People's Justice

Max Boot has a most interesting piece in today’s Los Angeles Times, chiding Yahoo ! for its cooperation with the government of China in tracking down a dangerous criminal, the journalist Shi Tao. Thanks to information from Yahoo’s ! Hong Kong affiliate, China was able to apprehend Mr. Shi and sentence him to ten years in prison for “illegally sending state secrets abroad.”

Mr. Shi, employed by the Dangdai Shang Bao (“Contemporary Business News”) in Hunan, illegally exported a copy of a directive from the Communist Party propaganda department telling it how to spin the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre – er, excuse, me, cleansing. Good to know the Ministry of State Security is on the job ! Yahoo ! More details, with a link to the translated verdict, can be found here.

Mr. Boot points out that Yahoo !, Google, MSN and the other Web search engine giants have already agreed with the Chinese to block web searches in China containing such dangerous terms as “human rights,” "democracy” or “Tibetan independence” and to prevent Chinese bloggers from posting commentary on these and other subjects inimical to public order and tranquility.

Mr. Boot opines that such kowtowing to the secret police by American businesses should be illegal, and that Congress should “forbid American firms from facilitating human rights abuses in China.” Mr. Boot asks, presumably rhetorically, us to “[i]magine what would have happened if during the 1980’s an American communications company had provided information that allowed the South African government to track down and imprison an anti-apartheid activist.” Mr. Boot wants to know how this case is different, and why what Yahoo and the others are doing isn’t the moral equivalent of such support of the apartheid South African regime ?

One wonders if Mr. Boot is simply stupid, or just obtuse ? How could anybody possibly compare the racist South African regime to that of People’s China ? South Africa was a white, racist-imperialist construct, placed in Africa by the West, to exploit the multi-racial, non-white toilers of the Third World. South Africa, and the West in general, had – and has still – to pay for centuries of exploitation and imperialism. Of course it would have been immoral to give the same information to the racist South Africans.

On the other hand, not providing such information to the Chinese regime would be utterly immoral. Workers’ China, a developing superpower, is, after all, the sure instrument of retribution and advancement for the toilers of Africa, Asia and the Middle East; and a beacon of justice to the West’s victims. What is liberty, freedom of the press, or any of the esoteric bourgeois concerns of declining Europe or America next to people’s justice and the wisdom of the Party ?

Political correctness demands that we consider the socio-political context of any and all public activities. Freedom and liberty are always defined and valued according to social utility. Actions taken by racist South Africans, Europeans, or the USA, or right-wing regimes are always suspect and often reprehensible, but the same actions by – for example -- China, or the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, or Chavez in Venezuela, by Iran, or other progressive or nationalist regimes, are often justified, and in fact commendable.

Probably, Mr. Shi, if he truly understood that his actions brought embarrassment to People’s China, and to the Communist Party, would agree that his imprisonment was not only merited, but justified. Hopefully, he engages in some needed thought-reform. Yahoo’s ! progressive attitude, far from being reprehensible, is commendable and both should and will be widely emulated.

The Modern Huns

Wretchard over at Belmont Club reports today that Gaza Strip greenhouses, purchased from their Jewish settler builders for the use of Palestinians by hopeful but stupid American philanthropists, have been ransacked and looted by Palestinian mobs. Prior to their destruction, the greenhouses provided jobs for 3,500 Palestinians, as well as fresh produce.

The Palestinian Authority supposedly lacked the manpower to protect the greenhouses, possibly because witnesses report its police joined the looters.

As I said yesterday: barbarians. Wicked, vicious vermin, no more capable of building a state than I am of flying. This is not completely the fault of the looters, but the responsibility of generations of Arab and Palestinian leaders, more focused on bombing airplanes, killing other people’s children and nursing their status as victims rather than on study, universities, law or philosophy. Products of a bankrupt culture: the scum who burn books and synagogues; who loot greenhouses, who worship suicide bombers and justify honor killings of their own daughters are worthy heirs of Arafat, Atta and Bin Laden

Dodging a Bullet

The left-wing British newspaper The Guardian reports today (hat tip, Little Green Footballs) that Scotland Yard yesterday attempted to arrest an Israeli general on board an El Al flight from Israel which arrived at Heathrow Airport in London. Fortunately, someone tipped-off the general, who remained on the aircraft and departed with it back to Israel, thus avoiding arrest.

The officer in question, Major-General Doron Almog, was commander of the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) Southern Command from 2000-2003, which included Israeli occupation troops in Gaza. The warrant for General Almog’s arrest was on the application of lawyers for Palestinians whose houses were allegedly blown-up by IDF troops under his command. The Israeli government, until earlier this year, routinely demolished the houses of Palestinian suicide bombers, gunmen, and their sympathizers in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967.

The Guardian story says that the warrant was issued under unspecified “war crimes law” and that the Bow Street Magistrate’s Court issued warrants after finding (among other things) that it -- sitting in London -- had jurisdiction; and that diplomatic immunity did not apply. General Almog, safely back home, has made no comment. The Israeli Foreign Ministry notes that various Palestinian organizations have tried to manipulate European legal processes “for their own cynical ends” but that Israel has, “…a lot of faith in the British legal system.”

General Almog was in charge of administering a military occupation, which is never easy, or pretty, and there is both customary and statutory international law governing such things. In the context of an occupation, it is extremely debatable that home-demolition of the residences of troublemakers amounts to a war crime. But that is beside the point. The more important issue here is the trend of European courts and lawyers to make a madhouse of relations between sovereign states.

It is ludicrous for a magistrate’s court in London to concern itself with matters involving no British subjects, taking place a continent away, involving government officials acting according to regularly established policies of legally constituted and democratically elected governments. If the actions of General Almog or other persons are cause for concern as to British law – then that ought to be a matter for the British Foreign Office and for Her Majesty’s Government, and not something treated as a plaything or propaganda tool of self-interested lawyers, self-aggrandizing judges, and self-promoting litigants carrying forward their international quarrels through channels other than the Foreign Office.

Foreign policy cannot be reasonably conducted if non-governmental actors can make such end-runs around customary diplomatic channels. Ambassadors, diplomatic immunity, and restrictions on the jurisdictions of local courts exist so that governments can do business and negotiate, which presumably benefits everyone.

I wish I shared the faith of the Israeli Foreign Ministry in the British legal system, but the Bow Street Magistrate’s Court, sadly, joins other courts in Germany, Spain, Italy and France in adopting an extremely expansive view of its powers, and of the reach of international human rights law. General Almog had a narrow escape, but governments, including our own, are going to have to work out policies for dealing with the new breed of overreaching judges, and international lawyers, who are deliberately seeking to weaken the sovereignty of nations in favor of non-governmental organizations accountable to no electorate, and which are administered by an international economic and legal overclass reflexively hostile to the concept of the nation-state.

Eventually, some judge someplace is going to arrest an American general, a former US administration official, or a diplomat on similarly specious “war crimes” or “human rights” charges. The U.S. government needs to plan for this, and be prepared to aggressively challenge this power-grab by the so-called human rights lawyers.

Europe seems well and truly headed down the road towards allowing do-gooders and the politically correct to use their courts as hostage-taking devices to enforce compliance with right-thinking foreign and military policy preferences. Such do-it-yourself foreign policy is the road to international chaos. Have the governments concerned thought this through ? Arrest warrants can be issued by others, too. I don’t know what Israel would have done had Scotland Yard succeeded in laying hands on General Almog. Arresting every British subject the Israeli authorities could grab and holding them until the general was released might have been a good place to start.

Spies

The Associated Press reports today that an FBI Intelligence Analyst, a Leandro Aragoncillo, assigned to the US Army facility at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, has been charged with providing classified information to agents and officials of the Philippines government. Most of the material, classified “secret” seems to have involved Filipino leaders. The hundred or so documents in question appear to relate in part to information on Filipino leaders gathered by US intelligence. Details have not been disclosed.

Mr. Aragoncillo has been charged with conspiracy; with acting as an unregistered foreign agent, which carries a sentence of ten years in prison, and a $250,000 fine, as well as unauthorized use of a government computer, which carries identical penalties. His Filipino contact, Michael Aquino, a former Deputy Director of the Philippine National Police, has also been charged with conspiracy, and acting as an unregistered foreign agent. He investigation apparently began after Mr. Aquino was arrested last March for overstaying his tourist visa.

It is not clear just what is involved here, and on whose behalf Mr. Aquino was collecting US intelligence information. I am intrigued about the tidbit in the AP story saying the matter involved was classified information on Filipino leaders. Was Mr. Aquino running some scheme of his own, or working for his old bosses in the National Police, or for some other intelligence organization ? Whatever the truth is, the Filipino government will no doubt make the proper embarrassed noises, and deny any wrongdoing. Be interesting to see if they deny any knowledge whatever of Mr. Aquino’s activities.

At the least, Mr. Aquino was certainly stupid: receiving sensitive US intelligence, yet trying to operate in the post-9/11 environment with an expired visa. If he was working for Filipino intelligence, somebody in that operation needs to be shot for incompetence.

At bottom, if Mr. Aquino was working for the Philippine government, doing his duty as an intelligence officer for his country, I don’t care much about him. He doesn’t seem to be a US national; and friendly governments spy on each other as a routine matter. The Philippines ambassador can be called in, given a talking to, and somebody expelled. We can even give them back Mr. Aquino in a few years. However, I find the other possibility: that Mr. Aquino was free-lancing for non-governmental persons or entities pursuing their own agendas – much more troubling.

As for Mr. Aragoncillo, a US citizen and employee of the FBI, if he’s guilty of the charges, I find it an atrocity that all they can do is fine him and throw him in the pokey for 40 years. I don’t like people who spy on their own government, it’s not cricket at all, and if Mr. Aragoncillo is guilty, he ought to dance on the end of a rope, or get the cigarette and blindfold.

Gaza "Liberated"

The wire services this morning report that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) completed their Gaza Strip pull out this morning, Brigadier Aviv Kochavi bringing up the rear as Gaza is free of Israeli forces for the first time since June of 1967.

What do the Palestinians do to celebrate their “liberation ?” First there was farce: mobs firing guns into the air to celebrate their “heroism” in “driving out” the Jews. Play-acting then gave way to vandalism: the celebration of “freedom” by the aforementioned mobs burning the abandoned Jewish synagogues.

Barbarians. Yes, you read that word right. The Palestinians now have all of Gaza to make of it what they will, and you as well as I know what will result. In place of prosperous and productive Israeli settlements of unfortunately dubious legality; right-thinking people everywhere can and will rejoice that Gaza has been handed over, quite legally, to mobs who desecrate houses of worship and lie to themselves about their own bravery.

I can’t wait so see what kind of state that people who venerate suicide bombers who murder children will make. No state at all of course, this is quite beyond these people, who will make nothing more than a ghetto/refugee camp/nest-of-terrorists on a large scale.

Honorable William H. Rehnquist, 1924-2005

The Chief Justice of the United States, William H. Rehnquist, is dead. Gravely ill these past several years, his demise was long expected. Supreme Court justices are supposed to serve for life, and like everything else Chief Justice Rehnquist did, he was punctilious in remaning at his post to the very end. "Genius is diligence," the German general vonMoltke wrote, and Rehnquist, during his long public career, exemplified that kind of genius, aware that he was performing not only a job, but the highest calling a person can have, public service for the benefit of his state.

Appointed to the Court by President Nixon, during the darkest days of the Warren Court, Justice Rehnquist, a latter-day Great Dissenter in the mold of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, defended the Constitution and the United States, as best he could, against the ravages of a Warren Court majority determined to exalt the power of unelected judges and the liberal state. As time went on, and the composition of the Court changed, Chief Justice Rehnquist gradually built a majority that defended the rights of the seperate States, and that did its best to roll-back the excesses of the runaway Warren Court. His reward was to be named Chief Justice, by President Reagan in 1986.

According to the Washington Post, often critical of the Chief Justice, the Rehnquist Court "strengthened the legal position of the police, paved the way for swifter executions, defined constitutional limits on federal power and permitted indirect funding of religious schools." Chief Justice Rehnquist would probably accept that as a fair epitaph, but, rightly, consider this record an achievement, and not as matters to be deplored, as the Post editorial writers certainly would.

Less commendably, during Rehnquist's tenure, the Supreme Court continued the trend, present from the 1930's forward, of expanding its role in American political life. Probably, Chief Justice Rehnquist was a mostly unwilling participant in this expansion, which was produced more by the combination of a liberal-minded bar willing to encourage litigation by liberal politicans, media and theorists unable to carry their points politically.

Chief Justice Rehnquist's effectiveness at holding back the liberal tide will be missed.

Katrina

The sufferings of millions of people in southern Louisiana, Mississippi and coastal Alabama from the passage of Hurricane “Katrina” these past several days fill all of us with despair and sadness. Seldom has more disaster, ruin and misery followed in the wake of a Gulf storm. Hurricane “Katrina” has inundated not only poor flooded New Orleans, and flattened not only Biloxi and Gulfport, but has drowned and crushed the collective heart of the Nation.

“Katrina” fouled a wide swath of the coastal South with its presence, but all eyes are now on New Orleans. Not since the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 has such utter devastation been visited on a major American city. In the space of a few hours last Monday morning, modern high-tech civilization on a densely populated coast ended. Cell-phones, television, Blackberries, fax machines, radio - the whole panoply of the wired world became as useless as buggy-whips.

The mayor of New Orleans has expressed his understandable frustration and rage at the speed of aid for his city and people. We must sympathize with his anguish and that of his citizens; but very real suffering and pain, and everyone’s desire for its prompt relief cannot assemble or move the needed supplies, rescue the trapped, or restore order. The sheer size of this calamity clearly overwhelmed the readily available means of coping with it.

Surely all is being done that can be done. Help is on the way. But the broken highways, flooded airports, blocked river ports, and the vanished or fled local labor force; even without the complete breakdown of law and order all make for delays in the help’s arriving.

Even more than aid and evacuation for the suffering, ending the carnival of rape, murder and looting unleashed by the criminal element on the vast majority of law-abiding people just trying to survive and escape is the most urgent immediate task. Neither rescue nor relief can proceed if thugs are shooting at doctors, rescuers and aid workers. This is America, not Somalia, Haiti or Iraq. New Orleans is not Baghdad. Americans have a right to expect order in their streets, and the military forces now entering New Orleans should make plenty of summary examples out of the barbarians exploiting the sufferings of others.

Looters and similar scum in the wake of natural disaster are an old story. So, unfortunately, are politicians who exploit the dead to advance their causes. Jesse Jackson today chided President Bush for his “lack of sensitivity and compassion” and questioned why the President has not named blacks to top positions in the disaster relief effort. “How can blacks be locked out of the leadership and trapped in the suffering?” Reverend Jackson conveniently overlooked the fact that the U.S. Army Lieutenant-General commanding the Joint Task Force overseeing relief efforts, is black.

No doubt Reverend Jackson and other carpers will locate television cameras to caper in front of without difficulty, but the adults have work to do. Jackson and the other politicians battening on the afflicted to promote themselves should be ashamed.

There is no doubt that New Orleans, along with Biloxi, Gulfport and all else devastated by this storm will be rebuilt. New Orleans, in particular, is too bound-up with the national story, and too important to the national commerce, not to rise again. But that is for later. Now we must beat down the lawless, console the bereaved, comfort the sick and pray for the dead.

Base Closure Follies

The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, (BRAC), a nine-member panel charged by Congress with, according to its website “ensuring the integrity of the base closure and realignment process,” has been making news these past several days, announcing approvals of plans to close some military bases and keep others. The BRAC exists because Congress doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to dispose of bases according to military advice.

When outraged constituents call their congressmen and protest that precious Camp Swampy, last of military relevance in, oh, 1836, has been closed, the solons can shrug their collective shoulders and say “Gee, the BRAC told us to close it, it’s really not our fault.”

Today’s papers report that the BRAC, against the advice of the Navy, has decided to preserve the Naval Submarine Base New London (at Groton, Connecticut) and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine. The stories are complete with photographs of smiling workers in Groton and Kittery.

Let’s understand what is going on here. The US Navy, which presumably is aware of what bases and items it needs to defend the country and carry out its missions, has concluded that the Naval Submarine Base New London, and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard are surplus to requirements. Despite this, the Navy is told that it will have to make room in its budget for a shipyard it doesn’t want, and a sub base it doesn’t need. What will the Navy have to forgo ?

How do the people arguing for the preservation of these bases live with themselves ? Yes, yes, of course the bases provide local employment, and cash in kind to the local economies, medical care for retired personnel, PX privileges and sundry other benefits – but the US military is NOT a social benefits or employment scheme.

My disapproval is not based on the fact my two examples are located in New England. Naval Station Ingleside, at Corpus Christi, Texas, is also slated for closure. No doubt a useful facility if we ever needed to send carrier task forces rampaging down the Mexican coast, but not otherwise. Close it.

To El Jefe’s way of thinking, the military has concluded what bases it needs, and which are surplus, and that ought to be the end of it. The Congress goes through similar chicanery with weapons systems and other appropriations, giving the services weapons they don’t want because they’re built in the right congressional districts, and depriving them of needed items for the same reason. When the service staffs conclude what is needed, again, that ought to be the end of it.

Wine and Cheese

Last night, El Jefe shamelessly abandoned the diet, enjoying with his supper most of a bottle of Fish Eye, a Napa Valley Pinot Grigio. As an extra special treat, I unmasked part of my stash of Secret Cheese No. 505, which might be the Parmigiano-Reggiano referred to in an earlier post, but El Jefe's not saying.

The Pinot Grigio had been an impulse buy. I have, in the past, not been terribly fond of California Pinot Grigios. The Sacred Books, (in this case the Wine Lover's Companion), tell us that only small quantities of the Pinot Gris grape are grown in this country, some in Oregon, some in the Napa Valley -- and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Fish Eye ('04), despite its most unprepossessing moniker, was most excellent, being neither too sweet nor too heavy.

And the chesse...mmmmmm, super yummy ! Only, the excellent cheese creates a small problem. SWMBO was very quick to note its presence in the Palace. How will El Jefe manage to replenish the supply without a fatwa being issued ? Perhaps I can explain I'm a member of the World Cheese Commission (WCC), charged with local quality assurance, or possibly that my cheese stocks are "allied stocks" held per special agreement with friendly governments allied to El Jefe ? Perhaps the cheese represents tribute from El Jefe's loyal vassals ? A difficult conundrum indeed.

Fell asleep dreaming pleasant dreams of total world domination, legions of happy subjects, vast cheese and wine quantities, huge palaces, limos, private jets and comely mistresses. (Note to SWMBO: you did not read that last).

The Heroic "Minutemen"

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?

Michael Moore, 14 April 2004 (emphasis in original)

Chester, over at Adventures of Chester, calls attention here to MEMRI’s transcript of an astonishing broadcast on Iraqi television, the interrogation of a piece of excrement named Ramzi Hashem Abed, a captured Iraqi terrorist. The whole thing is worth reading here, and as Chester says, the reels and reams of this stuff coming out now should be seen on American television. Of course that won’t happen, because the media is no doubt afraid it would cause people to understand that the Iraq War is a just one. Here’s a brief excerpt:

(from Al-Fayhaa TV)
Interrogator: "What is your full name?"
Abed: "Ramzi Hashem Abed."
. . .
Interrogator: "What organization do you belong to?"
Abed: "Ansar Al-Islam."
Interrogator: "What organization is this?"
Abed: "It is bin Laden's group."
. . .
Interrogator: "Did you kidnap women?"
Abed: "Yes."
Interrogator: "There were operations of kidnapping and rape, carried out by the squad you belong to?"
Abed: "Yes."
Interrogator: "Tell me how many rape and kidnapping operations were carried out. My information says that the kidnapped women were university students or daughters of famous people. You raped them and got money for it, and if they were not slaughtered afterwards.... Did this really happen?"
Abed: "Yes, it did."
. . .
Interrogator: "You bastards. This is Jihad? You call this Jihad? "
Interrogator 2: "Did you participate in the rape and murder?"
Abed: "No. Just one who worked for the PUK. She was a Kurd."
Interrogator: "In the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan?"
Abed: "Yes. We brought her too."
Interrogator: "And you raped her?"
Abed: "Yes."

********
(from Al-Iraqiya TV)
Interrogator: "Did you rape anyone?"
Abed: "Only one woman, a relative of mine."
Interrogator: "A relative of yours. You kidnapped her and raped her?"
Abed: "No, we did not kill her."
Interrogator: "You didn't kill her, only raped her?"
Abed: "Yes."

The MEMRI site linked above has the whole transcript, and a video as well.

In a sane world, things like Mr. Abed would be tied to a post, sans blindfold, given the cigarette, and given a 5.56 mm trip to see Allah, or Satan, in this case. Thank God this creature seems to be in Iraqi custody and not American, because plenty of leftist do-gooders would shout themselves hoarse seeing that this heroic freedom fighter, this “Minuteman,” got his legal rights. I’m sure the Iraqis know just what to do with people like this.

Undiplomatic Diplomats

The Houston Chronicle reports today that the Mexican Foreign Ministry called in the US Ambassador to Mexico, Hon. Antonio Garza, to rebuke him for a speech the Ambassador made on Tuesday, in Denver, stating, inter alia, that he closed the US Consulate in Nuevo Laredo to “punish” the Mexican government for its “…failure to control violence in the region.”

As is well-known, Nuevo Laredo has been convulsed by violence caused by feuding among the various drug cartels, and the Mexican government’s sporadic efforts to crack down on them. Ambassador Garza stated that he has “been clear” that his “…primary responsibility as ambassador is the safety of United States citizens.” Earlier this year, the Chronicle tells us, Ambassador Garza, evidently publicly, requested the State Department to issue travel advisories alerting Americans to the border violence.

As soon as is possible, Ambassador Garza should be quietly recalled, and replaced by somebody ready to play in the major leagues. Ambassador Garza is indeed supposed to look to the safety of American citizens, but his primary, overarching responsibility, is the advancement and protection of the state interests of the United States. This is not accomplished by open and public insults by the US Ambassador to the host government.

Certainly, Ambassador Garza might find it necessary to complain to the Mexican government about the problems in Nuevo Laredo, perhaps even close the consulate. The Mexican authorities are certainly aware of the US government’s view of problems in Nuevo Laredo, but what purpose is served by airing of a friendly government’s dirty laundry in the papers ?

The current Mexican administration is as friendly a neighbor as we are ever likely to have in that quarter. A publicly understanding, diplomatic, tone by our chief diplomat in the area is more likely to be helpful than public hectoring. The US has plenty of trouble coming down the pike in Latin America (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba). There is no sense in buying more.

Inundated

All kinds of events going on worthy of comment: Israelis clearing out of Gaza; loonies moving into Crawford; planes going down in Greece and Venezuela; and Wacko Chavez on the warpath; but...

El Jefe is buried at work this week. Till he gets un-buried, his commentary and words of wisdom; his trips to the Palace by the Sea with his mistresses; his inspections of his fanatically loyal Guard of Goombas; the counting of his obscene profits and vast fortune; his expeditions to the local food emporium to purchase large quantities of wine, cheese and similar things....will have to wait.

See ya'll later.

Rumblings in Japan

Some big news this morning out of Japan. The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Koizumi Junichiro, has apparently asked the Emperor (as per Article 7 of the Japanese Constitution), to dissolve the House of Representatives (lower house of the Diet), after a bill to split up and privatize the Japanese postal service (Japan Post) failed in the upper house, the House of Councillors. Prime Minister Koizumi's postal reform Bill went down because defectors from the Prime Minister’s own party, the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP), either voted against the Bill or failed to show up for the vote. This Bill just squeaked through the House of Representatives back in July.

Prime Minister Koizumi had previously made it clear that he was going to treat the postal reform Bill as a referendum on his government and its policies, and he seems to be making the high-stakes bet that the Japanese people will approve of what he’s doing, and return the LDP to power.

Elections for the House of Representatives are to be held 11 September. Apparently there is a real chance that the Socialists, now called the “Democrats” could wind up running the next government.

The failed bill is even more controversial than it sounds, because Japan Post runs a large part of the Japanese personal savings system: postal savings accounts have formed an important part of the Japanese economy since Emperor Meiji, and over 80 percent of citizens have postal savings accounts. Japan Post holds about a quarter of total personal assets in Japan, and is also in the life insurance business: between 55 and 60 percent of Japanese have a postal life insurance policy. Clearly, this bill threatens to upset many apple carts.

According to the English language Japanese newspaper Mainichi Daily News online, Prime Minister Koizumi has told his party leaders that the LDP will not endorse 37 members of the House of Representatives who voted against the postal bill when it was in the lower house, and that the LDP will put up new persons to run in their places.

Some of the LDP politicos, however, don’t seem sure that Mr. Koizumi’s bet on elections is the best play. Japan Post employees have always been a bulwark of LDP support. How are they likely to feel about privatization ? Perhaps this is one reason why Kozuimi’s move to hold snap elections has produced some disagreement even within Mr. Koizumi’s government. Under the Japanese Constitution, the Cabinet requests that the Emperor order elections, and the Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries Minister, Mr. Shimamura Yoshinobu, tried to gum up the works by refusing to sign the request; whereupon Mr. Koizumi fired Mr. Shimamura and took the Agriculture portfolio himself. That much public disagreement with the boss is unusual in Japanese politics.

The LDP, either alone, or in coalition, has dominated Japanese politics for virtually the entire post-war period, except for a few years in the 1960’s. A cornerstone of LDP policy has always been the US-Japan alliance. The Democrats have historically been much more skeptical of the US tie’s value. America needs a strong Japanese ally right now, so the upcoming election will be important.

On Cheese

One of El Jefe’s numerous vices is that he likes cheese. Not your garden-variety, so to speak, boring old yellow cheese, tasteless and clumpy, with Yellow Dye No. 6, and Special Secret Preservative No. 304, made for the mass market. No, I’m unfortunately not that easy to please. Unfortunately for both my pocket-book and for SWMBO’s peace of mind, El Jefe likes the high-dollar cheeses. The real stuff. I’m somewhat the same about mustard, but that’s a less expensive little taste.

Yesterday, El Jefe went to the grocery. It is almost never a good idea to send El Jefe marketing alone, particularly on an empty tummy, and especially not when he’s on a diet. God only knows what may come home in the grocery sack.

Yesterday, for once, I was good. But I was sooo tempted not to be. Our local Kroger had samples of some really yummy Parmigiano-Reggiano. Yes, the real stuff, all the way from Reggio Emilia in sunny Italia. Nice big blocks of it. Alas, if I came home with such a thing, I’d probably wind up looking like Nagasaki after Bock’s Car came to town, and a good thing too, or I'd be broke and the size of one of Saddam's palaces. I had to be content with a couple of samples, and fantasizing how it might taste with a decent bottle of wine. But that stuff was GOOD. Wish I could quit thinking about it today.

A New Iranian President

On Saturday, Mahmud Ahmadinejad will be inaugurated as President of Iran. Today, Mr. Ahmadinejad received the official approval of the Islamic Republic’s “Supreme Guide” – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, allowing him to take office. Winning an election in the Islamic “Republic” does not mean much – a candidate could have the real approval of 99 percent of the voters and still be vetoed by the “Supreme Guide” or his mullah “Council of Guardians.”

The outgoing President, the ostensibly liberal Muhammad Khatami, despite the hopes of journalists and other right-thinking people in America and Europe, was little more than a time-server, because the presidency means nothing more than serving as a compliant lapdog for the mullahs. Mr. Ahmadinejad, the mullahs’ chosen standard-bearer, can be expected to be an even more obedient pet.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory in the runoff portion of the sham presidential election should have been no great surprise. With a collapsed economy, disaffected young people, a restive business class, riots in the major cities, and the Europeans and Americans pressing the mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions, it is no surprise at all that the clerical dictators would want to be certain of their total political control. Nevertheless, the decision of Iran’s rulers to go for total political power, and to lock out so-called “reformists” will prove in the long run to be a fatal error.

There is little doubt that the Mullahs rigged the results. The Iranian newspaper Kayhan, which parrots the Mullah line, published the news of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory even before the polls closed, just as they had done the week previously. Aides for Mr. Ahmadinejad’s defeated rival, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, have told the press that many of their supporters and observers at polling stations were arrested and beaten.

However, this is not to say that there was not quite a bit of genuine support for Mr. Ahmadinejad. Mr. Ahmadinejad was certainly the candidate of the regime’s enforcers, and most fanatic supporters, but he also seems to have had the support of many of those who have suffered most from the Islamic regime. While the mobs and mullahs were busy throwing out the Shah, killing dissidents, destroying the middle class, burning books and making a botch out of the war with Iraq, the economy has been contracting, rather than expanding, unlike the Iranian population, two-thirds of which is under 35. In the last elections, people voted, rationally enough, for a change, the so-called “reformer,” Khatami, who revealed his powerlessness by doing exactly nothing. People may be excused for thinking the reformers are worse than useless.

“Supreme Guide” Khamenei, known affectionately in Tehran as “Ali Shah” – because he’s really a Shah, just without the birthright-- stated after the polls had closed that any effort to bring people into the streets to protest the theft is just not in the national interest. Not in the demonstrators interest either, as Ali Shah was too nice to mention that such would get them killed, tortured or imprisoned. Michael Ledeen, as well informed as anybody in the West about events in Iran, quotes Iranian bloggers as saying Ali Shah called out the Basiji (the regime’s rent-a-mob that beats up students and dissidents) to stuff the ballot boxes claiming that “Islam is in danger and it is necessary to save it by any means.”

Of course the Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Islami (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), the “eyes and ears of the Islamic Revolution” and the Basiji would support Mr. Ahmadinejad, because he is, after all, one of their own: in the early 80’s, Mr. Ahmadinejad was part of the “Internal Security” section of the Pasdaran, and rumor has it he was even one of the hostage takers when the Tehran “students” and other odds and sods and assorted rabble invaded the US embassy all those years ago.

Only in the context of a hopelessly ruined country like the Islamic Republic could Mr. Ahmadinejad’s defeated opponent, Mr. Rafsanjani, (who has old Pasdaran connections himself), be considered a “moderate.” Mr. Rafsanjani presided over the final repression of the Islamic Revolution’s fellow-traveler idiot “moderates” – secular and leftist republicans who thought they could sup with Satan Khomeini to cast out Devil Shah. While Mr. Rafsanjani was President, dissidents were tortured at home, and murdered abroad; Iranian backed terrorists helped blow up the Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the Iranian economy slide towards complete collapse, which began with the Revolution, accelerated.

But Mr. Rafsanjani’s Iran is likely to be paradise compared to what’s in store under Mr. Ahmadinejad. He has his work cut out for him. The Economist says that 200,000 Iranians are emigrating a year, and unemployment is at least 16 percent, possibly higher. Inflation is at least 17 percent per annum, possibly more.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said today that “[t]he deprived…and the poor people will be the first priority on my agenda.” Who knows what this means ? The mullahs hate capitalism. Iran is as closed an economy at present as the Soviet Union in its worst days. Barely a fifth of economic activity is in private hands. While the population has grown by a third since the end of the Shah, the economy, in real terms, has lost a seventh of its 1979 value. Things are going to get worse. Probably, judging on his conduct as Tehran mayor, Mr. Ahmadinejad will embark on a large-scale soak-the-rich campaign, and increase subsidies for food, housing, and the state controlled sectors of the economy.

The political costs of this are, for the moment, minimal. The middle and upper classes hate the regime anyway. The economic and human costs will be severe. Privatization, and foreign investment, such as it is (mostly European), is probably finished. Iran, with its vast resources, and its educated urban population, should be rich. In the Shah’s time, Iran was really developing, and considered a greater economic power than, say Turkey, with a real economic future. Today, Iran is on the royal road to basket-case status.

Mr. Ahmadinejad believes that people have “religious duties” rather than “human rights.” Personally, Mr. Ahmadinejad is said to be an “ascetic” who will seek to purge Iran of “corruption” – both of the financial variety, which is rampant, and of the “moral” type – that is elimination of anything that smacks of Westernization. Ladies: better ditch the booze, and buy your veils now, if you plan on staying. Far wiser if you get hold of your relatives in LA or Texas and join them.

A collision with the United States is imminent. The economy of Iran is imploding, and since the mullahs have locked out the reformists, there will be nobody to blame for the impending disaster. Consequently, the clerics need to whip up nationalism, so they can blame their difficulties on foreign enemies – that is, on us. The mullah government will put whatever cash isn’t spent on food subsidies for the urban poor into weapons: particularly of the nuclear variety. They will also, to the extent they are not doing this already, stir up the rebels in Iraq against the Americans, and the pro-American government there.

Long term, the only option left for the mullahs to maintain their regime will be to mortgage Iran to China. China has money enough, weapons enough and need for oil enough to be interested in propping up the mullahs. A small number of Chinese troops in Iran would buy the mullahs immunity from military problems with the United States.

In the end, however, this is going to be a sucker bet. Not even the Chinese have enough money to save the mullah regime from its fundamental irrationality. The mullahs are too old, and too hated by elite society and anybody who works for a living, to long survive. Eventually economic reality will catch up to them too, as it did to the Soviet Union, and even to China. Unfortunately, the landing will not be a soft one. By choking off all paths towards liberty or reform, Ali Shah and his gang have ensured that the revolution that unseats them will be a violent one. Ultimately, the “Supreme Leader” and his mullah gang will do little more than completely discredit the idea of Islamic religious government.

Journalists and “Omerta”

“Jail was something a journalist had to endure on occasion. It is, to quote ‘The Godfather’s’ Hyman Roth, “’the business we have chosen.’”

Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 2 August
2005, p. A13.

No stronger evidence of how off-track the American journalistic profession has gotten could be offered than by Richard Cohen’s comparison, quoted above, of journalists to mob figures, even fictional ones.

Mr. Cohen writes today about Judith Miller, who has become a martyr to all right-thinking journalists because she chose to go to jail rather than testify in court as to her source of information in the Valerie Plame affair. If you, your neighbor or El Jefe were to refuse to testify when properly subpoenaed to do so, we would go straight to jail without passing go or collecting $200.00. But because Ms. Miller is a “journalist”: because she writes for the New York Times, and is not a doctor, lawyer or Indian chief, much less a ditch-digger or a blogger; Mr. Cohen and his pals in prestige journalism maintain that, simply by virtue of their occupation, “journalists” have some special legal privilege not to comply with the same law the rest of us do.

The First Amendment provides, in pertinent part, that:

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…

This has normally been understood that persons can write or speak as they please. This applies to everyone, to El Jefe, “journalists,” you, your neighbors, and ditch-diggers too. Of course, this is not, and has never been understood to be, without limits: for example, there are still libel and slander laws. But Mr. Cohen, and Ms. Miller, are claiming that the law recognizes, or should recognize a “reporter’s privilege” not to name sources. Some states do, in my view, wrongly, recognize such a right. Federal Courts, generally speaking, have not.

Ms. Miller, by her refusal to answer the Plame prosecutor’s questions is in effect contending that there is something more than the liberty to speak and write that is protected by the First Amendment: that “journalists” are a special, privileged class, who receive legal protections that the rest of us commoners (including, incidentally, bloggers like yours truly), do not.

What the press is really after, of course, is something like medieval “benefit of clergy.” In old English law, “benefit of clergy” meant that clergymen accused of offenses could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the King’s courts and subject only to an ecclesiastical court applying canon law. Ms. Miller, by declining to testify, as any regular citizen would be required to do, is in effect claiming that by the sole virtue of her employment by a newspaper, she is beyond the law that the rest of us must comply with.

That is not what the Constitution is about. The Constitution allows the Washington Post or the New York Times or CBS to print and to say what they will. Everyone enjoys that right. But "media outlets", because they are “media outlets” do not have rights the rest of us do not. Mr. Cohen can quote “Hyman Roth” from The Godfather (actually, Mr. Cohen, it’s Godfather II) till the cows come home, but what he’s after is not equal justice under law. If Ms. Miller wants to defy the court: if she chooses journalistic "ethics" over the law, because she thinks she owes her sources omerta, then this is the "business that she has chosen" and she is precisely where she belongs -- in jail.

One last thought: The prestige press is SERIOUSLY upset about Judith Miller. As I said, she has become a martyr to them, and they are out for some scalps. President Bush and the administration, in particular Karl Rove, who are likely to be blamed by the working press for this business, had better watch out.

Shorty

Germany's Bundeskanzler, Gerhard Schröder, is probably my least-favorite European politician. I dislike Jacques Chirac also, but Monsieur Chirac has sound political and strategic reasons for his opposition to the United States on foreign policy matters. I find it more difficult to excuse Herr Schröder's eagerness to flush years of good relations down the drain so as to better be Monsieur Chirac's poodle over Iraq, a position he seems to have taken solely because he was in political difficulty at home, and needed support from Germany's hard left.

David's Medienkritik, which follows the German press, has a delicious photograph of Herr Schröeder; showing that the good Herr Bundeskanzler's desire to, ahem, measure-up, is pretty constant.

The Iraqi Rebels: A Working Theory

The New York Times is often a most infuriating newspaper. The Old Grey Lady’s editorial pages, and some of the characters on its op-ed page, remind one of the gross irresponsibility and ivory-tower mush-headedness of the most spoiled, most conceited, most absolutely ignorant, silver-spoon college sophomore imaginable. You know the fellow I mean: the Yale history major who can’t identify George Washington; swilling his imported Costa-Rican coffee while bellowing insults at “globalization” in the name of American workers whose lowbrow culture he sneers at; fanatically hugging the trees before he fills up his imported SUV; shrilly screaming for peace while shouting down Saddam’s victims; bleating in monotone for diversity while under-tipping his sub-minimum-wage minority waiter; all afire to change the world of which he knows nothing on Daddy dear’s credit card.

That said, however, we may occasionally excuse the ravings of the back pages because of the treasures located in the news pages. Wednesday, 22 June was such a day: the Times ran an extremely interesting article by David S. Cloud on the operational methods of the Iraqi rebels’ bomb-makers. Mr. Cloud’s article contained no new information, but did an admirable job of summarizing emerging trends in rebel operating methods.

In discussing the use against US forces of “improvised explosive devices,” or IED’s, the article describes “significant advancements in bomb design” including the increased use of shaped charges (dangerous to tanks and armored personnel carriers), use of infrared lasers as detonators (which avoids jamming countermeasures effective for radio-wave devises).

The article noted that the rebels “are probably drawing on bomb-making experts from outside Iraq and from the old Iraqi Army.” During May, the article says, there were about 700 attacks against American forces using IED’s.

The interesting question here concerns the composition of the rebel forces. The preparation of shaped charges, the use of infrared lasers for triggering, the recognition by the rebels of the need for new tactics to respond to US countermeasures such as electronic jamming, the increased targeting of Iraqi government police and military assets all indicate that the rebellion is no spontaneous uprising of Sunni Iraq; not the product of foreign Arab ardor to go to Iraq and kill Americans. True, the rebellion uses Sunni peasants and useful idiots from the Arab world to do the scut work – drive the suicide bombs. But the ability of the rebels to change their tactics, and their exploitation of available military technologies indicates that the rebels can draw on a substantial body of experienced military personnel. Who are these people ?

The most obvious possibility, of course, are officers and NCO’s of Saddam’s former Iraqi Army and intelligence organizations. But I think it’s possible to be more specific than that, to have a good idea exactly who these guys are, and this requires a brief digression. I’m going someplace with this, so be patient.

Despite all of the hullabaloo over the “Downing Street Memo” and what it supposedly reveals about the Bush administration’s intentions prior to war, the administration’s plans were obvious well before the start of Gulf War II to virtually any observer with a pulse. “Regime Change,” as it was called, was official US government policy for Iraq even before September 11. For my own part, I believed that there would be a war with Iraq on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. Even when it became apparent that Saddam Hussein was probably not involved in that day’s terrorist acts, I believed and hoped that September 11 was going to be the end of Saddam and his regime. The world, in particular, the Middle East, had simply grown too dangerous for Saddam’s Iraq to continue to exist.

Moreover, the US needed a salutary example for other Middle Eastern rulers of the consequences of not working with the American government on Al Qaeda and on other matters. The fall of Saddam was the obvious means of frightening other area despots into cooperating with the US. Consequently, from January of 2002 forward, that is, as soon as the Taliban was finished in Afghanistan, I expected US attentions would turn to Iraq, and I begin to make my own preparations.

I started reading up on the Iraqi military. I re-read everything I could find on Gulf War I, and hunted down everything I could find in English on the Iraqi military’s order of battle. In particular, Global Security.org, and Anthony Cordesman’s absolutely superb papers on the Iraqi military at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) were invaluable. My friend T gave me Kenneth Pollack’s excellent book The Threatening Storm, which supplied more information. In March or April of 2002, I located a detailed map of Iraq, a giant plastic overlay and some colored markers, and began putting the Iraqi military on the map – and, with everybody else, watched and waited on events.

The first thing I noticed, was that Saddam’s military deployment was, well, goofy. The ground threat was coming out of Kuwait. I would have expected to see more troops in the south, near the Kuwait border, both to fight the invading coalition forces, and to keep the Shiites in line. I also would have expected to see significant deployments along the Euphrates River, and south of Baghdad. This did not materialize. Instead, Saddam kept the bulk of his power in Sunni Iraq, mostly at points north of Baghdad.

War came in early 2003 – later than I had thought. I expected war in late January or February of that year, and we now know that February was the Pentagon’s target date, but events were delayed by the foolishness at the UN with the French. In any case, in early March, when it was apparent that things were at last coming to a head, I stated keeping a War Diary – a sort of notebook of what was transpiring politically in Iraq, noting the movements of military units, pertinent political news, etc.

I kept up the War Diary all through the mobile campaign, right up to the fall of Baghdad. My working assumption was that once an Iraqi unit was in contact with a US unit on the ground, the Iraqi unit in question, because of superior US maneuverability and airpower, was effectively toast. There were a few exceptions (the 51st Infantry Division by Basra held out for awhile, as did the 11th Infantry, north of the Euphrates round Naseriyeh), but by and large, the assumption seemed to hold up till the Army and Marines took Baghdad. It’s also interesting how much I was wrong about, but that’s another story.

In any case, right about the time of the fall of Baghdad, a strange thing began to happen. When US forces – Marines from the east. 3rd Infantry Division [Mech.] from the South -- approached Baghdad, the city was not reinforced by the 12 or so divisions available north of the city. Because of US command of the air, it is doubtful much could have reached Baghdad anyway, but the Iraqi command did not even make the effort. Whole corps just started to disappear, before US forces caught up to them. The following is an excerpt from one of the last couple of entries in my War Diary, (16 April 2003), wrapping up my notes on the mobile campaign:

The Special Republican Guard (SRG) was apparently the primary unengaged force left to the Baghdad garrison (see notes for 6 April), and it did not show to advantage. However, there is little or no information as to the disposition, or even the continued existence, of its units. The SRG is a really strange formation to begin with – part secret police, part palace guard, part combat formation, part property custodians, which is perhaps why it seems to have simply melted away. Where did it go ?

I will feel better when these units are more definitively accounted for, because to the extent Saddam had any loyal units beyond his Companion bodyguards (40 men), or the terrorists and bandits in the Fedayeen Saddam and the Popular Army – this bunch was it.…

What followed was a detailed listing of units of Saddam’s “Special Republican Guard” – last known whereabouts, whether they engaged US units (which most did not) and any other details I had. But in any case, in the last days of the war, the most loyal, devoted and well-trained portions of Saddam Hussein’s military apparatus (perhaps 20,000 men) just folded right up and vanished.

I had hoped that these units had given up and gone home. But evidently, they did not. Clearly Saddam expected the invasion, and planned a post-invasion guerrilla campaign. His best troops just disappeared, evidently to fight this campaign – and so did the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Every intelligence organization seriously interested Iraq was certain the Saddam regime had them, and I, for one, am still not buying they were wrong.

We do not know, yet, what happened to WMD’s. But we should have a pretty good idea, now, what happened to parts of the military units described above – in particular the Special Republican Guard. In particular, its officers, warrant officers and non-commissioned officers. Certainly the SRG included the troops most devoted to Saddam, and were probably the most well trained and equipped in the Iraqi services. Although I have no direct evidence on point – it’s my belief and contention that the core of the present insurgency are cadres from the missing SRG military units I mentioned, along with their comrades from the former Iraqi intelligence services and secret police. These are the experienced people who can build shaped charges, use laser detonators, and who probably have the new Iraqi military pretty well infiltrated.

Certainly, there are plenty of warm rebel bodies with no prior or only low level pre-war military experience. But the sophistication of the attacks on Allied forces indicates that the government’s contention that the insurgency is primarily run by “Former Regime Loyalists” – is correct.

"Hanoi Jane" Takes Her Stand

AP reports today that has-been actress “Hanoi Jane” Fonda, infamous for wearing an enemy helmet and posing in 1972 sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, and smiling with the gun-crew, has taken her stand on Iraq. Hanoi Jane says that she intends to take a cross-country bus tour to call for an end to US military involvement in Iraq.

The anti-war bus will supposedly run on “vegetable oil” although it seems probable that Hanoi Jane produces enough methane and hot air to power the thing all by her lonesome.

Hanoi Jane says that she has not “…taken a stand on any war since Vietnam” and that the bus tour is going to be "exciting." Yeah, right. The 70's are over, dear. Nixon resigned and we lost. As for your taking a stand: that’s important to know. You can bet that the foreign and military policy establishments burn gallons of the best Saudi midnight oil, wondering what Hanoi Jane the actress thinks about US policy towards North Korea, Iran, the war in Iraq or nuclear physics.

Attention terrorist high command: Call this lady's agent ! I’m sure you guys can find a suicide car bomb crew for her to pose with this time out.

Seriously, this should actually be a boon to the American war effort. I can’t think of a better way to rally support for the war than to have Hanoi Jane come out against it.

William Westmoreland, RIP

A general-in-chief has no right to shelter his mistakes in war under cover of his sovereign, or of a minister, when they are both distant from the scene of operations, and must consequently be either ill informed or wholly ignorant of the actual state of things.

Hence, it follows that every general is culpable who undertakes the execution of a plan which he considers faulty. It is his duty to represent his reasons, to insist upon a change of plan; in short to give in his resignation rather than allow himself to become the instrument of his army’s ruin. . .

Napoléon I, Maxims., LXXII, p. 79 (Ed. David G. Chandler, Macmillan, 1988)

From the first I contemplated eventually moving into Laos to cut and block the infiltration routes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and in 1966 and 1967 my staff prepared detailed plans for such an operation. . .Yet I recognized that blocking the trail would require at least a corps-size force of three divisions, and I would be unable for a long time to spare that many troops from the critical fight within South Vietnam. When at last, in 1968, our strength had increased sufficiently and the enemy had been depleted enough to make the move possible, President Johnson was so beset by war critics that he would take no step that might possibly be interpreted as broadening the war, which he had publicly announced he would not do.

* * *

In a discussion [in April 1967] . . .ex-presidential candidate Harold Stasssen asked if there was not some alternative strategy lying somewhere between a strategy of attrition and a strategy of annihilation. I replied that there was most certainly: block the Ho Chi Minh trail with ground troops. Yet Washington had ruled that out. . .

* * *

Yet, even with the handicap of graduated response, the war still could have been brought to a favorable end following the defeat of the enemy’s Tet offensive in 1968. The United States had in South Vietnam at that time the finest military force – though not the largest, ever assembled. The build-up of troops and the logistical support base were slow in coming, but at last they were there ready for decisive action. Had the president allowed a change in strategy and taken advantage of the enemy’s weakness to enable the command to carry out operations planned over the preceding two years in Laos and Cambodia and north of the DMZ . . .the North Vietnamese doubtless would have broken. But that was not to be.

General William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, (Doubleday, 1976, 1980, pp. 199, 297, 542).

William Childs Westmoreland, commander of US forces in the Republic of Vietnam from 1964-1968, then Chief of Staff of the US Army, died last week at 91. Ernest B. Furguson’s biography of the General is entitled: Westmoreland: The Inevitable General which almost perfectly sums up peers’ expectations of William Westmoreland from the moment he left West Point in 1936.

Commissioned into the artillery, Westmoreland entered World War II with the 9th Infantry Division, commanding artillery battalions in North Africa and Sicily, and becoming Chief of Staff of the division. Westmoreland rapidly caught the eye of three stars in the Army hierarchy: the Airborne generals Matthew Ridgway, Maxwell Taylor, and James Gavin, By the end of the war, Westmoreland was a full colonel.

Shortly after the war Westmoreland transferred to the infantry, and was offered command of a regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, then as now, one of the Army’s elite formations. The Army’s confidence in Westmoreland may be more adequately weighed when it is considered that during this time, the Army shrank in size from approximately 100 divisions to 16. While Westmoreland was serving with the 82nd Airborne, General Eisenhower, then Army Chief of Staff, is said to have ordered his personnel chief to prepare a list of 10-15 officers who had shown extraordinary promise during World War II: a group to be groomed as future Army movers and shakers. Membership in this circle has been debated, but almost all agree that Westmoreland was in it, along with his successor as commander in Vietnam, Creighton Abrams.

After his stint with the 82nd Airborne Division, an oddity emerges: In 1949, Westmoreland went to the Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, not as a student – but an instructor. Westmoreland in fact never attended the staff colleges: the CGSC, the Army War College, the National Defense University – which are the usual stops for somebody destined for senior military command. Westmoreland had a perfectly good excuse of course: he had been too busy doing – serving in the field with troops.

Then the Korean Conflict came along: Westmoreland did not go immediately, but when he did, it was in command of possibly the most coveted unit available for a colonel: the 187th Infantry Regimental Combat Team (Airborne) – a separate reinforced parachute regiment previously commanded by a Brigadier General. Westmoreland did well enough in Korea to garner a Brigadier General’s star at the young age of 38, but Korea meant there was little further time for education, other than a three month course in advanced management at Harvard Business School.

Westmoreland thus rose to very lofty command rank absent the theoretical and intellectual education normally considered a routine requirement. Westmoreland’s position as commander in Vietnam required from him not only the ability to command troops, and plan and direct their operations; but meant he needed to actively participate in the evaluation of political and military intelligence; in the formulation of national and theatre strategy, the making of logistical and force-structure plans, and engage in continual interaction with US and foreign politicians and with the media. Westmoreland became what Napoléon called a “general in chief” in probably the most politically and strategically complex war America ever fought with arguably insufficient intellectual ballast.

But command in war was Westmoreland’s destiny, and there is no doubt that he discharged it to the best of his ability. But one wonders if the man was out of his depth ? Westmoreland arrived in Vietnam in 1964, and presided over the US escalation of that conflict. When Westmoreland arrived in-country, there were 16,000 US troops. By 1968, the force under his command had swollen to over 500,000.

The full history of the escalation of US involvement in Vietnam, and the battles during his tenure is beyond the scope of this piece, but some discussion is in order. Westmoreland shattered several North Vietnamese regular infantry divisions at Khe Sanh in 1967-1968, inflicting disproportionately huge losses on the enemy. Similarly, in 1968, Westmoreland won the biggest American battle of the war, making a shambles of the Viet Cong’s “Tet Offensive” that was supposed to end the war in the communists’ favor.

Perhaps the finest hour of Westmoreland’s military life was his decision to abandon the Tet cease-fire and alert US and South Vietnamese forces when it became clear that a massive communist offensive was imminent. His decision won this battle and saved thousands of lives. After Tet, the Viet Cong were finished as a political and military factor: the war would be decided, ultimately, by North Vietnamese regular troops. Westmoreland’s “big unit” war of 1967-1968 kept the harried Viet Cong away from the South Vietnamese cities and allowed the South Vietnamese time to build an army.

Yet arguably, Westmoreland devoted insufficient time and attention to this latter task: leaving the heavy lifting on this task for his successor, Creighton Abrams. Westmoreland allowed the South Vietnamese to become too dependant on the Americans. At its most elemental level, war is decided by the successful mastery of time, space and available forces. Lyndon Johnson controlled the space in which the war would be fought; he controlled the available forces; and, as for time, Westmoreland appears to have failed to appreciate its strategic importance: the need to win the Vietnam War, or making it appear, politically, that it could be won, before the patience of the American people was exhausted.

Westmoreland presented the Johnson administration with plans that would have undoubtedly ensured the survival of the Republic of Vietnam and an American victory. This involved the expansion of the war to Laos and Cambodia in 1967-69, and the movement of large numbers of US forces into those countries and possibly into the southern parts of North Vietnam to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail (by which Hanoi supplied both the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese troops in the South). This would have required about 200,000 additional US troops, and the mobilization of US reserves: both from the Army Reserve component and from the National Guard. (90,000 of these troops would not have left the US; they would have reconstituted the US strategic reserve, which is what Westmoreland would get). The Johnson Administration balked.

With this decision, it became clear in retrospect, the United States, and the people of South Vietnam, lost the war. The liberals protest that the US violated the neutrality of Laos and Cambodia: however, neutrality has obligations – these countries were unable and unwilling to prevent the violation of their neutrality by North Vietnam. When the United States failed to block the Ho Chi Minh trail (thus isolating the battlefield), it tied its own hands: limiting itself to a second-best strategy of attrition, that is, attempting to wear down North Vietnam by totaling up “body counts” – by destruction of its units within South Vietnam. Since the Ho Chi Minh trail could not be interdicted, this was a losing proposition.

It is Westmoreland’s reaction to the Johnson administration’s rejection of his strategy – the right strategy: the strategy that would have vindicated the sacrifices of 50,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese, that would have meant the triumph of our just cause -- that is deserving of scrutiny. Westmoreland was the commander in the field, the man supposedly entrusted by the government with planning the battles and winning the war. He presented a plan for doing so. The government rejected it: and he took it in silence. Why didn’t he resign, as Napoléon would have suggested ?

Admittedly, this is a close call: a soldier’s first duty is obedience, particularly to his political superiors. But a soldier owes a duty to those he commands: to ensure that their sacrifices are not wasted, that the shedding of their blood matters. A commander must be willing to “stand in the door” for his soldiers, he must tell his political boss when he is wrong, and if the politician rejects his advice, he should tender his resignation. By his silence, Westmoreland allowed the Johnson administration to hide behind his uniform: to conceal its timidity behind its general's loyalty and his medals.

The Johnson administration thus disposed of Force and Space, and Time ran out after the Tet Offensive, The Tet Offensive battle, thanks largely to Westmoreland, was an American victory. But with no apparent strategy to win the war in sight: the American people concluded the strategy was bankrupt, and, in El Jefe’s opinion wrongly, withdrew support from the struggle. Millions of South Vietnamese are still paying the price.

Shortly after Tet, the Johnson administration kicked the General upstairs, making him Chief of Staff of the Army, and replacing him with Creighton Abrams, probably a better commander, who focused on building up the South Vietnamese armed forces, in the little time he had left before the American abandonment of South Vietnam. The Nixon administration treated General Westmoreland rather shabbily, although his tenure as Army Chief of Staff during the sad years of impending defeat in Vietnam would have been difficult under the best of circumstances.

After the war, General Westmoreland wrote an excellent memoir, A Soldier Reports, which is required reading for anybody interested in the Vietnam War. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for Governor of South Carolina; sued CBS for libel over a television “documentary” called The Uncounted Enemy; and served as a target for various groups of anti- war liberals unfit to shine his shoes.

General Westmoreland lived until 91, thus outlasting most of his contemporaries. He seems to have been blessed with a singularly happy home life. With some perspective, and appreciation of the political and social forces that he had to contend with, we can see now that General Westmoreland was thrown into a hopelessly complex political and military situation for which his education, experience and training supplied no precedents; and in which he was inadequately supported. History will be kind to him.

The General will be buried on the grounds of the Military Academy at West Point, of which he was, at one time, the commandant. Rest in peace.

Baker's Dozen, or Lagniappe

El Jefe is back in his capital after vacation with the family. All kinds of stuff going on requiring comment by El Jefe, but he has been busy catching up at work, and flogging his capos and peons for their laziness in his absence.

Presently working on a piece on the death of General Westmoreland (US commander in Vietnam), the elections in Iran, and the war in Iraq. Plenty of other things happening too. The Chinese have, this morning, severed the link between the value of the yuan and the dollar, and have raised the official value of the yuan. This will make Chinese imports more expensive, and in theory help exports.

Wonder when the other shoe is going to drop ? Are the Chinese going to keep buying our debt ? We'd better hope so, at least for awhile. Speaking of shoes, the Chinese military is getting lots of new shoes and other things, the Pentagon's annual public report on Chinese military power came out yesterday. It's worth a look: the Chicoms are arming to the teeth, and the new report describes what that means. Still reading mine (it's 45 pp.), and hopefully will have some comments in time.

On the subject of China's military, have a look at Max Boot's article in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, particularly his discussion of the book Unrestricted Warfare, a sort of "how to beat the US" by two Chinese colonels. Unfortunately for us, the colonels seem to be pretty bright, and I've sent for a copy of the book. Basically, the colonels contend that going toe-to-toe with the US is a loser, so before this can happen, the Colossus has to be worn down with "financial warfare," "drug warfare," "psychological and media warfare," "ecological warfare," and my favorite: "international law warfare." This last involves using multinational organizations to block US action. Once the lawyers, reporters and crooks have us tied in knots, only then do the Chinese need to whip out the missiles, ships and paratroops to cause the "enemy" (us) to be "forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty." Clever SOB's eh ? Wish they were our SOB's.

Al Qaeda and terrorism seem like big worries now, but just imagine Al Qaeda, drug lords, and international criminals who possess the covert backing of a big, rich world power. We won't be imagining it long: it's coming to a world near us. Here's another little prediction. Within ten years, the Chinese will have missiles and troops all over Latin America (keep an eye on Chavez and Venezuela, and our Sandinista friends in Nicaragua).

Makes one positively nostalgic for the Cold War doesn't it ? This Cold War is much more dangerous because the Chinese aren't stupid enough to hobble themselves with a joke economic system like Soviet communism. (Yes, the Chinese call themselves communist, but they really practice a cross between state capitalism and fascism). We're not going to be the richest player in this game either.

I wish I were young ! I'd learn Chinese, Russian or Hindi. We need alliances with the last two powers, and the Chinese are going to be the enemy.

Sorry if all this war and rumor of war talk is uninteresting to some, but it's interesting to El Jefe, who is doing the typing. Given that the Heir is age 9, it's much more interesting, in fact, than El Jefe would like it to be. Unfortunately, as that old commie bastard Leon Trotsky once said: "you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

Somebody Call Karl

Big news in the legal world: the President's going to announce his Supreme Court pick tonight. Suppose the delayed announcement is to give the riot police time to draw their gear and get properly fed, and to give the unfortunate soul to whom the cup is being passed a last few hours of normal existence.

Who can it be ? Take a guess...bookies everyplace are waiting for your call.

Wonder if any of Karl Rove's reporter pals have called him ? Those who aren't in the slammer, that is. Maybe he'd be willing to leak the name a bit early.

El Jefe Out of Town

El Jefe today departs his capital, seen off by the assembled Corps Diplomatique; his regiments of loyal goombas, including "El Jefe's Own" parading by in their full dress Chicago/New York mobster uniforms, (each toting his presentation model Classic Mobster Thompson M1928AI submachine gun); and a cast of thousands of well-wishers. El Jefe waived to the cheering throngs as he rode through the city, Cosmo in one hand, all the while, to SWMBO's intense irritation, carrying on a conversation with himself about Clausewitz, Napoléon, Churchill or some other Dead White Male.

El Jefe leaves with his family, bartenders, cooks, valets, mistresses, barbers and bottle-washers, and his books, papers, swimming and hiking gear, plus his faithful laptop "Sancho" for the boonies of central Texas for summer vacation. The original destination was Seaside, FL, but an unfortunate series of events involving Hurricanes Dennis the Menace and his bimbo cohort Cindy, rained on that parade. Fear not, El Jefe will return, at which time the blogging will continue till morale improves.

Bombings in London

By now everyone has heard of the latest terrorist outrage in London: at least 40 killed, hundreds wounded. All the fingerprints of Al Qaeda – a civilian target, not a military one, civilian casualties, an urban area with media coverage. No doubt the bombs will all have been expertly constructed and concealed – a real professional job.

But the bomb makers and their infrastructure could not operate without financing, the quiet sympathy and support of people willing to hide them – and governments in the Middle East willing to look the other way while this goes on. As long as non-violent financial, political, and moral support for the jihadists is tolerated, none of us will be safe.

The jihadists are barbarians, all mired in the 11th Century: partly evil, malicious children, destroying for destruction’s sake; partly religious fanatics; partly butchers so certain we will never retaliate in kind. They do not fear us sufficiently. In general, that’s the problem with terrorists and their sympathizers in the Islamic street: the lack of fear. If not for themselves, then fear for their relations and their societies.

The barbarians need an education. One place where learning can be imparted is in the rebellious areas of Iraq. The coalition commanders should be encouraged to prosecute the war against the terrorists there with vigor, and to ensure that sympathizers of the terrorists, armed or no, pay a price for concealing, aiding and abetting attacks on coalition or Iraqi government forces. Meanwhile, if the generals in Iraq want more troops, they should get them, and spare no efforts to ensure every bullet finds its billet in as many terrorists as possible.

Another place for concentration of effort is in putting the squeeze on Al Qaeda and the jihadist movement’s covert supporters. Terrorists have to be recruited, indoctrinated, trained and armed. This is a big operation. Car bombers are not the brains end of their organizations. All this takes a pool of willing recruits, and an expert cadre of instructors and commanders. This must all be paid for. Until we go after the financial, moral and intellectual supporters of the terrorists, we’re going to get nowhere. This means bringing pressure to bear on the Syrians, the Saudis and the Pakistanis.

It’s time for a harder war. Lets not wait for the bad guys to bring the war to us. We should stop worrying about the lawyers, Guantanamo and the UN and take the war to the enemy.

"Deep Impact" Will Have Deep Impact

Yesterday, 83 million miles from Earth, part of NASA’s Deep Impact space-probe slammed into Comet Tempel 1 at 23,000 miles per hour, the impact occurring with a force equivalent to four tons of TNT. The impact, caught on camera and transmitted back to Earth by Deep Impact’s second stage, hovering nearby, “stunned scientists” with its size and brightness, says today’s New York Times.

Radio communications between ground stations and Deep Impact take more than seven minutes each way, at 83,000,000 miles distance, so the final rendezvous of Deep Impact and Comet Tempel 1 (both moving objects), was controlled by the spacecraft’s own internal guidance system, which, three hours prior to impact, made three different course maneuvers to hit a particular, well-lit spot on the sunny side of Tempel 1. The probe impacted “right on target.”

Quite a triumph for NASA, and the Principal Investigators on the project at the University of Maryland and at Brown University, and for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California; but around the world, the general staffs of the major powers have just been shown something quite ominous, for them. The Pentagon, for its part, should be quite pleased.

Deep Impact demonstrates beyond argument that robot spacecraft can intercept fast moving objects, at great distance, under their own power and navigational control. The interceptor was able to alter its course to pick the best spot for interception – all while moving at 23,000 miles per hour. The military implications should be obvious: Not only does the United States have the ability to intercept comets for scientific purposes, or to attempt deflection of comets or asteroids threatening collision with the Earth – but the same technologies can be used to intercept other items – such as Ballistic Missile warheads. Deep Impact shows that Ballistic Missile Defense can succeed, and that the United States can be made safe from missile attack, assuming it summons the political will to spend the money.

There is no excuse now not to proceed with Ballistic Missile Defense. Most assuredly Deep Impact’s success yesterday will spur other powers to do so.

Stuff In Progress

Thought I'd have a post this evening (something on the recent Iranian "election"), but I am just too tired to complete it this evening. Off to get the Heir out of camp tomorrow, so it will have to wait until sometime early next week.

Am working on a couple of other things also: something on the make-up of the Iranian rebel forces; a post on the outbreak of the First World War; and one on the implications of current Chinese military developments. But not tonight. A good book awaits, together with a glass of decent Scotch.

Ta ta.

Make Some Popcorn, Find the Beer

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, parent of the notoriously liberal PBS, has just appointed a former Republican Party co-chairman, Ms. Patricia S. Harrison, as its new President. Ms. Harrison is presently the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Just last week, Democrats in Congress were urging that selection of a new President be put off, because they were concerned about Republican political pressure.

This is going to be so much FUN ! The Deaniac set is positively going to go into orbit. Pop the popcorn, and open the beer, the Lefties are getting ready to have community apoplexy.

It Ain't the Flag That's Burning, It's Rome

In the midst of our troubles, when the military is short recruits; when the borders are overrun by hordes of Central American and Mexican peasants; when we have schools that don't work; when we have a pension system that's imploding; and are spending the national fiscal inheritance of the Heir and his friends like drunken sailors; and destroying our economy letting in gimcrack imports from Asia manufactured by Chinese prison labor, it's good to know we can rely on the House of Representatives to come to our rescue with salutary legislation like a constitutional amendment stating that Congress can outlaw flag burning. Favorable consideration by the Senate is widely expected, so no doubt this worthy legislation will soon form a part of the Constitution.

Well, maybe not, at this point, it doesn't look like the Senate could pass a bill acknowledging that the Sun rises in the east. Still, who cares ?

Don't get me wrong. I despise flag-burners; if I were Emperor of America instead of head of my own nefarious and vast criminal empire, I'd have flag-burners and their ilk drawn and quartered, and then my goombas could get started on some serious persecuting. Dick Durbin, Illinois's poor excuse for a Senator, would think that Guantanamo was a resort by comparison. But this is Terri Schiavo again. Congress is grandstanding with fluff that, however worthy, is not their proper concern, rather than earning their paychecks. I'd much rather see Congress get serious about the war, the borders and the treasury.

This is Republican control of government ? Nonsense -- nobody's in charge. Part of this is the consequence of Bush being a lame duck: he's not running for re-election, so nobody has to be afraid of him being around past 2008. Part of this is the consequence of a constitutional system that is in these polarized times increasingly difficult to operate, because the built-in checks and balances operate as a bias against the production of real legislation under the best of conditions. Most of the paralysis bedeviling Washington is the product of a unified Democratic Party, which stands for nothing but the word "No !" shouted loudly, product of its sour grapes over losing the last several elections; and its desire to in effect punish the President (and us for voting for him) by sending us all to bed without our suppers.

Since nothing of significance can be accomplished, we can kill trees by outlawing flag-burning. Wise readers will immediately buy stock in flag-manufacturing companies, who stand to do well when all the Leftie Yahoos go buy flags to perform their gallant and heroic acts of civil disobedience.

Iranian "Elections"

The Iranians are having their “election” today. Despite the multiplicity of candidates, the quotes around “election” are fully deserved. A real election implies choice. For the Iranian people, 70 percent of whom are under 30 and have no memory of the Revolution of 1979 that founded the Islamic tyranny, the choice presented today is rather like the choice between being hanged or shot.

The Islamic Republic is a sham that is neither Islamic, nor a Republic. It is instead a con game wherein unelected clerics rig the election for Powerless President by deciding who may run and who may not, and then using the chosen patsy as a sock-puppet when he is finally “elected.” The incumbent president, the so-called reformist Mohammad Khatami, had the power to do little beyond order no-doubt impressive business cards and perhaps re-arrange the chairs in his reception room.

As a foreigner, who wishes the Iranian people well, El Jefe begs leave to doubt whether the last Iranian Revolution was worth it at all. Revolutions seldom establish liberty, but instead, they lead to the construction of greater and more dangerous tyrannies. This was the pattern in the French and Russian Revolutions, and the same has held true in Iran.

What’s the solution ? Certainly, today’s New York Times offers no useful advice, today saying that: “[f]or all of its multiple flaws, this election is the best tool available to the Iranian people to indicate which way they want their troubled country to head over the next four years.” Typical New York Times logic: "yeah, things are bad, but tell the slobs who didn't go to Harvard to take their gruel and shut up."

Beg pardon, but legitimizing the non-choice presented by Iran’s clerical tyrants by participating in their fake election is no help at all. As the Regime Change Iran blog says here, (quoting Iranian blogger): “A vote for any of these candidates is approval of poverty, oppression, prostitution, humiliation, frustration, brain drain…” Absolutely right. Here’s to Iranians who stay home today, who deny their criminal masters legitimization through their votes.

Happy Birthday US Army

As my friend the Merry Mad Monk reminds us, here, today's the U.S. Army's birthday. The Army is in fact older than the country it defends: what is now the United States Army was founded by the Continental Congress's decision to raise ten companies of riflemen for the Boston siege of General Thomas Gage's British Army.

Some units of the U.S. Army and the National Guard are even older, tracing their ancestry to pre-Revolutionary militia units. Among the oldest are the 181st and 182 Infantry Regiments, both tracing their ancestry to militia units raised in Boston in 1636.

There are units which followed other flags, yet were still in the service of America. The 116th Infantry Regiment of the Virginia National Guard also predates the Revolution, tracing its ancestry to the Virginia militia. Under another name, the 116th marched with Stonewall Jackson, carrying the banners of the Confederate States at First and Second Manassas, Winchester, Sharpsburg and Gettysburg, among other places. Years later that very same unit was among the first ashore at Omaha Beach, on 6 June 1944, suffering 800 casualties that day at places named Les Moulins and Vierville-sur-Mer.

Happy Birthday U.S. Army, present and past. Wherever and whenever you carried the flag for us, thank you. We owe you more than it is possible to calculate, or to repay.

Wolf at the Door

We need your help! Speak out to your representative, contact one of the organizations at http://www.kubatana.net; or if you know anyone in Zimbabwe spread the message, we are going to stand up for what's rightfully ours.

The Zimbabwean Pundit, post of 6 June 2005.

As you sit at your computer reading this, the government of Zimbabwe has, deliberately, with malice aforethought, driven nearly a million people from their homes, which were promptly razed. The bandit Mugabe regime calls this “Operation Murambatsvina” (meaning “drive out trash”).

The Drive Out Trash campaign is punishment for the urban poor and others who had the temerity to support the opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in elections last March, and in the previous two elections. Mugabe and his henchmen have evidently decided to depopulate the urban areas of the country (much like Pol Pot in Cambodia) to see that this does not happen again.

There is nobody, in Zimbabwe, at least, who can stop Mugabe now, after the blatantly fraudulent Parliamentary elections. Mugabe has a sufficient majority to change the constitution, wiping out the last remains of the democracy foisted on Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party when Rhodesia gave way to Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe was once relatively prosperous – Winston Churchill, in former times, called the country the “pearl of Africa.” Today, 80 percent of working age persons in Zimbabwe are unemployed. Mugabe’s regime systematically destroyed the nation’s agricultural system – expropriating farms and vast tracts of land to reward his supporters. The Mugabe regime has driven out foreign capital, and is in the last stages of expropriating and driving into exile or impoverishment his country’s most educated and productive citizens, because they’re primarily of European descent, their families in Zimbabwe for generations. Food is desperately short. The United Nations is estimating that between 3 and 4 million Zimbabweans face starvation unless food aid arrives. Even aid is no real solution – Mugabe and his thugs routinely steal aid supplies and hoard them for their supporters. Many people, including so many, many children, are, most assuredly, going to die.

With so many humanitarian tragedies in this world, most of us in America and in Europe are relatively inured to yet another African disaster. The Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia – so many deaths. What makes Zimbabwe’s plight so monstrous is that this holocaust is being deliberately induced, created, as a matter of state policy, in the same way that the Nazis murdered the Jews, or the Soviets murdered much of their peasantry. Where are our liberal friends now ? Where are the bleeding hearts incessantly screaming about US atrocities in Iraq, or the plight of the Palestinians, or the “victims” at Guantanamo ? The silence is deafening. Mugabe, of course, is a longtime darling of the international left…

Meanwhile, tyrant Mugabe opened his puppet Parliament today, arriving in a Rolls Royce, medals on his chest, inspecting his honor guard, and calling for “unity.” Best thing for Zimbabwe would be Mugabe swinging from a lamppost.

Prince on a Hunger Strike

Daily Briefing on Iran, a good source for events in that country, reports that H.I.H. Prince Reza of Iran, exiled son of the late Shah, has announced plans to go on a hunger strike for three days (starting tomorrow), in solidarity with Iran’s many political prisoners. He has also urged Iranians to boycott the sham elections that the bandits that run the so-called-Islamic Not-a-republic are holding on 17 June. As the Prince points out, Iran is only country in the world "whose written constitution specifically denies that sovereignty belongs to its citizens."

I’ve been a Prince Reza watcher, and admirer, for years. I have always thought that had his father abdicated in time, or died a few years sooner, Prince Reza would have succeeded to the Peacock Throne, there would have been no Khomeni regime, and the last 25 years would have been happier for Iran and the whole Middle East. Ironic that the son of the late Shah is the most articulate and visible spokesman for a more liberal Iran.

Iran is full of people who don’t like the present regime, and who want better relations with the United States. This doesn’t mean that the demise of the present regime would open the doors to perpetual sweetness and light – Iranians of all political stripes, for example, would support their country’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. That’s okay. A sane, but nationalist, liberal regime, that held real elections, would be a vast improvement over today’s false republic, actually a theocratic tyranny, with its so-called morality police, torture chambers, its jailings and murder of opponents. Here’s hoping there’s a free Iran someday.

UPDATE: Something is stirring in Iran this morning. Iran defeated Bahrain for a World Cup, 2006 qualification, and celebrations of this event have apparently turned into anti-regime demonstrations. There are apparently riots in cities all over the country, and the citizens are attacking the regime's riot police. Check out Regime Change Iran, (links in this post and in the blogroll) which is following this closely.

Coming Attractions

El Jefe has lots of things working, but not much ready for posting just yet. Among other things, I’m working on (1) a discussion of the Korea nuclear issue; (2) endgame for the insurgency in Iraq; (3) the wider war against Al Qaeda; (4) something on the First World War; (5) a food and wine entry; and, (6) life now that Heir is at camp for the next month. Some of these require a bit of background reading that I have not completed yet.

Meanwhile, there’s always the day job, (yawn) and fantasies about escaping to my vast Palace by the Sea to oversee my armies of servants, enjoy my wine collection, vast fortune, and the attentions of my numerous babe paramours, and receive petitioners and well-wishers. Stay tuned.

Aiding our Enemies

The Associated Press (via the Washington Post and Drudge) reports today that former US President Bill Clinton has urged French President Jacques Chirac not to be discouraged by the recent rejection of the proposed EU constitution by voters in France and Holland. Mr. Clinton reportedly suggested that Mr. Chirac “listen to voters’ concerns” and “go back to work.”

Now why would a former American President give advice and encouragement to the anointed leader of anti-American political forces in Europe and elsewhere ? Why would he offer counsel calculated to assist and support in the creation of a politically unified EU, one of the primary purposes of which, according to its backers, is to serve as a counterpoise to the US ?

Clearly, these questions don't concern former US President Clinton. Or, au contraire, perhaps they do, but Mr. Clinton thinks that creating a rival for the US is a good thing. After all, Nationalism is usually considered a great evil by lefties.

Why is Mr. Clinton still popular with Democrats ? Stupid question. Perhaps a better one is: why would an American vote for a Democrat, for anything, ever again ?