how to dismantle an atomic bear
30 March 2004
Joseph Nye has written an interesting article on American soft power and its usefulness in the War on Terror. The article is full of problematic, unsubstantiated assertions, but nevertheless is useful in raising a much-needed discussion about the role of soft power in the present war against Islamic fundamentalism.
The war of ideas in the War on Terror is altogether different from the one waged by the United States and Western Europe during the Cold War. In the Cold War, the war of ideas was waged rather smoothly, as most Eastern Europeans were resentful of Soviet rule from the outset. The history of the Cold War is overflowing with manifestations of this, including the mass uprisings in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the mass exoduses from East Germany to West Berlin, and the testimonies of Russian intellectuals who defected to America.
In Eastern Europe, America found a freedom-starved audience disillusioned with Soviet communism, longing for more advanced Western standards of living, and consequently, intensely receptive to American soft power. Every broadcast of Radio Free Europe and every concert or political rally put on by West Berliners in front of the Berlin Wall fanned the flames of resentment in Eastern Europeans towards their Soviet rulers; it de-legitimized them. For America, especially under Reagan, was determined to fight a war of ideas. Soviet leaders realized that they could not accept this challenge at face value and expect to win. Indeed, the Soviet communist system had been able to survive for decades only with harsh political repression and concentrated efforts to shield its citizens from a flourishing Western culture.
And they had failed from the first day. The currents of nationalism had run deep in the veins of Eastern Europeans since before the crumbling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Their suspicion and distrust of the Russian bear stemmed from deep grievances reaching many centuries into the past. They could never bring themselves to trust or love the Soviets. Winning the hearts and minds of Eastern Europeans was easy work for Americans. Indeed, Americans waged the war of ideas during the Cold War far more effectively with Eastern Europeans who had only some vague ideas of Western freedom than with Western intellectuals who had only some vague idea of Soviet communism.
The War on Terror will be much different than the Cold War and will present grave new challenges to U.S. foreign policymakers. For in the Middle East, America has no ready-made audience of freedom-starved populations craving Westernization. For this is a region of the world that, though divided into many nations, sees itself as one. Its people are those in whom the overriding sentiments are humiliation, injured pride, resentment, and anger. They are a religious people who see their own Islam as the one true religion. They are utterly humiliated that this religion has not legitimized itself to the rest of the world by building up the most forward-looking, advanced civilizations. And just as Europe's fascists of the 1930's, their rulers have discovered ways of harnessing these feelings of humiliation and anger; and they have provided them with convenient scapegoats. Authoritarian dictators have discovered that they can escape responsibility for their utter failure to help bring about a flourishing economy and culture if they only encourage the perception that the sources of the problem are Israeli and American imperialism.
And to this message, the Middle East is proving to be a far more receptive audience than to America's message of democracy, peace, hope, and freedom.
Is the war of ideas in the War on Terror a futile fight?
Britain might not have met with much success if they had tried to wage a war of ideas in Germany in the 1930's either. Humiliation and wounded nationalism are sentiments much more easily exploited by fascists and extremists than by aspiring democrats and freedom advocates.
But we have our Berlin now. It's in Iraq and Iraq is free. And who can say if humiliated Arabs won't change their minds if they look across their borders to the heart of their own region and see a free Arab country with a flourishing culture and economy?
Active manifestations of the success of Western political ideas are still the ultimate soft power. Nye is wrong if he thinks that utilizing greater soft power simply means increasing the budget for public diplomacy.
26 March 2004
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
--Edmund Burke
Mark Steyn has written a fascinating article that provides keen insight into the European mindset. It seems that a very different worldview has led Europeans to form very different conclusions about what caused the Holocaust. And these different worldviews are largely responsible for the contrast in the way the two continents have responded to terrorist attacks.
For more than a week now, American friends have asked me why 3/11 wasn't 9/11. I think it comes down to those two words you find on Holocaust memorials all over Europe: "Never again." Fine-sounding, but claptrap. The never-again scenario comes round again every year. This very minute in North Korea there are entire families interned in concentration camps. Concentration camps with gas chambers. Think Kim Jong-Il's worried that the civilised world might mean something by those two words? Ha-ha.
How did a pledge to the memory of the dead decay into hollow moral preening? When an American Jew stands at the gates of a former concentration camp and sees the inscription "Never again", he assumes it's a commitment never again to tolerate genocide. Alain Finkielkraut, a French thinker, says that those two words to a European mean this: never again the führers and duces who enabled such genocide. "Never again power politics. Never again nationalism. Never again Auschwitz" - a slightly different set of priorities. And over the years a revulsion against any kind of "power politics" has come to trump whatever revulsion post-Auschwitz Europe might feel about mass murder.
And so the long saga of European indulgence in wreckless ideology continues. Europeans, it seems, have concluded that nationalism and power politics are the elements that paved the road to Auschwitz. But the Holocaust was not caused by power politics, hyper-nationalism, racism, Nazi ideology, or any of these things, and Auschwitz is not a symbol of the inherent evil of these things anymore than the Gulag is a symbol of the inherent evil of class warfare. The Holocaust was caused by evil men who attained the power to kill millions because good men stood by and did nothing while the lion prowled in the heart Europe. Britain and France were not interested in playing power politics in 1938. They were eager to avoid war; eager to compromise; eager to appease; eager to do nothing.
Europeans are ashamed that such a uniquely evil force arose in their midst. But they are trodding down dark paths if they suppose that evil will never rise again if only they eschew power politics and nationalism. In this fallen world, evil is ever present; for it cannot be vanquished from the earth by mortal men. And those that suppose it can be banished by discrediting and repudiating the ideologies of mass murderers are deluding themselves. Evil is a product, not of political ideologies, but of the fallen condition of the human heart.
Though it cannot be vanquished permanently, evil can be kept at bay if it is fought, if it is confronted. Adolf Hitler was an evil man and would have remained one regardless of what Neville Chamberlain ever did. But all his great acts of evil might have been dramatically limited if Chamberlain confronted Hitler instead of standing by while he became master of Europe.
And when confronting evil, power politics and a little nationalism are essential elements; for these practices and feelings are the necessary precursors of bold action; while indifference to the fate of nations and a willingness to compromise reak of inaction. And if Europeans are determined to rid themselves of the practices of power politics and the constructive sentiments of patriotic nationalism, they will find themselves walking the in the shadowy footsteps of Chamberlain; and perhaps one day, all those who, solemnly, but proudly proclaim "never again" will eat their words.
Islamic terrorism is a great evil in the world. Will Europe stand by and do nothing? Will Europeans not stand up with Americans and fight the good fight? Are they not also a force for good in the world?
25 March 2004
Elliot stepped into Matt and Lynne's new apartment behind the others. It was spacious and elegant, but quite empty, with no furniture as yet and most of their belongings still in boxes neatly stacked against the walls or inside one of the closets. Elliot stepped inside the pantry. He closed the door behind him and stood in the dark room. Within lay several empty shelves and enough standing room for one person. Not being in a serious mood, Elliot stood inside and waited for someone to notice that he was standing still in a dark, empty pantry. Matt came along and opened the door, and Elliot stepped out in a surprised manner as though he had just been rudely awakened from a strange dream. No one was really sure why Elliot had been in the pantry, least of all Elliot, but they had all become accustomed to unexplained random behavior from him.
Katy found the pantry incident particularly humorous and when the others went out to the car to bring in more boxes, she suggested to Elliot that they both hide in the pantry this time. Katy is a 17-year-old blonde with lots of energy and very little attention span. Elliot consented to her suggestion, and Katy opened the pantry door and immediately set to work crawling underneath the bottom shelf. When she had done this, instead of following her in, Elliot promptly shut the door, leaving her with so little crawl space that she was unable to get out.
"No!! Lemme out!!" she protested. Elliot, far too amused to let her out, ignored her cries and walked away. "Only Katy would be ditsy enough to get herself stuck in a pantry," he thought to himself as he left the room, leaving her trapped.
When he returned, he found that Scott and Lynne had let Katy out. The three sat there in the kitchen enjoying glasses of red wine. Elliot took a seat and mindlessly stared off into the distance in front of him, taking little notice of the conversation. A pile of old pennies lay on the greasy counter in front of him. He picked one up.
Scott sat there laughing and enjoying himself. He usually maintained a serious, humorless demeanor; but at times he was capable of being as random and goofy as Elliot, though in a different way. And this was one of those nights. When he noticed Elliot looking as though he was aiming to throw a penny into his glass of wine, he challenged Elliot.
"Come on! Gimme your best shot!" he said. Elliot faked a throw and Scott jerked his wine glass to his left in response. Elliot faked again, and as Scott drew his wine glass predictably in the same direction, Elliot fired at that location.
"Holy !@$#! You nailed me!" said Scott, sounding more amused than dismayed. Elliot burst out laughing and the others joined when they realized what had just happened. Scott, perhaps because the wine had made him clumsy, managed to spill his glass of wine as he attempted to remove the penny. More laughter followed. As Lynne was wiping up the mess, she ran out of napkins, and Scott began slurping up the remaining wine still on the counter.
"Um, I don't think you want to do that," Matt cautioned him. "There's 'Armour All' on that counter. It's been newly finished. It's not fit for indigestion." Scott laughed and slurped no more wine from the counter. Nevertheless, he was far from having had his fill of wine that evening.
The light-hearted evening continued with Scott and Katy sometimes sporadically tackling each other and Elliot sometimes joining in. In one incident, Elliot was locked out of the house by Katy, but ran around the block and found his way to the open back door into which he burst in and managed to startle the life out of Scott and probably a few others. There was a lot to laugh about that evening.
"You're probably one of those people that dreams all night about what you're going to do the next day," Matt remarked to Katy.
"Oh! That has so happened to me before!" said Katy especially excitedly. Katy is very rarely silent, and yet she doesn't say much unless she finds it particularly exciting. She just never seemed to have any shortage of things about which to be excited. At any rate, the room exploded with laughter at her latest outburst.
Now as the evening wore down, Scott continued to behave very strangely indeed as he, Katy, and Elliot made their way back to the car. He was talking with an artificial, but very well-done and very funny, Indian accent. Elliot added to the absurd situation by insisting that Scott end his sentences by comparing his subject to a bear. For Elliot had adopted a bizarre habit of utilizing metaphors that really make no sense whatsoever.
"LIKE A BEAR!!" Elliot yelled at the top of his lungs. Elliot was driving and he was threatening to pull over unless Scott repeated "like a bear." Meanwhile, Katy sat in the passenger seat bewildered, as she tried to cope with the feelings of both hysterical amusement and fear for her life. Elliot safely pulled over, as there was no other traffic on that part of Dallas Parkway at that late hour, but Scott refused to compare his subject to a bear, and so Elliot conceded defeat and drove on.
As Scott continued to behave oddly, it was suggested that he simply be let off on the side of the road. He could either walk home or hitch a ride with Matt or Lynne, both of whom were surely not far behind. Elliot was reluctant, but Scott seemed to love the idea. He rolled down his window and was threatening to jump out of the moving vehicle. When Elliot had safely timed a stoplight sequence to leave all trailing traffic behind him, he stopped the vehicle and let Scott out. This was easily the highlight of the evening. All three of them had behaved rather absurdly that evening, but Lynne and Matt would surely be very impressed when they found Scott trying to hitch a ride home on Dallas Parkway at midnight. Katy and Elliot agreed, for the record, that they had only discussed letting Scott out and had slowed down to 10-20 mph while considering it. At this time, Scott had thrown himself out the window. It could not be helped. And this was the story the others were told when they brought Scott back to the house a few minutes behind Elliot and Katy, wondering what he had been doing on Dallas Parkway.
All three of us are just the sort that amuse ourselves to no end. But sometimes, we're so goofy that we even surprise ourselves. And this was one of those nights.
Update: Kanagaroo meat has arrived. Stay tuned.
"Milwaukee: a drinking town with a baseball problem."
"Arlington: a General Motors town with a general manager problem."
--quoted on the Randy Galloway show, ESPN Radio.
22 March 2004
Those who suggest that democracy in Iraq will do nothing to liberalize the Middle East and advance the American cause in the war of ideas have some facts to grapple with:
WHAT happens when something happens in a country where nothing has happened for decades?
In Syria, even the most insignificant event triggers an avalanche of conspiracy theories. And the events this last bastion of Ba'athism has witnessed in recent weeks are anything but insignificant.
In a series of anti-regime demonstrations in five Syrian cities over the past two weeks, an estimated 22 people have been killed in clashes with the security forces and a further 150 injured. At least 700 people have been arrested...
Earlier, Damascus, the capital, had witnessed its first unauthorized political demonstration in four decades as a crowd of 700 protestors gathered outside the parliament building on March 7. Hours later, copies of a letter to President Bashar Assad were distributed. Signed by some 1,500 Syrian intellectuals and academics, it calls for an immediate lifting of the state of emergency imposed by the Ba'athists 41 years ago...
Because the Syrian media are muzzled and outside journalistic access to the country is restricted, it is hard to appreciate the full meaning of the recent events. Piecing together this complicated jigsaw, a picture emerges, of a regime in crisis. Assad's timid attempts at cosmetic reform, including a change of prime minister and the symbolic release of 100 political prisoners, some after 40 years of internment, have convinced no one.
What is certain is that the regime has been shaken by the fall of its sister Ba'athist regime in Baghdad.
[emphasis added]
I've heard the argument that after eighteen years of making no response to sanctions, Qaddafi's surrender on his WMD programs happened to come in 2003 by sheer coincidence. The economic weight of the sanctions finally got to him and his capitulation had nothing to do with the Iraq war. Displays of strength, we are told, mean nothing in diplomacy. This argument is usually made by those who don't know any history.
The Iraq war may have been a fine recruiting headline for Al Qaeda. What often is missed is that it is ultimately becoming a recruiting tool for a new Islam -- one that is peaceful, more moderate, progressive, and democratic. A free, democratic, peaceful, modern Iraq is our secret weapon in the war of ideas. And if it's not working, why are Syrians, suddenly for the first time in four decades, protesting a lack of freedom?
You learn something new every day:
Seppuku is the ancient art of killing yourself if you get super pissed and can’t find anybody else to kill. Ninjas use all sorts of crap to kill themselves—guns, ropes, knives, lasers, spears, etc.—and don’t even think twice about it. These guys would kill themselves for just about any reason and often for no reason at all: that’s why we there are so few ninjas today.
But if you want to commit Seppuku and you’re like me, you don’t have access to stuff like lasers. But there’s hope. I tried to kill myself by swallowing a frisbee a couple of times—and believe me, it’s pretty cool. The only catch is you have to be really super pissed to do it.
Follow the link to see photos of a child attempting to swallow a frisbee.
21 March 2004
"As Mr. Cheney said, Americans may have the clearest and most meaningful choice on national security in any presidential election during the last 20 years. But that choice should be about how the United States can win the crucial battles now underway -- not whether they should be fought."
--Editorial, Washington Post
Having secured the Democratic nomination and finally rid itself of the demons of the Howard Dean campaign, John Kerry's campaign has forcefully accelerated its efforts to defend the senator from charges by the Bush campaign that he is weak on national security and wants to return to the pre-9/11 era in which terrorism was treated as a law enforcement issue. Indeed, it seems that on foreign policy, John Kerry's primary strategy is to blur, as much as possible, all differences between his own position and that of his opponent. And now, having been been forced to make rash statements about the Bush foreign policy as he was pulled in the direction of the far left by Howard Dean, John Kerry is having trouble convincing voters that he is a candidate that is serious about prosecuting the war on terror.
And yet, much of Kerry's plan for the war on terror has all the pieces that the Bush blueprint does. For example, Kerry's war on terror would target all terrorists, not just Al Qaeda; it would strengthen intelligence services, prosecute a war of ideas with an emphasis on nation-building and promoting democracy, work to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and so on. But his plan to accomplish these goals is profoundly different than Bush's -- so different in fact that it might easily leave the educated voter wondering if Kerry's goals for the war on terror are sincere or if they are just empty campaign rhetoric.
One of Kerry's major criticisms of the Bush administration concerns its doctrine of unilateral pre-emption. The Iraq war, Kerry claims, was fought under false pretenses and, given the lack of world approval, ought not have been prosecuted. And yet, such a stance can become a significant dilemma for a would-be president who would prosecute a war of ideas against the ideologies of radical Islam. For if the United States were not currently building a progressive, free democracy at the heart of the Middle East in Iraq as an example to the rest of the region, how would it go about prosecuting a war of ideas? During a presentation at UCLA in late February, Kerry provided a glimpse of how his war of ideas would look: "[W]e must support human rights groups, independent media and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture from the grass-roots up. Democracy won't come overnight, but America should speed that day by sustaining the forces of democracy against repressive regimes and by rewarding governments which take genuine steps towards change."
This is democracy promotion, State Department-style. This method of promoting democracy has many cheery incentives for good authoritarian dictators in the region that adopt superficial democratic features, as well as many worthless slaps on the wrist for those that don't. At its core, it has no teeth at all. By contrast, President Bush's idea of promoting democracy in the Middle East is to bomb totalitarian countries into submission, send in the marines, imprison or kill all their leaders, appoint a governing council, and lay the groundwork for a constitution. As of now, Afghanistan has a constitution while Iraq has an interim constitution and will very likely have a permanent one within the year. Say what you want about President Bush's contempt for diplomatic processes. The results are that, on President Bush's watch, two nations in the Middle East are no longer totalitarian societies, but have moved on the road to becoming democratic ones. None of this would have been possible without the doctrine of pre-emption.
Without the doctrine of pre-emption, Kerry will also have difficulty explaining how he plans to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Kerry's recent speech at UCLA provides hints that his solution is to rely primarily on multilateral diplomacy to accomplish this objective. Though it is unclear, it can only be assumed that when he says this, the issue of Iran lingers in the back of his mind (especially given that Kerry is a known opponent of multilateral negotiations in the North Korean affair). The problem is that, of late, President Bush has utilized the multilateral process on Iran, allowing European heads of state to take the lead on negotiations. This approach has consistently met with failure, as Iran has continued to lie to inspectors and has occasionally caught hiding uranium enrichment programs or other equipment used in developing nuclear weapons. And yet, Europeans have staunchly resisted American demands that Iran be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. Some years down the road, the Iranians will have to be held accountable for their refusal to abandon development of weapons of mass destruction, and Iran's recent refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors suggests that force may be the only way to effect this. How President Kerry will yield results on such an issue without resort to pre-emptive force is far from clear.
The editorial board of the Washington Post, as quoted above, is essentially correct that the primary foreign policy debate between Bush and Kerry concerns how to fight the war on terror, not whether to fight it. What it seems to miss is that Kerry's anti-terror plan is so nuanced that the two questions essentially become blurred for him. For Kerry, the question is not whether he will fight the war on terror, but whether his method of prosecuting will be so diluted that it will bear little resemblance to a war. Shorn of the option to use pre-emptive force, the Kerry blueprint for the war on terror bears the likeness of a significant mobilization of diplomatic, economic, and law enforcement resources (all of which are features of the Bush blueprint), but looks nothing like a major war effort.
When Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, much like the Islamic terrorists of today, they did so without any hope of ever undertaking a conventional invasion of the United States. If in response to Hitler's declaration of war, FDR has eschewed "pre-emptive" invasion of Germany, but had preferred to undertake a major mobilization of U.S. soft power to make Nazi Germany change its behavior, few Americans would have considered their country to be truly at war with Germany, and Europe would undoubtedly be a very different place today.
This is what separates the two candidates: to President Bush, the war on terror is on the order of World War II or the Cold War; to Senator Kerry, it seems to be somewhat closer to the war on drugs.
Though John Kerry's goals for the war on terror are similar to those of President Bush, voters need to look at Kerry's plan for prosecuting it and ask themselves if such a "war" can really bring about any of the results it aims to accomplish. On George Bush's watch, two Islamic nations have been transformed from totalitarian societies to democratic ones and a clear message has been sent to others that the United States will not tolerate the development of weapons of mass destruction. For my part, I will be the first to predict that if Kerry is elected, first, his tenure as president will see no democratic revolutions in the Middle East as Bush's tenure has; and second, that if Iran's weapons programs are halted, it will be because Israel took forceful, decisive action to destroy them.
20 March 2004
I'm planning to go back to school in August. And I plan to do a lot more than study this time. I will be perfectly content to maintain a solidly mediocre 2.9 GPA if I can get a job on the newspaper staff writing the same flagrantly inflammatory opinion pieces for which I became renowned at Iowa State. My primary aspiration upon returning to school is not make good grades or to make a lot of friends, but rather to infuriate as many stupid liberals as I possibly can.
And I'm already getting a good idea of how to go about doing that. My latest inspiration:
BRISTOL, R.I. -- On the sleepy coastal campus of Roger Williams University, a small liberal arts school unaccustomed to student activism, the College Republicans are reveling in the debate they've kicked up by offering a scholarship for whites only.
The $250 award -- which required an essay on "why you are proud of your white heritage" and a recent picture to "confirm whiteness" -- has invited the wrath of everyone from minority groups and school officials to the chairman of the Republican National Committee himself.
Jason Mattera, a junior who started the conservative campus group in his freshman year, said kindling debate over free speech and affirmative action was just what he wanted -- and he promises more.
"We did our job," said Mattera, 20, of Brooklyn, N.Y. "This is what college is all about, challenging the status quo."
They did such a good job that school President Roy Nirschel, who has clashed with the group before, cut short a trip to Vietnam last month to begin what he called "a healing process" -- including forming a commission on civil discourse.
The 35-member group first went toe-to-toe with university administration last year over a series of monthly newsletter articles accusing homosexuals of squelching free speech by pushing for hate-crimes legislation. The articles alleged that a well-known gay-rights group indoctrinates students into homosexual sex.
The administration froze the College Republicans' money for two days. Nirschel said in turn, he received threatening letters claiming he was suppressing the group.
Then another article critical of Kwanzaa, which celebrates the history and heritage of Africa, sparked a complaint by a multicultural student group.
Before the Student Senate had a chance to deal with that issue, the College Republicans came up with the whites-only scholarship.
19 March 2004
From: President Bush
To: The people of Europe
Dear Citizens of Europe,
The recent atrocities perpetrated by Islamic terrorists in Madrid has reinforced a fundamental truth that many Americans feel Europe has been slow to grasp: that war is upon us. No Western nation can now avoid it, and Europe is no safer from Islamic terrorists in 2004 than America was from Axis powers in 1941.
And yet it seems some of you prefer to believe that terrorist atrocities are provoked, that terrorists can be reasoned with, that they can be placated, that an understanding can be reached with them. Though such an image of terrorists as reasonable people with reasonable demands is attractive and enticing, it is false.
Islamic terrorists are no less fanatical than Hitler's Nazis or the Japanese fascists of the 1940's, and you will meet with no more success in appeasing terrorists than Neville Chamberlain did in appeasing Hitler. The longer you wait to get serious about confronting Islamic terrorism, the more Europeans will die at the hands of terrorists. But next time, it might not be a series of subway bombs that cost 200 people their lives. Instead, it may be a mushroom cloud over Munich, Warsaw, Rome, Paris, or London with death tolls in the tens or hundreds of thousands. How many Europeans must die before Europe will stand up and defend itself?
When Europeans are ready to do more than just protest, more than just engage in meaningless dialogue, when they are ready to stand up proudly and boldly and collectively say to the adherents of the ideologies of Islamic terror that they will not consent to live in fear, but that they will fight them to the end, no matter what the cost, until the great swamps of terrorism in the Middle East are drained, then you will find America's hand extended to Europe. On that day, you will find Americans ready and proud to fight alongside Europe as we defend the good values on which our great Western civilization was founded.
But America has no need for jelly-spined, doubt-ridden allies. I have said from day one that you are either with us or against us. If Europeans continue to dismiss governments that side with America for not adequately appeasing the terrorists, then they are mistaken to expect Americans to appease them to gain their support. America needs the approval of no other nation to defend itself; and if we must go it alone to defend ourselves, we will not hesitate to do so. If that is a problem for Europeans, perhaps you should exercise some fairness and consistency and hold responsible your own governments for failing to adequately appease the United States. After all, I don't recall the terrorists acquiring U.N. approval for their actions.
Europeans have a simple choice: you are either with us or you are with the terrorists. You can stand by us in our war and work with us to fight terrorism or you can appease the terrorists. It is my sincere hope that Europeans will not fall prey to the illusion that appeasement will bring them peace. As Winston Churchill prophetically told Neville Chamberlain in 1938, "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."
Yours most sincerely,
President Bush
18 March 2004
Munich.
To students of diplomatic history, it is an infamous symbol of indiscretion, cowardice, and treachery. For this is the city that hosted the infamous Munich Conference in 1938 at which a group of powerful nations agreed to disregard their treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia, and to leave it defenseless, at the mercy of the Nazi dictator. At this time, the people of Britain and France still retained fresh memories of a terrible World War that destroyed a generation of their finest and left their great national vitalities significantly depleted. They had no stomach for more war and their leaders would gladly pay any cost to avoid risking it.
"I will not risk open war," said King Theoden in The Two Towers.
"Open war is upon you; whether you would risk it or not," said Aragorn.
And this is very much the principle at play in the world today. Spain has been attacked. But rather than standing firm and working to defeat the terrorists, they prefer to blame their own government for not adequately appeasing the terrorists. Their government, they supoose, risked open war. And now Spain is dismayed to find that open war is upon them.
So too, Neville Chamberlain was not about to let his negotiations with Hitler fail. He would not risk war. He supposed that by acceding to Hitler's demands regarding Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, that he could secure a promise from Hitler to the effect that he would pursue no more territorial ambitions in Europe. He was successful, and returned triumphantly to Britain after the Munich Conference claiming to have won "peace for our time." And yet only several months later, Nazi tanks overran the remaining territory of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain's highly lauded treaty with Hitler proved itself of less value than the paper on which it was signed. Chamberlain died a broken man only two years later, as Britain stood alone to face down the Nazi war machine without the benefit of the 36 Czech divisions holding the mountain passes in the Sudetenland, not to mention a Polish army on Germany's eastern flank. These had been sacrificed on the alter of appeasement.
And yet, it seems the lessons of history are completely lost on Western Europeans. Spaniards seem to prefer to stick their heads in the sand and hope that by electing a government that vows not to participate in the war on terror, they will effectively guarantee peace for their country. But open war is upon them; and appeasement will not make it go away; it will only cause it to intensify.
Perhaps in future generations "Spain" will earn a place alongside Munich in the annals of diplomatic history as one of the twin symbols of cowardice, treachery, counter-productive diplomacy, and the other things that we associate with appeasement.
It seems the U.S. press has a lot to say about Spain as well.
"As a friend in Cairo e-mailed me, a Spanish pullout from Iraq would only bring to mind Churchill's remark after Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich pact with Hitler: 'You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.'"
--Thomas Friedman, New York Times
"The unhappy reality is that a significant number of Spanish voters seem to have responded to the attacks in Madrid exactly as al Qaeda hoped they would."
--Robert Kagan, Washington Post
"The temptation will be to over-interpret all of this as a sign of general anti-terror fatigue in the West. Certainly the terrorists will see it that way...So the terrorists will conclude that, with an investment of only a dozen backpack bombs, they were able to rout a major power. They are sure to try the same thing elsewhere in Europe, and almost certainly between now and the November elections in the U.S."
--Editorial, Wall Street Journal
"The danger is that Europe's reaction to a war that has now reached its soil will be retreat and appeasement rather than strengthened resolve. 'It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists,' European Commission President Romano Prodi said yesterday. Should such sentiments prevail, the next U.S. administration -- whether led by President Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry -- may have no alternative to unilateralism."
--Editorial, Washington Post
"Somewhere, Osama bin Laden must be smiling. Haven't Europeans learned anything from history? Don't they recall the resignation of Austria's president in 1938 and the annexation of his country by Germany to "avoid war"? This merely increased Hitler's appetite, and he launched World War II by invading Czechoslovakia following British and French appeasement at Munich. Spain will make itself and the rest of the West less safe if Mr. Zapatero follows through on his promise of a troop withdrawal."
--Cal Thomas, Baltimore Sun
"The upset victory represents a disturbing precedent, from which terrorist cells operating in Europe and around the world may take the message that they can change voting outcomes by coordinating a horrific mass-murder of civilians."
--Editorial, Miami Herald
"What is the Spanish word for appeasement? There are millions of Americans, in and out of government, who believe the swing Spanish voters are shamefully trying to seek a separate peace in the war on terror...We can be pretty sure now that this will not be the last of the election-eve massacres. Al Qaeda will regard Spain as a splendid triumph. After all, how often have murderers altered a democratic election? And having done it once, why stop now? Why should they not now massacre Italians, Poles, Americans and Brits?"
--David Brooks, New York Times
"When Spaniards thought ETA set the bombs, they were mad at ETA. When they thought Muslim extremists set the bombs, they blamed Aznar and President Bush -- not the terrorists."
--Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle
"This was a big defeat for us. Al-Qa'eda caused a regime change better than we did in Baghdad. No cost."
--Pentagon Official
"A murdering terrorist organization said, 'Jump!' and an entire country answered, 'How high?' One Spaniard who decided to switch his vote in reaction to the bombings told the Times: 'Maybe the Socialists will get our troops out of Iraq and al-Qaida will forget about Spain so we will be less frightened.' That's the fighting spirit!"
--Ann Coulter, Town Hall
"In the first place Osama bin Laden will conclude, not unreasonably, that Zapatero won in coalition with himself. Al-Qaida as a whole will reckon that its bombs were the main factor in handing the election to an unworthy Zapatero. And that victory will instill the forces of Islamo-fascism worldwide with the belief that the people of Spain, Europe and the West are decadent -- just as the 1930s Oxford Union refusing "to die for King and Country" convinced Hitler that the democracies then were decadent. Like Hitler they will then be emboldened by this belief to strike further -- both against Spain and against other nations where resistance to Islamo-fascist terrorism is weak and uncertain. And the terrorist war on civilization will last longer and kill more people."
--John O'Sullivan, Chicago Sun-Times
Howard Dean, being the foreign policy guru he is, is encouraging Americans to come to the same conclusion as the Spanish: that the attacks in Spain are the fault of their government. He means President Bush.
Dean referred to the videotape when asked whether he was linking US troops in Iraq to the deaths in Spain.
"That was what they said in the tape," Dean said. "They made that connection, I'm simply repeating it."
And, he said, "The president was the one who dragged our troops to Iraq, which apparently has been a factor in the death of 200 Spaniards over the weekend."
Evidently, it hasn't yet occured to Dean to wonder why a war that has nothing to do with the war on terror would make Al Qaeda want to blow up those trains. Oh, how I wish this man was still running for president. If only John Kerry would say something like that just once...
17 March 2004
"You're sounding pretty good," said the speech therapist.
Elliot smiled. It was the sort of half-smile he gave when he wanted to show some acknowledgment, but being somewhat impassive and unsure of himself, also wanted to avoid looking too pleased. Elliot had spent the previous month learning a speaking technique designed to remove tension from the vocal folds and thereby help him to speak more fluently. His progress had been slow, but this latest vote of confidence from Stephanie, his speech therapist, assured him that it continued to be steady.
"Continue to work on those drills at home, and we'll spend the rest of the session on some conversation practice." She handed him a pen and a sheet of scrap paper. "Remember to mark your disfluencies now, and cancel them out." This meant that Elliot was to make a mark on the sheet of paper every time he stuttered and then attempt to repeat the word fluently. "And keep your rate slow."
Elliot rather liked conversation practice. In casual conversation, he habitually spoke too fast for his own good, so that he would become so disfluent as to make the conversation awkward and tedious. But he knew that Stephanie would stop him and remind him to speak more slowly if he became too caught up in the conversation; and so he had learned to become very good about remembering to slow down when talking with Stephanie. A mostly fluent and balanced two-sided conversation was a refreshing and stimulating exercise for Elliot.
"So tell me about some interesting books you've read or movies you've seen lately," said Stephanie.
"I recently went out and saw The Passion," said Elliot. "Have you seen it?"
"No," said Stephanie. "I really don't want to see it."
"Too violent?" asked Elliot sympathetically.
She nodded. "I have no desire to see something like that." Stephanie went on to explain that she had had various friends who had seen the movie and had heard mixed reviews about it. "What did you think?" she asked.
The conversation continued for some time and the subject seemed to spiral off into many different topics. Stephanie mentioned that she was thinking of becoming a writer some years hence when she reached the age of fifty. She brought up the name of a famous author who had started writing at fifty, who she found inspiring. Stephanie, Elliot thought, never seemed to have any shortage of aspirations. He could remember her mentioning that she hoped to one day go into the real estate business as well as several other career changes that she had considered. Elliot mentioned his own brief experiences as a writer when, as a sophomore in college, he had penned a series of inflammatory letters to the editor in response to flagrant anti-American and anti-Christian sentiment from the campus newspaper editorial staff. Stephanie speculated that the source of most anti-Christian sentiment Elliot encountered was the result of Christians failing so miserably to live up to their own moral ideals. She spoke of instances in which she had encountered people who, in her eyes, did much discredit to the faiths that they professed. Elliot politely objected that, in his encounters, individual Christians had not been attacked, but that rather, the targets had been the central ideas of Christianity itself. Nevertheless, Stephanie's apparent contempt for ardently moralistic believers was not lost on him.
Stephanie explained that, though she had had an agnostic father, she had been a Methodist as a child. Knowing Stephanie to be an Episcopalian, Elliot asked her what had compelled her to switch denominations.
"Well I had a sister who had terrible drug and alcohol problems. It pretty well messed up her life. I think she pretty much hit rock bottom on the day she prayed to Satan," Stephanie explained. "So she had to come home and start over. She started going to Alcoholics Anonymous and tried to become actively involved in the youth group at our Methodist church. But some people in the youth group were mean to her and occasionally suggested to her that she wasn’t good enough to be there with them."
Elliot was appalled, but not surprised. He said nothing.
As Stephanie continued, she explained that she and her sister had been welcomed much more openly at the Episcopal Church and that they had been impressed with the church’s compassion and resolve to reach out and to help people who had such need of it. "Everyone has to find the religion that works best for them," said Stephanie. And at the Episcopal Church, Stephanie had felt a sense of purpose and belonging.
Elliot wasn't a skilled conversationalist. He was more of a listener, usually having little to say, and rarely bothering to contribute to the conversation unless his input was actively sought.
But now, Stephanie had answered his question and it was Elliot's turn to speak. Yet, he found it difficult. Not because he had nothing to say, but rather because he had too much to say about this. Much of what Stephanie had said had trampled all over several of Elliot’s emotional tripwires. And yet, he could not seem to organize his thoughts well enough to know where to begin. He hesitated. "It’s just hard for me to imagine someone being told by any church that she is too much of sinner to be there," he said at last. Stephanie correctly took this response to indicate acknowledgment and understanding.
Time was up and the conversation came to an end. Stephanie and Elliot walked out to the waiting room and exchanged good-byes. As Elliot stepped into his car and drove away, his thoughts turned back to all that Stephanie had said. He became dismayed with himself when he considered his own response. In the past, Elliot had excelled at sharing his faith with others. He had once been told by an unbeliever that he ought to be a missionary. But opportunities to share his faith had arisen very infrequently, and Elliot could not help feeling that he just managed to squander a rare opportunity because of his own social ineptitude and his inability to gather his thoughts and direct the conversation down his desired route.
He had wanted to tell Stephanie not to be too hard on Christians who don't live up to their ideals. Contrary to popular perception, Christians are not good people, and none of them live up to their ideals. Their ideal is Christ, and if they could live up to his example, they would have no need of his sacrifice. Christians believe that, in God’s eyes, they are no better than criminals, wretched and lost; and that if it were not so, they would have no need for Christianity.
He wanted to remind Stephanie that Jesus did not come bearing rewards for the righteous, only hope for sinners. He came for people just like her sister, not for self-righteous keepers of strict moral codes.
The Son of God was not born in a palace. The announcement of his birth was not proclaimed to princes and kings. His target audience was not the virtuous, the rich, the elite, or the important.
He was born in a cold, dirty manger. His birth was announced to insignificant shepherds. His disciples were uneducated fishermen and despised tax collectors. And his message was directed primarily to society's outcasts: the helpless, the lame, the blind, the beggars, the prostitutes, the prodigals, the weak, the poor, and the insignificant. His offer of salvation is open to all irrespective of the immensity of their sin or their social condition. All the good deeds of the religiously observant man gain him nothing: he must be saved in the same way as the prostitute. The riches of the rich man will buy him no favor with God: he must be saved in the same way as the beggar. All the accumulated knowledge of the educated scholar is of no benefit in this matter: he must be saved in the same way as the ignorant peasant.
But others, such as those at Stephanie's Methodist church, who are sufficiently confident of their own righteousness to stand before God and receive his judgment based on their own merit have no need of a substitute, of a savior, of Jesus. They already have hope, and their hope is in themselves.
Sinners have no merits to offer God, and they stand before Him already condemned. Their only hope is in Christ and his merit. And this is how Christians see themselves: as criminals granted freedom based on the merits of a righteous man. And though the world may see Christians as comparatively moral people, we should not forget that Christians do not see themselves this way at all. Consequently, we should not be surprised or consider them hypocrites when they stumble, when their faults are exposed.
But Elliot would have to wait, and hope, and pray for another opportunity to present itself before he could tell all this to Stephanie. Perhaps, he'll be able to grab hold of the next one, and not let it slip right through his fingers.
14 March 2004
Dear Euro-weenies,
The appearance of millions of protesters in Madrid was a fine, appropriate response to the recent terrorist atrocities. Well, not really. It was actually pretty weak, even pathetic. Do you really think the Islamo-fascists care how many people protest their atrocities? Give us a break. They're not democrats, and they'll still want to kill you no matter how clever your protest slogans are. In response to terrorism on our side of the Atlantic, we overthrew two terrorist-sponsoring dictatorships, killed the vast majority of Al Qaeda terrorists, and sent the rest fleeing for their lives into the caves of Afghanistan. We'd like to see some of that from you now.
The Spanish government seems to be having difficulty accepting the possibility that the terrorists they're looking for are Muslims. Their alleged fear is that voters will conclude that the standing pro-US government provoked the terrorist attacks, and thereby vote for the opposition and deliver a crushing defeat to the standing government. Hence, Spanish government officials continue to finger the local non-Muslim terrorist group, ETA, as the primary suspect, notwithstanding the fact that ETA has denied responsibility while Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility.
It may have been ETA. I'm not going to speculate right now. My concern is that the culprits really are Islamic extremists and that Spanish voters really will seize upon this to deliver the anti-American Socialist Party a dramatic victory in the upcoming elections.
Consider America's response to 9/11: we've invaded two countries and overthrown two terrorist-sponsoring Islamic regimes. America has sent this message to anti-Western Islamic extremists: "You want to bomb us? You think killing our citizens will drive us from the Middle East, leaving you free to form your ideal Islamic fascist states? Fine, go ahead. We'll invade your countries, bomb your terrorist camps, kill your leaders, and send you running from your sanctuaries to hide in caves and spider holes; and we'll build up peaceful, liberal, pro-Western democracies in the heart of your region, right in your face, and work to consign your fascist theocratic fantasies to the ash heap of history where they belong."
There have been no terrorist attacks in America since 9/11.
But it seems Spanish voters are pondering a very different response. From the Washington Post:
Reports of the suspected Islamic link brought thousands of anti-government protesters onto the streets of Madrid. They converged on offices of the ruling Popular Party and accused the outgoing prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, of withholding information and trying to manipulate public opinion about the terror attacks before the elections. There were similar anti-government protests in Barcelona and Bilbao.
The protesters blamed Aznar and his pro-American policies -- including sending 1,300 Spanish troops to Iraq -- for the bombings...
There are stark differences that separate the American response to terrorism from the European. Americans are less likely to look up from the rubble and immediately point a finger at their own government. They tend to hold responsible only the people who committed the atrocities. After 9/11, Americans weren't holding protests of any kind. They were demanding vengeance.
Why don't I see this in Europe? Why do they cede the moral high ground to the terrorists and act as though their own government brought this upon them? Where's the righteous indignation?
And this is the key difference: In response to atrocities by terrorists, Europeans ask, "Where did we fail in our appeasement of them?" Americans ask, "How can we now best go about killing them?"
If a few bombs in Madrid railways end up driving the reins of the Spanish government into the hands of the Socialist Party (who favors immediate withdrawal from Iraq), what kind of message would that send to Islamic terrorists? It would tell them this: that terrorism in Europe works; and that if it worked in Madrid, then it is time to try it in London, Warsaw, and Rome. It would tell them that if European governments pursue foreign policies damaging to their Islamo-fascist ambitions, then those governments can be bullied, pushed around, and driven into submission.
How many times must Europe learn this lesson the hard way?
13 March 2004
As a KU alumnus with many fond memories of Jayhawks' basketball games at Allen Fieldhouse, my Dad remains a die-hard Kansas Jayhawks basketball fan to this day. Having neither grown up in Kansas nor attended school at KU, I, myself, have no particular attachment to them; and yet I root for them anyway. I root for them because watching the games with Dad is just fun. His excitement and enthusiasm are contagious. And anyway, watching games without becoming excited doesn't come very natural to me either.
Indeed, watching sporting events without any shortage of passion and intensity seems to run in the family. Recently, Dad was able to show me a rather large and painful-looking bruise on his right hand that he acquired after pounding on the coffee table with excessive vigor during the Kansas-Missouri game last week. Every so often for similar reasons, it becomes necessary to replace one of the television remotes.
I have a great aunt who has always lived in Washington, far away from the rest of the extended family. One occasion, she received a visit from my grandmother and one of her sons. One fine afternoon during this visit, she became aghast when my uncle began angrily yelling from upstairs.
"What's he doing?!" she asked horrified.
"Oh, he's just watching the Jayhawks' game," my grandmother replied calmly as if screaming at the television during a Jayhawks' game was the most natural thing in the world.
All this to say that in the family, the Kansas Jayhawks are a big deal. And while, most Jayhawk fans were probably less than thrilled that the Big 12 Tournament, this year, is taking place in Dallas instead of its usual home at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, an hour drive away from Lawrence, it worked out perfectly for us. Dallas doesn't actually have any of the major Texas universities in the area, and so the Jayhawks very rarely pass through these parts. Consequently, the Big 12 Tournament at the American Airlines Center was an opportunity that Dad wasn't about to let pass by. He managed to find some great tickets on E-bay earlier this week, and tonight we were able to spend the evening watching the Texas-OU game and the Kansas-Missouri game.
We made our way southbound on the Dallas North Tollway to downtown Dallas and the AAC in traffic that can be considered especially light for the four o'clock hour. We parked roughly a half-mile from the arena and made our way on foot through parking lots filled with trailers, all of which had massive banners draped over them bearing the logo of one of the Big 12 schools, and across city blocks to our destination. Throughout the night, the conversation often turned to the topic of comparing the merits of holding the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City or Dallas. This, Dad said, pointing to the trailers, was one of the advantages of holding it in Dallas. There is very little room for such trailers and tail-gate parties outside of Kemper Arena.
We arrived in a more or less empty arena roughly a half-hour before the start of the Texas-Oklahoma game. We were rather appalled at the sight of so many empty seats, and agreed that such a travesty would never happen in Kemper Arena. I suggested that Kansas City was more centrally located for the major basketball schools of the Big 12. Dallas is not a long commute for Aggie, Longhorn, Sooner, Cowboy, and Red Raider fans. It's a bit excessive for most Cyclone, Jayhawk, Tiger, Buffalo, and Cornhusker fans though. The problem is that the former tend to be the big football schools and the latter are mostly great basketball schools. Texas had a final four team last year and has another talented senior-laden team this year. And yet, they still have trouble selling out many of their games. After the Texas-OU game tonight, the conversation among the Longhorn fans who sat next to us immediately turned to the topic of spring football in Austin. The truth about Texas is that football is king here, and while Kansas City might be worth the commute for Nebraska, Kansas State, Kansas, Iowa State, Missouri, and Colorado fans, Texas students will not flock in any such comparable numbers to Dallas to see their teams, unless it is to see a game at the Cotton Bowl.
We were wrong though. The arena became quite full once the game started, and had a rather interesting composition. I expected a crowd exclusively composed of fans from the four participating teams. And yet most of the fans there were wearing bright orange. Not burnt orange. These were Oklahoma State fans, and I still have no good idea why they would want to attend two games, neither of which featured their team. There were large sections of burnt orange and maroon red behind the respective OU and UT benches -- probably the friends and family of the players. The rest of the fans were scattered heterogeneously throughout the arena -- a mixture of burnt orange, bright orange, black and gold, blue, and maroon. No team in either of the games could ever claim a definite home court advantage, but each had its own adherents scattered throughout.
Dad and I had a fine view, as we were roughly even with half-court in the upper deck. On our left sat a friendly and chatty Oklahoma State fan, who, towards the end seemed to become a little too friendly and perhaps a little bit tipsy. On our right sat two very obnoxious and very stupid Longhorn fans. I like both Texas and OU, and at the outset of the game, was impartial, wanting only to see a close game. Not rooting particularly for either team, I would have no principle objection to obnoxious Longhorn fans. But obnoxious fans need to be intelligent about their jeers. And these folks weren't. They were stupid. They would complain vehemently about obviously correct calls and jeer the opponent in such a way that reflects not a good sense of humor, but rather a good deal of pentup bitterness over many years of merciless poundings at the hands of Bob Stoops and OU football.
And they made other comments that annoyed me as well. "Ames, Iowa? Where the hell is that?!" one of them said after the public address announcer made a reference to the city that hosts Iowa State University. Having attended Iowa State for three semesters, I felt as though this comment especially warranted a swipe across the jaw, but I made no reaction other than managing to discover a sudden affection for OU, for whom I began to cheer.
OU grabbed the lead early in the first half and kept it until one minute remaining in the game. Texas took a one-point lead with enough time on the clock for OU to take a final shot. Their 5'7" point guard demanded the ball, waited at the top of the key until roughly 11 seconds to go, then drove the lane hard, spun around, and promptly lost control of the ball, which was immediately grabbed by Texas. I was disappointed. But only because my new friends sitting next to me were so pleased. A fine game overall.
I expected many of the maroon and orange would file out after the game. Many stayed though, and the stadium was still, for the most part, full when the Kansas-Missouri game started. Initially, the Jayhawks struggled, falling behind by as many as 12 before coming back to take a two-point lead at halftime. When their inside game began to click, their outside game opened up, and Missouri really did not have an answer either for Wayne Simien's inside presence or J.R. Giddens' perimeter threat. The game became very one-sided, and many of the remaining neutral fans as well as a good portion of the black and gold, began to make their ways to the exits until only a sea of blue and empty seats were left. There were enough fans in the arena left to pull off a solid "Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk" chant at the end -- which, by itself, is worth the price of admission. I was only disappointed there were no Missouri fans sitting near me to whom I could politely wish a fine trip back to Columbia as they filed out. Dad said that, on principle, he doesn't like to jeer vanquished opponents. I applauded that principle, but added that it really ought to be done if the opponent is a rival. There's just nothing else for it.
"KU sucks!!" a Missouri fan shouted from a car as we were making our way back to the parking lots amongst a group of Jayhawk fans. This was met with a litany of comeback insults before the group collectively broke out into a chant of "N. I. T.!!! N. I. T.!!"
12 March 2004
I was greatly disappointed that the next terrorist attack did not take place in Paris. My first thought was that it made good sense for the terrorists to strike American allies such as Spain. More bombings in London, Warsaw, or Rome would not surprise me. But radical Muslims have declared war on all of Western civilization, and given their deficit in technology, manpower, money, etc., it seems to me that it would make a great deal more sense to strike such enemy bastions that are least likely to retaliate.
I have briefly read over John Kerry's strategy for fighting the war on terrorism. I have concluded that Kerry's strategy, at least on paper, is virtually no different than the visionary policy outlined by the infamous "neo-cons" in the Bush administration. The primary distinction Kerry draws between his strategy and Bush's is his emphasis on the centrality of a system of alliances. There are a few problems with this notion that the Kerry campaign has yet to address:
1) Kerry has yet to define what he means by renewed alliances. If we are to take this to mean the United Nations or the Paris-Moscow-Berlin axis, as Kerry's war position would seem to indicate, it would be easy to conclude that Kerry's goal of "renewed alliances" is an end in itself, not a means to fighting the war on terrorism. This is why Kerry's stance on the war is so problematic. It would be one thing if he had opposed the Iraq war on principle as Howard Dean did, and then unlike Dean, had put forward an alternative roadmap for fighting the war on terror that would lead somewhere other than through Baghdad.
It is all very well and fine to want to have as many allies as possible, but at what cost? As it stands, Kerry continues to claim to be able to do what Bush couldn't-- bring more allies on board; and yet he has not outlined just how much of America's vital interests he is prepared to sacrifice to gain the approval of Paris or Berlin. How much must the war on terror be set back so that we can bring France, Germany, and Russia on board? Kerry prefers to speak as though Bush's failure to bring more allies into his coalition was simply a result of arrogant Texas diplomacy and not from a principled stand for U.S. vital interests and national security. This delusion effectively allows him to ignore such questions as the above and pretend that the assistance of France and Germany will come free of charge.
2) Neglecting to set prices on the allies he intends to make is a very dangerous way to campaign, for it effectively tips his hand in any future negotiations, and obligates him to pay any cost to fulfill his campaign promise. If Kerry were to be elected, having campaigned on an unequivocal promise to bring more allies into the coalition, then he will have, for all intents and purposes, handed a blank check to Paris, Berlin, Moscow, and others to extract leverage from the United States in any future negotiations.
3) The combination of the problems described above, understandably, will leave many voters wondering if Kerry really aims to fight a war on terror or if he rather intends to appease former U.S. allies at any cost and hope that the terror problem will go away on it's own. Appeasement has few historical precedents working in favor of it. When Austrian and Czech heads of state appeased Hitler, they hoped to receive good will (and mercy) in response. Kerry's proposed appeasement is much different though, for presenting appeasement as an end in itself is something quite unprecedented in the history of diplomacy.
11 March 2004
I resolved to wake up this morning and engage in something productive for a change. I was going to work on college applications. I didn't. Instead, I spent the day toiling away at such strenuous activity as sleeping, reading, and playing with Griffey.
My sister and I went to Sonic tonight. We were in our usual dead serious mindsets -- the mindsets in which we like to emulate the voices of senile people and throw out metaphors that make absolutely no sense ("as blue as the night!!" and "as crazy as a bear!!"). While we were sitting there waiting for our order, we noticed a group of teens sitting around a menu preparing to place an order. I shook my fist and yelled at them with my senile voice, "Hey you crazy kids!! Stop harassing that menu!!" I didn't get much of a reaction though. They looked around confused, seeming not to know the direction from which the voice was coming.
10 March 2004
Certain members on the Catholic side of the extended family (*note: in this writer's vocabulary, "Catholic" and "Alcoholic" are nearly synonymous) have decided that my sister's wedding reception, in two weeks, is an occasion to get hammered. The abundant notices that there will be only one toast and no open bar at the reception has been drowned in a flood of rumors that the widely-discussed fate of alcohol at the wedding will be one of the following:
1)It will be smuggled inside and sold at a premium;
2)Though the bar is closed, visitors are actually encouraged to bring their own booze.
It seems that the notoriously vague line of distinction between a wedding reception and a college frat party has utterly escaped them. I can't begin to imagine how rumors like this get out. My parents are moving to damage control mode so that there are no minor scandals at the reception (security will escort out anyone found with alcohol).
I still have not found a way to obtain dingo meat, but I did find a website that sells almost every other bizarre form of meat one can think of. So while I won't be able to brag about having eaten dingo, I will have a selection of kangaroo, bear, carribou, wild boar, and others.
09 March 2004
Ann Coulter has a fine point. To the NY Times, producing a movie about Jesus is hateful, anti-Semitic, and implicates the violent nature of Christianity. Yet, the Times assured us after September 11 that Islam is an inherently peaceful religion with a peaceful reputation that was only being hijacked by terrorists who didn't understand it. Says Coulter:
One Times review of "The Passion" said: "To be a Christian is to face the responsibility for one's own most treasured sacred texts being used to justify the deaths of innocents." At best, this is like blaming Jodie Foster for the shooting of Ronald Reagan. But the reviewer somberly warned that a Christian should "not take the risk that one's life or work might contribute to the continuation of a horror." So the only thing Christians can do is shut up about their religion. (And no more Jodie Foster movies!)
By contrast, in the weeks after 9-11, the Times was rushing to assure its readers that "prominent Islamic scholars and theologians in the West say unequivocally that nothing in Islam countenances the Sept. 11 actions." (That's if you set aside Muhammad's many specific instructions to kill non-believers whenever possible.) Times columnists repeatedly extolled "the great majority of peaceful Muslims." Only a religion with millions of practitioners trying to kill Americans and Jews is axiomatically described as "peaceful" by liberals.
As I understand it, the dangerous religion is the one whose messiah instructs: "[I]f one strikes thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" and "Love your enemies ... do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you." The peaceful religion instructs: "Slay the enemy where you find him." (Surah 9:92).
07 March 2004
My cousin, J, and I have become obsessed with dingos. And after a name-calling bout in which the adjective, "dingo-eating" was thoroughly overused, we have resolved to actually taste dingo meat ourselves. I can think of no good reason why we would want to do this except to earn the right to claim to have eaten dingo. If dingos were simply called "wolves" or "coyotes" instead of "dingo", we would have no interest whatsoever in tasting them.
Unfortunately, neither Australia nor America are dog-eating countries. And after searching long on the internet for restaurants that might serve dingo meat, I am nearly ready to concede defeat. We may have to settle for tasting kangaroo instead. If any of my readers know how one would go about obtaining dingo meat, please contact me via e-mail or AIM.
06 March 2004
Straight from the Financial Times:
North Korea's state-controlled media are well known for reverential reporting about Kim Jong-il, the country's dictatorial leader.
But the Dear Leader is not the only one getting deferential treatment from the communist state's propaganda machine: John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic candidate, is also getting good play in Pyongyang.
In the past few weeks, speeches by the Massachusetts senator have been broadcast on Radio Pyongyang and reported in glowing terms by the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), the official mouthpiece of Mr Kim's communist regime...
Rather than dealing with President George W. Bush and hawkish officials in his administration, Pyongyang seems to hope victory for the Democratic candidate on November 2 would lead to a softening in US policy towards the country's nuclear weapons programme...
Pyongyang's friendly attitude towards Mr Kerry contrasts with its strong anti-Bush rhetoric...
There you have it. America's totalitarian enemies are for John Kerry. What does this tell you about a John Kerry-led war on terror?
In 1980 during a debate with Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan looked straight into the camera and asked the American people a simple question that later became the soundbite that defined his campaign: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
I'd like to see Bush on national tv, perhaps during a debate, outline Kerry's extensive record of voting for defense budget cuts, intelligence budget cuts, his vote against the Persian Gulf War, and his vote against the $87 billion to support the troops in Iraq, and then look into the camera and ask Americans, "Will you really feel safer with this man as your president?"
I am ardently opposed to gay marriage, and for no other reason than that I think homosexual relationships are wrong and should not be accorded equal status with heterosexual ones. Commonly, gays and their militant advocates will protest that I should not 'force' my faith-based morality on others, and that I ought to only tolerate their choice of life-style and accord them the equal status to which all citizens are entitled.
But I answer that their perspective is wrong. That my morality is Biblically-based is irrelevant. The source of my morality renders it no less legitimate than the moral ideologies of atheists or libertarians. The view that individuals should not concern themselves with the lifestyle of others and that their government has no business denying legitimacy to homosexual relationships is only their moral ideology. They are equally entitled to it. But they are no more entitled to have the law of the land written to reflect their worldview than I am.
Let them then mobilize all those with similar moral ideology, vote accordingly, and attempt to pass whatever legislation they desire.
Yet, they find this unacceptable because utilizing the democratic legislative process is a losing battle for them. No state in the country would vote to legally recognize gay marriage. Not even Massachusetts or California.
And so they seek out a court of headstrong activist judges willing to override the will of the majority. No need to win the approval of the American people. It can be crammed down their throats by the judiciary. All this, and yet they have the audacity to insist that the religious right is forcing its morality on them.
I will not venture to detail why homosexuality is a disgusting perversion, why it should never be accorded equal legitimacy with heterosexual relationships, or why gay couples should never be allowed to adopt children, though I believe all those things. I am quite content to hold my own opinions, vote accordingly, and let others do the same. Only homosexuals, with their gay pride parades and their militant political lobbying, are not content to let others hold their own views of morality.
Gays continue to promote an image of themselves as innocent victims of intolerance. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a more intolerant, and thereby hypocritical, cross-section of society.
04 March 2004
From the Associated Press:
Citing information it said was given to federal investigators, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday that Bonds was given the [steroids] by his personal trainer -- who got them from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.
So is it time to start putting asterisks next to Barry Bonds' home run records and MVPs? "Before you start putting asterisks, you got to have proof if they did it or not," said Dusty Baker. He has a fair point. We don't have proof that Bonds used steroids. We certainly have plenty to be suspicious about though. A former teammate of Bonds, Andy Van Slyke had this to say:
"Unequivocally he's taken them," Van Slyke said. "I can say that with utmost certainty. Now, I never saw him put it into his body, but look ... the physical evidence is there. People do not gain 35 pounds of muscle in their late 30s without a little bit of help.
"When I played with him, I weighed more than him and yet he was still a tremendous player. He still had good power, and he was an MVP. The physical facts are the physical facts, and when you're 36, 37 and 38 years old is not when you peak with your home run production."
There's a lot more than just physical evidence too. In 2001, the year Bonds is said to have first been given steroids, Bonds hit a record-breaking 73 HRs. His previous highest single-season HR total was 49. All this might look less suspicious if Bonds were a younger player appearing to have a breakthrough season, not a seasoned veteran, his prime well in the past.
Bud Selig owes it to baseball fans to uncover the truth about Barry Bonds and steroids. And if it is found that Bonds did indeed use steroids, how would this crime be any less significant than that of Pete Rose or Shoeless Joe? If he has used steroids, then he, Rose, and Jackson alike will all have broken the rules with the same result: betting and steroids alike tarnish Major League Baseball's most sacred document -- the record book.
Should Barry Bonds along with all those who fail a steroids test be kicked out of baseball then? It probably won't happen. But maybe it should.
Reactions to news of an interim constitution reached yesterday by U.S. officials and the Iraqi Governing Council have been varied. To the editorial board at The Washington Post, it is a badly-needed compromise, a significant step towards stability, and an important indicator of promising prospects for future cooperation among Iraq's varying ethnic and religious entities.
Daniel Pipes had a different reaction as assesed Iraq's potential to become a stable, functioning, free democracy in a land permeated with the stench of militant Islam.
The council members focused on whether the interim constitution should name the sharia as ''a source'' or ''the source'' for laws in Iraq. ''A source'' suggests laws may contravene the sharia, while ''the source'' implies that they may not. In the end, they opted for the sharia being just ''a source'' of Iraq's laws...
But there are two reasons to see the interim constitution as a signal of victory for militant Islam.
First, the compromise suggests that while all of the sharia may not be put into place, every law must conform with it.
As one pro-sharia source put it, ''We got what we wanted, which is that there should be no laws that are against Islam.'' The new Iraq may not be Saudi Arabia or Iran, but it will include substantial portions of Islamic law.
Second, the interim constitution appears to be only a way station; Islamists will surely try to gut its liberal provisions, thereby making sharia effectively ''the source'' of Iraqi law. Those who want this change -- including Ayatollah Sistani and the Governing Council's current president -- will presumably continue to press for their vision. Iraq's leading militant Islamic figure, Muqtada al-Sadr, has threatened that his constituency will ''attack its enemies'' if sharia is not ''the source.''
Several years down the road, if Iraq is not the model blossoming democracy -- the shining city on a hill to which other Arab peoples of the world could aspire that the Bush administration had in mind when it invaded -- but rather another authoritarian fiasco, as Pipes is hinting, not only will the Iraq war come to be seen as a mistake but the war on terror will be thrown into doubt.
American officials have been forced to compromise with Iraq's various theocratic-leaning religious leaders as they work to chart the course to the formation of the first secular, free democracy in the Arab world. This would not have been so necessary were it not for the fact that in this previously totalitarian society, the only real organizations that could be mobilized for political purposes were religious ones. Ambassador Bremer, undoubtedly, would not have to lose so much sleep over the objections of figures such as Ayatollah Sistani or Muqtada al-Sadr if there were other organizations with competing demands or if they did not command such substantial followings. Consequently, if Pipes analysis proves to be prophetic, many will conclude that the Americans did everything they could to steer Iraq on the straight and narrow path of democracy, but that the soil of the Arab world was too inhospitable to allow democratic principles to take root and develop.
This will throw into disarray the war on terrorism that has been framed by the Bush administration as a war of ideas for the hearts and minds of the Arab people. If theocratic authoritarianism takes root in Iraq and leads to the conclusion that Arabs are culturally unfit for freedom, we will have no ideology left to sell to them and nothing with which to combat militant Islam's ideology of terrorism.
02 March 2004
I think that in the wake of the all the media coverage of "The Passion of the Christ," the question we should all ponder is not who Christians hold responsible for the crucifixion of Christ, but who the Jews hold responsible for the Holocaust. Richard Cohen has reached his verdict, and pronounced guilty not Mein Kampf and Nazi ideology, but rather the New Testament.
I thought the movie was tawdry, cartoonish, badly acted and anti-Semitic, maybe not purposely so but in the way portions of the New Testament are -- an assignment of blame that culminated in the Holocaust.
It is rather interesting that Christians can be called anti-Semitic for blaming Jews for the crucifixion of Christ by the same Jews who blame the Holocaust on Christianity.
The Bush Doctrine, as it has been presented, seems to call, not for a single regime change, but rather for a series of regime changes. The rhetoric that has been employed to articulate the strategy of pre-emption does not indicate that the authors had only one regime change in mind. And indeed, the Bush strategy for winning the war on terror looks to change the political makeup of the entire Middle East. The Bush administration has made it abundantly clear that it will pursue a results-oriented foreign policy. Consequently, we would not expect them to go about implementing a "forward strategy of freedom" and greater democratization in the Middle East by overthrowing only one regime and hoping that more democracies will spring up throughout the region in a breaking wave of dominos.
Amir Taheri, a columnist for the NY Post, recently penned an informative analysis of the geo-political situation in the Middle East in the wake of the conclusion of an Iran-Syria mutual assistance pact.
IN a reversal of its policy not to enter into military alliance with any foreign power, the Islamic Republic of Iran has just concluded a defense pact with Syria. Signed in Damascus yesterday, the pact commits Iran to Syria's defense against "the Zionist entity," which in the Iranian lexicon means Israel...The new pact is presented by the state-controlled media in Iran and Syria as a response to the close military ties between Israel and Turkey.
Iranian and Syrian analysts believe that Washington plans a new regional military alliance to include Israel, Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, seven regional countries are scheduled to sign an association accord with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) later this year. The leaders of the countries concerned (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel and Jordan) have been invited to a NATO summit to be held in Istanbul in May.
As the only regional countries left out (along with Lebanon, which is de facto a Syrian dominion), Iran and Syria fear that their isolation could render them vulnerable to attack by either Israel or the United States.
It would certainly look suspicious if Iran and Syria, the two nations that are very often the subjects of whisperings about a future Middle East war, were left out to dry in the fashion described above. Having noticed how controversial the war in Iraq was in the U.S., Iran and Syria have raised the stakes in an attempt to make any future regime changes politically unacceptable to American voters.
Additionally, as politically risky as the Iraq venture has been for President Bush, Iran and Syria have increased the ante for future U.S. politicians by forcing them to ponder the possibility that the next regime change will have to involve changing not one, but two regimes (three if Lebanon, a de-facto Syrian protectorate, is included).
Do the American people have the resolve to support another war that would likely be much more costly and bloody than the Iraq war? Does President Bush have the political courage to pursue the war on terror to its completion?
If the answers to those questions are yes, still more questions have to be answered such as: does the United States have the resources to manage such a war? And the aftermath? If not, could these shortcomings be rectified with the help of regional allies such as Israel? What role would the Iranian resistance play in overthrowing the Tehran regime? Could a politically fragile Iraq withstand a wider war in the Middle East?
Neither the political conditions in Iraq nor the domestic political situation at home render the present an ideal time to consider further regime changes in the Middle East. Yet, it would be expected that the Bush administration would begin to take a long thoughtful look at the rest of the region if President Bush is reelected and Iraq continues to stabilize. In such a scenario, the answers to murky questions such as those described above may begin to materialize.
01 March 2004
This is the annual event in which egotistical Hollywood actors, directors, and celebrities are given free rein to become drunk on an over-inflated sense of self-importance and academy critics are given a medium by which to display their contempt for ordinary people by mostly nominating movies that no one other than similarly stuck-up intellectuals really care about.
It is has been appropriately labeled "the Super Bowl for women." And if the Super Bowl were all halftime show, and no gridiron competition or athletic prowess, this is how it would look. There's not a single moment in the entire four-hour event that requires the observer to exercise analytical thought. There's little talent on display to appreciate except for Billy Crystal's stand-up humor and soundbite-length clips of the movies up for nomination. There are however, many dazzling dresses to notice, fine-looking people to admire, and other things that would excite tabloid readers and those who invest as much energy into following the lives of Hollywood celebrities as they do their own lives. The primary excitement, I suppose, comes when a major award is announced. But the rationale as to exactly why viewing the announcement is sufficiently momentous to warrant watching the four-hour spectacle, as opposed to reading about it via news media, escapes me; as does the appeal of watching a litany of monotonous, ostentatious acceptance speeches.
It is an event that provides those who find a sense of meaning in life in pompously telling everyone what to think about this movie or that actor another occasion to preach. Only the academy critics, of course, are entitled to the subjective opinions that really matter -- the opinions that can provide a feeling of vindication or illegitmacy to viewers who are not sufficiently secure in their own opinions to disregard the academy's judgment.
