The West and the Past

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany. If you’re interested in the cataclysmic events surrounding the fall of the Third Reich, there are hundreds of excellent books: In particular, I’d recommend John Toland’s The Last 100 Days, Cornelius Ryan’s The Last Battle, Christopher Duffy’s Red Storm on the Reich, or the recent book by Max Hastings, Armageddon, which is really superb.

But, as is obvious, all that’s past history. What’s more interesting to me today are the media and political world’s current reactions to this event, and what they say about our own view of how we got to the modern world. Ignorance, self-indulgence and just plain weirdness are much on display this week.

Three sets of issues call for comment: first, current views of the consequences for eastern Europe of the Soviet Union being one of the victorious allied powers; second how the Germans are dealing with their defeat; and, finally, the related question of how the Russians are coping with the fall of the Soviet Union – which amounted to the end of the World War II political settlement.

Take President Bush. I’ll give him that he had a tough course to navigate this week, but his comments on the Yalta agreement (the wartime agreement between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt on the division of influence in post-war Europe) were just silly.

At Yalta, Churchill and Roosevelt, among other things, essentially conceded to Stalin that he could keep his ill-gotten gains in Poland and along the Baltic from his earlier deal in 1940 with Hitler, and acknowledged that in the post-war world, Stalin would have the most to say about which Polish factions would govern what was left of Poland and other parts of eastern Europe

This week, President Bush said that the United States shared some blame for what happened to the Poles, the Estonians, the Latvians, and everybody else who wound up behind the Iron Curtain at the end of the war, calling it part of an “unjust tradition” of earlier treaties such as the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1940.

Well, I suppose. But saying that Roosevelt and Churchill, let alone the electorates that employed them, were at fault for what happened in eastern Europe seems pretty asinine to me. Of course the Soviet Union was going to dominate eastern Europe. Of course eastern Europe was going to go communist. The Soviet Union did the bulk of the fighting and dying in that war, and in 1945 the Soviets had 400 divisions sitting on the real-estate in question. Yes, Yalta was bad, and the fate of eastern Europeans dreadful, as Bush, very gently, and others, more loudly, such as Pat Buchanan, have pointed out. But possession is nine-tenths of the law. Just what do safe, happy well-fed editorial columnists think we should have done about Stalin in 1945 ? Fight another war ?

There was no way to prevent a communized eastern Europe, from the moment Madman Hitler got it into his head to lose a war he had already won by invading Russia. Nobody can be blamed for what happened in eastern Europe except the Germans and the elites in that country who mortgaged everything to Hitler and his crackpot party. The Germans, and nobody else, opened eastern Europe to the communists.

None of this should precisely be an education to anybody. But it just gets irritating to see so many people who should know better blame statesmen for not thinking like ivory-tower professors. There are not always choices or good options.

Then there are the present Germans, who seem to me to be, well, strange. Today’s New York Times has an article about a bunch of nice liberal Germans who want to honour deserters from the German Army in World War II. I don’t get it. That’s like the Germans who want to send representatives to the periodic ceremonies in Normandy on the anniversary of the D-Day landings or to the present event in Moscow celebrating VE Day. A segment of the German commentariat likes to claim that the fall of the Third Reich liberated Germans too.

Maybe it did, but I’m glad I’m not a German. I could never be comfortable embracing such a view. Hitler was certainly a monster, and everyone should be glad he is dead, but, thinking as a German, that’s a long way from celebrating the laying waste of one’s own country, or honouring people who deserted the colours and left others to carry on and die in their places, (the German Army was draftee -- Nazi or anti-Nazi, you had to go). I’ve got a great deal of respect for real dissidents, like Colonel vonStauffenberg, who tried to blow up Hitler, but it’s hard for me to find much emotional common ground with people who think that the invasion of their own country could ever be a good thing.

Don’t get El Jefe wrong. I’m an American, I think our cause in the Second World War was among the most righteous for which people ever took up arms, and I’m glad Americans invaded Germany, kicked the tar out of the German Army, and saw that Herr Hitler and his pals were made stone, cold, dead. It just confuses me a little that Germans could be totally okay with this, no matter how good it was to see Hitler gone. Not cricket not to care for your own side.

In a similar vein, Right Thinking People’s hearts are all a’flutter because Russian President Vladimir Putin recently characterized the demise of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” This is cited as evidence of Putin’s tyrannical tendencies.

Well of course Putin thinks the collapse of the Soviet Union (the Russian Empire by any other name) is a disaster. Why shouldn’t he ? Mr. Putin’s a Russian for goodness sake. The collapse was a disaster for Russia. Thanks to the events of 1989-1993, the Russians must suffer America setting conditions for fair elections in Ukraine, and NATO troops within 100 miles of St. Petersburg. How would Americans feel about the Russians sticking their noses into, say, Mississippi elections ?

Why shouldn’t the President of Russia be concerned with the power, standing, aggrandizement and international standing of Russia ? Of course, Putin will do what he can to rebuild the power and position of his country. Putin will try to rebuild the Russian military, and certainly try to grab back various pieces of real-estate that used to be part of the Soviet Union. This is normal, and is the way nation-states operate.

Just because Right Thinking media elites think nationalism is passé doesn’t mean that it actually is. Certainly, Putin doesn’t think so. He will certainly try to rebuild Russia. Where Russia's interests and aims do not collide with ours, we may even help Putin. It is for us, and others acting in the international system, to set down markers, so that other actors know where the limits are, and what actions, specifically will not be tolerated. But why so many seem to find it shocking that other countries and powers actually have foreign policies of their own is a complete mystery to me.

David Hackworth, R.I.P.

One of the most decorated soldiers of his generation, U.S. Army Colonel David Hackworth, (74) has just died in Tijuana, Mexico.

Colonel Hackworth joined the Army just after the Second World War, and was surely one of the most talented and courageous individuals ever to put on the uniform. Holder of a Distinguished Service Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, a Silver Star with nine oak-leaf clusters, a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Bronze Stars with "V" device and seven Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Purple Heart with seven Oak Leaf Clusters, and a whole chest-full of other medals. Recommended for the Medal of Honor three times, the last recommendation is still under review in Washington. Veteran of Korea, and of four tours in Vietnam, Hackworth was pilloried by the Army brass when he spoke out against the conduct of the Vietnam War.

Ultimately, Hackworth resigned his commission, giving up his medals in protest, and went to Australia making millions in the restaurant business and running a duck farm. Finally, Colonel Hackworth came home, and covered the First Gulf War as a war correspondent for Newsweek. Some measure of vindication came: his books (both memoirs and novels) were well-received, and the Army ultimately reissued his medals. Even after leaving Newsweek, he always spoke out for the interests of ordinary soldiers, and against the "perfumed princes" he felt were ruining the military. He had no patience with those unwilling to "stand in the door" and do the right thing, whatever it cost.

Look up his books -- they are all excellent reading. The U.S. Army and the country were much the poorer when he left the service, and his contributions to public discourse will be missed.

UPDATE: A splendidly written obituary is available at Colonel Hackworth's website, here.

Noxious Do-Gooders

I suppose, in a perverse way, it’s good to know that besides the Stupid Party, we’ve still got the Evil Party in there kicking. This Saturday, thanks to some group called “Onward Austin,” voters in the Texas capital will decide whether smoking should be completely banned in bars, bowling alleys and pool halls. It’s already banned in restaurants.

Yeah, I know about all the health arguments about smoking, and I'm sure they're true, but that's beside the point. The quasi-Fascist, Do-Gooder impulse to take care of all us cretins because we are too backward to do it ourselves just drives me absolutely berserk. I’ve never smoked (cept occasionally), but people like this make me want to go light up the biggest, smelliest cigar I can find.

This sort of thing makes me wonder about self-government in general. Back in the bad old days, King George or whoever had to be very careful about too much legislation related to health, welfare, morals or whatever wasn't directly concerned with administration of the State, because the locals, having no say in their own government, didn't necessarily need to be reminded of that fact. As long as the peasants paid their taxes on time and showed up when they got drafted, the king could rest content.

But in a republic, where we, in theory, govern ourselves (under the guidance of the overclass of lawyers, bureaucrats and lobbyists) -- self-government is used by self-interested do-gooders to stick their interfering noses into just about everything. Democracy amounts to a hunting-license for organized busybodies. More on this point another time.

Galveston

El Jefe went to Galveston on Saturday afternoon, and was the guest for the evening of his friends T and E and their two children at their beach palace. Was much fun -- T made some Cosmos (which were yummy, El Jefe might have had, oh 5 or so) and we all sat on the deck and watched the sharks chasing the shrimp boats, a scary movie that night, and the weird horizon at high tide the next morning. I had been agitating to get down to Galveston for some time, and it was so cool of T to make that happen. Thanx !

UPDATE: It is been brought to the Management's attention that certain people, who shall remain nameless, don't think El Jefe has been abjectly grateful enuf for his entertainment at the Beach Palace. Okay, okay, I admit it. I left out certain things, like the grapes and the succulent hors d'ouvres while watching the table dancers, (specially hired from Ricks), the Ice Sculpture that said "El Jefe, El Supremo" on the bar, the sharks swimming in formation, the visit by Jose Cuervo (a friend of mine) and the impressive loyalty ceremony on the south lawn. I am truly, totally, grateful to T ... er, the certain people, for organizing it, and seeing that I had an excellent evening. Mucho gracias. (Hopefully, the contract I've been told that's out there will be lifted now ???).

Stop That Cheerleader !

The Texas Legislature has shown yet again why Republicans are often castigated as the “Stupid Party.” Even though we live in a state that has barely functioning public schools, an antiquated, creeky Constitution, under-funded and under-staffed courts, and wacko tax system, the House of Representatives still has time to waste on fripperies like banning “overtly sexually suggestive” performances by public school cheerleaders and drill teams. Honest, we need this, even though we’ve already got laws against public lewdness.

Of course, the draft approved by the House doesn’t identify what “overtly sexually suggestive” might be, or establish a penalty for violations. It just makes the Texas Legislature look like bigger clowns then they already are.

Hmmmm…next we’ll hear that the Legislature is establishing a “Cheerleader Review Board” to monitor which performances violate the statute…

Storm Warning

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, in his piece in today’s Times entitled “What, Me Worry ?” denounces the Bush administration for having “no big idea” on the home front despite big plans for foreign policy “worthy of a presidency and America’s long-term interests.” Mr. Friedman, who is a more thoughtful liberal then average, cites as cases in point America’s broken school system, particularly high schools and the related unwillingness or inability of the administration to deal with rising economic competition from Asia, most particularly China and India. Immigration, intellectual property law, and many other areas touched on today by Mr. Friedman, and in several insightful articles of his recently, all need to be addressed to adequately cope with what he styles, the “flat world” produced by high technology and globalization.

If you’re wondering why the administration has big foreign policy plans, but “no big idea” on the domestic front, leave the editorials and the op-ed page and go back into the news section of your paper. Yesterday, Congress finally managed to accomplish virtually its most important function, passing a $2.6 trillion budge resolution for Fiscal Year 2006. Well, barely passing it, in the House of Representatives, the vote was 214-211, and in the Senate 52-47. If, like El Jefe, you find numbers and money incredibly tedious, keep reading, and you’ll find the solons quarrelling over filibusters, appointments, and everything but the color of the paint (gee, red or blue?) in the Senate washrooms.

Of course the President concentrates on foreign policy. It’s easier. If the President decides he wants to invade Iraq, pressure Kofi Annan, sell F-16’s to Pakistan, or make a trade deal with Japan, he is generally dealing primarily with expert bureaucracies and military organizations run on rational lines which are easier to pull in his direction then 535 little kings and the organized interests behind them.

Congress, of necessity plays a lesser role in foreign policy, and often the aforementioned vested interests have less power here, and often, less skin in the game. F-16 sales to India or Pakistan affect favorably a few congressional districts where such aircraft are built – and of course the interest of millions of Indians or Pakistanis who do not have a vote. By contrast, if you’re a President or a Congressman, and decide you want to make people really sweat, what do you do? Want to get people seriously mad at you? Propose a reorganization of elementary, secondary or high school education in the United States; or restrictions on immigration; or, for that matter, a reform of Social Security. Good luck, Congressman, no more junkets or appearances on Today for you, and please don’t let the door hit you in the behind on the way back to Podunk, Montana.

The American political system is biased against the production of legislation. It was designed that way. When modern American lawyers study constitutional law – they are concerned primarily with the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. The nuts-and-bolts of legislation and the actual operation of the Federal structure are ignored unless we have a disputed election as in 2000.

Trouble is, the system was originally designed in the 1780’s to be operated by a very narrow political oligarchy, who more or less agreed among themselves on how they saw the world, and who kept real political power safely concentrated back in their home state legislatures. It was emphatically NOT intended to serve a centralized, world-wide empire, such as we have today. It certainly cannot operate such an empire when the empire is internally divided – as ours is.

But Mr. Friedman is right, you see. The concerns he sees are, for the sake of our children, and theirs – going to have to be dealt with. A raft of others: the low personal savings rate; personal and public debt; immigration; the place of religion in our society; and many others need attention. These issues are going to be addressed, one way or another, or they will address us, no doubt unpleasantly, and the world is not going to wait while we get our house in order.

The answers to most of the questions confronting us are out there, and aren’t great undiscovered mysteries. I know half a dozen schoolteachers and rocket scientists who, between them, could probably tell you what was wrong with the schools, and how to fix the problems. The same is true of these other issues, also. But the solutions aren’t going to happen for the present, and the problems will continue to fester and grow. Because the division in our country is real too, and it is not over trivial issues, and is not the sort of chasm that can be papered over with conciliatory words and simple political compromises. The Red and Blue State division so apparent last November is really over first principles. Solutions to our problems are not painless, and are going to produce LOTS of losers. And these losers have real political power at present.

Perhaps worst of all, our internal difficulties and division are occurring when a foreign challenge to our continued complacence and prosperity is becoming increasingly likely. A symptom of the changing environment is obvious at American gas pumps every day. Rapidly industrializing powers – China and India, are gobbling up commodities and capital at a frenetic rate. One-fifth the world’s aluminum, a quarter of its copper, a third of the steel and half the world concrete production are being bought up by China. China is now the second largest oil importer, after the US. Economic development, of course, is not necessarily a threat, but it is producing the need, seen by Mr. Friedman, for us to work much harder, and in general be more competitive and up to the mark.

But development is only part of the picture. At the same time, bankers estimate that the total portfolio of bad loans held by China’s state banks amounts to perhaps a third of China’s Gross Domestic Product. Meanwhile the Chinese government faces internal threats to its legitimacy, is pursuing a serious international (or internal, if you buy the Chinese line) dispute with Taiwan, a long time American ally, and has winked at loud and sometimes violent nationalist demonstrations against another American ally, Japan. Meanwhile, across its Korean border, another Chinese ally charitably described as unstable brandishes nuclear weapons at all and sundry. Asia has become a giant great-power war breeder.

The collapse of the Roman Republic has interested me my entire adult life, but I never thought I might live long enough to see a reprise. The Romans’ problems were so eerily similar to our own: How to run a great empire with a government designed for a tiny city-state, while at the same time coping with serious military threats on their empire’s periphery ? They really tried, but the Romans couldn’t solve their problems either, so they lost their beloved Republic and their ancient ruling class and after lots of upsetment, got the Emperors. And most people, when this finally happened, were sick of chaos and glad for the change. Yes, our houses are more comfortable, and our food and medicine better, but I don’t think we’re any smarter than Marius, Sulla, Cicero or Caesar – probably, if anything, less.

Perhaps I’m a little alarmist, but I don’t think so. Our size, wealth and from most of the world’s problems have always assured us a soft landing in bad times. But the toast lands jelly-side down sometimes.

29 April 1975

Today is the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, capital of the Republic of Vietnam, to the North Vietnamese. Despite almost 60,000 American deaths from the early 1960’s to 1972, and millions of South Vietnamese dead, the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam were ultimately unable to maintain that country’s liberty and independence, particularly after the Democratic majority in the Congress of the United States cut off arms, ammunition and fuel to our beleaguered former allies.

The generals and soldiers of our sometime enemies, the People’s Army of Vietnam, have every right to be proud when they think of their army’s splendid spring campaign of 1975, that toppled South Vietnam in about 55 days. The end result was never seriously in doubt however, because the Soviet Union and China, unlike the United States, ensured their own Vietnamese allies had all the fuel and weapons they needed.

It’s hard to blame the Nixon administration, and its chief negotiator, Henry Kissinger, much, for the sham Paris Peace Accords of 1973, which abandoned South Vietnam to its enemies. Public opinion demanded a rapid American exit from that war, on almost any terms, and Nixon and Kissinger, given their hopeless bargaining position, probably extracted the best terms possible: i.e. a “decent interval” for the Americans to complete their withdrawal before the communist armies overran South Vietnam.

The “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” which Secretary of State William Rogers put his name to for the United States, neither ended the war nor restored the peace. Two more years of bitter fighting followed, before the final North Vietnamese offensive in the spring of 1975. During those two years, South Vietnamese soldiers and their Marine brothers often put the lie to the old canard that the ARVN couldn’t, and wouldn’t fight. But it’s hard to fight on when your planes have no gas, and your tanks no spare parts.

Cutting and running– er, withdrawing, from South Vietnam was politically inevitable. In retrospect, what seems completely inexcusable to me (besides, that is, the failure to insist on and receive a full accounting as to our PW’s and MIA’s) was the failure to provide – following American withdrawal – the South Vietnamese with the weapons and supplies they needed to defend themselves.

Besides the moral bankruptcy of leaving people in the lurch who had openly and publicly supported the United States, the cutoff of aid to South Vietnam dishonoured our dead, and ensured their sacrifices were in vain. If America thought it necessary to abandon South Vietnam to its enemies, then why was this not done in 1966, prior to 60,000 American dead, not to mention millions of Vietnamese ?

In particular, the Democratic leadership in the United States Congress from 1970-1975 bears a heavy responsibility for the final collapse of South Vietnam and its consequences – the abandonment of thousands of persons, compromised in the eyes of the Communists, for their pro-US positions, who should have been evacuated in the spring of 1975; for the minimum of 65,000 executions of pro US Republic of Vietnam officials, and others who irritated the new communist overlords; the “reeducation camps” and other prisons reserved for millions more; the pathetic “boat people” and other refugees; and the prison camp country that the communists made of South Vietnam after the collapse, that is only now beginning to moderate, a little.

The Congressional Left and its allies in the media did everything possible to block the Nixon and Ford administration’s efforts to get even a little help to the South Vietnamese, and to their equally embattled Cambodian allies. The sick part was that so many of these people were and are proud of what they did, one of many reasons I’ve never been able to stomach the Left.

Yes, it was all so very long ago now, and I guess that’s supposed to help a little bit. I wasn’t there, and had, so to speak, no oar personally in the water on that one, but I cannot even imagine how angry it would all still make me if I were a vet, or a refugee, or if I had lost someone.

Time for Lunch...

Da Boss was in an ecumenical mood today, and took us to lunch at Masraff’s, a local noveau American/Southern European cuisine restaurant. Super yummy. El Jefe had the Sea Bass stuffed with crab with steamed vegetables, and some really excellent bread. The wine was a California Chardonnay, Bernardus, (02, I think) from around Monterrey. Nice and light, on the sweet side, just right. Was a super good lunch. Have no idea how El Jefe will manage to focus on work this afternoon. Hopefully the large cup of coffee staring at me will help.

Mixed Bag Post

Yes, El Jefe is back in his capital, and has been given a rapturous greeting by his millions of devoted fans, High Patronesses FLINKY and MILO, and anyone else possibly of importance.

Both Heir and his Dad El Jefe agree that camp was fun, El Jefe just wishes he was going. Climbed around on mountains, shot rifles, bows and arrows, and went canoeing, and sundry other stuff. Sleeping accomodations, well, wern't the Ritz, especially at night when it got downright COLD.

Back in town, facing the sad, sad music of work; yet another week with a rent car. (El Jefe's in a couple of, ahem, unfortunate accidents); a busted refrigerator and various other catastrophes. No problems that a trip to a Mexican restaurant and a few very large Margaritas wouldn't solve.

Mixed bag post today. The giant Airbus A380 (capacity of 555 passengers) made its maiden flight at Blagnac, France this morning. El Jefe confesses a certain fascination for this behemoth, largest passenger aircraft ever built, but he is also glad to see that Airbus’s American rival Boeing just booked a $7 billion order for eight B777-200 LR’s, 15 B777-300 ER’s and 27 B787 “Dreamliner” jets.

Boeing’s bet seems to be that the A380, designed to fly hub-to-hub, is too big to be commercially profitable, and that the way to go is with a smaller aircraft, designed to fly to more destinations. Hence, the shorter range “Dreamliner” which can carry 255- 296 passengers. So far, Boeing’s gamble seems to be paying off.

The Republicans in the Senate seem to be prepared to go ahead with their “nuclear option” and change Senate rules to squelch the filibuster for judicial appointments. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The Republicans should, as Dick Morris argues this morning in The Hill – call the Democrats’ bluff and make them really filibuster – complete with endless quorum calls, late night sessions, cots in the cloakrooms, etc.

Once the public sees the Democrats tying-up all public business over some judge in Mississippi, people are likely to see the justice in halting filibusters. But as long as the present pattern of simply conceding when the majority lacks 60 votes continues – without actually pushing the minority to filibuster – it just looks like the Republicans want to cut off debate for their own petty purposes.

Hmmm, today in history. That’s interesting to me, so… In 1812, US troops entered Toronto (then called York) Canada. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln suspended the use of the writ of habeus corpus in several states in the United States. This action was later challenged successfully in the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Merryman. No problem there, though, Lincoln simply ignored the Supreme Court. Other stuff today: in 1941, German troops entered Athens; and in 1822 today was the birthday of the great General and author (but poor President), Ulysses S. “Sam” Grant. Check out Grant's memoirs sometime -- even though my sympathies are with the other side -- I think he wrote a great book.

Off for the Boonies

As the courtiers weep, El Jefe is off for the boonies of central Texas, land of no cellphones, restaurants, cosmos, wine, TV, books, or all the other things that constitute civilization. Sort of like the song at the end of Gilligan's Island: "no phones, no lights, no motorcars...." come-on, sing it. In any case, El Jefe goes, with the Heir, to visit Heir's summer camp. SWMBO will be left to her own devices.

El Jefe hastens to assure the world media, his goombas, his capos, mistresses, other henchmen and hangers on, that he will indeed return, no doubt to much rejoicing. But till next week, adios.

Squandering Opportunities

Despite some successes in Iraq, the Bush White House and the Republican Party seem hell-bent on squandering the advantages they won at the polls this last November. This is apparent on at least three fronts (1) the Bolton UN Nomination; (2) judicial nominations; and, (3) Social Security reform. Mr. Bush and the Republican bosses need to quit coasting and get in the game. The Social Security issue is worth its own post sometime, if I'm ever really bored, (cause it's boring), but a couple of points about the other two issues.

(1) The Bolton UN Nomination. Can't anybody play this game ? It's been obvious since the President announced Mr. Bolton's appointment to the UN ambassadorship that the Democrats (in particular Christopher Dodd) and, more importantly, the left-overs from the Powell State Department days were gunning for Mr. Bolton. Despite all this, the White House and the Senate managers seem to have been caught flat-footed by the intensity of Democratic opposition. They failed to defeat the nominaton on the merits, so the dirty tricks boys have gone looking and come up with a grab-bag of former co-workers with gripes. All very predictable. But most importantly -- they didn't make sure all their own guys were on board before they had their TV hearing yesterday. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid ! Dumkopfs ! Make sure the fix is in before you go on TV. Why didn't Richard Lugar know Voinovich had a problem before he convened the committee ?

The Senate Foreign Relations committee needs a new boss, somebody who isn't a milquetoast. And if this comes out jelly-side down, it should be a cold day in Hell before Voinovich ever gets another highway project, military base, or any more pork from this administation. And no tickets to state dinners at the White House, or invites to the Kennedy Center either.

This isn't over yet, but it's time to think in terms of Bolton going down. Gotta come up with a way to make lemonade out of the Bolton lemon. Make the Demos regret their victory. In lieu of Bolton, come up with somebody likely to be even more unpleasant to the State Department faction that wants to make nicey-nice at the UN. Somebody who will really drive the Ivy League professors bonkers. "Attention, please, attention....Senator Zell Miller, paging Senator Zell Miller...please answer the red telephone in the blue concourse..."

(2) Judicial Nominations. The Republicans are currently mulling over a plan to amend the Senate rules to allow a simple up or down vote on judicial appointments, in order to prevent the Democrats from filibustering Republican judicial nominations. Effectively, the Democrats can, at present, force Bush to have two-thirds approval to appoint a judge. I agree completely that the Democrats have totally abused the Senate rules, and that they will continue to do so, and that a lot of qualified judges will not be confirmed at this point. Priscilla Owen and William Pryor in particular.

However, I also agree with Dick Morris that the Republicans' forcing the issue on the filibuster would be a disaster at this point. By the time you've got your hangover, it's too late to go out on the town and party. The headache here is the price of the misguided Congressional interference in the Terri Schiavo mess. If the Republicans change the rules now and eliminate the filibuster, they will confirm the worst fears of most independent voters that the Republican Party means to force its views on religion and sex on the whole country.

No, I don't agree with this view, but it's a perception that has been reinforced by the Schiavo business. Instead of pandering to votes they already have, I wish the Republicans had done their homework, intelligently introduced their judicial nominees to the country, and tried to make the political case for getting rid of the filibuster. But they wanted to grandstand with Ms. Schiavo instead, and now they are set up to pay in terms of being unable to appoint meritorious persons to the bench.

As distasteful as it is, forget the rules change and let the Democrats play their filibuster game for the present, hopefully as often as possible, and for as long as they want to. Oh, and Senator Frist ? Forget that White House thing for awhile, okay ? You've got a D-minus on your present gig, and it's still headed south. Fix It, Doctor!

Before we can fix the Democrats, they have to be put in the wrong. The game now is to position them for the 2006 elections. Rather than setting themselves up to be tarred (falsely) as "extremists" the Republicans need to concentrate on getting the Democrats to paint themselves as "obstructionists."

In general, for the present, the entire Republican strategy should be built around giving the Democrats all the rope they will take. The Democrats are at present a minority party. They control no national center of power. They cannot reward supporters with offices and jobs. Like Newt Gingrich a few years ago, they have to take aggressive and bold positions to attract donations, and to keep their base motivated. They should be encouraged, nay begged, to do this. to pander to their most committed followers' most self-destructive instincts. Let them filibuster, obstruct and thwart and delay -- all the better to hang their sour attitude around their necks at the polls. In particular, encourage their pacificism and their anti-militarism in foreign affairs. Goad them here any way possible. The pacifist/lefty streak is their weakest point -- too many Democatic Senators next up for election are in Red States -- and this the part of the Democratic worldview that is most out of step with the post-9 /11 world.

But most importantly, the Republicans need to wake up, quit taking victory laps, and get their kaka together. They need to get a plan, and stick with it. The Demos are united at present. They have to be, their backs are to the wall. If the Republicans want to keep them there, they'd better remember that.

Big Selloff in El Jefe Stock Market

Excuse El Jefe, but he's really out of it and feeling a little cornered. Lots of things are combining to give me a real case of the blahs (to use a nice word for it). Rather upset in fact. If my mood was the stock market, the Dow would be down, down, down.

Pope Benedict XVI

The Catholic Church has a new Pontifex Maximus -- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the first German Pope since the Eleventh Century. He will be known as Benedict XVI.

El Jefe is not Catholic, so he is able to look upon the new Pope with a certain degree of detachment, but this is a choice that is almost guaranteed to drive the Left bonkers. This was the guy they didn't want -- the liberal bete noire. The former "Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" is known as a hard-liner conservative on most issues. Not sure I'd agree with the new Pope on lots of things, but still --it's going to be such fun to watch all the Right-Thinking People, who've been vaporing breathlessly about an African or Hispanic progressive Pope for weeks -- go absolutely gaga.

Would be even more fun if the Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes favorably on John Bolton today. El Jefe's cup would positively runneth over. Of course, cardiac wards across the country would be jammed with Liberals thinking the Apocalypse was here...

18 April 1942

Today is the anniversary of the “Doolittle Raid” – when 16 land based U.S. Army Air Corps B-25 bombers, flying from the deck of U.S.S. Hornet, a ship not designed to carry or launch such large planes– gave Japan the first installment of payback for Pearl Harbor, by bombing Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Yokosuka and other land targets in Japan.

Only six months after Pearl Harbor, American naval and military power in the Pacific was on the ropes. The papers were full of news of defeat after defeat. The day Admiral William “Bull” Halsey’s task force, built around aircraft carrier Enterprise, sailed out of Pearl Harbor to join Hornet at sea (coming from San Francisco), the American garrison on Bataan, in the Philippines, surrendered to the Japanese – the largest mass surrender of US troops to a foreign enemy in history. America badly needed some kind of good news. President Roosevelt insisted that a way be found to hit back at Japan.

The idea for the Doolittle Raid was conceived when Captain Francis Lowe, attached to the staff of Admiral Ernest King, the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, visited the new carrier Hornet at Norfolk, Virginia. Hornet, (CV-8), commissioned in October of 1941, called “The Ship that Held the Line” by one of her chroniclers, had just one crowded year of life before being sunk by the Japanese, but her service summarizes the first year of the Pacific War: the Doolittle Raid, Midway, the invasion of Guadalcanal, convoy escort duty, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, sunk at the Battle of Santa Cruz (27 October 1942).

In any case, on his visit to Hornet, Captain Lowe saw, at a nearby airfield, an outline of a carrier deck painted on the tarmac for practice landings. Lowe inquired of another officer, Captain Donald Duncan -- whether large, land-based bombers could fly off an aircraft carrier. Duncan looked into the matter with Hornet's captain, Marc Mitscher, (one of the finest naval officers this country ever produced), and they soon found that B-25's, land-based bombers, with much longer range then smaller naval aircraft, could fly off of an aircraft carrier, (although not return). The means of raiding Japan had been found.

The mission was prepared in great secrecy. The volunteer bomber crews, and their commander, the famous pre-war stunt pilot, Colonel James “Jimmy” Doolittle, had to learn short-range takeoffs at land bases – there was no way the Navy could risk damage to a precious aircraft carrier by allowing the crews to practice on board ship. When training was complete, the bombers were hoisted on board Hornet at San Francisco. Hornet and her cargo of bombers met Enterprise at sea on 13 April, and the thousands of crew members of the carriers and escorting vessels, speculating about the presence of Army bombers on a Navy ship, finally learned their real mission when Admiral Halsey signaled by flag and blinker: This Force is Bound for Tokyo.

The plan was for the task force to move in at high speed to a point 400 miles from the Japanese coast, and, about midday on 18 April, launch the bombers, and turn for home. The B-25’s would then go on to bomb targets in Japan, and then fly to friendly airfields in China. However, about 7 a.m. on the morning of 18 April, the force was spotted by a Japanese patrol vessel. The escorting ships quickly sank the snooper, but Admiral Halsey had to assume the picket got off a contact report and he had to make a decision: launch the planes now – at ranges almost too far for the pilots to be assured of a landing in friendly territory; or wait and risk contact with superior Japanese naval forces. The decision was obvious, although not easy, the pilots and bombers were expendable, the carriers weren’t. Hornet launched her bombers right then – 600 miles from Japan.

As it turned out, the picket ship HAD accurately reported sighting the American force, but missed spotting the Army bombers on Hornet's deck. The Japanese assumed they had an extra day before the ships came in range of Japanese targets. Plenty of time to prepare an ambush. Consequently, the arrival of the US planes over Japan on 18 April, earlier than anticipated, was a complete surprise.

The bombers arrived over Tokyo and their other targets about noon, bombing an oil tank farm, steel mills and power plants, the aircraft carrier Ryūhō (then under construction) and, among other things, breaking up a baseball game. The raiders then made for China, and now the price was exacted for the early launch: One plane crashed in the Soviet Union (its crew interned for the duration), the other 15 planes crash-landed at various locations in China. Most of the 80 pilots and crew survived, but the Japanese captured eight. Three of these men were murdered by the Japanese and one died in captivity.

The Japanese were shocked by the Doolittle Raid, which their propaganda machine quickly christened the “Do-Nothing Raid.” There was some truth to this slam – the military damage was negligible, but the psychological damage was immense. The Japanese generals and admirals had assured the Japanese people that American planes would never bomb Japan, and the commander in chief of the Japanese fleet, Admiral Yamamoto, personally apologized to Emperor Hirohito. More importantly, the Doolittle Raid goaded the Japanese Naval Staff to finally approve Admiral Yamamoto’s plan to do something about the U.S. Navy’s pesky aircraft carriers, which resulted in, among other things, the Battle of Midway.

UPDATE: A question has been posed re the significance of Midway. The Japanese, nettled by the Doolittle Raid, and in any case looking for a decisive showdown with the US fleet, found it at Midway Atoll (northwest of Honolulu/Pearl Harbor, at the west end of the Hawaiian chain). Unfortunately for the Japanese, the battle was decisive the wrong way. The Japanese, looking to ambush and wipe-out the US aircraft carrier force instead found themselves ambushed by the Americans. (who were reading the Japanese codes).

The battle (4-7 June 1942), ended with the Japanese losing four of the six heavy aircraft carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū, Sōryū). The Americans, for their part, lost carrier U.S.S. Yorktown (CV-5). The Americans could in time replace their losses, the Japanese could not. With the gutting of their carrier strike force, the Japanese were unable to keep the pressure up on the Americans, who then had time to regroup, launch an offensive of their own (the Solomons campaign) and eventually swamp the Japanese with their much greater industrial production.

Naval Nomenclature

Submarine U.S.S. Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) has recently joined the U.S. Navy. Although it is gratifying to see the Navy receive an augmentation of strength in this splendid new vessel (a modified SSN 21 Seawolf class boat), El Jefe confesses that he is less then pleased at the now well-established trend of naming US warships for politicians, some of whom are still living.

El Jefe admits that he finds Jimmy Carter a ludicrous name for a warship, considering that President’s attitude towards the military, but Democratic presidents who view foreign policy as another form of social work are not the only beneficiaries of the Navy’s misbegotten nomenclature policy. The ship list of Nimitz class carriers commissioned since 1975 includes, not only U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower, (CVN 69), U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), U.S.S. George Washington (CVN 73), but also carriers named for Presidents Harry Truman (CVN 75) and Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) – as well as ships named for two friends of the Navy from Congress – John Stennis (CVN 74), and Carl Vinson (CVN 70). The pattern is continuing: U.S.S. George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), named for the first President Bush, is even now building at Newport News.

I can see naming ships for Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Washington. I can even see Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan as justifiable names. But Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush -- living ex-presidents ? Two Congressmen (however credible their service ) ? That’s a bit much.

If you look carefully at the names of the vessels and the funding and commissioning dates, you can see the political compromises that went into naming these ships – the ships occur in pairs Washington and Lincoln; Truman and Reagan, Bush and Carter. Naming a ship for Harry Truman meant that the original name intended for CVN 75 – U.S.S. United States, could not be used.

The name change for U.S.S. Harry S. Truman illustrates one of the more unfortunate aspects of this contest in political puffing. An earlier U.S.S. United States, a sister ship of the famous frigate U.S.S. Constitution, won one of the most celebrated naval victories of the young U.S. Navy, capturing British frigate H.M.S. Macedonian in 1812. The U.S. Navy, like its parent the British Royal Navy – reuses famous names, or at least it did -- Hornet¸ Lexington, Yorktown, Enterprise, Essex, Boxer, Wasp, Constellation, Texas, Virginia and on and on. For a time, the U.S. Navy even borrowed the fine old British tradition of commerating victories over enemy warships by using the names of defeated enemy vessels -- the U.S. Navy for years had vessels named Macedonian, Java, and Guerriere -- all named for prizes taken from the British.

Modern naming practices slight over two centuries of naval history by passing over such names, or wasting them on less significant vessels. Given the Navy’s need to replace its warships, and to obtain political approval for same, it’s clear why this has occurred, but it’s still rather sad.

Brooding

Yes, yes, I know, El Jefe has been silent for some time, away from his capital, brooding on his estates, contemplating his billions on deposit round the world, his many palaces, (more even than Ken Lay in his salad days), his fanatically loyal armies of goombas, his bevies of comely mistresses, his vast wine cellars, cases of scotch, the fifty different types of ice cream in his coolers, his campaign to be elected Pope, or ruler of a small but wealthy country, etc., etc.

Fear not, the Great One is returning, and shall end his silence presently. Lots going on in the world. The John Bolton confirmation hearings (with enemies like his, he must be a prince of a guy); the Republicans in the House of Representatives, (showing again why another name for Republicans has always been the “Stupid Party” as opposed to their counterparts, the “Evil Party.”). If that’s not enough, there are always Euros and other assorted wackos to rave at.

Stay tuned.

Book Review: Washington's Crossing

I promise not to inflict my reading tastes on the public too often, but I noticed in the paper today that a book I recently read, David Hackett Fischer’s Washington’s Crossing, just received the Pulitzer Prize for History.

Washington’s Crossing is, of course about the American Revolution, and the pivotal New Jersey campaign of 1776-77. After a series of terrible defeats around New York, (which probably would have rendered the Revolution a minor historical footnote in British Empire history, had Sir William Howe been up to his job), the Continental Army, George Washington and the New Jersey State Militia rose to the occasion and gave the British a bloody nose. What looked like inevitable victory for the King’s armies turned into a long war. Washington’s Crossing is the story of how this reversal of fortune came about.

As the title indicates, the fact that there is a United States at all is due largely to George Washington. The eventual first President emerges as no Napoléon or Julius Caesar but still a good general, learning from his defeats around New York; holding his indifferently supplied, untrained and raggle-taggle army together; managing a surprise river crossing of the Delaware in a winter storm and clobbering British detachments at Princeton and Trenton while avoiding being flattened himself. The defeated British commander in the Princeton operations, Cornwallis, better known for losing later at Yorktown, thought this campaign Washington's finest work.

Of course, while fighting the finest army on the planet with raw troops who did not even have shoes, Washington had to keep one hand free to keep the politicians in Philadelphia off his back – these worthies all being convinced that they were better qualified to do his job. Had good sense not finally prevailed with the politicos, the British, in spite of everything, no doubt would have prevailed.

Washington, then, comes off well, and is perhaps worth a higher valuation of his generalship then I have hitherto given him. The British commanders, on the other hand, Howe in particular, appear to be due substantially lower marks. Howe passed up several chances to destroy Washington’s whole army around New York, apparently deliberately, because he perversely thought allowing his enemy to escape would facilitate a negotiated settlement. Fatal error – depriving the Americans of their one functioning army, at that point in the war, might well have opened the path to negotiations. As Fischer makes clear, the Revolution was very near to political, financial and military collapse in the fall and winter of 1776. The British would never have another chance at military victory.

Professor Fischer spend a little too much space for my taste on “social history,” that is, the obligatory salaam to race, class and gender issues so common in the academy today. I would have preferred a straight, traditional military history, but Professor Fischer weaves his social history discussion right into his narrative, so the story does not suffer too much.

To me, the most interesting part of Washington’s Crossing is Fischer’s treatment of British occupation problems in New Jersey. As the British would discover so often in that war, Tory support was greatest in places where no British troops were to be found. Much of the population of New Jersey, initially neutral, or prepared to be favorably disposed to the British, soon turned against the Crown when the heavy-handed British troops arrived looking for supplies, and not being too careful about which “rebels” they “requisitioned” them from.

In any case, the local inhabitants soon began an effective guerrilla resistance to British occupation which was at least as important as Washington's Army, if not more so – in running the British out of New Jersey. Considering that Americans have been running occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan these last several years, the story of British efforts to pacify New Jersey is very topical, and for me was alone worth the price of the book.

Professor Fischer’s Washington’s Crossing completely deserves its Pulitzer Prize. Anyone interested in the period of the American Revolution will want to have this book.

El Jefe is presently reading Conspiracy of Fools, the new Enron book. Maybe more on that next week.

Shoes and Pies and Salad-Dressing…For Now

Captain Ed over at the Captain’s Quarters Blog calls attention today to the political Left’s new reasoned argument of choice – the food fight. That is, attempting to silence and humiliate and possibly injure their political enemies by throwing food, and other things, at them.

The latest victim is pundit and sometime presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan, doused last night with salad-dressing by a demonstrator screaming “stop the bigotry !” during an appearance at Western Michigan University. Mr. Buchanan declined to press charges for felony assault. This follows a pie in the face on Tuesday for the conservative Weekly Standard’s editor, William Kristol, then speaking at Earlham College, a Quaker institution in Richmond, Indiana.

Finally, there’s the protester who threw a shoe at Pentagon advisor Richard Perle back in February, screaming “Liar ! Liar !”

The hard Left commonly refuses to engage its political enemies' arguments on their merits, and has for years resorted to the Fascist and Communist tactic of trying to shout-down or sabotage speakers of whom it disapproves. My own first exposure to the preferred Leftie method of reasoned debate was during a speech in 1979 or 1980 at the Student Union of the University of Texas by a former official of the Imperial Iranian Government.

This gentleman, who had fled Iran to escape certain execution by the present bandit regime (his brother was not so lucky), was barely able to say “good afternoon” before being heckled and shouted-down by the anti-Shah friends of the liberty and democracy the mullahs were bringing to Iran. Most of these persons were not Iranians, but American leftists, all on fire to stand-up for freedom by muzzling the speaker. After all, anything is fair if one is “speaking truth to power,” and if it’s done for the “people” and not for the “powerful.”

Instead of summoning the campus police to clear the room of the screamers so the rest of the audience, (the great majority) could hear what the man had to say, the organizers and the administration cravenly folded and cancelled the event. I’ve read this gentleman’s books, and I still, to this day, regret the lost opportunity to hear what he had to say in person. (Aside: fascist tactics only work when the authorities are weak-kneed enough to let them).

It was already obvious to most sentient life-forms that the mullahs were going to make the Shah positively look like Thomas Jefferson by comparison, and at the time, I wrote-off the Screaming Friends of Democracy as dolts and idiots. Revolution usually begets dictatorship, not liberty. On reflection, that rabble had instincts much more in common with the Fascist regime of the Mullahs then I realized. But even these people contrived not to throw things.

Conservative speakers need to be careful and keep their heads down and perhaps invest in flak-jackets. The defeats in the last two general elections, the policy choices of the Bush administration, and the evident approval of these things by the American people has stoked the rage of the hard Left to white-hot intensity. The turn of events in Iraq for the better, since the January elections, is just making the Left angrier, because the Bush administration, the Lefty True Believers think, is “getting away with it.”

Shoes and pies and salad-dressing. What’s next ? I’ve written at another place about what I’m afraid may be the answer to this question. Watch out, people.

Committee to Save Kofi

To nobody’s great surprise, Reuters reports today that the “independent inquiry” into the UN’s (United Dictators’) oil-for-food scandal has found “no evidence” that United Dictators Secretary-General Kofi Annan interfered or exercised improper influence in the awarding of a contract to a company that employed Mr. Annan’s son Kojo.

Kojo, the “independent inquiry” found “intentionally deceived the secretary-general,” that is, Daddy, about his continuing financial relationship with this employer. “Significant questions,” the inquiry says, remain about Kojo, the “integrity of his business” his “financial dealings with respect to the oil-for-food program.”

Seriously, in El Jefe’s perhaps jaundiced opinion, there was no way any of this was going to be found to touch Kofi Annan. I’m not saying there’s anything to find here, but even if there was, the worldwide chattering classes both abroad and here at home have too much invested in keeping Kofi in place as one of the vital front men in the transnational project. Nothing must be permitted to damage the Secretary-General’s viability as a chief standard-bearer for the World Movement to Keep Gulliver (that is, the US) Tied Down. If a few pawns like Kojo have to be sacrificed to keep the UN pristine, so be it.

Whatever the real truth of the Oil-for-Food scandal may be, the “reputation” of the UN will be protected at virtually any cost. After all, don’t want the redneck Americans to get riled up and do something sane, like tell the UN adios forever.

Oblivious, not Observant

By order of SWMBO, I had my hair cut on Saturday.

I don’t know why I put things like that off. Possibly because I fail to notice any change from “before” to “after” ? There hasn’t been a barber, stylist, or whatever you want to call them my entire life whom I haven’t told, following the experience, that my hair looked “wonderful.” Honestly, I can’t usually tell the difference.

Rather like losing weight. The scales and the clothes reveal a change, but the guy in the mirror is still the same – no Joe Stud. I’m just “observance challenged.” It’s quite possible for me to wear unmatched socks, get pairs of shoes confused or miss a belt-loop, probably because I’m generally thinking of completely unrelated matters: the rise of China, how many battalions Napoléon had at Austerlitz, chaos in the middle-east, the blonde who walked by at lunch, or the world distribution of Jello. Glad SWIMBO is around to be observant.

Yeah, I know, I know, I’m still El Jefe, ruler of the universe, and all the adjacent territories, to whom all the other capos must do obeisance – all under the general rule of MILO and FLINKY. Still, being observant is just not my strong point.

All Hail the Judges !

The Terri Schiavo business seems to be winding to its awful, inevitable conclusion. Last rites have been administered. Although Ms. Schiavo was not allowed regular nourishment, she was evidently able to take Holy Communion.

I am not altogether certain what I make of this whole business. No matter how non compos mentis or otherwise out of it I might be, I certainly would not want my family to starve me to death. Then again, I do not think that the horror of Ms. Schiavo’s situation, and the fact the State of Florida seems to have a bad law for dealing with persons who do not have Directives to Physicians or Living Wills in place– justifies Federal intervention.

But this post isn’t really about Ms. Schiavo. An attorney named Andrew Cohen, who is some sort of legal analyst for CBS News, published an interesting little editorial called “The Courts Push Back” last Thursday. Mr. Cohen, and I agree on the impropriety of Federal legislation in the case of Ms. Schiavo, but that’s about all we agree on. Mr. Cohen’s little piece neatly illustrates most of my discomfort with the legal profession and the courts in our constitutional system, as it has evolved. In particular I am talking about the Federal judiciary, although the State courts are developing many of the same issues.

Mr. Cohen is upset because, he says, Congress and the White House, in approaching the Schiavo matter “…illegitimately pushed the judiciary far beyond the point of reason and the judges rightly and justly pushed back. From Pinellas County, Florida, to Tampa to Atlanta to Washington, good for all of them.”

To Mr. Cohen, the courts, and by extension the bar, are a clerisy to which we are all obliged to bow and give utter and unquestioning reverence and obedience. Mr. Cohen seems to think that the political branches, by attempting to pass legislation to circumvent the Courts and save Ms. Schiavo – are scurvy rebels, to be put down at all costs:

Another aspect of this case that was different, and disturbing, was the lack of public rhetoric about the true and noble nature of the courts and the place of judges as final arbiters of our disputes, large and small. . . I kept waiting for federal and state leaders to say the sorts of things that we typically hear from government officials during and after controversial cases – that everyone must respect the courts…

That sends a terrible message to young and old alike…of disrespect towards judges and the rule of law…

Hail Caesar ! Or, in this case, Cicero. Again according to Mr. Cohen, “Congress passes laws that judges interpret. And if those interpretations are not to Congress’ liking, the lawmakers sometimes can change them again.” (emphasis supplied).

If this attitude of exaggerated deference to unelected lawyers in robes as the be-all and end-all “final arbiters” doesn’t disturb you, it should. Of course they’re not the final arbiters. However much the lawyers dislike it, people through their elected officials are sovereign, and if the elected officials don’t like the interpretations of the law, they can change them again, one way or another – and that’s not sometimes.

Constitutionally, we have gotten to the point where the tail is wagging the dog. Respect for the law and the courts is necessary, but it should not be slavish obedience. If the Constitution was about anything, it was about preventing the authorities from exercising unaccountable power over American citizens. What’s more unaccountable than a Federal Judge ? Appointed for life, virtually impossible to remove. Nothing quite so much like God on Earth as a Federal judge.

This didn’t used to matter so much. When the Constitution was written, there were few matters that could actually cause one to be haled into Federal Court. But since the 1920’s and 30’s, by way of a series of Supreme Court decisions that have greatly expanded the reach of the Courts, this is no longer true, and it is unbalancing the entire system.

I suppose my real beef here is how, in general, the constitutional system, since at least the 1930’s, and at an accelerating pace since the 1960’s, has tended to move power away from the legislative branch (Congress), and towards the judiciary. As a firm believer in legislative superiority (probably my British ancestry acting up again)– this worries me. I think that our system of government would really benefit from having both the bar and the courts taken down a notch. Perhaps more detail on this another time.

Rebels Without a Clue

There have been several interesting stories out of Iraq over the past several days, two from the New York Times and three from the Associated Press. All four of these stories indicate that the Sunni rebellion against the new Iraqi government is, at the least, in some difficulty. Good discussions of the Times pieces are available at the Belmont Club blog, and the Belgravia Dispatch blog here, and here.

On 19 March, the New York Times ran a story recounting an interview with Lieut.-General John Sattler, commander of First Marine Expeditionary Force, the top Marine in Iraq. General Sattler says that the average number of rebel attacks has fallen from 25 a day before the Second Battle of Fallujah in November, down to about 10 a day at present. In the same story, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, gives a higher number of insurgent attacks, but for him also, the general trend is downwards.

General Sattler credits the reduction in terrorist activity in his area to the fall of Fallujah, increased Marine patrolling and random checkpoints that catch bombers before they can deploy their devices. The city of Ramadi, in the heart of the Sunni triangle, which continues to display an unfavorable attitude, is on “lock down,” locals having to move through a series of checkpoints to do business.

But the most interesting plus-factor for the US and the new Iraqi government raised by General Sattler, which is also the theme of an interesting 21 March piece in the New York Times, is the appearance of increasing numbers of Iraqi troops alongside US and allied forces. Eight battalions of Iraqi army and police have relieved half the US troops formerly at Fallujah, freeing US mobile forces to operate elsewhere.

The 21 March piece, by John Burns, is worth subscribing to the Times to read. The subject is Haifa Street in Baghdad, which, Burns tells us, was “Purple Heart Boulevard” for the 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry (based at Fort Hood, Texas). 1/9th Cav. soldiers garnered 160 Purple Hearts working this area, in their year-long deployment, before returning to Texas.

Haifa Street, which parallels the Tigris River in central Baghdad, just north of the “Green Zone,” was the heart of a Saddam redevelopment scheme of the 1980’s: Saddam bulldozed the old portion of Baghdad located here and built new high-rise apartments which he stuffed with thousands of Baath Party loyalists “…middle- class professionals from his favored Sunni minority, migrants from his hometown, Tikrit, and fugitives from other Arab countries, including Egypt, Syria and Sudan.” Saddam is believed to have hidden in Haifa Street following the fall of Baghdad to US forces in April of 2003, at the start of his underground odyssey. Naturally, Haifa Street has been a stalwart supporter of the anti-US rebellion since the fall of Baghdad.

But the rebels are not prospering. In the first 18 months of fighting, the “insurgents mostly outnumbered the Americans along Haifa Street, showing they could carry the war to the capital’s core with something approaching impunity.”

No longer. Insurgents are attacking in smaller numbers, with less intensity, and the Americans and Iraqi government forces are locating the weapons caches, and killing or arresting lots of insurgents.

The most interesting parts of Mr. Burns article are treated as almost side lights – they receive mention, but are deep in the article. Two such points are the most important and interesting facts mentioned, and they both point to the failure of the current rebellion.

First, as Mr. Burns points out, “[i]n the Shiite neighborhoods of Haifa Street, the good will for Americans is pervasive…residents clustered around the Americans, offering slivers of information about insurgents.” By contrast, the Sunni neighborhoods are hostile. But the friendliness of the Shiites tells us the rebels are losing, and that the insurgency is a sectarian revolt, and not a national one. Were the opposite the case, the Shiites, in the name of self-preservation, would be hostile, or at best neutral. The Shiite friendliness tells us that the Shiite population knows that the rebels, long run, are beaten.

The confidence of the local Shiites is probably based on the second important fact mentioned – the arrival of a two-battalion brigade of the new Iraqi Army. Mr. Burns profiles a man he identified as the commander of the “Iraqi 303rd Battalion” – a General Muhammad al-Samraa. Generals don’t usually command battalions, which makes El Jefe wonder if Mr. Burns has confused the brigade commander with a battalion commander. No matter, General al-Samraa is interesting, and sounds like a real piece of good luck for our side.

General al-Samraa is a former Major in Saddam’s air defense forces, and a Shiite, former bodyguard and driver for a Shiite tribal leader. Excellent ! At last the advisory element is getting smart and not trying to officer command echelons of the new Iraqi Army with Saddam’s dug-out generals and cast-offs. Such persons have no reason to be loyal to the new government, and know too many people on the other side. Consequently, the danger of these persons working a double game is high.

By contrast, General al-Samraa is everything you could want: from the ethnic group that was on bottom under Saddam; a field-grade officer under Saddam, so some experience, but not too-high ranking to be involved with the old regime; and spent some time humbly employed after the war, as a bodyguard. He has been given high rank, and has every reason to be loyal to the new government: so as to keep his position, and prevent his former superiors and his Sunni ethnic enemies from regaining theirs.

The situation seems to be tilting against the rebels elsewhere, as well. According to two stories by the AP today, (here and here), on Sunday, 40 or 50 rebels attacked MP and artillery units of the Kentucky National Guard along a road 20 miles southeast of Baghdad, and were handled a pasting: 26 rebels killed, 7 wounded, for 6 US troops wounded. Apparently the rebels "emerged from a grove of trees and a roadside canal" and attacked the convoy.

This is a curious engagement for several reasons. The US troops reported quite a haul of equipment in this action – 6 rocket propelled grenade launchers, 16 rockets, 13 machine guns, 22 “assault weapons” – presumably assault rifles, 2,900 rounds of ammunition, and 40 grenades. This seems like more weapons than one would expect of 40 rebels, (if the reporter means “machine guns” in the sense of a light machine gun, and not a personal weapon, each would have a gunner and loader) so perhaps the attacking rebel group was larger.

How were the weapons captured ? Did the rebels drop them trying to get away, or did the rebels “ambush” fail and draw a reaction that pursued them to their weapons cache, or did the National Guardsmen drive too near the weapons cache thus drawing an attack ? Stupid rebels. Attacking a US road convoy under current conditions (as distinguished from during the invasion, before command and control was worked out and road protection organized), because of roving helicopters, air support, artillery and airmobile infantry on call, is really a death-wish. How fortunate that the Kentucky National Guard could give this many rebels what they so evidently desired !

In any case, I cannot imagine any rebel commander, save under the cruelest necessity, would willingly risk this much precious weaponry falling into enemy hands. Particularly since another AP story, also dated today, says the rebels are so desperate for weapons that they are digging up “rusty munitions” abandoned since the Iran-Iraq war over a decade and a half ago. The rebels are clearly feeling a supply pinch. Perhaps all the pressure on Syria is working ?

Meanwhile, back on Haifa Street, General al-Samraa seems confident: “’My aim is 100 percent clear: all the terrorists living here, they go now,’ … [General al-Samraa]… said, in halting English.” No reason to doubt him – The Times piece mentions, almost as an aside, that the general’s unit is composed “mostly of Shiites.” That’s the big nail in the Sunnis’ coffin, you see. Nothing but doom ahead for them now, if they fight on. Bottom rail on top now.

The Sunnis should have tried to make a deal, but they took a chance and gambled for it all, trying to force out President Bush and get the Americans to cut and run. Then they could beat down the Shiites and Kurds at leisure, with help from the rest of the Sunni Arab world, and re-impose Sunni dominance. Rather than dealing for part of a loaf, they gambled for it all, and have lost. The Shiites have the weapons now, and they have found commanders, and their big power backer isn’t leaving. Fighting on is a recipe for Sunni suicide. The Shiites will gleefully kill and despoil their former Sunni overlords, repaying them for Saddam's years of tyranny, and the Americans will hold the Shiites coats while they do so. The Sunni cause is hopeless, and surely the Sunni leaders, know, or are beginning to suspect this, now.

The Politicos and Terri Schiavo

War in Iraq; possible war in Syria North Korea and Iraq; terrorist incidents in Qatar; China arming to the teeth; our alliances with Europe increasingly a dead-letter; Osama on the loose; American TSA agents beaten by Mexican police; both the public debt and oil prices at record highs…but fear not citizens ! Congress is on the job. The Washington Post tells us that, in special session this evening, the Senate passed a bill giving the federal courts jurisdiction over Terri Schiavo, so that a US district judge can order her feeding tube reinserted. The House of Representatives is expected to act this evening also, and President Bush is in town to sign the bill.

Good to see that Congress can churn that legislation out when it’s really important.

I don’t know what you think about the Terri Schiavo business. I don’t even know what I think about it, except that it’s unspeakably tragic. (If you aren’t up to speed on who Terri Schiavo is, I’ll let you have the pleasure of Googling that one yourself). Quite aside from the fact that the Federal courts need enhancements to their jurisdiction like I need a visit to Krispy Kreme, what’s up with Congress sticking its nose into this ?

I should think that other priorities would, or should have the Congress’s attention fully engaged. Yes the Schiavo situation is awful, but the Constitution simply does not charge Congress with creating universal happiness. Moreover, this is just bad precident. Problems similar to Ms. Schiavos crop up for families everywhere almost daily. If Ms. Schiavo is entitled to action by Congress, what about everyone else when their turn comes up ? Do we want a government, or a national Make-a-Wish foundation ?

Evidently, the Congress prefers grandstanding to addressing real threats to the general prosperity and happiness. The solons need to quit playacting for headlines and get busy.

Dinner with T and Company

Last night, El Jefe and SWMBO were the guests of T and her husband. T prepared a really splendid dinner in honor of El Jefe’s birthday. T is a really excellent cook and lots of fun, so I had been looking forward to this for awhile.

We started out drinking some of T’s Green Lizard vodka martinis. Super Good ! El Jefe opened his cool presents while we chatted – friend P and her husband joining us for drinks. We then moved on to dinner on T’s screened-in porch. She had displaced her usual coffee-table and chairs arrangement in favor of a large round table that was all set and waiting for us (complete with plenty of water which some of us , such as your author, definitely needed after martinis and the wine served with dinner). We dined outside and looked at T’s cool pool, and later, joined by T's cats, chatted till very late, when El Jefe, perhaps feeling the effect of one too many Green Lizards, began to want to snooze.

Dinner itself was snapper with a sort of salsa garnish (very, very good), cheese grits – I love cheese grits and these were very yummy, and a really good salad. I am hoping SWMBO will inquire as to the recipes for this stuff. There were several desert offerings, of which El Jefe preferred the Chocolate Lava-Cake (one of T’s specialities).

In any case, we had a wonderful evening. This was such a cool birthday present ! Thanks so much to T for planning and cooking, and to T and E both for having us in their home.

But Yes, I'm back !

El Jefe has been away for a few days, visiting the provinces, in this case Seaside, Florida. The Heir, SWMBO, and El Jefe had a great time, (maybe more details on that later). Naturally, this has cut into blogging, but never fear, the Great One is back in his capital.

After El Jefe greets his millions of humble well-wishers, and hob-nobs with his capos coming to pay their respects; inspects his regiments of elite Goombas; returns his phone calls (from W, Queen Elizabeth, Putin and Britney Spears); reproves his bureaucrats, drinks a few Cosmos; visits with his (numerous) mistresses; and, (okay, back to reality), receives guidance from High Patronesses MILO and FLINKY, not to mention works for a living, new nuggets of wisdom will no doubt appear. Stay tuned.

Marching to Pretoria... er Twish who ?

On 7 March, the Metropolitan Council of Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city, voted to began the process of changing Pretoria’s name to the unpronounceable name of Tshwane.

El Jefe, as he has indicated at another place, does not approve of this renaming of cities, and he shall probably continue to refer to the place as Pretoria, the name given to it by its founders in 1855. “Pretoria” was for Andries Pretorius, one of the leaders of the “Great Trek” of Afrikaners into the interior to escape British rule.

To be sure, I don’t approve at all of the regime set up by Pretorius and his descendants, but trying to escape history by renaming it is a futile and pointless exercise, not to mention a monumental waste of money. Politically stupid too -- South Africa needs its white population, which comprises, for obvious reasons, a disproportinate share of the educated population. Rubbing their noses in it would seem to be economically counterproductive, as the example of Zimbabwe should indicate. Oh well, at least the stationers and map-makers shall be happy.

Gorbachev

Twenty years ago, on 11 March 1985, the downfall of the Soviet Union got under way, when Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – that is, effective dictator of the USSR.

Gorbachev, for El Jefe, is truly one of the strangest phenomena of the 20th Century. Mr. Gorbachev has a generally benevolent reputation in Europe and America, particularly among fuzzy-headed people who do not think of politics in terms of power. Still, this is on the whole understandable, as Europeans and Americans are the principal beneficiaries of Mr. Gorbachev’s virtual single-handed wrecking of the Main Enemy of the USA and the NATO countries.

El Jefe thinks that Russians, naturally concerned with the prosperity, greatness and power of their own country, could be forgiven for viewing Mr. Gorbachev as an utter incompetent. Mr. Gorbachev’s clearing-out of all the Soviet-era deadwood was no doubt a blessing, but, like the revolutionaries of 1917, Mr. Gorbachev managed to bring down the whole edifice of the Russian empire in the process.

Mr. Gorbachev is going to be a fascinating study for biographers, particularly if they can get access to his state papers, and the internal Communist Party documents. The fact that this man was able to work his way up through the system to the supreme leadership of Murder, Inc. (i.e. the Soviet Communist Party) is ample confirmation of the complete political bankruptcy of the Soviet regime. A “healthy” Communist Party, looking to its own self-preservation and aggrandizement, would have sniffed-out Mr. Gorbachev’s mush-headed liberalism and destroyed him. Instead Mr. Gorbachev’s career was created, advanced, and nurtured by the very apparatus he inadvertently brought down. My own suspicion is that history's verdict on Mr. Gorbachev will be that he was eerily similar to Louis XVI, Nicholas II and other leaders of authoritarian states in revolutionary times: personally likable, but not up to his job.

Mr. Gorbachev failed to comprehend the fundamental nature of the regime he inherited. He mistakenly thought his perestroika and glasnost policies could modernize Bolshevism and return it to some mythical type of non-terrorist Leninism. Gorbachev sought to save Communism by doing away with terror and compulsion, which were in fact the principal props of the Soviet state, and the main tenets of Leninism. Leninism without murder was like bread without yeast. There was nothing in this world quite as surreal and ludicrous as listening to the heir of Joseph Stalin quote Thomas Jefferson to representatives of the American media. The USSR’s, and Mr. Gorbachev’s downfall lay in the fact that Mr. Gorbachev had no comprehension of the fact that the western media and everybody else bothered with him at all only because he was Stalin’s heir.

Mr. Gorbachev’s unwillingness to countenance bloodletting to squash dissent (to his credit as a human, but a grave fault in a dictator) first lost the Soviets their World War II gains in eastern Europe, then resulted in the collapse of the USSR. At the same time, his dithering between “reform” Communism (a figment of his imagination), and some form of capitalism hastened the inevitable collapse of the Soviet economy, provided cover for the Russian Mafia takeover of its remains, and ensured that the collapse was much more complete than was necessary.

Say What ?

Former President William Jefferson “Slick” Clinton is headed back into the hospital, evidently for more heart surgery. Now El Jefe is no admirer of Slick, but I certainly don’t wish the man ill personally, so I hope he recovers speedily.

Meanwhile, I wonder if his heart problems have affected his brain, because Slick has made some truly astounding statements lately, even allowing they’re coming from the man who quibbled over the meaning of “is.” Once you’re sitting down, have a look at this article in the Arab News, which bills itself as the Middle East’s "leading English language daily." Among other things, the Arab News story says, Mr. Clinton had the following to say at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos:

Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority.

Ooookay, but it gets better, that is to say, worse. The same piece quotes Mr. Clinton as saying, in an interview with the broadcast journalist Charlie Rose

…Iran is… the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami (in 1997). [It is] the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: Two for president; two for the Parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralties.

In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.

Or, how bout this little gem from earlier in the same interview:

Iran is a whole different kettle of fish, but it’s a sad story that really began in the 1950s when the United States deposed Mr. [Mohammed] Mossadegh, [Prime Minister of Iran, appointed by the Shah he tried to overthrow] who was an elected parliamentary democrat and brought the Shah back in [Rose says CIA in the background]… and then he [the Shah] was overturned by the Ayatollah Khomeni, driving us into the arms of one Saddam Hussein.

Most of the terrible things Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s he did with the full knowing support of the United States government, because he [Saddam or Khomeini ?] was in Iran, and Iran was what it was, because we got rid of the parliamentary democracy back in the fifties. At least that’s my belief. I know it’s not popular for an American to ever say anything like this but I think it’s true. (The audience applauds at that moment.)

And I apologized when President Khatami was elected, I publicly acknowledged that the United States had actively overthrown Mossadegh and I apologized for it. And I hope that we could have some rapproachment with Iran.”

Honest, I'm not making this stuff up. I put in some paragraphing to make it more readable, and inserted some of the material in brackets, but the words are Clinton's. Don't believe me ? Hunt up the transcript, a link to which can be found here. Also, check out Little Green Footballs' commentary on this subject. Incidentally, LGF is a great blog.

Sounds like Slick needs to stop visiting Davos, and jetting to Tsunami sites, and get back across the ocean and back on to American chow. Iran is “progressive ?” Say what ? So progressive that President Khatami, as the Arab News pointed out, called on the whole world to convert to Islam. Yeah, the progressive Mullah government, for which Khatami is the front man, who have morality police who rough up women for wearing western clothing, who send money to Hezbollah so they can blow up Israeli embassies; which places a price on the head of “apostate” authors (Salman Rushdie).

Get that bit about Saddam Hussein: "[m]ost of the terrible things...[he] did with the full knowing support of the United States government." That's either utterly outrageous or beyond stupid. Either Mr. Clinton is naive, and confusing military support for Iraq's efforts against Khomeini's Iran -- given on the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle -- with blanket support for Saddam's atrocities; or he's deliberately for political purposes promoting a false view of US Iraqi policy in the 1980's.

Almost as sick is Slick’s presumption in “apologizing” for American policy towards Iran in the 1950’s. Like a good leftie talking about Iran, Slick makes the obligatory salaam towards Mohammed Mossadegh. In leftist hagiography, the sainted Mossadegh was establishing a regime of truth, peace and enlightenment in Iran until he was unfortunately overthrown by the occult and sinister forces of the CIA and the US oil lobby – all of which led to the present dictatorship of the wacko mullah regime.

Reality, of course, bears only coincidental resemblance to this picture – yes, the CIA helped overthrow Mossadegh, but (much like the overthrow of Allende in Chile) the coup was widely popular in Iran. The restoration of the Shah was only possible because the would-be Nasser was widely unpopular after rigging elections, dissolving Parliament, wrecking the economy and chasing out the Shah. The advent of the ayatollahs has more to do with economic problems suffered by Iran in the 70’s than the demise of Mossadegh. But like Allende, Mossadegh, by being overthrown by forces friendly to the US, became a left-wing saint who Slick, being a good leftie, invokes when speaking of Iran.

The quality of President Clinton’s education, thought and reflections on Iran and the world generally is quite apparent in the Charlie Rose interview. I have never, ever liked, supported or had any use for President Clinton, but it is revolting to see an American politician, who was formerly the head of state, parade his ignorance in front of the whole world.

A Little Present for the UN's Punchbowl

The lefties are all a-twitter about President Bush’s latest appointment – that of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations. Former presidential candidate and senator John Kerry (D. France) reminds us why we sent him back to the minor leagues last November by telling us the appointment’s “…just about the most inexplicable appointment the President could make to represent the United States to the world community.” Gee, Monseigneur le Senateur, guess he doesn’t pass the “global test” eh ?

The appointment is “inexplicable” to lefties like Kerry because, unlike that gentleman, Mr. Bolton has been on the right – that is, American – side of all the major foreign policy issues of the day since Vietnam. According to Fred Kaplan over at Slate, the President’s message to the UN is to “drop dead.” Mr. Kaplan characterizes Mr. Bolton, (presently the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security), as Vice-President Cheney’s “agent” at the State Department “…monitoring, opposing, and, to the extent possible, thwarting from within the moderating influence of Secretary Colin Powell and his crew of pin-striped diplomats.” Well, thank God: the State Department’s institutional first impulse is always to surrender everything, like the pigs negotiating with the cook on the size of the cauldron.

Mr. Kaplan’s analysis is worth reading, and, in general, spot on, if you buy the whole concept behind the UN. The difference between Mr. Kaplan's view and my own is that I think the UN, as an institution, is positively dangerous to American interests. The UN is a forum that gives disproportionate power to small states, that allows them to use the media and other institutions of great powers as fulcrums against the interests of those same countries: in effect, using the weight of the US against itself. The US is far better served by the traditional system of bilateral relations among states.

Mr. Kaplan, a believer in the UN, and international law as it has developed since 1918, thinks Mr. Bolton’s appointment is a disaster, because, inter alia, Mr. Bolton “virulently opposes the institution to which he’ll be posted” and because Mr. Bolton opposed the ABM treaty, the nuclear test ban and “any accord that limited anything the United States might someday want to do.” Maybe this last is why El Jefe sees the same set of facts as Mr. Kaplan and thinks not disaster, but “jim crackin dandy.”

As I’ve said before, It is quite enough, thank you, that we pay for the United Nations -- it’s absurd that we should actually have to pay attention to it. Mr. Bolton’s appointment, in the Wall Street Journal’s phrase is a little “tough love” for the UN. Not before time.

Death at a Checkpoint

A big diplomatic and political dust-up with Italy is in progress, after US troops at a Baghdad checkpoint shot and killed an Italian intelligence officer, and wounded a journalist last Friday night.

The New York Times tells us this morning that “[n]ext to the scandal of prison abuse at Abu Ghraib, no other aspect of the American military presence in Iraq has caused such widespread dismay and anger among Iraqis” then these shootings at checkpoints by Americans, who are authorized to open fire “whenever they have reason to believe that they or others in their unit may be at risk of suicide bombings or other insurgent attacks.”

The New York Times cannot seem to write anything about Iraq without mentioning the so-called “scandal” at Abu Ghraib. If the guerrillas gave up tomorrow, and all US troops came home, the Times would make its obligatory salaam to Abu Ghraib.

The shooting involving the Italians is regrettable, and surely everyone is sorry that the Italian intelligence officer was killed, and the journalist wounded. But how can anybody legitimately fault the US troops ? I wonder how the Times article would read, or any of the other commentary or reporting so far produced on this incident – including this piece – had the authors been forced to spend any time wearing a US uniform, manning a roadside checkpoint in Iraq ?

Writing an article for the New York Times or a piece in a blog on the anger of Iraqis at US checkpoints is a whole lot different from being a walking target, subject to having your own precious body filled with bullets or bomb fragments and winding up on the transport plane to Dover, for a funeral in a flag-draped coffin. If I were on that checkpoint, and these things were possibilities, woe betide the person who approached my position in any way other then very carefully.

Too bad for the Italian officer and his family. That officer probably knew the risks better than the journalist. As for the angry Iraqis, lots of innocent deaths are an unfortunate byproduct of guerrilla conflicts, which the originators of tactics such as suicide bombing would do well to remember.

Somebody I know

There's a lady here in a shop in town I've known for years, casually. I met her shortly after SWMBO and I were married. As it turns out, she and her husband, both slightly older then I, were married about the time of my own wedding.

This lady became pregnant about the time SWMBO did, and she and SWMBO used to exchange pregnancy war stories. There is absolutely nothing more likely to make a male head for the hills then pregnancy stories, and this I duly did, heading for other portions of the store when the inevitable baby discussion came up.

The appointed time came, and SWMBO and I were soon enriched by the arrival of the Heir. Not long thereafter, I went back into the store, and our friend was gone. Some time passed, and knowing of her condition, we asked what had become of her. It turned out that she had miscarried, if that is the appropriate word for losing a baby far into the pregnancy. In any case, she had lost her baby, and had taken a leave of absence.

In time, she returned to the shop, and every so often we still see her, but since the time she went away, she has always treated us with a degree of reserve. I do not know what happened, but she has no children.

Today, I was off work early, and went there to collect something for my wife. The Heir was along, and she was there. She smiled, greeted me by name, but kept busy with what she was doing, and someone else assisted us. And then I understood. How hard for her, remembering what was once, and what was to be, and how it was snatched away. Why them and not me ?

Busy, Writer's Block

El Jefe apologises for the lack of recent comments, but he has been busy, both with work, and other things, and has been plagued by an unusually virulent case of writer's block. But keep looking, do expect to have a couple of things this week.