Grim's Hall

Cultural Illiteracy:

Reports on negativity about the Iraq elections appear at Belmont Club and a blog called "Think Things Through" (I often use a variant of that phrase when speaking to my son). The usual suspects are involved. There is an irony here.

Both Robert Fisk and Juan Cole are regular participants in the "Americans are culturally illiterate about Arabs" school of foreign policy studies. Among other places, Cole has lamented alleged American illiteracy here and here. Fisk needs no introduction to any reader of blogs.

The irony is that both of these writers, and all of their ilk, have completely misunderstood the Iraqi cultural reaction to the elections. American soldiers and Marines, whose warrior culture is far closer to the Arabs' than is any academic or journalistic one, understood the truth from the beginning. The problem for soldiers has only been learning to think about how they would feel if the circumstances were reversed. The problem for these proud intellectuals has been something more arcane, like demonology, trying to grasp drives whose rules they have written down, but which remain totally alien and finally not understood.

In the debate -- I have had it a dozen times in as many places, and read variants of it in far more -- this school has held that the threat of violence over the elections would make them illegitimate because it would depress turnout, and even among those who came to vote, would through intimidation influence them to make false choices. Until security was certain, there could be no free election.

The thing these debaters never understood was this: in an "honor and shame society" (to use the intellectual term for it), there is great honor to be gained when there is a threat hanging over your actions. It is the same power which drove warriors of the Algonquin Nations to count coup on the enemy.

Far from depressing turnout, the insurgents inspired it.

Wretchard wrote:

[Cole]'s appreciation was totally wrong. Think of what it means for anyone to dare vote in Fallujah at all, despite the penalties prescribed by terrorists, some of whom are certain to be kinsmen. And when was the time, at any Faculty meeting, that the halt and the blind tramped in to vote (cars are banned from approaching the polling precincts for security reasons) at the risk of death?

This is correct. And if it is to be understood in its cultural context, one must recognize what a personal act of heroism means in a warrior culture. These people -- including the young and the old, the men and the women, "the halt and the blind" -- have counted coup, to bring honor to themselves and to their project. Anyone who speaks of that project, or writes about it, must show it the honor that the Iraqi people have won for it.

To do otherwise -- to try and dismiss the results or the government that forms from them -- is to fail to understand the culture and its conception of honor. It is to put personal preference above reality, to do just the thing that the Coles and Fisks of the world accuse the American warfighter of doing. Thinking Things Through has a good laugh on the point: "[Fisk] might as well be claiming dragons are flying over the southern marshes."

Wretchard asks, "Did we win?" and answers, "Who knows? But many Iraqis think they did." Indeed, they did. Remember what they won, which by their lights as by mine is honor and glory. Remember how they will expect you to treat a people who have risen from despair to do honorable and glorious things.

* I end with an aside. If this was the maximal effort of the insurgents, the assault on Fallujah was a pure success. The insurgency remains capable of brutal and murderous attacks, but not many at once. This demonstrates clearly The Myth of the Guerrilla. I wrote about this at length in "Clausewitz & The Triangle", which looked at the Iraqi insurgency from the perspective of military science.

One of the primary tools of the guerrilla is the ruse of appearing more dangerous than he really is.

Hit and run attacks, sniper attacks, bombings and the like give the appearance of a foe who is everywhere, when in fact his numbers are limited.

The guerrilla, because he chooses the place and time of combat, can appear to be everywhere at once -- and therefore a universal feature of the landscape, even when his numbers are limited. But the election, if you know what to look for, showed that tactic for what it is: an illusion.

Today, the insurgent couldn't control the battlefield. In order to remain credible, he had to create not just one ugly incident, but widespread disruption across the country.

If the insurgents had the capability, they would have hit every polling station in the country, and they would have hit hard. At many of these stations, it would have been easy to create carnage because of the massive turnout.

In fact, they managed only about two dozen deaths nationwide. Time was -- when Fallujah was in their control, and there were safe havens for planning these things and building multiple car bombs -- that they managed to kill more than twice that many at a blow. Remember the forty children blown apart at a sewage treatment plant's opening ceremony? Terrorist attacks are down 40% since Fallujah was taken by the Marines, and that's just measuring the numbers of attacks. As you can see from today's maximal effort, the power of the attacks has also weakened.

As mentioned above, the fact is that the insugency wasn't able to put an end to voting even in Fallujah itself, where there remain sufficient numbers of closet guerrillas to kill people who voted in coming days. Last April, there was much fretting that Iraq was being lost as a surge of guerrillas and Mahdi army fighters claimed sections of nine cities across the nation. Now, the elections took place in every last city, even in the teeth of the enemy heartland.

Have we won? Not yet; there is still the hard business of setting up a government, and making it run. We will be needed for some time yet to help out in that regard. That will allow the guerrilla to rebuild his illusion; once again, he can choose one target every day or few days, and appear to be everywhere and all powerful.

But remember what it looked like when the curtain was pulled away for a moment. We are winning. We will have the victory. Time and leverage are all we need. We have plenty of the latter.

Iraqi elections

The Election:

There are several things I might blog about today. All of them pale in comparison to the importance of the Iraqi election.

I therefore request you take whatever time you might have spent here, and visit the Friends of Democracy. They are the only group covering the elections from the Iraqi grassroots.

I hope for all the best for Iraq.

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate

The Rise, or The Decline

Arts & Letters Daily links to a feud between Matthew Parris of London and Victor Hanson of California. The topic? Whether America is about to collapse, or whether she's just getting started.

I won't try to summarize the arguments, which are well constructed and worth hearing. I do have some context to provide, however. I would like to point out that the feud takes precisely the form of the claims of Marx and Joseph Schumpeter. Marx outlined what he saw as structural problems with capitalism, and projected its inevitable demise. Schumpeter, while agreeing that capitalism was doomed in the long term, explained that Marx failed to grasp the robust nature of the beast.

Marx thought that the trends of capitalism he observed in his day were not reversable. The trend toward monopolization, for example: the growing powers in each industry would continue to eat up smaller businesses until they had swallowed them all, and then the giants would clash. Projecting from that clash of giants, he saw the ruin of titans of industry, cast down into the proleteriat, where they would become disaffected leaders of rebellion...

Schumpeter explained that the situation was more complex. There are external factors that prevent the Gotterdammerung that Marx believed he foresaw. The main one, Schumpeter explained, was new ideas. Big corporations have trouble enacting them, as they are tied to existing products and ways of doing things. In the largest, there are whole wings staffed by people whose continued success depends on doing things just as they are now done. The institutional resistance to change makes them vunerable to smaller, faster, young companies, who can -- in the fashion of a barracuda -- strip chunks of the flesh off the giants, perhaps until there is nothing left. It is this ability to assimilate change that is the deciding factor.

Parris and Hanson occupy the same positions. Parris is attempting to demonstrate that American power can grow no further, and that rising powers are approaching the ability to strike at the United States' economic structure. Hanson points out that there are external factors Parris fails to consider:

China and India are the new tigers, but their rapid industrialization and urbanization have created enormous social and civic problems long ago dealt with by the United States. Each must soon confront environmentalism, unionism, minority rights, free expression, community activism, and social entitlements that are the wages of any citizenry that begins to taste leisure and affluence. China is fueled by industrious laborers who toil at cut-rate wages for 14 hours per day, but that will begin to moderate once an empowered citizenry worries about dirty air, back backs, inadequate housing, and poor health care. The infrastructure of generations–bridges, roads, airports, universities, power grids–are well established and being constantly improved in the United States, and so there is a reason why a European would prefer to drink the water, get his appendix out, or drive in San Francisco rather than in Bombay, Beijing, Istanbul–or Paris or Rome.

America, like capitalism, is more robust than the straight-line projections would suggest. It is robust because it has a system unusually well develpoed for absorbing and reacting to change in the world. The statist EU, China, and the rest are tied into formal decision making processes that, like the corporations of Marx's day, place decision making power in the hands of vested bureaucracies. Not so in America.

I suspect that Hanson has the better of this argument, as Schumpeter did with Marx. However, I would caution Hanson to beware the doom that Schumpeter foresaw for capitalism, which may yet befall America.

Schumpeter believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its successes. Capitalism would spawn, he believed, a large intellectual class that made its living by attacking the very bourgeois system of private property and freedom so necessary for the intellectual class's existence.

These people are the enemy of us all. Literally enough: they not only work against the underpinnings of the world, as Schumpeter warned, but they even wish us ill.

Winds of Change has more on the "large intellectual class," which is not quite as intellectual as it might seem. And the Belmont Club has more as well.

Testosterhome

On Boys:

An interesting blog called Testosterhome, run by a mother of four sons, was brought to my attention by The Corner. I enjoyed this story, which I think conveys a useful lesson society would do well to learn:

The thing about boys, I'm discovering, is that the fight is usually over by the time I hear about it. Our home is more or less tattle-free, but the lack of narking is compensated by random moans and wails off in the distance.

When someone fills me in on 'what is this all about?,' the affected parties are generally back to work building their lego ship, or amassing an arsenal of tinker-toy weapons.

I told my mom the other day that I sometimes feel obligated to make a random comment, force an apology, because that's my job. But it seems that more often than not, the boys seem to handle it in the age-old spirit of hand-to-hand combat. I'd like to train them to quietly shake hands or hug, but am realizing that would just be dragging something out that they already take care of quickly and with no strings attached.

Trial by combat: an idea whose time has come again.

The Jakarta Post - U.S. Navy to stay in Indonesia as long as needed: Captain

One Could Almost Cry:

It's so touching. A genuine, good and kind article about the United States military, from the French news service AFP.

"U.S. forces will be here through the relief effort and as long as the Indonesian government needs us to stay," USS Abraham Lincoln skipper Captain Kendall Card told reporters late Wednesday.

Skipper! They've even learned a bit of the lingo. But it gets better.

He did not say when the mission would now end, adding the U.S. forces would be ready to help Indonesia even after the emergency phase was over.

"I think the relief effort is coming to a close and now we're going towards the reconstruction phase. Our helicopters will be here to help the Indonesian government in the reconstruction phase (if asked)," he said.

Catch that? The AFP added two words, to make clear that the US' intentions were honorable.

Not, "'...our helicopters will be here to help,' the military officer said, raising fears of permanent hegemony or the establishment of unwanted US military bases." That's what I usually expect from AFP.

I once heard someone say, "In this world, justice is too much to ask for. The best you can ask is the occasional lapse in injustice." Well, if that's the best we can ask, let's make sure and mark it when we see it. Thanks, AFP, for a kind word.

Telegraph | Arts | What are we thinking of?

The Great Cold:

A book review in today's Telegraph asks "What are we thinking of?" It concerns a new book warning of environmental collapse based on historic models:

Some of the case-histories make this point convincingly. The early Norse settlers in Iceland, for example, came close to rendering the island uninhabitable, but veered from the brink just in time. (It took them a while to discover that although the green and wooded landscape resembled that of Scandinavia, the soil on which it was based was something quite unlike their native earth: a layer of fine volcanic ash, held in place only by a thin web of vegetation, and easily blown away once that vegetation was cleared.)

Their counterparts in Greenland, on the other hand, never learned from their mistakes: they cut down whatever they could burn, dug up huge areas of turf to make insulating walls, over-grazed the scanty grassland, and fought against the local Eskimos (whose ingenious methods for surviving in this environment they never bothered to copy). After several hundred years of frost-bitten subsistence, the two Norse colonies on Greenland succumbed to fighting and starvation.

How seriously should we take the idea that the failures of Norse Greenland, Easter Island and other such societies constitute warnings for our societies today?

The facts about Norse Greenland are a bit different than the book presents. The environmental change that mattered most had nothing to do with human activity, but a mini Ice-Age:

Sea ice off the coast of Iceland nearly vanished for three centuries. The effects seem to have spread to North America, where in AD 900 Eskimos settled Ellesmere Island at the usually frigid northwest corner of Greenland....

Then a chill set in. Slowly at first. People didn't want to believe it. Farmers were reluctant to give up their new fields. Settlers on Greenland held on for as long as possible. But the steadily expanding cold was irresistible by the 1200s. Unspeakable hardships began to take hold in much of the world. In Iceland, extensive grasslands that had supported sheep, goats, and cattle from AD 874 had receded by 1200. Farming became so difficult that Icelanders turned to fishing and the hunting of seals to support themselves. The population fell sharply....

By 1700, Iceland was surrounded with sea ice that made commerce with the rest of the world hazardous. And in faraway China, citrus groves that had survived for centuries froze in Jiangxi province.

There's a lesson here, yes. Just not the one the author intended.

Mudville Gazette

The Business of Iraq:

Over at the Mudville Gazette, Mrs. Greyhawk -- whose continued hard work and devotion to her soldier husband are inspirational to observe -- has a couple of important roundups today. The first is on the upcoming elections. I would like to remind you also of the Friends of Democracy project, which is collecting grassroots-level news from the Iraqi provinces. Because FoD is staffed by Iraqis, the whole of the country is open to them: election-hating thugs may not like them any better than us, but they're harder to identify.

The other article at Mudville concerns the HEROS Act, which concerns aid for widows and orphans of servicemen. The bill is sponsored by Joe Lieberman and Jeff Sessions, making it a bipartisan effort to care for the families of the fallen. Should it pass, it will be retroactive to October 2001, so that all the families of men killed fighting in the terror war will be supported.

ARMOR GEDDON

Milblogger News:

Via BlackFive, I see that Eric's favorite Milblogger, RedSix of ArmorGeddon, has been awarded the Silver Star.

Naturally, RedSix didn't mention it.

Read more here.

Jihad Watch

...And Another Bawdy House!

Jihad Watch has the latest statement from our self-described "virtuous" opponents in Iraq. This is from a leader of the Ansar al-Sunnah group, the ones who recently set off a suicide bomb inside a mess hall tent, coupled with a mortar attack from a civilian area that was timed to kill rescue and aid workers responding to the blast.

Along the way, he offers a description of how he sees us:

Cowboys, drowning in sin, corruption and pornography.

This, naturally enough, put me in the mind of the famous (and probably, the only) musical starring Clint Eastwood, Paint Your Wagon. It details the rise and fall of a frontier settlement among gold miners. It's a rollicking and tongue-in-cheek portrayal, but it actually has a number of the details right: for example, women being so rare on the frontier. In one scene, men rush in droves to see one, and one of the miners offers fifty dollars in gold dust to hold her baby for a few minutes. In fact, I've seen an illustration from a newspaper of the day, which accompanied a story describing how men would offer gifts of up to a hundred dollars' worth of gold dust just out of gratitude for the sight of a woman.

The movie examines the life of "cowboys, drowning in sin, corruption, and pornography." A review of some quotes from the movie will give you the notion: everything from drunkeness, prostitution, gambling and thievery, to the corruption of family values. Indeed, one of the main plot lines is about a pair of partners, played by Eastwood and Lee Marvin, who both marry the same woman, at the same time. "You show me in them commandments where it says a woman cain't have two husbands," Marvin says. (Actually, there proves to be a real theological question here, as a Googling of "polygamy" and "Bible" will demonstrate. People come down solidly on both sides of the matter, those opposed citing the fact that the singular tense is used in certain relevant passages, while those in favor point to the rules for taking a second wife in Exodus, and the parable of the five virgins).

It is a comedy, not intended to be a source of serious conclusions about life or anything else. The movie, made in 1969, still takes pains to wind up all of its threads in a way that confirm traditional morality. Not so the extras who made it: "Hippies were big on authentic Western costume and could supply their own wardrobe right down to the guns (yes, these hippies were armed to the teeth). They came with wives, kids, big dogs and bigger trucks and settled in for the summer, fall, winter, spring, and...I believe...a second summer. Everything you see in this movie is REAL...the poker game in the background, the French whores (imported from Paris, and yes, they plied their trade on the set and in hotels in Baker), the antiques, the long hair and handlebar moustaches. The opium den and bootleg liquor. All real and functioning."

Where did they go, these extras of 1969? American society, though condemned by Ansar al-Sunnah, has not become awash in such things as compared to the late Sixties. If anything, the opposite has occurred: the hippies got old, most of them took what used to be called "straight jobs," and they raised "straight" children. The price of human freedom has not been high: in return for not suppressing the radicals of 1969 with the religious violence favored by the Islamist, what have we suffered?

Something, surely; I expect readers will provide answers, and indeed I can think of a few myself, though also some benefits. On balance, I think we are to the good for this transaction. Human liberty has costs, but they are not so very high when you consider the alternatives. It also has benefits, which prove to be pure profit.

That train of thought proves to be a call for genuine tolerance. That call puts me diametrically opposed to Ansar al-Sunnah: and using that as my landmark, the principles of land navigation suggest to me that I'm right where I should be.

UPDATE: Given the snow, I've had a little time to think quietly while I clear the road and drive with shovel and broom. The metaphor of land navigation is good, but not complete. You really need two navigational points to be sure of your location, and this is only one.

The other navigational point has to be excessive secularization. If complete intolerance of religious variance is one point, the other has to be complete intolerance of religious expression. If one point is a demand for conformity to one view of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, or the like, the other must be a demand for a rejection of all such things.

The middle ground -- a tolerant, but vibrant and religious, society -- is surely the right place to be. It's a happy thing that America's traditions reach their best expressions in just that place.

And in taking those navigational measurements, I find a third beacon unsuspected, right in the center of the place I seek to inhabit. It is joy. The movie I started with is an expression of glee almost from beginning to end. There is nothing of joy in the scorn of Ansar al-Sunnah, nor in the raving of atheists who list the Vatican as a 'hate site.' This is the ground on which we can be happiest. Happy, all of us, even the psychotic and the radical atheist, who find their highest joy in railing against the rest of us.

The Sun News | 01/20/2005 | Gear gathered for Iraq horses

Tack for Iraq:

You may have seen the 1st Cavalry, Horse Detachment in coverage of yesterday's military festivities honoring the inauguration. This is the last horse-mounted unit in the Army, still wearing uniforms dating to the glory days of "yellowlegs" riding across the West. (Those of you in the MILSCI project may enjoy this short but interesting overview of the uses of cavalry in combat.)

In any event, you might have gotten the idea that this 1st Cavalry, Horse was a purely ceremonial unit. Not so! Part of the unit is deployed in Iraq, caring for the remains of the Iraqi National Herd of Arabians. Sadly, more than eighty percent of the herd -- and all of their tack -- was destroyed by a Tomahawk missile during the air raids on Baghdad.

The Soquili Equine Center is taking up tack to send to 1st Cavalry, in order to help repair some of the damage done. The Iraqi people, as is often the case in an Arab nation, revere their national herd. The loss of those horses was a heavy blow to them, but the work done by American soldiers, and especially the attention of private American horsemen, have overwhelmed their expectations and made some real friendships across the oceans.

If you're interested in helping out -- whether you have old tack, or wish to make donations of other sorts -- you can contact "Tack for Iraq" here.

DoD News: Statement from Pentagon Spokesman Lawrence DiRita on Latest Seymour Hersh Article

Hold those Horses!

It isn't all that often that the Pentagon goes after a journalist. Probably it should happen more often than it does. But it's satisfying to see.

By his own admission, Mr. Hersh evidently is working on an “alternative history” novel. He is well along in that work, given the high quality of “alternative present” that he has developed in several recent articles.

This is an official statement of the Department of Defense, remember.

Notes

Changes & Projects:

Please note that The Adventures of Chester, a blog by a fairly insightful Reserve officer of Marines, has moved to a new location. I've adjusted the links accordingly. If you're not familiar with Chester, you might enjoy his writings.

Grim's relative slowdown in blogging may or may not end soon. My current contract is keeping me very busy, and I've had less time to think lately -- and therefore, less to talk about.

However, blogging done well is a conversation, not a lecture. It's good to have friends and companions who drop by to comment, or send emails. I got a couple of those from our friends at Spirit of America. They're gearing up on several projects, and asked me to help let you know about them.

One is Friends of Democracy, which describes itself as "ground-level election news from the Iraqi people." They're putting together a grassroots correspondents' network in Iraq's 18 provinces, and also networking with Iraqi bloggers and via email with Iraqis who are online. The hope is to provide more of an unfiltered look at what the Iraqi people themselves think and say about the process.

SoA is also still working on the Arabic-language blogging tool, Viral Freedom.

Finally, they're planning to do some coverage of the Iraqi elections themselves. They wanted me to help them find some folks with skills they need. Here's what they want:

We need an site editor/producer for the English language Web site.
That position is described here.

And, we are looking for people who can develop election coverage
graphics for the FoD website and Jan 30th event. People with
experience developing graphics for the web and for broadcast would be
especially helpful.

I think that some of you may fit that bill, if you're interested. As you can see from the site design here, Grim is not an expert at such things.

Grim's Hall

On the Boxer Story:

Jeff Jarvis administers a beating to the New York Times. Grim is one of those bloggers who met the brothers, and blogged about it. If the Times is properly humiliated by the poverty of their reporting and wants to do a follow-up, I'll be glad to receive questions.

Rich Lowry on Zell Miller on National Review Online

Zell Was Right:

So say national Democratic Party leaders, according to this piece:

'What I was telling them was right and correct, if only they had listened to it,' says Miller, who recently retired from the Senate. Democrats are essentially saying these days that they want a party in which someone like Zell Miller can feel comfortable. Alas, they used to have one. But, as someone once put it, today's Democrats are a national party no more.

It's not too late -- if they have the guts to make the necessary changes.

Commentary - Americanism--and Its Enemies

The Faithful:

Commentary magazine runs this month a piece by a Yale university professor of computer science, David Gelernter. Dr. Gelenter argues that Americanism is a religion in fact, not just in form:

Many thinkers have noted that Americanism is inspired by or close to or intertwined with Puritanism. One of the most impressive scholars to say so recently is Samuel Huntington, in his formidable book on American identity, Who Are We? But my thesis is that Puritanism did not merely inspire or influence Americanism; it turned into Americanism. Puritanism and Americanism are not just parallel or related developments; they are two stages of a single phenomenon.

The argument he makes is an extended one, well informed and resonant. I am not, myself, familiar with a number of the sources and documents he cites, particularly the early government and church documents from the Founding. Even so, I can see that there is a great truth hidden here. I recommend the piece to you all.

Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall

Social Security:

Monomaniac Joshua Micah Marshall has turned his laser-beam focus on the issue of Social Security reform. Well, actually, he's turned his focus on the issue of putting a stop to any attempt to have Social Security reform.

This is not surprising. Social Security is the strongest bastion of socialism in America. With Welfare reform having taken place, it is the one program left to satisfy someone whose political preferences run toward European-style "social democracy." If you lose this ground, you lose it all.

It happens that Grim is an enemy of the whole "social democratic" program. Aristotle notes that 'a proper upbringing' is necessary to having the correct understanding of arete, a word that encompasses both "excellence" and "virtue" in the modern English. Social democracy, because it redirects responsibility and power from the individual to the state, produces the exact opposite of a proper upbringing. It produces a set of expectations about how the world should work that undermines the qualities necessary in a free man.

This objection stands regardless of the practicality of the program -- it is an objection to a welfare system that works, as much as to a welfare system that is broken. Arguing that the program works well doesn't change the fact that what it does so very well is ultimately unhealthy.

However, this philosophy does have exceptions at the margins, and Social Security happens to occupy one. Programs to care for the aged offer little threat to the character of the nation or her citizens, as the character of a man of sixty-five is largely formed. We've observed that there is still some threat in this regard ("Where'd you get all the money?" "The government. I didn't earn it, I don't need it, but if they miss one payment, I raise hell!"). Still, if that is taken into account and adjustments are made to lessen the effect, this is a place where some government involvement can do more good than harm. Social Security reform could be meaningful simply by instituting a strict means test. Only the truly poor elderly would get money, in the medium future; in the near future, we would have a declining scope of payments, so that those who have been relying on Social Security would not be let down.

The needy elderly can thereby be cared for, but the percentage who rely in some fashion on Social Security will be low enough that it won't produce a large faction prepared to vote itself largess from the public treasury, as Sir Alexander Fraser Tyler warned us at the outset of this adventure. Expenditures for caring only for the needy will be far lower than current expenditures, which are outrageously high because the program is structured to make Social Security the "right" of all Americans.

The alternative route -- private accounts, so that "social security" money becomes instead privately owned assets -- is also satisfactory. It addresses the needs of the elderly, prevents the voting of largess from the public treasury, and preserves the principle of individual responsibility and power. It doesn't do it as well as simply leaving the money in the hands of the people to start with, naturally, but it seems a reasonable compromise position. As with any compromise, neither side is really satisfied. The democratic socalist will find the whole thing less satisfactory than guaranteed payments from the treasury; the individualist will find the paperwork and hassle of working with the government to manage his account frustrating, and wonder why he can't just please manage his own money without interference. Those of us who feel that society has a duty to care for the elderly will be satisfied, though, regardless of whether we feel the government should be the agency fulfilling society's responsibility.

All that said, there is one part of this discussion that I find astonishing. The debate seems to be focusing itself on defining the precise moment at which Social Security becomes insolvent. Advocates of the maximum position say that it won't be for decades; advocates of the minimum say that, in just five years, the program will stop producing more revenue than it expends, and it's all downhill from there. This is a cynical way to argue, on both sides.

The minimal position is correct to say that the "watershed moment" is nearby, and that this will require certain measures to be taken by, say, 2042. The longer we wait, the sterner the measures have to be. But words like "crisis" derail the whole point of this argument, which is that we don't have to have a crisis if we address the situation now.

The maximum position wants to make only half of that last argument: 'we don't have to have a crisis.' That is not true unless we undertake reform in the near future. You can't have only half the argument.

It is no good to argue that a crisis is "decades away" when you are talking about a retirement plan. Those are meant to be planned decades in advance. Informing someone of the age of twenty that there won't be a crisis until they are at least 62 years old is not encouraging. That's just when they are going to need to avoid a crisis.

Pushing the crisis date back a few years, if it can be done at that point, really only makes things worse. For a thirty year old today, hearing that the money may run out when you're 72 should be alarming. That will be when you're good and retired and have no real option of returning to work should the money run out. Hearing that it may not happen until you are 75 is not very comforting; indeed, the only comfort to be derived from this argument is the hope that you might manage to die before the crisis arrives.

dallasobserver.com | Pants on Fire | 2004-12-30

A Lesson in Politics:

Via Samizdata, I found this story from the Dallas Observer. It provides a useful reminder of the nature of politics, and politicians.

The D magazine special edition goes on and on about the recreational amenities the Trinity River project will create: '...the Trinity River will accommodate small sailboats and paddle boats,' the magazine tells its readers. 'More interestingly, a reverse-flow lake is planned with a 17-foot drop where it curves back to the river, creating rapids and a perfect whitewater course for winter kayaking competitions...

'But the most visible benefit will be on the Oak Cliff side, which will have easy access to downtown, great views and--most important of all--along the levee, direct entry into the country's largest urban park.'

All of this is a lie.

How does he know? Why, the real plans were contained in the "executive summary" document:

Here's the point. And remember, in months of preparation, reporting and interviews, there is no way that somebody at D magazine did not know this: There is no white-water kayaking, no waterfalls, none of that in this plan. The exact word in the document is "none."

And what if the city were able to come up with another $110 million[?] ... Dallas Mayor Laura Miller is quoted in the magazine as saying the extra $110 million, for which she is willing to recommend a tax hike, will "put all the bells and whistles" on the project. So how much white-water kayaking will "all the bells and whistles" include?

None. We don't get white-water rafting until we come up with the additional $700 million.

...

Maybe you weren't sure a minute ago, by the way, what a "reverse-flow lake" is. Please let me explain. Right now all of the water in the Trinity River is "effluent" or doo-doo water from upriver sewage treatment plants, some of which don't meet minimal EPA standards. It's not safe to swim in. I have spoken to experts who have said it would be unsafe to go sailing on top of this water unless you were wearing a HAZMAT suit.... What we are getting instead is a stagnant rainwater lake with groundwater pumps that somebody hopes will keep the lake a little bit wet during the dry season.

Boating? Well, sure, if you want to park downtown and carry your boat across the levees and down through the ticks and chiggers to the stagnant water. The levee-top roads and the park access roads shown in all the fancy graphics for this project are not in the plan.

Neither, by the way, are the recreation terraces, the amphitheater or the concession and event facilities. They're not in the basic plan. They're not in the $110 million plan. They're in your dreams.

This little example from Dallas can be replicated by glancing at any spending bill passed by Congress. Dave Barry was exactly right when he said:

We must always remember that, as Americans, we all have a common enemy - an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.

I agree entirely. And I'm a patriot, fierce as they come. I believe in the Republic, just not in Republicans. Like Chesterton,

Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.

My father was right: politicians should be allowed to serve as long a term as they want in government, just so long as they immediately after they lose their first election, they serve an equal number of years in prison.

Laksamana.Net

Ingeld & Christ:

An interesting story from Laksamana.Net underlines both the differences of Southeast Asian Islam, and the age of the region's cultures.

Majelis Mujahedeen Indonesia, or "Indonesian Council of Holy Warriors" (MMI), is a radical group founded on all too familiar principles: the founding of an Islamic state where there is now Indonesia, a state under Islamic law. It holds all the vaguely Wahabbi strictures about life. The Front Pembla Islam, or "Defenders of Islam Front" (FPI) is a vigilante group designed around enforcing those same strictures. It does things like attack and destroy cafes that serve alcohol in Jakarta during the fast of Ramadan.

These groups, linked to Saudi Arabia's vast school-funding movement, will hold no suprises for the Western reader. But there is one part of Indonesia that is actually under Islamic law (sha'riah): Aceh province. And there is a separatist movement in Aceh province which has been fighting for the full independence of Aceh from the Indonesian government. The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) is a name you will probably get to know in the next few weeks, as they spar with the Indonesian military around our Marines and sailors.

Here's the twist, for those of you who have not heard of Aceh before now: GAM has demanded the expulsion of MMI and FPI from Aceh province.

"The government of Aceh in exile... deplores the arrival in Aceh of members of the thuggish so-called Islamic Defenders Front and the terroristic Indonesia Mujahidin Council. The introduction of these organizations into Aceh at this most critical time squanders scarce resources by the Indonesian government which is better allocated to the victims of the recent tsunami," said the statement.

"The FPI and MMI are not welcome in Aceh and have never been supported by the Acehnese people, nor has their presence been requested. The FPI has been involved in sectarian killings in Maluku and Central Sulawesi and illegal attacks against non-Muslims and others in Java and elsewhere."

The statement said MMI is the "umbrella organization for groups such as Laskar Jihad, Laskar Jundullah and the FPI" and has "the explicit aim of turning Indonesia into a non-democratic fundamentalist Islamist state".

"The actions and words of both the FPI and MMI are against the teachings of the Holy Qur'an and the Hadith and contradict the tolerance and faith of Acehnese Muslims. Neither the FPI nor the MMI has any credentials or skills in disaster relief, and their presence is clearly intended as a provocation to the people of Aceh. Their intervention in Aceh is therefore counter-productive and is not wanted," it added.

GAM is an indigenous people's movement defending, in their way, the traditional culture of Aceh. Precisely because it is a genuinely traditional movement, it frowns on Islamist/Wahabbi rhetoric and practices of the sort that has become popular in the urban areas of Indonesia among groups such as FPI and MMI. Islamists are enemies of traditional cultural practices, such as the famous Indonesian shadow puppets, which aren't directly related to Islam -- in fact, they have their roots in Hindu culture, though they are now an important feature of life in Aceh province.

It was in just this way that early Christian saints deplored the traditional culture they were trying to supplant: you may remember Alcuin's famous diatribe against traditional Germanic hero poems, "What has Ingeld to do with Christ?"

Very early in the life of Grim's Hall, I wrote a piece suggesting that the relationship between Ingeld and Christ was the way to break the Islamist movement. I still think that it is, as the Aceh case may demonstrate. What has Wayang to do with Islam? To the people of Aceh, they are as father and mother.

Musings of The GeekWithA.45

Royal Marines:

The GeekWithA.45 tells a story, pertaining to the selection of a military sidearm:

'As regards to calibers, I once had a Royal Marine tell me, over Guiness in a London pub: 'The 9mm is, you see, a round invented in Europe for shooting other Europeans.

'Being civilized, we fall down when shot, and wait for the chaps with the red cross armbands to carry us off.

'You yanks, on the other hand, keep getting into arguments with disagreeable sorts who insist on trying to kill you after they've already been shot, so naturally you think you have to blow great bloody holes in them. Quite right, really.'

I'm not sure if he means that it's "quite right" that we favor the big guns, or that these folks keep insisting on trying to kill us. Hard to tell with the Brits. That dry sense of humor, you know.

It's worth noting that the Texas Rangers were early adopters of the five-shot Paterson Colt revolver, which fired a lightweight round of .36 caliber, with even lighter calibers available. They used it to great effect in the constant skirmishes, and occasional battles, with the Commanche. The heavy Walker Colt was designed later on the recommendations of one of the most famous of the early Rangers, Captain Sam Walker. Among his innovations was an increase to .44 caliber. Although this weapon was designed by a Ranger for the needs of Rangers, many didn't like it because of the heavy weight and massive concussion. They stuck with the Patersons.

So it's an old debate, really, even among Americans.

Philstar.com - The Filipino Global Community

Incitement:

If you want to interrupt a festival, this is how serious people do it:

"Had we not recovered these bombs and arrested these people, the procession could have turned into a bloodbath," said Senior Superintendent Elmer Jamias, chief of WPD Station 5 which covers Ermita.

The place is the Philippines, where suicide bombers linked to Jemaah Islamiyah and a local mosque were planning to infiltrate a Christian parade, on the feast of "the Black Nazarene."

Tens of thousands of barefoot Roman Catholics take part in the annual Jan. 9 procession in which the centuries-old ebony statue of Jesus is taken from Quiapo church and paraded around the district.

Among the most prominent regular participants is Vice President Noli de Castro.

"The scenario is, there would be suicide bombers in the feast of the Black Nazarene," Jamias said.

"They would rig their bodies with bombs, join the procession, and blow themselves up. God made sure this would not happen," Jamias added.

No one could be sure that the police caught all the bombers, or recovered all the explosives. In spite of that, the largest crowd ever came out to the Quiapo Church. The vast turnout slowed the procession, such that suicide bombers could have easily decimated the crowd. Bombs in such a crowd would be brutal, but less so than the stampede and the crush which would follow. Supporters seemed unafraid:

Despite concerns that the procession might be attacked by militants, hundreds of thousands of devotees thronged to see the ebony statue of Jesus Christ, which is believed to have miraculous healing powers, as it was paraded through the sidestreets of Quiapo district.

"We were not bothered by the reported plot to bomb the procession. But if anything happens, at least we are in the presence of the Nazarene," said market vendor Mario Dignos....

"I’m not scared of anything, even bombs," added Zenaida Gutierrez, a housewife. "I am with the Lord."

This is the spirit of the true martyr, unlike the twisted form of the word which has come to grace the lips of the cruel. It reflects in any number of ancient texts, but still has the power to astonish. We have seen it before, but never become accustomed to it.

It is this kind of radical hope and faith which alone can defeat the enemy. We see similar courage in the hearts of men and women standing in line to vote in Afghanistan, and we shall see it in Iraq. We saw that kind of courage, once, in Tienanmen Square. We see it in our heroes and volunteers.

These men and women have met with different fates. The pilgrims of Quiapo pass unmolested; the students of Tienanmen were driven under with tanks and bayonets. The voters in Afghanistan suffered but little, and gained much; there is no doubt that the voters of Iraq will suffer more, for the enemy is more powerful in their nation. And as for our own fighting men, they contest from behind the strongest armor and most deadly firepower we can devise. Our medical skill is second to none, and the injured can be transported to safety for the length of his recovery. But it would be folly to say there is nothing to fear:

Thus ended the memorable field of Ashby-de-la-Zouche, one of the most gallantly contested tournaments of that age; for although only four knights, including one who was smothered by the heat of his armour, had died upon the field, yet upwards of thirty were desperately wounded, four or five of whom never recovered. Several more were disabled for life; and those who escaped best carried the marks of the conflict to the grave with them. Hence it is always mentioned in the old records, as the Gentle and Joyous Passage of Arms of Ashby.

Yet they go, each in their turn. In their courage, the world has hope. It falls to us to be worthy of them: and to go ourselves, if Fate should call.

Monday

Kurdistan:

Every twenty years
Comes to us a gambling man
To stake our country and culture
And resources and rivers
And trees and fruit
And men and women
And the waves and the sea
At the gambling table.

That poem, written by the late poet Nizar al-Qabbani, is quoted as part of an article in the Kurdistan Observer, entitled "Of Arab Political Culture, the Kurds, and the Falsehood Called Iraq." It provides a genuine, independent assessment from a Kurdish point of view.

The author obviously feels a great weight on his shoulders in trying to provide such a view. He feels it necessary to reject, by name: Al Jazeera, John Kerry, Al Quds Al Arabiyah, Edward Said, Saddam, the CIA and Mossad but also anti-Zionist forces in Arab culture, a former professor at the US War College and a top Arab writer named al-Obaidi. It isn't all negative: The New Yorker comes in for some high praise.

[A]t a time when even the United Nations was acting like nothing had happened at Halabja, it was magazines like the New Yorker and journalists like Goldberg who forced the truth upon the consciousness of an indifferent world. Yes, some of these writers were Jewish; yes, some of these writers are people with dual citizenships. But to claim, as al-Obeidi does in his piece, that much of what Mr. Goldberg has written about Halabja is not a representation of what actually had happened but rather the product of some sort of a conspiracy by a man of "Israeli/American citizenship" is to reveal a deep-rooted commitment to a culture of lies and bigotry. Mr. Goldberg is capable of telling the truth about Halabja because intellectual honesty prevents him from doing otherwise. Mr. al-Obeidi is incapable of telling the truth about Halabja because, being the brainchild of Arab political culture, he is not accustomed to intellectual honesty.

Having thrown off so much of the worlds' weight -- that is, the Arab World's and the Western World's -- the author is finally sufficiently unencumbered to explain his own view. The poem he closes with is telling, but no less than the argument that preceeds it. If you wanted an independent assessment of the situation in Iraq, here it is.

MILSCI:

Hi everybody! Hope everyone had a nice holiday(s) and all. I've not been about due to some work related matters, but I think that may be easing up some.

So, I was going to contrast the Army's Field Manual 100-5, Operations, with the Marine Corps' Warfighting manual, but I just stumbled across this blog which I think will demonstrate the Army's current way of fighting in a way 'not so dry' as the manuals can be.

The author is a 1st Lieutenant in an armor regiment, and is writing up his experiences from the battle of Fallujah. I give you Armor Geddon.

AIM Column - Muslims vs. Muslims: The Untold Story - January 4, 2005

Muslims v. Muslims:

Accuracy in Media has a story today that targets the notion that Americans are insufficiently protective of Muslim holy buildings. The author argues that the real story, if you want to talk about the destruction of Muslim holy sites, is the story of other Muslims doing it.

Ironically, however, during the same month that thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets in a furor over what America was doing in Iraq, zealots with the backing of the Pakistani police stormed the Ahmadiyya mosque in Nakhalpara, Pakistan, to remove books deemed offensive to Islam and banned by the government. The Ahmadiyya sect of Islam has had its mosques attacked and reduced to rubble and their creeds erased from the front of mosques. This sect is singled out as heretical because it is dedicated to non-violence and opposes terrorism....

Giving Pakistan a run for their money, though, is the astonishing scope of destruction of Islamic sites in Saudi Arabia. Historic tombs, landmarks, mosques and battle sites, all central to the Muslim faith, have either been destroyed or been ordered to be destroyed. The birthplace of Mohammed, founder of the Islamic faith, was razed over and turned into a public restroom.

These clashes within Islam -- clashes over how it should be interpreted, and by whom -- have always been more important than the clashes between Islam and the outside world.

Jeremy Black of the University of Exeter wrote a piece for last year's Orbis called "The Western Encounter with Islam." For most of Islam's history, he argues at length, Islam was only barely interested in the West at all, even during the occasional wars with Christendom.

The West’s primary concern with the relationship between Christendom and Islam appears to be underlined by the traditional world map, with its depiction of an Islamic world stretching into the Balkans and the Western Mediterranean. However, if the conventional map— an equal-area cartogram— is replaced by an equal-population cartogram, then a very different perception of Islam emerges. It becomes a religion not primarily of the Arab world but of South Asia: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Iran....

In every century of its history, more people have been killed in the Islamic world in conflicts among Islamic powers than in conflicts between Islam and the West. We tend to think that the major external problem has always been Western power. But from an extraordinarily early stage, Islam fractured between a large number of polities, some of which were linked to religious and/or ethnic divides. These divisions were much more important in many senses than what took place on the margins.

Thomas Friedman argues today that these divisions are the very challenge we face in Iraq:

This is a tough call, but I hope the elections go ahead as scheduled on Jan. 30. We have to have a proper election in Iraq so we can have a proper civil war there. Let me explain: None of these Arab countries — Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia — are based on voluntary social contracts between the citizens inside their borders. They are all what others have called "tribes with flags" — not real countries in the Western sense. They are all civil wars either waiting to happen or being restrained from happening by the iron fist of one tribe over the others or, in the case of Syria in Lebanon, by one country over another.... [U]nlike in Eastern Europe -- where a democratic majority was already present and crying to get out, and all we needed to do was remove the wall -- in Iraq we first need to create that democratic majority.

This seems to be the evolving consensus. But it is not complete.

In fact, there is a democratic polity in Iraq. There is a large section of the population that is urbane, and that identifies itself first as "Iraqi," and only second or third as "Shi'ite" or "Sunni," or a member of this sect, or a follower of that traditional clan of imams. Both LtCol Couvillon, and Omar and Mohammed of Iraq the Model spoke about that group, and how large it is. Both Omar and Mohammed are members of the group -- witness Mohammed's new year's poem about the "Sons of Iraq." The Colonel said that his experience holding local elections suggested a turnout that neared one hundred percent, and was certainly ninety percent, of all eligible voters.

There are universities and students, professionals, and tradesmen -- even Communist-oriented unions. The "tribes with flags" still do exist in Iraq. Primarily they are out with the insurgency, but some -- for example, the Kurdish Peshmerga -- are fighting on our side. These tribes exist alongside the polity Friedman says we need to create. But to a large degree, those tribes which are participating in the process are being drawn into it, and thereby transformed into members of the democratic polity:

In Kirkuk... I could sense that there's an alliance between the Arabs and the Turkmen to balance forces with the strong Kurdish alliance. Many Kurds have demanded to postpone the elections of the city board as they felt that it's not easy to compete with the Arabic-Turkmen alliance. Still, this demand didn't include the general elections as Iraq is considered one electoral region and local alliances that are limited to a certain spot will not have an effect on the big picture.

In the south, the tribes decided to contribute to the IP and the army efforts in protecting the electoral centers within their regions and this was agreed on after a meeting for the higher commission with the tribes' heads in Hilla and Nasiriyah.

Compare the attempts to use democratic politics to "balance" ethnic tensions in Kirkuk with the story from Georgia of yesterday. Consider the tribal warriors, serving alongside the Iraqi Police and the National Guard to protect polling stations from insurgents. Remember the democrats, the Omars and Mohammeds, going back and forth about the country even in this time of chaos, talking about democracy, manning polling stations, organizing parties, teaching the tribes.

There is the civil war Friedman says he wants.

CNN.com - Sheriff posts snipers�after firings - Jan 4, 2005

Bad News From Georgia:

A headline you generally don't want to see in your local paper: "Sheriff posts snipers after firings."

On his first day on the job, the new sheriff called 27 employees into his office, stripped them of their badges, fired them, and had rooftop snipers stand guard as they were escorted out the door.

The move Monday by Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill provoked an angry reaction and prompted a judge to order him to rehire the employees.

The Sheriff had a few words to say in his defense:

"A lot of people are under the impression that the sheriff's office is under civil service laws," he said. "But my research shows the employees work at the pleasure of the sheriff." ...

Hill said the manner in which he fired the workers -- including taking some deputies home in vans normally used to transport prisoners because the deputies were barred from using county cars -- was necessary.

He cited the assassination of Sheriff Derwin Brown in neighboring DeKalb County in 2000. Brown was gunned down in the driveway of his home three days before he was to be sworn in. Former sheriff Sidney Dorsey was found guilty of plotting to kill him and sentenced to life in prison.

"Derwin Brown sent out letters to 25 to 30 people letting them know they would not be reappointed when he took office," Hill said.

CNN reports a "racial overtone" to the firings. I'm normally suspicious when the media finds "racial overtones" in anything, but this time it's hard to avoid agreeing:

Hill was among a spate of black candidates elected last year in the county once dominated by rural whites. The county seat was the setting for the fictional plantation Tara in "Gone With The Wind."

The fired employees included four of the highest-ranking officers, all of them white. Hill told the newspaper their replacements would be black.

Georgia is a large state -- the largest east of Big Muddy. I've lived most of my life inside her borders, and there are huge swathes of the state I've only visited once or a few times. Clayton County I've only been through, travelling from my family's home in the mountains to Savannah on the coast. As a consequence, I don't have anything much to say about the place. It's in classic plantation-cotton country, unlike the mountains to the north or the lowlands to the south and on the coast.

Population changes in Georgia have outpaced the nation for decades now, but there remain pockets of old Southern families, who have lost control of their local governments due to the heavy immigration from the rest of the country. That's undone all the traditional social systems, which will tend to inspire violence and chaos in any culture. It's probably a measure of the relative civilization of the United States that it hasn't been worse than this: with Iraq and Afghanistan in the rearview mirror, one doesn't have to think hard to imagine what can happen when the balance of power between vaguely hostile ethnic groups is changed. And really, both of those places have been fairly gentle examples themselves: for the real story, look to Daurfur, or remember the Japanese invasions of Asia.

Likely it will work itself out peacefully, through the courts and the county commission. Still, it's a reminder of how fragile are order and peace. Even in the greatest civilization of our day, one can wake to find the police posting snipers against their former officers, for fear of assassination.

The Diplomad: More UNreality . . . But the Dutch Get It

End the UN:

The Tsunami has been the blow that even Iraq was not. The thing is utterly worthless: indeed, insofar as it provides legitimacy to the corrupt, it has only negative worth. It's past time to put an end to our participation in this fiasco, and send them packing to higher ground. Switzerland, say.

But not Holland. The Dutch are pretty irritated with them, too.

China e-Lobby

China:

The China e-Lobby has decided to cease publication of its email newsletters, and become a blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, and good luck.

YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS

Yeah, Good Idea:

The title of the article speaks for itself: "Kim Jong-Il Urges Increased Rice Output This Year." Well, never let it be said that the Communist system can't identify its problems. Fortunately, they have the leadership of Kim to guide... no, I won't even type it out. The DPRK is immune to sarcasm. Next week, I could be reading in Yonhap, "American MilBlogger praises Kim Jong-Il's wise leadership."

Mudville Gazette

Advice to Reporters:

Greyhawk has some advice to reporters covering Iraq. I think they're pretty much already following it, though.

China

China: Lessons Learned

There have recently been some excellent translations out of the Chinese and Japanese, on the subject of the lessons learned by the Chinese military while observing several recent wars. The Iraq war is one of these, and the NATO action in the Balkans, and the Gulf War.

Due to their length and the lack of an "extended entry" capability at Grim's Hall, I've posted these over at Del's Free Speech site. They are rather long, but rewarding.

The translations, which are from the Eurasia Research Group's Global Geopolitics Group, provide some real insight into the Chinese military approach and mindset. If any of you are interested in thinking about China and the Chinese military, this is a hearty serving of useful information.

Grim's Hall

Canis:

For reasons entirely unrelated to my intentions, I spent the majority of the day with dogs. Dogs, and one noble cousin.

I was supposed to have dinner with a business associate, but on the way she was diverted to assist in an emergency with a dog charity group for whom she does volunteer work. This is All Breed Rescue and Referral. The dogs, it seems, were escaping, and they needed help fixing the electrical fence.

Just why they called her for this is not immediately clear to me. She's a wonderful, good-hearted and cheerful young woman. She isn't, however, a country girl -- a fact that became immediately clear at the feed & seed on the way out to the kennel, where she was trying to buy parts for the electrical fence. It's no dishonor to have grown up in the suburbs and not know anything about electrical fences; and she was therefore not dishonored.

Still, by coincidence she happened to be with me when the call came in, and I've worked on plenty. I grew up in North Georgia's cattle country. My family had an electrical fence; my neighbors had them; our friends had them. So, I figured we could pick up the needed supplies on the way and a pair of blue jeans for me, as I was wearing my office clothes -- but also cowboy boots, so no need for extra shoes -- and fix up whatever the trouble was in about an hour.

The "about an hour" thing didn't work out. I won't go into the details, but it took at least four hours to take care of all the details involved in the exercise, and that isn't what I wanted to write about anyway. What I wanted to write about was the wolf.

His name is Tundra. His back is as high as the top of my hip, and his head stops about the top of my armpit. He is a pure white, as are the white wolves of the high tundra. I don't know that he is an arctic wolf, though; he could be an Eastern Timberwolf with a rare coloration. He has the yellow eyes characteristic of his kin.

I was warned on the way in that I might have to fight him off. Apparently he can be aggressive. In fact, he tried to knock me down twice as I walked in, once from each side. The first time I knocked him down; the second, I just nudged him off. After that, he was perfectly peaceful. He followed me much of the afternoon, just at the heel, and often licked at my hand and let me pet him when I wasn't working.

This gives the lie to almost everything I've ever heard about wolves. I don't know if he is an exception, or if I've simply been misinformed. I've always heard that wolves in captivity are quite dangerous and a little unstable, being wild animals. And it's true that the head of the rescue organization warned her assistant a time or two to keep him separate from some of the other animals, lest he kill them.

Even so, what a fine beast, and what noble eyes. It is easy to see how we came to befriend them, once upon a time in the morning of the world.

The Diplomad

Disaster Relief:

The US military's response to the disaster in PACOM has been magnificent. The Diplomad has more.

The Blogger's Tsunami Challenge | Loaded Mouth

Challenge Update:

The Blogger's Tsunami Challenge has decided to up its goal from five thousand to ten thousand dollars, after receiving $4,900 in one day. I had a feeling that the five thousand wouldn't prove too hard to come by. I won't even be put out that none of the donors has requested any poetry from me, which reluctance is finally quite understandable.

Coffee drinkers among you may also wish to consider buying Sumatran coffee. I've always liked the stuff, which is flavorful but not very acidic.

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate

God & Tsunami:

Arts & Letters Daily has picked up on the latest echo of an eternal debate. It arises each time there is a natural disaster of particular magnitude. The debate forms around the question, "If God exists, and is both all powerful and good, how can evils such as this disaster occur?"

The technical term for this, in philosophy and theology, is theodicy. Partisans of atheism generally argue that the disaster in question proves the nonexistence of a benevolent, all-powerful God; partisans of theism generally argue that the question is misstated. Arts & Letters Daily has collected arguments on all sides: An anti-God argument from the UK Guardian (which is to be expected), a pro-God argument from the Wall Street Journal (likewise), and also arguments from the India Telegraph and Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, which is by the way one of the world's finest newspapers.

The Journal piece points out that Voltaire made the same argument in 1755, following an earthquake off Lisbon. It is, as I said, an eternal debate.

And yet, that very fact astonishes me. It seems to me that the Bible itself addresses the question directly and at length, in a fashion that is largely set aside by theists and apparently ignored by atheists. This very question is the subject of the Book of Job.

Then answered the LORD unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
Gird up thy loins now like a man:
I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
Wilt thou also disannul my judgment?
Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?
Hast thou an arm like God?
Or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?
Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency;
and array thyself with glory and beauty.

It seems to me that the proper argument from a belief in the supernatural is to assert the supernatural. Indeed, this answers not only the crisis posed by the question of earthquakes, but that posed by the sciences:

The vulgar metaphysics we all carry round with us includes the vague idea of a self, an “I,” imagined as a little homunculus crouched inside our heads an inch or so behind the eyes, observing and directing all that goes on in our lives. It seems probable that this is as false as the medieval notion of the sky being a crystal sphere. Yet if the self is indeed an illusion, then what is to prevent that dissolution of all values foreseen by Nietzsche? .... The deconstruction of self is not a new thing, of course. It has been 250 years since David Hume, by the rigorous application of pure reason, concluded that neither the inner world of the self nor the outer world of physical matter could possibly exist. Hume then turned and laughed at himself and at what he had accomplished: "This sceptical doubt ... is a malady, which can never be radically cur'd, but must return upon us every moment, however we may chace it away ... Carelessness and in-attention alone can afford us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely upon them; and take it for granted, whatever may be the reader's opinion at this present moment, that an hour hence he will be persuaded there is both an external and an internal world..."

Although the neuroscientists are chasing the self through ever narrower and darker passageways of the brain, they have not caught it yet, and there are good reasons to believe they never will. Roger Penrose’s book about fundamental physics offers one of those reasons. Physicists have been pursuing matter for much longer, and with much more fruitful consequences, than neuroscientists have been pursuing mind, yet still the nature of physical reality eludes us. What is the physical world composed of? If you make it through the 1,000-odd pages of Penrose’s book, through the explanations of tensor calculus, Clifford algebras, spinors, twistors, Riemann surfaces and Feynmann propagators, you may have an inkling, but that is all you will have. If you can’t hack all that heavy-duty math, you won’t even have an inkling, ever.

The point is not that science is wrong, but that human wisdom is limited: what science cannot find is not untrue, but beyond human understanding. The "hour hence" restores belief in the external and internal worlds for the same reason described by Edward Abbey, himself no friend to religion:

In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental
construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is
an indoor philosophy.

Try it on the mountainside, or by the angry sea.

But if science cannot answer these questions, what remains except religion? In these great mathematics and terrible physics, we have girded ourselves up like men. We cannot answer, now or ever. In that yawning gap, faith forms: and we have no answer, no more than Job was answered by the whirlwind, or Loddfafnir by Odin:

It is best for man to be middle-wise,
Not over cunning and clever:
No man is able to know his future,
So let him sleep in peace.

Sleep in peace. Happy New Year.

John Henry

Mike Mulligan:

Here's a bit of a departure for you.

While visiting family over the weekend, my mother -- my son's grandmother, that is -- produced a copy of what she says was my favorite book as a boy. This was Mike and Mary Anne - Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, originally published in 1939. It is apparently eternally popular, and has never been out of print since that date.

It is the story of Mike and his steam shovel, Mary Anne, who worked on the Panama Canal together. As gasoline and diesel powered excavators come into the fore, Mike tries to find a place for himself and Mary Anne. He finally enters into a competition in which they dig out the basement for a City Hall, only they dig so fast that Mary Anne can't get back out again. So, a smart fellow turns her into the furnace for the new City Hall, and Mike gets a decent gov't job maintaining her. It is, in that way, the classic New Deal story.

But that isn't all it is.

I haven't thought of that book even once in my adult life. But sitting there, listening to my mother read it, I realized what it was: it's the legend of John Henry, with the steam engine as the hero.

John Henry said to his captain, "A man ain't nothin' but a man.
"But if you'll bring that steam drill round,
"I'll beat it fair and honest, I'll die with my hammer in my hand
" -- but I'll be laughing --
"'Cuz you can't replace a steel driv'n man."

Now ain't that something?

The Blogger's Tsunami Challenge | Loaded Mouth

Engagement Rings:

I see on checking the Blogger's Tsunami Challenge today that a brave young man has decided to take two gambles at once:

I just donated $1000 to the red cross, via amazon's one-click donate page, as a direct result of your challenge. To make it an interesting story, please consider it the "DeBeers Matching Fund"... I'm just about to buy my girlfriend an engagement ring, and I know she'd not mind me getting her a slightly(!) cheaper one, for the much greater benefit of the victims. She's pretty cool like that. I hearby challenge any future grooms with balls and money to do the same.

The mind boggles on several counts. Grim's fiancee was won with an engagement ring that cost US$12 -- a sterling silver ring done with Celtic knotwork that Grim himself wore once upon a time. The lady in question, now my wife of some years, wears the thing on a chain around her neck as it is far too big for her hand. We were grad students at the time, but she put aside any hope of financial prosperity and married me instead. Such women are too rare.

Love knows the victory, they say. Happy New Year to you all, and may Love find you, and abide with you, all the days of your life.

Lthrnk Chllng

Charity & Leathernecks:

I changed the "Leatherneck Tartan" button at the top right to point to the Tsunami Blogger Challenge, in case any of you should wish to keep track of it. I put it there to keep track of the Spirit of America "Friends of Iraq" Blogger Challenge.

Grim's Hall was never intended as a fundraising device, although from time to time I do like to post links to worthy charities. We don't do blog ads or tipjars here, though I see nothing wrong with either. I just think of this blog as a Hall, a gathering place for friends and warriors. We do things by the old code at Grim's Hall. This is my home, not a hotel: nobody will try to sell you anything, and nor will I accept payment in exchange for hospitality.

For that reason, I'm always a bit reluctant to post requests for reader charity. I do it anyway. The one part of the webpage that hasn't changed from the very beginning is the tagline: "A weblog on politics, ethics, mythology, history, and the heroic life." Charity is an important part of all of those things, and particularly the last.

I find as I get older that it's getting harder to live "the heroic life." There are two reasons for this. The first is the problem of age. It was easy as a youth to believe in "eating and drinking heroically." Now, I find that even at the greatest feast I eat moderately; and a grand bout of drinking only makes the head hurt, while one's thoughts turn to the long-term viability of the liver.

The second is the problem of experience. The more you learn and the older you get, the harder it is to believe that anything you do is heroic. Every day I read about, talk to, or exchange emails with men whose lives are far more heroic than mine has ever been. I have been brave. I can remember mornings hiking alone over the tops of snow-covered mountains, with all the trees sheathed in ice, so that at sunrise it was as if the world was made of gemstones. I have fought, and dared, and done much. But aside from the stories, what good has come from any of it?

There is so little that we can do for those half the world away. Even if my duties would let me go, I have no skills that would help anyone. Beyond first aid, I know no medicine. I can dig and fill, and lash things with rope, but I am not trained in electricity or plumbing.

But there are those who are, and many of them are rushing to the aid of the peoples injured in this disaster. It is a very small thing to offer them a parting gift, some small money to speed them on their way, or to purchase medicines to use when they arrive.

A small thing, but not nothing; and a thing done for people you have never met, and never will. Some would say it is still no more than duty; indeed, some would say it doesn't even meet the duties we owe. Some ethicists have raised high standards on such questions, although others have said otherwise.

Regardless of whether you consider it a duty or a glory, no one will make you do it. It is a free choice made for noble reasons. If you are choosing the heroic life, such choices are the stuff of it.

I will not say that anyone who does not give has failed his duty. I will, however, praise those that do.

Charity

Charity Challenge:

Blogger Tas has started a Tsunami Blogger Challenge, which has the modest goal of $5,000. The notion is that I should post some sort of challenge, which of course I will do. Anyone donating at least $50 may request that Grim compose a poem on a topic of their choice, except for such topics as honor forbids.

Since the terms of the challenge allow you to donate to the charity of your choice, send evidence of your donation to tas at loadedmouth dot com. He will apply it to the chart. Anyone who decides to donate because of reading this post, please drop me an email or leave a comment to let me know what you want your poem about.

Grim is not the best poet living today, but you can see a small sample of poems I've written by clicking on the links toward the bottom of the sidebar.

Aid

USPACOM Aids the Stricken:

There is finally an official press release from DOD on the forces deploying to aid those in the path of the tsunamis. Via the Sage I see that the USAF has its own story. One of InstaPundit's readers noted that the Air Force is going to be among the first on the ground with aid. I want to take a moment to recognize this fact and credit the airmen for what they do.

The first aid is often the most important in disasters like this: not only to provide drinking water, which is critical, but to prevent the outbreak of disease. A plague on top of a disaster is the natural course of human history, and can easily claim more lives than the initial blow. These deaths are largely preventable, and few are better at preventing them than the US military.

Rev&Disaster

Revolution & Disaster:

The Associated Press carries a report of two hard-fought revolutions, interrupted by the recent quake:

Two of the world's longest-running civil wars are being fought on land devastated by Sunday's earthquake and tsunamis. In one conflict, the tragedy showed hopeful signs of bringing the two sides together; in the other, it appeared to be hardening the divisions.

Immediately after the quake struck, the warring sides in Indonesia's Aceh province agreed to put hostilities on hold, while government and rebel spokesmen in ethnically divided Sri Lanka accused each other of mishandling the response to the disaster.

What follows is a good analysis. I have little to add to the discussion of the Tamil Tigers or the Aceh rebels, but I would like to point out that there is a third revolution struck full-on by this event. The insurgency in southern Thailand will prove to be heavily influenced by the tsunamis, which made their landfall in the three southernmost, Muslim majority provinces of Thailand.

The government of Thailand has rushed aid to the region, using military helicopters to ferry it by air. The King of Thailand's grandson was killed; the king has donated 30 million baht (about $750,000, as I estimate it) from his own funds to the reconstruction. The latest news in English can be found at The Bangkok Post and The Nation. The former is a newspaper really aimed at the expat community in Thailand; the latter, a paper of the Thai upper class.

Much of the reports of the dead have focused on the resorts, where many Westerners seem to have been killed. The Swedes in particular had 1,500 of their citizens reportedly missing as of this writing. It appears -- stunningly -- that twice as many foreigners as natives may have died in Thailand.

The process of rebuilding offers many opportunities to address underlying ills. Since the economy has been swept away anyway, you might as well put it back the way you'd like it to be. Both the Thai and the US government seem to recognize the opportunity.

It seems, in one way, petty to think of political opportunities in the wake of disaster. It is anything but that. The opportunity here is not some small partisan advantage, but a hope of peace found amid the wrack. To turn a disaster into a revolution -- not of blood, but of hope -- is the highest act of man. It offers a glimpse, fleeting but true, of the luminous spirit within.

Charity

Charity & Goodwill:

There's more of the former than the latter, these days. In the event that you should wish to exercise some toward the survivors of the Great Christmas Quake, CareUSA has a setup. The Red Cross / Red Crescent has another. I imagine that those of you who attend religious services regularly probably have a way of your own to donate. Most likely you know others as well.

In addition, you are providing aid through the official government agencies. Australia's government is taking the lead in Indonesia, with USPACOM focusing on Sri Lanka and Thailand.

But this kind of aid is "stingy," according to U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, who said that

[T]he United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, [and] there would be more available if taxes were raised.

"It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really," the Norwegian-born U.N. official told reporters. "Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become."

"There are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy," he said, adding that politicians in the United States and Europe "believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more."

I strongly suspect that almost none of you needed me to post the links to charitable organizations. From the recent Spirit of America fundraiser, Doc Russia and I learned how extraordinarily generous the readers of our blogs can be. Probably every one of you has taken time to find out how to give, and has already given what you can. You did so in spite of having just given to Spirit of America, and at the Yuletide, when disposable income is already earmarked for gifts for others.

It's no surprise that the U.N. feels we are being "stingy" by not turning over more of our wealth for them to control. In the end, it is far more likely that a dollar donated to Spirit of America will do good, than any dollar spent by any U.N. bureaucracy. You have reason to feel good about what you have done.

Quake

Earthquake:

I went to bed too early last night.

It seemed quiet when I laid down my head. This morning I wake to find that my email has swelled to bursting. There are two events driving the majority of it. Both of them are earthquakes.

One was a physical earthquake.

Thousands of people are dead across the coasts of Asia, killed by monster waves set off by an underwater earthquake off the coast of Indonesia.

The quake sent massive waves, up to 10 metres high, across the Indian Ocean: west to the Maldives, north-west to India and Sri Lanka, north into the Andaman Islands and Thailand and east to Malaysia, leaving more than 5000 feared dead in seaside towns and villages.

It measured 8.9 on the Richter scale, making it the fifth most powerful since 1900, striking at 8am local time yesterday (midday in Melbourne).

The other earthquake was in China:

Up to 50,000 workers upset over mistreatment by local security guards clashed with police in a town in China's Guangdong province, throwing rocks and bricks and torching four police cars, a Hong Kong newspaper said on Sunday.

The unrest was the latest in a string of riots and clashes in rural China, all sparked by seemingly minor issues, that have highlighted discontent over rampant corruption and abuse of power and a growing rich-poor gap.

Christmas was peaceful, but the Feast of Stephen (as the song says) is turning out to be anything but. The first matter in particular is of concern, as the US Navy and Marines will mobilize across the Pacific Command to provide relief to the stricken. This won't get the kinds of headlines Iraq does (when did you read about the aid we've been providing to the Philippines this month, in the wake of their catastrophic floods?).

In spite of the disinterest of the elite -- and in the face of real danger from the perils that affect all places recently struck by storm and flood -- our sailors and Marines will be out there, doing good. When you are thinking of the deployed this holiday weekend, think of the ones out in the Pacific, too. Not many do, but they're as far from home as anyone.

Kashmir

Kashmir:

Big arrest in Kashmir today. You can read about it here. As the article points out, it is extremely rare to capture one of these senior people alive. If he talks, he will be most valuable in getting a picture of the operations of Muslim militants at the top of the world.

A light moment from the story. The fellow is identified by the author:

Mohammed Shafi Dar, alias Abdullah...

Now, I can understand why a militant leader named Mohammed would want an alias. But Abdullah? That's just not making it any better.

Yule

Yuletide:

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a fine Yuletide. My thoughts go out to the deployed, who are not blessed as I am to share today with their families. Greyhawk is keeping a list of Milbloggers deployed this year. You might drop by, and wish them well.

Be well yourselves.

holiday

Holidays:

In spite of the holidays, no rest. That's fair: there's a lot going on out there, and most of the world doesn't take off for Christmas. More's the pity.

I'll be doing some travel over the next week, too; in fact, I leave at 0200. This being our last evening in town, we had a little celebration at Molly's pub tonight with Sovay as our guest. She brought gifts, and we had a little something for her too.

They say you never get what you really want for Christmas, but sometimes that's just because you didn't know you wanted it:

A catapult! Who knew they still made catapults?

I set it beside my Winchester 94 so you can appreciate the size. It's a working scale model. I spent part of the evening practicing siege warfare, using walnuts as ammunition. In case you should be interested in real mayhem, however, the package came with little lead balls you could hurl.

With a little practice, I think I will be able to knock on my neighbor's door from across the street. Or, you know, their yippy dog. Whatever.

SoldierTech: Military Gear and Gadgets

...In Shining Armor:

Now this is body armor. These kinds of stories always invoke two reactions in me: 1) How great that our fighters will have this tech! 2) What are we going to do if we should ever have to fight against it?

Keeping a lariat on this genie is not a small matter.

Poetics

Poetics:

Military bloggers are surprisingly often poets, or take the time to host poets. Here are a few poems I've seen lately. Some of them are very good. Many of them speak to the sacrifices of the military life, which are felt most keenly during the holidays.

"On A Cold, Snow Night" treats a child, watching a sentry.

"A Military Christmas" shows the hardships of the military calling, even when all goes well.

"Freedom Isn't Free, It's Priceless" shows what it is like when things do not go well. It is by the mother of Lance Corporal Torrey Gray, killed this April in Iraq.

This isn't a poem, but it ought to be.

"A Soldier's Christmas" is written in the form of "The Night Before Christmas."

I'm sure there are others. If you've seen one you'd like added, email me or leave it in the comments.

UPDATE: Bill suggests "Merry Christmas, My Friend" or "A Soldier's Silent Night," available as a sound file, here.

SWII

Small Wars, II:

There has been some talk lately about how there are relatively few "conservatives" in academia. Some have suggested that academic culture is biased against conservatives; others, that conservatives by nature are anti-intellectual, or more interested in money than in "the life of the mind."

The real answer lies elsewhere. Read this passage from the new Small Wars Manual:

It is ironic that as our Western civilization becomes increasingly a digitized world, the surrounding geopolitical landscape is becoming progressively less "digital" and more "analog."

For purposes of this analogy, we combine several definitions to say that digital is a description of data that is stored or transmitted as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite set. And, a discrete set is countable or countably infinite. We define analog as relating to, or being a device in which, data are represented by continuously variable, measurable, physical quantities. For example, the digital watch indicates the exact time and the analog watch, while indicating the time, requires you to add or subtract in order to state the exact time. And, while the digital watch's time is exact, the analog watch's face indicates time in general relation to the upcoming hour or half hour, and so on.

We are a digital culture. We expect our questions to be answered yes or no. We want our problems fixed now. We want our world neatly and discretely categorized into good and bad boxes. We do not always want to know how answers on one issue generally relate to another issue.

The U.S. military has not been exempt from this quest for precision answers with quantifiable facts that can be added or subtracted to give an exact, perfectly repeatable answer. This is clear from its increasingly heavy emphasis on operations research, modeling, and simulation. While these disciplines are of undeniable value, it is important that we not conveniently accept the neatly quantified "digital" (more rigorous) analysis over the less tangible, less quantifiable, common sense judgment call when dealing with systems and processes that are highly complex and often non-linear. Especially in a world of small wars, the palette is shades of gray and not the more categorical black or white—one or zero.

By their fundamental nature, small wars require an approach more art than science, more analog than digital.

World War II and the Gulf War in 1991 were both digital wars. We declared war; diplomacy took a back seat, and the military had the clear-cut objective of defeating the enemy armed forces—neat and discrete.

On the other hand, Beirut, Somalia, and Kosovo were analog wars. We were to "create conditions," "stop the suffering," and "prevent ethnic cleansing." Diplomacy continued to operate and military activities were shaped predominantly by political and diplomatic imperatives. The roles and missions of the military constantly varied given the dynamic interplay of political, diplomatic, and economic forces. Unlike World War II and the Gulf War, it was not easy to tell who the bad guy was. Indeed, the good guy one day could easily become the bad guy the next day because of changes, real or perceived, "on the street." Thus, the reduced size of the area or smaller number of belligerents does not necessarily simplify the warfighting tasks.

It is our digital culture that makes ours an impatient culture. We want clear results, and we want them now. Fast food and breaking news are our sustenance. Patience is not our cultural virtue, and working in an uncertain environment with fog and deception leads to our critical vulnerability in small wars: resolve. The greatest and most significant danger we have in entering a small war is the potential for an asymmetry of wills. We must decide before embarking upon any small war whether we can withstand the pressures of our own impatience.

Just two days ago we talked about the JASON panel, named after Jason and the Argonauts of Ancient Greek legend, and its piece on information war. This month we also saw the passage of the Defense Science Board's Strategic Communications paper into the clear. At the end of November, there was this article on the "Cambrian Project," whereby DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) intends to use evolutionary theory and state of the art computer systems to project threats and responses.

These three groups are part of a parallel structure for the "life of the mind," one directed pointedly at the preservation of America and the furthering of our national aspiration of a world based on human liberty. JASON overlaps with academia, but DARPA and the DSB are largely independent of it. Add to those the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), far larger and more successfully secretive than the better-known CIA; the military services' intelligence agencies (AIA, MCIA, etc.); the NSA (National Security Agency); the military academies, the War College, and a host of lesser-known players.

The life of the mind is alive and well on the right. It is simply differently directed.

Small Wars:

Reader Tom sends a link to a draft version of the new USMC Small Wars Manual. Unlike many USMC manuals, it states that it does not intend to supersede the previous verison -- in this case, a version last compiled in the 1940s.

This is wise. The 1940 Small Wars Manual was the product of a very different Marine Corps. The 1940 manual was a voice for the accumulated knowledge of two generations of Marines who had never seen a year without an expedition to fight a small war somewhere. Every Marine should read it.

On the other hand, a supplement is needed. The Marine Corps of 1940 had very little concept of "air support," for example, as the Second World War had not yet begun for America. Integrated air-land force is now fundamental to USMC operations. The information revolution is likewise producing major changes in how we fight, changes that are ongoing as we speak.

You may wish to read both, if you haven't seen them before.