Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Gen. Franks' Book

From Instapundit.com:

"TOMMY FRANKS' NEW BOOK, AMERICAN SOLDIER, IS NUMBER ONE on the New York Times bestseller list, but it's not getting a lot of attention. Max Boot explains:

"It is a good read, thanks to the work of veteran ghostwriter Malcolm McConnell; the early sections on Franks's blue-collar upbringing and Vietnam service are particularly affecting. But it has not made as much of a media splash as some other accounts of the administration, because it is not hostile to George W. Bush.

To the contrary, American Soldier rebuts some criticisms directed against the president. Bush has been accused, for instance, of taking his eye off Afghanistan by ordering the plan for a possible war with Iraq in the fall of 2001. Franks writes that, given the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, this was a sensible request, and that "our mission in Afghanistan never suffered" as a result.

Scores of pundits have accused the administration of lying, or at least distorting the evidence, about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Franks reveals that the leaders of Egypt and Jordan told him that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Though no weapon of mass destruction was ever found, he writes, "I do not regret my role in disarming Iraq and removing its Baathist regime."

Another charge made against the administration is that political appointees failed to give the generals enough troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, Franks writes, it was his own choice to employ limited forces in order to avoid getting bogged down. Instead of relying on sheer size, he thought surprise and speed were the keys to victory -- a judgment largely vindicated by events."

I hate to buy into a theory as seemingly simplistic and cynical as "if it makes Bush look good, it'll be buried" -- but I can't deny its explanatory power."

Documentaries and Reality TV

Documentaries are cool, but there usually isn't much money in them.

As anyone who knows me already knows, I was not impressed by Fahrenheit 911. I found it trite, unintellectual, and insulting. With the exception of the raw footage from Baghdad, it was a waste of time at best, and a manipulative trick at worst. A friend of mine suggested that even though the movie might be biased and dumb, at least it would get people interested in an important issue. I agree with this only in an abstract way. I think people had to be interested in politics/the-war-in-Iraq before they decided to buy a ticket for the movie, and all the movie really would get them interested in are made-up non-issues. However, I agree with the basic idea that it's better (but only slightly) for people to be watching a documentary, however un-intellectual, than a movie that never purports to have any intellectual component in the first place.

What my friend said did lead me to another idea, though. Maybe this movie's financial success will help bring some real, quality documentaries to the big screen. Since the Fahrenheit 911 craze began, I have heard about Control Room from lots of people and heard that it's excellent. I've also heard about this new documentary called Nine Innings from 9/11 that looks good. If Fahrenheit 911 causes a general upswing in enthusiasm about documentaries, I guess that would be a silver lining to the otherwise dark cloud that it was.

European selfishness

I was reading this article today and it really struck me as representing an amazing selfishness on the part of Germany. Germany didn't support the US in Iraq, even though it owes the US its very existence (in its modern form, at least). It didn't even help bear the financial burden for reconstructing Iraq in any signficant way, even though it stands to benefit greatly from a stable, democratic Iraq.But now the Germans are upset that the US is going to move soldiers out of Germany? They're worried that people in Germany will lose jobs. This is probably true, but it's insane. The Germans are upset because not as much of the US military budget is going to go into the pockets of their restaurant owners, service employees, defense contractors, etc? If you're not a good ally, that's what you get. You can't deny support to US military goals and then cry foul when the US military wants to stop giving you money. Another way to put it is that you can't rely on the US to fight the wars you have no stomach for, absorb the immigrants that you don't want in your country, AND prop up your economy. That's so selfish.

Monday, August 09, 2004

You can't have it both ways

"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said."

The moral of this entry is you can't have it both ways. There are a bunch of people in this country who sit around and second guess things that they have no business second guessing and know nothing about. I can't belive I was reading headlines talking about people questioning whether or not the country needed to be at orange alert as a result of information uncovered in Pakistan (and other places) recently. YOU AREN'T A COUNTER-TERRORIST EXPERT. If you don't trust that the CIA can handle that stuff, then vote for people who want to rearrange the CIA or make oversight committees. Don't sit around and act like somehow you understand better than the trained professionals. When you demand all kinds of justification and don't let elected representatives REPRESENT you, you compel them to do things like leak information so that they can prove they know what they're doing. Now, admittedly, whoever leaked the name of this guy before it was time should not have done so, but it would have been a lot easier for him not to leak anything if there weren't people breathing down his neck every time he tried to do his job.

Sunday, June 27, 2004

Ode to Sharon

As many of you know, Sharon and Ben Lum have been in Washington, D.C. for the last couple years. I always felt honored to know both Ben and Sharon while we were in college. They have not been idle while residing in our nation’s capitol. Sharon is constantly on the move. As Ben will soon be moving back to his native California and Sharon will be coming to visit, I thought I would take this opportunity to bring you all up to speed on what Sharon has been doing. Sharon sure has been in the headlines a lot lately! The headlines formed such a coherent story that I simply integrated them right into my narrative, putting them in bold text so you can see how many headlines track Sharon’s every movement and action.

Background:
Sharon was born at Kfar Mala on February 27, 1928. During the 1948 War of Independence, she commanded an infantry company in the Alexandroni Brigade. These two things are obvious. Anyone who knows Sharon knows them already. But let’s get on to what’s happening now – today.

Sharon’s deadly gamble:
Sharon woos UTJ. This, understandably, made Ben very angry. But when he confronted Sharon about this, Sharon firm on negotiations. He waited about an hour for her to cool off, but Sharon won't be pushed into new talks. Ben’s anger grew and grew. It culminated when Sharon’s minority government ‘slapped.’ Sharon’s immediate, domestic response was seen by many as heavy handed. She stopped doing the dishes. Sharon, Labor Alliance Apparently Off. Ben knew that he was Sharon’s leading lady, but lately he sure didn’t feel like it. He wondered why she was doing all these confrontational things.

Then he found out, Sharon bribe inquiry may reopen. Then it all made sense. Ben started to feel bad that he had slapped Sharon. He knew she was a good person because Sharon Shows Concern for the Elderly. Unfortunately Ben’s machinations against Sharon could not be unstarted. His plan was already in the works. Everyone realized this when Former official targets Sharon. But Sharon wasn’t alone in her resistance. Sharon faces fight to fortify his party, but Jewish Agency Decides to Help Sharon. Eventually, and despite the fact that: Evidence clearly shows that Sharon took bribes, Ben decided that Sharon needs new friends. He immediately solicited a pair of guys he knew from work. Bush and Sharon Should Work With Arafat. Ben immediately recognized that this was working. He found out that Sharon won’t be charged and this staved off Sharon’s Disengagement Plan. Finally the good news came: Sharon’s bribery charges dropped.

One soap operatic struggle of Sharon’s life was drawing to a close, but Sharon still had many important things on her plate. For example, Sharon Wants a Better Presence in Front of High Court Bench. Also, recently, Bush, Chirac, and Sharon are winners of “Islamophobia Awards 2004.” Knowing Sharon is an honor, indeed!

Sunday, June 20, 2004

Naivite => Arrogance

I saw a bumper sticker today that said, "Terrorism is a symptom, not the disease."

I would like to argue that this is an arrogant way of thinking. Here are some building blocks:

1) The idea that terrorism is a symptom implies a belief that terrorism is an understandable reaction to something, be it a policy, cultural imperialism, or whatever. This is not an obviously unreasonable thing to think. At some times terrorism is a very legitimate response. The French Resistance was undoubtedly viewed as "terrorism" of a sort, but few people around today question the legitimacy of blowing up bridges to slow the Nazi advance. The key is that terrorism is seen as a response to an external stimulus.

2) External stimuli ALWAYS exist. Unless you live in the only country in your known universe, you are affected by your neighbors. Sometimes they attack you outright. Sometimes you trade with them and have petty disagreements about tariffs.

3) No policy on the part of a country could ever make all people outside that country happy. No country that I know of comes anywhere close to keeping all of its own citizens happy. The US comes the closest in many ways. Despite disagreements, people seem still to be glad they live in the US instead of somewhere else - at least most people most of the time.

Let's take these three premises in reverse order and see where they lead. Since no country's actions will always make its neighbors happy, and those actions will undoubtedly reverberate in, and be felt by, other countries, terrorism is an understandable and basically inevitable response, on the part of the "losers" in any given situation.

I assert that believing this shows a fundamental arrogance on the part of the believer. If they believe that the terrorism going on now is justified, they must believe that it is a legitimate response to the policies of the US (or some other Western countries). If this terrorism is a legitimate response, then the US should presumably have pursued a different policy which would not have "created" terrorism abroad. But therein lies the rub. What policy wouldn't create terrorists? Supporting Saddam Hussein, even tacitly, would encourage Islamic Revolutionaries who want to supplant him to attack the US. Supporting the opposition to Saddam Hussein makes the US a target for his supporters (read: insurgents). Lest you think that we could have stayed out of this altogether, think about this problem:Before the first gulf war, Saddam killed innocent allies of the US (Kuwaitis). After the Gulf war, he tried to assassinate the former US President. Vladimir Putin has recently revealed that in the last several years Russian intelligence has gotten wind of multiple plots by Iraqi agents to attack targets in the United States. We didn't go to Iraq for fun to steal their oil. We had little choice but to deal with the situation there.

EITHER WAY SOMEONE IS GOING TO BE PISSED OFF.

If you believe that there are actions that the US could take which would somehow stave off terrorism against us, you are failing to take into account the multidude of differences between people OUTSIDE the United States. Some of them are diametrically opposed to one another. Peaceniks are mad when we encourage rebel insurgencies and they're mad when we try to counter them. This is naive and stupid. You can't have it both ways. The only way I can see that someone can believe that radical Islamist, anti-American terrorism is justified is to essentially say they Iraq was right and Iran was wrong, or vice versa. It's to say that the Palestinians are right and the Israelis are wrong, or vice versa. Many people have called me arrogant, but I don't pretend that I understand the Israel-Palestine problem so well that I know who's "right" and who's "wrong." But to believe there are choices the US could make which would prevent terrorism is to assume that there is one right answer to the Israel-Palestine problem.

According to dictionary.com, arrogant means "Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others". For someone living in the United States to think that some certain policy is so "right" that no one would rebel against it and be driven to terrorism seems quite arrogant to me.

To the person with the bumper sticker: I guess terrorism is a symptom. It's a symptom of a diseased mind that believes problems are solved by bombing innocent people riding the bus. Arrogance is a disease, too. Believing that you know better and everyone else out there just doesn't get it is arrogant. Maybe there's a reason why you're not the president of the United States, you idiot.

Saturday, June 19, 2004

Israeli Disengagement

For several months I have been very undecided about Sharon's disengagement plan. I was unsure how it fit in with the "roadmap", whether it was simply a land grab, and how it could ever pass muster in the Likud party. Obviously the referendum has shown it didn't, in fact, carry a majority of Likud support. After reading about it and thinking about it for a long time, I have decided to tentatively support the disengagement plan.

The tipping point for me came from reading "Does Sharon Have a Plan?" by Hillel Halkin in the June, 2004 issue of Commentary. While the article is neither very detailed nor particularly well researched, it does make a powerful common-sense argument.

Four years of intifada has increasingly forced me to agree with the cynics that a peaceful, negotiated, two-state compromise seems about as unlikely as a peaceful single state for Jews and Arabs to share.

My dad pointed out that the disengagement plan still doesn't really solve the problem of what to do with Jerusalem, ever a sticking a point. I wonder if, even if the disengagement were to succeed, it would not simply re-focus terrorist attacks on Jerusalem.

Even though it may not solve the Jerusalem issue, the disengagement plan is necessary because it will begin to acclimate Israeli hardliners to the evacuation of settlements, which is inevitable.