Yer Mudder Wears Combat Boots To Bed!

The very serious matter of North Korea's extortionate and brutally repressive regime has been reduced by Secretary of State Clinton to an opportunity to make psycho-babble taunts. The current "vicar of foreign policy" (to use Al Haig's old term for the job) has chosen to characterise the behavior of the Hermit Kingdom of the North as being equivalent to small children and teenagers "acting up" to gain attention.

Showing restraint the North's ForMin responded by calling Ms Clinton "a very funny lady" among other things. These were minor league epithets considering Pyongyang has long mastered the blistering terms of opprobrium which were a hallmark of Cold War public diplomacy. (Ah, those were the days! The days of "running dog lackeys of the Wall Street warmongering imperialist claque.")

Ms Clinton has also declared North Korea to be "friendless" while announcing that the price of readmission to the "international community" would be complete denuclearization. Presumably there would be other tariffs assessed such as the abandonment of ballistic missile development, the ending of arms exports, and perhaps the renunciation of internal human rights abuses. She has made it clear that simply returning to the Six Power Talks would bring the Hermits no reward.

At least the we're-always-ready-to-talk bunch in the Obama administration has made one firm decision. The business of extortion as usual approach of Pyongyang won't work this time. No, this time, if Dear Leader and his coterie want swag, they will have to give up the nukes first.

Ms Clinton and, presumably, the other foreign policy makers of today think the sanctions will compel "friendless" North Korea to cave in, surrender its nukes, give up its missiles, and do whatever else the "international community" might demand to stop the pain being inflicted on its leaders by the assorted embargoes. Can't you just see it now--

Kim Jong-il is told that the Italian government has seized the two custom yachts being built for him as demanded by the Security Council resolutions. "Oh, no!" He cries. Stamps his feet. Waves his arms. "Give up the atoms, right now! I can't sail a bunch of atoms! I want my boats!"

In an international exchange monitored by Jimmy Carter, the North Koreans hand over all their plutonium. And, Kim gets his luxury aquatic rides. And, peace and good will reign forever more.

Yeah, fer sure, dude.

In Reality Land the critical player, China, will cooperate with the sanctions only as long as the internal stability of North Korea is not threatened. If instability looms as it will come the next transfer of power in Pyongyang, Beijing will find appropriate low profile ways to violate the UN expressed "will of the international community." To do anything other than that would be to place Chinese national interests at risk.

There is no sign that China is particularly concerned over recent developments in North Korea. There have been no major troop movements toward the border. Neither have the Chinese been issuing any warnings to Pyonyang as they have occasionally in the past. Given that Chinese intelligence has a greater degree of penetration in the Hermit Kingdom and has had such for over a half century, there is little probability of any alarming developments in Pyongyang eluding Beijing.

There are some other considerations which must be taken into account when evaluating the probability that the current US policy of stern demands and psycho babble insults will bear any useful result.

As Ruediger Frank pointed out at a conference last month at the University of British Columbia, the military ruling circle changed policy in 2006. North Korea's short-lived flirtation with more liberal internal policies came to a screeching halt in what he termed, "socialist neoconservatism." The state took back control of all aspects of the economy and reinstituted the most pervasive form of internal security. The long standing North Korean gulag filled quickly to the brim and would overflow were it not for the high death rate in the constellation of "reform through labor" camps.

Ideological control and indoctrination became universal and unrelenting. The state sought with great success to assure absolute and unquestionable authority over every aspect of individual life in the country. Warning of the need for continued sacrifice and of the ever present threat of attack by the US and others of the "imperialist camp," the regime has forged a submissive and long-suffering population ready (if not eager) to bear whatever might be necessary to maintain the state.

In keeping with the model of success in control and indoctrination, it might be noted that the vast majority of the refugees from North Korea are female, marginal in their economic value, and normally unemployed. The flood into both China and South Korea has been one of economic and not political refugees. They are not "voting with their feet." They are looking for a job.

Arguably, North Korea is facilitating the leaving of unemployable members of society. They are clearing the decks of what was called in Nazi Germany, "useless mouths." A closer examination of the refugee stream would probably show a high proportion of people with physical or mental illnesses which can't be afforded by the state.

While there are threats to the regime's control of perceptions and attitudes such as the circulation of DVDs and CDs smuggled in from China, these are not likely to threaten the state's authority over its population. These small leaks are certainly not going to pollute the large North Korean army's loyalty.

North Korea's army constitutes a real, constant, and major threat to South Korea. The most plausible "nightmare scenario" is one of a spasm war. While the American military states it is ready for all eventualities, this would in no way lessen, let alone obviate, the consequences of a spasm war.

With a suitable pretext, a "provocation" such as the South Korean navy or coast guard stopping and searching a North Korean vessel under the provisions of the Security Council resolution--an action Pyongyang has already characterised as "an act of war"--the North could unleash a fierce barrage of missile, rocket, and tube artillery. Since some sixty percent of the South Korean industrial establishment as well as Seoul are within range, the death and destruction would be impressive.

The US and South Korea can and will respond quickly and in great force. The North has long prepared for such an eventuality. Its military and critical civilian facilities are well dug in, hardened, and protected.

China and Russia would move fast, very fast to call a Security Council meeting with a view of passing a ceasefire resolution. North Korea would quickly accept the resolution. The US and South Korea would have no viable option but to do the same. The war would be over, probably in twenty-four hours or less.

China and Russia would insist that North Korea share in the "humanitarian" and "reconstruction" aid which would be a necessary aftermath. The badly hurt South Korea would have received a potent lesson in the advisibility of a genuine "reunification" effort. This bent would be potentiated by the powerful peace faction which has been a permanent and often noisy and politically important component of South Korean life.

Regional dynamics will be changed. Changed in ways which cannot be predicted in detail.

The North Korean regime with or without Dear Leader may see such a gambit as the least undesirable of all possible evils. A spasm war would be extortion taken to the ultimate high risk, high payoff level. That does not make it an unthinkable option for Pyongyang, particularly if it sees the risks as no greater than the long term impact of the American sanction based approach.

As we found out on 7 December 41, a country when presented with a choice between the humiliating surrender to American policy demands or war, may well opt for war. Back then the Japanese reckoned that the US was too preoccupied with Germany to do other than accept an accomplished feat in Asia and the Pacific. It turned out their calculations were wrong.

However, the current realities of the American internal economic and political agendas taken with the war-weariness of the American public and the powerful leverage enjoyed by China in the Security Council may give the leaders of the Hermit Kingdom reason to believe that the spasm war gambit will pay off more than it will cost. Now, that is a threat.

So, Madam Secretary, while it may feel good to heave psycho babble terms at North Korea and be so personally satisfying to term the North, "friendless," and seem so tough to demand captituation to US policy demands as the price of friendship, it shows a certain inability on your part to get a grip on reality in all its seamy ways. Theodore Roosevelt advised that one speak softly and carry a big stick. You, Secretary Clinton, prefer to talk loudly and carry no stick at all.

What Did You Expect? An Easy Fight?

More out of Pakistan, which confirms some of the points made in yesterday's post regarding the unwillingness of the government of that country to redeploy significant elements of its regular army to the fight against Taliban. As previously written, this situation will remain unchanged unless and until the Pakistani government can bring itself to trust that India is not going to attack the moment the army is fully engaged against the Islamist jihadists.

The first bite out of Pakistan is the most to be expected. The army and government of Pakistan are pulling very long faces about the American/British effort in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The lads in command are complaining that the new offensive is driving Taliban and al-Qaeda trigger pullers across the line on a map known as the "border." This, the Pakistanis allege, is complicating their efforts in the FATA.

Well. Golly. Gee. Aw shucks.

As water runs down hill so also do guerrillas seek the line of least resistance. This means that in Helmand province for reasons right or wrong, good or ill, Taliban has concentrated its efforts against the British while giving the American Marines the next thing to a free pass in their advances. It also means that given the choice of facing the combination of disciplined fire power and mobility of the British or American forces, the Heroic Warriors Of The One True Faith would much rather slip across the frontier and take on the paramilitary units of the Frontier Corps and the odd regular Pakistani Army unit in the region.

Rather than whine, moan, bitch and complain about the Taliban doing what they must have been expected to do--take on the weakest opponent--the Pakistani government should dispatch the majority of the regular army to the real fighting front. Sitting on their collective duff and making ugly faces at the Indians across the way does nothing to defeat Taliban nor promote the genuine national security of Pakistan.

The fact that the two Waziristans, North and South, are difficult human and geographic terrain for the Pakistani forces to operate in does not obviate the reality that the people and territory of the Warziristans are the place where war must be waged. The FATA generally has never been brought under effective government control. Nor has the central regime ever done anything substantial to promote perceptions of either existential or functional legitimacy among the tribal population of the region.

These twin failures provided the soil necessary for Islamist jihad of the Taliban sort to take root and flourish. It is the up close and personal ability of Taliban to provide a sense of community identity, administer justice, and squash corruption that has brought recruits as well as provided the extensive passive mass support base without which a guerrilla entity cannot survive for long.

Rather than admit that the years of government neglect of and prejudice against the tribals of the two Warziristans might have been responsible for the rapid growth of Taliban, the Pakistani government again took the self-defeating and irresponsible path of blaming the American Predator strikes on Taliban targets in the FATA for the continuation and growth of Taliban support. The intellectual and moral bankruptcy of this approach is highlighted by developments in the contested area of Dir.

In this area as previously in South Waziristan, a civilian militia, which is to say an ad hoc group of pissed off locals, has surrounded and besieged a Taliban group. To finish the job the locals say they need assistance from the Pakistani army. The requested assistance has not been forthcoming.

Two questions are prompted by this development. One is obvious: why is the government not speeding the required troops to the assistance of the armed and angry locals?

The other is not so self-evident but strikes at the heart of the presumed impact of the icky-poo American Predator strikes. If, as the government insists, the American efforts at remote controlled death were both so inaccurate and ill advised as to turn civilian opinion en masse against the government, then why are the locals in both South Waziristan and Dir rising up angry against the jihadists?

The answer to the second question is simply that the locals finally have had a belly full of Taliban. In particular, the locals have had more than enough of Taliban's willingness to kill civilians. To the locals the suicide bombers along with the Taliban stone-throwing, sword-wielding enforcers of Islamist virtue have exhausted the local's patience with the Virtuous Army of the Prophet.

So, the locals have grabbed their guns and made their displeasure known. They also have asked the government--their government, at least in principle--for help.

The government's ear is deafened by two considerations. The first is the distaste in Islamabad for the idea of tribesmen with guns. The second is the paucity of resources the government is willing to commit to ground combat efforts.

As the war in Pakistan widens, Islamabad is once again playing an old, tired game. The name of the game is extortion. The other player in the game is the United States. The game is played this way: You want us to do something? Well, give us something. Like intelligence, ammunition and, most importantly, you give us Predators.

That's right, policy fans. The Pakistani government wants the same horrid machines that the evil Americans use to complicate Pakistani life by wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians caught in the cross hairs on some video screen thousands of miles away. You see, if we kill our own civilians, no one will mind. If you Yanks kill them, then Taliban will lose.

Gosh, who can fail to be convinced with logic like that? There is no way that Pakistan might want Predators for the same reason the government previously wanted F-16s and other platforms as well suited for counterinsurgent operations as a Baptist minister is for playing piano in a whorehouse? Like to use against the real enemy, India?

At the same time as the government of Pakistan wants us to provide more systems which would be useful against India, it wants us to convince India to cooperate with Pakistan in the "common" struggle against terrorism and terrorists. The time has come to explain the meaning of the word "consistency" to the men of the government of Pakistan. The boys just can't get their story straight.

And, that's a fact, Jack.

While we are at it, there are a couple of other points that diplomat extraordinary Richard Holbrooke might elucidate to the Pakistanis. The first point is that Taliban is the one and only existential threat confronting Pakistan. India is a mythic enemy only. It is a useful outside evil on which the government has pinned so many of its failures past, present, and future.

In point of fact had India really, really wanted to end the Kashmir dispute, it could have at any time of its choosing. The same fact still exists, Pakistan's rudimentary nuclear arsenal to the contrary not withstanding. The continuation of Kashmir as an active diplomatic dispute is testimony to India's unwillingness to use war as its instrument of choice.

The second fact of life which Mr Holbrooke or somebody ought to get through to the state-of-denial afflicted Pakistani government is that Taliban has the initiative. It has the ability to exercise horizontal escalation into Baluchistan. It can use urban terror whenever and wherever it chooses. It can avoid contact with the Pakistani forces in FATA. Or, it can attack from a local position of strength and inflict political will damaging casualties on the government forces.

And, those are facts, Jack.

The final ground truth that must be communicated to the boys in Islamabad is that they have grabbed the tiger's tail. They now have only two choices: Kill the tiger. Or, let the tiger eat them.

Whining, moaning, bitching, complaining, blaming the Americans for actually fighting a war in Afghanistan, seeking to extort Predators, or refusing to commit the majority of their ground combat forces instead of simply bombing from on high or blasting from far away are all simply ways to make damn sure the tiger eats them. Killing the tiger means standing there, facing the beast's claws and teeth--and slitting its throat.

That's the final fact, Jack.

SecState Clinton Shoots Her Mouth Again

Apparently her recent fall caused damage to a critical body part other than her elbow. It seems that Secretary Clinton suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury affecting her speech center. The symptom is running off at the oral orifice without any cognitive connection having been made first.

The other day she infuriated the Pakistani government by mentioning that Osama bin Ladin and others have been hiding in Pakistan. She allowed any who wanted to draw the inference that this state of affairs developed and continues with the knowledge and tacit approval of the Pakistani government or its Inter-Services Intelligence agency. True or not (and it probably is) the accusation coming as it did hot on the heels of the shaky early stages of a semi-detente between Pakistan and India was as helpful as trying to eat soup with a knife.

Now Ms Clinton has done it again. This time the infuriated party is Israel.

On Wednesday Secretary Clinton offered a "defense umbrella" to countries in the Mideast and Persian Gulf regions threatened by the Iranian nuclear weapons development program. While much of the wording was unexceptional in that it focused on such mundane matters as arms sales and more forward deployment of US forces, part of the Secretary's position was a restatement of a previous American demarche.

The US would consider a nuclear attack on an American ally to be the equivalent of an attack upon itself. This is the same posture that the US held with respect to Western Europe during the Cold War.

The earlier commitment of the US to retaliate with nuclear weapons to any Soviet first use in Europe was not inherently credible to some, if not all, European political leaders. Secretary Clinton's reissuance is not credible to the government of Israel.

Israel was quick to respond. Dan Meridor, the minister in charge of Israeli intelligence, denounced the Clinton statement as accepting Iran's status as a nuclear power as an accomplished feat.

When taken in conjunction with the recent "warning" issued by an unnamed senior defense official to the effect that Israel must not seek to abate the Iranian threat with unilateral military operations, the Clinton pronouncement can be taken to mean the US is willing to accommodate itself to the new reality of Iran having the bomb. Mr Meridor and others who see the matter as he does are not being paranoid.

The timing of Ms Clinton's "umbrella" offer gives additional plausibility to the interpretation that the US is willing to accept the new reality. The Iranian vice-president Parviz Davoudi opined at a conference sponsored by the Martyrs' Foundation that any attempt to attack Iran's 12,000 spinning centrifuges would result in widespread destabilization. He is right.

Israel and the US both know that. It is one of the risks that must be assessed before making the "go" decision on the air strike option. But, the lack of time lapse between the widely disseminated Iranian speech and Ms Clinton's opening of the "umbrella" make it appear the US was responding to the Iranian threat.

Undoubtedly the implications of the Clinton statement will be among the subjects discussed in the forthcoming high level talks between US and Israeli intelligence and national security personnel. They will present the latest documentation supporting their view of the threat and its nearness in time. We will play as much soothing mood music as possible--including singing the praises of the deterrent effect of the American nuclear "umbrella."

The invisible figure at the US-Israeli talks will be Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle may be long dead but his trenchant and accurate reading of the weakness of the American deterrent and his country's subsequent policy will be very much alive, well, and relevant not only at this conflab but in the days, weeks, and months to come.

Quite simply, de Gaulle did not believe that should push come to shove the Americans would place New York at risk for Paris or Los Angeles for Dijon. France would need its own independent, sovereign nuclear retaliatory capacity. And, so, at great expense and energy France did and does. It is an independent, fully sovereign actor in pursuit of its own national and strategic interests.

While Iran does not present the level of prompt threat to the continental US that the Soviet Union did since the mullahs will have to depend upon the Postal Service or FedEx to deliver their "Mahdi bomb" to our shores for some years to come, the de Gaulle analysis still has much to recommend it to the decision makers of Israel. Given the current economic realities (including the not very subtle Chinese threat that the US must pursue stable policies to protect the value of the 800 billion dollars in American paper held by Beijing) it is legitimate for the government of Israel to doubt the US political will to use the military option, particularly nuclear retaliation.

It is pushing the envelope of credibility to expect the current administration to place both the economic well-being of the US and its own agenda at risk to protect the interests or even existence of Israel. It is far more prudent for the government of Israel to look to itself and its own mechanisms for protection of its own core interests.

The unwillingness of any Israeli government to lean on the US for existential protection has been and is being enhanced by the obdurate stance of the current administration on such matters as building twenty apartments on the site of an old hotel in East Jerusalem. This policy position when considered in the context of the quite apparent pro-Arab tilt taken by the Obama administration makes any US guarantee against Iranian ambitions a weak reed on which to lean.

It doesn't matter if the Iranian ambitions are pursued by waving a nuclear scimitar or by the more traditional means of sponsoring subversion or terrorism, the end result is the same. Israel and other countries in the region perceive themselves quite correctly to be at great and growing risk. At the same time the statements and policies (such as they are) of the Obama administration when put together with current economic conditions and the strong agenda orientation of the "Progressive Caucus" make any and all US verbal guarantees automatically suspect.

In short, Secretary Clinton in succumbing to her latest round of the Joe Biden Syndrome has not reassured Israel. Neither, in all probability, has she calmed the fears in the Gulf Sheikdoms. She and they as well as the rest of us would be far better off if she used her mouth for eating and not talking.

Two Twitchy Scorpions In A Very Small Bottle

India and Pakistan both have a nuclear capability. India's atomic arsenal is much larger than Pakistan's. The new US-Indian deal on fissionable materials allows India to divert its entire domestic production of uranium to the bomb making assembly lines so its ability to green glass large swaths of Pakistan will grow.

Although well behind India in the numbers and perhaps yields of its weapons, the Pakistanis are currently enlarging their production capacity. Even without an increase, Islamabad has more than enough splittable neutrons to ruin India's (and the world's) whole day.

Making life all the more anxiety producing for those who hope to avoid the planting of mushroom shaped clouds in the sky over the sub-continent, both India and Pakistan have shown a truly awesome capacity to avoid cooperation on key existential issues, reject any sort of roadmap for a final settlement on the disputed lands of the Kashmir and, at least un-officially, wave the nuclear card as if it were actually one which could be played. While India every now and then indicates that the nuclear option is a rational one, the Pakistanis are far more willing to endorse the notion of nuclear war as a viable policy approach.

In the relationship between India and Pakistan it is the latter which is the more distrusting, the more apprehensive, the more willing to reach for a threat, including the nuclear one. But, India, when provoked as it was by the Mumbai Incident, can equal or outdo Pakistan in the dire threats department.

Currently there are two issues which yawn like a World War I trench system with the two combatants glaring at each other through the sights of their guns. One is the matter of Pakistani complicity in the Mumbai Incident. The other is water.

There is little doubt that Islamabad has been sleep-walking through the motions of judicial proceedings against Pakistanis accused of having played a role in the Mumbai Incident. More debatable but far from rebuttable is the contention that the Mumbai Incident involved some level of support from instruments of the Pakistani government, most probably the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI.) The obvious lack of promptness and candor on the part of the government of Pakistan (GOP) in pursuing either allegations or suspicions of its citizens or agents involvement in the Incident have fueled the darkest of dark Indian suspicions.

The shocking (dare the Geek say, "Perry Mason" style) confession of the sole surviving Mumbai terrorist in open court poured napalm by the gallon on the worst Indian conjectures. It seems likely that the Indian government which is not a monument to either stability or cautious reflection before taking action will come under heavy pressure to do something unless the GOP takes effective, public action to act on information contained in the so far secret (or at least gag rule suppressed) confession.

At the very least the confession of Ajmal Kasab has the potential of perturbing, even rupturing, the tentative rapprochement made between India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the recently concluded Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference in Sharm al-Sheik, Egypt. The meeting of the minds at Sharm al-Sheik was neither comprehensive nor free of mutual suspicion to the extent that India and Pakistan might well engage in a rush away from it.

(It should be mentioned that SecState Hillary Clinton stepped on her diplomatic tongue with golf shoes when she averred surviving heavyweights of al-Qaeda were still holed up in Pakistan's FATA. The implication was this state of affairs could not exist without the tacit approval of either or both GOP and ISI. While both the sanctuary and the implication might be factual, it is not at all appropriate to say so at this critical juncture in Indo-Pakistan relations. Ms Clinton deserves to be taken to the woodshed.)

Pakistan needs to feel free to turn its back on India as it gets on with its fight against Taliban. More specifically Pakistan needs assurances, credible, verifiable assurances that India is not seeking a strategic advantage by its presence in Afghanistan. Only the US can serve as an honest broker in this matter and SecState Clinton's ill-advised imitation of Joe (I'll-Say-Anything-That-Crosses-My-Tongue-Without-Involving-My-Brain) Biden will do nothing to enhance the American role in this matter.

Our Secretary of State is correct when she pats Pakistan on the back for its "serious" efforts to defeat Taliban. The military portion of the anti-Taliban campaign is continuing with continued superficial indications of success. More important than the body count touted is the underlying fact that the majority of the ground fighting is still being carried out by the second string units of the paramilitary Frontier Corps and not the regular Pakistani army.

This means simply that GOP has not felt free to redeploy substantial numbers of their regular forces from the Indian border. Continued reliance upon the Frontier Corps, which is, relatively, less well trained, equipped, and officered than the Regulars will assure the campaign moves slowly, perhaps too slowly to continue effective public support and political will. The faltering of support and will has been the ruination of previous anti-Taliban efforts. The same dynamic is not far from the surface today.

The second issue--water--has emerged in the past few weeks to complicate the relation between Pakistan and India. Water, and the potential for hostilities over it, has been highlighted recently by assorted Pakistani media and political figures. This means there is less inducement for India to take confidence building measures such as thinning out its forces on the common border which would allow Pakistan to concentrate its army on the abatement of the Taliban.

Water has been an issue between India and Pakistan since Partition. A series of agreements on the use and division of rivers serving the two countries, particularly those running through the disputed territories of Jammu and Kashmir, have been signed. In general these agreements have been observed to the satisfaction of both governments.

The Indus River Treaty of 1960 which was facilitated by the World Bank is the most important of these agreements. It has become a source of strain between the two countries in the past year or so. Covering the six river systems shared by the two nations, the Indus River Treaty is seen to be threatened by the Indian government's ambitious sixty-seven project program for dams, hydroelectric power production, and irrigation covering the Indian administered portion of Kashmir state.

From the perspective of Pakistani nationalists, the Indian development program whose centerpiece, Baglihir dam, went on line last year is an attempt to create an absolute and irrefutable fact on the ground in Kashmir and Jammu. In the view of these irredentist folks the Indian government is seeking to fully integrate the Muslim majority population of Indian controlled Kashmir and Jammu to the ultimate disadvantage of both Islam and Pakistan.

The Indian government says it is simply discharging its responsibility to the population of the two provinces while fostering both agricultural and economic development such as to benefit the locals and the nation equally. There is nothing outre nor exceptional in this position. It is what governments everywhere are supposed to do--and, at least on occasion, do actually do.

Not so fast, counter the irredentists of Pakistan. The massive project carries the potential of threatening the Pakistani agricultural use of the water to our collective loss. This argument carries a lot of freight with Pakistanis.

The consensus is Pakistan faces a water crisis in the near future. The country has been experiencing a decrement in water flow for the past several decades and may face genuine emergency conditions in the next five years. Compounding the problem is Pakistan has failed to build its own dams, resevoirs, and irrigation systems such that most of the water flowing through the rivers is lost to the sea without having been put to beneficial use along the way.

As Pakistan's population is expected to hit 250 million in the not too distant future, the impact of water shortages particularly when taken in conjunction with shortfalls in basic commodities would be severely dislocative. Even though the GOP is in large measure responsible for the looming water crisis, it is far more convenient and in keeping with historical experience to pin the tail of blame on the Indian donkey.

Various and sundry retired generals including a former head of ISI and the one time boss of the national water authority along with assorted nationalist politicians are now raising the accusation that India is using the water as a weapon. This crew loudly, repeatedly, and in a high visibility way has charged that the new dam and its associated projects are actually offensive weapons more deadly than atomic bombs aimed at the hearts of Pakistan and Islam.

Now, the charges have reached the point that purportedly responsible Pakistanis are contending that resorting to nuclear war in response to this Indian hydraulic assault is appropriate. What a concept! You have to admit it would work. After a brief exchange the resulting population reduction of several million would diminish the need for water--assuming any which did not glow in the dark could be found.

While there is no real (immediate) probability of the two countries going to nuclear war over water or any thing else, the mere fact of this irredentist thinking (to use the term generically only) is indicative of the underlying distrust, suspicion, and flat out fear which provides the context for all Indo-Pakistani affairs. It is emblematic of the gap which the US must help bridge in our own interest.

Secretary of State Clinton will have to be far more careful in both the wording and timing of her public remarks than she evidenced in the wake of the NAM if she is going to play the constructive role in nudging the governments of Pakistan and India toward a working relationship which will meet Pakistan's needs as it takes on Taliban. Unless and until both the government and politically articulate elite of Pakistan can grow beyond their reflexive and unreasoning fear of India, the task of squashing Taliban and akin Islamist threats will stay incomplete.

Unless and until Pakistan devotes its full energies and forces to abating the Islamists in its midst, the American effort in Afghanistan is probably doomed to fail. Time is against both the US government and GOP.

The reason time is on the side of the Islamists is the same in both Pakistan and the US. Sacrifice without evident success saps political will. SecDef Gates has warned that We the People will turn our backs on the Afghanistan war without real, observable success in the next twelve to eighteen months. The time frame in Pakistan is shorter, perhaps much shorter.

Ms Clinton and the rest of the Obama foreign policy team have their work cut out for them. The question is simply--Are they up to the task?

If Only It Weren't So Tragic

Somalia would be world beating comedy series were it not for the blood, destruction, fear, flight, and misery the antics of the Islamist jihadist thugs of al-Shabab have caused. And continue to cause. Even the name of the gang is funny--"the youth" or, more informally, "the kids," if it did not apply to a group that makes Taliban seem almost civilized.

In their latest act the "Kids" have declared three UN agencies to be "enemies of Islam," to say nothing of being "enemies of the Somali people." Presumably the "Kids" Department of Political Affairs and Regional Administration wore a collective straight face as the statement was issued.

Backing the expulsion of the UN agencies by the forthright diplomacy of violence, the Kids sacked the compounds occupied by the UN Development Agency in the south of Somalia stealing the vehicles and equipment in the process. This approach indicates that the Kids have taken lessons in the practice of international relations from the Iranians.

Of course, lessons in diplomatic protocol are not the only support the Kids have sought and received from the outside world. As Ahmedou Ouid-Abdallah, the UN Special Representative for Somalia makes clear in an op-ed piece in today's WaPo, the Kids are no longer some sort of homegrown collection of exuberant young practitioners of Salifist/Wahhibist Islam. They may have started as a ramshackle array of homeboys in search of excitement, power, and a sense of mission, but those days are long behind them.

The "Kids" are the sharp edge of the Islamist jihadist movement. Their trigger pullers and bomb wearers come from areas far removed from the sand and blood of Somalia. The money--and much of the agenda--comes from Islamist leaning governments and NGOs which share both a given interpretation of the Koran and a deep seated hatred for the US and its allies. Both of these contentions have become so commonplace that they need no further documentation.

Also not requiring either documentation or riffling through files of classified information is the fact that jihadists who have found Iraq and Afghanistan a little too hot for their personal comfort have been heading for the more salubrious clime of Somalia. There they will meet other like minded folks from both Europe and the US, folk drawn from the mission or sensation seeking younger members of Somali expatriate communities. United in faith and hate, the jihadists, old and new, can cross-pollinate and reinforce each other's views of Islamism and the Global Caliphate.

The critical consideration is not the movement of Somalia from the Third Circle to the Second in Hell but rather what, if anything, can the "international community" do about it. Ahmedou Ould-Abdullah argues passionately that the "international community" has a (his word) "duty" to Somalia. By this he clearly means a responsibility to intervene in force to squash the "Kids" and support the Transitional Federal Government.

In principle he is correct. Given the length of the Somali coast, the volume of trade which passes that coast, and the fragility of the global economy, there is a very real measure of self-interest involved in the stability of the geographic expression called Somalia. The potentially destabilizing impact of the refugee flood upon Kenya and other countries in the region also makes a serious and realistic claim upon the consideration and action of the larger world community.

The gulf between principle and practice is huge. And, in highest probability, unbridgeable. Just who is going to do the heavy lifting in Somalia?

Not the US. As SecDef Robert Gates warned over the weekend, the American population will not support an unending effort in Afghanistan. The war there must, in his view, turn the corner within the next year or eighteen months or the political will of We the People will be exhausted with predictable consequences.

While Iraq may be winding down as Afghanistan ramps up, one thing is sure. The American public, to say nothing of the economy, cannot and will not support another expedition into a land of inhospitable human terrain and little probability of rapid, low cost success.

The same is true in the UK. Only more so. The British Parliament, press and public, is torqued off over the recent high body count in Afghanistan as a result of the new offensive strategy taking the war to the Taliban stronghold of Helmand. While the number of combat fatalities is low in both absolute and historical terms, it is becoming too much for the British political will. The stakes and goal are equally incomprehensible to the majority of the British public. The same would be true on steroids were Her Majesty's Government to send the lads to Somalia.

The days when the Empire could calmly accept the bones of their troops bleaching in the sun in some far away place for obscure reasons are long gone. The Brits, like their Yank cousins, want a clear cut success in short order at a low cost for easily understood and emotionally compelling reasons.

The rest of the governments of Europe are even more adversely inclined to sending troops to some nasty little pimple on the planet for reasons which might be understood by geopoliticians but not by the man and woman on the street. The Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, are all in the same category. Russians and Chinese support direct national interest only. The Japanese are too canny to get involved, and, anyway, their constitution forbids military employment in any endeavor which is not clearly self-defense.

So, what about Africa? That is the region with the most direct interest in containing both instability and refugees which carry the germ of instability.

The African Union has been long on paper commitments to Somalia. It has been equally short on performance. The long-on-pledges and short-on-deployment AU peacekeeping force is hard pressed keeping a mini-Green Zone around the presidential compound and the air and sea port facilities in Mogadishu. There is no real probability the situation will change.

The AU has always fielded peacekeeping forces which are notably risk averse. Assorted national contingents deployed on sundry UN sponsored peackeeping missions around the world have repeatedly demonstrated a reluctance to engage in combat which has been equalled only by the speed and eagerness with which some have sought plunder, extortion, and forced sexual favors.

The constant excuse presented by the AU as well as its member states is the lack of money and equipment. There is much to the excuse. AU forces are poorly equipped. They are also poorly paid. In addition they are poorly trained, poorly officered, and generally ill-prepared to take on an opponent that has guns and the willingness to use them.

Generally the history of the armed forces of the AU nations shows them to be very good at coups. Reasonably proficient at pushing unarmed civilians around. Better than average at looking good on a parade. And, somewhere between pathetic and mediocre at actually fighting.

The exception to this general statement is the old army of South Africa. Since the political transformation of that country, there has been no occasion for the South Africans to show whether or not their combat proficiency has declined and, if so, as is likely, how much.

The US and other countries could (and, perhaps should) pour money, equipment, and training into the AU contingents. While an exercise in upgrading the capacity of the AU member states in peacekeeping operations might have a very real benefit in the future, any positive effects would take too long to be practically applicable in Somalia. The "Kids" will have taken over the place long before a training and equipping effort would have measurable impact.

Casting around for alternatives some decision maker or another might have the bright idea of asking the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to call upon its members to hammer together an all-Islamic peacekeeping force. What an idea!

It has been argued more than a few times that Muslims understand Muslims. That Muslims would treat Muslims with greater sensitivity and thus greater effect than non-Muslims. That argument may or may not have a substructure of truth. It is also irrelevant.

Just which Muslim country or countries could be expected to volunteer forces for Somalia? And for what reason?

In principle Saudi Arabia has the capacity to send a few thousand reasonably well armed, trained, and led troops to Somalia. The Kingdom might also be persuaded that its national interests would be served by so doing. After all, Saudi clerics have long been involved in transforming the Somali version of Islam from a rather laid back sort to the austere Wahhibist version. Saudi is concerned with the stability of Yemen and the free transit of the Red Sea and adjacent waters.

However a Saudi presence, even if it were to slap the "Kids" into line would also assure the continuation of an Islamist leaning government. This might be the best of all possible outcomes from the Western perspective.

Militating against any hypothetical Saudi peacekeeping force is the fear of Iran. Iran has not given up its ambitions to be the regional hegemon in the Persian Gulf. Any decrement in the Saudi military presence at home would be to Iran's political advantage. The House of Saud is aware of this. The House is also aware that its army is the necessary final support of the House in the event of internal unrest such as is continually sponsored by Tehran.

"No thanks, we will stay right where we are," has to be the most likely reply to any call for peacekeeping assistance.

What is true with Saudi Arabia is true in spades for the rest of the Gulf states. None of these oil sheikdoms have the spare troops standing around itching for a chance to engage in real combat against real people with real guns.

Egypt might be cozened (bribed) into furnishing a few brigades, but Mubarak would be very cautious about such an exercise. The regime faces many internal threats. These will grow as Hosni grows older. A succession crisis is possible. This means the army and the government alike will want to keep all their cards in the deck, not spread some in a rather no win situation far from home.

There is a dearth of candidates for the task of putting the kibosh on the "Kids." The risks are real. The costs are potentially high. The benefits are nil or at least obscure. There is no inducements and a lot of constraints.

In short, there is no one willing in the real world to exercise the "duty" proposed by Ahmedou Ould-Abdullah. He is right in principle. Unfortunately in the gritty real world, principle is always trumped by the practical, the pragmatic weighing of risks and benefits, costs and gains.

So the tragedy produced by the "Kids" will continue. Eventually the leaders of the US and other countries may well regret not having dealt with the "Kids"now rather than the consequences later just as the US learned to regret the spineless response of the Clinton administration to the terrorist acts of al-Qaeda or our unseemly retreat from Somalia after "Blackhawk down." The real deal is that governments live in the here-and-now, the present, not the future.

"Take care of today and the future can look out for itself," seems to be the watchword of governments no matter how often it has been proven to be a destructive short-sighted way to make and execute policy. That's the way it goes--unfortunately.

The Carbon Game--Global Affirmative Action

Back in the mid-Sixties the US government had a very good idea. Given both the vast and pervasive nature of racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination in American schools, businesses, residential housing patterns and the like as well as wide-spread public support for a change in this pernicious state of affairs, congress and executive worked together to enact a series of laws addressing the need for real equality of opportunity in all these areas.

In employment and education the key aspect of the legislation was the requirement for equal opportunity regarding both admission to educational facilities and employment. It was almost impossible for anyone with the slightest orientation as to time and place and an ethical sensibility transcending that of a tapeworm to dissent. Who could be against a level playing field in which both the advantages and disadvantages of race, ethnic origin, or gender would be absent?

Success would be on the basis of merit alone. No unearned assistance from (some) accidents of birth. No penalties either.

But in almost no time at all the original good idea was morphed by courts and congress into a far more ambitious and sinister creature. Equal opportunity became affirmative action. No matter what legal gloss or linguistic varnish might be applied, affirmative action brought race, ethnic background, and sex back onto the playing field.

It was not only legal but praiseworthy to practice some sort of reverse discrimination. A guilt perverted logic held that it was a good thing to discriminate against a present day white guy in order to teach his (dead) ancestors the evil of having discriminated in one way or another in the past. Judges, pundits, politicians, and professors told the white guy who was, in effect, to go sit at the back of the bus, that he had nothing to complain about since his "privileged" position in society had been purchased in the past by the exploitative and discriminating behavior of his forebearers.

The primary motivator in the transmogrification of equal opportunity into affirmative action was a sense of guilt which mainly afflicted those Americans of a liberal bent, a solid middle or upper class background, a comprehensive education to the level of a terminal degree, and an overall sense of security which afforded them the luxury of having others pay the price for their personal sense of sin. Guilt is wonderful. Provided you don't have to bear its burden.

So it is with global warming today.

We must leave aside the question of whether or not there is any truth behind the prognostications of prompt climatic catastrophe due to anthropogenic climate change unless drastic actions are taken instantly. The reason for this is simply that the global warming crowd has won the field. The decision has been made. We must kill the weather or the weather will kill us.

The sovereign remedy for ending the thermal menace (literally) hovering over us is the prompt and dramatic reduction in the levels of carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by human activities. It goes without saying (or, at least should) that any significant reduction in this class of emissions will have immense economic, social, and personal consequences.

The heart of any global approach to the spectre of looming planetary incineration is the mechanism by which the efforts and attendant consequences will be spread and shared. There are two models: equal opportunity and affirmative action.

In an ideal world, a perfect humanity, the choice would be plain: equal opportunity, or, to err on the side of accuracy, equal pain, sacrifice, and loss.

We do live in an imperfect world, and humanity generally has not achieved any significant level of ethical purity. And, (here comes the most important consideration) the elites of the West, of Europe and, even more to the point, the United States, are afflicted by a level of guilt over our success that they are eager to prance to the gallows, fix the noose of penance around their (and our) necks, and spring the trap below their feet.

The much maligned George W. Bush refused to put the halter of the Kyoto Accords around the collective necks of Americans as it would harm national interests without any need for corresponding sacrifices on the part of, among others, India and China. For his refusal to acknowledge American guilt in exploiting the plentiful energy resources of the US during the period of industrial development (roughly 1850-2000) and meekly accept the necessary condign punishment, George W. Bush was (and is) pilloried as an example of greedy, selfish, piggy Americans who consume energy in the trillions of kilowatt hours and spew carbon dioxide with the barbaric abandon of a redneck heaving empty Coors cans at Old Faithful.

The other day Secretary of State Clinton went to India in part to join in an anticipated session of multi-national, cross-cultural celebration of the "greening" of the globe by joint efforts to defeat the Great Thermal Monster. Presumably she came believing that she could talk with her Indian counterparts on the level of elite-to-elite. As a result there would be quick agreement that India would take mandatory limits on carbon emissions on a par with those proposed for the US under the recent legislation providing for a carbon roll-back through cap-and-trade as well as other mechanisms.

The Indians wasted no time disabusing her of these illusions. She found out in double quick time that the Indian government's position was simple and clear cut. Stripped of the customary diplomatic ruffles and flourishes, it runs rather like this--

You Americans became the economic and political power you are by spewing carbon by the gigaton back before anyone knew that doing such might hypothetically cause any harm. Your collective wealth and enviable standard of living is the result. Now, we will do the same until our wealth and standard of living equals (or surpasses) yours. It's only fair.

Having been sharply put in her place over her undue demand for "equal opportunity," the SecState resorted to the American guilty liberal default position. On behalf of the US and all Americans, living and dead, Secretary Clinton admitted our guilt.

We acknowledge – now with President Obama – that we have made mistakes in the United States, and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the problem that we face with climate change.

With this mea culpa the Secretary of State abandoned equal sacrifice in the face of a supposedly global threat and embraced the punishment of "affirmative action."

The record shows that this occasion was simply the most recent time for the Obama administration to acknowledge American "guilt" for the present state of carbon affairs and commit the Americans, each and every one of us, to make the necessary penitential sacrifices. Ms Clinton averred this position last April. President Obama did the same at the recent G-8 meeting in Italy.

An ancient joke from the days of vaudeville has a convict quipping to the judge who had just sentenced him, "You're awfully free with another man's time." So it is with Ms Clinton, President Obama, and all the others of the American elite who have convinced themselves (for reasons which may well be far less altruistic and non-self-interested than represented) that global warming is real and only by drastic "affirmative action" can the US lead the change by making proper amends for its past behavior.

Any way the assorted plans for addressing global climate change are parsed, there will be severe, dramatic, and potentially dislocative changes forced upon the American worker, the American consumer. The espousal of an "affirmative action" approach will magnify all of these negative ramifications as they will all narrow rather than broaden the base supporting the impact of the necessary sacrifices.

The world's largest (by volume) carbon emitter, China, is and will continue to take the same stance as India. The Chinese government, again like the Indian one, is strongly nationalistic in its priorities. Contrary to the stance taken by the American elite with its fixation on the fantasy of fellow-passengers-on-spaceship-Earth, these governments carefully calculate the best ways to advance the interests of their country and people, if necessary, at the expense of all others.

The Obama-Clinton elite cannot and will not understand this driving motivation any more than they can or will understand how the white guy fails to see why he should lose the job or promotion because past generations were discriminatory and prejudiced in their actions.

Governments outside the narrow confines of Western Europe and North America will pursue subjectively defined national interests above any sort of concern for planetary well-being. They will seek to offload as much of the burden onto the Americans and Western Europeans as possible. They will play the American liberal guilt card just as hard as they can.

That is no surprise. The first job of a government is the protection and advancement of the interests and well-being of their country and its people. Period.

The Obama administration and its supporters, particularly those who think of themselves as "progressive," will cooperate wholeheartedly in the displacement of shared responsibility onto the workers and consumers of the US. Being members of the elite they are more insulated from the inevitable and harsh consequences of the US taking an inordinate percentage of the task of limiting carbon dioxide and related emissions.

Just as they were insulated from the down-and-dirty street realities of affirmative action replacing equal opportunity as the touchstone of ending discrimination in the workplace, the elite can ride comfortably above the results of economic and social dislocations resulting in the years ahead from thoughtless, guilt driven decisions taken today. Once again the elite can be comfortable in admitting guilt and singing mea culpa since they will not have to bare their backs to the whip, their legs will not feel the tug of the iron fetters.

Equal opportunity was an excellent idea. Affirmative action replaced excellence with a foul travesty whose full, pernicious effects remain conveniently unplumbed. Equal sacrifice in the face of a (presumably) global threat is a fine and noble concept. The equivalent of affirmative action would transform the game to one of defeat and deride America for both fun and profit.

Sounds great, heah, bucko?

What! Me Worry? Not About "Eurabia"

Once upon a time, long ago, Newsweek was a staid, stolid magazine. Way back then, back when Ike was in the White House and the collective knees of We the People knocked like castanets with gran mal epilepsy, it was the boring, fact-oriented rival of the froth spewing icon of the Luce Empire, Time. High school students groaned when they were forced to read the dull words of Newsweek rather than the more stimulating pap of Time. Boring or not, Newsweek had the advantage of being free of opinion, particularly the ill-informed and unsourced sort.

Times have changed. Now Newsweek is not only thin in size and coverage, it is very, very lacking in weight, particularly intellectual weight. It is, however, long, indeed, very, very long on politically correct opinions of dubious intellectual honesty or robust factual undergirding. As an example of this, one might consider the magazine's treatment of what it is pleased to call the "Myth of Eurabia." Written by William Underhill, a staff hack who has penned articles on such diverse subjects as mosquitoes, Prince Charles, the Labor Party's difficulties, and the race for the so called "god particle," the piece portrays any and all who have voiced alarm at developments in Europe, pointing to the Muslim minority gaining an undue influence on the region's political, social and cultural structures, as a crew of paranoic scaremongers.

Nothing in Mr Underhill's string book indicates that he has any special qualifications to write on the complex subject of the Muslim impact on European politics, society, and culture to say nothing of the longer term implications of their growing and increasingly strident numbers in the European states. This in no way deters him from pushing a multi-cultural agenda with the intent of both reassuring the reader and demonising all who have found cause for concern in the Muslim penetration of Europe from the UK to the depths of the former Warsaw Pact.

Mr Underhill starts off by branding those who warn of the emerging Islamist threat to ancient European cultural values, social norms, political institutions, and world view as being "far right." The use of the term "far right" as the broad tar brush is as common, intellectually bankrupt, and ethically objectionable as was the use of the phrase "red-baiter" against anyone who spoke against Soviet espionage and subversion efforts a half-century ago.

(Let the record show that during the long, dark days of the most frigid Cold War, Newsweek did not stoop to the loathsome practice of name calling. The editors in those days let such reprehensible practices reside with the minions of Luce-world.)

Let us grant that Mr Underhill is correct when he avers Muslims will not be a majority of the Western European population in the next half-century even though that is a debatable proposition. Let us further grant Mr Underhill's undocumented and undocumentable contention that most Muslims are quite happy with the extant European social norms, cultural values, and political processes and institutions.

Even with these concessions, Mr Underhill's main point--Muslims are dear, sweet, harmless and ever-so-likable, and somewhat exotic friends and neighbors--is subject to the Scots verdict, at the very best. His second major conclusion, that any who do not share his view of Muslims are members of a pointy-headed, bigoted, knuckle-dragging assemblages of racists, Islamophobes, and fascists is totally unproven.

Those who warned of the threat to Europe posed by Adolph Hitler and similar national socialists long before German re-armament and renunciation of the Verseilles Treaty made it patent were right. Those who saw a threat to Europe and the Western World in Stalin's ambitions were right no matter how often they were dismissed as "red baiting right wingers." Twice within living memory the accurate Cassandra's have been dismissed as the loonie fringe only to be proven right.

Mr Underhill has made a choice. On the basis of little evidence and much wishful thinking and politically correct celebration of multi-culturalism, he has concluded that the Islamic population of Europe is a pure blessing to that old, tired continent. He has determined on the same basis that there is nothing happening in Europe today or in the near future which should concern, let alone worry Americans. With a sweeping certainty he dismisses all who have seen a potential threat contained in the Muslims of Europe, not only to those states but the US as well, as being a bunch of myth-making scaremongers of the worst, most racist sort.

Mr Underhill has taken a dangerous position. He has taken one which is difficult, if not impossible to maintain in the face of the realities of Islam and Islamism.

While there are peaceful Muslims in numbers which defy counting, Islam qua Islam is not peaceful. It is a warrior's religion. It is a religion without limits either as to its territorial sway or the means employed to gain the fullest possible expansion of its domination.

Islam is a religion in which there is no firebreak between the sacred and the profane, between mosque and state, between public and the private. One of the major appeals of Islam to converts as well as those born to the faith is the emphasis on community, a global community which has only in the past thirty years become aware of its strength, numbers, and global reach. As a result, the ever more extensive demands of the Islamist has grown in stridency--and influence.

Mr Underhill fails to note that there have been no organised, large scale protests by Muslims in Europe (or anywhere) against the bloody excesses of the Islamist jihadists. This lack of public opposition to the most revolting tactics of the "martyrdom seekers" speaks volumes to the willingness of Muslims generally to accept and tacitly approve of any and all efforts by their more militant coreligionists to seize and hold power. As an alternative explanation of Muslim silence, it might be posited that the observant Muslim has been terrorised into submission by the threats and acts of his Islamist jihadist brethren.

In either case, Mr Underhill's argument that Muslims are so fractured and fragmented that they can not serve as an effective political force is vitiated. If Muslims resident in France, Germany, or the UK cannot and do not publicly express total, absolute disapprobation of Islamist actions, then there exists a de facto community coherence which protects and potentiates the activities of the most extreme within the Muslim community.

Even in the immediate aftermath of 7/7 and the Madrid bombings, the denunciations coming from what might best be termed "public Muslims" were strangely redolent of the pro forma, the formulaic. They were mere genuflections before the alter of outraged majority opinion of a purely and obviously self-protective nature. This is not to gainsay the contention that there were individual Muslims who were shocked by the attacks and reprobated their having occurred as well as those who carried them out, but rather to indicate the community as a community never disavowed the acts and the actors, the sin and the sinners, if you like.

Mr Underhill, as is the case with so many of the American and European intelligensia, the "useful idiots" as Lenin termed them, fails to parse properly between the attitudes of the European (and American) elite and the hoi polloi of both continents. Mr Underhill partakes fully of the typical elite disdain for the great unwashed of the general population, the people who do not write for major media outlets or pontificate at conferences of learned academics or rub elbows comfortably with the elect in the halls of power.

As elections including the recent one for members of the European Parliament indicate, there is a great and growing gulf between the world views of the elite and the hoi polloi. Increasingly, the hoi polloi are not content to keep their mouths shut in the presence of their "betters," to keep their place, keep their mouths shut, and follow the leaders.

In the minds of the elite (and Mr Underhill), nationalism is dead and should be buried. The age of multi-culturalism is upon the world and should be welcomed by all proper minded people. The hoi polloi obviously do not agree.

The voices from the bottom are being heard to the discomfort of Mr Underhill and the elite generally. There is an irony here. Back in the years right after World War II the French broke their arms patting themselves on the back for having suddenly discovered the voices of the heaving masses of the people previously unheard by historians.

The French and later the historians and intellectuals of all Europe and the US engaged in orgies of self-congratulations for giving long overdue credit to the perspicacity and sagacity of the working classes; the women of field, factory and kitchen; the privates huddling in the trenches. The true voice of the people these intellectuals assured each other and the rest of us were the valid source of history, of the collective wisdom of the folk.

Now, the voices are in the present, in the political and not the safe reaches of the past. Because the wisdom, the perspacacity, the sagacity of the hoi polloi does not meet the desires, expectations, or exhortations of the elite, the people are no longer fountainheads of understanding. Now they are the tools of the "far right." Now they are the misguided fools of nationalism and cultural stolditity.

The elite, Mr Underhill in specific, may sputter and pour soothing syrup but they may be the fools. Perhaps it would be best if the elite listened instead of tut-tutting. Heed instead of assuming it has both the capacity and right to lead.