"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.