NAFTA, The New Republic and a fishy story from Iraq

A series of writers, bloggers and interested citizens have started to question a story out of The New Republic ("Shock Troops" sub. req.) from an individual purported to have been a US Soldier in Iraq. The first to raise question on this is Michael Goldfarb's blog at The Weekly Standard with his article on Fact or Fiction? about such things as rooting through a Saddam era mass grave to do grisly things with the remains of children, run over stray dogs with a Bradley armored vehicle and make fun of an individual wounded from an IED attack. Needless to say others have jumped on this story, notably Confederate Yankee (first post, second post), Ace of Spades HQ, and Blackfive responding to Mr. Goldfarb's request for soldiers who have actually been to the Forward Operating Base in question, and on any other details of the story that they would have experience with.

The details one can get for oneself, but I will turn attention to another aspect of the media: the ethical problems of cross-National ownership of organizations.

Totally out of the blue? Not really, as CanWest MediaWorks bought out The New Republic on 27 FEB 2007 and replaced its editor earlier this year:

Attention Business Editors:
New Publisher for The New Republic
NEW YORK, April 23 /CNW/ - Tom Strike, President of CanWest MediaWorks
International, a division of CanWest Global Communications Corp., announced
that Elizabeth W. Sheldon has been named the Publisher of The New Republic
effective immediately.

For the past ten years, Elizabeth has enjoyed a very successful career
with Congressional Quarterly. Most recently, she was the Advocacy Advertising
Manager. During her tenure with CQ, Elizabeth established herself as a highly
respected figure in the Washington publishing sector.

"Elizabeth's knowledge of the Washington market and the opinion journal
publishing space will serve as a tremendous catalyst in achieving the business
objectives of The New Republic," said Strike. "We are very pleased to welcome
her to the team."

About CanWest Global Communications Corp.

CanWest Global Communications Corp. (www.canwestglobal.com), (TSX: CGS
and CGS.A, NYSE: CWG) an international media company, is the owner of The New
Republic and is Canada's largest media company. CanWest is Canada's largest
publisher of daily newspapers and also owns, operates and/or holds substantial
interests in conventional television, out-of-home advertising, specialty cable
channels, web sites and radio stations and networks in Canada, New Zealand,
Australia, Turkey, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.


For further information: Deb Hutton, Senior Vice President, Corporate
Communications, Tel: (416) 383-2442, dhutton@canwest.com

E-mail in the original and, if Ms. Hutton places herself in public capacity for Corporate Communication, then she can very well take any problems that arise from the new editor at TNR. Well, just a normal and every-day happening in the new, lovely North American Union, I guess.... what? NAFTA does allow for this thing to go, basically, unnoticed so as to remove all the lovely trade restrictions and hoopla over cross-border ownership and investment. Can't stop 'free trade'!

So if a lovely bunch of folks from Canada want to buy the moderate left TNR, what's the worry? I mean, just because they are trying to hold a large segment of the Canadian media market and folks get a but upset about that up North... holding a bit more than most lefties in the US would want, percentage-wise, than in the US market, why that's fine, isn't it? Just a couple of years ago CanWest was looking to change the outlook of traditional Canadian media, and start to change the way media ownership crafted news. From the Canadian Democratic Movement comes this view on 31 MAY 2005:

Swift, decisive action is necessary to preserve this country's independent, bilingual news service and to protect the free flow of print and broadcast news, says TNG Canada/CWA.

The federal government must restore a ban on cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast outlets, impose market-share caps on media companies and ensure the survival of The Canadian Press (CP), TNG Canada says in an authoritative brief submitted to a Senate committee that is at a crucial point in its study of media concentration.

CP's existence is threatened by CanWest Global Communications, which has already pulled the National Post out of the national news co-operative and appears to be preparing to withdraw its other metro dailies.

"Presentations to this committee have reaffirmed our long-held conviction that a healthy, coast-to-coast, bilingual news gathering and news disseminating co-operative, operating for the mutual benefit of its members but independently of its corporate masters, is a key element of the open discourse and free flow of information that Canadians have a right to demand of their media," says the brief.

TNG Canada represents employees at several CanWest newspapers and is the parent union of the largest media Local in North America, the Canadian Media Guild. The CMG, with 6,000 members, is the largest union at the CBC and also represents employees at The Canadian Press/la Presse Canadienne as well as its allied services Broadcast News/Nouvelles Télé-Radio, which gives it a unique insight into Canada's only national news service.

While most Americans would not understand the gist of bilingual service, in Canada that has been hallowed ground for the left to trod upon for years. I am sure that North America will soon 'harmonize' to become a trilingual entity where even more years are going to be spent teaching children to learn three languages... poorly. But this all does relate to international fraud, as the Conrad Black scandal is *also* tied into this, with Mr. Black having recent guilty verdicts on fraud charges handed down to him in Illinois. Mind you it was only on three counts of mail fraud and one of obstruction of justice... the racketeering and other charges not panning out against him.

Yes, the shift in the media due to CanWest is to the *right* as CanWest has been called on suppressing *criticism* of Israel and Conrad Black has been criticized for knocking leftist war historian Gwynn Dyer out of the newspaper commentary line-up. I do have some personal problems with Mr. Dyer's perspective on the future of Nation States and warfare, but he does, once in awhile, get some actual history through, so it is not all horrific slop like seen in the US as in the above TNR article problem. But, Conrad Black didn't much care for Mr. Dyer's articles and so out they went. I am sure he can find all sorts of lovely places to get his articles printed elsewhere.

Catching the drift, here?

Canadians on the Left, like the individual cited in the CDM article, above, are getting their socialist media ox gored by corporate ownership, shifting of attitudes away from 'group reporting', a shift of emphasis away from bilingual 'special communities' and from the old fashioned programming and monobloc control of the Left over the media there in Canada. Of course there have been media outlets, before the loosening of the laws, that have been heard, but not widely and not clearly. That has been the effect of government 'oversight' of press holdings in Canada: bland group reporting that adheres to the ideologies of the majority party which had been in power for decades.

Flip that around, however, and the US is seeing TNR shift because, lets face it, CanWest is still based in Canada no matter what its international holdings are, and stories like the one from TNR starts to point at a direction that they tried to step away from after Stephen Glass' fraudulent reporting. All of this while Lord Black runs criminal operations across the borders to his own benefit while he got a large profit from his newspapers being absorbed by CanWest.

Why, that's more than a two-fer, its a three-fer! Probably more as I'm sure that spurring international crime to more places was *not* the dream of the NAFTA enthusiasts, but it is what you get with this deal.

Because the problems about 'media concentration' that would 'limit outlook' in Canada were more about having to actually compete for getting a leftist message out about 'progressive' Canadian outlook against the bland homogenization being presented from cross-border investment in the media. That being said the 'traditional' cultural and ethnic tags applied to bilingualism and the general leftist outlook of the Canadian media allow that to be utilized to ensure that 'special treatment' is always insured to such no matter how bland the actual culture becomes.

The flip side of this, however, is interesting as, while Mr. Black has been a bit busy, TNR has shifted its ownership and editorial board and comes out with a story that belongs more in a fictional account out of film rendition of a third-rate war novel than out of a real-life episode of the goings-on in Iraq. While pro-American Conrad Black was caught accepting fraudulent deals, something else was going on with that outlook on its recent acquisition. That is worrying because of the individual involved in this who has not been mentioned: Leonard Asper.

To get a feel for this part of it, we will actually go to the CBC and get their take on the TNR takeover and changes there in this report of 26 FEB 2007:

While some liberal U.S. publications saw a rebound in circulation after the election of a Democrat majority in Congress, The New Republic, with circulation of about 60,000, did not rebound.

CanWest also owns Global Television, Alliance Atlantis film and the CanWest newspaper chain that includes the National Post.

CanWest is controlled by the Asper family, which is well known for its support of the Liberals in Canada and of various political causes in Israel.

The magazine's editor in chief, Martin Peretz, said he hoped the takeover would secure The New Republic's financial future.

"It just seemed to me, given my own intellectual and moral synergies with Leonard J. Asper, a very good partnership," he said.

Yes, 'synergy' with the 'progressives' in Canada and TNR. Even more interesting is that such fast changes are something that has happened before with the Asper family, as seen by this Tom Gross Mideast Media archive of a Globes article on the editorial board of *another* Asper acquisition, this back in early 2005:

AZUR, ASPER FAMILY DISAGREE OVER "JERUSALEM POST" DEAL

Azur, Asper family disagree over "Jerusalem Post" deal

Eli Azur apparently wants to acquire full control of the newspaper, instead of owning equal shares with CanWest.

By Yael Gaoni
Globes
January 25, 2005

www.globes.co.il/serveen

The sale of "The Jerusalem Post" by Hollinger International Inc. (NYSE:HLR) to Eli Azur and CanWest Global Communications Corp (NYSE:CWG; TSX:CGS), controlled by the Asper family of Canada, for $13.2 million, has run into trouble. Azur apparently wants to acquire full control of the English-language newspaper, rather than the two parties owning equal shares.

CanWest has a market cap of $5 billion. The buyers of "The Jerusalem Post" intend to sell the site the newspaper occupies in the Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem for $7 million, and move the paper's offices and printing works to new premises. The newspaper's 9.5-dunam (2.375-acre) site is considered desirable.

The sale of the newspaper was concluded two months ago, and Hollinger International notified the New York Stock Exchange to this effect. Sources close to Azur said today that the deal had not broken down, but that unexpected difficulties had arisen. Azur was unavailable for comment.

This is a bit more of the old-fashioned deal that happened with the old pulp magazine business back in the 1930's. In that day and age, publishers started to acquire extra businesses to ensure that magazines got published: paper mills, office buildings for staff, distributing companies, ink processing plants, and so on. With each of those came the bits and pieces of those companies and their land holdings, which made them large concerns even though they had relatively low monetary throughput. In fact, the distribution warehouses for some of the publishing concerns, once started at the outskirts of cities, were now inside the city limits and that property had high value as industrial, urban property. Suddenly a take-over of publishers began in which magazines were liquidated to get the *land* they were on as the land was now worth far more than the throughput of the magazines, cash-wise. Buy a publisher, slice it to pieces and sell it off and make a huge profit... then repeat with another publisher. The great die-off of pulp magazines was not due to the Depression, but due to undervalued businesses on highly valued land. That sounds a bit like the J-Post deal, but the change in editorship is, again, something that is similar to TNR in concept, even if different in final outcome.

So now we have the problem of just what *is it* that Leonard Asper sees as a 'synergy' between Canadian, Australian (yes, CanWest is global), Israeli and, no doubt, other firms held in other Nations? For that we go to *how* the Jerusalem Post got into his hands in the first place: via Conrad Black and Hollinger Investments. This take us back to 2003 and this set of connections is very, very clear as seen by this Wall Street Journal article:

Hollinger Investments Are Linked To Board's Perle and Kissinger
By ROBERT FRANK and ELENA CHERNEY
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 3, 2003 12:44 a.m.

Hollinger International Inc. invested in a venture-capital fund and a conservative magazine linked to outside directors Richard N. Perle and Henry A. Kissinger, raising new questions about the board's independence in the wake of a widening financial scandal.

According to company filings and people familiar with the situation, Hollinger invested $2.5 million in a venture-capital firm that was co-managed by Mr. Perle and listed Mr. Kissinger as a board member.

Hollinger, a Chicago-based media company that owns the U.K.'s Telegraph Group, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post, also invested $14 million in a British technology company that includes Mr. Perle and his business partner as shareholders. In addition, Hollinger gave $200,000 a year to the National Interest, a conservative publication that includes Mr. Perle, Mr. Kissinger and Hollinger's former chief executive, Conrad Black, as advisers.

There isn't any indication that any of the directors, including Messrs. Perle and Kissinger, did anything illegal. And neither Mr. Perle nor Mr. Kissinger served on Hollinger's audit or compensation committees. But the payments highlight the subtle financial relationships between companies and otherwise independent directors. And the payments take on a starker light in the wake of investor accusations that the board stood by while Hollinger made large payments to Lord Black, who resigned as CEO last month, despite the company's flagging share price.

And there you have the connection between 'progressive' TNR, Leonard Asper and the Jerusalem Post - via Conrad Black's association with Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle. I do wonder how the readers of TNR would feel that their magazine is owned by someone who hobnobs with the 'rich and realist' sort. Not very 'progressive' are Kissinger and Perle. But this should be of real interest to the TNR crowd about just how close they are to some things they just detest:

Along with the financial investments, Hollinger also made contributions to political causes linked to directors. Hollinger contributed $200,000 annually for an undisclosed number of years to National Interest, a foreign affairs quarterly that's produced jointly by Hollinger and the Nixon Center, a think tank that's a division of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation. The Nixon Center lists Mr. Kissinger as its honorary chairman and Lord Black as a board member. Lord Black and Mr. Kissinger are co-chairmen of the editorial board of the National Interest, which is described on its masthead as a "nonprofit partnership between Hollinger International Inc. and the Nixon Center." Hollinger has never disclosed its role in publishing the National Interest or its annual funding of the periodical.

In addition to supporting the National Interest, Hollinger also gave up to $375,000 a year to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank of which Lord Black is a member. Hollinger also sponsored a library at Arundel House, where the Institute's offices are housed, called the Hollinger-Telegraph Library.

Hollinger is no longer donating annually to the institute. The company is reviewing its support for the National Interest as part of a review of all corporate costs to "ensure that all expenditures have an appropriate and valid business purpose," Mr. Paris said through a spokeswoman.

Yes, the Nixon Center and the Nixon Library! Isn't it wonderful how these rich businessmen just pick up these interests as they go along. Like TNR?

Well, enough of the tweaking of sensibilities across the spectrum, and time for the actual Code of Ethics of TNR... they do *have* one... somewhere. Finding it, however, is another matter.

So now it is time for my personal gripe against the MSM. We hear so much about 'objectivity' and 'fairness' and such things and how good the MSM is at doing its job, what with so many layers of editors and how there is just so much 'professionalism' involved that one can just feel the pressure of it, which must be somewhere in the region of that of the ocean above the Marianas Trench. But do ANY of them put a public link in the 'About Us' or 'FAQ' or 'Masthead' or some such to their actual Code of Ethics that they swear they will adhere to?

You know, like professionals? Hippocratic Oath for journalists? When I had to dig out the one to the Associated Press for its 'Jamil Hussein' which caused the Investor's Business Daily to wonder why *anyone* should trust AP based on its response to public inquiry, or Mr. Froomkin's outright adversarial and advocacy viewpoints as an editor that *breaks* the Washington Post's Standards and Ethics, I could at least *find* those after a simple hour's search. And I can even find the Code of Ethics for CanWest's Directors, Supervisors and such for accounting purposes... but TNR?

You would think that for such a liberal oriented publication that they would be *proud* of their Code of Ethics and place it highly *somewhere* so the reading public could know what standards they hold themselves to with respect to the public. Or even just put on the Society of Professional Journalist's Code of Ethics link and say: yeah, we follow these. If they have, then I have been unable to find it.

Anywhere.

For such a 'progressive' organization they seem to have 'progressed' beyond internal accountability. I am sure they had one for the Stephen Glass episode of fabricated stories printed by their magazine... really! The guy was held to *some* standard. Although I am starting to suspect it is the bare minimal one of: don't get caught lying.

So I would normally be giving you a nice and didactic run-down of The New Republic's Code of Ethics here and doing a compare/contrast deal. Instead you are getting this - a grouse and a warning.

I hold myself accountable to the best interpretation of the facts that make sense to *me* as I can give you. I do my damnedest to let my reader know that I am, indeed, biased, unbalanced, unedited and one of the hardest people to read that you will ever run across. Once in awhile I try to entertain, but that is very rare.

And when I say something I back it up with links and lengthy excerpts or I do attempt to step the poor reader through my twisted reasoning which seems so very straight to me, but appears so twisted to many. Fair is fair! That is not a Code of Ethics, but trying to be open, honest and transparent with you, the poor individual who finds this blather of some interest, so that you can judge for yourself my fairness and ability to reason with you. And when I think I am being unfair I tell you WHY. Of sugarcoating and sweetness you will find very little, although a bit of humor does help now and again. I do advocate a position which should be clear from my statements, my writing and my outlook on things.

As I will never be a journalist I cannot tell you of interviews and 'secret sources' to protect, but I will shield those in my private life that I have not asked if I may share the details of our times together in my life. That I see as highly ethical and a good way to live one's life and does not hurt nor help others without their ok as one man's help is another's hurt and those in my life deserve that from me if nothing else. My code of conduct for myself must leave me with clear conscience so I can be troubled by the actual goings-on around me, not by the attempts to hide them from others or myself. I hold myself accountable for what I put out and, when an article is backed by multiple sources I have had to dig to find, then I expect there to be some validity to that or expanded knowledge on an ill found basis as I am merely human and unable to know everything.

I do, indeed, know the difference between ignorance and stupidity: the first is curable. I can be cured of stupidity by knowledge and reason. And I know unreason and rose-colored views of the world as they are unsustainable in either fact or outlook because they have no basis in this world we share between us. We are in hard times and only hard facts and reason will see us through this time... or we will become stupid and repeat the exact, same mistakes that got us into such deadly peril and that will set us free... in the graveyard.

I did not enjoy putting together the 'Volunteer Fifth Column' part of my sidebar, and all the articles it contains. I do not like the activities of those involved as they are by action or inaction trying to bring my Nation to harm and end liberty and freedom as we know it. And almost all of those on it end up because they hold themselves to a standard of self-service and not giving a damn to anyone else. That is stupid adherence to ideology that fails and has failed.

It looks like The New Republic will soon be put onto that list.

Because, if they can come up with *no* reliable second sources willing to go on record, then they are damned by their own professional standards as known in the industry. For extraordinary claims must come extraordinary evidence.


But to go out on a more humorous note, Dominion Weblog posts this very fun piece about CanWest and its view towards freelancers in journalism:

The CanWest Global Contract for freelancers has some curious language.

Freelancer hereby irrevocably grants and assigns to CanWest all rights of every kind in and to the Content (including copyright), and agrees that CanWest shall have the right to exclusively use and exploit the Content in any manner and in any and all media, whether now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe, in perpetuity. For greater certainty, Freelancer shall have no right to re-sell or re-publish the Content without CanWest's express written permission.

CanWest: not just "global" anymore.

Now what was that about an all-encompassing vision of North America? It looks like Mr. Asper already has some views on 'grand designs'. That is what one gets when hanging around with Kissinger and company.

Courtesy: USC School of Journalism and Mass Communications

It's Dumb Looks Time with: John Derbyshire and COIN!

Today's contestant on all things Counter-Insurgency (COIN) is John Derbyshire of The Corner on National Review Online! And for his great offering let us take his post response to Jonah Goldberg on COIN. A big round of applause to Mr. Derbyshire to step into the spotlight on this! So to start off with we will look at his posting and examine it for any and all Dumb Looks that can be given to it completely for FREE!

Here he begins thusly:

Jonah: Nope, don't care whether Iraqis "choose our side" or not. And I believe the American people have a much higher tolerance than you think for bloobaths caused by our giving up on people who—I think the American people would say—were so intrinsically hopeless, we had no choice but to give up on them. The American people barely turned a hair at Pol Pot.

Oh, my! Mr. Derbyshire has decided to call the American People heartless, callous and having a high degree of tolerance for the deaths of foreigners! And lets take that in reverse order, so we can find out why he says such a thing.

Pol Pot was the genocidal maniac leading Cambodia into its era of the Killing Fields! And do you know WHY Americans 'barely turned a hair' to that genocide? Because the Mainstream Media of the day DIDN'T REPORT ON IT DAILY!! Yes news reports did NOT flood in, day after day, from village after village, witnessing the carnage of this bloodthirsty tyrant who gleefully slaughter all of his opponents inside Cambodia. That lovely Communist formed up Democratic Kampuchea and then, because such groups as: Buddhist monks, western trained intellectuals, anyone with a decent education regardless of source, anyone who had any contact with western Nations, people who 'looked intelligent' (including those wearing glasses), the crippled, lame, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Laotians, ethnic Vietnamese. And does Mr. Derbyshire know *why* there was so little reporting on this?

Because Pol Pot killed the reporters who were: intelligent, intellectuals, had contact with western Nations and had a decent education!

Oh, my! The 'Dumb-Looks-o-Meter' is moving hard over on that concept: the American People didn't KNOW about the genocide and almost no one else DID EITHER. It took getting rid of Pol Pot's regime to know the true horror and vast scale of it as it concentrated on first eliminating the weak links with the outside world. Mr. Derbyshire has just intimated that the American People should be outraged about something that only came to light YEARS after it went on.

But, lets be fair, there is a good reason WHY there was no good reporting on this beyond Pol Pot's willingness to just kill those that could report on it. We did NOT give up on the Cambodians because they were 'intrinsically hopeless'! No we gave up on the South Vietnamese as 'hopeless' as was the war we were fighting there. And WHY did the US give up on that? Because we only fought to preserve the South Vietnamese and NOT take out North Vietnam. And who did North Vietnam supply?

Pol Pot!

There you have it, the South Vietnamese were hard pressed because the US would not liberate North Vietnam and, so the Cambodian People were 'intrinsically hopeless' because we would not bring down the regime that supplied Pol Pot!

Uh, oh! The 'Dumb-Looks-o-Meter' is squarely into the DUMB LOOKS territory and going hard through that into the HEADSHAKE OF IMPOSSIBILITY region!

So there you have the basis for 'the American People having a much higher tolerance for a bloodbath of foreigners' concept! It comes squarely on the US inability to fight to WIN against an enemy, then FLEEING the region leaving no trustworthy journalists behind who would, in any event, have been caught up in the Killing Fields of Pol Pot in Cambodia and KILLED so we couldn't learn about it anyways! Perhaps the American People are supposed to be MIND READERS?

That is *just* the opening paragraph by Mr. Derbyshire, perhaps he can get back to simple DUMB LOOKS and not head into the SIGH OF EXASPERATION territory.

And I must say, your ruthlessness seems pretty tame to me. REAL ruthlessness is what Winston Churchill (disapprovingly) called "frightfulness." I think you'd have to conclude, looking back after the last century or so, that modern Anglo powers simply don't do "frightfulness"—not as a land-war tactic, anyway: the city-flattening air raids of WW2 were in a category of their own. The Brits tried the well-proven Roman-Ottoman style counterinsurgency tactics in Ireland (the Black and Tans) and India (Amritsar—that was Churchill's context), and discovered they had no stomach for it. That's why Ireland and India are independent. I doubt we have the stomach either.

Oh, my, here he purports that the Roman-Ottoman style of COIN was utilized in Ireland and India. Now here it is difficult to tell just *which* COIN campaign waged by the Romans or the Ottomans he is talking about. Is this the placement of Roman troops and leadership amongst barbarians to civilize them? Or is it more along the lines of losing a revolt of indigenous peoples one once controlled, as the Ottomans clearly demonstrated they couldn't do in a losing Campaign in the Middle East during the Arab Revolt? Perhaps he is talking of the Belisarius North African Campaign to retake that area from the Vandals during the reign of Justinian? Or perhaps the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks?

Just which, pray tell, COIN mind-set does Mr. Derbyshire refer to? Because these are all EMPIRES not democracies that are waging COIN and using drastic and draconian means to do so. Empires, typically, have only one good path to COIN: kill until peace is achieved.

Is that what he is referring to for the US and the UK? That we do not LIKE GENOCIDE? He is quite correct, but not, I think, in the way he means. If that is Mr. Derbyshire's conception of 'successful COIN' then he really does have a limited view of it.

Yes it is the SIGH OF EXASPERATION time! Someone saying that genocide is the only means to peace and that ethnic cleansing, as it is now known, is not liked by democracies and so they will ALWAYS FAIL. That is one of the most highly negative views of modern civilization I have ever seen and looks to be pining for the days of successful genocidal campaigns to pacify regions that I have ever seen.

The 'Dumb-Looks-o-Meter' is nearly pegged over at RAMPANT NEGATIVISM, and the needle has been replaced by numerous contestants who have broken the poor thing by their outlooks at the incapacity of Western Civilization to do any good whatsoever in the world. Let us hope that Mr. Derbyshire doesn't wander into *that* territory:

The very interesting question, raised by Luttwak and others, is then: Does any other kind of counterinsurgency work? I think both a priori considerations of human nature and the historical evidence say "No." Still, I'm happy to wait for General Petraeus's report in mid-September.

Luckily this is all for that post, but it will be time for another needle replacement job, I can see. Previously I have left thoughts at the Bereft site on this very matter of Luttwak and his outlook, so let me lift from my response on that:

Luttwak makes the common mistake of assuming that once the oil slows from the ME, the power will wane. Terrorism now uses multiple sources for funding: narcotrafficking, bank fraud, grey market goods sales, theft, kidnap for ransom, and the ever popular murder for hire. Petrodollars make it worse, yes, but the present idea that free markets and cheap goods are making things safer and the world freer is misguided and no place more so than the Middle East. Trade does not get freedom. International insitutions do not get freedom.

If either of those were true then after 90 years of having it go on in the Middle East, it should be the freest place on the planet. I do not see that for some very strange reason.

This is primarily not a money flow question as that area has been a haven for tyrants, thugs and Empires for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Of freedom and liberty based upon the rights of man, there has been scant evidence of it. In fact the drying up of money will make things more restive, more tense and those new sources, like Canada with the tar sands and the US with its oil shales, even more hated for 'taking such riches away'. That is, of course, irrational. Perhaps Mr. Luttwak has not noticed the lack of rational actors in the region?

Mussolini still managed to get a lot of folks killed, threaten the vital supply link of the Suez and had an outside chance, with Germany, of cutting off Gibraltar if Germany had held to its original War Plan. Thankfully that was not done.

This enemy has no Nation and wishes all Nations overturned. It can get cheap arms anywhere because we do not do a thing about going after trade with our enemies. There are a number of vital supply and transport links that can be targeted with some ease and if any non-conventional weapon is used possibly removed from the global economy on a long-term basis. I suggest that the economic argument is trivial compared to the long-term survival argument. If we do not put an end to terrorism and dreams of Empire we and our children *will live* to regret our effete attitudes towards civilization and how to hold it.

The fighting would have been bad, but manageable in 1917 and given basis for the US to help bring about more Nations aligned with their Peoples. We did not do that.

The US could have done a bit more after WW II beyond mere anti-colonial support and put in some actual help to the region in the way of schools and building a good base for decent jobs. We did not do that, either.

We could have stopped supporting tyrants or actually overthrown those not in the direct control of the USSR. We did not do that.

Now we pay for the inaction of parents and grand-parents who could have helped other Peoples find a route to freedom by expending blood and money to fight a hard, nasty war that had no good end because it was not fought to completion anywhere. That is still left undone in the Balkans and Middle East. And the price of that is held by a butcher that has decided we need to pay with our lives and freedom.

Time to put fancy ideas of economic reality away and start to deal with this other, actual, real sort of reality, where there are non-rational actors in the world.

Because if we do not put an end to them, then they shall do so to us.

Yes, Mr. Luttwak is looking at the WRONG REASON for terrorism and its continuation! Mr. Luttwak wants there to be nice, cozy, rational actors that will appear, magically, in the Middle East once the petrodollars go away. I have some bad news for him and any who believe in that: it didn't happen during the Barbary Pirates days! This meme of taking over the world for the Caliphate has been around for a long time and those supporting it do not believe, like good Christians, that people should decide for themselves to believe in God and bring it about. The radical Islamists want it at gunpoint and submission - the loss of freedom globally so that they may rule.

Apparently Mr. Derbyshire does not believe in that and, instead, believes these will be nice folks who will just leave the West alone once the US runs away. How unfortunate for the folks in London, Madrid, Bali, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, China (yes, western China these days), the Tri-Border Area of South America, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden... sorry, COIN just doesn't work don't mind the Caliphate repression as it will WIN over democracies which have a high toleration for the bloodshed of their neighbors.

Yes the needle is hard over at RAMPANT NEGATIVISM and that brings us to the historical research of Mr. Derbyshire and it is time to bust the poor 'Dumb-Looks-o-Meter', again. We will start with one highly known, successful COIN operation waged by the United States of America!

This was against a ruthless, native enemy that we had not even FOUGHT against in a war and yet we got stuck doing COIN work against them.... an enemy so ruthless that they skinned people alive and stuffed the skins and left them by trails to be found at night... one that thought nothing of torture, mutilation and sending body parts back to villages. A hard fought, hard won campaign to help a Nation overcome its insurgent minority, islamic population. That was the Moro Rebellion of 1901-13 after the Philippine-American War (1899-1901). And by 1915 the Philippines was to be handed over to a reliable, native government!

If one looks at ethnic divisions and uprisings against a ruling government, then the entire set of Western Indian Wars by the US, lasting from the start of the Akira War starting on or about 01 JUN 1823 and lasting to the final treaties, ending them on 05 OCT 1898 is a 75 year COIN operation with perennial flare-ups, battles, wars, terrorism, killing and so on going on throughout the entire endeavor. There was, apparently, a lot of bloodshed going on in that time.

Prior to that the Northwest Indian War (21 JAN 1785 to 03 AUG 1795) would also be an example of COIN and ending such work on an ongoing basis. This was done by, yes, a democracy.

While we may like it less the British Malay Emergency solutions were on the order of 'relocating populations' but it was to prevent something worse from happening and was a long term problem until it was realized that it was unwinnable on the part of the insurgents. From this we get the 'hearts and minds' concept of COIN.

These solutions require: engaging the native population, ensuring that ethnic tensions and conflicts are addressed, and killing off the insurgents or giving them no long-term options for success. While Mao may like the idea of a 'fish swimming through populations of other fishes' and 'draining the swamp' comes from this concept, the one of helping to get local, accountable government structures that remove legitimacy from insurgent forces is key. That took a long time in the US and, to this day, the solution for Native Americans has been sub-optimal although the campaign was and is successful. Malay defensive relocation of ethnically 'at risk' populations allowed the government to quell tensions and give little options for insurgents to have legitimate cause to fight and wore them out. And in the Philippines, it was kill until respect is gained, in one of the most horrific and personal COIN fights the US has ever been engaged in and is still remembered by the Moros who bequeath names like "John", "Theodore" and "Pershing" to children.

Apparently using democratic means to create legitimate government and remove legitimacy from insurgents can and does work, via various means. So there we have historical analysis to demonstrate effective COIN work done by democracies. And so Mr. Derbyshire wins plenty of Free Dumb Looks for his Rampant Negativism on COIN and establishing governmental legitimacy by democracies.

Perhaps he would like a nice Islamic Empire, instead?

Internetworking and the role it plays

One of the things that has been most difficult to describe is the critical importance of person-to-person networking in the coalescing networks between Transnational Terrorism, International Organized Crime and flow of goods in the black/grey market to support these things. In the good old days of police detective dramas we would see people in rooms full of 3x5 notecards and pieces of string all over the place to map out such networks. Indeed, more than one crime drama would focus on this and someone just looking at the network of who knew who and what happened until it all made sense. Unfortunately very few people can *think* like that and trying to describe what the large-scale internetworking means is very, very difficult.

Today, however, the computer has replaced the notecard and string arrangement, and one of the key elements of police work to bring down gangs, identify gang leaders and how their territory changes is via this method of network analysis. To find Saddam Hussein after his fall from power, he depended upon a close and interwoven set of individuals to provide him with safe houses, transportation, food, supplies and communications. He had hoped to evade capture to a secure location so as to re-emerge from safety at a point that could not be assailed by the Coalition Forces. For him to sustain himself, however, others would find out about the location of his confidantes and that would tie them to him.

When the 'Hunt for Saddam' started, it was a slow going thing as only a few members of the US Armed Forces had the necessary police investigation experience to do the tracking. I will say that from my time in Advanced R&D at one of the INTEL Agencies, that this sort of ability in the US INTEL Community was lacking or missing, completely. A few of us inside the department realized that these critical tools had to be employed to give a good rendition of INTEL across the board, so as to finally start to derive more reliable INTEL based reporting. One of the critical tools was one used by many police departments, but the department looked at many, many other tools, also. Those in Iraq, however, had to make sense of disparate INTEL reports from different groups, with different standards of reliability and to start piecing together just who was or was not in Saddam's 'inner circle'. Who did he trust and why?

For some weeks the notecards and string re-appeared and the experience of just organizing that data started to yield the outlay of that 'inner circle' and their outward bound contacts. Saddam was *not* moving via pre-emplaced government officials and safe-houses, but through a highly personal trust network of reliable individuals. Many of those would end up dead and their body trail was one indicator of his direction of thought and outlook. Reports from those in the second and third circles out would show up with more individuals interrogated and they would point to a region, Tikrit, which would go 'blank' in the notecard arrangement. Even troops on the ground could not get reports from anyone of where Saddam was.

For that narrowing down took place with Military Intelligence moving in, purchasing the police department network software, organizing data & collection standards, and, finally, entering all of the data into a few databases. That, in and of itself, took a couple of weeks (if memory serves) but it was able to remove vast areas where Saddam was *not* and start to tighten the literal circle of reports to show where he *was*. That blank area of reports was due to the brutality of his inner circle to enforce cooperation and obedience. Some of the capture of the 'Playing Cards', members of the higher circles of Saddam's regime, happened as they showed up in the analysis, too. That native, high-level, Ba'athist network got picked apart, but only to a level or so deeper than the High Value Targets. Much of the low-level networking was left in-place by oversight, not design, as it would clutter the search for the HVTs.

Those around Saddam noticed this: more Coalition forces near-by, more roadblocks, more house to house searches, and more members either fleeing or being taken in. Or killed by Saddam's cronies. Finally it was a relatively low-level but highly trusted individual that tipped off the Coalition and got the reward for 'finding Saddam': Saddam's chauffeur. One of the most highly trusted individuals is the one who has to fake his way past check-points, get supplies and ferry goods to and from Saddam. He knew that *his* time was nearly up with Saddam and the question of dying by Saddam's order (and most likely his family getting fallout from that) or turning him in so that he and his family could escape was too stark. He 'walked in', identified himself and within minutes of that he was identified in the network, his position realized, and in one hour a raid staged to get Saddam.

It got Saddam.

These tools and databases of contacts and internetworking served as the basis for much later INTEL work in Iraq and the Military Intelligence folks who, at the beginning of the conflict, were in a pre-automated era of receive reports, digest for a few hours and spit out a report a day or two later had to change their own cycle of analysis and reporting to what was seen on-the-ground in real time. That major change of personal affiliation network analysis has become a vital tool in moving down the command structures of various parts of the 'insurgency'. The 'insurgency' in Iraq, from the way it is described, falls into four highly affiliated internetworks. Individuals and their immediate friendship circles serve as the basis for allowing goods and information to pass from one network to another for joint operations, supplies and some loose deconfliction of events.

As a description and meta-analysis, these fall into the following categories:

1) Ba'athist redentist networks - These are the low level Ba'athists who had some basis for localized power at the time of the fall of Saddam. These low level networks started to re-knit themselves as the HVTs moved down the organizational ladder to attempt to re-network the regime in a new power basis. While many of the critical border operations along Syria and Jordan were re-established, it was the deeper networks into families that was starting to be pulled into this. The timely removal of the HVTs ended that, but caused a lateral spread of the Ba'athist insurgency.


2) Sunni Radicals - These groups utilized the pre-existing Ansar al-Sunnah [correction to Ansar al-Islam as the group at that point in time, with the influence of Zarqawi the name would change, along with operational basis - my thanks to Rusty on that!] bases to move their affiliations outwards, once the regime fell. They could no longer concentrate 'just' on the Kurds as that was a Saddamist goal and, really, had gotten them nowhere. With Ansar being part of the distributed al Qaeda heierarchy, it served to allow individuals to spread into Sunni Arab Iraq and then into the mixed Sunni/Shia areas. This would take a year to do, which is the noted 'breathing time' between the fall of Saddam in MAR-APR 2003 and a year later. These utilized inflows of money from Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda and more distributed elements in Jordan and Turkey to gain a foothold. al Qaeda, in particular, brought in individuals via Saudi Arabia to begin entrenching themselves in places like Anbar province.


3) Shia Radicals - These groups, most notably the Iranian supported and controlled Badr Brigades, plus the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr, and a number of Shia Imams and affiliates spreading from the SE border and into Baghdad would be one of the first to stand up a new organization. The Badr Brigades would attempt to shift to temporary support of the Coalition to remove the Ba'athist regime and install a radical Shia outlook. Moqtada al Sadr would organized more wide-spread militias in the mode of Hezbollah, and begin to cycle individuals to Iran for training while attempting to build his own military support base in Baghdad to Basra corridor. The final part to be stood up was the political SCIRI organization, to arm-wrestle the consitution and the first National elections to its outlook, with support of Iran and having a basic anti-Ba'athist and hostile Sunni attitude. This set of organizations continue to utilize supply lines, training and equipment supplied from Iran and Syria, and reached out to the Sunni organizations and Organized crime to facilitate the Syrian inflow of arms and equipment.


4) Organized crime - This is, perhaps, the most overlooked part of how the various operations in Iraq sustain themselves. The original organized crime links to Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia had started at a very low level, as Saddam's regime was more of a Mafia Don that brooked no competition than that of a Nation State. The Kurds, first to get out from his rule after the first Gulf War, had the most effective smuggling operations into Iraq: that first flood of used cars came not from overseas, but from Kurds smuggling in hundreds if not thousands of cheap used vehicles via Turkey, and a few from Syria. The effect of *that* was sudden appearance of cars on the road and the pointing out that there was limited oil refining capacity in Iraq to meet this need. The flood of televisions, radios, computers, refrigerators, stoves... these started with some commercial interests, yes, but those with ready money were in organized crime and their contacts suddenly made 'consumer goods' a high mark-up, hot selling item. The very same black/grey market goods channels to get in arms, munitions, explosives and people during Saddam's reign blossomed to become truckloads of white market goods flowing into Iraq to meet consumer demand. What happened is well known: demand outstripped supply of the ancient electrical system that dates back to the 1960s and '70s with mostly Soviet and some French and German equipment. This would also allow, however, for the influx of large amounts of arms on the cheap form weapon's suppliers like Syria's Monzer al-Kassar who would utilize his Eastern European contacts, along with ones in Turkey and Latin America to spread influence into Iraq. Which is why he was one of the first to go on the Iraqi 'Most Wanted' list after the government finally stood up last year.


What is amazing to hear, throughout that period, was the 'deficiencies of the post-war occupation' from many, many groups and individuals. Apparently the concept of 'set-expectations' trying to meet expanded need had never been brought to their minds and so the recriminations about supply of electricity, gasoline and all of that is blamed on the 'occupation' until some Interim body could be set up to slowly get some handle on all of this. I, personally, had a major problem with those folks as they had spent ZERO time to think about infrastructure maintenance, original design capacity, degraded actual capacity, pent-up consumer demand and such simple things as the Coalition Forces not having the necessary depth of police anti-gang experience to try and track down the networks listed above.

No one has ever addressed *which* grand and magnificent 'plan' by any part of the US Government or any of its Coalition partners had forecasted the two-year sea change in insurgencies, consumer demand, infrastructure analysis or even something so simple as finding reliable individuals who could govern. The four listed networks are not 'separate networks' but ones that can and do inter-cooperate on a local basis, although there is some higher-level antagonism between them. The Ba'athist network had to be the first to go as it was the hardest hit and the most dangerous, from a military perspective: it had the generals, commanders, trainers and everyone needed to restart the regime elsewhere. The paucity of tools to analyze it meant that a broad-based search operation had to be used and the other three network types could not be addressed until they started to show up by activities... terrorist activities. By that point in time it was too late as they had already used the criminal networks to expand their affilitation basis until they were rubbing against each other throughout Iraq.

The expectations of dictatorial regimes fighting it out 'to the bitter end' and either dying on the battlefield or surrendering did not play out in Iraq. Worries of that were ones of a highly influential dictator able to gain approval in the population to support such a fight and then, after the fall of the government, to install a temporary interim government from those that had fled overseas and trustworthy individuals found on the ground during the fighting. The insurgency from that would be entrenched, deeply sustained and have multiple fall-backs inside their own networks. This expectation did not show up and, instead of months of hard fighting, the regime fell in *weeks* and then evaporated.

Another expectation that has trouble materializing is that of how to shift from a State owned and run economy to that or private capitalism. Here the need to plan for shifting individuals in charge of things like electrical production and distribution and utilizing organs of government spun off from the government also did not happen. The government went fully out of existing and only low level technical people were around to keep things running. How does one shift from State to private control when there is: 1) No State, and, 2) no organized private capital ventures to shift control *to*? This is not only for electricity (which goes unmetered in Iraq!) water, sewage processing and such basic infrastructure, all the way down into the moribund agricultural sector, food processing and distribution.

It is a pure fantasy to think that there *could* be a shift of all of that to more localized control in the very best of circumstances. We have that learning experience from the Ex-Eastern Bloc Nations under the USSR to see the differences between glacially slow transfer, as in Russia, to 'Cold Turkey' like in Poland. In between there are a number of different options that are tried and some, like the Russian, are clearly failing. Those are in Nations with intact governments, intact control and distribution systems, backwards economies and no capitalism worth its name when they started. The very best of them, Poland, took 5 years or so to shift out from Soviet concepts of how to run things and get to a stable and slowly increasing economy. That is in the heart of Europe which was stable and peaceful. In Iraq? Getting factories open is only starting within the last 6 months and employment is now increasing and unemployment finally falling. Even without a counter-insurgency operation, which has *always* been seen as necessary, getting Iraq up and on its feet in anything less than Poland, that had advanced help nearby and ready investors lined up, was asinine, in the extreme.

What is even worse is the lack of recognition by the Political Elite and those who try to foist strange ideas of how the world works upon the public, is that the basis for what sort of government one can *get* in the Middle East has changed since 1945! Yes, strange as it may seem the all-mighty Nation State run by Nationalists is no longer the ONLY paradigm in the Middle East. Iran and Afghanistan have demonstrated two other methods of ruling that have very little to do with Nationalism and everything to do with pan-Islamism. Even worse is that the 'Palestinian Territories' have been unable to even FORM a Nation State since 1948, with the best being achieved is the insurgent-terrorist based kleptocracy that has impoverished the people there by feeding them pipe-dreams that cannot happen. Yes, there are some Arab areas that cannot *form* a Nation State even under a good, old-fashioned dictator.... which would be a step *up* for the folks in Palestine.

Somehow those purporting that the post-war policies failed have also failed to address their unreasonable expectations of a post-war situation that was highly unknown and impossible to plan for beyond the most general of outlines and even *those* would end up being scrapped as time went on. By putting down no *goals* that were understood the critics have NO BASIS in their carping. I have previously addressed some of the truly insane concepts of having a 'huge force on the ground' which, if you would notice, would not address the highly person-to-person networks that were developing in any way, shape or form. One could not even get the Shinsekian 500,000 troops without stripping out EUCOM and PACOM, and throwing in the reserves and then you have them for a year. Raw troops, untrained for Iraq, unused to the conditions and having to deal with a highly strange situation that would not make sense to them... and just as the drawdown would begin the actual insurgency would BEGIN. I can hear the screaming of the naysayers in that alternate universe because I can hear their unrealistic outlooks in this one.

Those individuals expecting that Iran and Syria would 'be amenable to diplomacy' forget that the two of them have been most un-amenable to it in Lebanon. The establishment of their proxy in the form of Hezbollah goes unaddressed by the West and those pushing for 'diplomacy' everywhere. If 'diplomacy' had worked, Lebanon would be at peace with no outside influence from Iran or Syria, now, wouldn't it? That hasn't happened. Generating the power vacuum of a fallen dictator invited these two Nations, plus al Qaeda and a scattering of other groups to try their hand in the Middle East power-by-terrorism concept that has worked so famously in Palestine. The Iraq Survey Group's recommendations sounds like something out of the 1950's with North Korea, and look how well THAT worked out.

I am surprised that anyone gives any credence to 'Realism' in Foreign Policy based upon the good wishes of dictators and tyrants. As a concept 'Realism' has not only grossly failed the West and the US, but it has put us in deadly danger by support it gives to radical elements, despots, thieves and dictators in the form of unaccountable foreign policy pay-offs and systems which give them EQUAL VOICE to democracies. In case you missed it, the folks who *caused* Iraq via 'Realism' in Foreign Policy have names like Baker, Scowcroft, Kissinger, Brzezinski and Clinton. These folks stood up an international era in which dictators would NOT be held to account for anything, in which power brokering with thugs would be utilized, and in which actual anti-democratic Nations would be welcomed into the fold to spread their ideals of totalitarian rule and 'gain legitimacy'. The fallout of that decades of being 'realistic' is now criticism based on wanting to, now, CONTINUE supporting tyrants, despots, kleptocracies, thugs and terrorists *against* forming up accountable Nations to confront them.

Isn't THAT a lovely thing to come from 'The Land of the Free'? Support of the most anti-democratic, anti-liberal elements on the face of the Earth because they stand up to the United States and Western ideals. And why do they support them?

First it is 'unrealistic' NOT to! Yes, call a conference of all the thugs, dictators and radial islamists surrounding Iraq... to do what? Really, what works with that scenario that ends up with MORE people leading freer lives with liberty to benefit by the bounty of their own work? Because I just don't see it.

Second they see the cost of support as unsustainable to the US! I really do forget how many of the next largest economies on this planet summed up equals that of the US. It used to be just #2 and 3 combined and I doubt its that anymore. So it isn't the actual, monetary nor capital expenditure costs, which would be the equivalent of refitting a moderately large State in the US that fell into disrepair and asking the folks there to take up the majority of the repair job once we've shown them how to do it. Like NOLA, save that sucker is sinking... so we put billions into a sinking city.

No, the lovely folks who put up a resistance on COST talk about the cost in lives and injuries to the Armed Forces.

The volunteer armed forces.

That they will not SUPPORT in their mission. Who fight and die because they have VOLUNTEERED to do so for the sorry asses of those carping on the losses sustained. And we are not asking them to go into Iwo Jima, Saipan or onto the beaches of Normandy, but to this Nation called Iraq. You remember that? Dictator over it for 30 years? A couple of decades of one-party or dictatorial or military rule before that? A province of the Ottoman Empire for centuries? Hello? You do *remember* that place, right? The one that has NEVER tasted Liberty and Freedom before, ever? No living memory of it. Some of the memories are carved in stone about dictators and Empires, but a freely elected government to represent the People of Iraq?

Apparently there are still Americans that will VOLUNTEER for helping a People who have never experienced Liberty, Freedom and Democracy before to try it out. And it could FAIL. And leave the West with an even larger problem in that doing.

It is very hard to hear those wanting failure - wanting to flee for handfuls of lives lost out of millions to achieve liberty for a downtrodden people in a far-off land.

To hear from Americans who no longer believe in the universality of all people being created equal.

To have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without tyrannical, despotic or autocratic government taking such from them.

Holding onto this concept has a cost, a deep cost to it, which was spoken about before, during and after the American Revolution so we would NEVER EVER forget it.

You may mouth the words, but if you no longer adhere to them, then you turn away from those things it gives us. You flee from death and destruction and seek the oblivion of tyranny by letting those seeking power over mankind get any rest, any surcease and any opportunity to grow and end that dream... that very idealistic dream... that was the basis for the Revolution.

Looking at the large-scale Terrorist internetworks tells me just how little that ideal now means to the West and to the United States. We have not confronted it for decades, and it has grown to infest itself globally... from the heroin centers in the Bekaa Valley to the Radical Islamist Imams in the US. From arms dealers willing to ship their goods without restriction by Western Nations to far off lands where a profit can be made easily and cheaply.

Even in Iraq we do not confront all of that, just a small outgrowth of that large scale internetwork. And the quivering about paying any price *now* will guarantee that these enemies will thrive, prosper and continue their aim of ending liberty once and for all if they can. As a Nation the US cannot run from Iraq to protect the US, those days ended with 'open borders' and FEDEX. Nor can we hide from the responsibilities leveraged upon us when our liberty and freedoms at home have already been attacked by killers for decades, that thrive on the moribund attitudes of one-worldism and transnational capitalism.

The horrific price the US paid by leaving South Vietnam was in the blood on our hands from those that needed protection from tyrants and despots. Destroyed villages, 'killing fields' and 'boat people' who fled from tyranny and death because the fighting did not end after the US left. And the killing only got worse. That led to many outcomes, but the worse is this dream of global pathway to power by just killing to it for an tyrannical ideology. And so you can get an idea of what that looks like on a graphical scale, lets take a look at rough sketching out of some of the links between: Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, FARC, BCCI.

Not very pretty, and only covering about 15 terror incidents and concentrating on the US...call it less than 5% of the high level interconnections with much more from BCCI, BNL, and arms firms needing to be put in along with the Drug Cartels and Kingpins. Plus a hefty amount of the interaction between organized crime and terrorism isn't well scoped out yet.

That is what it looks like when we do not pay attention to tyranny and terror for 30 years.

Too bad so many in the defeatocrat camp don't want to confront it.

It is already here.

Some commentary of mine at the Bistro

It had been a few days since I visited Harrison's place at the The Possum Bistro, and I found some great posts, and reading one after another I finally had some ideas that I was going to post about coalesce! So in his Defence Against the Dark Arts post, I did what I always do - meander on in commentary. But, as it was a great post, and a number of good ones to finally get things more properly moving, mentally, I will give it to you, the poor reader, as-is. That said the number of wonderful posts that Harrison has warrants a visit to The Possum Bistro!

Here is my commentary, as follows, no corrections or any such done so you may know exactly how bad I write with an insulin reaction coming on:

Amazing how the West thinks in terms of who should and should not be divided! Yes North and South Korea and Vietnam worked out so well... didn't they? How about East and West Berlin and Germany? Why, thank god there are two of them! Lovely palliative, that, to not stand up to totalitarianism and say: we are war weary, don't grab at what you can't grasp as that will come back to haunt you. And so it did, as you note, in Hungary and the welded together Checzoslovakia. Yes, they were one Nation... now two because of incompatabilities in ethnic outlook. Then there is this thing that the West in its grand ideals, made of disparate peoples and called it Yugoslavia. That worked very well, didn't it?

This 'deciding the fate of others' deal has a long history going back further than the Tripartite division of Poland, which resurrected itself out of the ashes of the Empires that divided it, only to be subjugated twice more due to Western inability to stick to its word: first to Fascist Germany and then to the USSR. 'Realism' is an excuse to put money ahead of liberty, and this idea that the West can do more than just guide post-war situations and *not* control them, is something we must get over. Western culture cannot force people to be free, but it can teach what the cost of liberty and freedom *is*.

Whenever we decide on the 'realistic' course, the US denies its history of being a Revolutionary Nation that has long-term commitment to its ideals. Strange to say, but 'idealistic' outlook can be quite pragmatic and yet understand that to coddle tyranny is abhorrent to a Free People.

And how dare the US put 'benchmarks' upon other governments when it can adhere to NONE of its own? While we are, indeed, committed to securing our own liberty, we do forget the responsibility of a post-war situation to help others understand what it means to secure liberty for themselves. That is *not* a cost-free situation, and yet we have a political class that believes otherwise.

No, let some magnificent 'moral equivalence' reign, in which black is white and torture is a bad night's sleep. Or that mere commerce is the be-all, end-all to liberty... forgetting that it is liberty that builds commerce to make one free to utilize the benefits of one's own work. The defeatism that we see is pure cowardice: an unwillingness to put any cost forward as worth it to build freedom and help others realize what it costs to secure liberty.

Fukiyama was blandly incorrect to assume an 'end of history' and the inevitability of Western culture and outlook. There is no such thing as inevitability in history. There may be 'tides in the affairs of men' but men are not King Canute commanding the tide, we ride it and sink or swim on our own basis... and sometimes we can get to higher ground and deny the tide its reach. That is contingency in history, based upon the actions of individuals. Our actions create history, even if the tide runs counter to it actions can and do make a difference. Even with the tide turning on human liberty and so many willing to see it gone, the goal of swimming for liberty and trying to reach higher ground to escape tyranny is worth the cost and struggle.

Because stopping is fatal.

Now we hear the insane ideas that running from helping others will have desireable outcomes... people that we committed to in overthrowing a tyrant. Be it right or wrong to do the overthrowing, the responsibility is to help guide these people on why we did it as a free people, and for them to determine their own course as a free people. I am more than willing to pay that price as a civilization, as *not* to pay it is lethal to us. That poison already drips into our mouths and its bitter taste is awful. Yet the sweet words of 'just swallow the poison' is heard again.

'We can't mediate a civil war.'

-Show me the 'civil war' by the ancient standards of honorably standing up a government and fighting FOR something, and I will tell you if it is something to take part in or NOT.

No, those ancient standards that we know are not the ones of modernity... *anything*, literally, is 'civil war' now. So blind terrorism masked as sectarian strife to give murderers cover... that is 'civil war'.

Not barbarians behaving barbarically against innocents.

'We can't figure out their problems for them, so just stand by the sidelines. Divide up their Nation.'

-Well if we can't figure it out, then 'why' is it a good thing to divide them? After THREE democratic elections, ONE to make a Constitution, a SECOND to ratify it and a THIRD to elect a government as a unified Nation, how can we say it should be divided? North-South, like Vietnam and Korea? East-West like Germany and Europe were? Or Tripartite like Poland?

Those *failed*.

Welding together people who did not want to be in a Nation together *failed* in the Balkans and for the Checzoslovakia.

The People there have spoken, wisely or unwisely, as a People. Can we abide by that or will we, as with Argentina under Allende, or S. Vietnam under Diem, invalidate their elections by our 'wisdom' being unable to figure the place out? Argentina and S. Vietnam worked out so well in this 'deciding for them' business, didn't it?

How come, in Austin Bay, I hear the same, old, tired and *wrong* ideals being given to us for the defeatist option and NO ONE willing to call them for the old, tired and *wrong* things they have given us in the past? I literally cannot name places where they have WORKED. The Ottoman Empire under lovely Wilsonian ideals? Free now with trade, right?


Those things are *excuses* not to do the right thing and hold on grimly to liberty as the cost of NOT doing that is an invalidation of liberty and freedom for ourselves. That cost was plainly told the US in the Revolution and for the world to witness: 'No taxation without representation' and 'The price of the Tree of Liberty comes in the cost of the blood of tyrants and patriots'.

'Divide up those that we cannot understand!

Or Unite them!

Or call genocide by the name 'civil war'!

Just RUN!

For god's sake don't stay and FIGHT to be FREE!!'


What is the cost of liberty?

-The last free person on the planet FIGHTING to be free, and dying for liberty. Nations rent asunder to do that. Peoples dead for that. All treasuries spent for that. The planet laid waste because slavery of the human spirit and soul to tyranny is NOT worth the price of living as a slave under *any* system.

That started in 1776.

Yet I find few defenders of this concept any more.

How do you justify defeat when it means being a slave to the fear of death?

And soon just being a slave as those that threaten know no bounds.

It is a stark, nasty, and permanent cost to be paid again and again and again. Generation upon generation, until we see that All men are created EQUAL.

The cost of liberty is all Peoples realizing the cost of that freedom is liberty's awful and awesome tree... which gives shade and shelter from tyranny only if it is defended. In blood. Until all men are free.

I am an absolutist Jacksonian on warfare. You fight to win. You help the fallen after. You help those tyrannized to be free. You help up honorable enemies who abide by their word to find the path from tyranny.

And to those that will not give up on tryanny?

You fight until they are dead.

Or you are.

If we cannot hold to that ideal, as a culture, then no amount of 'volunteering to fight' will help, as the culture is debased and will not cash in on the good blood spilled to create liberty. A culture debased is not worth fighting FOR.

Run from this fight and we will find few defenders left, anywhere.

And the Revolution restarted here, in the US.

I do my duty as Citizen to BE Citizen to show the better way to ensure that blood spilled is liberty gained. Not just in Iraq. But here, at home.

"You must pay the price, to secure the blessing." - Andrew Jackson.

And there you have it, twisted syntax and all...

Failing the benchmarks they set for themselves

The time has come to look at the benchmarks set and see how well the forces are doing on them. A government is held to account for its inability to find a way to reach across the divide, unite the Nation and bring a common and consensual government together, with fair means so as to ensure the safety of the Nation.

Unfortunately, it is my duty to report to you that this has been an utter and complete failure on the part of those in power who have fought hard to gain power but have no idea how to exercise it. They have divided the Nation, done *nothing* on their promises and further ensure that disharmony is felt throughout the Nation, putting innocents at peril. By their own measures they have failed.

Is this about Iraq?

No, it is about the United States, now 25% into its two year Congressional cycle for the House and NONE of the stated things that those newly in power have promised have come about, and, indeed, there has been backsliding to chaos across the entire agenda. To remind you, this is the platform to which those in the Congress from the victorious side ran upon, not what they have been saying since that victory, although they have delivered on none of those promises, either:

A very, very simple Six Point Plan and they cannot achieve any of it. Using their own benchmark reporting concepts for Iraq, Congress can now rightly have similar applied to them.

Standard of Measurement: Section 1314(b)(2)(A) states: “The President shall submit an initial report to Congress, not later than July 15, 2007, assessing the status of each of the specific benchmarks established above, and declaring, in his judgment, whether satisfactory progress toward meeting these benchmarks is, or is not, being achieved.”

This is a very simple concept made so that Congress could get very complex issues boiled down to pap so that they could understand it as they are unfit to have any real concept of Foreign Policy thrust upon them and so need it spoon fed to them for political reasons. So let us hit the Six points promised by Congress which has frittered away 25% of its time to date:


1) Honest Leadership & Open Government - In the House of Representatives there has been movement to put an impeached Judge into a position of power and the use of threats on the poisonous earmarks concept to hide earmarks from the American People and even add them to the budget with NO vote at all taken on them. When promising to reform the earmark process and ensure that each earmark was properly cited to an individual member and given a line-item in the budget, accountability was to be performed. That has not happened and the process of inserting said earmarks into the budget has gone further into back rooms, further off the budget and far outside the normal Congressional voting procedures.

In the Senate backroom creation of an Immigration Bill was done that went through NO committee or review process and was not even available to read to members before debate on it had begun. TWICE. Further the Senate has taken to its own concept of adding earmarks far outside the normal procedures for same and refuses to put any means or methods of accountability into place.

No major spending legislation has passed either body, beyond an Emergency Spending bill to ensure continued support of the effort in Iraq. No major reform bill has passed into law to curb and hold accountable the earmark process or end it all together. Previous 'do-nothing' Congresses have at least passed minor appropriations bills for domestic parts of government and put off the heavy political fighting until the last moment. This Congress has not even achieved that very, very, very low level of capability.

Progress on this item is unsatisfactory. It has not had any work done on it by the Congress or its Leadership. Backsliding has made the situations worse and the divide of Congress from the People of the United States has widened.


2) Real Security - Congress to date has not put forth *any* security provisions for the Nation to ensure that all borders are secure, that all individuals in this Nation illegally are tracked down, and that all of those who have committed crimes while in the US illegally have been deported. Congress refuses to fund the very laws it enacted and then complains that no one is working to enforce them. Congress has abdicated its duties to properly fund all Agencies involved with securing the Nation from illegal border incursions, which have invited cross-border attacks by drug gangs, outlaws and corrupted Mexican National Police and Military forces.

Further, Congress has taken to do no long-term review of the force size and structure of the US Armed Forces to better prepare it for a long-lasting conflict that can flare up at any point around the world with deadly consequences and long-lasting destabilization of the system of Nation States. US interests in trade and the economy ALONE should mandate that, beyond just fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, support for the Philippines, Columbia, and other Nations facing terrorist problems.

Indeed, Congress is now looking to make Columbia more vulnerable to FARC and destabilize that Nation. By giving any consideration to FARC, Congress is seen as being cowed by an organization that has attempted to assassinate a sitting US President, beyond the hostage taking, assaults and other attacks upon the US, its citizens and property held by commercial organizations in Columbia by the US, that alone should give especial ire to Congress as the individual was from the party of the incoming leadership.

Beyond that members of the US Congress, from both parties, have broken with their duties as given in the Constitution and as upheld by the US Supreme Court making the President the ONLY individual who can make Foreign Policy for the United States. In particular, giving any hearing to one of the most centralized Terrorist organizations without the approval of the President inherently weakens those powers delegated only to the Executive Branch.

Congress has done nothing to ensure that a complete cargo inspection system has been created and implemented, so NO port of entry for cargo shipment in the US can be deemed 'secure'. Organizations in the Caribbean have been investigated that pose a deadly threat to a number of cities on the eastern seaboard by their plots to use terrorist means and piracy to attack the US and these have only failed due to luck of discovery before they could come to fruition.

All of this while complaining that the Executive has, indeed, implemented laws passed by Congress to allow for such things as 'roaming wiretaps', necessary in this day and age of cellphones, and about intercepts of communications and electronic intelligence beyond the boundaries of the United States and outside all lawmaking areas of Congress. To date no program has been cited that Congress has not been informed about on a timely basis nor has any indication been given that such programs have not been safeguarded so that data about US Citizens is properly handled. Instead of looking to safeguard the interior of the United States and its commerce, Congress has complained about properly approved programs that have had sufficient oversight and Congressional briefings.

Progress on this item is unsatisfactory. Congress has not funded or even passed programs to properly implement safeguards as cited by the 9/11 Commission and has not even ensured that the Dept. of Homeland Security is fully staffed and funded. By not addressing the problems of border security, port security, nor in funding police and other investigative agencies, plus the court system and prison system to handle its CURRENT workload, the Congress of the United States is backsliding as the deficiencies get worse over time due to Congressional inaction.


3) Energy Independence - Congress has given no plan for the energy independence of the United States nor has it even proposed to lessen reliance on foreign sources of energy sources from Nations that aid, assist and promote terrorism. Sen. Kennedy has remained in hard opposition to such facilities that would 'pollute the viewshed' of his family's vacation home in Martha's Vineyard, and other well off families and individuals also oppose such things from that area. Even simple measures to alleviate the use of foreign petroleum resources, such as opening the US Continental shelf to oil exploration or getting tax credits or other incentives to industry to explore and utilize US based resources has not been done. Refineries remain a key bottleneck in the US system and the concentration of older vintage refineries along the Gulf Coast are both a security concern against attacks and a vital vulnerability of the US to natural disasters. Nothing has been done to alleviate this or the fact that the US has not opened up a new oil refinery since the 1970's.

Congress cannot even put forward a simple 'X-Prize' package to set goals for private industry and award prizes to those in industry who meet achievement goals in safe energy production, storage, transportation and creation of new energy sources. Even worse is that Congress does not put forward a long-term plan for utilization of space industries for the long term shift of US energy needs out of the biosphere and into the vacuum of space, along with the industry needed to support same. This would help to achieve long term energy goals AND environmental goals with a shift in emphasis away from terrestrial sources and to those of space based sources.

Even the very simple idea of putting forth proper regulations for third and fourth generation nuclear power plants, which suffer none of the design flaws of first generation plants has been implemented, and yet this has proven to be the energy source with the least impact on the environment and the greatest long-term sustainability. Third and fourth generation plants run more efficiently, with far less waste and no capability for nuclear accidents that older plants had to deal with. Fusion has taken far steps forward in just the past two years and NO Congressional 'X-Prize' system for that has been developed to encourage those working on designs from desktop to large reactors capable of lighting thousands of homes with NO radioactivity involved.

Progress on this item is unsatisfactory. Congress, by not doing the meager things within its power to stimulate economic growth in this area, and encourage research, development and design of new methods of creating, storing, transmitting and utilizing energy allows an ever wider gap of vulnerability to open up based on over-reliance on foreign energy sources.


4) Economic Prosperity & Educational Excellence - As Congress came in with a long-running, multi-year basis for economic growth, the best method to ensure that continued growth is to do NOTHING about it. Congress has achieved that to date and it is recommended that ALL changes in the tax structure, beyond simplification of it, be tabled for the foreseeable future. This area is not broken and needs no 'fixing'.

As the Federal Government established the Dept. of Education in 1980, it has not changed the reading capability of the children of the United States nor its test scores on an international basis. All programs designed to do this have not impacted these scores and reading, in particular, remains the same as it was as a percentage measurement when it was first brought to the attention of the Nation in 1958, when Johnny couldn't read. By that series of measurements all Federal programs, funding and other such things are a FAILURE over the long term. Education costs have gone up with Federal spending, and yet the debt load of those Americans seeking higher education has risen disproportionately to both. As the Federal Government only has limited needs for advanced educational outlook for targeted R&D and that is overseen by separate agencies, it is recommended that Congress remove the Dept. of Education for primary and secondary schooling, and award funds in proportion to how well each State does on internationally recognized standardized tests, with only fully meeting the best in the world getting 100% funding. All other funding should be ceased and Federal Agencies given better funding for targeted R&D, and the entirety of the Dept. of Education disbanded.

As Congress has so far not brought ANY reform of the Dept. of Education to the table nor any way to reliably 'pay for performance' of schools, it should cease the meddling in the State's education system as it has not improved the overall capability of them by a substantial amount.

Progress on this item is satisfactory for the economic portion and unsatisfactory for the education portion. To retain the satisfactory rating in the economic side, Congress is recommended to retain stability in the tax structure at its current point and implement recommendations for simplification of the tax system. Congressional outlook to utilize any input into the educations of Americans is a multi-decade failure and should be terminated beyond simple 'pay for performance' block grants and targeted R&D.


5) A healthcare system that works for everyone - Congress has no progress on this item. Congress has yet to cite benchmarks on what 'works for everyone' means, as the varieties of outlook on what healthcare is or its scope varies from individual to individual across the Nation. As Congress is given NO power in this area via the US Constitution, it is recommended that a 'pay for performance' schema be instituted for all charitable hospitals without regard to any affiliation whatsoever. As Congress has already seen fit to establish medical costs per procedure that it is willing to pay for other systems, those can be utilized and adjusted by locale as is done with the Federal civil service system.

This would ensure that the very poorest of Americans gets reliable help from charitable institutions and the Federal Government would be establishing NO religion by paying to *any* institution, regardless of its religious or social affiliation, based on benchmarks for such procedures and institutions that can be established by such agencies as the National Institutes of Health and Mental Health. Congress can 'means test' such things and not pay out fully based on hospital performance and patient status, and this will only be, like in the case of Education, a small 'supplement' on the order of less than 5% of the Nation's overall medical costs. As other Nations with 'socialized health care' are now finding those systems failing and patients getting worse care, year on year, the US should do little to its system, beyond ensuring that the absolute poor and destitute get care.

Via the utilization of existing charitable and not-for-profit hospitals and giving re-reimbursement to them based on patient status and demonstrated capability of treatment, the very poorest can be assured of having access and the rest of America can pay more as their income rises, with a cut-off at the poverty line. This is not an area amenable to Federal oversight or legislation beyond tested drugs, assured procedures and a non-discriminatory outlay for the poorest to be treated. America has always been open to giving the poorest assurance they will not die for lack of funds, but we have never slit the National wrists to assuage a bleeding heart on the economics of it.

Progress on this item is unsatisfactory. Congress has little it can do in this realm and should let the American People know this is the case, and that the failings of other systems around the globe demonstrates that freedom of choice for Americans is far better than government choice.


6) Retirement security - As the original Social Security System was meant to encourage economic stimulation based on a theory of limited jobs and too many young individuals, it was seen as a limited time endeavor Individuals, before that, worked for their entire life and many did, indeed, retire based on health concerns or the ability of their own savings to cover them in that retirement. Today the wealthiest and most economically capable segment of the population is the elderly. One fact that needs addressing is that the jobs market is now missing the skills of those that retire early due to government fiat in this realm, and that many individuals seek further, part-time employment in their retirement. This is a mandated downgrading of jobs, by government, and this hurts the very job market that encourages younger people to work: the part-time market.

Further, as no individual expects to work for one company or even in one occupation for a lifetime, many individuals are restarting entire careers multiple times throughout their lives to cope with this changing economy. Retirement dates now change that outlook as individuals may find themselves needing to either retire early, due to upcoming age mandate, or to face working in a low paying job at the end of their careers due to the flux of the economy. This is compounded by the fact that Americans now live much longer lives than they did in the 1930's, and the expectation of two or more DECADES of healthy and active lives beyond retirement points out that the experience of the labor market is now increasingly on the golf courses of America and not in the workplace.

Economic vehicles have also increased in abundance and Americans now have options and opportunities for investment that allow for long-term financial planning so as to utilize advancing economic capability for self-actualization of funding. Mutual funds and other distributed investment concepts for fractional ownership in funds, have shifted the ownership proposition and payoff proposition from wealthy individuals to that of wealthy funds investing for masses of individuals for retirement. Most growing up today expect to receive NO Federal help as they see that the system will be BANKRUPT by the time they get to the point where it could be useful to them. To allow for these changes, Congress needs to examine if the Federal Government has *any* role in the care of the elderly beyond that of healthcare and minimal standards for living. As most of the wealth is now concentrated in the upward age brackets, the funds taken from younger workers is increasing disproportionately to the size of that workforce and the payouts are handed to those who should have *planned* for their retirement.

As it is the Federal Government will need to end this system at some point, as its percentage of budget is far larger than anything save paying on debt. A system of pro-rated returns on funds or ending the system with insuring only current payouts from the system for amount paid in would be a start to changing the basis of retirement security in the US. Further, a system of reducing or eliminating taxes on investments would allow for long-term financial planning that would not be raided by the Federal Government and allow for individual Americans to guide their own future be it into extended working life or into retirement.

Progress on this point is unsatisfactory. Congress has too long ignored the changing demographics of America, the changing workplace, the changing work expectations, the increased mobility of the Nation and the concentration of wealth to the older age brackets of Americans.


Congressional leaders have, since the election, purported that they promised many other things, including some unconstitutional Congressional 'oversight' for combat overseas and in areas of immigration reform. In the first instance Congress refuses to do its duty to properly ensure that the Armed Forces are trained, equipped, sized and scoped out according to the actual JOB that they have been set to do by Congress, and, on the second point, Congress has refused to fund enforcement of the laws on the books.

Iraq, in comparison, with 'green' politicians in their first democratically elected National Government is doing fine on its benchmarks, to actually establish a Nation. The Congress of the United States, however, seems to have lost the concept of democracy, accountability, oversight or even what their jobs are. Perhaps it is time for the Citizens of the United States to petition their States to pull the validity of the elections for their current Senators and Representatives and withhold same until the Government agrees to do its job.