Rights & Wrongs

The UN Small Arms Review Conference continues to generate controversy. MSM stories tend to take the UN's official line that the meeting is only concerned with illegal small arms, e.g. Reuters:

Ahead of the U.N. meeting, the U.S. National Rifle Association, a strong supporter of President Bush, warned its members of a July 4 plot to finalize a U.N. treaty stripping citizens of all nations of the right to own guns -- a charge with no basis in fact.

Americans mistakenly worried about the U.S. Independence Day conspiracy have flooded the United Nations with more than 100,000 letters demanding the nonexistent treaty's defeat.

ANGRY OVER ILLEGAL WEAPONS

Annan again reassured the conference that no global gun ban was under consideration.

"Nor do we wish to deny law-abiding citizens their right to bear arms in accordance with their national laws," he said "Our energy, our emphasis and our anger is directed against illegal weapons. Our priorities are effective enforcement, better controls and regulation, safer stockpiling, and weapons collection and destruction."

Just because the official purpose doesn't infringe on legal gun ownership, that hardly means that some participants don't have hidden agendas! Sundry opinion pieces point out those agendas, such as this one by Joseph Klein in FrontPage Magazine, referring to Rebecca Peters, who is Director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA):

Peters’ strategy, with the help of the chairman of the UN review conference and the Parliamentary Forum, is to enshrine international norms against civilian gun possession in an interpretive document that gun prohibitionists can label ‘customary international law.’ Such a document would legitimize Peters’ dogma that “gun ownership is not a right but a privilege.” IANSA can then use the international norms in our own courts to attack the notion that an individual right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment. They are counting on sympathetic federal judges, right up to the Supreme Court, to interpret the scope of the Second Amendment’s protections by deferring to ‘international norms’ against individual gun possession. In short, the stealth strategy here is for IANSA to drive the UN review conference’s agenda, obtain the wording they seek on curtailing private gun possession in the review conference’s official Outcome Document that they can point to as an ‘international norm’, and then argue that this ‘interna­tional norm’ should be incorporated into our courts’ interpretation of the Second Amend­ment -- converting a constitutionally protected individual right into a government-bestowed privilege.

Ironically, IANSA is headquartered in London. One of its UK-based member organizations called International Alert showed no compunction at all in boldly declaring that “the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee individuals the right to possess or carry guns.” Apparently some British folks have forgotten from whom we won our freedom — and why we sought it in the first place. We should as a nation celebrate our Declaration of Independence by telling the gun prohibitionists who are assembling in New York from all over the world during our Independence Day holiday to either stay out of our business or stay out of our country.

(Italics in original).

Speaking of Britain, there's a debate on whether they need to legislate a "Bill of Rights" to counteract the more pernicious aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights. From the BBC:

Tory Bill of Rights bid slammed

The Conservatives' plan to replace the Human Rights Act with a US-style Bill of Rights has been described as muddled and dangerous by the government.

Tory leader David Cameron says current legislation is inadequate and hinders the fight against crime and terrorism.

He believes a British Bill of Rights would strike a better balance between rights and responsibilities.

But the Lord Chancellor says Mr Cameron is trying to rewrite human rights because "they seem inconvenient".

In a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in London, the Tory leader argued that the Human Rights Act had prevented Britain deporting suspected terrorists whatever the circumstances.

It was "practically an invitation for terrorists and would-be terrorists to come to Britain" he said.

One argument is that unless Britain withdraws from the European Convention on Human Rights, the legislation won't really accomplish much. The Daily Mail comments:

[H]uman rights law is a veritable article of faith (and rich pickings) for the many lawyers at the core of New Labour.

Now, however, even Mr Blair seems to be dismayed by its perverse effects — or perhaps it is more accurate to say he is dismayed by the mounting outrage among voters, who are horrified by the way it is thwarting attempts to deal with crime and protect this country against terrorism.

But because human rights are so totemic, he refuses to repeal his own law — not least because we would still be signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights, and so English law could be overturned as a consequence of rulings made by the Strasbourg court.

And he is certainly not prepared to countenance leaving the Convention.

So he has taken refuge instead in the weaselly excuse of blaming not the law, but the way it is being interpreted.

This cop-out has given David Cameron a headline-grabbing opportunity. ...

Mr Cameron's criticisms of human rights law are very well made. But his proposals for dealing with it seem to owe more to the impulse to strike a political pose than to produce a workable policy.

Previous post: Beware Creeping Tyranny

Thwap!

Nothing like a successful test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system to make North Korea's Dear Leader nervous.

From MDA's press release:

22 June 2006

Missile Defense Test Results in Successful “Hit To Kill” Intercept

Air Force Lieutenant General Henry “Trey” Obering, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) director, announced the successful completion today of an important missile defense “hit to kill” intercept test conducted jointly with the U.S. Navy off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. The test involved the launch of a Standard Missile 3 (SM-3 Block IA) from the USS Shiloh, an Aegis-class cruiser, modified to perform the ballistic missile defense mission, and a hit to kill intercept of a ”separating” target, meaning that the target warhead separated from its booster rocket. It was the seventh successful intercept test involving the sea-based component of the nation’s ballistic missile defense system in eight attempts. “Hit to kill” technology uses only the direct collision of the interceptor missile with the target, totally destroying the target using only kinetic energy from the force of the collision.

“We are continuing to see great success with the very challenging technology of hit-to-kill, a technology that is used for all of our missile defense ground and sea-based interceptor missiles,” said General Obering.

At approximately 12 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time (6 p.m. EDT), a target missile was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii. USS Shiloh’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense 3.6 Weapon System detected and tracked the target and developed a fire control solution. This was the USS Shiloh’s first missile defense test since completing the necessary modifications and upgrades to its SPY-1 radar and advanced communications system to make it capable of serving as a sea-based missile defense platform. It was also the first time the new weapon system configuration, ballistic missile defense 3.6, and a new missile configuration were used during the intercept mission.

Approximately four minutes later, the USS Shiloh’s crew fired the SM-3, and two minutes later the missile successfully intercepted the target warhead outside the earth’s atmosphere more than 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and 250 miles northwest of Kauai.

Three Aegis destroyers also participated in the flight test. One Aegis destroyer, equipped with a modified version of the Aegis ballistic missile defense weapon system, linked with a land-based missile defense radar to evaluate the ability of the ship’s missile defense system to receive and utilize target cueing data via the missile defense system’s command, control, battle management and communications architecture. Two other Aegis destroyers, including one from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, stationed off Kauai performed longrange surveillance and track exercises. This data can also be used to provide targeting information for other missile defense systems, including the ground-based long-range interceptor missiles now deployed in Alaska and California to protect all 50 states from a limited ballistic missile attack. Another U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser used the flight test to support development of a SPY-1B radar modified by the addition of a new signal processor, collecting performance data on its increased target detection and discrimination capabilities.

This event marked the first time that an allied military unit participated in a U.S. Aegis missile defense intercept test.

The Lockheed Martin press release is here.

Beware Creeping Tyranny

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -- Justice Louis Brandeis, 1928

Liberals in the US have been decrying the "erosion" of constitutional rights under the Bush Administration, arguing loudly against the NSA surveillance program and the renewal of the Patriot Act. Yet Conservatives and Libertarians see a quite different erosion — one due to left-leaning courts that create "emanations and penumbras"or cite other countries' laws to interpret the United States Constitution, and legislation that restricts political speech, gun ownership, property rights, and freedom of religion. (Go read the Bill of Rights!)

The European experience with well-meaning legislation has, over time, produced chilling results. Consider this WSJ Op-Ed (subscription required) on the legal lunacy in the British criminal "justice" system:

How did things come to a pass where law-abiding citizens are treated as criminals and criminals as victims? A giant step was the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act, making it illegal to carry any article for an offensive purpose; any item carried for self-defense was automatically an offensive weapon and the carrier is guilty until proven innocent. At the time a parliamentarian protested that "The object of a weapon was to assist weakness to cope with strength and it is this ability that the bill was framed to destroy." The government countered that the public should be discouraged "from going about with offensive weapons in their pockets; it is the duty of society to protect them."

The trouble is that society cannot and does not protect them. Yet successive governments have insisted protection be left to the professionals, meanwhile banning all sorts of weapons, from firearms to chemical sprays. They hope to add toy or replica guns to the list along with kitchen knives with points. Other legislation has limited self-defense to what seems reasonable to a court much later. [...]

It may be crass to point out that the British people, stripped of their ability to protect themselves and of other ancient rights and left to the mercy of criminals, have gotten the worst of both worlds. Still, as one citizen, referring to the new policy of letting criminals off with a caution, suggested: "Perhaps it would be easier and safer for the honest citizens of the U.K. to move into the prisons and the criminals to be let out."

A similar sentiment republished in the Brussels Journal caught my eye, "Why Citizens Should Be Allowed to Bear Arms:"

The right to keep and bear arms for defence is as fundamental as the rights to freedom of speech and association. Anyone who is denied this right – to keep and bear arms – is to some extent enslaved. That person has lost control over his life. He is dependent on the State for protection.

The default reaction to this argument is to cry out in horror and ask if I want a society where every criminal has a gun, and where every domestic argument ends in a gun battle? The short answer is no. The longer answer is to say that more guns do not inevitably mean more killings. There is no evidence that they do. What passes for evidence is little more than an excuse for not trusting ordinary people with control over their own lives.

Why is gun control an issue in Britain? The fact that the UN will convene the "Small Arms Review Conference" next week probably has something to do with the surge in opinion pieces. The official Conference website is here. The conference program sounds benign:

Five years after the adoption of the United Nations Programme of Action to address the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, some 2,000 representatives from Governments, international and regional organizations and civil society will meet at United Nations Headquarters from 26 June to 7 July 2006 to review progress made; to address future cooperation and activities; and to assess challenges on the road ahead.

By unanimously adopting the Programme of Action in 2001, the United Nations Member States committed themselves to collecting and destroying illegal weapons, adopting and/orimproving national legislation to help criminalize the illicit trade in small arms, regulating the activities of brokers, setting strict import andexport controls, taking action against violators of such laws, and better coordinating international efforts to that end.

The small arms Review Conference should reinforce the momentum for action among Member States, civil society, international and regional organizations. The Conference is also expected to welcome the establishment of a group of governmental experts who will meet in November 2006 to tackle the issue of reining in illegal arms brokers.

Not everyone is sanguine about the conference. Mary Katharine Ham interviewed Wayne LaPierre, author of “The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the U.N.’s Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights.”

The philosophy of these groups, LaPierre said, is that the right to own a gun should be solely the right of governments, and they despise the fact that the United States remains a country in which private citizens can keep a handgun at their bedsides.

In a recent debate LaPierre did with Rebecca Peters, who is heading up the NGOs’ gun-ban efforts, Peters told him that Americans need to give up on the notion of self-defense because it’s something that only happens in movies.

The problem is, of course, that a disarmed people can do nothing when its armed government or militias turns on it. The U.N. has no response about what to do about that, LaPierre said, citing the Tutsis in Rwanda, the people of Darfur, and the Muslims of Bosnia.

“All they offer is a global socialist fantasy…If there were no guns, there would be no poverty, there would be no child hungry, there would be no violence. It’s the same global socialist fantasy we saw in the 20th century, “ he said. “Under the U.N. gun-ban policy, they have no solution for when the government goes bad; they have no answer for how to be liberated from a tyrant or a dictator; they have no answer for what oppressed people should do…Their whole philosophy is give up your arms and your freedoms and we’ll protect you.”

The pernicious influence of UN group-think on traditional freedoms isn't confined to gun control. Another piece from the Brussels Journal discusses the state of homeschooling in Belgium (HT Instapundit):

The fact that a growing group of children seems to be escaping from the government’s influence clearly bothers the authorities. Three years ago a new school bill was introduced. The new bill refers to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and it obliges homeschooling parents to fill out a questionaire and sign an official “declaration of homeschooling” in which they agree to school their children “respecting the respect [sic] for the fundamental human rights and the cultural values of the child itself and of others.”

The declaration does not specify what “respecting the respect for the fundamental human rights and the cultural values of the child itself and of others” means. It states, however, that government inspectors decide about this and adds – and here is the crux of the matter – that if the parents receive two negative reports from the inspectors they will have to send their child to an official government recognized school. [...]

Under the Convention severe limitations are placed on parents’ right to direct and train their children. Under Article 13 parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable. Under Article 14 children are guaranteed “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” – in other words, children have a legal right to object to all religious training. And under Article 15 the child has a right to “freedom of association.”

[Update 6/22: The author above has a follow-up post, "Crackdown on Homeschoolers: It’s the UN Wot Done It"]

While idealists consider democratic governments a bulwark against tyrannical dictators, democracies are not immune to the tyranny of the well-meaning. Democratic governments around the world are falling prey to socialist-tainted liberalism that elevates the interests of the state above those of the individual citizens. There's a kernel of truth in the assertion of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his letter to President Bush that,

"Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems."

Dr. Sanity diagnoses the pathology thusly:

Those glory days when the Left believed in freedom and individuality; and that the content of one’s character was more important than the color of one’s skin-- are long gone. Nowadays it seems that the Left only pretends to believe in those values and feels it necessary to mouth the words.

But my observation is that today’s Left pretty much stands for nothing—not freedom, not equal opportunity; not individual rights; not even peace. Trying to right the wrongs and injustices of the world is truly ethical and noble goal, but something happened on the road to that beautiful utopia. The Left made a wrong turn and got lost--somewhere in the vicinity of Vietnam, I think. [...]

At this very moment, every issue supported by the Left, and almost all of the behavior exhibited by the Left is completely antithetical to classical liberal philosophies. There is no longer a commitment to personal liberty or to freedom. The Left is far too busy to promote freedom for the common man or woman, because their time is taken up advocating freedom for tyrants who oppress the common man; terrorists who kill the common man; and religious fanatics who subjugate the common woman.

The intellectuals who once promoted the IDEA of freedom, now are ensnared in an IDEOLOGY that depends for its very existence on the silencing of speech; the suppression of ideas; and the persecution of those who dare to refute its tenets.

Patriotism and love of one’s country is mocked by those who once fought to bring the American Dream to all American citizens; and who once championed those who were prevented from sharing in that Dream. Slowly and inexorably those idealists who once shouted, “we shall overcome,” morphed into a toxic culture promoting a never-ending victimhood that cannot possibly be overcome. Love of American ideals and values was transformed into the most perverse and vile anti-Americanism –where all things originating or “tainted” as American are uniquely bad; and where America became the source of all evil in the world.

The classical liberal tradition is now almost exclusively upheld by what are called “conservatives”. Once “liberal” was synonymous with the “left”. No longer.

A final pithy quote from Freedom Keys:

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do." -- Edward Everett Hale

Earth's Climate Is Always Warming or Cooling

From the WSJ Letters page today (subscription required):

Earth's Climate Is Always Warming or Cooling

Roger C. Altman ("The Beltway's Energy," editorial page, June 16), a Treasury official in the Clinton administration, says he is no climatologist, but then calls for energy policies that assume catastrophic global warming from carbon dioxide emitted in fossil-fuel burning. He doesn't reveal his sources of information -- perhaps they are just various "experts" quoted in the press, or perhaps even Al Gore. But Mr. Gore, in his movie and elsewhere, never asks the key question: How much of current warming is due to natural causes? And how much is really human-caused? Anthropogenic warming is simply taken for granted as part of a claimed but nonexistent "complete" scientific consensus.

The current warming trend is not unusual: Climate is always either warming or cooling, and ice is either melting or accumulating. But thermometers can't talk and tell you the cause of climate change. This requires a comparison of the patterns of the observed warming with the best available models that incorporate both anthropogenic (greenhouse gases and aerosols) as well as natural climate forcings.

Fortunately, the U.S.-Climate Change Science Program, funded at $2 billion annually, has done just that in its first report: http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm.

It is based on the best current information on temperature trends. So how well do observations confirm the results of greenhouse models? The answer: not at all. The disparity between theory that predicts a climate disaster and actual data from the atmosphere is demonstrated most strikingly in the report's Fig. 5.4G (p. 111), which plots the difference between surface and troposphere trends for a collection of models and for balloon and satellite data.

Allowing for uncertainties in the data and for imperfect models, there is only one valid conclusion from the failure of greenhouse theory to explain the observations: The human contribution to global warming appears to be quite small and natural climate factors are dominant.

This conclusion should have a crucial influence on shaping our energy future. We hope that Mr. Altman, and the Bush team in Treasury, will pay attention to the science before advocating drastic energy policies that would kill economic growth.

S. Fred Singer
Arlington, Va.

(Mr. Singer, an atmospheric physicist, is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service.)

Stifling debate?

This afternoon, Michael Medved had on Harry Knox (of Human Rights Campaign) who was expounding on the Democrat's talking points about the Marriage Protection Amendment. The guest went off-script, however, commenting that a Constitutional Amendment was a bad idea, because it would stop the debate, which was still developing "nicely" around the country.

Stop the debate? What does he think the Massachusetts Supreme Court did when it mandated that the Commonwealth's legislature rewrite the marriage law to suit the judges?

Mr. Knox obviously forgot that approving Constitutional Amendments can take years, with debates in each state. Lots and lots of debate, all across the country, with no guarantee that the Amendment will ever pass. Remember the Equal Rights Amendment?

And if the Amendment passes, it can be nullified later through the same process. Think Prohibition.

[Updated 6/6/06, 1730 EDT, with correct name of Michael Medved's guest and bio link.]

Rationing by any name

There's an Op-Ed in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) by Martin Feldstein entitled "Tradeable Gasoline Rights". He gives his basic thesis in the first paragraph:

The rapid rise in the price of gasoline has produced calls for tougher fuel economy standards on new cars and trucks. Although reduced gasoline consumption would be good for the environment and for national security, such a regulatory change would be a mistake. A far better approach would be a system of tradeable gasoline rights, or TGRs. These could be distributed in a way that actually raises the income of a majority of households while giving everyone an incentive to reduce gasoline consumption.

I about jumped out of my chair when I got to the third paragraph and read this:

The government would decide how many gallons of gasoline should be consumed per year and would give out that total number of TGRs.

Why in the world does Mr. Feldstein believe that inserting more government bureaucrats and regulations into the gasoline market would improve life for Americans? Oh wait, he throws in a sweetener: the TGRs will be tradeable, leading to the assertion that they could raise "the income of a majority of households."

Right. Let's appeal to greed to push a really bad idea.

He claims that TGRs are a better solution for reducing consumption than legislating higher fuel economy standards, and more palatable than higher gasoline taxes. TGRs would raise the effective cost per gallon like a tax, but "the TGR system creates winners as well as losers." Meanwhile, he says that "[h]igher gas mileage standards would reduce gasoline demand in a very inefficient way by focusing exclusively on the rated mileage of new cars." But he also says that car companies have been known to respond to changing consumer tastes by changing their product mix.

What Mr. Feldstein doesn't discuss are the social and economic costs of implementing such a system. A rationing system, which is what the TGRs really are, requires new regulations, new government organizations to administer the program, and more law enforcement to counter the inevitable black market. Those costs have to be paid out of our taxes too. At least a higher gas tax has the merit of just making the existing tax bigger without adding a new bureaucracy; it would merely change the marginal cost of buying gasoline.

For the oil companies, they will incur compliance costs such as modification of their pumps to deal with double transactions for each purchase: the TGR "debit card" plus your actual payment. Those business costs will, surprise, raise the cost of gasoline too. And do you doubt that the legislation and complex TGR allocation rules will become a bonanza for litigators?

I don't see that TGRs accomplish anything that high prices aren't already encouraging: less driving, focus on conservation measures like keeping one's tires properly inflated, and a preference for better gas mileage when replacing one's vehicle. (Fuel economy standards may be misbegotten economic policy, but they have led to major improvements in technology since they were first implemented that perhaps would have come more slowly without the regulatory prod. Because of this, the average fuel economy of all cars in the US has increased over time as older cars are replaced with newer, more efficient models.)

TGRs may "raise the income" for many, but the implementation costs will eat away at that tiny raise. This proposal deserves a rapid burial!

I want my country back!

I want my country back. The country we used to sing about:

My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died!
Land of the Pilgrim's pride!
From every mountain side,
Let freedom ring!

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love.
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture fills
Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song.
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Our father's God to, Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King!

I want my country back. The country President Reagan envisioned, even as he gave his Farewell Address:

And that's about all I have to say tonight. Except for one thng. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

I want my country back. The country where a shared idealism leads us forward, rectifying the sins of the past, calling us toward greatness. From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

Amen.

Demographics is Destiny

Hugh Hewitt is urging all his listeners and readers to read Mark Steyn's article that appears in today's OpinionJournal.

This article originally appeared online in the January issue of The New Criterion, and expands on themes Steyn developed in his column on Christmas Day.

Steyn writes:

The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers*, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion. The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam.

There are other factors that can drive birth rates, even within secular non-Christian states. When I toured the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union in 1984, I was struck by the difference in their social support networks for children.

China was even then implementing their one-child policy, so each child was cherished. In Shanghai and Beijing, our tourguides informed us that babies could be put into childcare as early as 56 days post-partum, provided by the factory or apartment complex. Since women could retire in their 50s, many families had extra in-laws, aunts and cousins who could also provide childcare for the working parents.

In the Soviet Union, we visited Moscow and Leningrad. Our Leningrad Intourist guide commented to that most of her married friends had no children, a few had a single child, and none had more than one. It was just too hard! Despite the proclaimed desire of the government that its citizens procreate, the realities of unrelated families sharing apartments, a dearth of caretakers, kindergarten only available for about 1/3 of the kids, and children not starting primary school until they turned 7, were tremendous disincentives for having children.

Although both countries boasted Communist governments, their policy decisions, their history, and their underlying cultures created very different outcomes.

* I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, so learned about the Shakers in school. You can find out more at the Shaker Historical Society.

The Good Guys

Bret Stephens has a wonderful op-ed in this morning's Wall Street Journal about the US military's relief efforts in Pakistan since the October earthquake:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan--From the air, the town of Balakot, at the lip of the Kaghan Valley in Pakistan's mountainous North-West Frontier Province, resembles pictures of Hiroshima circa late summer 1945: All but a few buildings have been reduced absolutely to rubble. There were some 50,000 people in this town on the morning of Oct. 8; a six-second earthquake that day killed an estimated 16,000 outright. Now survivors live mainly in scattered tent villages, not all of them properly winterized. And winter has begun.

The people of Balakot and dozens of other devastated towns are much on the mind of Rear Adm. Michael A. LeFever, 51, the man in charge of the U.S. military's 1,000-man, $110 million-and-counting relief effort here. "I'll never forget landing and smelling gangrene and smelling death," he says of his first trip to the disaster zone where 73,000 died. "The first couple of days were overwhelming."

It was Pakistan's good fortune in those critical days that Adm. LeFever could call in heavy-lift helicopters, particularly the tandem-rotor Chinook, from bases in nearby Afghanistan. Every road into the Frontier Province and the neighboring Azad Kashmir region had been rendered impassable by huge landslides. Every hospital in the region except one had been destroyed. The Pakistan government, which lost nearly its entire civil administration in the region as well as hundreds of soldiers, lacked the airlift capacity to bring adequate relief north and the critically injured south. The Chinooks were among the few helicopters able to reach, supply and evacuate places that, even under normal conditions, are some of the most inaccessible on earth.

Go read the whole thing. Vice President Cheney visited the region this week, and Defenselink has pictures.

I found the WSJ piece especially interesting since I have encountered Mike LeFever a couple of times in my career. He is among the best and brightest of the Navy officers I've met.

Contradicting Mr. Murtha

I knew there was a reason I was holding off commenting on the latest round of pronouncements from Rep. Murtha. Today, Mark Steyn shines with his usual wit:

Sen. Joe Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, came out with a big statement on Iraq last week. Did you hear about it? Probably not. Everyone was still raving about his Democrat colleague, Rep. Jack Murtha, whose carefully nuanced position on Iraq is: We're all doomed unless we pull out by next Tuesday! (I quote from memory.)

Also, the United States Army is "broken," "worn out" and "living hand to mouth." If the reaction to Murtha's remarks by my military readers is anything to go by, he ought to be grateful they're still bogged down in Iraq and not in the congressional parking lot.

In case you missed them, Senator Lieberman's WSJ Op-Ed is still a must-read, while Rep. Murtha's speeches, statements and press conferences tend toward poor logic and incoherence. [Some people have wondered why, if the Army's broken, hasn't Rep. Murtha done anything about it since he sits on the House Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee on Defense? He does seem to be a master at procuring military spending for his district. ]

Major John Tammes posted his rebuttal, An Army Broken? (Hat tip NRO Corner & Instapundit):

With all the eagerness of a dog returning to something it has vomited up, the conventional media has latched onto Rep. Murtha's rambling discourse about the Army being "broken" and "has done all they can."

Unmitigated crap. And I don't say this out of defensiveness or service pride - I'll tell you about how far we have had to come in a bit. [snip]

What really infuriates me is that someone like Rep. Murtha knows better. Ask any veteran who served between 1975-1982/3 what the Army (or the rest of the Armed Forces for that matter) were like. Drugs everywhere, low pay, morale was non-existent, equipment was falling behind or scarce, there was no great sense of mission or purpose. Only the heroic measures of a few dedicated officers and NCOs saved us from absolutely bottoming out.

Read the whole thing. And for more Milblog opinions, see Who elects these idiots?, Everything You Need To Know About The Murtha Vote, and Pulling out early and other lunacy, all courtesy of Mudville Gazette "Dawn Patrol".

Also at Mudville Gazette, Greyhawk gives us News From Iraq:

A vision of post-war Iraq: peace, prosperity, and a population grateful for the freedom and opportunity given them by the United States. A prewar neocon pipedream?

No - it's the reality of the country's northern provinces.The fact that you rarely see news from northern Iraq is an indicator of the phenomenal success there - it runs counter to the carefully crafted "failure" narrative regarding the rebuilding and future of that land. But Kevin Sites is now in that Kurdish north, and provides a detailed look (with video) at the Peshmerga (translation: "those who face death." ) - the Kurdish militia. Don't miss it.

On a related note, go read Police Training Tightrope in Iraq - Watch Out at The Counterterrorism Blog. (Yup, another h/t to Mudville Gazette.)

Related posts: Rep. Murtha Complains Again, Winning the War — At Home (w/update)

By Popular Demand...

Actually, I'm a push-over for nice emails asking for links ;-)

Here's the one from Camp Katrina:

You have a great blog!

I am a soldier in the Army National Guard and recently returned from deployment in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We have created a blog, www.campkatrina.typepad.com, which shares stories and pictures from soldiers who served in operation Vigilant Relief, as well as highlighting the other great humanitarian efforts of the US military. I was wondering if we could exchange links on our sites. Our blog has been getting some media interest recently and I thought it might benefit us both. I want to let the public know about the great humanitarian work our military is doing.

Thanks,

Spc. Phil Van Treuren
Ohio Army National Guard
JAG Corps
www.campkatrina.typepad.com

And today, from CENTCOM:

Hi, Kate:

I saw your post regarding CENTCOM; Thanks for the interest!

Is there any chance you could add a permanent link to our website, http://www.centcom.mil? I’m trying to spread the word about it!

You’re welcome to use any materials you find on our site. If you’d like me to sign you up for the weekly electronic newsletter and monthly Coalition Bulletin, just ask!

SPC C. Flowers
CENTCOM Public Affairs

Thank you gentlemen! As you can see, I've added a new category to my blogroll for Military and Milblog sites. I also added Michael Yon under Pajamahadeen.

Let me know if there are other sites I should consider adding to my list.

Network Centric Warfare & Globalization

Hugh Hewitt spotted a lengthy essay "Netwar" at The Belmont Club, which in turn is reaction to a piece by Josh Manchester (aka "Chester"), Globalization and War. That is part of an on-line round-table on the subject at Zenpundit. (Also check the rest of the Zenpundit November archive for rebuttal pieces.)

An excerpt from the Belmont Club essay:

The fundamental issue [Manchester] discusses is whether nation-states are in some sense being replaced by distributed networks of people. Many activities, from community building to earning a living have jumped over traditional boundaries. Criminal and terrorist organizations have been among the first to exploit this fact. Viewed from one angle, modern Islamic terrorist cells are not so much a return to the forms of the 8th century as new structures made possible by 21st century technologies.

Of course, being the blogosphere, each post links to lots of other articles, and many have extensive comment threads too. I'm bookmarking these to read at my leisure.

Winning the War — At Home (w/update)

Despite the best efforts of Main Stream Media (MSM) to paint a picture of doom and gloom about the situation in Iraq, reports leak through that we are making significant progress.

Senator Elizabeth Dole writes this morning "We should reflect on our successes in war on terror":

America’s continued progress in the war on terror is critical to protecting our nation and our very way of life. As this year comes to an end, I hope Americans will reflect on the tireless commitment and good works of our troops and the progress that has been made, and that they will reject defeatist rhetoric and baseless partisan attacks.

It has been less than three years since Iraq was liberated, and in that time tremendous advancements toward democracy have occurred. A constitutional democracy is taking hold, and the Middle East is moving toward greater stability. It is integral to the continued progress in this region and to the overall war on terror that we not allow the cowardly acts of insurgents to derail our efforts.

Senator Joe Lieberman visited Iraq over Thanksgiving, and wrote a long Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal yesterday:

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.

Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld listed achievements at his Tuesday news conference:

• More than 212,000 Iraqi security forces are fully trained and equipped, up from about 96,000 a year ago;
• Ninety-five Iraqi army battalions are in the fight, compared to five in August 2004;
• Iraq's army has seven operational brigades and 31 operational brigade headquarters, up from zero in July 2004;
• Twenty-eight special police battalions are conducting operations, compared to zero in July 2004;
• U.S. forces have turned over control of 29 military bases to the Iraqis;
• Iraq forces have assumed responsibility for 87 square miles of Baghdad, an entire Iraqi province and 450 square miles of territory in other provinces; and
• More than 5,000 Iraqi troops played a key role in recent operations in Tal Afar, where they helped liberate and secure a terrorist operational base.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, CENTCOM's deputy director of plans and strategy, spoke at the Heritage Foundation on Monday:

U.S. and coalition initiatives to create well-trained and -equipped Iraqi security forces are paying off, with Iraqis taking on more of the fight, a U.S. Central Command general said Nov. 28 at the Heritage Foundation here.

"Iraqi security forces are fighting hard. They're fighting well. They are not cracking under pressure, as you see in some armies, and they are making a tremendous contribution."

Over at the Chicago Sun-Times, columnist Mary Laney observes "Our accomplishments in Iraq make for long list:"

The soldiers are putting their lives on the line daily, yet we don't hear from them or about them in the myriad reports coming out of Baghdad. The Marines are making certain schools are free of bombs and children can go inside to learn. Yet we don't hear from them. We only hear of the fatalities of the war -- not the victories of the war. We see pictures of the soldiers who have given their lives, but no pictures of the heroes who are, daily, making progress over there.

Major K (via Hugh Hewitt) has a couple of first-hand observations on developments in Iraq:

Firstly, the average Iraqi will often (not always) trust us more than other Iraqis outside of their family when it comes to fair and humane treatment. Secondly, for all of the people at home and in the media that think we are such a widely hated and mistrusted "occupying force," I would like to know why they think the Iraqis hate their honest broker. I have found that only the arhabi [terrorists] do.

(And discover why Christmas carols are popular in Iraq!)

If you hadn't heard, Iraq will have another round of elections on December 15 to elect a Parliament. The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq is the official website.

[Updated 6:15 pm] Finally, President Bush gave a major speech at the Naval Academy today on the war effort:

The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th. Those terrorists share the same ideology with those who blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, workers in Riyadh, and guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan. Just last week, they massacred Iraqi children and their parents at a toy give-away outside an Iraqi hospital.

This is an enemy without conscience -- and they cannot be appeased. If we were not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our own borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people. Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory. (Applause.)

To achieve victory over such enemies, we are pursuing a comprehensive strategy in Iraq. Americans should have a clear understanding of this strategy -- how we look at the war, how we see the enemy, how we define victory, and what we're doing to achieve it. So today, we're releasing a document called the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." This is an unclassified version of the strategy we've been pursuing in Iraq, and it is posted on the White House website -- whitehouse.gov. I urge all Americans to read it. [ed. hyperlinks added]

Non-MSM resources include:

• The White House
• US State Department, Iraq Weekly Status Report
• Department of Defense, Defense Link (DoD news) and Defend America (War on Terror news)
• Mudville Gazette is a MilBlog with lots of links to others, especially in the regular "Dawn Patrol" posts
• Milblogging.com is an index of MilBlogs

Rep. Murtha Complains Again

Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) has been much in the news the past week. Today, he was on Meet the Press, where he re-iterated his concerns with the progress in Iraq, amplifying what he said in his press conference on Thursday, 17 Nov.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman, according to our military experts, there are only 700 Iraqi troops who are fully independent and combat ready. (ed. Rumsfeld disputes this statistic.) That being the case, if we withdraw our troops quickly from Iraq, won't the Iraqi citizens be overwhelmed by the al-Qaeda and Saddam loyalists? Are the Iraqis capable of defending themselves without the U.S.?

REP. MURTHA: Tim, I'm absolutely convinced that we're making no progress at all, and I've been complaining for two years that there's an overly optimistic--an illusionary process going on here. They keep trying to measure Iraqi troops by our standards. They don't need to meet our standard. And until we turn it over to the Iraqis, we're going to continue to do the fighting. Our young men and women are going to continue to suffer.

No progress at all? That's not what embedded blogger Michael Yon reported on 4 Oct about the Battle for Mosul:

It bears repeating that the Coalition IS winning in Mosul. Here’s why: while the enemy commander Abu Zayd was hiding in and around Mosul, and complaining about his fellow terrorists squandering money on phones and cars, American and Iraqi commanders were physically fighting alongside their men, instilling confidence in the mission, sharing the risks. ...

[T]he Coalition simply has superior leaders, and they are mentoring the best Iraqi leaders, and the results are transparent.

Other good news stories include:

• Weapons Cache Grows as Soldiers Keep Digging
• Medical Mission Visits Gardez Orphanage
• Arab press: al-Zaraqawi may have been killed (Also see AP story. But Greyhawk thinks "He's living in his mom's basement. Participating in a suicide bombing isn't his style.")
• U.S., Iraqi Forces Make Gains Against Insurgents in Western Iraq
• Progress Drives Terrorists Out, Allows Iraqis In
• Good News from Iraq (GNIQ #36): Security Section

And finally, Same Ole' Different Day writes in Out of Iraq? (via Mudville Gazette):

I am here to tell you that everyday we are winning over the hearts of the people of Iraq. If you could see the smiling faces that I have seen you would know that we are making a difference in this country. I volunteered for the military, no one made me sign on that dotted line. Let me stay here and finish what we have started Mr. Murtha.

Amen.

P.S. Don Surber has more links, but says End The MIssion Creep: Bring Them Home. I commented, "I don't think that being in a new phase of operations equates with mission creep. The end of active combat operations just meant the start of winning the peace. And that process is progressing faster in Afghanistan and Iraq than, say, Kosovo under the tender occupation of the UN. As the ground game changes, so do the units deployed."

Update: I edited down the quote from Michael Yon for copyright reasons. Go read the whole dispatch.

My Letter to Rep. Saxton (R-NJ)

17 Nov 2005

Representative Jim Saxton
2217 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515


Dear Congressman Saxton,

I urge you to join your Republican colleagues in forcefully denouncing the congressional initiatives that would call for an immediate pullout of American forces from Iraq.

As Congressman Geoff Davis (R-KY) said today:

Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, as well as Abu Musab Zarqawi, have made it quite clear in their internal propaganda that they cannot win unless they can drive the Americans out. And they know that they can't do that there, so they've brought the battlefield to the halls of Congress.

And, frankly, the liberal leadership have put politics ahead of sound, fiscal and national security policy. And what they have done is cooperated with our enemies and are emboldening our enemies.

Please let the world know that you stand with President Bush and vow that "America will never run. We will stand, we will fight, and we will win the war on terror."

The Embarrassed Republican

That's me.

What in the world possessed the Senate Republican "leadership" to push through the Warner Amendment (S.AMDT.2518) to the Defense Appropriations Bill today?

SA 2518. Mr. WARNER (for himself and Mr. FRIST) proposed an amendment to the bill S. 1042, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2006 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes; as follows:

At the end of title XII, add the following:

SEC. __. UNITED STATES POLICY ON IRAQ.

(a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the ``United States Policy on Iraq Act''.

(b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate that, in order to succeed in Iraq--

(1) members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or have served in Iraq and their families deserve the utmost respect and the heartfelt gratitude of the American people for their unwavering devotion to duty, service to the Nation, and selfless sacrifice under the most difficult circumstances;

(2) it is important to recognize that the Iraqi people have made enormous sacrifices and that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want to live in peace and security;

(3) calendar year 2006 should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq;

(4) United States military forces should not stay in Iraq any longer than required and the people of Iraq should be so advised;

(5) the Administration should tell the leaders of all groups and political parties in Iraq that they need to make the compromises necessary to achieve the broad-based and sustainable political settlement that is essential for defeating the insurgency in Iraq, within the schedule they set for themselves; and

(6) the Administration needs to explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq.

(c) Reports to Congress on United States Policy and Military Operations in Iraq.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and every three months thereafter until all United States combat brigades have redeployed from Iraq, the President shall submit to Congress an unclassified report on United States policy and military operations in Iraq. Each report shall include, to the extent practicable, the following unclassified information:

(1) The current military mission and the diplomatic, political, economic, and military measures, if any, that are being or have been undertaken to successfully complete or support that mission, including:

(A) Efforts to convince Iraq's main communities to make the compromises necessary for a broad-based and sustainable political settlement.

(B) Engaging the international community and the region in the effort to stabilize Iraq and to forge a broad-based and sustainable political settlement.

(C) Strengthening the capacity of Iraq's government ministries.

(D) Accelerating the delivery of basic services.

(E) Securing the delivery of pledged economic assistance from the international community and additional pledges of assistance.

(F) Training Iraqi security forces and transferring security responsibilities to those forces and the government of Iraq.

(2) Whether the Iraqis have made the compromises necessary to achieve the broad-based and sustainable political settlement that is essential for defeating the insurgency in Iraq.

(3) Any specific conditions included in the April 2005 Multi-National Forces-Iraq campaign action plan (referred to in United States Government Accountability Office October 2005 report on Rebuilding Iraq: DOD Reports Should Link Economic, Governance, and Security Indicators to Conditions for Stabilizing Iraq), and any subsequent updates to that campaign plan, that must be met in order to provide for the transition of security responsibility to Iraqi security forces.

(4) To the extent that these conditions are not covered under paragraph (3), the following should also be addressed:

(A) The number of battalions of the Iraqi Armed Forces that must be able to operate independently or to take the lead in counterinsurgency operations and the defense of Iraq's territory.

(B) The number of Iraqi special police units that must be able to operate independently or to take the lead in maintaining law and order and fighting the insurgency.

(C) The number of regular police that must be trained and equipped to maintain law and order.

(D) The ability of Iraq's Federal ministries and provincial and local governments to independently sustain, direct, and coordinate Iraq's security forces.

(5) The criteria to be used to evaluate progress toward meeting such conditions.

(6) A schedule for meeting such conditions, an assessment of the extent to which such conditions have been met, information regarding variables that could alter that schedule, and the reasons for any subsequent changes to that schedule.

The roll call on the Amendment was as follows:

Akaka (D-HI), Yea Alexander (R-TN), Not Voting Allard (R-CO), Yea Allen (R-VA), Yea Baucus (D-MT), Yea Bayh (D-IN), Yea Bennett (R-UT), Yea Biden (D-DE), Yea Bingaman (D-NM), Yea Bond (R-MO), Yea Boxer (D-CA), Yea Brownback (R-KS), Yea Bunning (R-KY), Nay Burns (R-MT), Yea Burr (R-NC), Nay Byrd (D-WV), Nay Cantwell (D-WA), Yea Carper (D-DE), Yea Chafee (R-RI), Yea Chambliss (R-GA), Nay Clinton (D-NY), Yea Coburn (R-OK), Nay Cochran (R-MS), Yea Coleman (R-MN), Yea Collins (R-ME), Yea Conrad (D-ND), Nay Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Corzine (D-NJ), Not Voting Craig (R-ID), Yea Crapo (R-ID), Yea Dayton (D-MN), Yea DeMint (R-SC), Nay DeWine (R-OH), Yea Dodd (D-CT), Yea

Dole (R-NC), Yea Domenici (R-NM), Yea Dorgan (D-ND), Yea Durbin (D-IL), Yea Ensign (R-NV), Yea Enzi (R-WY), Yea Feingold (D-WI), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea Frist (R-TN), Yea Graham (R-SC), Nay Grassley (R-IA), Yea Gregg (R-NH), Yea Hagel (R-NE), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Nay Hatch (R-UT), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Nay Inouye (D-HI), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Nay Jeffords (I-VT), Yea Johnson (D-SD), Yea Kennedy (D-MA), Nay Kerry (D-MA), Nay Kohl (D-WI), Yea Kyl (R-AZ), Nay Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea Leahy (D-VT), Nay Levin (D-MI), Yea Lieberman (D-CT), Yea Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Lott (R-MS), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea Martinez (R-FL), Yea

McCain (R-AZ), Nay McConnell (R-KY), Yea Mikulski (D-MD), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea Nelson (D-FL), Yea Nelson (D-NE), Yea Obama (D-IL), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea Reed (D-RI), Yea Reid (D-NV), Yea Roberts (R-KS), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea Salazar (D-CO), Yea Santorum (R-PA), Yea Sarbanes (D-MD), Yea Schumer (D-NY), Yea Sessions (R-AL), Nay Shelby (R-AL), Yea Smith (R-OR), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea Specter (R-PA), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Yea Stevens (R-AK), Yea Sununu (R-NH), Yea Talent (R-MO), Yea Thomas (R-WY), Yea Thune (R-SD), Nay Vitter (R-LA), Nay Voinovich (R-OH), Yea Warner (R-VA), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Yea

Hugh Hewitt is devoting his whole radio show to this topic tonight. Transcripts of his interviews with various Senators will be posted at Radioblogger. Senator Burr's interview is here.

Thankfully, there are grown-ups in Washington. Secretary Rumsfeld was informed of the vote during his press conference this afternoon. The question is almost as interesting as his whole answer:

Q The bottom line, though, it's a sense of the Senate on the war requiring the Pentagon and the administration to file more complete, regular progress reports. And it pressed the Pentagon --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Is this the one that was pending by Warner and somebody --

Q Yeah, and Frist.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Frist.

Q And here's my question. Looking back as a former member of Congress, does this signal to you a growing impatience in the U.S. Senate similar to the early '70s debates on Vietnam?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I wouldn't go down that road myself. It's understandable that the American people and the Congress are interested in knowing as much as possible about a war. A war is an important thing. It's a serious thing. It's a dangerous thing. People die, and we know that, and it's heartbreaking.

I was reading a book last night, Winston Churchill, and he said the problem is not winning the war but persuading people to let them -- let him win the war, he said. In a free system like we have -- these situations don't evolve in a dictatorship. It's only in free systems that we have these kind of open, public debates and discussions.

Just a piece of factual information. I'm told that the Department of Defense and the Department of State send literally dozens of Iraqi-related reports to Congress each year already. Seven are required reports. We have seven voluntary briefings. We have 28 IG reports, 52 GAO reports, and regular classified updates on the Iraqi security forces, which I believe go up there every month. Many of those things address what, as I recall, an earlier draft of that amendment may have covered. And that's fine. I mean, that's all part of the interaction between the executive and legislative branch. And they have every right to ask for reports, and we send, I don't know, it's something over 900 reports total every year from the Department of Defense to the Congress. I hope someone reads them.

But no, what it reflects to me is that this is a serious business and these are serious people and they're interested in having as much information as possible.

I was struck by what someone told me about another amendment, where Senator Lieberman spoke and pointed out that he was concerned -- I think he said, quote, that it seems to be -- you don't want to -- he said one of these amendments would send "a message that I fear will discourage our troops because it seems to be heading to the door. It will encourage the terrorists and it will confuse the Iraqi people and affect their judgments as they go forward."

And I mention that because another one that's pending involves deadlines, as I recall, or timetables of some sort. [ed. S.Amdt. 2519]

Q That was shot down.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Was it?

Q Yes.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Good.

Q But the point, I mean the impatience there, is this impatience coming a lot quicker than you would have anticipated? I mean, this your own party pressing this at the moment; it was 79 to 9. It was many Republicans, including Warner and Frist.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I think that amendment, I was told, was going to be offered in lieu of one that was somewhat different.

Q Yeah, but the point -- I mean, impatience, though. That's what I'm trying to get your sense on.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I think -- I have a lot of confidence in the American people, and frankly, I have a lot of confidence in the Congress. The Congress represents the American people, and the American people have a very good center of gravity. They listen, and they'll decide.

And what's going on in Iraq is important. It's important historically. It's important for the Iraqi people. It's important for the entire region, and quite honestly, it's very important for the United States of America and the coalition countries that have a desire to have their people be able to live as free people and not be subjected to the dictates of a hand -- small handful of fanatics.

After several more questions on other topics, Mr. Rumsfeld took one last question:

Q Yeah. One of the sentiments expressed by both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate is that the Iraqi political leaders need to be sent a message that the United States is not in Iraq indefinitely, as an incentive to get them to take greater responsibility for their own security leadership. How do you respond to that? Do you -- are you satisfied with the Iraqi political leadership, or do they need to be sent a message?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, of course, the leadership is not "the leadership." It's a scoop of individuals from different sects and different religions and different political lists, and they have differing views. But -- I mean, the fact of the matter is I meet with a lot of Iraqis, and overwhelmingly, they suggest that they're anxious to have the time arrive when we do not have to have so many forces there so visibly. And that's our desire as well.

So it seems to me that we're all very much in agreement, the president of the United States, who says he wants to hand over responsibility as soon as is possible and is working very hard to achieve that. We're already handing over responsibility in a number of areas. I expect that after this election, we'll be able to hand over additional responsibilities as the Iraqi security forces continue to grow in number. And that's the desire of the -- at least a number of the Iraqi leaders, just as it's the desire of the president of the United States and the troops themselves.

We don't go into a country to stay in a country. We go into a country to try to be helpful and then leave as soon as is possible, but not in a manner that's precipitous; and not in a manner that would inject an instability into the situation; and not in a manner that would suggest to the terrorists that all they have to do is wait us out, and they'll be able to have their way. Because if they have their way and impose their medieval vision on that country in that part of the world, it would be an enormous price to pay. And I don't think that's going to happen. [ed. Emphasis added.]

Thank you, folks.

Go get'm Mr. Secretary!

P.S. If you're wondering, the post title is a take-off on Hugh Hewitt's book, The Embarrassed Believer. He really should get it back in print, and add a study guide for church groups.

Sunday Must-reads

The Anchoress has a beautiful essay today, Discernment is always grave…:

God gives the gift of faith, some folks give it back in service. God tells us “take and consume,” some give their lives back in return, saying, “Lord, take and consume,” it is an endless give-and-take, and a very great mystery of love.

It is not easy to be a man or woman of God, to live a vowed and consecrated life, regardless of whether that consecration involves a celibate life lived in community, or in a humble rectory, or in a hermitage, or a life lived in chaste marriage. In each case, the life is busy with the Work of God, and somehow - even perhaps with the hermit - the supernatural must balance with the natural, the charity to which we are called will be challenged by our fellows, by our feelings, by the times and by our own tempraments.

Today, perhaps take five minutes to sit quietly and hold in prayer your priest, your pastor or someone else you may know of who has made the grave offering of not merely “loving” God, but of “being poured out like a libation” for the benefit of his or her fellow sheep, in service to a passionate and intensely loving God who uses up every last inch on a spool of thread and wears down every pencil to its nub, so that nothing is wasted or cast aside.

Dr. Sanity says "Let's Discuss Bush Derangement Syndrome Again" (hat tips to Anchoress and Powerline):

What makes Bush Hatred completely insane however, is the almost delusional degree of unremitting certitude of Bush's evil; while simultaneously believing that the TRUE perpetrators of evil in the world are somehow good and decent human beings with the world's intersts at heart.

This psychological defense mechanism is referred to as "displacement".

One way you can usually tell that an individual is using displacement is that the emotion being displaced (e.g., anger) is all out of proportion to the reality of the situation. The purpose of displacement is to avoid having to cope with the actual reality. Instead, by using displacement, an individual is able to still experience his or her anger, but it is directed at a less threatening target than the real cause. In this way, the individual does not have to be responsible for the consequences of his/her anger and feels more safe--even thought that is not the case.

This explains the remarkable and sometimes lunatic appeasement of Islamofascists by so many governments and around the world, while they trash the US and particularly Bush. It explains why there is more emphasis on protecting the "rights" of terrorists, rather than holding them accountable for their actions (thier actions, by the way are also Bush's fault, according to those in the throes of BDS). Our soldiers in Iraq are being killed because of Bush--not because of terrorist intent and behavior. Terrorist activity itself is blamed on Bush no matter where it occurs.

The Powerline post on Dr. Sanity's diagnosis is also worth a read.

Don Surber examines Bush's Gettysburg (Hat tip Instapundit):

From a small town in Pennsylvania, the president came to finally answer critics of an increasingly unpopular war, a war that Democrats hoped would sweep them into office in the next election.

Tigerhawk has a lengthy essay "Considering dissent and limited war II" (Hat tip Instapundit):

When a democratic nation is at war, there are inevitably those who will object to the way in which the war is being fought, or that it is being fought at all. If the war is manifestly for the country’s survival or otherwise of great moment, the objectors will be so marginalized that they and their arguments will have no effect on the politics of the country, the morale of its military, or the tactics of the enemy.

Dissent can, however, have an enormous impact on the means by which a democracy wages a limited war, the persistence with which it wages the war, or whether it wages the war at all. This post considers the objectives of domestic dissent to limited wars, the impact of anti-war dissent on the means of fighting the war and the morale of the soldiers at arms, the different types of anti-war dissent and, finally, whether some objectives and types of dissent are more moral than others.

96 Blind Bishops

Veteran's Day brought this bracing headline: "96 bishops decry 'unjust and immoral' situation in Iraq".

Sigh.

This time the United Methodist Bishops have signed "A Call to Repentance and Peace with Justice." Like their English episcopal brethren, the UMC bishops are in mea culpa mode:

As followers of Jesus Christ, who named peacemakers as blessed children of God, we call upon The United Methodist Church to join us in repentance and renewed commitment to Christ's reign of compassion, justice, reconciliation, and peace.

As elected and consecrated bishops of the church, we repent of our complicity in what we believe to be the unjust and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. In the face of the United States Administration's rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent. We confess our preoccupation with institutional enhancement and limited agendas while American men and women are sent to Iraq to kill and be killed, while thousands of Iraqi people needlessly suffer and die, while poverty increases and preventable diseases go untreated. Although we value the sacrifices of the men and women who serve in the military, we confess our betrayal of the scriptural and prophetic authority to warn the nations that true security lies not in weapons of war, but in enabling the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized to flourish as beloved daughters and sons of God. We confess our failure to make disciples of Jesus Christ and to be a people who welcome and love all those for whom Christ died.

Let me count the assumptions:

1. unjust and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq
2. rush toward military action based on misleading information
3. thousands of American and Iraqi people needlessly suffer and die
4. poverty increases and preventable diseases go untreated

The first point is, arguably, a matter of opinion. What the bishops would consider justifiable or moral grounds is left to the reader's imagination. The language of the Catholic Church's just-war doctrine is informative, even if Pope John Paul II counseled against going to war, wishing more time for diplomatic efforts. Also see "Iraq and Just War: A Symposium," conducted on Sept. 30, 2002, for a discussion of the pros and cons.

The second point conveniently forgets the decade-long diplomatic dance between the UN and Saddam Hussein, with numerous Security Council resolutions drawing ever fainter lines in the sand while Oil-for-Food kickbacks enriched the shameless. That's hardly rushing into things. And that "misleading information" is short-hand for "Bush lied about the WMD threat", a canard that the President vigorously refuted in his Veteran's Day speech.

The third point revolves around the assumption that the war and its aftermath created "needless" harm in Iraq, that if the US and its allies hadn't intervened to bring down the Hussein government, all would be swell — a "what-if" that is knowable only to God. That Saddam and his cronies had brazenly butchered Iraqis (especially the Kurds and Marsh Arabs) and repressed the population seems to be irrelevant to the bishops.

The fourth point is all about guns versus butter, and ignores the improvements in the general Iraqi economy and standard of living as the infrastructure that rotted under Saddam's tender care is restored and improved. If the good bishops are concerned that the US government has cut back on welfare or health care funding domestically, they should review the 2005 budget historical tables. Defense outlays rose 47% from $305.500 billion in 2001 (the last Clinton budget) to an estimated $450.586 billion in 2005 (down from $453.684 billion in 2004). Meanwhile, expenditures for Medicaid rose 41% from $129.4 billion in 2001 to an estimated $182.1 billion in 2005. Likewise, outlays for "income security" line items rose 29% from $269.615 billion in 2001 to an estimated $348.149 billion in 2005. To give a historical perspective, the raises projected in FY2001 for these categories by 2005 were 14%, 43%, and 25% respectively. Yes, the poverty rate in 2004 rose slightly over the previous year to 12.7%, but it's still 9.7% better than it was in 1959 when the first estimates were made.

As you might expect, the "action plan" for the bishops and their flocks includes lots of prayer. While prayer is a powerful tool, it's more effective if the remedies prayed for have some bearing on the problem at hand. Here's the rest of the bishops' text:

Aware that we are to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, we personally and as bishops commit ourselves to:

• Pray daily for the end of war in general and the Iraq war specifically; for those who suffer as the result of war, including the soldiers and their families; the Iraqi people in their struggle to find a workable form of government; and for the leaders of the United States that they will turn to truth, humility, and policies of peace through justice.
• Reclaim the prophetic authority that calls nations, individuals, and communities to live faithfully in the light of God's new creation where all people know their identity as beloved children of God; where justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream; and where barriers are removed and all creation is healed, reconciled, and renewed.
• Commit ourselves to peacemaking as an integral component of our own Christian discipleship, which means advocating and actively working for the things that make for peace: personal, institutional, and governmental priorities that protect the poor and most vulnerable; modeling an end to prejudice toward people of other faiths and cultures; confronting differences and conflicts with grace, humility, dialogue, and respect without being so cautious in confronting evil that we lose our moral authority.

We call upon all United Methodists to join in the pursuit of peace through justice as revealed in Holy Scripture and incarnate in Jesus Christ.

• Let us move beyond caution rooted in self protection and recover moral authority anchored in commitment to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
• Let us object with boldness when governing powers offer solutions of war that conflict with the gospel message of self-emptying love.
• Let us with compassion share the pain of God's children who suffer from the devastation of war and those who live in poverty resulting from misplaced priorities and misguided public policies.
• Let us work toward unity in a world of diversity, that all peoples will come to know that we belong to one another, and that "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself … and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us"(2 Corinthians 5:19).

I love those lines "Reclaim the prophetic authority" and "without being so cautious in confronting evil that we lose our moral authority". Yet as I read their statement, I have to wonder what "evil" they think they're fighting. They seem to be more concerned with the policies of the governments trying to eliminate the bad guys than with the evil perpetrated by Al-Zarqawi and his minions, most recently in Jordan. The bishops need to recalibrate their approach: wimpy pacifist multiculturalism ("unity in a world of diversity") is no match for zealous jihadis who have no desire to share the planet with Christians at all. Whatever became of the Church Militant, anyway?

I'm not alone in my dismay. Last week, Joseph Loconte, editor of "The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm", wrote an essay for the Wall Street Journal, "Peace Now," examining the statements made by a number of church bodies:

Peacemaking has always been a major theme in Christianity, and pacifists a strong voice within the Christian tradition. The founder of the faith, after all, is hailed by believers as the Prince of Peace. Yet modern pacifists, for all their citations of Scripture, seem miles away from the moral insights of biblical religion.

Nowhere is this gulf more striking than in their posture toward terrorism. Despite the record of gruesome violence since 9/11, many Christian leaders still refuse to confront the radical evil of militant Islam. [...]

It's important to be aware of our own temptations to hubris, even in wartime. But moral equivalence has nothing to do with the ethics of the Bible. In the political arena it becomes a substitute for responsible action. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, writing in early 1941, when most of Europe was under Nazi control, assailed such thinking as a kind of perfectionism derived from secular culture. "This utopianism," he warned, "contributed to the tardiness of the democracies in defending themselves against the perils of a new barbarism."

Another form of barbarism now threatens the civilized world, what some have called "fascism with an Islamic face." The danger of the pacifist illusion is its campaign to persuade democracies to ignore the true nature of this barbarism--and to throw down their defenses in the name of peace. [...]

Christians have never viewed peace as the highest good. There are other goods: protecting human dignity and restraining evil, for example. A just peace can be the final result of these pursuits, God willing. But if peace is made the supreme goal, if it consumes all other virtues, it becomes an idol--and a snare to the statesman as well as the saint. [ed. Emphasis added.]

In his Veteran's Day Speech, President Bush reiterated the nature of the evil we're fighting:

We're facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No act of ours invited the rage of killers -- and no concession, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder. On the contrary, they target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence. Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response: We will never back down, we will never give in, we will never accept anything less than complete victory. (Applause.)

The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses. Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, "what is good for them and what is not." And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that this road -- that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride. (Applause.) [...]

With the rise of a deadly enemy and the unfolding of a global ideological struggle, our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented dangers. And yet this fight we have joined is also the current expression of an ancient struggle -- between those who put their faith in dictators, and those who put their faith in the people. Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision -- and they end up alienating decent people across the globe. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure -- until those societies collapse in corruption and decay. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent -- until the day that free men and women defeat them.

We don't know the course our own struggle will take, or the sacrifices that might lie ahead. We do know, however, that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice, we do know the love of freedom is the mightiest force of history, and we do know the cause of freedom will once again prevail. (Applause.)

Thus endeth the lesson.

[Updated 11/14] Also see my previous post about the Anglican bishops, Stuck on Stupid, as well as Overcoming Evil with Good, and Why I didn't go to Church today with the infamous "Litany for Liberal Christians". In a similar vein, Don Surber writes Edwards Is Wrong About Being Wrong.

[Update 2, 11/14] Warren Bell at NRO Corner spots "The misguided church", an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post about the Anglican bishops' report I discussed in Stuck on Stupid. Sample graf:

Beyond the obvious betrayal of British troops in the field, the report symbolizes two more substantial, disturbing tendencies among liberal Christian intellectuals: profound ignorance of Islam and a virulent pacifism that embraces appeasement.