President Bush vows to pursue more diplomacy.

In related news, Annika takes two aspirin.

Developing.

Update: As always, I recommend you check out The Princess.

Back in 1994, we made a deal with their devil to allow them to seek out "enrichment" and nuclear technology--even to assist them in building reactors--so long as they made the Scouts Honor promise to use it for good and not for evil. We agreed to lift the sanctions that the government said was "harming" their population beyond repair, to the point where children and families were starving in the streets. We assumed that they would collapse as a government long before this moment, when a bomb equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT explodes underground. We gave them plenty of money, plenty of resources, engaged in talks with them as though they were a legitimate nation, like Germany or England, and all the while, they understood our motivations and secured themselves agains that. We were the stupid ones; they wouldn't let their regime fail, and they would certainly not allow our money to go to the projects we had designated. Instead, the international community, lifted the sanctions on their end, poured money into a nuclear program, and the results? A nuclear bomb, and a starving people. One step ahead for them, one giant step back, for us.

Many are suggesting this emerging situation reminds people of President Bush's strength, or at least will increase his approval numbers. I suppose this is because his numbers go up when we get a reminder that Radical Islamists are still out there and want to kill us. I'm not so sure that's the case here--what this situation actually reminds me of is the failure of the Bush administration to properly deal with North Korea. Yes, the Norks established their nuclear program under Clinton . . . but President Bush has now had six years to deal with it, and not[h]ing has been accomplished.

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One of the first albums I ever bought (waaay back when CDs were called "albums" and they were huge, delicate things stamped on black vinyl) was Elton John's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. My best friend Dave had a copy of it, and I liked it enough to save up my allowance and buy it. I probably bought it for one song; The moderately-hard rocking (Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket. I mean, the rest of the album was good, but that song rocked! Moderately.

As I grew older, I came to appreciate the album for more than that song. Maturity changes one's point of view, and songs that meant one thing suddenly mean something else five, ten, or thirty years later. I'm almost ashamed to admit it took me about thirty years to finally realize what one of Bernie Taupin's best poems was about, but better late than never, eh?

(I think. I mean, it's all in the interpretation, isn't it?)

The poem/song is called Writing and it's a beautiful little song. The junior-high school kid who bought this album was probably bored by this song about two people writing a book or something, with its cutesy lyrics and lite-rock guitar work. In fact, I'm sure I used to skip over this song when listening to the album.

But suddenly, one day last week, this song completely changed for me. Sometimes, maturity is not overrated.

Writing

Is there anything left
Maybe steak and eggs?
Waking up to washing up
Making up your bed
Lazy days my razor blade
Could use a better edge

It's enough to make you laugh
Relax in a nice cool bath
Inspiration for navigation
Of our new found craft
I know you and you know me
It's always half and half

And we were oh oh, so you know
Not the kind to dawdle
Will the things we wrote today
Sound as good tomorrow?
Will we still be writing
In approaching years?
Stifling yawns on Sundays
As the weekends disappear

We could stretch our legs if we've half a mind
But don't disturb us if you hear us trying
To instigate the structure of another line or two
Cause writing's lighting up
And I like life enough to see it through

And we were oh oh, so you know
Not the kind to dawdle
Will the things we wrote today
Sound as good tomorrow?
Will we still be writing
In approaching years?
Stifling yawns on Sundays
As the weekends disappear

We could stretch our legs if we've half a mind
But don't disturb us if you hear us trying
To instigate the structure of another line or two
Cause writing's lighting up
And I like life enough to see it through
Cause writing's lighting up
And I like life enough to see it through

(NOTE: This is the song as sung by Elton John. Bernie Taupin might have sent it to Elton in a slightly different format.) more...

Posted by: Victor at 07:44 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1 never heard it. i'll have to check it out on iTunes. i love EJ. Elton John for UN Sec Gen!

Posted by: annika at October 04, 2006 12:34 PM (fTmcd)

2 You just haven't been alive quite long enough or spent enough time in retail malls or doctor offices. Sir Elton is one of the very most overplayed pop idols in the universe. I used to like his stuff too, but now it just fills me with dread and agony. I just heard that crap waaaaaaaay too much. Along with, The Beatles, The Mommas and the Poppas, Rod Stewart, Billy Joel, Phil Collins, and for some reason which mystifies me, Micheal McDonald.

Posted by: kyle8 at October 04, 2006 12:54 PM (HA+F5)

3 Kyle, Did you really just include The Beatles, the great rock group of all time, with Michael Fucking McDonald and Phil Fucking Collins. I'm pretty sure there must be some sort of sin associated with that kind of bad musical analysis :-) Well, at least your politics are always solid.

Posted by: blu at October 04, 2006 04:21 PM (j8oa6)

4 actually i hate the beatles, (post revolver) but i like michael mcdonald and phil collins

Posted by: annika at October 04, 2006 07:04 PM (qQD4Q)

5 Yeah, who needs Strawberry Fields when you can listen to "Ya I'm Gonna Be There" or "Just Another Day in Paradise." If you tell that Michael Bolton is just a misunderstood genius I just might hurl.

Posted by: blu at October 04, 2006 07:14 PM (hXbaB)

6 Michael McDonald, eh? There's a great little video celebration of his career and the late-70s soft rock scene at www.yachtrock.com - me and my best friend, being the Steely Dan fans and musicians we are, have gotten a huge kick out of those short episodes!

Posted by: Chris at October 04, 2006 07:44 PM (g1lWg)

7 Ugh! I never got the whole soft rock, Steely Dan thing. Hate it, always have. And Blu, doesn't matter to me how great the Beatles were, being a reasonably intelligent person with an imagination and some taste I just cannot listen to the same goddam crap one billion trillion times and not get sick and tired of it. I'll tell you what there ought to be a law about. There ought to be a law forbiding the public playing of any song more than say thirty farking years old. My nightmare is that I will be a ninety year old in an old folks home and they will still be playing that lame ass shit.

Posted by: kyle8 at October 05, 2006 02:57 AM (ersXq)

8 Michael Bolton is just a misunderstood genius. (Who knew making Blu hurl was that easy?)

Posted by: Victor at October 05, 2006 03:06 AM (l+W8Z)

9 I'm entering the desert. I think I'll drop some acid and listen to Dark Side of the Moon... the lunatic is on the hill...

Posted by: Casca at October 05, 2006 04:31 AM (I6Vpt)

10 Victor, LOL Kyle, For me its when the stations play the same song over and over again. So, you start with a song you really like (or at least enjoy) and end up despising it. That's why I'm generally listening to CDs instead of the radio.

Posted by: blu at October 05, 2006 07:50 AM (hXbaB)

11 I’ll look for the CD. The lyrics are quite impressive.

Posted by: Flowers at October 05, 2006 09:39 AM (vcUSw)

12 Hmmm. For me, Writing was always one of the highlights of that album. It's a great little ditty that leads into the awesome Someone Saved My Life Tonight. Good stuff. Too bad Elton doesn't write music like that anymore.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at October 05, 2006 06:01 PM (fkQTo)

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Any treatment of the Mark Foley story must include certain disclaimers, so let's get those out of the way first.

1. Foley's conduct with the pages was despicable, inexcusable, inappropriate, sickening, and in my opinion may turn out to be worse than has been alleged so far.

2. I'm glad he is gone, good riddance.

3. If Dennis Hastert or other members of the House Republican leadership knew about the masturbatory internet chats (as opposed to the e-mails sent to a different page, which they did know about), then Hastert is no better than Cardinal Mahoney and needs to be booted out.*

An excellent summary of the story as of last Sunday can be found at American Thinker.

What do we know so far?

In the Fall of 2005, Speaker Hastert's office was first notified of "overly friendly" emails sent by Foley to a certain page (not the one from the masturbatory chats). Hastert's office was not shown the original emails.

Now, since Hastert is not the "boss" of the House of Representatives (he's barely the boss of the House Republicans) he appropriately handed off the issue to the Clerk of the House.

The House Clerk is kind of a quasi-operations officer for the whole House, and is elected by the whole House.

The Clerk asked to see the "overly friendly" e-mails in question and was told that the parents didn't want to reveal them for privacy reasons. The issue was resolved by the Clerk's office telling Foley to stop all contact with the page.

As far as I know, nobody is claiming that Hastert ever knew of the masturbatory chats before they were disclosed last week. All he knew about was the "overly friendly" e-mails, and he didn't even know what was in them.

Now, we can have a discussion about whether Hastert's office, or the Clerk should have been more vigourous in demanding to see what was in the e-mails. But even if they had seen the e-mails, what should they have done?

Look at the e-mails in question, and ask yourself why they are disturbing. I think they are, but I have the benefit of knowing about the masturbatory chats, which provide a hell of a lot of context.

In the first e-mail, Foley asks, "how old are you now?" In the second, he comments that another page is "in really great shape." In the third, Foley asks the page what he wants for his birthday. In the fourth e-mail, Foley says, "send me a pic of you as well."

In the law of defamation, there is a concept called "defamation per quod," which is used to describe a statement that is not defamatory in and of itself, but can be defamatory if one takes into account facts that are extrinsic to the statment itself.

You might say that Foley's e-mails contain statements that are "pederastic per quod." In other words, the statements themselves are not creepy unless one takes into account a fact that is extrinsic to the statements: the fact that Mark Foley is gay.

Alarm bells could not go off in anyone's mind upon reading those e-mails unless one takes into account the sexual orientation of the author. In other words, Hastert's critics are implicitly saying that Hastert should have made two assumptions about Mark Foley in general and the e-mails in particular (which he didn't even see).

1. That Mark Foley is gay, and

2. All gays want to have sex with young boys.

Add to that the fact that Foley was not officially out of the closet until this week. There were rumors, certainly, but Foley had always denied them. If Hastert had "outed" Foley on the basis of those four e-mails alone, Hastert would have been pilloried by the same people now calling for his head.

[Cross-posted at The Cotillion]
_______________

* As Mahoney should have been, long ago.

Posted by: annika at 05:59 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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Tonight's game is Green Bay at Philadelphia. Philly is favored by 11½. I was stumped about who to pick, since Green Bay has burned me before. Here's the history.

On September 13, 2004, I bet Green Bay in the season opener. They won and I won.

On October 11, 2004, I picked favorite Green Bay, and they got trounced by the Titans, so I lost.

On November 29, 2004, I bet against the Pack. They won 45 to 17, and I lost.

On October 3, 2005, I bet on Green Bay. They lost, but Carolina didn't cover so I won.

On November 21, 2005, I bet against Green Bay. They won and I lost.

So I figure, there's enough information there to discern a pattern. Anyone who took the LSAT ought to be able to see it. If you want to try and guess it, don't click on the extended entry. Otherwise, the answer is below. more...

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Thank goodness we have scientists to study this kind of stuff.

Actually, the story I'm referring to, by John Stossel and Gail Deutsch of ABC News, is mildly interesting. For instance:

'So when they look at babies in the first 72 hours of life, they find that males and females are not identical in the way they behave,' [a researcher] said. 'Males startle more than females. If you give a little puff of air on their abdomen, they startle much bigger and much more likely to startle than females, and females rhythmically mouth. They suck on their tongues. They move their lips and so forth more than males do.'

Another tidbit:

'The male brain Â… actually has a harder time processing the female voice versus the male voice, which is a possible explanation to why we don't listen when our wives call us,' Dr. Billy Goldberg said on '20/20.'

. . .

They said it was true that men listened less because of biology.

'Male babies make less eye contact, for instance, with their mothers than female babies,' Leyner said. 'So what we're talking about are different ways of relating to people that start at the earliest possible age.'

So can men say, 'Honey, it's not my fault. It's my brain'?

'I like to use that excuse,' Goldberg said.

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Yes, people keep sending them to me. Usually people ask me for her e-mail and normally I send back a curt response. But this one was unusual because somehow the dude thinks I'm her. How insulting is that?

Here it is, verbatim:

hi lindsay lohan

i'am your biggest fan and because i love all your movies you stared in and one more i want you to go out with me sometime if you want to and please write back biggest sweetheart

dear freako,

you are a sick stalker, and probably very dangerous and meen. do not come near my house.

instead, i'll mete you behind Jerry's Deli 2nite at midnite. Bring some rubers and weed

luv, Lindsay Logan

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Chris Roach tagged me with this book meme, so here goes.

1. One book that changed your life?

Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton

2. One book that you have read more than once?

The Trial by Franz Kafka

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

The Bible

4. One book that made you cry?

A Lotus Grows In The Mud by Goldie Hawn

5. One book that made you laugh?

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth

6. One book you wish had been written?

Kirlian Justice, by me

7. One book you wish had never been written?

Any Chomsky book

8. One book you are reading currently?

The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson

10. Pass it on

Hugo and Matt Rustler and Matt Scofield

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Check out this report from tonight's Nightline. It's pretty disturbing. Here's the transcript, in case you can't view the video.

In a nutshell, the video was taken by a Halliburton contractor named Preston Wheeler last September with his digital camera. He was driving truck five in a convoy that got lost near Balad in the Sunni Triangle.

The video shows teenagers throwing rocks at the convoy as the trucks headed down a dead end road. When the convoy had to turn back, the enemy was waiting for them. A bullet hole suddenly appears in Wheeler's windshield. A roadside bomb explodes, a truck driver is killed and his truck overturns. Wheeler's truck is disabled, and his Humvee escort continues driving.

Small arms fire is heard. Wheeler, now alone, is eventually hit by a couple of rounds as he hides under the dashboard. Inexplicably, he is unarmed. He also witnesses another truck driver taken out of his truck and shot dead by the enemy.

The Nightline report also shows predator footage of another Halliburton driver's body being desecrated by the enemy.

After 45 minutes, helicopters arrive and the cowardly insurgents scurry off, no doubt reverting to innocent civilian status.

I don't understand why the civilian drivers were not armed. I don't understand why that village was not carpet bombed immediately afterwards. It's maddening.

Posted by: annika at 12:19 AM | Comments (44) | Add Comment
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This thing is really cool. The Falling Sand Game. It's reminds me of Sim City, if you remember that old computer game.

h/t Beth

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Radical Redneck alerted me to the following bit of celebrity gossip:

He may have played nerdy eighth-grader Samuel (Screech) Powers in the sitcom "Saved by the Bell." But former TV geek Dustin Diamond can now take his place with Colin Farrell, Tommy Lee and Kid Rock as the star of his very own sex tape.

Everyone who remembers Diamond as a lovable putz is in for a shock once they see a 40-minute video in which he engages in a kinky three-way with two women, sources tell us.

We can't get too graphic here, but word is that the action includes some bodily functions and an act known as a "Dirty Sanchez."

Dirty Sanchez: A time honored event in which while laying the bone doggie style, you insert your finger into her asshole. You then pull it out and wipe it across her upper lip leaving a thin shit mustache. This makes her look like someone whose name is Dirty Sanchez.

Anyways, there's nothing that might induce me to want to watch Screech and two chicks fucking on video. In fact, John McCain might want to add that to his list of prohibited torture methods, just in case anybody at the CIA gets creative.

So I got to thinking. Who else might make the list of Celebrity Sex Videos Nobody Wants To See?

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annika has forgotten Poetry Day. Obviously, she's too distraught about the midget Angus Young being beaten by cancer-survivor Kylie Minogue in her latest poll. Sorry, annika, but a great back door will beat a midget in short pants any day.

Anyway. Poetry Day. Today's pick is inspired by my upcoming trip (like, in 30 minutes) to RFK to catch the Nats play the Phillies in some night action from the cheap seats, one section behind the right-field foul pole. Only one ball has come that way during a game: a monster home run by Daryle Ward (before he was traded to Atlanta) that hit the small wall right in front of my seat (sec 552 row 1 seat 3, on my 20-game plan), the day before I was supposed to go to a game. You can still see the smudge, if you know where to look.

Hard to think night baseball is still kinda recent. One hundred years ago...well, I wouldn't be seeing a game in late September. And it wouldn't be an NL game, and it would be between the Nationals and the Phillies.

And it for damn sure wouldn't have a 7:05PM start. Purists always say the original is best, and sometimes they're right (NO DL!), but...night baseball is cool. If you're ever in Washington, take a trip to the Phillips Collection and check out Night Baseball by Marjorie Phillips. It's kinda hidden away, but well worth the search.

(BTW, that's the Senators playing the Yankees, with DiMaggio at the plate.)

Funny sport, baseball. Start talking about one thing and you're suddenly drifting off as memories pile one on top of the other, at least until you hear that utterly distinct crack! and the crowd stands up and you're really focused on the ball's path and that sonovabitch is gone!

crack! Poetry Day. I found this poem one day and it struck me as how night baseball used to be, 100 years ago, only without the chlorine. Jonathan Holden published it in 1972.

How To Play Night Baseball

A pasture is best, freshly
mown so that by the time a grounder's
plowed through all that chewed, spit-out
grass to reach you, the ball
will be bruised with green kisses. Start
in the evening. Come
with a bad sunburn and smelling of chlorine,
water still crackling in your ears.
Play until the ball is khaki-
a movable piece of the twilight-
the girls' bare arms in the bleachers are pale,
and heat lightning jumps in the west. Play
until you can only see pop-ups,
and routine grounders get lost in
the sweet grass for extra bases.

Posted by: Victor at 02:01 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Happy eighth birthday Google! Thanks to you, the internet has made a great leap forward. Congratulations, comrades!

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You all voted for the World's Greatest Australian, and the results are finally in. I couldn't disagree more.

In what universe does a non-celebrity like Kylie Minogue beat Angus Young (who rules the known universe)?

That's b.s., but whatever.

Anyways, here's Kylie's banned lingerie commercial for whoever stuffed the ballot box. Enjoy.

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Fans of photoshopped news photography might want to check out this one, which won a Pullitzer Prize, which I suppose is a lot like Yasser Arafat winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The photographer (and I assume, the digital manipulator) was none other than terrorist associate and propagandist Bilal Hussein, now in the custody of American forces.

A commenter to The Jawa Report broke this story, so check out Howie's post for more details. The dude "sitting on air" is the clincher.

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Atlanta vs. New Orleans. The first game in the Superdome since Katrina. Falcons favored by 4. I'm going with the sentimental favorites, though. New Orleans plus the points.

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[Maybe it's like Oktoberfest, which is really in September.]

So now a tiny French newspaper called, get this, l'Est Républicain is reporting that Osama bin Laden is dead.

I knew Karl Rove was good, but damn.

Update: Check Jawa for some really good news.

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Yesterday my post was so pessimistic, I thought I'd lighten things up a bit today — sort of.

Two years ago, President Bush was criticized for saying that we can't win the Global War On Terror:

I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.

This isn't the kind of war that either side can "win" in any conventional sense. Our enemies can't destroy us militarily, because we're far too strong. We can't destroy them militarily, because they're too disbursed and decentralized. So we'll be taking potshots at one another for a long time to come. What's the end game? I don't know. How will a permanent state of war affect American politics, our collective psyche and our liberty? I don't know. It's a frustrating and frightening thing.

Matt, of all people, should know as a boxing fan that a lot of times the winner of a bout is decided by who makes the first mistake. He's right in saying that al Qaeda can't destroy us because "we're far too strong." Therefore, no mistake on our part can end the conflict.*

But if al Qaeda, and the radical Islamist movement it has spawned makes a mistake, we can and will crush them in such a way as to end the war. What is the particular mistake that will cause our enemies to lose? I'm getting to that.

As the situation stands now, al Qaeda et al. have the initiative and the upper hand in the GWOT. As it stands now, we cannot deal them a death blow. That's because in the most basic sense, all warfare is about control of geographic areas.† The great strength of the terrorist is that there is no geographic area which we can push him off of. That's what Matt meant when he wrote that the enemy is "too disbursed and decentralized."

President Bush's big contribution to the theory of warfare is the "Bush Doctrine," which in part addresses the terrorist's strength: their lack of geographical origin. On September 11, 2001, he said that the United States, when hunting down the terrorists, "will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." Nine days later, in his greatest speech, the President restated that doctrine in more detail:

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

It was a brilliant and necessary idea, but unfortunately it has not been entirely successful in practice. Geopolitical considerations have blunted the doctine's effect, as I think the war planners probably anticipated. We've seen the doctrine work beautifully in Libya, but in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for instance, there have been mixed results. We had to make a difficult compromise with those countries because an imperfect alliance with their governments is still of great value to our interests. As a result, we have to accept that, for the time being, there will be some laxity in their efforts to control the extremism within their own borders. We can't fight everyone all at once, and especially not if Pakistan and the Saudis assure us that they are on our side.

The Bush Doctrine alone cannot win this war. So what is the mistake that the Islamists dare not make? What is the mistake that will enable us to win? It is the very thing that the enemy hopes to gain: a pan-Islamic caliphate.

Think back to the 1930's. That was a time when the democratic world looked at the growing threat of fascism and was unable to do anything to stop it. I would argue that appeasement and half-hearted reaction was inevitable then, just as it seems inevitable now. The world simply wasn't in a place where strong and united action was possible. Democracies have many strengths, but swift action is not one of them. In the 1930's there was still a system of alliances that finally mandated a response to Hitler, but the response came almost too late.

The Allies responded to Hitler only after he started taking territory by force. Now fast forward a few years. We responded to the Japanese after they started advancing across the Pacific. We responded to the North Koreans when they invaded the South. Same thing in Vietnam. Same thing when Saddam invaded Kuwait. When territory is invaded by an expansionist enemy, we never seem to have any trouble responding appropriately.

What would happen if Osama bin Laden got what he wanted — the restoration of Islamic territories to a fundamentalist theocracy under Sharia law? My thesis is this: If the Islamic fundamentalist movement were to become attached to a state, and that state were to adopt expansionist ambitions, the Western World would and could oppose them successfully.

We know that one goal of Islamic fundamentalism is to recapture territory lost to the infidel, or lost to secularist governments such as Egypt and Turkey. That is their end game. Their fatal mistake would be to actually start achieving those goals. Once the terrorists start to add nations to their idealized pan-Islamic caliphate, they will become a concrete threat that the world can unite against. Instead of being an ephemeral enemy, unconnected with any state and therefore immune from retaliation, they would suddenly become constrained by the same realities of warfare that have prevailed for centuries — and at which we excel.

The bad news is that my thesis presupposes a long period of very bad setbacks for our side. But I don't see any other way around it. The West has proven that it does not yet have the will to unite against its enemy, and even if it did, fighting insurgents and terrorists is like fighting ghosts. You can bomb a nation into submission, but I think we all know by now, it's pretty hard to bomb suicide bombers into submission. Just ask the Israelis. They've always been able to beat any nation-state with one hand tied behind their back. But they just lost their very first war, against a bunch of terrorists who were disavowed by any government.

The really bad news is that, in my view, the timeline for this caliphate solution to come about is on the order of ten to twenty years. By that time, Iran will have nuclear weapons. I think we all know that it's inevitable. So when Iranian troops spearhead the invasion of Greece, or Spain, or wherever, and the West finally gets up the gumption to oppose them, we will be firing missiles at each other.

I know this post sounds like I've been reading too many Harry Turtledove books, but if you think about it, you'll see I'm right. Countries win wars by finding a way around the enemy's defenses. Islamic terrorists hide within "neutral" states and behind innocent civilians, that is their main defense. But they lose that defense once they attach themselves to a piece of land and call themselves a nation. Therefore the seeds of their own destruction lay inside their own express goals.

I told you this would be a more optimistic post.
_______________

* I can hear the nay-sayers now. "But we're already making mistakes that will cost us the war, by being too soft on the enemy, on homeland security, on our borders, etc." I don't disagree that we're being too soft. But what is the probable result of our softness? A major attack? And the result of a major attack will be that our softness is replaced by a hardness in proportion to how bad the attack is. Bottom line is that no terrorist attack, however horrendous, will cause the United States to become part of the pan-Islamic caliphate. That is a danger that exists solely in Europe, due to their lack of moral character, their lax immigration policies, their societal decision not to reproduce, and their sixty year reliance on the United States' security umbrella, which caused them to forget how to defend themselves. But I do not see that fate happening to us. As a people we are too stiff necked and independent. And we love our Constitution too much to replace it with the Koran. (Sure we got some nutty ideas in this country. But when the Swedes are considering a tax on all men to pay for domestic violence treatment — and the idea is taken seriously — all I can say is we have a long way to go in the U.S. before we reach the European level of self-destructive insanity.)

† I know von Clausewitz said, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means," but I'm talking in the micro sense. There's a guy standing on a piece of land that I want to stand on. He's got a gun and I've got a gun. War is how I use my gun to get him to let me stand on that piece of land. He either dies, runs away, or steps aside.

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A contributor who wishes to remain anonymous sent me this artwork, inspired by my recent Mohammadonna post. I love it.

This is great. If anybody else wants to make some Mohammadonna shit, send it to me or give me a link. I'll post it.

Posted by: annika at 03:50 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Perhaps many of you have seen the Abu Dawood interview transcript that's been making the rounds. If not, here it is.

It's pretty scary stuff. Dawood is supposedly some sort of al Qaeda bigwig, and he says American moslems should leave the country immediately. He also says that al Qaeda has already smuggled "deadly materials" across the Mexican border and that they can attack anytime.

I'm not convinced of this transcript's authenticity. It's supposed to have been done in person, but it reads like a written interview with short questions and long prepared answers.

Assuming arguendo that the transcript is legitimate, a couple of things come to mind. If the "deadly materials" were smuggled across the Mexican border, that suggests to me that a likely target is the West Coast, probably Los Angeles. That scares me a lot because my family lives there. I don't see the terrorists attacking anything except on the coasts. They can blend in easier in populated blue state areas than they can in say, Texas. Transporting the "material" from Tijuana to L.A. is a lot less risky than going from Nuevo Laredo to D.C. And if they want to top 9/11, they'll need to attack a major city that holds some symbolic value.

Secondly, if a big attack occurs, the Democrats won't look quite so dumb for having insisted that Iraq was a distraction and we should have been concentrating on finding Bin Laden. Just being honest here.

Thirdly, I have heard more than once from people I know, that if a major attack occurs, it will be open season on anyone with linen on their head. I think we're in for some serious backlash if there's another attack, as the interviewer acknowledes in the transcript.

I don't know about you, but I've noticed a vague sense of anger and dread rising in this country since about mid summer. I don't see it in my personal day-to-day life, but I do hear it on the radio, on tv and in blogs. I think left and right have been banging away at each other for five years and nobody's winning the debate. We're all sick of arguing and we're just waiting for some event to happen that will prove one side or the other right.

The string of foiled attacks this summer added to the feeling I'm talking about. So did the Lebanon crisis. And the Iran stalemate. And Chavez yesterday. The impending election is also a factor, though I don't think the results will change the national mood, no matter who wins. If there is a big attack on our soil before the year is out, I really think things will get ugly — much uglier than I can even imagine.

Sure, I know that there are lots of dedicated folks out there trying to detect and stop anything bad from happening. And they've been successful so far. But I also worry because it seems like it would be so easy for the terrorists to do something if they really tried. Anytime we catch somebody it seems like we got lucky. But just using my own imagination, I can think of dozens of ways they could carry out an attack without us ever catching them.

So I guess the message is pray, have an emergency kit ready, and don't fly during Ramadan (which starts two days from now).

Update: Peggy Noonan senses the dire mood too.

But the temperature of the world is very high, and maybe we're not stuck in a continuum but barreling down a dark corridor. The problem with heated words now is that it's not the old world anymore. In the old world, incompetent governments dragged cannons through the mud to set up a ragged front. Now every nut and nation wants, has or is trying to develop nukes.

Posted by: annika at 09:43 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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