The Hell of War

Dexter Filkins has a fine piece of reporting in the New York Times on the horrific conditions faced by our Marines in the initial assault on Fallujah. An excerpt:

On one particularly grim night, a group of marines from Bravo Company's First Platoon turned a corner in the darkness and headed up an alley. As they did so, they came across men dressed in uniforms worn by the Iraqi National Guard. The uniforms were so perfect that they even carried pieces of red tape and white, the signal agreed upon to assure American soldiers that any Iraqis dressed that way would be friendly; the others could be killed.

The marines, spotting the red and white tape, waved, and the men in Iraqi uniforms opened fire. One American, Corporal Anderson, died instantly. One of the wounded men, Pfc. Andrew Russell, lay in the road, screaming from a nearly severed leg.

A group of marines ran forward into the gunfire to pull their comrades out. But the ambush, and the enemy flares and gunfire that followed, rattled the men of Bravo Company more than any event. In the darkness, the men began to argue. Others stood around in the road. As the platoon's leader, Lt. Andy Eckert, struggled to take charge, the Third Platoon seemed on the brink of panic.

"Everybody was scared," Lieutenant Eckert said afterward. "If the leader can't hold, then the unit can't hold together."

The unit did hold, but only after the intervention of Bravo Company's commanding officer, Capt. Read Omohundro.

Time and again through the week, Captain Omohundro kept his men from folding, if not by his resolute manner then by his calmness under fire. In the first 16 hours of battle, when the combat was continuous and the threat of death ever present, Captain Omohundro never flinched, moving his men through the warrens and back alleys of Falluja with an uncanny sense of space and time, sensing the enemy, sensing the location of his men, even in the darkness, entirely self-possessed.

"Damn it, get moving," Captain Omohundro said, and his men, looking relieved that they had been given direction amid the anarchy, were only too happy to oblige.

A little later, Captain Omohundro, a 34-year-old Texan, allowed that the strain of the battle had weighed on him, but he said that he had long ago trained himself to keep any self-doubt hidden from view.

"It's not like I don't feel it," Captain Omohundro said. "But if I were to show it, the whole thing would come apart."

You'll want to read the whole thing.

Ersatz Islam

USA Today recently featured an editorial by Ralph Peters who wishes to persuade us that Islam is really not at war with the West. The people who are fighting against us, he argues, are not true Muslims. They are counterfeits parading under the banner of a religion whose basic tenets they consistently violate. He writes:

Suicide bombings. Assassinations. The wholesale murder of prisoners. The mass slaughter of 9/11. Videotaped beheadings and the execution studios recently discovered in Fallujah. We describe it as "Islamic terrorism." And we're wrong.

The hard-core terrorists spawned by the breakdown of the Middle East quote the Koran. They wear Muslim garments. They perform the daily rituals prescribed by the faith into which they were born. But all of us, in the West and the Middle East, have mistaken the identity of these butchers.

For all of their Muslim trappings, the terrorists of al-Qaeda and its affiliates have returned to pre-Islamic practices, to behaviors that Moses, Christ and Mohammed uniformly rejected: They practice human sacrifice.

When the terrorists we face invoke the names of "Allah" or "Mohammed," they are blaspheming and corrupting a great faith. The prophet was appalled by the religious practices of the early desert peoples. Those who murder in his name today have rejected his message even as they claim to revere it.

We'd be a lot more inclined to accept Peters' argument if those who are indeed orthodox Muslims would speak out more forcefully than they have against the extremists in their midst. We are eager to believe that we are not really in another phase of a war that Islam has waged against the non-Islamic world off and on now for seven centuries. We would love to think that those who desire nothing so much as to be able to slaughter our children are just a tiny minority of the Islamic lunatic fringe. But we can't. As long as the Islamic media, the Imams, and the entire cultural leadership of the Arab world continue to preach the most virulent hatred for the West, as long as the majority of Muslims feel a frisson of pride and pleasure every time an Israeli or American dies at the hands of a Muslim, the term moderate Muslim will continue to be seen by us as an unfortunate oxymoron.

Despite what President Bush would have us believe, a very substantial portion of the Islamic world detests the West and wishes to destroy all that it stands for. It is the goal of Islam to convert the entire world, by the sword if need be, to the Muslim faith and culture. The sooner we realize the nature and extent of the conflict we're in the more likely we'll be to successfully defend ourselves against it.

American Heroes

Chester directs us to this site for an e-mail from a Marine who just finished fighting in Fallujah to his dad at home. He concludes it this way:

I will end with a couple of stories of individual heroism that you may not have heard yet. I was told about both of these incidents shortly after they occurred. No doubt some of the facts will change slightly, but I am confident that the meat is correct.

The first is a Marine from 3/5. His name is Corporal Yeager (Chuck Yeager's grandson). As the Marines cleared and apartment building, they got to the top floor and the point man kicked in the door. As he did so, an enemy grenade and a burst of gunfire came out. The explosion and enemy fire took off the point man's leg. He was then immediately shot in the arm as he lay in the doorway. Corporal Yeager tossed a grenade in the room and ran into the doorway and into the enemy fire in order to pull his buddy back to cover. As he was dragging the wounded Marine to cover, his own grenade came back through the doorway. Without pausing, he reached down and threw the grenade back through the door while he heaved his buddy to safety. The grenade went off inside the room and Cpl. Yeager threw another in. He immediately entered the room following the second explosion. He gunned down three enemy all within three feet of where he stood and then let fly a third grenade as he backed out of the room to complete the evacuation of the wounded Marine. You have to understand that a grenade goes off within 5 seconds of having the pin pulled. Marines usually let them "cook off" for a second or two before tossing them in. Therefore, this entire episode took place in less than 30 seconds.

The second example comes from 3/1. Cpl. Mitchell is a squad leader. He was wounded as his squad was clearing a house when some enemy threw pineapple grenades down on top of them. As he was getting triaged, the doctor told him that he had been shot through the arm. Cpl. Mitchell told the doctor that he had actually been shot "a couple of days ago" and had given himself self aide on the wound. When the doctor got on him about not coming off the line, he firmly told the doctor that he was a squad leader and did not have time to get treated as his men were still fighting. There are a number of Marines who have been wounded multiple times but refuse to leave their fellow Marines.

These guys are just amazing. It makes one proud to be a citizen of the same country they are. For a lot more examples of heroism under fire in the war on terror go to this site.

Teach Your Children Well

The local newspaper runs a piece wherein a young mother, concerned about blurring the line between church and state, is quoted: "I do have a concern", she opines, "that one day a teacher will tell their [sic] students that something is absolutely right or absolutely wrong."

Perhaps the woman has a point. Imagine what our world would be like if teachers started lecturing kids that there is never any moral justification for, say, rape, or for damaging someone's property just for fun, or for committing genocide, or beating a child with one's fists, or sexually abusing a child. Who'd want to live in a world where teachers taught their charges that punishing people for crimes they are known to be innocent of, or driving while drunk just for fun or hurting someone for the thrill of it were categorically wrong?

In our community just last week, a young woman, five months pregnant and her husband serving with the Marines in Iraq, was visiting from out of state. Her hosts took her to get some groceries at a supermarket. As she was getting into the car in the parking lot a young man who later told police that he "just wanted to kill somebody" drove up beside her and shot her in the head with a shotgun. The victim and her child may yet survive this vicious attack, but one searches in vain for any imaginable circumstance which might justify someone doing such a heinous thing.

Maybe the mother who thinks it would be so awful for teachers to instruct their students that some things are absolutely wrong could help us come up with some real-world circumstance in which imbeciles who "just want to kill somebody" are morally justified in gunning down complete strangers.

Anyway, we don't think that the mother need be too concerned that teachers will one day lecture their students that such deeds are absolutely wrong. In order to posit an absolute one has to ground it in something objective, and the only sufficient ground for moral absolutes, as Viewpoint has argued on several prior occasions, is God, and we all know what would happen if teachers started invoking God as the foundation for moral judgments. The day that's permitted we know the country has gone completely to hell.

Open Theism

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has a profile of pastor and theologian Greg Boyd who has made a bit of a name for himself with his advocacy of a theory called "Open Theism". Essentially, this is the view that there are some things about the future that God simply does not know. As a perusal of the comment section following Carter's post will reveal, this is quite a controversial hypothesis among Evangelical Christians.

It is also an interesting hypothesis because it makes sense out of several puzzling issues. It provides a helpful understanding, for example, of petitionary prayer, the concept of which suggests that God can be persuaded to act otherwise than He would have. But, if He knows ahead of time what He will do, in what sense is He subject to persuasion? It also makes sense out of the numerous passages in the Bible which seem to suggest that God changes course, or changes His mind.

Most importantly, in our opinion, the Open Theism hypothesis offers an answer to the question why, if God knew how much evil and suffering there would be in this world, He chose to go ahead and create it anyway. God, after all, could have created any possible world, and a perfectly good God, we might assume, would have created the best world He possibly could have. A world in which people were free to choose and always chose to do right is surely a possible world. So the puzzle is why did God not create that world instead of one in which people so often use their freedom to do evil?

The Open Theism view says that when God made creatures with free will He purposefully divested Himself of a portion of Divine control over the cosmos. He granted to human beings the capacity to create the moral world in which they would live. He also accepted a measure of uncertainty in that since his creatures were free He would not always know what choice they would make. This does not preclude His acting in the world through an exercise of Divine sovereignty by overriding the freedom of some in order to bring about events that He wills to happen, but what it does mean, perhaps, is that prior to His creation of the world, He just didn't know for sure how man would handle his freedom.

Thus He created the best world He possibly could, given the type of world He wished to fashion, and inserted free beings into that world. Ever since then God has pretty much given us the right and the privilege to make as big a mess of it as we wanted.

The fact that Open Theism has a certain explanatory power does not, of course, mean that the theory is correct. There are other answers which have been given to these questions which preserve God's knowledge of the future and which may be closer to the truth.

One objection to Open Theism, however, that doesn't seem to hold much water is that if God does not know the future, then He cannot be omniscient. This objection fails both on Biblical grounds and philosophical grounds: Biblically, because the Bible doesn't insist that God knows every future contingency and indeed seems to imply prima facie just the opposite, and philosophically because omniscience simply means that God knows everything that it is possible to know. It may be logically impossible to know what free beings are going to choose to do in a future that hasn't happened yet. Just as God's omnipotence doesn't mean that He can create square circles, His omniscience may not entail that He can know what has not yet occurred in the mind of free agents.

Nevertheless, there is a certain comfort in the belief that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future. It assures us that He is in control and cannot be surprised by events. Whether the apologetic advantages of Open Theism are enough to offset its unsettling aspects and whether it can ultimately be reconciled with Scripture, we cannot say. We can only invite the interested reader to visit Boyd's web site and follow the links there to various elements of his argument.

The NBA's Darkest Hour

It's hard not to sympathize with the Pacers' players on this one. Anyone who does what these fans did deserves to be slugged. The shame of it is they'll probably sue the NBA and garner a boodle. Anything these jerks win through litigation ought to be assessed in fines for behavior beneath contempt.

The video can be seen here.

We also fault the league for allowing beer to be sold at these events. The combination of moronic fans and alcohol is highly combustible and the result of that combustion has never in history exalted the human species.

The NBA, like MLB and the NFL, only allows the sale of beer because it's a cash cow, so it's as hard to work up sympathy for their tarnished image as it is for the cretins who threw the beer.

An Arab John the Baptist

MEMRI, The Middle East Media Research Institute, posts this remarkable essay by the progressive Egyptian intellectual Dr. Amr Isma'il whose articles are regularly published on the secular Arab website www.rezgar.com. Dr. Amr Isma'il wrote an article condemning the Arabs' lack of self-criticism and the Islamists' abuse of the term "democracy." The following are just a few excerpts from the article, which appeared on the Arabic website www.elaph.com:

"Why can't we see things as the rest of the world sees them? Why do we always feel that someone is conspiring against us, and that he is the cause of our problems and our cultural and economic backwardness?"

"Why do we talk among ourselves by means of bullets, bombs, and car bombs, and when we disagree we hasten to accuse [our interlocutor] of unbelief?"

"Why are we the only nations in the world that still use religion, Islam, and the name of Allah in everything - in politics, economics, science, art, and literature. We kill in the name of Allah, blow up cars in the name of Allah, and slit throats in the name of Allah and Islam, and then we protest when others depict the Muslims as terrorists. We indiscriminately kill doctors who went to provide medical care to Afghans, and then we protest when the world describes these acts as acts of terror. We blow up embassies and trains [and consequently] children, women, and citizens with no connection to our cause are killed, and then we protest when the world describes these extremists, who view themselves as Muslims, as terrorists."

"We do not ask ourselves why no other religious group perpetrates these acts of atrocity, and when a terrorist country like Israel does so, it does not say it is killing in the name of the Lord or in the name of Allah, but claims it is doing so out of self-defense. Why Allah is [held responsible] for our bad deeds and for our desire for revenge...."

"Why can our brain not understand that democracy has proven itself to be the best regime and that it has brought progress and prosperity to those countries that have adopted it? Why can our brain not understand that democracy is not just the election ballots, but is an entire framework, the most important [aspect] of which is freedom of choice, in religion, in belief, in attire, and in the freedom to express political and cultural opinions, even if they differ from what is accepted, as long as they do not incite to violence. Why don't we understand that democracy is complete equality between people, regardless of sex, color, or religion."

"We have reached a crossroads. If we want Islam as a political solution, not as a religion ... we must be strong and admit honestly that Islam - according to the belief of groups of political Islam that follow bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri's organization - stands in utter contradiction to democracy in its true meaning....Let all the political Islamic groups, and first and foremost the 'Muslim Brotherhood,' cease their policy of concealing [their real opinions] and show their true faces [and reveal] that they are trying [to bring] an Islamic rule that at best will be no different from Iran, and at worst, [no different] from the Taliban."

The obvious question raised by such refreshing reasonableness from an Arab is how many of his fellow Arabs agree with him? Is Dr. Amr Isma'il the voice of the Muslim majority or is his a voice crying in the wilderness?

Mixing it Up in Chile

This may be the first time that a president has rescued a secret service agent. We can't help think of the contrast between Bush coming to the aid of his agent and John Kerry calling his a "son of a bitch" because he collided with him while snow boarding, or whatever it was.

Karl Popper and Intelligent Design

Viewpoint subscribes to a daily quotation service from Philosophers' Magazine Online and one recent quote we received is from Karl Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery. Popper says:

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality."

What he means by falsifiable is that any claim that aspires to the status of a scientific statement must be capable of being empirically tested. There must be some imaginable result of such testing which, if it occurred, would disprove what has been asserted. The claim might be true and such a result might never be obtained, but at least we should be able to imagine a finding which would disprove our assertion.

For example, there seem to be no conceivable facts discoverable by empiraical investigation which would falsify the claim that God exists. Therefore the claim that He does is not a scientific, but rather a metaphysical, claim.

The problem with Popper's falsifiability criterion is that it removes from the realm of science, and places squarely in the category of metaphysics, a number of assertions which scientists would like to have us believe are indeed scientific claims. An example is the claim that life began as a result of purely natural processes in the inaccessible past, or that genetic mutation and natural selection are adequate mechanisms for accounting for the great diversity of living things we find on our planet, or that consciousness arises from inert matter. None of these claims is really empirically testable. No conceivable discovery of science could show them to be false. Yet they are taught as science in our public school classrooms every day.

Meanwhile, secularists fight tooth and nail to keep Intelligent Design theory out of the classroom on the grounds that it's a metaphysical theory and as such has no place in the science curriculum. Science, we are told, limits itself only to material or natural explanations. Intelligent Design invokes a non-material source of design, an intelligence, and is therefore a philosophical, not a scientific explanation.

This is very odd since the decision to accept only naturalistic explanations is itself the result of a philosophical predilection for materialism. Scientists simply assume that materialism, a philosophical theory, is the only reliable presupposition for scientific investigation. In other words, scientists don't really banish metaphysics from the practice of science or from the classroom, they only banish metaphysics which they don't like. Sounds very scientific, don't you think?

Natan Sharansky on Bush, Reagan

There's an interesting piece by Joel Rosenberg on Natan Sharansky, the famous Russian dissident who had been imprisoned in the Soviet gulag and is now a member of the Israeli parliament, in National Review Online.

Sharansky has written a book called The Case For Democracy which is being read by President Bush and his top advisors (Yes, contrary to what his critics report, the president apparently does read books). The Mr. Bush invited Sharansky to the White House for a visit and Rosenberg reveals this about the meeting:

At precisely 2 P.M., Sharansky and Dermer were ushered into the Oval Office for a private meeting with the president. They were scheduled for 45 minutes. They stayed for more than an hour. What the president told Sharansky was off the record. What Sharansky told the president was not.

"I told the president, 'There is a great difference between politicians and dissidents. Politicians are focused on polls and the press. They are constantly making compromises. But dissidents focus on ideas. They have a message burning inside of them. They would stand up for their convictions no matter what the consequences.'

"I told the president, 'In spite of all the polls warning you that talking about spreading democracy in the Middle East might be a losing issue - despite all the critics and the resistance you faced - you kept talking about the importance of free societies and free elections. You kept explaining that democracy is for everybody. You kept saying that only democracy will truly pave the way to peace and security. You, Mr. President, are a dissident among the leaders of the free world.'"

Rosenberg comments: "From one of the most famous dissidents of era of the Evil Empire, such is not faint praise."

Power Line has some more good reading on Sharansky. They cite an interview by Tom Rose of The Weekly Standard who asked Sharansky: "Were there any particular Reagan moments that you can recall being sources of strength or encouragement to you and your colleagues?" Sharansky answered:

"I have to laugh. People who take freedom for granted, Ronald Reagan for granted, always ask such questions. Of course! It was the great brilliant moment when we learned that Ronald Reagan had proclaimed the Soviet Union an Evil Empire before the entire world. There was a long list of all the Western leaders who had lined up to condemn the evil Reagan for daring to call the great Soviet Union an evil empire right next to the front-page story about this dangerous, terrible man who wanted to take the world back to the dark days of the Cold War. This was the moment. It was the brightest, most glorious day. Finally a spade had been called a spade. Finally, Orwell's Newspeak was dead. President Reagan had from that moment made it impossible for anyone in the West to continue closing their eyes to the real nature of the Soviet Union."

"It was one of the most important, freedom-affirming declarations, and we all instantly knew it. For us, that was the moment that really marked the end for them, and the beginning for us. The lie had been exposed and could never, ever be untold now. This was the end of Lenin's "Great October Bolshevik Revolution" and the beginning of a new revolution, a freedom revolution--Reagan's Revolution."

When Sharansky was released from the Gulag in a prisoner exchange engineered by the Reagan administration in 1986, Sharansky himself had the opportunity to tell Reagan the story:

"The first time I met President Reagan I told him this story. I felt free to tell him everything. I told him of the brilliant day when we learned about his Evil Empire speech from an article in Pravda or Izvestia that found its way into the prison. When I said that our whole block burst out into a kind of loud celebration and that the world was about to change, well, then the president, this great tall man, just lit up like a schoolboy. His face lit up and beamed. He jumped out of his seat like a shot and started waving his arms wildly and calling for everyone to come in to hear "this man's" story. It was really only then that I started to appreciate that it wasn't just in the Soviet Union that President Reagan must have suffered terrible abuse for this great speech, but that he must have been hurt at home too. It seemed as though our moment of joy was the moment of his own vindication. That the great punishment he had endured for this speech was worth it."

One reads stories like these and can't help but be amazed at the largeness of the men they praise. Sharansky also, without saying a word about them, manages to make Reagan's and Bush's critics look mean and paltry by comparison, like ankle-biters nipping at the heels of giants.

Speaking of which, Time magazine will be coming out with its annual man of the year award in a month or so, and there is no one who deserves it more than George Bush. Nor, sadly, is there any world figure less likely to get it.

<i>Carpe Diem</i>

Despite the impression one might glean from the distressingly large number of reports like this one that seem to fill our newspapers, most teachers really are sensible, responsible and intelligent people:

LONDON (AFP) - A British schoolteacher, attempting to motivate her pupils into making the most of each day, told them a meteorite was about to smash into the Earth and that they should all return home to say goodbye to their families, a report said.

The teacher at the high school in Manchester, northwest England, only realized her lecture was misjudged when many of the assembled teenagers started crying, the Sun newspaper said in its Friday edition.

According to the report, the unnamed female teacher made the announcement to around 250 pupils at St Matthew's Roman Catholic High School during their regular morning assembly. Saying she had bad news, the teacher announced that a meteor would strike the Earth in 10 days' time, and that they should return home and say their "final farewells" to their parents. After the crowd of 13- and 14-year-olds looked on in horror, and many burst into tears, the teacher swiftly explained that she was only trying to encourage them to "seize the day".

"Some of the children were 100 percent convinced they were going to die," the father of one child told the paper. "God only knows what this teacher thought she was doing."

Indeed. Perhaps this teacher will soon be starting a British chapter of the Dead Poets' Society in her school - that is, if she doesn't have her teaching credential pulled for gross numskullery. Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for the tip.

Tough Decision Time For Syria

Everybody who matters probably already knew this but now the rest of us have public confirmation - Syria is harboring the terrorists who are directing the insurgency in Iraq. The World Tribune.Com reports this:

BAGHDAD - Insurgents captured in Fallujah have told Iraqi military interrogators that most of those fighting in Fallujah were former security officers for the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The insurgents said Saddam organized special operations units, starting in 2001, to counter any foreign invasion in Iraq. Most of those units, the insurgents said, are still active in the Sunni Triangle.

Officials said the Sunni insurgency was being directed from Syria. They said Saddam loyalists were receiving funding and orders from senior aides of the former Saddam regime based in Damascus, including ex-Vice President Izzet Ibrahim Al Douri.

President Bush announced in his speech in the wake of 9/11 that nations which harbor terrorists will be dealt with as enemies. Will we demand that the Syrians turn these people over? Will we go in and get them? Quite possibly we will wind up doing both. We expect that the heat will be turned up on President Bashar al-Asad very soon and very high.

Building Momentum

Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail keeps us updated on goings-on in Fallujah and other exotic resorts throughout the Sunni Triangle. His latest post concludes with this assessment:

The intelligence finds unearthed in Fallujah cannot be overestimated. In their haste to leave the city before the assault, hand written records, computers, and video were left behind and will assist with the identification of members of the insurgency as well as their contributers and sources of weapons and material. Ongoing operations and arrests throughout the country suggest the intelligence gathered in Fallujah is paying dividends. And the willingness to raid Sunni mosques outside of combat zones indicates the Iraqi government is confident in asserting its power. Operations such as these would have been unthought of as recently as last summer.

Expect the tempo of operations in western Iraq to increase. American troop levels will be boosted during the scheduled upcoming rotation of forces, and the return of some units have been delayed to exploit the increase in forces. American generals believe they have the insurgents on the run, and will want to exploit the intelligence gathered in Fallujah and the temporary influx of troops.

Roggio expects Mosul will be the next of the Aegean stables our forces will be tasked to clean out. There can be no doubt left in the mind of anyone not chin deep in the fever swamps of the Left that this is a humanitarian mission of unprecedented proportions. One need only to read what these pious Islamo-fascists did in the name of Allah to the woman whose body was found limbless and disemboweled on the streets of Fallujah, or to watch the video Buried in the Sand which visually documents the atrocities, the pure evil, perpetrated by the Baathists upon the Iraqi people, to realize that what our troops are doing in Iraq is a mission of mercy to those poor people.

The astonishing thing about this is not that America is attempting something good and wonderful for the oppressed people of the world, for this is not the first time for that. The astonishing thing is that the self-designated "champions" of the oppressed in the U.S. and Europe are so bitterly opposed to freeing these people from the cruel, bloodthirsty tyranny under which they groan and weep.

George Bush lifts the boot of the Taliban and the Baathists off the faces of fifty million people, and intellectually impaired non-entities like Linda Ronstadt call Bush another Hitler. This demonstrates either an inexcusable ignorance of, or an appalling indifference to, the plight of the Iraqi people and what we are trying to accomplish on their behalf. The Left is so blinded by hate, rage, and impotence that it can think no more clearly than it can see.

The Coming Confrontation With Iran

Chester has some good analysis of the coming conflict with Iran. This link takes you to part I, and this one takes you to part II.

From part I:

Before assumptions about the use of US force can be definitively stated, the critical question becomes the time horizon. What to make of this? How to define in time, the event that creates the deadline? Iran will eventually reach a point wherein it has completed the infrastructure and research necessary to manufacture a nuclear weapon. This is the point it must not be allowed to reach.

The Atlantic article gives the Iranians 3 years, with many backside-covering qualifications. A recent US News report states three to seven years. Other reports, including one referenced in the Belmont Club by Wretchard, state as little as 4-6 months before Iran has the break-out stage and can "construct nuclear bombs whenever it wishes."

As we all know from the re-election campaign, President Bush was criticized as "rushing to war" in Iraq. Agreeing with the characterization of this decision (that it was poor form to move so quickly) or not is irrelevant. Instead, assume that Bush prefers to err on the side of action, and move quickly. In this case, let us assume the time horizon for his decision is 12-18 months. In the next year and a half, the US, whether alone or with allies, must address the Iranian nuclear program once and for all, or grudgingly admit Iran into the fraternity of nuclear powers, and like it or not, live with its regime for an indefinite period of time.

[The objection that] the US military is too overstretched for an invasion of Iran at this point in time [is] more or less correct. An invasion of some size could be mounted, but the longer the invasion force stayed in Iran, the more force structure begins to catch up to it. A large-scale recall of reservists could increase the time US forces could operate in Iran, but such a move would make the United States vulnerable in other spheres of influence (Taiwan, South Korea).

As the time horizon moves further and further into the future though, this statement becomes less and less true. As Iraqi forces take more and more responsibility for Iraq's security, the forces available for an invasion of Iran increase dramatically.

President Bush has been roundly ridiculed for acknowledging that he seeks God's wisdom when confronted with decisions of great moment. Rather than criticizing him for this we should be thankful that he does, and we should be praying with him and for him that God shows him the proper course of action in the very difficult months ahead.

A Growing Majority

There's talk at National Review Online's Kerry Spot that the Republicans may soon increase their majority in the Senate to 56/44. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a Democrat, is rumored to be contemplating either a defection or taking a position in Bush's cabinet. If he does the latter, Nebraska's Republican governor will doubtless appoint a Republican to replace him.

Demagogues and Democracy

Bill passes along a link to an article by Hans-Herman Hoppe the author of Democracy: The God That Failed. Hoppe makes the oft-noted point that in a democracy people soon learn that they can, through judicious use of their ballot, seize wealth which belongs to others and distribute it among themselves. He also writes that:

"...the selection of government rulers by means of popular elections makes it nearly impossible that a good or harmless person could ever rise to the top. Prime ministers and presidents are selected for their proven efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues. Thus, democracy virtually assures that only bad and dangerous men will ever rise to the top of government. Indeed, as a result of free political competition and selection, those who rise will become increasingly bad and dangerous individuals...."

Viewpoint shares the concern that demagogues find much fertile soil to till among the lower classes in democracies, but even so, Hoppe's statement here seems a bit hyperbolic. Contrary to what he avers, representative democracy in a structural context of checks and balances is the best system of those devised by man for avoiding the ascension of ruthless tyrants to positions of power. At least a search of the historical record doesn't offer much evidence that there's a better way.

Rather than quibble with Hoppe's claim, however, we wish to call our readers' attention to a great passage he quotes from H.L. Mencken. It's worth reproducing in full here:

"Politicians seldom, if ever, get [into public office] by merit alone, at least in democratic states. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens, but only by a kind of miracle. They are chosen normally for quite different reasons, the chief of which is simply their power to impress and enchant the intellectually underprivileged....Will any of them venture to tell the plain truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the situation of the country, foreign or domestic? Will any of them refrain from promises that he knows he can't fulfill - that no human being could fulfill? Will any of them utter a word, however obvious, that will alarm or alienate any of the huge pack of morons who cluster at the public trough, wallowing in the pap that grows thinner and thinner, hoping against hope? Answer: maybe for a few weeks at the start.... But not after the issue is fairly joined, and the struggle is on in earnest.... They will all promise every man, woman and child in the country whatever he, she or it wants. They'll all be roving the land looking for chances to make the rich poor, to remedy the irremediable, to succor the unsuccorable, to unscramble the unscrambleable, to dephlogisticate the undephlogisticable. They will all be curing warts by saying words over them, and paying off the national debt with money no one will have to earn. When one of them demonstrates that twice two is five, another will prove that it is six, six and a half, ten, twenty, n. In brief, they will divest themselves from their character as sensible, candid and truthful men, and simply become candidates for office, bent only on collaring votes. They will all know by then, even supposing that some of them don't know it now, that votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense, and they will apply themselves to the job with a hearty yo-heave-ho. Most of them, before the uproar is over, will actually convince themselves. The winner will be whoever promises the most with the least probability of delivering anything."

We wish we would have come across this gem during the recent political campaign. It's a remarkably vivid description of one of the candidates in particular.

Fooling Some of the People

Hugh Hewitt points us to an article in The New York Times wherein the paper of record discusses the Democrats' religion problem. Unfortunately, it seems as if most of the people the Times interviews for the piece believe that the only changes the party needs to make are purely cosmetic. A number of the commentators seem to think that it's the Democrats' image that is the problem. They have to start speaking the language of middle America on matters of religion and clothe their positions on abortion and gay marriage in religious garb, the thinking goes, and the voters will then warm to them.

Elizabeth Cavendish, interim president of Naral Pro-Choice America, is an example. She's quoted as saying that, "The party needs more religious language, but not new positions." Go ahead and dazzle the simpleminded with a few "amens" and "hallelujahs", Ms Cavendish seems to be saying, but there's no need to question any of our convictions.

Many Democrats and liberal Christians, the Times informs us, say privately that they may need to distance themselves more forcefully from the idea of same-sex marriage, standing instead near Mr. Bush in support of civil unions. This, however, sounds more like a tactic than a recognition that one holds a position that needs to be abandoned. It sounds as if the advice being dispensed here is do whatever it takes to get elected and then you can implement your real agenda. Here's how Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine puts it:

"Let's not call it marriage," said Wallis, who addressed a religious outreach lunch at the Democratic convention this year. "The culture is not ready for that. The principle is legal protection for same-sex couples. It would take the issue away and that issue wouldn't win or lose elections anymore."

In other words, if they camouflage what they believe, call it by a different name, they can hoodwink the voters into a false sense of security until they manage to turn a red state blue. Then they can go ahead and push for the very thing that so many of the gullible resent. Wallis isn't recommending genuine change, he's recommending subterfuge.

Many religious leaders, the Times continues, are also pushing the Democrats to be more assertive in fighting poverty and promoting "social justice" but also to soften their stance on abortion. "There is an interest in finding a middle way," he said. "It predates the election year, but there is a little more willingness to listen to it now."

Evidently, Democrats see the need to adopt a more religious facade only because they can't win elections just by being themselves.

Here's a quaint idea: Let's have politicians and parties simply tell us what they believe and what they will try to do if elected, and let the voters decide whether that's what they want to vote for. Let's have no more attempts to fool and deceive the electorate through political posturing and phony image projecting. It's ludicrous, for example, that liberals refuse to identify themselves as such. If they're ashamed of the liberal label then don't be one, and if they're not ashamed of it then don't hide it or run from it.

Many voters may indeed be duped by clever make-overs into thinking that the Democrats share their values on particular issues, but nowhere does the Times article suggest that Democrats should actually be sincere in their expressions of faith, and nowhere does the article suggest that Democrats need to actually do or change much of any consequence, except perhaps around the margins, to persuade religious unsophisticates to vote for them. Evidently, a lot of Democrats still think politics is all a matter of packaging, advertising, and spin. Show the rubes what they want to see and tell them what they want to hear and you'll win their vote. It's as cynical as it is dishonest.

RU-486

Apparently those who voiced concerns about the harmful effects of RU-486 before it was approved for use in the U.S. are being tragically vindicated. This report from Fox News is very disturbing. It begins with an anguished father wondering why the drug that killed his daughter is still on the market:

"How many more deaths is it going to take before the FDA takes action to remove this drug from the market?" said Monty Patterson, 51, of Livermore, Calif. His 18-year-old daughter, Holly, died on Sept. 17, 2003, of septic shock caused by inflammation of the uterus. The teen took RU-486 on Sept. 10 to terminate an unplanned pregnancy, Patterson said.

At least two other American women who took the pill in the United States died, although the FDA says it is unclear if their deaths were directly related to the pill's use.

Those three deaths were among 676 adverse events reported through Nov. 5 by women who used the abortion pill. The reports include women who felt sick and dizzy to more serious illnesses that required hospitalization, according to the FDA.

Viewpoint wonders how many people suffered serious life-threatening effects like these from Vioxx? It is unlikely that RU-486 will go the way of Vioxx, however, because the abortion pill has a certain politically correct pedigree that will insulate it from blame. At least for a while.

Reckless Disregard

We had intended to write a piece on NBC's gross irresponsibility in airing the video of the Marine in Fallujah shooting the terrorist, but Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail says it all and says it better than we could. We highly recommend his essay to our readers.

The only thing we would add to what he has written is the question of motive. What good reason could NBC possibly have had for showing the video? Were they trying to instruct viewers that ugly things happen in war? That would seem a bit superfluous. Were they trying to discredit our troops and possibly the war? If so, their conduct is close to treasonous. Were they trying to win themselves acclaim among their peers in the news business? If so, they were seeking to aggrandize themselves at the expense of making our sons' and daughters' job in Iraq a great deal tougher, and they were exploiting a young Marine's conduct under extreme duress just so they could receive the plaudits of their colleagues. That is reprehensible.

In short, they had no good reason for showing the video and in doing so have acted with incredible recklessness. NBC has given our enemies a propaganda coup that they've been exploiting non-stop ever since the shooting was first aired, and the network has consequently disqualified itself, in our opinion, as a trustworthy repository of the public's confidence.

Update: Whatever you do don't pass up this e-mail from a Marine on the events surrounding the shooting in the mosque.

Liberal Wit

If a Conservative cartoonist had penned something as grotesque as this, as utterly void of wit as this, as despicably racist as this they'd be justifiably crucified by the liberal media. Unfortunately, the MSM is as hypocritical about race as it is about almost everything else, so they'll just yawn and roll over since these cartoons (See here and here ) were authored by kindred Left-wing spirits.

Neither of these "cartoonists" could carry Condaleeza Rice's briefcase, let alone match her accomplishments and character, which makes their cheap shots all the more disgusting. Where's the NAACP when they have a legitimate reason to be outraged?