Teleologic Blog: June 2005 Archives

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June 30, 2005

Time for Rehnquist to Resign...

Justice of the Supreme Court since 1972, Chief Justice since 1986, William Rehnquist is the 2nd longest serving justice in U.S. history - and its time for him to quit.

This last term of the U.S. Supreme Court was one of the worst I can remember. The sheer idiocy of ruling both in favor AND against displaying the 10 Commandments is proof of the failure of this court. And I blame Rehnquist.

But the ultimate insult is the Kelo case. The idea that a state agency can take private property that is maintained, taxes paid, NOT distressed and just hand it over to a private entity is evil. This is the SCOTUS Blog summary of the case.

There are no defenders of this decision in the Blogsphere.

Although Rehnquist was in the dissent, correctly in my opinion, I still blame him. A more able Chief Justice could have and should have solved these cases differently.

When Rehnquist came down with thyroid cancer he should have resigned. He should resign now. If he won't resign, he should be impeached. I'm sorry if his long career has to end this way but no person should stay on a job as important as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in less than 90% of full health.

Here is what I would like to see for all Supreme Court Justices:

A fixed, 18 year term. No person should occupy the Supreme Court for longer. One can argue about the time. I pick 18 years. I do not wish to see any more nominations of young people (like Justice Clarence Thomas) who was not qualified to be placed on the Supreme Court and was nominated (in part) because of his youth.
Every year (or 2 years) each Justice must undergo a physical and mental exam. If the person is not in good health, they must resign within six months or face an automatic impeachment hearing by the Congress. I do not wish to see any more cases like Rehnquist, a man too ill to attend the majority of the court's sessions this year.

The Supreme Court is currently adrift, without strong leadership and making terrible decisions. Reform is needed, and reform needs to start at the top. Its time for Rehnquist to go.

Posted by rakhier at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2005

The Best Speech by President Bush

This speech is the best speech President Bush has made. Period.

June 27, 2005 - Address by President Bush

Thank you and good evening. I am pleased to visit Fort Bragg — "Home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces." It is an honor to speak before you tonight. My greatest responsibility as president is to protect the American people, and that is your calling as well. I thank you for your service, your courage and your sacrifice. I thank your families, who support you in your vital work. The soldiers and families of Fort Bragg have contributed mightily to our efforts to secure our country and promote peace. Americais grateful — and so is your commander-in-chief.

The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. This war reached our shores on September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us — and the terrorists we face — murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. Their aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression — by toppling governments, driving us out of the region, and exporting terror.

To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill — in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali, and elsewhere. The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a few hard blows they can force us to retreat. They are mistaken. After September 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This Nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will take the fight to the enemy. We will defend our freedom.

Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. The commander in charge of Coalition operations in Iraq — who is also senior commander at this base — General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said: "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."

Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting down the terrorists. We are helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We are advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability — and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren.

The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying — and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country. And tonight I will explain the reasons why.

Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other nations. They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents, and remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime who want to restore the old order. They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. They know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty as well. And when the Middle East grows in democracy, prosperity, and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits, and lose their hopes for turning that region into a base for attacks on America and our allies around the world.

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Usama bin Laden: "This Third World War … is raging" in Iraq. "The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened, or defeated. So, they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take.

We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who exploded car bombs along a busy shopping street in Baghdad — including one outside a mosque. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul. And we see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who behead civilian hostages and broadcast their atrocities for the world to see.

These are savage acts of violence — but they have not brought the terrorists any closer to achieving their strategic objectives. The terrorists — both foreign and Iraqi — failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty. They failed to break our Coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war. They failed to prevent free elections. They failed to stop the formation of a democratic Iraqi government that represents all of Iraq's diverse population. And they failed to stop Iraqis from signing up in large numbers with the police forces and the army to defend their new democracy.

The lesson of this experience is clear: The terrorists can kill the innocent — but they cannot stop the advance of freedom. The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11 … if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi … and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden. For the sake of our Nation's security, this will not happen on my watch.

A little over a year ago, I spoke to the Nation and described our Coalition's goal in Iraq. I said that America's mission in Iraq is to defeat an enemy and give strength to a friend — a free, representative government that is an ally in the war on terror, and a beacon of hope in a part of the world that is desperate for reform. I outlined the steps we would take to achieve this goal: We would hand authority over to a sovereign Iraqi government … we would help Iraqis hold free elections by January 2005 … we would continue helping Iraqis rebuild their nation's infrastructure and economy … we would encourage more international support for Iraq's democratic transition … and we would enable Iraqis to take increasing responsibility for their own security and stability.

In the past year, we have made significant progress:

One year ago today, we restored sovereignty to the Iraqi people.

In January 2005, more than eight million Iraqi men and women voted in elections that were free and fair — and took place on time.

We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard — and rebuilding while at war is even harder. Our progress has been uneven — but progress is being made. We are improving roads, and schools, and health clinics … and working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity, and water. And together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens.

In the past year, the international community has stepped forward with vital assistance. Some thirty nations have troops in Iraq, and many others are contributing non-military assistance. The United Nations is in Iraq to help Iraqis write a constitution and conduct their next elections. Thus far, some 40 countries and three international organizations have pledged about 34 billion dollars in assistance for Iraqi reconstruction. More than 80 countries and international organizations recently came together in Brussels to coordinate their efforts to help Iraqis provide for their security and rebuild their country. And next month, donor countries will meet in Jordan to support Iraqi reconstruction. Whatever our differences in the past, the world understands that success in Iraq is critical to the security of all our nations. As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said at the White House yesterday, "There can be no question a stable and democratic Iraq is in the vested interest of not just Germany, but also Europe."

Finally, we have continued our efforts to equip and train Iraqi Security Forces. Wehave made gains in both the number and quality of those forces. Today Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions. Iraqi forces have fought bravely — helping to capture terrorists and insurgents in Najaf, Samarra, Fallujah, and Mosul. And in the past month, Iraqi forces have led a major anti-terrorist campaign in Baghdad called Operation Lightning — which has led to the capture of hundreds of suspected insurgents. Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended by their own countrymen — and we are helping Iraqis assume those duties.

The progress in the past year has been significant — and we have a clear path forward. To complete the mission, we will continue to hunt down the terrorists and insurgents. To complete the mission, we will prevent Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban — a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends. And the best way to complete the mission is to help Iraqis build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.

So our strategy going forward has both a military track and a political track.

The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists — and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi Security Forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.

We have made progress — but we have a lot more work to do. Today Iraqi Security Forces are at different levels of readiness. Some are capable of taking on the terrorists and insurgents by themselves. A larger number can plan and execute anti-terrorist operations with Coalition support. The rest are forming and not yet ready to participate fully in security operations. Our task is to make the Iraqi units fully capable and independent. We are building up Iraqi Security Forces as quickly as possible, so they can assume the lead in defeating the terrorists and insurgents.

Our Coalition is devoting considerable resources and manpower to this critical task. Thousands of Coalition troops are involved in the training and equipping of Iraqi Security Forces. NATO is establishing a military academy near Baghdad to train the next generation of Iraqi military leaders — and 17 nations are contributing troops to the NATO training mission. Iraqi Army and Police are being trained by personnel from Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Romania, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Today dozens of nations are working toward a common objective: an Iraq that can defend itself, defeat its enemies, and secure its freedom.

To further prepare Iraqi forces to fight the enemy on their own, we are taking three new steps:

First, we are partnering Coalition units with Iraqi units. These Coalition-Iraqi teams are conducting operations together in the field. These combined operations are giving Iraqis a chance to experience how the most professional armed forces in the world operate in combat.

Second, we are embedding Coalition "Transition Teams" inside Iraqi units. These teams are made up of Coalition officers and non-commissioned officers who live, work, and fight together with their Iraqi comrades. Under U.S. command, they are providing battlefield advice and assistance to Iraqi forces during combat operations. Between battles, they are assisting the Iraqis with important skills — such as urban combat, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques.

Third, we are working with the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defense to improve their capabilities to coordinate anti-terrorist operations. We are helping them develop command and control structures. We are also providing them with civilian and military leadership training, so Iraq's new leaders can more effectively manage their forces in the fight against terror.

The new Iraqi Security Forces are proving their courage every day. More than 2,000 members of the Iraqi Security Forces have given their lives in the line of duty. Thousands more have stepped forward, and are now in training to serve their nation. With each engagement, Iraqi soldiers grow more battle-hardened, and their officers grow more experienced. We have learned that Iraqis are courageous and that they need additional skills. That is why a major part of our mission is to train them so they can do the fighting and our troops can come home.

I recognize that Americans want our troops to come home as quickly as possible. So do I. Some contend that we should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Let me explain why that would be a serious mistake. Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis — who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done. It would send the wrong message to our troops — who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission they are risking their lives to achieve. And it would send the wrong message to the enemy — who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out. We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed — and not a day longer.

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don't you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever — when we are in fact working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters — the sober judgment of our military leaders.

The other critical element of our strategy is to help ensure that the hopes Iraqis expressed at the polls in January are translated into a secure democracy. The Iraqi people are emerging from decades of tyranny and oppression. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Shia and Kurds were brutally oppressed — and the vast majority of Sunni Arabs were also denied their basic rights while senior regime officials enjoyed the privileges of unchecked power. The challenge facing Iraqis today is to put this past behind them, and come together to build a new Iraq that includes all its people.

They are doing that by building the institutions of a free society — a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and equal justice under law. The Iraqis have held free elections and established a Transitional National Assembly. The next step is to write a good constitution that enshrines these freedoms in permanent law. The Assembly plans to expand its constitutional drafting committee to include more Sunni Arabs. Many Sunnis who opposed the January elections are now taking part in the democratic process — and that is essential to Iraq's future.

After a constitution is written, the Iraqi people will have a chance to vote on it. If approved, Iraqis will go to the polls again, to elect a new government under their new, permanent constitution. By taking these critical steps and meeting their deadlines, Iraqis will bind their multiethnic society together in a democracy that respects the will of the majority and protects minority rights.

As Iraqis grow confident that the democratic progress they are making is real and permanent, more will join the political process. And as Iraqis see that their military can protect them, more will step forward with vital intelligence to help defeat the enemies of a free Iraq. The combination of political and military reform will lay a solid foundation for a free and stable Iraq.

As Iraqis make progress toward a free society, the effects are being felt beyond Iraq's borders. Before our Coalition liberated Iraq, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons. Today the leader of Libya has given up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs. Across the broader Middle East, people are claiming their freedom. In the last few months, we have witnessed elections in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon. These elections are inspiring democratic reformers in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Our strategy to defend ourselves and spread freedom is working. The rise of freedom in this vital region will eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder — and make our Nation safer.

We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America's resolve. We are fighting against men with blind hatred — and armed with lethal weapons — who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in Iraq — just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail. The terrorists do not understand America. The American people do not falter under threat — and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins.

America and our friends are in a conflict that demands much of us. It demands the courage of our fighting men and women … it demands the steadfastness of our allies … and it demands the perseverance of our citizens. We accept these burdens — because we know what is at stake. We fight today, because Iraq now carries the hope of freedom in a vital region of the world — and the rise of democracy will be the ultimate triumph over radicalism and terror. And we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens — and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we will fight them there … we will fight them across the world — and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.

America has done difficult work before. From our desperate fight for independence, to the darkest days of a Civil War, to the hard-fought battles against tyranny in the 20th Century, there were many chances to lose our heart, our nerve, or our way. But Americans have always held firm, because we have always believed in certain truths. We know that if evil is not confronted, it gains in strength and audacity, and returns to strike us again. We know that when the work is hard, the proper response is not retreat, it is courage. And we know that this great ideal of human freedom is entrusted to us in a special way — and that the ideal of liberty is worth defending.

In this time of testing, our troops can know: The American people are behind you. Next week, our Nation has an opportunity to make sure that support is felt by every soldier, sailor, airman, coast guardsman, and Marine at every outpost across the world. This Fourth of July, I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom — by flying the flag … sending letters to our troops in the field … or helping the military family down the street. The Department of Defense has set up a website — AmericaSupportsYou.mil. You can go there to learn about private efforts in your own community. At this time when we celebrate our freedom, let us stand with the men and women who defend us all.

To the soldiers in this hall, and our servicemen and women across the globe: I thank you for your courage under fire and your service to our Nation. I thank our military families — the burden of war falls especially hard on you. In this war, we have lost good men and women who left our shores to defend freedom — and did not live to make the journey home. I have met with families grieving the loss of loved ones who were taken from us too soon. I have been inspired by their strength in the face of such great loss. We pray for the families. And the best way to honor the lives that have been given in this struggle is to complete the mission.

I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces. We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our Nation's uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom.

After September 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult — and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult. And we are prevailing. Our enemies are brutal — but they are no match for the United States of America — and they are no match for the men and women of the United States military.

Thank you. And may God bless America.

Posted by rakhier at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

June 27, 2005

Three Music CDs

I recently bought a new CD which I have enjoyed. Its titled Indian Summer by Carbon Leaf.

It fits into a category of American versions of late Beatles music. This new record by Carbon Leaf is very, very good. Its the best new popular music I've heard in years.

Another CDs which this reminds me of is: Everything You Want (released in 1999) by the group Vertical Horizon. Everything You want is a great record full of angry guitars and some very pretty accoustic guitars.

The last (and oldest) CD in the same musical mode is Fear (released in 1991) by the (now defunct) Toad the Wet Sprocket. Fear is another great record which has only improved with repeated listening. The later Toad records were not as good though Dulcinea came close.

Posted by rakhier at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

18 Years Ago...

18 years ago I married. After the marriage we had a diner and I was asked to give a speech. I hadn't thought about it beforehand and I didn't come up with anything worthwhile on the spot.

Thinking about it now I wish I could have said said the following:

Our marriage is about love. About the belief that a person can find love, marry love, and have it endure. Despite obstacles, despite diffences in language, culture, background, experience, despite all these things. We are marrying because we love each other. Nothing more, and nothing less.

I don't know anything about marriage except what I learned from my parents. But I have confidence that the lesson's I've absorbed are good ones and that I can handle a marriage like my parents have handled theirs.

I don't even know much about love but I do know this: my partner is, for me, the most desireable person in the world. This choice of mine, of ours, to marry, is perhaps the single most important decision either of us will ever make. We don't know what we are doing. We don't know if we are right or wrong. All we have is hope and love. It is enough for me.

Looking back on the last 18 years I wish I had been able to make that speech then. I couldn't really express what my motivations were back then. It seemed so obvious at the time while now it seems so fraught with danger and potential disaster.

18 years later, the marriage worked. I think I can explain why but I'm not sure I want to. Can't get too comfortable. Life keeps changing. But I will close with this: everything I saw in my partner was true. I didn't see everything but what I saw, it was real.

Posted by rakhier at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)

A Reasoned Theory for Apple's Switch to Intel...

Mr. Gruber of Daring Fireball has a critique of Robert X. Cringley's analysis of the Apple-Intel news. His analysis is worth the read. Intel buys Apple? Nope. Oh well. It was just a theory (ed - So is this!)

Posted by rakhier at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

How is the war in Iraq going now?

According to this analysis by Professor Owens at the Navel War College, pretty well. As he says

One ratline follows the Euphrates River corridor — running from Syria to Husayba on the Syrian border and then through Qaim, Rawa, Haditha, Asad, Hit and Fallujah to Baghdad. The other follows the course of the Tigris — from the north through Mosul-Tel Afar to Tikrit and on to Baghdad. These two "river corridors" constitute the main spatial elements of a campaign to implement U.S. strategy.

The U.S. operations over the last 9 months have been aimed at denying the terrorists large "safe havens" (such as Fallujah) and shutting down the supply lines (at this point from Syria).

The good news is that most of the Syrian and Saudi border with Iraq is desert. In the old days the desert borders could not be controled or watched. Nowdays the U.S. has the capability of watching the desert and the capability of intercepting any movement into Iraq. Whether we are actually spending the money and effort to do this is a different question but we can in theory.

The two places we can not easily control are the populated lands surrounding the two major rivers that flow into Iraq: the Euphrates and the Tigris. This landscape is much harder to monitor than the desert thanks to the vegitation, the population, and the topography. Still, these are narrow corridors and we ought to be able to control or interdict movement through them, if we deploy enough forces.

The hardest border of all to control is the Iran-Iraq border. This border is rough, with a real population, significant vegitation and large mountains. If Iran wanted to destabilize Iraq by sending men and supplies across this long border, they could and it would be very hard to stop (think North Vietnam sending supplies and military forces to South Vietnam, yes, that hard to stop). The fact that Iraq is going to be dominated for decades to come by the majority Shia population may help us because Iran is also dominated by Shia clerics. The Iranian goverment may be reluctant to destabilize the new Iraqi government because it might be that the Iraqi government, if left alone, might turn into a friend to Iran.

Clearly we would like Iraq to destabilize Iran - peacefully - instead of Iraq turning into an ally of the evil Iranian government. But the Iranians seem to be following at "wait and see" attitude towards the Iraqi government.

Posted by rakhier at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2005

Shermer's Principles of Provisional Morality

Michael Shermer's Three Principles of Provisional Morality and Evolutionary Ethic (found in the Edge - World Question Center)

Here is a great law from Steve Quartz

Quartz's Law of The Primacy of Feeling

In everyday life, one's anticipated emotions regarding a decision is a better guide than rational deliberation. Brain science is increasingly appreciating the centrality of emotions as guides to life, and emotions are typically more in line with one's wishes than rational deliberation, which can be easily disconnected from one's desires and goals. The upshot: deliberation is cheap, emotions are honest.

McWhorter's Law of Social History

In a context of widespread literacy, easy communications, and a large class of people with ample leisure time, the social movement that begins by addressing a concrete grievance will, after the grievance has been largely addressed, pass into the hands of persons inclined for individual reasons towards the dramatic and self-righteous, who will manipulate the movement's iconography and passion into a staged indignation difficult for outsiders to square with reality, and with little actively progressive or beneficent intention.

My rule:

95% of all literature consists of real people and real events with the names changed. Most fiction is the life experiences of the author, retold.

Posted by rakhier at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

Why Did Apple Announce the Switch to Intel CPUs?

The news that Apple was going to leave its current CPU line (an IBM/Motorola RISC chip) and switch to some unnamed Intel CPU came out of the blue and makes just about no sense. Here is a speculative article by Robert X. Cringely which suggests a plausible reason:

Intel has determined that Microsoft is now its enemy and so Intel is going to buy Apple as a way of fighting back.

Clearly Microsoft is no longer doing much of anything in its software development which forces people to buy state-of-the-art Intel CPUs. So people aren't buying the expensive (profitable) Intel CPUs. This is a problem for Intel.

BTW: The history of the 1990s was a history writen by two key facts: during the 1990s, Microsoft repeatedly built and released new versions of its operating system (Windows 3.1, Win95, Win98, Win2000) while Apple repeatedly tried and failed to release a new version of its operating system.

Now things have changed. The decade of the 2000s has been the reverse of the 1990s. While Apple has successfully released operating systems (based on the NeXT OS which Apple bought from Steve Jobs), Microsoft has been stuck in a holding pattern. Its been 5 years since Microsoft released XP and the new operating system has been repeatedly delayed.

New operating systems matter. New operating systems (should) create a new baseline of basic services to the computer users that makes their lives easier and allows for better applications. Microsoft won the 1990s because they did this while Apple tried and failed. Things are different. It may be time to sell Microsoft stock.

Posted by rakhier at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)

Why the US Will not put troops on the ground in Darfur..

This essay by Jay Tea of Wizbang Blog is a clear-eyed statement of why the U.S. is not going to send soldiers to stop the evil brutality in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

Key points:

We have no allies in the region who would help us. This makes the cost of deployment much higher and much harder.
We would get no military help of significance from other countries and all efforts to internationalize the situation will fail because they will be blocked in the U.N.
We have no free division to deploy at the moment. Our forces are busy right now in Iraq and the Balkens and Korea.
Our mission will have to involve killing a significant number of non-uniformed Sudanese men. The same types of problems we face in Iraq will also exist in the Darfur.
We have no national interest in the Sudan, the only reason will be humanitarian (i.e. purely idealistic).

This is not going to happen. As a Guest at Winds of Change writes "Yes, those are horrible things to say. Yes they are concessions to evil. But there's too much evil in the world, and not enough heroes. So evil is going to win some."

Posted by rakhier at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2005

Austin Bay talks about the Syrian Smugglers

This entry in the Austin Bay blog is well worth the read. It goes through and explains a Washington Post article about a Syrian smuggler family on the border with Iraq. Bottom line: the Syrian smugglers are happy to support the Iraqi terrorists by transporting men and material into Iraq. The majority of the men they take into Iraq are not Syrians but Arabs, many of them are Saudi (what a surprise!).

We need to control this border. There is no question about this. The fact that we can't (or won't) control our own border with Mexico doesn't detract from the necessity of this mission. I think it can be done. The border is mostly desert. Clearly the best case would be to get Syria to control its side of the border. A better government in Syria would be a big help. But we can't rely on that happening any time soon.

Posted by rakhier at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

The Future Merger of Terrorists and Criminal Organizations

Joe Katzman has a facinating essay in which he talks about the possible future merger of terrorist groups (like Al Qaeda and the IRA) with criminal organizations. As he says

The ground is shifting under the feet of the nation state as a political entity. Real structural changes are in the offing, of a kind that can create a very different world. Are we up to the challenge? I don't know. What I do know, is that there is no scriptwriter behind the scenes to ensure a happy ending.

WE are the scriptwriters. Happy endings are NOT guaranteed. And the drama is just beginning."

Every system contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. The only way to stay in the game is to keep changing. Stasis is a certain road to failure.

Posted by rakhier at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)

The Nature of the Iraqi Terrorists Today

This is a good essay by a leftist academic M. Schwartz on the nature of the Iraqi terrorists published in the Asia Times.

In his essay Mr. Schwartz says that the new use of car bombs which kills Iraqi civilians is going to dramatically increase the degree of hostility by the civilian Iraqi population towards the terrorists. Here is the material which was new to me

This strategy was more successful than preventing the recruitment of police and national guards, since it created a "Trojan Horse" supplied and trained by the US that was frequently an ally and almost never the enemy. In Mosul, for example, US reliance on the local police allowed the resistance to take over the city (during the battle of Fallujah, when the US forces were otherwise occupied) with almost no fighting. A force of 3,000 policemen simply melted into the population (except those that joined the rebels) and left their weapons and supplies behind.

This new car-bomb strategy will therefore hurt the resistance whether it succeeds or fails. Any reduction in the size of the army will be more than offset by the antagonism to the resistance among the surviving forces, definitively undermining the "Trojan Horse" strategy.

So why have at least some elements of the rebellion abandoned the co-optation strategy? The most important answer lies in changes in US policy for deploying Iraqi military forces. Until last fall, the US recruited local residents for the local police force and assigned army units with matching ethno-religious backgrounds to local patrols. That is, they recruited Fallujans to police and patrol in Fallujah, Ramadans in Ramadi and Sadr City residents in Sadr City. When this was not possible, Sunnis were assigned to Sunni areas; Shi'ites were assigned to Shi'ite areas.

This policy, of course, was a key element in enabling the "Trojan Horse" strategy, since the soldiers' ties in the local communities gave families and tribal leaders personal, moral and clerical leverage over the local armed forces. Last fall, faced with the stark evidence of the power of these ties, the US military reacted by assigning outsiders to police the most troubled areas. That is, they began to use Sunni and Kurdish forces in Shi'ite areas; Shi'ite and Kurdish forces in Sunni areas. So, for example, while the Sunni military forces refused to fight in both battles of Fallujah, in the second battle a Kurdish force joined the Americans and fought alongside them.

This strategy could work - the US might be able to recruit police forces and national guard units that would not be co-optable by the resistance, simply exploiting the ethno-religious divisions in the country. They are trying this in Ramadi and other centers of Sunni resistance. In Fallujah, the Shi'ite occupying troops have been accused of frequent and systematic brutality. This brutality is a sign that the Shi'ite armed forces may not be co-optable by the Sunni resistance, and it has been a major source of the growing antagonism between the Shi'ite and Sunni communities. (The use of this ethnic "fix" to their enforcement problems, as well as failure of the Americans to respond to the charges of brutality in Fallujah and elsewhere provides further evidence of American complicity in - and perhaps authorship of - the growing ethno-religious conflict in Iraq.)

Certainly, the current car-bomb campaign suggests that at least some elements in the Sunni resistance think that the American strategy will work. One key sign of this can be seen in the abortive negotiations around the battle of Fallujah. It was not well publicized, but the US did negotiate with representatives of the Fallujah leadership before attacking, and one of the sticking points in the negotiations was the demand by the rebels that the police force in Fallujah be recruited from Fallujah. The US would not agree to this demand. Another, more immediate, indication lies in the fact that virtually all of the car bombs are directed against primarily Shi'ite armed forces. In fact, the bombings tend to be in Shi'ite areas of town (where Shi'ite recruits or police congregate) so that the civilian victims are also Shi'ite. While such targeting is "logical" in some abstract sense, the attacks are inevitably seen as anti-Shi'ite.

Hence it is no surprise that communities in which these attacks take place see them as atrocities - not only because they kill civilians, but also because the recruits are usually local men who are applying for one of the only available jobs in town. The comment that the restaurant bombers "show us how brave they are by killing these poor men who run all day to feed their families" probably represents the predominant attitude among Shi'ites toward both the car bombers and the police they target. The fact that these police jobs are all that the American-led pseudo-reconstruction can offer in the way of employment is a sign of the failure of the occupation. But even if this sharpens the anger of the residents against the US, it does not soften the anger at the car bombers, who are not only killing people, but removing one of the few job possibilities available in communities where unemployment is as high as 60%.

So the car-bomb campaign is designed to substitute for co-opting the police, but it has far-reaching consequences. Beyond the murder and alienation of civilians and its likelihood to strengthen police antagonism to the resistance, it adds to the growing divisions between Shi'ites and Sunnis, feeding the very ethno-religious friction that has become Washington's principal excuse for its continuing presence. The fact that the US is in some sense the driving force behind this growing division is an important part of the story, but it is only one important part. The other is the strategy of the Sunni resistance. Instead of searching for another way of defeating Iraqification, it has adopted this strategy, which has already contributed to the growing friction between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq.

This certainly makes sense and fits with what I've read over the last two years. If the Sunni terrorists provoke massive violence against them by hostile Shias that would really put us in a no-win situation.

Hat tip to this article in Winds of Change.

Posted by rakhier at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)

Clarence Thomas was right...

I admit that I have not thought well of Clarence Thomas's work on the Supreme Court but today I agree with his dissent on the case of Gonzales v. Raich. Here is the editorial from the Wall Street Journal

As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his dissent: "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything, and the federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers." By "enumerated powers," Justice Thomas means the idea that the federal government can undertake only such activities as the Constitution explicitly permits.

Hence the 10th Amendment, which reserves those powers not listed--such as criminal law enforcement--to the states. President James Madison, the Constitution's primary author, famously vetoed a highway bill in 1817: "The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers . . ."

How things have changed--largely as a result of New Deal-era jurisprudence holding that the federal government's Constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce could be used to justify all sorts of previously unimagined powers. This can be a good thing, when what we are truly talking about is interstate commerce.

But by the 1990s federal law making had grown so unhinged from any plausible Commerce Clause justification that it provoked a minor Supreme Court backlash. In 1995 in United States v. Lopez, the Court struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act on the grounds that gun possession near a school was not an economic activity. And in United States v. Morrison, the Court struck down portions of the Violence Against Women Act on similar grounds.

Raich would appear to end the Lopez line of reasoning, since the two decisions don't seem reconcilable. If, as Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his majority concurrence, non-economic activities can be regulated so long as they are part of a "comprehensive scheme of regulation," there would appear to be no federal power the Commerce Clause couldn't theoretically justify.

And let no one be deluded that the democratic preference of America's largest state isn't being trampled here. We didn't support the California medical marijuana ballot initiative at issue in Raich. But a clear majority of Californians did. Just because an issue is "important" doesn't mean it should be a matter for federal law. Almost all homicide is regulated at the state level, and contentious issues like abortion rights are best handled not by judicial fiat but by democratic compromises in the 50 states. Who knows what further intrusions into the rights of local polities the Raich decision may one day be used to justify?

The answer, as I see it, is NOTHING. I fail to see any meaningful limit on the power of the Federal Government based on this ruling.

Posted by rakhier at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2005

How English Classes Should be Named

This is a good comment on how English classes should actually be named. Its from the teaching blog of Mr. McNamar.

Department of Literary Analysis & Written Communication.

9th Grade: Introduction to the Craft of Writing
1 - Basic Written Grammar (we've shelved this for far too long)
2 - Structure of Writing
3 - Introduction to Literary Analysis: Summarize, Infer, Evaluate
4 - Introduction to Literary Writing

10th Grade: Understanding the Intellect of Language
1 - Intermediate Written Grammar
2 - Writing for Enjoyment: Develop the Creative Technique
3 - Intermediate Literary Analysis: Evaluate and Critique
4 - Intermediate Literary Writing

11th Grade: Developing Logic in Written Communication
1 - Developing the Style Within
2 - Advanced Literary Analysis: Connect and Respond
3 - Introduction to Logic
4 - Introduction to Argumentation

12th Grade: Writing For a Purpose
1 - Advanced Literary Analysis II: Transferring Literature to Life
2 - Writing To Persuade: The Skill of Persuasive Writing
3 - Writing to Inform: The Craft of Journalistic Writing
4 - Writing to be Known: The Art of Personal Writing

Posted by rakhier at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

Teaching Blogs...

Ms. Jacobs writes about teaching at her blog and she has a good list of education blogs.

Posted by rakhier at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

Zimbabwe - the next Cambodia under Pol Pot?

So, while the U.S. is the world violator of human rights (according to the now bogus organization Amnesty International), Mr. Mugabe is busy turning his country into this year's version of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

You can't do better than reading this entry by Wretchard and the comments from his readers.

This comment is accurate but heartless:

It's no longer appropriate to blame colonialism or exploitation for sub-Saharan Africa's woes -- other ex-colonies like Singapore have emerged and even thrived. Japan was almost totally destroyed after World War II, but (with significant American aid, to be sure) became a world economic power in just a few decades.

But Africa suffers from the same ills, year after year. The NGOs pour in money, and all that comes back is misery, broken dreams, and failed hopes. It is the NGOs, in my view, that have enabled the African states to continue playing the victim -- with aid and foodstuff pouring in, they are under no real pressure to reform.

We are seeing the wages of tribalism, cronyism, and backwardness. And you cannot blame America or the UN or even the NGOs (who have done much harm in the name of doing good). You can only look to the Africans themselves. We in the West have a lot of evils to atone for in Africa, but we are not responsible for much of the chaos that reigns there now, and it is useless self-flagellation to suggest that we are.

We could take over large chunks of Africa. We could impose good government on them. Should we? We are doing this sort of thing in the middle east right now. Its a lot of work, more than one thousand six hundred Americans have died in Iraq and we aren't done. We have spent more than 100 billion dollars in Iraq and we aren't done. There are limits to our power. We didn't screw up Africa. We didn't put Mugabe in power. We didn't run Zimbabwe for the last 25 years. How is this our responsibility?

Posted by rakhier at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

The Problem with the EU Constitution: There is no European Community

This essay by a group clearly opposed to the (now dead) EU Constitution has a very cogent analysis of why the new Constitution could not be created democratically.

It is possible to turn the EU into a State, but it is not possible for that State to have a democratic basis. The reason is that democracy means rule by the demos, the people, through the representatives they elect and on whom they confer legitimacy and authority.

A European people does not exist except in the statistical sense, and one cannot be artificially created from above in the way the EU is attempting. The 450 million inhabitants of the EU are divided into many peoples, real national communities speaking their own languages, who desire to make their own laws, decide their own government and self-determine themselves as they have done for generations through representatives they elect and who are responsible to them.

The EU cannot be democratised by giving the European Parliament power to make laws instead of the 25-person Council of Ministers, as some suggest. The democracy that is needed to underpin a stable State is not just majorityrule, but majority rule on the basis of a community, a demos, normally a national community, where there is sufficient mutual identification and solidarity among its members as to induce minorities willingly to obey the majority, so giving majority rule its legitimacy and authority.

The existence of such a real, self-aware community is crucial for underpinningthe legitimacy and stability of a State with its own tax and public service system, from which some citizens are net gainers and others are net losers - if that State is to be stable and endure. It is the absence of such a community at European level, and the impossibility of artificially creating it, that is the root cause of the EU's crisis of authority and acceptability.

The EU's "democratic deficit" problem is inherently insoluble without repatriating major powers back from the supranational to the national level. The Constitution does the opposite of this. If it is ratified it can only worsen the crisis of democracy at both EU and Member State level. Just as people often only appreciate the value of health when they become ill, they appreciate the value of their democracy only when they have lost it, and they must begin the struggle to win it back again.

This is as good a definition of democracy as I've ever seen. Here is how I would rephrase it:

"A democracy which underpins a stable State is not just majority rule, but majority rule on the basis of a community where there is sufficient mutual identification and solidarity among its members as to induce minorities willingly to obey the majority, so giving majority rule its legitimacy and authority."

The key problem in a democracy is "what happens when I know I'm right but my side is in the minority?" Potentially you get civil war when this happens. Personally, when I look back on American of the late 1850s, I'm nearly convinced that John Brown was right.

Slavery in the U.S.

After the Supreme Court ruled (in the Dred Scott case)that slaves were property and no state could free a slave brought onto their land just becuase they didn't like slavery, the distinction between free states and slave states was logically at an end.

The free states were faced with the fact that people could now bring slaves with them anywhere in the U.S. and nothing could be done to stop it. Slavery was thus made legal throughout the entire U.S. At this point, a moral person who is opposed to slavery had some clear choices. Such a person could either (a) live with the supreme court decision, repressing their personal moral convictions for the sake of the country or (b) take up arms to put an end to this gross injustice.

John Brown actually believed in the essential notion that African-Americans were human beings, equal in all important ways with European-Americans. Given this belief, slavery was a monsterous and on-going multitude of crimes. Men, women, and children were being murdered, tortured, starved, raped, and forced to work for no pay every day throughout the southern states. How could a moral person sit by and do nothing in the face of such wide-spread, state-sanctioned evil?

The Dred Scott case caused the Civil War and in my opinion, the Civil War was justified. Slavery had to be ended everywhere in the U.S. or it could be ended nowhere.

Posted by rakhier at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2005

When Courts Go Bad...

The Kansas State Supreme Court has just ruled that the amount of money allocated by the State Legislature is insufficient. After all, the State constitution says the legislature shall "make suitable provision for finance" of schools. The State Supreme Court has figured out that the money budgeted by the Kansas legislature is short of this constitutional mandate by exactly 285 milion dollars.

The mind boggels at this userpation of power by the Judiciary. How the hell can they think it is within their power to tell the legislature how much money should be spent on anything? Does the Kansas Supreme Court think the seperation of powers is now a dead letter? That they, the Judges get to deciced how much money shall be spent on matters that interest them?

Here is an article on the decision from the Lawrence Journal. And another article from the Wichita Eagle.

Hat tip to Power Line.

Posted by rakhier at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)

Harvard's new 50 million waste of time - to promote diversity

Ms. Mac Donald, writing in the City Journal, savages the idiotic new Harvard diversity initiative. Yes, Larry Summers has grandly committed 50 million dollars to "improve" Harvards policy of hiring women faculty. Ms. Mac Donald tears the diversity report to pieces, showing that whoever wrote the paper can't think clearly and won't address the heart of the issue: there is no pool of super-talented women PhDs in math, science and engineering. Just because Harvard wishes it were so, doesn't make it happen.

Here are four strategies the writers of the report used to conceal the total pointlessness of their work:

STRATEGY #2: CREATE NEW BUREAUCRACY. The only new hires that diversity initiatives generate are in college administrations, already overloaded with sinecures. The Harvard task force demands the creation of a most remarkable new position, a Senior Vice Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development....

STRATEGY #3: SUBDIVIDE ONE BIG ZERO INTO MANY LITTLE ZEROS. So what if a diversity bureaucrat’s job is a cipher? You can make that cipher look impressive by breaking it up into equally vacuous component parts. The task force creates 24 “specific responsibilities” for the Senior VP for D, proving that there are at least 24 ways to say “count the beans.”...

STRATEGY #4: RENAME EVERYTHING THAT YOUR UNIVERSITY HAS BEEN DOING REGARDING “DIVERSITY.” Diversocrats possess a primitive belief in the totemic power of words. If you can rename something, you have changed its essence. Harvard has already been obsessively compiling data on gender and race: the task force easily obtained faculty data from 1990 to 2005 by rank and gender—and within gender, by race.

Ms. Mac Donald's conclusion is priceless: "The aristocratic ease with which Harvard has just dumped $50 million down a bureaucratic sinkhole tells you all you need to know about why attending Harvard for eight months costs more than most families earn in a year. Eventually, students and parents may start asking why anyone would want to."

Read the whole thing. (Hat tip to Power Line)

Posted by rakhier at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)

Yes there is a cost to "acting white" in schools

A serious paper has appeared in which the authors argue, based on a large and detailed sample size (90,000 students in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health), that students in American schools react differently to other students based on their GPA.

In a nutshell: if you are white (European-American), the higher your GPA, the more friends you have. A simple, linear relationship.

If you are black (African-American) you get more friends the higher your GPA up to a point and that point is a B+ GPA. Beyond that point, the higher your GPA, the less friends you get.

If you are Hispanic (self-identified ethnic category), once you get more than a C+ GPA, you get less friends the higher your GPA gets. Sadly, for an Hispanic 4.0 student, they have the least friends of any other grouping within the Hispanic set of students.

This social cost to high GPA students goes away in schools which are not racially mixed, nor is it seen in private schools. Given this, are racially mixed schools beneficial to either African-American students or Hispanics?

The paper can be seen as weak on some fronts (why is same-race friends the key metric? - should you really judge quality of friends the way they do in this paper?) but it seems important to me.

This is the link to the paper (PDF)

Posted by rakhier at 09:12 PM | Comments (0)

June 02, 2005

The End of the E.U. 2004 Constitution...

I'm pleased and relieved that the E.U. proposed constitution is dead. I'm so glad to see the people in France and Netherlands have rejected this stupid monsterous document. Here is a great little editorial by David Brooks. And here is the even better editorial by A. Kaletsky in the London Times. Kaletsky says:

The idea that closer political integration could somehow turn these self-indulgent dreams into a new European “economic model” has been the dirty little secret of the EU project. Of course the citizens of Europe would like ever-rising incomes and ever more job security, in exchange for doing less and less work and retiring earlier and earlier — and they might be tempted to vote for a constitution which guaranteed these fantasies as fundamental human rights. On closer inspection, however, the citizens have begun to realise that their politicians have been selling Europe on a false prospectus.

The single market and the merging of foreign trade policies did genuinely create prosperity, but every subsequent project of European integration not only failed to deliver the results politicians promised but also made conditions worse. The single currency has been the most egregious. In exchange for giving up the basic tenet of sovereignty — the right to mint a currency and thereby manage the national economy — the EU promised economic prosperity and full employment. Instead the single currency has condemned the eurozone to stagnation and mass unemployment.

For years politicians have made Europe a pretext for imposing unpopular policies — cuts in pensions or higher taxes — which they were too cowardly to justify in their own right. But they always promised that giving up sovereignty to Europe would somehow stave off economic reality and make their citizens better off.

The bottom line is: the European Welfare state of the last 50 years is falling apart. It simply can not be sustained. As Brooks says

Over the last few decades, American liberals have lauded the German model or the Swedish model or the European model. But these models are not flexible enough for the modern world. They encourage people to cling fiercely to entitlements their nation cannot afford. And far from breeding a confident, progressive outlook, they breed a reactionary fear of the future that comes in left- and right-wing varieties - a defensiveness, a tendency to lash out ferociously at anybody who proposes fundamental reform or at any group, like immigrants, that alters the fabric of life.

This is the chief problem with the welfare state, which has nothing to do with the success or efficiency of any individual program. The liberal project of the postwar era has bred a stultifying conservatism, a fear of dynamic flexibility, a greater concern for guarding what exists than for creating what doesn't.

Posted by rakhier at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)

Lee Harris Tries to Defend Tradition

Lee Harris has a very long essay in which he tries to defend tradition. It is a complex essay and has many features. I enjoyed reading it but it took me a solid hour and I still don't fully understand what he is saying in parts.

Here is a section from near the end, to give you a flavor of what he is saying. I really wish I could summarize his arguements, but I can't.

In the current debate on gay marriage, its advocates are cast in the role of long-oppressed suppliants demanding their just due. Indeed, the whole question is put in terms of their legal and moral rights, against which the opponents of gay marriage have nothing to offer but “residual personal prejudice,” to recall again the memorable words of the chief justice of the Canadian Supreme Court.

But it is a mistake to conflate the automatic with the irrational, since, as we have seen, an automatic and mindless response is precisely the mechanism by which the visceral code speaks to us. It triggers a rush of emotions because it is designed to do precisely this. Like certain automatic reflexes, such as jerking your hand off a burning stovetop, the sheer immediacy of our visceral response, far from being proof of its irrationality, demonstrates the critical importance, in times of peril and crisis, of not thinking before we act. If a man had to think before jumping out of the way of an onrushing car, or to meditate on his options before removing his hand from that hot stovetop, then reason, rather than being our help, would become our enemy. Some decisions are better left to reflexes — be these of our neurological system or of our visceral system.

This is why for most people, including many gay men and women, the immediate response to the idea of gay marriage came at the gut level — it somehow felt funny and wrong, and it felt this way long before they were able to spare a moment’s reflection on the question of whether they were for it or against it. There is a reason for that: They were overwhelmed at having been asked the question at all. How do you explain what you have against what had never crossed your mind as something anyone on Earth would ever think of doing? This invitation to reason calmly about the hitherto unthinkable is the source of the uneasy visceral response. To ask someone to reason calmly about something that he regards as simply beyond the pale is to ask him to concede precisely what he must not concede — the mere admissibility of the question.

Imagine a stranger coming up to you and asking if he can drive your eight-year-old daughter around town in his new car. Presumably, no matter how nicely the stranger asked this question, you would say no. But suppose he started to ask why you won’t let him take your little girl for a ride. What if he said, “Listen, tell you what. I’ll give her my cell phone and you can call her anytime you want”? What kind of obligation are you under to give a reason to a complete stranger for why he shouldn’t be allowed to drive off with your daughter?

None. A question that is out of order does not require or deserve an answer. The moment you begin to answer the question as if it were in order, it is too late to point out your original objection to the question in the first place, which really was: Over my dead body.

Marriage was something that, until only quite recently, seemed to be securely in the hands of married people. It was what married people had engaged in, and certainly not a special privilege that had been extended to them to the exclusion of other human beings. Who, after all, could not get married? You didn’t have to be straight; you could be gay. So what? Marriage was the most liberal institution known to man. It opened its arms to the ugly and the homely as well as to the beautiful and the stunning. Was it defined as between a man and a woman? Well, yes, but only in the sense that a cheese omelet is defined as an egg and some cheese — without the least intention of insulting either orange juice or toast by their omission from this definition. Orange juice and toast are fine things in themselves — you just can’t make an omelet out of them.

Those who are married now, and those thinking about getting married or teaching their children that they should grow up and get married, may all be perfect idiots, mindlessly parroting a message wired into them before they were old enough to know better. But they are passing on, through the uniquely reliable visceral code, the great postulate of transgenerational duty: not to beseech people to make the world a better place, but to make children whose children will leave it a better world and not merely a world with better abstract ideals.

Posted by rakhier at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

June 01, 2005

Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution

Marginal Revolution is a great economics blog which I've been a fan of for some years. Well worth a visit every month (or more) to see what is news in economics.

Posted by rakhier at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

Austin Bay cogently blasts Amnesty International

Austin Bay on his blog (which is well worth reading these days) attacks Amnesty International's idiotic labeling of Guantanamo Bay as a modern day Gulag. Columnist Byrne of the Chicago Tribune is the guy who wrote the first essay which puts paid to the idea that our prison at Gitmo is comparable to the Soviet Gulags.

Frankly speaking I support the imprisonment of members of Al Qaeda at Gimo for as long as we want. Remember that is it standard practice for states to kill enemy spies during wartime. No trial. No public hearings. Britian did exactly this when World War II started. The British intelligence service went to every known or suspected German agent and gave them a choice: work for us a "double agent" or we will kill you. Some loyal Nazi spies refused and were immediately executed. The rest were "turned" and did exactly what the British intelligence agency told them to do for the duration of the war. I assert that the British were morally and legally in the right when they did this.

Al Qaeda declared war on the United States. They have no nation, no army, no treaties with us. They acknowledge no rules of justice or convention. When they capture Americans they execute them and post the videos on their sympathetic web sites (remember Daniel Pearl?). We owe them nothing. We can do anything we want to members of Al Qaeda. So far we have treated the majority of the captured members of Al Qaeda better than they deserve. Some of the people we released from Gitmo have gone back to fighting us again. Why should we release them?

The bottom line is: the rules of war apply to people who (1) fight for a country which signs the rules of war and abide by its provisions (2) who wear uniforms which clearly distinguish them from civilians. Neither condition applies to Al Qaeda members. The rules of war simply do not apply to these people. The best analog is that of spies. No law, no treaty protects spies. No rule says we have to release spies after some time elapses. No rule says you can not kill spies during war time. Historically we have executed spies in the past, as has every other country in war.

The day that Al Qaeda surrenders, declares peace with the United States, and lays down its weapons, is the day that we will have to think about how much longer we will hold Al Qaeda members at Gitmo. That day hasn't come.

Posted by rakhier at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)