Wretchard observes:

What we are witnessing is a race between the force-generation capabilities of two sides. Materially speaking, the enemy is bound to lose. Al Qaeda is openly rushing every available fighter into Iraq. But millions of Iraqis Sunnis, Kurds and Shi'ites who have no intention of being resubjugated, fueled by the oil wealth of Iraq can be counted on to resist them, supported by the most deadly military force in the world. On the face of it the enemy cause would be lost. But in the matter of the will to win the outcome becomes more doubtful. Iraq has become the recruiting focus of a generation of Islamists and Leftists while the United States public has won itself enough temporary safety to forget the dangers of September 11. The enemy's hunger -- almost desperation for victory -- stands in symbolic contrast to the desire among many Americans to close Gitmo. The war in Iraq has bought American homeland security in the most unexpected of ways. The enemy has learned to refrain from awakening the US giant, the better to defeat him in his sleep.

A few days ago I asked are we Fighting to win, or just winning the fights?

This much is true: we are winning all the battles. There is no firefight nor engagement that we lose. We kill hundreds of "insurgents" in the streets, round them up at night, destroy their bases, and have proven to be tougher and harder than them. They have the ability to kill but not win. Someone with a rifle willing to die is going to do just that. Someone with training, discipline, and the will to live ultimately will. Fighting for nothing is far less rewarding than fighting for everything. We are, and will continue to do so.

The problem, and one I see growing every day, is that we are not fighting to win. We are now further from 9/11 than V-J day was from Pearl Harbor, and no closer to whatever we are defining as victory. The longer we continue fighting, the more detached we become from why we're fighting. Time is sadly not on our side. Contrary to some more rosy assessments, our inability to remove the Assads and Khomeinis is only strengthening them.

After Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto said he feared all he'd done was wake a sleeping giant. As I wrote:

We must now ask, are there really any other options left? We must force a quick, violent and decisive battle. We must force the rapid change that is happening in Beirut, Cairo, Tehran, and even Riyadh. But I'm afraid it is getting too late, too far past the time when the will and means for a decisive and violent conclusion is present.

And do so before we fall back to sleep, for the next time we're awoken, 9/11 will look like a minor car accident.

I need a hankie because I'm going to cry a river for Jennifer Aniston. Apparently, poor Jen's down in the dumps but fortunately

seasoned scandal-spinners point out, there's a valuable window of opportunity open to Aniston: the chance to flip her image, which has slid from desirable Golden Girl to grim, fragile victim gingerly peeping out from behind her hair on the covers of celeb weeklies.

Let's examine this for a moment. Here's a woman who is worth millions, looks like a model, and was married to Brad Pitt. And what pray tell caused the split? He wanted children and she didn't. So, I'm supposed to feel sorry for the rich, beautiful, and selfish? I don't think so.

I really have to side with Brad Pitt on this one. In fact, this is going to sound crazy, but I actually feel sorry for him. And even more than that, I wouldn't want to trade places with him. He desperately wants children which no amount of fame or fortune can produce.

Poor Jen,

there's a billboard at the end of Jennifer's street promoting the movie.

. But Brad will wake up tomorrow and there will be no cards for him.

There is a lesson in all of this.

Marines rescue tortured hostages as battle rages

ARRAF: What I see in front of me is absolutely heartbreaking. It's two of four hostages who are being taken away, rescued. They were rescued this morning. They're Iraqi, and they were found in this complex that Marines first thought was a car-bomb factory. In fact, they did find what they believe was a potential car bomb or suicide car bomb.

But inside this complex, they found something even more sinister -- four Iraqis who were handcuffed, their hands and feet bound with steel cuffs. They're now being taken away for medical treatment, one being borne away on a stretcher.

The man in intense pain that they're trying to get into a vehicle, has been tortured, he says, and has all the marks of being tortured with electricity. His back is crisscrossed with welts. The other man is even ... in worse shape. Their crime was to be part of the border police.

The Marines came in here this morning, rescued them. The battle is still raging around us. I don't know if you can hear the gunfire, but this is a major offensive to get rid of insurgents and foreign fighters in this city near the Syrian border....

... Two young men say they don't know why they were seized. They say they didn't hear the voices of their captors, only people whispering in their ear that they were going to be killed.

But we have just watched the two who were most badly treated be carried out of here for medical equipment, one of them on a stretcher, an older man who worked for the border police, along with his colleague. ... the Marines showed us the room where he says he was hung by his feet, his head dipped in water and then tortured with electric shocks repeatedly.

One of the other men, the other border police, was too weak, really, to tell us what had happened. But he obviously was in very, very bad shape.

Senator, are we doing these things? Are Gitmo detainees' backs full of welts? Do you think they detainees in Gitmo know why they were seized? Do you know why they were seized?

This is torture, the mindless infliction of pain for the gratuitous satisfaction of one's captors. The more I read what we're doing in Iraq, the more I read what the terrorists are doing, and the more I think of senator Durbin's stupidity, the angrier I get.

We Californians got rid of a governor. Can Illinoians be so daring? We can only hpoe.

It is time for another Vichy-Quisling Award. This one goes to Representaive John Conyers, who "chaired" a session (that) was a mock impeachment inquiry over the Iraq war in the Capitol hill basement.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) banged a large wooden gavel and got the other lawmakers to call him "Mr. Chairman." He liked that so much that he started calling himself "the chairman" and spouted other chairmanly phrases, such as "unanimous consent" and "without objection so ordered." The dress-up game looked realistic enough on C-SPAN, so two dozen more Democrats came downstairs to play along.

The session was a mock impeachment inquiry over the Iraq war. As luck would have it, all four of the witnesses agreed that President Bush lied to the nation and was guilty of high crimes -- and that a British memo on "fixed" intelligence that surfaced last month was the smoking gun equivalent to the Watergate tapes. Conyers was having so much fun that he ignored aides' entreaties to end the session.

"At the next hearing," he told his colleagues, "we could use a little subpoena power." That brought the house down.

Once again, the democratic party is there to save the day, for the terrorists that is. In the middle of conducting a war, the democratic party thinks the greater threat comes the president. This is not too harsh an indictment. How many democrats have condemned this action? How many have risen to say "enough is enough", that the enemy is posting this on their websites and destroying our ability to win the war.

For aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war, for perpetuating the most lunatic of conspiracy theories, for doing all this in the very heart of the Capitol building, the City of Mandelinople hereby confers the fifth Vichy-Quisling Award to Representative John Conyers.

Is there any distinction between public employee unions and the Democratic Party in California anymore? Just asking!

To say that the work of Professor Hanson has had a profound impact on my outlook would certainly be an understatement. Sometimes I fear he's awfully optimistic. Yes, he has far more insight and a much broader perspective than I and however much I would like to see things as he portrays them, I oftentimes find myself playing Thomas to his Jesus. Why?

He writes assuredly of the West's success, that we have faced far worse (true), that we are facing nothing new (true), that we have always been victorious (true), and that nothing today will turn out any different (hopefully). The West will rally, recoup, and defeat the islamofacists.

His curent column The Sorry Bunch: Listen and learn from our enemies carries much the same message. Yet, as he writes the article from a Starbucks in Germany, where as he is

watching a parade of protestors damn the militarism of the United States (a.k.a. "Top Gun") while a nearby TV blared accounts of a recent German mystery on state-run television, whose subtext was that the United States intelligence planned September 11 and blamed it on the poor jihadists.

So there we have a snapshot of 60 years of American efforts to rid Germany of Hitler, pour in Marshall Plan money, keep 300 Soviet divisions out of Germany, and convince skeptical British, French, and Russians to support reunification: In response, welcome in American popular culture as you damn the United States in the conveniently abstract.

Later he worries that

We are winning even as we are told we are losing.

Yes, we are winning, but as he points out

A war that cannot be won entirely on the battlefield most certainly can be lost entirely off it — especially when an ailing Western liberal society is harder on its own democratic culture than it is on fascist Islamic fundamentalism.

So unhinged have we become that if an American policymaker calls for democracy and reform in the Middle East, then he is likely to echo the aspirations of jailed and persecuted Arab reformers. But if he says Islamic fascism is either none of our business or that we lack the wisdom or morality to pass judgment on the pathologies of a traditional tribal society, then the jihadist and the police state — and our own Western Left — approve.

I just don't know how we can win the war when so many here want us to lose. I just don't know if we're the same "West" that Hanson writes so eloquently about. I hope he's right.

Let's just consider the moment.

A US Senator, in a leadership position, accuses US troops of being Nazis. A mock impeachment is being held in the very capitol building by some democrats. A magazine uses an anonymous source, testimony of a single terrorist, runs a story that US troops are desecrating the Koran and sets off a wave of violence. This leads to weeks of unending hyper-inspection of our detainment practices which reveals at most our inability to discern torture, our judgment skewed by modern sensibilities.

While we are at war with religious extremists, the head of the DNC calls Republicans mostly "white, Christians", having weeks earlier said he hates Republicans and all they stand for. No major newspaper has run a single story about the positive developments in Iraq. Afghanistan has completely left the headlines as the success there would redound positively to the president, and in the press that's verboten.

We find ourselves at war with each other as much if not more than with our enemies. Our military is having recruiting difficulties and recruiters are even facing organized resistance. Back home, we're being invaded literally by millions every year, people who seek a better life for sure, but flaunt our immigration laws while the government does nothing. Yet, we sit back almost idly as our cash flows outward, our jobs become devalued, our services become inundated and our jails swell with the very same law breakers, all the while our culture becomes debased. It's as if we've collectively just said "the hell with it".

We're not even divided as much as how to fight the war but worse, as to whether to fight the war. We're not divided on a winning strategy, but whether we can or even should win. We are operating in dementia where mass killings, beheadings, and the visions of the caliphate restoration are ignored or overlooked, while alleged "torture" gets played over and over in a bout of self-flagellation. We must seek contrition from the very people who hate us for everything we are, and see our apoplexy as a sign of our impending defeat.

So we, the beneficiaries of over two millennia of wisdom, instead choose the route of least resistance. In 411 BC, almost two decades into a war they thought would last two years, Athens was broke, in poltical upheaval, facing revolt from its entire empire, and trying to recover from catastrophe in Sicily. Yet, she would recover, stop an oligarchic coup, score a huge victory at Cynossema, and force the Spartans to sue for peace. It would still require Sparta fight several more years, join with the Persians, and almost suffer defeat as well, to finally wear out Athens. Yet, when it was all over, Athens remained intact, as much as Sparta not being able to utterly crush them as needing a buffer to Persia Thebes. (update: meant to say Thebes. Was thinking of Persian goals. oops.)

Excepting the conclusion, that sounds so familiar to a student of American history. David McCullough author of 1776 (just ordered by the way) said in an interview on Fox:

WALLACE: How close, looking back, how close did the American side come to losing it all in 1776?

MCCOLLOUGH: Very close. More than once.
...
WALLACE: What lessons do you hope Americans take away from the events of 1776?

MCCULLOUGH: That character counts; that courage is contagious, infectious; that we do truly have rights, freedoms, noble ideals and ideas, worth fighting for; that democracy doesn't come easy, never has; that the war with the longest struggle in our whole history, except for Vietnam; that it was bloody, and people suffered, hardships were terrible, but they didn't give up.

And I think also that some wars are necessary. I think one of the most interesting things about this year and the whole struggle altogether is the most -- the man who turned out to be our most effective, I'm inclined to say brilliant general was a Quaker, Nathaniel Greene. The man who expressed for the man in the ranks, for the common American, expressed what the war was about best, and who really was as important a force almost as Washington was Thomas Paine, who was a Quaker, who put aside his pacifist feelings, because, as he said, "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth."

I also think we ought to know about these people, because we're taking stock, who we are, what do we believe in, what have we been through, at our own time of risk, danger, dark shadows hanging over the future, and come to the realization, others have been through worse, and this isn't new.

Churchill came over after Pearl Harbor, when Hitler was running wild, almost to Moscow, when we had lost half of our Navy at Pearl Harbor, when we had no air force, when recruits were drilling with wooden rifles, and Britain was virtually on her last legs, and he came over, and he gave a magnificent speech, in which he said, "We haven't journeyed this far because we're made of sugar candy."

And Churchill was an historian. He understood what our predecessors had been through in our behalf.

Abigail Adams wrote the same thing in a letter to her husband. She said, "Future generations who will reap the blessings will scarcely conceive the hardships and suffering we've been through."

It's alas too true. We don't. We need to do a far better job of reading and understanding our own history, and teaching our own history.

I hope he's right too. Are we Athens in 411BC? Colonial America in 1776? Or are we Constantinople 1458 or France 1940? I do hope that Professors Hanson and McCullough are right. I do so fear we're not of the same mettle that our ancestors were.

It's time that we force Dean, Durbin, Kennedy, et al. to face the music. They can make their comments and within a few days, save for the blogs, it goes away. I would even hazard to guess that the majority of Americans don't even know what Durbin said, especially since most still get their news from the MSM. By now, Blairgate, Rathergate, Jordangate, and the host of other media mendacities should have alerted the public.

Thomas Jefferson said "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance", yet we have hardly been so. Ben Franklin, at the end of the Constitutional Convention, when asked what we have replied , "A republic if you can keep it."

It is one thing for private citizens to write mindless articles and even create movies that equate the president to one of the great murderers of all time. Fine. It is altogether a different proposition when leading politicians give the enemy aid and comfort. Equating the US soldiers with Nazis does just that. Thus it is time for Republicans and democrats alike to demand, loudly too, that Durbin, Dean, etc. be held accountable.

The president needs to publicly condemn the words and demand that Durbin retract them. Bill Frist needs to call for a vote on censure. Dennis Hastert needs call the House to vote on a statement of condemnation. Harold Ford Jr., having throroughly rebuked Dean, needs to do the same for Durbin. He wants to run for the Senate. Is he willing to serve alongside such demagogues?

Durbin's statements, besides being terribly destructive to our war effort, are anti-semitic. As a Jew, I cannot express the outrage and hostility I feel towards such comments, the flippant and casual manner in which he debases the military and the mission.

Iraq, after 30 years of ba'athist abuse and neglect was in shambles. Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds, marsh Arabs, Shia, even Sunni who he thought were a threat. He stole millions in UN aid and let millions of Iraqis starve. He funded terrorists, including al Qaeda, and sent money to families of Palestinian terrorist's families that blew up Jews. The history books (not the school textbooks sadly) will not ask why, but why it took so long, to remove him.

Durbin and his ilk should read Chrenkoff's good news from Iraq so they can see what we're really doing. We're rebuilding schools, inoculating children, giving women freedoms and opportunities they never had, bringing water and electricity to millions previously deprived. We're teaching them to govern themselves, training Iraqis to police their country, rounding up terrorists who kill women and children, and helping them to build the infrestructure of a modern society. And if he'd bother to read and open his mind a bit, he'd see that the Iraqis are catching on quite nicely. Business is actually booming, most of Iraq is secure, and the political process is proceeding nicely.

Let me educate the mindless senator from Illinois what we're not doing. We're not rounding up hundreds of thousands of people, separating women and children from their famileis, and shipping them all off to camps. We're not performing medical tests that would make your skin crawl. We're not cramming thousand into gas chambers and dropping zyklon-b into cyanide. We're not stripping their bodies of gold fillings, taking their possessions and selling them, and we're not incinerating them. We're not tatooing numbers on their arms and we're not forcing them into slave labor to build our war machine and starving them to death.

We're not trying to rid the world of a particular race or religion. We're trying to make the world safe for democracy, but coming from Chicago, I guess you don't know too much about that.

The atrocities of the gulags and the Khmer Rouge are equally as appaling, but I want to address the Nazi comments. You are equating the interrogation of terrorists to the mass murder of six million Jews. Senator Durbin is a disgusting and deranged individual. That the discomfort of a person (if I can give them that much credit) who wants to kill as many Americans as possible in the most violent of ways is equal to the incineration of six million Jews is reprehensible.

He should be ashamed of himself. Any Jew who supports or votes for him should be even more so. The remarks reveal an insensitivity to Jews and all victims of genocide everywhere. It is time for him to face the music. I am calling on all people, regardless of poltical persuasion to force Durbin and his kind to face the music. They cannot be allowed to get away with such blatantly anti-semitic remarks.

David Gerlernter writes an outstanding piece in the LA Times called We Are Our History -- Don't Forget It. He has scathing attacks for the historically ignorant, like Senator Durbin, for comments which display complete lack of judgement and knowledge of the past.

Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin's gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot — an astonishing, obscene piece of ignorance. Between 15 million and 30 million people died from 1918 through 1956 in the prisons and labor camps of the Soviet gulag. Historian Robert Conquest gives some facts. A prisoner at the Kholodnaya Gora prison had to stuff his ears with bread before sleeping on account of the shrieks of women being interrogated. At the Kolyma in Siberia, inmates labored through 12-hour days in cheap canvas shoes, on almost no food, in temperatures that could go to minus-58. At one camp, 1,300 of 3,000 inmates died in one year.

"Gulag" must not go the way of "Nazi" and become virtually meaningless. Europeans love calling Israelis "Nazis" — a transparent attempt to slough off their guilt like rattlesnakes shedding skin. ("See, the Jews are as bad as we were!") I'd like to ban the word "Nazi" except when applied to … Nazis. Lawbreakers would be ordered to learn what Nazi actually means.

I was amazed to hear about teenagers who don't know Fact 1 about the Vietnam War draft. But I have met college students who have never heard of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge — the genocidal monsters who treated Cambodia in the 1970s to a Marxist nightmare unequaled in its bestiality since World War II.

He explains the problem exactly why it has gotten to this abhorrent level.

Our schools teach history ideologically. They teach the message, not the truth. They teach history as if males and females have always played equal roles. They are propaganda machines.

I couldn't have said it any better. Our history is being stolen by teachers who don't know history, who must rely on textbooks by people whose sole purpose is to rewrite the past.

I have written repeatedly on this topic, the manner in which history is portrayed. It starts with the multiculturalist perspective, twisted in a "social studies" framework. The past is distorted into a victim/oppressor model, where as you will probably guess correctly, the victims are all women, non-whites, and non-Christian. The oppressors are of course white, Christian, and male. (You ever wonder where Howie gets his material?)

There is a far left agenda in school textbooks which I have already chronicled with several examples. The agenda is even at odds with the traditional liberalism of say FDR and Kennedy. If we wonder why the nation is so divided on Iraq, why the president is not opposed but actually hated, and why our enemies think they can defeat us, we need look no further than the state of history education.

What would our current crop of so called liberals say of FDR's unilateral support of Britain in 1940? What would they say of our unilateral and reckless provoking of the Soviet Union in 1962?

The truth is that we are under attack from within as well. The left hates this country and will do everything in its power to destroy us. Whether it's textbooks that protray capitalism as evil, overwhelmingly leftist professors, or even worse, history teachers who don't know history, our country is being consumed by a malignant cancer.

Gelernter is right:

There is an ongoing culture war between Americans who are ashamed of this nation's history and those who acknowledge with sorrow its many sins and are fiercely proud of it anyway. Proud of the 17th century settlers who threw their entire lives overboard and set sail for religious freedom in their rickety little ships. Proud of the new nation that taught democracy to the world. Proud of its ferocious fight to free the slaves, save the Union and drag (lug, shove, sweat, bleed) America a few inches closer to its own sublime ideals. Proud of its victories in two world wars and the Cold War, proud of the fight it is waging this very day for freedom in Iraq and the whole Middle East.

If you are proud of this country and don't want its identity to vanish, you must teach U.S. history to your children. They won't learn it in school. This nation's memory will go blank unless you act.

UPDATE: Tom MacGuire and Michelle Malkin also agree on Gelernter's piece.

Once again, I'm ahead of the curve:

John Tierney:

Americans now feel entitled to spend nearly a third of their adult lives in retirement. Their jobs are less physically demanding than their parents' were, but they're retiring younger and typically start collecting Social Security by age 62. Most could keep working - fewer than 10 percent of people 65 to 75 are in poor health - but, like Bartleby the Scrivener, they prefer not to.

The problem isn't that Americans have gotten intrinsically lazier. They're just responding to a wonderfully intentioned system that in practice promotes greed and sloth. Social Security is widely thought of as a kumbaya program that unites Americans in caring for the elderly, but it actually creates ugly political battles among generations.

With the help of groups like AARP, the elderly have learned to fight for the right to retire earlier and get bigger benefits than the previous generation - all financed by making succeeding generations pay higher taxes than they ever did themselves.

The result is a system that burdens the young and creates perverse incentives for people to retire when they're still middle-aged. Once you've worked 35 years, more work often yields only a tiny increase in your benefits (sometimes none at all), but you still have to keep paying the onerous Social Security tax, which has more than doubled over the last half century.

On May 8, I write:

It isn't so much that we're living longer, it's that so many more people are living longer. Let me clarify that. It's not life expectancy, it's the expectancy of reaching such old ages. And that is where the problem really lies. As I mentioned, I don't expect to see major increments in life expectancy. I do however expect that more and more people will reach an age near it though. So, even if they pass away in their late seventies, there will be more and more people in the last age brackets.

As it stands right now, over half of all people will reach 80. Since 1939, there has been an almost 5000 per 100,000 person increase every decade in septuagenarians and octogenarians. Carry that out twenty years when 60,000, maybe 65,000 out of 100,000 people born reach will 80 years of age. This is not only possible, but I dare say probable. We are more health and diet conscious than ever. We have cured so many diseases, and are successfully battling many more. The aged have accumulated great wealth, live lives of relative comfort, and have access to the best medical facilities in the world. This is the elephant that nobody dares mention.

And then there's today's Wall Street Journal.

Many conservatives have watched the left's hostile takeover of the Democratic Party with great joy. We don't share that enthusiasm. The country would benefit from two vibrant parties competing on innovative freedom-enhancing initiatives. The problem is that the Democrats are running on empty when it comes to policy ideas other than big government, and this lack of competition has had deleterious effects on Republican behavior, as witnessed by their lack of any spending discipline.

I have written on this many times, the most recent being two weeks ago:

That he's killing the democratic party is not a good thing. As I've written, it gives the Republicans a free pass to govern irresponsibly.

because, as I wrote on May 23:

They used to be the party that wanted to eliminate the Dept. of Education. NCLB is a federal takeover of education. They used to be the party of limited government. Now they're the party of the largest entitlement since the 1960's. They used to be the party of fiscal responsibility. Now they run up huge deficits and pass pork-laden highway bills. They used to be the party of governmental restraint. Now they pass a national ID card bill, send the justice dept. after file traders, and were behind the McCain-Feingold, "There's a first ammendment?" bill.

And they get away with this because the democrats are completely inept. They could have done infinitely better than Kerry, and instead of learning from their mistakes, they appoint Dean to head the DNC. This truly is physician assisted suicide.

It seems the democrats think they have found their latest issue with which to attack the president. If they think that the Guantanamo "abuses" are going to be a winning issue, they are sorely mistaken. All it will do is highlight that they care more for terrorists than US citizens and that they aren't serious about fighting, and winning, the war on terror.

Do they really think that most Americans really care if a few detainees were roughed up a bit? I'll let them in on a little secret. Most Americans don't really care if we roughed up a few detainees, especailly if it saved American lives. In fact, we by and large have no problem with it. They want to kill Americans, all of us, in the most violent manner possible. If they get out, they're going to return to their terrorist ways.

The democrats are using Gitmo for purely poltiical purposes, which only serves their, and the terrorists' needs. It undermines the entire war effort and gives the enemy hope that they can weaken our resolve. That the democrats whould be ashamed is an understatement.

Time for another V-Q Award

The City of Mandelinople awards Vichy-Quisling Award #4 to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.

"This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure," Durbin said in a statement Wednesday evening.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said.

The next day , he goes on the floor of the Senate and demands a 40 percent reduction in imported oil so we can stop fighting a war for oil in the middle east. (note: when transcripts are available, I'll link to them.)

UPDATE: Durbin's remarks from
[Congressional Record: June 15, 2005 (Senate)]
[Page S6614-S6641]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr15jn05-137]

To be drawn into a war to protect a foreign source of oil is to say it is too much to ask someone to change the car they drive, but not too much to ask them to send their son into combat. I, frankly, think that is an easy choice. I believe it is wrong for us to see the world in those terms, that we accept this dependence on foreign oil. That is why I strongly support this amendment.

Senator Durbin's words aid and abet the enemy by comparing the US to the worst genocidal regimes in history while they promote and perpetuate lunatic theories of the war in Iraq.

For helping the enemy in a time of war, we proudly bestow the 4th Vichy-Quisling award to Illinois Senator Durbin.

Say what you want about Nick Kristoff, but he's right on this one.

So, Mr. Bush, how about asking Mr. Musharraf to focus on finding Osama, instead of kidnapping rape victims who speak out? And invite Ms. Mukhtaran to the Oval Office - to show that Americans stand not only with generals who seize power, but also with ordinary people of extraordinary courage.

Do I sound like some bleeding heart lib or what? Actually, we're no longer in a game of realpolitik. If we want to inspire the masses, turn out what I think is the real "Arab street", than some purple fingers in Iraq and one Ms. Mukhtaran of Pakistan are a good start.

Belmont club has two great posts By Other Means 2 and By other means about US casuatlies, casualty ratios, and the pace of operations.

Of note is this one line from "By other means 2":

Planners in World War 2 solved the problem of accelerating enemy collapse by destroying the societies on which their war-making potential rested, as an alternative to a protracted battle of attrition.

What Wretchard describes in greater detail is how we took the fight deep into the heart of the enemy. WW2 was in many ways the justification of Douhet's theories about strategic bombing, though the 8th air force paid a steep price to prove it.
Next Wretchard asks a most pertinent question:

The question that must be facing American planners is whether we are at a Haywood Hansell-Curtis Lemay moment: whether some qualitatively new approach must be taken to accelerate the process of democratization in the enemy's strategic rear.

As he notes, when LeMay took over bomber operations in the pacific, he went right to the heart of Japan, completely replacing the pinpoint strategy of Hansell. In both Germany and Japan, the daily and nightly bombings brought home the reality of war. There would be no settled peace. There was only total and complete destruction and following that, unconditional surrender.

Norman Angell published The Grand Illusion in 1910. He, along with his devoted followers, argued that the next war would bring about such an economic and financial catastrophe that war was unthinkable. Nice theory, war so horrible as to be undesirable. Didn't Hiram Maxim and Dr. Guillotine have similar logic?

Either way, it surely put mans' limits of endurance to the test a few years later. Oddly enough, Angell was wrong, as within ten years Europe had recovered to such a degree that she was economically strong and war a decade later seemed impossible.

It is conventional wisdom, and sadly, textbook doctorine that the second world war was inevitable as Versailles left too many festering wounds. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there was always resentment in Germany, settlement through force of arms as a solution was only for the fringe elements in society.

And we must remember that the Nazi party was a fringe party at best in 1929. Germany, under first the Dawes, then later the Young plans, had finally gotten her finances in order and was experiencing a "baby boom" of sorts, while pacifism had taken hold throughout Europe. The depression, if one looks at it honestly (which would preclude one from writing for the NY Times) was not a failure of free market capitalism, but a failure in leaving economies to free market capitalism. Had we chosen the latter, we'd have had a minor correction. We chose the former and entered a depression. And the path to war.

World War two was hardly inevitable. Perhaps Europe had learned its lessons from World War One, and perhaps Angell was right. Hitler relied almost as much on the West's complete and total unwillingness to fight at all, the mere threat of war rather than war itself. Once in conflict however, unlike every other previous European war, this time there would be no peace treaties that would leave issues unresolved. In fact, what we sought was to completely destroy then remake both German and Japanese societies.

While World War One saw the demise of four empires, and round two proved Angell more accurate, nothing was more exemplary of Angell's theories however than the Cold War, where two superpowers played nuclear chicken, both knowing, putting all the propaganda aside, that nuclear war was truly unwinnable. The Russian generals in charge of those silos had all the same western fatalism and instincts that their counterparts in the west had. They knew full well what turning the keys meant, and neither side would be ultimately willing.

Yet today, we face an enemy who knows what we can, but won't do. All the while, he seeks to acquire the very same while possessing none of the inhibitions. So today we face an odd yet familiar problem, a global war, one which only complete victory is the answer. Most shocking to an informed observer, is the vast chasm that separates not the two warring factions, but rather the factions on one side. While those of us who support the war in Iraq often look to the second world war for analogy, the opposition looks to Vietnam.

What is most distressing, is that Vietnam was every bit a struggle of the cold war, that the opponents then could not or would not, acknowledge. Likewise, the unwillingness to grasp the global nature of the war, of which Iraq is a part, poses a greater danger than anything our enemies currently do. It is as if the war in Europe and the war in the pacific were two separate and unrelated wars.

Thus the threats we face today, and those we faced 60 years ago, are of such a similar nature that the only solution is the exact same: total destruction of the status quo and a complete reshaping of societies. Soldiers willing to die for an emperor and earning a direct ticket to heaven are nothing new. Today we all know the solution, yet refuse to acknowledge it. In 1945, we purposefully replaced at least several centuries of Japanese culture, tradition, and yes religion. Have we any other option in this war, or have we, with all our modern ways suppressed our two millennia and some of acquired wisdom.

What we must do is neither new nor inhumane. What is worse, the temporary pain of political chemotherapy or the long and debilitating disease which ends ultimately in death? We either attack the cancer or simply try to make the patient's life more bearable. And that cancer is so obvious, so clearly visible. We know exactly where the cancer is and how to deal with it, yet we're more concerned that the patient will lose their hair, and thus their "self esteem" than ultimately die.

Could our grandparents be any more disappointed in us? We today are in national upheaval over a few Korans that were mishandled, while just 60 years ago, hundreds of B29's incinerated Tokyo night after night. We have defined down the word torture, as if Cabanatuan is just a city in the jungles of Luzon. Thousands died on volcanic hell holes that a year earlier not one in a million could find on a map while kamikazes rained down from the skies. Back home there were no concern for the "innocent" Japanese and and no worries about offending their culture. Criticism of the nuclear bombs comes from the modernists and revisionists, not the participants.

This much is true: we are winning all the battles. There is no firefight nor engagement that we lose. We kill hundreds of "insurgents" in the streets, round them up at night, destroy their bases, and have proven to be tougher and harder than them. They have the ability to kill but not win. Someone with a rifle willing to die is going to do just that. Someone with training, discipline, and the will to live ultimately will. Fighting for nothing is far less rewarding than fighting for everything. We are, and will continue to do so.

The problem, and one I see growing every day, is that we are not fighting to win. We are now further from 9/11 than V-J day was from Pearl Harbor, and no closer to whatever we are defining as victory. The longer we continue fighting, the more detached we become from why we're fighting. Time is sadly not on our side. Contrary to some more rosy assessments, our inability to remove the Assads and Khomeinis is only strengthening them.

The ripples from Iraq will only resonate so long. The likelihood of stasis grows every day. Greece grew tired of war, as did the Romans and later even the crusaders. The social changes that came were the results of technological and economic factors developed inside, not from pressure outside. Thus we too will grow tired of war. War would intensify in magnitude, but would shorten in duration. There would be no more Hundred Years' Wars.

That is the pattern for modern war, rather short, rather violent, and usually decisive. When they're not, for whatever reason, another one will surely follow. 1871 left France beaten but not destroyed, 1918 left Germany relatively the same. Vietnam was long, somewhat violent, and hardly decisive. (This in no way diminishes the 58,000 brave American soldiers who died in Southeast Asia. It's just that one can hardly compare Vietnam in 1975 to Japan or Germany in 1945.) Is there any precursor to our present struggle than the belief that we were a "paper tiger". Nothing more perfectly describes this premise than World War One. Every plan, Germany's Schlieffen, France's XVII, or Russia's A and G was based on the expectation of a short duration, high intensity conflict. And each had definite and decisive military aims. This wasn't based on fantasy but centuries of prior experience.

So, if the misapplied Vietnam analogy is correct, then we are heading into a protracted war which we are not capable of fighting and thus not capable of winning. If we are entering a long duration, low intensity conflict, without a decisive outcome, we will fail. The ancient hoplite expected to meet on the battlefield and with extreme violence settle their differences. This isn't the current model.

Afghanistan and Iraq should have been just the beginning. We must follow up with Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and push other countries for change as well. We have no other option. Yet, the possibility of future action grows more remote every day. We play more to the global audience and worry more about our conduct and how it plays to the international press than to the threats we face. Never in history has there been a greater imbalance in might between aggressor and defender. Neither has there ever been a greater imbalance between the capability and will to use such might than now. We measure our successes by how little violence is required, while we weigh each success against a standard unprecedented nor realistically achievable.

For over two years now, money, men, and weaponry have flowed into Iraq with impunity from Syria and Iran while many more have poured into Iraq from Saudi Arabia. Yet we do nothing. Part of the Iraq war problem was that after seventeen UN resolutions, what would be the efficacy of number eighteen. So too is it going to be more difficult to pursue action against a country in 2006 for aiding the insurgency in 2003.

We are even unsure what the end result will look like, and are more afraid of it looking like us than not. What a shame. We had no such compunctions in 1945. Then we knew what was right, what needed to be done, and most importantly, we did it. Are we not confident enough, sure enough that our way is better, that we want it to see it spread, And if it isn't worth spreading, it's hardly worth fighting for in the first place. If there is a better solution than liberal, tolerant, pluralistic democracy, please speak now or forever enjoy the peace.

We must now ask, are there really any other options left? We must force a quick, violent and decisive battle. We must force the rapid change that is happening in Beirut, Cairo, Tehran, and even Riyadh. But I'm afraid it is getting too late, too far past the time when the will and means for a decisive and violent conclusion is present.

We are winning all the fights, but I wonder if we're fighting to win. If there's criticism to be made, this is it. All the leftist diatribe is simply a distraction, one they will surely regret if their sadistic fantasies comes true. The true critic would understand the need for greater, not lesser action. The true critic would see that we're headed in the right direction, just not driving too well. If Iraq just becomes a steady diet of monthly casualty reports, even if great progress is made, then all it becomes is just another "Vietnam". And unlike 1975, the results will be far worse.

Why is it that everythign nowadays can be fixed with an apology? You say the "wrong thing" at the wrong time and somehow "I'm sorry" is supposed to make it all better.

Hey Mr. Goldman, sorry. Love, OJ.

Ummm, I don't think that's going to work.

Some want apologies for slavery, for Korangate, for whatever. It never stops. The latest charade, for that's what it really is, is the senate's apology for failure to pass anti-lynching legislation. First, as is so necessary these days, my a priori disavowal.

The following is in no way meant to lessen the evil that was perpetrated upon blacks, and many others, in this nation's history. Questioning the motives and the necessity for the apology is surely to be taken out of context. But if we can't honestly discuss it, then the state of political discourse, already at terrible low (thanks Howie), will sink even further.

Let's examine for a moment, not the lynchings themselves, but the role of the senate. David Hardy has a great post about the role the Supreme Court played. He argues that:

The Senate is expected today to pass a resolution of apology for not having passed federal anti-lynching legislation when it was most needed. Apologies certain are in order, but Congress isn't the party which needs to make them. It's the Supreme Court which owes the apology.

In 1870, Congress passed the Enforcement Act, to enforce the 14th Amendment's mandate that no state violate the privileges and immunities of US citizenship. The Act made it illegal, inter alia, to "injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege granted or secured to him by the constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having exercised the same..." The penalty was imprisonment for up to ten years.

That's a great point. The Senate did provide legislation to deal with states that would not protect citizens' rights. However, dealing directly with lynchings is not the responsibility of the Senate. They simply would have been federalizing a crime committed within a state, and unlike today, there was a time when people took the concept of federalism a little more seriously. (Like, you know, whether states should decide who can marry!!)

The apology is all about politics. It serves no purpose except to once again highlight the wrongs that were committed 100 years ago and give the victimization industry more ammunition to wail and holler with.

Most ironic of all is that the senate's apology comes right after the Condi Rice and Janet Rogers Brown episodes. Clarence Thomas I think coined it perfectly, "a high-tech lynching". Maybe the Senate can apologize to Thomas as well, though I doubt they will.

I don't understand the Google adsense system. It's supposed to pull out keywords from your text and display ads that match. I guess somebody needs to rewrite that algorithm. In case it's not there, here's a screen cap. Click for a larger image.


Now, I welcome all visitors to the city, but ya gotta think that not too many people who come here are going to buy the stuff. (Though I'm not too sure about my old man!!)

I left early Saturday morning for Las Vegas with my son Nathan to see ArenaBowl XIX. Didn't bring a computer. Sorry. Left for home Sunday early afternoon and spent the day resting, working, etc. Blogging schedule will return Tuesday.