The Cure for Martyrdom

There is truth in the concern that if you kill an ideological opponent you risk creating a martyr: a symbol that could strengthen and unify your opponent. In this war against militant Islam the United States and Israel are often cautioned not to kill certain opponents lest we create a martyr. I don't think this concern makes sense in war. In war, the best way to negate the martyrdom phenomenon is to water it down. In a nutshell, you create so many martyrs that your enemy cannot keep track of them, much less revere them.

Upper Hand

Israel got the upper hand in its battle with the Palestinians in early 2004. The reduction in effective attacks against Israel was very abrupt, much more abrupt than I expected. I think that there were two reasons for the success, one that has been widely identified and another that has not. The one that has been widely identified is the wall. Israel began to wall-off itself from the Palestinians in the West Bank. The West Bank was the place from which almost all of the effective Palestinian terror attacks emanated (the other territory, Gaza was already walled-off). As the wall progressed, the Israelis had fewer and fewer infiltration points to monitor, resulting in closer monitoring of the remaining locations.

The monitoring worked. The Israelis were able to intercept more of the bombers and the Palestinians are trying less because of the increasing futility. There is no sneaking, negotiating, whining or cajoling your way around a wall.

This reminds me of an incident I had in raising my eldest son. He was about three or four years old and was just being moved to a bed from a crib. One of the first nights he realized that he could get out of the bed (unlike the crib) and leave his room, which he did, over and over again. My wife and I tried to keep him in the room and he kept coming out. He was bull-headed. We fought a running battle with him for most of that night. Parents grew more and more angry and more and more desperate. Yelling and threats of punishment were no use. We spent much of the night up, as did our other children. The next night the same thing happened.

The following day I installed a latch on his door (I still feel guilty about this) that would allow the door to open a bit but not enough for him to get out. The result was remarkable. That night he pulled at the door and shouted for ten minutes (the door would open a bit and he could see the latch). Then, he retreated to his bed and slept soundly the rest of the night. We never had another problem. I realized that before the latch he believed he could get a concession from is parents and the possibility of that made him continue his hopeless quest. When he was confronted with the latch he very quickly realized that it would grant no concessions and he abandoned his quest.

I think the wall is the latch for the Palestinians. I pray the Palestinian people exhibit the wisdom of a 3-year old by abandoning their counterproductive quest.

The other reason Israel has gained the upper hand is that they stopped respecting a Palestinian fiction. The Palestinian terror groups (especially Hamas) had long maintained that they had a military wing and a political wing. Since the first Intifada, Israel had respected that distinction, despite the fact that the political wings clearly supported the military wings. That all ended on March 22, 2004. On that day, Israel killed the leader of the Hamas political wing, Ahmed Yassin, with a missile strike. Several weeks later his overconfident replacement was also killed. After each killing, many Palestinians shrieked black vows of revenge and the media amplified them with apocalyptic predictions about the security of Israel. Yet, the threatened response never materialized. I think I can guess why. The political wing leaders do not want to be martyrs and they can control the military wings. You don’t spend years and years clawing your way to the top of an organization (can you imagine what kind of horrific struggle that would entail in a violent organizations like Hamas?) just to trade all of that effort for martyrdom. Political leaders crave power and power is only fun if you are alive to wield it. Start killing them and the remaining ambitious ones will seek accommodation even as they jockey to fill the vacant post.

Killing the military functionaries does not create a deterrent. These positions are filled with wanna-be martyrs. The sick Palestinian culture will always supply more brainwashed youths for these positions.

When Giving is Taking (or The Danger of Privacy)

It seems counter intuitive, but Supreme Court cases dealing with abortion are not about whether abortion is right or wrong. Indeed, the case of Roe v. Wade was not decided on that basis. The main issue the court was wrestling with was whether the “Right of Privacy” that emanated from a prior Supreme Court decision would make any law limiting abortion unconstitutional.

The majority of the court concluded that a woman had a privacy right to make medical decisions about her body and that this meant that the government could not pass laws that would unreasonably interfere with her medical decisions related to abortion. The remainder of the decision related to what constituted an unreasonable interference with that right. That portion of the opinion consisted of a fascinating and ingenious balancing of the rights of the unborn child and the mother’s right to make decisions about her body. In the end, the Court concluded that the state’s rights to interfere with the mother’s decision increased over the length of the pregnancy as the viability of the unborn child increased.

As you can see, there is no place in this analysis for a discussion regarding the rightness or wrongness of abortion. That is why it is nearly irrelevant for any Senators to ask a Supreme Court nominee about whether he or she believes abortion is wrong. That issue will never be central to any Supreme Court case on abortion.

From all of this you may get the impression that I agree with Roe v. Wade. I do not. While the opinion of the court is an ingenious bit of analysis it is based on a false premise. It is like a beautiful building built on deep mud. What’s more, I think that it is dangerous.

The false premise is the “Right of Privacy”. Search the Constitution and you will not find a right of privacy anywhere. So, how did the Supreme Court find it? It inferred it from other express rights in the bill of rights. Excerpts from the following amendments are cited as the basis of the Right of Privacy:

4th. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated

5th. nor [shall the people] be deprived [by the U.S. govt] of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

9th. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

14th. nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

The argument of the court regarding the right of privacy is seductive. It is true that there is a very strong indication of a concern for privacy in the 4th amendment. However, if the framers had wanted to create a broader privacy right why didn’t they. Why did they limit it to searches and seizures?

It is also seductive that the liberty rights secured in the 5th and 14th amendments would seem to allow a woman the liberty to have an abortion. However, this argument is deeply flawed. The liberty right referenced has almost always been interpreted to be limited to the freedom of movement (literally a ban on “imprisonment”) and only has relevance to a criminal or civil case against an individual (the reference to “due process” means the right to a fair hearing). It certainly cannot be deemed to have any bearing on a state’s legislative process in passing a law prohibiting abortion. To find otherwise would be an absurdity. If a state could be barred by the 14th amendment liberty right from passing a law banning abortion, how could so many states have managed to pass seatbelt laws or motorcycle helmet laws (limiting individual liberties where the state has no compelling interest)?

The last and most seductive argument for the privacy right found by the court (and, I think, the real reason that it was invented and has not been overturned) is: what is the downside? Certainly it seems great at first blush to secure an additional right for the people, doesn’t it? After all, what is the harm?

The harm is hidden but very real. Which gets me to the heart of this long meandering post. The framers wisely chose not to create any more rights in the constitution than they thought were necessary. They recognized that each right to which they granted constitutional protection effectively limited the peoples’ ability to order their society though the democratic process. By inventing a right of privacy, the Supreme Court, the least democratic branch of the government, has taken power from the legislative branch of government, the most democratic branch of the government.

Now, thanks to Roe v. Wade, the legislatures of the States and Congress cannot perform their democratic function of determining whether abortion is wrong (and should be banned), absent an amendment to the Constitution. Note: the legislatures are free under Roe v. Wade to conclude that abortion is ok and allowed.

Thanks to other cases interpreting the “Right of Privacy” legislatures are not able to define marriage in any way that does not include the marriage by people of the same sex. They are also not able to pass laws banning sodomy (or rather, laws prohibiting sodomy that have existed for ages are suddenly not binding anymore). There is no indication that the Court’s "Right of Privacy" will stop there.

The irony is that the Supreme Court’s invention of a “right” from a reference to liberty (in the 5th and 14th amendments) has taken away a true constitutionally-guaranteed liberty right of the people to make laws governing their society utilizing the democratic process.

Betrayal

The proposed Flight 93 Memorial has gone terribly awry. Flight 93 was the 9/11 flight where passengers tried to retake the plane from the hijackers. The plane eventally crashed in a field in Pennsylvania during the struggle. The passengers' efforts spared our country from another devastating blow on that awful day.

The design for the memorial calls for a red crescent that Wretchard at the Belmont Club has calculated would point towards Mecca. You can do something about it though. Let the U.S. Park Service know that the design is unacceptable here.

My comment to the Park Service was as follows:

Please reject the "crescent of embrace" design for the memorial. The use of a crescent would come too close to making it a memorial to the Islamic militants who hijacked the plane and would, thereby, betray those brave passengers of Flight 93. Why not something based on "Lets Roll" instead?

My comments are much more tame than my true feeling on this.

Mark Steyn has weighed in.

Presidential

When President Bush arrived in Louisiana the first time after the hurricane he was met at the airport by Mayor Nagin of New Orleans. Mayor Nagin (and many of the state and local government leaders in parts of Louisiana) had recently had a very public nervous breakdown about the situation in New Orleans. On several occasions in the space of a short interview the Mayor went from swearing to belligerence to exaggerating and to crying. He said a world of horrible things about the President and the federal government.

Given this background, I watched closely as the President got his bearings on the tarmac and worked his way over to the Mayor. I hoped somewhat (being the vindictive type that I am) that the President would give the mayor the cold shoulder or an icy stare and withhold his handshake. I was disappointed when he lightly patted the Mayor on the back, separated himself and the Mayor from the pack of other people on the tarmac and intimately and earnestly talked with the Mayor as they walked toward some waiting transport until the coverage stopped.

Today blogger Sensible Mom, brought to my attention an article by Mark Steyn in the Telegraph where Mark quoted two lines from a poem by Kipling as follows: “If you can keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.” The poem entitled “If” goes on:

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:…..
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

It takes a Man to be a great president. George Bush is a Man, he proves it time and time again. He is lied about and hated and he does not give way to hating. He is a Man and he is Presidential.

It is a quiet personal power he wields. He has shamed me (for my vindictive nature) for the better in the course of a photo op. With his silence and understanding in the face of others' rage he has shown these lesser persons for the children that they are.

Katrina's Lessons

Liberals criticizing the government response to the damage and flooding from Katrina in New Orleans are ultimately proving a principle of conservatism correct: Government does not do anything very well. One lesson liberals should learn from this is that government is not always the best solution. They won't though. Instead, they will avoid questioning one of their central beliefs and claim that government does do everything well, it is just that government by conservatives does not do anything well. In this way they are identical to the useful idiots (also liberals) of the cold war who unerringly defended Communism despite is consistent failures believing, with each instance of failure, that the only problem was that Communism had not been implemented correctly.

Stay behinds in New Orleans are learning the hard way a lesson that conservatives and self-reliant people already know: It may be wise to heed a government warning, but do not rely on on the government to take care of you. Those who heeded the mandatory evacuation order and took care of themselves did not suffer the misery of those who stayed and gambled that the government would take care of them if something when wrong. One has to wonder if the fact that New Orleans is a city with a very high percentage of welfare-reliant persons contributed to he catastrophe. Does welfare kill self reliance? I suspect so.

Nightline on Lodi

Here is a copy of an e-mail I sent to ABC's Nightline program on their awful Nighline program regarding the "alleged" Lodi California Muslim militants:

I watched you recent program on the “alleged” militants in Lodi Ca. and was appalled.

1. The program was remarkably ill-timed. Britain was just attacked by home-grown Islamic militants. Yet, the program’s theme was that the FBI was overreacting by closely watching associates of Muslims who had admitted training for Jihad in Pakistan (or knowingly paying for such training).

2. The program only gave the side of Muslims in Lodi. The only other opinion you obtained was from a former FBI agent who supported your conclusion that the FBI was overreacting. However, you failed to highlight the fact that two of the Muslims arrested admitted to the training or supporting the training (and don’t go believing that the confessions were involuntary, take it from an attorney - they are almost never thrown out by courts because they are almost never involuntary). Further, you spent a great deal of time and sympathetic coverage on a young man (ominously named “Osama”, if I remember correctly) who said that he was with the Muslim who admitted training for Jihad in Pakistan. Osama had the gall to flippantly state (despite the confession) that the other Muslim did not do any training. Yet, you seemed to show no suspicion about the motives of that Muslim youth. Didn’t it occur to you that the young man you interviewed might also have been training in Pakistan and that he was attempting to provide an alibi for a fellow trainee? Apparently that thought did occur to the FBI (good on them) and that is why that young man is being watched. By the way, recent reports on Fox news (since your show) indicate that the FBI believes up to 7 Muslims from Lodi trained for Jihad in Pakistan. I’ll wager that the young man is one of them.

3. The tone of the program makes me wonder how critical of the FBI your program would have been if it had been “overreacting” by watching Mohammed Atta prior to 9/11. Don’t you? I have to wonder about your motives. I wonder why you would not want the government to act aggressively to protect this country from militant Islamists.

Terri

I think the medical community quietly extended the meaning of "removing life support" from pulling the plug on respirators and heart-lung machines to removing food and water. Now they are defensive because a huge percentage of the population is appalled at the practice. Their response: "its ok, we been doing this for a long time". Nice try.

They have been torturing people to death and now we know it and it needs to stop.

To those people who support what it being done to Mrs. Schiavo, do not delude yourselves. There is no difference between what is being done and smothering her with a pillow or sticking a knife in her heart, indeed the latter two acts would be a great deal more merciful.

If we are going to continue doing this then let those who would carry it out have the courage to end the life swiftly (an violently, if required). At least then the portion of the public that cannot be bothered to stop this practice would have to confront its true barbarity.

Liked or Respected?

Americans should be worried when their leader isn't reviled by the rest of the world. The rest of the world likes us only when we are doing what they want us to do. What the rest of the world wants to do is usually not in our best interest.

So, let us do what is in our best interest and ignore the world’s revulsion. Remember, most other countries are not democracies – their revulsion is a badge we should wear with honor. As for most of Western Europe, they are effeminate nations that have lost the will to defend themselves and intend instead to pay tribute to their Muslim assailants. We should not respect their craven views.

Reagan was reviled and he had the greatest foreign policy success in the post WWII period during (or as a result of) his presidency. Since Reagan’s presidency (and thanks mostly to Clinton – a man who pathologically could not bear being disliked) much of the American Public has been bamboozled into thinking that good foreign policy means doing whatever it takes to be liked by the rest of the world. This is nonsense. Good foreign policy is measured in interests secured, not friends made.

We should seek instead to be respected and, to some extent, feared. Respect (and fear) lasts; feelings of affinity don’t. For an example of how quickly “like” changes to “dislike” recall how quickly the world began to turn on the US when we invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, one action that no one can doubt was absolutely essential and justified.

So what did we get in return for all of Clinton’s efforts to make our country “liked”? We got sympathy cards for 9/11.

George Bush is doing his utmost to make sure that the rest of the world respect the US. In doing so he is also putting to rest this country’s recent preoccupation with being liked. We and the rest of the world will be better off for it. But don’t expect any thanks from the rest of the world.

The Real Goal

I believe that the Palestinians would have had a state of their own years ago had they chosen the path of nonviolent resistance.

The Palestinians are asking for land that the Israelis possess, the transfer of which will make the Israelis less secure. Moreover, the Palestinians are much weaker then the Israelis (so they cannot take the land by force).

A rational actor under these circumstances would look to history and take the path of Gandhi and the Solidarity movement. They would use nonviolent resistance to shame the rest of the world into pressuring the Israelis to give up the West Bank and Gaza. By resisting without violence they would also strengthen the hand of those Israelis who are prepared to give land to the Palestinians by showing the Israelis that they are a rational and peaceful people who can be trusted to be good neighbors.

But, the Palestinians have chosen violent confrontation instead. There are three possible reasons for this:

(1) I am wrong and violent struggle is the best way to get their state in the West Bank and Gaza. This can be debunked by looking at recent history. The Palestinians have been devastated as a result of their violent struggle and are further from a state then they were before the second intifada.

(2) They are not rational. This one is tempting. I have never seen a society as seemingly irrational as the Palestinians (or the societies of their Arab brethren). But, in the end, I think that the Palestinian’s can make rational decisions (they - even Hamas - are perfectly capable of making truces with the Israelis when they are particularly besieged).

So what is the other possible explanation?

(3) The Palestinians do not have the goal of peaceful coexistence with the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza. I think their choice of violent struggle can be explained by the fact that they have a goal of eliminating the state of Israel and removing the Jews from the Mideast. And, from their point of view, there is no time like the present to get started on that war.

To The Victor......

I am amused by the despondent MSM (main stream media) since the 2004 election. Immediately after the election was conceded the MSM began to chant that the close election would force Bush to govern from the center (apparently more that he already is!?). They are fools. The sting of the defeat pushed them further into denial. You could almost read their deluded thoughts: "it won't be that bad, he'll have to govern more like a Democrat, won't he?, won't he??!"

Wham! Immediately after the concession W and Rove delivered a bracing slap: W "has a mandate." W and Rove are correct. I can not recall any other presidential candidate who so clearly laid out for the public what he intended to do without apology or reservation. And, he was elected. That is a mandate.

In contrast, John Kerry could have garnered 60% of the vote and he still would not have had a mandate. He had never clearly said what he would do so the public could not give him permission to do "it."

Despite the slap, the media still does not get it. Now they are trying to convince themselves that W is making a big mistake in trying to appoint people to his cabinet who will do what he tells them to do. Their theory: W will harm his presidency surrounding himself with yes men and women (since when have they been concerned about his presidency being unsuccessful?). Aside from the fact that there is no evidence that any of these people are yes-men who would hide the information produced by their agencies or shirk from expressing their opinions, the MSM's theory misses the point. A majority of Americans elected George Bush to do what he said he would do. They want him to have cabinet members who carry out his orders.

There is another asinine undercurrent to the MSM's theory: they want us to believe that it is good to have cabinet members who are not loyal. I agree with the position that it is important to have cabinet members who provide their well founded information and opinions. However, once the president makes his decision on policy the cabinet member must follow it, regardless of whether it is in concert with the cabinet member's opinion. A partially-executed policy can be very dangerous.

Colin Powell forcefully gave his opinions to the President during his first term. I think that in many cases when the President made a policy decision inconsistent with Powell's opinion, Powell and the State Department only partially implemented the policy. Bush had to put up with this necessary evil during his first term because he needed Powell's (undeserved) foreign policy gravitas to get elected the first time and Powell knew it. With his reelection, Bush does not need Powell any longer. Bush has wisely chosen to turn to a loyal confidante with Mrs. Rice.

The Lie

W won. Thank god. However, he did not win by as much as he should have. After all, a vote for George Bush was a vote to defend yourself.

I think I know one thing that contributed to this being a close race, and it is a great lie that goes way back. I think the reason this country has so many people unwilling to defend themselves is the lie that has been pounded into every American youth for decades, that “war never solves anything” or its variant “fighting never solves anything.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Just ask the Jews whether the miltary defeat of the Nazi's in WWII solved anything.

Resolved

Are We Resolved?

The terrorists, and those who support them, most fear American resolve.

They know we have the military and economic power to destroy them. But, they suspect that we lack the will to carry though a long and difficult struggle.

Osama Bin Ladin has made this clear. In an interview with Peter Arnett in 1997 he stated about his mujahideen:

"They participated with their brothers in Somalia against the American occupation troops and killed large numbers of them. The American administration was aware of that. After a little resistance, The American troops left after achieving nothing. They left after claiming that they were the largest power on earth. They left after some resistance from powerless, poor, unarmed people whose only weapon is the belief in Allah The Almighty, and who do not fear the fabricated American media lies. We learned from those who fought there, that they were surprised to see the low spiritual morale of the American fighters in comparison with the experience they had with the Russian fighters. The Americans ran away from those fighters who fought and killed them, while the latter were still there. If the U.S. still thinks and brags that it still has this kind of power even after all these successive defeats in Vietnam, Beirut, Aden, and Somalia, then let them go back to those who are awaiting its return."

Osama knows that power is negated without resolve.

President Bush haunts and demoralizes the terrorists and their supporters because he has displayed an iron resolve to destroy the terrorists and those who support them.

A letter believed written by arch terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi to his Al Qaeda associates regarding Iraq makes this clear. He wrote:

"But America did not come to leave, and it will not leave no matter how numerous its wounds become and how much of its blood is spilled……By the Lord of the Ka`ba, [this] is suffocation…"

But President Bush’s will is not the only will they consider. They also consider the will of the American Public.

Immediately after 9/11, American resolve surprised the terrorists. They did not expect the United States to strike back so determinedly and effectively. They expected the United States to cower and withdraw.

The lack of any attacks on American soil since 9/11 must in part result from the deterrent effect of this display of will. It is not far fetched to assume that those nations that support terror are keeping a close reign on their terrorist clients for fear of drawing the ire of the United States.

However, American resolve may be dissolving.

This election will determine whether America has the resolve to match that of its leader. The terrorists await our election with great anticipation.

Will we emulate the Spanish, or the French, by electing a leader who avoids the difficult but necessary road ahead? One who abandons the war on terror to rely on the police? One who abandons offense to rely only upon defense? One who takes this country back to the way it dealt with terrorism before 9/11?

Will America learn nothing lasting from 9/11?

Certainly, one of the clearest messages coming from the 9/11 commission is that America must be on the offense, acting militarily and preemptively to thwart terrorist threats before they germinate here.

It is time for America to show its quality.

Andrew Sullivan

I used to think a lot of Andrew Sullivan. Then, he decided that keeping an anti-democratic court-created “constitutional” right of gay marriage was more important than national security or maintaining a conservative hand on the reigns of the economy.

Now Andrew is so invested in his opposition to President Bush that he is gleefully trumpeting every setback the administration encounters and making a mockery of all of his former pronouncements of a need for Churchillian determination in the war on terrorism.

He is even making up a few setbacks. Most recently, he described Vice President Cheney as the “Roadkill” of Senator Edwards in the Vice Presidential debate. He has to be deluded to come to that conclusion. The only explanation is that Andrew is making up a setback or that he has been seduced by the smile of a pretty-boy shyster.

Andrew, you have shown yourself to be weak and vacillating. Worse still, you have subsumed the interests of the Western World for a petty and ill-gotten “right”.

Just Testing this Bloggin Thing

This is my first and (hopefully) worst entry.