Month: July 2005

Al-Qaeda Diplomacy

The Arabic world has now gotten a taste of al-Qaeda diplomacy over the past week, as Iraq-AQ ringleader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has changed tactics. Instead of just blowing up Iraqis in an attempt to demoralize the populace — a strategy that clearly has backfired — he has now turned his guns and bombs on diplomats posted to Iraq from neighboring Middle East countries:

Gunmen fired on a convoy carrying Pakistan’s envoy to
Iraq on Tuesday in the third attack on a senior diplomat in three days, police sources said.
The sources said two cars of gunmen fired at the convoy in the wealthy Mansour district of Baghdad but sped off after guards returned fire. Nobody was reported hurt, they said.

Earlier in the day, Islamist terrorists wounded the envoy from Bahrain in another spray of gunfire. This follows the kidnapping of the Egyptian ambassador on Saturday, demonstrating that Zarqawi has not just declared war on democracy in Iraq, but on the entire Arabic world. The lunatics intend on destabilizing Iraq, and if it can’t terrorize the Iraqis themselves — hardened by Saddam’s decades of torture, rape, and murder — then it will try cutting off the new democratic government from the global community.
It’s difficult to devise a dumber strategy than this, and it reeks of desperation. Some of these countries have significant sympathy in their population for AQ’s goals in the region. However, these attacks not only risk alienating their less-lunatic enables in the Middle East, they threaten to turn Arabic governments from positions of benign neglect to active and deadly opposition to AQ and its supporters. No government will blithely allow its envoys to become targets for Islamists, no matter how sympathetic they might be.
Zarqawi must know this — he’s crazy, but so far we’ve seen no evidence that he’s stupid. To go out of his way to antagonize countries like Egypt and Bahrain, he must realize that all other options have run their course and have failed. He risks accomplishing what George Bush has tried for years: uniting Arabs in the Middle East to fight terrorism and to support democracy, specifically in Iraq.

Pelosi Still Has More Trips To Disclose

After making Tom DeLay and his travel arrangements a major political issue this session, Nancy Pelosi has inadvertently created an embarrassment for dozens of Democratic lawmakers who found themselves in the same position as DeLay — having outside funding for travel expenses go unreported and covered by lobbying groups in apparent violation of the House ethics rules. Now Pelosi herself has come under closer scrutiny as she revealed several questionable trips for herself:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) filed delinquent reports Friday for three trips she accepted from outside sponsors that were worth $8,580 and occurred as long as seven years ago, according to copies of the documents. …
The most expensive trip was not reported on Pelosi’s annual financial disclosure statement or on the travel disclosure form that is required within 30 days of a trip. …
The unreported trip was a week-long 1999 visit to Taiwan, paid for by the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, for “meetings with government, military and business officials,” according to a filing Pelosi signed June 30. The flights cost $3,400 each for Pelosi and her husband. The hotel cost was $940. The sponsor, which has picked up trips for leaders of both parties, paid $300 for meals.

Anyone know the difference between the CNAIC and a lobbyist? Perhaps the former might have tax-exempt status, but clearly they have an interest in greasing the skids for Pelosi and others to remain friendly to their economic interests. Not to pile on, but the sponsors also paid for Pelosi’s husband. Why? Does Pelosi employ her husband as a consultant? If that seems harsh, remember that the Democrats have claimed that DeLay’s hiring of family as paid staff violates ethical standards, even though DeLay has openly done so and reported their incomes as legitimate campaign and operational expenses. If Pelosi has the same arrangement for her husband, then she should reveal that. If not, lobbyists shouldn’t be giving him free flights to exotic locations that supposedly related to official government business.
Pelosi has created a catastrophe for the Democrats, now including herself, by kicking over the travel-expenses rock. She may have aimed at DeLay, but her choice of weapons could not have been worse. It amounts to poetic justice that the misfire has specifically hit her as well as her fellow caucus members, who may soon decide that her leadership costs them more than it’s worth.

End The One Party State: National Post

James Allan wrote yesterday on the occasion of America’s Independence Day to urge his fellow Canadians to reconsider their political choices. Now an ex-oatriate living in Australia, Allan finds that he can no longer comprehend Canadian politics, where the Conservatives sound like liberals in his adopted homeland — and yet the electorate consistently mistrusts them and elects a single-party government on a consistent basis:

When I raised this point during my time back in Canada — that any well-functioning democracy needs the voters to kick parties out of power on a fairly regular basis — I was met every time with this reply: “But Harper and the Tories are so right wing. We agree in theory, but really, no one could vote for them.”
The same sort of message could be heard implicitly on CBC radio and in most of the mainstream media.
But here’s the odd thing. In global terms, it’s simply not true. Take today’s Tories and Stephen Harper out of Canada and plunk them in New Zealand and they would be to the left of Helen Clark’s Labour government. Down in New Zealand, there is a two-tier health system; there are civil unions but no gay marriage; the economy is far less heavily regulated in terms of labour laws, tax policy and tariffs than anything Harper is proposing.
The same goes for Australia. Compare the policies of the left-wing Labour Party there (on defence, immigration, the environment, health, education, you name it) to Canadian Tories’ policies and Harper consistently stands to the left of Australian Labour, not the right.

Allan’s point might be a good reminder for North Americans, not just Canadians alone, that the Tory/Grit split in Canada does not easily equate to political debate elsewhere. As a number of CQ readers have consistently reminded us, the political center in Canada exists much more to the Left than in other Anglosphere democracies, resembling French politics more so than anything else. While Harper and the Tories represent themselves as Conservatives — an apt description for their relative position in Canada — much of the time, one would have trouble distinguishing them from Democrats here in the US, or Labour in Australia or Britain, as Allen points out.
That may explain the Canadian electorate’s lack of enthusiasm for Tories, however, a point Allen misses. What he bemoans is a lack of real choice in politics. Just as in France, a man like Ronald Reagan who stands for limited central government, strong foreign policy, and a laissez-faire economic system would get pilloried as a racist and dangerous idealogue. Not that Reagan didn’t suffer those same slings and arrows, but Reagan had a broad base of support for those ideals in the US, and those insults never stuck to him. Either those concepts have little appeal north of the border, or the electorate has not organized effectively enough to legitimize that point of view — which may be why the Tories have the issues that Allan describes.
The problem might not lie with the voters, but the fact that the real political battle appears to have already been lost by conservatism in Canada.

An Independence Day To Remember, Part I

When I first announced my trip to Washington, DC, I received many kind offers from local readers for assistance and pointers. One of the kindest offers came from a CQ reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, who gave me and my family a chance to tour the Pentagon on July 4th. Needless to say, we gratefully accepted this offer, and early this morning we started out our celebration of Independence Day by meeting him for the tour.
He started us off in the west wing, the portion of the building that terrorists attacked on 9/11. We could not take pictures of the outside, but remarkably, we had no trouble taking pictures of the interior. The Pentagon has a beautiful memorial at Ground Zero for the victims of 9/11. (More pictures of the memorial and other experiences will be found in the extended entry.)
Our friend also showed us the direction that the plane took in hitting the Pentagon, from the window just below the entry point. It came in just over the Sheraton hotel in the background, clipping a light pole, bounced off the freeway, killing a cab driver, and hit just short of the Pentagon. This time sequence explains why the Pentagon took less damage than one might expect; the bounce took off some of the momentum and fuel before the plane hit the building, meaning that the impact did not travel as deeply and the fire did not burn as hot.
Notice the foreground construction work. The Pentagon is building a memorial for 9/11 which will be completed soon, and will sit directly in front of the impact spot. Funding comes from private sources, and if you want to contribute, please go to this website.
We spent time in other areas of the Pentagon as well. For those of us who have worked in the defense industry, a visit to the Pentagon comes as quite an eye-opener. First, the renovations to the interior make the place quite pleasant — nothing like the function-only military that us old-timers would expect. The military and civilian staffers have a mall-style food court, numerous business such as banks and health clinics, and much more inside the world’s largest office building for their convenience. The newer areas are especially well designed, and some of the many hallways have decor themes that teach history and give the place a distinctive flavor.
Being a military facility, of course, it didn’t take long for us to find something that struck fear into our very hearts. For instance, while everyone else was on holiday, look who got left in charge of press relations:

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
All kidding aside, this tour deeply impressed our entire family. Not only did the Pentagon remind us of the sacrifice of our fellow citizens, both military and civilian, but it also demonstrated the kind of country in which we live. Number the countries that allow their citizens to walk around taking pictures of their most central military planning facility for their enjoyment and remembrances, and I’ll bet you have fingers left over. This lesson came on the perfect day, and I will be forever grateful to the gentleman who gave up his holiday morning to escort us through the Pentagon. He will remain anonymous to my readers at his very understandable request, but rest assured he will be long remembered by us.
Later this week, I’ll post more on what turned out to be the best Independence Day we’ve ever celebrated.

Continue reading “An Independence Day To Remember, Part I”

A Fourth For Remembrance

Yesterday, our family toured the DC area by bus, which allowed us to see most of the sites we intended to visit on our trip. We made it to the Vietnam War memorial, where the First Mate found the name of a family friend, William Rowland (picture in extended entry), who gave his life for his country in June 1968. The tour took us through other inspiring and thought-provoking monuments, such as the World War II memorial, the FDR monument, and Arlington Cemetery, where we visited John Kennedy’s gravesite and thousands of others.
We found all of these exhibits and remembrances remarkable. However, we found one particular display to resonate most with all of us, one that moved us the most. At the Smithsonian American History Museum, one of the newest exhibits greets visitors almost immediately upon entry. That is a three-story-long American flag — a star-spangled banner with a story.

After the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11, the building had a huge, gaping hole in its side, a wound that matched the one our nation felt after the terrorist slaughter. The next day, a group of rescue workers and military personnel at the Pentagon got a garrison flag and draped it from the top of the building right over the cavernous maw. This flag told the terrorists that we would not allow them to scare us — that America would not cut and run from this unthinkable attack. The flag remained in place for a month, reminding us and the world that we would rebuild, and then we would make sure that the people who thought they could cow us with senseless attacks would soon learn differently. A year after it made its appearance over the Pentagon, the flag came to the Smithsonian, with the dirt and grease of its exposure to the damage still part of it.
When we celebrate the Fourth today in our nation’s capital, we will remember men like William Rowland, who gave a small gift to a little girl thirty-eight years ago, and gave the ultimate gift to his country shortly thereafter. We celebrate leaders like FDR, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, John Kennedy, and the thousands buried with him at Arlington who died to make men free. But mostly I will remember that flag that hung at the Pentagon on September 12th as the perfect encapsulation of American tenacity and fierce protectiveness of its liberty and freedom, and the defiance towards those who seek to make men slaves to tyranny and oppression.
Happy Independence Day to all of my wonderful friends at Captain’s Quarters.

Continue reading “A Fourth For Remembrance”

Red On Red In Iraq

The London Telegraph reports this morning that Iraqis have increasingly become so disenchanted with the insurgents — both foreign and domestic — that the tribal leaders have organized their own counterinsurgencies in areas like Qaim. These clan-based factions have turned on those who attempted to impose their own Taliban-like rules on communities:

Tribal leaders in Husaybah are attacking followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist who established the town as an entry point for al-Qa’eda jihadists being smuggled into the country.
The reason, the US military believes, is frustration at the heavy-handed approach of the foreigners, who have kidnapped and assassinated local leaders and imposed a strict Islamic code. …
Captain Thomas Sibley, intelligence officer of 3rd battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, based in Qaim, said: “People here were committed supporters of the insurgency but you cannot now even get a marriage licence.” …
The trigger was the assassination of a tribal sheikh, from the Sulaiman tribe, ordered by Zarqawi for inviting senior US marines for lunch. American troops gained an insight into the measures the jihadists had imposed during recent house-to-house searches in nearby towns and villages.

The insurgents once had the sympathy of the locals, who presumably didn’t like seeing foreign troops in their country. However, they soon found out that as bad as Saddam had been, the new so-called “insurgents” were just as malevolent. The satellite dishes got pulled down from roofs, music shops got shut down, women went under the burkha and men wearing western clothes got beaten. Because the Americans were the only people attempting to fix the water, sewage, and electrical systems, the enforced ban on assisting foreigners meant that all of those systems went into complete collapse.
Assassinating the tribal chiefs may have triggered their reaction, but the outcome was inevitable. The locals quickly discovered that they had a choice between two foreign forces — an infidel force that wanted to rebuild their community and leave them to their own devices, or a foreign Islamic force that used murder and brutality to impose a second tyranny. It should surprise few that the tribal chiefs chose the former over the latter, and have decided to fight for themselves to rid the area of the Zarqawi lunatics.
People may remain skeptical of the Iraqi desire for freedom, saying that the region has never known democracy and the divisions run too deep for representative government to work. Iraqis may not know democracy, but they certainly know oppression — and they have consistently rejected it since their liberation. They fought their way to the polls in January, and they fight against the enemies of liberty in the streets of Qaim and elsewhere.
On the celebration of our own demand for freedom and liberty, we should not forget that those impulses live in every human heart.

Guardian Shifts The Live-8 Goalposts

Someone needs to give Sir Bob Geldof a call. The Guardian (UK) has shifted the goalposts on Live-8, now claiming that the effort to rescue Africa from poverty now includes a Kyoto-style global-warming plan to force drastic energy reductions on the United States. In an article on Bush on the eve of the G8 summit, the Guardian conflates the two issues into one push:

George Bush sounds a warning today to those hoping for a significant deal on Africa and climate change at Wednesday’s G8 summit, making clear that when he arrives at Gleneagles he will dedicate his efforts to putting America’s interests first.
The president will adopt a stance starkly at odds with the idealism professed by the performers at Saturday’s Live 8 concerts around the world and their television audience of 2 billion.
“I go to the G8 not really trying to make [Tony Blair] look bad or good; but I go to the G8 with an agenda that I think is best for our country.”

I have written rather extensively on the Live-8 effort, and support its goals while questioning whether its plan can get aid past the dictators and kleptocrats of Africa. However, that support comes to a screeching halt if it means imposing Kyoto controls on the US. I suspect that many of my fellow bloggers on the right would feel exactly the same, especially since we’ve still not seen specifics on Live-8 plans to force reform as a prerequisite for aid.
Fortunately, however, Geldof doesn’t connect the two issues. In fact, nowhere on their site does global warming get a mention, let alone an argument. The Guardian doesn’t want to acknowledge what Geldof and Bono have already stated — that Bush has done more for Africa than any preceding US president. Instead, they want to tie his Kyoto position falsely to African aid (using that debunked 0.16%-of-GDP argument again) to paint Bush’s protection of American interests as a slap in the face of the Live-8 concerts and enthusiasm.
The Guardian indulges in intellectual and political dishonesty, and uses the Live-8 effort to do so. Geldof and Bono should give their Guardian friends a call and tell them to sod off.

The Leftist View Of SCOTUS: More Politicians, Please

Democrats have apparently decided to be helpful in the upcoming judicial nomination process. Instead of caterwauling at the mere mention of the SCOTUS opening, they now have people floating suggestions in the media for “acceptable” choices. Norm Orenstein advises Bush to look outside the judiciary altogether and select a politician instead:

Choosing judges, especially at the Supreme Court level, has taken on a heightened importance — and presidents and their partisans want to make sure they know what they are getting. A track record at the federal appeals court level is a much safer predictor of behavior at the next level up than service in the U.S. Senate, or as a governor or in other political office.
But having a court that consists largely or only of nonpoliticians has serious costs for the public. Not only are judges less inclined to think broadly of the country and its social and political divide, they are more likely to look at decisions with tunnel vision, not thinking through the problems of maintaining the court’s standing with the public and of implementing difficult and divisive decisions.

Orenstein actually describes the entire problem with the Leftist viewpoint perfectly in this paragraph. Justices aren’t supposed to think broadly on our “social and political divide”. Their job is to apply the law and determine if Constitutional violations have occurred. The Legislature exists to deal with social and political dissent, and to pass laws that take all of that into account. The people elect their representatives to represent them in Congress, allowing the social debate to take place within the confines of the Constitutional framework and to reach a political resolution.
When the judiciary starts thinking about anything outside of Constitutional law, it intrudes on the legislative power that the Constitution specifically invested in the people. It creates a dynamic where a handful of unelected and unaccountable academics start making up rules that cannot be counteracted by the action of the people without doing damage to our underlying Constitution. And as we have seen with abortion, it doesn’t assuage the social and political divide at all, but merely deepens and extends it until it warps everything it touches, including the judiciary and the process we use to staff it.
The last thing we need is more politicians on the Supreme Court. I’d argue that we need to get rid of the ones, like David Souter, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that we already have.

A Soldier Says Farewell To His Family

I received this in e-mail today from The Mahaka Surf Report, a blog that I had not yet read. While I’m pausing from my busy day seeing the sights of Washington DC, the capital of freedom and liberty, perhaps this can serve as a reminder of the brave men and women who have made it that. I pray Caelestis makes it back home, safe and sound, at the end of his tour of duty. I also pray that we Americans remember how fortunate we are to have someone like him defending and representing us. I hope Mahaka doesn’t mind my reproducing this in full.
Today I leave for the war
Well it’s time to go and do what I have been called to do. Today I head for to the war for the third time and I have some things to say. To me this is a blessing, a calling from God to do what I can to help our brave men and women in uniform. Also this post is for my family as some of them still don’t understand why I am on my third trip to Iraq. First of all:
K, you have been the best sister a brother could ever have, you and I had some good fights when we were kids, but you were always there if I truly needed you. We don’t see eye to eye on anything political, and you are one of those people calling for our troops to come home now. I love you, but you are wrong in this count, you have three boys and if we don’t do this right, it will have to be done again and it could be your boys next time. When I’m in Iraq, I think about my three nephews and how I don’t want to see them in DCU’s in the next decade, I want to fight our enemies in their country until they either surrender or become so ineffective they aren’t a threat to any of us. I don’t want my nephews fighing a fight that I couldn’t finish, I want them to go to college or play professional soccer, or be beach bums. However,if they choose to become soldiers I would be proud to be in the same chain that links all military personnel past present and future, the chain that holds America together. That being said I would prefer they not have to fight the war I have seen, I would prefer they not lose any friends like I have and I wish that they would never lose their innocence by having to kill another human being. War takes so much out of a person, it changes us in ways that are almost never positive and I would not want your boys to have to go through what I have. I hope one day you understand, that I don’t do this for the money, that Bush is not Hitler, and that the people of Iraq deserve as much a chance at a better life as we were given. You and G and the boys will be on my mind the entire time I am in Kirkuk.
Mom, I was the baby of the family and I know you still view me as that little boy that wouldn’t eat his green beans and only wanted peanut butter. I am still that little boy inside, but I am so much more now, I am a husband and a veteran, and now a successful man with my own family. I chose to go back to Iraq this time, because I believe in a better world. At 30 I am more of an idealist now than I was at 20, I believe one person can make a difference. I know you will worry about me the entire time I am gone, but you won’t tell me how scared you are. I just wanted to say it’s ok, I am on the path that brings me the greatest happiness. No matter what happens to me, I am doing what I believe is my destiny, I come from a family of warriors, your family and Dad’s were all warriors, it’s what they knew. I am a product of their collective service to nation, this isn’t about adventure or money or some deathwish, it’s about doing the right thing. The men and women and especially the children of Iraq are worth fighting for, when I see them I know that any sacrifice I can make is worth it. What kind of man would I be if I refused to help someone in need? How could I live my life knowing that someone was being tortured and I stood by and sipped my latte and refused to get off my ass? I don’t know if you will ever understand what drives me Mom, just being able to help one Iraqi is worth my life. People on this planet are so hell bent on persecuting others, they are so concerned with appearing strong that they prey on the weak and the helpless. Mom, the people of Iraq were helpless and being crushed by a petty clone of Adolf Hitler, now they have hope where before they had none. Iraq is a mess, but it is a mess because freedom is messy, we had to fight a Civil War that nearly killed 500,000 of us just to make all men and women free. Iraq is already having to fight a soul searing conflict with itself to find itself. How could we abandon these people to this chaos? I will continue to support this cause until we win, we lose, or I am knocked out of commission. I cannot call myself a man and abandon the men, women and children of Iraq to brutal butchers, I’ve made my choice. You’ll be in my heart everyday.
Dad, you are my hero, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that, but you are. You served in Vietnam and came back and made a life for yourself and your family. You did everything you could to provide for K and I, you worked extra hours to make sure we never went without. You never took sick time even though you were out in the elements everyday, you are the definition of what a man is, I hope one day I am half the man that you are. I think you understand what drives me and why I have to keep doing this job. When you were here in Hawaii to visit me and you told me you were proud of me was a moment I’ll never forget. I can’t let the people of Iraq suffer without doing something, I know I am only one person, but you were only one person and you did so many things in your life. I want to be like you, but I want to do so much more, I know I’m not going to “save the world”, but everyday I can do a good deed, whether in Iraq or in Hawaii is a day that I feel like I have done my job as a man and an American. I know you understand!
Jan, my wife, my love, my life, this has got to be the hardest on you. This is the third time I have asked you to take a leap of faith and believe that no harm will come to me in Iraq. Three times I have left you and our puppies behind to pursue some quixotic belief that I can make the world a slightly better place. Three times I have left you behind to pay the bills, and manage the house and so many other things that no one should be forced to do by themselves. I have not been with you for 3 of our seven anniversary’s because of my commitment to this. All I can say to you is thank you! I will always love you for your patience and your support of me and my ideals. I know that I make your life hard with these deployments, and for that I am sorry, I wish that it were easier to be away from you,but it’s not. In fact, each deployment it gets harder and harder for me to say goodbye, I’ve lost friends now and had a few close calls myself, but I can’t quit doing this. You know why, you more than anyone else understand why. You and I both believe it is our destiny to do whatever we can to make the world better. We are two tiny fish in the enormous universal ocean, but we both know one person can make a difference. When I am in Iraq I know you are in my heart at every moment and that our faith and love protects me. I firmly believe God has a plan for both of us, we are his instruments to do what we can to make the world better. So don’t worry about me this time, I am doing what I was meant to do, and I have never been happier. So go and find my molly-molly and give her a scratch behind the ears.
For anyone that reads this; yes I am a 30 year old idealist, at 20 I was a cynic, but now I have a mission in life and a purpose. I found God, but I am far from a religious fanatic, I found a God that inspired me to do good deeds just for the sake of doing good. I can feel his prescence in everything around me, the sunset, the waves crashing on a Hawaiian beach and even in the evening breeze that is laced with plumeria. I would call myself a soldier of God, but not in any way that says he favors me or my cause. I am a soldier of our lord because I choose to serve the side of good, good is opening a door for a stranger, or helping your neighbor empty his trashcan, or going to Iraq because you want to help a people find their voice and feel what we feel when we think of our freedoms. The most fundamental question I ask myself everday is: If I have the chance to do good, even if there is a terrible price to pay, why wouldn’t I? I wish more Americans would ask themselves this question, if you can do good, what on earth would stop you from following through?
Finally I just wanted to state one more time, Iraq is the whole bag of marbles, if our ideas win there, then militant islam will wither on the vine and eventually die. If we lose in Iraq, the world will become a much darker place where the evils of the past such as slavery and holy wars will become the norm. I ask the people of America this question; We are the last hope for this planet to realize its potential, the europeans are too weak to do it, what kind of world do we want for our children to live in? I made my choice, and now I leave to do what I believe is my duty. God bless my family, God bless our brave men and women in uniform, God bless all Americans and God bless America.
Caelestis
P.S. Love you my hummingbird