Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

For someone who claims not to be a Republican,
it's amazing how much GOP material you link to.

Posted by anonymous at January 25, 2007 05:34 PM

For someone who claims not to like Rand,
it's amazing how often you comment here.

Posted by Stephen Kohls at January 25, 2007 05:57 PM

No. Surprised? :-)

Posted by Bill White at January 25, 2007 06:17 PM

Of course I'm not surprised, Bill. Unlike you, I'm not (apparently) stupid.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 25, 2007 06:20 PM

I can't see how this allows freedom of expression within the GOP. It's similar to how the Democrats never allowed the right-to-lifers the opportunity to express themselves within the party, which wound up driving a very substantial group of people out of the party. I can't see anything positive coming out of this pledge for the GOP in the long term. Persuasion is always better than a gun to the head of someone, even a Senator.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at January 25, 2007 06:21 PM

Nope. You don't encourage a half-hearted, even semi-worthless ally by selling him out to your mutual enemy. That's just short-sighted petulance.

Politics is always the choice of the lesser evil, and I think anyone who (1) lived through the 70s and (2) thinks a government dominated by the Democratic Party is the lesser evil needs his head examined.

If ten or even twenty spineless GOP Senators cave, humiliating Hugh's favorite President, and then the RNC gets umpty $million less from all the true believers sittin' on their wallets to "teach 'em a lesson", leading to a 65/35 Democratic Senate majority in 2008 reporting to a consciousless President Obama and conscienceless Vice-President Clinton, who in their Right mind thinks the national welfare will improve?

I think Hugh is just having one of those perennial cranky libertarian fantasies (much like the cranky populist fantasies on the left) that if he helps wreck the Republican Party then (for the first time in 180 years) a new third political party will spring up overnight and replace those decayed bastards. He needs to get a grip.

The Republicans are the way they are, pussillanimity and all, because that's how you get re-elected. Just ask former Senator Rick Santorum how well it works to stick to your guns when your red-purple constituency wants to go back to their regular diet of butter (and pork).

Posted by Carl Pham at January 25, 2007 06:23 PM

Actually Bill, you could sign the pledge since you may have had no plans to contribute to the GOP anyway. I wonder what would happen if masses of sneaky Dems signed the pledge ;-)

Posted by at January 25, 2007 06:30 PM

Stupid?

Tee! Hee! Why thank you, Rand. :-)

Whenever I am the target of "ad hom" on the internet I assume the other guy is simply out of ammo.

Review ALL my posts. How often do I resort to "ad hom" attacks?

= = =

John Warner is the guy to watch. If Senator Warner opposes "plus up and pray" the donkeys will also get the Maine twinsies on board and that will make Norm Coleman mighty nervous.

Did you watch the Chuck Hagel video. Gosh, is that guy really a Republican?

Posted by Bill White at January 25, 2007 06:35 PM

Seriously, the problem is that Maliki will help Sadr's militia go to ground. Hide their weapons under the floors of their houses and then talk nice and peaceable to the US military.

We then whack the Sunnis again and again and again. Sadr smirks knowing that time is on his side.

= = =

Unless we arrest or kill Sadr in the next 30 days this is all a CHARADE for domestic US consumption.

Posted by Bill White at January 25, 2007 06:38 PM

Sadr smirks knowing that time is on his side.

Not entirely. Don't forget he's got a political struggle on his hands, too. He needs to appeal to a wide swath of moderate Shi'ia if he wants to increase his power. He needs to show he gets stuff done and ain't afraid of the Big Bad Wolf (a/k/a the USMC). This is especially important in Arabia where your cojones are all-important.

If Sadr hides like Saddam in his spider hole for long enough, his political support beyond the nutjobs in the Mahdi Army will evaporate. Time may be on his side in the short run, but not in the long.

Posted by Carl Pham at January 25, 2007 06:50 PM

If Sadr hides like Saddam in his spider hole for long enough, his political support beyond the nutjobs in the Mahdi Army will evaporate. Time may be on his side in the short run, but not in the long.

(a) I agree with the above -- if Sadr goes to a spider hole and he is toast.

(b) But, do we have the cojones to go get him if his supporters start saying all the nice conciliatory things we want? Suppose 25,000 AK-47s get "turned in" (with another few million out there).

= IF = we actually arrest/kill Sadr within 30 days I will reconsider my opinions on this.

Posted by at January 25, 2007 06:54 PM

For a flavour of what it is like in Baghdad, this is revealing. It makes you wonder whether the job can be done even if we surged with 50,000 more troops:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/world/middleeast/25haifa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at January 25, 2007 07:29 PM

The McCain doctrine of escalation is based upon a
fundamentally flawed strategy.

The Coalition troops are pulling out, so the escalation will
only offset this loss of combat power.

The Iraqi army is a shadow of it's claimed strength and
not driven by a unified national identity.

Adding 15% more to our forces is going to have
no visible effect, except to increase US Casualties.

Well there will be one effect, it will be to show
the utter bankruptcy of bush-cheney and the
neocons

Posted by anonymous at January 25, 2007 08:13 PM

He needs to appeal to a wide swath of moderate Shi'ia if he wants to increase his power.

Sadr already has an 80% approval rating among Shi'a. How much more does he need?

Posted by Jim Harris at January 25, 2007 08:48 PM

Reports are already coming in that Sadr has instructed his Mahdi Army to avoid confrontations with the Americans.

Hide your weapons at home, smile at US troops and if the Sunni attack, call 911 instead of choosing retaliation. Let the Americans smash the Sunni and save the Mahdi Army the trouble.

My fear is that we are being played, that our blood and treasure will continue to be expended enhancing the Shia grip on Baghdad, contrary to an Arab League (Sunni) strategy of isolating Iran.

Arrest Sadr immediately! (isn't that old warrant from the Najaf stand-off still valid?) and I will reconsider my arguments made here.

Otherwise it is all a charade orchestrated in Tehran and we are being played for fools.

But then I said years ago that Chalabi (and his cronies) probably work for Tehran intelligence (or maybe double agents) and we've been duped into playing Iran's game ever since.

Posted by Bill White at January 25, 2007 09:39 PM

Arrest Sadr immediately!

In all fairness, it wouldn't work. It would be about as popular among the locals as if they marched into Utah in 1855 and arrested Brigham Young. Sadr is a major religious figure among Iraqi Shiites, as well as a popular and powerful political leader. The Shiites would erupt in fury at the United States if they did this.

If the concern is Shiite theocratic domination of Iraq, then it's not so much that "we" are played for fools now as that "we" dropped the ball by invading Iraq in the first place. But certainly continued denial makes it worse.

Posted by Jim Harris at January 25, 2007 10:07 PM

It's interesting Simberg signed this pledge but
a question to ask is how much Simberg gave to the
NSRC last year?

Posted by anonymous at January 25, 2007 10:07 PM

From Laura Rozen (incidentally no fan of this administration):
-----
Funny story. My Dad called today to say he spent 20 minues with George Bush this morning at the hospital where he works in Kansas City. Bush was there to promote his health care initiative, and he came into the little room where the three radiologists were and stayed for a while, accompanied by Sen. Kit Bond and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, and the hospital CEO. "We showed him how technology is critical to getting the job done. ... He's very well informed, very engaging....And the conversation was rolling along and he turned to me, 'Looks like you were born [before] the computer age.' I told him, 'You better believe it.' Somehow - I forget how it got to this in the conversation - something about criticism, and Bush said, 'I know something about criticism.' It was very genuine, very spontaneous; everybody chuckled. He apologized twice in reference to the issue of health care costs ..., he actually apologized twice for not getting the Congress to deal with that issue. ...."

------
This is why even those who find his policies wrong or incorrect, need to admit that Bush is totally well meaning and decent. This is what is lost to some, such as anonymous. If the Dems want to win they better find someone more genuine than Hillary.

Posted by at January 26, 2007 04:45 AM

Sorry. Forgot name on last post...

Posted by Offside at January 26, 2007 04:48 AM

I don't know what the NSRC is, Anonymous Moron. If it has anything to do with Republicans, I've never given a dime to them.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 26, 2007 05:38 AM

I'm going to sign. Our President may not have any strategy for winning in Iraq, and we may simply be sending more of our troops off to be killed, but it is important that we look unified to our enemies, right up to the moment that we finally decide to bug out and abandon the place. Iraq may be a mistake, but I'm okay with letting our troops die for that mistake in order to preserve unity.

Posted by Ron Calloway at January 26, 2007 07:33 AM

Simberg

If you've never given a dime, why would it matter that
you sign the pledge?

The purpose of this pledge is to threaten the cessation of
funding, not, just making vague complaints on the internet.

After all, you don't vot efor democrats, you don't vote for
libertarians, if you don't already contribute, what do they
have to worry about?

It's funny, you don't know what the NSRC is,
given you promote the daily RNC talking points.

Posted by anonymous at January 26, 2007 07:53 AM

It's funny, you don't know what the NSRC is,

That's because there's no such organization. If you're referring to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), you're apparently dyslexic.

Posted by McGehee at January 26, 2007 08:06 AM

If you've never given a dime, why would it matter that
you sign the pledge?

Really -- why do you even care? What is your vendetta against Rand, that you have nothing better to do than come here to his blog and snipe at him like a flea with delusions of grandeur?

You need to run on down to Lives 'R' Us and get you one.

Posted by McGehee at January 26, 2007 08:08 AM

Or Rand just needs to start excerising his Constitutionally protected right to private property and delete the vomit A J-H spews.

Posted by Mike Puckett at January 26, 2007 08:26 AM

Joshua Trevino weighs in on The Pledge

Trevino (hardly a moonbat) writes:

I wrote before that “the mere fact that [the President seeks victory] sets him on a moral plane above the mass of the American left that thinks defeat a wholly palatable option.” This remains true, and the signers of this pledge, in their good intentions, bring this same credit upon themselves. But as the President’s good intentions do not obscure his failure as a wartime leader, so too does the pledge not vindicate itself on the basis of a righteous desire. In the end, all it accomplishes is the squelching of needed debate — and the marriage of conservatism to a doomed design.

Of course, I reject Trevino's commentary on "the Left" however I believe the passage highlighted in bold is entirely spot on.

Just because the President "means well" is not sufficient reason to follow him anywhere he wants to go.

Posted by Bill White at January 26, 2007 09:43 AM

Just because the President "means well" is not sufficient reason to follow him anywhere he wants to go.

Indeed, he is paving a road with good intentions.

Posted by Jim Harris at January 26, 2007 09:57 AM

"Just because the President "means well" is not sufficient reason to follow him anywhere he wants to go."

If that is the case, I wouuld seriously reconsider my alleignece to the Democratic Party if I were you Bill. "Means Well" is their reason for being. If fact, it is the name of their paving company that has done the overwhelming majority of the work on the "Good Intentions" expressway.

You know, the one to the infernal regions that is currently well on its way to completion.

Posted by Mike Puckett at January 26, 2007 10:00 AM

Here's a pledge for our anonymous troll: if you really oppose the war, graze on over here and follow the advice therein. We'll check back with you on April 17th.

(I'm kidding, of course. Anonymous obviously has no income and therefore is paying no tax to begin with. And if by some chance I'm wrong, Anonymous will [again] be proven a hypocritical, lying coward.)

Posted by Jay Manifold at January 26, 2007 07:27 PM

it's more effective to visit your congresscritter.

Posted by anonymous at January 26, 2007 08:43 PM

Looks like some comment spam got past the filter!

No, I won't be signing, for the very simple reason that it would be meaningless and/or dishonest - I'm British.

However: We (the Western powers, but especially America, who have supplied the lion's share of the troops) should never have gone in, and there have been many and serious mistakes mostly caused by arrogance (such as disbanding the Iraqi army with no other way for them to make a living).

Nevertheless, having gone in, and turned a functioning country that was no friend to terrorists into a hellhole that breeds terrorists like bacteria, it has now become our duty to clean up the mess we made. You break it, you own it. And again, America bears the lion's share of the responsibility, as well it should.

Very unfortunate, that one of the worst presidents in America's history was around at the same time as Britain's very worst Prime Minister.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at January 27, 2007 05:25 AM

That "functioning country that was no friend to terrorists" killed millions. Its replacement, the "hellhole that breeds terrorists like bacteria," kills thousands. Believe it or not, there's a difference between thousands and millions -- in this case, about an order of magnitude difference in annual violent deaths.

Ironically, I agree that disbanding the Iraqi army was a mistake; we should have taken the lot of them prisoner and transported them to the US for a year or so of serious deprogramming. Like memetic engineering, physical reconstruction has been woefully neglected. In general, it's the incompleteness and indecisiveness of our action in Iraq that may guarantee a much, much larger war in the future.

Bush is merely deeply uninspiring, not "one of the worst presidents in America's history." He's managed to get immigration and (some) tax stuff right, but that's about it. But Blair the worst-ever PM? Yeah, sure. Worse than, to pick a purely random example, Lord North?

Statements like these make me wish we had an intelligent anti-war movement.

Posted by Jay Manifold at January 27, 2007 08:01 AM

This isn't either supported by evidence or consistent with itself. First off, the difference between a thousand and a million is not one order of magnitude, it's three orders of magnitude. Second, you would have to, on the one hand, embrace speculations of undocumented deaths under Saddam Hussein as the gospel truth; and on the other hand, reject all speculation of unreported deaths in the current civil war, and only count individual reports of people killed.

You can't have it both ways. If you think that the Lancet study is not rigorous enough to trust, then you have no reason to believe that Saddam Hussein killed millions of people, because those numbers come from estimates that are less rigorous than the Lancet study. Everyone understood then that deaths that could be proven individually might just be the tip of the iceberg. Now you are absurdly rushing to the defense of Shiite militias with the opposite standard, that unreported deaths don't happen. But the Iraqis know otherwise. Even many Iraqi bloggers have seen people killed with their own eyes, and in many cases carted away and buried without any official record.

To be concrete, let's just take documented killings even though everyone knows that they are an underestimate. There are now 100 documented killings a day in Iraq, which is 35,000 per year. Now, Saddam Hussein ruled for 30 years, so if you multiplied that out, you would get a million people. But who knows how many undocumented killings there are. If the war in Iraq is anything like other wars, it would have several undocumented killings for every documented one.

Posted by Jim Harris at January 27, 2007 10:46 AM

It's not particularly relevant since I'm not a republican, don't contribute to senate campaigns in any way, nor an in a position (being in the state of California) to elect a republican senator, but I wouldn't sign such a petition. The senator was elected to exercise his judgement in situations like this. If I feel the decision is grossly in error (especially if it appears to be so for political reasons), then I will vote against such a senator and support opponents. But I won't universally condemn such action.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at January 27, 2007 04:39 PM

Hold on there. That does not sound like the Fletcher Christian who advocated tha bombing of Mecca and Medina. I smell a fake post while Rand is away. Is that really you Fletcher?

Posted by Offside at January 27, 2007 06:08 PM

Offside, the two positions are not inconsistent.

The link is that, in my opinion, the whole of the Islamic world, never mind that part of it occupied by Arabs, is not worth the life of any American, British, or for that matter any other Western soldier.

Iraq was not responsible for 9/11. Saudi Arabia was. Iraq, though a disgusting hellhole, was no friend to Al Qaeda - Saudi Arabia was its main source of funds. Iraq was not a theocracy; Saudi Arabia was - and is.

The proper response to 9/11 was to destroy one of their cities - preferably the one causing all the trouble, Mecca. Failing that, Riyadh, the centre of the Wahabism that bred Al Qaeda. This would have given the right message; that we consider one of our buildings to be worth one of their cities. And make it plain that the same arithmetic would be applied in the future.

This approach would have cost a few million dollars and approximately zero Allied casualties. Instead of which, President Bush has spent a trillion dollars and thousands of allied soldiers' lives, to say nothing of at least tens of thousands of Iraqi ones, and made a breeding ground for terrorists. The situation is now much worse than before 9/11.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at January 28, 2007 09:55 AM

The proper response to 9/11 was to destroy one of their cities - preferably the one causing all the trouble, Mecca.

Foreign policy from the school of Barry Goldwater and Tom Tancredo.

President Bush has spent a trillion dollars and thousands of allied soldiers' lives, to say nothing of at least tens of thousands of Iraqi ones, and made a breeding ground for terrorists.

This part is true, but...

Posted by Jim Harris at January 28, 2007 10:31 AM

I do find it deeply disturbing thatt we have
our military officers calling on us to express
the Correct Opinions "in the name of The War".

If such regimentation of opinion is the price of
"Victory", then what are we fighting for?

The good General Petraeus knew the job was
dangerous when he took it: his duty is not to
tell us and our civilian political leaders how
to speak or to vote (and especially how not to!),
no matter how militarily convenient he might
consider it to have a unified expression of
political opinion in order not to "encourage
The Enemy".

However much he might prefer that (and we ought
to look upstream and see why our top military
people are allowing themselves to think in such
terms), his duty is to lead the armed forces of
a nation that prizes prizes freedom of political
expression, as a point of national identity.

-dw

Posted by David Weinshenker at January 28, 2007 10:34 AM

Fletcher, I can't agree with you that you could hold a nation responsible for the actions of a group, a group that nation is terrified of as well. On the other hand, the Saudis are, or have been the proponents worldwide of the brand of Islam that is at the root of the Al-Qaeda brand of terror. So isn't it funny that now we may be teaming up with one of the prime catalysts of 9/11 to possibly attack Iran. In any case, without being at war against Saudi Arabia, how could you attack a Saudi city? Collective punishment? Could you see the Bush family launching an attack on Saudi Arabia? Come on!

On your point that things are now much worse than before 9/11 that I agree with - Bush didn't think far, tossed the coin and we've all lost. This surge isn't going to work either. The Shia-Sadr-ites will sit it out and meanwhile do all they can to help wipe out the Sunnis.

There is one way to stop the surge. Maliki decides to hodls a referendum on the presence of US troops. His party which has already said we should leave wins. What do we do? Flout democracy? No. So we leave. Bush saves face and it's all over by 2008.

Posted by Offside at January 28, 2007 10:35 AM

Bush saves face and it's all over by 2008.

Bush has his own plan to save face: Insist forever that we're winning in Iraq. Or if that becomes untenable, that we can win and must win. That way, his base will condemn the next president for the manifest defeat. Their angry reaction to the Iraq Study Group was a dress rehearsal.

But hey, he "means well".

Posted by Jim Harris at January 28, 2007 11:04 AM

Offside, the West is at war with Islam. Or maybe in some other sort of conflict, in some technical sense. Or it could, which is my preferred analogy, be likened to a virulent disease - maybe a memetic one.

In either case, either attack the enemy at its heart, or cut out the disease at its focus.

Mecca.

The fact that the target is on Saudi soil would be a bonus.

As for being at war; hmmm... A member of the extended Saudi royal family (and certainly a respected Saudi citizen) was responsible for a military attack, causing massive property damage and loss of life, on an American asset. I am not a legal professional, but maybe this means that America is de facto at war with Saudi Arabia?

Maybe the really correct course of action would have been the invasion that was in fact mounted, but with Saudi as the target. More justifiable, and a great deal easier, and more profitable. And better from the point of view of securing strategic reserves.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at January 28, 2007 12:34 PM

Eh, I can see a strong reason that the invasion of Iraq would have improved the security of the oil system, but an unprovoked invasion of Saudi Arabia wouldn't cut it. And nuking Mecca to "strike" at the heart of a religion that really isn't causing the US much trouble (and for that matter has a number of US followers)? A completely reprehensible action that no doubt will have the opposite effect? And would be remembered for millenia as the gold standard for colossal and brutal stupidity?

As I see it, the key problems with the US's security situation are mostly internal. Even if we kill off the Islamic terrorist groups, there will always be others who will play that game. At some point, the US has to address the underlying vulnerabilities that make it such a juicy target. Such things as permitting terrorism on home soil, concentrating important infrastructure in vulnerable areas, or allowing organizations to grow bureacratic and unresponsive.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at January 29, 2007 06:17 AM

Unprovoked invasion. Right. Funding an attack on American soil causing a billion dollars of damage and three thousand lives to be lost, not a provocation?

If 9/11 was the reason for the invasion of Iraq, why? Was there actually any evidence that iraq had anything to do with it? When Iraq actually suppressed Shia Islam and particularly Al Qaeda?

Such an attack might well have been remembered for millennia, as a reminder that America can only be pushed so far and you shouldn't mess with it. And in any case, a nuke would be unnecessary; ask the inhabitants of Tokyo or Dresden, or Coventry, about that one. Mecca is a relatively small city.

I submit that the real reason for that invasion was that Bush had to do something, or lose the next election; that Iraq was internationally unpopular because of its documented use of WMDs on its own people; and perhaps more importantly that Bush Jr felt that he had to finish the job that Bush Snr had failed to finish, also for political reasons.

As for "wasn't causing much trouble"; well, think long-term. Europe is on the point of being lost. So is a large part of the former Soviet Union. And a large part of Southeast Asia. And of course the whole Middle East is already under a theocracy. In addition to that; Moslems just breed faster than followers of any Western religion except maybe Catholics (who also threaten to swamp America, mostly illegally, by sheer numbers).

American Caliphate in 2050? Maybe. America as part of Latin America at the same date? Maybe. Divided between the two? Maybe.

Politicians are supposed to think long-term; unfortunately, in an increasingly ill-educated democracy, they can't and still be in office after the next election; which makes a democrat's (small d) time span for planning four years or less.

Ask the Christians in the Phillipines whether they think Islam is troublesome. It isn't just Arabs.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at January 29, 2007 04:17 PM

Post a comment