Jack Wakeland

There is always a substantial gap between what most ideologies say they mean and what they actually mean. This gap occurs to the extent that an ideology contradicts reality either on purpose (in the dishonest pursuit of power) or by accident (by innocent error). An ideology means nothing to the world unless it is put into practice by some one to some degree. It is in its practice that an ideology grows, potentially takes over, lives, becomes confused or corrupted by the contradictions of its adherents, and dies...or is reborn or recast in a different form to come back again. It is only for those ideologies that actually influence the affairs of men that one can render a fully objective judgment as to whether they're good or evil and to what degree. This is possible because of the vast number of man-made facts--the history--that influential ideologies end up producing. Influential ideologies are built on new ideas in the special sciences that organize observed facts and open the way to unexpectedly interesting new observations (or obfuscate existing knowledge and censor new observations). Because they've been built on the broad base of discoveries in the special sciences, valid (or semi-valid) ideologies produce political regimes that liberate the creative and organizational and productive energy of men. And these men produce inventions, organize productive enterprises, and build great civilizations. In every entry on the balance sheets of business, in every stone in every structure built, in every new way of harnessing the laws of nature, in every creative design or work of art, the ideology that inspired them is written. From these balance sheets, stones, technologies, and works of art one can fully judge the meaning and value of the ideology behind them. False (or mostly false) ideologies produce their own chain of history. Their histories are of collapse, of men fighting men over who has the power to plunder what little part of their number are still producing. In every bankrupt industry, every decade of stagnation and retrenchment, every territory lost, every province divided against itself, and every bullet riddled body (or head pitted upon pike), the ideology that inspired the collapse is written. The history that an ideology produces is the best way to judge it. History proves the full meaning and value of a philosophical system of moral and political ideas. On the topic of the Muslims, I don't think the Muslims of the Dark Ages were so enlightened. We, in the West, tend to project the existence of a Muslim renaissance in the Dark Ages only because after Rome collapsed they had mathematics and the astrolathe. But most of these achievements were merely preserved from the Greeks. Mathematics was the exception in the Muslim empire, an area of new and important achievement--an area that and kept the writings of the Greeks alive. Today's Muslims are far better and more advanced than those of the Dark Ages. They exhibit a mixture of modern secularism and medieval mysticism. Far too many follow the warlike and homicidal mysticism typical of the Dark Ages, but most have adopted some aspects of our Western Civilization. By contrast, the Christians have improved their lot far more than the Muslims. But the virtues of modern Christians don't come from the ideas of Jesus Christ. They come from the fact that Christians have--since the reformation--become less and less Christian. They're far more secular, far more rational today than they were 500 or 1000 or 1500 or 2000 years ago. Jesus would not approve.

This is a pretty good first cut on what is Islamic religious doctrine. The variation, size, locations, and age of the various sects and schools of thought within Islam would provide a great deal of evidence on the question of how widespread is the doctrine of "abrogation." Of all the doctrines of Islam, I find "abrogation" to be the most interesting. It is a radical example of rationalist thought. One's first ideas on a subject contain within them some valid connection to the truth and are retained in one's revised, improved, extended, and corrected ideas. But not to the dogmatic rationalist. Today's thought erases yesterdays, in its entirety. I suspect "Abrogation" is legalistic doctrine for a reason. The doctrine is a license for the arbitrary created by the law-giver to be exploited by the law-giver. And the law-giver, don't forget, was Mohammed. It wouldn't surprise if that bastard created this doctrine as a tool for his dictatorship. Mohammed was as power hungry as any religious prophet ever was, but unlike most of the others, he actually ruled men--ruled them cruelly and arbitrarily and demanded they live life on bended knee. "Abrogation" must have been an important tool he used against the opposition of logic every time he found himself caught in a contradiction. Your essay doesn't cover one issue on Islamic doctrine. For those of us who have always lived among Christians, something is missing in this religion. (I grew up as an atheist and have always been an atheist, but over 90% of Americans are to some degree Christian.) There is almost no place for free will or individual moral conscience in Islam. What of the choice to believe and the guidance of the guilt and shame that god supposedly puts in the pious soul that supposedly warns of transgressions? At a quick glance, Islam appears to just be a religious law that god compels one to obey. And if one doesn't, one will be punished in this life and in the next. Doesn't "Islam" mean "submission?" There is one statement in your essay which is badly mistaken: One _always_ judges an ideology by what its followers do. False ideologies hide their contradictions. They cannot be found anywhere in their writings. The contradictions show themselves in the evil consequences of followers who apply the ideas to the real world and try to live by them. It is by the real-world practice that the meaning and moral standing of an idea is demonstrated. For example, in the case of Islam, if one wants to know if the doctrine of "abrogation" is widely used to justify following the murderous pronouncements from Medina (and ignoring the more temperate pronouncements of Mecca) all one has to do is look at the behavior of Mohammed's followers--_all_ of Mohammed's followers. One may find that a third follow the temperate mysticism Mohammed dictated from Mecca, a third believe in the murder and plunder and Dihimmitude dictated from Medina, and one tenth of the Medina-abrogation adherents do more than believe in murder, they materially aid, organize, and deal in it. One may find that the temperance of those who follow the dictates from Mecca compels them to bend to the will of (and hold their tongues for) the would-be tyrants following orders from Medina. And, simultaneously, one may find that a third of the Muslims out there aren't totally serious about their religion. They want to live in the modern world and enjoy life on earth. They're sick of a life of impoverished impotent stagnation as those around them spend themselves in interlocking cycles of murder and vengeance against unbelievers and apostates. They can see by the example of those who follow another idea (ours), that it is possible to live without trying to achieve power over other men; it is possible to achieve worldly happiness through one's own independent efforts. The group seeking to join the American-dominated global culture are implicitly reforming themselves with the culture of post-enlightenment Western Civilization for exactly the same reasons that the Christians explicitly reformed themselves in the enlightenment. One cannot judge an idea without examining the works of its followers. One also has to look at the partial believers and their reasons for partially abandoning the idea.

Within days of Prime Minister Allawi's announcement of an anti-terrorist policy against Islamic prayer leaders, American military and Iraqi police raided a mosque in (or near) Baghdad. There was a shootout that killed a half dozen or so Islamists in the mosque. (EXCELLENT!) In response to condemnations of the raid that followed, Allawi backed down, indicating that his policy would only be pursued against a few of the most egregious supporters of the insurgency. Iyad Allawi's war is every bit as half-hearted as ours is. And in a few weeks he'll be voted out of office and replaced - probably by a representative of the Shi'ite Dawa Party. Under the rotten proportional voting system and the rotten parliamentary system, every religious party will get delegates to the parliament and to its special constitutional session. The biggest sacrifice of the War in Iraq is about to take place. The United States has not imposed a constitution of any kind on Iraq. The Bush Administration has refused to impose any limitations on the new government's power of any kind precisely BECAUSE that would be 'imperialist' - i.e. in our country's best interests. The election and the government formed as a result will turn out to be much worse than it should have been. We can expect the new parliament to be populated with many anti-American members who want the same thing the Indonesian Government wants: for the U.S. Marines to deliver the billions in foreign aid we - the infidels - are stupid enough to give them and then to promptly leave under conditions of self-imposed humiliation. At this moment it is totally unclear to me if there can be a pro-American coalition government formed in Iraq. The extent to which the Sunnis outside of Baghdad do not participate in the election, is the extent to which we have a chance - however small - that the new Iraqi government won't immediately begin pushing for the premature withdrawal of American forces. Based on the total inaction - the total silence - from the White House on this issue, I suspect THEY have no idea if there will be a pro-American coalition government. Rather than anticipate the possibility that the elected Iraqi government will be somewhat hostile or openly hostile towards us - and to make contingency plans to account for that outcome - it appears that the White House has simply put that possibility out of their minds. After all, God implants in the breast of every man an intense desire for liberty. And liberty is a gift from god that cannot be questioned - a miracle that will suddenly arise without any prior evidence for the source of its existence. I hate to sound so pessimistic, but the coming year in Iraq promises to be more troubled than the last. Absent stronger political guidance from America, the embryonic Iraqi republic is unlikely to become pro-Western and pro-American for five or ten years...assuming the American people vote to stick it out that long. Absent an all-inclusive, systematic anti-insurgency campaign, the fighting will continue at current levels for the foreseeable future. In this I agree with Mr. "Al Kufr's" repeated comments that political-military success in Iraq depends on coming to grips with all of the parameters of insurgency war. After scattering the enemy from his only city - Falluja - victory will not come from employing the accurate and punishing firepower of our military. It will not come from the power to flatten cities that so many are so eager to see repeated after the destruction of Falluja. The U.S. has successfully trained tens of thousands of new Iraqi soldiers and police for the battle, but the lack of press releases on the positive progress of the new forces indicates that they are falling behind schedule. The insurgency has been spending the main power of its meager resources killing these trainees, putting a significant dent into the morale, loyalty and steadfastness of the brave young Arabs who are on OUR side. The shortage of trained, disciplined, and committed American loyalist combatants will continue for many more months. This is a crippling shortage for an anti-insurgency war in a place where our soldiers don't speak the local language. A program of frequent and far-reaching assassinations of the enemy's leadership would be a key tactic that indicates that an integrated, systematic anti-insurgency campaign is underway...but the evidence from Pentagon press leaks implies that such a program is - at best - only in the planning stages right now. We will have to wait for many months before evidence that such a secret program is underway comes to the surface in the press. The Bush Administration may eventually recover from the ideological neglect its Iraq policy has suffered under - on-again, off-again - over the past two years. In the mean time we will all have to watch them 'learn' from elementary, obvious, unnecessary mistakes over and over again in the coming year. Hundereds and hundreds more American soldiers will die before they get it together. I'm gritting my teeth in anticipation of this moral/intellectual torture. I'm afraid that we'll have to depend on our enemy's weakness for any significant victories in the coming year. At least we won't have to witness the rapid regression from an offensive posture to a defensive posture that would have been ordered by an anti-warrior like John Kerry. ________________________________________ Associated Press | Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:02:13 -0500 U.S., Iraqi Troops Storm Baghdad Mosque http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041119/D86EVHN00.html On Thursday, the Iraqi government warned that Islamic clerics who incite violence will be considered as "participating in terrorism." A number of them already have been arrested, including several members of the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars which spoke out against the U.S.-led offensive against Fallujah. "The government is determined to pursue those who incite acts of violence. A number of mosques' clerics who have publicly called for taking the path of violence have been arrested and will be legally tried," said Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's spokesman, Thair al-Naqeeb.

After the showdown with al Sadr's militia at the Imam Ali Mosque in Karbala this summer, sunni gunmen abducted Faridoun Jihani, the Iranian consul in Karbala and killed Labib Mohammadi of Iran's Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization. Ever since these attacks on Shi'ite leaders, I've been watching the papers closely for political assissination that might have been committed by American or pro-American forces. The host of The Belmont Club speculated that the killings, in mid November, of Sheik Ghalib Ali al-Zuhairi and - both top members of the Association of Muslim Scholars - were the work of Kurdish gunmen. In September, Sheikh Hazem al-Zaidi, also a member of Sunni Islamist Association of Muslim Scholars, was abducted and killed in Sadr City...possibly the work of Sadr's militia. I've included reports of the killings, from reputable journalistic institutions, below. The United States was probably not behind most of these killings. But regardless of who is killing members of the Association of Muslim Scholars or deligates of the Iranian government the killings are good. The only thing wrong with these killings is that five, not 500, top Islamists in Iraq have been individually assissinated for their beliefs. (Many others have been killed by U.S. airstrikes and conventional coalition ground assaults). _________________________________________________ New York Times | November 23, 2004, Filed at 7:28 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/internatio...77c35955541f4cf Second Sunni Cleric Assassinated in Iraq By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Masked gunmen assassinated a Sunni cleric north of Baghdad on Tuesday -- the second such killing in as many days. Insurgents hit a U.S. convoy with a roadside bomb near the central Iraq city of Samarra, drawing return fire that killed one man. Sheik Ghalib Ali al-Zuhairi, Sheik Faidh Mohamed Amin al-Faidhi, was a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni clerics group that has called for a boycott of nationwide elections scheduled for Jan. 30. He was shot as he was leaving a mosque in the town of Muqdadiyah and died in the local hospital, said police Col. Raisan Hussein. Muqdadiyah is about 60 miles north of Baghdad. A day earlier, unknown gunmen assassinated another prominent Sunni cleric in the northern city of Mosul -- Sheik Faidh Mohamed Amin al-Faidhi, who was the brother of the group's spokesman. It as unclear whether the two attacks were related.… Militant Sunni clerics have called on Iraqis to boycott the Jan. 30 elections, angered by the Fallujah action and last week's U.S.-Iraqi raid on a Baghdad mosque, which left three dead and about 40 others arrested. Still, Iraq's interim prime minister expressed confidence Monday that most Iraqis would participate in the election. ``The forces of darkness and terrorism will not benefit from this democratic experience and will fight it,'' Ayad Allawi told The Associated Press. ``But we are determined that this experiment succeeds.''… ________________________________________ Associated Press | Monday, November 22, 2004, 5:29 AM EST Gunmen Assassinate Sunni Cleric in Mosul MOSUL, Iraq (AP) -- Gunmen assassinated a Sunni cleric in northern Mosul on Monday, hospital officials said. Sheik Faidh Mohamed Amin al-Faidhi, a member of the influential Association of Muslim Scholar, was shot as he left his home in the morning, said an official at al-Jumhuri Hospital. He was taken to the hospital, where he died after surgery, the medical source added. …BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen on Monday assassinated a member of an influential Sunni clerics' group that has called for a boycott of national elections, just a day after Iraqi officials announced the balloting would be held Jan. 30 in spite of rising violence in Iraq. Sheik Faidh Mohamed Amin al-Faidhi, a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, was shot by gunmen at his home in northern Mosul — a sign of the continuing violence that wracks the country. Iraq's first elections since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship are scheduled for Jan. 30, and Iraqi authorities said ballots will be cast even in volatile areas — including Fallujah, Mosul and other parts of the Sunni Triangle The vote for the 275-member National Assembly is seen as a major step toward building democracy after years of Saddam's tyranny… …Meanwhile, Iraq's leading Shiite cleric condemned the U.S.-Iraqi raid on a Sunni mosque in Baghdad on Friday, an official from his office said Monday. The official, who identified himself only as Sheik Besheer, said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned the raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque through his spokesman in an interview with Al-Manar television, the station of the Iranian-backed militant Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. "The raid on Abu Hanifa mosque is unacceptable, and we denounce and condemn this action," spokesman Hamed al-Khafaf told Al-Manar. "Abu Hanifa mosque is a sacred place and a scientific university and they have to deal with it on this basis like other sacred places." On Friday, Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops raided the mosque — one of the country's most important Sunni mosques — killing three and wounding five others. About 40 people were detained. The Iraqi government has warned that Islamic clerics who incite violence will be considered as "participating in terrorism." Some already have been arrested, including members of the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars. Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, insisted that "no Iraqi province will be excluded because the law considers Iraq as one constituency, and therefore it is not legal to exclude any province."… …The clerical leadership of the country's Shiite community, believed to comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's nearly 26 million people, has been clamoring for an election since the April 2003 collapse of the Saddam regime, and voting is expected to go smoothly in northern areas ruled by the Kurds, the most pro-American group. However, Sunni Arabs, estimated at about 20 percent of the population, fear domination by the Shiites. Sunni clerics have called for a boycott of the vote because of the Fallujah attack. During the January election, Iraqis will choose a National Assembly to draft a new constitution. If it's ratified, another election will be held in December 2005. Voters in January also will select 18 provincial councils and in Kurdish-ruled areas a regional assembly. A stable, legitimate government could enable the United States to begin drawing down its 138,000-strong military presence and gradually hand over security responsibility to Iraqis. "Having elections in Iraq are very important, and having them on time is also so important for the Iraqi people to have more security in Iraq," said Salama al-Khafaji, a Shiite member of the interim Iraqi National Council, a government advisory body. Ayar, the election commission spokesman, said 122 political parties were registered for the elections. The commission has asked the United Nations to send international monitors; 35 experts already have arrived. ________________________________________ Associated Press | Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:02:13 -0500 U.S., Iraqi Troops Storm Baghdad Mosque http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041119/D86EVHN00.html On Thursday, the Iraqi government warned that Islamic clerics who incite violence will be considered as "participating in terrorism." A number of them already have been arrested, including several members of the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars which spoke out against the U.S.-led offensive against Fallujah. "The government is determined to pursue those who incite acts of violence. A number of mosques' clerics who have publicly called for taking the path of violence have been arrested and will be legally tried," said Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's spokesman, Thair al-Naqeeb. ________________________________________ AFP | Monday, September 20, 2004 - 6:39 AM ET http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...aq_040920103928 Time running out for US, British hostages in Iraq World-AFP …In Baghdad, a senior Sunni Muslim cleric was assassinated late Sunday in the Shiite slum of Sadr City, sending tremors through the country's religious communities. … …Fears of religious violence surfaced with the killing late Sunday of a senior Sunni cleric Sheikh Hazem al-Zaidi, who belongs to the influential Committee of Sunni Muslim Scholars. Zaidi was abducted late Sunday along with two companions outside his al-Sajad mosque, an isolated Sunni place of worship in Sadr City, said the committee's spokesman Muthana Harirh al-Dari. The assassination of a member of the committee, which represents 3,000 Sunni Muslim mosques across Iraq, could further enflame the aggrieved religious community. Disgruntled Sunnis, lavished with privileges under Saddam Hussein, have formed the backbone of the year-and-half-old insurgency in Iraq. _____________________________ Associated Press | Wednesday, September 15, 2004, 5:31 PM EDT http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRA...EMPLATE=DEFAULT Iran Condemns Assassination of Official Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran condemned the killing of one of its civil servants in Iraq and demanded that the Iraqi government punish those responsible, state television reported on Wednesday. Unidentified assailants killed Labib Mohammadi of Iran's Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization near the central Iraqi city of Karbala, state television said in a report carried on its Web site. It did not say when Mohammadi was killed or give further details. "The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly condemns the assassination ... and demands that the interim Iraqi government work seriously to identify and punish those behind this criminal act," the television report quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying. The Foreign Ministry summoned the Iraqi charge d'affaires on Wednesday to protest the killing, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Iran, a Shiite Muslim country, has close ties to Iraq's majority Shiite population. Iranian pilgrims regularly travel to Iraq to visit Shiite Islamic shrines in Karbala and Najaf. Tehran was happy to see the fall of Saddam Hussein, whom it blamed for the 1980-88 war with Iran, but it opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Iran now fears the United States is cementing its influence in Iraq, on its western border, and in Afghanistan, on its eastern border. Foreign Ministry official Seyyed Rasul Mohajer criticized the lack of security for Iranians in Iraq and called for measures to rectify the situation, IRNA said. Iraqi militant groups have taken several Iranian journalists and diplomats hostage in recent months. Most were released. However, Faridoun Jihani, the Iranian consul in Karbala, was kidnapped while traveling between Baghdad and Karbala in early August and has not been freed. His kidnappers use the name "Islamic Army in Iraq."

The counterinsurgency campaign in El Salvador was very successful. With American help, the communists were defeated and an essentially free (i.e. welfare state) society was established by the poeple of that central American country. Christian evangelists from America, suspected of promoting 'proletarian revolution' to the peasants of El Salvador were among those killed by the American sponsored death squads. (If an American attempts to make foreign policy hostile to the U.S., he may end up suffering the consequences.) The larger scale "Phoenix Program" was also successful in its goal. It cleared most of the communists from the Mekong Delta, ending the Vietcong's reign of terror there...until U.S. forces withdrew from the country a couple of years later. Fox News military commentator Col. Hunt speculated that a program employing both U.S. Special Forces and indigenous forces to assassinate the leaders of Iraq's insurgent groups - hitting targets in Iraq, Syria, and Iran - has probably been underway for some time now. Pentagon leaks to Newsweek are probably connected with the anti-'torture' campaign and are intended to stop the assassination program, or, at least, to stop proposals to significantly expand it. (It should be noted that the U.S. military's use of 'torture' that liberals oppose was never actually torture. It wasn't even near enough to torture that it endangered military dention camp personnel with its corruption.) There is some evidence that the program is already underway on a small scale: http://www.command-post.org/iraq_print.html Hopefully the assassination program is already underway against one group, Iraq's "Moslem Scholars" - a group of Sunni Islamists calling for the death of American soldiers. In November two of their top theologians were gunned down. The shooters are suspected of being Kurds. There should have been a program since 9/11, operating on the largest possible scale, targeting hostile Imams and other Islamist leaders in countries that do not allow access to our soldiers and police. (In countries that allow access, the U.S. should be having these Imams arrested and extradited...so they can be held in American prisoner camps for the duration of the 10 or 20 or 30-year conflict we're facing - or executed.) It is a wrong that this policy has been or will be pursued in secret - as if it were something to be ashamed of. The Bush Administration and most Americans live in a different moral universe than the one in which the U.S. would proudly and explicitly order the death of all Imams who have ever issued a fatwa against America or Americans...kill them using secret squads of assassins drawn from any group that can function effectively....and publicly take credit for it afterwards.

Sorry about making you trip over my words. The rhetorical question I intended to ask was "Which of man's capacities is more potent, the good or the evil?" - a question Ayn Rand clearly and unambiguously answered, "the good." Answering this question does not answer the question of whether or not the U.S. should pursue a colonial war or a punitive war against Islamism, but is a key part of the answer. A question I haven't asked myself is does the war effort have to be either colonial or punitive towards each and every one of the enemy nations? I hadn't thought of it before, but Mr. 'Al Kufr' has and, I realize now, the answer is - in the short term - "No." With a couple of modifications, Mr. 'Al Kufr's' idea makes a great deal of sense: I would refine Mr. 'Al Kufr's' approach by looking not at whether or not the majority of the people of a hostile country could be expected to welcome Western Civilization, but whether or not there is a sufficiently powerful minority consisting of a pro-Western middle class, liberal politicians, pro-Western intellectuals...and pro-reform Islamic leaders (GOOD LUCK FINDING ANY OF THESE!). People at the higher levels in a society's moral, political, and economic organization are far more important, far more influential, than those on the lower levels - especially in the class societies that currently exist in every one of the enemy countries. Justice is a powerful truth to mobilize on our side. We should employ the principle of justice to the extent that our military capacity allows. I especially like Mr. 'Al Kufr's' disregarding all the old borders in deciding which people to attack and which people to absorb. With the Shi'ite majority poised to take control of every elected body in Iraq's new government - and poised to dominate the constitutional congress - we may end up with something a little bit like the split pro-American/anti-American Iraq that Mr. 'Al Kufr' recommends. We will get it AFTER paying the price in life and limb for attempting to colonize them all at once. An interesting result can be predicted from a policy of mixing colonial war with punitive war in accordance with the nature of each of the semi-hostile or wholly hostile tribes we face in the war. As the semi-pro-Western spheres of the Arabia and Persia prosper and become more powerful under our occupation and influence, the will of the people in the anti-Western spheres would tend to shift. Punitive raids always undermine the legitimacy of the dictator. Well-targeted raids thin out the ruling class, creating a life-and-death deterrent against joining the elite. Also, a dictator rules not by the grace of being right, but by the power to deliver on what he decides to do - and to stop others from delivering on anything different. Raids undermine the illusion of omnipotence that keeps the dictator's friends and enemies in awe of his capacity to 'deliver.' Raids tear away the potentate's pretensions of potency. A short term policy of extending the arm of colonial influence the more semi-friendly peoples - while attacking the enemy within the more uniformly hostile tribes - would tend to become a long term policy of colonizing all. It is in the meaning and power of justice that this will happen. My ultimate reason for supporting a policy of long-term colonial war is that it brings victory AND peace. Punitive war can only deliver victory. In this technologically shrinking world in which we live, our enemies - cowed and deterred and impotent as they may be - will always be our neighbors. So real peace - following Westernization through open cultural and economic exchange or following victory in colonial wars - should be the longest-term goal of all of America's shorter-term foreign policies.

Under President Bush's leadership Iran is surrounded on all sides. True enough. In 2003, I thought that surrounding Iran was Mr. Bush's real, unacknowledged, reason for ordering the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I thought that citing ambiguous evidence for the existence of WMDs was merely pragmatist cover against charges of "empire!" from the pacifists, altruists, and anti-colonialists. But Mr. Bush has yet to exploit the invasion of Iraq for the purpose of attacking Iran, Syria, or the Palestinian cause. I, however, will freely admit to exaggeration. In ordering Iran be surrounded Mr. Bush has, in fact, done something about Iran and it is something substantial. I have often in the past (even if my praise has mostly not been in print) praised Mr. Bush for doing just that. Likewise Mr. Bush has supported Ariel Sharon's refusal to deal with the ailing Arafat regime and has explicitly agreed with Israel's military incursions into the Gaza Strip and its assassinations of terrorist leaders in its war with Hamas. This is something, too. My exaggeration is the product of frustration. I am maybe a little bit too frustrated that none of the skill, the perseverance, and the extraordinary capacity of the American military has been employed against the Iranian mullahs, the Syrian Bathists, or the Palestinian jihadists - all of whom are within easy striking distance of the forward bases established as a part of America's "forward strategy of freedom." The capacities of our military to do damage to the enemy OUTSIDE of Iraq and Afghanistan is being deliberately withheld. I am very much in favor of attempts to civilize Iraq - and even Afghanistan - on the Western model, even if that requires all of our 'discretionary' military capacity. I am happy to weather the unearned grief I've gotten from ideological friends for writing that opinion. I'm sure that, in time, I will be proved right. But the United States has the capacity to attempt to civilize Iraq and Afghanistan AND conduct a campaign of punitive raids against the governments of Syria and Iran. But there hasn't been a single raid (the U.S. has access to these two hostile nations by land, sea, and air). Worse, the Bush Administration has issued contradictory statements on Syrian and Iran. One day they are evil purveyors of Islamic terrorism, the next they are civilized partners in the "war on terrorism." Perhaps the most glaring contradiction is that the Bush Administration has made no attempt to strip away the legitimacy of that most depraved of the ethnic - or sub-ethnic - identity movements, the Palestinian cause. That could be accomplished by repudiating a Palestinian State. The moral collapse of the Palestinian resistance could be further accelerated with a single, joint, Israeli-American raid against Fhata's 'militia,' the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Instead, the majority of the millions of America's conservative 'hawks' are hoping that ISRAEL will come to our defense by launching an air campaign against Iran's nuclear industry - a measure the United States should have undertaken ten or fifteen years ago. There, I've done it. I've told you something you already know. (I hate doing it.) I'm doing it to demonstrate that even an Objectivist who has been anonymously accused (of being publicly accused) of suffering from sublimated altruist premises - can be frustrated by the reluctance of the Bush Administration to use military force. Getting away from the ad hominum tone creeping into the posts on this thread - and the titillating possibility that writers at TIA and representatives at ARI are operating on different premises - the question of war policy first raised in this thread is worth considering at a little greater depth than has been discussed so far. Is the colonial approach to fighting Islamism is a self-sacrificial policy for the United States? Is punitive war against Islamism the proper way for an egoist to fight? The answer to these two questions cannot be found in ethics - egoist, altruist or otherwise. War is not primarily about egoism or altruism. Some of the answers can be found in man's metaphysical nature. Which part of human nature is more potent, good or evil? Does one win a war only by destroying the evil? Or is liberating the good the most powerful force? Is the colonization of a semi-hostile culture an effective way to liberate the power of the good? Or is it only one of the possible forms of failing to destroy the evil? An answer for whether or not colonial war or punitive war is the best policy against Islamism, one must reach the conclusions, not of philosophy, but of applied philosophy. I favor colonial war because the history of the British Empire in the 19th Century and the history of America's influence over the world in the 20th, demonstrate that colonial influence is the furthest-ranging and most deeply penetrating power one nation can exercise over others. I favor it because the world is in the midst of history's most rapid, total, and successful colonial expansion: globalization. America is at the center of globalization, politically, culturally, historically, economically, and technologically. Great Britain stretched its influence over the world by extending many of the benefits of private property, the rule of law, and the industrial revolution. America's globalization also has these forces on its side. In addition, America's influence spreads most quickly down the paths cleared by the British Empire through a shared language and shared aspects of political culture. But the greatest reason for my belief in the power of colonial war is that America - to an extent that has not occurred in the history of the world - has demonstrated what kind of life is possible to man in a world dominated by people who's purpose is the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is the engine of human motivation. Can I prove my case that colonial war of America against Islamism is a more potent policy for self-defense than punitive war? No, not to the root. I have not fully figured out this conundrum - a puzzle that is similar to the ones that Jefferson Adams wrestled with. In assessing man's metaphysical nature Jefferson was (almost) right and Adams was wrong. But in arguing over which political system America should employ, both were right. Both offered wisdom in equal doses. In arguing about the particulars of the French Revolution, Adams was right and Jefferson was wrong. But on the question of American slavery, Jefferson was among the most far-sighted of the founders. Much more than a philosophical assessment is required to answer the question of what should be America's war policy. A study of the today's particular social, cultural, and political circumstances would bring to light the evidence needed to prove the case. Philosophy dictates the methodology of the inquiry and philosophy sets its objectives. Philosophy even answers some aspects of the question outright. But to answer such a specific question as how America should best defend itself against Islamism, one needs the wisdom of the special human sciences: political science, history, military science, military history...to name the first four areas that come to mind. As to the philosophical aspects of the answers, I would say that philosophical answers to the questions of war cannot be found without going deeper into the philosophical hierarchy than ethics. In war, one must look to principles that are half above, half below an axiom of the Objectivist ethics: the choice to live. One cannot hold oneself above or outside the battlefield and judge the issues on the assumption that one will survive the SUCCESSFUL course of action in war. Unlike other issues of ethics and politics, good war policy injures and kills good people. Concluding that those who died, died serving their greatest personal, selfish interests in liberty is a perfectly valid moral judgement. But it is also a fact that those who died did not live to enjoy the benefits of their actions. At an individual level, those who are killed in the process of achieving victory in war are usually from among those charged with taking the actions needed to accomplish it. And nearly all of those who benefit are from among the population who accepted no significant risk in the adventure. On the battlefield, well organized, effective armies of skilled soldiers lose lives with much less frequency than those that aren't. But within an army of skilled soldiers, the most skilled individuals die at about the same frequency as the least skilled. The least skilled soldiers make the greatest number of errors, exposing themselves to death delivered by the enemy. The most skilled soldiers often take the most initiative - the initiative on which the successful outcome of battle depends - but initiative increases the individual's exposure to enemy action. On the battlefield, the enemy punishes initiative almost as severely as incompetence. In war, the closer one is to the battlefield, the more the range of one's personal hierarchy of values collapses to the short range. The demands moment-to-moment physical survival dominate the rational mind. On the battlefield, the state of totally focused perceptual awareness is as close to that of the lower animals' range-of-the-moment consciousness that a man can sustain while remaining sane. It is a 'heightened' mental state soldiers universally report to others as something that can not ever be 'truly' communicated or understand by those who haven't experienced it. The brutality of killing other human beings is an overwhelming experience that soldiers are very reluctant to communicate to those they are sure will not understand. The collective solidarity among soldiers who have shared the death of some of their number is something they also have trouble explaining afterwards. The connection of mutual survival felt among the members of one's immediate team is almost one of a shared body. But as warm as the comradeship of soldiers can be, it is NOT a benevolence that extends any further than the man next to him. Outside their own little team of 5 or 10 or 20 men, the demands of battle cause the soldier to become TOTALLY indifferent to the lives of others, including his own countrymen. Of all the things soldiers don't want to tell civilians, indifference to the deaths of fellow soldiers is their greatest secret. In war, the use of force is so frequent and pervasive, it constitutes a temporary, man-made, malevolent universe. Even if it is man made, the malevolence is everywhere and it is real. The pervasive evil is the enemy's use of force. For this reason the internal culture of the armed forces has always been plagued by the philosophical ideas of mystics, collectivists, and altruists. To many soldiers, these ideas seem to be at home - seem to offer survival value - in the man made malevolent world within war. Even the most rational of soldiers usually finds himself practicing - at least temporarily - the ancient moral creed of Stoicism. Soldiers in the field find great wisdom in its call to endure hardship by focusing on personal perfection. ....until the battle is over. Off the battlefield, the enemy forces the range of the political culture of a nation to collapse. The whole nation would be in turmoil over proposals casually cast about in Washington to convert a third of the social security payroll tax into the private property of retirees. But what happens to federal tax revenues and federal benefits ten or twenty years from now is of no interest to a nation at war. Similarly, the enemy forces the range of liberty in a nation at war to collapse. Liberty decreases in a steep gradient as one approaches moral and physical frontier with the enemy. Whether it is in a Chicago mosque or the green line in downtown Baghdad or the boarding gate for an airplane flight, the frontier is closed. It is closed, not as a hostile act against liberty, but as an act of defending the nation within which liberty is to be preserved. Taxes are raised to fund the fighting. Economic and technological efforts are diverted from production to destruction. The private plans of countless individuals are disrupted. The uncertainties of war make long range plans superfluous. New business ventures are shelved, careers are put on hold, marriages are postponed, and young people join the armed forces. In a limited war, the collapse of these kinds of long term economic plans are limited. In a total war, the enemy interrupts all private plans. The constraints on the range of life imposed by war are often not counted as losses. But the dead and wounded are not the only casualties of enemy action. War is a crime the enemy commits against the mind of man. This, the full reality of war, must be a part of a rational evaluation of war policy.

Yes, voting is the use of force. Voting for bad candidates is an indirect initiation of force and voting for bad ballot initiatives is a direct initiation of force. When the majority votes to violate the rights of the individual they have initiated a limited civil war in slow motion. Naturalized citizens are permanent citizens who cannot ever be deported for a criminal offense of any kind - except for the falsification of their citizenship application. Foreign nationals holding work permits and student visas should either be permitted to stay in the U.S. or be summarily deported based on American foreign policy. Holders of permanent resident visas should be treated with much more respect. They should not be deported without some formal and substantive form of due process - maybe not a court hearing, but something close enough to it. Today our foreign policy is anti-Islamist, by practice and implication if not by explicitly articulated consciously-held policy. Under that policy, any foreign national suspected any kind of Islamist agitation is (and should be) immediately detained. He is (and should be) deported if it is determined that he is a terrorist sympathizer (after a hearing verifies his sympathies, if he is a permanent resident). He is (and should obviously be) prosecuted if it is determined that he may actually be involved in a terrorist conspiracy. This is why the Bush Administration required all citizens of Muslim-majority countries to re-register themselves with the INS in 2003 and why it detained over 4000 Muslims suspected of terrorist sympathy in 2001 and 2002. I understand that over the past two years, charges have been brought against only a few dozen of these detainees, while the majority of the remainder have been deported. Like all dragnets, the Bush Administration's anti-terrorist dragnet was haphazard, scooping up over 100 innocent men for every man who had a connection with a terrorist conspiracy. Likewise the dragnet undoubtedly missed over 90% of those who were materially supporting terrorism. But it created a deterrent that has disrupted enemy operations on our soil. By the way, all naturalized U.S. citizens take an oath of loyalty. I'm a naturalized citizen, but I don't remember the oath I took. I was only 4 years old at the time. I believe the oath is very similar to that taken by officers of the federal government and members of the armed forces. For civilians, it is - and ABSOLUTELY should remain - an unenforceable oath. The oath is a tradition based on the belief that personal honor (i.e. shame) and God will enforce violations. When Mr. Bush takes the oath of office on January 20, listen to the words. Every elected and appointed officer of the federal government takes that oath. But we all know that every president and every single officer of the federal government has systematically failed to " preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." You might also ask yourself how many divorces there are in America. Oaths are not and cannot ever be enforced by any power outside of the individual's own conscience. Oaths are the product of a by-gone age when auto-suggestion, using religious texts, was widely used by individuals to maintain their religious faith. There is no rational, secular way to legally require that the content of a new citizen's mind include a deep and abiding fidelity to the American system.

President Bush's failure to advocate or pursue any form of war against Iran (or Syria or the Palestinians for that matter) - 'pre-emptive' or otherwise - is not something that began with the occupation of Iraq. This failure predates his failure to establish goals and pursue them in a timely manner in the occupation of Iraq. This failure predates the (very successful) invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 9/11, President Bush has taken no actions to deal with Iran's Islamic State or with the terrorists fighting to destroy Israel. Qua pragmatist, the lack of any substantive action on Mr. Bush's part demonstrates that he sees no substantial relationship between Iranian terrorism, Palestinian terrorism, and al Qaeda's 'terrorism of global reach.' This is a pragmatist myopia that borders on insanity. It is the failure to take action against Iran, Syria and the Palestinians - not the actions that have been taken in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, and Lybia - that bolster the pacifist position. As you observe, Mr. Bush has given us a pro-active defense. Any kind of pro-active defense is better than none. If you wonder if it might not be so bad to return to the inactive posture we used to hold towards Islamism because it would prove a point, just remember what happened after we did nothing meaningful to defend ourselves for the 26 years that led up to 9/11. For the political culture, the death of 3,000 Americans is not a 'learning experience' we should allow ourselves to repeat. After leveling all of the criticism at him that he so richly disserves, Mr. Bush should still be praised for the extent to which our nation no longer has a purely PACIFIST policy towards Islamism. As for North Korea, the policies of appeasement under George Bush Sr. and, especially, under Bill Clinton leave us with only two rational options: 1. initiating a nuclear war on our terms 2. patiently waiting for the regime to unravel even though it is possible that it won't collapse peacefully and will initiate a nuclear war on its terms (I have been totally silent on North Korea because I have no answer on the question which policy is better.) Under the American government's continuous, 26-year policy of appeasing Islamist Iran, we will face an Islamic version of the North Korean standoff in only one or two or three years. The closer we get to that day, the fiercer will be my criticism of President Bush. For several months now there has been nothing new in Mr. Bush's foreign policy - nothing praiseworthy - except that he beat John Kerry in November.

Sorry about my answer to the question: I got my "Yes"s and "No"s switched...or was it my "No"s and "Yes"s? The question is a little odd. The use of physical force - especially the use of lethal force - collapses the range of moral concepts. In the ultimate temporary malevolent universe - the battlefield - issues of right and wrong collapse to the most elementary level: the short-range necessity of survival. Life is the supreme value. One cannot compare one supreme value with another and claim one is 'more valuable' than the another. Both our soldiers' lives and 'their' innocent civilians' lives are valuable....even if our soldiers' lives are RATIONALLY our nation's highest priority. A better why to look at the issue is to look at the rational limits of war. An enemy who fights without rules, strips away all of Western Civilization's conventions on war. These conventions were established to mitigate - if only slightly - the panorama of death that progressively overwhelms the soldier’s mind. But the enemy who fights without rules can never strip away the one final limit leaving everyone free to kill everything for any reason. If there are rational limits to the use of force, even in war, what are they? The first law of war is winning (which is a corollary to the first law of nature - survival - the moral basis of self-defense.) This sets the objective limit on the use of force. Killing which leads towards victory is good. Killing that goes beyond that is evil. And killing that leads away from victory is doubly evil. The unnecessary killing of human beings is evil. Sacrificing others is just as evil as self-sacrifice. The conventions of war have survival value for the soldier and the armies of Western Civilization often have abided by them for the rational purpose of inducing the enemy to abide by them, too. But when those limits are breached, only the law of survival remains. Morality is not a social convention - not peace or war.

Mr. Laughlin identifies something explicitly that is a point of confusion in the posts of some others in this thread. Journalism is not philosophy. What I work at (part time) is journalistic commentary and analysis - from an Objectivist perspective. Are the conclusions of my articles philosophical? No. My objective is to integrate an analysis of the events of the day with my philosophical viewpoint, Objectivism, the view point I learned from Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff. I cannot answer for anyone else writing on current events, but I typically read 5 or 6 newspapers a day, three or four days a week, to stay informed, to look for interesting stories, and to get a 'feel' for the flow of events in America and in the world. As a result of this, I have a pretty good idea what kind of daily events I understand and what I'm not as clear on. I write on issues over which I have a good general contextual grasp. And I can - with some expertise - judge the analysis of others on these subjects. The pieces I've sent in to TIA Daily typically source only one or two oneline articles, but I typically have a context of a dozen (sometimes more) other articles I've read on the topic and related topics. If I don't think I've read more on the subject than one of TIA Daily's typical web-surfing readers, I keep my mouth shut. I have no interest in telling people what they already know. I am proud to claim that I have a good track record on that. When it comes to articles for the monthly print edition of TIA, I footnote about one article from a reputable journalistic source per 1000 words. If the article contains a strong detailed storyline, there will be about five to ten foot notes for every 1000 words. All or most of these footnotes are usually omitted from the print edition to conserve space. For example, the 18,000-word monologue on the invasion of Iraq from which the 13,000 word article, "The Centurions of American Ingenuity," has 109 footnotes. The densist footnoting of all my articles was for the two-part series "California's Green Brownout." That 8,000+ missive contained 410 footnotes. On one occaission Rob Tracinski was challenged by one of the other major intellectuals of Objectivism on a shortnote I wrote. He didn't believe it was possible that in America a man could be prosecuted for manslaughter because the handgun he sold to a friend eventually ended up - after it passed through at least three more hands - being used to murder a police officer. Within minutes of receiving the challenge, I e-mailed three stories from the Detroit Free Press and one from the Associated Press on the bogus Michigan manslaughter charge. They were in unprinted footnotes of the story. If you don't like the current journalist bent of TIA, I am happy to take part of the 'blame' because for years I've been pushing Rob Tracinski to add more meat to the current events commentary in the magazine...and, much to my satisfaction, he has satisfied my appetite for a greater and greater volume of specific, relevent, in-context facts. Again, I do not believe Objectivists subscribe to TIA to read what they already know, so when it comes to its commentary on current events, I hope most of the readers learn something new about the facts of the issue as well as from the analysis and evaluation. If you don't like the journalist style of this kind of current events commentary, that's too bad. It is NOT in the usual style of Objectivist commentary. It is journalistic commentary from an Objectivist perspective. I view Rob Tracinski's political analysis of the "War on Terrorism" over the past three years as a major intellectual body of work in rational JOURNALISM. Like economics or psychology, journalism is one of the sciences of man. It is a specialized area within the discipline of history. It is 'current history.' It isn’t the job of the philosopher to swat flies. But it IS the job of the journalist. Some people don’t want to spend their time reading and understanding the day-to-day, month-to-month, year-by-year events of the world. I do. The STORY interests me. Each day another page is written in the great human drama of human history. For day-by-day military events in Iraq – and what they mean – I've read the commentaries of Victor Davis Hanson (at National Review Online), the commentaries at the Belmont Club, and from a close reading of major newspapers (The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, London’s Daily Telegraph, and others). On the specific question of what was structures were attacked or not attacked and destroyed or not destroyed in recent fighting in Iraq I am happy to clear up confusions. I didn't need to check my sources to recall your account of the fate of the main hospital in Falluja. You are are CORRECT. It was not destroyed. It was occupied by American forces in the three or four days leading up to the main attack on the insurgents in the city. But according to one or two stories I read in the Daily Telegraph and according to the analysis of the Belmont Club, the occupation of the hospital was not a diversion of military resources. The hospital was a key link in the chain of defensive positions along the south bank of the Euphrates River that cut off the southern and western routes of escape for the insurgents (before troops took up positions along that river in the first days of November, one can assume that many escape routes were still open in those directions). The main assault on the city came from the north. On the issue of the mosques, I recall reading a detailed story (in one of the major newspapers I listed above) about raids on mosques that included airplanes dropping precision guided bombs on the structures, tanks firing main gun rounds into shrines, and helicopters shooting up minarets with 25mm chain guns. I read numerous accounts of infantry assaults by American and Iraqi forces…including – of course – the raid that included the supposedly ‘questionable’ shooting of an Iraqi insurgent who was feigning death. But how many mosques were attacked by American and loyalist forces? During the battle of Falluja, I read article after article that when Marines spotted enemy activity in and around mosques – using sensitive long-range infrared telescopes from satellites, aircraft, and ground forces – they were targeted for attack. But beyond that there is no reliable information out there that I’m aware of on the fraction of mosques were attacked. According to al Jazeera half of Falluja’s 120 mosques were damaged or destroyed during the battle. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6E7...7C9A8FC6DAC.htm Al Jezeera is, of course, NOT a credible source. Pro-insurgency Arab publications and socialist blogs have repeatedly cited this particular al Jezeera report as ‘proof’ of American ‘war crimes’ against Islam. These enemy propagandists also bitterly complain about brutality of the American assault on Falluja. The 1000-ft-long anti-mine exploding chains launched down residential streets, the frequent use of white phosphorous artillery shells, and the dropping 500-lb bombs on snipers in a city with tens of thousands of unevaluated civilians – “WAR CRIMES!” – they complain. It sucks to be on the losing side of battle…and these propagandists feel the pain of the losers. A more reliable source is the L.A. Times. A recent story paints a portrait of a city that was ravaged by battle without saying anything about the mosqueshttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...headlines-world . An L.A. Times story from earlier in the month indicates that civilians returning to their destroyed city have found shelter in some schools and mosques http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print....s04/1208-09.htm . So, obviously some of them were not badly damaged during the battle. Did the mosques of Falluja get special treatment? Yes, but no more than any other nominally civilian structure. In Iraq, major military American military operations have been conducted under the rules of war defined in the Geneva Conventions when it comes to nominally civilian structures. Under the American policy, troops have to identify enemy activity within structures such as mosques, schools, and hospitals, before military action may be taken against them. If Yaron Brook views these rules as inherently evil – the sacrifice of American soldiers lives for the sake of the foreign civilians – I do not. These rules are evil only if they are misapplied. When misapplied they present an unreasonable impediment to military operations. Their misapplication is evil only in so far as they aid the enemy and result in the death and injury of American soldiers. (The first rule of war is that your side must win.) In contrast to the egregiously bad policy decisions of this spring and summer, I have not read of any significant misapplication of the rules of the Geneva convention in to the two major military operations of the fall: Samarra and Falluja. In operating inside enemy-infested cities the American military has demonstrated a masterful technique of rapidly locating the enemy in front of it, moving rapidly to split and isolate them, targeting these isolated groups with heavy and extremely well-aimed bombardments, and then patrolling the kill zone with infantry to pick off (or capture) the survivors. In my semi-untutored opinion, this level of maneuver warfare in urban fighting has not occurred before. The extensive use of maneuver warfare in urban combat saves both American military AND Iraqi civilian lives. Observance of the Geneva Conventions on war is mostly a byproduct of - not a restriction on - this method of fighting. The only place where the Geneva Convention may be misapplied today in Iraq is in the guerrilla warfare aspects of the insurgent / anti-insurgent battle in Iraq. Ambushes and roadside bombings need to be answered by sweeps through neighborhoods – including all mosques, schools and hospitals. I have not read of schools and hospitals being immune to such sweeps, but I strongly suspect mosques are routinely regarded as off limits. If that is true, it is a major issue. But I would submit to the readers of this forum that none of us have clear information on whether or not the U.S. military is systematically allowing the enemy to use mosques as sanctuaries today. Assuming that the mosques used as sanctuaries in the spring and summer are still sanctuaries today is not rational. If you are complaining about restraints on military operators TODAY, read the newspapers and see what is happening TODAY. Never assume military policies and practices stay the same. Things change rapidly during war. For those who hate my long-winded answers, I’ll give some direct replies: Are our soldiers' lives are more valuable than the lives of Iraqi civilians? No. (Rationalist thinkers are free to deduce that my “No” actually means “Yes.”) Are altruistic tactics in Iraq resulting in needless American casualties? Do these tactics embolden the enemy? My long-winded answers address exactly these questions. The altruist premise has hobbled our war STRATEGY (e.g., why Iraq was targeted ahead of Saudi Arabia and Iran, why we turned power over to the Allawi government and are putting our whole war effort up for a vote by the IRAQI people next month). However, the hobbling of TACTICS was not an issue during the battle of Falluja (It was a major issue in earlier major battles and may also be an issue in the skirmishes that make up most of today's fighting – although I and no one else in this forum – have not yet identified any specific evidence of it.) Did the function of government become the protection of foreign civilians in war, as opposed to protecting the rights of Americans? No. But be careful about making rationalistic deductions from this premise. Even if the concept of individual rights does not apply across borders during war, that does NOT cancel out the fact that the value of innocent human life is universal. The fact that our government is only responsible for our safety does NOT give it a license to kill indiscriminately. If you have trouble grasping the abstract moral dimensions of this question, you might go out and buy a gun and then ponder the morality of who exactly it is that you will permit yourself to shoot. You’ll discover that the law has very little to do with your conclusions. The law of self-defense merely reflects YOUR own moral law. Is our military wasting resources trying to outkill the enemy with bigger bombs and more expensive technology instead of sitting down to out think the enemy? Yes and No. It is primarily the old heavy-army Pentagon that has opposed and dragged its feet on developing anti-insurgency capabilities. Intelligence agencies and the special forces groups that answer them have no trouble outthinking our “4th Generation” enemy. Our far more numerous and heavily equipped regular occupation forces lack the capacity to engage in “4th Generation” warfighting for one big reason: they have almost no soldiers who speak Arabic. On the question of how the “4th Generation” war in Iraq is going to turn out, watch the results of the January 30 election. The people of Iraq are going to decide the issue. George Bush’s sometimes-insane, anti-imperialist policy of “Iraqification” is America’s war policy. The United States is depending on the weakest link in the entire effort – the Iraqi people - to move the “War on Terrorism” forward. If they don’t – which is likely – watch for President Bush to make a major pragmatist “swerve” to modify or disgard the policy. Mr. Bush is determined to make Iraq the battleground with Islam, is determined not to leave, and – so far – the majority American people are with him. Did we have the same problem in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Somalia that we had in Vietnam? No, not exactly. Where are all the problems in Afghanistan? Where is the supposedly resurgent Taliban (or mujaradeen, or whatever). If we are somehow ‘losing’ the war in Afghanistan, then all the newspaper correspondents of the world must be living in an alternative dimension in which no bad news can enter. Every month or two I read about fears that the Taliban is regrouping...and then I read about American, Afghan army, and Pakistani military raids...and then nothing more for a couple of months. How was it possible for almost the entire Serbian army to be almost untouched even with all of our technology and firepower bombing them night and day? The government of Serbia fell. Does that count as victory only in the outmoded linear thinking of Western Civilization? Or did Slobodan Milosevic escape from prison and take over Serbia while I was away for Christmas holiday? The Somalia and Lebanon deployments weren’t big enough to be classified as badly conducted warfare. The sacrifical casualties were the result of altruist foreign policy conducted on a small scale. Men were killed for what were conceived as symbolic ‘humanitarian’ gestures. Vietnam was a lot more – a lot worse, a lot more sacrifical – than an empty altruist gesture. Why ask what would happen if Islam conquered all of Western Civilization? It is IMPOSSIBLE! The worst Islam can conceivably do is to survive the INTERNAL collapse of Western Civilization and inherit a few of the closest and poorest provinces. Do I claim the terrorists are weak because they don't have the material strength we have? No. I REPEATEDLY claim they are crippled by a fundamental spiritually weakness. For the benefit of those who might rationally consider my point of view – but had trouble getting the link to work – here is my short argument on the international power of the American system (a longer treatment is in the works): _______________________________________________________ TIA Daily | October 7, 2004 The Empire of the Pursuit of Happiness Jack Wakeland Mankind’s liberty was established here, for the first time, in the United States of America. It was established at the height of the Age of Reason, following centuries of intellectual struggle to understand the nature and necessity of liberty and after ten years of political turmoil, six years of war, and eight more years of political re-organization. Since our nation’s founding, our government has strayed from its original mission of acting solely to secure individual rights. The mind can catalog the collapse of so many of the intellectual underpinnings of liberty and can count so many broken principles of proper government, it is easy to ignore the principle that still operates the best: the right to the pursuit of happiness. The moral commitment to individual achievement, the need to be an independent self-sustaining entity, the idea that one’s work ethic is a fundamental character trait, the virtue of making money and the need to turn a profit – along with the conviction that one can control the course of one’s life, take pleasure in the pursuit of one’s goals, rationally expect that one’s focused productive efforts will meet success, and that life will be _fun_ – these are all hallmarks of egoism, the moral foundation of this right. In the traditional, pre-industrial societies of the world, a businessman must ask the permission of all neighbors – especially his competitors – before undertaking a new venture. As a leader, maintaining the existing order of society is his fundamental duty. The status quo is a hard shell that economic and technological innovation must penetrate. There is little growth or change. For the common man, traditional society is even more oppressive. Social relations are frozen. It is the function of those on the bottom of the social ladder to remain in their places and serve those over them. It is the fate of the sons of fishermen, cobblers, tenant farmers, and bakers to live their father's and grandfather's lives. It is the fate of the daughters to be sold into neighboring families to breed children, the cement that binds families into clans. In advanced societies that have retrograded back towards the traditional collectivist order, businessmen step off of jets and ride elevators and meet in richly paneled boardrooms studded with the latest communications technology...and figure out how to push the company profits out of the management hierarchy, down to the workers, and out to the customers…anywhere but to the owners of the business. In these retrograde societies it is not nice to let it show that one has accomplished more than one’s neighbors. Modesty is one’s place. But in America – especially after the stockholder’s rebellion of the ‘80s – business leaders do not regulate company profits to ‘socialize welfare.’ They seek the highest stakes for themselves and the greatest profits for their companies. For them, nothing is ever good enough. They push for constant improvement. Theirs is a society of change, upheaval, and $100-million executive bonuses. In the middle levels of achievement, Americans work long hours and stockpile every article of luxury possible to themselves. They enjoy their luxuries and aren’t shy about having them. They’re mobile, changing jobs and cities as circumstances suit them. They move to warm sunny places. They find companions and make families for their own pleasure. Some are adaptable in their goals and some are not, but all know that they control the course of their own lives. In American, every man can be his own king, a successful, independent, happy king. That’s the American Dream. Because it’s all around, we often don’t stop to notice. Outside America, however, it is noticed. There are several countries in Europe and a number of other small, beautiful places in the world that are as prosperous as the United States. There are many countries that have great prospects for rapid advancement and success, but nearly all of them are still poor, semi-traditional societies. There is no where else on earth that quite has the ‘feel’ of America. The idea that it is okay to make money and to go out and get what you want - the acceptance of egoism - runs deeper here than anywhere on earth. The consequence - a feeling shared by a majority of people that life is open to them, that anything is possible, and that they’re in the middle of getting where they want to go - is unique to America. This feeling - an emotion some people call ‘freedom,’ but is actually happiness – has captured the imagination of the rest of the world. Because they can see that there is a way to reach it, people throughout the world want to have it, too. In the brief span of sixty years this way of looking at the world has built an empire. It is the youngest, greatest, fastest growing empire in the history of man: the empire of the pursuit of happiness. It is an empire unlike any that has ever existed. The empire does not acknowledge its influence by changing the political borders of the world, but by making the old borders irrelevant. The Army has been used to protect it, but the empire does not advance by force. Business and investment have pushed it forward, but the empire’s “globalizing” business invasion is always just behind the advancing edge. It is spreading a common language, but English follows the advancing frontier. The frontier of the American Empire is in the mind of every man and every woman in every country, who wants a better life, here, on this earth. The best among them look to our nation as proof that it is possible. America is taking over the countries of the world from the inside, one mind at a time. America is a supernova. As it becomes hollow at its core, here in the United States, the empire expands like a shock wave moving across the surface of the earth. It moves with the speed of the imagination – an imagination captivated by the vision of a people exercising their right to the pursuit of happiness.

The reason for my strategic optimism in the ‘war on terrorism’ does not come from George Bush’s choice of Iraq as the primary battleground (rather than Saudi Arabia and Iran). The occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq are ways to fight a proxy war against Islamism in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. There is a great deal of wisdom in fighting Islamism in Pakistan indirectly (Pakistan is a nation of 135 million with substantial armed forces developed to fight its neighbor, India). But it is a sacrifice of all our advantages to not attack the other major centers of Islamism directly. Think of how much more on the defense our enemies would be if American Army was conducting raids in Riyadh to arrest members of the Royal family or the Navy was blowing up evil mullahs with guided missiles in Tehran. The only Islamist entity we attacked directly was in the brilliant campaign against the Taliban and al Qeada. The takeover of Afghanistan was very effectively leveraged to defang Pakistan’s ISI of the worst of its expansionist Islamist agenda. Also the Bush Administration was very effective at pressing the potentate of Pakistan, General Musharaff, into our service. He has halted the Islamification of his country, helped American intelligence locate several major al Qaeda leaders, and fought his own people in the autonomous tribal territories – a little publicized campaign from March to September of this year. The Pakistani Army netted 600 dead al Qeada – at an equal cost in Pakistani servicemen’s lives – about a third of the number harvested by the takeover of Afghanistan. This same level of success could have been repeated on a far larger scale if the U.S. had leveraged the extraordinarily successful invasion of Iraq. But rather than immediately using Iraq as a physical and moral spring board to militarily and politically attack the terror masters of Riyadh, Tehran, and Damascus, George Bush demurred from making threats and immediately demonstrated his ‘humanity’ by sending a few battalions of Marines to help out in Liberia and making a big fuss about it. The Invasion of Iraq could have been leveraged to crush – once and for all – the Islamist terror campaign against Israel. But instead of putting the full resources of the United States of America against all of the region’s supporters of Fatah, Hamas, Hezbullah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Bush Administration demanded that Israel show more ‘restraint.’ And for Iraq Mr. Bush gave us the non-occupation occupation, non-reconstruction reconstruction policy under Paul Bremmer (according to the New York Times less than 2 billion in development funds were spent in 2003). And now we have the ‘Iraqification’ of the war under our man in Baghdad, Ayad Allawi. And the consequence, here at home, is an ugly Vietnam flashback that has blurred our nation’s focus on achieving victory. These – not petty issues like hesitancy to target mosques in Iraq – are our strategic blunders. Payment for these blunders has not yet come due, but when it does, it will be paid for in American blood. So why am I still optimistic? Do I see the world through rose-colored glasses? No. The reason for my strategic optimism comes from the fundamental nature of America and the nature of our enemy. Missing opportunities for major victories in the past two years does not alter the dramatic strategic advantage the America and Western Civilization hold over the Muslim World. America is spreading out and winning across the globe (see http://tiadaily.blogspot.com/2004/11/empir...-happiness.html ). “Globalism” is Americanism. In strategic terms, the Islamic enemy is fighting a purely defensive battle. Except in a handful of hostile nations closed to the west (e.g., Syria and Iran), for the Islamists this conflict is a rearguard action against an enemy who already ‘occupies’ their culture. The limited offensive warfare mindset in George Bush’s policies has been sufficient to put our Islamist foes on their heals. They are spending almost all their efforts on Iraq (or Israel). They haven’t been able to attack infidels on American soil. This is the surest sign that the demonstration of the power of the American military machine (in November 2001 and March 2003), and the effectiveness of American-led international policing dragnet have established a substantial deterrent to Islamic terrorism. The terrorists and their supporters no longer consider American civilians on American soil to be a ‘soft’ target. Bored, purposeless Arab princes looking for a way to feel important now wonder if it is a good idea to give money for ‘madrasas’ and ‘Muslim relief.’ What if they’re found out? Will there be a knock at the door? Will the look upon hearing a noise and see a Predator Drone? As far as the situation in Iraq goes, the political situation within that Arab country will now be the greatest determinant of success. Unfortunately, the January elections look like they may launch a whole new series of challenges to the American attempt to liberate Iraq. These problems start with the structure and purpose of the new government. A parliamentary system – that joins the power of the legislative and executive – is a terrible system. The U.N.-sponsored proportional voting system for political parties is the simplest to administer, but will assure representation to every evil splinter party in a backward nation full of evil factions. This U.N.-designed system is particularly bad because Iraq needs a bicameral legislature and a separately elected president to set-up a political balance of power between its factions. They need it to partially satisfy AND LIMIT Shi’ite expectations for power while making power available to the badly outnumbered pro-liberty minorities found in the Kurdish territories and among Baghdad’s middle class. Worst of all, the new legislature will have the power to enact the basic law – the constitution – of Iraq. Pretending that this is a ‘one-time’ power will not work. Once a political body is explicitly given the power to define its own structure, the limits of its own power, and the source of its authority…it can do anything. The more fundamental question in all this is, what ideas rule Iraq? How important is Islam to the Shiites? How important is it to the Sunnis? Is there a class distinction that will reduce the influence of Islam? Can the Kurds and semi-secular Iraqi middle class come out on top? I do not have an answer to this question except to caution against absolute pessimism. The numbers are all on the side of Islam, but liberty is a powerful idea and all the other prizes of Western Civilization are a powerful lure. I’ve been doing some reading lately on the military and cultural situation in Iraq. The following books give one a picture of the situation at the time they were written and within the limitations of the alternatively liberal and conservative writers who wrote them: The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the First Marine Division by Ray L. Smith and Bing West http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...6078109-6507968 The Fall of Baghdad by John Lee Anderson http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...6078109-6507968 Baghdad without a Map and other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...6078109-6507968 I’d also refer people to three articles I wrote at the end of September on the situation in Iraq: __________________________________________ TIA Daily September 27 Ayad Allawi’s War by Jack Wakeland Iyad Allawi's War What is Mr. Allawi's strategy to win the war? by Jack Wakeland America has invested most of its efforts in the war against Islamism in Iraq. On June 28, the American-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority turned over the government of Iraq to Iyad Allawi and his provisional cabinet. This was not a symbolic act. For the past two months, the Prime Minister of that troubled country has been in charge of the battle. Mr. Allawi has become the third man on the Republican Party's presidential ticket. Last week Mr. Allawi addressed a joint session of Congress. As the leader of a nation in danger of slipping into full-scale civil war must, he put a brave face on his government's and the Bush Administration's accomplishments. In a gesture of genuine personal friendship, Mr. Allawi began and ended his appearance by kissing pro-war Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, a Jew, on the cheek. The effectiveness of the appearance can be measured in the depth of the opposition to it from the Democratic Party's leadership. A half-hour after the applause in the House Chambers subsided John Kerry broadcast a rebuttal. Former Clinton White House spokesman Joe Lockhart went further - and lower -- calling Mr. Allawi a puppet, "you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips." (http://tinyurl.com/59z93) Mr. Allawi may have injured the Kerry campaign, but has he been effective in Iraq? Islamists have taken over Falluja, Ramadi, and many of the towns and cities of Anbar Province, turning much of the Sunni Triangle into a 'no-go' zone for police patrols, truck traffic, construction contractors, Iraqi election officials, and international aid groups. Even parts of Baghdad's Sadr City slum are now closed to the outside world. The consequences of only partially answering the April uprisings are beginning to tell (http://tinyurl.com/6mwwg). Prior to April 2003, the number of attacks on American troops was at a low level that reflected more on the anarchy of a post-war country than it did on the actions of enemy Islamists. The April-May uprisings were measured in a three or four fold increase in the number of attacks on American troops. And during the summer, the number of attacks on American troops did not abate. Only the press coverage of them did. In August, Sadr's second uprising nearly doubled the level of attacks. And the second uprising is not over in Baghdad's giant Shi'ite slum. Increasingly, injuries to American soldiers are being caused by small arms fire from bands of militiamen who openly hold territory, rather than by explosive devices planted by tiny groups of rebels who are in hiding. On the upside, the U.S. armed forces have learned a great deal about how to fight in the streets of Iraq's towns and cities. During this summer's clash in Najaf, American soldiers dismounted their armored fighting vehicles and methodically took ground from the enemy while killing him at rates similar to the 70:1 ratio seen during the invasion [CORRECTION: counting successful enemy ambushes and bomb attacks our kill ratio has been closer to 7:1 against the insurgents]. Every time Muslim militiamen have met the skill, technology, and focused determination of American troops, their will has been broken. The vast majority quit the field to melt back into the population. However, the enemy militia has learned a little bit more about fighting, too. The small number of American fatalities is due as much to life saving measures as it is to superior experience, tactics, skill, and equipment. Evidence of this shift is the fact that while the number of American dead continues to tick upwards very slowly, the number of wounded has ballooned with over 1000 wounded in August alone. American body armor, the speed of medevac, and the quality of American field hospitals saved at least 300 American lives in August. These measures are particularly effective at dealing with rifle bullets - the bulk of the resistance the militias have to offer. Wars are not won by tactics alone. What is Mr. Allawi's strategy to win the war? He is still learning. In answering Moqtada al-Sadr's challenge to the government, the Prime Minister made exactly the same mistakes as his American predecessors in the previous battle around Najaf. Rather than placing his bets on an innovative assault to preserve the Immam Ali Shrine, he attempted to negotiate with Sadr. After promising to disarm his militia, al-Sadr and hundreds of his militiamen used a cease-fire to escape to Sadr City, the Shi'ite slum of Baghdad. It took the Prime Minister a couple of days to realize that he had been duped. But when he did, he immediately cut off negotiations for the disarmament of Sadr's militia inside Baghdad. Over the opposition of some members of the 275-man provisional parliament and some of his own cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister decided to return to a military solution for what is, after all, a military problem with Islamist militias. Based on American military advice, Mr. Allawi's plan is cautious. As newly trained Iraqi occupation soldiers become available to hold it, American forces will progressively attack and re-take rebel-held ground. The United States has trained 50,000 Iraqi men as military and paramilitary troops, plans to train 90,000 more by January, and 100,000 more by the end of next year. In his address to Congress, the Prime Minister touted the most recent successes of this strategy (http://tinyurl.com/4jn4q): "In Samarra, the Iraqi government has tackled the insurgents who once controlled the city… Following weeks of discussions between government officials and representatives, coalition forces and local community leaders, regular access to the city has been restored. A new provincial council and governor have been selected, and a new chief of police has been appointed. Hundreds of insurgents have been pushed out of the city by local citizens, eager to get with their lives. Today in Samarra, Iraqi forces are patrolling the city, in close coordination with their coalition counterparts. In Talafa [ph], a city northwest of Baghdad, the Iraqi government has reversed an effort by insurgents to arrest; control [inaudible] the proper authorities. Iraqi forces put down the challenge and allowed local citizens to choose a new mayor and police chief. Thousands of civilians have returned to the city. The Iraqi government now commands almost 50,000 armed and combat-ready Iraqis. Our intelligence is getting better every day. You have seen that the successful resolution of the Najaf crisis, and then the targeted attacks against insurgents in Fallujah." The greatest weakness in the Iraqi government's plan is in the number of regular army, or "National Guard," forces. Approximately 12,000 soldiers are slated to complete basic training by the end of October, but right now there are only 6000 in the field. Three of the six battalions of the force are deployed in Najaf. (http://tinyurl.com/4cdey) Aside from weak training and woefully inadequate numbers, the biggest problem with the Iraqi paramilitary forces organized under U.S. occupation administrator Paul Bremer was a failure to properly vet their personnel. Many former Ba'athists and adherents to the Islamist cause were deployed among those loyal to American aims. This error is not being repeated, but the problem continues on a small scale, nibbling away at the willingness of Iraqi soldiers to fight for their new government (http://tinyurl.com/49oy6). It will take at least four months for the American training program to produce enough Iraqi National Guardsmen to support American combat operations in Sadr City, Ramadi, and Falluja. It may take even longer for the training program to produce enough soldiers and paramilitary police to occupy and hold the hostile cities like Ramadi and Falluja...and to recover from the defeats these forces are bound to suffer.* To make matters worse, parliamentary elections, scheduled to take place before January 31, will give factions sympathetic to the rebel cause more power in the new Iraqi government. [*In November the insurgents suffered their biggest defeat to date in Falluja where over 600 were killed. But in December, escapees from the battle of Falluja have helped man a major counteroffensive that has slaughtered new policemen being trained for Ayad Allawi’s government by the busload and made travel hazardous down Baghdad’s airport road. American counter attacks in battalion strength were required to prevent them from completely taking over Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city.] But in January, there will be [150,000] American military personnel and over [100,000] Iraq military and paramilitary personnel available to oppose insurgents that have grown in number from perhaps 5,000 active militiamen at the beginning of the year to 20,000 today. The U.S. Army's textbook on guerilla warfare requires anti-insurgency force to have a 10:1 numerical superiority. But Iraq's Islamist militias often don't use guerilla tactics to multiply their effectiveness. When confronted, many of them stand and fight in conventional infantry combat for the purpose of being martyred while killing infidels. This suicidal practice hasn't stopped even though the American armed forces have been very effective at killing Islamists while robbing them of their objective. [This practice cost the insurgents dearly in Samarra in October and Falluja in November…but they have been avoiding that suicidal error in Mosul, Baghdad, and other parts of the country since.] By resolutely following the textbook on anti-insurgency warfare Prime Minister Allawi can defeat the insurgents [even] without attacking their support networks in Iran and Syria. The question is, will Mr. Allawi and his soldiers be true to their purpose? Iraq's new occupation force has not yet been tested, so there is no answer. [The force has been tested and the answer is that they will fight if they are backed up by American forces…but NOT if they aren’t.] Even though it is essential to our national security, we the American people will not be voting directly on the conduct of a war this November. Instead, we will be voting on whether or our nation will continue its strong support of Iraq's embryonic republic and its new army and police. We cannot vote for a more aggressive Iraqi strategy that doesn't depend entirely on its weakest link. What is up for a vote is whether or not, in Mr. Allawi's words, we will allow his enemies "to say to Iraqis, to Arabs, to Muslims, that we have only two models of governments, brutal dictatorship and religious extremism." __________________________________________ TIA Daily September 28 Iyad Allawi's Civil Society A weak, almost childish political culture that will die without American support by Jack Wakeland Iraq's Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi told a joint session of the U.S. Congress that the vast majority of the Iraqi people want "a democratic, prosperous, and stable nation, where differences are respected, human rights protected, and which lives in peace with itself and its neighbors." Is this true? Polling data removes this question from the realm of speculation. Since this winter, Iraqis have changed their opinion about the American occupation. In February only 17% of the population wanted us out immediately. Now it is 34%. The numbers from one polling group suggest that this shift may have occurred because the people, who wanted the U.S. armed forces to stay until a new government is established, now feel that it has been. However, in June, when Iraqis were asked why their opinion of the American military had fallen, 41% said it was because of the abuse of prisoners. Photos of Pvt. England humiliating naked prisoners were enough to sour their view of the entire American force. The people are divided in their political priorities between wanting 'strong' leadership and wanting representative government, but support for the establishment of a republic is rising and stood at about 50% in June. This does not measure what I would expect would be the positive effects of the strong moral leadership of Iyad Allawi. The Republican Institute poll in June indicated that 2/3rds of the population thought that Mr. Allawi was 'effective.' Religious candidates garner, in general, far more support than secular candidates, by a margin of 68% to 24%. But this does not indicate that 2/3rds of the Iraqi people want Iranian-style Islamic rule. The Republican Institute survey showed that Iraqis think that nearly all of their neighbors have had a malevolent influence on their country and the country that heads their list of bad neighbors is Iran. The best indicator of all the polls is the open ended question of which country Iraq should model itself after. The winner, by a margin of over three-to-one, for the best model for Iraq was... the United Arab Emirates. The U.A.E. is a kind of lazy-man's Singapore of the Persian Gulf. It is run by an oligarchy of entrenched playboy-princes (and their families). A 96% Muslim nation that is anti-Israel (like Iraq) and fund the murder of Jews throughout the world...but allows drinking and night life and celebrates high-stakes horse racing.... and it did not opposed U.S. military intervention in Iraq, in 1991 and 2003. It is a nation of the idle wealthy, with a large welfare-maintenance 'middle class' who are educated and purposeless...but a nation that has opened its doors to foreign investment (including land ownership) that is becoming a tourist mecca on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Oil accounts for only half of its exports...but a society of people who don't work and live off of government disbursements of the nation's oil revenues, while a legion of ambitious South Asian guest workers struggle and labor at making everything in the society work. Iraqis’ sense that they should be given a comfortable life from their nation's oil wealth is consistent with the strong sense of welfare entitlement they expressed in the survey answers. Three quarters of Iraqis think that the government, not the individual, is primarily responsible for economic welfare. Half want the new government to employ them in a gigantic public works program. And 3/4rs of them want reliable electricity. These answers should be understood in the context of a population in which only 1/3 have high school diplomas, 8-9% have a college degree, and all but the top 5% are wretchedly and permanently poor. The Iraqi people are an ambivalent and impressionable group. Theirs is a very weak, almost childish political culture typical of the Third World. In good hands, such a people can have good government and their culture can grow and mature. Their political institutions can become more stable. No political structure can long protect the liberty of an ignorant people vested with an oil-emirate entitlement mentality. A future of stability and growth depends entirely on the quality of their political leadership. A good leader can convince the people of Iraq that their nation is worth fighting for - and thousands of them, wearing the uniform of a solider or a policeman, still have to die to establish a better government. Good economic contacts with the outside world - especially Iraq's now very close relationship with the United States - assures a strong economic future...if Iraq can become and remain a republic. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has a big job ahead of him. He has to be Iraq's Washington and Lincoln. His chances are good so long as he has the nearly invincible power the United States of America behind him __________________________________________ TIA Daily September 28 Iraq Public Opinion Polls Opinion surveys paint a portrait of the Iraqi people by Jack Wakeland Oxford Research International, Ltd. has performed four surveys of public opinion in Iraq over the past year (http://tinyurl.com/6exox). The International Republican Institute has performed one (http://tinyurl.com/4wkyj (a PowerPoint presentation)). The data from both groups' polls are based on an economically and geographically representative sample of 2400 - 3000 people who responded (cooperation from Iraqis was very high, the refusal rates were only about 20%). The results of two Oxford Research International polls are as follows: In the long term, Iraq needs to be governed by? A strong leader: 36% (Feb. '04) 36% (June '04) A democracy: 42% (Feb. '04) 50% (June '04) Religious leaders: 10% (Feb. '04) 8% (June '04) Which political leader do you support (the appointment of Iyad Allawi and his cabinet will have changed these responses): Ibrahim Jaaferi: 19% (Feb. '04) 20% (June '04) Massoud Barazani: 15% (Feb. '04) 15% (June '04) Jalal Talabani: 14% (Feb. '04) 9% (June '04) Saed Sistani: 11% (Feb. '04) 16% (June '04) Adnan Pachachi: 9% (Feb. '04) 10% (June '04) Sadam Hussein: 8% (Feb. '04) 1.5% (June '04) Muqtada al Sadr: 1.5% (Feb. '04) 11% (June '04) The BBC provides a thumbnail sketch of Iraq's politicians at http://tinyurl.com/4n8kl Mr. Jaaferi is head of the al-Dawa Party, the world's oldest Islamist Shi'ite political group (established in 1950) and one of Iyad Allawi's cabinet ministers. In August, Jaaferi defied his Prime Minister and demanded the immediate withdrawal of American forces from the battle with al-Sadr's militia in Najaf. Mr. Barazani is leader of the long-standing Kurdistan Democratic Party and Mr. Talabani is head of the newer Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (established in 1975). Both were leaders of the Kurdish rebellion against Saddam Hussein and both have sought to join. Last spring, the two joined forces to advocate a federal system of government for Iraq for the stated reason that it would better protect the freedom of their people. During that campaign, a significant group of the leadership of both Kurdish political parties was killed in an Islamist bomb attack. Mr. Sistani is the top spiritual leader (Grand Ayatollah) of Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims. He was born in Iran. Ali Sistani He welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but his stand on the American presence in Iraq has been ambivalent since then. Mr. Pachachi is a secular liberal, the former foreign minister of Iraq before his government was deposed by the Ba'ath Party in 1968. This spring, Muqtada al-Sadr replaced Saddam Hussein as the face of the armed rebellion against the establishment of a constitutional republic. Was it right for the US-led coalition to invade Iraq? Right: 48% (Feb. '04) 41% (June '04) Wrong: 39% (Feb '04) 59% (June '04) U.S. Forces should: Leave Now: 17% (Feb. '04) 34% (June '04) Leave in < 6 or 12 months: 16% (Feb. '04) 14% (June '04) Leave when Iraq is secure: 21% (Feb. '04) 12% (June '04) Leave when a government is established: 40% (Feb. '04) 28% (June '04) Not leave: 2% (Feb. '04) 2% (June '04) Which country could serve as a model for Iraq? United Arab Emirates: 21% United States of America: 6.5% Kuwait: 6.1% Japan: 4.8% Saudi Arabia: 3.6% Iran: 2.6% United Kingdom: 2.3% France: 2.2% Germany: 1.8% Switzerland: 1.7% Syria: 1.3% The results of the Republican Institute poll, taken in June '04, are as follows: Which kind of political candidate are you more likely to support? Religious: 68% Secular: 24% Are you more or less likely to support a political party that has a militia? Less likely: 45% Don't Care: 30% More likely: 7% Who is responsible for economic welfare? The government: 74% The individual: 22% Both polls indicate that about half the population thinks that the government should launch a gigantic public works program to create employment. The Republican Institute poll shows that 3/4rs of the people think that the number one thing the country needs for a better 'infrastructure' is reliable electric power. Both polling groups found that 1/3 of the population had at least a high school education, 8-9% a college degree. The Oxford polls taken in Iraq show that 2/3rds of the population lives in households of 5 - 10 people. In February 2003, median household income for 2/3rds of the population was between $0 - $150 per month. In June 2004, median household income for 2/3rds of the population was between $100 - $300 per month. The two numbers are incommensurate. The first is after Socialism and the second after the American introduction of free-market economics established real prices for labor, housing, food, etc. The vast majority of Iraqis are wretchedly poor, both before and after the American invasion. The American occupation has brought renewed contact with the economy of the outside world. The biggest improvement is that it has, for most Iraqis, brought more control over life for the individual. But life in traditional, semi-pre-industrial society is tough. It is something that a civilized man _should_ have trouble relating to. The following webblog post from an Iraqi physician, "Ali," explains what the economic transition looked like on the ground: "Last Friday my oldest uncle, along with his 16-year-old son, visited us, as he used to do this once every month. My uncle is a high school manager and a history teacher at the same time in the same school. I saw that he was wearing a nice suit that I haven't seen him wearing before. I said "Nice suit uncle. Is it new?" He said "Yes, I bought it about a month ago". "It must be expensive." I asked and he replied, "Yes it is, but your uncle now can afford it". "Some of the readers may remember me saying something about my uncle. Before the war he was in the same job and he was paid about 15 thousands Iraqi Dinars that was equal to about 7 US$ a month. His wife, who is also a teacher, was paid a little less than that. He has 5 children; one in primary school, three in high school and a girl in college. Of course that salary couldn't help him support his family, yet he didn't quit. He always hoped that things would change for the better. In order to meet life requirements and offer his kids a proper education, he had to work after school. He worked in every kind of business; a taxi driver, a grocer and opened a small shop for a while, but things didn't go quite well. "He had to sell his car first, then his 'extra' refrigerator then the only refrigerator then the TV and then and then. The last time we visited him, I had to hold my tears when I entered his house. There was virtually no furniture there, no chairs, no TV no tables, as they sold them all, but what shocked me more is that there were no inside doors. He had to sell those too. I mean his house was literally bare. His kids were ashamed of showing (themselves) because they had nothing proper to wear. It was amazing how he kept honest and didn't accept bribery from his rich students' families... "Back to where I started, I asked my uncle: "How much do they pay you now? I've heard you get a raise" He answered "Yes I did, I get paid 550 thousands Dinars now" (that's about 400$ a month). "And what about aunt?" I asked, meaning his wife "She gets 450 thousands, as she has less years of service". I said "Good for you! What does it look like now, your life?" He said, "Uncle, (the word serves both sides) it's unbelievable. I've refurnished my house fully and I'm looking for a car, but I'm not in haste as I can't drive now and I want it for Ibrahim (his son) as soon as he can get a driving license". His sons and daughters were always very polite and never asked for anything, they were very understanding to their father's financial difficulties (the right word here should be EXTREEM poverty) they were smart and well educated and never asked for something their father couldn't afford. "Back to the average income issue: Some readers may remember that I said my salary was about 17 US$ before the war. Shortly after the war it was raised to 120 US$. Three months after that, they made it 150 US$. Two months later it became 200$(although the truth should be said that they promised that it was going to be 250$) and when I went with one of my colleagues (who gets an exact payment) to receive his salary this month (I still haven't got paid for 6 months due to some bureaucratic problems that has just been solved), the accountant said to my friend "congratulations! You are getting a new raise starting from the next month and your salary will be around 300 US$! "Now I know this is still a very low figure compared to what doctors get in other countries, but look at the pace of the raises; 120, 150, 200, 300 US$ all in one year! I mean it's spooky. What will it be the next year, 500 US$? And what about 3 or 4 years from now? A thousand or can I dare and say few thousand dollars? Will we get more than what the Syrian, Egyptian Iranian and even Saudi doctors!? What a disaster will it be to the mullahs of Iran, Bashar Al-Assad and the king of Saudi Arabia? "Please, all those who care about the poor Iraqis and want to save them from the brutality of the American invaders and who want to prevent the Americans from stealing our fortune; meaning Bin laden, Zagrawi and their followers, Arab and Muslim tyrants, our good friend monsieur Dominique de Villepin, all the pacifist of the world, the major media, and in short, all those who hate America and obviously love Iraq: Get your s**t together and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT or else one or two years from now Iraq will be a prosperous country, and then we will never forgive you for letting us down when we needed you!"

On the issue of what the President Bush is getting wrong in his half-hearted ‘war on terrorism,’ I agree with Yaron Brook. Year by year, Mr. Bush’s war policy has become weaker and more confused. This is primarily the product of pragmatism – the principle that one must not use principles – not moral cowardice. But I agree with Dr. Brook that moral cowardice has been a major ingredient of Mr. Bush’s war policy since the beginning. In his address to the nation on September 12, 2001, Mr. Bush pointedly refused to identify the enemy. He refuses to this day. We are not in a war with ‘terrorism of global reach.’ We are in a war with Islamism – the political/military/criminal arm of Islam. I agree with Yaron Brook on all moral-political essentials. As far as the ideas of the war go, I consider ALL regular mosque-going, five-times-a-day forehead-to-the-ground-praying Muslims to be hostile to the war effort…until PROVEN otherwise. This is because Islam is an unreformed religion. Unlike the two other Western monotheistic belief systems - Christianity and Judaism – Islam has not been forcibly disarmed of all corporeal powers. It has not been disarmed of ANY of the corporeal powers that were historically wielded by Medieval region. It actively functions – across all national boundaries – with judicial, police, and war making powers. It is an amorphously organized super-national council of moral governors that overseas, constrains, and often directs the actions of the governments of the Muslim people under it. For these reasons ALL observant Muslims – perhaps 40 or 60% of the world’s Muslims – are ‘fundamentalist’ Muslims. ALL observant Muslims are potential criminal/military enemies. David Pipes has given me a general sense of the fraction of potential to actual hostiles we face among the world’s Muslim population. As many as 10% of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims may have provided some kind of material support to Islamic terrorist groups – either directly by hiding and harboring them, or indirectly by funding madrasas or Muslim ‘aid’ groups that they know support terrorism. What do the other 90% or 95% think? We don’t know for sure. Even in Western countries like Germany, Holland, and the United States, outsiders are morally barred from the mosque. Based on the observations of David Pipes, the majority of regular mosque goers are hostile to the United States and want to see us lose the ‘war on terrorism.’ (Commenting on the political opinions of Muslims, a non-observant Muslim woman to a talk radio show host, “If they go to mosque, you needn’t aaask.”) Again, based on Dr. Pipe’s observations, I suspect the minority of regular mosque goers who don’t hate America are confused by a divided loyalty. The few among this minority who are truly loyal to Western Civilization are living a contradiction. With one foot in each world, they dare not openly oppose the Islamist fanatics who often dominate discourse inside the mosque for fear of social ostracism – the loss of contact with family and friends. Inside the Moslim World, this minority also fears physical reprisal, even death, if they speak out. There is evidence that physical threats and acts of reprisal may have come out of some especially rotten mosques even in the West – in Europe. Any Moslem who criticizes Islam within earshot of a non-Muslim is widely considered to be a moral traitor, in league with infidels. In the past it was fair to assume that a man who worships a church dominated by members of Ku Klux Klan has given his moral sanction to the lynching of ‘negras’ – even if he wasn’t a member of that ‘political’ organization. So it is fair to assume that anyone who regularly attends Mosque has given his moral sanction to the killing of infidels. Protests and excuses from non-Muslims that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful decent people who oppose every form of Islamic terrorism don’t count. Protests from MUSLIMS against every form of Islamic warfare and oppression is the only thing that counts in judging the loyalty of a Muslim. Are all observant Muslims our ideological enemies? Just about all. But this does not make all of them our physical enemies. If the police power of the mosque is fought; if the moral authority of the mosque is challenged; if the sanity of Islamic fundamentalism is questioned – many mosque goers will stray from their evil non-reformed religion. They will stray just as the victims – and the perpetrators – of Soviet Communism strayed from the belief that socialism is the moral system. It is for those who have actually taken up arms; those who materially support the killers – that we should reserve our well-aimed bullets and bombs. In the 1940s, 1980s, and 1990s, Islam organized against America in a way that is parallel to Socialism’s organization against America in the 1880s, 1920s, and 1940s. The worldly power of socialism peaked with the fall of France in 1940. Under the banners of Hitler and Stalin, socialism had taken over Europe and was on the march. Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, and France were under their boot. In awe of Germany’s power, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Turkey cooperated with the new order. Any who stood up to Hitler seemed doomed to fall. A bloody half-decade of total war with National Socialism and four bloody decades of limited war with International Socialism followed. But after June of 1940, socialism progressively aroused opposition and was met on the military, political, economic, and intellectual battlefields…and it is the mauled, whimpering beast we live with today. Based on the events of the past 39 months, September 11, 2001 was the high water mark of the Muslim advance. With an antiquated pre-philosophical ideology of religion, Islam cannot effectively penetrate the culture of Western Civilization (our semi-nihilistic culture may be sick, but it isn’t dead yet). The only way in is through the back door of our existing post-socialist ideology – and, as the fierce opposition from most Dutch leftists proves, they can’t even get far through that door. Islam can’t stop our penetration of their culture by the mere inarticulate example of our happy way of life. Just watching us going about our daily lives has got many of the people of the Muslim world to wonder about what kind of world-view is behind our civilization. Questions are all it takes to break up the brittle anti-intellectual dogma of unreformed religion. With a loosely aligned front of pre-industrial nations, Islam cannot stop the military forces of Western Civilization in the field. They aren’t doing well with a guerilla campaign against our small occupation force in Iraq, either. They’ve been doing badly even though we haven’t used our occupation forces conclusively. And not once since 9/11 have they penetrated our meager border, port, and airline security systems to attack us here in the United States. Intelligence operations and police sweeps have snuffed out the majority of their plots overseas. One has to wonder if America's military offensive inside the heart of the Moslim world has DETERRED al Qaeda from attacking on American soil. The only reason the Muslims got as far as they did on September 11, 2001 is that we completely ignored them. Now we are paying attention. Now they face an uphill battle in which they are almost continuously on the defensive. For them it is total war. For us, it is an effort that requires a limited – but relentless – attention. It is from this context that I object to Yaron Brook’s evaluation about what means are necessary for the United States to prevail in our war with Islamism. This is the sole content of my objection. This is ultimately not a philosophical objection. At the level of applying moral and political principles to the war, Yaron Brook and I are in complete agreement. What I disagree with is Dr. Brook's assessement of the overall situation. I totally reject the notion implied in Dr. Brook’s evaluations of the war that the United States is in a desperate situation. I reject his implication that as a result of the ideological vices of our culture, the United States stands at the brink of disaster. I reject the implication that we face defeat. I agree with Dr. Brook that President Bush’s half- and quarter-measures in the war have pushed quick victory out of our grasp. I disagree with Dr. Brook’s suggestions that Mr. Bush’s ideological vices and weaknesses are pushing victory beyond our grasp. It is from the perspective that victory is slipping away that Dr. Brook’s urges the U.S. military to be less discriminate in our killing so that we can kill faster before the enemy is able to score another major victory against us. This advice would be more appropriate to a free country the size of Massachusetts, facing state-sponsored Islamist fanatics on all boarders and hostile nations ten times its size in the neighboring area. But the United States is not Israel. We do not share Israel’s predicament in any way except morally - and even there the Israelis are at a disadvantage. The Israeli left has a stranglehold on national security policy that can only be compared with what happened in the United States during the fall of Saigon (the bitter end of what Ayn Rand correctly observed was a grizzly act of mass self-sacrifice for America). Even at our lowest moment, there has been a deeper well of support for national defense here in America than in Israel today. Contrary to the implication in Yaron Brook’s most recent press release (below), victory or defeat in Iraq does not turn on the rules of engagement for American ground forces. American troops aren't dying by the dozen because we're too easy on the civilian population. While we should place a much higher priority on arresting disloyal opposition leaders and assassinating some top clerics, reprisals against the civilian population aren't productive. What is to be gained by bulldozing houses? On the narrower issue of whether or not American soldiers lives and limbs are being sacrificed to altruist rules of engagement, there is a little justice in Dr. Brook’s argument. It is a shameful truth that every large ground unit has a lawyer they consult on questions of the rules of war. But there is only a little justice in his point. The American armed forces have been so effective at engaging enemy militiamen, the cost of all the lawyers’ constraints haven’t been material. Nearly all of the tactical constraints placed on military destruction in Iraq have been rational (and MORAL constraints). Why not destroy all bridges and dams and power plants? Because ground forces used them to invade and the occupation authority used them to begin the American effort to liberalize post-Saddam Iraq. Why not kill enemy militiamen while they're hiding behind civilians? Because they’re hostages. (Did I have to explain that?) Why not use ‘carpet bombing?’ Because carpet bombing is not nearly as effective at destroying the enemy’s capacity to fight as precision aimed munitions. Have you ever been to the rifle range? Which will hit the target first, quickly shooting 90 rounds from three magazines from the hip…or taking one or maybe two carefully aimed shots? (Again, did I have to explain that?) When meeting resistance on the ground, why not just back up and blow up the whole area? When the pace of battle is under the control of American forces (and headquarters doesn’t think we’re taking casualties), the forces spend a few minutes identifying the location of enemy resistance and targeting them for precision guided munitions (See my comments about not carpet bombing, above.) When meeting heavy resistance on the ground that is strong enough to break up an American advance and cause casualties, general bombardments were used to produce the effect that general bombardments do: to temporarily suppress enemy fire and scatter their assault forces. On March 23, 2002, a reinforced mechanized battalion of Marines was stopped cold by a massive Fedayeen counter attack at the eastern edge of Nasiriyah. Marine Corps artillery held their fire for only one reason – headquarters lost radio contact with the battalion and, not knowing where they were, did not want to rain several hundred 90-lb shells on them. Four hours into the battle, communications to the rifle company pinned down in the city was restored and the entire eastern end of the city was subjected to a general bombardment. Only about 4,000 civilians were killed during the invasion of Iraq. Probably fewer than 1,000 have been killed by American forces since then. This is something to be PROUD of. One VALID tactical question Yaron Brook brings up is: Why not blow up all the mosques? Good question. I’d add, to that question: Why don’t we have a ‘Team 121’ to identify every mullah that has ever issued a fatal fatwa? Why don’t we kidnap or assassinate each of them? Why don’t was have a “Phoenix” program for Islamists? The moral cowardice Yaron Brook cites is what stops us. This is an area on which Dr. Brook and I (and all Objectivists) agree. But, sadly, in making George Bush the best presidential candidate available, it is one of the half-measures the majority of the American electorate has constrained us to follow. But, with an enemy so weak, I do not believe that restraint in attacking Islam and its mullahs will prevent victory. Happily the policy of not targeting mosques has been essentially corrected. During the battle of Falluja this fall, American forces ravaged nearly all the mosques of the city. Time and time again they cut off enemy strong points and destroyed them before they could disperse. Many of them were mosques. Every mosque that was found to contain armed men or ammunition and supplies was bombed, shelled, rocketed and raided by infantry. Likewise, the first target destroyed in the battle for the Islamist-held city was the hospital. American forces will check to see if there are innocent civilians in the way of battle, but any special treatment for mosques is nothing more than lip service – circles marked on military maps). Today there is no hesitation beyond the rational consideration for innocent life. Dr. Brook needs to update his opposition to the craven protections given to the mosques of Iraq. What is material to American victory at a minimum of American casualties are the POLICY decisions made – or not made: 1. by Paul Bremmer’s frozen policy of non-occupation occupation in which no effective attempts to restore government to Iraq were made for over a year, 2. by the decision at the Marine Corps regimental combat team headquarters – and higher ups – to discontinue the battle for Falluja in April, 3. by the Bush Administration’s and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s deals with al Sadr, and 4. by George Bush’s personal insistence that a proportionally elected Parliament will deliver the liberty to the people of Iraq – a miracle that will be delivered to them because God endows every man at birth with the desire for liberty, even Shi’ites who beat themselves bloody in public to prove their insane devotion to Allah. Dr. Brook and I agree that these are policies that threaten American victory in Iraq. We agree that these are policies that are getting too many American servicemen killed and maimed. I hope that, at some point, Dr. Brook and I will agree on what strategic and tactical issues are relevant to American victory. And I hope that, at some point, we will agree on the chances for America's ultimate victory. At some point it will become obvious all of us that the United States is slowly – too slowly – winning this war. My disagreement with Yaron Brook is with how he evaluates some of the concrete issues of the war. The application of philosophical principles to the specific issues of military power and war policy requires a consideration of all relevant facts. The specific lessons of history and the differences between the conditions of the past and today need to be considered. Collecting and appraising these facts and evaluating some of the specifics of history are not philosophical skills. Having a superior grasp of philosophy gives one less of an advantage in these specific issues than one might think. Neither Yaron Brook nor I have a substantial track record of projecting the future trajectory of world events on the scale of months and years. So there is no clear evidence I can offer to you to claim that I will make fewer mistakes in my projections than he does. Meanwhile I'll sit here with an amused smile, waiting patiently to be proved right. If I am totally mistaken that we will be victorious, Dr. Brook will be targeted for attack long, long before I am. That is why I have been reluctant to criticize him by name. In defeat, his peril would be an honor I could not claim to share.

ENDS AND MEANS “Do the ends justify the means?” was a question that pacifist Martin Luther King considered at great length in the civil rights movement. I am not – in any way – endorsing his pacifism or his mysticism or his egalitarianism…but will endorse the answer that Rev. King had to that question: “The ends are the means in process.” It is a profound statement on the metaphysical nature of action. Whether or not you ‘want’ to abide by this philosophical law, you will. What kind of government; what kind of society; what kind of world were the Chechen separatists who attacked the school in Belisan fighting for. Following Rev. King’s maximum, the question can be easily answered by a look at their means. When the 32 rebels neared the town of Belisan on foot, two of their number objected to the choice of a school on the first day of class as the target. Their leader had them shot. Invading the school the rebels killed 20 mostly unarmed civilians who obstructed access to their children. Once inside the school, the leader would not allow any hostages to relieve themselves. When one of the rebels objected to the leader’s refusal to agree to Russian police demands to release children from among the 1200 hostages, she was shot dead in front of a large group of rebels and hostages. In the gymnasium, three rebels (who were engineering students) strung explosive charges from chain strung between the basketball rims in the center of the room. Three days later, the two of the rebel-'engineered' explosive charges detonated by accident (triggering the bloodbath). And -- my FAVORITE detail of the attack – the rebel leader demonstrated his ruthlessness by detonating remote control bombs that two of his own militiamen had strapped their bodies – adding to the shock value, the two disintegrating Chechens were young women. ( http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/0...ideo/index.html ) The ends are the means in process. Any questions about _this_ kind of Chechen separatism? Any questions about the wisdom of Russia allowing Chechnya to ‘peacefully’ separate and independently police up their own Islamist monsters free of ‘outside interference?’ I didn’t think so.

I have not attempted to review the Vietnam War here. I have no difference with either you or Ayn Rand regarding the grotesque, human sacrifice -- on a gigantic scale -- that was the Vietnam War. The tens of thousands of young promising lives cut off, the tens of thousands of amputees, all the social turmoil and personal angst -- all ended up being for nothing, worse than nothing. The primary objective of the Johnson administration in escalating the war was to impress the Soviet Union with American 'resolve.' Rather than devising ingenious ways to obstruct, undercut and damage communism, President Johnson (and Richard Nixon in his first term) wanted to show the Soviets that America was not afraid to BLEED to fight communism. Human sacrfice was--by implication--the intended PURPOSE of the war. It was supposed to 'awe' the Soviet Union with America's ruthlessness. As sacrifice is always sacrifice...the whole thing was a debacle that enabled the Kemr Rouge's one million murders, emboldened the Soviet Union to lauch insurgency campaigns in Central America, South America, and Africa and support Palestinian terrorists...and inspired Red terrorist movements against Italy, Germany, Japan.....and even, briefly, inside the United States of America itself. Be careful with your comment, however that "America had no business being there. None." That is an unwitting absorption of the pro-communist New Left program in our culture and in YOU. America had every reason to be in Vietnam...on a non-sacrifical basis. The policy of military training and assistance started by John Kennedy should have been continued -- even escallated -- as a means of harrassing, of bleeding, communism. American training personnel, American Naval and Air Forces, and American miltiary shipments belonged in Vietnam as an integral part of national defense. The American commitment should have been limited by the limited national security needs that American had in the region. We could have killed a lot of communists without giving up so many American lives. __________________ I made a comment about how a Kerry presidency followed by a 'strong' president might lead to the military draft. In the wake of another major defeat in the war with Islamism, re-institution of the military draft is not a far out scenario. If this nation's territorial safety (e.g., preventing a nuclear attack on an American city) required the invasion of a major Muslim nation like Pakistan (pop. 180 million), I have no doubt that the president would ask and Congress would vote for military conscription. I had to register for the military draft. And in 1979, I was pretty well convinced that I'd soon be in Iran with a rifle. And, as a 19-year-old engineering student, I DIDN'T like the idea one bit. After the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Iran, I knew that President Jimmy Carter had a moral obligation to go to war with Iran. I even assumed that we'd over-react by invading the country, when an attack by conventionally-armed ICBMs followed by a sustained strategic bombing campaign would have been quite enough. To this day, I am simultaneously relieved that I wasn't compelled to go...and DISGUSTED -- nearly to the point of nausia -- for the reason why it didn't happen...why NOTHING happened. Jimmy Carter's total pacifism was the climax of the superstitious fear of using the armed forces for national defense that was called the "Vietnam Syndrome." __________________ The PRESS's attempt to focus on the "Bush's service vs. Kerry's service" is their attempt to distraction from what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth REALLY have to say: that John Kerry's dishonest claims of widespread war crimes undercut the moral legitimacy of the American soldier, the American armed forces, and the American nation. Furthermore, his effort to promlugate the dishonest Vietnam-soldier-as-war-criminal myth was SUCCESSFUL. It undercut the nation's self-confidence at a time of war -- widening defeat in one war to a general, decades-long global defeat in the Cold War with communism. With America showing some signs of waivering in its commitment to continue pressing the offensive against our Islamist enemies, the "Vietnam Syndrome," which John Kerry co-authored, is a major threat to national security. It is a REAL issues that faces America today. ___________________ Why is it that Bush feels so ashamed of the efforts of the Swiftboat Vets for Truth ? That's easy. He's following the dictum of Christian altruism, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." The good things I say about Bush in comparison with Mr. Kerry do not change the fact that Mr. Bush has plenty of bad premises mixed with the good ... and the bad premises undercut his war policy and Why is it that Bush feels so ashamed of the efforts of the Swiftboat Vets for Truth ? That's easy. He's following the dictum of Christian altruism, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." The good things I say about Bush in comparison with Mr. Kerry do not change the fact that Mr. Bush has bad premises ... which unWhy is it that Bush feels so ashamed of the efforts of the Swiftboat Vets for Truth ? That's easy. He's following the dictum of Christian altruism, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." The good things I say about Bush in comparison with Mr. Kerry do not change the fact that Mr. Bush has bad premises along with the good. His bad premises undercut both his re-election campaign and his war policy. But his opponent's (Kerry) and his enemy's (Islamism) premises are much much worse. Their premises undercut their efforts at confusion (on the one hand) and destruction (on the other) at a far deeper level than President George Bush's less extensive bad ideas.

August 30, 2004 Mr. ‘al-Kufr,’ The comments you posted about war (Post #308) are thought provoking. And those thoughts are thoughts about the policy questions that SHOULD be at the center of this presidential campaign (not the supposedly eminent threat of Christian fundamentalism in America). You commented that this “[w]ar is fought at three levels, the physical, the mental…” Yes! (sort of.) Take a look at Robert Tracinski’s strategic piece about the war in The Intellectual Activist. It was in November, December, or January 2001/2002 issue, entitled, “The War to End all Jihads” or “The Three Wars of World War Three” – I can’t remember which. (Unfortunately due to an ommission in data entry the article does NOT show up in any of the searches of back issues of T.I.A. on The Intellectual Activist website.) In this article, Rob lays out the three levels at which the war with Islamism must be fought: 1. military 2. political 3. ideological Not surprising, Rob predicts that the United States will be very successful at the most concrete level task: military engagement. And he predicts mixed results in the political and ideological relms: the more abstract the level of the conflict, the more we can expect failures in the defense our Civilization. Your summary of Lind’s comments on “Fourth Generation War,” (which, I believe, is also called ‘asymmetrical warfare’), are very informative: “In fact, in Iraq and in Fourth Generation war elsewhere, we are the weaker party. The most important reason this is so is time. “For every other party, the distinguishing characteristic of the American intervention force is that it, and it alone, will go away. At some point, sooner or later, we will go home. Everyone else stays, because they live there. “…Until we accept the counterintuitive fact that in Fourth Generation interventions we are and always will be the weaker party, our decisions will continue to be consistently wrong. The decisions will be wrong because the assumption that lies behind them is wrong. We will remain trapped by our own false pride.” Is time on our enemy’s side? Is our material strength an illusion? No! Mr. Lind is in error, gravely in error. Before the first American soldier boarded the first American plane to head off to Afghanistan in October 2001, the premises of American culture had already been invading and undermining traditional, ‘pious’ Islamic culture – at an accelerating pace – for over 50 years. Islamism is a very recent re-formulation of age-old Islamic traditions – in the mold of the Bushido code, created by the semi-modern Tojo regime of Japan. Islamism was created in 1949 by the anti-colonial Egyptian theocrat, Sayyid Qutb in response to his fear that American influence would undermine faith in the Islamic World (articulated in his book, _The America That I Saw_). Qutb’s fear was prescient. For Islamists, al Qaeda’s war against America as an act of self-defense against American spiritual colonialism – an invasion of the Arab mind. The idea, imported from America, that threatens the Arabs and the whole Muslim World is that the proper purpose of life is not ‘religious struggle,’ but the pursuit of happiness. In this ultimate battle of the war with Islamism, time is on OUR side. The unstated premise behind Mr. Lind’s evaluation is that the effort against Islamism (and Arab nationalism) is limited to a predominantly material undertaking. His unstated premise is that the most powerful ideas of the conflict are those of the enemy. He assumes that the enemy holds the moral high ground against us. The implication behind Mr. Lind’s premise is that our civilization’s success and power are a moral charge that a weak enemy can make against us BECAUSE we are successful and strong and BECAUSE they are a weak, failed civilization. This is only true if the moral code of altruism is true….It is only true if our culture accepts the morality of altruism and if the enemy knows how to mobilize our altruistic shame against us. The view that American failure to accept the ‘fact’ that “we are and always will be the weaker party,” is not the lesson the United States should have learned from the Vietnam War. The notion that “our own false pride” is our greatest enemy is the product of the New Left. It is the premise they successfully injected into the culture, turning a limited – and VERY bloody – military defeat (the Vietnam War) into a policy of global strategic retreat during America’s ‘Cold War’ with Soviet Communism. In applying these ideas to the conflict in Iraq, Mr. Lind, one of the world’s great experts on military means, is unwittingly transplanting the defeatist notion of the “Vietnam Syndrome” to a conflict with an enemy who is far weaker – both materially and spiritually – than communism every was. What should be the proper means in a war to compel the reform of Islam? The proper means are for the United States to gain a measure of cooperation (or control) with every nation of the world – sufficient for terrorist cells to be policed up through the internal actions of sovereign nations (with or without U.S. assistance, with or without a U.S. military occupation). The proper means are for the United States to insist on the dismantling of all anti-Western dictatorships, the dismantling of import/export restrictions, and the dismantling of censorship of Western media, books, and ideas. The proper means are the reform of education throughout the Muslim World. The education of the children of the Muslim World should be secular, not religious in nature. All madrassas – except those used exclusively for the education of Muslim CLERGYMEN – must be shut down. Force should be used directly against the worst institutions of Islam. Non-clerical madrassas should be either converted into secular schools, torn down, or bombed. All imams who have ever issued fatwas that morally sanction the use of force should be imprisoned. All imams who have ever issued general fatwas for the deaths of citizens of Western nations should be either assassinated or imprisoned for life…and mosques dominated by such imams should be subject to constant, intrusive police surveillance, torn down, or bombed. Under good leadership, America is ideologically strong enough to put in to practice – with greatly varying degrees of consistency – all of these means…except the policy edicts of my final paragraph. In today’s climate of ideological weakness (a climate which, as several people on this list have pointed out, is much improved over what it was in the 1960s and 70s), proposals to overtly use force against the worst organs of Islam have no chance of being implemented. It feels good to write about killing homicidal imams and bulldozing revolutionary mosques, but the enemy is so weak, that the United States can easily win without taking those steps. -- Jack P.S. In Mr. ‘al-Kufr’s’ Post #325, he quotes Lind, “What the Marine Corps calls “cultural intelligence” is of vital importance in 4GW, and it must go down to the lowest rank. In Iraq, the Marines seemed to grasp this much better than the U.S. Army.” I’ve been running across this difference quite a bit recently. This sharp difference between the military culture of the Marine Corps and the Army is ultimately caused by the greater degree of the division of labor and the deeper integration of combined arms in the Marine Corps. Amphibious battles are, and always have been, the most complex undertakings in war. Under Don Rumsfeld, the Pentagon accelerated the re-organization of the Army around ‘Combat Task Groups’ – tightly integrated groups of scouts and reconnaissance teams, mechanized infantry, artillery, mobile missile batteries, armored fighting vehicles, ground attack helicopters, and the Air Force (see my T.I.A. article “The Centurions of American Ingenuity”). These teams were modeled after the Marine Corps “Regimental Combat Team,” an integrated unit that includes Marine Corps attack helicopters and Marine Corps Air Wing. This kind of higher-order military thinking in the Marine Corps has historically lead to higher-level thinking about the effectiveness, limitations and purposes of armed force. The Marine Corps had a totally different approach to combating communism in Vietnam…and has a markedly different approach in Iraq. Sadly, higher-level thinking in the Marine Corps has made that organization more vulnerable to the infiltration of some altruist-collectivist ideas. THAT is why it was a Marine Corps regimental combat team, not an Army Combat Task Group that thought it was a good idea to ‘negotiate’ with the insurgents and establish a local military patrol group made up of ‘moderate’ Islamist and Ba’athist sympathizers. And why Falluja has become ‘Indian Territory,’ rather than Najaf or Baghadad’s Sadr City.

Mr. Yes, You commented that "Bush doesn't need the controversy of his military service or the 'swiftboats' to cloud his campaign. It had little effect on the most recent pools." The press has mistakenly focused on only one of two arguments the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have against Kerry -- mistakenly, on purpose, that is. (The press is no longer uniformly Lefist, but they still vote about 85% Democratic.) You commented that "Bush doesn't need the controversy of his military service or the 'swiftboats' to cloud his campaign. It had little effect on the most recent pools." The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are not clouding the presidential campaign. They are doing exactly the opposite. They are clearing away Sen. John Kerry’s militant evasions. (BTW the Los Angeles Times reported today that, "For the first time this year in a Times survey, Bush led Kerry in the presidential race, drawing 49% among registered voters, compared with 46% for the Democrat.) The press has mistakenly focused on only one of the two arguments the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have against Kerry…mistakenly on purpose, that is. (The press is no longer uniformly Lefist, but they still vote about 85% Democratic.) The men of John O'Neill's Swift Boat Veterans for Truth got pissed off, got organized, and got into the presidential campaign because John Kerry ran for his Party's nomination and is running for president as a "war hero." Mr. Kerry was not much of a war hero. He was no Audie Murphy, no Alvin York. He was a regular guy who simply fought with the rest of them, doing his job like the rest of them...sort of.... well... actually... not really. It turns out that Lt. Kerry was an irritatingly self-promoting medal hunter (all wars have them). And when he had enough medals he bugged out -- after only 4 of the normal 12 months of combat duty -- using the long-established rule that three purple hearts earns you the right to opt out of combat. At least two of his purple hearts were fraudulent. In a reference to the fact that Lt. Kerry frequently had people take pictures of him with his movie camera when he was off duty, some of the sailors on the boats joked that John Kerry left as soon as he had enough footage to run for office. When John Kerry got back to the United States, he jumped into the anti-war campaign -- choosing to become the top spokesman of one of the New Left's anti-American groups, Vietnam Veterans against the War. This is where Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s other argument comes in -– their real argument; the argument that is not ‘a personal attack;’ the argument that motivates all of their arguments with John Kerry; the argument the Left-of-Center press does not want to cover. The VVAW's argument against the war was that it was a gigantic crime against the people of Vietnam. They asserted that America had for decades trumped up false ideological charges against communism -– claiming that it was a homicidal ideology that was so evil that it had to be met with armed force –- and then attempted to prove the charge by sending the U.S. Armed Forces out to meet a communist movement…in Vietnam. However, according to VVAW spokesman, John Kerry, when the American troops got to Vietnam they realized that what had been fearfully, jingoisticly labeled ‘communism’ was actually, “an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever.” (John Kerry’s April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.) John Kerry went on to explain that issues of liberty and tyranny were meaningless in a place like Vietnam, “[W]e found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from. We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart.” The centerpiece of John Kerry’s Senate testimony, was that American soldiers were committing atrocities –- war crimes -– and that the crimes were, “not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.” John Kerry then went on to use words that -– 33 years later –- he would say were “honest but…a little bit over the top.” He summarized the findings of the VVAW’s “Winter Soldier Investigation,” a show trial in which over one hundred men claiming to be Vietnam Veterans -– at least one of whom wore what appeared to be a necklace of human ears –- tearfully admitted horrendous crimes and atrocities to a New Left panel of judges: “They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.” Coming from a man who had only seen innocent civilian die as the result of the speed and confusion of combat, John Kerry’s words were not honest. Years later, B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley demonstrated in their book, _ Stolen Valor_, that nearly every single war-crime claim during the Vietnam War was false. Armed forces records showed that most of the ‘perpetrators’ never saw combat, and the ones that did, weren’t deployed at the places and times of their ‘crimes.’ Because of all the attention -– and the VA disability checks for ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ –- paid to atrocity claimants, false claims of war crimes were common. A war that America was taught to be ashamed of, became the first war from which men returned home to tell ‘war stories,’ not to fake heroism and valor, but to fake criminality and perversion. The anti-Kerry campaign of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is not muddying the water with mere personal attacks. They have go hold of the essence of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate –- a man who want’s to be the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces while the nation is at war. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have demonstrated the whole reason why John Kerry is running as a war hero. It is a militant evasion; an attempt to pre-empt the truth that during a shooting war with international communism, he worked to undermine America’s moral legitimacy and self-confidence. Does it matter, 33 years later, that John Kerry was once the front man for a radical anti-American agenda? Yes. It matters because the agenda for which John Kerry fought succeeded. One of the reasons why it succeeded was because, at a key moment, the 27-year-old former lieutenant put a credible face on incredible claims by the New Left that that American soldiers routinely committed war crimes and, by implication, that the entire Vietnam War was a war crime. Once these unwarranted claims became credible (in a political culture poisoned by altruism), conventional second-handed politicians -– from the Old Left and the Old Right -– became very reluctant to use American military force ever again. They were terrified that any small military misstep might, once again, subject America to accusations that it is morally debased. False claims of widespread American atrocities, false claims that communism is not a mortal danger to mankind, and conventional politicians who are sufficiently second-handed that their confidence in America’s unique morally upright standing in the world can be easily shaken -– these are the three legs of the Vietnam Syndrome. The Vietnam Syndrome was a debilitating form of American national self-doubt that prevented any use of the armed forces for national defense anywhere for over a decade and prevented the United States from going to war for any reason until after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The moral-political-military self-doubt of the Vietnam Syndrome produced two extraordinary craven acts: After the American withdrawal from South Vietnam, Congress made certain that there could be no re-insertion of American troops to assist the South ever again. They immediately cut off all military aid and placidly watched while too many terrified Vietnamese tried to claw their way onboard too few helicopters to get out before a reign of terror fell on Saigon. After Iranian ‘students’ invaded the American Embassy in Tehran – sovereign American soil that was not defended because the Marine guards were not issued live ammunition – and took its diplomatic staff hostage, the President of the United States chatted away on television for 444 days…and did absolutely nothing. When he left office President Carter had achieved the goal proudly articulated for his presidency in his second State of the Union address, “I’m grateful that in the past year, as in the year before, no American has died in combat anywhere in the world.” The Vietnam Syndrome, unfortunately, still lurks under the surface of the American political culture. Over the past year, America has begun laboring under self-doubts about the use of military force in the Islamic World. Here and there throughout the political system, every aspect of the Vietnam Syndrome is threatening to re-surface regarding the war in Iraq. The first sign that the Left’s opposition to American self-defense was going to re-surface was when, one week into the invasion of Iraq, the forces halted on the ground. Leftist reporters and politicians, re-enforced by a cadre of retired generals, immediately descended on the White House and the Pentagon. ‘Was the force overextended? Was this the beginning of the unraveling of the whole invasion? Shouldn’t the Armed forces be more cautious? Shouldn’t they take a defensive posture?’ Two weeks later Baghdad was liberated, Saddam Hussein’s regime was gone. The disloyal Left shut up…for a while. This spring the Left saw their first clear opportunity to invoke the Vietnam Syndrome and stop the war. They were so horrified by the photographs of Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated in the Abu Griab prison they nearly danced in the street. It wasn’t the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” but it would do. When Sunni and Shi’ite militias rose up in Falluja, Najaf, and other cities across Iraq the disloyal opposition here in America whispered so loudly among themselves, the rest of us could hear it. ‘Was this an Islamic Tet?’ they asked worried expressions on their faces, while trying to suppress a smile. ‘What about that policy of no exit strategy, now?!’ was a question they had the urge to throw in the President’s face. ‘Exit strategy’ is, of course, another word -- the Left's word -- for retreat. The civil war that began inside America during the Vietnam War has not ended. American’s are still divided over whether or not their nation should be defended -– whether or not it is _worthy_ of being defended –- against foreign aggression. In this the deepest public debate of the election season, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are showing us exactly what we need the most to see. They are unmasking John Kerry as the ultimate war time anti-hero; the last man we want to have in charge of our national security at the moment our nation has begun to waiver in its commitment to fight Islamism. -- Jack

Gentlemen, If you'd like to buy a couple pre-1933 American $20 gold pieces, go ahead. They're beautiful. They are also historical artifacts of America's rich tradition of defying government prohibitions. (It's my understanding that essentially every American gold coin minted before 1933 was held illegally -- in defiance of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s order that prohibited private ownership of gold...an order that wasn't lifted until 1973.) But don't INVEST in gold. Many a good man has lost his savings speculating gold -- a commodity he didn't truly understand. Buying gold is a way of selling America and all of Western civilization short. Many monetary collapses have been predicted, but they are very rare events. America has had about as many of them as we have had magnitude 8.2 earthquakes. But hucksters trying to talk you out of your life's savings for a commission pop up every day. Never put your savings into something that you don't understand, understand down to its root. If you don't have reliable information on the future value of something, don't put your money into it. Gold is not an investment. It is a store of value. Over the long term it does not appreciate or depreciate. To put it in the simple terms that Richard Salsman has, in 1900 a man could buy an inexpensive suit for one ounce of gold. Today he still can. Gold is a way to duck the ravages of inflation. But in a time of high inflation, you're often better off buying real estate (which is an investment that generally grows in value at low, stable rate...even in times of inflation). But we are not in high inflationary period. Furthermore, there is no threat of inflation in the foreseeable future. After what happened in the 1970s (6, 8, 12% inflation), the American political culture has become inoculated to inflation. In 1969, the vast majority of Americans did NOT know that inflation is government plunder of the money supply. In 2004 the vast majority of Americans understand that government is the cause of inflation. In this informed environment, to get inflation, Americans would have to WANT it. To want it would require the creation of an overtly evil political movement, say of debtors -- people strung out on consumer credit -- vs. the bankers. And it would have to be a broad, popular groundswell amoral enough to come right out and say they wanted to plunder. The enormous government debt $6.7 trillion and the rapid addition to that debt ($450 billion annual deficits) do not exert an inflationary pressure on anything. The only thing that can cause inflation is if the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee buys government debt (with Federal Reserve Notes) too quickly.] Paul Volker ended that practice back in 1981. And Alan Greenspan -- complete with all his double talk and a couple of minor mistakes (the shallow recessions of '91-'92 and '01-'03) -- has maintained a policy of slow, stable, monetary growth and low inflation (1 - 4%) for almost 20 years. Please remember that the $6.7 trillion in Federal bonds does NOT constitute all of the government's liabilities. For example, the present value of all the future payments already promised under Social Security is about $5 trillion -- and that liability increases with every payroll check an employer writes. High government debt is a problem that can be solved in two ways. Cut spending and/or raise taxes to generate a surplus to pay down the debt and establish endowments for entitlement programs. Or stop adding to the debt and patiently wait for the economy (and the income tax base) to grow large in relation to the debt. As you can tell from the multiple means available to reduce government debt, public debt is NOT fundamentally a liberty v. statism issue. It is rational for the government to, at times, carry a debt in order to spread out the tax burden of an extraordinary expenditure (e.g., $3 Trillion to defend against global Communism, or $0.6-$1.0 trillion to defend against the Muslim World...things are more expensive than they were back in 1955.) What is irrational, evil, and statist, is to shift the burden of altruism from the present to the future. It is an evil system in which the generations who can vote appropriate the moral 'credit' (under altruism) for helping those who have less, while imposing some of the costs on a future generation who don't yet have the right to vote. Rome didn't fall in a day.

Elezabeth, It's my view -- as an _amateur_ intellectual -- that determinism, not religion, is the more lethal idea in politics The determinist premise is the bridge between 'scientific' metaphysical materialism and dictatorship. That's why one political revolution, in 1789, and another, in 1917, went straight to the terror and dictatorship. Ever since my friend (will call him Mr. X for now) educated me on the central ideological victory of the 1980s (that the conservatives discredited the Left's idea that man's actions are determined -- values and motives and choices do not move him -- rather he is moved by outside material factors over which he has no control), I've been watching the role of determinism in political philosophy and in government policy. Determinism is such a crude contradiction the only way to make it seem like it's true; the only way to make men's minds operate as if this were a deterministic is to use force. The imposition of society-wide, government-implemented compulsion makes man -- in all his physical actions, interacting with other people and the world around him -- act as if he is a pupet, determined by outside forces. To a determinist, it doesn't much matter what goes on exclusively inside the mind of the individual, so long as all physical aspects of his life are controlled. Only that which is physical is real. To make determinism 'true,' one would have to re-write reality...and the number one thing that has to be written out of it is individual free will. If one is a determinist, one must immediately move to stamp out any signs of volition in the world. One must stamp out the individual in man. Determinism is an ideological gun pointed at man's mind. In politics, liberty ends where determinism begins. There are plenty of bad ideas in politics that can threaten liberty. But none is so broad, so comprehensive, so direct an attack on liberty as the premise of determinism. No other idea -- not even fanatical Islam -- can kill so many men as quickly. Look at history. Who killed the most? The inquisition? The Crusades? Or the Communist International? ...Or the fascists who copied them? -- Jack P.S. Based on my experience, I agree with his argument about the current state of America. My experience, however, is not entirely representative -- as a boy I was raised in the very secular East side of Milwaukee, surrounded by Unitarians, free thinkers, civil rights activists, and (unfortunately) socialist peace-niks. As a man I have only lived only briefly in or near the Bible Belt. But, having lived in the southwest, the northeast, and many areas of the midwest -- big cities and small towns -- I have not seen a marked trend towards more religion. The "Promise Keepers" came and went. Christian rock 'n roll is an attempt to inject religion into pop culture no different than its previous injection into country and western music. And "The Passion of Christ" will be viewed by a large number of Americans only one more time, when it comes out next month on DVD, and then it will be put away in the cabinet never to be seen again. Here is a private note from my friend, Mr. X (who actually is an intellectual), on the role of religion in America. (I am not knowlegeable enough to answer anything more than the most general of questions on the role of religion, greatly attenuated as it was, in enlightenment thinking about liberty and individual rights. Perhaps there is someone else on this list who is.) ______________ ...[T]he combination of religion and freedom was hardly unique to Reagan (or Dubya). It goes all the way back to the Declaration of Independence and beyond....this package deal is not something that the New Right invented thirty years ago. Indeed, America was founded on this package deal! In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke mentioned in passing that he thought a secular, rational ethics could be developed, perhaps based on man's pain-pleasure mechanism. After the book's publication, his friend James Tyrrell asked him, "So, where's that rational system of ethics you promised us?" Locke kept putting him off. Eventually, this sore point contributed to the souring of their friendship. Locke gave up his hopes of developing a secular morality, writing that the Gospels and Cicero's De Officiis provided sufficient moral guidance for any man content to pursue his own happiness and not plumb the depths of metaphysics. Different Enlightenment thinkers responded in different ways to his failure to separate morality and freedom from religion. His friend Tyrrell collaborated with a philosopher named Cumberland on a project to develop a natural law ethos based on deduction from presumably axiomatic statements about "the good." This approach was very popular with obscure English Deists, like Wollaston, but it never really took off. Locke's French admirers--Helvetius, Diderot--ran with Locke's proposal of basing moral values on pain and pleasure. Their efforts led to d'Holbach's "System of Nature," which rejected God and anything "spiritual"--including free will. He gave the French Enlightenment an atheistic, scientific, and "rational" philosophy, including ethics--all based on a view of man as a rather chatty and self-important slab of meat, driven to and fro by the sensation of the moment. The only successful alternative to the hedonism of French materialists was the intuitionism of British and American Christians. Locke's student, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, said that Locke's mistake was chucking the theory of innate ideas. He claimed that we have within us a "sensibility" to detect the true, the good, and the beautiful. Scottish philosophers seized on this idea and developed the theory of "the moral sense"--an innate, intuitive capacity to know good and evil. This was the theory that Jefferson embraced explicitly, and it's what he had in mind when he accepted the description of natural rights as "self-evident" rather than "sacred and undeniable." His letters are laced with assumptions of the Scottish moral sense theorists. Of course, when Jefferson based natural rights theory on God, he had in mind the rational "God of Nature." The next generation had an equally benevolent but not half so rational God in mind. After the Enlightenment collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions, America was transformed by the First Great Awakening. Nineteenth-century Americans combined evangelical Christianity with two legacies of the American Enlightenment: moral sense theory and natural rights theory. And that synthesis has dominated the American mind ever since. The notion that human beings have some innate capacity for good, endowed by their Creator, provided a basis for individual rights and representative government, rescuing the Crown Jewels of the Enlightenment. Americans who might've seen a problem with this synthesis looked to Europe and saw that the only alternative was what the French Enlightenment had cooked up: there, "reason," science, and atheism had led to materialism, determinism, and socialist dictatorship, from the Jacobin Terror to the rise of revolutionary communism. The failures of Locke and the Enlightenment left us with the choice of religion combined with certainty, morality, freedom, dignity or secularism combined with skepticism, whim-worship, dictatorship, and man-as-meatism. We've been stuck with that dichotomy ever since. [There is no]...rise of religiosity in America. ...[F]undamentalists will [not] take over America after another four years of Bush....Most Americans today say that they believe in God, and many go to church on Sunday. But very few actually try to live by the guidance of the Bible. Most...hard-core evangelicals...have adopted a distinctively nineteenth-century American brand of Christianity, in which the Sermon on the Mount is fully compatible with making lots of money, having a fulfilling sex life, and bombing the hell out of Iraq. (You can thank Mayhew and the other Enlightenment theologians for that bundle of happy contradictions.) The truth is that America is much less religious today--religious in the way people really think and live their lives--than it was in 1955 or 1906 or 1864 or 1776. Yes, the top five or six Founders were Deists, but the vast majority of people even at the height of the American Enlightenment were solid, Bible-believing Protestants (though many of them thought that their Bible faith was fully compatible with Mr. Locke and Mr. Newton). Americans' inability to develop a rational basis for concepts, values, and rights compelled them to rely on religion. Their inability to make a rational argument for the American system is the essence of the American Tragedy. Jefferson tried to reconcile God with nature and the Sermon on the Mount with the pursuit of happiness. He failed as he had to fail, and as his hero Locke failed before him. So we left the realm of ideas to the Europeans and America's Europeanized intellectuals, and we've tried to keep the American way of life afloat on the basis of religion, tradition, common sense, etc. Yes, it is tragic, and so much has been lost because we weren't strong enough--philosophically strong enough--to hold onto it. But to suggest that America is going to hell in a hand basket, that fundamentalists will take over and turn America into a second Iran, is preposterous. I mean, just forty years ago, it was illegal in most states to buy birth control. Even presumably pious Catholics in America use birth control these days. Yes, there are a lot of very bad trends in America, but the political takeover of theocrats is not even in the realm of possibility. We're talking science fiction now.

Janet, I'd like to comment on something in the post you made Saturday (post #208) "...Allowing Kerry and his bunch to further prove their degeneracy won't get the job [of preserving liberty] done..." Yes! I have yet to see an election where it was a good idea to vote for the worst of the two candidates. I never will. Bad things happening on a bad politician's watch will not necessarily cause his bad ideas to be blamed for what happened. Ideological blame has to be identified by someone and articulated. Once articulated, people have to be philosophically open to listening to the answer. The only thing that determines what or who gets the blame for bad events (and good events) are the ideas of the dominant voices in the culture -- in the press and in academia. This is why it has always been and always will be absurd to vote for the worst candidate for president or any other elected office. One should always vote for the best. One cannot triangulate with one's vote. One cannot double cross with one's vote. One cannot setup the next election with one's vote. One cannot impart a nuanced meaning with one's vote. Voting is a blunt instrument: Yes. I approve. That's all it says, nothing else. If you vote for men who want to raise taxes; if you vote for men who want to impose socialized medicine; if vote for men who want to make it impossible to produce electric power or build internal combustion engines -- don't be too surprised to find that you have to take three jobs to make enough money to pay the bills, that you can't get live-saving coronary bypass surgery in time, and that the engine of the world slows and comes to a stop. And don't be surprised that while you ride all the way down into the hell you voted for that science, industry, individualism, greed, private property, the profit motive are blamed for every extra hour in the work week, every extra death on the hospital waiting list, every factory that is shutdown, and every city that goes dark. I'm a little bit embarrassed to find myself arguing this obvious point. We live in a representative government. The vote is no joke. It is the root authorization for every government action and every government action is the use of force. Your vote is the root of what determines what the parking fines will be and whether or not your nation will launch nuclear missiles. When you pull the trigger on November 2, don't shoot an innocent man. In this year's elections the choice in America is as stark as it was for Spain. Vote for Anzar and you get a defense of Western Civilization (confused and watered-down as it is). Vote for Zapatero and you get self-doubt, withdrawal, and appeasement. The outcome will count either as a victory or a defeat for al Qaeda and the Islamists. The political culture is currently mulling the details of John Kerry's important role 34 years ago in undermining America's national defense in a time of war. In the coming weeks, the political discussion will move forward down the chronology of Mr. Kerry's political career. We will all get a good look at the degree to which he has moderated the anti-American views of his youth. It won't be a particularly re-assuring sight. Voting for altruist-collectivists to take over in Washington in the hopes that they will wreck the economy is self-destructive enough. We Americans do not need to 'experiment' with voting for a commander-in-chief who has doubts about whether America is worth defending; a man who believes that America's use of military force has generally been the _cause_ of the world's problems. I can already tell you the outcome of that experiment. Military defeat at the hands of America's Islamist enemies will give more credence to those who doubt the value of our civilization. Every defeat will re-enforce the legions that oppose America's use of military force. Every defeat will be interpreted by those who hate our system as proof of its impotence. Every defeat will feed their belligerence. How do I know? I am old enough to remember the aftermath of America's self-inflicted defeat -- bloody defeat -- in Vietnam. Even if the experiment in voting for a war anti-hero 'works' and we get a better president in the following election, the United States may need a large conscript army to do the job in 2009 that could have been done with a small all-volunteer army in 2005. For those of you who live or work in a skyscraper; those of you who live or work in New York City, I think you understand that this year's election is not merely one in a series of political contests for the long-term preservation of liberty. For you, a vote for John Kerry is suicidal. -- Jack