Off the grid.

Just the long-threatened hiatus; those of you who need to know are aware of what I'm doing, and therefore approximately when you should expect to see something here again. In fact, you'll get some sort of direct contact on that, so your minds can be at rest until I return...

More than cheap exports...

This connects with my previous post, "Crusade vs. Jihad", showing that there is more than one axis of re-vitalized Christianity to oppose militant expansionist Islam. In an ideal world I would of course prefer a secular opposition to any sort of theocracy, but things are not promising in that direction.

As always, "be careful what you wish for" goes with "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", but this article touches on the enervation of Europe, suggesting that the opposition to a Caliphate future rests elsewhere. Of particular interest:

"Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East. "

and

"Years ago I speculated that if Mecca ever is razed, it will be by an African army marching north; now the greatest danger to Islam is the prospect of a Chinese army marching west."

I may point out that Mecca has been despoiled before, in fact by the early Wahhabis (see the book God's Terrorists by Charles Allen), but to date not actually razed. I don't see flattening Mecca as a realistically useful way to counter the people who would destroy us, but it would nicely polarize any other Muslims to a real drop-the-gloves us-vs.-them Götterdämmerung.

If things head in that direction, I suppose it won't be any time soon, but just because the Western "progressives" pooh-pooh all of our secular and religious heritage, the rest of the world does not share our collective self-loathing and desire to be erased. Something to keep in mind...

'Nuff said.

This article from Slate by Christopher Hitchens deals with how certain parties are demanding we all give up our rights to free speech (freedom varies by locality, of course) on pain of unlimited liability. [Hyperlink removed since it was dead; find it if you can because he's not dead yet and writes better than I do. 17 Jan 2011]

Unlimited liability means up to and including death, but I won't re-hash it; he does a pretty good job, so I suggest you read it yourself. It's not something most of us have had a direct experience with, but examples abound without looking too hard. This ties in loosely with my bit on that Aussie law from a few days ago, and it's something to keep an eye on.

I don't think it's at all classy to crap on peoples' holy books, but if that's all it takes to set off riots and generate a raft of death threats then I think there are some people with screwed up priorities and I for one don't want to be held hostage to that.

The downhill slide?

If we lose in Afghanistan, this will be why:

“Commanders have also ordered troops to hold off attacking militants in some situations where civilians are at risk”.

If you can think of a statement of more use to irregular forces that have no concept of the Laws of Armed Conflict, I’d like to hear it. It gets better, too:

'Mr de Hoop Scheffer said Gen Dan McNeill, the commander of the Nato force in Afghanistan, Isaf, had also instructed troops to delay attacks on Taleban fighters if civilians are at risk.

"We realise that, if we cannot neutralise our enemy today without harming civilians, our enemy will give us the opportunity tomorrow," he added,

"If that means going after a Taleban not on Wednesday but on Thursday, we will get him then."'

I could go on and on about this, but I’ll content myself with just saying that if this is permitted to stand as NATO’s official position, we will inevitably lose in Afghanistan, and the opposition will manage to claim PR points on us every time we accidentally kill the civilians that they were hiding behind.

This leads me to the UN announcement that they want peacekeepers for Darfur. This is of course no surprise, but the uselessness of the plan is manifest (emphasis mine):

“UN resolution number 1769 will allow peacekeeping troops to use force for self-defence, to allow humanitarian workers to move freely and to protect civilians under attack.

However, they won't be able to seize and dispose of illegal arms.

A threat of future sanctions against Sudan was also removed from the resolution, which had been watered down during negotiations.

The resolution authorizes up to 19,555 military personnel and 6,432 civilian police in what is being called a "hybrid" force.”

As with pretty much everything the UN has been responsible for, this will be an expensive waste of time. Probably not an issue, as Canada has its’ hands full, but those of you who know me can smack me in the head if I ever let myself get sent on one of these missions. If I learned anything for Lt. Gen. (ret) Dallaire’s book, Shake Hands with the Devil, it’s don’t get sent on UN missions that tie your hands in such a fashion that they prevent you from doing what needs to be done.

Afghanistan is so far not at that level, but if the powers that be restrict the rules of engagement further, it’ll turn into another Bosnia. We’d then not only fail to meet our objectives, but there would be a lot more cases of PTSD (my pet hypothesis) and it would destroy the Canadian Army, again. As always, all opinions stated are my own; it's more fun that way.

Military-Industrial Complex Economics

This is a drop in the bucket in terms of their trade deficit, but selling a crapload of expensive weapons to the Saudis and other OPEC states is a good way for the US to recoup some of that oil money.

It doesn’t really look at a casual glance that others are seeing it this way, and the Israelis are understandably nervous. Or that is they are, but not so much that $3B per annum in aid from the same US military industrial complex can’t mollify them. And you can bet they’ll get all the good stuff too.

Some people have a problem with this, but as I’ve always said, I’d back Israel against any country over there. It is the only real, functioning democracy over there (wish that it were the case also for Lebanon) which needs outside assistance to maintain the status quo. Said status quo isn’t great, but I don’t see any viable options that everyone can agree on.

Israel is suffering from a real lack of leadership at the highest levels, but at least steps are being taken to get the IDF back to brass tacks so they aren’t embarrassed by Hezbollah in Round 2, whenever that is. It occurs to me that you could (in the context of the Mid-East) look at the sales to the Arabs as the "carrot", and the aid to Israel as the "stick" of American foreign policy. Just a thought.

The idea of JDAMs in the inventory of a probable eventual enemy (House of Saud is unlikely to stand forever) on the face of it sounds like really bad idea, but if the Americans sell them the hardware, they know what it can do, most likely where it is, and in any event they’ll have a lot more of it and better trained troopies to use the stuff when push comes to shove. Besides, it’s only a matter of time (if it hasn’t happened already) before Iran or China comes up with GPS guided bomb kits that they’ll sell to anyone. And never forget the Russians…

Speaking of Russia, there was an article in JDW for 27 July about the US offering the Joint Strike Fighter to India. This is obviously designed to frustrate said Russians, and helps convince the Indians that the US can be worked with. The Yanks get themselves so worked in a twist about inspecting peoples’ nuclear plants, particularly foolish in the case of India which has had nuclear weapons for 30 years. They seem to have worked something out, which should help bring our common interests with India into focus for all parties.

I’ve seen a bit of traffic on the state of the US economy, particularly their massive trade imbalance. Oil is a large chunk of that, and the exporting of manufacturing jobs to China, etc. has really undermined the position of the US as the dominant economy of the world.

How long they can maintain what they have, let alone if they can recover what they have lost, is a serious concern to the rest of us “western” democracies. For ideas on that, see my earlier posts (and the plethora of stuff on the web) about seriously developing REAL alternatives to oil. Ethanol is NOT one of them, although it’s making a lot of corn farmers more financially solvent (ha!) in the meantime.

The US needs to sell as much of this expensive stuff as they can to recoup the development money, but at the same time I’ve not heard them offer the F-22 Raptor to anyone, so they maintain an edge. That too is good for us, even if a lot of people forget which side their bread is buttered on…

About time, with the inevitable brainiac backlash.

This was placed under "Entertainment" for some reason, where it is pretty evidently a political story.

"The Australian government says it will enact a far-reaching law to ban films, literature and games advocating terrorist acts."

Of course the ivory-tower types see this as an assault on freedom of speech, but it's obvious that it is designed to counter the proliferation of jihadist material that infects the world.

Fisher points out that "terrorism itself is a subjective term."
"History is littered with this type of subjectivity masquerading as the voice of reason. So-called terrorists have been criminals one day and revered leaders the next. For example, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi were both labelled as terrorists in their pursuit of the freedom of their peoples."

Uh huh. Missing the point of course, but the question is is it willfully or not? There are already laws on the books against making threats, and that is technically an infringement on peoples' "freedom of speech". It is therefore obvious that the precedent exists to curtail the rights of people to say whatever they want.

I would like to see this same group's position on "hate speech", Holocaust denial, that sort of thing. I am personally of the opinion that if people want to say stupid stuff about history or whatever, anything which doesn't directly advocate violence they should be allowed to do so. Then it is up to people like me to call them on their crack-headedness.

To anyone who has been paying the slightest attention to the world, this legislation is designed to give the police tools to use against (primarily) the spread of pernicious Salafist/jihadist propaganda; beheading videos, books exhorting acts of violence against "the infidel", this sort of thing.

Reading the article I linked to doesn't even hint at any of that, it just makes it look like Australia is about to start Nuremberg Rally style book burnings. Again, more balanced journalism. And to trot out comparisons to Gandhi and Mandela is at best moral relativism (albeit of the worst type) and at worst an insult to those men, their political successors, and the people of those free, democratic countries.

They don't know, they don't care, or both? I've no idea, and no inclination to find out, having better uses for my free time. The sort of people this law is targeting are not any stripe of "freedom fighter", quite the opposite.

It does conveniently cover any other breed of terrorism, which, let's face it, is ILLEGAL by its' very definition anyway. This just closes some loopholes and gives the government more of a handle on these clowns. We need more of this kind of thinking, not less.

“Truthers” and other abominations against Reason.

Since I seem to be on a minor run of posts before I’m temporarily exiled, I could hardly leave this one alone.

At a party I attended this past weekend, I made the error of saying out loud that I would be happy to punch in the head the next person who seriously tried to tell me that 9/11 was a Bush/Jewish conspiracy.

I do in fact possess the restraint to NOT follow my (in this case justified) impulses, but this restraint was soon sorely pressed. As much as I like a vigorous debate, I CANNOT STAND people who say stuff they can’t back up, and swear in the face of all evidence that “something else” caused it.

So, I have now been informed that it is “impossible” for the WTC towers to have fallen as they most obviously DID on live TV feeds to hundreds of millions of people. I guess I’m just a brainless dupe of the NeoCon/Zionist conspiracy to have believed my own eyes.

It seems as time goes on and memories fade it becomes easier for people to think that the simplest explanation cannot possibly be true, even if the options are illogical and nonsensical. I will admit that I have overestimated the scruples of those in the US government in the past (CIA-US Air Force running drugs into the US to finance the Contras for example), but I have yet to see any convincing evidence that anyone other than a bunch of disaffected Muslims who by cruisemissling (new verb) hijacked planes into them, took those buildings down.

This covers ground I and many others have been over before but I do feel an urge to violence when I’m fed a pile of uncorroborated hogwash. Taking as an example the bit about 7 or so of the suspected hijackers being “still alive”, if that is in fact the case, there are still 12 or so that were properly identified and correspondingly confirmed killed in the perpetration of a crime, as mass-murder is generally classed. Some misidentified Arabs (or guys with the same name that they dug up after the fact) suggest to me a lack of a clear trail on people who don’t even exist as DNA samples anymore, not a bloody FBI/CIA/Mossad/ad nauseum plot.

The big thing is sources and evidence. Sources are great; having any at all is better (in most cases) than not, but said sources must be considered. In this vein, I rudely dismissed Truther boy’s emphatic insistence that his source was “the UN”, as I think the UN isn’t worth the gelignite to blow it to hell. This of course is a broad generalization, but when I hear something palpably absurd, I can trot it out.

What particularly set me off was this guy’s assertion (swearing on the UN) that 50,000 Iraqi civilians were killed on the infamous “Highway of Death” in 1991. This is a preposterous number, when you figure that the accepted figure for deaths in the firestorm generated by the bombing raids on Hamburg in 1943 is 45,000.

Note that Hamburg was a saturation bombing raid on a densely populated city with the intent of causing a firestorm and destroying the city, versus a bunch of aircraft and various vehicles shooting up a MILITARY exodus from an occupied country along a deserted stretch of highway. I would have been at least partly satisfied if he could have even explained to me where 50,000 civilians could have come from to be there to be killed in the first place, but even this minimal proof was beyond him.

This is the general quality of our opposition folks, but there are a lot of them. Being the voice of reason is hard work if you’re to do it right, and even then often you’re wasting your time because they’ve already made up their minds. I don’t have to convince everyone that I’m right (after all, none of us are infallible), but I’ll be content if I can at least make them THINK. Sometimes it seems that’s asking a bit much.

Sub-Continentental Drift to War?

One of the maxims I try to follow in life is "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst". Most of this preparation is mental, and I feel it tempts fate mightily to say things are ever as bad as they can get.

That said, I do engage in a fair bit of worst-case type projection, and this seems a good place to try a bit. There are elements in the current Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan/Kashmir/India/China/Russia arena that could indeed spin wildly out of control if too many things go wrong, with a reasonable chance of some domino action. I don't see things degenerating into a World War level of widespread conventional and/or nuclear warfare, but there are some things which are starting to show up that portend some more trouble at least.

Pakistan has been to put it mildly a weak link in the GWoT to date. I am not alone in going so far as to say they have done us at least as much harm as good. The pragmatist in me can understand Gen. Musharraf's reluctance to really lay the smackdown on the ISI and the other elements in Pakistan that support the Taliban. After all, a lot of these same factions are what keep him in power, and from our perspective, it's important to realize that these "extremists" would most likely take control of the country outright were he not there.

Now these guys are fed up with Musharraf's balancing act, and are putting the pressure on. This is either good news for us or bad, completely dependant on who comes out on top. If the good General's side does, the actions required to do so will have shorn off the Talibani elements, and forced his interests into closer accord with ours. If not, then our ground supply route to Afghanistan will be hopelessly compromised, if not just plain cut.

Without getting into something so wide-ranging that it escapes the scope of this post, I will mention one thing that could get out of hand with potential to destabilize the whole area. This is, of course, Pakistan's relations with India.

These have been improving of late, but if someone with less restraint than Gen. Musharraf were to take control of Pakistan, more specifically its' military, India may (with good reason) feel itself compelled to do something aggressive. Another Indo-Pakistani war could now involve nukes on both sides, and in the best case it REALLY complicates things for NATO and the USA in that region. We have a de-facto alliance with Pakistan, but our long-term interests line up much better with those of India.

So, things going even more downhill in Pakistan will hamstring NATO's supply situation In Afghanistan, possibly giving the Russians more leverage if we suddenly needed to shift our stuff through their territory/sphere of influence. I don't know how vulnerable our logistics operations are through Pakistan, but we may yet find out the hard way. Any significant war between India and Pakistan for whatever reason has the possibility of completely screwing our operations in that region, plus complicating our life diplomatically.

Lots of fun. Well, that's enough of a scratch of the surface for the moment. If anyone has anything to add or call me on, the opportunity is always there.

Social Dis-ease

As the world continues to do what it does, I’ll leave it (mostly) to it for the moment and turn my volatile attention span on something possibly more ephemeral: Facebook.

It’s certainly here today, and I doubt it’ll be gone tomorrow, but I’m not really sure how I feel about it. It bills itself as a “social utility”, and the title seems to fit. It’s a bang-up way to do that whole six (usually less) degrees of separation thing and/or find people you used to know. Even I find it useful for that sort of thing. My issues with it are rather vague, but I’ll try to put my finger on what bothers me about it.

I think it’s the whole “friends race” that I feel is going on with it. My social life is perhaps not what it once was, but on reflection that’s not a bad thing on many counts. I have always preferred quality to quantity in the friends department, and this seems to inflate that currency.

What I mean by that is that according to Facebook, people that are acquaintances get a free upgrade to “friend”, sort of like rank inflation to make sure that during a merger your people don’t lose relative position. A bad comparison, but if I come up with a better one I’ll replace it.

What’s in a name? Well, if history and a lot of reading has anything to say about it, a LOT. I may (or may not) be rare in this regard, but I don’t call just anybody I know or have once met, much less a friend-of-a-friend one of MY friends. I won’t get into the whole system I use to denote different levels of “friendness” but I have one that I notice if I stop to think about it, which Facebook has made me do.

Now, I go on about this, but it hasn’t really happened to me, and the one or two exceptions are not actually offensive, just curious to me. There are for example people that I have known for a long time, or knew fairly well a while ago but I am not in regular contact with that I have seen on there, but I do not presume to foist myself on them as a “friend”. It’s not that I’m stuck up, but I have my ideas of how things should go, and it seems a lot of people don’t share them.

If you have noticed a lack of a real lunge for the jugular in this piece, you’re not alone. I have a nebulous feeling that all is not right with the Facebook system, but it may just be a bit of cyber enochlophobia. Hell, I don’t even like the name of it(Fb) for no reason I can think of.

In any event, it has been niggling at me, so I felt the need to say something about it. Now that is done, so I’ll start looking for the next bit of geopolitical/military foolishness to get me back in the groove.

Crack-Rock Steady

I have been looking for a) something else to write about here, and b) always looking for ways to get me off my “clash of civilizations” hobby-horse. Lo and behold, something of a very local and yet widespread problem comes my way.

The idea of “safe injection sites” and needle exchanges for drug addicts is fairly common in western countries, albeit not without controversy. I am personally not well disposed to people stupid enough to get themselves mixed up in addictive drugs (it’s not like they haven’t heard about meth or heroin, for examples), but this whole warm-and-fuzzy approach has gone definably too far, and at least some politicians will stand up and say so.

In this case, I speak of the minor shit-storm than has been kicked up in Ottawa about cancelling (the fact that it existed is another matter) the practice of handing out “safe crack kits” to crack users. The point has been made by the local police that drug paraphernalia is illegal, thus the fact that Ottawa city council is distributing such sends an interesting message. The story I’ve linked to is late in the day on this issue (this has been going on for a week or more at this point), but it distils it nicely. In fact, this particular bit from it got my attention:

It's a move health activists are warning could repeat itself in other jurisdictions as city councils move away from harm-reduction philosophies toward a more American-style law-and-order justice.

Curse the scourge of law-and-order justice! What will come next, Rule of Law? The Horror!

While I’m at it, what exactly does something like a “harm-reduction strategy” mean? My interpretation from the context seems to be that it enables people to break the law and/or mess themselves up without interference from our judicial system. The fact that there is even a debate about ending this (again, why did it start?) points to the deification of “victimhood” which afflicts us.

Certain people have a fast and loose interpretation of what makes someone a victim, but for the record I’ll state that I have no time for those who are the architects of their own misfortune. This encompasses groups as diverse as the above-mentioned (self-made) drug addicts and the Arabs in what was formerly known as Palestine, now mostly Israel. The latter group and their delusion that the Israelis have been at fault for their current situation causes a lot of trouble throughout the world. The same mentality that makes a crack-pipe exchange program look like a good idea enables that whole Palestine thing to drag itself out interminably.

My prediction is that the crack stuff exchange projects will continue to be recognized as having gone too far and be (quietly or otherwise) canned. However, the cult of the victim marches on; witness the successful $635M lawsuit against the makers of OxyContin by those who feel “misled” about the addictive qualities of this opiate painkiller. There may have been merit to part of it if people were assured that it wasn’t addictive. That is hard to explain but plausible, though to me the doctors who prescribed it should be held responsible for mis-prescribing it and/or failing to warn those ignorant of the general nature of opiate drugs.

The part that gets me, is people testifying that the drug company is responsible for they or others abusing it and messing themselves up, terminally or otherwise. Again, the laws seem to not be able to enforce sensible behaviour, which is hardly surprising or we wouldn’t need the laws. The fact that victims of their own stupidity continue to be able to successfully (in the US at least) litigate for huge damages proves that we have more crack-kit type debates to come. At least I hope there is a debate, and it isn’t just foisted on us again.

Cutting to the chase

Time for an update, if for no reason than I have a bit of time and it’s been a few days.

First of all, a shout out to all of you who I was railing at in person last night (you know who you are); I am pleased that you found my ranting informative, entertaining and well-reasoned, so all my homework is paying off. In particular to our “Belgian” connection, feel free to spread this link to this around to your friends, but the caveat remains that my upcoming “trip” will limit my opportunities to update this for the next several months. I’ll be around though, albeit sporadically for while.

Topics for last night included Afghanistan (largely) and Iraq (to a much lesser extent). The problem I have is that the more people ask me what good Canada is really doing in Afghanistan, the less useful I really see our military presence being.

When I say “useful” I must be clear that I mean “critical to our National Interest”. I could very well be wrong, but I really don’t think us spending the next 10 years playing whack-a-mole with the Taliban, etc. is going to help Canada or NATO one bit in real terms. This does not mean I’ve gone soft (no fear of that), just that we’ve passed the point of diminishing returns in terms of dealing with a tangible threat to the West.

I invite a challenge on this, really I do. The idea for going into Afghanistan in 2001/02 was that the status quo, unacceptable as it already was, had shifted far beyond just flinging some cruise missiles at the Al-Qaeda camps there. Nobody could be bothered to do a whole lot when the Taliban took most of the country, or even when they blew up the Buddhas in Bamiyan and outlawed anything that even vaguely resembled fun. Oh yeah, and the general repression, stoning, executions for “un-Islamic” behaviour, etc.

In this vein, I return to my earlier postulate that we should salvage the civilizable parts of the country and write off the others (like Kandahar and Helmand) as a free-fire zone or, if we feel compelled to be nice, an autonomous “Talibanistan” that can do what it likes as long as it stays in there. This we could back up and enforce with NATO’s current force levels, and the useless German and French troops wouldn’t even have to move, lucky them.

I am all for rebuilding the place, except that a) it’s not working because we don’t hold it, and b) there are a lot of other places that need the same sort of thing and we sure as death and taxes can’t help them all. Reality rears its’ ugly head once more, for those who have the moral fortitude and clarity of vision to see it.

This reminds me of a debate I had with someone last night. It was about my (hardly exclusive) position that Islam is FUNDAMENTALY at odds with secular government, whereas Christianity (and some other religions no doubt) is not. I feel that my contention was better presented (if not proven) than that of my opponent. The reason for that was not that I know more, but that I cut through a lot of “noise” and try to look at the fundamentals. I don’t care about how things are misused (except that the effects can be significant and unpleasant) but about what they ARE.

A spade is a spade, and the fact that someone uses it as a hammer or a screwdriver does not change its’ nature.

Speaking of that, what about Iraq at this point? The general disastrousness of it is well established on all bands of the political spectrum, but the resistance to the US just bailing out of the place and leaving it to its’ fate is starting to crumble, even on the Hawkish sites I look at. Iraq is even more of a bag of snakes than Afghanistan, but the question is being raised seriously of whether things would be worse for “us” if they’re left to fight it out. It would then be a proxy war between the Saudis and the Iranians, with the Turks ready to roll over the border into wanna-be-Kurdistan and get all Ottoman on their ass.

Really, I fail to see a downside to this for the US which is more serious than what is happening to them right now. Pull out, re-group, take a deep breath, and figure out what you (Uncle Sam) REALLY NEED. The capability to smash things and even do “in-and-out-clever” invasions (ala Operation ANACONDA) would be unimpaired, in fact improved since your troops are no longer tied down in Iraq.

A re-hash perhaps, but while my thoughts on these subjects are evolving, they are not changing because I see the world any differently. Containment is looking more and more manageable than “Engagement” and getting bogged down. I want to see a world that still has room for peaceful, progressive, productive societies that allow you to have fun without being a soft target for the anti-fun forces of the world. “We” have our parts of the world (the best parts) and “they” can go to hell in the rest of it.

Is the worm turning?

There have been glimmerings of resistance/fed-up-ishness from various places in the last year or so, and they thankfully continue. The resistance of which I speak is to the Islamofascists that seek to destroy the West, and at least some influential parts of our intelligencia are starting to speak out about it.

The comments recently from the German Minister of the Interior about tougher anti-terrorist laws, and what amounts to the existing Israeli policy of targeted assassinations (fine idea in my books) are highly revealing. To my way of thinking, they are a trail balloon from the German government to see test the mood of the public.

"Those ideas have nothing to do with concrete, current government policies," Thomas Steg, the government's deputy spokesman, said at the regular Monday press briefing in Berlin. Citing Merkel, Steg said that "there shouldn't be any ban on ideas over how to fight terrorism" and that the German Constitution must always be adhered to.

Schäuble, a senior member of the Christian Democratic Union, has taken an increasingly tough approach toward preventing terrorist attacks in Germany since becoming interior minister in November 2005. He has stepped up surveillance, sanctioned a special database for suspects and wants the army to play a role in internal security.

His remarks, made in response to the terrorist plots in Britain, run counter to Merkel's views and represent a significant shift in how Schäuble wants to deal with terrorism. "You must take risks to defend liberty," he told German television, "but you cannot just sit back and do nothing, either."

The usual suspects (the Greens, etc.) were predictably in opposition to the very idea that anyone would take some aggressive action, let alone target “minorities” (although nobody said that, you know they’re thinking it), but the tone of the opposition was a bit frantic. Not frantic as in scared, but “shrill” may have been a better word. The first link I used is obviously agin’ it, but the fact that it came out at all says what a lot of people are thinking. The bad guys don’t follow our rules, but it’s very important of course that we have nice soft ones to not even bother applying to them…

In the last few days I’ve actually been reading the Ottawa Citizen after a hiatus of a couple of years. The shift in editorial direction is evident, and to me, refreshing. A spade is a called a shovel, and a sense of balance is maintained. Even I get tired of having to read American-style right-wing stuff all the time, but that’s where a lot of the fight against apathy and appeasement is to be found.

What I think may provide a much needed slap to those who repeat the mantra about “poor, disenfranchised terrorists” is that (admittedly amateurish) “Doctors’ Plot” in the UK. The fact that educated Muslims are also involved in the anti-western jihad should come as news to anyone makes me shake my head, but it’s hardly surprising.

That’s about it. The only other thing of note is that "Shrek 3" was a pale shadow of the first two. Look at that, a new direction: reviews! Not really, but I keep feeling I need to break things up a bit, although the conundrum is that only things that bother me motivate me to use my spare time to spit out these screeds, so things tend to be a bit dark. Oh well.

Pointless Hypocrisy/Consciousness Raising?

The big “Live Earth” foolishness is over with, and I am not alone in thinking the whole thing was heavily flawed, that is if it served any useful purpose at all.

From my perspective, it was a typical publicity grab by a special interest group. You’re familiar with what road I think is paved with good intentions, but I’m not even sure about the purity of motives of Al Gore and his ilk. There are those who see these neo-environmentalists as the latest Commie threat to free enterprise, and I have to say the case can be made for that.

In any event, I do think that most of you will agree with me when I have a real problem with people who make a crapload more money than I ever will telling me what sort of sacrifices “we” are required to make. $2/L gas (or heating oil) might not bend Madonna or Al Gore out of shape, but those of us who live in the real world are already starting to see our standard of living (via disposable income) impacted by energy prices.

I am fully in accord that burning a lot of oil isn’t the best idea, but not for the same reasons. A possibility exists for a confluence of objectives between the pinko Global-Warming-the-world-will-end crowd and the hawkish let-the-Arabs-(including Iran and Chavez)-drink-their-oil school. This will not of course include kneecapping us economically, but a drive for better renewable and/or non-polluting energy sources and technology benefits everybody. Everyone, that is, except those self-loathing true believers who want to destroy Western civilization by screwing us over to the benefit of the rest of the world.

I’ll leave it you to identify them, but they’re very thinly disguised at best.

Auxiliarii; Plus ca change...

It's not news to professionals and informed laypeople, but yes, we don't have enough boots on the ground in Afghanistan. It has been the plan for the last several years (after we finished off al Queda in Afghanistan, the original reason for going in there) to get the local Army and Police up to speed so we can get out and let them run themselves. My bet was always that it would be run straight back into the ground, but I'm a well-known cynic.

The linked article from Military.com addresses these challenges briefly so have a look at that. With that done, we'll talk about the roots of my cynicism, or as I term it, ''realism''. They are simple; I read (present and past tense) a LOT, and generally prefer history, natural science, that sort of thing.

Jerry Pournelle, whose mail section is the precipitating factor for this piece, has frequently pointed out that our side needs to recruit ''auxiliaries'' to actually police the place, freeing our small armies to do the jobs of ''breaking things and killing people''. The Romans knew this (and many other things many of us seem to have forgotten) and recent developments in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought it back to those who are involved in trying to sort both of those messes out.

Specifically about Afghanistan, Karzai and a variety of western media sources are starting to harp on the civilian casualties that are coming as a result of us trying to do our job over there. This brings to mind the Israel-Hizbollah fight last summer, but the idea of attacking ''western'' forces in the middle of civilian areas, or hiding there to provoke an attack with ensuing collateral casualties is a common terrorist tactic which is not exactly new.

Having auxiliaries like the Anbar Salvation Front can cause different sorts of headaches for our side, but summary executions are ''just how they roll''. Payback's a bitch, and if we don't want to get our hands dirty, having the locals sort things out at least allows us a bit of plausible deniability with people who care about the treatment of terrorists. As you could guess, I'm not one of them.

I personally am of the opinion, backed loosely by the Laws of Armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, etc. that we should only be taking these yahoos prisoner if it seems likely we'll get some worthwhile int from them. Otherwise, they have by their actions placed themselves outside the protections our rules provide. Therefore, getting locals to clean their own house is win-win and is to be encouraged.

In this vein, it has to be realized, and PUSHED to the media and the public, that these counter-insurgencies are nasty business, and heads are going to be cracked in a most decidedly non-Charter of Rights and Freedoms kind of way. Particularly when we train, equip, and turn them loose to straighten out their own mess. We didn't make it, and I think it's very nice of us to try to drag them into the modern world. Pity many of them have no desire to go there...

And now, the fearless prediction part of the piece. I like the sound of that so much that I'll see if I can make it a regular feature. As always, you are guaranteed your money back on any promises I make or imply here. ;)

Anyway, my notional money is placed on Canada not renewing our Battlegroup level commitment to Afghanistan past its' current expiration in early 2009. There is nothing happening politically which favours such a move, and the mounting casualties are fueling the calls to at least not extend things over there. From my perspective, I honestly think that we are past the point of diminishing returns considering the half-assed support that NATO is giving to the mission. Long-term success requires short to medium-term commitment of at least three times the troops we have there right now, particularly in the south.

Someone asked me recently what I saw as a possible positive, non-military solution to Afghanistan. The only thing I could come up with was some sort of political arrangement with the Taliban factions, but unless they loosen up significantly (not likely) this will put things right back where we started. As well, the time to do that was last year when NATO (the useful members at least) had handed the bad guys a solid pounding. Now it would just look like (and be) backing down. And don't even get me started on Pakistan...

"Do not think ill of your enemy, do it."

Publilius Syrus (Roman, 1st century BC) said it, not me, but I loved it as a quote. Hence, the latest blog post title, even if I have nothing really connected to it. Expect to see more of this quote...

Well, just I guess a digest of stuff I've seen recently to pad my numbers for June. One of the things that I saw that gave me some hope for some of our friends was this at LGF. I don't see a lot of official confirmation of it, so I won't bill it as 100% reliable, but it sounds good, and true to form for the Aussies. If that gutless crew of Brits had displayed some martial spirit against the Iranians a few months ago, that whole humiliating episode could have been avoided. It just takes some leadership and your troops will follow.

Americans have been tearing themselves apart politically, but at least that ridiculous ''Shamnesty'' bill has been killed. If they were going to amnesty up to 12 million illegal immigrants, I don't want to ever hear another world about terrorists making it to the US from Canada. We'll see what they come up with when they try again next year.

Closer to home, there were those Aboriginal protests yesterday in various parts of Canada. They seem to be reading public opinion better, since they temporarily impeded traffic in a number of places, but no armed standoffs or extended blockades of public thoroughfares. Some of the things about the attitude of the leaders in this article show that things have the potential to degenerate once more, but hopefully the police won't be hobbled by our political ''leaders'' and treat these protesters as being above the law.

Hmm. Not a lot else I really need to say at the moment, so just another space-filler until the next thing sets me off. As a note (possibly to myself), traffic seems to have dropped off, so I guess I'm completely off the radar at this point. With a big layoff coming in the next few months, I guess this spot will be in stasis for a while, but I'll keep things coming when and as I can.

The Autobahn to Hell

Two words: Liberal Interventionism.

The gist of this article seems to be that Tony Blair views the idea as dented, but not actually wrong. Taking out Saddam Hussein was, on paper, a step to the good; one less sadistic dictator in the world and all.

Mr Blair... insisted his decision was right. If Saddam Hussein was still running Iraq, the world would face a different set of problems, he said.

A different set of problems indeed. Such as perhaps there would still exist a repressive but stable and contained Iraq as a counter-balance to the ambitions of Iran?

The Prime Minister admitted there were "varying degrees of enthusiasm" for intervention among other countries and said other nations needed to "step up to the mark" to help coalition forces in Afghanistan.

But he denied that the case for intervention had waned, saying he wanted to see that happen in Darfur. "I believe we will be pushed in this direction as a world," he said. "We cannot be in a situation where the harder they [terrorists] fight, the less is our will to succeed. If we are not careful we will be in that situation ... Are we prepared for the long haul? That is the real issue."

Ah yes, Darfur. There are many things to be said for laying the smackdown on the Sudanese government and splitting Sudan into at least 3 separate states. But here's the kicker; everyone wrings their hands a lot, but nobody who's in a position to send enough force to do the job (e.g. the Americans) is interested enough to do it.

So, we will certainly be pushed in that and several other directions, but there is a lot of inertia to overcome, even discounting current commitments.

Speaking of other commitments, Canada's mission in Afghanistan is looking (fearless prediction alert) like it won't be extended past 2009. Although the actual events with the troops went smoothly in Quebec City last night, the usual yahoos were there to protest, and of course they get more coverage than the reason for the march. Quel surprise. Well, at least we faked them out by reversing the parade route...

Interventions, liberal or otherwise have been a fact since people first became organized enough to have a coherent will that they wanted to impose on someone else. As I have argued repeatedly here, the interventions will have to happen, but Mr Blair's comments underline the fact that there is only so much that the "world's policemen" can realistically expect to accomplish.

One can note that no-one could be bothered to intervene in Gaza, although admittedly it's hard to choose between terrorist factions there. Back to the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mantra, backing Fatah over Hamas seems to look like a better bet for the US and Israel, but I only see that as a question of relative odiousness and potential threat.

Intervention or Containment? Like most non-physical laws, there are no hard and fast rules; "the terrain will dictate". Decisions to get stuck into somewhere should not be based on ideology, but on a cold, hard assessment of interests and whether it'll work. Radical, I know.

(PS: to avoid confusion, I started this 21 June, but it wasn't actually posted until 23 June. Can't edit that part, I guess.)

Keeping the lights on

The best thing to pull people together is a common enemy, and we, the Russians, China and India all have that in this Islamist Caliphate movement. My hope is that we can work together, all the non-failed states of the world, on something more constructive. Space travel would be great, and it's one of the few remaining "frontiers". There are others, such as computing, biotechnology, energy, and materials.

So, time for a new direction to this rambling set of observations. Technology is always interesting, even if most of it is a "black box" to arts types like myself. The dabbling of science I took in high school and university does however give me enough of a clue of many basic concepts so that I can grasp what is likely and possible.

Well, it's 2007, and we've not been to Jupiter yet, so there remain a lot of "flying car" type predictions to come true, or not. I'm making this up as I go along, but it seems to me that the hope of maintaining some sort of decent civilization depends to a large extent on energy, so there's an area that needs some real progress.

Nuclear fusion has always been may favourites for the future, but there's a part of me thinking that if we were pushed hard enough it'd be here already. There is a lot of stuff starting to shake loose due to the persistently high oil prices, but we'll see if it's absorbed as an inflationary item and we just make more efficient internal combustion engines. We're not about to run out of oil any time soon, but high prices mimic scarcity for planning and research purposes.

There are lots of solutions for our forecast energy problems; most of them technically feasible today, and some of them renewable. Nuclear fission can replace a lot (or all) of the fossil fuel generation plants for a long time, and pretty-much indefinitely if you use breeder reactors.

Anything containing the words "atomic" or "nuclear" makes people nervous, but energy is energy, and getting it has some side effects however you slice (or split!) it. Solar power is viewed as nice and safe, but the most efficient use of that, as it stands, would be to put the collectors in orbit or on the moon and beam it back. You'd get a crapload of energy from that, and all free after the initial investment, albeit it'd be a hefty one.

Now, who exactly would pay for it and manage/control such a thing is likely to be a sticky issue, as I can see the weapon potential of gigawatt microwave beams from orbit, but I'm sure the same thing was said about satellites when Sputnik first started beeping across the skies.

The way I see things, there's more energy available to us than we could ever use (mostly that bright thing in the daytime sky), but tapping it and managing it are the challenges. Batteries in one form or another are a huge advance still barely on its' feet. With actually efficient storage cells, electric cars are a practical reality. Hybrids and fuel cells be damned, real batteries are what we need to push the rest of the energy revolution.

We need the hydrocarbons for plastics and stuff, so burning it is wasteful at best when we have much better and cleaner ways of powering our houses and gadgets. It's also a good way to reduce the leverage that various unpleasant or dysfunctional countries have over our foreign and domestic policy. Cheap, clean, abundant energy allows you to do anything you need to do.

I like trees and green stuff as much as any rational person, but I'm not a tree-spiking radical by any stretch. People seem to want to reproduce far beyond the planet's natural carrying capacity, and unless something happens to knock our numbers back (never count Nature out...) we have to keep advancing our technology. If the West and associates don't do it, who will? All the terminally buggered countries of Africa? Al-Qaeda’s Wahhabist paradise? The civilized hope for humanity rests with maintaining a high level of technology, and at least a modest rate of innovation.

Western civilization got us this far (the oil in Arabia etc. would be worthless without Western technology) and it's the only thing (with local variations) that can keep us from lapsing into some sort of Dark Age. That Dark Age may be historically inevitable, or not; I have no way to be sure, nor does anyone else. Personally I vote that we do everything we can to preserve what got us were we are, because it's the only thing that will get us past here.

If this means cracking heads in various places, so be it. Exporting democracy has failed ignominiously in Iraq, and is in the process of failing in Afghanistan. So what? We have it and we( mostly) like it, it doesn't matter if most of the world doesn't. WE DON'T NEED THEM TO HAVE IT. I hope that was plain enough to be understood.

The enemy of our enemy is our friend; that's as old as the hills, and like the Gods of the Copybook Headings, that sort of knowledge goes out of style but is never rendered untrue.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

So, I want to keep hold of my ice-field and you likely do too. Technology and (sustainable) progress are the keys, and none of the pin-prick threats that are represented by various brand of Luddite (internal or external) can knock us off of it, or put out the lights, AS LONG AS WE DON'T LET THEM. Hit them hard, hit them fast and don't get bogged down. This means backing local players whose interests correspond with ours (however temporarily) and then letting them all sort themselves out. If they get the hint, good. If not, we're ready to do it again.

These last two posts need some serious editing, being just stream-of-consciousness, but until I get around to doing that I hope this has made some sense. If not, hey, what do you expect for free? As always, comments are appreciated, since I need some feedback to keep me honest; otherwise I might say any damned thing that comes into my head. Oh, wait...

For what we fight.

Time I guess for a follow-up to the previous missive, so I'll see what I can do.

I said something about where we're going, so I'll start as usual with something that caught my attention very recently. It (the link above) makes me want to break out the riot gear, but peaceful protest, no matter how clueless, is one of the side-effects of democracy.

This of course also makes allowances for peaceful counter-protests, and there are more and more of these showing up in the US. I have to look to the "right-wing" blogs to find them, but they're documented and in many cases well attended. There are a lot of people, mostly silent and maybe a majority (although I increasingly doubt it) who are pretty fed up with the soft-headed world-view that all anyone needs is a chance to redeem themselves in our country/under democracy/after a slap on the wrist in our judicial system, etc.

My standard approach to that is to grumble that the people who are so in favour of whatever undesirable person it may be should have to sponsor them and have them live with their family. That would rapidly separate all the real pacifist turn-the-other-cheek types from the ideologues manipulating the system for whatever it is their aims are.

This seems off topic, but I think it's necessary to look at the threats to the West. The strengths are largely self-evident: universal education (leave quality out of it for the moment) advanced infrastructure and technology, and our "cultural weapons of mass destruction". The last item is a phrase I've borrowed from Jerry Pournelle and it applies very well in his original usage, relating to Iran. Other places are at least partially resistant to the "charms" of Western consumerism, and I must admit I can relate to a certain amount of that resistance. Just not the part that wants to destroy us to take MTV out of their homes...

The obvious external threat is the same Salafist terrorists that I'm always on about, the clowns that declared jihad against India recently being the most widespread:

The statement -- five pages long and given in Urdu -- mentions insurgencies in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, the Palestinian territories and Algeria and describes them as a global Islamic movement "aimed at wiping out borders and leading to the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate."

Ok, I see that as something unpleasant, but despite their slipperiness, the jihadi groups can only do a certain amount of damage as long as we keep the pressure on. Frankly, a lot more people are killed in traffic accidents yearly than can be killed by that sort of external threat. The key then is to KEEP it external.

I do feel that I'm getting a little too focused on that sort of thing, so I'm pulling back a bit to look for another threat, but militarily there's not much. Western society has to decide that it wants to survive. If it does that, it will take a real catastrophe (i.e. bigger than WW2, more like asteroid strike or major nuclear war) to take us down.

So, this comes back to the "anti-war" crowd. I can understand (in principle) having an objection to military intervention in another country that gets minding-their-own-business civilians killed. However, there are times that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, the omelet being breaking the back of your enemy and preventing them from re-constituting.

That drivel being sent to CF soldiers in Quebec tries to compare a) things the Americans have done and b) Iraq to what Canada is trying to do in Afghanistan. Anyone who accuses Canada of being imperialist lacks clue one, but let's just say that the government said "Gee, you're right, we are baby-slaughtering war criminals, let's pull out and leave Afghanistan to its' fate." What did that accomplish?

First, it proves that Canada won't honour international commitments (don't even mention Kyoto or I'll scream...), then it undermines our allies who think we can straighten that country out, for its' own good and ours. As well, (I won't say "lastly") it's a victory for the ostriches who think if we leave things alone they'll go away.

Anyway, that is a symptom of a problem, not really the problem itself. Honestly, I don't even care so much that they object to our involvement in Afghanistan; opinions are like various orifices, everyone has at least one. Really, it's more because this same lot are affiliated with those "anti-globalization" protest hooligans, and they would make me despair for our chances were they more than a fringe element.

We still have lots of potential, more if "we" can find common cause with India and China. I would say Russia as well, but they seem to want to be difficult, so the jury is out. Well, no more difficult than a lot of other major powers, so there's always hope. This is getting a bit unwieldy, so I'll chop it here. TBC...

“Tell me that this world is no place for the weak”

(Title: Joe Jackson, from Look Sharp)

Alright; I said something about my view of the position of and prospects for Western Civilization. This may take me a few pages, and for that reason I may “serialize” it over a couple of posts, or it may come out in one blob. Read on to find out…

I also foolishly said something about imposing some structure on it, i.e. a proper essay even. We’ll also see about that, but be warned that since I’m not getting marked on this I’ll settle for “coherent”.

Position is the logical place to start, and although less arcane than the future, it’s still pretty muddled, and opinions are like anuses, everyone has one. Some seem to have more than one, but I digress…

Well, my opinion then. To sum it up: we are equally balanced between absorption/obliteration and continued economic and cultural dominance of the world. This is fence sitting in fine style, except that I’m not a moral relativist at the end of the day: some things ARE better than some other things, say I.

In case I’ve not been clear about it previously, I do in fact prefer our flawed democracies to anything else out there, since what passes for our culture gives one the latitude to be a nudist or a born-again Christian (conceivably both) and still make a positive contribution to society. Diversity of ideas is a fine thing, but diversity (or lack) of standards is most certainly NOT.

There you have it; our very strength is also our (possibly terminal) weakness. “I’m OK, you’re OK” is bullshit as a philosophy and is a good intention which paves great swathes of the road to hell. I have touched on this previously , but the West needs a standard to rally around. (By standard I mean “flag”, “colours”, “eagle”, etc.) Religion is down and out in the post-industrial West, so I admit that I am at a bit of a loss for a rallying cry.

Yes, there is a good chunk of the Muslim world that wants to knock us all back to 700AD or whatever they’d number it. There are other possibly hostile forces at work (don’t ignore the Chinese, the Indians or even the Russians), but the “clear and present danger” is Wahhabi/Deobandi/ad nauseum Islam.

Their mindset (product of years of brainwashing for the most part) is completely at odds with any notion of progress. They’re agin’ it, full stop. Last I checked, it was “progress” or at least the idea of it, which got us electricity, rule of law, central heating, sliced bread, etc. In other words, the fact that I can do what I’m doing right now (typing this while eating M&Ms and listening to Rancid) has little to do with the systems that cover most of the world today and less-than zero to do with Islam in any way shape or form. Before you get on that thing about the Islamic world being a beacon of learning in the Middle Ages, think about how it was that they came to “preserve” those Greek and Latin classics. One word: Conquest.

If you take the head start they had due to the places they took over (Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Byzantine Empire), Europe never should have had a chance to come out on top in any period after the Crusades. Well, they did, didn’t they now? Ipso facto, our system is better, warts (Spanish Inquisition, 30 Years War, Salem witch trials, WW1 & 2, etc.) and all.

That is a statement of outrageous cheek to say the least, but I will defend it quite literally to the death. With a nod to Serenity however, that isn’t exactly Plan “A”. General Patton’s line about making the other s.o.b. die for his country is more my style. And our side needs a lot more of that attitude to tilt the scales the right way for our idea of civilization.

We stand near-paralyzed by our political correctness and Official Multiculturalism (not to be confused with the natural, cosmopolitan variety). I directed you to that paper by Edward Luttwak last time, and that covers the tactical aspects of it as well as or better than I could. The best example of why the Americans are doomed to eventual failure in Iraq is the charges levelled against those US Marines in regard to the Haditha “massacre”. Compare and contrast with the examples from the Ottomans, Romans and Germans provided by Luttwak; none of their bosses would give a rat’s ass about some locals capped pour encourager les autres, and (with the Nazis as the exception) they held their territories for a historically significant period of time.

This gets us onto another sticky subject; do we want to do that sort of thing? The answer is of course “no”, but this begs another question; if not, then why are you playing an Imperial game by the rules of politically-correct Democracies?

Rightly or wrongly, I don’t believe in “Nation-building”. If the place has been unable to sort itself out by this point in history, it’s terribly presumptuous of us to think we can do it (with one arm tied behind our back) in one 4-5 year term of office. This assumes they actually want us there in the first place; that’s not usually the case, and whatever novelty we have on first arrival rapidly wears away…

I have a job and a life, so the books that could come of this outburst will remain unwritten (by me) for the moment. So, where do we stand? Well, we have a missionary urge to spread Democracy without the faith and dare I say it, ruthlessness, to get the job done, savages be damned. We’re on a very high horse, and there are a LOT of people (alas, some days myself as well) who’d like to see us knocked off of it. Every time Canada shakes its’ finger at China over “Human Rights” I want to scream at the politicians to shut their cake holes. I’d like to see any Canadian politician hold China together with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, let’s just leave it at that.

The “Fifth Column” has already undermined us, and our worst enemy is us. Lack of perspective leads to questionable vision, if there’s any grand vision at all. And one of the truest clichés of all: if you try to please everyone, you please no-one.

I haven’t dropped any Kipling for a while, and this one came to me toward the end of this rant:

“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”

Detour to Dead end

As I have come across this piece by Edward Luttwak, I thought that a link and some selected snippets from it would prove that I am not the only one out there who knows a bit of history. More importantly, that there are others that learn something from it…

In all cases here he is referring to a draft of a US counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24 DRAFT. I encourage you to read the whole thing via the link to Harpers provided above.

Much more questionable is the proposition that follows, which is presented as self-evident, that a necessary if not sufficient condition of victory is to provide what the insurgents cannot: basic public services, physical reconstruction, the hope of economic development and social amelioration.

The hidden assumption here is that there is only one kind of politics in this world, a politics in which popular support is important or even decisive, and that such support can be won by providing better government. Yet the extraordinary persistence of dictatorships as diverse in style as the regimes of Cuba, Libya, North Korea, and Syria shows that in fact government needs no popular support as long as it can secure obedience. As for better government, that is certainly wanted in France, Norway, or the United States, but obviously not in Afghanistan or Iraq, where many people prefer indigenous and religious oppression to the freedoms offered by foreign invaders.

If there is a bigger problem with the big picture of the "War on Terror" I can't think of it. There is some reference in Luttwak's essay to the military government the US successfully imposed on Germany and Japan after WW2, but the necessary prerequisite for that was smashing both countries to the ground, firebombing their populations into submission, then completely decapitating their government and replacing it with Allied military governors. Now, I'm not sure even that would work in Iraq and Afghanistan (the Russians tried the first bit with little success), but as in all other fields of human endeavor, half-measures won't get the job done.


All its best methods, all its clever tactics, all the treasure and blood that the United States has been willing to expend, cannot overcome the crippling ambivalence of occupiers who refuse to govern, and their principled and inevitable refusal to out-terrorize the insurgents, the necessary and sufficient condition of a tranquil occupation.

Nothing I haven't said before, but well written, and he uses some excellent historical parallels with the current situations. And I (almost) promise, my next entry will be my digest of the West's situation.

Obvious filler

Back again.

I've been trying for the couple of days that I've been back to find anything worthy of a rant, but I've been in a near news-blackout for a month so it's taking a bit of time to get back up to speed on the world.

You may have noticed (or not) that I installed a counter on this thing, as I wanted to have some idea how much traffic I get. It seems that I don't get a lot, but that's a lot better than none, so whomever you all are, congratulations, you're giving me enough of a reason to try to make it worth your while to stop in here occasionally.

One thing that is of course of ongoing interest/importance to me is the fight in Afghanistan, and that continues in its' own way. This whole topic points to one of the challenges that I face when trying to come up with content for this.

I have a lot of things I'd like to say about things that would make my life a bit awkward were my identity attached to this. My objectives on this are to keep things as just MY TAKE on stuff, with no profits (hence no ads or other crap) and no reason for anyone to complain about copyright infringement should I mis-step and engage in some (attributed) theft.

That stuff can be managed, since I see a lot of other blogs that are a lot more high-traffic than mine that manage to keep afloat despite some serious muck-raking with large media outlets and special-interest groups. As long as RIAA and Metallica aren't after me, I figure I'm OK...

So, back to Afghanistan. I was talking to my grandmother last night, and she told me that she doesn't see why we're there. This is a woman who survived WW2 (and she was in southern England, so "survived" is an accurate word) and has no illusions about the need for armed force in some circumstances. I did make a case for us being in there, but I realized I could not honestly say that I think we'll stick with it until the job is done. Whether the job is do-able is a separate issue, and I think I've addressed that elsewhere.

The point is that if I can't convince my octogenarian, realist, conservative (to put it mildly) grandmother that our troops getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan is in our National Interest, it's not because she and I aren't on the same wavelength. She is most certainly NOT a "moonbat", but I am struggling with the deployment, mainly because I know we won't go the distance.

So, if people like my grandmother, and more importantly me, are losing faith in the idea of being there, I'm surprised there's any support left for us being there. This does not mean I think we should pull out, but since I know we haven't got the ruthlessness to to the job properly, ("we" means NATO) I'm a bit discouraged.

I think that my next post will be about where the West is and where we're going. This will not be too original, but I think that this blurb is headed in that direction. Hell, I might even try to impose a bit of structure on the next one, since I think it's important.

Hiatus Alert, again.

I"ll be out of Internet range for the rest of this month and all of May, so my readers are forewarned.

I didn't see to much this past week that inspired a rant, but that's not because nothing happened. The Virginia Tech Massacre alone was pretty nasty, but it's one of those things that will happen. The on-again debate about gun control in the US promises to be unpleasant, but in a country where there is a viable lobby encouraging MORE guns for honest citizens, it's at least a balanced fight.

This is one of those things that I'm pretty ambivalent about; yes, one student with a concealed handgun on campus that day could have made a big (positive) difference, but that puts a lot more guns into situations that on any other day, would have no guns in them. That at least is the argument I make against having Air Marshals with guns on flights, as that guarantees there will be a gun on the plane. After 9/11 airline restrictions, I challenge anyone to take over a plane with what they can get on board. I'm not actually challenging you to try that of course...

Guns are a very polarizing topic, and since I almost never get any comments on this (and I know who leaves the few that I get) I won't bother trying to stir up any debate. Insane people are like acts of nature, and they will happen to some degree or another regardless of the laws already passed, let alone those that will be rammed through in a panic after something like this. Or like the Dawson College rampage last year; that was in Canada, which has pretty restrictive gun laws which were broken by the freak who perpetrated it.

On a less controversial (perhaps) note, I've started using Firefox for most of my web browsing. I find that accessing this site is vastly smoother with it, and I think a lot of other pages are loading faster than with IE 7. Now that I've taken my life in my hands with that declaration, I'm off. See you in June, end of May if I'm lucky.

Punching above our weight

Well, call up the army, it looks like another Canadian citizen has been unfairly persecuted by the totalitarian Chinese horde!

Oh, wait; Husyein Celil comes from there, was arrested there on terrorism charges and escaped to Canada? He just got his Canadian citizenship in 2005, 5 years after escaping from a Chinese jail? He's associated with people who have been executed by the Chinese government for supporting separatist forces? And he was caught by the Chinese back in their neighbourhood after he fled to and was granted a safe home in Canada?

"Well, maybe we should mind our own business", is my response to reading the facts of the case. The Chinese, rightly to my mind, do NOT recognize his Canadian citizenship-of-convenience and are treating him as a Chinese citizen. In fact, he's lucky not to be executed.

The Canadian government has predictably freaked out and is making all sorts of "tsk-tsk" noises at the Chinese, who are just as predictably telling them to shut it. As you might guess I have a lack of patience for Canada defending doughheads who manage to fetch up on our shores after pissing off some less soft-and-fuzzy country. I don't want most of them here in the first place (we grow our own criminals, thank you), and then they go back to whatever dismal place they "escaped" from in the first place.

Well, this does nothing for us. This guy got away once, and the Chinese won't let him do it again. Canada can just bleat and look lame, achieving nothing. I have to ask, do we really want guys like this bailed out? If we get him back, maybe he can hang out with the Khadr family...

Istanbul, not Constantinople

The perennial quest of Turkey to join the EU leads to a lot of gyrations on the part of its' government, but there are other factors at work too. I for one am relieved to see that the idea of a secular Turkey is being defended in relatively large numbers, but I wonder if it'll be enough.

'A sea of flag-waving demonstrators poured into the streets of Ankara Saturday to protest a possible presidential run by the pro-Islamist prime minister, whose party has been eroding secular Turks' longtime grip on power.

A crowd estimated at more than 300,00 chanted 'We don't want an imam as president!' at a rally in Ankara, Turkey on Saturday.
Associated Press

With a crowd estimated at more than 300,000, the protest was one of the nation's largest in decades. Red Turkish flags hung from balconies and windows and fluttered in the hands of protesters, who chanted, "We don't want an imam as president!" and "Turkey is secular and will remain secular!"' (CBC)

The Islamist nonsense continues, and Turkey could easily fall were it a standard democracy. People get the government they deserve for the most part, and whether or not the bulk of the populace there wants to live under sharia, were I the Europeans I'd not be too keen on another enemy of Western civilization being entrenched in a powerful neighbour. I wonder how many people in Turkey really wonder why they'll never be admitted to the EU?

"Never" is a big word, and I shouldn't use it very much. The choice seems to be between democratically elected Islamist fundamentalists or a secular society supported by military coups. Maybe "never" is the right word here; the Islamists scare Europe (with good reason) and the use of the Army to defend human rights is a concept they don't seem capable of getting behind.

Back to the Democracy hobbyhorse again. Lots of crappy governments get in by being elected, so the argument for it as a prerequisite for good order and governance is not so airtight as many would have us believe. We'll see if they take the hint (from the Army) in Turkey or if there will be another putsch. The third option is a NATO country with a government that wants to subjugate the rest of us to their repressive ideology, and I don't like that option much, as "democratic" as it may be.

On another tack, I've been reading Bill Whittle's essays at Eject! Eject! Eject! and there's some good stuff in there. He defends the invasion and occupation of Iraq more than I do (i.e. I have always thought it was a losing proposition, he does not), and they're pretty lengthy, but there's some quality ranting to be had. Of course it's very American, but I'll be interested to hear what any of you think about his "Seeing the Unseen", so let me know.

Bleeding to Bankruptcy? How about "not".

The idea is fairly obvious if you think about it, but first you have to be thinking about these sorts of things. That said, this Janes article is well developed, and now that I’ve found a link accessible to those on the web, I’ve provided it here. (You have to access it from that Ft Leavenworth page, but it's there.) At 3500 words it’s a bit of a chunk to paste into the blog, and despite this generating zero income I don’t want to infringe peoples’ copyrights. I think I can make enough enemies without doing that…

Essentially, Bin Laden has come out and said that one of “their” dollars is as effective as one million American ones. Accordingly, says he, attack things that they value, and more importantly, scare them into reacting willy-nilly and the economic damage will compound itself. Ok, maybe not that bit about compounding, but that’s the effect.

I have for a while been advocating a more detached, quick-in-and-out approach to dealing with his sort, and the fact that Al-Qaeda and their ilk are PLANNING on our panicking and lashing out in all directions seems to support my concept. The idea of emplacing democracy where it obviously doesn’t belong (at least not yet) is not playing out all that well, and is VERY expensive. What are our priorities, really, and is there a better way to get there?

A lot of ink has been spilled (and bits forcibly arranged) about the “security theatre” to be found in a lot of places, particularly the US. One of my favourites, I think Jerry Pournelle said it, was that we are permitting ourselves to be treated like criminals (searched, etc.) just to get on a plane. In other words, the price of this “security” is not just economic.

Here’s another of my brainwaves: how about we just tell the public the truth, and set a good example of not soiling ourselves over some low-probability terrorist plot. Make sure that no-one can get a (real) weapon on a plane (elementary screening of passengers with metal-detectors and X-ray machines does this), but dispense with the BS about nail clippers and hair gel.

Generally, the populace is only scared if their leaders are, or more importantly if they look to be. A bit more evidence of the work our security forces do (we’re watching this group, be busted this up, etc) within the bounds of OPSEC, and generally, pound into people that these clowns could be dangerous, but so is getting hit by lightning, and that’s a lot more likely.

Attitude, it’s all about attitude. Give a big middle finger salute to the jihadi fuckers in the media, all the time. We’re generally getting our asses handed to us in the media wars, and the local media is complicit in that. It’s not just Al-Jazeera it’s the European and North American outlets too. Too lazy, intimidated, or just self-loathing and longing for the collapse of Western civilization; I have no idea, but many of them don’t know what side their bread is buttered on.

So, governments and media, here’s my challenge: make us believe that we’re strong and free, and that a bunch of disgruntled Muslims with a shoestring budget won’t be able to “bleed us to death”.