NPT/India

India and the NPT:

We are long accustomed to seeing the concept of "international law" misused. There is no such thing as international law, of course, but there are treaties: treaties which say only what they say, and are binding only if you choose to opt into them, and until you choose to opt back out. There is a legal process for doing so in each country, and it is that country -- not the international bodies overseeing the treaties -- which have all the power and sovereignty. From the American perspective, we believe that power arises from consent of the governed, through a lawful constitution; but, to simply matters, we often (and probably mistakenly) deal with "nations" that are mere dictatorships of force as if they had the right to be treated as actual nations.

An example of the misuse I mean comes in the recent "White Phosphorous" controversy; we saw a similar example in the early days of our operations in Afghanistan, over cluster bombs. Many NGOs and political groups wailed at the US use of "internationally banned" weapons. Yet the US was not a signatory to any treaty banning cluster bombs; and the treaty invoked to explain why WP should not be used actually said nothing of the sort. The "law" is only an agreement; it binds only those who agreed to it, and it says only what it says.

So today we are hearing from advocates of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) over proposed US plans to transfer nuclear energy technology to India.

First of all, India isn't a signatory to the NPT; but the US is. The provisions thus bind us, but not them.

Second, what exactly does it say? The Federation of American Scientists, a group founded to monitor and attempt to control the spread of nuclear weapons, has a website devoted to the NPT:

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also referred to as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), obligates the five acknowledged nuclear-weapon states (the United States, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, France, and China) not to transfer nuclear weapons, other nuclear explosive devices, or their technology to any non-nuclear-weapon state.

Thus, we may not transfer nuclear technology to, say, Cambodia. India, however, is a nuclear-weapon state: it has demonstrated this adequately. So, the NPT does not ban us from doing what we are proposing to do.

There is, then, no question of whether we are allowed to do what is proposed. The question remains of whether we ought to do it. Yet it is critical to recognize, in order to prevent the debate from being conducted dishonestly by opponents of the transfer, that there is no issue of law here. What remains is an issue of policy: a question of whether this or that action would be wiser, and more likely to achieve good things and minimize bad ones.

Well, what about that?

We have three reasons to consider adopting this plan: the reduction of the Indian economy's need for oil, which reduces oil prices; the development of strategic ties with India, which is an excellent candidate for developing a US alliance similar to NATO in the increasingly critical Pacific / Asian region; and the development of India's economy, which will not only improve the lives of tens of millions who live in poverty, but increase the relative power of a free nation in a region increasingly under the sway of China's unfree political model.

We have two reasons not to: criticisms that transferring nuclear technology to a state which has made an end-run around the NPT will discourage other nations from adhering to the NPT; and general concerns about the development of nuclear power.

Factors that should influence the discussion: NPT signatory China is in favor of the US making this "exception," if that is the right word; developing nations like the Philippines are indeed watching, though the lessons they are drawing don't seem alarming to me, at least; Pakistan wants a similar agreement with the US, and we may open ourselves to charges of favoritism by not offering one; and the question of whether nuclear energy is safe and environmentally friendly compared to oil and coal energy production, which are India's other likely models.

As to the question of Pakistan, it is an important US ally in the GWOT, and we have long attempted to maintain a balance of sorts between them and India. It seems we may be reaching the point at which we cannot do that. India's rising importance and wealth mean that they will have to be dealt with on a different level from the way we deal with Pakistan. Just as China's increasing power and wealth has bought it an increasing number of US tolerances for things we wish it wouldn't do, so shall India's. The question is only how long we can, and should, continue to try to maintain the balance.

In winning India as an ally, we benefit from early signs of favoritism. We ought to want to convince India that we are their friends because we approve of and admire their devotion to freedom and human liberty. Pakistan is a dictatorship, and one we support only because the alternatives are worse (for now). India is a free nation based on an excellent model, and a friendship between our countries -- like the friendship with our most reliable ally, Australia -- can be one of the heart. We need friends like that in Asia.

Is there a political risk of losing Pakistan at this critical time? Possibly. They have been pursuing a closer relationship with China, and it is possible that they could be driven to prefer Chinese aid to US aid in the future. They would remain tied to the international system, though, rather than becoming a new Afghanistan: the Chinese are also threatened by the Islamists taking over a country they are depending on for naval access to the Persian Gulf, and will support the government in much the same fashion as we would. We benefit from getting a dictatorship off our tab, as it were; if it is necessary to prop up an unfree state, as it may be on occasion, by all means let China do it instead of us. It is proper, that the US should find a way to be on the side of freedom even in this difficult situation.

So: on balance, I think this nuclear deal is a good idea. I suggest to the readers that we give it our support.

More on Islam

More on Islam:

Another quote from the BlackFive piece:

But rational, tolerant people do live in Muslim countries. I know they do. I have friends in Turkey, Jordan, India, and Indonesia (and here in the States) that are socially liberal moderates who are devoutly Muslim. Not to mention muslim soldiers of countries that I've served with and trained with...And they are terrified of both the extremists in their lands and our deaf ears here in the States.

How in the hell did we get here?

You can blame our media for displaying the worst of the Islamic extremists daily (and for bowing to the pressure of the worst of them - they're cartoons for crying out loud), and you can also blame the theocracies for feeding the blood lust and keeping their followers uneducated and duped in order to retain or build power. You can blame their governments for not protecting the moderates and the socially liberal among their societies. You can blame the rich oil sheiks for playing geopolitical games with their billions. And you can blame the moderates themselves for being cowards, much like the cowards in our own country who acquiesce at the first sign of a fight - whether that fight is taking down a murdering tyrant or cow-towing to the Politically Correct Police.

Glenn Reynolds wrote an excellent short piece on Sunday about the Tipping Point where Americans just don't trust (all) Muslims anymore. Apparently, we've had enough.

Have we?

Have we had enough BS from the extremists to taint our feelings towards every Muslim in the world? Have we let the media influence us so?

Today, Wretchard of the Belmont Club puts together a few stories that show a Left-Right unity in Europe on that Tipping Point:

twelve public figures have issued a Manifesto calling "Islamism" the new totalitarian threat of our time. Atlas Shrugs has the text of the declaration.... [which] has been signed by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq, Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Irshad Manji, Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, Ibn Warraq....

Gateway Pundit points to a new ad campaign being undertaken in Poland by an organization called the "Foundation of St. Benedictus" which calls attention to ordinary men and women being killed for religious reasons all over the world by a militant Islam. They are plastering posters on Polish public transportation. Some examples are shown below.

This morning I see a story from the University of California, Irvine:

Tensions quickly escalated when the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the conservative Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, said that Islam was an "evil religion" and that all Muslims hate America.

People repeatedly interrupted the talk and, at one point, campus police removed two men, one of them a Muslim, after they nearly came to blows.

Later, panelists were cheered when they referred to Muslims as fascists and accused mainstream Muslim-American civil rights groups of being "cheerleaders for terror."

Concern over this schism is not limited to the Western world. In Malaysia last month, there was a conference called "Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West?" Some disagreeable characters showed up to speak there, too, but also some genuine moderates, such as Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. Badawi proposed the building of bridges between Muslim and Westerner, with the hope that we might speak up for one another:

"[W]hen the bridge-builders reign supreme, the people of the West will speak for Islam and the Muslims will speak for the West."

I have tried to do so, below. But we cannot stop at just saying nice things, and trying to pretend the differences do not exist. Abdullah Badawi is a moderate, certainly: he has gone far and wide preaching for what he calls "Civilizational Islam," an Islam that devotes itself to technology and education and rejects violence.

Yet he has also closed newspapers in Malaysia that have printed the Danish cartoons, stories about the Danish cartoons, or even cartoons about the cartoons. His government has asserted that it means to be equal-opportunity about this: it will close newspapers that say bad things about Jesus, too. That is a moderate position, but it is not a position consistent with liberty, or likely to lead us to mutual understanding. It attempts to avoid flashpoints, by silencing anyone who would explore the underlying problems.

On what foundations, then, are these bridges to be built? If what underlies them is not solid -- if people have reservations they have not been allowed to voice and have answered, or even considered -- how will such bridges bear any weight?

Badawi himself invokes a long set of complaints against the West, both past and present, in his speech. Perhaps he was playing to the crowd, which included a number of what pass for "dignitaries" these days, including figures from Zimbabwe and Iran. Some of these complaints are ritual (as the Malaysians themselves are aware), rituals that have to be performed so that you can get to the business at hand -- not only in the Muslim world, but closer to home as well. In Mexico, for example, the government has so long encouraged anti-Americanism in state education that it now has to frame issues as 'shoving our independence in the eye of evil America' even when what it desires to do is move into closer cooperation with America. Americans by and large don't notice, and so the anti-American rhetoric functions as a lubricant. It makes it easier for the Mexican government to do what it wants, but what it has taught its people to suspect as servile submission to a domineering neighbor. They still cooperate, but they have made their prominent display of independence, so their people don't notice so much that they're doing just what America would want.

By the same token, we don't really notice in America when even genuine moderates like Abdullah invoke "global hegemony" and accuse us of "systematically caus[ing] innocent children, women and men to be killed[.]" It is only grease for the wheel, which allows his audience to be receptive when he says that "I hold the strong view that in the case of Islam, those who deliberately kill non-combatants and the innocent; those who oppress and exploit others; those who are corrupt and greedy; those who are chauvinistic and communal, do not speak on behalf of Islam."

He has established his independence with the posturing display of rhetoric, and now can move them closer to us. So long as we do not notice the display, it will not push us further away.

Yet now we have noticed, this and other similar things. We have to make a choice about them. We can choose to be pushed away, which will keep the chasm open between Islam and the West. Or, we can choose to take the blow for what it is worth: to "turn the other cheek," that is to say, and pursue the good that these moderates are trying to create in spite of the ritual insults.

As this is the West, we cannot do that through silence and pretending not to notice. That is not our way. But we can do it by saying, "I feel those charges are unfair (for these reasons); but I understand you are attempting to lay the foundation for furthering good will, and so I will not respond with attacks of my own." We can point to the genuine concerns we have -- free expression and inquiry are our right and heritage, and we both can and should speak plainly -- without using language like "evil religion."

When others who do feel that they can only speak plainly by saying such things, Westerners should not silence them. Instead, we reply, and try to say -- as BlackFive and I have tried to say -- that it is not a fair, nor a complete picture.

None of this is easy, but many things that are best in life are not easy. I mentioned Richard and Saladin before, but let me try another one closer to home. In the South we tell our children that the great Robert E. Lee went about before war became certain, arguing against it and trying to keep it from breaking into ruinous conflict. He did, and many others did also; and when they failed, at last, the South found in them its staunchest defenders.

BlackFive, likewise, is a warrior who should be heeded. He does not say these things out of fear of Islam, or ignorance of it. If Richard and Saladin failed to make their peace, and General Lee could make his only after terrible war, let us learn instead, and show our strength by honesty and forgiveness in the hope of avoiding a greater, wider war. There may still be time.

MilTracker

MilTracker:

Our friend Phil Van Treuren (who is now signing his emails "Officer Candidate" Van Treuren -- good for the Army, in recognizing his potential) has opened up a site called MilTracker. You might want to have a look at it, if you're interested in news that honors the American military.

Islam Talk

On Islam:

I've gotten a couple of whole-mailing-list emails lately from Muslim co-workers, inviting me to learn more about Islam. One of them invited me to attend a seminar; the other, advertised an upcoming History Channel special (which I won't watch because I do not have television). I have to admit that my initial response to both emails was irritation.

In the first place, I was irritated because workplace evangelizing is normally in bad taste. Discussing religion with interested co-workers is fine; nothing wrong with a free discussion. Trying to get everyone to come to your church and hear The Truth, however, is annoying to people -- regardless of which Truth is on offer. For one thing, if I want to go to your church, I can probably find the way on my own. For another, a mass email or a flier distributed to everyone is plainly not the work of a friend who cares about you and wants your salvation; they aren't even thinking about you, in terms of preparing arguments and considering your particular case. They're just beating the bushes, to see if any game flushes -- and I don't like to be treated like prey. You flush a grizzly bear, you might wish you hadn't.

In the second place, it seemed to me that this wasn't the month to be evangelizing on behalf of Islam. This seemed like a good month for embarrassed silence on behalf of American Muslims, what with the US Embassy being attacked in Jakarta, embassies of Denmark burned along with American and Danish flags, Muslims blowing up each other's shrines and holy places in Iraq (and other Muslims blaming America for it, as if the 101st Airborne hadn't permitted fire from the Shrine of Ali to go unanswered rather than attack the shrine in the early days of the Iraq war; and as if the US Army hadn't continued to do so during the uprising in Najaf, to the point that Mehdi Army mortarmen didn't even bother to fortify their positions in the shrine because they knew there would be no counterbattery fire), torture and murder in France, a scholarly conference on Islam in Holland that is considered a national security emergency (with death-threats in the dozens for thinkers who participate), Islamic countries attempting to derail intervention in Darfur that might stop the killing (by Muslims) of minorites (who aren't), worldwide riots over cartoons, the recent election of a terrorist group to the leadership of Palestine, etc., etc.

One can go on essentially forever. If I were a Muslim, I'd be feeling pretty quiet just now. So, when I got instead a couple of mass emails directed at "educating" me about Islam, I was irritated by them. "This isn't the week," I thought, "for teaching me about the glories of Islam."

Yet as I think about it more, I believe I was being unfair. I have known these people for years. They're not evangelizing: they've never approached me before, nor to my knowledge have they ever been interested before now in pushing educational efforts of this sort. Also, they too are aware of the news, just as I am. It is not an accident that they suddenly became interested in outreach at this time.

They're scared.

They are afraid of what lessons you and I are learning from the news. They're afraid of the outrage over the ports deal in a way that they weren't afraid of the outrage over 9/11. They're afraid of the hostility directed at America by Muslims worldwide, and about the hostility increasingly -- and rationally -- felt by Americans toward much of worldwide Islam. They want us to know that there is a lot more to Islam that what is appearing in the news, that there is a beautiful and a peaceful side to it that has informed and brightened their lives.

Fair enough: America wants the Islamic world to know that there's a lot more to America than what they see on the news, particularly if they get their news from the conspiracists who seem to run the press in so many parts of the world. Yet, just as Karen Hughes has made a poor messenger to Islam, so too these efforts by Muslims to reach out to us are ineffective. They rather too obviously come from outsiders; they are rather too obviously biased. We might, and they might, be susceptible to an independent reading -- or a positive reading from one of our own. But tensions are too high for a sermon from within the other's camp.

So I'm going to tell you what I know about Islam. I think it's important that they have an advocate in one of us: and I will take up that cause, which is not my own, out of sympathy and a desire to ease the fear they feel. It is right to do this, as at least the fictional Lionheart held:

"I should in that case hold you," replied the yeoman, "a friend to the weaker party."

"Such is the duty of a true knight at least," replied the Black Champion.

The first Muslim friends I had I met in college. Most of them were from Pakistan. Pakistan is divided sharply between its ruling, educated class and the classes and tribes that are not. These were of the educated sort: military men, some of them, including a good friend I had who was an F-16 pilot. He was brave and smart and clever, as a fighter pilot ought to be; and well read, as a college student ought to be (but so rarely is). I enjoyed the conversations, which were challenging because they arose from a genuinely different point of view: their embedded interests in every political question were those of the Third, rather than the First world; those of Muslims, rather than the Christians I had mostly known; those of Pakistan, rather than America. They were a challenge, but an intellectual one. They were capable of, interested in, and passionate about intellectual inquiry and argument.

Pakistan worries about what might happen if the uneducated, tribal groups should gain control of the state from the educated class. They are right to worry: but we should also remember that the educated class exists, and are natural allies of ours. This is not to say that they have the same interests: as I just finished saying, they have almost always different ones. But it is to say that the parts of Islam that worry us also worry them, and are a bigger threat to them than to us. We, alike, want to see that population educated and lifted into what we think of as the modern world.

At my wedding, one of my groomsman was a Muslim: a Scot who had converted from Presbyterianism. Yet he did not refuse friendship with non-Muslims, any more than had these Pakistani Muslims, regardless of what prohibitions may be in Islamic law. We have all read of such things, and they have a hold on the imagination of the radicals. Yet I have seen that it is not always that way, and that there are many Muslims who wish to be, and can be, good friends.

In China, I lived in a foreign residence hall at Zhejiang University -- this is where many of the few foreigners in the city of HangZhou were kept. We came from all over the world, centralized in one building because China wanted to keep watch on any foreigners in their country. There was little in the way of a common language: most people there spoke little or no English; most yet spoke little or no Chinese. I could manage French with the West Africans, who spoke it far better than I did.

Buddhists and Hindus and Christians all lived there, but there was no obvious community to them. Not so the Muslims. We talk a lot about the tribal aspects of much of those parts of the Islamic world where there is trouble, and indeed, much of Islam is still tribal. Yet it is also the case that Islam is the bridge across that tribalism, and an effective one. The Muslims -- from Pakistan, from Africa, from island nations, wherever they came from -- banded together at once in a bond of friendship. They washed and prayed together daily; they never failed, that I witnessed, to share equally food or cigarettes or whatever was needed by their brother Muslims.

Christians said and did little in the way of such things, knowing how the ever-present authorities in Communist China looks with suspicion on faith; but the Muslims prayed fearlessly and in public. If they had lost their scholarships and been thrown out of the country, particularly the Africans, it would have meant real poverty and a collapse of their dreams: but they never let that stop them. That was a high and fine thing to see, prayer in defiance of fear.

There is much good to be said for Islam. I will not hesistate to say it. I do not think Islam is a true faith, but that is for me to decide only for me. The road forward for the West is not to tear down the Crescent, but to raise up our own banners again. We are called, not to defile what they believe, but to recover again our own faith. We must, if we are to see the freedoms and virtues of the West survive into the next century and beyond.

Yet, in becoming a defender of the West, do not make yourself an enemy of Islam. Richard the Lionheart fought against the Muslim warriors more than most of us shall ever do, and yet he came to respect and honor Saladin. No Muslim every fought harder or more successfully against the West's armies, yet Saladin came to love and honor not only Richard but Western knighthood. That must be the model for us: defiant to the very last against any tyranny, Islamic or otherwise; yet prepared to be friends, in honorable disagreement, if we are received in friendship.

It is not impossible. I have been so received, now and then, and am proud and glad to say it.

UPDATE:

It appears BlackFive and I are on the same page again:

After the first crusaders took Jerusalem in the eleventh century, a Kurd Sunni from Tikrit by the name of Saladin took it and much of the crusader gained territory back. Saladin, even seen as a conquering enemy, was revered by European courts for his grace, kindness and intelligence. They regarded him as a Knight. In actuality, he embodied more of the gentle and honorable traits of a Knight than most of the European gentry sent off to rid the world of non-Christians.


In the Reverse Crusades, our Saladin is not a "who", but a "what". Our Saladin must be the idea that all men and women were created equal and free.

We need to wage both war and peace at the same time. Both require strength of will, both require passion and understanding. Both require love.

Well said.

Hero Tales

Hero Tales:

After Hitchen's manifestation of last Friday, I cut directly down the hill to where it ran to water, a long and pretty stream called Rock Creek. It stretches through the capital, a basin between the cities that is left green and fertile; it winds beneath the mighty Taft bridge, a magnificient structure decorated with lions and copper. I walked the length of the park from the Danish embassy to the National Zoo.

While I was proceeding along the creek, I remembered something I read a while ago: the introduction to Hero Tales: How Common Lives Reveal the Heroic Spirit of America. The subtitle is not honest: there is nothing common about the lives detailed within the book, nor about its authors. Those authors were Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Cabot Lodge.
The introduction to this edition was written by George Grant of Bannockburn College (the Bannockburn! Another name resonant in the history of liberty). In it, Grant reminds us that Roosevelt and Lodge took regular walks together along Rock Creek a century ago, pondering the history of the Republic, and the right way to champion and further its principles.

What they came up with was this book, a collection of essays about great Americans. You could do worse for reading matter: and, at less than nine dollars' price, I feel confident in promising that you won't find a richer treasure at a smaller cost. Daniel Boone, Washington, Davy Crockett and the Alamo, the cruise of the Wasp and "Damn the Torpedos!," Stony Point and King's Mountain, "Stonewall" Jackson and General Sheridan, Robert Gould Shaw and Francis Parkman, these and more are capped with an essay on the life of Lincoln.

Every American ought to read it, the more if they have been educated by those modern historians who present 19th century America in the solitary light of the oppression of the Indians, the breaking of unions, slavery and corporate greed. If you want to hear the other side, written by men -- genuine progressives! -- who loved and defended their country, here it is.

UN, Save US! Heh.

A Call for Revolution:

A call to storm the White House and institute a UN-led government in the United States, brought to you by CODEPINK, "Not In Our Name," the Communist Party, and the letter X.

I note that the White House is protected by the Secret Service, and a detachment of United States Marines.

I know where I'll be putting my money on any wagers as to the success of this little "revolution."

Pay Up

Pay Up, Jew:

I realize this has been an issue for a little while, but for some reason this story from the AP strikes me as particularly funny:

International envoy James Wolfensohn has
warned Mideast mediators that the Palestinian Authority is in danger of
financial collapse within two weeks, largely because Israel has stopped the
flow of tens of millions of dollars to the incoming Hamas government,
according to a letter The Associated Press obtained Monday.

Without the money from Israel, the Palestinian Authority will not be
able to pay wages, and that could have a destablizing effect on the region,
Wolfensohn wrote to the Quartet of international mediators -- the U.S., EU,
U.N. and Russia -- which he represents.

"I know I do not need to tell each of you that the failure to pay
salaries may have wide-ranging consequences -- not only for the Palestinian
economy, but also for security and stability for both the Palestinians and
the Israelis," the letter said.

So, let me see if I understand this correctly: Israel is meant to pay tens of millions of dollars to Hamas, which has promised to destroy Israel as soon as possible? And the EU, US, and UN are meant to help pressure them to do so?

I have never been a great supporter of Israel; as far as I can tell, the US has no interest in whether or not there is a Jewish homeland around Jerusalem. On the other hand, I think Israel has done a notable job of defending itself, and has won its right to exist on the battlefield -- where, I don't doubt, it can continue to defend it.

Still, while I don't see any reason why the US should go to great lengths on behalf of Israel, surely we shouldn't be going to great lengths to prop up Hamas either. Israel has no duty to support Hamas. It may choose to do so, but I can't imagine why it would. If the US, the EU or the UN came to me and told me that I had a duty to support people who wanted to kill me, I would be inclined to laugh in their face. Nor will I blame the people of Israel for doing so, should our President make any such suggestion.

Manifest

The Manifestation:

I sewed the White Cross of Denmark to the left shoulder of my coat, and went down to Christopher Hitchen's rally in support of Denmark today, at the Danish Embassy in D.C. (Evidence: Grim is the man in the Stetson on top of the hill in the first photograph). I have three things to say about it.

First, the fellow referred to as "the man" in Corsair's photos was a sergeant with the uniform division of the U.S. Secret Service. He actually said the cleverest thing I heard anyone say at the rally, while trying to get people to stand clear of the neighboring embassy's driveway so that a white Lexus could back out into the street. After several failed attempts to get the crowd's attention, he loudly called out:

"ATTENTION! FEMALE... BACKING... UP!"

That worked wonderfully well. I paused to thank the sergeant for coming out to watch over the rally as I was leaving. He took off his glove to shake my hand.

Second, Wonkette is right to note that the rally was mostly staffed by people who had probably never attended such a thing before. I certainly had not. Mr. Hitchens and his companions are old Leftist warriors, of course, and knew what such things are meant to look like; but they were very much in the minority, and most of the people preferred to stand silently and with some dignity.

There is a difference between a protest and a rally of this type, anyway. The protest is intended to influence government policy through extralegal means. That is not to say illegal ones, nor even immoral ones: but the protest is not part of the legal process of elections, debates, and the like. It is meant to convey an impression that there is a large constituency that will be angry if not appeased, in the hope that politicians will get nervous and start appeasing. It has failed as a mode in America, because it has become evident over the years that no group with enough time and energy to protest can be very large. Americans, for the most part, have more important things to do with what time is left to us.

A rally to express friendship and support, by contrast, isn't trying to change anything. It's only meant to convey a message of companionship. I imagine that many Danes are shocked to wake up and find that their flags are being burned alongside American and Israeli ones across the world now; but there they are, whether they wanted or planned to be. All I wanted to express was the sense that, though they might not have chosen this company, they would find here loyal and faithful companions who would stand beside them gladly in defense of our common liberty.

Third, a personal remark. While I was standing in the crowd, a fat man in a black open crown hat was cheerfully explaining to someone he'd just met why he felt the war in Iraq was unhelpful to the common cause. He's free to feel that way, and it goes to show that support for freedom of speech, conscience and the press is not limited to only one side of the spectrum. Nevertheless, I grew somewhat angry at the point where he began, "I attended a classified briefing at the Pentagon, me and..." and carried on revealing certain details of it to buttress his theories.

It would have been churlish, at a rally devoted to freedom of speech, to silence this man by strangling him with his tie. I supposed it would have been illegal, also, and I am a man with a certain respect for the law.

Still, if he should happen to read this, allow me to suggest that his proposed formula for measuring the difficulty in Iraq ("...and that explains 90% of what's gone wrong," he finished) does not leave nearly enough room to account for the harm caused by the ill-keeping of America's secrets by those who have sworn to do so. Perhaps he thought himself clever enough to know what part of the classified information he was discussing would be of no use to the enemy. He was not, and even if he were, I will wager any sum of money that his agreements allowing him access to the information did not include a clause permitting him to make the judgment.

One fellow nearby turned to him at one point, and began a reply: "I couldn't help but overhear." Indeed, sir, none of us could. The man should be ashamed.

But that is an internal American dispute, not relevant to the business of the day. Here's to the Danes, and the Mark! We will ride with you gladly, into whatever this brings. Neither you nor we would have chosen it, yet we shall see it through together.

COUNTER-Insurgency:

The COUNTERCOLUMN has a lengthy, and excellent, piece on US Army efforts to build and improve counterinsurgency training. Short version: the Army in Iraq is doing a great job; the Army back home is falling down. The Captain explains several places where it could improve, and looks at a good reading list.

My only suggestion is that he may underestimate Clausewitz as a resource for understanding Iraq.

Mosque Bombing

The Askariya Mosque:

It has been the insurgent's primary strategy for quite some time to divide Shi'ite and Sunni through attacks. More than two years ago now, Zarqawi's letter advocating the instigation of a civil war in Iraq was captured by Coalition forces. When you are fighting a disciplined and dedicated enemy, now and then they will land a blow in spite of all efforts. What remains is to consider the damage, and decide how to repair the wounds as best we can.

First, the damage. Omar reports that both Sunni and Shi'ite mosques in Baghdad were protesting the attack yesterday. Bill Roggio provides a fact sheet on the damaged shrine, and also a useful point of speculation:

The Byzantine political situation in Iraq has just become more chaotic with the destruction of the Golden Mosque, but it also may provide an opportunity for Sunnis and Shiites to see just how close to the abyss they are with respect to a civil war, and work towards avoiding such a situation through political means. The Shiites currently control the levers of power in Iraq, including the military and police apparatuses, and could easily decimate Sunni mosques and cities if they so desired. The Sunnis have far more to lose by a sectarian war than the Shiites, and they know this. al-Qaeda may have scored a short term gain with yet another shocking display of violence, but this could be another miscalculation that further alienates them in the eyes of the Iraqi people.

What are the odds of that? We can calculate them only partially by observing the sectarian violence. More dangerous is the news that the main Sunni political group has responded by suspending its participation in the negotiations as to the government's formation: that has to be the first thing to be fixed.

That is the bad news. We have to adjust that calculation by noting that both Sunni and Shi'ite leaders, including especially al Sistani, have called for calm. We can further adjust our idea of the odds by getting a sense of who is being blamed for the attacks: Omar's initial reaction that "foreign" terrorists had to be responsible, as no Iraqi would do such a thing, is mirrored by Iran's reaction and similar reactions from other hostile clerics:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, says the US and Israel blew up the Shia shrine in Iraq.... Shaikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, a leader Sunni scholar, said: "We cannot imagine that the Iraqi Sunnis did this. No one benefits from such acts other than the US occupation and the lurking Zionist enemy."

While it's never good to have false charges aimed at you, there is a silver lining to both of these statements. They indicate a general sense in the region that foreign, rather than Iraqi, elements carried out the bombing. If that is the common understanding among most Muslims, what will become important is evidence as to which elements -- al Qaeda, or the US/Zionist menace -- were responsible. The evidence will not demonstrate that the US was responsible, because the US was not responsible. Therefore, we must adjust our odds in this way: if the evidence shows that foreign terrorist groups were responsible, the public's mental ground should be fertile for receiving that information. Such evidence would tend to create out of this a unifying rather than a divisive trend for in the medium to long term, immediate sectarian violence notwithstanding.

I have a last thing to say about it. Several articles have noted Sistani's "warning" that Shi'ite militias might undertake guarding the shrines if the Iraqi government could not protect them. Given the role of militias in the sectarian violence, that is obviously worrisome to some. Yet we ought to remember that all such militias are not the same: Sadr's "Madhi army," or what remains of it, is one thing; Sistani's own forces, under his leadership, another. This is an opportunity to give honor and shift prestige among those various militias, by choosing one and giving it the task Sistani envisions for it.

After all, why shouldn't Shi'ites protect their holy sites? Much like the Swiss Guard protects the Vatican, it makes perfect sense for the holiest sites to be protected by believers. It would be entirely sensible for the Iraqi government to recognize that fact, and give control of a small piece of ground surrounding (say) the Shrine of Ali and other critical mosques to a selected religious militia, one that was relatively trustworthy. That would raise that particular militia's prestige among those Shi'a likely to join militias, which would tend to be stabilizing; also, it would create a precedent that the government had the authority to choose (and could therefore replace) which militia could fulfill that duty.

It would also create a buffer for the government in the case of a future successful attack. Because the primary responsibility for preventing attacks in these mosques would belong to the sectarian group, there will be less popular blame and dissatisfaction with the Iraqi police. Consider the alternative: another successful attack, after the government had taken steps to prevent the militias from adopting a defensive posture.

The enemy will not cease attempting to attack; it is probable that there will someday be another success. If that day comes, the government will be better positioned to handle it if it has this buffer than if it does not.

Italy Rape

Rape, Italy, Violence:

Also at Cassandra's place, the Cotillion is having its regular festival. It includes several interesting pieces, including one I had meant to look up anyway. Another complaint of Sovay's when I saw her this weekend was an Italian rape case of which I'd not heard. The details were so odd that I wondered if there was some aspect that wasn't clear; but no, it seems to be that there's just no excuse for it.

Italy's highest court ruled Friday that a man who raped the 14-year-old daughter of his girlfriend can seek to have his sentenced reduced because the girl was sexually active, news reports said.

The girl was thirteen at the time. Why the forcible rape of a minor is not a capital crime is lost on me; apparently community standards are different in Italy.

Cotillion blogger Zendo Deb offers some advice to women on how to avoid similar problems, but her advice will only serve for those of you who are of age. Cotillion blogger Little Miss Attila has actually suffered a similar experience at a similar age, and has some other thoughts as well.

Zendo Deb also has a post on the civil rights movement, including an important group that has been all but forgotten.

Showdown:

If you're still in the mood for a long and thoughtful post on a difficult problem, our Cassidy has one over at her other place.

As I said in the comments there, I think she's right on about the problem being rooted in radical individualism. But you'll see what she said, and why I said so, through the link.

Dishonor

Honor & Dishonor:

We have come to a point at which there is a lot of talk about whether our fighting men are praiseworthy or not. We are talking about honor, though few use the word: about what kinds of things are honorable, and what are dishonorable, and who deserves to be considered a praiseworthy man. There are some disturbing trends.

One of them, which I won't discuss at this time, is captured by a Belmont Club post, which points out two incidents of the trend: the Pappy Boyington matter mentioned below, and San Francisco's refusal to permit the USS Iowa to become a floating museum at their wharf. The last one is under negotiation still, Wretchard reports, with the San Francisco board of supervisors considering allowing the Iowa if they can have an annual peace conference on the ship "the kind in which the Iowa once participated when it was sailing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt around the world to negotiate the agreements to officially end World War II."

Wretchard points out the small fact that the USS Iowa actually ferried Roosevelt to a war conference, at which Operation Overloard's details were cemented. That did, of course, produce a peace of a sort -- the kind that the military is for. Honoring that kind of activity, warfighting for any purpose, is the objection that this trend encompasses. Holly Aho has another such monument: a planned Vancouver monument to US draft dodgers and their Canadian hosts.

That is the first disturbing trend. The second is what this post means to address: the question of whether and when military men ought to be treated as honorable -- when it is appropriate to question their honor, and by what standards they ought to be judged. This is a matter that is becoming important due to recent events.

I linked to the piece on Paul Hackett, who was subject to a whispering campaign within Democratic circles designed to paint him as a dishonorable abuser. But this is not isolated: Jack Murtha was attacked, and his war record questioned, by Democrats as well as, and particularly unfairly by, Republicans; the official Democratic Party in Minnesota is trying to ban a pair of ads being run by Iraqi veterans in favor of the war, calling them "un-American." I listened to the radio interview yesterday, and a supporter of the ban called up and told Lt. Col. Stephenson that he -- the colonel -- was a liar. Challenged to prove it, the man said, "Did I say lies, or did I say lies and misrepresentations?" The distinction is lost.

It does appear to be the case that, as Sovay complained to me the other day, people feel free to slander the honor of those with whom they disagree. The average person seems not to understand the concept of honor at all; if you agree with them, you must be a right and decent person, and if you do not, you must be a scoundrel.

Unfortunately, we can't insist on a blanket rule that war records are not to be questioned, or that the character of veterans is never to be attacked. There are times when it is necessary to do so -- that is, when the veteran in question really is a scoundrel, and it is important to demonstrate it lest the scoundrel be entrusted with a high and powerful office. I am of course thinking of John Kerry as I write that.

I try to be as respectful as I can when I write about Kerry, because I know that a lot of people voted for him and want to think well of him. "As respectful as I can" is, however, not at all respectful -- but I do try to give a fair hearing on questions pertaining to him, as in that post where I point readers to the Snopes page, as well as to AuthentiSEAL, whose lead investigator is someone I've known for years:

In fairness to the Senator, however, Snopes considers him clear of the fake-medals charge. Actually, they have a whole page for Kerry, most of which claims are rated false by Snopes. My own sense is based on a personal friendship, and high regard for the honor of that friend. I see no reason why my regard for Steve Robinson should be persuasive to anyone else, but for what it is worth, there it is.

I note that Bush personally supported Kerry on this score during the campaign, even in a very closely run race. I likewise linked to Snopes during the campaign, though I also linked to the claims by the several veteran's organizations that questioned or challenged Kerry. The charges were serious, after all; and they were being made by good men. In the ancient Germanic system of oath-swearing, even the most honorable man's oath could be overridden if enough other honorable men swore the opposite. In the case of Kerry, the numbers were strongly against him, and I think we had to make note of that.

Was it fair? I tried to be fair; and in the final analysis, the truth may not be knowable on these disputed matters. We have to decide what to believe based on the men involved, as well as the evidence that is available.

Why, then, do I feel confident in condemning Kerry as dishonorable? It is not, in fact, for any of the disputed reasons at all. It is for the reasons that are not in dispute:

1) John Kerry met with representatives of the Vietnamese Communists in Paris, and conducted negotiations with them on a treaty -- "the People's Peace Treaty." He did this while a serving Naval officer, and used that position to attempt to further the treaty's acceptance by the US Congress. The man does not deny this; it is not in dispute. Indeed, he testified to it before the Senate. At the least, this was dishonorable behavior; I would not be opposed to seeing it deemed treason under the Constitution, and brought to trial.

2) John Kerry collected more than a hundred thousand dollars of pay as a Senator in direct violation of Federal law. As a Senator, he was of course in a position to change the law governing how Senators can be paid, and for what purposes they may be absent and still collect pay. A man could argue reasonably that a Senator is performing a needed public service by campaigning for President, since we need Presidents and a Senator might be qualified. However, the law is what it is; the roll shows what it shows; and he has not returned the people's money, to which he is not entitled. He is a thief, and it is the worse for him that he is one of the richest men in the country. Again, this is not in dispute.

3) Kerry testifies that he was a war criminal, who indiscriminately murdered civilians. An officer is required by military law to refuse illegal orders -- indeed, any serviceman is. It is a moral as well as a legal obligation. There is no dispute -- it is the man's own word.

I could go on, but the point is surely made. The things that annoyed me were the things I myself observed the man doing and saying: it was not that I disagreed with him, but that he was behaving as a dishonorable scoundrel.

This is how I feel Kerry ought to be treated -- with utter contempt, that is, and yet still with the fairness of mind to cite such evidence, as Snopes, that is in his favor. Even to Kerry, I would not be unfair.

Contrast that, if you like, with how I treated Hackett: I endorsed him over his opponent, though I had to do so while explaining many reservations and disagreements on policy. I have held my tongue on Murtha, though I strongly disagree not only with what he said but with his having said it. I think it was bad for morale, and good for enemy morale; and those are things we ought to avoid in wartime. Yet he was a hero, and I have not forgotten his service, nor questioned his honor.

I have not questioned the honor of Colin Powell, but I have made light of his character on occasion; perhaps unfairly. He is another veteran with an impressive record, but it was not for his military service which led me to scoff at him. Nor was it because I disagreed with him -- it was precisely the moment at which I was most in agreement with him that has led me to lose respect for him. It was, in other words, his testimony before the UN on Iraq, which later proved to be laughably wrong on a number of points. General Powell claims that he was deceived by the intelligence services, and perhaps he was. I would like to believe it; but I find it difficult to forgive. There is no falsehood that offends me more than one I wanted to believe.

This has all troubled me greatly over the last few days. I have tried to formulate some rule, or guideline that would let us know when it is appropriate or right to question the honor of an apparently valorous man. There are times -- surely, far more times -- when we should not. Yet we have to be able to do so when it is critical, for the defense of the Republic's institutions.

My torment over the issue is similar, I suspect, to that felt by good Catholics who looked in horror on the priesthood scandals of a few years ago. The desire is to honor a kind of man -- a priest, a soldier -- who has nobly volunteered and sacrificed for the greater good. Yet the undeniable reality was that some had misused the honor of the uniform to cover their own flaws. One should not wish to question a soldier's honor, nor a priest's -- and yet, because we live in a bad world, we sometimes must.

I will propose these general guidelines for discussion. This is a difficult matter, and I will be glad of your advice.

1) A veteran's honor should not be questioned in any matter that is not important enough to kill or die over. This is not an advocation of violence, but only a rule of thumb for judging whether the matter is of sufficient weight: it ought to be as serious as a capital crime, or a war.

The stability of the Republic is such a matter; we have whole classes of men, including the soldiers themselves, whose job is just that. In terms of political office, I am not sure that any office except the Presidency is sufficiently powerful for the occupant to be able, himself, to threaten the stability of the Republic. The Supreme Court is perhaps the only other. I am sure that governors do not; I am sure that Representatives do not; and we have clear evidence that dishonorable men can serve in the Senate for decades without the place collapsing.

We might well choose to kill or die to protect our children from rape, to return to the argument from the evil men who had infiltrated the priesthood. We can therefore feel certain that we are not overreacting by questioning, and being certain of, the honor of men to whom we allow that kind of access to and control of our children.

The point of this guideline is to limit the field sharply. There have been too many examples lately of people questioning honor for purely political motives -- for example, to protect a preferred candidate for a Senate seat, or to score a political point in a debate (as in the case of Murtha). That is not acceptable: the Republic will not fall if you win or lose a debate. It might be endangered if the President were a dishonorable man, but if a debate or a vote is lost, you schedule another.

2) If you're going to question the honor of a veteran's record, it must be done according to the military's (or priesthood's) own standards. It is no good to say that Pappy Boyington was dishonorable because he killed many men; that was what his duty obligated him to do. If he held converse with the enemy, that is against the military's code of honor, and ought to be condemned.

3) If you're going to question a veteran's honor outside of his service record, it can be done according to any conception of honor, and need not rise to the level of guideline (1). If we were speaking of a man who had been a hero in the service, and yet had later murdered a man in Memphis, it is possible to separate the honor of his service from the murder. A recent example of this type: "Duke" Cunningham, a hero whose Vietnam service we admire; and whose theft of public monies we deplore.

4) It is best to observe the strictest standard of evidence and proof whenever questions of this type arise. A large raft of charges was floated against Kerry; some of them are passionately believed by men I respect. Yet I assign them to the category of things which cannot be proven; I judge Kerry only on the charges that he does not dispute, or which are based on plain facts that are not able to be disputed. If you are one of those with a passionate belief that you can't prove, that is fine as long as you recognize and admit to yourself that it is so; I recognize that my anger toward Powell may not be fair, but I am still angry. I doubt he could win my support for anything, yet when I discuss him with you, I point to his counterarguments as well as the facts I have observed.


These guidelines are meant as a start. Feel free to advise, or argue against them. The greater challenge is from the first trend, mentioned at the beginning of the piece -- the idea of honor being washed away entirely. Whatever we do about this second trend, it should be done in order to shore up the foundations of honor in American life. We need to be able to police it enough to keep it from being falsely used, but we need to respect it enough that it can serve as a shield when it is rightly won. The concept of honor needs defending. It cannot be defended if we do not take it seriously, and apply ourselves to upholding it fairly.

TEst

Test:

This post is a test to see if the repair is successful.

Hack

Honor & Hackett:

I'm going to write a post about honor and dishonor in the next few days; I just need a little longer to think it through.

While I do, though, read this.

Adam Plumondore

A Toast:

On the occasion of the first anniversary of losing one of our own. I never met him either, but those of you who recognize the name will know why it's important. I'll have a toast at dinner tonight in memory.

Pappy

You Say That Like It's A Bad Thing:

The Commissar is deeply amused by a recent U. Washington resolution:

IT RESOLVED BY THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON:THAT

Student Senator Jill Edwards will submit, in writing, a signed apology letter seeking forgiveness to all students, staff, and alumni who are now or ever have served in the United States Marine Corps. In said letter it will contain a formal apology and a recognition that her very rights and freedoms are guaranteed by such members of the armed services, to include the Marine Corps, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard, past or present, living or dead. Additionally, said letter will be printed in all its form and substance in that day’s edition of the UW Daily newspaper as well as being recited on the UW Radio station. To realize her mistake, she must acquaint herself with the history of the person she is so keen to dismiss, by reading Col. Boyington’s book, Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. All of these requirements are mandatory, under pain of losing her seat on the Student Senate.

The Commissar replies:

Wow! There aren’t many events in the world, or in the blogosphere, that I actually know something about. But this is one of the few. I’m a minor expert in American aces of World War Two, and have built a well-regarded, fairly high-traffic website on that topic.

Now … on to Pappy Boyington. It would be great if University of Washington memorialized him. Wonderful. Furthermore, Ms. Jill Edwards should learn a little about Pappy Boyington.

But not by reading Boyington’s self-serving, highly embellished autobiography. Ouch. Please. Boyington was good pilot and a good squadron leader. But he was a drunk, a liar, a womanizer, a deadbeat...

Well, it was the Black Sheep Squadron, after all. Nobody thought they were angels. But they were By-God Marines. I like the idea of expanding the required reading list, though -- and not just for this one Senator. It wouldn't be a bad idea to make all U. Wash students learn a bit about this most famous alumnus, and all American students everywhere should learn more military history, and military science, than they do. It's obvious that we have a deficeit in that, as neither the journalist class nor the general citizenry seems to know how to interpret and understand news stories from war zones.

Tall Afar

The Lion-hearted Men of the US Cavalry:

Cavalry Scout posted something I saw first when JHD sent it to me: an open letter to the 3rd ACR:

"In the Name of God the Compassionate and Merciful

"To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall’ Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life.

"To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months.

"To those who spread smiles on the faces of our children, and gave us restored hope, through their personal sacrifice and brave fighting, and gave new life to the city after hopelessness darkened our days, and stole our confidence in our ability to reestablish our city.

"Our city was the main base of operations for Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi. The city was completely held hostage in the hands of his henchmen. Our schools, governmental services, businesses and offices were closed. Our streets were silent, and no one dared to walk them. Our people were barricaded in their homes out of fear; death awaited them around every corner. Terrorists occupied and controlled the only hospital in the city. Their savagery reached such a level that they stuffed the corpses of children with explosives and tossed them into the streets in order to kill grieving parents attempting to retrieve the bodies of their young. This was the situation of our city until God prepared and delivered unto them the courageous soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who liberated this city, ridding it of Zarqawi’s followers after harsh fighting, killing many terrorists, and forcing the remaining butchers to flee the city like rats to the surrounding areas, where the bravery of other 3d ACR soldiers in Sinjar, Rabiah, Zumar and Avgani finally destroyed them.

"I have met many soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment; they are not only courageous men and women, but avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism.

"The leaders of this Regiment; COL McMaster, COL Armstrong, LTC Hickey, LTC Gibson, and LTC Reilly embody courage, strength, vision and wisdom. Officers and soldiers alike bristle with the confidence and character of knights in a bygone era. The mission they have accomplished, by means of a unique military operation, stands among the finest military feats to date in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and truly deserves to be studied in military science. This military operation was clean, with little collateral damage, despite the ferocity of the enemy. With the skill and precision of surgeons they dealt with the terrorist cancers in the city without causing unnecessary damage.

"God bless this brave Regiment; God bless the families who dedicated these brave men and women. From the bottom of our hearts we thank the families. They have given us something we will never forget. To the families of those who have given their holy blood for our land, we all bow to you in reverence and to the souls of your loved ones. Their sacrifice was not in vain. They are not dead, but alive, and their souls hovering around us every second of every minute. They will never be forgotten for giving their precious lives. They have sacrificed that which is most valuable. We see them in the smile of every child, and in every flower growing in this land. Let America, their families, and the world be proud of their sacrifice for humanity and life.

"Finally, no matter how much I write or speak about this brave Regiment, I haven’t the words to describe the courage of its officers and soldiers. I pray to God to grant happiness and health to these legendary heroes and their brave families."

NAJIM ABDULLAH ABID AL-JIBOURI
Mayor of Tall 'Afar, Ninewa, Iraq

Captain's Quarters has more, including some praise for the Washington Post. The men of the US Cavalry have done us proud in Tall 'Afar. They are living examples of the principles of Heroic-Epic Warfighting. That's the way we're going to win this war.

UPDATE: Greyhawk has more on the history of the officers involved, and an independent confirmation of the letter's authenticity.

Cowboy FD

Cowboy Fast-Draw:

There's no doubt at all that the old fast-draw movies were a Hollywood, rather than a Western, fixture. Fighting men aren't dumb enough to depend on reflexes that dull with age. There is no such thing as a fair fight -- even in sports such as boxing that try to even the odds, no matter how carefully you try someone has longer arms, and someone has heavier bones for his body weight and therefore hits harder. That being true, the only rational thing is to try to make every fight as unfair as possible, in your favor. The gunhands of the West knew that, and did so accordingly.

That said, being blazing fast is an advantage as much as any other. There are two major competitive sports built around training yourself to draw and fire as quickly as you can, hitting your targets along the way. World Fast Draw is one; Cowboy Fast Draw is the other. The second is distinguished from the first mainly by using actual 19th-century style holsters, which were designed to hang around the natural waist rather than about the thigh. The latter are really faster -- that's why Hollywood developed them, and why you'll see silver screen gunfighters from John Wayne to Han Solo using a tied-down thigh rig.

Interested in trying it out yourself? Give a look to Mernickle Custom Holsters, who produce the best fast-draw rigs in the world. They can make you one legal in either of the sporting associations, or something just for you. And if what you want is a Western movie rig, they can do that too.

The West is every American's birthright, after all.

SciFi

SciFi:

I took the SciFi Crew Quiz. I split between Serenity and Cowboy Bebop, at 94% each.

Dick Cheney Hunter

Bat Masterson Speaks:

I haven't really had time to read up on the Dick Cheney story, although I expect the Commissar is correct about the right's reaction to it if another famous shotgunner had been involved. (Bonus Commissar wisdom, re: right-wing gripes on the jokes: "What, are we all Muslims now?")

While I'll leave the introspection to others, I will point out that the intersection of a shotgun and birdshot reminds me of an event from American history. It's an interesting detail you might not have heard. I don't suggest it has any import in understanding the Vice President's situation; but since people are reaching for Aaron Burr as a historical analogy, here's another that is at least as interesting.

In Wyatt Earp's younger days, he was an officer of the law in Dodge City, Kansas. This was the famous "Queen of the Cowtowns," a city founded by liquor dealers in order to cater to cattlemen. Once it managed to gain a railhead, it became the chosen spot for the cowboys bringing their longhorns north from Texas and thereabouts. It was a rough place, wild and free, and the most dangerous of characters congregated there.

One of these was Wyatt's friend and fellow lawman, Bat Masterson. Another was a gunslinger called Clay Allison. In these days, Wyatt Earp didn't have the reputation as a gunhand that he later got in Tombstone; he had, in fact, not made much use of guns at all in keeping the peace, except occasionally in knocking wrongdoers over the head with one (a practice called "buffaloing" by the lawmen of the Frontier). Allison, however, was the most famous gunfighter of his day -- a time after John Wesley Hardin's rampages in Texas, and before Wyatt, Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo came to their fame.

Allison was hired by a political faction to run Mr. Earp out of town, as the sudden effective enforcement of the law was disturbing to some in Dodge City. On learning that Allison was looking for him, Wyatt asked his friend Bat Masterson to watch his back. Bat, being a pragmatic sort, retrieved a shotgun he kept at the local District Attorney's office and loitered visibly near where Wyatt was waiting, not really hiding the shotgun.

The confrontation is ably described in Casey Tefertiller's Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend, for those interested in the specific details. Mr. Tefertiller differs from other historians on various points, but I see no reason to prefer anyone else's account to his on the facts.

The short version is that Allison, though backed up by cowboys bearing Winchesters, recognized that Bat Masterson and his shotgun spelled doom in any confrontation. He departed in the fashion of a gentleman, saluting Wyatt as an equal and decrying the cowards who had tried to hire guns to contest with a good man, and respecting Earp's authority from that time forward.

Here is the intersection with Cheney: a few days later, Bat took his shotgun out for some recreational shooting. He discovered that the buckshot load it normally carried -- heavy pellets and a hefty powder charge, that could almost cut a man in half -- had been replaced with birdshot. Apparently one of the attorneys at the D.A.'s office had borrowed his peacekeeping tool and charged it for bird-hunting instead!

Had he been called upon to use it in a gunfight between Earp and Allison, with a pack of riflemen behind the gunslinger, Bat Masterson would have found it as ineffective as defenders of the Vice President assert that his weapon was. Masterson, himself a top hand with a firearm, was not pleased. "It would have been a shame," he groused later, "if a good man's life had depended on the charge in that gun."

A letter

A Letter to the Left:

Readers of Opinion Journal's Best of the Web know that author James Taranto has a long-running joke by which he refers to Kerry as "the haughty, French-looking Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam," or one of several variants of that line. Kerry, of course, does look somewhat French, and more to the point he acts somewhat French. The joke, which reached chief prominence during the 2004 election season, allowed Taranto to ridicule Kerry -- and, as Kerry was its standard-bearer, the entire Democratic Party -- by association with the French.

I mention this today because of the "Letter to the American Left" translated from the French for The Nation, having been composed by French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy. Levy isn't writing to me, obviously; his interest is in the Americans who are -- to use Taranto's formula -- "French looking," not so much in the face as in the brain. By the same token, he describes his recent book about America to be a letter to France, in which he is trying to build the bridge the other way -- to show French readers that there is an American that is French-looking. "Anti-Americanism is a plague," he said, "Say what you will about America - but it still stands for fighting for truth and justice."

Well said, although sadly by "truth and justice" he means something different than I would by the same words. I must also pause to register the firmest objection to his conceptualizing America as a woman who had been his mistress. What he said would have been ungentlemanly and inappropriate even had he been speaking of an actual mistress.

This only proves, of course, that M. Levy is not my kind of man. He should have had more luck with Garrison Keillor, but he didn't. Keillor is the kind of man M. Levy is trying to reach, and without great success:

Any American with a big urge to write a book explaining France to the French should read this book first, to get a sense of the hazards involved. Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French writer with a spatter-paint prose style and the grandiosity of a college sophomore; he rambled around this country at the behest of The Atlantic Monthly and now has worked up his notes into a sort of book.

I shall be kinder to these two gentleman, who are not political allies of mine, than either are being to the other. Mr. Keillor runs a wonderful radio show, one that (in spite of occasional unfair jibes at Red Staters) is a genuine treasure. It offered my first window into an America I hadn't known still existed: one that, like my own, is rural and religious, delighted with folk music and old cowboy stories; but that, unlike my own, draws from those same roots the fruit of left-wing politics. It is an America I thought had vanished, perhaps best explained by its view of New York City: where the urban Blue Stater sees the highest model of humanity, and the rural Red Stater sees a misery of traffic and crime and rudeness, this America sees glimmering lights and theatre, 'the nice place to visit where you wouldn't want to live.' Where they want to live is the same sort of place I would choose: a quiet place, by a lake or mountain, with a few good neighbors and the fruit of their own vines.

I have come to know this America better in recent years, but probably only because Mr. Keillor awoke me to it, and inspired me to look for it. Though I think it is mistaken on several points, and though I regret the odd hostility with which its members seem to view me and mine, it is an America I both like and respect, even love, as one loves a distant sister.

Out of that love grows a genuine tolerance, one that I wish Mr. Keillor felt for us: a desire to see the old style of Federalism renewed, so that the way of life he advocates may be protected, and flourish in its enclaves. I don't want them to be unhappy in an America that is theirs, too. I think a lot of the discontent they feel arises because the Federal government has too far exceeded its Constitutional bounds, so that capturing and controlling it takes on an outsized importance. We cannot be happy with good laws from our local governments, because we must always worry what our political opposites from outside our state will try to enforce on us from above. Everything that is Federal has to be decided one way for all of us, with the result that the government is either affirming what we feel about Right & Wrong, or it is thrusting aside our deeply held beliefs and forcing us to accept something we find immoral.

On some questions, there is a proper Federal role, as enshrined in the Constitution. Yet most matters were designed to be handled by the states and even the localities, so that we might each enjoy some peace. The nation was founded on principles designed to admit the Puritans of the NorthEast, and the libertines of "Rogue's Island," as Rhode Island was called by the wags of those days. We make a mistake when we try to force Rogue's Island's values on Boston, or vice versa. It was possible then, and is possible now, for us to be happy with each other.

As for M. Levy, I note that he has an insightful critique about the state of the Left:

The fact is: You do have a right. This right, in large part thanks to its neoconservative battalion, has brought about an ideological transformation that is both substantial and striking.

And the fact is that nothing remotely like it has taken shape on the other side--to the contrary, through the looking glass of the American "left" lies a desert of sorts, a deafening silence, a cosmic ideological void that, for a reader of Whitman or Thoreau, is thoroughly enigmatic. The 60-year-old "young" Democrats who have desperately clung to the old formulas of the Kennedy era; the folks of MoveOn.org who have been so great at enlisting people in the electoral lists, at protesting against the war in Iraq and, finally, at helping to revitalize politics but whom I heard in Berkeley, like Puritans of a new sort, treating the lapses of a libertine President as quasi-equivalent to the neo-McCarthyism of his fiercest political rivals; the anti-Republican strategists confessing they had never set foot in one of those neo-evangelical mega-churches that are the ultimate (and most Machiavellian) laboratories of the "enemy," staring in disbelief when I say I've spent quite some time exploring them; ex-candidate Kerry, whom I met in Washington a few weeks after his defeat, haggard, ghostly, faintly whispering in my ear: "If you hear anything about those 50,000 votes in Ohio, let me know"; the supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton who, when I questioned them on how exactly they planned to wage the battle of ideas, casually replied they had to win the battle of money first, and who, when I persisted in asking what the money was meant for, what projects it would fuel, responded like fundraising automatons gone mad: "to raise more money"; and then, perhaps more than anything else, when it comes to the lifeblood of the left, the writers and artists, the men and women who fashion public opinion, the intellectuals--I found a curious lifelessness, a peculiar streak of timidity or irritability, when confronted with so many seething issues that in principle ought to keep them as firmly mobilized as the Iraq War or the so-called "American Empire" (the denunciation of which is, sadly, all that remains when they have nothing left to say).

What is odd is that, having so diagnosed things, all M. Levy himself has to offer is more of the same -- that they should be louder and more passionate in arguing the same points he has just suggested are a wasteland. Having warned against the tired formulas of the Kennedy clan, he then recounts them: Levy, like Teddy, waxes poetic about Abu Ghraib, Americans as torturers, the need to ban the death penalty. Having warned against treating Bush as if he were a new McCarthy, he calls for a renewed movement to impeach the President.

It is unworthy to lecture people for agreeing with you. Indeed, one can't be quite sure where Levy feels the American Left should be. Either the Left is too passionate, or insufficiently so; either confrontation is the wrong policy, or the right one. Either the ideas of the 1960s Left are tired and worn out, or they are ready to sweep the nation.

On this last point, at least, there is clarity to be had. We can find it where we began, with Taranto's formula. "The French-looking Democrat" is an effective jibe in national elections not because of the shape of Kerry's nose, but because of the shape of his ideas and character. We have had our referrendum on the topic, and it proves that those ideas are not ready to sweep the nation. They do enjoy strong currency in certain enclaves. They ought to be allowed to flourish there: but this is not the road that will lead you in victory to Washington.

If we can all accept the truth of that, we can start working on the real problem: how we can build an America in which we can all be happy. When we're ready to stop trying to force our views down each other's necks, and to fight out each election and Supreme Court Nomination as if it were Armageddon, we can start rediscovering the tools of peace and brotherhood that were built into the system. As the nation that produced Frank Lloyd Wright ought to know, a house divided against itself can stand -- as long as the architect has planned for proper counterbalances, and distribution of the load.

MilHIST Iraq

Military History, Street Level:

JHD sends a link to a Gunny's book about his part of the war in Iraq. Street Fight in Iraq is written by then-Gunnery Sergeant, now-First Sergeant Patrick Tracy.

A Bit of Snow

A Bit of Snow:

We had a bit of snow over the weekend:

One of the hazards of hanging out with an artist is that she will be overcome with the need to take pictures when there's work to be done -- like moving three days' worth of firewood into the house. "Oh, this would make a great picture!"

Well, hopefully it did. Thanks to Rappahannock Electric, who managed to get our power back on within 24 hours of it going out even though they had to spread their emergency teams over sixteen counties. It's been the most restful day I can easily remember, in spite of carrying wood, clearing ice, salting walks and melting snow for cooking and washing dishes: it's the first day I haven't worked or felt the need to work in three years, weekends and holidays included. Since there was no possibilty of working, there was no sense of guilt for not working.

A good day or two, all the way around.

A Shot

What a Shot:

I think I once related the time I attended a Tactical match near Ballground, Georgia, and watched an old gentleman shoot. He was handling an old single-action revolver, and I listened to two hotshots in their thirties or forties quietly snarling that he shouldn't have been let to participate. He was slow; his reloading was done with fumbling fingers. He was, they said outright, a danger to everyone on the firing line.

Nevertheless, I saw his targets. He shot one ragged hole, and a fine small one for a gentleman handling a .45 caliber weapon. Right in the X ring, every time. I resolved then and there I wanted to shoot like that man, no matter how slow my reloading and aiming might be.

Here is another story of that sort. I'm under the impression that the author is wrong to identify cottonmouths as "water rattlers," as I believe them to be unrelated to rattlers except insofar as both are snakes. A fine story anyway, about a fine gentleman, a fine shot, and a kind, generous man.

Thanks to The Major's Lady, who thought to share the tale with us.

Border War

The Other War:

A few notes on a topic that interests me, though we don't much cover it here:

Border Violence Alarms Chertoff. "There has been an over-100 percent increase in the last fiscal year in border violence aimed at our Border Patrol agents..."

Border Patrol Agents See Violence As 'Challenge'. "...Agents face a whole slew of threats on a daily basis, everything ranging from spiders, snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, ticks and chiggers to stumbling across people in desperate need of medical attention, drug and human smugglers, drowning, being shot at and getting physically assaulted. To complicate an already tense and dangerous job, the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13 gang, was reportedly hired to assassinate agents to clear a path for traffickers."

Arizona Smuggling Suspect Shoots at Border Patrol Officers.

Patrol Records Show Mexican Military Strays Across Border. "...Heavily armed personnel in a military-style Humvee helped drug smugglers fleeing police to escape back into Mexico, according to authorities. An internal Border Patrol summary of the incident said the Humvee was equipped with a .50-caliber machine gun..."

Border Patrol Can't Rule Out Mexican Military Role in Smuggling.

Guns and Money: US-Mexico Border Besieged by Crime, Terror. "Following separate raids on Jan. 12, 26 and 27, U.S. authorities announced they had seized two homemade bombs, materials for making 33 more, military-style grenades, 26 grenade triggers, large quantities of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bulletproof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, narcotics and cash.... Homeland Security sent a confidential memo in January to Border Patrol agents warning that they could be the targets of assassins hired by alien smugglers."

The Frontier seems to be getting wild again.

Holly book

Holly's Book:

I knew that Holly Aho was a wonderful person, because of the work she does on behalf of our servicemen. Still, a wonderful person can sometimes be totally insufferable, as anyone with a nice old aunt/grandmother, the one who likes to go on and on with her slideshows about the last trip to Thailand, can tell you.

It's always a pleasure to realize that a wonderful person is also someone you would probably really like:

And...I'm such a dork. I was so tickled pink I had to take a picture of myself with my book. So here I am, trying to figure out how to take a good picture of myself, and I decided to try using my webcam and then taking screenshots from the short film.... So anyways I ended up with 10 of these darn pics. I was just going to share the best one, so you could see me and my book, but I'm going to be an even bigger nerd and share 3 of them.

Via Greyhawk, who asks a very good question.

The Rest Of The Story

The plot thins... (via KJ)

On Wednesday, the Army said Rebrook would not have been asked to pay the money if he had filled out two required forms.

Those comments drew an angry rebuke from Rebrook's father, Edward Rebrook of Charleston, West Virginia.

"That is a lie," the soldier's father told CNN. "It's a case of CYA by the Army."

William Rebrook was told the 18 items were missing and that he could pay for them or fill out two forms saying that the equipment had been lost, damaged or destroyed in combat.

Inexplicably, Rebrook's father then goes on to confirm the Army's account:

However, Edward Rebrook said his son would have had to stay in the Army, continue to live on base at Fort Hood and wait possibly weeks while those forms were processed. Instead, he chose to pay cash for the missing items and get out of the Army.

Well imagine that...

Choice is a wonderful thing, isn't it? We live in a free country, and time and money have always been freely exchangable commodities.

Do you suppose that a large organization like the Army might have an obligation to the U.S. taxpayer to ensure government equipment is accounted for before servicemen issue out? Does that seem unreasonable?

Here we have an officer who decided he did not want to follow the same rules everyone else has to follow, then thought better of it and complained to the media, making his service and his command look bad when the Army had a perfectly good procedure in place for getting out of the requirement for paying for lost equipment.

He simply was in a hurry and didn't feel like filling out the required forms.

UPDATE: Frodo posted a great comment under my original post, and I'd like to pull it out because I think it's instructive. For those of you who don't know him, Frodo is an old friend of both mine and Greyhawk's from our ScrappleFace days. It's kind of ironic b/c I just happened across two old threads of ours here and here (Bambi S/H - I wonder who that is - is in rare form) and was reading them with great enjoyment about an hour ago. Anyway, Frodo just returned from a stint in Mordor (Iraq):

Well, when my wife mentioned this story to me last night I initially thought it was some poor E-3 or 4 who didn't know any better. When she told me it was a LT, my first reaction was "he's an idiot"!!! So getting past that I will try to explain my problem with this story as someone who till recently was in that neck of the woods ... hopefully as clearly as Cass breaks down her arguments.

The LT states that they wouldn't absolve him of the loss of the body armor because a report of survey wasn't performed so he had to pay for it.

The first part of the statement is true in the fact that an investigation must be done but, it's no longer called a report of survey (except by old farts like me), but instead a Financial Liability Investigations or Property Loss (FLIPL). They could also accomplish this with an AR 15-6 investigation - This is usually done when there is a possibility of criminal conduct but the results of which can for the basis for the FLIPL. . In either case, an officer is appointed to investigate the loss of property and to make a determination if negligence (willful or otherwise) was involved in the property loss.

What isn't true is that they could force this LT to pay because one wasn't performed. Performance of a FLIPL is the responsibility of the unit commander under which a property loss took place, usually at company level, not the individual who lost the property. In an instance like this, if the individual accepts responsibility for the loss he may sign a statement of charges agreeing to pay for the loss, usually in the form of a payroll deduction. Since he was being discharged, I could see that they might require cash. However if the soldier doesn't accept responsibility, then the losing commander has to initiate a FLIPL. Something a LT should know quite well as they are usually the ones appointed as the investigating officers.

I also share Cass' trouble with the comment that the battalion commander wouldn't sign a waiver ... which battalion commander, the one in Iraq he served under or the REMF commander of the unit in charge of demobilizing soldiers? If it's the battalion commander in Iraq, the man has shown a complete lack of leadership; on the other, if it's the demob unit commander, I doubt he had that authority as he wasn't the commander suffering the loss.

He also says that they told him he couldn't get out unless he paid, if they had to perform a FLIPL it's possible that they might extend him until the investigation was concluded ... so what? He stated he supposedly didn't want to get out of the Army to begin with? As a matter of principle, I would have stayed in until the investigation was completed.

If it were me and they were trying to make me pay for something I lost as a result of getting wounded, I would have refused to pay and if they pressed it I would have gone through the chain ... My commander, His commander and if that didn't resolve it then to the Inspector Generals Office ... failing that, I would go the congressional route ... and if all else fails to gather attention, yes maybe to the press as a last resort ... in truth I would threaten to do so first ... just the threat of going to the press would shake even the most intransigent or apathetic commander into action, if for no other purpose then to cover his own butt.

In the end, I suspect this LT is mad at the Army for some reason, the discharge, the way he was treated after being wounded... whatever ... so instead of fighting the property loss 'properly' thru the channels he decided he was going to use it to get back at the Army by going to the press.

To Eric's comment: 'And anyway, I thought body armor was an organizational issue, that is, its issued at the organization, which means that there should be extra lying around, because there is ALWAYS extra lying around. Especially in the Army.' That may have been true 20 years ago when I was in Germany with the old 'flack vests' we had stored in the unit supply room. But with the IBA we drew for Iraq, the unit had to submit a list by name and size of all members going over, and that was the exact number we got ... no extras. Once the unit got them, they were all in turn sub-hand receipted to the person who was going to wear them. Not to say there aren't a few lying about, but it's not that common of an item and I would venture to guess the extra some folks have is the result of someone helping themselves to someone else 'unattended' IBA. We saw a few of the new kevlar helmets disappear that way.

Code of Conduct

"Self-Regulation":

One is never surprised to find the EU on the side of "regulation," and so, one is not surprised:

The European Union may try to draw up a media code of conduct to avoid a repeat of the furor caused by the publication across Europe of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, an EU commissioner said on Thursday.... "The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression," he told the newspaper. "We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right."

There's a ringing endorsement: "The EU: We are ready to regulate your rights!"

What I particularly like about this is the way that the EU Commissioner, a politician, is telling the press what "we" will say. That is, what we will say: "The press will give... the message... We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right."

Which is to say, to set limits on it. That is just what the Danish cartoon contest was designed to test -- whether Europeans were really free to talk about Islam.

Now we know.

Nazis

Don't Mention the War:

This is going to be hard to explain to supporters of Free Expression.

GERMAN cops will use sweeping powers to collar England fans doing Basil Fawlty-style Hitler impressions at the World Cup. Yobs will be instantly banged up for TWO WEEKS if they goose-step like John Cleese in his most famous Fawlty Towers scene.

And hard core louts who give Nazi salutes — like the one jokingly made by Michael Barrymore in Celebrity Big Brother — could be hauled before a judge within 24 hours.

If convicted of inciting hatred they will face jail terms of up to THREE YEARS.

Wearing joke German helmets or any offensive insignia will also result in a stretch behind bars.

While such humor would be both crude and offensive -- three years? Because the joke wasn't funny?

It's just this sort of thing that gives critics of the Western position real ammunition. Politeness and circumspection, and sensitivity to the feelings of others, all these are important and worthy virtues. I encourage all of you to practice them, and not to give offense without cause.

Yet we must also give some thought to how to react to offenses others try to give us. (And believe me, as a proud native son of the great state of Georgia, I understand what it's like to have to live with inappropriate jibes made by people who think they are being clever.)

I think the model has to be the one I've suggested in the past: that a gentleman duels only with equals, and people who behave this way are demonstrably not that. They ought, therefore, to be ignored to the greatest degree possible. Sometimes the best way to deal with an insult is with an air of silent superiority.

If there's a serious point to be made, engage the argument politely but firmly, says I; but if they're just expressing mindless wrath or jackassery, it's best to ignore them. Only if it goes beyond jokes, to the point that life or limb is endangered by bad behavior (quite possible with soccery "yobs") is a stronger response appropriate.

In that case, the case in which the uncivilized pose a real threat to you or to innocents around you, I hope you've been exercising your other human rights. A gentleman duels only with equals; but every free citizen has a duty to help uphold the common peace.