Setting new levels for dishonor.

The Boston Herald takes Al Gore to task for his despicable MoveOn speech:

He never mentioned Nicholas Berg. Or Daniel Pearl. Or a single person killed in the World Trade Center. Nor did former Vice President Al Gore talk of any soldier by name who has given his life in Iraq. And he has the audacity to condemn the Bush administration for having ``twisted values?''

Gore spent the bulk of a speech before the liberal group MoveOn.org Wednesday bemoaning Abu Ghraib and denouncing President Bush's departure from the ``long successful strategy of containment.''

Yes, the very same strategy that, under Gore's leadership, allowed al-Qaeda operatives to plan the horror of Sept. 11 for years, while moving freely within our borders.

Gore even had the audacity to defend the perpetrators of the prison abuse - by name - while denouncing President Bush [related, bio] for ``humiliating'' our nation.

How dare he. How dare a former vice president of the United States go beyond disagreeing with the current president's policies - a right of anyone in this free country - and denounce Bush as ``incompetent.''

How dare Gore say that Americans have an ``innate vulnerability to temptation... to use power to abuse others.'' And that our own ``internal system of checks and balances cannot be relied upon'' to curb such abuse.

And this man - who apparently has so much disdain for the nature of the American people - wanted to be elected to lead it?

It is Gore who has brought dishonor to his party and to his party's nominee. The real disgrace is that this repugnant human being once held the second highest office in this great land.

It's a shame really. I thought that Al Gore's concession speech was one of the best political speeches I heard in my life. It was warm, generous and decent. A few more of those speeches and I might have been converted.

Another thing, has there ever been a time in history when the defeated candidate has been so personal and vituperative in his attacks on the winner? I don't think so. I suspect here, as in other areas, the Clintonistas have set a precedent for a further decline in cultural standards.

Finally, note the first paragraph and the missing names. I saw that Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury followed Ted Koppel's lead this weekend by listing the name of America's fallen Iraqi soldiers. I'm sure that Trudeau would defend is policy by appealing to the fact that he's simply remembering our soldiers.

Ah, but you can lie by half measures. The complete truth is that our soldiers died for a reason - to defend those who cannot defend themselve. I would be more impressed with Trudeau's explanation if he began a list with Danny Pearl's name.

Happy Birthday (belated) to G.K. Chesterton

Ratzingerblog has an encyclopedic listing of links about Chesterton in celbration of GK's 129th birthday last Saturday.

Rewards and Consequences.

Mark Steyn has one of his typically pragmatic summaries of the Iraq occupation. The news is that the news we're not having shoved down our throats is good:

I say yes. It is already worth it for Iraq. There are more than 8,000 towns and villages in the country. If the much predicted civil war had erupted in any of 'em, you'd see it. Not from the Western press corps holed up with its Ba'ath Party translators at the Palestine Hotel, but from Arab television networks eager to show the country going to hell. They cannot show it you because it isn't happening. The Sunni Triangle is a little under-policed, but even that's not aflame. Moqtada al-Sadr, the Khomeini-Of-The-Week in mid-April, is al-Sadr al-Wiser these days, down to his last two 12-year-old insurgents and unable even to get to the mosque on Friday to deliver his weekly widely-ignored call to arms.

Apparently, most Americans understand that the problem is that America is not sufficiently tough in the prosecution of military action. According to Steyn, even Kerry is getting the message.

Moreover, the downside of an American loss would be worse for everyone else:

Does Kerry mean it? Probably not. The tough talk's a cover for what would be a return to the ineffectual reactive national-security policy of the 1990s - "I have here a piece of paper from Kim Jong-Il," etc. If the media manage to drag the Senator, a very weak candidate, over the finishing line, it will be seen as a humiliating verdict on Bush's war. There will be no stomach for further neo-con adventuring. The House of Saud can relax and resume its buying off of al-Qaeda. Pakistan's ISI can get rid of General Musharraf. The IAEA can go back to sleep and let Iran get on with its nuclear programme. And, after months and months of experts telling them that they didn't have enough troops in Iraq, Washington will realise all the extra troops they needed are sitting around twiddling their thumbs in Europe, guarding against enemies who no longer exist on behalf of allies who are no longer allies.

There's a vision of a nightmare future - Saudi danegeld paying for nuclear bombs to be set off in Berlin.

It's not your grandpa's 21st Century.

Spend $6 and support world paranoia - The Day After Tomorrow.

Saw the Day After Tomorrow this weekend. It's a decent flick if care for good computer generated special effects, care little for character and dialogue and are willing to suspend disbelief the size of the Ross Ice Shelf.

That said, though, I have to wonder about anyone who would try to make any connection between this movie and reality. I know I saw Robert Kennedy, Jr. do something like that earlier this week when he opined on Scarborough Country that the "polar ice caps are melting and will be entirely gone in 40 years."

What is the enviro-wacko left smoking these days? I mean shouldn't Kennedy's handlers have him under better wrap than all that if he's going to go out in public?

Even under the most generous accounts of global warming, we're not going to see more than a 1 to 3 degree warming trend in the next 100 years, assuming that the warming trend doesn't disappear and become a cooling trend. Even with such a warming trend, northern hemisphere climates do not begin to approximate the warm period in the latter part of the First Millenia when Greenland was colonized and, incidentally, there was no shutdown of "critical salinization" points and no spontaneous return to a new ice age.

After suffering through some pretty self-righteous Republican bashing interspersed among the pretty good CG special effects, I felt the whole pretentiousness of the movie deflate with the end credits touting a book by Art Bell and Whitley Striber as the basis for the movie.

Art Bell!!! "Ah fer crissake," I said, "No wonder Robert Kennedy Jr sounded like a ignoramus who was uncritically channelling pseudo-scientific nonsense. He was actually channelling Art Bell."

Do you think enviro-whacko lefties get together late at night to listen to scientific words of wisdom from Art Bell's blowtorch Nevada radio station. I mean, when he's not interviewing alien abductees.

I remember one Art Bell interview where he was doing his deadpan interview with somebody who was proving that there would be a global shift - like the meet of an orange shifing within its skin - which would result in a new ice age. The interviewee's "proof" was that there was a weather advisory out for ice storms. How unusual for Tennessee in January. Cue Dark Shadows theme.

On a related point, James Lileks has a link to an interview with the director of this howler, wherein, in the tradition of courageous lefties everywhere, said director goes to Germany to bash America. Along with the American bashing, he clearly has an agenda against Bush, so I guess the depiction of the stupid and evil Cheney-like Vice President - who obligingly abases himself for his opposition to the Kyoto Accords, heretical denial of Global Warming, position on protecting the border against illegal immigration and racist use of the term "Third World" because if their is one thing a leftist expects it's a public recantation of deviationism - and the dull and manipulated President was intended to be a kick to the groin of Republicans, rather than just fair comment.

By the way, I kind of liked the movie, but I am an absolute uncritical nerd when it comes to science fiction.

Solidarity.

One of the odd phenomena one sees is Protestants weighing in on purely internecine Catholic disputes. It's odd in my view because, really, what should a Protestant care about whether Catholic pro-abortion legislators are denied the Blessed Sacrament?

Take, for example, Christian (TM pending) blogger Jason Steffens who published a post demurring to the 48 RC Congressfolk's letter warning of repercussions if they were denied communion. That post led to a vigorous 69 comment discussion on a plethora of related issues by various people, most of whom did not appear to be Catholic and for whom the issue is clearly academic.

But maybe it's not so academic. As Justice Holmes observed "even a dog knows when it's been kicked." I think every person of faith probably knows deep down that the letter from the RC democrats stepped over the line in some sense and that if state officials could clothe themselves in their public office in an attempt to influence religious practices in this situation, then the day might come when other agents of the state might involve themselves in other purely religious beliefs and practices.

All I can say to Jason and anyone else who can see beyond the narrowness of sectarianism into the truth that the struggle is between those of us who are believers and those who are not is thanks for the support.

Happy Blogoversary.

Staunch defender of that is right and true, Lane Core, celebrates his second blogging anniversary.

Everytime I read his blog I say to myself "how can this guy get it right every time."

It's spooky.

The Boorishness of the Aging Liberal.

Peggy Noonan nails it in her analysis of the justice in Hofstra students booing E.L.Doctorow for his classless political diatribe. Per Noonan:

I want to explain to Ed Doctorow why he was booed. It was not, as he no doubt creamily recounted in a storytelling session over drinks that night in Sag Harbor, that those barbarians in Long Island's lesser ZIP codes don't want to hear the truth. It is not that they oppose free speech. It is not that the poor boobs of Long Island have an unaccountable affection for George W. Bush.
It is that they have class.

The poor stupid people of Long Island are courteous, and have respect for the views and feelings of others, and would not dream of imposing their particular views on a captive audience that has gathered to celebrate--to be happy about, to officially mark with their presence--the rather remarkable fact that one of their family studied and worked for four years, completed his courses, met all demands, and became a graduate of an American university.

This indeed is something to be proud of.

Like many others, I suspect, I've sat through these kinds of tasteless spectacles where someone is invited to speak at a public ceremony and decides to share his snide digs and asides, or jaundiced political philosophy, with the trapped audience. The Left has largely institutionalized this theatre at public ceremonials such as the Oscars or Grammy's where there is always the latent expectation that this or that honoree or presenter will offer up the latest emission that their deep thinking has produced on their current pet progressive project. One always cringes at those times because it's so embarassing, so classless, so condescending.

A still, small voice in Gomorrah.

[Via Mark Shea.] Former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn dissents from the RC Democrats chastisement of the Catholic Church.

Mark Shea calls Flynn "one of the last respectable Democratic." That may be true, but it also sounds like he's also one of the last non-Quisling RC Democratic politicians.

No Battle at the Communion Rail.

Tan Horizons takes on Andrew Sullivan.

State attempt to dictate religious beliefs to Church.

[Via Cacciaguida.] Ok, that's not the headline you're likely to see, but check out this article on the 48 Democrat Congressmen who are warning Bishops not to deny communion to pro-abortion politicians because it could spark a "backlash."

Yea, that's a concern. Maybe Catholics will start being interrogated on their allegiance to Roe v. Wade during judicial confirmation proceedings.

Or, perhaps, Catholics will find themselves forced to quit jobs in order to avoid participating in what they in good conscience see as the blatant immorality of conducting same sex marriage ceremonies.

Naw, that'll never happen.

Also, what ever happened to that thing called "separation of church and state." Apparently, that is intended to work as a check on private involvement in political processes, not vice versa. In other words, back into the closet for anyone who doesn't agree with the manufacture of the "new model man."

Finally, consider this passage, which demonstrates the unfitness of these people to hold office:

Noting that the Supreme Court has ruled that women have a constitutional right to choose an abortion, they said that members of Congress "who vote for legislation consistent with that mandate are not acting contrary to our positions as faithful members of the Catholic Church. We also do not believe that it is the obligation of legislators to prohibit all conduct which we may, as a matter of personal morality, believe is wrong."

Their view seems to be that the Congress - i.e., the People's representative - are nothing more than the water carriers for the sovereign Court. There is something fundamentally wrong with that view of political priorities. There is also something historically ironic in this argument since it mirrors the argument made by racist, pro-slavery Democrats after the Dred Scott decision.

Update: A Saintly Salamagundi has the text of the letter.

What if...

Lincoln had had to face the media/political circus that we have now?

Funny.

Sad.

Cost of videocamera - $500.

Cost of digital camera - $500.

Cost of having dozens of Senators, Representatives and their aids watch recordings of you having sex with multiple partners in front of naked Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison -

Priceless.

Aphorism of the day - An eloquent summary of the role of man in the universe.

Bob the Ape says:

"Anybody who thinks the environment is fragile doesn't have a yard to maintain."

Something upon which to reflect.

Get Bent

After posting on the devout Catholic JP who was forced to resign instead of compromising her Faith after the implementation of the same sex marriage ukase, I guess I'm not feeling charitable toward my fellow Catholic John Kerry who is doing the dance of joy according to the Curt Jester.

Possible Nick Berg Developments.

Little Miss Attila links to a story on the possible arrest of four people involved in the Nick Berg murder.

Just keep in mind, the "fog of war" and the "web of a million lies" before getting too excited.

The Frontiers of Freedom of Conscience.

David Morrison posts on a Massachusett's Justice of the Peace who has resigned her position out of conscience. The JP, Linda Gray Kelly, resigned because, notwithstanding promises that there would ba "conscience clause" in the same sex marriage scheme, she felt that consistent with her Catholic faith she could not participate in the marriage of same sex couples.

Kelly is absolutely right concerning her understanding of the teachings of her faith.

Kelly is a model of courage in her refusal to capitulate to what she in the full exercise of her "well formed conscience" understands to be immoral.

Note, though, a few points:

First, notwithstanding the infantilizing triumphalism of the Scalzi post (see below), same sex marriage is not all about flowers and freedom. It's a serious matter about a serious subject with very real repercussions for others.

Second, the establishment of a same sex marriage regime is not a win-win situation for everyone. There are costs, particularly when people of conscience disagree over matters of fundamental moral concern.

Third, Kelly will not be lauded by the mainstream media as a hero because her story doesn't fit the paradigmatic story it wants to tell.

Fourth, Massachusett's same sex marriage regime was judicially imposed. A democratic approach might have been better able to reflect the nuances of a complex problem by actually incorporating a conscience clause.

Fifth, this story is not unprecedented. As the state has moved into areas of traditional morality - and sexual behavior has always been an issue within the core of traditional morality - those who adhere to the traditional morality are finding themselves denied access to governmental benefits. We are going through a period which seems to resemble that of the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century when the toleration for Christians metastazized into persecution of pagans. The early part of this process was to fund Christian activities by providing property and governmental patronage to Christians. Not long afterwards, the process moved to barring governmental patronage for pagans.

All of which leads one to wonder whether toleration - the summum bonum of post-modern society - is not simply a "Trojan Horse" leading to the inevitable persecution of tradionalists.

Pernicious Stereotypes and Reality

The California Democratic Party has established a target under its delegate quota system which seeks 22 gays and 22 lesbians among the 440-member delegation.

Based on simple arithmetic, the California Democrtic Party is apparently officially enshrining the myth that gays constitute 10% of the general population. Here's a link to a site from a Christian ministry on "same sex attraction" which provides a critique of the Kinsey 10% figure and adumbrates the various recent studies showing a 3 to 4% rate in the population. Here is a link to a similar adumbration of population estimates from the San Francisco Public Library. And sociological article suggests that the way to gin up a larger population of "homosexuals" is to include "heteros" who engage in opportunistic or pure physical sexual activity with complete strangers, but somehow I don't think this is who the Democratic Party is trying to recruit as its delegates.

Note also that in most studies, the percentage of female homosexuals is a fraction - 10% or 50% - of the male homosexual population. And, yet, the California Democratic Party charmingly insists upon procrustian equality among these two very different populations.

The California Democratic Party is obviously engaging in ideological fiction. Moreover, it is a pernicious fiction since it creates a "rotten borough" phenomenon which results in the anti-democratic over-representation of an privileged minority.

Another bit of stereotyping, which, honestly, set my teeth on edge is this silly bit offering "wedding advice to soon to be married gays and lesbians." Part of what set my teeth on edge was the breathlessly triumphalistic tone to what is essentially a droit de seigneur committed on the very idea of democracy. The other part was the tacit assumption that gays have been denied the right to be married and, therefore, as a class are totally without experience in the event we call a marriage.

This is obviously silly. I would be willing to bet that all gays know someone who was married, such as, perhaps, their parents. They may actually have participated in a marriage by invitation or in some official function.

Why they may even have been married themselves! I'm from Fresno, but when I run through a mental list of closeted and open gays I have known it seems that most of them are divorced. Gosh, many even had children before they realized that their quest for self-realization required that they dump the old ball and chain and pick up with a - generally younger - significant other who is better able to identify with their needs because they share a common chromosomal pattern.

In other words, the idea that a hetero like Scalzi has to explain to gays how marriage works is simply more pernicious fiction.

I'll concede one point to Scalzi - marriage is hard work. Marriage is hard work even when the basis of one's marriage is the self surrender - the laying down of one's life for another - which comes when two people who are fundamentally different in physical form, function and genetics come together to complete themselves in the other. Marriage is hard even when the marriage has the ultimate purpose - the teleology - of being open to new life, and even when the introduction of new life brings with it the very lessons on sacrifice, patience and love which can provide the grace to preserve the marriage.

I'm not so sure that marriage conceived as a product of self-identification and self-worth is necessarily hard. It sounds like it's convenient and can be ignored or discarded when it stops being convenient or is percieved as standing in the way of growth, or, in other words, when it requires sacrifice and abnegation.

At least that's what the the European statistics on gay divorce are indicate.

Update: That didn't take long. The Boston Herald has this telling quote from a gent who was among the first to get "hitched" (and why does the Herald descend into such a colloquialism, particularly when "getting hitched" is precisely what this man says is not happening?):

Yarbrough, a part-time bartender who plans to wear leather pants, tuxedo shirt, and leather vest during the half-hour ceremony, has gotten hitched to Rogahn, a retired school superintendent, first in a civil commitment in Minnesota, then in Canada, and now in Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to recognize gay marriage.

But he says the concept of forever is``overrated'' and that he, as a bisexual, and Rogahn, who is gay, have chosen to enjoy an open marriage. ``I think it's possible to love more than one person and have more than one partner, not in the polygamist sense,'' he said.``In our case, it is, we have, an open marriage.''

But, hey, even if it's not "forever" and involves enjoying an "open marriage," at least Mr. Yarbrough gets to wear leather pants.

X-Prize Alert

Instapundit links to a story where the Burt Rutan's Mojave facility is getting certified as a "spaceport." I was at the Scaled Composite site when I represented Burt and Scaled. Seems like it was the 15th Warehouse at a wide spot on the road. Spaceport, indeed.

This is like something out of Robert Heinlein.

Cool.

Disinformation Alert.

Instapundit posts on (a) the attempt by some element to pass porn off as American soldiers raping an Iraqi woman, (b) the Boston Globe's gullibility in accepting the picturs at face value and (c) the Globe's failure to acknowledge that the pictures were fraudulent. Once again the Blogosphere proves its value as keen eyed bloggers noticed the discrepancies in the pictures almost a week before the Globe.

Which proves one thing - those bloggers sure know their porn.

Update: Ombudsgod is on the story also. One commenter observes that the Globe missed the opportunity to warn its readers of the fake atrocity charges, which would have been news and a public service.

Ok, I'll play. Why didn't the Globe warn its readers?

Things like this are the reason I've cancelled my subscription to the Bee. First, I don't need the paper. Second, I don't trust a "univocal" source of news.

Significant Interest in Murder of Nick Berg.

I am getting an explosion of hits from search engines looking for some variant on "beheading + nick + berg" and occasionally "+ videos." I received nowhere near this activity on the Abu Ghraib prisoner issue.

What does it mean? Does it mean that there is a deeper interest about the murder of an American than there was in the prisoner abuse issue? Is it just folks looking for pictures to feed their prurient interest? Is it an expression of a legitimate interest in information because of self-censorship by the media?

Interesting.

Update: Instapundit is reporting that the Nick Berg story is topping the charts on the internet search engines. He's ascribing this interest to the media marginalizing itself in its selection of news stories.

That was one of my theories, which , frankly, was informed by George Stiegler's theory of the economics of the media. Stiegler thought that the media essentially reflects the consumer choices of the audience. Under this theory, the media is not satisfying the "pent up demand" of Americans for information that is pertinent to them, namely the atrocity committed against a fellow countryman.

On the other hand, and to be honest, my intuition is that the observation of one of my commenters is correct and that most of the internet searches may be motivated by a twisted prurient interest.

Which is really sad.

I suppose I should start worrying when this looks like a good idea.

Crimlaw introduces the web site for Women Behind Bars.

I suspect that the owner of the website is very serious about the disclaimers on the first page.

Us. v. Them - More news that might provide a rational perspective on Iraq but you probably won't see unless you're in the right place at the right time because the American media is too busy informing us of the isolated acts of individual miscreants.

[Via Opinion Journal.] Reuters reports:

Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq beheaded an American civilian and vowed more killings in revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, an Islamist Web site said Tuesday.

A poor quality videotape on the site showed a man dressed in orange overalls sitting bound on a white plastic chair in a bare room, then on the floor with five masked men behind him.

"My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael... I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah," said the bound man, adding he was from Philadelphia.

After one of the masked men read out a statement, they pushed Berg to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams as one of them sawed his head off with a large knife then held it aloft for the camera.

The leader of Al Quaeda? In Iraq? Jeepers, why do I keep hearing the conventional wisdom that there was no link between Iraq and Al Quaeda?

Obviously, because there is such a link.

It's a good thing that we're holding Congressional inquiries into Abu Ghraib, but we shouldn't forget that there is a war on and who it is that we are fighting.

As Taranto asks, who's going to apologize for this atrocity?

Update: Well, I was out of line. This story is being coverd on Fox and AOL, but the big debate is whether to show the awful video.

Second Update: The Ranting Prof makes the point that the irony of the situation is that the vermin who decapitated Nick Berg are spared from the repercussions of their vile actions because those actions are so gruesome, whereas the far less gruesome acts of Americans get play because, well, they kind of are on the level of a fraternity initiation (or so I'm told.)

The Prof also notes that ABC seems to have some kind of agenda in downplaying the gruesomeness of Berg's murder by describing the murder as "quick."

Amazing.

Abu Ghraib - the story gets worse.

Seymour Hersh has more information on abuses at Abu Ghraib, and new photos, involving soldiers turning, or threatening to release, dogs on prisoners and civilians. Hersh also has some information on what appearst to be a systemmic habit in the Department of Defense of procrastinating in the relese of bad news.

According to Victor Davis Hanson, one of the strengths of the strengths of democracy is the ability of Western systems to correct disfunctions by virtue through self-criticism. I suspect we will see that strength manifested in record time in this hyper-information age. Beyond that we should avoid the modern American tendency to scrupolosity and moral equivalence. There is simply a world of difference between these abuses - and abuses they are - and the abuses which were visited on the Iraqi people prior to 2003.

Update: Some questions are being raised about Seymour Hersh's involvement in this story.

Us v. Them.

Al Sadr aide says female British soldiers may be kept as slaves.

We, on the other hand, will be court-martialling our miscreants before Saddam is ever tried.

"Sin Makes You Stupid."

Mark Shea has two very interesting pictures. One featuring a sweet young female soldier making friends with an Iraqi child; the second featuring the same sweet young thing wearing the same grin while standing over a pile of naked Iraqi men.

As the rest of us ponder the question "what the hell were they thinking," Shea's explanation that we shouldn't discount the power of sin may be the best. Shea writes:

The lesson to take away from this is *not*, 'Aha! Now the mask is ripped off the American devil and we see our soldiers for what they *really* are!" We are reminded by our Faith that our sins do not name us. When we see a person's sins we are not seeing who he or she "really" is. We are seeing who they are not. But American political discourse (and our culture in general) takes for granted precisely the opposite: a person's good qualities are the facade. His sins reveal the ugly reality of who he "really" is--supposedly. It is one of the many places where the gospel directly contradicts us and, therefore, we live in anger and fear.

What this girl--and our culture--needs is, quite simply, Jesus Christ. Being American and being military do not save us from sin. Being "against the terrorists" does not save us from sin. Being conservative does not save us from sin. Even being a communicant in the Catholic Church does not save us from sin. All those things are good. Some of them are necessary. But none of them automatically make us saints. And being a saint by having a living awareness of our great capacity for evil and our desperate need for Jesus to save us from our sins is the doorway into salvation from our sins. That's not anti-American. That's simply Christian.

In short, the "what the hell were they thinking" question may never have a practical answer.

On the other hand, if the problem is the sexual integration of the army, the use of reserves or a breakdown in unit morale, then those things have to be addressed.

Mennonite-Catholic Dialogue.

Or more properly, "Catholic-Mennonite Dialogue" - my blog, my rules.

Continuing one of the essential missions of this blog, which is to focus on all things Mennonite so that Penner, my Mennonite-Canadian law partner, doesn't feel excluded, Ratzingerblog has a post on the status of Mennonite - Catholic dialogues. Ivan Kaufman - which may be one of the "seven sacred Mennonite names - sent along this link to Bridgefolk website focusing on the "movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other's traditions, explore each other's practices, and honor each other's contribution to the mission of Christ's Church."

Bill Cork has a post on Bridgefolk and a link to Ivan Kaufman's story of his conversion to Catholicism from the Mennonite denomination. In his essay, Kaufman observes that "ex-Mennonites" can never really stop being Mennonite and that there is a "love-hate" relationship with the ex-Mennonite's Mennonite past that can't be resolved. This observations confirms what I have seen in interracting with "lapsed Mennonites," many of whom still identify themselves as Mennonites long after they stop going to a Mennonite church.

I guess that Ivan's story proves that it is possible to bridge the gap between the Mennonite tradition and Catholicism. Plus, you get to totally cheese off your family.

How cool is that?

Women in Combat

This is one of those "third rail" issues that will never be seriously considered, but Linda Chavez raises some important questions about the Abu Ghraib incident, to wit, how much of Abu Ghraib can be explained as the foreseeable result of the kinds of thing that can occur when young men in their sexual prime are put in the presence of young women.

From the outset, one of the key questions was "what were these idiots thinking when they photographed their sport?" For me, it was clear that the Abu Ghraib incident did not seem to have a military purpose or, more precisely, that the soldiers involved were not taking their very serious duties seriously. I asked early on "why were any women involved in guarding male prisoners?"

Now we find that the woman soldier in the photos was not assigned to Abu Ghraib, that she was visiting her boyfriend that she is now pregnant.

Chavez nicely summed up the inchoate thoughts that went through my mind when I first saw the picture:

So what does this have to do with those pictures of mistreated prisoners? Take a look at the faces of those soldiers again, especially the female soldiers. They look less like sadists than delinquents. They look like they're showing off at some wild party trying to impress everybody with how "cool" they are. What they are doing is despicable, but they seem totally oblivious.

As despicable as the treatment of the prisoners were, the real issue for America is making sure that we have an effective fighting force. Practical results count, not ideology or abstract theory. Abu Ghraib should be considered as data in assessing whether the integration of the military works.

Jonah Goldberg has a very good point.

Jonah Goldberg ponders the question of why CBS shows pictures of Americans behaving badly, but wouldn't show pictures of atrocities committed against Americans.

Within 48 hours of the 9/11 attacks, the major news networks and leading newspapers were settling on a policy to stop showing images of victims leaping to their death from the World Trade Center. NBC ran one clip of a man plunging to his death, and then admitted it was a mistake. An NBC News v.p. told the New York Times, "Once it was on, we decided not to use it again. It's stunning photography, I understand that, but we felt the image was disturbing."

In fact, post-9/11 coverage illuminates an interesting cultural cleavage in the media. When shocking images might stir Americans to favor war, the Serious Journalists show great restraint. When those images have the opposite effect, the Ted Koppels let it fly.

This is a point I've heard several people make at various times, on the street, at Rotary, whereever. The deep, unvoiced conclusion that people seem to have is that the mainstream media has an agenda and it doesn't include the safety of Americans.

Reformation Now

Donald Sensing reports that the United Methodist Church affirmed by a paper thin margin the offenses that can lead to trial for immorality. Per Sensing:

Offenses that will be chargeable, according to the new paragraph, are: a) immorality, including, but not limited to, not being celibate in singleness or not being faithful in a heterosexual marriage; b) practices declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings, including, but not limited to, being a self-avowed practicing homosexual, or conducting ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions, or performing same-sex wedding ceremonies.

I suspect that this change will have no real effect since it will be circumvented by Bishops and Superintendants who are sympathetic to the homosexual agenda and hostile to conservatives who hold to traditional notions of morality. There has been a scandal in the UMC for a long time where pastors who advocate the enforcement of the Book of Discipline's provisions on, for example, the consecration of homosexual unions find themselves disciplined, while the pastors who officiate at these ceremonies which clearly violate the Book of Discipline are celebrated. Just because additional lines are added to the Book of Discipline doesn't meant that the same technicalities and blatantly unfair kangaroo court procedures are going to stop.

All this goes on while the UMC continues to hemorage membership. The UMC is rapidly becoming an asset-rich, member poor denomination, which probably is a wonderful thing if you are a person with a desire to have an effect on the world.

Michael Williams provides his non-Methodist perspective on the subject.

Abu Ghraib.


Bill Cork at Lincoln and Liberty has read and annotated the Taguba Report - which makes him the only blogger I've seen to do that - and finds that it's a solid, professional report. Some of the conclusions include:

A psychiatrist was brought in to evaluate the specific incidents of abuse; these were determined to be "wanton acts of select soldiers in an unsupervised and dangerous setting. There was a complex interplay of many psychological factors and command insufficiencies."

Despite the poor leadership of the brigade and particular battalions, there were examples of excellent leadership and performance in other brigades. Three individuals are commended for refusing to participate in abuse and for reporting it.

It looks like the system is working.

OK, I give up. Why do hazing incidents always seem to have homoerotic implications?

Dale Franks makes a series of thought provoking points about the Abu Ghraib incident. I absolutely agree with his point that attempts to develope an equivalency between Abu Ghraib and, oh, say capping a two year old girl is stomach-turning. I am, though, really curious about his off-hand comments regarding military culture.

Politically Incorrect.

And I fully reserve the right to distance myself from the over the top sentiments expressed therein, but, dayyum, Aaron's got himself some funny War on Terror recruiting posters.

Update: OK, I didn't understand the subtext for Aaron's posters. It appears that there is some clown named Micah Wright who was trading on his status as a former Army Ranger to turn WW II posters into anti-war propaganda. Only it turns out that Micah was never a Ranger. The dude made up a series of in-depth lies to give his anti-war stance "street credit."

Those lefties can be a sneaky lot, eh?

On the other hand, in this day and age of internet information, why would anyone try a stunt like that? It's as unfathomable as photographing your abuse of prisoners.

Second Update: Proving again that you can be arrogant or stupid, but not at th esame time, it appears that this Micah clown had a hbit of bashing pro-war critics by referring to his non-existent war record.

What a poltroon.

The Da Vinci Code Redux.

Carl Olson at NRO on the Da Vinci Code:

People who will never seriously examine what a 2,000-year-old institution states about what is true or false are voraciously chewing up the fictional fast food of a mediocre novelist from New England as though he had a direct line to the Supreme Intellect of the Universe. Free thinkers and libertines who once believed that marriage was boring and humdrum now think it is the most exciting thing in the world — as long as it's Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene. What gives? Setting aside those who simply want a "good read," I have to conclude that many people have lost their minds. We live in an information age, but this era is arguably the most historically illiterate of any in American history. When people say (and they are saying it), "The Da Vinci Code is the greatest thing I've ever read," you have to wonder: What have they read? Cereal boxes?

"What gives?" "Many people have lost their minds." "The most historically illiterate" era of "any in American history."

Yup. Sounds about right.

"John Kerry's accusations then and now were an injustice that struck at the soul of anyone who served there."

John O'Neil's essay in the WSJ Online is up. An excerpt:

Neither I, nor any man I served with, ever committed any atrocity or war crime in Vietnam. The opposite was the truth. Rather than use excessive force, we suffered casualty after casualty because we chose to refrain from firing rather than risk injuring civilians. More than once, I saw friends die in areas we entered with loudspeakers rather than guns. John Kerry's accusations then and now were an injustice that struck at the soul of anyone who served there.

Another one:

John Kerry's recent admissions caused me to realize that I was most likely in Vietnam dodging enemy rockets on the very day he met in Paris with Madame Binh, the representative of the Viet Cong to the Paris Peace Conference. John Kerry returned to the U.S. to become a national spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a radical fringe of the antiwar movement, an organization set upon propagating the myth of war crimes through demonstrably false assertions. Who was the last American POW to die languishing in a North Vietnamese prison forced to listen to the recorded voice of John Kerry disgracing their service by his dishonest testimony before the Senate?

Perspective on Abu Ghraib.

Victor Davis Hanson offers his view on Abu Ghraib. It must be all the VDH books I've read, but his essay tracks mine down below concerning the counsel of perspective, to wit worse things have happened in prior wars - he notes the killing of prisoners in Sicily in 1943, which I hadn't heard about - and that the feedback system of a free society has already gone into effect. It's certainly a serious issue, but not one that cuts to the core of our mission or our society.

Military Order

Baldilocks observes that the Abu Ghraib fallout is distinctly not in the best of military traditions. She contrasts the behavior of Lt. Colonel West with that of General Karpinski.

I've got to agree that I was wondering how in heaven's name she was allowed to appear on the O'Reilly Factor tonight. Is this a demonstration of a weakness in relying on reservists who, as Gen. Karpinski noted, have civilian careers they can go back to?

Muslim perspective on The Passion.

Alt.Muslim provides a Islamic perspective on the Passion of the Christ, who from the Muslim perspective is a person revered as a great prophet who came to live and teach and most definitely not to die. In fact, according to the Quran, Jesus did not die, as the essay notes:

When asked, a Muslim will tell you that Christ was not sent to die, but, like the prophets before him and Prophet Muhammad after him, he was sent to live and teach. In short, a Muslim would say there is no Christ killer and, therefore, no need to associate anyone with that indictment and no need to cause anyone to fear it. What happened to Jesus at the end of his life was not about violence, but about honor in the face of vehement rejection. God raised His prophet to Himself, thus sparing Jesus of the execution Gibson so graphically detailed and imprinted in the public mind through the very powerful medium of art and culture. This is a view that was also shared among some early Christian sects, like the Basilideans, who believed that Christ himself was never crucified.

I'm not acquainted withe the Basilideans, but, certainly, there were Docetists who preached that a non-suffering Jesus was never actually crucified in the flesh because He was never in the flesh. The existence of such docetic preachings informed the selection of the four gospels which affirm a suffering, physical Jesus.

The Alt.Muslim essay goes on to observe:

Muslims love and revere Jesus, and believe in him as a Prophet and Messenger of God, a great teacher and guide for people. But Muslims do not believe that Jesus was God or the Son of God. Nor do Muslims believe that he was slain on the cross, as some early sects of Christians had once believed. Jesus was sent to the Children of Israel to revive faith and a spiritual connection with God. All the miracles that Jesus performed were indeed true: raising the dead, healing the blind and the leper, and more. These miracles, however, occurred through the auspices of God's power and will, as it was with the splitting of the sea for Moses, Solomon understanding the utterances of animals, and many other suspensions of the natural order. God is the Creator, and when He determines something, He but says to it "Be" and it is! (as the Qur'an states). Muslims venerate Mary, the mother of Jesus. She indeed gave birth to Jesus though she was a virgin. She was a spiritual woman who was chosen among her people to the office of special contemplation and prayer. But Muslims do not hold her to be the "mother of God" and similar attributes. She too was fully human and was a beloved and important person in a remarkable series of miracles in a special time in human history. Every biology and miracle, the explainable and the inexplicable, whether it is the creation of Adam from clay or the conception of any given child of two parents, goes back to God. It is all the same to Him. All of it easy. All of it His.

Which suggests that The Passion might resonate in some areas and fail to resonate in others.

For any of those with a theological inclination, there is a rock-em, sock-em debate in the comments between trinitarian Christians, Muslims and unitarian Christians. Some of the comments - hell, most of the comments - by Muslims display a deep, deep lack of understanding - verging on contempt - of Christian theology and history. Now that is deeply disturbing since those commenters are presumably sufficiently in touch with the internet that they could have learned something about the dominant tradition if they had had any curiousity about the subject. (Albeit I think that "blumoon" aims well and true with his question about the meaning of the Passion.)

Payback Tuesday.

[Via Instapundit.] A majority of John Kerry's Swift Boat fellow officers and sailors are set to declare that Kerry is unfit to serve as Commander in Chief in their opinion. Actually, that should be an overwhelming majority.

This has got to show a real problem for Kerry. There has to be a vast silent population of veterans who are proud of their service in Vietnam. I'm sure that they have long since gotten way past tired of hearing how they were used to accomplish evil ends while brave protesting students in the States courageously fought to support them.

I am also sure that they can spot Kerry for coming off sounding like a complete phony. Comparing a river in Louisiana to those of Vietnam where he spent four months has to take the cake. My father spent more than four months in Vietnam and I have never heard him once compare anything to Vietnam.

Come the election, Kerry may find that his Vietnam record has mobilized the veteran demographic to vote against him.

Atrocities

The conduct outlined in this article by Seymour Hersh about the conduct of American MPs at Abu Ghraib clearly should be investigated and, if such conduct occurred, then the American justice system should deal out appropriate punishment. Balloon-juice has some of the photos and expresses a cri de couer about the dishonor to the uniform he wore. Baldilocks, who is another vet, shares that sentiment.

A little perspective is absolutely necessary at such times:

First, I wouldn't accept at face value the various stories being broadcast. Exaggerating reports of American conduct into "atrocities" is a stock in trade of our adversary media. Notice, for example, that the usual media line of understanding the causes of conduct disappears where it is American conduct that it is at issue. Suppose, for example, that the men who were mistreated were the men who raped Iraqi female prisoners under Saddam and that the MPs thought they were handing out a tit for tat? Would that have an effect on our understanding of the events at Abu Ghraib? It might, but it wouldn't justify those events. Just don't expect such a storyline to make its way through the mainstream media.

Second, it's an unfortunate fact of war that atrocities happen in war, but that doesn't mean that the war is unjust or imprudent. There is also an unfortunate tendency in the American psyche to scrupulosity. Any imperfection or flaw in a project can create a momentum in American politics to abandon the whole project. During World War II, there were several occasions when Allied troops executed Axis POWs. Does this mean that the Allied victory in World War II was unjust or compromised? of course not. Correspondingly, does the Allied victory mean that the execution of German prisoners during World War II was moral or right? Of course not.

Third, there is a difference between democracies and tyrannies in the character of the people they produce. Republics produce a different kind of person than is produced by a dictatorship. Although it is shocking to see pictures of naked prisoners being forced to simulate homosexual sex - and, in particular, to see American female soldiers, who should be particularly sensitive to the subject of rape, appearing to revel in such conduct - there is a world of difference between that conduct and systemmatically running people through meat grinders or of setting up rape rooms to humiliate prisoners and gratify guards. Let's not lose sight of the difference between photographing simulated homosexual sex and institutionalizing rape as a method of social control.

Fourth, there are all kinds of atrocities. I think that we will lose sight of something important if we concede a moral eqivalence between a handful of soldiers lying to a prisoner that wires attached to his genitals will produce electrical shocks and actually attaching such wires. Likewise, there is a world of difference between forcing a man to masturbate and gang-raping the wives of prisoners. Both acts are wrong. Both acts should be punished. But the latter is not in the same universe of evil as the former.

Fifth, notwithstanding suggestion to contrary, this is a matter for the American justice system. Although there is a highly positive emotional reaction that comes from contemplating the idea of turning these cretins over to Iraqi rough justice, we don't want to establish a precedent whereby Iraq would have jurisdiction over our soldiers for friendly fire incidents.

Sixth, I rather suspect that some portion of what happened at Abu Ghraib really is a matter of interrogation. Like it or not, but non-physical coercion is generally viewed by democracies as a "necessary evil." "Non-physical coercion" can include sleep deprivation. Putting aside the charge of a prisoner who was beaten to death - about which charge I am skeptical - the conduct alleged appears to fit into that kind of activity. If this is true, then there really may have been a breakdown in training as Reservists, who normally did not get involved in interrogation, became more enthusiastic about helping out. It wouldn't be the first time that that kind of thing has happened and it's something easily explained by the inherent tendency in human nature toward concupiscence.

Seventh, what the hell were these cretins thinking about photographing their sport? Whatever one thinks about torture as a "necessary evil" one should never lose sight of the fact that torture is evil, however necessary it maybe at various times - and I rather doubt that the torture shown in the pictures was necessary at Abu Ghraib. (Although who knows? Maybe the man standing on the box knew where there was a car bomb set to blow up Iraqi children within the hour) - was necessary.

There is something profoundly wrong, however, when an American soldier - and particularly an American female soldier - think that sexual degradation is something to be commemorated and celebrated. Moreover, the existence of these photos, and their publication, threatens the 99.9999% of American soldiers who recognize the seriousness of the job they were sent to do for their country.

Certainly, that last point is the most salient reason for a swift investigation and immediate reform of the circumstances which led to the circus at Abu Ghraib.

Updates: NRO posts excerpts from a SAS soldier, who was tortured in Abu Ghraib in Gulf War I, which confirms the notion that the photos show a group of undisciplined soldiers involved in screwing around with real people rather than engaging in any serious military behavior. The post also confirms the very real consequences of this "horseplay" for other soldiers.

Also, this NRO article highlights the failure of intelligence and the problems that led to the excesses at Abu Ghraib. It also calls for the sternest punishment of those involved.

So, enough of this "new boss is old boss" and "welcome to your 'liberation'" nonsense. America is a democracy, and as Victor Hanson Davis points out, democracies establish the traditions of oversight and feedback which allow problems like this to be identified and remedied. Also, note that Conservative supporters of the war are calling for justice not cover-up, which says quite a bit about the American character.

Monterey

After my deposition on Friday, I had a very enjoyable evening of pubcrawling with Ith aka Denise and Ninjababe aka April. When it comes to drinking, those girls keep up the reputation of Celts everywhere.

Terry Schiavo Update

The Weekly Standard has the update, which points out the anomaly of the medical malpractice case filed by Michael Schiavo.

Subtle military tactics.

Belmont Club offers an explanation about what's going on in Falujah and how the perpetual round of cease-fires and night attacks may be playing into the Marines goal of extirpating the cells of resistance in Falujah without immolating the general population.

Another example of why armchair generals should leave it to the pros.