Continued fighting in Iraq
Good summary of the continued fighting in Iraq from Grim's Hall:
This kind of fight is exactly what our forces are trained to do. This is the kind of fight we should be glad to have. There is nothing more we can ask of Iraq than that the enemies of stability should be out in the field, engaged in battle with us. They are now a clear military problem, one for which the officers in the field have studied and the men in the field have trained. They are engaged in a stand-up fight with us. They can't hope to prevail, and in fact are breaking: witness today's shift on the part of al-Sadr's forces to hostage taking. Having gotten them into the field, we shall clear the field. Iraq will enter its successor government with a whole lot fewer insurgents, and witnessed memories of the abject failure of insurgency against US forces.
To those who report without understanding, however, this looks like bad news. It's scary, like the Tet Offensive was scary; there are fires and angry men with guns who hate us. The news crawl startles them--US forces engaged in fourteen cities across Iraq! What they forget, or rather never knew, is that the US forces were designed for simultaneous engagement on up to three continents. The instability won't last. The wave will break, the Coalition will bind these insurgents in fourteen rings of steel, like the one cast already around Fallujah. In a few days those who have not been captured or killed will be hiding in fear. We will be flush with victory, and in possession of a great deal of new intelligence information on who is backing these groups--whether it is official government aid from regional powers, or factional aid from folks like al-Sadr's cousin, the leader of Hezbollah. Then we can tailor the next phase of action, to take the fight to those who hoped to bring the fight to us.
Our enemies have revealed themselves, and thus doomed themselves to destruction at the hands of the world's finest military. Americans do not desire bloodshed, as is attested by the time, effort, and money we have invested to rebuild the country that we conquered one year ago today.
American servicemen and women in Iraq, our hopes and our prayers are with you always. May God bless you and keep you safe in your selfless mission, and grant you victory over our enemies. And may His Holy Spirit touch the people of this country, and the people of Iraq, that they may feel not despair, but hope.
--DAOUD AL-RAHIMI
Friday, April 09, 2004
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Drezner, Lott, Dodd
I've been commenting in response to a post over at Drezner earlier today. I'll edit my thoughts and put in some links and stuff later. Right now I have to get back to work.
--HOUSE OF PAYNE
I've been commenting in response to a post over at Drezner earlier today. I'll edit my thoughts and put in some links and stuff later. Right now I have to get back to work.
--HOUSE OF PAYNE
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Aspiring martyrs
Sadr has left the Tomb of Ali in Kufa where he and his thug militia had been hiding out. Defiant rhetoric (see previous entry) supported the notion that Sadr was hoping to provoke a violent coalition response in order to rally other Shiites, who would be incensed at such an incursion of infidels into this holy site.
Apparently, though, Sadr decided that this was the wrong moment for him to become the latest Shiite to become a martyr in Kufa. (Thanks to the Belmont Club for calling attention to the article in Der Spiegel.) He still says he will "win martyrdom" if authorities try to arrest him. But I'm skeptical. Islamist leaders all preach the glories of martyrdom, but when the chance comes, they usually choose life for themselves and their loved ones.
The good news, though, is that Sadr's goon squad still seems happy to throw themselves onto American bayonets. Fine by me. They are glad to be out of this world, and the rest of the world is glad to be rid of them. Everyone's a winner.
--DAOUD AL-RAHIMI
Sadr has left the Tomb of Ali in Kufa where he and his thug militia had been hiding out. Defiant rhetoric (see previous entry) supported the notion that Sadr was hoping to provoke a violent coalition response in order to rally other Shiites, who would be incensed at such an incursion of infidels into this holy site.
Apparently, though, Sadr decided that this was the wrong moment for him to become the latest Shiite to become a martyr in Kufa. (Thanks to the Belmont Club for calling attention to the article in Der Spiegel.) He still says he will "win martyrdom" if authorities try to arrest him. But I'm skeptical. Islamist leaders all preach the glories of martyrdom, but when the chance comes, they usually choose life for themselves and their loved ones.
The good news, though, is that Sadr's goon squad still seems happy to throw themselves onto American bayonets. Fine by me. They are glad to be out of this world, and the rest of the world is glad to be rid of them. Everyone's a winner.
--DAOUD AL-RAHIMI
Over our dead bodies
More on the fighting in Iraq from the NYT this morning:
"The only way the Americans will enter this city is entering over our bodies," said Sheik Abu Mahdi al-Rubayee, a commander in Mr. Sadr's private army, estimated to number in the tens of thousands.
All-righty, then!
--DAOUD RAHIMI
More on the fighting in Iraq from the NYT this morning:
"The only way the Americans will enter this city is entering over our bodies," said Sheik Abu Mahdi al-Rubayee, a commander in Mr. Sadr's private army, estimated to number in the tens of thousands.
All-righty, then!
--DAOUD RAHIMI
Monday, April 05, 2004
Bad guys, good news?
Things are heating up in Iraq, but I think this is not such bad news. Polipundit points out that "the US military is far more capable than [journalists] realize. Just remember that the media has vastly exaggerated the difficulty of every US military operation since Vietnam. Think back to their egregious coverage about a year ago. And Afghanistan before that."
Self-described coalition "mercenary" Grimbeorn reads the uprising by the Shiites in Baghdad's slums as a desperate attempt by Muqtader al-Sadr to distract his constituency from his own crimes. (And by crimes, he means the kind of things that Iraqi Shiites would be upset about, like the assassination of other Shiite clerics carried out inside the Tomb of Ali, a sacred site.)
And Instapundit passes along a thoughtful reader email:
We invaded and occupied Iraq with a loss of American life roughly equivalent to the city of Chicago's annual murder count. That is far too low considering the accomplishment. It has been so low precisely because we deferred some of the major combat. We are now having to engage in that combat, and that is unfortunate, but it is far better that we do so now than allow it to happen later.
So it's good, because it allows the US military to kill bad guys, which is what the US military is best at and happiest doing. And the bad guys have to get killed in order for Iraq to prosper.
Victor Davis Hanson has pointed out many times the surprising downside of swift American victories in Afghanistan and Iraq: too few bad guys were killed:
MOST OF the Baathists among our current enemies in Iraq chose to flee rather than stand and fight. The homes of Saddam's henchmen were not all bombed. Their friends were not killed. Their pride was only temporarily lost?to be regained, evidently, upon their discovery that it is easier and safer to murder an American who is building a school and operating under strict rules of engagement than to take on Abrams tanks barreling into Baghdad under a sky of F-16's.
Such are a few of the ironies entailed in our stunning military success, even if overlooked in analyses of the recent turmoil. And there are still more. Hard as it may be to accept, a rocky peace may well be the result of a spectacularly rapid victory. Imagine our war instead as a year-and-a-half continuum of active combat, stretching from the late-March 2003 invasion until the scheduled assumption of power of the Iraqi provisional government this coming July. Now suppose that over the course of this time frame, about 5,000 of Saddam's hardcore killers had either to be killed, captured, or routed from the country if there were ever to be any chance for real peace to emerge. Somehow, under conditions of full-scale combat, one suspects the job would have been much easier.
Of course, we must not wish the war would have lasted that long in order to allow us freely to destroy Saddam's remnants, but we must at least appreciate that short wars by their very nature often require messy clean-ups. After the shooting stops, the aid workers arrive; the hard-core, hypercritical journalists remain; and soldiers must build rather than shoot.
. . .
Many Americans have come to believe that war is the worst thing that can happen to humans. It would probably not have been easy in 1991 to convince them of the need to prolong our "highway of death" in southern Iraq, even if doing so would have prevented Baathist troops from escaping to Basra and killing innocents; or of the need to bomb Serbians in Sbrenica in order to prevent them from killing women and children; or of the need to annihilate fleeing Taliban fighters to prevent them from drifting back into Kabul months later to shoot young Frenchwomen trying to feed the poor and hungry.
So bad guys are doing bad things right now, but in doing so they have become targets. And, hopefully, they will be destroyed, so that they cannot destroy the new Iraq.
--DAOUD RAHIMI
Things are heating up in Iraq, but I think this is not such bad news. Polipundit points out that "the US military is far more capable than [journalists] realize. Just remember that the media has vastly exaggerated the difficulty of every US military operation since Vietnam. Think back to their egregious coverage about a year ago. And Afghanistan before that."
Self-described coalition "mercenary" Grimbeorn reads the uprising by the Shiites in Baghdad's slums as a desperate attempt by Muqtader al-Sadr to distract his constituency from his own crimes. (And by crimes, he means the kind of things that Iraqi Shiites would be upset about, like the assassination of other Shiite clerics carried out inside the Tomb of Ali, a sacred site.)
And Instapundit passes along a thoughtful reader email:
We invaded and occupied Iraq with a loss of American life roughly equivalent to the city of Chicago's annual murder count. That is far too low considering the accomplishment. It has been so low precisely because we deferred some of the major combat. We are now having to engage in that combat, and that is unfortunate, but it is far better that we do so now than allow it to happen later.
So it's good, because it allows the US military to kill bad guys, which is what the US military is best at and happiest doing. And the bad guys have to get killed in order for Iraq to prosper.
Victor Davis Hanson has pointed out many times the surprising downside of swift American victories in Afghanistan and Iraq: too few bad guys were killed:
MOST OF the Baathists among our current enemies in Iraq chose to flee rather than stand and fight. The homes of Saddam's henchmen were not all bombed. Their friends were not killed. Their pride was only temporarily lost?to be regained, evidently, upon their discovery that it is easier and safer to murder an American who is building a school and operating under strict rules of engagement than to take on Abrams tanks barreling into Baghdad under a sky of F-16's.
Such are a few of the ironies entailed in our stunning military success, even if overlooked in analyses of the recent turmoil. And there are still more. Hard as it may be to accept, a rocky peace may well be the result of a spectacularly rapid victory. Imagine our war instead as a year-and-a-half continuum of active combat, stretching from the late-March 2003 invasion until the scheduled assumption of power of the Iraqi provisional government this coming July. Now suppose that over the course of this time frame, about 5,000 of Saddam's hardcore killers had either to be killed, captured, or routed from the country if there were ever to be any chance for real peace to emerge. Somehow, under conditions of full-scale combat, one suspects the job would have been much easier.
Of course, we must not wish the war would have lasted that long in order to allow us freely to destroy Saddam's remnants, but we must at least appreciate that short wars by their very nature often require messy clean-ups. After the shooting stops, the aid workers arrive; the hard-core, hypercritical journalists remain; and soldiers must build rather than shoot.
. . .
Many Americans have come to believe that war is the worst thing that can happen to humans. It would probably not have been easy in 1991 to convince them of the need to prolong our "highway of death" in southern Iraq, even if doing so would have prevented Baathist troops from escaping to Basra and killing innocents; or of the need to bomb Serbians in Sbrenica in order to prevent them from killing women and children; or of the need to annihilate fleeing Taliban fighters to prevent them from drifting back into Kabul months later to shoot young Frenchwomen trying to feed the poor and hungry.
So bad guys are doing bad things right now, but in doing so they have become targets. And, hopefully, they will be destroyed, so that they cannot destroy the new Iraq.
--DAOUD RAHIMI
Saturday, April 03, 2004
Alien Tort Claims Act
An interesting story a couple of days ago in the Washington Post about a Paraguayan woman who won $10 million in an American court suing the man who tortured her brother to death. The crime occurred in Paraguay, but she was able to sue here in the US under the Alien Tort Claims Act.
The act, enacted in 1789, allows noncitizens to bring civil lawsuits for human rights abuses committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.
The court opinion became the basis for nearly 20 other successful cases in behalf of people from El Salvador, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, Ethiopia and the Philippines and involving torture, summary executions, disappearances, rape and slavery.
She won her suit twenty years ago; the only reason she's in the news today is that the Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of the law under which she won her suit. Again from the Post:
The human rights community is worried that if the Supreme Court rules against the act, victims of gross human rights abuses will no longer be able to bring claims in U.S. courts against perpetrators who come here or have substantial contacts or a base of operations here.
But the Bush administration is concerned that the law could compromise the fight against terrorism and the assistance some allies might offer.
I recently spoke with a friend in the D.C. area who told me about suits that he is bringing against various countries for infringing on human rights. (If memory serves, one of the suits involved child slavery in the chocolate industry.) The whole idea caught me off guard. Foreign parties, including governments, having standing to sue and/or be sued in US courts? I had never known that such a thing was possible.
After a little thought, though, a few examples of this kind of legal action came to min. For instance, various non-Libyan domestic courts played an important role in bringing Moammar Gaddafi to heel. And Spanish courts punished Pinochet for crimes committed when he was dictator. But in both of these examples, the courts were seeking redress for actions committed against fellow citizens. Under the Alien Tort Claims Act, neither the offender nor the offended need be American.
So I'm still not sure what I think about this. In the right hands, it seems a powerful tool to do good. But I wonder what such an instrument might do in the wrong hands.
--JAN DEPAUW
An interesting story a couple of days ago in the Washington Post about a Paraguayan woman who won $10 million in an American court suing the man who tortured her brother to death. The crime occurred in Paraguay, but she was able to sue here in the US under the Alien Tort Claims Act.
The act, enacted in 1789, allows noncitizens to bring civil lawsuits for human rights abuses committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.
The court opinion became the basis for nearly 20 other successful cases in behalf of people from El Salvador, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, Ethiopia and the Philippines and involving torture, summary executions, disappearances, rape and slavery.
She won her suit twenty years ago; the only reason she's in the news today is that the Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of the law under which she won her suit. Again from the Post:
The human rights community is worried that if the Supreme Court rules against the act, victims of gross human rights abuses will no longer be able to bring claims in U.S. courts against perpetrators who come here or have substantial contacts or a base of operations here.
But the Bush administration is concerned that the law could compromise the fight against terrorism and the assistance some allies might offer.
I recently spoke with a friend in the D.C. area who told me about suits that he is bringing against various countries for infringing on human rights. (If memory serves, one of the suits involved child slavery in the chocolate industry.) The whole idea caught me off guard. Foreign parties, including governments, having standing to sue and/or be sued in US courts? I had never known that such a thing was possible.
After a little thought, though, a few examples of this kind of legal action came to min. For instance, various non-Libyan domestic courts played an important role in bringing Moammar Gaddafi to heel. And Spanish courts punished Pinochet for crimes committed when he was dictator. But in both of these examples, the courts were seeking redress for actions committed against fellow citizens. Under the Alien Tort Claims Act, neither the offender nor the offended need be American.
So I'm still not sure what I think about this. In the right hands, it seems a powerful tool to do good. But I wonder what such an instrument might do in the wrong hands.
--JAN DEPAUW
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Before he voted against it
Hugh Hewitt reports that Senator Kerry, in an appearance on MTV, condemned President Bush for renouncing the Kyoto treaty:
"He turned his back on global warming, walked away from a treaty that a hundred and sixty nations worked ten years on."
Kerry, in contrast, is proud to have backed Kyoto. He even has a page on his campaign website with quotes from friends of the earth who boast of Kerry's love of the environment and his support for Kyoto.
Huh. Funny thing about that. Steven Den Beste, in a very lengthy but very insightful essay, says that the Senate rejected Kyoto unanimously:
Once Bush became President, one of his first acts was to publicly repudiate the Kyoto treaty and, more or less, "unsign" it. For that Bush has been excoriated internationally, as somehow being the one � and the only one � responsible for America not joining the Kyoto accord. Notably absent from that castigation was any mention of Byrd-Hagel, which killed Kyoto dead long before Bush became President. That's because Byrd-Hagel passed unanimously. Republican senators and Democratic senators both saw through the rhetoric and fully understood that the Kyoto accord really had nothing to do with "global warming". Its true purpose was to cripple the US economy through artificial imposition of energy shortages, and they had no intention of letting that happen.
Clinton knew full well that there was no chance of the Senate ever ratifying the Kyoto accord. So did Bush. The only real difference between them was that Bush was willing to say so publicly. Kyoto was not a Republican-versus-Democrat issue, it was an America-versus-Europe issue, and every member of the Senate voted in favor of Byrd-Hagel in order to say that they favored America. (Emphasis added.)
Every member of the Senate voted against Kyoto. John Kerry was a member of the Senate then. Did he vote against Kyoto? Yes. Yes, he did.
No April foolin'.
--JOHANNES CLERK
Hugh Hewitt reports that Senator Kerry, in an appearance on MTV, condemned President Bush for renouncing the Kyoto treaty:
"He turned his back on global warming, walked away from a treaty that a hundred and sixty nations worked ten years on."
Kerry, in contrast, is proud to have backed Kyoto. He even has a page on his campaign website with quotes from friends of the earth who boast of Kerry's love of the environment and his support for Kyoto.
Huh. Funny thing about that. Steven Den Beste, in a very lengthy but very insightful essay, says that the Senate rejected Kyoto unanimously:
Once Bush became President, one of his first acts was to publicly repudiate the Kyoto treaty and, more or less, "unsign" it. For that Bush has been excoriated internationally, as somehow being the one � and the only one � responsible for America not joining the Kyoto accord. Notably absent from that castigation was any mention of Byrd-Hagel, which killed Kyoto dead long before Bush became President. That's because Byrd-Hagel passed unanimously. Republican senators and Democratic senators both saw through the rhetoric and fully understood that the Kyoto accord really had nothing to do with "global warming". Its true purpose was to cripple the US economy through artificial imposition of energy shortages, and they had no intention of letting that happen.
Clinton knew full well that there was no chance of the Senate ever ratifying the Kyoto accord. So did Bush. The only real difference between them was that Bush was willing to say so publicly. Kyoto was not a Republican-versus-Democrat issue, it was an America-versus-Europe issue, and every member of the Senate voted in favor of Byrd-Hagel in order to say that they favored America. (Emphasis added.)
Every member of the Senate voted against Kyoto. John Kerry was a member of the Senate then. Did he vote against Kyoto? Yes. Yes, he did.
No April foolin'.
--JOHANNES CLERK
My big fat American country
Finally, the truth about health. From Wicked Thoughts.
For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on
nutrition and health.
It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting medical
studies.
1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the
British or Americans.
2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the
British or Americans.
3. Africans drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks
than the British or Americans.
4. Italians drink large amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart
attacks than the British or Americans.
CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
Worrying about what we eat is the American national pastime. And all that obsessing about nutrition isn't making us any thinner. Or taller, either.
Well, time for me to go eat Mexican food. And I think I'd better order in Spanish.
O, sea: Bueno, ya me voy para comer comida Mexicana. Y tal vez ser�a mejor ordenar en Castellano. (Uds. gringotes tambi�n.)
--JUAN PENA
Finally, the truth about health. From Wicked Thoughts.
For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on
nutrition and health.
It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting medical
studies.
1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the
British or Americans.
2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the
British or Americans.
3. Africans drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks
than the British or Americans.
4. Italians drink large amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart
attacks than the British or Americans.
CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
Worrying about what we eat is the American national pastime. And all that obsessing about nutrition isn't making us any thinner. Or taller, either.
Well, time for me to go eat Mexican food. And I think I'd better order in Spanish.
O, sea: Bueno, ya me voy para comer comida Mexicana. Y tal vez ser�a mejor ordenar en Castellano. (Uds. gringotes tambi�n.)
--JUAN PENA
Monday, March 29, 2004
Book of the Month
The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks.
I'm a huge nerd. And one of the things that makes me a big nerd is that I love all things post-apocalyptic. Planet of the Apes. Logan's Run. Mad Max. Omega Man. Yes, even Waterworld. And these are just movies that I think most people have heard of.
The Zombie Survival Guide does not exactly fit into this genre, but a work of true genius often defies categorization. Is it humor? Is it horror? Is it a survival manual? Quite simply, it is The Zombie Survival Guide-- everything you would expect from the title. It's a book about how to survive in a world where the dead rise and want to eat you. It contains every scrap of information that could benefit you in such a situation. If every book so completely and perfectly delivered what is promised by the title, this world would be a better place.
Allow me to share a favorite passage from the fifth chapter, "On the Attack," from the section entitled, "General Rules."
14. Incendiary control: When using fire, make sure you keep in mind the larger implications. Can you control the blaze? If not, the fire will endanger your whole group. Is the zombie threat serious enough to warrant destroying large amounts of personal property? The answer may seem obvious, but why burn down half a town to kill three zombies that could be destroyed by rifle fire?
And this from the fourth chaper, "On the Run," from the section entitled, "Vehicles."
B. The bicycle. ... The common bicycle is fast, quiet, muscle-powered, and easy to maintain. Add to this the additional advantage that it is the only vehicle you can pick up and carry if the terrain gets too rough. People using bicycles to escape from infested areas have almost always fared better than those on foot. For optimum performance, use a mountain bike, as opposed to the racing or recreational model. Don't let your speed and mobility go to your head, however. Wear standard safety gear and choose caution over speed. The last thing you want is to end up in a ditch, legs broken, bike trashed, with the shuffling of undead feet growing louder with each step.
There is so much more I want to share. I would copy this whole thing down verbatim, right here on the blog. But perhaps it's just better for me to say this is the best book I have read in at least a year. Go buy it.
--CHISAIBU
The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks.
I'm a huge nerd. And one of the things that makes me a big nerd is that I love all things post-apocalyptic. Planet of the Apes. Logan's Run. Mad Max. Omega Man. Yes, even Waterworld. And these are just movies that I think most people have heard of.
The Zombie Survival Guide does not exactly fit into this genre, but a work of true genius often defies categorization. Is it humor? Is it horror? Is it a survival manual? Quite simply, it is The Zombie Survival Guide-- everything you would expect from the title. It's a book about how to survive in a world where the dead rise and want to eat you. It contains every scrap of information that could benefit you in such a situation. If every book so completely and perfectly delivered what is promised by the title, this world would be a better place.
Allow me to share a favorite passage from the fifth chapter, "On the Attack," from the section entitled, "General Rules."
14. Incendiary control: When using fire, make sure you keep in mind the larger implications. Can you control the blaze? If not, the fire will endanger your whole group. Is the zombie threat serious enough to warrant destroying large amounts of personal property? The answer may seem obvious, but why burn down half a town to kill three zombies that could be destroyed by rifle fire?
And this from the fourth chaper, "On the Run," from the section entitled, "Vehicles."
B. The bicycle. ... The common bicycle is fast, quiet, muscle-powered, and easy to maintain. Add to this the additional advantage that it is the only vehicle you can pick up and carry if the terrain gets too rough. People using bicycles to escape from infested areas have almost always fared better than those on foot. For optimum performance, use a mountain bike, as opposed to the racing or recreational model. Don't let your speed and mobility go to your head, however. Wear standard safety gear and choose caution over speed. The last thing you want is to end up in a ditch, legs broken, bike trashed, with the shuffling of undead feet growing louder with each step.
There is so much more I want to share. I would copy this whole thing down verbatim, right here on the blog. But perhaps it's just better for me to say this is the best book I have read in at least a year. Go buy it.
--CHISAIBU
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