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Saturday, January 25, 2003
January 25: Shabbat Shalom! Tick, tock goes the clock. 3 DUPBBSNIT (Days Until President Bush's Big Speech, Not Including Today; acronym appropriately pronounced: "dub-snit"). Most Saturdays here on Winds of Change.NET are "good news" days, where we put aside our normal conversations and focus on Sufi wisdom, personal heroism, and promising new discoveries. Today's thoughts are a bit more somber. All of us can see what's coming, and understand its necessity. Doesn't mean we have to like it, though. And there's other news we'd rather not have heard. Folks who prefer our regular rotation may find value in some of yesterday's exchanges, from Celeste's post about personal responsibility in the face of a sometimes-hostile world to Armed Liberal's meditations on taxes to Trent Telenko and I having a bit of a back and forth over France. Today's Blogs: Winning the War With Arms Isn't Enough Look, let’s face it. We’re going to go to war. The machine has been started and set on track, and stopping it is at this point virtually impossible. No one is going to debark tens of thousands of men and women and thousands of tons of materiel and then throw their hand up and go “Just Kidding!” The Left in America and the West has done an immense disservice to their stated cause of peace by embracing a wooly “anything but war” stance instead of making any attempt to grapple head on with the problems that are presented by radical Islamism and the failed kleptocracies that are embracing it. As a side note, “anything but war” neatly captures what I see as the failures of modern liberalism, which seems to only stand for “anything but…” a long list of things. But that’s another subject for another time. I’m deeply conflicted by this war that’s coming soon; unlike my blog-mates, who seem to have pretty much made up their minds. If this was Risk, or a war game, I’d be all for it. But I’d be for it for a different reason than the one you probably think; not because it wouldn’t involve real blood and death, I’d be for it because I knew we would stick it out. What I know about people tells me that they are good at sticking to things when the costs are low. But as any decent gambler can tell you, it takes heart and stomach to stay in when the stakes get significant and painful. And this is not going to be a test of our arms; Trent and Joe have covered many of the reasons why in the blog below. This is absolutely going to be a test of our stomach and heart, and I am worried about both of those. It’s not even a question of whether to go to war. As I’ve said before, I think we’re in a war; in an anti-modern, anti-Western war led by elements of our own intelligencia on one hand, and by the enraged, disenfranchised population of parts of the Third World, led by dictators who find that railing against America buys them time to loot their countries by selling their natural resources and moving the money to Switzerland or Panama. And we really have no clue how to respond. Oh, we’ll go kick the hell out of whatever organized or semi-organized military forces are out there. But then what? It’s “Yes, but…” this and “Yes, but…” that and the only consistent vision of the Western-led future looks to many of the average people of the world a helluva lot like the masts of yachts seen from the outside of a marina fence littered by a stack of annual reports and deposit slips to Bermuda banks. Our failure of vision and nerve has brought this about. We founded America to get the little guy out from under the thumb of the oppressive nobles, and instead of offering the average person in the rest of the world a path they could follow, we turned around and cut deals with their nobles so we could have cheap gas, Nikes, and chipboard. (I know, this is hyperbole, but I’m trying to make a point here…) This isn’t some lame-ass “give peace a chance” argument; we are not at peace today, and if we brought all the soldiers home from the Middle East tomorrow and forced all the Jews out of Israel on the day after, we’d still be at war. I’m standing here waving words in your face because if we are to shed American blood, I’d really like to feel like we’re getting something for it. And that something needs to be a lasting peace. And to accomplish that peace, we need to rediscover some basic American values in order to export them. It’s never really been done before. And we have no choice but try. I’ve never been a soldier. Even my dad, who got medals in WWII, got them while sitting and basically running a Hollerith card-sorting machine over in India. He was a cryptographer in Army Intelligence (yeah, I read “Crytonomicon” pretty damn intently, thank you), and the only guns he ever saw were on the Rangers who were there to keep him and his peers “at least 200 miles from any known or suspected enemy activity”. But I’ve been honored to know a fair number of soldiers…particularly of “pointed end of the stick” kind of guys who I’ve trained with and been trained by in my various martial hobbies. And I keep thinking about them and their attitudes as I try and figure out where I stand in this mess. And the principle I keep coming back to is this: How do we make their sacrifice…of their own blood and of the blood of others they will have to shed…actually lead to a change? How do we do this in a way that won’t mean that we’ll be back next year, and the year after, and the year after that? Because otherwise, we’re playing King Canute, lashing the tide as a demonstration of the limits of our worldly power. We can push back our enemies. We can weaken them. We can even kill them all, if it comes down to that. But can we stick this out long enough to make peace with them? Or rather, to fight them hard enough and long enough and still have the stomach and heart to offer the average person on the ground in Tikrit or Jakarta something worth living for? Because that’s what it will take to have a chance that they will make peace with us. This is uncharted territory. I can’t think of an example in modern history where it has worked. I think we’ll readily win the clash of arms. But as the Israelis have discovered, I believe that this is more a war of stomach, heart, and backbone than one of arms. Taxes and Liberalism A comment over at ArmedLiberal.com pointed out an interesting distinction that explains a lot about the difference between the liberal and conservative view of taxes: The first analogy is BS. Taxes pay for government services. Most of these are consumed relatively evenly, while the social services are consumed mostly by the poor and less as you travel up the income scale. The fact that someone can afford to buy additional services after paying taxes means nothing.Are taxes a form of fee-for-service? ...or are they the cost of operating a complex society? There is a school of 'literalist' conservatives (and of course, libertarians) who argue that taxes should be simply fees for services rendered...national defense, police, fire, sewers, parks. But...liberals like me would argue that there are a broader class of 'services' which are somewhat harder to track, and which lead to the operation and maintenance of a desirable society. I fully acknowledge that it's difficult to reach consensus on what's desirable, and as I've pointed out incessantly, the hand of government doesn't always accomplish the desirable without significant costs. But a 'fee for service' society would be one that I think few of us would really (as opposed to in costless assertions on the Internet) choose to live. Sufi Wisdom of the Week: Hodja on the Battlefield As militant Islam does its level best to discredit the religion, it's important to remember that there are other voices within the faith. One such is the Sufis, the Islamic mystics. The Wahhabi hate them, of course, which constitutes an endorsement in my books. The great poet Rumi was a Sufi, and so were many other figures of religious and cultural significance. Every Shabbos, therefore, I share some of that via my Blog. This week's story involves the popular story figure of Hodja. As usual, what seems to be a simple story resonates from many different angles. "Once, in a tea shop, some soldiers were boasting about a few of their recent victories. The local people were gathered around them, listening eagerly. That's the kind of world...": Condolences to the Sensings Celeste's post about Police Chief Reuben Greenberg's advice to some Charleston citizens struck an unfortunate chord. My friend Donald Sensing emailed me the next day with some tragically relevant news. He's blogged the story and related advice on his site, so I'll just send you over there. Please drop him a line with your condolences... Ministers so often give this out, but sometimes folks forget that they need it too. "That's the kind of world...": U.N. = Unimaginable Negligence If you were a weapons inspector in Iraq, and someone with a notebook ran up to you at one of your inspection sites and frantically told you they were in danger, would you: [a] Wonder if he had valuable information and take him elsewhere for questioning, regardless of Iraqi objections. [b] See him as someone on dire need of help and use [a] as an excuse to pull him in under U.N. protection, hopefully for later repatriation out of the country. [c] See him as a problem and summon Iraqi soldiers to physically remove him from your compound, taking him away to almost certain torture and death. If you picked anything other than [c], you're obviously not qualified to be a member of Hans Blix's U.N. team. Two people, in two separate incidents were handed over (see photo). As Charles points out, they're probably being tortured as you read this. That's the U.N. in a nutshell. What a contrast to the actions of this international diplomat in similar situations. Which reminds us that even though this incident is perfectly emblematic of the U.N. (Rwanda, Srebrenica, now Iraq), the decisions to turn these men over were made by individuals... and they have to answer on a moral level as well. With respect to those individuals: there are just no words to express the depth of my moral loathing. Who the hell raised these lower forms of life, anyway? To borrow a refrain from Charles, "what the hell is wrong with these people?" Alas, I think know the answer. Think I may know a few like them, too. Friday, January 24, 2003
Friday Daily Winds Tick, tock goes the clock. 4 DUPBBSNIT (Days Until President Bush's Big Speech, Not Including Today; acronym appropriately pronounced: "dub-snit"). Today's Blogs: 48 Ways to Wisdom: Way #15 - Oral Instructions for Living This is a regular feature on Winds of Change. Every Friday (for Friday evening begins the Jewish Sabbath), we cover one more way to wisdom from Rabbi Noah Weinberg. These materials are written by an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, but are written in such a way that they retain their value no matter what creed you follow. Think of it as a gentle and modern way of sharing 5,000+ years of accumulated wisdom. This week's heading is "Oral Instructions for Living," dealing with the oral commentaries around the written Torah. Even if you're not Jewish, applying the principles he explains to your preferred source of wisdom literature can pay real dividends. As Rabbi Weinberg notes: "Judaism is not supposed to be a reference work sitting on the shelf. It's to be lived and internalized. If you gain a piece of wisdom, integrate it into living."Why not? Police Chief Reuben Greenberg: "That's the kind of world you live in" The Volokh Conspiracy led me to this surrealistically common-sense advice from a police chief. He is actually suggesting that local businesses arm themselves for protection. Some Folly Road business owners concerned about crime were taken aback Thursday night when Charleston Police Chief Reuben Greenberg appeared to suggest that an effective crime deterrent would be for them to arm themselves. ...I find an honest admission from a law-enforcement officer that they cannot prevent every crime, and that citizens should take some steps to defend themselves mighty refreshing. It is disturbing to me, however, that there is a significant segment of the population that refuses to accept this simple fact of life. Mary Jane Keathley, meeting organizer and co-owner of a restaurant, asked Greenberg if he was joking. "Are you telling us we should arm ourselves?" she said.It is never a good idea to place total responsibility for your safety and life in the hands of someone else. I started thinking about that, after reading this article. I've been sitting around, waiting to hear what the Bush administration plans to do about further possible terrorist attacks, and how they plan to handle, say, a smallpox outbreak, when I could be thinking up my own plans and making my own preparations. I need to ask myself the following questions:
JK Note: Reuben Greenberg has had a very high profile career. He's Jewish, as one might guess. What you might not have guessed is that he's also black, the first black Police Chief Charleston ever had. Nor is this the first time he's stepped up with refreshing and sensible views, as this article in Policy Review demonstrates. Calling Evil by its Name: The Axis of Evil Revisited Get thee hence to the NRO site and read this column by Micheal Leeden. The killer 'graph: The only legitimate criticism of the Axis of Evil speech is that it was too limited, not that it was fanciful. There is indeed a working alliance involving Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, and it embraces other countries as well, including Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. It is a political and strategic alliance that unites this generation's tyrants in common cause against the democratic West whose very existence threatens their grip on power by inspiring their peoples to fight for freedom. The Axis countries share military technology and help one another to develop the most lethal weapons available to them. North Korea promised to stop testing missiles, so, for several years, Iran has done it for them. Once proven, the technology moves from Pyongyang to the other terror sponsors, including Saudi Arabia. Iranian ships transport weapons to Palestinian terrorists, as in the celebrated case of the Karine A last winter, and in the more recent Italian seizure of an Iranian ship loaded with chemical precursors headed for Libya. Hardly a week goes by without another story documenting the flow of chemicals and finished weapons between Iraq, Iran and Syria, often ending in the murderous hands of the terror network, from al Qaeda and the Islamic Jihad to Hezbollah and Hamas. Like the countries that compose the Axis, the terror groups are now working intimately with one another, to the point where it hardly makes sense to separate them, either in our analysis of the threat they pose, or in our strategic planning. The Evil That Was France France is dead. Everything that was the real glory of France is gone. It has been replaced by a soulless, hollow, fascist shell, blindly pursuing power and inflicting pain where ever it goes. It is now an ally to thugs and dictators anywhere and an enemy to freedom everywhere. We have to deal with the nation of Le Pen without the true face of Le Pen. Yesterday Donald Rumsfeld said the following: "You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't," he said. "I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east and there are a lot of new members." This set off the French and Germans and inspired the Axis of Weasels Blogburst. It also had me reexamining what I said earlier about the likelihood of France vetoing a use of force resolution in the U.N. I particularly found these posts over on Innocents Abroad here, here, here, here, and here helpful in filling in the back story of France's stab in the back in the U.N. After all, when Secretary of State Powell and the State Department staff start saying things like this about France: On the other hand, Mr. Powell is said by aides to regard the French criticism of a war as hypocritical. In this view, the French are more interested in exercising power on the Security Council, where they sit as a permanent member, and perhaps in being guaranteed access to Iraq's oil resources. You know something radical has happened to the French. The French are usually far more calculating and contrary to what Max Boot said in the LA TIMES there is far more economically to this than $1.2 billion in Iraqi oil concessions. Also in play are French arms, Airbus jetliner, and communication satellite sales (as well as Ariane launches for them) to Persian Gulf states. All of those industries have their claws set deeply in the French state. They will make a great deal of trouble for Chirac if a post US-invasion Iraq leaves America with both a defacto control over Persian Gulf oil income and a willingness to use it against France's economic interests. In terms of international prestige, turning the U.N. into the new "League of Nations" will remove the last French pretense to being a world power, the U.N. veto, from its diplomatic arsenal. So why did the French government do it? The answer to that question was provided by Bill Safire. France is trading all this for immediate power inside the European Union: "Then Schroder, reliant on his militantly antiwar Greens, made Chirac an offer he could not refuse: to permanently assert Franco-German dominance over the 23 other nations of Continental Europe. However, this is no guarantee that the French will actually use that veto in the U.N. They could still abstain when the vote comes up at the U.N., thinking that since Schroder is such a political loser and buffoon that he won't be around later to punish the French later. (That is my bet.) It doesn't really matter anymore what the French do as far as American Jacksonians are concerned. France's betrayal in the U.N. has toggled over Jacksonian activists in the blogosphere, talk radio and wider media punditry. They are reaching out to the wider Jacksonian base in American politics with choice lines like this from Debra Saunders Townhall.com column French kiss-off: "De Villepin told a reporter that France's Iraq policy is guided by four principles: justice, solidarity, morality and the law. Whether an activated Jacksonian base will find a leader to express its displeasure outside opinion polls is a different question. The Democrats and Jacksonian’s parted company during the 1972 McGovernite wing take over of the Democratic party. And while this might seem a natural for Senator John McCain, he hasn't shown the ability to both recognize and take advantage of this kind of opportunity. There is no one else in the Republican leadership with the necessary national visibility willing to take this and run with it. Not all American pro-war bloggers are Jacksonian activists. For example, some in the blogosphere are arguing that this crash of French greatness is the fault of America for its subsidizing French delusions. I disagree. The fault is neither in the stars nor in wads of American taxpayer cash. It is in the French themselves. France long ago made the choice to replace religion with nationalism as a defining characteristic of the French cultural soul. Now with the Transnational Progressivism of the EU, it has given up even that. We are now starting to see the results of that choice. I'm catholic and for me it is an article of faith that evil is real and exists in the world, that the path to hell or redemption is the choice of individual, and that you will know evil by its works. People who have chosen the path of damnation are easily known. They seek power above all things. They choose what will immediately benefit them over choices that take longer but reward more. And they use what power they have to hurt others, because inflicting pain is the only pleasure they have that will reach past the aching wound where their soul used to be. When I look at that pattern. I cannot help but see the face of the evil nation that was once France. Perhaps it should be renamed "LePenistan." JK UPDATE: Perhaps you'd also like to see the "Waterworld" reference mentioned by Instapundit, with an analysis of just how badly France has screwed up here.... An Internet Chestnut on Taxes - Revisisted Paul Oei passed this on to me, and I thought it a useful way to add to the thinking about taxes and tax cuts. It's a variation on an Internet chestnut that's been making the rounds, and appeared in my comments over at Armed Liberal.com: The Real Truth about TaxesAll tax and income data is taken from the following source: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/99in11si.xls (added link to IRS data) LePennistan? More Like Le Suicide Diplomatique Earlier today, Trent Telenko wrote: "I cannot help but see the face of the evil nation that was once France. Perhaps it should be renamed "LePennistan."Trent, you're my brother in arms here. Now, howsabout a deep breath or two. All this adds up to a different bottom line for me: France just blew it. Kicked an own goal. Kicked several. Last time someone screwed up this bad, they were filming Waterworld. Let's review:
Now the Americans can treat the oil situation fairly in all other ways but screw France, then turn around and work with smaller European countries to make France's life trying to run the EU a living hell. Many of those countries will be only too happy to oblige, even as the USA uses Turkish membership as a risk-free club to beat the EU with from the outside. Germany may even flip on them once under new management, thus making the disaster complete. Of course, even if all this gets going France still has the U.N. and that meaningful Security Council veto to guarantee its relevance. Oh, wait.... Like I said, they've boxed themselves in and handed us the keys. Folks, this calls for a Dom! JK Update: Vodkapundit is back, with his own take on France. He's more measured than Trent, but hardly kind. What all this says to me is that Trent is probably correct about the Jacksonian reaction now underway in America, even if I don't entirely agree with his assessment of France itself. T.T. Comments: He Joe, I am cool about this. After all, "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold." And it is very cold in the Iraqi Desert during a winter night. "... Paris has long known that enlarging the EU means tipping the balance towards an EU majority with a pro-American, pro-market outlook. Yesterday, Le Monde, voice of the elite, came close to acknowledging defeat. Mr Rumsfeld was right, it said. “It is perhaps unpleasant to hear it, but for the moment it is unavoidable: the countries of East Europe are massively inclined to follow automatically American leadership in defence and foreign policy.” The Le Kermitoid EUphiles have had a hard enough time with "Jacque Wine-Glass" as it is. So what happens when you start seeing America calling the current French elites evil for abandoning all the things that made France great for E.U. power? The best kind of information warfare is telling an unpleasant truth about your opponents in a well marketed manner. IOW, calling *Evil* by its name robs it of its power. It worked when Reagan named the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire." And it could work with the thing that was France. J.K. Replies: I doubt it very much, especially if it relies on this kind of name-calling. Let's close this one and take our disagreements to a new set of blog posts. Thursday, January 23, 2003
Thursday Daily Winds Tick, tock goes the clock. 5 DUPBBSNIT (Days Until President Bush's Big Speech, Not Including Today; acronym appropriately pronounced: "dub-snit"). Big kudos to Armed Liberal yesterday for coining the term "skybox liberalism," and to Trent Telenko for yet another razor-sharp North Korea post. And did I mention Fouad Ajami's article on "Iraq and the Arabs' Future" yesterday? Oh, good, I did. That one is absolutely worth reading - especially now. Today's Blogs: Grasshopper No More Welcome to the Blogosphere, Wild Monk! He's most known these days for his political personality test, which has some interesting angles embedded in the ratings it offers. Having caught 1,000 blogreaders in his marketing opener, he was deemed ready to leave the temple and wander the blogosphere. Looks like he's doing a pretty fair job of that, too, judging by what's on wildmonk.net. Bill Mauldin Died Today 'It's really good that he's not suffering anymore," he said. "He had a terrible struggle."Somewhere I have a complete book of the Willie and Joe cartoons. As an anti-Vietnam war protest leader, my memory of those cartoons, and the humane eye and hand of their creator is what made sure I stayed connected to my peers who wore uniforms. We all owe a lot to our soldiers; I want to thank Bill Mauldin for teaching me that above all, they are us. Windtalkings, 2003-01-23 Here's some interesting stuff I've come across lately:
USA to France: Make My Day! The French are making a pest of themselves in American Foreign policy and David Warren has some pithy comments on it. I disagree with those who say we should have previously and should now ignore the U.N. We should go back to the U.N. and ask for a use of force resolution. Let the French threaten to veto it. One of three results will happen: 1) The French are in cooperation with our deception/psych-war campaign against Saddam (that is always a possibility, we are talking the French here), and there will be no veto. 2) The French are "playing Kermit" like they did last time. So we call their bluff and there is no veto. 3) The French aren't bluffing, in which case the UN is useless for promoting American interests. So we should let the French veto the use of force resolution and attack Iraq anyway. That will make the UN another "League of Nations" and remove it as an obsticle to American interests. The up side is that it also gives us the justification make a really public and gory example of France. I really don't see France crashing and burning the U.N. over this. It is clear to all and sundry that the USA is out to control Arab oil income so that it won't be diverted to Pakistani and North Korean WMD production or to fund Al-Qaeda and its mind children. Control of that oil income is a great deal of economic power. Volunteering to be the first example of that power's use is *not* within the meme of French Statecraft. You NEVER threaten a Great Power's vital interests, unless you are willing to risk your own. Conquering Iraq is a vital American interest. Stopping America from doing that isn't a French one. I think they're bluffing and grand standing for a domestic audience. "Go ahead, make my day." Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Wednesday Daily Winds Holy cats! Always nice to have visitors, but we weren't expecting a brigade or 2! Of course, pretty soon we won't be the only folks saying things like that... Today's Blogs: Windtalkings, 2003-01-22 Here's some interesting stuff I've come across lately:
Belated MLK Day Regards From a Canadian First of all, I understand that Jan. 20th was Martin Luther King Day in the USA. Apologies for missing that on the blog - it's just that we don't have that up here in Canada so it's easy to lose track. (Though coincidentally, I did run a Windtalkings piece on the treatment of Black Republicans that day). In belated recognition of a mighty man of G-d and one of the great orators in history, we present the full text of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, courtesy of The Highway. Or perhaps you'd prefer to listen to a key excerpt, courtesy of Salon.com? This is not the first time Winds of Change.NET has featured the words of Rev. King. Click here for his final speech as well: "I Have Seen the Promised Land" Finally, I've heard rumours that these speeches are available in full via networks like Kazaa, Grokster, et. al. I'm also told that they are very much worth having in one's collection, and that listening to them on occasion does wonders for inspiration and insight. Rumours only, you understand.... Tarek Heggy on "Compromise" & the Arab Mind Back in November, I noted briefly that Arabic culture has no real word for compromise, and that such words as are used in translation often have overtones of surrender and shame. The incomparable Randall Parker recently pointed me to Egyptian author Tarek Heggy, a Renaissance Man in the true sense of the term. His "A Culture of Compromise" article is fascinating reading, not only for its insights into the Arab mind but also for this insight into the Anglosphere: "For nearly twenty years, I had the opportunity to work closely with people drawn from over fifty different nationalities in a global economic establishment which remains, after a long history stretching back to the nineteenth century, one of the five largest establishments in the world. What I noticed over the years is that people with a west European background use the word 'compromise' more often than those coming from an eastern cultural tradition. As the study of cultures is one of my hobbies, particularly when it comes to comparing the Arab, Latin and Anglo-Saxon minds, I could not help noticing that just as those with an Arab mind-set use the word compromise less than those with a Latin mind-set, so too do the latter use it less than those with an Anglo-Saxon mind-set. There is a simple explanation for this. If one’s way of thinking is based on a set of philosophical/religious principles, then it is normal that people raised in an Arab culture should be less inclined to use the word compromise than those whose minds were conditioned in a Latin context, where, although the philosophical dimension looms large, the religious dimension figures less prominently than it does in the Arab mind-set. It is also normal that Latin societies use the word less than societies with an Anglo-Saxon cultural formation. The Anglo-Saxon way of thinking, which has come to dominate the world in a manner unprecedented in history, is based on an altogether different set of rules."This is one of the good guys talking, and I'll be featuring more material from him in future. Worth a look. North Korea's Tony Sopranos North Korea is not a serious military threat to anyone. The most its corrupt, decrepit, so-called army can do is commit suicide with a week long artillery bombardment of the Seoul area in South Korea. That would be horror show, but it would end quickly for a variety of reasons included running out of ready ammunition in its border forts and American precision guided munition (PGM) decapitation. But it won't happen due to the phenomenal corruption of the North Korean Army. What got me here started about 10 years ago when I noticed the spontaneous criminal entrepreneurial activity by the Chinese Navy (PLAN), commonly referred to as piracy. While I was puzzling over that one, I started reading of North Korean support of terrorism ceasing in favor of drug smuggling after the fall of the Soviet Union. Two recent articles toggled me over to the conclusion in my first paragraph. The first was in the Asian Wall Street Journal titled "China Props Up An Evil Regime" By Danny Gittings (and clipped over in the FreeRepublic.com web site). The key section from the ASWJ article: "Mr. Lim, who served for more than a decade in the North Korean military before fleeing to the South in the early 1990s, says he knows what he's talking about. He claims to have participated in a 1991 attempt by disgruntled army officers to kill Kim's father, Kim Il Sung. The assassination attempt, known in South Korea as the Sept. 24 incident, reportedly collapsed when Kim didn't turn up as scheduled at the site of the proposed shooting. This made me sit up and take notice. Corruption that endemic in a military is only a symptom of wider corruption in the state and society. The only model I had for similar corruption was Syria. Whose only hard currency earning exports are colonists to Lebanon and heroin to Europe. And whose political parties were made up of, according to Jim Dunnigan, the Syrian Army's I through V Corps. Then this US News & World Report article "The Far East Sopranos " by David E. Kaplan filled in the pieces of the puzzle and gave me my title. From the last paragraph: While the younger Kim gambles away funny money, some 2 million of his countrymen have died of hunger since the mid-1990s. Still, North Korea's racketeering could damage Kim Jong Il's regime. Its official crime wave is helping fuel growing corruption there and prompting independent crooks to get into the game. Smugglers now find they can more easily bribe border cops and other officials. Some U.S. officials welcome the development. "The key here is lack of government control," says one. "Criminal activity may bring about the disintegration of this regime."Bingo! In communist states, supreme power has always rested in the hands of the Party with the Army and Secret Police being near co-equals. These two institutions were always set against one another by the Party so the Party could maintain control. The various communist nation's cultures also played a role. For example, East Germany was never allowed by the Russians to have a large army because Russians were afraid of a large German Army. Various "Peoples'/Workers' militias" were created to fill the role of militarizing and regimenting larger society for East German communists that the Red Army did for the Soviet Union (and let more East Germans wear spiffy uniforms). In North Korea, a much larger standing army was required earlier in the history of the communist state. This resulted in the the Army filling many of the "ecological niches" in regime politics that in other communist states were held by the Party and the secret police/forced labor camps. The end result was corrupt regional power groupings centered on the various Army Corps. These military leaders are North Korea's "Tony Sopranos" and like their TV name sake, they chose a weak leader they could dominate, Kim Jong Il. Once these North Korean "Tony Sopranos" got in the habit of disobedience for the sake of corruption to line their pockets, they became "a little bit pregnant" in the disobedience department regarding other things, hopefully including suicidal orders to bombard Seoul. This is why I feel there is little chance of that. And it is good news for us and bad news for China. North Korea is a failed state doomed to fall because of its corruption no matter what anyone does. It is only a question of when and what the body count will be, despite China's providing the Kim regime 40% of its food and 88% of its oil. All America has to do is nothing, and it will win in North Korea, something Steven Den Beste pointed out recently. And no matter what else happens, China will be faced with a free, unified, Korea with lots of ethnic Koreans on China's side of their common border. Of course, America isn't going to do "nothing." As I have said on Winds before, the Bush Administration is filled with senior people who are expert in bringing WMD armed totalitarian regimes to soft landing via psychological warfare. The corruption in North Korea has reached the point that the CIA can bribe North Korean border guards to let in radios for American psychological warfare broadcasts. And there is circumstantial evidence the CIA has already started to do so. Again from the ASWJ article: "As Radio Free Asia President Richard Richter said earlier this week, while announcing a doubling in broadcasts aimed at citizens of the giant gulag, North Korean listeners "have demonstrated extraordinary ingenuity to secretly hear our broadcasts." Although foreign visitors still return with tales of a highly regimented nation, where everyone wears Kim Il Sung badges and does what he is told, the increasingly numerous refugees paint a very different picture. They describe a society where corruption of all kinds, including prostitution, is now rife. In short, they depict a regime in decline and more vulnerable than ever to being overthrown from within."Mark this well ladies and gentlemen, I had thought that the Bush Administration was just going for a "Bloodless Victory" in Iraq with a pick up of the Iranian Mullahocracy as a opportunistic benefit. Now I think we will not only get a bloodless victory trifecta over all of the names states in the "Axis of Evil", but we may get them all before the end of the year and almost certainly before the 2004 Presidential elections. UPDATE: Hat tip to David Adesnik of Oxblog for spotting this NY Times article titled "Russia Helped U.S. on Nuclear Spying Inside North Korea." The CIA has been working with Russian intelligence to emplace sensors to detect nuclear weapons manufacturing. From the article: "Traditionally, uranium enrichment facilities have required large amounts of electricity and water, making it possible to identify them by spy satellite photographs of power grids and other industrial infrastructure. Now, if the Russian and American intelligence services were cooperative to this extent, how hard would it be to conspire to bribe North Korean border guards to let smugglers get in American radios for psychological warfare broadcasts? More on Despotic Bureaucracy This morning's Daily Breeze covers the latest news from the City of Los Angeles' Board of Airport Commissioners: Only 10 rental car companies will be allowed to drive their shuttle vans through Los Angeles International Airport’s crowded terminal area under a new policy LAX directors unanimously adopted Tuesday.I've talked about this kind of 'SkyBox Liberalism' in the past, where a government agency has regulatory control and uses it to maximize its own revenues at the expense of the overall good of the community it serves. In this case, the 29 smaller car rental companies will probably be driven out of business by the decision, but since the 10 large ones will in turn raise their payments to the airport (and doubtless their charges to their customers, who will have fewer choices), the Commission supports the plan. Who gains? The big players and the bureaucracy, who has more funds to spend on 'economic development'. Who loses? The paying customers, who are inconvenienced and overcharged, and the local economy as the small business owners who really drive the local economy are driven under by their inability to successfully play politics. I don't own or work for any of these companies, and have no personal dog in this fight. But I'd encourage folks to drop a line to the board at infoline@lawa.org or to Mayor Hahn at MayorHahn@mayor.lacity.org and let them know what you think. Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Tuesday Daily Winds Quite the day yesterday. A bit of everything, from UAVs and "throwbots" to urban warfare tactics, nudist flights, and terrorist leaders. Throw in one heapin' helping of Today's Blogs: If Mike Hendrix Were a Fighter Pilot... ... I suspect the proprietor of "Cold Fury" might be something like this gentleman. At least that's who I kept thinking of as I read it. "Hoser" harshed many a mellow, and his colourful antics have inspired many a story - including one that's still told often at Top Gun. Follow the link and read for yerself! Celebrity and Home-Built Airplanes New blogging star Bill Whittle stopped by and joined Tenacious G and I for dim sum last weekend; he’s on his way out of town for a while to go build himself an airplane. We had a great lunch, and he’s such an interesting and pleasant guy that I’m kind of irked that we never got to meet until he had his bags packed and the car door open. We talked animatedly about a number of things while G watched us with some amusement; liberalism and how he’d lost his faith in it and found himself on the other side of the table, the fact that somehow I’d kept mine, his great new essay on celebrity, modern technology, and homebuilt airplanes among a dozen or so other things while they cleaned up the restaurant around us. If you haven’t found his piece on celebrity already, go read it now. It’s great on its own terms, and hits me close to home. I grew up in Beverly Hills, in the shadow of celebrities everywhere. At Nate & Al’s deli, at Carroll & Co. and Sy Devore, where my dad bought his clothes, at Carl’s Market on Doheny and Santa Monica. This was in the 60’s and early 70’s, and it was different back then; somehow they were famous people, with an emphasis on people. Groucho really did give out 50-cent pieces to kids who trick-or-treated his house. George Peppard came over in his bathrobe and screamed at my friend and I to “turn that damn thing off” as we tuned the racing engine on my friend’s Boss 302 Mustang in his back yard. We once wound up seated with Dean Martin’s family at Cyrano’s; I’ve never been certain why, but his son briefly went to Beverly High and remembered me there. Something has changed. Bill recounts some of the symptoms, but I think we have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves exactly when it was that we handed the keys to our polity to the celebrity class? How exactly did that happen, and why exactly do we put up with it? Because we do put up with it. I was at dinner maybe eight years ago in a fairly chichi restaurant (hey, I don’t just eat BBQ…) in Venice; I excused myself to go to the men’s room, and found my way blocked by an obvious bodyguard. “You’ll have to wait,” he explained to me. “No, I won’t,” I replied. “Not unless you have a badge that says U.S. Secret Service.” We had a brief but professional exchange of views, and at the point where I was going to step past him and he was going to have to make a decision, his principal stepped out of the bathroom and walked past both of us without looking up. I didn’t recognize him. The bodyguard was flummoxed because he was used to ready compliance. I’m sure that he’s used the “You’ll have to wait” line, and that the usual response was “Oh. OK,” followed by a craned neck to see who it was who might be important enough to warrant a bodyguard at dinner. And we have made a sacrifice in adopting the point of view; not only of some measure of our self-respect, but of something that goes deeper still. I’m not sure how this ties together with how wonderful it is that Bill is heading off to build his own airplane, but it does. I know one other man who builds his own airplanes; he is a retired immigrant rocket scientist. He worked at TRW or Hughes during the 50’s and 60’s, and while he worked building missiles, his wife invested every penny they had in beachfront apartments, and now they are quite well off. I stayed at their home north of Los Angeles when I first met them through one of their children, and when I woke up well before everyone else in the house (as I usually do) I padded about exploring, and went into the garage, where he was lofting a wing on the garage floor. My first reaction was “Holy Sh*t!! That’s a big model!!” Then I realized that he was building a damn airplane in his garage. His daughter woke up and matter-of-factly explained, “Oh, he does one of those every two years or so…he designs them himself” And that’s one of the wonderful things about America, Bill and I agree. That an immigrant rocket scientist can become rich, and more, can build and sell airplanes out of his garage. It is that sense of hope, of possibility, of dynamic enterprise that has made this country wealthy and successful, powerful and great. You don’t get that kind of hope sucking on the glass teat of celebrity, or clutching LOTTO tickets sweaty-palmed while you wait for the numbers. It comes from work, engagement, sacrifices and the real success that comes from some measure of accomplishment. If we liberals are to be taken to task for anything, it is for the fact that we succeeded in feeding the bellies of the poor here in America, but at the cost of any real hope. It’s there, someone’s just got to help look for it. Damnation by Omission -- Hersh Fingers the Clinton Administration in the North Korea Nuclear Debacle by Mistake Seymour Hersh has a new article in the New Yorker on North Korea and its ties with the Pakistani titled "THE COLD TEST: What the Administration knew about Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program." It is an attempt by the usual suspects, Former Clinton Administration officials, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency to cover their bloody behinds on their failures with North Korea and shift blame to the "Bush's ideological Neo-cons." What I found interesting were these two passages: A former senior Pakistani official told me that his government's contacts with North Korea increased dramatically in 1997; the Pakistani economy had foundered, and there was "no more money" to pay for North Korean missile support, so the Pakistani government began paying for missiles by providing "some of the know-how and the specifics." Pakistan helped North Korea conduct a series of "cold tests," simulated nuclear explosions, using natural uranium, which are necessary to determine whether a nuclear device will detonate properly. Pakistan also gave the North Korean intelligence service advice on "how to fly under the radar," as the former official put it——that is, how to hide nuclear research from American satellites and U.S. and South Korean intelligence agents. and this, An American intelligence official I spoke with called Pakistan's behavior the "worst nightmare" of the international arms-control community: a Third World country becoming an instrument of proliferation. "The West's primary control of nuclear proliferation was based on technology denial and diplomacy," the official said. "Our fear was, first, that a Third World country would develop nuclear weapons indigenously; and, second, that it would then provide the technology to other countries. This is profound. It changes the world." Pakistan's nuclear program flourished in the nineteen-eighties, at a time when its military and intelligence forces were working closely with the United States to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The official said, "The transfer of enrichment technology by Pakistan is a direct outgrowth of the failure of the United States to deal with the Pakistani program when we could have done so. We've lost control." Aside from the fact that the United States never had control over Pakistani nuclear development thanks to its technical cooperation with China, and the Saudi bank rolling of an "Islamic bomb," the above points out the following conclusions: 1) The trigger event for post 1994 North Korean highly enriched uranium (HEU) development was the Clinton Administration's embargo's of India and Pakistan over their 1997 'tit for tat' nuclear testing. Not only was this embargo "unilateral," but American farming interests, working with Indian affiliated lobbyists, managed to weaken it such that the embargo hurt Pakistan more in relative terms than India. This made the Pakistani HEU deal with North Korea a vital Pakistani national interest. 2) The post-Cold War cutbacks of the Clinton Administration to the CIA's analysis capability not only prevented them from detecting India's second and successful nuclear test program in time to stop it. These cutbacks also prevented the Clinton Administration from detecting and acting against these Pakistani nuclear transfers to North Korea starting in 1997. Assuming they were really looking, which I have made plain I doubt. Seymour Hersh, by avoiding the issue of the 1997 India-Pakistani nuclear tests, the Clinton Administration's unilateral embargo, and their connection to the current North Korean Crisis, has unintentionally laid a spot light on another failed aspect of the Clinton Administration's anti-proliferation policy. I guess Seymour is going to have to learn that Bush-Bashing is its own reward. Monday, January 20, 2003
Monday Daily Winds We don't often post articles on Sundays, but Adil "Muslimpundit" Farooq made a righteous exception. He lives in the UK, you see, and having Taliban terrorists granted immigration asylum right after fighting British soldiers doesn't exactly sit well. It's an insult as a moral Muslim, and injury as a British citizen. As another famous Brit used to put it: "we are not amused!" Thinking happier thoughts... you know what I'm most looking forward to when the programming resources free up and we move this blog to Movavble Type? The Comments section. Been wanting to have one for a long time, but the external systems are just too damn slow. Many of you have been hearing from us for a while now... and one day very soon, we're going to start hearing from you and tapping some of your intelligence. I'd like that. Today's Blogs: Windtalkings, 2003-01-20 Here's some interesting stuff I've come across lately:
MILTECH: From UAVs to "Throwbots" In Friday's "Send in the Droids" piece, Trent Telenko noted advances in flying UAVs (the famous Predator drone is a UAV), including the possibility of portable micro-UAVs that could be carried by individual soldiers. His work strengthens a strong tradition here at Winds of Change.NET, where we've been covering this subject since June 2002. See our coverage of Urban Warfare, the "Two New UAVs (robot planes)" article re: the X-45 UCAV and Sentry Owl, and the August 4GW: UAVs and Entomopters piece on some of the research into smaller systems. Like Trent, I believe that larger UAVs will play important roles in future warfare. The Israelis have already come to this conclusion, as has the U.S. Army, whose current "Future Combat System: Battle Brigade Construct" includes a "Robot Assault Team" (see pg. 10 of this presentation)." Still, I'm particularly excited about the role of UAVs that can be carried by individual soldiers. Urban warfare is an unmistakable trend, and its tendency to produce high casualties means that we can expect our enemies to employ it frequently in the years ahead. A combination of expendable robots, simple communications systems (vid. ISRs from the 1998 "Urban Warrior" exercise), and proper doctrine can go a long way toward evening the odds - or even reversing them in our favour. All great stuff. Now... what if entomopters and mini-UAVs aren't the best answer for close-in urban combat? I can see real limitations, myself, and both technologies are admittedly longer-range prospects. What have we got right now? What have we got that's cheaper? Noah Shachtman's "Defense Tech" blog pointed me to one answer: a $45,000 platform called "Packbot," which has already seen use in the caves of Afghanistan (previous approach: soldier with rope, flashlight and grappling hook). Acceptance was enthusiastic, and iRobot company engineers have been working with troops in the field to implement modifications. Many of these changes will make iRobot's creations more useful in urban areas as well, and I expect at least some of them to be used in Iraq next month. Still, the capabilities of this generation of robots are fairly limited. Fortunately, iRobot has also gone back to the drawing board as a result of some pretty sharp suggestions from the troops. "Flying doohickeys?" they say. "That's nice. Meanwhile, why don't you just give us something small that we can throw over walls and into buildings?" "Throwbots," they call them... and iRobot is hard at work trying to whip a few up. This strikes me as a solution that fits the infantry mindset a lot better than flying UAVs, which is why I believe "throwbots" and not entomopters will become indispensible tools of infantry warfare over the next decade. P.S. I just had to mention that Terminator 3 is coming out this May. I hope they don't ruin one of the few series I've ever seen whose sequel was better than the original smash hit. Meanwhile, even if it's functionally useless I believe the next generation of American combat droids should be given little sculpted terminator-type heads somewhere, with red eyes that glow softly on command. All of our enemies have VCRs, after all.... Rotten to the CAIR This blog has slammed CAIR before as apologists for terrorism - but their conduct at the recent DC "anti-war" rally crossed even that line. AS LGF and others who watched the rally on TV the other day report, Dr. Ghazi Khaksan, of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), took to the podium near the end of the rally to read a poem packed with criticism of the Bush administration. Near the end of his poem, Khaksan announced: "I bring to you salaams and greetings from the Mujahadeen at CAIR."This choice of words is more than curious. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines Mujahadeen as: "a person who wages jihad, Islamic guerilla fighters esp. in the Middle East." In December, top Al Qaeda official Sulaiman Abu Ghaith warned that "The Christian-Jewish alliance will not, God willing, be safe from attacks by the mujahadeen...." and indeed the term is used frequently by Islamofascist terrorists of all types. It does not, to my knowledge, have other meanings - certainly none that are popularly understood. It would appear that CAIR is continuing its drift toward open support of terrorism and hostility to the USA, a road well traveled by other Islamist organizations like the American Muslim Council. Our best weapon in response is continued, focused, critical publicity. Happy to do my bit here... please spread the word. N.B. Other moments of note from this rally included Imam Mousa Masjid Al-Islam stepping up to the podium, to lead the crowd in multiple chants of "Alhaam hu Akhbar." That the crowd actually went along with this tells you everything you need to know about the current state of the Left. Story of a Canadian Terror Master Looks like Charles at LGF has twigged to this story in one of my local papers, which details the evolution and activities of a prominent Canadian member of al-Qaeda. Naturally, it's written by Stewart Bell, Canada's top investigative reporter on the subject of terrorism: "After finishing high school in Ontario, Mohammed Mansour Jabarah became an al-Qaeda terrorist. Now detained in the U.S., the 21-year-old is revealing his secrets: He met with the architects of the World Trade Center and Bali bombings, convinced Osama bin Laden of his worth as an operative and planned several attacks of his own."As they say in the newspaper business, "read all about it!" Because even if Mohammed Mansour Jabarah werre still in Canada, he would not be the most dangerous Islamic terrorist on our soil. Until Canada gets serious about this stuff, you Americans really ought to be tightening up our mutual border. Fight Night on Winds of Change -- Joe vs. Trent on the American Way of Urban Combat Joe put up a bunch of interesting links today on urban combat and UAV/UGVs. However, he seems to have missed this source,The Urban Operations Journal , and particularly a link there to this article""Knock 'em All Down:" The Reduction of Aachen, October 1944 by Christopher R. Gabel, Ph.D. This is the money 'graph from my point of view: The battle for Aachen challenges conventional wisdom in another respect. Urban operations are commonly regarded as bloody, time consuming operations in which the defender can exact many times his own number in enemy casualties. In Aachen, however, the defenders outnumbered the attackers, and yet managed to hold out for only nine days because of the American offensive methods and the incoherent nature of the German defense. The two battalions of the 26th Infantry (plus attachments) that bore the brunt of the fighting in Aachen lost 75 killed, 414 wounded, and 9 missing in securing a city defended by over 5,000 enemy troops.[58] For the U.S. Army, the true bloodbath of the 1944 campaign was not an urban operation, but rather the battle of the Huertgen Forest. And how did these two infantry assault battalions pull this off against a skilled foe who made the Somalis of Blackhawk Down seem like the drugged out, armed children they really were? They used a tactical doctrine dubbed "Knock 'em all down." "Knock 'em all down" started with artillery fire. Heavy artillery struck German lines of communication to isolate the battle area. Medium artillery and mortars fired across the front itself. Artillerymen used delayed fuses to ensure that rounds penetrated buildings before exploding. Division and corps artillery was arrayed south of the city, which allowed artillery to fire parallel to the front of troops fighting in the city. With the danger of short rounds falling on American troops thus minimized, artillerymen were able to adjust fires within yards of the infantry lines. However, since the encirclement battle still raged, the forces fighting in Aachen could not count upon artillery support all the time.[30] As far as American soldiers were concerned, "Overkill is good. More Overkill is Better!" This was especially true in dealing with snipers and enemy obervation posts: During this period, the 2/26 found itself taking fire from the rear, despite all its precautions to assure that no Germans were bypassed. After a careful search, the Americans discovered that the fire was coming from a church steeple that had been reinforced with concrete, making it a fortified observation post. This position proved to be impervious to both small arms and 75mm tank destroyer fire, whereupon Daniel again called upon his 155mm artillery piece. One shot from the 155 brought the entire structure crashing to the ground.[38] This use of a 155mm gun as an anti-sniper weapon is perhaps the epitome of "Knock 'em all down." A similar suite of American tactics was used in the Pacific in the taking Manila in Feb. 1945: The American method, once area artillery fires and tanks became available, was to pulverize the building they faced and then to assault into the remains. They used bazookas and flamethrowers against machine gun nests. They used abundant light suppressive fire weapons, grenades, and mortars, as well as small arms. Sometimes U.S. assaults failed because of withering fire or counterattacks, in which case troops would pull back and repeat the process. Tanks and tank destroyers were used in a direct-fire role for the artillery preparation. Their use beyond that was evidently limited by mines, rubble and the heavy concrete walls of the buildings themselves. Tanks could not follow infantry into the cellars and onto the roofs. Americans in Manila evidently learned to use their assets as they went along and used them to full advantage. Casualties suffered by the 37th Infantry Division when artillery restrictions were first lifted from 10-12 February averaged twenty-six KIA per day. By the period 21-23 February when the division was fighting at City Hall and assaulting Intramuros, casualties were down to six KIA per day on average.[l] The key to low casualty urban combat isn't technology. It is attitude. The point isn't to defeat the enemy in "urban terrain". It is to remove the urban terrain. If American political and military leaders are not prepared to engage in "High Firepower Civil Engineering" for political reasons. Then don't do it. Or send in send in the local "loyal allies" to pay in blood for the bricks and mortar (and kill their own civilians). The later is what we did in Khafji and what we should do in the future when politics gets in the way of doing the "right thing" militarily with American forces. Update: Joe e-mailed a reply to me saying that he viewed my post here complimentary and not confrontational. I beg to differ and now that I found my copy of T.R. Fehrenbach's Korean War classic, "THIS KIND OF WAR" I can quote the passage I meant to show up in my first go: The American way of street and town fighting did not resemble that of other armies. To Americans, flesh and blood and lives have always been more precious than sticks and stones, however assembled. An American commander, faced with taking the Louvre from a defending enemy, unquestionably would have blown it apart or burn it down without hesitation if such would save the life of one of his men. And he would be acting in complete accord with American ideals and ethics in doing so. Already, in the Korean War, American units were proceeding to destroy utterly enemy-held towns and villages rather than engage in the costly business of reducing them block by block with men and bayonets, as did European armies. If bombing and artillery would save lives, even though they destroyed sites of beauty and history, saving lived obviously had preference. And already foreign observers with the United States Army -- not ROK's -- were beginning to criticize such tactics. In the book BLACKHAWK DOWN, much is made over the fact that the Rangers did no |