Category: Politics

I have no problem with using appropriately harsh tactics against insurgents anywhere. No matter whether they’re domestic terrorists, like the Weathermen or Earth Liberation Front, or foreign terrorists, our government — any government — must ensure the safety of its own people. Those who make war on a society by killing officials and the innocent should be imprisoned or eradicated.
That said, articles like this disturb me. I find it unlikely that bulldozing civilian houses or arresting relatives of suspected insurgents is going to make murderous thugs go away. It’s all well and good that the Israelis have used similar tactics in the last few years against the Palestinians, but one might ask whether their campaign has been a success.
Other observations:
1. The Army is no good at counterinsurgency operations. They are good at destroying large formations of troops, wrecking equipment, and smashing their way into enemy-held territory. They aren’t good at the delicate, murky, gut-level actions that must be used against insurgencies. The Marine Corps is the only U.S. force that is good at such things, as they have proved in every clime and place (though usually the clime is hot and/or topical, e.g. Haiti, Nicaragua, Vietnam.)
2. Nobody ever rooted out a vicious band of thugs by cordoning off villages and monitoring who comes and goes. True, the British made similar moves in Malaysia, and defeated the Communist insurgency there. Anyone who thinks Malaysia — where the Chinese minority lives under an apartheid regime — is a model society, you’re welcome to explain why.
3. An officer who makes an asinine statement such as, “With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them” should be shuffled off to a desk job in the bowels of the Pentagon, where he can exchange impolitic e-mail messages with colleagues instead of talking to New York Times reporters.

NRO’s David Frum comments today, “It really is incredible that the Democratic party seems determined to nominate a candidate who sounds, as James Taranto put it, like a conceited 15-year-old.” (Taranto’s original words are here.)
That statement is true, if by “the Democratic party” you mean “Democrat primary voters.” The party establishment hasn’t been tripping over themselves to support Howard Dean, for reasons both petty (he’s not one of the D.C. power-lunch crowd) and substantive (many power-lunchers think he’ll take the party way too far to the Left.)
If he weren’t mildly scary, I’d be inclined to laugh at Howard Dean. For a man whose entire state has far fewer residents than cows, he certainly thinks a lot of his leadership ability. “Mr. President, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll teach you a little about defense.” He could teach the president how to avoid military service, but it’s tough to think of a defense-related subject on which he could tutor the president.
Dean is the quintessence of the liberal Baby Boomer: boundlessly arrogant, with a self-regard that borders on the pathological. He is gripped by a vision of his own righteousness, and — mark this — his first instinct is to tear down edifices and destroy people. Just like his contemporaries who protested in Vietnam, he has no particular vision of the common good, other than a vague idea that he will assist the lowly once he finishes savaging the rich and powerful. In the meantime, he spews calumny and promises an armageddon for his enemies.
Quick trivia question: when was the last time a non-Southern Democrat was elected to the presidency?

One of the most decisive events in the Iraqi pacification campaign hasn’t been mentioned much in our infotainment-driven news media. (In fairness, they have to save room for Michael Jackson stories.) Next month, the old Iraqi currency with Saddam’s face on it will no longer be legal tender — meaning that any stashes the ancien regime has will be worthless.
Maybe Saddam and his thugs have foreign currencies with which to buy attacks on Coalition forces. Hard to say. But if he’s paying his minions in Swiss francs or euros, that kind of thing will stand out. If he hasn’t got the money, look for the “resistance” to drop off precipitously. A lack of cash, coupled with some judicious ass-kicking, will convince the thugs and murderers to pursue more honest employment. You heard it first on Catholic Light !

When the number of things I want to chatter about are many, and the minutes with which I have to chatter are few, I try to pick a subject that hasn’t received enough attention. Tonight, we ask, “Why isn’t Bush going to the funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq?”
Of late, many left-wingers have been asking this question, and it is typical of the Left’s off-the-rails hatred of President Bush. What they’re really asking is,
“Why isn’t Bush calling more attention to deaths in Iraq, which would hurt him politically and give Howard Dean some great footage to use in nasty campaign ads?”
There’s a great answer to their question here, which prompted a slew of responses. Think about something else — if the president went to a funeral, the focus of the event would no longer be on remembering the dead, paying respects to the family, and (if you’re Catholic) praying for the repose of the departed. It would be about the president attending a funeral.
But for the Left, nothing is too sacred to be off-limits to politics, not even a funeral, because to the committed Leftist, politics is sacred: he does not believe in a final, divine justice to be meted out by the perfect Judge, so politics is the only way to achieve justice. Men must seize power and order the world for themselves — or at least the correct men must do so. That this thinking must logically end in the Gulag or Dachau does not occur to today’s man of the Left, any more than it did to yesterday’s.

After joining Jim Antle over at Enter Stage Right as one of the few voices crying in the wilderness when it comes to Howard Dean, I was pleasantly surprised by the last few issues of The Weekly Standard. It seems that neo-conservatives are beginning to realize that Howard Dean could pose a serious threat to President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. This is especially the case among libertarian voters, whose influence extends far beyond their actual numbers. (See Jim Antle’s Conservative Crack-Up — Will libertarians leave the Cold War coalition? in a recent issue of The American Conservative).

Anyway, the past couple of issues of The Weekly Standard have done a great job exposing Dean. First, they went after Dean’s agricultural plan and showed how increased government regulation of minimum prices, rather than help the family farm, will kill it off. This is what happened to small mom-and-pop dairy farms in Vermont when Dean undertook to protect them through a multi-state dairy agreement in New England. The legislation enacted simply hastened their demise. Now try doing this nationally and in every area of agriculture, WS argues, and the results will be even more disastrous. Hopefully, libertarians will take note.

This was either followed up or preceded in another issue (I cannot recall which, since Florida mail has been out of whack these past couple of weeks) with an editorial speaking of how the economic recovery should help the President win re-election, but how he still remains politically vulnerable over the war should the right democrat be nominated. There was another piece recently discussing whether or not, if Dean got the nod, he would make a bee-line for the center. Regardless, it is good to see that the Weekly Standard, while supporting the President’s re-election bid, is not taking it for granted. The Republicans need to remain on the offensive since the potential for a Democrat upset remains.