CDR Salamander

For those on the frontline in the war on terror, the antiwar hostility of liberal professors and campus activists will assuredly prove unsettling.

Just ask Marine sergeant Marco Martinez, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a full-time psychology major at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif.

“A woman on campus had apparently learned I might be a Marine. When I told her I was, she said, ‘You’re a disgusting human being, and I hope you rot in hell!’ ”

Indeed, Martinez, who will be the first male in his family to receive a college diploma, says he is receiving more of an education than he bargained for: “There are a lot of people who don’t appreciate military service in college,” Martinez said. “If someone asks me about it, and I think that they’re not too liberal, I might tell them I was in Iraq. But I don’t tell them the full extent of it or anything about the Navy Cross.”

The Navy Cross — as in second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Indeed, as one campus newspaper reported, the rift between young veteran college students and their civilian classmates has left those who have served feeling isolated from campus life, “shunned” because of their service.

Just ask Armand McCormick, 23, a student at the University of Northern Iowa.

While walking to class one day, McCormick stopped to listen to a speaker during an antiwar student rally. When he challenged the protestor’s arguments, the “peace” activist sneered, “The Iraqis don’t want us there. If you think the war is okay, then why don’t you go and serve!”

There was an obvious problem with the protestor’s retort: He had no clue who he was talking to — -Silver Star recipient Marine corporal Armand McCormick.

“I’ve had a few conversations about [the War on Terror] in the liberal classrooms I go to everyday,” said McCormick. “A lot of the time I just look at them and tell them that they don’t have any clue what they’re talking about, because all they do is listen to liberal news. I always tell them, ‘If you don’t experience something, how in the hell can you say what will happen?’ ”

As Corporal McCormick rightly points out, his classmates’ reliance upon the elite mainstream media all but ensures that they are unfamiliar with the jaw-dropping acts of heroism he performed on March 25, 2003, in Ad Diwuniyah, Iraq.

Corporal McCormick was with Captain Chontosh.

As is often the case, if you want to know if you are on the correct side of an issue, look who is on the other side. I feel just fine, thank you.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:48

Bonhoeffer came from a famous family of German physicians, physicists and pianists.

Staunch secularists who preferred waltzes to stained glass, most of his relatives frowned when Bonhoeffer said at 14 that he wanted to be a Lutheran pastor and theologian.

They said the church was a silly and irrelevant choice for a young man of his talent.

"If the church is really what you say it is," Bonhoeffer replied, "then I shall have to reform it."
...
He called for a spiritually liberating "church without walls." He also wrote extensively about ways for Christians to be disciples rather than cosmetic followers of Christ.
...
He was one of a handful of Protestant leaders in Germany who openly fought Adolf Hitler. He was a founder of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, which rejected Hitler's leadership in church affairs.

Few church leaders at that time saw the Nazis for what they were. Germany was recovering from the chaos and Communist agitation of the 1920s. Many in the country's dominant Lutheran Church welcomed what they saw as Hitler's strong, conservative leadership.

Bonhoeffer, however, looked for cause behind effect, and saw darker meanings in the Nazi purpose. When Hitler's followers talked of removing the Old Testament from the Bible because of its "Jewish taint" and discussed limiting baptism to "Aryans," Bonhoeffer was one of the first to thunder from the pulpit about the threat to Christianity.

"I'm a Christian first and foremost, a German second. And I can only hope to God that the two will never oppose each other," he said at the time.

To sound the alarm, Bonhoeffer turned to the strongest tool he had - his sermons. He attacked Hitler in a series of articulate and well-aimed homilies.
...
The Nazis banned Bonhoeffer from preaching in various parts of Germany. Undaunted, he went underground, carrying the message of his anti-Nazi Confessing Church by traveling secretly from one village to the next.
...
Still, the Nazis were on his trail, so Bonhoeffer finally fled to the U.S. in June 1939. He took a lecturer's post at Union Theological Seminary in New York, but soon had second thoughts about exile.

"I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. . I shall have no right to take part in the restoration of Christian life in Germany after the war unless I share the trials of this time with my people," he wrote in a letter to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.

Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in July 1939 knowing it was a one-way mission.
...
Though violence went against his values, Bonhoeffer was equally repelled by what he saw as the "pious pacifism" of church leaders who refused to fight Hitler.

To him it was not pacifism, but cowardice in the face of a dictator who wanted to destroy basic Christian tenets. After agonizing reflection, he decided that Germany's only hope was the removal of Hitler by any means necessary.

Back in Germany, Bonhoeffer kept a low profile. He concentrated his energies on a bigger purpose, throwing himself into secret efforts to help Jews and others escape to Switzerland. He also joined a plot against Hitler organized by German military officers. It was this group that made a failed bid to blow up Hitler in July 1944.

Bonhoeffer knew great risk brings great reward. When his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnany, a fellow anti-Hitler conspirator, suggested Bonhoeffer sign up as a German military intelligence agent to throw the Nazis off his scent, he agreed.

As a figurative agent of grace, Bonhoeffer used his job as a cover. When he was supposed to be spying on the Allies, he actually used the clandestine conversations to spread word about Nazi death camps and the anti-Hitler resistance.

The Gestapo eventually uncovered Bonhoeffer's activities and took him away in 1943. He was imprisoned, first in Buchenwald, and later in the Flossenburg concentration camp in Germany.

Even in peril, Bonhoeffer refused to stop sounding his warning. Throughout his imprisonment, Bonhoeffer continued to write passionately about his beliefs.

He was hanged on personal orders from Hitler a few weeks before Germany surrendered in April 1945.

His last words were a message to his friend, Anglican Bishop George Bell. "This is the end, but for me the beginning of life," he said.

Bonhoeffer was 39 years old.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 04:29

In Vacaville, Toni Colip, 50, said … her son, David opposes Sheehan's activities and has asked her to support his military service even if he is injured or killed.

A caravan proclaiming support for U.S. troops began a tour through California on Monday, stopping in the hometown of Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war mother who gained national prominence during a vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch.
Conservative activists and military families embarked on the tour they call "You don't speak for me, Cindy!" They planned rallies in several California cities before heading to Crawford, Texas.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:22

Of the 11 bloggers who responded from the Left, 2 of them--or 18.2%--had been in the military.

If you just look at the top 12 bloggers from the Right, none of them had served in the U.S. military.

However, of the top 21 bloggers who responded from the Right, 6 of them--or 28.6%--had been in the military.

The further down the TTLB Ecosystem rankings you go among bloggers on the Right, the more likely they will have been to have served in the military. The further up the TTLB Ecosystem Traffic Rankings you go among bloggers on the Left, the more likely they will have been to have served in the military.

So, among the top bloggers on both the Left and Right, only a minority have ever served in the military. Are bloggers on the Left draft-dodging haters of the military? There's no evidence to suggest that. Are bloggers on the Right warmongering chickenhawks eager to send others to war but not face that risk themselves? There is certainly no evidence to suggest that either.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 03:18

As the ramp on our Stryker began to close, I inserted earplugs, pulled a fire-retardant hood over my head, put on my helmet and buckled the chin strap, then pulled the ballistic goggles over my eyes.

Flash burns from bombs are deadly. I've seen it many times: anything exposed is fried in an instant. Skin and flesh just peel off. The super-hot flashes also melt contact lenses to eyeballs before people can blink. Years ago, when I was a jumpmaster, I remember sticking my face outside the aircraft to check surroundings, and my eyelids slapped and flopped in the torrent. That was only about hurricane force winds. The blast in an explosion opens the eyelids, fusing the melted contacts to the eyeballs. Smart soldiers don't wear contacts in combat, but others often do.

I'm wearing fire-retardant pants and a long-sleeved shirt, over which I wear a fire-retardant jumpsuit. I take a long drink of cold water, and pull the hood back up over my mouth and nose, then pull the black, fire-retardant gloves over my hands. The outside temperature is roughly 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sitting to my left is Major David Brown, MD, the Battalion surgeon. I hope Major Brown doesn't get severely injured or killed; we'll definitely need him again. Plus, I like him; he's probably the only soldier who hasn't laughed at all the fire-gear I wear. We both know that the law of averages catches people at the worst times, and survival favors the protected.

A couple minutes later, we leave the base and begin the drive downtown, passing spots where so many car bombs and IEDs have exploded. Within a few blocks, we are 15 seconds from rolling over a large bomb buried under the road.

15 Seconds...

At least two terrorists are watching our approach, pretending to talk to a taxi driver. One holds a Motorola radio transmitter in his pants pocket.

14 Seconds...

13 Seconds...

The bombs are buried under the road ahead of us, on a route to the police station.

12 Seconds...

11 Seconds...

We are in a big Stryker. Usually the IEDs just make the ears ring--I wear earplugs--or maybe knock an air-guard or two unconscious, filling the cabin with so much fine dust that it looks like smoke. I've often wondered if this fine dust sometimes ignites when the armor ruptures, adding to the flashover that burns so many soldiers inside.

10 Seconds...

9 Seconds...

Sometimes IEDs blow through the Stryker, launching it into the air, and critically or fatally injuring the people inside. Odd body parts will often be left unscathed, such as a severed hand in a black glove on the road. About 43 Americans have died here during the past ten days.

8 Seconds...

7 Seconds...

The men are cautiously watching us, still talking among themselves. The transmitter is armed. A push of the button might make the final dispatch.

6 Seconds...

A terrorist is preparing to push the button, but the timing's got to be just right . . . not yet . . . not yet . . . we are almost there. . . .

5 Seconds...

One of the terrorists does a double take at the lead Stryker, blowing his cover. The call instantly goes out to "Block left! Lock 'em down! Two pax!"

When we turn toward them, one man spooks and bolts. I'm watching on the screen [RWS] inside, as SSG Munch, our machine gunner, tracks this man who runs like an antelope. I follow along on the RWS, and think, Why is he running? How is he running that fast?

He's running so fast that it's freaky to watch. The only other person I've seen run that fast was a track star during practice at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Now, watching the machine gun track him was like a video game. Except this video had real men, real bullets, and when your team hits a bomb, you really die. If Munch fires his real .50 caliber machine gun, the guy who is running like the Bionic Man will atomize into a bloody mist, and the wall behind him will be knocked down. Munch doesn't shoot.

The Bionic Terrorist runs into a neighborhood. We take a couple of sharp turns chasing him, driving over a few curbs. Of course, I am thinking, this guy is leading us into a massive ambush.

LT Keneally and his two Strykers are just behind us. The Commander radios Keneally to grab the stripe-shirted guy that was left standing in the traffic circle when the Bionic Terrorist bolted. I looked behind me and said over my shoulder to Dr. Brown: "I bet this is an ambush."

As we follow him into the neighborhood, he turns around mid-stride to see our Stryker with weapons pointing at him, and he caves to the ground. The ramp drops and we all run out. The man is just a cowering heap on the sidewalk. Chris Espindola flex-cuffs him. Meanwhile, I'm wondering what this is really all about, and waiting for the ambush to start. SSG Contrares is scanning rooftops, ready for action.

The Bionic Terrorist seems mentally disturbed. He's poxied with panic, his face contorted by abject terror. Clearly, he is deranged, possibly explaining his prodigious running ability. The enemy is known to use and discard mentally-challenged persons. The poor guy probably doesn't even know what language we speak.

LT Keneally's voice calls over the radio that when they caught the stripe-shirted man they found an IED radio transmitter in his pocket. Before the message is completed, we've started running, leaving our Stryker behind with a few soldiers to watch over the not-so-bionic terrorist. We cover the few hundred yards to the Yarmuk traffic circle, reaching the spot where the two men were standing when the commotion started.

One of the Charlie Company soldiers looked at me and asked, "Isn’t all that shit hot?" "Not really," I said. They all laugh at me for dressing like a fireman. But each layer squeezes ten more seconds between searing heat and my skin.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:15

The U.S.-Canadian military commands responsible for protecting North America from terrorists have changed the names of key readiness exercises to more politically correct words that do not offend American Indians.

U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs have struck the word "warrior" from one major exercise and replaced it with "phantom," according to a July internal message from command headquarters.

"We did change them because of the references to Native Americans," Sgt. Tomassi said. "And the initiative wasn't U.S. or Canadian. It was just NORAD. We are sensitive to such issues. We don't have a professional sports team like the Washington Redskins. But we still are sensitive to the same sorts of issues that those organizations are. When Admiral Keating arrived, the staff was already in progress, saying this was an initiative we wanted to take on, and Admiral Keating embraced it."

Sgt. Tomassi said the word "warrior" often connotes an American Indian, so it was struck.

(NORAD’s) largest exercise to practice those tactics is the twice-yearly Amalgam Warrior, which is scheduled for next April and is now Amalgam Phantom. … And an exercise dubbed "Amalgam Fabric Brave" is now "Amalgam Fabric Dart."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 04:51

Labels: Boomers, Media

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:33

4. My friends laugh out loud when they read Deepak Chopra's posts. But I find the posts deeply spiritual. Is that normal?
It is normal if you're a rich, well-educated but confused individual who finds organized religion too difficult to fit into her schedule and far too demeaning to her ego-driven intellect. While real faith requires sacrifice and a willingness to look outside yourself, "spirituality" alone is internal, ego-based and easy to do. Spirituality without religion is like pretending you won the game without playing. Instead of contemplating God, you contemplate your navel. "And it's an endless, ever-expanding navel," Deepak might say.

[FLASH HUFFPO CORRECTION! In his recent post, Deepak wrote, "Death can be viewed as a total illusion because you are dead already." The Huffpo would like to point out that we are not dead already, even if Bill Maher appears to be.]

I don't know about you, but reading the Huffington Post can be mentally and physically exhausting. I thought it was just me, but after talking to many other people - including assorted medical experts - I have found that even just a moderate exposure to the Huffpo can make you sick!

Scientists maintain we have two timekeeping centers in our brains. Research shows that after reading the blog, these "time centers" no longer match up - and your body's natural (circadian) rhythms are no longer in sync. In medical circles, this is called Huff Lag. And it occurs after reading particularly cumbersome entries in which their conclusions in no way validate the time and effort it took to actually read the posts.

"When you arrive at the end, you are disoriented, groggy and confused," says one expert. "Huff Lag is exactly like jet lag, except you haven't gone anywhere to get it."

“With an irresistible mix of moral relativism and false consciousness, THE HUFFPO GUIDE TO GOOD AND EVIL helps me handle any debate involving terrorism - or any subject dealing with evil!” - Greg Gutfeld, 40, writer, pet owner and part-time Pilates instructor. “Passing judgment is so expensive! This seminar teaches me how to make everything relative - so I don't have to defend my country - or my relatives!”

So far, I've learned so much from Deepak Chopra! Like, when faced with one act of terror, simply equate it to an act of non-terror!

“Why is killing a person in uniform more acceptable than a person in civilian clothing? Who makes the rules about "civilized vs. uncivilized" killing? Can we begin to question these rules?”

Thanks to Deepak, we can pose such questions! But we can't answer them, because there are no answers! As Chopra explains - no one is right, and no one is wrong!

"This is the bias that of course 'we' are good and mostly right while 'they' are bad and mostly wrong. It's on that basis that unacceptable slaughter continues on all sides."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:56

…the eerie silence over the sound was broken by the rolling thunder of Chokai's first eight-inch volley, aimed at Canberra.
On the latter, the sudden shock of gunfire from the north brought the bridge watch into action and Captain Getting to the bridge, but her engagement that night would be swift and violent. Turning northeast to unmask her aft batteries, Canberra was hit some twenty plus times in a matter of five minutes, lost power for her armament and pumps, and was rendered unable to fight with not a single main gun round fired. A single torpedo, fired by the destroyer Bagley, had also hit Canberra.

On Chicago, hints at the presence of enemy ships had been seen earlier but not triggered a response. Captain Bode, in tactical command, was in his cabin, and hurried up. Even as aircraft flares blossomed over the Southern Group, and Canberra started her turn, few on Chicago figured out the facts. Chicago did not get to fire her 203mm guns either, when she began a series of maneuvers undertaken to evade torpedoes. Alas, confusion reigned on her bridge. Captain Bode, who had come up from his cabin, reports came in of torpedoes approaching from starboard. Bode turned his vessel towards that direction, leading his to comb the Japanese torpedo spread. However, moments later, the bridge lookouts spotted torpedoes to port, from on the unengaged side, possibly from the same spread of Bagley that had hit Canberra. Bode swung his ship around again, trying to comb the new thread, but by doing so, exposed the entire length of his ship to the Japanese torpedoes. One slammed in Chicago, crippling her. Slowly, she swung westward (via a southerly heading), out of the battle. Captain Bode, immersed in the plight of his ship, and fighting the damages incurred, ignored his role as task group commander and failed to issue orders to his ships or to inform his superiors of what had happened. Chicago shortly rendered fire support to the destroyer Patterson, which was dueling with Japanese light cruisers Yubari and Tenryu. From Patterson, the only contact report had been made by the Southern Group, issued by Commander Frank Walker via radio at 0146.

Mikawa could allow himself a moment of pleasure when at 0150 the searchlights of three Japanese cruisers snapped on to light the U.S. line up. A moment later, the first salvo left Chokai's gun tubes, and soon the entire Japanese line was firing, with torpedoes added for good measure.
On the U.S. ships, disbelief was the common reaction to the sudden illumination. Captains Riefkohl and Greenman (of Astoria) were certain they faced the Southern Group, accidently assuming their Allies to be the enemy. Soon, however, shells erased all hope that a peaceful conclusion could be found with a radio call or flag hoisting (although Riefkohl tried the latter with curious success lasting several minutes). Riefkohl ordered battle stations and twenty knots, the latter being made impossible by untimely interference from a torpedo from Chokai.
Neither of the three heavy cruisers put up much of a fight, though two salvoes from Quincy slammed into Chokai, destroying a gun turret.
… not later than 0220 that all three U.S. cruisers were reduced to swimming wrecks. There remained little to do for Mikawa, who kept to a new northwest course he had established during the brief engagement with the Northern Force. There, U.S. picket destroyer Ralph Talbot blundered into the Japanese path and was given an unhealthly large dose of fire. Burning and lisiting, only a rain squall at the right time saved the little ship from becoming another victim of Mikawa's. The Admiral, after consulting his staff,decided at shortly before three in the morning to cancel any further attacks and retire at top speed to Rabaul.

Vincennes had slipped under at 0300 already … Thirty minutes past midday, Astoria accompanied Vincennes and Quincy, having already sunk at 0238, down to the ground of Ironbottom Sound.

There is, however, much more blame to spread around than could possibly be laid upon the commanders on the spot. The Allied operations plan was poor. Although the distribution of the forces could not be helped, the fact that there were only two flag officers with the three screening groups necessarily led to command problems. Captain Bode of Chicago can not be considered ill-suited for a task group command, but to control damage control efforts on his ship, designated a new course and general approach to the action for his vessel, worrying about torpedoes and the like, in addition to trying to control the rest of his force proved too much. The dogged skill of the Japanese torpedo men and gunners and the coolness of the Japanese approach added to the completeness of the victory by ascertaining that the initial blows would come out of the dark and be deadly at the same time. The engagement with the Southern Force had been decided in five minutes, and not much more time was needed to deal with the Northern Force, which had a slight advantage of strength, position and alertness over its southern counterpart. This combination of near flawless execution of a well-exercised operation by the Japanese, and the problematic layout of command and control arrangements on the Allied side led to the defeat of Savo; the worst naval defeat ever suffered by the U.S. Navy.

The Butcher's Bill?

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:38

"It was right. It was just. It brought a nasty war to an end earlier than anyone thought. Today Japan is a strong democratic country like one no one would have immagined 60 years ago. That is what the Americans and Japanese bought with their collective blook. The Japanese are a good, strong people, ask anyone who has lived there or worked with them. As in Iraq, more often than not, they are our friends. Glad they are on our side. Anyone that thinks otherwise has an agenda, is historically ignorant, or is just wrong."

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:52

..... an oddball online Greek chorus narrating the conflict in Iraq. ... loosely organized activists, angry contrarians, jolly testosterone fuckups, self-appointed pundits, and would-be poets who call themselves milbloggers, as in military bloggers. Whether posting from inside Iraq on active duty, from noncombat bases around the world, or even from their neighborhoods back home after being discharged - where they can still follow events closely and deliver their often blunt opinions - milbloggers offer an unprecedented real-time real-life window on war and the people who wage it.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:47

France had failed to get the 2012 Olympics because the world now saw it as a nation of perdants - "losers".

For good measure, he described the 35-hour week as "absurd" and the wails of complaint that followed Paris's loss of the Games to London as "pathetic".

"What I wrote was hard, but true. France is not in a crisis, it's worse than that. A crisis is usually sudden and short, while we are in an endemic situation," he said. "I've just had enough and wanted to say what I felt."

In the article, Mr Lévy said the French had only themselves to blame for losing the Olympics, and that the country needed a wake-up call. "We have narrowed and stunted ourselves and we paint ourselves as losers, and no one wants to be among the losers. It's time we opened our eyes wide, took an icy shower and looked reality in the face: we are in decline, going down a slippery slope.

"The Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry has reminded us of our [public] debt and the fact that we are living beyond our means. We knew the figures, yet no government for the last 20 years has wanted to draw a conclusion from them. The figures that attest to our decline are known to all."

He said that unemployment, at more than 10 per cent, was a "cancer that gnawed at our society", complaining that companies had lost their competitiveness and that job creation had broken down.

"In the global economy we give the impression of being a Gaulois village, but unlike those in Astérix, it doesn't make us laugh and it will raise even less of a smile among our children and grandchildren in 20 years' time," he said.
...
"Later, when it was necessary, alas, to make redundancies (fire people during economic slowdown), the compensation was set at 90 per cent, therefore allowing those made redundant to earn yet more without working. Why in that case, make any effort to find a job? In doing this, trying to avoid any difficulties for them, we have turned the French into children.

"The final straw has to be the absurd decision to introduce the 35-hour working week when we were told repeatedly that we could work less and earn more. How on earth in this context can we expect the same French people to accept necessary reforms?"

They (Muslim terrorists) despise us for our decadence, and I feel more and more forced to accept the painful truth that they have a point. I don’t want to exaggerate; there are many things about Britain that are still great. People have shown courage and compassion in response to the bombings, and a restraint that is truly heroic. And the police have discovered and arrested the failed suicide bombers with an efficiency that is anything but decadent.

All the same, it can hardly be denied that with all our celebrated freedom, and all our wealth, we have somehow created a society that is characterised by growing disorder, uncertainty and loss. For a long time now Britain — or rather many of its institutions and traditions — has been suffering from a loss of nerve and a loss of will which amounts to a national moral funk.

And there is a connection between all that and the miserable failure of Britain’s schools; illiteracy here is beyond belief, disruptive behaviour is normal, exams and degrees have been debased and ministers have just had to concede that social mobility — once the pride of British society — has declined in the past 30 years and has actually fallen since Labour came to power. The education secretary has come up with the contemptible sort of gimmick that passes for a political initiative these days; she has promised (at a cost of £27m) to give every baby a book bag, containing volumes like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, to encourage parents to read with their children.

What’s gone wrong in education is a template for what’s gone wrong in other institutions. Hospitals, for instance, are badly run, filthy and in financial trouble, despite all the reforms and all the cash that have been directed at them. Last week, for instance, it emerged that though the NHS desperately needs more doctors, hundreds of junior doctors will find themselves without an NHS job when their contracts end this week; there are not enough jobs for them. The British Medical Association blames this astonishing situation on poor NHS planning.

There’s a thread running though all this and what has been happening to the army. Whatever the rights and wrongs of human rights legislation it is quite clearly horribly wrong to demoralise officers and other ranks with threats of legal action (other than their own courts martial) at a time when they are facing extreme danger in extreme heat in the service of their country. It is not just wrong. It is decadent.

For if we lack the will to defend ourselves, or rather to defend those who are there to defend us, we are simply rolling over and showing to the world’s scavengers and beasts of prey the soft underbelly of decadence.

It takes a long time to react fully to a disaster. After the first shock comes a kind of disbelief. So it has been with the two terrorist attacks in London. It is only slowly that people have begun to recover and come to terms with their feelings and it is only slowly that they begin to reflect on the wider implications. Our perspective and our focus need to be sharpened by time.

One of the things that strikes me more, not less, forcibly as time has passed is the contempt that Muslim extremists feel for us. They despise us for our decadence, and I feel more and more forced to accept the painful truth that they have a point. I don’t want to exaggerate; there are many things about Britain that are still great. People have shown courage and compassion in response to the bombings, and a restraint that is truly heroic. And the police have discovered and arrested the failed suicide bombers with an efficiency that is anything but decadent.

All the same, it can hardly be denied that with all our celebrated freedom, and all our wealth, we have somehow created a society that is characterised by growing disorder, uncertainty and loss. For a long time now Britain — or rather many of its institutions and traditions — has been suffering from a loss of nerve and a loss of will which amounts to a national moral funk.

The results are everywhere, in each day’s news. There is a connection between working-class lager louts looking for a fight and rich kids vomiting and copulating drunkenly in public, both here and on holiday abroad. Standards in public life have fallen very low, whether it’s the prime minister’s wife or a slaggy Hooray Henrietta on a Cornish beach or simply Big Brother.

And there is a connection between all that and the miserable failure of Britain’s schools; illiteracy here is beyond belief, disruptive behaviour is normal, exams and degrees have been debased and ministers have just had to concede that social mobility — once the pride of British society — has declined in the past 30 years and has actually fallen since Labour came to power. The education secretary has come up with the contemptible sort of gimmick that passes for a political initiative these days; she has promised (at a cost of £27m) to give every baby a book bag, containing volumes like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, to encourage parents to read with their children.

What’s gone wrong in education is a template for what’s gone wrong in other institutions. Hospitals, for instance, are badly run, filthy and in financial trouble, despite all the reforms and all the cash that have been directed at them. Last week, for instance, it emerged that though the NHS desperately needs more doctors, hundreds of junior doctors will find themselves without an NHS job when their contracts end this week; there are not enough jobs for them. The British Medical Association blames this astonishing situation on poor NHS planning.

The immigration system is characterised by incompetence that is the same in kind but perhaps even more astonishing in degree; the truth has finally emerged after years of government and evasion. And there can be very little doubt that the failures of the immigration system have created serious and unnecessary social problems here, including a comfortable environment for terrorists.

There’s a thread running though all this and what has been happening to the army. Whatever the rights and wrongs of human rights legislation it is quite clearly horribly wrong to demoralise officers and other ranks with threats of legal action (other than their own courts martial) at a time when they are facing extreme danger in extreme heat in the service of their country. It is not just wrong. It is decadent.

For if we lack the will to defend ourselves, or rather to defend those who are there to defend us, we are simply rolling over and showing to the world’s scavengers and beasts of prey the soft underbelly of decadence.

It has been decadent to let extremist imams preach hatred and violence on the pavements here. These people could perfectly well have been sent to prison under existing legislation concerning incitements to violence or to racial hatred. But somehow the authorities lacked the will or the conviction to do it.

What connects all these things is an unwillingness, which has developed since the Sixties, to stand up for things that matter. I think it began with an unwillingness to reproach our own children. Some of my parents’ generation were very lax with their children; people began to speak of the permissive society. And since then parents (including me) have seemed ever less able, or willing, to control and discipline their children. The very word discipline sounds almost prehistoric and possibly abusive.

Yet without proper discipline from parents, children can never develop self-discipline. And it is on self-discipline and self-restraint that a civilised society rests. With a loss of self-discipline goes a loss of standards of behaviour, a loss of efficiency and a loss of a sense of what matters. There is a very painful tension between instinct and society; that is the tragic discontent of civilisation, repression its painful price. The right balance is hard to find, and harder to maintain. But we can see today in Britain and in the West generally what happens when that balance fails.

I don’t suggest that this loss of conviction affects everyone. Yet it has to be said that almost nobody has really done much to resist what has been done to our institutions and our manners. There has been a long march through the institutions of a nameless and shapeless ideology, misleadingly called political correctness. It is far more important and powerful than that name suggests and it is largely responsible for the long decay of the institutions and has contributed a lot, indirectly, to the decadence I'm talking about.

Multiculturalism, for instance, has been deeply demoralising to all kinds of people in all kinds of ways, undermining their values, undermining a sense of common purpose, above all undermining the confidence of the host country. Even leading multiculturalists now, belatedly, agree on that.

Despite all this, I do, now for the first time, feel a faint glimmer of optimism. One of the responses to the bombings might be a new awareness of what matters most, and how best to defend it. If that means a new sense of purpose and a new sense of conviction, then perhaps some good will have come out of this evil.

Labels: Britain, Culture Wars, Demographics, France, Islam

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:22

The Bush administration's most unheralded foreign policy success -- besides Libya's WMD disarmament and freeing Lebanon from Syria's iron grip -- is the dramatic upswing in U.S.-Indian relations.
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Strong relations with (New) Delhi make sense for many reasons, including energy security and counterterrorism, but, perhaps, for no more important purpose today than balancing China's strategic rise in Asia.

China's emergence onto the world stage as a major regional -- and global -- power will define this century's international political landscape. Fortunately, India and the U.S. are natural, even well-suited, allies in managing and tempering China's ascendance.

India, though still a developing country, has the world's fastest-growing economy (behind China) and the world's 12th-largest, posting an impressive 7 percent growth rate since implementing reforms in the early 1990s.

The U.S. is India's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade topping $18 billion per year. America is also the largest investor in India's economy, and over 40 percent of U.S. temporary work visas go to Indians -- most for the IT sector.

On the security front, after China, India has the largest military in Asia with an armed force of 1.3 million -- not to mention a nuclear arsenal. Concerned about its security environment, Indian defense spending is up by 33 percent. ...some Indians are increasingly wary of Chinese regional intentions. (like) China's security relationship with India's long-standing rival and nuclear neighbor, Pakistan.

China provided significant assistance to Pakistan's conventional, ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs over the years.
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India is also troubled by China's financing of a major port facility at Gwader in western Pakistan. Delhi fears that the Chinese navy will use the strategically located port (near the Persian Gulf) for future Indian Ocean operations.

Equally disturbing is China's robust military buildup -- ... China now has the world's third-largest defense budget (after the U.S. and Russia) at $90 billion per year. ... Beijing has the world's fastest-growing peacetime defense budget. In fact, Beijing recently announced a 13 percent addition to its defense budget, compounding more than a decade of double-digit increases. ... Indian strategists (have) taken careful notice of reports about Beijing building military airfields in southwestern China near India and its presence in nearby Burma -- both far from the Taiwan Strait.
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That likelihood makes it critical that both Delhi and Washington continue to develop an effective partnership for not only addressing regional/global challenges, but for building a strategy for peacefully balancing China's inevitable rise in the international system.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:41

At most, 500,000 American troops are at risk of being deployed to these war theaters at some time. Assume that for each of them some 20 members of the wider family sweat with fear when they hear that a helicopter crashed in Afghanistan or that X number of soldiers or Marines were killed or seriously wounded in Iraq. It implies that no more than 10 million Americans have any real emotional connection to these wars.

The administration and Congress have gone to extraordinary lengths to insulate voters from the money cost of the wars -- to the point even of excluding outlays for them from the regular budget process. Furthermore, they have financed the wars not with taxes but by borrowing abroad.

The strategic shielding of most voters from any emotional or financial sacrifice for these wars cannot but trigger the analogue of what is called "moral hazard" in the context of health insurance, a field in which I've done a lot of scholarly work. There, moral hazard refers to the tendency of well-insured patients to use health care with complete indifference to the cost they visit on others. It has prompted President Bush to advocate health insurance with very high deductibles. But if all but a handful of Americans are completely insulated against the emotional -- and financial -- cost of war, is it not natural to suspect moral hazard will be at work in that context as well?

A policymaking elite whose families and purses are shielded from the sacrifices war entails may rush into it hastily and ill prepared, as surely was the case of the Iraq war

Moral hazard can explain why, in wartime, the TV anchors on the morning and evening shows barely make time to report on the wars, lest the reports displace the silly banter with which they seek to humor their viewers. Do they ever wonder how military families with loved ones in the fray might feel after hearing ever so briefly of mayhem in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Moral hazard also can explain why the general public is so noticeably indifferent to the plight of our troops and their families.

We offer a pittance in disability pay to seriously wounded soldiers who have not served the full 20 years that entitles them to a regular pension. And our legislative representatives make a disgraceful spectacle of themselves bickering over a mere $1 billion or so in added health care spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs -- in a nation with a $13 trillion economy!

Last year kind-hearted folks in New Jersey collected $12,000 at a pancake feed to help stock pantries for financially hard-pressed families of the National Guard. Food pantries for American military families? The state of Illinois now allows taxpayers to donate their tax refunds to such families. For the entire year 2004, slightly more than $400,000 was collected in this way, or 3 cents per capita. It is the equivalent of about 100,000 cups of Starbucks coffee. With a similar program Rhode Island collected about 1 cent per capita. Is this what we mean by "supporting our troops"?

When our son, then a recent Princeton graduate, decided to join the Marine Corps in 2001, I advised him thus: "Do what you must, but be advised that, flourishing rhetoric notwithstanding, this nation will never truly honor your service, and it will condemn you to the bottom of the economic scrap heap should you ever get seriously wounded." The intervening years have not changed my views; they have reaffirmed them.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 15:30

"I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.," he told a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, England. "I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts."
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"What has happened at Guantanamo Bay ... does not represent the will of the American people," PNTBNITB said Saturday. "I'm embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people."
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"I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false," he said Saturday.

For me this man is the perfect negative barometer. If he is on one side of an issue, you can bet the farm the other side is the place to be.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:27