Category Archives: War

Celebrating the Creeping Caliphate in Kosovo

Democrats, Foreign Policy, Islam, Media, War

Is there any doubt that by intervening in Kosovo, we strengthened the al Qaida-backed, Islamic Kosovo Liberation Army, and Islam’s greater project, to the detriment of Orthodox Christian Serbs? Is there any doubt who the neocons are supporting when they get in Putin’s face about Chechnya, another terrorist entity?

Republicans blasted Clinton, and for good reason, for warring against Serbia. The same principled people have made lingering in Iraq, and loving that equally unjust foreign policy foray, a fulcrum of their candidate’s presidential platform. The Christians of Iraq are numbered; they’ve been eliminated or expunged thanks to Bush’s faith-based intervention.

Geraldo Rivera, the neoliberal (or Neolithic) Fox fabulist, was dancing in the streets in celebration of Kosovo’s independence. What was he celebrating? In whose honor were Bush and his bastardized conservatives prancing about? Was this an ode to Clinton’s folly for partaking in an assault on a Christian country—Serbia—which, as Patrick J. Buchanan reminds us, was “an ally in two world wars, and [had] never attacked us”?

Where is Ron Paul when you need him?

The Iraq Crock

Iraq, Military, War

You know what I think about the tactical wanking war proponents are now engaging in. Even if we accept (I don’t) Petraeus’ much-disputed claim that the so-called surge is “working,” it has to be clear that force is a limited weapon against a cause with unlimited recruits; it cuts back on the number of insurgents by killing lots; it doesn’t eliminate the cause fueling the insurgency. Brute force will temporarily curtail sectarian strife, but it will do nothing to snuff out the religious animus between Shia and Sunni that has been brewing since 680 CE.

In short, anything we do, at most, will have quantitative—not qualitative—effects. If the Iraq war were not so tragic for the wretched Iraqis and for US soldiers, it would be, well, boring. There is nothing to add to the original analysis: what you have here is more doomed central planning.

Jim Michaels, of USA TODAY, has gone to the trouble of contrasting four views on the Iraq situation. Knock yourself out:

A series of reports measuring progress in Iraq were commissioned prior to Congress hearing from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador. Here’s where the reports agree or diverge on key issues:

TRIBAL RECONCILIATION: A growing number of Sunni tribes have begun cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi forces and are turning on al-Qaeda. The trend started in Anbar province, dominated by Sunnis, west of the capital, and there are signs it is spreading. VIOLENCE LEVELS: The U.S. military uses a variety of measurements to track the level of violence in Iraq, including the number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, sectarian killings and al-Qaeda-style bombings. NATIONAL RECONCILIATION: Iraq’s government, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has made little progress on legislation aimed at reducing sectarian warfare. MILITIAS: Shiite militias have infiltrated Iraqi security forces, enjoyed political protection from the Shiite-dominated government and, according to the U.S. military, are being trained and equipped by Iran. There are about 80,000 Shiite militia fighters in Iraq. IRAQI SECURITY FORCES: Iraq has 346,000 trained and equipped security forces, including armed forces and police. They have shown more of a willingness to fight than in the past, but they required varying levels of U.S. support. Militia infiltration, particularly among police, remains a problem.

Petraeus- Crocker testimony: “In what may be the most significant development of the past eight months, the tribal rejection of al-Qaeda that started in Anbar province and helped produce such significant change there, has now spread to a number of other locations as well,” Petraeus said. “Though the improvements have been uneven across Iraq, the overall number of security incidents in Iraq has declined in eight of the past 12 weeks, with the number of incidents in the last two weeks at the lowest levels seen since June 2006,” Petraeus said. “Iraq’s leaders have the will to tackle the country’s pressing problems, although it will take longer than we originally anticipated because of the environment and the gravity of the issues before them,” Crocker said. “Prime Minister Maliki and other Iraqi leaders face enormous obstacles in their efforts to govern effectively.” “We have… disrupted Shiite militia extremists, capturing the head and numerous other leaders of the Iranian-supported special groups, along with a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative supporting Iran’s activities in Iraq,” Petraeus said. “Iraqi security forces have … continued to grow and to shoulder more of the load, albeit slowly and amid continuing concerns about the sectarian tendencies of some elements in their ranks,” Petraeus said. “In general, however, Iraqi elements have been standing and fighting and sustaining tough losses, and they have taken the lead in operations in many areas.”

National Intelligence Estimate Consensus of U.S. intelligence community as of Aug. 23, 2007: “Sunni Arab resistance to AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) has expanded in the last six to nine months but has not yet translated into broad Sunni Arab support for the Iraqi government or widespread willingness to work with the Shia,” the report says. “The steep escalation of rates of violence has been checked for now, and overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks,” the report says. The report also says violence remains high. Rivalries within the ruling Shiite groups will likely intensify. The Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under former president Saddam Hussein, are “politically fragmented” and their leaders are unable to engage in dialogue or deliver on promises. “Militia and insurgent influences continue to undermine the reliability of some (Iraqi security force) units, and political interference in security operations continues to undermine coalition and (Iraqi security force) efforts.” Iraqi security forces which work closely with American troops have performed “adequately,” but they are not capable of conducting major operations without U.S. support. They remain dependent on American forces for logistics and other support.

Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq Requested by Congress and headed by James Jones, a retired four-star Marine Corps general: “Though these new Sunni allies have yet to earn the complete trust of the government of Iraq — and vice versa — they have dramatically improved the security situation in Anbar province, providing coalition forces with valuable intelligence leading to the captures of top al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders.” The report says the number of sectarian killings and overall violence has decreased. “While these numbers may simply reflect the decision of many of the Shia militias to maintain a low profile during the coalition-led surge, there are signs of improvements in the security situation in Baghdad,” the report says. The “single most important event that could immediately and favorably affect Iraq’s direction and security is political reconciliation focused on ending sectarian violence and hatred.” “Militia members who join the (Iraqi security forces) often remain loyal to their local militia, and may take part in sectarian ‘extracurricular’ activities.” Maliki is “perceived by many” to have set up a separate chain of command to interfere in military operations, potentially targeting Sunni insurgents while protecting some Shiite militia leaders. The report cites “uneven” progress but says the Iraqi security forces won’t be capable of functioning independently for another 12 to 18 months. The National Police, a paramilitary unit under Iraq’s Interior Ministry, is so rife with sectarian bias it should be disbanded.

Government Accountability Office report Congress’ investigative arm looks at the 18 benchmarks established by Congress and President Bush to measure progress in Iraq: The report referred to the NIE’s conclusions about tribal reconciliation. The report says it could not determine if sectarian violence was down. It noted that overall violence had declined between June and July but remained high. “The Iraqi government has not fulfilled commitments it first made in June 2006 to advance legislative, security and economic measures that would promote national reconciliation among Iraq’s warring factions.” The Iraqi government fully met only one of the 8 “benchmarks” established by Congress to measure political reconciliation. Overall, three of the 18 benchmarks were fully met. “Militia control over security forces has not been eliminated and remains a serious problem in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq.” The report said annual attrition rates are between 15% and 18% for the Iraqi army and between 20% and 22% for the police. It said the Iraq’s logistics systems are “immature” and Iraq’s military and police are dependent on American support. Corruption and sectarian biases hamper progress in the security forces, the report says.

White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki

America, Criminal Injustice, Foreign Policy, Just War, Military, War

Just to remind you what a monster one must be to say the following words: “the nuclear option is on the table.”

“On August 6th and 9th, 1945, two atomic bombs vaporized 210,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who survived are called “hibakusha”—people exposed to the bomb—and there are an estimated 200,000 living today. Today, with the threat of —nuclear weapons of mass destruction frighteningly real—the world’s arsenal capable of repeating the destruction at Hiroshima 400,000 times over—Oscar® award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki revisits the bombings and shares the stories of the only people to have survived a nuclear attack.”

The teletwits of cable haven’t commemorated this mass murder. Photos are all important. Watch the “Video Promo.” I’ve attached a few links you can follow. I’m not going to attempt to describe the flesh of a young girl melted away, hanging in strips from her still-alive body.

Photographs Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki

A Photo-Essay on the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Update #1: : There is no disputing that the intentional slaughter of 200,000 innocents was mass murder. What else? Mercy killing? Preemptive killing of innocents? It’s the coward’s way out. It’s un-Christian, un-Jewish, unethical; flouts every stricture of Just War and natural justice, you name it. To defend it is indefensible. There is, moreover, no way to say who and how many were “saved” by the bombing. That’s why it’s such a convenient course of action for the evil. It’s open-ended and vague. To do so, is to exclude oneself from humanity.

Update #2: Pearl Harbor is the magic word for the crowd that is always licking its chops for blood. In Pearl Harbor you have the Japanese attacking a military target—a naval base. They killed a few thousands of what to them were enemy combatants, i.e. Americans. That act, according to some monsters, provides the warrant the US needed to slaughter 200,000 mostly civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and destroy those cities. Truman had planned to drop a couple more “Little Boys” and “Fat Men,” as they were dubbed affectionately.

Part of the Just War doctrine, adhered to by a dwindling number of REAL Christians, is the concept of proportionality in war. One of the best dissections of the bankrupt case for this atrocity was made by historian Ralph Raico. While we’re at it, let’s see a consistent application of principles, please. To intentionally target civilians is to engage in the act of terrorism.

Sock it to those Civilians!

Update #3: On the topic of intentionally targeting innocent civilians with the most devastating weapon known to man we heard, unfortunately, mainly from people bereft of a developed theory of justice. Rather, in discussing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the emphasis was mostly on crude collectivism. However charitable I‘d like to be, I can’t even credit some of the individuals who wrote in with advancing a sophisticated utilitarianism. Mostly, it was, “We socked it to ‘em for our boys, yeah baby. We kicked some ass.” (The booties of babies and their mothers…)

There were others (unpublished of course) who—without any familiarity with my writings on Just War, including pre-emptive war, Israel, and Iraq—offered unsubstantiated deductions about my positions. For example: it was asserted by one bombast that I opposed the war in Iraq on the grounds that Saddam was better than the current chaos. No, that’s the position taken in retrospect, after the failure in Iraq, by some of the nation’s reigning philosopher kings.

If you intend to offer an opinion about it, read my perfectly validated case against that war. Once again, my position against that travesty, again—perfectly validated today—rested on principles of natural justice, Just War, and the reality shared by the “reality-based community,” not the pie-in the sky occupied by neoconservatives, who admitted to creating their own reality when it came to the danger from saddam, because they possessed the power to so do.

Don’t waste your time on a classically liberal blog if you haven’t acquainted yourself with the writing you propose to “refute” so stridently. Of course, even the fact that I was right about the war against Iraq has not persuaded warriors suspended in a Third Dimension that my philosophy was validated, not by chance, but by following objective reality and immutable principle. So, can I sell you shares in a Bed and Breakfast in Baghdad?

Update 4 (May 7, 2008): Recently revealed are these new photos of the American government’s war crimes (via LRC.com).

[All comments were lost in a server crash early in 2008]

On Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Old Right, Reason, The State, War

By now, my thinking on conspiracy theories should be known; they are the refuge of the weak-minded. Remember Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil? Reality is bad enough; there is no need to look beyond it. That is tantamount to conjecture and fantasy. As I said in the introduction to my book, the state presides over the disintegration of civil society, but it does so reflexively, rather than as a matter of collusion and conspiracy.

The premise for imputing conspiracies to garden variety government evils is this: government generally does what is good for us (NOT), so when it strays, we must look beyond the facts—for something far more sinister, as if government’s natural venality and quest for power were not enough to explain events. For example, why would one need to search for the “real reason” for an unjust, unscrupulous war, unless one believed government would never prosecute an unjust war. History belies that delusion.

Conspiracy is not congruent with a view of government as fundamentally antagonistic to the individual and to civil society, a position I hold. I see most of what the behemoth does nowadays as contrary to the good of the individual, and aimed reflexively at increasing its own power and size. Even if government embarked on a just war, it would find ways to prolong it, since this involves the consolidation of fiefdoms. Soldiers don’t benefit, but their superiors—those “generals” everyone reveres so—do. Our government, given its size, reach, and many usurpations, is a destructive and warring entity. It is natural for such an entity to pursue war for war’s sake. The constituent elements of the behemoth continuously work to increase their spheres of control. This is why we must curtail the state’s powers.

Propensity for conspiracy is yet another facet paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians share with the hard-left. I pointed out in “Deriding Dershowitz,” and elsewhere, that the far-out right has made common cause with the far left on quite a number of fronts. That’s a shame. You’ll find no such incongruities in my thinking. By way of example, my anti-war sentiments have never strayed into these murky precincts—don’t look for any war-for-oil-&-Israel kookiness here.