Thanksgiving Proclamation

THANKSGIVING DAY 1789 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - A PROCLAMATION:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor - and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be - That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks - for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation - for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war -for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed - for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions - to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually - to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed - to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord - To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us - and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789. GO. WASHINGTON.

All Presidential Thanksgiving proclamations can be found here. No doubt those who say that this country was not founded by religious men nor upon Judeo-Christian presuppositions would rather you not read these, but here they are.

We hope that each of us takes time this day to reflect upon all that we have to be grateful for and to reflect, too, upon our relationship to the God from whom all of our blessings flow. Have a great Thanksgiving Day.

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Harsh Interrogation

This ABC News report contains much of relevance to the current torture debate. It needs to be borne in mind in reading what follows that ABC very probably would like to put the worst construction on what they've uncovered, but if their aim is to make the CIA's methods look morally indefensible they don't succeed. Here are excerpts of the article with commentary:

Nov. 18, 2005 - Harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors.

They say they are revealing specific details of the techniques, and their impact on confessions, because the public needs to know the direction their agency has chosen. All gave their accounts on the condition that their names and identities not be revealed. Portions of their accounts are corroborated by public statements of former CIA officers and by reports recently published that cite a classified CIA Inspector General's report.

"They would not let you rest, day or night. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. Don't sleep. Don't lie on the floor," one prisoner said through a translator. The detainees were also forced to listen to rap artist Eminem's "Slim Shady" album. The music was so foreign to them it made them frantic, sources said.

Okay. We can agree that forcing someone to listen to Eminem is unkind, but it scarcely rises to the level of torture. What about the other methods the CIA uses?

The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

Note that these techniques have been used on only a dozen of the top al Qaeda detainees. They are not used indiscriminately, nor are they used by untrained personnel.

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An openhanded slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard openhanded slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

Of these, only the last three can be considered to cause extreme pain or suffering and how much suffering they cause is completely up to the detainee. This is an important point. Unlike abuse carried out as retribution, punishment or for the amusement of the abusers, the detainee has complete control over how much of this treatment he must endure.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

Maybe, but do they believe they're actually being drowned or do they only feel like they're being drowned? If the latter then it's not a mock execution. The prisoner doesn't have to think he's going to be killed in order to be unable to withstand the treatment.

The techniques are controversial among experienced intelligence agency and military interrogators. Many feel that a confession obtained this way is an unreliable tool. Two experienced officers have told ABC that there is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation.

Where's ABC's substantiation that "many" feel this is an unreliable tool? They cite the opinion of two officers who so believe. Very well, but how many others are convinced that the information gained from these dozen or so terrorists was reliable? Moreover, if other techniques are effective in extracting valuable information then why does the CIA go to the trouble and legal risk of employing less effective methods?

According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon and issued in 2004, the techniques "appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the [Geneva] convention," the New York Times reported on Nov. 9, 2005.

This raises an important question. Exactly what constitutes cruelty? Surely it's not just a matter of inflicting severe pain on someone. If it were, then surgeons in Civil War field hospitals would have been cruel. They were not so regarded, of course, because they were trying to accomplish a long term good. For an act to be cruel the actor must be motivated by a desire to hurt or degrade another simply to punish, amuse, exact retribution, or to vent his own frustrations. Any of these motivations would make the administration of pain cruel and thus evil, and any agent of the government who acts upon such motives should face punishment.

The motivation to save lives, however, is in a completely different moral category. If there is adequate reason to believe that the detainee is withholding information that could prevent the loss of life then inflicting severe pain or discomfort in order to elicit that information is not "cruel" as long as it is reasonably assured to work, and as long as there are no more effective or reliable methods available.

The cruelty of an act also depends on the amount of control possessed by the prisoner as we discussed above. A detainee who is powerless to stop the administration of pain is in a much different position than one who has complete control over how much he wishes to endure. If the pain is inflicted in order to obtain lifesaving intelligence from a terrorist who otherwise refuses to yield it, and the treatment stops when the terrorist gives up that intelligence, and the terrorist knows it will stop when he gives up that information, then the treatment is not intrinsically cruel.

It is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough," said former CIA officer Bob Baer.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and a deputy director of the State Department's office of counterterrorism, recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust ... than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets."

I leave it to the professionals to determine the extent to which harsh methods are reliable. My only concern is to make the case that, if they are, they are not immoral, or at least not necessarily so. It would be helpful to know how effective conventional techniques have been in gaining significant information from top al Qaeda people. ABC doesn't tell us, but they do say that Kalid Mohammad was pleading to be able to divulge what he knew after only two and a half minutes. That seems pretty effective.

One argument in favor of their use: time. In the early days of al Qaeda captures, it was hoped that speeding confessions would result in the development of important operational knowledge in a timely fashion.

However, ABC News was told that at least three CIA officers declined to be trained in the techniques before a cadre of 14 were selected to use them on a dozen top al Qaeda suspects in order to obtain critical information. In at least one instance, ABC News was told that the techniques led to questionable information aimed at pleasing the interrogators and that this information had a significant impact on U.S. actions in Iraq.

The use of the conjunction "however" in the above paragraph implies that what follows is somehow contrary to what precedes it, but the content of the "however" paragraph is completely irrelevant to the preceding paragraph. Is ABC just sloppy or is it trying to discredit the argument that there are advantages to the use of "harsh measures" without having to do the heavy lifting involved in actually refuting it?

According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. Sources tell ABC that it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

"This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear," one source said.

However, sources said, al Libbi does not appear to have sought to intentionally misinform investigators, as at least one account has stated. The distinction in this murky world is nonetheless an important one. Al Libbi sought to please his investigators, not lead them down a false path, two sources with firsthand knowledge of the statements said.

This is an example of one of the weakest of the arguments in the torture debate. The fact that questionable information was acquired on one occasion is hardly reason to think the practice is generally unhelpful. Nor is it a reason, eo ipso, to refrain from harsh measures. After all, any interrogation technique is going to yield some unreliable information. What we need to know is the overall quality of the information gleaned from all detainees who were subjected to the treatment. Was it all unreliable? If not, the salient question becomes how reliable does it have to be in a given circumstance to warrant the use of harsh measures.

When properly used, the techniques appear to be closely monitored and are signed off on in writing on a case-by-case, technique-by-technique basis, according to highly placed current and former intelligence officers involved in the program. In this way, they say, enhanced interrogations have been authorized for about a dozen high value al Qaeda targets - Khalid Sheik Mohammed among them. According to the sources, all of these have confessed, none of them has died, and all of them remain incarcerated.

While some media accounts have described the locations where these detainees are located as a string of secret CIA prisons - a gulag, as it were - in fact, sources say, there are a very limited number of these locations in use at any time, and most often they consist of a secure building on an existing or former military base. In addition, they say, the prisoners usually are not scattered but travel together to these locations, so that information can be extracted from one and compared with others. Currently, it is believed that one or more former Soviet bloc air bases and military installations are the Eastern European location of the top suspects. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is among the suspects detained there, sources said.

The sources told ABC that the techniques, while progressively aggressive, are not deemed torture, and the debate among intelligence officers as to whether they are effective should not be underestimated. There are many who feel these techniques, properly supervised, are both valid and necessary, the sources said. While harsh, they say, they are not torture and are reserved only for the most important and most difficult prisoners.

ABC belatedly acknowledges here what they elided above - that although one or two officers think these measures are not effective, "many" others think they are. Although ABC expatiates on cases like al Libbi's where the results are questionable, they don't bother to give us specific examples of cases where the intelligence gained from these techniques has saved lives. Is that because there are no such cases, is it because the information is classified, or is it because they just don't want to tell us about such cases? They should at least tell us which of these possibilities explains their silence.

According to the sources, when an interrogator wishes to use a particular technique on a prisoner, the policy at the CIA is that each step of the interrogation process must be signed off at the highest level - by the deputy director for operations for the CIA. A cable must be sent and a reply received each time a progressively harsher technique is used. The described oversight appears tough but critics say it could be tougher. In reality, sources said, there are few known instances when an approval has not been granted. Still, even the toughest critics of the techniques say they are relatively well monitored and limited in use.

Two sources also told ABC that the techniques - authorized for use by only a handful of trained CIA officers - have been misapplied in at least one instance.

The sources said that in that case a young, untrained junior officer caused the death of one detainee at a mud fort dubbed the "salt pit" that is used as a prison. They say the death occurred when the prisoner was left to stand naked throughout the harsh Afghanistan night after being doused with cold water. He died, they say, of hypothermia.

According to the sources, a second CIA detainee died in Iraq and a third detainee died following harsh interrogation by Department of Defense personnel and contractors in Iraq. CIA sources said that in the DOD case, the interrogation was harsh, but did not involve the CIA.

Every effort should be made to prevent these sorts of incidents, of course, and if they occur through negligence or wantonness they should be met with discipline appropriate to the case just as any careless shooting of civilians by troops should be disciplined. But the fact that there have been a relatively few deaths (compared to the 82,000 people who've been detained since 2003) no more discredits the use of harsh interrogation than does the tragic deaths of a small number of civilians at checkpoints discredit the procedures followed by the military at these locations.

The ABC report is useful in describing exactly what sorts of interrogation practices are permitted by the CIA and what the limits of those are. Whether other agencies work under similar strictures and whether they are as closely monitored we can't say, but it seems that the images that the word torture usual connotes -- electric shocks, fingernail pulling, savage beatings, mutilations, etc. -- are not acceptable treatment for detainees in our custody. For that we can be grateful.

WFB @ 80

Anyone who looks back on his life and seeks to identify the influences which led him to the place he presently finds himself will probably be able to point to a half dozen or so people, in addition to his parents, who exerted a strong push on his life in at least one of its aspects.

There are those who help shape one's character, one's ambitions, one's religious, philosophical, and political views, and so on. In my own life there have been several such men, some I knew personally and others whom I never formally met but whose influence I nevertheless soaked up through their written work like leaves soak up sunshine.

One example of the latter is William F. Buckley. When I was fresh out of college in 1969 I stumbled across Mr. Buckley's Firing Line television show. I was just beginning to develop an interest in political affairs, having somehow managed to scoot through college in the ideologically charged 60's with hardly a political thought in my head to show for it.

I was impressed with all the things about Buckley that impress everyone who watches him - his wit, his breadth of knowledge, his mastery of the language, his ability to articulate conservative ideas with an eloquence and charm that disarmed his opponents - but most of all I was impressed with his demeanor. He was never rude or overbearing. He never got nasty or raised his voice. His colloquies with his guests were always marked with courtesy, good humor, and unfailing graciousness. In those early years of my adulthood he was an exemplar of how political disagreements should be debated and how discourse should be conducted.

Although I possessed none of his gifts, I subliminally decided that I wanted to be like him anyway, to the extent that I could. I read his books and National Review, the magazine he founded in the 1950s, and found myself wishing to learn all the things I should have learned in college but was too busy being a jock to trouble myself with. I regretted, having fallen under his sway, that I had squandered so many years and opportunities that could have been devoted to the cultivation of a fuller intellectual life.

Eventually, my interests evolved in various directions and followed channels not closely related to politics, but those other pursuits were always in some sense a product of the appetite he had stimulated in me for learning. He had given my appreciation for what Hannah Arendt calls the "life of the mind" a spark, a sturdy kick start, and I have always been grateful for the richness that that has added to my life.

I heard Bill Buckley give a lecture a few years back, and I wanted to tell him after his talk how much he has meant to me, but he was surrounded by adoring fans and besides, I thought, he probably hears stories similar to mine all the time anyway. I've regretted not taking the opportunity then, and I thought I'd write him and tell him what I wanted to tell him that night, but I somehow never got to it. I suppose I assumed that WFB has always been around and always will be. There'll be other opportunities.

Now I see that his 80th birthday is the 24th of this month, and I realize that if I don't do it soon it might never happen. That would be an omission I would deeply regret, so as Mr. Buckley approaches this milestone in his life I've resolved to contact him and tell him what he has meant in mine.

Happy birthday, Bill.

Just Go Kill Yourselves

Well, if you are a Republican and you tend to support the current administration you might wish to know that there are certain precincts in the Left-wing blogosphere in which you are quite unpopular. One of these is Democratic Underground where one ranter goes on at great length telling us how much he hates us, what loathesome creatures we are, what morans (his spelling) we all are. He finally concludes by urging us all to kill ourselves.

Perhaps this represents the Left's new strategy for winning in 2008.

Anyway, not everyone on the Left is this sick, of course, but judging by the comments he received on his post, many of them are. They're evidently consumed by a hatred so vile and irrational that it seems demonic. Don't take my word for it. Read it yourself and tell me that this guy and the people he speaks for are not quite simply stark, raving lunatics.

Thanks for the tip to Michelle Malkin.

Go For the Gold

Bill has been predicting that the price of precious metals is going to continue to rise, perhaps precipitously, making it a very attractive investment. It looks like he knows what he's talking about. The spot price of gold has currently reached $493 an ounce. This time last year it was around $425 an ounce. Investors are buying and pushing the price up, and it will be interesting to see if they regard $500 as a benchmark signalling them to sell and score profits.

If not, it may soar several hundred more dollars. Yikes!

Searching For the Mainstream

Stuart Taylor at National Journal has an excellent analysis of charges by the Democrats that Judge Samuel Alito is outside the "mainstream" of American judicial thought. Among his numerous trenchant comments Taylor quotes from Alito's 1985 job application to the Reagan Justice Department:

"I disagree strenuously with the usurpation by the judiciary of decision-making authority that should be exercised by the branches of government responsible to the electorate.... In college, I [strongly disagreed] with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the establishment clause, and reapportionment.... I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

Taylor then says this:

These are certainly the words of a Reagan conservative. But are they outside the mainstream? Somebody should tell The New York Times that Reagan won 49 states in 1984. And that in exit polls, many more Americans identify themselves as conservatives (34 percent in 2004) than as liberals (21 percent).

Generalities aside, let's locate Alito, and [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, on the spectrum of public opinion on three of the hottest issues: abortion, racial preferences, and religion.

If Alito is outside the mainstream on abortion, then so are the very large percentage of constitutional scholars -- including many pro-choice liberals -- who agree that Roe was a judicial usurpation of legislative authority with no basis in the Constitution. Even Ginsburg herself wrote (also in 1985) that Roe was "heavy-handed judicial intervention [that] was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict."

Take the now-defunct Pennsylvania law requiring married women to notify their husbands before having abortions, unless they fear a violent response. And indulge, for the sake of argument, critics' cynical assumption that Alito's vote to uphold this provision was driven by his political views -- contrary to the explanation in Alito's 1991 dissent that he was seeking only to follow binding Supreme Court precedents.

Outside the mainstream? Hardly. While The New York Times calls spousal-notice laws "extreme limits on abortion," some 70 percent of poll respondents favor them.

As for racial preferences, Alito's 1985 assertion that "racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed" places him squarely in the middle of public opinion -- unlike Ginsburg, who has voted to uphold wholesale use of quota-like preferences in college admissions, contracting, and other areas.

Polls show overwhelming public opposition to quotas. And neutrally worded polls that avoid the word "quota" show that more than two-thirds of Americans oppose racial preferences.

Some critics fault Alito's 1996 vote to uphold a white teacher's racial-discrimination lawsuit against the Piscataway, N.J., school board, for laying her off ahead of a black teacher, in the name of "diversity."

Alito's response should be: Go ahead. Make my day. Let's discuss the legality of race-based layoffs. This one was so indefensible that racial-preference champions -- facing almost certain defeat in the Supreme Court -- paid the white teacher a large sum to drop her lawsuit before the justices could rule.

Democrats who think the mainstream is to be found on the leftmost shore of every river will be unmoved by Taylor's piece, but if you're interested in the coming battle over Alito's nomination you'll want to read the rest of his argument. It's well worth it.

When Is a Cut Not a Cut?

Amidst the sky-is-falling rhetoric of the media over the vote last Thursday night to cut social programs from the budget there is this scarcely mentioned fact tucked away in an AP report:

The broader budget bill would slice almost $50 billion from the deficit by the end of the decade by curbing rapidly growing benefit programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies. Republicans said reining in such programs whose costs spiral upward each year automatically is the first step to restoring fiscal discipline. "This unchecked spending is growing faster than our economy, faster than inflation, and far beyond our means to sustain it," said Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa. (Italics mine)

In other words, Congress did not make any cuts in benefits, they merely cut the rate at which the amount the government spends on these programs would increase every year. A report on NPR the other morning quoted one congressman as saying that instead of the budget increasing over the next several years at a rate of 7.5% the "cuts" will slow its increase to a rate of 7.3%.

In almost none of the other reports on this vote that I could find was this brought out. Instead the reader was given the strong impression that money was being taken out of poor peoples' wallets and put into the greedy hands of the rich.

In an e-mail from Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, he makes this completely unsubstantiated and irresponsible allegation:

It is a moral disgrace to take food from the mouths of hungry children to increase the luxuries of those feasting at a table overflowing with plenty. This is not what America is about, not what the season of Thanksgiving is about, not what loving our neighbor is about, and not what family values are about. There is no moral path our legislators can take to defend a reckless, mean-spirited budget reconciliation bill that diminishes our compassion, as Jesus said, "for the least of these." It is morally unconscionable to hide behind arguments for fiscal responsibility and government efficiency. It is dishonest to stake proud claims to deficit reduction when tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit are the next order of business. It is one more example of an absence of morality in our current political leadership.

What's morally unconscionable is to mislead people into thinking that spending on these social programs is actually being reduced. There's no mention in Wallis' message as to what the rationale is for the "cuts", whether current recipients will indeed lose benefits, whether it will be duplicate benefit programs which are to be cut, whether the eligibility for benefits is being tightened -- no context whatsoever. Just pure rhetoric and propaganda.

Evidently Wallis is of the view that we should just throw every penny we have at the problem of poverty because to withhold anything is morally unconscionable. Mr. Wallis needs to be asked exactly how much of our national wealth he thinks we should be transferring to the poor. At what point, exactly, do we say that we have done enough? When we are transferring 100% of our GDP? If not that, why not?

Is it too much to ask that the media and other liberals report these things competently and accurately?

Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey

Gary Glitter, the impressario of Rock and Roll, Part Two, a favorite theme at high school and college football games and other sporting events, is facing a possible sentence of death by firing squad in Vietnam, believe it or not. If you're interested you can get the details here.

Simple-Minded Solutions

How many ways can the Democrats demonstrate that they have no responsible or intelligent alternative to the President's policy in Iraq? This article in the L.A. Times by Ron Brownstein summarizes some of the Democrats' recent proposals. They're stunning in their shallowness:

Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), a possible 2008 presidential contender, ... adopted the most aggressive position among elected officials: Feingold has urged Bush to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of 2006, although he has softened his demand somewhat by describing that as a "target date."

In the House, war opponents have rallied behind a resolution from Reps. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) and Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii). That plan - which has about 60 co-sponsors, almost all of them Democrats - would require Bush to formulate a plan by the end of this year for removing American troops from Iraq and to begin that withdrawal no later than Oct. 1, 2006.

The foolishness of this is hard to overstate. If these plans were adopted the insurgents would know that if they could just cling to life for another year Iraq would fall into their laps. The Iraqi people and even much of their military would have little more to do with the Americans and intelligence on terrorists would dry up. No one would want to be seen as helping the Americans if they knew that in a year the insurgents would be exacting their revenge.

If the Iraqi military is not yet fully ready to control the country by next October when the Americans withdrew their support, literally all hell would break loose. Civil war between Shia and Sunni would almost certainly ensue. Iran would then move into the Shia south, Syria would move into the Sunni triangle, and Turkey might well invade the Kurdish north. The oil and other wealth of Iraq would be up for grabs. Al Qaeda would romp through the country lopping off the heads of anyone who had had dealings with the United States. No one in the region would have cause to fear an American return so small states like Kuwait which sit on vast wealth would be gobbled up by predatory neighbors. Terrorists would train openly without having to fear American arms, and would operate with impunity throughout the region. The whole world would sit by, unable and unwilling to do anything to prevent the region from crumbling into war, famine, and chaos.

John Murtha created a huge fuss in the House with his plan to begin pulling out now and to complete the withdrawal within six months. He envisions an over the horizon quick reaction force of Marines to be reinserted if any trouble flairs up. With all due respect to Rep. Murtha, his idea is just stupid. Why pull the Marines out at all if you think you may have to reinsert them later? Sending them in after having surrendered the Iraqis to the tender mercies of the insurgents would be lunacy.

Even if this country would stand for their reentry into Iraq, which they surely wouldn't, where would they go? They'd have to rebuild their bases and supply lines and, most improbable of all, their relationships with the same Iraqi people they had recently deserted. They'd get no help from resentful, embittered Iraqis and the maelstrom that would ensue in Iraq after an American withdrawal would make anything short of a total re-invasion of the country a suicide mission.

Last month, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the party's 2004 presidential nominee who is considering another run in 2008, offered a competing plan. Kerry proposed a phased withdrawal "linked to specific, responsible benchmarks" of progress with Iraq. As a first step, he said, the U.S. should withdraw 20,000 troops if December's Iraqi election goes well; this approach, he said, could allow the U.S. "to withdraw the bulk of American combat forces by the end of next year."

In other words, Kerry is saying that we should do pretty much what the administration has said we will do. Question for Sen. Kerry: What should we do if the election doesn't go well? Pull out anyway? Stay until the country is politically stable? If the latter, how is that in any way different from what the President is already doing?

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, has proposed the inverse approach. Levin says the U.S. should pressure the contending Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish forces in the Iraqi government to resolve their differences by threatening to accelerate the withdrawal of American troops if they don't.

Now there's a bright idea. Many Shiites and Sunnis would relish getting at each other's throats. What better incentive can we give them to tear into each other than to tell them that if they don't behave we'll just have to get out of their way?

It boggles the mind to think that these ideas come from the minds of United States Senators. Little wonder that the American people fear to turn over the reins of national security to the Democrats.

At one point in his piece Brownstein says this:

Many Democratic political strategists and foreign policy analysts have long believed the party can benefit more from criticizing Bush's handling of the war than from specifying an alternative.

Precisely. It's always easier to criticize others for not doing what you think they should be doing than to offer a coherent plan for doing it yourself. Especially when you have no idea at all of what you're talking about.

Krauthammer's Cluelessness

The normally astute Charles Krauthammer demonstrates that he's not infallible and that on the matter of the philosophy of science he's in fact quite clueless:

Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?

Well, "clear" is what he's not being. For the umpteenth time we reiterate. ID is:

1. not incompatible with evolution even if some of its advocates remain skeptical of many aspects of evolution.

2. not a contest between evolution and God. No ID advocate, qua scientist/philosopher, claims that God is the designer. The most ID can claim is that God could be the designer.

3. not a "god of the gaps" theory. It's not a theory that reacts to things we don't know by positing a god. It's a theory that bases its conclusions upon what we do know. Most relevantly, what we do know is that information, everywhere we see it being generated, is the product of intelligence, and there's no sufficient reason to think that things would have been otherwise in the generation of the information contained in biological machines, cells, and processes.

4. not asserting that God was behind the lemur. ID asserts that the mechanisms which produced lemurs and everything else in the biosphere include among them intelligence. The claim that intelligence is at least in part responsible for life is no less scientific than the claim that natural selection and genetic mutation and other blind, purposeless mechanisms are the exclusive cause of the evolution of life.

Krauthammer adds:

How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein?

In an amusing example of sawing off the branch upon which one is sitting, Krauthammer argues that the earth shows forth elegance, simplicity, brilliance, economy, creativity, and implies that these are the marks of divine intelligence. But if so, intelligence, whether divine or otherwise, is empirically detectable, since Krauthammwer has detected it, and he nicely refutes his own position stated above.

He goes on to ridicule those who criticize the Darwinian claim that evolution is an "unguided process." Finding fault with this definition, he writes,:

[I]s as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis? He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science.

In fact, physics and chemistry never use these terms for precisely this reason. To assert that the processes of physics and chemistry are unguided and purposeless would be to remove them from the province of science and deposit them in the arena of metaphysics, which is exactly where all such claims belong, including those of the Neo-Darwinists. You cannot test the claim that any physical force is purposeless, and so the claim is not made in science, except in biology, and it is as out of place there as, say, a political journalist, even a good one, holding forth amongst controversies in the philosophy of science.

Troubling Trend Line

South Africa seems to be drifting the way of many another black African nation toward an accomodation with tyranny and corruption. The people of Africa must feel cursed. Why, they must wonder, can't they ever seem to get relatively competent, honest, and humane leadership that has some staying power?

Brian Maloney writes about South African president Thabo Mbeki's coziness with Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe at Michelle Malkin's blog:

Apparently, it isn't bad enough that Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe first destroyed his country's economy by forcibly removing white farmers from their land. Then, after successfully chasing away every hard currency generation means Zimbabwe had ever known, Mugabe turned against the poor. Demolishing the modest shanties and businesses of hundreds of thousands of black city dwellers, he left innocent people with nothing and nowhere to go.

For what rational reason did all of this happen? Nobody knows. American liberals have remained virtually silent on these daily atrocities, partly because they still see Mugabe as a "freedom fighter" who battled white minority rule three decades ago. And the American media largely looks the other way, as well.

In Britain, however, the crisis regularly makes headlines. It BEGS to become top news here in America. How can we possibly continue to ignore it? Another reason it's blown off: Zimbabwe's not important for the left because there's no known way to blame the mess on Bush and the GOP.

Tonight, the story gets worse: rather than provide a strong voice for freedom and democracy in the region, increasingly suspect South African President Thabo Mbeki has pledged to HELP Mugabe torture dissidents and maintain one of the world's worst human rights records. No joke, Mbeki has actually signed a new agreement to cooperate on intelligence and security matters, the BBC reports. It's truly a deal with the devil:

"The two neighbours undertook to share security information and to co-operate in enforcing immigration laws. After the signing, South Africa's intelligence minister scolded a journalist who raised questions about Zimbabwe's record on human rights.

"Details of the deal were not released but Zimbabwe's secret police is accused of torturing opposition activists. South Africa is a key player in attempts to negotiate an end to Zimbabwe's political crisis. President Thabo Mbeki has been criticised at home and abroad for not putting more pressure on President Robert Mugabe's government to end abuses.

'This week's historic meeting further consolidates a long-standing socio-political and economic relationship between our two countries,' South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said at the signing of the agreement in Cape Town on Thursday. After the signing, a journalist asked Mr Kasrils how South Africa, with a 'good human rights track record', could sign agreements with Zimbabwe, which had a 'poor human rights record'.

Mr Kasrils apologised to his Zimbabwean counterpart, Didymus Mutasa, for the question. 'We have very strong ties with our neighbour and we are indebted to our neighbour for achieving freedom and liberty,' Mr Kasrils said. Mr Mutasa suggested praying for the journalist. 'Lord forgive him for he does not know what he is saying,' Mr Mutasa said.

Numerous activists from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have said they have been detained and assaulted by Zimbabwe's secret police - the Central Intelligence Organisation."

Next up for South Africa: deals with North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran?

At this point, I defy anyone to tell me how Mbeki's policies are ANY better than what existed under Apartheid? In both cases, Africans are needlessly suffering and dying, all to protect corrupt rulers. Is it time to recall diplomats from South Africa? Or reimpose sanctions? More? Possibly.

First, we need to get the Bush Administration and Republicans to take a hard line against both countries. Yes, the American media will pound away at any tough proposals, but so what? South Africa has today shown itself to be an enemy of humanity and freedom and it's time to stop mincing words here in America. I hope Bush is alarmed tonight. Under Apartheid, South Africa was a pariah state and remains that way under Mbeki's sleazy rule.

Well, that last paragraph may be a little premature, but the trend lines for South Africa surely aren't comforting. Nor is it comforting to reflect that the MSM is snoozing through this story. You can bet that had South Africa still been under white rule and there were signs of oppression brewing reveille would've sounded in the journalists' barracks a long time ago.

Is Zarqawi Dead?

There are rumors afloat that Abu al-Zarqawi was killed in a raid on a house in Mosul although White House sources are calling the reports unlikely. We can hope, though.

Political Quiz

Perhaps you are unclear as to what distinguishes the two political parties which dominate our current political scene. If so, you might try this little quiz:

Ask yourself which party is least likely to:

1. believe that poverty is largely a function of attitudes about sex, marriage, and education.

2. believe that taking wealth from those who have it and giving it to those who don't is a counterproductive way to alleviate poverty.

3. tolerate mentions of God or expressions of Judeo-Christian religious belief in public spaces.

4. aggressively prosecute the war on terror.

5. maintain low tax rates.

6. impede the development of oil reserves and refineries.

7. protect innocent human life either at its inception or toward its conclusion.

8. make it easier to convict and punish criminals.

9. strengthen the military.

10. favor free trade.

11. protect free speech.

12. protect the right to bear arms.

If you answered "the Democratic Party" for each of these questions then you scored 100%. If you found yourself in agreement with the Democrats on more than two or three of questions then you're probably a political liberal. If you agreed with roughly half of them then you're probably a moderate, and if you disagreed with all but one or two then you're probably a conservative.

An Open Letter to the President

A friend at the University of Michigan has sent an open letter to President Bush. I thought it was worth being seen by others as well so I'm posting it here:

AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE W. BUSH

Here in November, 2005, you are down in the polls, just one year after being elected by the greatest number of votes in U.S. history. Your enemies, Al Qaeda, Fidel Castro, Kim Jung Il, Mohammad Khatami, terrorist everywhere, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Jimmy Carter, Harry Reid, Michael Moore, the entire Hollywood left, the mainstream press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and the Democratic Party are gleeful beyond words.

I would like to remind you about another President, Abraham Lincoln, and what happened to him. Here is what the press was saying about him in the 1860's:

"Mr. Lincoln evidently knows nothing of ... the higher elements of human nature ... His soul seems made of leather, and incapable of any grand or noble emotion. Compared with the mass of men, he is a line of flat prose in a beautiful and spirited lyric. He lowers, he never elevates you ...When he hits upon a policy, substantially good in itself, he contrives to belittle it, besmear it in some way to render it mean, contemptible and useless. Even wisdom from him seems but folly." The New York Post

Today, Lincoln is considered, by virtually every survey, to be the greatest of all U.S. Presidents. One of his speeches, The Gettysburg Address, is considered among the greatest speeches ever given, but here is what the press said about it at the time:

"We did not conceive it possible that even Mr. Lincoln would produce a paper so slipshod, so loose-joined, so puerile, not alone in literary construction, but in its ideas, its sentiments, its grasp. He has outdone himself. He has literally come out of the little end of his own horn. By the side of it, mediocrity is superb." The Chicago Times about The Gettysburg Address

President Bush, please take heart, ignore your critics and continue to do the right thing. As Harry S Truman said, "It will gratify some and astonish the rest."

Richard H. Francis Jr.

Well put, Richard.

Iraq's WMD

Former UNSCOM weapons inspector Bill Tierney speaks out in this interview at Front Page.com about Iraq's WMD. His conclusion: Iraq had them and Bush was right to go to war. If you're skeptical read his reasons. If you do you will almost certainly understand why George Bush came to the conclusion he did about Iraq's possession of WMD.

You will also understand why his opponents' claims that he deceived the nation about the presence of WMD in Iraq is both unfair and foolish.

Diversity vs Unity

Back in July of this year I posted an article on the topic of diversity.

While the concept of diversity is a corner stone of political correctness, I showed my concern in that post for how it will devastate our country.

To elaborate further, and hopefully drive the point home, I have included the following quotes from President Theodore Roosevelt who even in his day saw the danger of such wrong thinking...

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.
- Theodore Roosevelt

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
- Theodore Roosevelt

I can't help but wonder if the concept of "hyphenation" applies to the last names that women choose these days when they get married.

403 to 3

Let's hear no more talk from House Democrats about pulling out of Iraq as soon as possible. They've voted overwhelmingly, 187 to 3, to shun that option. Maybe after the embarrassment this has brought them they'll be a little more circumspect, and fair, in their criticisms of the war.

Or not.

The Democrats, having considerable experience themselves with such ploys, claimed that the Republican resolution to withdraw immediately from Iraq was a mere political stunt. They sniffed that they would not be gulled into taking it seriously and would therefore vote massively against it. But this is all quite disingenuous, actually.

Why not take the resolution seriously and send the country and the world a message that support for the Bush Iraq policy is minimal in the House? Why not take a stand on principle and demand that our troops come home if that's what the Democrats believe? Why not show the nation how much strength the Democrats have in the House on this issue?

It seems more likely that they don't have any real strength on the issue and rather than make public that uncomfortable fact they chose to conceal it by pretending to protest the Republicans' dirty trick by voting en masse to defeat the resolution. So far from being a protest vote of some bizarre kind, the Democrats' capitulation was actually a very important admission. They seem to be acknowledging that serious opposition to Bush's Iraq policy exists only in the fever swamps of the Left, the media, and Hollywood. Beyond those ideological ghettos, out where the voters are, people may be skeptical, but they're not ready to cut our troops' psychological lifeline.

Time to Put Up or Shut Up

Rep. John Murtha is a good man. I don't believe he's playing politics with his call for the end to the American effort in Iraq. I think he sincerely believes that his call to terminate our presence in Iraq at the earliest practicable date is the right thing to do. Even so, he's wrong and he's being used by those of his fellow Democrats whose chief goal is to hurt President Bush.

The Republicans, however, have called their bluff. If the Democrats truly believe that the war is a failure, if they believe we should get out now, the Republicans are giving them the chance to say so on the record by introducing a sense of the House resolution that calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. If Democrats think that pulling out now is the wrong thing to do then they have the chance to express that opinion, too, by voting against the resolution. The vote is coming up tonight.

It's time for President Bush's critics to tell the American people exactly where they stand on Iraq. It's easy to snipe and criticize when there's no price to pay. It's easy to say that Bush has failed in Iraq and that we have no business being there when one's words aren't recorded for all the world to see, but now they will be. And the Democrats are going ballistic. Taking a stand on the record is the last thing they want to do.

"A disgrace," declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The rankest of politics and the absence of any sense of shame," added Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat.

"It's a pathetic, partisan, political ploy," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D- N.Y. Added Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif.: "It's just heinous."

"This is a personal attack on one of the best members, one of the most respected members of this House and it is outrageous," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

Their reaction to the resolution highlights their hypocrisy. If they had sincere convictions about the war they would just vote one way or the other, either to withdraw immediately or not, but their convictions are not sincere. Their stance on the war is for many of them pure political opportunism and the Republican call to put up or shut up is an embarrassing spotlight on their abysmal behavior.

They know that an immediate withdrawal is a morally indefensible position and to endorse it would be politically fatal in a general election. They also know that that's exactly what the Michael Moore/George Soros/MoveOn.org crowd that funds their campaigns and gets out the vote are demanding. They find they have demagogued their way between Scylla and Charibdys and the Republicans are simply giving them the opportunity to declare whether they are going to act like adults or throw in with the jejunne Hollywood elites.

Imagine. The Democrats are outraged that they have to declare themselves either for an immediate withdrawal or against it. Why?

It's really pretty pathetic.

Alito on Abortion

Judge Sam Alito's now famous job application can be found here. Scroll down to page two for the autobiographical information which has created a stir on both Left and Right. Alito states clearly that he believes the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion.

It will be interesting to see how Democratic senators challenge him on this statemment in the confirmation hearings. Will they argue that he is wrong and that there is indeed such a protection? This would be a reckless tactic because they'll then be required to cite chapter and verse which would prove most embarrassing to the entire pro-choice enterprise.

It's more likely they'll just want to severely reprimand him in one of their interminable speeches, to which he will be unable to respond, for his impertinence in casting doubt upon liberal dogma and then try to get him to commit to a reverence for established precedent, or some such thing. Their big donors at MoveOn.org and elsewhere, however, recognize the utter pointlessness of this strategy, and will demand that the Democrats do whatever they can to stop this nomination no matter how many knees to the groin they have to administer. Judge Alito better be wearing a cup come January.

Meanwhile, an odd reaction to this application is bubbling in some precincts on the Right. Conservatives are insisting that we shouldn't read too much into Alito's words, that everyone exaggerates on job applications, that nothing in his judicial record suggests he'd overturn Roe v. Wade, etc. This is an astonishingly disingenuous and disappointing argument.

Do these conservatives mean to suggest that Alito might not vote to overturn Roe and that therefore the Left should have no qualms about approving him? Are they conceding to the Left that a Justice who would overturn Roe could be justly blocked by the Democrats while maintaining that Alito is not that sort of judge? Do they mean that the Left shouldn't be concerned about his anti-abortion statements because he might not have really meant them? What kind of a strategy is this?

These Republicans seem to be proclaiming with some enthusiasm that Judge Alito is not really what conservatives hope he is, or that he's actually not impeccably honest since he doesn't really believe what he wrote on his application, and therefore Democrats shouldn't mind confirming him. That's absurd.

If he wasn't telling the truth on the job application and if he doesn't really believe that Roe is an instance of judicial usurpation of the democratic process then conservatives shouldn't support him. This argument that he's not really all that conservative, when made by conservatives to mollify liberals, is sheer stupidity married to dishonesty.

Harold Meyerson at the WaPo writes that:

Alito's advocates argue that he never once called for overturning Roe v. Wade during his 15 years on the appellate bench. But appellate judges interpret the law within the framework that the Supreme Court lays out. Supreme Court justices can change that framework when they see fit -- and they do. Those are the Supreme Court decisions that make the history books, and there are a number of them. Deference to precedents may be a pillar of the law, but -- and on this, conservatives and liberals agree -- it is clearly less of one for Supreme Court justices than for appellate and trial judges.

Alito's champions would have us believe, however, that he will defer even to precedents that he regards as unconstitutional -- despite the fact that the job of a justice is precisely to determine what is and isn't constitutional. That's asking us to believe a lot.

Clearly, the senators charged with questioning Alito will ask him if he still believes what he wrote 20 years ago.

Alito's answer should be, "Darn right I believe it. Why shouldn't I? If anyone can show me why my analysis of what the Constitution says is wrong I'll recant. Otherwise, let's move on to the next question." He might add that "Moreover, those Republicans who are seeking to mislead the public on my position on Roe are a bunch of dishonest dunderheads."

The Iranian Nuclear Program

A "smoking gun" has emerged in Iran that has brought rare unanimity of opinion between the U.S. and its erstwhile European allies about Iran's intentions to build nuclear weapons. Somehow, the U.S. has come into possession of a laptop that has on it a detailed record of Iran's various steps toward developing nukes.

The Iranians have made a calculated decision, it seems, that the political climate in the U.S. will prevent Bush from taking immediate action against them, so they feel emboldened to continue with their nuclear program, and also to try to hurt us with their oil policy. Their hope, perhaps, is that Bush will remain crippled throughout the remainder of his term and that the next president will be much less of a threat to their ambitions.

I think, though, that they have misunderestimated George Bush. The only thing keeping him from hitting Iran tomorrow is that he doesn't want to juggle two messes in the Middle East simultaneously. If Iraq should stabilize over the next twelve-month, Tehran could be in serious trouble. Look this time, however, for the United States to be joined by more allies than fought with us in Iraq.

If this analysis is correct, it explains a couple of things. For one, it explains why the Left is so desperate to weaken Bush. They simply don't want the United States to launch any more assaults in the Middle East and to enjoy any more military successes. The best way for them to ensure that this does not happen is to keep Bush preoccupied at home with one nip at his heels after another. A man busy fighting off a swarm of mosquitoes is ill-positioned to do much else.

The second thing it explains is why Shia-dominated Iran would be supporting a Sunni-dominated insurgency that is killing Iraqi Shiites. The longer Iraq remains unsettled the longer Bush will likely delay in calling the Tehran mullahs to account. If they can keep Iraq unstable for another 18 to 24 months they may be able to survive Bush's tenure. That's worth the cost of abetting the murders of a few thousand of their co-religionists in Iraq.