Thursday, May 05, 2005
Ace of Spades HQ
Ace of Spades HQ: "Annan Oil-For-Food Docs Handed Over to Congress
... by a man who is most definitely slicin' like an f'n' hammer, FBI agent Robert Parton.
Documents involving actions taken by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the Oil-for-Food investigation were handed over to Congress on Wednesday night, FOX News has learned.
The documents were given to federal lawmakers by Robert Parton, a former senior investigator on the Independent Inquiry Committee probing the $64 billion program.
Parton and Miranda Duncan (search), who both resigned from the panel last month in protest, have accused the IIC of downplaying Annan's role in the Oil-for-Food corruption scandal in an interim report released by the panel last March.
The documents were handed over after Parton was issued a subpoena by the House International Relations Committee on Friday night. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, earlier was preparing subpoenas to force Parton and Duncan to testify. It was expected that those subpoenas could be issued as early as Thursday.
Congress has been trying to talk to Parton ever since his resignation two weeks ago. Last week, IIC head Paul Volcker tried to block such efforts by insisting that Parton and Duncan, both Americans, had diplomatic immunity.
And to trot out the same joke again: His claim of 'diplomatic immunity' seems to be doing him as much good as it did Joss Ackland at the end of Lethal Weapon 2.
Chris Shays, who, you know, is just about the biggest pussy in the f'n' world, whines that Parton's cooperation with Congress will undermine amity between the blah blah blah blah blah.
Who gives a shit what Chris Shays thinks?
The best part:
Parton's attorney then wrote to the United Nations and to Volcker asking if they would instruct Parton to defy a Congressional subpoena.
When both the United Nations and the Volcker committee refused to answer, Parton took action and, on Wednesday night, handed over the boxes of documents to a congressional committee.
Hee, hee. 'Put it in print that you want me to defy a Congressional subpoena in order to further a cover-up of the greatest dollar-amount swindle in human history. Put that in print, sign it, and send it to me. And then I'll think about it.'
Robert Parton is on f'n' fire. Damn, I wish I had a Top Ten in me.
Thanks to Andy the Squirrel.
Obligatory Pat O'Brien Reference Update: Andy the Squirrel also offers:
'I don't normally do this. I don't know what's wrong with me. But. I. Want. to go CRAZY. With your oil. Let's do it. Let's get some barrels, let's get some money. But you gotta pay attention to Kojo. Kojo gets very jealous. If you're down with this, just wink.'"
... by a man who is most definitely slicin' like an f'n' hammer, FBI agent Robert Parton.
Documents involving actions taken by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the Oil-for-Food investigation were handed over to Congress on Wednesday night, FOX News has learned.
The documents were given to federal lawmakers by Robert Parton, a former senior investigator on the Independent Inquiry Committee probing the $64 billion program.
Parton and Miranda Duncan (search), who both resigned from the panel last month in protest, have accused the IIC of downplaying Annan's role in the Oil-for-Food corruption scandal in an interim report released by the panel last March.
The documents were handed over after Parton was issued a subpoena by the House International Relations Committee on Friday night. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, earlier was preparing subpoenas to force Parton and Duncan to testify. It was expected that those subpoenas could be issued as early as Thursday.
Congress has been trying to talk to Parton ever since his resignation two weeks ago. Last week, IIC head Paul Volcker tried to block such efforts by insisting that Parton and Duncan, both Americans, had diplomatic immunity.
And to trot out the same joke again: His claim of 'diplomatic immunity' seems to be doing him as much good as it did Joss Ackland at the end of Lethal Weapon 2.
Chris Shays, who, you know, is just about the biggest pussy in the f'n' world, whines that Parton's cooperation with Congress will undermine amity between the blah blah blah blah blah.
Who gives a shit what Chris Shays thinks?
The best part:
Parton's attorney then wrote to the United Nations and to Volcker asking if they would instruct Parton to defy a Congressional subpoena.
When both the United Nations and the Volcker committee refused to answer, Parton took action and, on Wednesday night, handed over the boxes of documents to a congressional committee.
Hee, hee. 'Put it in print that you want me to defy a Congressional subpoena in order to further a cover-up of the greatest dollar-amount swindle in human history. Put that in print, sign it, and send it to me. And then I'll think about it.'
Robert Parton is on f'n' fire. Damn, I wish I had a Top Ten in me.
Thanks to Andy the Squirrel.
Obligatory Pat O'Brien Reference Update: Andy the Squirrel also offers:
'I don't normally do this. I don't know what's wrong with me. But. I. Want. to go CRAZY. With your oil. Let's do it. Let's get some barrels, let's get some money. But you gotta pay attention to Kojo. Kojo gets very jealous. If you're down with this, just wink.'"
Power Line: "The Felon Swing Vote"
Power Line: "The Felon Swing Vote": "May 05, 2005
'The Felon Swing Vote'
Michelle Malkin has pulled together what we now know about illegal voting by felons in Washington state, which the Democrats have now admitted. Her conclusion:
Even if only 544 felons voted in Washington State last fall and that 85 percent of them voted for Gregoire, the felons changed a 252-vote Rossi victory into a 129-vote Gregoire victory.
That understates the impact of the felon vote because it's limited to the 544 felon voters that Democrats have identified in Rossi-leaning districts. Republicans have documented hundreds more felon voters in Gregoire-leaning districts. Based on the Florida numbers, it's reasonable to assume that a majority of felons in all districts, both Rossi-leaning and Gregoire-leaning, voted for Gregoire.
Bottom line: if felons had been prohibited from voting last fall, as the law requires, Rossi almost certainly would be governor today.
Voter fraud is like illegal immigration--an issue that the vast majority of Americans feel strongly about, but which neither political party wants to push. It's easy to see why the Democrats won't touch either issue; what's not so clear is why the Republicans won't."
'The Felon Swing Vote'
Michelle Malkin has pulled together what we now know about illegal voting by felons in Washington state, which the Democrats have now admitted. Her conclusion:
Even if only 544 felons voted in Washington State last fall and that 85 percent of them voted for Gregoire, the felons changed a 252-vote Rossi victory into a 129-vote Gregoire victory.
That understates the impact of the felon vote because it's limited to the 544 felon voters that Democrats have identified in Rossi-leaning districts. Republicans have documented hundreds more felon voters in Gregoire-leaning districts. Based on the Florida numbers, it's reasonable to assume that a majority of felons in all districts, both Rossi-leaning and Gregoire-leaning, voted for Gregoire.
Bottom line: if felons had been prohibited from voting last fall, as the law requires, Rossi almost certainly would be governor today.
Voter fraud is like illegal immigration--an issue that the vast majority of Americans feel strongly about, but which neither political party wants to push. It's easy to see why the Democrats won't touch either issue; what's not so clear is why the Republicans won't."
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
BostonHerald.com - National Politics: Kerry's expenses: That's the tickets
BostonHerald.com - National Politics: Kerry's expenses: That's the tickets: "WASHINGTON - Sen. John F. Kerry tapped campaign funds for Red Sox tickets and to pay nearly $300 in overdue Boston parking tickets in March, records show.
Kerry's Senate campaign committee wrote a $287 check to the City of Boston Parking Clerk on March 31, 2005. The Bay State senator listed ``travel expense'' as the purpose for the expenditure. "
Kerry's Senate campaign committee wrote a $287 check to the City of Boston Parking Clerk on March 31, 2005. The Bay State senator listed ``travel expense'' as the purpose for the expenditure. "
Everything I Know Is Wrong: 2005 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators
Everything I Know Is Wrong: 2005 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators: Interesting quote: "compared Lomborg to Hitler, he ran afoul of what is known in the Internet blogosphere as “Godwin’s Law,” which holds that resorting to reductio ad Hitlerum is a sure sign that someone is losing an argument."
Are Higher Prices a Blessing? - Mises Institute
Are Higher Prices a Blessing? - Mises Institute: "Consider the long journey that a litre of gas makes from faraway oil fields to your local filling station. Oil deposits must first be found — often on the other side of the world or on the bottom of the ocean.
After massive infrastructure is developed, oil is extracted, transported across the globe, refined, and trucked thousands of kilometres to where you live. Let's not forget the massive military expenditures from countries like the U.S. to secure foreign oil supplies and the political and human turmoil that this creates. Considering all that, why then should gas cost about half as much as bottled water?"
After massive infrastructure is developed, oil is extracted, transported across the globe, refined, and trucked thousands of kilometres to where you live. Let's not forget the massive military expenditures from countries like the U.S. to secure foreign oil supplies and the political and human turmoil that this creates. Considering all that, why then should gas cost about half as much as bottled water?"
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Phraselator
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Phraselator: "Phraselator
The Means of Expression - Media, Creativity and Experience
ban_cartoon.gif
You've seen text-based pocket translators. You may have even seen speech-to-speech pocket translators. But what if you're somewhere the popular European / North-Asian languages aren't spoken, and saying things other than 'where's the museum'? What if, for instance, you're doing tsunami-relief in Sri Lanka? Or helping Somalian refugees?
Phraselator is what you need, then. Like other speech-to-speech translators,the user can either speak a phrase in English or select it from various conceptually-grouped lists, and the PDA-size device will then speak the equivalent phrase in the selected language. Available languages and phrases are stored on compact flash cards, which can be swapped out for different ones tailored for various situations. The device was originally developed for military field hospitals where doctors also care for wounded locals, but it has since been expanded with modules like 'basic aircrew', 'basic Somali survival', 'disaster relief', and 'basic military interview' (i.e. interrogation), 'traffic law enforcement', and many others. Better yet, they can also provide you the tools to make your own translation modules. The device is also a good deal more rugged than the sort of thing you'd take vacationing in France.
Though the Phraselators you can buy now only offer one-way translation, a two-way translator is already being prototyped and field-tested. Military.com has a good article on the device, and how it has been used by American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It looks like the product's development is headed more towards military and law-eforcement action rather than civilian relief action, but time will tell.
Posted by Jeremy Faludi at May 3, 2005 03:04 PM | TrackBack "
The Means of Expression - Media, Creativity and Experience
ban_cartoon.gif
You've seen text-based pocket translators. You may have even seen speech-to-speech pocket translators. But what if you're somewhere the popular European / North-Asian languages aren't spoken, and saying things other than 'where's the museum'? What if, for instance, you're doing tsunami-relief in Sri Lanka? Or helping Somalian refugees?
Phraselator is what you need, then. Like other speech-to-speech translators,the user can either speak a phrase in English or select it from various conceptually-grouped lists, and the PDA-size device will then speak the equivalent phrase in the selected language. Available languages and phrases are stored on compact flash cards, which can be swapped out for different ones tailored for various situations. The device was originally developed for military field hospitals where doctors also care for wounded locals, but it has since been expanded with modules like 'basic aircrew', 'basic Somali survival', 'disaster relief', and 'basic military interview' (i.e. interrogation), 'traffic law enforcement', and many others. Better yet, they can also provide you the tools to make your own translation modules. The device is also a good deal more rugged than the sort of thing you'd take vacationing in France.
Though the Phraselators you can buy now only offer one-way translation, a two-way translator is already being prototyped and field-tested. Military.com has a good article on the device, and how it has been used by American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It looks like the product's development is headed more towards military and law-eforcement action rather than civilian relief action, but time will tell.
Posted by Jeremy Faludi at May 3, 2005 03:04 PM | TrackBack "
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Sunday, May 01, 2005
VDH's Private Papers :: Our Not-So-Wise Experts
VDH's Private Papers :: Our Not-So-Wise Experts
Brent Scowcroft predicted on the eve of the Iraqi elections that voting there would increase the risk of civil war. Indeed, he foresaw “a great potential for deepening the conflict.” He also once assured us that Iraq “could become a Vietnam in a way that the Vietnam war never did.” Did he mean perhaps worse than ten years of war and over 50,000 American dead, with the Cambodian holocaust next door?
Zbigniew Brzezinski feared that we could not do what we are in fact presently doing in Iraq: “I do not think we can stay in Iraq in the fashion we’re in now…If it cannot be changed drastically, it should be terminated.” He added ominously that it would take 500,000 troops, $500 billion, and resumption of the military draft to achieve security in Iraq. Did he mean Iraq needed more American troops than did the defense of Europe in the Cold War?
Madeleine Albright, while abroad, summed up the present American foreign policy: “It's difficult to be in France and criticize my government. But I'm doing so because Bush and the people working for him have a foreign policy that is not good for America, not good for the world.” Elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, troops out of Saudi Arabia, democratic demonstrations in Lebanon, West Bank voting, promises of change in Egypt — all that and more is “not good for the world”?
For the last year, such well-meaning former "wise people" have pretty much assured us that the Bush doctrine will not work and that the Arab world is not ready for Western-style democracy, especially when fostered through Western blood and iron.
But too often we discuss the present risky policy without thought of what preceded it or what might have substituted for it. Have we forgotten that the messy business of democracy was the successor, not the precursor, to a litany of other failed prescriptions? Or that there were never perfect solutions for a place like the Middle East — awash as it is in oil, autocracy, fundamentalism, poverty, and tribalism — only choices between awful and even more awful? Or that September 11 was not a sudden impulse on the part of Mohammed Atta, but the logical culmination of a long simmering pathology? Or that the present loudest critics had plenty of chances to leave something better than the mess that confronted the United States on September 12? Or that at a time of war, it is not very ethical to be sorta for, sorta against, kinda supportive, kinda critical of the mission — all depending on the latest sound bite from Iraq?
Policy #1: Realism
Remember realism? Do we recall James Baker’s quip that the first Gulf War was about “jobs, jobs, jobs,” in line with his later realist fillip about the Balkan genocide: “We don’t have a dog in that fight”? Perhaps that was a sober assessment of the natural limitations on American strength; but had Bill Clinton followed the natural logic of such cynicism, Milosevic would still be in power. Imagine the reaction had the non-teflon Bush said that removing Saddam was about “jobs” or staying out of Dafur was about not having a dog in that fight.
In the Middle East, the tenets of the old realism went something like this: These people are either crazy or backward, and usually both. We are interested in them only to the extent they pump oil and deter Communists. So authoritarians get a pass if they don’t rock the boat and don’t kill too many of their own on television like Saddam or Assad did. Under no circumstances spend American blood or treasure in any pie-in-the-sky project to ameliorate the misery of the Arab people. That will both fail and only earn us disdain as being naïve as well as inept.
Where did this cynical policy lead us? The Saudi royal family — autocratic, corrupt, and unpopular — kept Russians out. Despite embargos and cartels, they mostly pumped overpriced oil. We nodded and stationed troops — and won for our efforts global Wahhabism, whose petrol-fueled mosques and madrassas were the laboratories of thousands of anti-Western terrorists.
The shah, unloved and dictatorial, likewise bought things American. So we kept our nose out of his politics: Khomeini and a quarter century of a nightmarish theocracy ensued. Pakistani dictators, we knew, might hate the Soviets as much as we did, and remind a socialist India to play it straight. Yet American de facto sanction of such strongmen inevitably led to the nuclear conspiracies of Dr. Khan, to the most anti-American and strident Islamists of the Middle East, and to unnecessary tension with the world’s largest democracy India. The formula for an Islamic “republic” is prior Western support for an anti-democratic strongman; the antidote for Islamic fascism is consistent promotion of democratic dissidents.
Policy #2: Punitivism
Then there was the cousin of realism, the much ballyhooed “punitive strike” strategy of “knocking heads when they popped up.” Remember the logic of all those forgotten hits: We bomb, send a message, and then leave — swatting the hornet’s nest and then staying clear when the stingers buzz out from the hive.
So we thwarted the Soviets in Afghanistan and departed happily — allowing in the Taliban and an al Qaeda sanctuary that gave us September 11. Get hit and run from Lebanon and Somalia. Don’t go to Baghdad after success in Kuwait, upsetting our Saudi friends and a corrupt U.N. when Saddam at least keeps a lid on even scarier things. And? After 1991, we got tens of thousands of butchered Kurds and Shiites and years of their subsequent distrust, hundreds of thousands of no-fly-zone sorties, General Zinni’s Operation Desert Fox — and Gulf War II.
Few ever considered that punitivism embodied the worst of all strategies — just enough muscle to enrage our enemies but not enough to scare them, just about right to earn their lasting scorn without ever solving the problem. Nothing is as dangerous in war as striking but not defeating an enemy, showing contempt without the real ability to humble and humiliate him.
The punitive strike was the embodiment of sober and judicious consensus, but all the same suggested to radical Islamists that the more power the United States brandished, the less likely it was to use it fully. That led to bin Laden’s disastrous calculation that George W. Bush was, like many former presidential advisers, someone who worried more about the opinions of the New York Times and the Council on Foreign Relations than about defeating the enemy.
Policy #3: Bribery
Bribery was a third option. We have given somewhere around $57 billion in aggregate aid to Egypt, apparently so that it would be nice or perhaps would keep away from Israel. Forget that the money helped to paper over structural pathologies in the Egyptian economy and empowered corrupt elites. It had even worse results, suggesting to the Cairo Street that a weak country was prevented from fulfilling its destiny of destroying Israel only by American and Zionist machinations — as if an underpowered bantamweight was kept from snatching the heavyweight title crown by devious boxing promoters.
Thus radical Egyptians never quite got it that their government settled for peace of sorts not because of American interference but because had they tried a fourth full-scale war, what was left of the Egyptian military, especially had it not been re-supplied by American arms, would have been ruined. That Mohamed Atta and Dr. Zawahiri came out of Cairo is logical rather than exceptional, as is the frequent murdering by offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood and rumors of illicit weapons programs.
Nor did we dare insist at Oslo that Palestinians should embrace the type of humane institutions found in Israel. So Yasser Arafat met Dennis Ross 500 times. Arafat was said to be the most frequent foreign visitor to the Clinton White House. American money and appeasement followed and we saw kleptocracy, one-vote-one-time, intifadas, and suicide bombings — and the hopes that Mrs. Arafat and her Paris crowd would leave some crumbs for those on the West Bank, who in turn blamed their poverty on the Jews.
Policy #4: "Let Them Be"
And don’t forget the policy of indifference and inaction that was predicated on American paternalism and condescension. It is 2005 and few of us know the names of more than a half-dozen dissidents in Egypt, Iran, or Saudi Arabia, who were seen more as potential disruptors of the status quo than as the hopes of a new American foreign policy based on reciprocal notions of justice. Only in Egypt could an autocratic government that received billions in U.S. aid damn America for trying to give a measly million or two to its democratic reformers.
So for all the mess of trying to insist on democracy in the Middle East and fostering consensual government in the place of strongmen, at least muscular idealism is an improvement on what preceded it. September 11 was the wage of decades of American appeasement and neglect — a pathological Middle East left alone to blame others for its own self-induced mess, kept "in its box" by American money, a few missiles, and soft talk — like a spoiled child allowed to act up because it was incapable of serious mature behavior and because the ensuing tantrums were not worth the messy efforts at remediation.
Policy #5: The New Americanism
We’ve seen some very strange things since this war started on September 11. But nothing is quite as odd as the past architects of failure weighing in on the dangers of “neoWilsonianism,” “neoconservative ideologues,” and veiled references to Israeli machinations, as the Bush administration finally sets right three decades these people’s flawed policies and tries to promote a new Americanism based on our own universal values and aspirations.
If the American public has to hear another sermon from a Brent Scowcroft — “Sharon just has him [President Bush] wrapped around his little finger. I think the president is mesmerized” — or Madeline Albright — “Do you suppose that the Bush administration has Osama bin Laden hidden away somewhere and will bring him out before the election?” — about what we are now doing wrong in the Middle East, I think it will collectively heave.
The past ostracism of Arafat and the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, followed by democratic engagement, will bring eventual stability to the Middle East and enhance the security of the United States. After the failures of all our present critics, this new policy of promoting American values is our last, best hope. And the president will be rewarded long after he leaves office by the verdict of history for nobly sticking to it when few others, friend or foe, would.
Brent Scowcroft predicted on the eve of the Iraqi elections that voting there would increase the risk of civil war. Indeed, he foresaw “a great potential for deepening the conflict.” He also once assured us that Iraq “could become a Vietnam in a way that the Vietnam war never did.” Did he mean perhaps worse than ten years of war and over 50,000 American dead, with the Cambodian holocaust next door?
Zbigniew Brzezinski feared that we could not do what we are in fact presently doing in Iraq: “I do not think we can stay in Iraq in the fashion we’re in now…If it cannot be changed drastically, it should be terminated.” He added ominously that it would take 500,000 troops, $500 billion, and resumption of the military draft to achieve security in Iraq. Did he mean Iraq needed more American troops than did the defense of Europe in the Cold War?
Madeleine Albright, while abroad, summed up the present American foreign policy: “It's difficult to be in France and criticize my government. But I'm doing so because Bush and the people working for him have a foreign policy that is not good for America, not good for the world.” Elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, troops out of Saudi Arabia, democratic demonstrations in Lebanon, West Bank voting, promises of change in Egypt — all that and more is “not good for the world”?
For the last year, such well-meaning former "wise people" have pretty much assured us that the Bush doctrine will not work and that the Arab world is not ready for Western-style democracy, especially when fostered through Western blood and iron.
But too often we discuss the present risky policy without thought of what preceded it or what might have substituted for it. Have we forgotten that the messy business of democracy was the successor, not the precursor, to a litany of other failed prescriptions? Or that there were never perfect solutions for a place like the Middle East — awash as it is in oil, autocracy, fundamentalism, poverty, and tribalism — only choices between awful and even more awful? Or that September 11 was not a sudden impulse on the part of Mohammed Atta, but the logical culmination of a long simmering pathology? Or that the present loudest critics had plenty of chances to leave something better than the mess that confronted the United States on September 12? Or that at a time of war, it is not very ethical to be sorta for, sorta against, kinda supportive, kinda critical of the mission — all depending on the latest sound bite from Iraq?
Policy #1: Realism
Remember realism? Do we recall James Baker’s quip that the first Gulf War was about “jobs, jobs, jobs,” in line with his later realist fillip about the Balkan genocide: “We don’t have a dog in that fight”? Perhaps that was a sober assessment of the natural limitations on American strength; but had Bill Clinton followed the natural logic of such cynicism, Milosevic would still be in power. Imagine the reaction had the non-teflon Bush said that removing Saddam was about “jobs” or staying out of Dafur was about not having a dog in that fight.
In the Middle East, the tenets of the old realism went something like this: These people are either crazy or backward, and usually both. We are interested in them only to the extent they pump oil and deter Communists. So authoritarians get a pass if they don’t rock the boat and don’t kill too many of their own on television like Saddam or Assad did. Under no circumstances spend American blood or treasure in any pie-in-the-sky project to ameliorate the misery of the Arab people. That will both fail and only earn us disdain as being naïve as well as inept.
Where did this cynical policy lead us? The Saudi royal family — autocratic, corrupt, and unpopular — kept Russians out. Despite embargos and cartels, they mostly pumped overpriced oil. We nodded and stationed troops — and won for our efforts global Wahhabism, whose petrol-fueled mosques and madrassas were the laboratories of thousands of anti-Western terrorists.
The shah, unloved and dictatorial, likewise bought things American. So we kept our nose out of his politics: Khomeini and a quarter century of a nightmarish theocracy ensued. Pakistani dictators, we knew, might hate the Soviets as much as we did, and remind a socialist India to play it straight. Yet American de facto sanction of such strongmen inevitably led to the nuclear conspiracies of Dr. Khan, to the most anti-American and strident Islamists of the Middle East, and to unnecessary tension with the world’s largest democracy India. The formula for an Islamic “republic” is prior Western support for an anti-democratic strongman; the antidote for Islamic fascism is consistent promotion of democratic dissidents.
Policy #2: Punitivism
Then there was the cousin of realism, the much ballyhooed “punitive strike” strategy of “knocking heads when they popped up.” Remember the logic of all those forgotten hits: We bomb, send a message, and then leave — swatting the hornet’s nest and then staying clear when the stingers buzz out from the hive.
So we thwarted the Soviets in Afghanistan and departed happily — allowing in the Taliban and an al Qaeda sanctuary that gave us September 11. Get hit and run from Lebanon and Somalia. Don’t go to Baghdad after success in Kuwait, upsetting our Saudi friends and a corrupt U.N. when Saddam at least keeps a lid on even scarier things. And? After 1991, we got tens of thousands of butchered Kurds and Shiites and years of their subsequent distrust, hundreds of thousands of no-fly-zone sorties, General Zinni’s Operation Desert Fox — and Gulf War II.
Few ever considered that punitivism embodied the worst of all strategies — just enough muscle to enrage our enemies but not enough to scare them, just about right to earn their lasting scorn without ever solving the problem. Nothing is as dangerous in war as striking but not defeating an enemy, showing contempt without the real ability to humble and humiliate him.
The punitive strike was the embodiment of sober and judicious consensus, but all the same suggested to radical Islamists that the more power the United States brandished, the less likely it was to use it fully. That led to bin Laden’s disastrous calculation that George W. Bush was, like many former presidential advisers, someone who worried more about the opinions of the New York Times and the Council on Foreign Relations than about defeating the enemy.
Policy #3: Bribery
Bribery was a third option. We have given somewhere around $57 billion in aggregate aid to Egypt, apparently so that it would be nice or perhaps would keep away from Israel. Forget that the money helped to paper over structural pathologies in the Egyptian economy and empowered corrupt elites. It had even worse results, suggesting to the Cairo Street that a weak country was prevented from fulfilling its destiny of destroying Israel only by American and Zionist machinations — as if an underpowered bantamweight was kept from snatching the heavyweight title crown by devious boxing promoters.
Thus radical Egyptians never quite got it that their government settled for peace of sorts not because of American interference but because had they tried a fourth full-scale war, what was left of the Egyptian military, especially had it not been re-supplied by American arms, would have been ruined. That Mohamed Atta and Dr. Zawahiri came out of Cairo is logical rather than exceptional, as is the frequent murdering by offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood and rumors of illicit weapons programs.
Nor did we dare insist at Oslo that Palestinians should embrace the type of humane institutions found in Israel. So Yasser Arafat met Dennis Ross 500 times. Arafat was said to be the most frequent foreign visitor to the Clinton White House. American money and appeasement followed and we saw kleptocracy, one-vote-one-time, intifadas, and suicide bombings — and the hopes that Mrs. Arafat and her Paris crowd would leave some crumbs for those on the West Bank, who in turn blamed their poverty on the Jews.
Policy #4: "Let Them Be"
And don’t forget the policy of indifference and inaction that was predicated on American paternalism and condescension. It is 2005 and few of us know the names of more than a half-dozen dissidents in Egypt, Iran, or Saudi Arabia, who were seen more as potential disruptors of the status quo than as the hopes of a new American foreign policy based on reciprocal notions of justice. Only in Egypt could an autocratic government that received billions in U.S. aid damn America for trying to give a measly million or two to its democratic reformers.
So for all the mess of trying to insist on democracy in the Middle East and fostering consensual government in the place of strongmen, at least muscular idealism is an improvement on what preceded it. September 11 was the wage of decades of American appeasement and neglect — a pathological Middle East left alone to blame others for its own self-induced mess, kept "in its box" by American money, a few missiles, and soft talk — like a spoiled child allowed to act up because it was incapable of serious mature behavior and because the ensuing tantrums were not worth the messy efforts at remediation.
Policy #5: The New Americanism
We’ve seen some very strange things since this war started on September 11. But nothing is quite as odd as the past architects of failure weighing in on the dangers of “neoWilsonianism,” “neoconservative ideologues,” and veiled references to Israeli machinations, as the Bush administration finally sets right three decades these people’s flawed policies and tries to promote a new Americanism based on our own universal values and aspirations.
If the American public has to hear another sermon from a Brent Scowcroft — “Sharon just has him [President Bush] wrapped around his little finger. I think the president is mesmerized” — or Madeline Albright — “Do you suppose that the Bush administration has Osama bin Laden hidden away somewhere and will bring him out before the election?” — about what we are now doing wrong in the Middle East, I think it will collectively heave.
The past ostracism of Arafat and the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, followed by democratic engagement, will bring eventual stability to the Middle East and enhance the security of the United States. After the failures of all our present critics, this new policy of promoting American values is our last, best hope. And the president will be rewarded long after he leaves office by the verdict of history for nobly sticking to it when few others, friend or foe, would.
Reality of sex offenders
Doug Giles: Jesus, Justice and Jack A**es: "Here’s what we are up against in the formerly good ole US of A. Think about this before you talk about showing “love and mercy” to molesters and start doling out religious quips and clich�s to those of us who are trying to put an end to these predators prowling our parks. Here’s some reality, Saccharine Saint—if you can handle it.
REALITY: There are more than 2 million convicted sex offenders currently living among us, not in prison.
REALITY: Over a 25-year period, more than half of all child molesters will be rearrested for a new sex offense charge.
REALITY: We release more than 200,000 criminals from prison each year, and they go on to commit an extraordinary number of new crimes. For example, during just the first three years following release, these criminals commit more than 3,000 new homicides, more than 3,000 new rapes and more than 3,000 new sex assaults against children. In other words, just like the terrorists of “9/11” who killed 3,000 Americans, we release criminals every year who we know will commit more “9/11’s”.
REALITY: More than 2/3 of all criminals released from prison will be rearrested within three years.
REALITY: The average time served for rape is just six years.
REALITY: The average time served for molesting a child is just three years.
REALITY: Most studies of repeat offenders are designed to hide the true extent of this scandal. Typically, they follow released criminals for just two or three years. But one 25-year study showed that 3/4 of all subsequent convictions occurred more than three years after the criminal’s release from prison. In other words, a study that tracks offenders for just three years misses 75% of the future crimes they will commit on innocent people.
REALITY: Even if your state has long prison sentences, don’t think that makes you safe. One in eight released felons commits their next offense in a different state from the one where they served their time.
REALITY: Ever heard of the car and the bus? Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year maintaining address lists of released sex offenders, without any acknowledgement by law enforcement or public officials that nothing prevents a released child molester or rapist from getting in a car or a bus, going to another neighborhood and committing a new crime there. Every day in America, sex offenders fully compliant with Megan’s Law commit new rapes and child molestations.
REALITY: A released felon is 53 times more likely than the average man on the street to commit a subsequent homicide.
REALITY: While advocates of releasing predators cite the cost of incarceration ($17,000-$25,000 per year) as too great for government to pay to keep criminals behind bars, NO STUDY has ever tried to calculate the cost to society of the millions of women who have been raped, the millions of children who have been molested, the loss to a family when a loved one is murdered or the cost when someone is mugged or robbed or carjacked.
*These disturbing statistics came from U.S. Department of Justice were compiled by Mike Paranzino and his stellar organization, www.ThrowAwayTheKey.org .
My ClashPoint is this: I understand the need for humans to seem humane and for Christians to seem supernatural in their ability to be “merciful and loving” to the best of the worst, but I submit that being supernatural in their ability to be merciful & loving is more important than seeming so . . . and it should start with showing love & mercy to our children and neighbors first—by protecting them from these savages. Sometimes the most loving and merciful act to be shown a criminal is to prevent him from doing more harm. And someone had better begin doling out death sentences for child molesters, or our neighborhoods are quickly going to turn into one big Neverland Ranch.
* logon to www.ClashRadio.com to hear Giles’ interview with Gil Reavill author of the book, Smut: A Sex Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough is Enough.
Doug Giles' provocative weekly one-hour radio program, 'The Clash', has re-launched with several new features. Go to clashradio.com and hit 'listen live.'"
REALITY: There are more than 2 million convicted sex offenders currently living among us, not in prison.
REALITY: Over a 25-year period, more than half of all child molesters will be rearrested for a new sex offense charge.
REALITY: We release more than 200,000 criminals from prison each year, and they go on to commit an extraordinary number of new crimes. For example, during just the first three years following release, these criminals commit more than 3,000 new homicides, more than 3,000 new rapes and more than 3,000 new sex assaults against children. In other words, just like the terrorists of “9/11” who killed 3,000 Americans, we release criminals every year who we know will commit more “9/11’s”.
REALITY: More than 2/3 of all criminals released from prison will be rearrested within three years.
REALITY: The average time served for rape is just six years.
REALITY: The average time served for molesting a child is just three years.
REALITY: Most studies of repeat offenders are designed to hide the true extent of this scandal. Typically, they follow released criminals for just two or three years. But one 25-year study showed that 3/4 of all subsequent convictions occurred more than three years after the criminal’s release from prison. In other words, a study that tracks offenders for just three years misses 75% of the future crimes they will commit on innocent people.
REALITY: Even if your state has long prison sentences, don’t think that makes you safe. One in eight released felons commits their next offense in a different state from the one where they served their time.
REALITY: Ever heard of the car and the bus? Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year maintaining address lists of released sex offenders, without any acknowledgement by law enforcement or public officials that nothing prevents a released child molester or rapist from getting in a car or a bus, going to another neighborhood and committing a new crime there. Every day in America, sex offenders fully compliant with Megan’s Law commit new rapes and child molestations.
REALITY: A released felon is 53 times more likely than the average man on the street to commit a subsequent homicide.
REALITY: While advocates of releasing predators cite the cost of incarceration ($17,000-$25,000 per year) as too great for government to pay to keep criminals behind bars, NO STUDY has ever tried to calculate the cost to society of the millions of women who have been raped, the millions of children who have been molested, the loss to a family when a loved one is murdered or the cost when someone is mugged or robbed or carjacked.
*These disturbing statistics came from U.S. Department of Justice were compiled by Mike Paranzino and his stellar organization, www.ThrowAwayTheKey.org .
My ClashPoint is this: I understand the need for humans to seem humane and for Christians to seem supernatural in their ability to be “merciful and loving” to the best of the worst, but I submit that being supernatural in their ability to be merciful & loving is more important than seeming so . . . and it should start with showing love & mercy to our children and neighbors first—by protecting them from these savages. Sometimes the most loving and merciful act to be shown a criminal is to prevent him from doing more harm. And someone had better begin doling out death sentences for child molesters, or our neighborhoods are quickly going to turn into one big Neverland Ranch.
* logon to www.ClashRadio.com to hear Giles’ interview with Gil Reavill author of the book, Smut: A Sex Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough is Enough.
Doug Giles' provocative weekly one-hour radio program, 'The Clash', has re-launched with several new features. Go to clashradio.com and hit 'listen live.'"
Value of a Mother
Townhall.com 's The ConservativeLog: "Is That All There Is?
The article by Ilya Shapiro over at Tech Central Station touched my heart:
Generation X has arrived, made its presence felt, looked around, and is wondering, 'Is that all there is?'
It is a conversation I keep having, or talking around, with my friends and peers -- the type of folks who 20 years ago would have been called yuppies (which label I at least am happy to wear now, if in a descriptive rather than ascriptive way). They -- we -- have everything we could ever want in this stage of life, but still we search for meaning....
Of course, this overwrought tale of late-20s/early-30s overachievers' angst relates most to Purple or Blue Americans living in major cities who are at or near what we classify as the 'elite' of their professions. These are the people living supposedly perfect lives (or lives on course for perfection) yet feel empty, not being able to find meaning or fulfillment in either materialism or new age spiritualism, Porsches or pilates.
'Dispatches from Purple America' is the name of Ilya's regular column. I had Blue State credentials (Ph.D. in economics, taught at Yale), but I was always too much of a Red State Girl (grew up in Ohio and loved it) to really enjoy them. So, even though I'm an old Baby Boomer (born in 1953, very up-hip for a Generation X-er), I can say with some certainty, there is more to life than the high acheivement and Blue State lifestyle.
I really found myself, believe it or not, in motherhood. In 1991, we adopted a two-year old Romanian orphan boy, and gave birth to a little girl within six months. It became apparent to me that my little boy had to have me, in particular. Not a generic mom, not high quality, low-cost day-care, but me, to be his mom. I went overnight from worrying about the world economy, to worrying about what came out of a little kid's behind. All of a sudden, I was uniquely important in a way I had never been before. My life had meaning to them, the other members of my family.
And you know what? My mind did not turn to mush. I did not lose all my friends, social status and self-esteem. I made a decision to place my intellect and education at the service of the family, and the wider community, rather than at the service of my vitae and my ego. I've never looked back.
Having a blast, Ilya. Check it out.
[12:58 PM 25-Apr-05 | Jennifer Roback Morse |"
The article by Ilya Shapiro over at Tech Central Station touched my heart:
Generation X has arrived, made its presence felt, looked around, and is wondering, 'Is that all there is?'
It is a conversation I keep having, or talking around, with my friends and peers -- the type of folks who 20 years ago would have been called yuppies (which label I at least am happy to wear now, if in a descriptive rather than ascriptive way). They -- we -- have everything we could ever want in this stage of life, but still we search for meaning....
Of course, this overwrought tale of late-20s/early-30s overachievers' angst relates most to Purple or Blue Americans living in major cities who are at or near what we classify as the 'elite' of their professions. These are the people living supposedly perfect lives (or lives on course for perfection) yet feel empty, not being able to find meaning or fulfillment in either materialism or new age spiritualism, Porsches or pilates.
'Dispatches from Purple America' is the name of Ilya's regular column. I had Blue State credentials (Ph.D. in economics, taught at Yale), but I was always too much of a Red State Girl (grew up in Ohio and loved it) to really enjoy them. So, even though I'm an old Baby Boomer (born in 1953, very up-hip for a Generation X-er), I can say with some certainty, there is more to life than the high acheivement and Blue State lifestyle.
I really found myself, believe it or not, in motherhood. In 1991, we adopted a two-year old Romanian orphan boy, and gave birth to a little girl within six months. It became apparent to me that my little boy had to have me, in particular. Not a generic mom, not high quality, low-cost day-care, but me, to be his mom. I went overnight from worrying about the world economy, to worrying about what came out of a little kid's behind. All of a sudden, I was uniquely important in a way I had never been before. My life had meaning to them, the other members of my family.
And you know what? My mind did not turn to mush. I did not lose all my friends, social status and self-esteem. I made a decision to place my intellect and education at the service of the family, and the wider community, rather than at the service of my vitae and my ego. I've never looked back.
Having a blast, Ilya. Check it out.
[12:58 PM 25-Apr-05 | Jennifer Roback Morse |"
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