All posts by Mike

Politics, War on Terror

Rendezvous with Density

No, that’s not a mis-spelling.

One of the tragic aspects of the Iraqi debacle is that it didn’t have to be this way. Iraq descended into chaos because of incompetent leadership (Rumsfeld and Bremmer, in particular) compounded by the utter refusal of the Administration to admit to any problems.

One of the people who comes off quite well in Cobra II is General David Petraeus, then commander of the 101st Airborne (from whose motto comes the title of this post). Petraeus, more than anyone, recognized the difficulties of governing post-war Iraq. Assigned to pacify the Sunni city of Mosul, he took off his body armor and met personally with tribal leaders to keep the city calm. It became a model for the region.

Had we had more men like David Petraeus and fewer like Don Rumsfeld, things might have gone differently.

So it comes as no surprise to me that he has spoken out against torture. From a general in the field, this is about as iconoclastic as it gets. And if you read between the lines, he’s not just addressing his men — but all the people who think torture is justified and/or effective.

He is absolutely right, not only in his moral stance but in his understanding of what needs to be done to win Iraq. I just don’t know that he’s going to get through to the rock-heads in the White House or the Right Wing Echosphere.

It just so happens that I recently watched Band of Brothers again. What is it about the 101st (and the 82nd!) that produces such fine men? They can bring both terror to the enemy and hope to the oppressed.

'Culture'

Debris

I’m not surprised:

While by no means unique to California, pickup trucks and other vehicles piled high with improperly secured loads are a fact of life here, contributing — thanks to the laws of physics — to an estimated 140,000 cubic yards of road debris a year. That is enough to fill 8,750 garbage trucks, which would extend for 45 miles, said Tamie McGowen, a spokeswoman for Caltrans, the state transportation department. And it is increasingly hazardous, experts say.

In California, 155 people lost their lives in the last two years after accidents involving objects on highways, and states are beginning to address the issue.

A huge part of this is things falling off of trucks. And it’s not just big things. Sue has a nice crack in her windshield from an SUV kicking up gravel on the highway. And I’ve often been pelted with pebbles from trucks. Just the other day, we were driving in SA and a piece of metal flew up behind a truck and smashed Sue’s front light. It was only afterward that I realized an additional foot of elevation might have deposited it through the window and into my chest.

This is yet another example of how inconsiderate the drivers of big vehicle have gotten. Sue and I have been repeatedly cut off, forced into emergency lanes, pelted with unsecured sand or pebbles or forced to open our car door with a can opener because of some asshole in an SUV or pickup. It’s not enough that they are burning up all our fossil fuels and polluting the atmosphere. Now they’re trying to kill us by not securing their damned loads.

Politics, War on Terror

Let’s Not Get Too Cocky

I’ve heard a lot of arguments like this lately.

Now, I know, I know: we face a dedicated, determined threat that’s so deadly, (so “existential,” man) that dangerous distractions like the Constitution and critical thinking must be suspended for the duration while we duct tape ourselves to our recliners and dutifully watch Fox News. But I can’t help thinking the Fort Dix plot is part of a pattern: that a good many of the players on Team Jihad just don’t seem all that bright.

Well, blowing yourself up is, by definition, not a terribly bright thing to do. But I have to disagree with esteemed Healey for several reasons:

  • First, I agree that the danger is being exploited by power-greedy politicians and we have gone too far in eroding our civil liberties. Terrorism, like Drugs, has come to resemble the hobgoblin Mencken warned us about. The Patriot Act was a collection of powers the government had always wanted — and suddenly had the excuse for.
  • But that doesn’t mean the danger isn’t real or that the stupidity of the recently-busted cells indicates anything. By definition, if there is a distribution of intelligence in terror cells, we will always break up the dumb ones first. Osama bin Laden is not an idiot and neither are the rest of the AQ leaders. And remember, the terrorists have to only be smart once. We have to be smart every time. There was an argument on Sullivan last week about 9/11 being a rare “perfect storm” of circumstances. Well, even if we buy that, how often can we afford a perfect storm? The next one might leave tens of thousands on the deck.
  • The reason to oppose violations of the Constitution, torture and the erosion of our liberty is not because terrorism isn’t a threat. It’s because they are ineffective ways of battling terrorism. And even if they were effective, the price is too high.

    • To be honest, I’m shocked we haven’t had more terrorist incididents in this country — in particular the more mundane and easily planned and executed shooting sprees and bombs they have used so often in Israel. We are, and hopefully always will be, an open and trusting people. You would think terrorists would be like wolves among sheep, especially if the Right is right on the “wussification” thing.

    Of course, it’s easier to bomb a country that’s only a few minutes’ walk away than one that’s across an ocean. But I keep wondering if the terrorist are coming over here to blow things up or shoot people and then losing the inclination. I wonder if after a few months or years or American TV and American food and American cars and American girls in American miniskirts, they’re deciding they’d rather just be Americans, in action if not in law.

    Civil Liberties, Law and Order, Politics

    More Good News

    The United States Constitution is one of the crown jewels of our civilization. Two hundred years have passed and we’ve barely needed to ammend it. It was radical for its time and is still radical today in its vision of basic human liberty. I think Reagan put it best when he said that most countries’ constitutions give the people rights and priveleges from their benign government. Ours, on the other hand, says that we the people will allow the government to do the following things.

    I supported the GOP for a long time because of their devotion to Constitutional law. They were the only ones out there who stood for states’ rights and the second ammendment, property rights and the takings clause. But the seeds of destruction were there. They had already countenanced the erosion of civil liberties in our insane War on Drugs. And now it has come to full flower in the War on Terror.

    How pathetic is it that the Democrats are now the defenders of liberty. They are trying to restore habeas corpus and that moonbat Pelosi is threatening to sue Bush over signing statements. I would love to see SCOTUS put the rule of law down on the signing statements, although I suspect the present court will unfortunately defer to the executive and enshrine this upending of the balance of powers in precedent.

    Still, how sad has the GOP gotten when the Democrats are more protective of our liberty.

    Lee at Right-Thinking said it best: Bush had made true everything Democrats have ever said about Republicans.

    Pathetic.

    Politics, War on Terror

    Busted!

    So how long is it going to be until some Right-Wing pundit gives Bush’s excesses credit for busting the Fort Dix plot.

    Keep in mind throught the Memestorm to follow: it was busted by an average American being alerted, not by tapping random phones and taking immigrants’ DNA; the investigators would have, given the evidence presented, had no problems acquiring warrants and phone taps to investigate these goons.

    Also, how stupid do you have to be to a) plan to attack an army base in a country filled with unprotected targets; b) give someone a video of your preparations to convert to DVD?

    Politics, Science and Edumacation

    Shaddap!

    Yeah, teachers at public schools want parents to be involved.

    Yet some parents in Montgomery County and elsewhere have discovered limits on the get-involved policy when they ask questions about individual teachers, whether those queries are about alleged abuse of students or a decision to fire a popular instructor.

    School officials said they are required to hold back information because of privacy laws, union contracts and potential lawsuits. Some acknowledged that a more open policy would help families handle the repercussions of incidents involving teachers. But the officials said there is little they can do.

    The key phrase in that paragraph is “union contracts”. Five to one this fired teacher had failed to genuflect to the Union in some way. Was probably making the other teachers look bad. I’m reminded of Jaime Escalente, a situation in which the teachers’ union decided that keeping latino kids pig-ignorant was worth getting rid of a trouble-maker.

    Of course, the parents’ and students’ opinions don’t matter. They never will so long as the system is a government monopoly. It’s about the special interests — bureaucrats and unions. That’s all that matters.

    The more time goes on, the more I find myself agreeing with Neal Boortz’s extremism. Big Education — that ugly intersection of teachers’ unions and politicians — may be a greater threat to our future than Al-Quaeda.

    Yeah, I said it. I have far more fear of my kids growing up ignorant and out of work than their being killed by a terrorist.

    The worst thing is that we’ve got millions of dedicated teachers out there trapped in this broken Soviet-style system. Is anyone going to speak for them? Does anyone care? Teachers love their unions. And they fail to realize that these unions are destroying their chance to make a difference.

    Law and Order, Politics, Taxes and Spending

    IRS Worship

    Cato takes apart an NYT piece on the IRS.

    I have never understood the Left’s worship of the IRS. I remember in ’95 when the GOP was having hearings on IRS abuses, the derision among Lefties, the cartoon that said, “What’s next? Hearing on bad service in restaurants? Ho ho ho!” Maybe it’s because they hate they rich. Maybe it’s because they worship government power.

    But we have here an agency that is incredibly abusive of its power; that has the (unconstitutional, no matter what SCOTUS says) power to seize your property without charging you with a crime; an agency that used to post “Catch Seizure Fever!” posters on its walls and evaluated its agents by how much property they’d seized; an agency that didn’t want to discipline agents who went poking around the finances of their neighbors and celebrities. I have personally experiencde the abuse of this agency and, if my blog were read by more than two people, I’d hesitate to post on this for fear of reprisal. James Bovard once estimated that this agency, at is worst under the Dems, took more money away from Americans falsley and by intimidation than all forms of property theft combined.

    And, to kick the Lefties again, the IRS is known to target the middle class quite heavily, since they have enough money to be worth seizing but not enough to fight them in court.

    Yeah, I get emotional about it. People who’ve seen the nasty side of the IRS tend to. My accountant, a sweet southern lady; my grandfather, a kindly man so respected hundreds turned up at his short-notice funeral; my former Congressman John Linder, as mild-mannered a man as you’ll meet — all these people could or can be brought to rage by the mere mention of the IRS.

    Yet all the NYT can do is repeat fictional claims about the amount of money we’re losing to offshore tax “havens”. And the Dems are going to have a hearing where the IRS will get to bitch and moan without restraint. Nowhere in the puff piece, and I expect nowhere in the hearing, is there mention of why people are moving money offshore: because of our insanely high corporate tax rate, rising marginal tax rates and an insanely complex tax system that the IRS itself does not understand but can get you jailed if you break it.

    End rant.

    News, Politics

    Light Blogging

    Must have exhausted by gallbladder with last week’s diatribes. I’ve got a lot on my mind, so I’ll just link to this great post over at Right-Thinking about the dirty tricks the Dems might use on Fred Thompson.

    Of course, the GOP taught them everything they now with last year’s despicable Jim Webb shenanigans.

    On another note, the morning show on KLBJ predicted the French lefties would riot over Sarkozy’s election. Looks like they were right. Didn’t take long, did it?