The Dish

Another soldier’s letter:

Hey Mom and Dad,
I just wanted to write y’all some notes and things about my birthday in Iraq. Feel free to share this with anyone that will listen or read.
Some thoughts on my birthday, 18 JUL 03, in Baghdad, Iraq:
Sitting here at 0500hrs on the 19th of JULY trying to wipe the sweat and sleep from my eyes, I am listening to a cassette tape sent to me for my birthday from my parents and family. I get a swell of pride in my heart knowing that their lives are free and seem to be continuing in a free and democratic USA! It also reminds me of home and the love of comfort that is associated with my nest, Shreveport. I revel in the thought of my memories of home and the ease of life in the United States. It makes me want to work harder and longer here in Iraq, because I know that our work has tangible results in the free lives of my family and country. I know that the hardship endured by my myself, my men, my battalion, and this Army are not in vain.
Our work is not done here. The talking heads on television seem to spew words in rapid fire like they know what is going on here in Iraq. They seem to think that we are done and that it is time to go home; hell, we think the same thing….only about wanting to go home. We are homesick and want to see our families and loved ones, but not at the expense of an incomplete mission. There is an old saying in the Army that you are only as good as your last mission. This is true in everything that we do. I know that a completely free and democratic Iraq may not be in place by the time that I leave, but it will be significantly under way before I am re-deployed. I see things here, on a daily basis, that hurt the human heart. I see poverty, crime, terrorism, murder, frustration, anger, and stupidity. However, I see the hope in the eyes of many Iraqi’s, a new hope for a chance to govern themselves in a new way of life. I think that they are on the cusp of a new adventure…
I also want you all to know that there are times here when we are laughin’ at each other too. We have funny things that happen. I can remember standing in a land fill in southern Iraq where we began one of our attacks, and watching my guys so tired from lack of sleep…. literally fall on the ground, with their gear on, on top of each other. I then watched “my boys” swat flies for each other, guard each other, share water with each other, offer food for those that did not have any chow, express their disdain for the trash heap that was our home, all the while ready to do battle and if necessary die for each other. I saw with my own eyes the actual creation of the closeness and bond that historians write about in times of war amongst fighting men. I was both laughing and awe-struck at the absurdity of watching this sleeping, swatting, eating, cussing, and loving pile of men who where given to me to care for. I could feel the burden of responsibility for them while at the same time my deep love for each and every one of them… To tell you the truth, living and working inside of this circle of brotherhood gives one the true sense of safety, even in an Iraqi landfill littered with trash, feces, dead animals, sewage, mortar fire, machine gun fire, and flies.

We’re lucky to be defended by young men like this one.

SYRIA SWEATS: Hezbollah is getting the message from Washington.

Yes, their record of appeasing dictators goes back a long way:

A July 23 editorial in London’s Daily Telegraph points out that “BBC journalism exhibits the same ‘agenda-setting’ mentality… The BBC’s bias against the war led it into grotesque distortion of reality.” History repeats itself. Winston Churchill’s access to the radio broadcasting state monopoly in the 1930s was blocked by John Reith, the BBC director, who was an admirer of both Hitler and Mussolini. Radio broadcasting was then the only way Churchill could reach the masses and inform Britons about the growing Nazi threat. But Reith was an appeaser, like Prime Ministers Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain. Reith wrote in his diary that the Nazis “would clean things up,” and about Churchill: “I absolutely hate him.”

Churchill, as always, had the right enemies. But the best broadside against the old BBC that I have ever read was an essay in the Cambridge Review, if memory serves, by, yes, Michael Oakeshott. I’ve tried to get it republished, but apparently it’s copyrighted somewhere.

EVEN THE BLIND… : … have to pay the BBC tax. But they get a $40 rebate! I’m not making this up.

QUOTE OF THE DAY II: “Maureen feels very strongly that she clarified the Bush quote. I appreciate your taking the trouble to write, and I’ll ask Maureen if there’s anything else she wants to say about the matter.”- Gail Collins, laying down the law on misquotation at the New York Times.

A reader reminds me of what the Catechism says about marriage in the Catholic Church. It’s only half about procreation, however the theocons are now trying to spin it:

Can a Catholic marriage ceremony take place if the couple knows conclusively that they can not conceive?

The short answer is, Yes. Marriage has a two-fold purpose: the unity of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. Even when the latter purpose is not physically possible, the former purpose is still possible and the perpetual, faithful, and exclusive love of the spouses is a great joy and a sacramental sign of God’s love for the world.

Any other defects which may result in the inability to have children, such as simple sterility or infertility, do not pose an obstacle to Christian marriage. Such unions are as much the cause of sacramental joy as any other.

Here, the Church specifically rebutts the notion that procreation is the sole point of marriage. The “union of the spouses” is equally important. So why not in civil law?

SELF-PARODY WATCH: “The Friday NY Post had a front-page story on the fellow who killed a NY city councilman at city hall. “HIV and failure fueled his rage,” said the subhead. This brought the letter-writers out in force. Today’s Post publishes a number of letters from outraged readers protesting that HIV has nothing to do with “fueling rage.” Well, not directly, perhaps. However, the drugs usually given to control HIV make you listless and depressed, and it is common to counter these effects by giving testosterone injections. These shots in turn have a number of side effects, including bursts of fierce anger. Body-builders and other steroid users call this “‘roid rage.” Whether this particular guy was getting this particular treatment I do not know; but the fact that he was HIV positive is not irrelevant to his having killed a man in (apparently) rage. I don’t think that justifies the wording of the Post subhead, which would be justified only if they knew the guy was on steroids as part of his HIV treatment, a thing not mentioned in the story. Still, his having HIV is not irrelevant, as the protestors claim.” – John Derbyshire, National Review Online.

“Your reaction to the NR editorial on gay marriage reminded me of something I have often thought about those arguments. Some social conservatives try very hard to come up with reasons for opposing gay marriage WITHOUT implying any moral disapproval of homosexuality; but that has always struck me as madness. You can’t, in making a law, simply concentrate on social consequences and ignore whether the law is fair to the people involved. You can see this whenever somebody who defends a gay marriage ban on procreation grounds responds to the suggestion of outlawing marriage for the infertile. It might be an interesting idea as far as stabilizing marriages, encouraging traditional families, etc., but it is so obviously, monstrously unfair to innocent people that it is never seriously considered. Why don’t homosexuals get that consideration?

Similarly, I remember a defender of gay marriage (I don’t remember who, and I’m going to maul this quote, but the sense of it is right) responding to an argument about higher levels of homosexual infidelity by saying “Why not allow just lesbians (who are on average much more faithful) to marry?” I don’t think he got an answer, but there is an obvious one: to allow marriage to lesbians and not gay men would be absurdly inconsistent and unfair: no one really believes that one type of homosexual relationship is more reprehensible than another (as far as I know), and to draw such a vital distinction between them for the sake of the general well-being of society is an idea that would seem deeply wrong to most sensible people. But, if we don’t condemn homosexuality in general as a sin, there is the same problem with allowing marriage to heterosexuals and not homosexuals. I don’t think it’s possible to ignore that unfairness without believing that gays somehow deserve it, or at least that their interests deserve less consideration.” That nails it, I think. Has it ever occurred to the editors of National Review that gay citizens deserve fairness?

“I thank Allah that [our son] attained what he sought. For 14 years he sought [martyrdom]. He always pointed to his head and wished that a rifle bullet would split his forehead, and we have been told that that is what happened.” – from MEMRI’s special report on Jihadi fighters in Iraq. Put it together with this and the flypaper theory seems more credible by the day. Bring ’em on.

The New Republic’s evisceration of Mel Gibson’s upcoming movie is now available online. I’m going to wait to see the movie myself. But this piece is pretty damning.

The war to depose Saddam was moral, necessary and timely. My counter-blast against the war critics can be read here in the Sunday Times.

It had a lot of the atmosphere of post-war Iraq. Funny that isn’t often mentioned. Wrong analogy, of course. For one generation, it is now, has been and always will be Vietnam.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “Cuaron’s outspokenness is also new to the franchise. Does the evil wizard Voldemort still remind him of George W. Bush, as he said recently? ‘In combination with Saddam,’ he says. ‘They both have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people. I read books four and five, and Fudge’ – Rowling’s slippery Minister of Magic – ‘is similar to Tony Blair. He’s the ultimate politician. He’s in denial about many things. And everything is for the sake of his own persona, his own power. The way the Iraq thing was handled was not unlike the way Fudge handled affairs in book four.’ Cuaron’s scrappiness is either refreshing or worrying, depending on your stock portfolio.” – from Newsweek’s interview with Alfonso Cuaron, the new Harry Potter director.

Conrad Black, the media mogul, tells it like it is in a letter to his own newspaper, the Daily Telegraph:

The BBC is pathologically hostile to the Government and official opposition, most British institutions, American policy in almost every field, Israel, moderation in Ireland, all Western religions, and most manifestations of the free market economy.
It benefits from an iniquitous tax, abuses its position commercially, has shredded its formal obligation to separate comment from reporting in all political areas, to provide variety of comment, and is poisoning the well of public policy debate in the UK. It is a virulent culture of bias. Though its best programming in non-political areas is distinguished, sadly it has become the greatest menace facing the country it was founded to serve and inform.
It isn’t just at war with the Government; it is attempting to take over the formation of public opinion and is masquerading as the officially persecuted voice of truth against the Government. Alastair Campbell’s excesses have facilitated this pretence. But he, at least, has been doing his job, and promoting Tony Blair’s interests.
It is not the BBC’s function to assassinate the truth about the Iraq war. From Jeremy Paxman’s insolent question of the Prime Minister: “Do you pray with” President Bush, to the mouthy challenges to British military spokesmen at Iraq war press briefings, the BBC’s only interest seems to have been to destroy and supplant the Government as a source of authority in the country.

It was a little dumb of the BBC to push the leftist envelope this far while their charter is up for review. Here’s hoping they reap the whirlwind.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BBC II: A reader from Britain weighs in:

Just finished reading your column in today’s Sunday Times. Whilst doing so we were listening to Radio 4 – Broadcasting House 9am. These reporters are dredging the swamps in their attempts to find anti-American stories in Iraq. This one had me shouting at the radio. They reported that since the war orphanages have closed in Iraq and children are roaming the streets. These kids feel safe to camp out near the Americans but sometimes they are moved on – if they’re smoking or peddling hash, etc. One 11-year old reported that he was hit by a soldier. This reporter went on and on trying to create an issue. No mention of the fact that 3 Americans were killed guarding a hospital. He also reported that 12 year old girls are prostituting themselves with locals with other children are attacking them, too. Why couldn’t he interview an Inman about this? I thought the soldiers interviewed should be commended for their patience and good manners – but the reporter put in a complaint about them.
I am now resenting the fact that I have to pay a license fee for for this tabloid crap.

And the resentment is spreading. The British people are forced to pay for this propaganda if they own a television set.

It’s extremely depressing to see a magazine that has long championed federalism and states rights support a Constitutional Amendment that would shred such principles. But it is not too surprising. Their fundamental argument, in so far as they have one, is procreation. Here’s the money section:

Traditionally, marriage has been understood to be ordered to procreation. This ordering was not, in general, understood in a narrowly instrumental way. The tradition did not insist that “the purpose of marriage is to raise children.” Married couples were never required to have, to want, or even to be capable of having children. Elderly couples could marry. Infertility was not held to be a valid ground for annulment. Still, there was a link to procreation. Impotence was a valid ground for annulment, because it meant that the couple could not effect the behavioral conditions for procreation; that it could not unite in the total, including biological, sense required of true union. It was understood that the ideal setting for the rearing of children was the marriage of their parents.
That ideal could not always be achieved. Tragedy could leave a child parentless and in need of adoption. Children could be born outside of marriage. These realities did not challenge the culture-wide commitment to the ideal, just as the recognition that adultery exists does not bring the virtue of fidelity into question. The widespread practice of divorce and remarriage did, however, challenge the ideal. So have such seemingly marginal developments as the rise of sperm banks. Gay marriage would cut the final cord that ties marriage to the well-being of children.

I’m not going to rehearse all the arguments here. But I will point out that NR has essentially conceded in this passage that every link to procreation in legal marriage has been gutted already, except the abstract but practically inconsistent association of heterosexuality and procreation. Yet they are not proposing an amendment to make divorce or multiple re-marriage or sperm banks illegal – something that clearly would restore the ancient links between marriage and procreation. Their view is that although heterosexuals have severed the link between procreation and marriage, homosexuals should not be allowed to enter the institution on the same terms. Why? I can’t see a real argument, except that somehow admitting gay people would make what is already true too explicit. Fromthe point of view of National Review, a civil marriage regime which allows the most shameless, intentionally childless, days-long, Green Card, Vegas chapel, heterosexual marriage is worthy of more legal and social protection than a long-term faithful and loving gay relationship with kids. It’s good to see how they really feel about gay relationships.

THE SILENCE: But let me add something more. Go read the editorial. See if you can find in it a single reference to gay people’s lives or relationships or needs. If NR opposes civil marriage, what do they propose instead for gay citizens in loving relationships or with children? Domestic partnership? Civil unions? Private sector benefits? Does National Review even have a position on whether it is better for gay people to form solid relationships or live in bathhouses? Look hard. You will find nothing. Nada. Zip. Why? The most charitable answer is that what might be best for gay people simply hasn’t occurred to them. And why should it? Gays aren’t part of their world, are they? It seems to me to be important for those of us who have argued for equal marriage rights to take care, as we have, to look at the interests of society as a whole, especially its heterosexual majority. But it strikes me as equally fair that those who oppose same-sex marriage also take into account the gay citizens of this country, and what is best for them and their spouses and their children. The fact that the editors of National Review have not done this, and have yet to come up with a single constructive proposal to ameliorate the lives of gay people, is simply a sad testament to where conservatism still is on this subject.