Mission "Accomplished"

Today marks the withdrawal of the last "combat" troops fielded by the US in Iraq. The 50,000 "advisor" and "support" troops still there are still armed and dangerous if they were to be asked by the Iraqi government to "assist" in a combat operation.

Nevertheless congratulations are in order to the people of Iraq as they move closer to true autonomy and democratic self-government, and to the soldiers, diplomats, and elected officials who helped them get there. Iraq has been through an awful time, but it is better off now for it.

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Never-Ending War Tax

Representative David Obey has proposed a “war tax” in the Share Our Sacrifice Act.  This is, I presume, a progressive's idea of fiscal responsibility.  Most families would pay an additional 1% of their net income as a surtax to their 1040 form income taxes, with exemptions for families with an immediate member of the household who actually served in Iraq or Afghanistan since the 2001 attacks, or who lost an immediate relative in either the attacks or in military operations in one of those two theaters.  Progressively higher surtaxes would kick in for families with below-the-line income of over $150,000.

I am in favor of supporting America’s war efforts, and I am in support of deficit reduction. But Obey’s proposal is not a good idea, either from the standpoint of the war effort, or from the standpoint of deficit reduction.  But I will nevertheless indulge in a pluck at low-hanging fruit here, and point out why this is a bad idea.

This “war” is unlike any “war” we’ve ever been involved in. We are “at war” with… what or whom? Al-Qaeda? Islamo-facism? Terrorism? Terrorism is a tactic; al-Qaeda is a network of terrorists with vaguely similar sorts of political agendas; Islamo-fascism is an (ill-defined) ideology which we are prepared to tolerate in an ally (read: Egypt, the House of Saud) while still using as a rallying cry against our enemies (read: Iran, al-Qaeda). These are not things that we can be “at war” against, at least not in the traditional meaning of a war in that there is no organized political, national, or military opponent against which we can deploy our military.

I’ve previously floated the idea that maybe we were at war with the nascent Caliphate of Osama bin Laden, which would be one of the first times I can think of in history that one nation went to war not to a) displace the government of a hostile nation-state, b) suppress a rebellion against its own government, or c) conquer geographic territory but rather to prevent a nation-state from being created. Perhaps Muslim resistance to the Frankish Crusades would count as another such effort to prevent the creation of a new nation-state (they failed and had to wait 200 years and several internal political realignments to reconquer that territory), and maybe the Boer War would count for that, too.

Maybe U.S. military efforts to capture Pancho Villa, who had political aspirations above his banditry, are the most similar to what we’re doing now. Those actions were on both sides of the Rio Grande and we didn’t exactly have permission of the Mexican government to conduct military activities within their borders, although the Mexicans were hardly in a position to object. But that was all over relatively quickly.

We were at war with Iraq and Afghanistan -- we displaced the governments of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and replaced them with governments friendlier to us. We occupied those nations militarily after succeeding in those efforts, and an insurgency against our puppet governments bred underneath us. So now, we’re supporting those governments from insurgents who would topple them. So what we are doing now is not war, it’s something else, something which lacks a concise moniker. Let’s call it “nation-building.” Our record at doing this sort of thing isn’t all that great, but that doesn’t mean this is necessarily a bad thing to do or that we can’t succeed. The nations we are building in Afghanistan and Iraq are significantly friendlier to us than those which preceded them and we will be better-off strategically if they succeed enough to the point that they can defend themselves (but not if they grow so powerful they become regional powers in their own right).

So the “war” that Obey wants us all to pay a supplemental tax on is a chimera, not a “war” in the true sense of the word, the sense meant by the Constitution when it gives Congress the power to declare war and the President the power to make war. This “war” will never really be over until and unless we decide it is. We get to decide when Iraq and Afghanistan are strong enough to stand or fall without our involvement. And they probably never will be as long as anyone still lives who reads this post on the date of its publication -- at least, I predict that no one alive today will ever again see a day when there are not active-duty U.S. military forces deployed to Iraq in significant numbers. I’m not so confident about making such a prediction in Afghanistan, a nation with little strategic significance and few natural resources.

Congressman Obey is one of the most liberal members of Congress* and so he is hoping, I suspect, to make the public groan under the pressure of this tax and demand that the “war” come to an end so the tax will end also. He is deceiving himself, and in the process, unwittingly proposing a deception on the American people -- because even if this were an honest “war” tax, the “war” will never really end and therefore it will become a permanent tax. 

If Congressman Obey thinks the American people are undertaxed, let him say so.  If he thinks that we must raise taxes to solve our governmental deficit, let him say so.  A credible, non-frivolous argument can be made to support such a claim.  Myself, I'd prefer to see some cuts in government spending, but David Obey never saw a non-military spending cut he didn't detest with the same sort of virulent hatred which normal people would reserve for pederasts.  And if I'm going to be made to pay more taxes, I want to see the government being more responsible with that money than it has proven to be.  Giving a government run by the likes of Obey more money strikes me as about as wise as giving a packet of matches to a developmentally-handicapped child who is already playing with gasoline.


*  Wisconsin is a weird place -- you can represent an almost completely rural district, like Obey does, and still be so ultra-liberal guys like Michael Moore tell you, "Whoa, dude, dial it back a little bit."

Vikings Fans Are Everywhere These Days

A National Guard unit from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin deployed to Iraq has encountered an unusual problem -- the Iraqi detainees under its custody have made known their affection for Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre.  If the fact that Iraqi terrorist suspects like Favre wearing purple is not proof postive that the Vikings' success is the product of a deal with Satan, I don't know what else I've got to do to prove that to you.

Change In Which I Can Believe

I've been suggesting for quite some time that Obama's campaign promises were overpromises, that once reality reared its ugly head and he had to look at the problems facing the country, at home and abroad, right in the face, a lot of what he wanted to do would go right out the window. I was astonished at Obama's apparent cluelessness to that effect during the Presidential debates, and continued to be so even after the financial markets collapsed.

Really, the ability of a President to change policies is a lot more limited than we like to believe, particularly during campaign season. The President has a big effect on judicial nominees, a significant effect on some dimensions of foreign policy, and a moderate effect on economic policy. "Change" is a bigger promise than a lot of voters realize.

So I'm becoming a little bit too smug about this for my own good. But the evidence for "things-are-not-really-going-to-change-all-that-much" mounts:

• Robert Gates will stay on as Secretary of Defense


• Obama wants to do a “large” economic stimulus


• He’s in favor of bailing out failed banks


• The President-Elect now suggests that we should not roll back the 2001 Bush tax cuts to their pre-2001 levels after all


• He thinks a “surge” will work in Afghanistan


• And he’s backing away from withdrawing all combat troops for Iraq in 16 months, saying some will stay on after that to fight ‘terrorists’ for an indefinite amount of time.

I'm not saying that these are necessarily bad policies. An Afghanistan surge, in particular, seems like a good idea. Gates has done a good job at Defense and is not seen as a particularly partisan figure, so I commend the President-Elect for deciding to keep him on. The raw Keynsian economics, well... Let's just say that I have my doubts at leave it at that for now.

No, what I'm saying is that Obama ran on a platform of change. The people who voted for him voted for change. But these are hardly big changes from the policies being pursued by the lame-duck Administration right now. A promise of change is turning into a policy of continuity.

The only thing changing seems to be Obama's plans.

November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who truggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

46,286 casualties were incurred from July 1 to July 3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. 7,863 soldiers were confirmed killed, and 27,224 were wounded. Of the wounded, more than one in three would later die of their wounds and the appalling medical treatment available for them. 11,199 were captured by the opposing sides or went missing altogether; of the captured, the survival rate was about 50%.

Just by way of comparison so as to understand exactly how terrible the Battle of Gettysburg was, in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, the U.S. has sustained 4,203 deaths to date (the total rises to 4,515 if allied forces are included) and 30,832 wounded, with one missing soldier. Survival rates for wounded soldiers are substantially higher today than theywere in 1863; 56% of wounded soldiers are well enough to return to duty within 72 hours of their injury.

This cost of war, measured in blood, is very high. It also has been paid out over five years, and the totals are yet smaller than three days' fighting in Gettysburg. Gettyburg's totals are so high, of course, because it was Americans killing other Americans.

Gratefully, we shed less blood in our struggles to conform our society to our ideals than we did in Lincoln's day. But the task set in motion by the Founding Fathers, and so nobly described by Lincoln seven score and five years ago today, is yet incomplete.

The Difference, Explained

A friend from Tennessee asked in an online forum:

If someone could articulate the distinction between the two parties, I would love to know. It would be lovely to have a major party that I could believe in. Also, it would do wonders to reduce my anxieties about the two!

My response:

Democrats: Expand the role of government in paying for health care. (Impliedly) Less military spending. FCC concentrates its efforts on increasing racial diversity in public television programming. Moderate danger of party being taken over by crypto-socialists intent on nationalizing most major industries. Mostly favor abortion rights and oppose international free trade agreements (exceptions exist for both issues). Justices appointed to Supreme Court like Steven Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "Vero Possumus."

Republicans: Do not expand the role of government in paying for health care. More, or at least current levels of, military spending. FCC concentrates its efforts on protecting us from unathorized exposure of nipples. Moderate danger of party being taken over by crytpo-theocrats intent on using the government to regulate consensual sex acts. Mostly would restrict abortion rights and favor international free trade agreements (exceptions exist for both issues). Justices appointed to Supreme Court like like John Roberts and Samuel Alito. "Country first."

Both: Rejigger tax code to make it "more fair for all Americans in these tough times," but somehow your taxes will increase. Lip service paid to balancing budget but deficit nevertheless will increase. Greater Federal funding to local schools and "radical" education reform package will fail to reverse continuing decline in education levels. Periodic overt references to Protestant Christianity and use of "faith-based initiatives" to use public money to subsidize religious institutions. No clue about reforming or protecting Social Security. No substantial definition of "success in Iraq" and withdrawl of most but not all troops from Iraq by 2011 after proclaiming "victory." Some pandering to the "immunization causes autism" crowd. "Under God" stays in Pledge of Allegiance.

Which about sums it up, I think.

Long Or Short On Policy?

Steve Benen takes the Associated Press's reporter Charles Babbington to task for calling Obama's acceptance speech sketchy on the details of the policies Obama would pursue as President:

Babbington: 'Barack Obama, whose campaign theme is "change we can believe in," promised Thursday to "spell out exactly what that change would mean." But instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer.'

Benen: This is utter nonsense. Obama detailed his policy vision in a way few convention speeches of the modern era have. What, exactly, did the AP's Charles Babbington expect Obama to do? Break out a chalk board and some pie charts? Start reading white papers?

If Benen is right and Babbington is wrong, it's a very legitimate criticism of the reporting that gets fed to at least half the newspapers in the country. So let's take a look at the actual policy proposals in the speech itself, paring out all the rhetoric and all the swipes at Republicans and Senator McCain (and also removing the acknowledgments that McCain is a nice guy who means well and has an exemplary record of military service, since the focus is on the specificity of policy proposals):

Taxes: "I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America. I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow. I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95% of all working families."

I don't believe he will actually do this; he may or may not even try. But the question here is did he propose a specific policy to pursue? This seems specific enough for a speech of this nature. I don't expect him to quote from his proposed revision to the IRC or to specifically describe when a business stops being "small" and starts having to pay capital gains taxes again. I do expect him to describe the goals for the tax reforms he promises to pursue. This satisfies my expectations for specificity; it sets forth policy priorities and his vision for what a better tax code would look like.

Energy: "[I]n ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East. ... As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy – wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced."

Again, my suspension of disbelief is challenged (regarding the oil part; I pretty much believe him on the alternative energy proposals) but that's not the point. The question is specificity of policy proposals. Breaking this down, here's what I see -- subsidies to auto companies (what some would sneeringly call "corporate welfare") for creating hybrid and alternative-fuel cars, and subsidies to consumers to artificially lower the price of those vehicles. Government seed money for wind, solar, nuclear, and low-sulfur coal power plants. These are appropriately specific proposals that we can have a good idea of what Obama is talking about.

How we're going to be "independent" of Middle Eastern oil in ten years, however, is never defined, much less specified. So I rule it's a a split decision of specificity of energy policy -- some specifics, but not enough to fulfill the promises of the policy platform.

Education: " I’ll invest in early childhood education. I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I’ll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American – if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education."

Higher pay for teachers -- well, how much? How many teachers are an "army"? What kind of "support" will they get? What form will "higher standards" and "more accountability" take -- more reliance on standardized testing like the No Child Left Behind Act? And the public service for tuition bargain, note, indicates that you will be able to "afford" a college education, but does not promise to actually pay for it. You have to read between the lines here to realize he's talking about loans, not scholarships. My ruling here is "short on specifics."

Health Care: "Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. ... I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most."

Very short on specifics. That's not to say that a more detailed plan hasn't been offered previously (although I haven't seen it myself). Health care reform policies are inherently complex and difficult to explain. As close as I can infer from the language used here, that means that insurance companies will have to offer coverage similar to the plan offered to membes of Congress. He implies that this will be "available" to people who cannot otherwise afford that kind of coverage, but a Cadillac plan is expensive and without going to a single-payer system (which means no Cadillacs for anyone) it's hard to see how such a thing is possible. But again, the plausibility of the promise is not what we're really looking for here -- the issue is that the policy itself is described in only vague terms.

Labor: "Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent. ... And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons."

I have no idea what he's going to do here. We already have FMLA, and it's easily the most-abused part of contemporary employment law. Is he going to expand FMLA? Make FMLA time partially paid, either by employers or the government? He doesn't say. On the equal pay for women issue, what more can he do that the Equal Pay Act has not already done? He certainly doesn't say what that might be. I rule these "not specific policy proposals," this is just rhetoric, or at best, a highly-generalized set of normative policy goals.

Bankruptcy: "Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses..."

Social Security: "[Now is the] time to protect Social Security for future generations."

These two were in the same sentence. Only one specific policy goal is described, which is reducing the priority of CEO bonuses as opposed to pension plans in Chapter 11 reorganizations. Absolutely nothing is proposed for Social Security. There is one specific bankruptcy reform proposal, albeit one with relatively little effect but some populist appeal to it. There is nothing at all proposed for Social Security.

Balanced Budget: "I’ve laid out how I’ll pay for every dime – by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don’t help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less... ."

This, of course, has been my big concern about Obama for a long time. He does not really specify, to my satisfaction, how he'll "pay for every time" of this ambitious expansion of the government's role in this laundry list of mostly nebulous policy goals. But he really couldn't do that in a format like his acceptance speech. It would be appropriate for him to make reference to a more detailed policy proposal available elsewere; he suggests some general tactics ("closing corproate loopholes and tax havens") but does not even attempt to identify "programs that no longer work" or indicate how programs "we do need" can be made to "work better and cost less." Nor does he seem to allow for the possibility that a needed program also does not work, which seems very often to be the case -- Medicare and Social Security are two examples that come right off the top of my head. I haven't seen any white papers or projected budgets, but I admit I haven't looked, either. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that they exist and they're both coherent and detailed. Nevertheless, the policy proposal in the speech, even assuming the existence of this other reference material, is set forth at a very high level of generality and I can't do better than a "split decision" ruling for specificity here.

Iraq: "And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we’re wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war. ... I will end this war in Iraq responsibly."

This is more of a rhetorical swipe at his opposition than a policy proposal, but within this statement is a proposal for a timeframe structured withdrawal of troops from Iraq. He doesn't specifiy what the time frame is but he doesn't exactly have to; it seems that the current Administration, the McCain campaign, the Iraqis, and likely his campaign all are looking at something like the end of 2011, and everyone involved is quick to point out that this is a provisional date subject to change based on future events. So that's a specific enough proposal about Iraq that I'm satisfied with it.

Terrorism: "You don’t defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. ... [I will] finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan."

To be fair to Obama, you really can't be very specific about anti-terrorism policy in public. You can't say, "I'll increase the number of covert operations and infiltrators by 62% over the next three years." Nor can you say "I will remedy the insufficient air and ground coverage in sector 12-53 of the Northwestern Province in Pakistan with additional Airborne Rangers and Blackhawk air support for them." So this may well be the best Obama can do on this point -- he will divert resources away from Iraq and into anti-terrorism activities in other theaters of operations with the goal of eliminating al Qaeda and the Taliban. This isn't very specific, but there is no practical way for it to be specific.

By the way, where have I been that Bush was dilatory in going after al Qaeda? Is there anything Bush would like better than bin Laden's head on a pike to show the world? If there is, I can't think of it. But I stray from my purpose again.

Other Foreign Policy: "As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm’s way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home. ... I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing ... ."

Split decision at best here; this is actually mostly rhetoric and statements upon which no one can reasonably disagree. The question is not whether we use diplomatic efforts to curb Russian aggression or Iranian nuclear proliferation. The question is what else do we do besides sending diplomats out to persuade? What backs up that persuasion? Nothing is offered and I hope he's got more up his sleeve than "mediation."

Surprisingly given my generally cynical tone, I think "restore our moral standing" is an important policy goal. We cannot go it alone when addressing these kinds of problems. They are international in scope and require international solutions, and that means having the suasion to get our allies and trading partners to go along with our plans and solutions -- and being willing to listen to their ideas, too. It's very difficult to specify how "moral standing" is restored, but it's wise of Obama to note that it has been diminished of late and pointout out that a dramatic change of leadership will move the process forward.

So I'm going to say a "split decision" on specifics for foreign policy.

Other Stuff: "We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers."

In a search for common ground, Obama steps into dangerous turf looking at abortion, guns, gays, and immigration. But here, again, we find a mixture of specific proposals and generalized rhetoric. Obama does not say how he will reduce unwanted pregnancies. He does suggest that AK-47s and similar weapons should be subject to greater restriction. He proposes hospital visitation rights for the lovers of sick gays and lesbians. He suggests that we maintain humanitarian visas for alien mothers of citizen children and enforcement of citizenship laws for employers. There are some solid specifics within the rhetoric here, although they are not particularly ambitious. He barely address some issues at all, like environmental policy and medical research; and was completely silent on other things like China, religion, the trade deficit, drugs, or Supreme Court appointments.

So who was right, Babbington or Benen? Obama was reasonably specific on tax policy; alternative energy policy; Iraq and some other foreign policy; and and a handful of social policy issues. He was not specific about oil independence; education; reform of the labor laws, bankruptcy, or social security sytems; abortion; or balancing the budget. He talked about some issues that do not lend themselves to specificity in the first place and implied that for some of these things, he has been specific in other media, which I cannot readily verify or refute at the moment.

The winner in the Babbinton-Benen specificity debate seems to be "whoever you want to win." If you like Obama and are favorably disposed towards him, you think Benen is right that the speech contained a strong policy content. If you are not favorably disposed towards Obama and are disinclined to vote for him, then you probably think Babbington's indictment of rhetoric over policy was spot-on.

For me, it's a split decision.

Now Even The Iraqis Want A Timetable

One of my favorite political blogges, Rick Moran, has done it again: offered a great analysis of a current event, in this case the al-Maliki government’s call for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Prime Minister al-Maliki is not calling for a complete withdrawal, and he’s not talking about it being done for three or four years, but he does want the bulk of U.S. combat forces out of his country at some determined point in the foreseeable future. And as Rick Moran points out, the Iraqis are showing signs of being ready to stand on their own. President Bush famously responded to a question about when the troops were coming home by saying, “We will stand down as the Iraqis stand up.” Well, Moran is right – the Iraqis are standing up. I’ve always said that we came to Iraq to stay, and that’s got to be our strategy for better or worse at this point, but I’m heartened by the prospect of having something significantly less than the nearly hundred and sixty thousand troops there now. Moran is also right that this is a timetable proposal that is sufficiently modest in scope and which comes from a source that would allow us to accept it with honor and to comply with it in a manner consistent with Iraqi security interests as well as our own. No, Iraq does not have an efficiently-functioning Parliament free from corruption, but then again a lot of nations don’t and we don’t occupy them because of it.

Mission (Version 3.2) Accomplished

If the "Mission Accomplished" speech on the Abraham Lincoln had not turned out to be so clearly and visibly erroneous, I am convinced now that the President would be declaring Iraq a victory. The mission at that point had changed from simply deposing Saddam's regime in Iraq to stopping the chaos and civil war that the post-Saddam anarchy quickly turned in to because we never planned for what would happen once we either captured or killed Saddam.

I have previously said (actually, I've been saying for quite some time now) that "victory" or "failure" in Iraq can be defined thus:

Success is when Iraq is 1) reliably within the political and economic orbit of the West; 2)internally stable enough to support economic growth and pay us (and the British, Aussies, Italians, Poles, Canadians, and Spanish) back for all the money we've spent on them; and 3)strong enough to defend itself from Iranian or Syrian encroachment. Failure is any of A) political domination by Iran or Syria; B) emergence of a control group hostile to the West, particularly to the United States; or C) a bloody stalemate draining lives and money to no geopolitical effect (otherwise known as the status quo [of late 2006]).

Well, are we there yet? I think the answer is "yes." At least, "as much as we're ever going to be."

Iraq is within the orbit of the West. The political situation there is a gigantic, corrupt mess but the one thing the political leaders of the country can agree on is that the only economic future of the country is from the sale of oil to the West.

Iraq is starting to open up its oil fields and generate revenues from it. Sure, lots of that money will be siphoned off to corruption. Sure, the Iraqi government hasn't fully figured out how to distribute the money. Sure, the rebuilding of the oil infrastructure hasn't gone nearly as quickly as thought. But it's past the critical point of getting the oil flowing and now that oil is more valuable than ever in human history, the money is coming in.

We haven't demanded repayment of all of the money but some of the post-Saddam money we've lent Iraq is starting to be paid back out of those oil revenues. We'll never get it all back, of course. But we do seem to be on track towards permanent military bases there.

The Iraqi military is starting to take hold of the country. It is conducting operations independent of U.S. command and control, and going after the right bad guys. The Iranians and Syrians have not been able to openly assert themselves in Iraq for some time now; the Iranians last tried (to my knowledge) about six months ago and got spanked.

Violence and urban terrorism are down to something less than a dull roar. We concern ourselves with domestic crime and entertainment in our news media; the death count for military servicemembers in Afghanistan has now risen above the miltiary death count in Iraq. And most of America barely noticed when that happened. Iraq is about as peaceful as Israel during a bad month.

The Iraqi Parliament will never be a disciplined, well-organized political body the way the U.S. Congress or the British Parliament is. There will always be a struggle for political power between the geographic regions and religious sects of the country. Corruption will never be weeded out of Iraq, and urban terrorism will never completely go away there.

"Victory" is not when we can bring our troops home. We're never going to bring our troops home -- we wanted, fought for, and now essentially have permanent military bases in Iraq. That was one of our strategic goals all along. I've been saying that for more than three years on this blog. President Obama will find, very quickly upon assuming office, that the political and strategic calculus of 2004 simply no longer applies, and he will not be bringing home all of our troops and leaving Iraq without a very significant and enduring U.S. military presence. Does anyone, even the most ardent pro-Obama supporter or the most virulent war critic, doubt this prediction?

But it now seems to be more or less within tolerable limits, at least from a geopolitical standpoint. There is a functioning government in Iraq that is friendly to the United States, able to pay its debts and maintain its national autonomy. It's less bloody and better-able to participate in regional and global politics than it was when I first wrote those words defining "success". Granted, that's not the victory we had originally collectively envisioned for the invasion way back in 2002, and the price in blood and treasure has been far dearer than we had been told it would be. But it's about as good as we're going to get and it seems like a satisfactory result at this point.

Objectors Take Note

The most significant objection I have seen or heard to the Boumediene v. Bush decision is that it extends habeas corpus protection to foreign lands, beyond the borders of the United States and into places we do not consider part of our own sovereign territory.

So, the argument goes, habeas corpus simply doesn't apply in Guantánamo Bay because Guantanamo Bay is part of Cuba, not part of the United States. Therefore, the five Justices in the narrow majority of the Boumediene Court, led by Anthony Kennedy, are akin to traitors who want to help the terrorists detonate nuclear weapons in American cities. This last sentence is not only not that far removed from the criticism of the case, its roots are found in Justice Scalia's alarmist and undignified dissent, which begins with a recital of the irrelevant facts of terrorist acts committed by people the military released from Guantánamo Bay on its own and without any judicial intervention at all, yet darkly intones at its conclusion, "The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today."

If that is your objection, then you should take note of another habeas corpus case, also decided yesterday. This case was decided by a unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts. Munaf v. Green involved two American citizens (Munaf and Omar) who traveled to Iraq and there "committed crimes" -- that is, became part of the insurgency against the Multinational Force (MNF) led by the United States to invade, occupy and pacify Iraq. Munaf and Omar were captured by American forces working under the aegis of the MNF, brought before military tribunals of the MNF staffed by American officers but located within Iraq, and then handed over to U.S. military forces as "enemy combatants." When their military captors decided to turn them over to the Iraqi authorities for prosecution within the Iraqi criminal justice system, they both applied for the Great Writ to prevent the military from doing that.

One could argue that when a U.S. citizen takes up arms against the U.S. military, that person forfeits their U.S. citizenship. Indeed, many of the very same people now crying in outrage against Boumediene made precisely that argument in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen accused of trying to plant a "dirty bomb" in some sort of affiliation with al-Qaeda, who was captured in Chicago, transported to Guantanamo Bay, and held without charged for several years.

But whether or not Munaf and Omar have rendered their citizenship forfeit, the point here is that the unanimous Munaf Court had no trouble at all with the idea that habeas corpus applied in a situation where someone was detained by U.S. forces in Iraq. Iraq is, both as a de facto and a de jure matter, less under the control of the United States than is Guantanamo Bay.

The habeas statute extends to American citizens held overseas by American forces operating subject to an American chain of command. The Government’s argument that the federal courts lack jurisdiction over the detainees’ habeas petitions in such circumstances because the American forces holding Omar and Munaf operate as part of a multinational force is rejected. ... [¶] The Court also rejects the Government’s contention that the District Court lacks jurisdiction in these cases because the multinational character of the MNF–I ... means that the MNF-I is not a United States entity subject to habeas.

Ultimately, the Court rejected the substantive petitions of Munaf and Omar, because the relief they requested -- don't release us to the Iraqi authorities -- was not appropriate for a habeas petition in the first place. The remedy for a violation of the rights inherent in the writ of habeas corpus is release. But release is exactly what the petitioners here wanted to avoid. What they were really looking for was to evade Iraqi criminal justice. The unanimous Munaf Court held that a U.S. court has no power (at least under habeas corpus) to stop the sovereign nation of Iraq from enforcing its own criminal justice laws, even against U.S. citizens in U.S. custody overseas.

Now, I have no objection to the Court looking at the practical effects of the exercise of the habeas right in this case and saying, "Wait a minute, if we give you what you're asking for that would leave you worse off than you are now," and therefore denying the petition. I should hope the Court would do that sort of thing all the time. It's easy in this case, because the habeas petition actually asks that the U.S. retain custody of these two prisoners, which is a bizarre twist on the way this right is exercised. The denial of the petitions here makes a great deal of sense. And it is also respectful of Iraqi sovereignty, another result which meets with my thorough approval. Whether Omar and Munaf violated Iraqi laws is a matter for the Iraqi courts to handle.

To sum up -- the unanimous Munaf Court says that habeas corpus applies to U.S. military detentions in Iraq (but should not have been granted for prudential reasons), and a 5-4 majority in Boumediene says that habeas corpus applies to U.S. military detentions in Cuba. So if your objection is to the extension of habeas corpus rights to people held in U.S. military custody in areas beyond the de jure sovereignty but within the de facto control of America, then you must also object to Munaf.

The difference in the four switched votes seems to be based upon the effect of the habeas corpus right demanded in each case. For Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia, if the exercise of habeas corpus means a bad guy being held by us overseas might to free, then it shouldn't apply. But when its exercise means we get to keep a bad guy being held by us overseas, then yes, the right does apply.

I submit that this reading of the right strips it of all meaning; indeed, it perverts the right such that habeas corpus would actually favor the arbitrary detention of individuals by the executive authority. Rights do not exist only when the government finds it convenient to tolerate their exercise. Indeed, the whole point of having a right is that it may be exercised and enforced despite the government's objection.

What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

Six months ago, looking out at the world of politics, I knew a few things for sure:

1. The Republicans had a mess on their hands. No viable leader for the social conservative movement was stepping up to the plate and it looked like the primary was going to be reduced to a five-way slugfest with Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney best-equipped to make it through the long haul. John McCain was out of dough and neither Mike Huckabee nor Fred Thompson were to be taken seriously. It was a wide-open field and no one candidate was going to be able to get the party to unify, for anything.

2. The Democrats had an annointment. This Obama kid, he has promise, but he needs to go be Governor of Illinois for a few terms so he can get ready to run to replace President Clinton in 2016. Because Hillary's got all the money locked up, all the endorsements locked up, all the name recognition and voters will be excited about electing a woman.

3. Iraq was going to be the Republicans' albatross. Ultimately, the Democrats would have a huge advantage in November because the country would still be saddled with an unpopular, bloody, and inconclusive war.

So, how did I do?

1. Huckabee won Iowa and credibility. McCain won pretty much everything after that. Giuliani's strategy turned out to be very poor, and poorly-executed. Romney hung in there and picked up a few wins here and there but people figured out he was a phoney. And Thompson might as well have been James Stockdale, unable to answer the question "Who am I? Why am I here?" With precious little money and in the face of what should have been strong opposition, John McCain effectively sewed things up on February 5. And we haven't heard a word from him since.

2. Obama turned out to have more money than God. Seriously, if Jesus ran for President, he couldn't raise more money from more small donors than Obama. I think you can wire his campaign five bucks a month from your cell phone or something like that. Not only did Obama make it a fight against the Crown Princess, he figured out that a delegate is a delegate and put effort into "red" states to rack up some wins, and never lost hope. Eventually, he overtook her in votes, in delegates, and fundraising. And now it looks like he'll be our next President.

3. Astonishingly, we seem to be winning in Iraq. The Maliki government is standing up and conducting internal military operations with fewer and fewer U.S. advisors; political violence is down although not completely gone; and while they aren't necessarily happy about it, Iraqis are resigned to the idea that their future is now inextricably intertwined with ours. Our "temporary" bases are likely to become permanent. Yes, the country is still politically immature and religious parties and ethnic separatism are significant forces that could tear at its fabric. But it looks like it's finally on its way towards our newly-defined victory conditions. Again, not that you'd know from reading the news.

But the Republicans still have an albatross -- the economy. Distilled to its essence, the GOP is being held to answer for the outrage of paying four dollars a gallon for gasoline. I'm not hearing huge cries for health care reform, tax cuts, or the silly and unwise economic stimulus. People just want to be able to afford to drive to work. Amazingly (in sort of an ominous way), we are starting to reach the point where the allegedly and famously inelastic demand curve for gas is starting to bow, and people are really driving less. Not that the Democrats are going to solve that problem any more than the Republicans have; they haven't a clue. But that's looking like the most likely reason voters will be dissatisfied in November.

Then again, I've been wrong before. Let's revisit this in mid-October, shall we?

Crush On Soldier Leads To Honor Killing

A seventeen-year-old girl in Basra, Iraq developed a crush on a young (presumably handsome) British soldier. Undoubtedly giggling like a schoolgirl about the boy, she confessed her crush to her friend, and word somehow got back to her dad.

Who killed her.

He stood on his own daughter's throat until she fell unconscious from suffocation, and then he stabbed her to death, screaming about cleansing his honor. His sons -- her brothers -- helped. His wife was beaten to the point of having her arm broken for protesting, and she is now in hiding because she demanded a divorce and her now ex-husband's family has sent her messages saying she deserves the same sort of death as her "whore" of a daughter. The girls' uncles spat on her corpse as they buried her.

One would expect that sort of thing from -- well, from barbarians. At least Mom stood up to protest.

Worse, it looks like they're getting away with it. He was released from police custody abou two hours after being arrested; the local prosecutors aren't picking up the case, and a patron has sent him to Jordan to be out of sight for a few months until the story dies down.

It makes you wonder what we're fighting for.

We ought to open up our universities to Iraqi girls. Let them come here, study, meet American boys and fall in love and get married and naturalize. We get the benefit of their smarts and their industry and the Iraqis get to unburden themselves of the girls they so clearly do not want.

Overwhelmed By News

A little bit less than 1,900 people died as a result of Hurricane Katrina, all but two of them in the New Orleans and southern Mississippi region. Yet the landfall of a cyclone in Yangon, Myanmar, which has killed over 10,000 people, is competing for headline space here in the states with continued hand-wringing over a fifteen-year-old girl holding a towel over her chest, a monster in Austria, the suicide of a brothel operator, inconclusive scientific data masquerading as 'medical news', and rich techno-nerds fighting for control of internet content filtering companies.

Not on any of the major news outlets' headlines are any stories about the war in Iraq. Does this mean that we've achieved victory there? If the situation is stable enough that we can worry about other things, isn't that sort of what we were shooting for? About eighteen months ago, I defined victory in Iraq as:

Success is when Iraq is 1) reliably within the political and economic orbit of the West; 2) internally stable enough to support economic growth and pay us (and the British, Aussies, Italians, Poles, Canadians, and Spanish) back for all the money we've spent on them; and 3) strong enough to defend itself from Iranian or Syrian encroachment. Failure is any of A) political domination by Iran or Syria; B) emergence of a control group hostile to the West, particularly to the United States; or C) a bloody stalemate draining lives and money to no geopolitical effect (otherwise known as the status quo).

If we have enough time to worry about other stuff like natural disasters, sex scandals, and isolated if horrific crimes, then are we sufficiently far enough away from failure outcome C, and close enough to the confluence of success outcomes 1-3 inclusive that we can credibly say that we've achieved a satisfactory result? Or is this just a function of our news media's vapidity?

The Wife asked me over the weekend, how do you sort out all of the bad stuf in the world to keep up with the news? She's right that there's an overwhelming amount of terrible stuff going on out in the world. It's easy to be overwhelmed by it all. The answer is, for me at least, you've got to figure out what you're going to be most concerned with and keep your focus on that. For me, I think that's (in broad terms) the rule of law.

I also think it's worthwhile, once you accept that you can't solve all of these kinds of problems yourself, to focus instead on the people who can, and to the extent that they can. So it's important to look at who those people are, how they make decisions, and what kind of power they have to implement those decisions. The President of the United States, for instance, has a great deal of power to do good in the world. The President can try to send aid to Myanmar, for instance. And we can do something about who makes that decision, and what kind of power that person will have to implement those decisions.

But you can't come across stories like ten thousand people dying -- especially when they're already the victims of a brutal military dictatorship in their own homeland -- and not feel some basic human empathy.

Is It The 1970's Again?

No bell-bottom sightings at this time, but I'm starting to see more similarities than differences. Consider:

The dollar is weak. Monopoly-money weak.

We're in a lingering, indecisive, expensive, and still-dangerous tail end of a protracted foreign war, in which the definition of "victory" has changed multiple times and for which there appears to be no acceptable termination strategy.

Real estate isn't worth the paper it's printed on. The housing industry -- real estate sales, new home construction, and everything associated with it -- is at the lowest point it's been in twenty years. The stock market has five straight days of SUCK for every day the bulls win.

Our allies in Europe mistrust us.

Mid-level jobs, suitable for people of ordinary levels of education and experience and willing to accept high-level blue-collar wages, are fleeing the country.

We're looking at a serious wave of inflation that our economic leaders can do nothing to stop -- because they can't make interest rates be both high (so that money actually has value) and low (so that people can actually get it to use) at the same time. At the same time, we're entering a recession. There's a name for this phenomenon: stagflation.

Oil and products made from it are suddenly ludicrously expensive. American auto manufacturers, however, continue to crank out big, gas-guzzling supervehicles despite consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient means of transportation.

A whole wave of college kids who earned their chops protesting the war and the policies of conservative adults find themselves somehow aimless and angst-ridden with a centralized focus for their anger evaporating.

Movies are adopting themes of paranoia rather than patriotism. Members of our creative class are fleeing the country.

The likeliest next President is a Democrat, campaigning on a platform of somewhat nebulous "change" that is more much emotional than it offers substantial policy changes, making heavy reliance on his personal religiosity, but who first must survive a bruising primary battle with a pillar of the party of doubtful personal integrity, and then will have a huge general-election advantage against a Republican who, through no particular fault of his, will have to carry the previous administration's water and thus take the heat for how much things suck right now.

We're debating about whether we should build nuclear power plants.

America fears losing its place of global dominance to a secretive nation controlled by Communists who think nothing of brutally repressing their own people to present a sanitized but obviously false vision of their nation to the world, yet who also seem to preside over a nation starting to move up a long-term economic upswing.

At the same time, we're terrified of what several thousand illegal immigrants from Mexico might to do to our economy.

Am I right? Is this 1975? I was a little bit on the young side, but the general consensus seems to be that for the most part, the 1970's sucked. How do we make it not be like that again? Or is it too late?

Towards A Two-Party System

Italy's famous instability in government has been caused, in no small part, by the multiplicity of political parties competing for seats in the Parliament, as well as a Constitution that by design gives parties proportional representation based on their votes. In order to form a government, most political leaders there have been forced to incorporate the platforms of other parties into their own. But elections just wrapped up in Italy yesterday, and the results are remarkable. Silvio Berlusconi will be Prime Minister for a third time, and his new coalition of parties holds commanding leads in both houses of Italy's Parliament. Remarkably, also, the race was largely between two broad coalitions of political parties, and thus more closely resembled an election in the United States than anything else.

Here, of course, we don't have multiple political parties; the two large parties have incorporated interest groups within themselves as part of their coalitions. Italy is still a little bit more loose than that with its internal political alignments. But seeing great political success there may well motivate politicians to try this strategy again in future elections -- it may well be better to be part of a larger, more powerful unit if you're trying to get a specific policy enacted. That, of course, is what democratic politics is all about.

Berlusconi is not without his faults as a leader. He's corrupt and imperious -- and entirely willing to flaunt his use of power to benefit of himself and his friends. He's also more focused on Italy's northern industrial regions than on developing the more rural south. But in so doing, he's also managed to ally himself with the Northern League, the separatist movement. While the Northern League gained in power this election, it may find that most of its policy goals have been triangulated into Berlusconi's platform, and thus in the flower of victory may lie the seeds of the Northern League's ultimate political demise -- why secede from a country that is doing well? Rather, the Northern League is already adapting itself to remain politically relevant; many within its ranks no longer see secession of the Po Valley and surrounding regions as a viable goal but instead promote the idea of federalism within Italy, with regions being given greater autonomy. This is not unlike the "devolution" movement that has led to the re-establishment of the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments in the UK.

I have to remember to suppress my own prejudices in reading news of this nature. I live in a country dominated by center-right thinkers and I am such a thinker myself. I live in a country where I can see a two-party federal democratic system working reasonably well, and it's natural to think that such a system, if exported elsewhere, would produce similar results. This may not be true for all circumstances and when you consider entire nations, we need to remember that these are indeed complex things. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problems of how government should best be structured, or even the goal of creating a government in the first place. We are trying to create a government in Iraq, for instance, and it is far from clear that a system of government like that of the United States would be the sort of thing that either we or the Iraqis would find desirable.

But the thing of it is, the way we do things in America does work. There are problems -- we face issues of partisan gridlock and oversimplification of complex issues; many are frustrated with the system of checks and balances impeding change or preventing corrections of changes they dislike to our policies. Perhaps we've allowed too much power to accrete in the hands of the executive over the past generation. Perhaps we are not as vigilant as we should be about protecting our individual rights against the government, so quick are some of us to identify with the government itself as the embodiment of good. But on the whole, federal democracy with a two-party system for debate does seem to work. On balance, our leaders make more or less centrist decisions on most major issues, reflecting the general consensus of the public. On balance, our welfare and our rights are protected. It's easy to see other nations take steps towards being more like us in those respects as a positive step, and it's easy to applaud them for it.

Nothing -- He's Learned Nothing At All

What is it with Presidents named Bush? They like to leave messy foreign policy entanglements for their successors to deal with. The first President Bush left Somalia and Bosnia, and his successor could no more find a clean, politically satisfactory response to those situations than did GHWB. And now, we have this.

On its face, the "Declaration of Principles" sounds like a bunch of vague, squishy diplomatic language, the bulk of which is entirely unobjectionable and meaningless. So it was not submitted to the Senate as a treaty. But there is a clause that states that the U.S. will guarantee the stability of the elected government in Iraq against all future threats, internal and external. That means we'd have to take up sides and arms in the event of a new civil war in Iraq.

It also means that if a party hostile to the U.S. takes power through democratic means in Iraq, we would be bound to support it in such a civil war. Obviously, we wouldn't actually do such a thing, but that would represent breaking our word at that point. And there are ample precedents for democratic governments being hostile to the U.S. Hamas winning the elections in Palestine is only the most extreme example of this. Even archrival Iran seems to have a government that incorporates principles of meaningful checks and balances within the government and which yields final decision-making power to the people via indirect representative democracy, which in that sense is not so very different than our own government. The lesson here is not that Iran is our equivalent, the lesson is that democracy does not always produce results that are ultimately desirable, either in a cosmic ideological sense or from a short-term, foreign policy realism perspective. Marrying ourselves to democracy when it is feasible for a democratic election to produce such catastrophically awful results does not make any sense at all.

More importantly, it looks a lot like the President is trying to slip in to this document a binding commitment to continued military action in Iraq -- one that will tie his successor's hands and prevent a withdrawal from Iraq. Now, I think that we need to stay in Iraq indefinitely and in that sense I tend to agree that this is a good idea. But that doesn't mean that I think that the President should be able to do this. I think the President's successor ought to figure that out for herself, as I'm pretty confident she already has, and govern accordingly.

We have a legal and proper way of firming up our commitment to Iraq. That way is called a "treaty." A treaty requires the collaboration of the Senate. The President is unwilling to submit his proposal to the Senate, so he simply proclaims it to be law -- and thereby stakes a claim for the ability to reach a binding commitment to another nation. This bypasses an important check and balance in our Constitution, and it is that bypass to which I object. After all, if the people of this country decide that my take on the Iraqi situation is wrong, and insist that the troops be pulled out, that is what needs to happen even if the consequences are bad. That's what it is to be in a democracy -- you submit to the legitimate will of the majority, even if you think its decisions are unwise. So if it is clear that the voters want the troops home now, that's what the President needs to make happen.

Yet another example of the tendency of the President to gravitate towards one-man rule. Even as a lame duck, stripped of control of Congress in a public repudiation of his policy in Iraq, George W. Bush continues to act as though the other two branches of our government are mere obstacles to be sidestepped or ignored in the relentless pursuit of imposing his will on the rest of the world.

Is it January 20 yet?

Remember, Remember

To the right is a portrait of a religious fanatic and a terrorist. Sure, he looks like a pilgrim ready to make nice with the Indians over some turkey and cranberries, but this was not a nice man. 402 years ago today, Guy Fawkes was caught in the act of attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament, in the famous Gunpowder Plot. Here's the famous poem about that even still recited today:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up King and Parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Huzzah boys, huzzah boys, let the bells ring.
Huzzah boys, huzzah boys, God save the King!
A penny loaf to feed the Pope,
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down,
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar,
Burn him like a blazing star,
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah! Hip hip hoorah, hoorah!

Starts out good, but it gets kind of ugly fast, doesn't it? Remember, this is Christian-on-Christian violence we're talking about here, and only a few years after Queen Elizabeth died. The King who was the target of the assassination attempt was James I (of England), an outspoken Protestant; Fawkes and his co-conspirators hoped to engineer a Catholic restoration of the throne.

Today, we would call Fawkes a terrorist, and a religious fanatic at that. His enemies were no better. The Protestant-versus-Catholic wars that trace their roots back to a German nailing a demand for religious reform on a church door on Halloween of 1517 and the bizarre doctrines of extreme Calvinists writ large upon the body politic of Europe today seem very odd to us. We tend to smooth over the theological differences between Catholics and Protestants today.

To me it seems particularly pointless. It seems a lot like Star Wars fans arguing over whether Han or Greedo shot first. (Han did, but the movie is still enjoyable if Greedo shot first and missed. Remember the best line from the MST3K song: "You should really just relax.") It's a work of fiction; it's not worth it to kill someone who has a different take on The Scarlet Letter than you, so why would it be worth it to kill someone who interprets the Book of Jeremiah differently than you?

But there is a more or less direct modern counterpart in Shi'ite-versus-Sunni violence in the Muslim world. So it's not as though this is a dead letter. Quite the opposite. And while it's not violent, there is a fair amount of intolerance going on still in American Christian circles -- there are questions about whether Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, or Mitt Romney are "Christian enough" (or in Romney's case, whether he is a Christian at all) to be acceptable to Christian evangelicals.

It seems like such an astonishing waste of brainpower, effort, emotion, and blood to have theological disputes. Guy Fawkes was willing to kill his King in order to have a Catholic rule the country, and plenty of Iraqis are willing to each other (and us) so that their sect can enjoy greater political power to oppress the other sect. I challenge any Christian reading this to explain to me why a debate between Catholics and Protestants over Christian theology is any different than a debate between Sunnis and Shi'ites, or why either Guy Fawkes or his Protestant executioners who wrote that charming poem above were any better than the Muslims keeping Iraq in anarchy today.

The Right Ruling In A Sad Case

My heart goes out to the journalist who died, but I have to agree with the Italian court here -- it has no jurisdiction to try a U.S. soldier for a killing in Baghdad. The journalist was shot by the U.S. solider as his vehicle approached a security checkpoint on the way to the airport, and while it is unclear exactly why the soldier fired, a U.S. military investigation cleared him of wrongdoing. The Italian civilian court today found that it lacked jurisdiction and it appears the decision will not be appealed.

The incident has caused substantial tensions between the U.S. and Italy like nothing since the Cavalese ski lift tragedy, which is particularly painful to me. It's not like the U.S. and Italy stopped being allies and strong trade partners, but it's particularly upsetting when the cause of tensions between nations involves accidental bloodshed. But hopefully this ruling will help facilitate acceptance and our nations can mend fences.

Well Played, Yerhonner!

A lot of Republicans were upset about MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" advertisement. Indeed, a lot of sensible Democrats thought it was a bonehead play. But instead of being another right-wing whiner, Rudy Giuliani did something about it. He asked for, and was given, the same discount price given to MoveOn.org to run an ad ostensibly responding to the attack on General Petreaus -- and which included a prominent attack on Hillary Clinton. In so doing, he took back some of the initative in the Republican primary, which had been all about Fred Thompson, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee for about a week.

This is why Giuliani is the right guy for the Republican party. I know a lot of social conservatives don't like that he isn't in ideological lock step with them. But Rudy will take the fight to the Democrats, and as President he'll take the fight to the bad guys. It's better to be in a position to score points than to have to stop the other side from scoring them. And it's better for Republicans to criticize Democrats than one another.

And most importantly, it was the right thing to do. General Petraeus was not delivering a political message to Congress and he wasn't carrying the White House's water. Not everything he had to say fit in nicely with the current President's desires and wish-list for achievement in Iraq. But it was real and did not, as Senator Clinton had said, require the "willing suspension of disbelief." Seemed to me he was quite forthright about the Iraqi political leadership's complete failure to take advantage of the shift in military events to reach some kind of political modus vivendi acceptable to the country, and that is a critical failure on the road to something resembling peace in Iraq. But that's not something that America can do for Iraq, only Iraq can do that for itself.

And he did not deserve to be attacked because he failed to toe the left wing's line on the war.

Being President is, ultimately, a political job. You want a good politician in the Oval Office. Someone with skill and the ability to get things done in that kind of world. It's not a gentle world, nor is it one where playing fair is either commonplace or even particularly expected. If there's one thing Republicans should be about in the future, it's about standing for a strong military.

And being President is about standing up for your people as well as standing against your political adversaries. Giuliani showed that he'd stand up for his generals if he were President. He deserves to be back in the political limelight for this -- he earned it.

Use The Time Machine

What if we were able to send the bright men and women at MoveOn.org back in time to 1942? I bet we'd have seen an ad a lot like this in the New York Times.

E-e-e-e-ediots!