Don't get eaten in Florida, Part II

How many times will we see cable news breathlessly reporting,

Terror in the Oceans, Summer of the Shark 200?

ANCHOR

Bob: "Why are the sharks suddenly biting people and killing them in the ocean near busy beaches of all places?

Nancy: "We'll have two marine biologists after this break."


Bull sharks have an undeserved reputation for not killing people.

You hear about the great white, tiger, mako, white tip, and hammerhead. At least the nurse shark has an appropriate name. Only #4 (disregarding common sense, below) could get one of those to turn on you.

Bull sharks aren't friendly neighbors. "They're a critical part of the ecosystem...yadda...yadda." That's all true, but we are part of the food chain allowing them to inhabit the ecosystem.

According to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF) bull sharks are historically responsible for at least 69 unprovoked attacks on humans around the world, 17 of which resulted in fatality. In reality this species is likely responsible for many more, and has been considered by many experts to be the most dangerous shark in the world. It's large size, occurrence in freshwater bodies, and greater abundance in close proximity to numerous human populations in the tropics makes it more of a potential threat than either the white shark or tiger shark. Since the bull shark occurs in numerous Third World regions including Central America, Mexico, India, east and west Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South Pacific Islands, attacks are often not reported. The bull shark is also not as easily identifiable as the white or tiger shark, so is likely responsible for a large percentage of attacks with unidentified culprits.

Note the "occurrence in freshwater bodies," the only shark to do so. Consider where bull sharks live in the ocean.

The bull shark prefers to live in shallow coastal waters less than 100 feet deep (30 m), but ranges from 3-450 feet deep (1-150 m). It commonly enters estuaries, bays, harbors, lagoons, and river mouths. It is the only shark species that readily occurs in freshwater, and apparently can spend long periods of time in such environs. It is not likely that the bull shark's entire life cycle occurs within a freshwater system, however. There is evidence that they can breed in freshwater, but not as regularly as they do in estuarine and marine habitats. Juvenile bull sharks enter low salinity estuaries and lagoons as readily as adults do, and use these shallow areas as nursery grounds. They can also tolerate hypersaline water as high as 53 parts per thousand.

I've seen shots of surfers on the East Coast of Florida circled by bull sharks as the helicopter films, also circling overhead.

Note #4 below:

#1 Avoid swimming near river mouths or other estuaries with turbid waters where bull sharks are known to occur.

#2 Do not swim near schools of fish in inshore areas. These schools are often pursued by large predators.

#3 Be cautious if spearfishing. Bull sharks are known to approach spearfishermen carrying their catch.

#4 Do not duplicate the practices of some television "adventurers" who flagrantly disregard common sense for showboating around sharks while underwater.

Jeremy, who disregarded common sense as a recreational diver, knows everything about bull sharks after that really exciting macho ecotour he paid for.

"Bull sharks have the most fearsome reputation for shark attacks, yet you can flick a hand at them and they will retreat," observed Jeremy.

Jeremy was able to conduct this experiment once and therefore the full range of bull shark behavior had been analyzed for the purposes of selling more dive trips.


The Bull Shark
It lurks in the shallows, even in fresh water. And it loves to kill.

Loves to eat is more like it. Bull sharks are all muscle.

By Douglas McCollam
Posted Wednesday, July 18, 2001, at 12:00 AM PT

On July 6, as 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast waded in about 2 feet of water along Florida's Gulf Islands National Seashore, a 7-foot-long bull shark ambushed him, tearing off his right arm and a chunk of his right leg. The attack came so near to shore that Jessie's uncle and another beachgoer were able to grab the shark and drag it onto land where park rangers shot it, pried its mouth open, and retrieved the severed arm. The boy almost bled to death and lapsed into a coma. Surgeons reattached the limb, and though Jessie is showing signs of coming to, doctors say it's too soon to know if he'll make a full recovery.

...

Less than two months later Thadeus Kubinski, a retired businessman living near Tampa Bay, was attacked by a bull shark when he jumped off his backyard dock into five feet of water. His stunned wife ran to call 911. Kubinski died before help arrived. As I finished this story, the Associated Press reports that a man surfing just down the beach from the scene of the Arbogast attack was bitten while sitting on his board. He was taken to the same hospital, but his condition did not appear serious. The culprit wasn't identified, but the attack fit the bull shark's MO.

The mighty Great White would much rather eat an island seal than slum it at your favorite beach.

The bull shark possesses an indiscriminate palate: It will eat just about anything—other sharks, dolphins, and porpoises. (That stuff about dolphins meaning there aren't sharks around? Forget it.) Compared to their cousins the tiger and blue sharks—whose large, dark, disc of an eye make them such efficient sight hunters—the bull shark is as blind as Magoo. They often hunt in murky waters where visual acuity is less of a factor. Like all sharks, they command a keen sense of smell and can detect erratic movements from long distances. When zeroing in on prey, bulls use either a "bump and bite" technique to investigate the target or a more deadly rush attack where it delivers maximum damage immediately. As its stout build is complemented by disproportionally large jaws and teeth, the bull's bite is a deadly, shredding, vise.

Some day this will be a Trivial Pursuit question or maybe even Final Jeopardy so pay attention.

What animal has the highest testosterone levels?

Surprise, did you guess three-toed sloth? Well, it's the bull shark.

Florida tourist tips from a native, don't let our fauna eat you

Fire Ants are always setting up mounds in my back yard. Ralph Moore takes a dim view of them:

To look at a fire ant, it doesn't seem that scary. It's brown and small, but its bite is ten times bigger. What's worse-- and frequently dangerous-- is the ant's swarming habit. If you find a fire ant mound and brush a stick across its puckered top, thousands of angry ants immediately spill out, biting the air. The only defense is a fast retreat. Those who can't move quickly after inadvertently stepping on a mound -- toddlers, the elderly-- are quickly covered and stung to death. A single mound contains several hundred thousand ants.

While his final statement is true, the actual number of our children and parents consumed by fire ants is not high. Everyone gets bitten - did I mention a huge mound unloaded on me yesterday? - but I've never personally known anyone consumed by fire ants. Even a small child can squash them rubbing with enough vigor, which hundreds of them is sure to produce. Babies would be helpless.


There are fire ants which post guards, warrior ants, atop the plant stalks or long grass they build their nests around. If you disturb the nest, rest assured thousands of fire ants will be manning the towers in a second even if they aren't that particularly nasty kind.


I was playing frisbee golf at Turkey Lake Park in Orlando. A tourist from Europe met me at the first tee. We decided to play along more for someone to run for help if there was a rattlesnake bite than any issues of course crowding. This is frisbee golf after all.

Rattlesnakes, to their credit, won't eat you. Most people are bitten on their hands and arms after consuming alcohol.

Don't step on them and don't grab them by the tail like all the 'trained professionals' on television.

On another occasion I nearly stepped on a large Eastern diamondback rattlesnake at Turkey Lake Park on the ninth fairway. There were many downed limbs after a hurricane made it pretty windy and rainy. Word to the wise, pay attention when you walk fast.

My mind: "stick, stick, weird stick, SNAKE!" At that point I was committed to putting my right foot within a foot or so of its head.

It never raised to strike or rattled. After I skipped past like someone sneaking away in a cartoon, on tiptoes, I turned back once I got to ten feet or so into the clear. Without showing any aggression the rattler continued on its way, which was fine with me. The snake was over five feet long and looked like it had been eating well.

My newly-found European friend asked me about all the large sand mounds around the fifth hole. When I told him fire ants and that he should be careful not to step on the mounds, he said "why?"

As you've read, European conceptions of ants and a Floridian talking about ants must not produce the required survival reaction. I'm doing my public service now for any of you planning on visiting.

Fire Ants won't leave you alone. We are fighting for our property rights, children, the elderly, and small cute furry things. Read about their inflitration into every neighborhood.

The red fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, (invincible stick) live in and around us everywhere and particularly are fond of golf courses and gardens that get plenty of sun. These unwelcome residents came from South America and with the exception of humans have no natural enemies and this explains their ubiquitous presence now throughout most of the South and certainly in South Carolina. A survey conducted in just South Carolina revealed that in the 1990, physicians reported treating 5000 cases of imported fire ant stings on humans. This represented a 14-fold morbidity. In all, there were 27 hospitalizations, one death and 170 cases requiring imported fire ant desensitization by an allergy specialist. Undoubtedly with the growth in ant and human population since 1990 we are talking about a much higher incidence of stings. In fact, in infested areas like Charleston County it is estimated that half of the population will be stung by a fire ant each year.

"gardens that get plenty of sun"

So I'm in my back yard trying to kill this fire ant mound which has grown among my sarracenia plants in my bog garden. I've tried various types of chemical warfare. They seem to use fire ant poison as building material.

I have another approach which is more risky but works if you get lucky. I use a garden hose to flush away the top layers of the nest and some of the first wave of attackers and go after the mound (they dig down and build up) with a probe, hoping to nail the queen or destroy something important. The danger comes when they race up your probe and start biting and stinging your hand, which won't be long.

I needed to get in there and weed. This mound is a good meter across. Keep in mind the amount of underground activity which goes along with that.

So I hit it with water, some hedge clippers, more water, hedge clippers. I tried to let the mound settle down after that. I needed to weed on the other side of the garden about ten feet away. Well, I guess that's a fire ant rally point.

So now both hands, both feet, and the bottom half of my legs are covered in fire ant bites.

The tourist from Europe also asked me if he could swim in Turkey Lake over by some reeds near the course after we finished playing golf? I advised against it. When he heard how big they could get he made a sound like someone punched him in the chest (OUF!)

That would ruin your whole vacation.

France, France, France

Jacques Chirac has been one of the most arrogant and inept leaders I've seen in a long time. Those are the nice things I can say about him.


Speaking of invading France...

Patton was right.

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.

Patton

It is very easy for ignorant people to think that success in war may be gained by the use of some wonderful invention rather than by hard fighting and superior leadership.

Taking the war to the jihadis in Afghanistan and Iraq has certainly proven the latter true.


France, what would we do without your philosophers? I'd love to test it empirically.

Jean-Francois Revel is one we should keep in the publishing control group.



Moving from our allies the French over the Chunnel to the UK. Howdy friend!


Guardian or Monty Python?


It's OK that the Guardian picks on us a little bit. Our own 'loyal' opposition has been known to stretch some analogies or bend some facts. Dick insists criticism comes from the orchestrated right-wing attack machine. "He's a hero for speaking out," and so forth. Steyn's dose of reality:

But give Mr. Durbin credit. Every third-rate hack on every European newspaper can do the Americans-are-Nazis shtick. Amnesty International has already declared Guantanamo the "gulag of our times." But I do believe the senator is the first to compare the U.S. armed forces with the blood-drenched thugs of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. Way to go, Senator. If you had a dime for every crackpot Web site that takes up your thoughtful historical comparison, you would be able to retire to the Caribbean and spend the rest of your days torturing yourself with hot weather and loud music, as well as inappropriately provocative women and insufficient choice of hors d'oeuvre and all the other shameful atrocities at Guantanamo.

Do you remember Stripes?


What kind of training have you been doing soldier?

Wahhabi training, brother!

All were being trained as dias--preachers who would, on graduation, go out to Asia and Africa, as well as Europe and America, to do dawa: run mosques, madrasas and Islamic centres, teach and preach.

Where is the Gandhi of Islam?

Charles Moore of the Daily Telegraph asks the world.

MY FIRST T-SHIRT SLOGAN OBSERVATION SINCE I BEGAN BLOGGING

If you changed one letter of this quote it would make a great T-Shirt

The idea that thes[r]e are divine 007 licences to kill has been explicitly repudiated.

This could prove to be a sticking point when we try to multiculturally blend sharia law in with our English Common Law and U.S. legislative system.

Charles Moore is nobody's dhimmi.

So it must be with Muslims in Britain. In fact, the situation is more serious because we are dealing with a religion, not merely a national aspiration, and the demands of a religion are more absolute than anything else. If fanatics can persuade people that their religion insists that they kill others (and often themselves) in its service, then they will obey. And whereas the IRA, though utterly sadistic and fanatical, kept in mind a political aim which, once achieved, would mean that they need kill no longer, the religious fanatic lacks even this check on his behaviour.

From time to time, perhaps, he will kill for a specific reason - to take power in one country, to drive foreign troops out of another - but, in principle, there is no end to his killing until everyone who does not share his particular version of truth is exterminated.

What strikes one again and again about the reaction of the public authorities, of commentators, of the media, is the terrible lethargy about studying what it is we are up against. We are dealing with an extreme interpretation of one of the great religions of the world.

We flap around, looking for moderates and giving them knighthoods, making placatory noises, putting bits of Islam on to the multi-faith menu in schools, banishing Bibles from hospital beds, trying to criminalise the expression of "religious hatred", blaming George Bush and Tony Blair. But if we do not know the way the faith in question works, its history, its quarrels, its laws and demands, we will not have the faintest chance of distinguishing the true moderate from the fellow-traveller or of bearing down on the fanaticism.

Read this article as if your life depends on it

I'd like to thank Dave Ray, writer of Bulletproof Dandy, contributor to Little Green Footballs, and Discarded Lies, for bringing this article to my attention. Everyone capable of reading English should read this article.

Terror on the Dole

In the event my arm-twisting didn't work, here are some key excerpts.

Four young British Muslims in their twenties - a social worker, an IT specialist, a security guard and a financial adviser - occupy a table at a fast-food chicken restaurant in Luton. Perched on their plastic chairs, wolfing down their dinner, they seem just ordinary young men. Yet out of their mouths pour heated words of revolution.

"As far as I'm concerned, when they bomb London, the bigger the better," says Abdul Haq, the social worker. "I know it's going to happen because Sheikh bin Laden said so. Like Bali, like Turkey, like Madrid - I pray for it, I look forward to the day."


...But Sayful and his friends laugh at the idea that they are local pariahs. "The mosques say one thing to the public, and something else to us. Let's just say that the face you see and the face we see are two different faces," says Abdul Haq. "Believe me," adds Musa, "behind closed doors, there are no moderate Muslims."

They also mock the idea that they are attracted to al-Muhajiroun because they have suffered alienation from white society. "Do we look like scum?" they ask. "Do we look illiterate?"

As they call for the bill, Abu Malaahim flicks open his 3G mobile phone and, with a satisfied grin, displays the image, downloaded from the internet, of an American Humvee burning in Iraq.

Abu Yusuf says: "That's nothing. I downloaded the picture of the four burnt Americans hanging from the bridge." It's oneupmanship, al-Muhajiroun style.

Sayful, the only married one in the group, prepares to go home to his wife and children. Before he departs, he says he has a message to deliver.

"I want to warn that the police raids - if repeated - could create a bad situation.

"Islam is not like Christianity, where they turn the other cheek. If they raid our homes, it could lead to the covenant of security being broken.

"Islam allows us to retaliate. That would include" - he tugs his "Jihad" coat tight against the night air - "by violent means."

The Left forced this moderate into the Republican Party

Recently the New York Times published a piece which suggests social conservatism or liberalism (best termed the Left to avoid confusion with real liberalism) is determined genetically. Where does that leave me? I'm a moderate on social issues. Having taken several political-orientation tests, I always fall in the exact middle socially with a slight tendency to libertarianism when considering the role of government in society.

Abortion:

Women should have a limited right to abortion. I do not believe late-term elective abortion is anything but early infanticide. I was born premature, as was my now-deceased son. I was actually more premature, and more underweight than Alexander. Don't tell me a six or seven month fetus is not a human being. I'm living proof that's a crock of feces. Women should have a choice, strictly limited to early pregnancy except under extreme circumstances: horrible birth defects or the life of the mother. "Health" is too broad. Having a baby is unhealthy for women, and has been for the entire breadth of human history.

In the law, no choice is unaffected by when the choice is made. Similary, no rights are unlimited when another party - in this case a potential human life - is directly affected. I read a column in the Telegraph (UK) which suggested that many feminists would support abortion after delivery when the umbilical cord is still attached. That's inhumane, sick, and nothing but an excuse for infanticide. Once you cross the birth barrier, what prevents you from extending abortion out until the end of breast feeding or the child's first words?

Embryonic stem cells:

Are we going to put no limits on human experimentation? Do we really want to allow science to determine the limits on human experimentation without considering the moral questions which arise? Germany, Austria, and Ireland have banned embryonic stem cell research for that reason. Germany and Austria are particularly experienced on the slippery slope of human experimentation. Someone must draw a line somewhere. Wherever that line is drawn will stop science from human experimentaton alleged to be important by some researcher. I don't have the "right" answer to these questions. And I am equally certain, drawing no legal lines is the wrong answer.

Gay marriage:

I don't have a problem with states permitting gay marriage. If it came up for a vote in Florida, I'd vote for it (ending up on the losing side). Pretending there is a penumbra or emanation from the United States Constitution which makes gay marriage a national constitutional right is based on nothing but abusive judicial activism. Given the long history of gay marriage - which is to say, never until recently - social change should follow the democratic process. That means slow, messy, contentious change at the state level. That's democracy.


On these three key issues, the moderate position actually parallels (without being a great fit, granted) the so-called conservative position. Those who would ban all abortion, permit no stem cell research, or pass a constitutional amendment precluding any gay marriage, I oppose.

In a nutshell, my views don't parallel the extreme Left or extreme Right. I would prefer both sides tone down the rhetoric and start asking the hard questions instead of trying to score political points.

BOTTOM LINE: Given the wash on social issues, I'm a foreign policy voter.

That leaves me with Pelosi, Durbin, Kennedy, Kerry, Conyers, Lee, Rangel, McKinney, (Pat Buchannan), and Dean on the Democratic (anti-war) side of the coin. If modern history shows us anything, and it does, it shows us that the extreme Left and extreme Right consistently oppose the U.S. military and always end up on the wrong side of history: supporting terrorists, fascists, Communists, theocrats, thugs, despots, and those who would destroy our constitutional republic.

Until the Democrats get serious about foreign policy, they cannot expect to gain any traction with their extreme views on social issues. This is why Demorcatic rhetoric gets more shrill and divorced from reality. Only by misrepresenting the mainstream Republican positions on social issues can the Democrats hope to gain any political traction on the Heartland Street. So far, they've managed to make themselves look like defeatist, anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, totalitarian, radical, secular fundamentalists.

It would not be unfair to say the leadership of the Democratic Party supports the global Islamic jihad against the United States. The Nazi, Left, Islamist coalition is alive and well in the Democratic Party.

If GWB had one half the rhetorical skills of a Reagan or Clinton, or their understanding of the bully pulpit, the Democratic Party would be on the ropes and hoping for the bell to ring.

The America First Anti-War Coalition

America First:
the Anti-War Movement, Charles Lindbergh
and the Second World War, 1940-1941

David Gordon

The America First Committee initially had seemed only the latest and most extreme example of isolationist opinion in the United States that had grown up in the 1920s, and which had become stronger during the Great Depression. There had been a widespread belief in America since 1919 that the country had gained nothing out of the First War. That this was not true had little effect. The earliest important anti-war organization, the Keep America Out of War Congress, had been created in 1938 by Socialist Norman Thomas with the help of liberals like John T. Flynn, Oswald Garrison Villard, the former editor of the Nation, and Harry Elmer Barnes, revisionist historian of the First World War.[9] Anti-war organizations on American campuses were similarly led by liberals, Socialists and Communists. The Committee itself had been created by two Yale students. (One, Robert Douglas Stuart Jr., a 24 year old Princeton graduate, and son of the senior vice president of the Quaker Oats Company, was a law student sympathetic with New Deal reforms.[10] The other was Kingman Brewster.[11]) America First therefore appeared neither particularly conservative, nor pro-German. It was not surprising that Thomas and Villard soon joined the executive board.[12]


However, most AFC supporters were neither liberal, nor Socialist. Many simply wanted to stay out of the war. Since many also came from the Midwest, an area never as sensitive to European problems as the east coast, isolationist arguments was soon buttressed by more traditional prejudices against eastern industrial and banking interests. (Almost two-thirds of the Committee’s 850,000 registered supporters would eventually come from the Midwest, mostly from a radius of three hundred miles around Chicago.)[13] Many AFC supporters were certain industry and the banks wanted war for their own profit.[14] Many other supporters were Republicans who flocked to the AFC for partisan political reasons. Still others were covertly pro-German. Some were German-Americans whose sentimental attachments had not been diminished by the crimes of the Nazi regime. Others, whether of German origin or not, were attracted to Hitler’s racism and anti-Semitism.


Midwestern voters had long been suspicious of eastern elites. The building of transcontinental railroads, organized by New York bankers and financed with British capital, had opened new markets for farm produce. Yet dependence on them had also created fear and hatred in many farming states.[15] By the 1890s, the struggle for a “cheap dollar” that would help farmers pay off mortgages, and which led them to support a silver and gold based currency, had brought them into open conflict with New York bankers anxious to preserve a gold standard. William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech had stirred many farming communities. It had done little to advance their cause. Farm fortunes had improved dramatically during the First World War, when J.P Morgan and Company, as official British purchasing agent, had paid inflated prices for Midwest produce. But it was the subsequent collapse of farm prices after 1920 (when the commodity price index fell from 205 that year to 116 in 1921) that was remembered in the decades before Pearl Harbor.[16] The enduring anger this created would provide fertile ground for anti-British and anti-eastern rhetoric.


...


The leaders of the AFC had different political beliefs, but once they decided to work together, they began to sound remarkably alike. Like their supporters in Congress, many believed war hysteria was being created to distract the public from the failures of the New Deal.[24] The second collapse of the economy in 1937, widely regarded as the “Roosevelt depression,” had certainly hurt the president. His prestige was at its lowest during the early part of 1939. Precedent, as well as his failed economic record, had suggested that his second term would be his last. Then came the war crisis, and the revival of his fortunes. Many believed, in the words of John Flynn, that Roosevelt wanted war because he found it a “glorious, magnificent escape from all the insoluble problems of America.”[25]


In order to defeat the president’s pro-British agenda, Committee members insisted the crimes of the western powers were as great as those of Germany. Their arguments usually began with a formulaic denunciation of Hitler, without any serious examination of his actions. This was followed by a detailed catalogue of the sins of the allies.[26] Since the war initially was assumed by AFC spokesmen to be for the preservation of the French and British colonial empires, and not for the democracies themselves, they could claim that Britain and France were as least as great oppressors as Hitler.[27] This argument, however, did not change even when the situation of the democracies became desperate. Thus, Norman Thomas had insisted in 1939 that “French imperialism is … a curse to mankind, and that the anti-German phobia of the French did much to create the Nazi movement.” Yet even after June 1940 he would continue to turn his fury against Britain. Senator Nye in the same period called the British empire “the very acme of reaction … and exploitation.”[28] As late as July of 1941, with the Nazi invasion of Russia already begun, Robert Maynard Hutchins could still write that there were more victims of aggression before1939 than after. These included “populations in Indochina, Africa, the Malay States, and especially, India.” General Hugh Johnson, former director of the National Recovery Act, also insisted that Britain’s sole war aim was “to maintain her dominant Empire position with her own kinsmen (as well as) over black, brown and yellow conquered and subject peoples in three continents.”[29] One AFC pamphlet asked “when Britain is going to release the 30,000 political prisoners in India?“[30] The verdict was clear. The European democracies, tainted by imperialism, were not worth saving. But it took a sly politician like Gerald Nye to strike the appropriate homely note. “The conflict in Europe,” he said, was not “worthy of the sacrifice of one American mule, much less one American son.”[31]


In making these arguments, America Firsters chose to ignore fundamental differences between the western empires and Nazi rule in Europe. Hitler in the first six months of 1940 had overrun six democratic states. He was determined to destroy democracy wherever he found it.[32] His rabid hatred of Jews and Slavs was already having affect in Poland. The Holocaust had not yet begun. But the Polish educated classes were already being systematically destroyed, and Polish schools and universities permanently closed. Jews were being ghettoized in horrific conditions. Anyone interested could have discovered these things. The French and British colonial empires were not democratic. But by the 1930s they had no central or consistent policy of slavery and mass murder. Created in a earlier age uninformed by Wilsonian principles, they were moving, however slowly, towards more democratic government and greater respect for individual human rights.


The most important difference, however, was between the governments of France and Britain themselves, and Nazi Germany. Britain and France (before Vichy) had both valued humanitarian ideals, which, however poorly honored at home and abroad, still assured the fundamental human rights of their citizens. These, combined with a free press, had also come by the 1930s to mitigate the worst excesses of colonialism. It was the British press that had made Gandhi a hero, and allowed his campaigns of passive resistance to succeed. The 1937 Government of India Act had hardly satisfied members of the Congress Party anxious for immediate independence. But it was a step towards democracy and self-government. Hitler’s dictatorship repudiated both democracy and human rights. The Nazi empire was the arena in which Hitler’s master race philosophy was to be put into practice. Censorship prevented the German press from exciting the conscience of the nation. There could never have been a successful passive resistance movement against the Nazis. The inability of members of the AFC to recognize this, especially men like Hutchins of Chicago, and Norman Thomas, is remarkable.


...


The effect of the invasion

[German invasion of the Soviet Union lauched on June 22, 1941 - Operation Barbarossa -- ending in a bloody armored stalemate at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad -- partisans fighting and dying in droves in the German rear areas -- Jews rounded up and executed -- Chip]

was not what the Committee had hoped. Most Americans sympathized with the Soviet Union. German support in the country was further reduced by the desertion of their erstwhile Communist party allies. The Nazis more than ever appeared to most Americans the country’s most dangerous enemy. The invasion also had a bracing effect on Churchill. Up to the last the Soviet Union had supplied Germany with supplies that made the British blockade ineffectual. The invasion had thus not cost Britain a potential ally. It had cost Germany a real one. It also had given England its first major partner in the war since the fall of France. Despite the initial fears of many in Britain and America, Russia did not collapse. The result was that Hitler seemed more vulnerable than ever. American determination to oppose him increased.



The summer of 1941 was a curious time for the AFC. Pro-German elements in the country waited anxiously for Hitler’s blitzkrieg to succeed. The majority of Americans, sympathetic to Russians defending their own country, hoped for a German defeat. America Firsters continued to be troubled by the popular mood. American concern about Britain was now joined with that for Russia. This they feared could only strengthen interventionist forces. That realization, combined with the passage of Lend-Lease, inspired a new tactic. Previously, most AFC propaganda had been directed against Britain, its American friends, and the president. The largely Protestant banking establishment, from J.P. Morgan to the Rockefeller controlled Chase National Bank, had been attacked without charges of bigotry. Roosevelt had always been a legitimate target. The Committee would now attack Jews.[67]


The unstated charge was disloyalty. Since Americans of undivided loyalty, Committee members reasoned, had to see that neutrality was the only rational course for the nation, pro-interventionists had to be working for alien interests. Lindbergh had already suggested this.[68] America First itself had been careful to keep those of divided loyalties out of its own ranks. Neither members of the German-American Bund nor Communists, anxious to oppose war before June 22, had been welcome.[69] Father Charles Coughlin’s Christian Fronters were also discouraged from joining.[70] The Committee was now ready to apply its own high standards to its opponents.


Anti-Semitism was the most inflammatory issue in the isolationist debate. Jews had good reason to hate Hitler. Their loyalty was suspect by some for that very reason. Since most Americans assumed the country was safe from German invasion, American Jews, they concluded, were also safe. Jewish interventionists could therefore be motivated only by a desire to help co-religionists in Europe. To save them, Jews appeared willing to sacrifice American lives. This to many seemed more than just a case of divided loyalties. It was pernicious. The fact that interventionist sentiment was strongest in the traditionally conservative south and southwest, areas of small Jewish population, had done little to change popular belief that Jews were leading the drive for war.[71] (So great was the antipathy for America First in the south, and so complete the consensus in favor of support for Britain, that its few sympathizers had been intimidated into silence.)[72] Interventionist organizations, fearful of being labeled the tools of Jews, had been careful to keep Jewish membership on their governing boards small.[73] The AFC, which since its creation had been careful to avoid appearing anti-Semitic, had the opposite policy. General Wood had been very pleased when Lessing Rosenwald, a member of the Sears, Roebuck board, had joined the executive committee. But Rosenwald had resigned to protest the presence of Henry Ford, and no Jews had been found to take his place.[74] At a time when the Committee was being attacked in much of the press as a tool of Hitler, charges of bigotry had to avoided at all cost.[75] That many American anti-Semites, anxious to avoid fighting Germany, had joined the AFC, made this task more difficult. AFC chapters in the east from the beginning had struggled to keep out Christian Fronters.[76] The Committee leadership was painfully aware they had not always succeeded.[77] Jews in much of the world had become by 1940 a beleaguered minority threatened with mass murder. Most Committee members, as people of conscience, did not want to add to Jewish tribulations. Some AFC supporters had in the past occasionally expressed hostility to Jews.[78] But they had kept these views private. This reticence would now come to an end.


.....


Some AFC supporters had been motivated by humanitarian ideals. Not all interventionists were. Yet in the end those who supported intervention also supported the preservation of democracy and human rights in Europe. Those who opposed war did not. This obvious fact had long troubled some Committee members, including Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas. Although anti-fascist, his Party had never been able to explain how fascism could be eliminated without war.[127] The argument that war would only bring fascism to America had been neither entirely convincing, nor satisfying. It was a problem anti-war supporters of democracy never succeeded in solving.



This moral dilemma was the AFC’s most serious weakness. The Committee’s enemies had been quick to see their advantage. The Chicago Daily News observed that “a crazier coalition was never assembled! Come lately German Nazis and Italian Fascists, Communists, pacifists, professional Anglophobes, Socialists, anti-Semites, rabid partisans who hate Roosevelt more than they hate Hitler, ostrich isolationists and a scattering of timid citizens afraid of they don’t know what - all rally around …to attack and calumniate the United States government in a moment of national crisis. These people, whether they know it or not - and some of them do - are performing Hitler’s work in America.”[128]


It was optimism that fundamentally separated interventionists from America First and its allies. Roosevelt and his supporters believed the safety of the American Republic could only be assured by the destruction of Nazi Germany.[129] They were also certain they could reestablish democracy in Europe. In the end, they would be proven right. But at the end of 1941, they had still failed to convince the American public. America First had been unable to prevent aid to Britain or Russia. Interventionist failure was more serious. By the beginning of December Hitler was at the gates of Moscow. Most Americans were concerned. They were also not going to do anything more about it.


This natural reluctance to go to war without first being attacked prevailed right until Pearl Harbor. Most Americans refused to the last to enter the battle, even against as brutal an enemy as Hitler, if it was primarily for the benefit of others. Even after the Japanese attack, it was only the German declaration of war that brought the United States into the European conflict.



It was only then that America’s moral purpose was fully restored. The nation with few exceptions supported a conflict that began as a struggle against military aggression, and ended as a battle against mass murder. Professor Maynard Kreuger of the University of Chicago had earlier told an anti-war rally that the issues in Europe were more complex than many would admit. “The image of a madman loose on the peaceful world oversimplified the realities of international rivalries and competition for resources.”[130] The professor was wrong. The Committee had always claimed the war was about rival imperialisms, and not simply about Hitler and his Nazi ideology. But it was. The German dictator was a madman, and the empire he hoped to create in Europe would have meant the destruction of all of those political ideals upon which American democracy was based. Interventionists understood this. America Firsters did not.


The optimism and moral vision of interventionists and the Roosevelt administration produced great achievements. The mounting of a massive invasion of Europe was followed by the political and economic reconstruction of much of the continent. It took years, and billions of Marshall Plan dollars, but in the end western Europe emerged solidly democratic and more prosperous than any time in the past. Victory in 1945 had not been complete. It would be almost another fifty years before Communist dictatorship disappeared from the continent. But the war and post-war reconstruction had been a good start. It helped subvert the Soviet Empire by placing successful democratic, capitalist regimes on its border. The Chicago Tribune in 1939 had proclaimed “the frontiers of American democracy are not in Europe, Asia or Africa.”[131] . Interventionists had a more generous vision. In the end, they liberated half a continent.

Any of this seem like deja vu all over again?

They used to get it (a new series based on old historians)

This is a sequel to my post from Living Religions of the World written in 1956.

A few decades earlier Andre Servier made similar astute observations in ISLAM AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MUSULMAN (1924).

“To sum up: the Arab has borrowed everything from other nations, literature, art, science, and even his religious ideas. He has passed it all through the sieve of his own narrow mind, and being incapable of rising to high philosophic conceptions, he has distorted, mutilated and desiccated everything. This destructive influence explains the decadence of Musulman nations and their powerlessness to break away from barbarism…”

...

“Islam is Christianity adapted to Arab mentality, or, more exactly, it is all that the unimaginative brain of a Bedouin, obstinately faithful to ancestral practices, has been able to assimilate of the Christian doctrines. Lacking the gift of imagination, the Bedouin copies, and in copying he distorts the original. Thus Musulman law is only the Roman Code revised and corrected by Arabs; in the same way Musulman science is nothing but Greek science interpreted by the Arab brain; and again, Musulman architecture is merely a distorted imitation of the Byzantine style.”

...

“Islam was not a torch, as has been claimed, but an extinguisher. Conceived in a barbarous brain for the use of a barbarous people, it was—and it remains—incapable of adapting itself to civilization. Wherever it has dominated, it has broken the impulse towards progress and checked the evolution of society.”

Now we have MESA professors, Saudi money tainting everything, lawsuits chasing anyone who dare speak the truth about Islamic theology or history, and dhimmi politicians.

I doubt Servier's book will ever see a reprint.

Must Read: Egyptian Reformer Sayyid Al-Qimni (MEMRI)

MEMRI

In the wake of the recent wave of terrorist bombings in Egypt, the reformist Egyptian writer Sayyid Al-Qimni published an essay in the weekly Roz Al-Yousuf in which he argues that the responsibility for terrorism in Egypt lies not just with the terrorists themselves but also with those who create a cultural atmosphere conducive to terrorism. Thus, in Al-Qimni’s opinion, the fight against terrorism requires combating extremist trends among Muslim clerics and in the Arab media.

...[I could not agree more -- Ed]...

[Al-Qimni:]

"The generator of hatred, revulsion, and cruelty is like a generator of energy; it explodes if internal pressure rises. That is what happens to the poor Muslim when he is exposed to the enormous pressure of the religious people in our country, which is far greater than that to which people of other religions in the world are exposed. While for the Christian it is enough to make the sign of the cross, which only takes one second, the Muslim is required to be a mechanical instrument, performing the same action every day. He is required to go to the mosque five times a day, and is required to constantly read the Koran, and to force himself to weep if he cannot weep, and to spend an entire work day in the mosque. No one can make him work so long as he is reading the Koran and reciting endless supplications and devotions. [Such recitations] accompany his every motion and position, from the moment he gets up at dawn to the moment he retires to the conjugal bed...

"There is a barrier separating the [Muslim's] mind from the real world around him, so that he falls into a state of constant hallucination and, as a result, loses the capacity to distinguish between good and evil. He only recognizes the value of halal and haram [i.e., permissible vs. prohibited] according to the Islamic point of view. Muslims are burdened with many repressive restrictions... Freedom of thought and expression are fenced in by Islamic restrictions ..."

...

Qaradhawi and His Followers Have Appointed Themselves the Deputies of Allah

"When we ask ourselves who is the [real] criminal murderer in the [terrorist]
incident at Al-Azhar, and in those that occurred before it and after it, we are at a loss.(3)

"Is it Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi, the [religious] authority for the Muslim Brotherhood and for their brethren of various sorts? It is he who took a stand against tourism, which is the most secure source of financial income for Egypt...?

"[Al-Qaradhawi] said in a television broadcast on Al-Jazeera: 'They [the reformists] claim that it is in the people's interest to permit prostitution and to permit [the selling of] alcohol so as to encourage tourism.' First of all, this - prostitution and alcohol - is his pretext for declaring tourism to be contrary to Islam.

[Al-Qaradhawi continued,] 'Mecca was also like this [i.e., with prostitution and alcohol], but the Prophet forbade this kind of income and replaced it with another kind of income - jihad for the sake of Allah, in order to gain an income which is greater and better by conquering other countries. And Allah said: 'If you fear poverty, then know that Allah will enrich you from his bounty, [Koran 9:28]' meaning that if you are afraid of suffering dire [financial] straits, the Lord will deliver you from these straits- and in fact Allah enriched them through conquest and spoils.'

"Consider [how Al-Qaradhawi] brazenly attempts to deceive the Muslims and Allah. The substitute, then, [for income from tourism according to Al-Qaradhawi,] jihad in order to conquer the entire world, after tourism is banned from our country...

"Al-Qaradhawi’s position against Egypt is certainly not [merely] his own personal position ... because he is part of a whole band, mostly in Egypt, that constantly repeats the same message. Qaradhawi opines: 'There are [people] who strive to break Islam into pieces. They want it to be an Islam without jihad ... principles of faith without shari'a... and the Koran without the sword. [Islam, however,] is a calling that encompasses all aspects of life, from toilet etiquette to the structure of the state. It provides laws [to govern] man's [life] from birth to death.'

"Naturally, Al-Qaradhawi does not tell us that there is no legal Islamic statement on political matters or on the nature of the regime... However, Al-Qaradhawi and his followers say that political affairs should be under Allah's rule and not under human rule, and since Allah does not rule in person, they have appointed themselves to rule as His deputies.

You should read the whole thing. There's much more.

Al-Qimni takes on Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood), ridiculous rules, Muslim groupthink, the unaccountability of Islamic governance, and the absurdity of replacing tourism with jihad, among other subjects.

Other than providing trenchant analysis, Al-Qimni must be a brave man.

Tropical Storm Update 2007: proposed names

[From the NOAA Weather Station in Pensacola, Florida]

Adolph

Boudica

Caesar

Devil

El Diablo, Elvis (he's the king, baby), Electricity

F#(?-I've-got-nothing-left, Flood, Frankenstein's Bride

Goner, Going-to-move-up-North, Ghost-Towns

ahem

Helena, Harriet

[office closed for repairs until December]

LIVING RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD (1956) - Islam: "a portable theocratic state"

FREDERIC SPIEGELBERG

From Chapter 16: Islam and Sufism

When in the 7th century Mohammed enunciated his creed, he did so to a society existing in a state of primitive consciousness; and one whose environment -- sunscorched, storm-wracked, and unproductive -- was an arduous one. The people who wandered over this land were a savage people united only by tribal alliance, and had no highly-developed system of ethics, social integration, or cultural expression. Mohammed understood them thoroughly, adapted his religion accordingly, and in the space of his lifetime united and transformed these vagrant peoples into an empire, chiefly by forcing them to accept a common loyalty not to the tribe or an individual, but to a national religious community. This was a nation in the Jewish sense of a group of people, rather than of a group of people in a specific geographical area. The transformation was unique; the only empire in history to be totally rooted in a religion. In Islam religion created an empire; in Christianity, an empire adopted a faith and called itself The Holy Roman Empire, which, as the old saw goes, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Whether led by Arabs, Persians, or in later times the Turks, Islam remained essentially all three, a portable theocratic state, much of whose impetus came from the fact that it was portable.

"a portable theocratic state"

Can anyone better define Islam in four words?

Update: Fahd feels like dancing (which is haram)? Zarqawi vacationing in South of France (Iran)? 9/11 TRAVESTY?

That's the problem with basing posts on hypothetical outcomes, or early news stories.


UPDATE: All the people I usually oppose (Communists and fascists) hung together with me and voted down the EU treaty

The Europeans (French) did reject the 500 page Frankenstein submitted for consideration as a constitution. At first I could not believe the narrow poll results which showed opposition.

The French coalition which rejected the constitution will likely not hold together on any other issue in the future.

Apparently there will be a French revote and other states will continue with their votes.

I wonder if the revote will come before or after a reconsideration and renegotiation of the constitution/treaty?

I hear the swarthy Angles and Saxons put too much imperialistic capitalism in the treaty for the majority of the Franks.


UPDATE: The Dutch seem to have voted the treaty down for the right reasons, an interesting European contrast.

[FAST FORWARD]


WALL STREET JOURNAL (excerpt, from LGF's temporary link)

The driving force behind the IFC is Tom Bernstein, the dynamic co-founder of the Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex who made a fortune financing Hollywood movies. But his capital ventures appear to have funded his true calling, the pro bono work he has done his entire adult life -- as an activist lawyer in the human rights movement. He has been a proud member of Human Rights First since it was founded -- as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights -- 27 years ago, and has served as its president for the last 12.

The public has a right to know that it was Mr. Bernstein's organization, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, that filed a lawsuit three months ago against Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was Human Rights First that filed an amicus brief on behalf of alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla, an American citizen who the Justice Department believes is an al Qaeda recruit. It was Human Rights First that has called for a 9/11-style commission to investigate the alleged torture of detainees, complete with budget authority, subpoena power and the ability to demand that witnesses testify under oath.

In fact, the IFC's list of those who are shaping or influencing the content and programming for their Ground Zero exhibit includes a Who's Who of the human rights, Guantanamo-obsessed world:

• Michael Posner, executive director at Human Rights First who is leading the world-wide "Stop Torture Now" campaign focused entirely on the U.S. military. He has stated that Mr. Rumsfeld's refusal to resign in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal is "irresponsible and dishonorable."

• Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, who is pushing IFC organizers for exhibits that showcase how civil liberties in this country have been curtailed since September 11.

• Eric Foner, radical-left history professor at Columbia University who, even as the bodies were being pulled out of a smoldering Ground Zero, wrote, "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House." This is the same man who participated in a "teach-in" at Columbia to protest the Iraq war, during which a colleague exhorted students with, "The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military," and called for "a million Mogadishus." The IFC website has posted Mr. Foner's statement warning that future discussions should not be "overwhelmed" by the IFC's location at the World Trade Center site itself.

• George Soros, billionaire founder of Open Society Institute, the nonprofit foundation that helps fund Human Rights First and is an early contributor to the IFC. Mr. Soros has stated that the pictures of Abu Ghraib "hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself."

This 9/11 committee really could not be worse from the standpoint of balance. We will see this backfire on the Left. Americans view the 9/11 site as a national concern. This might fly in New York, which should know better.


I wonder how much the exhibits will discuss the 1993 WTC bombing, 1996 Saudi bombings, 1998 embassy bombings, or 2000 USS Cole bombing?

Saudi Arabia after Fahd? Zarqawi dead? China ignored?

Saudis blow themselves up in Iraq more than any other nationality.

Who are the suicide bombers of Iraq? By the radicals' account, they are an internationalist brigade of Arabs, with the largest share in the online lists from Saudi Arabia and a significant minority from other countries on Iraq's borders, such as Syria and Kuwait. The roster of the dead on just one extremist Web site reviewed by The Washington Post runs to nearly 250 names, ranging from a 13-year-old Syrian boy said to have died fighting the Americans in Fallujah to the reigning kung fu champion of Jordan, who sneaked off to wage war by telling his family he was going to a tournament.

Among the dead are students of engineering and English, the son of a Moroccan restaurateur and a smattering of Europeanized Arabs. There are also long lists of names about whom nothing more is recorded than a country of origin and the word "martyr."

Some counterterrorism officials are skeptical about relying on information from publicly available Web sites, which they say may be used for disinformation. But other observers of the jihadist Web sites view the lists of the dead "for internal purposes" more than for propaganda, as British researcher Paul Eedle put it. "These are efforts on the part of jihadis to collate deaths. It's like footballers on the Net getting a buzz out of knowing somebody's transferred from Chelsea to Liverpool."

Shahid trading cards are not unheard of.

I would like to remind everyone of the global nature of the jihad, but the centrality of Saudi Arabia to the worst, but not all, of it. Osama Bin Laden, the muscle hijackers, Wahhabi funding spread out all over the world, Jew-hating da'wa, violently anti-American tracts in the mosques. Constant slanders against the morality of those who live in the West.

Yet the so-called 'martyrs' who came to the United States engaged in any debauchery necessary to blend in with the locals. I'm sure going to a strip club and getting drunk was necessary to keep their covers intact.

Wink wink, nudge nudge.

This is convenient taqiyya for a little fun on the side practiced by the Takfir, al-Qaeda, or other Muslims operating as jihad fighters in Dar-al-Harb as opposed to the traditional meaning where Shia are trying to avoid persecution by the Sunni.

Alcohol is prevalent among the Saudi elite. I'm sure the average Saudi prince drinks far more than I do. Now is a good time for a stiff drink for every Saudi prince.

If King Fahd is actually dead, we'll get to see the smooth transition of power in democratic fashion. Women's rights will be respected, hate will no longer be taught in Saudi education or da'wa, and Saudi Arabia will become a model Jeffersonian democracy.

Or not.

Now the 'royals' - practiced in western "debauchery" - must try to walk the fine line between rabid Jew, America, modernity-hating hypocrites in the Saudi ulema, a population which might vote for government by al-Qaeda, democracy (see previous), and those who wish to reform or modernize some Saudi institutions (more than a high school certainly, and hopefully more numerous than Rhode Islanders).

The new leader might have to grapple with a great deal of dissent in the security services and military - all while keeping the oil flowing.



If Zarqawi is dead, I think this should be Zarqawi's legacy, not some Islamist fantasy where he fought the "invaders".

Zarqawi isn't hopeful. He's outraged. And humiliated. Now he's out to make Iraqis pay for choosing freedom and peace over brutalized religion and ethnic fascism.

The terrorists feel betrayed.

So they kill. Poor laborers gathered to beg for part-time work. Women and children. Police recruits. Low-level officials. Students. And any passers-by who get in the way. Simple Muslims slain by "holy martyrs of Islam" in suicide vests. By the fountains of paradise, Mohammed must be weeping.

Such attacks won't win Iraqi hearts and minds. They're not intended to. Allah's self-appointed executioners are simply plunging deeper into their pagan bloodcult. This week's bombings echoed the 9/11 attack on Manhattan. The purpose was to offer human sacrifices to a vengeful, bloodthirsty god.

Now brave American soldiers, in a fire fight, shot him through the lung and killed him.

Good riddance.



Is the long-simmering feud between China and Taiwan, along with French triangulation/perfidy the most important media story which slipped through the cracks?

There is far more coverage of the 'Runaway Bride' than a story of global geopolitics with enormous import.

Soon after the intial French announcement, Chinese officials met with their arch-enemy Taiwanese officials, took pictures, shook hands, made history, and so on. Too much money at stake in the Chinese trade imbalance to fight over Taiwan, hopefully. France comes out looking like France.

I'd like to know if the military posture over the Straits has changed. Do the Chinese plan to target Taiwan with hundreds of offensive missiles over the long term? Any more Wong Way incidents planned for the future?

Negotiating Self-Destruction: Bush Turns to Charm Against Global Jihad

Operation Charm Offensive Towards Islamists (TCS)

So much for the "tiny minority of extremists who hijacked a great religion".

In the past few weeks, the Arab media have been buzzing with shocking news: the West is engaging in open talks with Islamists. While this is not really unexpected coming from the European Union, which has always been quite appeasing with Islamists, it is all the more surprising coming from the Bush administration.

It all really started with reports in the Arab press of a "secret" meeting in Beirut on March 22 between US officials and representatives of terrorist organizations. In attendance: Musa Abu Marzuk, Sami Kheter and Osama Hamdan from the Palestinian Hamas; Nawaf Mousawi from the Lebanese Hizbullah; Ibrahim al Masri and Assad Harmouche from the Lebanese Gamaa Islamiya; and three representatives from the Pakistani Gamaa Islamiya. Eli Lake from the New York Sun is among the only journalists in the US media who has reported at length about this meeting.

At the same time, the European Union was on the same active path of engaging dialogue. At an EU meeting in Luxembourg on April 16 foreign ministers decided it was high time to get into talks with "moderate" Islamists. They regretted that in the past they only dealt with the seculars in the Middle East.

Finally, some Arab newspapers -- including Al Quds al Arabi, TelQuel and At Tajdid -- reported that another "secret" meeting occurred between April 17 and 21 in Marrakech, Morocco, between US officials and members of the Islamist opposition, in particular leaders of the Egyptian and Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Interestingly a passionate debate on Saudi TV Al Arabiya on April 19 -- translated by Proche-Orient.info -- touched on this new dialogue. One of the panelists was the Islamist, Azzam Al-Tamimi, head of The Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London. Tamimi, who took part in that now infamous Beirut meeting, made clear that it was an all-Western initiative. He explained this American change of heart by a new realism: Americans know that in a democratic process, the Islamists will win.

As usual, there's one smart Arab living amongst the jihadis trying to beat sense into the heads of our pointy-headed diplomatic corps.

Indeed, as Rifaat al Said, the President of a leftist opposition Egyptian party, said it: "The moderate Islamists do not exist. To be moderate is to accept the Other. And the very Muslim Brothers' doctrine is based on the non respect of other religions." Said deemed it a major mistake to think -- like Europeans and Americans do -- that democracy in a Muslim country has to go through a "moderate" Islamist power phase.

But don't tell experienced U.S. diplomats or CIA policy wonks how to do their jobs. "Damn the facts, full speed ahead!"

In the face of a growing threat which is bent on our destruction, and rapidly acquiring the means to destroy whole cities, what should the tough-talking Texan do?

Have a meaninful, sharing dialogue with those who want to kill us, silly. The author concludes with the appropriate disdain for this new, 'realistic' approach.

At least, before engaging Islamists, the US should wait that they stop, once and for all, terrorism and lay down arms. By dialoguing with our very own enemies so early in the War, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. The Bush administration is on a very slippery slope: how can you justify speaking with Hamas, Hizbullah and the Muslim Brotherhood? Where is the "We don't negotiate with terrorists."? What kind of credibility will the US have? If on one hand, we are fighting terrorism but on the other we are talking to these very same terrorists…We went from "Shock and Awe" to "Charm and Talk" and thus we just handed ourselves our first defeat in this war.

I'm sure negotiations will improve once another dozen nuclear nations join the "club" with half of them in the Middle East.

/heavy sarcasm

Alexander Locke Johnson

February 17th 2005 - (either April 29, 2005 or May 11, 2005)

My wife reads every comment. We both agreed contributions to the March of Dimes (also the American Cancer Society) as fitting legacies for my son, who never got a chance to experience the vast majority of his potential life.

I did not live blog my son's death. I don't feel comfortable speaking about it now. I know what it feels like to have your best buddy die in your hands, just like the war movies. I didn't realize he was dying. It's still a painful wound. I cry every day. Sometimes I cry until I feel nauseus or my guts ache.

I replay April 29, 2005 in my mind.

My first thought was that my son had epipepsy, after he punched the air. I'd never seen him move his arms like that. It looked uncontrolled or like a spasm. Of course babies move their arms jerkily, but this was clearly different.

Literally within a couple seconds he'd gone limp and his face was blue. I was sitting next to a phone so I called 911 just as I was trying to figure out what was going wrong. I felt my son, white and limp as a dish rag. I tried to give him a breath. Around that time, I think - during times of crisis events get jumbled and I usually remember fragments (not always in order) - I heard the 911 operator and I picked up the phone. I knew Alexander was serious, very serious.

The 911 operator gave me advice to turn Alexander on his stomach. I wasted precious seconds explaining to her that "upside down" in my world meant I had followed her advice (he was on his back) and turned him to facing down. She asked me if there was any blood. Just at that moment - (talk about bizarre coincinces which can toy with your sanity) - there was a small amout of fluid bubbling from his nose. Some of it was breast milk, some was blood. I tried to give my son another couple breaths. I thought his heart wasn't beating, but I wasn't sure and couldn't understand what was going on. I was going between the operator and my son frantically.

"Epilepsy doesn't kill people outright, does it?" I wondered in my head.

Things get very jumbled as the firemen arrived. First, I ran my son out to the truck, stomach down, hoping to get any fluid out of his chest, and in my panic I guess I thought they'd just grab him and run him to the hospital. I wasn't thinking clearly. They brought him inside and used up valuable minutes trying to establish and airway and a heart beat.

In a nutshell, my son died that day. We watched his heart beat and lungs ventilated for almost two more weeks.

I'm wracked with guilt. Not knowing infant CPR very well, not seeing some 'sign', wishing I'd ignored 911 and just done straight CPR (the operator told me not to, did I mention that?), and more as my creative, perfectionist - judgmental conscience finds new ways to make me miserable.

My pediatrician thinks even a crash team would have had trouble given the cause of the event, a severe seizure of the brain. The question is "Why?" We many never know. Test results - and I think we've had all of them - should begin to show up in a couple weeks.

When I can take it I plan on reading every comment here.

For now, I mainly take out my sadness and frustrations on the back yard. I've done two months gardening in about six days. I look at Alexander's pictures, cry, then go to the back yard. That is a typical day. If I'm on the Internet, it's at night, or when I need to get out of the nice, cool Florida Spring days (90 F, 70%+ humidity).

I bump into things even more than usual, commercials with babies can make me cry, I forget where I put something as I put it there. It's a less-than human existence right now.

Someone explain the impossibility of renegotiation

No 'plan B' if French reject EU treaty

Today Mr d'Estaing described renegotiation as "impossible".

"There is absolutely no plan B," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

The French statesman was speaking after a day of confusion at Westminster about the consequences for the Government's plans to hold a referendum here on the constitution in spring next year if France rejects the document in its poll on May 29.

Is it a French tradition to have "no plan B"?

Zhukov, Konev, The Battle of Seelow Heights, Berlin, and Strategic Air Power

Zhukov and Konev

The Soviet offensive into what was to become East Germany (GDR) had two objectives. Because of Stalin's suspicions about the intentions of the Western Allies to hand over territory occupied by them in the post war Soviet zone of occupation, the offensive was to be on a broad front and was to move as rapidly as possible to the west, to meet the Western Allies as far west as possible. But the overriding objective was to capture Berlin. The two were complementary because possession of the zone could not be won quickly unless Berlin was taken. Another consideration was that Berlin itself held useful post war strategic assets, including Adolf Hitler and the German atomic bomb programme[1].

Germany contained useful weapons caches [not cachets], including two kinds of missiles.

One, medium range ballistic: the V-2

Two, cruise: the V-1

Germany pioneered numberous jets and rockets including the Me-262, Komet, and prototypes sparking future advances in the United States (from the X-1 and Panther, to F-22's, drones, and scramjets), Soviet Union, France, England, Sweden, and China to name several.

An Englishman and a German put together jet technology at roughly the same time.

The Battle for Seelow Heights is mostly unknown, but strategically critical and symbolic in a war fought to the bitter end.

The battle of the Oder-Neisse
In the early hours on April 16 the offensive began with a massive bombardment by thousands of artillery pieces, and Katyushas rockets which sustained the barrage for days. Shortly afterwards and well before dawn the 1BF attacked across the Oder. The 1UF attacked across the Neisse before the dawn the same morning. The 1BF was the stronger force but it had the more difficult assignment and was facing the majority of the German forces.

The initial attack by the 1BF was a disaster. Heinrici anticipated the attack and withdrew his defenders from the first line of trenches just before the Soviet artillery obliterated them. The light from 143 searchlights which it was planned would blind the defenders was diffused by the early morning mist and made useful silhouettes of the attacking Soviet formations. The swampy ground proved to be a great hindrance and under a German counter barrage, Soviet casualties were enormous. Frustrated by the slow advance, or on the direct orders of Stalin, Zhukov threw in his reserves, which in his plan were to have been held back to exploit the expected breakthrough. By early evening a Soviet an advance of almost six kilometres had been achieved in some areas, but the German lines remained intact. In the south the attack by the 1UF was keeping to plan. Zhukov was forced to report that the Battle of the Seelow Heights was not going to plan. Stalin to spur Zhukov on told him that he would give Konev permission to wheel his tank armies towards Berlin from the south.

On the second day the 1BF staff were reduced to combing the rear areas for any troops which could be thrown into the battle. The Soviet tactic of using massed attacks was proving more costly than usual. By night fall of April 17 the German front before Zhukov remained unbroken, but only just. To the south Army Group Centre under the command of General Ferdinand Schorner were not proving such a hindrance. IV Panzer Army on the north flank of his formation was falling back under the weight of the 1UF Attack. He kept his two reserve panzer division in the south covering his centre, instead of using them to shore up the IV Panzer Army. This was the turning point in the battle because by nightfall the positions of both the Army Group Vistula and southern sectors of Army Group Centre were becoming untenable. Unless they fell back in line with the IV Panzer Army they faced envelopment. In effect Konev's successful attacks on Schorner's poor defences, to the south of the battle of the Seelow Heights, were unhinging Heinrici's brilliant defence.

On April 18 Both Soviet Fronts made steady progress but Soviet losses were again substantial. By the nightfall the 1BF had reached the third and final German line of defence and the 1UF having captured Forst was preparing to break out into open country.

On April 19 the fourth day the 1BF broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. The remnants of the IX Army which had been holding the heights and the remaining northern flank of the IV Panzer army were in danger of being enveloped by elements of the 1UF, these were the 3rd Guards Army and the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies, which having broken through the IV Panzer Army turned North towards Berlin and the 1BF. Other armies of the 1UF raced west towards the Americans. By the end of the 19th the German Eastern Front line had ceased to exist. All that remained were pockets of resistance. The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high between April 1 and April 19, with over 2,807 tanks lost. During the same period the Allies in the West lost 1,079 tanks.

Much more unnecessary blood was shed, culminating in The Battle of Berlin

Battle of Berlin

The forces available for the city's defense included several divisions of the regular army and Waffen-SS, supplemented by the police, boys in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and the Volkssturm which consisted of elderly men, many of whom had been in the army as young men and some were veterans of World War I.

Berlin's fate was sealed, but the resistance continued. The Soviet advance to the city centre was along some main axis: from the south-east, along the Frankfurter Allee (ending and stopped at the Alexanderplatz); from the south along Sonnen Allee ending north of the Belle Alliance Platz, from the south ending near the Potsdamer Platz and from the north ending near the Reichstag. Reichstag with Moltke bridge, Alexanderplatz and Havel bridges at Spandau were the places were the fighting was heaviest with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The foreign contingents of the SS fought particularly hard because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured.

On April 28 Heinrici rejected Hitler's command to hold Berlin at all costs so he was relieved of his command and replaced by General Kurt Student the next day.

On April 30, as the Soviet forces fought their way into the centre of Berlin, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun and then committed suicide by taking cyanide and shooting himself. General Weidling, defence commandant of Berlin, surrendered the city to the Soviets on May 2.

Dresden was a transportation hub, industrial city, and potential bottleneck to the German war machine. Moreover, it is a cultural center or spiritual hub like Rome, Monte Cassino, St. Augustine, Williamsburg, Paris, Budapest, Istanbul-Constantinople, Cairo, Baghdad, St. Petersburg, Mecca, or Jerusalem.

US Strategic Bombing Survey

THE UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY


Summary Report


(European War)


September 30, 1945

[the conclusion -- Chip]

Of the Future

The air war in Europe was marked by continuous development and evolution. This process did not stop on VE-day; great strides have been made since in machines, weapons, and techniques. No greater or more dangerous mistake could be made than to assume that the same policies and practices that won the war in Europe will be sufficient to win the next one -- if there should be another. The results achieved in Europe will not give the answer to future problems; they should be treated rather as signposts pointing the direction in which such answers may be found.

The great lesson to be learned in the battered towns of England and the ruined cities of Germany is that the best way to win a war is to prevent it from occurring. That must be the ultimate end to which our best efforts are devoted. It has been suggested -- and wisely so -- that this objective is well served by insuring the strength and the security of the United States. The United States was founded and has since lived upon principles of tolerance, freedom, and good will at home and abroad. Strength based on these principles is no threat to world peace. Prevention of war will not come from neglect of strength or lack of foresight or alertness on our part. Those who contemplate evil and aggression find encouragement in such neglect. Hitler relied heavily upon it.

Suggestions for assuring the strength and security of the United States are by no means intended as a recommendation for a race in arms with other nations. Nor do they reflect a lack of confidence in the prospect of international relationships founded upon mutual respect and good will which will themselves be a guarantee against future wars. The development of an intelligent and coordinated approach to American security can and should take place within the framework of the security organization of the United Nations.

In maintaining our strength and our security, the signposts of the war in Europe indicate the directions in which greater assurances may be found. Among these are intelligent long-range

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planning by the armed forces in close and active cooperation with other government agencies, and with the continuous active participation of independent civilian experts in time of peace as well as in war; continuous and active scientific research and technical development on a national scale in time of peace as well as in war; a more adequate and integrated system for the collection and evaluation of intelligence information; that form of organization of the armed forces which clarifies their functional responsibilities and favors a higher degree of coordination and integration in their development, their planning, their intelligence, and their operations; and, finally, in time of peace as well as in war, the highest possible quality and stature of the personnel who are to man the posts within any such organization, whatever its precise form may be -- and in this, quality, not numbers, is the important criterion.

The air has become a highway which has brought within easy access every point on the earth's surface -- a highway to be traveled in peace, and in war, over distances without limit at ever increasing speed. The rapid developments in the European war foreshadow further exploration of its potentialities. Continued development is indicated in the machines and in the weapons which will travel the reaches of this highway. The outstanding significance of the air in modern warfare is recognized by all who participated in the war in Europe or who have had an opportunity to evaluate the results of aerial offensive. These are facts which must govern the place accorded air power in plans for coordination and organization of our resources and skills for national defense.

Speed, range, and striking power of the air weapons of the future, as indicated by the signposts of the war in Europe must -- specifically -- be reckoned with in any plans for increased security and strength. The combination of the atomic bomb with remote-control projectiles of ocean-spanning range stands as a possibility which is awesome and frightful to contemplate.

These are some of the many factors which will confront our national leaders who will have primary responsibility for correctly reading the signposts of the past. It is hoped that the studies of the German war, summarized here, and studies being conducted by the Survey in Japan, will help them in their task.

Dr. Strangelove: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Time to remember some of the classics


Major T.J. "King" Kong

...Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat...


...In them you'll find one .45-caliber automatic, two boxes ammunition, four days' concentrated emergency rations, one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizing pills, one miniature Russian phrase book and Bible, one hundred dollars in rubles, one hundred dollars in gold, five packs of chewing gum, one issue prophylactics, three tubes lipstick, three pair of nylon stockings ... Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas* with all that stuff.

[describing the contents of the emergency survival kit to his men]. [Pickens actually said "... have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff" but his line was looped in post-production because of sensitivity about the Kennedy assassination that had just occurred in Dallas.]

*Should be "Paris", don't you think? That's the only edit I'd make in the whole movie, especially since it's the only dub. This dub, editing, not knighting.


General "Buck" Turgidson

Pres. Muffley: General Turgidson, I find this very difficult to understand. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.

Gen Turgidson: That's right sir. You are the only person authorized to do so. And although I hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like General Ripper exceeded his authority.


...Well I don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip up sir.

The script

Context in this case, an exchange in the War Room between President Muffley, Ambassador DeSadeski, and General Turgidson shows how much study and work Kubrick put in Cold War strategy, and finding the humor in it of course. Notice the U.S. President allowing Soviet Ambassador DeSadeski in to the War Room as a confidence building measure - very useful in avoiding nuclear war - but too late. The strategies are exaggerations but not too different from what went on early in the Cold War. Don't let national identity get in the way of the application to any nuclear standoff. .

[U.S. President] Muffley:

I'm afraid I don't understand something, Alexiy. Is the Premier threatening to explode this if our planes carry out their attack?

[Soviet Ambassador] DeSadeski:

No sir. It is not a thing a sane man would do. The doomsday machine is designed to to trigger itself automatically.

Muffley:

But surely you can disarm it somehow.

DeSadeski:

No. It is designed to explode if any attempt is ever made to untrigger it.

Muffley:

Automatically?

[General] Turgidson:

Ahh.. it's an obvious commie trick, Mr. President.

[walks backwards towards the big board]

We're wasting valuable time.

[falls over backwards and does a somersault, and brings himself back onto his feet]

Look at the big board! They're getting ready to clobber us!

Muffley:

But this is absolute madness, ambassador. Why should you build such a thing?

DeSadeski:

There are those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. And at the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we'd been spending on defense in a single year. But the deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.

Muffley:

This is preposterous. I've never approved of anything like that.

DeSadeski:

Our source was the New York Times.

Muffley:

Dr. Strangelove, do we have anything like that in the works?

[Stains and Turgidson, who have been listening to Muffley and DeSadeski Stains' station at the round table, slowly turn their heads in search of Strangelove.]

Strangelove:

[in wheelchair]

A moment please, Mr. President.

[stomps one foot on the tile floor, pushes back from the table and begins wheeling towards the discussion between Muffley and DeSadeski.]

Under the authority granted me as director of weapons research and development, I commissioned last year a study of this project by the Bland corporation. Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent, for reasons which, at this moment, must be all too obvious.

Muffley:

Then you mean it is possible for them to have built such a thing?

Strangelove:

[carefully plucks cigarette from his shaking right hand, which is in a black glove]

Mr. President, the technology required is easily within the means of even the smallest nuclear power. It requires only the will to do so.

Muffley:

But, how is it possible for this thing to be triggered automatically, and at the same time impossible to untrigger?

Strangelove:

Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the fear to attack. And so, because of the automated and irrevocable decision making process which rules out human meddling, the doomsday machine is terrifying. It's simple to understand. And completely credible, and convincing.

Turgidson:

Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines, Stainsy.

Muffley:

But this is fantastic, Strangelove. How can it be triggered automatically?

Strangelove:

Well, it's remarkably simple to do that. When you merely wish to bury bombs, there is no limit to the size. After that they are connected to a gigantic complex of computers. Now then, a specific and clearly defined set of circumstances, under which the bombs are to be exploded, is programmed into a tape memory bank.

Turgidson:

Strangelove. What kind of a name is that? That ain't no kraut name, is it, Stainsy?

Stains:

He changed it when he became a citizen. It used to be Merkwurkdigliebe.

Turgidson:

Hmm. A kraut, by any other name, huh, Stainsy?

Strangelove:

Yes, but the... whole point of the doomsday machine... is lost... if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?

DeSadeski:

It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.

SS Nazis Don't Cry

I've been surfing into the non-stop History Channel coverage of the SS. Everything from Himmler, Heidrich, Death's Head, to the Waffen SS has its own program. Each hour History Channel airs what footage remains of the roundups and mass murder of the Jews of Europe, among other SS topics.

What strikes me as odd is the complete lack of real remorse or trauma among the remaining SS troopers. I've seen Congressional Medal of Honor winners - among the few who didn't win the award posthumously - break down when describing their time spent on Anzio, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa. CMH winners are not what one would call soft. To win the award a soldier must practically do the work of a whole company of infantry. Often they have been seriously wounded, rescued their comrades under heavy fire, and still had time to kill dozens of the enemy. But these brave American heroes almost always tear up at some point in the interview.

Generally speaking, if a war veteran is willing to talk about the worst experiences of the war at all, the tears will begin to flow at some point.

Having watched at least a dozen interviews with German SS troopers, I've yet to see even one show any sign of emotion or remorse. One, when asked if he would have fired the machine guns used to kill Jewish civilians, thought for a moment and replied "probably yes". He made a face similar to sipping spoiled milk, but nothing more. This man personally witnessed hundreds or thousands of cold-blooded murders.

The soldiers who fought from bunker to cave on Okinawa had more compassion for their Japanese military opponents than the surviving Nazis do today for slaughtering innocent women and children. I'd chalk it up to brainwashing, but it's been almost 60 years.

If one loses or never learned compassion or humanity, can they be regained or discovered later in life? Are we born empty vessels, but filled only once?

Update: experts say "wait"

So we do.

My son shows signs of brain activity beyond what the experts call "brain death". He seems to react minimally to some of the ignominious things the nurses do to him.

Our doctor thinks I witnessed the cause of some unexplained SIDS cases. The only sign anything was wrong was a seizure which consisted of a couple quick arm movements which looked like punches. Having studied my son for two months, I knew something was wrong. Within a couple seconds, his face turned blue. This, I've been told, is a classic symptom of a seizure. Instantaneous bluing of the face is not oxygen deprivation but the brain shutting down the blood flow to the face. The instant I saw blue I picked up the phone within arm's reach and dialed 911. I tried to talk to the 911 operator while giving my son mouth-to-mouth.

It was awful. The EMT's showed up in about fifteen hours (a couple minutes). Before they left the house I heard "full arrest". Nobody should ever have to hear that about their two month old son.

Thank you for all the kind words. I broke down when I read all the wonderful things everyone had to say yesterday.

It figures at least one cowardly worm hiding behind "Anonymous" would stink up the place. Such is the nature of the Internet. I thought it might be worse. Trolls are of such low quality these days.

Please Pray for my Son

My son had a severe seizure two days ago. In the span of ten seconds he went from a healthy two month old baby to fighting for his life. His heart stopped for several minutes before the paramedics could restore his heartbeat. His brain has swollen and the prognosis is doubtful at best. I've never seen anything more frightening or agonizing in my life.

I feel blessed to have had him for two months. If there are miracles, we sure could use one.

Blogkrieg: Operation Spring Closeout Special

I wonder if if the public schools have climbed the magnificent edifice, woken upon the sunrise, skipped over the meadow, flown the kite (um), known the peace and tolerance that Islam represents? Don't make CAIR sue you. If only Robert Spencer could read the Koran in Arabic instead of his dozen English translations. The supreme nuance would turn him from a misunderstander and Islamophobe to someone who submits to the will of God. What could be simpler or better?

Sleep, dhimmi, sleep. It will all be over before you know it.

FYI: Arabic is a strategic language.

I'll believe it when I see it. Help me. I'm being repressed by the bleeding academic collective enforcing its oligarchic intellectual moonbattedness!

Persecution of the Christians

No war for chocolate! Liberate the Languedoc! Wine drinkers for peace! Free the Cathars!

If there is any consistency to France, it is that as a country it can be fickle, ungrateful, and totally self-serving. As Tallyrand is reported to have said, "France does not have friends; France has interests." Fair enough. In the post-WWII days, General Charles de Gaulle made himself sufficiently acerbic and opportunistic that it was considered necessary by the U.S. and Great Britain to humor him. As a consequence France got a piece of the divided Germany, a veto-wielding seat at the new United Nations, and a key role in NATO.

It was considered necessary at the time to award France these concessions despite the fact that it had been a Vichy collaborator (with minor contributions at best toward the Allied victory), because the internal communist movement had grown so strong within France that its post-war government teetered on collapse.

Give it a few decades to percolate.

Tocqueville was initially surprised at how religious Americans are but eventually understood the importance of faith to developing the nation's free institutions. Michael Novak understands how religious the world's Muslims are and discerns in this a potentially viable relationship between Allah and liberty. One only wishes he had done so with a more systematic focus, for at the beginning and end of this meandering book are stirring ideas that encourage hopefulness about democracy's prospects in parts of the world starving for nourishment.

Arab News for the Big Finish! Christians are scary millenarians you see. Two thousand zero zero, party over, oops, out of time.

I know, I know — it seems impossible that such fantastical beliefs could actually have an impact on the policies of a superpower. I used to think so, too — until two years ago, when I went on the Christian Coalition solidarity tour of Israel. It was me (under cover) and 10 evangelicals, all buckled-up for a holiday in End-Times. I ended up (for my sins) sharing a room with Tracey Ammons — the Christian Coalition’s main lobbyist in the Senate. His vision of Middle East peace was simple — and constantly explained at very high volume: “Soon, the Palestinians will be left with nothin’, praise be. Give the Arabs the desert. They like to be Bedouins. They can do that and we’ll be happy — so long as they behave.” Tracey is on first-name terms with every Republican senator. “They are men of God,” he explained. “We pray together all the time. They all agree with me in private that Israel shouldn’t have to negotiate. This is God’s land, and he gave it to the Jews,” he said. We stood at Meggido — the site of Armageddon in the Book of Revelations — and he muttered hungrily: “Soon. Soon.”

Ladies, hug a mullah today.

Christian Coalition Israeli Solidarity Terrorists End World...?