Hey! Vladimir! It's Time For A Change

Really, Mr Putin, you have to get a grip. The Cheney-Bush "Treat-Russia-Like-A-Loser" regime is history. You can lighten up on the threats. The Obama Administration is inclined to a far less unipolar view of the foreign relations.

Anyway, threatening deployment of the Iskander-M medium range ballistic missiles is not an inherently credible notion. In case it missed your attention, the Geek would like to point out that the "field test" during last summer's Georgian incursion showed the Iskander to be something of a dud. The touted "new" delivery system showed itself to be deficient in the old accuracy department among other shortcomings. So, unless your missile unit in Kalinigrad is going to mount nukes on their Iskanders, the system is not at all impressive in its warfighting potential.

Even your own defense wallahs have admitted that the Iskander-M is in need of further test and refinement. Maybe it's not back-to-the-drawing-boards time but you have to acknowledge reality: rattling missiles that don't work will not scare even the Western European give-peace-a-chance crowd let alone the Poles.

Then, Vladimir, you ought to consider what your past Iskander based threats have bought you in Poland. Way back when, before the Iskander flubbed up in Georgia, your threats affrighted the Poles enough to inveigle a new security agreement with the US which will materially improve the capabilities of the Polish armed forces. In case you have forgotten your KGB training, that is not the way threats are supposed to work. A threat is supposed to cow the recipient not provide an impetus to improve its capacity to resist.

When the Russian gentleman from the Ministry of Defense said yesterday that the planned deployment of Iskander-M to Kaliningrad was being put on hold, the Geek thought, "Well, the winds of realism are blowing through the Kremlin." Now, the message has changed.

The reports from Davos are that you, Mr Putin, huffed and puffed in the direction of the Polish PM. Further, one of your spokesmen has alleged that yesterday's reports were wrong, the victim of what he termed an "information collision." Whatever that might mean.

Now, "come, let us reason together," as LBJ was wont to say. Barack Obama expended a great deal of high quality campaign rhetoric against the deployment of "untested" anti-ballistic missile systems. While, as is SOP in campaign talk, his statements were hyperbolic, there is a large grain of truth behind the words.

The proposed system is far from glitch free and could benefit from an extended development and test period. The Obama Administration is poised to grant the time necessary. This is good.

However, if any delay in deploying the proposed ABMs to Poland is seen as capitulation to Russian (oops! The Geek almost wrote "Soviet.") shoe banging, the administration will come under increasing, perhaps intense political pressure here in the US. This could cause difficulties not in the better interests of either the US or Russia.

We all know that the handful of short range interceptor missiles in no way compromises Russia's ability to plant mushroom clouds throughout the US and the rest of the world. Anyone with the slightest awareness of Russia's nuclear delivery potential well understands that.

In all probability the boys in the Kremlin are far more concerned about the expiration of START I next December. Both Russia and the United States have large stockpiles of aging nuclear warheads. Similarly the extant delivery systems in both countries are not getting any younger or more effective. The US has made some (halting, hesitant) steps in the direction of procuring upgraded warheads or, as the Russians call them, "nuclear charges." Hints oozing around the high and tight Russian secrecy wall indicate the same dynamic is at work over there.

A new agreement would carry with it the potential of allowing both Russia and the US building down to the level of a "finite deterrent" of modernised, reliable and more robustly controllable warheads and delivery vehicles. This sort of move would be in the better interests of both countries (and the rest of the world as well.)

Then there is Iran.

Neither Russia nor the US can be contemplate a nuclear capable Iran with equanimity. Russia, far more than the United States, has direct experience with the direct effects of Islamist powered political ideology. And, Russia is far closer to Iran and its almost laughably primitive ballistic missiles than either the US or Israel.

It follows that a jointly constructed and manned missile defense system with both the American and Russian flags flying at the gate would be in the better interests of both countries as well as other nations. The demonstrated ability to swat rogue missiles out of the sky would give real pause to any adventuresome or eschatologically motivated regime. It would even give a reason for reflecting before acting to other governments which, while nuclear capable, lack the diffuse surge launch capacity of either the US or Russia.

Right now is the perfect time for both Moscow and Washington to sit back and consider non-threat based options. Both Russia and the US can step back from any rush to deploy. Both can cite legitimate "technical considerations" as the reason and let the diplomats engage in the normal palaver of the game of nations. The United States and Russia, as has so often been the case in the past, have coinciding national interests.

Both countries have a ground for diplomacy. Stand on it and use it.

Mr Putin, if you or one of your staff had been a faithful reader of this blog, you would have noticed just how often the Geek excoriated the Cheney-Bush Administration for having not treated Russia as the Great Power that it is. There is no need for Russia to engage in anachronistic Cold War techniques of threats and shouting "Nyet!"

Russian (and American) interests would be best served by having another "information collision" and announcing that the missile tweakers of Kaliningrad will just have to soldier on for a little while longer with their old missiles. Try it, Vladimir, you'll like it.

How Many Wars Are We Fighting?

Ignoring the war which really never was--the Global War On Terrorism, the US has been engaged for years in two wars. There is the one in Iraq (also known as The War Which Never Should Have Been.) There is the war in Afghanistan (aka The War Which Really Has Never Been Fought.)

We are near the end of the tunnel in Iraq. A semi-victory has been declared, not by President Obama but by the previous president who, near the end of his days, allowed as how the outcome in Iraq, the degree of democracy in particular, may not and never be all that he hoped it would be.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (whom the Geek has professionally respected for more than thirty years) in testimony before Congress showed his typical strain of realism when he stated that the US must focus on securing the minimum necessary strategic goal of military success and abandon the hazy notions of nation-building that have cluttered the strategic landscape ever since the US and Northern Alliance forces sent Taliban packing. Gates' characteristic realism was also on display when he correctly characterised the effort in Afghanistan as the "greatest military challenge" confronting us.

To achieve a minimal success in Afghanistan it will be necessary to define "victory" in a way which matches what the US can reasonably hope to accomplish in a relatively short time frame at acceptable (read "low") cost in American lives. This means that we must abandon all thoughts of creating a secular democratic republic in the country. It implies forgetting the mission of eradicating opium production and heroin trafficking.

The best that the US can hope to achieve is the (probably temporary) destruction of Taliban and al-Qaeda's capacity to use Afghanistan as a base of operations for attacks against the US and its key allies. SecDef Gates said as much in his presentation to Congress.

Once again Bob Gates has it right.

There are many reasons behind that conclusion. Some are obvious and often commented upon. The terrain, the size, the demographics and the history of Afghanistan are among these. The cross border sanctuary areas of Pakistan's FATA are on the "obvious" list as well. So are the corruption and unpopularity of the Karzai government.

Other reasons are not as evident. These involve the other wars which the US is waging. These other wars are sub rosa and rarely mentioned. It is as if they are somehow not suitable for polite company and the family viewing hour.

They are, however, the T. Rex at the dinner table.

The first of these "unspeakable" conflicts is the proxy war with Iran. Iran has long been a troublemaker in Iraq. Recently it has become the troublemaker in the country. Iran also has the not-yet-fully-realized potential to do the same in Afghanistan. The protean Iranians have also stretched their proxy muscles into Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

The Iranian adventures in proxy war are both low risk and low cost. While only the effort in Iraq has any genuine likelihood of paying off in the short-term, all have the capacity to make much mischief for US policy interests in the region.

The Obama Administration has made the right noises in the direction of the mullahocracy with the appropriate caveats. Perhaps noticing the caveats (most importantly compliance with the UN Security Council Resolutions regarding their nuclear program) the Iranian Orator-in-Chief, Ahmedinejad firmly rebuffed the semi-hemi-demi extended olive branch.

Admittedly the insulting tones and terms of Ahmedinejad's speech may have been meant primarily for "the folks in Buncomb county." That is, for home consumption by Iranian firebreathers in the run-up to the national elections. Even keeping that strong possibility in mind, there is no reason to conclude that the mullahs are eager to see a rapprochement with the US and its allies.

To put it bluntly, there is no need for a rapprochement now or in the near-term. Iran's economy was in the toilet even before the global economic slump tanked oil prices. That means it is incumbent upon the Tehran regime to off-load popular discontent on an external enemy. The Great Satan and the Zionist Entity are at the top of the Iranian Enemy's A-List.

The Iranians will continue their spoiler role as long as it meets their needs and carries few, if any, consequences. In this context it must be recalled that the True Believers of the Iranian Revolution see no need nor reason to practice diplomacy and foreign relations in the customary fashion.

Ending the proxy effort of Iran is important. More important is assuring that the mullahs do not obtain the "Mahdi bomb." This year will see the Iranians achieve sufficient low enrichment uranium to start the process of making highly enriched stuff. They may have enough for a bomb before the mid-term elections.

The intractability of Iran and the Pakistani complications for our war in Afghanistan are rooted in the fourth war. This war has not been declared nor acknowledged by the US. It is, in a very real way, a unilateral war. A war waged against the US and others but not waged back by the targets.

The fourth war, the foundational war, is the state of permanent war demanded by Islam. Islam is unique among the religions and secular ideologies of the world, past and present in one salient way. Only Islam contains a worldview that is so darkly dualistic as to describe a state of forever war between Muslims and all other human beings.

In the hands and minds of Islamists and their even blacker twin, jihadists, the sacred literature of Islam is a manual for never ending war against infidels and purported apostates alike. In the Islamist interpretation of Islam there can be no peace, no meaningful intercourse with infidels and apostates. There can be only war. War without end. War interrupted only by "lulls" which may be required from time to time by the Warriors of the True Faith.

Absent compromise, absent negotiation and accommodation, absent the let's-make-a-deal norms of diplomacy, there can be no end to hostilities. There can be no genuine rapprochement. There can be no meaningful, let alone permanent peace. Heck, you can't even have a good, honest Cold War without employing the usual tools of the game of nations.

In short, the US can achieve some reasonable semblance of the minimal necessary strategic goal--not losing militarily--in Iraq. The US might, at some cost yet to be reckoned, do the same in Afghanistan.

But the US and other similarly minded countries will have no real chance of succeeding in altering either the Iranian behaviour or the slide to Islamism well underway in Pakistan. Not on their own.

Only Muslims can curb the Islamism and jihadism empowered by the Iranian Revolution, and the mis-interpreted "success" against the Soviets in Afghanistan as well as the bloodletting among the Muslim Arabs of Palestine. Only Muslims can decide that the Islamist/jihadist understanding of Islam is wrong. Only Muslims can take the actions necessary to reject the forever war aspects of Islam and focus on the Five Pillars and those aspects of Islam which are authentically merciful, compassionate and tolerant.

Winning the fourth war, the war of belief and believers is beyond the limits of American power. It is, however, well within the capacities of Muslims generally.

But, will the silent majority of Muslims act to take their faith back from the clerics of darkness and death? Will this silent majority shake off Islamist peddled feelings of guilt and fears of hell for not having sought "martyrdom?" Will this silent majority demand that their faith leave the fossilized past and seek a living future?

Considering that the record of history shows that humans are all too willing to refuse the truly tough tasks, probably not.

The Dutch Go Over The Edge

The Geek always enjoyed his lecture trips to Holland. The Dutch government is an excellent host. The Dutch people are charming. Amsterdam is a flat out hoot. Even though the Geek is given to breaking paradigms and possessing ideas far outside the scope of conventional wisdom, he always had a tolerant and polite audience for his controversial views.

It is this background which caused the Geek to be shocked speechless when the Amsterdam court ordered the public prosecutor to prosecute Gert Wilders for the crimes of deprecating the deity and inciting hatred on the basis of religion. The instrument of Wilder's offense was his short film Fitna. The Geek has watched the "criminal" video and found it to be inoffensive.

But then the Geek is not a Muslim. Neither is he easily offended. Nor is the Geek given to an eager search for offense and insult.

The Geek understands that the Dutch freedom of expression is not absolute even though it is enshrined in the constitution. The Dutch constitution allows limitations on expression in the interest of protecting or guaranteeing public order.

These limitations are unfortunate. The operative words are hazy, portmanteau terms open to wide differences of interpretation and application.

Equally unfortunate are the laws which Wilders is alleged to have violated. One of these is redolent of the long discarded blasphemy laws in the United States. The other is a sort of standard issue anti-hate speech law, thus serving to underscore the dangers resident in prohibitions of this nature.

The Geek understands that internal Dutch politics either is or may well be at play in the Wilders prosecution. In any event a slight majority (53% to 47%) of the Dutch population approves of the prosecution. This slight majority may be due to the unpleasant and controversial behavior of Mr Wilders and his political party.

Still the Geek has to wonder if the Dutch majority realises the peril in which their nation now finds itself. Not the hazard of Muslims rioting in the streets--acting out their rage and frustration, perhaps. No. The peril into which the court and the majority are steering their ship of state if far greater.

Freedom of expression, particularly unpopular expression, is the crowning glory of the West. Arguably, it is this freedom which served as the launching pad for the fast boost Western developments in politics, economics, science and technology. The fast boost which transformed Western Europe from an appendage on the Eurasian landmass to the dominant global presence which it became in a few short centuries.

Even with that record to buttress it, freedom of expression remains what it always has been--a fragile condition, an always threatened liberty. The whims of an autocrat, the demands of an ideology, the winds of social fad, the easily bruised sensitivities of a self-conscious minority, all of these threats confront freedom of expression every day.

Like Delft china, freedom of expression is easily broken. And impossible of repair. The court and the Dutch majority hold an infinitely fragile piece in their collective hands. If they throw it to the ground it will break. And, never be made right. Not in months. Not in years. Perhaps not ever.

And for what do the Dutch put this prize in peril? For what are they willing to shatter a tradition extending back to the days and writings of Spinoza?

The "sensitivities" of a small number of groups purporting to represent the outraged and "threatened" immigrant Muslims.

The "fear" and "outrage," the "insults" perceived by these immigrants seems curiously artificial. The video makes no charges against any individual Muslim. It calls for no action against Muslims whether living in the Netherlands or elsewhere.

Instead the video links particular verses of the Quaran with images of Muslim terror attacks against civilian targets. The verses are accurate. The attacks occurred. They were perpetrated by Muslims.

What's the problem?

It would have been far more fitting if the Muslim groups had stood up strong and proud. If they had said, "That's right. Islam is a warrior faith. Muslims of belief are sure enough of the rightness of their faith to kill and die in its name and for its global success."

It would have been far more fitting if the Muslims of Holland had grabbed the sword of their deity, which is, after all, emblazoned on the flag of Saudi Arabia and defied the infidels to wrest it from their hands.

Instead of being true to their warrior faith and its past glories of death and conquest, the Muslims of Holland sniveled to an infidel court, prayed for infidel justice (as if such a thing were possible) and begged an infidel government to protect them from Mr Wilder's deadly video.

The Geek is hard pressed to decide who is the greater coward: the Dutch who are willing to eviscerate freedom to buy a mess of "public order" or the Muslims who deny their own faith and past.

The Geek does know who will be the greater loser if (as seems likely given the nature of the Dutch criminal justice system) Wilders is convicted. And, it sure as hell won't be those in Holland who face Mecca on their knees five times a day.

There's Just One Little Problem--History

The Obama Administration is conducting a major peace offensive directed at Islamic countries. The UN Ambassador Susan Rice promised "direct" diplomacy with the Mullahocracy in Tehran. SecState Clinton magnified and focused the Rice position averring that it was up to Iran to choose whether or not to "unclench" its fist.

The President took to Arab TV seeking to reassure Muslims that "Americans are not your enemy." Obama also invoked the presumably good relations based on "mutual respect" which he alleged constituted the basis of US-Muslim relations "twenty or thirty years ago."

While the Geek is somewhat of a charm offensive mavin, having enjoyed the recurrent waves of Give-Peace-A-Chance rolling out of the Kremlin during the Cold War, he has to blow the historical whistle on the current Obama and Company effort.

You see, it just isn't enough to invoke the good-ole-days of peace, love and flower power as the President tried to do. The necessity is asking what has changed over the past generation which served to end the presumed Golden Years of US-Muslim relations.

Really only one slight factor has changed between then and now. That small matter is--ta! da!--religion.

Perhaps the simplest way to unpack this change is to ask a question: What event(s) transpiring in the transformative year 1979 powered the transmogrification of relations between the US and Muslim countries?

(Sound of patiently drumming fingers.)

That's right, kids. The Iranian Revolution.

The overthrow of the Shah and the installation of a rigorously Islamist regime was an event of world-historical importance. The impact of the revolution was potentiated by the intentional and prolonged humiliation of the United States during the hostage crisis. The overall effect of the Revolution was to thrust Islam of the most militant and uncompromising sort onto the global stage.

Prior to the success of the Ayatollah and his comrades, the mutterings of Islamic Revivalists such as those who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt were confined to radical screeds and plots of little consequence. The assorted proponents of what we now know as Islamism/jihadism were like the Arab armies--failures with an attitude.

The Iranian Revolution changed all that. The Iranian Revolution proved that True Believers in the True Faith of Islam could triumph over apostates such as the Shah and infidels including the Great Satan, the United States.

Prior to the miracle year of 1979, the US could practice diplomacy with Muslim states in a manner akin to the way in which it engaged in diplomacy with all other countries. The rules and mechanisms of the game of nations were both well understood and adhered to by all players. Even the Soviets and the Communist Chinese played the game fairly (if ruthlessly.) All hands understood that the goal of diplomacy was the protection and advancement of defined national and strategic interests at the lowest risk and the greatest benefit.

Even the most ideologically besotted regimes recognised that compromise was necessary if inordinate risks were to be avoided. Nations behaved like sailboats heading upwind--tacking right and left in order to make incremental progress toward the goal. With very few and quite unimportant exceptions, countries during the period between 1945 and 1979 eschewed the "hey diddle-diddle, right up the middle" approach to international relations.

The victory of the mullahs in Iran changed that. At least with respect to the emerging Islamist entities. In the Islamist view of the world, there is no room for compromise. There is no room for incremental achievement of goals except in the most narrowly defined tactical way. In the eyes of Islamists, there is no making deals with the devil. In their playbook, there is no tolerance for any achievement less than total victory.

Apostates--perverting backsliders from the rigid demands of Islam--may make deals. These unworthy leaders may compromise. These blots upon the purity of Islam may look to the narrowly defined requirements of national and strategic interest.

True Muslims, the Islamists contend, do not stoop to dishonor their beliefs, their deity, the Prophet. True Muslims, the Islamists hold, go for the gold of complete and total victory over the infidel and the apostate regardless of risks and costs. It is what their warrior faith demands, their militant deity demands. It is the Message. It is the Will of the Prophet and the deity who speaks through the Prophet.

Unless and until the Obama Administration from the President on down the line get a firm grip on these realities, hopes for "direct" diplomacy and calls for the Iranians to "unclench" their fists will be bootless. Appeals for Muslims to change their view of Americans-as-enemies will have no useful result.

While Osama bin Ladin and other jihadists make recurrent reference to the success of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, the war against the occupier in that country was of far less importance in rise of Islamism than was the Iranian Revolution. This does not imply that the efforts of the jihadists were unimportant.

To the contrary the legends which have emerged in the Arab street regarding the efficacy of the Muslim fighters in Afghanistan have been an important reinforcement to the Iranian paradigm. The presumed success of the jihadists against the Red Army has been an important agent in developing a theory of war based on a unique concept.

Consider the oft-repeated assertion that Islamist jihadist "love death more than infidels love life." This conclusion is based in large measure on the Islamist/jihadist interpretation of how the Soviets lost in Afghanistan. True, this explanation simplifies to the point of absurdity the multiple factors which forced the eventual Soviet retreat.

However the we-love-death-they-love-life hypothesis was powerfully underscored by the US reaction to eighteen deaths in Somalia and the quite unrobust American responses to attacks on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, US embassies in Africa and even on a US warship. The reaction of the US to these events contrasted sharply and unfavorably with the evident willingness of Iranians to die in defense of the Revolution and Iranian soil during the long, bloody Iran-Iraq War.

The final conclusion of the Islamists and jihadists was simple, brutal and not easily countered. It is a conclusion well founded in the Quran, the Hadith and the history of expansionist Islam of centuries past.

The conclusion?

The True Muslim, the authentic follower of the Faith and the Prophet eagerly embraces death. By so doing he will defeat both the infidel and the apostate.

There is a necessary corollary. The True Muslim, the authentic follower of the Faith and the Prophet rejects compromise. Indeed, the idea of compromise is not to be found in the Islamic scripture. There can only be victory or death. There is no middle ground possible except for narrow, purely tactical reasons.

Apostates may bargain like merchants in the bazaar. Infidels may wheel and deal with compromise as the goal.

But, not the True Muslim. Not the authentic follower of the One True Faith and the Final Prophet. By loving death and rejecting accommodation, by seeking martyrdom and eschewing coexistence, by keeping the eyes on Paradise and overlooking the world, Islam not only can triumph. It will triumph.

The Obama Administration can and will engage in diplomacy with rulers of various Muslim states. It will play the game of nations with such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the other so-called "conservative" Muslim countries.

We will deal and bargain with the men seen by Islamists as apostates. But, these men are not the problem, they are probably not even part of the solution. Still, we will wine, dine, wheedle and cozen them. We will search for--and find--coinciding interests.

And, it won't matter. Neither will attempts to convince Muslims generally that "Americans are not your enemies."

Islamism and its armed, deadly twin, jihadism, are not to be countered by diplomacy or honeyed words. As the Iranian Revolution and its thirty year aftermath have shown the world, True Belief is not easily defeated. It is not subject to the rules of the game of nation.

Unpleasant reality to say the least. It is, however, the reality on which we and the new administration had best get a grip.

Mexico, The Burro That Might Kick Back

The Joint Forces Command recently concluded an assessment holding that Pakistan and Mexico were both "failing"states. Other, supposedly well informed, observers have joined the chorus warning of Mexico's potential collapse under the pressures of narco-trafficking violence and economic contraction.

There is no doubt about it: Mexico is in a bad way. The Geek has written a number of posts on the subject over the past year. There is a possibility that Mexico will collapse in a welter of blood and guts not unlike that which happened roughly a century ago following the deposing of Diaz. Should this happen the cause will not be the violence of the drug smuggling gangs. It will not be the result of gun-running from the Estados Unidos.

It will not even be the result of tightened enforcement of the various immigration laws.

Should Mexico come apart it will be due to a loss of faith on the part of the long suffering Mexican majority. A collapse of the Mexican state will be caused by the final collapse of the majority's belief in the capacity of the state, the political system, the paternalism of the indigenous elite, to assure that life is moderately safe, the future at least no worse than the present and the possibility for improvement of the quality of one's life not beyond the reach of realistic hope.

If the preponderance of Mexico's 105 million people, the peasants, the laborers, the wretched searching the reeking and smoking trash heaps in the Valley of Mexico finally lose hope, forsake faith, and turn their backs on the elite and the government which has so long and so well served its own interests at the expense of the majority, then and only then will the state fail.

When the passions of a long misused people finally boil over in that uniquely Mexican combination of fatalism and bloodshed which marked the long decades of the internal wars of the early 20th Century, the state of Mexico will collapse with a seismic sound which will echo throughout the United States. A seismic shock which may well cause aftershocks throughout Central America.

At that point it will be too late to ascribe responsibility. There will only be time enough to collect the casualties and contain the damage. The time to assign responsibility for the (possible but not inevitable) collapse of Mexico is now. Now, while there is still time and ideas enough to prevent any chance of Mexico becoming a failed state.

Quite unsurprisingly, members of the Mexican elite--both politicians and members of the intelligentsia--are laying the blame at the door of the US. From their point of view it the Yanqis who are responsible not only for the blood and gore along the border (more than eighty KIA in Juarez so far this month) but the economic catastrophe looming over the country as well.

From the perspective of Mexico City all that is needed to insure peace, tranquility and prosperity in Mexico is for the US to end all internal demand for illegal drugs, halt all smuggling of guns south across the border and lower all barriers to "internal migration." If the US can't do all three then, at the very least, it must admit all those Mexicans who wish to work here.

The Mexican elite has always been cushioned from the effects of its own misrule, its own exploitative practices, its own corruption, its own misguided economic nationalism by the presence of the US. The northern border of Mexico for decades has served the function of the old western frontier in American history. The border has been the safety valve. Crossing the line into the US has always been the refuge of the ambitious, the excess, those in economic need.

The money sent home by illegal workers in the US has assured that the Mexican elite has not had to reach into its own collective pocket to meet either the social and educational needs of the majority or engage in the necessary internal investments which would give more Mexicans more of a chance to have a better future living and working in the land of their birth.

In short, the safety valve represented by the United States has allowed the Mexican elite to be selfish, short-sighted, and contemptuous of those Mexicans born to less fortunate families. It has allowed the elite to kick and exploit without risk to its power.

If and only if the Mexican elite can bring its self to get a grip on the reality of its conduct over the long sweep of Mexican history and quit trying to foist responsibility onto the US can Mexican social, political and economic stability be assured in the long run. If and only if the Mexican elite can do the nearly impossible--recognise what it has been doing and change course, can there be utter certainty that Mexico will not collapse.

Absent that, the best that can be hoped for is that the ever-so-patient and long enduring Mexican peasant and his urban cousin will keep on bearing the burden of death, fear, poverty and general nastiness without (armed) complaint. The Geek has heard members of the Mexican elite (military and police officers of higher rank) compare the Mexican majority with burros.

One day the Geek watched as a man beat a burro. The burro was staggering under a pile of firewood so its head and rump could barely be seen (or beaten.) The burro driver cursed and whacked. Finally the burro kicked.

The man lived. Barely. His face will never be presentable.

One Nation? Under God

Back when the Geek was a professor he put what he thought was a properly high emphasis on the role of religion, specifically Protestant Christianity, in American history. His co-workers in the history department were scandalized by this effrontery. In the unforgettable (to the Geek at least) words of one, "Of course you're right, but do you really have to make a point of it?"

The Geek realised long before that memorable encounter at the department mail boxes that he was out of step with the elite of his generation. They had almost without exception replaced the long standing American zeal for religious belief with one which celebrated secularism and the absolute separation of the communities of faith from the dialogue(s) in the public square. While being one with the famed aphorism of Laplace two hundred years ago and being a strong advocate of the "liberty of conscience" enshrined in the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses, the Geek was (and is) unwilling to distort history, least of all the history of his own country.

America was founded on religious passion. It must be recalled that the Puritans came to the wilderness of New England not in search of religious tolerance but in order to freely practice religious intolerance. As the legal history of the Massachusetts Colony shows clearly the theocrats of the Bay cheerfully instituted a regime based on religious precepts which was so narrow minded, intolerant, coercive and rigid that the most intense Taliban adherent could not improve upon it in the slightest.

Throughout the colonies religion was the kingdom and Christ was King. Laws looked both to the English common law and the bible for their justification. Community solidarity depended upon conformity of behaviour based on conformity of belief. The dissenters were neither welcomed or tolerated. Even Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, the (semi-mythic) icons of religious tolerance and inclusion were actually thin-skinned, insecure strongholds of fanatics.

The need for a "liberty of conscience"clause in the basic laws of the several colonies was recognised even before the first shots of the War of Independence were fired. The Virginia Statute on Religious Liberties authored by Thomas Jefferson was a firm sign pointing in the required direction.

Unless carefully constrained the religious enthusiasm and zeal of competing sects would rip the political and social fabric of the new republic apart. Unless citizens felt themselves both protected in their individual rights of conscience, the tyranny of a religious majority would crack a sharp whip on the backs of nonconformists. Thus the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses were at the top of the post-Constitution "must do" list along with liberty of speech and the press.

Religion was not bared from the public square. That was not the intent of those who wrote and approved the clauses in question. The purpose was one of civilizing and controlling the passions so easily stirred by matters of faith. A republic, the founding generation correctly saw, demanded restraint, control and civility in the public square, and they realized that these were readily destroyed by the passions of religious belief. They also correctly saw that the minorities, the dissenters, the nonconformists, were at risk in their individual holdings and persons once the genie of belief driven zeal was released from the bottle.

Religion stayed alive, well, potent and pervasive throughout the Nineteenth Century. It, or to err on the side of accuracy, one Protestant sect, became the virtual "state religion" in the states of the Confederacy both before and after the War Between the States. Ironically, this "state religion" was a sub-set of the Baptists. The irony springs from the fact that the Baptists of the late Seventeenth Century had been the strongest proponents of a wall of separation between state and church.

Religion featured heavily not simply in the internal crisis of the War Between the States, in the fight between abolitionist and slaveowner, it was just as important in the American identity crisis which developed with increasing speed between the late 1840s and the end of the century.

Identity crisis?

You bettcha! The American people have undergone several bouts of intense anxiety over just who-are-we? and how-do-we-know-we're-us? over the past two hundred years. This is completely understandable. The US is an artificial nation. It grew around a set of ideas. These ideals coupled with the very real possibility of material betterment in a vast and underdeveloped country served as a people magnet without equal.

People from different lands, cultures, languages and--ta-da! religions came in ever increasing numbers to the US. The most critical problem through much of the Nineteenth Century was the arrival of Roman Catholics. To put it bluntly, Catholics, particularly those from Ireland and later southern Europe, were not easily or warmly accepted by the Protestant majority.

Absent the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses, the conflicts between native Protestant and new arrival Catholic would have been more violent and extensive then they were. At the national level the "civilizing" effect of the twin clauses showed itself by repeated Congressional rejection of anti-Catholic measures. Ultimately the clauses provided the breathing space and time necessary for the multiple American nations to sign a series of separate peaces over differences of religious belief and agree that we could all be Americans--what ever that might mean.

It is true that the public square seems to have become ever more secular during the first three quarters of the Twentieth Century, but that is more a matter of appearance than reality. It is more that obvious passions faded along with the identity crisis during the opening years of the century. Sure, there were moments of conflict such as the Biblical Literalists opening shots in the anti-Darwin campaign eighty and more years ago.

But, in the main, Americans were content to put the fires of belief on hold and concentrate on matters at hand. Matters like the Great Depression, World War II and ultimately the Cold War. Indeed, the American people reinforced their sense of national self by reducing the apparent differences between religions. It was Americans who invented the unhistorical notion of the "Judeo-Christian tradition," and sought to meld the differing--even conflicting--theologies of Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism into a sort of bland, one-size-fits-all civic religion which defined America and its ideals vis a vis Communism.

It was the need for a Cold War appropriate way to differentiate the US from the Soviet Union which gave rise to the sudden insertion of the words, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance where it sits to this day as an indigestible lump to those of us who first learned the Pledge in grade school in the dark days before God was invoked. This brings up another delicious piece of irony.

Ironically, in view of the past few years, the US was the only non-Islamic country which differentiated itself from the Soviets on the basis of the latter being "godless" and the former "godly." The notion of godliness took such firm root in the US during the Cold War period that for a while at least it was open season on any person who was not a full, seemingly eager participant in one or another of the several flavors resident within the "Judeo-Christian tradition."

During the last decades of the past century, faith driven political ideologies re-emerged from the shadows. With the same sort of Wahhibist dedication and zeal that had typified the Puritans, the resurgent Christian "Conservatives" sought to enlist the political process in their particular (and often peculiar) view of biblically based morality. The flames of True Belief flared high, bright and hot, particularly among those who drew their nourishment from the the "state religion" of the Old Confederacy--the Southern Baptist Convention--and others from the same theological (not to say theocratic) model.

Not surprisingly the opposition reacted by elevating the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses to a level never before seen. The intelligentsia, particularly those born in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, demanded a total removal of religion not only from the public square but from American history as well.

The result has been that the elite, the opinion molders, the academics, the journalists and even many of the political class, are dedicated True Believers in the secular agenda.

The other result has been that many, even most, of the rest of the American public remains faithful to the several communities of faith which co-exist in more or less harmony throughout the US.

The purpose and intent of the twin clauses barring establishment and assuring free exercise was to civilize and restrain passions. Without this moderating influence the fires of belief--whether religious or secularist--would imperil the still very delicate balance of the republic.

Get a grip on it. The American republic has charted a narrow and twisting course through the rocks, shoals and reefs of religious zeal. We still are. Even with more than two centuries experience we don't have it right yet.

But, we do have a tradition of separating the political sphere to a substantial extent from that of religious practice and belief. This is all that separates us from the countries of Islam.

The challenge is for us to understand not only how intertwined religion and state are in the Islamic countries and what that implies. We must also understand just how delicately we are balanced on the razor's edge of too much religion and too little. Both the Christian "Conservatives" and the secular intelligentsia must curb their passions.

Both must recognise that the Founders were right--passion destroys and civility creates. Otherwise God (or something) help us all.

We Know We're Fighting--

But, do we know what we are fighting for? Or, even, what we are fighting against?

Americans have been in combat, fighting and dying for the best part of seven years now. The outgoing president committed the blunder of declaring that the US and other countries were waging a global war on terrorism. Anyone with so much as a glimmer of intelligence knew back then that the notion of a "Global War on Terrorism" was not merely a malapropism but an affront against reality.

Now, seven years and over five thousand American lives later, the war against an unnamed enemy for an undefined goal continues. It is long past time for a change. It is long past time that the US government and We the People take a firm grip on just who or what the enemy is and for what better state of peace the war is being fought.

It is long past time for us to return to the basics. In order for a war to be waged to a successful outcome two minimal requirements must be met.

The first is seemingly self-evident (although it appears to have eluded not only the Deep Thinkers of the outgoing administration but the denizens of the chattering classes generally.) There has to be an enemy.

That means a real enemy. Not a tactic of war which is what terrorism constitutes. A war cannot be waged against a tactic as many have observed. Imagine how silly it would have been had FDR demanded on 8 December 1941 that the US declare war on "unexpected sea-launched air attacks not preceded by a declaration of war or ultimatum" rather than on the Japanese Empire.

Had the outgoing administration possessed even the rudiments of realpolitik it would have announced that the US would wage retaliatory war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan which harbored it. That would have been a legitimate and realistic appraisal of the nature of the enemy.

The neocon ninnies of the Bush Administration failed to properly define the enemy.

This initial failure assured that a second would quickly follow. Keep in mind that wars are waged in the expectation that a better state of peace will follow. Had the enemy been narrowly and properly defined seven years ago, then the task of characterising a better state of peace would have been simple and straightforward.

A better state of peace (from our perspective at least) would come about as soon as al-Qaeda and Taliban were removed as potential threats to American national security. Period. The simple removal of these two entities--including by implication at least their leadership cadres-would make the world a better and safer place.

There would have been no need nor impetus for the disastrous mission lurch in Afghanistan which has resulted in the progressive destabilizing of that country but of Pakistan as well. There would have been neither need for nor impetus to the brainless High Minded cant concerning the building of a secular, pluralistic democracy in Afghanistan.

The failure (or unwillingness) of the outgoing administration to realistically and narrowly define the enemy and the desired better state of peace before launching the attacks on Afghanistan left the door wide open for the single most disastrous blunder in US foreign policy--the invasion of Iraq.

Our participation in Iraq may be winding down and the outgoing president may have admitted that possibly democracy as we Americans know it will not take firm root in Iraq, but there has been no redefinition of the enemy, no reassessment as to the nature of the better state of peace hoped to ensue when (and if) the guns and bombs are silenced.

To this day neither the government nor the military services of the United States are willing to say just who or what the enemy in the current "long war" might be. Worse, there is ample evidence that both the civilian and military command echelons have been totally resistant to appreciating let alone studying the sources of our enemy's conduct and identity.

Not to put too fine a point on the dagger of reality, the enemy over the past seven years has been Islam. To err on the side of total accuracy, the enemy is those Muslims who seize upon and exploit features of Islam which have served for centuries to make that religion the faith of warriors, the belief system of conquerors.

Make no mistake about it. Islam and nothing but Islam in the mouths of charismatic leaders propelled a scruffy amphyctony from the sands of Arabia to the South of France and later transformed another bunch of scurvy nomads into the Great Turkish Threat whose waves lapped at the walls of Vienna before finally receding to the harems of Istanbul.

Not even the Christianity of the First Crusade could begin to match Islam as the most sublime Warrior Faith. As several noted Egyptian clerics have commented lately on TV as they sought to encourage martyrs for Gaza, the Muslims of the past loved death more than the crusaders and others loved life.

Not even the distorted Shintoism of the Japanese Empire before and during World War II could make that statement.

At an ever accelerating rate over the past fifty years, the sleeping Warrior Faith has been awakened by politically ambitious and ever-more-potent clerics and others to motivate Muslims to die (and kill) in pursuit Islamic Revival. That means revival not as a religion per se but as a political force on the global stage.

There is the enemy. Not terrorism. Not "asymmetrical warfare." Not even one specific group such as al-Qaeda. Not even a specific country such as Iran.

The enemy is the Warrior Faith of Islam enlisted in pursuit of power on the world historical stage.

This enemy is implacable. This enemy is not one with which compromise is possible--even thinkable. This enemy is potentially far more threatening, far more potent than were the secular enemies of Nazism or Communism. This enemy may have been quiescent for centuries, caught in the backwater eddies of human experience, but it is alive, active and growing stronger by the day.

To defeat this enemy, this combination of a warrior faith without peer and expansionist ideology, we must study it, dispassionately and closely. We do not serve ourselves or our future well by pretending that political Islam is either a "misunderstanding"of the Quran and Hadith or that it is some sort of passing perversion caused by economic grievance or political marginalization.

We must read and parse both the sacred literature and the history of Islam as once we did the history of Russia and the writings of Marx, Lenin and Mao. We must know the sources of our enemy's conduct and goals.

But, understanding our enemy is not enough. On its own, the understanding of the enemy will not allow us to bring about a better state of peace no matter how long the war continues.

We must understand what we are fighting for. This task is, if anything, harder than identifying and knowing the enemy.

The fact that knowing ourselves, understanding what we are fighting for, what would constitute a better state of peace, is ironic.

Why? You ask.

The irony comes from our own history. It comes from the internal divisions which mark the landscape of the United States today. Not simply the division between elite and hoi polloi. More it depends upon the split, the deep fissure of more than one hundred and fifty years standing, which caused the surface split between those who think of themselves as members of the elite and those who don't.

More of that in the next post.

Hanging On To The Tiger's Tail

As tanks and infantry move into the Gaza Strip, Israel has well and truly grabbed the tiger by his tail. The problem now is hanging on long enough to achieve a useful (from the Israeli perspective) outcome.

While there is no doubt that the IDF and the Government of Israel (GOI) have both repented of and learned from the debacle of the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the operation into the Gaza Strip will be a dans du merde for the guys at the sharp end. It won't be a walk in the sun for the million or so Israeli civilians living within range of Hamas launched artillery rockets. The Geek doesn't envy what will come for any of them in the next few days or weeks.

In addition to the risks of combat in urban terrain against a very defiant, very, very well motivated and literally suicidal opponent, GOI and the people of Israel alike face the real potential of terror at home. Over and beyond those self-evident hazards, GOI must contend with the near universal reprobation of governments and well-meaning folks throughout the world, particularly in the West.

As the Geek has reviewed the tenor of protest against GOI for its air campaign, he has been struck by how much of it exonerates Hamas from all responsibility for the lives and well-being of the citizens under its domination and control. The utter lack of consideration for Hamas having chosen to launch and continue a slow motion war against Israel is nothing short of astonishing. Almost as mind boggling is the continued harping by Ban ki Moon and others of High Mind about the "humanitarian crisis" for the 1.5 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.

There is no argument with the contention that the civilians of the Strip are in the midst of a genuine humanitarian crisis. There is also no arguing against the fact that the crisis is not of Israeli manufacture.

The crisis is of domestic origin. The crisis today as in the past has been the result of deliberate decision, carefully crafted policy by the local government.

In the old days, Gazans suffered because of Fatah's willingness to use civilian misery and death as a weapon against Israel. Now, it the result of Hamas' even more truculent approach. Hamas is a government of gunsels. It shot its way to power. Then it shot its own people as well as seeking to kill Israelis with rockets, mortars, IEDs, and suicide bombers. Now it hopes to "win" by assuring that so many die in the Strip that the High Minded, Lofty Thinking people in the West will apply sufficient pressure on GOI that the IDF is forced to let go of the tiger's tail.

As numerous previous posts demonstrate, the Geek is not an automatic supporter of GOI policies and practices. Neither is he in favor of the seemingly reflexive support offered to Israel by successive American administrations and Congresses.

This in no way obviates the necessity of acknowledging the onus of responsibility which must be placed on the Arab Muslim population of the Palestine region. The leadership of Fatah, like that of Hamas, acted without regard to the long term best interests of the people who propose to live in an independent country called "Palestine." The leaders of the Arab Muslim population of the disputed region missed the bus on too many occasions to list here--they habitually turned their backs as the bus passed by.

Hamas and other groups and governments have pursued assorted agendas with only one feature in common--the destruction of Israel. In the process, they have callously, cruelly used the hopes and fears, the bodies and lives, of the Arab-Muslim population. They have acted so as to pile the corpses of their own people, their own co-religionists, in heaps almost beyond measure. They have acted in concert with clerics of similar mind to warp Islam, to accentuate the most loathsome features of that religion into a psyops weapon to further the patterns of violent intolerance, absence of forgiveness, ruthless authoritarianism, and endless fear what the world now knows all too well as Islamism and jihadism.

The actions of these self-serving agenda riders have not only caused the local people but the rest of the world pain and misery, war and death, which could and would have been avoided absent these power-lusting pursuers of an impossible dream. Further, their actions, their words, have shredded any legitimate claims Islam may make to being the "religion of peace and tolerance."

Hamas and others from the same mold have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and a far worse crime for which they cannot be indicted before any human court--a crime against the spirits and faith of one and a half billion Muslims.

Even now Hamas will avoid a fair fight with the IDF. The gun thugs of Hamas whose training videos have been posted proudly will do whatever they can to hide and shoot from behind the cover of women and children. Hamas will stoop undoubtedly to the level of using women and children as suicide "volunteers."

All of this will be done in the hope and belief that the resulting carnage will compel the High Minded Lofty thinkers of the UN, the EU and the US to force GOI to call IDF off, to force the IDF to drop the tiger's tail.

When--not if--when that happens, Hamas will be more legitimate. It will be more in power. It's voice will ring louder in the halls of power throughout the Mideast.

This necessarily means that other entities such as Hezbollah and the sponsor of both Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran, will gain authority in a region and a culture where strength is prized above other characteristics. Iran will gain vis a vis the "conservative" states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

At the same time Israel will be weakened. Its people will be at greater risk. Far afield GOI and the IDF will be seen as bluffers as well as bullies.

Worse, the human race will be the loser. Terror and violence will be emboldened. Islamists and jihadists will be encouraged. The war on terror will continue. The bodies will stretch beyond Mumbai, New York City, London, Madrid. Only the dead will be unafraid.

One can only hope (and pray if so inclined) that the High Minded, Lofty Thinking will not be as potent an ally as Hamas calculates. The Geek is a historian. Cynicism, the occupational disease of the historian, prevents him from being optimistic.

He hopes he is wrong. But, he won't bet the ranch on it.

Don't Go Postal Anymore--Go Muslim!

It used to be that when someone went a little funny and shot up a passel of coworkers or even total strangers, he was said to have "gone postal." Moving along with the times the Geek suggests with his normal absence of modesty that the term du jour must be "(to) go Muslim" v.tr, meaning to employ lethal force against the unarmed and unsuspecting for irrational or totally abstract and subjective reasons.

Tripping around the various Islamist/jihadist websites as well as sites maintained by governmental or quasi-governmental entities in assorted Muslim countries, the Geek has received the clear impression that there is a huge number of young and not-so-young Muslims who desire very much to become residents of the Land of the Dead. There is only one obvious proviso. Each and every one of these candidates for corpsedom insists upon the opportunity to kill people, preferably but not necessarily infidels and apostates.

In short, these Legions of Wannabe Cadavers want to "go Muslim" on the world--starting with Israel and (surprise! surprise!) the United States.

Say it ain't so, Joe. Say it ain't so! (The Geek is addicted to the use of ancient slang and cliches. It's his particular historian's disease.) Tell us that "going Muslim" isn't compatible with the doctrine and sacred writings of the "religion of peace and tolerance."

Sadly, no one who has read the Koran or the Hadith can make that claim with a straight face. Unless, of course, he is practicing the Approved by Islam behavior of lying in order to protect the religion and its believers.

Beyond even the slightest shadow of even the most hallucinatory doubt, Islam is the most death oriented, violently intolerant religion ever conceived by the warped mind of man. (Or delivered by an angel agent of the Most High, if you prefer that approach.)

The Quran and the other authoritative writings which form the base of Islam surpass by orders of magnitude any other similar materials ever encountered by the Geek when it comes to celebrating and commanding the shedding of blood. The same is true with respect to the virtually pornographically vivid depictions of the torments of hell.

It's almost as if a slasher flick had become a major religion.

Beyond that, Islam, in sharp distinction with all other major religions, has no brief with the word or concept "forgiveness." Arguably, the notion of forgiveness, forgiveness of one's self as well as others, is an absolutely fundamental requirement of the human condition.

Unarguably, without an emphasis upon forgiveness no religion can claim to foster either peace or tolerance. Without forgiveness there can be no escape from hatred, bitterness, fear and the need for the false power of revenge.

It isn't pushing the point to assert that without drinking deeply of forgiveness a person cannot be truly alive. Without forgiveness as a central tenet of belief, the believer is already living in the Land of the Dead.

Looking over the sweep of Islamic history one cannot help but notice that the Muslim peak of accomplishment in all fields of human creativity and progress ended almost a thousand years ago. Since then Islamic societies have been in what can be termed charitably a stasis.

The stasis has been caused by the nature of the religion itself. It does not celebrate life. No. It tolerates existence. It warns non-stop of the perils of hell and the delights of paradise. It is a faith of rules and authority which pays only passing lip service to the capacity of the individual to be other than the object of authority, the plaything of the deity.

Only in Islam is the will of the deity constantly and sincerely invoked to allow or forbid any human action. Islamists and jihadists always and repeatedly add the qualifier, "if Allah wills" whenever they make a pronouncement or undertake an activity.

Of course, to be a Muslim means to be a slave of Allah. Being a Muslim implies a willingness to submit not only to Allah but to any cleric who claims to understand and speak the true understanding of the true will of Allah. This absolves the individual of all personal responsibility for his actions while assuring him that by doing his (deadly) duty to the will of Allah as filtered through the mind and mouth of the cleric he will avoid hell and gain paradise.

Not only is Islam lacking in forgiveness, filled to overflowing with hatred and a will to kill, rigidly authoritarian, it has another central feature which condemns it to being the religion of the Land of the Dead. That feature is fear.

Every candidate for the MOS of interrogator who passes through one or another of the American military schools teaching the arts and science of getting prisoners to talk learns several techniques. One of those is called in short-hand form, "fear-up." Islam is the religion of chronic, persistent "fear-up." While other religions including Protestantism have passed through phases of "fear-up" as a centrality of their dogma, only Islam has it front, center, and continuous.

Fear of hell. Fear of not doing the will of Allah. Fear of being seen or characterised as an apostate. Fear of not being a full, proper, and complete slave.

What a burden this must be. How much better to seek a way out of the fog of perpetual fear and gain the rewards of eternity through one glorious, split second act. How much better to "go Muslim" on approved enemies of the One True Faith.

Even if one does not sign the martyrdom seekers pledge card, a Muslim can still vicariously "go Muslim" by joining in that favorite outdoor sport of the massive demonstration where chants of "death to" and "to hell with" are the order of the day. Even if an individual lacks that certain something necessary to strap on the suicide vest or shoot an AK at some school kids or throw acid in the face of an unveiled woman, a believer can still join in with shouts of damnation to the infidels, death to the apostates and, by so doing, gain a moment's respite from fear.

Fear, authoritarianism beyond the wildest dreams of Soviet Commissars, violent intolerance and a total lack of forgiveness, these are the features of the religion of the Land of the Dead. These are the sources, the motivations of "going Muslim."

The sad reality is the rest of us, the residents of the Land of the Living, have to inhabit the same world as these violent spiritual and emotional cripples. Worse, there are among us so many of the High Minded and Lofty Thinking that do not yet realise that sad and bitter fact.

But, neither did those in a post office years ago a second or two before a former co-worker opened up with his weapons.