By Paul Hsieh @ 9:00 AM
In the Fall 2009 issue of Daedalus, economist Thomas Schelling asks what would happen if President Obama had his way and we had a "A World Without Nuclear Weapons?"
Schelling argues that, contrary to the optimists like Obama, the world would become far more unstable and dangerous.
One big problem is that the knowledge of how to create and deploy nuclear weapons wouldn't disappear. Hence, if the major nuclear powers did decide to eliminate their active stockpiles, any global crisis would create a tremendous incentive for them to reconstitute and/or use their nukes as quickly as possible before hostile countries did the same.
Here are a couple of noteworthy excerpts from Schelling's article:
Considering that enough plutonium to make a bomb could be hidden in the freezing compartment of my refrigerator, or to evade radiation detection could be hidden at the bottom of the water in a well, I think only the fear of a whistle-blower could possibly make success at all questionable.
I believe that a "responsible" government would make sure that fissile material would be available in an international crisis or war itself. A responsible government must at least assume that other responsible governments will do so.
The natural implication:
...[I]f, at the outset of what appears to be a major war, or the imminent possibility of major war, every responsible government must consider that other responsible governments will mobilize their nuclear weapons base as soon as war erupts, or as soon as war appears likely, there will be at least covert frantic efforts, or perhaps purposely conspicuous efforts, to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons as rapidly as possible.
The result would be greater global instability, rather than greater stability:
In summary, a "world without nuclear weapons" would be a world in which the United States, Russia, Israel, China, and half a dozen or a dozen other countries would have hair-trigger mobilization plans to rebuild nuclear weapons and mobilize or commandeer delivery systems, and would have prepared targets to preempt other nations' nuclear facilities, all in a high-alert status, with practice drills and secure emergency communications. Every crisis would be a nuclear crisis, any war could become a nuclear war. The urge to preempt would dominate ; whoever gets the first few weapons will coerce or preempt. It would be a nervous world.
Part of the fallacy behind the desire for a "world without nuclear weapons" is the false notion that the evil resides within the weapons, rather than within the aggressors who would use them against us. (This is just a grander example of the same fallacy that drives many gun-control advocates.)
If a US President truly wanted a safer world, perhaps he should eliminate America's enemies, rather than eliminating our means of striking against them.
By Diana Hsieh @ 5:00 AM
Check out the endorsement John Lewis has gotten from Victor Davis Hanson for his soon-forthcoming book, Nothing Less than Victory:
John David Lewis has offered a superb appraisal of how ancient and modern wars start and finish. This chronicle of some 2,500 years of Western history is replete with a philosophical analysis of why nations fight, win--and lose. His insights and conclusions are original and fearless--as well as timely and welcome in the confused war-making of the present age."
-- Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture
If you haven't yet heard about the book, here's the description from John Lewis' web site:
The goal of a war is to defeat an enemy's will to fight. But how this can be accomplished is a thorny issue. Nothing Less than Victory provocatively shows that aggressive, strategic military offenses can win wars and establish lasting peace, while defensive maneuvers have often led to prolonged carnage, indecision, and stalemate. Taking an ambitious and sweeping look at six major wars, from antiquity to World War II, John David Lewis shows how victorious military commanders have achieved long-term peace by identifying the core of the enemy's ideological, political, and social support for a war, fiercely striking at this objective, and demanding that the enemy acknowledges its defeat.
Lewis examines the Greco-Persian and Theban wars, the Second Punic War, Aurelian's wars to reunify Rome, the American Civil War, and the Second World War. He considers successful examples of overwhelming force, such as the Greek mutilation of Xerxes' army and navy, the Theban-led invasion of the Spartan homeland, and Hannibal's attack against Italy--as well as failed tactics of defense, including Fabius's policy of delay, McClellan's retreat from Richmond, and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Lewis shows that a war's endurance rests in each side's reasoning, moral purpose, and commitment to fight, and why an effectively aimed, well-planned, and quickly executed offense can end a conflict and create the conditions needed for long-term peace.
Recognizing the human motivations behind military conflicts, Nothing Less than Victory makes a powerful case for offensive actions in pursuit of peace.
John David Lewis is visiting associate professor of philosophy, politics, and economics at Duke University, and senior research scholar in history and classics at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens and Early Greek Lawgivers.
The book is due out in March. On the advice of John Lewis, I recommend that you order the book from the Ayn Rand Bookstore. The publisher will take note of even a few dozen copies sold from that source.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:03 AM
Mike Janis posted the following to FRODO, Front Range Objectivism's discussion list on Tuesday. I thought it deserved a wider audience, so I'm reposting it here, with his permission:
The news coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East says a lot about the state of our culture, especially considering that the news agencies, being businesses, cater their stories to their audiences.
First of all, the tone makes it sound like the evil empire is closing in on the helpless, innocent rebels (made me think of Star Wars). "Tanks rumbled closer to the towns of Khan Younis and Dir el Balah in south and central Gaza but were still several miles outside..."
Second, is it the U.N.'s official job to tally the civilian casualties? It seems that whenever the U.N. is mentioned, it's so they can mention how many 'innocent' Palestinians are being killed. "More than 500 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 100 civilians, according to United Nations figures."
Third, they can't seem to mention enough that Israel isn't bowing to international pressure for cease-fire. "Israel, which has already encircled Gaza City, the area's biggest city, ignored mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire." Why are 'international calls' so quick to support the aggressors?
And lastly, if the article doesn't get its point across with words, there are two links to slide shows with pictures of injured Palestinians and international protestors (most appear to be Muslim, and there's even a picture of Muslim children in France standing next to a sign proclaiming Israel to be the terrorist nation).
By Gina Liggett @ 12:03 AM
Thirteen-year-old Gaza resident, Yousef Nakhala, called out the equivalent of "the Emperor has no clothes!" in reaction to Israel's retaliation against Hamas's rocket attacks from Gaza. He said: "I blame Hamas. It doesn't want to recognize Israel. If they did so, there could be peace. Egypt made a peace treaty with Israel, and nothing is happening to them."
The kid clearly gets it. But not the civilized world, which has told Israel to hold back, like the platitudinous let's-just-all-hold-hands-and-get-along from the E.U. Foreign Policy chief, Javier Solana: "We are very concerned at the events in Gaza. We call for an immediate ceasefire and urge everybody to exert maximum restraint."
Oh wow, what a clever suggestion.
Not wanting to piss off anyone else on the playground, the U.S.'s policy is just as morally neutral: "Hamas must end its terrorist activities if it wishes to play a role in the future of the Palestinian people. The United States urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza." (White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe)
Just like a spoiled brat, Hamas is getting exactly what it wants -- more pity and attention from the Arab and Islamic world:
"Iran strongly condemns the Zionist regime's [Israel's] wide-ranging attacks against the civilians in Gaza. The raids against innocent people are unforgivable and unacceptable." (Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi)
"Egypt condemns the Israeli attacks." (Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak)
"We are facing a continuing spectacle which has been carefully planned. We face a major humanitarian catastrophe." (Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa)
Oh, give me a break. Hamas doesn't have anything to offer the world -- or the Palestinians for that matter -- except the perpetual state of hate and poverty of its population. But what else could you possibly expect from the efforts of an avowed terrorist organization?
When Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, won the majority in the Palestinian Authority's parliamentary elections in 2006, the governing Fatah party and the world wondered what this would mean for future peace negotiations with Israel, a two-state solution called the "road map" which would create an independent Palestine alongside Israel.
Hamas wants to kick Israel off the playground. It explicitly does not recognize the right of Israel to exist, and it has carried out terrorist attacks against Israel for decades.
Even though the Middle East quartet's (U.N., E.U., Russia, U.S.) price for bankrolling the Palestinian government is peaceful behavior towards Israel, Hamas leaders couldn't care less. Hamas attacked Israel and forcibly seized control of Gaza in a very undemocratic fashion within a year after its election victory, leading to an economic blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt.
A bully is still a bully if it behaves like one, even though he gets elected to student council. Now maybe Israel can put the bully in his place, having learned lessons from its anemic response to Hezbollah's repeated aggression in Lebanon in 2006 which only emboldened that Islamic fundamentalist organization.
In the whole long-running and complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict, why is it in America's best interest to condemn an organization like Hamas and support Israel? The principle is that the only moral government is one that upholds individual rights.
We recognize that those who attack Israel are not seeking to establish an even freer nation: they are seeking to wipe out the only outpost of freedom in the Middle East. We support Israel not for its failings but for its virtues, and we understand that those who threaten Israel's freedom also threaten America's. If they succeed in destroying Israel, they will turn their full attention to the United States.
The bully Hamas has no intention of playing nice, and should be expelled. Israel ought to continue fighting hard and eliminate Hamas. And instead of cowardly giving in to intimidation from the U.N. and Arab/Islamic countries by calling for yet another cease-fire, the civilized world should give unqualified support for Israel in the face of this chronic Islamic threat. Hamas, and the civilian population who elects and supports it, should suffer the painful consequences of their ongoing war against freedom -- and peace.
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:06 AM
Today's Eric Daniels-type bit of trivia comes from Strange Maps":
China is the world's most populous nation. That much anybody knows. But even if we know a bit more (that the number of Chinese is around 1.32 billion, which is just under 20% of all humans alive today), that figure is still too big to mean much beyond that China is 'number one'.
This map compares the population of China's provinces (plus the 'renegade province' of Taiwan), autonomous regions and municipalities with those of whole countries, and thus helps shed some light on that issue.
China is an interesting country in that it is no longer committed ideologically to Communism, but it is no where close to a free country. Instead, the ideology is a mixture of authoritarianism, nationalism, and some market elements. Hence, I'm glad that there are people interested in translating Ayn Rand's works into Chinese.
If Rand's ideas ever took hold there, China could become a true powerhouse on the world stage. On the other hand, if a different bad ideology became entrenched in place of Communism, we could be looking at a huge menace.
Israel has announced that, if there is another round of Hezbollah rocket attacks from southern Lebanon, all the villages that the attacks come from will be destroyed. Hezbollah is ignoring the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and again installing rocket storage areas in the basements of homes, or nearby. The locals are threatened with violence or death by Hezbollah if they resist, so Israel is now playing by the same rules and letting the villagers know that, yes, they are in the crossfire if the rockets go off again
Now I don't know whether Israel's political leadership will actually follow through with their promise. But at least they are articulating the right principle. If Israel is attacked again by Hezbollah, then they have the moral right to strike back and end the threat even if it involves the deaths of Lebanese civilians in those villages where the rockets are coming from.
If those civilians were coerced by Hezbollah into storing those rockets in their homes, then the moral fault for their deaths lies with Hezbollah, not with Israel. If those civilians were willing, then they are active participants and cannot claim to be "innocent civilians".
And it also means that if Lebanese civilians genuinely don't want Hezbollah forcing them to act against their own self-interest, then they will have to stand up and oppose Hezbollah and fight instead for a better Lebanese government that protects their rights (rather than violates those rights and puts them in harm's way).
Of course, if another conflict were to break out between Israel and Hezbollah, I expect the usual unjust condemnation of Israel by the Western press decrying those "innocent civilian casualties" in Lebanon. And American politicians (of both political parties) will put intense diplomatic pressure on Israel to stand down. And Israel will eventually knuckle under, bringing them one step closer to national suicide.
America does not have to fight Israel's wars -- that's not our job. But the one thing we can do is to give Israel our moral support -- in particular affirming with words and deeds that it has a right to defend itself. That more than anything else could reshape Middle East politics in a positive direction and put America's enemies on notice that there will no longer be "business as usual".
Unfortunately, I don't expect this sort of leadership from either McCain or Obama. And if Israel does eventually go under, it won't be long before we're next...
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il apparently fell ill last April, and months of treatment left him unable to continue nuclear disarmament negotiations. It's unclear if he is back at work, but no one else seems to be able to make decisions.
Meanwhile, the Chinese have better connections inside North Korea, but apparently do not share a lot of information with anyone else. Defectors from North Korea believe that the Chinese will take over if it appears that the North Korean government is about to fall apart. The Chinese plan to install pro-Chinese North Koreans as head of a new "North Korean" government, and institute the kind of economic reforms they have been urging the North Korean to undertake for over a decade. The Chinese do not want North Korea to merge with South Korea, nor do they want North Korea to collapse (and send millions of starving refugees into northern China.
China and South Korea both want North Korea to stay independent, and harmless. Thus China is willing to unofficially annex North Korea, knowing that the South Koreans would go along with this as long as the fiction of North Korean independence were maintained.
South Korea won't admit this, but most South Koreans know that absorbing North Korea would put a big dent in South Korean living standards. That is more unpopular than any other outcome.
As Diana says, it's pathetic when China has to come into a country and be the agent of free market reforms...
By Diana Hsieh @ 1:02 AM
Why is it that I'm not comforted by this "we're from the army and we're here to help" plan?
The 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they're training for the same mission -- with a twist -- at home.
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.
But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.
And:
"I can't think of a more noble mission than this," said [1st BCT commander Col. Roger] Cloutier, who took command in July. "We've been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home ... and depending on where an event occurred, you're going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones."
Oy. Will these soldiers also be on call for "manmade emergencies and disasters" like ... say ... economic collapse caused by rampant government interference in the financial markets? Whoever wins the election, the answer surely would be "yes."
I love and respect the American military, and that's why I'm so worried about these plans to deploy the military inside the US. Soldiers must be trained to operate effectively in hostile territory amongst potentially hostile civilians. In those circumstances, every unknown person must be regarded with suspicion, and the overriding goal must be the mission at hand. In contrast, maintaining peace and security at home amongst fellow Americans is the job of the police -- and the national guard, if necessary -- including in times of crisis. That's what they're trained to do, at least in theory.
This news highlights the very real threat to our liberty of reshaping the American military into a humanititarian force abroad, as has happened since World War 2. The threat is not just that taxpayer dollars are wasted on feel-good missions without any relevance to national security. The threat is not just that soldiers must risk their lives for the sake of random strangers in foreign lands, rather than to preserve and protect American liberty. The threat is the logic of the idea: if the military help foreigners in times of disaster, why shouldn't they also help Americans too? To the extent that the military is easygoing and friendly, thereby allowing it to operate at home with all due respect for American civilians, then it's not an effective fighting force: it would not have the kind of detachment, discipline, and ambition to fight real wars in hostile territory. And, if it is that kind of effective fighting force, then any operation inside the US risks a ugly clash between civilians and military. Either way, it's bad.
By Gina Liggett @ 12:01 AM
It's another somber anniversary of the murders of approximately 2981 Americans and foreign nationals by Islamists on September 11, 2001.
The necrotizing pestilence that characterizes the ideology of Islamic totalitarianism is alive and well in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. And it infests places across the globe, from Indonesia to Europe.
The Islamists are unequivocal in their goal of jihad: world domination and rule according to Islamic ideology. And I doubt the radicals' infamous leader, Osama bin Laden, has changed his mind about his virulent hatred for Americans and Jews.
Beginning with the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, our leaders have not succeeded in exterminating the threat that continues to thrive and fester like flesh-eating bacteria. So, in commemorating the anniversary of September 11, let's also remember the other innocents who were attacked by jihadists in 2008,2007,2006,2005,2005,2003,2002,2000,1998, 1996, 1995, 1993, 1988, 1986, 1985, 1985, 1983, and 1979.
The outrageous failure of our foreign policy against this cancerous threat is perhaps a symptom of a broader illness in our society. If we look around at the erosion of freedom that's occurring in America, maybe it won't be such a shock to find ourselves stuck with the perpetual threat of terrorism: we're still fighting to uphold our own Constitutionally-protected freedoms against attacks by interest groups who want to tear them down.
First Amendment separation-of-church-and-state issues continue to plague us. Preventing the religiousright from ramming their biblical morality through our state and federal legislatures is a constant battle. Take the "personhood" amendment in Colorado which proposes to define the human being as beginning with fertilization. This monstrous religion-driven idea that a microscopic fertilized egg has the same inalienable rights as an actual person represents a level of irrationality right out of the Dark Ages.
Other societal mandates sought by the religious right are just as anti-life: faith-based initiatives, the teaching of creationism, anti-abortion laws, opposition to gay marriage, prayer in the schools, state-sponsorship of religious symbols, and opposition to stem-cell research and euthanasia.
Economic liberty, or property rights, as addressed in the Fifth Amendment is fundamentally important to a free society. But it has been trampled in countless ways, from the passage of the first antitrust laws in the 19th century to the sweepingly-regulatory Sarbanes-Oxley law of 2002. The bottom line: these laws have done nothing but restrict the ability of individuals and businesses to freely produce and trade with one another according to their mutually-agreed terms.
Another example of the disregard for the Fifth Amendment is the wanton abuse of Eminent Domain, best exemplified by the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case, Kelo v City of New London. In that case, the Court said that homes and businesses could be taken for uses that might generate more tax revenue. This affirmed that constitutional "public use" can be defined so that private property can be taken so that new private property can be taxed by the government---a double-dipping violation of property rights.
These examples--and so many others--aren't jet planes crashing into the Bill of Rights; these are laws made and upheld by our Legislators and our Courts and our Presidents. Ultimately, its up to the People to say, "enough!" and establish grounding for our freedom using rational philosophical principles, as identified by Ayn Rand with her philosophy, Objectivism.
So on September 11, 2008, let's commemorate not only the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States, but the concept of liberty--that distinctly American institution that we must courageously protect from our enemies---and from ourselves.
By Paul Hsieh @ 10:30 AM
In 1941, America was attacked by followers of a vicious totalitarian ideology. But in less than four years, we went from this:
By Paul Hsieh @ 2:00 AM
The economic crisis in Zimbabwe is getting so bad, that doctors' main advice to patient is simple -- "Don't get sick":
The advice of doctors to Zimbabweans is, don't get sick. If you do, don't count on hospitals -- they're short of drugs and functioning equipment.
As the economy collapses, the laboratory at a main 1,000-bed hospital has virtually shut down. X-ray materials, injectable antibiotics and anticonvulsants have run out.
Emergency resuscitation equipment is out of action. Patients needing casts for broken bones need to bring their own plaster. In a country with one of the world's worst AIDS epidemics, medical staff lack protective gloves.
And whose fault is this? The West's, of course:
Health authorities blame the drying up of foreign aid under Western sanctions imposed to end political and human rights abuses under President Robert Mugabe.
Of course, given that many of these health authorities likely owe their position to Mugabe, one would hardly expect them to point their fingers at the real cause, namely Mugabe's brutal dictatorship and his disastrous economic policies resulting in an annual inflation rate of 2,200,000%.
By Diana Hsieh @ 4:24 PM
The Ayn Rand Center is participating in an online debate with the Heritage Foundation on the question Should the U.S. Use Military Force Against Iran?. ARC should be posting more comments in response to the arguments of the Heritage Foundation over the next few days. (The interface is a bit strange, I think, but the format looks interesting.)
You can post comments. Paul submitted the following, under the title "Yes, If..."
I would support a war against Iran if they've committed overt acts of war against us.
For instance, if they've violated our sovereign territory (such as a US embassy), held Americans hostage, given state sponsorship to terrorists trying to kill Americans, and openly plotted the nuclear destruction of one of our most valuable allies in the Middle East such as Israel.
Whatever the current facts on the ground, the United States is still regarded today primarily as an idea -- the idea that freedom is the only proper social system. Every day the United States and other freedom-loving countries remain in the U.N. is another day dictators and violent theocrats worldwide enjoy a patina of legitimacy through association with free nations. If the free nations withdraw, the legitimacy of the violent nations will vanish and the U.N. will implode as they try to kill each other. Best thing for the U.N., really.
In preparation for the August Olympic Games in Beijing, China has installed hardware and software in all hotels, to make it easier for state security to monitor foreign visitors that use the Internet. Some foreign owned hotels leaked the documents (orders from the Chinese government to install the systems) to U.S. government officials, who made it public. The foreign owned hotels in Beijing were threatened with closure if they did not comply.
Years ago, the Chinese government promised there would be open access to the Internet during the games. This despite the fact that the Chinese Internet is designed to be easily monitored by a huge (over 30,000 people) bureaucracy that does nothing but monitor Internet use (and imprisons those who say anything the state does not approve of.)
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said that they are "surprised" by this decision, especially since the IOC has been telling foreign journalists all this time that they would have "free and uncensored Internet access".
The real surprise is that the IOC would have believed the earlier Chinese government promises of "free and uncensored Internet access", despite decades of authoritarian and repressive behaviour by that same government.
These are the problems you get when you grant undeserved moral sanction to countries like China, treating them as if they were on par with much freer countries like Japan, Australia, and the those in Western Europe.
I just returned from a speaking engagement at Tel Aviv University (pictures from the trip are on my website). My honorarium was four days of sight-seeing in Tel Aviv, Abu Gosh, Jerusalem, En Gedi and Masada, and a series of meetings with writers, policy analysts, academics and writers. I came back with one overriding conclusion, which stands for me stronger than it did before my trip: Israel stands at the front-line of the war between civilization and barbarism. As Eric Hoffer wrote over forty years ago, "as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us all." ("Israel's Peculiar Position," LA Times 5/26/68)
By Paul Hsieh @ 5:39 PM
Airline pilot Patrick Smith tells of the latest indignity and bureaucratic folly he had to endure at the hands of the TSA (Transportation Security Administration):
"You ain't takin' this through," she says. "No knives. You can't bring a knife through here."
It takes a moment for me to realize that she's serious. "I'm... but... it's..."
"Sorry." She throws it into a bin and starts to walk away.
"Wait a minute," I say. "That's airline silverware."
"Don't matter what it is. You can't bring knives through here."
"Ma'am, that's an airline knife. It's the knife they give you on the plane."
The whole thing is worth reading. Smith asks, "Do I really need to point out that an airline pilot at the controls would hardly need a butter knife if he or she desired to inflict damage?"
While stories of TSA stupidity abound, the more disturbing underlying issue is that Americans are becoming slowly acclimated to this defensive posture, which we adopted in the aftermath of 9-11.
Meanwhile, a state of siege is being more deeply entrenched inside America every day. We are losing the war by institutionalizing the loss of our freedoms, searching the sneakers of senior citizens in wheelchairs in order to avoid confronting bellicose dictatorships overseas. In the minds of many people, the Bush administration's allegedly "offensive" strategy has discredited the very idea of genuinely offensive war for American self-interest, which it pledged to fight, and then betrayed to its core. Our soldiers come home maimed or dead, and military offense, rather than timidity, takes the blame. To compensate for our weakness overseas, we are building electric fences and security barriers to keep the world out, accepting the medieval ideal of walled towns under constant threat of attack, rather than destroying the source of such threats.
Lewis correctly points out that we will never defeat Islamic Totalitarianism if we maintain our current cringing, apologetic, defensive posture towards them. Instead, America must have the moral confidence to know that it is proper to take the fight to them, with the goal of destroying the threat they pose.
By Gina Liggett @ 1:05 AM
It's nearing the end of another U.S. Administration--and another gross failure of leadership that has allowed Islamic terrorism to adapt and thrive.
The modern threat of Islamic totalitarianism should have ended when it began with the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, but it hasn't.
Al-Qaeda, declared enemy number one after 9/11, has been reestablishing itself in the remote tribal area between Pakistan and Afganistan ever since U.S. armed forces failed to capture its leader, Osama bin Laden, at Tora Bora in 2001. And Taliban terrorists have resurfaced in these no-man's lands, increasing their attacks on U.S. and NATO forces within Afganistan.
How is this possible after President Bush's promise of Sept. 20, 2001: "I will not forget the wound to our country and those who inflicted it. I will not yield, I will not rest, I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people"?
An excellent New York Times article details three important factors that have facilitated the ongoing threat: (1) infighting within and between our National Security bureaucracies, the State Department and the Administration; (2) the detrimental consequences of turfing onto Pakistan much of the responsibility for fighting these brewing Islamic movements; and (3) the diversion of priorities, expertise and resources to the war in Iraq.
But our inability to prevail against Islamic totalitarianism once and for all is due to a more fundamental cause than committing bureaucratic blunders and relying on shady allies to do our dirty work:
It's a failure of our leaders to unequivocally declare that we have the moral right to destroy those who threaten us, and do whatever is necessary and sufficient to quickly and permanently end the threat.
It means: if Iran has been identified as the founder and prime sponsor of Islamic totalitarianism, then the Iranian regime must be terminated.
It means: if Islamists are setting up boot camp with the complicity of local tribes in some wasteland, then our forces---not a third party--must wipe them out, totally, using whatever means is required.
It means: we declare to the world that we will not play diplomatic games, rely on bureaucrats with conflicting agendas, or take into account the cultural sensitivities of our enemies or their enablers.
No more holding hands and singing Kumbaya with a mortal enemy who blatantly threatens to annihilate us.
This lack of full commitment to "the war on terror" isn't lost on the American psyche. Remember when little American flags used to be proudly displayed on millions of cars after the twin towers were attacked? You don't see much of that anymore because maybe the Islamists have called our bluff.
It's time to regain our pride, and claim our moral right to exist in peace as a free country defined by the principles of individual rights.
It's time to implement our moral imperative to decisively end Islamic totalitarianism--once and for all.
...Ireland is constitutionally obliged to subject all EU treaties to a popular vote. The unexpectedly strong "no" result announced Friday effectively acts as a veto.
The EU's political establishment is already calling on all other members to keep ratifying the treaty through their governments alone while calculating what it will take to make Ireland vote again, only this time "yes."
..."We're told we can vote no, that the system requires unanimity. But when (a 'no' vote) actually happens, every time, the EU tells us: You really only have a right to vote yes," said Dublin travel agent Paul Brady, who voted against the treaty. "You know, I love traveling through Europe, but I don't really want to live there all the time. I'd like to stay as close to America as Europe."
By Diana Hsieh @ 6:51 PM
Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute has written a good op-ed on the disturbing state of American foreign policy vis-à-vis Islamic terrorism. Read it for yourself:
Bush's War Policy: The Top Campaign Non-Issue? By Elan Journo
It's staggering to think that as we march toward a seventh year at war, Iraq (let alone Afghanistan) is hardly an issue on the campaign trail. Of course, nobody has forgotten about the war. But there's been no substantive debate on it, either.
John McCain, echoing many conservatives, regularly touts the supposed gains of the "surge." Upon his return from visiting Iraq, he declared, "We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says. I've seen the facts on the ground." Barack Obama even grudgingly conceded, at one point, that the "surge" was working. And when liberals do challenge President Bush's war policy, they complain not about its goals, but about the crushing financial cost.
The war's a backburner issue in the campaign because--strange as it may sound--critics and cheerleaders of the President's policy judge it by the same spurious benchmark. They focus myopically on whether insurgents have been kicked out, for the time being, from one street, in some neighborhood of Baghdad. If that's success, then the issue can be pushed out of mind.
But nobody would have bought that as a vision of success, in the devastating aftermath of 9/11. And nobody should buy it now. The only rational benchmark for success is whether Washington's policies have made the lives of Americans safer from the threat of Islamists. Judged by that standard, Bush's war policy is an abject failure.
Bush vowed to "pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism," and warned that either "you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Bush's war policy, however, was not to target the greatest threat, but instead to minister to those in greatest need. It was to show compassion to oppressed Iraqis and Afghans, to raise them out of poverty, to give them elections.
Six-plus years into a "war on terror," Washington has done nothing to counter the spearhead of the global jihadist movement, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States has allowed it to grow stronger. Iran races to acquire nuclear weapons; it taunts and threatens our naval vessels; it arms and trains insurgents in Iraq in attacking Americans; it backs jihadists across the region--all with impunity.
What about Iraq? Four thousand-plus U.S. troops died so that hostile Iraqis could elect a new gang of anti-Americans to sit in Baghdad's parliament. Iraq's government is still dominated by Islamist groups, which still operate death squads, and it is still deep, deep in Iran's pocket.
Across the Middle East, Washington campaigned for elections in the strongholds of various Islamist groups--such as Hamas and Hezbollah--that it should have worked to destroy. Many people, true to their ideological beliefs, voted to give these groups more political power. Naturally, the jihadists feel encouraged. According to a new study, the Iranian-backed Hamas has amassed at least 80 tons of explosives in Gaza since 2007, and it has also got its hands on anti-tank weapons. So expect another Islamist war emanating from the terrorist proto-state of "Hamas-stan," which Bush's policy helped create.
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Director, al Qaeda is gaining in strength and prepping new recruits who can blend into American society and attack domestic targets. Jihadists are now fighting to re-conquer Afghanistan, and to "Talibanize" large patches of Pakistan. The Afghan-Pakistan border, reports the National Intelligence Director, "serves as a staging area for al-Qaeda's attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives, for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the United States."
This is what Bush's war policy has achieved: an enemy that has no fear of us, that spits in our face, and that is gearing up to kill more of us.
This is what a "compassionate" war policy, aimed not at defeating our enemies but at serving the welfare of Iraqis and Afghans, had to achieve. It is a policy that put their lack of freedom and lack of wealth ahead of our moral right to end the threat of Islamist aggression. Bush's policy held that it was our duty to enable these hostile peoples to vote their political conscience--while evading the fact that so many avidly support jihadist goals.
Shame on Republicans for promising to stay the same disastrous course and toss thousands more troops onto the sacrificial pyre of Iraq. Shame on Democrats for squandering the opportunity of a campaign year to offer us a real Plan B--an alternative policy that would actually combat state-sponsors of terrorism.
Each of us deserves--and should demand--more of our leaders. We deserve a foreign policy that truly upholds our right to security.
Copyright (C) 2008 Ayn Rand Institute. All rights reserved.
For an in-depth analysis of the paralyzing effects of altruism in the ongoing war against Islamic totalitarianism, I strongly recommend "Just War Theory" vs. American Self-Defense by Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein.
E-mail Paul Hsieh
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