Posse Incitatus

Random shots

Here’s a fun thought:  Michigan’s newest voters will have to hearken back to their elementary school days to recall a time when the state’s economy was actually going somewhere.  It’s been that long.  I guess we’re getting used to the pain.

Driving ‘round town and tuning into the radio, I can’t help but wonder how much those ads with Tim Allen urging us to stay where we are and go places we’ve already been are costing.  Is anyone encouraged by this tripe?

First off, they are terribly written. The phrases are awkward and full of faux grandeur.  It’s like a parody of Victorian prose.

More importantly, Tim Allen is a lousy narrator.  Good comedian, but bad at reading stuff.  Hey, he’s a Michigan guy, I get it, but so is James Earl Jones.  We couldn’t we get The Voice do this stuff?  Jones can make reading a soup can label dramatic and compelling.

Anyhow, I can’t help but wonder how much Obama’s anti-NAFTA remarks will hurt him here come November. If I were McCain, I’d play those in continuous loops in Automation Alley and Grand Rapids – and in Port Huron and the Soo.

I hope to begin overhauling this site, including revising the links over the next few weeks.

Also, where did the Carnival of Cordite go?  Anyone still interested, email me.  I’ll host it with a target of maybe next weekend.

Happy Independence Day

There seems to be quite a dust-up between Wesley Clark and the rest of the thinking universe.  His latest foot-in-mouth problem is how he has tried to disparage John McCain’s military service.  It’s enough to make me nostalgic for the 2004 Democratic Primary.

Clark, of course, entered the race buoyed by polls showing him beating President Bush easily.  He immediately became the front runner.  Then he opened his mouth.

I have to wonder what it is like to watch your polls in continuous downward motion.  I’ve worked on more than a few political campaigns, and I recall good polls and bad polls, but I can’t ever recall a situation where the more the candidate said, the worse he did – not at least with a non-fringe candidate.  Well, I guess that’s what Clark was.

Anyhow, Allahpundit repeatedly reduced me to tears with his commentary on Clark’s increasingly desperate efforts to gain traction and stop the slide.

Apparently four years have done nothing to improve his political instincts.

So I’m sure many readers are asking: what does this have to do with the Fourth of July?

Only this:  The genius of the American political system is that it allows for civilian control of the military.  Despite many crises and a radically different world than that inhabited by our Founding Fathers, the Republic has endured.

While I’m naturally glad about the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment ruling, the thought I will carry with me this Independence Day is how fortunate we are to have generals as laughing stocks rather than dictators.

Wesley Clark is a comic figure, but he is also a four-star general who once commanded the bulk of our overseas armies.  When he exceeded his mandate he was cashiered without delay and reduced to hawking books, sucking up to wannabe presidential candidates, and being the butt of our jokes.

Yet another reason to love the United States of America.

 

 

A demographic thought experiment

Mark Steyn is on vacation, but between Jonah Goldberg’s latest excerpt on NRO and my earlier post on the Pope, demography is back on my mind.

I’ve written before that I do not believe that Steyn is right about Western Europe succumbing to radical Islam.  Here I would like to explore a little more of my thinking.

Steyn focuses a lot on birth rates. That’s understandable, and they are a useful statistic, but they don’t tell the whole story.

Consider that here in the US the average woman has about 2.0 kids.  That’s pretty close to the replacement rate of 2.1 and it is in fact rising.  We are actually at the highest birth rate since the end of the Baby Boom in the early 1970s.

Now what does this mean?  It does not mean that every woman has a kid, it means that some have four, some have one and some have none.  No one can have a fraction of a child.

I bring this up because Steyn likes to point out that other countries, particularly in Europe and Japan, are at 1.5 or 1.3 births per woman.  Steyn then goes on to point out that these are not equally distributed and that many of the ones having the kids are Muslim immigrants in the ghettos – people who are very receptive to radicalized Islam and terrorism.

All well and good, and sorry to bore a bunch of you with this, but I need to get it out of the way.  Anyhow, my point is that Steyn’s assertion about birth rates being unequally distributed between Muslim and non-Muslim is arguably true that it is not equally distributed – in Europe in particular – between what I will call “culturally confident” and “culturally ashamed.”

To put it another way, the non-immigrant Europeans who are having kids, who in fact tend to have larger families, are probably not likely to be nihilistic Bohemian types, but rather old-guard traditionalists who still believe in the greatness of their ancient land.

Here in the US we use the terms “liberal” and “conservative” but I don’t think they fit. For one thing, “liberal” in Europe (and Australia) actually means “conservative” in the American sense (that is, a focus on small government, individual rights and support for free markets).

Okay, so the notion here is that Europe is not in a “death spiral,” but rather it is undergoing a transformation.  Those who have no confidence in their civilization are having no children, but that fragment that does is still reproducing.

How big that fragment is I have no idea, but I’ve read enough posts from Europeans to know that is still out there.

Europe, far more so than the US, is divided by social class.  Despite the prevalence of republics (or at least constitutional monarchies), birth matters a lot more over there than over here.

One of the best demonstrations of this I’ve seen is the contrast between the movies “La Femme Nikita” and the American version “Point of No Return.”  Same story, different countries.

In both versions, our criminal-turned-assassin meets a guy while in deep cover and falls in love.  Yet the differences are telling.

In the French version, it is her reluctance to discuss her family that causes the love affair to falter; in the American one, she is easily able to dismiss family as something she doesn’t talk about – it is her feelings that matter more.

Friends of mine who visit Europe often note that in Europe, people as you where you are from, while Americans ask you what you do.  Again, class still matters.

Why bring this up?  Because Europe’s emaciated militaries still retain a cadre, a “hard core” of professionals who have been there for generations.  Two world wars didn’t wipe them out, and these folks are still serving.  They know their craft and are good at what they do, and I guarantee you they have plans to rapidly mobilize the country for war if it comes to that.  All professional militaries do.

So the thought experiment is this: What if the bulk of the births in Europe among the “natives” are concentrated within this subset?  Mark likes to trot out the example of the Spanish and Italian weddings between two only children.  Okay, but where does the .5 come from?  Some have none, others have many, and not all of them are Muslim.

What this would mean is that Europe’s native population may be dwindling, but it may also be getting more culturally assertive.

The multi-culti, global warmingists have no kids, or at most one, whilst the nth generation Prussian professional has four.  In absolute terms, Muslims will make up a higher percentage, but the remainder could well be the grimly determined heirs of Charles Martel.

Anyhow, I’ve got nothing solid to back it up.  The closest I can come is the fact that the US is having a similar pattern: “red states” have higher birth rates than “blue states,” and even in my local area, religious/cultural conservatives tend to have bigger families than the liberal/progressives.

SCOTUS: Make judges targets, too

Looking at the various court rulings over the Guantanamo Bay prisoner, I am coming to the conclusion that there is actually no reason any sensible enemy of the United States would bother to follow the laws of armed conflict.

After all, if you take off your uniform, you become an instant civilian, making it that much harder for your enemy to pick you out of a crowd.

If you are killed, why then your side can immediately say you were an innocent bystander, and accuse the US military of atrocities – claims that will immediately be echoed by “human rights” organizations around the world.

If you are captured, you will be treated to the full protections of the United States Constitution.

At least, that’s what the courts say.

From the “human rights” groups’ perspective, this ruling is a two-fer.

First, it makes it that much harder for nation-states to wage war, thus reinforcing the goals of the peace movement, from whom they are essentially indistinguishable.

Secondly, it allows the courts – which are far more easily manipulated and less democratically accountable – to effectively manage military campaigns.  Instead of military commanders determining rules of engagement, the courts will do so, and often ultimately determine the outcome of those campaigns.

If courts, for example, rule that prisoners have been taken improperly, they can be set free and the soldiers responsible can be punished. 

As I said, it’s a win-win for the peaceniks, at least I’m sure that’s how they see it.

One of the funny things about the left, however, is its inability to foresee how their actions can drive the motives of others.  For example, gun control’s primary effect is to disarm victims, thus making guns more desirable for the criminal class. 

In this instance, the trends will be twofold: on the one hand, the militaries of law-abiding countries will adopt increasingly secretive and extra-judicial means of dealing with enemies.  Since waging war is what they do, indeed what they MUST do, they will avoid court scrutiny by increasing the “gray area” around their operations.  This is not a Democrat or Republican thing (remember, the Clinton Administration came up with rendition).

The secondary effect will be that terrorists will increasingly see the judicial system itself as a viable and relatively cost-effective target.

Consider: to blackmail or otherwise influence a military tribunal, you have to effectively defeat the military that supports it.  Assassinating its members merely brings in replacements.  What is more, they will be held on military bases, which by definition are fairly tough places to get into and move around in.  Infiltrating Guantanamo Bay would be quite the feat.

Civilian courts, however, must be accessible to function within all the Constitutional constraints the judges crave.  They will therefore be in easy to reach urban areas, the judges will be easily identifiable, and blackmail will be that much easier to achieve.

This was in fact what happened in Columbia, where judges, police chiefs and prosecutors were regularly assassinated and kidnapped.  Only taking a more military approach to fighting the rebels allowed the government to restore law and order.

So the unintended effect will be that assassinating the judges – like the Supreme Court Justices who made this ruling – will now serve much more of a purpose than if the military addressed the situation.  I believe that if Al Qaeda and its affiliates in fact figure this out, we will ultimately return to using military tribunals, but not before a lot of well-meaning but unwise people are killed.

A long way from D-Day

I noticed on the ‘net yesterday that the Secretary of Defense has basically decapitated the Air Force: both the Secretary and Chief of Staff were forced to resign.  What is more, their successors are expected to undertake a housecleaning and remove or reprimand other officers.

Heads are rolling.

If one ventures over to the Air Force Times, and particularly to their comment boards, one sees the same thing again and again: that the problems the Air Force has experienced of late would never have happened if General Curtis Lemay were still in charge.

Today is the anniversary of D-Day, and if the massive heroism, stupidity, achievement and waste of that great and terrible day stand in stark contrast to our own, so do the leaders of that era.

They were not politically correct. They were not interested in fair fights.  They were interested in victory.

Lemay essentially took William Tecumseh Sherman’s view of war:  It cannot be civilized or refined.  If one hates war, one must make it so terrible that no one will ever want it again.  I think history has vindicated them both.

From the bomber crews torn to shreds by flak over Germany and Japan to the grunts drowning in the bloody surf of Normandy Beach – and everywhere in between – World War II was waged with a ruthlessness we cannot even fathom today.

The wholesale bombing of Germany and Japan killed hundreds of thousands of civilians – but it also has turned both nations from warlike aggressors into devout pacifists. 

The revisionists are still at it, trying to argue that even the “good war” wasn’t so good, and even though the Nazis and Imperial Japanese were bad, we were no better.  Of course they can say this with the luxury of 60 years of prosperity and a comfy chair in the faculty lounge – not to mention the protection of the US military that they so dislike.

This is a strange time: our military is at war, while the nation as a whole is at peace. Sixty-four years ago there was and understanding that we were not in “Mr. Roosevelt’s War,” we were at war, period.  To the media and many political elites, that is but a distant and increasingly distorted concept.

Sixty years ago today, things were very different.  I think tonight I’ll light up a cigar in memory of “Old Iron Pants” the brave warriors who fought along side him.

Obama's second apostasy

The weather this weekend was wonderful – one of the two dozen or so days a year that Lansing gets direct sunlight – so I’ve been away from the computer and missed the latest news from the increasingly surreal Democratic primary race.

Is there any greater proof needed for the wisdom of the winner-take-all system?  The GOP has had its nominee for what, three months?  Sure, the ideologues still grumble into their copies of National Review and show up to vote in primaries that don’t matter, but most of the squabbling has disappeared – and the worst venom’s basically been forgotten.

Meanwhile, on the progressive side of the spectrum, Michigan and Florida are in fact going to get seated delegates at the convention, but at a discount rate of ½ per person.  Nice.

Now one could argue that this is a pretty good deal since both states violated the sanction against early primaries. However, it doesn’t wash.

For one thing, the rule was stupid. The DNC was on a power trip and waved its mighty club and two critical states called its bluff.  And it was a bluff, since the delegates are getting seated.

But the punishment is pathetic, just enough to sting, but not enough to cripple.  In fact, nothing the DNC could do other than withhold money for campaigns and such would really “punish” the states in question, which is why the whole notion of discipline is pointless.  If Michigan and Florida flip decisively into the GOP ranks, the DNC suffers more than the state party does.  The old cut-off-nose-to-spite-face problem.

Meanwhile, Obama has now proven that his faith is really, really solid – and quit his church.

Do we need any further proof that this guy is a rank novice with terrible judgment?  He goes to the Temple of Hate for two decades, and then, when the mainstream notices, bails.  Brilliant.  So what church will he attend now?  Are they going to focus-group it?

Pathetic.

When this whole thing blew up, I said that if Wright and Co. were a problem, he should have left at once. But he didn’t.  Well, it’s too late for do-overs.

I’m a Catholic, which means that Church positions are fair game if you want to argue with me about my beliefs.  For example, I see that the Church is calling for a ban on cluster bombs.  I’m not surprised – indeed I suspect it will be just as successful as the Church’s earlier effort to ban the crossbow. 

Still, arms control isn’t a bad thing.  We don’t use dum-dum bullets, or triangular bayonets any more, and Church teaching underpins the modern notion of “civilized warfare” – silly things like that non-combatants should be protected, that hospitals and houses of worship are not military targets.  You know, all the rules that the terrorists violate at every opportunity.

If there is an issue between me and the Church, it is that Father Pfleger hasn’t been packed off to a monastery for his most decidedly un-Christian tirades.  Wasn’t Father Coughlin enough of a black eye?

Anyhow, I think this episode offers additional proof that Barak Obama is essentially a hollow man with no real guiding principles other than that of personal expediency.  I can’t think of a more dangerous personality type to entrust with the presidency.

Obama sees dead people

It's been said before, but Barak Obama is a freaking gaffe machine.

In my previous post, I noted that I used to write speeches for politicians - and that these included some for Memorial Day.  To some readers, I'm sure this makes me uniquely unqualified to criticize Obama for his tawdry electioneering over the bodies of our fallen warriors.

However, it is worth pointing out that my speeches for Memorial Day were apolitical.  I usually drew upon Gen. John A. Logan's order creating Memorial Day, (the text of this, by the way, hangs on a bronze plaque in the rotunda of Michigan's Capitol) as well as the Gettysburg Address, and other works (like Flanders Fields) that are appropriate to the occasion.  I flatter myself that they captured the solemnity of the moment.  I do know that one legislator had to cut my speech down because he said it was too difficult for him to deliver - he got all choked up.  A rare compliment.

That is what Memorial Day is all about, in my opinion at least.  A day of contemplation and gratitude for the valor and sacrifice of those who have gone on before, not a time to announce the latest giveaway to a focus-grouped constituency.

Thousands of U.S. and allied troops have died fighting against Islamic radicals in Iraq.  Memorial Day is a time to remember their sacrifice and - in the words of a better man - "highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."

You don't honor your war dead by abandoning the object of their sacrifice and then cutting checks to their surviving comrades.  Sean Grimes didn't die for a jobs program, he died for freedom.  It's that simple.

Some bloggers may be willing to excuse this as a minor slip of the tongue, but I cannot.  I wrote these kind of speeches and I simply cannot imagine doing something so crass as to insert a politics into it.

Memorial Day 2008

Believe it or not, in a previous career I used to write political speeches.  This year, I was planning to quote from some of my old Memorial Day ones, since most of the people who delivered them are out of office.  Unfortunately, I've misplaced the archival disk they were one, so maybe this will be a project for next year.

One of the strange features of the war we are in is that it is being waged almost as a sideshow.  People enlist, train deploy and come back and the rhythm of life seems unaffected.  The protests have faded to a few old hippies reliving past glory and a few young idiots who have no understanding of what sacrifice means.

This Memorial Day, I find myself thinking of Captain Sean Grimes.  He died on March 4, 2005.  My post was written back when it seemed that Iraq might be straightened out sooner rather than later, and when it looked like George W. Bush had succeeded in creating a long-term GOP majority.

It has been a tough haul since then, but I stand by what I wrote at the time.  The terrorists are losing, and the flame of hope has been kept burning bright because of those who served and who continue to serve, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world.

Seven days in May

The computer has been having some issues and I at least may not be blogging for a bit.  Other Posse members are encouraged to step of, course (hint, hint).

Meanwhile, the degree to which the mainstream press is in the tank for Obama continues to impress.  Though I'm horrified at the thought of him in the White House (let alone the Democrat nominee), I can't help but enjoy the increasing anger and frustration of the Clintons as they watch their once-pliable instrument turn on them.

Will McCain be able defeat either of them?  Sure.  It is worth pointing out that for most of 2000, Al Gore was not only far out in front but widely hailed as "inevitable."  Why we even had academics with charts and tables to prove it.  Gore did not have the messianic cult of Obama, but he did have his own Savior of the Planet vibe and George W. Bush was far less qualified than John McCain.

The point?  It's still anyone's race. 

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.