Stromata Blog

For Want of a Nail

In war, as the familiar rhyme teaches, trivial causes can have huge consequences. “For want of a nail, a horse was lost”, leading in logical progression to “For want of a battle, a kingdom was lost – and all because of a horseshoe nail!”

The Hamdan decision is certainly an enemy victory in the War on Terror, for reasons that others can explicate more learnedly than I. The United States of America, which under President Roosevelt did not hesitate to try and execute German saboteurs with speed and secrecy, has become the first nation in history to commit itself to affording due process of law to unlawful combatants in time of war. It is only slightly alarmist to say that the Supreme Court has made us party to a treaty with Osama bin-Laden, one under which only our obligations are enforceable. That is a grave defeat, yet it was brought about by little more than chance.

The Court divided five to three, with Chief Justice Roberts recusing himself. Since he was one of the judges who handed down the decision under appeal, one can assume that he would have sided with Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito. The conventional wisdom is that Justice Kennedy’s vote was decisive, as he is the least predictable of the Court’s current members, but one other deserves scrutiny: John Paul Stevens, the author of the prevailing opinion.

A four-four tie would have upheld the Court of Appeals, so, leaving Justice Kennedy aside, we lost this judicial battle on the whim of an octogenarian who, among other eccentricities, thinks that there is much of value in a book whose thesis is that Queen Elizabeth had an illegitimate son who wrote the works of William Shakespeare and was also the father of another of her offspring. If a man regards Oxford, Son of Queen Elizabeth I as a work with historical merit, it isn’t startling that he bought the arguments of Mr. Hamdan’s lawyers.

The moral that I draw from these circumstances is not that there ought to be a mandatory retirement age for the Supreme Court but that this setback sprang mostly from bad luck and is not irreversible. The day when Justice Stevens will step down from the Court cannot, in the course of nature, be far away. (I wish him a long life in retirement, though I hope that he will make better use of it than further ventures into Shakespeare denial.) His successor is more likely to be an Alito than a Ginsberg. Justice Kennedy, too, is no radical. His concurrence in the Stevens view was narrowly drawn and left him essentially uncommitted. Hence, the al-Qa’eda Treaty may not last long enough to give a great deal of aid and comfort to the enemy.

Another moral is that it is silly to regard the Hamdan case as an intellectual defeat or a “rebuke” for the Bush Administration, as liberal commentators gloatingly call it. The Administration “failed” only in the sense that it couldn’t sway a decision maker who may, on the available evidence, be only lightly wedded to rational thought. That failure reflects not at all on the soundness of its arguments, just as Justice Stevens’ opinions about Shakespeare are not a meaningful rebuke to literary scholarship. Against stupidity, as we all know, the gods themselves contend in vain.

Distractions

While Glenn Reynolds occasionally frets at being thought of as a “public utility”, that problem doesn’t afflict those of us whose blogs go unread except by a handful of friends, relatives and chance arrivals via Google. Therefore, I don’t feel that I’ve left a duty unfulfilled by neglecting to comment on the events of the past week. It’s not that I had nothing to say or lost the impulse to say it. Instead, my free time was taken up by a useful project, one that I’ve contemplated for years but that the Internet has turned from a chore into – almost – an enjoyment.

Over the years I’ve accumulated books, enough that I don’t have even an approximate idea of how many. It must be more than a couple of thousand, but whether “more” is closer to five thousand or twenty I really can’t say. Nor can I always recollect whether I own a particular volume, which has led to the uneconomical acquisition of duplicates. A couple of years ago, a thoughtful niece offered to come to Chicago for the summer to catalogue the collection, in return for room and board (and mayhap the opportunity to meet eligible young men), but then she got a summer job and has now gone on to graduate school. My stabs at doing the job on my own have progressed no further. It’s easy to buy three-by-five cards or, in more recent times, set up a database program, impossibly hard to find the energy and leisure to fill them up with data.

Then, in last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, I read an article about LibraryThing, an inelegantly named Web site for recording and organizing information about books. Its conceptual breakthrough is the elimination of typing. One can enter a book’s ISBN or Library of Congress card number, and the program will fill in author, title, date of publication, etc. It isn’t perfect. Amazon has typographical mistakes, a perfectionist will want to make sure to identify the correct edition of each book, and not everything that I own can be located. Nonetheless, the time savings are astonishing, and the system takes little effort to use. Searchable “tags” can also be added (e. g., “Shakespeare Authorship Controversy” or “Medieval History”) to make specific volumes easier to retrieve. In less than two days, I entered over 160 titles in my spare time, which I doubt that I could have done in less than a week by hand (and in any event wouldn’t have done, as boredom would have overwhelmed me first).

So that’s what I was doing while five Supreme Court Justices decided, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that (a) we aren’t at war, so the President can’t act like a commander-in-chief, but (b) we are at war, so al-Qa’eda terrorists are entitled to scrupulous treatment under the Geneva Conventions rather than the instant justice traditionally meted out to pirates and other common enemies of mankind.

My LibraryThing plan is to proceed at a sauntering pace, adding a hundred or so books a week until the task is done. It may take a year, or it may take a decade. It’s nice, however, to have the reasonable hope that it can actually be done without monopolizing my attention for half of forever. I can even take a few moments out to think about how to deal with terrorism in the legal world that Justice Stevens has made.

What Makes Billy Spy?

The editor of the New York Times doesn’t think of himself as the mastermind of an espionage ring, à la the infamous Walker family, but –

Suppose that the Keller Ring assigned agents to infiltrate top secret government security programs, assembled information that would be of great use to the enemy, and hid its encrypted findings under a loose flagstone in Gramercy Park, thence to be collected by an al-Qa’eda operative. Would anyone call that anything but spying on America?

So when the Times hands out the same assignments and assembles the same information, but then publishes it in the open, where Osama bin Laden can read it with his morning hookah, what is the word for that?

The question at this point is not whether Mr. Keller and his underlings, particularly Pulitzer honorees Risen and Lichtblau, are acting in behalf of our country’s enemies, but why. What leads American citizens, holding responsible positions and formerly respected as leading figures in journalism, to side with the medieval-totalitarian mufsidun?

Before answering, we need to pause and think about the enormity of the Times’ latest offense. Disrupting terrorists’ ability to engage in financial transactions was a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. The government’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program implemented that concept, with a plethora of safeguards against the least possibility of abuse. Those controls went well beyond what was legally necessary. The Times itself agreed that the program was effective and unmarred by visible impropriety. When government officials learned that the paper was preparing a story, they warned in the strongest terms that publication would be dangerous to national security. In the words of the Secretary of the Treasury’s open letter to Bill Keller,

In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were “half-hearted” is incorrect and offensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times – from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you. It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story. Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story. And there was nothing “half-hearted” about that effort. I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure. I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror. Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.

This was not an instance of reportorial naivete inadvertently revealing national secrets. Mr. Keller acted only after weeks of deliberation, in full knowledge of the consequences of his actions. If he did not realize that he was giving aid and comfort to the enemy, he is too stupid to edit a weekly advertising handout, much less one of the world’s premier newspapers.

The most charitable explanation of his motives that I have seen is Matthew Hoy’s:

You’d think that the editors and reporters at The New York Times would be among those for whom the world changed [on September 11, 2001]. After all, their offices are just a stone’s throw from the site where nearly 3,000 people died. They ran brief obituaries of the victims of that tragic day for a year. There’s still a huge hole in the ground where two of the world’s tallest skyscrapers once stood.

However, it’s become painfully obvious in the past year that the Times doesn’t really believe that we’re in a war. . . .

Frankly, Keller’s position only makes sense if he believes that we are not at war and what the Times is revealing is nothing more than law enforcement methods.

We’ve had a “war on drugs” for decades, and newspapers commonly report on the methods used to catch smugglers, dealers and users.

We’ve had the “war on poverty” since the ’60s, and newspapers report on all the government programs designed to eliminate poverty.

If the war on terrorism is viewed through a similar worldview, then what the Times has done today is nothing more than fulfilling its duty as a public watchdog.

Okay, but I don’t think that the Times would print a story that interfered with an ongoing criminal investigation. It would be careful, I’m sure, not to alert a real life Tony Soprano to the methods that were being used to snare him. Yet its editors can’t grasp, to quote John Snow again, “that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available – lawfully and responsibly – to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists”.

A second theory, distinctly less charitable, is advanced by Ace of Spades in a passage much quoted around the blogosphere:

I’m quite sure the reasonable liberals at the NYT and WaPo know full well that programs like this are absolutely vital, and their secrecy is likewise vital. However, they have made the most anti-American and evil sort of decision: While tools like this are vital for saving American lives, they will not permit any Republican President to use them. Only Democratic Presidents are permitted to employ the full panoply of powers for protecting American lives.

It’s blackmail, pure and simple. Either let a Democrat into the White House, or we will continue to sabotage American security and, in effect, kill Americans. We will keep secrets when a Democrat is in office, but not a Republican. So we offer the American people a choice: Let the politicians we favor run the country, or we will help Al Qaeda murder you.

Thucydides called this state of affairs, when citizens are so fixated on defeating their domestic adversaries that they make common cause with foreign foes, “stasis” and blamed it for most of the misfortunes of Hellas. Some of that factional spirit is certainly alive and kicking at the Times, but I wonder whether it fully accounts for the phainomena.

Would a Democratic President who fought the War on Terror with vigor retain Bill Keller’s good will for very long? Or would Bush Derangement Syndrome simply retarget its hatreds to the new incumbent?

If domestic politics were the driving force behind the Times’ quasi-treason, it would have no need to couple subversion of the Bush Administration with obliviousness toward the evils of Islamofascism. Tearful plaints about conditions under which captured terrorists are held and op-ed space for terror-mongers suggest a relationship not necessarily of sympathy but of tactical alliance, with objectives that go well beyond installing Hillary Clinton or John Edwards in the White House.

A few weeks ago, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the publisher of the Times delivered a commencement address that highlighted his discontent with the country in which he resides:

You weren’t supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land.

You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, be it the rights of immigrants to start a new life; the rights of gays to marry; or the rights of women to choose. [Note that the speaker can’t bring himself to put an object after that verb.]

You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where oil still drives policy and environmentalists have to relentlessly fight for every gain.

You weren’t. But you are. And for that I’m sorry.

It isn’t a long leap from that despairing, dystopian view of one’s homeland to sympathy with others who share one’s general antipathy, if not particular policy goals. One can fantasize that, after al-Qa’eda humbles those responsible for misbegotten wars, the absence of human rights, the continuing influence of oil and the haplessness of environmentalism, the Left will be able to pick up the pieces and the Age of Aquarius will dawn at last.

Spying for al-Qa’eda may not be the most congenial endeavor, but it’s a duty owed to the future. Bill Keller, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau will not shirk it.

Further reading: Heather Mac Donald, “National Security Be Damned”
Andrew C. McCarthy, “They’re Just More Important Than You Are”
Michael Barone, “The New York Times at War with America”
Gabriel Schoenfeld, “Leaks and the Law”
Jed Babbin, “The New War Profiteers”
Iowahawk, “The Banking Report: Let Me Make It Simple for Your Morons”

The Hirabah of the Mufsidun

While I doubt that the Moslem world is much influenced by whatever Westerners say, new terms of denigration for Islamofascism are always welcome (first seen at Never Yet Melted):

We cannot win wide-spread support throughout the Muslim world if we use terms that, to them, define the behavior of our enemies as moral. Because the Global War on Terrorism—or more precisely the war against Islamic totalitarian terrorism—includes a war of ideas, leaders, journalists, authors and speakers must use the most accurate terms to describe those ideas. . . .

Many of these terms will be unfamiliar to Westerners, but not to most Muslim audiences. Only those who actively, passively or even unwittingly [emphasis in original] support al-Qa’ida’s (and similar groups’) professed goals would find the terms, and their use by non-Muslims, offensive. . . .

Hirabah: this word, which is derived from the Arabic root which refers to war or combat, means sinful warfare, warfare contrary to Islamic law. There is ample legal justification for applying this term to Islamic totalitarian terrorists and no moral ambiguity in its connotation. We should describe the Islamic totalitarian movement as the global hirabah, not the global jihad [footnote omitted].

Mufsid (moofsid): this word refers to an evil or corrupt person; the plural is mufsidun. We call our enemies mufsidun, not jihadis, for two reasons. Again, there is no moral ambiguity and the specific denotation of corruption carries enormous weight in most of the Islamic world.

Fitna/fattan: fitna literally means temptation or trial, but has come to refer to discord and strife among Muslims; a fattan is a tempter or subversive. Applying these terms to our enemies and their works condemns their current activities as divisive and harmful [footnote omitted]. It also identifies them with movements and individuals in Islamic history with negative reputations such as the assassins of the Caliph ‘Uthman in 656, who created the first fissure in the political unity of the Muslim community.

Totalitarian: calling our enemies totalitarian serves several purposes. There is no such thing as a benign totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is a Western invention and it appeared in the Islamic world as a result of Western influence (first fascist, then Marxist-Leninist). It is also in direct contrast to the idea that the enemy would actually establish a caliphate [a term with positive connotations for Moslems] if they defeat the United States, our allies and coalition partners.

I’ll be interested to observe the reaction of CAIR and its ilk if opponents of Islamic extremism start writing about hirabah, mufsidun and fattan. To reiterate: “Only those who actively, passively or even unwittingly support al-Qa’ida’s (and similar groups’) professed goals would find the terms, and their use by non-Muslims, offensive.”

Leftists in the Sky with Dementia

Just for the record, I regard “Kosola” as a scandal only for those who think that Markos “Screw Them” Moulitsas’ endorsement is the gold standard of politics, and I’m merely amused to learn that left-wing bloggers find it necessary to hash out strategy via a confidential mailing list, but I am croggled by the discovery that Jerome Armstrong, next only to “Screw Them” himself as a leader of the Nutroots, takes his bearings from the stars (and I don’t mean Brad and Angelina) [first seen at Transterrestrial Musings]:

The second of the named “Trans-Neps” [a/k/a “Kuiper Belt Objects”, planetoids in the outer Solar System, some of which will be probed by NASA’s New Horizons mission] is Ixion, discovered on 22 May 2001. . . .

The third named Trans-Nep, Quaoar (pronounced “KWAY-o-wahr”) is the largest of the three. At 1250 km (745 miles) in diameter, it rivals Pluto’s moon Charon, and has a greater volume than all 50,000 known asteroids combined. Discovered 4 June 2002, Quaoar is 42 AUs away from us (about 4 billion miles); light from the Sun takes 5 hours to reach it, as opposed to 8 minutes for earth. . . .

Astrologer Jerome Armstrong notes that Ixion and Quaoar are following close in Pluto’s wake in early Sagittarius, and connects the rise of the political version of religious fundamentalism with the astronomical exploration of the Kuiper Belt in 1992. He cites incidences as disparate as the rise of Osama bin Laden onto the world stage and the Republican Revolution of 1994, fueled by Christian fundamentalist voters and culminating now with all three branches of government in Republican control. In addition, he cites the ascendance of political Hinduism in India in 1996 with the election of the BJP.

And

Astrologer Jerome Armstrong has noted that the GOP has its natal Varuna [another Kuiper Belt Object] at 19 Sagittarius, conjunct George W. Bush’s South Node, which Pluto is currently transiting.

Is this the same Jerome Armstrong? Well, a “JB Armstrong” engages in astrologically based political commentary such as –

On September 11th, 2001, Jupiter was exactly conjunct Varuna, atop Bush’s and the USA’s Sun. Pluto, at 13' Sagittarius was conjunct the USA ascendant, inconjunct from Varuna/Jupiter at the MH. It was as if Manifest Destiny became triggered for Bush to see – a Global War on Terrorism became his and the followers religious zeal. Since then, Bush and the Republicans have used 9/11 toward their own gain & glory. The warmongers got their calling using the patriotism via the USA Sun; it’s been very powerful to confront head on, especially given the media’s driving coverage.

The site that published this and similar musings is a subdomain of Armstrong’s MyDD.com, and his middle initial is “B” (or so the Securities and Exchange Commission thinks).

Liberals sneered at Nancy Reagan’s consultations with astrologers and insinuated that they influenced her husband’s political agenda. If that had been true, it would have been the strongest argument ever in favor of astrology. Jerome Armstrong appears to be a much more zealous follower of the Zodiac than Mrs. Reagan ever was. I’m not sure whether astrology or leftism suffers more by the association.

Watch Those Goal Posts Move!

Once upon a time, the discovery in Iraq of 500 munitions containing mustard gas or sarin nerve gas might have been big news. It would have demonstrated that the Ba’athist regime had not complied with its obligation under the Gulf War cease-fire pact (to account for and destroy its entire stock of chemical weapons). It would also have highlighted the dangers of leaving Saddam Hussein in a position to furnish weapons of mass destruction to terrorists operating in the Middle East, Europe or America itself.

So what is different today, when we learn, through newly declassified information, that “Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent” and that, in the judgment of U.S. intelligence agencies, “Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist”?

Nothing is different, of course, but I predict, with absolute confidence, that the bien-pensant media will not see in this news justification for any action taken by the Bush Administration. The conviction that Saddam had no WMD’s has become an entrenched “fact”, independent of its truth value. Thus we can expect, when the revelation is noticed at all (and don’t look for banner headlines), to hear a litany of reasons why it doesn’t matter:

• “They’re leftovers from before the Gulf War.” The “leftovers” from his previous chemical munitions buildup are exactly what Saddam was obligated to dismantle. He didn’t.

• “The chemicals have degraded.” As the same report says, “The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.” How many lives should we have risked on the hope that any weapons that Iraq or Iraqi-supplied terrorists might have used would have deteriorated to the point of being harmless?

• “Five hundred isn’t all that many.” Not enough to defeat the Coalition in a stand-up conflict; many more than needed to kill thousands of innocents in Jerusalem or London or Madrid or Bali or New York.

• “This doesn’t prove that Saddam built more after the Gulf War ended.” So he had only 500 (plus those yet to be discovered), not 5,000, and they weren’t quite state-of-the-art. Is that comforting?

• “If this is all true, why haven’t we been told before?” One might blame the Bush Administration’s strange diffidence about defending itself or the machinations of anti-Administration intelligence bureaucrats, but the more straightforward and innocent explanation is that the evidence came in a few shells at a time, so that its cumulative significance wasn’t quickly recognized. Moreover, as Captain’s Quarters speculates in its excellent roundup, we didn’t want to alert al-Qa’eda and the Ba’athist holdouts to the existence of a potential arsenal or were worried about exposing intelligence sources. Whatever the reason for reticence, it doesn’t detract from the facts.

No one can now rationally contend that Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction was a contrived excuse for war. But the “Bush lied” meme, like the fabled “plastic turkey” will never die.

The New Presbyterian Trinities

My mother, a lifelong Presbyterian, told me a few days ago that she thinks that the doings of her denomination’s current General Assembly are “pretty disgusting and a change from what I remember about the church growing up”. And she wrote that before the delegates, in a step that is as hilarious as it is appalling, voted to let ministers dispense with “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” in favor of trendy new names for the Persons of the Trinity.

The divine Trinity — “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” — could also be known as “Mother, Child and Womb” or “Rock, Redeemer, Friend” at some Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) services under an action Monday by the church’s national assembly. . . .

A panel that worked on the issue since 2000 said the classical language for the Trinity should still be used, but added that Presbyterians also should seek “fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God” to “expand the church’s vocabulary of praise and wonder.”

One reason is that language limited to the Father and Son “has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women,” the panel said. . . .

[Other] proposed Trinity options drawn from biblical material include “Lover, Beloved, Love”, “Creator, Savior, Sanctifier” [and] “King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love.”

Needless to say, no words can express the essence of the All Holy and Life Creating Trinity, but there are degrees of inadequacy. Who but a tone-deaf modernist could conclude a prayer “In the name of the Rock, the Redeemer and the Friend, amen” without tittering? (Or, as James Taranto puts it (last item), “Rock crushes Redeemer, Redeemer cuts Friend, Friend covers Rock.”)

Aside from sounding preposterous, all of these alternatives to the Church’s traditional formula are misleading or outrightly non-Christian. “Father” and “Son” and “Holy Spirit” relate, in however limited and fallible a fashion, to the eternal relationships within the Godhead. Moreover, two thousand years of Christian reflection have deepened their meaning and shown where the analogies don’t work. Any moderately well instructed Christian knows, for instance, that “in Christ there is neither male nor female”. To assert that the Triune formula “has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women” is either ignorant or dishonest.

Most of the novel Trinitarian terms differ from “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” by singling out a particular aspect of God’s actions in the world, that is, the temporal rather than the eternal. They are fine words of praise, but elevating them to synonyms for the Divine Persons is absurdly egocentric, a contraction of understanding, not an expansion of “the church’s vocabulary of praise and wonder”. God is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is “Redeemer” only because we have sinned and are in need of redemption. He is “Prince of Peace” only because we are in need of reconciliation. He is “Sanctifier” only because we are unholy.

The alternative formulas are muddled even as accounts of what God does in the world. “King of Glory” is a title of the Son (in the Orthodox Paschal liturgy, for example) as well as the Father. “Creator” can describe the Father (“maker of Heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible”) but also the Son (“by Whom all things were made”) and the Holy Spirit (“the giver of life”). “Rock” is as apt for Jesus Christ as for God the Father, and Our Lord Himself bestowed it on the mortal St. Peter. “Friend” has no special reference to any one of the Persons. If the Holy Spirit is our “Friend”, is the Son not? “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” used to be a Presbyterian hymn.

Then we come to “Mother, Child and Womb” and “Lover, Beloved, Love”, which are flatly heretical, or worse. The objection to the latter is obvious: Each of the Persons loves perfectly. “Lover, Beloved, Love” turns the Son into a passive object of affection and depersonalizes the Spirit altogether.

Worse, though, is “Mother, Child and Womb”, which is doubtless the formula that the panel is most eager to see spread among through the presbyteries. Fr. Johannes Jacobse diagnoses what is wrong with this monstrosity:

In their rush to be politically correct (which envelops their minds like a concrete casket), the Presbyterians are laying the theological (and ultimately cultural) foundations for the emergence of neo-paganism. Here’s the problem: If God is “mother,” then the creation emerged out of the goddess’ womb. Any notion of “creatio-ex-nihilo” (”creation out of nothing,” or, to be precise, creation through the spoken word of God) recedes from awareness. The ontological distance between Creator and creation collapses, and the need for a Savior disappears.

For many modernists, discontented with the unpalatable Savior portrayed in the Gospels and disliking the idea of obeying God’s law instead of man’s impulses, that is exactly the point.

Further reading: R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “The God Who Names Himself”:

The new triads, suggested for employment in worship, include “Rainbow, Ark and Dove,” “Speaker, Word and Breath,” “Overflowing Font, Living Water and Flowing River,” “Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-Giving Womb,” “Sun, Light and Burning Ray,” “Giver, Gift and Giving,” “Lover, Beloved and Love,” “Rock, Cornerstone and Temple,” “Fire that Consumes, Sword that Divides and Storm that Melts Mountains,” and “The One Who Was, The One Who Is and The One Who Is to Come.” . . .

[S]ome of the triads proposed in the report fall far short of theological orthodoxy. Others appear weirdly eccentric. The proposed triad of “The One Who Was, The One Who Is and The One Who Is to Come” implies a temporality of distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. At the very least, this confuses the fact that the three divine persons of the Trinity are coeternal and coexistent.

Who would ever naturally assume that “Rainbow, Ark and Dove” or “Rock, Cornerstone and Temple” refer to the three persons of the Trinity? In what sense does the triad “Fire that Consumes, Sword that Divides and Storm that Melts Mountains” clarify the identity and glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? . . .

[T]he rejection of biblical language by which God has named Himself in favor of imaginative new language that fits the church’s current tastes and imaginings is not merely a shift in language – it is a reformulation of the faith itself. Beyond this, it inevitably runs the risk of turning into a new form of paganism – a new linguistic form of idolatry.

Language matters. It always has, and it always will. This explains why God is so clear in naming Himself in Scripture. As Basil the Great bore witness in the early church, “We are bound to be baptized in the terms we have received and to profess belief in the terms in which we are baptized, and as we have professed belief in, so to give glory to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Basil got it just right, and his warning resounds across the centuries. We have no right to tamper with the names by which God has named Himself. “It is enough for us to confess those names which we have received from Holy Scripture,” explained Basil, “and to shun all innovations about them.” The line here is not merely between traditional and imaginative language – it is the line between the worship of the one true and living God and the worship of idols.

Had Enough? It Depends

OpinionJournal Political Diary (free through June 29th!) reports today that Democratic strategists are floating a new campaign slogan. “Together, America Can Do Better” wasn’t grammatical, and “A Nude Erection New Direction for America” prompted embarrassing questions about policy specifics. The newest entry, “Had Enough?”, had the virtue of a distinguished history. It was the GOP cry in 1946, when the economy was contracting, wartime economic controls remained in place, and Harry Truman still looked more like a product of the Pendergast Machine than a worthy leader of the world’s most powerful republic. Sixty years later, Nancy Pelosi thinks that it fits the current state of the nation.

Well, now that I think about it, there is plenty that I’ve Had Enough of, including –

• claims that George W. Bush single-handedly and for unknown reasons fooled every intelligence service in the world into believing that Ba’athist Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was eager to develop more,

• unrelenting pessimism about the course of the war,

• credulous acceptance of accusations of misconduct against American soldiers,

• the incessant repetition of canards about Hurricane Katrina, the “16 words”, plastic turkeys, etc., etc.,

• politicians who pander to Daily Kos moonbats,

• laments about federal deficits that are invariably followed by demands to raise taxes rather than cut government spending,

• and, in a nutshell, shrill, defeatist, prevaricating left-wing demagogues.

On the other hand, I have not Had Enough of economic expansion, tax reduction, helping Iraq emerge from decades of tyranny or fighting Islamofascism around the world.

Since their loss in 2004, the Democrats’ principal strategy has been the equivalent of blaring out rock music all night. If they fling enough baseless accusations, scream enough invectives and create enough general irritation, the American people may return them to power just to shut them up and gain a spell of peace and quiet. “Had enough?” does, in a way, summarize that concept. I encourage Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi to ask it again and again.

Stromata Exclusive: Rove Executed!

All kudos to the brave truth tellers Marc Ash and Jason Leopold, who stand by their report that supervillain KKKarl Rove was indicted on May 12, 2006, for crimes against humanity. By bravely resisting the right-wing media and the assassins of the Bush Crime Syndicate, they Keep Hope Alive!

Their account is, however, incomplete. Stromata, relying upon sources yet more anonymous than TruthNot’s, can now reveal the basis for Rove consigliere Robert Luskin’s statement that his evildoing client faces no further legal jeopardy from the special counsel investigating the unpatriotic exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment by the CIA (undoubtedly the worst incident of treason in American history, with the possible exception of Benedict Arnold’s).

Karl Rove is dead.

His malign career of evil was brought to an end by lethal injection early on June 12th, after Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found him guilty of 76 counts of High Treason, Lèse Majesty, Piracy, Theft, Matriculation, Dissimulation, Public Obesity and other high crimes and misdemeanors. The trial and execution were carried out pursuant to Mr. Fitzgerald’s supreme authority to act on behalf of all branches of government.

Prior to his demise, the running dog lackey Rove gave a full confession of his and his Likudnik bosses’ offenses. News of the execution is being withheld while the Fitzgerald team follows up on this information. Our sources tell us that indictments will soon be handed down against Vice President Cheney, Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito (Kennedy’s fate is not yet decided), all Rethugican members of Congress except Arlen Specter and John Chafee – oh, and don’t forget Ariel Sharon (currently trying to escape justice by hiding in a hospital). The Thief Executive, Chimpy Bushitler, will be burned at the stake on the Fourth of July, after which Dennis Kucinich and John Murtha will ascend to the offices of President and Vice President, ushering in an era of world peace. Their first official act will be to restore novelist-politician Saddam Hussein to his rightful position as President of Iraq.

You can rest assured that the entirety of the preceding paragraphs is true, especially “a”, “and” and “the”. If any of it were false, we could reveal our sources. Since we don’t, there can be no doubt about their veracity.

Father Nanny

The last time I animadverted to David Cameron, he was denouncing chocolate oranges. Since then, the British Conservatives have been doing well in the polls, suggesting either that Brits don’t really like chocolate or that the multiplying blunders of Labour make any alternative, even one that compels WHSmith to add a produce department, attractive.

On this political tailwind, Mr. Cameron is now soaring higher. The Daily Telegraph reports that he has turned his attention to the hospital delivery room:

David Cameron will tomorrow call on fathers to "bond" with their children by being present at the "magic moment" of child birth.

The Conservative leader, who became a father for the third time in February, will announce that the party's review of family policy will look at the "time around child birth”. . . .

“Our policy review will be looking to learn lessons from successful projects around the world addressing this specific aspect of the couple relationship,” Mr Cameron will say.

Party officials said that the Tory leader did not intend to “force fathers into the delivery room” and that he was talking about the importance of establishing close bonds during the time close to the birth of a child.

And that is very important, I’m sure, just as it’s very important for fathers to teach their children the rudiments of cricket and metric football, answer their questions about the color of the sky and pay attention to their school activities. So, shall the government set up an inspectorate to make sure that Dad is doing his duty? Or will the Tory policy be tax credits for time spent with the kids? Mr. Cameron’s current ideas are a bit timid:

He will also announce support for a network of family relationship centres, which would provide help, support and advice at all stages of relationship. They would also be able to help separating families make workable arrangements for their children without having to go to court.

All stages? Jack’s first date with Jill is a bummer, so he trots down to the Family Relationship Centre for courting tips? Mary finds lipstick on John’s collar and asks the FRC whether she ought to be suspicious? Herbert, trying to decide whether to dump the old battleaxe for a trophy wife, can enlist a government counselor to review the pros and cons? Oh, and will there be a Headache-Tonight-Dear Rapid Response Unit?

You can tell that a policy is descending to the Department of Silly Walks level when Gordon Brown, of all people, can see what’s wrong:

The Chancellor . . . told the Mail on Sunday that Mr Cameron's mistake was to “drop the aspects of Thatcherism that people like [Mr. Brown means tax reduction, though he can’t bring himself to say so] and take up with namby-pamby policies that people dislike”.

At a time when jihadi terrorists were organizing for war, Bill Clinton plumped for school uniforms. He was a model of seriousness next to the man who wants to assume the mantle of Winston Churchill.

Quote of the Day

John J. Miller on a profile of Illinois’ junior Senator in this morning’s Washington Post:

The Wash Post swoons over Barack Obama this morning. I know what you’re thinking: Ho hum. The word “presidency” appears in the tenth sentence. But nowhere does the word “liberal” appear. Having been elected to the Senate less than two years ago, his legislative record is scant. Yet it’s undeniably liberal. On it a scale of 0-100, with 100 = most conservative, the American Conservative Union currently gives him a rating of 8. This is to the left of Hillary Clinton, who earns a 12 in the current session, and exactly the same score as John Kerry. Obama may be “a fresh face,” but he represents and old and tired politics. When will the media notice that?

Liberalism is not, of course, just a matter of statistics. Senator Obama’s “fresh” ideas include opposing photo ID requirements for voters, calling Social Security reform “racist” and preferring Moveon.org to the moderate Democratic Leadership Council. If he were Barry O’Boyle, a diplomat’s son who won a Senate seat through lucky breaks that would be implausible in an Allen Drury novel, he would have faded by now into the faceless throng of left-wing legislators. It’s his good fortune that the diplomat father hailed from Kenya rather than Boston. To those who regard skin color as the outward manifestation of character, that accident of genetics makes him Presidential material.

“Changing Directions” with Congressman Murtha

The non-binding Iraq resolution that the House of Representatives passed yesterday was not exactly Churchillian. Five of its seven clauses were mother’s milk and apple pie: honoring “all those Americans who have taken an active part in the Global War on Terror” and “the sacrifices of the United States Armed Forces and of partners in the Coalition, and of the Iraqis and Afghans who fight alongside them”, congratulating the Iraqi people on the formation of an elected government, calling upon all nations “to support the efforts of the Iraqi and Afghan people to live in freedom” and declaring “that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary”. Don’t anti-war Democrats and liberals tell us incessantly that they “support the troops”, have the best interests of the Iraqis and Afghans at heart and want to thwart terrorism? I don’t see how an honest critic of the way in which the Bush Administration has conducted the anti-terrorist effort could reasonably dissent from these platitudes.

Two of the resolutions are a hair’s breadth more controversial, when Congress –

(3) declares that it is not in the national security interest of the United States to set an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq;

(4) declares that the United States is committed to the completion of the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure, and united Iraq. . . .

But how many opponents of the war – leaving aside Daily Kos moonbats – espouse an inflexible deadline for leaving Iraq or openly desire that country to emerge from its troubles as other than “sovereign, free, secure and united”? The day before yesterday, only six Democrats in the Senate were willing to endorse Senator Kerry’s call to set a date for withdrawal.

It would have been easy for House Democrats to deliver rhetorical broadsides against the President’s plans, goals and accomplishments, then render the resolution meaningless by lining up with the GOP to pass it. Yet they voted “no” by 149 to 42. I sha’n’t try to guess what they found so offensive, though there may be a hint in post-debate comments by the ubiquitous Jack Murtha:

The thing that disturbed me and worries me about this whole thing is we can’t get them [the Republicans] to change direction. And I said over and over in debate, if you listen to any of it, in Beirut President Reagan changed direction, in Somalia President Clinton changed direction. . . .

Beirut and Somalia – two of the worst American humiliations of the past 25 years – are to be our models? In both instances, we “changed direction” by abandoning our objectives. Lebanon quickly became a Syrian satellite, and Somalia an anarchic haven for terrorists. The only benefit was that Americans were able to ignore problems until they had grown more intractable. In the last few weeks, Somalia has reaped the fruit of President Clinton’s failure, as Islamofascists seized control of the capital and began imposing Taliban-like rule. Inevitably, we will have to finish the job that was left behind in 1994.

Rep. Murtha tells us he only wants to “redeploy” our troops in order to fight the War on Terror more effectively, not “cut and run”. The precedents to which he appeals are not reassuring.

Battle of the Books

Via the ever helpful Cronaca, word comes of two extremes in writings for the young. First, the admirable: The Dangerous Book for Boys, which, according to a short review,

explains how to build a treehouse, fish, skim stones and make a catapult. There are also chapters on insects, pirates, coin tricks, marbles and dinosaurs.

[Co-author] Conn [Iggulden] said: “We wrote it to be a compendium of all the things we wanted to try and to know when we were very young. It’s the attitude that we wanted to recapture – when everything was interesting and danger was fun.

“You can’t stop boys being curious so they might as well have the tools and instructions to focus that curiosity.”

The book also includes stories of courage from historical heroes including Scott of the Antarctic, Robert the Bruce, Lord Nelson and Douglas Bader.

Conn added: “Their example is more important than ever. Not one of them would have understood the health and safety culture. If they had, Scott would have stayed at home and Douglas Bader might have kept his legs and lost the Battle of Britain.”

Excellent! Alas, my nephews are now grown, and my great-nephews haven’t reached the age for treehouses and slingshots. But I know what to get them on or about their eighth birthdays.

On the other hand, there are children’s books to be shunned like the pox:

There are few children’s books that I despise more than Marcus Pfister’s The Rainbow Fish. Encouraging sharing and openness is fine, but in its few short pages The Rainbow Fish manages to twist what ought to be a simple parable into something truly perverse, whose main message is that to be happy and accepted one should abandon all that makes one special and become just like everyone else. Forget respect for differences, forget appreciation of diversity: the lesson here is closer to the Japanese saying, “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.”

Appallingly enough, my daughter’s school has just assigned The Rainbow Fish as the centerpiece of their summer reading assignment for kids entering second grade – the theme for discussion being “friendship”. Yet there is no friendship in The Rainbow Fish, only conformity. No blame accrues to the fish who ostracize the Rainbow Fish, accepting him only when he gives them all that he has and all that they want (which ends up being the eradication of his individuality). You will look in vain for any suggestion that friendship is a two-way street, or that friendship can be mutually enriching, making the whole world a better place. The world of The Rainbow Fish is relentlessly zero-sum.

Lest that sound like the eccentric opinion of some right-winger, the Publisher’s Weekly description, excerpted by Amazon, is quite as damning:

Rainbow Fish, “the most beautiful fish in the entire ocean,” refuses to share his prized iridescent scales – which, indeed, flash and sparkle like prisms as each page is turned. When his greed leaves him without friends or admirers, the lonely fish seeks advice from the wise octopus, who counsels him to give away his beauty and “discover how to be happy.”

Ugh! From such seeds grows the world of Harrison Bergeron.

A Project for Bloggers

2,996 is project to commemorate, on the fifth anniversary of our country’s second Pearl Harbor, the men, women and children who were murdered on that day. The originator, D. Challener Roe, writes,

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11. Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives, and not by remembering their murderers. . . .

[T]he tributes should celebrate the lives of these people – kind of like a wake. Over the last 5 years we’ve heard the names of the killers, and all about the victim’s deaths. This is a chance to learn about and celebrate those who died. Forget the murderers, they don’t deserve to be remembered. But some people who died that day deserve to be remembered – 2,996 people.

To join those who have already volunteered, leave a comment on the 2,996 Web site.

Worldcon Bid Sighted

Since the news was published on a list with scores of readers and wasn’t marked “confidential”, I see no harm in letting the tiny segment of fandom that reads this blog know that a bid to hold the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle will debut at L.A.Con IV. Its competitor at the moment [but see the comment from Kevin Standlee] is a prospective bid for Washington, D.C., which is, however, contingent upon the construction of adequate facilities. The new D.C. convention center, grandiose in size, isn’t close to any hotels. When and whether one or more will be built depends upon the actions of the district’s famously inefficient city council (the one graced by Marion “The Bitch Set Me Up” Barry).

The Pacific Northwest has a large cadre of convention runners, who gained much experience, some of it painful, at last year’s NASFiC. Unfortunately, few of them are familiar figures outside their region, which will be a handicap.

Assuming that it moves forward as planned, this will be the fourth serious Seattle Worldcon bid. The first led to Seacon, the 1961 Worldcon chaired by Wally Weber. Seattle in 1981, the first big endeavor of a new generation of Seattle fandom, ran a surprisingly close race against Denver. A 1993 bid had to withdraw after its principal hotel backed out. We’ll see whether fourth time is a charm.

Coincidence of the Day

Continuing its anti-Gitmo jihad, today’s New York Times carries an op-ed titled “Detainees in Despair”. The author, a French Arab named Mourad Benchellali, spent 2½ years in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp before being sent back to France to stand trial for membership in al-Qa’eda (a fact that he discloses very obliquely). By his account, he is a political innocent who embarked in mid-2001 on what he thought would be a “dream vacation” in the tourist Mecca of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. To his dismay, he found himself in an al-Qa’eda training camp. After two months, happily, his “time was up”, so he started home, coincidentally just before September 11th. When he reached Pakistan, he was arrested, for no reason at all, and shipped to Guantánamo, where he experienced such horrors as – Well, the description of those evidently must wait for publication of his forthcoming book (written with the assistance of left-wing historical novelist Antoine Audouard, who also helped with the op-ed). All that is revealed here is that M. Benchellali felt a generalized despair, was questioned by skeptical interrogators, didn’t have the services of a lawyer and was once given a box of candy. The lurid tales of beatings, sensory deprivation, loud rock music and titillation by American sexpots will be in the novel memoir, I suppose.

It’s mildly interesting that the Times could find nothing more dramatic to illustrate the “netherworld of despair beyond the laws of civilized nations” about which it editorializes. But more interesting is a coincidence noticed this morning by Power Line. Simultaneously with the publication of the Benchellali cri de coeur, CNN reported that 25 Moslems had been convicted in Paris of plotting a terrorist campaign, which the prosecutor described as part of the “globalization of the jihad movement”. Among the defendants were a Moslem imam named Chellali Benchellali, his wife Hafsa, and his sons Menad and Hafed. Menad was the conspiracy’s chemical weapons expert. CNN scants details of the charges, but they appear in a BBC report that appeared at the time of the suspects’ arrest:

Police raids at the suspects’ homes in the Paris suburbs of Romainville and La Courneuve revealed diagrams of chemical formulas for explosives and a substance that could make toxic gas, judicial officials said at the time.

On Sunday, French Interior Ministry officials said suspects detained by the police had said Menad Benchellali had hoped to concoct a botulism toxin and ricin.

Police said other detainees had admitted to providing Menad Benchellali with logistical support, including false identity papers and funding.

And the paragraph that ties the Paris trial and the New York whine together:

Another of the Benchellalis’ sons, Mourad, is one of six French detainees being held at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, on suspicion of ties to al-Qaeda.

Further reading: Clifford D. May, “Gunning for Gitmo”

The Night After Fizzlemas

In retrospect, there were only two routes that could have led to the indictment of Karl Rove: Patrick Fitzgerald might have turned out to be a Kloset Kossack. Or Mr. Rove might in fact have engaged in misconduct worthy of prosecution, that is, something exponentially worse than failing to tell the grand jury about a two minute conversation with a Time reporter. It’s hard to believe that a non-Kossack prosecutor would be much interested in a lapse of memory that could hardly have impeded his investigation materially and that the witness corrected on his own initiative.

The continuation of the probe gave Rove haters grounds for hope, and leak after leak hinted that their hopes were going to be justified. Tom McGuire, the non-Rovaphobe who followed the twists and turns most sedulously, at one time estimated the probability of indictment at 70 percent (later reduced to 50 – “well, at least I had the trend right”). As everybody knows by now, a left-wing site “reported” a month ago that the grand jury had already handed down a sealed indictment.

This kerfuffle was a good test of the hypothesis that undisclosed informants are accurate purveyors of fact, the assumption that has become the bedrock of contemporary “news”. The conditions could hardly have been more favorable. It’s notorious that almost every prosecution team has a leaker or two, and the stories sounded credible. Yet they were wrong – and wrong unanimously. If there was internal debate about how to proceed, it was never reflected in leaks declaring that Rove’s exoneration was imminent. My current suspicion is that Mr. Fitzgerald never seriously contemplated bringing charges. His delay in saying so is easily explicable by a cautious, busy (while Nadagate proceeded, he found time to convict a former governor of Illinois for corruption) lawyer’s desire to take his time marshaling and reviewing every conceivably pertinent datum.

In short, journalism grounded in anonymity, the species that is today most pervasive and prestigious, failed utterly. It would be interesting to know whether reporters fell for fibbers who appeared to be well-informed, swallowed rumors of dubious provenance or simply made up what they wrote. In any case, this experience should, but alas won’t, be another step in the demise of the “usually reliable source”.

Lord Haw-Haw in New York

After reading the New York Times’s reaction to “The Deaths at Gitmo”, I have lost my last shred of belief in the good faith of its editorial board. Unless its members are demented – in a literal, not a figurative sense – their characterization of the Guantánamo Bay prison camp as “a netherworld of despair beyond the laws of civilized nations, where men were to be held without any hope of decent treatment, impartial justice or, in so many cases, even eventual release” and whose “[i]nmates were abused, humiliated, tormented and sometimes tortured” is insincere rhetoric based on no credible evidence. Quite the contrary, it is undisputed that the prisoners are well fed, well housed, well clothed and treated with almost comical deference on matters pertaining to their religion. Here is how a former teenage inmate interviewed by the left-wing, America-hating Guardian described his stay:

He spent a typical day watching movies, going to class and playing football. He was fascinated to learn about the solar system, and now enjoys reciting the names of the planets, starting with Earth. Less diverting were the twice-monthly interrogations about his knowledge of al-Qaida and the Taliban. But, as Asadullah’s answer was always the same – “I don’t know anything about these people” – these sessions were merely a bore.

The decisive proof of the editorial’s phoniness is its description of the three men who killed themselves and why they were being held:

Camp officials say one was a mid- or high-level Qaeda operative. One was captured in Afghanistan (doing what, we’re not sure), and the other was from something the camp commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr., called a splinter group.

The insinuation is that at least two of the three were at Gitmo for no good reason. In their own newspaper, on the same day, was a fuller report:

The Pentagon released a statement describing Mr. Ahmed, the Yemeni, as a “mid to high-level Al Qaeda operative” who was close to Abu al-Zubaydah, a senior figure for Al Qaeda who has since been captured. The statement also said that Mr. Habardi was a member of a terrorist group that recruits for Al Qaeda, and had been recommended for transfer to another country, presumably Saudi Arabia. The Pentagon said that Mr. Zahrani had been “a frontline fighter for the Taliban” and had participated in the prison uprising in 2001 at Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of Johnny Micheal Spann, a C.I.A. operative.

The editorial concludes with this astonishing denunciation of the camp commander:

Admiral Harris’s response was as appalling as the suicides. “I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us,” he said. The inmates, he said, “have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own.”

These comments reveal a profound disassociation from humanity.

Or maybe they reveal that Admiral Harris remembers 9/11 and al-Qa’eda’s habitual resort to suicide as a weapon of war.

We may as well face the unpleasant truth: One of our country’s most prestigious publications is run by men who openly support our enemies in time of war. So long as they don’t start planting bombs on their own, nothing can be done to prevent their echoing of the al-Qa’eda line. But it is time to stop imagining that they run an impartial news service rather than an outlet for pro-terrorist propaganda.

Arms Merchant to the Pariahs

How refreshing that Amnesty International has taken a break from berating America for supposed violations of the rights of poor, oppressed terrorists to notice that the communist-controlled part of China has become the leading arms supplier to criminals and tyrants around the world. In “China: Sustaining Human Rights Abuses” (summarized by the Daily Telegraph), the organization reports:

Over the last 20 years China has supplied a range of military, security and police equipment to countries with a record of gross human rights violations. Much international debate about China’s controls on arms exports has focused on the transfer of nuclear or long-range missile technology to countries such as Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. Yet the routine export of conventional weapons and small arms has been contributing to human rights violations including in brutal armed conflicts.

China is the only major arms exporting power that has not entered into any multilateral agreement which sets out criteria, including respect for human rights, to guide arms export licensing decisions. . . .

China is an important and large arms exporter – one of the top 10 suppliers in the world. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) ranked China the eighth largest supplier of major conventional weapons in 2004. However, the government’s lack of transparency prevents a comprehensive understanding of the types of arms China supplies, their quantities, destinations or end-users. Statistics available tend to grossly underestimate the actual financial value of the trade, which is estimated to be in excess of US$1 billion annually. [footnotes omitted]

This lack of openness is seen in the government’s failure to produce an annual report on military, security and police transfers, showing which transfers were licensed and which arms were delivered. However, it is clear from the limited data and information available from, for example, the UN customs database known as Comtrade and media reports, that China has been supplying a wide range of military equipment to many countries around the world many of which have a very poor record for human rights. . . .

The Peking regime’s government-owned arms manufacturers have become a real world embodiment of the Nye Committee’s imaginary “merchants of death”, happily selling to anyone who wants to fight. Customers include, for example, the Kingdom of Nepal, one of whose main enemies is a communist insurgency that claims Red China as its model. Among the even less savory buyers are Sudan, pro-Sudanese guerillas in Chad, Iran, Zimbabwe and Myanmar (Burma). There is also a brisk handgun trade to criminals in South Africa, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia and other countries that try to enforce firearms prohibition.

Omitted, as one would expect from Amnesty International, is any mention of the fact that “from 1981 to 2001, China was the second largest supplier of weapons and arms to Iraq, supplying over 18 percent of Iraq’s weapons imports”. No doubt terrorists and terrorist enablers throughout the world continue to find Peking willing and able to meet their armaments needs.

Be Careful What Your Children See

This story is one that I wouldn’t believe for an instant if it didn’t come from Scripps Howard, which is not, to my knowledge, a fount of Christian fundamentalist overreaction. A movie produced by a Baptist congregation, portraying the travails of a burned-out high school football coach whose depression is cured through the revival of his faith in God, has been rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America – not for dubious language or excessively violent tackles, but because its content is too religious (first seen at Hoystory).

Facing the Giants cost $100,000 and resembles a fusion of the Book of Job and a homemade Hoosiers, or perhaps a small-school Friday Night Lights blended with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association movies that used to appear in some mainstream theaters. Sherwood Pictures used local volunteers as actors and extras, backed by a small crew of tech professionals.

The movie includes waves of answered prayers, a medical miracle, a mysterious silver-haired mystic who delivers a message from God and a bench-warmer who kicks a 51-yard field goal to win the big game when his handicapped father pulls himself out of a wheelchair and stands under the goal post to inspire his son’s faith. There’s a prayer-driven gust of wind in there, too.

Obviously, this has the potential, done badly, to be as sappy as the Left Behind novels, but it certainly could be done well. This account of a conversation between the coach and a player described as a “rich brat” holds out hope of something above the “pray and get rich” level of evangelism:

The coach says that he needs to stop bad-mouthing his bossy father and get right with God.

The boy replies: “You really believe in all that honoring God and following Jesus stuff? ... Well, I ain’t trying to be disrespectful, but not everybody believes in that.”

The coach replies: “Matt, nobody’s forcing anything on you. Following Jesus Christ is the decision that you're going to have to make for yourself. You may not want to accept it, because it’ll change your life. You’ll never be the same.”

That sort of talk is evidently too controversial for the MPAA. The vice president for marketing at the film’s distributor (a Sony subsidiary) was told that the raters had “decided that the movie was heavily laden with messages from one religion and that this might offend people from other religions”.

Those “people from other religions” must be awfully sensitive. It would be all right with the MPAA, one strongly suspects, if the “mysterious silver-haired mystic” were a wizard spouting New Age platitudes and the miraculous field goal wafted through the uprights by magic.

There is, I’ll concede, a sense in which “Parental Guidance” is the right advice. Parents ought to pay attention to anything that young children watch, however innocuous it sounds on the surface. Kids differ too much for one rating to fit all. Still, the MPAA in its wisdom does hand out “G” ratings, and if Facing the Giants is potentially offensive to some segment of our society, I wonder what isn’t.

Addendum: No, I do not buy the theory that Sony pleaded for an “R” rating to attract the sort of audience that it’s used to and had to settle for “PG” instead.

Word of the Day: Plergb

Being still on vacation, I shall forgo saying much about Brian Bilbray’s win in Cal-50 (a Pyrrhic victory if it leads Republicans to think that immigration restrictionism is a clever strategy for either the long or the short run) or the madness of Malloch Brown (another cheer for Ambassador Bolton!) or even the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (I await lawsuits by his bereaved widows and children, alleging that the Air Force discovered his whereabouts through illegal wiretaps). Instead, here is a bit of vocabulary expansion, quoted from John Hertz’s non-on-line zine Vanamonde:

“Plergb”, an invention of Tom Digby which, alas, I can’t readily cite, is a word one can define however one likes (custom requiring that one give the definition). In his absence we see it less, but still now and then. After a while emerged the Plergb Commission (not its real name) – that expression in parentheses being another old APA-L gag; actually it was the P.L.E.R.G.B.C.O.M.M.I.S.S.I.O.N. = Plergb Language Entropy Regulatory Governing Bureaucratic Commission Overseeing Multiple Managerial Issues Surrounding Singular Instances of Nomenclature. We had a summary of the by-laws: “The word Plergb may be used in many ways, some of which have not been discovered yet.” There was one usage rule, namely, “Plergb” is always capitalized, because it is the name of the word Plergb. There was the Medieval Spelling, “Plyrrhghb”, and the question “Glorb g’dorpt-borpt?”, to which the answer was “Plergb”.

I think that Plergb, in the pejorative sense, is an apt term for the press reaction to news that Zarqawi didn’t die until after Iraqi and American troops entered his hideout following the fatal air strike.

Quote of the Day: Haditha and the Conduct of War

Vacation has limited my blogging time lately, but “‘Lawfare’ Over Haditha” by David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey deserves mention, because it captures the essence of the controversy over the alleged atrocity that currently preoccupies the elite media’s attention:

[T]he advent of modern media coverage – coupled with a growing and valid concern among democracies about humanitarian norms during warfare – has provided a new tactical innovation, increasingly known as “lawfare.” Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents thus routinely claim that American forces systematically violate the laws of war by targeting civilians and abusing prisoners. These claims are not targeted at the Iraqi people (although similar claims regarding insults to Islamic believers are so directed) but at public and, especially, elite opinion in the U.S. and other democracies. With Vietnam as its model, the Iraqi insurgency well understands that it can win only by undermining America's political will to win, and the center of gravity in this conflict lies in Washington, not Baghdad or the Sunni Triangle. . . .

[S]hould the Haditha incident mature into a full-fledged war crimes drama prompting a premature U.S. withdrawal, the damage would not be limited to Iraq. If the U.S. cannot fight and win against a brutal urban insurgency in Iraq today, its ability to defeat any determined foe willing to sacrifice the civilian population in irregular warfare will be in question. This can only benefit the most vicious regimes and movements. The Bush administration’s critics should pause a moment, and reflect on whether this would really be worth it.

They won’t, of course. Too many of them live in a Sesame Street dreamland, where everybody will be nice to us if we’re just nice to them.

Rivkin and Casey make another important point that ought to be of interest to anyone who wishes to reduce the dangers to noncombatants:

These lawfare tactics have several other important consequences. If the Pentagon’s investigation of Haditha was delayed, it was most likely because similar massacre allegations are made virtually every time American forces take to the field.

In other words, fake atrocity claims make it harder to detect and punish real misconduct. That would be a matter of concern to critics whose first priority was civilian welfare. To those whose main desire is to hamper the actions of the “hyperpower”, it no more than “collateral damage”, quite acceptable if the important objective is attained.

How Much Should Iraq Be Punished for Haditha?

As Jed Babbin says, with no risk of contradiction, in “The Haditha Story”,

Propelled by their most irresponsible war critics, the left will try use Haditha as it used My Lai thirty years ago: as a political tool to take apart America's support for the war and to shatter the legitimacy of our cause and the morale of our troops. . . .

No matter how quickly military investigators work, and no matter how firmly any crimes are punished, the anti-war left won't be satisfied unless Haditha becomes the lever that pushes President Bush to admit the war was wrong and set a time to withdraw from Iraq. . . .

[T]he left will use every tool at their disposal to ensure that the Haditha incident becomes synonymous with the entire Iraq war. Abu Ghraib proved a propaganda bonanza for the terrorists and nations such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia that want us to withdraw from Iraq in defeat. Haditha – regardless of what the facts may turn out to be – will be used ceaselessly and purposefully to eliminate American support for the Iraq war and to demonize anyone who still supports it. Haditha will become the Orwellian centerpiece of the Democrats’ claim that they support the troops. “They’ve been there too long,” Murtha and his ilk will cry. “We have to bring them home before they kill more babies.” And then the Dems, feigning concern for our soldiers, will offer them psychological counseling when they return.

Congressman Murtha has been busily making the talk show rounds, proclaiming that his inside sources have already convicted Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, First Marines, and that the only remaining issue is who “covered up” the atrocity. Where American soldiers are involved, this one-time Marine (who ever could question his patriotism?) has no patience with presumptions of innocence, hearing the accused’s side of the story or any of that other due process folderol.

It’s quite possible that Kilo Company did kill civilians in violation of the laws of war. The United States, unlike our enemies in Iraq, regards that as a crime and punishes crimes committed by our own troops.

On the other hand, if we can credit CNN reporter Arwa Damon, massacre would be out of character for these men:

I know the Marines that were operating in western al Anbar, from Husayba all the way to Haditha. I went on countless operations in 2005 up and down the Euphrates River Valley. I was pinned on rooftops with them in Ubeydi for hours taking incoming fire, and I’ve seen them not fire a shot back because they did not have positive identification on a target.

I saw their horror when they thought that they finally had identified their target, fired a tank round that went through a wall and into a house filled with civilians. They then rushed to help the wounded – remarkably no one was killed.

I was with them in Husayba as they went house to house in an area where insurgents would booby-trap doors, or lie in wait behind closed doors with an AK-47, basically on suicide missions, just waiting for the Marines to come through and open fire. There were civilians in the city as well, and the Marines were always keenly aware of that fact. How they didn’t fire at shadows, not knowing what was waiting in each house, I don’t know. But they didn’t.

She was in Haditha, too, not long before the alleged killings.

Haditha was full of IEDs. It seemed they were everywhere, like a minefield. In fact, the number of times that we were told that we were standing right on top of an IED minutes before it was found turned into a dark joke between my CNN team and me.

Did the pressure of obeying Marquis of Queensbury rules while fighting terrorists who daily murder more civilians than the 24 who are supposed to have died at the hands of Kilo Company finally snap the men’s self-discipline? Or will we eventually learn that the targets of their rage were not entirely innocent. As 1st Lt. Jeffrey Barnett, currently serving in the theater, writes, the facts on the ground are not always as unambiguous as they seem in a stateside television studio:

While I cannot speak intelligently on the Haditha incident, I do think I can comment on possible causes of these types of tragic events: a frustration most can’t understand. I don’t condone any use of force outside our directed rules of engagement and escalation of force procedures. However, I can understand why violations of the ROE happen, however unjustified they may be.

Examine the following hypothetical example: During a vehicular patrol, you drive though a small neighborhood of four houses around 0800. Everything is kosher. Women are making breakfast, children are playing, and men are talking to each other near the road. You drive through the same area two hours later at 1000 and things are vastly different. Nobody is outside. As the second vehicle in the patrol rounds a corner just past the four houses it is hit by an IED. . . .

What changed? For whatever reason either that IED wasn’t present on your first trip through or it wasn’t detonated. Whether it happened between 0800 and 1000 or late one night last week, you can’t dig a hole in front of someone’s house and plant an IED without them noticing at some point during their daily routine. The people around know something, and it’s evidenced by the fact they were conveniently inside to avoid the explosion. However, they didn’t outwardly aggress on you, and you don’t have a clear target, so you can’t retaliate. Repeat this sequence of events a few times over the course of 6–7 months of combat. . . .

This is the unfortunate reality that Marines on the ground live with everyday—a population of Iraqis sometimes either indifferent to the attacks or scared into passive approval by insurgents that might easily turn their aggression on the Iraqi citizens [who] assist us. . . .

When does passive approval become active aggression? If someone knows about an IED and they aren’t outside trying to flag us down before we hit it, how responsible are they for its results? What are they guilty of if they know who murdered our comrades and don’t tell us when directly questioned? How do you discern the true insurgent sympathizers from the poor farmer that fears for his life if he helps us? Does that poor farmer’s fear excuse his inaction? All these questions lack definite answers.

As Lt. Barnett observes, the lack of answers doesn’t excuse deviation from the rules of engagement. There must be “positive identification of someone as a threat before we can levy kinetic fires against them”. If not, regardless of the circumstances, military justice will punish the American soldier, not the Iraqi who, out of malice or fear, did nothing to prevent avoidable American deaths. No other army in history has maintained that standard of conduct in wartime.

If that army leaves Iraq while the terrorists remain unsubdued, who will suffer? Will al-Qa’eda and the Ba’athist diehards peacefully accept democratic government? Will they begin to observe the laws of war, taking care to attack only persons positively identified as threats? And will those Iraqis who reject the terrorists – the vast majority, as three elections have proven – conduct counterinsurgency operations with more restraint than the Marines who “didn’t fire at shadows” and rushed to help civilians wounded by their accidental fire?

To use Haditha as an argument for withdrawal from Iraq is to argue that the Iraqi people deserve to be punished, through a longer, more brutal conflict, for the crimes of a handful of Americans. That doesn’t seem to rest heavily on John Murtha’s conscience, but one may hope that others of his ideology and party have not abandoned decency so utterly.