Day: July 29, 2002

When I wrote my 2014 piece, I knew that one aspect I wanted to include was the danger inherent in hesitation when it comes to dealing with Saddam. A little dramatic license and I conceived of a way to illustrate the point rather — shall we say — heavy-handedly by supposing that Saddam feigned interest in negotiations, when the time of the attack grew near, in order to buy time to carry out his own attack on Israel and the United States.
But it was only today that it crystalized in my mind exactly how I feel about the timing of the conflict.
I think we should attack Iraq now. Not in a few months, not soon, now.
Every day that we wait is one more day for Saddam to hire more suicide squads to be activated when we attack. It’s one more day for him to be wheeling and dealing with other terrorists for support through attacks of their own when the day comes. It’s one more day for Saddam, fate forbid, to make that deal to get that nuke from the old Soviet stockpile.
And what do we gain in waiting?
Er, well… we’re building up political support among our allies!
Screw our allies. This is definitely a time for them to put up or shut up. The Europeans can either get with the program or get the hell out of the way; it doesn’t seem to matter worth a damn as much as I can tell. The only nations that really matter in this game are those that can provide us staging areas, like Turkey. And I have great confidence if we explain rather clearly to the Turkish government — and others — that they really do not want to be on the wrong side of this conflict, and that the time for posturing and playing to the ‘Arab Street’ is over — it’s time to act like grown-ups now — they’ll see the light right quick. And the Brits — the Brits will come with us; they always do, and bless them for it.
Once you view the conflict as a two-front war — with one front internal to Iraq in as a conventional war, and the second front in the United States, Israel, and worldwide as a potential terrorist battleground — it seems pretty damned obvious that Saddam wins more with every passing day.
So why aren’t we beginning at least small scale attacks? We’ve got strike aircraft over his country every day — here’s an idea: why not just give those flyboys ‘weapons free’ and let them start engaging targets of opportunity?
I think we need to be creative here. We are not going to do another well-organized, multi-month buildup of the exact number of troops, planes, ships, portable latrines, and other materiel that we’d like to have before we go to war like we did the first time around. The simple idea of it is ludicrious on its face — do we seriously believe that Saddam is just going to sit there while we gather forces like that?
At the end of the Gulf War, Saddam gambled. Everyone was afraid of what he might do, when it was clear he was losing. Would he really cut loose with chemical weapons? But he didn’t. He gambled, quite correctly, that by holding back, Bush the Elder and the coalition would deem him not worth the effort of removing from power.
Very different game this time. He knows he’s finished. He knows that this time, there is no way out, period.
Do you remember what we started hearing about Clinton around ’99 or so?
He was focusing more and more on his “legacy”. He wanted to establish himself a place in history.
I think its hard to avoid the conclusion that Saddam is thinking the exact same thing right about now. And I really, really, do not want to find out what his idea of a proper place in history for himself is.
So why not start hitting him now? At least with air power. So all our forces aren’t in place yet — so what? Surely there’s some damage we can begin to do to him and to his miltary, isn’t there?
One reason I’m so gung-ho on this is that I strongly suspect that once the explosions really start, and it is clear that we are serious, I think we’re going to see some very interesting things start to happen within Iraq in general, and the Iraqi military in particular. I have to believe that those generals, colonels and majors are not complete and utter idiots. They know they’re on the losing side. And once we demonstrate that no, we weren’t kidding, I think we may be surprised by how fast we suddenly find allies popping up within Iraq itself. We may end up not needing to actually invade at all in the end.
I am not a military strategist, nor do I play one on TV. I don’t claim to know the effective ways we could start now — but I’ll bet someone reading this does. I’ve tossed out one idea that seems the absolute most basic — declare weapons-free for targets-of-opportunity for the existing air patrols. Let’s hear from folks on what we could do building up from there, and how fast we could do it. Preference, of course, goes to those actions we could take right now.
Begin commenting!
Update: OK, I will plead guilty to a wee bit of Guiness-induced hyperbole in my initial drafting of this last night. (Remember kids: Friends don’t let friends drink and punditize).
In a single turn earns my everlasting emnity and simultaneously puts my hyperbole in proper context when he declares in the comments: “I realize that you would like it if we did something, anything right now. Keep in mind, however, that this is a Clintonian response, with all due respect.” (“All due respect”? “Clintonian“? Bastard.)
Pej is right, of course. But I’m not arguing that we should do something for the sake of feeling better or just doing something for its own sake, though I probably made it sound that way. I’m arguing that, from my admittedly militarily ignorant standpoint, it seems to me that there may be some actions that we could be taking right now that would be both militarily substantive and of low risk to our servicemen and women: and I am questioning, therefore, why we aren’t doing so.
It seems to me — and again, asking for corrective instruction here from the peanut gallery — that our air power in particular could begin, even now, to inflict damage on Saddam’s infrastructure without significant risk to American soldiers’ lives. I am not arguing for just lobbing a few cruise missiles at random targets — that would be, shall we say, Clintonian. But let me ask this: Could we take out a significant percentage of their air defense network simply using the forces we already have in place? And if so, wouldn’t that be a valid step to take as a prelude to the larger campaign?
The benefit of acting now, to me, is twofold: first, it opens up the possibility that forces within Iraq will act to support us in ways that we can’t possibly predict accurately until the bombs start dropping. And second, every bit of energy we force Saddam and his forces to devote to defense right now is that much less energy they can devote to planning their future offense.
Because right now, it seems to me that they really don’t have anything better to do that plan how they are going to retaliate for the attack.
Update Again: Some great discussion going on in the comments section, thanks to all who are participating. I’m especially pleased to see folks opposing my views joining in. One brief reply to what I see as a central thrust in some of the ‘anti-‘ arguments: the idea that it if we believe that Saddam is not a direct threat to the U.S., it is therefore immoral to invade his country, even if we all agree that he does horrible things to his own people. ( I don’t accept that he’s not a threat, but I’m willing to posit it for the sake of discussing this point).
This to me is a classic ‘national sovreignty’ defense, and one which I find pretty morally bankrupt. I challenge anyone taking the ‘anti-‘ side of this argument to explain clearly why the sovreignty of a nation, such as Iraq, should be placed above the sovreignty of its people. This argument makes no sense to me, but I’m willing to listen.

There’s a great deal of talk these days about business scandals and the impact they are having — and will have — on the Republicans in general, and the Bush administration in particular.
Previously respected companies are dropping like flies; those that aren’t are ‘reassessing earnings’. The stock market is doing its best drunken sailor impression; weaving around quite a bit but overall, tending to fall down a lot. And both the President and the Vice-President have direct ties to potentially shady business shennanigans of exactly the type currently driving the scandals.
Tailor made situation for Democrats to rally the peepul and get ’em to throw the bastards out, right?
Wrong.
There is one story, and one story only right now that will engage the public, and that is the war. And no, I don’t think I’m taking a myopic view of things just because the war tends to be what I focus my own attention on all the time, thank you very much for asking.
A previous blogger made this exact same point in pithy fashion, so I won’t spend too much time on this. (And if you are that blogger, or know who it was, please send me a link and I will insert it here: I just can’t bloody remember). But here’s what’s going to happen over the next six months. Either:
a) A new significant terrorist attack will occur
b) We will begin our attack on Iraq
c) A new development in the war we hadn’t thought of (Saudi civil war, anyone?) demands our attention
or
d) Some combination of the above will happen
It will only take one of those things to make the state of the economy — and the stock market — look pretty damned irrelevant.
It is not the economy, stupid. Trust me on this.
So what should the Democrats be doing? The phrase ‘loyal opposition’ comes to my mind.
The Democrats should be addressing the core issue that is facing the country at this time: that is, duh, how are we going to win this war and ensure that we never again lose several city blocks of real estate and several thousand citizens.
The irony, of course, is that the Bush administration’s war effort seems to be about the only thing they aren’t willing to focus on these days.
And that’s a damned shame, because it needs focusing.
We desperately need voices in Washington — not just in the Blogosphere — asking the tough questions of the administration. Not to beat them down; not to score political points, but to make sure that we damned well get this right.
So yes, I’m talking to you. You are a man of faith and deep moral conviction (says so right here in your press packet) — why don’t I hear you asking the President why he continues to coddle the Saudis — you know, the folks who have that little thing about oppressing any religion that doesn’t happen to be their particular stone-age-drooling-ranting-mad version of the Muslim faith. (Saudi Arabia: The Model-T Ford of societies: you can have any religion you want, as long as its Islam).
And Tom — could we have a little constructive debate on this whole Homeland Security department thing? And no, if you bring up civil service protections one more goddamned time I’m going to come over there and whack you upside the head, that is not what I meant.
Get it together, boys.
First word: Loyal. In other words, wake up and smell the war, and shut the hell up about your usual pet peeves. The unions and the rest of your traditional circus act will just have to suck it up and deal for a while.
Second word: Opposition. Challenge the administration. Don’t just lie there on the important stuff; show this country that you could do a better job prosecuting this war, protecting our citizens, than the Bush team.
And maybe, just maybe, if you show us you’re serious defending this nation, you might even win some votes.
Update: Blogger Tim Wilson emailed to bring his previous post “Bring Back The Loyal Opposition” to my attention, and asks if it was the one I alluded to above.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t; there’s a chance I might have read Tim’s piece previously but I don’t think I did. But check his thoughts out anyway — and I’m still looking for my mystery blogger…

Was I right to that the Israelis bear responsibility for the civilian casualities they caused in the assassination of terrorist Hamas thug Salah Shehada?
The Talmud says yes!
Diane E. at Letters from Gotham raises the (pretty damned reasonable) question of what traditional Jewish religious law would have to say about the accidental civilian deaths.
And by doing her homework, she answers it, too:

About ‘accidental murders’:
Jewish law is not so quick to absolve the murderer. Although he is spared the death penalty (which is given to intentional murderers), he is punished. He must be exiled from where he lives to one of the designated Arei Miklat (Cities of Refuge), where he must remain until the death of the present Kohen Gadol (High Priest).
The Torah, it appears, requires us to take responsibility for everything we do. Even accidental mishaps are not without blame. He could have been more careful. He could have taken more precautions….
I hasten to add that I am NOT a Talmudic scholar and I may have taken this completely out of context. Perhaps during war totally different rules apply and I’d be interested to hear from someone who knows more. However, it does seem to buttress very solidly NZ Bear’s point, which is that the Israelis and the Israelis alone (and, needless to say, their supporters, of which I am a fervent one) are responsible for those civilian deaths.
Advantage: Bear!
Seriously and more humbly, though, Diane’s analysis is quite thoughtful; give it a read. She doesn’t claim to be 100% Definitively Right on her interpretation, and for the record, neither do I.

Heh. Speaking of not taking oneself too seriously:
A few folks commented that Truth (it doesn’t really have a title, but I guess that’ll do for a label) was a bit heavy handed in parts. (They were probably right).
You want heavy handed? We’ll give you heavy-handed!
Try going back and re-reading the piece while listening to
the theme from “The Terminator”.
Da da da-da-da DUM!
Da da da-da-da DUM!
Da da da-da-da DUM!
Heh heh heh….

Glenn says he caught some flack from Christians who emailed in their displeasure at slightly lighthearted announcement of the new Blogs4God site, updating his original post:
“Some people thought there was a hint of anti-Christian mockery in the item above, and one noted (angrily, and in all capital letters) that the site nowhere says it’s ‘definitive.’ “
This irked me, as I’ve had numerous interactions with Dean Peters, founder of the new site and author of HealYourChurchWebsite, a weblog devoted to — of all things — preaching the gospel of good web design to Christian bloggers and web designers.
Dean has always displayed great courtesy and a sense of humor, tightly coupled with a healthily strong aversion to taking himself too seriously. As a result, I’ve consistently enjoyed our interactions, despite the fact that we disagree dramatically with regards to religion, and I’m sure in many other areas as well.
So anyway, my first reaction was to dash off a comment to Glenn stating that I thought he let the compaliners off way too easily.
My second reaction was this: is the lack of a sense of humor — and in particular, a self-deprecating sense of humor — the defining characteristic of a fanatic?
My gut says “yes”. (And for the record, no, I’m not saying everyone or even anyone who wrote to Glenn is a fanatic; the incident simply spurred this line of thought in my mind).
I think if you lose the ability to laugh at yourself; to see the foolishness inherent in your own actions, you’ve sacrificed one of the major internal checks that nature (ok, or God) has equiped us with to ensure we don’t go completely insane.
Humor directed at ourselves — and at our beliefs — is one key way that we ensure that we don’t fall into the trap of believing we’re always right; of ensuring that we have those santity checks on our own behavior that keep us from just proceeding blithely along our way, safe and secure in the deep conviction that we are completely right. It’s the anti-hubris, so to speak.
Thoughts?

Every morning I arise to find some traffic has flowed to the site overnight. Although most of my audience seems to be in the U.S., I get a few Brits now and again, as well as other Europeans, and a nice smattering of traffic from folks down under like Blair.
But I was thinking last night: what about those folks who aren’t overseas… but who are just surfing their way through the night?
Wouldn’t they like a song to guide them through their overnight browsing?
“Nightsurfing”
With apologies to Michael Stipe & REM

points us to a MEMRI translation of a column by liberal Tunisian columnist Al-‘Afif Al-Akhdhar in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat. A brief exerpt:

The Palestinian ‘Failure Neurosis’
“What caused these leaders, primarily the Palestinians among them, to lead their peoples to perdition?
[I believe] it is the ‘Failure Neurosis’ that compelled them to do everything within their power to punish themselves and their peoples with failure where success was certain. Their ‘Failure Neurosis’ has several symptoms:
Conceptual Stagnation, making them incapable – at every stage of the struggle – of reading the regional and international balance of powers, and incapable of drawing the necessary conclusions, so as to make a political and military decision in keeping with the situation…
Political Backwardness, preventing them from changing their means of struggle, way of thought, and goals which are not compatible with the political changes…
The Mania of the Armed Struggle, with all its terrible ramifications – transforming the armed struggle from a means serving the ultimate goal of a viable Palestinian state into a goal in and of itself…
Inability to Define the National Interest, Are we talking about the liberation of Mandatory Palestine, or about regaining what can be salvaged of the Palestine occupied [by Israel] in the 1967 war? What are the optimal means of armed struggle for actualizing one of these two options…
Fiinally, a [last] symptom of the ‘Failure Neurosis,’ which forces these Arab leaders to act without knowing what their enemies want from them, is the Prohibition on Free Internal Discussion and Moderate Discourse – which usually arise from a serious analysis of the data. The verbal radicalism sweeping our culture and the emotionally charged words … fills the vacuum created by the lack of analysis and the vacuity of thought…”

Wow. Like, what he said.

Neat! Check out P0st over at Salon — they’ve got an automated routine similar to my link scanning routines that seems to do a fine job of generating their own ecosystem-like lists.
Our link counts are coming out significantly different, but that may reflect the different list of blogs… the author and I are in communication, though, so I expect we’ll be able to learn much from each other…
-NZB

Dean Peters over at has a new project launched: Blogs4God.
It’s a very spiffy portal site with categorized links to Christian bloggers. Dean has also built in a rating system, hit tracking, and some other bells and whistles — damned impressive. Er, darned impressive.
Great example of blogosphere sub-ecosystems in action, if you ask me, which you didn’t, but you’re on my page, so I claim ‘implied consent’.
-NZB