Category: The Dish

A friend serving his country in Iraq just got this rapidly-generated email JPG, and forwarded it to me. If you’re looking for a sign of higher morale post-Zarqawi among coalition forces, look no further:

It remains to be seen, of course, what effect the killing of Zarqawi will mean for the future of Iraq. The insurgency, alas, is more than him; but he was a critical, central part of the Jihadist element that has wrought some of the most appalling violence. This then cannot be a bad thing on the ground. And it is a simply transformative moment in terms of morale. This man has murdered and tortured and ravaged his way through the Middle East, most devastatingly in Iraq where his campaign of savagery and mayhem has helped undermine the extremely fragile underpinnings of a future normal society. In a culture where strength is respected, his resilience helped sustain the morale of the nihilist, Jihadist and Sunni insurgencies. If Maliki can use the momentum of this victory against evil to fill the last key security posts in his cabinet, then perhaps we can begin to reverse the hideous slide toward anarchy we have been witnessing.

These are still hopes. But sometimes wars are won by hope, even in the darkest of times. As I wrote a few months back, "the certainty of some today that we have failed is as dubious as the callow triumphalism of yesterday. War is always, in the end, a matter of flexibility and will. And sometimes the darkest days are inevitable – even necessary – before the sky ultimately clears."

The temptation to despair, especially given the ineptness of the administration’s policies, has been great lately. Now it lifts a little, as one source of enormous evil is finally removed. It will be a particular boost to the coalition troops, whose endurance in an unimaginably tense and brutalizing mission is humbling to watch. The only response to this, as it was when Saddam was captured, is joy. As the Israelis say: Know hope.

Maxim magazine fights back against shaved arms and faux-hawks.

Along with Rich Lowry, I have found that I cannot get this David Ignatius piece out of my head. This doesn’t help either.

Mike Crowley nails some retroactive editing by the senator from Utah.

Akbar Ganji was jailed by the mullahs in Tehran for six years for his political beliefs, and demonstrated his commitment by hunger strikes. What are those beliefs? Here is a new translation of a speech he once gave (link now fixed). It’s really a statement of classical liberalism, what Neil Tennant called "dear old, dreary liberal rights." By "liberal" I do not mean the infantilization of people under a cloying and growing welfare state. I mean the liberalism of the founding fathers, of John Locke, of the American Constitution. And part of that liberalism, according to Ganji, is as follows:

Liberals always accept religion in the private sphere. They protested the unity of the institutions of religion and government and still do. They are not anti-religion. Freedom of religion is a basic principle of liberalism. Contrary to orthodox Marxists who completely reject religion, even from the private sphere of individuals (since they considered it the opium of the masses), liberals believe that everyone must have the right to set up his life according to his religious beliefs. But the civic code must not be based on any particular religious teachings. It should guarantee the freedom of religion in the personal life and morality. Incidentally, a law based on the teachings of a particular religion is unable to guarantee the freedom of all religions.

Sometimes it takes a man living in an actual theocracy to remind us to be on guard against it, even with the blessing of the First Amendment. It gives me great hope to realize that for years, in some vile Iranian jail, someone knew his John Locke. Even while too many Americans have found it so easy to forget him.

Professor Bainbridge writes:

I see no reason why the MPA ought to energize the GOP base. If anything, it ought to make the base even more skeptical of the bona fides of the GOP Washington elite, whose sole remaining principle appears to be the will to cling to power.

Maybe that was their sole principle in the first place. I have to say I’m extremely heartened by this week. The hollow, ruthless cynicism of Karl Rove has finally dawned on the very people he has been manipulating for decades. This is a very good thing.

Greg Djerejian explains how ruthless Cheney can be in keeping the United States out of the Geneva protocols. There’s no mistake he will not compound.

Just to note that Senators Gregg and Specter turned against the FMA this time in the cloture vote. The Senate is more Republican than last time around, and the vote barely budged. If the Senate shifts to the Dems this fall – a likely scenario – this amendment will be pining for the fjords. That’s a victory for conservatism and federalism against fundamentalism and hysteria. One more time: Let the states decide.

Not so serious that he hasn’t diverted $1.6 billion out of the equipment funds for the military in Iraq to finance his Potemkin border patrol. Money quote:

The Marine Corps has seen nearly 3,500 pieces of ground equipment destroyed so far, and it has lost at least 27 aircraft in the Middle East. Every day in Iraq, trucks and Humvees age four to nine times faster than they do in peacetime because of the heat, road conditions, weight of the armor, and constant use, to say nothing of roadside bombs.
For the last three years, the Marine Corps has been cannibalizing its vehicles and weapons used in training, and draining its war reserves to keep deployed troops fully outfitted.

But they can wait. Karl Rove needs to appease the base before the election.