit in this desire, regarding the United States, anyway:

It is part of the pathology of U.S. power today that the evident need for a constitutional check on the world's most powerful state-a constraint the United States would welcome if it were true to its political heritage-is now seen to stem from spiteful anti-Americanism.

The "constitutional check" they refer to is not the US Constitution, but, contextually, the UN Charter as interpreted by, minimally, the UN Security Council. Yet the authors somehow overlook the central point of America's political heritage, that governments are valid only insofar as they secure God-given human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which is to say, individual freedom, and are established only by the consent of the governed. Most countries of the UN General Assembly meet neither test. How can we place ourselves under their check and remain true to our political heritage? We can't.

Quite apart from the fact that the authors are revealed as transnational progressivists, the position reveals what can only be a willful ignorance of what the UN was founded to do. They decry the Bush administration's initiatives there:

Evidently, the administration regarded the UN in an entirely instrumental light. If it were useful in securing wider support for the contemplated action, the Bush White House was not averse to working through it. But when it became clear that support would not be forthcoming, notice was served that the U.S. commitment to multilateralism was at an end.

As a software engineer might say, that's not a bug, that's a feature. If this was Bush's tactic, it was quite in accordance with the intention of the UN's principle founder, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was explicit in declaring that the United Nations was to be the vehicle by which the United States would enforce order and discipline upon an unruly world (preferably in concert with its WW2 allies, yes, but the notion that the UN could actually veto American military action would have been dismissed out of hand by FDR).

Anyway, go read TM Lutas's critique of the article. He covers different ground than I, and makes some very wise points. For example, the authors state they wish American foreign policy would return to the internationalist practices of the Cold War in order to regain legitimacy. Says Lutas:

Legitimacy, in the end, is not only a question of the US measuring up to the international community, but also a question of which parts of the international community do we want to measure up to? We never were legitimate in the eyes of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, or Fidel Castro. But do we want to be? This aspect of legitimacy is completely unexamined here in Foreign Affairs. Perhaps it is oversight, perhaps it is a welcome bit of shame but it certainly is important to pick your enemies as well as your friends and we have, for too long, been too unselective. The article's authors seem to wish that we continue the trend.

The idea that American foreign policy is now seen by many nations across the world as illegitimate causes the authors dismay, but Lutas is right that scores of countries have always seen American policy as illegitmate, and so have many of our formal friends. Sadly for such an august journal as Foreign Affairs, "The Sources of American Legitimacy" is a shallow work, mired in oldthink. Apparently professional foreign policy wonkism is just as liable to cling to yesteryear as any other discipline.

Update, Oct. 26: Surely to no one's surprise, Mark Steyn today makes my case more simply and elegantly than I do in the UK Telegraph. Observing that President Bush believes that "when one takes a position on something, one is expected to act on it," Steyn points out,

But in the "entire civilised world" that's no longer necessary: "Sneer globally, act fitfully" is the watchword. Because Belgium opposes the Iraq war, its foreign minister makes a few anti-Bush cracks and various lesser figures attempt to indict Rumsfeld and co for war crimes - but they know nothing's going to come of that; it's an empty gesture.

Now suppose Belgium took the opposite position and decided it wholeheartedly supported the Iraq war and stood 100 per cent shoulder to shoulder with its American friends in the battle for freedom: in that case, they'd have dispatched a rusting frigate to, oh, the eastern Mediterranean or maybe 30 of their elderly infantrymen to help run the canteen in Qatar. That, too, would have been an empty gesture.

That's why, whoever's president, the September 10 international system can't be put back together. The Cold War required deterrence, which is about as suited to a passivist European culture as can be devised, and even then there were plenty of wobbly moments.

But this new war requires action, resolve, ongoing participation - and most of America's "allies" just can't be fagged. ... The "civilised world" sees itself like Continental skating judges at the Olympics, watching the Yanks career all over the ice and then handing out a succession of cranky 4.7s.

I would correct Steyn on one point, though: there are more countries with troops in Iraq today than sent troops during the Gulf War of 1991, so more, not fewer, of America's allies are participating in this war than the last. Yet the Gulf War is held up as a paradigm of internationalism and legality by professors Tucker and Fox, a curious if not actually untenable position since Bush the elder had fewer, not more, UNSC resolutions backing his position in January 1991 than Bush the younger did in the spring of 2003. And the Congressional vote for war was a bare majority in 1991, but an overwhelming majority in October 2002. Tucker and Fox hence prove not their scholarship but their bias.

by Donald Sensing, 10/26/2004 08:16:41 AM. Permalink |   

Two Marines


Over the last three months Matthew White, who works in Nashville, has been blogging about what Marine boot camp is like. Matthew was a Marine from 1997 until last year. A baseball fan and very knowledgeable about the game, Matthew blogs at South End Grounds.

Today my Marine son, my wife and I met Matthew at a Longhorn restaurant in Nashville, where Matthew fulfilled his promise to Stephen that there was a steak there with his name on it. Much appreciated!

Matthew 's explanations of each week of boot camp were invaluable to us as we tracked Stephen's progress. We are sending the links to all the moms and dads of new recruits so they can benefit, too.

by Donald Sensing, 10/25/2004 02:49:18 PM. Permalink |   

The nuclear proliferation dilemma
Once Pandora’s box was opened, all the plagues of nature were released and could never be put back. When two Japanese cities were vaporized into atomic fire 59 years ago, the nuclear box was opened. Unlike Johann Hari, I am pessimistic that the box can ever be closed.

Hari makes a sobering case that there is a stronger chance of a nuclear bomb being used now than at almost any point in the Cold War.

The truth emerging from this scattered picture of nuclear proliferation is simple: there is a stronger chance of a nuclear bomb being used now than at almost any point in the Cold War. No, the old fears won't come back. A nuclear attack on London is phenomenally unlikely (for now). But there is no such thing as a regional nuclear war. An exchange between India and Pakistan, or between Israel and Iran, would - quite apart from killing millions of people - risk irreparable ecological damage to the planet. Today, along with man-made climate change, nuclear weapons are the biggest threat to human life as we know it. So why is hardly anybody talking about it?

Partly, it's because nobody seems to have any good answers. We all know that during the Cold War, nuclear weapons were regulated by a simple doctrine: Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). If you used a nuke, you were guaranteed to be nuked in return. What doctrine now regulates the use of these weapons?

Although Hari does a good job of recounting the new and potential nuclear powers, he is mistaken is writing that MAD "regulated" nukes during rhe Cold War. MAD was not an international convention to which the nuclear powers agreed diplomatically. It was a unilateral doctrine adopted by the United States in response to the nuclear threat posed by the USSR.

Simply put, a conventional, non-nuclear response by the US to an atomic attack was not possible. At no time did the United States government entertain the foolish notion that if the USSR nuked us, we could invade it in return. That was impossible. That being so, how could the US dissuade the USSR from employing nukes against us? The answer was build up our nuclear arsenal and command-control systems to the point where the USSR could expect only a devastating nuclear counterattack from the US if the USSR struck first.

It didn't take long for the USSR to realize that it could no more invade the United States than we could invade the USSR. In short order, the USSR adopted essentially the same policy as the US: the attacker could not prevent an unacceptably devastating atomic counterattack. Hence, Mutual Assured Destruction, a doctrine not "regulating" nuclear weapons proliferation, as Hari mistakenly implies, but actually defining their conditions of use.

MAD was a doctrine of default, of no alternative. As the years passed, the danger of actual attack by either power lessened as the high commands and national leadership of both countries better understood the unwinnability of a nuclear war and the unacceptable likelihood of crushing destruction all around. The Cold War, though, was cold only between the two great powers directly. It was certainly hot between proxies, of which the Korean and Vietnam wars were the bloodiest examples.

With the end of the Cold War, MAD is not exactly suitable for deterrence any more, as Hari recognizes:

all over the world, even the strained logic of MAD is evaporating. The US government believes it will, within a generation, be safe from retaliation because of its missile shield, so MAD will no longer apply to them. Many ultra-nationalists in the Indian government in 2002 seemed to have a worrying lack of knowledge about the effects of a nuclear war, claiming that it would have "a limited effect" and "we could take it". MAD doesn't work if people don't understand the consequences. And Islamic fundamentalists who believe that death can be more glorious than life, who welcome "martyrdom", are obviously not going to be put off by retaliation. So, against our biggest security threat - al-Qa'ida - MAD is useless.

This is quite correct, in the sense that al Qaeda, being a stateless organization, is not deterrable by promising destruction of any particular place. (There was some discussion last December about the fact that Islamofascism, being religious, could be deterred by vowing MAD against Mecca in return for a nuclear terrorist attack against the US. I said no.)

So, says Hari, the only answer, for all its flaws, is -

I can only think of one long-term answer to the danger: phased, tightly monitored multilateral disarmament, reducing all the world's nuclear arsenals one step at a time. Right now, this is so far off the political map it sounds crazy. But what is the alternative?

Of course it would be fantastic for all the world's nuclear powers to agree, gentleman-like, to demilitarize nukes to zero. After all, even the US and the USSR implemented strategic-arms limitations agreements and eventually actual reductions were attained bilaterally. But both the US and the USSR, though enemies, did have a common basis for such agreements: not merely self-preservation (and, let it be recognized, financial solvency) but also a common understanding of civilization itself. Preserving that civilization was an underlying, even if unspoken and perhaps unrecognized, goal.

Yet can that be said about North Korea? I don't think that it can. (In fact, I do not even think that North Korea should be counted as a civilized nation at all. ) Iran's civilization is ancient, but its current manifestation as a sharia-governed, Islamic theocracy officially does not condone the existence of non-Islamic entities elsewhere. Like North Korea, Iran is turned inward, though not nearly as severely, and inward-turned societies's leaders are blinded to the consequences of their policies and actions. These two countries are the worst nuclear threats to peace today. They are also the most recalcitrant powers, least likely to bend to international will.

If Hari is correct that the nuclear threat is worse now than ever - and I think he is - then he probably dismisses the lingering power of MAD in deterring both countries. Neither are suicidal. The moral problem with MAD remains, however: promising atomic immolation against either country is to threaten the lives of millions of people who have nothing to do with their government's weapons programs. MAD definitionally promises mass murder of the innocent, which I discussed in my response to proposals to nuke Mecca.

So even if MAD does deter Iran and North Korea, it is immoral conceptually and if implemented in actuality. That situation is itself a moral dilemma, for how could any doctrine that prevents nuclear war be immoral? I'll leave that dilemma for another day, though, because the threat both countries pose is not much amenable by MAD anyway. Their real threat against the US is supplying Islamofascists with a portable nuke to be smuggled into the US and exploded here. There are enough loose nukes in the world now to make that worry a real one already. If an atomic bomb exploded in Baltimore, as in the movie version of The Sum of All Fears, we might well not have a clear idea of the weapon's source or who did it, except for Islamic terrorists. But with whose support?

Our nightmare with the Agreed Framework, the bilateral agreement between the Clinton administration and North Korea that wound up enabling its nuclear program, should give us pause in trusting the good will of enemy states. The verification regimes that disarmament would require are exactly the kind that neither North Korea and Iran will agree to.

Hari, however, seems to think that the cause of proliferation is Western hypocrisy:

[T]here is the neoconservative solution, which is to keep thousands of nukes ourselves but deny them to everybody else through raw force. This is not a tenable long-term solution. ... How can we sustain such hypocrisy without making more countries eager to get nukes to spite us?

This is a thunderingly wrong-headed notion. Iran didn't develop nukes from atom-envy of the Great Powers; it wants to destroy Israel. North Korea wants to dominate South Korea and ensure neither the South nor America will invade it, a real though unreasonable fear. India developed nukes because it and Pakistan are bitter enemies and so did Pakistan for the same reason.

Denuclearizing ourselves won't change their basic intentions, nor will it change the basic fact about atomic science: these nations developed nukes not only for those reasons, but because it was possible. The nuclear box is open and it can never be shut, especially not by relying on human good will.

Hari says,

Perhaps an Israeli bombing raid on Iran's reactors will work this year - but can proliferation be dealt with that way indefinitely?

Hari thinks not, but for the near term, pre-emption seems the only choice, and it is probably too late even for that. Vigilance is the order now, and just as in the Cold War, what remains of MAD. But the mullahs and Kim or his successors will not disarm to imitate the United States. They will do so only when it is clearly more in their self interest than the alternative. Defining the alternative is the hard part.

by Donald Sensing, 10/24/2004 07:56:09 PM. Permalink |   

Why a pro-choicer coverted to a pro-lifer
It's very simple, and very graphical.

by Donald Sensing, 10/24/2004 05:40:29 PM. Permalink |   

Graduation Day
Here is one of the newest US Marines, my son, PFC Stephen Sensing. He graduated yesterday from Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island. It was a fantastic day! Behind him is the Iwo Jima memorial on the base, next to the parade deck (parade field for all us dogfaces).

Eight platoons of new Marines graduated, including two platoons of women. Unlike the Army, the Marines segregate initial-entry training of men and women. However, the requirements are the same for both sexes.

Like most recruits, Stephen lost weight during boot camp, almost 25 pounds. He also dropped several minutes off his three-mile run time, more than quadrupled the number of pullups he can do, and almost doubled the number of situps (the Marines call them "crunches," he did 138 in two minutes a weeks or so before he left, with a drill instructor counting).

Also like a lot of other recruits, Stephen said the Crucible was not the toughest part of boot camp. The Crucible is a 54-hour wargames exercise in which the recruits get a total of three MREs and no more than four hours sleep per 24-hour period. After it ends, boot camp's challenges are over and the two weeks left are spent in classes and preparing for graduation and personnel transfers.

Stephen said the toughest thing was Basic Warrior Training, a very intense, two-day field exercise focusing on day and night combat skills. He found it physically and mentally more demanding than the Crucible, and said that it almost broke him (and many other recruits, too!). But he perservered with help from his buddies and they all made it.

Unfortunately, my son has a large and deep suppurating wound on his left forearm (hence the bandage) for which he was hospitalized from Sunday evening to late Thursday morning in Beaufort Naval Hospital. The whole time he was on IV antibiotics and still has three stout oral antibiotics to take now. The wound probably was caused by an insect bite becoming infected during the Crucible which took several days to develop into an abscess.

Hence, while Stephen has graduated from boot camp, he has not been released from Parris Island and will have to return there when his leave expires Oct. 31. He'll be on medical hold at PI until the doctor certifies his wound has healed. The Navy physician told us it will take at least one week after his return, probably more. Eventually, Stephen will go to Marine Combat Training at Camp Lejeune, NC, then he assigned to another school where he'll learn his specific job in the Marine Corps.

But for the coming week we are just elated to have Stephen home!

Update, Oct. 24: Last night my father hosted a dinner in Stephen's honor. Both my brothers and sisters-in-law were there (older brother and wife flew from from Delaware for the weekend) and three of their four grown children. Really a special time! This is a shot of Stephen explaining what boot camp was like.

There's no getting around that the Marine uniform is a killer.

by Donald Sensing, 10/23/2004 01:45:52 PM. Permalink |