Leftist Meme: "The Broken Economy"

Maybe this is a bit of a layup, but Oliver Stone displayed his economic acumen today in decrying the war in Iraq:

There was an over-reaction after 9/11. Bush was given enormous powers and misused them. He created a war in Iraq that has further helped bust the economy, and has led to civil war there.

Bust the economy? You mean this economy that Dick Green at Briefings.com wrote about?

Economic Boom and Record Profits: Second quarter real GDP was reported this morning to have grown at a 3.4% annual rate. Consumer spending and business investment were strong. In fact, the increase would have been 5.8% were it not for a temporary swing in inventories. The data are very strong.

This follows a 3.8% rate of increase for real GDP in the first quarter, 4.4% growth for 2004, and about 6% growth in the second half of 2003. That is two full years of GDP growth well above long-term trends of 3.1%.

That period of strong economic growth has been accompanied by an almost 30% increase in the S&P 500 index. There is more to come, both on the economy and the S&P.

All of the data suggests that real GDP will continue to grow at a very strong pace in the second half of the year. Every aspect of the economy is running near full throttle: consumer spending is very strong, business investment is booming, industrial production is at record levels, the housing market is on fire, and nonfarm payrolls are up about 3.2 million in the past year and one-half. High oil prices, a fluctuating dollar, rising interest rates, high federal deficits, and terrorist attacks have not slowed the momentum. There is every reason to expect real GDP to continue to grow at a 3 1/2% to 4% rate in the second half of the year.

In case all these macroeconomic factors are a little over Oliver's head, here are some more signs of economic bust in the stock market:

The S&P is poised to post its fourth straight weekly gain. It enters the day up about 10 points for the week. It is at a four year high. If you are looking for a reason, look no further than the booming economic numbers and record corporate profits.

I can understand Oliver's confusion. After his last film (Alexander) grossed less than the released home-video, porno with Fran Dresher, I'd probably think the American public was broke too.

Anyway, intentionally or unintentionally, I hope Bush keeps "busting" our economy like he has been.

Strategic Overview of a World-Wide Civil War

Throughout my business school years in the mid-nineties, the constant refrain coming from the mouths of my professors centered around how the world was getting smaller. They said it would be essential for the future businessman to understand the effects of technology's ability to rapidly bringing markets and people together with astonishing speed. The problems that would arise for the businessman in this world would, at their nature, not be technologicial, but cultural. Many cultures did not have the adaptive capabilities that primarily western driven technology did, and cultural clashes would result. The successful businessman would not only find a way to overcome technological obstacles, they would also find solutions to dicey, and more sticky, cultural issues.

This officially became an issue not just to the businessmen, but to all Americans on the morning of September 11, 2001. As four airplanes turned from passenger carriers to missiles, our geographical barriers were shattered by technology. Our own, home-built airplanes were literally hijacked by those expressing another "cultural viewpoint," which orginated half-a-world-away. Americans would have to face a world that would never be the same again--a world that would have to find solutions to these "cultural clashes" resulting from a shrinking globe. Now, the world is trying to decide what ideology it will embrace moving forward into the future.

Origins From the Cold War

The West was at "war" with itself post-WWII. During the Cold War, there were those who openly sympathized with the opposing, expansionist Communists in hopes to bring utopia to the world. In their view, capitalism embodied by corporations were responsible for keeping the poor down, while the hopes of the redistribution of wealth and the rise of the proletariate would bring "harmony" to an otherwise oppressed world. Soviet gulags, massacres of students in Tiananmen Square and the Khmer Rouge were just a handful of dreadful examples of reality belying ideology. In reality, all governments that embraced communism, would turn into the fat pigs that they so despised as illustrated in George Orwell's masterpiece, Animal Farm. Yet, there were still those in the West not living under such state sanctioned oppression, who continued to loathe the imperfect, but free world in spite of this reality.

Communism as a world force, crumbled in 1991 as the Soviet Union completely imploded. The result has been a gradual liberalization of previously oppressed countries, while former red-book carrying members in China have abandoned ideological communism for just plain totalitarianism, in order to keep the money flowing. However, even though Communism took a few nudges from the West, it basically imploded on itself. Western proponents of democracy saw this as a vindication of their worldview, while many western opponents simply burned with anger and believed that the Soviet Union simply screwed up a perfectly good idea.

Unlike the American Civil War, where the South bled and died for their faulty ideologies and had to face their humiliation after Appomatix, the Left didn't face any consequences to their's, and they continued to rage against the West. For a short time, they were "quieted" as they no longer had a single-unifying symbol to support. Many splintered symbols emerged: the far-left environmental movement (ultimately symbolized in Kyoto), various anti-globalization movements, multiculturalism and transnational progressivism. This is not an exhaustive list, but of those, transnational progressivism was the least offensive, and most inclusive refuge for those seeking a way to continue their opposition to Western ideals (for more background on the specifics of transnational progressivism, please read this post by Steven Den Beste).

The Islamic World - Post-Cold War

Technology was shrinking the world and Islamic fundamentalists and Middle Eastern dictatorships saw their grip loosen. The West was capable of projecting power, through rapid deployment, in strategically important locations throughout the world. The brutal oppression in Middle Eastern countries, which were previously covered under the umbrella of the heavy-weight Soviet Union, became exposed. The first major projection of power was displayed when the meglamoniacal Saddam Hussein miscalculated and invaded Iraq's small, but strategically important neighbor. The West rallied a coalition, using a transnational progressivist institution, to push him back. Middle Eastern leaders were terrified as the strongest Arab army in the Middle East was embarrassed in front of the world by the infidel's army.

Now, like all conflicts, there were some inherant contradictions in this battle. Self-preservation is rule number one, and the very existence of the Saudi Arabian government was threatened by Saddam. They knew that the West would not come in and remove them from power, but would instead use their military might to keep Saddam from destroying them. They reluctantly allowed the West to step in, but in turn risked the natural influences the western infidels would have on their region.

Islamic fundamentalists went absolutely insane over this. They already saw the House of Saud as a corrupting influence of authentic Islam, and now they were actually letting Western infidels infiltrate their Holy Land to fight against a Muslim, Arab "brother." Osama Bin Laden declared Holy War against the West and the House of Saud for this violation.

A Storm Brewing

Anti-Western sentiment was brewing strongly as a residual effect of Western influence in the Middle East. Islamic clerics and fundamentalists raged against the West and fueled hatred, particularly aimed at America, throughout the Arabian Penninsula. Eventually Afghanistan fell to the fundamentalist Taliban, and mullah-contolled Iran already had its raison d’être of wrath against America. To rip off Mel Brooks--during the mid-nineties, it was good to be a fundamentalist.

Saudi Arabia, while diplomatically in good graces with the West, was seeking to placate and turn the raging population's ire away from them. As typical in Arab society, the House of Saud passively and quietly funded the Islamic Fundamentalists' revolution through bribes. As long as they could keep in good standing with the West, the money flowed to the opposition, and they remained "in control."

However, bribes only go so far, and their hopes were wrong when they believed that the Islamic Fundamentalists would be content with only controlling their existing pockets in the Middle East. Instead, the Islamic Fundamentalists truly believed what they were preaching, and with their faith in the will of Allah, decided to slug it out with the infidels. Western targets were attacked throughout the Middle East and the West recoiled. The Fundamentalists figured that Allah was delivering their heads on a platter, and decided to go for a big strike. Just as the West was able to project power across the globe, al-Qaeda shrewdly showed their ability to do the same on the morning of September 11th. Al-Qaeda hit America, on it's home soil, harder than she had ever been hit before.

Battle Lines Drawn -- Time to Choose Sides

Richard Fernandez (formerly Wretchard), beautifully articulates the crux of where the geopolitical world currently stands:

The phrase "Global War on Terror" may, in retrospect, turn out to be the least descriptive of terms to apply to the worldwide upheaval since September 11. Perhaps future historians will find a more appropriate phrase to describe the changes that have remade the political and attitudinal landscape not only in the Middle East, but also in the West. In that tale Iraq will play a strange part. Never an obvious strategic an end in itself, the campaign against Saddam's former dominion served as the vortex around which forces defined themselves, dividing into one side or the other, in the process of remolding the world. The effects of the decision to invade are still rippling through Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Europe. And the odds are that if there is a settling of accounts in Iraq it will not be the last country in which this happens.

I purposely ended the Islamic Post-Cold War section above with September 11th. September 11th is the true defining point where all sides began to dig in; Iraq was just the issue that caused people to entrench. Without September 11th, the United States would never have driven a full assault into Afghanistan or Iraq. Americans would of never had the will, nor would its leaders have the casus beli to drive such intiatives. There were a multitude of reasons given for the invasion, but they all would have fallen dead at Congress' feet if 19 terrorists hadn't taken the lives of 3,000 innocent civilians.

Richard hints that world opinion surrounding events Iraq is multifacited, and these events will determine the course of history for not only Iraq, America and her allies, but for the course of the entire world.

Iraq has finally given the Far-Left, who so loathed and battled the West from within during the Cold War, a unifying cause. They realize that American success in Iraq will result in a triumph of American values. In their view, the horror of this occurrance is much greater than a world where nihilistic, fascists blow up innocent people. They fear a world where a capitalist based United States once again emerges victorious.

Unfortunately for the Left, a policy of opposition immediately aligns you with your opponent's enemies. Where the Left mainly opposes the nationalistic and capitalist nature of the West, the Islamists oppose it for it's liberalism. If you listen to a rant from Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky on the "evil American Empire" and compare it with Osama Bin Laden and Abu al-Zarqawi's latest recordings, you'll hear the similarity in their goals--America, no matter what, must not be allowed to succeed. David Lazare demonstrated one of the best examples of this Leftist disconnect on Michael Medved's show:

David Lazare: ...I mean my point is that is that I’m critical of American power. Osama bin Laden is critical of American power. But our criticisms are worlds apart. I mean I have no truck with Osama bin Laden. Obviously, I was as horrified as you were by 9/11. And to somehow say because I don't like the way America conducts itself and he doesn't like it, that, therefore, we have a commonality – we have nothing in common, nothing. Philosophically, politically, in any way, we have nothing in common. And that goes for Leslie Cagan, too.

Michael Medved: But wait. There's a difference Daniel Lazare, with all due respect, there is a difference here. Let me cite for you something that happened recently since David's book, Unholy Alliance, came out, which is that in Chile when President Bush visited Santiago, the demonstrators there demonstrated with hammer and sickle signs and headbands, and someone was holding a very large sign that said, "Hang on, Fallujah." Now, do you think that – do you feel some sympathy for the so-called insurgents in Fallujah?

Daniel Lazare: Oh, absolutely yes, total sympathy, total solidarity.

...Of course, absolutely. The insurgents in Fallujah are repelling a foreign invasion. They have every right to do it. Now, I’m not going to support every last action by every last fighter there, obviously, but certainly they have a right to repel a foreign invasion of their country.

The results of an American success will be catastrophic for either side--the Left loses as America becomes stronger and unhindered; the Islamists lose as liberalism, not fundamentalist Islam, spreads through their homeland.

There is precedent here. In Viet Nam, the Left was able to whittle away at the American efforts. They offered no compelling alternatives for the people of South Vietnam and Cambodia other than "Hell no, we won't go." Ending the American military efforts was their goal. Unfortunately, the political and strategic planning of that war was so inept, the Left had an easy target. But even then, it still took more than a decade for them to finally triumph.

The result of the American pullout was a massive slaughter of "sympathetic" South Vietnamese and Cambodian "collaborators." To this day, the Left has yet to acknowledge that this happened as a direct result of the American pullout. But it doesn't matter to them, their goals were achieved and finished when America pulled out humiliated and weakened.

Today, in Iraq, the storm is raging, and yet again, the Left has no policy other than opposition. If the Left's efforts at subversion succeed, a slaughter of epic proportions that could make Pol Pot blush will occur. Islamists will continue to terrorize with the knowledge that Allah has their back as they continue to oppress, rape and kill.

Fortunately, even though there is a lot of work to do, it looks like the fledgling democracy in Iraq is holding up. Even though the terrorists are getting more deadly, the government backed Iraqi forces are getting stronger and stronger. While the terrorists murder civilians, the government forces hunt down armed terrorists and arrest or kill them. It is entirely feasible that they will get their country in control without an all out civil war.

If this is the case, has the Left put their last dollar on a gimpy horse named "Gluestick?"

No. They have succeeded in sapping enough popular will to do anything beyond Iraq. Clearly, something needs to be done about Syria and Iran, and it doesn't look like anything short of all out military intervention will do the trick (especially in Iran). But, through the efforts of well funded Leftist organiziations and the media, support for any action will be hard to come by. That is, until America gets hit again.

...and, if America gets hit again, especially if by a nuclear or biological strike orginating from Iran or Syria, a LOT of people are going to die.

Currently, America has taken the course that will cause the lowest casualties on both sides, but it also relies on the sustained support of its initiatives from its people. That support is weakening primarily due to Left's subversion, but also in a lack of understanding of the fundamental nature of this battle.

I have no doubts that America, and the West, will ultimately win this battle. But how many people are going to have to die in order for it to happen? That question, in my opinion, will depend on how many more people in the West continue to buy into the Left's canards about what is really happening in this war. This ideological battle is World-Wide, and the winner is far from decided.

In other words, the fate of a lot of people falls directly in our laps. It is up to us not to let the Left have their way. The 2004 election was a good start, but we can't just blame our leadership and President alone, as they will always make mistakes. We must continue to battle the Left from every direction in order to sustain this fight. That includes taking the initiative on the ideas shaping current policies.

The Islamists are committed to their cause, but are we?

Busy

Too busy to write about anything so far this week. I have a stack of dishes and a pile of laundry that have my name written all over them, and I'm going out again tonight. My climbing gear still nees to be cleaned and put away.

Instead, I am going to head out to pick up some beautiful babies.

It's hard work being hot as hell.

My Bad

I pulled a stupid, rookie move last night. I've been sketching out a post called a "Strategic Overview of a World-Wide Civil War" and it isn't quite finished.

Well, last night I published it live...by accident.

:::long sigh:::: Idiot!

Anyway, it'll be up shortly. Sorry if you had to read the, um, extremely rough version.

How 'bout those Bears?

Made it

We survived Mt. Langley. It was an amazing trip...

Except for the mosquitos. They sucked.

Three out of five of us summitted (I was one), the fourteen hour trip took just over thirteen. We experienced more changes in the personality of the weather than Andrew Sullivan has gone through in the last year.

Since I am a cheap bastard, I took a disposable camera instead of a digital one, so we'll have to wait until I get the film developed to see pictures. Remember having to drop your film off?

My site is sooo un-Digital Pajamas Media-like. No wonder why Instapundit doesn't ever read this site.

Ian, I have some cool DeLorme/Garmin info from this trip. In short, from your comment from last week, with the right DeLorme software, you'll be able to do exactly what you wanted to do. And man is it fun to play with.

Wow, how many Google hits am I going to get with that last sentence?

Off to Mt Langley

Alright everyone. I'm off to Mt. Langley after a trip to REI for some last minute supplies.

I feel like a little kid the night before Christmas.

Have fun this weekend! See you on Monday!

Learning From History (AGAIN)

I wouldn't expect Glenn Reynolds to read this site under any circumstances, however he makes this comment today in reponse to British reporters questioning Tony Blair after today's bombings in London:

Some idiot correspondent asked Blair if the attacks were his fault because of the Iraq war. And others are taking an equally negative line -- one asks if the propaganda war against terror is being lost.

No -- but if so, it's because of people in the media like these. John Howard's too polite to tell them to read Norm Geras, but he put them in their place with logic, noting that Bin Laden was unhappy about the liberation of East Timor and declared war on that basis long before the Iraq invasion.

Translation: You're idiots, cowards, and political hacks. Yes! The preening, point-scoring irresponsibility of the press, which is if anything worse in Britain than in America, is one of the most striking things about this war, and it will be decades before it recovers. If it does.

Well, yeah. The media hasn't had a grip on this story, or any other story for quite a while, because it isn't about reporting, it is about a narrative where they set the parameters. Activism within journalism reared its ugly head in a big way in Viet Nam. I've transcribed one part of Robert Elegant's "How to Lose a War: Relfections of a Foreign Correspondent" begins his insightful article this way:

In the Early 1960s, when the Viet Nam War became a big story, most foreign correspondents assigned to cover the story wrote primarily to win the approbation of the crowd, above all their own crowd. As a result, in my view, the self-approving system of reporting they created became even further detached from political and military realities because it instinctively concentrated on its own self-justification. The American press, naturally dominant in an “American war”, somehow felt obliged to be less objective than partisan, to take sides, for it was inspired by the engage “investigative” reporting that burgeoned in the US in these impassioned years. The press was instinctively ”agin the Governmnent”—and, at least reflexively, for Saigon’s enemies.

During the latter half of the 15-year American involvement in Viet Nam the media became the primary battlefield. Illusory events reported by the press as well as real events within the press corps were more decisive than the clash of arms or the contention of ideologies. For the first time in modern history, the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield, but on the printed page and, above all, on the television screen. Looking back coolly, I believe it can be said (surprising as it may still sound) that South Vietnamese and American forces actually won the limited military struggle. They virtually crushed the Viet Cong in the South, the “native” guerrillas who were directed, reinforced, and equipped from Hanoi; and thereafter they threw back the invasion by regular North Vietnamese divisions. None the less, the War was finally lost to the invaders after the US disengagement cause the political pressures built up by the media had made it quite impossible for Washington to maintain even the minimal material and moral support that would have enabled the Saigon regime to continue effective resistance.

Since I am considering causes rather than effects, the demoralization of the West, particularly the United States, that preceded and followed the fall of South Viet Nam is beyond the scope of this article. It is, however, interesting to wonder whether Angoloa, Afghanistan, and Iran would have occurred if Saigon had not fallen amid nearly universal odium—that is to say, if the “Viet Nam Syndrome”, for which the press (in my view) was largely responsible, had not afflicted the Carter Administration and paralyzed American will. On the credit side, largely despite the press, the People’s Republic of China would almost certainly not have purged itself of the Maoist doctrine of “worldwide liberation through people’s war” and, later, would not have come to blows with Hanoi if the defense of South Viet Nam had not been maintained for so long.

The article is long and I've only transcribed a part of it. Please read it as Elegant doesn't write a scathing article full of invective and sour grapes; instead it is an insightful look, by a member of the media, into how the media as a whole played a huge factor in shaping the views of those back at home. This view was not a helpful one.

I guarantee that Bin Landen and Zarqawi are channeling Ho Chi Mihn right now and Uncle Ho keeps telling them, "Just hold on...just-hold-on."

UPDATE: Colossus comments. FYI, to everyone: I will be finishing the rest of Robert Elegant's article next month, and it only gets better (to bad it doesn't get shorter).

Also, I promise never to use the acronym FYI again.

Mt. Langley Prep & Reminiscing With "From the Still"

Isn't this cool? Here is our route to the summit of Mt. Langley. This was made with our cool little GPS device:

The first major switch-backs that you see after where the Cottonwood Lakes are at (about 11,500), we will be encountering slushy snow. This may require snow-shoes.

The rub of going ultralight is just like it sounds--you don't want any extra weight to slow you down, and snow shoes are just that. Plus they not easily carried on day packs. As of this moment, we are not sure if we will move faster with extra weight but have the use of snow shoes, or leave the snow shoes behind and move slickly over the snow. This is all dependent on the depth of the snow; the deeper it is, the more we are going to regret leaving snow-shoes behind as we poke holes through the snow.

The overnight temperatures above that altitude are dipping below freezing, however we will be approaching this area mid-day, so the "ice" will have melted into slushy snow. I am thinking that snow shoes are going to be a good idea and worth the extra weight.

Anyway, the preperations are going well and everyone is excited. We have a team of five going; three of us having climbed together before. However, Kyle at From the Still who has also previously shared outdoor adventures with me, evesdropped on a little conversation he says I had on my last trip to Middle Palisade:

TF6S: This place used to be off limits, man, 'cause some drunk freshman fell off. He went right down the middle, smacking his head on every beam, man. I hear it doesn't hurt after the first couple though. Autopsy said he had one beer, how many did you have?

Bugle Bum: Four.

TF6S: You're dead, man, you're so dead. Look at the blood stains right there.

Cut to Summit: TF6S takes in the view

TF6S: Would you look at this f*cking town man. It's dead. Imagine how people out there right now are f*cking man. Just going at it.

I don't know if this was a actual conversation. It sure sounds like something from Dazed And Confused, but I can't be certain. We are making plans for a trip to the hill country soon; maybe I should reconsider...

Hmmm, this is an odd conversation considering my climbing companion Bugle Bum is mormon, and thus highly unlikely to be drinking beer at 14,000 ft. Mr. Hirsch, I believe there are some holes to your story, however I could be wrong--after all the altitude does wonders to your thinking capacity.

But, I'd like to enlighten my readers to an adventure I had with Kyle back in 2000. I went to visit him during my spring break in Colorado. One day, after three feet of powder were dumped on the Rockies, we decided to cruise up to Rocky Mountain National for a little snow-shoeing around the Bear Lake.

This day may have been one of the best days I have ever had in the outdoors. The sky was cobalt blue, with a fresh layer of untouched snow everywhere. It was utterly quiet. Naturally, preparing for a simple jaunt around the lake, we decided that it would be more fun to climb one of the hills (again, east coast and midwesterners read: mountain) surrounding the lake. Forget that we left our gloves in the car and had to create our own switch-backs in 3-feet of snow.

So, we trudged up and started blazing the trail. The person in the lead would take a couple of steps and then fall into the snow.

Kyle: (Stomping trail, then falls.) "Dang-it!!!"

Me: Ok, I'll try.

Kyle: (Shakes red hands out)

Me: (Stomping trail, then falls) "Daaaaang-it!!!

Kyle: Laughs

Me: Throws Kyle down the mountain.

Ok, I didn't throw Kyle down the mountain, but we soon established a rhythm and were able to blaze a trail without falling for a while. I was in the lead, gingerly blazing the trail, when I was startled by what I thought was a bear bounding down the mountain behind me. I looked down, about the size of bear, rolling down the hill.

I tried to find Kyle.

No Kyle.

Did the bear eat Kyle?

No, the bear was Kyle.

I looked down the hill and Kyle was laying in a pine tree.

Kyle: "Dang-it!!!"

Me: (Creating yellow snow by laughing so hard).

We made it to the top and had a great, great day. Kyle used his cell phone to call everyone who was working that day to tell them we were standing on top of a mountain while they were sitting in their cubes. He did not tell them about his new impression of Yogi.

Reporting Live From San Francisco

It's easy for me to quip, like many other bloggers, about San Francisco being a haven for socialist ideas that eventually find their way into our governing bodies. This tendancy leads many to give charming nicknames like the U.S.S.R. (Union of San (Francisco) Socialist Republics), etc. to my beloved city.

San Francisco's geography and natural beauty in combination with some of its composition, in my undaunted and humble opinion, sits on the top shelf in comparison to all of the cities in the world: rolling hills (on the east coast or in the midwest you'd call them mountains), victorian buildings, the Golden Gate Bridge touching the sky while spanning across the horizon, world class restaurants that are more numerous than a Baldwin sponsered bunny farm, a center for the world-wide entrepreurship and men sporting lipstick and dresses.

On the other hand, the combination of the above increases the average citizen's threshold for pain inflicted by an extremely incompetent and controlling government; and nothing embodies the "dumbshit/yellow bellied politician" label quite like our board of supervisors. Here's the latest:

The owners of the Fairmont Hotel, the San Francisco landmark that offers sweeping views of the city from atop Nob Hill and has been embroiled in a bitter labor dispute with union workers, said Monday they want to turn nearly half of their posh rooms into condominiums.

The proposal immediately caused a furor among city leaders, so much so that today the supervisor whose district includes the Fairmont plans to introduce a measure that would ban large hotels from making such conversions.

"Turning the Fairmont into luxury condos would be like turning the Eiffel Tower into an office building," said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. "It's not the Fairmont Condo Tower. It's the Fairmont Hotel."

The owners, a group of individual investors including Oakland A's owner Lewis Wolff, say their proposal is in the very early stages. Heather Castellari, vice president of asset management for the group, said owners want to convert a 23-story tower that is annexed to the hotel into residential housing, likely condominiums.

As the article states, the Fairmont Hotel is indeed a historic landmark in the city. The United Nations charter was signed by Harry Truman there and, even though it was under construction at the time, it was one of the few buildings left standing after the 1906 earthquake. Aaron Peskin, through a dashing use of hyperbole, compared converting the Fairmount to renovating the Eiffel tower, even though the last time I checked, the Fairmont Hotel is private property while the Eiffel tower is not.

Seeing this through a libertarian-ish view, I'm at a loss trying to see how legislation could be passed to prevent this from happening. The portion of the Fairmont that they are looking to renovate isn't even part of the historic building, it is the tower that was added in 1961, and if you didn't know better, you probably wouldn't think they were the same building. Without the historical society involved, how can the local government step in and force their will on a private business? I don't think emminent domain would be an issue here, but I am clearly not an expert on that issue.

Converting a landmark is not the issue here; Pesking is sticking up for the labor unions who have been fighting for their lives against the Fairmont. Peskin says, "Frankly, it's not about wages and benefits. This is about the Fairmont Hotel remaining the Fairmont Hotel." This shouldn't be a teleolgical argument; its about economics and property rights. Housing, not hotel space, is a premium in the city, and the free market should be able to decide this issue, not a local supervisor with his pockets lined by the labor unions.

Oh well, at least the men still wear lipstick.

Sunday Night Ramblings

The afternoon turns from blue to gray as the fog begins to cover the summer sky. I close the notebook which contains all my preliminary notes for climbing Mt. Langley next weekend, in order to meet with my cousin, whose in town for business, for dinner. What was a comfortable day, had been invaded by a midly caustic, but highly determined wind. Another typical San Francisco summer day. I throw on my long sleeve, watching the multitudes of tourists huddling together as their white t-shirts and khaki shorts have about the same level of resistence as I do in a bar that serves $4 Guinness.

The fog kind of makes you turn inward. It makes everything closer, and even though it moves through the city rapidly, it sings a melancholic melody; a light, three-chord progression to any who chooses to listen. Tonight, I chose to listen. Sometimes its okay to turn inward and to examine those soft, delicate parts that we've been told to protect. Weakness is supposed to be bad and one should never explore those areas without the help of a trained professional, sucking your bank account dry by the hour.

Ironic that these are my thoughts as I put the finishing touches on my preperations to climb one of the tallest peaks within the continental United States. However, I think this may be exactly why I climb. Each time I take myself out of my comfortable surroundings, which I work so bloody hard for, I consciously enter a world that is so much bigger and ferocious than my perception of day to day life. I enter with the full acknowledgement of my finite insignificance to the One who created it all; completely at the mercy of so many factors that are totally out of my control. It is an act of faith with each step forward.

However, the life that I experience everyday is no more "in control" than my experience in the mountains. I take my surroundings for granted as they turn familiar; my consciousness fades. What was once an act of pure, but epistimologically tested faith, now becomes routine--my motions more mechanical.

My trip to the mountains could not arrive soon enough. This prodigal son longs for the home that he hasn't seen since last September. I don't seek the mountains to conquer--that idea is wholly absurd. I return to regain my perspective of who I am and where I belong in this madness of which I have become so familiar.

Plus there is a really cool view on the summit.

How Did We Know That All Roads Lead Back to Afghanistan?

The Times of London reports that the London bombers, who were British citizens, instead of being a terror group who sympathized with al-Qaeda, seem to have direct ties to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan:

THE British-born mastermind of the London attacks had direct links with al-Qaeda, police sources confirmed yesterday.

He is believed to be connected to a senior figure who took part in an al-Qaeda terror summit in Pakistan 16 months ago where a list of future targets was reportedly finalised.

Forensic scientists said last night that the explosives used by the London bombers was the same type used by the convicted British shoe-bombers Richard Reid and Saajid Badat. Scientists hope to establish today whether it originated from the same batch.

It was made from ingredients known to be taught to al-Qaeda recruits in Afghanistan training camps and elsewhere, confirming suspicions that the London bombings were the work of al-Qaeda.

It was first suspected that it was the work of a UK radical group that sympathised with Osama bin Laden’s ideas, and the operation had been planned and executed in Europe. That view may now have to refined.

The mastermind, who is of Pakistani origin, is thought to have been trained in an alQaeda camp in Afghanistan and has been linked to previous terror operations.

It seems as if there was a "terror summit" that met in Pakistan 16 months ago, with this "mastermind" in attendence. Also at this summit was another shady character:

Investigators are also tracing the mastermind’s alleged links to three major al-Qaeda figures. One of these is said to be in US custody.

Intelligence is being re-examined from the summit held last year in a mountain village in the northwestern province of Waziristan.

A month after he took part in that summit, Mohammed Barbar, a New York computer executive, was arrested near his home in Queens. He admitted to being an “al-Qaeda sleeper”. He had arrived at the summit carrying cash and supplies for jihadis fighting in Afghanistan.

Babar, 29, has betrayed a number of fellow sleepers during his interrogation and the information led to the arrest of 13 people in Britain. The US authorities have charged him with trying to buy materials to make bombs for attacks in the UK. Britain has asked the FBI to question him about the London operation. Another key suspect in US custody, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, was handed over by Pakistan last month. He was described as al-Qaeda’s operational commander, so is expected to know what was discussed at the summit last year. So far he has been unco-operative.

A little thought experiment: we know that U.S. authorities captured a man who admitted to being an al-Qaeda sleeper. I'm assuming that this little birdie didn't sing without a little "coercion." According to the article, Babar was "interrogated" by unknown methods, but the result was the arrest of 13 other people in Britain who were planning further bombings.

Knowing this, would anyone be upset that there it was highly probable that this man at least wore some women's underwear on his head? Would it be of dubious character to call this man a homosexual and have him dance around with other men in order to get him to reveal what he knew about al-Qaeda's plans to kill more civilians?

I know I am in danger of building a strawman argument here, however I speculate that some coercive methods were used to get Babar (the terrorist, not the elephant) to talk. The war against the Islamic fascists is going to be full of these types of wins that fly under the radar screen--we catch someone, we do some not so nice things to them, they give up others they are working for, and we arrest the other sleepers. Some of these guys are going remain elusive, and will successfully pull off another terrorist attack. Fortunately, it seems that within a matter of days, we have been able to link these terrorists to members other cells that are in custody.

Anyway, I'm betting that since Mr. Babar has links to the London bombers, it is exceedingly likely that he is sitting in a cell with a fat pair of worn granny-panties wrapped around his shaved face.

And civilization is better off, not worse, because of it.

Whisky On Ice; Women On Fire

Kyle said this about me last month:

Whiskey On Ice is an an old Hank Williams, Jr. tune. Bocephus is a character with whom TF6S would never associate himself, but they do share two things in common; they both enjoy their whiskey on ice and their women on fire.

Yep, that's pretty much it...in theory. Unfortunately, I've had more "whiskey on ice" versus "women on fire", but that's more of a personal problem. Actually, during the past year, I've experienced more of the "whiskey on fire" and "women on ice". But, I guess Hank was talking about what he enjoyed, not what he really got.

This should become a theme on this blog. Something tells me if I post about "whiskey on ice" and "women on fire" more often, I will increase my readership into double digits. I've been staring up at One Eyed Willie's Boogers and Other Bodily Excretions Blog for far too damn long now!

If you have some story about women or whiskey stories, please share in the comments below.

* Note to Kyle: I'm warning you, do NOT talk about my behavior at your wedding 2 years ago. I think my parents are still reading this site and they thought I was in church that weekend delivering a sermon titled "The Purity of the Genitals Equals the Purity of the Heart."

Where Oh, Where?

Posting has been light recently, and I do not apologize for it. I've been spent the last few days with a certain Floridian that I haven't seen in years. We talked, we laughed, we played, we cried...

...then I went and played football with the guys...you know, then we punched each other a couple of times just for toughness.

Anyway, I'm preparing for our first 14er on the weekend of July 23. We are going to do Mt. Langley in one day; my first "ultralight" attempt. I'll be posting our preparations in during the run-up, the drumbeat if you will.

Actually, don't. Drum circles are for hippies.

Follow up - What Do the Islamic Fundamentalists Want?

Following up on my earlier post, the two Jon's in the UK have brought up some interesting points in the comments section. Jon Bartley said this:

As we've previously discussed, one of the most frustrating things for me about attacks by Al-Qaeda supporters is the lack of a clear aim, agenda or manifesto.

At least with the IRA, we knew the motives behind the bombings - an Ireland entirely independent of British control. With these guys (and it's a struggle to use that word, with its implication of a level of humanity), there's no such clarity.

Then Jonathan R. followed up with this:

1. Part of the Terror is the lack off "clear" purpose...at least that we can see.

2. The Terrorists do not need to justify the carnage of those souls, they consider to be unworthy/less than human. To them we are dogs!

This is a great place to start. In my view, al-Qaeda actually does have a purpose to all of this madness, but it is difficult for the Western mind to comprehend. Back in 2002 Lee Harris wrote an excellent policy paper called "Al-Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology" where he said this in context with the September 11th attacks:

The assumption is this: An act of violence on the magnitude of 9-11 can only have been intended to further some kind of political objective. What this political objective might be, or whether it is worthwhile — these are all secondary considerations; but surely people do not commit such acts unless they are trying to achieve some kind of recognizably political purpose.

Behind this shared assumption stands the figure of Clausewitz and his famous definition of war as politics carried out by other means. The whole point of war, on this reading, is to get other people to do what we want them to do: It is an effort to make others adopt our policies and/or to further our interests. Clausewitzian war, in short, is rational and instrumental. It is the attempt to bring about a new state of affairs through the artful combination of violence and the promise to cease violence if certain political objectives are met.

...But is this the right model for understanding 9-11? Or have we, like Montezuma, imposed our own inadequate categories on an event that simply does not fit them? Yet, if 9-11 was not an act of war, then what was it? In what follows, I would like to pursue a line suggested by a remark by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in reference to 9-11: his much-quoted comment that it was “the greatest work of art of all time.”

Despite the repellent nihilism that is at the base of Stockhausen’s ghoulish aesthetic judgment, it contains an important insight and comes closer to a genuine assessment of 9-11 than the competing interpretation of it in terms of Clausewitzian war. For Stockhausen did grasp one big truth: 9-11 was the enactment of a fantasy — not an artistic fantasy, to be sure, but a fantasy nonetheless.

Harris not only changes the calculus, he challenges us by wondering if we are asking the appropriate questions in trying to figure out what al-Qaeda is trying to accomplish. His substantive observation about al-Qaeda is not that they are necessarily trying to "get anything from us," but that they are doing what they think is necessary to gain strength among their own:

The terror attack of 9-11 was not designed to make us alter our policy, but was crafted for its effect on the terrorists themselves: It was a spectacular piece of theater. The targets were chosen by al Qaeda not through military calculation — in contrast, for example, to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — but entirely because they stood as symbols of American power universally recognized by the Arab street. They were gigantic props in a grandiose spectacle in which the collective fantasy of radical Islam was brought vividly to life: A mere handful of Muslims, men whose will was absolutely pure, as proven by their martyrdom, brought down the haughty towers erected by the Great Satan. What better proof could there possibly be that God was on the side of radical Islam and that the end of the reign of the Great Satan was at hand?

As the purpose of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia was to prove to the Italians themselves that they were conquerors, so the purpose of 9-11 was not to create terror in the minds of the American people but to prove to the Arabs that Islamic purity, as interpreted by radical Islam, could triumph. The terror, which to us seems the central fact, is in the eyes of al Qaeda a by-product. Likewise, what al Qaeda and its followers see as central to the holy pageant of 9-11 — namely, the heroic martyrdom of the 19 hijackers — is interpreted by us quite differently. For us the hijackings, like the Palestinian “suicide” bombings, are viewed merely as a modus operandi, a technique that is incidental to a larger strategic purpose, a makeshift device, a low-tech stopgap. In short, Clausewitzian war carried out by other means — in this case by suicide. (emphasis mine)

This is purely from memory, but after September 11th, they released a video of Bin-Laden sitting with a cleric praising the attacks. He gloried in its success and immediate began to talk about how the attacks produced a surge in Westerners seeking out Islam (and even converting). Of course, this wasn't true at all. But, these tapes were played all over the Muslim world.

The extremely fundamentalist brand of Islam that al-Qaeda adheres to (Wahhabism) demonstrates very deterministic view of the way Allah controls the world. They believe, in their worldview, that through violence, the West will "submit to Allah" (Islam literally translates as "submission") and after filming each attack, the perpetrators praise Allah for the glory in hitting the infidels. These tapes are then played over and over again throughout the Arab world in order to gain recruits for further operations.

They believe in the submission of infidels to Allah, but mostly they are worried about taking care of the people in their own "house," which, fortunately, is no longer happening to their benefit. For example, when foreign al-Qaeda fighters enter and try to control portions of Iraq sympathetic to their cause, they have brutally oppressed the locals by instituting their extremist version of sharia law. It's been a total disaster, and the people in Iraq don't see brave insurgents fighting the infidels, but car bombs that kill Iraqi civilians. Recently, US Marine divisions have been watching Iraqi insurgents fight against al-Qaeda positions (red-on-red fire), as even the hardcore Sunnis are unable to deal with these monsters.

This is why the "War on Terror" is so enraging (I really hate that name BTW). We are battling against a people who believe in a totally insane worldview. Lots of people believe in crazy religions or ideologies, but very few of them are trying to spread it through attacking innocent civilians through extremely violent means. Tom Cruise can act like a jackass all he wants, but jumping up and down on Oprah's couch is much different from someone like Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. This is what Bouyeri said to Van Gogh's mother in court:

He argued that he did not kill her son, "but I have chopped off his head according to the law that orders me to do so to everyone who offends Allah. I do not not feel your pain as I do not know what it is to suffer the loss of a child"

Any attempts at reasoning with people like this will do as much good as negotiating with a grizzly bear. We cannot just sit on our hands and wait for the next attack (there will be more). Rather, we have to pick our battles and focus on them intensely. What would you do as a leader in this situation? I have an answer in a follow-up post.

UPDATE: Marc Schulman responds to an editorial in the Guardian by David Rieff. David believes we need to begin negotiations with the terrorists in order to defeat them. Unfortunately, in context with Lee Harris's analysis, which I've supported above, negotiating is a completely absurd idea.

Post From a Friend In London

Yesterday was a hard day for a lot of people, and my pains are small in comparison to some, but not insignificant to me. I got that September 11th feeling yesterday knowing that one of my closest brothers was out in the middle of that. I get to work and find an email that he was ok, and a sigh of relief followed. Then, I just got plain mad all over again.

Anyway, my friend left a great comment in the previous post, and I thought I would post it on the main site. Him and I have debated ad infinitum about global politics and I've yet to meet anyone on any political spectrum that has challeged me the way he has.

Mate, thanks for your support at this terrible time. Things are already getting back to normal here, so whatever the pondlife that did this is trying to achieve, they've failed.

Current reports suggest that it may not be the work of suicide bombers; there are witness reports of a man leaving a bag on the bus. If that's true, and he didn't even have the guts to take himself out, my outrage is quadrupled.

As we've previously discussed, one of the most frustrating things for me about attacks by Al-Qaeda supporters is the lack of a clear aim, agenda or manifesto.

At least with the IRA, we knew the motives behind the bombings - an Ireland entirely independent of British control. With these guys (and it's a struggle to use that word, with its implication of a level of humanity), there's no such clarity.

If the net-posted claim of responsibility is to be believed, the attack purports to be in revenge for the British presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, whilst I strongly disagreed with the 2003 invasion, the only reason we're still there is to protect the fledgling administration. We can't get out quick enough. And when we do, what do they think will happen?
Whatever political parties these people (same caveat) support, the coalition forces are not keeping them out of power - Iraq is a democracy now. If the Iraqi people don't want to be ruled by the politicians that the insurgents support, then it won't happen - end of story. Forcing out the coalition troops now, as opposed to when the Iraqi administration asks us to leave, won't help their political aims at all if these aims are not supported by the Iraqis.

My suspicion is that the motives of the bombers are more amorphous (e.g. anti-Western, anti-capitalist), and this makes me madder still. They probably couldn't compile a rational list of aims if you gave them paper, a pen, and a week to think about it. How dare you execute these outrages when you don't even know what you're trying to achieve. You make the IRA look positively intellectual. Either urinate or get off the political pot.

Or is it that, by publishing a manifesto, they risk finding out that 99.9% of Muslims don't agree with a word of it?

Keep up the good work TF6S. We're not always of the same political viewpoint, but on this there can be no polarity. Nothing justifies the carnage we saw here yesterday.

Posted by Jon Bartley at July 8, 2005 06:20 AM

I'll try to post a response later today, or this weekend, as I think these are good points to carry this conversation on.

Also, just so you know, I'm definitely planning a London trip now. Do you guys have an El Squid Roe?

No More

See that stuff on the wall. It shouldn't need much explanation, but it is blood. Human blood. Innocent people going to work blood.

We've been seeing a myriad of these scenes since 9-11. We've seen the blood of the innocent cover the buildings and streets of New York, Kabul, Bagdad, Fallujah, Mosul, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Islamabad, Bali, Madrid and now London. During this time, the Left has constistently made "arguments" that the real villian in all this is us. The refrain goes like this: the murderous monsters who did this just can't help themselves, and we provoke them with our shiny watches, our McDonald's french fries and democracy spreading, so we are the ones to blame.

Well you people can officially eat the excretion coming from the business end of rabid baboon. Yeah, that means you George Galloway and your ilk, like Mr. Kos. I am no longer in the service to argue or dialog with you people on any level. I'm not only questioning your patriotism, I'm downright questioning your humanity.

Look at that picture above and tell us again who it is that is responsible for this. Tell us who is wrong. Then let those of us who still have some level of humanity left determine this one.

My prayers are with all of my fellow Britons today.

My Intro to Part 1 of Robert Elegant's Essay

Robert Elegant was a foreign correspondent in Asia during most of his career. Being that Viet Nam was the first war in which the mass media played a huge role, most notably with television, Elegant found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was in Viet Nam to cover a war that was very confusing and secretive to many Americans, but he soon found that the story the media was telling, versus the one actually happening, differed greatly.

How to Lose a War: Reflections of a War Correspondent (August 1981 edition of Encounter, pp. 73-90, is his story mostly on the causes of poor journalistic practices and their results in covering a war which was part Cold War battlefield, part Civil War.

Due to the enormity of context, I am transcribing and posting his essay in parts. The proceding post is Part 1.

The purpose of transcribing this essay is to shed some light on an idealogical media, by an insider, that are currently being repeated by journalists of all stripes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I will offer my conclusions after the article is printed in its entirety. I am turning off the comments in the actual article, as I want the article to be pure refernce material, but feel free to discuss here. Additionally, I'm not a typist, or an editor, so I'd be grateful if you'd let me know of any typos that you see.

How to Lose a War: Reflections of a Foreign Correspondent - by Robert Elegant - Part 1

“Underneath the whisperings of tropical nights there is a darker whispering that death invents especially for northern men….” -- William Carlos Williams “Adam”

In the Early 1960s, when the Viet Nam War became a big story, most foreign correspondents assigned to cover the story wrote primarily to win the approbation of the crowd, above all their own crowd. As a result, in my view, the self-approving system of reporting they created became even further detached from political and military realities because it instinctively concentrated on its own self-justification. The American press, naturally dominant in an “American war”, somehow felt obliged to be less objective than partisan, to take sides, for it was inspired by the engage “investigative” reporting that burgeoned in the US in these impassioned years. The press was instinctively ”agin the Governmnent”—and, at least reflexively, for Saigon’s enemies.

During the latter half of the 15-year American involvement in Viet Nam the media became the primary battlefield. Illusory events reported by the press as well as real events within the press corps were more decisive than the clash of arms or the contention of ideologies. For the first time in modern history, the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield, but on the printed page and, above all, on the television screen. Looking back coolly, I believe it can be said (surprising as it may still sound) that South Vietnamese and American forces actually won the limited military struggle. They virtually crushed the Viet Cong in the South, the “native” guerrillas who were directed, reinforced, and equipped from Hanoi; and thereafter they threw back the invasion by regular North Vietnamese divisions. None the less, the War was finally lost to the invaders after the US disengagement cause the political pressures built up by the media had made it quite impossible for Washington to maintain even the minimal material and moral support that would have enabled the Saigon regime to continue effective resistance.

Since I am considering causes rather than effects, the demoralization of the West, particularly the United States, that preceded and followed the fall of South Viet Nam is beyond the scope of this article. It is, however, interesting to wonder whether Angoloa, Afghanistan, and Iran would have occurred if Saigon had not fallen amid nearly universal odium—that is to say, if the “Viet Nam Syndrome”, for which the press (in my view) was largely responsible, had not afflicted the Carter Administration and paralyzed American will. On the credit side, largely despite the press, the People’s Republic of China would almost certainly not have purged itself of the Maoist doctrine of “worldwide liberation through people’s war” and, later, would not have come to blows with Hanoi if the defense of South Viet Nam had not been maintained for so long.

The Brotherhood

“You could be hard about it and deny that there was a brotherhood working there, but what else could you call it?” This is a question that Michael Herr asked in his Dispatches, a personally honest, but basically deceptive book.

“But…all you ever talked about was the war, and the could come to seem like two different wars at the same time. Because who but another correspondent could talk the kind of mythical war you wanted to hear described?”

I have added the italics; for in the words “mythical” and “wanted” the essential truth is laid bare. In my own personal experience most correspondents wanted to talk chiefly to other correspondents to confirm their own mythical vision of the war. Even newcomers were pre-committed, as the American jargon has it, to the collective position most of their colleagues had already taken. What I can only call surrealistic responding constantly fed on itself; and did not diminish thereby, but swelled into ever more grotesque shapes. I found the process equally reprehensible for being in no small part unwitting.

John le Carre (whose extravagant encomium adorns the cover of the Pan edition of Dispatches: “The best book I have ever read on men and war in ourt times.”) is, I feel, too clever a writer to believe he painted an even proximately accurate picture of Southeast Asia in The Honorable Schoolboy (1972). But he initially depicted the press corps and the correspondents, briefly se down in the brutally alienating milieu called Viet Nam, turned to each other for professional sustenance and emotional comfort. After all, there was nowhere else to turn, certainly not to stark reality, which was both elusive and repellent.

Most correspondents were isolated from the Vietnamese by ignorance of their language and culture, as well as by a measure of race estrangement. Most were isolated from the quixotic American Army establishment, itself often as confused as they themselves were, by their moralistic attitudes and their political prejudices. It was inevitable, in the circumstances, that they came to write, in the first instance, for each other.

To be sure, the approbation of his own crowd gave a certain fullness to the correspondent’s life in exile that reached beyond the irksome routine of reporting and writing. The disapprobation of his peers could transform him into a bitterly defensive misanthrope (I think here of one industrious radio and newspaper stringer who was reputed to be the richest correspondent in Viet Nam, except, of course, for the television starts). Even the experienced correspondents, to whom Asia was “home” rather than a hostile temporary environment, formed their own little self defensive world within the larger world of the newcomers.

It was no wonder that correspondents writing to wing the approbation of other correspondents in that insidiously collegial atmosphere produced reporting that was remarkably homogeneous. After each other, correspondents wrote to win the approbation of their editors, who controlled their professional loves and who were closely linked with the intellectual community at home. The consensus of that third circle, the domestic intelligentsia, derived largely from correspondents’ reports and in turn served to determine the nature of those reports. If dispatches did not accord with that consensus, approbation was withheld. Only in the last instance did correspondents address themselves to the general public, the mass of lay readers and viewers.

The Cloud of Unknowing

IT WAS MY IMPRESSION THAT most correspondents were, in one respect, very much like the ambitious soldiers that they derided. A tour in Viet Nam was almost essential to promotion for a US Regular Army officer, and a combat command was the best road to rapid advancement. Covering the biggest continuing story in the world was not absolutely essential to a correspondent’s rise, but it was an invaluable cachet. Quick careers were made by spectacular reporting of the obvious fact that men, women, and children were being killed: fame or at least notoriety rewarded the correspondent who became part of the action—rather than a mere observer—by influencing events directly.

Journalists, particularly those serving in television, were therefore, like soldiers, “rotated” to Viet Nam. Few were given time to develop knowledge, and indeed the intellectual instincts, necessary to report the War in the round. Only a few remained “in country” for years, though the experienced Far Eastern correspondents visited regularly from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo. Not surprisingly, one found that most reporting veered farther and farther from the fundamental political, economic, and military realities of the War, for these were usually not spectacular. Reporting in Viet Nam became a closed, self-generating system sustained largely by the acclaim of the participants lavished on each other in almost equal measure to the opprobrium they heaped on “the Establishment, a fashionable and very vulnerable target.

FOR SOME JOURNALISTS, perhaps most, a moment of truth through self-examination was never to come. The farther they were from the real conflict, the more smugly self approving they now remain as commentators who led the public to expect a brave new world when the North Vietnamese finally “liberated” South Viet Name. Even those correspondents who today gingerly confess to some errors or distortions usually insist that the true fault was not theirs at all, but Washington’s. The enormity of having helped in one way or another to bring tens of millions under grinding totalitarian rule—and having tilted the global balance of power—appears to great to acknowledge. It is easier to absolve one’s self by blaming exclusively Johnson, Nixon and Kissinger.

I found few American correspondents to be as tough minded as one Briton I knew who was very close to the action for many years in the employ of an American wire news service. “I’m ashamed of most of what I wrote in Viet Nam” he told me recently, “But I was a new boy, and I took my lead from the Americans, who were afire with the crusading spirit of 60’s journalism—the involvement, man, in the good fight. When I look at what’s happened now, I’m ashamed of my ignorance—and what I helped to do to the Vietnamese…”

As one West German has confessed (Uwe Siemon-Netto in the International Herald Tribune, reprinted in ENCOUNTER, October 1979):

“Having covered the Viet Name war over a period of fiver years for West German publications, I am now haunted by the role we journalists have played over there.

Those of us who had wanted to find out knew of the evil nature of the Hanoi regime. We knew that, in 1956, close to 50,000 peasants were executed in North Viet Nam. We knew that after the division of the country nearly one million North Vietnamese fled to the South. Many of us have seen the tortured and carved-up bodies of men, women and children executed by the Viet Cong in the early phases of the war. And many of us saw, in 1968, the mass graves of Hue, saw the corpses of thousands of civilians still festively dressed for Tet, the Vietnamese New Year.

Why, for heaven’s sake, did we not report about these expressions of deliberate North Vietnamese strategy at least as extensively as the My Lai massacre and other such isolated incidents that were definitely not party of the US policy in Viet Nam?

What prompted us to make our readers believe that the Communists, once in power in all of Viet Nam, would behave benignly? What made us, first and foremost, Anthony Lewis, belittle warnings by US officials that a communist victory would result in a massacre?

Why did we ignore the fact that the man responsible for the executions of 50,000 peasants, Truong Chinh, was—and still is—one of the most powerful figures in Hanoi? What made us thing that he and his comrades would have mercy for the vanquished South Vietnamese? What compelled, for example, shortly after the fall of Saigon to pat himself on the shoulder and write, “so much for the talk of a massacre.”

True, no Cambodian style massacre took place in Viet Nam. It’s just that Hanoi coolly drives its ethnic Chinese and opponents into the sea.

Are we journalists not in part responsible for the death of the tens of thousands who drowned? And are we not in part responsible for the hostile reception accorded to those who survive? Did we not turn public opinion against them, portraying them, as one singularly ignoble cartoon did in the United States, as a bunch of pimps, whores, war profiteers, corrupt generals or, at best, outright reactionaries?

Considering that today’s Viet Nam tragedy may have a lot to do with the way we reported yesterday’s Viet Nam tragedy; considering that we journalists might have our fair share of guilt for the inhumane way the world treats those who are being expelled by an inhuman regime which some of us had pictured as heroic, I think at least a little humility would be in order for us old Viet Nam hands….”

JOURANLISTIC INSTITUTIONS are, of course, rarely afflicted by false modesty. They have not disclaimed credit for the outcome of the war, and their representatives have taken public bows for their successful intervention. The multitude of professional prized bestowed upon the “big story” coverage of Viet Nam certainly implied approval of the general effort.

However the media have been rather coy; they have not declared that they played a key role in the conflict. They have not proudly trumpeted Hanoi’s repeated expressions of gratitude to the mass media of the non Communist world, although Hanoi has indeed affirmed that it could not have won “without the Western press.” The Western press appears either unaware of the direct connection between cause (its reporting) and effect (the Western defeat in Viet Name), or strangely reluctant to proclaim that the pen and the camera proved decisively mightier than the bayonet and ultra-modern weapons.

NOR HAVE THE MEDIA dwelt upon the glaring inconsistency between the expectation they raised of peaceful, prosperous development after Saigon’s collapse and the present post War circumstances in Indo-China. Unquestionably, a number of those approvingly characterized by the New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis as “critics of the American war” have protested against brutal repression in Cambodia. Some (including Lewis, and French journalist Jean Lacouture) even confessed that their expectations of the consequences of a Communist victory in Cambodia were mistaken. But none, to my knowledge, has suggested that he might have erred fundamentally in his vehement and total opposition to the US role in Indo-China. Instead, most partial confessions have concluded with renewed denunciations of American actions.

Jean Lecouture did offer a public mea culpa for having championed the Khmer Rouge. Reviewing a book on “Democratic Kampuchea”, he confessed:

“Francois Ponchoud’s Cambodia, Year Zero can be read only with shame by those of us who supported the Khmer Rouge cause…And it will cause distress to those of us journalists who after the massacre of seventeen of our colleagues in April and May 1971, tried to explain these deaths as part of the hazards of covering a war. In fact, our poor comrades were assassinated—some, we know clubbed to death—by the valiant guerrillas of Khieu Samphan, the ‘socialist’ Khmer who now bars foreign observers from Cambodian soil. His people remain in terror-stricken confinement, one of this regime’s more rational decisions for how could it let the outside world see its burying of a civilization in pre-history, its massacres?…”

An illuminating example is Anthony Lewis, whose horror over abuses of American power apparently led him to the conclusion that similar abuses by America’s opponents were not worth noting. Having earlier found almost as much to praise in Hanoi as to condemn in Saigon, Lewis was belatedly moved to outrage by Lacouture’s observations—Jean Lacouture’s chief qualification was apparently his having been so spectacularly wrong about the consequences of a Khmer Rouge victory:

“…Those who had been critics of the war [Lewis wrote] may have felt skeptical about some of the Cambodian reports because they came from the right wing quarters that had been indifferent to the misery inflicted on Cambodia by American bombers. But these explanations wither in the presence of Jean Lacouture. He is a leading French expert on Indo-China. And he was a profound critic of the American war.”

The reporters—and even the contrite Jean Lacouture have continued to disregard their testimony regarding North Vietnamese coercion offered by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s former chief of state. Sihanouk complained in 1973 that he had been forced to tolerate North Viet Nam using Cambodia as a supply route, training camp, and proving ground for its forces in South Viet Nam, although he knew the massive incursion was destroying his country. Preoccupied with their condemnations of the US intervention in Indo-China, the “critics of the American war” have virtually ignored Sihanouk’s indictment of the North Vietnamese—just as they have ignored the fact that Shianouk had, albeit under duress, tolerated American bombing of North Vietnamese strongholds in Cambodia, the “unilateral action” for which those critics still pillory Henry Kissinger.

The same critics were not outraged at the final conquest of South Viet Nam in 1975 by columns of Russian-built thanks supported by batteries of Russian-made artillery. (That was Hanoi’s second try; the first, in 1972, failed because the Saigon regime was still supported by US air power and was still receiving adequate US war materiel.) These righteous critics have taken little note of the detailed description of that final conquest published by North Viet Nam’s Senior General Van Tien Dung in the spring of 1976. General Dung’s account (128 single-spaced pages in English translation) proudly affirmed that the assault was ordered by the Political Bureau of the Labour (Communist) Party of North Viet Nam, planned the Labour Party’s Central Military Affairs Committee, commanded by Northern generals, supplied from the North, and mounted by regular divisions of the People’s Army of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam.

Even before General Dung’s report, it should have been clear that the remnants of the Viet Cong—the Southern “guerrilla force” made up primarily of Northerners—were inherently capable neither of maneuvering 700 tanks in conventional formations nor, for that matter, of building and operating the double pipeline that fuelled those tanks with petroleum from the North. Just as they subsequently passed over General Dung’s explicit revelations, the “critics of the American war” ignored such empirical evidence that Saigon fell not to an indigenous people in arms, but to an external invasion mounted by vanguard cadres who consider themselves ideologically superior to their Southern compatriots.

TO TAKE NOTE OF these obtrusive facts would have called into question the very nature of the war in Indo-China—as it would have taken note of them during the conflict. Any searching analysis of fundamental premises has remained as unthinkable to “the critics” as it was during the fighting. They have remained committed to the proposition that the American role in Indo-China was totally reprehensible and inexcusable, while the North Vietnamese role—and, by extension, the roles of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the Pathet Lao in Laos—was righteous, magnanimous, and just. Even the growing number who finally deplored the repressive consequences of the totalitarian victory could not bring themselves to re-examine the premises that led them to contribute to decisively to those victories. Thus William Shawcross, before his sententious book, , wrote of the Communists’ reshaping of Cambodian society: “The process is atrociously brutal.” Although “the Khmer people are suffering horribly under their new rulers”, this is how Shawcross unhesitatingly assigned the ultimate blame:

“They have suffered every day of the last six years—ever since the beginning of one of the most destructive foreign policies the United States has ever pursued: the ‘Nixon-Kissinger doctrine’ in its purest form…”

Today's Sermon

The Live8 concert was centered around views that are contrary to my values and understanding of the world. I am completely comfortable with being able to agree to disagree, after all, Pink Floyd was getting back together. However, it seems that when you combine a faulty ideology, which with it's best intentions is merely wishful thinking, with Hollywood and/or the music industry, you get the ultimate in vapid hypocrisy.

PHILADELPHIA – The performers at the Live 8 show in Philadelphia are getting thousands of dollars in gifts. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that celebrities at the event will be given designer suits, satellite radio subscriptions, Gibson guitars, $125 ties, $330 sweat suits and watches worth between $1,500 and $6,000. Total worth: $12,000.

The products were donated by manufacturers. Giving celebrities gift bags is common for award shows like the Grammys or the Oscars. Loyola Marymount University business and ethics professor Thomas White says it’s not unethical, but it is a gray zone.

The celebrities will also eat gourmet food catered by one of Philadelphia’s top restaurant owners, who is donating his services. The menu includes char-grilled dry aged beef, tea-smoked spare ribs and chicken and ginger dumplings.

I have no problem with these gifts whatsoever. These people have earned every endorsement and gift that their sponsors have given them, but there is a very famous parable about noticing the speck in your neighbor's eye, while ignoring the plank in your's. The incessant preaching about what I am not doing to help poverty is what grates on me like a 48-hour continuous ride through "It's a Small World."

While Elton John is on stage preaching down to us moronic minions about being too greedy, it makes me giggle to think that back stage Chris Martin from Cold Play could be reenacting this scene from Spinal Tap:

Nigel: Ian, can I have a word with you for a minute?
Ian: Yes, of course.
Nigel: ...uh, a couple of problems with the...
Ian: What?
Nigel: ...arrangments backstage...
Ian: What exactly?
Nigel: Well, uh..
Ian: What, I mean...
Nigel: Well, no, there's some problems here, I don't even know where to start, alright? This, uh..
Ian: Soundcheck? Whats, whats, whats wrong?
Nigel: No, no, no, no this....look, look, look, there's a little problem with the... look this, this miniature bread. It's like...I've been working with this now for about half an hour. I can't figure out... let's say I want a bite, right, you've got this...
Ian: You'd like bigger bread?
Nigel: Exactly! I don't understand how...
Ian: You could fold this though.
Nigel: Well, no then it's half the size.
Ian: Not the bread, you could fold the meat.
Nigel: Yeah, but then it, then it breaks up, breaks apart like this.
Ian: No, no, no, you put it on the bread like this, you see
Nigel: But then, if you keep folding it, it keeps breaking...
Ian: Why do you keep folding it?
Nigel: And then you...everyhing has to be folded, and then it's this, and I don't want this I want large bread so that I can put this...
Ian: Right
Nigel: ...so then it's like this, this does not work because then...it's all....
Ian: 'cause it hangs out like that?
Nigel: Look...
Ian: Yeah.
Nigel: Would you been holding this?
Ian: No, I don't want to eat...I wouldn't want to put that in my mouth, no you're right, Nigel, you're right...
Nigel: No, alright 'A', exhibit 'A', now we move on to this, look, look who's in here? No one! And then in here there's a little guy, look! So it's, it's a complete catastrophe.
Ian: You're right, Nigel, Nigel calm down, calm down.
Nigel: Calm d...good, no it's not a big deal, it's a joke, it's really, it's...
Ian: I'm sorry, it's just some crappy univeristy, you know
Nigel: I know, Yeah, right, it's a joke, it's all a j-
Ian: Really, I don't want it to affect your performance.
Nigel: It's not gonna affect my performance, don't worry about it, alright, just hate it, it's really...
Ian: It won't happen again.
Nigel: It does disturb me.
Ian: It's disgusting.
Nigel: But I'll rise above it, I'm a professional, right?
Ian: Alright.

At least Pink Floyd was great. Um, well, at least they would have been had the MTV vjays kept their pie-holes shut while they were playing! If I lived in NY, I would be standing in Time Square with a couple dozen cartons of rotten eggs, pelting their building with them.

Then again, its probably one of those ideas that sounds funnier than it really is.

Don't Go Near the Water!

Don't think mainstream media outlets are capable of bending things to support their narrative? Here is the latest example of a MSM outlet trying to scare the crap out of people going to the beach. Reporting on a swimmer that was bitten on the ankle by what they thought was a bull shark, Tampa Bay's 10 news posts a picture of another "shark" to supplement the story. Instead of a bull shark (around 7 - 10 feet) they have a picture of a 16 ft Great White.

I can only speculate as to their motive, but I would think they were trying to instill some added fear into a story that is really not that interesting. More objective reporting at 11...

Subversive Elements

Sometimes you try and write about things, you realize that you are over your head, and you are better off keeping your mouth such. Politics have been dominating the news recently, it really isn't my thing and I get all cranky when I write about it. But it can be fun if the whole point of your rant is to heep scorn upon those that deserve it.

Speaking of those that deserve it, Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News actually said this...outloud:

The White House and most official branches of government are ducking any substantive comment on this story, and photo analysis is going on at this and other news organizations. It is a story that will be at or near the top of our broadcast and certainly made for a robust debate in our afternoon editorial meeting, when several of us raised the point (I'll leave it to others to decide germaneness) that several U.S. presidents were at minimum revolutionaries, and probably were considered terrorists of their time by the Crown in England.

Oh Brian, thanks for leaving it to us to decide it's germaneness. Since you asked, that analogy fits like a pair of biking shorts on Michael Moore after "All-You-Can-Eat" Hotdog Night at Bill's Pork bi-Products Shack.

It is getting really hard to elevate the debate around the issues of how to confront Islamic radicals when our leading figureheads are spewing such balderdash. Its not impossible, but hard. The media doesn't bother me that much--my nose works and I can clearly identify that smell coming from their collective mouths--but this is the fodder that gets pushed around.

Anyway, we are trying to determine germaneness, less you think I don't have anything substantive to back up my snark. So, when Brian says "terrorist," I assume it can be synonymous with "subversive."

The American founding fathers were a subversive element in opposition of the crown in Britain. As a collective unit, these men wrote and distributed literature about a shocking concept centered around the idea of, "the liberty of man." They wanted to be free from the tyranny of a centralized power, thousand of miles over the ocean. In terms of the tyranny continuum, King George III was Don Knotts compared to say, Mugabe. However, there was an ideal these men stood for--liberty and the inalienable rights of man. So the continuum didn't matter; King George III might as well have been Hitler.

The colonies were filled with localized militias, and these would be the men that were available to "fight" the British Army. George Washington was given the thankless task or "organizing" these roughnecks, and the difference between his successful "insurgency" and it's failure was the huge set of brass cajones between his legs.

What wasn't done, however, was the following: the American subversives didn't send carriages strapped with TNT to London in order to kill their businessmen as they went to work in the morning. They didn't go to France to burn their embassy to the ground. They chose to fight the British Army on the battlefied, many times using guerrilla tactics to defeat them. However, in the course of events, a few loyalists were tarred and feathered (but surprisingly these tactics didn't resontate as torture with the colonial-era American public). The fight against the British was executed so that American citizens could be free to establish a government that respected individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The other "terrorists" or "subversives" are a collective unit that use guerrilla methods to instill their fundamentalist vision for mankind: the submission of men to the will of Allah. Since Allah is a bit distant and hands off in his approach, these men have taken the intiative to make this happen. Because "the rights of man" are in direct opposition to submitting to Allah, in reality it takes a strongman to bring this ideal to fruition. The natural result is men like bin-Laden, Zarqawi, Khomenei and Saddam Hussein with each on a continuum, but all, regardless of zeal, are there to take the "rights of man" away.

The tactics used by the Iranian "revolutionaries" involve the threat or the use of violence through paramilitary organizations such as Hezbollah, or the "student movement," often times against civilians. Here is the resume of Hezbollah from Wikipedia:

Hezbollah was also implicated in the suicide truck bombings that killed 241 U.S. Marines in their barracks in Beirut in 1983; the 1984 truck bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 24; the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome; the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, which killed 29; and the 1994 bombing in Argentina of a Jewish community center, which killed 95. Hezbollah denies involvement in some or all of these attacks.

Each group had their defining, flagship moments. For the Americans it was tbe Boston Massacre. In the instance of the Boston Massacre, eight nervous troops opened fire on a hostile, but unarmed crowd. This event provided the Americans with a powerful rallying point to unite the colonies against British rule. During this time, a young, ambitious lawyer by the name of John Adams, defended the British soldiers in court, gaining the acquital six of the eight. Adams, who defended his enemies in court under the rule of law, would go on to become the first Vice-President of the United States of America.

The Iranians flagship moment, not including the summary execution of citizens that commit the offense of speaking their mind, would be the fundamentalist, "student" takeover of the US Embassy in 1979. There they showed the world they could bend the will of the United States to the will of Allah, by holding their representatives hostage for 366 days 444 days. The fundamentalist Iranians at the time also wanted civilians to realize that they were not safe unless they were willing to submit to the will of Allah (see Hezbollah above). In the case of the hostages or other civilians killed by suicide bombers, there was no trial and no jury; just the threat of, or actual death.

So Brian, maybe the founding fathers and the Islamic fundamentalists were seen as subversives or terrorists by their opponents. I guess it is all a matter of perspective, but that is the whole point.

Which perspective do you choose?

UPDATE: Will Collier offers his germane thoughts.