Stromata Blog

President Washington and Archbishop Tutu

The death of the Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, evoked a response worthy of the passing of a Roman emperor, mutatis mutandis to accommodate a secular age. No incense will be placed on altars for the late clergyman. In lieu of that, he is lauded as “Africa’s moral compass”. It may be that the compass pointed his country toward a dysfunctional future, but, at the high tide of apartheid, the archbishop lived in a dysfunctional present. “Few people believed that apartheid could be ended without bloodshed.” Archbishop Tutu deserves much of the credit for the fact that the old regime gave way peacefully. Whatever South Africa’s troubles today, civil war would have made them worse.

An historical figure who was celebrated to a comparable degree when he died was George Washington, first President of the United States of America and the “indispensable man” in winning its independence. In some important ways, Washington does not parallel Tutu: On the one hand, the “tyranny” of King George and the British Parliament would have impressed any black Soweto resident circa 1980 as an extravaganza of liberty. On the other, Washington set his country on a course that led to the freest, most prosperous and most humane polity in the entire history of the world. Had he never lived, there is a strong likelihood that the very idea that “all men are created equal”, the idea for which Archbishop Tutu struggled, would have remained the exotic and implausible theory of a cadre of philosophes. Indeed, its mutilation at the hands of the French revolutionaries might well have discredited it forever.

Each man also had his darker side. President Washington accepted slavery as a fact of life, owned a large number of slaves and, if he sensed the contradiction between the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the reality of black Americans’ lives, never expressed it. For this lapse, he is now fiercely condemned by “Year Zero progressives”. Statues in his honor are defaced, destroyed or removed from public view. It will be no surprise if a movement soon springs up to rename the nation’s capital and the state that sits at its northwest corner.

Archbishop Tutu, a political and religious progressive (unlike most Christian leaders in Africa), accepted what has become the common progressive opinion of the state of Israel. Although that country is the only place in the Middle East where non-Jews can vote in democratic elections and live under the rule of law, he condemned it as an “apartheid regime”. He blamed the “Jewish lobby” for American support of Israel and championed Palestinian radicals who, wherever they hold power, lionize and subsidize murderers of random Jews and look forward to the advent of a judenrein state. His antisemitism was undisguised. (See “Further Reading” for details.) It was not, in fairness, the racialist antisemitism of a Hitler but a combination of archaic “Christ killer” imagery and unthinking acceptance of progressive orthodoxy.

To the extent that admiring obituarists took any note at all of the Archbishop’s Jew-hatred, they tended to brush it aside. One particularly galling piece claimed that he “identified with Jews”, because he likened apartheid to the Holocaust. If he sincerely believed that, then his accusation that Israel practices apartheid is tantamount to accusing the world’s only Jewish state of mass murder, a strange way of “identifying with Jews”.

We have, then, two men of admirable accomplishments who were not free from fault. According to some, we should evaluate their eligibility for posthumous honors by weighing the faults heavily and the accomplishments lightly, if at all. Progressives who apply that standard demand that Washington be exiled from the Hall of Fame. Consistency might seem to require that they demand the same for Tutu. They don’t, because they regard antisemitism as a venial sin when indulged in by their allies and, moreover, regard most consistency as a foolish hobgoblin. The rest of us, though, might want to ponder whether there are reasons to treat the American statesman and the African cleric differently, along with the broader question of what it means to erect a statue of, or name a town or a park or a street after, an historical figure.

Aside from quotidian concerns – places need designations, and unvaried numbers are boring – honors for the dead serve, I think, two purposes: They remind us of the depth of our history and serve as an incentive to leave footprints, however faint, on the sands of time. Accentuating the negative erases history or turns it into a merry-go-round focused eternally on the opinions of the present moment. It also reinforces the contemporary impulse to treat all opinions one disagrees with as moral failings to be exorcised by persecution rather than argument.

There are occasions for blotting out unmitigated villains. Josef Stalin scattered his name and images all over Russia. His millions of murders more than offset whatever worthy deeds can be found in his record. But the Stalins, Lenins, Hitlers, Maos and their devoted henchmen are exceptional cases. The default position ought to be that anyone once thought deserving of affirmative remembrance is entitled to retain it. Let condemnations be written in history books rather than by vandalizing the public square.

Further Reading: Jeff Dunetz, “What The Media Didn’t Tell You About Bishop Desmond Tutu”
Alan M. Dershowitz, “Should the Late Bishop Tutu Get a Statue?”
Judith Brown, “Desmond Tutu – an honored anti-Semite?”

The Hindmost in Tripoli

For the next several news cycles, I anticipate, we will hear much from the Obami about the virtues of “leading from behind”. It worked in Libya, we’ll be told. Colonel Gadhafi and his brood of vipers are gone, no American blood and little American money have been expended, and who but a carping partisan can complain? The end proves that the means were justified.

Success deserves an accolade, it is true, yet this success is an odd one, for it crowns a strategy that seemed almost to have failure as its objective. Gadhafi would have been gone months ago if the United States had imposed a no-fly zone at the outset of the Libyan uprising, when the regime was in disarray and the insurgents were sweeping through the country almost unopposed. Instead the President waited while Gadhafi assembled a mercenary army, recaptured key cities and reduced his enemies to little more than their Benghazi redoubt. When we intervened at last, it was almost too late. Then, after an initial round of air and missiles strikes, we withdrew from active combat, leaving the burden of fighting on the shoulders of Britain, France, Italy and lesser powers. It’s vastly to their credit that they undertook the task, but their forces were quantitatively and qualitatively barely up to it. Their militaries are now exhausted, their munitions stocks are depleted, and their defense budgets are in disarray.

Just a couple of weeks ago, it looked like European leaders were on the verge of giving up, hinting that compromise between Gadhafi and the rebels might be the best feasible outcome. Had victory been delayed much longer, it is doubtful that it would have come at all.

The Obama Administration insisted on justifying the Libyan war “kinetic military action” as an humanitarian venture. From that point of view, it was a failure, bordering on disaster. Keeping America on a leash minimized the cost to us. To the people of Libya, it meant thousands of unnecessary casualties, hundreds of millions of dollars in destroyed property and lost oil revenue, and a heightened risk that the next act will be civil war rather than a transition to the rule of law.

The effect on our national interests remains to be seen. Nobody pretends to know a lot about the rebels, except that they are a congeries of factions, some apparently pro-Western and democratic, others no friendlier to us than Gadhafi was. There is no sign that the Administration will take any steps to enhance the position of potential friends or thwart the designs of hard-core enemies, and our passive attitude during the war is unlikely to have earned a large stock of good will. If the government that ultimately takes shape in Tripoli is on our side in the War on Terror, the credit will go to good luck.

Happily, luck may run our way. Gadhafi has screamed for over 40 years that America is his Enemy Number One. In Libyan eyes, that’s bound to be a recommendation, notwithstanding that our enmity has of late been somewhat muted. If Libya emerges as our friend, Ronald Reagan will, I think, deserve a large share of the credit.

Libya: What Is Clear

Much may be unclear about the situation in Libya, but this is not: If the United States had announced a no-fly zone in early March, when the rebels held most of the cities and Mad Colonel Gaddhafi was clinging by his fingernails to Tripoli, the old regime would be gone by now. The proof is the recovery that the rebellion managed in the past week, after Tomahawk cruise missiles ravaged Gaddhafi’s air defenses, and NATO planes (mostly U.S.) began striking his military installations and knocking out his tanks. Unhappily, the rebels remain militarily unimpressive, so intervention on their behalf may have come too late to be decisive. The President’s speech this evening looked forward to a stalemate, to be ended by something turning up.

The President defended his dithering with the argument that Bill Clinton dithered months longer before intervening in Bosnia. Indeed, but the thousands of Libyans who have died and will die as the result of Presidential indolence won’t be comforted by the thought that it was possible to do even worse.

Another clear point is that the President had no real idea what he authorized when the intervention began. His statement on March 18th, before he jetted off to Rio, described a highly limited operation: “We will provide the unique capabilities that we can bring to bear to stop the violence against civilians, including enabling our European allies and Arab partners to effectively enforce a no fly zone.” That sounds much like what he now says our future course will be:

Going forward, the lead in enforcing the No Fly Zone and protecting civilians on the ground will transition to our allies and partners, and I am fully confident that our coalition will keep the pressure on Gaddafi’s remaining forces. In that effort, the United States will play a supporting role – including intelligence, logistical support, search and rescue assistance, and capabilities to jam regime communications.

Over the past ten days, the actual American role hasn’t consisted at all of “provid[ing] the unique capabilities that we can bring to bear” to enable others to do the enforcing. Rather, we have done most of the fighting ourselves, starting with the initial Tomahawk barrage, which was touted as “multinational” on the basis of the participation of one British submarine in an otherwise all-U.S. attack.

During the first few days, 85 percent of air sorties were by U.S. aircraft. That figure has now declined to a mere two-thirds. The President himself acknowledged that our forces did far more than lend support with “unique capabilities”:

We struck regime forces approaching Benghazi to save that city and the people within it. We hit Gaddafi’s troops in neighbouring Ajdabiya, allowing the opposition to drive them out. We hit his air defences, which paved the way for a No Fly Zone. We targeted tanks and military assets that had been choking off towns and cities and we cut off much of their source of supply.

One wonders, was the President deliberately misleading the world on March 18th? That’s not inconceivable, but it would have been such a pointless, quickly disproven lie. It seems more likely to me that he gave the green light to Operation Odyssey Dawn without inquiring into what it would involve. He had his own concept, conveyed in his public statements, but it didn’t reach the military commanders. A good thing, too. Had we provided nothing beyond “intelligence, logistical support, search and rescue assistance, and capabilities to jam regime communications”, the force brought to bear against Gaddhafi would have been perhaps a fifth of what was actually deployed. One has to be a super-Micawber to believe that would have been enough to preserve the rebels from disaster.

What has happened is history and can’t be altered. The situation is much worse than it should have been. What’s vital now is avoiding further aggravation. There are a number of ways that matters can deteriorate further:

• Gaddhafi could prevail, regaining control of the whole country, massacring his opponents, and renewing his world-wide terrorism (quiescent since the deposition of Saddam Hussein frightened him, by his own admission, into a less bellicose posture).

• Libya could endure a long, vicious civil war, making a farce of the President’s declared objective of protecting civilians.

• Opportunistic isolationism could infect American conservatism. To some extent, it is spreading already. Right-wingers disgruntled by the Obama Administration’s faltering course haven’t confined themselves to critiquing incompetence. They drag in purported Constitutional scruples that, if indulged, would render America powerless. If you really think that every use of our military must be authorized by Congress in advance, do you accept the corollary that 41 filibustering Senators can stymie action? Whatever the case at the present moment, there’s no general rule that the legislature is a wiser commander-in-chief than the President. If he should one day bomb London, blockade Israel or send Special Forces to help FARC overthrow the government of Colombia, Congress has adequate remedies. There are, too, solid political reasons for Presidents to seek advance approval of major operations, such as the two Gulf Wars. Libya, by contrast, is an example of where quick action was essential. It wasn’t taken, but how would matters have been improved if dithering had been built into the system?

• The only national interest that, in the President’s telling, is at stake in Libya is our humanitarian impulse. He deemed that necessary and sufficient, provided that other nations ratified our moral aperçu. The upshot is a strange contradiction. One the one hand, the President extolled the American exceptionalism that he has so often treated lightly:

  To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.

  And –

  But let us also remember that for generations, we have done the hard work of protecting our own people, as well as millions around the globe. We have done so because we know that our own future is safer and brighter if more of mankind can live with the bright light of freedom and dignity.

  Yet we are apparently not to fulfill “our responsibilities to our fellow human beings” without the approval of other nations. Why not? The reason for constructing coalitions is to fight wars more effectively; they aren’t a transcendental imperative. In the first week of March, American action in Libya might have been backed only by Britain and France, but that would have been all that the circumstances required. Or let us imagine that the demonstrations in Syria bring the Assad regime to the verge of collapse. It’s easy to conceive a situation in which a few hours would make the difference between the deposition or survival of one of our bitterest enemies. Yet the Secretary of State, doubtless reflecting Presidential doctrine, has declared unequivocally that we would not act in such a case without the whole world’s prior consent.

  The contradiction between “America as moral leader” and “America as humble servant” is bound to lead to trouble – and not just because of delays. Not only do some nations “turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries”. They also fantasize atrocities that aren’t there. Already, one of the parties in the Norwegian government has declared that the intervention in Libya should be a precedent for multinational military action against Israel.

I hope that this web untangles soon, but I can’t say that my hope is backed by much confidence.

Libyan Footnotes

1. Some usual suspects, like Ron Paul and Richard Lugar, and some unusual, like Andrew McCarthy, are moaning that President Obama’s intervention in Libya is unconstitutional. The complaint, meritorious or not, seems rather premature. Our forces have yet to fire a shot, and the President’s statement yesterday (see the post below) more than hints that they never will:

We will provide the unique capabilities that we can bring to bear to stop the violence against civilians, including enabling our European allies and Arab partners to effectively enforce a no fly zone. [emphasis added]

But suppose that we do something more forceful than jam Iraqi radar and share satellite photos. If the Constitution requires Congressional authorization of this use of military force, the War Powers Resolution prescribes how the President is to obtain it: He is to notify Congress with 48 hours after initiating action, and fighting can continue for up to 90 days while he waits for Congressional concurrence.

Assuming that the War Powers Resolution is constitutional, the President has yet to take a half-step toward violating its requirements. If it’s unconstitutional, as every President from Richard Nixon through at least George W. Bush (including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) insisted, there’s even less of an issue.

2. Not that legal conundrums seem likely to matter. Yesterday, Qaddhafi’s troops were 30 miles from Benghazi. Today:

Shooting erupted in central Benghazi Saturday morning, and rebel gunmen said they were fighting an advance by Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s forces into the heart of the rebel capital from the university on the southern approaches.

Grad missiles pounded the city and a fighter jet went down in flames in central Benghazi, sending up thick plumes of smoke.

Rebels mounted makeshift street barricades, but the advance of Col Gadhafi’s forces sent many of them fleeing. A reporter witnessed heavy exchanges of gunfire just one kilometer away from the city’s Ouzo hotel.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton will hold an urgent meeting with allied foreign ministers, and President Obama flies to Brazil.

3. A friend who works for a Congressman had dinner last week with Libya’s former ambassador to the U.S., the one who resigned and cast his lot with the rebels. The name of Sayyid Muhammad Idris bin Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi (or at least part of it) came up, the man who was once King of Libya (1951–1983). The ambassador says that the Libyan public despises Idris’s memory – because he didn’t fight hard enough against Gaddhafi’s insurrection. The king’s heir, my friend adds, lives in the U.S. and, while not aspiring to reestablish the monarchy, has declared his support for what he calls “the counter-revolution”.

American Followership

A couple of weeks ago, when rebels held most of Libya, sweeping Mad Colonel Qaddhafi into history’s dustbin would have been a quick and painless process. This regime is, after all, no military powerhouse – it once lost a war against Chad – and it was down to depending on hastily hired mercenaries, unlikely to sell their lives dearly if menaced by a superpower.

At that juncture, according to President Obama, speaking this afternoon, “the United States and the international community moved swiftly” – so swiftly and to such great effect that by yesterday Qaddhafi’s thugs had reoccupied virtually the entire country. As they advanced, the President declared, “We are slowly tightening the noose.” Slowly even in geological time.

Then came yesterday’s abrupt turnaround. The noose will no longer be braided out of paper. With the best will in the world, the decision to go to (sort of) war may have come too late, after the rebels have suffered too many deaths and too much demoralization to carry on against what looks like the “strong horse”. Still, there might be a chance. Western air power can certainly pulverize the Libyan air force, and well-placed strikes might make it possible for the rebels to regain the offensive. In a war like this, between amateur, undependable forces, momentum can shift dizzily. Recall how rapidly the Taliban regime disintegrated in Afghanistan in 2001.

The problem is that the President’s statement made it obvious that he has no interest in shifting momentum or driving Qaddhafi from power. Let’s look at what he said:

Our focus has been clear: protecting innocent civilians within Libya, and holding the Qaddafi regime accountable.

When he was doing nothing, the President declared that Qaddhafi “must go”. Now that he is willing to deploy the armed forces, all that he wants is protection for civilians (those whom Qaddhafi hasn’t already slaughtered) and unspecified “accountability”.

The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Arab states agree that a cease-fire must be implemented immediately. That means all attacks against civilians must stop. Qaddafi must stop his troops from advancing on Benghazi, pull them back from Ajdabiya, Misrata, and Zawiya, and establish water, electricity and gas supplies to all areas. Humanitarian assistance must be allowed to reach the people of Libya.

Suppose that the regime complies. That outcome would be no victory, merely a de facto partition, to be followed, no doubt, by endless, fruitless negotiations. A cease-fire leaves most of Libya’s population, territory and resources in Qaddhafi’s grip, while the rebels sit in an unviable mini-state.

I have directed Secretary Gates and our military to coordinate their planning, and tomorrow Secretary Clinton will travel to Paris for a meeting with our European allies and Arab partners about the enforcement of Resolution 1973.

At the point when hours count – Qaddhafi’s spearheads are reportedly within 30 miles of Benghazi – we will coordinate and hold meetings. Once that’s all done,

We will provide the unique capabilities that we can bring to bear to stop the violence against civilians, including enabling our European allies and Arab partners to effectively enforce a no fly zone.

In plain English, the United States will furnish no combat forces, only our “unique capabilities”, i. e., electronic warfare assets. The actual fighting will be left up to the British, French and possibly Jordanian, Saudi, UAE or Qatari air forces. With all due respect, that amounts to putting in the junior varsity (or, in the case of the Arabs, the third string freshmen). There’s a large gap between American planes and pilots, and everybody else’s. Needless to say, the British and the French are much better than the Libyans; any dogfights will be unchallenging. But in the most difficult phase of the war – the destruction of Libyan air defenses – we need every iota of superiority. President Obama is refusing to do what is necessary and thus runs the risk that Western air power will have a mediocre impact.

[W]e are not going to use force to go beyond a well-defined goal – specifically, the protection of civilians in Libya. In the coming weeks, we will continue to help the Libyan people with humanitarian and economic assistance so that they can fulfill their aspirations peacefully.

Again, ousting Qaddhafi is left off the table, while spending money to prop up the rebel zone is put onto it.

Now, the United States did not seek this outcome. Our decisions have been driven by Qaddafi’s refusal to respect the rights of his people, and the potential for mass murder of innocent civilians. It is not an action that we will pursue alone. Indeed, our British and French allies, and members of the Arab League, have already committed to take a leadership role in the enforcement of this resolution, just as they were instrumental in pursuing it. We are coordinating closely with them. And this is precisely how the international community should work, as more nations bear both the responsibility and the cost of enforcing international law.

And what if those other nations had not taken “a leadership role”? Would “Qaddafi’s refusal to respect the rights of his people, and the potential for mass murder of innocent civilians” have “driven” the Obama Administration to take any action? The implied answer is no. In the President’s eyes, the United States of America is the dutiful servant of “the international community”, a golem that sits quietly in the corner till called upon, then returns quietly to its place afterward.

Leaving aside American pride, American ideals, American exceptionalism and all those vulgar, obsolete notions, one still wonders: If the United States has no right to take the lead against a demented, hostile tyrant, why is it okay for Britain and France to do so? Is there something wrong with America that renders us unfit for any role but follower?

I hope no one asks the President that question. I don’t think I’d like his answer.

Update (3/19/11): For those who read French, Le Figaro has continuing Libyan updates. The latest news is that French Rafale and Mirage fighters attacked pro-Qaddhafi forces near Benghazi a few hours ago, “destroying several tanks”. Less encouragingly, the French foreign minister is quoted as “giving assurances that the goal of the operation is not to overthrow Qaddhafi”.

Mr. Obama, is appears, is not only timid himself but a cause of timidity in others.

Time for Her to Go

At times during 2008, I said that, while I expected Barack Obama to be, at best, a mediocre President, the country would be better off with him in the White House than Hillary Rodham Clinton. At times during 2009, I’ve wavered in that judgement. Now the Secretary of State has convinced me that it was correct and, indeed, that she is unfit for any high office.

The breaking point is a statement she made in Nigeria, a country awash in corruption, nepotism and electoral fraud. After noting those problems, she added,

Our democracy is still evolving. You know we've had all kinds of problems in some of our past elections, as you might remember. In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for president was the governor of the state, so we have our problems, too.

For an audience in a place where stealing an election for one’s brother would be widely regarded as routine, if not commendable, the implication was obvious. If Secretary Clinton didn’t realize that, she is too stupid to hold our nation’s most important diplomatic post. If she did know what she is saying, she is a LaRouchian fantasist.

Either way, the President should fire her now.

“Smart Power” Made Stupid

The slogan “work smarter, not harder” was popular for a time, then was laughed out of cubicles across the land when Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss adopted it. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have never seen a cubicle, of course, so they’re no doubt far enough out of touch to imagine that “being smart” really is a strategy instead of just an aspiration.

The concept behind “smart power” is reliance on cleverness rather than force to overcome or win over one’s adversaries. Similar ideas have often been mooted in the military realm: “We don’t need as many men, tanks and guns, because we can outthink the enemy.” Sometimes that works on the battlefield. The problem is, the enemy is able to think, too, and there’s no guarantee that an otherwise weaker army will be able to negate superior firepower with brilliant tactics.

In diplomacy, counting on unassisted brains is iffier yet. When President Obama or Secretary Clinton lauds “smart power” as a self-sufficient counter to Islamofascism, Red Chinese hegemonism or Russian truculence, he (or she) implicitly claims the ability to consistently outwit Osama bin-Laden, Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin. Well, maybe Barry and Hill are the new Metternich and Bismarck, but how much national security should we bet on that prospect?

In less than two weeks, the new Administration hasn’t had much time to chalk up foreign policy successes or failures. What it has done, however, has suggested its “little gray cells” may need a more robust supplement.

The sheerest and most incredible absence of “smartness” is the President’s failure to keep his party from inserting “Buy American” mandates into the Stagflation Stimulus Bill now pending in Congress. If he didn’t know about those provisions, he was negligent. If he doesn’t care, he is dumb. A trade war with our allies – worse, one that we are bound to lose at considerable cost to both our and our friends’ economies – is about the greatest boon our enemies could ask for.

Another boon is for the President of the United States to echo and reinforce Islamofascist propaganda themes, as Mr. Obama did in his first interview with an Arab language television network. Bad enough was his ignorance of the history of American relations with the Moslem world; there’s no way to be usefully “smart” without a foundation of knowledge. Worse was his casual assertion that America has in the past engaged in a generalized war against, and has tried to “dictate” to, the Islamic world. That is the line that Osama and his ilk have pushed for years. A President who was exerting, rather than just talking about, “smart power” would have used this forum to emphasize the truth: that most of America’s recent wars have supported oppressed Moslems, often against Christian adversaries. He might even, as Jenn Rubin suggests, have announced America’s $20 million donation humanitarian aid in Gaza (not necessarily a great idea, but wouldn’t “smart power” get the maximum mileage out of it?) While truth telling might not penetrate the shield of Moslem paranoia, an American leader’s endorsement of outright lies can only make paranoia stronger.

And how brightly are we dealing with our major international rivals? I would have thought that one element of “smart power” was being smart enough not to speak loudly while carrying only joss sticks. Yet that is what the new Secretary of the Treasury did when he denounced Red China’s monetary policies. We have no carrots or sticks (at least, none that it would be “smart” to use) to encourage Peking to revalue its currency for our benefit. Of course we should pay no attention to the answering yawps from Chinese spokesmen, but the problem with this exchange is that it makes us look impotent and Peking strong at a moment when we ought to be doing all that we subtly can to undermine its prestige.

Doesn’t “smart power” also involve maintaining and expanding alliances? How is that consistent with reports that the Administration is already abandoning the planned European missile defense program? The friendly Polish and Romanian governments, having invested political capital in the project, are hung out to dry, while Tsar Vladimir gains a victory without any expenditure of effort. How “smart” is that?

Still, let’s be fair. If press reports are correct, “smart power” is about to go on the offensive – in Zimbabwe, where the Administration will attempt to oust the deranged tyrant Robert Mugabe without violence (violence by anti-Mugabe forces, that is; violence on the dictator’s side has been endemic for years). I hope that the effort succeeds but note that this is like trying out one’s new basketball strategy against the Dallas Academy girls’ team.

Every sentient being on the planet knows that Mugabe has ruined Zimbabwe. He is widely unpopular within the country, where he has yielded a portion (though what portion is unclear) to the opposition. His survival is not of particular strategic interest to any other country. Getting rid of him is about the easiest task that “smart power” could undertake. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t succeed. If only all the rest of our challenges were that simple.

Quote of the Day

The Wall Street Journal [link probably for subscribers only] on the Archbishop of Bulawayo’s plea for international intervention to oust Zimbabwe’s dictatorship:

Bishop Neube is a brave man to say such things, but he clearly hasn’t been keeping up with foreign-policy fashions. Regime change against dictators who let their people starve is now considered to be unacceptable. That’s the policy of Tony Blair, who just stepped down, and President Bush, who’s a short-timer. Nowadays the habit is to cajole, bribe or beg despots to stop their depredations – whether in Sudan, North Korea, Zimbabwe.

“People in our mission hospitals are dying of malnutrition,” says Bishop Neube. “We had the best education in Africa and now our schools are closing. Most people are earning less than their bus fares. There’s no water or power. Is the world just going to let everything collapse in on us?”

Yes, Archbishop, it probably is.

Rachel Carson’s Victims, R.I.P.

Yesterday I attended my niece Dacey’s college graduation. The commencement speaker was Robert Reich, the left-wing economist who served as Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor and wrote a memoir of the experience that was, he later admitted (unapologetically), partly fictional. (Vide Thomas W. Hazlett, “Planet Reich”.) His exhortations to the graduates were workmanlike. In the spirit of Barack Obama, he warned them that cynicism is the enemy, “cynicism” being the code word du jour for any skepticism about liberal proposals to perfect mankind under the tutelage of a benevolent government.

Well, I’m used to hearing that kind of bloviation at graduation exercises. What irritated me was a preamble lauding the late Rachel Carson on the centenary of her birth. From her Silent Spring, the graduates were told, sprang clean air, clean water and all good environmental deeds.

Miss Carson’s intentions were no doubt benign, and perhaps her book, praised as extravagantly by the mainstream press then as Secretary Reich praises it now, had some beneficial effects. But its primary consequence was the almost complete discontinuance of the use of DDT, still the most effective known anti-mosquito pesticide.

As a direct result of Miss Carson’s good works, malaria, which was dwindling under the impact of DDT by the early 1960’s, is today, according to the Centers for Disease Control,

one of the most severe public health problems worldwide. It is a leading cause of death and disease in many developing countries, where young children and pregnant women are the groups most affected.

At least a million people die of malaria each year, 850,000 of them children under age five, and an incredible 350 to 500 million contract it, suffering symptoms that are often incapacitating. The victims are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, where the World Health Organization advocates DDT spraying to help roll back this pestilence, but the political abhorrence generated by Silent Spring lives on. For much more on this grim topic, see Rachel Was Wrong, a Web site hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

Cultural myths often stand in the way of human progress—in some cases producing devastating consequences. In fact, today millions of people around the world suffer the painful and often deadly effects of malaria because one person sounded a false alarm. That person is Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 best selling book Silent Spring. Many have praised Carson for raising concerns—some legitimate—about problems associated with the overuse of chemicals. Yet her extreme rhetoric generated a culture of fear, resulting in policies have deprived many people access to life-saving chemicals. In particular, many nations curbed the use of the pesticide DDT for malaria control because Carson created unfounded fears about the chemical. As the world commemorates the 100th birthday (May 27, 2007) of the late Rachel Carson, it is time to acknowledge the unintended, adverse effects of Carson’s legacy and find ways to correct them.

Further reading: John Tierney, “Fateful Voice of a Generation Still Drowns Out Real Science”

A Lesson from Prester John

Europeans in the Middle Ages heard tales of a Christian kingdom beyond Egypt, from which sprung fantasies about “Prester John”, a mighty ally-in-the-wings in the long struggle against Moslem aggression. Alas, Prester John never intervened – until now. The story of the brief ascendancy of the Islamofascists in Somalia and their quick collapse at shove of the Ethiopian army carries lessons that have wider application.

Two weeks ago, the Islamic Courts Union, an Islamofascist front with close links to al-Qa’eda, appeared to be firmly in control of most of Somalia. To Western reporters, its seizure of power was evidence that radical Islam, despite a few blots attributable to “hardliners”, can be a benevolent force.

Since a coalition of Islamic courts took control in June by driving out ruthless warlords, residents report huge improvements as public transport has returned, checkpoints have disappeared and food prices have dropped.

However, some hardline elements in the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) have moved to impose rigid Islamic law which has been compared to the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan. Women have been forced into the veil.

In some places, cigarettes and qat, a mild herbal stimulant, have been outlawed. “Sinful” public entertainment, including visiting cinemas, watching football and playing music at weddings, has been banned.

Ah, those quaint “hardline elements”. We wouldn’t like that sort of thing in London, but it’s fine for the Horn of Africa:

This has not deterred people like Mohamud Noor, from London, who has opened an internet cafe in the Somali capital.

“There’s been a great change here. I was out late last night and the streets were busy. No guns, no checkpoints, no fear at all. It felt safer than London,” he said.

And there were benefits even for the purblind Americans:

The Pentagon has established an anti-terror unit up the Red Sea coast in Djibouti to act as a barrier to extremists heading to Africa from Arabia. Now, the ICU, backed by businessmen, has reopened ports, airports and roads, revived the economy and made attempts to stamp out rampant piracy in Somali waters.

Despite this, the West still refuses to deal directly with the courts, although several informal United Nations and diplomatic missions have visited Mogadishu.

There was just one small cloud on this placid horizon:

Forces from the Islamic Courts are locked in a tense stand-off with militia loyal to the weak transitional government based in the bombed-out town of Baidoa, 155 miles northwest of the capital.

Ethiopia, wary of fundamentalist Islam taking root on its doorstep, has sent troops over the border to protect the government and is likely to move swiftly to crush the Islamists if war breaks out.

That portrait was datelined December 16th. War duly broke out within the week. Ethiopia intervened in force, and mufsidun from around the world flocked to support the ICU.

At the start of the fighting, the “Transitional Federal Government”, which Ethiopia was backing, held only its enclave around Baidoa (see map). Reinforcing its hapless militia were several thousand Ethiopian troops. No one has much idea of the exact number – I’ve seen figures from four to 15 thousand. In quality, the Ethiopians are above the African mean but far from first-rate. Their last major war was a draw against Eritrea, and they have made little progress against domestic guerilla movements. In Somalia, they were operating at the end of long supply lines, in terrain unsuited to their small, mostly obsolete armored forces. Expert opinion did not “expect a quick rout”. More likely was “a long, debilitating standoff outside Mogadishu”. Certainly any reader of earlier news stories would have expected the ICU, with popular support and a cadre of experienced mufsidun fighters, to put up determined resistance.

Instead came “a quick rout”. After a desultory opening, the Ethiopians began advancing on the 24th or 25th. By the 26th, the headlines read, “Islamists flee Ethiopian onslaught in Somalia”.

Fighters of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) were pushed out of several strategic towns close to the seat of Somalia’s weak transitional government, which Addis Ababa has sent 4,000 troops to protect. Convoys of technicals – pick-ups fitted with anti-aircraft guns – were speeding south from the frontline towards their power base in Mogadishu, with the Ethiopians giving chase.

Abdikarin Farah, Somalia’s [that is, the TFG’s] ambassador to Ethiopia, said in Addis Ababa: “Ethiopian forces are on their way to Mogadishu. They are about 40 miles away and they could capture it in 48 hours.”

At nightfall on the 27th, the Ethiopians were only 18 miles from Mogadishu, and we were told, “Islamist forces await siege”.

Somalia’s Islamist forces were pushed back to their power base in Mogadishu, the capital, yesterday as the internationally recognised government and its Ethiopian allies vowed to lay siege to the port.

Ethiopian attacks saw town after town fall to pro-government forces on a fifth day of fighting. The soldiers sent by neighbouring Ethiopia to help the weak administration root out extremists in the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) stopped 18 miles short of the city last night. . . .

The last big town before the capital, Jowhar [Giohar], was taken early yesterday after an artillery and rocket assault which forced ICU forces to flee. . . .

The retreating Islamists appeared to be heeding a call by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, their senior leader, for forces to gather in Mogadishu to prepare for a long war.

Analysts say a tactical retreat by the Islamists may draw Ethiopian soldiers further into Somalia and trigger off a lengthy guerrilla campaign.

The ICU has depicted the conflict with Christian-led Ethiopia as a holy war against “crusaders”, tapping into popular anti-Ethiopian sentiment inside Somalia and anti-Western feelings among radical Muslims.

The resolution to fight didn’t last long. The next day’s story: “Islamists abandon Mogadishu to warlords”.

Troops loyal to the Somali government, backed by Ethiopian forces, are on the verge of taking full control of Mogadishu after Islamist fighters abandoned the capital with barely a shot fired.

Government soldiers were patrolling in the heart of the lawless city this morning, and expect to be in complete control by the end of the day. . . .

Yesterday a hard core of gunmen loyal to the Islamic Courts Union fled south to the port city of Kismayo, promising a last stand, which could evolve into a guerrilla campaign.

But the vast majority of Courts militiamen threw off their ragtag uniforms and melted into the city’s warren of pot-holed streets, as pro-government forces rolled in after a lightening advance following six days of fighting across Somalia. Those residents brave enough to venture out greeted the triumphant soldiers with cheers, waving flowers as they marched past.

On New Year’s Day, the “last stand” in Kismayo dissolved: “Somalia’s Islamist forces flee final stronghold.”

Somalia’s once-powerful Islamic forces fled from their last remaining stronghold yesterday as Ethiopia appeared to have completed its mission of crushing the fundamentalist movement.

The remaining 3,000 fighters of the Islamic Courts Union disappeared from the southern port of Kismayo overnight.

Intelligence from Ethiopian spotter planes flying overhead suggested the ultra-loyal rump of the Courts’ gunmen was heading towards the Kenyan border. . . .

The ICU’s swift collapse came as a surprise to many outsiders who believed the Horn of Africa country, which has had no effective government since 1991, was heading for a long and bloody battle between the Islamic forces and the government.

Instead, the movement now appears completely neutralised. However, there is still a high chance its remnants may join forces to begin an Iraq-style insurgency.

A literal “Iraq-style insurgency” would entail almost no damage to the Ethiopian armed forces and a large number of killings of innocent Somali civilians. That breed of insurgency makes a big impression in Washington, D.C., but probably not in Addis Ababa.

There’s a lesson that we should take away from this War on Terror sidebar. Ethiopia did not overwhelm the mufsidun with vastly superior numbers and arms. As the speed of the advance – 450 miles from Baidoa to Kismayo in less than ten days – shows, its troops barely had to fight. The image of a popular, powerful, determined enemy was a Western-made illusion that vanished as soon as someone disbelieved it.

Again and again, from the first days of the war onward, we have endowed our enemies with strengths that they don’t possess and have talked ourselves into timidity in the face of a weakling foe. If Prester John’s example can instill a dram of New Year’s resolution into the West, the hopes of medieval Europe will be belatedly realized.

The Pelosi Doctrine

It’s easy to understand why liberal Democrats favor “soft” American actions in Iraq. They didn’t want to overthrow Saddam Hussein, don’t like the idea of his being succeeded by an American-installed democratic government and see no reason to expend lives and money in pursuit of that goal. Failure and chaos in Iraq would vindicate their objections to an “illegal” and “unnecessary” invasion that Senator Kennedy has likened to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

But what about those instances in which American intervention is legal and necessary? Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal took note of just such a case and how Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi proposes to address it:

She has made Darfur a personal priority, demanding action and, to her credit, joining a recent Congressional delegation to Darfur and Khartoum to meet with [Sudanese] Vice President Ali Taha, who denied there was anything much amiss. Ms. Pelosi described her experiences with obvious sincerity from the House floor last week. Then she offered this: The Administration must appoint a special envoy to Sudan as a way of “[signaling] that bringing peace and stability to Sudan is a priority of the United States”. . . . The job of the special envoy, she says, is to find ways to “stop the violence, bring the people to the negotiating table and get humanitarian relief to the people who need it.”

That was it. Rep. Pelosi wants everybody to sit down and talk. That will, in a way, resolve the crisis: After enough months of talking, the southern Sudanese blacks targeted by government-backed militias will all be dead or driven out of the country.

As the WSJ says, the Congresswoman’s sincerity is obvious, yet she cannot recognize the futility of continuing to negotiate with a regime that has no humanitarian impulses, nor can she bring herself to advocate even the most limited of military measures to avert continued slaughter.

The WSJ editors label this combination of good intentions and inadequate means the “Pelosi Doctrine”:

With the best of intentions, Ms. Pelosi urges Mr. Bush to “do something” about Darfur. But she then refuses to confront the fact that the very international institutions and sometime allies she wants the U.S. to defer to are unable or unwilling to help Mr. Bush do anything at all.

Her “special envoy” is a substitute for the kind of action that might actually make a difference. In the short term, that would mean arming the Darfuris so they can defend themselves. In the long term, it means regime change in Khartoum – which would almost certainly require the use of U.S. military force.

The central weakness of the liberal Democratic approach to foreign policy is not simply the Democrats’ preferences regarding national objectives but their inability to formulate a way, within the constraints imposed by their dislike of American power, to achieve any objective at all.

Lenten Weblog, Day 5: Toward Christian Africa

Yesterday was the feast day of St. Patrick. When he began in mission in the wild realm of Ireland, his enterprise probably seemed futile. As the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography observes,

From the tone of much of the Confession, it can be inferred that one important reason for its composition was that Patrick felt that his mission was misrepresented in Britain. Christians in the late Roman empire did not think in terms of having a missionary duty to take Christianity beyond its frontiers to the ‘barbarians’. Some in Britain (perhaps the educated and aristocratic ecclesiastical hierarchy) were therefore highly dubious about Patrick’s conviction that God had called him to go and preach to their Irish enemies.

Certainly no one anticipated that, within a few generations, pagan Ireland would be a solidly Christian land that would send famous missionaries and teachers to the European continent!

That history sheds light on one of the most remarkable and overlooked religious developments of our time: the tremendous expansion of Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa. As reported in the Daily Telegraph.

If a clergyman’s success is measured by the size of his flock, then Africa’s priests stand to inherit the earth. Their congregations are growing faster than any since the earliest years of Christianity.

The pews of Africa’s churches now hold 390 million worshippers – more than three times the total of 35 years ago. Over the next two decades, Africa’s congregation is likely to grow by another 200 million, causing a huge shift in the character of the Christian faith.

The direction of the shift is indicated by the fact that the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, the leader of what is now the largest member of the Anglican communion, is a staunch traditionalist. That stance makes him persona non grata to modernist clerics. To me it calls to mind how St. Columbanus brought a purified faith from Ireland to Merovingian Gaul.

Though we tend to think of Africa as predominantly Moslem and pagan, Christians in fact are about 53 percent of the Sub-Saharan population (currently estimated at about 730 million). This growth certainly seems providential. The past half century has been a period of catastrophe for the continent, culminating in the AIDS pandemic. On a merely secular level, the propagation of Christian ideals of monogamy and sexual restraint is the best hope for the next generation of Africans. Christian ideals are also potentially, if not always and everywhere actually, a powerful engine for political freedom and economic development. Those secular benefits are not, to be sure, the reasons why Africans turn to Christ, but they will be welcome side effects.

And who knows? Perhaps one day a Columbanus from Africa will spark a spiritual revival in the desiccated, “enlightened” parts of the white Western world.