What a Marine.
What a hero.
As Countercolumn notes, no media but the local paper has picked up on the Sergeant Major's story.
And that's a damn shame.
Somebody hasn't been fact checking again, I think.
This morning, this item on the BBC caught my eye:
--Uh, guys, this is an old urban legend, variations on which, you can see here at Snopes.com.
I remember reading about this one in college in Jan Brunvand's book, "The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends."
My in-laws send me stories like this all the time. Cheap enough entertainment, I suppose.
This morning, this item on the BBC caught my eye:
Builders who drank a barrel of rum at a house in southern Hungary had a nasty surprise when they got to the bottom and found a pickled corpse.
--Uh, guys, this is an old urban legend, variations on which, you can see here at Snopes.com.
I remember reading about this one in college in Jan Brunvand's book, "The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends."
My in-laws send me stories like this all the time. Cheap enough entertainment, I suppose.
Amnesty
The Amnesty Report:
What, then? Peggy Noonan's fears were right:
If we cannot kill these men, they will continue to work against us in large ways and in small. If we cannot isolate them, the ways open to them will be larger. If it is immoral to do either, what must we do? Set them free? That creates even larger opportunities for them to harm us, our families, and our nation; and the families and nations we are trying to help stabilize, so that they will not become breeding grounds for future terrorists.
It is enough to say that a man should do nothing wrong, and that he should seek atonement when (because of human nature) he does anyway. It is not enough to say that a nation should do nothing wrong. In national matters we must seek the greatest good among many unavoidable evils, and particularly in war -- a war we did not choose, but which has been prosecuted against us for a generation by Islamist fighters from Iran to Beruit to 9/11, to future battlefields not yet named.
No, I don't like torture either. Nor waterboarding, nor isolation of prisoners, nor the existence of prisons. I'm opposed to all those things, also.
But we do not get to choose whether or not there will be evil in the world. The world hates us; evil is native to it, and to that part of us that belongs to it. All we get to decide is how to try to minimize the evil afflicting us.
You can engage that discussion, or waste your breath.
Amnesty International is one of those organizations I really want to like, but find I can't take seriously. I want to, because I think they are trying to point to serious issues that we need to address more effectively than we have done. Their recent report claiming widespread US torture is an excellent example of the problems that afflict them.
I'm not an advocate of torture, or inhumane treatment. Far from it: I think the perpetrators of the Abu Ghraib crimes should have been executed by firing squad, a position I've held since the story broke. The Geneva Conventions, I believe, are a shield that protects us as much as our enemies -- they shield our souls.
They also permit the summary execution of several classes of persons, including unlawful fighters such as terrorists. They are entitled to have their status lawfully determined first, but after that, they may be shot. So may spies (i.e., fighters who abandon uniforms or other heraldry, to hide themselves among the population they wish to harm -- men like, say, Moussaoui).
Amnesty isn't interested in applying the Conventions as they stand, but in pursuing an agenda that I would describe as, "Opposition to all forms of cruelty at all." That's really sweet and noble, honestly, and I find it a genuinely touching idea. It is not, however, an ideal that can be achieved or that should be pursued in the practical reality in which we live.
It's not just that they can only find 34 suspected cases of criminal deaths, out of tens of thousands of people America has had to detain in the process of fighting two insurgencies on two continents over nearly five years. Amnesty begins its report, "Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees held in US custody in Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and other locations." Right off the bat, we're in trouble: "Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" means that what is widespread isn't "torture," but "torture, or several other things we're going to conflate with torture even though they really aren't torture at all." Things like isolation of prisoners.
Power & Wishful Thinking
By all means, let's have a debate about whether or not we want the US government to engage in waterboarding, or sleep deprivation, or psychological operations against prisoners. Let's have an honest debate about it: Do we want our government doing these things? Of course not. I don't think anyone reading this actually desires to fund a government that practices such techniques.
Do we want to leave our soldiers vulnerable to plots these people may know about, however, simply because we'd rather not have the government deprive them of sleep, or use dogs to frighten (but not hurt) them? Do we want to leave our families vulnerable? Do we want to be able to crack militant rings that could, left intact, lead to the destabilization of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the waste of our dead soldiers' sacrifice, a return to tyranny over the lives of the innocent in those regions? Well, no, we very much don't want that either.
That debate is still very much worth having, and I think we should pursue it in a fuller way than we have managed so far. Unfortunately, we've ended up with the debate disengaging just as it was begun, and most participants retreating into one of three Wishful Thinking camps:
Wishful Thinking Camp #1: I choose to believe that the United States only approves techniques that are morally appropriate to be used whenever they are used.
Wishful Thinking Camp #2: I choose to believe that these various techniques aren't effective or reliable, and so that we suffer no penalty for outright forbidding their use.
Wishful Thinking Camp #3: I choose to believe that our moral purity, should we set aside these distasteful practices, would be persuasive to enough to non-Americans that we would win the GWOT by default.
None of these are useful.
Camp #1: We ought to be genuinely bothered by creating and paying for a government that uses even psychological force to break the will of men. America is about freedom of conscience if it's about anything. You ought to be free to be whom you want: "Drunk or sober, just as he has a mind," as John Wayne put it in The Alamo. It's one thing to kill a man who has elected to be your enemy: you're letting him live out his life just the way he chose.
It's another thing to break his will. If you're not bothered by the idea of masked US government operatives breaking a man's spirit to compel his cooperation, you should be. We may have to do it sometimes, but we ought to be thoughtful and careful about when and how.
Camp #2: The actual evidence runs strongly against the idea that torture is not effective. Froggy described an actual waterboarding operation at his blog; separately, he asserts that it is 100% effective as an interrogation technique. Soldiers of the French government won in Algeirs through a policy described by a French military officer as "systematic torture."
It would be easier if the truth was that torture didn't work. Sadly, it does.
Camp #3: There is no evidence that our enemy can be persuaded by our moral purity, because it does not have the same standards for judging ethics. Aristotle pointed to the problem of comparitive ethics when he spoke of the absolute necessity of a proper upbringing to even understand the terms of the debate. Put more broadly, if you were raised in a distinctly different culture, you won't see the same things as moral or immoral that we do. When I was in China, I was outraged to see how women -- especially pregnant women -- were shoved out of the way by thoughtless, swaggering men. The men were deeply insulted when I would insist on my way of doing things -- they felt it was an insult to all Chinese manhood that I would give my seat on a crowded bus to a pregnant lady, when there were men who could sit down.
By the same token, what some of us interpret as high-mindedness will be interpreted as weakness by our enemies. It will be interpreted as weakness and damnable weakness by those we should care about trying to persuade: the populations being terrorized by the Taliban and al Qaeda in Iraq. They will not be pleased to know that we have been letting terrorists go, the day after another VBIED goes off in a street filled with their children. They will want to know why we didn't torture and kill, if that was what was necessary to protect their families.
On Solutions
In order to flesh out its report, which would be rather short if it stuck to the military cases, Amnesty moves to America's civil prison system. Doubtless this is a genuine problem afflicting America; I have been bothered by it for years. I was a little shocked, however, to see the following item listed as 'practices amounting to torture':
10. Long term isolation in super-maximum security confinement.We are thinking right now about the Moussaoui case. Amnesty, naturally, is opposed to the death penalty. It turns out they are just as opposed to supermax prisons. What shall we do with people like Moussaoui? We are told that we cannot morally kill them, and we cannot morally isolate them.
Thousands of prisoners, many of them mentally ill, continue to be held in long-term isolation in "super-maximum security" facilities, sometimes referred to as Security Housing Units (SHU Units) or Extended Control Units (ECU).(121) At least 30 states and the federal government operate more than 50 such facilities which include entire prisons or units within prisons.
What, then? Peggy Noonan's fears were right:
I hope he doesn't get to use his hour a day in general population getting buff and converting prisoners to jihad. I hope he isn't allowed visitors with whom he can do impolite things like plot against our country. I hope he isn't allowed anniversary interviews. I hope his jolly colleagues don't take captives whom they threaten to kill unless Moussaoui is released.I'm sympathetic to a lot of the problems Amnesty identifies -- the shackling of pregnant women, the moral issues of isolation. What is needed, though, is not an identification of ethically troubling issues. It is some solutions to those issues.
If we cannot kill these men, they will continue to work against us in large ways and in small. If we cannot isolate them, the ways open to them will be larger. If it is immoral to do either, what must we do? Set them free? That creates even larger opportunities for them to harm us, our families, and our nation; and the families and nations we are trying to help stabilize, so that they will not become breeding grounds for future terrorists.
It is enough to say that a man should do nothing wrong, and that he should seek atonement when (because of human nature) he does anyway. It is not enough to say that a nation should do nothing wrong. In national matters we must seek the greatest good among many unavoidable evils, and particularly in war -- a war we did not choose, but which has been prosecuted against us for a generation by Islamist fighters from Iran to Beruit to 9/11, to future battlefields not yet named.
No, I don't like torture either. Nor waterboarding, nor isolation of prisoners, nor the existence of prisons. I'm opposed to all those things, also.
But we do not get to choose whether or not there will be evil in the world. The world hates us; evil is native to it, and to that part of us that belongs to it. All we get to decide is how to try to minimize the evil afflicting us.
You can engage that discussion, or waste your breath.
Juan Cole
Juan Cole & Farsi:
I'm sure most of you have been following the Hitchens / Cole fight. An interesting question arising from it is this: Juan Cole presents himself as a "real expert" on Farsi. Is he one?
Winds of Change has a lengthy comment from an Iranian blogger questioning Cole's competence.
Another interesting question: Cole speaks for himself and his friends when he says that, "We are not going to let you have a war against Iran." How, precisely, does he mean to stop one? It won't be with an argument like the one he posts at his site -- one that combines accusations that America is murderous and violent with photographs selected to portray American soldiers as torturers or victims of bombs. Take that argument before the American electorate, and you'll be lucky if you're not tarred and feathered. You certainly won't be capturing Congress with it.
His advice to his opponents is, "Sit down and shut up." That would be a little on the arrogant side even for a professor addressing a problem student from the lectern. This while supposed excellence in the professorship, we must remember, is Cole's claim as to why his arguments should be weighted as more important than others'.
If such an argument would barely do in a classroom, it certainly won't do in a democracy. "My opponents should shut up" isn't very persuasive, even when it's true. Combined with "America is a weak and evil country and we should be ashamed of her," I expect that Cole-as-spokesman would be a disaster for the anti-war movement.
So -- how exactly is he going to stop anything?
Froggy @ B5
Froggy Five:
Good news -- BlackFive's place has been improved by the addition of a new co-blogger. Matthew Heidt has come aboard. Mr. Heidt is a former Navy SEAL and better known as Froggy of Froggy Ruminations. FR, long a favorite blog of mine, has been inactive for some time. It's good to see the Frog back up and running.
MilBlogger Cancer
A MilBlogger In Need:
The Mudville Gazette asks for prayers for a fellow MilBlogger, Greg of Greg Note's. The guy has just returned from duty in Iraq, only to discover that he's come down with a form of cancer. Details are available through the first link.
CNN stinks
Blood Pressure Medicine:
There is a scene, early in the classic Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, in which Lady brings back the newspaper with the front page torn up. "Have you noticed, Darling," her master says to his wife, "that ever since we have Lady we see less and less of those disturbing headlines?"
Since I've abandoned cable TV -- any TV, actually -- these last two years, I find my sense of anger about things has greatly subsided. I was reminded of why tonight, while dining out at a place showing CNN.
When I arrived, there was a piece on the Moussaoui verdict. Several experts were discussing the verdict, and explaining that the jury had decided against the death penalty because nine of them believed he had been abused as a child.
It's a little more complicated than that, but no time for such things! We have to move on to the next story:
War on the Middle Class!
What? Oh, well, it turns out to be a story about high gasoline prices. Which aren't an economic story because economics is, like, really boring and stuff. So it needs to be a war story. That's a good angle. OK, no more time, quick, on to the next story...
Broken Borders!
What's this story about? I quote the tagline from memory: 'States are being forced to fight the immigration battle alone.'
It's a war! On immigration! No, wait, immigration IS the war! On us! Or, wait, no, because we need to work in a sympathetic portrait of a migrant, so that symbol won't work, but maybe...
No time! We have to move on to the next story! On government corruption!
Good Lord. No wonder people are totally upset with the country.
So, let me see here: the gas price story is not an economic story but the story of a war against the middle class (being waged by whom, exactly?); the illegal immigration story is not a law enforcement story, but the story of a war being fought by the states (and who is the enemy?); but the story of Zacarais Moussaoui, who entered the country as part of a terrorist organization and plotted to kill thousands of innocent people, that's not a war story, no...
...it's just a law story. One that shows the kind heart of the American people, standing up for a poor abused boy from France, and righteously rejecting the cruel and unusual "death penalty."
I will never watch TV News again.
CENTCOM & Bloggers
CENTCOM & Bloggers:
John Donovan has this post in which he proposes to test CENTCOM's PAO/blogger system. He'd like you to read up and submit questions, which I encourage you to do.
2 from Mudville
Two from Mudville:
Thanks to the always-excellent Dawn Patrol, two links with comments.
First, former Marine officer Chester agrees on hiring Blackwater to deal with Darfur. He has some interesting options on how to pay for it, including what he calls "the PayPal option."
I have to say that I like the idea. "Click here to stop genocide," the button would say -- and it would actually mean it. Not rhetoric, action, pushed down to the level where the individual can kick in ten or a hundred bucks and still make a difference.
Second, Bolton smacks Sy Hersh. And Kucinich:
BOLTON: I said I had not heard of the report and I didn’t intend to read the article in “The New Yorker.”Bolton is being himself, but I wonder if he knows he is echoing the Pentagon?
KUCINICH: If I gave you this article right now, walked it over, would you look at it?
BOLTON: I don’t think so, honestly, Congressman, because I don’t have time to read much fiction.
Economic Illiteracy
Whee:
(H/t: The Commissar.)
Tim Russert asks the hard questions:
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, if, if demand is up but supply is down, why are the profits so high?Supply and demand graphing must not have been on the curriculum at journalism school. Or, er, high school macroeconomics.
MR. BODMAN: For that reason.
(H/t: The Commissar.)
Chaplains
The Post on Chaplains:
I read this story in the Washington Post, entitled "In the Hands of God." It's a good piece, in every sense of the word.
Well done. More like this, please.
Down Mexico Way
"Down Mexico Way"
MilBlogger poet laureate Russ Vaughn sends one of his older, but still quite appropriate, works.
Down Mexico WayI have to say I think this is one of Russ' best efforts.
Try crossing our southern border; try going the other way,
To enter Mexico illegally for an extended, unlawful stay.
Ignore immigration quotas, all their visas and their fees,
And quietly slip their border, anytime you damn well please.
Just sneak in past the policía, ignoring Mexican laws;
You’ve a desperate need to improve your lot; you have a righteous cause.
With Evil Bush in power now, destroying your liberal order,
You’ve a right to seek asylum, to trespass their northern border.
Once there, speak English only and demand it in their schools;
Forget assimilation; make Mexicanos change their rules.
What right do these Latinos have to make you learn their lingo?
Tell those churlish campesinos¹ you’ve the right to remain a gringo.
Move right on in, live your own way, ignore their cultural norms,
And demand the use of English on all their official forms.
Free healthcare is, of course, your right; let poor peones² pay,
For bilingual health providers throughout your border-bending stay.
Be sure to have a baby just as quickly as you can;
A citizen in the family helps legitimize your clan.
Then have another three or four, or maybe six or eight;
Don’t worry how you’ll feed them, just demand help from the state.
Paisanos³ paying taxes may resent your reckless breeding,
And protest loudly to their states about your gringo kids they’re feeding;
“But it’s just our way,” is your excuse, “Brought from our Yanquí land.”
How dare they question gringo ways they’ll never understand?
So defend your Anglo ethos; yield not your Yanquí essence;
And demand a driver’s license to legitimize your presence.
Just so you know what you’ve done wrong in case of policía stops,
Insist the Federales must teach English to all cops.
Make Mexicans accept your ways, make them your pliant fools;
Demand a Yanquí culture course be taught in all their schools.
So what you paid no taxes; when you’re an old gringo who will care?
File for your Seguridad Social, after all, you’re due your share.
If all this sounds preposterous, an irrational expectation,
Dems are demanding it for Illegals now in our multicultural nation.
Russ Vaughn
¹Rube, hick, unsophisticated person
²Laborer, worker
³Citizen
Quagmire
Quagmire:
Further, much of Africa is mired in a culture that is the exact negative of what you need for successful investments. Kim offers an example of the pernicious effect of the African environment on business in the form of an expensive, Chinese-built hospital -- useless, because no one will come to it. Reason magazine had a lengthy but excellent article on the same topic. It pointed out that much of Africa is built around the idea that success comes from putting up roadblocks, so you can extort a toll on anyone trying to accomplish something:
"Africa wins again."
There's an article in today's Washington Post that shows us the way to the First Great Chinese Quagmire.
Militants in Nigeria's volatile oil-producing region detonated a car bomb late Saturday and issued a warning that investors and officials from China would be "treated as thieves" and targeted in future attacks.A few weeks ago, Kim du Toit had a post about China and Africa. He wrote:
The threat came as Chinese President Hu Jintao returned home from a week-long tour of Africa in which he reached a series of deals securing access to oil and other resources to meet the needs of China's booming economy.... A spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an e-mail sent to news organizations that the car-bomb attack was "the final warning" before the militants turned their attention to oil workers, storage facilities, bridges, offices and other "soft oil industry targets."
Looks as though the Chinese are getting into Africa—several reports show them in Sudan, for instance—and now we’re getting noises that they’re going into Zimbabwe to “help out”, which triggered an article saying that the Zims should learn Chinese.He's right on both points: China, which is still dependent on foreign investment for it's own economics, doesn't have a lot of money to sink in any foreign investments of its own. It needs to get a substantial return, on average, for its investments to be worthwhile. (Their investment in American ports, for example, is probably wise.)
Some people may be alarmed by this trend. Not me.
What the Chinese are going to learn—and they don’t have a lot of money to throw at this—is the meaning of the phrase “Africa Wins Again”.
Further, much of Africa is mired in a culture that is the exact negative of what you need for successful investments. Kim offers an example of the pernicious effect of the African environment on business in the form of an expensive, Chinese-built hospital -- useless, because no one will come to it. Reason magazine had a lengthy but excellent article on the same topic. It pointed out that much of Africa is built around the idea that success comes from putting up roadblocks, so you can extort a toll on anyone trying to accomplish something:
The rot starts with government, but it afflicts the entire society. There’s no point investing in a business because the government will not protect you against thieves. (So you might as well become a thief yourself.) There’s no point in paying your phone bill because no court can make you pay. (So there’s no point being a phone company.) There’s no point setting up an import business because the customs officers will be the ones to benefit. (So the customs office is underfunded and looks even harder for bribes.) There’s no point getting an education because jobs are not handed out on merit. (And in any case, you can’t borrow money for school fees because the bank can’t collect on the loan.)The so-called "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta" aren't any more concerned about liberation than Mugabe was when he used the same terms. It's about piracy: they see some money and -- rather than getting a stake in the prosperity by helping out -- they take up arms and build bombs to try and extort some of the wealth. In return, the government will demand more Chinese money to protect Chinese workers. The money will never quite be enough, however, because the government in Africa benefits from the low-level violence too: the existence of the MEND means China has to help pay for the expanded local military.
It is not news that corruption and perverse incentives matter. But perhaps it is news that the problem of twisted rules and institutions explains not just a little bit of the gap between Cameroon and rich countries but almost all of the gap. Countries like Cameroon fall far below their potential even considering their poor infrastructure, low investment, and minimal education. Worse, the web of corruption foils every effort to improve the infrastructure, attract investment, and raise educational standards.
"Africa wins again."
May Day
May Day:
May Day used to be a day for celebrating the fullness of spring; the entrance into "the Cathedral of May," which in England in much of the Middle Ages was the most beautiful month of the year.
At some point it became a holiday for malcontents and Communists. Today we're apparently expecting some sort of pro-illegal immigrant protests in America, but that's not what I want to write about. I'd like to point to a more traditional form of May Day protests -- the labor protests in Indonesia.
Workers across Asia rallied Monday to press for better factory conditions and higher wages, often encountering a heavy police presence and, in some places, outright resistance.Measure of Effectiveness time: how does this compare with the latest anti-American protests? The anti-American movement in Indonesia had the advantage of a big-time vistor to rally their numbers: the US Secretary of State, Dr. Rice. She was there in person, one of the architects of US policy on Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the chief warmongers. How was she greeted?
Demonstrations were planned in major cities across Indonesia, with up to 50,000 people expected in the capital alone to protest government plans to revise a labor law. The new law would cut severance packages and introduce more flexible contracts that would chip away at worker security.
"Don't change the law," thousands of laborers chanted at Jakarta's main downtown roundabout, as others arrived in buses and trucks, waving green, yellow and red flags and banners expressing their demands.
Fearing violence, about 13,000 police were deployed on the streets, some carrying riot shields and manning water cannons, said police chief Maj. Gen. Firman Ganisaid.
On March 14, 2006 approximately 200 people staged a demonstration in front of U.S. Embassy Jakarta in protest of the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The demonstration, organized by two hard-line Muslim organizations, Hizbut Tahrir (HTI) and Pembela Islam (FPI), featured a procession of speakers who denounced the United States and Secretary Rice as "anti-Muslim" and "terrorists."The protest lasted three hours, and ended without violence.
Shirley Temple
A Shirley Temple:
TC Override and FbL have posted the "Shirley Temple" photo featuring Uncle Jimbo. Jimbo's a good sport.
Coal. for Darfur
The Coalition for Darfur:
Stephen "Feddie" Dillard, founder of Southern Appeal, has a coalition blog with liberal blogger Eugene Oregon that is organized around trying to track the massacres in Darfur. The Coalition for Darfur is thus a doubly noble effort, both in that it is directed at the relief of human misery, and that it is one of the last remaining efforts in which liberal and conservative Americans are still working together towards a common good.
Feddie would like you to be aware of it, in case you are looking for news from there.
Don't Tease Rangers
Please, Don't Tease The Rangers:
I went hiking today in the Shenandoah National Park. I took the wife and little boy, and we went out from Elkwallow down the Jeremy's Run trail, out towards Neighbor mountain. We did a small part of the Appalachian trail as well.
We'd originally planned a hike farther south, but when we got to the park, they'd posted signs noting that a hiker had gone missing. We redirected our hike in part to aid the search and rescue operation underway. The fellow was an older gentleman with Alzheimer's disease, who had (sensibly enough under the circumstances, I thought) gone off into the deep wilderness by himself for a while. "LOST" is an honorable way to go; a straw death at the hospital, unable to recognize or speak to your family? No, a wilderness hike seems just the thing.
In any event, we went about four miles, and didn't find any sign of the fellow. We did find fully six Search and Rescue Teams (SRTs) climbing around the mountains. The thing about SRTs is that they are pulled in from all over the area when there is a lost hiker. As a result, none of them had been on these trails before. Every single team but one stopped us to ask for directions.
I dutifully directed them to where they needed to be to link up with the rest of their operation, but I have to admit that I started to find it funny. These guys in emergency gear and impressive badges, several of them with search dogs, would stop and pull out maps, and beg for some idea where they might be.
The sixth team I directed, we were already most of the way back up to Elkwallow and they were just starting down. I gave them the directions faithfully, but I couldn't resist adding this: "And if you get lost, don't worry. There's a whole bunch of search and rescue teams down there."
The guy looked totally offended. "We don't -get- lost," he huffed, and he and his team pushed down the mountain.
It's unkind to laugh at people out doing good work. I tried not to, without much success.
Cowboy Obits
Cowboy Obituaries:
The life of the American cowboy is alive and well -- as proven, in abundant irony, by a pair of this week's obituaries. We lost a couple of men this week, both of whom had chosen the Western way as their life.
The first one was only a youth, killed while practicing for a rodeo. Stuart Mazanec took his mortal wound when a bronco rolled on him, bruising his heart. He was seventeen -- a young man who loved coyote hunting and riding. Tex Ritter wrote his eulogy long before he was born, poor fellow, in Blood on the Saddle. Sudden death has always been a part of the life, a life which therefore only honors the young men brave enough to choose it.
The other was Joe Beeler, the last of the founders of the Cowboy Artists of America. His creation lives on, and is doing quite well for itself. Mister Beeler died at the age of seventy-four, and he died well: suddenly, in the saddle, while helping a neighbor at branding time.
As always at such times, with such men, we mourn and celebrate at once.
Post Coverage
Post Coverage:
A) This article comes from page A10. On page A1? A story about difficulties training the Iraqi army.
B) Also on A1, there's this article on State Department statistics showing a spike in terrorist attacks in 2005. The spin on this is that it is bad news, and that Iraq represents about a third of all worldwide attacks.
Yes, it would be better if there were fewer terrorist attacks, because everyone simply put down their weapons and stopped fighting us. On the other hand, a rise in terrorist attacks -- if coupled with a sharp drop in other kinds of attacks -- can signal that the enemy has lost the strength to fight in any other way.
In 2003, we saw combat in Iraq featuring armies; in 2004, uprisings in cities and regions across the country, including both a Shi'ite insurgency led by Sadr and an al-Qaeda led insurgency in the west. Neither survived the US military, and in 2005 we saw mostly terrorist attacks and snipers.
That's the missing context. That is why a "spike" in terrorist attacks is not a sign of an insurgency waxing in its strength. It is the sign of an insurgency that is losing strength.
This is a major complaint with war reporting. We get the numbers -- the number of dead troops, the number of attacks, etc -- but no context for understanding the numbers.
COUNTERCOLUMN has yet more context for the situation.
I see from this morning's Washington Post a piece of very good news in Iraq: the killing of al Qaeda's emir in Samarra.
U.S. troops tracked Hamadi al-Takhi al-Nissani, al-Qaeda's "emir" in Samarra, to a safe house north of the city Friday morning, the U.S. military said in a statement. As the soldiers approached the house, Nissani fled and was killed. Two other armed insurgents in the house were also killed, according to the statement.Either way is fine, really.
Police in Samarra who spoke on condition of anonymity gave a slightly different account, saying that the house was east of the city and that the three men were running to a getaway car when fire from an American helicopter killed them.
On Thursday night, U.S. troops also arrested Abdul Qadir Makhool, another al-Qaeda leader in Samarra, and released a police officer who had been kidnapped by the group, Maj. Jamal Samarraie, an officer at the provincial Joint Command Center, said in an interview.Good job, Post. Now, here's the bad news:
The U.S. military referred to capturing an armed insurgent in a statement on Friday but did not give the man's name or say precisely when he had been captured.
A) This article comes from page A10. On page A1? A story about difficulties training the Iraqi army.
B) Also on A1, there's this article on State Department statistics showing a spike in terrorist attacks in 2005. The spin on this is that it is bad news, and that Iraq represents about a third of all worldwide attacks.
Yes, it would be better if there were fewer terrorist attacks, because everyone simply put down their weapons and stopped fighting us. On the other hand, a rise in terrorist attacks -- if coupled with a sharp drop in other kinds of attacks -- can signal that the enemy has lost the strength to fight in any other way.
In 2003, we saw combat in Iraq featuring armies; in 2004, uprisings in cities and regions across the country, including both a Shi'ite insurgency led by Sadr and an al-Qaeda led insurgency in the west. Neither survived the US military, and in 2005 we saw mostly terrorist attacks and snipers.
That's the missing context. That is why a "spike" in terrorist attacks is not a sign of an insurgency waxing in its strength. It is the sign of an insurgency that is losing strength.
This is a major complaint with war reporting. We get the numbers -- the number of dead troops, the number of attacks, etc -- but no context for understanding the numbers.
COUNTERCOLUMN has yet more context for the situation.
Fran's
Fran O'Brien's:
I haven't said much about the Fran O'Brien's story, because quite a few of the major MilBloggers seem to know a lot more about it than I do. I would like to point out, however, that this is the day on which a resolution is to be expected one way or the other.
Our friend FbL has done a lot of work on the issue, and I expect that Mr. and Mrs. Greyhawk will be tracking developments with their usual devotion. (Andi, who certainly deserves some credit here, says she's traveling today.)
Keep an eye on those sites, and if there's anything we can do to help at the last minute, I expect it'll be posted there.
Bill Roggio & Afghanistan
Bill Roggio:
One of the bloggers I finally got to meet at I MBC was Bill Roggio. I've dealt with Bill enough online to consider him a friend, so it was good to have the chance to shake his hand.
I think we've all been impressed with the quality of his writing, and his embed in Iraq was of great use in getting a better picture of how things are going there. Now, Bill's wanting to go off to Afghanistan, either with the Marines or the Canadians.
One of the things about not being a "journalist" is that you don't get paid. You want to go off for a few months to do this kind of embedded blogging, you pony up the cash. For the trip, and for your family while you're away (and for the life insurance policy you'll want, just in case).
We've been talking about ways to improve our communications efforts. Bill is one of those ways. If you'd like to help him get to Afghanistan, and back to Iraq again later this year, he wouldn't mind your help.
Crossing America
Crossing America:
I wasn't going to play, therefore, but Doc wanted my opinion on one of the knives, and so I found myself thinking it through. For what it's worth, I think Doc's almost exactly right on the firearms -- I would prefer a Ruger Vaquero or New Vaquero to a Single Action Army, because with the transfer bar safety system you can carry it with six rounds instead of five (in the old style Colt, you need to leave an empty chamber under the cylinder to avoid accidental discharges). The Rugers have an excellent reputation for durability, as well -- they are apparently indestructible.
I told Doc what I thought about the knives over at his site. I won't repeat the comments here, in part because you should go read his answers too.
Now, here are three additional questions, which I'm going to tack on because they're at least as interesting to me as the weapon considerations:
1) What kind of horse would you pick for the journey?
2) What kind of dog?
3) What kind of mule?
The answers to these questions will be as revealing as any gun-related ones (which you should email to Kim instead of me, anyway).
Also at Kim's place, an interesting thought experiment. It's a repeat of an old game he played, which was popular. The rules are as follows:
You have the opportunity to go back in time, arriving on the east coast of North America circa 1650, and your goal is to cross the North American continent alone, taking as much time as you need. When/if you reach the opposite coastline, you’ll be transported back to the present day.Now, it's always dangerous for a married man to put down on paper answers to questions that could be translated, "What two guns and two knives do I think are all a man might need?" If that were all you needed for such an undertaking, you might find yourself invited to dispossess yourself of the rest of your collection -- in some moment of financial strain, perhaps.
Your equipment for this journey will be as follows (taken back in the time capsule with you):
-- enough gold to buy provisions for the first five days’ travel;
-- a small backpack containing some clothing and toiletries;
-- a winter coat, raincoat and two pairs of boots;
-- waterproof sleeping bag;
-- an axe;
-- a box of 1,000 “strike anywhere” waterproof matches;
-- a topological map, binoculars and a compass;
-- a very small toolbox, including a firearm cleaning kit and a few spares for your firearms;
-- and a U.S. Army First Aid kit.
Weapons:
-- ONE long gun (and 800 rounds, but no scope)
-- ONE handgun (and 1,000 rounds)
-- TWO knives
plus of course holsters/scabbards for them all.
Once you arrive at the starting-point, which can be on either coast, you’ll be given a horse, a mule and a dog—and apart from that, you’re on your own. Remember: you’ll be traveling through deep woods, open prairie, desert and mountains. You may encounter hostile Indian tribes and dangerous animals en route, which should be considered when you answer the following questions (and only these):
1. What long gun would you take back in time with you?
2. What handgun?
3. Which knives?
There are only a couple of rules.
1. Multi-caliber long guns are okay (drillings, combos, etc), but you’ll still only be allowed 800 rounds in total for that firearm. The mix is up to you.
2. Email your response to kim -at- kimdutoit dot com; subject: Crossing America II.
3. Try to keep your responses short.
I wasn't going to play, therefore, but Doc wanted my opinion on one of the knives, and so I found myself thinking it through. For what it's worth, I think Doc's almost exactly right on the firearms -- I would prefer a Ruger Vaquero or New Vaquero to a Single Action Army, because with the transfer bar safety system you can carry it with six rounds instead of five (in the old style Colt, you need to leave an empty chamber under the cylinder to avoid accidental discharges). The Rugers have an excellent reputation for durability, as well -- they are apparently indestructible.
I told Doc what I thought about the knives over at his site. I won't repeat the comments here, in part because you should go read his answers too.
Now, here are three additional questions, which I'm going to tack on because they're at least as interesting to me as the weapon considerations:
1) What kind of horse would you pick for the journey?
2) What kind of dog?
3) What kind of mule?
The answers to these questions will be as revealing as any gun-related ones (which you should email to Kim instead of me, anyway).
Heart of Darkness notes:
The guys over at OPFOR noticed this bit of news the other day: President Robert Mugabe is inviting those white farmers he ran off to ummm....come and farm the land they were run of of.
I'll bet that works out.
They also note that Algeria is buying billions of dollars worth of combat aircraft from Russia and wonders why.
I'll take a stab at an answer: Russia. Needs. Cash.
And while we're on the subject of supplying arms;
Trudy Rubin, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has written a column about the ongoing mess in the Darfur.
She asks: "Can an individual do anything to stop a genocide?"
I think so.
1. Get a gun.
2. Go to the Darfur.
3. Shoot janjaweed militiamen dead when they show up to rape, pillage and burn.
Three simple steps.
but nooo....Trudy says: "What's needed now is grassroots pressure on the White House. One million postcards, and one million people in the capitol April 30 might motivate the Bush team to lean harder on the AU, Sudan, China and Russia to approve a U.N. force."
Right. A UN force. Given the recent UN shenanigans in the Congo, I'm thinking that a UN force is going to be less than effective.
I say send them guns. Help them to help themselves.
The guys over at OPFOR noticed this bit of news the other day: President Robert Mugabe is inviting those white farmers he ran off to ummm....come and farm the land they were run of of.
I'll bet that works out.
They also note that Algeria is buying billions of dollars worth of combat aircraft from Russia and wonders why.
I'll take a stab at an answer: Russia. Needs. Cash.
And while we're on the subject of supplying arms;
Trudy Rubin, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has written a column about the ongoing mess in the Darfur.
She asks: "Can an individual do anything to stop a genocide?"
I think so.
1. Get a gun.
2. Go to the Darfur.
3. Shoot janjaweed militiamen dead when they show up to rape, pillage and burn.
Three simple steps.
but nooo....Trudy says: "What's needed now is grassroots pressure on the White House. One million postcards, and one million people in the capitol April 30 might motivate the Bush team to lean harder on the AU, Sudan, China and Russia to approve a U.N. force."
Right. A UN force. Given the recent UN shenanigans in the Congo, I'm thinking that a UN force is going to be less than effective.
I say send them guns. Help them to help themselves.
Sexy Poll
A Poll on Sexy:
We don't do sex on Grim's Hall much, but since I made an exception for the last item, I suppose we might as well get it out of our systems today. Cassidy links to this poll at the New York Post on the topic.
Some points:
"Only thirty percent of men prefer makeup on their mates; 50 percent would rather they ditch the lipstick and go unadorned."
Grim's comment: And rightly so.
"What is sexier on a woman.. great looks or a great personality?"
The results: "67 percent of men who own a gun place a premium on personality, compared to 61 percent of gun-free men."
Grim's comment: With a possible exception for certain foreign countries, there is no such thing as a gun-free man. Reference the question comparing lumberjacks to "metrosexuals" for a restatement of this concept.
Gotta Be Kidding
How to Get Hits:
Kim du Toit wanted us to all link to this guy's webpage, as part of a bet the fellow is running with his girlfriend. I won't get into it; if you want to know, go see for yourself.
What's sad is that Grim's Hall has had only like 140,000 hits ever, all put together, in more than three years. This guy's got almost seven hundred thousand already. Obviously, it isn't philosophy, history, and warfighting theory that gets people to link to you. :)
I hope his girlfriend was serious about that contract, because I'm guessing she's going to have to pay up.
CENTCOM Sends
CENTCOM Sends:
Sgt. Gehlen from CENTCOM PA would like you to take a moment to view this transcript of Zarqawi's latest statement. It's part of a CENTCOM effort to simply help the terrorists get their message out.
Well might we want to do so. I believe it is written that "you shall know a tree by its fruit." Zarqawi asks, "Where are the lions of al-Anbar?" But he should know: many of them followed him to Fallujah, where they boasted they would be the end of the United States Marine Corps. Zarqawi decided not to stay with them when the Marines came, but left them alone to fight America's best. There they are still, and will remain, until the world is made new.
Southern Man
Oh, Good Point:
Today's Day By Day cartoon made me suddenly remember why the name "Neil Young" means something to me. Neil Young, in his heyday, represented everything that was wrong with music -- men shouldn't sing in high-pitched, whiny voices, for example; songs should have a melody that is pleasant to hear.
I've always detested most of the songs to come out of the protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Partly it's that there was so little good music, and yet all my life I've been listening to greying protesters talk about these musicians like they were some sort of living gods. Well, here's the truth as I see it: during the same time, Johnny Cash was producing music that was not only good, it was insightful. Most of these "legends" couldn't produce music that was either.
The musical duel between Young and Lynnard Skynnard is one of the few enlightening things to come out of the 1960s/1970s protest songs. Not only is the contrast instructive as to the difference in cultures between the whiny protester and the man who loves his home, but one of the two songs is actually pleasant to hear. Pity more of these "legendary" rock musicians couldn't manage that!
Semper Fi!
Today, 201 years ago, Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon, United States Marine Corps, had the honour of planting the first United States Flag in foreign soil on the other side of the Atlantic: Derna, Tripoli.
In recognition of heroism... he was awarded a Mamluk sword, which our officers, such as Joel, carry today. Us enlisted grunts had to make due with a pretty fine Cavalry sword... the oldest weapon in the US military today (though I stood in front of a merit board and argued, successfully, that the Marine was the oldest weapon in the Marine Corps inventory).
Semper Fidelis Marines.
In recognition of heroism... he was awarded a Mamluk sword, which our officers, such as Joel, carry today. Us enlisted grunts had to make due with a pretty fine Cavalry sword... the oldest weapon in the US military today (though I stood in front of a merit board and argued, successfully, that the Marine was the oldest weapon in the Marine Corps inventory).
Semper Fidelis Marines.
At the Range
A Young Warrior at the Range:
I went out to the gun range the other day, with a full selection of firearms: rifle, shotgun, and revolver. It's a small but nice range, and when I got there I saw that the shotgun section was occupied by a group of young men with military haircuts. They turned out to be Army Reservists.
I went to the rifle range and zeroed my rifle, and then went over to the pistol range. By this time, the young soldiers had finished their shotgunning, and were also at the pistol range. They were shooting a stainless 1911 variant, and the youngest (and tallest) of the three was missing everything. At fifteen feet. From a rest.
"Dude, stop hitting the wood," one laughed, meaning the planks between which the targets were stapled. "No, really, stop it."
The young soldier with the .45 finally set it down, and told one of his companions to finish up the magazine. He was rattled.
I popped off a few rounds from my Ruger Single Six, which is a .22 revolver while the other soldier finished the last two rounds that were left. Then, as they were reloading, I called the young soldier over.
"Try mine," I said. "Sometimes the .45 can be a handful if you're starting out. A .22 barely has any recoil, and so it lets you get your skills down. Once they're polished, you can easily swap up to the .45 pistol."
He looked a little unsure, just as I remember being unsure when I was given similar advice at about the same age. I wanted to be able to handle the hottest rounds out of the heaviest calibers, like I'd been born to it! It seemed like an insult to start off on a .22, which was like a toy gun next to a combat pistol.
Still, here I was shooting it, and he could see from my target that I knew something about shooting. Must not be anything to be ashamed of, then. You could see it all play out on his face.
He loaded the revolver and went through a cylinder. It wasn't a good group, but they were all in the eight ring or better. He was obviously impressed with how well he'd done, once the recoil wasn't a factor.
"See?" I said. "You're shooting pretty well, now. Just practice with a .22 until you get your skills down, and then you'll have no trouble with the .45."
He looked at me and said, "Thank you, sir." That's all he said, but you could see the new confidence in his eyes. He'd put down that .45 feeling like a failure, but he put down the revolver feeling like a man.
I can't express how proud I was to help him, even in that small a way.
So. Grim wants (and frankly, so do I) an informed citizenry.
Now how do we do this?
Well, perhaps programs like this could be expanded, because they do stuff like this.
(How the hell do you get picked for this? I wanna go to Florida and get briefed by the deputy commander of CENTCOM.)
Or, I suppose, you could go here. And just follow the links.
Or, like I do, go here, and sign up for all the emails available.
My favorite? DOD Contracts. Check this out.
Synchronous Serial Personal Computer Memory Card. What. Is. That? And why does Special Operations Command want it?
And what is hairy buffalo?
Google it and find out.
What gets me about this is that its all out there already. Paid for. Like, if you're a US citizen, you paid for that website and the General's salary and all that. I want to know what I'm paying for, if nothing else.
And and look at this. Oh wow. What the fresh hell is that? The Colonel going back to the Kentucky state bar to figure out what the hell to do next? What are they doing down there? And this is all available. So much for secret trials. You can read the charges here. (its a pdf, be warned.) After reading that, I say shoot him.
Shoot. Him. Now.
Not that I expect to be consulted, but hey, I'll bet I know more about this case than Katie Couric does right now.
So back to the original point. Part of being an informed citizen is that you want to be informed in the first place.
Now how do we do this?
Well, perhaps programs like this could be expanded, because they do stuff like this.
(How the hell do you get picked for this? I wanna go to Florida and get briefed by the deputy commander of CENTCOM.)
Or, I suppose, you could go here. And just follow the links.
Or, like I do, go here, and sign up for all the emails available.
My favorite? DOD Contracts. Check this out.
Synchronous Serial Personal Computer Memory Card. What. Is. That? And why does Special Operations Command want it?
And what is hairy buffalo?
Google it and find out.
What gets me about this is that its all out there already. Paid for. Like, if you're a US citizen, you paid for that website and the General's salary and all that. I want to know what I'm paying for, if nothing else.
And and look at this. Oh wow. What the fresh hell is that? The Colonel going back to the Kentucky state bar to figure out what the hell to do next? What are they doing down there? And this is all available. So much for secret trials. You can read the charges here. (its a pdf, be warned.) After reading that, I say shoot him.
Shoot. Him. Now.
Not that I expect to be consulted, but hey, I'll bet I know more about this case than Katie Couric does right now.
So back to the original point. Part of being an informed citizen is that you want to be informed in the first place.
New Links
I MBC Links:
On the other hand -- "State St. is world famous"? This reminds me of when I lived in China, and all the little students who wanted to practice their English would come up to me. "Welcome to HangZhou," they would say, "a beautiful city that is famous in the world."
Yeah, sure it is, kid. Here's five mao, go away.
On the other hand, I can't think of anywhere better to hold it than Madison -- I hate cities one and all, and I don't suppose ya'll will want to hold II MBC at Yellowstone or Grandfather Mountain. Pity, but there we are.
I've put in a new section of links for people who attended the I MBC (First MilBlog Conference), and who weren't already on my link list. One of the great things about the I MBC was learning how many outstanding blogs exist, many of which I'd never encountered. A lot of people have commented about "putting faces to names," but for me a lot of the good was in learning that there were names I didn't know, or had only barely encountered before.
If you were there, and you want on the list, let me know.
Meanwhile, I notice that Jimbo and Andi are calling for II MBC. I'll certainly come if I can, but I have to laugh a bit at Jimbo's desire to hold it in Madison, WI:
State St. in the Mad City is world famous and Kev might as well be Mayor of it.I'm sure the second part of the line is true. Kev and I had some Guinness at Biddy's after lunch, and I can see how he'd be a fixture. He's a good guy, nihilist though he may be.
On the other hand -- "State St. is world famous"? This reminds me of when I lived in China, and all the little students who wanted to practice their English would come up to me. "Welcome to HangZhou," they would say, "a beautiful city that is famous in the world."
Yeah, sure it is, kid. Here's five mao, go away.
On the other hand, I can't think of anywhere better to hold it than Madison -- I hate cities one and all, and I don't suppose ya'll will want to hold II MBC at Yellowstone or Grandfather Mountain. Pity, but there we are.
The PAO
The PAO Conversation:
What I would like to do, though, is describe the issues at work here and throw the floor open for comments. It's an area in which a wider degree of comment and involvement would be welcome -- not just by me, but according to the PAO, by Abizaid, Rumsfeld and Bush. They want to engage the MilBlogs, though they're still thinking about how to do it the right way. There are some legal and some ethical issues to work through, and a few practical ones also.
One issue at work is that there is a division in the military between two fields that overlap. There is a field called Public Affairs, and a field called Information Operations. These two fields are, as anyone who's dealt with bureaucracies will immediately understand, mutually hostile. This is precisely because their missions overlap at key points, and they are therefore constantly having to engage in turf battles for control over certain aspects of the operations, and the associated budgets.
Public Affairs has the mission of communicating with the public -- especially the American people. Their job is to explain the military's mission and perspective honestly and accurately, and objectively. They do this mainly by talking to the press, and therefore that's where their head is -- they spend their time thinking about how to remain credible with the press, how to build and maintain relationships with the press, and how to structure those relationships with the press (e.g., how to construct the embedding process).
Information Operations handles a wide variety of tasks some of which, like Public Affairs, deal with communicating messages from the military to a public audience. These missions are (in theory) distinct because they are designed not simply to explain what is going on, but to achieve some larger goal: PSYOPs are IOs, as is the tracking of mis- and disinformation. ("Misinformation," in military terms, is accidentally wrong information; "disinfo" is intentionally wrong information, that is being put out by hostile forces).
Whereas PA is "designed" only to convey accurate information, IO is "designed" to achieve some particular purpose. There are laws and rules governing military IO -- messages must be truthful, for example, and IO may not target Americans. As a result, there is a legal separation of IO and PA, as any messages that are meant to be communicated to the American public has to go through the PA stream. This often means messages that aren't designed for the American people, but which are likely to enter the global media stream and get back to Americans.
In a war against an enemy ideology, especially one that puts out anti-American propaganda, IO is cricital. It is also, increasingly, problematic.
Problem #1: All media is now global. An example: the IO whereby the Lincoln Group placed favorable (and true!) stories in the Iraqi press. Some of the stories got back to America, as did the larger story that they were doing it.
As a consequence, the sphere in which these kinds of IO can operate is increasingly small.
Problem #2: The interdepartmental infighting previously mentioned.
PA, for legal reasons, has to handle the coverage of messages that occur in the American media space. IO tracks mis/disinformation. A major thing that PA needs to be responding to is exactly that mis/disinfo: an example we talked about at the conference was the Willie Pete story. MilBlogs did a great job of responding to that in the English language media sphere. We can't do much in the wider European/Arabic/Southeast Asian sphere. Since so much of this deals with arguments that overlap into the American space, PA has to handle the response, either by pushing our messages out, or by pushing their own.
They need language experts for that, and they are competing for those language experts both with IO and with Military Intelligence.
Additionally, these responses need to understand the process of creating/pushing disinfo, as a lot of these messages are intentionally hostile. Responding to them, and predicting the next enemy message/counterpropaganda, is IO work. That's where the experts are in this field.
So, PA and IO really need to work in integrated closeness. Because they are legally required to be separate, however, the bureaucratic infighting destroys that cooperation and trust. This is a disaster.
Problem #3: Just as there is internal military competition, there are other agencies in the government that have similar missions. So, at the macro level, there's even more bureaucratic infighting. The CIA, State, and the NSC all have fingers in this pie. There is some overlap even though the missions are somewhat different (e.g., like military IO, the CIA can't target Americans; unlike either military IO or PA, the CIA can lie). The NSC is supposed to be coordinating between them, but... well, let's say there's room for improvement.
Problem #4: Because these kinds of IO are designed to manipulate the viewer -- although, again, only through honest messages -- they are instantly distrusted when they are revealed as such. PA wants the wall to remain up, not just because the law currently requires it, but because they think it adds to the credibility of messages coming from military PA.
Those are the problems, more or less.
Here are some thoughts of my own. I invite, and encourage, you to share your own in the comments.
A) The separation between PA and IO is counterproductive. Every PAO I've ever talked to has mentioned the benefit of having the wall; and yet every one has also allowed that all their messages are still taken as simple propaganda by the media, and to some degree by the public at large.
If that's true, there is no advantage to the military of having a split between the operations. There are serious disadvantages, but no advantages. If everything you write is assumed to be propaganda anyway, you may as well take advantage of having the propaganda / misinfo / PSYOP people on board to help you.
In addition, to a large degree the "wall" is an illusion. All group messages are designed to manipulate the receiver -- otherwise, there is no reason for an organization to convey a message. A man might tell a stranger something kind for no particular reason. A corporation will not. If a corporation says anything, there's a reason for it: to sell products, to improve public opinion of the company, to recruit talent, to lobby for desired changes of one kind or another. The military is in the same boat.
There is a strong public benefit -- as opposed to a military benefit -- from having strict rules about the type of manipulation that is acceptable. For example, we could say that we would approve honest messages from the military to manipulate American public opinion for the following reasons only:
1) To recruit or retain soldiers,
2) To defend the military in cases when there is mis/disinformation that would tend to slander it;
3) To defend the military's or the nation's honor (this differs from the above in that it isn't a question of the information being right or wrong; it might be a case where the military is countering an opinion from an antiwar or Communist organ. Such opinions may not be "wrong," but might still be unfair and in need of answer).;
4) To suppress enemy recruitment;
5) To explain a military operation, either in progress, completed, or about to get underway.
All such messages would have to be honest and truthful, but that is already the case. We might also wish to stipluate that the precise acceptable purpose be spelled out at the top of the press release/article (e.g., "The purpose of this article is to spur recruitment.") That would tend to increase credibility: instead of people suspecting that you were trying to manipulate them, they would know you were, and furthermore what you wanted. Understanding that up front, they could greet the message as an honest communication, rather than a suspect one.
There are other difficulties that would have to be overcome, but I don't see that the separation is helpful to our war efforts.
B) PA should be able to engage the blogosphere. Currently they are structured around the media, as mentioned -- it's what they have mostly done for decades, so that's where their heads are. Ask Bill Roggio what that means for a blogger who wants to embed, say, without being a credentialed "journalist."
By the same token, PA should be able to pass useful messages from the blogosphere (esp. MilBlogs) through to other populations. They would need to figure out whether to rewrite but attribute (e.g., issue a press release saying, "We are here responding to the following wrongful claim of war crimes. Much of the investigation was produced by the Mudville Gazette"), or to simply start translating and publishing a "best of the MilBlogs" paper (as many Muslim countries are not as wired as ours) in local languages. I like the second idea much better.
C) One suggestion I made to the PAO was that its press releases need to be longer. MilBlogs will carry them, even though the MSM mostly excerpts (and misunderstands, so badly excerpts) their contents.
A good press release meant to communicate with Americans needs to remember that the average American has no military background. The message should therefore explain the meanings of all military terms, and give a basic tactical/strategic context and explanation of the subject of the release. In that way, we can begin to educate Americans about the business of the military, as well as conduct some very necessary public education in military science and history.
An example is Operation Swarmer. The press release referred to 'the largest Air Assault since...' etc. Neither the media nor most Americans knew what an air assault was; and more to the point, they didn't know what it signified. They interpreted it as a sign of major hostilities, when in fact it was nothing of the sort.
We've got to educate Americans about basic strategy and tactics, and remember to explain the context of any current conflict. This is not only important for mantaining public morale. It's important because in a 4th Generation conflict such as this one, the odds are that the enemy will bring the war home to us from time to time. We don't just need to start developing a citizenry that is engaged in the war. We need to start developing a citizenry that knows how to think about war.
Comments are encouraged.
Over at Mudville, I mentioned in the comments a sidebar conversation several of us had with the CENTCOM PAO who showed up to talk with us. For ease of reference, here's most of what I said:
Really two things: the degree to which MilBlogs should be embraced by the military leadership and ways in which they can be; and also some friendly advice on how PA and IO can and must be improved.C4 asked me to expand on this, but I don't have much more to say about the particulars of what we discussed. I would like to reiterate that the PAO was a good guy, and although he came with talking points, he came to work with us. He seemed genuinely surprised by how much we'd thought about how the relationship should work, and I think both sides learned a lot from each other.
He came to talk to the first point, and got a bit blindsided by the degree to which we wanted to talk about the second. However, he was a good guy, and once he got out of his PAO "I need to turn this conversation back around to my talking points" mode and started to listen, which didn't take very long, he started climbing the learning curve fast.
My sense from several previous conversations is that we've got the guys in the field understanding what needs doing and how -- some of them are on the leading edge of developing these solutions. We've got the top level leadership, mostly, coming around -- Abizaid, Cartwright, Rumsfeld, and according to the PAO, Bush. We still have to move the hardest bunch, though, which is the middle level officers who are just removed enough from the war to be attached to regulations instead of effect, and just powerful enough to throw up bureaucratic walls that can stop things from happening even when the combatant commander wants it (e.g., "well, sir, the lawyers say..."). Once you can get that middle on board, you'll see things start moving fast in the right directions.
Our PAO also said the funding was finally coming on line, which I can believe. That will improve his capabilities -- so, if he also knows what to do with his newly funded capabilities, we can make things happen. One of the complaints I heard voiced was the degree to which MilBloggers have been "carrying the weight" of responding to charges, and it's true. If we can work together with PA, and especially if we can use their language resources to get these counterarguments pushed into the media space in the Muslim world (e.g., Malaysia, Indonesia, the Arabic world), we'll really be doing something to change the dynamic of the war.
What I would like to do, though, is describe the issues at work here and throw the floor open for comments. It's an area in which a wider degree of comment and involvement would be welcome -- not just by me, but according to the PAO, by Abizaid, Rumsfeld and Bush. They want to engage the MilBlogs, though they're still thinking about how to do it the right way. There are some legal and some ethical issues to work through, and a few practical ones also.
One issue at work is that there is a division in the military between two fields that overlap. There is a field called Public Affairs, and a field called Information Operations. These two fields are, as anyone who's dealt with bureaucracies will immediately understand, mutually hostile. This is precisely because their missions overlap at key points, and they are therefore constantly having to engage in turf battles for control over certain aspects of the operations, and the associated budgets.
Public Affairs has the mission of communicating with the public -- especially the American people. Their job is to explain the military's mission and perspective honestly and accurately, and objectively. They do this mainly by talking to the press, and therefore that's where their head is -- they spend their time thinking about how to remain credible with the press, how to build and maintain relationships with the press, and how to structure those relationships with the press (e.g., how to construct the embedding process).
Information Operations handles a wide variety of tasks some of which, like Public Affairs, deal with communicating messages from the military to a public audience. These missions are (in theory) distinct because they are designed not simply to explain what is going on, but to achieve some larger goal: PSYOPs are IOs, as is the tracking of mis- and disinformation. ("Misinformation," in military terms, is accidentally wrong information; "disinfo" is intentionally wrong information, that is being put out by hostile forces).
Whereas PA is "designed" only to convey accurate information, IO is "designed" to achieve some particular purpose. There are laws and rules governing military IO -- messages must be truthful, for example, and IO may not target Americans. As a result, there is a legal separation of IO and PA, as any messages that are meant to be communicated to the American public has to go through the PA stream. This often means messages that aren't designed for the American people, but which are likely to enter the global media stream and get back to Americans.
In a war against an enemy ideology, especially one that puts out anti-American propaganda, IO is cricital. It is also, increasingly, problematic.
Problem #1: All media is now global. An example: the IO whereby the Lincoln Group placed favorable (and true!) stories in the Iraqi press. Some of the stories got back to America, as did the larger story that they were doing it.
As a consequence, the sphere in which these kinds of IO can operate is increasingly small.
Problem #2: The interdepartmental infighting previously mentioned.
PA, for legal reasons, has to handle the coverage of messages that occur in the American media space. IO tracks mis/disinformation. A major thing that PA needs to be responding to is exactly that mis/disinfo: an example we talked about at the conference was the Willie Pete story. MilBlogs did a great job of responding to that in the English language media sphere. We can't do much in the wider European/Arabic/Southeast Asian sphere. Since so much of this deals with arguments that overlap into the American space, PA has to handle the response, either by pushing our messages out, or by pushing their own.
They need language experts for that, and they are competing for those language experts both with IO and with Military Intelligence.
Additionally, these responses need to understand the process of creating/pushing disinfo, as a lot of these messages are intentionally hostile. Responding to them, and predicting the next enemy message/counterpropaganda, is IO work. That's where the experts are in this field.
So, PA and IO really need to work in integrated closeness. Because they are legally required to be separate, however, the bureaucratic infighting destroys that cooperation and trust. This is a disaster.
Problem #3: Just as there is internal military competition, there are other agencies in the government that have similar missions. So, at the macro level, there's even more bureaucratic infighting. The CIA, State, and the NSC all have fingers in this pie. There is some overlap even though the missions are somewhat different (e.g., like military IO, the CIA can't target Americans; unlike either military IO or PA, the CIA can lie). The NSC is supposed to be coordinating between them, but... well, let's say there's room for improvement.
Problem #4: Because these kinds of IO are designed to manipulate the viewer -- although, again, only through honest messages -- they are instantly distrusted when they are revealed as such. PA wants the wall to remain up, not just because the law currently requires it, but because they think it adds to the credibility of messages coming from military PA.
Those are the problems, more or less.
Here are some thoughts of my own. I invite, and encourage, you to share your own in the comments.
A) The separation between PA and IO is counterproductive. Every PAO I've ever talked to has mentioned the benefit of having the wall; and yet every one has also allowed that all their messages are still taken as simple propaganda by the media, and to some degree by the public at large.
If that's true, there is no advantage to the military of having a split between the operations. There are serious disadvantages, but no advantages. If everything you write is assumed to be propaganda anyway, you may as well take advantage of having the propaganda / misinfo / PSYOP people on board to help you.
In addition, to a large degree the "wall" is an illusion. All group messages are designed to manipulate the receiver -- otherwise, there is no reason for an organization to convey a message. A man might tell a stranger something kind for no particular reason. A corporation will not. If a corporation says anything, there's a reason for it: to sell products, to improve public opinion of the company, to recruit talent, to lobby for desired changes of one kind or another. The military is in the same boat.
There is a strong public benefit -- as opposed to a military benefit -- from having strict rules about the type of manipulation that is acceptable. For example, we could say that we would approve honest messages from the military to manipulate American public opinion for the following reasons only:
1) To recruit or retain soldiers,
2) To defend the military in cases when there is mis/disinformation that would tend to slander it;
3) To defend the military's or the nation's honor (this differs from the above in that it isn't a question of the information being right or wrong; it might be a case where the military is countering an opinion from an antiwar or Communist organ. Such opinions may not be "wrong," but might still be unfair and in need of answer).;
4) To suppress enemy recruitment;
5) To explain a military operation, either in progress, completed, or about to get underway.
All such messages would have to be honest and truthful, but that is already the case. We might also wish to stipluate that the precise acceptable purpose be spelled out at the top of the press release/article (e.g., "The purpose of this article is to spur recruitment.") That would tend to increase credibility: instead of people suspecting that you were trying to manipulate them, they would know you were, and furthermore what you wanted. Understanding that up front, they could greet the message as an honest communication, rather than a suspect one.
There are other difficulties that would have to be overcome, but I don't see that the separation is helpful to our war efforts.
B) PA should be able to engage the blogosphere. Currently they are structured around the media, as mentioned -- it's what they have mostly done for decades, so that's where their heads are. Ask Bill Roggio what that means for a blogger who wants to embed, say, without being a credentialed "journalist."
By the same token, PA should be able to pass useful messages from the blogosphere (esp. MilBlogs) through to other populations. They would need to figure out whether to rewrite but attribute (e.g., issue a press release saying, "We are here responding to the following wrongful claim of war crimes. Much of the investigation was produced by the Mudville Gazette"), or to simply start translating and publishing a "best of the MilBlogs" paper (as many Muslim countries are not as wired as ours) in local languages. I like the second idea much better.
C) One suggestion I made to the PAO was that its press releases need to be longer. MilBlogs will carry them, even though the MSM mostly excerpts (and misunderstands, so badly excerpts) their contents.
A good press release meant to communicate with Americans needs to remember that the average American has no military background. The message should therefore explain the meanings of all military terms, and give a basic tactical/strategic context and explanation of the subject of the release. In that way, we can begin to educate Americans about the business of the military, as well as conduct some very necessary public education in military science and history.
An example is Operation Swarmer. The press release referred to 'the largest Air Assault since...' etc. Neither the media nor most Americans knew what an air assault was; and more to the point, they didn't know what it signified. They interpreted it as a sign of major hostilities, when in fact it was nothing of the sort.
We've got to educate Americans about basic strategy and tactics, and remember to explain the context of any current conflict. This is not only important for mantaining public morale. It's important because in a 4th Generation conflict such as this one, the odds are that the enemy will bring the war home to us from time to time. We don't just need to start developing a citizenry that is engaged in the war. We need to start developing a citizenry that knows how to think about war.
Comments are encouraged.
2006 MilBlogs
The MilBlogs Conference:
I'll post a fuller review of the First MilBlogs Conference later, but I will say a few things right up front:
Matty O'Blackfive is a prince of a fellow, and if you haven't heard his story about the wedding, you should make him tell you.
Uncle Jimbo is a really great guy.
Bill Roggio is heading back to Afghanistan (and Iraq, I gather), as you may know. It was good to meet up with Bill, as I've written at his site from time to time.
TC Override has excellent taste in music. He got to the jukebox at Finn Mac Cool's, which is right across from Eighth and Eye, and impressed the whole place.
I met Holly Aho, who is indeed a wonderful person just as you'd imagine; and also the Red Headed Infidel, whose paratrooper stories were almost as good as Matt's. By the way, Doc, I referred her to you for a second third opinion on a Kimber; she's apparently in your neighborhood.
Finally, the officers at Op-For asked me about our own Eric Blair. "Don't you have a guy called Eric Blair writing over there?"
"Yes I do," I said.
"Is he here?" they wanted to know.
As far as I know, he wasn't, so they asked me to pass on this message:
"He comes over and argues with us all the time, and @#$@#, he always knows better than we do. Ask him to say, just once, 'Good post, guys.' Please!"
Consider it done.
Political Economy and Justice
Political Economy and Justice:
In recent news, an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency has been fired for leaking classified information to the press. (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.)
Before I learned anything about the material leaked (or the identity of the leaker), I remembered that I'd seen commentary about leaked information--both here at the Hall and elsewhere.
The complaint has always been that any low-level person who releases classified data to anyone faces stiff fines, imprisonment, and loss of security clearance. However, people who are politically well-connected are shielded from such problems when they leak.
In this particular case, a politically-connected leaker appears to have been brought down. (If we can trust the leak that told the NBC about this...)
This is indeed a sign of hope that sanity might return to the treatment of classified information.
Opposition to this possible return to sanity could be manifold, though. From my long-distance observation of life inside of the Capitol, an illicit economy exists with information playing the role of currency.
The commodity traded for is influence and prestige in the social structures of the Capitol. Thus, a high-level staffer (defined as someone who handles and sorts information that must be passed to the decision-makers in the department) has a lot of valuable currency on hand. Purchases of influence can be made by giving some of this currency--inside information--to a few other people who might have need of it. Reporters, Congressional staffers, and friends of friends of Cabinet members all fit the description of people who might need inside information. In return for valuable information, they become noticed as good sources. The other party to the transaction is encouraged to reckon it as debt, to be repaid with favors--information, budget decisions, influece on policy changes, and the like. This will keep the information flowing in the proper direction.
Reporters play a role in this economy--but they tender payment in terms of positive and negative spin, focus in a news story on events relating to the department/agency, and a tendency to ask for the "unofficially official position" on stories that relate to the leaker's department or agency.
Prosecution of leakers who deal in classified information is a good way to clamp down on these illicit transactions. Especially where the transaction produces costly repurcussions on the international stage.
Will this illicit economy ever be truly eliminated? That is something I won't hazard a guess about at the moment.
In recent news, an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency has been fired for leaking classified information to the press. (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.)
Before I learned anything about the material leaked (or the identity of the leaker), I remembered that I'd seen commentary about leaked information--both here at the Hall and elsewhere.
The complaint has always been that any low-level person who releases classified data to anyone faces stiff fines, imprisonment, and loss of security clearance. However, people who are politically well-connected are shielded from such problems when they leak.
In this particular case, a politically-connected leaker appears to have been brought down. (If we can trust the leak that told the NBC about this...)
This is indeed a sign of hope that sanity might return to the treatment of classified information.
Opposition to this possible return to sanity could be manifold, though. From my long-distance observation of life inside of the Capitol, an illicit economy exists with information playing the role of currency.
The commodity traded for is influence and prestige in the social structures of the Capitol. Thus, a high-level staffer (defined as someone who handles and sorts information that must be passed to the decision-makers in the department) has a lot of valuable currency on hand. Purchases of influence can be made by giving some of this currency--inside information--to a few other people who might have need of it. Reporters, Congressional staffers, and friends of friends of Cabinet members all fit the description of people who might need inside information. In return for valuable information, they become noticed as good sources. The other party to the transaction is encouraged to reckon it as debt, to be repaid with favors--information, budget decisions, influece on policy changes, and the like. This will keep the information flowing in the proper direction.
Reporters play a role in this economy--but they tender payment in terms of positive and negative spin, focus in a news story on events relating to the department/agency, and a tendency to ask for the "unofficially official position" on stories that relate to the leaker's department or agency.
Prosecution of leakers who deal in classified information is a good way to clamp down on these illicit transactions. Especially where the transaction produces costly repurcussions on the international stage.
Will this illicit economy ever be truly eliminated? That is something I won't hazard a guess about at the moment.
God Save the Queen
God Save the Queen:
Mark Steyn celebrates Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday. Allow me to extend my respects to the lady. Some may object that an American owes no deference to the Queen of England, and that is true; and I expect Joel may wish to remind me, again, of the affection of my family for the Jacobite cause. True, all true.
Yet I will never forget that this queen had the Coldstream Guards play "The Star Spangled Banner" at Buckingham Palace after 9/11; or that she sang it, herself and from memory, at a religious ceremony not long after. So long as she is the Queen, may God defend her; and so shall I, according to my own poor power.
9th circ 1st A bad viewpoint
The First Amendment Doesn't Protect You:
Yet the ruling is wrong in its assertion that a ban of this type leads to "fundamental values of habits and manners of civility essential to a democratic society." What would lead to those things is an open and respectful discussion of differences, in which one's right to think a certain way is protected -- as is the right of others to dissent. Stating that "discussions of tolerance [and] equality" are to be encouraged is fine and dandy, but this ruling does exactly the opposite of promoting tolerance and equality. It creates one point of view that is the official one, and one point of view that is totally banned from even symbolic representation. Not only can you not say it, you can't even wear a t-shirt with a symbol representing it.
That doesn't lead to an idea of tolerance or equality. It leads to an idea that ideas with which we do not agree must be silenced -- completely suppressed, so that not even their image offends our eyes.
Just as it does not lead to an idea of tolerance and equality, it doesn't lead to an actual situation of tolerance and equality. It's not only that the courts favor one viewpoint over another. It's that the people who have the disapproved points of view are forced to gather and express themselves outside of the public square. That leads to division within society, distrust between those "secretive" groups and people outside of them, the splitting of society into hostile factions.
How different if they been permitted to express their views in a respectful setting, in which their right to their views was protected but so also was the right to dissent! For one thing, that really would teach the habits of tolerance and respect necessary for a society in which people with competing interests and different upbringings have to live together and make space for each other. Also, in that situation, the "negative" views might be challenged and perhaps even changed. If they are wrong and you are right, what do you have to fear from the contest? You ought to welcome it.
As it stands, what we shall get is "discussions of tolerance" in which the opposing view is condemned without being presented. That will convince no one, because without an advocate for that view there is no chance of the view being presented fairly. If you don't speak to the actual point of view, or take time to understand what it is, you can't begin to persuade the people who hold it. It's like trying to push a rock when you don't know exactly where the rock is.
But don't we know everything we need to know about this rock? Why should we try to understand these points of view, which are -- so the Ninth Circuit tells us -- so wrong as to be outside the realm of protected speech?
Perhaps it is because our idea of them is incomplete. The purpose of education surely includes expanding our awareness of competing points of view. Should we not hear them?
I don't understand the particulars of this student's point of view well enough to advocate for him. He should speak for himself -- the very thing the court says he has no right to do. But I do understand the particulars of another one of the banned forms of speech, so I shall speak for it instead.
Consider the mention of "the Confederate flag" as a banned symbol. In the opinion of the court, it is the equivalent of the swastika. That seems to me like a point of view that ought to be fully argued, rather than simply asserted. To me, the Confederate flag is a positive symbol that represents nothing so much as the concept of home. It meant home to me, both physically and culturally, long before I'd ever heard of a Civil War or a place called the Confederacy. As I've argued recently, love of country -- of home -- is as natural to a man as love of father and mother. It's an honest and proper thing to love home and its symbols, and to feel inspired to defend them. Being asked to feel ashamed of your country is as likely to distort and deform the mind as being ashamed of your family.
That point of view, which is often summarized as "Heritage not Hate," is apparently not to be presented in a public school; while the point of view that the Confederate flag is the moral equivalent of the swastika is approved. The Confederate flag rarely gets a fair hearing, and is generally presented from a one-sided-negative point of view. That's the case even before this ruling.
I respect that there are people who have strongly negative views about it, just as I have strongly positive ones. I am willing to meet them halfway. They might be willing to meet me halfway, if they understood where I stand and why I stand there.
Now they shall not, because they will never have the argument presented to them. What they will have presented instead is an unfair version of the argument, a straw man stood up only for the purposes of tearing it apart.
Where we might have had tolerance and mutual respect, we will have suspicion and hostility. We might have had engagement and a finding of common ground. Now any ground in between shall be No Man's Land.
There is a great deal at stake in the courts right now. There remains much to do.
The Ninth Circuit rules that the First Amendment only protects approved points of view. Volokh points out that this is a far worse ruling for freedom of speech than previous restrictions:
Harper's speech is constitutionally unprotected, the Ninth Circuit just ruled today, in an opinion written by Judge Reinhardt and joined by Judge Thomas; Judge Kozinski dissented. According to the majority, "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race, religion, and sexual orientation" -- which essentially means expressions of viewpoints that are hostile to certain races, religions, and sexual orientations -- are simply unprotected by the First Amendment in K-12 schools. Such speech, Judge Reinhardt said, violates "the rights of other students" by constituting a "verbal assault[] that may destroy the self-esteem of our most vulnerable teenagers and interfere with their educational development."The Ninth Circuit wasn't content to rule on the specific case, either. They are happy to provide examples of other sorts of speech that the First Amendment doesn't protect, so that future jurists and administrators can project a nice penumbra of forbidden speech.
This isn't limited to, say, threats, or even personalized insults aimed at individual student. Nor is there even a "severe or pervasive" requirement such as that requirement to make speech into "hostile environment harassment" (a theory that poses its own constitutional problems, but at least doesn't restrict individual statements).
Part of a school’s “basicSchools do indeed require discipline, and the school is in the right to remove hostile messages so that education can continue. I agree that far.
educational mission” is the inculcation of “fundamental values of habits and
manners of civility essential to a democratic society.” Fraser, 478 U.S. at 681
(internal quotation marks omitted). For this reason, public schools may permit,
and even encourage, discussions of tolerance, equality and democracy without
being required to provide equal time for student or other speech espousing
intolerance, bigotry or hatred. As we have explained, supra pp. 28-29, because a
school sponsors a “Day of Religious Tolerance,” it need not permit its students to
wear T-shirts reading, “Jews Are Christ-Killers” or “All Muslims Are Evil Doers.”
Such expressions would be “wholly inconsistent with the ‘fundamental values’ of
public school education.” Id. at 685-86. Similarly, a school that permits a “Day of
Racial Tolerance,” may restrict a student from displaying a swastika or a Confederate Flag.
Yet the ruling is wrong in its assertion that a ban of this type leads to "fundamental values of habits and manners of civility essential to a democratic society." What would lead to those things is an open and respectful discussion of differences, in which one's right to think a certain way is protected -- as is the right of others to dissent. Stating that "discussions of tolerance [and] equality" are to be encouraged is fine and dandy, but this ruling does exactly the opposite of promoting tolerance and equality. It creates one point of view that is the official one, and one point of view that is totally banned from even symbolic representation. Not only can you not say it, you can't even wear a t-shirt with a symbol representing it.
That doesn't lead to an idea of tolerance or equality. It leads to an idea that ideas with which we do not agree must be silenced -- completely suppressed, so that not even their image offends our eyes.
Just as it does not lead to an idea of tolerance and equality, it doesn't lead to an actual situation of tolerance and equality. It's not only that the courts favor one viewpoint over another. It's that the people who have the disapproved points of view are forced to gather and express themselves outside of the public square. That leads to division within society, distrust between those "secretive" groups and people outside of them, the splitting of society into hostile factions.
How different if they been permitted to express their views in a respectful setting, in which their right to their views was protected but so also was the right to dissent! For one thing, that really would teach the habits of tolerance and respect necessary for a society in which people with competing interests and different upbringings have to live together and make space for each other. Also, in that situation, the "negative" views might be challenged and perhaps even changed. If they are wrong and you are right, what do you have to fear from the contest? You ought to welcome it.
As it stands, what we shall get is "discussions of tolerance" in which the opposing view is condemned without being presented. That will convince no one, because without an advocate for that view there is no chance of the view being presented fairly. If you don't speak to the actual point of view, or take time to understand what it is, you can't begin to persuade the people who hold it. It's like trying to push a rock when you don't know exactly where the rock is.
But don't we know everything we need to know about this rock? Why should we try to understand these points of view, which are -- so the Ninth Circuit tells us -- so wrong as to be outside the realm of protected speech?
Perhaps it is because our idea of them is incomplete. The purpose of education surely includes expanding our awareness of competing points of view. Should we not hear them?
I don't understand the particulars of this student's point of view well enough to advocate for him. He should speak for himself -- the very thing the court says he has no right to do. But I do understand the particulars of another one of the banned forms of speech, so I shall speak for it instead.
Consider the mention of "the Confederate flag" as a banned symbol. In the opinion of the court, it is the equivalent of the swastika. That seems to me like a point of view that ought to be fully argued, rather than simply asserted. To me, the Confederate flag is a positive symbol that represents nothing so much as the concept of home. It meant home to me, both physically and culturally, long before I'd ever heard of a Civil War or a place called the Confederacy. As I've argued recently, love of country -- of home -- is as natural to a man as love of father and mother. It's an honest and proper thing to love home and its symbols, and to feel inspired to defend them. Being asked to feel ashamed of your country is as likely to distort and deform the mind as being ashamed of your family.
That point of view, which is often summarized as "Heritage not Hate," is apparently not to be presented in a public school; while the point of view that the Confederate flag is the moral equivalent of the swastika is approved. The Confederate flag rarely gets a fair hearing, and is generally presented from a one-sided-negative point of view. That's the case even before this ruling.
I respect that there are people who have strongly negative views about it, just as I have strongly positive ones. I am willing to meet them halfway. They might be willing to meet me halfway, if they understood where I stand and why I stand there.
Now they shall not, because they will never have the argument presented to them. What they will have presented instead is an unfair version of the argument, a straw man stood up only for the purposes of tearing it apart.
Where we might have had tolerance and mutual respect, we will have suspicion and hostility. We might have had engagement and a finding of common ground. Now any ground in between shall be No Man's Land.
There is a great deal at stake in the courts right now. There remains much to do.
Test Pilot
A Test Pilot:
JHD sends an obit for a test pilot of forty years' experience, who died recently in the crash of a single-engine private plane. It's a good story, the kind of story we hope our lives will leave behind us when we die. Thanks to Scott Crossfield and the men like him, whose courage is written across the sky.
EMP Iran
On Iran:
I imagine some heavy-duty "what if?" planning is going on in corners of the military establishment, trying to develop a military option for Iran. It's not that we desire to attack Iran; it's that, given Iran's history and ideology, we can't afford for them to become a nuclear weapons power. They would probably use it, either to create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) designed to wipe out the United States' continental electronic grid, or to simply wipe out Israel (something they seem very eager to talk about in front of microphones).
However, there are reasons not to invade, and traditional military war games have turned out badly in the past. InstaPundit says he thinks the EMP threat from Iran may be overrated, citing a Federation of American Scientists report that a credible EMP weapon requires a megaton device.
So here's a little concept I've been working on: Iran may not be able to produce an EMP, but we can. Why isn't that an option for us? I can't think of much that would throw a bigger monkey-wrench into your nuclear weapons building than having to stop and replace your entire power grid. Unlike other military options, the death toll would be small -- the greatest threat would be to those who depend on the infrastructure for food and medicine, but we could provide such aid via airdrops, or allow nations that wished to do so to go in on the ground and do it.
It would create a clear example. It would, of course, inflame much of the world -- but any attack on Iran will inflame much of the world. Because it would involve the use of a nuclear device, it would infuriate the transnationalist crowd, which argues that the US must not be arrogant and behave as if it weren't subject to the same rules as other nations. Nevertheless, as a practical matter, the US is different from other nations, and must behave differently as a result -- the idea that we're no different from France or India is laughable. The world has come to, and indeed has decided to, depend on us to provide worldwide security. It can gripe about how we do it, but you don't see anyone else (except China) stepping up to do it differently.
As an additional practical benefit, the FAS article notes that we have a problem devising EMP-resistant hardware because we have very little data on EMPS. We haven't conducted a high altitude nuclear test since 1963, when we didn't really understand very well what we should be examining. This would be an occasion to get fresh data with modern instruments, that would help us prepare against some future possible use of an EMP against the United States.
Sounds to me like a military option.
Shaving
A Close Shave:
This is outstanding. It's an article on shaving by Andy Crouch of Christianity Today, and it is everything I want an article on any topic to be. This is the right way to approach life, in large things and in small. You'll understand once you've read it.
Hat tip: Arts & Letters Daily.
Press Right, Bush Wrong
Press Right, Bush Wrong:
No, counterfeiting of a state's currency by another state is not a crime.
It is an act of war.
The BBC has a story today on North Korean counterfeiting of US $100 bills. It's an interesting story on a serious problem, but it begins with a little jab at the US government:
The US is cracking down on what it terms North Korea's criminal activities.The BBC is quite right. North Korea is not engaging in "criminal activities," because there is -- as Al Gore put it -- no controlling legal authority. There is, to put it plainly, no such thing as international law. There are treaties and obligations, but there is no law in the sense that law exists for individuals. States can't be criminals.
No, counterfeiting of a state's currency by another state is not a crime.
It is an act of war.
A Good Idea
A Good Idea, Shot Down:
The problem is that a stabbing knife -- which the facts suggest is what was used here -- is a poor weapon for self-defense. Oh, it will kill a man just fine: a single stab to a major artery or organ can be fatal. The problem is that, when you are defending yoruself, the point isn't that the other man die -- it's that the other man stop what he's doing that justifies the act of self-defense. If he dies, fine. If he lives, fine. But he's got to stop.
A stab wound is likely to be fatal, but it's a death that takes a while. The wound relies on bleeding, and mostly internal bleeding, to drop blood pressure or induce shock to the point that the attacker will stop. However, as Daniel points out, the body undergoes two changes in a fight that make it harder for such a wound to act on you: it shrinks the surface blood vessels ("vasal constriction"), and it dumps adrenaline into the body. Thus, you really have to hit a major organ or artery to kill, and even then, you have to wait until blood pressure really drops -- which can take seconds, or minutes, depending on the severity of the wound.
During those seconds or minutes, the other guy is still pounding on you. Yes, you've dealt him a lethal wound. He just doesn't know it yet. He's bigger than you, and his friends have you surrounded. What do you do?
Stab him again, since all you've got is the knife. Stab him again until he drops. Maybe the pain will finally get through to him, or maybe the extra wounds will speed the point at which the blood pressure drop hits him. Either way, if you were justified in stabbing the first time, you're justified for keeping it up until he stops what he was doing.
This is a point that the State is either trying to obscure, or doesn't understand. The fist fight motion should have been granted, if only for the purposes of education.
From a personal point of view -- and with an eye toward the recent post on Flight 93, and our potential duty to put ourselves in the breach to stop a terrorist -- we also have a lesson to learn. The lesson is: bring the right tool for the job. You want a knife that will slash, so you can attack tendons and make long cuts, rather than stab wounds, in nerves and major blood vessels. That is far more likely to stop an attacker quickly than a stab wound, even though it is less likely to kill him. The best choice is a proper Bowie knife, or a Randall Mk I style combat knife.
I continue to recommend Bowie & Big Knife Fighting System as an entry point into the study of knife fighting. As it shows, these are excellent choices for a fighting man -- at the kind of ranges in which self-defense combat is most likely according to FBI statistics, as good or better than any handgun if you have the strength and the skill.
If you don't, a large-caliber handgun is also a good choice. Again, you aren't worried about killing so much as stopping the foe -- a bullet that will break bones and joints, or reach through the body to the central nervous system, is what you need. A .38 Special will kill a man just fine, sooner or later. If it comes to it, you need something that will stop him regardless of whether it kills him -- and stop him now.
And, of course, for home defense or to keep in the truck, a good rifle or shotgun. Pretty much any rifle will do.
So, the motion proves to be educational even though the fistfight didn't happen. Pity it didn't, though. A little trial by combat would probably improve the system. The current "modern enlightened" system is certainly not impressing me much with its ability to rehabilitate, after all.
Via Southern Appeal and Orin Kerr, I see this excellent, if poorly written, motion:
COMES NOW counsel for Defendant...All errors same in citation. The judge is not amused.Shaun Donovan and John Conner have consistently maintained that it was perfectly right, legal and moral for the stronger Matt Palagi to beat up Demetrius Joslin. They have maintained that Joslin did not have to worry [about suffering grave injury or death] because Matt's drunk and stoned friends would jump in and protect Joslin.
The defense team disagrees but would love to give Donovan and Conner a chance to stand up for the principle.... Therefore, the defense moves that... there be a fist fight with one side being Mr. Coroner and Mr. Donovan and the otehr side being Kirk Krutill and Bill Buzzel. For further insurances, that Coroner and Donovan don't get beat up to bad, an group of defense attorney's drunk and stoned friends will be there to assure Conner's and Donovan's safety.
While counsel for the State are confident they could acquit themselves respectably if it were necessary to settle any part of this matter by means of a physical contest, ancient methods of trial by fire, water and the like no longer have any place in our system of justice.As a historian, I'd have to chide the judge in turn for failing to understand that "trial by fire, water and the like," properly known as trial by ordeal, were an entirely separate business from trial by combat. Leaving aside the point, however, the fistfight might really be clarifying -- particularly if the counsel for the State were given knives, and asked to judge what a proper amount of force really is.
The problem is that a stabbing knife -- which the facts suggest is what was used here -- is a poor weapon for self-defense. Oh, it will kill a man just fine: a single stab to a major artery or organ can be fatal. The problem is that, when you are defending yoruself, the point isn't that the other man die -- it's that the other man stop what he's doing that justifies the act of self-defense. If he dies, fine. If he lives, fine. But he's got to stop.
A stab wound is likely to be fatal, but it's a death that takes a while. The wound relies on bleeding, and mostly internal bleeding, to drop blood pressure or induce shock to the point that the attacker will stop. However, as Daniel points out, the body undergoes two changes in a fight that make it harder for such a wound to act on you: it shrinks the surface blood vessels ("vasal constriction"), and it dumps adrenaline into the body. Thus, you really have to hit a major organ or artery to kill, and even then, you have to wait until blood pressure really drops -- which can take seconds, or minutes, depending on the severity of the wound.
During those seconds or minutes, the other guy is still pounding on you. Yes, you've dealt him a lethal wound. He just doesn't know it yet. He's bigger than you, and his friends have you surrounded. What do you do?
Stab him again, since all you've got is the knife. Stab him again until he drops. Maybe the pain will finally get through to him, or maybe the extra wounds will speed the point at which the blood pressure drop hits him. Either way, if you were justified in stabbing the first time, you're justified for keeping it up until he stops what he was doing.
This is a point that the State is either trying to obscure, or doesn't understand. The fist fight motion should have been granted, if only for the purposes of education.
From a personal point of view -- and with an eye toward the recent post on Flight 93, and our potential duty to put ourselves in the breach to stop a terrorist -- we also have a lesson to learn. The lesson is: bring the right tool for the job. You want a knife that will slash, so you can attack tendons and make long cuts, rather than stab wounds, in nerves and major blood vessels. That is far more likely to stop an attacker quickly than a stab wound, even though it is less likely to kill him. The best choice is a proper Bowie knife, or a Randall Mk I style combat knife.
I continue to recommend Bowie & Big Knife Fighting System as an entry point into the study of knife fighting. As it shows, these are excellent choices for a fighting man -- at the kind of ranges in which self-defense combat is most likely according to FBI statistics, as good or better than any handgun if you have the strength and the skill.
If you don't, a large-caliber handgun is also a good choice. Again, you aren't worried about killing so much as stopping the foe -- a bullet that will break bones and joints, or reach through the body to the central nervous system, is what you need. A .38 Special will kill a man just fine, sooner or later. If it comes to it, you need something that will stop him regardless of whether it kills him -- and stop him now.
And, of course, for home defense or to keep in the truck, a good rifle or shotgun. Pretty much any rifle will do.
So, the motion proves to be educational even though the fistfight didn't happen. Pity it didn't, though. A little trial by combat would probably improve the system. The current "modern enlightened" system is certainly not impressing me much with its ability to rehabilitate, after all.
Some Poetry
Some Poetry:
It's been a little while since Grim mentioned it--I've been meaning to write something of my wn about G.K. Chesterton, and The Ballad of the White Horse. (The poem can be found online here. I originally found it as a part of this collection of Chesterton's writing.)
Chesterton wrote this piece of epic poetry to celebrate the victory of King Alfred over a band of Danish invaders. The struggle is as much a religious struggle as a military one: King Alfred is a Christian, as are his people. The invaders are pagans who worship strange, warlike gods. Chesterton's openly admits that he isn't writing precise history; he is writing about a historical man who cast a legendary shadow across the ages.
The central character in the story is Alfred, a Saxon king in Wessex. He is a king without a kingdom, it seems--his armies have been crushed, invaders roam the countryside, and his authority only holds in a small area.
The tale of the Battle of White Horse Vale is told as a microcosm of Alfred's long fight with the Danes. It is also told as a microcosm of the religious struggle of the time: the attitudes and ideas of Christians as opposed to the Danish beliefs and practices.
One of the strength of Chesterton's poem is the way it introduces people, cultures, and events. Short vignettes pepper the story; each vignette describes the subject in a way that is memorable.
The Vikings are introduced thus:
One of the legendary tales that the poem draws on is one of Alfred entering the Danish camp alone, and singing at one of their campfires. One Danish prince mocks the Christian culture and the remnants of Rome in this way:
Alfred responds to these songs with the joy and hope that seem baseless to non-believers. He holds that the Christian culture had more heart to run than the Danish culture had to pursue; he holds that the followers of Christ were more fullfilled with their fasts and hardships than the Danes were with their feasting and wealth.
Lastly, he reminds them that "only Christian men guard even Heathen things."
The battle of the White Horse Vale is told as if to follow this outline. Several epic encounters are described. The mighty men of both armies fight well. However, the leaders of Alfred's armies are killed and their men are beaten back. But Alfred rallies them in the forest, and manages to set upon the Danes who have become disordered and unwatchful in their celebration of victory.
The tale ends with Alfred as an old king,ordering his people to keep the chalk outline of the White Horse visible in the hill that overlooks the White Horse Vale. Many victories are hinted at; battles that stretched far beyond that first victory near Wessex. Alfred is said to warn about days when the enemies of faith will come as men of learning, rather than as men of war.
The poem captures the drama of the struggle between the Vikings and the Saxons for the control of England. It also describes contributions of Gaelic and Roman culture to the survival of Christian culture in England.
As Grim mentioned, the poem can also be used to describe the current struggle between the Men of the West and the Islamists who wish to remake the world after their vision of perfect Islamic culture. Their culture appears strong, but it has denied itself access to outside sources of culture and philosophy. It has forgotten the cultural sources tha came from outside of itself. It is weakened in its ability to learn from other cultures.
The culture of the West openly deals with outside sources at its deepest levels. Greek philsophical thinking and the Judaic roots of Christianity are both remembered and referenced in the West. These sources--and the conflicts that they engendered during the long development of Western culture--give the Western world its distinct strength.
Paradoxically, this strength looks like a weakness to the non-Western world.
We would do well to remember this strength. We would also do well to remember that cultures are neither created, destroyed, or fundamentally altered in a day. As Chesterton said in his introduction, the long struggle between Christian culture and the nihilism of the destructive invaders was the work of centuries. The characters he drew stand as symbols for the various forces at work over those centuries.
This is the lesson that I read in the Ballad of the White Horse. Strength may appear to be weak; weakness may appear to be strength. Clashes between cultures and civilizations may take a century to reach a conclusion. And the battle to preserve the Western world is not to be abadoned, even when hope seems foolish.
It's been a little while since Grim mentioned it--I've been meaning to write something of my wn about G.K. Chesterton, and The Ballad of the White Horse. (The poem can be found online here. I originally found it as a part of this collection of Chesterton's writing.)
Chesterton wrote this piece of epic poetry to celebrate the victory of King Alfred over a band of Danish invaders. The struggle is as much a religious struggle as a military one: King Alfred is a Christian, as are his people. The invaders are pagans who worship strange, warlike gods. Chesterton's openly admits that he isn't writing precise history; he is writing about a historical man who cast a legendary shadow across the ages.
The central character in the story is Alfred, a Saxon king in Wessex. He is a king without a kingdom, it seems--his armies have been crushed, invaders roam the countryside, and his authority only holds in a small area.
The tale of the Battle of White Horse Vale is told as a microcosm of Alfred's long fight with the Danes. It is also told as a microcosm of the religious struggle of the time: the attitudes and ideas of Christians as opposed to the Danish beliefs and practices.
One of the strength of Chesterton's poem is the way it introduces people, cultures, and events. Short vignettes pepper the story; each vignette describes the subject in a way that is memorable.
The Vikings are introduced thus:
The Northmen came about our landWhen king Alfred prays to the Blessed Virgin; he worries about the death of a culture and the end of a kingdom:
A Christless chivalry:
Who knew not of the arch or pen,
Great, beautiful half-witted men
From the sunrise and the sea.
...
Their gods were sadder than the sea,
Gods of a wandering will,
Who cried for blood like beasts at night,
Sadly, from hill to hill.
"When our last bow is broken, Queen,The response to this prayer isn't a promise that all will go well.
And our last javelin cast,
Under some sad, green evening sky,
Holding a ruined cross on high,
Under warm westland grass to lie,
Shall we come home at last?"
"I tell you naught for your comfort,It is this mention of the hope that underlies Christian faith that galvanizes Alfred's resolve. He gets no promise of the survival of Christian culture in England--or of his throne in Wessex. But he is reminded that the Christian culture he supports cares little for the fate of kingdoms; but this attitude paradoxically makes the Christian culture more resilient.
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
"Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"
One of the legendary tales that the poem draws on is one of Alfred entering the Danish camp alone, and singing at one of their campfires. One Danish prince mocks the Christian culture and the remnants of Rome in this way:
"Doubtless your sires were sword-swingersOther princes sing tales of the sadness of the earliest gods of the Vikings, and of the futility of struggle for dominance in a world where all are brought equal by death.
When they waded fresh from foam,
Before they were turned to women
By the god of the nails from Rome;
"But since you bent to the shaven men,
Who neither lust nor smite,
Thunder of Thor, we hunt you
A hare on the mountain height."
Alfred responds to these songs with the joy and hope that seem baseless to non-believers. He holds that the Christian culture had more heart to run than the Danish culture had to pursue; he holds that the followers of Christ were more fullfilled with their fasts and hardships than the Danes were with their feasting and wealth.
Lastly, he reminds them that "only Christian men guard even Heathen things."
The battle of the White Horse Vale is told as if to follow this outline. Several epic encounters are described. The mighty men of both armies fight well. However, the leaders of Alfred's armies are killed and their men are beaten back. But Alfred rallies them in the forest, and manages to set upon the Danes who have become disordered and unwatchful in their celebration of victory.
The tale ends with Alfred as an old king,ordering his people to keep the chalk outline of the White Horse visible in the hill that overlooks the White Horse Vale. Many victories are hinted at; battles that stretched far beyond that first victory near Wessex. Alfred is said to warn about days when the enemies of faith will come as men of learning, rather than as men of war.
The poem captures the drama of the struggle between the Vikings and the Saxons for the control of England. It also describes contributions of Gaelic and Roman culture to the survival of Christian culture in England.
As Grim mentioned, the poem can also be used to describe the current struggle between the Men of the West and the Islamists who wish to remake the world after their vision of perfect Islamic culture. Their culture appears strong, but it has denied itself access to outside sources of culture and philosophy. It has forgotten the cultural sources tha came from outside of itself. It is weakened in its ability to learn from other cultures.
The culture of the West openly deals with outside sources at its deepest levels. Greek philsophical thinking and the Judaic roots of Christianity are both remembered and referenced in the West. These sources--and the conflicts that they engendered during the long development of Western culture--give the Western world its distinct strength.
Paradoxically, this strength looks like a weakness to the non-Western world.
We would do well to remember this strength. We would also do well to remember that cultures are neither created, destroyed, or fundamentally altered in a day. As Chesterton said in his introduction, the long struggle between Christian culture and the nihilism of the destructive invaders was the work of centuries. The characters he drew stand as symbols for the various forces at work over those centuries.
This is the lesson that I read in the Ballad of the White Horse. Strength may appear to be weak; weakness may appear to be strength. Clashes between cultures and civilizations may take a century to reach a conclusion. And the battle to preserve the Western world is not to be abadoned, even when hope seems foolish.
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