perfidy

Okay, it’s a cheesy headline. But I have been expecting a couple of the military oriented bloggers to jump in on this, and I haven’t really seen anything substantive. The RAH-66 Comanche is (or was) intended to be the next generation, double-plus lethal, stealthy/sneaky reconnaissance/attack helicopter for the Army. We have already spent $8 billion on the development, and will have to spend an additional $2 billion in contract termination fees if the project actually goes south. The rationale for canceling the project is that the money saved by not building the Comanche will be used to buy almost 800 more UH-60 Blackhawk utility transport helicopters, upgrade and modernize 1,400 helicopters already in the fleet, and invest more heavily in a variety of unmanned aircraft, such as the existing Hunter and the new Raven.

Unlike the earlier decision to cancel the Crusader artillery system (which also was very expensive) I have mixed feelings about this one. The Crusader was to be a highly advanced, highly mobile artillery system. It would have given the army a precision stand off artillery system that could keep up with the turbine powered M1 Abrams tank on the battlefield. Its computerized and networked fire control system would be integrated into the army’s battlefield tactical networks. It would be able to put massive firepower anywhere the army wanted, quickly, efficiently and accurately.

This system would have been perfect for destroying large armored opponents like the Red Army. Sadly, the Red Army no longer exists, and the Crusader was not exactly what a lighter, more deployable Army needed. So I could see the logic in canceling it. It didn’t fit the army’s new idiom of freewheeling, fast and decentralized, precision netcentric warfare.

But the Comanche does fit that idiom. It is fast, stealthy, and lethal. Our mobility is crucial to our new mode of warfare. And the Comanche is a highly mobile weapons and reconnaissance platform. Our current flock of attack helicopters is aging, and no matter how many weapons, sensor and avionics upgrades they receive, there are some capabilities they will never provide, and the Comanche was intended to address those shortfalls.
The Comanche’s stealth and noise suppression technology would have allowed it to penetrate enemy or contested airspace with much greater ease than the current models. Its greater range means easier logistical support and greater strike radius. And the fact that all the modern avionics are designed in from the start means easier maintenance and greater effectiveness. Even if we had not gone ahead with the initial plan to purchase thousands of Comanches, several hundred would increase the effectiveness of units equipped with both Comanches and older attack and reconnaissance helicopters.

To be sure, the Comanche is expensive – over $50 million each. But cost is not the only consideration when deciding whether to continue with a weapons program. These are expensive projects, whether we cancel them or not. Does the system increase the lethality of our forces? Will its presence on the battlefield reduce the likelihood of American casualties? What threat is the program meant to address? We have to think carefully about what we cancel. As the vastly increased operational tempo of our military eats into funding, we have to ensure that R&D, training and procurement budgets are not savaged as we fight the war on terror. I think, from what I have read, that the Comanche would be a worthwhile addition to our armamentarium. It will increase our ability to fight enemies on any battlefield, regardless of their technological sophistication. And that will save lives.

Other military projects are potentially on the block, waiting for the ax. The Air Force’s F-22 Raptor has narrowly averted execution several times, as has the Marine V-22 Osprey. We need to look at these and other programs in the same way.

• The Crusader designed to deal with heavy armored forces, is no longer relevant, and it made sense to cancel it.
• The F-22 is an incredible fighter – it is stealthy, agile, heavily armed and can cruise at supersonic speeds. There is no fighter in any Air Force that could defeat it. But that is also true of the fighters we already have. It would only be an incremental increase in our effectiveness against any likely opponent, who are unlikely to be any serious threat to our air superiority. Build a squadron for when it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed overnight, and spend the money on the much cheaper (but still better than anything except the F-22) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Which also has a real ground attack capability.
• The V-22 Osprey, the tilt-rotor troop transport, is a great idea. The Osprey takes off like a helicopter, and then its twin rotors rotate forward, allowing it to fly like an airplane. Thus, it combines the helicopter's ability to land and takeoff anywhere, with the airplane's speed, payload capacity and range. There have been four crashes in ten years, raising concerns about its safety, but many have argued that this is to be expected in a completely new type of aircraft. If accepted, the Osprey would allow the Marines to deploy faster and further than ever before, and ease logistical support as well. Adding this capability makes sense. Thumbs up.

Its all a matter of looking at where the project in question would fit into the battlefield, and determining whether its worth the money. (Including the opportunity cost - could we develop some other weapons system that is even more effective with the money?)

Except for the President Gore bit, this is extraordinarily cool. Just read the damn thing. Discuss in the comments.

Michael Ledeen has some thoughts on the letter that Johno mentioned in the previous post. This is the best part:

According to the Times — whose correspondent, Dexter Filkins, saw both the Arabic original and a military translation, and "wrote down large parts of the translation" — the letter is a sort of jihadist primal scream. It says that the jihad against the Americans in Iraq is going badly. The Iraqis are not signing up for martyrdom or jihad, they do not even permit the jihadis to organize their terrorist attacks from local houses, and, worst of all, the Americans are not afraid of the terrorists. With that charming neglect of logic that seems to define much of the radical terrorist "mind," Zarkawi says both that the Americans "are the biggest cowards that God has created," and that "America...has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes."

And he adds, "we can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases."

If we had a government capable of advancing its case to the world at large, those phrases would be broadcast around the world, because they constitute an admission of defeat by a man in the forefront of the campaign against us in Iraq.

This is it, right there. One of the signal failures of the Bush administration has not been its judgment in the conduct of the war on terror; but rather its perverse inability to make a case for its actions. While I have been doing so on a ( very ) small scale along with numerous other bloggers and journalists, the unconvinced need to hear it from the man at the top. Bush should be screaming this news from the rooftops.

And Ledeen also gives us some news from Iran:

Nonetheless, demonstrations continue all over the country. Demonstrations in Kerman a couple of weeks ago were so large that the regime was forced to bring in helicopter gunships to mow down the protesters, and the usual thugs were unleashed on student demonstrators in Tehran and Shiraz in the last few days. Despite the calls for appeasement from the State Department and a handful of our elected representatives, the Iranian people can see what is going on in Iraq, and they must take a measure of comfort from it. And the regime was so upset by President Bush's passing reference to Middle Eastern tyrants who feel threatened by the liberation of Iraq (this weekend), that on Monday the official news service reported that Bush had threatened Iran with the same treatment he had delivered to Iraq. I can hear the Iranians sighing, "oh, if only it is true."

It would be wonderful if the Iranians were able to free themselves. But it is foolish for us to stand by and not help what is clearly a growing movement, and one that hates everything that we hate - religious fundamentalism, thuggery and terrorism. Surely we can spare a couple billion dollars, some special forces troops and some loud support from the oval office to help the Iranian democracy movement.

[alsø wik] Here is another article, by Amir Taheri, commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran which happens tomorrow.

Yesterday saw the news of a letter siezed from al Qaeda which seems to indicate that they've been having a hard time drumming up support in Iraq. Michael Totten (linked above) takes the letter as an encouraging sign, and I'm inclined to read it that way as well. I've only read excerpts, so it's hard to know what the whole thing says. Anyway: good news, neh?

It's hard to be too happy when every single day brings a new headline like this one: Truck bomb outside police station south of Baghdad kills dozens. (the AP updated headline adds, "Crowd Blames Americans.") There seems to have been a lot of high-casualty suicide bombings recently; how long until this stops being "a desperate ploy by the terrorists" and becomes "an ongoing campaign of successful mass murder by the terrorists"? I thought such events were supposed to subside in the wake of Hussein's capture.

I know that good comes with bad and war is inherently contemporaneously nonnarrative, but how are things GOING in Iraq?

Better than in Haiti, I hope. One of the United State's great experiments in imperial libervasion (that is, invade 'em, civilize 'em, trade with 'em) is now in full-blown civil war.

Mike Hawash has indicated his regret for his actions in the past. He's received a seven year sentence, and I guess that seems about right. For those who don't remember, Hawash is the former Intel software engineer who was arrested a year or so ago for attempting to fight against US troops in Afghanistan. At the time, the tech community was somewhat up in arms because he'd been arrested without charge or explanation.

Some time passed, and then the FBI documents were made public. Reading them was pretty sobering. He hadn't just been arrested in a general sweep; there was very specific information about what he'd done wrong, how he'd gone about it, and so forth.

I think some of my incredulity at the time of his initial arrest was really due to the fact that he was a software guy. I just found it hard to believe that someone in my profession could do something so stupid. Clearly, though, he did.

Overlapping with that was the knowledge that various government agencies had engaged in a fair amount of abuse of process and flat out racism in detaining many other Arab citizens. I think this is one of the reasons that I feel so strongly about ensuring that individual rights are very carefully monitored and never abused...because when the government really needs to act in an extraordinary way, and be somewhat rough on a particular individual, we can't have any confusion about whether that person is being caught up in a general crackdown.

The FBI couldn't have done anything different in the Hawash case; they appear to have done everything by the book.

It's still strange to me, though. A guy who co-writes a book on DirectX programming, is a highly paid engineer, and is by all accounts a model suburban father, somehow morphs into a guy who's willing to fly to a strange country, pick up a gun, and shoot at US soldiers.

I take heart in the fact that there are tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of Muslim suburban fathers here who do not make the same choice, when torn between cultures. We stand with them; they are part of the American soul.

I feel sad for Mike Hawash and his family. He's paying a terrible and just price for his actions.

Wretchard over at the Belmont Club draws an interesting analogy between the hunt for Columbian druglord Pablo Escobar and the hunt for Saddam and (hopefully) bin Laden. Our efforts to nab Escobar through traditional law enforcement methods were stymied by the thoroughly whipped Columbian government. Using Columbian intermediaries was equally futile. Then:

the Americans had a flash of inspiration. Since they could not get to Escobar because he stood atop a "mountain" of corrupt retainers, including many in the Colombian military, they would "tear down the mountain".

They retasked intelligence to build up a map of Escobar's empire: the lawyers he used, the identities of his key lieutenants, the location of his family, the names of his key enforcers. Armed with this information it is suggested, but it was never proved, that the US facilitated the formation of a paramilitary group called "Los Pepes" (Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar) which embarked on a program of tearing down the mountain. Escobar's retainers were killed at the clip of a half a dozen a day. His palatial villas were torched. His lawyers were liquidated until in desperation, some not only publicly resigned but took to living the life of beachcombers in isolated areas, the better to stay out of the line of fire. Burned out of every home, Escobar's family eventually sought quarters under Colombian government protection. Their phones were tapped. They attempted to flee to Germany, only to be turned back due to US diplomatic pressure, upon landing, and returned to their wired guesthouse in Colombia, spending nearly three days in an airplane. Eventually, Escobar, who once lived in villas with artificial lakes, serviced by harems of prostitutes and surrounded by hundreds of bodyguards, was reduced to camping out in mountain cabins with a village laundress for company. He was shuttled around, towards the end by a loyal bodyguard in a taxicab (presaging Saddam's fate), cornered at last in a small townhouse and summarily executed on its roof.

These methods worked again with Saddam, and administration officials seem ever more confident that the net is closing on bin Laden as well. For those who still think that traditional law enforcement methods are sufficient to fight the war on terror, this is one more slap to the head.

A very good article from a very smart guy. I'm reading his history of the First World War, and it's cracking good history.

Over in the comments to my recent post of exit poll results, Ross had this to say:

So we can have more Bush? Give me a break. The man can't add (budgeting), can't spell (never written a damn thing), and can't read (intelligence or treasury reports).

Three straight years of being dead wrong on budgets. Three years of being dead wrong on the economy. Federal revenue is down by 25%, and spending is up by more than 25%. You can bitch about 9/11 all you want to, but that fact is that the GDP hasn't shifted around all that much. What's changed is the massive tax breaks given out, in the name of vote buying.

He's not exactly a "buck stops here" kind of President, either. You can be honestly wrong about something, but you're still wrong. Bush's style is to blame everyone else; the GOP's style is to eat that crap up.

There is no question that John Kerry would make a significantly better President than Bush. So would Edwards, and so would Clark or Dean, for that matter.

Really Ross? No question? I think there are many here who would question that. As I've said before, questioning his policies is one thing - and I do that myself. But making ridiculous accusations of illiteracy is, well, ridiculous. This is the same kind of rhetoric that got you involved in that frank exchange of views over at Winds of Change.

I'll give you wrong on budgets - he has spent far too much on programs that you advocate. He's half wrong on the economy - he increased farm subsidies, steel tariffs and other departures from free trade thinking are all very bad - though not disastrous. Clinton doesn't get the credit for the good economy in the late nineties, and Bush shouldn't get the blame for a cyclical downturn in the economy that started before he entered office. Tax cuts are recognized by nearly all non-Marxist economists as an economic stimulus. They may argue about their efficacy related to other measures, but there is little argument that they are a stimulus. And they are cuts, which help people because their money is in their pockets and isn't feeding the beast in Washington. That revenue is down is not a bad thing, and in any event will go back up with the economy. We do need to control spending.

And I won't stop "bitching" about 9/11 - because it is *the* issue confronting us right now. How do we protect ourselves from ruthless individuals that have declared us their enemy? How do we stop them, and how do we promote peace and freedom in a region that is violent, poor, and halfway to insanity?

9/11 trumps every other issue facing this nation. We can muddle through with our mostly ineffective educational system. The old can get their kids to buy them drugs. We can put off the reckoning with social security. But we can't sit back and do nothing while people with a proven capacity and intention to commit massive violence against American citizens plot their evil. Not being serious about the defense of our nation is unacceptable. Bush will continue to prosecute the war on terror. He will work against terror groups and the states that sponsor them. There is an international network of terror - as the recent revelations that Pakistan's premier bomb designer sold the technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The terror groups shared training facilities throughout the Middle East for the last several decades. Al Qaida connected group Ansar al-Islam just hit two of the Kurdish political parties - the groups that are working to make Iraq into a sane and liberal society.

We leave this alone, and go back to launching random cruise missiles and trying to arrest terrorists, and we'll lose a city.

Kerry seems to think that the terror threat is overrated, and that civilian police methods are adequate. Well that kind of thinking led to the death of 3000 of my countrymen. That, and John Kerry, are unacceptable. Clark is a micromanaging general officer who is roundly disliked by everyone he served with. Carter on steroids, and also not good enough. Dean's national security credibility is fractionally better than Kucinich's - he thinks that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam. Personally, I think freedom from arbitrary murder and torture is better. But remember, just like in Cuba, everyone had free health care. Edwards has yet to say anything substantial about national security beyond bland platitudes, and that is hardly encouraging.

Snake Plisskin in . . . Escape from Baghdad.

In a world gone mad, one man gets even! Snake Plisskin must survive one deadly night in Baghdad, and then... survive getting out of town!

What, you say? The US is cutting back the number of troops in Baghdad, withdrawing to a Cordon Sanitaire around the city and leaving the policing to the Iraqis, is what I say!

On question. Do Iraqi policemen count as casualties of war?

I guess I'll just keep trying. More comments have shown up on Winds of Change; the thread's disappeared into the past, so I think I'll just respond here.

Paul Stinchfield:

You say the phrase "elimination of the other" didn't come out of a book, but "just came out that way." Well, I never said it came out of a book. After all, leftists not only write that way, they also talk that way, and that particular rhetorical trope has been around long enough to thoroughly pervade the discourse of the left from professors of "cultural studies" to, I suppose, people who just like "Rage Against the Machine." And that phrase means genocide. Genocide motivated by racism, intolerance, bigotry and paranoia. That's what it means now, and that's what it meant when it was coined. However you picked it up, you surely knew its meaning and nonetheless used it to mischaracterize Trent's opinions. You cannot use such language and then credibly claim lack of responsibility for such libel. I gave you an opportunity to apologize and repudiate your inexcusable language, but you instead chose to weasel out.

Whatever. I'm 36 years old. I've spent pretty much every one of my adult years either building software companies or reading technical material that supported the building of software companies. Recently I've taken an interest in politics, and I take roughly the same approach. Unlike you, I have not had time to take classes, go to marches, attend seminars, subscribe to journals, and correspond. So when I tell you I haven't heard the phrase before, believe it. When I tell you I just wrote it that way, believe it. If you want to continue to make things up and accuse me of them, be my guest.

If I intend to say that Trent is pro-genocide, I'll just say it, exactly like that.

I simply observe the following: People will generally tell each other what they all want to hear. You see it on the left, and you see it on the right. The comfort level at Winds of Change is pretty high for hardliners on the right. You get to say what you like, there's plenty of comfortable agreement to go around. Sorry for disrupting the mutual back-slapping.

Trent writes:

Why should *ANYONE* take you seriously?

From the top:

1) Chemicals are not a threat to prepared troops in the field or emergency responders in hazmat moon suits. Unprepared civilians and emergency first responders are as vulnerable as the Kurds were to Saddam's genocidal gas attacks.

There have been a number of terrorist attack plans broken up in Europe that involved Muslim terrorist using lethal chemicals in enclosed spaces like the European parliment.

2) Libya's "turning states evidence" -- after we caught them red handed with the goods -- showed we have a world wide illict nuclear weapons component bazaar. One that would never have come to light without both 9/11/2001 and the war in Iraq.

3) As for biological weapons being "theoretical," tell that to Washington D.C. postal workers and the mail staffers at the networks and Senator Daschle's office.

Or in the first case, the relatives of dead postal workers.

The anthrax that hit Daschle's office was the product of an industrial weapons laboritory, not some "lone gunman" mad scientist. However much the FBI chants that to a gullible press corps.

4) David Kay was on today's Fox News Sunday speaking today of the breakdown of Iraq's internal order, via corruption, that was turning it into a "WMD market phenomina" where buyers and sellers were meeting. That exact thing is my leading theory for the fall 2001 anthrax mailing attack. What we are seeing of the Pakistani connection to Libya's nukes may already be just that.

5) It does not matter what you believe about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. What matters is the Palestinians won't settle for less than a total victory which involves genocide of the male Jews of Israel and Dhimminitude for the women and children survivors.

That you are chanting about a "reasonably honorable solution" doesn't adress the facts on the ground. It shows you are operating from religious conviction and not reality.

The Palestinians have chosen evil of their own free will. Deal with it or be damned for it.

I thought we were talking about a survival war here. I am trying to qualify this clash of civilizations as a survival war.

1. Yes, it sucks to be on the receiving end of a chemical attack. Barring the secret construction of a massive Islamic air force, exactly how are these chemicals going to be delivered to US cities in quantities that justify the term survival war? Ground-based delivery won't do much; the stuff dissippates too quickly. Ricin attacks don't qualify for survival warfare.

2. You don't actually believe that only religious nutcases are trying to get access to nuclear materials, do you? Criminal elements will want them, as will purely political movements. There are quite a few states who want them as well. In other words, eliminating the threat from Islam doesn't begin to cover the bad guys. That means your definition of bad guys has to expand, and it has to include words like "criminals".

3. When I say theoretical, I mean this in the scientific sense: Accepted theory is that they are very dangerous, and I agree. I do not mean this in the sense that the dangers are not real. The anthrax letters are a ludicrous point on which to suspend the notion of a necessary clash between cultures that could kill millions. I feel bad that a nut job with lab access (or maybe a rogue operative somewhere) got access to some of this stuff. He killed several people, none of whom were his intended target. Meanwhile, four thousand people that month died in car accidents. Hundreds were killed in criminal acts all across the country. The anthrax letters were clearly a failure, succeeding only to the extent they were referred to as a true threat.

4. Basic science is what it is, and Iraq is not the only rogue state in the world. There is a great deal of nuclear expertise all around the world. What, exactly, was being bought and sold? Knowledge is a slippery thing; there was nothing special about Iraq in that regard. I expect that similar knowledge sales have been occurring around the world. For all the characterization as a "marketplace", it must have been a marketplace without any physical presence. Weapons were not being manufactured in Iraq and sold around the world.

5. It's nice that you think all Palestinians think this way. Let's say they do...my reaction is, so what. They can't achieve the goal, and sooner or later, they'll simply give up. Fix the economic circumstances and you'll watch support dry up for the Islamists very quickly. I do not believe that an insane variant of any religion can take complete hold when communications are relatively free. I am a rationalist; I believe that ultimately human beings will select that which leads to gain. Palestinian leaders have controlled too much of the agenda, and have maximized their own gain at the expense of the population, who have been forcefed propaganda for far too long.

If, on the other hand, all Palestinians do not think this way, we must support those who counter the radical threat. There are limits to this, of course -- if we are supporting a vanishingly small segment of the population, there's no point.

Signs are that Arafat's means of control (financial) are coming apart. Into this gap will come other leaders; Palestinian society will fracture. This is a good thing. With any luck we'll see the emergence of a counter-Islamic segment of the population. The problem with the Islamists is that they're organized and armed. Like a drug gang in Rio, they can terrorize the population to get their way. Of course I view all of radical Islam pretty much the same way; Palestine is not the only population subject to this cancer.

As far as religious conviction goes, I have none. I believe simply in an unknowable God, which makes all this religious fighting and horror seem completely ridiculous.

Commenting on Winds of Change, I was unnecessarily opaque with the "argues inductively" statement. I wrote:

Telenko argues inductively for the elimination of the other, where the permissible degree of otherness is inversely proportional to the capability of weapons.

Let me supply the underlying thinking. I'd like to note that I do not imply that Trent is directly arguing that we should commit genocide; this is why I use the term inductive.

An inductive proof is a weak form of mathematical proof. You prove a base case, then prove that it holds true for a successor to the base. You might then conclude that it holds true for _all_ cases (a bit more definition can be had at http://scom.hud.ac.uk/scomtlm/book/node125.html).

It is imperative that I note I am not well-read in military science. My co-blogger Buckethead is; with any luck he'll chime in at some point. I just work with the facts I have.

We are discussing the notion of a _survival_ war with Islamic radicals and their support network. There are two avenues by which danger can arrive on our shores: First, by the projection of conventional force. Second, by the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Conventional force is a conceivable survival threat, but only in the very long term. Radical islamic economies would have to develop to the point where they could compete with western economies, if conventional war is to be attempted. Certain tenets of radical islam make its competitiveness in this area highly unlikely (anti-woman, dictatorial, corrupt). It is possible that a huge _decline_ in western capabilities coupled with best-case rise in Islamic cultures might one day yield conventional military capabilities that could harm us, but I find it pretty unlikely.

WMD: Chemical won't do any significant damage. Nuclear is bad, but localized. Biological is the scariest, theoretically.

An isolated nuclear attack (a bomb in a city) is not a survival-level problem. If such an attack is committed the retribution will be terrible. The US will not allow a radical islamic state to achieve substantial missile capability; a MAD rerun is not likely to occur.

Biological weapons are quite terrifying. I really don't know what the state of the art is; I will simply assume that it's bad, and it's going to get a lot worse.

Trent believes (or I perceive him to believe) that deliberate action now is necessary to assure or increase the safety level of our culture. Both the urgency of that action and the severity of its effects are coupled to the nature of WMD -- because WMD can cause so much damage, there are certain forms of freedom of thought and action that we have greatly reduced tolerance for. I do not use the word "freedom" here in anything other than its strictest literal sense; freedom here is referring to activites that are more or less psychotic and evil.

The inductive part of this comes together as weapon power increases. The imminence and capability of the WMD threat to our culture increases over time. In order to maintain some perceived level of safety, we must engage tighter and tighter control over the freedoms of other cultures, and over individuals. As WMD technology improves, the resources required to marshal and deliver such an attack become within the capabilities of smaller and smaller groups.

Thus, the use of oppressive force to counter technology-driven WMD is, over the long run, likely to fail unless increasingly rigid control and suppression of opposition is executed.

Circling back around to the beginning, what this means is that using force to counter hate and prevent hate's access to WMD will require ever more effort and severity over time. We will place those resources efficiently, which means focusing on those cultures that are most different (least understandable, least trustworthy). The farthest extents of those target cultures will be eliminated over time; they will be evolved, via forceful methods to be closer to our own. Simultaneously, as reduction of the overt cultural enemy is performed, two things happen. First, the targets become progressive more difficult to identify (smaller clusters, too similar to "us"). Second, repressive forces will necessarily produce some level of backlash. These "internal" forces can become exceedingly dangerous.

At some point it gets hard to tell the difference between friend and foe.

I hope that's shed a little light on my thinking. It's not that I disagree, necessarily, with Trent's position that a hard pre-emptive strike can "teach a lesson". It can, and it will probably succeed on some levels. I remain more concerned over the long run with the evolution of technology.

I also remain convinced that a maximally successful, peaceful, and reasonably honorable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis will substantially reduce tensions and hatred in the Islamic world, thereby reducing danger to us. I hope I'm not wrong about this; otherwise, the problem is going to be very tough.

As far as the phrase "elimination of the other" goes, it didn't come from a book -- it just came out that way when I wrote that comment. I hope my use of the phrase is clearer, now.

On a related topic: If Israel were directly attacked by conventional military force today, wouldn't the US step in and defend her? I am quite sure we would, as would a good chunk of the rest of the world.

As far as I know, in the six day war, the US did _not_ intervene. US forces were repositioned to express neutrality. The Liberty incident may have clouded the situation. Why, during this engagement, was US support of Israel not a _given_?

On the recommendation of Trent Telenko and Tom Holsinger, commenters over at Winds of Change, I went out and got a copy of Lee Harris' book Civilization and its Enemies, The Next Stage of History. Over lunch, I got about 30 pages in, and I can tell you that it is an amazing book. I'll report back on this when I've absorbed a bit more, but I suggest you run to your local book purveyor and get yourself a copy.

James, of the indispensable Outside the Beltway, links to a New York Times/AP report that a high-ranking Al Qaida officer has been captured in Iraq by US and Kurdish forces.

Osama bin Laden's terror network is seeking a foothold in Iraq as evidenced by the recent arrest of a top al-Qaida operative trying to enter northern Iraq, the commander of coalition forces said Thursday. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez cited the capture of Hassan Ghul by U.S.-allied Kurdish forces as evidence of al-Qaida's interest in establishing operations in this country. Officials in Washington reported Ghul's arrest Saturday, describing him as a senior recruiter and facilitator for al-Qaida who reported directly to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the architects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who was captured in March near Islamabad, Pakistan.

"The capture of Ghul is pretty strong proof that al-Qaida is trying to gain a foothold here to continue their murderous campaigns,'' Sanchez said. "Ghul's capture is great news for both the Iraqis, the coalition and the international community's war against terrorism.''

US officials have said that most of the attacks against coalition forces have come from the remnants of Saddam's Baathist regime. But recently, military officials have noted the use of "al-Qaida-like tactics," including suicide attacks.

Before the war, I heard many people argue that the religious fanatic al Qaida would never work with the secular Baathist. They denied any connection between Saddam's regime and al Qaida. This was obviously untrue at the time, and has become even less true over the last year. Even if the two groups absolutely hated each other, they would still have the common interest of defeating or at least attacking the US. And it is after all an Arab proverb, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." For decades, there has been a terrorist network. The IRA trained in Libya. Then the IRA trained Columbian drug cartels. The various Marxist or pseudo Marxist terror groups exchanged numbers while training in the USSR, or at Soviet sponsored training camps in the Middle East. Whether the terror groups were Marxist, Religious, Nationalist or just bugfuck, they all have each other’s numbers in the Rolodex.
And this network was in communication with the intelligence agencies of the nations that are or were state supporters of terror. We know that al Qaida met in the Czech Republic with mid level officers in Saddam’s intelligence apparatus. We know that Ansar Al-Islam has been operating in Iraq, and had training camps there. The capture of a ranking member of al Qaida is just one more piece of evidence.

We have been told to be careful in our denunciations of Islam. It’s only a few isolated, hateful wackos who are attacking us. We have also been told by some that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with and in fact was a distraction from the war on terror.

But the more I read, the more I believe that the problem is not so small. There is a continuum of Islamic terror that stretches from the terrorists themselves at one end; through the Imams who preach hatred for the west in particular and everything that isn’t Islam in general (witness my recent post on the murders of the Buddhist monks, and the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhist statues); through the nominally secular Arab governments that support the terrorists with money and sanctuary, and whose media spread anti-semitism and hatred for America; to the ‘Arab Street’ that openly and loudly celebrates things like 9/11 or the Columbia accident; and on to the mass of the Islamic population that never says a word and thus gives tacit support for all the evil that is done in their name.

It is not enough to hunt down individual terrorists and their cells, destroy their training camps and cut off their funding. We might manage that, sometimes with and sometimes without the cooperation of the governments in the region. But that doesn’t end our problem. They still hate us, not just a few, but majorities in the polls I’ve seen. Granted, they’re being lied to by the official media and their religious leaders. But so were the Germans.

Trent Telenko and Wretchard are right when they fear that a successful large scale attack on the United States could cause widespread devastation in the Middle East. We have been restrained up til now, but there is little hope that we would be if we lost a city to a terrorist nuke. And that possibility is still very real. Libya’s nuclear program was shockingly far advanced, and we knew nothing of it.

We are fighting evil. There should be no doubt about this. People who target civilians for purposes of terror are evil. People who give aid and comfort to them are evil. And the population of Islam is complicit in that evil, because they celebrate when it succeeds, and never utter a word of criticism. Even among the Muslims in this country, we hear very little in the way of condemnation for terror, and we know that their views are not being suppressed by authoritarian governments.

That’s what we’re up against. The third totalitarian movement we have faced in the last century. And they have clearly stated that we are their enemies. We need to take them at their word, and defeat them. If Hitler had been opposed in the twenties, or even in the mid thirties, millions of lives would have been saved. We waited. Communism was worse, and there were many in the west who defended it, excused it, and lied about it. Nevertheless, we opposed it. Right now, Islamic totalitarianism is weak. Now is the time to stamp it out, before it gains the capability do us serious harm.

That's true, apparently, if you're Trent Telenko. I guess they're everywhere. Here is my rambling response...lunchtime is limited today, and therefore so is my ability to polish the words.

Dear Trent: Good Lord. Where do you get the balls to tell me that I pretend 9/11 didn't happen? I guess it's simple enough if you just enjoy making it up as you go. Find me anything I've ever written that implies that. I live in Washington DC. I was here on that day. I spent a good-sized part of it terrified because the person I cared about more than anything in the world was in a State Department building, and rumors were floating around about another plane, and that a car bomb had gone off, destroying the building, and I didn't know what had happened to her. So save your "9/11 means nothing" bullshit for a little rally of like-minded jackboot-steppers. It's not applicable to me, and frankly it's not generally applicable at all. You debase yourself every time you imply it about another person.

Ah, calm.

Perhaps you're referring to the fact that my _reaction_ to 9/11 is different from yours. Once again, I'm not sure how you know, exactly, what my reaction is.

I don't pretend that a death cult is not involved, because a death cult _is_ involved, plain as day. I don't write that Arab culture isn't sick, because I happen to think that in many ways, it is. Perhaps you are confusing what I have actually written with something else?

You and I differ on whether genocide and atrocities are necessary to remedy the situation. There is no simple outcome to this; there is no absolute "logical conclusion" to be had from the facts at hand (or at least those at my disposal). Good god, man, we're dealing with social sciences and human beings, here. Nothing is predictable; nothing is certain.

Which side of the February 26, 1993 divide are you on? THAT was the wake up call, and there may have been earlier ones. That was when Islamic terrorism crossed the line in clear effort. They've had the will to do this for a very long time now. 9/11 was the first operation that accomplished its goals at scale.

You miss the point of this discussion in a spectacular way. Iraq is not the issue, and never has been. The issue is resource allocation and effective means of defense against the super-empowered angry man, and states who defend him. If we set aside all other issues, I could certainly support military intervention in Iraq, for simple "it's the right thing to do" reasons.

We're in the middle of a spending several hundred billion dollars to effect change in Iraq. We don't really know how that's going to turn out -- it's a risk, right now. The benefits are highly nebulous and off in the future. Kay's testimony and report shows that the country did not have significant WMD (or any at all, for that matter). Alarmingly, though, he found that there are some pretty "smart" guys running around in the middle east who might be able to create certain kinds of WMD, whose talents are for sale. What could they build? Low-tech nuclear, possibly biological, certainly chemical. Where will they go now? They will go places where we do not have monitoring.

Each of these capabilities will, over the next century, become progressively more available to smaller and smaller groups. I conclude that we _will_ suffer from this form of terrorism; and there is no way to stop it.

We can delay, perhaps. A massive onslaught of violence and posturing against Middle Eastern culture will achieve some delay. Arab culture and radical Islam seem to be the primary generators of violence on the face of the planet, at the moment. Religious intolerance is stunning difficult to root out and eliminate. We must find a way to generate massive intolerance _within_ Arab culture to the cancer in its midst, to create the ultimate solution. That is an open problem.

The singular focal point of _secular_ Middle Eastern anger at America involves Israel. Given the resources we are expending and have expended on Iraq, can we find a better use? I believe we can. Invading Iraq to provide an example of how an Arab state _could_ be is POINTLESS without some benign resolution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. You can set up any democracy you want in Iraq, and anything you do of merit will be poisoned by that fundamental conflict. Note that I do NOT advocate a particular solution to that conflict, at this point -- I advocate a specific OUTCOME. Anything that achieves an outcome of stability, separation, and relative peace is acceptable.

Longer term, I view decentralization as the only defense against the progressive danger of WMD. I conclude that over the long run, free cities cannot be defended from the terrorism of the super-empowered angry man. We must study our infrastructure and create many points of strength, where we currently have single points of weakness. We must, by government intervention if necessary, decentralize our financial and political systems.

We live on a vast continent, and it's time we took advantage of that.

A couple of random notes:

WMD are either state-sponsored or not. Tens of thousands of Russian nuclear missiles aimed at the US are a civilization-ending threat (not to mention life-on-the-planet-ending). One nuclear weapon, detonated in a city, is an immeasurable tragedy and horror, but not a civilization ending event. Eliminating state-sponsored terrorism is a critical goal. Clearly, military operations in Afghanistan accomplished this goal. Just as clearly, the massive expenditures in Iraq are not justified with a corresponding reduction in terrorist capabilities or potential.

When I look at the list you use to "qualify" Iraq for invasion, what strikes me is how precisely Saudi Arabia maps into it. I find it very hard to believe that somewhere in SA, we would not find a rich man, funding a clever man, to build a horror. Certainly, SA is a primary source of funding for the "death cult" that is attempting to propagate itself around the globe.

The easiest form of terrorism is to simply fill a van with explosives, drive it next to a building, and detonate it. This technique could easily be used to kill tens of thousands of people in America. It wouldn't necessarily kill them all at once, but if a series of bombings were to take place, the effect might be even stronger. Why have we not seen this form of attack? Don't tell me it's because the INS is doing its job. That's a joke. I'm really not sure why we haven't see more domestic terrorism, but I think the answer is twofold: First, there just really aren't all that many of these suicidal nutjobs. Second, when said carefully trained nutjobs arrive in America, blend in, and possibly make friends, quite a large number of them realize that they've been living a lie, and fade away.

My basic, but uninformed solution for the Israeli/Palestinian crisis: Build the wall. Put it on the green line. Evict or imprison Arafat and his cronies. PAY for the relocation of Israeli settlers back into Israel proper. PAY to establish an economy in Palestine. With some meaningful self-direction, a decent economy, and secular causes _removed_, the radicals will find themselves on the receiving end of massive internal hostility. Inform Israel that their military aid is contingent upon acceptance (at no cost) of this offer. Inform the new Palestine (or whatever the hell they call themselves), that _any_ spending on a formal military will be met with an increase in military aid to Israel double the expenditure, and a cessation of any economic aid whatsoever. Create "truth" commissions on both sides, offering amnesty for detailed information, cessation of activites, and surrender of all war materiel. Place Jerusalem under UN authority, making it an independent "sub-state", with its own elected council, evenly divided along religious lines. The oath of office is a binding oath to preach non-violence and tolerance. Build desalination plants on the coast and convey the water to the new palestine. Create a UN-sponsored, secular education system in the new palestine. Fund it so no family will ever need to send a child to a religious school again. Do I want to reward terrorism by just _giving_ people all this? Hell, no. But I want more terrorism even less. And for my global strategy, I need Israel and suroundings to be peaceful and prosperous, on both sides.

I have been thinking about something that I know is controversial, and I struggle with it. It is a formal policy of assassination. Essentially, any _public_ religious figure who _publicly_ advocates "death to america (or another western country)" AND demonstrably and provably supports terrorism, through guidance or resources or some such, without repudiation of those statements, is subject to this policy. Anywhere in the world, any time. The uttering of "death to america" puts us on notice of intent to kill our citizens, from a particular individual. It may be necessary to generate an equal and opposite reaction.

Here's a report that the Army has been authorized to increase its manpower by 30,000 under an emergency authority expected to last four years. The Army and Defense Department have rejected calls for permanent increases, saying that it is too early for permanent increases that would interfere with efforts to streamline and modernize the Army.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been making ever more insistant demands that the Army increase its size. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker said a permanent increase would force the Army to expand permanently before it had made needed structural and operating changes.

While I recognize the need to make those changes, there is little question that we need to have more people in uniform. A couple more divisions' worth in the army, plus the necessary support troops is a minimum. We need to have troops for our current commitments, such as in Korea, for any emergency, such as in Iraq; more troops to relieve troops committed to an emergency; and for good measure even more troops to deal with another emergency. We only have enough for the first two, and the pressure on our soldiers in terms of lengthy deployments and the like will mean that a lot of them will not be reenlisting. This will create even greater problems in the future is this problem is not addressed now.

Wretchard, of the Belmont Club has also taken up the topic of the possibility of US action in Lebanon. I discussed this earlier, but Wrethard goes into a little more detail, and provides us with some more sources.

The Jerusalem Post article rightly suggests that any US special forces deployment would inevitably bring then into direct conflict with the Syrian occupiers of Lebanon and the sponsors the Hezbollah. Their use would perforce be accompanied by the organization and training of indigenous Lebanese auxiliaries, a feature of all US special forces campaigns from Indochina to Afghanistan. The special forces would be supported by air units and fire support, plus light infantry to prevent a repetition of the "Blackhawk Down" scenario. Units could draw on equipment already prepositioned in Israel, located in the mysterious Sites 51, 53 and 54. All in all, it would create a strategic nightmare for Damascus. With Americans in the Bekaa 40 km west of downtown Damascus -- less than a marathon run, the Israeli army on the Golan Heights a mere 60 km south of the capital and American forces on the Iraqi border 300 km to the east and Turkey on the northern border, the Assad regime would be literally encircled.

The US probably feels that it has the Iraqi problem in hand and may want to maintain the operational tempo in its wider campaign against the Middle Eastern dictatorships. An American deployment to the Bekaa would open a new low-intensity warfare front which would resemble a cross between the campaign in Afghanistan and the recent anti-Saddam counterinsurgency in Iraq. In the light of recent experience, the Pentagon may feel confident in challenging the Syrians and Hezbollah to what has become a familiar operation of war with a known cost and proven methods. But to the Syrians, Americans in the Bekaa will be a mortal threat, which they must prevent or repel. If they cannot, the spring of 2005 will see a new regime in Lebanon hostile to Syria and their Hezbollah lackeys in flight. It would also sound the death-knell of Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which will be boxed in and probably beset by American-sponsored auxiliaries. A successful campaign to topple Syria would in turn mean American control of a continuous swath of territory between the Mediterranean and the Iranian border. It would cut off the Arabian Peninsula to the north and squeeze Saudi Arabia and Yemen onto American deployments on the Horn of Africa -- of which the Washington Post's report of a return to Somalia would be a part.

Will it happen? Wait and see. Can it happen. Yes it can.

We have already been chasing insurgents over the border, so only the scope of the operation would really come as a surprise to the Syrians. There is little that they could do to prevent it. Keeping the fire hot under the nations that support terror is a very good thing. Our actions in Iraq led to the capitulation of Libya's Qaddaffi, but we do not want other state supporters of terrorism to think that we will stop with Iraq. Actions like this, along with a Presidential statement of support for the democracy movement in Iran would go a long way indeed to further our cause.

Michael Totten writes about recent Islamist attacks on Buddhist monks in Thailand. (Totten linked to a post on Totally Whacked, and his post has a dead link to a story. But I found another one.) He makes this comment about the murders:

It's not because Buddhist monks are "colonialist oppressors," nor is it because Buddhists drive the engine of corporate globalization. And it's not because Thailand is a superpower that deserves to be brought to heel. Thai Buddhists don't need to ask "why do they hate us?" It's because Buddhists are "infidels." And that's that.

A commenter on that post had this to say:

Whoever thinks hatred of America and Israel in the ME is about "the Occupation" is a total idiot. It's about Jihad. This is a war that has been raging since the 7th century when the muslim hordes burst out of the Arabian peninsula and captured and converted the Christian provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Antioch, etc., invaded Persia and swept across North Africa towards my beloved Spain. Only in the 17th century were they finally stopped at the gates of Vienna itself. Osama knows what this war is about, and he's been trying to tell us. But we insist it's about U.S. "policies". What a bunch of Liberal claptrap. Why don't we take Osama and the extremists at their word? To them this is a Jihad, and has been since the 7th century. The Crusades was merely an attempt to roll them back, and they're still pissed about it. Why do you think they still call us "crusaders"? Get with the program people. This has little or nothing to do with U.S. "policies" and "oil". This is a civilizational conflict that has raged across the centuries and will continue to do so.

Our policies did not create 9/11. If bad American foreign policy were the root cause of terrorism, why have we not been plagued with sixty years of suicide attacks from the Japanese? We handled them rather roughly in the Second World War, even dropped a couple nukes on them. It is condescending to imagine that another's actions are solely determined by your own. We need to take the terrorists and their supporters at their word, and not ask why they hate us. They've told us why.

Long posted along Korea's 38th parallel, America's 2nd Infantry Division has kept watch over the volatile Demilitarized Zone. Forward elements of the division harbor no illusions about their role in a new Korean conflagration, planning to act as a "trip-wire" to delay the invading North long enough for the rest of the country to enact its defense plans. For decades overpaid policy-type smart people have credited the 2IDs Korean presence as the cornerstone of a credible deterrent to North Korea, with the added benefit of being really irritating to China.

So we shouldn't be at all surprised that, as part of the continuing effort to refine and improve not only the peninsula's defense posture, but the American Fighting Man, lap dancing at clubs frequented by 2ID soldiers will be prohibited.

The article goes on to explain how unit leaders decided to define lap dancing. Associated research ultimately concluded that dancers are "typically of the opposite sex", and lap dances are often "done at close quarters". Leadership then took measures to ensure that no one could possibly enjoy any of it.

That's right kids. It's not more range time, or language study, or PT, or ROK liasons, the SOFA agreements, or the KATUSA program that needs improvement. It's eliminating simulated copulation that will really give us the edge over the commies.

A couple of notes on the Winds of Change comment thread:

1. Note to the Rest of the Planet: Make sure nobody gives Telenko the controls for the spaceship. He seems to think that letting your enemy know that you intend his annihilation and the death of his entire culture, is an excellent tactic in the era of the superempowered angry man. Yeah, right. What we exactly need, in these circumstances, is an open declaration of war against an entire people. Tactically, it's plain stupid. If you're going to kill somebody, you just do it. You don't let'em know it's coming.

2. Gabriel, my SUV comment was simply intended as an observation. I intend no disrespect or arrogance by it, although comments containing those words are often written with that intention. Rather, I simply seek to juxtapose our lifestyle with that of others around the world. Hell, I'm more or less in _favor_ of the nice suburban lifestyle, if that's your thing. It's not mine. I'd like to see the environmental impacts of it lessened, and I'd like to see those SUVs in the driveways be hybrids, but those are attribute problems, not fundamental disagreements with lifestyle. I go out to my suburban friends' houses, and I marvel. ;) My biggest beef with suburbs is, frankly the #$^@%$%@ traffic jams that get created because zoning commissions are bought and paid for by developers...but that's a whole different post. :)

3. Katzman and I have been down this path before (http://old.perfidy.org/comments.php?id=P1231_0_1_0_C), and somehow I suspect this sand will show footprints again.

4. Katzman points out that "We need to understand the agents and actors feeding the mindset", while in the sentences before, indicating that we do NOT need to gain knowledge of the bombers themselves. Give me a break. In any sufficiently complex system, there are relationships between all parts. The agents and actors in this case are both within and without the Palestinian society. It would not surprise me to learn that some of the bombers are not from the territories; that would fit the patterns we see there. Why would we artificially restrict ourselves in analyzing this problem? To formulate strategy against the masterminds, we must understand how their techniques of control apply to those who are vulnerable (bombers). We must understand the sources of that vulnerability. It is all of one system; the interior political, exterior political, interior psychological, and exterior psychological. The men who have most affected history, have effected change that has given us our peaceful lives and the opportunity to have an SUV in the driveway, have been those who were able to avoid conflicts, turn disadvantage to advantage, conduct the most difficult and unpopular diplomacies...and even then, war is at times a necessary failure. We all do well to remember that.

5. The viral, memetic capabilities of Islam's usurpation by power-hungry, theocratical apologists for tribalism have never really been deliberately confronted by an adequate opposing force. Our cultural memes dominate at the levels of personal desire and freedom, the commerce level, and on many others. Why, then, have they been so unsuccessful in defeating or subverting Manji's "Desert Islam" at the spiritual and populist level? Non-religious forces (economics, tradition, pride) are at work in a complex system, defeating our implicit attempts in this area. Social memes represent the _aggregate_ of what we all do, what we all think, all our contacts, formal and informal, with the opposing entity. Within such an intricately related system, butterflies matter...some of our butterflies better not have shiny red buttons. They'll make a mess of the roost.

Just when you think that the light of inquiry still exists in the world, and that rational, probing discussion still holds a place, Katzman at Winds of Blame steps out of his cave bearing his weighty log of truth via blunt force, grunts out dramatic oversimplifications, then shakes his log vigorously for good measure.

A procedural note: I'd appreciate it if you could make an effort to get the name of our blog right; the Ministry of Minor Perfidy is really Buckethead's and Johno's. I'm just an occasional writer. I promise to try and get "Winds Of Change" right from now on.

Where to start? The insults? Nope...I usually try to stay a little bit above that. Although, in the case of the comments on that particular thread, I did fire away at commenter Mary. My specific reason for doing so was in hope that she'd do exactly what she did do: Revert back to a factual discussion. She did so, laid out her position much more crisply, and provided references. "Ah!" I thought to myself, "this is exactly what I'd hoped for." I was not arguing a particular side...Mary's view and my own are actually very close. What I argue against is the ridiculous reductionism that applies to arguments rendered in heated, emotionally involved exchanges.

Katzman, apparently in search of non-existent support for his cowboy attitude, completely ignores the latter half of the comment thread, in which discussion resumed at an intelligible level. I am forced to wonder if he and I are from parellel universes, where dictionaries just don't have the same things written in them.

It has become distressingly apparent to me that I need to work through my meanings from first principles. I offer the following dictionary definitions; my use of the word "understanding" is a use of meaning one (1.), and not meaning four (4.).

con·done ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-dn) tr.v. con·doned, con·don·ing, con·dones

To overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure. 

un·der·stand ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ndr-stnd) v. un·der·stood, (-std) un·der·stand·ing, un·der·stands v. tr. 

1. To perceive and comprehend the nature and significance of; grasp. See Synonyms at apprehend. 

2. To know thoroughly by close contact or long experience with: That teacher understands children. 

3.1. To grasp or comprehend the meaning intended or expressed by (another): They have trouble with English, but I can understand them. 

3.2. To comprehend the language, sounds, form, or symbols of. 

4. To know and be tolerant or sympathetic toward: I can understand your point of view even though I disagree with it. 

5. To learn indirectly, as by hearsay: I understand his departure was unexpected. 

6. To infer: Am I to understand you are staying the night? 

7. To accept (something) as an agreed fact: It is understood that the fee will be 50 dollars. 

8. To supply or add (words or a meaning, for example) mentally.

When I said "I can objectively understand the factors that lead to an action I do not agree with", I hope my meaning is now less opaque.

Let me be crystal clear. I judge suicide bombers. Over and over you write that I do not judge, in defiance of the plain meaning of the English language. There is no moral ground here that you occupy, and I do not. But while I judge, I also try to gain understanding, meaning one. By understanding, I do not mean empathy. I am somewhat devoid of true empathy, being hundreds of steps removed from the subject, in cultural and economic circumstance.

The difference between us is this: unlike you, Joe, I seek answers that operate at a level deeper than "psychotic death cult", and "Arafat sucks". Those two answers may be entirely accurate, but they are incomplete. "Psychotic death cult" means what, exactly? What sociological causes and effects underlie it? Are there any means of preventing it? Who has done the good thinking on advancing those means? In the comment thread, Mary usefully provides some references informing us on the origins of terrorist thought.

But, you don't want to have that conversation, because your brain shuts off as soon as someone tries to discuss the psychological factors that contributed to terrorism. To engage in the scientific method we must create hypotheses, test them against the facts, then refine and repeat. Part of that process is confronting ugly realities, and either proving or disproving them.

It's a time-honored method that you don't seem to approve of. Perhaps commenter Mary has brought her freshly reasonable fact-based discourse to the wrong place.

I wrote: "So what could push you over the edge? What within your life could happen that would make you a little crazy, make you lose the civilized veneer? What if that happened; a son or daughter lost, and your anger became uncontrollable?"

Armed Liberal tells us, in the comment thread, that "Ross, if I was in that situation only one thing would occupy my thoughts...how do I win."

When I wrote that, was I referring to an Israeli or a Palestinian? AL thought I was writing from the perspective of an Israeli. Others may have thought the opposite.

An Israeli father, losing a daughter to a bomb in a restaurant, may feel (perhaps must feel) that anger...a Palestinian father, losing a son to the IDF response, will feel that same anger.

I think I know what it's about. You don't like all this mushy talk about feelings. I view the emotions in the situation as a barrier to successful resolution; as such, we must understand them and their effects and formulate solutions that deal with them.

There are two sides to every story. I seek an understanding of both sides of this one (once again, in the sense of meaning one, as I must make that clear). When we engage in angry rhetoric, we devalue the meaning of discourse, and make a solution harder. In short, fightin' words tend to make for more fightin' words, and just plain more fightin'.

Reasonable observers will agree that on both sides of this conflict, the last few years and seen substantial entrenchment, mutual dehumanization, and mutual demonization. This is clear deterioration. Ten and five years ago (in fact for as long as I can remember, before that), the Israeli government made a point of apologizing for accidental deaths in the terroritories. It does so no longer. I say this not in a judgmental sense, but simply to note a fundamental shift in viewpoint. Likewise, on the Palestinian side, a similar hardening has taken place, and has been sadly accompanied by increasing tolerance of the religious nutjobs who pretend to make a difference.

When we, as third parties to the situation, fail to exercise ourselves in reasoned discourse and search for truth, we aggravate the situation. We fail in our role as arbitrators. The first rule of arbitration is to gain the confidence and acceptance of the parties involved. This does not mean neutrality, necessarily. It means legitimacy, as perceived by both sides.

With your "there is no truth except my truth, and I am the messenger of truth" rhetoric and insult of ensuing discussion, you need look no further than any brief history of Islam to understand what happens when periods of discussion are closed. This, in my mind, makes you the "enabler". A fair-sized chunk of the dehumanization and resulting violence in the middle east is due to people like you, who actively preach it.

Here's the short version of this whole post, if it all came out wrong:

1. You don't know a damn thing about me and how I view the world. You seem to have gone out of your way to misread and misrepresent what I've written.
2. Dictionaries are helpful.
3. People telling other people not to talk about something is one of my hot buttons.
4. Unlike Joe Katzman, I believe that there is still hope, and an endgame is possible that does not involve thousands more dead and permanent hatred. I think the Israelis and Palestinians are both people who are stuck in a shitty situation. I think the rest of us need to find a way for them to get out of it.
5. Unlike Katzman, I am not a spectator in a Roman Coliseum, cheering my chosen champion's bloody sword...

I trust my position is sufficiently reformulated. It might give you pause the next time you scream "terrorist" at the man next to you, in response to his wrinkled brow, or his expression of confusion about facts. Somehow, I think it will not.

[wik] Katzman comments, inexplicably repeating the misrepresentations of my viewpoint, ever so carefully expounded upon above...I guess that's life in blog-land.