Posse Incitatus

Ostrich Conservatism

There are two kinds of conservatism.  The more common kind over here (call it “American Conservatism” is basically classical liberalism.  It is pretty much centered around faith, family and freedom – particularly free markets.

The older kind, sometimes known as “paleo-conservatism” is more prevalent in places like Europe.  Its adherents revere tradition, tend to be isolationist and generally pessimistic.  Pat Buchanan used to be a paleocon, but now is basically insane.

National Review, which I used to subscribe to and whose web site I sometimes visit, has a few paleocons on the payroll, mostly to remind us of why the left was ascendant for so long – with these guys as competition, no wonder the liberals got to own just about anything.

Foremost among the exhibits in the William F. Buckely Odditorium is John Derbyshire, who seems pretty much the archetypal English crusty conservative.

This post over at the Corner encapsulates a lot of that old kind of thinking.  By “old,” by the way, I don’t must mean “old-fashioned.”  As a Catholic, I think that a lot of the old ways were the best ways.  No by old I mean “obsolete.”

You can scroll down the Corner to get the gist of the debate, which drags in such pointless queries as how many armored divisions Al Qaeda has etc., which shows just how irrelevant Derbyshire and his fellow fossils are to the debate.

He reminds me of an admiral who came of age in the Dreadnought era insisting that air power will never amount to anything and that big guns will rule the seas – as his ship is sinking beneath him from dive-bomber hits..

Al Qaeda doesn’t need tanks or bombers or battleships to succeed.  It needs only to create enough disorder and despair that its aims are achieved.

The crux of his argument is this:

If, as seems to be the case, Muslim Middle Easterners are addicted to mayhem, it seems to me we should stay out of their countries, except for monitory attacks on them — ferocious but brief — in retaliation for anything they do to us or our interests.

There are two glaring problems with this.  The first is that exact same thing could be said about Europe – whose wars of conquest and destruction pretty much set a new world record for devastation – until we stopped them.

But more importantly, what kind of “monitory attacks” is he talking about?   We tried “cruise missile” diplomacy in the 1990s.  It didn’t work.  You’d think a paleocon would have figured that out.

Furthermore, the “ferocious but brief” qualifier is pretty much a repeat of the “If you can simply outlast us you win” school of thought.  If Iran conquers the Gulf region, I doubt our weekly pin-prick attacks are going to be much of a deterrent – especially when it’s clear we have no staying power.

Anyhow, back to Derb:

Given the rivalries and hatreds of the ME, I doubt a stable Iranian hegemony is possible. If it is possible, it's something we'll learn to live with, and no direct threat to the U.S.A. that I can see.

A bit of a retouch and you get:  “Given the rivalries and hatreds of Europe, I doubt a stable Soviet hegemony is possible. If it is possible, it's something we'll learn to live with, and no direct threat to the U.S.A. that I can see.”

Which is pretty much what the left said about Communism. 

I expect a certain amount of cynicism from paleocons – that what we keep them around for, right?  But the thing that really has me confused is how basically gutless these people have become.

I thought liberals were squeamish, but at least they have the excuse that they are utterly ignorant of history.  What is Derb’s excuse?

The classical “realist” view – which so many paleocons hold – is that statecraft’s only legitimate goal is to maximize one’s national interest.  Using that standard, allowing an avowed enemy nation to expand its influence in an economically vital area pretty much requires every effort to be expended to stop it.

One of the tools we can call upon is deterrence.  The problem is, it only works if the other side is scared of it.  If I threaten to shoot you but I don’t have a gun, there isn’t much deterrence there.

Similarly, if US policy is that we only fight the quick, easy wars with clear-cut rules, our adversaries know that all they have to do is break the rules and prolong the conflict to defeat us.

To put it another way:  If the Department of Defense said that our new infrared rifle sights can’t detect purple, what color do you think most of the world’s military uniforms would be?

My point is that the tactics of our adversaries evolve – and usually in ways that we don’t particularly like.  Japan was really, really naughty when they used air power and surprise to negate our military advantages in 1941.  Germany was downright mean in using tanks and combined arms to outmaneuver the French.

I guess under the Derbyshire Doctrine, the correct response should have been to make pinprick attacks and then seek the best terms possible.  “I for one welcome our new Axis masters,” and so on.

Sorry, I don’t buy it.  I’m enough of a conservative to understand that tactics are constantly changing.  What was revolutionary is 1812 was played out by 1862, and one of the worst mistakes you can make – and one that non-Western powers repeatedly DID make – was to resist change because you didn’t much care for it.

The age of the armored division and the carrier battle group deciding the fate of nations may well be passed.  Right now it is terrorism – attacks on the soft underbelly of society – that seems to work best.  An Iran bolstered by conquest would be emboldened to send waves of suicide bombers into our malls, airports and town squares.  Unlike the Soviets, the mullahs actually believe in the End Times and if they sweep the Gulf under the Islamic banner, there will be no lack of volunteers to earn a shot in paradise.

But the thing is, they may not need to overrun these states – or even the United States – to win.  Derb may scoff at the notion of an Iranian amphibious landing in the Chesapeake, but they don’t need to do that.  All they have to do is so disrupt world trade and our society that giving into their demands – say new “religious sensitivity” laws and making blasphemy a hate crime – is easier than fighting.

Without a single Iranian ship putting out to sea, they will effectively conquer us.

Postpone that "Peace on Earth" for another year

As is customary, I pretty much stayed away from the computer this Christmas.  The Younger Posse Members are at that age where the holiday keeps them at a fever pitch and frankly, I’d rather be savoring the season with them than posting about the depressing news of the world.

So I come in to work today and see that Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated.  Uh oh. 

Is it just me, or did we just lurch a little closer to the Abyss?

While I’ve never had much use for a draft, it sure seems like a good time to ramp up our military expenditures.  I’d like to believe that we can muddle through the current engagements with essentially a peace-time military posture, but events could quickly overtake our rather feeble leadership.

To put it another way, I’d have a bit more optimism if we possessed another half-million active military troops and the Air Force wasn’t downsizing or flying antique aircraft.

The Wall Street Journal makes a good point about that – and I’d like to add to it.  The F-15 fleet is literally falling apart because they simply were not designed to be flown this long.  Fighters are agile things – training in them is punishing on both the pilot and the airframe.  After years of this, things will break.

Now the good people over at the Strategy Page tend to take an Army outlook on just about everything.  They don’t much care for the Navy or the Air Force, and remind me of one of the grunts I know who explained that in terms of cost, you could get an entire battalion of infantry for the cost of one operational fighter.

The problem is that this assumes that we won’t ever lose any fighters (or ships, for that matter).  Right now, we still have considerable quantities of tanks in reserve.  It only takes three months to make a new grunt, a little longer for a new tanker.  So we can “get by” while new troops are trained up if the s**t hits the fan.

But our entire air and sea strategy is based on not losing anything.  Ever.  We owned the skies over Vietnam, but we still lost aircraft.  If we are ever in a high-tempo shooting war, say over Taiwan, or Iran – we will quickly exhaust both the air and sea power of the United States.  That hasn’t happened since 1942 and I don’t think it is a place we need to go.

I’ve never been a big fan for the “saving up for the next war ” school of thought.  These are the guys who argue that we need to accept defeat in Iraq or Afghanistan because we have to save our military power for some hypothetical “total war” that may never get here.  I don’t buy it.  It smacks of false courage and allows someone to advocate retreat while coming across as a hardass.  Running up the white flag in one nation isn’t going to make other nations trust you more.  Thanks for playing.

I’d much prefer building additional capacity.  If our military is “broken” or “overstretched”, then we should build it up. 

Anyhow, a belated Merry Christmas.  Clearly we can’t turn those swords into plowshares right away, but maybe some day.

The magic of gun-free zones

One of the strangest things about the anti-gun movement is its belief in magic solutions.  Almost every time I get into a debate with one of them, they use the phrase “if I could wave a magic wand and make guns disappear,” which is great in terms of sentiment, but it is worthless in terms of practical application.

I guess the next best thing to a magic wand is to post a “GUN FREE VICTIM ZONE” sign and wait for the killer to show up and do his job.

A lot of ink is being spilled over what new laws can be put into place to stop this sort of thing from happening, (and of course condemning law-abiding gun owners as knuckle-dragging thugs just waiting to go insane) but rare is the newspaper editorialist who understands that two simple measures would all but eliminate the public shooter phenomenon:

1. Eliminate “gun-free” zones, and
2. Deny the shooters the overwhelming publicity they reap for their actions.

The people who perpetrate these crimes are crying out for attention.  The Columbine shooters openly speculated on who would play them in the movie version of events.  Fame is a major motivator.

The media is therefore the primary enabler in these events.  They have far more to do with causing these crimes than the firearms.  If the guns went away, they’d use bombs, or knives, or something else.  The goal is to kill and get attention.

Of course, if you get dropped after only one or two shots, your mission has failed, which is why the killers almost always seek out places where they know no one else has a gun.

Look, if guns by their very presence cause crime, why is it that you never have shootouts at gun stores and shooting ranges?  Why are gun shows – which are allegedly no more than Third World arms bazaars – so damn safe?  You’d think that Jethro and Cleetus would immediately have a falling out and settle the matter with shotguns and 12 paces, but – amazingly – it never happens.

I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to understand gun control supporters, but the logic behind the “gun free zone” has always escaped me.  Even as a kid, I noticed that some folks followed the rules, and some folks didn’t.  Later on, when I got to understand that there was a dangerous criminal element, I thought the signs were amazingly ironic – if someone is bent on murder, why would they care about picking up an extra misdemeanor?

A cynic might well argue that the purpose of the zones is to incrementally ban guns from everywhere, until we reach the state of disarmed mayhem that now characterizes the United Kingdom.  It could well be.  Certainly groups like the Brady Bunch and their allies aren’t above lying like rugs when it suits them.

But I’m sure there are people who sincerely buy into the emotional appeals.

Some years ago, at a former place of employment, I carried on the job.  I kept quiet about it (you never know how some folks will react) but eventually it became known.  The initial reaction was pretty much what I expected:  some employees expressed unease and even hostility.  “Better keep your distance from him!”  “Don’t make him mad!” and so forth.

Then we got a death threat.  In addition to locking doors and using pass keys, a panic button was installed at the work stations.  Suddenly the attitude changed.  People walked up to me and wanted to know what my plan was – and now the jokes were “Get behind him!” “Screw the panic button, just get behind his desk!”  Several employees asked me about teaching them to shoot, and I was happy to oblige.

The lesson was that while we didn’t want bad thing to happen, they could – and if they did, it was better to have a plan other than passively standing there and taking it.

If you strip away the rhetoric and mystical power anti-gun folks invest in guns, you are left with a simple tool.  It is a tool that can be used for good or evil.  It is a tool that gives you options.

Twice I’ve been in a situation where I thought I might need my concealed pistol.  In one of them, I actually drew it.  In both cases I was profoundly relieved that the problem was resolved without any more violence.

The gun didn’t solve the situation, it didn’t make it go away, but it did give me more options.  Without it, as we have seen, people are reduced to victims.  I refuse to be a victim, as does Sithkitten.  That is why we carry and, when they are old enough, the Younger Posse Members will also have the training to protect themselves.

It is a shame that we have to keep having these lessons written in blood, but the least we can do is learn from them.  “Gun Free Zones” don’t work.  Time to get the clue and move on.

British self-flagellation

The not-so-amazing box office performance of The Golden Compass comes as little surprise to me.  Whether or not the movie was all that good, it wasn't surprising that folks of an even mildly religious character would choose to pass on the adapted work of an author who is one of those strange creatures that can best be described as an evangelical atheist.

As Mark Steyn likes to point out, people with strong religious beliefs tend to have larger families than the "enlightened secular humanist" crew.  Thus, making a "family movie" that pisses them off isn't such a great idea from a marketing standpoint.

I've little interest in reading the books, and thankfully, I don't have to, because the author has been good enough to say early and often that he hates Tolkien and despises C.S. Lewis - thus sparing me the chore of arguing with his supporters about what hidden meanings are there.  We know he hates religion and what the point of his book is.  This means I can skip it simply through the virtue of disagreeing with him.

The thing I don't get is the the British obsession with self-flagellation.  I'm told that in the book version, the eeeevil Catholic Church in disguise (the Magisterium) practices this. 

I was then reminded how in almost every British film that shows Catholics, at least one of them will flog himself - usually until he is a bloody mess.  Whether we're talking Elizabeth, or any of a host of period films, it is a reliable cliche - as shocking as the part of every cop movie where the funny, happily married black partner of the hero with the great kids and only a week to go in retirement gets killed.

Is this in the book?  Why?  Talk about a straw man.  I know lots of Catholics (what with being one) and I've never encountered a flagellant.  Where are these fine self-abused chaps kept? 

I think it's amusing that we as a society have banned the more outrageous racial stereotypes (try showing a black person eating watermelon) but the anti-Catholic ones just keep right on rolling.

Blade Runner - the undirected cut

Since my esteemed Posse member Santos brought it up, I'd like to point out that the "director's cut" of Blade Runner is not an improvement on the original.

By getting rid of the narration, it makes the movie confusing to people who haven't seen it and undermines the cool noir vibe that makes it such a great film.  That was a big part of the movie's success, of course - you had this futuristic detective story.  It was cool.

Without the narration, that noir element is gone and you just get a lot of pretty pictures and rather inexplicable plot twists.

The people who really groove to it are fans who like the alternative take, which is fine.  They know the narration.

But taken as a film - that is a work of art that stands by itself - the original version is better.

The TNR deploys its ink cloud

The Hated Instapundit has a roundup of reactions to The New Republic's long-awaited statement regarding the Beauchamp debacle. 

I'd love to take a whack at this thing, but I'm too tired to bother right now.  It's been a long day and I'm not in the mood to wade through fourteen pages of liberal obfuscation.  Geez. 

What is it with liberals and the truth?  Whether dealing with gun control or the military, these guys can't ever give a straight answer or ever own up to a mistake.

Whether dealing with Rathergate or John Kerry's still unreleased military records, liberals have an unerring ability to make a bad situation worse - for themselves!

I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, but lies are lies, and it is time-consuming to have to point them out time and again.  It also poisons political discourse.  Just once, it would be nice to have an honest exchange with some of these guys.