tests

Political Tests:

I'm always amused by these attemps to model personality and political thinking. Patrick Carver and Feddie took this one, and posted their results. Here are mine:

You are a Social Liberal (70% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (70% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

The test is somewhat biased in a few ways. These are two of four graphs they show you. One of the ones not shown is "Famous People," which graphs you against a number of political figures. I fall closest to Jefferson, which actually might be a statement of the test's accuracy -- the wing of the Democratic Party that survives in the mountains of Georgia is strongly Jeffersonian, as it has been since its founding. (It shows how far the national Democratic party has fallen, too -- their founder, Jefferson, is now very far away from the furthest border of what the test considers a "Democrat" position. As we keep saying, we Southern Democrats can't "return to the fold," because we're still standing right where the fold used to be. It's the rest of you who need to hie yourselves back here.)

I notice that the dead-center of the test is represented by John Kerry. Kerry's ADA rating puts him to the left even of Ted Kennedy, yet somehow he strikes the test-makers as a "centrist." Not on your life.

Another bias is in the sample, which is of course self-selecting and non-scientific. Still, it's interesting:

Kerry voters: 166,789
Bush voters: 79,171

Percentage of these voters who say they are in favor of gun control: 37.

That's kind of interesting, isn't it? Kerry to Bush voters ought to be close to 1-1, since the election was so close; instead, it's 2-1 Kerry. Yet gun control still only manages support among slightly more than a third of test takers.

Kind of a hopeful sign, from where I sit.

UPDATE: Another thing that bothers me about this test, on reflection: it judges both axes based on "permissiveness." That seems like an odd standard to me, and I imagine that it's a more complex one than the test-makers believe it to be.

Two examples, one minor and one not:

1) The minor one -- statements aren't clearly about "permissiveness," so I'm not sure how they judge based on them whether you are willing to grant permission. One of the statements you are asked about is, "I would defend my property with lethal force." If you agree with that, is that the absence of economic permissiveness, or social permissiveness? Even an anarchist, believing that property is theft, would nevertheless suggest that you aren't obligated to 'grant permission' to someone who doesn't bother to ask for it.

2) The major one -- often one permits one thing in order to avoid permitting another.

One of the statements is, "People shouldn't be allowed to have children they can't provide for."

This is a question that would appear to be designed to bring out the closet eugenicists and haters of welfare (particularly coupled with the Natural Selection and homelessness question that appears earlier in the test). Yet it my experience that "I couldn't afford a child" is a frequently offered reason for practicing a certain kind of choice.

You will probably find a lot of members of the Religious Right who would "strongly disagree" with this proposition, precisely because of their moral opposition to abortion. They will happily permit extra kids, to avoid permitting abortion. Meanwhile, some outright socialists will happily support abortion, to avoid the backbreaking costs of extra children on their social systems.

That's all probably quite a bit of analysis for a simple online test. Still, as I said, I am always amused by these attempts to make models of the mind. Examining their flaws can often be illuminating.

Finally, one good thing about the test -- it sees no distinction between "Socialist" and "Communist." That's fine with me. As my old professor of Political Science used to say, "Where I come from, they use the tems 'Socialist,' 'Communist,' and 'Satanist' more or less interchangeably."

Sunday

Some Links of a Sunday:

Chester posts about a "massively multiplayer online role playing game" that is experiencing something new -- an unplanned virtual plague infecting the player characters.

Daniel survived Rita and got a lousy T-shirt. He also reports on looters in Houston after the hurricane. The looters, it turns out, are former citizens of New Orleans.

Doc talks about two women he met during the evacuation.

I myself don't have much of anything to talk about. The arrival of autumn has kept me away from the "crystal ball" for as much of the day as I can manage. I've been hiking along (and right up the middle of) the Rappahannock river, going to the gun range, taking the boy on trips, and the like. All very pleasant, but it hasn't inspired any particularly deep thoughts about the world.

Well, maybe next week.

Saying too much

Saying Too Much:

I saw that Althouse slammed the BBC's Justin Webb, for which she was approvingly linked by InstaPundit and The Corner (at least, I assume that "BBC Bashing" indicates approval).

Y'all should have read to the end of the piece. Of course a British socialist thinks that America's lack of a welfare state is a problem. Of course he believes we need a revolution to institute a more socialist form of government.

But he also does understand America, as it turns out.

My children attend the same school that Charles Wheeler's daughter Shereen graced in the early 1970s.

In the last few weeks my e-mail inbox has been filled with earnest messages from fellow parents about places we can give money to victims of Katrina, drop off teddy bears we no longer want, dispatch clothes for which we have grown too fat and so on.

Many are giving their time as well as their money

No e-mail in those days of course, but I bet Charles got parchment scrolls, or whatever they used then, with lists of good causes to which he could contribute.

Charity is part of the warp and weft of American life and it is telling that Hurricane Katrina has encouraged an outpouring of giving on a scale never seen before.

Americans are cross with the government and disappointed with the response from Washington, but they have not sat on their hands and waited for the government to sort itself out. Much the opposite.

Americans have given with unbridled enthusiasm and generosity.

Is that not something governments do?

Americans do not think so and never will.

This is unquestionably a source of strength and spine in troubled times, but boy does it put a dampener on revolution.

Charity ameliorates it, softens blows, pours oil on troubled waters. It does not lead to social change.

Inequality is a part of American life and so is self reliance. Nothing I have seen in the last few weeks alters that.

American government is a mess. American bureaucracy and red tape is a national shame. American political clout around the world has been reduced by the Katrina fiasco.

But in Biloxi three weeks ago I watched a man with a chainsaw and two handguns beginning the process of rebuilding his house.

He will be joined by others after this weekend's devastation. They represent an America that Charles Wheeler would recognise instantly, and even now after the flood, is little changed.

American government is a mess, and the red tape and bureaucracy are a shame -- just look at the Julie Myers political appointment we've been railing about for a week, or really just take a close look at any bureaucracy in the government. I don't know about American political clout being reduced. I don't think political clout really has much to do with how people want to see you. It has to do with how they can't help but deal with you. By that score America isn't going anywhere: neither the UK nor the EU nor ASEAN nor the OIC can really afford to do without us, and though they won't admit it, they all know it.

Still, the important and notable thing about the article is not that the fellow said that "the real question, to put it baldly, is whether there is going to be a revolution."

The real thing to note is that he answered his question: No, there won't be. When he looked hard and honestly at America, what he saw was no mob of discontents fomenting violence. He saw a nation spurring itself to ever greater acts of charity and goodwill. He saw a people who would not and did not ask their government to fix things for them. He saw a man with a chainsaw and two handguns, who had put up his house once before and was going to do it again.

That's the America I want people to see. I've got no problem with this author. Whatever I may think of his politics, and whatever he thinks of mine, I respect the fact that he has eyes that are not blind.

meds

Perhaps it's the "Medicine":

A report from the Times of London:

A UNITED Nations report has labelled Scotland the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America.
England and Wales recorded the second highest number of violent assaults while Northern Ireland recorded the fewest.

Got that? Scotland and England are both far more dangerous than Northern Ireland.

Well, it is a UN report.

It found that people living in Scotland were almost three times more likely to be victims of violent assault than people living in the States and suggests that more than 2,000 Scots are attacked every week, almost 10 times the official police figures.

I've done some work with American crime statistics, and so I know that the manipulation of these things by police departments is quite usual. I don't know how things work in the UK, but in the US the central crime statistics are compiled by the FBI in what they call the Uniform Crime Reports. UCRs are based on stats compiled by local police, and transmitted to the FBI.

There are two serious openings for manipulation in the UCR methodology. The first is the fact that the FBI only tracks certain named crimes. Because local police are themselves compiling the stats, all they need to do is reclassify a "forcible rape" (a UCR tracked crime) as a "sexual assault" (not tracked by the UCR) and the rape disappears off the crime statistics entirely and forever. As far as the statistics are concerned, it never happened, and your city had one fewer rape last year.

Alternatively, if you are lobbying for increased funding, you can start reclassifying things as UCR crimes. This brings us to the second great flaw: the FBI doesn't have a standard for how the police count. The police may report to the FBi the number of crimes that were reported; or the far smaller number "cleared by arrest"; or the far, far smaller number prosecuted; or the very much smaller number for which a conviction was actually obtained. One police department will choose to report on reported crimes, and another only on crimes cleared by arrest (reasoning that they don't know that the other crimes really happened, since they never caught anyone who seemed to be guilty of it).

Thus, a police captain who wants to light a fire under people can cause his city's crime statistics to "soar" just by changing to counting-by-report, and having a policy of classifying reported crimes whenever possible as a report of a UCR crime. A sheriff who wants to show "progress" in his tenure can do the opposite, causing the rates to "fall" again. A clever politician in the police department can play with these statistics both early and late, charging his predecessor with "unethical underreporting" to explain why the rates soar shortly after he enters office, and then making changes over the course of his term to bring the "rates" down.

Do Scottish police do the same thing? I don't know: maybe the UK has a rock-solid methodology. It would be a bit surprising to me, though, to learn that was the case.

handbook

"Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents."

Reporters sans Frontiers has issued a manual on anonymous blogging. It is intended to protect bloggers in parts of the world where they may be the only honest reporters (say, China) or for people who have reason to fear government censorship of their speech (say, State Department employees). The guide looks good on its face, with advice on keeping your identity secret from authorities, while getting your message out by getting publicity and attracting the notice of search engines.

It's a good idea. Any of you who are techies might want to look it over and see if you can spot errors that might undermine the purpose of the manual, or make suggestions to refine their concepts.

NRAsuit

NRA Files:

The National Rifle Association has apparently filed for a restraining order to stop the unconstitutional gun seizures in New Orleans. The comments in their news article about it are publicity statements -- I haven't yet seen the actual motion. It will be interesting to see where they take their stand on the law, and under just what terms their lawyers decided they could make the strongest case.

rita

Rita Rides In:

Grim's Hall co-blogger Daniel is going to ride out Rita in Houston. Doc hit what sounds like a miserable highway, but has apparently made it out safely. His lady wife, however, is remaining behind -- she is a medical doctor who has volunteered to care for the wounded.

I'm not too worried about Daniel -- neither storm nor thunder should trouble a man of his ilk -- but I hope you will all keep Mrs. Doc in your thoughts. And best to Doc, too: being away from a loved one in these circumstances is a worse pain than being in danger yourself.

Feddie

Stare Decisis:

Feddie of Southern Appeal writes to say that he would be only too happy to serve if nominated. Fat chance, Fed. Nice pic, though.

Whisky

Whisky, yer the divil!

The LA Times today has a review of a new book on the happiest subject of them all:

He evokes the whisky-sodden world of the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment; you wonder that Edinburgh, a city where everybody downed half a cup of whisky promptly at noon (a bell was rung), produced so many important writers and inventors.

The 18th century attitude, MacLean writes, "is summed up by a story about a group of gentlemen who had been drinking together in a club in Glasgow. They had been at it for several hours when it was noticed that one of the number had been keeping quiet for some time. 'Whit gars Garskadden luk sae gash?' (What makes the laird of Garskadden look so ghastly?), asked the laird of Kilmardinny. To which Garskadden's neighbour replied, 'Garskadden's been wi' his Maker these twa hours; I saw him step awa', but I dinna like to disturb gude company.'"

A half a cup of the pure each noon? I get about that much yearly these days, but I can certainly appreciate the concept. Perhaps when I've retired.

The author does have the right attitude about it:

Because whisky was long considered a medicine, the Scots often added spices and other supposed medicinal ingredients to it, along the line of tonic liqueurs like Chartreuse. MacLean mentions an 18th century recipe that added mace, cloves, cinnamon, nuts, coriander, cubeb peppers, raisins, dates, licorice, saffron and sugar to what was probably perfectly good Scotch to start with.

'With Scotch, mix only water -- and that, only in an emergency.' Just so.

Weap.sys.

A Gallery of Weapons:

Thanks to Secrecy News, you can see the US Army Weapons System Handbook for 2005. It is, of course, unclassified. The information is quite basic, but it treats some near-future weapons as well as current stuff. It can be useful as a primer if you should be interested in an article that mentions this or that piece of weapons tech with which you're not already familiar.

NOR

Nation of Riflemen:

The Nation of Riflemen forums have moved. I'm not a regular participant there, simply because my time for contributing to forums is quite limited, so I normally spend it on blogging here or at The Fourth Rail. It is, however, an interesting and useful resource.

S.Appeal

On Arms & Charity:

Hunter Baker at Southern Appeal had a post describing an encounter he had with a vagrant at his door, who showed up wanting work. The police showed up not long afterwards, and arrested the fellow on charges of burglary.

Our Joel Leggett put up a followup post taking Hunter to task for his foolishness. Joel and I have been discussing the ethics and practicalities involved in the comments. We disagree on the proper course of action, though I do wish to add that I respect the Captain's position, and the way in which he allows his deep personal faith to guide his life and thinking.

I don't mean to add to the debate here, but rather to direct you there should you wish to consider it. It's an important topic, I think, touching on heroic ethical issues such as hospitality and charity, duty and protection.

UPDATE: Although it touches an entirely different topic, I see that Doc is thinking along the same lines as I am about the underlying issues. Good luck to the lady, Doc, and yourself as well.

Myers

Myers' Tombstone:

The case of unqualified nepotism appointee Julie Myers, joined with Eric's British colonial references, has reminded me of something. The British colonial system ought to be critiqued for what we can learn of its failures, but we ought also to remember its successes. The British also dealt with the question of patronage positions, but they did it better than we do.

A piece of popular theater in the late 19th century was Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore." It made fun of the British empire, and particularly the Royal Navy. It was popular in America as well as elsewhere -- so much so that it was performed in Tombstone, Arizona not long before the shootout at the OK Corral. (Addendum to the cited article: in addition to being "a disreputable cowboy," Behan was also at times the sheriff.)

One of the characters most mocked is "the Ruler of the Queen's Navy," who is a patronage appointment who knows exactly nothing about the navy:

Of legal knowledge I acquired such a grip
That they took me into the partnership,
And that junior partnership I ween
Was the only ship that I ever had seen;
But that kind of ship so suited me
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navy!

Yet the song, though it mocks, is also a tribute to the British system. The Ruler of the Queen's Navy began as an office boy, whose hard work at cleaning out a law firm earned him a minor position copying letters. His devotion to accuracy earned him another opportunity; and through hard work and study, he moved up to that junior partnership. Through more hard work, he became wealthy, and then became a member of Parliament, where his party loyalty brought him to the position of command over the Navy. It is a testament to a lifetime's hard work and devotion to duty.

What has this to do with a thirty-six year old, whose tiny amount of relevant experience was only gained as the result of another patronage position? The Ruler of the Queen's Navy was a man of experience and character in his own right, who was laughable only because he was placed in command of something he didn't happen to know much about. Yet he did have experience, and what was really an extraordinary career behind him.

Who is Julie Myers? Not, I hope, the next head of the Immigration and Customs service.

M'sia

Malaysia:

Our Ambassador to Malaysia, Christopher LaFleur, has called Malaysia a success story for democracy. (Shouldn't we ask American diplomats named after French flowers to adopt a nomme de guerre for the duration of their tenure? How about we call you "Chris Eastwood" just for the length of your appointment?)

Is it true? Well, there's one leading indicator to watch. Lim Kit Siang, the leader of the Democratic Action Party, has a blog. Lim is a fun character to watch. You can count on him to cause a near-brawl in the Malaysian parliament at least twice a year, usually by making some "insensitive" statement about the proper role of Islam in Malaysian politics. DAP is a secular party, and likes to remind the less-secular parties that the Malaysian constitution declares Malaysia to be a secular state. Malaysian politicians, somewhat like a certain brand of US politician, often like to call Malaysia an "Islamic nation," which is true in the sense that belongs to the OIC. The DAP can always be counted on to stand up and fight the idea, to the amusement of all.

JM

More on Basra:

Reader J.M. sends this article by a UK army officer on the Basra mission. Except for the idea of running a tank into the building, he says, it was a great thought:

Right up to the point when someone thought a 17-ton armoured vehicle was the right negotiating tactic to spring two British special forces operatives from an Iraqi jail, the fact that two SAS troopers were disguised as locals (and sneaking around in a civvy car) showed the British Army was doing what it has always done, usually pretty well: getting down and dirty with the locals and gathering information.

Well, fair enough, insofar as it's true. However, I can't help but notice that "getting down and dirty with the locals" apparently encompassed shooting Iraqi police. Doubtless this improved their credibility with the local insurgents tremendously -- but the rest of the Iraqi population has every right to take the demonstration just as seriously.

Why, precisely, were they doing this?

The Army is struggling to win the intelligence battle. When your enemy communicates through use-once-and-throw-away mobile phones, or motorbike couriers, when you don't speak the language, and the locals are all related, come from the same village, and won't talk to strangers, gaining actionable intelligence is very hard. Hence the covert ops.

The author then compares this with the American method:

And technology won't help.

Faced with the language problem, the US army bought electronic translators. The British hired teachers.

Indeed they did, and also brought on as many human translators as they could locate or train. They also, however, hired teachers. And not just language teachers: cultural instructors as well. I know a charming young mother in Washington, D.C., who was introduced to me as an "urban warfare instructor." I was a little taken aback by the introduction, given that she didn't seem to have the build for urban warfighting, so I later asked her just what it was she had taught. It turned out that the Army had sought her out for roleplaying exercises with troops heading to Iraq. A Muslim from the Middle East herself, she was hired to teach them what to expect and how to deal properly with the cultures involved.

We'll return to that in a moment.

When your threat is a man with an AK47, spy satellites aren't going to tell you that someone has moved into the empty house next to the centre-forward's cousin.

This is nothing more than good old-fashioned policing - the Bobby on the Beat, albeit with a 155mm howitzer on call. What the British Army - and even more so the American forces - need is far fewer Rambos and a lot more Jack Warners.

The "Bobby on the Beat" is a little out of place in Iraq today. I don't see a future for this particular sort of SAS-style "old fashioned policing" either. The fellow has diagnosed the problem nicely, but has no remedy to hand.

There is an intelligence gathering method that works. It starts with building personal relationships, which in turn starts with treating people properly. The US Army knew that years ago -- that's why they hired instructors, like my kindly friend in D.C., to train deploying infantrymen. The dividends are paying off in Mosul, as Yon's pieces demonstrate, and throughout the USMC's AO.

The US military is using local tips, gathered from people who've decided they have a stake in the new Iraq. They've decided that partially because we've been winning on the military front, so the insurgents can't hold territory or guarantee peace. We've also been doing it because people have been building personal relationships, built on respect and honesty -- not sneaking around in sneakers and shooting your allies.

I hope the British army produces a better explanation than this for the little contretemps in Basra.

DLink

A Non-Ceremonial DeLinking:

Per Doc, who passes on the blogger's request that others also remove his blog to reduce its Google signature. Those of you with blogs may wish to drop by and see if you might want to do likewise.

Who?

Who is Julie Myers?

Well, she's President Bush's pick to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which includes the Border Patrol and is under the Department of Homeland Security. She has impressive qualifications:

Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She married [former Justice Department official Michael] Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.

No, wait, those aren't her qualifications. Her qualifications aren't that she is thirty-six years old and is related or married to important people with political connections. That's not why she's being put in a critical position for Homeland Security.

Here we are:

In written answers to questions from Congress, Myers highlighted her year-long job as assistant secretary for export enforcement at Commerce, where she said she supervised 170 employees and a $25 million budget. ICE has more than 20,000 employees and a budget of approximately $4 billion. Its personnel investigate immigrant, drug and weapon smuggling, and illegal exports, among other responsibilities.

So, she has one year's experience. No one could be more qualified than that! See, it's not about her family and political ties at all.

Nobody is getting that the border is a critical vulnerability to "Homeland Security," are they?

What were they thinking?

I came across this report of that botched British Army operation to free some British (undercover?) soldiers from jail in Basra.

And more here (with pictures) from the BBC.

I have been concerned for awhile that the British in Basra haven't really been pulling their weight. Its just a hunch I have, but the initial "we know what we're doing, and the Americans are too heavy handed" comments from the British military in 2003, particularly after the insurgency in the Sunni triangle started, made me question whether the British command really had an idea of what they were in Iraq for.

Just what do they think driving tanks through a jail wall is?

The British have just screwed up big time. I don't even want to think about the implications of this.

Posse Comitatus

Posse Comitatus:

Arms and the Law has a short but useful post on the built-in exceptions in Posse Comitatus. If you aren't familiar with the phrase yet, you will want to become familiar with it, as you'll be hearing a lot about it in the wake of the New Orleans disaster. The term means "power of the county," although comitatus has an ancient and highly honorable heritage: the word, which is related to "comrade," meant in early Germanic society the warrior band that kept company with, and often elected, the king. These are the men who became Charlemagne's Paladins; these are the men who became knights and great nobles when the qualification for such status was a strong arm and a brave heart.

In the American legal tradition, Posse Comitatus is a law that limits the military's ability to be used as a law enforcement agency -- for example, to suppress riots and restore order in ruined New Orleans. However, one can offer another example: to storm houses of people suspected of illegal conduct in normal times, or to "stop" cars in the fashion our Mr. Yon explained is universal: by putting cannon rounds from a helicopter gunship through the vehicle's engine block. Assuming you don't miss, which even the most well-trained soldier will on occasion.

This is the law, in other words, that prevents the government from making war on the American people -- or, at least, the criminal element of the American people, as best as it can be identified by the government's agents. It is a law we ought to be very glad to have. We ought to be deeply suspicious of attempts to overturn that law. I yield to none in my respect and admiration for the US military, but their training and their firepower is not meant to be used against Americans except in extraordinary circumstances.

It would tarnish their honor to let the politicians use them in that way. It is not what they are for, nor what they are sworn to do. As Arms and the Law demonstrates, it is also not necessary -- legal exceptions exist to cover most extraordinary situations. As it is neither needful nor desirable, we ought to mistrust legislators who attempt it.

VA

Things You Can See in Virginia:

Virginia is horse country, of a sort. Horse people know that there are many kinds of horses, but in America there are mostly two kinds of riders: "English" riders, and "Western" riders. English riders draw their traditions, and their gear, from the old Foxhunting traditions of England. Western riders draw their traditions and gear from the cowboys, vaqueros, and other riders from the American West. There are also Australian riders -- the kit is an interesting mix of the two other styles, as I gather -- and of course there are non-Western traditions as well.

Virginia is English country in a big way. Many of the great among the Founders were horsemen, and the English tradition was their tradition. It is so deeply saturated in the culture around here that every little waterway -- which would be called a "creek" or a "stream" anywhere else -- is called a "run." Around here there is Broad Run, Thumb Run, and of course the infamous Bull Run, which I should not have to tell you is near a city called Manassas.

Today I saw a fellow hauling hay for his horses, and on the side of the truck was a logo for his company. Turns out they have a website: "Journey's End Carriage."

"If I'm at the journey's end," I asked my wife -- who used to teach horseback riding in the days when the Girl Scouts of America had a big national camp out west in Wyoming -- "why do I need a carriage?"

It was worth it for the look I got out of her.

On Saturday, I went to the Village of Hume and saw a ring joust. This proves to be the state sport of Maryland, which is appropriate since Maryland is the only state with a proper coat of arms for a flag. The arms of Maryland were inherited from one of their colonial grandees, Calvert, Lord Baltimore.

It was a fun little exercise, featuring no "knights" but many young maidens. So, at least, the announcer proclaimed them as they rode through: "Such and such, Maiden of the Plains." "The Plains" is a small town near here.

The girls were all having a great deal of fun, and a few of them had even attempted to kit out their horses in something like a medieval style. I have some pictures, which perhaps I can upload. Anyway, good fun, even if the announcer from the Ruritarians who was hosting the event was entirely confused by the medieval jargon.

Another thing Virginia has is lots of military folks. It's common to see USMC bumper stickers (indeed, you can see them on my trucks), as well as stickers that say "Proud Parent of a US Marine."

Until today, however, I'd never seen one of these. They say every Marine is a recruiter -- and so, apparently, is everyone in his family, at least to one degree's removal.

A TRUE HERO

A TRUE HERO

Please take the time to read this article about Cpl Ted Rubin by James S. Robbins. This authentic American hero will finally receive the recognition he so richly deserves on September 23 when President Bush presents him with the Medal of Honor. I have also posted this over at Southern Appeal.

Ice cream

Ice Cream:

I wonder about the Burger King "Allah" Ice Cream. But let me pass on the story in case you haven't heard it:

The fast-food chain, Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim.

The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a “jihad”.

You can see the design through the first link, compared with the Arabic for "Allah." Judge for yourself, as JihadWatch suggests.

But my question is this: When one of our more Fundamentalist Christians thinks he sees in some commercial product Jesus' face, or the Virgin Mary, he takes it as a miracle that proves the existence of God. He tells us that it shows that even in these little things, these throw-offs of the godless capitalist system, God's work is done.

The more radical Muslim threatens jihad against Burger King.

Why is it that radicals in the one faith see the hand of God working something positive in these coincidences, while radicals of the other faith see a conspiracy to insult their god? Why is the radical arm of the Christian faith confident of God's power to work regardless of the intention of man, while the radical arm of the Islamic faith so ready to believe that it is man working evil in defiance of the Lord of the Dawn?

It suggests to me that there is a substantial lack of confidence at work in the radical forms of Islam. Why should that be? It's true that Islamic civilization is at a low point, while civilizations that have historic involvement with Christianity are still on top. But religion, because it speaks to issues of true power behind the obvious faces of the world, ought to liberate the intense believer from the mere facts of the world they know. The simple reality of the situation at hand should not be definitive for the true believer.

Yet, here we are. What say you?

small arms

Small Arms: Lessons in Supply & Demand

The bottom fell out of the market for Kalashnikov rifles in Gaza this week, as smugglers from Egypt suddenly found that no one was really trying to keep their arms out of the place any more:

Palestinian gunrunners smuggled hundreds of assault rifles and pistols across the Egyptian frontier into Gaza, dealers and border officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The influx confirmed Israeli fears about giving up border control and could further destabilize Gaza.
Black market prices for weapons dropped sharply, with AK-47 assault rifles nearly cut in half to $1,300 and even steeper reductions for handguns.

News of the smuggling came as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas tried to impose order following the Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza this week. Militant groups scoffed at a new Palestinian Authority demand that they disband after parliamentary elections in January, saying they would not surrender weapons.

Another report has the price even lower:

An arms dealer said the price of an AK-47 assault rifle has dropped from around £1,000 (€1,484) to around £650 (€965). Bullets for the weapon are now being sold for as little as three shekels (around 50p) when previously they cost up to 18 shekels.

That's the price for black-market militant groups. One wonders what the Palestinian Authority is paying for its arms. Less, because it can take advantage of wholesale prices and commercial shipping? Or more, because it involves kickbacks to every corrupt official along the way?

Indonesia, meanwhile, has decided to address the problem of small arms being too expensive in another way -- build its own:

Indonesian arms industry PT Pindad has started to produce rifles which are lighter and cheaper than US-made M-16 or Russia's AK-47 and potentially will become the standard rifle of any Indonesian soldier, an executive said Thursday.

"The SS-2 rifle will be tested by a platoon of soldiers in the Army, the Air Force and the Navy," Sutarto, an expert staff for Pindad's director of military production, was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency.

He said the 5.5-mm caliber SS-2, produced with significant improvement from the earlier series of SS-1, is designed to become the standard rifle of Indonesian soldiers.

He claimed that the local rifle is much cheaper than any other rifles of the same category.

Pindad spokesman Timbul Sitompul said separately an SS-2 is priced at some 500 US dollars, far below the price of an M-16 which is sold at 1,000 dollars in the market.

Expense shouldn't be the primary consideration in picking a battle rifle. The question that you should be asking is, "But will it work?" Still, there's no reason it shouldn't work. Rifles aren't that hard to build -- the technology has been mature for a long time.

HOWDY

HOWDY

The master of this great hall has graciously invited me to post my thoughts here. By way of introduction my name is Joel T. Leggett and I am an active duty captain in the Marine Corps. I began my career in the Corps as an enlisted cannoneer in the artillery. Currently, I am serving as a judge advocate at MCB Camp Pendleton. Politically I can best be described as an Andrew Jackson Democrat and/or a Ronald Reagan Republican. I am proudly of Scotch-Irish descent. Although I was born in Cobb County GA I consider Petal MS home.

Since this is a hall dedicated to the heroic life I will include my favorite excerpt from Thomas Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome.

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
``To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods,

CPT JL

New Co-Blogger:

I'm delighted to announce that Captain Leggett has accepted my invitation to join us as a blogger here at Grim's Hall. We will benefit greatly from "the Sheik Marine's" experience and analysis. The good Captain has been a reader and commenter for some time, so I expect most of you are familiar with him. Others of you may know him as a blogger at Southern Appeal, a "blawg" for lawyers of Southern extraction.

Welcome aboard.

IN

A Marine Writes:

Live in Iraq is recommended to me by our own JHD. I've added it to the sidebar. It's apparently by a young officer. Give it a look.

Hm

Ahem:

Longtime readers know how I feel about the use of words like "liar!" In general, they have no place whatsoever in common discussion. They are deadly insults, which should not be used against people you don't actually intend to kill, or by whom you are not prepared to be killed.

You will have to imagine the strain that particular ethic is causing me, now that I find myself faced with this assertion:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an "ongoing victory," and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.

I must assume that the Honorable Gentleman was entirely misquoted. At least, I expect him to have the decency to claim that he was in tomorrow's paper.

DOL

Non Enim Propter Gloriam

President Jalal Talibani has a message for you. It's something Americans should hear.

“In the name of the Iraqi people, I say to you, Mr. President, and to the glorious American people, thank you, thank you.

“Thank you because you have liberated us from the worst kind of dictatorship. Our people suffered too much from this worst kind of dictatorship. The signal is mass graves with hundred thousand of Iraqi innocent children and women, young and old men. Thank you.”

"To the glorious American people." Now there's a phrase we might hear more often. But we ought to answer in the words of Robert the Bruce:

It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Hat tip: Baldilocks.

Future Marines

On the Future of the Marine Corps:

The Adventures of Chester (hat tip Mudville's Dawn Patrol) has a summary of AEI's blockbuster seminar on the Future of the Marine Corps. Some extraordinary talent came out to discuss the question -- a question that never dies, I might add, because the larger services are always after the Marines' budget. We know that the Marine Corps has a future (I believe there are still about four hundred and fifty years on the lease), but the nature of that future is always up for debate.

Chester ably summarizes the debate, so I will refer you to his summary rather than reproduce it. The things that interest me are the discussion about "seabasing," versus a more Army-like approach with heavier equipment and more firepower in exchange for losing the ability to be sea-based; and the role of the USMC in special operations.

It's a big issue that has to be solved soon because, as Max Boot says, some major capital outlays need to be made soon one way or the other:

I remember, a few years ago, visiting Camp Lejeune and seeing a big demonstration for VIPs of amphibious warfare in action. It was all very impressive with the Amtraks and hover craft and landing craft, and Cobras and Harriers. It was a terrific demonstration and just watching it, I thought it was glorious, but I also wondered, Was this a glorious anachronism? Was this like watching the cavalry on parade in the 1930's?...

It seems to me the problem with any kind of amphibious vehicle is that you're inevitably going to sacrifice firepower and armor for the sake of being able to swim. Hence, it's going to be less useful to Marines patrolling Iraq or Afghanistan, where there's not a lot of swimming to be done.

I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense, as an interim step, to buy more armored vehicles that are available on the world market, that might provide greater protection to Marines from IEDs and RPGs. You could buy vehicles like the Israeli-made Rhino Rhiner or the South Carolina-produced Cougar, which I know is being bought already, but in very small quantities.

And in the longer term, perhaps, the Marine Corps should work with the Army to develop Marine variants of the future combat system vehicles, rather than making this big buy of the expeditionary fighting vehicle.

Boot is suggesting that the USMC needs to make a commitment to an entirely different mindset -- a return to the days of being an imperial, colonial force, a refocusing on "small wars" and nationbuilding concepts. "I suspect that in the future, a core mission of the Corps will be doing the kind of things that it did in the past," Boot said, "such as setting up foreign constabularies, such as Smedly Butler's Haitian gendarmerie, or "Chesty" Puller's Nicaragua national guard."

It's certainly possible that a core mission of the US military may be that. The USMC, however, is not the right service to handle it.

Nation building exercises strongly benefit from two things that the USMC is not ideal to provide: very long term deployments, and the ability to draw on a large reserve/National Guard which is composed of people who have developed medical/police/technical skills over the course of a longer civilian life. The civilian capabilities and experience is obviously invaluable. The long-term deployments are valuable because they allow the formation of personal relationships in-country. The formation and maintenance of those relationships is the most effective strategy in counterinsurgency warfare. Finally, the Army already has a fully developed and effective special operations wing to this kind of low-intensity, relationship-forming warfare: the Green Berets.

All of these things can be better provided by the Army. The Army's far larger size means that it can more easily detail a unit to remain in an area for long periods of time. It's reserve size and access to the National Guard likewise far outstrip what the Marines can offer. Long term occupation and nation building should not be the USMC's core mission, simply because of economies of scale.

The shift away from mobility that Boot suggests is tied into the move to nation building. The Army's equipment stands up better to long term fighting. It's heavier, it's less mobile, but because we have a Marine Corps that is seabased and devoted to being expeditionary, the US military is not without rapid-entry capabilities. The Marines can secure what the Army may need to hold.

This brings us to the question of special operations. As noted, the USMC has only a small presence at SOCOM, although that may be changing. If it changes, however, it seems to me that it ought not to redefine what the USMC does in terms of special operations. The most effective thing that the USMC can do, for future special warfare, is not commando raids. The Navy SEALs are excellent commandos, and if more commandos is what we need then we need more of them -- if many more such men can be found.

The USMC's special operations competence, unmatched by anyone else, is the MEU(SOC) (pronounced, "Mew-sock"). That stands for "Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Operations Capable." It is a Marine fighting unit of about battalion strength, with integrated air support and transport capability, trained to special operations standards, capable of deploying with extraordinary speed.

The MEU(SOC) is the extension of expeditionary warfare to the special operations field. Its capabilities were on display early in the war in Afghanistan, which I think beautifully illustrates how the Marines ought to support special operations and low intensity conflicts. The Green Berets and CIA SOG made contact with Afghan units, and provided logistics, intelligence, and air support. The Northern Alliance did most of the fighting. But when it was necessary to suddenly close a route to the enemy, the 15th MEU seized control of an area to the south of the Taliban.

They were able to deploy from the Persian Gulf to southern Afghanistan -- a victory for the concept of seabasing, for until their deployment they were out of the range of enemy attacks, yet could be on the ground in hours. Had it been desirable, they could have been back off the ground again hours later, returned to the bases at sea.

This, I think, is the role the USMC can best serve in terms of fighting future small wars. They shouldn't be the primary forces on the ground -- the Army's strengths play to that area, and if anyone is going to redesign with that in mind, it's the Army who should assign some units to doing it. They shouldn't be doing commando raids, in imitation of the SEALs or the Deltas. They shouldn't be trying to replicate the Green Berets.

What they should do is focus on their seabased, expeditionary concept, but extend it. The ideal should be for a quick-strike force with rapid deployment and withdrawal capability -- a force who can follow on Sun Tzu's advice, "When you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

The ability to deploy in sustainable force, rapidly and in an unexpected sector, is invaluable in maneuver warfare. It serves the country well against opponent states, but also in insurgency warfare such as we see in Iraq. A Corps that focused on being rapidly deployable in that fashion, and which avoided being tied down with occupation duties, would be able to support Army units with sudden surges in manpower and firepower, as well as closing off at the last hour routes that the enemy was counting on for escape.

Special operations of this type would only be part of the Marine Corps' role, of course. The other missions of the Corps will require units of other types -- including the MEFs, whose power is unmatched by any similarly sized unit of infantry. Still, insofar as the Marines are going to be more involved in special operations and low-intensity warfare, I think this is the role for them: MEU(SOC) deployments in the support of nonconventional or conventional units, and also the same ability put to use in the service of Army nation-building units.

If I were betting on the future of the Marines, that's the way I'd bet.

UPDATE: The famous "Sheik Marine", Captain Joel Leggett of Southern Appeal sends this analysis:

Grim,

I agree with most of what you said. Having said that I think you are
wrong when you say that the Marine Corps is not the force best suited
for small wars occupation duty. In fact I think we are ideally suited
for that mission. As the Small Wars Manual makes clear such duty
requires a high degree of flexibility and mobility, as well as an
institutional ability to operate in a vaguely defined operational environment.
With all due respect to our brothers and sisters in the Army, that branch
of the service does not posses the institutional culture necessary for
success in that setting.

My service with the Army in joint environments has demonstrated that
the Army is very insistent on people "staying in their lanes." In fact,
I heard that phrase used repeatedly as both a command and compliment by
Army personnel. Furthermore, it became increasingly clear to me that
much of the Army leadership that I dealt with would rather see a
problem go unsolved than have a person step out of the narrowly prescribed
duties of their billet to fix the problem. Such an institutional culture
is spectacularly ill suited for small wars occupation duty.
Consequently, since Marine Corps culture is the complete opposite (i.e. every
Marine a rifleman, fill in where needed, etc.) it should come as no
surprise that we are the service that produced the Small Wars Manual in the
first place.

The Marine Corps posses the necessary institutional culture to
successfully carry out such duties. The important thing to remember is that
due to our size we can't carry out much more than one or two such duties
at a time. Furthermore, such duties require time. We have to be
allowed the time to finish the job.

I think Mr. Boot has a point to a degree when he says that we might
want to examine getting some heavier vehicles for such duties. The
amtrakers I have talked to indicate that their vehicles have been used
incorrectly in situations that would require heavier vehicles.

Let me be clear. I don't think the Marine Corps should surrender its
expeditionary role or nature. However, I think that role will require
us to be the primary counterinsurgency/small wars force.

I will agree that the USMC's institutional culture is an advantage -- in this as in every mission it undertakes. One of the things the panel was talking about, which I think is really true, is that the Marine Corps is the thinking man's service (although I've also argued, and do believe, that the military officers' corps as a whole is sufficiently intellectual as to serve as a parallel structure to academia for the life of the mind). Regardless of that claim, the USMC is certainly more flexible and able to embrace new ways of doing things, from the squad level up to the level we're seeing here, where it's possible to debate taking the entire service in a new direction.

The question for me isn't that, but rather, "To what missions should we be applying that particular advantage?" And I think that the three things mentioned above -- the need for longer deployments, the benefit of drawing on a larger reserve and the Guard, and the integration with the Special Forces -- make the Army better suited for these kinds of long-term occupation / nation building duties.

Now, the USMC Reserve has its own citizen soldiers, whose quality I certainly don't mean to denigrate. LTC Coulvillon spoke glowingly of them at the dinner he held for the brothers of Iraq the Model. It's not their quality, but their size, that is is the issue.

To maximize effectiveness in nation building and counterinsurgecy, you need to be able to combine three elements:

1) A professional class of warriors who will not mind to stay in-country on a prolonged basis. They will have to manage the reconstruction and fight most of the battles. To be effective, they will need to be able to build family-like relationships within existing tribal/social structures, whether in Iraq or Thailand. The Regular Army can do this because it has the manpower.

2) A large reserve, which can be rotated in and out on shorter deployments to maintain its viability as a volunteer force. The need to move them in and out is a disadvantage, but it is balanced and offset by the expertise that the (usually older) citizen soldiers have learned in private life. This is well served by the Army Reserve and National Guard; the USMC Reserve is not large enough to manage rotations faster than the regular units.

3) Special units that can penetrate into harder to reach areas and make initial contacts with groups "beyond the pale." These contacts can be integrated into regular units as the "pale" expands, assuming an "oil stain" model of counterinsurgency. The Green Berets are specially trained for exactly this, for example being selected based on their score on the DLAB artificial language test as well as the physical attributes. The USMC has no parallel model, and would have to devote a lot of resources to developing one or do without.

I don't dispute that the Army would be improved by developing a culture more like the Marines'. (Rather, I shall let Eric dispute it. :) I do think, though, that the Marine Corps' culture is as useful an advantage in any sort of warfighting. It ought to be reserved to where it can do the most good, given the realities of force structure.

Comments

Comments Policy:

Given the apparent reality of new readers, I thought it would be wise to repost the comments policy. Please be welcome, so long as you will adhere to this form.

I adopted [this policy] from the sadly-defunct Texas Mercury, a fringe publication but one whose bold assertion of well considered and unusual ideas I always enjoyed:

As we see it, modern society has all the important ideas of life exactly backwards: we are completely against the belief in sensitivity and tolerance in politics and raffish disregard in private life. The Texas Mercury is founded on the opposite principles- our idea is of tolerance and polite sensitivity in private life and ruthless truth in politics. Be nice to your neighbor. Be hell to his ideas.

Comments failing to uphold those principles run the risk of being deleted without warning. In the year and some months since I adopted that as the policy here, I've added one additional point: hit-and-run comments, as well as anonymous comments, will generally be deleted. If you're a regular here, and willing to stand up and fight for what you believe, you can say pretty much anything that isn't a personal attack on a fellow reader. If you're just wandering through, or unwilling to leave your name (even a false name you'll stand by will do, e.g., "Grim"), pass on. This is a hall, and regular readers are honored guests not to be troubled by cowards.

Fair enough? Well, fair or unfair, those are the rules.

PJM

PJM:

I suppose I can't put this off any longer, since they've posted a profile of me at their site. Very well, then:

Grim's Hall has decided to join PajamasMedia.

I did so for the reasons that are laid out in the profile. I think that the MSM's astonishing refusal to admit alternative viewpoints can only be broken by hitting them at their foundation: advertising revenue. If we're going to have a serious effect on the media, we have to get their attention. Nothing will get their attention except cutting into their money flow.

I've read Althouse's critique of PJM, but she and I are coming at if from different perspectives. She is considering what's best for the individual blogger. What matters to me is the effect on the MSM, and looking past that, toward society and particularly to the Republic.

The thing reminds me of the early days of the unions -- a point that Jill Stewart, a charming lady who did the profile for PJM, redacted a bit in her necessary editing of my remarks. (Southerners, as I warned her on the outset, think slowly and talk slowly and take our time getting to the point. It's not her fault.)

In the early days of unions, there was a serious effort to get skilled laborers to join in with unskilled laborers to bargain collectively. By doing that, early union organizers thought, they could bring a lot more pressure to bear at once. Skilled laborers were not as easily replaced, for one thing, and so one faces a strike by skilled labor with more fear than a strike by unskilled labor (particularly in the days when the police and US Army were called out to break picket lines).

Similarly, if it is able to draw top bloggers as well as mid- and low- ranked bloggers, PJM will be able to bargain for a higher percentage of the total monies spent on revenue than bloggers individually could do. It's true that the top bloggers could make more, as Althouse says, bargaining as individuals. That is why the idea of getting skilled and unskilled labor to bargain together didn't really work out -- it was foolish for skilled laborers to go in with the unskilled, when they were in a fine position to negotiate on their own.

I am not interested in the money, however, but only in the wider effect on society. As a consequence, PJM is an initiative I wish to support.

What about the money? I have decided to spend it in three ways:

1) I offered my co-bloggers a chance to cut themselves in at whatever percentage they would care to name. I have to tell you, however, that Eric Blair and Daniel are two of the most modest and moderate people you will ever meet. I am proud to have them as co-bloggers here at Grim's Hall, and only wish they'd asked for more than they cared to do.

2) On the occasions that I get to meet with readers, it will be my pleasure to cover the costs of the feast. These chances come only too rarely, but I have enjoyed them when they have. It's your eyes that are making these ads worth what they are worth, so when we can feast together, consider that you've paid in advance.

3) I shall give the rest to my wife, who has suffered many a long adventure with me and has had little in the way of reward. She is the finest and noblest of women, one who deserves and could have gotten better than she's asked. The kind of money we're talking about won't make up for that, but at least once she will be able to say that she's profitted from our alliance.

In any event, soon enough I suppose we'll be seeing advertisements here at Grim's Hall. I trust you understand, good readers.

China and PACOM

China & USPACOM:

Admiral Fallon spoke on Sunday to the possibility of renewed US-China military ties. I have a piece about that, and updating last week's commentary on China, at The Fourth Rail. I know some of you are thinking about China now, to judge from the email I've gotten since publishing that piece last week, as well as the many comments appended to that post. It may be interesting to you to see something of what the military is thinking.

Love or leave

"Love it or Leave It"

So said Australia's top Muslim cleric to its chief radical. It's a theme that seems to be increasingly common, and not just in Australia: we've seen governments in Europe looking at forced deportation for those who don't obviously "love" being there.

At this point, Australia's Muslim community seems to be doing some damage control, isolating their own radicals so that any deportations will not harm the larger Muslim community. The attorney general there, one Phillip Ruddock, has frequently made noises about the possibility of deportations since the London attacks of July. Nor is this aimed only at Muslim radicals. "Peace activists" are coming under scrutiny too:

A US peace activist and history teacher, Scott Parkin, has been arrested in Melbourne after his visa was revoked on grounds of character. He was deemed "a threat to national security" by the Australian Department of Immigration, according to a spokesperson from Anti-Deportation Alliance. The ABC has reported that the Federal police have confirmed an American man was arrested on the orders of the Immigration Department (DIMIA) and is in custody.

Mr Parkin participated in an anti-war profiteering protest outside Halliburton in Sydney on August 31, and was also reported to have attended the Forbes Global CEO Conference protest.

For now, Australia's movements are concentrated on foreigners -- some naturalized Australian citizens, but foreign-born -- who are making trouble for the current order. One can sympathize with the notion that foreign troublemakers should be sent home. Even ones, like Mr. Parkin, who haven't broken any actual laws? Perhaps.

On the other hand, we have predicated a lot of the War on Terror on the principle that democracy, including the right to protest and the freedom of speech, will dissipate radicalism. We've seen in London and elsewhere that this is not so -- that allowing a community of radicals to operate promotes terrorist recruitment, and permits terrorist groups to build networks capable of operations within Western countries.

Where is the middle ground between suppressing radicalism, and permitting the kind of free speech and democratic protest that avoids radicalism? If you can't have both, which one is more important? I'm going to side with free speech and liberty, even if it means more blood. That was always the choice for me and mine, as Patrick Henry put it long ago.

Yet if we make that choice, we ought to realize that it very well may mean more blood, and not only ours. There is a threat of seeing a community that is guaranteed democratic rights and freedoms, and uses those rights and freedoms to organize itself for the destruction the main society. In such a case, we may find ourselves supporting their right to speak and think freely, at the cost of having to kill them or imprison them, or watching them kill themselves in order to take some of us along. We end up defending their rights, but destroying their bodies.

That is better, I think, than not defending their rights. If we sacrifice their rights, we sacrifice our own as well -- and it is those rights that have always been the point of the American model, as the British model before us. I always heard it said, growing up, that we must expect to bleed and to sacrifice if that model was to be defended among the perils of the world. I always expected to, so it is no surprise to me to see that we may have to do so.

We shall see, however, if that line of thinking appeals broadly. Your chains are forged, Patrick Henry also said -- and so they are, fitted and ready for you. But the only other choice is blood.

Have we enough who will vote for more blood and more pain, that liberty be defended? Do we really mean that democracy and freedom are the cures to radicalism? Or shall we find ourselves not defending our principles and extending liberty to the world, but rather seeking a middle ground with tyranny -- so that Egypt is less tyrannical, but we ourselves far more so?

That may be the road to peace; it may be the only road there. If so, I will not vote to walk it.

Marathon

Men of the West:

In yesterday's wake, it seems proper to point out that today is a mighty anniversary as well. Or, at least, so we long believed -- there is some renewed debate on the topic of when the Battle of Marathon was actually fought.

9/11

9/11/05:

Four years ago today, I shut off the television in the middle afternoon, and walked out into the forests of Georgia. Crossing onto an island in the middle of a creek, I sat down and thought about what we had seen, and what was to come, and wrote "Enid & Geraint."

The first four years have been quite a bit easier than I would have imagined. In spite of the occasional passion, such as we saw in last year's elections; in spite of the occasional horror, such as we saw in Beslan; yet the enemy has proven incapable of fighting war on the terms it has so often threatened. I feel much more peaceful about the future now than I used to, because of the experiences of these last several years. I think that, with time and the continued application of leverage, we shall have something of the revolution we dreamed of seeing in the unfree places of the world -- in Iraq and Afghanistan, certainly, but also in those places which have been inspired to freedom in part by the experiences of those nations. We are seeing democracy strengthened from Malaysia to Lebanon, to name just two places recently unfree and oppressed, where a hopeful glow has emerged.

There is much left to be done, but I think it lies within our power. We must still accomplish more on securing the former Soviet weapons; encouraging nonproliferation; resolving the problem of North Korea, which is particularly difficult; and undermining the enemy in his home through a combination of encouraging democracy and punishing tyranny. There are still plenty of problem areas -- Thailand's south is one I spend a lot of time thinking about -- but we have made some great strides, too.

At home, there is still quite a lot to accomplish. Perhaps the most important matter is the completely unsecure border to our south, followed by the large degree of smuggling on the border to our north. The events of the last few years have also proven that our system is inadequate when it comes to holding the powerful responsible for their actions. Internal partisanship is making it harder to reform the system: one side will name Sandy Berger and certain Senators as being particularly guilty of bad faith; the other side, Wolfowitz and Brown and the President himself. The result has been that no one is punished for anything they do or say, no matter how destructive the effect on national security or the health of the Republic.

It is interesting that, four years on, we should find that we have more problems at home than abroad, but I think we have. The internal tensions of the Republic are now where the most danger lies, from the politics of elections to the Court, and from the securing of the border to the vast increase of government secrecy. It has always been the case that the American political system was our point of greatest vulnerability in this war, even as it is our greatest pride and the thing we are most devoted to defending. We need to be able to keep up the pace and pressure of our actions abroad -- both military and diplomatic -- while pursuing reforms at home.

In order to accomplish that, we need to lower the heat of the political atmosphere so that we can reason together. Encouraging and reinforcing Federalism is surely a major part of that, so that neither Red nor Blue America needs to fear for its way of life. For the same reason, it is important to encourage a Supreme Court that respects Federalism and defers to legislatures when there are no blatant violations of the Constitution. With two vacancies on the Court now, we have an unusual opportunity for influence.

That, at least, is how it seems to me four years on. I don't feel inclined to poetry today -- my own heat is much lower than it was four years ago. Now is the time for rational thinking, to consider how the Republic is changing in the face of the war, and to apply ourselves to ensuring that the changes are healthy rather than destructive for the liberty that is our government's primary purpose.

Guns

Guns in New Orleans:

Adam asks, below, what the proper way to deal with police officers attempting to illegally disarm you would be. I answered him at some length, but let's look at an actual case study. This is how it's really being done, and we can examine it to see what some of the difficulties are.

Here is a video showing California Highway Patrol officers, who have volunteered to help with the forced evacuations, tackling an elderly woman in order to disarm her.

Now, the CHP officers and the newscaster both seem quite sympathetic -- but they are willing to use real physical violence, even against someone who is frail, to enforce the surrender of all weapons.

That's not constitutional under the Louisiana state constitution. It's just not -- the constitution says that the right to bear arms shall not be abridged, though it makes provision for bearing concealed weapons. But this woman's weapons were plainly displayed, not brandished in a threatening manner, and not being carried outside of her home.

The cops were wrong to do what they did, but I doubt they understand why they were wrong. In California, the state recognizes no right to bear arms at all; they won't have known that the LA constitution is more civilized. They are probably accustomed to dealing with drug smugglers and the like as a more regular thing, and simply lack training or experience in these matters, as well as lacking an understanding of the legal context.

The lady herself was wrong to resort to screaming curses and other things that would let them view her as irrational.

If it comes to a confrontation, you must be polite and professional, explain the law, and then -- if they still insist upon it -- get everything on the record. Make them provide a receipt for everything they take, their badge numbers, etc. Make clear at the time that they're going to be called to answer in court for what they are doing.

Recognize what we're up against here. Neither the police nor the media have any conception that the Second Amendment or its mirrors at the state level protect a right that really exists. The cops and the reporter all felt that "she had a gun" explains why they can do whatever they feel they need to do in order to disarm her.

We have to prove that this understanding is wrong, and that can only be done in court. The battle has already been won, in most states, at the legislative level -- the law supports us. It's only the courts now that refuse to apply the law that already exists. Get everything on the record, don't do anything illegal, and then fight it in the court. The law is on our side -- we will win this battle, eventually.

Do look up your own state laws, to see what changes you would like in them. It's a good time to do it now, while there isn't a disaster in your own community, but people's minds are fixed on the possibility that there might be one someday.

Guns & NO

The Lawyers and New Orleans:

Small comfort to the people who have been disarmed at gunpoint by armed bandits the New Orleans police, but the lawyers are indeed prowling over whether this action is either legal or Constitutional. Volokh hosts the debate, which is carried on by Dave Kopel (arguing that it violates even the Louisiana emergency act) and Orin Kerr (arguing that it may not violate that act, though it still may violate the Louisiana constitution, the US constitution, etc).

There is little to be done for the citizens of New Orleans until the courts resume their activity, except to write your Senators and ask them to join in the protest against this business. But there is important work to be done in your own state: take a look at the emergency laws operating where you live, and then speak to your state legislators about them. It seems to me that the Second Amendment prohibits this sort of conduct on its face. However, it never hurts to have a few extra ranks of legal spears between us and those who care nothing for the rights of men, and who are willing to leave them and their families defenseless in a wilderness.

This is an issue to be watched. If you see any posts out there about the emergency laws of the several states, or further posts from lawyers about the issue in contention in NO, mention them in the comments and we'll keep an updated list.

EBfs

Eric Blair's Tour to the Stars:

There's a new section of links called "Eric Blair's Favorites" over on the sidebar. It's between "Easy Company, MilBloggers" and "News." He picked a number of things that interested him, and which I didn't already have on the links bar.

Some of the choices will be familiar to regular readers of blogs, but there are others that will be a surprise. One of the two biggest surprises for me was Cronaca, a remarkable site with some fascinating posts from the world of archaeology.

The other big surprise for me was the Countercolumn, formerly "Iraq Now." It was a surprise only because I was sure I'd always linked to Captain von Steenwyk's site. I was quite surprised to go over my links bar and find that, indeed, it wasn't already there.

I apologize for its long absence, because it is certainly a worthy read. I'll take the opportunity now to commend it to those of you who don't already read it.

Hmm

Hmm...

Apparently Eric was right about that:

Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.

Police officers looking for survivors today in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

I have never had the first minute's trouble with any law enforcement agency, beyond the odd traffic ticket from my wild and misspent youth. Still and all -- if any law enforcement agency ever lets me down the way the NOPD has let down the people of New Orleans, prepare to be very disappointed when you ask for my guns.

But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

And no capability to do so, either. Blackwater would hand them their hats. I've had occasion to work with the gentlemen, via a mutual friend.

...

But there were still signs of confusion and uncertainty over government plans. FEMA's director, Michael D. Brown, had said his agency would begin issuing debit cards, worth at least $2,000 each, to allow hurricane victims to buy supplies for immediate needs. More than 319,000 people have already applied for federal disaster relief, and many evacuees began lining up at the Astrodome, in Houston, early today in hope of getting cards.

Two thousand dollars, eh? So that's, eh, five hundred bucks to replace the firearm with something suitable, and the rest for Raman noodles and a couple suits of clothes until you can find a new job.

Somewhere else.

I used to think the Atlanta city government was corrupt and mismanaged. Apparently, they were rank amateurs.

Heh.

I'm thinking this fellow isn't going to be on the Huffingtion Post too much longer. (via Instapundit)

Make sure you read his bio.

Oh, and speaking of political humor, the Anarchist Pogo Party in Germany has taken advantage of the 'equal time' law by broadcasting what sounds like a very curious politcal commercial.

Reminds me of the Dadaists and Surrealists of the 1920's and 30's. Politics as theater. We're getting enough of that lately. And finally, as an antidote to that, Dennis the Peasant has a whole lot of things to say. Just keep reading. Accountants are sensible people.

CP

Code Pink:

Code Pink has apparently accepted SMASH's challenge to help raise funds for the Katrina disaster. You might want to help out.

Bloodstripes

Bloodstripes:

Congratulations to "Da Grunt," son of our own frequent commenter JarHeadDad, who has made corporal. Semper Fi.

Paladin

Paladins:

Up the militia! Even, one supposes, the hastily assembled and fairly ignorant militia:

It's been a terrifying nine days for the four, scrambling for food, water and gasoline for their generator and an arsenal of weapons they feared they would need if complete lawlessness broke out in the historic neighborhood of renovated 19th century homes. The neighborhood having survived the storm without flood damage, Pervel and Harris, both former presidents of the Algiers Point Association, worried that looters and others seeking high ground would invade the community.

Yet they have not had to fire a shot.

And that's a good thing for them. They were not sure if any of the borrowed weapons even worked.

This isn't the best way to go about fulfilling your Second Amendment rights and duties. It's best for a militiaman to have his weapons ready, to be familiar with their operation, and prepared to serve at a moment's notice in the cause of the Republic.

Doc has a comment on the topic, which ends: "Have gun. Will travel." And that, my friends, is the the mark of a Paladin.

Not the ballad I'd pick for myself, but a worthy one.

Wang

A Letter from China:

Wang Jisi is a classic figure from the Chinese landscape: a scholar with influence at the court. He is, in fact, dean of the school of International Studies at an important Chinese university (which in Chinese is DaShui, lit. "Big School"). But more important than that is his position at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party.

Dr. Wang has produced a paper for the journal of the Central Party School, which was revised and expanded for publication in English. It appears in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, and can be read here. It is an interesting document in several respects.

The first thing that is interesting about it is its circumstances. The paper, in its earlier Chinese form, will have been read and debated at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party. That they desired to see it "revised" and then issued in English is notable. It purports to be a piece of analysis from a respected scholar; it is in fact a letter from China's rulers as a whole. Dr. Wang is just far enough from the halls of power to let them speak without making formal promises; yet he is so close to those halls that we cannot doubt that they gave their blessing to his words.

Wang begins:

The United States is currently the only country with the capacity and the ambition to exercise global primacy, and it will remain so for a long time to come. This means that the United States is the country that can exert the greatest strategic pressure on China. Although in recent years Beijing has refrained from identifying Washington as an adversary or criticizing its "hegemonism" -- a pejorative Chinese code word for U.S. dominance -- many Chinese still view the United States as a major threat to their nation's security and domestic stability.

He is telling us that China has been trying to be friendly. But he also is giving us the formula, so we will understand what follows. Throughout the piece, Wang writes according to this formula: without formal reference to "hegemony," in friendly terms that play up the need for cooperation rather than competition, but explaining why China might reasonably view the United States as a threat.

That formula is followed precisely. When he speaks of US policy, it isn't "hegemony," but a "global security policy." He explains his understanding of US interests, so we will know that he is sympathetic:

Further bolstering U.S. primacy is the fact that many of the country's potential competitors, such as the European Union, Russia, and Japan, face internal problems that will make it difficult for them to overtake the United States anytime soon. For a long time to come, the United States is likely to remain dominant, with sufficient hard power to back up aggressive diplomatic and military policies.

From a Chinese perspective, the United States' geopolitical superiority was strengthened in 2001 by Washington's victory in the Afghan war. The United States has now established political, military, and economic footholds in Central Asia and strengthened its military presence in Southeast Asia, in the Persian Gulf, and on the Arabian Peninsula. These moves have been part of a global security strategy that can be understood as having one center, two emphases. Fighting terrorism is the center. And the two emphases are securing the Middle East and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The greater Middle East, a region stretching from Kashmir to Morocco and from the Red Sea to the Caucasus, is vital to U.S. interests. Rich in oil and natural gas, the region is also beset by ethnic and religious conflicts and is a base for rampant international terrorism. None of the countries in the area is politically stable, and chaos there can affect the United States directly, as the country learned on September 11.

On the nonproliferation front, the United States' main concerns are Iran and North Korea, two states that are striving to develop nuclear technology and have long been antagonistic toward Washington. In 2004, the United States carried out the largest redeployment of its overseas forces since World War II in order to meet these challenges.

Note particularly the list of 'potential US competitors': "European Union, Russia, and Japan." The absence of China from that list is not an accident, but a statement -- even an invitation.

We all know that China is grieved, and concerned, with the US military bases in central and southeast Asia. Wang brings them up early in his list of places where the US is exerting power, and recognizes the strength of the position. But he defuses it from being an issue between us and them: "These moves have been part of a global security strategy that can be understood as having one center, two emphases. Fighting terrorism is the center. And the two emphases are securing the Middle East and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

This is part of the mindset of classical China, which influenced much of Asia in the days when they were ascendant. Social harmony requires "a beautiful mask" to cover "the ugly truth." Politeness, a central duty of everyone, means upholding that mask to prevent the webs of social harmony from being disturbed. It is not that anyone actually believes it -- it is that everyone adheres to it, that harmony can be maintained in spite of everything.

Here we are given that mask as a gift. China's Communists are making us an offer. They are willing to pretend to see our actions in that context, if we will pretend that that is the only context for them.

The rest of the piece is much the same. It is a fascinating read because it lays out how China is prepared to meet us halfway on the great issues of the day. Iraq, Asia, economics: from first to last, with one exception, we are being offered an understanding for mutual benefit. That one exception of course is Taiwan -- it is the condition on which all this is laid.

History has already proved that the United States is not China's permanent enemy. Nor does China want the United States to see it as a foe. Deng Xiaoping's prediction that "things will be all right when Sino-U.S. relations eventually improve" was a cool judgment based on China's long-term interests. To be sure, aspirations cannot replace reality. The improvement of Chinese-U.S. relations will be slow, tortuous, limited, and conditional, and could even be reversed in the case of certain provocations (such as a Taiwanese declaration of independence). It is precisely for this reason that the thorny problems in the bilateral relationship must be handled delicately, and a stable new framework established to prevent troubles from disrupting an international environment favorable for building prosperous societies. China's leadership is set on achieving such prosperity by the middle of the twenty-first century; with Washington's cooperation, there is little to stand in its way.

Should we accept the deal that has been placed on the table? Much depends on how much we trust the Communists to keep their word. Yet the offer is backed, not merely with promises, but with reason. The explanations for why the United States and China have aligned interests are compelling. Having lived in China, too, I sense that they will adhere to the mask once they don it -- so long as we do also. If we accept what is offered, it will become in their mind a matter of honor to uphold the masks that protect the greater harmony.

The deal is much starker when it is viewed the way Americans like to view things. We prefer the ugly truth, and here it is: Taiwan for peace. If we will do that, speak more kindly of them, pretend that our interests are what they have described them to be -- they don't care if we change our policies a whit, just how we talk about them -- then we can have peace, and all the benefits that are laid out before us in the document. Yet it contains, plainly but softly, the threat of war if we do not accept.

It is a kingly document, courtly and well-spoken. Every word of it is structured and considered, and every word -- in its fashion -- is meant. We must think carefully what answer to make, and where our interests lie.

Vikings

Viking Ships:

When I got home last night from the feasts, although it was after nine o' clock, I discovered the the grandparents whom we are visiting down here in Georgia had not put the boy to bed. Three-year-old Beowulf was sitting up watching television with them.

When I came through the door, he lept up happily and came racing over to me, dancing with every step. "Wow!" I thought to myself. "He's never been this happy to see me. I guess having me and his mother gone all day has made him extra glad to see us, and..."

So much for that train of thought. It turned out that the grandparents had bought him a present that afternoon, but told him he couldn't have it until Daddy came home.

He went racing off into their bedroom, and then came out with this huge blue box under his arm. The thing was so big that "under his arm" could be accomplished only with great difficulty, and he was dragging the thing along the floor rather than carrying it. "You gotta open this!" he said.

I picked it up to look at it. It was a fine gift indeed.

"Get your knife out!" Beowulf shouted, dancing in place with anticipation.

So I did. What a happy boy.

RN F

Evenings in Ellijay:

Ellijay is the seat of Gilmer County, Georgia, the apple-growing capital of... well, the world, as far as I know, but they claim only to be the Apple Capital of Georgia. Apples were the crop they settled on to avoid the destruction of the boll weevil, when it destroyed the major part of the economy of Georgia in the 1920s. Georgia had an economy based on what social scientists call "monoculture farming," which is to say that the whole economy is based around a single crop -- like coffee or sugar in some places today.

In Georgia, it was cotton, until the boll weevil. The people then had to figure out something else to grow, and start from scratch. Meanwhile the financial machine made things worse: all the banks crashed because they weren't getting payments on their agricultural loans; everybody lost their lands when the banks seized it and tried to sell it to cover the loans; and so on. It took about ten years to get it sorted out, which was just in time for the Great Depression to smash everyone equally. That means that, for Georgia, it was really a twenty-year depression.

Nevertheless, people got by. First they grew subsistence crops on the land, and eventually they managed to develop new forms of agriculture. These days, pine trees are the major crop up in the north of the state -- short needle pines, which are easily made into pulp that can be used to make paper. There are also the apples, and peaches, soybeans somewhat further south, and many other things as well. And, of course, these days we can grow cotton again too.

After yesterday's meal at the Pueblo Grill, I encountered a flyer for a local festival. I transcribe it below. I promise that I have typed it in accurately; or, as Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.

1st Annual
"REDNECK FESTIVAL"
Think we're kidding? Just be there!
Ellijay Music Park
September 9 & 10, 2005

Friday
7:00pm Karaoke Contest
With Southern Entertainment
BIGGEST BEER BELLY CONTEST

Saturday
10:00am REDNECK PARADE
...
11:00am Hot wings cookoff
3:00pm RIDING LAWN MOWER RACE
...

Saturday Special Events:
Flea Market (Call to Reserve Space)
"Redneck Truck Show"
Redneck Horseshoes with Toilet Seats
Tobacco Ring Jeans Contest

For the Kids:
Remote Control Hunt
Mudpit Belly Flop
Water Balloon Fight

So, out of tragedy and hardship came a people with what appears to be a very good sense of humor. They don't mind if America laughs at them by calling them Rednecks and assigning all these stereotypes to them. They just want to laugh along.

MM

Many Meetings:

Today Grim pulled his great viking ship up on two high shores, and held feasts among the wrack. It was a very pleasant day, the best I've had in quite a while. I'd like to thank everyone who came out.

The first feast was held with the crew of Del's FreeSpeech, an Atlanta area blog. Del's a libertarian blogger, whose editorial philosophy has always been to give out guest accounts to anyone who felt like they had something to say. It's an interesting place to drop by.

We met at the Pueblo Grill, which is surely the finest Mexican restaurant in the mountains of North Georgia. A good time was had by all, I think I can report.

Later in the evening, we held a second feast at the Applebee's in Buford, Georgia, whose location proved to be more difficult to triangulate than anyone expected. Nevertheless, it ended well. JarHeadDad and his gracious and lovely bride came out to dine with us, and we ate well of the best that the house had to offer. Those of you who have been worried about him lately can stop worrying: he seems to have recovered nicely from the knock he took from Thor's hammer.

It was a pleasure to meet a number of readers, and to eat and drink and hold council. Thank you, everyone who came out. I am glad to have known you all.

You can just feel the frustration.

Over at Countercolumn, Jason van Steenwyk is ripping Bob Herbert and the NY Times a new one.

Not that I think they're going to notice.

But I'm hopeful others will. I see that Instapundit noticed too.