The Radicalized Left

David Horowitz was a committed propagandist for the far left in his early years. He learned all of the propaganda techniques of the new think style of writing. After watching a few murders, he realized that his approach was doing more harm than good, and switched sides.

People who switch sides can provide very interesting insights.

Since leaving the far left, Horowitz has dedicated himself to showing how the far left manipulates debates.

The downside to Horowitiz's writing is that he often uses some of the propaganda techniques he learned as a leftist in his attempts to argue against the far left.

A reactionary often bears an imprint of what he is reacting against. Horowitz does a great job discussing methods of radical propaganda, but is not as strong in helping us find a way out of the cycle of radical and reactionary thinking.

Horowitz's new work, Party of Defeat provides a nice compact compilation of efforts taken by the left to undermine the US war effort.

Anyway, with this book as a reference, I now feel that I can express why I opposed the invasion of Iraq.

The radicalization of Islam is simply one notch in a long string of radicalized ideologies that include things from Stalinists, Fascists and Nazis.

The problem the world faces is not simply radical Islam. The major problem the US faces is that a very large portion of the American professoriat and the US media learned these radicalization techniques as youth and are still enamored with the visions of the Marx. This is not surprising. It is what people learned in their youth.

The danger Bush faced by expanding the war to Iraq was that the radical left would behave as they did. Al Qaeda was negotiating with Hussein for WMDs. Unfortunately, we needed to wait until Al Qaeda took out a city or two before we could act. Otherwise the professoriat and radicalized left in this nation would turn on the United States, as history now show they did.

In the years following the war, the radical left has been able to completely take over the Democratic Party. The Republicans has been marginalized both as an political force and intellectual force.

We are now in a worse strategic situation than we would have been if Bush took a more subtle approach to the problem. I really wish that he had concentrated on the bribes taken by UN members in the Oil for Food program. It is hard to miss $30 billion in bribes. Also it was obvious that members of Kofi Anan's immediate family was living well beyond their means.

But, of course, we can't change history.

The Troop Surge was one of the most brilliant and gutsy moves ever supported by a US president.

This blow by blow account of the way the left manufactured the current climate of dissent is fascinating. In the off chance that the United States is still around 50 years from now, I think historians will assess the Democratic Party, and the legions of brownshirt bloggers that have dedicated themselves to the destruction of the West among the great villains of history.

END NOTE: The reason that some hundred thousand people have been killed after the Iraq invasion is that there are people who believe that killing large numbers of people is the path to power. This belief has been fostered by radicals on the left in a grab for power both in the US and abroad. Bush was wrong for trying to do the Saddam Hussein regime change in the current rational climate. Yet, the blame for the deaths has to lie with Bush, the intellectual community that created the belief that killing large numbers of people is the path to power. Above all, it belongs with the terrorists who actually partook in the killing.

We don't have a Democratic Party with clean hands and a Republican Party with blood stained hands. We have a world infected with radical elements that are adept at raising political issues into intractable dichotomies that rip society apart and lets the rogues of the world ascend to power.

What is the Purpose of News?

The Newshour had an interesting bit on news coverage of Iraq.

Apparently what precipitated the report was that the official US casualty numbers for the war passed the 4000 corpse milestone. The deatheaters on the left were all geared for using the milestone in a barrage of Bush-Whacking articles, but as leftist journalist sat down to spin the milestone, there was a realization that they had lost the context for their attacks. We crossed the milestone in a time when deaths were decreasing and Iraqis were starting to feel more secure.

People who already hate Bush with every fiber of their being could take glee on learning of the important death milestone. They were able to make little hate pictures and feel self righteousness. There were all sorts of bloggers out celebrating the achievement of an important death milestone.

But, as it stands, the deatheaters celebrating the milestone already hate Bush with every fiber of their being. Celebrating the milestone might re-inforce one's hatred of Bush, but won't move the all important polls.

Even worse. Instead of being able to use the milestone in Bush attacks, the media seems to have found itself drawn into a debate about why it dramatically decreased coverage of Iraq when the troop surge was showing signs of success.

The Newshour report included some interesting squirming by folks like Marjorie Miller. Ms. Miller is one of the propagandist for the "So Called Los Angeles Times." Ms Miller seems to still be stuck in the vortex of the heady "Patreaus-Betrayed-Us Days" when leftwing propagandist thought prefixing "Troop Surge" with the snarl word "so called" would be sufficient to make the surge fail. She was pretty pathetic.


Mark Jurkowitz spat out an absurdist spin saying that journalists writing reports is a cost center. Because it is a cost center, you only write when you have something partisan to say. His view is absurd because journalism is not simply a cost center. It really is an investment. The newspapers sunk their investment money in positioning people to get the sensational news. Gathering up human interest stories and everyday news on improvements in Iraq would actually increase profits from the investment.

The most interesting commentary came from Greg Mitchell who was livid about the drop in coverage. Mr. Mitchell feels that there are all sorts of things that the media should have reported during the coverage gap that happened between the Patreaus Report and the 4000 death milestone.

Unfortunately, no-one in the debate really came out and said directly what the real problem is. Our real problem is that the press (left and right) is pre-occupied with with the partisan effects of their reports and have stopped reporting the news.

This thing where our newsagencies seem more interested in the partisan effect of the news rather than on the quality of the reporting and open discourse seems to be making each stage of the war worse than it should be.

First off, if we had better discourse in 2003, before the invasion, we might have realized that invading Iraq was not the next best step in the struggle against radical Islam. We might have realized that we needed more investment of troops to secure the country after the invasion.

Of course, it is not simply the actions of the people in news. I think our whole intellectual establishment has fallen into a partisan mode. I agree with Horowitz aht many of or problems are the result of lefist orthodoxy taking root in the schools. But the hetrodoxy that Horowitz advocates seems to be failing as well.

The rightwing media failed to report on the failings of the Iraq invasion until we were on the brink of catastrophic failure. The leftwing media failed to report on any successes for fear it might harm the partisan gains of the 2006 election.

The really sad result of the partisan reporting is that our 2008 election seems will produce an election with candidates with entrenched positions on Iraq, when what we really need is a president who will look at the situation as it exists in 2009 and who will concentrate on finding ways to extract ourselves from past mistakes with a minimal amount of damage to the Iraqis.

The Argument Fails in Both Directions

In the build up to the Patreus Report, terrorists in Iraq killed a large number of people in hopes of influencing the reaction to the report. I argued that the left would make a mistake if they cited the spike in casualties in their arguments for ending the war.

For that matter, I noticed that most Democrats recognized the trap and avoided citing the atrocities despite the fact the spike supported their case. I applaud those who showed sense and restraint.

When you push radical theory to its natural conclusion, killing people is nothing more than a statement in a propaganda war.

Predictably, there's been a slight drop off in casualty statistics after the report. I've heard several conservative pundits trying to say that this drop off in casualties is proof that the surge is working. This is also a mistake. If one ignores the spike, the baseline of unrest is still high.

The casualty spike occurred to influence the Patreus report. Using the down end of the spike to argue the surge worked is as much a fallacy as it was to argue the up end of the spike prived the surge worked.

All the spike tells us is that terrorists have bought into the world view that sees killing large numbers of people as a political statement in a class struggle.

It is this world view that is the enemy.

The Propaganda Front

The Democratic Congress did a great job yesterday showing how they would solve the problems in the Middle East. The method is simple: You schmooze up to and praise all enemies of the United States and condemn our allies. The example of condemning allies is the resolution to condemn Turkey for a genocide that took place a century ago under a radically different government.

There is nothing special about the US Congress that makes it the authoritative source for international moral definitions. Any act where one political body in one country tosses a label at another is, by definition, a political act.

The world needs to recognize the Armenian genocide as genocide, but the arena of politics is not the right forum. History is the proper forum for debating actions of a century ago. Political bodies should restrict their use of such labels specifically to efforts to stop mass murder. Ironically, in the same news program where Progressive Democrate Tom Lantos beamed about his resolution to condemn Modern Turkey for a genocide committed by their ancestors, the progressive democrat Jimmy Carter carefully split hairs to forgive the Sudanese of the genocide in their little corner of the world.

The genocide in Sudan is sadly like the genocide in Rwanda in that the UN and Western powers sat idly by waffling on definitions and completed failed in efforts to save lives.

The tossing about of labels by political bodies always will be seen within a political context. It is the ultimate in absurdity to think that the progressives really are in tune with some universal truth that the mass murders in Turkey are genocide while the mass murders in Sudan are not.

The roots of modern progressivism is relativism. A relativist rejects the existence of universal definitions. From the vantage point of moral relativism that is intrinsic in leftist thought, then this decision to condemn Modern Turkey for crimes against humanity committed by the Ottoman Turks is a blatant effort to harm the alliance between the US and modern Turkey.

As Congress was not meant to be the institution to define terms, it should stick to resolutions that positively affect the world.

Contrary to what Tom Lantos may think, the current government in Turkey has very little influence on the Ottoman Turks of a 100 years ago. This is not because the current leaders in Turkey are bad people. It is because time is linear.

There is some legitimacy to Carter's hesitancy to officially use the word genocide in diplomatic efforts in Sudan. Alienating a group can lead to atrocities, just as failures to notice the atrocity can lead to atrocity.

We must be careful in dishing out labels. In most cases, the assigning of political labels have unintended negative effects.

One label that is in the news is "Islamo-fascism." I can see some merit to the use of this term. Fascism was an ideology that emerged in the Western Christian world. The western roots of the name clearly implies that the problem is not Islam, but with the radicalization of Islam.

I think that moderate Islamic intellectuals might gain traction if they started emphasizing that Radical Islam is partially a product of the western influences.

Like the National Socialist Party in Germany, the National Socialism in Italy (fascism) was a refinement of communism. In my reading of post colonial history in the Middle East, I find that the communist family of thought has played a dominant role in Islamic intellectual theories. Many of the early thinkers of radical Islam studied revolutionary techniques in the West. Satre and Camus were big players in Algeria hoping to transform the Islamic world into a Communist style state. The Nazis were very active in Iran, to the point that the Iranian army still does the goose step. Saddam Hussein was an avid follower of Stalin. His secret service was trained by the East Germans.

If the Islamic world understood that the disease that currently affects their culture is similar to the one that affected the West in the 20th century, then we might be able to find ways to move beyond the hatred.

I see merit in this term "Islamo-fascism" as it adequately states that the problem is not with Islam, but with a bastardization of Islam. The west suffered under a similar bastardization of ideology.

Of course, I can also see why the left has a problem with the term. This term openly says that radical Islam shares the same intellectual roots as the modern progressives. The modern left uses the same propaganda techniques to support the public school monopoly in education and for arguing for universal health care that the Islamo-fascists use in arguing for Islamic domination of the West.

I suspect that this label "Islamo-fascism" will fail because the left has a stake in seeing it fail. The left is doing a great job is trying to get the term associated with xenophobia. The left made big inroads on this effort by pushing out fake flyers which portrayed the term as hate speech.

The left has hegemony in education, so I suspect that this upcoming Islamofascism Awareness Week will backfire on the right. The term sounds far too much like a jingo for my taste. I will stick with using "Radical Islam."

Regardless, Tom Lantos and Nancy Pelosi can be commended by fellow progressives for driving a wedge between the US and one of our few remaining allies.

Democracy Starts from the Bottom Up

It is possible that George W Bush learned something during the troop surge, and his last visit to Iraq. That something is that Democracy starts from the bottom up.

As far as I can tell, Bush's post war strategy went little beyond the idea that Iraq would have an election, after which we would then provide services to the wonderful people in a wonderful centralized, but elected government.

That central government, of course, proved to do little more beyond reflect the deep divides that Saddam Hussein used to maintain his dictatorial control. The government has proven itself largely ineffective.

The troop surge has our military working more directly with the people. This working with the people resonates in a better way than the top down approach.

The surge highlights a potential path to a free Iraq. If the surge provides a sufficient drop in violence so that NGOs could move in to work with the people, the country could see itsself on the way to recovery.

Unfortunately, so many powerful forces around the world now have a vested interest in defeat (such as the Democratic Party) that such process only have a slim possibility of success. That is unless someone can figure out a way to bring these disenfranchised groups on board to a real nation rebuilding effort.

A Democratic candidate probably would do well if they took the tact that they wound simply start the relations with the mideast at the point where Bush leaves off, and they they would concentrate primarily on ground up reconstruction efforts and can the idea that top down military coups bring peace.

I don't think that this could really happen. First of all, I don't think the Democrats are any better at building from the ground up than Republicans. The power structure of the Democratic party sees the people as something that you buy off, and not something you build up. The very fact that the left is fully committed to socialized medicine is a case in point. Socialized medicine doesn't build people up, it just transfers greater power to the center by buying people off.

The Anbar trip may have reminded Bush of something that he had forgotten. Democracy is about the people and it is about building a society from the bottom up. The top down structure falls when it does not have a firm foundation with the people.

On an end note, I thought I would highlight a really cool presentation by the Multinational Forces that show the Iraqi Provinces.

WMDs on the Path to Power

Al Quaeda hit their target. The death toll in Iraq for the month was 1773 (mostly civilian as they are the easiest to kill). This will be good news for the left as it will make for some beautiful Bush bashing material. It might even be enough to finally to provoke the US into surrendering.

Interestingly, Al Qaeada had to resort to detonating WMDs in Yazidi communities to make their death target. It is ironic that a war started over the threat of WMDs would be lost because the WMDs are finally in play.

The 1773 casualties is horrible and unacceptable. The numbers, however, aren't really that outlandlish. This Report tells us to expect around 500 driving fatalities this Labor Day Weekend, and 3500 in September.

When you look at the history of thuggery and war, the fact that Al Qaeda has been able to effectively destroy the US with so few murders stands out as amazing.

The fact that so many Americans are hip on handing a nation over to its most brutal thugs simply because those brutal thugs were able to hit a death quota for August is quite absurd. Albeit, the opening for this absurdity was created because GW Bush cut corners on diplomatic efforts so that he could finish his daddy's war.

Bush really put us in an absurd and chaotic situation.

Absurdity and chaos are part of life.

I hope that the left is wise enough to realize that emphasizing the death toll plays into the hands of the worst elements of society. It is absurd for us to deliver a country into the hands of Al Qaeda or Iran simply because they are willing to kill large numbers of civilians.

The fact that the terrorists reached their death quota for August should not be a rallying cry of the left. For that matter, I believe that if the left plays up the death toll at this point in the debate, they will drive people back to the radical right.

I've been in a state of dispair since the day that Bush decided to invade Iraq. He had won the diplomatic effort. Diplomatic wins are so scarce that they should not be squandered. The troop surge worked put us into a place where we really can talk about the future of Iraq. The American public has realized that Bush style militarism is a recipe for disaster. I hope that the upcoming debate moves beyond the current left/right political squabbling about how to best capitalize on defeat, and turns the pressing issue of what is best for the Iraqis.

Both the US and Iraqi governments are broken at the moment.

Just as our nations is focussed on the 2008 elections, I think the best hope for Iraq is to get the country focussed on their January 2009 elections. Perhaps the best approach from this point is to commit to providing security through the 2009 elections with a complete troop withdrawl planned after the inauguration of the next Iraqi government.

It is a scary time. We saw Yazidi villages wiped out with the first WMD attack since 9/11. If the shrill left/right debate continues to dominate discourse about the region we probably will start seeing an escalation in the WMD usage the war was supposed to prevent.

Salt Lake Muslim Festival

This sounds interesting: There will be a Salt Lake American Muslim Festival SLAM at Washington Square (This is the plaza a the downtown Salt Lake Library.

The festival will include: Vietnamese Dragon Dance, Kenshin Taiko Drummers, Phillipine, Peruvian, and Tongan Dancers, Easter Arts Central Asian Dances, Rinceori Irish Dancers, Chinese Dances by Fay Fay Ye, and Bien Flamenco, Sol de Jalisco Mariachi Band, Ahiska Turks Cultural Dances, Sister Maryam and Jose Bonilla Songs, Native American Indian Performance, Baptist Gospel Singer, and the Salt Lake Saints Jazz Band. The festival also includes speeches by Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon and Dr. Alice Rothchild of the Jewish Voice for Peace.

I am happy that such celebrations take place. I love to learn about different cultures. I could not help but note that only one of the acts in the line up is from the Middle East.

I highlighted the Turkish Dancers as they seem to be the closest to the Middle East of any of the acts. I could not find a web site for the group. Several web sites attribute this dance to the dancers. If you watch the video, you might want to translate the message from user mazinia which explains the dance. Errr, I don't think it is really a good example of the heart and soul of Islam.

In some ways I suspect that this very SLAM festival highlights the greatest fear of the Muslim world: marginalization. The fear is that multiculturalism will reduce all cultures to a circus act for a University professor's amusement.

Multiculturalism is culture that assumes all other cultures are a subordinate part of itself.

[***]I suspect that most of the people attending this event will be left leaning. It will include the small portion of the left that hold the viewpoint that they are united with the Islamic world against the people's enemy: George W. Bush.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

In actuality, I think things are more complex. This war on terrorism is largely about the Islamic World's rejecting the multiculturalism being forced on them by the west. Both the blowing up of the Buddhas of Bamyan and the World Trade Center were about rejecting multiculturalism. Conversely, our reactionary wars are about breaking the stranglehold of monolithic belief system in the middle east. From one perspective, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are about bringing multiculturism to the region.

Anyway, it sounds like the festival will be a fun event worth attending. The machine which cranks out this stream of festivals is getting more professional with each passing year. Yet I can't help but I sympathize with those who find the process of reducing a culture to an act on a multiring circus to be somewhat marginalizing.

[***] I changed this sentence. A commentor thought I said that 90% of the left believed that they were allied with Islam against Bush. What I wanted to say was that I suspect that 90% of the people who attend the festival will be left leaning. And that there are some people who see themselves as allied with Islam against Bush.

The Key is the Election

I thought I would re-iterate a previous post.

It is widely acknowledged that the new Iraqi government is a failure.

Most government initiatives fail. For that matter most of the governments in history really should be chalked up as failures.

The whole point of the Republican form of government is that it is possible to get rid of failed governments.

Our focus in Iraq from this point forward should be to get the country to the next election. Our efforts should concentrate on assuring that the second election is clean.

The next election should include a referendum on whether or not the US retains troops in the country. The decisions we make should include formalized polling from the Iraqi people.

It is the second election that matters most. IMHO, When Bush committed our nation to the war in Iraq, he committed the country to doing everything we can to get to the second election.

In other words, the time table for US withdrawal from Iraq should be based on Iraq election cycles. Our decision to stay or leave the area should include input from the Iraqi people.

I think Bush was correct to stave off early demands for a time table. The earlier time tables would have us pulling out before the second election. Bush's troop surge was a success because it got us over the midterm slump that occurs when people realize that their elected officials are really just a bunch of self serving, ineffective cads.

The second election is in January 2009. It falls between the 2008 US election and inauguration. Having a referendum and new government in Iraq means that the next US president will be dealing with a new government. The new president would also have direct input from the election.

If President Bush was wise, he would start directing our attention to the next Iraqi election. If the presidential candidates were wise, they would state openly that their Iraqi policies would be driven from the input of the January 2009 elections.

The Answer to Political Failure

About a week ago, I listened to an impassioned speach by Hillary Rodham Clinton in which she declared that the US soldiers won in Iraq (applauding the troops), but that it was the Iraq government that failed.

Hence we should leave, and leave now.

The speech has been resonating in my mind.

The classical liberalism tradition has an interesting solution for failed a government. It is called an election.

When you really get down to the brass tacks of democracy, the real value of democracy is not that democracy gives people the best possible government. The real value of Democracy is that it gives a people a chance to recover from failure.

In some ways it is fortunate that the government of Nouri al Maliki is seen as ineffective and weak. The most common way for Democracies to fail is that the first government is too strong. The leaders then refuse to leave.

The most critical election in a new democracy is not the first election, but the second and third elections. The real challenge of democratic nation building is in establishing the precedent of peaceful transfer of power.

When Bush chose to invade Iraq, he was committing our nation on a decade long struggle to get Iraq to its second election.

Unfortunately, the Iraq National Assembly has an absurdly long 4 year term. Which means the next election isn't until January 2009!

Anyway the question on the table is what to do after this troop surge. My answer is that we have to have a single minded focus on getting to the second election. The Iraqi election cycle should be our time table for withdrawing the troops.

In some ways it is fortunate for the next US president that the Iraqi election is coming right after the US election. A wise candidate for the US presidency would work this fact. A wise politician wouldn't base their Iraq policy on the large number of failures of the Bush Administration. A wise politician would base Iraq policy on whatever opinions get expressed by the Iraq election.

Conversely, if Bush were wise, the next step in our military adventurism in Iraq would be a single minded focus on this second Iraqi election. Our primary goal in Iraq should simply be to provide security through the second election. In other words, the Iraqi election cycle should be our time table for withdrawl.

Big T

The Big T Blog says that former Jazz player and current jazz musician Thurl Bailey is visiting Iraq. The only post so far on the trip was dated June 9.

Mr. Bailey could provide us a bird's eye view of events in Iraq. I just hope he realizes that he stands out in a crowd and stays safe.

The first post was just a comic piece about why he and his 7'6" friend chose to fly first class. ;).

HRC, and Bayh Comments on Afghanistan

I spend too much time pointing out bad arguments on the net. All the kneejerk articles that labeled Bush's call for increasing troops and "escalation of war" were just propaganda pieces aimed at increasing division.

I saw part of Hillary Rodham Clinton's comments on the issue. Her arguments were very well reasoned. She countered Bush's demands for increasing troops in Iraq with the argument that Afghanistan is at greater risk. These statements follow a fact finding mission to the midest. This is the type of quality discourse that we need if we are ever to untangle the mess that the last years of political division have created.

Escalation?

Sending more troops to Iraq is not necessarily an escalation. An escalation of war occurs when you move into a new theater of operation. In this regard, the actions taken by Ethiopia in Somalia would be labeled an escalation. We don't know if Bush is escalating the war until we see what he is doing with the troops. Bush's speech indicates that he wants to shore up the control of areas where we already have limited control. This is not technically an escalation.

If our intention are to draw down troops this year, the best way to go about the task is to precede the draw down with a temporary increase in troops. This would allow us to pass control to the Iraqis. Whereas simply removing troops would create a power vacuum that the militias would try to fill. An increase in troops followed by a draw down provides a better opportunity for the legitimate Iraqi forces to fill the vacuum.

Our really big problem is that Bush seems to have lost his credibility. This is a big problem with the Machiavellian-conservative philosophy advocated by Bill O'Reilly, Harvey Mansfield, and other thinkers. To a Machiavellian thinker, the posture and arguments you put before the American people is just a facade.

In 2003, I actually thought that Bush's war posturing against Iraq was part of a legitimate attempt to get Hussein to draw down his WMD stockpiles. For that matter, I suspect that the many of the Congressmen who approved the War in Iraq thought that the war authorization would only kick in when diplomatic efforts proved a failure. Hussein's tact was to stand on the line, leaving us to forever wonder if Bush intended to invade Iraq regardless of the outcome of the diplomatic effort.

Bush is correct in noting that the wise course of action is to precede a draw down with a temporary increase in troops. In such case, a temporary increase in troops is a shrewd move as it would counter efforts of the insurgents to escalate the war as we transferred control to Iraqi forces.

The actions being taken by Bush is technically not an escalation of the war. Bush may well intend to escalate the war. We do not know. This Machiavellian style of leadership is frustrating because the words of a the leader are always misdirections.

Ted Kennedy and friends have been making grand efforts to call the War in Iraq Bush's Vietnam. An analogy with Vietnam might be apropriate as the power vacuum left in the wake of our clumbsy retreat from Vietnam and Cambodia led to one of the worst genocides of the last century. The actions of Bush might be enough to save the Iraqis a similar fate.

Speaking of actual Iraqis, I see that Michelle Malkin is in Iraq. She has pictures of some of the people who be genocided if we simply retreated and left a power vacuum for Al Quaida or Iran to fill. I really wish Bush success in filling that vacuum with legitimate Iraqi forces before we leave, and I hope that Bush is not foolish enough to escalate the war as Democrats claim.

Of Popes and Turkeys

Pope Benedict's Apolistic Journey to Turkey is something of note. I have been listening to Anders podcast on Byzantine rulers, I have also been reading works that fill in the gaps on western history including Stark's The Victory of Reason.

In school, I bought into the line that civilization flourished in Rome. Then Christians took over causing the Dark Ages. Reading past modern progressive propaganda, I've realized that history is more complex than the one dimensional view held by Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.

The first realization was that what we call Ancient Greece was not simply the modern country of Greece. Much of the history of Greece actually happened in Turkey. After the conquest of Alexandria (Aristotle's student), Alexandria Egypt became the intellectual capital of the world.

As Rome deteriorated its imperial corruption, the better part of the Roman Empire moved to Constantanople (modern Istanbul). So, during the Middle Ages, Constantanople was the place to be. What modern scholars call the Byzantine Empire was the remnants of the Roman empire. The people in the empire called themselves Roman, they spoke and learned Greek. The ongoing wars with Persia, the fall of Alexandria and eventual fall of Constantanople made the area disappear from our history books.

From the days of the days of the ancient Greeks to the fall of Constantanople, Turkey was a primary center of world culture.

The modern drama of a secular Turkey joining the European Union is extremely important in world history. Can a country that is 98.9% Islam tolerate the existence of other faiths and join the free world, or will it turn Jihadist and reject the west?

As I understand, one of the primary messages of Pope Benedict is that you cannot separate faith from reason, or reason from faith. I am sympathetic to this argument as I see a great danger in efforts to elevate science to a religion. Conversely, removing reason from faith leads to dictatorial cults like the FLDS. In my opinion, Pope Benedict's visit to Istanbul brings up many of the issues that must be addressed if we are to break from the ongoing religious wars between west and east and develop a world where ideas compete on their merits and not by the sword.

This is Our War

I am at the downtown library again. There was a copy of the work "This Is Our War" by Devin Friedman on the desk. I ended up reading that book rather than working on the project that I had planned. This is a coffee table book with images taken by US soldiers during the first year of the war in Iraq. A large number of soldiers brought digital cameras and this is one of the most photographed and documented wars in history.

The images reminded me of how upset I was during the invasion of 2003. The Shock and Awe campaign that caused so much destruction in the country ripped my heart apart.

It is strange how I tend to be out of sync with the rest of the nation. The Shock and Awe Campaign that shot Bush's approval ratings through the roof, was the low for me. The fact that Bush stayed the course during and after the Iraqi election, and the fact that he is still standing behind the Iraqi government and against the terrorists boosts my approval.

Anyway, I just put this portfolio from the US soldiers on my recommended reading list.

Al Quaida's Victory

al quaida is celebrating its victory in the 2006 US Elections and hopes to have genocides in full swing throughout the world in a few years.

It is interesting how so much of the propaganda generated by radical Islam matches to the propaganda of modern progressives. It is almost as if many of the revolutionary leaders of radical Islam went to school in the west. Oh, wait a second. Many of them did learn their revolutionary thinking in modern leftist schools.

The big similarities that I see in this Yahoo report is that the al qaida propagandists repeat the same attacks on Bush's intelligence that Nancy Pelosi successfully used in her rise to power..

Anyway, while listening to the post 2006 election reports, I am startled by the large number of reporters who accept that a complete withdrawl from Iraq is a done deal.

Changing direction does not necessarily mean surrender. It could mean that we try to find different ways to fight the enemy.

A much smarter idea is to stay in Iraq, but to simply move our troops out of harm's way. Bush's course involved directly engaging terrorists. Chaning course could mean that we leave offensive engaging the enemy to the Iraqis. Our forces would stay in Iraq but would be in well defended places. In other words, we get out of the businesses of trying to protect the Iraqis from themselves. We would only be there to help prevent an invasion from Iran and our forces would really only be in places that we have well defended.

The idea that the 2006 election means we must retreat is very naive.

Lets quickly review the problem: Al quaida and other terrorist groups are willing to kill millions of civilians to take power. This war in Iraq is simply one where terrorists kill civilians by the thousands while we watch in horror and want to get out. If we follow our impulse and set the precedence that we will retreat whenever we encounter a force willing to kill large numbers of people, we will eventually end up surrending the whole world to these forces.

Yes, surrending will stop our newspapers from reporting the killings. It does not stop the actual killings. When we followed John Kerry in a retreat from Vietnam, our press stopped giving us daily reports on the deaths in Vietnam and Cambodia. However, after the retreats, the there was an exponential increase in the killings. Not seeing the killings reported in the paper does not mean they did not happen.

So, lets say we give Iraq to Al Quaida. The terrorists will see that their technique of killing large numbers of innocent civilians is successful. They will then start killing tens of of thousands of people in Afghanistan. Because we can't stand reading about murders, we will follow John Kerry in another retreat and give that country back to the Taliban. Next the terrorists will move on to Saudia Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, etc.. Terrorists will start killing tens of thousands of people in these countries until we retreat. With the Mideast secure, the Arab terrorists will be in the position to practice their mojo in Spain, France and Turkey.

The technique is simple. If you are willing to kill large numbers of people, the west will run, just as the West ran from Rwanda, Sudan, Cambodia, Vietnam and Somalia. Any fool who stands up to the tides of history, as Bush tried, will simply be labeled by the left as an incompetent.

Now, most of the Democrats who won in 2006 are moderates. They are not seeking a Kerry style retreat. The fact that our left leaning press is treating the election as a victory for the left leaning al quaida is really absurd.

The 2006 Democratic victory should be reconized as an opportunity to create a bipartisan policy to support the struggling young democracy in Iraq. The yammering of talking heads who've concluded that we have no option except retreat might create a self fulfilling prophesy.

Can We Kill the Hate Out of The Middle East?

I don't think the strategy will work. I do not believe that we can kill the hate out of the Middle East. There is even a chance that the current spat of killing will increase the amount of hate.

Before the invasion of Lebanon, Isreal was actually starting to receive sympathy from the Islamic world. There was even hope that a Lebanese Government with help of the UN and moderate Arab world would try to muzzle Hizbollah.

Yes, it is highly likely that they would have failed, but the failure of such effort would have given Isreal justification for its own intervention.

Sadly, the innocent must suffer before garnering justification for intervention. It is a sad, sad reality.

We need to win hearts and not just battles.

Perhaps the real failure in the Middle East is simply the believe that Neoconservative methods can be used to spread classical liberal ideals. The very foundations of neoconservativism is so thoroughly at odds with the foundations of a free society that or current efforts at introducing a classical liberal democracy in the Middle East is doomed to create nothing but a muddle of hatred and suffering.

Middle East Wars

I am feeling sad. It is really absurd for us to be letting Isreal drag us into a war with Syra and Iran. I said nine days ago that Isreal was probably right to respond to the Hizbollah tit with a tat.

The tit for tat stategy often works. Had Isreal responded to Hizbollah's rockets with a few barages of missiles then unilaterally stopped, Isreal would have forced Lebanon and the Arab world to bridle in Hizbollah terrorists.

Unfortunately, Isreal has rejected the tit for tat strategy and seems intent on a strategy of gradual escalation. Gradual escalation means world wide war.

The stated goal I keep hearing is that Isreal's goal is to kill all the people who hate Isreal. Unfortunately with each casuality they inflict, they increase the number of people in need of killing. Isreal is going to have to kill between 30 to 100 million people to make any significant dent in the number of people that hate Isreal.

Killing all the people that hate you never works, because the act of killing all of your enemies creates more enemies.

Conversely, the tit for tat strategy works because it points out the world that nasty things being done by Hizbollah.

Unfortunately, the ongoing invasion changes the world's perception of Hizbollah from that of a terrorist group to that of freedom fighters.

If the US and Isreal played the game right, the missile barrages and use of landmines by Hizbollah would come off as bad form. Moderates in the Arab world would turn against Hizbollah ... reducing the number of enemies of Isreal.

Right now, the US is in a dangerous situation where Isreal could escalate a kidnapping into a regional war involving US troops.

While the escalation of the war has me sad. The use of landmines in the war really has me on end.

Imagine how wonderful it would be if the US had signed the landmine ban. If we had, then we would be in a position to condemn Hizbollah for using a banned terrorst weapon.

Unfortunately, since our own Donald Rumsfeld is the world's number one promoter for widespread use of landmines, Hizbollah is able to use landmines with impunity.

I agree with neocons that the US needed to confront radical Islam. Unfortunately we need to do so with some intelligence and tact. Intelligence and tact that Rumsfeld and friends clear lack.

Silly and Sad

Like many, I found myself sitting in my comfortable arm chair trying to decide if Isreal over-reacted to the kidnappings and if they have been using accessive force in responding to the rocket attacks from Hizbollah.

Of course, my idle musing are pure sillyness. The problem is the tens of thousands of rockets given to Hizbollah by Syria and Iran. The real problem is that segments of the Arab world are infected with an "us v. them" ideology that has bear rearing for war. I am certain that the problem cannot be solved through war.

I do understand the neocon view that when you are standing against an ideology set on war, it is better to have the war on your terms ... rather than waiting for a Pearl Harbor to precipitate the war.

The big problem is that war tends to spawn more war. The righteous v. gentile ideology starts the division. The attrocities of war carve the divisions created by our ideologies into the cold stone corners of our hearts.

The real provocation for the current Israeli action was a concerted effort on parts of the Arab world to arm a terrorist group in Southern Lebanon. I see Israel's action as a lunacy. It is reaction to action.

The true path to peace is to support efforts to support ideals of compassion and peace. The skiff between Hizbollah and Israel simply highlights the results of the ideology of division. Hopefully, people in

Arabs for Israel is an interesting site that does not see support of Palestinians and support of Isreal as mutually exclusive.

I think promoting classical liberal ideals is a good path to peace. Such ideals focus on the individual. When you consider Palestinians, Lebaneses and Israelites as individual people, you end up finding more commonalities than differences. The intractible conflicts that occur when you consider them as "peoples" disappear.

In other words, the class of thinkers who divide every one into classes of people are the bad guys. The class of people who see people as individuals are the heroes.

Oh no! By making my analogy, I accidentally included me in the bad guy category.

I guess that is the danger of this silly war game. It is far to easy to blunder from the good guy into the bad guy category.

Martyrs in Heaven Rejoice

The martyrs in heaven rejoice. Zacarias Moussaoui will not be numbered among their ranks. The 32 vestal virgins Moussaoui is supposed to get for being a terrorist will now end up being reassigned to some pimply faced Iraqi suicide bomber. Moussaoui, himself, will get to rot in jail. I suspect that, in his view, this is the worst of the two possible outcomes of the trial.

Martyrs for Freedom

Sheikh Mujbil al-Sheikh Isa, Dhamin Hussein Ileywi and Aziz Ibrahim were Sunni members of the Iraq Constitutional Committee. They were gunned down in an effort by the insurgency to stop the process of forming a government.

Murdering your own people for being engaged in the process is a sign of the poor quality of debate that defines these modern times. I do suspect that future generations will look back at the thugs running the insurgency as evil, misguided people. The hard part, as always, is living through these modern times.

Unfortunately, Bush's war has translated into shrillness in debates. It is easy to imagine the shrillness dominating discourse taking place in the Western World escalating into wide scale violence. The loss of people who are authentically trying to engage in the process is temendously sad.

For that matter, the primary reason why I dislike both the left and right is that the extremes are generally set on preventing discourse.