Bye All

For a number of pressing reasons, most of them personal and of no interest to anyone else whatsoever, I have taken the very difficult decision to stop blogging.

When I started this site, it was as a new FSO at the State Department, encouraged by the appearance of two "Republican Underground" FSO sites (The Diplomad, Daily Demarche). As long-time readers know, that project didn't last very long, with the Diplomad shutting down a month after I got up and running and DD shutting down the following Summer.

In any case, by that time I was out of the Department anyway.

After going dark during the horrific transition back to Oregon (you can imagine how stupid one feels when one leaves one year "to go be a diplomat" only to return the next having failed) this site returned with a new look and a new focus.

However, it still must be admitted that its original purpose no longer animates it. And, as a simple soap-box for my personal opinion, I don't really think it adds much of any real value.

The bottom line is that I find the current discourse highly upsetting, the chance for real interaction and debate to be minimal and the effect to be all out of proportion to the effort put into it.

I want to thank all those long-timers who have stayed with me from the beginning as well as everyone else who has stopped by. Your comments made the endeavor worth-while and enjoyable.

I leave you with a few random images that mean a lot to me. Good-bye and good luck.



The Beat. Now THERE was a band.



The Cafe Milano, Berkeley. Never would have graduated without her.



East Croydon Station. Next stop: The Cherry Orchard Pub for a proper pint.



Scottish! Soccer! Hooligan! Weekly! Ah, piss off!!!



Place St-Michel. Let's go to Balzar for lunch, it's only a short walk from here.



Embassy Bogota - The only image on the Web I could find. Believe it or not, I miss the fortress.



Navy Boot. Great Lakes RTC. Not my recruit company, but it could be.



The late Professor Carlton Snow, the best law professor I had. If I could be 10% the lawyer he was, I would be a very good one indeed.



First ever character? His name was Magnus, he was a paladin, he died trying to save one of his companions from a kobold ambush.



There they are on the Max. My reasons for being.

They Don't Make Them Like They Used To

Say what you like about the 68'ers, but they knew how to do the revolutionary violence bit. Sure, he's all about peace and "international law" nowadays and all that standard issue Euro-crap, but back in his day, let me tell you, former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer could really beat the shit out of a "pig".

Check out that form!



Now, sad to say, this spirit has been lost in today's Europe. Student unrest at Paris' most elite universities have caused a number of semi-violent clashes, but somehow the "right never, ever to be fired or to have to face economic reality" just doesn't stir one's soul.

Then, there's the new crop of student revolutionaries.



From the AP caption:

A student who attempted with numerous others to take over the College de France university, near the Sorbonne university in Paris, sits and cries on the street after clashes with riot policemen Monday, March 13, 2006. The French prime minister's vow to press on with a new labor law that has sent students into the streets drew fresh criticism Monday from unions and the opposition Socialists, who said President Jacques Chirac should intervene. The top two unions of high school students called for classroom protests starting Monday. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Is Joschka doing anything right at the moment? Perhaps he can give this girl some pointers on how it's done.

Pathetic.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Conservative Party of Canada

You may recall, if, like me, you have some weird obsession with Canadian politics, that when the former Liberal government gave the green light to participating in force in Afghanistan much time was spent highlighting the "peacekeeping" nature of the mission. For those of you who do not speak Canuck-Liberalese, "peacekeeping" means "patrolling in a secure environment and unlikely to participate in hostilities."

That fact, as well as the sad spectacle of the Canadian media going into over-board 24/7 coverage when three Canadian soldiers were wounded, has led many to question whether or not the Canadians can really handle the mission. After all, the critics noted, the rotation has them landing in some of the real badlands, where then-deployed U.S. troops were in daily contact with the enemy.

As the prospect of Canadian soldiers doing real fighting began to sink in, support in Canada for the mission began to plummet. In fact, a recent highly-publicized poll had support for the mission falling to only 27%.

Then, there was an election.

The new Conservative government, by sharp contrast, did not wring its hands or mouth platitudes about "peacekeeping." Instead, it offered a sober assessment of what was expected of Canada and her armed forces. At first, the sharp change in rhetoric seemed to disorient the public and the press; after all, no one in a very long time had spoken of the armed forces of Canada as a fighting institution.

Then, on Monday, PM Harper arrived in Kandahar to address his troops. Harper said:

You can't lead from the bleachers. I want Canada to be a leader ... A country that really leads, not a country that just follows ... providing leadership on global issues, stepping up to the plate, doing good when good is required.

Support for the Canadian mission in Afghanistan now stands at a solid 55%. As David Frum points out this morning from his Diary over at NRO: Sometimes reminding people of their courage persuades them to live up to it.

Two Reports, You Decide

Two reports of this morning, offered for your consideration. Read closely, then tell me which of the two--given all that we know about the Arabs' tribal culture and long history of extreme sectarian violence, given all the beheadings, hangings and young men pumping their blood-soaked fists around dead bodies, given all the reports from the front we have read since 2003--sounds more true, more the essence of the thing, to you.

1) From Ralph Peters's "Myths of Iraq", courtesy of RealClearPolitics:

During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.

No one with first-hand experience of Iraq would claim the country's in rosy condition, but the situation on the ground is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe. Lurid exaggerations and instant myths obscure real, if difficult, progress.

I left Baghdad more optimistic than I was before this visit. While cynicism, political bias and the pressure of a 24/7 news cycle accelerate a race to the bottom in reporting, there are good reasons to be soberly hopeful about Iraq's future.

2) From CNN's story "Bloody Baghdad, 86 Bodies Found in 30 Hours":

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Authorities said at least 86 bodies were found in the Iraqi capital during a 30-hour period ending midday Tuesday, sparking fears that sectarian reprisal killings are continuing at a grisly pace.

With Iraq's newly elected parliament set to meet Thursday, officials announced a vehicle curfew. Authorities will stop any car or truck in Baghdad between 8 p.m. (noon ET) Wednesday and 4 p.m. (8 a.m.) Thursday.

* * *
The latest wave of killings follows Sunday's string of car bombs in Sadr City, Baghdad's huge Shiite slum, that killed at least 46 people and wounded more than 200 others.

Tell me again how many schools we have built. How many hospitals.

Tell me and I'll tell you the bloody (literally) obvious: these people don't give two goddamns about hospitals, let alone schools. Freed from the dictator's lash, they are eager to settle scores, as it was so shall it ever be. The only thing stopping them are the rifles of our sons and daughters.

Who here would give the lives of their son or daughter to prevent two Stone Age tribes from tearing each other apart?

In the meantime, I propose we send Peters back to Sadr City, except this time without the U.S. Army escort and convoy. Then he can explain to us why, exactly, after three years of occupation the capital city is not secure enough for a Westerner to walk openly in the streets.

But perhaps I'm over-reacting. After all, we all remember how dangerous Berlin and Tokyo were for U.S. troops circa 1948.


UPDATE: The news just keeps getting better! For example, the following story was posted over at NRO's The Corner as evidence that the war is going well:

The interior minister said Tuesday authorities had foiled an al-Qaida plot that would have put hundreds of its men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies as well as the Iraqi government.

A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, in an interview with The Associated Press, said the 421 al-Qaida recruits were one bureaucrat's signature away from acceptance into an Iraqi army battalion whose job is to control the gates and main squares in the Green Zone. The plot was discovered three weeks ago

.
Our entire strategy is premised on "as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." Yet, it appears that the Defense Ministry is shot through with Islamist fanatics.

Imagine my intense surprise at this revelation.

Good-Bye, Maureen, We'll Miss You

Sad news today that one of America's best actresses, Maureen Stapleton, has died today of natural causes at the age of 80.

Stapleton is best known for her amazing Oscar-winning performance as legendary anarchist Emma Goldman in Reds, one of the finest motion pictures ever produced under the modern system.

I've always thought it fitting that Stapleton won in the Best Supporting Actress category (and was nominated other times) because that is what she did best. Rarely the lead herself, Stapleton tended to bring out the best in her co-workers. Would Beatty's Jack Reed have been as good as it was without the strong presence of Stapleton's Goldman? I doubt it.

She will be missed.

Rich Lowry: To Hell With Them Hawks...and What's Wrong With Them

The current issue of National Review's cover piece is by the magazine's editor, Rich Lowry. As the title clearly indicates, Lowry has obviously decided to build upon some the things he has been posting over at the Corner recently. It was about two weeks ago, I think, that Lowry was beginning to report on a growing conservative consensus that, roughly speaking, holds "to hell with the Arabs" and argues for a policy along those lines.

The piece is only available to subscribers, alas. (Of which I am no longer one. Why? Glad you asked. Here is why: despite its historic and flagship importance, National Review is horribly written, rarely interesting, extremely ugly [especially the cover art], has the worst cartoons now in print, has the worst lay-out, and, well, just isn't very good. Compare any issue of TNR to NR. TNR is serious, NR looks like a college Republican publication).

The guys at Powerline, however, do have a bit of the article up on their site. Here is an excerpt of Scott Johnson's review:

Lowry argues that "[e]vents have conspired to knock the supports out from under the Wilsonian aspects of President Bush's foreign policy." He says that Democrats are headed in this direction too, though they haven't been notable supporters of the second of the two elements of the Bush foreign policy that Lowry identifies: (1) treatment of Islamism as an aberrational departure from Islam, a "religion of peace", and (2) wedding this treatment to Wilsonian democratic idealism seeking a democratic transformation of the Middle East.

Borrowing the intellectual framework of Walter Russell Mead, Lowry identifies a trend among conservatives who seek "to detach Bush's Jacksonianism (the hardheaded, somewhat bloody-minded nationalism) from his Wilsonianism (the crusading democratic idealism)." According to Lowry, the "to hell with them" tendency is predicated on "doubts only as the retrospective justification for the war and the war aims themselves became increasingly Wilsonian." Lowry asserts that the "to hell with them" reaction "replicates almost exactly the reaction to Vietnam."

Lowry argues that the kind of war we are fighting in Iraq is "most like a counterinsurgency" and that "[w]e will need more engagement with the Muslim world rather than less, and more perspective rather than less." He credits Bush with having made some mid-course corrections in the direction of realistic elements in his foreign policy. He nevertheless argues that the thrust of the original policy should be preserved: the contention that Islam is a religion of peace, and the push for democratization (Bush's oversimplified rhetoric has disserved him, but "the general orientation is correct").

Well, now we're getting somewhere. The Right needs this debate and badly, if Bush's support is not to ebb away to its bare bones. I suspect that while not represented yet by a national political figure, or even a major figure among the conservative commentators, this tendency is much more wide-spread than most would think. In fact, I'd be willing to bet the farm that a clear majority of what Nixon used to call the "Silent Majority" is strongly in the "to hell with them" camp.

Time will tell, but it's good to see NR kick-starting the overdue conversation.

Meanwhile, the guys at Powerline wonder "Lowry does not identify who the 'to hell with them' hawks are. Whom is this essay about?"

Why, it's about me of course. Duh.