Grim's Hall
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
posted by Eric 21:36 The Democrats are not getting their monies' worth.
So, as Uncle Jumbo predicted, Aspersions are already being heaped on Judge Alito.
However, if this redstate.org post is correct, they didn't cover their tracks very well. Be sure to follow the links. (via Hugh Hewitt)
I just love the internet.
More commentary on this can be found at Captain's Quarters.
If the Democrats keep looking like fools like this, the judge is going to get confirmed. Probably without any real fight too.
Was Meiers really a head-fake? I begin to wonder.
posted by Grim 14:48 Project Valor-IT:This got put off for quite a while following Katrina. Nevertheless, it was and remains an important charity. It seeks to purchase voice-activated computer technology for use at hospitals so that veterans, maimed by IEDs and other attacks, can remain connected with family in their hardest days. The folks at Fuzzilicious have started a fundraising challenge, here.
There's a USMC team. So, if you're inclined to make a contribution...
posted by Grim 13:29 Two Elite Opinions:As we know, elite opinion is very important on matters relating to the Supreme Court. Here, then, are the opinions of two of America's elite.
Former Navy SEAL Froggy says:You know it’s a good nomination when all the right people are pissed off about it. Just like voting for the California initiatives, looking at the opponents is probably more revealing than looking at the supporters.... Slick move of the day goes to the President for having nominated a candidate from the home state and judicial circuit of Judicial Committee Chairman Specter. This puts the squishy pro-abortion Republican in the position of having to consider the ramifications of punching out a fellow Pennsylvanian while attempting to reconcile that conflict with his fawning NARAL buddies. Touche' Mr. President!Former Special Forces blogger Uncle Jimbo says:What we will get is a serious look at some of the most important issues of our times in the confirmation war. Abortion, gay marriage, racial preferences, all will be part of this discussion and that is needed. We have tap danced around them for too long. Let's get the cards on the table and see what the American people think about them. That is a side advantage of a confirmation fight, we get to air the most contentious issues and hear the opinions of the intelligentsia on both sides.Two for two, then.
The biggest danger for Dems is not if he is confirmed, it is if they filibuster. That would be political suicide. The public is well in favor of an up or down vote and the Dems could really lose any chance they have of seeming reasonable, plus their least palatable members are about to lose their minds about this guy. That will spill over to anyone who gets out with them in shrill opposition to him. I expect to hear him called a racist, misogynist oppressor and all the money NARAL and the rest have banked will be spent smearing him in any number of vile ways.
posted by Grim 11:37 Good Rifle News:Looks like the XM8 may not make the cut after all. The Army has chosen to pull the solicitation in order to "reevaluate its priorites for small caliber weapons, and... incorporate emerging requirements[.]" Hopefully one of those requirements is a caliber in the .30 range.
posted by Grim 09:07 Gotta Love Patton:This month's issue of Equus has an article called "A Remarkable Rescue," which deals with General George S. Patton Jr.'s salvation of the Lipizzan stallion. The Red Army was advancing on Vienna, and had already captured one of two riding schools that still taught the old cavalry techniques on the Lipizzan breed. The Russians, understandably but tragically, slaughtered the rare horses for food. The Vienna school managed, in spite of war necessities, to secure space to ship their stallions westwards -- to surrender them to Patton.
Patton, it turns out, was not only a cavalryman but a former Olympic horseman. He was just the right man. The master of the school, Podhajsky, managed to win an audience to demonstrate the horses and their techniques to Patton on the last day before Germany's surrender. It's a great story, and worth the cover price if you happen to be interested in grabbing an issue.
The best part, though, is the photograph of Patton on the reviewing stand. All the other officers around him are wearing their side caps, but not Patton. He's standing right there wearing his mirror-polished combat helmet, like always. "Be always ready with your armor on," as Baden-Powell put it.
Monday, October 31, 2005
posted by Grim 20:27 Things You Can, and Can't, Do With a Broken Toe:Yesterday I hiked six miles out the White Oak Canyon, up to a beautiful 86-foot waterfall. It's smallish by comparison to 729-foot Amicalola Falls, which I suggest to anyone, but a nice hike all the same. While I was out there, I climbed up a cliff face some hundred feet or so, just to amuse the three-year old who wanted to see me do it.
All that was through the miracle of duct tape, plus good quality boots.
Today, I decided to leave the tape off, and accidentally set my foot down slightly hard in the kitchen. The bones at once re-broke. $#%@#!
So: six-mile hike across broken ground, yes; climb cliff faces, yes; walk around the kitchen, apparently not. Apparently there's something rather important about immobilizing the fractured bone for a long period of time. Well, I'm to fly on Friday; we'll see what TSA has to say about it when I take off my shoes for the scanner.
"Is that duct tape?"
"Why, er... yes, yes it is."
posted by Grim 10:03 Ode to England:This ode, which is entitled "I Hate England," may be the most complimentary account of the English I have ever read. It ends poorly, as if the author hadn't realized what he'd said; but the first two-thirds is as fine an account of a genuinely noble people as you will find.
posted by Grim 09:05 Alito:Apparently it's time for the next go-round on the Supreme Court appointment. Most of us don't follow judges' careers, but the blogosphere includes quite a few people who do.
The boys at Southern Appeal have been talking about Alito all last week. They can provide you with a sense of what conservative lawyers think about the man, and what his history on the bench and resume provide. They had posts, from earliest to most recent, starting here, and then here, here (a personal anecdote), here, here, here (a cartoon), and here (a parody song). Overall, the mood appears to be one of joy.
SCOTUSblog provides the view from the left, which is respectful of the man's accomplishments but concerned about his philosophy.Bush, a President who has refused repeatedly to govern from the center, maintained that approach in selecting a judge who is well known as a committed conservative.Dave Kopel has tried to sort out Alito's 2nd Amendment views, without much success.
Liberal observers of the Court immediately pointed to a handful of Judge Alito's opinions on the Third Circuit as indications of just how conservative they expect him to be. Among those cited, for example, by americanprogress.org were these: 1991, supporting abortion restrictions, in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that later went to the Supreme Court and led to the partial reaffirmation of Roe v. Wade; in 1997, in Bray v. Marriott Hotels, seeming to endorse a limited view of minorities' job rights; in 1991, in Nathanson v. Medical College, appearing to embrace tougher standard for asserting disability rights; in 2000, in Chittister v. Department of Community and Economic Development, finding that Congress had gone too far in passing the Family and Medical Leave Act; in 2004, in Doe v. Groody, embracing broader police search power, including strip searches; and in 2004, Dia v. Ashcroft and Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, taking a hard line against immigrants' rights.
Alito has a lengthy resume, filled with strong indications that he is qualified professionally. Those who know him personally, and those who have served with him and appeared before the Third Circuit, have said he is an even-tempered individual. Some expect him to attempt to become a consensus-builder on the Supreme Court, and to be less aggressive in advancing his conservative views than Justice Antonin Scalia is known to be.
Volokh has some talk about Alito this morning (Kerr is "very pleased"), as well as this Kelo post which is not related but interesting on its own terms.
Nothing from Bainbridge yet, but check back. He was one of the leading opponents of Miers, for conservative reasons, and should provide some useful reading on the topic when he has time.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
posted by Grim 09:49 "Fitzmas"Indictments are, as everyone knows, proof of nothing except the prosecutor's intentions. The actual trial, at which a defense is permitted, is the point at which real information is likely to emerge. I have known real-world indictments that were dropped entirely without trial, and the prosecutor forced to apologize, once the defense lawyers got involved and began to unmake the case. This prosecutor, however, seems unlikely to have made gross errors of the sort that lead to such a situation.
My basic principles about government-official indictments remain the same:1) A desire to defend the weaker party, which wants to see the matter resolved in the favor of the innocent whenever an innocent man is threatened by the state's power.It is also strange to note that "Scooter" Libby's only appearance at Grim's Hall, as far as I can recall, was just the other day:
2) A desire to see corruption in government restrained, which desires to see the matter resolved by hurling any guilty men into the dungeon in this case. This is true whether "the guilty" is Delay, or the prosecutor, should the prosecutor in fact be engaged in a political prosecution.My respect for the administration, on the wane somewhat of late especially due to the matter of their ICE appointee, is somewhat reinforced by this exchange. It is good to know that there is at least one among them who knows, and honors, the old forms. It isn't much compared to the great matters of war and politics: but it isn't nothing, either.That stands. I was, and remain, impressed with gentlemanly and chivalrous conduct -- indeed, to some degree I am more impressed with it, if Mr. Libby knew that the generous letter he was writing was apt to result in his own indictment.
Nevertheless, keeping your oaths is at least as important a part of being a man -- and a gentleman -- as respect and kindness to ladies. It is odd to see that someone who has obviously learned the one lesson so well can be brought up short on the other matter. Austin Bay says he thinks Libby just thought he could get away with it; Sovay, who has been watching the case closely, said exactly the same thing.
The most interesting thing about the facts of the case, though, touches on the Wilson/Plame matter. There are two remaining disputes between Left and Right on the facts of the case: who, exactly, outed Plame; and whether Plame recommended Wilson for the job in Niger. Out of those two disputes grow great differing empires of opinion about the proper resolution of the matter. The biggest difference is this one: whether the "real evil act" here was by the White House, one of whose officers chose to compromise national security in order to secure political points by outing a CIA employee; or by the CIA, which is alleged to have been conducting these missions on their own authority with the intention of undermining the White House's foreign policy (which is not acceptable, if true), or perhaps even to manipulate internal US politics (which is seriously disturbing, if true). A third possibility, which I think is the most likely, is this: the real bad actors were Wilson and wife, who were manipulating both the CIA and the press. This would explain the facts as they seem to be arranging themselves.
The summary of charges makes clear that the CIA and State advised Libby that Wilson's wife had in fact been responsible for getting Wilson sent on the trip. This information is summarized on pages 5-6 in the bullet points. It is also clear that the trip was organized by the CIA on its own authority, with Plame's input, rather than at a higher level.
It is also clear, from the findings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, that Wilson reported one thing to the CIA and another thing entirely to the press. It is also clear that Wilson printed a number of things that were flatly untrue. Lying in the press is not perjury, of course, so there's no legal trouble involved -- but it does appear that Wilson and Plame are guilty of misusing their position to attempt to manipulate US policy and politics.
That does not excuse Libby. The proper response to the existence of bad actors at CIA is not to out them in the press, which -- as the indictment makes clear -- is a matter that seriously disrupts national security, not least by demonstrating that a given corporation is or has been used as a locus for non-official-covers. It can also endanger our foriegn assets' lives. The indictment does not accuse Libby of having done so, but it makes clear that the prosecutor feels Libby hampered the investigation into who did.
Neither does it justify perjury. Oath-breaking is never acceptable.
The plot has thickened, however. The trial is apt to fall on these fault-lines of opinion like a sledgehammer. The radical left is apt to be pushing the "virtuous CIA, Plame not involved in Wilson's selection, Wilson was right, evil White House" narrative into the public, even though the facts plainly don't support it. The radical right is apt to push the "evil CIA/Plame/Wilson conspiracy to manipulate internal US politics" narrative, even though the facts don't support that. Both narratives are likely to undermine public confidence in the secret parts of the government -- the administration and CIA -- that are chiefly running the GWOT. The result could be a disaster for the war.
It could also be a disaster for the truth. The most likely set of facts is that the Wilson pair and Libby were the bad actors. The Wilsonians appear to have manipulated the CIA into sending Wilson, and then deceived the press about what Wilson found in Africa. Libby did wrong, allegedly, by hampering the investigation into the leaks and by deceiving the grand jury. The majority of the administration and the CIA were apparently only trying to do their jobs.
If that is true, as it appears prima facie to be true, then we will have to work hard to make sure that neither of the politically-driven narratives becomes the public understanding of the case. As per my basic principles, I would like to see the guilty hurled in the dungeon and the corrupt restrained. I would also like to see the innocent, those public servants in the administration and intel services who have been trying to do their jobs to protect this nation and further its interests, defended against slander. This case, which until now has been a minor sideshow in American politics, appears to be becoming a true danger.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
posted by Grim 17:15 The Trolley:Peggy Noonan has written a deeply felt and moving column entitled "A Separate Peace." The reference is to that dishonorable tactics of unreliable allies in war, who are supposed to stand up and fight alongside you, and instead cut themselves a deal with the enemy and leave you fighting alone.
She begins with a feeling, which she says she cannot prove, that the whole world is falling apart.I think there is an unspoken subtext in our national political culture right now. In fact I think it's a subtext to our society. I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon. That our pollsters are preoccupied with "right track" and "wrong track" but missing the number of people who think the answer to "How are things going in America?" is "Off the tracks and hurtling forward, toward an unknown destination."Well, it is. Every young man and woman reading this who isn't preparing to fight as well as to think and work had better stop and take stock.
I'm not talking about "Plamegate." As I write no indictments have come up. I'm not talking about "Miers." I mean . . . the whole ball of wax. Everything. Cloning, nuts with nukes, epidemics; the growing knowledge that there's no such thing as homeland security; the fact that we're leaving our kids with a bill no one can pay. A sense of unreality in our courts so deep that they think they can seize grandma's house to build a strip mall; our media institutions imploding--the spectacle of a great American newspaper, the New York Times, hurtling off its own tracks, as did CBS. The fear of parents that their children will wind up disturbed, and their souls actually imperiled, by the popular culture in which we are raising them. Senators who seem owned by someone, actually owned, by an interest group or a financial entity. Great churches that have lost all sense of mission, and all authority. Do you have confidence in the CIA? The FBI? I didn't think so.
But this recounting doesn't quite get me to what I mean. I mean I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming.
Noonan seems to have woken to this feeling but lately. She wonders in awe how anyone can deal with it.I think those who haven't noticed we're living in a troubling time continue to operate each day with classic and constitutional American optimism intact. I think some of those who have a sense we're in trouble are going through the motions, dealing with their own daily challenges.That very well may be true, about the elites. But not all who remain optimistic are those who have failed to notice. Some of us noticed a long while ago, and began to prepare.
And some--well, I will mention and end with America's elites. Our recent debate about elites has had to do with whether opposition to Harriet Miers is elitist, but I don't think that's our elites' problem.
This is. Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they're living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they're going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.
I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."
What does it mean to prepare? First it means to look around, take advantage of the clear moment to see what you can see. Then it means to look back, to see how other men in other generations have dealt with this and worse. Then you put them together, the new troubles and the old power, and you start making a plan. You begin to match strength to peril.
I look at Peggy's list, and think this: Cloning doesn't bother me. Nukes and epidemics have the same answer, already well underway: an end to the cities, and a return to a more rural life. The suburbs and the exurbs are growing fast, as is the population in plain rural areas, and it is there that you will also find a political culture that tends toward the resiliance needed to survive a crisis. The collapse of order in New Orleans only matters if you live in a city. Those outside handled it better.
The old cowboy skills -- cooking under the sky, knowing how to find and clean drinking water, a neighborly watch on each other's backs -- they stood us tall once, and they will again. The economy? Small businesses, not big business, are the road to wealth. There was a time, during the industrial age, when economies of scale required vast workforces at central locations. The information age doesn't require that; and the just-in-time shipping it enables means that even industrial production facilities can be distributed. It's also true for farms. People are part of something bigger, but still own their own business and means of production. This reality also produces a politics, even as the old labor union model did, one that operates on the assumptions of the yeoman farmer. Jefferson's model.
Homeland security? We press the governmen to do better, but we also form the Minutemen. We volunteer for service. We've been passing "shall-issue" concealed weapons laws across the country these last decades, precisely because we saw society threatened by crime and mayhem and determined to set it right. Crime rates are now at a historic low, especially in the carry states. When those wheels come off, we'll be there to pick them up and put them back on.
The political culture has soured. Senators do seem owned, and the court has lost its way so far as to produce Kelo. Well, you can see the reaction: the porkbusting project as to the one thing, and the absolute refusal by the People to accept a crony nominee to the Supreme Court. It's too important. The wheels are coming off. So we make them get it right.
If that is not enough, and things start to fall apart in a serious way, it will mean that we move to more active measures. For now, we're willing to let the political class continue to manage things. Later, you may see more of us stand for office. I've been hearing a lot about the need for a "populist" scouring of the state. You just may get to see one. It won't look much like what those calling for it are expecting. It will be people like us, who have decided that the government cannot be trusted and must be remade. If we have to have a Constitutional Amendment to prevent Kelo from stealing people's homes, we'll do what we have to in order to get one. If that means standing for office and giving up the life we'd prefer, so be it. That's James Jackson's model.
Things that go south in a serious way will be met with a serious response. We'll form lawful militas to keep order if the government breaks down under disease or disaster. We'll volunteer for government-led efforts if they need us, or form private companies to take care of the jobs the government can't handle. Companies like Wells Fargo used to be, when Wyatt Earp worked for them.
What comes, comes, but however hard it is we shall stand and fight it. It is our way, as it is our heritage.
We are the Sons of Liberty. We have nothing to fear. When death comes for us, we will pass into that world of which so much has been written, where there is no fear but love and all love is without pain. If we have done our duty, we will leave behind us those we have bred or trained in the ways of America. They will take up our cause and bury our bones, and our names will be their warcry.
There are names like that written in gold, below. The men they trained will give them voice. They are warriors, heros, and riders of bulls. Perhaps there is a name like that on your lips as you read this: Washington's? Jackson's? Your father's? Another?
So what is there to fear? Live boldly. This is America, the home of the brave.
posted by Grim 15:38 Guns in Thailand:Another peril of gun registration -- the enemy knows who is armed.
Armed assailants last night made off with a total of 30 firearms in separate attacks in Pattani and Yala - one of the largest arms robberies in recent months.A coordinated assault on licensed arms bearers won the insurgents of Southern Thailand thirty more arms, in a place where firearms are rare. The insurgents know who to hit, because they know what kind of people will be "permitted" to be armed. There is little danger that any nearby civilians can come to aid their fellows in the course of the raid.
But that's all right, because it's the government's job to protect you:In talks with former prime minister Chuan Leekpai at parliament, Gen Thammarak said those servicemen included troops attached to a dozen task forces and three regiments of rangers, plus an army rapid deployment force.... Mr Chuan pointed out a number of rangers had been killed by militants recently. The defence minister admitted it was a "mistake" to deploy rangers at road checkpoints, where several had been shot.Right. We wouldn't want to deploy rangers where they might encounter armed insurgents.
There is no substitute for the individual right to keep and bear arms. There simply is not.
posted by Grim 10:26 National Intelligence Strategy:The new National Intelligence Strategy is out. It's the first major product by the new "National Intelligence Director" (NID), currently James Negroponte. I was always opposed to the creation of an "intel czar," and now I remember why.
This thirty-two page document is one of those corporate creations that Dilbert founded its success on mocking. You can tell that every word was negotiated at length in committee. And what did all that negotiation produce?Our Vision -- What we will become:Most of this is a corp-speak description of what an intel agency does. However, deciphering the corporate code, we find that there are three pieces of information contained there which show what will be changing, and what will not:A unified enterprise of innovative intelligence professionals whose common purpose in defending American lives and interests, and advancing American values, draws strength from our democratic institutions, diversity, and intellectual and technological prowess.
1) From "unified enterprise" and "common purpose": The NID actually intends to unify the intel services. Since that was his job, this is not surprising.
2) From the specific inclusion of "diversity": Stripping away the political correctness that has bedeviled these organizations will not be a priority. It's too hard, and too deeply set.
3) From "advancing American values" and "draws strength from our democratic institutions" -- Negropont is doing just what Bush sent him to do, which is to snap the intel services to heel from an ideological standpoint. The CIA in particular has been an ideological enemy of the President and his policies. This signals that all "intelligence professionals" will be required to share "American values," including the promotion of democracy as a core concern.
Point three is, I gather, the main purpose of this document. It is job one under "Our Mission," with the relevant codewords highlighted:Collect, analyze, and disseminate accurate, timely, and objective intelligence, independent of political considerations, to the President and all who make and implement US national security policy, fight our wars, protect our nation, and enforce our laws.The first few words there, again, are a description of what an intel service does. Yet then there is the mention of "political considerations," which must not be allowed to influence intelligence; and the mention of 'the President and those who make our policy,' to remind the intel services that they don't get to do that.
Reviewing the recent history of CIA leaks, particularly of pessimistic or negative intelligence estimates, and particularly during last year's election cycle, I can see why the President thinks this is a desirable thing to do.
Enforcing ideological conformity among intelligence officers, however, is not a good idea. It is an idea with a history, and the history is not pretty.
Jimmy Carter put Admiral Stansfield Turner in charge of the CIA during his tenure. Turner had an ideological thing against covert and clandestine operations. He felt like a lot of human intelligence operations were immoral (which is absolutely true), and that the United States of America should never do anything that was plainly immoral (which, sadly, can't be true in the area of intelligence). As a result, he essentially scrapped the CIA's capability to carry out these ops, and focused on signals intelligence instead.
Didn't work out too well, did it? But we were in luck: Turner was only in charge of the CIA. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) retained a lot of capabilities that the CIA lost. We still lost a lot: intel networks take years, sometimes even decades to bring to full fruition. When one is cut off and withers, it cannot be replaced right away. Clandestine service intelligence professionals (i.e., spies), though they are at best amoral and often immoral, possess a lifetime of valuable knowledge of the lay of a political landscape, the important figures within it, and personal connections that let them penetrate that landscape and learn where pressure ought to be applied to get results. They are a necessary evil, and one that takes years to develop.
What happens if we get a bad NID now? DIA is going to be forced to conform just like CIA will. If there's another Stansfield Turner down the road, we could wreck our whole intelligence apparatus at a blow -- and the tool for doing it, the precedent that allows the NID to insist on ideological conformity, is now forged.
In addition the danger to covert and clandestine networks, the analysis part of intelligence work above all requires genuine intellectual diversity. That, as we know from education, is the one type of diversity that is not meant when the word "diversity" is included in a document of this type. You need people with a fully developed opinion counter to yours, even if you're right and they are wrong, to keep you honest and keep you from getting lazy. You need the challenge.
Consider this debate at Winds of Change, on the subject of whether democracy promotion will in fact reduce terrorism. That's a healthy debate. I side with the pro-democracy argument, but it is clear that an argument is still required, and evidence is yet to be gathered that will inform the argument.
The NIS short-circuits the argument entirely. Democracy promotion is the #3 "strategic objective." If an analyst wants to argue that, in a particular country for particular reasons, it may not be wise to back an apparently democratic movement (e.g., as it turned out not to be wise to back Castro in Cuba), he will now face a substantial risk to his career. He may, in fact, leave "the company" altogether. While he may be wrong most of the time, he may be right on this one occasion. Even if he isn't right, his presence makes the other analysts work harder getting their facts and getting them straight. He's the mark of a healthy intel service, even if he hates the President's guts and is utterly opposed to the policies being put forward -- whoever the President might be.
Again, I can understand why this particular President feels like this is a necessary step. Nevertheless, I think both the NID concept, and this NIS, are extremely unwise.
Two final, unrelated points:
1) The focus of the NIS on asymmetrical threats ignores real symmetrical threats, which could easily be as or more dangerous than any terrorist organization.
Job #1 is counter-terrorism. Job #2 is anti-WMD. Job #3 is democracy promotion. Yet isn't one of the biggest intel threats and challenges China? China isn't a terrorist nation or a terror-supporter; they're happy to prevent the spread of WMD (having foremost in their minds the examples of Taiwan and Japan); and democracy promotion in China, though a worthwhile goal, doesn't really get at the particular nature of the threat posed by China. The place where we need to be building intel assets in China isn't inside its democracy movements, but inside the navy. That's where we will get any forewarning of an invasion of Taiwan.
2) It's good that "the protection of privacy and civil liberties" is mentioned in the strategy. But absent, so far as I can see, is any call for a robust declassification process for information that no longer needs to be secret. The best defense against intelligence services' capability to do evil is sunshine. Of course, sunshine makes it impossible for them to do good as well, so it has to be applied judiciously. When we can, however, we who are citizens of the Republic ought to know what our government has been doing with its secret forces. That is a critical need for the long-term health of the Republic in my opinion, and it deserves more attention.
posted by Grim 09:43 The USS ConstellationWhile doing some research on modern Sigma-class corvettes, I came across this site which treats the "restoration" of the USS Constellation, in Baltimore harbor. I've seen her, but was not aware of the history behind the ship.
During 1852-53 the old 38-gun frigate USS Constellation, a contemporary of USS Constitution, was broken up at Gosport (Norfolk), VA. At the same time, in the same yard, a new 22-gun sloop-of-war was constructed, and was given the old frigate's name. This new vessel was commissioned in 1855. To get around a Congressional prohibition on new ship construction, the new sloop-of-war was considered a "repair" of the old frigate, but she was actually a new ship.Apparently the restoration included cutting gunports into her bulwarks, so she would look more like what we think of as an "age of sail" fighting ship. The photographs show the process of restoring the "restored" ship, and getting her back out on the water.
In 1956 the sloop-of-war, by then aged and deteriorated, was donated to a museum group in Baltimore. This group wished to portray the ship as the 1797 frigate, not the 1855 sloop, so they "restored" her by cutting away bulwarks and decks. This weakened her hull structure, and contributed to her eventually [sic] deterioration.
Well, she may not be what she's been made out to be, but she cuts a fine figure. Pity, though: an 1855 sloop-of-war would have been a good display piece also, and a better teaching tool. Few people today realize how small and poorly-equipped the US Navy was at that point. Yet, within ten years, it had grown to such a size as to be able to conduct a massive naval blockade that eventually closed every port of the Confederate States of America.
The CSA helped out a bit, by making a notable error: it chose to forgo the purchase of a fleet of ready-made warships that the British had to offer, instead spending the monies it had on the construction of a few modern raiders, such as the infamous USS Alabama. If they'd taken the British up on their offer, they might have been the ones with the momentum to stage a naval blockade. The US Navy, in 1861, was in no shape to stop one.
Anyway, have a look.
posted by Grim 09:26 A Political Victory:Harriet Miers withdrew today. I wish her well, and do truly regret that this whole episode was necessary. May she find that the rest of her career is rewarding and successful.
When the president makes his next selection, I hope he will be guided by the lessons learned here. Certainly enough has been written about this nomination to provide a full guide to what a nominee ought to provide. The Court, and the Republic, deserves no less.
posted by Grim 09:13 Monuments:Captain Tyler Swisher, commanding Easy company. He has one of those biographies that remind you what is great about America. He had quite a few hardships and obstacles he was born with, but it never stopped him. Through hard work and devotion he gained an education, rank, and a position of high honor.
Corporal Benny Gray Cockerham III. JHD knew him, so I will let him say what ought to be said.
Lance Corporal Kenneth James Butler. He was a bullrider.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
posted by Grim 17:22 If You Can't Duct It...I broke my toe about a week ago, and have been hobbling around ever since. Actually, I can walk pretty well, as long as (a) I duct-tape the broken toe to the toe next to it, and (b) don't walk too fast. Today, a week or so on, I decided to try going without the duct tape, but it didn't go too well.
In tribute, then, I offer Duct Tape Uses and Duct Tape fashions as a guide to other things you can do with the stuff. It's just real handy.
posted by Grim 13:13 Two from Greyhawk:Hawk has a post today about an organization of particularly admirable women in Iraq. I can't express my pleasure at having read of their adventures.
He also has a helpful suggestion for shrinking the OODA loop.
posted by Grim 10:25 The 4th Rail:My colleague and friend, Bill Roggio of the 4th Rail, is heading to Iraq to embed with a Marine unit. He would appreciate your support in making it happen.
I've enjoyed working with Bill, and I think we've all been impressed with his work at the 4th Rail: he has really hit his stride this autumn, and has been producing some of the best writing on Iraq out there. Good hunting, Bill.
Monday, October 24, 2005
posted by Grim 19:22 And Two More:2/2's Warlords lost two more on Friday. The names are now being released.
Lance Corporal Kenneth J. Butler.
US Navy corpsman Petty Officer Chris Thompson."I can't let my Marines go without me," Chris Thompson, 25, told his father, just before shipping out on his second combat tour. "I take care of them."His brother David is also a Navy corpsman assigned to Marines. There's a family I'd be proud to know.
posted by Grim 10:53 Men, Women, And Why You Should Not Worry:Glenn Reynolds links to another post on the topic that seems to be causing a constant fret among blogosphere academics, the Men/Women ratio at college. The post is by Ginny at Chicagoboyz, and treats her thoughts and experiences in dealing with young men and women.
The lady has some good thoughts, and I think she even backs into the answer to the problem that concerns her. Unhappily, being overly concerned with people's feelings, she doesn't recognize the solution when she strikes it. That more or less captures the entire business.
After describing herself as "quiet and embarrassed" over a dispute with a colleague on the question, she then reflects that "anger speaking is seldom thought speaking." Her "gut-level anger is also from mothering," which gives rise to fears that her own sons will be distorted by being taught that they are oppressors of women [UPDATE: or possibly that her daughters will be bent by believing men are their enemies?]. She thinks that famed blogosphere psychologist Dr. Helen "is right to draw our attention to this, to worry us with it." And then she proceeds to worry a lot more.
As does Dr. Helen. There, and here also, in spite of some very sharp comments that ought to assuage the concern.
Well, don't worry. Men are pretty good at sorting out problems. It's what we do.
For example, you shouldn't worry -- as she does -- that "The twenty-first century, like the nineteenth, may lead to an even more intense feminization of American culture." Let's examine that for a moment.
When you think of the 19th century, what do you think of? There are some notably feminine images: Queen Victoria, the suffrage movement, the temperance movement. That's about it, though, right? Maybe a few poets and writers?
Queen Victoria was no problem for men. Quite the opposite. Victoria presided over a great masculine reawakening in England, in which art and poetry and literature were joined to engineering and warfighting. The image of the youthful Queen, thrust suddenly into the perils of power, caused the whole nation to remember the King, Arthur, and to take up the sword he cast away. The writings of Lord Tennyson are some of the highest expressions of what men are and ought to be: and they came right out of this dynamic.
The suffrage and temperance movements were certainly problematic for men, who were beaten about the heads by them for half a century. Still, in time they ran their course; women still vote, but beer is back on the shelves. Men survived.
The rest of the 19th century is a great masculine canvas. We remember the Kate Chopins, but only because they were women. The great writers of the 19th Century, with the possible exception of Jane Austen, were all men: Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Sir Walter Scott, Tennyson and Lord Byron, the writers and poets who can stand on their own are almost exclusively men. And that's in the very temple of the female empire of the modern academy, literature. Take any other field of human endeavour, and see where the women are. The 19th century was a grand adventure of engineering, war, travel, thought, and right at the forefront were men in every case.
Is it really any different today? How many of the great bloggers are women, even with women making up the grand majority of students of writing and literature? How many bioengineers are women, as we stand poised on the start of a new adventure? How many soldiers, as we look towards decades of trying to keep and extend the peace and the order of the West? How many police officers, with terrorism and smuggling the two great concerns of the day?
More, certainly, than in the 19th century. We have made room for women. More than that -- we actively encourage and support them. We are glad to have them along. Some of them, the best of them, stand equal with any of us. I myself don't know what I would do without two of the three most important people in my life, my wife and Sovay. Both are women, and quite remarkable ones.
Yet we are told we ought to worry because a lot more women are getting degrees in literature, psychology, sociology, and the like. If I spare a moment to worry about this, I'll worry about the women. Good luck to them: but it sounds like they're being set up to spend their lives not making much of a difference in the world around them.
If the 19th century is the model, it is the century that saw the foundation of the Texas Rangers and the gambling of Doc Holliday, the great British adventures in India and Afghanistan, the end of slavery on the high seas, the Civil War, and the rise of Teddy Roosevelt. If the 21st century does as much for muscular masculinity as the 19th, we'll be in fine shape indeed.
Ginny backs into this answer at several points, but never quite seems to realize it. She mentions the winning of the West. She hits the answer full on right here:I suspect they will find other worlds to conquer – and if they have to learn something to get there, they will teach themselves. And, because they want to make money and women want them to make money, our system may be changed in ways that by-pass an increasingly hostile establishment.That should have been the moment that this whole train of thought went roaring off White Oak mountain. That's exactly right. Society, and the market, will adjust itself -- and men will meet them halfway. They'll learn what they need to know to be where they need to be. If the great concerns of the new century are terrorism, homeland defense, technology and engineering, guess who will be there filling the largest part of the critical roles? The most dangerous jobs, which will consequently -- and increasingly -- command greater and greater respect and pay? The movement is already on: Border Patrol Agents, for example, have in the last few years received an increase in their maximum rate of pay to the GS-11 level. The military has seen one pay raise after another, as the volunteer military tries to compete with the market for manpower. Both jobs increasingly involve academic pursuits, even if they don't involve formal college: second (and subsequent) languages, studies in regional history and cultural awareness. It used to be that every man, however poorly schooled, knew how to mix black powder and pour bullets out of liquid lead. Now, it may be that men who don't go much beyond high school can still speak several languages and know the internal structures of a number of local tribes. If men turn less often to the old institutions for education, they will still be out there learning whatever they need to know.
It may be, in other words, that it is the institutions that are becoming obsolete -- not the men. That's a problem for someone, but I don't see why it should be a problem for men. It seems to me like a problem for those people -- say, women -- who are increasingly attaching their hopes to a foundering social institution. The liberal arts college is not necessarily the best place to learn even the liberal arts, anymore. It's certainly not the best place to get a classical education. The Marine Corps reading list will introduce you to many of the great classics of literature, and they'll teach you discipline and manners and the school of arms, too. If you're an officer, you'll spend half your life in schools of one type or another. You want to be a man like Washington or Robert E. Lee, Roosevelt or Jefferson? Join the military.
I think there is no cause for concern. Let as many women go to college as wish to do so. Good on them! Good luck to them! It does not hurt us men at all. We have our own concerns, and our own adventures, and let each man choose his according to his best hopes and abilities.
posted by Grim 08:26 Monuments:All too soon, Grim's Hall must again join the families of the 2/2 Marines in mourning the deaths of fighting men.
Staff Sergeant Rick Pummill.
Lance Corporal Andrew David Russoli.
Lance Corporal Steve Szwydek.
Also, JHD sends a link to a monument of his own:I did a small tribute to the Beirut Marines we lost in 83. And yeah, I KNOW is was Oct 23 and not the 22 but they were 8 hours ahead. We had just pulled into the Charleston Harbor from our successful run to supply Beirut when we got the news. It was around 2200 on the 22nd so I always mark that time and date. I received three e-mails telling me I had the wrong date.May the next world be a better place for these men. Yet if it is not, I imagine they will set about making it so.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
posted by Eric 22:42 An armed society isn't always a polite society. Example: Brazil.
But even so, Brazilians appear to recognize that if you outlaw guns, then only the criminals will have them. So, it seems that a referendum to ban gun sales to citizens has been defeated.
Something to be said for the wisdom crowds, I gather.
posted by Grim 14:56 We Are Reminded:That is the purpose of monuments, such as this one at the head of Forsyth Park, down in Savannah, Georgia. The tag to the photo notes that the monument was laid in 1947, to honor Marine Corps dead from Chatham County. What it does not note -- a remarkable omission -- is that the monument has become a tomb.
There was a time in my life when I knew the sergeant's name by heart, but I must admit that it has been so long since I was in Savannah that I cannot now recall it to mind. I can't quite make it out on the photo. I do remember when he died: in the bombing of the Marine barracks, twenty-two years ago today.
I guess a lot of people don't realize it is a tomb as well as a monument. One day, long ago now, I was walking down in Savannah with two Marines I knew, one of whom was a young man I had grown up with and known almost all of my life. He was in Savannah to visit me, following a USMC Reserve exercise he'd been part of, and had brought along one of his unit mates. I was happy to put them up and show them around the town.
As we were walking through Forsyth Park, we came to that monument, which is at the head of it. While we were standing there reflecting on it, a young jogger wearing headphones came running by. He lept up on top of the monument without breaking stride, did a little dance, hopped down and ran off again.
It was all done so nonchalantly that I can't help but think he did not know that he was, literally, dancing on a man's grave. I know that he avoided a bad time that day only because the three of us were so completely shocked that we couldn't accept that we had really seen what we had seen until he was already half a block away from us.
"Comrade, tread lightly." The world is full of graves.
posted by Grim 13:00 "The Far Line of Sand"The Belmont Club has an excellent post on littoral warfare, and US Navy efforts to prepare for its increased importance. Another critical warfighting system here is the Virginia class submarine, which is always under attack from Congressional budget cutters (giant bridges to nowhere in Alaska, yes; important naval warships, no).
A little known truth about submarines is this: the diesel ones, which are put into battle by third-world nations like Chile, are stealthier than ours. For one thing, you can turn a diesel engine completely off, rendering it perfectly silent. You can lay on the bottom, listen for anything suspicious on your sonar, and give it a torpedo. This is one thing that gives rise to what Wretchard accurately notes: the US Navy may rule the blue water, but it isn't currently capable of dominating close-to-shore conflicts. This is important: Taiwan, the Malacca straits, and a number of other potentially critical battlespaces are exactly where we are vulnerable to third-world (i.e., asymmetrical) power.
The whole battle with submarines is information, and stealth is a huge part of that battle. Stealth is how you keep information about your subs away from the enemy: where are they, what is their course, what do I need to know to program a torpedo to hit it? Because we are wedded to nuclear technology, partially because we need the range-without-refuelling that you can't get with diesels, we have to make up with high-level information technology what we are losing in stealth.
Braiding in C4ISR technology with advanced stealth technology is the only way to make up for what we're losing by not being able to field diesels. Once again, the symmetry/asymmetry model means that we have to be at our very best to compete with people who aren't nearly as capable on their own.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
posted by Grim 18:40 Football:I love football, but I almost never get to see any of it.
The main thing is that I end up working most weekends -- seven day weeks are the standard here -- and, furthermore, I refuse to pony up the money for cable/sat TV just so I can watch football now and then. As a consequence, I almost never see a good, or even a bad, football game.
Today, however, I happened to be having lunch at a place that had the Indiana U. / Ohio State game. OSU stompied IU into the earth, winning by 31 points.
I only got to watch the fourth quarter, but I could see why OSU did as well as they did. It was the old cliche that you see in every football movie, because it's true -- they had heart. Up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, I saw an OSU receiver take a tackle that flipped him head over heels into the ground, when he could have stepped out of bounds instead. All that, just to get one more yard.
It's hard to beat a team that plays that way. They deserve to win. As a result, they very often do.
posted by Grim 18:29 Speaking Of......Winds of Change, Armed Liberal has a pair of posts taking Matt Yglesias to task over his article advocating surrender in Iraq.
I've got a test for that.
Let Yglesias, or one of his ilk, sit down with JHD's boy and a few of his fellow Devil Dogs, and explain to them that they've lost the war. If he lives through the encounter, I'll be happy to help pack for the withdrawal.
Until then, I'm not buying it.
posted by Grim 18:19 G.A.I'm pleased to note that one of my current Senators, George Allen, was among the fifteen who voted the right way on the amendment to redirect pork money to a useful project. I'm sorry to see that neither of the Senators from my beloved home state of Georgia, however, managed to get it right.
Winds of Change had a good post about this. From now on, expect to make your own arrangements in case of disaster -- the US Senate can't be bothered with you.
posted by Grim 18:14 For the Benefit of the Truth Laid Bear:I oppose the Miers nomination. I'm going to guess that pretty much all the readers here know why by now, but if you're curious, the fullest expression was here.
posted by Grim 10:24 More on the Burning of Bodies:Some soldiers involved in the "burning bodies" incident have apparently decided to give a defense of the action in the press. This is not what you would expect given that there is a criminal investigation in progress. I am guessing that they are angry at seeing their commander smeared in the press as a war criminal, and want to defend him.
INTEL DUMP has more on the harshness of the press and even the Pentagon's own statements, as well as particulars of the Geneva Conventions that touch on the case. The questions that investigators need to answer are these:
1) Who, exactly, gave the order to burn the bodies?
2) Was the PsyOp team involved in making the decision, or did they simply choose to exploit the decision after the burnings had been carried out?
3) When did the PsyOp team learn of the decision? If they learned of it before it was executed and said nothing about the GC concerns, but simply went about planning a PsyOp, they may still be in trouble. If they found out afterwards, or if they issued appropriate warnings, they should be in the clear.
The Time report suggests that it was Lt. Nelson, acting purely on hygine concerns and after requesting local Muslim leaders to deal with the bodies properly and having them refuse. The role of the PsyOp team is not clear.
The source for the claim is anonymous -- just "one soldier." The investigation will have to sort things out. I agree with INTEL DUMP that the Pentagon has been a little overzealous in its condemnations of the people involved, though I understand why: they're trying to prevent loss of life, either through riots (such as we saw in the wake of the false Koran-desecration claims) or through excitement of young fellows who go off to become terrorists.
If the details in the Time story hold up, the soldiers outside of the PsyOp unit are almost certainly in the clear. The GCs permit cremation under exactly these circumstances (although there is the question of what happened to the ashes, but that's another story). The precise nature of the PsyOp unit's involvement is the main question at stake.
It's important to clarify that, and I'm happy to defend the investigation as I have done. On the other hand, I think it's also important to make sure that soldiers are not prosecuted for the political convenience of the Pentagon. If the facts, once clear, show a GC violation, it must be punished. If not, not, even though the Pentagon apparently really wants to show its determination to protect Muslim sensibilities. As I said in the comments of the first post, this isn't about the enemy's sensibility. It's about upholding our own law. Keeping that kind of discipline is important in war, because it is as much a protection for the soldier and Marine as any armor. It protects the soul.
Friday, October 21, 2005
posted by Grim 19:38 Artistry:I can't say that I've ever been a special fan of Thomas Kinkade, but I do agree with JHD: it's pretty cool what he's doing for the boys in the Naval hospital.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
posted by Grim 19:11 It's Always Nice...
...to see a serious blogger cite "mama" as a source.
I do the same thing myself from time to time. ("My mama always said, 'If you want to eat, learn to cook!'")
posted by Grim 13:41 Good News:Congress has passed the ban on reckless lawsuits.
posted by Grim 09:57 The Burning of Bodies:I was not aware until yesterday that burning bodies was forbidden in Islam. Were you? Four years on from 9/11, we've all studied Islam somewhat closely, and yet there remains so much to know.
Apparently, the Airborne unit that carried out the burnings didn't know it was improper either. At least, so says the embed who took the video in this interview. It's mostly a good interview: he's clear that American military forces were extremely open, never tried to hide anything from him as an embed, and that the people who actually did the burning seem to have believed that they were only performing a necessary function for reasons of disease.
However, the PsyOps guys did know. They did nothing to stop it -- and in fact, they made it worse by using it as the basis for a PsyOp.
USCENTCOM has started an investigation.
UPDATE: BlackFive has a post about this. In the comments, I find it necessary to defend the journalist (imagine that -- a blogger defending a journalist) against some outraged folks.DuPont isn't the enemy here. Watch or read through the transcript of the interview with him -- he is very sympathetic to the soldiers, even the PsyOps guys. He explains that the PsyOps team is frustrated because the Taliban won't come out, and that the program had generated some successes. He is plain that the Americans have never tried to hide anything, and that this was just a decision made on the spot to try and achieve a tactical purpose.I think those are the right principles here. I yield to no one in my respect for the US military. That respect in part grows out of the fact that it is the foremost defender of the ancient virtue we once called chivalry. We must do what is right even -- especially -- when it hurts.
The journalist isn't the enemy this time. He's doing his job: documenting and providing witness to what we do in a way that is both honest and honorable. He has done just what he is supposed to do.
The PsyOps team are the folks who have questions to answer. They are supposed to abide by the Conventions. If they did not do so, knowingly, and if they further used the knowing violation as a weapon of war, they will have to answer for it.
The Conventions also prohibit using civilian guise as cover. The terrorists who do so in spite of the Conventions thereby endanger all civilians. It is an act of barbarism. I've argued that, B5 here has argued it, Bill Whittle has argued it.
The same principle is at work here. You may not abuse the Conventions in order to seek a military advantage. It is wrong when the enemy does it, and it is wrong when we do it.
We are the defenders of civilization. That means we have to do what we have sworn to do. The investigation is right and proper, and if there has been a violation of the Conventions, it ought to be punished.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
posted by Grim 17:08 Juan Cole & Miller:Today, while dealing with another matter, it came to my attention that Juan Cole has recently produced a paper on Judith Miller. I have not been following the Plame case with any vigor -- I have always supported the investigation, the questioning of the reporters, and await any indictments that may result. As a consequence, I was surprised to learn that Miller is suddenly an enemy of the Cole faction, who needs to be destroyed.
Well, Juan Cole is the man for the job. Still, even knowing the old fraud's history, I was a little shocked by his audacity in this sentence:In fact, Iraq's nuclear facilities were found and ordered destroyed after the war by the United Nations inspectors, and they were extremely thorough, as inspector and former U.S. Marine Scott Ritter insisted.A quick Google proves that Juan Cole knows perfectly well who Ritter is, and yet mentions nothing about him to suggest that Ritter's story be taken with the slightest grain of salt. Given the weight he places on that sentence in making the case that Miller is a bad actor, it's quite an omission.
It would be somewhat like introducing another former officer of Marines, to people who may well know nothing about him, simply as "noted expert on Iranian relations, Lt. Col. Oliver North."
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
posted by Grim 15:56 Once Upon a Time in China:Speaking of old friends who may or may not be dead...
A number of years ago I lived in China. My wife, an artist, had been invited to come by the Chinese government in order to study Chinese painting techniques. I had studied Chinese history and philosophy, so I encouraged her to accept the offer.
They put us in a run-down structure with the other international residents. It was an amazing place in three respects. First, they had added an extra story to the top of it (with a slate roof!) without making any consideration for the load-bearing design. As a result, there was a giant crack in the concrete up one side of the building. It honestly seemed as if it might fall in at any moment.
Second, because the water in HangZhou is not drinkable, on every floor there were giant water tanks designed to provide drinking water. These were filled with the regular non-drinkable swill from the pipes, but twice a day they would vent live steam into the tanks in order to sterilize the water. (This did nothing for the poisonous heavy metals, which were not filtered out: as a consequence, I lived on Chinese beer instead.) The steam would boil out of the tanks through valves when the internal pressure got too high. Steam rises, of course, so the entire top floor would be floor-to-ceiling invisible twice a day. As you came down levels, somewhat more of the hallway would be visible: the third floor would be three-quarters filled with steam, the second floor half covered, and so forth.
The third thing that was notable was the remarkable incidence of disease. There were two old women who were employed to clean the place, which they did once a day with cold water and no soap. There was no such thing as bleach. We had people from all over the world, and lots of folks from sub-Saharan Africa as China is making big diplomatic moves there. One of these is to invite many of Africa's top students to study at Chinese universities. (This is a wise idea, by the way; one of the ways in which the GWOT has been flawed is that it has cut down on foreign students at American universities.)
Chinese medical care is an iffy proposition, although they did require a full physical of everyone admitted. Still, we had residents coming down with foreign diseases and dying; and most everyone was sick all the time. I myself caught tuberculosis, although apparently I defeated it with the aid of the aforementioned Chinese beer.
One of my fellows there was a giant of a man from Western Australia, a fine fellow who carried a big brass lock in lieu of brass knuckles. He was a complete scoundrel: a former professional gambler, who was currently making his living by conning the Australian government into believing that he was mentally ill and in need of a full pension.
Aside from him, my wife and I were the only native English speakers in the building. Many people spoke no English at all; French was more common, among the Africans, which meant that I could communicate with them with some difficulty. So could the Australian, who spoke a number of languages in a vague way -- but when he was in serious pain, as one night he was, English was the only language he could manage.
This was shortly after we arrived. I had not met the man, though I had once before seen him around the building. He came knocking on the door, though, and I answered it.
He was in such pain as to be unable to move, except with the greatest difficulty. He had managed to lumber down the hall to where our room was -- it was only a single room, and very tiny and drafty, without bathroom facilities or anything of the sort -- and he almost begged for me to go out into the Chinese night and find him some pain medication.
My Chinese at that stage could only with charity be called "broken," but all the same I promised to do my best. As I was leaving, he stopped me.
"I have to tell you something important," he said. I nodded.
"I believe very strongly," he said, "in giving your best shot, and then taking what comes. Go forth to the first place you can find, and do your best. If you cannot find the medicine there, come back. It will be all right."
I nodded again, and left; but I had no intention of doing what he asked. He had his beliefs, and I have my own. He had taken his one shot, and spent it on asking me for help. My belief is that when you undertake a quest, you see it through to its conclusion. As a result, I must have gone to ten places trying to find someone with whom I could communicate well enough to explain what I needed and get it.
When I got back, I found the poor Aussie leaning sadly against a wall. "What is it?" he said when he saw me. "You've come to tell me that that you couldn't find anything. Well, that's all right."
"No," I answered. "I've come to bring you this." I gave him the medicine, and he went on his way.
The next day he said that the stuff hadn't kicked in for almost two hours after he'd taken it, and he had been planning to murder me in my sleep with a meat axe. However, once it finally started to work, he found himself able to drift off to blissful sleep. He and I have exchanged letters for half a decade now; I never know if there will be another one, and I suppose in truth he never knows either.
That seems to me an illustration of what I was trying to say earlier, but to be honest, I'm not sure why it seems so. The reader may try to sort it out.
posted by Grim 15:26 An Old Friend Returns:Grim's Hall is delighted to note that our old friend Steve D. is still alive. He was one of Grim's Hall's original readers, and sent a kind letter this morning apologizing for his long absence. Since he lives most of his life at sea, one never knows when he'll turn up or if he ever shall again.
He says he wouldn't mind if you dropped by to consider his thoughts on Iraq. For that matter, I don't guess I've mentioned my own thoughts on Iraq since the Constitutional Referrendum. They are these:
Omar's video from Mosul tells you what you need to know about Iraq and the mission there. It is a noble cause, as noble as any ever contested: to free the oppressed, De Oppresso Liber, and bring the light of liberty to their world.
It is fashionable on the anti-war side to ask, "What is this war about?" I have always offered that answer. The response is usually to scorn it: Bush didn't mention it, rarely mentioned it, mentioned other things, some of which turned out not to be as big a deal as he suggested. Yet, as far as Iraq goes, this is what I have always cared about: to end tyranny and free the oppressed, and to see a new dawn for liberty in the cradle of civilization. I heard Bush's speech at the start of the war, but I can only remember one detail of what he said: that this war would bring an end to the rape rooms. That was what impressed me, and as far as I am concerned, it is why we fight.
The success of this referrendum -- whether the Constitution had passed or failed, it was a success because of its extraordinary turnout and low violence -- demonstrates that liberty is taking hold. It will not be a smooth journey, I am sure: our own was not, but is littered with bones. Yet it is happening. We shall have the victory.
I do not know, though I think, that the victory in bringing democracy to Iraq will reduce or limit terrorism. It is not necessary that it do so to be a worthy cause. What matters is freeing men and women to live the right way, according to their own hearts, and to build the fire of freedom ever higher. Perhaps this will reduce violence in the world; perhaps it will increase it, as tyrants band together to put out the flame. Let them come. I do not fear them.
posted by Grim 11:40 The Dangerous Life:I warn you that this is a long essay on a serious topic.
Ex Nihlio has a review of Serenity. It focuses on 'love, and its twin, belief.'Everyone in the film (when they find themselves) is driven by love, but the interesting thing is that Serenity (amazingly! fortuitously!) manages to blend that love seamlessly with its twin, belief. In Serenity, there can be no true belief without a love that covers the sins necessary to defend that belief. There can be no love without foundation—without a belief in something, anything. And all of the actors in the tragicomedy are driven by their idealism—personal or political—their loves-cum-beliefs-cum-lives. They are all, to quote the movie, “true believers” by the end. And it is on that level that we connect with them—we are people who, even lacking it, long for true belief. Unconditional. Unequivocal. An excuse to love without care or worry of personal consequence. A belief that moves mountains or armies.That is right.
Love and belief are twinned in this way. There is a deeper conflict at work, though. The Operative believes in a vision of a world without sin, and loves it so much that it covers his sins of murdering children. He can only be opposed, we are told, by men who believe in something else -- but who also truly believe.
We see that true belief gives a power that can be used for good or evil. In that way, faith is dangerous. It is dangerous in just the way Tolkien described:’Dangerous?,’ cried Gandalf. ‘And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet. . .And Aragon is dangerous, and Legolas is dangerous. You are beset with dangers. . .for you are dangerous yourself, in your own fashion.’It is therefore truth that the best thing in the world is to be dangerous. It is also the worst thing. A man should believe, and love, without fear or reservation. I believe this, and have lived this way, sometimes to great joy and sometimes to great pain.
We were talking just yesterday about the true believers who, seeking to obliterate their lives, let their faith move them to terrible things. How can we judge between the kind of faith that heals, and the kind tht poisons?
I doubt it is possible to judge between the religions, and prove that one is right and another wrong. I think, however, that we can examine the ways of belief, and show what a righteous man ought to look like. I will not tell you what to believe, but I will tell you how to believe.
Consider Robert Winston. He asks, "Why do we believe in God?" He tells an interesting tale about snake-handlers and psychologists.Many years ago, a team of researchers at the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota decided to put [a theory that religion was linked to mental illness] to the test. They studied certain fringe religious groups, such as fundamentalist Baptists, Pentecostalists and the snake-handlers of West Virginia, to see if they showed the particular type of psychopathology associated with mental illness. Members of mainstream Protestant churches from a similar social and financial background provided a good control group for comparison. Some of the wilder fundamentalists prayed with what can only be described as great and transcendental ecstasy, but there was no obvious sign of any particular psychopathology among most of the people studied. After further analysis, however, there appeared a tendency to what can only be described as mental instability in one particular group. The study was blinded, so that most of the research team involved with questionnaires did not have access to the final data. When they were asked which group they thought would show the most disturbed psychopathology, the whole team identified the snake-handlers. But when the data were revealed, the reverse was true: there was more mental illness among the conventional Protestant churchgoers - the "extrinsically" religious - than among the fervently committed.Snake-handling promotes sanity? Yes, apparently, because it can only be practiced by those who have learned the right way to believe. The answer ought not to be surprising, nor to have needed a study of psychology, because it was so ably explained by Chesterton's Orthodoxy, in "The Maniac."There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and history utterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been not only sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever really held horses, it was because he was much the safest man to hold them. Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.So that is part of the picture. I suggest reading Chesterton in his entirety, as time permits.
Here is another part, again from the Winston essay. It discusses another psychological theory, which happens merely to be a repetition of an old religious truth.A Harvard psychologist named Gordon Allport... suggested that there were two types of religious commitment - extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic religiosity he defined as religious self-centredness. Such a person goes to church or synagogue as a means to an end - for what they can get out of it. They might go to church to be seen, because it is the social norm in their society, conferring respectability or social advancement. Going to church (or synagogue) becomes a social convention.What is this, but an intellectual's restatement of Matthew 6? Yet it tells us a great deal. The suicide bomber is motivated by conditioning: he is being fed a constant line of mythology by the group that wishes to move his heart. He is convinced that they believe him to be a hero, and then told what they expect of a hero. And so he 'does his alms with a trumpet in the street, that may have glory of men.'
Allport thought that intrinsic religiosity was different. He identified a group of people who were intrinsically religious, seeing their religion as an end in itself. They tended to be more deeply committed; religion became the organising principle of their lives, a central and personal experience. In support of his research, Allport found that prejudice was more common in those individuals who scored highly for extrinsic religion.
We have identified three signs of right faith, then: it is complete, so that the faithful man sheds those things he does not believe, and focuses his heart and his life on what he finds that he does; it is mystical, rooted in imagination and courage rather than logic and conformity; and it is secret, kept within the heart, though some signs of it may shine through even from the most private rooms.
There is another: it is fearless.
To return to Firefly for a moment, there is a scene in "Out of Gas" when River finds Book reading a Bible. "Don't be afraid," she says. He looks at her, and she nods to his Bible. "That's what it says, 'Don't be afraid.'" "Yes," he answers.
Here is the Bhagavad Gita on the subject:Many there be who come! from fear set free, From anger, from desire; keeping their hearts Fixed upon me - my Faithful - purified By sacred flame of Knowledge. Such as these Mix with my being. Whoso worship me, Them I exalt; but all men everywhere Shall fall into my path; albeit, those souls Which seek reward for works, make sacrifice Now, to the lower gods, I say to thee Here have they their reward.And here is Chesterton:Joan of Arc was not stuck at the cross-roads, either by rejecting all the paths like Tolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche. She chose a path, and went down it like a thunderbolt. Yet Joan, when I came to think of her, had in her all that was true either in Tolstoy or Nietzsche, all that was even tolerable in either of them. I thought of all that is noble in Tolstoy, the pleasure in plain things, especially in plain pity, the actualities of the earth, the reverence for the poor, the dignity of the bowed back. Joan of Arc had all that and with this great addition, that she endured poverty as well as admiring it; whereas Tolstoy is only a typical aristocrat trying to find out its secret. And then I thought of all that was brave and proud and pathetic in poor Nietzsche, and his mutiny against the emptiness and timidity of our time. I thought of his cry for the ecstatic equilibrium of danger, his hunger for the rush of great horses, his cry to arms. Well, Joan of Arc had all that, and again with this difference, that she did not praise fighting, but fought. We know that she was not afraid of an army, while Nietzsche, for all we know, was afraid of a cow. Tolstoy only praised the peasant; she was the peasant. Nietzsche only praised the warrior; she was the warrior. She beat them both at their own antagonistic ideals; she was more gentle than the one, more violent than the other. Yet she was a perfectly practical person who did something, while they are wild speculators who do nothing.That is the right way to believe. It is, to be certain, dangerous. It will lead you to great pain, and only might lead you to great joy. It has led me to both. It will take you on foolish quests, and lead you to break yourself on high mountains. It will lead you to declare your love and live it out, both when the consequences are good and when they are hard. You may rise again, stronger or weaker or wiser; and then again you may not.
I think you will be the right kind of man, though, while you do live. You will be dangerous, as Gandalf or Aragorn is dangerous, and not as the evil are.
Perhaps there is more. All the faiths proclaim something better in the next world, at least for the righteous. I hope for that, too. But whether that is real or an illusion, and whatever form it may take, at least you will have lived fully and well in this world. That is all I have to promise you, for I am -- as the Havamal counsels -- only 'middle wise.' Of demons and heavens I know nothing, though I have heard much, and believe certain things; but of men and the world of men, perhaps I have learned a thing.
Judge for yourselves.
Monday, October 17, 2005
posted by Eric 20:47 Yet Another Really Great Blog:
Well, they're not shy now are they? Still, I recognize many of the names of the contibutors as commentors I've run across on various blogs.
There's lots of intersting stuff there. Check it out.
posted by Grim 07:08 The Legion of Dishonor:A genuine look at our enemy's thinking can be obtained here, by looking at their recruiting successes among converts.
“It’s striking, the number of converts engaged in terrorist activities,” said Michael Taarnby, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies who has studied the recruitment and radicalisation of Islamist militants.They wonder what prompts such a large percentage (though still a small number) of converts to Islam to become radicals. The theory is that the enemy is actively recruiting among the small-time criminal population.
Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France’s top anti-terrorism judge, told the newspaper Le Figaro in an interview: “The converts are undeniably the toughest. Nowadays the conversions happen more quickly and the commitment is more radical.”Drifters and small-time crooks: Some of the best-known extremist converts whose cases have come to trial were drifters on the margins of society.The kind of people who make up the small-time criminal and drifter class is poor, generally not well educated nor particularly intelligent. They are easy to manipulate, which is why criminal organizations have manipulated them for time out of mind. Whether Columbian cartels, the Mafia, or al Qaeda, this type of person is a useful and essentially disposable tool.
David Courtailler, a Frenchman convicted last year of abetting terrorists, was drawn into radical circles when he converted to Islam at a British mosque and was approached by a stranger there who gave him money and an air ticket to Pakistan. Reid, Rowe and Ganczarski all had records as small-time thieves or drug dealers.
“They are people who feel devalued, despised and by becoming terrorists they suddenly become supermen, heroes,” said Roy.
Once they converted, the experts said, such people often moved towards violence quickly, driven partly by a need to prove themselves. They might also be more easily manipulated by extremists because they lacked the cultural grounding to distinguish between true and distorted versions of Islam.
“Basically, you can tell them just about anything and they’re willing to believe it,” Taarnby said.
Just what you need when your favored weapon is the suicide bomb.In interviews with Reuters, European experts said the vast majority of those who converted to Islam did so for legitimate personal reasons. Some convert in order to marry Muslims.Many of those "legitimate personal reasons" are likewise apt to draw radicals as well. You should never underestimate the power of the chance to escape an old, failed life and find a new name and a new brotherhood. Sometimes it is an honest motivation. That was, for so many, the appeal of America.
Many converts were drawn, the experts said, by the appeal of a universal faith that transcended national and ethnic barriers, offered a sense of belonging and brotherhood and provided a new identity, including the choice of a Muslim name.
However, a small fraction were extremists who saw in radical Islam a vehicle to challenge and overthrow the existing world order, said Olivier Roy, research director of the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
It was also the appeal of the French Foreign Legion, which drew also from this same population of Western drifters and small-time crooks, and turned them into one of the most fearsome fighting forces in the world. The converts came willingly, looking for a new life and a new pride, a life that would be lived under a new and swaggering name, and often lived in a new language -- French, or for al Qaeda, Arabic. The clean break, the heroic image and mythic past, all this drives many who have ruined their own lives to seek out a new, firm guiding hand.
Al Qaeda, by all accounts, does not train its soldiers as well as the Legion did, or does today. That is why they do not enjoy the successes the Legion have enjoyed. Nevertheless, it is no wonder that they find such a ready group of suicides. Many of these people came to them exactly because they wanted to obliterate their lives.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
posted by Grim 06:37 "Through Our Enemies' Eyes"Michael Scheuer, who was a top CIA officer and as "Anonymous" wrote critiques of Bush's GWOT policies, has performed a skit for the Air Force Association. The conceit is that he is pretending to be an Al Qaeda operative inside America, writing to update "Brother Osama" on the course of the war.
The fellow has some good points as to the advantages we enjoy:First, the huge downside of this war ... We are, to put it simply, being hunted and attacked by the most powerful nation in the history of the world and despite the heavy personnel losses we have suffered, may God accept them as martyrs, the United States has not yet made the full destructiveness of its power felt.He also has one good point as to a serious detriment to our efforts:
Still, its people hate us with a vengeance for the blessed September raid and their efforts against us are powered by a wonderfully, even amazingly productive economy. In addition, the American population, although far from perfectly equitable is on the whole tolerant, including toward their Muslim fellow citizens.
At this point, brothers, we do not have the advantage here provided by the aggressively racist and anti-Islamic policies followed by most countries of the European Union. But on that score, as you have said Brother Iman, Allah will ensure that the cradles of Muslim homes will ultimately return Andalusia and all of Europe to the Muslim Ummah.
A final point of danger that I must stress is that American military, emotional, patriotic, and economic power has been neither harnessed nor focused. The latent power of this country is enormous and we have yet to fill its impact. God willing, the Americans will continue to slumber.And Brothers, the Americans have not found serious men to lead them. God has blessed us with this reality for at least 15 years. Four years after 9/11, American leaders have not closed their borders or found out who is in their country. Truly only God could have provided our movement with such a miracle. Amazingly, Brothers, the Americans' politicians lack the moral courage to first enforce the laws they themselves have passed. God is great. They refuse to find out who is in their country and to stop illegal immigration because, they loudly assert, America is a beacon of liberty to the world that we do not want to dim. Truly, Brothers, there is nothing more beneficial to us than having American politicians prefer to have the United States be seen as the glowing beacon of liberty rather than a country of enforced laws. Long may American maintain and enhance this glow of liberty which provides a light that warms, guides and shelters Al Qaeda and the many Jihadi groups who we have inspired around the world.Fair enough.
Now, for what he thinks is our greatest weakness:Brothers, believe me, the Americans are either soundly asleep, unwilling to face reality, or fundamentally stupid. Based on my observations and discussions they do not appear to have a clue as to what this war is about. This is, thanks to God, our greatest advantage...Mr. Scheuer adopts that favorite tactic of a certain type of intellectual, of which there are all too many at the CIA: claiming that people who disagree with him are simply too ignorant or stupid to understand the issue. Well, it isn't ignorance: Is there anyone left in America who hasn't heard the "It's our policies!" counterargument, and had occasion to think it through? I doubt it, excepting only children, the very elderly, and those who simply care nothing about politics.
They do not understand our motivation. In American terms, they have not “figured out what makes us tick.” Their political leaders of both parties, as well as their media, military, economic and social elites continue to claim Al Qaeda hates America for what it believes and how it lives and not for what the United States does in the Islamic world. And you saw for yourself, Brothers, how Bush and Blair responded to July's blessed London expedition—like trained parrots they exclaimed that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms and not for what we do.
Honestly, Brothers, only God's love for Muslim believers could have kept American believers so dense for so long.
"Our policy in the Muslim world" is the real source of our problems, is it? Well, let's go down to the question-and-answer section with the good military men who attended the skit. What was the first question?Q: One of the tangible justifications Al Qaeda used for 9/11 with respect to the Koran was the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia. Given that we have silently moved our troops out of that country, is there any evidence of windfall within the Islamic world?So, the first piece of serious evidence on the question is: moving the troops only changed the complaint. It didn't relieve or even moderate the complaint.
Mr. Scheuer: No, I think on that particular occasion we pulled the wool over our own eyes. Within the eyes of Muslims, the Prophet's home is the Arabian Peninsula, not Saudi Arabia. There are no States in the theological sense on the Arabian Peninsula. We simply moved from Saudi Arabia to Qatar and Kuwait, which is still on the Prophet's homeland. It's kind of been treated, at least within the websites and the internet journals of Al Qaeda and its allies as something of a joke that points to the depth of the American ignorance about Islam.
Yes, and if we'd moved the troops to Egypt? To Turkey? To Spain? Mr. Scheuer himself jokes about Bin Laden returning the cradles of Islam to Andalusia. It isn't ignorance or stupidity that is moving us to reject this policy as a "first cause." It's just that we've been watching and listening too, and we've drawn different conclusions.
Let's take another question:Q: Carmen bin Laden, a sister-in-law of Osama bin Laden, believes Al Qaeda is in no hurry to attack US soil, but rather can bide their time. Do you think this is true, or have we just been successful in actively fighting off another attack?Ah, yes, that's the real reason al Qaeda doesn't hit us more often: their immense patience.
Mr. Scheuer: I think we have done a wonderful job of taking out Al Qaeda leaders, but we still categorize Al Qaeda as a terrorist group. Our leaders from both parties have a lot to say about seizing 5,000 or 6,000 Al Qaeda fighters, which seems counter-intuitive—I'm not sure there's a terrorist group that has 4,000 or 5,000 fighters.
The one difference between Al Qaeda and the United States, Al Qaeda and the West, Islam and the West, is the tremendous sense of patience on the enemy's side. When they talk about another attack soon in the United States they're speaking of anywhere from a year to a decade. Our idea of soon is this afternoon or next week or October 1st at the latest.
Actually, I think it might be their lack of capability. If they could hit us more often, does anyone doubt that they would? We've watched their bombs fall off in effectiveness everywhere outside of Iraq: 9/11, Madrid, London is the usual chain, but take a look at their allied group in Southeast Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah. They have a lot more freedom to move and train, and safe havens in parts of the Philippines. In 2002 the Bali bombing was hideous; in 2005, they bombed Bali again, and killed very few by comparison.
Here's another question:Q: In your opinion, what is the impact of Syed Qutab’s writings on the Al Qaeda world view?The answer is useless, so I won't bother to quote it. What should be obvious here, however, is that the Air Force people here are hardly ignorant of Muslim culture. They have been studying the roots of this dispute at least as seriously as Mr. Scheuer.
They've also studied the evidence about what we're doing, and how it changes the war. I can tell you for a fact that they don't just consider GitMo or Abu Ghraib a 'public relations problem.' I know that they're intensely interested in reaction, and are taking steps not only to correct problems but to create measurements so that they can tell whether what they are doing is making things better or worse.
As for the treatment of the Koran, I think we all remember the military's admonition that our fighters handle it with literal kid gloves? We accept the enemy's assertion that we are too unclean to handle his holy book, rather than give cause for offense.
The whole skit, and the question and answer period, is worth reading.
posted by Grim 06:28 Slow Blogging:I apologize for the light blogging of these last couple of days. I've just finished two back-to-back 16 hour days trying to sort out something for work. Today, I'm going off for a pleasant day with my wife, Sovay, and the little boy. I hope it will be great fun -- I could use some.
Should be back tomorrow.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
posted by Grim 14:48 Cassandra:She writes:
for so longThat is a lovely and powerful image, but probably more fearsome than I hope she intends. One of the great dangers in writing a farewell poem is that you will sound like you're threatening suicide. I've had the same problem myself: what is meant as a meditation on the pain that can come from saying goodbye, reads later like the meditation of someone who forgot his medication. Well, if poetry were easy, it wouldn't be art.
silence has beckoned
fought off
with
a torrent of wordsi'm no longer
afraid of fallingso peaceful
to drop like a stone
into the dark
and be lost forever
Since she isn't actually committing suicide, but only hanging up the blog, I assume we'll see her around in the comments section from time to time. I believe she understands she will always be welcome?
posted by Grim 14:28 Beans the Dog:Welcome to Beans the dog, now an American. Beans was the pet of the 3/25 Marines in Iraq. She's been adopted by the mother of one of those who didn't make it home. Apparently, he loved the dog -- and now, so will she.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
posted by Eric 22:48 Holy. Freekin. S***.
Iowa Hawk, in a rather entertaining manner, envisions the ultimate results of comparitivism on the Supreme Court. (via Normblog)
I don't regularly read Iowa Hawk. But I think I'm going to. (Also, I'm a homey of his and all).
posted by Grim 12:49 Torture & the Senate, Updated:There is an important update to the post on Torture & the Senate, below. Greyhawk calls it a 20 yard punt, but that may be an understatement.
posted by Grim 11:24 A Bad Week:I have put this off as long as I can. The families are now notified, and the obituaries have run.
Grim's Hall mourns the passing of four warriors from our adopted 2/2 Marines.
Corporal Nick Cherava.
Lance Corporal Shayne Cabino.
Lance Corporal Patrick Kenny.
Private First Class Jason Frye.
Lance Corporal Kenny leaves behind a sister, Katy, who has just completed Boot Camp. All of them leave behind friends and fellow Marines who will remember, and avenge, their loss.
posted by Grim 07:35 His Royal Highness, Mike:Sovay sent me a story about the trueborn King of England, at least if you believe that kingship is rightfully inherited. Turns out, the fellow lives in the Aussie Bush:
A documentary team from Britain's Channel Four conducted extensive research and concluded Hastings' ancestors were cheated out of the crown in the 15th century, meaning he should rightfully be the British head of state.Well, actually, there have been a few other families in there since 1461. Since King Mike I is a part-time historian, who volunteers at a museum devoted to his town's last armed robber, I assume he knows that.
"When the producer landed in Australia and said he was coming to see me he was very vague about what it was all about," Hastings tells AFP in his broad Australian accent.
"I thought he was drunk to be honest ... then he came here and laid out his evidence, it came as a total surprise to me, it left me stunned.
"I reckon I might send Lizzie (Queen Elizabeth II) a bill for back rent, the old girl's family have been living in my bloody castle for the last 500 years."
The documentary's historian Michael Jones found documents in Rouen Cathedral he believes show that Edward IV, who ruled from 1461 to 1483, was illegitimate because when he was conceived his parents were 200 kilometres (124 miles) apart.
Anyway, sounds like his house is more fun than the palace anyway:He said the documentary makers brought copies of royal crowns and other regalia worth several hundred thousand dollars to JerilderieWell, that will happen.
"The grandkids are pretty boisterous and were running around the house in the robes," he said. "(The program makers) were getting really nervous and saying 'um Mike, I think one of them's sitting on the crown'."
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
posted by Grim 13:47 Posse Comitatus:R.M. mails to let us know that Legal Affairs is hosting a debate on Posse Comitatus. Our friends at INTEL DUMP will be carrying the pro- side of the argument, and have provided a place for reader commentary at the above link.
Monday, October 10, 2005
posted by Grim 11:30 Torture & the Senate:Greyhawk at the Mudville Gazette noticed that the Army leads the way on human rights, at least as far as the US Senate is concerned.
Interesting that in responding to claims that the Army has failed to provide guidance to soldiers the Senate has endorsed the published Army guidance to soldiers as the definitive response.It is not an accident that the Senate finds in the military the chiefest defenders of the Conventions. The military is not the only organization that engages in interrogations in serious matters. However, it has something not present at the CIA or FBI: roots in a culture of honor that date back centuries. The FBI was formed under Hoover, and its roots are those he planted. The CIA didn't even exist until after the second World War. It quickly abandoned its commando roots, and became an organization of pure spies.
In other early media coverage, both the AP and Knight-Ridder have defined the measure as "a rebuke to the White House."
A DoD note on variation from FM 34-52 here. Explicit departures were authorized here. Beatings and other severe punishments were never authorized.
In 1949, however, with the world's ugliest war just behind them and every reason to expect an even worse one to come, military men and political leaders who had themselves been military men sat down to try to reinforce the walls that had crumbled so badly. They remembered the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, the Blitz, the horrors of Burma, and much more. They looked forward to a possible day when nuclear weapons might be fielded, or Soviet tanks roll across Europe. Against both the backdrops, the revision and extension of the Geneva Conventions seems like a small thing. Nevertheless, it has held. These are the rules of chivalry in war, in which all American fighting men are trained to this day.
That same field manual was where I looked for information, back when the news of Abu Ghraib was first breaking in the press. In those dark days, I was arguing in favor of preserving the Geneva Conventions. I still argue for it. The Army Field Manual, I noted, lists the relevant ones in an appendix.
What the Conventions seek to accomplish is to protect the innocent during wartime, as much as can be done. They do this by creating three categories. They have specialized legal names, but what they amount to is this: warriors, noncombatants, and bandits. Warriors are required to protect the noncombatants, in part by not taking refuge among them or pretending to be them. In return, if captured they are to be treated with civility even by their enemies. Noncombatants are to be protected. Bandits -- those who use the war itself, or the rules, as a means to advance their own agenda -- are to be destroyed.
As time passed, foolish men without understanding joined with cunning men of evil intent. The United Nations fell under their sway, and as a living organization, has become a force that defends tyrants, blocks attempts to arm peoples facing genocide, and spreads corruption. These same men also twisted the Geneva Conventions. Using language that sounded kind but masked a harmful intent, in 1977 two new protocols were added to the Conventions. They extend to some several groups that were previously 'bandits' the protections due to warriors, even though they may hide under the cover of civilians.
The United States is not party to these. Nor should we be. They undermine the protection of noncombatants, which is the purpose of the Conventions. They blur lines best kept clear.
Today, many who think of themselves as well-meaning are likewise undermining the protection of the noncombatants. By extending the protections due to warriors onto criminals, you are extending the status of warriors onto the criminals. The logic of the Conventions requires that the innocent and the righteous be protected, and the vicious be destroyed. Protecting the evil was not part of the plan. It undermines the plan.
INTEL DUMP is opposed to the Senate's law on the grounds that the particular law is foolishly written. He notes that the Field Manual isn't nearly specific enough to be used as a source for a legal text, and adds:Where the problem lies is in ensuring that the technique as used in the approach meets appropriate legal standards. The cure for that is not Congressionally-designed rules, but rather an architecture that places oversight and control points to ensure that techniques used during an approach are appropriate. The Army's getting there (all the major interrogation facilities include organic legal assets) and a Congressional push to enhance such an architecture is a better approach.Froggy is opposed to it on the grounds that it will compromise effectiveness. His approach seems to be that scaring the hell out of people isn't torture. This sounds like an approach that would tend to blur into real torture at the margins ("You're just going to scare him, right?" "Pain is scary."). Special Operators, however, do their "operating" at times and in places when the support structure for the Conventions is not available, and under conditions of extreme danger in which the ethical issues are different. In ethics, a decision cannot be immoral when you have no other reasonable choice. That is something a court martial would consider, should it come up.
The Senate is acting well in attempting to reinforce the adherence to the Conventions. It is acting badly in enacting a poorly-written law that is likely to confuse the issue rather than clarify it. It is also acting badly by further blurring the lines that the Conventions drew between warriors and bandits.
Like Senator McCain, I want -- and I believe the military wants -- an America that is morally better than any foe it may meet. I think real strength rises from that, as he himself demonstrated in the POW camps. It has been my experience that there is no stronger defender of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 than the US military, and for good cause. They were written by brothers in arms, who understood and shared the same ancient code of honor.
Senator McCain is wrong, however, to attempt this legislation. Being morally better than our foes means more than refusing to do violent things. It means taking moral issues seriously. We have to recognize that, in life generally and in war particularly, you get more of what you successfully protect and less of what you successfully punish. We must keep an eye toward protecting the weak and the innocent, as well as the honorable and the just. We must work harder to punish the cruel and the wicked -- among our own forces, when they appear, and among the enemies of civilization whom we fight.
We must keep the lines clear between them. It is our enemy, not us, who benefits from the loss of clarity.
UPDATE: Greyhawk resolves the question I wondered about in the comments. McCain's law makes the Field Manual the law of the land, and 'doesn't set it in stone,' but allows the Army to revise it at will.This amendment would establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in DOD custody. The Manual has been developed by the Executive Branch for its own uses, and a new edition, written to take into account the needs of the war on terror and with a new classified annex, is due to be issued soon. My amendment would not set the Field Manual in stone – it could be changed at any time.Emphasis added, and it needs to be added. Am I to understand that the Senator intends to delegate to the Executive branch complete power to rewrite American laws governing torture and detainees, and also classify those laws?
Are we to believe, Senator, that this is the road to the moral high ground?
Sunday, October 09, 2005
posted by Grim 10:03 "The Marine Wife's Life"You might enjoy this young lady's blog. She's married to a corporal in the artillery.
Hat tip, of a sort, to Daniel, where I noticed she'd left a mention in his comments.
posted by Grim 09:43 White Oak Canyon:This morning dawned clear and bright, but for the last several days we've had a constant downpour. It was yesterday, the fourth day of rain, that I decided to go hiking in spite of the weather.
I drove down to the White Oak Canyon, and found that the place was almost deserted. I was not surprised. The rain was limiting the number of people in the canyon in two ways. First, not everyone likes hiking in continual rain.
Second, the road was flooded out. I had to put the truck in 4x4 Low and cross a road that had become a ford (unlike the truck, which is a Chevy). The water was moving fast, and up over the tops of the tires, but the truck didn't seem the least bit bothered.
It turned out to be a beautiful hike. I encountered on the trail a pair of Rangers, who were checking out the fire road (no danger of a fire yesterday!) to see if it had washed out. It had.
If any of you are looking for a good hike, and you happen to be in the area, this is a very nice one. I actually didn't go out the canyon to the waterfalls yesterday, but did a section of the Old Rag instead. There are maps of the whole area at the NPS site, here.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
posted by Grim 22:35 Feddie on NPR:Feddie of Southern Appeal has been interviewed on NPR. He's talking about the Miers nomination. You can listen to the piece here.
posted by Grim 19:00 Miers Speaks:Thanks to Southern Appeal for this one. She sat down with Specter. Boy, was he impressed:
"She needs more than murder boards," Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview, referring to the mock question-and-answer sessions most nominees use to prepare for their confirmation hearings. "She needs a crash course in constitutional law."Oh, that's gorgeous. Just what we were looking for in a nominee to the Supreme Court.
. . . .
Several Republicans, including Mr. Specter, said they steered clear of asking Ms. Miers questions about constitutional law. Mr. Specter, who said the timing of the confirmation hearings would depend in part on when Ms. Miers felt ready, said he initiated a discussion of the shifting standards the Supreme Court has applied in interpreting the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, but only to illustrate to Ms. Miers the kinds of questions she would face during her hearings.
"I did not ask her about it because I don't think she's ready to face it at the moment," he said.
posted by Grim 10:30 Snobbery:Instalawyer has a piece up accusing Ann Coulter of being an elitist. The charge has somewhat wider application than just Coulter, however, so I wanted to point out something about it.
Now, I guess I'm not too surprised at Coulter's ranting about Miers's background. She went to an "elite" undergraduate school [Cornell], an "elite" law school [Michigan], she was an editor of the law review, she clerked for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and she worked for Floyd Abrams's "elite" law firm in New York City [highly-paid, hundreds of lawyers, most with pedigrees such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Virginia, Michigan]. Coulter's looking for a bird of a feather, and appears to take an immediate dislike to an appointee who has the wrong color feathers.I know just where this guy is coming from. I once interviewed with the CIA -- actually, I had a second and a third interview with them. And they asked me, each time, to confirm that the school I had gone to for my graduate work was accredited.
One thing I've figured out over the last 20 years or so: legal elitists tend to a pack mentality; they are most comfortable with people who have similar backgrounds. If I had been top 5% at American University, I might have gotten an interview with Coulter's former firm, had I been so inclined. It's unlikely they would have made me an offer, however. I'm just not in the same club, so to speak.
"Of course it's accredited," I said. "It's a state university. Says so right in the name. Who do you think does the accrediting?"
"Well, I've never heard of it," they sniffed. And then, in the next interview, same question again: "I've never heard of this place where you got your degree. Are you sure it's accredited?"
"Do you suppose the Regents of the State of Georgia don't bother to accredit their own state universities?"
The look on their faces suggested that they supposed something rather like that; or, at least, that a school accredited by Georgia just wasn't up to snuff anyway.
What you have to understand, though, is that there is an objection to Miers that is the opposite of snobbery. There is an anti-elitist objection, too.
Miers is an elite because she's a crony. She's an elite because she personally knows important people. She also moves in high circles, and she's getting this job (if she gets it) for only that reason.
Most of us Americans get where we get through hard work and the procedure. Those of us who went to state schools, who have worked hard and honestly, we are just disgusted to see less qualified people advanced because they're buddies of the people in charge.
Julie Myers, the Bush nominee to head ICE, moved out of committee yesterday. She'll probably be approved. She's 36, and she's married to and related to important people, and her only other job qualifications are from other patronage positions she got by the same family connections. She's going to be the head of the Department of Homeland Security's prime investigative agency, and she is probably no more qualified than I am to do it. If I wanted a job with ICE, though, I'd have to go take the service exam, and become a trainee. My education and experience would probably qualify me for a higher pay grade than the true "bottom rung," but I would still have to start low and work up. The only reason I'd get to start anywhere but the very bottom is that I have already worked hard getting the education and experience.
So should she. But instead, she's going to run the place. People who have worked hard and gotten the kind of experience needed will really be making things work, but they'll be paid less than her, and they'll be pretending to be her inferior officers.
This Miers nomination is the same thing. It's not that she's not from the Ivy leagues -- fair enough. It's that she's not the best qualified. Not even close. She's Bush's buddy. She's never been a judge, OK. So maybe that's not by itself a disqualification. She's never argued a case before the Supreme Court either. She's not got a developed track record on Constitutional law. She's someone no one would have picked -- except that she knows Bush, so he picked her.
That shouldn't be enough for a top position, and the Supreme Court is as high as it gets in the legal field. It shouldn't be enough to be at the top of any Federal agency, but particularly not for one with a lifetime appointment.
This isn't the way America is meant to work. It's hard work and experience that's supposed to get you to the top. It's downright obscene to watch the people who have done more and worked harder passed over, time and again. These aren't small posts. ICE is a critical agency for preventing terrorist attacks in the US. The Supreme Court will be resolving the most divisive questions in our society. These posts deserve the best.
Roberts gave every impression of being just that. Good job on that one. He wasn't the kind of thinker I wanted, but his qualifications were so obvious that no reasonable person could oppose him. He deserved it, not because he went to the Ivy leagues (although he did), but on sheer merit.
If you know how to get it right once, you can get it right again. Back to the drawing board. Give us a real nominee.
posted by Grim 09:38 Ugly days in Southern Thailand:I've a post over at Bill Roggio's site on the topic. We seem to have entered a new phase in the insurgency there -- a much more dangerous one. I reflect that a certain fatalism may be necessary in counterinsurgency warfare. Even when you have the best kind of tools for the job, as Thailand has and as we often do not, there is only so much you can do to limit the spread. The enemy is active too, and they are also devoted and cunning.
Friday, October 07, 2005
posted by Grim 21:58 Ad AstraThose of you who will: Thoughts and prayers to USMC 2/2. Don't ask why. Just pray.
posted by Grim 20:24 It's Been A While...About two years, in fact, since the last time I linked to Atrios.
Still, if you can look past his love of profanity, this cartoon does have a certain point to it.
posted by Grim 17:26 Happy Birthday To Me:As Fate will have it, important events tend to cluster around given dates at Grim's Hall. The Summer Solstice, for example. It happens also to be my wedding anniversary. Many years, it is also Father's Day. And, just to make things fun, our little boy Beowulf was born on the very same day. So, the coming of Summer brings a huge festival of gift-giving for all parties.
This is balanced by the Yuletide, six months later, when we try to get together with family and friends for another grand celebration. These are the two high points of the year.
However, there is also mid-October. My beloved wife and I were born precisely five years apart, to the very day. As there was a leap year intervening, our birthdays are one day apart: Mine on Columbus Day, 12 October, and hers on the 13th (Friday the 13th, in fact, was her original birthday). That means that this week I will be marking my... well, I can't tell you which birthday, now that I've told you the difference in my and my wife's ages, or I should be giving away the secret of her own. As we know, that is forbidden to all gentlemen.
Indeed, I got a package in the mail today from my mother. How thoughtful! I opened it eagerly... only to find three DVDs for her cherished grandson. Not so much as a note for me! Ah, well.
I normally forbid anyone from buying me gifts anyway, although there are one or two women who carry on doing so in spite of my firm rule on the subject. My wife is one, and Dear Sovay the other; and, as last year Sovay got me a catapult, I can hardly complain. If any of you are looking for the right gift for the man in your life, let me tell you, a catapult is definitely the way to go.
However, I now already have a catapult. So, instead of a new catapult, I decided to buy for myself a .22 revolver. Some of you may remember I bought a Henry Golden Boy over the summer, so that I could practice my riflemanship any day I had the time; and I have enjoyed it so much, I wanted a revolver as well so that I could practice handgunnery just as often.
I went down to the store today, and Lo and behold, what did they have? A used Ruger 50th Anniversary Single-Six, at a most reasonable price. The fellow who runs the place seemed rather surprised, in fact, to see just how reasonable his business partner had decided to be with the thing. As they were only produced in 2003, they are something of a collector's item -- although, all I care about is that it points and balances correctly, and has the same sights as a New Vaquero.
After I paid for it, I took it to the range. The experience was somewhat like firing a mortar used to be: the first shot was low and to the left, and low; the second, high and right; but the third and subsequent, right in the ten ring. The fixed sights are right on. It was just a matter of learning how to hold it.
I am happy with it. I don't know if my wife or Sovay will buy me any additional gifts, or if this will be the only one, but it is certainly good enough. Anyway, I flatly forbade the two of them to buy me anything at all. Not that either of them normally do what they are told.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
posted by Grim 21:00 Camp Katrina:Spc. Phil Van T. sent a very nice letter to request that I direct you to his new blog, Camp Katrina. "I'm a soldier in the Army National Guard, and recently returned from mobilization for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in new Orleans. We have created a blog, www.campkatrina.typepad.com, where soldiers can share their stories and pics from Operation Vigilant Relief. I was wondering if there was any way you could mention our site or link to it on yours?"
Sure thing, Specialist. It's always a pleasure -- and by the way, thank you.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
posted by Grim 12:43 Quite a Dustup:Looks like the Hall had a fun time yesterday. Good! Just such a hearty exchange of views is what I have in mind for the place.
It was an impressive exchange. Although some have said that the blogosphere is rushing to uninformed opinion, in fact I think the opposite is true: the blogosphere is generating informed analysis, and distributing informed analysis that arises elsewhere.
On the third day since the nomination, I find that my sense that this nomination must be defeated has only hardened. I will attempt to explain why, both by argument and by distributing analysis, as above.
The strongest argument against opposing Miers is voiced by Cassandra, couched in terms of fairness combined with political savvy. She argues that, on the one hand, it is entirely unfair to judge Miers before her hearings; and on the other, that Bush is wise not to support "the base" in this matter because it is the middle, and not the base, that elects Presidents and wins control of the Senate.
After consideration, I must reject the first argument. This is a very serious matter: a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, at which the most contentious issues of the next few years will be decided. We must be prepared, as citizens, to drive our representaties in the Senate one way or the other. That will require sustained pressure over time, and time is short. Once her hearings have begun, they will last only a few days; then the Judiciary Committee will vote, and then the Senate as a whole. If confirmed, she would take office the same day.
If there is to be any hope of derailing the nomination, we must begin now. We cannot wait until the hearings.
I do not mean to say that we should be unfair. Rather, I mean we must honestly begin raising and considering the problems, and applying pressure to our Senators today and tomorrow, not during and after the hearings. It is the only hope for success, should it prove that Miers is as unqualified as she appears to be. The Senate is capable of ignoring the loudest outburst, for a few days, reasoning that 'the mob' will move on. It is only if we begin now that we will have time to make them consider their duty carefully.
As for the argument against extremisim, I share it. However, I would remind Cassandra that I share her irritation -- not with the term "RINO," which she feels is being wrongly directed at her -- but with the term "DINO," which has been wrongly directed at men such as Zell Miller and me.
What "the base" wishes to advance here is a judicial philosophy that is the political center, except that most people haven't really thought about it yet. The philosophy, simply, is that "when there is a disagreement about what the law means, the proper way to resolve it is by looking at what the people who wrote it intended it to mean. If we find that we no longer like that meaning, the legislature rather than the courts is the proper venue for changing the law."
This philosophy is, I think, destined to become the standard way of reading the law, simply because it is the only one that doesn't make the law into sands that shift underfoot. It is the only philosophy that restrains the power of the court.
Restraining the court's power is one of the most critical issues facing the Republic today, because the USSC has found itself above the normal checks and balances. They may strike down Congressional laws and Presidential orders as unConstitutional. They are the final appeal. There is no counterbalance.
Furthermore, USSC solutions are by their nature fundamental -- they touch every state, Red and Blue, with no distinction. This is because the foundation of their power to reach into every aspect of American life is the 14th Amendment's approach to civil rights. All Americans have the same civil rights.
These two facts have put us in a position in which the court's power must be checked, in order to assure the stability of the Republic. Barring a major Constitutional change, the only way to do it is by appointing justices who will interpret the law as the law was written, and not as they would prefer it or according to what they feel are current conditions. They must not remake the law to mean something it did not mean before.
This is why I feel that those who insist on a known judicial philosophy are right to do so. It is true that the Thomas confirmation was hideous; but it is also true that Thomas is the light of the court. We should want more like him. We ought to have the fight, if a fight is needed to get such Justices.
So much for reasoning. Now, for dissemination:
Feddie is calling for President Bush to withdraw the nomination. That would suit me fine; otherwise, I feel we shall have to defeat it the hard way.
His reasoning is largely drawn from David Frum, who I think is correct in this case. I believe Frum's points address the ones that Daniel was capably defending yesterday and so, like Feddie, I will refer to him.
Meanwhile, George Will reminds us that President Bush knowingly signed into law Campaign Finance Reform, having admitted that he did not think it was Constitutional. That being the case, we must be vigilant against further weakness of the spine in upholding the Constitution.
I feel we have a duty before us. We must do what we can to unmake this nomination, or to defeat it. Either the President will listen to us, or the Senate must: or else, we take our chances with the foundation of the Republic.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
posted by JoelL 16:21 PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE EXPLAINS WHY THE MIERS NOMINATION IS SOOO BAD.
Read it here. Hat tip to Feddie over at Southern Appeal.
posted by Daniel, USMC 15:40 Joel, are you able to view comments? If so, I'll just reply in there to limit the back and forth to just one of us. Since I'm here though...
I would love to see Alberto Gonzales on the Supreme Court. Even though it would handicap some of the terrorism cases, its not going to be a permanent handicap. Combine his record with the fact that he's a Texan... and that goes a long way with me.
posted by JoelL 15:10 Daniel,
I wish I could post this stuff in the comments section but the firewall will not let me do it. Nevertheless, I am surprised by your claim that you would love to see Alberto Gonzales nominated to the Supreme Court. Really? You think it would be good to nominate someone to the court who would have to recuse himself from all of the terrorism cases he worked on that will be comming in front of the Supreme Court? I don't think this is the time to handicap the court with such a nominee
posted by JoelL 14:56 Daniel,
First of all, I never said she was an unqualified attorney. She may very well be a great attorney. However, that does not mean she will be a good judge. I have personally seen great trial attorneys and otherwise fine Marine officers moved to the bench where they performed in a less than stellar manner. The Supreme Court is not the place for on the job learning. Since a positive judicial temperament is one of the more roundly accepted qualities expected of a Supreme Court nominee I fail to see how Miers can adequately be evaluated in this area since she has never been a judge. You accurately point out that many prior justices had not been judges before their appointment but that fact alone does not mean that the prior practice was an advisable one. Aside from some anecdotal evidence, some of which hardly helps your point (Taney was the author of the worst decision in Supreme Court history, Dred Scott), you fail to demonstrate why a lack of judicial experience is acceptable in a Supreme Court nominee.
Given the vast number of imminently qualified jurists of established academic and intellectual accomplishments that were simply passed over in favor of Bush’s personal attorney Grim is absolutely right to raise the cry of cronyism.
Also see my post over at Southern Appeal as to why this nomination was so bad.
posted by Daniel, USMC 12:40 Get your torches ready folks...
Grim brings up the issue of qualifications... never mind that since inception, over 40 Justices have never seen the bench, among those forty are Chief Justice John Jay (1789-1794), Chief Justice John Marshall (1801-1835), & Chief Justice Roger Taney (1836-1864), it appears that single lack is enough to begin the cries of cronyism. To which Joel continues to carry the torch speaking on the President's punt; I guess the President should have thrown the hail-mary.
Here is the official bio:
- Harriet Miers was born in Dallas, Texas on August 10, 1945.
- Ms. Miers received her bachelor's degree in Mathematics in 1967 and J.D. in 1970 from Southern Methodist University.
- Upon graduation, she clerked for U.S. District Judge Joe E. Estes from 1970 to 1972.
- In 1972, Ms. Miers became the first woman hired at Dallas’s Locke Purnell Rain Harrell.
- In March 1996, her colleagues elected her the first female President of Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell, at that time a firm of about 200 lawyers.
- She became the first female to lead a Texas firm of that size. Locke, Purnell eventually merged with a Houston firm and became Locke Liddell & Sapp, LLP, where Ms. Miers became Co-Managing Partner and helped manage an over-400-lawyer firm.
- Ms. Miers had a very distinguished career as a trial litigator, representing such clients as Microsoft, Walt Disney Co. and SunGard Data Systems Inc.
- Throughout her career, she has been very active in the legal community and has blazed a trail for other women to follow.
- In 1985, Ms. Miers was selected as the first woman to become President of the Dallas Bar Association.
- In 1992, she became the first woman elected President of the State Bar of Texas.
- Ms. Miers served as the President of the State Bar of Texas from 1992 to 1993.
- She played an active role in the American Bar Association. She was one of two candidates for the Number 2 position at the ABA, chair of the House of Delegates, before withdrawing her candidacy to move to Washington to serve in the White House. Ms. Miers also served as the chair of the ABA’s Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice.
- On numerous occasions, the National Law Journal named her one of the Nation’s 100 most powerful attorneys, and as one of the Nation’s top 50 women lawyers.
- Ms. Miers also has been involved in local and statewide politics in Texas. In 1989, she was elected to a two-year term as an at-large candidate on the Dallas City Council. She chose not to run for re-election when her term expired.
- Ms. Miers also served as general counsel for the transition team of Governor-elect George W. Bush in 1994.
- From 1995 until 2000, Ms. Miers served as Chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission, a voluntary public service position she undertook while maintaining her legal practice and other responsibilities. When then-Governor Bush appointed Ms. Miers to a six-year term on the Texas Lottery Commission, it was mired in scandal, and she served as a driving force behind its cleanup.
- Ms. Miers came to Washington D.C. in 2001 and began a period of distinguished and dedicated service that continues today.
- She was appointed to be Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary on January 20, 2001.
- In 2003, Ms. Miers was promoted to be Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff.
- Ms. Miers has served as Counsel to the President since February, 2005.
- She is single and very close to her family: two brothers and her mother live in Dallas and a third brother lives in Houston.
Sorry, but I don't see a huge lack of qualification. I would likewise challenge either of you to name an unknown appointment. Granted, I know that she is more moderate than most hard-charging right leaning folks would like... but the only agenda I want from an Associate Justice is to uphold the Constitution.
So that we may all feel we can contribute something... I'd like to solicit thoughts on who should be nominated. I, for one, would love to see Alberto Gonzales... but I am not unhappy with Ms. Miers either.
Monday, October 03, 2005
posted by Grim 21:54 Sha'riahFront Page has a great interview with Freedom House's Paul Marshall. He is talking about sha'riah law, and explains one reason that it always polls well in Muslim nations:
One thing I quickly learned was that Muslims mean very different things when they use the term. Sharia's root meaning is "the way" or "path to the water" and to most Muslims it implies doing God's will, not necessarily imitating the Taliban. In Indonesia, polls show 67 percent support for "Sharia" but only 7 percent objecting to a woman head of state. There it seems to means something like the American polling term "moral values." Polling in Iraq shows a similar pattern: 80% support for Sharia combined with 80% support for equality of men and women.Another thing that is important to realize is that there is more than one "kind" of sha'riah. There are multiple traditions of legal interpretation inside of it, but that's not what I'm getting at here. The "extreme Sharia" Marshall mentions is actually two different phenomena: the type of radical, Caliphate-style law put forth by al Qaeda, Hizb ut Tahrir, and their ilk; and traditional, tribal understandings of the Islamic law, which have evolved in place over the course of centuries. The sha'riah we encountered in Afghanistan, or that is practiced today in parts of Nigeria where Saudis have been teaching their radicalism, is fundamentally different from the kind that is practiced in Aceh province, Indonesia. We are, and must be, opposed to the first type; but the second type can be useful to us.
To many Muslims, criticism of Sharia as such sounds strange because, much as they might disagree with stoning adulterous women or cutting off the hands of thieves, the word implies “justice” or “goodness.” So I use the phrase ‘extreme Sharia’ to describe the laws implemented by the Saudis, Iran and others throughout the world.
Aceh won the right to have a sha'riah court that the Indonesian government would be bound to respect. They opened the court in 2003, but have only just begun doing any sort of corporal punishment this summer. Widows and orphans are pleased by the new court, as their rights are somewhat more certain under the Islamic law than under Indonesia's rather corrupt legal system.
Hizb ut Tahrir is active in Indonesia, but I am given to understand that they find that they have a very limited following in Aceh. A good friend of mine who is something of an expert on the topic informs me that their own native tradition of Islam is too conservative for the Islamist radical. Conservatives, if they are true conservaties, have institutions and traditions they wish to preserve and uphold. Aceh's native culture has several features, particularly forms of art, that are sternly disapproved of by the Islamists. The Islamist agitation against those features has alienated conservative Muslims from the radicals. As a consequence, this living tradition is a stronger break on the radicals than any government action has been.
Another of the ongoing disputes, my friend tells me, is over the introduction of the parts of sha'riah that cover thieving. The problem, you see, is that the Islamic law covers corrupt officials as well as bread-thieves, so there is some foot-dragging among the politicians in charge.
Nothing surprising about that, I suppose. In any event, the Islamic law is popular. Precisely because corruption is so rampant in Indonesia, there is some feeling among the people that it is good to have the option of having their case heard by local, trusted 'holy men' instead of judges appointed by the central government.
It is easy to imagine even Americans feeling the same way -- I suspect that there are many people who would rather have their legal disputes resolved by a preacher they know and trust, according to Biblical principles they feel they understand (although they may be wrong about that...), than by lawyers and judges interpreting a legal code that may be both alien and complicated. I suspect that is the case, even though we have a legal system that works fairly well most of the time, with a class of lawyers that is professional and honest, at least by Indonesian standards. If our courts and judges were routinely corrupt, the option would seem that much more appealing to that many more people.
In any event, as Marshall says, we have to engage the issue of sha'riah more than we have. If the radicals are to be defeated, we have to understand both what they really want, and what obstacles to them arise from the cultures that they are trying to change. Some of these "conservative Muslims" are potential, natural allies to us. All they want is a stable, orderly and just society, under the rules that seem natural and right to them; all we want is for them not to harbor and train terrorists.
We ought to be able to make that work. Part of the key is appearing to be an ally of the traditional and conservative parts of Islam, where they survive. The Saudi money has infiltrated much of the globe, as we have come to understand, but even that large a lever can shift a traditional culture only slowly. In those places like Aceh, where the culture's old forms are naturally opposed to the radicals, sha'riah is not our enemy. In those places like Afghanistan where the traditional culture has been uprooted by constant war, and the Saudi-financed radicals have taken over the place, it is. We have to be able to see the difference, and also to express clearly to worldwide Muslims why we are sometimes unmaking "the path to the water."
posted by JoelL 15:59 WHERE I STAND ON THE MIERS NOMINATION.
I am about as disappointed as I can be right now. I never operated under the illusion that Bush was a true movement conservative. However, I thought he would at least throw the base a bone when it came to SCOTUS nominations. Lets face it, for most of us that has been the most important issue, especially in light of the increasingly lawless left-wing tilt of the court. But what happened when Bush got the chance to nominate a SECOND justice to the Supreme Court? He punted! He passed up any number of strong proven conservative judicial choices and picks a no-body that just happens to be a friend of his.
That’s what we get for supporting President Bush. A wink, a nod, and a cheesy grin coupled with a promise that “she is one of us.” Well, that is just not enough for me. I am sick and tired of being told “so and so says she is good to go” or “this or that president of this or that conservative group gives her a thumbs up.” Here was an opportunity to have a national debate about originalism and the role of the courts in society, to move public understanding about our Constitution in a positive direction. Instead, Bush cops out and nominates someone no one has ever heard of in the pursuit of political expediency. That’s just wrong.
Even if Miers turns out to be the second coming of Scalia, which I doubt very much, the reasons and the process by which she was chosen will still have a negative impact on the legal side of the conservative movement. From here on out, judicial conservatives and academics will always be mindful that participation in the Federalist Society or the expression of strong opinions may very well be an automatic disqualifier for the federal bench. Better to keep quiet and avoid associating with those who have made their feelings known if you hope to go very far.
Such a development is not only bad for the conservative movement but for the health of the Republic as well. The process and reasons by which people in our Republic reach high office should be such that the people have a better than average chance of knowing what they are getting. We need to know where these nominees stand and what philosophy, if any, guides them. However, if the only people nominated to the highest court in the land are those who throughout their careers have successfully managed to hide their true beliefs and avoid associating with those who don’t then we will end up with a court of cowards and opportunists. I am not implying that Miers is a coward or an opportunist (I certainly hope she isn’t); only that a system that elevates stealth candidates favors such people and arms them with the advantage of anonymity, an advantage unavailable to those who are willing to take a stand for their convictions.
Our Republic deserved better.
cross posted at Southern Appeal.
posted by Grim 08:38 Good Gracious:Do I understand that the President just nominated someone to the Supreme Court who has never been a judge at all? Miers would appear to have as her main qualification that she's a personal friend of his.
Feddie isn't happy about it, and the folks at NRO apparently are struck with disbelief:In Case You Were Not Believing YetI think I'll be writing my Senators to urge that they oppose the nomination. They're both Republicans, and may feel an urge to party loyalty. But really, the Senate is not doing its job if it approves a nominee like this. This is the Julie Myers of the Supreme Court.
[Kathryn Jean Lopez 10/03 07:35 AM]
I just got something from the White House press office on Miers, so it's the real deal.
...
Miers
[Kathryn Jean Lopez 10/03 07:30 AM]
likes Daylight Savings. I'm giving you what I've got:
Hello, this is Harriet Miers. I am Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy at the White House, and I am delighted to be here to answer your questions this Friday afternoon. This is always a great weekend because we will all get an extra hour of sleep Saturday night. And given all that is going on, I have to say, we here at the White House are looking forward to that extra hour!
Sunday, October 02, 2005
posted by Grim 17:31 Boom:If this report is right, the United States has just suffered its first suicide bombing. No details beyond these seem to be available.
Hat tip Southern Appeal, whose usual devotion to college football -- an understandable and honorable devotion -- has produced something undesired. The information suggests it isn't serious, or predictive of a larger trend. Nevertheless, this is one precedent I would have rather not seen.
posted by Grim 16:50 "Scooter" Libby:One does not expect someone with the nickname of "Scooter" to prove to have the style and manners of a gentleman. In life, however, one is often surprised and even, on rare occasion, pleasantly. Via Cassandra, I encountered the letter sent to Judith Miller by Scooter Libby. The purpose of the letter is purely practical: to clarify that he has, in fact, released her from any promise of confidentiality. Yet, having addressed that purpose in kind and generous terms, this is what he writes:
You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover — Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work — and life.That is the way a gentleman writes to a lady. It is not, so far as I know, still taught in any school: there are no instructors left to teach it, unless they are Sir Walter Scott and Chesterton.
Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers.
With admiration,
/s/
Lewis Libby
My respect for the administration, on the wane somewhat of late especially due to the matter of their ICE appointee, is somewhat reinforced by this exchange. It is good to know that there is at least one among them who knows, and honors, the old forms. It isn't much compared to the great matters of war and politics: but it isn't nothing, either.
posted by Grim 11:03 Everybody Hates The Media:From Bangladesh:
Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer and Industries Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami has said the role of media is not less than that of terrorists.If a Western politician told a Press Club that the media was as bad as the terrorists, he would be eaten alive in the papers forever after. Not so much in Bangladesh, though, where the press operates under fear of arrest or "falling ill" under interrogation.
The minister was addressing a seminar on 'Fundamentalism, militancy and Islam' organised by Bangladesh Quran Shikkha Society at the Jatiya Press Club yesterday.
...
Nizami said an international clique is engaged to implicate Jamaat-e-Islami in terrorist activities and the persons being used as their tools are tarnishing the image of Islam under the garb of alems (religious scholars).
He urged the leaders and activists of the party to remain alert against this force.
...
The Jamaat chief said a newspaper ran a report that 40 percent of the arrestees from across the country on charge of bomb attacks are Jamaat members, which is totally untrue.
And when we protested the news item, the newspaper published our rejoinder, but it was done in a way so as not to be clearly noticed.
This is one reason we have such a hard time in the media wars. All bloggers can do is chide the media. Our political leaders daren't even do that. The radicals in so many places, though, can openly warn even international press agencies to beware what they say.
It's worth remembering that. Reuters, AFP, and the lot of them, they are under much darker kinds of pressure than any blogger offers. In order to operate in the unfree places at all, they are forced to strike fearful bargains. It means they are not able to report the news honestly. The only other choice, though, is not reporting it at all.
That doesn't excuse the domestic press when they refuse to produce a Yon, or to get basic facts correct, or set aside their 1960s assumptions about the way the military works. It is something to keep in mind, however, when we are thinking about the international agencies.
posted by Grim 09:06 Welcome Home:The 3/25 has come home, at last.
posted by Grim 08:40 CAIR Does Us A Favor:I'm no fan of CAIR, and I don't agree with their reasoning.
All the same, they did us a favor this time. This ad was a disaster from an Information-Operations point of view.
It's not that the ad "offers a questionable picture of your companies’ collective opinion of Islam and Muslims," as CAIR said.
It's that the ad juxtaposes a holy Islamic site with the words, "unleashes hell," a clear reference to the Marines. This frames the fight exactly in our enemy's terms. The Marines are unholy, even Satanic; they devise and design ways to destroy the Holy Places in the world.
We've already let these murderers get away with calling themselves mujahedeen, which means "Holy warriors" and is an historic term of great respect in Islamic society. We have a choice, because we have our own experts who can help us frame the debate properly. A year and a half ago, a guy I know in IO sent a tip to use the term mufsidoon instead.
I would like to think we don't do that because it's not the American way to fight over names, but to let the truth of actions speak for themselves. That belief, however much I would like to hold it, would be an obvious lie. We fight about the names of things all the time. "Pro-choice/Life" is the most obvious example, but consider the "Castle Doctrine," below, which the Brady Campaign has decided to rename the "Shoot First" law.
I find all that rather tedious and dishonest. Nevertheless, if we have the energy to spare on debates of this type, why don't we perform them where it counts?
Americans make no claim to being holy warriors. We don't mind to 'unleash hell' now and then. We tried to fight this war without attacking mosques, because of a genuine respect for religion and a desire to grant sanctuary to that which is thought holy. It didn't work, but it's not our fault it didn't work. People kept shooting mortars at us from these things. So now, if it comes to it, we'll send the Marines to clean them out as necessary.
Nevertheless, we've got to be clear that our enemies are not holy either. Indeed, if anyone here is unholy, it's not us. We're just fighting men in a bad world. When we find evildoers among us, we root them out. Our enemy encourages them.
We know all that, so maybe we don't feel like we have to say it. But we do have to say it, carefully and often. We've got to be mindful about keeping clean the distinction between the evil we fight, and the mosque in which he sometimes hides.
