Austin Bay Blog » SmackBack: Dean with a white flag: Some say Rove played rope-a-dope. "The SmackBack from the Whtie House is long overdue, but there are problems with this “smart guy” interpretation. We’re in a long haul war. War effort takes primacy over political cycle. The White House is filled with “political cycle” types. They may win elections, but they don’t win wars. This White House needs a better balance."

I think the WH thought they could be "above" the anti-war noise, and just win; letting victory silence their critics. Lack of victory has weakened them -- they failed to define the victory steps back in June 2004, when it was: 1) soveriegnty, 2) elections for a Constitutional Assembly, 3) referendum on the Constitution. Each and every one a significant, difficult step.
And 4) election of Iraqi representatives, elected by law writen by elected Iraqis, and voted on by Iraqis.
More democracy than Japan has.

Globalisation Institute - enterprise-based solutions to poverty: "...Mandelson talks about cutting agriculture tariffs 'in half'. But what he actually means is cuts in previously agreed tariff ceilings (known as 'bound rates'). These ceilings are currently set at roughly double the tax level which is applied in practice."

Alex Singleton notes that the "Big EU" offer to cut tarrifs means, in practice, less than 1%.

Disgusting PR.

Michael J. Totten - lebanon.profile writing On Democrats and Arabs "The Democratic Party critics of the President and Arab critics of American policy have a lot in common.

They love to go on the attack against people taking action, but offer no alternative. They snipe at President Bush and the oh-so-evil neo-cons, but offer few alternatives."

The Dems offer an alternative -- run away! (perhaps confusing them some more by running more?)
And when there's a bloodbath disaster due to their unwillingness to support victory, they blame it on ... America, naturally, not their own opposition to fighting evil.

Austin Bay Blog » Oh no, Afghan optimism: "For what it’s worth, I saw this optimism first-hand last June. TheSeptember elections were the buzz in the Afghan village we visited. But we’ve had to endure another six months of soap opera negativism and defeatism from the likes of Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy. Of course their focus is Iraq, but Afghanistan was to be a defeat and quagmire as well."

The media is quiet on Afghanistan, because there's not as much Bush-bashing material there.

RealClimate » 650,000 years of greenhouse gas concentrations 650 000 : "The latest results from the EPICA core in Antarctica have just been published this week in Science (Siegenthaler et al. and Spahni et al.). This ice core extended the record of Antarctic climate back to maybe 800,000 years, and the first 650,000 years of ice have now been analysed for greenhouse gas concentrations saved in tiny bubbles. The records for CO2, CH4 and N2O both confirm the Vostok records that have been available for a few years now,"

Great news -- more real science on climate change.

"To quote Richard Alley "Whether you're a physicist, a chemist, a biologist, a geologist, or any other "ist" studying the Earth system, there is something in these data that confirms much of your understanding of the planet and then challenges some piece of your understanding". It's all very exciting (for us 'ists' at least!)."

The Belmont Club the Rest of the World: on governing the internet "Given the choice—trust the US or trust the UN—unlike Ms Rosett from the USA, MRW (Most of the Rest of the World) chose the latter."

Bush should be comparing Kosovo/ Bosnia/ Rwanda/ and especially Darfur with Iraq.

The Belmont Club on December 6 : "It's common to regard the story of the war on terror as a single narrative. But in reality it consists of multiple streams, which is why, despite the efforts of Representative Murtha, it will be hard to shut down. In Kazakhstan, North Waziristan, Southeast Asia, the banlieus of France, the Horn of Africa and in the Middle East, history is on the move. The only choice America really had on September 11 was to either hold itself aloof from events shaking the world or engage them.

In retrospect, there was tremendous resistance to the idea that the certainties of the 1990s had finally come to an end."

A fine post on (the day before) a day that will live in infamy. Sometimes there is no going back.

The Anchoress notes the topper of the Trinity as one: "“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”"

Via Patrick O'Hannigan on Alexandra's post.

The Anchoress is also shamelessly plugging herself in Weblog voting.

neo-neocon Amnesia: a love story: "it concerned a man in England who'd lost his memory in a very profound way. Then the other day, just by chance, I came across another documentary on the same subject, and finally learned his story.

Clive Wearing was a British musician, conductor, and musicologist who came down with encephalitis about twenty years ago, a sudden attack that left him with only his short-term memory."

Great long post by NNC on the problems of living with only short-term memory. [We recently saw a film on this, where the man tatooed notes onto himself.]

But the Power of Love is amazing in this story.

normblog - Book of the dead: "With the trial of Saddam Hussein under way, those in the God-damn-America camp find themselves uncomfortably wedged. Should they justify their opposition to the war by downplaying Saddam's crimes while sheeting home blame for the present turmoil to the US and its allies? Or do they opt for the defence of moral equivalence, conceding that Saddam was indeed a monster but those US presidents who once backed his regime, including George H.W. Bush, are the real monsters.

The best riposte to this warped analysis is a scholarly and sober 700-page volume recently published in France, of all places. Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The Black Book of Saddam Hussein) is a robust denunciation of Saddam's regime that does not fall into the trap of viewing everything in Iraq through a US-centric prism. The writers - Arabs, Americans, Germans, French and Iranian - have produced the most comprehensive work to date on the former Iraqi president's war crimes, assembling a mass of evidence that makes the anti-intervention arguments redundant."

I replied to Don Surber that I wanted a long Saddam trial; to review the crimes. I could have just linked here to Norm.

Don Surber After Hours: Six Thoughts

I like the first 5, but Don wants a fast Saddam execution. I want a slow one, where more of his crimes are offered as evidence.

And the anti-war folk are correctly accused of supporting Saddam.

GM's Corner More laughs, thanks to France: "The French Government announced today that it is imposing a ban on the use of fireworks at Euro Disney. The decision comes the day after a nightly fireworks display at the park, located just 30 miles outside of Paris, caused the soldiers at a nearby French Army garrison to surrender to a group of Czech tourists."

neo-neocon - It's a conspiracy: "Why are conspiracy theories so popular? One reason, I believe, is the decline of general (not specialized) education in science, decried by Carl Sagan in his book, The Demon-Haunted World:
"

I'm really interested in how Kennedy really died; but I remain one of those who don't trust the Warren Commission, though without having read it. NNC does point out that with the Kennedy killing, conspiracy believing has gone way up, and has hurt science.

neo-neocon links to Dan Melson's post: "entitled 'Recent US Political and Military History and the War on Terror.' It was recommended to me by a reader, and he certainly didn't steer me wrong."

Neo-nc has good taste, and Dan writes movingly about the need to continue the fight. To continue willing to fight. And how long we have already been fighting, despite the denial by those against the war.

Dan doesn't call the anti-war folk traitors, though he correctly points out that throughout history such folk were traitors.

Dan also doesn't quite point out that the media is helping to support terrorists who kill American soldiers. But he does claim they media is giving the enemy aid and comfort.

David Corn on Condi failing to Wow the EU folk: "As long as the media continues to reveal the tawdry--if not illegal--practices being sanctioned by the Bush administration and as long as the administration refuses to hold people accountable for the abuses and mistakes that do occur, Rice's we-do-not-torture statements will have no meaning."

I'm against torture. But in favor of legal, firm interrogation.

Corn fails, as usual, to note the two system errors: too much interrogation, especially of innocents (false positives) -- against too little info gathering, meaning more American soldiers die.

In his Unreal Perfection fantasy, a CIA with kid-gloves will get just as much life-saving info as tough guys. Baloney.

Complaining about torture means wanting more soldiers to be killed.

Vodkapundit - Not Getting It Department Stephen disagrees when Z. Brzezinski says "The "Islamic" jihad is, at best, a fragmented and limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world."

Back in the Bad Old Days, it took a nation-state to fight a nation-state. Japan built aircraft carriers to attack us at Pearl Harbor. Germany made tanks to slice up France. The Soviet Union produced missiles in about the same quantity (although with probably lower quality) that Charmin makes toilet paper.

But the Bad Old Days were also the Good Old Days. You could depend on the Soviets not to do anything really, really stupid – like, say, launch cruise missiles at the World Trade Center in peacetime.

Today, however, the price of offensive weaponry has gone down. If you want to take on a global power, you don't need any million-dollar tanks with Chobam armor and laser rangefinders. You don't need any billion-dollar aircraft carriers, billion-dollar ships to protect them, billion-dollar planes to launch off them, or billion dollar crews to man them. You don't even need a multi-billion dollar nuclear weapons program – although certain people sure would like to have one.

You don't even need a Hitler, a Tojo, or a Stalin.

In today's world, all it takes to take on the Big Bad is 19 young men and a few million dollars in seed money.

This is the downside to massive "empowerment of the individual".

Media Lies - Defeaticrats!: "The media is working overtime to support the position that we've lost and all that's left is to find a way to gracefully exit. The Democrats are doing the same, because they have no other options. They've painted themselves into a corner they cannot extricate themselves from, and they're only hope is that they can convince enough Americans that the war is lost that pressure can be brought to bear on the President to admit defeat."

Anti-media nails the issue -- one of politics with the Dems only hope -- to convince enough Americans that the war is lost.

Dems determined to ignore progress in Iraq: "Sen. Joe Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, came out with a big statement on Iraq last week. Did you hear about it? Probably not. Everyone was still raving about his Democrat colleague, Rep. Jack Murtha, whose carefully nuanced position on Iraq is: We're all doomed unless we pull out by next Tuesday! (I quote from memory.)

Also, the United States Army is "broken," "worn out" and "living hand to mouth." ... this guy Lieberman's evidently some nobody no one need pay any attention to.

Here's why. His big piece on Iraq was headlined "Our Troops Must Stay."

Mark calls them the Defeaticrat Party. They want defeat.

Actually, Wretchard at Belmont Club also noted their desire for defeat. I'm wondering if they don't want to fight Vietnam again, and this time LOSE while opposing US war against commies. Or at least maybe they really "know" it would be better if they lose.

Austin Bay Blog: Reality doesn't sell: "We discussed training, doctrine, and simulations issues. Dunnigan got off the best line. I’ll paraphrase it as “Reality doesn’t sell.” He made the point that “realistic simulations” aren’t entertainment, and all too often the sexiest, snappiest, gee-whiz item gets bought because it is exciting to use and watch. That doesn’t mean it’s the most appropriate training or analytic tool. Yes, everyone knows this. And everyone, particularly a crowd that includes government purchasing officers, needs to be reminded, in public. three or four times a year."

Austin mentions cultural, linguistic, and even economic issues need to be included more, as well as decentralized and mission specific.

I don't know why all major Sunni cities don't already have a SimCity sort of simulation, and at least a good map.

All active service personnel NOT currently in Iraq should be getting Arabic training -- and those who learn the most the fastest (intense 1 week? 2 weeks?) should have the opportunity to get a promotion to learn even more before deploying into Iraq. Arabic is likely to be language needed in conflicts for the next 5 years, it's incompetent not to be pushing it more.

Especially Open-source gov't funded "free" self-imersion courses.

The Belmont Club: In marshalled order set by Lucifer, who left his station last: "Normblog reviews Michael Ignatieff's book on the moral problems of fighting terrorism. He also examines Conor Gearty's objection to Ignatieff's thesis. Ignatieff's reasoning is very close to my own: that maintaining morality, such as banning torture, comes at a price -- a price we should be willing to pay, up to a point. Gearty differs with Ignatieff, arguing that if human rights are held less than absolute or if the concepts of right or wrong are admitted into the debate then we are down the slippery slope to torture in some form."

A fine long post about torture, and the Left, and humanitarian absolute standards.

The moral problems for the US will be reduced in 2006, as the Shia majority take over more control of a "democratic" Iraq, and the US can let the Iraqis handle the prisoners.

Which, I think, will result in FAR MORE torture by Shia against Sunni -- and relatively soon, more Sunni pushing to stop Sunni terrorism.

The Left will complain that the US shouldn't have lost 2500 (?) soldiers "for this" -- but they'll be unwilling to say how many it WAS worth.


The real problem of the Left is the failure to understand systemic problems: type I and type II errors -- false positives and false negatives. The more a system avoids one type of error, the more of the other type it will make.

The more a system avoids falsely punishing the innocent, the more it will falsely let guilty go free.

For too many Leftists, and newswriters and even politicians, tradeoffs don't exist; so the illusion of an Unreal Perfection continues.

neo-neocon on Planning for the Iraq War and Aftermath (part II): "I guess I'm a child of the Vietnam era after all, because to me this looks so much better in comparison that I cannot help but be cautiously optimistic. Some will say I'm not hard enough on the administration, and that my expectations were ridiculously low to begin with. But I would answer them by saying that I consider myself to be a realist."

I, too, think it's much, much better than Vietnam.

The defeat of Saddam's military was a cakewalk -- except Saddam's army never surrendered. They just took off their uniforms, while many of them kept fighting secretly.

But the Saddam strategy seems brilliantly simple: fight and run away, and live to fight another day. Till the day that the Americans go.

Had Kerry been elected, Saddam might have found himself in the custody of terrorist friends.

Finally, any with friends who claim Iraq is a mess should be challenged, what would a non-mess look like? How many dead? How many elections? and then, where is the example?


Bush/ Bremer failures: failure to use ration-cards to help elect local mayors/ city councils, and give these elected folks more budget/ power.
Failure to set up an Oil-Trust for Iraqis, based on ration-cards and voter registrations; with a requirement to vote to get the cash afterwards.

Media Lies - - Iraq report: "'Insurgent' deaths remained steady at 3000 per month for the past three months, up 50% from the previous quarter, yet their estimated strength remains at 15,000 to 20,000, an indication of the steady supply of foreign terrorists entering Iraq. Daily attacks by 'insurgents' were at their highest level ever in October, indicating that their effectiveness is way down.

Iraqi troop levels reached 211,700 in November. Tips from Iraqi citizens reached their highest level ever in August (no numbers for the last three months.)

The Iraqi economy has been booming since the war. Cars registered in Baghdad have more than doubled their pre-war level and traffic levels are up five times. There are 5.5 times as many telephone subscribers, almost 33 times as many internet subscribers and over 200 commercial media outlets (compared to 0 before the war.)"

Iraq is about to succeed. Anti-media also has other fine posts:
On the irony of the US public catching up to Iraqi optimism, and how VERY WELL the economy is doing (according to WILLisms).

Also a link to an important, long report on the violence inherent in Jihad in Islam.

Grim's Hal on Secrecyl: "In cases where corruption is secret -- and here I am not asserting that there is any secret corruption going on in the government, because of course I do not know -- the People can't perform their duty as citizens. They have no choice. They are prevented from being moral actors, because they are given no knowledge. To the degree that the government operates secretly, it ceases to be a government of the People."

A fine post about corruption in government, being lessened perhaps if folk know.

The real problem is that voters are addicted to "free money -- OPM" Other People's Money. And they know that they can only get THEIR free money if they accept a system that gives out free money, even if that means other folk get theirs.

Grim's Hall Outrage: discusses the fact that current Operating Procedure requires psychops, to therefore support the war effort with truthful stories. Grim disses the attitude: "You know, this is one of those things that wouldn't have happened if everyone weren't so eager to write boooks about their role in public affairs."

He's missing the point that by failing to disclose the US military source of the articles, it weakens their impact.

The US should have a "US military" designation after their articles. Maybe the US military should fund their own Iraqi newspaper--with only true articles. And lots of pictures of terrorist weapon caches, and blood smeared torture rooms.