Mercenaries and Soldiers

Eugene Volokh alludes to a question that has been puzzling me ever since the Kos controversy erupted: what is the difference between mercenaries and volunteer soldiers? Evidently Kos and his ilk haven't heard that the draft has been repealed, probably because they are still living in the 70s. Which strikes me as a highly significant clue into the mind of the left.

Volokh's commentary seems to assume that there is consensus that this is a just war, which is not a valid assumption when dealing with most of the left. My take on the issue is that most of these people saw themselves as heroes during the Civil Rights and Vietnam protests, and wish like anything that those days would come back so they can be heroes again. Of course the corollary to this is that the country, and indeed the world, would have to be plunged back into repression and tyranny so that they would have something to protest, but this does not seem to bother them much. If revolution is an end in itself, obviously there will always need to be an Oppressor to revolt against. This is the key insight that we owe to Orwell:

"Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever[...] And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again."

And the reason for this is that in a world in which God has no authority, tradition is risible and human nature itself is called into question, only power can have any meaning. There can be no compromise because there are no grounds for shared goals, no ultimate values upon which to agree.

Of course, these comments only apply to the most extreme leftists and most would like to think that there is something valuable beyond themselves. But the sort of man who can see the murder and desecration of human beings and only see an enemy to be reviled, has already traveled far down the road to tyranny.

Zeyad Near Despair

Zeyad of Healing Iraq posted the following comments earlier today:

"I have to admit that until now I have never longed for the days of Saddam, but now I'm not so sure. If we need a person like Saddam to keep those rabid dogs at bay then be it. Put Saddam back in power and after he fills a couple hundred more mass graves with those criminals they can start wailing and crying again for liberation. What a laugh we will have then. Then they can shove their filthy Hawza and marji'iya up somewhere else. I am so dissapointed in Iraqis and I hate myself for thinking this way. We are not worth your trouble, take back your billions of dollars and give us Saddam again. We truly 'deserve' leaders like Saddam."

I wouldn't presume to criticize a man who is watching his country fall apart around him, but I would gently suggest that what is really needed is a stronger show of force by the coalition. The agitators are obviously trying to demoralize the support for the transition to a federal democracy in Iraq, but they are taking a bigger risk than perhaps they realize. If the coalition forces are able to suppress this insurgency, then it will have demonstrated the ineffectiveness of such tactics. If this really is a carefully planned attack, it seems to represent the last hope of the anti-democratic forces.

But that hope rests in two possible outcomes, neither of which seems to be unfolding. The first, and most obvious, would be to cause a premature pull-out of US forces. But, despite the similarity to the catastrophe in Mogadishu that everyone is noting, this is almost certainly not going to occur. First because we have learned that lesson and second because we have far more at stake in Iraq than we had in Somalia.

The other possible outcome, which few seem to have remarked on, is that the US would discredit itself by over-reacting. This also seems to have been avoided, as witness these stories from CNN: "Our concern is precise," said Lt. James Vanzant, a Marine spokesman. "We want to get the guys we are after. We don't want to go in there with guns blazing." So it looks like we have learned that lesson, too. (And note the call for more troops in the first story.)

Zeyad's update suggests that his vision of a coup may have been premature. And the reaction of the US military gives grounds for a guarded optimism.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan makes a similar point but Instapundit notes that the fighting continues.

UPDATE2: Guess I should have read further down the page. Evidently Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has quite a list of commentary on this subject, all mostly optimistic.

Rwanda +10

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda. Not too much notice is being taken of the date by the press, no doubt because of the Shiite uprising in Iraq. Here is a CNN piece noting the quest to bring the perpetrators to justice. Mark Doyle, of the BBC, reports accusations by Paul Kagame that France was responsible for training the militia. Also from the BBC, this story gives some human perspective of what the anniversary means to the survivors.

(Incidentally, Christopher Hitchens notes a connection, albeit an indirect one, between Fallujah and Rwanda.)

Eurabia?

Front page magazine has an article by Bat Ye'or reacting to an assertion by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia that "the largest group of the perpetrators of antisemitic activities appears to be young, disaffected white Europeans." Her counter assertion is that the rise in antisemitism is the result of a "Euro-Arab war for the delegitimization and destruction of Israel."

It is a somewhat unevenly written piece. The first half reads like a typical conspiracy theory: heavy on accusations and assertions and light on references or verifiable facts. But later, she does give some fairly accurate descriptions of actual European behavior. One excellent point she makes is:

"Europe spoke incessantly for the 'legitimate inalienable rights of the Palestinians.' This phrase, borrowed from Arab League declarations, is repeated in every few lines of European statements mimicking their Arab models. We would seek in vain the definition of the rights of Kurds, Berbers, Copts or any other pre-Islamic indigenous inhabitants of the Middle East, including Jews- these peoples are never mentioned."

I must confess that I am ambivalent. While I am inclined to trust Bat Ye'or more than either the UN or the EU, I don't feel that I have been given enough solid facts and argument in this particular case.

Defending Taiwan

When the Bush administration took office in 2001 (and actually during the campaign the previous year as well) I predicted that the major foreign policy front would be keeping China from invading Taiwan. My chief worry was that all of Bush's rhetoric downplaying the US role in nation-building would signal a more isolationist foreign policy that would leave our threatened democratic allies -- chiefly Israel and Taiwan -- unsupported. And though I did not exactly minimize the threat that Islam poses to a democratic world-view, I had always considered atheistic communism to be the greater danger. At least Islam acknowledges a transcendent source of human value which makes democracy possible, if not likely, within its dominion.

Obviously I was wrong about both the centrality of China and Bush's isolationism. But even with the reassessment that the 9/11/01 massacre caused in America's role in nation-building, it occurred to me to wonder if the focus on the middle east and the war on terror would leave Taiwan subject to a creeping loss of security. Very little has been reported on that front, and what little does get attention is immediately eclipsed by the latest body count in Iraq.

So I find it encouraging that, even if the press has largely forgotten Taiwan, the Bush administration seems to be quietly strengthening our eastern ally. This news, for instance:

"The United States defended its planned sale of advanced radar systems to Taiwan on Thursday, saying they were merely to safeguard the island's security.

US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters that Washington had not received any 'formal demarche' from Beijing but said that the early warning radars were 'inherently defensive' and to enable Taiwan 'to detect and react to missile attacks'."

(Courtesy of Missile Threat)
Unfortunately, though the article indicates that these are long-range radars, it doesn't mention if they could detect a launch from as far away as North Korea.

More on Fallujah

Zeyad of Healing Iraq offers some level-headed comments. I note that he confirms my prescription below that the Iraqi leaders need to go beyond condemnation and take an active role in prosecuting the guilty parties:

"... the CPA should gather all the prominent tribal leaders of Fallujah, Ramadi, Khaldiyah (since those towns are largely tribal ones) and give them two options; either to hand out all weaponry and ammunitions, plus any insurgents and foreign terrorists they have amongst them, or to face the consequences which could be pulling out of the area completely, halting all reconstruction and humanitarian efforts, and leaving it behind the rest of Iraq, if that's what they want.

Any other approach wouldn't work. Bombing innocents would create more outrage and anti-american sentiment from people who are still against others making trouble. The culprits that were shown on tv can be found easily via informants in the area, and they should be punished severely."

Polling Data Mantra

Eugene Volokh offers a mantra well worth repeating: "I will not think that statistically insignificant changes in poll results are statistically significant -- even if I really, really like them."

For the disciple further on the path of enlightenment I offer this extension: "Especially this early in the election cycle."

Defining Kerry

Deacon at PowerLine comments on Dan Balz' Washington Post article Bush Scores Points By Defining Kerry. Says Balz:

"The senator from Massachusetts emerged from the primaries unscathed but still little known, a condition Bush's team set about to change with an aggressive plan to define the senator before he could define himself."

But Deacon comments:

"I must say, though, that I have a problem with the notion that Bush has won a race to "define" Kerry, as though the Senator were a blank slate, the meaning of whose candidacy was ever realistically up for grabs. Kerry has been defining himself through his liberal, dovish public record for a period of 35 years."

This is a good point of course, but not really germane. The issue is not whether Kerry himself is a blank slate but whether public perception of him is. For the majority of the voters in this election, Kerry is an unknown quantity. For that matter, so is Bush as far as the undecided vote is concerned. Both candidates will need to define the parameters of the debate and the one who does so first will gain an early advantage.

But Deacon also adds:

"it is more accurate to say that the Bush campaign has "exposed" Kerry than to say that it has defined him."

Hmm. OK, so he is trying to turn the debate from the Straussian or perhaps post-modern competitive model to a more objective model. Fair enough, and I more or less agree with him. But lets not forget that politics really is more like competition than like scholarship. It is possible to compete honestly and with respect for the voters, in which case "exposing" the facts should help you win the competition to "define" your opponent. But ultimately you cannot rely on the voters to draw the proper conclusions by themselves. This is a mistake too many conservatives make: relying on the facts to speak for themselves. They don't.

It is an easy trap for honest people to fall into, because it appeals to their basic sense of fair play and their overall optimism. But it is no less deadly for all that. We must make an effort to persuade people to our point of view. Call it educating them, if you like, but the point is that it must be active, not passive. In my view this is the number one reason why conservatism is not more popular than it is.

Finance Deform

Instapundit notes trouble brewing for Kerry with possible Campaign Finance violations. The story is further down the food-chain at The Boston Globe via Tim Perry.

"The complaint names two groups, MoveOn.org and the Media Fund, that have been running ads in March criticizing Bush in several battleground states. Kerry, too, has been airing ads in key states, but on a much smaller scale.

The GOP cited at least three factors it says prove coordination: links between people involved in some of the soft money groups and the Kerry campaign during the same election cycle; the timing of media buys in the same states and media markets; and TV stations receiving a Media Fund ad on Kerry's economic plan before Kerry publicly released the economic plan."

Generally, if a law is bad for Republicans, it gets praised, if it is bad for Democrats... it gets tossed. Here's hoping.

Voucher Rally in Tallahassee

Children First America reports that more than 3000 "participated in the largest school choice rally in U.S. history".

The Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program - otherwise known as "Step Up for Students" - provides scholarships to qualifying low-income students for use at public or private schools. [...] Governor Jeb Bush was the keynote speaker at the rally and offered his continuing support for the largest corporate tax credit scholarship program in the United States. Students from Miami Christian Academy had the honor of presenting Governor Bush with an oversized check for $58 million - the amount of money the CTC program has saved Florida taxpayers since the program's inception two years ago.

OK, it's old news and it's just a rally so it won't convince anyone who wasn't already pro-voucher. And it is a means-tested voucher so it won't make sweeping changes in the education level of the population. But any good news on the educational front is worth noting. Especially since traditional media will always be willing to highlight the criticism (Tampa Tribune, Palm Beah Post)

The Fallujah Atrocity

Peggy Noonan is right on the money about what our response should be:

"The world is used to bad news and always has been, but now and then there occurs something so brutal, so outside the normal limits of what used to be called man's inhumanity to man, that you have to look away. Then you force yourself to look and see and only one thought is possible: This must stop now. You wonder, how can we do it? And your mind says, immediately: Whatever it takes."

Little Green Footballs further asks "what the hell is wrong with us" for not already responding. Obviously, the parallel with Mogadishu demands that we act decisively and, I would argue, quickly to put a stop to this and send a counter message that we will not be cowed. But I also think that this would be an opportune time for the fledgling Iraqi government to show its mettle and take an active role in rounding up the murderers. Ms. Noonan remarks that

"It is not only coalition forces that should send this message. It is important that Iraqis themselves--pro-peace and pro-democracy Iraqis who are attempting to build a new government--come forward to denounce what happened in Fallujah. They should stand before the world and denounce the atrocity in the most serious terms."

This is fine, but they need to do more than talk. If we are going to be handing the country back over to them in three months, they damn well better be able to supress this kind of atrocity.

First Things First

I was planning on starting this Blog on Ash Wednesday to correspond with the release of Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ. My original idea was to go to the first available showing, then give my unedited impressions.

However, some folks from my church decided to wait a week and see it in a group, so I delayed the review to go along with them. After seeing the film, my wife and I invited everyone back to our place to discuss it, which lasted until well after 1:00 AM so no immediate blogging was possible (or at least reasonable).

I did write a review, though but it kind of grew in the telling so I decided to submit it to Touchstone. I got the following, very sweet, email back from editor David Mills the very next day:

Thank you for your submission. We (the editors) are currently trying to figure out what to do about the movie. We have nine submissions already, not to mention the queries I've gotten, but our lead time is such that we couldn't easily publish anything before the June issue (May is in production now and we could get in perhaps one short article), by which time the subject may be exhausted, between the print media and the web. This is one of the headaches of modern publishing. I don't mean to discourage you, esp. since I haven't read the submission, but wanted to be honest about the situation.

Odds are, of course, the thing won't get published, in which case I will post it here. But with all the craziness involved, I thought it would be appropriate to start the blog on April Fools Day.