Grim's Hall

910 Group

UPDATE (2022): This post was flagged for review by what I can only assume was an automated algorithm. Anyone who reads this post will find that it is a call to engage Muslims, understand their ideas, and find ways to work with any whom we can. This post is from 2006, the height of the 'Global War on Terror' and the Iraq conflict, both of which I participated in directly in the surrounding years. It is the opposite of radical hate speech; it was a call to find ways to limit the violence of those conflicts through understanding.

An interesting, internet-based movement brought to my attention by reader A.A. is the 910 Group. It declares itself to be a nonpartisan defense of Western core values and civilization, asking only one thing of prospective members: devoted opposition to what it calls "the Great Islamic Jihad in all its forms."

I gather from their specific comments that what they mean by that formula is 'terrorist violence executed by people who believe in a radical version of Islam, plus also the political movements driven by the same goals.' They expand on what they mean by their movement by an assertion of things you can't believe and be one of them:

There’s no room for responses like these:
I’m opposed to radical Islam, BUT…
*You have to understand the root causes of terrorism. *The problem of Israel and the Palestinians has to be solved first. *It is a legacy of Western imperialism and colonialism. *It is important to understand and be accepting of different cultural values. *Sometimes terrorism can be a legitimate form of resistance against oppression.
Nuh-uh. Nope. No way. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances.
If you subscribe to any of the above dependent clauses (or their numerous cousins), then you don’t belong here. This is no place for equivocation; those who have come here recognize the gravity of the present danger.
Root causes don’t matter. Historical grievances don’t matter.
Violence against civilians for religious or political purposes is always, everywhere, and under all circumstances WRONG.
Asserting otherwise destroys the civic and moral fabric of our common society, and we emphatically reject it.
Resist the jihad. Encourage the overthrow of tyrannical Islamist regimes. Work to stop and reverse the encroachment of Wahhabi fundamentalism throughout the Western world.
I guess it's point number three that troubles me. If all it means is "It doesn't matter what your cultural values are, terrorism is still wrong," OK.
On the other hand, it appears to suggest not being interested in the Islamic understanding of why these acts are lawful. The use of the phrase "Great Jihad" is a good example of that lack of interest, as I'll explain below. That is foolish -- and I say that as a dedicated fighter, and a man who believes the military is the 'last man standing' in terms of being an effective branch of the US government. If you scroll down to 'the Executive' there, you'll see for example how I think the US military is now doing diplomacy better than the State department. It's a military response we need. But ADM Fallon's work wasn't done with disinterest toward the cultures of the region -- I have personal reason to know how interested PACOM and its subordinates have been in the cultures of their region.
Take the phrase, "the Great Islamic Jihad." I have to wonder if they didn't know, or have forgotten, or simply do not care that the phrase "Great Jihad" has a meaning in Islam separate from the 'jihad of the sword.' If you declare yourself against "the Great Jihad," a Muslim will have every reason to ask -- doesn't that mean you're really against Islam itself? Aren't you saying that you oppose anyone converting to Islam, or living an Islamic life? In other words, isn't your interest the elimination of Islam?
This plays into the problem. The Muslim understanding of Mohammed's war's, as explained in the same link, is that they were defensive: that Mohammed put up with more than a decade of abuse without fighting back, and were granted permission by Allah to fight back only when the destruction of themselves or their faith was at risk:
[The Quarish] would either annihilate the Muslims or compel them to return to unbelief. In these circumstances came the earliest permission to fight, in verses 39 and 40 of chapter 22, which read:
"Permission (to fight) is given to those on whom war is made, because they are oppressed. And surely Allah is able to assist them - Those who are driven from their homes without a just cause except that they say: Our Lord is Allah. And if Allah did not repel some people by others, cloisters and churches and synagogues and mosques, in which Allah's name is much remembered, would have been pulled down. And surely Allah will help him who helps His cause".
Indeed, war with such a pure motive as to establish the principle of religious liberty was truly a jihad, a struggle carried on simply with the object that truth may prosper and that freedom of conscience may be maintained.
The average Muslim understands Islam's wars in that way. If you go on declaring yourself to be against "the Great Jihad," he will understand you to be saying that you are like the Quarish -- that you intend to force him to return to unbelief (that is, by banning the practical side of Islam) or destroy him.
Better results could be achieved by saying that you believe that the terrorist groups who claim to be waging jihad by the sword are, in fact, murderers -- and are therefore not 'waging jihad' but slandering Islam. It is important to show how the attacks they claim to be "defensive" are actually aggressive; that the United States, while not exactly a friend to Islam (being a secular state), is not opposed to it either; and to show where we have helped Muslims and their nations, as a counterweight to the examples (given lurid daily play in the press) where we have fought in such places.
This is the Special Forces' mode of waging war -- to isolate the extremists from the 'sea in which they swim,' to paraphrase Mao. In that way, they either die of a lack of oxygen, or they become easier to catch and kill.
This isn't a theory with no practical side I'm putting before you. Read "Francis Marion"'s blog for a window into how it is playing out, every day, in the Philippines. He is a Special Forces operator there, waging our war in a region in which there are numerous Islamic forces under arms. Some of them are friends of al Qaeda and our devoted enemies; some are merely interested in local autonomy, and will take help from whomever will give it; and all of them depend on the support of a local population.
You'll see him engaged in operations against the first set (Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf), being circumspect with the second set (MNLF/MILF); and helping spread cheer among the locals -- for example, in his mission as a Special Forces soldier to aid the Philippine Girl Scouts.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were sponsoring the Philippine Girl Scouts for a two day event at our location and my team assisted by teaching a few classes. Green Berets have a reputation for womanizing and having a team in close contact with a few hundred teenage girls can put a lot of commanders into a nervous sweat.
Events were over before I returned and had a chance to settle in so I did not participate but, from what I have seen and heard, this was one of the most effective combat operations we could have performed. In typical teenage girl fashion, the girls identified a few favored U.S. soldiers. They would wave and giggle as they walked by or swoon when their favorite soldier was announced. It was cute and these guys continue to get teased but the effects have gone far beyond our base camp. These guys have achieved celebrity status here.
Now, when we drive the streets, the girls run out and shout out the names, or nicknames, of the soldiers they recognize. This may have some effect on our egos but, more importantly, it is a tactical victory. Having a few hundred adoring fans will make the terrorists think twice before targeting us and also adds several hundred extra sets of eyes that can warn us of possible danger.
I feel safer.
That's a combat operation, to use his words.
I suspect the 910 group and I agree on more than we disagree. These things are important, however. If you don't get them right, you push us into a very different kind of war -- one I have no wish to fight, though I would fight it if it came.
We are wiser if we avoid it. Francis Marion is right, and it is his mode of war that will be most effective in so many parts of the world. We should think on how we can support him and men like him in their missions. Understanding how to support missions like his requires taking extra care -- but he deserves it.

Bill R 2

Bill Roggio Reports, II:

Today's story includes an attack driven off by the Fallujah Police, and the capture of an al Qaeda commander.

BR

Bill Roggio Reports:

He's been on patrol with the Marines in Fallujah, and Route Mobile, one of the two largest and most important roads in Anbar. The Marines described the quiet he encountered as "typical," although he also describes the new tactics adopted by the insurgents to deal with the enhanced security.

Cold poetry II`

A Poem by Doc Russia:

Obviously, being up north is playing with his brain, because he's taken to composing poems about the snow. Actually, the whole piece is almost a poem. I would say it's the first piece in a long time that is "classic" Doc Russia, the sort of thing he used to write before the last year of med school and the first year of his new residency drained away his time.

It's a good piece, in other words.

I have my own memories of the cold and the snow, also from mountain living. It was the winter of 2002-3 that was coldest for us. We lived on a mountain above thirty-three hundred feet, so that it froze in early November and never warmed above freezing, day or night, until sometime in March. There were no roads in or out of the place except private dirt tracks, which were impassable even with a 4x4 when there was any kind of snow. My "neighbor," a park ranger, would join me in painstakingly shoveling off each snowfall the whole long way back, over the ridge and to the switchbacks on the sunny side.

While it was still snowing, it was necessary to hike in and out, two miles over the ridge, to the closest state highway. We'd park over there and hike in. My wife had a new child at the time, and so she was not particularly mobile. I'd have to carry food for them in with my backpack, fifty pounds of flour and canned goods.

Happiest time of my life. No kidding.

The clouds would pass right there over the mountains, and the mists that make up the clouds would freeze to whatever it touched. In the mornings, as the sun rose and I was hiking out for work, every single thing would be covered in a sheet of ice, like in a fairy story where some warlock or evil Queen had cast a spell of doom. It was cold enough that you knew if you slipped and broke your ankle or something similar, you would probably die before anyone found you.

I also wrote a poem that mentioned all that, once, to commemorate the greatest sadness of my life so far. Never mind what it was; think of your own greatest sorrow, and you will understand what I meant.

To die for Freedom

To Die for Freedom:

How important was Thermopylae? A new book considers the question (h/t Arts & Letters Daily).

The author says it was more important than Marathon, because it established a principle:

Two Spartans survived. One, who missed the encounter at Thermopylae because he was on a diplomatic mission, hanged himself in disgrace upon his return home. The other, who missed the battle because of an eye infection (not much of an excuse for a solider, never mind a Spartan), went on a suicide mission in the next major encounter with the Persians. When Spartans said that the only way to return from a battle was with your shield or on it, they meant it.

How, then, was Thermopylae the battle that changed the world if the Greeks lost? It did seriously weaken the Persian forces and spelled their ultimate defeat. But Mr. Cartledge has something grander in mind. For him, Thermopylae was a triumph of "reasoned devotion to, and self-sacrifice in the name of, a higher collective cause, Freedom." The strange capitalization is Mr. Cartledge's and it is a measure of just how seriously he takes the Spartans' stand.

I will say two things about the review. First, the author is correct to note that it's hard to see the Spartans as the ancestors of the West -- spiritual or otherwise -- given how different Spartan culture was from anything else before or since. The closest thing I can think of to the Spartans was the Jomsvikings, or perhaps the orders of the Church Militant. Neither of those, however, proposed to engage the whole civilization in the business -- women, children, families, slaves, and a subject people to pay for it all -- as did the Spartans.

The second is that suicidal displays were apparently more common in the period than they are today, outside of course of Islam. The second review on the page -- of what sounds like a better book, Xenophon's Retreat -- makes clear that whole villages sometimes wiped themselves out to make a point. Nor was this unique to the Greek world, as we know from the later episode of Masada. Indeed, the fact of Masada probably undermines the conclusion that Thermopylae was a Western thing. While the Jewish civilization later became very important to the West, even as late as Masada's mass suicide, Jews were a small and apparently unimportant minority whose culture was not resonant through the Roman Empire as a whole. It was only the conversion of the Empire to Christianity that made old Jewish stories and ways of thinking an area of interest in the larger West.

That said, Thermopylae was and remains a great symbol. The Spartan spirit -- my favorite example being the reply 'Good! We shall fight in the shade! -- has its high qualities.

When the news of the stand at the Alamo became widely known, it was declared by American newspapers to be a Thermopylae. Indeed, the Alamo is a better example of what the author was seeking -- men dying for, if not "Freedom," certainly independence and self-determination. That shows the importance of Thermopylae as a symbol to the 19th century American.

My sense is that, in the 20th and 21st centuries, we have replaced Thermopylae in our culture with the Alamo. It is now the symbol that Thermopylae was, and it is more plainly ours. It's hard to think of yourself as a Spartan, but we can readily understand Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.

EscapeNY

At last, an exit Strategy:

Or, a reprise of that great concept film, Escape from New York. Good advice for anyone, if you can manage it.

And now for something completely different:

So. I've seen (on a rack of sarcastic and ironic bumber stickers) a bumper sticker that said "If they take our guns away, can we use swords?"

The question, it appears, has been answered in Australia:

A FEUD between two families in a remote Northern Territory community escalated when more than 200 people attacked each other with axes, spears and homemade swords overnight.

The fighting in the Gemco mining town of Alyangula on Groote Eylandt continued throughout the night after a failed attempt to resolve the long-running dispute earlier yesterday, police said.

The two families had agreed to meet with the intention of reaching a peaceful resolution to their problems.

About 200 people turned up for the meeting in the stifling December heat but as the two groups gathered, police said one began to "taunt and verbally abuse" the other.

"The opposing family responded physically," police said.

"The situation escalated with police frantically trying to disarm young men of axes, spears and homemade swords."

Although the officers managed to disperse the crowd, the fighting continued throughout the night with police estimating it caused more than $20,000 in damages to cars and other property.

So far, 11 people have been taken into custody and will be charged with being armed in public, taking part in affray, being armed with an offensive weapon and inciting others to commit an offence.

Send those people some armor, I say. Or not. So far it appears that nobody has got hurt. C'mon people, you can do better than that.

Contra-Gentleman

I would like to make two apologies. First, I do not have even a quarter of the writing talent that Grim, or my co-bloggers, possess here in the Hall. Finally, my apologies for not using the comments area for this, as my reply is something that I feel needs it’s own post.

I do believe that we should, in some ways, model our conduct on the gentlemen of old. I do not believe that every American man can attain the status of Gentleman. No matter how good his character, devotion to arms, or other abilities driven by steadfast resolve.

Put simply, we will always fall short in one key area: Nobility.

From a linguistic perspective, a Gentleman is strictly defined as a man of superior, noble, social station. This is why I feel it is a dishonest usage.

Blackstone confirms that requirement right from the start:

“ALL degrees of nobility and honour are derived from the king as their fountaina : and he may inftitute what new titles he pleafes.”
Blackstone Book I Chap 12

To compound the problem, we have an intrinsic, as Americans, misapplication of what nobility truly means.

George F. Jones pointed out in both Honor in German Literature & Southern Honor, that the understanding of ‘noble’ had drastically changed when the Christian Guilt Culture supplanted the Germanic Shame Culture (incidentally, giving birth to the, then foreign, concept of Chivalry), and again changed in the North East during the birth of our United States and finally changing that last bastion of the Old South during the post-Civil War era.

Jones’ point is that noble is something recognized and confirmed by a sovereign and not something one feels about ones self. I would agree as I take deeds as the measure of a man. As such an action is not a noble action unless recognized. How you internalize an action is between you and your God or Gods; neither of which means anything to me. When a man says, “I am a man of honor”, it is a meaningless statement to me. While I will give leave of Right Good Will, and thus give you the benefit of the doubt, I will come to judge your deeds.

The next problem goes back to Blackstone; who are we to confer that status? Staying true to the roots of sovereignty, I could confer noble status only as far as my reach. Meaning, if thirty men swore oath to me as liege, my confirmation has meaning only among those men and their families. In the United States that is officially meaningless as we do not recognize peerage.

So I have a problem with the use of gentleman as anything other than a term of politeness in speech; “Ladies and Gentleman, if I can have your attention”, “That gentleman over there is Mr. Smith”, etc. Yes, an incorrect usage as well… but one that is not as dishonest in my eyes.

I feel a greater honesty in saying that Grim is an Honorable Man as opposed to a Gentleman. There is my recognition of honorable conduct, without the assumption of a shared sovereign with reach over us both, nor dependant on contrary views of nobility.

Saddle Time

Saddle Time:

This has been a hard year for lots of us. I see that BloodSpite has found a source of solace: teaching a young man to break horses.

Thanks to reader S.S. for the link. I should get by BloodSpite's place more often.

Rig lights

"Rigging up the Lights!"

My sympathies, Heidi. I think we're on day four of trying to get the decorations rigged, here.

Get 'em, Bill

Bill Roggio Reports:

Coalition Task Force 145 has taken down some high value targets. Our old friend Bill Roggio is back on the scene, giving it to us straight about our "hunter-killer" teams.

Gentlemen Defined

Gentlemen Defined:

I am told I have the bad habit, for a writer, of putting my point last, and the evidence -- in the form of long narratives -- first. The result, for those who read to the end, is that suddenly a long and apparently separate series of events comes together, and has a clear lesson. Unless you read to the end, though, you may never know what I was talking about at all.

For that reason, I'll state my intent clearly this time: "Gentleman" is a word that is not understood today. This must change.

The other day I ventured down to Gwinnett county, which is named for Button Gwinnett, signator of the Declaration of Independence. Gwinnett died in a duel with Lachlan McIntosh, a Continental officer who later became a Valley Forge veteran and general in George Washington's army. I encountered, while walking around, a posh store with very fancy appointments, declaring itself to be "for distinguished gentlemen."

Standing outside, wearing a Stetson hat and blue jeans, I realized that these fellows had a very different definition of "gentleman" from mine. I doubt they understand the concept at all.

"For distinguished gentlemen!" A Google search on the term yields botiques, perfumes, and escort services.

This is not right. A gentleman is defined, as noted in Blackstone's commentaries, as "one qui arma gerit."

That is, "one who bears arms."

The manners and grooming aspects are entirely -- entirely -- secondary. I will explain how they came to be associated with gentlemen in a moment. For now, I will note Major Leggett's objection to gentlemen focusing attention on fashion:

I think that any self-respecting individual should take the time to ensure that their grooming and apparel standards are up to snuff. Nevertheless, I categorically reject the idea that an obsessive concern with the latest fashion trends is the hallmark of gentlemen. That is the hallmark of a fop. Remember, the concept of the gentleman comes the tradition of chivalry, which was itself an ethical system for fighting men, not fashion models.

Blackstone notes, as does the Oxford English Dictionary, that the "arms" in question are heraldic arms -- that is, symbolic ones. Those symbolic arms, however, were the later representation of what was earlier a very real right: the right to bear not only weapons, but armor onto the field. Heraldry describes the shield of a fighter. In the Middle Ages, the sort entitled to such a shield were those with the literal right to bear arms. It is only in these more decadent ages -- in more decadent countries -- that this right has become purely symbolic.

Why did the state recognize that right, in a time before the Declaration that Gwinnett signed? It did so because it depended on these fighters, knights and noblemen and squires, who later became the gentlemen. It needed them to defend itself. Before the Napoleonic era, wars were a matter of professional armies and levies raised by the fedual structure. The right to bear arms arose from the fact that you could be counted upon to defend your country and its civilization at need.

That is what it means today. Fine manners and courtesy pertain to the gentleman because he is, through their use, upholding what is fine about civilization. He defends it symbolically as he defends it practically.

In America, the right to bear arms is secured in the Constitution itself. If you wish to register heraldic arms, the link to the American College of Heraldry is on the right. If you wish to bear literal ones, you have the right to do so. Every American man can be a gentleman.

To do so, though, requires that you constitute yourself a defender of your country and its civilization. It is not enough to say, as did Dutch humanist Oscar van den Boogaard:

"I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."

No, that is not a gentleman, though he wears the finest clothes and writes the finest novels, keeps the best society, and has the finest manners. He has only the accidents of a gentleman. He has nothing of its essence.

The essence is to bear arms, in defense of country and civilization. That is the real thing, the root of the tradition. The arms may be symbolic, or they may be actual. The defense must be devout.

That may sit ill with some, but there it is. Honi soit qui mal y pense, goes the motto of the greatest of England's knightly orders. For the rest of us, there lies the gage.

Set Theory

Set Theory:

Over at The Geek w/a .45's, Charles is positing a set theory for political correctness:

It seems to me that when a bad act is discussed in academia, or the media, the offenders are described as part of whatever grouping includes both the offenders and white Christian American men. For example, Christian snake handlers or abortion clinic bombers are identified as Christian, while Muslim terrorists or Aztec human sacrificers are religious....

I think he's got something there.

Aso nukes

Aso: Japan Can Have Nuclear Arms

"...like, next week, if we want them."

I'd say that was clear enough. So is this, the purest example of an exception swallowing a rule that I've ever seen:

Aso reiterated his belief that the constitution's pacifist clause does not prevent Japan from having nuclear bombs for the purpose of defense.

The constitution's Article 9 bars Japan from the use of force to settle international disputes.

"Possession of minimum level of arms for defense is not prohibited under the Article 9 of the Constitution," Aso said. "Even nuclear weapons, if there are any that fall within that limit, they are not prohibited."

So, the clause permitting "minimal" arms now permits the most dangerous weapons ever developed.

I've got no problem with Japan developing nukes -- and, as Aso notes, it doesn't matter if I do have a problem with it. I'd just like to point out that that's the healthiest Living Constitution I ever saw.

Another leak

Another Leak:

This time, the full text of a secret memo is printed in the New York Times. It's OK, though, so we're told by RedState.

The Bush Administration in the past has rightly decried the leaking of classified information from intelligence sources whose motives may or may not have been largely partisan in nature. But the deliberate leak yesterday of a classified analysis of Iraqi's embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley should be seen in the context of statecraft and not necessarily the typical Washington bureaucratic game of "gotchya" - a difference that may be lost on some but is telling nonetheless.

The distinction isn't lost on me. Certainly this allows Bush to frame the meeting with Maliki along very honest lines -- perhaps more honest ones than the forms of diplomacy would usually allow. The memo is good, I think: insightful, direct, and focused on suggestions for actual steps that can be taken to improve the situation.

Surely the summit will be improved by an open and direct statement of where the White House's internal deliberations are.

I disagree, though, that the memo targets "an audience of one," Maliki himself. I think it is meant to give an impression to the People of the United States. It shows a willingness to ask hard questions, demand firm answers, and suggest positive steps for change. That can only be meant to shore up support for the administration's approach on Iraq, which has been criticized for being apparently unwilling to do any of those things.

Insofar as that is the case, let me go on record as saying: I appreciate being 'let in on' the deliberations, and indeed it does do something to shore up my confidence.

I would, however, have had my confidence shorn up far more by a President who had the guts to put this out officially, with his own approval clearly stated. Where's that cowboy diplomacy? A cowboy is meant to speak his mind, when he speaks at all.

It's a mistake to appear to legitimize the culture of oathbreaking by making use of its forms. If you wanted to declassify this, declassify it!

congrats flygirl

Well Earned:

CWO Lori Hill of the 101st Airborne has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Read why.

Now there's a woman America can be proud to have raised.

Failure

Failure:

The New York Times reports today that Hezbollah is training the Mahdi Army, according to a 'senior American intelligence official.'

Well, we've had rumors in the media mill about Hezbollah acting in Iraq all along. Michael Ledeen had this back in 2003:

Anyone who has worked on terrorism for the past 20 years will recognize the murderous techniques employed in the most-recent monster bombings at the Jordanian embassy, the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, and the shrine of Ali in Najaf. They all bear the imprint of Hezbollah's infamous chief of operations, Imad Mughniyah, the same man who organized the terrible mass murders at the U.S. Marine barracks....

Mughniyah — who has changed his face, his fingerprints, and his eye color, since he knows he's one of the most-hunted men on earth — has been in Iraq for several weeks....

[T]here are many Hezbollahs, one of which is now growing in Iraq, under the leadership of the young Sheikh Muqtada al-Sadr, who was named chief of Iraqi Hezbollah by Iran's strongman Mohammed Hashemi Rafsanjani several months ago. And, as luck would have it, the young sheikh just happened to be absent from Friday prayers at the shrine of Ali when the car bombs went off.

Was it true then? Probably? Not at all? How about in 2004?

Although American officials have called attention to the presence of about a hundred Hezbollah members in Iraq, few believe that they are organizing violent resistance. Every Hezbollah official I spoke to vehemently denied such reports, some indicating that they would welcome diplomatic relations with the United States.

The source there is Adam Shatz, writing in the New York Review of Books.

So, was Hezbollah in Iraq or not? Are they working with our enemies, bringing their advanced lessons on guerrilla warfare -- or just doing social welfare work? Did they have to do with the 2003 bombing at the Shrine of Ali mosque, or not? Are they even there now, or not?

Consider the take from Talking Points Memo.

Is it true? Is Hezbollah training the Mahdi Army? I have no idea. And regrettably, under current management, the fact that senior intelligence officials or senior administration officials say it, really doesn't mean much one way or another.

That is factually correct. If we -- and by "we" I mean both sides of the political divide in America -- have learned anything in the last few years, it's that leaks from unnamed sources in the government can't be trusted. For that matter, plain statements from the government can't be trusted to be reliable: from the CIA's "slam dunk" leadership to Colin Powell's presentation before the UN, the details of which appear to have been earnestly believed and largely wrong.

Intelligence work means getting things wrong sometimes, because you're playing the odds. It's a form of gambling, in which you never have the complete picture -- like with poker, where you know the content of your own hand but not the content of others'. Even in stud poker, where you have partial information about the latter, you end up having to gamble because some information is hidden. Sometimes, even the wisest gamble will result in a loss.

But this culture of leaks, this culture of oathbreaking by officials who have sworn to keep our nation's secrets, has left us with a complete failure of trust. TPM thinks it knows the source of this leak -- Dick Cheney -- but it's just guessing. It knows no more about that for certain than it knows if Hezbollah is in Iraq. Or, if it is, what it's doing there.

Our agencies' official statements are at once undercut by internal leaks from people with agendas. Their ability to consider possibilities in a confidential manner is undercut by leaks of those documents. Intelligence is sometimes going to be wrong, but we are left wondering if it is ever right. Worse, we are left with a picture of intelligence services internally at war with themselves. How can we place confidence in even their official statements -- to say nothing of these leaks in the press?

TPM goes on to say -- I can only assume tongue-in-cheek:

Everybody's enemy's enemy is a friend. We do know the Israelis are knee-deep in Iraqi Kurdistan, right?

That's another one of the persistant rumors of the Iraq war, with Sy Hersh recycling it over and over. His sources always seem to track back to Turkey, where the government has an interest in spreading among Muslims the notion that independent Kurdistan is an Israeli puppet. But it might be true, even so -- right?

The media isn't doing better than the intelligence services seem to be. Consider Flopping Aces, which has demonstrated that a whole series of reports alleging serious atrocities in Iraq were invented in whole cloth.

The 'fog of war' is the phrase Clausewitz used to refer to the uncertainty that arises in battle. We have reached the stage at which that uncertainty has encompassed the entire war. In spite of the presence of massively-funded intelligence services, and a press that may be covering this war more intensely than any other in history, we know nothing for certain about what is going on.

A great revealation is made by a senior intelligence official in the New York Times, alleging Hezbollah is fighting alongside our enemies in Iraq. On both sides of the American divide, the response is: "Why should we believe anything you say? You, the media, or you, the leak -- or even the agencies in which the leakers serve, when even their senior officials so regularly keep no loyalty to their oaths, but forever try to undermine each other?"

If we are to succeed, in this or any war, we must address these problems. War is a test of wills. Will requires confidence. And we have no confidence, nor any cause for confidence, in the institutions that are charged with informing us. The intelligence services and the media have both failed us.

Laughter justified

Not Injustice:

Captain Ed reports some details about the six imams removed from a US Airways flight. Apparently, the men switched seats without authorization from the airline, seizing positions in the front row of first class, the exit rows, and the rear. This was a technique used by the 9/11 hijackers:

That would normally be enough to get any flight delayed while the seating arrangements got straightened out, especially if passengers deliberately take seats other than those assigned to them. However, the men kept interfering with the boarding process by going back and forth to talk amongst each other. Their seating pattern -- again, not that assigned by the airline -- positioned them at every egress point from the aircraft.

And those seat-belt extenders? Once they received them from the flight attendants, the imams put them under their seats, and not on the seat belts that purportedly would not fit them. Anyone who saw that would understandably wonder why the imams requested them in the first place, especially the flight crew, which has primary responsibility for flight security.

Small wonder, then, that US Air kicked them off the flight. Two pilots from other airlines confirmed that they would have done the same thing under the same circumstances. One pilot indicated that the repositioning of the group within the plane has been identified as a terrorist probe technique.

Seat belt extenders can, of course, be used as a weapon of sorts. Given the rigorousness with which the other passengers are disarmed by our own government before boarding the aircraft, real harm could be done by someone with such a strap who has trained in using it as a field-expedient weapon.

I remember shortly after 9/11 someone suggested that we just issue all airline passengers a Louisville Slugger. That would, at least, remove the chance of someone using a seat belt extension (or a box cutter) to hijack a plane. It would probably also cut down on "probes" like this one.

However, for now that concept is not in the cards. Too many people still think that we can best achieve security by disarming. In fact, security requires that we be capable of upholding the peace.

Condolences C-Elobby

Mourning:

Grim's Hall extends its condolences to D. J. McGuire of China e-Lobby, due to the death of his mother. You might wish to drop by and leave a comment.

Tomahawks

Tomahawks:

Doc Russia wrote to ask an opinion on Dwight C. McLemore's Fighting Tomahawk, which is a followup to his Bowie and Big Knife Fighting System. I've talked about McLemore's first book here occasionally -- I liked the thing -- but I haven't read his other two books. Here's the exchange between myself and Doc, with Doc first:

I was chatting with Moriarty, and he alerted me to the existence of a particular book. This came about while discussing what close quarters weapons might suit my little sister in Iraq, and the idea of the tomahawk came up. I had not known of this particular book before, and I had considered the tomahawk an interesting, but perhaps less than ideal weapon. Anyway, as the discussion flowed, it occured to me that not only may I be wrong, but that it might be worthwhile to look into learning how to use the bowie/long knife and tomahawk weapon set. Neither Moriarty nor myself are very well versed in edged weapons fighting (if you twist my arm, I will admit to learning some stuff related to brazilian saca tripa, but that is another matter). With that in mind, and considering that I had not corresponded with you in quite some time, I thought it an excellent opportunity to pick your brain, and find out what your thoughts on the matter are. It might also make for some good blog fodder, should you see fit. Anyway, please share with me your insight, and I would appreciate it very much. There is no rush on this, and take your leisure in answering.

I do hope this finds you and yours in good health, especially after the horse fall. I used to think that horseback riding was nothing but fun. Then one day, I had a patient whose horse fell back on top of him and the pommel basically impaled him. His pancreas was sheared, and he lost a fair section of bowels, ribs, and spleen before he was back together again.

Best regards to you and to yours.

It's fun having a doctor as a friend, because you get letters telling you in clinical detail all the bad things that almost happened to you. :) Anyway:

I'll ask Jimbo and Froggy about the claim that current US Special Operations Forces are using the tomahawk (as opposed to, say, a camp hatchet). I'm not familiar with the claim.

McLemore is a good writer with a strong background in historical European fighting styles, so the book is probably worth a look. I used to teach the Scottish and Viking battle-axes, which is similar but larger and heavier. Most people are familiar with axes primarily as a wood-chopping tool, but it is also possible to use it as a short polearm -- you can grapple, slash, and stab with the points, as well as bash with the haft or the reverse of the blade.

It was the favored weapon of Robert the Bruce, who could kill an armored knight with one blow using his. It looks like McLemore is considering a big-knife and tomahawk pairing, which would require some training -- but having some experience in two weapon fighting, I can see how it would be an excellent choice for traditional European combat, in which your opponent will also be armed. The tomahawk is a good weapon for capturing or controlling an enemy weapon, which makes it a good off-hand choice. That would leave you with the long knife to take advantage of openings in the enemy's guard that you could create with the tomahawk.

That is to say, the tomahawk would be serving as a sort-of main gauche to the long-knife's rapier, except that with short edged weapons you get less thrusting and more circular slashing and driving. It would be used primarily against the enemy weapon, to create opportunities for employing the knife as the killing device. However, if an opening came for the tomahawk, well -- it's quite capable, even if it isn't a Scottish or Viking battle axe.

The confrontation with Robert the Bruce I was remembering happened this way:

Bruce, whilst surveying the English army, wore his crown and this sparked an idea in the mind of one young English knight. With Bruce so easy for him to identify, the young Sir Henry de Bohun realised that if he killed him the Scots would suffer a most crushing blow, and that he himself would gain unrivalled admiration from his English king. The next thing Bruce knew, de Bohun was charging towards him with his 12 foot long lance ready for action. Bruce was on his Highland pony, and saw the attack coming. He waited until the last possible moment, then violently wrenched his pony to one side. The keen de Bohen went speeding past, and Bruce swung his battle-axe, crushing the armour worn by de Bohun and splitting open his skull. The eager de Bohun fell dead on the spot with the one mighty blow, which broke the shaft of the axe wielded by Bruce. His army saw their king and his act of courage, and their hearts were filled with admiration and inspiration. If any of his men had doubted his courage, surely their fears were now at rest. Bruce had shown that he was indeed a warrior king. When his commanders reflected on the risk that Bruce took, the king of the Scots pointed out that he was more dismayed that he had broken the shaft of his axe!

That's pretty good, given the height difference for sitting on a Highland pony versus a proper destrier. However, some of the virtue of that has to do with Robert the Bruce himself -- as medieval armor improved, axes were often permitted to be used in tournaments without restriction, as the broad cutting surface made it unlikely to penetrate heavy armor (unlike a dagger, lance, or thrusting sword).

One thing to be considered if thinking about this for a situation like Iraq is the unlikelihood of running into old-style combat of the sort McLemore is examining. In modern combat, you don't expect to be wielding your weapons against an opponent who is similarly armed. Your knife and/or tomahawk has to be fielded against a gun, or a guy who has a knife but who has probably not studied deeply how to use it, or a baseball bat, or perhaps multiple attackers.

McLemore says he deals with that latter circumstance. However, I think that the modern edged-weaponeer needs to worry less about how to assume a defensive posture and defend his space, and more about how to close with, control, and destroy his enemy. Standing off a man until you can open his guard is fine for people who are fighting you symmetrically, but as we know that isn't how things are done these days. You need to learn to adapt the system away from being focused on defense of space, and toward focusing on seizure of the initiative, so that you can close with and eliminate opponents.*

As always with close combat, remember the three steps:

1) Evade
2) Control
3) Retaliate

A successful modern edged-weapon fighter has to advance into the initial attack, while evading it, so that he can control the foe. This part, at least, is similar to the old part: you want to use your free hand, or your weapon, or your body placement, or the terrain, to open a space in which you are free to attack and your enemy is not. Control need not be perfect or long lasting, it just needs to exist long enough to let you focus on the attack for a moment without having to continue evasion.

An example of control would be to grab the foe's wrist and yank it, thus pulling him off balance for a moment. For that moment, you're in charge of where he goes instead of him being in charge of it. You thus have an instant's control in which you can deliver an attack.

Step three is self-explanatory. Modern defensive close combat, because it is asymmetrical, needs to be fatal.** When you create your opening, use it to eliminate the foe. Especially in cases when he may be better armed, or in company with multiple attackers, you need to take advantage of each moment of control to eliminate the foe you have controlled.

* This assumes you are intending to defeat your foes instead of merely creating an opportunity to flee from them. A civilian may, in some circumstances, be justified in doing the latter. A soldier is usually not permitted to flee without orders, but is expected to hold his position or advance, depending on his mission.

Even civilians may not always have the opportunity to flee; or it may be that they are defending a third party, perhaps family or some innocent, in which flight will not achieve the purpose. For example, former Marine Thomas Autry was cornered in a parking lot by a gang of foes. On occasions like this, a response like his is the one that makes success and survival likely. He advanced into the attack while evading it, controlled by kicking away the shotgun, and then stabbed.

This "preference" for fatal fighting is not a moral preference, but a practical one-- it is created by the reality of combat. It does not imply bloody-mindedness, as demonstrated again by Autry, who apologized for having killed his attacker. He was genuinely sorry to have had to do what he did -- but he really did have to do it.

** Police readers face different challenges, and this advice is not meant for them. It is meant for readers like Doc's sister, or civilians who are primarily charged with defending themselves, their families, the common peace and lawful order. Soldiers who come into close combat do so in the context of warfighting, against foes who mean not only to kill them but to eliminate their unit, and to harm the civilization they defend. If civilians are set upon at all, it will be asymmetrically by foes who will have advantages over them, and have chosen to attack for that reason. Both soldiers and civilians have to fight with all seriousness of purpose.

Policemen, who may use close combat as a less-lethal alternative to their service pistols, sometimes are called upon to use force against people who are not actually trying to do serious harm to them or anyone else. I recommend this discussion by Armed Liberal on the subject of police use of force.

Two on Iran

Two on Iran:

Read "Velvet Revolution" in Logos Journal, which posits that democratic and non-violent movements in Iran may threaten the survival of the Islamist regime. Meanwhile, in the Washington Post, Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari claims Iran helped the US take Afghanistan and Iraq:

The Iranian government pretends to be revolutionary and Islamic while in essence it is very conservative and nationalistic in its policies regionally and internationally. They helped Americans to get rid of the Taliban but didn't reveal their logistical and intelligence support because they were worried about their image as recalcitrant nation in chief. As a result President Bush, intoxicated by fast victory over the Taliban, found it in himself to include Iran as part of axis of evil (along with Iraq and North Korea). A couple of years later Iranians helped the Americans to get rid of a fellow evil regime in Iraq. I was in south east Iran in March 2003 and could see American planes flying over our heads despite our government's denial that it allowed the American to use its territory.

Thoughts from the readership on these pieces are appreciated. For now, I am still considering the matter.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving:

For the record, I am thankful for family, friends, the land and the strength to defend it. I will be taking the rest of the evening off to assist in preparing the feast and laying in the beer; and tomorrow for consuming it.

Wæs Hail! Drinc Hail!

Happy Thanksgiving to all. We will resume honorable and friendly disputation on Friday. For now, to the regular commenters and readers, allow me to express my gratitude for your company this past little while.

If only he'd issue a fatwa

Today's Top Headline:

According to Memeorandum, it's this:

"Muslim scholar calls for airline boycott."

That's US Airways he's talking about. Holiday travelers take note.

I don't mean to laugh at injustice, if that's what this was -- but I do think that this fellow's tin ear is funny. Shall we open the pool on just what effect this boycott will have on US Airway's business? I mean, if he's right that Americans are unfairly suspicious of traveling Muslims, what exactly does he think is going to happen?

Christmas @Walter Reed

Christmas at Walter Reed:

Anyone who reads Cassidy's site as well as this one knows Carrie. You may not know about her work with a project called Operation Santa. Read about it here.

Yeah I know, it's not the day after Thanksgiving yet. Still and all.

Xmas Darfur

Christmas in Darfur:

I guess I didn't realize that Bravo Romeo Delta (BRD) of Anticipatory Retaliation was now blogging at Protein Wisdom. I rarely read PW, and while AR was a daily stop for me a few years ago, for some reason I can't adequately explain it fell off my regular reading list. I'm sorry for that, as BRD is a sharp guy.

In any event, he's looking at Darfur this holiday season:

As you already know, two friends and I are going to spend our holiday in Africa to film footage for a documentary (Christmas in Darfur), capture the feel of conditions on the ground, and interview the extraordinary people who have given and risked so much to lend a hand in a portion of the world that needs all the help it can get. I would like to thank you for your help and generosity in getting us started towards our goals.

Drop by and see what they've got in mind. Follow the AR link, above, for even more information.

Good luck, lads.

BackinSaddle

Back in the Saddle:

Managed to get up and ride again today -- I actually rode the same day as the wreck, but that was just because the endorphins hadn't worn off yet. I took the same beast out. It was a good ride -- I ran him as much of the way as we had good terrain for running, and scared up a great blue heron from one of the creeks along the way, where he'd been resting down in a cut the creek had made. This was to the great dismay of my mount, who was utterly astonished to see that mighty big bird suddenly flare up out of the earth.

The horse was glad to have me around at that moment, but it was the one time on the ride he was happy to have me there. He kept trying to pull the reins out of my hands, rub me off on trees whenever we'd stop to walk, and so forth, but he didn't buck me. I operate from the perspective that a horse that has energy to fight you probably needs to run some more, so by the end of the ride he was both tired and gentle.

Anyway, the point is that things are better this week. Not perfect, but life isn't perfect. Better is good enough. I hope I'll feel more like writing; in the meantime, readers who haven't looked through the comments on "Shame," below, will find some good argumentation between myself and Sovay. I've always felt the girl brings out the best in me, though every reader will have to judge for himself if he agrees in this case. Still, it's good to have her commenting again.

Cyber rights

OK, I'm Convinced:

If you ever listen to podcasts, listen to this one. It treats how the internet's legal nature means that the First and Fourth Amendments do not apply to an increasing amount of our lives. Two paraphrases:

'Because the Internet is entirely made of private property, things like the First and Fourth Amendments do not necessarily apply.'

'Since we are now keeping so much of our data -- calendars, emails, etc. -- on third-party servers, we are essentially erasing the Fourth Amendment.'

The trick here, I think, is that American courts used to recognize that new technologies deserved the same protections as the old technologies. When we started having telephones, the ability to wire-tap those phones became covered under the Fourth Amendment. The courts of the day simply held that the principle was the same.

Now, as the fellow points out, the courts have decided to side with power instead of protection. That same interpretation was available to them, but the courts have instead chosen to rule that the applicable rules were the a different set of rulings concerning third-party custody of your records.

That is not to say the court's reasoning is wrong. What it is to say is that we need to amend the Constitution to make clear that new technologies must be incorporated into the Fourth going forward. "Your person and papers" should mean your ideas and records, whether they're stored on your hard drive or in your desk, or on a server across town. They're still yours, and the government should be required to prove a lawful interest in them -- as for example by obtaining a warrant -- before helping itself.

Shame:

Cassidy has a long post about the elections, in which she says she may be ashamed to be American. This is a sentiment I've often heard expressed recently, usually right after elections, and while her reasons are better than most, I think the approach is wrong.

It's not that she's wrong to be disappointed. A nation ought to finish what it starts, as a man ought to do so. There are ethical duties that, once undertaken, must be completed in spite of the misery they bring upon you. This is true even though you may have had an unreasonably rosy view of what the undertaking would involve: it doesn't matter. You are sworn.

Neither does it matter if you yourself were opposed to the whole idea at the time the decision was made. If we are part of a polity, we are bound to each other. We are partners, and as Ben Rumson said of partnership: "If I owe a man a hundred dollars, I expect you to stand good for me."

Last winter I wanted some firewood, so I went to the wife of the man from whom I bought it and asked her to have him bring by a load. I paid her, but apparently she forgot to mention that she'd been paid in advance during their phone conversation. He showed up with the wood, wanting to be paid -- but I wasn't home, having other things to do, and thinking the matter resolved.

My neighbor, a hardworking man with four kids to support whom I'd known only a few months at the time, he paid the woodsman in full. I never asked him to stand good for me if someone wanted money. He just knew I needed the wood, and he knew this fellow was 'a workman worthy of his wage,' so he paid him. He never thought to worry about whether he'd be paid back.

That's the kind of trust we called frith in the Old English. Frith is a word that is linguistically linked to "freedom" and "friend," but what it literally means is "peace." If we are willing to be bound to each other, to defend each other, we can create a space in which we can then be free. In that space, which we each defend in common, we can order our society as we please and choose. If we aren't friends, we aren't free.

And yet it is a fact about America that it isn't dependable. In the Civil War, Lincoln had to deal with a 'peace' movement that sought to undercut public support for the war throughout. He almost lost the election of 1864 to an opposition that made plain they would surrender to the Confederacy's demands. He would have lost it, except for the Battle of Atlanta.

Before WWI, America's long term friends found America disinterested in their support, in spite of the fact that the resolution of 'the Great War' would have major consequences for American interests. Nevertheless, Woodrow Wilson had to run on the slogan "He kept us out of war," while a popular hit was a song called "I didn't raise my son to be a soldier." Yet, less than a year after he was wrong in for another term, Wilson led a willing nation to war, and a new popular song was written: "I didn't raise my son to be a slacker."

In WWII, FDR had to support key allies for years through underhanded techniques like "Lend-Lease." The nation was simply not capable of becoming unified on the point of supporting the British and other allies against the Nazis and the expansionist Japanese Empire. The threat was clear enough, but isolationism was a powerful force.

The Cold War saw American will swaying this way and that throughout. Before the Korean war, we declared that Korea was outside our zone of influence. Then, when the war began, we decided to join it. We entered Vietnam on the basis of sending 'a few advisors,' and expanded to tens of thousands of men. We fought the war to victory in 1972, and then decided, largely for domestic reasons, to abandon the state we had won at such a cost. The result was that the North Vietnamese invasion of 1974, smaller and far less formidable than the '72 invasion, was able to defeat a South Vietnam cut off from even air support by a self-interested Congress.

In the Carter years, we had an executive so opposed to action that Afghanistan was almost lost to the Soviets. Carter's chosen Director of Central Intelligence, Admiral Turner, so undercut the CIA's covert operations that the DIA had to take over when action was necessary. Even at that, it took the support of the rebel Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson to focus support.

A democratic republic of this sort cannot form stable decisions. China can. We can't. It's a strength of theirs and a weakness of ours, and it's structural. If you're an American, you have to live with that fact.

Nevertheless, we have other strengths and they have other weaknesses. That's not the point I wish to make here.

The point I wish to make here is the one Chesterton makes:

Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing -- say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she is loved. For decoration is not given to hide horrible things: but to decorate things already adorable. A mother does not give her child a blue bow because he is so ugly without it. A lover does not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her....

Let me explain by using once more the parallel of patriotism. The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without a reason. If a man loves some feature of Pimlico (which seems unlikely), he may find himself defending that feature against Pimlico itself. But if he simply loves Pimlico itself, he may lay it waste and turn it into the New Jerusalem.

It is wrong to love America because it is conservative, or liberal; because it is the staunch defender of the free, or because it is always willing to hear new advice and rethink old decisions.

It is right to love America because she is home; because she is ours; and that is enough. Feel free to lay waste and to rebuild, to destroy that within her which has gone bad and raise up anew what strength you can. Rethink the franchise. Amend the Constitution. Dare to think and say and fight for whatever will make her stronger than she is.

Never be ashamed of her. If you would love America, love her that way. Have faith even when there is no reason to hope. Love even when there is no cause. She is home. She is ours. That is enough.

Where do cowboys go

Reincarnation:

Since I've had little else to say of late, here is the concluding section to a poem called "Where do Cowboys go when they Die?" by Michael Martin Murphey. It strikes me that the readership will appreciate it. We begin shortly after a cowboy named Slim is buried, and his body begins to decompose in the ground:

Well, in a while some rain is gonna' come
and fall upon the ground,
'til one day on your lonely little grave
a little flower will be found.

And, say a hoss should wander by
and graze upon this flower,
that once was you, but now has become
a vegetated bower.

Well that little flower that the hoss
done ate up with all his other feed,
becomes bone and fat and muscle,
essential to the steed.

Course some is consumed that he can't use,
and so it passes through.
Finally it lays there on the ground,
this thing that once was you.

And then say that I should wander by
and gaze upon the ground,
and wonder and ponder
on this object that I've found.

Well it sure makes me think of reincarnation,
of life and death and such,
and I ride away concludin',
'Slim, you ain't changed all that much.'

There's some good cowboy poetry out there. If you folks liked that, and aren't wholly familiar with it already, I could probably dig up a few more things you'd like.

Slow blogging

Light Blogging:

I had a little trouble with a horse earlier this week (by which I mean the beast reared up and fell backwards on top of me). I'm neither dead nor seriously injured, but I am blogging quite lightly at the moment. If any of you co-bloggers has been feeling a rant coming on for a while, by all means feel free to take the floor here for a bit.

Plastic v. Wood

Plastic v. Wood:

Kim du Toit has a heartfelt debate on the topic, oddly enough between British citizens. I left the following comment:

Count me a “wood” man. For that matter, in holsters, I prefer leather over plastics.

In both cases, the modern composites are very durable and require little work. On the other hand, the discipline of keeping your weapons and leather in order is half of the point. Half the point is accomplishing the task for which you own the weapon and gear: killing varmints, say, or defending yourself, or upholding the common peace and lawful order.

The other half of the point is developing yourself as the right kind of man. Discipline, care, respect for history and tradition—all these things are basic to that task.

So yes, it’s more work. But it’s good work to have.

Your own thoughts?

Camel Spiders

"How to make Marines Scream like Little Girls"

Doc in the Box is having fun. As usual, it's at someone else's expense.

Leave Dark

Leaving the Darkness:

Per Karrde and Cassidy, I'm reminded I promised to undo the all-black scheme after the election. Cassidy requested a return to the previous pattern, and given her performance as leader of the Marine Team for Project VALOUR-IT, I'm glad to oblige her request. As of this hour, her leadership has produced $50,618 for use in purchasing voice-activated laptops for wounded veterans, distant from their families and often without the use of their limbs in the early days of treatment.

The other teams did well too, with everyone but the Air Force surpassing the $45,000 goal. This may have had to do with their leader's approach to fundraising...

Thanks to everyone.

Nat. Ammo Week / Genius!

National Ammo Week, Plus -- Genius!

National Ammo Day is Nov. 19th, but it has been expanded to a week for the ease of everyone involved. I hope everyone will participate.

I shall be laying in .45 Long Colt this year, as Doc and I agreed on its usefulness. Over time, I think I'll change out so that I use .45 Colt in my carry piece, concealment piece, and field carbine. For now, it's only the deep concealment piece I use it in, but I have come to like it better than any other cartridge.

If you're looking for something different, however, I've got a great one for you. It's not out on the market yet, but for next year, we might consider this brilliant invention: "Season Shot."

Season Shot is made of tightly packed seasoning bound by a fully biodegradable food product. The seasoning is actually injected into the bird on impact seasoning the meat from the inside out. When the bird is cooked the seasoning pellets melt into the meat spreading the flavor to the entire bird. Forget worrying about shot breaking your teeth and start wondering about which flavor shot to use!

For bird hunting, I see no reason why that shouldn't work just fine. To add, ah, spice to their offer, Season Shot notes that it's the first truly environmentally safe ammunition -- since it's just herbs and whatnot, instead of lead or steel or white metals.

Hat tip: The Ministry of Minor Perfidy.

VALOUR-IT

Veteran's Day: VALOUR-IT Final Push

Now that both teams from the Department of the Navy have reached their goals, our leader Cassandra has decreed that we should help out the Army. I'm sure Matty & Jimbo will appreciate your kindness. So will John of Aaaarrrrgh!, who earlier expressed his awe of the Marine staff. (See the comments. If anyone wants to round out the top ten...)

It's a fitting service for Veteran's Day. My thanks to all who have helped, and all who have given. That goes for the Project, and for the military as a whole.

Happy Veteran's Day.

Jack Palance

Jack Palance, RIP:

This Veteran's Day, we remember many great men, and honor those still living who have served. It happens that we might, this particular Veteran's Day, take a moment to remember Jack Palance, who has just died.

I suspect he's best remembered here as the gunfighter Jack Wilson in Shane. He did "cold-eyed killer" better than almost anyone: even Lee Van Cleef seemed to be reprising Jack Wilson in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

There was more to the man than that, however: he was a heavyweight fighter, under the name Jack Brazzo, with twelve knockouts and fifteen wins in his career. And, yes, he was a veteran:

With the outbreak of World War II, Palance's boxing career ended and his military career began. Palance's rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, was disfigured when he bailed out of his burning B-24 Liberator while on a training flight over southern Arizona, where he was a student pilot. Plastic surgeons repaired as much of the damage that they could, but he was left with a distinctive, somewhat gaunt, look. After much reconstructive surgery, he was discharged in 1944.

It's easy to forget how dangerous training is in the military, but the risks are very real. The Department of Defense celebrated in 1998 when accidental deaths in the military declined notably over a monitored nine-year period: only 6,790 service members died in that time. It had, in the previous perioud, been 11,216. In Iraq, in three years we've lost about three thousand people. In nine years from 1988-1996, 6,790 died accidentally.

Palance didn't die, and went on to turn his reconstructed face into one well known to every American. He won an Oscar for his role in the film City Slickers, and at the awards show made some appropriate remarks about Billy Crystal before demonstrating one-handed pushups. He was 73 at the time.

We'll miss you, Jack.

I guess this is appropriate this day too:

Marine receives Medal of Honor

Words don't really do the deed justice.

Happy Birthday, USMC.

Compare/Contrast

Contrasts on the West Coast:

JarHeadDad sends two stories this morning that touch on the universities of California. They are on patriotism and anti-patriotism, and offer an interesting contrast on the Marine Corps birthday.

The first is about the Pledge of Allegiance.

Calif. College Ends Pledge of Allegiance
COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) - Student leaders at a community college voted to drop the Pledge of Allegiance after a tense meeting in which one flag-waving pledge supporter berated them as anti-American radicals.

Orange Coast College's student trustees voted Wednesday not to recognize the pledge, with three of the five board members saying it should be dropped from their meetings.

Board member Jason Ball argued that the pledge inspires nationalism, violates the separation between church and state with the phrase "under God," and is irrelevant to the business of student government. He cited a 2002 San Francisco federal appeals court ruling - later dismissed by the Supreme Court on a technicality - that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

Sophomore Chris Belanger, one of several students who attended the meeting to support keeping the pledge, waved an American flag and accused the board of "radical views and anti-Americanism."

Coast Community College District spokeswoman Martha Parham said the decision was up to the students.

"They run their own show, so to speak," she said.

I wouldn't object to a decision not to say the pledge of allegience at every single meeting of your committee. The pledge isn't something that has to be repeated over and over to take effect. It's an oath, which -- when sworn by an adult -- is binding.

What I wonder about is the wording, "not to recognize the pledge." That seems an odd thing to say. Not to require it; not to perform it as part of the rituals of the meeting; I can understand that. But what does it mean to say that you don't recognize it?

Anyway, that's the first story. The second treats a graduate of the University of California's efforts to set the record straight on the flag-raising at Iwo Jima. He came across an injustice in making a film, and made a promise.

Local war hero finally recognized

By John M. Flora

Phil Ward, who died in relative obscurity last December, is finally getting the recognition he deserves.

While his friends and family knew Ward, a native of Mace, was a veteran of the fierce World War II battle for Iwo Jima, almost nobody knew he was one of the Marines who raised the first American flag atop Mount Suribachi.

And it's only in the last few months the Marine Corps and others have come to recognize his role in that historic gesture that gave hope and encouragement to his fellow Marines locked in deadly combat with the island's fanatical Japanese defenders.

Associated Press Photographer Joe Rosenthal's iconic photograph of the Iwo Jima flag-raising is actually of the second U.S. flag erected on Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. Photos of the first flag-raising, that include Ward and other members of a patrol led by Lt. Harold Shrier, had less artistic appeal than Rosenthal's shot. They were ignored at a time when a stronger image was needed to boost homefront morale.

The Marine Corps was heavily invested in the Rosenthal image. It became the basis of the Marine Corps War Memorial near Arlington National Cemetery and inspired the architecture of the National Museum of the Marine Corps being dedicated this week at Quantico, Va. Consequently, Sgt. Lou Lowery's pictures of the first flag-raising were suppressed by the Corps for decades.

Ward, of Crawfordsville, died Dec. 28 in a hospital near his winter home in McAllen, Texas at the age of 79. His funeral was Jan. 3 and his ashes were interred Jan. 19 at Arlington.

He was two weeks shy of his 19th birthday when he and his buddies in E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, hit the beach on Iwo Jima and charged into one of the bloodiest fights in the history of the Corps.

Early on the morning of Feb. 23, 1945, a reconnaissance patrol scaled the 560-foot Suribachi to scout Japanese positions around the volcanic crater.

They met no opposition and concluded the Japanese were dug in. Raymond Jacobs, then a young radioman, recalled that a second patrol was organized to attack and secure the top of Mt. Suribachi.

Jacobs, a retired newsman who now lives in Lake Tahoe, Calif., said Lt. Shrier was put in command of the patrol and was given an American flag to take with him. Jacobs said he was assigned to the patrol to provide a radio link with battalion headquarters.

As the column of about 40 men set out up the steep slope, Jacobs recalled, they were led by Cpl. Charles Lindberg and Pvt. Robert Goode, each carrying a flame-thrower. Tagging along was combat photographer Lowrey.

"The sides of Suribachi were very steep," Jacobs said. "The ground we were climbing had been chewed and churned by bombing, naval gunfire and our own artillery ... The climb was so steep and the ground so broken that at times we were crawling on hands and knees."

Reaching the top, the Marines moved quickly along the rim, he said, and Lt. Shrier spread the patrol in a defensive perimeter around the inner rim of facing inward toward the center of the crater.

Jacobs said he saw several Marines pulling a piece of Japanese water pipe from the ground to use as a flagpole.

One of Lowery's photos shows a group of Marines tying the flag to the pipe. Jacobs and others believe one of the men is Phil Ward.

He said Lt. Shrier's command group moved to the highest point on the crater preparing to push the flag pole into the ground and Cpl. Lindberg kicked at the ground to clear a hole for the flag pole. Jacobs said the pole was jammed into the ground and the men took turns pushing it deeper, kicking dirt and jamming rocks around the base to stabilize it.

"Just moments after the flag was raised we heard a roar from down below on the island. Marines on the ground, still engaged in combat, raised a spontaneous yell when they saw the flag. Screaming and cheering so loud and prolonged that we could hear it quite clearly on top of Suribachi," Jacobs said.

"The boats on the beach and the ships at sea joined in blowing horns and whistles. The celebration went on for many minutes. It was a highly emotional, strongly patriotic moment for all of us."

Chuck Tatum, author of "Red Blood, Black Sand," an account of the battle for Iwo Jima, and himself a Marine Corps veteran of the invasion's first wave, was dug into the black volcanic sand below the mountain at the time.

"All of a sudden, my assistant gunner was hitting me with his entrenching tool on the foot, and I turned to him and said, Steve, what are you doing?,' and he said, 'Tatum! Tatum! Look, they got the flag on Suribachi!'"

"I think that pride engulfed me. When you saw that, there's no way to describe the emotions that went through your body."

Clark Jamison, a sailor aboard the U.S.S. Estes who was coordinating air strikes on Japanese positions, recalled he was about two miles from Suribachi.

"I saw it and I yelled, 'The flag is going up on Suribachi.' There was an overwhelming yell from the crew and from the amphibious group ... Everybody turned and looked in that direction. Everyone was so elated and so proud to see the Stars and Stripes on Suribachi."

"You know, we were very young, fully indoctrinated in the Marine Corps lore and tradition and when you see the flag, it just had a very special meaning to you," Jacobs said.

"The Japanese, apparently enraged by the sight of our colors, hit us with rifle fire and a barrage of grenades," Jacobs said. "We responded with flame throwers, grenades, BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) and rifle fire. I remember seeing individual Marines and fire teams running toward the caves firing as they ran. We burned and blasted caves on both sides of the crater rim and soon it was over - intense but brief with Japanese resistance buried."

He said Lowery was the only Marine Corps casualty when he fell over backwards trying to avoid a grenade and suffered bumps and bruises in a 20 or 30-yard slide down the steep slope. His camera was smashed but his film undamaged, Jacobs said.

A short time later, a larger flag was sent up the mountain to replace the first.

By that time, AP photographer Rosenthal was on hand to record the moment. While Ward was not in the best known photo, he is in a subsequent group shot since dubbed "the Gung-Ho photo."

Many Marines who fought on Iwo Jima, including Jacobs and Tatum, never knew there was a second flag-raising until months or years later.

In retrospect, Jacobs said, "The first flag-raising was for the Marines on the island because they reacted to it. The second flag-raising, Rosenthal's picture, was for the morale of the people back home. They reacted to it."

Perhaps it's because of a lack of official interest in the first flag-raising and Lowery's photos that historians failed to thoroughly identify the men in Lowery's pictures.

Likewise, James Bradley's best-selling "Flags of our Fathers" did not list Ward as one of the original flag-raisers.

As late as last January, it was the Corps' official position, as articulated by Leatherneck magazine editor Col. Walter E. Ford (Ret.) that Phil Ward was not in the Lowery photos and there was also official doubt that Jacobs was in the pictures.

But Dustin Spence, a 21-year-old theatre and history graduate of the University of California, Davis, has apparently succeeded in setting the record straight.

Spence had several conversations with Phil Ward last year in hopes of portraying Ward in the film version of "Flags of our Fathers," released this fall.

Spence said he is convinced beyond question that Jacobs and Ward are in the Lowrey photos.

"Phil has ring on his right hand on the ring finger in those pictures. Lou Lowrey got different perspectives of the flag-raising, circling around, and Phil is someone who is constantly holding onto that flagpole," he said.

Spence said he spoke with the reclusive Lindberg and said he "states that Phil Ward helped put up the pole."

Spence said he called Ward in a Texas hospital a few days before his death to reassure him he would continue to fight for official recognition.

"My promise to him was, 'I will tell your story'" Spence said.

Spence made good on his promise earlier this year by persuading Col. Ford to publish a seven-page article on the first flag-raising that analyzed the Lowery photos in light of Spence's historical research.

"The article worked out very well," Spence said. "They printed more than 100,000 copies, and it's totally sold out now."

And thanks to Spence's efforts, Phil Ward's name has been added to photo captions and text in the current editions of Bradley's book.

Spence is working on a documentary titled, "Flags Over Iwo Jima" with the Los Angeles-based production company PixVfm.

He said the documentary will be unique compared to the many other Iwo Jima flag-raising documentaries because it will for the first time display the entire truth of the important flag raising event.

Spence said he hopes to get this new and important information out to the general public and do service to this important event in American history.

For more information, visit Spence's website at www.flagsoveriwojima.com

Now that's praiseworthy.

Museum

Museum of the American West:

The NY Times has a kind word for Gene Autry.

Hat tip: Arts & Letters Daily.

Aliens

I Wonder if Force Fields Work on Bowie Knives?

The British Ministry of Defense has a warning for us:

During his time as head of the Ministry of Defence UFO project, Nick Pope was persuaded into believing that other lifeforms may visit Earth and, more specifically, Britain.

His concern is that "highly credible" sightings are simply dismissed.

And he complains that the project he once ran is now "virtually closed" down, leaving the country "wide open" to aliens.

I read in Dune that skillfuly-wielded knives were very capable against forcefields.

Yeah

Yeah:

I think that Wuzzadem is right about this one. The elections are an American matter. A family matter. We don't care what the rest of the world thinks, and if they've got a bit of wisdom in their heads, they'll stay out of it.

SSM Medals

A Request from the VA:

Some Soldier's Mom wanted me to pass this on to all of you:

VA Urges Veterans to Wear Medals on Veterans Day
The Honorable R. James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and leaders of major veterans organizations called on America's veterans to help kindle a new spark of patriotism on Veterans Day by wearing the medals they earned during military service.

"We are announcing a Veterans Pride Initiative to remind Americans of the pride and honor in the hearts of those who have served," Nicholson said. "We expect Americans will see our decorated heroes unite in spirit at ceremonies, in parades and elsewhere as a compelling symbol of courage and sacrifice on Veterans Day, the day we set aside to thank those who served and safeguarded our national security."

For information about the campaign and how to display and/or replace medals, please visit the VA Web page.

Nicholson, in speaking about a visit to Australia for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps Day said,
One of the things that stood out during the day-long ceremonies was how all of the veterans and surviving family members wore their medals and campaign ribbons. It focused public pride and attention on those veterans as individuals with personal histories of service and sacrifice for the common good.
That is why I am calling on America's veterans to wear their military medals this Veterans Day, November 11, 2006. Wearing their medals will demonstrate the deep pride our veterans have in their military service and bring Veterans Day home to all American citizens.

Veterans, wear your pride on your left side this Veterans Day! Let America know who you are and what you did for freedom!!

History Repeats

History Repeats:

"U.S. Rejects Referrendum for Rebel Georgia Region."

JL Rsponds

Major Leggett Responds:

Major Joel Leggett writes from Iraq. One of our co-bloggers here, and a gentleman I greatly respect in spite of our occasional sharp disagreement, I'm posting for him the comment he wished to make:

Grim,

I saw your post and I had to comment. Unfortunately, there is something wrong with our server and I can’t post these comments on your site. First of all, I must take issue with your characterization of Jim Webb as a “real conservative.” I am curious, is it his threats at economic redistribution that make him conservative? I always believed that the defense of private property and freedom to keep what one earns was one of the more distinguishing characteristics of a real conservative. If that is true then I fail to see how Webb’s threats to make the wealthy pay their share and raise taxes qualify him as a true conservative. Furthermore, it seems to me that you yourself recognized that you don’t agree with him on just about anything. Are you some hard leftist that takes issues with Webb’s conservative positions?

What makes Webb such a great candidate for the Senate? I got it. His willingness to publicly apologize for not voting for a man that not only made his political career by slandering servicemen but continues to insult. Obviously this man is a stalwart conservative. Or better yet, maybe it was his sucking up to Clinton so he could pander to the left in VA for their votes. No, no, here it is. It was his intentional misrepresentation of the reason he quit the Reagan administration when he addressed crowds of Democrats, leading them to believe it was anything but his insistence that the U.S. build MORE battleships. You know what gives him real conservative street cred? The fact that his victory just handed control of the Senate to a party dedicated to cutting and running from Iraq as well as ensuring that only left-wing “Living Constitutionalists” are appointed to the Supreme Court.

From Iraq ,

Thanks Grim.

I have to admit that I haven't heard some of these complaints before, so I'm not sure how to respond to them. The Jim Webb I know is a former Marine who holds a Navy Cross, a former Secretary of the Navy whose reasons for stepping down I had never heard were in dispute, and the author of some books on Scotch-Irish culture that I know Major Leggett admires. He ought to admire them.

I can't bring myself worry too much about what the author of Born Fighting is going to do. Nor is it easy to think of a book that more readily encompasses what I, at least, think of when I think of conservativism -- that's the kind of people the word means. That's the sort of man that conservativism aims to produce. A man who honors those values so highly, and has defended them so fiercely, will do right in the big things even if he makes what I consider to be mistakes in the small ones. I don't have to agree with his every idea to trust him, anymore than I have to agree with the Major on every point to know he is a good man that I could trust with the safety of my family if need be.

(For those of you who haven't read Webb's book, here's a review from Parameters, the journal of the US Army War College. It's the third from the last review on this page.)

Major Leggett and I have obviously encountered different material on the subject of Webb as a Senator. Now, I've made a conscious effort to avoid the negative campaign ads pouring out of Virginia since the summer: about the time that Allen became 'the worst racist ever,' I decided there was little of use apt to come out of the next few months of discussion. I know what kind of a Senator Allen was, because he was my Senator. I had no complaints with him.

I think Webb's the better man. I also believe our system of government is cracking on key fault lines, so that we can't depend on the institutions in the way we have in most of our history. We need honorable men on both sides of the aisle.

I wish to extend my thanks to Major Leggett for his letter, and assure him of my continued respect and good will. I am always sorry to disagree with him, as I know he and I are on the same side on the most important questions. Still, a man must say what he thinks, and I think Webb was the better choice.

Elections

Elections:

Once again, elections are down to the wire. I'd like to begin by reposting my comments on the 2004 election. Let's look at what's the same, and what changed:

Yesterday, almost 55 million Americans got up, formed part of record lines, and voted to replace the President of the United States. Many of them felt passionately about doing so. Many had donated money to political campaigns for the first time. Many people heretofore uninterested in politics joined grassroots organizations aimed at removing George Bush from office, and to try to pry any part of the Federal government back to their political party.

This morning, the results must look to them like the carnage of a battlefield. Despite everything they did, George Bush was reelected. The Republicans, far from losing the House or the Senate, secured and increased their majorities. The highest ranking Democrat in the government, Senate Minority Leader Daschle, was turned out by voters. For social liberals, the sweeping victory of amendments forbidding gay marriage -- every one offered passed handily -- must be depressing. There is nothing for them to feel good about in the results, except the election of Mr. Obama and the well-deserved defeat of Mr. Keyes in IL.

They were defeated only because more than 58 million Americans stood up to vote for the opposite things.

In medieval battles, often forces coming into contact with each other were nearly evenly matched. The forces fight -- Vikings and Saxons clashing at each other behind their shield walls -- until that small difference in strength breaks one of the lines. Then, pouring through the breach, the victors tear apart the shield wall and rout the enemy. Few of the losers escaped from such battles, when any did. Though the foe may have been of nearly equal size and strength, at the last that small difference led to a complete victory for one side, and complete destruction for the other.

Democracy works in a similar way. We have had a giant clash of peaceful armies, and in spite of the completeness of the rout, we must remember that their force was nearly as powerful as our own.

For those of you readers who were part of the defeated army, I salute you. You have every reason to be proud of how hard you fought, and of the dedication and steadfastness with which you struck for your cause. You can hold your heads high, knowing that you did absolutely everything that could be done.

In the next years, we must remember the 55 million. It may be that some of them can be won over, through argument or through example, or even -- on matters not of principle -- through compromise. Even when not, we must remember that they showed that America is their country too: no one can ever again claim to be backed by the "silent majority." That majority has now spoken, but it spoke on both sides.

We should remember that they felt all the passion and concern that we did ourselves, and found that doing everything they could only led to the defeat of their cause. That kind of defeat can weaken the Republic, which many of us are sworn to uphold. It weakens it by undermining faith and confidence in the institutions. We must take care to be sure they find fair hearing of their concerns in the institutions that conservatives now control. The government must serve them as well. We should take care to observe the tenets of Federalism, and not use the power of the Federal government to try and influence liberal states according to a general will. We should erect new walls in that regard, so that our disappointed neighbors can still live the lives they want to live in what is also their country.

Those same walls will protect us, should we ever someday lose.

Congratulations to the victor.

What was different this year? First of all, the defeated army was a political party, not a movement. In 2004 conservatives and others of the right carried the day, defeating John Kerry and his movement from the left. This year, conservatives in many places simply absented themselves from the fight. 2004 was Red v. Blue; 2006 was about the Republican party, which has stunk it up.

Indeed, the abandonment of conservatism by the Republicans is not only clear in the agenda they've pursued these last years. The most conservative person elected in this race appears to be -- awaiting final results -- Jim Webb. The Democrats elected a man who is a true conservative. Several of their other victories, and a number of near misses, were also centrists or even rightists (at least in their campaign rhetoric!).

That's the second difference: while in 2004, the left could console themselves that they had done all they could, in 2006 the same can't be said of the Republicans. They didn't do all they could do; they barely did anything at all. Half of what they did do was wrong. They didn't deserve support, and so they didn't receive much.

In 2004, I blogged about the upcoming elections almost every day. This year, I hardly mentioned them at all. In 2004, I gave lots of money to political causes; this year, not one donation to any candidate or movement. Instead, I've spent the days running up to the election raising money for a far better cause than politics: Project VALOUR-IT. That fundraiser, ongoing until Veteran's Day, needs your attention and help if you have any to give.

I didn't stay home. I still went out and voted, as everyone should -- and, as I said below, at the state level it was a nice election.

That brings us to what is still the same, this year as in 2006. My vision of what we need in this country's domestic politics:

We must take care to be sure they find fair hearing of their concerns in the institutions that conservatives now control. The government must serve them as well. We should take care to observe the tenets of Federalism, and not use the power of the Federal government to try and influence liberal states according to a general will. We should erect new walls in that regard, so that our disappointed neighbors can still live the lives they want to live in what is also their country.

I think that's as right now as it was two years ago. Georgia should be allowed to be Georgia; Vermont, Vermont. American elections won't be so contentious, nor cause such turmoil in people's lives, when we re-enforce the walls of Federalism.

Such an agenda is right on the merits, whether it is meant to protect our way of life, or our neighbors' in the Blue states. We are all Americans, and ought to look out for each other -- even when we don't agree.

Congratulations to the victors.

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