Chavez Continues To Prove The Obvious

Some people just don't ever learn. High on the list of those who are learning impaired are socialists. Topping that heap is Hugo (The Mouth of the South) Chavez whose Bolivarian Revolution--"Socialism for the Twenty-First Century" is coming an every bigger cropper with each passing day.

While Hugo's weekly hours of rant on Venezuelan radio/television remind one of Castro's original brand albeit with a sense of humor, the paratrooper-turned-strongman is not simply a clown with delusions of adequacy. He is a potential danger to the stability and peace of at least a portion of South America as his recurrent threats and bloviations against neighboring Columbia make clear.

He is also a potential menace to the security of the US. Some of the potential menace is indirect, the consequence of Venezuela becoming a major drug shipment center. But, the real potential for danger arises from the ever closer relations between Chavez' government and that of Iran, and, even more important in the emerging threat category, the use of Venezuela by Hezbollah and Hamas personnel.

The combination of drug smuggling; the presence of dedicated, well-trained specialists in terror and asymmetrical warfare; Iranian money and other resources; Chavez' personal, visceral hatred, fear, and loathing of the US; and the collapsing Venezuelan economy does not bode well for American national interest or security. The apparent instability of Chavez' psyche coupled with the evident erosion of the Venezuelan social compact under economic stress does nothing to reassure one that the Hero Of The Bolivarian Revolution might not continence, even foster a clandestine strike against US territory even before launching an adventure into Columbia with his new Russian supplied weaponry.

The implosion of the economy in Venezuela, the fifth largest source of US oil, has reached levels which must be alarming to the Vaca of Caracas. Inflation is reported at thirty-five percent--and rising as if Hugo is bent on imitating his mentors in Iran. Rolling blackouts caused by the decaying nature of the country's hydroelectric system and complicated by the decay of its oil fired power plants hit all the country's larger cities for several hours (or more) per day.

The darkened streets of Caracas must be a boon to the criminals of the city. Caracas has a homicide rate which surpasses even that of Cuidad Juarez where the murders are so commonplace that they are now lumped together in the "other news" section of the daily papers. Given the loss of employment in Caracas, the growth of crime and murder is not surprising.

Somewhat more surprising is the fact that Venezuela's downhill slide started a couple of years ago during the period of record high oil prices. This counter-intuitive condition can be attributed simply and solely to the sheer incompetence and total ineptitude of the socialists who have taken over so much of the country's extraction and manufacturing base and a fair chunk of its agricultural products distribution system.

While South America is generally on a fast road to recovery from the Great Recession with Peru, Chile and Brazil pegged to have growth rates this year at or above four percent, Venezuela is projected to have a contraction of at least two percent and perhaps as much five. This decline comes on top of last years negative growth of 3.3 percent.

All the decline can be attributed to the moribund nature of the private sector coupled with the exceptional inefficiency of the nationalized industries and businesses. In short, Chavez has been proving once again the sad stories of Cuba and other adopters of the socialist brand of command economies: Socialism does not work.

Chavez loudly and almost without letup pins the rap for the failure of his Bolivarian brand on the sinister manipulations of the US. To make sure his message is the only one heard, the Mouth has closed all opposition outlets, jailed dissidents, and, most recently, launched a risible counterattack on Twitter. But no matter how creative and insistent Chavez might be, the combination of oppression and propaganda can neither conceal nor reverse the structural realities at home.

Money blown on weapons cannot be spent on urgently necessary repairs to and improvements of the country's degenerate infrastructure. Efforts directed toward militarizing the nation's youth, suppressing dissent, excoriating neighbors, pouring vitriol on the US and other evil capitalists cannot go toward identifying and rectifying such basic, enervating difficulties as the flight of the middle class, the technically competent, the educated, the people whose energies and talents are so vital to the collective success of the nation and the state.

Looking ahead, it is necessary to ask, "Sr Chavez, when the verbal mongering of war proves insufficient, when the blame game fails, when the bottom continues to fall out of your revolution, what then?"

The underlying anxiety must be that Chavez will resort finally to the reality of war in a desperate attempt to rally a disenchanted population around the national flag--and his leadership. A "splendid little war" perhaps. One with Columbia might do. Or a border dispute with Brazil, or even a tiny naval contretemps with the US. All these are notional at the moment, but none are impossible, particularly should Chavez' party come out on the short end of the vote in the parliamentary elections next September.

The popularity of the volatile Chavez is currently lower than that of President Obama in the US. Hugo is aware of this unpleasant and most inconvenient of truths; so also are his satraps, lackeys, and goons whose phony-baloney jobs are at stake. Balancing this is Hugo's experience based awareness that elections can be jiggered even with Jimmy Carter looking on.

But jiggering and the inevitable post-jiggering criticism from without and dissent from within can take the fun out of being Strongman-For-Life. It is at trying times like this that a re-elected dictator needs some help from his friends. Something to take away the pain of all those accusations, all that finger-pointing and name-calling. A little balm for the embattled soul of a man dedicated to his people.

Sure, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua will leap to the call. They all are, after all, the most fraternal of states, all possessed of a weak, socialist economy; a politics of victimization; and united in a common distaste for the US. But, their sympathy might not be enough to offset the difficulties in which Hugo stands.

He may need heavier guns in his corner. A more potent--and successful source of succor.

Ah, yes, there is a friendly country which meets that description--Iran. Tehran has a fine record of staring down the US and the rest of the Security Council. It sure would be comforting to get a bit of understanding and support from that quarter.

In answering, Iran may call for a bit of the old quid pro quo.

For the quid of diplomatic, military, and economic support, Hugo might be asked, politely of course, by someone from Tehran, "Say, Sr Chavez, how about giving our guys from Hezbollah a little fraternal assistance on a trip to the Land Up North?"

That one could hurt--us.

A Frenchman Sends A Warning--To Us

A noted French novelist (a status which amounts in that country to one of public intellectual)by the name of Pascal Bruckner has delivered himself of a piece of non-fiction which is not only a severe indictment of contemporary Europe but a stern warning for the US--particularly our Europhilic hoi oligoi. Titled Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism the book has been brought out by Princeton University Press. It is a must read for anyone interested in the current state of play in international politics--or the self-imposed "graceful decline" of the US.

M. Bruckner argues that Europeans or, more accurately, members of the Western European elite have come to the morbid conclusion that their region, their countries are the fountainhead of all that is evil in the world. A collateral, necessary conclusion is that the underdeveloped areas of the world, not only the former colonial possessions of European states but all the other pseudo-states regardless of how feudal, corrupt, religiously hag ridden they might be are the sole repositories of virtue.

The vast congeries of (to be ever-so-delicate about it) lesser developed countries are referred to collectively by Bruckner as the "South." His usage parallels the common view which has developed without regard to facts either economic or geographic holding the world is somehow divided at the Equator with the "rich" and "developed" places in the north and all the others, the "exploited," the "oppressed," being down south.

An unspoken companion sub-text is that the north is the home of those exploiters, those oppressors, those inventors of capitalism, of fascism, of all other sorts of crimes against humanity--the white guys. The south is, of course, the provenance of "people of color." The sub-text, no less than the open one, is predicated upon a rejection of geographic, demographic, and other realities.

The (as Bruckner sees it) guilt ridden Europeans have been engaging in a never ending exercise in self-flagellation over their presumed historical culpability for such unpleasant manifestations of economic, political, and social trajectories as imperialism, fascism, wars of conquest to say nothing of the machines of killing developed in their own (primarily) internecine conflicts culminating in the butchery and devastation of World War II. At the same time the blinders of guilt have prevented the Europeans from seeing any, let alone all the discoveries, inventions, intellectual revolutions which have provided so much of the good extant in the world today--and provided the motivation and capacity of the Europeans to engage in the self-criticism which has typified recent decades.

The tipping point, it may be inferred from M. Bruckner's assessment, which shoved the European elite over the edge came in the past decade with the challenge to Europe presented by the Islamist jihadists and their apologists. There is much in contemporary history to support that analysis.

High on the list is the sea change in view regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict(s). Not much more than ten years ago Israel was still the preferred party; now it is the most goatish of goats. Or, consider the reaction of the Spanish, not simply the hoi oligoi but the folks in the street to the Madrid subway bombings. The flying finger of guilt was pointed not at the jihadist bombers but at the government. Even those who died in the blasted and twisted metal were seen as having been at least somewhat responsible for their own murders.

More recently European elite opinion has been outraged by expressions of national and cultural identity and pride on the part of the hoi polloi. Accurate, fact-predicated opposition to creeping "Islamization," or what is perceived as cringing submission to the dictates and demands of Muslims have been shrilly denounced by the European elite.

And, as M. Bruckner notes, while anti-Americanism has always been a favored activity on the part of Western Europeans, particularly the French, this old standby has been elevated far beyond mere cult status in the wake of the American response to 9/11. This trajectory strongly supports Bruckner's contention that increasingly Europeans have been seeking to displace their own sense of guilt onto the US as the ultimate inheritor of everything European.

So far, so good. Applause and kudos to M. Bruckner all around. But, the man finally goes astray. Perhaps desperately astray.

M. Bruckner congratulates the US for its self-confidence, courage, resolve, and lack of guilt. As a historian specializing in the US, the Geek can only conclude that this is a exercise in creative non-fiction on the part of M. Bruckner. Or, in a kinder alternative, M. Bruckner is not well acquainted with the "blame America first crowd which has long littered the campuses of our universities and which has extended its long reach well into the media and political structures of this country.

Being French it is possible that M. Bruckner has not noticed that the US political landscape now includes a president who has denied the existence of any sort of genuine "American exceptionalism." That, indeed, President Obama publicly trivialized the notion by equating this long-standing belief with the natural patriotic feelings which afflict the citizens of all countries.

Similarly, M. Bruckner appears in his praise of the US to have missed the rise, one is tempted to write, "the triumph" of cultural relativism within the American elites. He has not seen just how unwilling if not unable so many members of the self-appointed intellectual, political, and opinion molding upper strata are to make value judgments on matters originating in countries outside the US.

He has not seen the decaying political confidence and social cohesiveness which has resulted in an extreme reluctance on the part of the US to assert itself in international affairs, preferring instead to engage in bootless efforts at "outreach," or apologies for alleged wrongs of the past. Apparently, he has not seen the companion degeneration contained in the nation's inability and unwillingness to even secure its own borders.

He has not observed the hand-wringing apologetics offered by the American elites for words and symbols which might be found by someone, somewhere, somehow to be violative of alleged "sensitivities." Nor has the rise of the politics of victimization and the scar it has left on both the American domestic political landscape and its conduct of foreign policy appeared on his radar scope.

In short, M. Bruckner has not shown himself to be aware of a very bitter reality rampant in the rarefied air at the peaks of American intellectual, journalistic, and political life. It is, most tragically, the same air as that breathed in Western Europe. And, it has the same brain damaging effects.

Undeserved feelings of national, collective guilt are abroad in the American hoi oligoi. Like their European counterparts these Americans are willing and ready to declare that their country is one of the foci of global illnesses of all kinds while the South is a source of all that is pure and right in human life.

There are almost as many Americans as Europeans eager to don sackcloth and ashes (or perhaps a burqa) and proclaim our guilt before the sinless of the South. We may not have gone as far down this ill-favored path as the Europeans, but we are headed (at least at the top) in the same direction.

The direction and the consequences are what make M. Bruckner's effort well worth the time of reading. It is a powerful red flag.

Which Is Worse--Harassment Or Getting Killed?

Reading the Mexican press gives one the impression that the State of Arizona has not simply declared war on Mexico but intends to wage genocide on Hispanics generally. Even making due allowance for the hyperbola so common in the exercise of the favorite Mexican occupation of Bash-the-Yanqui, the rhetorical overkill is exceptional. (Reuters brings a very mild English language example of the outburst of outrage, here.)

Articles in Spanish intended for domestic consumption are far more extreme as are the frothings of politicos at all levels from village mayors to El Presidente. There is no doubt but many of these worthies, both journalistic and political, have convinced themselves--or at least desire to give the impression of having been convinced--that Arizona has declared a free-fire zone on any and all people who might have a tan skin and/or speak with an accent.

The Mexican rants have been seconded strongly by assorted politicians and public figures--including the ever camera-ready Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Additionally all segments of the blogosphere to the right of Attilathehun.us (The Geek hopes no such site exists) are serving up the view that the Arizona law regarding illegal immigrants will be followed instantly by posses of Tea Party types equipped with fully automatic weapons gunning down any and all who cannot prove beyond the shadow of a 'birther" doubt their right to breath good old 'Merican air. (Note: there are too many examples available to merit links.)

It is time to get a grip, bucko.

Actually, there are two realities upon which a firm grip must be taken. The first, and most obvious, is the motives behind the Arizona enactment which is, in the Geek's estimate, perhaps, but only perhaps, a tad over the edge. The second, the more important is the base hypocrisy hiding under the clouds of Mexican outrage.

Arizona, like the Geek's home state of New Mexico, is heavily Hispanic. It is quite possible that the state to our west exceeds the Land of Enchantment as an entrepot for illegal immigrants from throughout Central and South America. It is equally probable that Arizona has seen more spillover violence from the drug war currently in progress in Mexico than has New Mexico.

Certainly, more directly drug related murder has occurred during the past two years in the great cities of Arizona than in New Mexico. These homicides have been well planned, well executed, and have exhibited sophisticated tactics and weapons. Most, if not all, remain unsolved.

Given this concatenation it is not surprising that many residents (seventy percent in one recent poll) are afraid enough to support even the relatively drastic action represented by the Arizona law. It would appear that even Hispanic descent citizens in Arizona are more worried about the illegal immigrants and drug violence than they are of the police and the potential for such admittedly real hazards as profiling and harassment.

Being hassled by the cops is no fun. The Geek knows that well from numerous unpleasant such experiences at the hands of federal border agents and assorted local cops alike due to his (very) long hair, tan complexion, and Indian features. His own anti-authoritarian personality has done nothing to make these encounters any less unenjoyable (hopefully for the minion of the state as well).

Nonetheless, it is utterly certain that there are many things far worse than being rousted by a man with a badge and an attitude. These range from losing employment in favor of a less costly and far more amenable to exploitation illegal immigrant to being caught in the crossfire between businessmen seeking to settle trade disputes with rock and roll capable weapons.

Given the inability of the federal government to craft a solution to the problem of illegal immigration which can achieve an acceptable measure of consensual support among We the People it is inevitable that some state would make the first move. State governments no less than the one located in Washington, D.C. have the responsibility of securing the domestic order. When a problem such as that presented by illegal immigrants perturbs the tranquility and good order of a state's population, it must act or lose political legitimacy.

Arguably, the Arizona law has headed off more informal and far more intimidating, not to say violent, means employed by vigilance committees of one sort or another. That alternative is not all that remote given the fear created by homicides committed by illegal aliens--typified in an exaggerated and fortunately rare form in the recent killing of an Arizona rancher near the border by a man whose footprints went straight back to the border.

(In this context it might be recalled that Autoarms marketed its version of the famed Tommygun to ranchers along the Rio Grande with ads featuring the lone cowman confronting a group of armed Mexicans. The Thompson .45 submachinegun gave the lone ranger all the advantage needed to keep his humble house and herd safe from depredation. The ad campaign back in the Twenties kept the struggling company alive and the "tommy chopper" available for others including Al Capone and his violin case toting boys.)

Being no more of a constitutional scholar than is the current president, the Geek will not hazard a detailed assessment as to the probability that the Arizona law will survive court challenge. But, it probably will not given that even the federal courts are political bodies and sway wildly to the controlling gusts of political winds whipped up by the hoi oligoi.

It can only be hoped that the controversy stirred by the Arizona legislature and governor will kick Congress hard enough to produce the necessary federal immigration reform legislation. Accomplishing this task will not be easy given the polarizing effects of the reform efforts in the past. Squaring the circle of providing the "path to citizenship" while assuring border security as well as giving no hint of rewarding past violations of immigration law. (Hint: The time may be upon us to end the birthright citizenship which automatically accrues to any who take a first breath on some part of American soil. This might go a long way to gaining support for "amnesty.")

And now, the big enchilada--the grotesque hypocrisy of Mexican media and politicians alike. There is a basic problem with their crocodile tears over the fascist Arizonians. That problem is quite simply the vile things which happen to Central Americans during their passage through Mexico en route to the Land of the Big PX.

Folks from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and other desperately impoverished and increasingly drug violence ridden Central American states are victimized by both criminals and officials on their long and very dangerous trek north. These illegal birds of passage are robbed, beaten, raped, kidnapped for ransom, and murdered in truly wholesale lots.

It has been reported that Amnesty International using data from the National Human Rights Commission believes that no fewer than ten thousand migrants were kidnapped in Mexico during a single six month period last year. Not only have criminal gangs including those normally associated with drug trafficking such as Los Zetas been perpetrators of the kidnappings, the robberies, the beatings, the rapes, and the murders, so also have members of assorted Mexican law enforcement agencies.

To the illegal traveler on the rails and roads of southern and central Mexico there is no way to tell the cops from the crooks other than the fact the first has the badge and the second the better weapons. Then, in northern Mexico, on the final approach march to the border, the cops and crooks are joined by the coyotes, the occupational traffickers in human beings whose expropriations and inhumanity make the behavior of the cops and crooks pale into virtual insignificance.

Those are the realities on the Great Road North.

Do Mexicans vituperate against these sins in their midst? Do Mexican media and political figures denounce those who rape, beat, rob, kidnap, and kill men and women from the countries to their south?

Of course not. Don't be silly. There is no profit in it. No votes. No better circulation or ratings. Anyway, who wants to sully the pure nation of Mexico, the nationalism of the Mexicans? That would only give comfort to the Yankees.

Then what about the Yankees? Does President Obama find the beatings, robberies, kidnappings, rapes, murders of Central Americans by Mexicans to be as despicable, as abhorent as he finds the Arizona law? Who knows, the record is silent.

What about the reverends Sharpton and Jackson? Silence again. Perhaps these two men of God are of the view that violence directed by brown against brown is just fine. Only harassment by the white guy with a badge of a brown person merits condemnation from pulpit or street demonstration.

And, where are the cries of alarm, the tocsin of opposition from the Left, from the Huffington Post, Alternet, the Daily Kos? Silence once more. Perhaps the beating, raping, robbing, kidnapping, and killing of the unarmed, impoverished by the armed impoverished is OK providing both parties are of the same color and language. As long as victim and victimizer are identical in color, language, and (presumably) socio-economic class no harm worthy of mention is done.

Only actions by the powerful, by Whites in a legislature, or wearing a badge or simply supporting the acts merit opposition, earn opprobrium, deserve the epithets. Thus the word, "hypocrisy" is spelled in both Spanish and English.

Get a grip, people. There is a real problem with illegal immigration. The Arizona law shows that unmistakably. Hurling words from behind the barricades of sanctimonious rectitude--and hypocrisy--will do nothing to advance a solution. Unless and until these people on both sides of the border can develop a solution which will be acceptable to the majority of We the People, the greatest service they can provide those of us born here, those of us who are here legally, and those of us who are illegal immigrants is to sit down and shut up.

Too Good For Our Own Good

Over the past century or so the primary characteristic of American foreign policy has been the tension between realism and ideology. While there has been some seesawing back and forth between the extremes of realpolitik and idealism run rampant, the overall trend has been toward the ideological pole.

Ideals have a very real place in the making and executing of foreign policy. Even ideology in and of itself is not necessarily bad. When, however, the dictates of ideology--any ideology--suppress a careful calculation of the realities resident in a situation, the consequences are most likely going to be poor, even disastrous.

In this context it is utterly essential to remember that governments are not moral beings like individual humans. Governments are impersonal constructs which function as agents on behalf of the nation, the society, or, more properly, that component of society which functions as the polity. It is the polity which sets the pace. The polity determines the nature of national interest. The government functions as the agency which seeks to advance or protect the national interest.

Government is to polity as a lawyer is to the client. That analogy is not precise but it is close enough to the reality of global life to serve as a quick guide.

National interest is composed of concerns or values widely shared within the polity. Some of these are long-lived, virtually permanent features on the national landscape. Others are evanescent, driven into existence by a high profile event, acted upon and then flicker out as new events, new concerns flash across the horizon of the polity's awareness. Still others, arguably the most filled with potential disaster, are the result of a specific ideology.

Stepping back in time a bit, for the first century and more of its existence, the US had little in the way of foreign relations. The men who founded this country were practical politicians and realists. Their view was simply that the US had only one true, compelling national interest--survival. They realized that this new nation was a very small fish in a large ocean populated by sharks with long, sharp teeth.

Despite some horrid miscalculations early in the Nineteenth century, which included almost getting into simultaneous wars with both England and France, the US played a cautious, highly conservative, and ideologically flat role in the world through and beyond the War Between the States. Even our advance into the colonial adventure at the bitter end of the Mauve Decade was justified as conservative--a defensive action needed to assure that our long standing national interest of open, free maritime commerce and access to foreign markets remained intact in the Pacific and Asia.

The first real excursion into an ideologically driven policy came at the bitter end of the Nineteenth century when John Hay announced the famed "Open Door" policy with respect to China. This policy was of the declaratory sort which meant it had neither legal standing nor an inbuilt capacity for enforcement. It is doubtful that any country among the collection of raptors who regarded China with appraising eyes saw any need to heed the new US policy--including the US itself.

On occasion, declaratory policy is harmless, a kind of feel-good move in keeping with the prevalent opinion within an influential segment of the polity. The Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact is one example. No one took this measure seriously beyond a few really sincere peace advocates. Others such as the Open Door policy or the Monroe Doctrine come to be enshrined as national interests worthy of implementing unilaterally if necessary--by force of arms if that is required.

We got away with the Monroe Doctrine in largest measure because the British saw no profit in challenging it. We did not escape unscathed from the Open Door because the Japanese saw great profit in challenging it. So embedded had the Open Door become that the US had no wiggle room for negotiation when the Japanese started to close the door--firmly and permanently. The result was in all the media a few years back. It was called World War II in the Pacific.

Ideology went front and center in both the definition of national interest and the conduct of foreign relations during the years of Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson was a Christian man, a very Christian one, who had strong views on international morality. He saw nations as being bound by the same moral codes as operated on individual people. And, just as a person who violates the moral code may be subject to either punishment or some other form of correction, so should a state which he saw as a bad actor.

Acting on a moral base and totally overlooking the reality that governments are agents not principles, Wilson sought to "teach the Mexicans to elect good men," using Marines and, later, the Army as instructors. Horrified at the submarine's necessary sneakiness and apparently believing that the presence of an American civilian on a British ship (even one which was legally a warship) rendered that boat immune from attack, Wilson worked with vigor and effect to guide the US into war only months after he had been re-elected on a "he kept us out of war" platform.

It is always important to keep in mind that the US had no national interest, nothing which directly, substantially, and materially affected its status in the world, its prosperity, its security in issue on the battlefields of the war. Further, at the time Wilson was spinning his moral distaste with the submarine and the Kaiser for whom they sailed into a full-bore crusade to "make the world safe for democracy," and to wage a "war to end wars," the belligerents on both sides of No Mans Land were on the ropes, approaching collapse economically and psychologically.

A peace of exhaustion was in the offing. This peace would have come even allowing for the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent offensive on the Western Front. The German offensive ran out of human steam well short of a meaningful end. It was not a war-winner let alone an attack defeated by the efforts and losses of the recently arriving American "doughboys."

Had the US stayed on the sidelines, the war would have ended in mutual exhaustion. Arguably the peace would have proven both more equitable and much longer lasting than did the one hammered out (to the accompaniment of the disillusionment of Wilsonian ideals) at Versailles.

Wilson's ideals--including the League of Nations--were ideologically driven pure and simple. While they were momentarily popular with the common folk of Europe, they foundered not only on the cynicism of European leaders, but more importantly, on the bedrock of nationalism throughout the continent--and in the US. The outcome of the ideologically predicated, completely unnecessary American involvement in WW I and the peace process was highly negative to all parties. Its effects linger on even today to the continued vexation of US interests in the Mideast.

In a rational world, the lessons of the Wilson misadventure would have resounded loudly down through the years. This world being marked by an absence of rationality, they did not.

The aftermath of WW II which was called into existence by the unintended by well neigh onto certain merging of the effects of the Open Door and the Versailles Treaty was marked by another burst of idealism and ideology.

The UN was FDR's genuflection before the alter of Wilson. The systemic flaw--that the architects of the UN deemed any and all "nations" to be fully functional "nation-states" in which the large and the small, the mature and the juvenile, the democracies and the autocracies were all seen as equal--constituted a fatal flaw. This flaw was joined by a second. The misplaced belief that the US and the USSR possessed a broad spectrum of coinciding national interests regardless of the vast gulf of history, values, and sense of security which existed between them.

Then there was the Cold War and the concomitant militarization of the doctrine of containment. The Soviet Union represented a massive political threat to Western Europe, particularly France and Italy in the closing years of the Forties, but it was no military threat. Nor would it become one for many, many years--if ever. The US in particular mis-read the blustering rhetoric of the Stalin regime and constructed a bogeyman of gargantuan proportions.

The false image of Soviet military expansion linked with the rise of domestic anti-Communism to create an atmosphere in which the ideology of opposing Communism, assumed to be a global conspiracy of super-human brilliance and persistence became the defining American foreign policy force. This, in turn, produced NSC-68 and the resulting arms race which was, unsurprisingly, mirror imaged in the Soviet Union.

There is not sufficient space here to trace the several historical trajectories and political agendas which resulted in this ideological dynamic. But, you can trust the Geek; he is a doctor. Suffice it to say, the Soviet Union was a hostile entity; it held no brief for the US; it would seek political advantage anywhere in the world where it could do so without running any real risk of a direct, military confrontation with the US which it (correctly) saw as technologically, economically, and culturally superior to itself.

But, rather than playing the Game of Nations as it was, rather than defining our national interests realistically and narrowly, we chose to play the game as our defining ideology feared it might be. This meant that we had to involve ourselves directly and substantially in the affairs of countries in which we had no genuine national interest in play. It also meant we fought a long, and, finally, lost war which was neither necessary nor in our interests.

While the game which we played during the Cold War had some good outcomes such as the success of Apollo in 1969, overall the consequences were far from beneficial to our longer term interests. One of those fields which suffered during the Cold War with results which still detain us at length is found in the incorporation of ideologically derived features into the overall definition of national interest.

Consider democracy. Consider the infinitely amorphous area termed, "human rights." Both have become permanent, central features whenever US policy and national interests are discussed. Such was not the case in past years, way back in the distant decade of the Seventies, remember them? Disco, gas shortages, stagflation, Jimmy Carter? Yeah that was the Decade From Hell.

It is also the decade when the US discovered support of democracy, and focusing on human rights to be central to our national interests. Before the epiphany of that time the US had mouthed much on democracy and done little. We had been content to cozy up with any dictator even the most unseemly if that regime gave the appearance of short-term order (which we cheerfully and quite improperly interpreted to be the equivalent of long-term stability) so as to keep the commies out.

Similarly we were remarkably indifferent to human rights (whatever the term might mean in any given context.) This unengaged attitude applied not only to the actions of "our" dictators but operated with respect to Moscow or Beijing as well. We were silent to all but the most egregious Soviet acts unless there was immediate propaganda hay to be made as in the case of the Berlin Wall, the crushing of the Hungarians in 1956, or the Prague "Spring" eleven years later.

All this changed when the tsunami comprised by Watergate, the debacle in Vietnam, the revelations of the Church and Pike committees, and the revulsion over the Pinochet coup in Chile rolled over the domestic political landscape. Politicians as dissimilar as Scoop Jackson (the senator from Boeing) and Jimmy Carter waved the banner of "human rights" as the Europeans held a mighty convention which gave forth a document on human rights signed by all, including the Soviets, which promised a new day for humanity not unlike the Soviet Constitution of 1937--and was equally a dead letter before the ink was dry.

The Reagan administration raised high the battle flag of democracy--at least rhetorically and joined in the human rights hymn. So well was the imagery of democracy and human rights portrayed that almost no one questioned the relevance of either to the requirements of American national interest. After all, who could be against either?

Both are good in principle, in the abstract. But, neither necessarily protects or advances our national interests such as global stability, open commerce, an absence of war, or economic success. And, each brought with it the potential for ideologically driven interference in venues both remote and tangential to national interests. Further, both carry with them automatically the potential for expansiveness of application which violates the constraints of realism.

The fact that democracy in and of itself brings no guarantee of either stability or peace is seen in the blunt fact that Hitler came to power via an election which met the tests of transparency, fairness, and inclusiveness used even today by Jimmy Carter and others of the election-fairness community. The reality that democracy does not bring leaders agreeable to American national interests is seen right now in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The reality that democracy does not lead to the sort of stability best for the US is dramatically apparent in Iraq.

Basing any aspect of foreign policy on human rights is to base it on the most slippery of slopes. There may be a Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by all the member countries of the UN, but there is no one universally accepted protocol for defining, let alone enforcing this international version of declaratory policy. There is no practical mechanism for holding each and every country to a single standard in any area of human rights. That is self-evident in the differing fashions in which women are treated in Muslim as compared with non-Muslim countries or the vast gulf in the free exchange of ideas between China on the one hand and the US on the other or the exploitation of children in both industry and warfare.

Human rights and democracy are matters of aesthetics or sensibilities; they are not national interests. The same may be said regarding "humanitarian crises."

Consider Somalia in December 1992. Starvation was real, widespread in that geographical expression. International food aid through either the UN or the plethora of non-governmental organizations concerned with such matters was impeded or stolen by assorted gangs of thugs, various gunslinging bands of diverse warlords. It was not getting to the starving people clustered in camps.

This was disturbing to say the least. It made for images of compelling anguish on the TV screens of the developed world. It was a macabre spectacle of the best sort. But, was it a matter of such compelling US national interest that it merited the deployment of American troops?

George H.W. Bush thought so. For whatsoever constellation of reasons the recently defeated president sent the Marines ashore. He assured We the People the mission would be short, successful and, above all, the right-thing-to-do. Of course, it was longer, bloody, unsuccessful and set the stage for both the emboldenment of al-Qaeda and the concomitant hesitant policy of the Clinton administration in meeting the jihadist challenge.

Overall, the Somalia deployment was a bad thing for American national interests. But, it was neither the last nor the worst conflation of the ideological or the idealistic with the realistic requirements of American national interest.

That point came with George W. Bush. Flagrant idealism caused the mission leap in Afghanistan from a punitive expedition clearly in American national interest to the goal of "nation-building"--a clear impossibility given the history, demographics, and culture of that place. Worse, pure, unadulterated ideology aiming at the chimera of planting democracy in the Arab Mideast caused the invasion of Iraq. This action above all others taken by the US in the past quarter century if not more was the most harmful to US national interests both in the region and around the world which can be seen in the historical record. It was as if Dick Cheney took his famed shotgun and blasted the face clean off Uncle Sam.

Now, as has been noted in many, many posts, the post-modern, multi-cultural, community organizing on a grand scale ideology of President Obama is with us. So far the results have been as can be expected from history--a failure harmful to the real world interests of the US. Once again events are proving that when realpolitik is kicked aside in the interests of ideology, only disaster can be expected.

The question is this. Will the disaster be on the scale of Bush in Somalia or Woodrow Wilson in and after World War I? Well, bucko, only time will tell.

A Force Powerful And Terrible

The most powerful force abroad in the world today is not that of atoms splitting. Nor is the result of atoms joining. It has nothing to do with matters nuclear. Rather it comes solely from human nature, the fears of humans, their deep-in-the-back-of-the-brain need for membership in the herd.

The name of the force is nationalism. Its power is great; well neigh unbeatable. Its effects can be magnificent. Or terrible.

Years ago the outstanding American diplomat and historian, George Kennan, warned that the hypergolic spread of nationalism during the great wave of decolonization was producing any number of pseudo-states ill equipped in all respects for effective use of their new, unlimited sovereignty. How right he was. And is.

The collapse of empires is always messy. Whether far back in the deepest mist of antiquity, as with the empire of Rome, or closer in time, yet still distant enough to provide a full view of the consequences as with the ending of the Ottoman Empire or that of the Dual Monarchy, the results were both tumultuous and long lived. Indeed, the world is still dealing with the echo effects of the fall of the Ottomans ninety years ago.

It is small wonder that the implosion of the British, French, Portuguese, and, most recently, the Soviet Russian empires have spread so much bloody chaos in their wake. Beyond the immediate chaos, the prompt bloodshed, the result has been the creation of states without a nation at their core or nations transformed into states not by organic forces but by the legerdemain performed by desperate politicians seeking to quickly end unpleasant sorts of status quo.

To put it bluntly and in terms with which Mr Kennan would not disagree: Most of the nearly two hundred states currently represented in the UN are not equipped to exercise sovereignty responsibly. They are not equipped by experience, by social cohesion, by political stability, by economic security, by inherent tradition to act in ways which promote a stable global political order, or to join in collective efforts to creatively address regional or global problems. The nature of the problems--economic, environmental, human rights, security, stability--does not matter, there are simply too many pseudo-states cluttering the global landscape to do other than impede the securing of mutually beneficial solutions to problems great and small.

Further complicating the establishment and maintenance of a global political system competent to address effectively the great and growing problems confronting all of us with a belly button is the phenomenon of regression which has afflicted many once flourishing and effective states. The rise to power--by election or by violence--of governments driven by ideological True Belief has forced once competent international actors to regress to pseudo-states.

While never described as "failed" or "failing" states, countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia have become international juvenile delinquents. If these were individuals rather than "states," their conduct would brand them as people in need of care, custody, and supervision.

Other countries, Pakistan comes to mind, have behaved and continue to behave in ways which are not conducive to regional stability. On occasion at least, Pakistan has been characterized as a "failed" or "failing" state. This designation is not fair. Nor is it accurate.

Like many other nations transformed overnight into "states," Pakistan was and is long, very long in basic national identifiers, most importantly the Islamic religion. It has been and is short, very short on the structures and attitudes which provide for effective international conduct as a sovereign state.

The nationalism which forced the splitting of the British Raj into the sovereign states of Pakistan and India had immediate and profound effects which impaired the capacity of both to function as effective and responsible actors in international affairs. The bloody border between the two which was not made any less bloody by the several wars between them had the effect of stunting the growth of both, but particularly Pakistan, as states ready and able to play constructive roles in international politics.

Events of the past several years indicate India has gone a long way to overcoming the extremes of nationalism which colored its earlier existence. Its actions on the international scene show India to be both a cunning and able pursuer of national interest and an effective, responsible international actor.

The same cannot be said of Pakistan. However, Pakistan is not alone in the category of being a nation in search of statedom. There are many, many others. There are, for example, the tribal, semi-feudal, Islam hagridden oil "states" of the Persian Gulf. There are as well any number of African countries which are so tribal as to not be nations let alone states.

The colonization of Africa by assorted European Powers aborted any indigenous process of forming nations and from them states. The natural propensity of people to assume the status quo would never change went a very long way to assuring that the African properties would be denied the chance to form the national identity and institutions which are the sine qua non of statehood. That historical reality can neither be denied nor speedily rectified.

This admission of reality does not give license for the preposterous notion that tribal assemblages kitted out as "states" should have a sovereign equality with the genuine article as is the current case in all international fora including but not limited to the UN. The UN and all similar entities were founded on a pair of unsupportable notions.

The very well meaning representatives of genuine nation-states who came together in San Francisco at the end of WW II confounded the idea "nation" with that of "state." That notion, specious as it was, paled into insignificance with the second wrong idea: Groups of tribes surrounded by discrete lines on a map, constituted self-conscious "nations" bound together by common language, culture, history, and defining mythology.

A similar distortion of reality came with the assumption that feudal societies founded on religious identity and ruled by autocrats more or less hereditary in nature were also competent nation-states capable and willing to act on a basis of equality with the complexly organized states of Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The specious nature of this tender-hearted assumption has been demonstrated amply by the conduct of the Arab sheikdoms over the past sixty plus years with regard to Israel and the Palestinians.

The only justification--and it is a powerful one--is the recognition back in the glory days of the UN's founding of the potency and prevalence of nationalism. Nationalism was and remains a force, the force which is not to be denied.

The truth of that contention as well as the inevitable centripetal effects of nationalism rises to high visibility in much of the world today. Russia is seeking--so far without demonstrable success--to reconquer ethnic and religious groups on its margins. Religiously reinforced tribal antipathies threaten more than one African country. The same dynamic works is bloody way in China and a few other Asian mainland states. And, the emergence to power of Los Indios or the quest for such has ripped across the South American landscape.

Offshoots or products of nationalism have popped up across both Europe and the US. The use of derogatory terms--xenophobia, nativism, Islamophobia--conceal but do not alter the reality that nationalism is not a force confined to distant, lesser developed or politically challenged countries.

Humans evolved as herd animals. That is a cliche of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. There was--and is--safety in the midst of the herd. It is the outriders and outliers who run the risk of losing in the race for survival.

And, what is the "herd?"

Simple, bucko, the preferred herd is a group of people who are closest to us and most like us. It is not simply the group closest to us in geography. It is also those who are most alike in color and shape, most alike in beliefs and values, most alike in the back of the brain: the shared mythology which is the potent but typically uncredited source of collective identity.

Mere geographic propinquity is reinforced by the epoxy of language, the glue of religion, the cement of a shared sense of having been victimized, exploited, marginalized, denied a full sense and reality of losing control of one's personhood to the will of an external "Other." The necessary result is the demand to gain full, unfettered control of a given territory and the people who live there. Usually this demand is accompanied by a shrill cry that all who are not-like-us leave our territory instantly if not sooner.

So comes "ethnic cleansing" in all its manifold expressions.

It is, of course, far easier to diagnose and describe nationalism and its consequences than it is to creatively and effectively deal with them--particularly the consequences. However, unless the reality of nationalism and the universality of the phenomenon are acknowledged, there is no possibility of coming to grips with the ills that come in its wake.

Many within the American hoi oligoi sincerely believe that we live in a post-national world, that the world is or should be seen not as a hodgepodge of entities but a single globe holding a single race. They hold an authentic and strong belief in multi-culturalism, cultural relativism, and the legitimacy as well as the necessity of international institutions.

The unpleasant ground truth is that these folk live alone in the post-national environment. The rest of the people, the assorted non-elites of the world live elsewhere. They live in a world where nationalism is the ultimate force.

And, that, bucko, is the other truth on which we must all get a grip. Only then can we have any hope of getting out of the mess created by our well-intended, well-meaning but out-to-lunch progenitors in San Francisco and so many other places.

The (Fast) Flying Finger Of Death

The most interesting development in the area of more-or-less conventional weapons to come down the pike is embodied in the several alternative platforms collectively called, alternatively "Prompt Global Strike" (PGS) or "Global Prompt Strike" (GPS.) Not only is the GPS concept--and the hardware which can turn it from theory to practice--interesting, it is the only way in which the new Obama approved Nuclear Posture Review can be rendered truly viable.

Nuclear weapons have been prepared and justified in two roles.

One is that of the area targeted "counter-value" mission of city-busting. Whether the area down range was an enemy city containing (perhaps only peripherally)legitimate military facilities as was the case in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki or hordes of advancing troops and armor (the classic vision of the "crimson tide" cresting the "Trace" in Germany), the weapons of choice were thwacking great yield atomic or (later) hydrogen bombs. One (to use the old Soviet term) nuclear charge of beaucoup kilotons or a few megatons and, well, no more city or onrushing horde. Of course, there would be quite a bit of "collateral" damage--particularly downwind. It was the "collateral" damage projected to result from a major exchange which caused the nightmares of "nuclear winter" or even the "On-The-Beach" end-of-the-world outcome.

The other seemingly legitimate usage for nukes was engaging small, hardened point targets such as the opponent's residual nuclear forces or his command and control centers. The question of second, third, and so on strikes focused on two questions. The first was that of survivability, of riding out a first strike with a credible capacity for retaliation. The second revolved around constructing systems with sufficient accuracy and potency to destroy the point targets. The name of this game was "counter-force."

The problems of assuring the destruction of hardened point targets tested guidance systems to the max. These were complicated by the difficulty of delivering sufficient force on the target to overcome the passive defenses of hyper-hardening. Nukes, particularly those carried on maneuverable re-entry vehicles or endoatmospheric systems such as cruise missiles or precision guided gravity bombs, alone had sufficient bang to obliterate the target.

The limits of reliance upon nuclear munitions became more than a tad obvious to American planners and decision makers in the runup to the Persian Gulf War in 1990. The Saddam Hussein regime had constructed an impressive array of super-hardened command bunkers which were immune to any non-nuclear American weapon.

The same situation obtained years later when the Bush/Cheney administration contemplated their adventure in regime change in Iraq. Even the (usually but not always) highly accurate cruise missiles were of no value in taking on highly hardened point targets. Beyond that the slow flight of the cruise missiles provided them with no utility in hitting a moving target such as Saddam was with his constant movement between alternative command centers.

The difficulty of the cruise missile's leisurely pace had already complicated American efforts to take out Osama bin Laden. When the Clinton administration in 1998 received hard, actionable intelligence regarding bin Laden's location, the combination of decision cycle time and slow flight gave more than sufficient opportunity for a person in the Pakistani government or Inter-Services Intelligence to get on the phone and call his good buddy, Osama. The latter beat feet so the missiles finally hit only empty mud and stone huts.

The lack of a fast reaction, short transit time, highly accurate and bang-heavy munition has seriously complicated, arguably even frustrated, any reasonable American plan to neutralize North Korean or Iranian nuclear facilities without the highly negative consequences which would ensue inevitably upon the use of a nuclear munition. The same applies to some extent with regard to removing high value personnel such as Osama from the playing field.

The advent of hardware having the potential to provide ultra-fast, accurate delivery of a whole bunch of bang downrange is a game changer, the importance of which cannot be overstated, and must not be underestimated. Not surprisingly, the possibility of fielding this class of weapons systems comes with problems both technological and diplomatic in nature.

The fastest, cheapest way of putting the GPS on line is the reposturing of current generation land and sea based ICBMs to GPS delivery. Work on reconfiguring current missiles has been underway long enough and with good enough results that a one-for-one replacement feature has been incorporated in the new START.

This little commented upon aspect of START indicates the Russians are not absolutely against this American option. (Hmm, perhaps they hope their espionage boys are up to the task of swiping the technology?) The depressed trajectory of a GPS equipped ICBM should be, in and of itself, sufficient indication that the US was not trying to sneak in a Dr Strangelove attack. If not, there are simple ways to reassure the Kremlin that we really, really are taking out a point in Iran, or North Korea and not, say, Gorky.

The Chinese are another problem. Beijing is not so easily put off its anxieties that the US might want to, say, welch on its debts by obliterating the debt holders. Still, it is not a problem which should exceed the capacity of the State Department to handle. (Well, in principle at least.)

Other, more exotic, more expensive, and longer lead-time systems are in the pipeline or on the drawing board. One of these might be inferred to exist in the recently test launched X-37B. While not the Finger of Death per se, the vehicle could deploy hypersonic, precision guided munitions anywhere along its orbit trace. The X-37B has been under development first by NASA and then by the Air Force for more than a decade and should be viewed as a platform with a range of potential applications as well as the one furthest along in its maturation.

The hypersonic cruise missile is also well along in its development. The Falcon 2 was launched from Vandenberg AFB aboard a Minotaur IV last week. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been close-mouthed about the Falcon, but has disclosed enough about this unpowered hypersonic vehicle to show that its potentials as a GPS mainstay are significant.

Even further down the way is the X-51 "WaveRider." The X-51 is conceptualized as a hypersonic endoatmospheric cruise missile powered by a scramjet engine. It gets its nickname from the designed intent that the vehicle ride its own sonic shockwave, an approach which provides a number of advantages--if it can be made to work. Air launched, the mach-five plus system is intended to provide the capacity to hit anywhere on the Earth within sixty minutes of a "go" decision.

Diplomatic conundrums exist with respect to both the X-37B and X-51 alternatives as with the conversion of current ICBMs to the GPS role. It is easy to argue that the hypersonic endoatmospheric vehicles including a paper proposal advanced by the Army present greater diplomatic difficulties than does the re-configured ICBM approach. Hypersonic missiles whether powered or not present very tough challenges for the defender. And, any hypersonic missile can carry either city busting nukes or point target appropriate conventional munitions.

As has been shown by the diplomatic storms surrounding the decision to deploy a very limited anti-ballistic missile capacity near Russia, it is utterly essential that diplomatic moves proceed in tandem with the research, development, and evaluation of the hardware. There is no doubt but squeals of (feigned) outrage will emanate eventually from both Moscow and Beijing. This is to be expected; it is the default position regarding any proposed technologically driven change in the Great Power status quo which seems to confer some sort of advantage to the US.

This implies that the ultimate test, the real challenge for the US, resides not in the realm of technology but in the area of political will. The question is not will the US develop a workable GPS system or systems in the near- to mid-term, but whether or not the administration can withstand the gales of pretended fury originating from one or more Great Powers which lack a similar, and, presumably, countervailing capacity.

That question in turn hinges on two other factors: Will the new GPS come online before or after 2012 and will the current president be re-elected?

It sure would be nice to have an accurate crystal ball. Or, a forward running time machine.

Memo To Palestinians

Yousef Munayyar is the executive director of the Palestinian Center which, the Geek presumes, is located in Los Angles. At least his op-ed piece today appeared in the LA Times.

Munayyar advances the thesis that the Palestinians resident in and adjacent to Israel constitute a sovereign deterrent to any Iranian attack, particularly one of a nuclear nature. This is an interesting but utterly fallacious notion.

The events of the past sixty plus years have shown that there is no concern for Palestinians held by Arab leaders, let alone those of Iran. The assorted Arab autocrats, kings, and sheiks have exploited, used, manipulated, and assured the deaths of Palestinians time after bloody time. The Palestinians are useful and quite expendable tools in the eyes of Arab and other Muslim political and military leaders.

In and of themselves, the Palestinians are of neither interest nor importance. Beyond their base utility as a cudgel to be used against Israel--and before 1948 the Zionist movement--the Palestinians have no value, be it ideological, political, or religious. The only exception to this general rule is the use of Palestinians as hewers of wood and drawers of water in the various oil based feudal sheik- and kingdoms.

Mr Munayyar and his fellow Palestinians have to get a grip on their history dating back to the immediate post-WW I period. Throughout the ensuing eighty years the Palestinians have been far more cruelly and cynically exploited for ends not of their desire by their fellow Arabs, their coreligionists, than by the Zionists and Israelis.

The record of Palestinian misery directly and solely attributed to the ambitions and goals of assorted Muftis, kings, presidents, dictators is long and so well documented that it needs no dilation at this point. Neither is there any compelling necessity to point out that there has never been an Arab or Muslim equivalent of Israeli historian Benny Morris. No Arab, no Muslim, has done what Morris did so ably years ago--demonstrate and document the ill-usage of the Palestinians.

Morris employed declassified Israeli records to blow open completely the worst kept secret of the Israeli Wars of Independence--the program of Palestinian forced removal. That the Israeli armed forces used atrocious behavior to encourage Palestinians to leave the area is undeniable.

Equally undeniable is the role played by the invading Arab armies whose commanders and political masters worked assiduously to convince Palestinians to leave the area of operations. These appeals were accompanied by assurances of a speedy return in the wake of the victorious Arab armies.

Mr Munayyar is, not unsurprisingly, silent on the complicity of the Arab armies in the "ethnic cleansing" of the land which became Israel. He is equally silent on the manifold sins committed against his fellows by Arab states, Arab statesmen, Muslim Arab clerics, and all the others who sought their goals on the backs and through the blood of Palestinians.

The pall of silence extends to those Palestinian leaders exemplified by Arafat but including scores of others ranging from blood drenched practitioners of terrorism-without-a-reason to imitation diplomats outpointed, out maneuvered at every turn in every conference. Nor does Mr Munayyar mention any of the many times when the Palestinians were offered the better part of a perfect deal only to reject it in the bootless hopes of getting a totality which existed only in fantasy. From the Thirties through the UN offers of sixty-three years ago right on down to the silence which met the Olmert offer two years ago, the Palestinians have rejected ninety percent of the loaf in the delusional expectation of getting one hundred ten percent if only they were intransigent enough, long enough.

In addition to offering the Palestinians-as-human-shields hypothesis, Mr Munayyar spends some time severely excoriating Benny Morris for having come out in recent years as a critic of the Palestinian removal effort not for having been excessive but for not having gone far enough. Morris has repeatedly said in the past decade that the leaving of twenty percent of the initial Palestinian population resident in the land which became Israel was a serious mistake.

From the Israeli perspective the Morris criticism is trenchant. It has much to recommend it. Had all Palestinians ether been ejected or left in response to the Arab importuning, there would be no "Palestinian question" today. Stalin was right when he famously said during the purges, "No person--no problem." This is the centrality of Morris' revised position.

The Geek (who is by genetics, if not culture, three-eighths Apache) has read and heard on a number of occasions that the Whites would have been well advised a century and more ago had they exterminated the indigenous population rather than pen them on the reservations. He has heard and read the same view expressed by descendants of the once free, once proud Native American population both blended like himself and pure of lineage. Anyone who has spent any time on the "res" cannot but help thinking similarly at least every now and then.

Given the conditions under which so many of the displaced Palestinians have been forced to live for generations now, conditions fostered not only by the well-meaning folks of the UN and its lesser bodies but also by the Arab governments, it is not unreasonable to conclude that even the Palestinians of today would be much better off in all respects had the 1948 removal been total and accepted by countries in the region and around the world as a permanent fact. Where they have been allowed to integrate fully into host societies the Palestinians have shown themselves a great addition to the energy, the vitality, the economic prosperity of their new homes.

Full integration, however, has been spotty, haphazard in the extreme. Full, organized integration has been prevented by the reach of Palestinian dreams far outstripping the grasp of reality. Exacerbating this condition has been the exploitation of the Palestinian dream by the self-centered Arab states.

The Palestinian people have been driven to excesses of dream, the farther shores of despair, the violent margins of Islam by a host of manipulators, a legion of exploiters, a monstrous regiment of those who seek their own goals of power through the suffering of others. It is this concatenation of evil doers which has assured the Palestinians have had no moment of peace, no society of harbor, no new world on which to plant feet and family in which to grow a real future.

While Israel is far from guilt free, it is the lesser, even the least of the evils both inadvertent and intentional which have conspired to make the Palestinians inhabitants of a hell on Earth. The same applies when assessing the Palestinians-as-human-shields thesis advanced by Mr Munayyar. It wouldn't bother the mullahs in the slightest if a few million Arab, Sunni Palestinians became ions in a mushroom cloud.

It would be best for individual and collective peace of mind, best for individual and collective futures if Mr Munayyar and his fellow leaders and spokesmen for the Palestinians realized just what Palestinians mean in the Arab (and Iranian) calculus. The entirety of the Palestinian population ranks as less than nothing in the estimate of Arab and Iranian leaders--unless they remain as useful and utterly expendable tools of state policy.

Sometimes One Just Wants Some Prozac

For one who wants very much to have faith in the United States and its role in the world, these are depressing days. Worse there is every indication that the situation will not abate; it will get worse, perhaps much more so.

The utter cluelessness of the Obama presidency in all aspects of foreign policy is sufficient reason to be black of mood. When the True Believing predicates of the president and so many of his supporters are factored in, the mood can only fall into the deepest shade of ebony. Of course, there would be no basis for the overwhelming attack of the dismals were it not for the simple fact that the administration's unremitting record of foreign relations missteps is destined to have a most negative effect upon all of us in We the People. The inevitable extension of this downward thrust to the rest of the civilized world only gives further justification for desiring industrial strength Prozac.

The administration has terminally fumbled the effort, if indeed there ever was one, to bar Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability. There can be no denying either that fact nor the necessary corollary: The US is no longer "the strong horse" in either the Mideast or the Persian Gulf; Iran can legitimately claim that appellation.

The short and long term consequences of this transition cannot be predicted in detail. But, coupled with the Obama mishandling of the Israeli-Palestinian matter, there can be no denying that the results will be bad not only for the US and Israel but for the other members of the League of Civilized States.

Those who take comfort in the efficacy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) during the Cold War and assume the same policy will prove effective when directed against the mullahocracy in Iran are placing their hopes on a very frail reed. Not only is the leadership of that country, both clerical and "secular," overwhelmingly eschatological in it orientation, events of recent years show that deterrence has not worked to inhibit terrorist attacks or the sponsorship and facilitation of such operations.

MAD worked because the guys at the top whether they lived in Moscow, Beijing, or Washington shared a horror of presiding over national suicide. This coinciding national interest assured that competition globally would be disconnected from any possibility of escalation across the nuclear threshold. Sure, that made for proxy war, wars of national liberation, any number of nasty little not-so-direct conflicts which might be covered by the hoary term, "wars of the frontiers."

Iran has and continues to sponsor, support, and facilitate Islamist jihadist entities such as Hamas, Hezbollah, assorted groups in Iraq, and insurgents in Yemen. It has done so because it lacked a nuclear capacity, the sine qua non of direct conflict with countries similarly armed.

Use of proxies allows annoying and diverting the militarily superior opponent. It allows the development and enhancement of political influence. Best of all it does both at very low risk to the facilitating power. The Iranian proxy policy has been a low cost, low risk, high payoff approach to weakening the US influence in the region while inflicting military, political, diplomatic, and social damage on Israel and putting assorted Arab states on a threat based notice of Iranian emergence.

The proxy approach has not been inhibited by the presumably overwhelming conventional military superiority of Israel--to say nothing of the US. Of course, it deserves notice that the Israeli defeat in the Lebanon war a couple of years ago went a long way to destroying the image of Israel-the-invincible. The same can be said of the years of fumbling the US military was forced to endure in both Iraq and, more so, Afghanistan.

In short, as these factors indicate, conventional force based deterrence did nothing to dissuade Iran from developing its proxies. Nor did the proxies show any shyness in the face of the same deterrence.

With the acquisition of a nuclear capability, even an ambiguous, virtual one, Iran could cast off the proxy approach. It won't. There is no need. Quite the contrary, the proxies will be empowered by global hesitation over the (presumed) Iranian nuclear weapon(s). If Iran goes a step more, if it allows, even encourages, the world to believe Tehran has the big bomb, the net effect will be that of allowing a more open, more direct set of Iranian actions with the targets being Israel and the US presence in the region.

The Iranians know that nuclear powers, even Islamic ones, are afforded a uniquely gentle treatment by the US and other Great Powers. The Pakistani paradigm will apply to Iran--and the Iranians know it.

As Iran harbors ambitions of being both the regional hegemon and a global actor of real puissance, there is a positive impetus to gain at least the same sort of nuclear status enjoyed by Israel with perhaps a soupcon more ambiguity. At the very minimum achieving nuclear breakout status will confer much authority upon Tehran as leader of the Global South, champion not only of Muslim states but nuclear "have-nots" elsewhere in the world.

Further lessening the US role and influence in the world over the next few months and years is the Obama administration's totally misguided pseudo-strategy of mixing warm and hostile words, drawing lines in the sand only to re-draw them a few weeks later and seeking the impossible grail of global consensus on the view of from the Oval concerning Iran. By making Iran so damn important the president has assured only that the defeat we are facing in that quarter will be all the more damaging.

This defeat coupled with the recurrent, cavalier treatment afforded traditional American allies by the president will serve to erode American credibility, and, thus, influence in all the capitals of all the countries great and small around the world. No country's leadership will be able to trust a single American commitment, no matter how long-standing, after the Obama reversals, the Obama conflicts of rhetoric and reality, the Obama attempts to make the the US over as a global sort of Back of the Yards Organization and himself a Saul Alinsky for the world.

Rules For Radicals was not written as a foreign policy guide no matter how much Mr Obama may pretend to the contrary. A foreign policy quite obviously predicated upon the recipe provided for community conflict organizing provided in that famed book will not work. And, it hasn't.

There are many other Obama and the Progressives driven factors which produce the almost inevitably impending decline of the US from Great Power status. But, the Geek is a sensitive sort of guy and his delicate psyche can only take so much on any given day. The Prozac bottle just ain't large enough.

What A Shock! The US Doesn't Have A Policy

The biggest yawner of the news cycle is the "revelation" by the NYT of a "secret" memo by SecDef Robert Gates in which the blunt former spook informed the White House that we have no policy, no strategy for dealing with a nuclear capable Iran. Gee whilikers, who would have thought?

The memo was written shortly after the Iranians successfully ignored yet one more of the lines in the sand so often drawn by President Obama. Of course, it is legitimate to ask whatever possessed the administration to believe the mullahs and their verbose front men would actually agree to surrender their uranium stockpile and otherwise live according to the worldviews of the US, the West, the IAEA, and other assemblages of foreign infidels?

As unsurprising as the contents of the Gates Memo was the response from the White House. National Security Advisor, (former) Marine General James Jones, took the predictable route of assuring the masses that the administration has really, really been on top of the policy planning thing each and every one of the past fifteen months.

The general went on to make his key point. The US strategy was not a public document. We had to trust the older?, wiser? heads in and near the Oval. Effective action, the general wanted us to believe would be taken when, how, and if appropriate.

Duh.

The problem comes in determining the actual state of Iran's nuclear capability. The most probable goal of the mullahs is to assemble all the components of a nuclear weapon but not put the final package together in a deliverable form. This would not only allow the transgressor state to keep within technical compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty but immeasurably complicate the task of assessing capability. And the degree of threat.

(It deserves recalling that the US would have been in compliance with today's NPT when the bombs destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki were loaded on board the B-29s. Final assembly occurred only after the bombers were airborne. Only then did the US possess weapons as defined by the NPT.)

Implicit in the Gates Memo is the most basic question: Is the US prepared to accept a nuclear capable Iran, particularly one which has an off-the-shelf arsenal?

The president and his secretary of state have worn out their vocal cords saying, "No way." Yet the nature of the failed policies on the ground have given credibility to the opposite. We are willing to see Iran join the Nuclear Club (virtual division.)

The Gates Memo also demands a clear cut demonstration of political will in the (rather unlikely) event the administration is seriously committed to a No-Nuclear-Iran policy. Diplomacy requires credible political will as its foundation if it is to have any effect.

The Iranians have no reason to believe that the US will take any real risks to compel Tehran's compliance with our requirements. The soft sanctions which have been enforced with even greater tenderness have not shown that the US and its "allies" are truly serious about forcing the Iranians to abandon the nuclear weapons quest. The unfortunate combination of soft actions and "hard" words, words which have been lessened in their effect by the hearty admixture of kind, gentle, open handed presidential remarks, has combined to assure the mullahs that no icky-poo consequences will ensue over their attaining nuclear status.

It would not be surprising if the Iranian regime has concluded that its robust pursuit of the nuclear goal has been responsible in large measure for the Obama administration's radical shift in policy toward Israel. Considering that the regime's hold on the political and diplomatic context operating on the Israel-Arab matter is tenuous at best and its sense of self-importance borders on the grandiose, it is not out to lunch to infer that the Bearded Lads of Tehran see that their having hung tough in the face of American "pressure" has had the result of forcing the administration to back down in its support of Israel. That is a very important factor in Iranian policy thinking.

Achieving a breakout capacity covered with the same fog of ambiguity which has typified the Israeli nuclear program for fifty years would give Tehran an unaccustomed degree of regional and global influence. The self-evident lack of a well defined, well presented policy on the part of the US, particularly one which includes a credible degree of direct military threat, has not only furthered Iranian influence, it has lessened that possessed by the US. In the region and throughout the world, the loud talk and ineffective action of the Obama administration has done much to erode the American capacity to be taken seriously.

In a similar vein the bumbling actions of the US in both Iraq and Afghanistan for so many years went a long, a very long way to eroding the fear with which many countries once viewed our military capacity. The sheer ineptitude of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years of "shock and awe" in these two wars did nothing to enhance the credibility of the American military as a Big Stick. It must be remembered that all diplomacy other than that between countries with the greatest number of coinciding national interests rests in large part on the "military option." Certainly all diplomacy of the coercive sort, the kind we are engaged in with respect to Iran, rests on the perceived will and ability to employ force in support of policy.

The Iranians have concluded, perhaps quite accurately, that the US lacks the will and ability to use its military against the Revolutionary Republic. Thus it is safe for Ahmadinejad to boast of Iran's military being too "mighty" for any foreign state to consider attacking the country. It is a boast that he believes will never be put to the test.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has recently sent a memo around which reminded all hands of the need for a range of options to be both prepared and refined so that the administration will have the military means available immediately should it conclude that diplomacy has failed and the Iranian nuclear nuisance must be abated. This is a necessary step. But it is not both necessary and sufficient.

As the ancient recipe for rabbit stew starts, "First, catch your rabbit," the first step is to have a definite policy. The Obama administration which means Obama himself, must decide whether or not to declare defeat and proceed to some sort of containment policy directed against a nuclear capable Iran or, with the failure of unsupported diplomacy, to use the long taboo "military option." Given the record of delay, of hesitation, of combining hard words with soft mood music, and the unwillingness of key players such as Russia and China to see the potential threats in a way similar to that of the US, France, and the UK, the choice must come soon and must be made both public and compelling.

War is undesirable, to put it mildly. The consequences of a military strike would be of "world historical" importance. The same may be said of the Iran-Bested-Us alternative. A nuclear capable Iran would be certain to be a severe game changer both in the region and around the world.

Tough choices, it may be inferred from the Gates Memo, do not become any easier with the passage of time. They become both harder and starker. To be blunt, the Obama administration has fiddled while the Iranian centrifuges have spun. The fiddling must stop before the centrifuges have scored a clear cut victory over the Civilized States of the world.

This may mean that Mr Obama will have to act as if he had morphed into George W. Bush. The US may have to act as a Great Power pursuing its national interest whether Brazil or even China likes the idea. Mr Obama may have to run against type, against his own sense of self. But, that sort of thing comes with being in the Oval.

Is Assad Stupid Or Simply Hacked Off?

The widely circulated, Israeli originated report that Syria has shipped Scud missiles to Hezbollah has been confirmed by the terrorist entity which moonlights as a partner in the Lebanese government. In a rather illogical addition to its confirmation Hezbollah averred it couldn't understand what the fuss was all about.

The Hezbollah spokesman, presumably with a straight face maintained the weapons were both old and unusable. Perhaps the speaker's words were lost in translation from Arabic to Arabic and thus appeared garbled in the Kuwaiti paper, Al-Rai. Or, with equal probability, Syria has designated South Lebanon as the approved dump for ancient, decrepit, and broken warlike stores.

Showing their usual propensity for either ambiguity or an inherent inability to keep the stories straight, the Syrian Foreign Ministry continued to deny the reports of a Scud transfer. Instead, the ForMin trotted out the usual counter-allegation: The Israelis are making it all up in order to roil the otherwise peaceful waters of the Mideast and justify their upcoming invasion of peace loving Hezbollahstan.

Showing the fundamentally peaceful inclination of Hezbollah, the Al-Rai piece went on to quote the Man From Hezbollah as saying, "Our organization has many surface-to-surface missiles spread all across Lebanon..." Ah, yes, the old just-in-case gambit.

While there may be individuals in the IDF and government of Israel who may be itching for a rematch to avenge the bloody nose given the Israelis by an unexpectedly competent and well handled Hezbollah force, it is not likely that Israel is in a search for more ways to complicate their already tenuous position. War may be forced upon the country as it was with Operation Cast Lead, but the Israelis aren't looking to provoke one.

It is quite true that Syria has not been showing a great desire to cooperate with either Israel or the US in a quest for a settlement of either regional or bilateral nature. The rejection by Syria of a bid by Israel to establish a trilateral mechanism in the Golan Heights in order to address points of friction is a very recent sign of Syria's harder version of its long standing hard line policy.

Given the rejectionist posture of Syria at the Arab League meeting last month, the rejection is no surprise. Neither is the shipment of Scuds to Hezbollah.

Both the US and Israel have made the customary statements of viewing-with-alarm and warning of the Grave Consequences. In the rhetorical exchanges both sides have played according to long established protocols. The script written so many years back has been followed with verisimilitude. So far, so good as even Hezbollah has sounded almost statesmanlike given its past oratory.

More important than the "who" and "what" in play here is the basic question of "why?"

There are three possibilities.

The first is Bashir al-Assad didn't know what the boys in the backroom were up to. That is possible but unlikely in the extreme. Assad, fils has a firm grasp on all the levers of power and rogue actions would be firmly squashed--as with a bomb under the underling's car when he leaves a party.

The second is Bashir has gone a little funny in the brain housing group. While not impossible a sudden loss of reason on the part of the tightly wrapped man is on the same order of probability as the arrival of a "death star" from the Oort Cloud.

The third alternative is Bashir is torqued off. He is royally hacked over being ignored in the Mideast "Peace Process." As a consequence, the Syrian leader ordered a typically Syrian exercise in subtlety. Sending a few Scuds to Hezbollahstan can be seen as a shouted, "Pay attention to me! I am a major player. The major player. I can make trouble. Or, I can make trouble go away."

Much, if not most of Syria's foreign policy including its "strategic relationship" with Iran can be seen as motivated by the strong desire of Assad, which is universally shared by his government and military, to regain the Golan Heights and, as a matter of slightly lesser importance, exercise operational dominance in Lebanon. These are the pillars of Syrian policy as they have been since the betrayal of Syria by Egypt during the Yom Kippur War twenty-seven years ago.

The most important lesson drawn by Assad, pere and passed on to Assad, fils was the unreliability of allies, even one as supposedly ideologically compatible as Egypt seemed to be in the days of Anwar Sadat. Allies may be useful but, when push comes to shove, any ally will look to its own fortune first.

The linkage between secularist Syria and the mullahocracy of Iran has little, if any, ideological or political foundation. It is an alliance of narrowly defined self-interest on the part of both countries. Services, cash, and support may flow between the mullahs and the Baathist, but there is no further basis than those pragmatic considerations. This implies the alliance is even more fragile than that which died on the battlefields of the Yom Kippur War.

The real goal of Syria in contracting its alliance with Iran was and is to get the US to take Syria seriously, to put an emphasis on pressing Israel to relinquish the Golan, on acknowledging the reality that Syria, not Egypt, not Saudi Arabia, and certainly not the "Palestinians" is the key player in the region. That the gambit has failed to achieve its end is not the fault of the Syrians.

Damascus has played its cards quite well, even putting their own soil at risk to benefit the Iranians. The failure has occurred because American policymakers under both the W. Bush and Obama administrations have been all too willing to be diverted by appearances or spurious events and not see through to the crux of affairs.

The W. Bush administration was unwilling to concede the fact that Lebanon is a geographic expression to a far, far greater degree than it is a functioning nation-state, let alone an authentic democracy. In the long, dark, and bloody years after "Black September," the only force which was able to impose a measure of stability on Lebanon was Syria. When Syria was either devalued in this role or prevented from playing it, chaos ensued.

Damascus considers Lebanon to be in its sole bailiwick. If possible Syria will exercise operational dominance directly but with a a relatively lowered visibility (but always heavy hand.) If prevented from direct intervention Damascus is willing and able to operate through a proxy. This is what is being done with Hezbollah. In point of fact, Hezbollah is the government of Lebanon in all but name.

The danger comes when the proxy becomes strong enough to ignore its patron. This tipping point is coming in Lebanon and Assad knows it. The Scud shipment is a means of postponing the day when Hezbollah tries an end run to Tehran directly.

More infuriating to Syria has been the focus on "Palestine" and the "Palestinians" exhibited by every administration from Clinton to Obama. Being both Arab and a one time sponsor of assorted "Palestinian" groups, the Syrian regime knows quite well that no deal can be made with the zanies of the Palestinian Authority let alone the flat out crazies of Hamas. If for no other reason than the combination of the weight of history and fear of the Islamist jihadists, no figure in the PA can make a deal with Israel on any terms which might prove acceptable to the Israelis and, quite literally, keep on breathing.

Syria knows itself to be a rational actor. In comparison to the PA and Hamas, this position is irrefutable. In Damascus there has been nothing but mystification over the resolute American refusal to see that by solving the Golan Heights question much progress toward a comprehensive peace settlement can be achieved. It is (correctly) thought in Damascus that the Israelis will need to be leaned on heavily if they are ever to disgorge the Golan to its rightful owners. Only the Americans could conceivably apply the requisite diplomatic muscle.

Having watched the Obama administration fruitlessly apply pressure to Israel over settlements in Jerusalem, the Assad regime must be asking itself just what it would take to get Washington to get off the "Palestinian" horse and try something real. If the Americans are going to use pressure, propose their own peace agreement, why shouldn't they focus on the doable? And, what will it take to get the Obama people to see that the Golan is the real center of gravity and not East Jerusalem?

The Scuds to Hezbollah can be seen in this light. The offensive missiles are simply an attention getting device. A way of waking the Obama administration to realities Mideast style. As with their earlier gambits like the Iranian connection any failure will be attributable solely to the blindness of the Americans. On the up side the Scud transfer is a low risk approach. It does nothing to perturb the balance of either military or political power in the region. At the same time it does grab the eye.

Are you watching, Mr Obama? Ms Clinton? Somebody? Anybody??

Women And Children First

The phrase, "women and children first" has been famed for a mort of years in the West. It refers, of course to the priority automatically presumed to apply to women and children in life threatening situations. The iconic manifestation of the phrase is the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Before that famous sinking ninety-eight years ago the same understanding--that women and children must live even at the cost of men's lives was embodied in the words, "Birkenhead drill." This term commemorated the sinking of a British troopship. There were sufficient lifeboats for the women and children, but not the men. The troops stood in formation on the deck of the foundering vessel as their wives, children, sisters, and even mothers watched from the boats.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries where Islamists and jihadists loom large in daily lives and fears, the slogan is also, "women and children first." These, particularly women, are first.

First to be repressed.

First to be demeaned.

First to be terrorized.

First to be murdered.

In Kandahar women are again under the guns and throat-slitting knives of Taliban. Kandahar has been the reborn home turf of Taliban over the past several years, since roughly 2003 when the failed American "shock and awe" approach to war allowed and encouraged Taliban's reemergence from the grave. Kandahar has been well known to be the next destination for General McChrystal's counterinsurgency campaign.

As the pressure has grown on Taliban, these paragons of both Islamic and masculine virtue have responded with an escalating terror program directed against women, particularly those women who would be so uppity as to work for foreign companies or--shock and horror!--go to school.

Unless and until the US and other components of the ISAF move into Kandahar and establish a permanent, effective government presence, the women of Kandahar will provide convenient targets for the bile and fear of Taliban trigger pullers, throat-slitters and other exemplars of the unique sociopathy of Islamism. It is of more than passing interest and certainly more than marginal importance that while the Afghan tribal elders, village chiefs, and even Karzai personally work themselves into frothing rage if an American or other foreigner kills an Afghan civilian, they are totally unconcerned, utterly indifferent to the murdering of women by the Thugs of the Koran.

The contrast between the gnashing of teeth, renting of garments, beating of breasts after four Afghan civilians on a bus which ignored stop orders until fired upon by a road clearance patrol near Kandahar and the yawns which have greeted the killing of women in the city is stupefying. The need to limit as close to zero as is humanly possible the number of civilians killed by interventionary forces is central to success. The Geek was making that point repeatedly to any number of military audiences the best part of twenty years ago, but the fact remains that it is incumbent on the Afghans, at least the government of Hamid Karzai, to distinguish properly between the (mis)fortunes of war, particularly those brought about by civilian stupidity or misconduct or provocation, from the policy of deliberately terrorizing civilians by murdering women in the name of Allah.

There is a ground truth here. Afghanistan cannot hope to become even a shambling simulacrum of a nation unless and until its population, or at least its government at all levels, sheds the notion that fifty-one percent of its citizens are religiously stigmatized as less than human, as mere objects, as chattel. Whether the more true believing Muslims--including those who are not members or supporters of the jihadists of Taliban--like it or not, the world is not and will not become a facsimile of the culture and society of the Arabian Peninsula of the Prophet's time.

This implies that even a traditional, tribally based people such as the Afghans must come to grips with the reality that no country can overlook, let alone suppress, the energy, talents, and potentials of its female component. The attempt to keep women illiterate, covered in garbage sacks, and locked in the kitchen or bedroom is to assure national suicide.

It also deserves mention that the Afghan people generally and government in particular do not seem at all bothered by the latest wrinkle in Taliban's suicide bomber campaign. That is the use of children. In the attempt to avoid falling foul with the security forces, the Always Brave, Always Willing To Die Mighty Warriors Of Taliban have been "recruiting" pre-pubescent boys to be "martyrs." The degree of volitional, informed choice made by these grade school martyrs in the making has been less than zero judging from the statements made by the boys who have been captured before they could hit the clicker on the explosive laden belt.

Sending a boy to do a man's job in this kind of activity is every bit as repugnant as the murdering of women. Making the whole thing even more disgusting--if such is possible--is the religious justification invoked by the clerics of Taliban. It is hard to see how even these fanatics can find any support in the Koran or other sacred writings for cozening and coercing boys many years shy of any legitimate age of majority or even rationality to commit suicide.

The Afghan people and their government most of all have to make a decision about just what is tolerable. They must decide if the uniquely perverse form of "women and children first" is supportable, acceptable. Or is worthy only of the most robust opposition, including supporting the efforts of "foreign forces" to end the Taliban murders.

The Afghan people and their government have to decide whether it is worth accepting the relatively small number of incidental civilian deaths which occur regardless of any and all attempts to prevent them in war, or is it better for Afghans individually and collectively to live under the murderous threat of Taliban. The mere fact that Taliban is composed of Muslims while the foreign forces are not does not make their Muslim victims any less numerous. Or any less dead.

The UN determined last year that Taliban was responsible for seventy-five percent of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan with the balance divided between Afghan national forces and the various foreign combat units. Even the most implacably anti-American non-governmental organizations did not dispute this assessment.

Hamid Karzai and the rest of his governing apparatus have to understand and communicate with the population two simple realities: The US and others in the ISAF are warriors, they kill with care, with control, and, when civilians are caught in the crossfire, with regrets which are sincere. Taliban is a collection of murderers and no twisting of a highly malleable theology can change that brute fact.