It's Official! North Korea Is In Nuclear Club--Yawn

Apparently a passel of experts ranging from the International Atomic Energy Authority to assorted intelligence services including those of the US have belatedly gone public with a declaration of the obvious. North Korea is a nuclear power.

Wowie! Zowie! What a surprise. The Profound Analysts have pondered the matter long and hard and have decided that the Hermit Kingdom of the North has shrunk an implosion device to the size necessary to be boosted on one of its medium to intermediate range ballistic missiles. It is not as if this development was either unanticipated or, for that matter, awesomely productive of anxiety.

Japan, South Korea and the US way over-subscribed their production norm for anxiety over the recent (unsuccessful) launch of a militarily incompetent liquid fueled ICBM equivalent launch vehicle. Why these governments went exo-atmospheric over a test launch which has no relevance to any escalation of North Korea's military capacity while issuing only the most subtle and vague heads-up over the Dear Leader and the Hermits having mastered the technology of weaponizing their plutonium stockpile defies rational analysis.

Suffice it to say that there are nuclear powers and then there are nuclear powers. The possession of a half-dozen warheads amenable to delivery over ranges of less than 1,500 nautical miles does not place a country on the same level as Russia, China or even, at the lower end of the spectrum, India and Pakistan.

The minimal capacity of the North Koreans is within the ability of current generation anti-ballistic missile systems to handle without leaks to a very, very high level of confidence. Given that neither Japan nor South Korea, the two countries at greatest hypothetical risk of a North Korean nuclear strike, have raised a mighty ruckus over this development indicates that neither sees itself as being unduly threatened.

As long as North Korea has a couple of dozen or fewer delivery systems which are mobile, quick reaction and easily hardened in nature, it presents no unmanageable threat. Any potential Hermit Kingdom menace is not enhanced by the realisation that not even its well-tunneled mountains would provide a sufficient protection against the inevitable retaliation. Even in the (likely) event that China demurred from any robust response to the worst imaginable case of a nuclear attack by the North upon either or both South Korea and Japan, the US would be obligated to take all necessary actions.

Even if the US were not ready and willing to launch against the Hermit Kingdom of the North (which is possible given the direction of the upper atmospheric winds), there is no and can be no certainty of that in Pyongyang. It is even (barely) conceivable that the Russians would decide to smack the annoying lads in the Hermit Kingdom. It must be recalled that the Kremlin has not felt well disposed to Pyongyang since the promises of Great Leader Kim came a cropper in late summer 1950.

The limited number of credible delivery systems available to the North either today or in the near- to mid-term future coupled with the relative ease and efficiency of contemporary ABM systems and the probability of harsh retaliation assures that the status of nuclear power adds no weight to North Korean diplomacy. The nukes have added no real bite to the bark of Pyongyang. Seoul and Tokyo appreciate this. So does Washington. (So, we can be sure do the men of the Forbidden City and the Masters of the Kremlin.)

Any real threat from North Korea is of the indirect nature and has been neither increased nor diminished by the public acknowledgement of the North as a nuclear state. Dear Leader and the Hermits are cash poor--very, very cash poor. They have little to sell. Except military technology.

There are buyers for what the North has to sell. Whether missiles or their components or nuclear production expertise, there is a ready market. The Pyongyang regime has not been at all reluctant to sell missile systems and components in the past. This is true regardless of the position of the "international community" as well as any "sanction regime."

The Northerners do not have sufficient supplies of plutonium or highly enriched uranium to engage in commodity sales. They do not have an industrial capacity which would allow the export sales of turnkey plutonium "factories." And, the Israeli Air Force has demonstrated the risks involved in the export of nuclear reactors--particularly those obviously skewed to the production of plutonium.

But, the Northerners have the knowledge necessary to aid others in making their own fissionable materials. Their own deliverable nuclear devices. Given the information oriented nature of the "post-modern" economy, the Hermits have the most desirable, most easily sold and exported goodies of all. (Ahh, let's hear it for intellectual property. The key ingredient of the new world.)

The quality and utility of North Korea's intellectual property as it pertains to nuclear weapons has not been altered by the official recognition of the country having become a member in some sort of standing in the nuclear club. However, the market value of the property may have been enhanced by the tip of the collective hat given to the Hermits.

There is not a diddly that the US (or the "international community") can do to roll back reality. There is precious little that can be done in the line of retarding, let alone totally restricting North Korea's ability to reconstitute its plutonium production capacity.

The only player with sufficient leverage, at least in principle, to modify North Korea's plans in the nuclear venue is China. So far Beijing has not seen it to be worth its while to do more than enter into a tad of palaver with the Hermits.

As long as Pyongyang limits itself to a modest number of warheads and delivery systems and makes no snarls in the direction of China, there is little, if any likelihood that Beijing will change its policy. There is nothing in it for them.

By staying on the sidelines, doing as little to promote sanctions as possible and making occasional noises of chastisement in the general direction of Pyongyang, China can monitor, perhaps even guide the North Korean export trade in nuclear and missile knowledge. This approach keeps North Korea in its essential and time-honored role of buffer and periodic proxy.

That's a low-risk, relatively high-payoff game for the Chinese to play. Don't expect them to change. And, get a grip on it, without a Chinese change there will be no "flexibility" in the Pyongyang branch of the nuclear club.

Pakistan--Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?

A year ago very few would have answered that question in the affirmative. Now, very, very few would say, "No" to the proposition.

There are some indications that members of the Pakistani economic and business elite have lost faith in the will and capacity of the government to slow, let alone halt and reverse the steady advance of Taliban. The number of families within the elite which has made either preparations for movement out of the country had been increasing at a slow rate since the immediate aftermath of the holiday bombing. Since the agreement with Sufi Muhammad regarding the imposition of Sharia in Swat and coterminous regions, the expatriation of money, the acquisition of real property and other precursors of a high speed move out of Dodge have accelerated.

Taliban has severely challenged the Islamabad government. First, it rejected completely the government's demand for Sharia courts to be integrated with the federal legal system. Then the lads with guns and Qurans took over the Buner district which brings it within sixty miles of Islamabad. The government's response has been, to be charitable, flaccid.

Simultaneously Taliban has been talking and acting as though it has already won. At the very least Taliban spokesmen have been talking the talk of victory. In essence the crew has defied the smart money of the world to bet against them.

The odor of impending Taliban success has drifted into Washington the past couple of days. Its arrival was delayed due to an attack of Willful Denial Syndrome. The chief symptom of this particular Weird Policy Disorder is a constant mental mantra, "Afpak needs Pakistan as a reliable, stable partner so Pakistan cannot be going down the Islamist tubes" repeated so as to block receipt of any stimuli to the contrary.

SecState Clinton and SecDef Gates are still suffering the aftermath of their WDS attack. Both, (but Secretary Gates more than his counterpart from Foggy Bottom), seem to believe that the forthcoming Islamist Extreme Makeover of Pakistan is a greater threat to the Islamabad government than it is to the US and the West generally.

While the Taliban issued Call to Islamism would constitute more than a standard-issue bad hair day for Zardari and the rest of the government, it would be a threat which at the least borders on the existential for the current world political order. Given the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, the Taliban hands on the levers of power would be quite literally existential in its threat to countries as diverse as India, Israel--and the United States.

The problem with history is simply this. History lacks any material presence. There is no "force of history." There is no such thing as "historical inevitability."

But, the forces generated in the past propel the dynamics and nature of current events. The power of the past resides in its capacity to form the perceptions, beliefs and therefor the actions of the people of the present.

Decisions, actions, events of years--even centuries--gone by serve to limit what is conceivable, dictate what is thinkable. The past conditions the present quite simply by taking away options, narrowing the cone of acceptable outcomes.

Derailing the Taliban Express at any time over the past two decades, in the roughly twenty years which have elapsed since the Reagan administration handed over responsibility for the endgame in our Afghanistan proxy war with the Soviets to the Pakistanis, would have been difficult to the point of impossibility. The reasons for this bleak conclusion have been given in previous posts.

Suffice it say that the senior decision makers of USG did not comprehend what they were told about the depth of Islamist penetration of the Pakistani military and intelligence services. Neither did these men understand the implications of the Pakistani focus on India and the perceived need for strategic depth in that confrontation.

The off the wall strategists of the W. Bush administration were equally blind to reality. Rumsfeld and company did not appreciate the absolute necessity of decapitating al-Qaeda and Taliban rather than merely wounding the two groups. They did not appreciate the implications of the obvious close laison between Pakistani agencies and the fugitives from our invasion. They did not comprehend the continued focus on India on the part of all Pakistani military figures--including those who had taken supreme political power. They were willfully obtuse regarding the expenditure by Pakistan of the billions in aid which the US provided in a sorely misguided effort to buy cooperation and stability in Islamabad.

Now the US is reduced to the sorry state of hoping (pretending) that a few billion more bucks with added requirements for Pakistani compliance is going to knock the Taliban Express off the tracks. SecState Clinton and the House Foreign Affairs Committee are of the (public) view that the five plus gigabucks will prove sufficient leverage to assure Islamabad will both comply with our appeals for "partnership" and possess the necessary wherewithal to promote its functional legitimacy as a government.

The Clinton-Congress conversation was intended to put added pressure on the Zardari government at least to cause it to revisit the peace agreement in Swat. This may also have been the intent behind Secretary Gates remarks to the media covering his visit to Camp Lejeune. We, along with some opposition politicians in Pakistan, have viewed the agreement with Sufi Muhammad through the prism marked Great Alarm.

The lack of concern within the Pakistani government was expressed well by Prime Minister Gilani. Let's listen in.

In case peace is not restored, then naturally the mandate is the provincial government - they will discuss with the jirga, with all of the political forces of their province, they will discuss with Sufi Muhammad. And if the provincial government decides otherwise or if peace is not restored, certainly we have to review our policy

Perhaps the problem is one of English as a second language. Perhaps not. But, to the Geek at least, there is no ringing call for Islamabad's supremacy here. No tocsin for maintaining the structural integrity of Pakistan's government or constitution.

But then, perhaps PM Gilani has no worries about a Taliban takeover. He may be a closet Islamist just waiting for the chance to let his true flag fly. Or, being a member of the elite, he may already have an alternative residence in an up-scale gated community backed by a Swiss account and a first-class ticket out of Islamabad.

It is all well and good to talk the talk of "partnership" and sing paeans of praise to the Pakistani government. It is necessary to bloviate at length about our new "Afpak" strategy. After all there is some slight chance these will payoff. There is always the rather realistic hope that Taliban will shoot itself in the foot with its all-too-typical outrages conducted under the banner of Sharia, of Pure Islam. The zealots of Islamist True Belief might yet defeat themselves.

The real task for the Deep Thinkers inside the Beltway now is that of developing a threefold "OnlyPak" plan. The three major features of this plan have to be (1) neutralising the Pakistani nuclear capacity; (2) Decapitating Taliban and al-Qaeda so as to attenuate its threat potential for some years to come; (3) Planning the punitive expedition which will have to be mounted after the Islamist jihadists leave their Pakistan-Afghanistan safe harbors and strike somewhere, anywhere in the world.

It is not a pretty option to contemplate, this "OnlyPak" plan. But, the realities of the past as expressed in the actualities of the present give us few, if any other rational choice. We gotta get a grip on it.

Israelis Have Cause To Be Very, Very Nervous

Israelis have more reasons today to be reaching for the bottle of tranquilizers than ever before in the history of their country. The reasons are all good. And, all emerge from what old Soviet terminology called, "the correlation of forces."

Today, as for several years now, the correlation of political, diplomatic, military and global opinion forces are oriented against Israel's national and security interests. The revision of the previously pro-Israel correlation has been accelerating. This political delta V shows no sign of slackening.

To put it bluntly but accurately: The continued existence of Israel as currently constituted is not a priority--or even a significant consideration--for most of the world's politically articulate elite. Even in the US which has been Israel's more-or-less voluntary champion since the state's foundation, there are clear signs that the tide of elite opinion no longer runs fast and hard in Israel's favor.

In 1967 American applause for Israel's highly effective war of preemption and territorial expansion was instant, loud and long sustained. The Egyptian attack of Yom Kippur 1973 assured there would be no diminishing of American support for Israel, even if there was more than a little irritation in the higher echelons of the US Government over Israel's intransigence at relinquishing the Occupied Territories.

The Arab/Palestinian reliance upon terror tactics directed against Israel and (to some limited extent) its supporters may have been justified from the perspective of its employers (and the employers of terror's employers,) but it was counterproductive in that it both increased Israeli political will as well as that of the US to continue its support. Not until the First and Second Intifadas allowed, even encouraged the media of the US and much of the world to portray the Israelis as a species of terrorist employing overwhelming violence against children, youth and women did the correlation of forces start to shift away from Israel and in favor of that hazy group, the Palestinians.

For fifteen or so years now Israel has been losing the battle for the support of the politically articulate elite of Western countries generally. In so far as the Israelis have lost, the Palestinians have won. It has been and continues to be a zero-sum game.

The West--particularly members of its chattering class with their new found love affair with multi-culturalism and "diversity" (whatever that may mean) has been bombarded with images which at least purport to show the Israeli Goliath trampling the Palestinian David into a bloody mudhole. The venality, incompetence and ideological blinders of "Palestinian" leadership have gone by, if not unnoticed, then, at least, without comment.

The greed, corruption and utterly incompetent negotiating skills of Yassir Arafat and the posse of "Abu's" who surrounded him that are in largest single measure responsible for the current morass in which the "Palestinian" population tries to survive has not been appreciated by many, even most of the public opinion molders of the West including the US. These unphotogenic realities have been plastered over by images of IDF soldiers firing "non-lethal" rounds at Arab teenagers, videos of IDF bulldozers levelling Arab homes and IAF fired missiles hitting what seem to be civilian structures in Gaza.

When faced with the power of emotion invoking images, words of reason have no defense. And so the correlation of forces shifts tectonically in ways that cannot be countered even by the power of the Israel Lobby or the patently bloodthirsty policies of the ideologues running Gaza, and, to a lesser but still critical extent, the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank.

The Israelis should have seen it coming. They and their government well know the power of pure emotion to drive opinion and policy in democratic governments. After all, it was the power of emotion which assured support, particularly that of the US, for the creation of Israel.

It was the power of emotion and the historical facts upon which that emotion was both based and exploited by the founders of Israel which gives the words of Iranian president Ahmedinejad their force of authority both in the Muslim countries and, unfortunately, in much of the West. In the midst of the nest of hate and loathing Ahmedinejad's venomous spewing creates, there is an egg of truth.

The egg of truth is simply this. Without the slaughter of the innocents performed by Nazi Germany and its eager helpers elsewhere in Europe during World War II, there would have been no Israel. The lives of the six or so million Jews snuffed out by the Nazis and their supporters from France to the Ukraine bought the sympathies and understanding of post-War western governments--particularly the US--for the establishment of the State of Israel.

Yesterday Ahmedinejad made that accusation before a deeply divided audience in Geneva. The Iranian Orator-in-Chief was wrong in branding Israel a racist country headed by a racist government. He was all-too-correct in claiming that Europe and the US paid their debt to the dead of world Jewry by facilitating the creation of Israel.

Rightly or wrongly the emotional torrent of disgust and guilt which greeted the belated public revelation of the Nazi extermination of the Jews of Europe gave force to the Zionist goal of assuring Jews had a state, a state which would provide both refuge and protection to a dispersed and persecuted people. Moral revulsion would not have been enough. The task demanded the full enlistment of powerful emotion. The pictures and survivors' stories of the Nazi inferno enlisted and focused emotion such that even the still more than a little antisemitic American public approved of Truman's recognition of the new Jewish state.

Emotion, periodically restoked both by dramatic resurrection of the Holocaust and well guided fondness and admiration for the heroic Israelis and their state blooming in the desert went a long, long way to assuring continued, virtually unquestioned support for Israel and its government. The negative emotion of fear--fear of being branded "antisemitic" by the Israel Lobby or some other group of Israel supporters has also gone a long, long way to assuring that it is impossible for the US to treat Israel as though it were a standard issue nation-state with self-defined national and strategic interests.

Ahmedinejad is not engaging in hate-mongering when he challenges the West, including the US, to examine the degree to which emotion drove the process of off-loading a long festering and finally very, very bloodily expressed antisemitism upon the Mideast. History is not that simple, that lacking in irony.

In token of that irony and complexity, an American diplomat, Loy Henderson, as well as that towering figure, George C. Marshall, warned President Truman that the emotion of the moment, understandable and justifiable as it might be, would eventually evoke a countering emotional climate in the Mideast which would vex the US for generations yet to come. Both men (as well as others occupying positions of grave responsibility in those years of transition) warned of unending Arab hatred being the inevitable price to be paid for what Arabs and their governments would necessarily see as a foreign body inserted by outsiders in the Arab flesh.

Ahmedinejad is doing just what Henderson, Marshall and the others warned would be the case. It is true that other, many other Mideast voices over the past sixty years have made the same charges and spouted the same hate. Ahmedinejad not only has a propensity for very blunt and infuriating statements, he is adept at capturing the attention of the media and has the good fortune of riding a rising tide.

The tide is rising in Israel's disfavor in large measure to the success of the Iranian Revolution and its ongoing campaign of getting away with flipping the bird at the US, the West and standards of international deportment generally. The success, defiance and over-the-edge rhetoric assure that no Arab leader--including those of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, can afford to be seen as any less resolute, any less absolutist in their opposition to Israel and its supporters--the US in particular.

A second reason for the tide to have turned against Israel is the behavior of the government of Israel and its military forces. Both have been widely portrayed as militaristic and militarily ineffective. The net result of both the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the recently concluded incursion into the Gaza strip has been to elevate the perception of Israel as a bully and its military as being a weapon both blunt and ineffective.

The unveiled threats by Israel to singlehandedly abate the latent Iranian nuclear program in a manner akin to their 1981 air strike on the Osiris reactor in Iraq has done nothing to dispel the widespread view that Israel is an out-of-control aggressor willing to place the peace of the world as well as the global petro-economy at risk. At the same time there is little or no belief that Israel could undertake such an attack with the slightest chance of even partial success without the full cooperation of the US.

The effect of Israeli posturing and tough talk coupled with the rather non-credible nature of the threats has been counterproductive to both Israeli interests and the chance for success in the pursuit of the "Two State Solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma.

The latest roadblock to the "peace process" (The Geek feels intestinal revulsion for that buzz phrase as it is inherently meaningless.) is the refusal by the Palestinian Authority to recognise Israel as a Jewish state prior to two-state oriented negotiations. On the surface the PA's refusal to do so is irrational. After all any number of states dub themselves "Islamic republics." And, Israel was diplomatically recognised by the US and other countries as a Jewish state.

However, the PA position is anything but irrational. Faced with the Iranian paradigm of total rejectionism and Iran's support of Hamas, no PA official with hopes of continuing in office (or even staying alive) can do less. The intransigence of Iran has meshed perfectly with that of Israel to block meaningful progress in the search for a solution to the Palestinian affair.

The falling stock of Israel in the eyes of many in the Western politically articulate elite limits severely the pressure which can be brought to bear on the PA, let alone Hamas. Given the existential threat which Israelis perceive to exist in the Iranian nuclear project, there is little or no political inducement for any Israeli politician with a hope for his or her political future to be seen as backing down.

Unless and until the Israeli government can take effective action to recover its previous glory in the eyes of European and American opinion molders, it must rely on the formidable capacities of the Israel Lobby to keep US politicians on the reservation.

The limits of the Lobby may be in sight as the American public becomes increasingly weary of war and rumors of war, as it seeks, perhaps, to return to the presumed innocent and glorious days of isolationism. Certainly, there is little or no reason to believe that the American public would support an attack by one nuclear power (Israel) against a wannabe owner of nukes (Iran) which resulted in a worsening of our current economic disaster zone.

Equally there is no reason to believe that the Obama administration, which is facing new and growing problems in Pakistan and the Gulf of Aden while trying to solve the old ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, wants to add an Israeli strike on Iran to the mix. (And, one has to wonder if any perception of American support, even that of the tacit sort, would simplify our challenging dealings with China, Russia and LatAm.)

The incoming Israeli Prime Minister has made his career from tough talk and tougher action. It has been just that sort of robust rhetoric and fierce action which has produced the radical change in the correlation of forces. The challenge for him is not figuring out the weapons mix which will best delay Iranian nuclear ambitions or how to play Hamas against the PA. The challenge for Bibi is that of reconstructing the old correlation of forces.

Good luck, Bibi.

The challenge for the US is to retrieve the long abandoned reputation for even-handedness with which we were once seen in the Mideast.

Good luck, Barack.

No, Secretary Napolitano, It's Not Just Politics

The Department of Homeland Security (aka Heimatsicherheitsamt) wrong-footed it with the pathetic excuse for an intelligence assessment of the purported "rightwing" extremism threats facing the US. The blithering idiot who wrote the seven pages of tripe which would have merited a low "C" at best had it been offered as a mid-term exam by one of the Geek's students back in his academic days was not only superficial (to put it kindly) but also demonstrated an ignorance of American history which falls into the category labeled, "abysmal."

Most critics have focused on the reference to recruiting efforts supposedly directed to combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who are experiencing difficulty finding employment or "readjusting" to civilian life. This piece of nonsense replicates the fear of the former combat soldier which has been exhibited after every one of America's Twentieth Century wars, particularly World War II and the Vietnam War. Those among us who have directly experienced only peace and whose knowledge of war has been gained from films and television are sure that any man who has killed or faced death has been changed for the worse for evermore.

Having been an object of fear and loathing after returning to the world, the Geek is both amused and disgusted by the nameless bureaucrat's expression of the latest incarnation of this particularly American phobia.

Other critics have been perturbed by the "assessment's" sputtering that advocates of a broadly interpreted Second Amendment or support of border security and immigration control are somehow more likely to be "extremists" than those Americans who favor labor's right to organise or the freedom to drive energy inefficient muscle cars or oppose capital punishment.

While the record is clear that individuals who oppose a woman's right to control her reproductive destiny are far more likely to employ violence or the threat of violence to gain their goal of ending abortion than are those who support a woman's right to choose, it remains unjustifiable on the face to assert that any and every opponent of choice is ready and willing to plant a bomb or put the cross hairs on a abortion providers head. Violence, actual or threatened, is not the prerogative of any particular ideology or movement to the exclusion of all others.

The Geek is far more perturbed by two factors which have either not been mentioned by critics or given only cursory attention by them. One of these is extrinsic to the contested "assessment."

The extrinsic consideration is Secretary Napolitano's defense of the the tripe which came out of her department. When challenged on the absence of named "extremist" groups she replied that these groups were too numerous to name. She did make a passing reference to the bombers of abortion providing clinics. The problem with this is simple. The bombings, illustrated by the Atlanta two-stage attack, were the work of individuals operating alone, not groups.

Worse, she has hauled the ghost of Timothy McVeigh, chains rattling out from our collective closet of anxieties as the justification for fearing disgruntled veterans. Yes, McVeigh and his partner, Nichols were veterans. Neither were combat heroes. McVeigh had failed the Special Forces Q course and was rather much of a foul ball as a troop. To select this individual out of the more than forty million living Americans who had served during wartime because he and Nichols (perhaps with foreign guidance) built and used a very lethal vehicle borne improvised explosive device is a travesty. It is a fact. But, a fact which is both irrelevant and misleading in the context of the "assessment."

The Geek's second tooth-gnashing objection to the DHS "assessment" is the author's definition of the "extremist" typologies. The writer sees one type as being motivated by racial, religious or ethnic prejudice. The Deep Thinker of DHS does not state how the conclusion that prejudice derived hatred is owned exclusively by the "rightwing."

The brilliant analyst of DHS avers that there is a second type of right wing extremist. This second type can be recognised by "rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority."

Stop! Hold it right there, Deep Thinker! You too, Madam Secretary.

If the Guru of DHS Intelligence had even the slightest acquaintance with the founding of the United States, the worthy wallah would know that the Constitution was predicated upon a strong suspicion of centralised, concentrated power. The basic concept back there at the beginning of the American experiment was that of establishing a creative tension between the several states and the federal government as well as between the three departments of the federal government.

The majority of those who wrote and ratified the Constitution and Bill of Rights as well as the vast majority of Americans over the next century and a half were biased in favor of local and state governments. There was a healthy distrust of the remote authority of the central government. Not until the stresses of the Depression and World War II was there any leaning on the part of most Americans toward the federal government.

Indeed it was not until the twin challenges of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement with the latter calling into effective question the hoary notion of "States' Rights" did the balance of political authority shift in favor of the federal government. To put it in baby words, while federal supremacy was established as regards preservation of the union by the War Between the States, the notion that federal authority should not be equalled, let alone surpassed by that of the states and localities emerged only over the past forty-five years.

That reality is the reason, Deep Thinking Intel Guru and Madam Secretary, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are in the Bill of Rights. While overlooked and all-too-often ignored, they have not yet been repealed. Just how in hell a person who sees a genuine merit in these two amendments becomes by that view a "rightwing" extremist defies logic and rationality.

The pervasive federal authority is not a creature of long standing. It, in the guise of the administrative state, came into being following the court packing effort of FDR and the Supreme Court's capitulation to political reality with the so-called judicial revolution of 1937. The one-size-fits-all approach of administrative law promulgated and enforced by bureaucrats in the warrens of DC have brought more than a little resentment in their wake over the past several decades. Opposition to the administrative dictates of unelected and (like the DHS analyst) nameless officials is to be expected, is justified and in no way constitutes a threat to the republic.

In a tag to the language quoted above, the DHS Fountainhead of Wisdom adds, "or rejecting government authority entirely." We've been through all of that before more than a century ago as the Great American People shivered in fear before the spectre of anarchism. The slouch hat wearing, bomb tossing anarchist of southern European ancestry became a staple of the fear mongers of the closing days of the Gilded Age. This semi-mythical beast usually equipped with an Italian, Jewish or Eastern European name was the bogeyman used to assure the passage of numerous "criminal syndicalist" acts intended to make the world (or at least the US) safe for capitalists and such behavior as exploiting workers, banning unions and threatening the uppity members of the hoi polloi generally.

Back then the golem of the anarchist was invoked by the Right to repress those on the Left. What's going on now? The Left is intending to bash the Right with the long gone threat of armed and dangerous anarchists, that is people who reject the "authority of government entirely?"

No. Of course not. Well, maybe. Gosh, you don't suppose.... Nah. Can't be. Can it?

Of course an outfit so out-to-lunch as to produce and then defend a document so gripless as this "assessment" might just be that assertively stupid.

Islam(ism) And Human Rights Or Is It Man's Rights?

The tragic decision of President Obama to back down from a confrontation with the enemies of free speech at Durban II raises an important question: How many more times will the smooth-talking, nicely smiling young man in the Oval raise the white flag of preemptive surrender in the days, weeks and months to come?

How often will the US decline to confront repressive, retrogressive regimes, regimes dominated by or leaning toward Islamism?

The area of human rights is gaining importance as a venue in which American national and strategic interests are threatened. This state of affairs arises from the increasingly robust efforts by Islamists and their sympathisers to hijack the field of human rights.

Islamists are not simply brutish gunslingers and suicide vest wearers. The Islamist camp is filled with politically sophisticated men who understand how to use propaganda, cultivate allies on the political left, form coalitions with non-Islamic countries which share a policy goal with the Warriors of Allah, and use the rhetoric and institutions of the US and the rest of the West for purposes hostile to the best interests of the West.

It comes as no surprise that the Organisation of the Islamic Conference is in the process of pirating the human rights arena for the purposes and goals of Islamism. The OIC announced on the eve of the Durban II meeting that it would form an "Islamic" human rights council which would set forth an agenda and processes seeking to guarantee human rights in a way which will be fully Sharia compliant.

Now, that is one scary thought.

Even if consideration of human rights is limited to one small but very important aspect of life, the notion of a Sharia compatible doctrine of rights is very, very scary.

This one, small but central area is quite simply the integrity of a woman's, all women's genitals. To narrow the matter more, is freedom from genital mutilation a fundamental right for any and all women?

The Geek must admit he is quite uncomfortable writing on this subject. Consideration of genital mutilation, no matter how slight in nature, constitutes a subject which is inherently revolting to him. The very idea of taking a knife to a lady's most intimate and sexually defining anatomical features frankly nauseates the Geek. (And, he notes for the record, the Geek has seen more than a few things over the years that the vast majority of people would consider high on the list of sights which produce vomit.)

When the subject of female genital mutilation (FGM) emerged in academic circles a little over fifteen years ago, the Geek recalls that most of his co-workers dismissed concern over it as being misplaced. They adduced four reasons for this questionable conclusion.

First, the practice was limited to a small area in Northeast Africa centering on Somalia.

Second, FGM was not inherent to Islam but rather was an African cultural practice grafted onto the imported faith.

Third, all cultural practices were equally good, so it was improper for a person of one heritage to judge the actions of those living in another.

Fourth, since women performed the FGM it was a matter for the society of women only and since they obviously accepted the practice, it was immune to criticism.

Of course these academics were wrong. Wrong on all counts. But, that is hardly an unusual affliction for academics in recent decades.

While data are hard to acquire and often very soft when they can be found, numbers and anecdotes alike point to FGM being widespread in nature. The World Health Organisation reported in 2005 that some ninety-five percent of women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine in Egypt had undergone some form of FGM. More recently human rights groups have claimed widespread FGM in Iraq, Pakistan and the Arab Peninsula states.

Attempts by governments either to collect hard data on or regulate the practice of FGM have met with significant resistance on the part of Muslim clerics and the population generally. Egypt is an excellent example of this. The conclusion is inescapable: while ashamed of the prevalence of FGM so that attempts to quantify it are resisted, the population or at least a sizable part of it, including leading clerics, oppose any regulation or limiting of the right to take a knife or needle and thread to women's sexual organs.

Occasionally non-clerical students of Islam will note the justifications for FGM which are found in the sacred writings of Islam. Some of these same students will also mine the vast corpus of Sharia based jurisprudence to find examples of Islamic judicial authorities supporting FGM and justifying its employment as a means of insuring social stability through controlling the presumably rampant randiness of "unfixed" women.

The widespread, not to say pervasive, existence of FGM throughout Islamic dominated countries falsifies the oft-repeated claim that the application of knife to clitoris or labia is limited to Somalia and nearby areas of Africa. The existence of a body of Islamic law condoning and justifying FGM underscores that the practice is inherent to the faith. It is not a culture graft originating outside Islam.

The third argument made by the Geek's former academic co-workers is that of cultural relativism. Without making an assessment of the merits of the cultural relativist position, suffice it to note that the basic concept of human rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asserts that there are rights equally applicable to all people regardless of cultural context. Even academics should be capable of seeing the difference between cultural trivia such as costume or diet on the one hand and basic, life affirming rights on the other.

It is quite true that, even today, the primary wielders of knife, needle and thread are women. This would seem to imply a basic agreement within the society of women that FGM was, at the least, harmless. It could even be argued from this basis that women approve of continuing the sexual mutilation over generations. After all, without their performing the procedures, the procedures would not be performed. Right?

The rather recent field of evolutionary psychology would say, "Wrong." Evolutionary psychologists like their colleagues in the cognate fields of social psychology and anthropology would point out that women live on the razor's edge between the ancient requirements of effective cooperation and the even older impetus of competition over resources for the benefit of self and progeny. Far more than men experience (or even often can understand, even imagine) women for thousands of generations have worked under twin, conflicting biologically driven imperatives.

As humans, and, before them, the proto-humans emerged in a harsh and risk ridden environment, women have needed to cooperate effectively so that food could be gathered, children borne and raised, clothing fabricated and the myriad of other tasks accomplished great and small without which survival would have been impossible.

At the same time women have had to keep a man around--exclusively for the benefit of the woman and her children. Competition to get and keep this guy, this access to resources, has been at the top of the priority list. Women have fought with a single minded ferocity to get and keep the guy compared to which the fiercest combat between men pales into insignificance.

We can see (and experience) the delicate balancing act between horizontal relations and fierce competition which is and always has been a central feature of the society of women all around us. You do not have to get a PhD in anthropology or evolutionary psychology to get the picture. All you have to do (if you are a guy, women already know it all in the back of their brains) is go to a singles bar on Friday night or a cocktail party at any time.

"So, cut to the chase, Geek! I'm not getting three hours credit for this lecture, dude."

"Chill out, bucko," the Geekmo replies.

Here is the conclusion, the age old bottom line. Whatever is normative in the society of women will be followed generation after generation. If FGM is normative, it will soldier on grandmother to mother to daughter. No woman, particularly one who is older than the presumptive rival for a man, will cede a competitive advantage to the potential threat.

In the case of FGM, particularly any variant which removes the clitoris in toto or even in part, the advantage is sexual responsiveness. As any hooker (OK, for the politically correct, sex worker) can attest, a genuine commercial advantage accrues to the woman who can best feign a world beating orgasm.

Any (and all) man wants to believe himself to be Studly Hunkboy Without Equal. The greater his partner's response to his ministrations the more his ego is gratified. The combination of sexual responsiveness with sexual availability is the woman's ultimate weapon in the war to keep her guy exclusively hers.

Since the ancient misperception of Freud concerning the vaginal orgasm has been finally buried by research over the past forty years, we are certain that the fount of a woman's sexual pleasure and, thus, responsiveness is the clitoris. Removing or impairing the capacity of this small piece of nerve rich tissue assures a level playing field of low sexual response.

That's why women keep on plying the knife and other implements of personal destruction.

The inevitable question is not that of why do women endure this multi-generational alteration of personhood but why do men put up with it. The answer to this is found in the climate of fear which pervades Islam from its founding sacred writings down to the present day. Bluntly put, men are scared silly of the hidden depths of women. Their sexual depths in particular.

At the same time men are encouraged to both fear and displace responsibility for their own preoccupation with sex. As reams of research published by reinforced divisions of researchers demonstrates beyond all doubt, men spend a lot of time thinking about sex. They may not--in fact, do not--act on their thoughts often, but they do sure as hell think about what they would like to do with their wigglers a very great deal.

Religious beliefs do not alter the frequency or intensity of sexually oriented thoughts, feelings and fantasies in the slightest. However, religious beliefs can and do alter the individual's acceptance of his own sexuality.

Not unlike many other religions both past and present Islam tries to inculcate a sense of guilt over thinking about sex rather than the will of the Lord or some other approved topic. Islam is simply more successful in the guilt production area than most. It is also better than other faiths in providing a suitable displacement focus.

Hey, Abdul, it's OK. You aren't a dirty old man. It's the perpetually randy woman who makes you think that way. She is the provocateur. You have to control her rabid sexual appetite. Put her in all-concealing clothing, clothing that de-sexes completely. And, while you're at it, make sure she is a proper, faithful wife, make sure she is literally de-sexed--but still capable of having your children.

But, now, Abdul, my man, you got another problem. She doesn't want sex with you. Sure, the old FGM has made sexual contact about as enjoyable as a root canal, but she still owes it to you. You feed her, put a roof over her head. She owes you. And, even though there is a nifty away around it, Islam prohibits commercial sex. So, Abdul, you've got your needs. Whatcha going to do about them?

"Pass a law," Abdul replies sagely. "If she don't put out at least once every four days, then I don't have to feed her or something."

Fer sure, dude. That's the way to go.

But, the Geek suggests, why not look at the mutilation thing from a different perspective? Try this one out.

Neurophysiology and embryology have demonstrated that the same nerves serve the same function in both men and women. The sensory nerves which women have concentrated in the clitoris are found in and near the tip of a man's penis. The sensations these nerves feed our brains are the source of sexual pleasure for us guys.

With me so far, Abdul?

OK. Now, let's take the next step. In principle it is possible to sever these nerves in total or in part in the penis, kind of the guy equivalent of removing a woman's clitoris. The guy who has received this sort of attention will still be able of gaining an erection. He will still be able to ejaculate. Make a baby.

Now, the big question: Will he want to? Get it up. Pump away. Come like a gusher. Feel nothing. Think about it. Where is the reward for all the effort?

The Geek is entertaining the amusing picture of thousands of sex deprived Muslim women chasing nerveless men through the souk demanding sex--right now! It would be the women's turn to pass laws demanding the guys get it up at least once every so many days under penalty of going without eats.

Now to bring it home. To move from the ridiculously sublime to the real world and reality oriented international politics. Is it rational to believe, to think for even a microsecond that governments or international organisations with a majority who accept the insane barbarism of female genital mutilation as a normal and customary aspect of a religiously predicated society have anything to offer in the arena of human rights?

Islam and, even more, Islamism have only negatives to offer. They are, to quote the title of a Warren Zevon tune the "Mister Bad Example" of human rights. FGM allows, no, demands the domination of women through degradation, desexualization and objectification of women by a fearful, insecure and ultimately mendacious and hypocritical male population.

There is no justification for even listening to Islamist posturing about the rights of women, of human rights. They neither know nor accept either.

Leaving aside "honorcide," stoning women for adultery, which is often rape under another name, confining women to the harem, forcing them to dress as though they were Ninth Century pastoralists in the Arabian desert, omitting everything beyond female genital mutilation, Islamists and may observant Muslims put themselves beyond the pale in the human rights councils of the world. They have ruled themselves incompetent in the entire matter.

For us, for Americans, for people who celebrate life in all its many ways and diverse expressions the obligation is clear. We must stand in principled, continuous opposition to the Islamists and those others who align for whatsoever reason behind the Islamist banner. These anti-human, anti-rights, anti-freedom members of the Society of Fear and Hate must be opposed at every turn, in every venue.

There can be no surrender. Ever. For any reason, pragmatic or ideological. We must all remember those wise words of warning: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to keep silent."

Speak out, President Obama. Now. Loudly. Repeatedly. That would be a change we can all believe in.

Obama Shows No Change From W. Bush

While the Geek was writing the last post, word came down that the Obama administration has decided "with regret" not to attend Durban II. The justification was that the changes in the Outcome Document were not sufficient.

The administration averred that the lingering reference to Durban I and its objectionable singling out of Israel as a racist violator of human rights as well as continuing odors of the Islamist backed restrictions on free expression made our participation undesirable. The administration is correct in pointing out the deficiencies in the Outcome Document. It is wrong in choosing to surrender the field to the enemy.

History shows that refusal to participate has never advanced US interests. Nor has it served to make the world a better place for humans. From our non-participation in the League of Nations to our refusal to sign the Kyoto Accord, from our policy on non-recognition of the Soviet Union to our isolation of Cuba, the lifting of American moral skirts from the mud of combat with adverse forces has worked to our long term disadvantage.

Apparently the Obama administration--or the president himself--has failed to learn one diddly damn thing from history. From American history. From the history of the past few years even.

Well, presumably the Israel Lobby and the State of Israel are happy with the decision. The bitch is this: By staying away from the Durban II conference, the US has acted in a way which erodes rather than increases the long-term stability and prospects for peace in the Mideast. In short, the pressures of the Israel Lobby and the Government of Israel will prove in the long haul to be against their interests.

And ours.

And the world's.

The High Minded Are At It Again--For Good And Ill

The Geek rarely agrees with the sentiments expressed by the High Minded and Lofty Thinking of the world. Personal and professional experience extending over many decades spent mucking about in the dreck of realpolitick have made him suspicious of those afflicted by Idealism.

There are times, however, when a finely honed sense of realism, of at least a realistic appreciation of US national and strategic interests forces the Geek (uncomfortably) to share a bed with at least some of the High Minded wallahs of the world. The most recent enforced bed-sharing comes about as a result of the impending Durban II conference starting Monday in Geneva.

Iain Levine, the program director for Human Rights Watch is dead on target with his call for the Obama administration to participate in the conference despite the strong reservations held by the US regarding even the latest revision of the Outcome Document. Levine is particularly correct when he cautions against surrendering the field to Iranian Orator-in-Chief Ahemdinejad.

To be absent from the gathering is a backhanded form of appeasement. By refusing to challenge the anti-libertarian philosophy expressed by the likes of Ahmedinejad is to hold silence in the face of evil. And, as was once famously said, "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to keep silent."

Racism wherever and whatsoever color practiced is an evil. This is equally true whether the hydra headed beast goes under the name of Jim Crow laws or anti-Semitism or countering "religious defamation." Ahmedinejad is no better than such legendary American bigots as George Wallace and Senator Bilbo. Suppression of free expression under the rubric of protecting religion is no better, no less evil than book burning of so-called "Jewish" literature by the Nazis.

US national interest demands that we not remain silent in the face of the new forms of racism, the latest expressions of anti-Semitism, the post-modern assault on free expression. US national interest demands that we not allow forces and countries hostile to us and the rest of the West hijack concepts and ideals for which countless lives have been lost over generations. The US has a responsibility not only to its own interests but to the best hopes of people everywhere that we not abandon the Geneva arena to the forces of a repressive crew fearful of the exchange of ideas and the existence of people not under their sway.

A realistic appreciation of America's place in the world now and in the future demands that we do no less than wage the good fight in Geneva. The oppressed of the world can and should expect no less of us.

Comes now Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. By definition (or at least job title) the Austrian born Nowak is one of the High Minded and Lofty Thinking. He has made the news by accusing President Obama of having broken international law by refusing to prosecute those intelligence officers who acted in good faith under the legal guidance provided by the Department of Justice and engaged in the forms of intensive interrogation which may legitimately be defined as torture.

The president made the controversial decision to publish the critical memos from the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department which gave the color of law to techniques which are both inherently very harsh and capable of abuse so as to cross the hazy border into the land of torture. In the wake of these disclosures (to say nothing of the disgustingly sanitary and pettifogging language in which they are couched) the High Minded of the US and other countries have been baying after the blood of those who employed the approved techniques.

The Geek can testify from personal experience that none of the techniques are at all pleasant. Quite the contrary, taken alone or in concert, they are all highly unpleasant. They are meant to be. They are, literally, calculated to make spies talk. That is why they are employed as a part of training for men at risk for capture, to give them some taste of what might come so that they are better equipped to resist.

In a training setting there is no way these techniques can be considered as torture. The person on whom they are inflicted knows damn well that he is not going to die. He has cost the government too much time and money to train to be allowed to die before getting to the field. On top of this he knows he can cry "Uncle" at any time and the game is over--along with his field career (perhaps.)

The situation in one of the now (in)famous CIA black prisons is quite different. The captive has no reasonable expectation that the Americans will suffer him to live. And, the only avenue available to the captive to end the torment is betrayal of his cause and colleagues.

The Geek would not have used these means of persuasion even if ordered. Way back when, the Geek knew others in his line of work who made the opposite choice, but he was certain that his methods, while slower, were more certain of producing useful catch.

Having said that, it necessary to assert that the Geek is not given to judging whether or not the intensive methods were necessary or justifiable in their recent application. Only by finding out if time-sensitive, actionable intelligence which was effectively employed by US or friendly forces to interdict a threat can a decision on utility and necessity be rendered.

Criminal prosecutions such as those demanded by the High Minded are not the proper way to find out what benefits may have accrued by increased national security from the use of means which (arguably) equal torture. Neither trials nor public Truth and Justice Commissions will be able to ascertain with effect the necessity of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, monotonous diet or any of the other techniques.

Once Janet Reno, the Clinton administration's Attorney General remarked that CIA exhibited "battered child syndrome." It was a place of fearful people, inhibited from taking actions necessary to secure information let alone perform clandestine operations necessary for the protection of American national and strategic interests. What Herr Nowak and others of the High Minded and Lofty Thinking brigade want is the production of a climate which brings not only CIA but all components of the US Intelligence Community back to the level of battered children.

Intelligence officers must not be risk averse if they are to perform their jobs effectively. They must do unpleasant things with unpleasant people in unpleasant parts of the world. The collection of much (perhaps most) of the truly critical intelligence information regarding the capabilities and intentions of the adversaries demands working with people in very base conditions and for ends which can objectively be evaluated as base.

After all the stock in trade of the intelligence officer is the inducement of betrayal, the suborning of treason. This is not a pleasant reality to contemplate. It is hard enough for those who have been there and done it to acknowledge. It is infinitely harder for the High Minded who live in a shielded world to consider as either necessary or proper.