US MILITARY STRETCHED

The US military is seriously stretched because of Iraq and Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Bosnia. If another serious crisis develops I don't know where the troops would come from. The army and marines are having to constantly redeploy troops to the Middle East as it is. Some say a draft might be reestablished, but I think it would take a horrendous national or international crisis for the American people to accept one.

CHRISTIAN TERRORIST

Eric Rudolph: Olympic bomber, abortion clinic bomber, gay nightclub bomber. He has been labelled a "Christian terrorist" in the past by some in the media. In responding to Christians who have evidently been trying to witness to him since his arrest he said: They have been so nice, I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible. Some Christian.

ABLE DANGER, II

Edward Morissey at The Weekly Standard analyzes some of the problems tracing the movements of Mohammad Atta http://www.weeklystandard.com/default.asp ["Rethinking Prague"]. My problem with the 9/11 Commission Report and the news media in general is that they have ignored or discounted Czech intelligence reports that Mohammad Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague (Czech Republic) in 2001. The assumption is that Czech intelligence erred, which is possible. However, just because Czech intelligence represents a very small country does not mean that we should so readily disregard this information. Czech intelligence, while not the same institution as it was during the cold war, does have the ability and experience to conduct intelligence operations, especially within its own borders.

ABLE DANGER

Mickey Kaus seems to have the appropriate explanation for the "Able Danger" warning about Mohammad Atta http://www.slate.com/id/2124546/?nav=fix that was never passed on to other government agencies in the late Clinton administration. There were actually two Mohammad Atta's and U.S. intelligence was actually tracking the earlier Mohammad Atta. But as he points out, it is still possible the later Mohammad Atta [who flew a plane into the World Trade Center] might have been discovered if the "Able Danger" info had been disseminated to other security agencies.

ANTI-WAR WEB SITE

I discovered a very unusual anti-war web site--it comes from a libertarian political slant so it is not your usual leftist anti-war rhetoric. http://www.antiwar.com It has essays by Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul, but also appears to have contributors more to the left of these men.

I have started to follow the "Able Danger" controversy, but I don't think enough facts are public to be absolutely sure of what was occurring. The web site has an interesting article "9/11 Revision, Revisited. The Mystery of 'Able Danger.'" http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6923 I am not convinced that the evidence supports the author's viewpoint and also it begins to move into conspiracy thinking which gives me some concern.

1996 STATE DEPARTMENT WARNING ON BIN LADEN

The August 17th New York Times has an article detailing the warning on bin Laden issued by the State Department to the Clinton administration in 1996. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/international/asia/17osama.html?ei=5065&en=8abb945bc6bab23d&ex=1124942400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print [if you read it online, you may need to establish a login]

State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam "well beyond the Middle East," but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.

Several former senior officials in the Clinton administration did not return phone calls this week seeking comment on the newly declassified documents.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the declassified material released to his group "says to me that the Clinton administration knew the broad outlines in 1996 of bin Laden's capabilities and his intent, and unfortunately, almost nothing was done about it."

The NYT can hardly be accused of being an anti-Clinton bashing, conservative screed. Furthermore, the State Department is not a bastion of anti-Clinton or conservative sentiment. However, the article again raises the issue (like so many other articles and books of the past few years) that the Clinton administration was not prepared to deal with the rise of Islamic terrorism. In time more declassified documents will emerge -- I don't think future documents will be any more lenient on the Clinton administration on this issue.

EMPLOYMENT MORALE BOOSTER

For the last year or so I have been contemplating all of the corporate downsizing that has been occurring. Thousands of people are dismissed so that a company can grow and become more profitable. However, I keep wondering if all of this will damage the purchasing power of many Americans and end up creating more profit problems for a company. When this trend is combined with the huge bonuses that executives get, often for doing nothing, it is hard for me to see American capitalism as healthy.

Recently I was sent a copy of an email newsletter Whisky and Gunpowder. The newsletter was reacting to a headline: "HP [Hewlett Packard] to Slash Work Force by About 10%" and a comment by Caris & Co. analyst Mark Stahlman: "They've gotten themselves in fighting shape here. It dispels uncertainty, which had been frustrating for some in HP's engineering culture. I think this is going to give a big boost to morale internally."

The newsletter goes on to state:

Enquiring minds might be asking some of the following questions:
1. When was the last time firing 14,500 people boosted morale?
2. Would firing 20,000 have boosted morale even more?
3. Is there a "Laffer Curve" on firing people to boost morale?

Reports like these are bound to be good news for Wal-Mart. . .

LEFT-RIGHT FLIP ON ME INTERVENTION

Christiopher Hitchens is interviewed at http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=12948431

Among the ideas raised in the interview is the issue that Republicans and Democrats would have reversed positions if the presidency were held by a Democrat on 9/11. Many seem to forget how bellicose the Democrats sounded under Clinton (although it was mostly rhetoric with little action) and how anti-internationalist Republicans sounded in the 2000 election. It was Clinton who sent troops into the Balkans against Republican criticism (troops that are still there well beyond Clinton's stated deadline for their removal).

Q - If there was a Democratic president on 9/11, would there have been a difference of opinion in the American left about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?
A - Not from people like Michael Moore (the American film director and strong critic of President Bush), who makes a perfectly good brownshirt [fascist]. Or Noam Chomsky. No, it would not. To them it would have been further proof that the ruling class just has two faces and one party. But I think, in the mainstream of the democratic and Republican parties, you would have seen an exact switch. Richard Holbrooke’s position (Holbrooke was Clinton's UN Ambassador and is a leading Democratic foreign policy thinker) would be Dick Cheney’s position. The ones in the middle would have just done a switch, finding arguments to support or criticize the war. In fact, I remember that people in the Clinton administration spoke of an inevitable confrontation coming with Saddam. They dropped this idea only because it was a Republican president. That is simply disgraceful. It is likewise disgraceful how many Republicans ran as isolationists against [former Vice-President] Al Gore in the 2000 elections. The only people who come out of this whole affair well are an odd fusion of the old left – the small pro regime change left – and some of the people known as neoconservatives who have a commitment to liberal democracy. Many of the neocons have Marxist backgrounds and believe in ideas and principles and have worked with both parties in power.

Columnist Austin Bay also comments on the interview at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3395977/

HILLARY FOR PREZ IN 2008!

Go to http://www.michaelhodges.com/missing.html

MUSIC, FILM, ETC. THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

According to Uncut magazine, the following music, film, etc. changed the world. See the BBC piece at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4747739.stm


1. Bob DylanLike a Rolling Stone
2. Elvis PresleyHeartbreak Hotel
3. The Beatles She Loves You
4. The Rolling Stones(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
5. A Clockwork Orange
6. The Godfather and The Godfather II
7. David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
8. Taxi Driver
9. Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols
10. The Prisoner

TRYING TIMES

I am sometimes sent surveys on the reactions/views/opinions of history or political science professors to a variety of issues. I received one from the folks at Siena College (usually it is a presidential questionnaire) recently noting that “several of our students have expressed the opinion that “they” are living in a very difficult time. With that in mind we thought it would be interesting to find out what the experts think.”

If you are interested please vote.

Please rank the following “TRYING TIMES” in the United States History with “1” being the “MOST TRYING.” If you feel that you cannot rank all eight in order please feel free to rank as many as you can, top 3, 5, etc.]

A. Revolutionary Era

B. Civil War Era

C. World War I Era

D. Depression Era

E. World War II Era

F. Vietnam/Cultural Revolution Era

G. War on Terror Era

I won’t make any comments at this time in case I might influence anyone’s vote. But I have had ongoing discussions/debates/arguments for the last couple of years with several people on this very same issue so I will be interested in the broader responses that should arise. I will also publish the survey results when I receive them.

EURABIA

Read an interesting interview with Bat Ye'or at http://rutherford.org/oldspeak/articles/interview/bat-yeor.html

She has written extensively on how Jews and Christians were treated by Muslims throughout the centuries. Also in this view she is critical of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, for its pro-Palestinian and Islamist political views.

DUTCH POLITICAL CORRECTNESS & RADICAL ISLAM

There was an interesting interview in the July 24th Dallas Morning News of Afshin Elliam who is a Dutch law professor and Muslim (born in Iran). The Mullahs in Iran do not like him because he has been involved with human rights issues. When asked about the contribution of Dutch political correctness to the radical Islamic crisis in the Netherlands, he responded (partial quote):

“Political correctness places our young Muslims in the hands of radical imams. These young Muslims are not used to a sharp debate and, consequently, don’t have the ability to critically reflect on themselves.

In the 1990s, the Dutch political establishment tried by all necessary means to suppress all criticism of multicultural society. The idea was that Islam and the Muslims had to be protected from the dangerous European. As a consequence, no one dared to criticize the far-reaching Islamification of our cities and schools. The Muslims were allowed to co-exist with their own culture—suppressing women, abusing children and practicing religious intolerance and cultural backwardness—as a separate community in Dutch society.

Muslims extremists are also enemies of the majority of Muslim people.”

RELIGIOUS RIGHT

I am drafting a paper on the Religious Right and discovered a book written in 1993, No Longer Exiles, edited by Michael Cromartie and published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center in D.C. It is interesting to see how the predictions of the past have or have not been fulfilled.

George Marsden has a short, excellent historical overview of American attitudes toward politics and religion from colonial times to the end of the 20th century. He argues that from 1896 to 1968 a "secularized consensus" existed. Marsden argues that "as mainline Protestants had blended into the secularized consensus, fundamentalists, conservative Protestants, or explicit "evangelicals" had been forced out." He believes the Religious Right's momentum will ebb. It will be challenged to maintain unity within its constituency. Given the results of the last two elections, his predictions are still waiting to be fulfilled.

Robert Wuthnow [Princeton] discusses the future of the Religious Right. He believes higher education has a "liberalizing" effect on the new generation of fundamentalists and evangelicals. He sees a large "grass-roots" leadership (which I have trouble finding). Wuthnow also credits religious television as playing a major impetus in the growth of the Religious Right.

Robert Booth Fowler [University of Wisconsin] argues that the Religious Right has failed (again this is 1993). He believes the Religious Rights has failed to influence the national bureaucracy; has not played an "agenda-setting" role in Congress (unless one wants to use its alliance with Roman Catholics on abortion as a possible influence); and has been ineffective in forming public opinion.

Corwin Schmidt (Calvin College) has done extensive studies on voting patterns of the Religious Right. His tables indicate the move toward the Republican Party even by 1993. I am not much of a statistical person, but I have come to appreciate his work because it does get people looking at data instead of just giving opinions and reactions.

TERRORISM

Just finished reading a "national bestseller," The Lessons of Terror by Caleb Carr, military historian and novelist. It is a thought-provoking book, which, I think, will upset both liberals and conservatives in different ways. I like his definition of terror (the BBC and CBC seem to have trouble using the word or defining it). Terror is when civilians or non-combatants are indiscriminately attacked. As a result terror could be used to describe Sherman's march to the sea in the civil war or the British naval blockade of Germany in World War I. He sees waging war on civilians as self-defeating (I agree) which only tends to lead to increasing violence, but also to stronger resistance. As we know from World War II, the strategic bombing of civilian targets in World War II only increased the German will to resist. It would appear the U.S. military is doing a better job in both Iraq and Afghanistan of not waging war on civilians. Using his reasoning the violence of Islamic radicals will only turn people against them. For Carr, terrorism is war.

Some items of note:

• During the Clinton administration's eight years, . . ., despite the fact that the natures and purpose of such global terrorist organizations as Al Qaeda were well-known, almost all federal funds requested for antiterrorism efforts were targeted at detective and intelligence work, while preemptive military strikes against terrorist leaders, networks, or bases were ignored.
  
• He believes Rumsfeld is engaged in serious military reforms to bring the military up to the speed needed to fight terrorism. However, some in the military bureaucracy and especially in the Congress are want to keep doing it the old way. Military history shows that the establishment is resistant to change and as a result nations are often caught with an outmoded army or outmoded method of fighting when a war erupts.
  
• He makes some interesting comparisons between terrorism and the problem of piracy in the 17th-19th centuries.
  
• Those who assert that historical guilt should tie the hands of presently civilized nations do no more than peddle a strain of fatuous historical reasoning that has always been pernicioulsy recurrent.
  
• Modern warfare has tended to focus on destruction rather than military victory.
  
• The greaters masters and theorists of guerilla war have understood the need to maintain the loyalty of the civilian population. . .. [Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh] He later notes that Ho Chi Minh never sent agents into America to bring the war home to Americans. If he had, it would have created a US anger and determination that might have led to a much more determined American effort in Vietnam.
  
• Dissolve the CIA--it has created more problems than it has solved.
  
• G.H.W. Bush's 1990 Kuwait strategy: Yet the international coalition had taken so long to array itself against Iraq that Saddam had had more than ample opportunity to hide and relocate much of his most important equipment. Building coalitions takes time and alerts the enemy.
  
• Clarity of war aims is essential.
  
• Reagan's secretary of defense Caspar Windberger's 6 guidelines before sending in US troops: 1) the "engagement" should be "vital to our national interest"; 2) America should have "the ckear intention of winning"; 3) the military and political objectives should be "clearly defined"; 4) those objectives must be "continually reassessed and adjusted"; 5) the undertaking must "have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress"; and 6) military action should be only a "last resort."
  
  

Valerie Plame's Political Contributions

Sometime this weekend in listening to the Rove controversy, someone noted that Valerie Plame donated $1,000 to the Gore 2000 campaign. I found a web site today which indicates this (I assume it is a reliable web site). http://newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Valerie_Plame.php

I don't recall if the 1939 Hatch Act has been changed significantly--as far as my memory serves me government employees may donate to political candidates and parties, but there are rules to prevent supervisors from forcing federal employees to donate to political candidates or parties. However, my concern is that she may have done this through a CIA front organization, Brewster-Jennings & Associates. If this is accurate, I do have a problem with this because it raises the possiblity of political abuse -- government organizations funneling money through dummy corporations. Of course, with CIA front organizations it may be impossible to really find out how much of this kind of thing has happened in the past.

LAKE WOBEGON JOKES

Why can't an Episcoplian play chess? [They can't tell the difference between a Bishop and a Queen.]

Why are Lutheran men expected to make the coffee every morning? [Because HeBrews]

Why can't a nun be a nurse? [Because she can only serve one God]

Adam must have been an Episcopalian. Who else could stand by a naked woman and be tempted by a piece of fruit?

What happens when you play a country song backwards? The husband doesn't cheat on his wife, he stops drinking, and trades in his pick-up for a Prius.

Why are single women thin and married women overweight? A single woman comes home, sees what is in the fridge and goes to bed. A married woman comes home, sees what is in the bed and goes to the refrigerator.

Europe's Angry Muslims

Foreign Affairs has an article by Robert S. Leiken on "Europe's Angry Muslims." http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050701faessay84409/robert-s-leiken/europe-s-angry-muslims.html?mode=print

Among the issues mentioned:

• As a consequence of demography, history, ideology, and policy, western Europe now plays host to often disconsolate Muslim offspring, who are its citizens in name but not culturally or socially. In a fit of absentmindedness, during which its academics discoursed on the obsolescence of the nation-state, western Europe acquired not a colonial empire but something of an internal colony, whose numbers are roughly equivalent to the population of Syria. Many of its members are willing to integrate and try to climb Europe's steep social ladder. But many younger Muslims reject the minority status to which their parents acquiesced. A volatile mix of European nativism and immigrant dissidence challenges what the Danish sociologist Ole Waever calls "societal security," or national cohesion. To make matters worse, the very isolation of these diaspora communities obscures their inner workings, allowing mujahideen to fundraise, prepare, and recruit for jihad with a freedom available in few Muslim countries.

• The uncomfortable truth is that disenfranchisement and radicalization are happening even in countries, such as the Netherlands, that have done much to accommodate Muslim immigrants. Proud of a legendary tolerance of minorities, the Netherlands welcomed tens of thousands of Muslim asylum seekers allegedly escaping persecution. Immigrants availed themselves of generous welfare and housing benefits, an affirmative-action hiring policy, and free language courses. Dutch taxpayers funded Muslim religious schools and mosques, and public television broadcast programs in Moroccan Arabic. Mohammed Bouyeri was collecting unemployment benefits when he murdered van Gogh.

ROVE AFFAIR

Although it is a very convoluted case, it is hard for me to take the Democratic charges against Karl Rove seriously. Even if Rove leaked Valerie Plame's name, I am sure everyone on the Plame/Wilson D.C. social circuit already knew she was an analyst for the CIA. Unless it is really a deep cover, people don't hide the fact that they work for the CIA. If I were a foreign agent, my first priority would be to hit the party circuit and just listen. A foreign agent will pick up more information quicker than waiting for Novak or some other columnist to tell the American public which agency a person is working for.

Even when I have had contact with overseas embassies in Eastern Europe in the communist period, the Americans and embassy staff had a sense of who was CIA. If I knew, I am sure the KGB knew. Moreover, most analysts are not involved in running agents. For me the case becomes more serious if it is proved Plame was running agents and somehow lives or operations were involved.

Britain's Defiant Islam

James Brandon, The Christian Science Monitor, July 14th, has written an article "Britain's Defiant Islam." He covers issues in the British Islamic community that I have not seen discussed on news talk shows. The difficulty is to know the size of this minority, but it does appear to have a greater attraction to the youth rather than the parents.

Among the items he notes:

• "Getting involved in radical Islam is an emotional thing rather than a rational decision," says Abdul-Rahman al-Helbawi, a Muslim prayer leader. "And it's not a matter of intelligence or education - a lot of these radicals in Britain are very well-educated."

• In Dalston market in north-east London on Thursday, "Abdullah," a Muslim watch-mender and evangelist, was in a pugnacious mood. "We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" he said. "We are here to bring civilization to the West. England does not belong to the English people, it belongs to God."

• Hours after the bombings, Helbawi logged onto an Internet chat room run by British Muslim extremists. "They were all congratulating each other on the attacks," he said. "It was crazy. They were talking about how they had won a great victory over the infidels, as if they had just come back from a battle."

• But beyond anger, a sense of alienation often drives radical Islam. Many second- and third-generation immigrants find themselves cut off not only from their parents' cultures but also from a British one that includes alcohol and looser sexual mores. "If you don't drink, it really cuts you off from English society," says Ummul Choudhury, a London-based Middle East analyst for the Gulf Centre for Strategic Studies. "The view of the older generation is also that you do not integrate. If you do, you are told you are betraying your culture and religion."

• "There is also a lot of racism toward white British people," says Ms. Choudhury. "It's not really something that people want to talk about, but there are definitely some things that Muslims say between themselves that they would never say in front of white people."

• One leading analyst of the Islamic diaspora even compares the lure of extremist Islam to 1950s teens listening to Elvis in an attempt to shock their parents. "The son of a Pentecostal preacher in Brixton was recruited by the radical Muslims," says Nadhim Shehadi, acting head of the Middle East program at Chatham House. "This young man initially tried to upset his parents by becoming a rapper," says Shehadi. "But when his parents stopped objecting, he became a jihadi instead."