Understanding ID

We have a local talk show host who does a fine job of keeping issues of local and national interest before the listening public. On Friday he did a segment on the lawsuit against Dover Area School District's decision to have biology teachers read a statement alerting students to the fact that Neo-Darwinism is not the only game in town. The case will be heard starting tomorrow in Harrisburg, PA. I wrote an e-mail to the host in response to a couple of things I thought he said about ID on the program:

Gary,

I think it's great that you're willing to talk on your show about the intelligent design issue as much as you do, and I sympathize with the "middle of the road" position you stake out on the matter.

You said two things on Friday's show, however, that may mislead some of your listeners, and I think it's important that there not be confusion on this matter.

I might have misunderstood or not heard you clearly, but I thought you said (1) that intelligent design (ID) is a religious theory and (2) that creationism is not allowed to be taught in public schools. If you didn't say these things then please disregard this e-mail. If you did say them, then I'd like to urge you to rethink them.

Neo-Darwinian evolution is a theory that states that all of life can be explained in terms of natural, mechanistic processes acting blindly and without intentional purpose. ID is the denial of this. ID advocates make two related arguments: They argue firstly that material processes are not adequate to account for the high degree of information and the exquisite depth of complexity we find in living things. They argue secondly that whatever the role of material processes was in the emergence of living things, their obvious design bears the impress of intention and intelligence.

That is as far as ID advocates can legitimately go as scientists. They do not draw any conclusions (except in some cases in their private lives) about what this intelligence is. The universe itself may be a cosmic mind as some ancient Greeks believed, or it may be subject to a world soul or spirit as Hegel and the German idealists believed. Whatever the designer is there is no way one can deduce from ID that it's the God of the Bible or the Koran or any other sacred book. Such a step requires a leap of faith that people might make personally but which can't be justified logically. In fact, it's logically possible even to be an atheist or an agnostic and still agree that ultimate reality is mind and that the universe shows intentionality.

If ID doesn't lead inevitably to the existence of the personal God of most religions then how can it be religious in any commonly understood sense? Moreover, as I wrote for a column here, ID neither entails the existence of a god nor does it prescribe worship of one. It has no church nor dogma nor trappings of a religion. Doubtless many ID adherents are religious as individuals and would like to see ID used as a means to point others to the Judeo-Christian God, but then many Darwinians are atheistic and see Darwinism as a useful tool for turning people toward materialism or naturalism.

The next time a caller calls in and says that ID is a religious theory, ask them exactly what it is about it that makes it so. I doubt that they'll be able to give a compelling answer.

You also said on your show Friday, if I heard you correctly, that creationism cannot be taught in public schools. This is not correct. The Supreme Court case that addressed this matter was Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987 which came about because the state legislature of Louisiana sought to require the teaching of creationism whenever evolution is taught. Writing for the majority, Justice Brennan (see here) said:

It is equally clear that requiring schools to teach creation science with evolution does not advance academic freedom. The [LA Creationism] Act does not grant teachers a flexibility that they did not already possess to supplant the present science curriculum with the presentation of theories, besides evolution, about the origin of life. Indeed, the Court of Appeals found that no law prohibited Louisiana public school teachers from teaching any scientific theory. 765 F.2d, at 1257. As the president of the Louisiana Science Teachers Association testified, "any scientific concept that's based on established fact can be included in our curriculum already, and no legislation allowing this is necessary." 2 App. E-616. The Act provides Louisiana schoolteachers with no new authority. Thus the stated purpose is not furthered by it. (Italics mine)

In other words, Louisiana teachers were free to teach those aspects of creationist theory in their classrooms that are based on scientific concepts before the creation act was passed by the legislature, and the Supreme Court took no offense at this. What the Court did, however, was say that government cannot mandate the teaching of creationism. Teachers are free to teach it if they wish provided they do so in the context of scientific investigation.

One of the questions facing the courts in the Dover case is whether local school boards have a right to determine what will be taught in their school or whether they are considered an agent of the state government, like a legislature, and thus prohibited from mandating the teaching of anything critical of evolutionary materialism.

The second question is whether the Dover policy of reading a statement to a class really constitutes teaching anything at all. You pointed out on Friday that the Dover statement certainly seems innocuous (ed: See here for a good letter on this point).

The third question, and one over which much confusion seems to exist, is whether ID is really just a form of creationism. The many critics of ID notwithstanding, it's not. Creationism is an attempt to use science to buttress a literal reading of the early chapters of the book of Genesis. However one feels about this project, that's not what ID is about. ID advocates take no stand on whether the claims in Genesis, taken literally or otherwise, are true or false. Indeed, they could all be false, and ID could still be true.

I suggest again, if you haven't done so already, that you ask a caller who makes the claim that ID is just creationism in drag to explain exactly how this is so. My hunch is that they won't be able to do it.

Keep up the good work.

The Other Storm

Some estimate the cost of hurricane Katrina will probably end up at $200 billion dollars. Next week, we will most likely be hearing of estimates of the cost of hurricane Rita.

Added to these, we have the cost of a creative plan by Congressman Rep. Gene Taylor (r) of Mississippi who is working to rewrite the rules of the national flood insurance program to let homeowners who weren't required to buy it to purchase retroactive flood insurance coverage.

There it is folks. One more example of how some in our society believe individuals shouldn't be held accountable for their decisions. And not only that, these people apparently have no problem giving your tax dollars to these individuals. Imagine the outrage of those responsible types who purchased federal flood insurance year after year forgoing things that could otherwise have been purchased to enrich their lives. The final slap in their face will come when they realize their tax dollars will be given to the uninsured home owners too.

It's interesting to note that these dollars aren't sitting in the government's bank account waiting to be spent. They haven't even been created yet rather they will be printed by the government to pay the costs of these two natural disasters. Hundreds of billions of dollars flooding into the economy just like the hurricane waters flooded into New Orleans.

What impact is this going to have on the dollars I have in my pocket? You might ask. Well, for one thing, your dollars are being inflated. That is to say, they are losing their purchasing power and this will be evidenced in the rising cost of goods and services.

The two hurricanes are going to have another effect on our economy by contributing to inflation in another way. With the oil, gasoline, and natural gas supply suffering from the storms, the price of each of these commodities is going to go up.

In the late '70s, early '80s, during the oil embargo, gas and oil were scarce and their respective prices went up. Yet I would like for someone to explain to me how this causes inflation.

Personally, I don't believe rising prices cause inflation yet inflation was a problem then and it could very well be a problem again as a result of these storms. I suspect inflation occurs because when prices go up, the government injects more money into the economy to compensate for the higher prices. Then, after they realize they have pumped too many dollars into the system, they start to raise interest rates to slow the flow of dollars into the economy.

Whether I am correct in my thinking or not, there appears to be a consensus forming that believes inflation is on the way and they are about the business of protecting themselves. While we, as individuals, can't stop the federal government from printing dollars and diminishing our wealth, we can, at least, exercise the same defensive tactics as those who are anticipating inflation by purchasing gold.

Yes, I have been the "voice crying in the wilderness" advocating that people should have at least 10% of their portfolios in gold bullion. And since the price of gold is at a 17 year high, it appears to have been good advice. When Viewpoint first went online, gold was about $350 per ounce. This week it hit $470 (and pulled back to $463).

The fact of the matter is that ultimately, gold is the only real money. Always was and probably always will be. Despite what governments will imply (because they want you to buy into the concept of an ever inflating fiat currency) gold is a way to protect your wealth from the devastating effects of inflation. See what Alan Greenspan had to say at this link that I've posted numerous times before.

And for some entertaining reading, check out this link to see what the Mogambo Guru has to say about inflation. This guy is a hoot and I think he's worth listening to.

Stalinists For Peace

Well, I guess it was a successful rally, but if this photo is any indication, claims that there were a hundred thousand anti-war protestors in Washington Saturday were a bit inflated. I've seen bigger crowds at a high school football game.

Michelle Malkin has a few photos and links, but one of the more important stories regarding the rally is the tale of who's behind it. It turns out that the lead organizer is ANSWER, a front group for the Stalinist Workers World Party. The MSM are notably reluctant to help people make the connection, but there is a strange irony in a group which follows the thinking of Josef Stalin, who was directly responsible for the murders of over 25 million people, organizing an anti-war rally.

Investor's Business Daily invites us to imagine a pro-war rally organized by a neo-nazi group and ask ourselves whether the MSM would decline to mention it.

So why do communists - particularly those who march under Stalin's flag - get different treatment? And why do thousands of average people feel comfortable marching arm in arm with them?

It's a puzzle. After all, according to the "Black Book of Communism" - a widely cited and respected compendium of communism's crimes in the 20th century - communist regimes murdered as many as 100 million people over the last century. That's quite a record. Indeed, all the century's great mass murders - Mao Zedong (65 million), Stalin (25 million), Hitler (21 million), Pol Pot (2 million) - were communists or socialists.

Yet many well-meaning people who marched this weekend perhaps didn't know all this. Or perhaps they don't mind having their cause besmirched by people who aren't really anti-war at all, but anti-America, anti-West, anti-freedom and anti-capitalist. It's disappointing that so many marchers will demonstrate, heedless that they're being used by people who hold them - and their bourgeois pacifism - in contempt.

The "well-meaning people" are what Lenin was reputed to have referred to as "useful idiots." When one reads quotes from some of them at the rally one begins to see more clearly what Lenin meant. For example, this from the Washington Post:

Paul Rutherford, 60, of Vandalia, Mich., said he is a Republican who supported Bush in the last election and still does - except for the war.

"President Bush needs to admit he made a mistake in the war and bring the troops home, and let's move on," Rutherford said.

Just like that. Sorry, big mistake. We're outa here. Good luck to all of you who cast your lot with us when al Zarqawi comes to settle accounts. And good luck to you all when civil war breaks out between the Shia and Sunnis and Kurds, and good luck when the Iranians seek their revenge for the 80's war, and the Syrians lop off a chunk of the western frontier, and the Turks settle up with the Kurds, and everybody in the region decides they need your oil more than you do, and, well, you'll all be a lot better off without us Americans here to build your country up, get you on your feet, and protect you from all these predators.

His wife, Judy, 58, called the removal of Saddam Hussein "a noble mission" but said U.S. troops should have left when claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction proved unfounded. "We found that there were none and yet we still stay there and innocent people are dying daily," she said.

Right. Destroy the Baathist government, say "oops" and then leave the Iraqi people to disease, starvation, and their bloodthirsty neighbors. That's a great idea. We wonder what the average IQ of these protestors in Washington is.

Arthur Pollock, 47, of Cecil County, Md., said he was against the war from the beginning. He wants the soldiers out, but not all at once. "They've got to leave slowly," said Pollock, attending his first protest. "It will be utter chaos in that country if we pull them out all at once."

And how does this differ so much from what we are doing that Mr. Pollock felt the need to make the drive down from Cecil Co. to register this opinion?

Folk singer Joan Baez marched with the protesters and later serenaded them at a concert at the foot of the Washington Monument. An icon of the 1960s Vietnam War protests, she said Iraq is already a mess and the troops need to come home immediately. "There is chaos. There's bloodshed. There's carnage."

And if we pulled out there would be what? Even if Baez is correct, how would doing what she advises make things better? Does anyone who goes to these events actually think? Do they care about the consequences of what they demand? Do they care about the people of Iraq? Or do they, like ANSWER, just wish to see America lose?

Some of the smarter lefties recognize the problem posed by letting a group like ANSWER organize the rally and are voicing their disgust with the whole thing over at the Daily Kos. Bush has indeed been fortunate to have such enemies.

Increase Supply

Two energy-related articles worth your attention:

First, as the price of oil hangs around $66 a barrel oil companies are finding it cost-effective to consider tapping into Colorado oil shale where recoverable deposits are believed to be more than three times greater than what remains in the Saudi Arabian fields. These deposits have been known about for decades but the cost of squeezing the oil out of them was always prohibitive. That no longer seems to be the case.

Second is an article by James Glassman at Tech Central Station which cites the lessons of history by way of warning against slapping a counterproductive windfall profits tax on oil companies. The answer to high prices, Glassman writes, is to increase supply and that can be done by decreasing onerous and unnecessary regulations on the industry which prevent them from drilling for known oil in the Atlantic and Alaska. Regulations also discourage the industry from increasing refining capacity which has really crippled our ability to get petroleum to market even when the supply has been adequate.

Misunderestimating G.W.

Thomas Lifson of The American Thinker argues compellingly that the Democrats who are pronouncing Bush's presidency effectively over as a result of Katrina are once again "misunderestimating" the man. Lifson maintains that Katrina (and Rita, we should add) may do more to burnish Bush's legacy and help him achieve his goals than his opponents realize or want to admit. Lifson's article is worth reading whether you're a fan of the president or an opponent.

Despite low approval ratings at the moment, it's our view that Bush may ultimately be seen as an historic president. If Iraq turns out well over the next couple of years and Afghanistan continues to make progress toward becoming a reasonably healthy state; if there are no major terrorist acts in the U.S.; if the Gulf coast has been revivified by the strategies Bush has outlined; if the economy is doing well and the deficit is not hurting us too badly; if steps have been taken to increase our energy availability; if the future of social security and illegal immigration have been addressed; if there are two more conservative Supreme Court justices, in addition to John Roberts, seated on the Court; and if North Korea and Iran are not seen as imminent nuclear threats, then Bush will be seen as perhaps one of the greatest presidents in history, the carping and cavils of his critics notwithstanding.

This is a lot of "ifs", of course, but every one of them is within reach, and it's not necessary for all of them to come to pass for history to judge him so highly.

Some on the left will be quick to point out that if these things all go south, and they certainly could, then Bush will be about the worst president in history. That's true enough, although I'm confident that those who would make this point are all sincerely hoping that every item listed (with perhaps the exception of the conservative judges) comes to pass.

Others will look at the president's approval ratings and scoff at Viewpoint's prognostication, but we shouldn't rest too much weight on approval ratings. If they had existed during the presidencies of John Adams and Abraham Lincoln they probably would have been lower than Bush's.

Mugabe Must Go

If what Robert Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe were being done by Israelis or white South Africans fifteen years ago the world would be apoplectic with rage. As it is, the corrupt and flaccid United Nations can scarcely muster enough enthusiasm to admonish him to play nice.

The man should be deposed. No sanctions, no diplomacy, no niceties. Some nation, preferably African, but not necessarily so, needs to go into Zimbabwe and remove him from power. He's no better than Idi Amin or any one of the other psychopaths, idiots, and buffoons who've managed to rise to power in black Africa, and there is no point in trying to remediate him.

One way or another, for the sake of Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans, Mugabe has to go.

Visual Aid

The Fourth Rail has a very helpful visual that puts operations in western Iraq over the past four or five weeks into geographical perspective. Go here and click on the map.

Missing Money

The other day we posted a lament concerning the embezzlement of almost 1.3 billion dollars that was to be spent on weaponry and supplies to outfit the Iraqi army. Belmont Club offers some background which suggests that, although the theft is bad, it may not be quite as bad as it seems.

Ethno-Religious Popularity

Pew has an interesting poll out. The questions it asks seek, among other things, to determine which countries are most favorably disposed toward Jews and Christians and which are most unfavorably disposed toward Muslims. Here is a summary of the results:

Russia led all other countries with favorable views of Christians (92 percent) while Turkey (63 percent) had the most unfavorable view of Christians.

The Netherlands led all nations surveyed both in positive views of Jews (85 percent) and negative views of Muslims (51 percent). Significant numbers of respondents in only Jordan (38 percent) and Lebanon (40 percent) blamed U.S. policies for Islamic extremism. Respondents in Lebanon, which has a large Christian population, were nearly unanimous (99 percent) in their unfavorable views of Jews. 91 percent were favorable to Christians.

The poll found decreasing support in Islamic countries for Al Qaida and suicide bombings. Jordan was the exception. In the latest poll, the level of Jordanian support for Bin Laden rose to 60 percent, compared to 55 percent in 2002. The center also reported increased Jordanian support for suicide attacks.

Fifty-seven percent of Jordanian respondents expressed support for suicide bombings, up from 43 percent in 2002. In Morocco, support for Al Qaida dropped from 49 percent in 2003 to 26 percent in the latest poll. In Lebanon, only two percent of respondents expressed support for Al Qaida.

Arabs, like everyone else, prefer to line up behind the winning team. If we were to pull out of Iraq, as the left demands, and leave that country to the tender mercies of al Qaida, these numbers would reverse overnight. The Arab street is gauging our commitment. They perceive at the moment that we're resolved to prevail in Iraq and Afghanistan. As long as that perception persists, most Muslims in most of the Arab world will continue to stroll across to our side of the street.

Panda-monium

Go here to play Panda-monium, a game in which Darwinian pandas attack the redoubts of the Discovery Institute with some of their favorite cliches. The player scores points for every panda shot out of the sky. Great fun.

Longing For a Lost Past

Mark Lilla writes winsomely in the New York Times Magazine about his journey from faith to skepticism. It is in some ways, whether he intended it or not, a very sad story, filled with a sense of loss and nostalgia. His criticisms of the faith he left behind are respectful, gentle and usually accurate, as though he were writing about a marriage which gave him many fond memories but which just didn't work out.

I did find one riff more than a little difficult to accept, however. He writes:

Visit any Christian bookstore and you will see that they [Christians] are gluttons for learning - of a certain kind. They belong to Bible-study groups; they buy works of scriptural interpretation; they sit through tedious courses on cassette, CD or DVD; they take notes during sermons and highlight passages in their Bibles. If anything, it is their thirst for knowledge that undoes them. Like so many Americans, they know little about history, science, secular literature or, unless they are immigrants, foreign cultures. Yet their thirst for answers to the most urgent moral and existential questions is overwhelming. So they grab for the only glass in the room: God's revealed Word.

A half-century ago, an American Christian seeking assistance could have turned to the popularizing works of serious religious thinkers like Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, John Courtney Murray, Thomas Merton, Jacques Maritain and even Martin Buber and Will Herberg. Those writers were steeped in philosophy and the theological traditions of their faiths, which they brought to bear on the vital spiritual concerns of ordinary believers - ethics, death, prayer, doubt and despair. But intellectual figures like these have disappeared from the American landscape and have been replaced by half-educated evangelical gurus who either publish vacant, cheery self-help books or are politically motivated. If an evangelical wants to satisfy his taste for truth today, it's strictly self-service.

This claim belies a profound lack of familiarity with the astonishing amount of work being done by Christians who write serious books for audiences of both professionals and laity. Just a few of the dozens of names which come to mind are William Lane Craig, Richard Swinburne, J.P. Moreland, Alvin Plantinga, Mark Noll, George Marsden, William Dembski, William Alston, Jay Budzisewski, N.T. Wright, Stephen Barr, Del Ratzsch, and many, many other Christian philosophers, historians, scientists, theologians and intellectuals of all stripes.

Mr. Lilla might reply that these are not all Americans nor are they "evangelicals", but neither were many of the men on his list "evangelicals" in the contemporary sense of the term. Nor were they all Americans. To call these writers, and the dozens of others who deserve to be on the list, "half-educated evangelical gurus who either publish vacant, cheery self-help books or are politically motivated" is so far at variance with the truth as to be bizarre.

Mr. Lilla closes his otherwise artfully written essay with an interesting question: Why do religious skeptics like himself feel the need to prosyletize? Why do they care? A Christian might seek to convert a complete stranger because he believes that that person's eternal soul is at risk and because he believes he's carrying out a divine mandate by sharing the gospel with him, but an atheist believes neither of these things. Lilla admits that he has no good answer to the question:

But the curious thing about skepticism is that its adherents, ancient and modern, have so often been proselytizers. In reading them, I've often wanted to ask, "Why do you care?" Their skepticism offers no good answer to that question. And I don't have one for myself.

At the risk of committing the sin of bad psychology, I wonder if part of the answer to his question doesn't lie in the fact that when others believe what we believe it reinforces and reaffirms the rightness of our beliefs. Both believers and skeptics, if they are thoughtful, live with a deep-down existential angst, a dread, a doubt. It might be that we are wrong, and it is a comfort when other people are persuaded to join us in our belief or our skepticism. For some it might almost be a relief. The angst must be particularly acute for a man who is keenly aware, because of his youthful background in the faith, that he is placing his eternal destiny on the line in his choice of commitments and that, should he be wrong, his loss could be immeasurable.

I should note a comment by Douglas LeBlanc at GetReligion.com who wonders how long it will be before the Times prints an article written by someone who makes the journey from skepticism to faith. There are lots of such stories out there, of course, but we won't be going on a fast waiting for the Times to tell us about them.

Anyway, read Lilla's essay. It's long, but it's quite good.

Political Scorecard

A left-wing website, Progressive Punch, has ranked all members of the Senate and House according to a rating which gives the member a score of 100% if they have a perfect liberal voting record. The more conservative the member is the closer is their score to zero.

I don't know whether their ranking system is reliable, but one interesting result they show is this: There is not a single Democrat in the House or Senate who scores under 50% (except Ben Nelson who scores 49.4%) and not a single Republican who scores over it. That's a pretty stark division. I wonder if a similar polarization would have been the case twenty five years ago.

It's also interesting to note that four Senate Republicans are far more liberal than the rest of their caucus, although they're still well below the fifty percent mark. See if you can guess who they are before you check out the rankings here.

Scapegoats

When Katrina devastated the Mississippi coast earlier this month Robert Kennedy, Jr. suggested that it was God's judgment on governor Haley Barbor for having once written a memo to George Bush critical of the Kyoto Treaty.

Now another category 4 storm heads toward Galveston. No doubt the good people along the Texas coast are pleading with governor Rick Perry to fire off a memo to Washington praising the Kyoto accords and urging the president to sign them before God punishes Bush by clobbering the poor Texans along the Gulf.

Even so, we tend to agree with the near-unanimous opinion of the nation's meteorologists that these storms have nothing to do with global warming. We think instead that those people are correct who assert that the weather is God's judgment on American decadence. We were told, for example, that Katrina was punishment for the vice that infests Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Unfortunately for this hypothesis, though, the hurricane destroyed almost everything in an area the size of Minnesota except the French Quarter - the heart of the city's decadence, but we're sure the denizens of this den of iniquity got the message all the same.

Now He appears to be sending hurricane Rita to pummel Galveston, perhaps as punishment for the sins of Las Vegas. Maybe, this is the Old Testament scapegoat principle at work, where innocent victims are made to pay the price for the sins of the wealthy.

In any event, those Las Vegans better be paying careful attention to what's happening to Galveston while they cavort in their night clubs this weekend. If they don't, the next hurricane might be aimed right at Mexico.

The Main Event

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters is typical among conservative bloggers in his assessment that Harry Reid's public decision to vote against John Roberts makes it a lot easier to nominate another Scalia/Thomas to replace O'Connor.

The reasoning goes like this:

If Reid can't cast a vote for John Roberts, one of the most uniquely and undeniably talented and qualified prospects for the Supreme Court at hand, then Reid and the Democrats who follow him will never cast a vote for any Republican nominee. Reid gives no incentive whatsoever to negotiate or to consult with the Democrats on selections in the future; no matter what happens or how well qualified the nominee, they will oppose him or her.

The favorite among the folks at ConfirmThem.com is Michael Luttig, but Michael McConnell and Edith Jones are also popular.

Read the whole post at Captain's Quarters if the looming battle for the Supreme Court interests you. It's pretty good.

Martian Warming

Mars is getting warmer, but what else could we expect with Halliburton's friend in the White House refusing to sign the Kyoto treaty?

The Situation in Sudan

John Eibner and Joe Madison write a concise update on the current situation in the Sudan. It's difficult for Americans to stay focused on a region where there is no obvious national interest at stake, and it's easy to avoid thinking about the suffering of the people there when their plight gives way on the evening news to feckless murder investigations in Aruba and Cindy Sheehan's quixotic crusade in Crawford.

The absence of a manifest national interest was the argument for staying out of Bosnia and Kosovo and Rwanda in the nineties. It was the crux of the case for neutrality in 1940. It is not a trivial argument. Even so, power carries with it some measure of responsibility. We should not stand by and do nothing while people are starved and slaughtered if it is within our capacitites to do something to stop it that would not make matters worse. In other words, there is a moral case, even in this amoral post-modern world, for bringing our power to bear on behalf of those trapped in the third world hells that befoul our globe like so many toxic pustules.

The debate should not be whether we should intervene to help desperate people. The debate should be about how we might most effectively accomplish that goal. It should center around how we can produce the greatest amount of good with the least amount of evil.

Hopefully, moral suasion, diplomatic pressure and economic incentives will bring about a surcease of the suffering of the victims of the despots and petty tyrants who populate the third world, but sometimes, as in Bosnia and Rwanda, it might take the application of military force. That should be a last resort, but, provided it can be reasonably expected to work and produce a better result than would capitulation, it should always be an option.

It was indeed an option in Bosnia, to our credit and the credit of the Clinton administration. It evidently was not an option in Rwanda, to our and president Clinton's everlasting shame. You may, of course, disagree, but if so, at least watch the movie Hotel Rwanda and see if that doesn't cause you to rethink your opinion.

How the Terrorists Can Win in Iraq

This is the sort of disheartening news that will cause the American people to drop their support of the Iraq effort quicker than anything.

Almost the entire procurement budget allocated to Iraq's defense ministry has been stolen. It amounts to 1.3 billion dollars. It's going to be awful hard for the Bush administration to ask the American taxpayer to come up with that kind of money again, but if the money is not replaced the progress of the Iraqi military toward self-sufficiency will be seriously impaired.

Americans have been generous because they believe that Iraq is on the road to being able to fend for itself. If we see our investment just disappearing down a rat-hole, enthusiasm for saving Iraq will evaporate like morning mist, and the most bitter consequences for both us and the world will ensue.

Say it Ain't So!

The Bush administration evidently needs to return to first principles, and the very first principle of a leader is that you surround yourself with the most competent people you can find. A good leader doesn't play patronage games with important appointments and especially not with homeland security. It is astonishing that key positions at HS seem to be doled out on the basis of nepotism and cronyism, as though the task of securing our citizens from terrorism was no more critical a post than the ambassadorship to the Solomon Islands.

Unfortunately, the Bushies, having already been scorched by the Michael Brown appointment at FEMA, seem to have learned nothing from the experience and appear to be angling for a reprise of their embarrassment in the nomination of Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in the Department of Homeland Security.

Michelle Malkin can't believe this is happening and wonders what on earth the Bush people are thinking. Malkin has the relevant background on Ms Myers, and it's pretty depressing.

For our part, we wonder to what extent, if any, Bush himself was involved in this nomination. Say you didn't know, Dubya!

Reaping Retribution

To discover what's really going on in Iraq one must forget the evening news and turn instead to the milblogs (military blogs) which specialize in covering military matters in general and operations in Iraq in particular. One blog that provides a perspective that you won't ever get from ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN is StrategyPage.com. Their post from last Sunday, for example, gives us some good insight into the recent upsurge in deaths among Iraqi civilians. Here's part of that post:

September 18, 2005: The al Qaeda "war" against Iraqi Shia is now five days old. Some 250 Iraqis have been killed so far, most on the first day, and most of them civilians and Shia. But a growing number of the dead bodies found are Sunni Arabs, and it appears that some of the newly trained Shia police and soldiers are moonlighting as death squads. Sunni Arabs complain of raids, sometimes by men in uniform, that efficiently remove Sunni Arab men, who later turn up dead, and often showing signs of torture (indicating interrogation to obtain more information on who is attacking Shia civilians.) The government is not making a particularly strong effort to find out who the moonlighting police are, and stop them.

The government keeps telling the Sunni Arab leadership that these al Qaeda attacks on Shia civilians can only end badly for the Sunni Arab population. While many Sunni Arab groups, still loyal to the Baath Party (or Saddam Hussein), and determined to have Sunni Arabs running the country again, continue to attack Shia Arabs, the victims are increasingly attacking right back. Terrorism, it appears, works both ways in Iraq. But instead of spectacular car bombs, the Shia Arab and Kurd "avengers" (as they see themselves) stalk individual Sunni Arabs (known to have been killers of Saddam, or terrorists today), and shoot them dead. Sunni Arab men known, or believed to be involved in terrorist operations, are rounded up at night, usually to be never seen alive again. All of this is in addition to legitimate counter-terrorist operations, where the people rounded up survive the process.

Follow the link to read the rest of it.

Major News Breaks, MSM Yawns

A major non-event in the American media is nevertheless a significant event for American foreign policy. Oxblog reports on it for us:

The principal news coming out of Aghanistan is that there is little news out of Aghanistan, and this is a remarkable thing. Voting in today's elections for parliamentary and provincial office passed without major incident (among the minor incidents, there were nineteen Taliban-linked attacks upon polling stations, in most instances before they were opened, with three voters being injured); officials of the Aghan-UN Joint Electoral Management Body report long queues of women voters; and all but 16 of the 6,200 polling centres established across Afghanistan were operational on voting day (this a marked improvement from last October's presidential election, where security considerations forced the closure of all polling centres in a significant number of Afghan regions).

Turnout might have been higher, and seven election candidates died in militant-linked violence over the last half year, but the elections are in general being hailed as a major success nonetheless, and include such poignant images as long queues of women waiting to vote in the former Taliban capital of Kandahar.

Too bad Sean Penn or Cindy Sheehan didn't show up over there. Maybe then the elections would've gotten some coverage.

Publius also has a lot more on the election here.