Osama and Obama

I have already congratulated the president and the head of the CIA for the execution of Osama Bin Laden while he was resisting arrest ( Bye, Osama). Let me add that I am glad he chose the dangerous military method he chose. It was calculated to minimize collateral damage. It did not succeed completely. A woman, who may have been one of Obama’s wives, died serving as a human shield for one of his brave warriors. Given the esteem in which fundamentalist Muslims hold women’s lives, I am not surprised. Women caught in such circumstances are innocent by definition.

Update May 6th: It appears now the woman was not killed but wounded. (The story from the administration keeps changing.) The assertion that she was used a shield has not changed though. There is a possibility she is one of Obama’s wives. Nice all-around guy.

Now, I am puzzled again. “Buried at sea” ? Why would anyone do anything that stupid? One, the world, including me, wanted proof of his death beyond what the President and a handful of agents can affirm. A good picture worked for Che Guevara, it worked for that Columbian drug dealer, what was his name again? If the administration was too sensitive to incur the disapproval that met George W. Bush when he exhibited Saddam’s sons’ cadavers, he still shouldn’t have done it. That’s second: Bin Laden has family, a large family, in fact, most of whom are innocent. The president could have looked magnanimous by allowing a funeral. Funerals are for the living anyway; the dead don’t care. The concern voiced in some government circles that his grave would become a shrine is stupid. It shows again the administration’s parochial ignorance. Islam strictly forbids any cult of the dead including of reputed “saints.” While the interdiction is often violated in some Muslim lands, in North Africa, for example, fundamentalist Muslims are very unlikely to ignore it.

One more time, President Obama manages to sound fishy. I resist and usually combat views of the world based on wild conspirational ideas. The President’s own actions make the task difficult. One hundred years from now, there will be pseudo-scholars arguing about whether Obama was really killed on on May 1^st or 2^nd 2010. Someone will look for him in Argentina thirty years from now and beyond.

Now, I need to set the record straight again because I gather from what I hear on talk radio that many people have a bad memory. NATO invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to overthrow the Taliban religious dictatorial regime for refusing to turn over the mass terrorist Obama Bin Laden. (That the Taliban were in the habit of executing women on soccer stadiums at intermission only made the mission more attractive.) The fact that Obama finally met his fate does not mean that all his forgiven. We have to indicate strongly to everyone in the world that if you help those who kill Americans, there is a fair chance you will be in trouble for a long time to come. The fact that we are still failing to follow this sound policy with respect to the murderers in Syria, for example, does not make it any the less precious: “If you fuck with us, you should worry; you will never sleep soundly again.” The additional fact that some of our NATO allies are getting weak-kneed makes it even more imperative that we stick to this doctrine.

I don’t know what president Obama will do in this connection, the current military action in Afghanistan. It’s hard to tell because, in security matters, he rarely does what he says he will do, fortunately. Incidentally, if I were a left-winger of the peacenik persuasion, I would be livid at the man I elected: The president instituted a policy of massive assassination of suspected enemies, including in a country with which we are not at war. This policy caused the death of many innocent by-standers, there is no doubt of that. Yesterday, he executed a suspect without trial after locating him on the basis of information extracted from untried detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison established deliberately to avoid the judicial safeguards of the American legal system. Of course, it’s more than likely that the information was extracted with the help of water-boarding or other forms of “torture.” It’s even possible that the information providers spent some thought-provoking time under conditions of foreign rendition. The other possibility is that Khalid Sheik Mohamed and other high-placed Al Quaida members sang like two-bit pimps or car-thieves at a Bronx police station.

Those who deplore in any way the head killer’s execution are not our friends. They don’t mind the deliberate assassination of American civilians. They are not our friends, wherever they are, including right in this country.

The rotten, failed state of Pakistan, where most people hate America, has much egg on its face, of course. How could no one in government know? We are told we can’t make do without them. At some point, when a friend is eating your liver, you have to reconsider the relationship, whatever the cost. I am also wondering what we owe that opportunist cheat we set in power, President Karzai of Afghanistan.I don’t know why we have to squander our energies on state building among people who don’t want a state. It seems to me it would be easier to kill the Taliban and their local hosts. Hang for a lamb, hang for a sheep! They always have the option to surrender, after all. The way we treat our enemies, they will probably end up in Bermuda.

Zionist Agents Assassinate Pakistani Faithful; French Views of the Causes of New Zealand Earthquake

Yesterday, Zionist agents  took advantage of Ramadan to bomb a Muslim Shiite religious procession in Pakistan, killing 65, all civilians, including women and children. Another Zionist atrocity!

OK, I was messing with your minds. The Pakistan Taliban proudly claimed responsibility for the mass assassination of Shiites. They have good reasons of course. The Taliban (“students of religion”) are Sunni. They think religious processions are idolatrous, close to infidel (Christian or Hindu) practice. I don’t blame the Taliban much for their manner of fighting heresy. My ancestors did about the same. OK again, that was 400 years ago and more.

Today, thousands of Muslims are demonstrating in front of an embassy in Indonesia. They are protesting the slaughter of their fellow Muslims in Pakistan. OK, lying to you again. They are in front of the American Embassy. They are actually protesting the burning of a Koran by an extremist American Protestant pastor scheduled for 9/11. Those people have their priorities clear.

I wonder how many of the Indonesian protesters are aware of the fact that President Obama has no legal way to prevent the event. I think maybe four or five. The others wouldn’t believe you if you explained it to them text in hand. We are facing two problems here: First, most Muslims are used only to authoritarian government. (It is not the case in Indonesia as of the past ten years.) Second, our governments (plural) are doing an inconceivably bad job of presenting brand America abroad.

The French centrist newspaper Le Figaro, one of the biggest dailies, has the good idea of allowing instantaneous readers’ email in response to its articles. It all appears quickly in the on-line edition. I say “allow,” with reserved because the comments seem to be heavily censored. I say this because all three of my submissions were rejected outright for being too controversial. Each of them would have easily made my daily newspaper.

Anyway, there has been an online discussion among readers about the causes of the New Zealand earthquake. Specifically, some media commentators apparently blamed….global warming. I am pleased to report that more readers disagree than agree with this interpretation.

You think Americans are stupid and ill-educated?

Obama’s Wars ( and Not-Wars)

This is kind of a dry blog season for me. First. I live in Santa Cruz, California where other people go on vacation. The sun sets late. The sea is beautiful, the wind warm most evenings. Second, I am suffering from a fairly severe case of Obama fatigue. The spirit ends up rebelling against bad news and commentaries on bad news. Here is a summary, for what it’s worth. I begin with the positive. Won’t take long.

President Obama has had the good sense to do nothing about the Iraq withdrawal plan inherited from President Bush. We are leaving soon, gradually, in orderly fashion. We are leaving behind an imperfect but determinedly democratic form of government. It’s a little chaotic by Swiss standards, pretty good by middle-eastern ones. Ordinary Iraqis are still dying at the hands of terrorists, their enemies and ours. The Iraqi freely elected government seems to be able to deal with the continued atrocities and determined to do so. The US is very popular in Iraqi Kurdistan, at least. We could have an air force base there for the asking. Obama won’t ask. All the same, it’s good to have the good will. We might need it soon, against Iran, possible supported by a newly “Islamist” Turkey.

The fact of Iraqi democracy is not lost on the subjects of various middle-eastern tyrannies, including the ones we have been supporting for a long time. “If the Iraqis can have one, after 25 years of Saddam Hussein’s gangster fascism, why not us?” the subjects tell themselves. It ‘ s not only bad examples that are contagious.

Bush bet on this “war of choice.” The fact is: he won. President Obama did not stand in the way after being elected.

In Afghanistan, Pres. Obama is staying true to the letter of his campaign announcements if not not their spirit. After yielding to the temptation to do the wrong thing: Firing General McChrystal, he did the right thing: Appointing General Petraeus. It must have been exceedingly distasteful and painful to appoint the man his avid Leftists supporters at “MoveOn” were still recently calling, “General Betray US.” Yet, the President took his medicine like a man.

I am reading between the lines of Petraeus’ appointment. The general himself says he supports the planned 1012 withdrawal. But the date was always conditional. This leaves me to believe that Mr Obama is not closing the option to stay as long as necessary.

Full disclosure: Personally, I think we should prosecute that war until both of two things happen: We know for sure that Bin Laden and his seconds are dead, and the Taliban surrender. It’s intolerable to let the world know that you can kill Americans at home without paying the price for doing so. Other Muslim terrorist groups are watching; the Russians are watching; the now-peaceful but increasingly powerful Chinese are watching; the desperate North Korean Stalinist-fascist regime is watching; above all the Iranian Islamist-fascist regime is watching with its tens of thousands of guard dogs dreaming of copulating with seventy-two virgins. None of these dangerous entities shares our interest in peaceful co-existence. None shares our belief in the belief that individual human lives matter.

Of course, my seeming willingness to go on sacrificing young American military lives seems paradoxical in view of the last sentence. It’s only superficially so. Our military men and women are all volunteers. They are more intelligent, better educated, and healthier than the average of the rest of the population. If we had to rely on  a draft, I would be more conflicted. And, of course, I don’t begin to take seriously the liberals who pretend to shed tears about the deaths and maiming of American military personnel. You never hear them complain about the loss of American lives where they would be comparatively easy to avoid. Here is a comparison: About 1,100 American military have died in Afghanistan in 9 years, most, but not all combat-related deaths. That’s about 30 times fewer than die on American roads each year. Many people assume road casualties are unavoidable. Nothing could be less true. Alcohol is involved in a least half of them. We could avoid 15,000 deaths each year by enacting and enforcing a zero-alcohol tolerance at the wheel policy. It’s all a matter of how far we are willing to go. If the obligatory penalty for the first offense where six months in jail with no suspension of sentence and if the second penalty were one year in jail and permanent withdrawal of license, you would see drinking and driving plummet to near zero. Liberal pacifists who deplore loudly 1,000 American combat deaths don’t even ever mention the vastly more murderous conflict on our roads. Hypocrites!

With Iran’s nuclear armament race, President Obama has failed to draw the lessons from the previous administration’s military inaction. The danger is growing greater and nearer by the day. Because we are militarily unprepared in that area, we might end up being forced to use the nuclear option. If we do, we will probably for be killing tens of thousands of Iranians who, we have known since last summer at least, would love to be free from the mad-dog mullahs. The so-called “Islamic Republic” is unlikely to attack us directly, it’s true. The danger is the it will threaten, seriously once, to annihilate Israel. The Israelis will then launch a preemptive attack and dare us to do nothing to help.

President Obama is a wimp, like most liberals. He does not like to contemplate bad dreams like this one.

The passive fiasco with North Korea continues. Here again, the current administration failed to draw the lessons from the past. If we are lucky, the fascist regime there will collapse spectacularly under the weight of its own mistakes and of its risible succession problems (the latter, comparable to those of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century). If we are unlucky, the regime will launch a suicide war against the prosperous Republic of Korea to its south. Then, our paltry 30,000 “trip-wire” troops there will be threatened with extermination. If this happens, we will surely nuke tens of thousands of North Koreans whose sole crime is to have suffered terribly for two life-times at the hands of their monstrous ruler-puppets.

Way to go for peace, Mr President!

Next time: The triumphs of President Obama’s domestic policies.  I will be brief!

President Mans Up (a Little)

Quick reactions to the President’s speech on the conflict in Afghanistan: I thought the first twenty minutes of the President’s speech were pretty good given that he would not have been elected without widespread anti-war sentiment throughout the country. The anti-war stance is not limited to the Left, by the way. Periodically, I argue with the pacifist sentiments my friends at the libertarian Independent Institute express all the time. (Link to the Institute’s website on the front page of this blog.)

The speech was well delivered, as usual. The choice of a backdrop of young cadets under military discipline was both prudent and a little pathetic. As for content, the speech promised to do what needs to be done to contain the Taliban and to restrict Al Qaida’s freedom of action. It did not mention victory. Like everyone else, I am disturbed by the narrowness of the means he promised the armed forces to do the job.

Thirty-thousand more troops rather than the forty-thousand General McChrystal requested sounds like me buying a carpet in Istanbul: “The s.o.b is asking for forty, he must expect thirty-five; I will give him thirty.”

Like everyone else also, I think the main part of the speech was his giving an exit date, however tentative. Yet, I am not ready to condemn this categorically. On the one hand, it’s pretty sure the terrorists will interpret the announcement to mean that if they will hunker down a bit and be patient, they will soon be able to go back to turning the country back to the 8^th century. Al Qaida, for sure, can wait us out for eighteen months. Some of our current allies will also become discouraged. Worst of all, the always-fickle public opinion in Pakistan might turn against us. The current democratic government of that country has finally waken up. It’s unrealistic to expect it to act steadfastly against the wishes of its overwhelmingly anti-American public if it looks like we will be in the neighborhood for only a short time.

On the other hand, a warning to the Afghan government to get its act together makes sense. The political class of Afghanistan seems to have been acting as if the struggle against the Taliban was not much their business. They have engaged in little games for power and control, fraught with corruption, under the protection of the NATO umbrella. If they come to believe that there is a good chance the umbrella might be folded, it might cause them to get serious. The main form of this corruption is the failure to raise and train armed forces commensurate with the problems Afghanistan faces, or even appropriate to its population size. One thing must be pretty clear to the Afghan political class: If the Taliban overrun their country, they will die in large numbers. And of course, little girls will be prevented from going to school again.

For a historical precedent on the passivity our military presence induces: Am I the only conservative who suspects that the Iraqi political class begun to get serious only when it became clear our troops wouldn’t be in Iraq forever?

The last part of the President’s speech was rambling, unfocused, largely irrelevant. I don’t know why he spent so much time on the financial costs of military action, or whom he thought he was addressing. Here is what I re-learned in this connection, from his own mouth:

My household’s share of the anticipated cost of military action in Afghanistan for the next year is about $200. That’s quite a bit less than we spend on booze. We can sustain this expenditure and more forever. The President also reminded me that my wife’s and my cost jointly for Iraq and Afghanistan to-date was $6,600. That’s spread over eight years. It looks like a lot of money. Yet subjectively (there is no other way) I think it was a better investment than anything I did during that particular period.

Remains the toll in blood and in ruined lives of young military men and women. Liberals and other isolationists exploit this issue shamelessly. Conservatives don’t talk enough among themselves about this awful subject.

A guy comes out of my neighbor’s house and kills my brother. I ask him to turn over the killer. He refuses. I throw him out of his house. He tries to come back. I try to kill him. If I don’t, every hood in town is going to try to murder me and mine. It’s no more complicated than this. But Benjamin Franklin said it best:

“If we make ourselves into sheep, the wolves will eat us.”

The War Obligation: Afghanistan

As the nation’s attention is passionately riveted to the death rattles of Pelobama Care, some of America’s main business goes unattended.

Several months after being informed of General McChrystal requirements, two months after the general went public to force a response (thereby risking his career), the President has not said if he had made up his mind about what to do in Afghanistan. The argument that he was awaiting the results of the Afghan elections does not hold water anymore. No, Afghanistan is not Switzerland. Yes, it’s a pity there was so much cheating. But, there is no doubt that the winner was really the winner. The runner up Abdallah Abdallah never said otherwise, I think. In the UK, or in Germany, or in Italy, the winner would have gone on to form a government, even without 50% plus one votes.

In the current issue of the Weekly Standard (Nov. 9 2009), Donnelly and Sullivan opine that the President is going to announce an option McChrystal “lite,” 20,000 additional troops instead of the 40,000 requested. That falls short of everyone’s wish. There is mounting pressure from a segment of what is usually defined as the conservative side to leave Afghanistan altogether. Not all of the pressure proceeds from childish petulant desire to do to Obama what the Left did to Bush. Opposition emanating from my Libertarians friends, led by the Independent Institute, is principled, coherent, based on moral convictions, and thoroughly blind, in my opinion. Fortunately, most libertarians (like me) are not Libertarians. Here is a summary of what’s at stake.

The people threatening to take over the Afghanistan are the same people who sheltered the 9/11 assassins. I am not making this up. They are not hiding it. They are the same Taliban movement that was reduced to next to nothing by the flash-quick combined NATO, Northern Alliance victory in 2001. That was the price they paid for refusing to turn over for trial the Al Quaida Arabs responsible for 9/11. By the way, the invasion of Taliban Afghanistan was authorized by the UN and still is. (I don’t care much myself about this fact. I mention this for those of you who are concerned about the fiction of international law.)

There are four additive reasons for Americans to want the Taliban defeated. They are separate and perhaps of unequal importance but they point toward the same US policy. First, there is no reason to believe the Taliban leadership has learned any lesson from its removal from power. It sheltered the criminals who killed 3,000 American civilians even after they had no excuse to not know what happened. They hate kuffar, infidels, and they care nothing about international principles of justice or of peace. There is no reason why they would stop any future attempt to plan one, two, three, four, five, six, or more 9/11, on us, or on our partners. The potential victims are not all in the West. Note that predominantly Muslim countries struggling to become or to remain democratic such as Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, and Turkey make especially attractive targets.

I am not just imagining things. 9/11 was superbly planned, superbly executed and must have cost little more then $500,00. There are more 9//11 where it came from, given a place where the plotting can be relatively well sheltered from intrusion. Afghanistan remains a prime location for such activities because of its geographic inaccessibility and because of its very backwardness.

Let the Taliban take over again and hunch your shoulders! I am not referring only to unacceptable loss of life but to the economic devastation that would follow multiple attacks of the same type as 9/11.

The second reason Americans should want to defeat the Taliban is that newly democratic Pakistan has finally shaken itself out of its impotent torpor. Finally, it’s going with some vigor after its own home-grown violent jihadists, including some who call themselves “Taliban.” Nevertheless, there is little reason to doubt that the average Pakistani sees the military action as more of America’s fight than his own. It does not matter how deluded a view that is. It would not be the first time that the most likely victims of a crime are the most blind to it. After all, most German Jews seem to have made no attempt to flee Nazi Germany, even after seeing SA lowlife marched past them singing something like” “I smile when I see Jewish blood.”

It cannot be said enough that Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons. Even barring a full violent jihadist take-over, there is grave danger in any sort of political accommodation with jihadists, even of their physical proximity to the weapons. After all, how difficult would it be for a powerful Islamist politician to get two of his grand-nephews on the female side hired as night janitors in a nuclear arsenal? Hint: Pakistan is part of the Indian sub- continent where family pull matters. (Why the female line? Think it through.)

If the US is seen as faltering in Afghanistan, a large segment of Pakistani political opinion will ask itself why Pakistan should do what the vastly richer and more populous US is unwilling to commit to. A coalition government with Taliban or some other Islamist elements will be next. The dream of every two-bit violent jihadist, including American ones, to get his hands on dirty bomb material will come very close to being realized. A single dirty bomb exploding in a major American city would have the capacity to set back the world economy by many years through a chain reaction. The Islamist terrorists know this. They are insane, not stupid.

The third reason to beat the Taliban is they they are a morally obscene group. When they were in power, they executed “adulterous” women during soccer game intermissions. Guess what “adulterous” means under sharia ? They denied male-administered medical care to women in a country with no female doctors and they kept little girls from school. In the middle-run, the product would have been this demented thing: self-genocide through the dying off of many women. Today, in parts of the country they rule, they throw acid in little girls’ faces to discourage them from going to school. Perhaps worse of all, the Taliban outlawed music. (That’s a good enough reason to kill them, in my book.) I am well aware of the serious arguments against the US acting as the world’s sheriff. (I don’t buy them but that’s another story.) Yet, once in a while, a country’s self-interest and common decency happen to coincide. This is one such opportunity. We should not waste it.

The fourth reason is that the many potential and actual enemies of Americans are watching our every move. Every time President Obama demonstrates weakness, they take a step forward. The enemies include several terrorist groups, of course, Iran, North Korea, and Russia and China if they get a chance. Russia is just a hoodlum country that will grab what it can. The Chinese leadership probably does not want our destruction but it’s ill-informed and prone to miscalculation. If we falter on Afghanistan, they will reach out for a piece of us. Most of our vacillating NATO allies are the way they have been for a long time, as they were under the Soviet threat. They have no stomach for a fight unless we push and pull and, above all, set an example of bravery.

(Note: I know I have not dealt with our casualties or with civilian casualties resulting from our actions. Both matter, obviously.)

In the meantime, my Libertarians friends develop principled arguments against continued US and NATO military action to repel the Taliban that are all about propriety, and also about property. I have no doubt that war increases the importance of government, its dominion over civil society. As a libertarian (with a small “l), I hate it, of course. But a broad terrorist attack would increase the influence of government even faster, more deeply, and more irreversibly. I am not about to join the Libertarian Party because of its blindness regarding defense. The Libertarian arguments, I would buy if I were reasonably sure my house is not about to be set on fire. Moral principles are here to help people live good lives, in every sense of the word. They do not exist to excuse passivity. Passivity in the face of evil is the greatest evil of all.

PS An Army psychiatrist, a major, murdered 12 people at Fort Hood, Texas, today. It seems he was having career trouble. All the same, I wish he did not have an Arab, Muslim name. It makes keeping things in perspective difficult.

CORRECTION: I WROTE IN A PREVIOUS COLUMN ( “THE A.A. PRESIDENT,” POSTED 10/07/09 ) THAT I DOUBTED PRESIDENT OBAMA HAD EVER PASSED THE BAR EXAM ANYWHERE ANY TIME. A FRIEND OF MINE, A GOOD LAWYER I HAVE KNOWN FOR A LONG TIME AND WHOSE UTTERANCES I TRUST SAID OTHERWISE. MY ATTORNEY FRIEND TOLD ME THAT THE FACT THAT BARACK OBAMA HAD BEEN ADMITTED TO PRACTICE BEFORE THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT PROVED THAT HE HAD PASSED THE BAR. THAT HE WAS SO ADMITTED CAN BE FOUND ON THE SITE OF THE ILLINOIS BAR ASSOCIATION. I ACCEPT MY FRIEND’S JUDGMENT IN THIS RESPECT. I AM STILL PUZZLED ABOUT WHY THE REAL ACHIEVEMENT OF PASSING THE BAR EXAM – WHICH CAN PRESUMABLY NOT BE EASED BY AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CONSIDERATIONS – IS NOT MENTIONED ON THE PRESIDENT’S WIKIPEDIA ENTRY. MR OBAMA ‘S LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS IS SHORT AND THIN; THE BAR EXAM SHOULD BE THERE TO THICKEN IT. PERHAPS ONE OF THE PRESIDENT’S SUPPORTERS WILL DO THE JOB. I AM WATCHING.

Afghanistan, Conservatives and Libertarians. Telling off the King.

There is an upsurge of hostility to the war in Afghanistan in conservative circles. Thus, the Independent Institute, an organization I have been supporting modestly but faithfully for years has a spate of statements against our anti-Taliban operations there. It’s understandable but disappointing.

Part of the reason for some conservative reserve is simply childish tit-for-tat: “You libs berated Bush about his war, in Iraq; the shoe is on the other foot and we will berate you about Obama’s war in Afghanistan.” It matters not to this mindset that it’s only Obama’s war in the trivial sense that he is not using his powers to withdraw.

The main cause of the upsurge of hostility comes from the strong libertarian component in our midst. Libertarians, by definition, dislike big government. They observe, correctly, that every war enlarges the importance and the power of government in relation to civil society, to society in general. They assert further that the taxation capability governments acquires in war time- largely with the help of the suspension of criticality occasioned by patriotism – is seldom rolled back. Thus, war means irreversible growth of the state and a corresponding shrinking of individual liberties. Hence, libertarians tend to be reflexively isolationists.

Of course, I think this is all true. However, this is only part of the story. It’s futile to ignore the concrete, short-term questions facing this country with respect to its involvement in Afghanistan. Here are three:

1 If we allow the Taliban, the same group that hosted Al Quaida and refused to turn Bin Laden over after 9/11, to seize again Afghanistan, do we think they will not do it again? I did not make up the assertion that they are the same group. If they were not, they would have taken the trouble to call themselves something else. By the way, the Taliban top leader then is still the top leader now. If we pick up and go home, isn’t it undeniable that it communicates to our enemies the following message: “Do whatever you want to us; we will not punish you, at least, not much.” I mean by “enemies” first those who have asserted loudly that they will continue killing us because of who we are. I mean, secondarily, those who don’t quite want to blow us off the face of the earth but would enjoy seeing us much diminished.

In one word: Isn’t it the case that leaving our declared enemies alone is plain dangerous? Ben Franklin said it best, “If we make ourselves into sheep, the wolves will eat us.”

2 No one doubts that the Taliban, both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, and Islamists in general, want to implement barbaric policies and that they do implement them whenever they have a chance. (Remember, their harsh, extremist rule in parts of Iraq contributed to turning the Sunni population against them.) Among other rolling atrocities, the Taliban close, and often firebomb schools, overwhelmingly girls schools. They are overtly working on perpetuating obscurantism and the savage treatment of women that is undeniably common in much (but not all) of the Muslim world.

If you are a conservative, can your really read the short statement above, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “ I don’t care; none of my business”?

3 Is it not the case that a return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan would boost the morale and improves the material means of extremists Islamists in Pakistan next door. Such a development would have two unpleasant consequences, one strategic, one moral. An Islamist accession to power, or even an increase in influence of extremist Islamists in Pakistan would greatly enlarge the arsenal at the disposal of terrorists everywhere, including with portable nuclear devices. The resources of a large modern state at the disposal of those who hate us greatly threatens our existence, our democracy, and our ability to restrict the encroachments of our own government. Israel’s continued inability to deal effectively with Hezbollah, armed and trained by Iran, gives us a pretty good idea of what would happen if Islamists gained control of the much larger Pakistan.

The second consequence is this: India, facing a nuclear-armed Pakistan that it beat three times in war previously would not let Islamist terrorists come close to taking over the nuclear sites. It would probably strike pre-emptively. Hundreds of thousands would die because of our lack of enthusiasm for continuing the Afghan operation.

It’s not obvious that this chain of events would unavoidably unfold but are we willing to take the risk instead of committing the resources needed to wipe out our declared enemies in Afghanistan?

I know, I know, we are not the policeman for the world. Yet, when there is no police, armed vigilance is necessary. Would anyone argue that this vigilance is best exercised on the beaches outside San Diego. or in New Jersey, or in Chicago?

PS (9/1609)   Our NATO allies are letting us down: Germany, Canada, and soon the UK. The Canadians paid their price, as usual. The Europeans, beginning with the Germans, lack courage. Theirs are aging and decaying societies, undermined by thirty years of social democracy. Social democracy German style is Obama’s model, I believe, not Soviet communism. Peoples pay a psychological and and cultural price not often discussed for living in a nanny-state. (Perhaps the topic of another posting.)

NATO binds us, the Europeans and others, in a mutual defense pact. The effeminate western Europeans pretend to have forgotten the US protected them from barbarism for forty years. Among the “others” in NATO, are the Turks. They are the ones we need in Afghanistan: very tough, uncomplaining, not wussy, and mostly Muslim. Why are they not there in large numbers?

Libertarians keep avoiding this sort of debate. They tend to respond to the kind of arguments  about the necessity for extended defense I make above with straight statements of dogma. That’s one of the reasons the Libertarian Party does so badly in national elections, I will bet. There are many more libertarians outside the Libertarian Party than inside.

The liberals keep showing their childishness by keeping alive the pseudo-arguments of racism in connection with Congressman’s Wilson’s vituperation during the President’s nth health care reform speech.

Here is their logic: I yelled at a woman who allowed her dog to crap on my lawn and made no move to pick up. “You must hate women,” she asserted.You call, a black criminal a criminal, you must be a racist. You call a liar a liar, there must be some other agenda, one impossible to defend.

Congressman Wilson accused the President aloud of lying. Fact is, the President made several statements inconsistent with the truth, according to the Congressional Budget Office, among others. Whether the President lies habitually or whether he is indifferent to hard facts is a matter of debate. The first is certainly a logical possibility.

The underlying outrage concerns some imaginary “disrespect” for the President. Of course it’s disrespectful to call any man a liar to his face, and in public. Since when is there an obligation to respect the President? He is not a king by divine right. He is a politician who won because about 1% of all Americans gave him their vote which they denied to his competitor. That’s not exactly God’s mandate! Incidentally, I am not questioning the results of the elections, in spite of the support the President received from the ACORN gangsters.

In a democracy, disrespect for the President should be considered a morally mandatory attitude among citizens. The English started western democracy by beheading a king in 1688. The French followed through a hundred years later (and made a better spectacle of it, as you might expect.) Let’s remember that those were the cultural and psychological antecedents to popular sovereignty.

Yes, there are people tenuously in touch with reality on the conservative side, and extremists. Of course, such people don’t exist on the left side of the spectrum. Here is a rare exception culled from Facebook. (I will not publish the author’s name but I will give the proper references for purposes of verification to almost anyone who asks.)

“I know XXXXX. I was like finally! Go Rocky! Fight, fight! Stop trusting those fools. Hell will freeze over before they do something good fro this country. Enough is enough man. Damn. They all need to be euthanized or shot in my opinion. Something radical ”

Note: Nothing edited except the name of the addressee which I removed. JD.