'Stupidest Ever, Downright Criminal'

Michigan's greatest Oriental area student had some unkind words for his, and his planet's, Imperial Master yesterday:

Bush said in a speech on Thursday that he hopes Iraq will be like Israel, a democracy that faces terrorist violence but manages to retain its democratic character: 'In Israel, Bush said, "terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq. ' These words may be the stupidest ones ever uttered by a US president. Given their likely impact on the US war effort in the Middle East, they are downright criminal.

There is a lot more of Don Juan's bellow -- computers and word processing have many crimes against literature to answer for, among them the abolition of brevity -- and we'll get to part of it or all, but the casus bellow is already sufficiently indicated. Everybody instructed knows the general background, so let us begin with a personal word about the bellower.

The jihád careerists and zealots for Zion have been leaving JC alone recently, presumably satisfied to have kept uncongenial Middle Western expertise from contaminating the state of Connecticut and the seminary of Y*l*, but loud noise like this will probably remind them he exists. Not impossibly, it was partially intended to do so: JC is evidently among those who require to be reviled and persecuted for righteousness' sake in order to feel confident that it is indeed Righteousness that makes them do it, not merely a lust for being on TV or some such low motive. JC is not just what US journalists call a "liberal," he's also what they call an "idealist." (Could it be those doom-laden initials?) Well, de gustibus non disputandum and "It's still a free country, ain't it?"

That's enough gossip, let us move on to analyze the Ann Arbor analysis. By way of swift transition we may notice that nobody sane would accuse Prof. Cole of impartial analysis when he makes Palestine the political qibla and commands all other area studies to circumambulate with reverence. That plan is liberal and idealistic insofar as it is not crudely Juan Cole's own friends and narrow sectarian interests that are centralized, but these merits do not constitute impartiality. The jihád carreerists (&c. &c.) account it no merit at all to be vicariously indignant, and plainly they do not even begin to understand any sort of liberalism or idealism that is not out for itself alone the same way neorightism is. Their accounts of why somebody like Prof. Cole should want to smash Western Civilization and go over to evil barbarians like THEM are a constant source of mirth to those who are more aware. It's like listening to the Hottentot theory of physics and chemistry to hear the neocomrades go on, the very starting-point is invisible to them.

Nevertheless, vicarious indignation, though meritorious, is not impartial. The moral dangers of this fact may be passed over for the moment in order to stress the policy dangers, beginning with the danger of getting out of synchronization with those who are selfishly indignant, or vicariously indignant in a different manner from one's own. Specifically, are the inhabitants of the former Iraq, or of Gentile Palestine, or Arabs and Muslims more generally, as upset about George XLIII's verbal stupidity and downright criminality as JC is?

Far be it from me to speak for such persons either, and especially not in the course of scrutinizing vicariousness, yet it seems likely enough that the appointment of the intolerable Tony Blair as Quartet missionary to the heathen might be rather more offensive. It is not, after all, as if the heathen don't know about Mr. Bush's Panglossian notions of the Tel Aviv statelet already. Whereas Mr. Blair is a fresh slap in the face.

If they remember Little Brother's lapse when he referred to his Party's Kiddie Krusade, or so-called GWOT, as a "crusade," and I am quite sure that many of them remember very well, they might reasonably file this latest boo-boo as a second Freudian slip of the same type, an inadvertant dropping of the mask that reveals only what the heathen were quite sure was underneath the mask all along. OF COURSE when Little Brother speaks of "democracy" in the Middle East, he means all the other heathen becoming more like the Israeli heathen; OF COURSE when Little Brother sallies forth against "terrorism" or "extremism," he considers himself divinely commissioned to carry the Cross and try to do down the Crescent as best Big Management can. Amongst THEM, "everybody" "knows" about these things, and they've all known for at least sixty years now. What they all know out there is not entirely accurate, in my judgment, but far more certainly than that, it is not news even in the slightest. If Ann Arbor wants to be suddenly shocked, Ann Arbor may be slightly out of step. Possibly. Perhaps. God knows best.

The US political elite just doesn't get it. Israel is not popular in the Middle East, and it isn't because Middle Easterners are bigots. It is because Israel is coded as the last European colonial presence in the region, an heir to French Algeria, British Egypt, and Dutch Indonesia-- and because the Israelis pugnaciously continue to try to colonize neighboring bits of territory. (This enmity is not inevitable or eternal; in 2002 the Arab League offered full recognition of Israel in return for its going back to 1967 borders, but the Israeli government turned down the offer.) But for the purposes of this analysis it does not really matter why Israel is unpopular. Let us just stipulate that it is. Why would you associate American Iraq with such an unpopular project, if you were trying to do public diplomacy in the region? Bush had just announced a new push to get the American message out to the Muslim world, the day before.

Assuming the final question is real rather than rhetorical, the answer is probably "Because you're a Yalie klutz."

But seriously, has Dr. Cole so completely specialized in study of Area L that he knows nothing at all about Area A? "The US policy elite" have their faults, heaven knows, but it seems unlikely they simply haven't noticed how the Arab heathen feel about the Zionist heathen. "Seems unlikely," my foot! It's just plain wrong, and rather a dumb thing to say. Probably what really works JC up into paroxysms is that the CFR/ISG gentry know about the dislike well enough, but nevertheless don't take it very seriously and of course don't stop liking the Tel Aviv heathendom better themselves. Yet despite that, they have consistently behaved in such a way as to make "even-handed" an insult in the mouth of the chauvinists and faith-crazies, almost as vicious an epithet as "State Department Arabist." When Don Juan writes about the US on an amateur basis, he ought to show people like that a little preliminary respect before disagreeing with them civilly. Instead, he not only makes them out total ignoramuses, he lumps them together with the militant extremism of the Kennebunkport-Crawford Dynasty, as if everybody at the Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings and Foggy Bottom had broken out in cheers upon learning what Little Brother has to say about Zion The Model.

Then comes "Let's take the analogy seriously for a moment," and although there is no doubt that JC thinks he is being serious with complete subjective sincerity, othere have excellent grounds for disagreeing. The objective unseriousness culminates like this,

So who would play the Palestinians in Bush's analogy? Obviously, it would be the Sunni Arabs, who apparently are meant to be cordoned off from the rest of Iraqis and put behind massive walls and barbed wire, and deprived of political power. That is not a desirable outcome and is not politically or militarily tenable in the long run.

If George XLIII (plus CFR and Brookings and the State Department, the whole US political elite!) ever consciously entertained those thoughts, you may address me as Marie of Roumania. Back in the real world, Crawford's occupation policy threatens to converge with Ann Arbor's altogether, both taking the line that gigantic dollops of affirmative action for the Sunni Arab TwentyPercenters are bound to do the pacification trick somehow. I don't believe there exists any such "somehow," but the important thing is that both Juan Cole and the Petraeus-Cocker braniac twosome suppose that it does exist, and that they'll locate it any day now.

The only thing that makes the Colean caricature even faintly plausible is that the ever-immortal Surge of '07™ has to some extent run off the rails. Pretty clearly the stumblebums originally intended to clobber Muqtadá and his juvenile delinquents in tandem with their clobberin' of the insurgents / guerrilas / terrorists / resistance. This has not happened, and the result is indeed picturesque: the occupationmongers find themselves fightin' against, and even buildin' walls at al-’A‘zamiyya around, basically the same folks that they propose to pander to with affirmative action schemes. Nothing very good is likely to come of this schizophrenia, but the badness to come will not at all resemble the various badnesses that afflict Gentile Palestine. Even the intramural disunity between the Hamás and the Fatáh only very distantly resembles how the Arab Sunni theocommunity in the former Iraq has been fragmented in a hundred directions.

Such comparison as the Yalie bozo actually intended might even be considered mildly encouraging: to save the face of militant Republicanism and vindicate the dogma of Preëmptive Retaliation , it is (apparently) not necessary to put down the insurrection / resistance / terrorism / guerilla in Peaceful Freedumbia altogether, it will suffice if it can be reduced to a containable level -- by narrow analogy, to a Gentile Palestinian sort of level. At any rate, that would be encouraging news, if only there were some sign that the Big Management Party has a clue how to effect the proposed reduction.

It is nearly meaningless that Little Brother refers to the Middle East heathen that he likes best as "democracies." For many decades that label has meant little more in such contexts than sugar and spice and everything politically nice for any reason at all, often quite without reference to the structure of whatever régime or neorégime the label is pasted onto.[1] As an academic exercise, there is no harm in demonstrating that Jewish Statism is not quite altogether democratic, but how much practical pain relief does that demonstration afford anybody?

Perhaps a little bit: a few newcomers to the Palestine Puzzle may be attracted to even-handedness, and maybe even State Department Arabism!, by having it distinctly brought to their attention that to give the Tel Aviv statelet every green light it asks for because it is "democratic" and nobody else in the Levant is "democratic" amounts to being taken in by a confidence racket. Yet this is a very limited and marginal benefit, and for that matter, that one magic label is not absolutely necessary for the con to function. It would work just as well to inform the mark with equal or greater plausibility that the Jewish State alone stands for "Western Civilisation" amidst a sea of oriental barbarism -- without supplying any very clear specification of what its westernity consists in, exactly. Or its civilisation either.


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[1] Notice that a Bloomian strong reader could take George XLIII to be proclaiming, in the passage cited against him, that "democracy" signifies a State that cannot be prevented from carrying out its responsibilities.

For Whom Do The Kiddies Krusade?

Not a hard question! They krusade for M. Mithál al-’Alúsí of course, because he's a Wingnut City kind of guy. Their neohero "fought for a just war against our terrorist enemies." How many natives in the happy Land of Peace and Freedom have signed up to fight to fight the terrorist enemies of The New York Sun? Damn few, that's how many!

Moment of Truth / New York Sun Editorial / June 29, 2007 The double murder of the two sons of a freedom-loving Iraqi parliamentarian is presenting President Bush with a moment of truth. It involves Mithal al Alusi, an Iraqi parliamentarian who has fought for a just war against our terrorist enemies, regardless of their confessional stripe. He has helped prosecute the worst of Saddam's henchmen, he has publicly refused to take the lucre of Iran's ambassador, and he has long since decided he would not hide the fact from the Arab and American press that he attended a counter-terrorism conference in Israel.

(( Hmm -- does the double murder of two persons work out to four coffins or only two? And while we're asking rude questions, did the evil Qommie ambassador try to bribe the new sea-green incorruptible at a press conference or in a crowded marketplace or where was it, exactly? ))

Mr. al-Alusi has paid a price for his principles. On February 8, 2005, assassins out for him murdered his two sons, Ayman and Jamal. Mr. al-Alusi abjured doing what almost any other Iraqi politician would have done — namely, seek the killer and exact revenge. Mr. al-Alusi put his faith in Iraq's fragile justice system. There are now confidential witnesses, including testimony from some of the men involved in the killing, that implicate Iraq's minister of culture, As'ad Kemal al-Hashemi, as the individual who ordered and financed the murder.

The New York Sunnis have started to forget their English, it looks like, or else M. al-’Alúsí really did go to a notary public and solemnly swear (or, as the case may be, affirm) "I promise I shall seek no private-sector revenge. Nay rather, I hereby put my faith in my neofatherland's fragile justice system." Fragile the invasion-based justice system no doubt is, and in addition to that, somewhat peculiar. "Confidential witnesses" sounds as if it came straight from the Code of Guantánamo. It also makes it rather mysterious that the twistatorialists should know about such witnesses. To be sure, M. al-’Alúsí will have mentioned them in his telephone call to Neocomrade E. Lake, but if these witnesses were really confidential, M. al-’Alúsí would not know they exist himself. Alleged or authentic abjurations notwithstanding, the walí al-dam, "inheritor of the vendetta," is one person it might actually make some kind of sense to keep uninformed about supposed witnesses, even as the alleged perp would of course be another.

It may make only a parochial Westistani sort of legal sense, I suppose, to distinguish so-called "interested parties" from the rest of the human race. M. al-’Alúsí may be indeed the moral titan that the NY Sunnis hype him as, the sole just man at New Gomorrah, or maybe he just happens to agree with their own aggression and occupation politics: either way, he's plainly an interested party according to our traditional canons of courtroom judgment. Accordingly when he behaves as described, our presumption must be that he is a blood relative of the murder victims has a good deal to do with what is going on. It is not logically excluded that he would be as insistent about currat lex! if only complete strangers to M. al-’Alúsí were involved in the case, yet it is in effect juridically excluded: we do not think so highly of the human race (in the courtroom) as to assume that most people can be "interested parties" in the technical sense and yet disinterested judges of the human events involved.

On Monday, an Iraqi justice signed the warrant for Mr. al-Hashemi's arrest, and American GIs, on orders of General Petraeus, began to accompany the Iraqi national police to his home in Baghdad. Then, as our Eli Lake reported exclusively, General Petraeus's order was overturned in Washington, and the Iraqi police found themselves outgunned at the home of the culture minister. Mr. al-Hashemi then fled to the fortified international zone in the center of Baghdad, where he is holed up at the al-Rashid Hotel, a compound guarded by military contractors who report to America. The contractors refused to let the police enter the hotel. So Mr. al-Alusi pleaded with our embassy in Baghdad to order them to let the police do their job. He was told by the embassy of the country that controls the roads and checkpoints of the international zone, that they would not interfere, that this was an "Iraqi affair." Nonsense. The evidence points to the fact that our policy makers are interfering in the direction of letting this wanted man go. The head of Mr. al-Hashemi's Sunni political bloc, Adnan al-Dulaimi, says a deal is being worked out now to allow Mr. al-Hashemi leave Iraq without facing his charges.

The Kiddie Krusaders of the NYS run smack up against their own Little Brother at this point, and some really nifty euphemism results: "the country that controls the roads and checkpoints of the international zone." Golly, Mr. Bones, do you think they mean China, or would it be Peru? Perhaps they have been reading M. de Talleyrand about how "nonintervention" is a metaphysical expression that more or less means the same thing as "intervention"?

Considered as an occasion for jolly litigation instead of grave philosophy, the key phrase is "military contractors who report to America." Strictly speaking, of course, the hired hands report to their employin' corporation, which is (presumably) doin' contract work for Crawford's Department of War. Whether that chain of command means that they must do whatever they are ordered to do by armed paleface invaders may well boil down to whether it says so in the particular contract they signed with the militant Bushies. It is well known that such mercs are not at all amenable to M. al-’Alúsí's fatherland's "fragile justice system" -- quite a remarkable fragility in itself! It is less well known, but as I recall nevertheless the case, that mercs are not amenable to the UCMJ either, and that the War Department wants it that way. Can M. al-’Alúsí ask for a Fedguv writ in New York or Washington, then? Well, he can ask, but it hardly seems likely he'll get it. While in New York, he might see if the Security Council would issue him a writ, for some jokesters suppose, when it suits them, that the UN is the true basis of legality in the occupied provinces of the former Iraq. Unfortunately there exists, as far as I am aware, no mechanism for issuing UNSC writs of assistance to private persons, and even if there was, no doubt M. al-Háshimí could skip town long before they cranked it up.

In practice M. al-’Alúsí appealed to the sole agency that might effectively give him what he wants, the invasion-basers themselves.

The logic — if that's the word — of such a deal would be that in the poisoned factional politics of Iraq, an arrest would look like a Shiite judge pressing a purge of a Sunni politician. The abstract "Sunnis" would thus be spared humiliation. Mr. al-Alusi has told our Eli Lake that he will send Mr. Bush a letter making an appeal to countermand the decision of Ambassador Crocker not to intervene. Mr. al-Alusi said that he met with Mr. Bush at a conference of Arab liberal democrats on June 5 in Prague, where the president asked about his wife in light of the murder of their sons. All eyes will be on the president here. It is a moment for him to back up his noble statements with action, by ordering his diplomats and military officers to let the Iraqi police apprehend Mr. al-Hashemi. No doubt it will be controversial — and even ignite another round of violence. But democracies aren't born without labor, and legal systems gain credibility only by breasting controversy. Justice is blind for a reason. A failure here will have worse consequences than any short-term repercussions.

The NYS neocomrades don't appreciate that they put themselves in a lose-lose situation here. They will lose if their titanic M. al-’Alúsí doesn't get what he wants, but they will also lose, and probably rather worse, should Little Brother, upon Whom all eyes are fixed!, graciously condescend to bestow the boon prayed for. Nothing could make clearer what a total bushogenic sham the Sovereignty and Independence and Democracy and Constitutionality of neo-Iraq really are, not even to speak of any alleged "justice system." (Some system, that it should "work" that way!)

But in fact the plight of the New York Sunnis is not quite that bleak: "All eyes will be on the president here" is pure piffle. Most of the GOP geniuses don't even have one (1.0) indig hero to care about, and they'll care less how this fuss is resolved. To accuse invasionites of carin' about Rulalaw as a principle would only be ridiculous. Cheapjack rhetorical tinsel like "legal systems gain credibility only by breasting controversy. Justice is blind for a reason" is easy enough to match. No credible legal system ever at any point brought all offenders to book. Part of the blindness of Ms. Justice is, and must be, to all those things that she somehow never got around to doing.

Out of Step: the Unbrowning of America

[T]he decision in Brown v. Board of Education that focused on outlawing segregated schools as unconstitutional is now out of step with American political and social realities."

Thus begins an analysis in the interest of the Big Management Party, the existence of which is fair enough because Aunt Nitsy provides the inevitable editorial scolding under the label "Resegregation Now."

Dr. Analyst's exact qualifications are a little unfortunate, perhaps, but that point does not much matter. Anybody who votes in the USA and went to school in it is thereby competent to form an opinion, and her formed opinion will matter little or nothing as against that of Five of Nine. Which of these other formed opinions the New York Times Company decides to print, whether as op-ed articles or as paid advertisements, is of course entirely up to the NYTC and no business of anybody else.

Nitsy herself is probably having a seriously bad day. I'm a little surprised not to find her e-columns draped in funereal black. Jim Crow and America First both come back to haunt on the same day! It's not really quite as bad as that, and I've already tried to point at one silver lining. We'll get to Dr. Analyst's preferred expurgation of "American political and social realities" in a moment, but first we may notice what the Five of Nine are in fact principally up to, which is not resegregation, only "recorporatization." The truly crucial winding-back of the clock would not be to get rid of "Brown v. Board" but of "Lochner v. New York." It is no small silver lining that that did not happen yesterday, and probably won't happen tomorrow either. When downdumbing and wombschooling reduce us to the point where Five of Nine can and do make that happen, things will be all bad for us humble, but only half bad for Aunt Nitsy, who is after all a private business corporation herself, that is to say, a (comparatively minor) locus of Big Management.

But the best silver lining of all is what happened in the Senate to the economic OnePercenters' "Amnesty and Open Borders Act of 2007," or whatever they really called it. Nitsy is bound to misconceive that human event as a serious defeat for herself and for liberalism and for "diversity," but she ought to reflect that not a square centimetre of policy turf has actually been lost to the xenophobe community. The battle was a draw, but in the course of it there was an incidental development with (possibly) profound implications for the future, the opening of a vast schism in Grant's Old Party between the true hard core of elephant people, the economic conspirators, and most of the miscellaneous and assorted riff-raff of Big Party camp followers. [1]

Nitsy considers the Wall Street Jingo editorial board entirely right about immigration, and the barks and bellowin's from Rio Limbaugh not merely all wrong, but extremely distasteful. Even as substance, I cannot agree with that view 100% (only about 93.5%), but regardless of the merits of the case, it would be a disaster for Nitsy not to recall that she is far from in cordial agreement with the OnePercenter jingos all across the board. The steel-claptrap minds of all those "conservative" "intellectuals" that the WSJ relentlessly finds fit to print are in no danger of forgetting what they really think of the NYTC editorial board's customary political stance. Let the compliment be returned.

So, then, though the famous clash was only a stalemate as between Diversity and Xenophobia, it was nevertheless also a grave set-back for Big Management, which is always a good thing. When knaves fall out, how shall decent political grown-ups not be pleased, regardless of what division of spoil it may be that the knaves fall out over? It is admirable in itself that the dupes of extremist Republicanism should notice and question how Big Management typically goes about spoils division.

Though unfortunate, it is natural enough that immigration should be the immediate occasion of opening their eyes: there was simply no way that the OnePercenters could pretend that immigration is a private-sectorian matter that they are never to be brought to account for. Little Brother and Mr. Richard Bruce Cheney are capable of almost any Party twistification, but sometimes reality wins despite them, and this is one of those times. Had they favored the xenophobe side, they would probably have decided to snatch what they wanted under the rubric of national security. But even a thorough wombscholar would find it fishy to be informed that letting lots of aliens into the holy Homeland somehow constitutes a positive contribution to the Kiddie Krusade. Only a very learned ignorance would find that claim plausible. Possibly one of their tank-think señoritos or WSJ scribblers has in fact attempted to make such a case, although I missed it. The chances of such ingenious sophistry making any impact on the Party base and vile are negligible.

==

To return to Dr. Analyst on the unbrowning of America, very predictably his diagnosis fails to satisfy me because it ignores the Big Management factor. Perhaps one may fairly say that Dr. Analyst evades the Big Management factor, going out of his way to make sure that his readers don't think of that angle if he can help it. His own expurgation of "American political and social realities" is conveniently summarized at the end of the scribble:

Racial malice is no longer the primary motive in shaping inferior schools for minority children. Many failing big city schools today are operated by black superintendents and mostly black school boards. And today the argument that school reform should provide equal opportunity for children, or prepare them to live in a pluralistic society, is spent. The winning argument is that better schools are needed for all children — black, white, brown and every other hue — in order to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy.

Dr. Analyst appears to be one of the Big Management Party's weaker apologetic brethren: he can't seriously expect many of his customers to buy the notion that desegregation was ever conceived of by its supporters as a deliberate sacrifice of quality to equality. Even worse, he can't pass such stuff as his off as pertinent to a legal decision. What would happen if that tripe was ever sighted by Scalia, J.? Imagine the vials of Ántoninian scorn that would be poured out upon the notion that sometimes the Zeitgeist wants this, and sometime that, and that it is the manifest duty of Five of Nine to make sure the Zeitgeist gets whatever it happens to want at the moment!

More competent Party ideologues have maintained all along that "provide equal opportunity for children" and "prepare them to live in a pluralistic society" were never legal and constitutional arguments in the first place. Framed that way, the antidesegregationist position could be defended under the broader umbrella of rightist constitutionalism and especially "conservative" glossing of Amendment XIV. That position may not be inexpugnable, but it does have the merit of being able to point out that the 1787 document, even as subsequently amended, says nothing expressly about equal opportunity or pluralism.

Dr. Analyst throws away most of his Party's courtroom trumps when he gives us Mr. Justice Brenner's kind of jurisprudence, more or less, in defense of a prticular outcome that Brenner would have abominated. Disciples of Aristotle who happen to disagree with Big Management attitudes ought to rejoice should Dr. Analyst's legal baloney prevail: he throws away Brenner's matter, to be sure, but far more importantly, he has adopted the Form of Brennerism. All we decent political adults would need to do is make sure that the Zeitgeist agrees with us, and then by Dr. Analyst's neojurisprudence, the Supreme Court would have no choice but to agree with us also. Q.E.D.!

No baloney so contrary to the real and permanent interests of Big Management is likely to prevail, however. Unlike immigration, the central question is over the heads of the Party base and vile altogether. At Rio Limbaugh they have a certain tendency to vaguely agree with Dr. Analyst, perhaps, insofar as they frequently call for referendums and plebescites, mechanisms that would plainly put the Zeitgeist in command on specific issues. But Big Management is bound to consult with Philadelphia lawyers who know far better than to fall into any "populist" sand trap like that. The sacred rights of the corporation's management must be made absolutely secure, and therefore Dr. Analyst's use of Brennerian jurisprudence and Dr. Limbaugh's occasional genuflections to the Zeitgeist and numerical majoritarianism are only shifty sand to build upon, not solid granite. Perhaps it is true in 2007 that the fickle mob cares for nothing but "to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy," but who can say what they will be caring for in 2017? The danger of the mob backsliding into concern for equal opportunity and pluralism cannot be eliminated, so the legal ramparts of Big Management must be erected on worst-case assumptions. More exactly, the existing ramparts must remain so erected and all the traditional ideological infrastructure below them must be shored up as well as possible against the evil day when the mob will take an FDR view of Big Management once again. Perhaps no such day will ever come, but that is not the way to bet.

The Great Xenophobia Schism inside the Big Management Party indicates, I think, that "to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy" cannot be the mob's exclusive concern even in 2007. If it were, the Wall Street Jingo would only have to point out what an admirable fostering of competition it would be to open the borders and throw away the key. In the real world, that plan would be at least as absurd as the attempt to deduce liberal rather than restrictive immigration policy from the mob's bein' terrorized of terrorists. Still, whether Dr. Analyst's particular notions about the state of the Zeitgeist are correct or mistaken has no bearing on his neojurisprudence.

Does Big Management have anything concretely and materially at stake in the unbrowning of America? Not directly, perhaps. Despite a good deal of trumpetin' from various individual elephants, a general privatization of education is inconceivable, [2] and accordingly this remains a public sector affair. However some of the neocomrades may perceive an analogy between the wicked Fedguv telling a school superintendant how (not) to do his job and a parallel interference with Big Management proper. Alternatively, some of the practitioners of Big Management in their personal capacity -- i.e., as fathers of their children rather than masters of their corporations -- may find it convenient that residential segregation of education has been implicitly pronounced acceptable by Five of Nine. No need to pay any ourageous tuition fees before the kids are ready for college. (But that's rather a low suspicion, so let us not lay much stress on it, please.)


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[1] The little zinger about "Grant's Old Party" is pertinent, since at its inception, the dupes went along with the dupers mainly because they vaguely supposed that militant Republicanism had crushed Jeff Davis and his traitorous rebels. It only adds to the fun that the general himself was pretty clearly riff-raff and no proper economic conspirator.

[2] One of the mysteries of our age is why private-sectorian schooling cannot be made to reward the shareholders properly. What went wrong for the Edison Project and other similar attempts? Fifteen or twenty years ago even I was suckered into thinking them very plausible.

"... into the gates of [H]ell ..."

One does not expect very much from the official propagandists of the Levant, and on the whole one is not disappointed. Here is one M. "Tariq Hasan, a columnist for the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram" doing business about as usual:

In Egypt there are those who are trying to reproduce what Hamas did in Gaza… For anyone who has the slightest doubt about this and wants proof, it is sufficient to consider statements by Brotherhood representatives in parliament… They said that Egypt waved the Zionist flag, despite the people's opposition to this. This means that Egypt, like the Palestinian Authority, deserves that a revolution should take place in it. The Brotherhood, like Hamas, does not recognize the legitimacy of the parliament that ratified the peace treaty with Israel, nor the legitimacy of the state that ratified these agreements, since it is a traitorous state that works for foreign interests and that does not represent its people. From these statements we understand that the Hamas problem is not just Gaza, but it is also in Egypt, and that the Brotherhood holds the same positions and uses the same ideas and statements with which Hamas conducted a putsch against the government, and through which it declared Gaza a rebel region under its rule.

Now of course the Arab Republic of Egypt is General H. Mubárak's country, not mine -- nor M. Táriq Hasan's, for that matter -- so I shall not pronounce about whether the A.R.E. "deserves" régime change or not. Far be that from me, who am no extremist Republican to go about in the earth makin' sure that the lesser breeds without get what they "deserve." That way lies only quagmire.

Fortunately neither the ineffable M. Hasan nor his peerless Leader are in any position to quagmirize anybody but ARE. subjects. If I had anything to do with neo-Gaza, I'd be worried about a rather long list of possible invaders, but "Egypt" is not among them. Picking up that stick by the other end, M. Hasan would appear to have profound affinities with Rancho Crawford. It sounds as if he manages to be as terrorized of neo-Gaza as the cowpokers were of Saddam's WMD. Yet it is internal subversion that he dreads, not external attack with forty-five-minute terror-tipped specials. Mutatis mutandis, then, M. Táriq Hasan is a spiritual McCarthyite rather than a spiritual Crawfordite. The Senator from Wisconsin with his supporters, and George XLIII with what's left of his, are equally courage-challenged and prone to Chicken Little Syndrome, but they disagree which quarter the sky is going to fall from. As between the late Mr. McCarthy and M. Hasan of al-’Ahrám there is a pleasing symmetry: both are in a panic about being undermined from within and both know that that enemies at home have allies elsewhere, but when it comes to exaggeration and distortion, the former specialized in domestic Commies, the latter specializes in international neo-Muslims -- in both cases making the bigger hobgoblin out of the lesser threat. (This gruesome twosome manage to make Little Brother look good by comparison: at least when he was cowerin' under the figurative bed after the Pentagon/WTC attacks, he managed not to suppose that much of the holy Homeland was in league with the box-cutter folks.)

M. Táriq Hasan's personal defects are not without interest, but naturally the main event is rather his polemical Political Science and that he attributes to the Brotherhood of Fiends. It is very risky to take an agitprop artist's word for what his enemies think, but for our present purposes it does not matter whether anybody actually believes the views that M. Hasan attributes to his fiends, our interest is only abstract and centered on the views themselves. So, then, certain allegers have alleged that any régime or neorégime that acts "despite the people's opposition" is eo ipso illegitimate and ought to be replaced.

One has heard talk that resembles that closer to home where it is much easier to put such noises into a context. Some brand-name Populists in the USA have perhaps seriously believed something of the sort, but usually this noise-making is a stance lapsed into rather than a platform conscientiously upheld. We have a sort of Default Populism that is appealed to whenever it seems to do the trick immediately required and nothing better suited to the particular occasion comes to mind. On the same terms, there is a Default Isolationism and a Default Libertarianism. Unsurprisingly, when advocates of some particular end must have recourse to these vague generic products, an inconsistency with whatever system of political ideas they deliberately believe in is likely to result. The perennial fuss about abortion illustrates this admirably: Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh defend their supposed "right to life" mostly with Default Populism; conventional liberals found their countersupposed "right to choose" in Default Libertarianism. In both cases the emergency fall-back position does not agree well with the general tendency of the whole pack. One might go on to guess that neither abortion pack thinks their real reasons are fit to be displayed in the Naked Public Square™ -- but that is getting too deep and too remote from the Levant to be pursued at the moment.

To pursue Default Populism (in America), its great bogey is usually called "elitism" or "elitists." The tone of voice involved in the calling is roughly "Who the Hell are you few to tell Us The People what to do?" We had a splendid display of that syndrome yesterday from the Witch Doctor of Democracy, yet it was a somewhat atypical display as well, because the particular "you few" that Citizen Rush was barkin' and bellowin' at happen to be known as the Senate of the United States. (The occasion was of course that dreadful Amnesty and Open Borders bill.) The same barks and bellows would not have been forthcoming had the question been whether Little Brother's occupation policy in neo-Iraq "despite the people's opposition to this," let alone anything to do with economic regulation of the OnePercenters. Indeed, Dr. Limbaugh valiantly stood up for Home Depot Inc. against "populist" pressures from the ignorant mob and certain local governments the mob had intimidated into compliance with their "improper or wicked project." [1]

The whole flavour of this rather familiar tale dressed up in new words is different from anything the Levantine propagandist's fiends seem likely to have had in mind. M. Táriq Hasan of al-’Ahrám himself may pass for an elitist, I daresay, but the crux of the matter is the General himself, and the E-word falls far short of what the fiends think of Himself. (Was Pharaoh an elitist? Well, yes, no doubt He was, but that's only a small part of what made Him detestable.)

To distinguish the Default Populism of the ARE from that of the USA it may be of use to examine the phrase I have already borrowed from Mr. Madison & Co.: "we the people." Regardless of what was originally intended in 1787, in the holy Homeland of 2007 that phrase signifies "we many, the people" and thus invites the antithesis with "you few, the elitists." Though no doubt the Brotherhood of Fiends consider that they vastly outnumber the minions of Mubárak and the elitists of al-’Ahrám, that fact or mistake is comparatively peripheral to their Default Populism, which is rather qualitative than quantitative. It is of the essential essence of The Egyptian People to be piously Muslim, and what damns General Pharaoh is that he is not.

That is what our Goebbels wannabe is really up against on the Pol. Sci. front. How does he counterattack?

Here in Egypt the Brotherhood brought out the masked militias in Al-Azhar University, and there in Gaza Hamas put them to use. Here they changed the Egyptian flag and removed the eagle of the Republic from it, and there they took down the Palestinian flag and waved the green flag of Hamas. What can we expect?... In light of this severe threat, it is not enough for us to say to people "look at what Hamas did in Gaza" in order to warn them about the Brotherhood in Egypt. We must learn the lessons without delay. Hamas won the game it was playing, and the Brotherhood is doing the [same] thing. There, there was a government that allowed them to take part in elections without their recognizing the legitimacy of that Authority and without their being made to accept the state's constitution and its laws. Hamas used the elections and democracy as an instrument, and then they turned the matter over to the armed militias in order to conduct a putsch against everyone. Here, there are Brothers who do not recognize the legitimacy of the state and oppose the constitution and the law, and despite this, we find people who say that [the Brotherhood] represents them and speaks in their name in parliament… Whoever ignores this will bring us into the gates of hell that we have seen in Gaza…"

Not very impressive. The main active ingredient is guilt by association, and M. Táriq Hasan doesn't even try to demonstrate the association, he only presupposes it. The account of how neo-Gaza was established is tendentious bordering on dotty. Are we to suppose that the Zealots were craftily plotting all along to grab Gaza and ditch East Palestine? Still, none of that twistification is up to the dignity of Pol. Sci.

On the scientific front proper, M. Táriq Hasan's trump card is "legitimacy," just as that of M. de Tallerand was after Napoléon's neorégime had been forcibly changed out from under him. [2] Never so grotesque an impar congressus as that one! Yet after all there is a little bit of warrant for it. True, the French aristocrat had "the forty kings that made France" and all the rest of the Old Order in Europe, whereas the Mubárikite hack has only what's left of Oslo in half of half of one province, but still, they do both conceive of "legitimacy" as a status quo ante, do they not?

The trouble is that M. Hasan talleyrandizes only as regards Gentile Palestine. When it comes to his General's status quo in the Arab Republic of Egypt, which must of course be far closer to his heart, the analogy evaporates. For all I can see to the contrary, Pharaoh's régime is "legitimate" purely and solely because that's what they think at al-’Ahrám. The Fiends of the Brotherhood wouldn't be the least bit impressed by that mere table-pounding, nor should they be.

M. Hasan will doubtless be more interested in his applied Pol. Sci. than in the pure substance, that is to say, in his nifty attempts to delegitimize the fiends. Unfortunately he has not quite thought things through and commits an incoherence. If the Mubárak Pharaohate is legitimate, why, then so must Pharaoh's parliament be, and all those who sit in it. "[T]he legitimacy of the state" can't be left hinging on whether the fiends' handful of deputies are pleased to "recognize" it or not. What a sloppiness were that!

A more competent westoxicated OnePercenter would go about the business differently, it seems to me. She would perhaps try to maintain that the fiends once did recognize Gen. Pharaoh's legitimacy and now attempt to prosecute them either for past bad faith or present breach of promise. Or both. That plan would, incidentally, be talleyrandian, since a status quo ante, genuine or feigned, would reappear.

The trouble everybody in Westistan runs into with that sort of ploy, "conservative" "intellectuals" included, is that the said faith or promise must be taken to be tacit rather than expressed. ARE voters might be supposed to legitimate the Pharaohate by participating in its elections, and ARE pols by running for office under it. Perhaps just paying Pharaoh's taxes and not emigrating to someplace better suffice to afford occult legitimation? Arguments of that sort turn up in the USA often enough, but whether they have much bearing on the political darkness of Egypt is not clear. With us, such exercises in Pol. Sci. are conducted in a context where nobody except a few loons recently flown in from Planet Dilbert seriously questions the general legitimacy of our established system, the occasional Floridagate 2000 notwithstanding. In the Arab Republic of Egypt, where the general legitimacy of Pharaoh is a live question, the support of Pol. Sci. for the existing racket might really come in handy, but is it available? Whatever learnèd clerks may decide, ordinary lay sheep are only too likely to respond to all that "tacit" jazz with contempt, "We never promised you that, Massa Husní, and you are a goddam liar if you or your miserable official fishwrap claim otherwise."


The imaginary expostulation may not fit the ARE context perfectly, however. It is perhaps a bit too individualistic -- too quantitative, even, for is not one (1.0) a quantity? Even the OnePercenters at al-’Ahrám, the actual beneficaries of the Mubárak Racket, may not be yet quite so globalised as that. To judge from that mere table-pounding on the part of M. Táriq Hasan, they may think more qualitatively, more like Huntin'ton of Harvard with his ever-glorious Clashism™ product. Stipulating the existence of an Essential Egyptian, does the essence of the creature consist more in pious ’Islám or more in European statism? That may be a better way to frame the question, even for those of us who don't much hold with essences. But God knows best.


_____
[1] Mr. Madison in Federalist X, of course.

[2] That is Ms. Conventional Wisdom's view, which will do for now since we are not really talking about M. de Talleyrand at Vienna.

Extreme Bidenism Is Nevertheless Extremism

Subtract twenty-five points from Senator Biden's paleface planmonger score at once, Mr. Bones. It now appears that the sneak has been hiding things:

US reliance on tribes is also supported by others who have already written off the possibility of seeing a strong central Iraqi government emerge. "I've been pushing for four years to deal directly with the tribal leaders," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D) of Delaware ... in Washington Thursday. The US, he added, has to "give up on … the possibility of having a strong central democratic government trusted by all the major constituencies.... It's simply not capable of occurring."

If he has really been "pushing [tribalization] for years," he must have been pushing very quietly. Did he tell Herr Dr. Gelb of the Conspiracy on Foreign Relations about his Bedouin dreams before they vouchsafed to the world their joint proposals about occupation policy? I fail to recall it. The occasional cultivated despiser of colonial decentralization who has mentioned that performance subsequently always talks as if the twosome scheme to carve up the former Iraq into two or three chunks, not one hundred and thirteen.

Biden-Gelb pills™ have yet to match the widespread appeal of Murti-Bing pills. The comparatively unsuccessful marketing campaign may be why the Senator has started tinkering with the secret magic formula retrospectively, perhaps even unilaterally and gelblessly! There was not much substance to Biden-Gelbism in the first place, so reconcocting and redecorating the previously released partition product to suit this week's newspaper headlines is not difficult. There is no danger of having to eat many of one's own previous words in this case.

What's that, Mr. Bones? . . . Oh sure, I'd insist on the "retrospectively." But no, that doesn't make Biden a "liar," even though what he said last week may not be strictly accurate according to the truth. We have agreed that even Little Brother himself can not sustainably be claimed to have lied to get himself his aggression. How much less Joe Biden! And after all, sir, crescit eundo, not even Mr. Donkey Foreign Policy began by knowing everything he knows now about the stumbles of the Big Management stumblebums and the local colour of their neo-Iraqi subjects. Don't you think that he must have known rather less about tribes and tribalism in the former Iraq on 21 June 2003 as opposed to 21 June 2007? If he missupposes himself to have always known what he knows now, or thinks he knows now, well, who is to throw the first stone at that? Let us not raise the bar so high that nobody alive can vault it. That game is especially unworthy, sir, when we ourselves sit in the stands safe from ever being called upon to leap at all. At very least, Mr. Biden owes it to his post-January position as the Upper Chamber's majority expert on invasions and conquests and occupations &c. &c. to have some sort of prepared speech about Peaceful Freedumbia always at hand, and to keep it reasonably up to date with developments amongst the neoliberateds.

What he really thought or said or pushed four years ago matters little. Nobody cared then, and nobody remembers now, practically speaking. Once we put it on the record that he has been gilding his lily and fudging his ingredients a little, let him be granted a complete amnesty and a blank slate to scribble on. What is Mr. Joseph Biden's recommended occupation policy for the former Iraq NOW? If we, too, start from scratch, forgetting we ever heard of Leslie Gelb and a' that, we know only two things about it:

(1) Negatively, and much more importantly, all paleface planmongers must "give up on … the possibility of having a strong central democratic government trusted by all the major constituencies.... It's simply not capable of occurring."

(2) Positively and comparatively peripherally, all paleface planmongers must "deal directly with the tribal leaders."

Score the man 500 points (out of one thousand) for his global negativity, then subtract twenty-five points for his tribalization malarkey. That comes to 47.5%, or an unmistakable 'F-', unless I've forgotten my school days altogether.

Without affecting the mark allotted in any way, Mr. Bones, you may annotate the margin of this candidate's blue book with the observation that there is an ingenious occult connection between his two points. Skipping over poor M. al-Málikí to negotiate with assorted shaykhs of the TwentyPercenters directly must tend to make the existing Green Zone neorégime even less capable of strength and centrality and democracy and government and trustworthiness than the GOP geniuses have rendered it already. This is not exactly a self-fulfilling prophecy, for Mr. Biden's global declaration of incapability is not a prophecy about the future, it sounds far more like an eternal axiom. Perhaps he would maintain that the weakness and irrelevance and autocracy and anarchy and "sectarian" unreliability of the current native neorégime at New Baghdad have already reached the point where making these bad things a little worse yet would have no significant impact. (And perhaps he is quite right, so let none of this affect his score.) Nevertheless, the plain tendency of his one positive suggestion is to aggravate what he presumably accounts evils.

It also aggravates other things that some of us account evils, though Sen. Biden perhaps disagrees. To deal directly with the tribal leaders undermines the Sovereignty and Independence and Constitutionality of poor M. al-Málikí's quasigovernment. (Mr. Biden got the undermining of Democracy in himself, I notice, which comes third in my standardized list of these four horsemen.) In addition to that, or perhaps as a consequence of that, to deal directly with the tribal leaders grossly violates the goose-and-gander principle. Fancy the Senator's reaction to foreign powers dealing directly with our own "tribes," say the AFL-CIO or the NRA or the AEIdeologues or the Heritagitarians or dozens of other. Would he not instantly advise them to forget about that sort of direct dealings and go speak with Dr. Rice's people as the sole authorized representatives of Uncle Sam?

Considered politically, Biden's tribal conspiracies would be an infringement of Sovereignty. Considered ethically, which matters less but still does matter, they constitute a violation of equity. His scheme might also be considered legally, which is more important than ethically, though not as important as politically. Strictly speaking, though, Sovereignty is a matter of law and what Biden proposes is flatly illegal. The political violation lies in his failure to bear in mind that upholding Sovereignty is almost always the soundest policy, just as honesty is proverbially the best policy. (This failure is also the major political blunder involved in the original GOP aggression of March 2003.)

The gentleman from Delaware may quite conceivably maintain that the present case is exceptional, that it would be madness for Uncle Sam to attempt to vindicate the Sovereignty of poor M. al-Málikí's neorégime against third parties, or even for Sam to recognize it himself, should such recognition interfere with other nifty plans like "to deal directly with the tribal leaders." Very well, then, a political argument to that effect is certainly not to be ruled out of bounds automatically. Let the Senator actually make the case that Peaceful Freedumbia is the exception, not the rule. In the course of making the case, let him take full note of the fact that Uncle Sam (represented by a certain idiot nephew from Crawford TX) has announced again and again that neo-Iraq is indeed Sovereign, announced the alleged Sovereignty in such a way as to imply a promise to respect it. Let Biden explain why he thinks that his conspiracies with tribalists are so urgently necessary that they warrant the Unites States of America forswearing ourselves.

Again, nobody who believes in Politique d'abord! can disallow such an argument without listening to it and weighing it carefully. Yet the reason a policy rule is called a rule is that there is a presumption in favor of it and a presumption against exceptionality. Sen. Biden evidently considers that the bushogenic quagmire in the former Iraq has now reached a point where two different presumptions are rebuttable. (1) Exceptionally, it is not sound policy to uphold Sovereignty in this one instance. (2) Exceptionally in a different way, it is not the best policy, or even a good policy, to uphold Honesty in this instance either and fulfil our national promises about neo-Iraqi Sovereignty.

Perhaps the Senator can successfully rebut the double policy presumption against his favorite schemes, but he is going to have to actually do so. If he lets the matter go by default, if he refuses to plead, he necessarily loses his case in the Court of Reason.

This is not to say he might not prevail in the U. S. Senate, although that seems unlikely. Witless schizophobia has shown a few signs of decay recently, but nowhere near enough to threaten Little Brother's occupation policy as regards the sacred territorial integrity of the former Iraq. Conventional wisdom depicts Mr. Bush as retreatin' a little bit from complete Kiddie Krusade dementia to more or less the Hamilton-Baker occupation policy. Whether or not that is right, Joseph Biden remains odd man out, since the ISG/CFR gentry are schizophobes too, Dr. Gelb excepted. He is even odd man out in the newspaper story we began with, where most of the occupation policy "experts" quoted think that flirting with tribalism in the Land of Peace and Freedom is a dangerous idea likely to backfire. For instance,

"Most of these Sunnis who were formerly targeting US and coalition forces and are now willing to fight on our side aren't doing it as a result of some deep ideological transformation," says Riedel, now at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "They are doing it for reasons of financing, to make money, and to control turf in the Sunni parts of the country. It's unlikely they will be reliable allies in the long term."

Perhaps one could take a kinder view of Sen. Biden than he shows any sign of deserving on the basis of considerations that he doesn't actually contradict. Has he vaguely come to grasp that the basic structural problem in the former Iraq is how the Arab Sunni theocommunity has gone smash like Humty-Dumpty? Of course to go on from that insight to want to deal directly with the fragments because that is all that is left is scarcely the path of wisdom and prudence, yet one may hope that the Senator will gradually get his analysis into sharper focus and revise the proprietory formula for Biden-Gelb pills™ accordingly. No paleface plan to impose partition on the neoliberateds has any chance of actually working if it blithely takes for granted that simply separating them from one another will do the trick and end the troubles without specifying some real and present Powers that will make sure they stay separated.

Probably the international community, not to speak of Big Management and the Party base and vile, would balk at Poland-the-Model, i.e., handing the Wild West over to Sa‘údiyya or some other Sunnintern outlet, abandoning Najafistan to the evil Qommies, and having NATO underwrite the freedom of the Free Kurds -- incidentally guaranteeing that they don't make trouble for Ankara either. That's far too realpolitisch to be real, of course, but it is a valuable thought experiment to reflect that paleface planmongers with no sentimental scruples or ideological intoxications whatsoever could make some such no-nonsense arrangement actually work -- that is, if "work" means only ("only"?) less bloodshed amongst the neoliberateds and more sacred stability for the impositionists.

Alas, not only will the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington never tolerate any imposition that does not include "some deep ideological transformation," Sen. Joseph Biden won't like it either, since it is the polar opposite of "to deal directly with the tribal leaders." Russia and Prussia and the Habsburg Monarchy made a clean sweep, they ignored all the leaderships of the Poles, tribal or other, and dealt directly only with one another. That was then, and this is now, and direct emulation is out of the question, but understanding why it worked in 1772 and 1793 and 1795 and exactly what prevents it even being attempted in 2009 would be analytically helpful. More helpful, at any rate, than

US reliance on tribes is also supported by others who have already written off the possibility of seeing a strong central Iraqi government emerge. "I've been pushing for four years to deal directly with the tribal leaders," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D) of Delaware ... in Washington Thursday. The US, he added, has to "give up on … the possibility of having a strong central democratic government trusted by all the major constituencies.... It's simply not capable of occurring."

Who's Boss at Basra?

Ah, Mr. Bones, how quickly the happy, invasion-based Land of Peace and Freedom can mutate! In a twinkling of an eye . . . ! All changed, changed utterly!

Literally just yesterday I took the International Crisis Group seriously when that crew of high-minded impositionists informed the world [p. 10] in a report itself dated just yesterday that

Basra’s diversity, potentially a source of tension, largely has been mitigated by the steady rise of armed Islamist parties. The city’s tradition of open-mindedness and tolerance for the most part has vanished and prominent trading families have departed. Most non-Muslim minorities have been forced either to migrate or lie low, basically disappearing from the social scene. Even the Sunni presence essentially has become a thing of the past, thereby reducing the potential for sectarian violence. A British officer pointed out in February 2007: Many Sunni families in the south have fled north to Baghdad and Mosul. The fact that the ratio of Sunni to Shiite is low, and diminishing, means that sectarian violence is now less common than further north. Sunnis cannot afford to be aggressive and so there is less of a cycle of sectarian violence.[fn. 69] [69] Crisis Group interview, defence ministry official, London, February 2007. That said, two Sunni mosques were blown up on 15 June 2007 in retaliation for the earlier destruction of the minarets of the Askari shrine in Samarra.

Not only were the local non-Twelvers allegedly lying low and doing nothing more terroristical than getting their cultural monuments blown up, the Sunnintern presence at Basra was pronounced minimal:

A British official concurred: “It is far more difficult for the other Gulf states to have influence in the south, as many Shiites see them as Sunni-dominated supporters of the former regime. Some, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are involved in border security issues and local business deals and are seeking contact with local tribes but, as they are mainly concerned with what they perceive as growing Shiite (and therefore in their eyes Iranian) influence, they have focused their efforts on establishing relations with the central government and on trying to influence Sunnis further north”. Crisis Group interview, defence ministry official, London, February 2007. “The Arab Gulf states do not have a southern sphere of influence to speak of and are doing very little to build one. Their rhetoric and behaviour, echoed by those of countries such as Egypt, amounts to saying they are unhappy with the Iraqi government’s treatment of the Sunni population. But we are still a long way from the Gulf monarchies actively assisting Iraq’s Sunnis”. Crisis Group interview, British official, London, February 2007. [fn. 58, p. 8]

In general, the Intergalactic Civil Service portayed a curious state of affairs --yesterday: all the armed bands (except obviously the former redcoats, who scarcely matter and will presumably matter even less with Mr. Blair now happily obviated) were Shi‘ites, so no matter how much anarcholibertarianism there was, and there was lost and lots, it did not count as "sectarian" in the special sense that the invasion-language press conventionally attaches to that word in the former Iraq. In addition to having no theological or ritualistic differences of any significance, these armed bands did not, yesterday, have any significant political disagreements either. If many in Scandinavia still get passionately worked up over exactly which "federalism" to thrust upon Peaceful Freedumbia, yet at Basra, anyway, the indigenes themselves were, as of yesterday, mostly past caring:

Likewise, the controversy over federalism and relations with Baghdad, though frequently at the centre of debate, does not account for much of the tension and daily violence. Mostly, it has been cynically manipulated by local and national politicians; average citizens, disappointed by their leaders, seem to have lost interest. [p. 10]

In short, the Basráwí armed bands were, yesterday, impeccably purist in their anarcholibertarianism, devotees of smash and grab for its own sweet sake. It appears almost as if that looting that Shaykh Rumsfeld of the Bani Kennebunkport cast a kindly eye on in the spring of 2003 has gone on continuously through at least yesterday down in the Queen City of the South. The Intergalactic Civil Service mentions terror and terrorism frequently enough, but plainly this is Mr. Al Capone's terrorism rather than the Nechayev or Bin Ládin strain.


There's a good deal more to be said about the ICG document, or there would be, if things had not changed utterly, and changed overnight, into this :

New Basrah Police Chief Orders Units to Shave Their Beards: New Basrah police commander Major General Jaleel Khalaf Shuwail called on members of the Sunni community in Basrah – estimated at one third of the population – to join the police force, promising that he would crack down on militias and “saboteurs working for the interests of foreign states” in the southern oil-rich city, according to the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper. Maj. Gen. Shuwail said police officers in Basrah fall into two categories: those who cooperate with militias, and those who are intimidated by them. “We have a tremendous force, but it needs organization and a brave leadership,” he said. “I will fight militias in Basrah, as I love challenges, and I will not neglect fighting terrorism, under whatever label.” Maj. Gen. Shuwail was appointed last Monday to replace Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hamadi Al-Musawi, who was fired by PM Nuri Al-Maliki because he failed to prevent militia attacks against at least nine Sunni mosques in the city in retaliation for the bombing of the revered Shi’ite Askari shrine in Samarra. As soon as the new commander assumed responsibilities, he ordered all units to shave their beards, threatening to suspend salaries or fire those who resisted the order. He visited the Sunni Endowments Board headquarters in central Basrah requested from its director, Dr. Abdul Karim Jarad, to submit lists of Sunnis who are willing to volunteer into the police force, promising to approve them all, according to Al-Hayat . “We have a difficult mission because the foundation of the Basrah police force was 100% wrong,” he said.

"Promising to approve them all," by golly. And no beards! Clearly M. le Géneral Shuwayl must be a sound secularist and a technocrat and an all-round good guy. No more Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick at Basra, ladies and gentleman, Ordnung soll sein!

Slogger City, or perhaps the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, ventures an actual estimate of the number of TwentyPercenters left in town, which the Intergalactic Civil Service rather pointedly did not. One in three seems improbably high to me, though. Surely with numbers like that they could have fielded an armed band of their own long ago that could hold its own, and perhaps even manage to hold the balance of chaos? If that number came from the Rev. al-Jarrád, as seems not impossible, one would do well to remember that almost every crew of religionists that ever existed has inflated its membership numbers shamelessly, that being pia fraus that only a very humorless anticleric would thunder against.

In the case at hand, there is also the fact that a great many of the TwentyPercenters in the former Iraq seem genuinely to suppose themselves not only a Moral Majority, being of course the predestined natural rulers, but an arithmetical majority as well. (Sheer narcissism and delusion, but more pardonable at Basra or New Baghdad than at Rio Limbaugh.)

Pardon the digression. The great thing is to notice that gangbuster Shuwayl overthrows both pillars of yesterday's reality: "sectarianism" is back in business, and so is GZ politics. The general stands for TwentyPercenterdom, and also for centralism. The combination is banal in itself, it would be hard to find an Arab Sunni who does not expect to become once again a master of the whole "Iraq" megillah, even if no ten of them can agree on anything else in politics. The mystery is why poor M. al-Málikí resolved to dispatch this particular hero to deliver Basra from anarchy and libertarianism. If one supposes the quasipremier to put centralism first, should he not have worried that tossing in M. Shuwayl's additional armed band will only make the chaos more chaotic and therefore cause the GZ neorégime to appear even less in control? If one supposes him primarily a "sectarian," which is the more conventional view, why, he must be out of his mind!

One casts around for a third possibility, and there it is: how if the general is not an indig idea at all, but rather a Crawfordite idea or a Petraean brainstorm? It might be objected that the Party stumblebums don't know enough about their colonial possessions to have selected him and forced him on poor M. al-Málikí, but that is easily answered. One need only suppose that some kind friend at the Sunnintern put them on to M. Jalíl Khalaf al-Shuwayl.

One might even go on to speculate that those same kind friends of the extremist Republicans have independently noticed what the Intergalactic Civil Service did yesterday, that the Sunnintern is very weakly represented at Basra and that something ought to be done to set the oversight right, lest the Safavids have everything their own way. If we assume that this hypothetical friend is bright enough to think his way around the Bushies three times before breakfast, which is likely enough, the fact that Gen. Shuwayl will make very bad even worse is not a blunder, but a point strongly in favour of the scheme. Some minor-league Machiavelli will have begun by assuming that Khalílzád Pasha's "constitutional" "Iraq" is bound to go smash, probably sooner rather than later, and that the urgent requirement at this point is to position the Sunnintern to pick up as many of the pieces as possible. If they can't somehow grab the whole wreckage, they must at least make sure that whatever fragments fall into the hands of the evil Qommies cannot become a danger to them. [1] For various reasons, mostly spelled O-I-L, Basra is a fragment preëminently suitable to be grabbed, and the advantages of having General Shuwayl on the spot when the time comes are patent.

That scenario may be a bit too imaginative to be true, but well short of it there are those 'saboteurs working for the interests of foreign states,' that the Sunnintern devoutly believes in, though the Intergalactic Civil Service seems not to. [2] Gen. Shuwayl would then be a sort of counter-saboteur, dispatched to make sure that the Basráwí anarcholibertarianism does not lopsidely favour the minions of Tehran. (Actually ending it would be a different story.) Conceivably poor M. al-Málikí understands as much and can tolerate it: it is not as if his, or any former, neorégime was ever in control to begin with, and if control is ever to be gained, the project would be easier if neither the Sunnintern nor the Safavids overwhelmingly preside over the ruination of Basra.

If one thinks the quasipremier very narrow indeed, one might add that his own subfaction, the Islamic Call Party, scarcely exists in those parts. He may figure that Gen. Shuwayl will weaken his opposition within the U.I.A. caucus without having the slightest chance of taking Basra over for the TwentyPercenters. In that case, he would be factually in agreement with the estimates of the Intergalactic Civil Service: the Basra Sunnis are now too few to be formidable. That seems plausible enough, though God alone knows what is truly going on. As to appearances of impotence, poor M. al-Málikí perhaps thinks that that problem is so bad for the quasigovernment of "Iraq" already that it can scarcely get worse no matter what happens. To be sure, he might think that and be mistaken.








____
[1] It would be naïve to suppose that indig TwentyPercenters and Sunnintern Central are automatically in accord. A quick glance at the career of non-Zionized Palestine ought to dispel that illusion.

[2] No one brief passage suggests itself for quotation, you'll have to read the whole document and decide for yourself whether or not the ICG think that almost everybody at Basra is unduly paranoid about Iran.

The Bani Kennebunkport Amongst the Tribes

There's an obvious spiritual affinity between Levantine tribalism and GOP extremism, . What's the Big Party's whole Kiddie Krusade if not diya on steroids? The aggression of March 2003 wa a sort of Cecil B. DeMille version of ghazw, ethically and politically indistinguishable, but a great deal flashier and noisier. "Shockier and awier," you might say. During that brief shining moment when Big Management seemed to have triumphed in the former Iraq, did not Shaykh Rumsfeld sagely pronounce "Freedom means looting," or something very like it? Now there was a sentiment that pierced straight to the heart of the Jáhiliyya! And yet quintessentially the spirit of Jay Gould's Old Party as well.

To be sure, little foreign tribal friends do not often have MBA's, and their civil-social arrangements amount only to "petty management," so to call it. But are not the sons of the desert basically sound, almost as sound as Richard Bruce Cheney, about Executive privilege and Executive unaccountability, even though they have been tutored by Nature rather than at the Harvard Victory School?

Isn't the whole point of the Crawfordites makin' deals with Shaykh Bakhíl b. Qabíh that what he says goes, that what he promises the Ál Bú Qabíh as a whole infallibly perform? Probably the Executive execution doesn't work out that way 100.0% in practice, but what mortal plans ever do? The theory of the matter is clear enough, or anyway, the received stereotype. As you'll recall, the Party stumblebums have long since abandoned their short-lived attempt to make "democracy" an export product, and presumably if the late Saddam had not concealed his nukes and nerve gas with such astounding ingenuity, they'd never have embarked on that antecedently dubious marketin' campaign in the first place. Sheikhly petty management is far more their cup of tea.

It would not be surprising if some of the Party tank-thinkers are looking into the tribal situation at neo-Gaza on a crash basis. I believe they won't find much, Non-Zionist Palestine having been a peasant society for several millennia. They are, however, perhaps feeelin' a bit desperate as regards the NZP occupation. Although the Fatáh will have become a bit more GOP-congenial, perhaps, after it was outvoted, it still deplorably resembles a real political party. For that matter, so does the Hamás, although it is easier to present that bunch as mere faith-crazies. Some sort of Third Way starrin' a Silent Majority would suit Big Management's requirements in occupied Palestine admirably, and shaykhly petty management would be ideal, since custom (or anyway, the received stereotype) would require the majority to keep silent once Shaykh Bakhíl has spoken. However this excellent notion is probably only a snark hunt, considering that if such a scheme were viable, the Telavivistanis would have implemented it long since. (I believe they had a certain amount of success in the Sinai before they gave it back.)

Back in the Crawford-blessed land of Peace and Freedom, tribe and shaykh still count for something, obviously, although it is far from obvious exactly how much that comes to. Despite exactly opposite original intentions, the Ba‘th were compelled at last to make serious concessions to tribalism as well as religionism. Compromising with endarkenment did them no good in the end, but how could it have, when the Bani Kennebunkport descended upon them hyperpowerfully out of the blue? Even though the Big Management Party and its violence professionals want to hang around in the former Iraq forever, analysis should probably proceed by attempting to gauge the correlation of strictly indigenous forces before worrying about what our own stumblebums will do next.

Religious endarkenment flourishes everywhere except amongst the Free Kurds. Tribal endarkenment is far more problematical. The "Iraq is a fishbowl" angle is, I presume, quite important here: al-Jazeera and its wannabe, broadcasts from the evil Qommies, those dreadful partisan fishwraps at New Baghdad, the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, all these media influences can be used to bolster religious endarkenment(s), but if they can be used to prop up Shaykh Bakhíl b. Qabíh, I can't figure out how, and apparently neither can he. (Cellular telephones might be helpful to him, though, though not preferentially as against other civil-social elites.)

Former quasiminster ‘Alí al-‘Alláwí is probably right to consider that the former Iraq suffers from positive religious NEO-endarkenment, that faith baseness is not only strong, but growing stronger, and has been since circa 1980. Tribal endarkenment, however, looks to be weaker today than it was yesterday, and tomorrow it will be weaker still. If the Big Managers expect investin' in the Ál Bú Qabíh is the way to go, they would do well to move promptly.

The object of the investment, as expounded by Karl Rove Associates, is to smash al-Qá‘ida. Boy-'n'-Party loyalists tend to put it that way, and not specify al-Qá‘ida in Mesopotamia, meaning either the organization(s) so called, or all violent Sunni neo-Islam in the former Iraq. Part of their latest stumble is to identify everybody who shoots at Republican Party troops as belongin' to ’Usáma's gang, a ploy that makes obvious sense in Heimatland politics but is decidedly unreality-based out in the boondocks. Bakhíl b. Qabíh clearly cannot do anything worth mentioning for the Big Party as regards smashin' al-Qá‘ida outside Mesopotamia. The GOP geniuses seem to think it will suffice for him to help them smash al-Qá‘ida in the governate of al-’Anbár. Even granting most of their dubious premises, I should think the prospects for their investment depend on whether al-Qá‘ida in al-’Anbár is recruited locally, or imported from afar. At this point, Mr. Rove becomes a serious obstacle to Big Management, because for agitprop reasons it is desirable that as many as possible of the insurgents / guerillas / terrorists be illegal aliens, but in that case buyin' up the local shaykhs is unlikely to get at the root of the problem. If the Party stumblebums clearly understand which parts of their propaganda are flat-out lies, propositions that they themselves consider to be false, and if "al-Qá‘ida" (their expanded hobgoblin) considered as a band of outside agitators is one of their noble lies, then the scheme may have some merit to it. Otherwise not.

As usual, Crawfordology comes first. Mr. Bones and I take the view that the extremist cowpokers are very likely indeed to be suckered into believing their own nonsenses --which nonsenses are accordingly never to be harshly called "lies." Therefore we speculate that investin' in Bakhíl b. Qabíh is unlikely to be profitable for them. In addition to the inveterate and invasionite GOP nonsenses, there are the shaykh's nonsenses to be taken account of. We are talking about the good folks that Dr. Chalabí conned, after all. M. Bin Qabíh will doubtless assure them that tribalism is the wave of the future, and that the very best sort of neotribalism is that of the Ál Bú Qabíh. The hormone-basers are likely enough to take his word for it, for their hormones dearly wish it to be so. If he picks their pocket, that will serve them right. Perhaps even from Uncle Sam's point of view, there would be no need for too many tears about it, since bribes for the tribes can amount to but a pittance compared to all those taxpayer bucks that the Big Management Party has thrown at its Peaceful Freedumbia in other ways.


But let's hear from an outside agitator: Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service's correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, IPS's US-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region.

This year US military authorities worked to firm up a tribal coalition that they said would oppose al-Qaeda terror groups. Unnamed officials in the administration of US President George W Bush have made claims to reporters that the move has reduced violence in Anbar, but residents in the area think otherwise. "It started with the so-called campaign 'Awakening of al-Anbar', then it developed into forming 'The Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation'," said Hamid Alwani, a prominent tribal leader in Ramadi. "This was supposed to be a local fight between al-Qaeda and the local people of al-Anbar, but in fact we all realized the Americans meant us to fight our brothers of the Iraqi resistance."

Gosh, they sure can't fool him!

Alwani said "most tribal sheikhs opposed the idea" and made it clear to US military commanders that they would never be part of the US plan. "It seems that the Americans have started to realize their mistake now." Few tribal groups are backing US forces anymore. Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, leader of the Dulaim Confederation, a tribal organization in Anbar, told reporters recently in his Baghdad office that the Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation would be dissolved because of increasing internal dissatisfaction. Opposition has grown against one of the council leaders, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, whom Suleiman called a "traitor" who "sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money". Any Iraqi working with the US military is now opposed by most people in the province. "Sattar is well known as a former criminal," a tribal leader in Anbar who asked to be referred to as Hatam said. "The Americans are now spoiling him like a favorite child."

Aggression supporters might point out with cause that anybody's claims about what "most people in the province" think or "know" can only be guesswork, and almost certainly not disinterested guesswork either. Our own guess is that there is nothing at all except (1) Sunní Islám and (2) the need for a Sunní Ascendancy if there's ever to be any "Iraq" outside shudder-quotes would command a majority. But God knows best.

A well-respected leader in Fallujah said on condition of anonymity, "Shi'ite leaders had their doubts about him from the beginning, but the desperate Americans thought he was the best solution to their failure in Anbar." Abu Risha has been living in Amman, Jordan, for several months. And there is growing doubt how much influence he has. "The Suleiman family, who were called the princes of al-Dulaim tribes, have no power in Iraq," Mohammad al-Dulaimy, a historian from al-Anbar, said in Ramadi. "They were assigned leaders by the British occupation [during the 1920s], and everyone in Iraq knows that." Dulaimy added, "As soon as the British left Iraq, those guys lost power and went abroad. They then found a chance to return under the American flag."

Brit neotribalisation is an interesting topic, but rather a remote one. And it's not as if the shaykhs who stayed home didn't lose a great deal of power between 1958 and 1992. Caveat lector.

Others see the promotion of Abu Risha as a failed attempt by occupation forces to apply divide-and-rule tactics in the province. "I do not see this working amidst the obvious division amongst tribal leaders looking for power," said a professor at the University of Anbar in Ramadi, speaking on condition of anonymity. "People here know each other, and they knew from the beginning that those warlords would fight over power and money one day."

"[W]arlords would fight over power and money" is a very elementary point, but it does no harm to repeat it. However, "divide and rule" is repeated far too often in dubious passages, of which this is one. Tribalism pretty well means that the natives are divided already, it is not something that aggressors and occupiers need to impose in order to rule.

But such co-opting has not in any case lessened violence. "All the new militia did was increase tensions among the local community," local cameraman Fowaz Abdulla said. "Americans are getting killed by the day, and these militias are just executing people just like Shi'ite militias in Baghdad and the southern parts of Iraq." Police loyal to tribal leaders in the Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation have told reporters that the US military provided them weapons, funding and other items such as uniforms, body armor, pickup trucks and helmets, and paid tribal fighters US$900 a month.

Probably M. al-Fadhily means well, but anecdotal evidence is trumped by actual statistics all the same. We learn at Slogger City that 356 GOP troops were killed in al-’Anbár in 2006, whereas 116 GOP troops have been killed there in 2007 so far. That comes to 0.974 deaths per day versus 0.663, or roughly one third fewer. Whether the Bribes for Tribes program has had anything to do with it, who knows? It's at least as likely that the ever-glorious Surge of '07™ has shifted the aggressor casualties to other governates: Diyálá, Níníwá, Saláh al-Dín, and "other" have already seen more deaths in 175 days of 2007 than in 365 of 2006. BGKB.


The voice of Soc. Sci. has a word or two on this question as well:

Anbar Salvation Council head skips town? This story from al-Malaf is currently the talk of the forums: Sitar Abu Risha, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, has allegedly fled Iraq with $75 million that the Americans had given him to fight al-Qaeda. The story links his flight to the near-collapse of the Anbar Salvation Council over infighting among its leadership (which jibes with recent reporting in the Washington Post). It claims that he simply never distributed the American cash to the fighters, who are now threatening to go on strike if they don't get paid. Seeing as how the Anbar Salvation Council has for months now been portrayed as the great American hope in the battle against al-Qaeda, if this story turns out to be true - a big if, given the shaky sourcing to this point - then it would be a rather embarrassing fiasco. "The Anbar model", indeed. I haven't seen this officially reported anywhere, and right now I have no way of checking its accuracy - but thought it worth passing on a juicy rumour just in case it turns out to be true.

It's Not Easy to be King of Airstrip One!

Referendum demand over Blair 'sell-out' By Melissa Kite in Brussels, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:35am BST 24/06/2007 A key pledge safeguarding British control over its own foreign policy that was secured by Tony Blair at the Brussels summit is not legally binding, it became clear last night. The Prime Minister said the agreement allowed European nations to focus on the issues that most concerned their citizens The Opposition stepped up calls for a referendum after it emerged that a clause negotiated by Mr Blair allowing exemption from a common EU foreign policy was merely a "declaration of intent" and not an enforcable part of the treaty. The Prime Minister's hard-fought deal began to unravel as the Conservatives accused him of surrendering British sovereignty and boxing in his successor, Gordon Brown. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said Mr Blair had broken the most important of his four "red lines" - the limits of the powers he was prepared to cede to Brussels after the rejection two years ago of the EU's planned constitution. The blueprint for a new Reform Treaty, signed by the 27 EU member states at 5am yesterday, was hailed by Mr Blair, who leaves office on Wednesday, as a key part of his legacy. He claimed that it safeguarded British sovereignty on foreign and defence policy, criminal law and justice matters, social policy and tax, and gave Britain an opt-out from a legally binding EU Charter of Fundamental Rights that would apply to the work place. Critics said, however, that the deal was simply a repackaged version of the rejected EU constitution. Crucially, a "declaration" in the footnotes of the treaty giving member states an exemption from common foreign and security policy would not stand up to judicial scrutiny, they said. Mr Hague said: "Tony Blair says he has safeguarded British foreign policy from EU interference, even though he has agreed to an EU diplomatic service, which will mean EU embassies and an EU foreign minister by any other name. "But when you examine the small print it is clear that his so-called safeguards have no legal guarantees at all. "By concentrating on headlines he can try to sell, Tony Blair has yet again neglected what really matters. This is a sell-out of British interests, not a case of standing up for them." Mr Blair also surrendered Britain's right to veto EU decisions in more than 40 other areas of policy, including energy, tourism, transport, civil protection and migration. He and Mr Brown clashed during the summit over a clause watering down the EU's commitment to free trade. Emerging from the talks yesterday, the visibly tired Prime Minister said the agreement allowed European nations to focus on the issues that most concerned their citizens. "We've been arguing for many years about the constitutional question," he said. "This deal gives us a chance to move on. It was important to get out of this bind into which we'd got with the constitutional treaty." The pressure group Open Europe warned that many key elements of the failed EU constitution would be reintroduced, including an EU diplomatic service and an EU foreign minister, renamed as a "high representative". Mr Brown supported Mr Blair's assertion that a referendum on the treaty would not be required. However, in a television interview to be shown today, he appeared to leave the door open for an about-turn. Interviewed for BBC1's Politics Show, he said: "Thanks to the negotiating skill of Tony, they [the four red lines] have been achieved and I think people when they look at the small print will see that we did what we set out to do, and that was to make sure that in these areas we were properly protected as a country to make our own decisions when we want to do so." Mr Brown praised Mr Blair's "skills" in securing a deal that protected Britain's national interest in key areas. "While many other people will call for a referendum," he said, "it seems to me that we have met our negotiating position." Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said that Mr Blair's "insistence on playing to the press with his 'red lines' has undermined the UK's ability to get the best out of the negotiations".

Plus Tony Monster is widely rumoured to be about to pervert to Continental Papism himself personally. Never a dull moment in the Airstrip One Follies show!

About the Sorrows of Petty Nationalities

Abbas fired his director of internal security, Rashid abu Shabak, who was the highest-ranking security official in the Gaza Strip, and according to Al-Quds al-Arabi, sources say Shabak could now be appointed ambassador to Cairo. Shabak had been appointed director of internal security following the Hamas electoral victory in 2006. He was continually at loggerheads with Hamas people, who accuse him of having caused the failure and resignation of two ministers of the interior, Saed Sayyam and more recently Hani Qawasami. Hamas had repeatedly asked Abbas to get rid of Shabak, and in fact prior to the recent events in Gaza, Shabak had tendered his resignation, but Abbas refused to accept it. Security sources in Ramallah said they think Jabril al-Rajoub will be appointed his successor. Rajoub, a top Fatah person, has served as preventive security chief in the West Bank, and was once national security adviser to Arafat. Here comes the part about Dahlan: The firing of Shabak is the first sign of weakened prestige of Mohammed Dahlan, Abbas' top security person, and of his diminished influence in the security apparatus, because Shabak was extremely close to Dahlan, and in fact many people say it was Dahlan who pressured Abbas to appoint [Shabak] to his position [as director of internal security]. It is still too early to say with certainty what will be the extent of Dahlan's power, or weakness as the case may be, or his status vis-a-vis Abbas. That is something that will only become clear with the announcement of the new membership of the National Security Council, where some Fatah sources say Abbas is resisting external pressure, and American [pressure] in particular, to name Dahlan general secretary of the new council. Implying that Dahlan is still Washington's man. In which case you would have to ask again: What was it Dahlan oversaw for them in the Gaza Strip, was it as everyone says, a humiliating defeat, or was it, as far as Washington is concerned, something else?

And there is an old song for you, Mr. Bones! The "parcel of rogues in a nation" song, in fact. Almost nothing in sight, no matter which way you look, but traitors and apostates and this or that pack of foreigners' "man" -- and a' that and a' that!

Could the original brand-name Philistines have invaded their Palestine from Ireland or Scotland, then? I believe the old sources speak of "sea peoples" . . . .

A rash conjecture, that, and one not to be insisted upon.

Safer to assume the very plain likeness is rather structural than genetic. Any trailer trash negligently pushed about by neo-betters who can actually do the pushing is likely to be thus divided. To stand firm for the locals offers spiritual rewards, but then to ratfink for alien invasionists is also not without its, admittedly rather less spiritual, compensations also.

From well outside this particular fray, Mr. Bones and I are inclined to consider it a toss-up and extend a broad and genial toleration to both the neo-collaborationists and to the more traditional "resistance" folks as well. Which I daresay only goes to show how utterly out of touch Mr. Bones and I am are with peripheral Celtic or peripheral Palestinian reality. Should alien invasionism ever befall us personally, no doubt we too would soon be found evolving a "narrative" for the delectation of all future Eng. Lit. departments that is mostly about treason and apostasy and a' that and a' that.

What a curious fate is ours, O Bones! We are perhaps rather like the "poor little rich girl," who understands neither where her Daddy Warbucks' wealth comes from nor why the wage slaves she'd dearly like to be sympática with should detest Warbucks Enterprises LLC so very bitterly. We've been carried up to the top with the Bushevik Wave, Mr. Bones, even though we are only scum and riff-raff, mere obsolete l*b*r*l flotsam and jetsam, no proper part whatsoever of the august and ever-to-be-adored Bushevik Wave itself, no fans at all of their GOP Kiddie Krusade.

From so very precarious and accidental and transitory a lofty eminence as our own, what sermons shall we preach de haut en bas, Mr. Bones, about "The Sorrows of Petty Nationalities" or about anything else?

Concerning the Lebanese Menace

Golly, Mr. Bones, "unlawful Lebanese aggression"! Apparently the Elephant People really are terrorized of mice! And I thought it was only a joke or a specimen of Unnatural History!

By tacitly allowing Hizballah to control the border region with Israel and by including the group in the then-cabinet, the Lebanese government could no longer readily disavow the terrorists. The Hizballah action was "not a terrorist attack but the action of a sovereign state that attacked Israel for no reason and without provocation"—in other words, a pure casus belli. Hence, we concluded, "So war it is—a war of self-defense against unlawful Lebanese aggression in which the Israeli government has the obligation to its citizens to inflict maximum damage to the infrastructure of those who have attacked them" in order to quickly push the latter to their limit and end the conflict.

Best of all, perhaps, is that this nifty sophist and thug fan thinks his neoteric stuff is impeccably traditional, at least if Herr General von Clausewitz be accounted so:

Our legal analysis was predicated on an essentially Clausewitzian view of war as the continuation of politics by other means. Statesmen ought to do everything possible to prevent the outbreak of hostilities, but, once it is clear that diplomacy has failed or one of the parties initiates hostilities (casus belli), warriors are allowed to deliver what diplomats failed to produce: a definitive resolution of the conflict by determining a winner and a loser so that the outlines of the peace to follow might respect the comparative strengths and other realities on the ground—and thus be more stable than the status quo ante bellum. Precisely because war is a bloody business, however, the traditional doctrine carried strong sanctions which discouraged bellicose leaders from pushing their nations into conflict: [o]nce they unleashed the dogs of war, they faced dire consequences, including debellatio, the ending of their belligerency through the complete destruction of their state. The unconditional surrenders of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire precipitated by their aggression are prime examples of this principle. However, I underestimated the ability of asymmetric warfare and anti-war "humanitarians", who claim exclusive ownership of the laws of war, to eclipse this traditional doctrine. Human rights advocacy and other groups operating under the "humanitarian" rubric have long eschewed questions of the jus ad bellum.

But fortunately Professor Clever of Wombschool Normal University knows a trick worth two of that! He doesn't merely "eschew" all that obsolete jus in bello jazz, he annihilates it and then mendaciously passes the buck for the annihilation to the celebrated Prussian theorist.

If "mendaciously" doesn't apply to Dr. Clever, that can only be because "incompetently" applies. Perhaps Clever doesn't know that poor Clausewitz didn't say anything of the sort, but then, perhaps he ought to know?

The only authentic tradition that can be appealed to in favor of Cleverism is the proverb "All's fair in love and war," which is interesting enough in its own humble way, although that way is scarcely the Path of Aquinas. J. Yoo, Esq., and A. Gonzales, Esq., and G. Weigel, S.J., are, for all that appears to the contrary, the first toney intellectuals ever to start neotheorizin' about War on the popular and proverbial level, this nifty neolevel of his that Prof. Clever of WNU lyingly or ignorantly attributes to Gen. Clausewitz. (The tone of our intelligentsia sure ain't what it used to be, O Western Civistanis!)

Still, let's not exaggerate. Despite his best efforts to suggest otherwise, probably Clever more or less knows what casus belli (and maybe even debellatio!) really used to mean to all those negligible benighted pre-neos who perforce thought their thoughts de bello in very late Latin rather than in the native New High Party Chinese of Yoo and Gonzales and Weigel and Clever. In the latter tongue, it appears that any conflict that is not about "unconditional surrender" doesn't really count as "war." Not surprisingly, Clever's own instances are very, very recent: "The unconditional surrenders of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire precipitated by their aggression are prime examples of this principle." Apart from perhaps Cato vs. Carthage, it looks almost as if the "tradition" of Wombschool Normal University began in 1939 or 1941 and ended in 1945. The "Great Generation" they like to claptrapize their favourite period as, I believe, the only generation in all the recorded annals that was ever capable of committing True WAR! (Except maybe that of the Catones and the Scipiones).

Still, let's not exaggerate. Let's only temperately note that "unconditional surrender" hasn't flourished much better since 1945 than it did before 1939. The most striking human event of my own time, who was born exactly three months after Hiroshima Day, can only be the collapse of the Lenin-Gorbachev Racket, which had nothing to do with True War, or even with false war. Dr. Perestroika didn't ever "surrender" with or without conditions, and how could he have? To whom should he have tendered the sword of Stalin?

Now if only the Boy-'n'-Party crew, the Yoos and Gonzaleses and Weigels and Clevers, did not harp so extremistically hard themselves on a "war against terror" that requires to be "aggressively" pursued, one might almost, always moderately and temperately, suppose them to be at bottom far more interested in régime-changin' than in war-makin'. In that case the Path of Aquinas might quite reasonably be eschewed and the militant neocomrades would very properly go back to their drawin' boards to deliniate for an interested world both ius AD mutationem alieni ordinis and ius IN mutatione alieni ordinis entirely from scratch and without any special privileging of sword-wielders. In the vernacular: both WHEN it is fitting and just to sally forth to change other peoples' regimes for them, and WHAT GUIDELINES must be observed in the course of such sallyings-forth. These matters would ideally be expounded with both an Aquinatan (or better, it's been eight centuries now, after all!) transparency of Principle and a Jesuit finesse of Principle application.

A lovely dream. But of course if the Big Management Party's extremist Yoos and Gonzaleses and Weigels and Clevers, or (m)any of their inferiors in that motley GOP mob of wombscholars and neo-downdumbees, have anything like THAT program in mind, Mr. Bones, why I am Marie of Roumania, and you are the Emperor of Ice Cream, sir.

Back down here on Planet Kennebunkport-Crawford, back in the real world, the best one can say -- always moderately and temperately, though one's blood boil as it may -- about Prof. Clever of Wombschool Normal U. is that he has worked up part of the available material in such a way that good guys can see from it what we go up against. "Relentless twistification," Mr. Jefferson of Virginia might have labeled Prof. Clever's performance, being a scholar well aware, for his own day and age, of what the pre-twist originals of these matters were like. I'm not quite sure that Mr. Jefferson would have properly relished the technical ingenuity of Clever's twistifying, however, considering his own rather too short way with Col. Hamilton.

Let we ourselves then, Mr. Bones, carefully note and decently respect the technical ingenuity, how Prof. Clever of WNU disappears the whole mainstream diplomatic tradition of Old Europe that was always aiming at "balance of power," and never even for an instant at the "unconditional surrender" or "régime change" of 2007 Boy-'n'-Party neoterics. There is, to be sure, one big apparent exception, yet what happened to poor Poland was rather "régime annihilation" than any Yoo-Gonzales-Weigel-Clever-Bush-Wolfowitz-Chalabí "régime change." The apparent exception thus at least does not contradict the general rule, even if it does not positively reinforce it.

Our mainstream tradition has for five hundred years been basically to go along with other people's régimes and get along with them. Decent Westistani wars are always about other folks' outlying provinces, they are never what neo-solecism likes to call "existential."

If Prof. Clever of Wombschool Normal University thinks he knows a better plan than that one of ours, let him expound it frankly and we genuine traditionists will listen to his exposition willingly enough. Probably we international retards shall reluct to adopt his Cleverism, probably we'll think that what has worked well enough for so very many years and generations and centuries ought not to be rashly abandoned for some dubious mess of colonial neopottage from Grant's Old Party, whose innate BigManagerial skills have recently been prominently put on display in the former Iraq

That's all as may be, the one radically non-negotiable point is that some cheapjack Prof. Clever of Wombschool Normal University is not to be allowed to sneak his conceptual contraband through the customs controls of Reason and Enlightement, to airily pretend that "we" have always agreed with his Party neo-Endarkenment, as if that had been an agreed-to pact ever since the days of Thomas Aquinas. Let Master Clever go change other people's régimes, if he must, and abstain from mucking about with our tradition. To suppose our own tradition retrospectively reformable, why, what is that but Orwellism?