Posse Incitatus

Book review: Victory of the West

Over the past couple of weeks I've had the pleasure to finally read "Victory of the West," by
Niccolo Camponi.

It's an interesting read, and I learned a great deal not only about the events leading up to the Battle of Lepanto, but also naval warfare during that period.

Despite the title, the author takes great pains not to paint either side as better than the other.  However, there is simply no nice way to describe Janissaries - they are without a Christian equivalent and they pretty much give the lie to the whole notion that "jihad" really means "personal struggle" - unless getting to use enslaved children forcibly converted to your faith is a more accepted form of self-improvement than I thought.

Something the author stresses - and something that is worth pointing out to contemporary readers - is that both the Christians and the Muslims adhered to a code of honor.  Yes, they were locked in a holy war, but there were some things you just didn't do.

Indeed, to break one's work to the enemy was not only certain to earn their ire, it would also earn the contempt of your own side.  It makes a startling contrast with modern militant Islam, which basically can't be trusted to abide by any rules at all.  No act is too depraved for the modern Islamic terrorist - something that would have horrified the Sultan and his generals.

Looking back, it does give more credence to the notion that perhaps Mark Steyn is wrong; perhaps radical Islam is the "weaker horse" and only Western intellectual and civilizational cowardice is holding it up.  Certainly the Islam embodied by the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s was far more tolerant, self-confident and, for lack of a better term, civilized.

Anyhow, it's a worthwhile read, and loaded with period flavor.  Buy it!

Benedict comes to America

When Sithkitten heard Pope Benedict XVI was visiting the US, her immediate response was “Where will he be? Can we see him?”

Alas, he will be quite a ways from Michigan (it’s a bit of a commute to New York City or D.C.) so we had to let the opportunity go.  Still, if His Holiness visits any neighboring state, we’ll make the trip.

I want to see this remarkable man.  At 81, his best years are behind him, or so one would think.  Yet he is arguably the most influential pope in a century – and I say that not to denigrate John Paul II, but to point to just how important it is that Christianity have a strong and intellectually sophisticated leader.

Though the Protestants hate to admit it, the Pope is the voice of Christianity.  When he speaks, the world listens.

I happened to be by the radio and heard that he concluded his White House remarks with “God bless America.” How wonderful!

Does it not show the stark contrast between “Black Liberation Theology” which curses this great country, and the Holy Catholic Church, which praises it?   I’m sure some enterprising pundit will edit those clips back to back to make the point clear: Jeremiah Wright’s “God damn America” vs Pope Benedict’s blessing.

There have been some rumblings in the blogosphere that Mark Steyn might be wrong after all, that the “rising tide” of Islamofascism may in fact be its last desperate throes in the face of rising Christian evangelization.  The new Catholic church in Qatar – opened this Easter – is the first in the Persian Gulf, and drew 10,000 worshippers. 

There are also rumblings that the Pope is going to make the persecution of Christians in Arabia a larger issue, and press the Saudis to change their ban on bibles.  This would be huge.

He is a man of peace, but also of courage.  His very public conversion of Magdi Christian Allam is an excellent example of this.  His critics (particularly among Muslims) called it “provocative,” and they were right – but it was provocative only because the West is so used to surrender that any attempt to assert the Truth of Christianity now seems like a declaration of war.

But it wasn’t.  People should be free to choose their own faiths without coercion. 

What Benedict is doing is speaking the Truth and that is what makes his critics so uncomfortable.

Let’s face it: God set a high standard.  High standards are hard to meet – it takes a lot of work and sacrifice.  It’s like taking any other test – you get out of it what you put into it.

If you don’t ever study, if you skip class, you probably will flunk the final exam. 

People like Andrew Sullivan want to rules changed to accommodate their moral laziness.  A friend of mine calls them “cafeteria Catholics” because they pick and choose the parts of the doctrine they are going to follow, like going through a buffet line.

A lot of Protestants have embraced this concept.  Their goal is to make worship as easy as possible.  Thus we have the Muslim Anglican.  Basically they are so eager to make people happy that, as a practical matter, being Christian involves giving up nothing.  Everything’s peachy with them.

Benedict is basically calling them out. He has openly said he’d rather have a smaller church than a large one that stands for nothing.  Amen. 

Quiet flows the Zambezi

Food for thought:  how will future generations evaluate George W. Bush’s policies in Africa?

Before you answer, consider that US forces have helped bring peace to Liberia, have coordinated with Ethiopia to deny Al Qaeda a sanctuary in Somalia and now Robert Mugabe’s reign of terror may finally be over in Zimbabwe.

What was it Bill Clinton accomplished? Oh yeah, Rwanda.

Years ago in my misspent college youth, I studied Africa – not only its history but its then-current politics.

One of my senior theses (I had two majors) was “The Security Problematic of Southern Africa.”

In it, I analyzed South Africa’s strategic situation and actions from the 1960s to the early 1990s (when I wrote the paper).  So I have to say I find current events in Zimbabwe very interesting.

One of the things a lot of commentators (particularly liberals) do not understand is how complex international politics really are – and Southern Africa is more complex than most.

This is part of the great irony of liberalism – though they claim to have far more nuance and understanding than conservatives, they generally do best in clear-cut examples of black and white – literally in the case of race relations.  Black = good, white = bad.

In Zimbabwe and South Africa, the moral high ground clearly belonged (they would argue) to blacks.  After all, whites had dispossessed the locals of their land, reaped the most rewards from it, and generally excluded blacks from political power.

The thing that stuck with me the most as I was doing my research was how many blacks not only sided with the whites, but actively fought for them.  This was not only the case in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, but also in South Africa.

I argued in my paper that part what undid apartheid was the superb performance of units such as the Selous Scouts and the 32^nd Battalion of the South African Defense Force.  The blacks who fought in these units proved every bit as brave and capable as their white counterparts and once you’ve fought and bled next to somebody, it is hard to deny them their rights.  The South African regime was ultimately sustained by military force and when the military itself lost confidence in apartheid, it could not be long before the system had to give way.

Another factor in all of this was the role of the Soviet Union in supporting the “liberation movements,” almost all of which advocated “Afro-Socialism” or some localized moniker that would basically centralize all power with an elite clique and drive the economy into the ground.  (Not that the Western dictators were much better – Joseph Mobuto, or “Mobuto-sese-seko-etc.” which translated into something like “Big Man Who Shakes Earth with His Potence etc. – was an absolute disaster.  Zaire/Congo still hasn’t recovered.)

Anyhow, the way Western liberals saw it, socialism was a good thing, and whites deserved to be literally punished for their sins – shot, goods stolen, farms expropriated, etc.   Of course, it was easy for Western liberals to say this, because it was happening comfortably far away.  I doubt if the intelligentsia in Ann Arbor or Berkeley would be as happy if the descendants of the Native American tribes who originally owned the land showed up and expropriated their trendy townhouses and Priuses – and hacked apart their friends and family for good measure.

The Cold War ended in 1989, but the wars in Africa lingered on.  At first, the liberal experts were mystified.

Why would the “client states” and factions keep fighting once Uncle Sam and the Soviets stopped paying them?

I don’t think most of them understood that the Cold War was really a veneer in a lot of areas to allow tribes that hated each other to fight it out.  For example, Angola’s bitter civil war continued to grind on even after the Cubans left.  A lot of those wars and rebellions had less to do with the superpower confrontation than with the simple desire to rule other people. Mugabe is proof of this: the Cold War is a fading memory – his “war veterans” are about keeping power, nothing else.

Mugabe also exemplifies the classic African liberator-turned-president for life.  When the African nations received their independence, they usually celebrated with free open elections.  The joke was “one man, one vote, one time,” since the winner usually ended up establishing a one-party state and rounding up the opposition.

When it comes to dictators, Mugabe is one of the most vicious and also one of the last to have a major role in the world stage.  He was also a convenient foil to the Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy.  “Oh, well if you are going to invade Iraq for democracy, how about Zimbabwe?” was something I would hear from time to time. 

But now he may be on his way out, and none too soon.   My hope is that the Bush administration keeps up the pressure – not just on Zimbabwe, but on South Africa as well, which has basically abdicated its strategic role in favor of establishing an “old boy network” with the last of the old liberators.

Africa is a complex and fascinating place, yet liberals remain stunningly ignorant of it.  It will be hugely ironic if George W. Bush’s legacy is to have brought change to a continent that Bill “the first black president” Clinton basically ignored.

Meanwhile, back at the central front

I haven’t posted much on the war in Iraq lately.  I also have posted next to nothing on guns, though I intend to remedy that soon.

Anyhow, my first reaction to the Iraqi offensive in Basra was “excellent!  The government is finally standing up on its own.”  Subsequent events have shown that my confidence was not misplaced.

It goes without saying that the mainstream press put a negative slant on it, of course.  Why violence is escalating!  More people are dying!  I know I shouldn’t be surprised any more by what these people write, but sometimes I still am amazed at how committed they are to American defeat.

What is even more amazing to me is how many politicians seem to share that desire. 

Meanwhile, back on the central front, this showdown has enormous implications for Iraq.  If the Mahdi Army does disband, if Sadr’s power is decisively broken, what then?  Al Qaeda is on the ropes.  Hunted and cornered, it is running out of men and money.  Their last hope was to kick of a sectarian civil war and hope that the growing Iraqi security forces would be torn apart in the aftermath, but it looks like that isn’t happening.

One of the things people forget is how intense and dynamic wars can be.  Iraq had every possibility of disintegrating under the strain – certainly no shortage of experts predicted it.

Yet wars can also be a unifying experience.  The sense of common sacrifice and struggle can bring very diverse groups together.  Germany’s “War of Liberation” against France set the stage for the eventual unification barely a half-century later.  Similarly, the American Civil War and the subsequent World Wars had the effect of building a common culture for the US, forcing people from every walk of life to come together.  It is no exaggeration to say that without Blacks serving in the US Army during the Civil War, they could not have received full citizenship and that without their subsequent service in the World Wars, that citizenship would not have been redeemed.

Iraq’s ordeal has caused great pain and suffering to her people, but it has also created a desire that it be for a purpose; that the lives shattered have some meaning.  For a growing number of Iraqis, that meaning is a unified, powerful and democratic Iraq. 

People are tribal.  They divide themselves into groups.  There is always an “us” and by extension there has to be a “them” as well.  Hitherto, Iraq’s divisions were internal: Kurd vs Arab, Sunni vs Shiite, Ba’ath vs everybody else.

But now a new “us” is forming and it encompasses all Iraqis.  “Them” is coming to mean the Iranians, Syrians and even the Saudis.  As the central government continues to mature and as its military gains strength, these regimes will be increasingly threatened.  I have to say it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Electoral realities

Over the weekend, the Posse debated the electoral prospects of Barak Obama.  Speaking dispassionately, I think he has little chance come November.

The reason for this is that national polls are effectively meaningless.  In the end, it comes down to how many states a given candidate can carry.  So the real question isn’t “how popular is Barak Obama,” it is “how many Bush states will flip?”

I can’t see any.

Florida is, if anything, more staunchly in the GOP camp with McCain as a nominee.  He appeals to older voters, and whatever losses he has on the “conservative base” (which I’ll deal with in a second) are going to be offset by independents and Dems crossing over to vote for him.

Indeed, if anything, McCain has the possibility to build a much larger coalition.  States like Michigan may actually vote for him.  He is educated, well-spoken and has enough of an independent streak to appeal to people that George W. Bush never could reach.

What is more, the issues all cut in McCain’s favor.  Barak Obama not only believes that handguns should be banned, he also opposes concealed carry.  This is something that no Dem has supported in the last 20 years at least.  The National Rifle Association, which basically sat out the 2006 elections, will come into this contest with apocalyptic fury.

Similarly, Obama’s remarks that he doesn’t want his daughters “punished with a baby” is enough to give Right to Life voters fits.

One can counter this by pointing out that single-issue voters like Right to Lifers or gun rights supporters aren’t likely to vote Dem anyway.  Fair enough.

But most voters aren’t into single issues.  I know I am not.  Most people look at the whole package, and who all the issues come into play.

Barak’s problem is that not only is he out of the mainstream on most issues, he is way out of the mainstream.  He is so far out of the mainstream, that people who are quite moderate on the issues may actually be put off.  For example, even moderate pro-choicers may believe in parental notification, or feel that babies are not a punishment for a mistake – beliefs that put them in conflict with Obama.

Hype is hard to sustain.  It’s going to be hard to maintain the “newness” of Obama for six months and at some point, he will have to come to terms with some of the positions he holds.

That is why I believe that for all the anti-McCain whining in the Corner, conservatives will end up crawling across broken glass to vote for McCain.  It’s one thing to say “oh, Obama isn’t so bad,” until you actually face what he stands for: a radical liberal agenda.

Then there is his Rev. Wright problem, which is actually bigger than just Rev. Wright.  His church is virulently black nationalist, which isn’t going to sit well in the broader body politic.

Already, the Dems are working up a strategy that holds that only racists will vote against Barak Obama – a brilliant ploy that failed to elect both Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to the presidency.  It won’t work here, either.

One of the little-noticed trends of the past few years is that white men are leaving the Democrat Party.  It isn’t because they are racist, but because they simply have no place in a party based on racial and gender set-asides.  They’d happily vote for a black candidate (or a woman, for that matter) who truly transcended race and stood for policies they supported, but neither Dem candidate offers anything for them.

Finally, there is the issue of character.  Yes, we all know about the Vietnam POW thing, but when McCain talks of sacrifice, he means it.  One of the more bizarre liberal tropes of the last few years was the “chicken hawk” argument.  It never really stuck, but the anti-war types have never let it go, nor have they abandoned its ugly stepchild, which holds that parents who favor military action should “send” their children into the military.

Well, meet the McCain family.  (h/t Hated Instapundit)  One of his sons has already done a tour in Iraq and another is due to graduate from Annapolis soon.  I want to be clear on this: military service is not the sole qualification for the presidency.  However, in an age where there is so much outright hostility to the military, where recruiters are hounded off campuses and soldiers are burned in effigy, it counts for a lot.