Month: October 2004

“I will not kneel before these terrorists. If I don’t join the army, who is going to defend the country from the terrorists?” – an Iraqi recruit, after yet another hideous terrorist assault on an Iraqi National Guard building. He’s a hero – as are so many Iraqis trying to rebuild their country in the face of Jihadist and Baathist murder. I haven’t given up on Iraq. You have to believe that, given a real choice, Iraqis will vote for a democratic and free future, not the medieval depravity available in Iran and elsewhere. The elections are critical, of course. What tears me up is that we are responsible for protecting these people from such violence; and we have chosen to minimize our troop commitment at the very hour of their need. I hope they prevail. With the Falluja showdown looming, we all have to pray that they will.

MEANWHILE: Here’s a brief recap of the security situation in American-occupied Iraq yesterday:

*tA senior aid worker was kidnapped in Baghdad
*tTwo Iraqis were killed and three were injured when three car bombs exploded in the northern city of Mosul, the Associated Press news agency reported
*tA US contractor was killed and several people were wounded in a mortar attack on a US army compound in central Baghdad, the US military said
*tA key oil pipeline in northern Iraq was attacked and set on fire
*tMore than 100 suspected insurgents were arrested by Iraqi security forces, backed by US Marines, in raids in Babil province, south of Baghdad
*tA suicide car bomber attacked a US military convoy in the western town of Habbaniyah, police told the Reuters news agency. There were no reports of casualties.

Just the latest reality check.

AS USUAL: The Onion sums up where we may now be in Iraq.

Here’s the latest of a growing crowd of people who cannot reward what Bush has done these past few years. This is the editorial of the Tampa Tribune. Money quote:

As stewards of the Tribune’s editorial voice, we find it unimaginable to not be lending our voice to the chorus of conservative-leaning newspapers endorsing the president’s re- election. We had fully expected to stand with Bush, whom we endorsed in 2000 because his politics generally reflected ours: a strong military, fiscal conservatism, personal responsibility and small government. We knew him to be a popular governor of Texas who fought for lower taxes, less government and a pro-business constitution. But we are unable to endorse President Bush for re- election because of his mishandling of the war in Iraq, his record deficit spending, his assault on open government and his failed promise to be a ‘uniter not a divider’ within the United States and the world.

Here’s the catch: they don’t endorse Kerry either.

THE BEST LINE: Well, there are many in “Team America,” which I saw again last night. (Hey, it’s the only thing keeping me optimistic these days.) But my favorite was Susan Sarandon’s last words, before she is hurled over a balcony and smashes into bloody little bits on the ground (yes, the scene drew cheers in the movie theater both times). Her last words to “Team America” are the classic Fonda-esque: “You will die a peasant’s death.” You just know she reads the Nation.

“It is hard not to sympathize with the views expressed by your letter-writer who was stationed outside Fallujah. He does a good job of expressing the view from the trenches.
The trouble is that his ‘old military maxim’ is a brilliant position when it comes to tactics, and a hopeless one when it comes to strategy. Grunts in the field should execute decisively without second-guessing; but that mind-set is no virtue in generals, much less in national leaders.
Bush with his self-imposed blinders might well be a good man to have with you on patrol–though he studiously avoided the opportunity to find out–but a gung-ho patrol-leader may make an abysmal war-manager. Imagination, reflection, and the ability to learn from errors are needed by people at the top of the chain of command. In the field it may be more important to act in a split second, even wrongly, than to canvas for informed opinions, but in planning for a war, and in conducting a campaign over the course of years, those high-adrenalin errors will add up into strategic disasters like the one we are faced with now.” More feedback on the Letters Page.

RESISTING REUTERS: Canada’s Globe and Mail insists on using the term “terrorist” for people who target innocent civilians for political or religious ends. How shocking. CORRECTION: That should be the National Post, not the Globe and Mail. My bad.

THE GOODS ON KETCHUP: An oasis of calm in a troubled food world.

O’REILLY FOR PORN: His obsession has a long pedigree. Of course the correct answer is: so what? After the Clinton mess, I came reluctantly to the conclusion that I couldn’t support sexual harassment laws any more. Not that sexual harassment isn’t a problem and isn’t disgusting. It’s just that the violation of privacy that any legal investigation inevitably entails is just too intrusive. Die-hard feminists and theocons will disagree. But I pity O’Reilly for what is about to be done to him.

One of Oxblog’s finest makes the pro-war case for the Democrat. He homes in on my fundamental concern, the thing that has kept me from taking the plunge: Kerry’s “total resistance to making any positive statement about the importance of ensuring a democratic outcome in Iraq.” I worry about that too. I don’t think it’s too late to rescue the mission. I fear Kerry is too skeptical of democracy in Arab countries and doesn’t grasp how transformative it can be. But Adesnik makes an interesting case that this shouldn’t be dispositive. I’m still working on my own endorsement. I was planning on just abstaining. But that’s a cop-out.

Here’s a dilemma. Do I accept ads for “Stolen Honor,” the anti-Kerry propaganda movie being forced down the throats of Sinclair’s broadcasting networks? And the answer is … sure! It’s a free country and I have never believed in squelching views, however objectionable. Running an ad for a DVD raises no public airwaves questions, and funnels a few Sinclair dollars to the blog. Look, I have an ad from Ann Coulter. And George Soros. Just explaining …

SIGH: Jonah says I ignored his piece on the Mary Cheney affair. My apologies. I missed it. But, having read it, my point about his tacit approval of an analogy between lesbianism and adultery and/or alcoholism holds. On that very analogy, Jonah punts by saying “we can discuss all that another day.” Why not now? Here are his other analogies:

[W]hat if George W. Bush had said “divorce is a difficult issue. On one hand we all think society is healthier when marriages are healthier. On the other hand, we understand that good and decent people sometimes have irreconcilable differences. I’m sure if you asked John Kerry’s first wife, she would tell you that there are no easy answers…” Or if he had said, “I’m sure if you asked John Kerry’s lovely daughters whether it was easy for them to cope with their parents’ divorce…”

But divorce is almost always a sad thing. Even if it’s the best thing for the people involved, it still represents an obvious lapse from the hopes they had when they got married in the first place. No such thing should be said about being gay. There is nothing unfortunate about it at all – except for having to deal with incomprehension, hostility and prejudice on a regular basis. And that has nothing to do with homosexuality (a neutral or good thing) and everything to do with homophobia (an evil). Still, Jonah has a final analogy:

Or what if Bush had said, “America is a land of great opportunity for immigrants. I’m sure John Kerry’s second wife Teresa, who was born in Africa, would agree…”

That’s a much better analogy – because being an immigrant is not something we should disparage – but it is something that some bigots do disparage. And on this, I disagree with Jonah. I think it would be perfectly legitimate to mention it. As with Mary’s lesbianism, THK’s roots are publicly known; and there’s nothing wrong with them. In fact, deliberately not mentioning THK’s origins in order not to inflame nativists is buying into the bigots’ rationale and argument. Our leaders should not acquiesce in popular prejudice. They should challenge it when necessary. So I rest my case. I await an analogy that is not inherently distasteful or problematic that would render Kerry’s remark out of bounds.

Jonah Goldberg approvingly quotes an email from a reader at NRO. Here’s what the reader thinks of mentioning that someone’s openly gay:

Everybody in the room may know that someone present has a family member who is profoundly retarded, or–less innocently–a drunken gambling addict cheating on a spouse.

So an openly gay person in a ten-year faithful relationship is akin to a heterosexual adulterous alcoholic gambler. And the outrage at Kerry’s benign statement of fact has nothing to do with anti-gay prejudice, does it?

“I was stationed at a base (Al Taqqadum) South-West of Fallujah that we took over from the 82nd Airborne. Your writing about the Abu Graib prompted me write this. It is an explanation of why so many in the military favor Bush, even though we are the ones suffering the most because of his mistakes:

It is an old military maxim that blunders can be forgiven, but a lack of boldness cannot. There will always be blunders. The simple becomes difficult in war. Take for example the following question: what is 2+2 equal too? An easy question right? Now imagine I gave you 15 such questions and you had 2 seconds to answer them. Most likely you would answer some and leave the rest. Looking at those questions you missed in isolation I might say, “What kind of blathering idiot are you? You can’t even answer simple questions like 2+2=4”. That is why Armchair Generals are so annoying. They look at one thing in isolation with all the time in the world to think about it and say confidently “the answers obvious”. But when you are out in the fight everything looks different. Nothing is ever seen in isolation. You never have enough time. You never know more than 1/10 what you need to know. There will always be blunders.

But the job has to get done anyway. And to get this kind of job done boldness is essential. A leader who never blunders, but who doesn’t take the fight to the enemy is worthless. A leader who sets about to win – win ugly if needs be – is priceless.

One thing the Marine Corps taught me is that a 70% solution acted on immediately and violently is better than a perfect solution acted on later. My experience has proven this true time and again. The sad fact is however, that a 70% solution is a 30% mistake. And those mistakes can be hard to take. In WWII for example, 700 soldiers drowned in a training accident in preparation for D-Day (that is about how many combat deaths we’ve experienced so far in Iraq).

There is a scene in the movie “We were Soldiers” that says it better than I can. In the scene a young soldier on the ground is giving directions on enemy positions to aircraft flying overhead. The aircraft then dropped Napalm on the enemy. At one point the soldier gets the directions wrong and stares horrified as the Napalm is dropped on his own unit. The soldier is shaken beyond belief. He sat there doing nothing – paralyzed by his mistake. Then his Commanding Officer gave him the confidence to carry on. The CO told him to “forget about that last one” and “you’re keeping us alive here”. And so the soldier swallowed his guilt and kept doing his job and thereby saved the unit. That is what a 70% solution looks like in real life. And those are the 70% solutions that win wars.

Most people and events are beyond your control. Most questions you don’t have time to answer. Most facts you will never know. But you have to press the attack anyway. No matter how ugly it gets, you keep going until you win.

Kerry doesn’t understand that. Everything he did during the Cold War and everything he says about this one states as much. He represents those who would never blunder, but who would not take the fight to the enemy. He would just sit there – like the soldier in the movie – paralyzed by America’s mistakes.”

Don’t miss the batch of other excellent retorts to the Dish on the Letters Page.

High Times picks its man, man. Missouri will no doubt be swayed.

Why did Bill Safire make stuff up in his recent column on Mary Cheney? And why does he think being gay is such a horrifying thing? My take on Safire’s homosexual panic can be read here. Money quote:

The question raised was whether homosexual orientation is a choice. The most obvious argument that it isn’t a choice is that many gay people would obviously be better off if they were straight. Why would they choose something that difficult if they didn’t have to? This is particularly the case with people in the current Republican Party. If homosexuality is a choice, why would gay Republicans exist? Since the party is now institutionally anti-gay, it would make sense for all those who have “chosen” to be gay to “choose” to be straight. But they can’t. Why? Because it isn’t a choice.
And, whether she likes it or not, the most prominent gay Republican in the entire country is Mary Cheney. In fact, she’s particularly poignant proof that homosexuality is not a choice. Her lesbianism is a source of acute embarrassment for the Republican Party. That’s why she was pointedly absent from the family tableau at the Republican Convention. And yet she endures. And her family embraces her and her partner, Heather. What data could be more relevant in response to the question asked?

Only if you believe lesbianism is a “problem” can you believe that what Kerry said is off the mark. And it’s been truly revelatory to find out how many ostensibly tolerant people really do, in fact, believe that being a lesbian is a problem.

The Gordon piece bears re-reading. It addresses a major issue in the debate we’re having over the election. Sarah Baxter, Greg Dejerejian and others rightly point out the superior worldview of the Bush administration in response to terror. But that really isn’t the issue this time around. The issue is: even if they see the world the right way, are they capable of pursuing their policies competently? I cannot believe that anyone fairly reviewing the shambles that is the Iraq occupation can have any real confidence in this administration’s ability to meet logistical means to ideological ends. It hurts me to say it, but Rumsfeld is clearly the main man responsible for ignoring early advice, refusing to heed the military, creating an intimidatory atmosphere in which important criticism cannot be heard, and for sticking to theories when cruel, hard experience has debunked them. Here’s Garner again:

“John Abizaid was the only one who really had his head in the postwar game. The Bush administration did not. Condi Rice did not. Doug Feith didn’t. You could go brief them, but you never saw any initiative come of them. You just kind of got a north and south nod. And so it ends with so many tragic things.”

Do you really trust these people to protect us in the months and years ahead? Do you trust them to make the right decisions? Do you trust them to subject their own beliefs to scrutiny? That’s the first issue in this election, before we get to the question of Kerry. I say this as someone who did once trust them, and who found himself unable to marry the reality on the ground with the words coming from the White House. I trusted but couldn’t verify. And the stakes are too high for me to trust again.

THE POLLS ARE UNCHANGED: Since last week, that is. That’s the view of MysteryPollster, who has done the best analysis I’ve read so far of what’s going on.

JESUS FOR BUSH: Yep, a divine endorsement. And why not?

Mr. Brinson persuaded Mr. Caviezel, the actor who portrayed Jesus in Mel Gibson’s hit film, to appear in a Webcast imploring Christians to vote. Although Mr. Caviezel never explicitly endorses the president, his message is designed to remind Christians that Mr. Bush shares their opposition to abortion, judicial activism and homosexual marriage. “In this election year, Americans are faced with some of the most important issues in the history of our country,” he said. “In order to preserve the God-given freedoms we each hold dear, it’s important that we let our voices be heard.”

We’re still waiting, of course, for an endorsement from the Virgin Mary. But I’m sure Richard Neuhaus has that one lined up.

WHEN GLENN IS PISSED OFF: He can be really funny. I wish he’d be more abusive at times – of the people who deserve a little slapping around. And I haven’t heard the term “sod off” since I left England. Good for him. But it’s also true that he doesn’t really defend his own pro-Bush sentiments at any length, and he routinely avoids any news that could reflect badly on the president. I’m sure Glenn is aware of the many mistakes in Iraq, but he doesn’t link to them, and seems content merely to link to positive news. That’s his prerogative, of course. And given the bad news emphasis of MSM, defensible. But it is a cocoon of a sort. And his assumptions would be more persuasive with a bit more substantiation at times.