Posse Incitatus

Not quite there yet

Blackfive notes that the Democrats are trying to come up with a national security position - presumably one that doesn't involve waving a white flag.

He then correctly notes in passing how the Dems were horrified by NSA wiretapping, terrorist detentions at Guantanamo Bay, and CIA interrogation operations set up overseas. 

This is the Democrats' main problem.  Whenever they see a policy designed to fight terrorism, they scream "TORTURE!  FASCISM!  REPRESSION!" and then call for the president to be impeached.

The AP story has a few howlers in it such as this:

The Democratic statement lacks specific details of a plan to capture bin Laden, the al-Qaida chief who has evaded U.S. forces in the more than four years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Well obviously.  But that doesn't stop them from promising to do so.  And put a chicken in every pot, for good measure.

Here is where the wheels really fall of the cart, though:

But Democrats suggest they will double the number of special forces and add more spies to increase the chances of finding al-Qaida's elusive leader.

Typical Democrat idiocy.  Lacking a true strategy, they simply promise to throw money at the problem.

Special Forces are elite, highly-trained soldiers.  One doesn't simply wave a magic wand and double their numbers.  Doing so would simply dilute the skill and standards of the new soldiers, making them far less effective.

What makes this even funnier is that lack of numbers isn't the problem - it is the lack of will.  Bill Clinton had plenty of firepower starting back in 1993, but not an ounce of courage to use it.

So now the Dems are promising to double our spy network?  Great.  But what are the odds that they will use all these agents aggressively to penetrate Al Qaeda and extract information from captured enemy combatants?

The Dems aren't trusted on national security because they are cowards.  It has nothing to do with a spy shortage and evertything to do will a backbone deficiency.  Until the Dems announce that they have a plan for victory rather than "redeployment," the American people will rightly see them as incapable of looking after this nation's defense.

Stupid ingrates

The Posse - like all right-minded people - was pleased to see the three "Christian peace activists" being held hostage have been rescued by Coalition troops.

The incident should have pointed out that the terrorists look at pacifists as easy targets.

However, the moonbats running the Christian Hostage Peacemaker Teams clearly are impervious to reality:

"They knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers," Pritchard said.

He also called for coalition forces to leave the country.

"We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq," Pritchard said.

Leaving aside the staggering moral blindness of a man who calls himself "Christian," the fact that these three individuals have been rescued shows that obviously there were other factors than God's love and their Iraqi co-workers.

What bothers us isn't the blatant stupidity of the man who assumes that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was full of sunshine, happiness, love - ignoring the mass graves.

No, it is his tainting and smearing the word "Christian" with his complete and utter moral idiocy.

Nowhere in Christian theology are we instructed to simply shrug off injustice.  Had Christ acted as these moonbats did, he would have calmly bought some pigeons at the Temple and maybe changed some shekels into some denarii.

More to the point, these people the doctrine free will and original sin.  Essentially they are saying that without the Coalition, no one would come to any harm or injustice.  In fact, we're pretty sure that they believe that Saddam was just a Western puppet taught to kill and maim by the CIA.

These people are the ultimate theological free riders.  Their very existance is predicated on the willingness of others to maintain and enforce a global order.  Without it, they would be murdered and left on the roadside and not a voice would be raised in lamentation.

They are dhimmis in training, and they have learned the role well.

Cowardice by any other name

Every so often, our older posts draw comments in various forms.

Such is the case today, when our earlier write-up of Blake Lemoine has drawn this attempt at a defense in the comments:

He didnt invoke veto power over foreign policy, rather he decided that he would not act on behalf of a policy he disagreed with. He simply invoked his free will not to act.

This then begs the question:  When is cowardice not an exercise in "self determination?"

One of the problems with the anti-war movement is that it is predicated on the absence of any form of self-sacrifice.  That is to say, that its claims to moral superiority always coincide very neatly with complete self-interest and furthering one's own comfort.

The Posse calls this "convenient" because it allows the practitioners to claim to be better than everyone else, without lifting a finger or experiencing any hardship. 

But moral people know better.  They know that it is merely an attempt to cover up cowardice, a smokescreen to preserve self-respect.

What have any of the cowards and deserters willingly given up?  What sacrifice have they made?  They expect to be paid to do what they want to do when they want to do it - and if they can stitch together some bumper-sticker arguments against any policy - they want to get a pass and be forgiven for their insubordination and betrayal.

One shudders to think if this mentality had been present in earlier generations of American soldiers.  Instead of crossing the Delaware, Washington's men may well have decided that it was too hard to fight for independence and let the British win.

Or perhaps the men of the 20th Maine, 24th Michigan and countless other Civil War regiments who stubbornly held their ground despite horrific casualties should not have bothered.

After all, they knew that their generals were often inept and that the Union had wasted opportunity after opportunity to end the war.  Using this logic, why not simply desert and leave others to deal with the mess?

We are at a time where the wealth, prosperity and decadence of the West has convinced many of those most pampered and privilaged that they can have safety and security without any tradeoffs whatsoever.  So sheltered are they, that they have tried to make cowardice into a virtue and to excuse blatant disobedience of wartime orders as a mere difference of opinion.

The police officer who chases criminals, the firefighter who rushes in to save them - why it is taken for granted that these people will endanger their lives - but the truly anointed owe them nothing.

But what if their philosophy spread?  What if the cop patrolling their neighborhood decided not to respond to the panicked 911 call they placed - after all, the cop may have serious policy disagreements with city hall and upper management.

Similarly, the firefighter may decide that he has ethical concerns with the way some residents live - therefore he shouldn't have to risk his life to save theirs.

That is what Lemoine and his defenders advocate.  Thankfully, it remains confined to a fringe of American society - and a fringe that through its own weakness will likely die off in a generation or two.

Wanted: More of a war effort

While many conservatives are rightly praising President Bush's new conference performance, the fact remains that the White House has generally done a poor job of supporting the war effort.

From the networks to the front pages of most newspapers, myths and anti-American lies are regularly trotted out without any rebuttal from the administration.

It is as if all of their courage is used up on the battlefied and they have none left for the home front.

For example, the President's response to the Senate censure motion was brilliant and perfectly on-point.  It is also several weeks late.

Just as in battle, timeliness is everything.  The administration habitually wastes weeks in putting together its counterstrokes and while the "rope-a-dope" does have its virtues, it may also be the result of institutional sloth and habitual overcaution.

At some point, the gloves must come off.  The White House has endeavored to remain "above the fray" and failed utterly.

What it intends to be dignified silence has come across as either implied (guilty) agreement or political deafness.

We agree that the security and survival of the nation is at stake in the present war, but we'd like to see more of an effort to convince the voters of this truth.

Pledge month staggers on

The Posse is profoundly grateful to those of our readers who saw fit to make a donation.  Every dollar helps.  Unlike Andrew Sullivan, we don't get a month of paid vacation (then again, we don't bring in six figures worth of contributions, either).

At any rate, thank you.  We hope to post more regularly, but one of the many unpleasant features of unemployment is that it is a colossal time sink: applications, calls for leads and so forth consume far more time than an actual job.

Meanwhile, the necessity of feeding and clothing the junior Posse members requires that we endure the bureaucratic nightmare that is the welfare system. 

In many ways, welfare is the ultimate unintended consequence.  Intended to offer a helping hand to those who temporarily need it, the complexity and red tape - designed to prohibit fraud, of course - mean that no one who seriously wants to get back to work will want to waste time trying to qualify for it.

Indeed, the only folks who seem to bother are the ones most determined not to seek gainful employment.  Getting government checks, food stamps and so forth is almost an occupation in and of itself - a miserable one, to be sure - but one that some people nevertheless find quite lucrative.

During previous intervals between employment, we avoided using any of these "benefits."  It seemed to us that swift re-employment was the best policy.  Alas, Michigan's moribund economy and the imperative to provide nourishment to the junior Posse members leave us no choice but to line up for the dole.

Hopefully, the duration will be short and we will be able to resume or even increase the frequency and quality of our postings. 

In the interval, we remain heartened and grateful for the donations our readers have provided.

Thank you.

A French national hero

The elevation of Jerry Lewis into the Legion of Honor came as a surprise to the Posse only because we thought he already was a member.

Once again, truth outdoes fiction in terms of satire and humor value. 

The post-Milosevic world

The Posse's desperate search for employment has prevented us from commenting in the death of Serbian strongman and international celebrity Slobodan Milosevic.

Austin Bay offers excellent insight on the matter, noting that a clear path runs from the results of Serbian aggression to the decision to liberate Iraq.

The Posse studied the Balkan situation extensively.  We were in college at the time and the crisis surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia was almost tailor-made for studying the opposing schools of thought: interventionist vs isolationist; realist vs idealist.

We correctly predicted that the West had no stomach for confrontation with Serbia's militants, which would play into their hands, driving the moderates from power.  The end result was similar to the Spanish Civil War: an international arms embargo that chiefly benefitted the aggressors, who violated it in any case.

Our solution - arming the Croats and Bosnians - was rejected out of hand.  Instead we got the spectacle of rape and slaughter within a few hours' drive of Europe's most self-righteous capitals.

The Balkan situation revealed two things with complete clarity:  Europe could not be expected to show any initiative in any meaningful sense to protect international security or lives and that the anti-war movement was completely bankrupt and unable to differentiate between victims and oppressors.

Ironically, the Balkan "quagmire" continues, with no end in sight.  Kosovo is a virtual garrison state of NATO.  The status-quo mentality of the UN finds here yet another expression.

Yet the old order is breaking down.  The parlours of Europe no longer decide the issues of the day.  With emaciated militaries, shrivelled birth rates and overage constituencies, Europe is a paper tiger.  Milosevic was unfortunate insofar as his target of aggression was within easy reach of American firepower and that Serbia had a strong enough opposition to oust him.

As Darfur shows, a change in location makes all the difference.

As in real estate, the three most important factors for would be tyrants seem to be location, location, location.

The Posse, unemployed

We came into work Friday to find the pink slip waiting.

Needless to say, the Posse has not yet achieved a level of wealth that allows us to pass the time idly at the ranch.

Coincidentally, the rent is due for this web site.

We would be greatly obliged to any readers wishing to offer a contribution at yonder tip jar or with knowledge of job opportunities in Michigan - or anywhere else for that matter.  Just drop us an email with the link.

Blogging may be somewhat erratic as we've found that we have less free time when we don't have a job.

Beating something with nothing

Via the hated Instapundit, the Posse was amused by this Harry Shearer post.  Yes, the fact that the Democrats don't have a winning slogan is amusing, but the truly telling details can be found in the comments section.

The readers (who we must assume are actual Democrats) have a variety of comebacks, all of which betray what is wrong with their party.

Some claim that Republicans are winning only because the elections are rigged.  Given that most Democrats would rather eat glass that agree to true electoral reform (such as requiring a photo ID to vote) this is a non-starter and represents the apogee of denial.

Another recurring theme is that voters are simply too stupid to recognize the inherent "intellectual" virtues of the Democrats.  The mighty Republican marketing machine is why the idiots vote for them.

This elitist condescention is sure to play poorly in Peoria, but in many ways it represents a growing core of Democrat thought.

The penultimate view is the usual Bush/Hitler/Halliburton/corporate greed/country will be destroyed argument.  Vote Democratic or the Republic will die.

Again, the problem with this proposition is that when the country doesn't die, what then?  If Republicans are poisoning the water, why aren't more people sick?  Constantly screaming that civil liberties are being lost doesn't make it so - and the fact that one keeps screaming pretty much undermines the entire argument.

What Democrats have yet to face is that they stand for nothing and can't be reliably trusted to believe in the greatness of their country against all other takers.

The fact that they believe its elections are corrupt, it's people too stupid to vote for good candidates and that the Constitution is on the verge of collapse sends an unmistakable message that voters find basically offensive.

"Vote for me or I'll call you stupid" isn't a winning strategy.

This brings us to their last idea:  hope the Republicans screw up so badly that the electorate votes for them by default.

This is utter madness - and highly amusing for a group of people who consider themselves so much smarter than everyone else.

The problem with "waiting until the Repugs self-destruct" is that it gives you no mandate.

As soon as the Republicans jettison the old leadership, they will take back everything they lost.

The Democrats haven't won an outright, open presidential majority since 1964.  This tell us something.  Carter's victory was just such a "default" win: temporary and quickly redressed.

Clinton's two terms may have salved the ego of the Party, but they were a disaster for the Democrat Party:  Loss of the House, Senate and growing GOP dominance in state government.

Moreover, the Democrat bench is horribly thin.  When the chief contender for the presidency is a one-term senator who owes her fame to her ex-president husband rather than her ideas or own accomplishment, the Dems' problems become even more clear.

We do not rejoice in this Democrat disarray.  The Posse has cast some votes for Democrats in the past and we believe the United States is not well-served by an utterly inept opposition that can't even bring itself to offer unqualified support for this country's fighting men in time of war.

But it seems clear to us that the Dems have to lose even more until they are willing to look at themselves in the mirror and realize why people simply don't want to vote for them.

The inscrutable Yellow Peril

In the comments, Brandon Stanley offers a rebuttal to the Posse's view of how the strategic containment of China will play out. 

He is clearly a pessimist and, having often discussed matters with pessimists, there is little one can do to penetrate their gloom.

Suffice to say we believe he is making the classic mistake of overestiminating one's enemies whilst underestimating one's allies.

For example, he suggests that Australia is becoming increasingly Islamicized.  If it is, we don't see it.  In fact, Australia's government is taking a harder line against radical Islam than the US.  Opinion polls indicate that Australia's population is the most supportive of operations in Iraq and the Global War on Terror - perhaps because of Australia's close proximity to Indonesia.

Similarly, while there is no question that South Koreans like to indulge in adolescent tantrums that mock American symbols, that is a quite different matter from whether they would submit to Chinese hegemony.  We think not.

Backed into a corner, most nations will fight, particularly if they percieve that they are lot alone.  While US diplomatic statements haven't been the strongest in East Asia, partly that is because China is not yet an open enemy but a valued trading partner. 

Of all the perils confronting the US, we view the Chinese as the least alarming.  China has deep, intractable problems of its own.  Rebellions are frequent and her economy is wholly dependent on sea-borne trade.  Without it, her prosperity would collapse.

Whatever her "blue-water" ambitions, she lacks the expertise to man a large fleet, which takes years of training.  Who will instruct the Chinese in carrier operations?  Who will provide the needed instruction, traditions and  proficiency? 

In the case of our allies, the deck is heavily stacked in our favor.  Japan, Australia and of course the US have highly competent navies.  India will avail herself of this, tapping into the Anglospheric tradition that links all three of her allies (Japan's navy, like that of the US and Australia is based on the British model).

Will the US show backbone?  We believe so.  In fact, if events have shown us anything, it is that the US fights hardest when we perceive the nation's survival is at stake.  Part of the fall-off in support of fighting in Iraq is that it is no longer seen as a vital national interest.  This was the same argument about Vietnam: it didn't matter.

Losing the Pacific Rim matters.  Not even the most blinkered post-modern leftist professor can pretend otherwise.

While the US may be taking a quiet line with Taiwan, our actions tell a different story.