The Urban Empire

The Brits Sure Do Have a Way with Words

2005-10-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

Charles Clarke, U.K. Home Secretary (HT: ZenPundit):

"And make no mistake: The threat we face is ideological. It is not driven by poverty, or by social exclusion, or by racial hatred. Those who attacked London in July, those who have been engaged in terrorist networks elsewhere in the world, and those who attacked New York in 2001 were not the poor and dispossessed. They were, for the most part, well educated and prosperous. In the case of terrorists in the UK, they have also been ethnically and nationally diverse.

What drives these people on is ideas. And, unlike the liberation movements of the post-World War II era, these are not political ideas like national independence from colonial rule, or equality for all citizens without regard for race or creed, or freedom of expression without totalitarian repression. Such ambitions are, at least in principle, negotiable and in many cases have actually been negotiated.

However, there can be no negotiation about the re-creation of the Caliphate; there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Sharia law; there can be no negotiation about the suppression of equality between the sexes; there can be no negotiation about the ending of free speech. These values are fundamental to our civilization and are simply not up for negotiation."

The Zawahiri Letter Analyzed

2005-10-14T17:09:00.000-05:00

I had originally sought to do my own analysis of the recently released Zawahiri letter, but do to unforeseen issues with school, my time has been constricted quite a bit. Instead, I wanted to link to two excellent articles on the letter. First is from the amazing Dan Darling in the Weekly Standard and the other is an impressive analysis from the thoughtful and underrated, Athena of Terrorism Unveiled. This should be required reading for everyone.

On the other hand, the Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq group just released a statment saying that the letter is essentially a fake. The plot thickens.

Iraqi Political Progress

2005-10-13T11:21:00.000-05:00

According to the NYT:

Iraqi political leaders said they had agreed to an important last-minute change in the draft constitution this evening in exchange for a promise by some prominent Sunni Arab leaders to publicly support the document in the nationwide referendum on Saturday.

This is one of the most positive steps in Iraq in quite some time, I must say. Over at Liberals Against Terrorism, Eric Martin says that:

Credit goes to Zalmay Khalilzad, who has proven his mettle as one of the most competent and skilled appointees of the Bush Administration's foreign policy wing. He may not have achieved the broad consensus he wanted, but he was working with intractable problems and managed to compel at least some compromise.

Indeed. Initially, I was worried that Amb. Khalilzad's presense in Afghanistan would be a hinderance to political progress there. But since he's been in Iraq over the past 2 months, he's a very skilled diplomat and has made some, albeit not huge, progress with the seemingly uncompromising Iraqi religious groups. As readers know, I do not advocate a position of "withdrawl now" in the least, the distinction goes to one Matt Yglesias. He argues that since this is a clear example of political progress, it is only the Iraqis that can achieve it and thus "it's largely out of our hands" and we should just leave now. This is one of the most morally bankrupt positions I've seen on the non-radical left in quite some time. Matt chooses to wilfully ignore the fact that this agreement never would've been reached had it not been for the intense pressure brought down on the parties to make something happen. The Shi'ites and Kurds would have never agreed to anything resembling this and instead would've opted for an all out power grab. Matt says that worse comes to worse, "they'll fight a vicious civil war for a while and then work out a way to live peaceably." What a depressing Realist-like position. Do we not have a duty to try everything within our power to stop this civil war from escalating? How would we look in the eyes of history if we abandoned the Iraqi people yet again? Not even mentioning the fact that al Qaeda has laid out it's strategy as clear as day. They want to force a US withdrawl so they can establish a mini-Caliphate in the Anbar, Salahad and Ninawa provinces of Iraq. Once this is done, al Qaeda seeks to spread the jihad Syria and Jordan (it's been simmering in Saudi Arabia for 2 years now). Isn't this something we should be worried about first and foremost? I don't even see how a person who believes in humanitarianism can advocate such a position.

Monday Recommended Reading

2005-10-10T09:20:00.000-05:00

Blatantly copying Stygius, I think I will also post a recommended reading list for my four or five regular readers.

LA Times - A Central Pillar of Iraq Policy Crumbling: Senior U.S. officials have begun to question a key presumption of American strategy in Iraq: that establishing democracy there can erode and ultimately eradicate the insurgency gripping the country.
ACA - U.S.-Indian Nuclear Prospects Murky: "France, Russia, and the United Kingdom have all indicated they will welcome the U.S. initiative. Moscow, which has previously shipped nuclear fuel to India in defiance of the NSG, and Paris are particularly eager to do business with India. But Washington has to win over more than just these three states because the NSG operates by consensus."
Zenpundit - A VISION OF A FUTURE WORTH CREATING: REVIEWING BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION: "is a tour de force demonstrating the interconnections of the strategic challenges facing the United States. It is analytical, bold and at the end, Blogging the Future", highly speculative. In BFA you will find references to other thinkers from Ralph Peters to Robert Wright to Robert Kaplan to van Creveld to John Boyd."
Belgravia Dispatch - Detainee abuse redux: "Its continued existence continues to sap domestic support for the war, provides inadvertent aid and comfort to both the enemy and the US anti-war movement, and makes it difficult to curb the rise of anti-Americanism among the general populace our oh-so-superior European allies." By Dan Darling
Transitional Justice Forum - Rwandans, still struggling: Rwanda's leaders now expect "over 700,000 people-- almost one-tenth of the population-- to be brought before genocide courts."
Thomas P.M. Barnett - Iran's meager military-market connection: "UN's IAEA votes to refer Iran to the UNSC last month, and Iran's meager stock market drops 30% pronto in the days that follow. Local stock analysts say they've seen nothing like it before, as what Iranian money there is heads to Dubai, which just opened up its markets to foreign investors."
WaPo - Welcome to the Occupation: "How could the strongest power in modern history, going to war against a much lesser opponent at a time and place of its own choosing, find itself stuck a few years later, hemorrhaging blood and treasure amid increasing chaos? Americans will be debating the answer for decades, and as they do, they are unlikely to find a better guide than George Packer's masterful new The Assassins' Gate."

That's it for the time being. Now it's off to school and the wonders of Arabic at 10 AM.

Update on the South Asian Quake

2005-10-09T00:22:00.000-05:00

When I said that the death toll from the earthquake would go "much higher" I had no idea that the toll would increase tenfold. Yes, the AP is now putting the total at 18,000 people. Eighteen Thousand People. Six times the toll of September 11th.

Dan Drezner denied tenure

2005-10-08T23:52:00.000-05:00

Assistant professor in political science at the University of Chicago, Daniel Drezner was denied tenure on Friday. This is quite shocking because it seemed that after he compiled his massive tenure file back in June, that he expected to be approved (as we all did). Dan's was one of the first blogs I started reading way back in early 2003 and the quality and intellect of the content produced during that time was quite impressive. This truly sucks on so many levels. Given his stature I doubt that it'd be hard for him to find another job. You could always come up here to UWM, Dan! But on second thought, that'd probably be viewed as a big step down.

Good luck, Dan!

The Iraq War's Consequences Part 1

2005-10-08T15:27:00.000-05:00

Stygius has a great post on the major Bush foreign policy speech from Thursday. Of course, I'm behind the curve and the blogosphere has already written at length on this speech. But I want to add my own take on what Bush articulated as my main justification against any sort of withdrawl from Iraq. Bush said:

[The] militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments. Over the past few decades, radicals have specifically targeted Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, and Jordan for potential takeover. They achieved their goal, for a time, in Afghanistan. Now they've set their sights on Iraq. Bin Laden has stated: "The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries. It's either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation." The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.

This is all very true and to my knowledge, it is the most stark statment of the realities of the situation we're in, by President Bush. As anyone who reads about terrorism knows, the whole goal of Zarqawi's Al Qaeda in Iraq group is to use Iraq as a base of operations to launch attacks against Jordan (he has vowed to overthrow the corrupt ruling Hashemites at all costs). So if Zarqawi can succeed in forcing either a complete or partial withdrawl of the Multinational Forces in Iraq, he will be able to turn the al-Anbar province into a "terrorist Disneyland," if it isn't already.

By big point that I mention to anyone who listens is this: The whole goal of 9/11 was to awaken the American giant in order to provoke a massive and stunning retaliation against Afghanistan. Osama expected that the Americans would unleash hell on Afghanistan and once the invasion happened, al Qaeda would spring into action to and bog the US military down. Once we were bogged down, we'd start using increasingly heavy handed tactics and this would show that America was waging war against Islam itself and the Ummah writ large would rise up against us and lead to our defeat. Unfortunately for bin Laden, it seems he didn't appreciate the fact that the Taliban's hold on the country was enormously weak and it crumbled before al Qaeda could begin sustained operations against the Americans. As Osama's main deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri stated in his recent letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda has resigned itself to the fact that it has lost Afghanistan for good.

Then comes Iraq. This is a depressing subject for me lately as I've sunken into a sort of despair over the true consequences of the Iraq War on the world. As my readers will know, I've long been a believer in the war. I supported it initially on a mixture of democratization and human rights, while I did believe Saddam possesed WMDs, I never thought that that alone was a sufficient casus belli as Saddam would never be stupid enough to attack the United States. I remember saying to a teacher of mine right before the fall of Baghdad that this is the most important undertaking the US has engaged in since Vietnam, if not more important. Perhaps I was naive and overly idealistic, but I believed that Bush would prosecute this war compotently. I after a year of sustained insurgency, I became convinced that Bush's handling of the war was severely damaging to American national security and thus I was forced to begrudgingly vote for John Kerry last November, despite my belief that he was a truly atrocious candidate.

Of course al Qaeda would try to challenge us in Iraq. This would be similar to invading France on D-Day and expecting the Nazis to not contest it. As I stated above, bin Laden wanted to soundly defeat the Americans in Afghanistan, but he failed badly. It took the mujihadeen 10 years to defeat the Godless Communists, with enormous backing by Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and America's CIA, supplying the "holy warriors" with billions of dollars and millions of arms. The Iraqi insurgency headed by Zarqawi has conducted such sustained and brutal operations that the "withdraw now" coalition is getting increasingly stronger by the day and I fear that by next summer there will be an overwhelming chorus of both parties pushing for a withdrawl from Iraq. al Qaeda in Iraq is well on it's way to defeating the greatest superpower the world has ever known, in a mere 3 years. The reason this is so depressing was that this wasn't inevitable at all and had we prosecuted this war with one iota of compotence, we could've prevented this and Iraq would've been a far safer place and it's likely that a viable democracy would be in place and Bush would've gone down in history as a true visionary president. Instead, if all the signs of a partial withdrawl are true and if the US doesn't somehow make significant gains against al Qaeda, Iraq could very well end up as one of the worst strategic mistakes in US history.

More on this in part 2 either later tonight or tomorrow.

Pakistan Earthquake

2005-10-08T10:58:00.000-05:00

Today I wake up and read the news, only to have have the same feeling I had when I heard New Orleans had been flooded overnight. This time however, a huge 7.6 earthquake struck along the Pakistan-Indian border and preliminary estimates are already at a staggering 1,700 people. This will undoubtedly go much higher as rescue workers retrieve the dead from under the rumble.

In the capitals of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, buildings shook and walls swayed for about a minute, and panicked people ran from their homes and offices. Tremors continued for hours afterward. Communications throughout the region were cut.

About 1,000 people were killed in Pakistani Kashmir, said Sardar Mohammed Anwar, the top government official in the area.

"This is my conservative guess, and the death toll could be much higher," Anwar told Pakistan's Aaj television station.

He said most homes in Muzaffarabad, the area's capital, were damaged, and schools and hospitals had collapsed.

Sheehan in 2006?

2005-10-04T23:34:00.000-05:00

Apparently there are some anti-war activists that want Cindy Sheehan to challenge Hiliary Clinton in the 2006 NY senatorial primaries or go against Sen. Diane Feinstein in CA (nevermind that Feinstein shares a great many of Sheehan's views on Iraq). I don't know about you, but this has to be one of the most bizarre delusions I've seen in quite sometime among the anti-war movement. I doubt they seriously believe she has a chance in hell to become Mayor of Crawford, TX let alone a United States senator.

Cindy Sheehan was utterly discredited by mainstream America when her "Camp Casey" effort evaporated and she made several obligitory anti-Israeli statments, to not mention the repugnant plea to "end the illegal occupation of New Orleans" and her smiling while being arrested. Is this the face that the anti-war movement wants to put forward?

RSS Feed

2005-10-04T20:28:00.000-05:00

Just a note, my RSS feed is here in case you all were wondering. I'll add a link on the left side shortly.

There are no words for this...

2005-10-04T19:22:00.000-05:00

Reading through the Muslim blog avari/nameh, I see this site that appears to be of a Islamphobic, uber-nationalist Hindu variant. I will copy the timeline of events below without comment because I really can't think of anything substanative to say.

Shape of things to come in Iraq (and the world over)
• US launches an air blitz of Iran followed by a land invasion and sets up a new regime
• The Shah of Iran returns to Iran as a private citizen
• Shia-Hezbollah led terror attacks across the West and Israel intensify
• Israel invades Lebanon to wipe out the Hezbollah threat
• Egypt/Syria threaten Israel with serious consequences.
• Terrorist attacks originating from Gaza intensify in Israel
• Israel warns Syria with military action
• Spectacular mega terror attack in Israel
• Israel declares Syria to be culpable and launches a swift land and air assault on Syria
• Syria appeals for Arab military action to save itself
• Egypt, Jordan and Saudis start military action against Israel
• Israel overruns Jordan to join up with US forces stationed in Iraq
• Israel occupies Damascus
• US forces enter Syria from Syrian-Iraqi border in the North, join up with Israeli military
• After the conquest of Syria, Israel turns on Egypt, annexes Sinai, crosses Suez Canal and threatens Cairo
• Mecca, Medina, Mena, Jiddah taken off the map thru IAF (Israel Air Force) nuke strikes
• Upheaval in the entire Arab world
• Western diplomats and businessmen attacked, kidnapped, beheaded
• Anti-American riots in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia.
• Musharraf and Yudhyono regimes under tremendous pressure to give up pro-US stance
• Musharraf assassinated by pro-Jihadi elements in Army due to his association with the US. The Jihadis last straw being his helping the Americans in finding Iran's nuke sites as a trade off for letting AQ Khan off the hook. But Mushy's gamble does not pay off, as he loses his job and life.
• Jihadi regime in Pakistan ups hostility with India
• Jihadis succeed in smuggling nuclear devices in the US and exploding them simultaneously
• US army takes over US administration, suspends constitution
• US military regime blockades the UN and declares it persona non-grata
• US enters into emergency war council with Russia and Britain
• The triple alliance starts nuclear bombing military targets across the Islamic world
• Pakistani nukes taken out in first strike
• Pakistan explodes some nuke devices on India
• Indian retaliation wipes off Pakistan off the map – death toll in South Asia is over half a billion
• Widespread Hindu-Muslim riots in India on the lines of the Gujarat riots of 2002. Muslim population decimated, Hindus and Christians also suffer heavy death toll.
• Nuclear campaign launched by the triple alliance intensifies as many cities in the Islamic world are taken off the map to wipe off the air forces.
• Seaports in the Islamic world crippled to decapitate the navies
• Radiation causes second wave of deaths. The toll in secondary deaths more than three billion
• More than half of the fatalities are Muslims.
• Almost the entire population in the Muslim world is decimated.
• China joins war against Islam, wipes off Muslim (Ughir) population in Eastern Turkestan
• Muslims in Europe launch a wave of terror attacks in European capitals
• Conditions in Europe very disturbed in a civil war like situation
• Right wing coups in France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark. The new regimes join the triple alliance
• Widespread anti-Muslim riots in Europe aided by the militaries of those countries and NATO forces
• Domestic military action against Muslims in Europe intensifies as European militaries do combing operations to flush out Muslims
• The post-war Muslim population worldwide now accounts for only one percent of the global population concentrated mostly in Europe
• Military action ends, US, Britain and Russia announce reconstruction plan for the world
• Islam outlawed across the globe
• Residual Muslims worldwide embrace Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism. Judaism
• Humanity enters post-Islamic phase.

McCain in 2008?

2005-10-04T18:34:00.000-05:00

Via Praktike's del.icio.us aggregator, I see that the always thought provoking Sebastian Mallaby, author of the wonderful book The World's Banker wrote an op-ed piece in yesterday's WaPo that essentially argues that with the rising discontent over the Bush Administration's fiscal policies, the time is right for John McCain (R-AZ) to step up and claim the mantra of Mr. Good Government. This strikes a chord in me for a number of reasons. One being that I've been a long time admirer of McCain's and have always hoped that he would make another run for High Office in '08. But also, for the fact that while I don't share many of his social views, we are very aligned when it comes to foreign and fiscal policy.

I was a pretty committed fiscal conservative centrist up until very recently. While watching the insanity of Bush's Big Government Conservative (tax cut and raise federal spending an mind boggling 33% in just four years), the reality sunk in that while many Republican's claim to support smaller government, when they got control of the power of the purse, they decided they would spend more money than most Democrats could even dream of. So with that, I decided that fiscal conservativism was indeed dead and anyway in this day and age, given the necessary spending on prosecuting the GWOT and stengthening Homeland Defense, fiscal conservativism made no sense either. As Mallaby succintly points out that with "the small-government right and the big-government left are equally exhausted. The only appealing political platform is good government."

Perhaps in 2008 McCain will be finally able to become President and institute a good, smart program that government will run on. Although my big fear is that by time the primaries roll around, the country will be so sick of Republican rule that they knee-jerkily turn to the Democrats to run the show. That is unless McCain is able to seperate himself enough from the Republicans in the eyes of mainstream America while still maintaining a viable party connection to give him backing. Time will certainly tell.

More on Meirs

2005-10-04T17:31:00.000-05:00

Well, whaddaya knew, I guess the Pat Buchanan meltdown on MSNBC earlier today was justifed (in his eyes). He was screaming about the fact that Miers will end up being a liberal Justice in the mold of Earl Warren (of Brown v. Board of Education fame). From AMERICAblog (via Brad Plumer), on a gay rights questionarie Harriett Miers filled out in 1989. In Texas, no less.:

1. The questionnaire is from the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas.
2. Miers seems supportive of increased AIDS funding, which isn't a small deal in 1989, especially in a more conservative place with Texas.
3. Miers says she believes gays should have the same civil rights as straights. Again, perhaps no big shocker today, but this was 1989 in Texas.
4. At the end of the questionnaire, Miers says she is NOT seeking the endorsement of the gay rights group.
5. But then why did Miers fill out their questionnaire in the first place? Would a true conservative family-values candidate fill out a candidate questionnaire from a gay rights group TODAY, let alone in 1989 and in Texas to boot?

Also, didn't Miers start working for Bush in 1988 a full year before she filled this out? Very interesting indeed.

On India and the US

2005-10-04T13:55:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know, relations between the United States and India are at their highest level in the history of the Indian state. The rapprochement heated up lthis past spring when Bush agreed to greenlight the sell of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan that had been held up by Bush 41 in 1990 due to concerns over Pakistan's nuclear program. This was done as a reward to Pakistan for it's valuable help in the GWOT. Not surprisingly, this decision greatly upset India, but the Bush Administration said that India would be able to purchase "the next generation of sophisticated, multirole combat aircraft, including upgraded F-16 and F-18 warplanes, as well as develop broader cooperation in military command and control, early-warning detection, and missile defense systems."

Fast forward to July 15th of this year and the historic visit to Washington DC by Indian PM Manmohan Singh. The PM and President Bush seemed very pleased with the agreement they struck during Singh's visit. It called for numerous joint initiatives between the two countries. But by far and away the most significant objective was that India will be permitted to acquire civilian nuclear technology internationally while retaining its nuclear arms. As this article makes clear, this monumental policy shift is being done primarily to use India as a counter-balance to China.

The US is offering India high-tech defence and space cooperation in terms of satellites and launch vehicles, Patriot and Arrow missiles and a greater role in global institutions.

I have been following this very closely since the F-16 decision was made and I was very surprised that more people hadn't picked up on the sea change in policy that had occured since the nuclear technology decision and now. Although, I suppose, with everything that happened between that, it's understandable.

Last month, when the IAEA voted to condemn the nuclear activities of Iran, while several countries decided to abstain, India voted "yes." I think it was praktike who first noted the surprise yes vote. One of my original blog friends and consistent over the past 18 months a favorite blog of mine,Stygius, mentioned that had India not voted yes, it was quite likely that Congress would've been inclined to reject the civilian nuclear cooperation project with India. I sent him an email linking to a Times of India article which copied this explicit statment from India to Iran:

"The Prime Minister received a phone call from President Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the Iranian request. The (Iranian) President raised the issue about Iran's nuclear programme in the IAEA. Prime Minister advised him that Iran should consider taking a flexible position so as to avoid a confrontation. The Prime Minister repeated the necessity for Iran to make concessions to this end. India supports the resolution of all issues through discussion and consensus in the IAEA."

The Times underscores that "eldom, if ever, has the government been so direct and candid in conveying a foreign policy shift through an episode some American policy analysts saw as a test case for India-U.S ties." To me, the vastly improved relations between India and the US represent Bush's most important foreign policy achievement.

Styguis replies:

More importantly than Iran -- and I use 'more importantly' deliberately -- are the implications of this shift for Russia and China.

To which I write back:

Regarding Russia and China, that's a good point and one I hadn't adequetely contemplated it. It is pretty late but off the top of my head, I'd imagine that China wasn't very happy. Russia and China both voted to abstain on the vote and were most likely expecting India to follow suit. I wonder if PM Signh notified Putin or Jintao about his decision like he did with Ahmedinejad. China had engaged in an unprecedented diplomatic courtship of India aimed at healing their decades old rivalry as well as preventing India from siding with the United States. That appears to have failed. India seems to be investing quite a great deal in the nuclear energy pact they signed with Bush, that was something China or Russia weren't capable of giving them. Not to mention, India has free reign to purchase as many F-16s as they want from us, which in turn would help them push the balance of power between them and Pakistan more in India's favor.

However, William Arkin laid out the ongoing military exercises that are ongoing or schedule to begin in the next few months involving India, Russia and China, in pretty extensive detail. Apparently, the US and Indian armies will be conducting several exercises soon and the India/Russia/China group have one scheduled for next year. So who really knows if the India vote was a huge policy change in the eyes of China and Russia. You're thoughts are more than welcome on this.

So, over to you Stygius. :)

The Miers Pick

2005-10-03T16:45:00.000-05:00

So it seems that Bush has nominated Harriett Miers, the current White House Counsel, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Well, it was a pretty huge surprise but it has reaffirmed my belief that Bush has never had any desire whatsoever to overturn Roe or turn the the US into a kind of Christian Iran. Bush could've easily nominated people aside from Roberts and Miers who would've furthered the conservative cause, but he chose not to. Why, you ask? Well, with the nomination of Roberts and Miers, it seems that Bush has decided to stake his political legacy on the War on Terror and what better, in his view, than to put two people on the Supreme Court who are hardcore Bush loyalists and are likely to uphold the Administration's point of view. Also, the main reason she was chossen was because she is a female and therefore Bush can say he's committeed to diversity. Unfortunately, it seems that a curious thing has happened, conservatives are revolting from Bush's pick in en masse, due in no large part to the fact that she has never been a judge, only a medicore corporate lawyer. Interestingly, Bush has said repeatedly that his preferred justice would be Scalia or Thomas, yet he picks an unknown? The "religious right" will not go quietly on this one. David Frum, former speechwriter for Bush, says:

In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. She served Bush well, but she is not the person to lead the court in new directions - or to stand up under the criticism that a conservative justice must expect.

And the odd thing is that Senate Minority Leader for the Democrats, Harry Reid, was quoted as saying that he "likes Hariett Miers." This is pretty surprising because he voted against Roberts' confirmation the other day, someone who's infinitely more qualified to be a Justice than Mrs. Miers.

Also, I want to add that Bush could confirm anyone he wanted. He has 55 guaranteed votes and it's easy enough to get 5 Democrats to support it as well. He could have nominated the most conservative person ever and got them through confirmation. Yet he chooses one of the least qualified people in the legal profession for the job. Wow. I'm watching MSNBC now and the conservative panels are basically in deep despair. They say how they've waited over 20 years for a conservative president to have a SC vacancy and Bush has completely let them down. One guy said that this was the last straw and that he's done supporting the Bush administration. I should also quote something Bush said about her earlier today:

When I came to office as the governor of Texas, the Lottery Commission needed a leader of unquestioned integrity. I chose Harriet because I knew she would earn the confidence of the people of Texas. The Dallas Morning News said that Harriet insisted on a system that was fair and honest. She delivered results.

Whoa! Who knew all it took to be qualified to be a Justice on the United States Supreme Court was to be a fair and honest state Lottery Commissioner. God, this confirmation hearing will be really fun. Especially to watch and see if the Republicans remain loyal or turn on Miers and sink her confirmation themselves.

Ah politics, how I love thee.

Clash of the Titans

2005-10-02T23:36:00.000-05:00

As most people know, I'm a pretty big WWII history buff. The whole military and historical scope of those 6 brief years in the early half of the 20th century have left an endelable mark on American society. Something on the order of 66 million people were killed as Hitler and Tojo unleashed a wave of destruction across Europe and Asia. Of all the militaries engaged in the titanic struggle, the Soviet Red Army suffered a toll that is utterly incomprehensible and totally dwarfs any other countries losses. Brad DeLong copies a chart from the book When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler that has accounted for all the Red Army's losses during 4 years of nightmarish battles against the Nazis. The final total: KIA/MIA - 10,008,434 and the wounded or sick - 18,190,693. To be clear that these numbers don't even begin to take into account the civilian losses (around 20 million by themselves). Simply unbelievable. Rightists tend to ignore these numbers as it somehow conflicts with their vehement anti-communist beliefs and leftists praise the numbers to the hilt and ignore all the horrors committed by the USSR because they long for its resurrection.

Those numbers only tell one part of the story though. Josef Stalin had most of the competent officer corp of the Red Army killed and thereby wiped out most of the knowledgable leadership. Stalin also instituted the same no retreat policy that Hitler had ordered and thus hundreds of thousands of troops were needlessly killed whenever the Germans encircled and cut them off. Stalin's policies of send infantry batallions with only rifles against Germans with tanks and heavy artillery would have been grounds for a war crimes tribunal. It's clear that because Stalin's Soviet Union was a totalitarian system, he was capable of doing far more than any Western leader would have even considered. Is there any wonder that during the Battle of Berlin, a great majority of Nazis sought out the Americans in order to surrender to because they knew they'd be treated humanely, whereas they would have certainly been raped, tortured and killed at the hands of the Soviets.

The Second Bali Bombings

2005-10-02T12:16:00.000-05:00

Ironically, I was talking to a professor of mine a few weeks ago about the nature of Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI) and he basically argued that they had been so weakened by 3 years of Indonesian police dismantling their nature, that they were no longer capable of carrying out a strike on Jakarta or Bali. I disagreed and said that were the arrests of Hambali and Abu Bakar Bashir were extremely significant, there were still other operatives capable of carrying out such an attack such as Noordin Top. But at the time it was idle speculation and neither of us thought anything of it.

Yesterday, I awaken to find out that I was indeed right after all, even though I'd gladly wish I was wrong. I see that the AP has an article saying that the suicide bombers were linked to al Qaeda and they also name two of the suspected masterminds, one being Noordin Mohammed Top. I'm wondering now if the suicide bombers were native Indonesian recruits to JI or if they were possible veterans of the Iraq War coming back to their country to further the jihad as part of the bleed back we have been seeing in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. For those that don't know, "bleed back" was a term coined by the CIA, as Director Porter Goss explained to the Senate Intelligence Committee:

"Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries."

My guess is that these were simply natives that hadn't come back from Iraq, because afterall Iraq is a long way from Bali and it's doubtful they'd be able to reenter the country without raising red flags among authorities.

I think once the bombers remains are identifed, this question will be answered more conclusively.

UPDATE: The Counterterrorism Blog has a good post discussing the implications of JI's shift away from large truck bombs to small explosive vests. They infer that the small scale bombs are easier and enable several small scale attacks per year rather than one large one. This is a tactic used to devastating effectiveness by Abu Musab Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq group.

Don't Worry, I'm Not Dead

2005-10-02T00:49:00.000-05:00

Boy, I've been away for quite some time, haven't I? Blogging is something you have to love and be willing to devote hours to with little reward or response. Last year, I had blogged pretty consistently leading up to the November 2nd elections in this country, but it had taken quite a toll out of me. I no longer felt the desire to blog and subsequently faded out of the picture. I've been meaning to pick this up again over the summer but that lapsed for one reason or another. A lot has happened in the world since my last update on March 17th. I'm going to do a re-start of this blog of sorts and hopefully have some good intellectual discussions.

I'm back (for real this time)!

2005-03-22T13:05:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone. After a 4 and a half month absense, I have decided to return to the Urban Empire. I quit posting because blogging had just exhausted me and because of school I felt like I couldn't devote the needed attention to this site. But earlier today, I was doing some research on the recent policy shift by the Bush Administration on the issue of offering the Iranians various incentives in order to try and get them to abandon their nuclear weapons program. I stumbled upon this old post of mine from October 2nd of last year, which I think was remarkably prescient at the time. So that inspired me to take up blogging again. I'll have much more to come for sure.

Deep Trouble in the Ivory Coast

2004-11-07T17:11:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately, I haven't seen this discussed at any length within the blogosphere, but the cease fire in the Ivory Coast has been broken and fighting has begun anew. What makes this different is that the Ivorian Government has debilrately struck against French forces in the capital of Abidjan. This in addtion to the Ivory Coast's claim to recovering the rebel-held north. This all started yesterday morning, when suddenly the government's warplanes bombed a French position which killed 9 French soliders and an American consultant. The French responded by destroying the entire Ivory Coast air force, two Russian-made Sukhoi jet fighters and at least three helicopter gunships. This sudden and devastating esclation in violence lead the Security Council to call for an end to the fighting, which was echoed by the US Ambassador John Danforth as well. The French also seized both of the main airports in the capital.

Then today, angry government mobs in Abidjan, armed with machetes and machine guns, went house to house to search out and kill foreigners (14,000 French citizens live in the Ivory Coast) in retaliation for the French destruction of their airforce. This act was followed by Paris deploying about 600 troops, armored vehicles, helicopter gunships, as well as ammunition, into the capital, by landing them at the French controlled airport. Now comes word that Paris plans to roll out overwhelming miltary force against the government forces.

There is a 10,000-man peacekeeping force in the Ivory Coast, 4,000 French troops and 6,000 under UN control.

Yahoo and The Washington Post have more.

I'm Back!!!

2004-11-07T11:18:00.000-06:00

Yes, dear readers, the rumors are true, The Urban Empire has returned from haitus. School was taking a huge bite out of my time and I couldn't sustain constant blogging during that time, but that heavy load is over so I can devote much more time to this blog. I'll make it bigger and better than before. I have a lot to say regarding several important events around the world and here in this country.

I did want to touch on the election just a bit. Throughout the day on Wednesday, there was this feeling of shock and depression in the city. I live in Milwaukee, a city which went 73% for Kerry and it was just like no one could believe it. My one Republican friend was all smiles, of course. My other friends almost immediately started distancing themselves from Kerry saying how much of a horrible candidate he was (even though they vehemently defended him whenever I made such a claim about him). Then suddenly, the blame shifted. As the fact that Bush won the popular vote by over 3.6 million votes sunk in, many (excluding myself) Kerry supporters started to blame the voters themselves. Comments such as "This is why democracies really suck" or "Stupid dumb hicks shouldn't be allowed to vote" were frequent. Then they see figures like this and the absoluteness of Bush's margin is solidifed.

3,141 counties, boroughs, and parishes in the United States
2,544 counties carried by Bush (81% of total)
597 counties carried by Kerry (19% of total) [via The Glittering Eye]

I don't want to be one of those bloggers who devotes paragraphs and paragrphs to why the Democrats lost so huge or who they can run in 2008 to win back the White House, Although the favorite seems to be Hilary Clinton (and I've speculated for the past 6 months that if Kerry lost they'd try to run here). The New York Times had an short column a few days ago about the prospect of her running. One of the main points that they said you had to take into account is if she has already become the de facto nominee only a couple days after the 2004 election, the Republicans have a full 4 years to try and take her down.

Iraqi Nuclear Materials Stolen

2004-10-11T19:50:00.000-05:00

You have to be shitting me.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq (news - web sites) but neither Baghdad nor Washington appears to have noticed, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported on Monday.

Satellite imagery shows that entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled. They once housed high-precision equipment that could help a government or terror group make nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

Equipment and materials helpful in making bombs also have been removed from open storage areas in Iraq and disappeared without a trace, according to the satellite pictures, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said.

I'm speechless right now. I'll update once I hear more on this.

Bombing in Egypt

2004-10-07T20:14:00.000-05:00

It appears that there has been 3 bombings at Egyptian Resorts frequented by Israeli's. This is quite surprising and judging by the simultaneous nature of them seems to suggest al Qaeda or a Palestinian group (Hamas, Islamic Jihad etc.) Why al Qaeda you say? Well, their number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad until it merged with Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (then changed their name to al Qaeda) in 1998. This attack would mark the first time since the 1997 Luxor Massacre that Egypt has been hit by a makor (and possibly even minor) terrorist attack. Dan Darling over at Winds of Change feels similarly. He adds:

If it's al-Qaeda, it means that al-Zawahiri has chosen to return to his roots and may feel that the political atmosphere in Egypt is such that it could accomodate an Islamist revolution. I very much doubt that, but then I'm not an international terrorist leader. Look for the Egyptian government to launch a full-scale crackdown on known or suspected Islamist extremists and probably another round up of the usual suspects that the Mubarak government seems to do every few days or so.

I agree. Now, this is a fascinating coincidence, I'm half way through Nasser: The Last Arab by Said Aburish, and Nasser hated the Muslim Brotherhood to a fierce extent (even martyring "bin Laden's brain" Sayyid Qutb in 1966). Islamists killed Nasser successor, Anwar Sadat was assasinated (al-Zawahiri was arrested and tortured in connection with it). Given the Egyptian history of torturing everyday citizens for small infractions, I almost feel sorry for what Mubarak will do to people caught in connection with this attack. Rumor has it that the crackdown has beegun in earnest and Egyptian security forces arrested several people in Taba. Developing.

The Draft Meme

2004-10-03T20:00:00.000-05:00

Our local paper here in the city, the Shepherd Express, has that quite alarmist cover in its latest issue. It certainly caught me attention, along with everyone else who happened to see it. The story says that the Selective Service Commission is secretly readying a mobilization of troops in 2005. This more or less centers around the two identical resolutions that have been circulating around Congress for almost 2 years now, H. Res. 163 and S. 89. the authors of the House bill are Rangel (D-NY) and Conyers (D-MI), and Hollings (D-SC) authored the Senate one. Now, does it strike anyone as interesting the pattern there is between the three? Yup, they are all Democrats.

Meanwhile, according to Project Censored, the Pentagon has launched a stealthy campaign to fill all 10,350 of its draft board positions and thousands of appeals board posts.

And still, if asked, federal officials aren't explaining the reasons for this mass recruitment. It's this attitude, in Washington--and especially in the White House--that should scare you the most. After all, you could be their next recruit.

If this isn't enough evidence, Sen. John Kerry alleges that Bush is planning a major mobilization of reserves and National Guard members immediately after the Nov. 2 election.

UPDATE: Congress has crushed the draft resolution with a nearly unanimous vote of 402-2 (incidentally, the two who voted for it were Democrats).

Did Bush Really Win the Debate?

2004-10-02T22:49:00.000-05:00

That's what Juan A. Hervada says. He bases that assertion around this Gallup poll and I think it's an extremely sound analysis. It causes me to view the debate in a new light.

I think that George W. Bush won the debate, if by winning we mean that he got closer to re-election; symmetrically, I believe Kerry lost because he didn’t get any closer to victory on November 2, far from it.

In fact, the numbers do seem to correspond with this. You must read the rest.

UPDATE: Newsweek begs to differ with Juan's analysis. (via Andrew Sullivan)

In fact, Kerry’s numbers have improved across the board, while Bush’s vulnerabilities have become more pronounced. The senator is seen as more intelligent and well-informed (80 percent, up six points over last month, compared to Bush’s steady 59 percent); as having strong leadership skills (56 percent, also up 6 points, but still less than Bush’s 62 percent) and as someone who can be trusted to make the right calls in an international crisis (51 percent, up five points and tied with Bush). Meanwhile, Bush's approval ratings have dropped to below the halfway mark (46 percent) for the first time since the GOP convention in late August.

Who's right? Time will tell.

My Dilemma Part 1a

2004-10-02T21:31:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems as if the invaluable Michael Totten is in the same boat with me as well about who to vote for this November 2nd.

I do want to touch a little more in regards to Iran. I see that the Tehran Times has an article about the Europeans pressuring the Bush administration to adopt a more Kerry-like policy of "a mix with a package and incentives" toward Iran. I can't help but laugh. Iran has repeated rebuffed the European and US's respective policies, but in a last ditch effort to avoid an Iranian nuclear regime, they resort to bribes. Although, let me me clear about something, if it appeared that the mullahs really did want to play ball and would completely scrap their program irrevocably and allow extensive and intrusive inspections, it might be a wise policy to give them what they wanted (yes yes, I'd be giving into nuclear blackmail. It would be worth it to avoid the consequences of a nuclear armed Iran)

Now, back to reality. the Iranians will never give up what they deem, correctly, to be their impunity card. They will be greatly bolstered to conduct more operations inside Iraq and elesewhere, knowing that the Americans never attack a country with nukes. You could offer them a $100 billion dollars and yet, that won't be as good as a couple nukes. Iran is equipped with a highly advanced missle system, spearheaded by the Shahab-3.

I do recognize that me bitching and moaning about various proposals doesn't do a lot of good. So, you may be asking, what would you do about it LJ? Answer: There's really nothing that can be done. I'm sorry, but that's just a fact that we are going to have to get used to once the Buhser and Natanz reactors come online (Joe Katzman says 4-6 months at the earliest) The fact of the matter is that the Bush administration as well as the Europeans drug their feet for so long that it's too late for anything meaningful to happen. At Thursday's debate, neither Bush nor Kerry laid out any kind of plan to deal with the Iranians. Some people are still clinging to the idea that magically the regime will be toppled by the Iranian people before the production is complete. Dream on. Also, what's to say that even if the theocracy is removed from power, the new government won't continue the program?

If we bomb them, they will unleash chaos in the Middle East.
If we don't bomb them, they will unleash chaos in the Middle East.
Our best hope: to close our eyes and make the threat disappear.

I can't see any better options, so please, if you have any feel free to share.

My Dilemma Part I

2004-10-02T16:20:00.000-05:00

I, apparently, am one of the only people left that is undecided about who to vote for in the upcoming election. Going into the debate Thursday night, I had hoped that it would either a.) further reinforce my support for George W. Bush or b.) that Kerry would be able to convince me that he can be trusted when it comes to securing Iraq. Unfortunately, I didn't count on c.) the fact that Kerry would beat Bush based on style, yet tie or possibly even lose to Bush on substance. National polls say that while Kerry won the debate, Bush is still ahead in the polls, at the same margin.

As everyone who reads this blog knows, the Iranian nuclear crisis is, in my view, one of the most important foreign policy issues this country will face in the next year or two. But I was sadly disappointed that none of the candidates said anything worth while on Iran. If Bush is re-elected and the international community says the air strikes probablly need to happen, what has Bush done to prepare the American public for such an operation? Nothing at all. On the other hand, Kerry apparently wants to

provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together.

As I said in the comments section by The Glittering Eye:

Maybe I'm just not thinking of the right examples but haven't most countries that have had economic snactions slapped on them, been able to manipulate them in such a way so they could further entrench their regime while straving their citizens? (Bush did point out that the US has had sanctions on Iran since 1979) [UPDATE: I was wrong on the sanction year. According the US Treasury [PDF] President Reagan put sanctions on Iran in 1987, followed by a separate sanctions regime applied by President Clinton in 1995, although those were later eased by Clinton in April 2000.] Say harsher sanctions are applied to Tehran, won't that make them, you know, more threatened about a potential collaspe of government to either become more hostile or covertly sell the nuke to al Qaeda?

If I were the Iranian Mullahs, you damn well better bet I would be emboldened if Kerry won.

I'll write more later.

The Winner

2004-09-30T21:55:00.000-05:00

John Kerry, but only by a little.

I'll will talk more about the substance of the debate once the transcripts are posted online. This was a far, far better debate than I expected, it was substantionally more substantitive. But Kerry won for a few reasons. Number one, Kerry was far more presidential looking then Bush. Second, repitive answers ("this is hard work" repeated 11 times) made it look like he really had nothing much to say, in addition to the constant pausing and the fact the he would ask for an extra 30 seconds of rebuttal and then have nothing to add.

When it comes to the key foreign policy issues besides Iraq; Iran, Sudan and North Korea, the results were mixed.

Both pretty much took a noncommittal approach to Sudan. Kerry said the African Union (Ha!) could take care of it, if we supplied them with logistics. Whereas, Bush harped on the $200 million in aid we are giving the Darfur region and protecting the refugee camps.

Regarding Iran, that part went largely to Bush. Kerry talked about the need to perform some kind of tests along with the international community to determine if Iran's nuke program is for peaceful purposes. Hmm, yeah. They'd deal with the treat of being bombed by the Americans or the Israeli's just to hold onto a peaceful program. Also, Iran has vast oil resources and can power 3 times of the country with that then nuclear power. Kerry threatened sanctions, and Bush quickly reminded him that the US already imposed sanctions of the Islamic Republic.

With North Korea, Bush wants to keep multilateral (six-party) talks with Pyongyang while Kerry wants to resume bilateral negotiations.

The Debate

2004-09-30T17:44:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the lack of posts this week, I've been really busy with school and other things.

I'm currently working on a post regarding the ongoing crisis in the Sudan that should be up tomorrow, or Saturday at the latest.

But tonight is all about the debate between President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger John F. Kerry. For a political nut like myself, this is one of the biggest nights of the year for me. Taking a look at the always-useful, Electoral-Vote.com, we see that as of today Bush is beating Kerry 280 to 254 (270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency). The media has been portraying Bush (surprisingly) as a master debater who is going to wipe the floor with Kerry recently. But remember, before the 2000 debates, the media said that Bush was an idiot and couldn't possibly beat Gore, but afterwards, the media proclaimed Bush the victor. Could the same thing happen this time around, only reversed? Time will tell. But both campaigns are seeking to lower expectations about their candidates a lot.

Matthew Dowd, a Bush adviser, called Kerry "the best debater since Cicero."
Which I think is one of the funniest things I've heard this entire campaign. While Clinton administration vet and current Kerry adviser said that Bush "has never lost a debate that I know of." Ah, fun times.

Not only will this debate most likely determine the next president of the United States, but it will also solidify in my mind who I can better trust to carry on the WoT and who can protect us best at home. yes, going into the debates, I am still quite undecided. My support for Bush has been wanning the past week or so, but I'm still leaning towards him, about 60%-40%, I'd say. I'll have more thoughts after the debate...

What if America Just Pulled Out?

2004-09-26T13:59:00.000-05:00

That's the question Roger Cohen in The New York Times asks today. It's also a question I've tried to grapple with recently as well, here and here.

A decision to withdraw would focus the minds of Iraqis, and perhaps their neighbors, on the need to grapple seriously with establishing security and an inclusive political system. It would also remove a chief target of the insurgents - American infidels in uniform - and so presumably undermine their cause.

"A withdrawal plan says to the Iraqis: you want this to be your country, you must make the deals to keep it together," said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If we are there to fight, they won't do this. So a timetable should be established."

That does have a certain degree of logic to it, but a pull out without a stable government existing would be far worse as Cohen goes on to explain.

But the counterarguments are also powerful. Withdrawal in the absence of stability would amount to a devastating admission of failure and a blow to America's world leadership. The credibility of the United States, already compromised, would be devastated. More than 1,000 young lives would appear to have been blotted out for naught.

Iraq might descend into all-out civil war and split into three pieces, one Kurdish, one Shiite, one predominantly Sunni. Neighboring states, particularly Iran and Turkey, would be drawn in. A failed state - or the vestiges of one - would draw terrorists as surely as a honey-pot draws bees.

There is a troubling recent precedent for such a retreat. When the Soviet Union, confronted by an intractable insurgency, pulled out of Afghanistan, Kabul soon became terrorism central. The Taliban took control, offering sanctuary to Al Qaeda and terrorist training camps. The Soviet Union, sapped by its Afghan adventure, never fully recovered.

Is this the trauma the United States wants from its foray into Iraq?

"Iraq would be worse than post-Soviet Afghanistan," said Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution. "Its oil and geostrategic importance ensures that. The Lebanese civil war dragged in Syria, and just as surely the civil war that would result from an American withdrawal would drag in Iran and Turkey. You'd see ethnic strife that would make Kosovo look like a picnic. It's hard to fathom how bad it would be if we left."

That is the most persausive reason to not withdraw troops from Iraq. The death toll on American soldiers and Iraqi civilians is indeed horrible, but as I said in the past, would pale to anything that would happen if we withdrew troops. The problem with this war is that it's not being fought to win. We are running this war based on the media. The media can handle the slow drip of death, but if we were to retake the Sunni strongholds that would result it lots of American and Iraqi deaths, probably too much for the American public to handle; that in turn would most likely cost Bush the election. We do plan on retaking the insurgent cities by the end of the year, but by then, the insurgency could grow in popularity among Iraqi's. In fact, a lot of Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad members are indigineous Sunni Iraqi's who support Zarqawi's goal of creating an Islamic state run under the shahria.

Another problem is the Bush and Allawi's plan to have the Iraqi security forces do most of the work in Fallujah and Baquba. Not unlikely the Saudi security forces, the Iraqi forces appear to be infiltrated by al Qaeda as well. This is evidenced by the arrest of Brig. Gen. Talib Abid Ghayib al-Lahibi, senior commander of the Iraqi National Gaurd, for "having associations with known insurgents."

Also, in a partially related point, last week I asked:

If that situation presents itself, would it be better to let the Islamist win or rig the ballot so that only friendly people are on it?

Well, it seems as if the White House has decided not to influence the elections by backing any pro-US candidates.

Another Day Passes By...

2004-09-25T01:18:00.000-05:00

And I turn a year older today. So...

Happy birthday to me!

Creeping Russian Fascism

2004-09-22T21:49:00.000-05:00

Or so says Masha Gessen in the current issue of The New Republic. I've blogged about Masha before. Her articles on current Russian affairs are always informative and well worth the read. The article is a must read, but alas, I think you need a subscribtion to read it (which begs the question, why don't you?!), so I will excerpt it at length.

According to a study by the independent Levada Center, 80 percent of Muscovites believe they were not told the truth about Beslan, and 63 percent blame either the government or the security forces for the disaster. According to an eyewitness, on September 7, a young man emerged from the rush-hour crowd at a Metro station not far from Red Square, shouted, "Shit, I can't take it anymore," poured gasoline on his body, and tried to set himself on fire. He was immediately seized by police, but he seemed to be expressing the popular sentiment: Russians really can't take it anymore. According to the Moscow poll, 77 percent believe the government and its security forces cannot protect them from terrorist attacks in the future.

...Several of the most outspoken Russian journalists were prevented from getting to Beslan. Newspaper reporter Anna Politkovskaya was hospitalized after she passed out on her plane to southern Russia. She was poisoned, and she believes the poison came from the security forces, which wanted to keep her from the scene. Meanwhile, Radio Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky was arrested at a Moscow airport for allegedly getting into a fight, which he believes someone picked with him after prodding from the security forces. Babitsky was allowed out of jail the day after the crisis ended. Then, two days after the massacre, the editor of Izvestia, Russia's largest broadsheet, was fired following the newspaper's detailed and graphic coverage of the crisis.

...

here are two reasons the next Russian government will be a fascist one. First, Putin has annihilated all opposition except for the Kremlin's pocket opposition, an extreme nationalist party called Motherland. The Kremlin's creation of Motherland was part of a time-honored government strategy of advancing false dichotomies to demonstrate that the sole alternative is far worse than the incumbents. But, almost as soon as it was created a year ago, Motherland took on a life of its own and has become a relatively popular political force.

The second reason is that fascism is what Russians want. They tell pollsters they are willing to sacrifice their freedoms. They say they want all Chechens to be evicted from Moscow and other large cities. They crave an extreme crackdown. "A totalitarian state cannot be blackmailed by the threat of death of civilians," said Mikhail Leontyev, one of Russia's most prominent pundits, in his nightly commentary on federal Channel One, the most-watched network. "Terrorism happens only in democracies." Leontyev's words express both the Kremlin's and the public's agenda: Polls show that a majority of Russians will readily cede their civil liberties to security services. The security services, in turn, are behaving accordingly. Last week, Moscow police beat up a Chechen man, famed cosmonaut Magomed Tolboyev. Human rights advocates say beatings of ordinary Chechens and other Muslims are now commonplace occurrences in Russia.

But, if his measures do not prove sufficient to protect his people, Putin will likely lose power. And, in a country with no democratic mechanisms for changing leaders, that change of regime could well be violent, a combination of popular riots and a rebellion of the security forces. As the anger overflows, Russians will demand a leader willing to take even more extreme measures.

Who would emerge from the violence? Right now it's hard to predict. One candidate is Dmitry Rogozin, leader of Motherland and former leader of a fascist political organization called the Congress of Russian Communities. Another possible candidate is Eduard Limonov, a writer whose Nationalist Bolshevik Party is the only viable grass-roots political movement in Russia today. The Kremlin is scared of the ultranationalist Limonov, who was jailed for his political activities and released just over a year ago. But Limonov, though he inspires many young Russians to tackle politics, may ultimately prove too Western for Russia, because his platform makes no reference to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Or it may be someone else. In the near-total vacuum that is Russian political life today, a new name can surface very fast. But the fact that Rogozin and Limonov are the two names most often bandied about points to the part of the political spectrum from which the new leader will emerge: He will be an extreme nationalist dictator. There is indeed something to be more terrified of than terrorism.

Terrifying indeed. Read the rest.

UPDATE: The Economist has more.

The Iraqi Insurgency

2004-09-22T01:15:00.000-05:00

Dan has the much needed details on the make up of the Iraqi Insurgency. Check it out.

Why Not to Pull Out of Iraq

2004-09-21T23:34:00.000-05:00

Styguis, as always, has a fascinating and well thought out post regarding the culminating crisises centering around Iran and North Korea, as well as the ever worsening situation in Iraq. He discusses possible consequences about a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, and that while Iran can't launch a conventional military assault against us (presumably, our forces stationed in Iraq and Kuwait) they could

plunge Iraq and Afghanistan into chaos through proxy fighers, exercise its pre-arranged option against Israel, and create an international terror campaign against the US. Moderates and reformers within Iran would be isolated into irrelevance, and essentially the US would have to come up with other punitive operations to deal with an increase in terrorism (not to mention another rise in global oil prices), a globally radicalized Shi'a, and eventually an invasion. That's the worst case scenario as I see it. Maybe Iran is betting that the US will ultimately see it that way too, and would therefore learn to live with a nuclear Iran.

However, a nuclear-armed Iran will be able to do all of those things as well, while feeling relatively immune to US pressure, since it would be nuclear-armed.

I agree with all of this (adding also that with several top memebers of the senior al Qaeda leadership in Iranian "custody" that the mullahs might decide to openly collaborate with them in planning attacks against Western and Middle Eastern targets of oppurtunity) and it is quite frigthening to contemplate. This ties quite a bit in the topic of pulling out of Iraq. Later, Styguis adds

But we are in a standoff, as well as in a situation where the US' resources are stretched so thin and so broadly that a rubber band effect is almost a given. There will be some kind of drawback; somewhere, somehow. Some are already talking about the pros and cons of an Iraq pullout, for instance.

Indeed. Just to clarify, I do not support a "pull out" (although, I'm of the opinion that we will maintain several thousand troops in Iraq for a few decades) of Iraq until we have completed our objectives, create a stable government that will not collaspe under a few bombings. Dan Darling says a US withdrawl would basically turn Iraq into Afghanistan after the Soviet's withdrew in 1989. I think it would be even worse than that because the infrastructure and wealth of Iraq far exceeds anything Afghanistan could hope to have. Failure (which I deem as a withdrawal) was never an option going into this thing. I knew, and I hope everyone else understood it. We can't pull out because the body count is getting too high, because a withdrawal will mean an even higher body count in this country down the road.

I Added Haloscan

2004-09-21T20:49:00.000-05:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog. [generic response]

Hopefully, this will help spur some discussion on here. By the way, to those of you non Movable Type bloggers, if you want to send trackbacks use this nifty standalone pinger device.

Russia, US Threatened of Ramadan Attack

2004-09-19T23:27:00.000-05:00

Robert Stevens of Alphabet City reports that Abu Hafs al-Urdani leader of the Chechen al Qaeda mujahadeen has issued the following threat via communique (pdf) to Russia and the United States.

"We will make Russia and America taste death, and Ramadan will be the month of conquests through [suicide] operations everywhere across this universe." Ramadan runs from Oct. 15 to Nov. 12, 2004.

The communique is dated September 19, 2004.

Now, this will probably come to nothing, but I think that it is important to note that al Urdani would make such a public threat at a time when Putin pledged to eradicate terrorists wherever they were in the world. Not to mention, things like this just serve to further soldify the public's preception (rightly, in my view) that the Chechen separtist movement no longer exists and al Qaeda has taken over in the Caucauses.

Post Script II: This Isn't Wise

2004-09-19T14:12:00.000-05:00

A thought just occured to me about the New York Times article I linked to yesterday. What sense does it make to annouce this on the front page of the most read paper in the world? Certainly, this news will trickle down to Zarqawi and his terrorist ilk and they can begin making preparations for the defense of the Sunni Triangle. Isn't this like writing about the Normandy invasions in March of 1944, 3 months before it took place. What could the terrorists really do with this information? Well, if they have a rough time table for when an assualt will begin they could launch a massive offensive in the South or North of Iraq to distract vital resources away from an offensive against Fallujah. They can also have Syria and Iran step up smuggling of arms and money into those cities to stiffen resistance. They don't have to win, they just have to make it extremely bloody for us and everyday Iraqis.

Post Script to Iraq

2004-09-19T13:09:00.000-05:00

I've gotten some e-mail saying that I advocate a pull out of Iraq. That is simply not the case. I just bring up the possibility of pulling out as a worse than last ditch option. If the US military withdraws, we have to look at the pros and cons.

Were we to pull out, we'd save the lives of our soldiers. That is a good thing, no doubt. But beyond that, the IIG (Interim Iraqi Govenment) would collaspe within days. There would be a civil war that kills thousands, and most likely a massive genocide as well. Now, onto the bad part, without our sercurity force in place, the al Qaeda cells in the Sunni Triangle and in Kurdistan (Ansar al-Islam) could merge and come to power. An al Qaeda member like Zarqawi or AQ sympatheizer (probably the most likely) in control of Iraq would be maltitudes worse for our national sercurity than Saddam Hussein was.

When we left Saigon in April of '75, we knew that although the South would fall, we wouldn't be directly threatened by a united Communist Vietnam. Iraq could conceivably become worse than Taliban Afghanistan, as there is billions of dollars worth of oil money that could effectively be used to spearhead a new global Jihadist movement against the West. Dire indeed. I hope I'm very wrong about that.

But what about the immediate future? There are elections in January and if the violence continues, the UN could either postpone it indefinitely or rule it illegimate. Say we do stop the bombings and beheadings and pacify Fallujah, Ramadi and Sammara, and elections take place on schedule. The Sunni Triangle and the Al Anbar province make up much of the Iraqi electorate, so the chance that an anti-American Islamist winning certainly has a big possibility of coming true. What do we do if that happens? We can't kick the guy off the ballot as it would totally discredit our democracy imperative and allow everyone to say we just want to install a US-friendly puppet.

I have a question for you: If that situation presents itself, would it be better to let the Islamist win or rig the ballot so that only friendly people are on it?

Comments

2004-09-18T20:59:00.000-05:00

I don't too much care for my Blogger comment section. Mainly, because it doesn't let you see the post you are replying, which is a pain. I was wondering if any one of my commenters feel the same and if I should switch back to Haloscan or another system or not.

Iraq: Where Do We Go From Here

2004-09-18T15:42:00.000-05:00

"We're dealing with a population that hovers between bare tolerance and outright hostility," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad. "This idea of a functioning democracy here is crazy. We thought that there would be a reprieve after sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose."

Democracy promotion. Is such a thing feasible? If so, why has it been so badly implemented?

I ask because I've seen many worrying trends as of late in the Middle East and Russia. Yglesias links to the updated Arab Reform Bulletin put out by the CEIP.

So in hostile countries (Syria) things are getting worse, not better. In one allied country (Egypt) things are getting worse. In other allied countries (the GCC) things are getting worse and it's related to counterterrorism policy.

Very worrisome, indeed. Max Boot (free reg. req'd) writes in the LA Times about the importance of democracy promotion in American foreign policy circles but

because of the difficulties we are encountering in Iraq, the democratization imperative is under attack today from both left and right. From Pat Buchanan to Paul Krugman, the cry has gone up that the stress on exporting American ideals is a plot by nefarious "neoconservatives." Even John Kerry — the nominee of Wilson's own party — sounds disdainful of attempts to spread freedom to places like Cuba and Iran.

Maybe, the cynics suggest, some people (the Arabs, for instance) are simply unfit for self-rule. More sophisticated versions of this argument suggest focusing on economic development first, to be followed eventually by political liberalization. If impoverished nations rush to hold elections, realpolitikers fear, the result could be the rise of "illiberal democracies" or instability and civil war. Better to deal with enlightened despots like Hosni Mubarak or Lee Kuan Yew rather than risk the messiness of freedom.

Anyone seduced by these arguments would do well to peruse two important studies conducted by scholars with impeccable liberal credentials. The first is a new book called "The Democracy Advantage," written by Joseph Siegle, a former humanitarian aid worker; Michael Weinstein, a former New York Times editorial writer; and Morton Halperin, a former staff member of the ACLU and the Clinton administration who now works for George Soros' Open Society Institute. They're hardly neocons, yet in a synopsis of their book published in Foreign Affairs they make a powerful case for democracy promotion.

I do think that democracy promotion is a vital tool in combating Islamism, yet it is not the cure. Most people assume that democracy promotion is a good idea, they just disagree on how and where it should be implemented. The Iraq War has severely hampered the goal of spreading democracy to the point where it appears likely that if we can stabilize Iraq using a strongman, we will leave it at that. Especially now that the attacks have been picking up and indigeninous Iraqi Islamists control large parts of the Al Anbar Province. Styguis has a good post on the deterorating situation in Iraq. I said this

The only thing I can think of is we go into the "insurgent enclaves" like Fallujah and Sammara and we take back the cities. Yes, it will be bloody; thousands of Iraqi's, dozens of American soldiers, but that might end up being our only hope of some kind of stability in the future.

The only problem with that is it's unlikely to happen anytime before the election. Some people see the brilliance of our strategy, but I just don't. It may sound good on paper, but in this day and age of 24 hour news, preception is everything. The situation is worsening day-by-day. We thought we could out last a low level insurgency without it getting too violent. Yet, in retrospect, we should've taken Fallujah back in April no matter what the cost. Now Zarqawi's Tawhid group is exponetially stronger (even being able to survive his killing or capture) and its reach has expanded all around Iraq. Ironically, the New York Times, has a front page story today that American military commanders have decided to take back Islamist-held cities by the end of the year.

[B]AGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 18 - Faced with a growing insurgency and a January deadline for national elections, American commanders in Iraq say they are preparing operations to open up rebel-held areas, especially Falluja, the restive city west of Baghdad now under control of insurgents and Islamist groups.

A senior American commander said the military intended to take back Falluja and other rebel areas by year's end. The commander did not set a date for an offensive but said that much would depend on the availability of Iraqi military and police units, which would be sent to occupy the city once the Americans took it.

The American commander suggested that operations in Falluja could begin as early as November or December, the deadline the Americans have given themselves for restoring Iraqi government control across the country.

By then, who knows what the situation will look like on the ground.

Lenin Would Be Proud

2004-09-14T18:08:00.000-05:00

Vladimir Putin is planning to significantly consolidate his power as president of the Russian Federation, by greatly undermining the democratic reforms made during the past decade. Washington reacts lamely with a "no, you shouldn't do that..."-like statement from Powell. Big deal, you say. Putin has been eroding democratic institutions in Russia for many years now, why should this matter? Well, I'll tell you why, because this is a very overt step towards dictatorship.

Putin's plan is as follows:

Abolish direct elections for governors in Russia's 89 provinces.
Abolish direct elections for representatvies for the state Duma (Parliament)
Nominate governors from his party, have them be confirmed in the Duma

This means, of course, that governors will be appointed from him and the people will have no say on if they should be nominated because the representatives will be choosen from Putin's party list, so they will waste no time in the confirmation. Russians lose 2 types of electoral privileges and the remaining, the Presidential election, will be so heavially stacked in favor of Putin and his eventual sucessor that Russian's will have no other choice but to vote for them.

With complete control of the electoral system, media, military etc. Putin has placed Russia on the path of the Soviet single party dictatorship.

Joe Gandelman has a very good summary as well.

This is why I was hesitant to stand completely behind Putin in the aftermath of Beslan. I remembered what Putin has tried to do in the past and feared that Beslan would be a catalyst for more horrible action in the Caucauses, I was just looking in the wrong direction. I sympathize with the Russian's, certainly, when it comes to terrorism but it doesn't mean I should support such blatant anti democratic policies.

Ugh

2004-09-13T22:43:00.000-05:00

I had this long post about everyone's favorite ~~dictator~~ leader, Vladimir Putin and his continued anti-democratic activities. But my browser crashed and there went the post and I'm too tired to re-type it all, so that's what I will do tomorrow after class.

David Adesnik has much more.

In the meantime, I'll recommend two must read posts:

Islam and the Nazi Regime - The Unknown Story

North Korea and US election

Read them now!

North Korea Nuclear Bomb Test?! (Updated)

2004-09-11T22:31:00.000-05:00

UPDATE 9/12 10:06 am:Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated amid the conflicting reports that the North Korean "mushroom shaped cloud" blast that happened on Thursday was not a nuclear explosion. The blast, as stated last night, was big enough to be picked up on our satelites. Right now, it seems as if not many people know what caused the blast, with some speculating there was an accidental nuclear detonation or a forest fire (although, that seems doubtful).

Kim Jong-min, spokesman for the South Korean presidential office, said: "Currently, we are trying to find out in detail the exact character, cause and size of the accident, but we don't think North Korea conducted a nuclear test."

This is breaking news as it just broke over the wires...

According to Yahoo! News there are unconfirmed reports of a possible nuclear weapons test in North Korea.

A large explosion occurred in the northern part of North Korea (news - web sites), sending a huge mushroom cloud into the air on an important anniversary of the communist regime, a South Korean news agency reported Sunday.

I honestly don't know what to make of this. The article says that there is no indication that this is related to North Korea's nuclear program. Also, this reported happened on the 9th, two days ago, which is a lifetime on the Internet. If NoKo did conduct a test, why didn't they publicize it? And don't the US, China, and Japan all have satelites that can, you know, pick up this stuff?

Several things don't add up here, but we'll see where this goes tomorrow.

UPDATE 11:12 pm:The New York Times made it the front page story in Sundays paper. They have many more details:

[W]ASHINGTON, Sept. 11 - President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.

While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles.

Ok, what the hell is going on here? AP and Reuters both have the same story about there being an unconfirmed reports of a "mushroom cloud" explosion. The Reuters story goes further

"There were rumors that the explosion was much bigger than the one at Ryongchon train station and the United States is showing a big interest as the blast was seen from satellites," Yonhap quoted an unnamed source in Beijing as saying.

There seem to be strong indicitions that a test has taken place, yet when you read the NYTimes piece no mention of a test of any kind. Indeed, the whole article is centered around the fact that there has been a series of moves that could be a prelude to a test.

One official with access to the intelligence called it "a series of indicators of increased activity that we believe would be associated with a test," saying that the "likelihood" of a North Korean test had risen significantly in just the past four weeks.

It was that changed assessment that led to the decision to give an update to President Bush, the officials said.

The activities included the movement of materials around several suspected test sites, including one near a location where intelligence agencies reported last year that conventional explosives were being tested that could compress a plutonium core and set off a nuclear explosion. But officials have not seen the classic indicators of preparations at a test site, in which cables are laid to measure an explosion in a deep test pit.

I'm stumped to explain these two completely different news items.

Books I Picked Up From the Library

2004-09-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

State-building: Governance and World Order in the 21th Century by Francis Fukuyama

Nasser: The Last Arab by Said K. Aburish

September 11th

2004-09-11T18:19:00.000-05:00

Remember.

Russian Warfare

2004-09-09T19:30:00.000-05:00

Juan Hervada posted a comment on my previous post regarding the massacre in Beslan that I think deserves serious thought.

He writes:

We shouldn’t underestimate the effect of the Russian decision, I think. “Pre-emptive strike” is a one of those terms that can be used to ornate a difficult press conference or to jump start a new strategy, but I think that General Yuri Baluevsky’s announces that something is going to be done about what the Russians considered their worst handicap in the war against the terrorists: asymetry.

That's true. It the "new" Fourth Generation Warfare tactics that the enemy has adopted in order to bleed us to death slowly, knowing that they cannot match us at all militarily. This was, in fact, echoed today by Osama bin Laden's right hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri:

"The defeat of America in Iraq and Afghanistan has become just a matter of time, with God's help," he said.

"Americans in both countries are between two fires. If they carry on, they will bleed to death -- and if they pull out, they lose everything."

I will say that the Russian's, had they invaded Iraq instead of us, would have crushed this insurgency months ago. Why? Because, the way the Russian's fight, they would've leveled Fallujah, Ramadi, Sadr City. But we have a certain image to live up to around the world and have principles that won't allow us to fight wars like that, unless there's a nuclear attack here, then all bets are off.

Right now in Europe, not even a week after the Beslan massacre, we are already seeing some sorts of swarming spin campaign –and quite successful at that- to transfer the responsibility of the horror from the terrorists to Putin. Forgotten is that the murderers preventing water and food from being distributed to the hostages, the people killed in cold blood just to show that they meant business. The culprit is the one who didn’t bow and meet the demands of the murderers…

There's not much here to add, it sums up my feelings perfectly.

While every effort must be done to respect Human Rights, that can only be a second priority, after winning the war or perhaps I should say after not losing the war. Fisical elimination of the terrorist planners and hitmen, much in the way Israel has been acting against Hamas and I Jihad, is a measure bound to reduce their capacity of carrying out this kind of horrors. It also takes advantage of the big victory of the civilized world agaisnt them: their lack of a state to recure a rear-guard. I'm far from a fan of Putin, but I think we must support him on this one.

My worries though are that Russia will respond in such an indriscriminate way that it serves to radicalize the region even more. After all, that's what Osama tried to get us to do after 9/11. It failed and rationality prevailed, but I'm not sure that it will prevail in this case. Phrases like "human rights are a second priority" to defeating Islamism, scare me to no limit, if only because I've thought the same thing after each one of their atrocious acts. And I believe one day, the Islamists will do something so horrible (biological attack that kills tens of thousands) that we will resort to a genocidal response.

I too think we should support him, maybe it'll be our support and advice that will convince him not to launch a Red Army-style massive assault.

Oh Joy!

2004-09-09T00:01:00.000-05:00

Just when you thought you were safe from the Swift Boat nonsense...

Here comes the "Bush wasn't qualified for the National Guard" nonsense...again.

Look. I will not vote for president based on who was a war criminal or war hero or who did the most cocaine when they were 30. Why do both parties insist on continuing to engage in this stupidity?

Russian Terrorism Response

2004-09-08T23:10:00.000-05:00

By now, this has been discussed ad nauseum across the blogosphere, as well as here at The Urban Empire.

Four days ago I wrote:

Putin, for the first time that I can remember, publicly admitted Russian weakness in terrorism and border defense. This is key, because Putin's image as a tough, resolute leader has been severly wounded in these attacks. By admitting the weakness, he will seek to redeem himself through military actions.

And apparently, I underestimated his response.

BESLAN, Russia (Reuters) - Russia's top general threatened on Wednesday to attack "terrorist bases" anywhere in the world, as security services put a $10 million bounty on two Chechen rebels [Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev] they blame for last week's school siege.

[...]

"As for launching pre-emptive strikes on terrorist bases, we will carry out all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world," said General Yuri Baluevsky, chief of Russia's general staff. (via Yahoo! News)

Sounds like Vladimir has incorporated parts of the Bush Doctrine into Russian foreign policy. I doubted then that Putin would (or could) respond beyond the Russia's immediate sphere of influence, but Dan Darling corrected me. From this Winds of Change thread, apparently, the comment permalinks don't work when linked from Blogger.

My comment:

I have a feeling there will be a pretty significant response, because Putin's speech highlighted a lot of weaknesses, which was quite surpising, because as you know, his whole presidency is based on an image of tough, uncompromising, strength when it comes to Chechnya. And he might conclude that the only way to redeem that "credibility" is to be brutal and launch some kind of offensive. Plus, not doing anything other than reforming his security services (while important) is an invitation to more horrendous attacks like this one. So, he might have no choice but to respond.

His reply:

The idea of a massive Russian invasion of Georgia proper or just Pankisi is still very much on the table, I suspect. They also now have to deal with Basayev's infrastructure in Ingushetia that would have had to have existed in order for the incursion into North Ossetia to have ever occurred. As it now stands, Russian forces have sealed off North Ossetia and are launching an aggressive search for any of the hostage-takers who may have escaped (they already paraded one escapee around on Russian TV). That should be their top priority while they assess the situation, identify who the foreign backers were (I imagine that Abu Omar al-Saif is getting his checks signed by someone other than bin Laden) and make preparations to neutralize them. Keep in mind that the Russians assassinated Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev [in Qatar, no less!], the former Chechen president and Wahhabi ideologue who convinced Mullah Omar to recognize Chechen "independence," back in 2003 after they'd linked him to the theater seige. If I were a prince in a certain Magic Kingdom, I'd be doubling my security and getting somebody else to start my car and taste my food right about now.

That's a very interesting idea. I was initially dismissive of the Russians doing anything inside Saudi Arabia, as yes, they are basically the ideological epicenter of Islamism, but taking out a prince (I would include clerics too, if a direct link could be made) or two would hardly solve anything. Well, besides pissing off the royal family and if that the case, I'm sure they'd be able to get in contact with an al Qaeda cell and not so covertly fund an attack on Russia in retaliation. General Yuri Baluevsky's comments about striking terrorist bases made in sound like he was talking about the Pankisi Gorge or Ingushetian terrorist infrastructure set up by al Qaeda and various Chechen nationalists.

All in all, I expect Putin to join with Bush on many more issues from now on and I can foresee this strengthening Bush's hand in relation to the national security canard. On the other hand, it could put more strains in the Russo-American relationship because what if Putin decides to take a harder line with US allies Georgia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and whoever else. Time will tell.

Unfortunately, Russia doesn't fight wars like we do. They leveled the Chechen capital twice, killing thousands. Dan says the total civilian casualities for the second Chechen War is around 80,000! The next month could be pivital in the war on terror.

Stygius Has Moved

2004-09-07T17:00:00.000-05:00

Update your bookmarks accordingly.

1,000 Hits

2004-09-05T22:45:00.000-05:00

Today, I reached a milestone on my blog. I have over 1,000 visits to my blog, which is just amazing.

So to all my readers: Thank You!

Comprehensive Beslan Update

2004-09-05T16:45:00.000-05:00

By Dan Darling at Winds of Change.

As with pretty much every post by Dan, this is a must read.

Basayev's reasons for selecting North Ossetia in general and Breslan in particular are obvious to one familiar with the warped nature of al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. Unlike most of the North Caucasus, most North Ossetians are Eastern Orthodox Christians, so it "makes sense" to target them rather than say Russian Muslim schoolchildren in Ingushetia or Dagestan if you're a Wahhabi who subscribes to bin Laden's belief in a Huntingtonian-esque clash of civilizations. In addition to being majority Christian, North Ossetia was also one of the few regions of the North Caucasus that voluntarily joined the Russian Empire and its population formed a lot of the levies that were eventually used to subdue other Caucasus nations that refused to submit to the Tsar. As such, even the murder of innocent schoolchildren can be fit into a warped idea of "vengeance" for actions that their ancestors may have committed.

I should point out that regardless of what one thinks about Russian involvement in Chechnya, the people of Breslan had no power whatsoever to effect Russian policy in region. Basayev is an educated man who is quite familiar with the North Caucasus, so he must have known this when he was planning the attack. Things like this make his decision to target the innocent people of Breslan all that much more inexcuseable.

However, I should point out that Basayev's ambitions extend far beyond just Chechen independence, so everybody saying that a political solution to the Chechen war or Russian withdrawl from the region is going to solve the issue is going to be sorely disappointed.

Read it all.

Putin's Speech

2004-09-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

Vladimir Putin makes a very, very important speech (thanks to Stygius for linking to it) that I precieve to be the prologe to a new Russian offensive in the Caucasus. Putin, for the first time that I can remember, publicly admitted Russian weakness in terrorism and border defense. This is key, because Putin's image as a tough, resolute leader has been severly wounded in these attacks. By admitting the weakness, he will seek to redeem himself through military actions.

I concur with Styguis when he says this statement in largely directed at Georgia:

"Some want to tear away saucy piece of our wealth, while others help these aspirants in so doing. They still believe that Russia poses a threat to them as a nuclear power. That is why this threat must be eliminated, and terrorism is just another instrument in implementing their designs."

The other day, Styguis said in a reply to me, about the possibility that Putin would invade and annex Georgia.

I think this creates the right environment to ratchet up [Russia’s] attitude towards Georgia, and perhaps rightfully so. I think [Putin] would at least like to mount a sustained military expedition into that region. However, I highly doubt Russia would dare invade all of Georgia, let alone annex all [of] it.

Indeed, the annexation of Georgia would be the worst case scenario. I agree that Russia would, in all probability, launch an expedition into the Pankisi Gorge, but I can't see Georgia taking it laying down. Although, I'm sure the Georgian military is no match for Russia's, to allow Putin to enter the Gorge without much resistance by Saakashvili will pretty much spell the end of his presidency. Another thing that leads me to believe that a Russian Pankisi Gorge incursion might be expanded into other parts of Georgia is that before all of these attacks happened, Russia and Georgia's respective militaries were preparing for war, not just in the Gorge.

I failed to factor in that Saakashvili is a pro-American president and Putin, I believe, got somewhat of a greenlight to launch an offensive from President Bush yesterday.

"This is yet another grim reminder of the length to which terrorists will go to threaten the civilized world. We mourn the innocent lives that have been lost," he said. "We stand with the people of Russia. We send them our prayers in this terrible situation."

Styguis also links to this WaPo article on Putin's speech.

Russian 9/11?

2004-09-03T23:43:00.000-05:00

I was unexpectedly kept away from an internet connection until now, so I apologize for belatedly replying to messages.

While I was away, it seems as if my worst fears have been confirmed two-fold: Russian forces have stormed the school resulting in over 200 people dead and the attack was financed by Chechen terrorist leader Basavey and an al Qaeda cell.

I'm still shifting through the information at this time so I don't have much to add, but you must visit Stygius's site. He has some must read commentary on the sitaution here, here, and he replies to my posts right here. (Which by the way, I will wait until tomorrow to reply to, if only for the fact that I want to see what Putin does now that there's a clear al Qaeda connection.)

What I do want to address tonight is that, I have seen several people in the blogsphere ask why al Qaeda would be stupid enough to give Putin the provocation to intensify and/or expand the war in Chechnya to other Caucaus States? First, I obviously don't know their real motive, but I can speculate based upon the information available.

The initial line of reasoning for these series of attacks was to delay an "imminent" war between Russia and Georgia by keeping Putin distracted. Well, that seemed plausible at first, but now Russia knows al Qaeda was behind this attack. If anything, Putin will use this to speed up an invasion of Georgia's Pankisi Gorge. I can't help but feel that this is what al Qaeda wants the Russian's to do. Maybe draw them in like what the Chechen's did to the Russian's in Grozny (Chechen capital) in 1995 and decemimate them. As a result, the retreating Russian army razed the city
Or with the Iraqi Jihad not going as well as could be expected they might be trying to redeem their credibility by going up against the Russians once again. The fabled Afghan campaign against the Soviets is still looked at with admiration by many people in the Middle East.

Bush's Speech

2004-09-02T22:54:00.000-05:00

Wow.

Whatever complaints I had of Bush's rhetoric a few days ago, have evaporated with that speech. The foreign policy part was great as he hit almost all of the points he should have. My initial post speech reaction was: Bush just won the election. And I am much more likely to vote for him afterwards.

The Russian Hostage Situation

2004-09-01T23:46:00.000-05:00

I was going to make a long post about this, but then I see that Dan Darling already beat me to it.

There have been 3 terror attacks in Russia in the past week, all carried out by Chechen Islamists. I had been asking myself all day, why Chechen leader Basayev wanted to escalate the crisis in such a dramatic way. Dan answers with two words: Pankisi Gorge. Those of us who follow the war on terror know all about this wonderful place. It's basically a enclave of the ex-Soviet state of Georgia and is where terrorists come and go from around the world, like a hub airport of sorts. There had been rumors that Russia had been planning on launching a war against Georgia to destroy the Pankisi Gorge, but Basayev knowing how big a blow it would be to lose the Gorge decided to up the ante on Russia and launch the biggest offensive against Russia that I can ever remember.

Dan has more, read it now.

Reply to Rob...

2004-09-01T21:49:00.000-05:00

Robert said:

I always thought that we wouldn't 'win' the war either- not in the traditional sense that is.

There will be no battle that definitively marks the end of the War. Just a slow fading into obscurity of our enemies.

So no, we are never going to 'win it'.

See, I don't think we'll ever win it in the tradition sense (surrenders, peace treaties signed in Paris or Geneva etc.) but I do think this war can be won. You say:

The idea is to disrupt the regimes that foster such terrorists, spread freedom to diminish the long term threat of terrorism

It is not a foolproof plan for complete eradication of terrorists because that cannot be done. The purpose is to make them a marginalized enemy that poses little to no threat to us. Not exactly zero threat.

All of those points are very true indeed. And I agree the that freedom is one of the best ways to diminish the threat of terrorism, which is one of my key justifications in supporting the Iraq War. But I think what we need to do it engage in a massive discrediting campaign. Highlight Islamist atrocities across the world; from Sudan to Algeria to Iran to the Phillipines. Yes, that is a long term strategy, but one of the only ways I can see to stop the recruitment. I mean, we obviously can't invade every Islamist country and Iraq is hard enough by itself. This ties fairly nicely into Stygius's post on whether al Qaeda is an ideological movement or ideology and see also this ideofact post in which there it some really good debate about the effectiveness of just "killing the terrorists." This war will eventually have a conclusion as I doubt it is anything we could live with for a hundred years, with the resulting tens of thousands of American deaths. Just like the Cold War, when it's over, the America that existed on 9/10/2001 will be radically altered.

Perhaps I don't see this as a 'flip-flop' because I don't see how its a big change of position. For Bush it wasn't a change, just horrible articulation of his stance as usual.

That may be true, but this is the irony of the situation. The Democratic defense of Kerry's flip-flops is the same for your defense of Bush's. Whether or not Bush flip flopped is up for debate, but unfortunately, for the millions of people who came home and saw on the nightly news that Bush had declared the war on terror "unwinnable," what else could they think other than it was a defeatist position.

As with the Swift Boat controversy that killed Kerry, it's all about perception.

First day of school

2004-09-01T14:06:00.000-05:00

So, school started today. It's going alright so far, I suppose. I have this period free, so naturally, I use my computer time to update. Yet, I find out that this year my school put a filter on the blogspot.com domain so I can't view my blog, strangely though, they left the blogger.com domain free from restriction. Weird. Anyway, I'll check my comments when I get home.

Thank You Steven

2004-08-30T18:52:00.000-05:00

Steven Den Beste is done blogging.

His posts on history and the Middle East were some of the best in the blogosphere. That's why it's such a shame to see him go. He influenced my opinion and was one of the principle people online who made me realize what we were really fighting for.

His Strategic Overview is absolute, must read material.

Thank You, Steven.

Winning the War on Terror

2004-08-30T10:48:00.000-05:00

Dave Schuler has a quote by President Bush on if we can win this war.

When asked “Can we win?” the war on terror, Bush said, “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.”

I don't think that that is "too nuanced" as Dave says, I just think George doesn't go far enough. Alright, say, a future president somehow persuades militant Islamist organizations (al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the like) to swear off terror attacks as an offensive weapon. Does that mean that we have won the war? What happened to the grand "ideological struggle that will take generations"? Are we not fighting a Islamist movement that hates everything we stand for and wants us destroyed?

I understand that Kerry doesn't get that, but it seems to me that Bush is wavering too nowadays. To me, this war is bigger than both of them. If I felt that Kerry was stronger in prosecuting it, I would not hesitate to vote for him. I have yet to fully make up my mind, because I disagree with a tremendous amount of Bush's domestic policies, but the WoT trumps them all. I wish that somehow like John McCain had become president, but he didn't. I can sit here and bitch and moan, but my choice is stark: John F. Kerry or George W. Bush.

UPDATE: We can't forget that these people can't be comprised with. Now comes word that the Taliban has bombed a school in the Afghan city of Zormat, killing nine children. Despicable.

UPDATE II:Robert Tagorda adds some context to Bush's statement.

Jeb in 2008?

2004-08-28T23:54:00.000-05:00

Ugh!

Andalusia

2004-08-28T22:45:00.000-05:00

Juan A. Hervada has a very good post on Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and how his policies are playing into the hands of jihadists that want to reclaim Al Andalus (Spain). I highly recommend reading it.

I also wrote a little about all of this back in March after the train bombings.

To the Muslim, once a land has been conquered in Jihad, that land is forever Muslim. It doesn't matter if someone reconquers it and claims it as their own, the land remains theirs. If the Muslim's had it once, they will "by the will of Allah" have it again. They might fight one war, ten wars, fifty wars, a thousand and lose each time, but one day they will fight the thousand and oneth war and win. The House of Truce is always a temporary situation which might turn to their advantage in the next battle that is fought. Any lands already conquered are in the land of Islam, any not conquered yet, are in the House of War.

Indeed

Keyes for SecState?

2004-08-28T12:25:00.000-05:00

So says the Final Historian.

I have heard to the effect that Colin Powell was going to resign as Secretary of State should President Bush be re-elected. I think that there is a good chance that if Bush is re-elected, and Powell steps down, that Alan Keyes may be nominated in his place. This assumes of course that Keyes fails to win the Senate seat in Illinois.

Heh.

Keyes has as much chance of becoming Secretary of State in a second term Bush administration as Noam Chomsky does. Seriously, he's turned into quite the kook lately, even being assailed by prominent GOP members as well as Democrats. Why is he a kook? Well here are some of the things he's said recently.

Keyes has announced his plan to bring home the black vote when he proposed that for a generation or two, African-Americans of slave heritage should be exempted from federal taxes--federal because slavery "was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment." (Chicago Tribune)

He also wants to end popular elections of Senators. And he likened abortion rights activists to slaveholders! No wonder Obama is beating Keyes 65% to 21% (a 41% margin!). Ryan, who dropped out of the race last month due to a sex scandal, would get 31% in a hypothetical matchup opposite Obama.

I don't really see what other qualifications Keyes has for such a high level cabinet position.

16 Year Old Iranian Girl Hanged

2004-08-26T23:45:00.000-05:00

From Amnesty International comes this absolutely sick story:

Amnesty International today expressed its outrage at the reported execution of a girl believed to be 16 years old for “acts incompatible with chastity”. Ateqeh Rajabi was reportedly publicly hanged on a street in the city centre of Neka, northern Iran, on 15 August 2004.

Amnesty International is alarmed that this execution was carried out despite reports that Ateqeh Rajabi was not believed to be mentally competent, and that she reportedly did not have access to a lawyer at any stage.

During the trial the judge allegedly severely criticised her dress, harshly reprimanding her. It is alleged that Ateqeh Rajabi was mentally ill both at the time of her crime (having sexual relations outside of wedlock) and during her trial proceedings. (via Blogs of War)

John Little writes:

The government of Iran is seriously out of touch with the youth and other moderate elements of it’s society.

I don't think the problem, in this case, is the government being out of touch with the youth. It's that the government of Iran is a medieval theocracy with a strict form of shariah as its penal code. News like this needs to get wider attention in the international media.

US Warplanes Enter Iranian Airspace

2004-08-26T19:39:00.000-05:00

These are unconfirmed reports, of course. But the Persian Journal report seem pretty credible:

Five US warplanes entered Iran’s air space last Thursday night from the southwestern Shalamcheh border and flew over the city of Khorramshahr for a while, press reports said Tuesday.

According the Persian daily Seday-e Edalat, ‘the jet fighters which flew at high speed and altitude, then headed to the Arvand River’.

“They flew at a height of 10 kilometers and maneuvered over Khorramshahr for a while,” the paper said.

“While the objective behind the fighters’ violation of the Iranian air space is not known yet, some military specialists believe such moves are aimed at assessing the sensitivity of the Islamic Republic’s anti-aircraft defense system,” it added.

(hat tip: Alphabet City)

Lack of Topics

2004-08-26T18:46:00.000-05:00

I've foregone blogging the past few days because there's really been nothing to blog about. There's the never ending Swiftboat/Kerry controversy. I have made it a point not to talk about it at all, because frankly, I don't care. This is the first presidential election since 9/11. The country has taken a dramatic turn since then and the two candidates for the most important office in the world are stuck in the past. It's not enough that John Kerry and George Bush have barely marginal policy differences regarding Iraq, but it's another thing to ignore the issues completely and argue arcane points about whether Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas of 1968 or not. If Kerry lied about that, he lied. But I am not going to base my vote on that. I am going to base my vote on who I think will best protect this country now.

Belgravia Dispatch Weighs In on Iran

2004-08-22T14:59:00.000-05:00

Gregory Djerejian adds his opinion to the growing number of bloggers discussing the Iranian situation. His post is quite good, but I feel I need to comment on parts of it.

So, with the U.S. less likely to take any preemptive action, might Israel (whom Teheran suspects has perhaps received a green light from Washington to do so--an erroneous analysis, in my view) instead?

The question of whether Israel would actually strike the Iranian nuclear sites at Bushehr and Natanz hasn't had much discussion in either the blogosphere or the media. I think by now many see it as a foregone conclusion that Israel will hit Iran and that it's only a matter of when (not if). I, too, have held that view for some time, but recently its shifted. For reasons Gregory nicely lays out in his post, an Israeli strike would do much more harm than good.

...An Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, apart from increasing the prospects of a regional conflagration (including in the Levant, it should be noted), would actually serve to increase our difficulties in Iraq.

Shi'a radicalization will increase dramatically if Sharon strikes Iran and Sadr (or the memory of a martyred Sadr) will benefit with legions of new volunteers entering the fray and picking up arms against coalition forces.

Nor do I think that Bush would want Sharon to attack pre-election, as Creveld speculates. The risks of a major regional escalation (and of a more active and naked Iranian scuttling role in Iraq) would likely prove a net negative for Bush in the election. Put differently, when the cup looks to really runneth over--some fence-sitters or distraught voters will look to vote Kerry calculating he will be the guy to pull our troops out of the entire (increasingly chaotic) 'region' more expeditiously.

No, my best guess is that the U.S. is going to try to drag this entire Iran mess into the UNSC in the coming half year or so--with the Brits, French and Germans continuing to be active participants in a soi disant 'muscular' multilateral approach that aims to at least make the going somewhat tougher for Iran to go nuclear. The danger with this strategy, of course, is NoKo policy paralysis on the Iran question too.

Unfortunately, I think that the Iranian's have called our bluff. The United States is not, as Gregory points out above, going to engage in any aggressive action (or give Jerusalem a green light) before the election. The election will come down to a few thousand votes most likely and an attack on Iran could flip them in favor of John Kerry. Most Republicans and Democrats in Washington realize this fact also. That's the reason why Bush has opted to go completely multilateral in regards to Iran and is also keeping rhetoric surprisingly non-imflammatory. What happens if Kerry wins the Presidency? I highly doubt that even if he felt that the Iranian issue needed to be dealt with militarily right away that he would have the political will to do it. Actually, the same goes for Bush although to a lesser degree.

But revolutions come and go; governments come and go. No one is hyper-sanguine that Pakistan has nuclear weapons merely because cuddly Pervez is running the store in Islamabad. A 'friendly' future government in Iran could become decidely unfriendly later. And, of course, if Iran goes nuclear (whatever the government in power); Saudi Arabia will increasingly feel she needs a nuclear capacity as well....

You know, I've heard the argument that a nuclear Iran will spur the creation of a nuclear Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but I'm not sure how much of it I buy. After all, Saddam was about a year away from a nuke in 1991 after the Gulf War, yet the Saudi's never made a push for nuclear weapons. And it's not as if they are foreign to wanting the bomb for they pushed billions of dollars of funding into Pakistan so the Pakistani's could have an "Islamic Bomb." Relations between the Saudi's and Iranian's are good and most of Tehran's venom is directed at Israel and not other Islamic States.

More Iran News

2004-08-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

This is breaking news of sorts, but Iran has just contracted with Russia to build more nuclear reactors. This severely complicates diplomatic solutions currently sought by the United States and European Union.

BRUSHING aside US accusations that it wants to build atomic weapons, Iran said today it has contracted Russia to build more nuclear power plants, while claiming two European countries have also expressed interest in helping construct similar facilities.

Russia is rebuilding Iran's first nuclear reactor, which was begun by West Germany but interrupted during the 1979 Islamic revolution. Damage caused to the facility in Bushehr, a coastal town in southern Iran, during the 1980-88 war with Iraq also led to its inauguration being postponed from last year to August 2006.

Despite the delays and the project's $US800 million ($1.1 billion) cost, Iranian nuclear officials say they want Russia to build more nuclear reactors to help generate greater amounts of electricity.

"We have contracts with Russia to build more nuclear reactors. No number has been specified, but definitely our contract with Russia is to build more than one nuclear power plant," Asadollah Sabouri, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran in charge of nuclear power plants, told reporters.

Upon reading this, I can't help but wonder what the hell Vladimir Putin is thinking? With tensions between Iran and Israel at a fever pitch, what does Russia get by this? Well, yes, money of course. But Putin has to realize that this development could concievably bring Russia in the middle of an explosive situation. Apparently, Iran has now delayed opening its Bushehr nuclear reactor until at least 2006. This was done presumably to try and get Israel not to attack the reactor (remember, Israel waited until Saddam turned the Osirak reactor online, before the air raid was ordered).

The situation is still developing at this hour.

UPDATE: Styguis comments here.

Addendeum

2004-08-21T21:46:00.000-05:00

Centerfield has two really intriguing posts dealing with the WoT that I reocommend everyone read.

Rising Israeli-Iranian Tensions

2004-08-20T19:22:00.000-05:00

Tensions Escalate Between Israel, Iran

That's the stark headline on Yahoo News:

JERUSALEM - Iran threatened this week to attack Israel's nuclear facilities. Israel ominously warned that it "knows how to defend itself." Tensions between the two arch enemies have suddenly escalated, underlining the other great enmity that has been bubbling on the sidelines of the Arab-Israeli conflict for more than two decades.

Suspicions that the Iranian regime is moving forward with a nuclear arms program deeply worry Israel, which considers Iran the greatest threat to the Jewish state. Israeli officials say they want to avoid escalating the situation, however, and there is no sign Israel is building up for an attack like the one that destroyed Iraq (news - web sites)'s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.

Experts say the two countries are unlikely to go to war anytime soon, despite the heated-up rhetoric coming out of Iran and the intensified efforts by Israel to isolate the Iranian regime diplomatically.

This doesn't bold well for the situation. Now Iran is openly treatening to attack Israel's nuclear sites and it shouldn't be taken as a bluff because Iran is equipped with the medium range Shahab-3 missle.

The War of Ideas Part II

2004-08-19T23:37:00.000-05:00

Earlier this month I wrote about the war of ideas.

I believe that this current war is not a war against terrorism, because terrorism is a tactic and it has always existed in one form or another. This war is a war against a totalitarian ideology that seeks Western Civilization's downfall.

Well, today I stumble upon this WoC post upon the questions facing us in the war against Islamism and what, if any, our options are. I think the post and subsequent comment section is a must read.

Sudan Policy

2004-08-18T17:57:00.000-05:00

The other day I posted a list of articles on Sudan that I deemed must reads. In it I said that I would post an analyses on what we can do regarding the Darfur situation.

Answer: not much.

Unfortunately, short of an invasion, we can't really accomplish a complete halt to the massacres. The US, UN and EU are threatening sanctions against the Islamist regime in Khartoum. France, yet again, opposes any kind of sanctions to be imposed by the UN. The BBC link also includes this snippet:

France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq. As was the case in Iraq, France also has significant oil interests in Sudan.

Mr Muselier [Junior French Foreign Minister] also dismissed claims of "ethnic cleansing" or genocide in Darfur.

Surprise, surprise. Look, I agree with Mr. Muselier in that sanctions won't really do much of anything to stop the genocide, if anything, Sudan may increase and/or widen its genocide campaign (see, Iraq after GW1) and the sanctions will serve to further entrench the regime itself. The only way I can see the killing be put to an end is a military intervention.

The United States will have to lead any future humanitarian mission and that looks doubtful due to the overstreched nature of the US military. Neither Presidential Candidate has said much regarding it and even if action could be taken, it being a election year and the race so close, Bush doesn't want to do any kind of major action. However, Britain and Australia have pledged about 7,000 troops if needed and that is very admirable. But without us in the lead, those troops won't be going anywhere. I also think the Sudan case can be applied directly to Iran. The lack of international motivation to stop an ongoing genocide that might kill between 500,000 and a million people, despite the ghosts of Rwanda floating around in the media, shows that there will not be broad international support for any sort of action against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Assuming all of this, what else is there to do?

The Neo Cons

2004-08-16T23:56:00.000-05:00

It seems like a lot of talk around the blogosphere the past 2 days is about this fascinating (and long) article by Francis Fukuyama entitled "The Neoconservative Moment" in the current issue of The National Interest. I have neither the time nor energy to critique it all but several others have done the job for me (here, here, here, and here)

Seriously, this is a must, must read. It doesn't matter whether you supported the war or not, it needs to (hopefully) be a catalyst for more intensive foreign policy discussion. Not just on whether the Iraq War was wrong, but the whole "neoconservative" grand strategy of democratizing the Middle East at gun point.

What do you think?

Sudan Must Reads

2004-08-14T23:35:00.000-05:00

While all this talk about Iran is going on (and rightly so), the news regarding Sudan is a little less talked about. As most know, there is a genocide going on orchestrated by the Sudanese government in the western Darfur region.

(Map)

I have complied a list of articles and posts on the Darfur genocide and Khartoum's extensive ties to al Qaeda:

Plan of Action by David L. Englin
Sudan's Osama: The Islamist Roots of the Darfur Genocide by Lee Smith
The Definite Sudan/al Qaeda Source (1 | 2) by Dan Darling
AEI Discussion on Sudan (I'd recommend watching this discussion on video but if you don't have the time, the transcript will do)

Read all of these and then you'll have a much clearer understanding of what exactly is happening and what, if anything we can do to stop it. Tomorrow I'll post a continuation of this on the latter part.

Iran Again

2004-08-12T15:19:00.000-05:00

Ideofact points to this article by NY Times columnist Nick Kristof. In it he worries about the possibility of a nuclear device being detonated inside the US within the next 10 years. Such fears are fairly common among various bloggers, but it is rare to see such a frank discussion of them in public, let alone in the world's most read newspaper. With the spread of nuclear materials becoming more and more common place and know-how being disseminated down, you don't have to be a Los Alamos scientist to make a crude nuclear weapon.

A nuclear armed Iran poses not only a geopolitical threat to the region, but also a danger that they might let "slip" a weapon to al Qaeda or Hezbollah to use against America or Israel, respectively. This was a common argument used when talking about the North Korea nuclear program due to how cash straped they are. But it takes on an entirely new siginificance in the case of Iran, who is currently harboring a lot of the remaining leadership of al Qaeda (including military commander Saif al-Adel in Tehran itself). Not to mention, their control over Hezbollah and their expressed intent to nuke Israel no matter if they get nuked in retaliation (for Israel would be destroyed and the Muslim world would still be standing):

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani [former President of the Islamic Republic]

Now, that is a scary quote by itself and it's even scarier because Rafsanjani is still one of the most powerful people in Iran.

Also: Siddharth Mohandas (filling in for Dan Drezner this week) writes about what the real options regarding Iran actually are. Matt Yglesias also weighs in with thoughts of his own.

The Other October Surprise

2004-08-10T21:58:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not talking about the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden.

I'm talking about the increasingly tense situation regarding the Iranian nuclear program. Rob and I have been discussing it in the comments of a post I made below. He links to this post Winds of Change that deals with this very subject. Commenter Mark Buehner sums up the consequences of a nuclear armed Iran:

It cannot be overstated how devasting a nuclear armed Iran would be to our security and foriegn policy.
There is a scary meme developing (particularly in Europe) that Iran's nuclear program is simply a deterrant to the US, and hence no real problem. We're going to start hearing that is growing murmurs. It must be addressed.
Iranian mullahs have publicly advocated using nuclear weapons on Israel and accepting the responsding strike. Big Satan, Little Satan folks. Even if by some miracle, Iran doesnt use or distribute its nukes, the leverage that such a deterrant would create in the region is chilling. These maniacs are blatantly taking on an angry US in Iraq without nukes, what will they do with that trump card?
This is critical.

Then there's this:

Iran has issued an extraordinary list of demands to Britain and other European countries, telling them to provide advanced nuclear technology, conventional weapons and a security guarantee against nuclear attack by Israel.

Wow. The level of utter defiance leaves me speechless.

The War of Ideas

2004-08-09T15:44:00.000-05:00

As an offshoot of my earlier post on why I blog, I have decided to explain a bit more about my interests. As you probably all know, I am a political junkie. But I also love to study history. A keen interest of mine has been to study the mass ideological movements of the 20th century and the thinkers behind them. You know communism has Karl Marx, fascism has Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler of course, but I didn't know know who the theoritical founder of radical Islamism was until earlier this year. Sayyid Qutb is not a household name by any means and ask why that is. His influence was huge during his time in the Egpytian Muslim Brotherhood and expanded greatly after he was "martryed" by Nasser in 1966. Bill at Ideofact has been my primary inspiration to studying who and what Sayyid Qutb was about. His commentaries on Qutb's Milestones and Social Justice in Islam are bar none the best I've seen anywhere online. Check him out.

I believe that this current war is not a war against terrorism, because terrorism is a tactic and it has always existed in one form or another. This war is a war against a totalitarian ideology that seeks Western Civilization's downfall (I hope that isn't a mischaracterization on my part). The problem I have most with this war is the lack of articulation from both sides of the aisle. I worry that people don't understand this war. We can defeat al Qaeda tomorrow, but what would that really do? Nothing. There will eventually be another group that takes its place. Our goal is to defeat the ideology that breeds such levels of hate. Radical Islamism will take time and patience to defeat, that goes without question, indeed, President Bush has mentioned the fact that it will take "generations" to defeat.

I've seen many commenters over the past few years talk about the fear that we'd expand our engagement to encompass large swathes of the Middle East, turning it into a Dresden-like campaign. I don't see it, really. There very well might be a nuclear attack against an American or Western city within the next few years, but our retaliation will be measured. We aren't going to turn the ME into a glass parking lot. But if we don't correctly understand the true nature of our enemy, we'll be more likely to go overboard.

The Iran Issue

2004-08-08T01:35:00.000-05:00

I've blogged about the urgency of the Iranian nuclear issue before here, here, and here. I've been critical of both President Bush and John Kerry for not presenting the American public with a clear strategy regarding Iran. But then Kerry, obviously hearing my call for a strategy, comes up with one. It's too bad that it's totally insane:

It is critical that we work with our allies to resolve these issues and lead a global effort to prevent Iran from obtaining the technology necessary to build nuclear weapons. Iran claims that its nuclear program is only to meet its domestic energy needs. John Kerry's proposal would call their bluff by organizing a group of states to offer Iran the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they cannot divert it to build a weapon. If Iran does not accept this offer, their true motivations will be clear.(via Crushing Dissent)

How is that a productive strategy? And how would we be able to trust them? [We trusted the North Koreans -- ed. Yeah, and look how that turned out. Point taken.]

UPDATE: Frequent blogosphere commenter Praktike links to this article and subsequent discussion on Tacitus's site.

Why I Blog

2004-08-07T21:48:00.000-05:00

I'm am not a prolific blogger at all, I think that is clear by anyone who reads The Urban Empire. I've been reading blogs everyday for about 2 years now and only started this blog this past March. I've never really intended it to get any spectacular hit stats. Indeed, I am extremely grateful for every hit I get.

Kim du Toit offers some tips for the new blogger. I generally agree with it and I felt like I need to address why I blog. First and foremost, I blog for myself. I blog to get my thoughts out. It helps a lot to formulate my opinions. Yes, I do enjoy an audience and people like FH who take the time out to comment.

The Islamic Mind

2004-08-06T11:27:00.000-05:00

Whoa, boy. I really do need to stop leaving so many gaps in between my postings. Hopefully I get into a rhythm soon enough.

I've spent this past week studying the thinkers of Islamic Fundamentalism. Namely, Sayyid Qutb. Thanks to Bill Allison's Qutb Series I've been trudging through his chapter summaries for both of Qutb's books Social Justice in Islam and Milestones. I was awed by the man who is said to be the brain of Osama bin Laden (indeed, bin Laden studied Muhammed Qutb, Sayyid's brother, in Saudi Arabia after the Muslim Brotherhood fled Nasser's Egypt). I went to the library and picked up 4 books:

Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman (yes, I know. I'm just now getting around to reading it)
Social Justice in Islam by Sayyid Qutb
Inside al Qaeda by Rohan Gunaratna (which Dan Darling tells me is the definite book on al Qaeda out of the many hundreds of post-9/11 AQ books)
The Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis (I've heard so many recommendations for this book, how could I not pass it up)

Making the Case for...

2004-07-27T10:41:00.000-05:00

There's an election in a little over 3 months from now and I'm split on who to vote for. Neither candidate interests me much at all anymore. Now, I was a solid Bush supporter for much of the past 2 years, but in the past few months he's been making it harder and harder to support him in his re-election bid. The most significant reason I've become disillusioned with him is because he has failed in the most important task as President: communication. When I see war supporters denouce their views because we didn't find WMDS or a definite al-Qaeda connection, I ask "what happened to you?" What was done that caused you to turn against the war? They basically say that they no longer know why they are there or why we went in the first place. And in all honesty, I've been apart of that group too from time to time. It's so frustrating having to almost daily explain your rationale for war when most of it Bush never stated as his rationale. And beyond that, the security situation in Iraq shows no sign of improving between now and January. Yet, I am still a hawk. I still support the war because I do believe in the cause and I believe that a moderate state will eventually emerge.

In my previous post, I wrote about how fundamental the Iranian nuclear issue was in this campaign season. What's Bush's policy? What's Kerry's? I refuse to believe that our hands are so tied that we can't do anything. We are the most powerful country in the world, there are many more avenues we can use to disuade Iran. Maybe we just don't want to. Bush, knowing the level of hatred people have for him and the Iraq War, doesn't want to forge a new agressive policy on Iran. We are in a long, hard, and tedious war against ideas that breed terrorism and injustice. That is more important than an election. But obviously, Bush wants to hold onto the presidency more than he wants to win this war.

The next post will be about Kerry and the possibility of voting for him.

The Iranian Strategy

2004-07-26T16:05:00.000-05:00

With the start of the Democratic National Convention, I'd like to take the time to address the most urgent foreign policy question in the world today, Iran achieving nuclear weapons status. Sadly, I have seen little debate in either the DNC or RNC about this. Tehran has openly pledged to build nukes and the world issues a collective shrug in return. With Iraq being occupied by coalition troops until at least 2006 and Iranian agents infiltrating all the way to Baghdad, a nuclear Iran would change the entire geopolitical situation and be able to exort tremendous leverage over Iraqi Shi'ites and the current government in Baghdad. The blogosphere seems to be taking this issue very seriously, with commenters on both sides of the aisle taking an increasingly aggressive posture. And it's all the more dangerous because a good portion of the top al-Qaeda leadership is based in Iran (now, yes, Dan Darling have been saying this for about a year and half now and it now appears that he was right. And I should definitely mention his analysis of the Iran/9-11 connection.

But the problem is...

What can we do to stop the Iranian regime from finishing its nukes? Well, of course, as many people have pointed out, the Israeli's could do what they did to Iraq in 1981 and destroy the Buheur facility, but is that really a viable option? Even if they succeed in taking out the place, the mullahs sure do know about what the Israeli's did and you can bet they have their most important components of the nuclear program underground. And if an attack is carried out and the whole program isn't wiped out, Israel would be the first place Iran would attack (either directly or more likely using a Hezbollah offensive through Lebanon). We could also use sanctions, but that's a short term solution and as with Saddam they would probably serve to further entrench the regime in Tehran.

The Iranian Nuclear Stragey must be dealt with soon before it's too late.

To be continued...

Alignment

2004-07-22T21:01:00.000-05:00

If you haven't noticed already, the alignment on the blog is quite bad right now. I've tried a few HTML commands but nothing's worked so far. So what exactly am I supposed to do to rectify this problem?

Presidential (Canidate) Assasination

2004-07-22T19:58:00.000-05:00

FH writes that al-Qaeda's smartest move will be to assasinate John Kerry and John Edwards. This is actually a very intriguing idea as the consequences of it will be huge both politically and to the already searing polarization in this country. Let's hypothesize shall we:

1. How do we proceed with the elections, if this took place? I'm assuming someone in DC has thought about this. If it wasn't too close to the election itself, the Democratic Party could conceivably pick 2 other ranking members to fill Kerry and Edawards' places. But that would almost assuredly mean a Bush landslide (as most of the population would have no idea who the new guys were) even factoring in the "sympathy vote."

2. I disagree however with his assertion that Bush will be blamed for it. I'm not quite sure why Bush would get blamed in the first place. Maybe you can clear that up for me, FH? Sure there would be people who sprout crazy conspiritorial crap like Bush let it happen and whatnot, but I doubt that on the whole the Left will blame Bush.

3. I do agree with him that it will be seen as a step toward dictatorship, as we couldn't realistically go through with the elections in that case. And as such, the Democratic Party would be forced to concede the election. (Even if there was a Constitutional Convention to amend the constitution in order to postpone the election, it would take months for the new canidate to raise money and get the national exposure in order to compete with Bush.) If the elections are cancelled, I'm quite likely that there will be rioting and international outrage.

The nation could be thrown into turmoil. That could cause even a more harmful effect than another 9/11 itself. I'll probably have more thoughts on it tomorrow.

The FMA is dead

2004-07-14T17:30:00.000-05:00

The FMA (Federal Marriage Amendment) was defeated in the Senate today, by a vote of 48-50, it needed 60 votes in order to stay alive for another round of votes. The GOP plans to keep up the fight and bring it to a vote at the earliest possible time (which won't be until after the elections).

Now, I'm completely against this amendment in any way, shape or form. Look, it's on thing to make gay marriages illegal, but to have it written into our constitution... Do you understand how completely shortsighted that is? Our Constitution is our most sacred document, one that enshrines our freedoms. One that allows me to write this without the fear of any retaliation by the police for openly criticizing the president. George Bush has the gull to push for this, when we are in the middle of a massive War of Ideas.

Not to mention, there is no real justification against it at all. "What about tradition?" many scream. Well, excuse me, but when has tradition ever been important? Seriously, it was tradition thousands of years ago for males not to shave. Times change.

Leading Republican Senator Rick Santorum has this:

"I would argue that the future of our country hangs in the balance because the future of marriage hangs in the balance," said Sen. Rick Santorum, a leader in the fight to approve the measure. "Isn't that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?"

Asshole. The "ultimate homeland security"? Right. So, if we were to legalize gay marriage that would be tantamount to capitulating in the War on Terror. And if it did get amended, that al-Qaeda would think "hey guys, look they just banned gay marriage. Well, I guess our job is done. Let's stop killing Americans." I supported the Iraq War because I believed in individual liberty and that all people should be free. And many Republicans feel the same, yet they seek to urdermine that liberty here at home.

Please feel free to post any disagreements you may have with this.

Islamism

2004-07-08T14:48:00.000-05:00

I've been doing quite a bit of reading about Islamist thought as of late, mainly focusing on the mid 20th century Egyptian philosopher Sayyid Qutb. He is considered by many to be the brain of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. In fact, al-Qaeda number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri served in the Muslim Brotherhood along with Qutb in the 1950's and 1960's. Qutb came into the political discourse with the publication of Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism. In it, he discusses Qutb for a whole chapter, entitled "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror." It was published in NYT Magazine on 3/23/03 and is available online here. Sadly, due to extreme lack of money I have not yet had a chance to phurchase the book. But with my new job, I have a steady income and plan on buying it within the next few weeks.

Upon reading that article, I set out to find any and all analysises I could find on Qutb's books In the Shade of the Qur'an and Social Justice in Islam. I found Ideofact through Regnum Crucis, and Ideofact, indeed, has the most comprehensive analysis of Sayyid Qutb's work(here and here). You need to read it all.

And I just discovered this fantastic blog because of his very nice summary of Berman's book.

Let Communism Reign

2004-06-29T20:11:00.000-05:00

Haha.

Allah never fails to amuse me.

End Game

2004-06-25T12:31:00.000-05:00

I just got back from Borders and I picked up the latest issue of The New Republic, the special issue consisting of 12 essays by (mostly) liberal hawks reconsidering their support for the war in Iraq. I recommend that everyone pick up a copy.

In light of yesterday's dreadful multi-city strikes that claimed the life of over 100 people and injured about 320, I have comtempleted abandoning this cause. Now, I advocated long and hard for this war and I still believe it was the right thing to do. But Bush's mishandling of it has created a situation that cannot conceivably produce the stated reason for many of us hawks support for the war, a (semi-) liberal democracy. Abu Zarqawi has, I believe, succeeded in Iraq. For the first time since the start of the war, the majority of Americans believe it was not right for us to invade and that Iraq has not made the world facer from terrorism. Our capitulation in Fallujah is at the center of this problem. It has become a Taliban-like city and the base of operations for al-Tawhid (Zarqawi's network). The situation is untenable. I expect the assasination of the Prime Minister and/or the President of Iraq shortly after the June 30th handover.

Where do we go from here?

They Hate Us For What?

2004-06-18T22:35:00.000-05:00

Matt Yglesias makes the obvious point about "why they hate us." Saying they (Islamic fundamentalists worldwide) hate us because we are free might sound cliched and maybe it is. But that doesn't mean it isn't true. They hate everything we are, because we aren't like them. They stay us for being in Iraq, but they'll still hate us the same if we leave Iraq (or if we never went). I hear a lot of my friends cower in isolationist sentiment in the face of terrorism, "we should just stay out of their business and then they won't bother us." But in this day and age, isolation is no longer an option. If we pull back all our resources (which not to mention, is next to impossible) what's to stop terrorists from staging coups in many different countries? Isolation is a short term solution that only creates more problems in the long run. They would hate us then too. They will hate us unless we all convert to Islamism. Which, even then, they probably won't find sufficent enough. That's why this war needs to be so proactive and needs to take the fight to the terrorists. If only the average American understood this...

al-Qaeda Inc.?

2004-06-18T22:09:00.000-05:00

I'll start off with two must read posts by Dan Darling, who I consider one of the foremost experts on al-Qaeda and the War on Terror, in the blogosphere.

These are very comprehensive (and long) posts, but as always with Dan's writings, you have to read the whole thing. The posts are a masterful fisking of the 9/11 Commission's report on the history of al-Qaeda.

Next we have two very important events happening in Saudi Arabia today. (1) The vicious beheading of American citizen Paul Johnson and (2) the killing of al-Qaeda Saudi Arabian leader al-Muqrin. There is something fishy going on that Saudi Security forces just happened to find al-Muqrin a few hours after Johnson was murdered. Incidentally, Dan also notes that same irony in a WoC comment section:

Don't ya just love how they managed to find al-Muqrin only after he and his thugs had murdered Johnson after nearly a week of "intensive searching" in one of the most totalitarian societies on the planet?

Surely Dan, this was just a tragic coincidence...

At last...

2004-06-16T07:51:00.000-05:00

Finals are over. I did good on them, I think.

I should be posting a lot more often nowadays.

Byebye Tony Blair?

2004-06-11T20:33:00.000-05:00

Tony Blair is my favorite poltician and has been for years. His speech justifying the Iraq War to a joint session of Congress last July, remains the best articulated out of all the arguments I've read for the war. But unfortunately, it became apparent even before the war started that it was deeply unpopular with the average Briton. Yet, he believed in the cause to his bone. But, sadly, I have also long believed that this will cost him his Primership when the next UK elections are held in 2005. Today this prediction was omniously foreshadowed by the Labour Party's humiliating third place finish behind the Conservative Tories and the strongly anti-war Liberal Democrats.

What would it say to the world if both the Bush and Blair governments were to fall over Iraq?

Public Opinion

2004-06-11T19:54:00.000-05:00

In How Terrorism Breeds, I talked about the fact that there is a sense of defeatism over Iraq in the general public and even in Washington itself. This was validated to an extent today by this article from the LATimes which states:

Most U.S. voters now say it was not worth going to war in Iraq, but an overwhelming majority reject the idea of setting a deadline to withdraw all U.S. forces from the country, according to a Times poll.

[...]

But voters were uncertain about the prospects of achieving broader goals in Iraq. Just 35% said the U.S. was "making good progress in Iraq," while 61% said they thought the U.S. was "getting bogged down." Three-fifths of independents and more than four-fifths of Democrats shared the sense that the effort was stalling.

[...]

In perhaps the most emphatic measure of anxiety about Iraq, 53% said they did not think the situation there merited the war; 43% said it did. When Times polls asked that question in November and March, the numbers were essentially reversed.

Now, these numbers are very concerning indeed. I don't really see how to positively spin this. The American public is growing tired of this. How do you curb this trend? First and foremost, President Bush needs to make another speech and be honest with us about the situation on the ground. He displayed some of this thee other day when he conceded something that comes as no surprise to anyone who follows this closely: that it's highly unlikely that NATO will contribute any more troops to Iraq. And as FH notes in the comments, if Bush pulls out he will fall. This was always that situation. Bush has staked his entire political career in Iraq, yet has so sloppily handled this occupation that his supporters are having to lower expectations. Yesterday, I caught myself thinking that we'd probably just be better off with a vaugely democratic country as long as the country is stablized. Wow, look at me, I'm sounding more and more like John Kerry everyday.

If Bush losses this election because Iraq is a mess, it will roll back all of the progress we've made in the War on Terror this far. But potentially more important, it will severely limit a future American president to pursue "convienent" military action, unless directly provoked. I can even see a certain degree of isolationism take over. An American withdrawl from Iraq would be magnatudes worse than the American withdrawl from Vietnam.

How Terrorism Breeds

2004-06-10T14:04:00.000-05:00

As I was going off on my usual daily rants about politics and terrorism to my disinterested friends, one friend asked me a question so simple, yet so profound that it stopped me dead in my tracks: "Why is terrorism so prevalent in the Muslim world and not in other countries?" Now, I was attempting to answer when it occured to me that there was really no "right" answer. At its root, this is what the War on Terror is about; stopping terrorism where it comes from. Many of us Iraq War supporters supported the idea not only for humanitarian reasons, but also to "drain the swamps" in the Middle East of the virulent hatred and violence sought by Islamic fundamentalists. The neo-cons call for a need to democratize the entire Middle East. On the surface, I am supportive of that idea. I think that a democratic regime in Baghdad will be the worst thing for terrorism (and Abu Zarqawi agrees).

However, there is a continued insurgency going on and there may be a point when the American public decides to call it quits and starts the loud murmurs of troop withdrawl. If this were to happen, it would be al-Qaeda's biggest and most stunning victory over the West. A few months ago, I was talking to Wretchard via e-mail and he basically said that were the United States to withdraw from Iraq, we would cease being a super power. And this is what concerns me, the Iraqi state is extremely weak right now. Its own security forces fleed from a rag-tag militia run by Muqtada al-Sadr. So, were we to withdraw, the Iraqi state would collaspe and there would be that dreaded Civil War™ we've been hearing about since the fall of Baghdad last year.

But the chattering classes have already sown the seeds of defeatism into most of the American population. This is evidenced by the outbursts of many war supporters last month going crazy over the increased level of violence (myself included). It caused even top ranking conservatives to call for withdrawl. So, I think that all that would be needed would be a series of coordinated massive casualty attacks and public opinion in support of the war would effective end and Bush would have to leave for the sake of saving his presidency (although, he would be utterly disgraced in the process). The Soviets were in Afghanistan for 10 years before they were forced to pullout, will we suffer the same fate down the road, only much, much sooner? The consequence of that will reverbate around the world for decades.

To Be Continued...

The Debate Over Reagan's Legacy

2004-06-08T16:45:00.000-05:00

One thing that bugs me about all this talk about what legacy Ronald Reagan will leave behind is that it's increasingly partisan. Many on the right view him with iconic status (similar to the FDR worship by many on the left) and because of such, they refuse to hear anyone criticize any of his policies. I have friends on the right who call him a hero and the "greatest president ever" and friends on the left who say he was the worst ever. So, which is it? I don't think I am qualified to say. I was only 2 years old when he left office.

Anyway, Christopher Hitchens is a highly respected figure among those of us who believe he gets "why we fight" and can articulate it better than most anyone else. That's why it saddens me to hear that because he wrote a piece very critical of Reagan that he'll never be read again by Caerdroia.

School is a Pain

2004-06-07T22:37:00.000-05:00

Yes, I still have another week of school left and my teachers have seen fit to pile on the work recently. That's why there has been very little posting as of late. I started my new job yesterday, I work at a place called American Science and Surplus.

I'm going to post some required reading to keep everyone occupied:

British historian Niall Ferguson writes in the current issue of The Atlantic on "Our Imperial Imperative" This is not as you might suspect the common call by a conservative to shy away from having an empire, but actually, it's directly the opposite. Ferguson says we have an empire, but that we did to study history and not repeat the mistakes of Rome, Britain or even the Soviets. He makes a very persausive argument. Michael Totten also discusses the article and his comment section is a must read.
In the wake of the 60th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, we have a tendency view the Second World War as the last "good war." Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum writes a brief description of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and explains why it was anything but good to those involved. Wretchard also weighs in a bit here.

I should post more within a day or two.

Breaking News

2004-06-05T15:52:00.000-05:00

MSNBC's Lester Holt is reporting that President Ronald Reagan has died today.

UPDATE: Here's his obituary from the AP.

Finally...

2004-06-03T13:12:00.000-05:00

CIA Director George Tenet has resigned.

That is great news, albeit almost 3 years too late, as I've been calling for his resignation since 9/12/01. And ironically, Tenet becomes the first high level Bush administration official to leave office.

Now, the blogosphere is buzzing about who his replacement will be. I haven't the slightest clue who it will be though.

As many others have pointed out, the timing for this is really curious. I'm not one for conspiracy theories or anything though, so I won't speculate. But the confirmation hearings for Tenet's successor will be fun to watch. Can you say "partisan-wrangling"?

This will be a very interesting summer, indeed.

Every war with fascism is our business

2004-06-02T22:52:00.000-05:00

This interview has been circulating around the blogosphere for the past few days and I just couldn't pass it up without comment.

Many others have expanded upon it, but I just want to quote the best parts. You need to read all of this.

Edelman: Now, now. Who started killing people? Americans didn't invade a wonderful democratic Iraq. There was a dictatorship there, torture, terror.

Interviewer: But there are people who say it's not our business.

Edelman: And whose business is it? Every war with fascism is our business. In 1939 there were also many people who said that the war in Poland was not their war, and what happened? Great nations fell because politicians listened to those who were saying that it's not worth dying for Gdansk [Danzig]. If only we'd intervened militarily after Hitler re-entered Rhineland we probably would not have had the war and the Holocaust.

Interviewer: Many people do understand that, but they don't understand why the Americans have to go to the other side of the world and fight over Iraq now.

Edelman: And why did they go to Europe then? Who defeated Hitler and saved Europe from fascism? The French? No, the Americans did. We thanked them then because they saved us. Today we criticise them because they're saving somebody else.

...

Interviewer: But the Americans aren't going too well with introducing democracy in Iraq.

Edelman: That's true, but it's a difficult war. The Second World War went for five years. Democracy tends to be structurally weak. Dictatorship is strong. Hitler was able to mobilise several million people and chase another few million into gas chambers or slave labour. But only democracy saves the humanity and saves millions of lives. The more I see people getting murdered the more I believe that we need to put a stop to that. The murderers understand only deeds.

Now this is a man who understands "why we fight." He has my utmost respect.

A Must Read

2004-06-01T21:54:00.000-05:00

Wretchard at the Belmont Club pens a "Memo to Osama" that is an absolute must read for anyone hoping to understand al Qaeda's strategy in defeating Western Civilaztion.

UPDATE: He writes the sequel here. This outlines a fictional al-Qaeda strategy to target highly populated targets consisting mostly of children with stolen Anthrax spores. It will potentially kill millions.

He says 20 million, but that to me sounds quite alarmist. I'd consider any AQ attack that kills over 20 thousand Americans to be a disastrous achievement.

Sorry for the Light Posting Lately

2004-05-29T21:57:00.000-05:00

I've been really busy studying for finals and doing a lot of job hunting around town.

I have a few posts that I'm thinking about and I'll get those out sometime this weekend barring any unforseen event.