Ooooh! That's Harsh!

But funny.

Some Good News From Africa?

Report Shows AIDS Epidemic Slowdown in 2005

Hope it's real.

Correction

Yesterday, I was pretty hard on the marines for their apparent reluctance to undertake a serious investigation of the Hadith incident. In one respect, though, I appear to have either been misled by or misinterpreted the Time report on which I was relying. Time reported that the initial investigation, conducted by an unnamed colonel, had concluded that "Marines, not a bomb, killed the civilians but that the deaths were the result of 'collateral damage.' " I interpreted this to mean that the initial investigation had itself been an effort to sweep the incident under the "collateral damage" rug.

A more detailed report on the early investigation appeared in the New York Times today, and it places the investigators in a considerably better light. True, nothing at all happened until Time confronted the marines with videotape, but my inference that the investigation began with what the Nixon boy's once called "a modified, limited hangout" was probably unjustified.

The colonel who conducted the prelimianry investigation, Col. Greogory Watt, was primarily concerned with evaluating the original claim that the civilians had been killed by a bomb. He concluded that they had not been and had instead been shot by marines. According th the Times, his investigation "also raised questions about whether the marines followed established rules for identifying hostile threats when they assaulted houses near the site of a bomb attack, which killed a fellow marine. "

Col. Watt then reported his findingings to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the senior ground commander in Iraq.

[The findings] raised enough questions about the marines' veracity that General Chiarelli referred the matter to the senior Marine commander in Iraq, who ordered a criminal investigation that officials say could result in murder charges being brought against members of the unit.

Colonel Watt's findings also prompted General Chiarelli to order a parallel investigation into whether senior Marine officers and enlisted personnel had attempted to cover up what happened.

Perhaps they should not have waited until being confronted by the media, but once the investigation started, it is hard to find fault with it.

I am sometimes glad to have my inferences rebutted.

Ooops! Not There Either

F.B.I. Calls Off Its Latest Search for Hoffa

Ask yourself why these guys are spending time and money looking for Jimmy Hoffa, especially since anyone who had anything to do with his disappearnce is now probably as dead as he is. In the age of golbal terrorisim, doesn't the FBI have anything better to do?

Gee, Thanks For The Reminder.

From a WSJ Review of "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's global warming potboiler (some editorial license exercised):

Talk about an inconvenient truth: In a million years, the time it takes the earth to sneeze, the planet will likely be shorn of any conspicuous sign we were ever here, let alone careless with our CO2, dioxins, etc.

That's your happy-thought for today.

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 31, 2006

Hopes for Iraq Pullback Fading (LAT)

Nations Move Closer to Unity on Iran Strategy (LAT)

Afghans Call for Trial of U.S. Troops (LAT)

Files Contradict Account of Raid in Iraq (NYT) [Note: This more detailed account of the investigation of the Hadith shootings places the army/marines in a somewhat better light that what I inferred from the Time article in yesterday's post on the topic].

U.S. Accepts Draft on Iran That Omits Use of Force (NYT)

Shaken by Riots, Afghans Gripped By Uncertainty (WaPo)

50 Die in Rising Iraq Violence (WaPo)

Iraq PM to declare state of emergency in Basra (Reuters) (But not Ramadi?? I guess he figures he can be tough on his fellow Sunnis and let the Americans deal with the Shiites?]

When The News Gets You Down . . .

When the daily load of depressing news just gets too much to bear, take a side trip to Bill Doty's Broken Newz. The news is the same, but Doty provides a whole new (and sometimes very funny) perspective. Some examples of "Broken Newz" headlines:

New Poll: If Bush Breaks Leg, Majority Approve Putting Him Down

Canada Orders Mounties to U.S. Border to Prevent Influx of Crappy Film Productions

72 Virgins Club Relaxes Membership Rules

Osama bin Laden Releases Latest Message on Myspace Page [Be sure to click the proffered link].

FDA Denies Benefits of Medicinal Marijuana; Little Debbie Stocks Plummet [This one is an inside joke for those of us who, like WJC, "didn't inhale."]

The humor is uneven (after all, who can be funny 24/7) and sometimes descends to the truly pornographic (see Helen Thomas Hooks Up With Cancun Boy-Toy). Also, there is a whole ton of ads to ignore, although some of them will be intriguing to the males among us. But, if you can tolerate the unevenness and clutter, it'll brighten your day.

Oh, and for those of you who are tired of reading, there are some great White House greeting cards and political cartoons: For example:

Ouch!

Pre- and post-op x-rays of Barbaro's broken leg, courtesy of the University School of Veterinary Medicine where he is being treated:






Pretty guesome, but amazingly there is hope. From a CBS/AP Report:

Dr. Dean Richardson, the surgeon who repaired Barbaro's shattered bones after the colt broke down at the Preakness Stakes on May 20, said Tuesday the prized patient has had an "incredibly good week — far better than I would have ever hoped so far, so far, so far."

But as the same report indicates, he far from out of the woods:

Following Barbaro's five-hour-plus surgery May 21, Richardson had said the prospects of recovery were "50-50." That has changed slightly:

"I was going to call a news conference to say it's officially 51 percent," Richardson said, smiling. "Seriously, every day that goes by is a big day, and in terms of some of the complications, some of them were more likely to rear their head in the earlier stages in the convalescence (such as infection within 10-14 days) . . . . But it's still a long, long way from being discharged from the hospital."

I for one am rooting for him. After all, I liked Dreamer.

Omerta and Haditha

In yesterday's post on the Haditha killings, I asserted, without much evidence, that "the amazing, truly amazing thing, is how rarely [military discipline] beaks down in a big way." In a comment to that post, Billy Bob, my only correspondent with anything close to real-world experience in this area, agreed:

We have people in harm's way all the time, and their actions are governed by strict rules of engagement and escalation of force procedures (ROE and EOF). I obviously can't elaborate on specifics, but I will say that every time I hear of an engagement, the reports say that our soldiers followed the ROE and EOF precisely. This is no small feat. These are soldiers on strange roads in a strange country in a strange war. That there aren't more incidents at this level says a lot to me about the character of these soldiers.

There will always be flukes, but the little things being done right every day say more about the soldiers. These are good people doing difficult things very well. That's why I do what I do.

I have no doubt that Billy Bob is right that there are many, many "little things being done right every day" by our armed forces and that soldiers are overwhelmingly "good people doing difficult things very well." But I am less certain today than I was yesterday that this means the apparent rarity of events like Haditha and My Lai is a true picture of what is actually going on.

What I didn't know yesterday is that, according to a report in Saturday's LA Times, the marines had an investigation team on-site taking pictures very shortly after the "incident," that the pictures indicated "execution-style" killings of the victims, but that, according to Time reports, no formal investigation was commenced until Time confronted the Marines with a videotape two months later. What I also didn't know was that the conclusion of this initial investigation was that "Marines, not a bomb, killed the civilians but that the deaths were the result of 'collateral damage.' " When combined with the LA Times article, the following account of the history of the investigation (from the Time article linked above) is troubling:

The military's initial report stated that Terrazas and 15 civilians were killed in a roadside blast and that shortly afterward, the Marines came under attack and returned fire, killing eight insurgents. . . .

The day after the killings, an Iraqi journalism student videotaped the scene at a local morgue and the homes where the shootings had occurred. "You could tell they were enraged," the student, Taher Thabet, said last week. "They not only killed people, they smashed furniture, tore down wall hangings, and when they took prisoners, they treated them very roughly. This was not a precise military operation." A delegation of angry village elders complained to senior Marines in Haditha about the killings but were rebuffed with the excuse that the raid had been a mistake. TIME learned about the Haditha action in January, when it obtained a copy of Thabet's videotape from an Iraqi human-rights group. But a Marine spokesman brushed off any inquiries. "To be honest," Marine Captain Jeff Pool e-mailed McGirk, "I cannot believe you're buying any of this. This falls into the same category of AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) propaganda." In late January, TIME gave a copy of the videotape to Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. After reviewing it, he recommended a formal investigation. The ensuing probe, conducted by a colonel, concluded that Marines, not a bomb, killed the civilians but that the deaths were the result of "collateral damage," not deliberate homicide. Nevertheless, after reviewing the initial probe, senior military officials launched a criminal investigation.

What I also did not know is that, as the LA Times reports today, both of the ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee (Republican John Warner and Democrat John Murtha) say they have "direct evidence of top officers trying to suppress information."

In short, but for the media, we might never even have heard of Haditha. This inevitably makes one wonder how many more incidents there are like this that never come to light simply becuase the media itself never hears about them. Is it true, as General Pace assured us over the weekened, that such events are rare? Or are they are just rarely discovered by the media? Are the military's after-action reports saying "that our soldiers followed the ROE and EOF precisely" accurate or are they more frequently than anyone realizes just self-serving BS?

I take some comfort in this thought: in a world of ubiquitous cameras, sooner or later everything comes to light. Thus, the relative rarity of reports on events such as this may still be a reflection of their actual frequency. But I must admit to some doubt on this score. At a minimum, these types of reports call into question the military's willingness to police itself. And, if the military is only willing to come to grips with such incidents when forced to by media reports, the credibility of assurances such as General Pace's is significantly undermined.

It would be sad to learn (as we did in Viet Nam) that what we hear about is actually just the tip of the ice berg.


Update(5/31) : A New York Times article today, sheds a somewhat more favorable light on the investigation. See my mea culpa above.

From The "Oh Shit!" Department

Courtesy of "booty girl," from Worth1000.com, I gather, some funny pics.

I assume (hope) these are doctored, but who knows. We all know the feeling:

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 30, 2006

U.S. Is Sending Reserve Troops to Iraq's West (NYT)

2 on CBS Crew Killed in Iraq (LAT)

Anti-U.S. Rioting Erupts in Kabul; at Least 14 Dead (NYT)

On a Marine Base, Disbelief Over Charges (NYT)

And finally, the following cartoon is not really a propos of anything in particular in today's news, but I lauged out loud when I saw it. Note that you can substitute a whole bunch of other words for "deficit" on the face of the wave and still have a "true" cartoon:

We Must Condemn This. But Still . . .

The LA Times had today -- Memorial Day, of all days -- the first article I have seen that places some context around the Marine shooting in Haditha, Iraq (a city I suspect is likely to become as familiar to us all as My Lai): Bloody Scenes Haunt a Marine .

I reserve judgment on the facts. The marine interviewed in the story was not a witness to the killing of Iraqi civilians. He just helped clean up the mess. So, it is premature, perhaps, to say what exactly happened and why. There may yet (hope, hope) be a defensible explanation. But, the likelihood of that seems small. There is such an overwhelming incentive to keep this type of stuff "under wraps" that once a story like this hits the public media -- out of DOD's own mouth -- one has some justification to conclude that something truly horrible -- out of control -- probably happened.

I am sorry Truman Capote is dead. If this is as bad as it seems likely to be, the best outcome for the long term -- for the good of ourselves and our armed forces -- would be for a great journalist/documentarian to get behind the sorts of facts that are presented in investigations and trials and to get inside the minds and histories of the people and the effect of the circumstances of the event on those minds. If it happened, the only really important question is WHY? And we need something considerably more sophisticated than a trial transcript to answer than question.

You can get the barest hint of the context from the article linked above:

Shortly after 7 a.m. on Nov. 19, Briones, who received a Purple Heart during a previous tour in Iraq that included fierce fighting in Fallouja, said his team of five men was called to respond to a roadside bomb explosion about 300 yards outside Kilo Company's Firm Base Sparta, located in an abandoned school.

When they arrived about 10 minutes later at the smoky, chaotic scene in a residential neighborhood, he said he saw the remains of his best friend, Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, his body split in half, resting in the destroyed Humvee in which he had been riding.

"He had a giant hole in his chin. His eyes were rolled back up in his skull," Briones recalled of the 20-year-old Texan. Briones said he draped a poncho over the body of his drinking buddy and workout partner and said a short prayer over his body: "Rest in peace. You are my brother by another mother. I love you, man."

The attachments that men-in-arms make with each other is the stuff of legend. Everyone who ever wrote on or thought about the subject will tell you that men fight not for country, not for the cause, not for such abstractions as freedom or democracy -- not for anything we thank them for on Memorial Day. They fight and are willing to risk death for only one thing: each other. The only thing that keeps a man in line in the face of terror none of us can even imagine is a sense that he is responsibile to and for of his "buddies." With very few exceptions, the ONLY thing soldiers are willing to risk dying for is the other men (and women) in their units.

So, when one of those buddies gets cleaved in half by something as random as a roadside bomb, after months and months of trying to fight so faceless an enemy, it is not hard to understand why they would go slightly or even totally insane. And, in that moment, the only thing they will want is revenge.

It is a real conundrum for the armed services. To make an effective fighting force, they need to instill a sense of "unit" that borders on family. Yet they have to also train them, when a member of their "family" is destroyed by a faceless enemy, to act with restraint and reason and something akin to a presumption of innocence.

That's a very, very hard thing to do, and the amazing, truly amazing thing, is how rarely that training beaks down in a big way.

In case anyone was wondering, I do not condone or excuse what happened (assuming it did). This is something we must condemn, and, if they did it, the perpetrators deserve little sympathy and no mercy. But, as the man said, "before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes."

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 28 & 29, 2006

Took a couple days off. We had Bill and Jenny and Jon home for the weekend. You and your compadres were never far from our minds, though. It's Memorial Day, and for the first time in my life I have someone I know well in a war zone. Freaky deaky. Hope all is especially well with you today.

Anyway, here are some of the headlines from Sunday and Monday:

Sunday May 28:

Bringing It All Back Home (NYT) [Note to BB: I went back and forth on whether to include this. It's about re-entry problems faced by National Guard troops coming home from Iraq. You can decide whether this is something you want to read or not].

4 Iraqi Areas May Be Handed Over( LAT)

Marines Held in the Slaying of Iraqi Man
(LAT)

Iraqi Lawmakers Stalled on Ministries, in Accord on Safer Cars (WaPo)

The Price of Iraq (NYT Editorial)

Iran Chief Eclipses Power of Clerics (NYT)

Iran and Iraq to Join to Seal Border Against Insurgents (NYT)

Hastert: Unlikely Center of Latest Political Storm (LAT)

Constitutional Squabble May Have Earlier Roots (NYT)

Old Guard Faithfully Places Arlington Flags (LAT)

And finally, how's this for irony?

With Illegal Immigrants Fighting Wildfires, West Faces a Dilemma (NYT)


Monday, May 29: Memorial Day

Iraqis' Accounts Link Marines to the Mass Killing of Civilians (NYT)

Bloody Scenes Haunt a Marine (LAT) [The other side of the story; or some of it]

Iran's Drive to Nuclear Fuel Slows, Diplomats Say (NYT)

Frist Breaks With Others in G.O.P. Over Raid (NYT)

Three Op-Ed Pieces in today's NY Times you may find interesting:

G. I. Bills

The Troops Have Moved On

An Army of One

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 27, 2006

Photos Indicate Civilians Slain Execution-Style (LAT)

U.S. Is Debating Talks With Iran on Nuclear Issue (NYT)

Iraq Official Says Iran Has Right to Atomic Power Goal (NYT)

I won't bore your with too much of this domestic stuff, but the Republican meltdown continues:

Immigration Issue Splits the GOP (WaPo)

Gonzales Said He Would Quit in Raid Dispute (NYT)

The first of these pits the law-and-order Republicans against the business Republicans, and the second pits the congressional Republicans against the executive branch Republicans. The first of these splits has been developing for some time; the second is what is really new: a party of iron-clad discipline among electred officilas is coming apart at the seams. The second is also profoundly ironic from a political perspective. As David Brooks observed, William Jefferson handed the Republicans a huge political prize: a Democratic corruption scandal without any scintilla of ambiguity. Yet within one news cycle, the Republicans led by Dennis Hastert had taken that issue right off the front page and turned the news story into one about an interncine sturggle between Republicnas over the powers and perogatives of the excutive and legislative branches. Karl Rove has to be just shaking his head.

Update: I just ran across this in the WSJ: Fighting Words It is a list of a former Marine's favorite books on the military.
I have read (and loved) 3 and 5 on this list, so the rest may be good as well. But the real reason I include this here was that it led me to wonder how hard it is for you to get books. If you ever think of something you want, let us know and we will try to send it to you. In this reagrd, as well, see the list here.

The New Bush: Finally? Or Just In Time For The Elections?

I woke up this morning to NPR's coverage of the Bush/Blair press conference yesterday. The foregoing link includes both a full transcript of the press conference and a recording of NPR's on-air report, which included recordings of portions of both Blair's and Bush's remarks. But it was such a signal event, that I wanted to find video. After a half hour or so of google search, though, I came up empty, so I gave up. The audio provided by NPR is a close as I have been able to come to the "real deal."

My first reaction on hearing W. talk was "Who are you and what have you done with the President!?" While the accent was right on, neither the content nor the delivery was anything like what we have become used to over the years since 9/11. Not only did Bush admit mistakes regarding both Iraq and his own cowboy lingo ("bring 'em on", "wanted: dead or alive" being the two examples he himself referred to as mistakes), he did so without the any of the qualifications and self-justification that has so tainted other expressions of possible misjudgments. The assertiveness, belligerence, bravado and (obviously feigned) determination were entirely gone. He still believes in what we are (now) trying to do in Iraq, but his defense of that was characterized by a genuine modesty that made him at once both sympathetic and (dare I say it?) likeable.

Some of this was apparent in his immigration speech as well -- so much so that even as die-hard a Bush hater as my wife recognized and responded positively to it. But, to me at least, his responses at the press conference with Blair were the clearest indication yet that Bush has adopted a new persona.

There is a very significant possibility that this change in persona is simply political: that Karl Rove or someone like him convinced Bush that his and the party's best hope for limiting their loses in November is for him, as the embodiment of the party, to soften his image and rhetoric, to become more human and less angry, more accommodating and less confrontational. The "new Bush" may, in short, be no less phony that the old one was.

I am sure there is some of this behind the transformation, but am I not entirely cynical about it. Being President is a humbling experience, and people -- even those as non-reflective as Bush -- do grow and learn from their experiences. In part at least, a big part of this "new Bush" may well be a reflection of genuine changes in his attitudes. More importantly, though, Ithink this kinder, gentler, less certain persona is probably much closer to the essential Bush than the persona he has maintained for the last 5 years. The "old Bush" always seemed much more of a calculated "pose" than a true reflection of the man.

My guess is that a those 15 minutes during which Bush sat in an elementary school classroom doing nothing except trying (unsuccessfully) to hide his fear and confusion while plane after plane crashed into buildings around the country wreaked a good deal of havoc on W's psyche. He and his handlers no doubt concluded (although there were doubtless many other reasons as well) that those 15 minutes were a mortal danger to both Bush's political future and his place in history. At all costs, the paralyzation that so obviously gripped Bush in that classroom had to be driven from the national consciousness. And from that conviction emerged the "bring 'em on," "dead or alive", "I-can't-think-of-a-single-mistake-I-have-ever-made", "never-a-doubt" Bush we have had to put up with for the ensuing 5 years. But I never really believed that was the "real" George Bush. The confidence always seemed more like bravado.

It may be that the real George Bush is now re-emerging simply because it is politically expedient. But, if that's the case, so be it. I like this George Bush a whole lot better than the old one.

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 26, 2006

Military to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians (NYT)

Top Marine Visits Iraq as Probe of Deaths Widens (WaPo)

Iraqi Suburb Is More Secure, but Hemmed In (LAT)

Bush and Blair Concede Errors, but Defend War (NYT)

Blair and Bush Are Duo Even in Descent (WaPo)



And finally:

Honor Soldiers. Don't Pity Them (WSJ Op-Ed) [Billy Bob: This is worth reading and I would be interested in your reactions].

Blood Fued

As a part of my commitment to myself to listen to people I don't agree with, I am on a number of Israeli right-winger e-mail distribution lists. For the most part, I read and delete. But every once in a while I find myself compelled to respond. It is invariably a mistake. But it is sometimes informative. I had one of those moments today.

I won't try to reproduce the whole exchange, but the staring point was an email my interlocutor (Mordechai) sent out a couple of days ago that had the following re line: "For all the morons out there who haven't figured this out for themselves. Olmert is destroying Israel. He must go!"

I did not respond to that one, but Mordechai apparently got a fair amount of feedback form others objecting to his "strong language," and he felt compelled, I guess, to send out a defense of the language (not the ideas, mind you, just thelanguagee). I weighed in at that point, with this:

The strong language does not bother me, but the paucity of ideas does. If the Sharon/Olmert plan is moronic, what approach is not? The status quo is unacceptable to Israel, the Palestinians, the Arabs, the United States, indeed, the world. So give us something better before you start labeling people who are trying to find a way "morons."

And, we were off.

About 15 minutes later (do these guys do anything besides lurk beside their e-mail? In terms of "rapid response" they make the Republicanss look like rank amateurs), Mordechai responded with a long e-mail, most of which was non-responsive and self-justificatory. But he did get to some concrete proposals eventually. They were, in toto:

I do not think there is any 'off-the-shelf' solution. I would begin with total application of the law to all Arabs living in Israel. In other words, if a Jew drives a car and picks up passengers for payment, this is called a taxi and he needs a license. If he does not have one, his car is confiscated. I want the same to apply to Arabs. If I attempt to build without a license, the building will be torn down and I will be fined. I want the same for Arabs (there are presently some 84,000 illegal Arab buildings). If a Jewish young adult attends university, they pay tuition, and Arab does not. If own a business, I need to pay taxes income, VAT etcetera. I want the same to apply to Arabs.

Let's see what 'demographic' issue exist if Arabs have to spend three years in national service in order to vote. A Yeshiva boy must serve in the army to vote, and Arab votes with no service. (I did not say 'army' -- there are many types of service, let them clean bed pans in the Hospital).

This is where I would begin with a 'solution'. I can continue on, but this would be too long. All of this are things that I have stated many times in the past.

Two minutes later, he then appended this:

As to the 'war' in general, I agree with Churchill. The only solution to total war is total defeat followed by total surrender.

To which I, growing more impatient by the minute, responded thus:

The Arabs/Muslims have suffered total defeat any number of times.

Militarily they are a joke. Israel has beaten them soundly 4 times.The US has taken down two Muslim countries in 5 years. Yet total surrender remains chimerical. The more total their defeat the more fanatical their resistance becomes. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results, those who argue that we Israel and the US) should continue doing the same things we have been
doing for 60 years are damn near certifiable. Another form of insanity is a deeply held belief in propositions for which there is no evidence. There is no evidence for the proposition that "total surrender" of the Palestinians, or the Muslim world generally, is even remotely attainable. Believing that this should be the goal is a form of lunacy.

Oh, and yes. Let's insist that Arab taxi drivers get licenses. That will help.

(That last was not, I admit, really conducive to reasoned discussion, but I succumbed to my baser impulses).

But then, in response, came this, which is really the point of this whole post:

I wish I could agree. They [the Muslims] have received serious setbacks, but none of these are comparable to what Churchill meant. . . .

The US, did not 'take down' two Muslim countries. They are still there; and they are very aware that they are still there, simply waiting for the US to tire, again. . . .

Is Islam defeatable? A good question and certainly not one with a trivial answer. I believe they are. . . . How about seeing a few battalions of US Marines marching down the streets of Mecca? (Infidels are not allowed in Mecca, under pain of instant, albeit slow, death.) Do you think this would affect their perception of their ability to defeat the West? I think it has a good chance to shake things up.

Marines in Mecca? Defeats more "total" than they suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan? Defeats so "total" that they result in "total surrender? What, exactly, is he talking about here?

The response I penned was simply this: "Sadly Mordecahi, the differences between you and them are far samller than you would like to believe."

I did not send it though. After all, what is the point? These people are simply beyond talking to. They have no more sense of what is possible (much less appropriate) than the jihadists do. Our national security -- and economy -- is the hostage of a Hatfield-McCoy blood fued.

A pox on both their houses!

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 25, 2006

Hussein's Former Envoy Gushes With Adulation on Witness Stand (NYT)

The Persian Complex: Iran's Centureis-Old Quest For Respect (NYT Op-Ed)

Maliki Predicts Iraqis at Helm Within 18 Months (LAT) [Note: That will be about 10 months before the next US Presidential election. But I'm sure that is just coincidence].

Iraq's War Cabinet (WSJ Editorial)

From 'Eternity' to Here: Americans didn't always appreciate our soldiers the way we do today (WSJ Op_Ed)

Billy Bob's Bulletin's -- May 24, 2006

Talks on Security Continue in Iraq, as Do Deaths (LAT)

Troops Train Knowing There's a Catch
(LAT)

Armed Groups Propel Iraq Toward Chaos (NYT)

U.S. Urged to Stop Paying Iraqi Reporters (NYT)

Iraqi Insurgent Gives Chilling Confession (WaPo)

The Biters Bit

Finally, something funny:

There is not that much Congressional reaction to FBI claims to have a viedotape of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) taking a $100,000 bribe and to have found $90,000 of that wrapped like food, hiding in William's freezer. However, the fact that the FBI invaded the hallowed grounds of a congressional office -- now that has got people excited.

Some reactions culled from various news reports:

House Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters Tuesday that the Congress will somehow speak to "this issue of the Justice Department's invasion of the legislative branch. In what form, I don't know. I've got to believe at the end of the day it's going to end up across the street at the Supreme Court," Boehner said.

"The Founding Fathers were very careful to establish in the Constitution a separation of powers to protect Americans against the tyranny of any one branch of government. They were particularly concerned about limiting the power of the Executive Branch," [Dennis Hastert] said in a statement.

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said congressional independence from the executive branch protects Americans from abuses of power. "Justice Department investigations must be conducted in accordance with Constitutional protections and historical precedent," she said.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the raid raises questions about why the Justice Department raided the offices of a Democrat but not Republican lawmakers under investigation. "It certainly has been disparate treatment," he said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said that he was "very concerned" about the incident and that Senate and House counsels would review it.

And saving the best for last, there is this:

"When I first saw [reports of the search], I thought: 'Wonder if the federal government needs to be reined in,' " said Rep. Zach Wamp (R) of Tennessee.

Now you wonder if the federal government needs to be reined in?? Courtesy of OnTheIssues.Org, here's a brief rundown on Wamp's positions on civil rights:

Voted YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
Voted YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on protecting the Pledge of Allegiance. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on constitutional amendment prohibiting flag desecration. (Jun 2003)
Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
Voted YES on ending preferential treatment by race in college admissions. (May 1998)
Supports anti-flag desecration amendment. (Mar 2001)
Rated 7% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)

I can't find anything about Wamp's position on the right of privacy or the NSA wiretap issue, but my guess is he's agin the first and in favor of the second. But let the FBI search a Congressional office, with a warrant mind you, and suddenly he wonders if the federal government might not be out of control.

Maybe there is a Constitutional question luking somewhere in all of this. But the spectacle of Boehner, Hastert, Wamp and First suddenly becoming chanpions of the right to be free from intrusions by the Executive is just too rich to pass up.

Glenn Reynolds jumps on the irony:

[M]embers of Congress who are offended by an unannounced late-night raid on an office might profitably be asked what they think about late-night unannounced raids on private homes, which happen all the time as part of the Congressionally-mandated War on Drugs.

Reynolds also provides a link to this:

One can almost hear Speaker Hastert trying to defend himself: ”Look, I said something about executive branch overreaching just this morning. Ya know, I’ve signed off on some extraordinary police powers over the years, but there’s gotta be a limit to those powers. The Constitution is clear: The right of members of Congress to be secure in their offices and homes shall not be violated!”

I wonder what Hastert et al will say when they find out the NSA has been monitoring their phone calls for years.

The "Truth" About Global Warming . . . Is Awfully Damn Hard To Find

Today's WSJ has an Op-Ed piece by former Delaware Governor Pete DuPont on global warming entitled "Don't Be Very Worried" The title is an obvious allusion to Time Magazine's recent "Special Report" on the same topic, entitled, oh so temperately: "Be Worried. Be Very Worried" (The Time Headline actually did have the "very" in red. Isn't that embarassing?)

The DuPont WSJ piece is actually an advertisement for a newly minted report on "Climate Change and Its Impacts" issued by the National Center For Policy Analysis, an organization DuPont himslef heads. I don't know too much about the NCPA, but a brief scan of their other postings makes it pretty clear that it is what the "Angry Left" would characterize as a right wing propaganda machine disquised as a "think tank." Still, the report provides an interesting counterweight to the overheated rhetoric of the Time article. So, if you read and were impressed with the Time article, you owe it to yourself to at least skim the NCPA report as well. It may not convince you not to worry, but it may convince you that it is a complicated issue.

My biggest frustration with the whole global warming debate is how difficult it is to get information that is not suffused with spin. Becuase of the ambiguities in the science, the debate is almost entirely political. As such, nothing you read in the popular press can be entirely trusted.

I'm going to start looking for more nuanced sources of information on this issue, and if any of you have some suggestions in this regard, please pass them on. Just please, please dont refer me to An Incovenient Truth as place to look for unbiased information.

If You Can't Trust Grandma, . . . ?

When little old ladies make the news, it is usually becuase they are being defrauded, abused or worse.

But, from the Washington Post and the LA Times comes this story (quoting the WaPo version):

Two elderly women devised a complex plot in which they befriended homeless men, took out life insurance policies on them, and then killed the men in hit-and-run accidents in alleys around Los Angeles to collect $2.2 million in payments, police said Monday.

The LA Times article emphasizes the sophistication of the crime:

A pair of elderly women accused of fraudulently collecting more than $2 million in life insurance on two homeless men demonstrated a remarkable knowledge of the intricacies of life insurance policies, officials said, and aggressively used this expertise in pressing their claims.

Insurance industry experts familiar with the prosecution's case said that Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt took advantage of a provision that makes a policy valid after two years even if it was obtained using fraudulent information on the application.

"They were bullying the insurance companies into making sure they paid off, threatening a lot of lawsuits," said Marty Gonzalez, chief investigator for the fraud division of the California Department of Insurance. "In one instance, they filed a complaint with the Department of Insurance, saying their claims were not being handled properly. They knew how to deal with these companies. They were very comfortable trying to collect on the money they felt they had coming to them."

I'm not sure why I find this story amusing, becuase certainly it is not funny in fact, but these women are so far out of stereotype that you alomost have to laugh. Can you imagine some poor schmuck flim flam artist trying to run an insurance con -- or any kind of a con -- on these two? It would be a little like snatching a backpack off a suicide bomber.

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 23, 2006

New Government of Iraq Faces a Tough Old Foe: Corruption (LAT)

Iraqi Charities Plant Seed of Civil Society (NYT)

Bush Says U.S. Is Set to Shift Burden After 'Turning Point' (WaPo)

Blair, in Iraq, Discusses Future of Troops (NYT)

Revisionist History: Antiwar myths about Iraq, debunked. (WSJ Op-Ed)


And finally . . .

War's Joyous Fallout in San Diego: Baby Boom (LAT)

There's a little bit of that goin' around in Duluth, too.

Good Books -- Supposedly

I say "supposedly" becuase I wouldn't know. I have read an embarassingly small number of these.

The NYT asked "a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, . . . to identify 'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.' " The results appeared in the Books section of yesterday's paper.

The winner was Tony Morrison's "Beloved." Interestingly, though, the rest of the list was dominated by only three authors: Philip Roth, Don DeLillo and Cormac McCarthy, who together wrote 10 of the 22 books reciving more than one vote (12 of 24 if you count McCarthy's "Border Trilogy" as 3 books rather than 1). Regardless of how you count, Roth takes the "quantity cup" with 5.

The runners up to "Beloved" were:

"Underworld" by Don DeLilo;

"Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy;

The "Rabbit" quadrilogy by John Updike (not really fair since this is really four novels the first three of which all appeared more than 25 years ago); and

"American Pastoral" by Philip Roth

Others that "recived multiple votes" were:

"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

"Housekeeping" by Marilynne Robinson

"Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin

"White Noise" by Don DeLillo

"The Counterlife" by Philip Roth

"Libra" by Don DeLillo

"Where I'm Calling From" by Raymond Carver

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

"Mating" by Norman Rush

"Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson

"Operation Shylock" by Philip Roth

"Independence Day" by Richard Ford

"Sabbath's Theater" by Philip Roth

"Border Trilogy" by Cormac McCarthy

"The Human Stain" by Philip Roth

"The Known World" by Edward P. Jones

"The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth

I am chastened to admit that I have read only 3 of these -- "The Plot Against America," "The Human Stain," and "The Things They Carried." (I also read the first of the Updike quadrilogy -- "Rabbit Run," -- but that hardly counts since it was published in 1960.) I am downright embarassed to admit that I have never even heard of Cormac McCarthy or a lot of the other writers listed.

I am going to keep this list and try to work through it over the next year. I'll probably start with "White Noise" and "Libra", since I own both of those (gifts from people with better literay taste and awareness than I have, obvioulsy). Any suggestions on where I should go after that?

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 22, 2006

Iraqis Lack Faith in Leaders (LAT)

How Iraq Police Reform Became Casualty of War (NYT)

On a Violent Day, Iraq's New Leader Unveils Ideas for Tackling Security Challenges (NYT)

An Iraqi Mother's Most Dreaded Mission (WaPo)

Iraq, Britain eye troop pullout as Blair visits (Reuters)

A Now-Common Attack, and a Family Loses Its Men

U.S. Airstrikes Target Taliban in Afghanistan (WaPo)

I'm Gonna Try To Lighten Up

The discussions here over the past couple weeks have been so damn depressing that I have promised myself to make a concerted effort to lighten things up. This idea springs partly from the Ray Bradbury poem linked here and partly from a comment Left Coast Rob made in response to my rantings on Iran. In an as yet not entirely successful effort to bring me back to my senses, Rob wrote one of the most eloquent testimonies to the essential goodness of the American people that I have read in a long while, a quote that has been banging around in may head ever since:

I don't think we have it in us as a people to drive an enemy to its knees, then simply walk away with the promise to do it again if they don't get it right next time. That is partly driven by a genuine kindness that I'm convinced is an aspect of the American character. The rest is driven by the sincere belief that we simply know how to it better (being it governing, or building refineries, or saving women from their abusive, fundementalist husbands/fathers/uncles/whatever. We can't help ourselves in that regard...we simply have to do it.

He's right. And, while that "kindness-mixed-with-confidence" may yet be our undoing, I for one admire both attributes.

But the idea of trying to find some thing happy to write about actually crystallized yesterday. After a spectacular April, we have had an incredibly cold and rainy May (where is global warming when you need it?), but yesterday dawnwed absolutely beautiful, just in time for the wedding Judy and I were (more or less) obligated to attend. It was a wedding of the daughter of some friends we know primarily through a professional association between Judy and the bride's mother, so for me at least, it was boring as only a wedding where you know almost none of the attendees can be. But the day was so beautiful, and the people so gay that it tuned out to be fun in a quiet sort of way: dressier ceratinly that your average large family picnic, but with the same sort of relaxed, carefree atmosphere. I met some interesting people at dinner, and we talked for about an hour or so without once mentioning any of the topics on which I have been so obsessed here. The whole thing reminded me that despite its outrage and polarization, life in America is pretty damn good, and that a large part of our problems stem from a failure to keep that in mind. As Ray Bradubry said, "We are the dream that others dream."

So, when I sat down with the papers this morning, I decieded to try to find something to write about that was happy or funny or at least not depressing.

I failed.

Iraq? Some potentially good news there, but as always, it is accompanied by so much bad news that you find it hard to be hopeful, much less happy about anything going on in that poor country.

Iran? No good news of any sort there.

Isreal/Palestine? Ditto.

The US? It is a little like Iraq. Sure there are tidbits of good news, but they are overwhelmed by the seeminbg endless number of ideological struggles in which we are currently involved. Even this -- Religious Liberals Gain New Visibility: A Different List Of Moral Issues -- which I initially took as good news, gains its newsworthiness only from the fact (or hope) that is countervailing voice in America's kulturkampf.

Sports? Well there is this: The Detroit Tigers(!) have ths best record in baseball: 28-14 (.667)! (Ok, Ok. They're tied by the Chisox, but it's still the best record in baseball). But for those who have suffered with the Tigers for the last decde or so, even that is tinged with the conviction that it is a fluke and can't last. And besides, the sports news today is dominated by Barbaro's broken leg (an unmitigated tragedy) and Barry Bonds' 714th home run (a source of very mixed emotions).

Movies? There are some good ones around. I saw one the other night -- Paradise Now -- that I would recommend, but it is hardly a "good news" sort of movie. Perhaps the best news in movies this summer is that both MI3 and Da Vinci code are bombing. There is little I would like more than to see a lot less of Tom Cruise and hear a lot less about the Da Vinci code. So, perhaps that is good news. But it is good only in a pervers sort of way: I like it only becuase it discomfits things/people I have grown to despise.

So, I for now will take solace in the little things. It's another speactacularly beautiful day. Judy is busily planting fowers. I am about the start watching the 7th game of the Detroit/Cleveland NBA playoff game. So far as I know, everyone I care about is well and reasonably happy. And, despite it all, I really do remian pretty optimistic about the future both for myself and my family and friends.

Hope that is not too mawkish.

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 21, 2006

Some of the coverage of the new Iraqi government:

Iraqi Premier, Cabinet Sworn In: Sectarian Bickering Over Unfilled Posts Interrupts Ceremony (WaPo)

As New Leaders Seek Unity, Fresh Attacks Deepen Rifts (NYT)

For Some, a Last, Best Hope for U.S. Efforts in Iraq (NYT)


Other stuff of potential interest:

Amid War, Troops See Safety in Reenlisting (LAT)

L.A. Doubles for Iraq as Bomb Site (LAT)

Violence Invades Baghdad's Emergency Rooms (WaPo)

French and U.S. Soldiers Die in Afghan Violence: Taliban Fighters Attack in 2 Provinces (WaPo)

Religious Liberals Gain New Visibility: A Different List Of Moral Issues (WaPo)

Surprise. Hussein Acts as if He's on Trial (NYT)

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 20, 2006

Iraqis Form Government, With Crucial Posts Vacant (NYT)

Misjudgments Marred U.S. Plans for Iraqi Police (NYT)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/world/asia/20afghan.html (NYT)

Western Powers Disagree on Elements of Iran Proposal (NYT)

Growing Number of GOP Seats In Doubt (WaPo)

Potential Advance in Body Armor Fails Tests (WaPo)

Mill Revisited: The Ambiguity Of Everything

For those of who have read-- and swooned at-- On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (perhaps the core document in the Libertarian catechism of which I, for one, am such a devotee) here is something to read and think about: "Thoroughly Modern Mill, A utilitarian who became a liberal--but never understood the limits of reason." The concluding few sentences are, perhaps, enough to get you to read the rest:

Yet Mill . . . never understood that wisdom is deeper and rarer than rational thought. He never understood that the intellect, which flies so easily to its conclusions, relies on something else for its premises. Those conservatives who upheld what Mill called "the despotism of custom" against the "experiments in living" advocated in "On Liberty" were not stupid . . . . They were, on the contrary, aware that freedom and custom are mutually dependent, and that to free oneself from moral norms is to surrender to the state. For only the state can manage the ensuing disaster.

Could this be true? Could it be, as Bork argues, that the more liberty is unconstrained the more likely it is to lead to totalitarianism?

I have to think about this one.

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 19, 2006

This a little late, but . . .

As Death Stalks Iraq, Middle-Class Exodus Begins (NYT)

Iraqi Leader Acts To Defuse Shiite Rivalry in Basra (WaPo)

Afghanistan Rocked As 105 Die in Violence [Note: the good news here is that the Afghan national police apparently did most of the fighting and were largely succesful in repelling the Taliban attacks, albeit with some western help].

U.S. Moves to Weaken Iran (LAT)

Iran's Secrecy Widens Gap in Nuclear Intelligence (NYT)

The Weapon [Oil]Iran May Not Want to Use WaPo)

Oh, and a propos of this -- FBI Searches Mich. Land for Clues on Hoffa, there is this:

The Leader Of The Free World

I just couldn't resist this picture (the caption is mine):




I feel so much better knowing that this man is watching out for me, my family, and my country.

Dealing With Iran III

I am no expert on the posturing associated with high stakes diplomatic negotiations, so maybe there is less to this than meets the eye: Iran Derides Incentive Bid To Resolve Nuclear Dispute But, to someone with a good deal of experience in more conventional negotiations, it seems pretty clear that there is no hope of getting Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment program diplomatically. The Europeans are in the riduculous situation of bidding against themselves over and over again and Ahmadinejad is rejecting the offers before they are even made. Not only is he rejecting them, he is mocking them. What makes the Europeans -- or anyone -- think there is any hope for accomplishing anything by offering ever sweeter deals? They ought to quit. The more they offer, the more adamant and contemptuous Ahmadinejad becomes; the sweeter the deal becomes, the more joy Ahmadinejad takes in belittling it. With considerable jusitifcation, he senses weakness and is willing, even eager, to exploit it. He does so, of course, becuase he sees nothing but upsides for him.

What we have to recognize is that, for Ahmadinejad and Iran, this debate is no longer about uranium enrichment. It is about pride, and "honor;" about standing up to the West; about proving that neither Ahmadinejad nor Iran can be pressured, cowed, bribed or bought.

Basic negotiation theory tells you that a party will agree to a settlement proposal only when the outcome of agreement is percieved to be better in terms of what the party values than the probability-weighted average of the outcomes of no agreement. Given that what Ahmadinejad values is prestige of resisting the West, a survey of the possible outcomes of "no agreement" makes it pretty clear why Ahmadinejad has no interest in reaching agreement:

Outcome 1: The EU and the US secure a security council resolution imposing sanctions. Russia and China may well agree to this much, but the threat of sanctions alone holds no fear for Ahmadinejad. Indeed, he may well welcome sanctions. Given that this is fundamentally a test of wills for Iran, sanctions, even if authorized, will have about as much affect on Iran as the Blitz did upon England. If anything, sanctions will serve only to buttress Iranian's sense of pride, harden their resolve and increase their resentment of the US and the West. This, in turn will only serve to make Iran more dangerous.

Outcome 2: The US and EU seek a security resolution authorizing use of force but this resolution is vetoed by Russia or China. From Ahmadinejad's perspective, this outcome is even better than outcome 1 above. Not only does it limit UN-authorized actions to sanctions, the defeat of the force resolution provides Ahmadinejad with an additional propaganda victory.

Outcome 3: The security council passes a resolution authorizing the use of force. This might begin to give Ahmadinejad pause. But his calculus is (a) China and Russia won't let this happen and (b) even if they do, Europe won't move without the US and he US is in no position to actually use force given its exisiting commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Morover, Ahmadinejad propbably figures (with considerable justification) he can forestall any actual of force for years, maybe even decades, by playing the sort of cat-and-mouse games that Hussein played so successfully throughout the 90s. Finally, the threat of force -- so long as it remains just that -- will serve to further solidify the siege mentality of the Iranian people and thereby increase Ahmadinejad's own internal political power. His refusal to be cowed by that threat will also increase his standing throughout the Muslim world, with the people if not their leaders. The threat of force, in short, holds no fear.

Outcome 4: With or without UN authorization, the US, perhaps with NATO support, actually does use force. Ahmadinejad's calcualtion on this outcome is that, if force is used, it is will almost certainly to be limited to bombing. But bombing holds no greater fear for Ahmadinejad than sanctions. In his mind, and in the mind of his people and the rest of the muslim world, stand-off bombing is the act of a coward, of a person who lacks the courage to actually confront his enemy face to face. Moreover, Ahmadinejad proably believes, rightly or wrongly, that he has the capability, with the oil weapon, Iran's influence in Iraq, and his contact with terrorist organizations world-wide, to inflict as much dmage on the US and the West as they can inflict on him though bombing.

Outcome 5: The US, with or without European support, actually invades. This is probably the one outcome that Ahmadinejad actually fears, since it would likely mean the end of him and his government. Yet, he probably considers this possibility to be vanishingly remote given the exisiting commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US electorate's weariness of war, and the ambiquity of the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. In addition, he probably believes that even if the US were willing and able to invade, Russia and/or China would act to raise the stakes for such an invasion to unacceptable levels. Finally, even under the best if circumstances, any actual invasion is probably years off, giving him time to "do the little soft-shoe" in an effort to head it off.

In short, from Ahmadinejad's prespective the probability weighted downsides of non-agreement are almost non-existant while the benefits of non-agreement are huge. Indeed, so long as he believes he can avoid an actual invasion, non-agreement is what he wants most of all, since it vindicates Iran's honor, demonstrates that Iran cannot be cowed or bought, solidifies Iranian nationalism, distracts Iranians from their other problems (much as 9/11 distracted us), and increases his and Iran's status in the muslim world.

Given this situation, the West's best option at this point is to to disengage; to simply stop trying to negotiate with Iran on this issue. Even if nothing else ensued, the sudden cessation of talks would likely give Ahmadinejad considerable pause precisely becuase it would be so unexpected. In addition, disengagement would, at a stroke, deprive Ahmadinejad of the principal benefit of the current standoff: no longer would he be able to portray himself as fighting Western desires to keep Iran backward. He would, almost immediately, be deprived of the ability to portray himself as being involved in a glorious struggle to defend Iranian "honor," since there would no longer be a struggle. With the cessation of immediate threats, the Iranain people and the muslim world will go back to worrying about other things. Ahmadinejad will pass from page 1 to page 15 in the world's press. One can only imagine his disappointment.

But, in addition to disengagement, we should make him (and commit ourselves to keeping) the following promise: "OK. You claim that your only goal is the peaceful use of nuclear power. We are skeptical, but we are going to give you the benefit of the doubt. But know this: we consider you undeterrable and we are not going to let you have a nuclear weapon. So, we will be watching (as only we can), and if we ever find out that you are making highly enriched uranium or plutonium, materials that have no use other than to make weapons -- indeed, if we ever become convinced that you are likely to be doing this -- there will be no further negotiations, diplomacy or warnings. We will take you and your entire government down, without announcement or preamble, at a time and in a manner or our choosing, and we will do this in Iran as quickly and as surely and as easily as we did in it in Iraq and Afghanistan. However [and here's he key part], in contrast to Iraq and Afghanistan, we will not stay to rebuild your country. Once you and your cohorts are dead or captured and your nuclear capabilties destroyed, we will leave and let your people sort things out for themsleves. "

The combined effect of these two elements is four-fold. First, it at once deprives Ahmadinejad of his principle advantage in the current stalemate and at the same time imposes on him the risk of his worst fear. No longer will he be able to claim that this is a struggle between the big bad West and the poor but proud Iranians. We are telling him: go ahead; do what you say you are going to. If that is all you do, we will stay out of it. At the same time, we are telling him that if he does go beyond peaceful uses of nuclear power, his life and the life of his government will be very much at risk. This fundamenatlly alters the whole negotiation framework.

Second, this approach provides Ahmadinejad with an honorable way out. After all, he can foreswear atomic weapons and yet claim that he has achieved all he ever wanted: a peaceful atomic energy program. It also gives him an incentive to make his nuclear program tansparent, since convincing us that he is not seeking to develop weapons is his only insurance policy against invasion.

Third, this aproach raises the stakes conisderably for the Iranian people. After Iraq and Afghanistan, there can be little doubt in anyone's mind that we can make good on the threat to take down Iraq's government and armed forces. Our problems have all been with nation building, not state destruction. Yet the promise to leave once we have done that raises the stakes considerably, since the prospects of the anarchy that would follow from the destructiuon of the exisiting government are so obvious and frightful as to give all but the most ardent jihadist pause.

Finally, this approach gives us time to get out of Iraq. The Iranian bomb is years away. Over that period, our involvemet in Iraq will decline precipitously. The more we disengage from Iraq, the more credible our threat to the Iranian government becomes.

The idea of taking a government down and then just leaving is a hard one for Americans to swallow. We believe we can fix things, make them better. And the human suffering that would flow from this is mind-boggling. But it seems to me to be the only real alternative. We can't fix things unless the people involved want our help. Absent that, all we can do is protect ourselves and our allies. That's not nothing, and it is something we can, clearly, do.

Man, I am turning into the neocon's neocon.

Thoughts, criticisms, whatever welcome.

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 18, 2006

Cry of 'God Is Great' Mobilizes Secular Baghdad Neighborhood Against Attack (WaPo)

Troop Cuts Uncertain, Rumsfeld Testifies (WaPo)

A Safer Weapon, With Risks (LAT)

Fighting in Afghanistan Kills Dozens (LAT)

Must be boring over there, billy bob. So far as we can tell, there's just not too much going on. We are all to obsessed with illegal aliens and NSA spying, I guess.

Realizing What What Have

The WSJ Opinion Journal published a poem today by Ray Bradbury, (Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, etc.) entitled "America." It is subtitled "An Ode To Immigrants," but it really is not. Its' really a lament that Americans, so caught up with what is wrong with America, seem to lose sight of what is right with it. As poetry, I can't give it much but as a sentiment it seems right on. Especially the first and last lines:

We are the dream that other people dream.
The land where other people land
When late at night
They think on flight
And, flying, here arrive
Where we fools dumbly thrive ourselves.

Refuse to see
We be what all the world would like to be.
Because we hive within this scheme
The obvious dream is blind to us.
We do not mind the miracle we are,
So stop our mouths with curses.
While all the world rehearses
Coming here to stay.
We busily make plans to go away.

How dumb! newcomers cry, arrived from Chad.
You're mad! Iraqis shout,
We'd sell our souls if we could be you.
How come you cannot see the way we see you?
You tread a freedom forest as you please.
But, damn! you miss the forest for the trees.
Ten thousand wanderers a week
Engulf your shore,
You wonder what their shouting's for,
And why so glad?

Run warm those souls: America is bad?
Sit down, stare in their faces, see!
You be the hoped-for thing a hopeless world would be.
In tides of immigrants that this year flow
You still remain the beckoning hearth they'd know.
In midnight beds with blueprint, plan and scheme
You are the dream that other people dream.

None of this is any reason, of course, to ignore what needs to be changed or to resist changes that seems likely to make us less "the dream that others dream." But, it is, I think, a reason leaven the outrage with a sense of proportion.

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 17, 2006

Slow news day. Lots pf bloviating on the immigration issue, but not much else. I suspect you'll get a kick out of the cartoon, though.

Violence Rages, Talks Inch Along (LAT)

Help With Reactor Included in European Offer to Iran (NYT)

Confidence In GOP Is At New Low in Poll:Democrats Favored To Address Issues (WaPO)

Border Wars III -- A Slow Motion Train Wreck

Now that I have started on this topic, I find it hard to stop.

You have to almost feel sorry for Bush. He just can't win. The lead NYT editorial charachterized his proposals a "a victory for the fear-stricken fringe of the debate" for those "who say illegal border crossings must be stopped immediately, with military boots in the desert sand." But those who are calling for that are even more upset that the Times. James Taranto sums up some of it:

The Nativists Are Restless

Was President Bush's immigration speech last night a success? CNN suggests so:

In a CNN snap poll of 461 people who watched Monday's speech, 42 percent said they had a positive opinion of the president's immigration policies before they heard him speak. Afterward, 67 percent said they had a positive view, a jump of 25 percentage points.

. . .

"People who watch the speech do tend to be somewhat more Republican than the voters as a whole," CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said. "But that wasn't the best response he's gotten compared to other speeches, in fact it was lower than any speech we've measured since he took office." [Empasis added].

One reason for that is that the nativist right is as implacable as the Angry Left. "If the purpose of the speech was to shore up the president's standing with conservatives, it failed," declares an editorial in Michelle Malkin, who has actually written a book defending Franklin D. Roosevelt's internment of Japanese-Americans, remarks: "The only good thing about watching the speech was getting to watch it in the Fox News green room with Colorado GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo, a stalwart immigration enforcement advocate. It was nice to have someone to shake heads along with as empty platitude after platitude was laid on thick."

Steve Sailer on VDare.com writes: "The Bush Administration has seemed never to notice that Mexico is not the 51st state, but a foreign country--one that is engaged in a slow-motion invasion of America. . . . Why is Bush doing this? I have suggested that his motives are dynastic--that he is selfishly sacrificing the GOP to build a family vehicle, much like Brian Mulroney sacrificed the Canadian Progressive Conservative party in a vain effort to build a personal fief in the French-speaking province of Quebec. Brenda Walker speculates he is a 'MexiChurian Candidate.' What he is not is an American patriot.

Sailer has the answer! We could eliminate the whole immigration issue at a stroke. All it would take would be to make Mexico the 51st state! The border between Mexico and Guatemala/Beliz can't be more than a few hundred miles. We could fortify that no problem.

It takes rare skill to piss off the NYT editorial page and Michelle Malkin at the same time.

Border Wars -- More

Ok. Ok. I decided to go read Bush's immigration speech since I hadn't actually heard it and since it seems to have made a bit of an impression on my small audience (see comments to this post).

Not a bad speech, but it was a bit like Soviet-era supermarket: something for everyone but not enough for anyone.

He ends the speech by acknowledging that we have to legalize the 13 or so million illegals who are already here. However, he wants to make that tough. They

should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, to pay their taxes, to learn English and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law.

He argues that this is not an "amnesty", but that is splitting hairs. The fact is that the current illegals will be allowed to stay, their children will become citizens automatically -- which is probably why most of them come anyway -- and, if they want, they can try to become citizens. Not muuch different from and amnesty in substance, but what else are we going to do with 13 million people?

The rest of the speech is devoted to trying to articulate a plan for assuring that we do not face this situation again in another 5-10 years. But here he is torn between the poles of his base. In a nod to the law-and-order folks, he spends nearly half of his speech talking about all the steps he is going to take to "secure our borders: double the size of the border patrol, build more fences, install more hi-tech detection devices, interim use of the national guard, etc., etc. But he then, almost plaintively, admits that all of this is probably pointless:

The reality is that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life. They walk across miles of desert in the summer heat, or hide in the back of 18-wheelers to reach our country. This creates enormous pressure on our border that walls and patrols alone will not stop. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across.

The operative word in this last sentence is "sneak". Bush is not talking about reducing the number of immigrants; he is only talking about reducing the number or people who sneak in. He proposes to achieve this by letting them come in legally, as "guest workers." These guests will not be "true" immigrants, becuase Bush expects them to "return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay." But why would they do that? It is exactly at that point that the "guest workers" will have developed the roots in this country that Bush argues should entitle them to a path toward citizenship. And, once they can come in legally, requiring employers to verify that they are legal is simply paperwork.

It seems to me that the key to this issue is to let 'em come. Bush effectively admits, I think, that we can not keep them out and that once they have been here for a few years and have put down roots, they are not going to leave and we are not going to throw them out. Why not, then, just eliminate the whole charade and allow anyone who can prove he has a job waiting for him to enter legally -- and provide all such people with a path to citizenship?

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 16, 2006

IMMIGRATION: A sampling of the reactions to Bush's Speech

The right words (LAT Editroial)

A Balancing Act of Policy And Politics (WaPo "Analysis")

One Nation (WaPo Editorial)

Behind Bush's Address Lies a Deep History (NYT Analysis)

Border Illusions (NYT Editorial)























THE REST OF THE NEWS Not much of it. We are all navel-gazing I guess.

For Water Truck 103, a Perilous Path to the End (WaPo)

'Not Guilty' Plea Is Entered for Hussein (LAT)

Hussein Ruling Seems to Raise Execution Odds (NYT)

Iran Must Halt Enrichment Effort, China Official Says (LAT)

The Border Wars

From Reuters: Bush admits broken border, to send [6,000] Guard troops

I have so far studiously refrained from expressing any opinion, here or anywhere else, on the immigration issue. And, I (again studiously) did not listen to Bush's speech tonight. But I got the following e-mail from my brother after the speech:

Friends - I'm frightened!

I agreed with Bush on most of the things he proposed on immigration tonight. This is frightening, because I don't trust him, and don't agree with him on anything else.

What have I misunderstood? Please tutor me!

So, (fool that I am) let me venture in where angels fear to tread.

The gist of Bush's proposal is this I gather: beef up border enforcement by sending in 6,000 national guardsmen and deal with the illegals already here by adopting a "guest-worker" program (i.e. make them legal and provide some sort of a path to ultimate citizenship). Have I got it about right?

Does anyone think 6,000 (or even 60,000) national guardsmen is going to make any difference? Does anyone think there is any alternative to legalizing (in some way or another) the millions of illegals already here?

Bush is caught between the two components of his "base": the business side that wants -- needs -- the illegals and the non-business conservatives that want to enforce the law. He'd love to make the latter happy, but he knows it's impossible, So he has come up with this "compromise." Trouble is, the compromise will no more stem the tide of illegals than it will stop the tide from coming in.

Trying to stop illegal immigration is absolutely hopeless. It is like trying to stop the flow of illegal drugs. So, so long as we continue to kid ourselves that we can stem the flow, every 5-10 years we will have another "crisis" where we have to try to figure out what to do with the millions of illegals that have come to this country since we last dealt with the issue. And, just as we have done now and 5 years ago, we will make them legal. There is just no alternative.

If all of that is true (and I defy you to argue that it isn't), you have to ask yourself: why bother? Why not just open the borders and let anyone come in who can get a job, pay taxes, etc. The principal downside of this is the downward pressure it would put on American wages. Well, what of it? American workers are going to have to learn to compete in the global economy anyway. We can build all the fences and deploy all the soldiers we want and it will make no difference. The fact is, we are losing maufacturing jobs becuase American labor has priced itself out of that market. We need to get over the idea that we are ever going to return to the days when you could make $25-30/hr doing work a robot (or immigrant or Vietnamese) can and wants to do for 10-20% of that. We have to focus instead on training/educating our people so that they can do things they Mexicans or Vietnamese or Indians, or Chinese can't do. Or we have to accept the fact that, if we want to make clothes or computers or anything else you can buy at Wal-Mart, we are going to have to compete with Chinese, Mexican, Vietnaese, Idian workers on the basis of prodcutivity-adjusted labor costs.

It's a tough world, but there is little point in denying that it is what it is. Indeed, continuing to deny reality does nothing to change the outcome. It just makes the outcome much more painful once it happens (as it inevitably will).

Just a thought. Have at 'er.

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 15, 2006

IRAQ:

2 Suicide Car Bombers Kill 14 and Wound 16 Near Baghdad Airport (NYT)

Iraqi Lawmakers Appear to Be Mired in Minutiae (LAT)

On Baghdad Patrol, a Vigilant Eye on Iraqi Police (WaPO)

Hussein: I am still the president (CNN)

Hussein Is Formally Charged for War Crimes (NYT)

DOMESTIC POLITICS:

Bush Set To Send Guard to Border

Conservative Christians Criticize Republicans (NYT)

Divide Is Sharpening Among Republicans (WaPo)

Billy Bob's Bulletins -- May 14, 2006

Cheney Pushed U.S. to Widen Eavesdropping (NYT)

Military Plans Tests in Search for an Alternative to Oil-Based Fuel (NYT)

At Falwell's University, McCain Defends Iraq War (NYT)

Iraq Begins to Rein In Paramilitary Force (WaPo)

In Iraq, Soccer Field Is No Longer a Refuge (LAT)

Iraqi Children Falling Victim to Malnutrition (LAT)

A Pattern of Excess (WaPo Editorial)

Why Can't We Be Friends II

A propos of this post from yesterday, there was an interesting article in the NYT Magazine today on the The Perils of Soft Power. It makes somewhat the same point I was trying to make in the previous post, except that it talks not about the Arab world but about Europe:

In recent years, a number of American thinkers, led by Joseph S. Nye Jr. of Harvard, have argued that the United States should rely more on what he calls its "soft power" -- the contagious appeal of its ideas, its culture and its way of life -- and so rely less on the "hard power" of its stealth bombers and aircraft carriers. There is one problem with this argument: soft power does not necessarily increase the world's love for America. It is still power, and it can still make enemies.

. . .

In the affairs of nations, too much hard power ends up breeding not submission but resistance. Likewise, great soft power does not bend hearts; it twists minds in resentment and rage. And the target of Europe's cultural guardians is not just America, the Great Seductress. It is also all those "little people," [who] . . . [b]y yielding to America-the-beguiling, . . . commit[] cultural treason -- and worse: they ignore[] the stern verdict of their own priesthood. So America's soft power is not only seductive but also subversive.

. . . .

Europe, mourning the loss of its centuries-old supremacy, either resorts to insulation (by quotas and "cultural exception" clauses) or seeks solace in the disparagement of American culture as vulgar, inauthentic or stolen. If we could consult Dr. Freud, he would take a deep drag on his cigar and pontificate about inferiority feelings being compensated by hauteur and denigration.

Two points:

First, there is an undertone of resentment in the Times piece that is every bit as tempting a target for Freudian analysis as is the European "compensation" to which that resentment is directed. The Euorpean inferiority is that of the Ancien Regime fallen on hard times. The American inferiority is that of the nouveau riche not getting the respect it thinks it deserves. The root of the resentments are the same: injured pride.

Second, as Billy Bob points out, it is easy to exaggerate the importance of these sorts of mewlings. Billy Bob is "not so sure" about my claim that "they hate our way of life." Depending on to whom "they" are, this is a point well taken. The Arab world and Europe are every bit as diverse as the United States in their attitudes, and just as it would be a mistake for an Iranian to think Pat Robertson speaks for America, it is a mistake to think that those excoriating America speak for their countires. In this regard we would do well to develop a little bit thicker skin.

But to me, Iran is different in one all important regard. Just as there are in Europe, there are "cultural guardians" in many countries -- perhaps every country -- for whom "America [is] the Great Seductress," who consider the millions of "little people" who yield to "America-the-beguiling" as "cultural traitors," and who resent most of all that these little people are "ignor[ing] the stern verdict of their own priesthood." In almost every case, probably even in Iran, these "cultural guardians" are no more representative of their countries than Pat Robertson is of ours. But in Iran, these cultural guardians are in power. They control the government. And it is this fact that makes Iran a unique threat. Think of the threat the United States would pose under Pat Robertson or worse yet, Fred Phelps

I do not for a minute believe that all or even most Iranians or Iraqis or Arabs hate they way we live or what we believe in. Quite to the contrary, I think many, perhaps most, would like nothing better than to walk in our shoes. But the Ahmadinejads and Zarqawis and bin Ladens are not among those. Those people truly do hate us and everything we stand for and they hate us all the more becuase our way of life is so alluring to their own people. It is this fact -- and I think it is a fact -- that to me makes the idea of controlling their nuclear aspirations through rapproachment so chimerical. Our choices really are between deterrence and preventative war. Which brings me back to this.