Anti-War is not Pro-Defeat

In a related follow-up to my previous post regarding the American public attitude comes this article from the WSJ's Opinion Journal:

In mid-January an Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that public support for President Bush's troop surge increased to 35%, up from 26% a few weeks earlier. The same poll found that a slim majority of Americans were against the war in Iraq, but 68% said they opposed shutting off funds to fight it, and 60% said they would oppose Congress's withholding funds necessary to send additional troops.

The American public is aware that sacrifices are occasionally necessary to achieve costly goals. I do not believe the American public is shying from the War in Iraq because of the human toll it is exacting. I believe the American public is shying from the War in Iraq because of the lack of apparent progress. In 2004 G W Bush was re-elected because there was visible sign of progress as demonstrated by the then recent elections. What the American public wants is Victory.
To confuse the current American public anti-Iraq sentiment as a go ahead for withdrawal is a mistake and for politicians not to appreciate the American desire for victory can be politically costly:

Arguably, waffling on the war is what is costly for Republicans. In June Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican, cautioned other Republicans not to go wobbly. A month later he went wobbly himself. After returning from Iraq, he declared that the U.S. lacked "strategic control" of the country and called for a limited troop withdrawal to "send a message" to Iraq's government. In November the six-term congressman watched independent voters abandon him as he lost by more than 5% to Democrat Tim Waltz. Meanwhile, in a neighboring congressional district, Rep. John Kline, another Republican facing a stiff challenge for his seat, didn't waver. He ended winning enough support from independents to defeat FBI "whistleblower" Colleen Rowley by 16%.

Over in the Senate, Joe Lieberman recently warned that a showdown on the war between the executive and legislative branches risked creating a "constitutional crisis." But perhaps his most powerful political statement is still being in the Senate after losing a Democratic primary last year to antiwar activist Ned Lamont. The antiwar left is powerful enough to prevail in a Democratic primary, but even in deeply blue Connecticut, it wasn't capable of winning a statewide general election.

Counter Counter Insurgency

A fascinating article from the Belmont Club suggesting that the current Iraqi Surge is more than just troops on the ground.

If so then the US has truly achieved a subtlety and lethality beyond anything available in the days when firing hundreds of cruise missiles at a target was the only available response; back when it had a walnut-sized brain full of options. But then the recent destruction of a Qods bus in Iran by representatives of al-Qaeda may be another example of the changed "rules of engagement" made possible by new capabilities. Although this is speculative, various commentators like Bill Roggio have expressed the opinion that just maybe the US was behind the carbomb attack on the Iranian special forces. All of this raises the tantalizing possibility that a qualitative change in US warfighting has arrived in theater -- much like the arrival of Hellcats, VT fuzes, computing sights and radar -- silently transformed the Pacific in 1944. To a casual observer the ships looked the same as they did in 1942 but they were radically different. Who knows?

Essentially it is about fighting fire with fire, against both the insurgency in Iraq and their supporter Iran. Unfortunately, the US can never publicly claim responsibility for any of these successes, which still leaves an image problem at home. And at home the image of Iraq remains one of quagmire as presented by the Democrats and the MSM. All this despite the shifting desire of the American public for Victory rather than "redeployment." From the Investor Business Daily:

Democracy: Right and Left

I recently had a conversation that helped to clarify the conflict between the Right/conservatives and the Left/liberals. I believe that in a free democracy such as that of the US, the Left will always maintain an edge. This is because they are strong advocates of the individual in terms of freedoms and benefits. What individual would not find more personal freedom, more personal benefits more appealing, especially if someone else pays for it? The gist of the Left's appeal is undeniable and difficult to counter; I do not know if the Right has the right stuff. The Right/conservatives have consistently place their emphasis external to the individual in either principles of morality or the needs of the community (both of which are entwined of course.) How much appeal can these ideals carry unless an individual comes to appreciate sacrifice and selflessness (traits typically only manifesting with parenthood, at best). That as individual we must also act with some consideration of our community.

Where the Left proposes freedom, the Right proposes responsibility. In a free democracy both qualities are essential. Perhaps we are in a natural ebb of responsibility but it sure seems our popular culture appear to be gushing with personal freedom and a bit short on responsibility.

Ex-President Carter Shameful Activities

A must read from Commentary Magazine. Here is sample:

When the scramble for the Democratic nomination began, Carter was widely seen as a long shot. But by the time the primary season was half over, he had left the other, better-known Democratic contenders in the dust. That he was able to compete with them at all—that is, to raise money and enlist volunteers—owed to the national exposure he had received for his inaugural address as governor of Georgia in 1971. At that time, with much of the South still clinging to Jim Crow and resisting the nation’s new civil-rights laws, Carter had boldly declared that “the time for segregation is over.”

Yet the path that led him to that dramatic moment was a tortuous one, known to few outside of Georgia, and it shed light on the man who five years later would be promising voters across the country: “I will never lie to you.”

Carter ran for governor of Georgia against Carl Sanders, who had served in the post previously, earning a reputation as one of the early “Southern moderates.” (Georgia law prohibited serving two terms consecutively.) In the campaign, Carter presented himself as, in his words, “a local Georgia conservative Democrat . . . basically a redneck.” This formulation was calculated to convey a message about his stand on racial issues: a message of resistance to racial integration, if not of out-and-out racism. He reinforced the same message by making a campaign stop at a whites-only private school, and by promising to invite Alabama Governor George Wallace, the champion of segregation, to address the state legislature.

Topping it off was Carter’s reaction when, as a result of the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Lester Maddox emerged as his running mate. Maddox, a restaurateur and Sanders’s successor as governor, had gained notoriety by distributing to the customers of his whites-only establishment ax handles with which to batter any blacks who might seek to be served there. Carter took the pairing in stride, characterizing Maddox as “the essence of the Democratic party.”

But no sooner had he won office than he executed his remarkable shift on race, a move that landed him on the cover of Time as the apotheosis of the “new South” and made him a nationally recognized figure. The cause of this about-face is still a matter of conjecture. Since he was barred from running for re-election, it is possible that he was already weighing a presidential run and thinking in terms of a national audience. Or he may have long harbored liberal views that he had deliberately concealed. In any event, one of his associates later explained that it was Carter’s way to “run conservative and govern liberal.” He was soon to put that formula to use again.

California Health

Newly re-elected California Governor Schwartzenegger is proposing universal health care for all Californians,laudable aim. However, he proposes to fund this by levying a 2% tax of doctors and 4% tax on hospitals. This is ludicrous, akin to demanding shop keepers and owners to give away items to their customers.

Once indigent care was the norm for all practicing physicians. But when third party payers became prevalent in the healthcare economic scene, this flow of free care started drying up. With this new tax it will only hurt those who are already currently provide for indigent care. Physicians who do so already make less income than those who do not. This is an ilconceived and idiotic plan, and will cause more harm than good.

See also Terminatorcare

Insomnia in the New Year

Too much tea i guess.

I'll just take the opportunity to take my blog into 2007 and wish everyone a happy new year!

Regulating CO2 gas

As the nearby chart shows, CO2 emissions growth in the U.S. far outpaced that of the 15 "old" members of the European Union from 1990-95 and especially from 1995-2000, when Mr. Climate Change himself, Al Gore, was the second-most powerful man in America. But, lo, the U.S. has outperformed the EU-15 since 2000, according to the latest U.N. data. America's rate of growth in CO2 emissions from 2000-04 was eight percentage points lower than from 1995-2000.


By comparison, the EU-15 saw an increase of 2.3 points. Only two EU states, Britain and Sweden, are on track to meet their Kyoto emissions commitments by 2010. Six more might meet their targets if they approve and implement new, as yet unspecified, policies to restrict carbon output, while seven of the 15 will miss their goals.

Cynics play down America's improvement, noting that its economy cooled from the earlier years to 2000-04. True, but the EU-15 also had lower economic growth in the latest period and still saw its emissions growth rate double. What's more, the U.S. economy expanded 38% faster than the EU-15 in 2000-04, and its population twice as fast. So the trend lines, for now, are reversing. That may frustrate the green lobby because so much of its fund raising depends on vilifying the U.S. But facts are facts, no matter how underreported they are.

Europe's dismal record is explained by its approach to reducing emissions. The centerpiece of the Continent's plan is a carbon-trading scheme in which companies in CO2-heavy industries receive tradable permits for a certain amount of emissions. If they emit more CO2, they must buy credits from firms that are under quota. The idea is to force companies to emit less CO2 by making it prohibitively expensive to keep the status quo.

All this scheme has done so far is provide further proof that government cannot replicate the wisdom of markets. A red-faced European Commission recently admitted that it allowed more permits than there were emissions in 2005-07, keeping permit prices low and undermining the entire system. When Brussels tried to make amends by ordering several member states to cut carbon permits by 7% more than expected for 2008-2012, industry and national capitals squealed. The market hadn't priced in such a dramatic reduction. With carbon permits trading relatively cheaply, firms have been able to get by with minimal changes to the way they do business. That has minimized Kyoto's economic impact.

From the WSJ. There is the hype that by not being a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol the US is un-enlightened compared to our EU counterpart. I guess this is just another example of being practical is superior to "being enlightened" or reality over ideal.

Court Gone Wild

From today's WSJ

In Robert Louis Stevenson's day, body snatchers dug up corpses in the dead of night. Modern body snatchers take tissue from the living, and they do it in daylight. This week in St. Louis, the Eighth Circuit heard an appeal in the case of William Catalona, a famous prostate-cancer surgeon and the man who developed the PSA test to screen for prostate cancer. Over the years Dr. Catalona collected thousands of tissue samples from his patients to help him research this dreaded disease. The tissues were all from individuals who had family histories of prostate cancer, indicating a genetic cause. When Dr. Catalona left Washington University for Northwestern, he wanted to take these tissues with him. Six thousand patients notified the university that they wished their tissues to go with him.

Ignoring the requests of patients, Washington University claimed the tissue collection as its own, and sued Dr. Catalona. In March of this year the district court ruled the collection belonged to the university. Judge Stephen Limbaugh found that the patients had given their tissues to WU as a gift, and therefore the university owned the tissues outright.

The decision surprised many. As a recipient of federal funds, Washington University was required to follow the federal regulations on informed consent for tissues received from patients. This included acknowledging in writing that the tissues would be used only for prostate research, that patients had the right to withdraw from the study at any time, and to have their tissue samples destroyed upon request.

However, Judge Limbaugh ruled that patients had no such rights. In his view, the right to withdraw merely meant the right not to contribute more tissues. The right to have the tissues destroyed meant only that the samples would be used anonymously. The guarantee that tissues would only be used for prostate research could be ignored, and WU was free to use the tissues for any purpose whatever.

This contradicted prior tissue cases in which courts have ruled that written documents do indeed afford patients ongoing rights to tissues after they had left their bodies. The fact that Judge Limbaugh's decision also abrogated federal guidelines left many observers uneasy. In addition there was the awkward legal matter that any donation with these restrictions could not be termed a gift. And the ethical issue was plain. Patients had donated their tissues with a written promise of control. Now that written promise was deemed worthless by a judge.

Research universities around the country greeted the ruling with unseemly enthusiasm, and hastily joined forces to prevent a successful legal appeal. Although the National Institutes of Health and other federal centers conduct research under the federal guidelines, universities now claim that these rules are impossibly onerous and impede research. Unless researchers are allowed to do whatever they want, they warn patients, the flow of life-saving miracles will dry up. This kind of high-handed attitude toward patients went out of style in the 1970s, after the first waves of malpractice litigation brought a bruising new reality to medicine.

Similarly harsh legal actions are likely to follow in the aftermath of the Catalona case. Patients have serious and legitimate interests -- practical, legal and religious -- in their tissues and how they are used in research. If the documents signed for WU are not sufficient to stand up in court, universities will soon face more restrictive language, this time drawn up by patients' rights groups. Major donors may be pressured to bypass universities that refuse to follow federal guidelines; alumni groups may be mobilized to protest university policies. Such tactics are known to be waiting in the wings, pending the Catalona appeal.

For universities, perhaps the most damaging outcome may be the loss of confidence that patients feel in major centers of research and healing. There was a time when physicians were ranked just below Supreme Court justices. Those days are long gone. Our university hospitals and major medical centers still command respect. But the perception that they are businesses like any other is growing stronger every day. Except, they're not -- they're non-profits, exempt from most of the rules and disclosures that are required of American businesses. In short, caveat patiens, keep copies of everything you sign, bring a lawyer to every medical appointment, and always, always watch your back.

This decision is very wrong and in the wrong run hurt biomedical research. If the patients do not have a right to withdraw consent and participation, then less will likely participate.

Flight Club

Very amusing and sadly disturbingly true.

the Iraq Civil War

This is a brilliantly insightful post at the Belmont Club regarding the "civil war" in Iraq. A must read in total but i will just quote the key analysis here:

The first and fatal miscalculation by the Sunnis was to think they could drive the US Armed Forces from Iraq, a gamble which they lost. Encouraged by the absence of a crushing campaign in northern Iraq, itself possibly caused by the absence of the 4ID from the OIF order of battle, and alienated by the American decision to "de-Baathize" Iraq, many former military Sunnis chose to continue resistance using guerilla tactics. By March, 2004 they were ready. The insurgent uprising of early 2004 that culminated in the abortive First Battle of Fallujah, which still saw the Shi'ites in as militarily inferiors. Moqtada al-Sadr's men were as yet limited to their bailiwicks and relatively weak. But doomed attempts to stand and fight against US forces eventually imposed crippling human and material losses on the Sunnis. The border with Syria was more closely patrolled. The US embarked on the what the Belmont Club called the River War to break up the logistical trail up and down the Euphrates. Sunni attempts to keep Mosul within the Sunni orbit also failed. But these were more than tactical defeats: they fatally undermined the strategic basis of Sunni power even as their ethnic rivals gained in strength.

The Sunni insurgency compounded its military failures by ruthlessly suppressing any attempts by their ethnic leaders to participate in political process sponsored by the Coalition and by murdering any Sunni who came forward to join the new Army and Police. The result was that Sunnis were underrepresented in both the Constitutional convention and in the elections of 2005. It was a double-whammy. Not only were Sunni military resources depleted, but they self-selected themselves out of the American sponsored Iraqi government. In my personal view, the Sunnis were encouraged along this path to disaster, not only by the mixed signals sent by the US, which alternately seemed to conciliate and confront them, but also by the coverage of the MSM which trumpeted the view that the Insurgency was growing more potent. Not only did the MSM penchant for listening to Sunni insurgent spokesmen undermine the US effort, it did even greater damage to the insurgents, who believed their own lies and reached for a brass ring fundamentally beyond their grasp.

What news stories missed until very recently was that the insurgent determination to fight increasingly sprang from despair rather than confidence in a Sunni restoration. The recent press release announcing the establishment of a rump Sunni "Caliphate" consisting largely of desert and absurd claims to oilfields beyond their grasp should have signalld how low their ambitions had fallen. But one person who understood how badly things stood for the Sunnis was Abu Musab Zarqawi. In the last months of his life, Zarqawi viewed with mounting alarm the American program to rebuild the Iraqi Army, largely from Kurds and Shi'ites -- since the Sunni insurgents did their level best to blow up any lines of Sunnis who applied for Iraqi Army or Police jobs -- and understood that unless he could drive America out of Iraq by other means all was lost. His solution was to unleash chaos upon everything. Whether or not Zarqawi was truly behind the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra it suited his book. Zarqawi's only thought was to unleash Civil War to politically drive America from Iraq. It was the ultimate Scorched Earth tactic and one welcomed by neighboring countries eager to carve up what carcass would remain. What Zarqawi did not face, or could not face, is what would happen afterward.

Westhawk observes that American officers believe that "Iraq’s Sunni Arabs will continue to fight because they believe they face either extermination or banishment if they do not." With the Sunni military struggle essentially hopeless, efforts to redress the balance within the Iraqi political process arrived too late. The door had been barred by Shi'ite extremism fueled by Moqtada al-Sadr and separately, the agents of Iran. In a remarkable display of nonstatesmanship, the Shi'ite parties headed by Iraqi PM Maliki and goaded by al-Sadr proved less interested in building an Iraq than upon obtaining revenge upon their former masters. They failed to rein in their now powerful militias, increasingly able to harry the Sunnis at will. Then, having slammed two doors in their own faces: that of military victory and that of parliamentary viability, the Sunnis proceeded to bang yet another on their battered visage: the chance of protection under the Americans. After a sequence of failures, the gamble unleashed by Zarqawi ironically began to work all too well. The US electorate, disgusted by the internal slaughter, signalled in the mid-term elections of 2006 that it would consider withdrawal. And that, to the Sunnis spelled D-E-A-T-H. Without America to hold them back, the Shi'ite forces -- which the Sunni resistance and defeat ironically brought into ascendance -- would have no compunctions about slaughtering them. In the beginning the Shi'ite militias were only capable of attacking poor, isolated Sunnis. They are increasingly able to penetrate Sunni neighborhoods and to kidnap and kill former high-ranking Baathists.

Civil war or no civil war, whatever label is placed on the violence in Iraq is largely irrelevant. What is true is that the US presence is not making things worse but better. A US pull out will only escalate the violence to the point that neighboring power will be drawn in. Seeing that the regional powers constitute Saudi Arabia (global oil provider), Iran (wannabe nuclear power), and Syria (regional meddler also in Lebanon), a regional conflict in the heart of the Middle East will make the Iraq problem a global problem.

see also Crossroad Arabia on Saudi Arabia plans for Iraq.

Iraq Violence

As everyone knows, sectarian violence has been at an all time high in the past months. The latest in Bagdad today:

The radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose Mehdi Army is held responsible for much of the sectarian killings, threatens his party’s six ministers and 30 lawmakers will boycott the government if prime minister Nouri Maliki meets US president George W. Bush in Amman next week. At least 30 Sunnis were butchered - 6 burned alive - and four mosques torched in the Sunni Hurriyah district Friday by rampaging Shiites seeking vengeance for five massive bombings that left at least 240 dead in Sadr City Thursday, Nov. 23.

As grim as things are, I believe these are unfortunately necessary occurrences if Iraq is to make it. The people on both sides must come to a point when they come to tire of the killing and dying, that violence is an unacceptable mean to settle political differences. Then and only then can the Iraqi government exert it self and be welcomed to it.

We have seen this sort of process before, whether it be Kampuchea or Afghanistan. In IRaq itself the majority of the Sunni tribes having grown weary of Al Qaeda actions in Anbar, have banded together against Al Qaeda.

The Anbar tribes' turn against al-Qaeda has developed significantly since the end of the Anbar Campaign late last year, which swept al-Qaeda and the insurgency from the major towns and cities west of Ramadi. Over the past year, the majority of the tribes have denounced al-Qaeda and formed alliances with the Iraqi government and U.S. forces operating in the region. Numerous 'foreign fighters' have been killed or captured by the tribes. The tribes are working to restore order, and are providing recruits for the police and Army, despite horrific suicide attacks on recruiting centers. These attacks have not deterred the recruiting, but in fact have motivated the tribes to fight al-Qaeda.

More US troops can impose a peace, but it is the sort of imposed peace that only delays violence, as was the imposed peace in the Balkans by Tito.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

the Fall of Civilization

This article is both disurbing and sad in unbearable ways: Jihadis and Whores

Wars are won by destroying the enemy's will to fight. A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women.

HT: Roger L Simon

the Iraq Solution

There is much talk from the newly victorious Democrats about the solution to the ongoing violence in Iraq. One premise is that as long as the US commitment is open ended, there is little urgency for the Iraqi to come to a political solution to resolve the violence. While superficially, the US presence may have prolonged the resolution of the current sectarian violence, our departure will not usher in a peaceful solution. Without the tempering presence of US troops, violence will likely escalate. The solution then will come when the majority Shia suppresses the minority Sunni by force, while the Kurds will likely withdraw under such "solution." The result is more violence and oppression by arms, not the “political” solution the cut and run crowd think or want to happen.

This was the "political" solution the North Vietnamese chose as well.


I wonder what the "(International Realist) Iraqi Study Group" will recommend.



Related:
The Americans Have Served Their Purpose, And It's Time For Them To Go
Rumsfeld and the Realist

Election 2006 v. 2004: The Losers

Hopefully, this will be my last post on the recent election result, but i do want to make a few observations.

1. I am glad that no one is proclaiming the need to migrate to Canada.
2. I am glad that there isn't any claim of stolen election.

I conclude that some are more mature than others when things don't go their way.

Veterans Day

Respectfully honoring the service of all veterans who have fought for freedom and justice.

Rumsfeld and the 06 Post Mortem

I am disappointed that Rumsfeld is the fall guy for the 2006 election losses for the Republicans. Clearly this was something discussed before last night as evidenced by the announcement within hours of electoral defeat and the immediate nomination of his replacement. I surmise that his resignation prior to today would have been seen as a political move to strengthen the Republican electoral chances, thereby weaken the morale of our troops and strengthened the nay saying hordes on the left. His resignation was an appeasement offering to the Republican Party who viewed that Bush's unpopularity as contributing to their electoral defeat. I do not believe he was forced out. I believed it was freely given, as it was before. Rumsfeld did what he could to transform the military, and I believe he served honorably and contributed significant improvement to our arms forces. His departure is our nations lost.

I am also disappointed because his resignation will not help the Republican cause. I am fairly certain the Republican defeat was in no way related to Bush. Bush's approval rating has consistently been higher than that of Republican controlled Congress. While the Iraq war may have been a factor, it was not the deciding factor. The deciding factor was the failure of the Republicans to deliver to the American people.

What have been wrought?
A drug prescription plan that was needed but birthed with unnecessary complicated rules for an elderly population that needed simplicity.
And little else comes to mind.
Where is the social security reform?
Where is the tax reform?
Where is the immigration reform?
Where is any meaningful legislation to make America better?
Note that G.W. Bush led the campaigns for all of these things, as well as the War on Terror.

Unfortunately, and fortunately, I do not foresee and significant programs or changes in the next two years either.

My advice to the Republican Party:
Start preparing now for 2006 by cleaning out all taint of corruptions now. And that may include forcing corrupt members to resign their seats. As there is no longer a Republican majority, their temporary absence would not be lost. Their replacement should be chosen with an eye toward 08. And on the way to 08, make it about an "ownership society" and about "personal responsibility."


Related on Rumsfeld's resignation:
Austin Bay
Former Spook
On the post mortem:
Former Spook
Roger L Simon

Election 2006: Outcome

As a firm supporter of the war on terror, including the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq, I am rather disappointed by yesterday's election result. I fear that just like when Congress cut fundings for South Vietnam 30+ years ago, they will do so again and abandon the all the millions of Iraqis interested in freedom and democracy. I sincerely hope that with the slew of moderate and conservative new Democrats, this will not happen.

I do believe that the move of the Democratic party toward the center is a good thing both for the Democratic party and the nation as a whole. This nation needs both political parties to be vibrant and reasonable.

I am intrigued by the situation in the Senate. There is an opportunity for the two independent senators, the most prominent being Joe Lieberman (who i liked for 2004), to make a difference as powerbroker between the Democrats and Republicans.

Election 2006

I voted.
I voted to keep the nuts from running this asylum.

2006 Election: National Referendum

The media is presenting this year's mid term election as a referendum on Bush and the Iraq war. Yet, if we believe the polls, the popular sentiment is much more one of displeasure of Congress than of the President. Approval to Disapproval polling for the President is 38%: 56% and for Congress is 27%: 65%. While national politics and issue always are considered, I believe that come Tuesday, the vote will remain a local issue driven election.