Category Archives: War Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Hope’n’Change

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CNN, of all places, is reporting good news from Iraq: Christmas in Baghdad:

On a large stage, children dressed in costumes representing Iraq’s many ethnic and religious groups — Kurds, Turkmen, Yazidis, Christians, Arab Muslims not defined as Sunni or Shiite — hold their hands aloft and sing “We are building Iraq!” Two young boys, a mini-policeman and a mini-soldier sporting painted-on mustaches, march stiffly and salute.

Even before I can ask Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul Karim Khalaf a question, he greets me with a big smile. “All Iraqis are Christian today!” he says.

Khalaf says sectarian and ethnic violence killed thousands of Iraqis. “Now that we have crossed that hurdle and destroyed the incubators of terrorism,” he says, “and the security situation is good, we have to go back and strengthen community ties.”

I guess now that the evil Republikkkans have been overthrown, and hope has returned to this fair land, it’s all right to report good news again. I expect that the number of homeless (at least as reported) will precipitously decline as well in the new year, despite the fact that we’re in what appears to be a quite deep recession. There are only homeless and failed wars in Republican administrations.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Remembering December 13th

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It’s been five years since Saddam Hussein was pulled from his rat hole:

Saddam Hussein, his sons, and his supporters terrorized the people of Iraq and subjected them to violence and maltreatment without reason or restraint. His record of rape, torture, murder, and oppression is well documented but marginalized and deflected by critics who claim that the violence of the war overshadows Hussein’s heinous crimes. This argument does not, and cannot stand. During Saddam Hussein’s reign, Iraqis had no sense that the terror would ever end. The individual citizen had neither the right nor the ability to oppose Saddam’s henchmen, who took what they wanted, killed and raped at will, and tortured (think hooks, blowtorches, and electricity) to intimidate or eliminate potential enemies. The purpose of this evil was solely to maintain Saddam’s power and strengthen his regime by dominating the will of the people. He was held up as something more than human, above all laws and criticism and accountable to no one. Operation Desert Storm did little to give Iraqis lasting hope that Saddam would be defeated, and when he ruthlessly crushed the Shia and Kurds after the war without response from the West, they recognized it as another validation of Saddam’s invincibility.

When U.S. soldiers pulled Saddam Hussein from that hole in Tikrit, the spell that had held Iraqis captive for decades was broken. Suddenly, there was a glimmer of hope for a population who had never had the right to dream of a better life. That hope is what differentiates every day before December 13, 2003, from every day since. It is the hope that things will get better, that the individual life can mean something. That the next generation can live a better life than the current one, and that through effort and will the people can make tomorrow better than today. This hope is fundamental to meaningful human existence, but is often taken for granted by Americans who have never endured a life where its expression is denied by a cruel dictator. Some suggest that Saddam’s dictatorship, though cruel and oppressive, was the only way to effectively control the tribes, maintain order, and govern the country. Day by day the Iraqi people are proving them wrong; this is the legacy of December 13.

Abandoning the Iraqis to this monster (after encouraging them to rise against him) in 1990 will be seen by history as a major policy blunder. When you kick a can down the road, it sometimes turns into a grenade.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

A Pack, Not A Herd

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Some sense from across the pond, on the policy foolishness of disarming the citizenry. As Mumbai showed, it only makes people helpless victims against the enemy. And in broad terms, the enemy is anyone who worships entropy and mayhem. As Alfred said in Dark Knight, “Some men just want to see the world burn.” And they will get their wish if we don’t defend ourselves against them.

Rhetoric about standing firm against terrorists aside, in Britain we have no more legal deterrent to prevent an armed assault than did the people of Mumbai, and individually we would be just as helpless as victims. The Mumbai massacre could happen in London tomorrow; but probably it could not have happened to Londoners 100 years ago.

In January 1909 two such anarchists, lately come from an attempt to blow up the president of France, tried to commit a robbery in north London, armed with automatic pistols. Edwardian Londoners, however, shot back – and the anarchists were pursued through the streets by a spontaneous hue-and-cry. The police, who could not find the key to their own gun cupboard, borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by, while other citizens armed with revolvers and shotguns preferred to use their weapons themselves to bring the assailants down.

Today we are probably more shocked at the idea of so many ordinary Londoners carrying guns in the street than we are at the idea of an armed robbery. But the world of Conan Doyle’s Dr Watson, pocketing his revolver before he walked the London streets, was real. The arming of the populace guaranteed rather than disturbed the peace.

Nineteenth-century London (and India) was much better suited for civil defense against monsters like this than the twenty-first century version.

History, War Commentary

Remember

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Sixty-seven years ago, a date that still lives in infamy. And this year, it too falls on a Sunday. Will September 11th be remembered as long? It seems that, despite the recent attacks in India, many have forgotten that we are at war with an ideology just as (if not more) dangerous than the ones we fought then.

Randy Barnett happened to be visiting Honolulu, coincidentally, and describes the memorials. I was there a couple years ago, and though not on the anniversary (it was a few weeks earlier), it was a somber and interesting experience.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, War Commentary

They Didn’t Get The Memo

Iowahawk, as usual, has the scoop on the real cause of the attacks in Mumbai:

…Qasim said that Al Qaeda would work to make amends with victims of the Mumbai tragedy, including sending flowers and handwritten apology notes containing 1000 rupee ($12.65) PakMart gift cards to the surviving families of all 173 dead. Wounded victims are slated to receive a 50 rupee coupon good at participating Waziristan Fried Chicken restaurants.

“Ultimately, I know the ‘buck stops here,’ but I just want to remind everybody in the infidel world that the only gripe that we’ve really ever had with you is about George Bush,” said Qasim. “There’s just something instantly irritating about that guy, you know what I mean? It’s that smirk, the way he says ‘nuke-u-ler’ and all that ‘evildoers’ crap. There’s only so much you can take of him before you start flying planes into skyscrapers or bombing subways, or shooting Hindus, or beheading Thai school teachers, and what-have-you.”

“Believe me, now that Bush is out of the picture we’re just as upset about those senseless killings as everybody else, especially those of us who actually did the senseless killing,” he added. “All we ask is that the Indian judges not take it too hard on Ajmal. The poor kid feels bad enough already. It’s not his fault he didn’t find out about the infidel elections, you know how hard it is to get a decent Verizon cell in Mumbai. Now that we’re all on the same page again it would be a great time for all of us, believers and infidels alike, to put all the nonsense of the Bush years behind us and rekindle that beautiful peace and friendship thing we all had going on back in 2000.”

It’s too bad that Saddam didn’t survive the Bush regime. They might still be flying kites in Baghdad.

Political Commentary, Space and Campaign 2008, War Commentary

Change I Can Believe In

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It’s looking like Gates is going to stay at the Pentagon. I think that’s good news from a space perspective, because I’ve heard that he’s been trying to light a fire under the Operationally Responsive Space folks. It would be a shame to replace him with an unknown in that regard. There should (at least in theory) be a lot of synergy between military and civil space transport needs, in both orbital and suborbital. I hope that the new administration will be able to do better coordination on that than the Bush administration did.

History, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Slow Posting

6 Comments

I got up early today and had an eye exam (still have two functional ones). They were dilated in the process, so it will be a while before I spend much time on the computer. Meanwhile, here’s an interesting discussion on arming ships against pirates in modern times. We seem to have managed to deal with this a lot better in the past. I think that we should bring back letters of marque, for not just pirates, but lawless terrorists in general.

[Early afternoon update]

A related question: why don’t we hang pirates any more?

…the number of attacks keeps rising.

Why? The view of senior U.S. military officials seems to be, in effect, that there is no controlling legal authority. Title 18, Chapter 81 of the United States Code establishes a sentence of life in prison for foreigners captured in the act of piracy. But, crucially, the law is only enforceable against pirates who attack U.S.-flagged vessels, of which today there are few.

What about international law? Article 110 of the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Convention — ratified by most nations, but not by the U.S. — enjoins naval ships from simply firing on suspected pirates. Instead, they are required first to send over a boarding party to inquire of the pirates whether they are, in fact, pirates. A recent U.N. Security Council resolution allows foreign navies to pursue pirates into Somali waters — provided Somalia’s tottering government agrees — but the resolution expires next week. As for the idea of laying waste, Stephen Decatur-like, to the pirate’s prospering capital port city of Eyl, this too would require U.N. authorization. Yesterday, a shippers’ organization asked NATO to blockade the Somali coast. NATO promptly declined.

As I noted, there seems to be a problem with the modern approach.

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Ominous

8 Comments

As Clark notes, this isn’t directly related to space transportation regulation, but you can see it coming:

The proposed regulation, titled the Large Aircraft Security Program, would require owners of those aircraft to obtain permission from TSA to operate their own personal aircraft every time they carry passengers. Additionally, all flight crews would be required to undergo fingerprinting and a background check, all passengers would have to be vetted against the government’s terrorist watch lists, and numerous security requirements would be imposed on airports serving these “large” aircraft. EAA adamantly opposes this regulation and urges all members to respond to TSA…

“…We thank the TSA for agreeing with the many industry group and EAA members’ requests for an extension, providing an additional two months to study and react to the proposal,” said Doug Macnair, EAA vice president of government relations. “This proposal would be an unprecedented restriction on the freedom of movement for private U.S. citizens. It would also, for the first time, require governmental review and authority before a person could operate his/her own personal transportation conveyance.

First they came after the private aircraft pilots, and I said nothing, because I wasn’t a private aircraft pilot.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

“The War Is Over, And We Won”

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That’s the word from Michael Yon, reporting from Baghdad.

No thanks to the Democrats, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who tried to keep it from happening. I see that they still can’t bring themselves to utter the word “win” with respect to the war. They continue to talk about “ending” it. Well, it looks like George Bush did that for them, and he won it as well. But winning wars is bad, you see, because it just encourages the warmongers.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Be Very Afraid

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Vice-President-Elect Hairplugs wants to be a hands-on VP:

Biden has said he’d like to use his 36 years of experience in the Senate, including leadership of the Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees, to help push Obama’s agenda in Congress. It’s longtime insider’s experience that Obama lacks and a role that has not been Cheney’s focus.

I’m having trouble thinking of a single foreign policy issue in his career on which Joe Biden has been right.

It’s also kind of frightening to think of him as responsible for space policy, as veeps have traditionally been. Particularly milspace.