Thursday, 28 August 2003

Mars Direct: Last night my lady-love surprised me with a visit to the Sydney Observatory, which—for the first time in 60,000 years—had a line of people waiting to get in.

Thank you. I'll be here all week.

In all seriousness, though, we waited over an hour to enter the observatory grounds, peer through one of the half-dozen telescopes they'd set up, and see the planet Mars up close. There's something warmly reassuring about the idea of a thousand Sydney-siders lining up for a peek at the heavens, and the observatory undoubtedly had their best fund-raising night in years. I have to admit that I didn't get to see much; it was a big round ball with a faint orange tint, for as much time as I got to look through the scope. If we had wanted a really good view we'd have needed to get further away from the city lights and rented our own telescope, if that's even possible.

Speaking of the possible, Phil at The Speculist has an interview with Robert Zubrin, the man who's been trying for 20 years to tell everyone that we have all the tools and equipment we need to make permanent settlements on Mars, right now and on less than NASA's annual budget. Zubrin came up with a brilliant and creative plan that uses Mars's atmosphere and high school chemistry to make rocket fuel on the cheap, allowing an expedition to arrive at Mars with empty tanks and refuel once they get there; for decades he's been trying to break through the haze of bureaucracy that has settled around our space program, and find a leader visionary enough to lead America back into genuine space exploration. Here's hoping we find one. Go read the interview.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 11:31 am. comments.

Thursday, 28 August 2003

Forty years ago today. He was the most eloquent American of the Twentieth Century, and this was his greatest speech.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Fivescore years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free; one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination; one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity; one hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.

So we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check ; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

And so we've come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the movement. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. This offense we share mounted to storm the battlements of injustice must be carried forth by a biracial army. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?: We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.

We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of excessive trials and tribulation. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi; go back to Alabama; go back to Louisiana; go back to the slums and ghettos of the northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can, and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

So I say to you, my friends, that even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith we will be able to hear out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to go to jail together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning-"my country 'tis of thee; sweet land of liberty; of thee I sing; land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride; from every mountain side, let freedom ring"-and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that.

Let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants - will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 7:00 am. comments.

Sunday, 24 August 2003

Australia's answer to Pat Buchannan (or, perhaps, to David Duke) began a three-year sentence for election fraud this week: Racist xenophobe Pauline Hanson, founder of the anti-immigrant One Nation Party, filed a fraudulent petition and claimed almost AUD$500,000 (USD$325,000) in campaign funds from the government. To get on the ballot in Queensland, a party must show it has 500 dues-paying members; Hanson just listed 500 names from her Rolodex, which the courts decided wasn't quite good enough.

Back in 1998 One Nation racked up 10% of the national vote and 25% of the Queensland vote, much to the embarrassment of everyone else; they still have a few Members of Parliament to their name, if I'm not mistaken, although they've declined quite a bit from their peak. Oz actually has room for more than two political parties in its system, which means you get more (real) choices on the ballot—but, also, that the voices from the fringe are a bit louder.

Although the majority of Australians loathe Pauline, a surprising number of people think her sentence was too harsh: The "person on the street" view here is that prison is for locking up dangerous people, not loud (but ultimately harmless) buffoons. Many Australians thought Pauline should have paid a fine and done community service, rather than having the state pay $50,000 a year to lock her up.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 8:41 am. comments.

Saturday, 23 August 2003

Eye Candy. More fun with CSS: I've added three new style sheets to the blog, one of which you're seeing now—that is, unless you had already picked a favorite style from the menu in the margin, in which case you'll continue to see your old favorite. Try out the new styles and see which one you like; if you liked the "Classic" style better, you'll find it listed in the menu.

(If this page looks like a jumbled mess, you're probably behind a firewall or retreiving the old CSS from a cache somewhere. Reload the page and it should clear up.)

I've also updated my blogroll and cleaned up the archive links, which means all the maintenance tasks are out of the way, and I'm now ready for some serious blogging. (I think this is the 21st-century version of sharpening your pencils in lieu of writing.)

One more change: I've adjusted the site's RSS feed to only display an article's first sentence, so that it doesn't spam you with false positives each time I correct a speling misteak.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 12:51 pm. comments.

Thursday, 21 August 2003

Check your local listings! Australian television, home of the inspiration factory that brought you Big Brother, is exporting its latest creation to America: A reality TV series called The Block. Four young couples are dropped into a four-unit apartment block in dire need of renovation, they each get a budget and tools, and they compete to see who can build a better kitchen, or bathroom, or whatever room is up for grabs that week. The rooms are judged and the winner gets cash and prizes; at the end of the season they auction off the apartments, and the renovators whose property sells for the most money get an extra $100,000.

I know it sounds crazy, but it's been the highest-rated show on television for months down here. Big Brother is still a hit Down Under, and Oz must have half a dozen TV shows about home improvement, including two or three where a TV crew will swoop down on your home and renovate it (not always to your liking), so The Block just takes two popular genres and combines them. It also takes keeping up with the neighbors to a whole new level, as the teams duke it out to see who can landscape the best lawn or build the better balcony.

The Australian version of The Block features three straight couples and one gay couple, the latter of whom spent most of the season renovating in their underwear; it'll be interesting to see if or how that gets adapted for American television, but the Aussies took it in stride. Anyhow, when you see this show on CBS or Fox in 2004, remember where you read about it first.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 10:44 am. comments.

Wednesday, 20 August 2003

Howard Dean knows I exist. I haven't decided who to vote for yet, or which Democratic candidate I'd like to see win the nomination; I do already know a couple of candidates that I'd rather not see, though. I've ruled out Kucinich for being against free trade, and I've ruled out Gephardt for being… well, for being Gephardt.

As far as Kucinich is concerned, promising to withdraw the United States from NAFTA and the WTO costs you my vote instantly, no questions asked. I don't know much, but I know what happened to the United States the last time we ripped up all our trade agreements in the interests of protecting our economy. I'm one of those high-tech people whose jobs are in danger of being exported to India (or, at least, I would be if I were still working in the United States—I got ahead of the curve and exported myself), but that doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to oppose a pact that brought ten years of economic prosperity to America. Free trade is good, even if it means I have to change jobs and industries more often.

Meanwhile, Gephardt to me is a candidate in the tradition of Walter Mondale, or Mike Dukakis, or Bob Dole for that matter: The hard-working party hack who just doesn't have that spark. When Gephardt trotted out his latest health care plan, I just put my head in my hands; I'm sure his plan will be fascinating to Beltway insiders, but it's just not sizzling campaign material. Gore never found a message that clicked with the people. Gephardt's been trying for decades; I think at some point you have to realize that it's just not going to happen.

Kerry and Lieberman I'm not sure about, and I think we can safely ignore Al Sharpton and the other one-joke candidates (memo to Carol Moseley-Braun: Lightning doesn't strike twice).

And then there's Howard Dean. I'm not sure yet what I think of Dean the candidate, but his campaign is moving in Internet time; I can't help but be impressed by this, and he appears to be tapping into the populist spirit that energized John McCain in 2000. (If McCain had timed his Sister Souljah moment a little better, he might have carried the day. His "Straight Talk Express" was a better campaign than Bush and Gore put together.)

Anyhow, I'm highly amused that the Dean campaign has an "Americans Abroad For Dean" poster that you can download from their web site. In fact, I'm amused enough that I'm checking out their web site, and seeing what the candidate has to say; I might even be crazy enough to click the button that donates money, which would be a personal first.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 11:44 am. comments.

Tuesday, 19 August 2003

War and Peace IV: The Quest for Superman. It's only taken me the better part of a month, but here's the fourth and final part of my fresher, cleaner, better outline of the War on Terror thus far. Read parts one, two and three first, and read Steven's original outline for a different view.

7. Results of military action in Iraq
1. We easily won the war…
1. Faster than a speeding bullet: America's real "shock and awe" tactic is the speed and autonomy of its armed forces.
1. Comprehensive takedown of Iraqi command and control structures, from stealthy special-forces raids to missile attacks on Saddam. With the Americans running an unexpected gambit—a full-thunder charge aimed directly at Baghdad—Saddam simply wasn't given time to mount an effective response.
2. American combat doctrine gives control and authority to commanders in the field, allowing tactical decisions on the fly. (We had a detailed plan for taking the city of Baghdad, which the general on the spot discarded in favor of simply rolling tanks up Baghdad's main street and parking them next to the television cameras.) Meanwhile, Iraqi forces were paralyzed as they lost access to senior Baath Party officials. (Link via Chief Wiggles.)
2. More powerful than a locomotive: The safest place to be during combat is inside an M1A1 Abrams tank.
1. The leading cause of death for M1A1 crew members in combat: Drowning (1). No opposing force has ever killed an Abrams tank crew member.
2. Anti-armor RPGs can disable the M1A1's treads (anti-personnel RPGs just scratch the paint), and there are conflicting reports on whether two Abrams were lost to anti-tank missiles in the recent fighting—but in all cases the crew escaped the tank without injury.
3. The M1A1 is the prime example, but American armor and weapons were vastly superior across the board.
3. Able to smash tall buildings with a single bomb: Precision-guided bombs and missiles are changing the battlefield.
1. If you live in a desert and have no air force, the USAF has got your number—it's programmed into one of their satellite-guided bombs. America's armed forces have now proven themselves twice vs. opponents with weak air defenses and limited terrain features.
2. Since 1991 the Air Force has equipped almost all its aircraft to carry precision munitions; one reason we didn't have a six-week bombing campaign is that one week of 2003 bombing did just as much damage.
3. Crew-fired weapons without air cover (e.g., tanks, artillery, etc.) are just targets waiting to die. Most of Iraq's forces were destroyed before coalition land forces even came within range.
4. …and Iraq didn't have any kryptonite.
1. The bottom line: We are rapidly reaching the point where conventional weapons plainly and simply don't work against the United States, even as a deterrent. America can clobber any conventional force in the world with ease.
2. This simple fact is driving the proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. North Korea, armed to the teeth with conventional weapons, is still not "safe" from America's armed forces.
3. All evidence to date suggests that Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1990s, that he retained the ability to make more (regardless of whether he fully destroyed the weapons he had created), and that he likely would have begun making them the moment international sanctions were lifted… but Saddam did not pose an imminent WMD threat, as members of the Bush Administration alleged.
2. …and we're struggling to win the peace.
1. Our only tool is a hammer.
1. America's forces are well-trained, well-equipped and well-prepared as an army of liberation. An occupation army requires more MPs, more translators, and most of all more troops. Shinseki was right, Rumsfeld was wrong.
2. Not having enough translators is especially telling. Our troops spent months in Kuwait, years in Saudi, surrounded by native speakers, we've known Iraq was coming for at least two years if not more… so why weren't buck privates learning Arabic in droves?
3. "Voice of Iraq" radio and television programming should have begun as soon as we seized control of the transmitters (with the announcement of plans to privatize state-owned media to follow). With a literacy rate of 40%, radio and television are much more important than newspapers in Iraq; we missed this and other opportunities to make a stronger first impression on the Iraqi people.
4. Killing Uday and Qusay proves once again that we can do the military part well, but doesn't address our ability to convert a culture to democracy.
2. Plenty of war-games, not enough peace-games.
1. Post-war planning should have been a cooperative effort between Defense and State, but intra-Cabinet rivalries prevented that from happening. Dubya resolved the impasse by putting the Pentagon in charge, but this is like solving inter-service rivalries by always letting the Army decide: Sometimes you don't get the best results that way.
2. We had elaborate contingency plans for all the possible military scenarios, but we didn't get much past "…and then a democracy springs fully formed from the desert sand" in our post-war planning. Third Infantry is improvising in the field (effectively, in many cases), but our efforts at nation-building suffer from a lack of forethought.
3. Our post-war playbook may have covered the worst-case scenarios (cholera epidemic, refugee crisis, famine, etc.) in more depth, but once again the doomsday predictions did not come to pass.
4. The hard left of American politics reflexively opposes what Dubya supports, abhors the use of military force, and underestimates America's performance on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the hard right's mantra is that dissent is treason, naysayers are America-hating Communist-sympathizing Saddam lovers, and so forth. This is not the free exchange of ideas that powers a democracy, and our post-war efforts are not informed or improved by these sentiments.
3. Bootstrapping a nation is harder than it looks.
1. Japan is the shining example of a "backward" nation that adapted Western tactics and leapfrogged to the top—but Japan was (is) a rigid, hierarchical culture, driven by a deliberate top-level decision to adopt Western technologies and methods of production. Iraq's culture is tribal and family-based, and has systemic problems with cronyism, corruption, and maintaining the rule of law.
2. The road from monarchy to democracy is well-traveled; the road from tribalism to democracy, less so. Democracy imposed on a tribal structure often degenerates into nepotism and one-party kleptocracy.
3. …but half a loaf is better than Saddam, whose Baath Party government was already the worst of the worst. Any change in Iraq's government represents an improvement.
4. Making a lasting change to Iraq's government and society will require a lot of time, effort, and patience. By building its case on shaky ground—by using the premise that Saddam posed an imminent WMD threat—the Bush Administration implied a short war (to remove the threat) and delivered a long one (to reform Iraq).
5. Bush now runs the risk that popular support for our Iraq commitment will fade before the 2004 elections. It was easier to make a case for war on the pretense that Saddam posed an imminent threat and was working hand-in-hand with Osama—but by doing so Bush neglected the more difficult and potentially stronger argument that Iraq was the key to a lasting solution for ending Mideast terrorism (as several right-wing pundits have claimed).
6. Congressional Democrats also did us a disservice by failing to debate any of Bush's premises for war, choosing instead to roll over and hope the subject changed to the economy. (It didn't.) By failing to test any of Bush's rationales in the crucible of democracy, the Democrats gave Bush a victory by default, weakened their 2002 election chances, and left us doubly unprepared for the post-war struggle to rebuild Iraq.
3. Mission accomplished?
1. Saddam is deposed, his sons are dead, and their reign of terror has (mostly) ended.
1. This is unquestionably a Good Thing. The only debate is whether Saddam could have been deposed more easily with sanctions or other soft-power pressures, and that question has been answered at length.
2. Many believe that war is always the wrong answer, that there must be peaceful ways to achieve our goals, and that our inability to peacefully remove Saddam from power was in itself a failure. History mocks these beliefs and is cruel to those who hold them; while we all may hope for a world without violence, wishing does not make it so.
2. Iraq is no longer exporting instability and terrorism.
1. …now we have terrorism inside Iraq, mounting daily attacks on our soldiers. It's only a matter of time before the first Khobar Towers-sized truck bomb.
2. On the other hand, state-sponsored terrorism has been dealt a double blow, first in Afghanistan and then Iraq; several signs that Syria et al. are backing away from direct support for terrorists, at least for now.
3. Positive effects on other nations in region.
1. Palestinians are at least entertaining the notion that their "suicide bombing" strategy is not working. Israelis and Palestinians are talking to each other again.
2. Liberal elements in Iran are challenging the theocrats' hold on power.
3. Calls for political reform in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
4. American military is stretched to its limits.
1. Our troop commitment in Iraq is more than we can sustain without suffering a gradual degradation of combat readiness. We do not have enough men and women in uniform to rotate the Third Infantry out of Iraq, and the prolonged overseas tours of duty are affecting maintenance schedules, marriages, training, morale, and re-enlistment rates.
2. Iraq deployment leaves us with fewer assets available to defend against North Korean threats, should the need arise.
3. With the "world's policeman" preoccupied in Iraq for the next five to ten years, the world could become a very interesting place. Bad news for innocents in Aceh, Chechnya, Burma, (Liberia?) and other places that in quieter times might be getting more attention.
8. The future
1. For Iraq, the question on the table is what we should do now.
1. Like it or not, we've invaded Iraq, toppled the government, and committed the bulk of our armed forces to this endeavor.
1. Maybe we shouldn't have invaded Iraq.
2. Maybe Bush shouldn't be President.
3. Maybe the Kansas City Royals shouldn't have won the '85 World Series.
4. Maybe we're past the point in time where debating these questions can have any impact.
5. The only value in re-fighting these fights is to let certain Democratic candidates (Howard Dean) show how they wouldn't have been rolled as quickly as their peers were.
2. Returning to the status quo ante is not possible or desirable.
1. We now have the duty to replace Saddam, since we took on the duty of overthrowing him.
2. Restoring him to power, or allowing him to regain power, would be an unthinkable breach of that duty.
3. Permitting another dictator to take his place, or allowing a fundamentalist theocracy, would be equally derelict.
4. America's founding premise is that governments derive power from the consent of the governed.
5. We must establish such a government in Iraq.
3. Building a stable democracy in Iraq will take a long time. Thirty years of Baath Party rule have weakened cultural pillars that support democracy, including these norms:
1. Force is not an acceptable means of settling political disputes. Anyone using violence to advance a political cause is automatically and universally condemned; the only valid use of force in the political arena is as a last-ditch response to tyranny.
2. The rule of law applies fairly, impartially, and consistently to all members of society. A crime is a crime, a contract is a contract, regardless of whether it's a cousin or a stranger, and regardless of the defendant's politics or religion.
3. Individual freedom is highly valued. People are allowed to choose their religion, speak their peace, decide on a career, and generally run their lives without interference or penalty.
4. Wealth is the reward of ambition and hard work, not the inheritance of power or blue-blood aristocracy. Anyone can enter the upper tiers of society, and precious few (if any) are guaranteed a berth.
4. America's success at building stable democracy in Iraq will depend on how well (and how quickly) we can establish these norms.
1. We need more troops. Fundamental security issues will block the establishment of these values: If we can't guarantee public safety, then we certainly can't guarantee the rule of law or the exercise of individual freedom.
2. "More troops" doesn't have to mean more American troops: Any nationality will do (including Iraqis), provided they embrace these core values and are prepared to defend them.
3. America's ability to impose a "no more violence" standard has been compromised by our role in the war: Iraqis are now being asked to make the fine distinction between resisting an evil tyrant (morally right) and resisting an occupying army (morally wrong, in this case).
4. Bush and team have largely failed in their efforts to recruit more peacekeepers from other nations, or to win the United Nations imprimatur that would bring relief to our troops.
5. High risk, high reward.
1. Rightly or wrongly, President Bush has made the high-stakes gamble that a pre-emptive strike on Iraq will reduce the threat of terrorism.
2. The gamble may pay off. Unlike Vietnam, which was literally a no-win scenario (the U.S. was fighting for a draw), the Iraq scenario has several possible outcomes which would meet the criteria for success.
3. The gamble may not pay off, in which case many American men and women will have died in vain.
4. By hyping Iraq's "imminent" WMD threat and playing up weak evidence of an Al Qaeda connection, Bush led the American people to believe the risks of not invading Iraq were greater than they actually were. The danger now is that those who were deceived, and who based their support for the war on Bush's unsupported claims, will turn their back on the entire effort once they learn the truth.
5. Those who supported the war for more solid reasons will continue to support it; the question is whether the war's supporters will remain in the majority. The depth and breadth of that support may be sorely tested in years to come.
9. We can still lose this war.
1. Our success depends on preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons—but our actions are having the opposite effect.
1. America's ever-increasing ability to crush conventional armies, and our growing contempt for the issues and concerns of other nations, sets the stage for increased deployment of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
2. The law of unintended consequences in action: Almost every nation on earth glanced at its conventional forces at the end of Gulf War II, and reached the same conclusion—tanks and planes are just cannon fodder to the Americans. If I want to deter Bush, I need nukes.
3. Go-it-alone unilateralism weakens international efforts to contain nuclear weapons. Discrediting the IAEA was not in our interest.
4. North Korea and Iran are fast-tracking nuclear development.
5. Rogue actors with nukes are the ultimate "lose" scenario for the United States. Sam Nunn is still the American Cassandra.
6. To date, nuclear weapons have remained beyond the grasp of non-state actors, requiring skills and materials that only a state has at its disposal. (Non-state actors have deployed chemical and biological weapons in the past.) As the number of nuclear-armed states goes up, so too does the risk that terrorists will have access to them.
2. Our success depends in no small part on how we're perceived abroad, especially in Iraq.
1. If we're seen as liberators, then our chances of success improve, and resistance to our efforts will diminish over time.
2. If we're seen as occupiers, then resistance to our efforts will continue and increase.
3. Our commitment to democratic principles at home affects how we're perceived abroad, and that commitment wavers each time a politician makes a short-term gain at democracy's expense:
1. Choosing our judges based on political litmus tests.
2. Short-changing debate because it's not politically expedient.
3. Eliminating taxes on inherited idle wealth.
4. Answering dissent with accusations of treason.
5. Invading privacy with Orwellian police powers.
6. Creating secret tribunals and special prisons.
7. Suspending and violating civil liberties.
4. We can't nurture democracy abroad and neglect it at home.
5. "Local" efforts by the troops may ultimately be the key to Iraq, but this only re-emphasizes the need for more troops.
3. Our success depends on continued public support for the Iraq reconstruction effort.
1. Popular support for toppling Saddam may have been higher than popular support for occupying Iraq, especially since WMDs and Al Qaeda links were emphasized as reasons for war. Now that Saddam's gone, the "imminent WMD threat" is obviously removed, and the "Al Qaeda links" are clearly dissolved—and the good reasons why our troops are still hanging around in Iraq and getting shot at are… what were they again?
2. In other words, Bush's case for invading Iraq was a bait and switch. The neo-con fantasy was a tough sell to a skeptical crowd, but the "Saddam has the Bomb!" scare tactic was an easy way to drum up support for military action.
3. If we lose popular support for occupying Iraq, the neo-con plans for remaking the Middle East will come crashing down in a jumbled mess.
4. Our success depends on having enough troops to get the job done.
1. Bush Administration still refusing to negotiate with France or Russia, righteously protecting the Iraqi people from unfavorable oil deals that might, oh, help get the electricity back on and diminish the attacks on our troops. (Meanwhile, Halliburton pockets another no-bid contract.)
2. We don't have enough troops to sustain this level of commitment. Something has to give soon; let's hope it's not our resolve.
3. Our best hope of success is that Bush swallows his hubris and does what's required to win at least NATO support.
5. Historically, America's interventions and nation-building projects have a mixed record: There have been some successes (e.g., Germany, Japan, Grenada), many failures (Cuba, Vietnam, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Guatemala), a few mixed results (the Philippines, Mexico), and one too early to tell (Afghanistan). We can only hope that our efforts in Iraq and the Mideast will be successful—but the road ahead may be longer or harder than we think.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 11:25 am. comments.

Friday, 08 August 2003

War and Peace, Part 3-D: Ever start a project, get about halfway through it, and then your enthusiasm flags and it starts to become a chore? Here's the third part of my version of Steven Den Beste's strategic overview of the War on Terror thus far; read Part 1 and Part 2 first.

5. Stage 1: Afghanistan
1. Afghanistan was a failed state without a functioning sovereign.
1. Nominally governed by the Taliban, an ultraconservative Islamic sect.
2. In practice mostly an anarchy of opium growers and private armies.
3. Used as a safe haven and training camp by Al Qaeda.
2. The Taliban couldn't have detained or extradited Osama Bin Laden even if they had chosen to.
1. Al Qaeda's terrorist army was comparable in size to the forces the Taliban could raise in their own defense.
2. Some evidence hints the more pragmatic Taliban members were perfectly willing to trundle up Osama and drop him off at the nearest consulate, but the option simply wasn't available to them.
3. Our goals:
1. To capture Osama, dead or alive.
1. The Bush Administration has stopped talking about this goal, due to their lack of success—but we're still very interested in achieving it.
2. To deny Al Qaeda the use of Afghanistan as a safe haven.
3. To reduce or destroy Al Qaeda's abilities to mount terrorist attacks.
4. If we happened to make life better for Afghans in the process, great.
5. If we happened to strike fear into the hearts of other nations that were harboring or cooperating with terrorists, even better.
4. Effects of the war in Afghanistan.
1. Reduced Al Qaeda's membership by the most direct available means.
2. Reduced or eliminated Al Qaeda's ability to recruit new members.
3. Greatly reduced Al Qaeda's stature in the Islamic world.
4. Diminished Al Qaeda's ability to mount offensive operations.
5. Toppled the Taliban and replaced it with (fragile) democracy.
1. It isn't Sweden yet, but it's the best Afghanistan has had in decades.
6. Newfound respect for American military prowess.
1. Increased intel sharing from other nations in region.
2. Start of a decline in overt state-sponsored terrorism.
5. Net result: Successful operation in all aspects but one (capturing Osama).
6. Stage 2: Iraq
1. Iraq was a perennial thorn in America's side.
1. 1991 Gulf War ended prematurely.
1. At the end of the war we left the Kurds and Shiites to mop up Saddam, failing to realize that a "people power" revolt would get slaughtered. Iraq is not the Phillippines.
2. "No-fly zones" established to prevent further massacres.
2. Saddam's chief exports: Terrorism, regional instability, exiles.
1. Offered rewards to families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
2. Attempted to assasinate a former U.S. President.
3. Attacked Iran and Kuwait; threatened Saudi Arabia.
4. Four million Iraqis living in exile (vs. 24.6 million living in Iraq).
3. "Smart sanctions" policy utterly ineffective.
1. Saddam controlled the entire distribution chain; used it to feed his friends, starve his enemies.
2. Instead of using baby formula to feed children, Saddam went abroad and sold it for cash.
3. Saddam's propaganda mill had a field day with sanctions, with fake reports of dying children that damaged U.S.'s reputation abroad.
4. Net effect of sanctions: To increase the dependency of the Iraqi people upon their government, further tightening Saddam's hold on power.
2. Iraq war plans were drawn up before September 11th.
1. Senior members of Bush cabinet lobbied Clinton to invade Iraq.
2. Presenting Iraq plans as a response to 9/11 was a question of packaging what was already on the table.
3. There is a strong chance that even if 9/11 had not occurred, Bush would still have led the U.S. to war in Iraq. We can only speculate on what might have been, but certainly Perle, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld (if not Cheney) would have been pushing in that direction regardless.
3. Our goals:
1. To remove Saddam Hussein from power, and (preferably) capture or kill him.
2. To remove a source of instability and terrorism in the Middle East.
3. To remove an obstacle to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
4. To secure the blessings of liberty for the Iraqi people.
1. The U.S. is founded on the premise that the Iraqi people are responsible for securing their own liberty—that it's their duty to so do, in the words of the Declaration of Independence—but history has repeatedly shown that American interests coincide with helping other nations to secure these rights.
5. To right past wrongs between America and the Iraqi people.
1. We engineered the coup that put Saddam in power in the first place.
2. We have repeatedly betrayed the Kurds and Shiites in their past bids to remove Saddam from power, promising them support that we never delivered.
6. To eliminate an ongoing threat to a vital American strategic interest.
1. It's not all about oil, but we're not blind either. The U.S. has a legitimate interest in securing its own economy from attack.
7. (Unconfirmed) "Flypaper" strategy: Put American soliders in vulnerable situations and give terrorists from all over the Mideast an opportunity to shoot them.
1. Wait a minute—our strategy is to use American soldiers as bait?
2. What chowderhead came up with this strategy? "In this part of our brilliant plan, American troops will be picked off and killed in small numbers in order to lure terrorists out of the woodwork." Can you name one person who dared to claim this as their strategy before the troops started dying?
3. Taking people who had insufficient motive, means or opportunity to kill Americans, and putting a parade of targets right in front of them, is not a "strategy" for attracting and eliminating terrorists; Osama will not be drawn out of hiding by the siren call of vulnerable Americans haggling in the Baghdad market-place. This "strategy" is pure spin.
4. Preparation for the war in Iraq.
1. America's "soft power" had been eroded by unilateralism, shoddy diplomacy, and the poor communication skills of our Chief Executive; we were unable to gather international support for our Iraq plans.
1. Blunt handling of Kyoto, ICC, ABM treaty, land mines, et al. left us with no favors to call in and few foreign leaders willing to sacrifice on our behalf. Germany's Schröder, Russia's Putin among the burned.
2. Ease of American victory in Afghanistan, and the fact that we declined offers of military help, dispelled the useful diplomatic fiction that America was a really big lamb with sharp teeth and a mane.
3. Blunt announcement of "pre-emptive strike" policy; nations with an interest in not being pre-emptively struck (i.e., all of them) found common cause for alarm.
4. Bush's iron-tongued phrasing in "with us or with the terrorists" speech came across as "you will do as we say or else" overseas.
5. Tony Blair, alone among European leaders, had the political capital and foresight to lead his people into war—but even he couldn't do it under a unilateral American banner. He needed diplomatic cover in the form of U.N. resolutions.
6. Battle plans required a six-month buildup of forces in the Gulf anyway, so we had nothing to lose by trying our luck at the U.N. for a while.
2. Building support for a pre-emptive war is challenging under the best of circumstances.
1. Must make the case that delay is only postponing the inevitable, and that the enemy will be stronger in the future.
2. Easier to make the humanitarian case for war: That intervention now will stop the killings. This approach is less appealing to strategic-interest purists, though, raising questions of selection (why not Liberia, then?) and motive (why the sudden interest now when Saddam's been genocidal for decades?).
3. Also, Republicans have an "only Nixon can go to China" problem with making the humanitarian case: Only a Democrat can sell the idea that America is dropping bombs out of pure-at-heart liberal goodness. When the Republicans try that line, everyone looks for the real motive.
4. United Nations is very protective of sovereignty and prefers to avoid war at virtually all costs. We designed it that way back in 1947 for what seemed like very good reasons at the time.
5. U.N. resolutions against Iraq have narrowly focused on the WMD issue, in part because acknowledging Saddam's other crimes could implicate Chinese leaders et al.
3. Domestically, little to no debate on the merits of pre-emptive war.
1. Congressional Democrats rolled over, hoping to change the subject; Congressional Republicans pulled out the rubber stamp.
2. Since 1994 Congress itself has become less a forum for debate and more an all-out partisan trench battle. Newt Gingrich's legacy lives on.
3. Politically, abstract arguments about the problems with pre-emptive war, the value of respecting national sovereignty, the merits of establishing a rule of law in international relations, etc., were harder to sell than the concrete, compelling arguments against Saddam Hussein.
4. Nonetheless, the debate deserved to be held. Many on the left felt cheated and abandoned, and stayed home on Election Day 2002.
4. And so America marched off to the U.N., PowerPoint slides in hand…
1. Absent a smoking gun, no nation would be stirred to war by evidence that Iraqi missiles flew ten kilometers further than they should have, or that Iraq's aluminum tubes were just a little too polished. This was never a compelling casus belli, and presenting it as such hurt our credibility.
2. On top of that, the evidence we presented to UNSC was, in fact, flimsy and inadequate. The fact that we're still speculating on whether Saddam even had WMDs in theater, four months after the war's end, speaks volumes about the intel we had before the war; to date we've unearthed no evidence that Saddam posed an imminent threat to anyone (except his fellow Iraqis).
3. For other nations, then, the "Iraq debate" became more of a referendum on the United States' foreign policy, and especially of whether to endorse a policy of pre-emptive warfare on the basis of weak evidence, than a debate about Iraq.
4. U.N. endorsement of such a policy would set a precedent that might come back to haunt us. We would almost certainly argue the other side of this debate if, say, India came to the U.N. with "evidence" that Pakistan was preparing a nuclear strike, and sought a vote asking U.N. member nations to pre-emptively invade Pakistan.
5. It remained possible that the Bush Administration could make the case for invading Iraq, on the basis that Saddam's regime was exceptionally brutal and flagrant in its disregard for U.N. resolutions. Bush's speech in support of UNSC Resolution 1441 made this argument compellingly, and got the Security Council to pass its most assertive resolution in decades.
6. Bush Administration then stumbled and made the second UNSC vote a litmus test of loyalty, instead of repeating its earlier performance. France helped make it possible with an actual betrayal of SecState Powell, by most reports; apparently a chance at toppling Tony Blair was worth more to them.
7. Jacksonian "face culture" wing of American politics preferred retaliation against France at the expense of any serious effort at post-war reconciliation.

(Concluded in Part 4…)

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 7:12 pm. comments.

Tuesday, 05 August 2003

War and Peace Reloaded, Part Deux: This post probably won't make much sense unless you read the first part. I should note that, in the time it's taking me to rebut one lousy outline of his, Steven has cranked out several more novellas about seemingly random topics; I'm trying to think of this as a quality vs. quantity situation, and not that I'm being hopelessly overwhelmed and danced in circles around.

Anyhoo, here's Part II of my strategic outline:

3. Possible responses to September 11th:
1. Defensive responses: Secure our infrastructure, improve our intelligence capabilities, etc. We have generally failed to take these actions.
1. Airport security is even worse than before.
1. Passenger luggage is more vulnerable to theft.
2. Security hassles and delays are crushing the industry.
3. This horse has already left the barn. Any attempted hijacking in the future will be met with deadly force by all other occupants of the aircraft; the implied bargain between hijacker and victim ("stay calm and nobody gets hurt") is no longer in effect.
2. Other infrastructure is still insecure.
1. "Code orange" alerts are unfunded mandates for states and cities. No federal funds supplied to support increased police coverage, security measures, et cetera.
2. There is too much infrastructure to secure effectively. Putting tight security on every bridge, power plant, skyscraper, landmark, restaurant, and shopping mall in America would destroy our way of life.
3. Intelligence failures have still not been addressed.
1. Structural reforms in the aftermath of 9/11 failed to touch the CIA, FBI, NSA.
2. Now we're jumping at shadows. Code orange! Get the duct tape!
3. Keystone Kops approach on Iraqi WMD intel suggests we have not improved our capabilities for collecting, correlating, and analyzing data.
4. Some signs of improved information sharing between agencies, but see below.
2. Orwellian responses: PATRIOT Act, Total Information Awareness, rounding up immigrants, secret tribunals, etc.
1. Tactical mistake.
1. Sends wrong message: Defenders of liberty abroad, Big Brother at home.
2. Gitmo in particular is being used against us overseas. (No troops for you, say India et al.)
3. Consulting with allies mitigates somewhat, at least in UK and Australia.
2. Political mistake.
1. War on Librarians is triggering a backlash.
2. ACLU membership at all-time high. (Not that that's a bad thing…)
3. Treatment of recent immigrants recalls WWII Japanese internment.
3. Historical mistake.
1. "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." —Benjamin Franklin
2. Rights are much harder to recover once surrendered.
3. Diplomatic responses, non-aggressive: Sharing intelligence, building alliances, imposing sanctions, freezing assets, policy changes, economic aid, etc.
1. Alone, none of these actions would be sufficient to prevent future terrorist attacks. Most of them wouldn't have stopped 9/11 in the first place.
2. Policy changes and economic aid unlikely to sway Al Qaeda, at least in the short term.
1. It might be possible to reduce terrorism through a diplomatic policy that aided or sanctioned nations according to their progress at eliminating terrorism.
2. …but it would take decades for that policy to work, if it worked at all, and meanwhile the current crop of terrorists would remain at large.
3. Intel sharing between Western agencies has improved since 9/11; many terrorist assets have been blocked or frozen.
4. Sanctions utterly ineffective at ending threat of terrorism.
4. Diplomatic responses, aggressive: Military aid, supporting insurrections and coups d'etat, creating civil unrest, etc.
1. America moved away from these tactics about 20 years ago and no longer has the resources in place to apply them (except for the granting of military aid, which is unlikely to wipe out Al Qaeda).
2. These sorts of tactics are what trained and equipped Al Qaeda in the first place, back in the day when they were mujahadeen and were fighting off the Soviet invasion.
5. Military responses, low risk: Retaliatory bombing, capturing terrorists and putting them on trial, etc.
1. Not enough to get the job done by themselves. After 9/11, the American people demanded a more complete response.
6. Military responses, medium risk: Supporting Northern Alliance with American troops, logistics and air cover; toppling Taliban government in Afghanistan.
1. Threat of attack from Al Qaeda diminished.
1. Terrorists killed, training camps destroyed, safe haven eliminated.
2. Direct action against Bin Laden's hideout offered best opportunity of capturing or killing him.
2. Low risk of casualties for American soldiers.
1. "Low risk" is a relative term in combat.
2. Nonetheless, American armed forces could be expected to do well against a ragtag army with light weapons and pickup trucks.
3. Low/no risk of WMD attacks, ecological crisis, or humanitarian disaster.
1. There was already a shooting war in progress.
2. No reason to expect WMDs or ecological crisis there.
4. Strong domestic support, minimal diplomatic fallout.
1. American people more supportive of war than any time since 1941.
2. Many allies supported American military action in Afghanistan.
3. Post-war peacekeeping by U.N.-backed multinational force.
7. Military responses, high risk: Invading and conquering Iraq, transforming Middle East into oasis of democracy, etc.
1. Medium risk of casualties for American soldiers.
1. "Medium risk" is again a relative term; "high risk of light casualties" would be more precise. D-Day makes Iraq look like a picnic.
2. Risk of casualties during street fighting in Baghdad, if Saddam forced us to take the city block by block.
3. Risk of casualties during post-combat "peackeeping" roles, for which U.S. soldiers are not as well-trained and equipped as for combat (and in which Americans are more likely to draw fire than other nationalities).
2. Risk of delivering WMDs into the hands of terrorists.
1. If Saddam had nothing to lose, would he take vengeance by sending the nearest Al Qaeda cell a gift of weaponized smallpox?
2. Chaos of war would also offer chances for opportunists to dig up Iraq's WMDs and sell them on the black market.
3. Risk of destabilizing the region.
1. Risk that Iraq would dissolve into ethnic conflicts and civil war without a powerful strongman to hold the country together, as Yugoslavia did after the death of Tito.
2. Risk that Iraq's Kurdish regions would declare independence, triggering a war with Turkey and possibly escalating to military conflict between Turkey and the United States.
4. Risks of ecological or humanitarian disaster.
1. Risk that Saddam would burn his oil fields and dump oil into the Gulf, as he did in 1991.
2. Risks that war would trigger refugee or health crises.
5. Risks of blowback.
1. Risk that invasion would create and equip more terrorists.
2. Risk of damaging other diplomatic efforts abroad; vulnerability to accusations of belligerence, war-mongering, seeking to control world's oil supply, disregarding the sovereignty of other nations, etc.
6. Risks justified by evidence that Saddam posed a WMD threat.
1. Numerous declarations that Iraq posed an imminent WMD threat—that he had the weapons in hand, and was prepared to launch them.
2. Indisputable evidence that Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980s and 1990s. All Western intelligence agencies believed that he still had them, and certainly that he retained the ability to make more WMDs.
3. Evidence that Saddam sought to obtain uranium from Africa.
4. Some argued that even a potential WMD threat was sufficient cause for invasion; waiting until after Saddam developed nuclear weapons, for example, was not a desirable strategy.
7. Risks justified by hyping Saddam - Al Qaeda links.
1. No solid evidence that Saddam knew in advance, or was involved in any way, in the planning or execution of the 9/11 attacks.
2. No Iraqis among the hijackers.
3. Nonetheless, the hype machine kicked into high gear. By the time the invasion began, a significant percentage of Americans believed that Iraq was in some way involved in 9/11 on the basis of no evidence to speak of.
8. Risks justified by Saddam's crimes against humanity.
1. Number of Iraqi civilians murdered by Baath regime per week: 200.
2. Mass graves, torture chambers, rapes, mutilations, genocides.
3. In a better world, these reasons alone would have been sufficient to justify military action.
9. Risks mitigated by superiority of United States armed forces.
1. Analysts have consistently underestimated the performance of the American military and miscalculated the downside risk of military action.
2. "Force multiplier" effects of American combat training, equipment, smart weapons, drone aircraft, real-time communication, etc., are hard to calculate—but the evidence suggests they are higher than most realize.
3. Iraqi defenses degraded by twelve years of no-fly patrols. Iraqi troops had low morale, inferior weapons and training, promise of near-certain death against hopelessly powerful opponent.
10. Medium to strong domestic support; medium diplomatic fallout.
1. Diplomatic fallout amplified by Bush administration's in-your-face rhetoric. "Old Europe" crack and similar jabs made it impossible for French, Germans to offer post-war help without losing face.
2. Domestic support amplified by overselling Saddam-Osama connection, playing up imminence of WMD threat, etc.
8. Military responses, insane risk: Carpet-bomb their cities and convert them to Christianity, kill them if they don't reform, etc.
1. High risk of casualties for American soldiers. Could set off a general world war, or return us to Cold War standoffs with China or Russia.
2. High risk of blowback.
1. Disruption to oil-based world economy would be catastrophic.
2. Would create large pool of enraged proto-terrorists with nothing to lose and plenty of targets.
3. Those proposing this generally hold strongly right-wing political positions, and believe that a shadowy group known as "the Liberals" (also known as "the Left," "the Democrats," "the UN," or "Europe") is conspiring to destroy the United States, that the rest of the world thinks America is a weak and cowardly nation, and that we must address this image problem by making friend and foe alike live in fear of us.
   (Okay, one pointed barb for the right-wing nutcases. I'm allowed one.)
4. Low domestic support; maximum diplomatic fallout.
4. Short-term strategy in response to the 9/11 attacks
1. Capture or kill Osama Bin Laden; eliminate or cripple Al Qaeda. Strategies chosen:
1. Orwellian response: PATRIOT Act, round up immigrants, secret tribunals.
1. Of all the responses to 9/11, this one came first.
2. Diplomatic response, non-aggressive: Freeze assets, share intelligence.
1. The "war in the shadows."
2. By all reports, quietly successful—but not flashy enough to satisfy the political demand on our leaders.
3. Military response, medium risk: Topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
1. Our most successful and visible short-term response.
2. Al Qaeda were caught completely off guard. The speed, ferocity, and effectiveness of America's military response did not match what they were expecting.
4. Military response, low risk: Capture terrorists and put them on trial.
1. Ongoing action with some notable successes—but still no Osama.
2. Superficial efforts to restore consumer confidence.
1. Department of Homeland Security formed to tell us our daily panic level.
2. Visible, useless increase in airport security levels.
3. Bush speech calling upon Americans to continue with their lives.

(Continued in Part 3…)

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 7:12 pm. comments.

Sunday, 03 August 2003

War and Peace Reloaded: The Liberal Response. Last week I started to dissect Steven Den Beste's strategic overview, a right-of-center outline detailing why America is at war. I managed to claw my way through Part I of his 6000-word essay (!) before minor pressing engagements like food and continued employment kicked in.

This week I've decided that, rather than take the easy option and continue nitpicking Steven's work, I'm going to take the harder road. Here, then, is the first part of a more balanced view of why we're at war; I'm going to have to split this into several entries, which is a first for me, but I think I can make a better summary of American policies to date—one with fewer blind spots, and one that isn't loaded with gratuitous insults for Democrats and Arabs. (And I'll try to keep the Republican-loaded barbs to a minimum, in spite of my instincts.)

So, without further ado, here it is. I'll re-use Steven's major headings, but the rest of the outline will change.

1. What is the root cause of the war?
1. For most Americans, our entry into the war was caused by the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.
1. Terrorists, primarily from Saudi Arabia and funded by Osama bin Laden, killed 3,000+ innocent civilians in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
2. This cannot be excused. Whatever grievance any party may have, or think they may have, against the United States—pursuing it by way of mass murder is, and shall remain, unacceptable.
3. The United States will act to secure itself from such acts of terrorism, and will continue until we're confident the threat has been eliminated.
2. The root cause of 9/11 is a political and cultural climate that fosters terrorism as an acceptable instrument of policy.
1. Terrorism is not unique to the Middle East, but it thrives there and has been tacitly encouraged by many governments in the region.
2. Terrorism is not a function of poverty but of politics. Poverty is not unique to the Middle East and does not correlate closely with the backgrounds of terrorists.
3. Terrorism is not unique to Islam, but Islamic extremists encourage its use by providing religious sanction for murderers.
4. Together, these factors create a climate that approves and supports the use of suicide bombers, attacks that deliberately target civilians, and unrestrained chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks as soon as the means are available. This is the environment that spawned September 11th, and this is what must be changed to prevent future 9/11-style attacks.
2. Why is the U.S. fighting this war? Why were we attacked?
1. In the aftermath of 9/11, America has become less tolerant of political and cultural memes that support terrorism, and has re-assessed the risks of allowing WMDs to fall into the wrong hands.
1. The line moved, putting Afghanistan and Iraq on the wrong side of it.
2. North Korea is now on the wrong side of the line, but is holding Seoul hostage.
1. …and now they're trying to draw a bead on Tokyo.
2. …and are starting to fall on the wrong side of China's line.
3. Saudi Arabia is now on the wrong side of the line, but is a critical supplier of oil.
1. The Saudis are our "friends" in the same sense the Shah of Iran was.
2. Under current conditions, speaking or acting directly against the Saudis will cripple the global economy.
4. Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians are close to the line.
1. The U.S. has stopped urging "restraint" as Israel's only response to terrorism.
2. Internal or diplomatic pressures may succeed at reducing the threat these groups now present.
2. Historically, American foreign policy has put American interests (e.g., oil, containment of Communism) ahead of the liberty or welfare of Middle Eastern people.
1. That's why they call it "American foreign policy." All governments are expected to consider the welfare of their own citizens as a first priority.
2. America's interests extend beyond containment and oil, however.
1. Strong, stable democracies make better trading partners and declare war on the United States much less often.
2. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." —MLK
3. For 40 years in the Middle East, we sacrificed long-term interests to fight the immediate (Soviet) threat.
1. Our part in the CIA-KGB shadow war included coups d'etat in Syria (1947), Egypt (1952), Iran (1954), Syria (1957), Iraq (1963), Iraq (1968), Libya (1969), Iraq (1976), and others.
2. Oil and geopolitical concerns frequently trumped our interest in promoting democracy in this region. Syria's 1947 coup toppled a representative government over an oil pipeline; Iran's 1954 coup was over nationalization of the oil industry.
3. Whether these actions helped us win the Cold War is a question for Monday-morning quarterbacks, but many believe that in the long run they may have hurt our cause more than they helped.
4. The end of the Cold War did not do for the Mideast what it did for Eastern Europe.
1. Governments in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon et al. remained stagnant and oppressive.
2. Kuwait's liberation simply restored the status quo ante. America showed more interest in preserving stability than promoting democracy in the Middle East.
3. Political unrest in Saudi Arabia spilled over onto America because of our role as the Saudi royal family's patron and sponsor.
1. Without us propping up the royal family, Saudi Arabia would (might?) collapse into civil unrest and revolution.
1. As Saudi Arabia goes, so goes the world economy.
2. Our short-term interest is to maintain stability there.
2. Al Qaeda's initial goal was to get our troops out of Saudi Arabia.
1. They attacked us for propping up the Saudi government.
2. They expected that we would withdraw in the face of casualties, as we did in Vietnam and Lebanon and Somalia.
3. Those who forget history get JDAMs dropped on their heads.
3. Al Qaeda's ultimate goal is for their brand of Islam to dominate the earth.
1. All evangelistic religions have this goal. Spread the Word!
2. The issue is with the means Al Qaeda uses, not the ends they pursue. If Al Qaeda had sought to convert us by selling magazines door to door, their ultimate goal would never have troubled us.

(Continued in Part 2…)

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 7:12 pm. comments.