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401
Politics & Religion / Philippines
« on: November 01, 2006, 08:51:51 AM »
www.stratfor.com
10-16-06

Philippines: The South's Rising Tensions
Philippine security officials put Manila on high alert Oct. 11 amid a surge of violence on the country's main southern island of Mindanao. Meanwhile, Philippine security forces are anticipating more attacks as tensions between the government and militants continue to escalate.

On Oct. 11, an improvised explosive device (IED) made from an 81mm mortar shell exploded outside a bank in Mindanao's North Cotabato province. It was the third blast among four IEDs planted in the area in two days. One IED was found earlier Oct. 11 and defused by authorities in nearby Makilala, the scene of a bombing the day before that killed at least 12 people during a festival celebrating the town's founding. That same day, another IED detonated in the predominantly Muslim province of Sultan Kudarat.

There also have been increased encounters between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and militants on Mindanao, including the Muslim groups Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Abu Sayyaf and the communist New People's Army (NPA). The same day of the festival bombing, troops of the army's 39th Infantry Brigade clashed with NPA fighters near Makilala. A skirmish between troops and the NPA's female fighters, the Amazonas, also occurred nearby Oct. 3. Four days later, 30 suspected NPA members disguised as Philippine military entered a construction site at Silay City International Airport in the central Philippines and destroyed equipment belonging to a contractor for a Japanese-South Korean venture. The attack reportedly was retaliation for the contractor's failure to pay "revolutionary taxes."

The MILF and Abu Sayyaf are supplemented by members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an al Qaeda-linked militant group that is believed to have about 30 to 40 members in the southern Philippines. According to sources on Mindanao, it is no secret that MILF camps also serve as training grounds for JI militants. Local JI members often are either former MILF members or current members with bombmaking expertise who are loaned out to JI for specific operations.

Philippine intelligence expects more militant attacks in central Mindanao, possibly in Kidapawan and Midsayap in North Cotabato province, Isulan and Marbel in Sultan Kudarat province and General Santos in South Cotabato province. Security forces in Zamboanga are on high alert in anticipation of attacks during a large Roman Catholic festival that peaks Oct. 12. Manila also is increasing security as a precaution against militant attacks during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit to be held in Cebu City in December.




Philippine authorities are variously blaming the MILF and Abu Sayyaf for the attacks. Some suggest they are the work of Abu Sayyaf in response to the recent capture of Istiada Binti Oemar Sovie, the wife of Dulmatin, one of Southeast Asia's most notorious terrorism suspects. Dulmatin allegedly is a JI operative who was instrumental in the October 2002 bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. Dulmatin is believed to be in hiding in the Philippines on Jolo island, where he is sheltered by and working with Abu Sayyaf.

During a radio interview, North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Pinol blamed the MILF for the bombing in Makilala, warning people in the province to be vigilant and ready to go to war if the need arises. MILF and the government are ostensibly engaged in peace talks, though the talks have stalled over the issue of ancestral domain. As the talks fizzle, both sides have been preparing for a renewal of fighting.

The AFP has sent swarms of soldiers to southern Mindanao in an effort to control the rising tide of violence, though the particularly brazen attack in Makilala will only serve to escalate the already-high tensions in the region.


402
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Evolutionary biology/psychology
« on: November 01, 2006, 05:41:09 AM »
An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong
 
By NICHOLAS WADE
NY Times
Published: October 31, 2006
Who doesn?t know the difference between right and wrong? Yet that essential knowledge, generally assumed to come from parental teaching or religious or legal instruction, could turn out to have a quite different origin.



Primatologists like Frans de Waal have long argued that the roots of human morality are evident in social animals like apes and monkeys. The animals? feelings of empathy and expectations of reciprocity are essential behaviors for mammalian group living and can be regarded as a counterpart of human morality.

Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. In a new book, ?Moral Minds? (HarperCollins 2006), he argues that the grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations, are inaccessible to the conscious mind.

People are generally unaware of this process because the mind is adept at coming up with plausible rationalizations for why it arrived at a decision generated subconsciously.

Dr. Hauser presents his argument as a hypothesis to be proved, not as an established fact. But it is an idea that he roots in solid ground, including his own and others? work with primates and in empirical results derived by moral philosophers.

The proposal, if true, would have far-reaching consequences. It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best, giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of instinctive moral behavior.

Both atheists and people belonging to a wide range of faiths make the same moral judgments, Dr. Hauser writes, implying ?that the system that unconsciously generates moral judgments is immune to religious doctrine.? Dr. Hauser argues that the moral grammar operates in much the same way as the universal grammar proposed by the linguist Noam Chomsky as the innate neural machinery for language. The universal grammar is a system of rules for generating syntax and vocabulary but does not specify any particular language. That is supplied by the culture in which a child grows up.

The moral grammar too, in Dr. Hauser?s view, is a system for generating moral behavior and not a list of specific rules. It constrains human behavior so tightly that many rules are in fact the same or very similar in every society ? do as you would be done by; care for children and the weak; don?t kill; avoid adultery and incest; don?t cheat, steal or lie.

But it also allows for variations, since cultures can assign different weights to the elements of the grammar?s calculations. Thus one society may ban abortion, another may see infanticide as a moral duty in certain circumstances. Or as Kipling observed, ?The wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Katmandu, and the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.?

Matters of right and wrong have long been the province of moral philosophers and ethicists. Dr. Hauser?s proposal is an attempt to claim the subject for science, in particular for evolutionary biology. The moral grammar evolved, he believes, because restraints on behavior are required for social living and have been favored by natural selection because of their survival value.

Much of the present evidence for the moral grammar is indirect. Some of it comes from psychological tests of children, showing that they have an innate sense of fairness that starts to unfold at age 4. Some comes from ingenious dilemmas devised to show a subconscious moral judgment generator at work. These are known by the moral philosophers who developed them as ?trolley problems.?

Suppose you are standing by a railroad track. Ahead, in a deep cutting from which no escape is possible, five people are walking on the track. You hear a train approaching. Beside you is a lever with which you can switch the train to a sidetrack. One person is walking on the sidetrack. Is it O.K. to pull the lever and save the five people, though one will die?

Most people say it is.

Assume now you are on a bridge overlooking the track. Ahead, five people on the track are at risk. You can save them by throwing down a heavy object into the path of the approaching train. One is available beside you, in the form of a fat man. Is it O.K. to push him to save the five?

Most people say no, although lives saved and lost are the same as in the first problem.

Why does the moral grammar generate such different judgments in apparently similar situations? It makes a distinction, Dr. Hauser writes, between a foreseen harm (the train killing the person on the track) and an intended harm (throwing the person in front of the train), despite the fact that the consequences are the same in either case. It also rates killing an animal as more acceptable than killing a person.
---------

Many people cannot articulate the foreseen/intended distinction, Dr. Hauser says, a sign that it is being made at inaccessible levels of the mind. This inability challenges the general belief that moral behavior is learned. For if people cannot articulate the foreseen/intended distinction, how can they teach it?

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Moral Minds Excerpt: Chapter One
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Dr. Hauser began his research career in animal communication, working with vervet monkeys in Kenya and with birds. He is the author of a standard textbook on the subject, ?The Evolution of Communication.? He began to take an interest in the human animal in 1992 after psychologists devised experiments that allowed one to infer what babies are thinking. He found he could repeat many of these experiments in cotton-top tamarins, allowing the cognitive capacities of infants to be set in an evolutionary framework.

His proposal of a moral grammar emerges from a collaboration with Dr. Chomsky, who had taken an interest in Dr. Hauser?s ideas about animal communication. In 2002 they wrote, with Dr. Tecumseh Fitch, an unusual article arguing that the faculty of language must have developed as an adaptation of some neural system possessed by animals, perhaps one used in navigation. From this interaction Dr. Hauser developed the idea that moral behavior, like language behavior, is acquired with the help of an innate set of rules that unfolds early in a child?s development.

Social animals, he believes, possess the rudiments of a moral system in that they can recognize cheating or deviations from expected behavior. But they generally lack the psychological mechanisms on which the pervasive reciprocity of human society is based, like the ability to remember bad behavior, quantify its costs, recall prior interactions with an individual and punish offenders. ?Lions cooperate on the hunt, but there is no punishment for laggards,? Dr. Hauser said.

The moral grammar now universal among people presumably evolved to its final shape during the hunter-gatherer phase of the human past, before the dispersal from the ancestral homeland in northeast Africa some 50,000 years ago. This may be why events before our eyes carry far greater moral weight than happenings far away, Dr. Hauser believes, since in those days one never had to care about people remote from one?s environment.

Dr. Hauser believes that the moral grammar may have evolved through the evolutionary mechanism known as group selection. A group bound by altruism toward its members and rigorous discouragement of cheaters would be more likely to prevail over a less cohesive society, so genes for moral grammar would become more common.

Many evolutionary biologists frown on the idea of group selection, noting that genes cannot become more frequent unless they benefit the individual who carries them, and a person who contributes altruistically to people not related to him will reduce his own fitness and leave fewer offspring.

But though group selection has not been proved to occur in animals, Dr. Hauser believes that it may have operated in people because of their greater social conformity and willingness to punish or ostracize those who disobey moral codes.

?That permits strong group cohesion you don?t see in other animals, which may make for group selection,? he said.

His proposal for an innate moral grammar, if people pay attention to it, could ruffle many feathers. His fellow biologists may raise eyebrows at proposing such a big idea when much of the supporting evidence has yet to be acquired. Moral philosophers may not welcome a biologist?s bid to annex their turf, despite Dr. Hauser?s expressed desire to collaborate with them.

Nevertheless, researchers? idea of a good hypothesis is one that generates interesting and testable predictions. By this criterion, the proposal of an innate moral grammar seems unlikely to disappoint.



403
How depressing, how utterly unjust, to be the one in your social circle who is aging least gracefully.


Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Mike Linksvayer, 36, on a low-calorie diet for six years, is 6 feet and 135 pounds, and his blood pressure is 112 over 63.
In a laboratory at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, Matthias is learning about time?s caprice the hard way. At 28, getting on for a rhesus monkey, Matthias is losing his hair, lugging a paunch and getting a face full of wrinkles.

Yet in the cage next to his, gleefully hooting at strangers, one of Matthias?s lab mates, Rudy, is the picture of monkey vitality, although he is slightly older. Thin and feisty, Rudy stops grooming his smooth coat just long enough to pirouette toward a proffered piece of fruit.

Tempted with the same treat, Matthias rises wearily and extends a frail hand. ?You can really see the difference,? said Dr. Ricki Colman, an associate scientist at the center who cares for the animals.

What a visitor cannot see may be even more interesting. As a result of a simple lifestyle intervention, Rudy and primates like him seem poised to live very long, very vital lives.

This approach, called calorie restriction, involves eating about 30 percent fewer calories than normal while still getting adequate amounts of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Aside from direct genetic manipulation, calorie restriction is the only strategy known to extend life consistently in a variety of animal species.

How this drastic diet affects the body has been the subject of intense research. Recently, the effort has begun to bear fruit, producing a steady stream of studies indicating that the rate of aging is plastic, not fixed, and that it can be manipulated.

In the last year, calorie-restricted diets have been shown in various animals to affect molecular pathways likely to be involved in the progression of Alzheimer?s disease, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson?s disease and cancer. Earlier this year, researchers studying dietary effects on humans went so far as to claim that calorie restriction may be more effective than exercise at preventing age-related diseases.

Monkeys like Rudy seem to be proving the thesis. Recent tests show that the animals on restricted diets, including Canto and Eeyore, two other rhesus monkeys at the primate research center, are in indisputably better health as they near old age than Matthias and other normally fed lab mates like Owen and Johann. The average lifespan for laboratory monkeys is 27.

The findings cast doubt on long-held scientific and cultural beliefs regarding the inevitability of the body?s decline. They also suggest that other interventions, which include new drugs, may retard aging even if the diet itself should prove ineffective in humans. One leading candidate, a newly synthesized form of resveratrol ? an antioxidant present in large amounts in red wine ? is already being tested in patients. It may eventually be the first of a new class of anti-aging drugs. Extrapolating from recent animal findings, Dr. Richard A. Miller, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, estimated that a pill mimicking the effects of calorie restriction might increase human life span to about 112 healthy years, with the occasional senior living until 140, though some experts view that projection as overly optimistic.

According to a report by the Rand Corporation, such a drug would be among the most cost-effective breakthroughs possible in medicine, providing Americans more healthy years at less expense (an estimated $8,800 a year) than new cancer vaccines or stroke treatments.

?The effects are global, so calorie restriction has the potential to help us identify anti-aging mechanisms throughout the body,? said Richard Weindruch, a gerontologist at the University of Wisconsin who directs research on the monkeys.

Many scientists regard the study of life extension, once just a reliable plotline in science fiction, as a national priority. The number of Americans 65 and older will double in the next 25 years to about 72 million, according to government census data. By then, seniors will account for nearly 20 percent of the population, up from just 12 percent in 2003.

Earlier this year, four prominent gerontologists, among them Dr. Miller, published a paper calling for the government to spend $3 billion annually in pursuit of a modest goal: delaying the onset of age-related diseases by seven years.

Doing so, the authors asserted, would lay the foundation for a healthier and wealthier country, a so-called longevity dividend.

?The demographic wave entering their 60s is enormous, and that is likely to greatly increase the prevalence of diseases like diabetes and heart disease,? said Dr. S. Jay Olshansky, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and one of the paper?s authors. ?The simplest way to positively affect them all is to slow down aging.?

Science, of course, is still a long way from doing anything of the sort. Aging is a complicated phenomenon, the intersection of an array of biological processes set in motion by genetics, lifestyle, even evolution itself.

Still, in laboratories around the world, scientists are becoming adept at breeding animal Methuselahs, extraordinarily long lived and healthy worms, fish, mice and flies.

In 1935, Dr. Clive McCay, a nutritionist at Cornell University, discovered that mice that were fed 30 percent fewer calories lived about 40 percent longer than their free-grazing laboratory mates. The dieting mice were also more physically active and far less prone to the diseases of advanced age.

Dr. McCay?s experiment has been successfully duplicated in a variety of species. In almost every instance, the subjects on low-calorie diets have proven to be not just longer lived, but also more resistant to age-related ailments.

?In mice, calorie restriction doesn?t just extend life span,? said Leonard P. Guarente, professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ?It mitigates many diseases of aging: cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease. The gain is just enormous.?

Page 2 of 3)



For years, scientists financed by the National Institute on Aging have closely monitored rhesus monkeys on restricted and normal-calorie diets. At the University of Wisconsin, where 50 animals survive from the original group of 76, the differences are just now becoming apparent in the older animals.


Those on normal diets, like Matthias, are beginning to show signs of advancing age similar to those seen in humans. Three of them, for instance, have developed diabetes, and a fourth has died of the disease. Five have died of cancer.

But Rudy and his colleagues on low-calorie meal plans are faring better. None have diabetes, and only three have died of cancer. It is too early to know if they will outlive their lab mates, but the dieters here and at the other labs also have lower blood pressure and lower blood levels of certain dangerous fats, glucose and insulin.

?The preliminary indicators are that we?re looking at a robust life extension in the restricted animals,? Dr. Weindruch said.

Despite widespread scientific enthusiasm, the evidence that calorie restriction works in humans is indirect at best. The practice was popularized in diet books by Dr. Roy Walford, a legendary pathologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who spent much of the last 30 years of his life following a calorie-restricted regimen. He died of Lou Gehrig?s disease in 2004 at 79.

Largely as a result of his advocacy, several thousand people are now on calorie-restricted diets in the United States, says Brian M. Delaney, president of the Calorie Restriction Society.

Mike Linksvayer, a 36-year-old chief technology officer at a San Francisco nonprofit group, embarked on just such a diet six years ago. On an average day, he eats an apple or some cereal for breakfast, followed by a small vegan dish at lunch. Dinner is whatever his wife has cooked, excluding bread, rice, sugar and whatever else Mr. Linksvayer deems unhealthy (this often includes the entr?e). On weekends, he occasionally fasts.

Mr. Linksvayer, 6 feet tall and 135 pounds, estimated that he gets by on about 2,000 to 2,100 calories a day, a low number for men of his age and activity level, and his blood pressure is a remarkably low 112 over 63. He said he has never been in better health.

?I don?t really get sick,? he said. ?Mostly I do the diet to be healthier, but if it helps me live longer, hey, I?ll take that, too.?

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have been tracking the health of small groups of calorie-restricted dieters. Earlier this year, they reported that the dieters had better-functioning hearts and fewer signs of inflammation, which is a precursor to clogged arteries, than similar subjects on regular diets.

In previous studies, people in calorie-restricted groups were shown to have lower levels of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, and triglycerides. They also showed higher levels of HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, virtually no arterial blockage and, like Mr. Linksvayer, remarkably low blood pressure.

?Calorie restriction has a powerful, protective effect against diseases associated with aging,? said Dr. John O. Holloszy, a Washington University professor of medicine. ?We don?t know how long each individual will end up living, but they certainly have a longer life expectancy than average.?

Researchers at Louisiana State University reported in April in The Journal of the American Medical Association that patients on an experimental low-calorie diet had lower insulin levels and body temperatures, both possible markers of longevity, and fewer signs of the chromosomal damage typically associated with aging.

These studies and others have led many scientists to believe they have stumbled onto a central determinant of natural life span. Animals on restricted diets seem particularly resistant to environmental stresses like oxidation and heat, perhaps even radiation. ?It is a very deep, very important function,? Dr. Miller said. Experts theorize that limited access to energy alarms the body, so to speak, activating a cascade of biochemical signals that tell each cell to direct energy away from reproductive functions, toward repair and maintenance. The calorie-restricted organism is stronger, according to this hypothesis, because individual cells are more efficiently repairing mutations, using energy, defending themselves and mopping up harmful byproducts like free radicals.

?The stressed cell is really pulling out all the stops? to preserve itself, said Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, a molecular biologist at the University of California, San Francisco. ?This system could have evolved as a way of letting animals take a timeout from reproduction when times are harsh.?

But many experts are unsettled by the prospect, however unlikely, of Americans adopting a draconian diet in hopes of living longer. Even the current epidemiological data, they note, do not consistently show that those who are thinnest live longest. After analyzing decades of national mortality statistics, federal researchers reported last year that exceptional thinness, a logical consequence of calorie restriction, was associated with an increased risk of death. This controversial study did not attempt to assess the number of calories the subjects had been consuming, or the quality of their diets, which may have had an effect on mortality rates.


Page 2 of 3)



For years, scientists financed by the National Institute on Aging have closely monitored rhesus monkeys on restricted and normal-calorie diets. At the University of Wisconsin, where 50 animals survive from the original group of 76, the differences are just now becoming apparent in the older animals.

Skip to next paragraph
 
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
In a longevity study at Southern Illinois University the top mouse was fed a calorie-restricted diet, and the one below a normal diet. Both are 28 months old.

Multimedia
Graphic
Calorie Restriction vs. Normal Diet
Readers? Opinions
Forum: Fitness and Nutrition
Those on normal diets, like Matthias, are beginning to show signs of advancing age similar to those seen in humans. Three of them, for instance, have developed diabetes, and a fourth has died of the disease. Five have died of cancer.

But Rudy and his colleagues on low-calorie meal plans are faring better. None have diabetes, and only three have died of cancer. It is too early to know if they will outlive their lab mates, but the dieters here and at the other labs also have lower blood pressure and lower blood levels of certain dangerous fats, glucose and insulin.

?The preliminary indicators are that we?re looking at a robust life extension in the restricted animals,? Dr. Weindruch said.

Despite widespread scientific enthusiasm, the evidence that calorie restriction works in humans is indirect at best. The practice was popularized in diet books by Dr. Roy Walford, a legendary pathologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who spent much of the last 30 years of his life following a calorie-restricted regimen. He died of Lou Gehrig?s disease in 2004 at 79.

Largely as a result of his advocacy, several thousand people are now on calorie-restricted diets in the United States, says Brian M. Delaney, president of the Calorie Restriction Society.

Mike Linksvayer, a 36-year-old chief technology officer at a San Francisco nonprofit group, embarked on just such a diet six years ago. On an average day, he eats an apple or some cereal for breakfast, followed by a small vegan dish at lunch. Dinner is whatever his wife has cooked, excluding bread, rice, sugar and whatever else Mr. Linksvayer deems unhealthy (this often includes the entr?e). On weekends, he occasionally fasts.

Mr. Linksvayer, 6 feet tall and 135 pounds, estimated that he gets by on about 2,000 to 2,100 calories a day, a low number for men of his age and activity level, and his blood pressure is a remarkably low 112 over 63. He said he has never been in better health.

?I don?t really get sick,? he said. ?Mostly I do the diet to be healthier, but if it helps me live longer, hey, I?ll take that, too.?

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have been tracking the health of small groups of calorie-restricted dieters. Earlier this year, they reported that the dieters had better-functioning hearts and fewer signs of inflammation, which is a precursor to clogged arteries, than similar subjects on regular diets.

In previous studies, people in calorie-restricted groups were shown to have lower levels of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, and triglycerides. They also showed higher levels of HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, virtually no arterial blockage and, like Mr. Linksvayer, remarkably low blood pressure.

?Calorie restriction has a powerful, protective effect against diseases associated with aging,? said Dr. John O. Holloszy, a Washington University professor of medicine. ?We don?t know how long each individual will end up living, but they certainly have a longer life expectancy than average.?

Researchers at Louisiana State University reported in April in The Journal of the American Medical Association that patients on an experimental low-calorie diet had lower insulin levels and body temperatures, both possible markers of longevity, and fewer signs of the chromosomal damage typically associated with aging.

These studies and others have led many scientists to believe they have stumbled onto a central determinant of natural life span. Animals on restricted diets seem particularly resistant to environmental stresses like oxidation and heat, perhaps even radiation. ?It is a very deep, very important function,? Dr. Miller said. Experts theorize that limited access to energy alarms the body, so to speak, activating a cascade of biochemical signals that tell each cell to direct energy away from reproductive functions, toward repair and maintenance. The calorie-restricted organism is stronger, according to this hypothesis, because individual cells are more efficiently repairing mutations, using energy, defending themselves and mopping up harmful byproducts like free radicals.

?The stressed cell is really pulling out all the stops? to preserve itself, said Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, a molecular biologist at the University of California, San Francisco. ?This system could have evolved as a way of letting animals take a timeout from reproduction when times are harsh.?

But many experts are unsettled by the prospect, however unlikely, of Americans adopting a draconian diet in hopes of living longer. Even the current epidemiological data, they note, do not consistently show that those who are thinnest live longest. After analyzing decades of national mortality statistics, federal researchers reported last year that exceptional thinness, a logical consequence of calorie restriction, was associated with an increased risk of death. This controversial study did not attempt to assess the number of calories the subjects had been consuming, or the quality of their diets, which may have had an effect on mortality rates.


404
Science, Culture, & Humanities / The Deipnosophist
« on: October 31, 2006, 09:17:04 PM »


David Gordon's blog.  Highly recommended.

http://eutrapelia.blogspot.com/

405
Politics & Religion / Intel Matters
« on: October 31, 2006, 10:27:26 AM »
http://public.cq.com/public/20061027_homeland.html

Terrorists Strain for a New Audience With an English-Language Study of U.S. Intelligence
By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor

The holy warriors? intelligence shop may need a shake-up, by the looks of a new analysis of White House responses to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, circulating among password-protected jihad Web sites.

?Myth of Delusion: Exposing the U.S. Intelligence? (sic), authored by a rising star in the al Qaeda hierarchy, relies on openly available materials ? congressional and other official investigations of intelligence failures related to the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq, along with media exposes and scholarly studies ? for its wide-ranging book-length report on the operations of American spy agencies.

But when it comes to analyzing the Bush administration?s emergency responses to the al Qaeda hijackings on 9/11, it reads like an Oliver Stone script.

In the analysis of Mohammed al-Hakaymah, an obscure Egyptian radical until he won plaudits from al Qaeda for leading a revolt against the main Islamic movement there last August, President Bush was forced to scurry about the country on Air Force One for fear of assassination by a hazy cabal of Texas oil interests and renegade U.S. military leaders.

If that weren?t enough conspiracy theory, Hakaymah also portrays the president as a captive of ? pay attention now ? right-wing activists and think tanks, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon?s Washington Times newspaper and the South Korean intelligence service.

All of which, along with factual errors on the history and operations of the CIA, the NSA, the FBI and the reorganization of U.S. intelligence as a result of the 9/11 attacks, has prompted some observers to dismiss Hakaymah?s study as ?drivel,? as former CIA officer Robert Baer put it in an e-mail to me last week (although he volunteered he had only read ?parts of it?).

But other experts on al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism say the English-language study marks a breakthrough in the jihadists? efforts to understand the missions and operations of the sprawling U.S. intelligence community.

?I would suggest that those behind this are working directly to influence English speakers [and] present themselves to a broader audience of potential terrorism actors,? says Marvin Hutchens, a former marine who runs the threatswatch.com blog that circulated the study here.

?I think it?s a pretty big deal,? says John Rollins, a former counterterrorism operative who was Tom Ridge?s chief of staff for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security.

?It shows an intense focus on the capabilities and tactics of the U.S. intelligence community,? says Rollins, now a terrorism expert at the Congressional Research Service. ?[It?s] a concerted effort to understand what our capabilities are.?

?There is no question about the authenticity of the book and the author,? says Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, an authoritative source on terrorist developments.

And if there was ever a holy warrior who wanted to be an al Qaeda goodfella, it?s Hakaymah. But until he?s a made man, says Evan Kohlmann, a scholar on Islam and consultant to U.S. agencies, analysts should ?be careful? about attributing the book to al Qaeda.

?This document,? agrees Rollins, ?is not reflective of corporate al Qaeda and what they know about the U.S. intelligence community. . .I wouldn?t take this as a bible of their assessment of U.S. intelligence.? But ?it shows a desire and intention to understand the U.S. intelligence community.?

Katz says the study has immense value as ?propaganda . . . because he is explaining that al Qaeda was able to conduct 9/11 in spite of the tightened security and the enormous intelligence budget the U.S. has.?

The message, she says: ?Jihadists should not be intimidated by the American/British security measures,? particularly restive Muslim youth who might be sitting on the fence about joining the ranks of suicide bombers.

They are the prized assets in al Qaeda?s new field of battle. And judging by the swelling ranks of holy warriors from London to Iraq, the bad guys are a lot better at getting out their message, as nasty as it is, than we are.

Where?s Karl Rove when we need him?

Training Manual
Some intelligence veterans are particularly disturbed by the book?s matter-of-fact explanations of how the CIA operates abroad, such as its use of State Department cover in U.S. embassies and the methods it employs to spot potential spies among foreign officials and groups ? including disaffected jihadists.

With a level of detail that could have been copied from a CIA training manual, the book explains the common techniques the agency uses to recruit and manage spies by manipulating their emotions and weaknesses. It also offers an overview of the CIA?s espionage curriculum.

It wrongly places the CIA?s training facility in West Virginia in one passage, but gets it right in another ? demonstrating not that Hakaymah lacks a grasp of his topic, but rather that he could use a good copy editor.

Hekaymah also covers the FBI?s dramatic expansion abroad since 9/11 and its alliances with local security services, particularly in Egypt, which he explores in fine detail.

The origins and operations of the NSA come in for scrutiny, too, based on published sources in the United States and Europe. It locates some of the NSA?s ground stations and its array of techniques for eavesdropping on the world?s telephone lines, computers and cell phones, but it does not discuss The New York Times? revelations of the NSA?s warrantless wiretapping program, a sign that the book was written more than a year ago.

Its discussion of cell phone chip technology, gained from open sources here, amounts to instructions on how to minimize the chance of being tracked.

Hakaymah also lays out details on the efforts of the CIA to undermine the regime in Iran.

Traitors?
All of which raises a dilemma for Congress, not to mention the media: Can it meet its constitutional obligation to ride herd on the government, including U.S. intelligence, without giving material support to the enemy?

Bush administration officials have already delivered their verdict, coming close to calling the media (and putative congressional leakers) traitors.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Rich Reynolds, who spent most of his career in Middle East intelligence assignments, calls the previously published information recycled by Hakaymah ?useful to terrorists.?

?Anything that helps them identify intelligence personnel and those that they recruit is detrimental to the intelligence collection effort. We have very few [spies] assets in contact with terrorists and it is not useful to have people trying to figure them out and eliminate them.

?The same goes with [NSA] communications [intercepts],? Reynolds said. ?As the press and others publish our efforts to monitor terror communications in all their forms, we see the bad guys moving away from the most easily exploited forms.?

It ?would certainly bolster the administration?s position that there should be less public information about intelligence community efforts,? says Rollins.

?However, at the most senior levels of government one walks a very fine line between suppressing intelligence for the sake of national security and concealing information from the Congress and the general public for purposes of political expediency.?

One solution, of course, is to kill the messenger ? literally.

No, not U.S. reporters or leaky members of Congress. But Hakatmah is fair game.

His book ?was published on the AlMaqreze.com Web site, which is run by Hani el-Sebai, an Islamist living in London,? explains Laura Mansfield, who has worked for U.S. government agencies in the Middle East and translated several jihad tomes.

While el-Sebai ?has not made a public declaration of alignment with Al Qaeda,? she told me, ?the U.S. Treasury, the United Nations and Interpol have recognized his connections to Al Qaeda.?

Hakaymah, the experts say, also wrote last summer?s jihad literary hit, ?How to Fight Alone,? an instructional guide for the single holy warrior.

So let?s give him a chance at it, since he wants to be a star: Our intelligence against his.

Jeff Stein can be reached via jstein@cq.com.
-------------

http://counterterrorismblog.org/site-resources/images/Myth-of-Delusion.pdf

406
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Economics
« on: October 31, 2006, 10:07:32 AM »
Woof All:

As it says, this thread is for Economics.

Marc

407
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Pelosi on windfall profits tax
« on: October 31, 2006, 10:05:55 AM »



Pelosi Democrats: Yes to Taxes, No to Profits

In case you missed it, Speaker of the House wannabe Nancy Pelosi was interviewed on
CNBC by our buddy Larry Kudlow last week on the economy and stock market. Allow us
to excerpt the fascinating and amusing exchange, because it tells us a lot about
where the Democrats may be heading on energy and tax policy:

KUDLOW: [Are you for] a windfall profits tax on oil companies?
Rep. PELOSI: Oh, well...I'm not -- you won't find me friendly to that.
KUDLOW: All right. You are against the windfall profits tax?
Rep. PELOSI: Yes, I am.
KUDLOW: Oh, OK. I'm not sure a lot of people know that. Thank you for that....
Rep. PELOSI: Oh, not the tax. I'm against the windfall profit.
KUDLOW: You're opposed to the so-called windfall profits on oil.
Rep. PELOSI: Opposed to the windfall profits.
KUDLOW: So you would favor a tax?
Rep. PELOSI: Yes, I would favor something that was shaped in a way that did what it
needed to do. And that is, we've got to -- we have to have energy independence in
our country. We don't have to have excessive profits for the oil industry.

Now we know why the Democrats' best strategy in the next week is to stay button
lipped. Never mind the illogic of raising taxes on the U.S. domestic oil companies
in order to "have energy independence in our country." The last time we had a
windfall profits tax, under Jimmy Carter, oil imports surged and the higher-taxed
domestic production tumbled.

What's more to the point is that in the same interview Ms. Pelosi assured listeners
that "fiscally conservative" Democrats would be a favorable force for the financial
markets. But just in case America's potential next Speaker of the House is confused
on this point, most Americans, particularly the 52% who own stock, are in favor of
profits and opposed to higher taxes, which they know would tend to undermine growth,
jobs and the value of their nest eggs.

-- Stephen Moore

408
Politics & Religion / Open Letter to Muslims, Liberals, Democrats, et al
« on: October 24, 2006, 10:30:47 AM »
Greetings:

I want to make it clear that this forum is open to a very wide range of views.  At the moment, the posts are overwhelmingly of a certain tendency, but please do not be discouraged.  We seek Truth, not to have a bunch of echoes.   So please read the Rules of the Road thread and come to play.

The Adventure continues,
Crafty Dog

409
Politics & Religion / Iran
« on: October 24, 2006, 05:54:25 AM »
U.N. Official Says Iran Is Testing New Enrichment Device
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 24, 2006
NY Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 ? The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that Iran had begun testing new uranium enrichment equipment that could double the capacity of its small research-and-development facilities.

The action appears to be a signal to the United Nations Security Council that Iran would respond to sanctions by speeding ahead with its nuclear program.

Since February, when Iran publicly celebrated its first production of enriched uranium, progress at its main nuclear complex at Natanz has reportedly been slow. Iran has sporadically operated a single ?cascade? of 164 centrifuges, the devices that spin at high speed and turn ordinary uranium into a fuel usable for nuclear power plants ? or, at higher enrichment levels, nuclear weapons.

Those reports had prompted speculation that Iranian engineers had run into considerable technical difficulties.

But in an interview on Monday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the I.A.E.A., said that ?based on our most recent inspections, the second centrifuge cascade is in place and ready to go.? He said that no uranium had yet been entered into the new system, but could be as early as next week.

Even with two cascades running, it would take Iran years to enrich enough uranium to produce a single nuclear weapon.

The United States director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, has said repeatedly that he believes Tehran is 4 to 10 years away from developing a weapon, even though its technology base is far more advanced than that of North Korea, which conducted a nuclear test 15 days ago.

Unlike North Korea, Iran has insisted that it does not intend to build a weapon. Nonetheless, Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline, set by the Security Council, to stop enriching uranium.

Since then, European nations, China, Russia and the United States have been debating what sanctions, if any, should be imposed. China and Russia have resisted, and in a speech on Monday at Georgetown University?s School of Foreign Service, Dr. ElBaradei made clear that he believes sanctions are unlikely to work.

?Penalizing them is not a solution,? he said. ?At the end of the day, we have to bite the bullet and talk to North Korea and Iran.?

Unlike American officials, he says that he remains unpersuaded that Iran?s ultimate goal is to build a weapon, though I.A.E.A. officials say they believe that Iran wants to have all of the major components of a weapon in hand so that it is clear that it could build one in weeks or months.

?The jury is still out on whether they are developing a nuclear weapon,? Dr. ElBaradei said at Georgetown, after meeting earlier in the day with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

After the meeting, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said there was now ?widespread agreement, although not total agreement,? on elements of an initial sanctions package. He did not speculate about when the sanctions might come to a vote; at the end of the summer, administration officials insisted that the Security Council would act in September.

Mr. McCormack said the Iranians seemed to be moving ahead ?inexorably at this point,? so that at some point ?you will have industrial-scale production.?

?You don?t want that,? he said.

Some European diplomats have expressed concern that, should the Security Council act, the moderates in the Iranian government who have been involved in negotiations over the nuclear program could be shoved aside, and that some combination of military leaders and hard-line mullahs would push the country to speed its nuclear production.

410
Politics & Religion / Face Reading
« on: October 22, 2006, 04:33:25 AM »
---------------------------------------
August 5, 2002, The New Yorker
ANNALS OF PSYCHOLOGY
The Naked Face
Can you read people's thoughts just by looking at them?
http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_08_05_a_face.htm

1.

Some years ago, John Yarbrough was working patrol for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. It was about two in the morning. He and his partner were in the Willowbrook section of South Central Los Angeles, and they pulled over a sports car. "Dark, nighttime, average stop," Yarbrough recalls. "Patrol for me was like going hunting. At that time of night in the area I was working, there was a lot of criminal activity, and hardly anyone had a driver's license. Almost everyone had something intoxicating in the car. We stopped drunk drivers all the time. You're hunting for guns or lots of dope, or suspects wanted for major things. You look at someone and you get an instinctive reaction. And the longer you've been working the stronger that instinctive reaction is."

Yarbrough was driving, and in a two-man patrol car the procedure is for the driver to make the approach and the officer on the passenger side to provide backup. He opened the door and stepped out onto the street, walking toward the vehicle with his weapon drawn. Suddenly, a man jumped out of the passenger side and pointed a gun directly at him. The two of them froze, separated by no more than a few yards. "There was a tree behind him, to his right," Yarbrough recalls. "He was about seventeen. He had the gun in his right hand. He was on the curb side. I was on the other side, facing him. It was just a matter of who was going to shoot first. I remember it clear as day. But for some reason I didn't shoot him." Yarbrough is an ex-marine with close-cropped graying hair and a small mustache, and he speaks in measured tones. "Is he a danger? Sure. He's standing there with a gun, and what person in his right mind does that facing a uniformed armed policeman? If you looked at it logically, I should have shot him. But logic had nothing to do with it. Something just didn't feel right. It was a gut reaction not to shoot? a hunch that at that exact moment he was not an imminent threat to me." So Yarbrough stopped, and, sure enough, so did the kid. He pointed a gun at an armed policeman on a dark street in South Central L.A., and then backed down.

Yarbrough retired last year from the sheriff's department after almost thirty years, sixteen of which were in homicide. He now lives in western Arizona, in a small, immaculate house overlooking the Colorado River, with pictures of John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, and Dale Earnhardt on the wall. He has a policeman's watchfulness: while he listens to you, his eyes alight on your face, and then they follow your hands, if you move them, and the areas to your immediate left and right? and then back again, in a steady cycle. He grew up in an affluent household in the San Fernando Valley, the son of two doctors, and he is intensely analytical: he is the sort to take a problem and break it down, working it over slowly and patiently in his mind, and the incident in Willowbrook is one of those problems. Policemen shoot people who point guns directly at them at two in the morning. But something he saw held him back, something that ninety-nine people out of a hundred wouldn't have seen.

Many years later, Yarbrough met with a team of psychologists who were conducting training sessions for law enforcement. They sat beside him in a darkened room and showed him a series of videotapes of people who were either lying or telling the truth. He had to say who was doing what. One tape showed people talking about their views on the death penalty and on smoking in public. Another featured a series of nurses who were all talking about a nature film they were supposedly watching, even though some of them were actually watching grisly documentary footage about burn victims and amputees. It may sound as if the tests should have been easy, because we all think we can tell whether someone is lying. But these were not the obvious fibs of a child, or the prevarications of people whose habits and tendencies we know well. These were strangers who were motivated to deceive, and the task of spotting the liars turns out to be fantastically difficult. There is just too much information?words, intonation, gestures, eyes, mouth?and it is impossible to know how the various cues should be weighted, or how to put them all together, and in any case it's all happening so quickly that you can't even follow what you think you ought to follow. The tests have been given to policemen, customs officers, judges, trial lawyers, and psychotherapists, as well as to officers from the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the D.E.A., and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? people one would have thought would be good at spotting lies. On average, they score fifty per cent, which is to say that they would have done just as well if they hadn't watched the tapes at all and just guessed. But every now and again? roughly one time in a thousand?someone scores off the charts. A Texas Ranger named David Maxwell did extremely well, for example, as did an ex-A.T.F. agent named J.J. Newberry, a few therapists, an arbitrator, a vice cop? and John Yarbrough, which suggests that what happened in Willowbrook may have been more than a fluke or a lucky guess. Something in our faces signals whether we're going to shoot, say, or whether we're lying about the film we just saw. Most of us aren't very good at spotting it. But a handful of people are virtuosos. What do they see that we miss?

2.

All of us, a thousand times a day, read faces. When someone says "I love you," we look into that person's eyes to judge his or her sincerity. When we meet someone new, we often pick up on subtle signals, so that, even though he or she may have talked in a normal and friendly manner, afterward we say, "I don't think he liked me," or "I don't think she's very happy." We easily parse complex distinctions in facial expression. If you saw me grinning, for example, with my eyes twinkling, you'd say I was amused. But that's not the only way we interpret a smile. If you saw me nod and smile exaggeratedly, with the corners of my lips tightened, you would take it that I had been teased and was responding sarcastically. If I made eye contact with someone, gave a small smile and then looked down and averted my gaze, you would think I was flirting. If I followed a remark with an abrupt smile and then nodded, or tilted my head sideways, you might conclude that I had just said something a little harsh, and wanted to take the edge off it. You wouldn't need to hear anything I was saying in order to reach these conclusions. The face is such an extraordinarily efficient instrument of communication that there must be rules that govern the way we interpret facial expressions. But what are those rules? And are they the same for everyone?

In the nineteen-sixties, a young San Francisco psychologist named Paul Ekman began to study facial expression, and he discovered that no one knew the answers to those questions. Ekman went to see Margaret Mead, climbing the stairs to her tower office at the American Museum of Natural History. He had an idea. What if he travelled around the world to find out whether people from different cultures agreed on the meaning of different facial expressions? Mead, he recalls, "looked at me as if I were crazy." Like most social scientists of her day, she believed that expression was culturally determined? that we simply used our faces according to a set of learned social conventions. Charles Darwin had discussed the face in his later writings; in his 1872 book, "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals," he argued that all mammals show emotion reliably in their faces. But in the nineteen-sixties academic psychologists were more interested in motivation and cognition than in emotion or its expression. Ekman was undaunted; he began travelling to places like Japan, Brazil, and Argentina, carrying photographs of men and women making a variety of distinctive faces. Everywhere he went, people agreed on what those expressions meant. But what if people in the developed world had all picked up the same cultural rules from watching the same movies and television shows? So Ekman set out again, this time making his way through the jungles of Papua New Guinea, to the most remote villages, and he found that the tribesmen there had no problem interpreting the expressions, either. This may not sound like much of a breakthrough. But in the scientific climate of the time it was a revelation. Ekman had established that expressions were the universal products of evolution. There were fundamental lessons to be learned from the face, if you knew where to look.

Paul Ekman is now in his sixties. He is clean-shaven, with closely set eyes and thick, prominent eyebrows, and although he is of medium build, he seems much larger than he is: there is something stubborn and substantial in his demeanor. He grew up in Newark, the son of a pediatrician, and entered the University of Chicago at fifteen. He speaks deliberately: before he laughs, he pauses slightly, as if waiting for permission. He is the sort to make lists, and number his arguments. His academic writing has an orderly logic to it; by the end of an Ekman essay, each stray objection and problem has been gathered up and catalogued. In the mid-sixties, Ekman set up a lab in a ramshackle Victorian house at the University of California at San Francisco, where he holds a professorship. If the face was part of a physiological system, he reasoned, the system could be learned. He set out to teach himself. He treated the face as an adventurer would a foreign land, exploring its every crevice and contour. He assembled a videotape library of people's facial expressions, which soon filled three rooms in his lab, and studied them to the point where he could look at a face and pick up a flicker of emotion that might last no more than a fraction of a second. Ekman created the lying tests. He filmed the nurses talking about the movie they were watching and the movie they weren't watching. Working with Maureen O'Sullivan, a psychologist from the University of San Francisco, and other colleagues, he located people who had a reputation for being uncannily perceptive, and put them to the test, and that's how Yarbrough and the other high-scorers were identified. O'Sullivan and Ekman call this study of gifted face readers the Diogenes Project, after the Greek philosopher of antiquity who used to wander around Athens with a lantern, peering into people's faces as he searched for an honest man. Ekman has taken the most vaporous of sensations? the hunch you have about someone else? and sought to give them definition. Most of us don't trust our hunches, because we don't know where they came from. We think they can't be explained. But what if they can?

3.

Paul Ekman got his start in the face-reading business because of a man named Silvan Tomkins, and Silvan Tomkins may have been the best face reader there ever was. Tomkins was from Philadelphia, the son of a dentist from Russia. He was short, and slightly thick around the middle, with a wild mane of white hair and huge black plastic-rimmed glasses. He taught psychology at Princeton and Rutgers, and was the author of "Affect, Imagery, Consciousness," a four-volume work so dense that its readers were evenly divided between those who understood it and thought it was brilliant and those who did not understand it and thought it was brilliant. He was a legendary talker. At the end of a cocktail party, fifteen people would sit, rapt, at Tomkins's feet, and someone would say, "One more question!" and they would all sit there for another hour and a half, as Tomkins held forth on, say, comic books, a television sitcom, the biology of emotion, his problem with Kant, and his enthusiasm for the latest fad diets, all enfolded into one extended riff. During the Depression, in the midst of his doctoral studies at Harvard, he worked as a handicapper for a horse-racing syndicate, and was so successful that he lived lavishly on Manhattan's Upper East Side. At the track, where he sat in the stands for hours, staring at the horses through binoculars, he was known as the Professor. "He had a system for predicting how a horse would do based on what horse was on either side of him, based on their emotional relationship," Ekman said. If a male horse, for instance, had lost to a mare in his first or second year, he would be ruined if he went to the gate with a mare next to him in the lineup. (Or something like that? no one really knew for certain.) Tomkins felt that emotion was the code to life, and that with enough attention to particulars the code could be cracked. He thought this about the horses, and, more important, he thought this about the human face.

Tomkins, it was said, could walk into a post office, go over to the "Wanted" posters, and, just by looking at mug shots, tell you what crimes the various fugitives had committed. "He would watch the show "To Tell the Truth,' and without fault he could always pick the person who was lying and who his confederates were," his son, Mark, recalls. "He actually wrote the producer at one point to say it was too easy, and the man invited him to come to New York, go backstage, and show his stuff." Virginia Demos, who teaches psychology at Harvard, recalls having long conversations with Tomkins. "We would sit and talk on the phone, and he would turn the sound down as Jesse Jackson was talking to Michael Dukakis, at the Democratic National Convention. And he would read the faces and give his predictions on what would happen. It was profound."

Ekman's most memorable encounter with Tomkins took place in the late sixties. Ekman had just tracked down a hundred thousand feet of film that had been shot by the virologist Carleton Gajdusek in the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea. Some of the footage was of a tribe called the South Fore, who were a peaceful and friendly people. The rest was of the Kukukuku, who were hostile and murderous and who had a homosexual ritual where pre-adolescent boys were required to serve as courtesans for the male elders of the tribe. Ekman was still working on the problem of whether human facial expressions were universal, and the Gajdusek film was invaluable. For six months, Ekman and his collaborator, Wallace Friesen, sorted through the footage. They cut extraneous scenes, focussing just on closeups of the faces of the tribesmen, and when the editing was finished Ekman called in Tomkins.

411
Politics & Religion / Legal issues
« on: October 19, 2006, 05:32:38 AM »
AT LAW

Sending a Message
Congress to courts: Get out of the war on terror.

BY JOHN YOO
Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

During the bitter controversy over the military commission bill, which President Bush signed into law on Tuesday, most of the press and the professional punditry missed the big story. In the struggle for power between the three branches of government, it is not the presidency that "won." Instead, it is the judiciary that lost.

The new law is, above all, a stinging rebuke to the Supreme Court. It strips the courts of jurisdiction to hear any habeas corpus claim filed by any alien enemy combatant anywhere in the world. It was passed in response to the effort by a five-justice majority in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld to take control over terrorism policy. That majority extended judicial review to Guantanamo Bay, threw the Bush military commissions into doubt, and tried to extend the protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, overturning the traditional understanding that Geneva does not cover terrorists, who are not signatories nor "combatants" in an internal civil war under Article 3.

Hamdan was an unprecedented attempt by the court to rewrite the law of war and intrude into war policy. The court must have thought its stunning power grab would go unchallenged. After all, it has gotten away with many broad assertions of judicial authority before. This has been because Congress is unwilling to take a clear position on controversial issues (like abortion, religion or race) and instead passes ambiguous laws which breed litigation and leave the power to decide to the federal courts.

Until the Supreme Court began trying to make war policy, the writ of habeas corpus had never been understood to benefit enemy prisoners in war. The U.S. held millions of POWs during World War II, with none permitted to use our civilian courts (except for a few cases of U.S. citizens captured fighting for the Axis). Even after hostilities ended, the justices turned away lawsuits by enemy prisoners seeking to challenge their detention. In Johnson v. Eisentrager, the court held that it would not hear habeas claims brought by alien enemy prisoners held outside the U.S., and refused to interpret the Geneva Conventions to give new rights in civilian court against the government. In the case of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, the court refrained from reviewing the operations of military commissions.

In Hamdan, the court moved to sweep aside decades of law and practice so as to forge a grand new role for the courts to open their doors to enemy war prisoners. Led by John Paul Stevens and abetted by Anthony Kennedy, the majority ignored or creatively misread the court's World War II precedents. The approach catered to the legal academy, whose tastes run to swashbuckling assertions of judicial supremacy and radical innovations, rather than hewing to wise but boring precedents.





Thoughtful critics point out that because the enemy fights covertly, the risk of detaining the innocent is greater. But so is the risk of releasing the dangerous. That's why enemy combatants who fight out of uniform, such as wartime spies, have always been considered illegals under the law of war, not entitled to the same protections given to soldiers on the battlefield or ordinary POWs. Disguised suicide- bombers in an age of WMD proliferation and virulent America-hatred are more immediately dangerous than the furtive information-carriers of our Cold War past. We now know that more than a dozen detainees released from Guantanamo have rejoined the jihad. The real question is how much time, energy and money should be diverted from winning the fight toward establishing multiple layers of review for terrorists. Until Hamdan, nothing in the law of war ever suggested that enemy status was anything but a military judgment.
While there may be different ways to strike a balance, this is a decision for the president and Congress, not the courts. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to determine the jurisdiction of federal courts in peacetime, and also declares that habeas corpus can be suspended "in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion" when "the public Safety may require it." Congress's power is even greater when it is correcting the justices' errors. Courts are ill-equipped to decide whether vast resources should be devoted to reviewing military detentions. Or whether military personnel's time should be consumed traveling back to the U.S. for detainee hearings. Or whether we risk revealing information in these hearings that might compromise the intelligence sources and methods that may allow us to win the war.

This time, Congress and the president did not take the court's power grab lying down. They told the courts, in effect, to get out of the war on terror, stripped them of habeas jurisdiction over alien enemy combatants, and said there was nothing wrong with the military commissions. It is the first time since the New Deal that Congress had so completely divested the courts of power over a category of cases. It is also the first time since the Civil War that Congress saw fit to narrow the court's habeas powers in wartime because it disagreed with its decisions.

The law goes farther. It restores to the president command over the management of the war on terror. It directly reverses Hamdan by making clear that the courts cannot take up the Geneva Conventions. Except for some clearly defined war crimes, whose prosecution would also be up to executive discretion, it leaves interpretation and enforcement of the treaties up to the president. It even forbids courts from relying on foreign or international legal decisions in any decisions involving military commissions.

All this went overlooked during the fight over the bill by the media, which focused on Sens. McCain, Graham and Warner's opposition to the administration's proposals for the use of classified evidence at terrorist trials and permissible interrogation methods. In its eagerness to magnify an intra-GOP squabble, the media mostly ignored the substance of the bill, which gave current and future administrations, whether Democrat or Republican, the powers needed to win this war.

Mr. Yoo, professor of law at Berkeley and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, served in the Bush Justice Department from 2001-03. He is the author of "War By Other Means" (Grove/Atlantic 2006).

412
Politics & Religion / Book Reviews
« on: October 17, 2006, 06:07:22 PM »
I am sure a fatwa is being issued somewhere...Yash
 
Buy the Book
Peace Be Unto Him
By William Tucker
Published 10/17/2006 12:07:05 AM
The Truth About Muhammad:
Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion
By Robert Spencer
(Regnery, 256 pages, $27.95)


"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." -- James Joyce

If you want to spend a depressing afternoon, try flipping through Robert Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad. It's not a long read, but when you're through you'll have an idea of the monumental task awaiting the West.

Unlike the founders of other religions, whose lives are often shrouded in legend and mystery, Muhammad's rise took place -- as 19th century French scholar Ernest Renan put it -- "in the full light of history." Muhammad himself dictated the Koran. There are numerous other accounts of his life, both from people who knew him personally and from the hadith, a collection of "sayings of the prophet" that scholars collected shortly after his death. There is no great mystery about who Muhammad was or what he stood for. The only mystery is why the West has so much difficulty in recognizing it.

Muhammad was a warlord, pure and simple. He roused a disorganized group of nomadic tribes into a ruthless, fearless army. During his lifetime, he conquered the Arabian Peninsula and his followers eventually extended those conquests from Spain to India. By all rights, he should take his place in history among of Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn, and Tamerlane the Great as early history's great military leaders.

The difference is that Muhammad was also a prophet -- or maybe just a bit of a psychopath. Probably illiterate, he was nevertheless extremely familiar with Jewish and Christian doctrines that prevailed throughout the Middle East. Realizing that people would not be won over unless they abandoned their religion, Muhammad reinterpreted these faiths, styling them all as forerunners and himself as the "Last Prophet," come to replace both.

Beginning in middle age, Muhammad heard the voice of god -- Allah -- almost daily. His followers took notes and these transcriptions were eventually compiled into the Koran. As Spencer points out, Allah's dictates often went into strange detail and had an uncanny way of aligning themselves with The Prophet's desires. When Muhammad decided to take his own son's young bride for his wife, for example, Allah expressed approval. When several of Muhammad's wives ganged up on him because of his philandering, Allah gave him permission to divorce them -- a Koranic passage that still governs divorce in Muslim societies today.

But it's worse than that. Where Allah and Muhammad occasionally disagreed, Allah was actually more harsh -- a kind of Freudian superego regurgitating the grim fantasies of early childhood. In several instances, Muhammad was ready to forgive his rivals and enemies but Allah wouldn't let him. Instead, they had to be beheaded.

What has survived from Muhammad's eventful life, then, is not just a record of his conquests but a philosophy, a religion, a set of personal attitudes that prevails among more than a billion people of the world today. Those attitudes are not very friendly. Briefly, they prescribe that might makes right, that forgiveness is a sign of weakness, and that no fate is too vile for those who reject the wisdom of The Prophet. Jihadists beheading their captives still quote Koranic scripture -- accurately -- today.

More than anything, Spencer's detailed analysis is a remarkable endorsement of Thomas Carlyle's idea that "History is the elongated shadow of great men." Say what you will about social and economic circumstances, about natural resources and geography, or even -- if you are to believe Jared Diamond's bizarre ramblings -- that climate is the determining factor of history, the fact remains that the ethos of every civilization can be traced to the historical actions of a few individuals.

Confucius was a hermetic scholar who set China on a path of family loyalty, submission to authority, and respect for learning. The authors of The Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita were Brahmin scholars who preached supreme detachment and caste divisions. Buddha was the Indian Prince Siddhartha who rebelled against the Hindu caste system but taught extreme patience and withdrawal from the world. Moses was a lawgiver who led his people out of bondage. Jesus was a prophet who taught personal responsibility and the forgiveness of sins. Muhammad was a warrior who led armies into battle and taught that the sword was a proper instrument for converting the unbelievers.

Granted, each of these founders often contradicted himself and the message of each has not always survived in its original purity. But each of these prophets set the tone of a civilization that still reverberates today. The tone of Islam, from its very beginnings, has been intolerance, conflict, and conquest. As a result, Islam now finds itself at war, not just with the West, but with every civilization on its borders. Of course this is everyone else's fault. Muslims are like the boy fighting with everyone in school whose mother comes to the principal's office wanting to know why everyone in the school is fighting with him!

Spencer uses one example after another to bring home the point. In a story from the 9th century hadith of Muhammad Ibn Ismail al-Bukahari, for example, Muhammad confronted a group of Jews about to punish a couple that had committed adultery. Asked to expound their own law, one of the rabbis then began to read from the Torah, but skipped a verse mandating stoning, covering it with his hand. Abdullah bin Salam, a rabbi who had converted to Islam, saw the trick.


"Lift your hand!" Abdullah cried, and the verse duly read, Muhammad exclaimed, "Woe to you Jews! What has induced you to abandon the judgment of God which you hold in your hand?" And he asserted: "I am the first to revive the order of God and His Book and to practice it."

Muhammad ordered the couple to be stoned to death; another Muslim remembered, "I saw the man leaning over the woman to shelter her from the stones."

Compare this to Jesus' prescription in an almost identical situation: "Ye who is without sin, let him cast the first stone."

Muhammad's story belongs to a period when, to quote Mark Twain, "History was one damned battle after another." Most of the world has left this era behind. The rise of civilization has been the history of people learning to live in peace and cooperate with each other on a wider and wider scale. All this requires that people forgive and forget, letting old grudges eventually recede into the past. Islam not only nurtures old grudges, it celebrates them. The Sunni and the Shi'ia are still fighting over the death of Hussein, Muhammad's grandson, at the Battle of Karbala in 680 A.D.

The fruit of Jesus' teaching of tolerance and forgiveness is that Western Civilization has been able to prosper while Islam remains locked in an era of primordial combat. Certainly we have had our wars and religious conflicts, but the overall trend has been toward cooperation and civilization -- especially in America, a land where much of history is virtually forgotten. Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the great Eastern religions are also proving that they can prepare people for the modern world.

So why can't we make it clear to Muslims that it is time to forget the desert morality of the 7th century? For one thing, the people defending Western Civilization don't seem very familiar with its accomplishments. Last week the New York Times recounted how the Dutch government is introducing Muslim immigrants to Western values by showing them a DVD of "topless women and two men kissing" ("Across Europe, Worries on Islam Spread to Center," October 11). What would you think of a country that introduced itself by flaunting its pornography? Does the word "decadent" come to mind?

Robert Spencer has outlined the situation very clearly:

The words and deeds of Muhammad have been moving Muslims to commit acts of violence for fourteen hundred years now. They are not going to disappear in our lifetimes; nor can they be negotiated away.

Islam is just as violent and conquest-oriented as the jihadists say it is. The question is not whether Islamic values are incompatible with ours. The question is whether we are going to assert our own values -- or let decadence and submission lead the way.


William Tucker is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator.

413
The Curse of Voinovich

Even if Republicans hold the Senate, the Bush tax cuts could be in trouble. If the GOP loses two to five seats, its majorities on key committees are almost certain to shrink. The biggest problem is the Senate Finance Committee -- the tax writing committee of the upper chamber. Right now, Republicans enjoy an 11 to 9 majority on the committee. That will shrink probably to 11 to 10 or 10 to 9 if Republicans lose Senate seats in November.

Here's the problem: Bill Frist is retiring and this leaves an opening on this coveted committee and next in line in terms of seniority is Ohio Republican George Voinovich. But Mr. Voinovich may be the least reliable Republican on tax votes and if he's not the worst, he's definitely in the Bottom Three. Mr. Voinovich opposed death tax repeal this year, one of only three GOP defections. He has even said that he might support a higher estate tax. Mr. Voinovich has also been wishy-washy on investment tax cuts, arguing that deficit reduction should take top priority. Says one GOP Senate staffer: "We Republicans could lose effective control of the committee with Voinovich added."

The GOP already has a problem child on the committee in Olympia Snowe of Maine. She votes often with the Democrats and has little sympathy for the supply-side agenda. In 2003, she was one of three Republicans to vote against the Bush tax cuts in the Senate.

Adding Sen. Voinovich could mean Republicans would have little chance to make the Bush tax cuts permanent -- one of the GOP's key 2007-08 agenda items. One saving grace might be that any new committee appointments will likely be decided by the new Senate Majority Leader, who almost certainly will be Mitch McConnell. Sen. McConnell could brush aside the seniority courtesy and choose a reliable supply-sider and avoid all these problems. That might be his first big test as the new chief cat herder of the Senate -- assuming it remains under GOP control.

Opinion Journal (WSJ) Political Diary

414
Politics & Religion / Big Picture WW3: Who, when, where, why
« on: October 15, 2006, 06:07:49 PM »
It's the Tribes, Stupid

Steven Pressfield

October 2006

? 2006 Steven Pressfield

Forget the Koran. Forget the ayatollahs and the imams. If we want to understand the enemy we're fighting in Iraq, the magic word is "tribe."

Islam is not our opponent in Baghdad or Fallouja. We delude ourselves if we believe the foe is a religion. The enemy is tribalism articulated in terms of religion.

For two years I've been researching a book about Alexander the Great's counter-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan, 330-327 B.C. What struck me most powerfully is that that war is a dead ringer for the ones we're fighting today ? even though Alexander was pre-Christian and his enemies were pre-Islamic.

In other words, the clash of East and West is at bottom not about religion. It's about two different ways of being in the world. Those ways haven't changed in 2300 years. They are polar antagonists, incompatible and irreconcilable.

The West is modern and rational; its constituent unit is the nation. The East is ancient and visceral; its constituent unit is the tribe.

What is a tribe anyway?

The tribe is the most ancient form of social organization. It arose from the hunter-gatherer clans of pre-history. A tribe is small. It consists of personal, face-to-face relationships, often of blood. A tribe is cohesive. Its structure is hierarchical. It has a leader and a rigid set of norms and customs that defines each individual's role. Like a hunting band, the tribe knows who's the top dog and knows how to follow orders. What makes Islam so powerful in the world today is that its all-embracing discipline and order overlay the tribal mind-set so perfectly. Islam delivers the certainty and security that the tribe used to. It permits the tribal way to survive and thrive in a post-tribal and super-tribal world.

Am I knocking tribalism? Not at all. In many ways I think people are happier in a tribal universe. Consider the appeal of post-apocalyptic movies like The Road Warrior or The Day After Tomorrow. Modern life is tough. Who can fault us if now and then we entertain the idea of going back to the simple life?

The people we're fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan live that life 24/7/365 and they've been living it for the past ten thousand years. They like it. It's who they are. They're not going to change.

How do you combat a tribal enemy?

Step one is to recognize that that enemy is tribal. We in the West may flatter ourselves that democracy is taking root in Iraq when we see news footage of blue-ink thumbs and beaming faces emerging from polls. What's really happening has nothing to do with democracy. What's happening is the tribal chief has passed the word and everybody is voting exactly as he told them to.

What is the nature of the tribe? What can sociology tell us about its attributes?

The tribe respects power.

Saddam Hussein understood this. So did Tito, Stalin, Hitler. So will the next strong man who ultimately stabilizes Iraq.

The tribe must have a chief. It demands a leader. With a top dog, every underdog knows his place. He feels secure. He can provide security for this family. The tribe needs a Tony Soprano. It needs a Godfather.

The U.S. blew it in Iraq the first week after occupying Baghdad. Capt. Nate Fick of the Recon Marines tells the story of that brief interlude when U.S. forces were still respected, just before the looting started. Capt. Fick went in that interval to the local headman in his area of responsibility in Baghdad; he asked what he needed. The chief replied, "Clean water, electricity, and as many statues of George W. Bush as you can give us."

The tribe needs a boss. Alexander understood this. Unlike the U.S., the Macedonians knew how to conquer a country. When Alexander took Babylon in 333 B.C., he let the people know he was the man. They accepted this. They welcomed it. Life could go on.

When we Americans declared in essence to the Iraqis, "Here, folks, you're free now; set up your own government," they looked at us as if we were crazy. The tribal mind doesn't want freedom; it wants security. Order. It wants a New Boss. The Iraqis lost all respect for us then. They saw us as naive, as fools. They saw that we could be beaten.

The tribe is a warrior; its foundation is warrior pride.

The heart of every tribal male is that of a warrior. Even the most wretched youth in a Palestinian refugee camp sees himself as a knight of Islam. The Pathan code of nangwali prescribes three virtues ? nang, pride; badal, revenge; melmastia, hospitality. These guys are Apaches.

What the warrior craves before all else is respect. Respect from his own people, and, even more, from his enemy. When we of the West understand this, as Alexander did, we'll have taken the first step toward solving the unsolvable.

The tribe places no value on freedom.

The tribe is the most primitive form of social organization. In the conditions under which the tribe evolved, survival was everything. Cohesion meant the difference between starving and eating. The tribe enforces conformity by every means possible ? wives, mothers, and daughters add the whip hand to keep the warriors in line. Freedom is a luxury the tribe can't afford. The tribesman's priority is respect within the tribe, to belong, to be judged a man.

You can't sell "freedom" to tribesmen any more than you can sell "democracy." He doesn't want it. It violates his code. It threatens everything he stands for.

The tribe is bound to the land.

I just read an article about Ariel Sharon (a tribal leader if there ever was one.) The interviewer was describing how, as Sharon crossed a certain stretch of Israeli real estate, he pointed out with great emotion the hills where the Biblical character Abigail lived out her story. In other words, to the tribesman the land isn't for sale; it's been rendered sacred by the sagas of ancestors. The tribe will paint the stones red with its own blood before letting itself be evicted from the land.

The tribe cannot be negotiated with.

Tribes deal in absolutes. Their standards of honor cannot be compromised. Crush the tribe in one century, it will rise again a thousand years from now. We're seeing this now in a Middle East where the Crusades happened yesterday. When the tribe negotiates, it is always a sham ? a stalling tactic meant to mitigate temporary weakness. Do we believe Iran is really "coming to the table?" As soon as the tribe regains power, it will abrogate every treaty and every pact.

The tribe has no honor except within its own sphere, deriving justice for its own people. Its code is Us versus Them. The outsider is a gentile, an infidel, a devil.

These are just a few of the characteristics of the tribal mind. Now: what to do about this?

How to deal with the tribal mind.

You can't make deals with a tribal foe; they won't be honored. You can't buy them; they'll take your money and despise you. The tribe can't be reasoned with. Its mind is not rational, it's instinctive. The tribe is not modern but primitive. The tribe thinks from the stem of its brain, not the cortex. Its code is of warrior pride, not of Enlightenment reason.

To deal successfully with the tribe, a negotiator of the West must first grant it its pride and honor. The tribe's males must be addressed as warriors; its women must be treated with respect. The tribe must be left to its own land, to govern as it deems best.

If you want to get out of a tribal war, you must find a scenario by which the tribe can declare itself victorious. The tribal mind is canny; it knows when it's whipped. But its warrior pride is so fierce, it cannot admit this. The tribe has to be allowed its face.

How Alexander got out of a quagmire.

It took Alexander three years, but he finally got a handle on the tribal mind. (Perhaps because so many of his own Macedonians were basically tribal.) Alexander produced peace by marrying the daughter of his most powerful enemy, the princess Roxane. The tribe understands such an act. This is respect. This is honor.

Alexander made the tribesmen his equals. He acknowledged their warrior honor. When he and his army marched out to their next conquest, Alexander took the bravest of his former enemies with him as his Companions. They rode at his side in stations of honor; they dined at his shoulder in the royal pavilion. (Of course he also beat the living hell out of the Afghans for three years prior, and when he took off he left a fifth of his army to garrison the place.)

The outlook for the U.S. in Iraq

In the end, unless we're ready to treat them they way we did Geronimo, the tribe is unbeatable. They're just too crazy. They're not like us. Tolerance and open-mindedness are not virtues to them; they're signs of weakness. The tribe is too rigid to bend, and it can't be negotiated with.

Perhaps in the end, our leaders, like Alexander, will figure some way to bring the tribal foe around. More likely in my opinion, they'll arrive at the same conclusion as did Lord Roberts, the legendary British general. Lord Roberts fought (and defeated militarily) tribesmen in two bloody wars in Afghanistan in the 19th century. His conclusion: get out. Lord Roberts' axiom was that the farther away British forces remained from the tribesmen, the more likely the tribesmen were to feel warmly toward them; the closer he got, the more they hated him and the more stubbornly and implacably they fought against him.


415
Politics & Religion / Welcome Our Piazza folk!
« on: October 14, 2006, 09:19:40 AM »
Greetings to all my good friends from Our Piazza:

This thread is mostly to let you know that you have found the right place.  Dive right in with the same free-wheeling spirit in seach of truth that made OP such a wonderful place.

Please say hello here to let me know who of us is here now.

The Adventure continues!
Marc

416
Politics & Religion / Islam, theocratic politics, & political freedom
« on: October 14, 2006, 09:12:32 AM »
Speakout: Muslims must both denounce, renounce their violent hadiths
By Dr. Tawfik Hamid

Dr. Tawfik Hamid, an Egyptian physician, Islamic scholar and former
extremist, is the author of The Roots of Jihad (www.rootsofjihad.org). Hamid
will be speaking in Denver at the University of Denver on Monday at 7:30
p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students.

Rocky Mountain News
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_5048866,00.html
October 6, 2006

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2 man, leader, last month announced that
Americans must choose: Convert to Islam or continue to receive acts of
terror.

Al-Zawahri was reiterating a fundamental concept of Salafi Islamic teaching,
the fountainhead of extremist thinking. Yet the authors of the American
government's recent intelligence report on terrorism's spread seem not to
have been listening.

Zawahri's threat is based on a saying of the Prophet Muhammad as written in
Sahih Al-Buchary, a central book of Salafi Islamic teaching. This hadith, or
fundamental concept, states: "I have been ordered by Allah to fight and kill
all mankind until they say, 'No God except Allah and Muhammad is the prophet
of Allah' (Hadith Sahih)."

Based on this hadith, early Muslims used the sword to spread Islam
throughout the world. The same hadith inspires contemporary Islamic terror
including this summer's thwarted London airplane explosions. Other
rationales that terrorists use to justify terrorism - the Arab-Israeli
conflict, America's involvement in Iraq - are simply useful propaganda cover
stories, not the actual causes or goals of terrorists' actions.

Americans must be wary of political leaders who accept the propaganda
explanations. To win the war on terror, America's leaders must recognize the
powerful role of the Islamic religious principle of jihad, Islam's belief
that it must conquer the world, which derives from the above hadith. Belief
in jihad is what causes so many Muslims worldwide to cheer terrorist acts
such as 9/11, European subway bombings, and Hezbollah and Hamas attacks
against Israel.

Allowing jihadist teaching to continue is like allowing cancer cells to
survive in a human body.

The human immune system demonstrates that nurturing normal cells and
respecting their variance sustains life. A healthy body nourishes cell
diversity. A healthy body politic, similarly, must value respect for
different beliefs. At the same time, if an immune system shows any tolerance
whatsoever for cancer cells, the latter will terminate that body's life. The
immune system of a body politic must have a similar zero tolerance for
beliefs that incite violence against its citizens.

Cancer can be overcome if an individual has a strong immune system that acts
to triumph over the killer cells. Similarly, the cancerous teachings of
Salafi Islam could become insignificant if the majority of Muslims were to
vocally oppose them.

Unfortunately, however, the vast majority of Muslims, Islamic organizations
and Islamic scholars have not publicly objected to these teachings. There
have been no powerful Muslim demonstrations to denounce Osama bin Laden and
not a single fatwa by top Islamic scholars or organizations to consider bin
Laden an apostate - as was done to Salman Rushdie just for writing a novel.

Because the teachings continue, a significant proportion of the world's
Muslims have become passive terrorists, peaceful citizens whose sympathy in
their hearts and support with their purses enable terrorism's spread.

If Islamic scholars and organizations in America disapprove of jihadist
teachings, they must speak out against them. Americans should consider
Muslims to be moderates, and Islam a peaceful faith, only if, in English and
in Arabic, Muslims clearly denounce their violent hadiths and strike them
from the books that educate their next generation.

In addition to internal immune reactions, externally applied interventions
also can destroy cancer cells. Like cancer-fighting chemotherapy, strongly
applied military might can reduce large tumors. America eliminated al-Qaida
training camps in Afghanistan, but the verdict is not yet in on whether
Israel this past summer similarly decimated Hezbollah.

To conquer the metastases of extremist Islam, however, words may be the most
potent weapons. Outspoken condemnation of the theological sources of
terrorism by American intellectuals and politicians, reinforcing the
self-examination of Muslims themselves, could make a vital difference.

Addressing the theological wellsprings of Islamic terrorist motivation is
essential if America is to succeed in its war against terrorism. Pope
Benedict XVI has begun leading the way. Neither political correctness nor
Muslim outrage must be allowed to prevent further realistic talk about the
religious underpinnings of Islamic violence. Otherwise Islamic teaching will
continue to spread jihad's cancerous beliefs.


417
Politics & Religion / Islam in America (and pre-emptive dhimmitude)
« on: October 14, 2006, 09:11:54 AM »
Establishing this thread:

418
Politics & Religion / Islam in Europe and pre-emptive dhimmitude
« on: October 14, 2006, 09:10:59 AM »
All:

Posts on the good, not just the bad and the ugly belong here.

Marc
=====================



http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006460631,00.html

RELATED STORIES
By JULIE MOULT,
JAMIE PYATT
and TOM REILLY
October 07, 2006

MUSLIM yobs who wrecked a house to stop four brave soldiers moving in after returning from Afghanistan sparked outrage last night.
The house in a village near riot-torn Windsor had BRICKS thrown through windows and was DAUBED with messages of hate.
Four young Household Cavalry officers who had planned to rent it were also the target of phone THREATS.
They were yesterday forced to look elsewhere to live ? after top brass warned them against inflaming racial violence near the Queen?s Windsor Castle home.
Last night furious Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: ?This is a shocking development.?

Colleagues of the officers branded the vandalism a ?disgrace?. A source at the regiment said: ?These guys have done nothing but bravely serve their country ? yet they can?t even live where they want in their own country.? The ?3,000-a-month detached home in picturesque Datchet, Berks, is less than a mile from Windsor Castle. It was attacked as extra police were drafted into Windsor ? where battles have raged for days between Asian and white gangs.
On Wednesday a Muslim-run dairy was firebombed.
The young officers ? from the same regiment as Prince Harry ? had planned to use the four-bed house for rest and recuperation after months risking their lives on the frontline.
Louts struck two days after the four arrived in uniform in an Army Land Rover to view it.
The source said: ?A gang of local Muslims set about keeping them away. They hurled bricks through the windows and then wrote offensive graffiti across the front of the house.? The vile messages included one in 4ft letters on the drive ? warning: ?F*** off?.
Sources inside Windsor?s Combermere Barracks ? where the officers are based ? confirmed Muslims had made calls threatening the men.
NI_MPU('middle');NI_MPU('Embedded for DHTML');The scandal comes as Tony Blair today pledges the Army in Afghanistan can have ANYTHING it needs to hammer the Taliban. Writing exclusively in The Sun he declares that Our Boys are ?the best in the world?.
A Household Cavalry insider said of the Muslims? insult to Britain?s heroes: ?Everyone in the regiment is really upset. It?s one thing coming under attack in Helmand in Afghanistan but quite another getting this abuse in England. The officers were determined to face down the yobs and still move in ? but didn?t want a race riot on their hands.?
Police hunting the vandals confirmed: ?One line of inquiry is that it is racially aggravated.?
The house?s owner Johanna Ledwidge refused to comment beyond saying she was very upset. A shocked neighbour in the quiet street said: ?We pride ourselves in this neighbourhood that we welcome all cultures.?
Tory MP Philip Davies said of the attack: ?This is outrageous.
?If there?s anybody who should f*** off it?s the Muslims who are doing this kind of thing. Police should pull out the stops to track down these vile thugs.?
Sir Andrew Green, director of the think-tank Migrationwatch UK, said: ?Incidents like this are absolutely inexcusable and seriously undermine efforts by all sides to achieve integration. Those who choose to live in this country owe a loyalty to Britain.?
A spokesman for letting agency Kings, who are marketing the property, said: ?It was an isolated case of vandalism. We do not know the reasons behind it.?

===============


419
Politics & Religion / Environmental issues
« on: October 14, 2006, 09:03:09 AM »
Woof All:

Although this thread is for serious conversation, we begin with a humorous quickie, source unknown

Marc
===============

October 12, 2006
 
Buffalo, NY - An early storm dumped up to two feet of snow in the Buffalo, NY area today. Weather forecasters note it was the earliest snowfall in Buffalo history.
 
The snowfall caused a number of weather related cancellations including Buffalo State College's sponsored seminar of Al Gore speaking on "Global Warming."
 

420
Politics & Religion / Israel, and its neighbors
« on: October 13, 2006, 05:53:09 PM »
Woof All:

Well, lets dive right in:

Marc
=====================

Is Israel in America's Interest?
By Martin Kramer
Azure | October 13, 2006


The question of whether Israel is or is not an asset to the United States is
one we rarely bother to ask ourselves. Time and again, we see prominent
Americans -- presidents of the United States at the forefront -- emphasizing
their special relationship with Israel. In polls of American public opinion,
Israel scores very high marks, while sympathy for the Palestinians, never
very high, continues to drop. Why should we even ask ourselves whether
Israel is an asset or a liability to the United States? Isn't the answer
obvious?

Most supporters of Israel, when pressed to go a bit deeper, will give two
prime rationales for why the United States should back Israel. One is a
moral obligation to the Jewish people, grounded in the history of Jewish
persecution and culminating in the Holocaust. Israel, so this thinking goes,
is something the civilized world owes to the Jewish people, having inflicted
an unprecedented genocide upon it. This is a potent rationale, but it is not
clear why that would make Israel an asset to the United States. If
supporting Israel is an obligation, then it could be described as a
liability -- a burden to be borne. And of course, as time passes, that sense
of obligation is bound to diminish.

Another powerful rationale is the fact that Israel is a democracy, even an
outpost of democracy, in a benighted part of the world. But the fact is that
there are many non-democratic states that have been allies of the United
States, and important assets as well. Quite arguably, the Saudi monarchy is
an asset to the United States, because it assures the flow of oil at
reasonable prices, a key American interest. In contrast, the Palestinian
Authority and Iran, which have many more democratic practices than Saudi
Arabia, are headaches to the United States, for having empowered the likes
of Hamas and Ahmadinejad through elections. So the fact that Israel is a
democracy is not proof positive that it is an American asset.

Nevertheless, the Holocaust argument and the democracy argument are more
than sufficient for the vast majority of Americans. On this basis alone,
they would extend to Israel support, even unqualified support. And there is
an important segment of opinion in America, comprising evangelical
Christians, who probably do not even need these arguments. Israel is, for
them, the manifestation of a divine plan, and they support it as a matter of
faith.

But everywhere in the West, there is a sliver of elite opinion that is not
satisfied with these rationales. It includes policymakers and analysts,
journalists, and academics. By habit and by preference, they have a tendency
to view any consensus with skepticism. In their opinion, the American people
cannot possibly be wiser than them -- after all, look whom they elect -- and
so they deliberately take a contrary position on issues around which there
is broad agreement. In this spirit, many of them view U.S. support for
Israel as a prime focal point for skepticism.

In March, two American professors subjected the U.S.-Israel relationship to
a skeptic's examination. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, the former from
the University of Chicago, the latter from Harvard, published a paper under
the title "The Israel Lobby: Israel in U.S. Foreign Policy." One version
appeared in the London Review of Books; a longer, footnoted version was
posted on the website of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The
paper caused a firestorm.

Mearsheimer and Walt are academic oracles of the so-called realist school in
international relations. Realism, in its policy application, is an approach
that seeks to isolate the conduct of foreign affairs from sentimental moral
considerations and special interests like ethnic and commercial lobbies, and
to base it instead on a pure concept of the national interest. Realists are
not interested in historical obligations, or in whether this or that
potential ally respects human rights. They see themselves as coldly weighing
U.S. interests, winnowing out extraneous considerations, and ending up with
policies that look out solely for number one: The United States.

Realist thinkers are not isolationists, but they are extremely reluctant to
see U.S. power expended on projects and allies that do not directly serve
some U.S. interest as they define it -- and they define these interests
quite narrowly. Generally, they oppose visionary ideas of global
transformation, which they see as American empire in disguise. And empire,
they believe, is a drain on American resources. They are particularly
reluctant to commit American troops, preferring that the United States
follow a policy of "offshore balancing" wherever possible -- that is,
playing rivals off one another.

These were the principles that guided Mearsheimer and Walt when they
examined the United States-Israel relationship. And this was their finding:
By any "objective" measure, American support for Israel is a liability. It
causes Arabs and Muslims to hate America, and that hate in turn generates
terrorism. The prime interest of the United States in the Middle East is the
cultivation of cooperation with Arabs and Muslims, many of whom detest
Israel, its policies, or both. The less the United States is identified as a
supporter and friend of Israel's five million Jews, the easier it will be
for it to find local proxies to keep order among the billion or so Muslims.
And the only thing that has prevented the United States from seeing this
clearly is the pro-Israel lobby, operating through fronts as diverse as the
American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, and so on.

This "Israel Lobby," with a capital L, has effectively hijacked U.S. policy
in the Middle East so that it serves Israel's, not America's, interests. In
one of their most provocative claims, the authors argue that Israel spurred
its neo-conservative allies in Washington to press for the Iraq war -- a war
that served no identifiable U.S. interest, but which was waged largely for
Israeli security. And, they continue, the growing drumbeat for an attack on
Iran also has its ultimate source in the Lobby. A nuclear Iran would not
constitute a threat to the United States, they argue, and military action
against Iran would not be in America's interest, since it would inflame the
Arab and Muslim worlds yet again, producing a wave of anti-American terror
and damaging the American economy.

The Mearsheimer-Walt thesis is not a new one. What is new is the prestige
that they lent to these ideas. Because their paper appeared on the Kennedy
School website, it soon became know as the "Harvard study" on the Israel
lobby. Harvard is one of the most recognizable names in the world, familiar
to every American from high school on up. Their study could not be ignored,
and the responses came fast and furious.

Many of them took the form of reiterating the two arguments I mentioned
earlier: Israel as a moral obligation of the West, and Israel as a
democracy. These arguments are compelling, or at least they are compelling
when made well. But for argument's sake, let us set aside the claim that
Israel and the United States share democratic values, rooted in a common
Judeo-Christian tradition. Let us set aside the fact that the American
public has a deep regard for Israel, shown in poll after poll. Let us just
ask a simple question: Is Israel a strategic asset or a strategic liability
for the United States, in realist terms?

My answer, to anticipate my conclusion, is this: United States support for
Israel is not primarily the result of Holocaust guilt or shared democratic
values; nor is it produced by the machinations of the "Israel Lobby."
American support for Israel -- indeed, the illusion of its
unconditionality - underpins the pax Americana in the eastern Mediterranean.
It has compelled Israel's key Arab neighbors to reach peace with Israel and
to enter the American orbit. The fact that there has not been a general
Arab-Israeli war since 1973 is proof that this pax Americana, based on the
United States-Israel alliance, has been a success. From a realist point of
view, supporting Israel has been a low-cost way of keeping order in part of
the Middle East, managed by the United States from offshore and without the
commitment of any force. It is, simply, the ideal realist alliance.

In contrast, the problems the United States faces in the Persian Gulf stem
from the fact that it does not have an Israel equivalent there, and so it
must massively deploy its own force at tremendous cost. Since no one in the
Gulf is sure that the United States has the staying power to maintain such a
presence over time, the Gulf keeps producing defiers of America, from
Khomeini to Saddam to Bin Laden to Ahmadinejad. The United States has to
counter them, not in the interests of Israel, but to keep the world's great
reserves of oil out of the grip of the West's sworn enemies.

Allow me to substantiate my conclusion with a brief dash through the history
of Israel's relationship with the United States. Between 1948 and 1967, the
United States largely adhered to a zero-sum concept of Middle Eastern
politics. The United States recognized Israel in 1948, but it did not do
much to help it defend itself for fear of alienating Arab monarchs, oil
sheikhs, and the "Arab street." That was the heyday of the sentimental State
Department Arabists and the profit-driven oil companies. It did not matter
that the memory of the Holocaust was fresh: The United States remained
cautious, and attempted to appear "evenhanded." This meant that the United
States embargoed arms both to Israel and to the Arabs.

So Israel went elsewhere. It bought guns from the Soviet bloc, and fighter
aircraft and a nuclear reactor from France. It even cut a deal with its old
adversary Britain at the time of the Suez adventure in 1956. Israel was not
in the U.S. orbit, and it did not get significant American aid.

Nevertheless, the radical Arab states gravitated toward the Soviet Union for
weapons and aid. Israel felt vulnerable, and the Arab countries still
believed they could eliminate Israel by war. In every decade, this
insecurity indeed produced war: 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. The United
States was not invested heavily enough to prevent these wars; its diplomacy
simply kicked in to stop them after the initial energy was spent.

Only in June 1967, with Israel's lightning victory over three of its
neighbors, did the United States begin to see Israel differently, as a
military power in its own right. The Arab-Israeli war that erupted in
October 1973 did even more to persuade the United States of Israel's power.
Although Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel, Israel
bounded back to achieve what military analysts have called its greatest
victory, repulsing an enemy that might have overwhelmed a less determined
and resourceful people.

It was then that the United States began to look at Israel as a potential
strategic ally. Israel appeared to be the strongest, most reliable, and most
cost-effective bulwark against Soviet penetration of the Middle East. It
could defeat any combination of Soviet clients on its own, and in so doing,
humiliate the Soviet Union and drive thinking Arabs out of the Soviet camp.

The 1973 war had another impact on American thinking. Until then,
Arab-Israeli wars did not threaten the oil flow, but that war led to an Arab
oil embargo. Another Arab-Israeli war might have the same impact or worse,
so the United States therefore resolved to prevent such wars by creating a
security architecture -- a pax Americana.

One way to build it would have been to squeeze Israel relentlessly. But the
United States understood that making Israel feel less secure would only
increase the likelihood of another war and encourage the Arab states to
prepare for yet another round. Instead, the American solution was to show
such strong support for Israel as to make Arab states despair of defeating
it, and fearful of the cost of trying. To this purpose, the United States
brought Israel entirely into its orbit, making of it a dependent client
through arms and aid.

That strategy worked. Expanded American support for Israel persuaded Egypt
to switch camps and abandon its Soviet alliance, winning the Cold War for
the United States in the Middle East. Egypt thus became an American ally
alongside Israel, and not instead of Israel. The zero-sum theory of the
Arabists -- Israel or the Arabs, but not both -- collapsed. American Middle
East policy underwent its Copernican revolution.

421
Politics & Religion / Rules of the Road/Fire Hydrant/Self Intro
« on: October 13, 2006, 05:21:09 PM »
Woof All:

The rules of the road around here are pretty simple:

1) Good manners: we speak to each other as if we were face to face.

2) Genuine content:  Please limit your posts that really have something to say.  If you are pasting something from elsewhere, please be sure to specifty the source (name, URL, that sort of thing).  If you do not have the source, please explain why.

3)  WE SEEK TRUTH.  Not to profit or be a prophet, but to seek the truth.  If the facts prove us wrong, we change our minds.

4)  Given the nature of WW3 and the generally low level of understanding of Islam in our culture, it is natural that there will be many pieces about Islam.  Some of them will be negative.  Some of them will be positive.  ALL of them are to be in search of truth.  If you disagree with something that someone else prints, the answer is to persuade with Reason and Reality. 

5)  Before starting a new thread, please look to see if your post logically fits in an existing thread.  The more we maintain thread coherence, the more these threads become valuable as repositories of info and intel.

No doubt I well be editing and amending these rules as time goes by, but for the moment these will do.

The Adventure continues,
Marc (Crafty Dog)

422
Politics & Religion / Islam in Arabic/Islamic Countries:
« on: October 13, 2006, 04:34:48 PM »

No Dates, No Dancing
Why Pakistan's university students are embracing the fundamentalist life
By ARYN BAKER / LAHORE

Like many other universities around the world, Punjab University in Lahore is a tranquil oasis far removed from the rest of society. But to Westerners, there's little else about Punjab U. that seems familiar. Walk around the leafy-green 1,800-acre campus, and you will encounter nothing that resembles frivolous undergraduate behavior. Musical concerts are banned, and men and women are segregated in the dining halls. Many female students attend class wearing headscarves that cover everything but their eyes. This fall, when the university's administrators tried to introduce a program in musicology and performing arts, the campus erupted in protest. "Pakistan is an Islamic country, and our institutions must reflect that," says Umair Idrees, a master's degree student and secretary-general of Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba ( I.J.T.), the biggest student group on campus. "The formation of these departments is an attack on Islam and a betrayal of Pakistan. They should not be part of the university curriculum."

What's most striking about that climate of conservatism is that it is being driven not by faculty or administrators or government officials but by students. At Punjab U., I.J.T. is the most powerful force on campus, shaping not just the mores of student life but also larger debates over curriculum, course syllabuses, faculty selection and even degree programs. Nationwide, the group has more than 20,000 members and 40,000 affiliates active at nearly all of Pakistan's 50 public universities. Students who defy I.J.T.'s strict moral code risk private reprimands, public denouncements and, in some cases, even physical violence.

In a country where most politicians cut their teeth as student activists, the rise of groups like I.J.T. provides clues to Pakistan's political future. Although the country is officially aligned with the U.S. in fighting terrorism, it is beset by an internal struggle between moderate citizens and the fundamentalists who aim to turn the country into an Islamic state. As the hard-line demands intensify, President Pervez Musharraf has backed away from some policies sought by the Bush Administration, such as cracking down on radical religious schools, known as madrasahs, and curbing Pakistani support for the fundamentalist Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. Observers say that Musharraf's retreats on contentious issues have only strengthened the radicals. "The universities reflect what you are seeing in the larger political landscape," says Samina Ahmed, South Asia director for the International Crisis Group, a think tank. "The moderate parties have been deprived of their experienced cadre of potential recruits, but the religious parties haven't."

College campuses in Pakistan are becoming prime battlegrounds in the war for the country's soul. Political organizations have been banned from schools since 1992, when violent clashes between the student wings of rival political parties led to the deaths of dozens of students. But by outlawing political activity, the government opened the door to religious organizations such as I.J.T., which acts as an advocacy group that serves as a liaison between students and administration. Founded in 1947, I.J.T. has hundreds of thousands of alumni who provide the group with organizational and financial support, with the goal of "training the young generation according to Islam so they can play a role in Pakistan's social and political life," Idrees says.

A visit to Punjab University reveals what that means in practice. About 2,400 of the university's 24,000 students belong to I.J.T. Members are expected to live morally and to abide by the Koran's injunction to spread good and suppress evil. For many, that involves adopting an austere lifestyle. Members meet for regular study sessions and must attend all-night prayer meetings at least once a month. Outside the classroom, complete segregation of the genders is strictly observed. When asked, many members are critical of the U.S. and its policies toward the Muslim world; although the group has no ties to terrorism, it's likely that some members sympathize with al-Qaeda.

And yet for some, the appeal of I.J.T. has less to do with ideology than a desire for a platform to voice their grievances. Rana Naveed, 22, a soft-spoken communications student who sports just the beginnings of a beard and wears tight, acid-washed jeans, is troubled by some of I.J.T.'s more extreme pronouncements, especially its stand on the proposed new music program. But he is excited about the prospect of becoming a full-fledged member in a few weeks, when he will take an oath of loyalty and then work to spread his faith and dedicate himself to the welfare of other students. "There are certain things I don't agree with," says Naveed. "But as a member, I will have to submit to their way. I.J.T is the only platform to put forward my proposals to the administration, because they turn a deaf ear to regular students."

An atmosphere of moral rigidity governs much of campus life. I.J.T. members have been known to physically assault students for drinking, flirting or kissing on campus. "We are compelled by our religion to use force if we witness immoral public behavior," says Naveed. "If I see someone doing something wrong, I can stop him and the I.J.T. will support me." Threats of a public reprimand or allegations of immoral behavior are enough to keep most students toeing the I.J.T. line. There is no university regulation segregating men from women in the dining halls, but students know that mingling is taboo. "If I talk to a girl in line at the canteen, I.J.T. members will tell me to get my food and get out," says Rehan Iqbal, 25, an M.B.A. student, who is sitting on the floor of a hallway with female classmate Malka Ikran, 22. It's a nice autumn day, and a shady green lawn beckons through an open window, but they dare not sit outside. It's too public. "There are certain places where I know I can't talk to my male friends," says Ikran. When asked what would happen if she talked to a boy at the library, for example, she just shrugs. "I don't know. I would never try it. I'm too afraid."

It's not just students who feel stifled by the I.J.T.'s strict moral code. Faculty members at Punjab University say that if I.J.T. objects to a professor's leanings, or even his syllabus, it can cause problems. It doesn't take much to raise questions about a teacher's moral qualifications. "Those who could afford to leave, did so," says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a former professor of political science who is now a political analyst. "Those who stayed learned not to touch controversial subjects. The role of the university is to advance knowledge, but at P.U. the quality of education is undermined because one group with a narrow, straitjacketed worldview controls it."

Groups like I.J.T. are likely to grow more influential, not less, as its graduates move into the political arena. For those students aiming to become social activists on campus, and later politicians on the national stage, involvement in I.J.T. is the only forum available to learn the necessary skills. I.J.T. groups across the nation have embraced the opportunity to mold Pakistan's future politicians. In addition to taking classes on the Koran, members learn how to debate, how to present and defend their views and how to write persuasive proposals. " I.J.T. trains and promotes leadership qualities," says Mumtaz Ahmad Salik, president of the P.U. staff association and a professor of Islamic studies. "When a national political party catches anyone who has been trained by I.J.T., they benefit." Most I.J.T. members who choose to enter politics after graduation go on to join Jamaat-e-Islami or other fundamentalist political groups. Some sign up with more centrist parties, although they bring with them fundamentalist thinking that has contributed to the general turn toward conservatism in national politics.

For now a future in politics is far from the minds of most P.U. students, who just want to enjoy their last few years on campus. "We would love to have a student union," says Iqbal. "Then we could plan events and activities and take care of the students' problems ourselves. Right now, only I.J.T. has that kind of power. If the I.J.T. had competition, that would change. Then you would see what students really think." But until free elections and campaigning are permitted, the religious groups will continue to walk large on campus. The same could be said of Pakistan.

423
Politics & Religion / Health Thread (nutrition, medical, longevity, etc)
« on: October 13, 2006, 02:01:22 PM »
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17597


Nanosolution Halts Bleeding
A biodegradable liquid developed at MIT and the University of Hong Kong offers a new way to quickly treat wounds and promote healing.
By Jenn Director Knudsen
A team of researchers at MIT and the University of Hong Kong have developed a biodegradable liquid that can quickly stop bleeding.


Composed of peptides, the liquid self-assembles into a protective nanofiber gel when applied to a wound. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, research scientist in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and Kwok-Fai So, chair of the department of anatomy at the University of Hong Kong, discovered the liquid's ability to stop bleeding while experimenting with it as a matrix for regrowing brain cells in hamsters.


The researchers then conducted a series of experiments on various mammals, including rodents and pigs, applying the clear liquid agent to the brain, skin, liver, spinal cord, and femoral artery to test its ability to halt bleeding and seal wounds.


"It worked every single time," said Ellis-Behnke. They found that it stopped the bleeding in less than 15 seconds, and even worked on animals given blood-thinning medications.


The wound must still be stitched up after the procedure; but unlike other agents designed to stop bleeding, it does not have to be removed from the wound site.


The liquid's only byproduct is amino acids: tissue building blocks that can be used to actually repair the site of the injury, according to the researchers. It is also nontoxic, causes no immune response in the patient, and can be used in a wet environment, according to Ellis-Behnke. A paper outlining the findings is available online and will be published in the December issue of Nanomedicine.


Ellis-Behnke believes that first responders, say, on a battlefield or at a traffic accident, will save more lives with the nanosolution. Yet the most significant application may be in surgery, he says, especially on the liver and brain.


In fact, as much as half of the time during any operation is spent "doing some sort of bleeding control," says Ellis-Behnke. Consequently, such a liquid could "fundamentally change the pace of the operation."


Ram Chuttani, director of endoscopy and chief of interventional gastroenterology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is familiar with their research. "Where I see huge applications is in patients who present with gastrointestinal bleeding," he says. "[Right now,] there's no ideal agent to endoscopically manage gastrointestinal bleeding."


"Technologically, this would be one of the easiest things for us to use," Chuttani adds. "It's an exciting agent, a very exciting agent...that's still quite far away. I'd definitely be an early adopter."




The researchers don't yet understand how the nanosolution works to stop bleeding, beyond that it doesn't clot the blood. "Maybe it's creating a nanoscale patch and knitting the materials back together," says Ellis-Behnke, adding that "this is just speculation." Clinical trials on humans are at least three years away, he says.


The research was funded by the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT as well as the Technology Transfer Seed Fund of the University of Hong Kong and the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong.


The U.S. military already uses several agents to stop bleeding, including ones made by Z-Medica and HemCon. Z-Medica of Wallingford, CT, uses zeolite-based agents in its pourable products, called QuikClot, and bioactive glass. HemCon of Tigard, OR, uses an organic substance called chitosan in its bandages.


Both QuikClot and bioactive glass, a silica- and calcium-based material, are porous, and thus work like a sponge to mop up blood and adhere to tissue at and around the wound site.


The chitosan in HemCon's bandages binds to tissue and seals wounds. (Chitosan is found in shrimp shells, but extensive tests have shown that people with shellfish allergies don't suffer allergic reactions to chitosan, according to HemCon's president and CEO, John Morgan.) HemCon plans to sell a consumer version of its product next year.


"Both [Z-Medica and Hem-Con's products] have saved lives in my hands," says Captain Peter Rhee, a military trauma surgeon based at the Los Angeles County Medical Center, who oversaw the first study using pourable agents to halt bleeding on animals.


The liquid solution made by the MIT and University of Hong Kong researchers could offer several advantages, however. One is speed. In studies, the nanoliquid took only seconds to work, while competing products take around two minutes. The nanoliquid can also be used on a wound of any shape, unlike HemCon's square bandages, which don't fit over oddly shaped gashes. And the nanoscale solution doesn't have to be removed from the patient, unlike Z-Medica's bioactive glass, which cannot remain at the wound site indefinitely.

Copyright Technology Review 2006.

424
Politics & Religion / North and South Korea
« on: October 13, 2006, 06:25:58 AM »
www.stratfor.com

Geopolitical Diary: The Non-Reactions to the North Korean Test

One of the rules of geopolitical analysis is that you should pay little attention to what people say and a great deal of attention to what they do. Applying that principle to the North Korean explosion (nuclear, fizzled or other) causes us to come to a singular conclusion: there is no great concern among the major powers about what happened. No one is doing anything on their own and no one can agree on what should be done together. If this is a crisis, no one is acting that way.

The United States and Japan, it is true, have imposed sanctions on North Korea. However, China and Russia aren't going along with this, therefore the action is fairly meaningless. It's like a balloon with two holes in it: it defeats the entire purpose. The United States, it should be added, can't be surprised by the Russian and Chinese position. Moscow and Beijing have always been wary of following the U.S. sanctioning protocol with other countries, and they were always unlikely to follow the Americans on North Korea. Given that fact -- and given that Washington knows it -- U.S. and Japanese sanctions are more a gesture than an action.

If one listens to conventional analyses of the situation, North Korea poses a threat to the international community, and the key countries -- the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea -- are searching for ways to achieve the common goal of a non-nuclear North Korea. This is the community-of-nations theory of international relations, also known as multilateralism. It makes an assumption of a common interest that really isn't accurate. In fact, all of the key players have very different interests.

China, for example, sounds like a country that is quite upset that North Korea did something it didn't want. It behaves as a country that is quite content with North Korea's move, as it should be; the test flouts America's will and the United States is unable to do anything about it. American impotence is of direct interest to China. The United States has maneuvered itself into a position of taking primary responsibility for dealing with North Korea's threat. China, seeking a dominant position in Asia, welcomes anything that makes the United States appear incapable of carrying out this role. The weaker the United States appears, the greater the vacuum for China to step into. Beijing is going to make the appropriate sounds, but will also make certain that the United States looks as helpless as possible.

The Russians, too, are pleased to see North Korea's challenge to the United States and America's inability to respond; they are not going to bail Washington out. Russia sees itself as locked in a duel with the United States in the former Soviet Union. It holds the Americans responsible for the recent crisis in Georgia, as well as for a generally aggressive stance in Ukraine and Central Asia. The Russians are delighted to see the United States bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anything that adds to American pain can only help.

Now, one might say that both Moscow and Beijing should be concerned that the unstable government in Pyongyang might threaten them with nuclear weapons. In our view, neither China nor Russia sees Pyongyang as unstable, politically or mentally. They are not worried about North Korean nukes because (a) North Korea doesn't really have nuclear weapons yet and (b) North Korea will be wiped from the face of the Earth by China or Russia should it strike at them and Pyongyang knows it. The risks are low and the benefits are high for both China and Russia. The appropriate expressions of concern will be uttered, but neither country will do anything.

Japan is concerned -- but not to the point of taking any unilateral action, because it can't. South Korea is far more worried about a conventional war than North Korean nukes, and does not want the government in Pyongyang to fall under any circumstances. The task of integrating a post-Communist North Korea with the South would cripple South Korea for decades. The South Koreans are not happy North Korea tested a nuke, but they are not about to do anything to destabilize the situation.

Multilateral approaches assume that there is a common interest in a solution and that the problem is working out the process to get there. There are indeed times when there is a common interest among nations, but they are rarer than times when interests diverge. In the case of North Korea, what we see is not a group of nations struggling to find a way to achieve a common goal. Rather, we see a group of nations pretending to have a common goal, and using that as a cover for pursuing very different ends. China and Russia view this as weakening the United States and they like it. South Korea does not want chaos to the North. Japan is waiting for someone else to take a risk. And the United States is out of options and allies.

The only good news for Washington is that it might discover that the test was not a nuclear test at all. That would relieve it of the burden of doing something, and therefore not make it look nearly as helpless as it now does. Indeed, discovering that there was no nuclear blast would solve a lot of problems; it would show that not doing anything was the result of prudence, and not of a lack of options.


425
Politics & Religion / Iraq
« on: October 05, 2006, 10:08:07 AM »
Woof All:

The WW3 thread was getting crowded, so we are starting separate threads for the different theaters of WW3.

I begin with some news (about 4 weeks old) that your normal news sources probably did not report.

CD
==================

68 INSURGENTS CAPTURED IN A 2-DAY PERIOD

 

CAMP AL ASAD, Iraq ? Iraqi police and soldiers, along with U.S. Marines and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team 7, captured 68 confirmed insurgents over the weekend throughout the western Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

U.S. and Iraqi forces detained the known and suspected insurgents through a series of pre-planned operations.

 

   Iraqi police identified and detained 18 of the 38 captured insurgents in Rawah, Iraq, about 50 miles east of the Iraqi-Syrian border.

    One of the suspects captured by Rawah police officers is wanted for involvement with a vehicle suicide bombing against a U.S. military check point in the region July 29. Several more captured in Rawah are involved in a recent attack on a Rawah police officer?s family.  Police officers in Rawah also discovered two improvised explosive devices there Sunday.

   Iraqi and U.S. soldiers captured 11 insurgents Sunday in Hit, a city of about 60,000, located approximately 70 miles northwest of Ramadi.

   Through a variety of counterinsurgency operations, Iraqi soldiers and U.S. Marines captured 31 known insurgents in 3 cities. One captured insurgent was part of a 4-man insurgent cell operating in Hadithah.

    U.S. Marines captured 6 more insurgents Saturday in Sa?dah, a town just east of the Iraqi-Syrian border. Marines also discovered an ordnance cache near the border on Saturday. The cache consisted of 120 mm rockets, 155 mm rockets, and 122 mm rockets. 
 

5 TERRORISTS KILLED DURING RAID AND AIR STRIKE

 
BAGHDAD ? A raid early on the morning of Sept. 4 on a safe-house targeting an individual with ties to movement of terrorist finances and foreign fighters into Iraq led to 5 terrorists killed in Muqdadiyah.

    As U.S. forces assaulted the target, they were immediately engaged by terrorist forces.  In the ensuing firefight, 2 terrorists were killed.  Additionally, a woman and her two children were with the terrorists.  U.S. forces found blasting caps, improvised explosive device materials, and multiple ammunition rack systems and weapons on the objective. Both children were struck with fragmentation and one subsequently died.

   As the raid progressed, 2 additional terrorists, who were both armed, were killed in the courtyard of the house.   

  Prior to moving to a subsequent objective where armed terrorists had been observed earlier, multiple precision fires were directed on the location to suppress the threat while minimizing collateral damage.   This strike resulted in one terrorist?s death who was found carrying an assault rifle, a pistol, two ammunition racks and a ski mask.

   Two individuals were then observed moving from a nearby palm grove toward the objective. U.S. forces identified they were unarmed and intercepted them without force.  Upon questioning, they observed that the two men were beaten and wearing handcuffs.  The men described being held hostage by up to ten foreign and Iraqi terrorists for ransom.  They managed to escape when their captors fled as the raid and subsequent air strike was initiated.

  For several days, multiple terrorists have been observed operating out of the safehouse throughout the day and bedding down at night in the palm grove.
 
COALITION FORCES FREE ANOTHER KIDNAP VICTIM, CAPTURE 3 TERRORISTS

KIRKUK, Iraq ? Bastogne Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division freed a kidnap victim and captured three of the terrorists who had taken him hostage just outside of Kirkuk today.

    An aerial reconnaissance team, flying missions near Kirkuk, spotted four men wearing black robes and wielding AK-47 rifles. The men stopped their sedan several times along one of the area?s main roads and set up illegal checkpoints at each stop. The aeriel recon team video-taped the entire action.

   As coalition ground forces moved into the area, the group made their last stop, holding 10 passengers in a van at gunpoint before pulling one of the men out of the vehicle. The four then forced the man into the trunk of their car and sped away.

    As Bastogne Soldiers on the ground were moving in on the vehicle, the sedan stopped, allowing one of the terrorists to get out of the vehicle. The remaining group continued to a nearby building where they jumped out of their car and ran into the building, taking their victim with them.

    A team of Bastogne Soldiers air assaulted to the area and quickly moved into the building, capturing the three assailants and freeing the hostage. A careful search of the building revealed three AK-47 rifles and several magazines, as well as a barrel filled with ammunition.

    This is the 3rd Iraqi citizen rescued from the hands of kidnappers by 101st Airborne Division Soldiers this month.   


MARINES CAPTURE 40 INSURGENTS, KILL 3; U.S. AIR STRIKE KILLS 3-MAN INSURGENT MORTAR CREW 


CAMP AL ASAD, Iraq ? U.S. Marines captured 40 insurgents yesterday throughout the Haditha Triad region in western Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

    Marines from the Hawaii-based 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, known as ?America?s Battalion,? captured the 40 insurgents during pre-planned counterinsurgency operations in the ?Triad? region.

    Also, a U.S scout sniper team fired upon insurgents, which were firing upon a Marine M1A1 tank on a road in Haditha.  2 of the insurgents were killed; 1 wounded. 

   This follows a day after a separate scout sniper team fired at insurgents. 1 insurgent was killed while digging a hole in a spot where numerous IEDs have recently been discovered or detonated.

    ?The Battalion?s successes over the last several days are really the result of the anti-Iraqi forces conducting attacks out of desperation.  They see the growing capability of the Iraqi Army and recent fielding of the Iraqi Police as the clear beginning to the end of their influence in the Triad,?  said Lt. Col. Norm Cooling, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.

    The Haditha Triad is a region made up of three neighboring cities ? Haditha, Barwanah and Haqlaniyah ? with a combined population of about 70,000, nestled along the Euphrates River about 160 miles northwest of Baghdad.

In Baghdad, a U.S. air strike on a building killed 3 members of a mortar crew on Friday. Some civilians may have been wounded in the bombing.

293 IRAQIS JOIN ARMY

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq ? Soldiers from the 1st Iraqi Army Division enlisted 293 Iraqi males from greater Fallujah and Habbaniyah as part of an al Anbar Province-wide recruiting drive Tuesday and Wednesday.

    ?They looked enthusiastic about doing this, and that?s a good sign,? said Maj. William Gerst, an operations officer who assisted the Iraqis in the coordination of the campaign. ?It?s a sign that they notice we?re here to help them and they are taking control of their own destiny.?

    ?I want to serve our country and defend Iraq,? said one recruit through an interpreter.

    ?Patriotism? I want to defend my country,? said another.

The recruits were then transported by Marines to a month-long boot camp in Habbaniyah staffed solely by Iraqi personnel drawn from the 1st Iraqi Army Division.

Iraq Cites Arrest of a Top Local Insurgent; Officials say he is No. 2 in Al-Qaeda Group
BAGHDA, Sept. 3 -- U.S. and Iraqi forces have captured a top al-Qaeda leader who ordered the bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra that triggered a wave of ferocious sectarian killings, Iraqi officials said Sunday.

The arrest of Hamed Jumaa Faris Juri al-Saeidi, the No. 2 leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was the latest in a series of blows to the insurgent group.

"The al-Qaeda organization in Iraq has been seriously weakened and is now suffering from a leadership vacuum," Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie. 20 Senior al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters have been captured or killed based on information from Saeidi since his arrest within the past few weeks, Iraqi officials said.

The Mujaheddin Shura Council, an insurgent coalition that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, denied that Saeidi was a member of al-Qaeda. A leader of another group in the council, however, confirmed that Saeidi belonged to al-Qaeda.

Saeidi, an intelligence officer for Saddam, was captured within the past few weeks as he hid among women and children in a location near Baghdad. Saeidi confessed that he had joined al-Qaeda in Iraq three years ago and is being held by U.S.-led  forces.

In an attempt to thrust Iraq into a full-scale civil war, Saeidi supervised Haitham al-Badri, an operative under his command, in carrying out the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered golden-domed Shiite shrine in Samarra, officials said. That attack sparked brutal reprisal killings by both Shiites and Sunnis that have left thousands of people dead.

"Why did you kill hundreds of people?" Saeidi was asked during a recent interrogation.

What do you mean 'hundreds of people?' I've killed thousands," Saeidi responded.

In other news:

MUQDADIYA - U.S. troops killed 5 men in a ground assault and air strike on what they called a "safe house", targeting a person involved in moving money and foreign fighters into Iraq. A child was also killed in the fighting in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. It said the operation freed two men who had been held hostage.


IRAQI ARMY TARGETS INSURGENTS IN MULTIPLE RAIDS

BAGHDAD ? Iraqi Army units, with Coalition Force advisers, conducted multiple raids on September 6 to capture individuals connected with insurgent activities that target Iraqi Army, Coalition Forces and Iraqi citizens.

   In a raid in Habbiniyah, Iraqi Army forces captured 4 individuals engaged in insurgent activities against Iraqi and coalition forces.  One individual was especially wanted as he was an improvised explosive device emplacer believed connected with multiple attacks.

    In another raid in Taji, an insurgent engaged in an intimidation campaign against Iraqi citizens was captured.  The insurgent had recently taken control of an insurgent cell whose previous leader had been captured by Iraqi security forces and was currently engaged in the systematic kidnapping of fellow citizens.


   In an additional raid in Ramadi, a sniper and 4 others for detonating IEDs against Iraqi forces were captured. All raids occurred without further incident with no reported casualties.

U.S. SOLDIERS KILL INSURGENT AND WOUND ANOTHER

TIKRIT, Iraq ? U.S. Soldiers killed one insurgent and wounded another near Hawija, Iraq. The Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division, spotted the insurgents placing a roadside improvised explosive device and engaged them with small arms fire.

   An explosive ordinance disposal team was sent to the site and found a mortar round next to the insurgents? vehicle.

IRAQI POLICE, U.S. MPs CAPTURE 10 WEAPONS SMUGGLERS

BAGHDAD ? Iraqi police, with the assistance of Soldiers from 615th Military Police Company, 1st Armored Division, captured 10 weapons smugglers Thursday.

    The 33 weapons were confiscated in addition to more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition, nine body armor vests and various bomb-making materials.. 

  82nd Airborne Div.
  1/508 Infantry
================



426
Politics & Religion / Afpakia: Afghanistan-Pakistan
« on: October 05, 2006, 08:31:28 AM »
Woof All:

Herewith a thread dedicated to this area.

CD
=============================
Taliban lay plans for Islamic intifada
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

THE PASHTUN HEARTLAND, Pakistan and Afghanistan - With the snows approaching, the Taliban's spring offensive has fallen short of its primary objective of reviving the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan, as the country was known under Taliban rule from 1996-2001.

Both foreign forces and the Taliban will bunker down until next spring, although the Taliban are expected to continue with suicide missions and some hit-and-run guerrilla activities. The Taliban will

 

take refuge in the mountains that cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where they will have plenty of time to plan the next stage
of their struggle: a countrywide "Islamic Intifada of Afghanistan" calling on all former mujahideen to join the movement to boot out foreign forces from Afghanistan.

The intifada will be both national and international. On the one hand it aims to organize a national uprising, and on the other it will attempt to make Afghanistan the hub of the worldwide Islamic resistance movement, as it was previously under the Taliban when Osama bin Laden and his training camps were guests of the country.

The ideologue of the intifada is bin Laden's deputy, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has assembled a special team to implement the idea. Key to this mission is Mullah Mehmood Allah Haq Yar. Asia Times Online was early to pinpoint Haq Yar as an important player (see Osama adds weight to Afghan resistance, September 11, 2004).

Oriented primarily towards Arabs, especially Zawahiri, Haq Yar speaks English, Arabic, Urdu and Pashtu with great fluency. He was sent by Taliban leader Mullah Omar to northern Iraq to train with Ansarul Islam fighters before the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. He returned to Afghanistan in 2004 and was inducted into a special council of commanders formed by Mullah Omar and assigned the task of shepherding all foreign fighters and high-value targets from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan.

He is an expert in urban guerrilla warfare, a skill he has shared with the Taliban in Afghanistan. His new task might be more challenging: to gather local warlords from north to south under one umbrella and secure international support from regional players.

A major first step toward creating an intifada in Afghanistan was the establishment of the Islamic State of North Waziristan in the Pakistani tribal area this year. This brought all fragmented sections of the Taliban under one command, and was the launching pad for the Taliban's spring offensive.

Subsequently, there has been agreement between a number of top warlords in northern Afghanistan and the Taliban to make the intifada a success next year. Credit for this development goes mainly to Haq Yar.

Haq Yar was recently almost cornered in Helmand province in Afghanistan by British forces. Before that, he spoke to Asia Times Online at an undisclosed location in the Pashtun heartland straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Asia Times Online: When are the Taliban expected to announce the revival of the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan?

Haq Yar: Well, the whole Islamic world is waiting for the revival of the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan, but it will take some time. But sure, it will ultimately happen, and this is what the Taliban's struggle is all about.

ATol: Can you define the level of Taliban-led resistance in Afghanistan?

Haq Yar: It has already passed the initial phases and now has entered into a tactical and decisive phase. It can be measured from the hue and cry raised by the US and its allies. Daily attacks on NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] forces are now routine and suicide attacks are rampant.

ATol: To date, the Taliban have been very active in southwestern Afghanistan, but traditionally success comes when a resistance reaches eastern areas, especially the strategically important Jalalabad. When will this happen?

Haq Yar: Well, I do not agree that the Taliban movement is restricted to southwest Afghanistan. We have now established a network under which we are allied with many big and small mujahideen organizations, and in that way we are fighting foreign forces throughout Afghanistan. In a recent development, the deputy chief of the Taliban movement, Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani, is now positioned in the eastern zone, including Jalalabad, from where he is guiding attacks on coalition forces. This eastern zone is also part of the Taliban's stronghold.

ATol: What is the role of bin Laden and Zawahiri?

Haq Yar: We are allies and part and parcel of every strategy. Wherever mujahideen are resisting the forces of evil, Arab mujahideen, al-Qaeda and leaders Osama bin Laden and Dr Zawahiri have a key role. In Afghanistan they also have a significant role to support the Taliban movement.

ATol: Is the present Taliban-led resistance against the US and its allies a local resistance or is it international? That is, are resistance movements in other parts of the world led from Afghanistan?

Haq Yar: Initially it was a local movement, but now it is linked with resistance movements in Iraq and other places. We are certainly in coordination with all resistance movements of the Muslim world.

ATol: What is the Taliban strategy with groups like Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (Khalis)?

Haq Yar: The Hezb-i-Islami of Hekmatyar and the Taliban are fighting under a coordinated strategy and support each other. The leadership of the Khalis group is now in the hands of his son, who is coordinating everything with Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani.

ATol: What is the Taliban's weaponry? Is it old Russian arms or they have acquired new ones - and if so, where are they getting them?

Haq Yar: The Taliban have all the latest weaponry required for a guerrilla warfare. Where does it come from? Well, Afghanistan is known as a place where weapons are stockpiled. And forces that provided arms a few decades ago - the same weapons are now being used against them.

ATol: The Taliban contacted commanders in northern Afghanistan. What was the result?

Haq Yar: About one and a half years ago these contacts were initiated. Various groups from the north contacted us. We discussed the matter with [Taliban leader] Mullah Mohammed Omar Akhund and then, with his consent, I was assigned to negotiate matters with the Northern Alliance.

The first meeting was held in northern Afghanistan, where I represented the Taliban. Many individuals from various groups of the Northern Alliance attended the meeting and they all condemned the foreign presence in the country, but insisted that the Taliban should take the lead, and then they would follow suit. Another meeting was held after that in which various individuals come up with some conditions, and there was no conclusion. There was no collective meeting, but there are contacts.

ATol: What is the role of the tribal chiefs?

Haq Yar: The tribal chiefs have always been supportive of the Taliban and still are. How could they not be? The US bombed and killed thousand of their people and the puppet [President Hamid] Karzai government is silent. All Afghans are sick and tired of US tyrannies and daily bombardment, whether they are commoners or chiefs, and that is why they are all with the Taliban.

Actually, we have also worked on organizing that support. On the instructions of Mullah Mohammed Omar Akhund, I met with tribal chiefs last year and prepared the grounds for this year's battle [spring offensive], and all tribal chiefs assured me of their support. And now there is support - it is there for everybody to see.

ATol: It is said that the Taliban are now fueled by drug money. Is this correct, and if not, how do they manage their financial matters?

Haq Yar: It is shameful to say that the Taliban, who eliminated poppies from Afghanistan, are dependent on the drug trade to make money. This is wrong. As far as money is concerned, we do not need much. Whatever is required, we manage it through our own limited resources.

ATol: Are you satisfied with the media's role?

Haq Yar: Not at all. They do not publish our point of view. They never tried to talk to the genuine Taliban. Rather, they go after not genuine people who are basically plants and rejected by the Taliban leadership.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.

 
  
 
 

 
 

 

'War on terror' returning to its cradle (Oct 5, '06)

Pakistan reaches into Afghanistan (Oct 3, '06)

Afghanistan: Why NATO cannot win (Sep 30, '06)

Military policy in Afghanistan 'barking mad' (Sep 30, '06)


 
 

 

================
Geopolitical Diary: Musharraf Gets a Warning

A bomb exploded on Wednesday around 9:30 p.m. local time in Rawalpindi's Ayub public park, about a mile from Pakistani President Gen. Perez Musharraf's army residence. The explosion took place at a time when most residents in the area would have been indoors attending congregational prayers after breaking their fast for Ramadan. No casualties have been reported and Pakistani officials deny that this was an attempt against Musharraf's life.

Though Musharraf has more enemies than Saudi Arabia has princes, assassination attempts against him are usually more serious than this. Recall December 2003, when Musharraf's convoy was targeted twice by al Qaeda in the same month as his car crossed the bridge leading to his army house in Rawalpindi. When Musharraf's assassins get to work, they mean business.

Instead, Wednesday's explosion appears to be carrying a political message for the embattled president, who has come under intense pressure upon his return home from a lengthy visit to the United States. Musharraf has been placed in the hot seat by the White House to deliver a high-value al Qaeda target and suppress the Taliban insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan. His peculiar behavior in the past month revealed that he has caved in to U.S. demands -- and is struggling for ways to absolve himself of blame and buy time before U.S. forces expand their operations on Pakistani soil.

The thought of Musharraf sacrificing Pakistan's territorial sovereignty is troubling, to say the least, for the Pakistani masses; but is of utmost concern for former members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). There are a number of former ISI officers who were heavily involved in supporting the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, and then went on to support militant groups working on the Kashmir front to aid in the Pakistani policy of keeping India's hands tied. These former officers see the militants (both in Afghanistan and Kashmir) as state assets that they worked long and hard to cultivate -- and they fear Musharraf is now compromising those assets and throwing everything away.

While Musharraf has more or less cleansed the ISI of dissenters, many former ISI officers maintain close links with the Pakistani establishment. These officers are often paid as military contractors to maintain contacts with various militant groups after retiring from service; or they are given other civilian jobs, as was the case with former ISI Director-General Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed, who got the boot the day the United States began bombing Afghanistan in October 2001.

This network of ISI veterans has ideological and material interests in maintaining the status quo. They strike a delicate balance between supporting Musharraf on the one hand, to avoid being arrested and stay on the military's payroll, while on the other hand furthering their ideological interest in resisting foreign intervention by providing support to militant groups such as the Taliban. Musharraf has threatened this delicate balance in his deals with the United States and in recent remarks he made on the involvement of former ISI officials with the Taliban. In an interview with NBC News, Musharraf said he keeps a "very tight watch" on his intelligence agency as army chief, though he has "some reports that some dissidents, some retired people who were in the forefront in ISI during the period of 1979 to 1989, may be assisting the links [to the Taliban] somewhere here and there."

This blatant admission by Musharraf prompted a flood of backlash from former ISI officials, who have taken every opportunity to voice their criticism of the president. Former ISI Director-General Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani said there was no evidence to support Musharraf's remarks. Another former ISI director, Hameed Gul, called Musharraf a team captain scoring goals against his own team, and said that Pakistan was astonished to see the captain hell-bent on his own team's defeat. While saying that he prays for the Taliban's success to drive U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, Gul said that no Afghan leader, including President Hamid Karzai, has leveled such an allegation against the ISI.

In a particularly eye-opening statement, retired squadron leader and former ISI official Khalid Khawaja said "General Musharraf is playing the role Saddam Hussein played in Middle East. He did all the nuisance jobs in the region with U.S. support, but could not save his own country from American occupation. Similarly, the real target here is Pakistan, its army, ISI and Pakistan's nuclear program. The U.S. used Musharraf to destroy them one after other."

Khawaja's remark about the nuclear program refers to mid-October 2001, when the United States began to launch airstrikes in Afghanistan. Washington did not feel it could rely on the ISI at the time, and took it as its duty to secure access to Pakistani nuclear facilities in order to prevent nuclear materials from being handed over to the ISI. The United States threatened not only to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age, but also to take out the country's nuclear capabilities if Musharraf failed to cooperate.

Cooperating, however, has also put Musharraf in a dangerous position. The level of outrage against the president by former ISI operatives strongly suggests that Wednesday's explosion was, not an assassination attempt, but rather a stern warning: Musharraf cannot unravel the old system without suffering the consequences.

www.stratfor.com

427
Politics & Religion / Politics
« on: October 04, 2006, 12:22:12 AM »
Woof All:

Herewith begins a catch-all thread.

TAC,
CD
=================

Bush and the Perception of Weakness
By George Friedman

There is good news for the Republican Party: Things can't get much worse. About five weeks from the midterm elections, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) asserting that the situation in Iraq will deteriorate in 2007 is leaked. On top of that, Bob Woodward's book is released to massive fanfare, chronicling major disagreements within the White House over prosecution of the Iraq war and warnings to U.S. President George W. Bush in the summer of 2003 that a dangerous insurgency was under way and that the president's strategy of removing Baathists from the government and abolishing the Iraqi army was a mistake. These events are bad enough, but when U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) -- the head of a congressional committee charged with shutting down child molesters using the Internet -- is caught sending e-mails to 16-year-old male pages, the news doesn't get much worse.

All of this is tied up with the elections of course. The NIE document leak was undoubtedly meant to embarrass the president. The problem is that it did, as it revealed the rift between the intelligence community and the White House's view of the world. The Woodward book was clearly intended to be published more than a month before the elections, and it was expected to have embarrassing revelations in it. The problem is that not a whole lot of people quoted in the book are denying that they said or did what was described. When former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card is quoted as trying to get U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld out of office and the assertion is made that first lady Laura Bush tried as well, and denials are not flying, you know two things: Woodward intended to embarrass Bush just before the election, and he succeeded. For all we know, the leak about Foley asking about a 16-year-old's boxer shorts may have been timed as well. The problem is that the allegations were true, and Foley admitted what he did and resigned.

These problems might be politically timed, but none of them appears to be based on a lie. The fact is that this confluence of events has created the perception that the Bush White House is disintegrating. Bush long ago lost control of leakers in the intelligence community; he has now started to lose control over former longtime staffers who, having resigned, have turned on him via the Woodward book. Bush appears to be locked into a small circle of advisers (particularly Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld) and locked into his Iraq strategy, and he generally appears to have suspended decision-making in favor of continuing with decisions already made.

Now, this may not be a fair perception. We are not in the White House and do not know what is going on there. But this is now the perception, and that fact must be entered into the equation. True or not, and fair or not, the president appears to be denying what the intelligence communities are saying and what some of his closest advisers have argued, and it appears that this has been going on for a long time. With the election weeks away, and the Foley scandal adding to the administration's difficulties, there is a reasonable probability that the Republicans will get hammered in the elections, potentially losing both houses of Congress if the current trend continues.

One theory is that Bush doesn't care. He believes in the things he is doing and, whatever happens in the 2006 elections, he will continue to be president for the next two years, with the power of the presidency in his hand. That may be the case, although a hostile Congress with control over the purse strings can force policies on presidents (consider Congress suspending military aid to South Vietnam under Gerald Ford). Congress has substantial power when it chooses to exercise it.

But leaving the question of internal politics aside, the perception that Bush's administration is imploding can have a significant impact on his ability to execute his foreign policy because of how foreign nations will behave. The perception of disarray generates a perception of weakness. The perception of weakness encourages foreign states to take advantage of the situation. Bush has argued that changing his Iraq policy might send the Islamic world a signal of weakness. That might be true, but the perception that Bush is losing control of his administration or of Congress can also signal weakness. If Bush's intent is the reasonable goal of not appearing weak, he obviously must examine the current situation's effects on his ability to reach that goal.

Consider a matter not involving the Islamic world. This week, a crisis blew up in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which is now closely aligned with the United States. Georgia arrested four Russian military officers, charging them with espionage. The Russians demanded their release and halted the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia -- a withdrawal Moscow had promised before the arrests gave it the opportunity to create a fundamental crisis in Russo-Georgian relations.

Normally a crisis of this magnitude involving a U.S. ally like Georgia would rise to the top of the pile of national security issues at the White House, with suitable threats made and action plans drawn up. Furthermore, the Russians would normally have been quite careful about handling such a crisis. There was little evidence of Russian caution; the Russians refrained from turning the situation into a military conflict, but they certainly turned up the heat on Georgia as the crisis evolved on its own. The Kremlin press service said Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked about Georgia in a telephone conversation Oct. 2, and that Putin told Bush third parties should be careful about encouraging Georgia.

The Russians frankly do not see the United States as capable of taking meaningful action at this point. That means Moscow can take risks, exert pressure and shift dynamics in ways it might have avoided a year ago out of fear of U.S. reprisals. The Russians know Bush does not have the political base at home, or even the administrative ability, to manage a crisis. Both National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are obsessed with Iraq and the Washington firestorm. As for Rumsfeld, Woodward quoted the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, as saying Rumsfeld lacks credibility. That statement has not been denied. It is bad when a four-star general says that about a secretary of defense. Since the perception of U.S. crisis management is that no one is minding the shop, the Russians tested their strength.

There is, of course, a much more serious matter: Iran. Iran cut its teeth on American domestic politics. After the Iranians seized U.S. Embassy personnel as hostages, they locked the Carter administration into an impossible position, in which its only option was a catastrophic rescue attempt. The Iranians had an enormous impact on the 1980 election, helping to defeat Carter and not releasing the hostages until Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president. They crippled a president once and might like to try it again.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was involved in the hostage-taking and got a close-up view of how to manipulate the United States. Iran already undermined Bush's plans for a stable government in Iraq when it mobilized Shiite forces against the Baghdad government over the summer. Between that and the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Iran saw itself in a strong position. Iran then conducted a diplomatic offensive, as a former Iranian president and the current Iranian president both traveled to the United States and tried to make the case that they are more moderate than the Bush administration painted them.

With five weeks until the U.S. congressional midterm elections, the Iranians would love to be able to claim that Bush, having rejected their overtures, was brought down -- or at least crippled -- by Iran. There are rumors swirling about pending major attacks in Iraq by pro-Iranian forces. There are always rumors swirling in Iraq about attacks, but in this particular case, logic would give them credibility. The Iranians might be calculating that if Iranian-sponsored groups could inflict massive casualties on U.S. troops, it would affect the U.S. election enough to get a Democratic Congress in place -- which could cripple Bush's ability to wage war and further weaken the United States' position in the Middle East. This, of course, would increase Iran's standing in the region.

The Iranian perception is that the United States does not have the resources to launch either an invasion or massive airstrikes against Iran. The Bush administration's credibility on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is too low for that to be regarded as a plausible excuse, and even if strikes were launched to take out WMD, that rationale would not justify an extended, multi-month bombing campaign. Since the Iranians believe the United States lacks the will and ability to try regime change from the air, Tehran is in a position to strike without putting itself at risk.

If the Iranians were to strike hard at the United States in Iraq, and the United States did not respond effectively, then the perception in key countries like Saudi Arabia -- a religious and geopolitical rival of Iran's -- would be that aligning with the United States is a dangerous move because the U.S. ability to protect them is not there, and therefore they need to make other arrangements. Since getting the Saudis' cooperation against al Qaeda was a major achievement for the Bush administration, this would be a major reversal. But if Riyadh perceived the United States as inherently weak, Riyadh would have no choice but to recalculate and relaunch its foreign policy.

Iran and others are feeling encouraged to take risks before the upcoming U.S. election -- either because they see this as a period of maximum American weakness or because they hope to influence the election and further weaken Bush. If they succeed, many U.S. allies will, like the Saudis, have to recalculate their positions relative to the United States and move away. The willingness of people in Iraq and Afghanistan to align with the United States will decline. If the United States is seen as a loser, it will become a loser. Furthermore, the NIE and the Woodward book create the perception that Bush has become isolated in his views and unable to control his own people. He needs to reverse this perception.

It is easy to write that. It is much harder to imagine how he will accomplish it, particularly if there is a major attack in Iraq or elsewhere. Bush's solution has been to refuse to bend. That worked for a while, but that strategy is no longer credible because it is not clear that Bush still has the option of not bending. The disarray in his administration and the real possibility of losing Congress means that merely remaining resolved is not enough. Bush needs to bring perceived order to the perceived chaos in the administration. Between the bad luck of degenerate congressmen and the intentions of the Iranians, he does not have many tools at his disposal. The things he might have done a year ago, like replacing Rumsfeld, are not an option now. It would smell of panic, and he cannot afford to be seen as panicky. Perhaps Bush's only option at this point is to remain self-assured and indifferent to the storm around him.

Whatever the perception in the United States, Bush's enemies overseas are not impressed by his self-assurance, and his allies are getting very worried that, like Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, his political weakness will not allow him to control the U.S. course.

We believe that, in the end, reality governs perception. But we are not convinced that, in this case, the perception and the reality are not one and the same; and we are not convinced that, in the coming weeks, the perception is not in fact more important than the reality. And if the Republicans lose the upcoming elections, the perception that Bush lacks the plans and political power needed for decisive action will become the reality.

For Bush to be able to execute the foreign policy he wants, his party must win the midterm elections. For that to happen, Bush must get control of the political situation quickly. To do that, he must change the perception that his own administration is out of control.

Easy to write. Harder to do.
www.stratfor.com

428
Politics & Religion / Health Thread (nutrition, medical, longevity, etc)
« on: August 04, 2006, 07:10:22 AM »
Woof All:

Just surfed through the back pages of the forum and was unable to find a health thread, so I start this one here.

The Adventure continues,
CD
================

Cancer News From Johns Hopkins
.

Cancer update -- Johns Hopkins -- Cancer News from Johns
 Hopkins:

1. No plastic containers in micro.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters.
 This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army
Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer.
Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't
freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this  releases dioxins
from the plastic.

 Recently, Dr.. Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager
 at Castle Hospital, was on a TV program to explain  this health hazard.
He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us.

 He said that we should not be heating our food in the
microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods  that
contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics
releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells  of thebody.
 Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware,
Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only
without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups,
etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.
 Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. He reminded us that
a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away
from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one  of the reasons.
 Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is justas dangerous when placed over! foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

429
Politics & Religion / Why July 4th matters
« on: July 04, 2006, 08:11:32 AM »
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ?Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

For additional information about the Declaration of Independence, see these sites:

National Archives and Records Administration: Declaration of Independence
Library of Congress: About the Declaration of Independence

430
Politics & Religion / Invitation to dialog to Muslims
« on: June 10, 2006, 07:32:24 AM »
Woof All:

This thread seeks to continue the conversation begun by Sitbatan on the "Intro to Gun, Knife and Emtpy Hand" thread nearby triggered by Gabe Suarez and I wearing "Infidel" t-shirts with a gun range target behind us of a "jihadi" type person.

Sitbatan wondered whether I was exhibiting anti-Muslim animus. ?In my initial response there I listed all the ways I could think of off the top of my head that the US has acted with and/or for Muslims countries. ?

In his response, the following was cause for me to reflect:

"Please understand from my point of view... I have taught other foreigners here, are they going to use their knowledge to kill my fellow muslims??? Is it that the true peaceful Islam has been buried under extremism?? Radicalism??"

What communicates in his words which I quote is a frame of mind in which it is more important whether someone is a Muslim than whether he is a good or a bad person. ?Is this the case Sibatan? ?

Thus I begin with this question: what is your reaction to our killing of Zarqawi? ?Are you sad/angry that we have killed a "fellow muslim" or are you glad that we have killed a fascist who targetted innocents? ?If you had known where he was, would you have told us?

The Adventure continues,
Crafty Dog

PS: ?The subject matter of this thread is particularly combustible, yet the need for honest communication seems to me to be as obvious as it is profound-- so I remind all who participate in this thread of the code of this forum "Be friends at the end of the day." ? A special note to my fellow infidels-- any Muslim who comes here probably will be quite outnumbered. ?Play fairly!

431
Politics & Religion / Interesting Stratfor.com Read
« on: May 16, 2006, 10:44:04 PM »
Civil Liberties and National Security
By George Friedman

USA Today published a story last week stating that U.S. telephone companies (Qwest excepted) had been handing over to the National Security Agency (NSA) logs of phone calls made by American citizens. This has, as one might expect, generated a fair bit of controversy -- with opinions ranging from "It's not only legal but a great idea" to "This proves that Bush arranged 9/11 so he could create a police state." A fine time is being had by all. Therefore, it would seem appropriate to pause and consider the matter.

Let's begin with an obvious question: How in God's name did USA Today find out about a program that had to have been among the most closely held secrets in the intelligence community -- not only because it would be embarrassing if discovered, but also because the entire program could work only if no one knew it was under way? No criticism of USA Today, but we would assume that the newspaper wasn't running covert operations against the NSA. Therefore, someone gave them the story, and whoever gave them the story had to be cleared to know about it. That means that someone with a high security clearance leaked an NSA secret.

Americans have become so numbed to leaks at this point that no one really has discussed the implications of what we are seeing: The intelligence community is hemorrhaging classified information. It's possible that this leak came from one of the few congressmen or senators or staffers on oversight committees who had been briefed on this material -- but either way, we are seeing an extraordinary breakdown among those with access to classified material.

The reason for this latest disclosure is obviously the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to be the head of the CIA. Before his appointment as deputy director of national intelligence, Hayden had been the head of the NSA, where he oversaw the collection and data-mining project involving private phone calls. Hayden's nomination to the CIA has come under heavy criticism from Democrats and Republicans, who argue that he is an inappropriate choice for director. The release of the data-mining story to USA Today obviously was intended as a means of shooting down his nomination -- which it might. But what is important here is not the fate of Hayden, but the fact that the Bush administration clearly has lost all control of the intelligence community -- extended to include congressional oversight processes. That is not a trivial point.

At the heart of the argument is not the current breakdown in Washington, but the more significant question of why the NSA was running such a collection program and whether the program represented a serious threat to liberty. The standard debate is divided into two schools: those who regard the threat to liberty as trivial when compared to the security it provides, and those who regard the security it provides as trivial when compared to the threat to liberty. In this, each side is being dishonest. The real answer, we believe, is that the program does substantially improve security, and that it is a clear threat to liberty. People talk about hard choices all the time; with this program, Americans actually are facing one.

A Problem of Governments

Let's begin with the liberty question. There is no way that a government program designed to track phone calls made by Americans is not a threat to liberty. We are not lawyers, and we are sure a good lawyer could make the argument either way. But whatever the law says, liberty means "my right to do what I want, within the law and due process, without the government having any knowledge of it." This program violates that concept.

The core problem is that it is never clear what the government will do with the data it collects.

Consider two examples, involving two presidential administrations.

In 1970, Congress passed legislation called the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act that was designed explicitly to break organized crime groups. The special legislation was needed because organized crime groups were skilled at making more conventional prosecutions difficult. The Clinton administration used the RICO Act against anti-abortion activists. From a legal point of view, this was effective, but no one had ever envisioned the law being used this way when it was drafted. The government was taking the law to a place where its framers had never intended it to go.

Following 9/11, Congress passed a range of anti-terrorism laws that included the PATRIOT Act. The purpose of this was to stop al Qaeda, an organization that had killed thousands of people and was thought to be capable of plotting a nuclear attack. Under the same laws, the Bush administration has been monitoring a range of American left-wing groups -- some of which well might have committed acts of violence, but none of which come close to posing the same level of threat as al Qaeda. In some technical sense, using anti-terrorism laws against animal-rights activists might be legitimate, but the framers of the law did not envision this extension.

What we are describing here is neither a Democratic nor a Republican disease. It is a problem of governments. They are not particularly trustworthy in the way they use laws or programs. More precisely, an extraordinary act is passed to give the government the powers to fight an extraordinary enemy -- in these examples, the Mafia or al Qaeda. But governments will tend to extend this authority and apply it to ordinary events. How long, then, before the justification for tracking telephone calls is extended to finding child molesters, deadbeat dads and stolen car rings?

It is not that these things shouldn't be stopped. Rather, the issue is that Americans have decided that such crimes must be stopped within a rigorous system of due process. The United States was founded on the premise that governments can be as dangerous as criminals. The entire premise of the American system is that governments are necessary evils and that their powers must be circumscribed. Americans accept that some criminals will go free, but they still limit the authority of the state to intrude in their lives. There is a belief that if you give government an inch, it will take a mile -- all in the name of the public interest.

Now flip the analysis. Americans can live with child molesters, deadbeat dads and stolen car rings more readily than they can live with the dangers inherent in government power. But can one live with the threat from al Qaeda more readily than that from government power? That is the crucial question that must be answered. Does al Qaeda pose a threat that (a) cannot be managed within the structure of normal due process and (b) is so enormous that it requires an extension of government power? In the long run, is increased government power more or less dangerous than al Qaeda?

Due Process and Security Risks

We don't mean to be ironic when we say this is a tough call. If all that al Qaeda can do was what they achieved on 9/11, we might be tempted to say that society could live more readily with that threat than with the threat of government oppression. But there is no reason to believe that the totality of al Qaeda's capabilities and that of its spin-off groups was encapsulated in the 9/11 attacks. The possibility that al Qaeda might acquire and use weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices, cannot be completely dismissed. There is no question but that the organization would use such weapons if they could. The possibility of several American cities being devastated by nuclear attacks is conceivable -- and if there is only one chance in 100 of such an event, that is too much. The fact is that no one knows what the probabilities are.

Some of those who write to Stratfor argue that the Bush administration carried out the 9/11 attacks to justify increasing its power. But if the administration was powerful enough to carry out 9/11 without anyone finding out, then it hardly seems likely that it needed a justification for oppression. It could just oppress. The fact is that al Qaeda (which claims the attacks) carried out the attacks, and that attacks by other groups are possible. They might be nuclear attacks -- and stopping those is a social and moral imperative that might not be possible without a curtailment of liberty.

On both sides of the issue, it seems to us, there has developed a fundamental dishonesty. Civil libertarians demand that due process be respected in all instances, but without admitting openly the catastrophic risks they are willing to incur. Patrick Henry's famous statement, "Give me liberty or give me death," is a fundamental premise of American society. Civil libertarians demand liberty, but they deny that by doing so they are raising the possibility of death. They move past the tough part real fast.

The administration argues that government can be trusted with additional power. But one of the premises of American conservatism is that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Conservatives believe that the state -- and particularly the federal government -- should never be trusted with power. Conservatives believe in "original sin," meaning they believe that any ruler not only is capable of corruption, but likely to be corrupted by power. The entire purpose of the American regime is to protect citizens from a state that is, by definition, untrustworthy. The Bush administration moves past this tough part real fast as well.

Tough Discussions

It is important to consider what the NSA's phone call monitoring program was intended to do. Al Qaeda's great skill has been using a very small number of men, allowing them to blend into a targeted country, and then suddenly bringing them together for an attack. Al Qaeda's command cell has always been difficult to penetrate; it consists of men who are related or who have known each other for years. They do not recruit new members into the original structure. Penetrating the organization is difficult. Moreover, the command cell may not know details of any particular operation in the field.

Human intelligence, in order to be effective, must be focused. As we say at Stratfor, we need a name, a picture and an address for the person who is likely to know the answer to an intelligence question. For al Qaeda's operations in the United States, we do not have any of this. The purpose of the data-mining program simply would have been to identify possible names and addresses so that a picture could be pieced together and an intelligence operation mounted. The program was designed to identify complex patterns of phone calls and link the information to things already known from other sources, in order to locate possible al Qaeda networks.

In order to avoid violating civil liberties, a warrant for monitoring phone calls would be needed. It is impossible to get a warrant for such a project, however, unless you want to get a warrant for every American. The purpose of a warrant is to investigate a known suspect. In this case, the government had no known suspect. Identifying a suspect is exactly what this was about. The NSA was looking for 10 or 20 needles in a haystack of almost 300 million. The data-mining program would not be a particularly effective program by itself -- it undoubtedly would have thrown out more false positives than anyone could follow up on. But in a conflict in which there are no good tools, this was a tool that had some utility. For all we know, a cell might have been located, or the program might never have been more than a waste of time.

The problem that critics of the program must address is simply this: If data mining of phone calls is objectionable, how would they suggest identifying al Qaeda operatives in the United States? We're open to suggestions. The problem that defenders of the program have is that they expect to be trusted to use the data wisely, and to discipline themselves not to use it in pursuit of embezzlers, pornographers or people who disagree with the president. We'd love to be convinced.

Contrary to what many people say, this is not an unprecedented situation in American history. During the Civil War -- another war that was unique and that was waged on American soil -- the North was torn by dissent. Pro-Confederate sentiment ran deep in the border states that remained within the Union, as well as in other states. The federal government, under Lincoln, suspended many liberties. Lincoln went far beyond Bush -- suspending the writ of habeas corpus, imposing martial law and so on. His legal basis for doing so was limited, but in his judgment, the survival of the United States required it.

Obviously, George W. Bush is no Lincoln. Of course, it must be remembered that during the Civil War, no one realized that Abraham Lincoln was a Lincoln. A lot of people in the North thought he was a Bush. Indeed, had the plans of some of his Cabinet members -- particularly his secretary of war -- gone forward after his assassination, Lincoln's suspension of civil rights would be remembered even less than it is now.

The trade-off between liberty and security must be debated. The question of how you judge when a national emergency has passed must be debated. The current discussion of NSA data mining provides a perfect arena for that discussion. We do not have a clear answer of how the debate should come out. Indeed, our view is that the outcome of the debate is less important than that the discussion be held and that a national consensus emerge. Americans can live with a lot of different outcomes. They cannot live with the current intellectual and political chaos.

Civil libertarians must not be allowed to get away with trivializing the physical danger that they are courting by insisting that the rules of due process be followed. Supporters of the administration must not be allowed to get away with trivializing the threat to liberty that prosecution of the war against al Qaeda entails. No consensus can possibly emerge when both sides of the debate are dishonest with each other and themselves.

This is a case in which the outcome of the debate will determine the course of the war. Leaks of information about secret projects to a newspaper is a symptom of the disease: a complete collapse of any consensus as to what this war is, what it means, what it risks, what it will cost and what price Americans are not willing to pay for it. A covert war cannot be won without disciplined covert operations. That is no longer possible in this environment. A serious consensus on the rules is now a national security requirement.
Send questions or

433
Politics & Religion / Political Theory
« on: November 26, 2005, 06:34:49 AM »
I start this thread with a read recently shared with me by a friend.  Interesting to note when and by whom it was written:
=======================================

An Arab Philosophy of History: Selections from the Prolegomena (Muqaddimah)of Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406), edited by Charles Issawi.

SOCIETY AND STATE

Origins of Society

Human society is necessary. Philosophers express this truth by saying that man is social by nature, i.e. he needs a society, or city as they call it. The reason for this is that...each individual?s capacity for acquiring food falls short of what is necessary to sustain life. Even taking a minimum, such as one day?s supply of wheat, it is clear that this requires operations (grinding and kneading and baking) each of which necessitates utensils and tools, which presuppose the presence of carpenters, smiths, potmakers, and other craftsmen. Even granting that he eat the wheat unground, he can only obtain it in that state after many more operations, such as sowing and reaping and threshing, to separate the grain from the chaff, all of which processes require even more tools and crafts.

Now it is impossible for an individual to carry out all the above-mentioned work, or even part of it. Hence it becomes necessary for him to unite his efforts with those of his fellow men who by co-operating can produce enough for many times their number. Similarly each individual needs the help of his fellow men for the purposes of defense. For God...gave to many brute beasts more power than to man. Thus the horse, the ass and the bull are more powerful than man, while the lion and elephant are many times as strong. And whereas enmity is natural between animals, He gave to each kind an organ of self-defense. To man, however, He gave the mind and the hand which, in the service of the mind, can apply itself to the crafts and produce tools which take the place of the natural organs with which other animals are endowed for self-defense. Thus spears replace horns; swords, claws; shields, thick hides; and so forth, as was mentioned by Galen in his book on the uses of organs.

But an individual human being cannot resist an animal, especially a beast of prey, nor is his tool-using capacity of any avail unless he join with his fellow men, for he cannot, unaided, make the many tools needed. And unless he so co-operate with others he cannot obtain the food without which he cannot live, nor defend himself, for want of weapons, but will fall a prey to the beasts and his species will be extinct. Co-operation however, secures both food and weapons, thus fulfilling God?s will of preserving the species. Society is therefore necessary to man...and it is society which forms the subject of this science....

[Here is a parallel passage from Aristotle?s Politics, written 1700 years earlier: "A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used with intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society." Bk. One, Chapter 2 p.181.]

Origins of the State

....Human society having, as we have shown, been achieved and spread over the face of the earth, there arises the need of a restraining force to keep men off each other in view of their animal propensities for aggressiveness and oppression of others. Now the weapons with which they defend themselves against wild beasts cannot serve as a restraint, seeing that each man can make equal use of them. Nor can the restraint come from other than men, seeing the animals fall far short of men in their mental capacity. The restraint must therefore be constituted by one man, who wields power and authority with a firm hand and thus prevents anyone from attacking anyone else, i.e. by a sovereign. Sovereignty is therefore peculiar to man, suited to his nature and indispensable to his existence.

According to certain philosophers, Sovereignty may also be found in certain animal species, such as bees and locusts, which have been observed to follow the leadership of one of their species, distinguished from the rest by its size and form. But in animals Sovereignty exists in virtue of instinct and divine providence, not of reflection aiming at establishing a political organization....

It is maintained by some that rule can be founded on a Divine Law, commanded by God and revealed by Him to a man whom He has so endowed with outstanding qualities that other men willingly and unfeigningly obey him and surrender themselves to him. But this proposition cannot be demonstrated: for human society can exist without such a Divine Law, merely in virtue of the authority imposed by one man or of the Social Solidarity which compels the others to follow and obey him. And it is clear that the People of the Book and those who have followed the teachings of the prophets are few in comparison with the pagans, who do not have a book and who constitute a majority of the inhabitants of the world. And yet these pagans have not only lived but have founded states and left monuments. And until this day they form societies in the extreme northern and southern zones. Their condition is therefore not one of anarchy, i.e. of men left to themselves without restraint, for such a condition cannot possibly exist....

State and Society

....The state is therefore to society as form is to matter, for the form by its nature preserves the matter and, as philosophers have shown, the two are inseparable. For a state is inconceivable without a society; while a society without a state is well nigh impossible, owing to the aggressive propensities of men, which require a restraint. A polity therefore arises, either theocratic or kingly, and this is what we mean by state.

The two being inseparable, any disturbance in either of them will cause a disturbance in the other; just as the disappearance of one leads to the disappearance of the other. The greatest source of disturbance is in the breakdown of such empires as the Roman, Persian, or Arab; or in the [breakdown of a whole] dynasty, such as the Omayyad or Abbaside. Individual rulers, such as Heraclius, or Anushirvan, or ?Abdel Malik Ibn Marwan, or Harun al Rashid, are merely successive rulers and guardians of society. The succession of such rulers does not affect society greatly for they resemble each other closely. Moreover the real force which operates on society is solidarity and power, which persists through [successive] rulers. Should such a solidarity disappear, and be replaced by another solidarity which acts on society, the whole Ruling Class would disappear and the disturbance thus caused be very great... [Vol. II, p. 264]

Political Sanctions

....We have already refuted the view [declaring that no society can be constituted without a Divine Law revealed by a prophet]. For one of the premises of this view is that a Sanction can only be provided by a Divine Law which is blindly obeyed by all because of their faith. Now this is false, for a sanction can be provided by the power of the king, or of a ruling group, without there being any Divine Law -- as took place, for instance, among the pagans who did not have a Revelation or Sacred Book. Nay, conflict may stop if every person is clearly aware, by the light of his reason, that he has no right to oppress his neighbour....Oppression and strife might therefore cease...if men undertook to restrain themselves.... [Vol. I, p. 345]

Social Solidarity Is Based on Kinship

Social solidarity is found only in groups related by blood ties or by other ties which fulfill the same functions. This is because blood ties have a force binding on most men, which makes them concerned with any injury inflicted on their next of kin. Men resent the oppression of their relatives, and the impulse to ward off any harm that may befall those relatives is natural and deep rooted in men. If the degree of kinship between two persons helping each other is very close, it is obviously the blood tie, which, by its very evidence, leads to the required solidarity. If the degree of kinship is distant, the blood tie is somewhat weakened but in its place there exists a family feeling based on the widespread knowledge of kinship. Hence each will help the other for fear of the dishonour which would arise if he failed in his duties towards one who is known by all to be related to him. The clients and allies of a great nobleman often stand in the same relationship towards him as his kinsmen. Patron and client are ready to help each other because of the feeling of indignation which arises when the rights of a neighbour, a kinsman, or a friend are violated. In fact, the ties of clientship are almost as powerful as those of blood.

This explains the saying of the Prophet Mohammad, "Learn your genealogies to know who are your near of kin," meaning that kinship only serves a function when blood ties lead to actual co-operation and mutual aid in danger -- other degrees of kinship being insignificant. The fact is that such relationship is more of an emotional than an objective fact in that it acts only by bringing together the hearts and affections of men. If the kinship is evident in acts as a natural urge leading to solidarity; if it is based on the mere knowledge of descent from a common ancestor it is weakened and has little influence on the sentiments and hence little practical effect. [Vol. I, p. 235]

Ties of kinship come out most clearly among savage peoples living in wildernesses, such as the Bedouins and other like peoples. This is because of he peculiarly hard life, poor conditions and forbidding environment which necessity has imposed upon such peoples. For their livelihood is based upon the produce of camels, and camel breeding draws them out into the wilderness where the camels graze on the bushes and plants of the desert sands; as we mentioned earlier. Now the wilderness is a hard and hungry home, to which such men adapted their nature and character in successive generations. Other peoples, however, do not try to go out into the desert or to live with the nomads and share their fate; nay, should a nomad see the possibility of exchanging his condition for another he would not fail to do so. As a result of all this, the genealogies of nomads are in no danger of being mixed or confused but remain clear and known to all... [Vol. I, p. 236]

Proximity and a Common Life as the Basis of Solidarity

....Clientship and the mixing with slaves and allies can replace kinship [as the basis of solidarity]. For although kinship is natural and objective it is also emotional. For group ties are formed by such things as living together, companionship, prolonged acquaintance or friendship, growing up
together, having the same foster parents, and other such matters of life and death. Such ties once formed lead to mutual help and the warding off of injuries inflicted on others; as can be commonly seen to occur. An example of this is provided by the relation of dependence. For there arises a special tie between a patron and those in his service which draws them close together so that although kinship is absent the fruits of kinship are present.... [Vol. I, p. 332]

Solidarity in Tribes

....Aggressiveness and the lust for power are common characteristics of men and whenever a man?s eye dwells on the goods of his neighbour his hand is apt to follow it, unless he be checked by some restraint.... As regards towns and villages, their mutual aggressiveness is checked by the governors and the State, which restrain their subjects from attacking or oppressing each other; in other words, the power of the rulers preserves the people from oppression, unless it be the oppression of those same rulers. External aggression, for its part, is warded off by means of walls and fortifications, which protect a city by night, prevent surprises, and moreover supplement an otherwise inadequate defense; while the garrisons of the State carry out a prepared and prolonged resistance. In nomadic societies, intragroup aggressiveness is checked by the chiefs and elders, owing to the prestige and respect with which they are regarded by the tribesmen. Aggression from outside, aimed at their possessions, is warded off by those of their young men who are noted for their bravery. And such defense can succeed only when they are united by a strong social solidarity arising out of kinship, for this greatly increases their strength.... [Vol. I, p. 233]

Transition From Tribal To Village and City Life and Consequent Weakening of Solidarity

....The above [i.e. purity of race and tribal solidarity] holds true only for nomadic Arabs. The caliph Omar said: "Learn your genealogies and be not like the Nabateans of Mesopotamia who, if asked about their origins reply: ?I come from such and such a village.?" Those Arabs who took up a more sedentary life, however, found themselves, in their quest for more fertile lands and rich pastures, crowding in on other peoples -- all of which led to a mixture [of blood] and a confusion of genealogies. This is what happened at the beginning of the Muslim era, when men began to be designated by the localities [in which they dwelt]. Thus people would refer to the military province of Qinnasrin or the military province of Damascus or that of al ?Awasim. The usage then spread to Spain.

This does not mean, however, that the Arabs were no longer designated by their genealogies; they merely added to their tribal name a place-name which allowed their rulers to distinguish between them more easily. Later on, however, further mixture took place, in the cities, between Arabs and non-Arabs. This led to a complete confusion of genealogies, and a consequent weakening of that solidarity which is the fruit of tribal kinship; hence tribal names tended to be cast aside. Finally, the tribes themselves were absorbed and disappeared and with them all traces of tribal solidarity. The nomads, however, continued as they had always been. "And God shall inherit the earth and all that are upon it." [Vol. I, p. 237]

Solidarity in Cities

It is evident that men are by nature in contact with and tied to each other, even where kinship is absent; though, as we have said before, in such cases such ties are weaker than where they are reinforced by kinship. Such contact may produce a solidarity nearly as powerful as that produced by kinship. Now many city dwellers are interrelated by marriage, thus forming groups of kinsmen, divided into parties and factions, between which there exist the same relations of friendship and enmity as exist between tribes.... [Vol. II, p. 267]

Solidarity Is the Basis of Sovereignty

The end of social solidarity is sovereignty. This is because, as we have said before, it is solidarity which makes men unite their efforts for common objects, defend themselves, and repulse or overcome their enemies. We have also seen that every human society requires a restraint, and a chief who can keep men from injuring each other. Such a chief must command a powerful support, else he will not be able to carry out his restraining function. The domination he exercises is Sovereignty, which exceeds the power of a tribal leader; for a tribal leader enjoys leadership and is followed by his men whom he cannot however compel. Sovereignty, on the other hand, is rule by compulsion, by means of the power at the disposal of the ruler. Now rulers always strive to increase their power, hence a chief who secures a following will not miss the chance of transforming, if he can, his rule into sovereignty; for power is the desire of men?s souls. And sovereignty can be secured only with the help of the followers on whom the ruler relies to secure the acquiescence of his people, so that kingly sovereignty is the final end to which social solidarity leads.... [Vol. I, p. 252]

Solidarity Is the Basis of Kingship

Kingship and dynasties can be founded only on popular support and solidarity. The reason for this is, as we have seen before, that victory, or even the mere avoidance of defeat, goes to the side which has most solidarity and whose members are readiest to fight and to die for each other. Now kingship is an honoured and coveted post, giving its holder all worldly goods as well as bodily and mental gratifications. Hence it is the object of much competition and is rarely given up willingly, but only under compulsion. Competition leads to struggle and wars and the overthrow of thrones, none of which can occur without social solidarity. Such matters are usually unknown to, or forgotten by, the masses, who do not remember the time when the dynasty was first established, but have grown up, generation after generation, in a fixed spot, under its rule. They know nothing of the means by which God set up the dynasty; all they see is their monarchs, whose power has been consolidated and is no longer the object of dispute and who do not need to base their rule any more on social solidarity. They do not know how matters stood at first and what difficulties were encountered by the founders of the dynasty.... [Vol. I, p. 278]

Once the State Is Established Solidarity Becomes Superfluous

Once consolidated the state can dispense with social solidarity. The reason is that newly founded states can secure the obedience of their subjects only by much coercion and force. This is because the people have not had the time to get accustomed to the new and foreign rule. Once kingship has been established, however, and inherited by successive generations or dynasties, the people forget their original condition, the rulers are invested with the aura of leadership, and the subjects obey them almost as they obey the precepts of their religion, and fight for them as they would fight for their faith. At this stage the rulers do not need to rely on a great armed force, since their rule is accepted as the will of God, which does not admit of change or contradiction. It is surely significant that the discussion of the Imamate is inserted [in theological books] at the end of the discussion of doctrinal beliefs, as though it formed an integral part of them. From this time onward the authority of the king is based on the clients and freedmen of the royal household, men who have grown up under its protection; or else the king relies on foreign bands of warriors whom he attaches to himself.

An example of this is provided by the Abbaside dynasty. By the time of the Caliph Al Mu?tasim and his son Al Wathiq, the kings relied mainly on clients recruited from Persians, Turks, Deylamites, Seljuks, and others. These foreigners soon came to control the provinces, the Abbasides? rule being confined to the neighbourhood of Baghdad. Then the Deylamites marched on Baghdad and occupied it, holding the Caliphs under their rule. They were succeeded by the Seljuks, who were followed by the Tatars, who killed the Caliph and wiped out that dynasty.... The same is true of the Omayyad dynasty in Spain. When the spirit and solidarity of the Arabs weakened, the feudal lords pounced on the kingdom and divided it up among themselves. Each of them set himself up as supreme lord in his region and, following the example of the foreigners in the Abbaside empire, usurped the emblems and titles of sovereignty....They upheld their authority by means of clients and freedmen and with the help of tribesmen recruited from the Berbers, Zenata and other North Africans.... [Vol. I, p. 279]

* *


SOCIETY AND STATE

Origins of Society

Human society is necessary. Philosophers express this truth by saying that man is social by nature, i.e. he needs a society, or city as they call it. The reason for this is that...each individual?s capacity for acquiring food falls short of what is necessary to sustain life. Even taking a minimum, such as one day?s supply of wheat, it is clear that this requires operations (grinding and kneading and baking) each of which necessitates utensils and tools, which presuppose the presence of carpenters, smiths, potmakers, and other craftsmen. Even granting that he eat the wheat unground, he can only obtain it in that state after many more operations, such as sowing and reaping and threshing, to separate the grain from the chaff, all of which processes require even more tools and crafts.

Now it is impossible for an individual to carry out all the above-mentioned work, or even part of it. Hence it becomes necessary for him to unite his efforts with those of his fellow men who by co-operating can produce enough for many times their number. Similarly each individual needs the help of his fellow men for the purposes of defense. For God...gave to many brute beasts more power than to man. Thus the horse, the ass and the bull are more powerful than man, while the lion and elephant are many times as strong. And whereas enmity is natural between animals, He gave to each kind an organ of self-defense. To man, however, He gave the mind and the hand which, in the service of the mind, can apply itself to the crafts and produce tools which take the place of the natural organs with which other animals are endowed for self-defense. Thus spears replace horns; swords, claws; shields, thick hides; and so forth, as was mentioned by Galen in his book on the uses of organs.

But an individual human being cannot resist an animal, especially a beast of prey, nor is his tool-using capacity of any avail unless he join with his fellow men, for he cannot, unaided, make the many tools needed. And unless he so co-operate with others he cannot obtain the food without which he cannot live, nor defend himself, for want of weapons, but will fall a prey to the beasts and his species will be extinct. Co-operation however, secures both food and weapons, thus fulfilling God?s will of preserving the species. Society is therefore necessary to man...and it is society which forms the subject of this science....

[Here is a parallel passage from Aristotle?s Politics, written 1700 years earlier: "A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used with intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society." Bk. One, Chapter 2 p.181.]

Origins of the State

....Human society having, as we have shown, been achieved and spread over the face of the earth, there arises the need of a restraining force to keep men off each other in view of their animal propensities for aggressiveness and oppression of others. Now the weapons with which they defend themselves against wild beasts cannot serve as a restraint, seeing that each man can make equal use of them. Nor can the restraint come from other than men, seeing the animals fall far short of men in their mental capacity. The restraint must therefore be constituted by one man, who wields power and authority with a firm hand and thus prevents anyone from attacking anyone else, i.e. by a sovereign. Sovereignty is therefore peculiar to man, suited to his nature and indispensable to his existence.

According to certain philosophers, Sovereignty may also be found in certain animal species, such as bees and locusts, which have been observed to follow the leadership of one of their species, distinguished from the rest by its size and form. But in animals Sovereignty exists in virtue of instinct and divine providence, not of reflection aiming at establishing a political organization....

It is maintained by some that rule can be founded on a Divine Law, commanded by God and revealed by Him to a man whom He has so endowed with outstanding qualities that other men willingly and unfeigningly obey him and surrender themselves to him. But this proposition cannot be demonstrated: for human society can exist without such a Divine Law, merely in virtue of the authority imposed by one man or of the Social Solidarity which compels the others to follow and obey him. And it is clear that the People of the Book and those who have followed the teachings of the prophets are few in comparison with the pagans, who do not have a book and who constitute a majority of the inhabitants of the world. And yet these pagans have not only lived but have founded states and left monuments. And until this day they form societies in the extreme northern and southern zones. Their condition is therefore not one of anarchy, i.e. of men left to themselves without restraint, for such a condition cannot possibly exist....

State and Society

....The state is therefore to society as form is to matter, for the form by its nature preserves the matter and, as philosophers have shown, the two are inseparable. For a state is inconceivable without a society; while a society without a state is well nigh impossible, owing to the aggressive propensities of men, which require a restraint. A polity therefore arises, either theocratic or kingly, and this is what we mean by state.

The two being inseparable, any disturbance in either of them will cause a disturbance in the other; just as the disappearance of one leads to the disappearance of the other. The greatest source of disturbance is in the breakdown of such empires as the Roman, Persian, or Arab; or in the [breakdown of a whole] dynasty, such as the Omayyad or Abbaside. Individual rulers, such as Heraclius, or Anushirvan, or ?Abdel Malik Ibn Marwan, or Harun al Rashid, are merely successive rulers and guardians of society. The succession of such rulers does not affect society greatly for they resemble each other closely. Moreover the real force which operates on society is solidarity and power, which persists through [successive] rulers. Should such a solidarity disappear, and be replaced by another solidarity which acts on society, the whole Ruling Class would disappear and the disturbance thus caused be very great... [Vol. II, p. 264]

Political Sanctions

....We have already refuted the view [declaring that no society can be constituted without a Divine Law revealed by a prophet]. For one of the premises of this view is that a Sanction can only be provided by a Divine Law which is blindly obeyed by all because of their faith. Now this is false, for a sanction can be provided by the power of the king, or of a ruling group, without there being any Divine Law -- as took place, for instance, among the pagans who did not have a Revelation or Sacred Book. Nay, conflict may stop if every person is clearly aware, by the light of his reason, that he has no right to oppress his neighbour....Oppression and strife might therefore cease...if men undertook to restrain themselves.... [Vol. I, p. 345]

Social Solidarity Is Based on Kinship

Social solidarity is found only in groups related by blood ties or by other ties which fulfill the same functions. This is because blood ties have a force binding on most men, which makes them concerned with any injury inflicted on their next of kin. Men resent the oppression of their relatives, and the impulse to ward off any harm that may befall those relatives is natural and deep rooted in men. If the degree of kinship between two persons helping each other is very close, it is obviously the blood tie, which, by its very evidence, leads to the required solidarity. If the degree of kinship is distant, the blood tie is somewhat weakened but in its place there exists a family feeling based on the widespread knowledge of kinship. Hence each will help the other for fear of the dishonour which would arise if he failed in his duties towards one who is known by all to be related to him. The clients and allies of a great nobleman often stand in the same relationship towards him as his kinsmen. Patron and client are ready to help each other because of the feeling of indignation which arises when the rights of a neighbour, a kinsman, or a friend are violated. In fact, the ties of clientship are almost as powerful as those of blood.

This explains the saying of the Prophet Mohammad, "Learn your genealogies to know who are your near of kin," meaning that kinship only serves a function when blood ties lead to actual co-operation and mutual aid in danger -- other degrees of kinship being insignificant. The fact is that such relationship is more of an emotional than an objective fact in that it acts only by bringing together the hearts and affections of men. If the kinship is evident in acts as a natural urge leading to solidarity; if it is based on the mere knowledge of descent from a common ancestor it is weakened and has little influence on the sentiments and hence little practical effect. [Vol. I, p. 235]

Ties of kinship come out most clearly among savage peoples living in wildernesses, such as the Bedouins and other like peoples. This is because of he peculiarly hard life, poor conditions and forbidding environment which necessity has imposed upon such peoples. For their livelihood is based upon the produce of camels, and camel breeding draws them out into the wilderness where the camels graze on the bushes and plants of the desert sands; as we mentioned earlier. Now the wilderness is a hard and hungry home, to which such men adapted their nature and character in successive generations. Other peoples, however, do not try to go out into the desert or to live with the nomads and share their fate; nay, should a nomad see the possibility of exchanging his condition for another he would not fail to do so. As a result of all this, the genealogies of nomads are in no danger of being mixed or confused but remain clear and known to all... [Vol. I, p. 236]

Proximity and a Common Life as the Basis of Solidarity

....Clientship and the mixing with slaves and allies can replace kinship [as the basis of solidarity]. For although kinship is natural and objective it is also emotional. For group ties are formed by such things as living together, companionship, prolonged acquaintance or friendship, growing up
together, having the same foster parents, and other such matters of life and death. Such ties once formed lead to mutual help and the warding off of injuries inflicted on others; as can be commonly seen to occur. An example of this is provided by the relation of dependence. For there arises a special tie between a patron and those in his service which draws them close together so that although kinship is absent the fruits of kinship are present.... [Vol. I, p. 332]

Solidarity in Tribes

....Aggressiveness and the lust for power are common characteristics of men and whenever a man?s eye dwells on the goods of his neighbour his hand is apt to follow it, unless he be checked by some restraint.... As regards towns and villages, their mutual aggressiveness is checked by the governors and the State, which restrain their subjects from attacking or oppressing each other; in other words, the power of the rulers preserves the people from oppression, unless it be the oppression of those same rulers. External aggression, for its part, is warded off by means of walls and fortifications, which protect a city by night, prevent surprises, and moreover supplement an otherwise inadequate defense; while the garrisons of the State carry out a prepared and prolonged resistance. In nomadic societies, intragroup aggressiveness is checked by the chiefs and elders, owing to the prestige and respect with which they are regarded by the tribesmen. Aggression from outside, aimed at their possessions, is warded off by those of their young men who are noted for their bravery. And such defense can succeed only when they are united by a strong social solidarity arising out of kinship, for this greatly increases their strength.... [Vol. I, p. 233]

Transition From Tribal To Village and City Life and Consequent Weakening of Solidarity

....The above [i.e. purity of race and tribal solidarity] holds true only for nomadic Arabs. The caliph Omar said: "Learn your genealogies and be not like the Nabateans of Mesopotamia who, if asked about their origins reply: ?I come from such and such a village.?" Those Arabs who took up a more sedentary life, however, found themselves, in their quest for more fertile lands and rich pastures, crowding in on other peoples -- all of which led to a mixture [of blood] and a confusion of genealogies. This is what happened at the beginning of the Muslim era, when men began to be designated by the localities [in which they dwelt]. Thus people would refer to the military province of Qinnasrin or the military province of Damascus or that of al ?Awasim. The usage then spread to Spain.

This does not mean, however, that the Arabs were no longer designated by their genealogies; they merely added to their tribal name a place-name which allowed their rulers to distinguish between them more easily. Later on, however, further mixture took place, in the cities, between Arabs and non-Arabs. This led to a complete confusion of genealogies, and a consequent weakening of that solidarity which is the fruit of tribal kinship; hence tribal names tended to be cast aside. Finally, the tribes themselves were absorbed and disappeared and with them all traces of tribal solidarity. The nomads, however, continued as they had always been. "And God shall inherit the earth and all that are upon it." [Vol. I, p. 237]

Solidarity in Cities

It is evident that men are by nature in contact with and tied to each other, even where kinship is absent; though, as we have said before, in such cases such ties are weaker than where they are reinforced by kinship. Such contact may produce a solidarity nearly as powerful as that produced by kinship. Now many city dwellers are interrelated by marriage, thus forming groups of kinsmen, divided into parties and factions, between which there exist the same relations of friendship and enmity as exist between tribes.... [Vol. II, p. 267]

Solidarity Is the Basis of Sovereignty

The end of social solidarity is sovereignty. This is because, as we have said before, it is solidarity which makes men unite their efforts for common objects, defend themselves, and repulse or overcome their enemies. We have also seen that every human society requires a restraint, and a chief who can keep men from injuring each other. Such a chief must command a powerful support, else he will not be able to carry out his restraining function. The domination he exercises is Sovereignty, which exceeds the power of a tribal leader; for a tribal leader enjoys leadership and is followed by his men whom he cannot however compel. Sovereignty, on the other hand, is rule by compulsion, by means of the power at the disposal of the ruler. Now rulers always strive to increase their power, hence a chief who secures a following will not miss the chance of transforming, if he can, his rule into sovereignty; for power is the desire of men?s souls. And sovereignty can be secured only with the help of the followers on whom the ruler relies to secure the acquiescence of his people, so that kingly sovereignty is the final end to which social solidarity leads.... [Vol. I, p. 252]

Solidarity Is the Basis of Kingship

Kingship and dynasties can be founded only on popular support and solidarity. The reason for this is, as we have seen before, that victory, or even the mere avoidance of defeat, goes to the side which has most solidarity and whose members are readiest to fight and to die for each other. Now kingship is an honoured and coveted post, giving its holder all worldly goods as well as bodily and mental gratifications. Hence it is the object of much competition and is rarely given up willingly, but only under compulsion. Competition leads to struggle and wars and the overthrow of thrones, none of which can occur without social solidarity. Such matters are usually unknown to, or forgotten by, the masses, who do not remember the time when the dynasty was first established, but have grown up, generation after generation, in a fixed spot, under its rule. They know nothing of the means by which God set up the dynasty; all they see is their monarchs, whose power has been consolidated and is no longer the object of dispute and who do not need to base their rule any more on social solidarity. They do not know how matters stood at first and what difficulties were encountered by the founders of the dynasty.... [Vol. I, p. 278]

Once the State Is Established Solidarity Becomes Superfluous

Once consolidated the state can dispense with social solidarity. The reason is that newly founded states can secure the obedience of their subjects only by much coercion and force. This is because the people have not had the time to get accustomed to the new and foreign rule. Once kingship has been established, however, and inherited by successive generations or dynasties, the people forget their original condition, the rulers are invested with the aura of leadership, and the subjects obey them almost as they obey the precepts of their religion, and fight for them as they would fight for their faith. At this stage the rulers do not need to rely on a great armed force, since their rule is accepted as the will of God, which does not admit of change or contradiction. It is surely significant that the discussion of the Imamate is inserted [in theological books] at the end of the discussion of doctrinal beliefs, as though it formed an integral part of them. From this time onward the authority of the king is based on the clients and freedmen of the royal household, men who have grown up under its protection; or else the king relies on foreign bands of warriors whom he attaches to himself.

An example of this is provided by the Abbaside dynasty. By the time of the Caliph Al Mu?tasim and his son Al Wathiq, the kings relied mainly on clients recruited from Persians, Turks, Deylamites, Seljuks, and others. These foreigners soon came to control the provinces, the Abbasides? rule being confined to the neighbourhood of Baghdad. Then the Deylamites marched on Baghdad and occupied it, holding the Caliphs under their rule. They were succeeded by the Seljuks, who were followed by the Tatars, who killed the Caliph and wiped out that dynasty.... The same is true of the Omayyad dynasty in Spain. When the spirit and solidarity of the Arabs weakened, the feudal lords pounced on the kingdom and divided it up among themselves. Each of them set himself up as supreme lord in his region and, following the example of the foreigners in the Abbaside empire, usurped the emblems and titles of sovereignty....They upheld their authority by means of clients and freedmen and with the help of tribesmen recruited from the Berbers, Zenata and other North Africans.... [Vol. I, p. 279]

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Politics & Religion / Evolutionary Biology and Psychology
« on: December 29, 2004, 06:14:54 PM »
Issue of 2005-01-03
THE VANISHING

by MALCOLM GLADWELL

In ?Collapse,? Jared Diamond shows how societies destroy themselves.

A thousand years ago, a group of Vikings led by Erik the Red set sail from Norway for the vast Arctic landmass west of Scandinavia which came to be known as Greenland. It was largely uninhabitable?a forbidding expanse of snow and ice. But along the southwestern coast there were two deep fjords protected from the harsh winds and saltwater spray of the North Atlantic Ocean, and as the Norse sailed upriver they saw grassy slopes flowering with buttercups, dandelions, and bluebells, and thick forests of willow and birch and alder. Two colonies were formed, three hundred miles apart, known as the Eastern and Western Settlements. The Norse raised sheep, goats, and cattle. They turned the grassy slopes into pastureland. They hunted seal and caribou. They built a string of parish churches and a magnificent cathedral, the remains of which are still standing. They traded actively with mainland Europe, and tithed regularly to the Roman Catholic Church. The Norse colonies in Greenland were law-abiding, economically viable, fully integrated communities, numbering at their peak five thousand people. They lasted for four hundred and fifty years?and then they vanished.

 

The story of the Eastern and Western Settlements of Greenland is told in Jared Diamond?s ?Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed? (Viking; $29.95). Diamond teaches geography at U.C.L.A. and is well known for his best-seller ?Guns, Germs, and Steel,? which won a Pulitzer Prize. In ?Guns, Germs, and Steel,? Diamond looked at environmental and structural factors to explain why Western societies came to dominate the world. In ?Collapse,? he continues that approach, only this time he looks at history?s losers?like the Easter Islanders, the Anasazi of the American Southwest, the Mayans, and the modern-day Rwandans. We live in an era preoccupied with the way that ideology and culture and politics and economics help shape the course of history. But Diamond isn?t particularly interested in any of those things?or, at least, he?s interested in them only insofar as they bear on what to him is the far more important question, which is a society?s relationship to its climate and geography and resources and neighbors. ?Collapse? is a book about the most prosaic elements of the earth?s ecosystem?soil, trees, and water?because societies fail, in Diamond?s view, when they mismanage those environmental factors

.

There was nothing wrong with the social organization of the Greenland settlements. The Norse built a functioning reproduction of the predominant northern-European civic model of the time?devout, structured, and reasonably orderly. In 1408, right before the end, records from the Eastern Settlement dutifully report that Thorstein Olafsson married Sigrid Bjornsdotter in Hvalsey Church on September 14th of that year, with Brand Halldorstson, Thord Jorundarson, Thorbjorn Bardarson, and Jon Jonsson as witnesses, following the proclamation of the wedding banns on three consecutive Sundays.

 

The problem with the settlements, Diamond argues, was that the Norse thought that Greenland really was green; they treated it as if it were the verdant farmland of southern Norway. They cleared the land to create meadows for their cows, and to grow hay to feed their livestock through the long winter. They chopped down the forests for fuel, and for the construction of wooden objects. To make houses warm enough for the winter, they built their homes out of six-foot-thick slabs of turf, which meant that a typical home consumed about ten acres of grassland.

 

But Greenland?s ecosystem was too fragile to withstand that kind of pressure. The short, cool growing season meant that plants developed slowly, which in turn meant that topsoil layers were shallow and lacking in soil constituents, like organic humus and clay, that hold moisture and keep soil resilient in the face of strong winds. ?The sequence of soil erosion in Greenland begins with cutting or burning the cover of trees and shrubs, which are more effective at holding soil than is grass,? he writes. ?With the trees and shrubs gone, livestock, especially sheep and goats, graze down the grass, which regenerates only slowly in Greenland?s climate. Once the grass cover is broken and the soil is exposed, soil is carried away especially by the strong winds, and also by pounding from occasionally heavy rains, to the point where the topsoil can be removed for a distance of miles from an entire valley.? Without adequate pastureland, the summer hay yields shrank; without adequate supplies of hay, keeping livestock through the long winter got harder. And, without adequate supplies of wood, getting fuel for the winter became increasingly difficult.

 

The Norse needed to reduce their reliance on livestock?particularly cows, which consumed an enormous amount of agricultural resources. But cows were a sign of high status; to northern Europeans, beef was a prized food. They needed to copy the Inuit practice of burning seal blubber for heat and light in the winter, and to learn from the Inuit the difficult art of hunting ringed seals, which were the most reliably plentiful source of food available in the winter. But the Norse had contempt for the Inuit?they called them skraelings, ?wretches??and preferred to practice their own brand of European agriculture. In the summer, when the Norse should have been sending ships on lumber-gathering missions to Labrador, in order to relieve the pressure on their own forestlands, they instead sent boats and men to the coast to hunt for walrus. Walrus tusks, after all, had great trade value. In return for those tusks, the Norse were able to acquire, among other things, church bells, stained-glass windows, bronze candlesticks, Communion wine, linen, silk, silver, churchmen?s robes, and jewelry to adorn their massive cathedral at Gardar, with its three-ton sandstone building blocks and eighty-foot bell tower. In the end, the Norse starved to death.



Diamond?s argument stands in sharp contrast to the conventional explanations for a society?s collapse. Usually, we look for some kind of cataclysmic event. The aboriginal civilization of the Americas was decimated by the sudden arrival of smallpox. European Jewry was destroyed by Nazism. Similarly, the disappearance of the Norse settlements is usually blamed on the Little Ice Age, which descended on Greenland in the early fourteen-hundreds, ending several centuries of relative warmth. (One archeologist refers to this as the ?It got too cold, and they died? argument.) What all these explanations have in common is the idea that civilizations are destroyed by forces outside their control, by acts of God.

 

But look, Diamond says, at Easter Island. Once, it was home to a thriving culture that produced the enormous stone statues that continue to inspire awe. It was home to dozens of species of trees, which created and protected an ecosystem fertile enough to support as many as thirty thousand people. Today, it?s a barren and largely empty outcropping of volcanic rock. What happened? Did a rare plant virus wipe out the island?s forest cover? Not at all. The Easter Islanders chopped their trees down, one by one, until they were all gone. ?I have often asked myself, ?What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it??? Diamond writes, and that, of course, is what is so troubling about the conclusions of ?Collapse.? Those trees were felled by rational actors?who must have suspected that the destruction of this resource would result in the destruction of their civilization. The lesson of ?Collapse? is that societies, as often as not, aren?t murdered. They commit suicide: they slit their wrists and then, in the course of many decades, stand by passively and watch themselves bleed to death.

 

This doesn?t mean that acts of God don?t play a role. It did get colder in Greenland in the early fourteen-hundreds. But it didn?t get so cold that the island became uninhabitable. The Inuit survived long after the Norse died out, and the Norse had all kinds of advantages, including a more diverse food supply, iron tools, and ready access to Europe. The problem was that the Norse simply couldn?t adapt to the country?s changing environmental conditions. Diamond writes, for instance, of the fact that nobody can find fish remains in Norse archeological sites. One scientist sifted through tons of debris from the Vatnahverfi farm and found only three fish bones; another researcher analyzed thirty-five thousand bones from the garbage of another Norse farm and found two fish bones. How can this be? Greenland is a fisherman?s dream: Diamond describes running into a Danish tourist in Greenland who had just caught two Arctic char in a shallow pool with her bare hands. ?Every archaeologist who comes to excavate in Greenland . . . starts out with his or her own idea about where all those missing fish bones might be hiding,? he writes. ?Could the Norse have strictly confined their munching on fish to within a few feet of the shoreline, at sites now underwater because of land subsidence? Could they have faithfully saved all their fish bones for fertilizer, fuel, or feeding to cows?? It seems unlikely. There are no fish bones in Norse archeological remains, Diamond concludes, for the simple reason that the Norse didn?t eat fish. For one reason or another, they had a cultural taboo against it.

 

Given the difficulty that the Norse had in putting food on the table, this was insane. Eating fish would have substantially reduced the ecological demands of the Norse settlements. The Norse would have needed fewer livestock and less pastureland. Fishing is not nearly as labor-intensive as raising cattle or hunting caribou, so eating fish would have freed time and energy for other activities. It would have diversified their diet.

 

Why did the Norse choose not to eat fish? Because they weren?t thinking about their biological survival. They were thinking about their cultural survival. Food taboos are one of the idiosyncrasies that define a community. Not eating fish served the same function as building lavish churches, and doggedly replicating the untenable agricultural practices of their land of origin. It was part of what it meant to be Norse, and if you are going to establish a community in a harsh and forbidding environment all those little idiosyncrasies which define and cement a culture are of paramount importance. ?The Norse were undone by the same social glue that had enabled them to master Greenland?s difficulties,? Diamond writes. ?The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs over adversity.? He goes on:

 

To us in our secular modern society, the predicament in which the Greenlanders found themselves is difficult to fathom. To them, however, concerned with their social survival as much as their biological survival, it was out of the question to invest less in churches, to imitate or intermarry with the Inuit, and thereby to face an eternity in Hell just in order to survive another winter on Earth.

 

Diamond?s distinction between social and biological survival is a critical one, because too often we blur the two, or assume that biological survival is contingent on the strength of our civilizational values. That was the lesson taken from the two world wars and the nuclear age that followed: we would survive as a species only if we learned to get along and resolve our disputes peacefully. The fact is, though, that we can be law-abiding and peace-loving and tolerant and inventive and committed to freedom and true to our own values and still behave in ways that are biologically suicidal. The two kinds of survival are separate.

 

Diamond points out that the Easter Islanders did not practice, so far as we know, a uniquely pathological version of South Pacific culture. Other societies, on other islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, chopped down trees and farmed and raised livestock just as the Easter Islanders did. What doomed the Easter Islanders was the interaction between what they did and where they were. Diamond and a colleague, Barry Rollet, identified nine physical factors that contributed to the likelihood of deforestation?including latitude, average rainfall, aerial-ash fallout, proximity to Central Asia?s dust plume, size, and so on?and Easter Island ranked at the high-risk end of nearly every variable. ?The reason for Easter?s unusually severe degree of deforestation isn?t that those seemingly nice people really were unusually bad or improvident,? he concludes. ?Instead, they had the misfortune to be living in one of the most fragile environments, at the highest risk for deforestation, of any Pacific people.? The problem wasn?t the Easter Islanders. It was Easter Island.

 

In the second half of ?Collapse,? Diamond turns his attention to modern examples, and one of his case studies is the recent genocide in Rwanda. What happened in Rwanda is commonly described as an ethnic struggle between the majority Hutu and the historically dominant, wealthier Tutsi, and it is understood in those terms because that is how we have come to explain much of modern conflict: Serb and Croat, Jew and Arab, Muslim and Christian. The world is a cauldron of cultural antagonism. It?s an explanation that clearly exasperates Diamond. The Hutu didn?t just kill the Tutsi, he points out. The Hutu also killed other Hutu. Why? Look at the land: steep hills farmed right up to the crests, without any protective terracing; rivers thick with mud from erosion; extreme deforestation leading to irregular rainfall and famine; staggeringly high population densities; the exhaustion of the topsoil; falling per-capita food production. This was a society on the brink of ecological disaster, and if there is anything that is clear from the study of such societies it is that they inevitably descend into genocidal chaos. In ?Collapse,? Diamond quite convincingly defends himself against the charge of environmental determinism. His discussions are always nuanced, and he gives political and ideological factors their due. The real issue is how, in coming to terms with the uncertainties and hostilities of the world, the rest of us have turned ourselves into cultural determinists.



For the past thirty years, Oregon has had one of the strictest sets of land-use regulations in the nation, requiring new development to be clustered in and around existing urban development. The laws meant that Oregon has done perhaps the best job in the nation in limiting suburban sprawl, and protecting coastal lands and estuaries. But this November Oregon?s voters passed a ballot referendum, known as Measure 37, that rolled back many of those protections. Specifically, Measure 37 said that anyone who could show that the value of his land was affected by regulations implemented since its purchase was entitled to compensation from the state. If the state declined to pay, the property owner would be exempted from the regulations.

 

To call Measure 37?and similar referendums that have been passed recently in other states?intellectually incoherent is to put it mildly. It might be that the reason your hundred-acre farm on a pristine hillside is worth millions to a developer is that it?s on a pristine hillside: if everyone on that hillside could subdivide, and sell out to Target and Wal-Mart, then nobody?s plot would be worth millions anymore. Will the voters of Oregon then pass Measure 38, allowing them to sue the state for compensation over damage to property values caused by Measure 37?

 

It is hard to read ?Collapse,? though, and not have an additional reaction to Measure 37. Supporters of the law spoke entirely in the language of political ideology. To them, the measure was a defense of property rights, preventing the state from unconstitutional ?takings.? If you replaced the term ?property rights? with ?First Amendment rights,? this would have been indistinguishable from an argument over, say, whether charitable groups ought to be able to canvass in malls, or whether cities can control the advertising they sell on the sides of public buses. As a society, we do a very good job with these kinds of debates: we give everyone a hearing, and pass laws, and make compromises, and square our conclusions with our constitutional heritage?and in the Oregon debate the quality of the theoretical argument was impressively high.

 

The thing that got lost in the debate, however, was the land. In a rapidly growing state like Oregon, what, precisely, are the state?s ecological strengths and vulnerabilities? What impact will changed land-use priorities have on water and soil and cropland and forest? One can imagine Diamond writing about the Measure 37 debate, and he wouldn?t be very impressed by how seriously Oregonians wrestled with the problem of squaring their land-use rules with their values, because to him a society?s environmental birthright is not best discussed in those terms. Rivers and streams and forests and soil are a biological resource. They are a tangible, finite thing, and societies collapse when they get so consumed with addressing the fine points of their history and culture and deeply held beliefs?with making sure that Thorstein Olafsson and Sigrid Bjornsdotter are married before the right number of witnesses following the announcement of wedding banns on the right number of Sundays?that they forget that the pastureland is shrinking and the forest cover is gone.

 

When archeologists looked through the ruins of the Western Settlement, they found plenty of the big wooden objects that were so valuable in Greenland?crucifixes, bowls, furniture, doors, roof timbers?which meant that the end came too quickly for anyone to do any scavenging. And, when the archeologists looked at the animal bones left in the debris, they found the bones of newborn calves, meaning that the Norse, in that final winter, had given up on the future. They found toe bones from cows, equal to the number of cow spaces in the barn, meaning that the Norse ate their cattle down to the hoofs, and they found the bones of dogs covered with knife marks, meaning that, in the end, they had to eat their pets. But not fish bones, of course. Right up until they starved to death, the Norse never lost sight of what they stood for.

435
Politics & Religion / Gender, Gay, Lesbian
« on: November 04, 2004, 06:01:06 AM »
Woof All:

Like the title says, this thread is for matters pertaining to gender.

I begin with something from Glenn Sacks, who has a radio show heard here in LA and elsewhere and who has me on his mailing list.  I listened to the show one time and found his vibration to be kind of whiny and abrasive in an ineffective way-- but I also find him to consistently raise matters of interest that most are afraid to discuss and so I skim his emails and click upon those that pique my interest.

Woof,
Crafty Dog

-----------------------------------

Sacks writes

I invite you to call the show and join the discussion in progress at 5 PM PST/8 PM EST at 1-877-590-KTIE (in California) or 1-800-439-4805 (out of state).

For those who are outside of our radio stations' coverage ranges, you can listen to the show live this Sunday (11/7) via our station's excellent Internet stream at Listen Live. His Side with Glenn Sacks can be heard on WSNR AM 620 in New York City and North-Eastern New Jersey, and on WWZN AM 1510 in Boston on Sundays at 10 PM EST. The show can also be heard in Southern California on KTIE AM 590 at 5 PM PST.


========================


Feminist Law Professor Leads Backlash
Against Paternity Fraud Laws

The stories of victims of paternity fraud often provoke disbelief. Many men are falsely assigned paternity in default judgments and are compelled by the state to pay 18 years of child support for children whom DNA tests have proven are not theirs. Many of these men are not properly served notice of the paternity proceedings, never get their day in court and have no idea they are "fathers" until their wages are garnished.

Often by the time these men realize what has been done to them, the statute of limitations for challenging paternity has already passed, and sometimes lose half or more of their take-home pay to child support, arrearages, interest, and penalties -- often to support children they have never even met.

In other cases, men are misled into supporting children who are not theirs. Sometimes unwed men are urged to declare paternity of their girlfriend's or ex-lover's children at or near birth, and such declarations, when later found to be the product of deception, are hard to undo. Other men are deceived by wives who bear children through adulterous liaisons and who mislead them into thinking that the children are theirs.

In response to the paternity fraud crisis, several states, including California, Georgia, Maryland, Alabama and others, have passed paternity fraud legislation. Now paternity fraud activists' success has created a backlash.

Law Professor Melanie Jacobs has emerged as a leading voice in the backlash against paternity fraud laws. Family law attorney Jeffery Leving has authored legislation to make paternity fraud a criminal offense. Jacobs and Leving will debate paternity fraud laws and their philosophical underpinnings on His Side with Glenn Sacks on Sunday, November 7 at 5 PM PST/8 PM EST.  

===============

The Case Against Paternity Fraud Laws
BY PROFESSOR MELANIE B. JACOBS, JD, LLM

The family unit has dramatically changed in recent years. In an era in which individuals and couples, heterosexual and homosexual, are embracing new reproductive technologies to create families, the biological connection often does not assist in establishing legal parentage for intended parents.

Couples and individuals alike may contract with egg donors, sperm donors, and gestational surrogates to create their families. As a result, reliance on biology as the determinative means by which to establish legal parentage no longer makes sense. Functional parenthood?emphasizing the daily, routine, and even mundane aspects of everyday parenting?provides a more realistic approach to defining legal parentage, especially for nontraditional families.

 Simply because we have the means to determine biological parentage with greater certainty does not mean that it is in the best interests of children to do so.
 

Additional scientific advances, particularly improved genetic testing, are similarly changing how we define traditional families. While res judicata and estoppel principles have long existed to preserve the unitary, nuclear family, some states are moving away from these doctrines in favor of biological paternal certainty. Thus, if a man is not the biological father of a child?and was either uncertain or unaware of this biological fact?he may petition to disestablish paternity. These disestablishment petitions represent the emergence of a new family law phenomenon?the theory of paternity fraud.

Michigan is among a growing number of states seeking to enact a paternity fraud law. About 12 states currently have some form of paternity fraud law that permits a man who learns he is not the child?s biological father to vacate an order that previously established his legal parenthood. Several of these, like Michigan?s proposed statute, are open-ended, such that the man can file his motion to vacate his paternity at any time?for example, five, 10 or 15 years after the child?s birth. Still others have a stricter statute of limitations of two to three years. The statutes also vary with regards to vacating child support orders and arrearages and also ongoing visitation and parenting time. Thus, paternity fraud jurisprudence has at its core the difficulty of balancing competing best interests: those of the child and the child?s non-biological yet legal father. Whose rights are paramount? Whose should be paramount? And can we characterize this issue as one of genetic innocence?

Michigan House Bill 4120 would allow a man to have a prior judgment of paternity vacated upon showing that the man is not the child?s biological father or adoptive father and that the man did not know or had no reason to know that he is not the biological father.1 The proposed bill contains no statute of limitations for the filing of the motion, other than a requirement that the man must file the motion within six months of learning that he is not the biological father. The proposed bill does not, however, prevent a man who learns that he is not the biological father of his child 12 years after the child?s birth, for instance, from filing a motion to disestablish his paternity. Worse yet, the proposed bill and a companion bill, House Bill 4650, would permit the court to vacate all child support obligations and any arrearages, while still permitting the man to seek parenting time with the child. The proposed bill thus miserably fails to protect the best interests of children and instead places the rights of non-biological fathers well above those of the children that they have actively fathered for months and, oftentimes, years.

Paternity fraud statutes?predicated on enhanced and cheaper genetic testing?are being used to destroy established, functional families. Simply because we have the means to determine biological parentage with greater certainty does not mean that it is in the best interests of children to do so. For wrongly convicted felons, improved DNA testing has increasingly provided the means by which innocence was finally proved and freedom from incarceration secured. Regularly, newspapers regale readers with stories of prisoners who were wrongly convicted and were proven innocent through advanced scientific testing. Reliance on DNA testing is not relegated to criminal law, however. Many men who have either been adjudicated fathers or who have voluntarily acknowledged their paternal legal status are now challenging those legal determinations because genetic testing subsequently revealed their non-paternity. A grassroots movement is under way to exonerate these innocent fathers from the ?bonds of parentage.?2 Likening newly discovered evidence of non-paternity to DNA testing that exonerates a felon, the U.S. Citizens Against Paternity Fraud website includes this motto: ?If the Genes don?t fit, you must acquit.? ?3

The issue of paternity disestablishment has become a cause c?l?bre for men who have unsuccessfully petitioned to disestablish their paternity subsequent to genetic testing which disproved their biological fatherhood. Non-biological fathers equate their non-paternity with a wrongful criminal conviction. As authors Anderlik and Rothstein have recently observed, ?...those within the fathers?s rights movement...tend to view family law through the lens of criminal law?It is common to find the issue framed as one of justice or fairness, in the sense that evidence admissible to ?convict? should also be available to ?exonerate.??4 But can (should) family law be equated with criminal law? A wrongly convicted man should be exonerated: he has been the victim of the system. A man who has no biological connection to his child may also feel wrongly adjudicated and tricked by the mother of the child and/or victimized by a federal and state system that forces the mother to name her baby?s father in order to qualify for certain financial benefits. To simply disestablish paternity, however, ignores the crucial difference between the criminal and family law contexts: the presence and best interests of a child.

As our societal understanding of ?family? grows, changes and moves away from the traditional, nuclear family, an interesting disconnect has emerged. As Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman has observed, these scientific advances force us to ask, ?What does make a father? Diapers or DNA??5 She aptly continues, ?...family law seems to be going in two directions at once. We are giving more recognition to non-biological relationships?[a]nd more weight to DNA.?6 In recent years, scholars, judges and legislators have begun to recognize the importance of functional parenthood. For example, several states have permitted non-biological lesbian coparents to maintain visitation and custody petitions because of their intent to parent and their history of parenting. Similarly, other non-biological parents such as stepparents, grandparents, and foster parents have been able to maintain greater access to the children they have helped to raise. Thus, biology is not the sole criterion for determining parent-child relationships. Moreover, it should not be the only criterion for determining such a relationship. As one judge has noted, ?A father-child relationship encompasses more (and greater) considerations than a determination of whose genes the child carries. Sociological and psychological components should be considered. The laws governing adoptions have acknowledged that parentage comprises a totality of factors, the least significant of which is genetics.?7

 What determines a parent has been the subject of much scholarship, and many scholars are now embracing nontraditional definitions of parentage and family.  

What determines a parent has been the subject of much scholarship, and many scholars are now embracing nontraditional definitions of parentage and family. For example, both the American Law Institute (ALI) and the newest version of the Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) recognize the fact that parental status and legal parenthood may be established without regard to biological connection.8 To fairly balance the competing interests between a legal, yet non-biological father and his child, the father should have a limited time in which to challenge his legal fatherhood; specifically, I propose that a man have no recourse to challenge his paternity after two years from the date on which he begins to function as a parent and hold himself out as a parent to the child. A two-year period in which to challenge legal fatherhood comports with the two-year statute of limitations contained within the UPA to challenge paternity and/or presumptions of paternity. Furthermore, the two-year period further comports with the ALI Principles time frame for establishing a functional relationship with a child, when the relationship begins after the child?s birth. Just as the ALI Principles recognize that it often takes a period of time in which to establish a functional parental relationship, courts should not ignore the time during which a man has fathered his child. Since legal parenthood can be established based on a two-year period, it would be incongruous to disestablish paternity after an even greater length of time. Finally, by using a two-year statute of limitations in which to challenge legal paternity, the rights of a non-biological father are preserved while ensuring that a child is not deprived of a parent after a significant bond has developed between the parties.

The Michigan legislature should redraft its proposed paternity fraud statute so that it strikes a more equitable balance between the rights of a non-biological, legal father and his child. More often than not, diapers make a daddy?not DNA. The proposed Michigan paternity fraud statute should be amended to better reflect the reality of today?s families.

Portions of this article are excerpted from ?Using Functional Parenthood to Make the Case Against Paternity Fraud Laws,? a paper that Professor Jacobs presented in Eugene, Oregon, at the International Society of Family Law Conference in June 2003.

Melanie B. Jacobs is an assistant professor of law at Michigan State University-DCL College of Law. She holds a JD from Boston University and an LLM from Temple University. Before coming to MSU-DCL, Professor Jacobs was a Freedman Fellow and lecturer in law at Temple University, a clinical instructor for Harvard Law School?s Hale & Dorr Legal Services Center, and an adjunct instructor at Boston University School of Law. While in Boston, she also practiced with Witmer, Karp, Warner & Thuotte and served as counsel to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue Child Support Enforcement Division. She publishes on family law, is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar, and teaches family law; decedents, estates and trusts; and property.

1 Mich. H.B. 4120 (2003).
2 See, e.g., U.S. Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, http://www.paternityfraud.com (visited June 10, 2003). Carnell Smith, the founder of the organization and website, attempted several times to vacate his paternity judgment and support obligation in the State of Georgia. He became a lobbyist for paternity fraud reform and, after Georgia recently passed its paternity fraud bill, Mr. Smith returned to court and had his child support obligation vacated. Id.
3 Id.
4 Anderlik, Mary R. & Mark A. Rothstein, DNA-Based Identity Testing and the Future of the Family: A Research Agenda, 28 Am. J.L.M. 215, 220 (2001).
5 Ellen Goodman, ?What Makes a Father?? Baltimore Sun, May 1, 2001, at 11A.
6 Id.
7 Hulett v. Hulett, 544 N.E.2d 257, 263 (Brown, J. concurring).
8 The ALI Principles include establishment of a legal parent-child relationship without regard to genetic connection in specific circumstances. ALI Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution ?2.03 91) (2000). Moreover, the UPA also includes presumptions of legal parenthood that are not predicated on biology. For example, the UPA presumes a man?s legal fatherhood if ?for the first two years of the child?s life, he resided in the same household with the child and openly held out the child as his own.? UPA ?204 (a)(5), 9B U.L.A. 15 (Supp. 2002).

436
Politics & Religion / Criminal Record Search Question
« on: August 29, 2004, 09:15:25 AM »
Woof All:

Is it possible for a civilian to look up the arrest/conviction records of another individual?  If so, how?  Must it be done State by State, or is there a way of doing it nationally?

TIA,
Crafty Dog

437
Politics & Religion / Help our troops/our cause:
« on: April 16, 2004, 01:53:23 PM »
A Call to Action:

Our troops are out there for us.  From today's WSJ, here's something we can do.

Woof,
Crafty Dog

Want a piece of the action? Spirit of America's project with the First Marine Division, and how to donate, is at www.spiritofamerica.net, or directly at www.spiritofamerica.net/req_12/request.html or 800-691-2209.
===================

Spirit of America
Here's a way you can help the cause in Iraq.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, April 16, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Thus spake George W. Bush this week: "The people of our country are united behind our men and women in uniform, and this government will do all that is necessary to assure the success of their historic mission." Still, many Americans who support the war don't much like sitting on their hands doing little more than watch it on TV. Some have written here, asking what they can do to help. This column will describe a real project that lets the folks at home lend a hand to the soldiers in Iraq.

Over the past year, a successful technology entrepreneur named Jim Hake has been working with the Marine Corps to help their reconstruction projects in Iraq. The Marines identify local equipment needs, and Mr. Hake's organization, Spirit of America, after raising the money, acquires the stuff, typically for schools and medical clinics. It flies directly out of Camp Pendleton in California. Jim Hake and the Marines are a coalition of the can-do, bypassing the slow U.S. procurement bureaucracy. More on that effort in a moment. Here's where you come in:

The First Marine Expeditionary Force and U.S. Army in Iraq want to equip and upgrade seven defunct Iraqi-owned TV stations in Al Anbar province--west of Baghdad--so that average Iraqis have better televised information than the propaganda they get from the notorious Al-Jazeera. If Jim Hake can raise $100,000, his Spirit of America will buy the equipment in the U.S., ship it to the Marines in Iraq and get Iraqi-run TV on the air before the June 30 handover.

Now we are getting somewhere. Since day one, the Coalition Provisional Authority's weakest suit has been the war of ideas, images and public relations. Into this use-it-or-lose-it void stepped Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based TV operation that somehow has wires running to every camcorder in the Arab terrorist world. Punch in english.aljazeera.net for a look at "news" from Iraq spun tirelessly against the coalition. Its photos of "Falluja after the siege" are preposterous, depicting nothing but "destroyed homes" and ominous GIs. The text: "As we drive through the back roads on the way to Falluja, U.S. jets are pounding the area around the tiny village of Garma."

If this hooey is what they feed to the English-language audience, imagine the daily TV diet Al-Jazeera trowels on for Iraqis. Al-Jazeera's Web site Wednesday said it wouldn't air the video of an Italian hostage's murder "in order not to upset viewers' sensitivities." Hours later, I heard an all-news radio in New York recite verbatim Al-Jazeera's tender account.

If the Marines can get these moribund stations back on the air, the coverage area would include Fallujah and Ramadi. The VHF/UHF stations are owned as cooperatives by TV-competent Iraqis already vetted by the Army. Some broadcast Al-Jazeera for lack of other content. In return for the upgrades, the Iraqi operators would be asked two things: Criticism is fine, but don't run anti-coalition propaganda; and let the Marines buy air time to broadcast public-service announcements, such as the reopening of schools or clinics--or indeed, pending military operations.

I can hear the chorus of lamentations about "independence" and "objectivity." Get real. We're in Iraq, not Kansas, Toto. These Iraqis, aided by American soldiers, are manifestly engaged in a death-struggle for their nation. Anyone who has the courage to produce daily television at odds with the goals of the homicidal "insurgents" doesn't need tutorials on journalistic piety from us.

Jim Hake's organizational insight is to deploy the best practices of the modern U.S. economy--efficiency and speed--around the margins of the Iraqi war effort. The Amazons, Best Buys, FedExes and DHLs can get anything anywhere--fast. Why not use the same all-American skill at procurement efficiency and quick distribution to get the soldiers in Iraq (and Afghanistan) the stuff that government red tape will never provide in time?

His operation, in Los Angeles, is wholly New Economy. For past projects he's gotten the word out via Web loggers such as Glenn Reynolds's InstaPundit.com, windsofchange.net and hughhewitt.com. Mr. Hake finds low-cost suppliers on the Internet and negotiates prices. His donor network also suggests suppliers.

Earlier projects for the Marines flew over cargo planes of school supplies, basic medical equipment and toys (turns out Iraqi children love Frisbees). One anecdote: The day before the school equipment was to ship, they found that all the pencils broke easily. On a hunch, Mr. Hake made a morning call to a Staples manager in southern California. By midafternoon the Staples man lined up sources for 120,000 pencils--cheaper than the original buy. Mr. Hake bought and shipped them. Spirit of America is all-volunteer. The accounting for its projects, down to the penny, is listed on the Web site.

Spirit of America's buy-list for the Marines' TV-stations project includes digital video camcorders, desktop PCs for video editing, video editing software, televisions, 21-inch satellite dishes, KU-band universal transponders, satellite decoder/receivers, Philips audio/video selectors (4-in/2-out), VCRs (PAL and NTSC compatible), DVD players (multiregion compatible), step-down voltage converters (220 to 110) and lighting sets. The cost of this equipment is about $100,000.

Mr. Hake, incidentally, insists on paying for all the goods in his projects. He says donor relationships with big companies waste time getting sign-offs by senior management. I asked if he thought they could get the TV stations under way by the June 30 handover: "Absolutely. My goal is to have the gear at Pendleton by May 7. The Marines will fly it over and they are ready to get going on this. Needless to say, plans can always change in a combat zone but this is an undertaking to help turn the tide there." If this works, the Marines and Spirit of America hope to rebuild TV stations elsewhere around Iraq.

Want a piece of the action? Spirit of America's project with the First Marine Division, and how to donate, is at www.spiritofamerica.net, or directly at www.spiritofamerica.net/req_12/request.html or 800-691-2209. It's brand extension of the Marines' now-famous saying: "No better friend, no worse enemy."

Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

438
Politics & Religion / Politically (In)correct
« on: December 04, 2003, 08:00:35 AM »
This thread is or examples of politicall correctness-- Crafty Dog
===============

Worker fired for insulting bin Laden
Prison officials said Muslims could have heard 'insensitive' remarks

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: December 4, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern



? 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A British prison fired an officer who allegedly insulted terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Colin Rose, 53, is appealing to an employment tribunal in Norwich, England, to get his job back, reports the London Telegraph.

Officials at Blundeston Prison in Lowestoft, England, told Rose he had to go because, although he was unaware of it, three Muslims visiting the prison at the time might have heard his remarks about the al-Qaida leader, the paper said.

A six-month investigation that led to his dismissal never established whether the visitors heard the comment.

At the tribunal hearing Rose's appeal, the prison's assistant governor, Andrew Rogers, said, "I am not sure whether Mr. Rose saw the visitors," the Telegraph reported.

Rose reportedly had a perfect record over 21 years of service.

His troubles began Nov. 15, 2001, when he threw a set of keys into a metal chute at the prison gatehouse, the London paper reported. Someone said it sounded as if he had thrown them so hard they were going to break through the tray at the bottom of the chute.

Rose replied: "There's a photo of Osama bin Laden there."

Another prison officer, Peter McKinnon, told Rose to be quiet because three Asian people were at the window of the gatehouse.

Andrew Rogers, the assistant governor, said he "took offense at the comment."

"If the visitors had heard the comment, they might have taken offense, too." Rogers said.

When confronted the next day, Rose dismissed it as a throwaway remark, but an investigation was ordered a few days later. He was fired last May following a disciplinary hearing.

The prison's staff, which has a large Asian population with many Muslims, was sent a notice Sept. 25, 2001, asking for continued sensitivity in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.

"I asked them to avoid inflaming the situation," Jerry Knight, the prison governor, told the tribunal.

The Telegraph said the officer who conducted the probe, Mark Ewels, did not track down the Asians to find out if they had heard the remark.

Ewels said he thought the issue was too sensitive to bring up with them.

439
Politics & Religion / 60 Years Ago: The Battle of Tarawa
« on: November 21, 2003, 10:29:23 PM »
....The Battle of Tarawa begins


http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tarawa.htm
=============================================
Operation Galvanic


The Navy launches its Central Pacific drive, in effect reviving the prewar War Plan Orange for a conflict with Japan, with landings on Betio, Makin, and Apamama islands of the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.

The operation is executed by Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance's Fifth Fleet. Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner commands the assault force, while Major General Holland M ("Howlin' Mad") Smith commands the landing force.

Makin and Apamama are taken against relatively light resistance. Betio, garrisoned by 4,836 naval troops (including 2,619 men of the elite Special Naval Landing Force, the Japanese equivalent of the Marines) under Rear Admiral Keiji Sibasaki, is the linchpin of the Japanese defense. It is assaulted by Major General Julian C. Smith's 2nd Marine Division and secured after 76 hours of bitter fighting in which 990 Marines are killed, 2,391 wounded, and only 17 defenders are taken prisoner.

The landing demonstrates the basic soundness of the amphibious doctrines that the Marine Corps developed between the world wars. It also reveals the need for more intensive pre-landing bombardment, improvements in communications and air support, and the increased use of amphibian tractors (Landing Vehicles, Tracked also called LVTs or Amphtrack).


Tarawa is located approximately 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii. It isn't an island but a series of barren islets formed by the exposed tips of a submerged mountain sticking above the waters of the blue sea. The military importance of Tarawa lay in its strategic location at the gateway of the US drive through the central Pacific towards the Philippines.

The largest of Tarawa's islets is Betio measuring less than 3 miles in length and ? mile in width. Here, the Japanese built an airstrip defended by 4,700 troops dug into a labyrinth of pillboxes and bunkers interconnected by tunnels and defended by wire and mines. The task of dislodging this force fell to the Marines of the 2nd Division. The resulting struggle produced one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles in Marine history

The landings began on November 20 and immediately ran into trouble. Coming in at low tide, the assault boats were forced to disgorge their men far from shore. Wading through waist-deep water over piercing, razor-sharp coral, many were cut down by merciless enemy gunfire yards from the beach. Those who made it ashore huddled in the sand, hemmed in by the sea to one side and the Japanese to the other.

The next morning, reinforcements made the same perilous journey bringing with them tanks and artillery. By the end of the day the Marines were able to break out from the beach to the inland. The fierce combat continued for another two days.

The cost of victory was high for the Marines who suffered nearly 3,000 casualties. The toll was even higher for the Japanese. Of the 4,700 defenders, only 17 survived. Their willingness to fight to the last man foretold the fierceness of the battles to come.

Bombardment Before Landing - "Surely...they would all be dead by now."

Robert Sherrod was a seasoned war correspondent having covered the Army campaign in the Aleutian Islands and the Navy raid on Wake Island. However, nothing from these experiences prepared him for the brutal terror of Tarawa. His observations of one of the most costly battles in US Marine history were published as a book in early 1944.

In the early hours of November 20, Sherrod was among a contingent of Marines aboard a Navy transport - the Blue Fox, - waiting for the order to board a landing craft for the beach. We join his story as the bombardment of the island begins:

"Now, at 0505, we heard a great thud in the southwest. We knew what that meant. The first battleship had fired the first shot. We all rushed out on deck. The show had begun?

Within three minutes the sky was filled again with the orange-red flash of the big gun, and Olympus boomed again. The red ball of fire that was the high-explosive shell was again dropping toward the horizon. But this time there was a tremendous burst on the land that was Betio. A wall of flame shot five hundred feet into the air, and there was another terrifying explosion as the shell found its mark. Hundreds of awestruck Marines on the deck of the Blue Fox cheered in uncontrollable joy?

The next flash was four times as great, and the sky turned a brighter, redder orange, greater than any flash of lightning the Marines had ever seen. Now four shells, weighing more than a ton each, peppered the island. Now Betio began to glow brightly from the fires the bombardment pattern had started.

That was only the beginning. Another battleship took up the firing - four mighty shells poured from its big guns onto another part of the island. Then another battleship breathed its brilliant breath of death. Now a heavy cruiser let go with its eight-inch guns, and several lightcruisers opened with their fast-firing six- inch guns. They were followed by the destroyers, many destroyers with many five-inch guns on each, firing almost as fast as machine guns. The sky at times was brighter than noontime on the equator. The arching, glowing cinders that were high-explosive shells sailed through the air as though buckshot were being fired out of many shotguns from all sides of the island. The Marines aboard the Blue Fox exulted with each blast on the island?

The first streaks of dawn crept through the sky. The warships continued to fire. All of a sudden they stopped. But here came the planes-not just a few planes: a dozen, a score, a hundred. The first torpedo bombers raced across the smoking conflagration and loosed their big bombs on an island that must have been dead a half hour ago! They were followed by the dive bombers, the old workhorse SBD's and the new Helldivers, the fast SB2C's that had been more than two years a-borning. The dive bombers lined up, many of thousands of feet over Betio, then they pointed their noses down and dived singly, or in pairs or in threes. Near the end of their dives they hatched the bombs from beneath their bellies; they pulled out gracefully and sailed back to their carriers to get more bombs. Now came the fighter planes, the fast, new Grumman Hellcats, the best planes ever to squat on a carrier. They made their runs just above the awful, gushing pall of smoke, their machine guns spitting hundreds of fifty-caliber bullets a mi
nute.

Surely, we all thought, no mortal men could live through such destroying power.

Surely, I thought, if there were actually any Japs left on the island (which I doubted strongly), they would all be dead by now."

To the Beach - Wading Through Hell

At 0635, Sherrod and a 30-man, Marine assault force board a Higgins landing craft and head for the enemy beach. It takes an hour and a half for the landing craft to reach its rendezvous point off the beach where it joins other assault boats for the landing

It is here that Sherrod gets his first warning that something is going terribly wrong with the attack. He can see no landing craft on the beach - four assault waves should have previously gone ashore. At this point, the commander of the landing craft announces that he can go no further as the water is too shallow. The assault team will have to transfer to a tank-like amphtrack for the rest of the journey. We rejoin Sherrod's account as the Marines scramble aboard the amphtrack under intense enemy machinegun fire:

"We jumped into the little tractor boat and quickly settled on the deck. 'Oh, God, I'm scared,' said the little Marine, a telephone operator, who sat next to me forward in the boat. I gritted my teeth and tried to force a smile that would not come and tried to stop quivering all over (now I was shaking from fear). I said, in an effort to be reassuring, 'I'm scared, too.' I never made a more truthful statement in all my life.

Now I knew, positively, that there were Japs, and evidently plenty of them, on the island. They were not dead. The bursts of shellfire all around us evidenced the fact that there was plenty of life in them!... After the first wave there apparently had not been any organized waves, those organized waves which hit the beach so beautifully in the last rehearsal. There had been only an occasional amphtrack which hit the beach, then turned around (if it wasn't knocked out) and went back for more men. There we were: a single boat, a little wavelet of our own, and we were already getting the hell shot out of us, with a thousand yards to go. I peered over the side of the amphtrack and saw another amphtrack three hundred yards to the left get a direct hit from what looked like a mortar shell.

'It's hell in there,' said the amphtrack boss, who was pretty wild-eyed himself. 'They've already knocked out a lot of amphtracks and there are a lot of wounded men lying on the beach. See that old hulk of a Jap freighter over there? I'll let you out about there, then go back to get some more men. You can wade in from there.' I looked. The rusty old ship was about two hundred yards beyond the pier. That meant some seven hundred yards of wading through the fire of machine guns whose bullets already were whistling over our heads.

The fifteen of us - I think it was fifteen - scurried over the side of the amphtrack into the water that was neck-deep. We started wading.

No sooner had we hit the water than the Jap machine guns really opened up on us. There must have been five or six of these machine guns concentrating their fire on us... It was painfully slow, wading in such deep water. And we had seven hundred yards to walk slowly into that machinegun fire, looming into larger targets as we rose onto higher ground. I was scared, as I had never been scared before. But my head was clear. I was extremely alert, as though my brain were dictating that I live these last minutes for all they were worth. I recalled that psychologists say fear in battle is a good thing; it stimulates the adrenalin glands and heavily loads the blood supply with oxygen.

I do not know when it was that I realized I wasn't frightened any longer. I suppose it was when I looked around and saw the amphtrack scooting back for more Marines. Perhaps it was when I noticed that bullets were hitting six inches to the left or six inches to the right. I could have sworn that I could have reached out and touched a hundred bullets. I remember chuckling inside and saying aloud, 'You bastards, you certainly are lousy shots.'

After wading through several centuries and some two hundred yards of shallowing water and deepening machinegun fire, I looked to the left and saw that we had passed the end of the pier. I didn't know whether any Jap snipers were still under the pier or not, but I knew we couldn't do any worse. I waved to the Marines on my immediate right and shouted, 'Let's head for the pier!' Seven of them came. The other seven Marines were far to the right. They followed a naval ensign straight into the beach - there was no Marine officer in our amphtrack. The ensign said later that he thought three of the seven had been killed in the water."

References:
Potter, E.B. and Nimitz, C.W., Triumph in the Pacific (1963); Sherrod, Robert, Tarawa: the Story of a Battle (1944).

440
Politics & Religion / Howl of Respect to our Soldiers/Veterans
« on: November 11, 2003, 11:05:19 AM »
A Profound Howl of Respect to our Veterans and Fighting Men:

Thank you for the freedoms we enjoy.  Thank you for what you do.

Woof!
Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny
======================

Here's just one tidbit from today's WSJ:


Why You've Heard
Of Jessica Lynch,
Not Zan Hornbuckle

As Sentiment About War
Evolves, Victims Grab
Attention, Not Fighters
By JONATHAN EIG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


When American troops were attacked on April 7 on a road to Baghdad, a battle broke out at a dot on the map Army commanders called "Objective Curly." Eighty U.S. soldiers, expecting little resistance, were met by 300 well-armed Iraqi and Syrian fighters. Grenades and bullets flew for eight hours.

The U.S. counterattack killed an estimated 200 enemy fighters, according to the commanding officer who oversaw the battle. The American team had never trained or fought together, but all its men got out alive. The team was headed by Capt. Harry Alexander Hornbuckle, a 29-year-old staff officer who had never been in combat before. He was later awarded the Bronze Star, with a V for valor, for his efforts that day.

Capt. Hornbuckle's name has never appeared in a newspaper or on television. He has received no book deals, no movie offers, no trips to Disneyland. In September, when he went to see his parents in Tifton, Ga., his mother called the local Holiday Inn and asked the manager to put her son's name -- he goes by Zan -- on the hotel marquee. That has been his most public recognition so far.

He is one of several soldiers who rose to extraordinary heights on the battlefield in Iraq, received honors from the military and returned home to anonymity. Instead, the best-known soldier of the Iraq War is Jessica Lynch, who suffered broken bones and other injuries when her maintenance convoy was attacked. She was rescued from an Iraqi hospital a week later.

The rescue and initial reports -- later discredited -- that the 19-year-old had survived bullet and stab wounds and continued fighting helped make her a celebrity. Stores in her hometown of Palestine, W.Va., sold T-shirts with her name on them. Volunteers planted a new garden in front of her house. Alfred A. Knopf, the publishing house, signed her to a $1 million book deal. "Saving Jessica Lynch," a TV movie about her plight, was broadcast Sunday.

 
Why did she become the individual celebrated in popular culture and not one of the other men and women who distinguished themselves in combat? The answer lies on the home front as much as on the battlefield.

In World War I, Cpl. Alvin York gained fame for killing 25 Germans and capturing 132. In World War II, Second Lt. Audie Murphy was credited with 240 kills and went on to star in the movie "To Hell and Back," which told the story of his bravery.

Military culture still celebrates the soldier who racks up a high body count. But since the Vietnam War, much of the country has tended to venerate survivors more than aggressors, the injured more than those who inflict injuries.

"People didn't want to view Vietnam vets as heroes," says Army Sgt. Scott Hansen, 56, who served as a helicopter-door gunner in Vietnam and won a Bronze Star with a V for valor for his conduct last year in Afghanistan. "I think people went there to survive -- put in their time and move on."

Many modern war memorials, most notably the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, don't include guns at all. In the 1990s, Hasbro Inc. marketed some of its G.I. Joe action figures as "Eco-Warriors" who fought the destruction of the environment. These days, when Hollywood makes a war movie, it often focuses on saving American lives -- "Saving Private Ryan," "Black Hawk Down," "Behind Enemy Lines" -- not killing others.

Changed Image

New technology is also changing the image of the individual soldier. Particularly since the end of the Cold War, much of the military's fighting has been done with missiles and guns fired at great distances. Then came the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, followed by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have involved more close combat.

"There are a lot of untold stories," says Capt. Hornbuckle's commanding officer, Lt. Col. Stephen M. Twitty, who received a Silver Star for his actions that day. "We don't mind not telling them ... . We know and we're proud of what we've done."

He nominated five of his soldiers for Silver Stars and 28 for Bronze Stars with Vs for valor. Capt. Hornbuckle "took on a challenge that most people would steer away from," says Col. Twitty. "He took a chaotic situation and got it under control."

Robert H. Scales, a retired major general who just co-wrote one of the first military histories of the Iraq War, goes even further. Granted special access by the Pentagon to situation reports and dozens of senior military leaders, staff officers and combat commanders, he contends that the battle at Curly was a pivotal one, and if one soldier deserves to be singled out in the Iraq war, "I'd choose Zan Hornbuckle."

But the military today has some discomfort with the stories of individual soldiers. Asked why the Army didn't do more to publicize Capt. Hornbuckle's feats, Richard Olson, a public-affairs officer for Capt. Hornbuckle's battalion, says the thought never occurred to him. "An aspect of a soldier is that he's trained to kill," he says. "And I don't know that the public is comfortable with that."

"There's a funny shift," says John A. Lynn, who teaches military history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "We want to fight wars but we don't want any of our people to die and we don't really want to hurt anybody else. So Pvt. Lynch, who suffers, is a hero even if she doesn't do much. She suffered for us."

Pieces in Place

As Capt. Hornbuckle and his team prepared for battle on the evening of April 6, all the pieces were in place for their story to become as well-known as that of Pvt. Lynch. Reporters and cameramen from NBC, the Washington Post and Army magazine were told to stay with Capt. Hornbuckle's unit, under the assumption it would be in a safer location than other units.


Soldiers attack the trenches

 
American forces already controlled much of Iraq, including its international airport, but there were still determined Fedayeen fighters in the capital. Iraq's foreign minister continued to predict that U.S. troops would be expelled. The American commanders decided to make a bold statement.

The plan was to send tanks into the center of Baghdad, securing Saddam Hussein's palaces and other important positions. Commanders were confident they could hold the city as long as they could keep the roads clear to supply troops. The job of securing the main road from the south went to the Army's Third Battalion, 15th Infantry, commanded by Col. Twitty.

Col. Twitty says he identified three intersections on Highway 8 where Iraqi soldiers were most likely to attack the convoys. One of his men, on a scouting mission, dubbed the intersections Larry, Moe and Curly. The nicknames stuck.

But Col. Twitty had only two companies available for the three objectives. He assigned more than 600 men to Larry and Moe, the northernmost points. To defend Curly, where he thought fighting would be lightest, he created an ad hoc team of 80, a group that had never trained or fought together. He asked Capt. Hornbuckle to lead them. The new group was dubbed "Team Zan."

Predictions that Team Zan would meet light resistance did nothing to help Capt. Hornbuckle relax.

"Oh, God, now I'm in charge of this fight," he recalls thinking. "Now I'm responsible for these 80 people and responsible to Col. Twitty for accomplishing the mission."

He hadn't been looking for a fight. Like many young men, Zan Hornbuckle didn't give a lot of thought to battlefield action when he graduated from Tift County High School in Georgia and decided on a career in the Army. Neither of his parents had served in the military. His father is an industrial mechanic at a Miller Brewing Co. plant. His mother, a former music instructor, now teaches adult education. At age 8, Zan took violin lessons. In high school, he worked for a veterinarian.

"Why on earth do you want to go into the Army?" Myric Hornbuckle recalls asking her son when he graduated from high school. "He said, 'Mama, there are people like you, good people who wouldn't hurt anyone, and there are people like Saddam' -- this is 10 years ago he said this -- who'll do anything to anyone. And there have to be people who will stand up and say 'no, you're not going to do that.' "

He enrolled at the Citadel, a military college in Charleston, S.C., splitting the cost of tuition with his parents. He graduated in 1996, married his high-school sweetheart, and joined the Army's Second Battalion, 187th Infantry. Their son Alex was born last year.

Most of his training since college has focused on battle. It became clear to him early, as he went through basic training for officers and Army Ranger school, that his work could be profoundly violent. Still, he says, he had no idea what it would be like to experience combat.

It was just past sunrise as the three companies rumbled up to objectives Larry, Moe and Curly, each about a mile apart. Looking out from the hatch of his Bradley tank, Col. Twitty spotted trenches dug beside the intersections. He picked up his radio to warn his soldiers: "They know we're coming," he said, according to an Army magazine article by embedded reporter Dennis Steele.


Capt. Hornbuckle bandages the leg of Sgt. Maj. Robert Gallagher

 
But when Capt. Hornbuckle first poked his head from the hatch of his Bradley and surveyed the intersection at Curly, it looked safe. "It was like driving into Atlanta," he says. "It looked like any big city."

There were two- and three-story apartment buildings, a huge factory with a peaked roof, a hotel and an office building. In the center of it all was a cloverleaf intersection, with ramps running up and down from Highway 8.

He ordered his team to encircle the cloverleaf to repel an assault from any direction. There were 22 vehicles in all -- five Bradleys, four armored Humvees, four mortar-firing vehicles and three ambulances. "Wow, that was easy," Capt. Hornbuckle recalls thinking during the first 30 seconds of silence.

Then came chaos: bullets pinging off trucks, grenades kicking up clouds of dirt and concrete, and, he says, noise louder than anything he imagined possible. The Fedayeen were firing rocket-propelled grenades from nearby buildings and driving pickup trucks with machine guns mounted at the back.

At Close Range

The biggest threat came from just beyond the circle of U.S. troops: The enemy soldiers had dug trenches under the highway overpass. The men in the trenches seemed invisible, and they were shooting at close range, Capt. Hornbuckle says. "It was like we kicked over an anthill."

Air support was out of the question. Any attempt to bomb the enemy from the sky would kill American soldiers, too. There would be no help from the forces at Larry and Moe, because they too were under heavy attack. This battle would be fought on the ground, the old-fashioned way, with guns, grenades and mortars.

For most of the morning, Capt. Hornbuckle says he remained atop his Bradley, firing a machine gun with one hand and holding his radio with the other. He was telling the gunner on his Bradley where to aim, coordinating fire among the rest of his team, and reporting to Col. Twitty, who was about a mile to the north.

Col. Twitty says he could tell from the sound of the gunfire coming across his radio, and the tone of Capt. Hornbuckle's voice, that Curly was under heavy attack.

"Can you hold?" Col. Twitty recalls shouting.

"Sir, I think I've got it," the captain shouted back.

But Capt. Hornbuckle was worried. If the enemy coordinated its attack, they would have a chance. By mid-morning, the air was white with smoke. The intersection, he says, smelled of gunpowder and engine fuel. It was 75 degrees. The U.S. soldiers, dressed in Kevlar vests and desert tan camouflage, were drenched with sweat.

"We might shoot on black today," Capt. Hornbuckle recalls one member of his team telling him, meaning that they might run out of ammunition.


Capt. Hornbuckle in battle

 
Capt. Hornbuckle's outfit wasn't built for heavy combat. Yet now he had a platoon firing mortar tubes in one direction and machine guns in another. Medics were firing rifles when they weren't applying bandages and intravenous drips to wounded soldiers. Even the chaplain was taking aim at enemy positions.

"Keep doing what you're doing," Capt. Hornbuckle recalls telling the men. "You're doing good. We knew we were gonna fight today."

Bullets kicked up dust at his feet as he ran between platoons. During one dash, he says an Iraqi soldier emerged from a trench, lifted his rifle and took aim. "He drew a bead on me and I drew a bead on him and dropped him," Capt. Hornbuckle says. "He was not going to stop me from going home."

A few hours into the battle, Col. Twitty called again to find out how Team Zan was doing. Both men recall the conversation this way: "It's getting serious," Capt. Hornbuckle told the colonel, "but they're not going to kick us off here."

The colonel later made a call to Sgt. Major Robert Gallagher, a 20-year veteran who had been wounded that morning when a shell fragment lodged in his left calf. He had propped himself against a Bradley to take the weight off the leg and continued shooting while Capt. Hornbuckle bandaged his leg.

Col. Twitty says the injured sergeant major told him: "Boss, we need reinforcements and we need them now." Sgt. Major Gallagher didn't return calls seeking comment.

The colonel ordered another company to bring every combat vehicle and all the supplies it could to Objective Curly. Two U.S. soldiers in that convoy were killed -- shot by Fedayeen soldiers. But the convoy got through, "like the cavalry come to save the day," says Capt. Hornbuckle, who immediately relinquished command to its leader, Capt. Ronny Johnson.

The Fedayeen made one more push and succeeded in blowing up five of the 20 newly arrived supply vehicles. Capt. Hornbuckle says he spotted a U.S. soldier firing on a trench filled with about six enemy fighters. The soldier was alone. Capt. Hornbuckle pulled the man away as he fired his rifle into the trenches. Capt. Hornbuckle never learned the soldier's name, but he believes the man would have been killed.

It occurred to him only later, when he replayed the incident in his mind, that he had shot another enemy fighter at close range. "At least I think I shot him," he says. "He didn't pop up anymore."

Capt. Chris Harris, who was at Curly, confirms Capt. Hornbuckle's account of the battle. Even though it was an ad hoc team, he says, everyone knew what to do when the situation grew tense. With no time to wait for detailed orders, soldiers relied on their training and instincts. "People knew what they were doing and didn't stop to ask, 'Is this OK?,' " he says.

Sgt. First Class Vincent Phillips, who led a small platoon of men into the trenches that day at Curly, says he saw a lot of heroes emerge. "We could have lost everything," he says. "There could have been all kinds of confusion about what was going on. But it just came together." He gives Capt. Hornbuckle much of the credit for coordinating the attack.

After an eight-hour fight, Curly was secured. Larry and Moe followed.

TV Images

Back home, two videotaped images became widely associated with the war: the rescue of Pvt. Lynch and the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. These pictures offered the clearest of messages: U.S. soldiers were safe; the war was over; democracy had triumphed.

Objective Curly wasn't ignored. The Washington Post ran a story inside its first section two weeks after the battle. Craig White, the NBC cameraman embedded with the soldiers at Curly, beamed footage back to New York, and the story appeared on several major network broadcasts.

Vicki Hornbuckle saw some of the fight on television -- "The Battle Under the Bridge," some stations dubbed it -- but had no idea her husband had been involved. All the soldiers looked the same. Mrs. Hornbuckle says it was probably just as well that she didn't recognize her husband because she only would have worried.

The public-affairs office at Fort Stewart brags about its heroes from wars past. Members of the Third Division have won 49 Medals of Honor, far more than any other division, spokesmen for the division say. Audie Murphy of the 15th Infantry, which is now based at Fort Stewart, is the most decorated soldier in U.S. military history, they point out.

The Army presented awards to Capt. Hornbuckle and other soldiers from his team in an impromptu ceremony in the Iraqi town of Falluja. The military didn't issue a news release about the event. Even Capt. Hornbuckle's hometown newspaper, the Tifton Gazette, circulation 9,000, failed to note that a local soldier had been honored. "I'm embarrassed to say I've never heard of the guy," says Managing Editor Chris Beckham. The Gazette did put on the front page a story about a local soldier who suffered a leg wound. That tip came from the soldier's parents.

The biggest war hero in Tifton remains Harold B. "Pinky" Durham, who was awarded a Medal of Honor after he was killed in combat in Vietnam. There's a stretch of highway in town named after him.

Paul Johnson, Tifton's mayor, says he had never heard of Capt. Hornbuckle either. "I wonder what we need to do to get the good word down here?" he asked. City manager Charlie Howell pledged to look into the oversight.

Reluctant Hero

Capt. Hornbuckle accepts some responsibility for his anonymity. Medal recipients are encouraged to provide personal information to the public-affairs office at Fort Stewart for press releases. He neglected to do so. When contacted for this article, he was initially reluctant to be interviewed. If he knew the battle in which he fought would receive attention, he says, he would have suggested naming the objectives after something more dramatic than the Three Stooges.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior White House adviser Karl Rove went to Los Angeles to encourage film executives to "show the heroism of American armed forces." But movies that followed hardly treated U.S. soldiers as conquerors. In "Black Hawk Down," the mission in Somalia that left 18 U.S. soldiers and more than 1,000 Somalis dead was portrayed as a noble failure. "Behind Enemy Lines" had a good deal in common with "The Jessica Lynch Story"; it told the story of a U.S. pilot who escaped capture after he was shot down over Bosnia in 1995.

"I think it's tougher with modern warfare" to make movies, says director John Lee Hancock, now working on a movie for Disney about the battle at the Alamo. "Older wars were easier because they were more personal. It used to be you didn't fire until you saw the whites of their eyes. Now the only light is an infrared target."

Capt. Hornbuckle returned home in late August to a quiet welcome. His parents, his wife and his 18-month-old son met him at Fort Stewart. A few weeks later, his parents hosted a small party for him in Tifton. Several old high-school friends called to welcome him back.

And that was about the end of it.

"I'm not disappointed," he says. "In your heart of hearts, you know what you did or didn't do. Was it heroic? Yes, it was. But you see so many heroes and you're around them every day ... it keeps you from getting an expanded image of yourself."

Now Capt. Hornbuckle is training a new company at Fort Stewart. And he is readjusting to life at home, where his wife had been taking care of all the household chores he'd once been assigned.

"I've got trash detail now," he says.

Write to Jonathan Eig at jonathan.eig@wsj.com

Updated November 11, 2003 7:52 a.m.

441
3/14/25

Prompted by my post today on this thread, I have just circled back here and modified the subject line to what you now see.

For my fellow Americans:

Regarded the phrase "well regulated militia":  Obviously it comes from our Second Amendment.  Due to the change in meaning of the term "well regulated" since the Bill of Rights was passed, the term is currently usually misunderstood as a call for lots of regulations.  Not so!  At the time the BoR was passed the meaning of the term was "smoothly running".  For example a "well regulated watch" (keep in mind the technology of the time) was one that ran smoothly and accurately.

Thus the vision for a "well regulated militia" was one that arose sua sponte of American Citizens getting together with their friends and neighbors to train and practice so that they could serve effectively as "minutemen" in the event of some sort of attack.

Think of who it was that fought the British and the Battle of Lexington and Concord.  They were the men who already had fought together against the French and Indians in the border wars of a couple of decades prior-- and that is why they had the cannons (!!!) and guns that the British were coming to confiscate.

Their collective resistance to being disarmed was the beginning of America.

Similarly, think of the phrase in the Constitution about "Letters of Marque"-- again a vision of citizenry with their own cannons (on ships in this case) in order to be able to defend themselves on the high seas.

In neither case was it necessary that the citizens be trained or regulated by the State governments.  Witness Title 10 USC Section 311.

In my considered opinion, there is a substantial possibility that massive civil unrest and disorder may come to America sometime soon.  Note my words here are NOT a prediction, merely a calculation of possible outcomes.

====================
Woof All:

This thread is for stories of citizen's stepping forward:

Crafty Dog
------------------------

CRIMENETDAILY
Bank robber caught
by fed-up customer
Man who witnessed previous holdup
now chooses to act, pounces on thief

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: July 27, 2003
6:42 p.m. Eastern



? 2003 WorldNetDaily.com



 

As Yogi Berra might say, it was a case of deja vu all over again.

Last month, Andrew Green was inside the Riverside National Bank in Jensen Beach, Fla., when the establishment was robbed. He stood by helplessly as a witness to the crime. In an incredible coincidence, Green was inside the same branch when it was robbed again yesterday morning. But this time, there was a different outcome, as Green decided to take action and get involved by pursuing the alleged robber.

"At first I just wanted to follow him, so I could identify him to the police," Green told the Stuart News. "He was walking across the parking lot so nonchalantly and was changing his clothes as he walked."

Green watched as the suspect removed his hat and shirt, stuffing them into a plastic Wal-Mart bag. That's when he decided to pounce, tackling Thomas Poisal.

"He struggled a little on the way down," Green told the Palm Beach Post. "He looked a little shocked. He hadn't looked behind him a single time in the parking lot. It felt great," he added to the Post. "All my frustrations just went out of my body."

Deputies from the Martin County Sheriff's Office arrived to find Green and another witness holding Poisal in a bear hug, with $2,000 on the suspect.

"It was bibbity-bam, bibbity-boom," Lt. Mike McKinley told the Stuart News. "[Poisal's] got to know he had a very poor decision-making process today."

Poisal is being charged with armed robbery after telling the bank teller he had a gun, though none was recovered.  On June 2, Richard Mandile allegedly robbed the same bank after giving the teller a note, leaving Green amazed by the coincidence.

"What are the odds of this happening twice?" Green asked the Stuart News. "The first time I was really frustrated for not helping," he said. "But this time was great. Your adrenaline really gets pumping and you don't realize what you're doing."

442
Tuhon Bill McGrath found this interesting piece.

7/25:  I've renamed this thread so that it may serve as the vehicle for related posts

Crafty Dog
-----------------------


Raging Against Self Defense
 
Permission is granted to distribute this article in its entirety, so long as full copyright information and full contact information is given for JPFO.
Copyright ? 2000 Sarah Thompson, MD
Published by
Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (262) 673-9745
www.jpfo.org



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Raging Against Self Defense:
A Psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality
By Sarah Thompson, M.D.
righter@therighter.com


"You don't need to have a gun; the police will protect you."

"If people carry guns, there will be murders over parking spaces and neighborhood basketball games."

"I'm a pacifist. Enlightened, spiritually aware people shouldn't own guns."

"I'd rather be raped than have some redneck militia type try to rescue me."
How often have you heard these statements from misguided advocates of victim disarmament, or even woefully uninformed relatives and neighbors? Why do people cling so tightly to these beliefs, in the face of incontrovertible evidence that they are wrong? Why do they get so furiously angry when gun owners point out that their arguments are factually and logically incorrect?

How can you communicate with these people who seem to be out of touch with reality and rational thought?

One approach to help you deal with anti-gun people is to understand their psychological processes. Once you understand why these people behave so irrationally, you can communicate more effectively with them.


Defense Mechanisms
Projection

About a year ago I received an e-mail from a member of a local Jewish organization. The author, who chose to remain anonymous, insisted that people have no right to carry firearms because he didn't want to be murdered if one of his neighbors had a "bad day". (I don't know that this person is a "he", but I'm assuming so for the sake of simplicity.) I responded by asking him why he thought his neighbors wanted to murder him, and, of course, got no response. The truth is that he's statistically more likely to be murdered by a neighbor who doesn't legally carry a firearm1 and more likely to be shot accidentally by a law enforcement officer.1

How does my correspondent "know" that his neighbors would murder him if they had guns? He doesn't. What he was really saying was that if he had a gun, he might murder his neighbors if he had a bad day, or if they took his parking space, or played their stereos too loud. This is an example of what mental health professionals call projection ? unconsciously projecting one's own unacceptable feelings onto other people, so that one doesn't have to own them.3 In some cases, the intolerable feelings are projected not onto a person, but onto an inanimate object, such as a gun,4 so that the projector believes the gun itself will murder him.

Projection is a defense mechanism. Defense mechanisms are unconscious psychological mechanisms that protect us from feelings that we cannot consciously accept.5 They operate without our awareness, so that we don't have to deal consciously with "forbidden" feelings and impulses. Thus, if you asked my e-mail correspondent if he really wanted to murder his neighbors, he would vehemently deny it, and insist that other people want to kill him.

Projection is a particularly insidious defense mechanism, because it not only prevents a person from dealing with his own feelings, it also creates a world where he perceives everyone else as directing his own hostile feelings back at him.6

All people have violent, and even homicidal, impulses. For example, it's common to hear people say "I'd like to kill my boss", or "If you do that one more time I'm going to kill you." They don't actually mean that they're going to, or even would, kill anyone; they're simply acknowledging anger and frustration. All of us suffer from fear and feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. Most people can acknowledge feelings of rage, fear, frustration, jealousy, etc. without having to act on them in inappropriate and destructive ways.

Some people, however, are unable consciously to admit that they have such "unacceptable" emotions. They may have higher than average levels of rage, frustration, or fear. Perhaps they fear that if they acknowledge the hostile feelings, they will lose control and really will hurt someone. They may believe that "good people" never have such feelings, when in fact all people have them.

This is especially true now that education "experts" commonly prohibit children from expressing negative emotions or aggression. Instead of learning that such emotions are normal, but that destructive behavior needs to be controlled, children now learn that feelings of anger are evil, dangerous and subject to severe punishment.7To protect themselves from "being bad", they are forced to use defense mechanisms to avoid owning their own normal emotions. Unfortunately, using such defense mechanisms inappropriately can endanger their mental health; children need to learn how to deal appropriately with reality, not how to avoid it.8

(This discussion of psychological mechanisms applies to the average person who is uninformed, or misinformed, about firearms and self-defense. It does not apply to the anti- gun ideologue. Fanatics like Charles Schumer know the facts about firearms, and advocate victim disarmament consciously and willfully in order to gain political power. This psychological analysis does not apply to them.)

Denial

Another defense mechanism commonly utilized by supporters of gun control is denial. Denial is simply refusing to accept the reality of a given situation.9 For example, consider a woman whose husband starts coming home late, has strange perfume on his clothes, and starts charging flowers and jewelry on his credit card. She may get extremely angry at a well-meaning friend who suggests that her husband is having an affair. The reality is obvious, but the wronged wife is so threatened by her husband's infidelity that she is unable to accept it, and so denies its existence.

Anti-gun people do the same thing. It's obvious that we live in a dangerous society, where criminals attack innocent people. Just about everyone has been, or knows someone who has been, victimized. It's equally obvious that law enforcement can't protect everyone everywhere 24 hours a day. Extensive scholarly research demonstrates that the police have no legal duty to protect you10 and that firearm ownership is the most effective way to protect yourself and your family.11 There is irrefutable evidence that victim disarmament nearly always precedes genocide.12 Nonetheless, the anti-gun folks insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that "the police will protect you", "this is a safe neighborhood" and "it can't happen here", where "it" is everything from mugging to mass murder.

Anti-gun people who refuse to accept the reality of the proven and very serious dangers of civilian disarmament are using denial to protect themselves from the anxiety of feeling helpless and vulnerable. Likewise, gun owners who insist that "the government will never confiscate my guns" are also using denial to protect themselves from the anxiety of contemplating being forcibly disarmed and rendered helpless and vulnerable.

Reaction Formation

Reaction formation is yet another defense mechanism common among the anti-gun folks. Reaction formation occurs when a person's mind turns an unacceptable feeling or desire into its complete opposite.13 For example, a child who is jealous of a sibling may exhibit excessive love and devotion for the hated brother or sister.

Likewise, a person who harbors murderous rage toward his fellow humans may claim to be a devoted pacifist and refuse to eat meat or even kill a cockroach.14 Often such people take refuge in various spiritual disciplines and believe that they are "superior" to "less civilized" folks who engage in "violent behavior" such as hunting, or even target shooting. They may devote themselves to "animal welfare" organizations that proclaim that the rights of animals take precedence over the rights of people.15 This not only allows the angry person to avoid dealing with his rage, it allows him actually to harm the people he hates without having to know he hates them.

This is not meant to disparage the many wonderful people who are pacifists, spiritually inclined, vegetarian, or who support animal welfare. The key issue is not the belief itself, but rather the way in which the person experiences and lives his beliefs. Sincere practitioners seek to improve themselves, or to be helpful in a gentle, respectful fashion. They work to persuade others peacefully by setting an example of what they believe to be correct behavior. Sincere pacifists generally exhibit good will towards others, even towards persons with whom they might disagree on various issues.

Contrast the sincere pacifist or animal lover with the strident, angry person who wants to ban meat and who believes murdering hunters is justified in order to "save the animals" ? or the person who wants to outlaw self- defense and believes innocent people have the obligation to be raped and murdered for the good of society. For example, noted feminist Betty Friedan said "that lethal violence even in self defense only engenders more violence."16 The truly spiritual, pacifist person refrains from forcing others to do what he believes, and is generally driven by positive emotions, while the angry person finds "socially acceptable" ways to harm, abuse, or even kill, his fellow man.

In the case of anti-gun people, reaction formation keeps any knowledge of their hatred for their fellow humans out of consciousness, while allowing them to feel superior to "violent gun owners". At the same time, it also allows them to cause serious harm, and even loss of life, to others by denying them the tools necessary to defend themselves. This makes reaction formation very attractive from a psychological point of view, and therefore very difficult to counteract.


Defense Mechanisms Are Not Mental Illnesses
Defense mechanisms are normal. All of us use them to some extent, and their use does not imply mental illness. Advocates of victim disarmament may be misguided or uninformed, they may be stupid, or they may be consciously intent on evil, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are "mentally ill".

Some defense mechanisms, however, are healthier than others. A safe general rule is that a defense is healthy if it helps you to function better in your personal and professional life, and unhealthy if it interferes with your life, your relationships, or the well-being of others. Young children utilize projection and denial much more commonly than do healthy adults. On the other hand, "if projection is used as a defense mechanism to a very great extent in adult life, the user's perception of external reality will be seriously distorted."17

Defense mechanisms are also frequently combined, so that an anti-gun person may use several defense mechanisms simultaneously. For example, my unfortunate correspondent uses projection to create a world in which all his neighbors want to murder him. As a result, he becomes more angry and fearful, and needs to employ even more defense mechanisms to cope. So he uses projection to attribute his own rage to others, he uses denial that there is any danger to protect himself from a world where he believes he is helpless and everyone wants to murder him, and he uses reaction formation to try to control everyone else's life because his own is so horribly out of control.

Also, it's important to remember that not all anti-gun beliefs are the result of defense mechanisms. Some people suffer from gun phobia18, an excessive and completely irrational fear of firearms, usually caused by the anti-gun conditioning they've been subjected to by the media, politicians, so-called "educators," and others. In some cases, gun phobia is caused by an authentic bad experience associated with a firearm. But with all due respect to Col. Jeff Cooper, who coined the term "hoplophobia" to describe anti-gun people, most anti-gun people do not have true phobias. Interestingly, a person with a true phobia of guns realizes his fear is excessive or unreasonable,19 something most anti-gun folks will never admit.

Defense mechanisms distort reality

Because defense mechanisms distort reality in order to avoid unpleasant emotions, the person who uses them has an impaired ability to recognize and accept reality. This explains why my e-mail correspondent and many other anti-gun people persist in believing that their neighbors and co- workers will become mass murderers if allowed to own firearms.

People who legally carry concealed firearms are actually less violent and less prone to criminal activity of all kinds than is the general population.20 A person who has a clean record, has passed an FBI background check, undergone firearms training, and spent several hundred dollars to get a permit and a firearm, is highly unlikely to choose to murder a neighbor. Doing so would result in his facing a police manhunt, a trial, prison, possibly capital punishment, and the destruction of his family, job, and reputation. Obviously it would make no sense for such a person to shoot a neighbor - except in self-defense. Equally obviously, the anti-gun person who believes that malicious shootings by ordinary gun owners are likely to occur is not in touch with reality.21


The Common Thread: Rage
In my experience, the common thread in anti-gun people is rage. Either anti-gun people harbor more rage than others, or they're less able to cope with it appropriately. Because they can't handle their own feelings of rage, they are forced to use defense mechanisms in an unhealthy manner. Because they wrongly perceive others as seeking to harm them, they advocate the disarmament of ordinary people who have no desire to harm anyone. So why do anti-gun people have so much rage and why are they unable to deal with it in appropriate ways? Consider for a moment that the largest and most hysterical anti-gun groups include disproportionately large numbers of women, African- Americans and Jews. And virtually all of the organizations that claim to speak for these "oppressed people" are stridently anti-gun. Not coincidentally, among Jews, Blacks and women there are many "professional victims" who have little sense of identity outside of their victimhood.

Identity as Victim

If I were to summarize this article in three sentences, they would be:


(1) People who identify themselves as "victims" harbor excessive amounts of rage at other people, whom they perceive as "not victims."
(2) In order psychologically to deal with this rage, these "victims" utilize defense mechanisms that enable them to harm others in socially acceptable ways, without accepting responsibility or suffering guilt, and without having to give up their status as "victims."

(3) Gun owners are frequently the targets of professional victims because gun owners are willing and able to prevent their own victimization.

Thus the concept of "identity as victim" is essential. How and why do members of some groups choose to identify themselves as victims and teach their children to do the same? While it's true that women, Jews, and African- Americans have historically been victimized, they now participate in American society on an equal basis. And other groups, most notably Asian-Americans, have been equally victimized, and yet have transcended the "eternal victim" mentality.

Why, for example, would a 6'10" NBA player who makes $10 million a year see himself as a "victim"? Why would a successful, respected, wealthy, Jewish physician regard himself as a "victim"? Conversely, why might a wheelchair bound woman who lives on government disability NOT regard herself as a victim?

I would argue it's because the basketball player and the physician believe that their identities are dependent on being victims ? not because they have actually been victimized, but because they're members of groups that claim victim status. Conversely, the disabled woman was probably raised to believe that she is responsible for her own success or failure.

In fact, many people who have been victims of actual violent crime, or who have survived war or civil strife, support the right of self-defense. The old saying is often correct: "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged."

Special Treatment and Misleading Leaders

Two reasons for these groups to insist on "victim" status seem likely. First, by claiming victim status, members of these groups can demand (and get) special treatment through quotas, affirmative action, reparations, and other preferential treatment programs.

Second, these people have been indoctrinated to believe that there is no alternative to remaining a victim forever. Their leaders remind them constantly that they are mistreated in every imaginable way (most of them imaginary!), attribute every one of life's misfortunes to "racism" or "sexism" or "hate crimes", and dream up ever more complex schemes for special treatment and favors.22 These leaders are the ones who preach that the entire Black experience is slavery and racism, or that Jewish history before and after the Holocaust is irrelevant,23 or that happily married women are really victims of sexual slavery.24

Likewise, the NAACP is suing firearms manufacturers to put them out of business,25 and is especially opposed to the inexpensive pistols that enable the poor to defend themselves in gang-ridden inner cities. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed evicting anyone who dares to keep a tool of self-defense in any of its crime-infested housing projects. Jewish leaders, especially those in the politically correct "Reform" branch, preach that gun control is "a solemn religious obligation",26 contrary to the teachings of their sacred scriptures and their own history.27 Law enforcement agencies falsely teach women that they are safest if they don't resist rapists and robbers,28 while women's organizations advocate gun control, thus rendering women and their children defenseless.

Victimhood is good business for organizations that foster victim status. As victims, the members depend upon the organization to protect them, and the organization in turn relies on members for funding and political power. In the interest of self-preservation, these organizations work hard at preserving hatred and bigotry and at keeping their members defenseless ? and therefore dependent.

Anti-gun groups love victims!

From my observations, pro-victimhood is a feature of all of the anti-gun special interest groups, not just the ones mentioned here. Every organization that supports gun control apparently wants its members to be helpless, terrified and totally dependent on someone else to control every aspect of their lives. It doesn't matter whether it's a religious, racial, ethnic, political, social, or charitable group. From Handgun Control, Inc. to the Anti- Defamation League to the Million Mom March, they all want you to live in fear. In this scheme, soccer moms are "victims" just as much as are inner-city minorities.

If these organizations truly cared about the people for whom they claim to speak, they would encourage safe and responsible firearms ownership. They would help people to learn how to defend themselves and their families so that they wouldn't have to live in fear. They would tell everyone that one of the wonderful things about being an American is that you have the right to keep and bear arms, the right to defend yourself, and how these rights preserve the right to be free.

The psychological price of being a victim

In our current society, victimhood has many perceived benefits, but there are some serious drawbacks. Victims tend to see the world as a scary and threatening place. They believe that others treat them differently, unfairly, and even maliciously ? and that they are helpless to do anything about it. This belief, that they are being mistreated and are helpless to resist, generates tremendous rage, and often, serious depression.

But for victims to show rage openly can be dangerous, if not outright suicidal. For example, a battered woman who screams at or hits her attacker may provoke worse beatings or even her own murder. And a person who successfully defends himself loses his status as "victim." For someone whose entire identity is dependent on being a victim, the loss of victim status is just as threatening as loss of life.

So, unable psychologically to cope with such rage, people who view themselves as victims: (1) use defense mechanisms to displace it into irrational beliefs about neighbors killing each other, and the infallibility of police protection, and (2) attempt to regain control by controlling gun owners, whom they wrongly perceive as "the enemy".

Say NO to being a victim!

But no one needs to be a victim! Quite simply, it's not very easy to victimize a person who owns and knows how to use a firearm. If most women owned and carried firearms, rapes and beating would decrease.29 Thugs who target the elderly and disabled would find honest work once they realized they were likely to be looking down the barrel of a pistol or shotgun. It's nearly impossible to enslave, or herd into concentration camps, large numbers of armed people.


Communicating with anti-gun people
How can you communicate more effectively with an anti-gun person who is using unhealthy defense mechanisms? There are no quick and easy answers. But there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Anger and attacks do not work

Most gun owners, when confronted by an anti-gun person, become angry and hostile. This is understandable, because gun owners increasingly face ridicule, persecution and discrimination. (If you don't believe this, ask yourself if anyone would seriously introduce legislation to ban African- Americans, women, or Jews from post offices, schools, and churches. Even convicted felons aren't banned from such places ? but peaceful armed citizens are!) But an angry response is counterproductive.

It's not helpful to attack the person you're trying to persuade. Anything that makes him feel more fearful or angry will only intensify his defenses. Your goal is to help the person feel safe, and then to provide experiences and information that will help him to make informed decisions.

Be Gentle

You should never try to break down a defense mechanism by force. Remember that defense mechanisms protect people from feelings they cannot handle, and if you take that protection away, you can cause serious psychological harm. And because defense mechanisms operate unconsciously, it won't do any good to show an anti-gun person this article or to point out that he's using defense mechanisms. Your goal is gently and gradually to help the person to have a more realistic and rational view of the world. This cannot be done in one hour or one day.

As you reach out to people in this way, you need to deal with both the illogical thought processes involved and the emotional reactions that anti-gun people have to firearms. When dealing with illogical thought processes, you are attempting to use reason and logic to convince the anti-gun person that his perception of other people and his perception of firearms are seriously inaccurate. The goal is to help him to understand that armed citizens and firearms are not threats, and may even save his life.


Reversing Irrational thoughts
The Mirror Technique

One approach that can be helpful is simply to feed back what the anti-gun person is telling you, in a neutral, inquisitive way. So, when replying to my anonymous e-mail correspondent (above), I might respond, "So you fear if your neighbors had guns, they would use them to murder you. What makes you think that?" When you simply repeat what the person has said, and ask questions, you are not directly challenging his defenses. You are holding up a mirror to let him see his own views. If he has very strong defenses, he can continue to insist that his neighbors want to murder him. However, if his defenses are less rigid, he may start to question his position.

Another example might be, "Why do you think that your children's schoolteachers would shoot them?" You might follow this up with something like, "Why do you entrust your precious children to someone you believe would murder them?" Again, you are merely asking questions, and not directly attacking the person or his defenses.

Of course the anti-gun person might continue to insist that the teachers really would harm children, but prohibiting them from owning guns would prevent it. So you might ask how using a gun to murder innocent children is different from stabbing children with scissors, assaulting them with baseball bats, or poisoning the milk and cookies.

It's important to ask "open-ended" questions that require a response other than "yes" or "no". Such questions require the anti-gun person actually to think about what he is saying. This will help him to re-examine his beliefs. It may also encourage him to ask you questions about firearms use and ownership.

The "What Would You Do?" Technique

Once you have a dialogue going with an anti-gun person, you might want to insert him into a hypothetical scenario, although doing so is a greater threat to his defenses, and is therefore more risky. You might ask how he would deal with a difficult or annoying co-worker. He will likely respond that he would never resort to violence, but "other people" would, especially if they had guns. (Projection again.) You can then ask him who these "other people" are, why they would shoot a co-worker, and what the shooter would gain by doing so.

Don't try to "win" the argument. Don't try to embarrass the person you're trying to educate. Remember that no one likes to admit that his deeply held beliefs are wrong. No one likes to hear "I told you so!" Be patient and gentle. If you are arrogant, condescending, hurtful or rude to the anti-gun person, you will only convince him that gun owners are arrogant, hurtful people ? who should not be trusted with guns!


Defusing Emotional reactions
The "You Are There" Technique

Rational arguments alone are not likely to be successful, especially since many people "feel" rather than "think". You also need to deal with the emotional responses of the anti-gun person. Remember that most people have been conditioned to associate firearms with dead toddlers. So you need to change the person's emotional responses along with his thoughts.

One way to do this is to put the anti-gun person (or his family) at a hypothetical crime scene and ask what he would like to have happen. For example, "Imagine your wife is in the parking lot at the supermarket and two men grab her. One holds a knife to her throat while the other tears her clothes off. If I see this happening and have a gun, what should I do? What would happen next? What if after five minutes, the police still haven't arrived?"

Just let him answer the questions and mentally walk through the scenario. Don't argue with his answers. You are planting seeds in his mind than can help change his emotional responses.

The Power of Empathy

Another emotion-based approach that is often more successful is to respond sympathetically to the plight of the anti-gun person.

Imagine for a moment how you would feel if you believed your neighbors and co-workers wanted to kill you and your family, and you could do nothing at all about it except to wait for the inevitable to occur.

Not very pleasant, is it?

This is the world in which opponents of armed self-defense live. All of us have had times in our lives when we felt "different" and had to contend with hostile schoolmates, co- workers, etc. So we need to invoke our own compassion for these terrified people. Say something like, "It must be awful to live in fear of being assaulted by your own neighbors. I remember what it was like when I was the only (Jew, Mormon, African-American, Republican) in my (class, football team, workplace) ? and even then I didn't think anyone was going to kill me." It's essential that you sincerely feel some compassion and empathy; if you're glib or sarcastic, this won't work.

Using empathy works in several ways. First, it defuses a potentially hostile interaction. Anti-gun people are used to being attacked, not understood, by advocates of gun rights. Instead of an "evil, gun-toting, extremist", you are now a sympathetic, fellow human being. This may also open the door for a friendly conversation, in which you can each discover that your "opponent" is a person with whom you have some things in common. You may even create an opportunity to dispel some of the misinformation about firearms and self-defense that is so prevalent.

This empathy technique is also useful for redirecting, or ending, a heated argument that has become hostile and unproductive. It allows you to escape from the dead end of "guns save lives" vs. "the only reason to have a gun is to murder children." With empathy you can reframe the argument entirely. Instead of arguing about whether more lives are saved or lost as a result of gun ownership, you can comment on how terrifying it must be to live in a country where 80 million people own guns "solely for the purpose of murdering children".

You should not expect any of these approaches to work immediately; they won't. With rare exceptions, the anti-gun person is simply not going to "see the light," thank you profusely, and beg you to take him shooting. What you are doing is putting tiny chinks into the armor of the person's defenses, or planting seeds that may someday develop into a more open mind or a more rational analysis. This process can take months or years. But it does work!


Corrective Experiences
Perhaps the most effective way to dissolve defense mechanisms, however, is by providing corrective experiences30. Corrective experiences are experiences that allow a person to learn that his ideas about gun owners and guns are incorrect in a safe and non-threatening way. To provide a corrective experience, you first allow the person to attempt to project his incorrect ideas onto you. Then, you demonstrate that he is wrong by your behavior, not by arguing.

For example, the anti-gun person will unconsciously attempt to provoke you by claiming that gun owners are uneducated "rednecks," or by treating you as if you are an uneducated "redneck." If you get angry and respond by calling him a "stupid, liberal, socialist", you will prove his point. However, if you casually talk about your M.B.A., your trip to the Shakespeare festival, your vegetable garden, or your daughter's ballet recital, you will provide him with the opportunity to correct his misconceptions.

If you have used the above techniques, then you have already provided one corrective experience. You have demonstrated to the frightened, anti-gun person that gun owners are not abusive, scary, dangerous and sub-human monsters, but normal, everyday people who care about their families, friends and even strangers.

As many gun owners have already discovered, the most important corrective experiences involve actually exposing the fearful person to a firearm. It is almost never advisable to tell someone that you carry a concealed firearm, but there are ways to use your own experience favorably.

For example, if you're dealing with an anti-gun person with whom you interact regularly and have a generally good relationship ? a coworker, neighbor, church member, etc. ? you might indirectly refer to concealed carry. You should never say anything like "I'm carrying a gun right now and you can't even tell," especially because in some states that would be considered illegal, "threatening" behavior. But you might consider saying something like, "I sometimes carry a firearm, and you've never seemed to be uncomfortable around me." Whether to disclose this information is an individual decision, and you should consider carefully other consequences before using this approach.

First-hand experience

Ultimately, your goal is to take the anti-gun person shooting. Some people will accept an invitation to accompany you to the range, but others are too frightened to do so, and will need some preliminary experience.

First, you want to encourage the anti-gun person to have some contact with a firearm in whatever way feels most comfortable to him. Many people seem to believe that firearms have minds of their own and shoot people of their own volition. So you might want to start by inviting him simply to look at and then handle an unloaded firearm. This also provides you the opportunity to show the inexperienced person how to tell whether a firearm is loaded and to teach him the basic rules of firearms safety.

Encourage the newcomer to ask questions and remember that your role is to present accurate information in a friendly, responsible and non-threatening way. This is a good time to offer some reading material on the benefits of firearms ownership. But be careful not to provide so much information that it's overwhelming. And remember this is not the time to launch into anti-government rants, the New World Order, conspiracy theories, or any kind of political talk!

Next, you can invite your friend to accompany you to the shooting range. (And if you're going to trust each other with loaded guns, you should consider yourselves friends!) Assure him that no one will force him to shoot a gun and he's free just to watch. Let him know in advance what he will experience and what will be expected of him. This includes such things as the need for eye and ear protection, a cap, appropriate clothing, etc. Make sure you have a firearm appropriate for your guest should s/he decide to try shooting. This means a lower caliber firearm that doesn't have too much recoil. If your guest is a woman, make sure the firearm will fit her appropriately. Many rifles have stocks that are too long for small women, and double-stack semi-autos are usually too large for a woman's hand.

Remember that just visiting the range can be a corrective experience. Your guest will learn that gun owners are disciplined, responsible, safety-conscious, courteous, considerate, and follow the rules. He will see people of all ages, from children to the elderly, male and female, enjoying an activity together. He will not see a single "beer-swilling redneck" waving a firearm in people's faces.

In my experience, most people who visit a range will decide they do want to try shooting. Remember to make sure your guest understands all the safety rules and range rules before allowing him to handle a firearm. If you don't feel competent to teach a newcomer to shoot, ask an instructor or range master to assist. Remember to provide lots of positive feedback and encouragement. If you're lucky, you'll recruit a new firearms enthusiast.

But even if your guest decides that shooting is "not for him", he will have learned many valuable lessons. He will know basic rules of firearms safety, and how to clear a firearm should he need to do so. This may well save his life someday. He will know that guns do not fire unless a person pulls the trigger. He will know that gun owners are friendly, responsible people, not very different from him. Even if he chooses not to fire a gun ever again, he will be less likely to fear and persecute gun owners. And who knows ? a few months or years later he may decide to become a gun owner.

Why these techniques do not always work

You should remember that you will not be successful with all anti-gun people. Some people are so terrified and have such strong defenses, that it's not possible for someone without professional training to get through. Some people have their minds made up and refuse to consider opening them. Others may concede that what you say "makes sense," but are unwilling to challenge the forces of political correctness. A few may have had traumatic experiences with firearms from which they have not recovered.

You will also not be successful with the anti-gun ideologues, people like Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein. These people have made a conscious choice to oppose firearms ownership and self-defense. They almost always gain power, prestige, and money from their anti-gun politics. They are not interested in the facts or in saving lives. They know the facts and understand the consequences of their actions, and will happily sacrifice innocent people if it furthers their selfish agenda. Do not use these techniques on such people. They only respond to fears of losing the power, prestige and money that they covet.31

Conclusion

By better understanding advocates of civilian disarmament, and by learning and practicing some simple techniques to deal with their psychological defenses, you will be much more effective in your efforts to communicate with anti-gun people. This will enable you to be more successful at educating them about the realities of firearms and self- defense, and their importance to our liberty and safety.

Educating others about firearms is hard work. It's not glamorous, and it generally needs to be done one person at a time. But it's a very necessary and important task. The average American supports freedom of speech and freedom of religion, whether or not he chooses to exercise them. He supports fair trials, whether or not he's ever been in a courtroom. He likewise needs to understand that self- defense is an essential right, whether or not he chooses to own or carry a gun.


? 2000, Sarah Thompson.

Dr. Thompson is Executive Director of Utah Gun Owners Alliance, www.utgoa.org and also writes The Righter, www.therighter.com, a monthly column on individual rights.

Notes

1 Lott, John R., Jr. 1998. More Guns, Less Crime. University of Chicago Press. Pp. 11-12; Proposition B: More Security Or Greater Danger?, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. March 21, 1999.

2 Lott 1998, Pp. 1-2.

3 Kaplan, Harold M. and Sadock, Benjamin J. 1990. Pocket Handbook of Clinical Psychiatry. Williams & Wilkins. P. 20.

4Brenner, Charles. 1973. An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis (rev. ed.). Anchor Books. Pp. 91-93; Lefton, Lester A. 1994. Psychology (5th edition). Allyn & Bacon. Pp. 432-433.

5 Brenner 1973. P. 91.

6 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton 1994, p. 432.

7 Talbott, John A., Robert E. Hales and Stuart C. Yudofsky, eds. 1988. Textbook of Psychiatry. American Psychiatric Press. P.137.

8 "Kids Suspended for Playground Game." Associated Press. April 6, 2000.

9 Lightfoot, Liz. "Gun Return to the Nursery School Toy Chest." The London Telegraph. May 22, 2000. Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton 1994, p. 433.

10 Stevens, Richard W. 1999. Dial 911 and Die. Mazel Freedom Press. [Analyzes the law in 54 U.S. jurisdictions]; see, e.g., Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir. 1982) [no federal constitutional right to police protection.]

11 Kleck, Gary and Gertz, Marc. 1995. Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self- Defense with a Gun. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology. Vol. 86 (Fall), pp. 150-187.

12 Simkin, Jay, Zelman, Aaron, and Rice, Alan M. 1994. Lethal Laws. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

13 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton 1994, p. 433.

14 Brenner 1973, p. 85.

15 Veith, Gene Edward, Jr. 1993. Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing. Pp. 39-40 [fascism exalts nature, animals and environment].

16 Japenga, A. 1994. Would I Be Safer with a Gun? Health. March/April, p. 54.

17 Brenner 1973, p. 92.

18 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 219.

19 American Psychiatric Association. 1994. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. P. 410.

20 Lott 1998, pp. 11-12.

21 Most American gun owners are not violent criminals and will not be potential killers. "The vast majority of persons involved in life-threatening violence have a long criminal record and many prior contacts with the justice system." Elliott, Delbert S. 1998. Life Threatening Violence is Primarily a Crime Problem: A Focus on Prevention. University of Colorado Law Review. Vol. 69 (Fall), pp. 1081-1098, at 1093.

22 Sowell, Thomas. 2000. Blacks and bootstraps. Jewish World Review (Aug.14). http://www.jewishworldreview.com

23x Wein, Rabbi Berel. 2000. The return of a Torah scroll and confronting painful memories. Jewish World Review (July 12).

24 Dworkin, Andrea. "Terror, Torture and Resistance". http://www.igc.org/Womensnet/dworkin/TerrorTortureandResistance.html

25 Mfume, Kweisi, speech at the 90th annual NAACP meeting, July 12, 1999. http://www.naacp.org/president/speeches/90th%20Annual%20Meeting.htm

26 Yoffie, Rabbi Eric H. Speech supporting the Million Mom March, May 14, 2000. http://uahc.org/yoffie/mmm.html

27 "If someone comes to kill you, arise quickly and kill him." The Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin. 1994. The Schottenstein Edition. New York: Mesorah Publications. Vol. 2, 72a.

28 Rape and Sexual Assault, Dean of Students Office for Women's Resources and Services McKinley Health Education Dept., University Police, University of Illinois; Hazelwood, R. R. & Harpold, J. 1986. Rape: The Dangers of Providing Confrontational Advice, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Vol. 55, pp. 1-5.

29 Lott 1998, pp. 78, 134-37.

30 Frank, Jerome D. 1961. Persuasion and Healing. The Johns Hopkins Press. Pp. 216-217.

31 Richardson, H. L. 1998. Confrontational Politics. Gun Owners Foundation. 1

443
Politics & Religion / Libertarian themes
« on: June 24, 2003, 03:08:08 PM »
Upholding liberty in America
 
Edward Crane and William Niskanen
 
Published: June 24 2003 20:17
 

 

In the aftershock of September 11 2001, there is a greater awareness among most Americans of how precious their freedom is. They also realise the need for better government intelligence work to fight terrorism. But they should not let the government usurp basic liberties.

This is a danger as more and more anti-terrorist laws and rules strait-jacket the nation. There is a congruent danger: the rise of neo-conservatism on the right. The movement is using the threat of terrorism to expand government at home and abroad. America must safeguard its freedoms in the fight against terrorism, but protect itself from pernicious policies that erode freedom in the name of liberty.

Since September 11, Congress and the Justice Department have implemented laws and rules to protect America. But some of these new steps threaten civil liberties. One example is the Patriot Act. This 131-page law, which few legislators read, abandons procedural norms and expands the power of the executive branch, which is already too powerful.

Under no circumstances should an American be held captive in the US indefinitely, with no charges filed and no legal representation afforded. Yet this has happened under the Patriot Act. And now there is talk of a Patriot II. James Buchanan, the Nobel laureate, argues that governments will acquire more power when the opportunity arises. History shows this to be true, and the Patriot law reflects it. Today, with the war on terrorism, the opportunities for the state to expand are ubiquitous. Both liberals and conservatives are turning a blind eye to unnecessary usurpations of power, if not openly calling for them.

Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, has mooted the idea of "torture warrants", by which courts could authorise the use of torture to elicit information. The neo-conservative agenda is a particular threat to liberty - perhaps greater than the ideologically spent ideas of left-liberalism. Always a movement of bright intellectual leaders, neo-conservatism has mostly been a movement with a head but no body. One rarely runs into a neo-con on the street.

Underlying neo-conservatism is a desire to reshape America and the world through the efforts of a robust federal government. For years The Weekly Standard, the neo-conservative magazine, has pushed for initiatives to reinforce US international power. Merely living in a free society appears to be insufficient for neo-conservatives.

During George W. Bush's campaign for president, the neo-conservative influence was felt in domestic policy ideas such as faith-based initiatives that would involve the federal government in private local charities, often with a religious orientation. It was also seen in the call for a greater federal role in local education. These are both inconsistent with the concepts of limited government and federalism.

But neo-cons tend to be dismissive of the idea that the federal government should be limited to the protection of an individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As William Kristol, editor of the Standard, has put it: "Are we willing to say that the country is worse off because of FDR or JFK or LBJ? I'm not willing to say that." So much for limited government.

During his campaign, Mr Bush said many sensible things about foreign policy, including the need for the US to have "humility" in its relations with other nations. But since September 11, neo-conservative influence on US foreign policy has reached new heights. We have grave concerns over the doctrine of preventive war and the seeming abdication of the responsibilities of Congress with respect to committing lives and treasure to armed conflict.

Some in the neo-conservative movement have openly called for an American empire around the globe. Max Boot, the writer, recently praised what he termed America's "imperialism" and said it should impose its views "at gunpoint". James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has called for a decades-long campaign to reorder the entire Middle East along neo-conservative lines. Such thinking is profoundly un-American.

All is not gloom. What is needed now is for limited government conservatives of the variety exemplified by President Ronald Reagan and Senator Barry Goldwater to join forces with libertarians and enlightened liberals who respect civil liberties. They should speak out in support of America's heritage of liberty.

Globalisation has been primarily an American undertaking and it has been good for the world's poor. The country's science, technology and entrepreneurship are healing the sick, cleaning the environment and making the world a better and more enjoyable place in which to live. The US is a great nation with little to apologise for. It has an enemy to defeat. The challenge is not to defeat itself.

Edward Crane is founder and president of the Cato Institute and William Niskanen is its chairman

444
Politics & Religion / Political Rants & interesting thought pieces
« on: June 12, 2003, 11:06:21 AM »
Woof All:

  I open this thread for all WELL-WRITTEN and REASONED political rants and interesting thought pieces.  GOOD HUMORED Commentary welcome.

Woof,
Crafty Dog
-------------------------------
Ann Coulter

I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling, "What do you mean? What are you saying? Why are the Clintons back again?"

Interviewing Hillary Clinton last Sunday night about her book Living History, ABC's Barbara Walters began with such hardball questions as:

"Are you a saint?"
"[Is it] tougher than being first lady, being a senator?"
"You know, you have been working on so many bills with Republicans. ... How do you turn old enemies into allies? ... I mean, no hard feelings?"
"How do you get on with this?"
"There were the accusations that [your husband] was a womanizer." I believe a DNA test revealed that they were more than accusations. "How'd you deal with it?"
Hillary dealt with it. Hillary is a survivor. As Walters said, Living History is a "wife's deeply personal account of being betrayed in front of the entire world." In fact, it was so deeply personal, it took several ghostwriters to get it right.

Walters brazenly probed the question on everyone's mind: How could Hillary be so brave, so strong, so downright wonderful? As Walters recounted, once our brave heroine even lived in Arkansas! Summarizing Hillary's sacrifice, Walters said: "You were young. You were smart. You had a future in Washington. But you gave it up to be with Bill Clinton, to move to Arkansas. ... Why on earth would you throw away your future?" Admittedly, even Bill Clinton couldn't wait to get out of Arkansas. Manhattanites cannot conceive of a greater hardship.

Walters also astutely observed that "in addition to being first lady, you're a mother." Will Hillary's mind-boggling feats never end? Usually such phony liberal amazement at the staggering heroism of women ends with the woman drowning all her children.

Describing interviews like these, New York Times television reviewer Alessandra Stanley said that Hillary was finally able to show her "grit, an outsize will and discipline that has nothing to do with gender." This, Ms. Stanley said, was a welcome change from Hillary's more recognized role as "an emblem of the modern female condition." So on one hand, Hillary has grit and determination. But on the other hand, she is a living, breathing icon. It's good to see the New York Times really going the extra mile to give both sides these days.

In "her" book, "Hillary" explains that the story of how Nelson Mandela forgave his jailers inspired her to forgive Bill for his infidelity. OK, but they locked up Mandela only once. Revealing more about herself than Hillary, Ms. Stanley claims that "millions of women have forgiven far worse of philandering husbands." Far worse? Really? No wonder liberal women hate men so much.

If you credit news reports, the public can't get enough of Hillary. The crush of ordinary people buying Hillary's book seems baffling in light of recent polls. According to an ABC poll, 48 percent of Americans have an unfavorable impression of Hillary, 53 percent of Americans don't want Hillary to ever run for president, and 7 percent of Americans have been date-raped by Bill Clinton.

First in line for Hillary's book at Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center on Sunday night was Charles Greinsky, who told the New York Daily News he rushed out at midnight to get one of the first books because he supported Hillary's health-care plan. A few years ago, the Associated Press identified Greinsky more fully. It turns out he is "a longtime Clinton campaigner" from Staten Island, who has been the Clintons' guest several times both at the White House and at their home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

Lining up at midnight to buy Hillary's book is street theater for liberals. I suppose shelling out $30 to support the concept of Hillary is less dangerous than the pernicious nonsense liberals usually fund. Hillary has already gotten a record $8 million advance from Simon & Schuster for the book ? the most anyone has ever received for rewriting history. Hillary's acolytes could buy enough copies of her book to rebuild the World Trade Center, and she's not going to pocket more than that.

Another average individual eager to get Hillary's book was Greg Packer, who was the centerpiece of the New York Times' "man on the street" interview about Hillary-mania. After being first in line for an autographed book at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble, Packer gushed to the Times: "I'm a big fan of Hillary and Bill's. I want to change her mind about running for president. I want to be part of her campaign."

It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one ? but two ? New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games ? even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium.

Are all reporters writing their stories from Jayson Blair's house? Whether or not it will help her presidential ambitions,  Living History definitely positions Hillary nicely for a job as a reporter.

Ann Coulter is host of AnnCoulter.org

445
Politics & Religion / WW3
« on: May 22, 2003, 12:31:06 PM »
Woof All:

  The following from the always thoughtful www.Stratfor.com

Woof,
Crafty Dog
--------------------------

Please feel free to send the Stratfor Weekly to a friend
or colleague.

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
21 May 2003
 
by Dr. George Friedman
 
Al Qaeda Acts

Summary

As Stratfor predicted, al Qaeda has launched an offensive in the
wake of the Iraq war. Thus far, it has fallen far short of the
most extreme possibilities -- a strike in the United States that
is equivalent to or greater than the Sept. 11 attacks. Recent
actions have reaffirmed that al Qaeda continues to operate, but
have not yet established that the network retains its reach and
striking power. We suspect that its striking power has been
limited, but its reach still might be substantial. Further
operations are likely: We see Latin America in particular and, to
a lesser extent, Southeast Asia as ripe for attack.

Analysis

In our quarterly forecast, we wrote:

We regard the second quarter of 2003 as one of the highest-risk
periods for al Qaeda action against the United States. It is
unclear whether the group has the ability to act -- but if it
does, the pressure to strike at the United States is enormous.
The psychology of the Islamic world is such that unless al Qaeda
can act, it will be seen as having dragged the Islamic world into
a disaster. The organization must show that it has not been
defeated and that the United States is not invincible. It is
impossible to know what al Qaeda's capabilities are at this
point, but if it retains the ability to act, by sheer logic, this
is the quarter in which it should.

Obviously, we have seen at least the beginning of that
counteroffensive. The May 12 al Qaeda strikes in Riyadh were
followed by an attack in Casablanca on May 16. It is speculative
-- but not unreasonable -- to assume that two attacks in Chechnya
around the same time also were in some way coordinated with the
strikes in Saudi Arabia. Certainly, the coincidence of the timing
raises serious questions.

The following, therefore, have been established:

1. Al Qaeda remains operational.
2. The capabilities demonstrated thus far do not indicate that al
Qaeda retains the capabilities it showed on Sept. 11, 2001.

This means that al Qaeda has passed its first hurdle. There was
serious question in the Islamic world about whether the network
remained operational. Over time -- and not very much time -- a
quiescent al Qaeda would begin losing support personnel and
operatives who were detached from the main organization. Extended
silence and inaction would raise the possibility that the group
had been destroyed. This would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Logic would argue that al Qaeda would lead with its strongest
attack to prove its continued viability. The United States
lowered its security level after the Iraq war; after the initial
al Qaeda action, it would be expected that the United States and
other countries would raise their alert status while increasing
effective security as well. Therefore, the most ambitious attack
in a series ought to come first. Al Qaeda has shown a deep and
reasonable aversion to attacking hardened targets that are under
intensified security. Therefore, while nothing is ever certain
when it comes to reading al Qaeda, it would seem reasonable to
assume that its main attack would come first and that secondary
operations would take place only if the primary strike failed. Al
Qaeda clearly likes to maintain a slow tempo of operations, using
scarce resources sparingly.

If our reasoning has any validity -- and again, al Qaeda's
ability to surprise is not minor -- then it would mean that the
coordinated strikes in Riyadh were the main thrust of this cycle.
Taken together, this was not a trivial attack. There are those
who argue that anyone with some explosives would be able to carry
out the strike. That might be the case, but al Qaeda's
sophistication does not have to do with the munitions used, but
rather with its ability to evade security forces. For at least
nine people to mount an operation without being detected
sufficiently to prevent the attack represents a substantial
degree of sophistication. To be able to plan a campaign that
encompasses Saudi Arabia and Morocco -- as well as possibly
Chechnya -- represents an achievement in security practices. This
is where al Qaeda's sophistication lies. It is sometimes the
simplest sophistication -- allowing local groups to operate
independently.

It would appear from the outside that the United States has
improved its intelligence ability against al Qaeda to some
extent. If the U.S. claim is true, then Washington warned
officials in Riyadh about the possibility of al Qaeda attacks. If
the Saudis are telling the truth, then the U.S. report focused on
a particular compound where an attack was thwarted, rather than
on the other facilities that were bombed. However this plays out,
no one is denying that the United States had intelligence that an
attack in Saudi Arabia was in the offing; that alone represents a
substantial improvement in U.S. capabilities.

It is not, however, a perfect picture by any means. Washington
also said that it had intelligence of potential operations being
planned for Kenya and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Officials did not say
anything about Casablanca. Thus far, no post-Riyadh attacks have
come in the places where attacks were expected. An attack did
occur in a place where no forecast was made. Thus, it would seem
reasonable to say that the United States has increased its
insight into al Qaeda's operations. Increased insight does not
mean that Washington has achieved anything approaching
comprehensive intelligence: It knows more than it once did, but
not enough to consistently forecast -- let alone prevent -- al
Qaeda attacks.

On the other side of the equation, al Qaeda used 19 men to strike
the United States on Sept. 11. They used nine men to carry out an
operation in Riyadh that had a tiny fraction of the impact of the
Sept. 11 operation. Given al Qaeda's goals, we must assume that
it would wish to expend scarce resources in the most effective
manner possible. If this was the most effective operation
available, it represents a substantial decline in the group's
capabilities.

This is not to say that the May 12 strike was trivial. It had two
important effects, apart from demonstrating the network's ability
to act.

The first was to create a crisis of confidence in the expatriate
community in Saudi Arabia. This community is critical for the
operation of the Saudi economy, and the attacks raised serious
questions among the expats about their safety and that of their
families. A serious exodus of expatriates would be a crippling
blow. The strike has not achieved that yet, but if there are
follow-on attacks, that very well might occur.

Second, the attack drove a wedge between Washington and Riyadh --
a wedge we believe that al Qaeda's leadership fully understood.
The United States has been making two demands of the Saudi
government: First, that it step up internal operations against al
Qaeda and its supporters, and second, that U.S. intelligence and
security services be permitted to operate inside the kingdom.
Saudi leaders have claimed to be doing the best they could in the
first case, while claiming that formal Saudi sovereignty had to
be respected even though informal operational arrangement could
be made. For their part, officials in Washington did not believe
that the Saudis were doing all that they could, and felt that
their personnel were not being given sufficient access.

This was the case prior to the Iraq war. One of the purposes of
the war was to put Saudi Arabia in a position in which it felt
vulnerable to the United States. The Saudis walked a fine line,
permitting U.S. forces to use some of their facilities during the
war while almost immediately announcing -- with U.S. compliance -
- the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the kingdom. Washington's
expectation was that this would set the stage for more effective
and collaborative action against al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. The
expectation on the part of Saudi leaders -- more a hope, really -
- was that the withdrawal would buy them sufficient slack that
they could comply with U.S. demands to some degree.

The al Qaeda attacks in Riyadh struck at the very heart of this
complex arrangement. U.S. officials immediately claimed that the
Saudis had ignored their warnings -- raising the old charge that
the Saudis were unprepared to act against al Qaeda -- while Saudi
leaders denied any lack of initiative on their part. The United
States flew a team of FBI and CIA agents into the country very
publicly, demanding access to the investigation. The Saudis,
caught in a public challenge to their sovereignty, trapped
between the danger of increased al Qaeda operations and U.S.
pressure, could not find a firm standpoint from which to operate.
Both U.S.-Saudi relations and the image of the Saudi government
domestically and abroad were weakened.

Al Qaeda, which now clearly sees the Saudi regime as an American
collaborator, therefore achieved a political victory in creating
this crisis. This, in addition to simply showing it could act,
was an achievement. It was not, however, a definitive
achievement, nor was the network's apparent action in Casablanca.
This is al Qaeda's problem: As a result of Sept. 11, the Afghan
and Iraqi regimes have been toppled, U.S. military forces are
deployed in both countries as well as in other Islamic states and
U.S. intelligence has deeply penetrated the region. Al Qaeda has
not triggered a rising in the "Arab street," has not toppled any
governments and established Islamic regimes in their place and
has not managed to sustain an intense tempo of operations against
the United States. In other words, al Qaeda has not done
particularly well.

If, therefore, the operation in Riyadh is the strongest move that
al Qaeda has at this point, it would indicate to us that while
the United States might not be winning the war, al Qaeda might be
losing it. In other words, the direct effectiveness of the United
States against al Qaeda might be limited, but the internal
dynamic of al Qaeda might be undermining the group's ability to
act. We therefore doubt that the actions taken so far can halt
the unraveling of al Qaeda, even if they might slow the group. If
this attack is followed by another six months of relative
quiescence, the same doubts that surfaced in the past few months
will resurface with an intensified ferocity.

Obviously, al Qaeda leaders know this. Equally obviously, they
want to do something about it. The issue is whether they have the
resources to do so. Al Qaeda might be planning at this moment to
replicate the Sept. 11 strikes, in terms of magnitude, yet we
find that unlikely. We simply think that it would not have waited
until European and American security organizations were at their
highest level of alert, and have risked the capture of key
operatives in other countries that might have compromised a U.S.
or European operation, to strike. It's possible -- but it doesn't
make a whole lot of sense.

At the same time, it does not appear to us that al Qaeda can
avoid carrying out further attacks. This leads us to the
conclusion that the most likely scenario is one of other attacks,
probably against U.S. targets, in less expected countries. We are
particularly interested in the possibility of an attack in Latin
America -- which would be relatively unexpected, and where there
are substantial U.S. targets. Asian targets are also possible,
although the psychological affect of an attack in Latin America
would be more substantial. Al Qaeda and its sympathizers are well
placed in Latin America to carry out a strike: The tri-border
region of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina is rife with Hezbollah
members and associates, who are known to swap arms for drugs with
the FARC in Colombia. There also is a precedent for Islamic
violence in Latin America as well.

As with all things al Qaeda, this is speculation. However, if one
accepts the premise that al Qaeda does not like to attack hard
targets in the midst of security alerts -- and that it must
continue to act for the sake of its credibility -- we think
attacks on the flanks are most likely. Remembering that al Qaeda
does not have infinite personnel, these must be fairly
substantial operations.
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446
Politics & Religion / The Betrayal of the Military Father
« on: May 21, 2003, 09:45:27 AM »
The Betrayal of the Military Father  
By Glenn Sacks
http://glennsacks.com/the_betrayal_of.htm

When Gary, a San Diego-based US Navy SEAL, was deployed in Afghanistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, he never dreamed that his service to his country would cost him his little son. Gary's son was not taken from him by a terrorist or a kidnapper. This 17-year Navy veteran with an unblemished military and civilian record was stripped of his right to be a father by a California court.

Gary's story, which was the subject of a two-part Fox News feature called "SEAL, Sorrow" earlier this year, is not an unusual one. Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, if a parent takes a child to a new state, that new state becomes the child's presumptive residence after six months. Because a normal military deployment is six months or more, if an unhappily married military spouse moves to another state while the other spouse is deployed, by the time the deployed spouse returns the child's residence has already been switched. Since courts lean heavily in favor of a child's primary caregiver when determining custody, the spouse who moved the child is virtually certain to gain custody through the divorce proceedings in that new state.

Because of the strict restrictions on travel by active military personnel, the cost of legal representation, and the financial hardships created by child support and spousal support obligations, it is very difficult for returning service personnel to fight for their parental rights in another state. Many struggle even to see their children, much less remain a meaningful part of their lives, and the bond between the children and their noncustodial parent is often broken for years, if not permanently.

Gary has not been able to see his son, who now lives abroad, in nearly nine months. When he calls he can sometimes hear the three year-old ask "when daddy come?" and "where's daddy?" in the background but he is often prevented from speaking with him.

According to nationally-known family law attorney Jeffery Leving, author of Fathers' Rights , there are three solutions to the problems facing military fathers. First, the federal Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940 needs to be amended to specifically prohibit the spouses of active duty military personnel from permanently moving children to other states without the permission either of the active duty military spouse or of a court. (The primary purpose of the Act, whose origins go back as far as the Civil War, is to protect active armed forces personnel by mandating that civil actions against them be delayed until after their return from service).

Second, California laws, which currently do little to prevent a custodial parent from moving children far away from the noncustodial parent, need to be changed to prohibit any permanent removals done against a deployed military parent's will. Third, the UCCJEA needs to be amended to state that the presumption of new residence does not apply if the children are taken in this wrongful fashion.

Gary has lost nearly $100,000 so far fighting for his son and may soon be forced to declare bankruptcy, which in turn will destroy the top secret security clearance he needs for his job. Worse yet is the emotional devastation wrought by his separation from his son and the knowledge that he may never see him again. He says:

"My love for my son cannot simply be brushed aside as the courts seem to believe it can. I can remember holding my little son's hand like it was yesterday. I can remember his cry. I hear it every time I hear another child crying."

"Sometimes I wonder what I risked my life [in Afghanistan] for. I went to fight for freedom but what freedom and what rights mean anything if a man doesn't have the right to be a father to his own child?"

------------------------

Families and the War
By Dianna Thompson and Glenn Sacks
http://www.glennjsacks.com/families_and_the.htm
 
As the United States prepares for war against Iraq, tens of thousands of fathers who serve as reservists are preparing to say goodbye to their families and serve their country overseas. Yet, America's enemies abroad are not the only danger these dedicated men will face. Upon return, those with child support orders will face a threat here at home ? the war that is being waged against "deadbeat dads."

Bobby Sherrill, a divorced father of two from Parkton, N.C., was a casualty of that war. Mr. Sherrill, who worked for Lockheed in Kuwait before being captured and held hostage by Iraq for nearly five harrowing months, was arrested the night he returned from the Persian Gulf War. Why? For failing to pay $1,425 in child support while he was a captive.

If laws are not changed, thousands of today's reservists could face a similar threat. Reservists' child-support obligations are based upon their civilian pay, which is generally higher than their active-duty armed forces pay. When a child-support obligor's pay decreases, the remedy is to go to court and get a downward modification. However, since reservists are often mobilized with as little as 24-hours notice, few are able to get these modifications before they leave. As a result, many reservists fall hopelessly behind while serving, and can be subject to arrest for nonpayment of child support upon their return.

For example, a naval reservist who has three children and who takes home $4,000 a month in his civilian job could have a child support obligation of about $1,600 a month. If this father is a petty officer second class (E5) who has been in the reserves for six or seven years ? a middle-ranked reservist ? his active-duty pay would only be $1,912 before taxes, in addition to a housing allowance.

States assess interest on arrearages as well as penalties on past-due child support. Because the federal Bradley amendment prevents judges from retroactively modifying or forgiving support, obligors who fall behind for legitimate reasons cannot have these arrearages wiped out. And even those returning servicemen who avoid jail or other sanctions may still spend years trying to pay off their child support debt ? a debt created entirely by their willingness to serve their country.

Though the Family Support Act of 1988 allows noncustodial parents who have had a reduction in income to request a decrease in their child support by getting downward modifications, few state agencies honor such requests. According to Elaine Sorensen of the Urban Institute, even among fathers who experience income drops of 15 percent or more, less than one in 20 are able to get courts to reduce their child-support payments. Because state agencies are federally reimbursed for every child-support dollar they collect, states have a powerful incentive to grab and hold on to every dollar they can.

Another problem is that the child support money that the armed forces are supposed to take out of reservists' paychecks and send to their families sometimes does not arrive. This was an issue for many Gulf War veterans, and reservists are having similar difficulties today. For example, Diane Keary, a custodial mother from Monsey, N.Y., has not received a child-support check since Joseph Keary Sr., her ex-husband, was called to active duty five months ago. Computer glitches such as this, as well as billing errors, can leave reservists subject to government sanctions upon their return.

What is needed to solve the problem is legislation like that passed by the Missouri legislature in the days leading up to the Gulf War. The Missouri statute, which is unique in the nation, requires an automatic adjustment of support for reservists called up for active duty.

During the Gulf War, more than 250,000 reservists were called up, and today more than 75,000 reservists and National Guard troops are on active duty as a result of the events of September 11. Many are now being notified that they will be expected to serve another year, and a total of 1.3 million reservists could be called into service for indefinite periods in the event of war.

James, a 16-year veteran of the Navy and the commander of a 177-member Naval Reserve Unit on the West Coast, is concerned about the effect that the current child-support policies could have upon his sailors when they are called to active duty. He says: "My people are sacrificing a lot to serve. I want them focused on our assigned mission. I don't want them worrying that their own government might come after them.

This column first appeared in the Washington Times (11/21/02).

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