Peter Arnett

The first thing that came to mind when I read about the hubbub around Arnett and his comments was; how stupid. I’m not thinking about the comments themselves, but the whole interview. Personally, I would expect Iraqi TV to edit the interview in a light that is as favorable to them as they could. I’m also relieved to know that Arnett is a reporter inclined to speak his mind. If this is not the first thing you have read on this site, you know by now that I do not believe that the American media, or any major media in just about any country for that matter, are nearly as responsible as they would have us believe. I’m also pretty sure I’m not in the most exclusive club there either.

Nonetheless, I have to agree that NBC and National Geographic did what Arnett forced them to do. As regrettable as it is that a journalist lost his job in this manner, I doubt it really came down to what he said. The fact of the matter is that he did it, he never should have done it and he paid for it with his job. Neither NBC nor National Geographic can tolerate a journalist who is the sole decision maker with respect to which other media outlets that journalist will grant an interview. Regardless of how independent his voice is, Arnett was the employee of two companies who are deeply involved in the media industry in this country and abroad. He must play by their rules.

I have no doubt that those rules included restrictions on interviews Arnett could and could not give and what sort of permission he had to seek for those interviews. If it ever comes out that Arnett got approval from both then I’ll gladly recant. However, I suspect that I’ll never be required to do so. NBC and National Geographic both have spent great amounts of time and money needed to create the good will they have generated. Both are respected in many, many countries. Both, though more National Geographic, undertake to preserve that good will by placing exactly these types of restrictions on their employees. I can never imagine either allowing Arnett to continue reporting under their name when everyone watching is thinking about just one thing: ‘America’s invasion of Iraq has been a failure.’ It would be one of the worst business decisions of the year (I cannot go back any further with Enron and Worldcom) and a completely negligent breach of the fiduciary responsibilities of the directors of both entities.

Before you cry treason, remember that we have the first amendment. Before you cry frame up remember that Arnett knowingly signed a contract that he breached.

More on War Journalism

During the past week during my blog reading it has become more and more clear that a certain segment of the blogoshpere is aiming a lot of rather harsh language the way of FOX News. I must conclude that much of this criticism is based solely on the rather obvious fact that FOX News further to the right than the NY Times and CNN.

Opinion Based Coverage
I realize that there is a whole group of people that FOX News is largely engaged in propaganda that contains lies. I should point out that an eloquent and well-reasoned argument could be made that much of this criticism is of opinion and analysis rather than hard news reporting. The progressives, I believe are a significant portion of the group most vocal about the coverage on FOX. They should keep in mind that there are plenty of level headed Americans, who want to live in a free country where opinions of both parties are taken into account, that have the exact same criticisms of several members of the NY Times editorial staff and most of CNN. It is called healthy debate. It is called freedom of the press and the free exchange of ideas. I find it incredibly interesting that certain segments of the Democrat party have made it not only possible, but also credible for the right to present a cogent argument that the left on this country needs a lecture on open-mindedness.

News Reporting Coverage
There are also those who would like to point out that FOX News lies on News Reporting. Here, via. I would ask those criticizing FOX based on this to answer a question. Do we still live in the same world where Dateline NBC once rigged a truck with gasoline to make the explosion better for television? I’m all in favor of coming down hard against them both, but I’m also do not think that there are alone in this club. I’m sure there are plenty of examples that we have never heard about by because they have been successfully hidden. I can also think of at least one example of my local newspaper, http://enquier.com using sophisticated electronic equipment to steal the password to executives voice mailboxes and proceeded to then steal over 2000 voice mails, the story was entirely discredited because of it, the newspaper had to settle with the company, a double digit million dollar range settlement that remained undisclosed by both sides, and led to the firing of the reporter responsible and several of his bosses, including the editor. Here is a nice recap of the whole affair.

The media has never been the pure and holier than though collection of people that they would like people to believe. You cannot condemn FOX for it and let everyone else off the hook when they have given no one any reason to believe they are any different.

Weapons Systems and Terrorists

The Agonist has asked, “For the open thread I would really like to hear about the cruise missiles. How many do we have left? How about other precision weapons and how important are they to the military effort?”

A somewhat accurate answer to the first question can be found here. The article states that in 1996 there were 4,000 Tomahawks in inventory, the latest figure I can find. I’m not sure about the exact numbers; I would guess that we went into this with about 3,500. Smart recognition of the actual timeline of this war by the military, I believe, will allow for ending this war with plenty of these weapons still in inventory.

To answer his second question, you can find a list of estimates by clicking on links on this page.

While Tomahawks are certainly an important part of our arsenal, I believe this war is showing that JDAMs are the future of this fight. The Tomahawk’s best use is as a weapon that enters an area that you would rather not send in low flying airplanes due to a significant risk to the safety of the pilot and plane. Towns like Baghdad, early in a war, are picture perfect for the Tomahawk because missiles and ack-ack heavily defend them. Cruise missiles take those targets out early so that planes can deliver JDAM equipped bombs later. This is evidenced very well by the reliance of planes, rather than cruise missiles, during the attacks to soften up the Republican Guard positions.

Of all of the smart weapons we have, the JDAM is very likely the airborne weapon of choice for air-to-ground operations. With 87,000 units in stock before the war, a cost of $18,000, and an active assembly line this weapons is the ultimate synergy between low-tech, good old fashion blow stuff up bombs and latest, greatest, highly precise GPS guided technology. By putting a small engine, a couple of computer chips, and transmitters into a retrofit we are able to give every bomb the accuracy of a Tomahawk missile.

The very active and public announcements about the use of the Special Forces Units and the CIA acknowledges that we will fight this war with a serious commitment of people in very advanced areas to provide the intelligence necessary to make sure that JDAMs and other precision weapons are programmed with significantly better intelligence than a map or just a satellite.

This type of battle may have appeared to be so great on paper that people are now getting fired (Richard Perle) because they used words like “cakewalk” when they should have said that now weeks, not years, and certainly not days, but months is the right time frame for this conflict. Regardless of the presence of suicide bombers sooner or later he will have no regular troops and our military will focus exclusively on Fedayeen Saddam and the other “supposedly” Hamas and like-minded people who some on the Internet and elsewhere are speculating are in Iraq. As of yet, no credible news agency that I can find is reporting that knowledgeable people will confirm on the record that Hamas or any group other than al Qaeda and Ansar al Islam are in Iraq. To speculate that this is actually happening is just that, speculation. This is subject to change, as the war progresses, obviously, but so far this story hasn’t really been confirmed by anyone i

Fedayeen Saddam is likely to be a difficult force to fight, but certainly not enough to prevent victory. I believe that they will definitely inflict more casualties on US and UK forces on the ground and that we must accept that as much as we try to make war as bloodless for both sides as possible, soldiers have died in war for centuries and they will continue to die. We just hope that the number if very small, but really need to keep in mind the difference in numbers of recent and historical battles.. Their numbers are being reported very widely, I have seen or heard numbers that range from 5,000 to 65,000. Both numbers strike me as wildly exaggerated on both ends. Ultimately, I highly doubt that our government would allow the most accurate estimates to be declassified and people are left to speculate wildly. So in other words, WAGs* put the numbers between 5,000 and 65,000.

One might also keep in mind that not every Fedayeen Saddam member will fight, and of those that will (still large numbers) not every one of them is going to have the commitment to give themselves up as human bombs. After all, not every member of every terrorist organization is willing to blow themselves up, if they were, they could have made much bigger statement by this point in Israel by this point in history.

This war is a week and a half old. Since we watch it more or less LIVE 24/7 it is very easy to fail to see the forest through the trees. It is an unfortunate draw back to certain modern conveniences. If you ever need to remind yourself of this, recall back to GW 1 and think about how it has been reported that the White House called CNN to make sure the cameras in Baghdad were on LIVE 24/7. American viewers are closer to the images that military officials see of the war than we ever have been.

Just remember, we are all second guessing in real-time as well.


*WAG – Wild Ass Guess.

Update: MSNBC has reported that Islamic Jihad has claimed they are sending people into Iraq. MSNBC also interviewed three JOrdanian student who were traveling in Iraq and were stopped at US manned chck points. On balance, I'm still not convinced yet tha tthe terrorist angle is what some people want it to be.

Something to Think About

Sean-Paul posted this link.


Here's something else:

Reported Iraqi Troop Strength - 400,000

Known Iraqi Surrenders - 75,000 (overly aggressive estimation on my part)

Suspected Iraqi KIA - 25,000 (same as above) I have Googled every combo if "Iraq" and "KIA" that I can think of and get no solid number on Iraqi KIA.

Where are the remaining 300,000 troops?

Three possibilities exist in my mind. First, they are all Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard and laying in wait for us to approach Baghdad. Second, there have been massive desertions. Third, 400,000 is an extremely exaggerated claim.

Something tells me it isn't door number one and if it is door number three we'll never really know.

Foreign Policy

A very brief observation.

I believe we are now seeing what is going to become our near term foreign policy strategy. It should be fairly easy for most Americans to understand. It’s called good cop, bad cop. The United States is the bad cop and Great Britain is the good cop.

Arab Marketing Plan

I have been watching CSPAN’s translated coverage of Abu Dhabi TV on occasion late at night. I have also seen the unedited Aljazeera transmission of our soldiers that were filmed by Iraqi TV on Sunday. I have also read news articles that discuss how both television outlets are oriented more towards freedom of the press than many governments in the Middle East would like them to be.

Given the extensive English language coverage of Abu Dhabi that I have seen, I can understand how neither the US government nor any Middle Eastern government would be happy with Abu Dhabi’s coverage of the war so far. Their position is quite clearly somewhere between them with a pronounced, if not understandable, Muslim slant. There has certainly been analysis offered that I cannot dismiss out of hand and other times I tend to actually agree with the opinion of the commentator. On the other hand, the vast majority of the coverage is very much biased towards Iraq and significantly anti-American, there is no doubt about that. It should be expected. I think Americans, though, must grudgingly accept that 10% of coverage, at least on Abu Dahbi, that is fair to American positions is better than 100% negative. I realize that the US, Britain, and Australia are as focused, if not more, on collateral and civilian damage than any previous war ever fought and more than is reasonable to expect from any nation actually attempting to engage an enemy in a war and wanting to win that war. We are able to do so, I believe, because of the technological advantage we enjoy over the Iraqis.

So what is my point in going against the grain of traditional thinking about Middle Eastern TV? Well, just as our Generals take questions from these media outlets during CENTCOM briefings, our politicians should avail themselves of the opportunity to talk about what is great about this country (not what George Bush is doing wrong). We should also remedy the mistake that was made by kicking them out of the NYSE and NASDAQ. I believe it is a petty reply to Aljazeera’s airing of the POW video footage. We should criticize them verbally on their air for doing such a thing before next of kin were notified, we should express our disappointment when they give us the chance for not treating Americans and Iraqi equally. However, we should not resort to actions that make us look bad unnecessarily. It would also be advisable for the State Department to pick up the phone and suggest to the NYSE ad NASDAQ that the temporary ban be lifted and that space be found once again for these networks.

Ultimately, we end up in the same old position when we do things like this. We win the battle, we even win the war, but we loose the PR struggle. Does anyone, pro or con on the war, really want us to win this and not make strides towards a better impression in the Middle East? As we vigorously prosecute this war and move closer and closer to winning the physical battle, we need to develop a better marketing plan with respect to Abu Dahbi and Aljazeera. After all, if their governments find them subversive that is going to make them all the more appealing to certain segments of the Middle East’s population. How much better would we be served if that same media outlet started giving us even 15% positive coverage? The warmer these free market news providers are to us, the more we undermine anti-American rhetoric by their governments. They are already predisposed to our position, even if they don’t know it. They believe in the free market of ideas, they prove it by angering their own governments with their coverage, several Arab nations have either banned the stations or banned satellite dishes as a way of cutting off citizens access to these stations.

I am not naïve enough to believe that doing what I have proposed is going to radically change their coverage of us, it is going to take time and effort and we are going to have to deal with things like what Aljazeera did on Sunday. It is going to be hard for Americans to stick to this type of plan because there is no instant gratification, there is no near term gratification, there is only long term gratification and even that is not guaranteed. We are going to finish fighting a war that is just and necessary (and you can disagree with this point all you want) and we are going to do our best to rebuild Iraq in a manner that places the people of Iraq first. We are going to bend over backwards for them, from our perspective, and they are going to do things that are insulting to us. Ultimately, I would ask, is our foreign policy better served by sticking to a long term plan of better marketing of the USA to free market media sources in the Middle East?

Maybe it’s just me, but I think so.

War gear! Get your War Gear!

Proving that we truly due live in the age of consumerism, I have found several websites peddling everything from lapel pins to t-shirts and everything in between, beyond, and underneath that allow you to wear your politics, be they for or against the war. I present the first, though clearly not definitive, list of websites that allow you to point and click your way to patriotic wares.


Pro-War/Anti Anti-War/Pro-Soldier/Anti-Appeasement/Pro-Patriotism

So Others May Live –
An idea born at Ground Zero after 9/11, a Naval aviator named Terrence Allvord, took a leave of absence to volunteer and the idea was born for a patriotic lapel pin, product line also included stickers and arm patches.

PatrioticCloting -
A Cafeshop setup to bring you a wide variety of clothing items with US flags and other symbols designed to project strength. Inventory includes baby accessories too, now your baby can throw up on the most patriotic bib on the market.

SupportLibety -
A simple site with a relatively wide selection of lapel pins featuring eagles, flags, soldiers and planes. On a non-war note, they also have a nice looking pin dedicated to the doomed Columbia flight.


Anti-War/Anti Anti-Peace/Pro Diplomacy/Pro-Patriotism

PeacePins -
An equally extensive collection of pro-peace lapel pins featuring doves, the two finger peace sign, the trident peace symbol, flags, globes and even a flower. Of particular note, they also carry a pendant so your pet can prove that it is pro-peace while out for walks in front of the other dogs and cats.

EarthForAll -
Your one stop shop for all things unity related, including tshirts, audio and video products, and featured book on making sure we save the earth from the evil corporations.

PursuePeaceClothing -
In what is very ironic to me this is the most consumeristic site of all those I surveyed by far. Their slogan? “Make a statement with style.” The link I clicked on at Google, an ad along the right side, claimed that you were going to be able to buy clothes “worn by many celebrities.” This site is also charging you the high fashion prices associated with looking better than the rest of your fellow protesters and getting to wear the same clothes as the celebrities.

On Chemical Weapons -

Last night, a friend of mine and I were talking about the war, the positioning of the players and likely scenarios for how this is going to play out. We have both been very troubled by the reported positioning of the Special Republican Guards for a couple of days now.

Yesterday commentators on several networks were talking about how they thought it was very much a possibility that Saddam would use chemical weapons as our troops got closer to Baghdad and that “unnamed sources” where saying that intelligence pointed at that happening. Of course, this all fits into red-circle we have all been hearing about for the past couple of days as well. Up until tonight there was always something of more immediate concern in the war to which I ought pay more attention. Also, the media has not exactly been consistent on the war coverage so far. I tend to discount a lot of what I see and hear on television unless I can find some credible print material to back it up. You can blame it on the military wanting to mislead the media, if you want, but all the major media players do have reporters embedded on site with the troops that are actually fighting the battles. In short, until this conversation I hadn’t really given the use of chemical weapons the thought I feel, now, I should have.

So, we were talking about the placement of troops and the strategy involved in fighting the (Special) Republican Guard. We also discussed the relative advantages and disadvantages of placing his finest troops where Saddam has positioned them. We came to the conclusion that if he were looking to gain the largest advantage over us, he would have fought us from within and very near the city of Baghdad, though, no further out. He has several strategic advantages with this strategy, including, but not limited to his knowledge of the terrain, the human shields, and the ability to provide a near steady stream of bodies coming home in coffins every day. He couldn’t beat us, I do not believe, but he may have been able to win the public opinion war here in the US for a longer time that he may otherwise. It would definitely have been a gamble to fight us this way, but he would have held the upper ground for at least a while, I have been convinced.

By putting his troops up against us where he has, though, he has set the stage for a tank v. tank and artillery shell battle. He has placed the troops in much less densely populated areas. Think about 50 miles out of Chicago, it’s wide-open pastures, and 50 miles out of Baghdad is desert. Given that this type of battle is basically the exact same battle he lost so badly during Gulf War I it is unavoidable to conclude that he has ceded the battleground to us. The next question has to be: WHY?

Chemical weapons are the only reason that we could come up with to explain why Saddam would give up his best strategic advantage in a fight for Baghdad. It is unrealistic to expect him to unleash these weapons inside of Baghdad. That is, as long as it is reasonable to conclude that Saddam would rather use chemical weapons to win the war, rather than to just slow us down. That conclusion suggests that Saddam would use chemical weapons for his own version of shock & awe. As he has no chance of beating the US in a conventional war, or ultimately even in a street-to-street conflict, he must use his best weapon as his best last shot at winning this war. Ultimately, I believe there is little doubt that Saddam has employed the redline strategy that the media has mentioned.

This leaves America in a precarious situation, ladies and gentlemen. We are committed to this battle. It is going to happen. We are also hearing on cable television, from both analysts and military and governmental officials, that there is intelligence that Saddam’s officers have already ignored orders he has given. Given the number of surrenders, that seems true prima facia. However, at the time of battle, that decision is going to rest with the commander of a Special Republican Guard Division.

I’m not exactly comfortable making book on that bet…….


I think we need to take heed of the fact that almost unanimously the talking heads and military experts are warning us in the most grave terms possible for television commentators that we could very easily be looking at a chemical attack by Saddam in the very near future.

I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that I’m right.

Welcome -

As with most bloggers, the initial large surge of traffic that comes when one’s site catches on with a wider audience has really amazed me. I am not anywhere close to being in the same league as the truly recognizable names in blogging, after all, we can’t all be Glenn Reynolds and average 125,000 visitors a day. However, it is very exciting to see the statistics on my blog continue to trend upward.

I am also amazed by the rapid geographic spread of the visitors. Literally overnight, my audience has grown from 99% US-based and 1% Australian to a diverse group of non-English speaking nations (primary language), 7% of my audience now meets this characteristic.

So, to everyone, in the US and abroad, I say welcome. I am honored that you have taken the time to stop by. I hope that at least some of the thoughts I put to keyboard and to GUI make you think a bit. Enjoy the site.

Oh, and if anyone reading this from the Netherlands knows where I can get some frites saus online I would be grateful for the link.

I Have a Question -

For a while now, television commentators have been talking about how the US has knocked out Iragi television, but Iraqi satellite TV has been intermittent. Early on in the reporting of this it was actively reported that we had knocked out both, though they never could get the color bars to come through all that well on Iraqi satellite television.

I have a question.

Yes, that’s me here in the back row. No press pass, just a blog.

‘Mr. FOX/MSNBC/CNN anchor person, is it even remotely possible that the gigantic dust storm that is so intense it is nearly blacking out the sun at 8:30am is causing the Iraqi satellite television systems some problems? Is it even conceivable that their satellite television technology is not as good as ours and that the signal cannot make it through such a storm?

I don't know, maybe it's just me.

Call to Action (Retort) -

One again, I find myself drawn to a link provided by Sean-Paul over at The Agonist. The post is linked directly here to save Sean-Paul some much-needed bandwidth.

Wampum’s call to arms is one of those great uses of the Internet. It allows from easy coordination between groups of like-minded people to easily mobilize a large number of people acting in concert on a common issue. The issue that Wampum is calling on people to take action against is the passage of a Senate Resolution proposed by Sen. Frist related to the reformation of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). Wampum disagrees with the reforms and is urging people to call on Congressmen to ensure defeat of the measure. I feel compelled to point out that Wampum offers no real alternative to the plan Sen. Frist has proposed and does not explicitly state that the program is even in need of reformation, though she does seem to be willing to admit that the current system is not working the way it was intended.

I am not going to advocate that Sen. Frist’s plan is the only way to go. However, Wampum is offering no alternative, during a cursory examination of the archives I do not see an alternative plan offered, though there may be. From my reading of the information that she posted, I do think that a serious debate should take place in Congress and that some sort of coherent policy of what to do about drugs that the FDA approved of for a very long time, but come under closer scrutiny my ever more advanced scientific methods and tests.

I refuse to engage in the type of ad hominem character assignation that Wampum engages in by jumping to conclusion about anyone motivations. I will, however, point out that if someone cares to look up the numbers Eli Lilly and its representatives are equal opportunity political givers. Gifts went not just to the RNC and Bill Frist, but also to the DNC, Dick Gephart, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, Orin Hatch, Evan Bayh, Bill Bradley, Bill Nelson, and George W. Bush. Bill Frist is not even close to the top of their list. To indict Frist and Lilly as some sort of evil conspiracy is to ignore the larger picture, and it is irresponsible. Also, the assertion that Republicans are necessarily going to raid this fund is specious at best. It is just blatantly ignorant and obstructionist partisanship at worst. Click Here to check donor lists for yourself.

I cannot say that I know Senator Frist, though I met him briefly once and heard him speak for about a half an hour during his first election campaign for the Senate in 1992. My recollection of the man is that he is an intelligent and articulate man. What I know of his record makes him more than qualified to contribute worthy practices to our national health policies, as a nationally recognize heart surgeon. I’ll also point out, for Wampum, that Frist’s father started Columbia/HCA.

During the course of the day, I have talked to two different people with extensive knowledge of the issues discussed here. First is a PhD candidate doing extensive work with both vaccines and immunology, there is absolutely no direct link between thimerosal and any of the illnesses, including autism. I have been assured by scientists who have read the reports that “maybe” is as close as you can get at this point and likely ever will. The other person I talked to is a psychologist whose primary business is the care of autistic children. She assures me that my reading of this document and the conclusions I used to form my opinion are correct.

Further, Wampum’s current stance, since no alternative has been offered, is that US companies, Eli Lilly included, should be subject to hundreds of millions of dollars of liability exposure because they made a product that the US Government, including the FDA, approved of while they were making such products. Note at the link above, that Eli Lilly is not listed as one of the companies still making vaccines with thimerosal. If anyone wants to disagree, I suggest you take it up with the government because I am using information it has published to draw that conclusion. The idea that a company should be sued out of existence, and asbestos litigation proves that trial lawyers will try to do that, because a product they were selling was approved of by the government is one of the most short sighted and dangerous ideas I have heard in a long time.

With respect to autism, Wampum’s main concern, the Autism Society of America’s own site sets the number for autistic children at, no more than 6 per 1,000. By advocating that no recognition of the government’s culpability in any links that might be discovered at some later date is essentially to put at risk, the jobs of about the same number Americans as the number of autistic people in this country, wreck their prospects at the kind of retirement they have planned and worked all their life towards, and it is to run the very serious risk of depriving future generations of Americans will be deprived of the benefits that Eli Lilly and many, many other companies may discover.

Furthermore, it has become fashionable to view large companies as nothing more than the CEO, CFO and Board of Directors. It is even more fashionable to paint them all with the Enron or WorldCom brush. I am not here to apologize for any executives who act like that. Personally, I do not believe the punishments they face are nearly harsh enough. However, I have done enough work for large corporations, including corporations on both the upswing and downswing to know who and what make up a large corporation. Corporations are more than CEOs and Vice-Presidents. They are average bookkeepers that earn $50,000 a year and live comfortably because their spouse works as well and they forgo stimulating the economy more often than others because they want to pay for college for their children. They are $30,000 administrative assistants that save for decades to buy a modest home in a “never going to be hip” neighborhood so that they have some security in their lives. They are also sales reps that work day and night to pay off student loans and hopefully attain letter of status, like B-M-W.

People at corporations who abuse the public trust and are guilty of civil and criminal offenses should be held accountable. However, unless Americans of both parties are willing to but the bullshit aside and get down to work, we are going to continue to punish the bookkeepers and administrative assistants for the actions of the CEO and CFO. That strikes me as distinctly un-American.

Here are a few items for you to chew on this morning.

First, via The Agonist - mirror site, we have estimations for war casualties during the fight for Baghdad by Barry McCaffrey. You need to read this and then make judgments as the battle ensues.

Second, This is the exchange between Donald Rumsfeld and a group of reporters, apparently taking place outside a location after an interview for CNN. Personally, I like the honesty of his answers to the early questions.

Some Quick Thoughts –

Am I the only one who thinks that the FOX News animation with the F-15 morphing into an Eagle is a little much? I realize that when you get a bunch of computer geeks together and brainstorming in front of the computer that this can get out of hand, but that is just too far over the top.

I really hope the ground forces take a little extra time getting to the Republican Guard positions. Giving them a couple of extra days of airborne shock and awe could go a long way here. The last thing we need is another several days for the vultures at the cable news networks to feed on scenes of “significant resistance” from Iraqi troops.

I finally saw Michael Moore’s comments from the Academy Awards last night. The saddest thing about the man is that he has no idea how good he makes George Bush look.

POWs are not what I or anyone else wants to see on television. I shudder to think what they are going to go through until this war ends. I will be keeping them in my thoughts and hope you do the same.


Good Night, All. Thanks for taking the time to include me in your reading, You cannot even imagine how happy I am to see the hit counter rise as quickly as it has.

Patience -

In the past few hours, on both television and radio I have seen/heard more than a dozen or so "experts" and media analysts urging that the media needs to have patience with the pace of the war. This, of course, is the same media that spent all day yesterday stirring the pot and talking about now devastating the setbacks were. These people are amazing.

What in the hell does a poll have to do with a war?

67% of the American public approve of the job that President Bush is doing, says the talking head. 25% of Americans oppose the war, says the other. Less than 50% of Americans think we shouldn’t attack without the UN, touts an online article published March 24, 2003 (a little late if you ask me).

I have some suggestions for the polling companies and the television media outlets that submit questions that they want 500 Americans to answer so that we know what to think. Would more or less people aged 18-35 support the war if George Bush sent everyone a pizza and a 12-pack to enjoy while watching the war coverage? How many mothers would be unduly stressed out because there may be some peanut oil involved in some portion of the pizza preparation? Would more people who oppose the war be in favor of it if the US Congress signed an open letter to all Americans acknowledging that they really, really, really care about caring for the Iraqi children who the UN is starving because of the sanctions? Would registered Republicans be less in favor of the war if Bush stated publicly that we are liberating Iraq “for the children” (complete with Clinton lip bite) and not because we really, really, really want to kick Saddam’s ass?

I could go on with these semi-serious absurd questions until you are completely sick of reading them, but I don’t want you to stop reading….

I have a question, though. What in the hell does a poll have to do with a war? Does anyone think Tommy Franks woke up this morning, saw that the poll numbers dropped three points after yesterday’s news cycle, and issued a directive that we aren’t going to stand for any more of this Iraqi crap and we are going to really start winning this war today? If you think he is even aware of poll numbers I suggest you reevaluate the list of priorities that Franks likely has on his desk. I submit to you that checking Gallup’s site isn’t on it.

For those of you who want to throw Clausewitz into the mix at this point, yes, he does make provision for public opinion in war. However, I don’t think Clausewitz had a poll of 500 people in a country of 300 million, or there about, in mind when he discussed political support for war. In fact, I would suggest that Clausewitz would be shocked and awed at the capricious definition of public opinion, as we have crafted it in modern society. This is not to say that our form of public opinion does not have the exact affect on war that Clausewitz suggests, though I would suggest that such public opinion needs to be judged for what it is, the collected thoughts of a relatively unengaged citizenry that appears (from those very same polls) to not pay much attention to the news even when they watch it.

Given the capricious nature of public opinion support for war in American culture, though, it seems that one should apply the exact opposite strategy as Clausewitz argues for. If support begins to dwindle, racket up the attack and show a victory, even a small one. Of course, one could also argue that the Democrats were somewhat successful, or at least uniquely applied Clausewitz, at making war not just an extension of politics, but rather an extension of domestic politics. I wonder if we will ever know how much of the French backbone was internal American public opinion polls.

Ultimately, as much as I abhor polls of just about every sort I think it will ultimately be proven that the capricious American public opinion polls will determine the fate of Clausewitz on our military planning and execution.

Brief Thoughts -

I don’t have a lot of time today to blog, what with it being Monday and work and all. However, I keep having a single thought running through my head every time I take a five minute break to glance at the television: “Stay detached.”

It was 9/11 that drove this point home better than anything. Now that we are back into a 24/7 frenzy cycle with the war in Iraq, I think it is more important then ever to keep reminding ourselves to stay as detached from the media reporting as possible. Skepticism is your best friend right now. Stories are likely to be either wildly optimistic or just as slanted pessimistically. If you will, allow me a digression. Does anyone out there think that if Modesto, CA police thought today that they had enough evidence against Scott Peterson in the disappearance of his wife that they would coordinate with CNN/MSNBC FOX to break into the war coverage? Do you think that the cable station would pay a bit of attention to them? Yet, for weeks they had people camped out in front of his house and many, many hours of television were dedicated to pronouncing him guilty ahead of the arrest that they were sure was just an hour or a day away. These people are predators for THE STORY, or more accurately the ratings attached to the story.

So, as you read and watch today, make sure you can identify the agenda as you process news. Understand where the news is coming from before you conclude where things are really going.

Oh, and read The Agonist; he is as close to fair and balanced as is possible. Alternatively, read Command Post as well. I know Sean-Paul thinks they have a bias, and he is right. He is also right that he does a very good job at keeping his out of his reporting. I don’t think you can place a value judgment on that, though, and then come to a definitive conclusion about the reporting. Both sites offer at least an order of magnitude improvement on just about all of the reporting that is going on currently.

On War Journalism -

Earlier today, I posted a comment on The Agonists site when he published a link with at least a portion of the Aljazeera tape showing the captured and killed American Soldiers and I commented that I was glad that he posted the link and believe that adults should be treated as such and given as much information as is available. Decisions should be informed by facts, not made in the dark, I argued. Earlier today, on my own site, Randy Morin posted a link to his blog with even more graphic stills of the video footage. You should see what war looks like.

Another part of the process is to distill and evaluate “news” on its merits. Part of that is to determine how well thought out the article is and how strong an argument is made. Sean-Paul recently posted a link to an article that discusses the attitude of Iraqis in the Northern area of Iraq. Read the linked article.

I don’t doubt that the ABC reporter, John Donovan, is accurately reporting the questions that the people in that part of Iraq are asking him. I also do not doubt that these people are in desperate need of food and medicine, having been denied those things by the very dictator we are currently in the process of removing from power.

However, John Donovan’s report is undermined by what he should be more than willing to tell us. It is very understandable that the Northern Kurds might be a bit suspicious of our intentions. After all, we have been reminded so many times before how we abandoned these people in their attempts to over through Hussein. Furthermore, there is literally no other group of people I can think of who have been treated worse in that region for a longer period of time. Recently, they gain semi-autonomy from Saddam’s regime because we have given them the cover of the no fly zone. Now, we go and throw a whole bunch of bombs into the mix, the Turks have some seriously itchy trigger fingers, and Saddam probably wouldn’t mind taking as many of them with him as he can.

Do I expect the Kurds to be a little pissed off right now? Do I expect them to ask Americans direct questions to make sure we look them in the eyes and tell them we are with them this time? Do I expect them to be concerned with the elderly and infirmed in their villages and press us for aid as quickly as possible? Yes, to all of them.

Do I expect an American journalist to tell that story? Yes, I do.

Do I expect him to tell that story three and a half days into a war? Before we have established control of the country? Before we have defeated the soldiers that are in the area? While there are still thousands of things that need to happen to ensure the safety and security of the tens of thousands of Americans currently on the ground in Iraq? No, I do not. Not only do I not expect John Donovan or any other reporter to tell that story at this time, I do not expect him to criticize, directly or otherwise, our efforts because we are placing the security of our own soldiers ahead of getting food and medicine into a live fire zone that is fraught with danger. Does it not occur to that reporter that food and medical aid programs usually requires additional human help on the ground, like doctors, nurses, and UN volunteers and monitors who the American and British governments are not going to put into harms way in such a manner and at this time?

I am sure that there are a thousand stories that could be told from Northern Iraq right now, this was a very poor choice at this time. It is irresponsible journalism and a misuse of the public trust. If the US led coalition, with or without the UN, does not establish a food and aid program in a timely manner after hostilities have ceased or sufficiently calmed to the point that limited aid (read: mobile aid stations that travel with armed guards between villages and return to safety each night) then I am all in favor of telling this story.

To tell it now is to fail to have perspective for the situation, to fail to recognize that the US led coalition must set priorities and that those priorities, for the time being, must be the soldiers that are fighting to remove the larger evil that is Saddam Hussein.

Pace of War -

I have never been convinced that this war would be over is a matter of just a few days. I always thought a month or even two would be a good estimate and allow for a certain number of unplanned events (more resistance than the media was preparing us for before this started). I remain convinced that the majority of Iraqi soldiers will surrender or flee at the first site of American forces. There will be others, though, that will remain and fight. Some will do so more effectively than others. Certainly, we can now conclude that the closer our forces get to Baghdad, the stronger the resistance. The question about whether the Republican Guard will fight or not has been answered. They will.

That being the case, I urge Americans to view with a skeptical eye and listen with a cautious ear to the reporting by the major media both on television, on the Internet, inside of the US and across the globe. It is of little use to the military to give them good solid information. Aside from feeling by at least some Americans that the media is irresponsible in their coverage of certain aspects of internal politics and international relations, it is unwise for military commanders to provide an enemy that is capable of watch US based television (satellites) with anything they can use to their advantage.

So, as we face uncertainty in the timetable and the media is actively shattering the perceptions they have spent a great deal of time crafting during the buildup to war we should not forget these things. The media in America, and throughout the rest of the West, is based on rating and unfortunately, the media has made ratings based largely on sensationalism. To illustrate this, think about how many times so far during this war have cable stations stopped commentary completely to listen to the silence coming from live feeds from Baghdad in the hopes that they will be able to broadcast a LIVE explosion? I, for one, have seen this more times than I care to keep track of any longer.

Coverage is likely to swing wildly between extremes. The war will be going much faster than anticipated or it will be going much slower. All the while, the generals may be saying that they had expected to run into resistance, that they are expecting this too take a bit of time, and that they never thought that this was going to be a bloodless war.

Remember, it is the job of generals all the way down to enlisted infantry to win wars. It is the job of television news outlets to keep as many eyeballs tuned into their station as possible for as long as possible. Those two concepts do not always lineup and march in lock step. In fact, I would argue that they rarely lineup together. Especially given that the generals will naturally want to keep the news that comes out as vague and as boring as possible. The newscasters, “expert” analysts, and investigative reporters are more likely to promote speculation, forecasting, and guess-timation with all the reliability of that great expert on all things journalistic, Unnamed Source.

Keep you wits about you; it’s only getting thicker on television sets across the fruited plains. Keep an eye out for first party news (press conferences) and editorials, like this.

POWs and al Jazeera -

This is a very disturbing event and one that should not sit well with Americans during this conflict. However, I would urge Americans to do everything they can to remain calm and not allow this to divert attention from the fact that we will be victorious in this engagement. Just as we engage in psyops, we must expect that Hussein and/or those currently in charge of Iraq will do the same. One thing that struck me during the time between the passage of 1441 and the begin of hostilities, including the Dan Rather interview, was that Saddam was familiar with Western media procedures and the way messages are crafted and delivered.

Make no mistake; Hussein knows that “public opinion” is an incredibly powerful commodity on American media outlets. More importantly, so does al Jazeera. A quick scan of their website and the headlines contained on it reveals this. The use of inflammatory language and video that has the potential sway public opinion in the US is not totally unlike the use of the American media to put pressure on certain audiences inside the Iraqi government. I do not want, in any way to equate the two. However, I cannot say that they are totally divorced either.

If you agree that the use of psyops, especially media based psyops, by the United States is a good that can potentially shorten the war. You must accept that the Iraqis may catch on and attempt to do the same thing. Unlike Americans, though, they are willing to cross certain lines that American media simply will not cross. We continue to hold the high ground and should treat the Iraqi/al Jazeera efforts for what they are and to redirect the feelings that well up inside each of us when we see and hear about this toward a steely resolve to support our troops and to keep them in our thoughts and prayers.

I dare say that is as much aid and comfort we can give to the POWs at this time. It is also the least we should do based on the sacrifice they have made.

Brief Summary Analysis -

Assumption and Cover:
The first assumption that the major media outlets were making at the outset of this was that we were going to lead with the “Shock & Awe” air campaign. The next assumption I heard early on was that the ground war would not start immediately. News commentators were also surprised by the near dawn bombing run, the decapitation attack, and the speed at which our troops have moved north from Kuwait.

Earlier today, Gen. Tommy Franks held a news conference. During the course of this press conference he was asked about the surprises, and whether he was surprised by the course and pace of the war. If I can ever find a transcript, I’ll update this. However, I only have television to go by with respect to this part of the conference. Franks reply was basically that US CENTCOM has had a year to plan and think about this operation and that a lot of things that look like surprises really are not, to paraphrase.

Now, this could just be bravado and a cover story for the path and pace the war has taken. That is a legitimate view to hold and can probably carry some water for you. On the other hand, it may actually have been the plan to go after Hussein and the top leadership from the very beginning. At the start of the war, I was skeptical of this point of view. However, as time passes I am warming to the idea that the CIA was in Baghdad and making great efforts to track and locate Hussein and his generals and sons.

Baghdad Prequel:
Google News has a section devoted to the current actions in Umm Qasr and the amount of resistance that was expected and has been shown. As I watched CSPAN last night at about 2am EST they were broadcasting BBC’s Breakfast. At that time, this was one of the primary stories they were focusing on during the broadcast. The story has gained traction and made it across the pond and into mainstream US media sources. For the time being the situation remains fluid and I don’t expect a definitive answer about the control of this city for several hours.

Embedded Reporters:
So far I have been less than impressed with the work of embedded reporters. Sure, they are putting themselves in harms way and they are taking risks that the people perched high atop hotels in Baghdad are not (I don’t see much risk of us hitting those hotels). However, they are only giving us information that has been cleared by the military and nothing will come close to giving anyone watching any real “insight” into the battle. On top of that, most of the footage is of barely useful quality and rarely shows anything of any interest. Embedding reporters is a brilliant PR stroke on the part of the Pentagon, but that is about all it is.

The Way We FIght -

So far, the United States led military effort:

Has not even come close to targeting civilians.

Has gone to great lengths to use as many precision guided weapons as possible.

Has ensured that every possible oil pumping, refinery, and distribution center possible is not destroyed as Saddam is deposed.

Has done everything possible to ensure that top military officials cannot order biological of chemical attacks.

Has left the power grids in major Iraqi cities completely intact.

Has not caused undo harm to Iraqi military forces that have been more than willing to surrender.

Has quickly seized Iraqi air bases to allow for rapid deployment of humanitarian aid.

Has not prolonged the war by engaging in another long and protracted air campaign merely to save the lives of US and coalition forces at the expense of Iraqis.

And, most importantly, has given every Iraqi soldier, at every level of command, every possible opportunity to surrender and end this conflict with as little bloodshed as possible.

It looks to me as if The United States of America is going to the greatest possible lengths to fight the most humane war ever seen in the existence of mankind while deposing one of the world’s most brutal dictators. We have made more than reasonable efforts to avoid environmental disasters, inflicting more undue harm on the civilian population of Iraq, and otherwise acting as the brutish thug some would like to paint us.

I wonder if any international groups that are concerned with environmental devastation and human rights will take note of the way we fight?

Somehow, I think not.

Updates -

Tomahawk Cruise Missiles: “…these missiles can be programmed with as many as 15 potential targets in mind and have the capability to switch targets after being launched.”


The Tehran Times hasn’t been updated in 2 days. Interesting. While over at The Tehran Globe it appears that Iranian Supreme Mullah Ayatollah Khamenei in an article, linked to The Australian, is demanding a halt to the war, but wants everyone to know that “he d[oes] not support Saddam Hussein's ‘dictatorial’ Iraqi regime.”

From the Jerusalem Post, the French are launching a desperate psyop campaign to remain relevant. Registration is required.

The Turks look likely to forgo entry into Northern Iraq.

Has anyone seen any good follow-up on the Afghan operations launched the other day?

War Break, Anyone?

I was thinking of Fisking Paul Krugman, but we are at war and I just don’t have the energy to get all worked up about the unusual perspective that Krugman brings to mainstream media. Plus, it just seems so petty to drop down to his level and slosh around in the muck and slime. If you need a break from the war you might want to take a gaze at his latest missive in the New York Times.

Registration Required: I’m not a real economist; I just play one in the New York Times.

Shocked & Awed? –

I am beginning to believe that the “Shock and Awe” tactic was merely a psy-op strategy aimed at keeping the Iraqis on edge for an extended period of time. My reasoning is as follows:

First, the military has been touting the tremendous strides we have made in the accuracy of laser guided and JDAM equipped bombs as well as the Tomahawk cruise missiles. If these reports are accurate, it is quite possible that we simply do not need to engage in an overly impressive display of force, in terms of numbers of bombs. It would therefore be true that less could easily be more in this case.

Second, when newscasters and military analysts talk about the “shack and awe” tactic, the level of bombing is often compared to the tremendous pounding that Baghdad suffered during GW I. If anyone has spent any time reading Salam Pax it is clear that Iraqis very well remember the intensity of our missile and bomb attacks and that it had a large impact on their psyches. If Saddam believes that the worst is yet to come, on an ongoing basis, he may be deterred from engaging in activities like the deployment of WMD, firing SCUDs on Israel, lighting oil wells on fire en masse, and other such similar actions until it is way too late for him to engage in any effective use of these types of tactics.

I may well be proven wrong at any moment, but I am thinking more and more that we are going to be shocked and awed at the small number of bombs and missiles (though not necessarily time) needed to bring Baghdad to its knees. In any event, I believe that if/when “shock & awe” is deployed, as it has been described on so many television outlets, it is likely to be the knock-out punch aimed to finally end the fighting will of soldiers of all ranks in the Iraqi military structure.

Facial Recognition of Saddam -

Requests have been made of biometric (facial recognition) vendors to examine the pictures of Saddam Hussein from the television broadcasts last night. I will assume, for the time being, that it will be confirmed that it was in fact Saddam.

It should be noted that previous examinations of Saddam Hussein from the facial recognition vendors have revealed that there are 3 doubles that Hussein uses. According to reports I have seen none of these doubles are ever used in speaking engagements so it is unlikely that the person on television last night was a double.

I’ll pass along any links to results if they are released via publicly accessible websites

Update: FOX News and MSNBC have reported that voice recognition has indeed identified Saddam Hussein's voice from last nights Iraqi broadcast. Both are also reporting that it is still suspected that the broadcast may have been taped.

Update: No public link, but it appears that facial recognition software says that the person on Iraqi television was the same guy who we were seeing on television in the days leading up to war. Is it really Hussein? Maybe yes, maybe, no. However, the public face, as seen on television, has been consistent. Face and voice confirmation, take it for what it is worth.

Tonight's Air Strikes -

I am of the opinion that “prepping the battlefield,” as it were, was the true objective of tonight’s air operations. I believe the nature of the attack was mainly to light up Iraqi radar installations, surface-to-air missiles, and AAA installations. Given the time it takes for the B52s to get to Iraq from England, it is clear that either the President gave the order for this particular attack early today or the commanders of this action were anticipating the decision.

Given the weeks of talk about the “shock & awe” strategy, it is now clear that the timing of shock & awe was intentionally misleading. By using the current strategy of the two limited bombing runs tonight the military forces gained a valuable look at the location of key Iraqi embankments. This will make shock and awe even more effective than it otherwise would be.

Did we get real-time intelligence about the location of Saddam and/or his top leaders and act on it? Yeah, we probably did, but that was gravy. The meat of this mission tonight was the acquisition of intelligence concerning the locations of key Iraqi weapons that are in and around Baghdad. Unless we got Hussein and surrender ensues within the next 12-15 hours, I would expect to actually see shock and awe tomorrow night.

Some very brief thoughts as we stand upon the precipice of war:

Lighter News:
Somebody should have told Chirac that the 48-hour window was not for France to surrender and acknowledge that they will, in fact, fight this war if Saddam uses bio/chem. Weapons. Found Here.

Quietly, against the backdrop and din of war planning and punditry the Palestinians have found themselves a successor to Arafat. A moderate Palestinian that the Israelis have already said they can work with. I guess this is just another sign of failed diplomacy. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the jab at the major media.) Here.


More Serious Questions:
I have been thinking about The Roman Empire a lot lately. I know we are fighting with better advantages that Caesar had, but do we have a tactician who is even close to as good as he was? Is Clausewitz?

Does the Western World have the stomach for the kind of sanctions regime that would have been necessary to remove Saddam without war? Sanctions designed to end a regime of this type must cut off the nation entirely. You could deliver food directly via airlift, but all other economic activity must be ended. How can you effectively deter a dictator when you allow him to sell billions of dollars of oil every year (just not as much as he could of used to)?

Will the UN ever again be anything more than a humanitarian organization?

“Our World-Historical Gamble” Part 2 –

It strikes me that the vast majority of the argument that Harris makes, aside from what I have already mentioned, sets the stage for his end game which is a move beyond Clausewitz largely because Clausewitz did not have the language to integrate international terrorism into his dynamic. However, we must ask ourselves if that is a rational justification for moving beyond the Clusewitzian model of war.

Does al Qaeda have a policy? It appears clear, through bin Laden’s own words on al Jazeera, that al Qaeda does indeed have a policy. That policy is that negotiation and politics are not proper venues for them to attempt to remedy their grievances. Al Qaeda has already moved beyond the political arena and has chosen to extend their policy directly to war.

While I do not want to place onto Clausewitz the contention that international terrorism does, in fact, fit within his theories of war, I do not believe it is an extreme stretch, or as Clausewitz would put it, beyond the point where such theories would “bear fruit.” Ultimately, the only difference between a state and an international Islamic terrorist regime is that the later has yet to seek diplomacy and politics in any serious manner. However, with respect to al Qaeda, it could be argued that they attempted to attain the position of legitimate state through the infiltration and association with the Taliban.

Furthermore, the Harris article appears to argue that there can be only one prevailing world theory. As he proceeds through his arguments, he moves through Marxism, Clausewitz, and the Liberal World Order, while also touching on a few other principles. What Mr. Harris seems to miss is that the true nature of the current world-historical event is that there might be a shift in power between the Clausewitz camp and that of the Liberal World Order. Contrary to Harris’s position, it seems clear that at least for the past decade or so, there has been a struggle for power between the two competing ideologies. Neither, based on current diplomatic stances taken by nations around the world or political polls, it seems has a decisive victory and to conclude that this action has already placed into motion the events that will move us past both is a gamble by Harris himself at best and spurious at worst. This latest crisis of diplomacy with Iraq, and the internal and external reactions of governments in Europe as well as behavior by both parties in America, demonstrates that Clausewitz’s ideas are very much alive and in the game, just as the actions of French and German governments demonstrate that certain nations are grasping the principles of the liberal world order, even going so far as to say today that they will make sure that every and all humanitarian efforts are carried out after the conclusion of open hostilities with Saddam Hussein’s regime.

I was a lurker before I was a blogger. For a long time I read the thoughts and other mental machinations of those in the blogoshpere before finally putting thought to keyboard to user interface myself. In many ways I am still learning and taking small steps, as much as anyone can who puts their thoughts out in a public arena. However, I see, in blogging, tremendous opportunities and many dangers.

Where as blogging is yet another step in the long line of actions and reactions that Gutenberg set into motions those many years ago, I believe bloggers are either now or will very soon be faced with some decisions. We should all be aware by now that the moves made and proposed by Google and AOL means that we are no longer alone here in the blogoshpere. To ignore and/or fight commercialization because it is coming in the form of major corporations and for the simple fact that it has the potential to taint what is otherwise pure is to fail to see the forest through the trees.

The only way bloggers can have any say over the commercialization of and profit from blogging is to take active steps now that corporations have begun to define a market is to attempt to outmaneuver those entities and control it ourselves. We must wake up to the very real situation we face that Google and AOL are not going to go away as long as we stay here on the Internet and use blogging as a way of self-expression and public enlightenment. I believe the best strategy is to embrace them and use them to grow our own market.

I read recently an article that divided blogs nicely into two categories, thinkers and linkers. The most natural fit for any large corporation is going to be the linkers and we should do everything in our power to help them get those people by attracting the thinkers to our collective efforts. Major corporations, it strikes me, are most comfortable selling dumb. By that I mean that mass media is most comfortable when they are able to water-down, dumb-down, or otherwise lower the level of discourse to appeal to the broadest possible audience. To do this, the content can never be of such sophistication that it is beyond the grasp of the average high school graduate. However, as more and more members of our society are matriculating through the ranks of colleges and universities across this land, it becomes more and more viable to sell smart. We need to stake out smart.

Some who read this and assume, rightly I might add, that I believe that the creation of a blogging corporation is the way to go should bear with me if they can for a bit longer. Corporations have gotten a bad name recently for the actions of some very greedy men in our society. The tarnish they have brought to corporate America is both deserving and representative of only a portion of American business. If I thought there was a good way to model any internally generated blog-o-centric commercial endeavor on another model I would be all for it. The closest I can come is the mutual insurance company model where the policyholders are the owners of the corporation. I haven’t completely discarded it, yet I think it needs a good amount of work before it is viable as a model, especially one that does not require a large amount of administration. Your thoughts are welcome indeed.

I believe, the best example of a corporation to model this on is Polartec. They prove that it is possible to make it in this world without being the ruthless corporate operator who will screw his shareholders for an extra ¼ point when redeeming his stock options and pass out inside information to his friends like it was a Christmas card or birthday greeting. A corporation need not be publicly traded and this one should not go that route. Given the minimal startup costs there needent be any great drive to IPO, no venture capitalists to pay off. Mark at The American Sentimentalist makes mention of creating “institutions [that] could include the creation of “resource centers” for bloggers containing legal, commercial, educational and philosophical resources for webloggers, access to affordable legal representation subsidized by the overall community, the creation of legal rights organizations (such as a blogging version of the ACLU) that will address overall blogging issues and serve as a lobbying arm, guidelines for intellectual property and mainstream news and cultural source usage, the development of a “rights and responsibilities” charter for bloggers who so choose to adhere to them .” These are the kinds of undertakings that can help guard against the very dangers that many see existing in modern corporations.

To the bloggers who believe utmost in the purity and independence, it is now incumbent upon you to take steps to protect that purity and independence by using the tools of Google and AOL both for the benefit of blogging and against their attempts to stake out the territory for themselves. Corporations go badly wrong because the people inside them forget why they are doing what they are doing. I have every faith that the blogging community, driven by the desires to keep control of this media from those who do not cherish it for anything other than profit, can avoid this.



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The Future of Blogging -

Mark over at The American Sentimentalist has published this about the future of blogging. He and I have begun a discussion about the topic and invite the participation of as many bloggers as care to join. You can post comments on either his or my site. You can also email me if you would like to become more deeply involved in this nascent endeavor.

Review: “Our World-Historical Gamble” Part 1 –

Lee Harris, in “Our World-Historical Gamble” makes a major gamble himself. He attempts to weave together a theory that purports to prove that the actions the US seems all but certain to undertake within the week represent a change in the world of such magnitude that we currently lack the vocabulary to discuss and evaluate the actions because the world is fraught with total uncertainty about the course and results of the action.

His first section, entitled “The Problem” is a fairly straightforward accounting of how Harris believes this event fits into the “world-historical” model, as outlined by Hegel. Though, it appears to me, that he first runs into problems when he discusses the potential problems with using words like empire and sovereignty, among a few others, to describe certain aspects of this because Harris believes those words no long apply. A quick search through the etymology of the word “sovereign” shows that the origin of the word goes through Middle English and even back to Latin. Empire is an equally old world. In other words, these terms would be as familiar to Voltaire and Aquinas as they are to us today and have survived the radical changes he uses to illustrate the disconnects of yesterday and today and thus weakens his argument from the outset. Surely, some words do fade, but others stand the test of time and Harris is in no position to determine which words are going to last beyond the potential actions in Iraq as well as throughout the war on terrorism.

Another problem that strikes me about the article is that there is very little, historically, that Harris offers about the “liberal world order.” It is not clear at all, from reading the article when this world order started. Was it with the UN or could it be stated that it began with the League of Nations? If the League of Nations is part of the liberal world order, and I would find it hard for Harris to consistently argue that it is not, then we must evaluate both Hitler and Stalin within the contexts of it. I will return to this later, but both strike me as problematic to Harris. Also, within the context of the liberal world order, Harris argues that bin Laden and Hussein are a product of the liberal world order in as much as they were given technology and weapons that they did not bear the cost of developing themselves. While I do not want to spend a large amount of time discussing this, via reductio ad absurdum any society that did not reinvent the wheel is similarly situated. Surely lines need to be drawn, and need not be drawn as far back as I just did. However, to underestimate the massive research and development efforts that Saddam has undertaken (that is what we are arguing about right now, after all) and the tremendous hardships and suffering endured by bin Laden and his “warriors” in their training and preparations for the actions they both engage in is to grossly mischaracterize the nature of the maturation of the threat they pose.

As France and Germany are in the process of demonstrating, perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the liberal world order is that of creating “military welfare queens.” For the past fifty years both nations have been afforded the peace and safety of the protection provided by a strong US military presence on the European Continent. The US stood guard on the front lines of the Cold War and held in check the balance of power between the US and USSR while Germany and France recovered from WWII and returned to the prosperity of economic expansion and social justice of democracy. It appears likely now that these two nations took the trust we placed in them as responsible democracies and threw it away by supporting, first openly and more recently covertly the military might of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. While hard and concrete evidence of this might not come out until the fall of Saddam, one thing is very clear. While the US learned from its mistakes with Iraq a long time ago, France and Germany continue to support this evil regime to the detriment of both international stability and the human rights of the Iraqi people.

To be continued…..

Quick Thoughts -

Some quick thoughts before unpacking and getting ready for another workweek:

I finally made time to read the Lee Harris piece "Our World-Historical Gamble" that was being reported on by a number of bloggers last week during the plane ride to and from my ski weekend. I am going to post a fairly lengthy piece (or I may break it up into a couple of posts) but here are some quick excerpts from the notes I took to whet your appetite.

Do first-world western style democracies have a responsibility to shepherd developing nations thru/past certain things (ala WMD)?

How widespread are the true adherents of radical Islam and how many are like the average German citizen under the rule of the Nazis?

We are the most benevolent empire yet, but an empire none-the-less. We are the empire of “bottom-to-top self-determination.”

No More This Week -

I am leaving for a much needed long weekend and am not taking my laptop with me. As such, I don't expect to be able to post anything until late Sunday or Monday.

Have a great weekend and check back next week for more.

Eric

Who's in Charge of This?-

This had better be some sort of joke. We are going to give $27 million to an al Qaeda foot soldier for turning in Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed? I cannot even find the words to describe my confiusion, discontent, and total awe at seeing this. Someone at State or Justice or somewhere has totally lost it.

If anyone is wondering, yes, you lie to him. You make up fake account numbers, balances, banks, a receptionsist that he can talk to, whatever it takes. But, yes, you lie to him and you DO NOT give an al Qaeda soldier $27 million dollars, period.

History Through Internet Metaphors-

First there was Judaism. The Torah spells out the code of life for the Jewish tribes in ancient times and is still used by certain segments of the world’s population today. For the purposes of our discussion today, I will refer to this whole phenomenon and history as God 1.0. The Jews captured God 1.0, harnessed it and sold it to the masses as the one and true faith. It was very popular and successful in its attempts to win larger audiences.

Well, about two thousand years ago, along come the Christians. Jesus comes down from heaven, spins off a new division in a spectacular IPO, expands the code, adds a ton of new functionality and viola, we get God 2.0. Well, God 2.0 is a best seller, perhaps the best ever. It not only tops the Roman Times best seller list for centuries, but goes on to dominate just about every western best seller list since. It's so big, in fact, that a German philosopher once perpetrated a vicious hoax that said God 1.0 and 2.0 were not Y19C compliant and were therefore dead.

After a goodly amount of time had passed the proponents of God 1.0 and God 2.0 came first to a truce, then a dismissal of open hostilities, and now for the most part recognize the good that the other offers and try to compete in tandem, call it the God keiretsu.

Attempting to capitalize on the success of God 2.0, a guy named Mohammed Jobs decides to steal the source code, reengineer it, and comes out with Allah 3.0. (Yes, I realize that I’m mixing my metaphors, but bear with me.) As the rift between God 1.0 and God 2.0 had not yet, healed he was able to exploit this to grow Allah 3.0. Now, among a certain segment Allah 3.0 catches on in a way that its followers see it as a stepping-stone beyond God 2.0, but do not harbor any animosity towards those who prefer not to adopt it. To others, they can never understand why everyone isn’t using Allah 3.0 and this upsets them enough that they actively take whatever steps are necessary to force a change to Allah 3.0. They hack into God 1.0 and 2.0 systems every day and do as much damage as they possible can. These people, we will call Allah 3.X.

Some executives at Allah recognize this and are doing whatever they can to help minimize the damage to God 1.0 and 2.0 and their relationship with Allah 3.0. They include VP of Development Hosni Egyptian, Sales consultant Hafas Turkish, CFO Abdullah “The King” Jordan, and some other lesser players. On the other hand, VP of Marketing Iraqi al Iraq, CEO Mullah Iranian and auditor Arthur bin Landerson are doing whatever they can to help the Allah 3.X program and they have many, many followers throughout the entire Allah Online Network (AON). (Currently version 8.0 with new voices for “You’ve got prayers” and “Salam m’leikem.”) All the while, Chairman of the Board Prince Sheikh Saud is sitting on his ass playing both sides against the middle because he thinks Allah 3.X really isn’t that big a threat to his position, even some 3.0 followers are not sure about cutting off 3.X yet and he knows that God 1.0 cannot and God 2.0 will not takeover all of AON because the balance sheet would be a disaster in the end.

So this is where God 1.0 and 2.0 are with Allah 3.0 and 3.X and nothing is getting any better. There is no truce because Allah 3.0 will not deal with 3.X; there can be no keiretsu either. Of course, God 1.0 is completely pissed off and refuses to talk to the local Allah 3.0 sales reps about the territories they cover. This puts God 2.0 between a rock and a hard place. So, God 1.0 and 2.0 can either go after all of Allah 3.0, including 3.X and try a hostile takeover by deposing the Chairman of the Board, which they cannot do. Or, they can go after the supporters of Allah 3.X and take away the other side from the Chairman. How would you attack the Allah 3.X problem?

If you have somehow missed it, please check out The Agonist. He is seeking donations for a great cause, an intellectual endeavor with the appeal of Indiana Jones style adventure and a book on historically important topics.

North Korea News -

Call me crazy, but this CNN post looks a whole lot like the US version of splashing a short-range missile into the middle of the ocean as a metaphor for pounding your chest as the US Secretary of State enters the region. I saw that move a whole lot like stretching your arms out, yawning and smacking your big brother in the back of the head because you know you can get away with it. This is how the old brother returns the favor a few days later.

All the Korea Hawks should take a deep breath and realize that the world is not going to fall apart and it is not a step that dooms us to war. We’re just reminding Dictator Il of some of the cards in our hand, just like he showed us one of his cards. Only problem for him is, we can track his and have a shot (you rate the odds) of knocking it out of the air before it gets anywhere near Americans.

I'm Out on a Limb with No Net -

Dean Esmay pointed out earlier today that 18 months ago the world changed. He also asked if people were still angry. After a fair amount of thought, I can honestly say that I am not angry in the least anymore, and now that I think about it, haven’t been for a while. What I am is coldly and deliberately willing to support our country in taking the stands that must be taken to clean up the remnants of Cold War era bad guys that were funded by both sides. The post-Cold War era, I believe, is not some new world order and new world era that immediately rings in a great Pax Americana. We will have to wait awhile for that.

For 50 years, both the United States and the USSR funded a series of relatively small fish, pawns really, that could be used to fight proxy wars. The Soviets fund Castro, we fund anti-communist dictators in Latin America, we support Iraq and they support Iran, North and South Korea the same. Vietnam, the list goes on and on. Some of these nations are more problematic today than others, some are deeply hobbled by the lack of support from Washington or Moscow and others are still viable nations that can pose a threat both today and tomorrow. North Korea and Cuba, according to everything I have read, are in the most desperate shape economically. While Castro continues to use the foil of America to prop up his failed regime, North Korea, uses total dictatorial control and brutal thuggish-ness to oppress and dominate a people who can certainly not consider their condition anything more than miserable. Recent developments seems to prove that as things become more untenable economically and the more Washington insists on involving the other powers of the region, namely China and South Korea, it is driving Kim Jong Il to more “Chicken Little” style desperate pleas for attention. Firing a missile into the middle of the ocean just doesn’t get me all that riled up. I realize that there are plenty of people who think that North Korea is a bigger threat than just about any in the world today I respectfully disagree.

Iran, while economically stable due to vast oil reserves, is faced with a tenuous hold on power. The Mullahs are staring at a vibrant young population that wants relations with the West and more freedom. Our presence in the region, I believe, will only add fuel to their fire. Only time will tell, but my present thinking tells me that a wait and see approach to Iran may prove to be as good a policy as I believe it to be with North Korea.

We come to Iraq. The administration has never argued this point and I do not think they see things this way, but I do and I’m writing this, not any of the neo-cons, chicken hawks, sort of doves or any other of Baskin-Robbins’s flavors you will find at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Iraq is more dangerous because Saddam has a strangle hold on power and a populace that has already been crushed when it tried to rebel in 1991. While he has no effective control of either No-Fly zone and the Kurds have setup a fledgling democracy, they seem content to sit on their hands until someone, that would be us, actually follows through on the “or else” provisions found in the resolutions of the unwilling. He has oil that he can sell on the open market, in limited quantities measured in billion of dollars per year. He has allies willing to at least bend the rules of the economic sanctions the UN imposed. He has a proven track record of making the most radical and brutal choice possible for a dictator faced with the choices of militaristic operations and the support of Middle East terrorists. Finally, he has a group of neighbors that can never come out and say, “yes, we want him out,” because they have played the dangerous game of being friendly to the US in the backrooms and bashing us to their public.

Do I feel anger? No. How could I? We spent 50 years, working hand in hand with the USSR, to create a series of proxies that could be used to fight the war that could never be fought. It would be naïve, in retrospect, to believe that we would not suffer the consequences and not have to shed blood to right the wrongs of the past. I expect the leaders of our country for the next few decades to work diligently to learn from the past and do the ugly things that must be done to clean up the mess left over from the Cold War.

I have only one question for Sean-Paul. Could you have at least waited until Tuesday to drop this kind of bomb?

This is, of course, why I like reading Sean-Paul’s blog as much as I do, but returning to the office, and sneaking a peek at a few blogs, and seeing that ruined the rest of my day, my concentration on work was nil. While I was able to resist the urge to completely give in to this, the question just started swimming with the thoughts I had of the movie I stayed up way too late to watch last night, The Pentagon Papers on FX. Now, before anyone gets the bright idea of going out and seeing where he stands on this and what he uses to justify it, I’ll give you Ellsberg in 2 minutes. He is against the war. He is against it because he does not believe that Saddam Hussein, even with large amount of bio/chem weapons and even nuclear weapons is a first strike threat. Oh, and he thinks this is all about oil. Pick you favorite if you want.

I was expecting Ellsberg to disapprove of this, basically for the reasons I read from the linked Google search while I watched the movie last night. It is not at all surprising that he would distrust a government that gave him great reasons not to trust. However, one can almost certainly guarantee that Daniel Ellsberg hasn’t been within earshot of the kind of information he is made famous for in at least three decades. I dare say there are better-informed bloggers on both sides of the issue. I’ll grant that Ellsberg probably has an unusually well refined bullshit detector in his brain, but just because the reasons publicly given are BS doesn’t make his conclusions correct.

So, back to the constitutionality question. It is an intriguing idea and one that seems to come up from time to time. For those who like the notion that our going to war without the UNSC seal of approval is a very bad thing, I suspect it is a very heady idea. I can only assume that the “Bush = Hitler” brigades become verbally incontinent at its mere mention.

As I have said before, though, I believe that the best arguments against war are found in the notions of nation building and hegemony. Though, for this particular constitutional question I would point, as many others have, to the fact that Saddam Hussein remains in breach of the 1991 cease-fire agreement. You can dislike it all you want, but he is. It is a fact; so much so, that the more inspectors find the more he is proven in breach. If this were not the case, the constitutional question would certainly bear much more fruit for the anti-war side of this debate. Given the fact that media is what it is and media whores are what they are, every single cable news provider, excepting perhaps FOX, would be talking about the constitutional crisis of war with Iraq 24/7, it is a much better story than what they currently have.

Perhaps this will be a mess and we will be dealing with its aftermath for generations to come and perhaps there will be another Daniel Ellsberg to tell us about it. I don’t know, but just as my thinking on war goes, I would much prefer this fictitious future figure to do it now rather than to wait. Of course, Ellsberg doesn’t want to wait that long to test the legality of revealing secrets that prove that our government is lying to us. He wants to push the issue now with the smaller leaks of secret information that present officials are complaining about. I believe that is a bit of a precipitous escalation, but can understand that it is a very personal thing for him and I respect that he has every right to feel that way.

Do I think we are getting the straight scoop on the war with Iraq? No

Do I think that we would really compromise national security to be a bit more helpful in connection the dots? No

Do I think that if the government did reveal more that we really would get a case for war that 70-80% of the people in this country would be comfortable with? I’m still leaning towards yes on this.

Why do I think that the government is not telling us the whole story here? I believe it is because we tend to take national security too seriously. Not in the way that if we took it less seriously we wouldn’t be doing it well enough. I think we need to look at it less seriously in the way that we recognize that pretty much everyone knows how we get information, if it isn’t though satellites and aircraft it is the same way that countries have gotten information for centuries. A satellite isn’t a source that you can compromise and neither is a plane if you don’t also reveal when it is going to be flying over certain areas. Unlike UBL, Saddam cannot stop using a phone and neither can members of his military. They are far more exposed to non-human intelligence gathering than any terrorist will ever be.

There’s more to come on this, but it isn’t ready to go yet.

The Reasoning of War -

Based on what I have read on the Internet and seen on television lately, the anti-war crowd’s arguments fall almost entirely into one of four categories. They are:

1. Conquest, nation-building, hegemony, naked aggression
2. Bush is a liar
3. The Bible, religion
4. The Sonny Corleones

C, N-B, H and N A: Generally speaking this is the strongest argument against war. Those who argue this come to their reasoning based on the concepts taught in political science classes in universities everywhere. The foil to their views is that America is spreading democracy across the globe and freeing people from the oppression of despotic dictators and iron fisted religious extremists whenever we are called upon or uncover unusually brutal examples of both. In the spirit of full disclosure, this comes closest to summarizing my views, though is not a complete treatment. The problem I keep running into, and have personally come to accept as the other edge of the sword, is that on the receiving end, this can look a lot like hegemony.

Bush is a liar: I have a hard time taking this argument seriously. I believe that in a society of 260 million people propaganda is an inevitable and necessary part of governing and if you are not smart enough to see the forest through the trees I feel little pity for you. Let’s take a look at the probable Democratic nominee (at this point) John Kerry. Kerry has been all over the map on this issue. For it, against, sort of for it again, then sort of against it. And back again. At which point is Senator Kerry giving the American public the opinion that is what he truly believes and when is he lying? I would argue that only Senator Kerry can tell us what his real position is and what is a politically calculated lie aimed at positioning himself in a certain direction.

The Bible, religion: We have the separation of Church and State for a reason. I do not care for George Bush’s religious references in speeches any more than any card-carrying member of the ACLU. However, you simply cannot condemn the man for his tactics and then pick up those same tactics and try and use them against him. Don’t drag one into the other and still talk about how we cannot post the Ten Commandments as an important historical document in public places and then quote one of them on war protest signs as refutation of government policy. It is hypocritical and shows a dangerous inconsistency of thought.

Sonny Corleone: Yes, I did use a Godfather reference and, no, I will not apologize for trivializing the issue. At the point that Michael is about to kill McCluskey and Salotso (SP?) and revealing his plan of action, Sonny turned to Tom Hagan and says, “This is business, Tom, and he is taking this very, very personally,” or something very close to that. This is what a lot of people on the left are now saying about Bush. He is finishing his father’s war and avenging the attempt on his life by Hussein. It is a personal vendetta he wants to settle. This is now my third attempt at writing this section and I am having a hard time not launching into a giant rant. I will, however, point out as calmly as possible that the same people that are arguing this position are the same people that were condemning, with the most vitriolic statements possible, the right when they were stupidly saying that Clinton lobbed cruise missiles at bin Laden to divert attention from Monica Lewinsky. It was a disgusting argument then and it remains so today.


We are very close to the day of reckoning. It is understandable and admirable that we all question our motives and reasons for doing what we are going to do in Iraq. Just do it more responsibly than the pukes in Washington on both sides of the aisle.

Presidential Softball Game -

Someone told me that President Bush was speaking tonight, and actually taking questions from reporters in a formal news conference. As I watch it now, replayed on CNBC, I’m glad I decided to go bowling. I bowled a 165, 134, and 146. Given that I have been bowling quite poorly the past couple of weeks, I think I bowled pretty well.

Oh, yeah, The President! It’s just that the questions those reporters were asking show the kind of intelligent analysis and deep probative value that I would expect from a competent sixth grader. The next time reporters complain about the fact that the president never has press conferences, maybe they out to read the transcript of tonight’s events.

‘Mr. President, Ted Kennedy says that this is really personal for you. Is it?’

‘Mr. President, if you have already made up your mind to go to war, is there anything that anyone could say to change that decision?’

“Mr. President, I’m going to throw you’re your ‘dead or alive’ comment about bin Laden in your face. Is that OK?’

Oh, and then there is my favorite. I have a crisp fin (that would be a five dollar bill) for the first person that can identify the question in this bit of showing off on the “We get to talk near the President of the United States Show.”

“QUESTION: Mr. President, to a lot of people it seems that war is probably inevitable, because many people doubt -- most people I would guess -- that Saddam Hussein will ever do what we are demanding that he do, which is disarm.
“And if war is inevitable, there are a lot of people in this country -- as much as half by polling standards -- who agree that he should be disarmed, who listen to you say that you have the evidence, but who feel they haven't seen it, and who still wonder why blood has to be shed if he hasn't attacked us.”
Now, I know what the reporter is getting at, but the reporter doesn’t have the cajones to directly accuse the President of the United States straight away of ignoring the “No Blood for Oil” anti-war signs. Or, alternatively, he asks the incredibly naïve question, why won’t you reveal top-secret information to everyone in this country?

Every single leftist or liberal blogger that I read on a regular basis could come up with 100 better questions for the President. You can read the transcript here.

bin Laden Update -

This Jerusalem Post article is all over talk radio this afternoon. The White House is denying it for now.

Registration is required for the JPost and the site has been up and down all day due to traffic caused by this story.

Quote of the Week -

"Shut up you minion, you [US] agent, you monkey. You are addressing Iraq," said Izzat Ibrahim, the second-in-command of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council.

Addressing Iraq? Oh, sorry for the confusion. I imagine this is Saddam's standard reply to ministers who do not properly puppet the correct responses during those silent movies Saddam releases of his high council every few days.

Extra! Extra! -

I don’t mean to interrupt the march to war, or even the Stephen den Beste and Daniel Davies blogobation fest going on across the blogoshpere. However, we are receiving some very serious news from across the pond in the UK. It seems that a couple of Who Wants to be a Millionaire contestants over in Britain decided that rather than the full million splitting it with some other contestant who would cough he correct answers when imminent failure was at hand was much more acceptable. You can read all about it here.

Unfortunately, the whole miscalculation has landed everyone in court under the charge of "procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception." Isn’t that such a classy way to call someone a lying, thieving bastard? You gotta love the British.

Oh, if any of you were wondering, I just made up the term blogobation out of thin air. Think masturbation, only for your brain and less messy. Unless, of course, you are drinking while reading some of the more asinine comments being throw about and prone to the old milk through the nose debacle.

No politics roday -

This is the caption, from TVGuide.com, of the Dateline NBC episode from last night.

Dateline NBC
60 min.
A report on a 1990s rape-and-murder spree in Philadelphia and Fort Collins, Colo., committed by a man known in Philadelphia as “the Center City rapist.” Included: interviews with Sylvester and Vicki Schieber, parents of a University of Pennsylvania graduate student killed in 1998, who sued the Philadelphia Police Dept. They claim police might have prevented their daughter's killing had they responded more forcefully. John Hockenberry reports.

The show was called “Justice for Shannon,” and detailed the death of a woman by the name of Shannon Schieber. For me this is one of those surreal moments that almost never happen when watching television.

I knew Shannon fairly well. During her time at Duke she dated one of my best friends both then and today. I know some of the details of her life that were omitted from the story between Duke and Penn and lost contact with her shortly before she went to Wharton.

A couple of things strike me about the story. First, her parents talk of her in about as muted a tone as I can possibly imagine. They mention that she graduated from Duke with a triple major. True. She did it in three years, though. More impressive, IMO.

I cannot ever recall talking to Shannon and not ending the call with a smile on my face. I knew her from personal contact as well, with her boyfriend at his parent’s house as well as the apartment they shared at Duke. We often had lengthy telephone conversations while she was at Duke and I was never sure how broad a range of topics that we would hit upon until the very end. She was able to talk intelligently on more topics than anyone else I had ever or have ever met. Shannon was human like the rest of us; she was also as sharp as a whip.

Second, during the broadcast, it is mentioned that the police received an anonymous tip that turned out to be very helpful to the investigation. The call provided details that led police to see a connection between Shannon’s death and a serial rapist. Finally, the call was never linked to the killer or any other named individual. I am strongly suspicious that the caller may have been Sylvester Schieber, though I have absolutely no evidence of this. If what I have been told about the man is true, he is even smarter than Shannon. I’d put him up against any detective on any police force in America with respect to the ability to solve criminal cases. The man has no training in solving crimes, but to get to where he is in life, you have to be a methodical thinker capable of disassociation and “arguing in the alternative,” as lawyers call it, both of which strike me as essential in criminal investigations. Regardless of the impression that Sylvester Schieber gives on television I would guess that he is a formidable opponent for the former Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney and most likely a pain in the ass (from Timoney’s perspective).

I’m not going to advocate for either side in the Schieber’s lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia. That isn’t my place.

I know one thing, though. Shannon was a cool chick and a great technician of thought.

Iraqi Barometer of Success? -

Mark Anderson over at American Sentimentalism has posted the following about ways to judge the success of our invasion of Iraq and the ensuing period of reconstruction. It is an interesting list worth some thought. The following are my comments about the 10 items he lists.

Has there been a war crimes tribunal initiated and funded by the United States?

Wouldn’t the Untied Nations be a better way to go? We wouldn’t want to act unilaterally in this endeavor, would we? All joking aside, yes, we had better setup a war crimes tribunal for the people who remain from Saddam’s regime that we capture during and after the end of this war. They need to stand trial, if for no more noble a reason, than to show every single person inside of Iraq what the consequences are for playing the part of the willing accomplice. I wouldn’t expect to see Saddam at these trials, though. He has Hitler-esque suicide written all over him. It is a good gauge of success for evaluating this war.

Do our allies fear us?

This is a bit disingenuous to me. There are plenty of allies who probably have a healthy dose of fear about getting on our bad side. I’m sure there is some fear in many German and Japanese citizens still to this day. Does that make us a bad ally? Or them? If fear were the most overriding emotion our allies feel about us for a sustained period of time, that is something different. But I think there are plenty of Americans who fear what our abilities are and that fear does not stem from or result in a particular political belief.

Have there been more terrorist attacks?

Has George Bush and/or members of his administration made the case that this war will make us safer vis-à-vis terrorism? Yes. However, no one that I have heard has said that if we invade Iraq we will end all threat of terrorism here on our soil. What if some angered Frenchman blows up the Stature of Liberty because he doesn’t think we deserve the gift any longer, but the Middle East becomes less volatile because of a stable democracy? I have believed from the beginning that if we are out of The War on Terrorism in 20 years we have done a good job. And, yes, I’m very serious.

Are Israelis still building settlements?

Ten years from now? Yes, this is a very good measure of our success and commitment to ending international terrorism on the scale of 9/11. If they haven’t come up with a cogent plan on their own that we can get behind in 5 years I am absolutely in favor of cutting back their foreign aid to the bare minimum needed. Let’s keep in mind, though, that Israel is a problem for the US because of places that Christians across the entire US political spectrum don’t want to cede control of to Muslims as well.

Is Saudi Arabia a democracy?

I just don’t see the US doing anything to promote this idea. If Saudi Arabia is a democracy or anything close, constitutional monarchy for example, in 50 years we have been wildly successful beyond our biggest dreams of today. This would be like requiring Italy’s government to publicly proclaiming that due to the outbreak of pedophilia in America the Roman Catholic Church and Vatican City are no longer allies of Italy. (I’m not totally satisfied with the analogy, but I cannot think of a better one right now) For better or worse, I have to give the Saudis a pass on this because of the nature of the country’s place in the world of Muslim holy places. I see forcing democracy in Saudi Arabia as so egregious an offense that we will definitely have terrorism on a scale that we have never even considered. Putting our forces there created one bin Laden, forcing democracy could create 10,000.

How are the Kurds doing?

Yes, absolutely. The Kurds need to be looked after and protected to a fault. They are a democratic child that should be spoiled if need be.

How much is a gallon of gas in the United States?

Again, I cannot buy into this gauge. I think that the closer we get to the realization of the fuel cell dream the higher the price of gasoline. Make no mistake about it, whether Bush gets his $1.5 billion in funding or not, this is the step beyond the use of the internal combustion engine powering personal automobiles. If you read this months issue of Car & Driver will find this gem about the GM Hy-Wire, an actual relife, capable of driving on the road, fuel cell popwered car. This is coming and it is not that far off (20-30 years), many reading this will see these as the majority of vehicles on the road at some point in the future. This consideration also ignores the ability of the US Congress to use taxes on gasoline as an income source much more than they currently view necessary.

Has there been a military operation inside the U.S. to root out terrorists?

Yes. This would scare the hell out of me. Do you think we would know about it if it happened? Please do not be naïve when thinking about this question.

How many other countries around the world have U.S. troops inside them?

If we could do it, I would be much happier with the CIA and small groups of Special Forces handling the task of rooting out terrorists. As we learned, or at least I learned, from Afghanistan when we go in with overwhelming force and we are looking for less than 3,000 people or so those people tend to scatter and make our job a lot more difficult. I have a hard time believing that the American public, as currently constituted, educated, and informed (TV) could tolerate this kind of action. However, unless we have a need to take out a dictator (Saddam) then I vote for the CIA and Special Forces running very quite operations that do not “go boom” on CNN and all we really know is that we are fighting the terrorists and hopefully winning. Every State of the Union, if the President wants, he can announce a couple more big victories. I firmly believe that it is a better way for us to fight terrorism and would be much more demoralizing to the terrorists. Why? Because they don’t get to “go boom” on CNN either.

What has changed at home?

Yes, I agree with this as well.

Today's NY Times Editorial -

“The Bush administration proved over the weekend that it can plan for war against Iraq and fight international terrorism at the same time.” March 3,2003 NY Times Editorial. Free registration is reguired.

I have only one question for the Times. Is it hard to balance liberalism with progressivism, while totally ignoring anything right of conservative Democrat; all the while teetering dangerously on a series of flawed arguments that are being shot down quicker than Iraqi radar installations? It looks hard.

Vaclav Havel -

When I was in college, busily studying the arts and sciences of political science, there was one sure fire way to gain acceptance into the professorial world and really stand out among your student peers. If one were to read the musing of one Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, and discuss them with even the slightest modicum of understanding, you could almost guarantee a half point increase on any paper and/or exam for the effort. When you are a decidedly not in favor of electing Democrats in college, you find and use whatever means necessary to appear less “radical” to your professors. Sure, Marx is always an excellent source of “gravitas” for any argument, but he could only provide me so much play before I had to find someone else who put forth more realistic ideas that I could more easily work into an essay.

I heard earlier today that the Czechs have finally elected a replacement for Havel, who was barred from seeking a third term to his presidency. It must be such a difficult time for political science professors all across this country. For those unaware, here is a brief biography of Havel and here is an example of the type of thinking that won the scruffy, chain-smoking playwright turned political titan such adoration among the keepers of American academia. I do not mean to suggest at all that this admiration is ill founded. For anyone who has familiarized themselves with Mr. Havel’s life and views, he is a far more worthy candidate for a Nobel than the likes of Jimmy Carter. He is a serious thinker whose thoughts should be reflected upon by all serious thinkers here in America.

So, here’s the rub. Vaclav Havel is one of the people who signed onto the letter from 8 EU nations supporting Bush and the war in Iraq. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the political science department at any of the top twenty universities in this country the day that editorial ran in the Wall Street Journal. Their hearts’ must have been breaking. How could such a great man have sold them out? The leader of the Velvet Revolution agrees with George Bush about war on Iraq?

With his replacement secured, it must be a bittersweet time for academia. The guy they rooted for so hard is leaving the stage with the besmirched record of having agreed with George Bush. A true political tragedy that Havel himself could never have put to paper.

I, for one, wish Havel the best in all his future endeavors and the gratitude that should come with having done truly great things.

Two-fer from Dean Esmay -

For a while now I have had Dean Esmay on my daily reading list (currently standing at 9 blogs). In the past few days, Dean has posted some of the best stuff I have read in a long while. First, he weighed in with an incredible article on Jacksonian Politics and then he hit his readers with a very interesting Gallup Poll that speaks to the issues of media bias and fairness.

If you haven’t read the Jacksonian article, take the time to print it off and read it with your Sunday morning coffee. It looks to me to be a much better read than the feature in the NY Times Magazine this week, “a utopian blueprint for postwar Iraq” as the blurb describes it. I think a wise Jacksonian would tell you to read the article and see it for what it is, not what it might be or what you think it should be. Drink the kool-aid for 29 pages and realize that Dean and Mead are giving everyone on the coasts a front row seat to the views of a vast number of people living in fly-over land. Contrary to many other political strains, Jacksonians take a look at where they are, see things for what they are and work to an ideal. Many other strains of American political thought start from an ideal and work backwards. It is not too difficult to see why we often look down on the Jacksonian. It is not, though, clear that doing so is a good idea at all.


Dean’s other post, the Gallup article is equally interesting. Much more time sensitive and interesting to the day-to-day give and take of political life in 2003 in the USA, the first thing about the article that jumps out at me is the second paragraph:

“The poll was conducted Feb. 17-19 and finds that 57% of Americans believe that the news media have acted responsibly "in handling the recent threats of terrorism in the United States," while 40% say the media have acted irresponsibly. After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the public was more positive. By a margin of 86% to 12%, Americans said the media provided responsible coverage. Fifty-seven percent of Americans also said the media handled the sniper shootings last fall in a responsible manner.”

Am I the only one who looks at the slide from 86% to 57% of respondents in the “responsibly” group as an almost mirror like slide in George W. Bush’s numbers? I don’t mean to suggest a connection; it would take a much greater sampling of data to come to that conclusion. But it really jumped out at me. If anyone knows of a readily accessible set of data that would give the same type of comparison numbers across the past several Presidents I would be very interested in looking at the connection between the two.

The section entitled “Public Divided on Bias” gives a good look at what I see as the biggest problem that the media government complex (everyone else has a complex so I’m giving them one) has today. How do we have 23% of the people saying that the media favor the Democrats, 46% percent say that the media favor neither party and then turn around and have a populace say by a 45% plurality that the media have a liberal bias?

Dean has a fairly satisfying explanation of this disconnect, but I just cannot fully jump on board. Especially since I think FOX looked at the poll data and took a much more cynical view of the picture than Dean is giving them credit for. FOX knew that as long as they said they were something other than “liberal” they could be merely conservative, or their ever popular “fair and balanced” and they would peel away enough on the 45% to make a viable network. FOX knew that competition would work because people had been fed a steady diet of nothing but NY Times approved stories for decades and New Yorkers are about as out of touch with fly-over land as they have ever been.