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Ignorance Is The Real Enemy

For those who think diplomacy is the solution to the War on Terror, I ask you: how can you have diplomacy with this?

The man is chewing the UN flag after breaking into the UN headquarters in Beirut out of hatred because Israel bombed the town of Qana in southern Lebanon. In what reality or alternate universe could that possibly make sense? Kofi Annan has called an emergency meeting of the Security Council in response to the Qana bombing, and has denounced the bombing in the most strenuous way.

And that, somehow, makes the UN an enemy of the Lebanese people?

Hitler was a carpet-eater. According to William L. Shirer in Rise and Fall of the Third Reich "Hitler had been in such a maniacal mood over the Czechs the last few days that on more than one occasion he had lost control of himself completely, hurling himself to the floor and chewing the edge of the carpet. Hence the term 'carpet eater.'" There is actually some speculation that Hitler feigned this behavior to instill a fear of his 'madness' in his enemies.

Now we have the flag-eater - the perfect illustration of the ignorance and irrational emotionalism that creates Islamofascism. The man chewing the flag is in such a froth, he doesn't even know who his friends are. Due to his upbringing, his brain cannot comprehend the bewildering array of forces and influences that operate in the world, so he seizes upon a symbol, any symbol, of the foreign world to attack. It is a simple equation: if it is not familiar, it must be the enemy. Only in this wilderness of ignorance can the UN become part of the obvious worldwide zionist conspiracy worthy of his spittle.

Be encouraged by this, not disheartened. Such people are incapable of defeating wealthy, technologically-advanced societies using free markets and the rule of law to bring progress. Ignorance, even the most malevolent ignorance, is no match for reason. Like the barbarians at the gates, they can make inroads on the empire, and inflict defeats on occasion. But the fate of the Islamofascists is the fate of all ignorant hordes: which is to pass meekly into history while a more informed, effective and humane liberty marches by.

Ignorance is what created and what drives the worldwide Islamofascist movement. It is a creeping stupidity that works by filling all the tabula rasa not yet occupied with a more worthy weltanschauung. A more complete knowledge of others' ways and lives, and a marketplace of competing ideas effectively defeats Islamofascism, just as it defeated the stifling regress of totalitarian communism. Humanity is much more of a bottom-up than top-down operation, which is why the life of any totalitarian regime is limited.

This is not advocacy for inaction. Though the natural weight of liberty will prevail eventually, why wait?

Posted by Ken McCracken · 30 July 2006 08:40 PM · Comments (8)

Olmert's Folly

Ehud Olmert

If Ariel Sharon were running Israel - and what a shame for the free world that he isn't - one could argue that Israel's present strategy of patience and restraint in Lebanon is required so that a wider conflict can be avoided. Instead, in Sharon's absence the question arises as to whether Olmert and his untested cabinet even understand the stakes involved. When Israel's reaction to Hezbollah's attacks began, there was wide hope that something definitive, something final could be achieved here against the terrorist enemy. Israel was poised to exterminate the fanatical terrorist group Hezbollah and humiliate and chasten its puppet masters in Damascus and Tehran.

Now it is becoming clearer that this is not to be. Last Wednesday, Israel announced that its goals in Lebanon were exceedingly modest: "it intends to damage Hezbollah and establish a "security zone" stretching 1.2 miles into Lebanon from the Israeli border, maintained by an international force. Free of guerrillas, such a zone would prevent Hezbollah from carrying out cross-border raids like the one that triggered the current offensive." Israel seeks to replace UNIFIL, a group of blue helmets unwilling to confront Hezbollah, with a European force that will no doubt be equally unwilling to fight Hezbollah's depredations. Instead of protecting Israel, UNIFIL has proven to be a net detriment. UNIFIL is in semi-collaboration with Hezbollah and is rebuilding the roads the IDF destroyed in order to limit Hezbollah movements. UNIFIL simply gets in the way of things without deterring anyone, and serves up propaganda coups for Hezbollah when UN observer posts are accidentally hit. There is absolutely no reason to think a European force would be categorically better at keeping Hezbollah away from Israel. This proposed security zone is very thin, and will be porous for native Hezbollah fighters that look more like civilians than troops. And of course a 1.2 mile barrier does absolutely nothing to stop rocket attacks that have been landing as far away as Haifa.

This is worse for Israel than the status quo ante - Olmert's strategy amounts to defeat for Israel. As in 2000, when Israel last occupied Lebanon, the failure to destroy Hezbollah - leaving their leadership and forces intact, and leaving them as a still-viable party in Lebanon's parliament - amounted to a huge victory for Hezbollah. Now once again Hezbollah can say they went toe-to-toe with the IDF and weren't beaten, which is tantamount to utter victory for Hezbollah, resulting in a huge boost for their prestige, morale and recruitment. It will increase Hezbollah's thirst for more of the same.

Attracted to Hezbollah's success, al-Qaeda now wants to get into the act, as Ayman al-Zawahiri tells us: "We cannot just watch these shells as they burn our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and stand by idly, humiliated . . . all the world is a battlefield open in front of us. . . the war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires . . it is a jihad (holy war) for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq . . . we will attack everywhere."

Some in the Israeli government do understand the gravity of what needs to be done. Justice Minister Haim Ramon reportedly said -

"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world . . . to continue the operation, this war, until Hezbollah won't be located in Lebanon and until it is disarmed."

The minister, who is said to be close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, added that the Israeli air force should bomb villages -- even at the expense of flattening them completely -- before ground forces move in. "These places are not villages. They are military bases in which Hezbollah people are hiding and from which they are operating."

Europe, deeply concerned for Hezbollah's fate, naturally denies any such 'green light' was given.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that the IDF has done "enormous" damage to Hezbollah and that it would "not return to what it was." It is hard to see how this will be true, given that Hezbollah will simply be able to operate freely as before, uncontested, once Israel has its thin security border along southern Lebanon. Once the runways in Beirut are repaired, and once the threat of air strikes over land routes are gone, Tehran-via-Damascus will begin to generously replenish Hezbollah. Hezbollah has lost much hardware and many fighters, but these can be replaced given enough time.

And time is exactly what Olmert is promising them.

Update: We've heard all this before -

When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000, pundits and diplomats bent over backwards to argue that, having achieved its military goals, Hezbollah would finally abandon its revolutionary garb as an Iranian-backed militia. It would transform itself into a Lebanese political party, finally becoming a legitimate part of Lebanon’s political life. Its proximity to power would inevitably enhance the group’s pragmatism, ultimately turning Hezbollah into a reliable interlocutor.

A similar argument in favor of engagement with Hamas was made earlier this year, when Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections. Both Israel and the West should engage Hamas, the argument went, in order to strengthen the “moderate” and “pragmatic” elements within the organization . . .

Also, Walid Jumblatt theorizes that Hezbollah is testing Iran's weaponry and Israel's military responsiveness in anticipation of a direct conflict with Iran itself.

Posted by Ken McCracken · 28 July 2006 05:26 AM · Comments (3)

Social Security Reform Thursday: Week Fifty-Nine -- Defined Benefit versus Defined Contribution Lessons from Private Industry

Thursdays are good days for reform, because they fall between Wednesdays and Fridays. And reform is a long-haul process, not a fleeting event. So we're going to keep plugging along with the case for reform, even as the issue goes off the political radar screen.

That's why WILLisms.com offers a chart or graph, every Thursday, pertinent to Social Security reform.

(Check that, Will offered a Chart or Graph, I just offer words. But, hey, Will isn't paying me so live with it people.--Justin)

This week's topic:

Private Industry's Transition from Defined Benefit Plans to Defined Contribution Plans.

Imagine if Congressmen and Congresswomen had to actually deliver on their promises to the voters that elected them. They were judged on results, much like the CEO of a company. Sure CEO's have expectations in the here and now like delivering earnings that meet the market's demands, but they also have to be keenly aware of the future. And for most CEO's of Fortune 500 Companies, Pensions are a thing of the past.

The transition from traditional pensions to 401(k) plans has been occuring for the last two decades. Pensions have bankrupted the Airline and Automotive industries, pushing companies like GM and, well, all the airlines to the brink of folding. Pensions are a fixed or defined benefit program where the company makes promises, often decades in advance, then has to pay out an annuity to the worker when he/she retires. 401(k) plans are fixed contribution plans where the company matches a certain percentage of the employee's contribution, but the money belongs to the employee and is portable.

Which one sounds like Social Security? You guessed it. Social Security is making promises for the future that politicians today are not accountable for. The CEO's at the Airlines that negotiated the Union deals that put the Airlines in the pension pickle are long since gone, but we keep sending folks like Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd back to the Senate.

IBM is doing their part to reform their pension program because despite having a surplus of $48B dollars, yes that is forty eight billion dollars just to clarify, the company sees the future and is preparing. The move effectively ends one of the most lucrative pensions in all of the business world.

BOSTON -- IBM's freeze of its otherwise healthy U.S. pension plan will reverberate through industry not only because it illustrates the erosion of traditional benefit packages, but also because it sharpens the focus on 401(k) plans as a source of retirement security.

With the 401(k) increasingly becoming a de facto pension for many American workers, several experts suggest reforms are in order.

International Business Machines Corp.'s announcement this week drew attention because the security of the technology giant's $48 billion U.S. pension fund stands in contrast to endangered plans run by airlines and other large companies.

However, retirement analysts found IBM's enhancements to its 401(k) more notable, saying the company is transplanting some virtues of traditional pensions that generally have been absent from newer kinds of plans.

When the pension freeze takes effect for IBM's 125,000 U.S. employees in 2008, IBM will match their 401(k) contributions dollar-for-dollar on up to 6 percent of salary; previously the match had been 50 cents on the dollar, a common figure.

Perhaps more important, the company will automatically contribute an extra amount equal to 1 percent to 4 percent of employees' pay into their 401(k) plans in an attempt to make sure every employee participates.

Those notions of universal participation and automatic security were hallmarks of traditional pension packages known as "defined-benefit" plans.

Newer plans such as 401(k) packages are known as "defined-contribution" plans because that's all the company is promising -- to contribute a set amount, if it offers a match. The size of the retirement benefits depend on the vagaries of investment portfolios, shifting the risk from the company to the employee.

In 1985, 89 percent of Fortune 100 companies offered traditional pension plans, but that had fallen to 51 percent by 2004, according to Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a human-resources consulting firm. Some 11 percent of the plans were frozen or terminated for new employees, up from 5 percent in 2001.

Note that Stockholders did not refer to the change as a "risky scheme putting poor workers at risk". The CEO did not ignore the fact that today's surplus is already committed to future benefits. As you would expect, workers are not pleased. "We worked our whole lives for this and the rug is being pulled out from under us." Yep.

Hard decisions must be made at GM, Delta, United, IBM, and other companies. Benefits that were once thought to be guaranteed will bankrupt these giants of industry. But CEO's know it is their job to make tough decisions sooner rather than later or risk leaving all of their employees at the Unemployment line. And the companies that waited too long are already on the brink of extermination. New companies don't carry the pension burdens and have the capital tied in these plans available to expand and take market share.

This is a metaphor for our country. We must make hard decisions. If Harry Reid were the CEO of IBM and denied that a pension time bomb loomed, he would find himself looking for a new job when the analysts and institutional investors reviewed the books. But most Americans are not investors. And our CEO's like Reid, Pelosi, Kennedy, Boxer, etc., are denying there is a problem.

We are all shareholders in this corporation and it is time we vote our shares.

It's time for reform.

The clock is ticking.

--------------------------------

Previous Reform Thursday graphics can be seen here:

-Week One (Costs Exceed Revenues).
-Week Two (Social Security Can't Pay Promised Benefits).
-Week Three (Americans Getting Older).
-Week Three, bonus (The Templeton Curve).
-Week Four (Fewer Workers, More Retirees).
-Week Five (History of Payroll Tax Base Increases).
-Week Six (Seniors Living Longer).
-Week Six, bonus (Less Workers, More Beneficiaries).
-Week Seven (History of Payroll Tax Increases).
-Week Seven, bonus (Personal Accounts Do Achieve Solvency).
-Week Eight (Forty Year Trend Of Increasing Mandatory Spending).
-Week Nine (Diminishing Benefits Sans Reform).
-Week Ten (Elderly Dependence On Social Security).
-Week Eleven (Entitlement Spending Eating The Budget).
-Week Twelve (Benefit Comparison, Bush's Plan versus No Plan).
-Week Thirteen (Younger Americans and Lifecycle Funds).
-Week Fourteen (The Thrift Savings Plan).
-Week Fifteen (Understanding Progressive Indexing).
-Week Sixteen (The Graying of America).
-Week Seventeen (Debunking Myths).
-Week Eighteen (Debunking Myths).
-Week Nineteen (Reform Needed Sooner Rather Than Later).
-Week Twenty (Global Success With Personal Accounts).
-Week Twenty-One (GROW Accounts: Stopping The Raid).
-Week Twenty-Two (Millions of Lockboxes).
-Week Twenty-Three (Support for Ryan-DeMint).
-Week Twenty-Four (KidSave Accounts).
-Week Twenty-Five (Latinos and Social Security).
-Week Twenty-Six (AmeriSave).
-Week Twenty-Seven (Cost Of Doing Nothing).
-Week Twenty-Eight (Chile).
-Week Twenty-Nine (Entitlement Spending Out Of Control).
-Week Thirty (Reform Better Deal Than Status Quo).
-Week Thirty-One (Social Security As A Labor Cost).
-Week Thirty-Two (Social Security And Dependence On Government).
-Week Thirty-Three (Social Security, Currently A Bad Deal For African-Americans).
-Week Thirty-Four (Longer Life Expectancies Straining Social Security).
-Week Thirty-Five (Howard Dean & Salami).
-Week Thirty-Six (Growing Numbers of Beneficiaries Draining Social Security).
-Week Thirty-Seven (The Crisis Is Now).
-Week Thirty-Eight (Disability Benefits).
-Week Thirty-Nine (Broken Benefit Calculation Formula).
-Week Forty (German Social Security Disaster).
-Week Forty-One (Crumbling Pyramid Scheme).
-Week Forty-Two (Overpromising, Globally).
-Week Forty-Three (Demographic Wave).
-Week Forty-Four (The Jerk Store).
-Week Forty-Five (Defined Benefit Plans).
-Week Forty-Six (Even The Empty Promises Are A Bad Deal).
-Week Forty-Seven (Our Aging Population).
-Week Forty-Eight (The Tax Increases Required To Cover Social Security's Costs).
-Week Forty-Nine (Much Longer To Get Your Money Back From Social Security).
-Week Fifty (A Vote, At Last).
-Week Fifty-One (We Can Do Better).
-Week Fifty-Two (Socialist Security).
-Week Fifty-Three (China Has The Same Problem, Only Worse).
-Week Fifty-Four (Potential Crisis Size).
-Week Fifty-Five (The Crisis Moves Closer).
-Week Fifty-Six (Big Brother Social Security).
-Week Fifty-Seven (Personal Accounts Are Awesome).
-Week Fifty-Eight (Private Accounts and Presidential Proposals).

Tune into WILLisms.com each Thursday for more important graphical data supporting Social Security reform.

Posted by Justin B. · 26 July 2006 11:42 PM · Comments (0)

Big Dig Fix: Duct Tape

The Federal government has a soft place in its heart for duct tape - that indispensable flexible can-do-it-all wonder that works great on everything but ducts. First, NASA puts duct tape aboard the Space Shuttle (to give the astronauts false hope, kinda like oxygen masks aboard airliners? h/t Tyler Durden).

Now, the Feds want to use duct tape to help repair Boston's Big Dig. Sadly, not kidding here.

Look up the word 'boondoggle' in any dictionary, and this is what you will find:

A passenger in a car was killed and the driver injured on July 10 when a ceiling panel collapsed in a Big Dig tunnel. It is sad and pathetic when a federal project grows so big and expensive, that the very size and expense of it demands that it be completed to keep it from being a complete waste. It is tragic when such a bloated federal project actually kills someone. Apparently the epoxy bolt hangers were not strong enough to hold up the panels - and there are 1,146 bolt hangers that now need to be replaced.

69% of people polled said they would avoid using any part of the Big Dig system. The Big Dig is now officially radioactive.

Bruce F. Webster at And Still I Persist has the complete roundup of the Big Dig Crumble fiasco as of late, including such hits as

"Inspectors keep finding more problems, and more of the Big Crumble has been shut down."

"MTA chief Amorello has filed [suit] to keep his job — he’s using public funds to pay for the law firms representing him."

"Back in 1999, a Big Crumble safety officer warned that the concrete ceiling panels might collapse."

Bruce's extensive Roundup of Roundups can be found here.

So just remember that when John Kerry says something really silly like "If I was president, this wouldn't have happened," he was no doubt talking about duct tape, 'cause it fixes everything.

Federal engineers are on the job!

Posted by Ken McCracken · 26 July 2006 04:49 PM · Comments (10)

Wednesday Caption Contest: Part 63

This week's WILLisms.com Caption Contest photograph:

The actual caption:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (L) looks at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during their joint news conference at Palestinian Authority headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, July 25, 2006.

They expect us to believe that caption? Tell us what it should really say.

Entries will remain open until 11:59 PM, Central Standard Time, Tuesday, August 2. Submit your captions in the comments section, or email at mccracken.ken@gmail.com.

Last week's photo:

Winners from last week: 1. Radio Free Fred:

I'll Answer The Question, As Soon As The Room Quits Spinning.

2. The Adjustah:

Press conference? No, I ordered a gin and tonic.

3. Bob:

Johnny Depp at the world premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean XIX: A Pirate Looks at 70.

Honorable Mention #1 Rob B :

Due to years of substance use, Keith now employs the use of a exoskeleton.

Honorable Mention #2 Zsa Zsa:

What a drag it is getting old.

Honorable Mention #3 Rodney Dill :

Keith Richards with new love interest, Calista Flockhart.

When you caption, we all win. Enter today!

Posted by Ken McCracken · 26 July 2006 02:37 PM · Comments (25)

The Devil Hath Power to Assume a Pleasing Shape

With the current Israeli counterattacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, the issue of delineations has come to the forefront once again. With Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the Palestine Authority, the lines of demarcation between governments and terrorist organizations are growing more and more blurry. Likewise, the distinctions between combatants, guerrillas, terrorists, and civilians is becoming more and more difficult to discern.

How does one define a nation? Hezbollah has a clearly defined geographical area, a military force, provides services to those who live in its territory. They even have their own flag, which features a hand clutching an AK-47. It has been seen waving proudly next to the UN flag in a UN base in southern Lebanon. Hamas has all that and more -- they won an election to control the Palestinian Authority. And the Taliban was the de facto government of Afghanistan.

Finally, all three organizations have openly declared and waged war against established nation states.

The difference between combatants and civilians used to be a binary factor, a simple matter of black and white. If one was a combatant, one put on a uniform and fought. If one was a civilian, one did one's level best to stay out of the line of fire.

Guerrillas began to blur the distinction. They were combatants who doffed their distinctive uniforms, fading into the wilderness or general populace when not actively fighting. Finally, civilians who took up arms when convenient and carried out their attacks became "terrorists."

So, how does one differentiate a terrorist from a civilian? Sadly, unless one catches the terrorist in the act of committing terrorism, it's very difficult. Once the terrorist drops his gun or bomb, he's just another civilian. Further, terrorists make an art out of appearing like civilians; that's why the suicide bombers are so successful.

Hezbollah claims that only a few of their fighters have been killed, and the vast majority of those who have died were civilians. Perhaps many were, but I strongly suspect that a large number were Hezbollah members or supporters. As Ralph Kinney Bennett notes, the civilian populace is a nuisance to Israel -- but an invaluable, essential resource to Hezbollah.

The answer, I believe, lies in the Geneva Conventions.

I have written at length about the Conventions, and how they are no longer relevant to the situation in the world today. I still stand by those criticisms, but they are of the Conventions' current application and interpretation. I harken back to the basic precepts of the Conventions, and one principle in particular:

It is the obligation of the combatant to protect the innocent from harm.

This is being applied to Israel to denounce their strikes, but there is a further application. It is the duty of the combatant to protect the innocent by absenting themselves from civilians. To get away and stay away from those who are not actively involved in the fighting.

The Geneva Convention is explicit on this matter: civilians are never to be used as human shields. To willingly endanger civilians thusly is explicitly forbidden, and the responsibility for any casualties is solely upon those who seek such shelter -- and not upon their enemy who fires the fatal shots.

The complication is that Hezbollah is not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. And as a non-state entity, nor are they eligible to sign on to them.

I believe we should consider treating certain non-state entities as the equivalent of states. When an organization reaches a certain point of activity and prominence, it is essentially a state in all but name. While others may reject the notion of granting these groups the status and legitimacy of statehood, the advantages of holding them to that level of accountability are numerous.

The first is that acts of war could be answered with declarations of war. In the current example of Israel vs. Hezbollah, Israel could simply declare that a state of war exists between the two, and it intends to do war upon Hezbollah until it is destroyed or surrenders. Hezbollah has repeatedly stated that it considers itself at war with Israel, so the concept of Israel simply returning the animus is not so great an extrapolation.

As a de facto state, further, Hezbollah could be held accountable to higher international standards. It can be argued that Hezbollah has taken over a portion of Lebanon and is the rightful successor to the Lebanese government – and as such, is bound by the international agreements and covenants the Lebanese government has signed.

In the case of Hamas, it is even easier. “Palestine” does not have official sanction as an independent nation, but Hamas has won and election and assumed the reins of power over the Palestinian Authority. They levy taxes, pass and enforce laws, regulate their borders (albeit in a very sloppy and self-serving way), make agreements with other nations – in brief, they fulfill nearly all the perquisites for a legitimate government. Therefore, acts carried out by their members in their name, when not repudiated and rectified, are to be considered actions of a national government.

If those actions are acts of war, then it is upon the aggressed-upon party to determine whether they will accept or decline the invitation to wage war.

I recognize the problems some may have with giving such recognition and status to what are little more than politically-motivated criminals and sociopaths, but overall I think the “advantages” they receive will be outweighed by the tremendous simplifying effect this will have on nation-states currently bedeviled by such amorphous bodies.

Posted by Jay Tea · 26 July 2006 05:00 AM · Comments (31)

Democrats Have Union Labels On Their Bumper Stickers.

I sometimes get slightly irritated these days. I learn fewer new things each day, it seems. It's just the way it is. I try to branch out and learn new skills, new information, and so on, but it just seems like I have hit a point where I don't learn thousands of new things each day. And within the field of politics, there's just next to nothing left to learn (so it seems). But I did make one random discovery recently. Indeed, I learned something new.

Democrats-- most of them, at least-- have union labels on their bumper stickers. And if you don't have one, you are seen by left-wing purists as a sell-out, or too moderate, or not sufficiently Democratic.

Take this Russ Feingold bumper sticker I picked up at a recent gathering of young left-wingers in the Midwest, for example:

Okay, pretty poor sticker, I agree, but it, along with tons of other stickers I picked up, has this somewhat annoying squigly label thing on it. It's so small, one cannot even really read it, even with a magnifying glass. So I scanned it on ultra-high resolution. Here it is:

And nearly all of them have this label. All the weird "progressive" groups with stickers about bucking Fush and impeaching Bush and otherwise hating Bush. Nearly all of the wannabe-2008ers have the union label. All the pro-abortion, environmentalist, and other left-leaning special interest groups all have the insignia.

It's highly foreign, having grown up in states with weak unions, having such extraneous information on a bumper sticker. And you can't even read it. You can barely notice it, except to be slightly distracted by it... and to notice that nearly all of the insignias on the stickers have eerily similar designs.

If it weren't there, people would notice. It's just another symbolic, "I AM A DEPENDABLE ANTI-BUSINESS SOCIALIST" type of statement Democrats communicate surreptitiously with "the base" without anyone else really noticing.

Now, I have been keeping a keen eye out over the past few days, and not all liberal bumper stickers have union labels on them. Former Virginia Governor, Democrat Mark Warner, for example, has no union label on his stickers. It's likely part of his "moderate" image he so carefully cultivates. Then again, he's not officially running, and the stickers are all part of a manufactured "draft Warner" type of movement.

Indeed, at the recent gathering of young liberals, people actually did notice the union labels, or lack thereof. Few people were interested in signing up with-- and learning more about-- Mark Warner. Far more wanted to hear from the Russ Feingold folks. Overheard, more than once, in slightly different forms: "Warner can't be a true progressive without a union label on his bumper."

And that's how I even noticed the union label on all the stickers. I might have completely overlooked them had I not heard those sorts of comments.

So, if you want to judge the ideological purity (on labor issues, at least) of your local Democrats, and see if they might be running for President in 2008, check out their campaign paraphernalia. Look for the union label. If it's not there, your local Democrat probably has very little shot at getting a national Democratic nomination.

Who knew?

Incidentally, as the strength of the "progressive grassroots" community increases, the chances of Democrats ever winning a national election draws closer and closer to nil. Those people are literally insane. Literally.

Posted by Will Franklin · 25 July 2006 05:25 PM · Comments (10)

Quoth The Craven: Nevermore

One of the recurring elements of the Israeli War On Terror has been the use of human shields -- often willing ones. And while it says something about the courage of those people, it reveals far more about their cowardice.

The idea, to me, seems an evolution of Mahatma Gandhi's "nonresistance," the tactic he used against the Colonial British -- to great success. The idea of meeting force with resolve, violence with peace, hatred with acceptance has an enormous moral power.

However, it has one critical flaw, one Achilles heel that keep it from being a guaranteed success: it depends on your opponent having a conscience.

In India, the British thought of themselves as the wogs' benefactor. The Colonial relationship was seen as symbiotic, a boon to both. Only when they were confronted with the simple fact that a large portion of the Indian people wanted the British to leave, to the point of death, that Gandhi won his victory.

Likewise, in the United States, the civil rights movement could have threatened far more violence. Many believed that the root causes of the Civil War had festered for a century, and could only be cured by a second. But leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King saw that the surest, cleanest road to victory lay through forcing America to confront not the protesters, but themselves. It was that non-violent resistance, in the face of brutality and savagery by the segregationists, that led to the ultimate passage of the Civil Rights Act and the fulfillment of the promises of the Civil War.

Those stunning successes gave the nonresistance tactic far more power than it deserved. It became embraced as the ONLY moral way to confront oppression.

Sadly, it is not. The Hungarians tried to escape the Soviets in 1956, and were crushed. The Czechs tried a variation in the "Prague Spring" of 1967, and were crushed by the Soviets. And in 1989, the Chinese tried to appeal to the conscience of their Communist masters -- and found them sorely wanting in that element.

Now, we have a new form of conflict. Nations find themselves challenged not by other nations, but terrorist organizations. Groups with access to more and more potent weaponry and technology, which grants them destructive power on a scale heretofore the exclusive bailiwick of other nation-states. The old paradigms simply do not apply.

The nation-states being challenged have been forced, through the brutal force of applied Darwinism, to adapt to these new threats. In Afghanistan, we overthrew an entrenched government largely through airpower and careful support of indigenous rebels. In Iraq, we are finding success more elusive, but we have made tremendous strides at defeating the terrorists there. And in Lebanon, Israel is discovering what happens when a terrorist organization becomes the government next door, either de jure (with Hamas) or de facto (Hezbollah).

In the light of these new circumstances, the anti-war side has not bothered to change their tactics. Their only concession to the new reality is to realize that in these new conflicts, one side is utterly immune to their policy of nonresistance. And instead of trying to find a way to adapt to the challenge, they have redoubled their efforts on the other side.

In the current fighting in the Middle East, one doesn't see large protests against Hezbollah or Hamas for their indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The International Solidarity Movement doesn't send its members on Israeli buses and into marketplaces to serve as "human shields" against Palestinian suicide bombers. And "peace activists" aren't fanning out across northern Israel to appeal to Hezbollah's better nature and cease their random bombardment.

It appears that these noble, worthy, high-minded anti-war activists lack the convictions of their heroes like Dr. Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi. They either cherish their own lives too much to put them at risk, unwilling to put their principles to the ultimate test, or in their heart of hearts they know what many of us already believe: those we fight have no consciences, no "better natures" to appeal to -- or, at least, are unwilling to pay the horrific butcher's bill of innocent blood required to finally reach that.

Until that day, when those high-minded and hazy-thinking moral exemplars finally acknowledge the essential vacuousness of their actions, they will continue to provide nothing but an annoying distraction to those who honor the threat. And their every action -- and inaction -- will continue to put the lie to their noble words.

Posted by Jay Tea · 24 July 2006 05:00 AM · Comments (13)

And Now The Peace Offensive Begins

Is it all ending not with a bang but a whimper?

Israel's defence minister, Amir Peretz, yesterday endorsed the deployment of an international force, possibly led by Nato, in southern Lebanon

Aren't there international forces there already called UNIFIL and UNDOF? Why Israel would put so much faith into this again is beyond me - though your safety is probably far more secure in NATO's hands than the UN's.

Condoleeza Rice arrives today in Jerusalem, and she has the linchpin Syria on her mind. Condi stated that the United States' poor relationship with Syria is overstated, and that

"It is very important to establish conditions under which a ceasefire can take place. We believe that a ceasefire is urgent. It is important to have conditions that will make it also sustainable."

At least one member of Syria's government, information minister Mohsen Bilal, sees things differently -

Madrid, July 23: A Syrian Minister warned Israel in an interview published today that a major ground incursion into Lebanon would draw his country into the Middle East conflict.

"If Israel makes a land entry into Lebanon, they can get to within 20 kilometres of Damascus," Information Minister Moshen Bilal told a Spanish newspaper.

"What will we do? Stand by with our arms folded? Absolutely not. Without any doubt, Syria will intervene in the conflict."

Bilal said Syria wanted above all a ceasefire "as soon as possible" combined with a prisoner exchange and indicated he was working to that end with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, whom he met in recent days in Madrid.

But he added, "I repeat, if Israel makes a land invasion of Lebanon and gets near US, Syria will not stand by with arms folded. It will enter the conflict."

Syria wants to use diplomatic leverage to regain the Shebaa Farms and all of the Golan Heights territory occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Posted by Ken McCracken · 24 July 2006 12:02 AM · Comments (2)

War In Lebanon: The IDF Moves In

The original UNIFIL map is here.

Casualties thus far are "more than 350 Lebanese and 34 Israelis dead since July 12 when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers."

Israeli ground forces have now entered southern Lebanon in force,

Golani

occupying the towns of Maroun al-Ras, Aytarun and Marwahin. Bill Roggio at Counterterrorism Blog tells us the towns marked red on the map above have been warned by the IDF to evacuate. Bill came up with the idea of modifying the UNIFIL map, and he has a superb analysis, much fuller than mine, and I use many of his links, so I owe him lots of credit.

Maroun al-Ras is strategically very important, at 911 meters (3,000 feet) high, it overlooks the Israeli village of Avivim just over the border. "The commander of IDF ground forces said Saturday that the IDF has won control of the village Maroun al-Ras in southern Lebanon, allowing troops to overlook Hizbullah command posts in the area. Maj.-Gen. Beni Gantz also said the soldiers had found a mosque in Maroun al-Ras that contained stockpiles of weapons, including rockets." Maroun al-Ras was a forward observation post for Hezbollah, and lays along Hezbollah's supply line from Syria.

The Herev battalion, made up of Druze fighters (Druze have served with the IDF from the beginning of Israel) moved into Lebanon - "On Saturday, the Herev battalion operated in Marwahin, about two kilometers into southeast Lebanon, and discovered a great deal of Hizbullah weapons there. While forces were operating, shells were fired at them from a neighboring village. The Air Force was prepared to back up troops operating on the ground."

The next major goal of the Golani Brigade, the main force entering Lebanon, is the 'Hezbollah capital' of Bint Jubayl. The eventual goal of the IDF is to push Hezbollah 20 miles into Lebanon, beyond the Litani River, and the IDF ordered all Lebanese to move north of the Litani.

P.S. I forgot to link to the photo album with more awesome pics of the Israeli military.

P.P.S. and almost forgot the Herev pic!

Posted by Ken McCracken · 23 July 2006 12:17 PM · Comments (3)

A Time For War And A Time For Peace

Earlier this week, over at Wizbang, I discussed the difficulties in arranging a cease-fire in Lebanon. As the fighting has continued, and in many ways intensified, so have the calls. And even more complications have come to mind.

As I said, one challenge is that Israel has laid out its terms for a ceasefire, and they are imminently reasonable: the return of its kidnapped soldiers, the cessation of attacks on their civilian populace, and the disarming of Hezbollah. Lebanon is also eager for a ceasefire, but that is largely irrelevant: they are not a party to the fighting. The group Israel is fighting, Hezbollah, has expressed no interest in ending the fighting; in fact, they have ratcheted up their attacks and their rhetoric (a feat I would have thought unachievable, but nonetheless they have managed to do so) in light of events.

But this begs the question: with whom shall the ceasefire be negotiated? Hezbollah has no Secretary of State, no Negotiator In Chief, no single person or body with the designated authority to speak for the whole organization and make binding agreements with. Even if a spokesman for the group were to make a deal with The Criminal Zionist Occupying Entity, it would last just long enough for the first "rogue element" to rearm and launch a new attack. At that point, the situation is not back to where it stands today, but possibly even worse.

Beyond the lack of that second party to any peace talks, there is no body that can serve as a broker for any deal.

There's an old saying that "it takes two thieves to make an honest bargain." The way I've most often heard it applied is when there are assets to be apportioned between two parties. The first party divides the assets into two portions, and the second party chooses which party gets which portion. This is the simplest way I've seen to guarantee honesty.

However, when the dispute does mandate a third party, then it should be a party that both sides are willing to trust. And in this current situation, the two most likely candidates are disqualified.

The United States certainly has the influence over Israel to achieve such an agreement, but we would be unacceptable to Hezbollah. Likewise, entering into negotiations with Hezbollah is utterly unacceptable to the United States. Not only is Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organizations, making any official contacts with them a violation of US law, but they are a sworn enemy of the United States. Several Hezbollah members are near the top of the United States' list of most wanted terrorists, but prior to 9/11 they had killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization in the world.

The other body that might be called in to moderate the fighting would be the United Nations. But there are two great obstacles to this one -- one obvious, one more subtle.

The first is that Israel has no reason to trust the United Nations to be a fair broker in any matter, but in one such as this especially. As Meryl Yourish brought to my attention, nearly six years ago a group of Hezbollah terrorists invaded Israel under false guise as UN Peacekeepers, attacked an Israeli military patrol, and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. They then fled back to Lebanon, where the soldiers were killed and their bodies traded for live Hezbollah prisoners.

Virtually the whole incident was observed and recorded by United Nations Peacekeeping forces, who had been bribed to allow the attack to take place. And the United Nations, on direct orders from Secretary General Kofi Annan, did everything humanly possible to cover up their involvement. They denied everything, destroyed evidence, refused to turn over that which they did not destroy, and eventually censored that which the did give to Israel to make it worthless.

And while they stonewalled, those three Israeli soldiers died brutal deaths.

(For full details, see here, here, and here).

This is just one particularly heinous example of how the UN treats Israel. For more examples, see here.

On a far more profound level, though, by brokering an agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, the United Nations would be drawing an equivalency between a free, democratic, independent nation and a terrorist group. (The cynic in me points out that it would merely be not overly significant; the UN routinely denounces Israel as "criminal" and "terrorist," to this would simply formalize the position.) This would grant Hezbollah the standing and status of a modern nation, with none of the attendant responsibilities and obligations and duties inherent therein. This would be an unprecedented victory for terrorists.

There is a very simple solution to this problem. It arose because Lebanon failed to fulfill its obligations as a sovereign nation and assert control of its southern territories. It needs to wrest those areas from Hezbollah, rigorously patrol its lands, and enforce the peace -- the basic obligations of any nation-state.

With luck, Israel's ongoing destruction of Hezbollah personnel and ordnance will weaken that terrorist organization to the point where Lebanon can achieve that. Then -- and only then -- should a ceasefire be arranged, and between Lebanon and Israel only. Hezbollah should not be a party to those talks.

In the meantime, the United States gains the satisfaction of seeing an old enemy suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of an old ally. We should offer support and encouragement to our friend, shield them from their enemies at the United Nations, offer any assistance they might require (short of intervening directly ourselves), and let them continue doing what has needed doing for far too long.

The Bible states clearly that "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven... a time of war, and a time of peace." (Ecclesiastes 3:1-3:8)

This is a time of war against Hezbollah. Let us not call for peace until we are certain it will be a lasting one.

Posted by Jay Tea · 22 July 2006 08:00 AM · Comments (3)

Attaining Class Mobility Through Economic Growth

The greatest component of attaining class mobility and redistribution of wealth in a society is growth. It seems that folks that have money tend to keep it, so if not for growth, the redistribution of wealth is impossible without Government Intervention or Violent Revolution. But through growth of an economy, there are opportunities for new players to accumulate wealth.

To total output of a society should constantly be increasing as it not only provides opportunity, but signals new efficiencies. New efficiencies are created by innovation and new companies that innovate come along and take market share from existing companies (and by extension their stockholders) by making a better product for cheaper. The old guard slowly watches their market share and wealth erode if not invested in new companies or new innovations, which triggers further growth through capital investment. Stagnant economies provide the rich an opportunity to sit on their money and remain rich while there are fewer opportunities for the poor to achieve wealth.

Think about this for a moment—IBM in the 1980’s was THE leading PC computer maker in the world. That was just 20 years ago. Now IBM does not even make PC’s anymore (ever heard of Lenovo?). PC’s used to cost $2000 or more for an entry level PC. Now Dell and others offer PC’s for $300-400. As a result, IBM’s shareholders watched as Michael Dell and his shareholders suddenly became wealthy. Microsoft and Walmart have similar stories. Sam Walton, Michael Dell, and Bill Gates were not wealthy to begin with. Sears, IBM, and well, IBM, were the major players and their shareholders were [getting] rich. Innovation led to growth in these industries and the newcomers made the world more efficient and took market share and wealth from the previous companies and their investors. The old guard watched their relative wealth invested in old companies erode while new wealth was created for new innovators as well as those investors that put their capital in the new companies. Ultimately the consumer benefited with lower prices and better products.

So which would you prefer? A stagnant economy with little economic opportunity or a vibrant and growing economy?

BRUSSELS (AFX) - EU statistics office Eurostat confirmed that euro zone growth was 0.6 pct in the first quarter compared with the fourth quarter of 2005, but the EU Commission unexpectedly lowered its forecasts for growth in the second and third quarters. The commission trimmed its euro zone GDP growth forecast for the second quarter to 0.4-0.8 pct from a previous range of 0.5-0.9 pct.

Economists had been expecting a further acceleration in growth in the second quarter following recent strong survey data. The commission also cut its forecast for third quarter growth to 0.3-0.7 pct from 0.5-0.9 pct. It revised its forecast for fourth quarter growth only marginally, to 0.5-1.0 pct from 0.4-1.0 pct. The 0.6 pct first quarter growth figure was unchanged from Eurostat's previous estimate, published on June 1.

Eurostat revised down its figure for first quarter year-on-year growth marginally to 1.9 pct from 2.0 pct previously.

First, let’s compare apples to apples. A 0.6% quarter over quarter growth rate equates to approximately 2.5% annual growth rate. Let’s compare this to the US:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2006, according to final estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

These are real world numbers that you feel in your pocketbook over time. This only tells half of the story though. These numbers are for the entire EU. France and Germany are growing even slower than that at .4% approximately which equates to 1.6-1.7% per year. The rest of Europe and mostly the old Soviet Block countries are growing rapidly or things would look far worse for the EU.

Growth is the best way to achieve economic equality. It provides opportunities. In Europe, especially France and Germany, a Muslim and youth underclass is growing and their discontent is evident from the December riots. There is no opportunity for the youth and Muslims youth are particularly affected as unemployment rates hover around 20% for those under 30 and almost 50% for Muslim youth. The economy is stagnant and union labor and big government discourage growth.

Opportunity versus Stagnation. Policies Matter. Leadership Matters.

Posted by Justin B. · 21 July 2006 01:09 PM · Comments (8)

Flashpoint: Lebanon

LEBANON	GlobalSecurity.org: Lebanon
	CIA World Factbook: Lebanon
	The Council on Foreign Relations has some superb backgrounders on the conflict in Lebanon:
	Lebanon's Weak Government
	Syria, Iran, and the Mideast Conflict
	Hezbollah (a.k.a. Hizbollah, Hizbu'llah)
	Profile: Hassan Nasrallah

Casualties thus far in the conflict: "Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora put the death toll at more than 330 - at least 11 of them killed Thursday - with 1,100 wounded. At least 32 Israelis have been killed, including 17 service members - three of them killed in military operations Thursday and early Friday."

Brigadier-General Alon Friedman stated that air strikes have destroyed about 50 per cent of Hezbollah's arsenal.

Thousands of IDF troops are now operating inside Lebanon.

Hezbollah has fired over 1,000 rockets so far, and the IDF fears they may be trying to move rockets into Gaza, shortening the range to hit Israel. So far, indiscriminate Hezbollah rockets have hit a UN Post, Nazareth (killing two children), Haifa, Acre, Tiberias and several other towns.

LEBANESE RELIGIONS from Encyclopedia of the Orient Islam 2,000,000 54% Shi'i 1,200,000 32% Sunni 750,000 20% Alawites 50,000 1.4% Christianity 1,450,000 39% Maronite Catholics 850,000 23% Melkite Catholics 400,000 11% Syrian Catholics 25,000 0.7% Armenian Catholics 20,000 0.5% Roman Catholics 20,000 0.5% Chaldean Catholic 12,000 0.3% Armenian Orthodox 120,000 3.2% Syrian Orthodox 2,000 0.05% Greek Orthodox 1,000 0.03% Druze 210,000 5.7% Baha'i 4,000 <0.1%

Lebanon is an incredibly diverse place religiously and politically with a long history of war and civil war since 1975. Nearly half of the population is some flavor of christian, while the unique Druze religion, Shia and Sunni Islam round out the rest. The Lebanese Constitution reflects the importance of these factions, and it requires that:

the President must be a Maronite Catholic Christian. the Prime Minister must be a Sunni Muslim. the Speaker of the Parliament must be a Shi'a Muslim.

Hezbollah has 35 seats in Lebanon's parliament. Hassan Nasrallah is the leader of Hezbollah, but does not hold a seat in the Lebanese parliament. Hezbollah was formed in 1982 by Iran in an attempt to export its revolution. Hezbollah is believed to be responsible for 838 terrorist fatalities, and widely acknowledged to be behind "a series of kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon, including several Americans, in the 1980s; the suicide truck bombings that killed more than 200 U.S. Marines at their barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983; the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, which featured the famous footage of the plane’s pilot leaning out of the cockpit with a gun to his head; two major 1990s attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina—the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy (killing twenty-nine) and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center (killing ninety-five); a July 2006 raid on a border post in northern Israel in which two Israeli soldiers were taken captive. The abductions sparked an Israeli military campaign against Lebanon to which Hezbollah responded by firing rockets across the Lebanese border into Israel." The FBI has a $5 million dollar reward for the capture of Hezbollah leader Imad Mugniyah, for 'air piracy resulting in murder' among other things, and Mugniyah is believe to have carried out the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut.

Hassan Nasrallah

There is no definitive answer on how much Iran gives in financial support to Hezbollah. Estimates range from 100-200 million dollars annually to just $25-50 million annually. Hezbollah had an estimated 3,000 hardcore fighters as of the beginning of the conflict, and as many as 13,000 rockets. Israel claims that it has seriously degraded Hezbollah's command and control, and its supply of Katyusha rockets (a Russian design from World War II), and 'Fajr' type rockets of Iranian manufacture, the most powerful of which is the 333mm Fajr-5 rocket with a range of 75 km. Hezbollah's arms come from Syria, or from Iran via Damascus. However, the IDF reports that some of the Fajr rockets landing in Haifa were actually of Syrian manufacture.

Hezbollah also has the 610 mm Zelzal-2 'missile' (it is really an unguided rocket) which might be capable of launching half a ton of chemical weapons as far as Tel Aviv.

Syrian still exercises considerable de facto power in Lebanon through its political allies, even though Syria's security forces left Lebanon completely in 2005.

Émile Lahoud

Lebanon's President is Émile Lahoud, a Maronite Christian and minion of Damascus, "owes his position to the Syrians," says Richard Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia. Murphy also says. "He's not seen as a forceful or particularly capable leader, or as a figure with any personal following. He has Syria's blessing, period." Lahoud is unfortunately the nation's commander-in-chief and in nominal control of Lebanon's army, a large percentage of which is composed of poor Shia recruits.

Fuad Saniora

The army may fracture into pro- and anti- Hezbollah factions if forced to confront Hezbollah - thus goading the Lebanese army into attacking Hezbollah may be worse for Lebanon than having them sit on the sidelines.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora - a Sunni who was once a close aide to Rafik Hariri - has turned against Hezbollah, stating that it was a 'state within a state' and should be disarmed, and was taking orders from Syria and Tehran. Indeed, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 (02 September 2004, China and Russia abstaining) states that the Security Council -

1. Reaffirms its call for the strict respect of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity, and political independence of Lebanon under the sole and exclusive authority of the Government of Lebanon throughout Lebanon;

2. Calls upon all remaining foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon;

3. Calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias;

4. Supports the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory.

It appears that Israel is doing the job requested by the Security Council. Thus one can presume that Israel's actions are legal (not to mention Israel's inherent right to self-defense, as per UN Charter Article 51).

Parlimentary seats are divided as follows, among 128 seats altogether (from the Council on Foreign Relations):

Said Hariri Tayyar al-Mustaqbal (Future Tide) coalition, 72 seats. An anti-Syria opposition coalition led by Said Hariri, a 35-year-old businessman and son of the former prime minister. Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, joined forces with Walid Jumblatt, [who recently told Al-Arabiya that "the war is no longer Lebanon's ... it is an Iranian war."] head of the minority Druze community and leader of the al-Taqadummi al-Ishtiraki, or Progressive Socialist Party. Jumblatt led a Syria-backed armed militia against Christian groups during the civil war; after the war he served as a cabinet official in several pro-Syrian Lebanese governments. In 1988, Jumblatt responded to attempts by Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to strip him of power by leaving government and joining the anti-Syria opposition movement. Future Tide also includes several notable Christian politicians. Amal Party/Hezbollah, 35 seats. Hezbollah is an armed Shiite militia backed by Iran that has wide support in Lebanon's Shiite south, where it is credited with ending the Israeli occupation. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, formed a coalition with the Amal Party, a Shiite group led by Nabih Berri, a former military officer considered one of Syria's main collaborators in Lebanon. The Amal/Hezbollah group, which polled strongly in the south, is now the main Shiite party in Lebanon. Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), 21 seats. General Michel Aoun, the FPM leader, is a Maronite Christian and former military officer who led a failed coup against Syria in 1989 and served briefly as Lebanon's prime minister and acting president before fleeing to France. He returned to Lebanon May 7 after 14 years in exile. Aoun shocked many supporters by forming a last-minute alliance with Suleiman Franjieh, a Maronite Christian former cabinet minister and part of a prominent pro-Syrian clan. The alliance made strong gains in the third week of voting in the Christian areas of central Mount Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley. That showing made Aoun the most influential Maronite leader in the country. "It's clear now that Aoun speaks for the Maronite interests," says Hussein Ibish, vice chair of the Progressive Muslim Union and former Washington correspondent for Beirut's Daily Star. Maronite Christians in Lebanon's heartland voted overwhelmingly for Aoun and against the Christian leaders who ran on their own or joined the Future Tide coalition.

There is a also a ghost army of blue helmets in Lebanon, the 2,000 man force called the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon or UNIFIL Milos Strugar, senior adviser to UNIFIL said that due to being hemmed in by war damage to the south Lebanese infrastructure, it is no longer able to patrol the blue line, which is its mandate, and part of its mission:

"According to Security Council resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978) of 19 March 1978, UNIFIL was established to:

• Confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon;
  
• Restore international peace and security;
  
• Assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area.

Most recently the mandate of UNIFIL was extended until 31 July 2006 by Security Council resolution 1655 (2006) of 31 January 2006."

Hezbollah has violated these Security Council Resolution 425 numerous times, attacking the Shebaa Farms often since Israel's pullout from Lebanon, and in one instance UNIFIL was accused of being complicit with Hezbollah in a kidnapping. UNIFIL is as equally pointless a military organization as the Lebanese army right now, and the only thing it has accomplished is establishing that the duration of the official United Nations unit of time known as the 'Interim' lasts approximately 30 years.

There is also the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force or UNDOF, a force of 1,000 troops stationed between the Golan Heights and Syria.

Posted by Ken McCracken · 21 July 2006 04:27 AM · Comments (3)

Israel: Plenty Of Money To Finance War

More bad news for Hezbollah:

JERUSALEM, July 19 (Reuters) - Israel may be forced to increase its defence budget this year if fighting with Hizbollah continues for another three weeks, a senior Finance Ministry official said on Wednesday. But the overall budget is in such good shape that it can fund an extended conflict without harming its fiscal targets much more easily than in the past, Yossi Gordon, Israel's deputy budget director, told Reuters.

If the United States is not willing to help Israel directly with military involvement or support, the least we can do is help Israel in the event that a lengthy war depletes their treasury, which thankfully does not seem to be the case yet. It is the least we can do for our allies in the War on Terror now doing some real heavy lifting.

Posted by Ken McCracken · 20 July 2006 10:03 PM · Comments (3)

Saudi Sheik Issues Fatwa Against Hezbollah

As evidence that Hezbollah has no support from anyone outside of Iran and Syria, check this out:

CAIRO, Egypt - One of Saudi Arabia's leading Wahhabi sheiks, Abdullah bin Jabreen has issued a strongly worded religious edict, or fatwa, declaring it unlawful to support, join or pray for Hezbollah, the Shiite militias lobbing missiles into northern Israel. The day after Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12, Sheik Hamid al-Ali issued an informal statement titled "The Sharia position on what is going on." In it, the Kuwaiti based cleric condemned the imperial ambitions of Iran regarding Hezbollah's cross border raid.

This is unprecedented. Even the Wahabis give Israel a green light again Hezbollah, and seem to understand the danger of Iran's 'imperial ambitions'. Iran has made a huge geopolitical and military blunder by ordering its proxies to attack Israel, and has reminded the Arab world that there is an enemy they loathe even more than the United States.

Well done, Iran.

Posted by Ken McCracken · 20 July 2006 06:38 PM · Comments (8)

Defeating The Modern-Day Hydra

The other day, while discussing Israel's current fighting with Hamas and Hezbollah, I referred to them as "two heads of the Hydra" of terrorism.

The metaphor of the Lernaean Hydra is an apt metaphor for Islamic terrorism. The terrorists all have different names, different tactics, and different priorities, but their core beliefs are pretty much the same:

1) The removal of Western influence from the Middle East.

1A) The elimination of Israel as an outpost of Western beliefs, carefully overlooking the Israelis' presence in Israel for several millenia before Mohammed was born.

2) The elimination of secular Islamic governments, to be replaced with theocracies.

3) The restoration of all lands once held by Islam.

4) The "re-establishment" of the Caliphate, the fictional Islamic government that unites all Muslims.

5) The expansion of the Caliphate from the Dar al-Islam ("The House of Islam" -- the portion of the world that is Islamic) to envelop all of the Dar al-Harb ("House of War" - the portion of the world that is not part of Dar al-Islam).

With all these groups -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jemaa Islamayah, Al Qaeda -- all working (mostly) independently towards a common goal, the metaphor of the Hydra with its many heads seems appropriate.

Further, with a closer examination the Hydra of myth, the metaphor seems to fit even better.

Whenever one of the Hydra's heads was cut off, two more would grow back from the stump. Heracles (Hercules in the Roman version of the Greek myth) only defeated the Hydra by having his nephew, Iolaus, cauterize each neck with a firebrand as it was severed. Then, when the final, immortal head was severed, Heracles buried it under a great rock. Thus was the Hydra slain.

With terrorism, we have seen that when we do cut off the head, oftimes two more do grow back. When terrorist organizations are defeated, but not crushed, they do come back with a vengeance. We saw this especially well in the 1990s with Al Qaeda, when we would lop off a head or two after each attack, only to see them come back and hit us harder than before. The doctrine of "measured and proportional response" and "using the legal system" culminated in nearly 3,000 dead Americans on September 11, 2001.

What Israel is doing right now in Lebanon has the hallmarks of a firebranding. They have decided that the fiction of Hezbollah's "political" and "militant" wings cannot stand, and are systematically destroying every trace of Hezbollah they can reach. Furthermore, their attacks on airports, highways, and naval blockade are aimed at giving Hezbollah no ready way to retreat. The Israelis intend to have a toe-to-toe fight with Hezbollah, and are not going to let them try the "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day" tactic that has served so many so well in the past.

Israel is simply expanding on the concepts we first applied in Afghanistan: if you harbor and shelter and support terrorists within your borders, you have forfeited your national sovereignty. And if you welcome active terrorist organizations into your government, then you bear a portion of the onus for their deeds.

That principle is not a time-honored and traditional one. In fact, it flies in the face of much of what we considered civilized intercourse between nations. But it is a necessary adaption to the changing times .

Yes, ultimately, terrorism might prove to have that one immortal head and be unkillable. But severing all the mortal heads, searing the stumps, and burying that final head under a great rock will greatly diminish the threats it poses.

(Update: Correction made, as per plasmapal's observation. Thanks for the correction.)

Posted by Jay Tea · 20 July 2006 06:00 AM · Comments (15)

Social Security Reform Thursday: Week Fifty-Eight -- Private Accounts and Presidential Proposals

Thursdays are good days for reform, because they fall between Wednesdays and Fridays. And reform is a long-haul process, not a fleeting event. So we're going to keep plugging along with the case for reform, even as the issue goes off the political radar screen.

That's why WILLisms.com offers a chart or graph, every Thursday, pertinent to Social Security reform.

This week's topic:

Testimony of James Roosevelt, Jr., Associate Commissioner for Retirement Policy at the Social Security Administration.

In school I was always taught that before solving a math problem, you need to define the terms. Once you know what the issues and problems are, you can come up with a solution. From James Roosevelt, Jr.'s Testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee:

Changing Demographics

I have mentioned "demographics" in a general way, but I have some specific facts to share with you that may be helpful to our discussion today:

• In the U.S. in 1995, the elderly population (aged 65 and over) was about 34 million, making up about 12% of the population. In contrast, there were about 9 million aged people in the U.S. in 1940, and then they accounted for less than 7 percent of the population.
• And Americans are living longer. When benefits were first paid in 1940, a 65-year old on average lived about 12 ½ more years. Today, a 65-year old could expect to live about 17 ½ more years and by 2070, life expectancy at age 65 is projected to be an additional 20 ½ years.
• The elderly population growth rate is expected to be modest from now through 2010, but it will increase dramatically between 2010 and 2030 as the baby-boom generation ages into the 65-or-older age group. For every 100 working age people, there will be more than 35 people aged 65 and over by 2030.
• In 1994, 60% of the elderly were women and 40% were men. Among the oldest of these (85 or older), over 70% were women and fewer than 30% were men.

Clearly, many millions of people are depending on us for strong and decisive action to preserve and protect the multi-tiered structure of retirement income security. [The] President... stated that we must act now to tackle this tough, long-term challenge.

So we all understand the problem, right? Let's come up with a solution, there Jimbo:

Three weeks ago, in his State of the Union address, [the] President... proposed historic steps to ensure the solvency of Social Security. When putting together his framework for a solution to the long-range Social Security solvency problem facing our country, [the]President... wanted to increase national savings to reduce burdens on future generations, and reduce publicly held debt. His plan, therefore, draws on the approach taken by Canada and Sweden and State and local pension systems in this country to diversify the fund portfolio. Through the provision of Universal Savings Accounts (USA accounts), the President's framework draws on the experience of countries that have added individual retirement accounts as a voluntary supplement to social insurance protection.

Specifically, the President proposed the following three actions to solve the Social Security program financing problem:

• Transfer 62 percent of projected federal budget surpluses over the next 15 years-about $2.8 trillion--to the Social Security system and use the money to pay down the publicly held debt, which would strengthen our economy for the future. Thus the President's plan provides for debt reduction while giving Social Security the benefit of the gains from reducing publicly held debt.
• Invest a portion of the trust funds, which would never exceed about 15 percent, in the private sector to achieve higher returns for Social Security. Funds would be invested in broad market indexes by private managers, not the government.
• A bipartisan effort to take further action to ensure the system's solvency until at least 2075. There are hard choices that we must face. To assure confidence in Social Security it is important to bring the program into 75-year actuarial balance.

I like it. Makes sense right? President Bush proposed this and Harry Reid had this to say about Social Security Privatization:

But maybe most of all, the Bush plan isn't really Social Security reform. It's more like Social Security roulette. Democrats are all for giving Americans more of a say and more choices when it comes to their retirement savings. But that doesn't mean taking Social Security's guarantee and gambling with it. And that's coming from a senator who represents Las Vegas.

Funny thing was that this was not President Bush's Commissioner for Social Security or Bush's plan, but rather that of PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON IN 1999. Regardless of party and regardless of politics, it seems that now the Democrats have not only poo-poo'ed the solutions they themselves advocated for, but went one step further and denied the problems that they themselves testified would bankrupt the country in 1999. Were they lying about the problem in 1999 to be overly dramatic or are they lying now about the fact that no problem exists?

I guess if they can blame Bush for the Intel that Clinton provided on WMD's and get away with it, why not call Bush a liar on Social Security too.

THEY ARE GAMBLING WITH MY KIDS' FUTURE over petty politics.

It's time for reform.

The clock is ticking.

--------------------------------

Previous Reform Thursday graphics can be seen here:

-Week One (Costs Exceed Revenues).
-Week Two (Social Security Can't Pay Promised Benefits).
-Week Three (Americans Getti