Peters: The Wrong Enemy

Our favorite military analyst here at COTTonLINE, Ralph Peters, who writes for The New York Post, has a very penetrating view of the situation in Afghanistan. You owe it to yourself to go read it. He says, for example:

The Taliban isn't fighting for development, but against progress. They're reactionaries, not revolutionaries.

Peters explains:

Our current hearts-and-minds approach that seeks to avoid "unnecessary" combat gets it exactly wrong: Religious warriors can't be bought with new roads, wells and vaccinations. On the contrary, over two millennia of religious revolts tells us that fanatic uprisings can only be subdued by killing the true believers.

On one level, rural Pashtuns are hillbillies who just don't want the revenuers coming up their hollow, but the problem's greater than that. Our "heavy footprint" played into the hands of propagandists for jihad, who depicted us as infidel invaders (as we told ourselves that Islam was irrelevant). Faced with zealous believers who regard death as a promotion, we pretend we're fighting Canadians in pajamas.

How ridiculous is this? Peters continues:

The Taliban, al Qaeda and other Muslim terror organizations announce repeatedly that they're waging jihad. Our response? We insist that our enemies don't know what they're talking about. This is the stuff of Monty Python routines, not serious wartime analysis.

He concludes:

In Afghanistan, we're imagining the enemy we want, rather than seeking to understand the enemy we face.

Peters tends to favor the Roman model of dealing with rebellious tribes. He overlooks the modern world's revulsion with mass murder.On the other hand, there is something to be admired in the notion of granting the wish of someone who wishes to die fighting you.

Doggy Door Danger

See this article on the 9News website from Colorado. Apparently a mountain lion/puma can enter through your doggy door. If you live in a rural area you might want to think twice about having such a portal to your house.

If a dog can enter, so could a coyote. I've also heard of raccoons and the like entering through these. All of these would be unpleasant but a mountain lion is a real threat to humans; something that kills deer for a living can kill you too.

Better Late Than Never

Saturday Night Live spent years making fun of the Bush administration. This NewsBusters article says that SNL is now making fun of the Obama administration. Excellent, if belated.

If comedy programs make fun of everybody, they seek laughs at the expense of whomever is in power. If they only make fun of the GOP, they are part of the liberal bias of the MSM.

We've had good reason to suspect SNL; if this report is accurate, and if they keep it up, they have made their chops and begun to prove their willingness to hassle everybody. Way to go, guys.

Huge Budget Shortfall

See this article on the Bloomberg website which begins with an apocalyptic paragraph:

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal would generate bigger deficits than advertised every year of the next decade, with the shortfalls totaling $1.2 trillion more than the administration estimated, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

That is no small error and the CBO is non-partisan, too. It would appear that the "tax and spend Democrats" have become simply the "spend Democrats."

Travel Blogging II

Dateline: Dallas, Texas. Herewith some random thoughts about Texas. This town has some of the most imaginative post-modern architecture you'll see anywhere. Be sure to give it a look if you get here. Dang, the countryside around Dallas is surely flat.

Texas freeways seem to be designed by local civil engineers who have never been out of state. The off ramps are often on the left, both on and off ramps can connect with the access road and the access roads are either one-way or two-way and you can only tell by reading the signs. Driving here, until you learn the local patterns, is like driving in a foreign country.

Texans are friendly people, I have known many elsewhere and actually lived here for a year. I can honestly say I've known almost none I didn't like - that is amazing. On the other hand, if you want to become visit-each-others'-homes friends, as opposed to being merely pleasant and friendly, you'd better go to the same church the Texan attends as that is where s/he makes friends.

Dallas is an interesting place to teach a night class. Several colleges and universities have taken an old department store in the downtown area and converted it into an urban center which they share for offering off-campus, after-hours coursework to urban workers. It is the only building I've ever taught in that had working escalators. It also has guards to keep street punks out and a couple of the highest tech classrooms I've ever had the privilege to use.

In Texas WalMart is so dominant that if you live outside urban Dallas you virtually have to shop there. In fact it was here that we learned that "WalMartin'" is a word, used as "let's go WalMartin'." It is important to drop the final g when saying what should be "go WalMarting."

If you're like me you have a mental image of Texas being a place where good beef is readily available. Wrong. The year we lived here we tried several vendors and never got a piece of beef that was better than so-so. The best beef is in the mountain west, where it is taken for granted since many people eat primarily elk they have hunted.

Yes, folks hereabouts do like their Dr. Pepper soft drinks. And, yes, there are still stylish women with "big hair."

Looters

This Washington Post article tries to make the case that the looting Chile has experienced in the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami is the result of economic inequality. This analysis is only partially correct. As the article points out, some of the looters carried their spoils away in 4-wheel drive vehicles.

What part of the allegation is correct? The "inequality" part. People are unequal but the key issue is inequality of character, of ethics, of morals. We have inequality of outcomes in large part because we have inequality of ability, inequality of ambition, and inequality of gratification deference, in short, inequality of individuals and of subcultures.

Looting happens when the social fabric breaks down; when the network of systems that restrain the losers in our society fails for whatever reason. In short, whenever lowlifes believe they can get away with looting. An earthquake will do as a cause of chaos, so will a hurricane or a power outage or a riot. All have spawned looting.

Mediterranean No Mill Pond

People tend to believe the Mediterranean Sea is relatively calm, not nearly so rough as the bigger oceans. A couple of recent occurrences make me believe otherwise.

The first event occurred late at night on November 21, 2008, as the Grand Princess was sailing north along the west coast of Italy to dock at Civitavecchia, the port of Rome. She hit "rogue" waves and broke windows, lost power, and caused no end of chaos among the passengers, finally getting into port several hours late.

The other DrC and I boarded the Grand Princess in Civitavecchia on the 22nd. We interviewed several people who lived through the experience and saw the damage, which wasn't completely repaired until we reached Ft. Lauderdale, several weeks later.

The second event is this example, from the Associated Press via Breitbart. It reports three very large waves that hit a cruise ship based in Cyprus sailing off the coast of Spain, Two passengers were killed with flying glass from the broken windows.

Quote of the Day

Dan Gerstein, writing for Forbes, on the topic of why the Democrats keep pushing a widely unpopular health care "improvement" bill:

Over the past 14 months they have continually been trying to jam a square political peg into a round historical hole.

That's a nice turn of phrase.

Friedman and Chile

See Bret Stephens' Wall Street Journal column on the positive impact Milton Friedman had on the economy of Chile. Note also that, contrary to leftist MSM rhetoric, Gen. Augusto Pinochet wasn't entirely bad for Chile, but rather a mix of good and bad. Once you've noted this, remember not to repeat it to anyone as it is definitely not a politically correct view. Stephens shows the results:

Chileans have become South America's richest people. They have the continent's lowest level of corruption, the lowest infant-mortality rate, and the lowest number of people living below the poverty line.

Quote of the Day

Nina Easton, Washington Bureau Chief, Fortune magazine, speaking as a panelist on the Fox News Special Report with Bret Baier. The transcript appears in RealClearPolitics. Her topic is the extension of unemployment benefits, being held up by Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky:

Economists found out, who study this stuff historically, find that it - continually to extend them contributes to high unemployment rate because people wait to the last minute. They wait until their benefits are about to run out before they take a less desirable job, before they decide to move, before they decide to, you know, go to a job that they wouldn't otherwise take.

FYI: Nina Easton was the designated liberal on the panel this particular evening, a role she often fills.

Fat Rats

See this summary of a scientific paper arguing that typical lab rats (and mice) are overweight as they eat all they want and get little exercise. This may make research results based on the rodents only relevant to overweight humans, which is to say, most of us. The paper in Nature has one very interesting implication:

Studies showing that caloric restriction can extend lifespan may have to be reinterpreted. "A major reason the lifespan of rats and mice is extended by caloric restriction is they started from an unhealthy baseline," argues Mattson.

Mark Mattson is chief of the National Institute on Aging's Laboratory of Neurosciences and a coauthor of the paper.

A Sister Souljah Moment

Bill Clinton, running for president in 1992, criticized a black performer called Sister Souljah who had said some racially antagonistic and violent things about whites. Therein was born the term "Sister Souljah moment" which is defined by Wikipedia as follows:

In United States politics, a Sister Souljah moment is a politician's public repudiation of an allegedly extremist person or group, statement, or position perceived to have some association with the politician or their party.

President Barack Obama, who was strongly supported for election by the teachers' unions, has supported the firing of all the teachers at a poorly performing school in Rhode Island. This may be Obama's Sister Souljah moment, see this article from The Washington Post.

Greece Revisited

See this New York Times column by Roger Cohen about the financial dilemma in the European Union and more particularly in Greece. Cohen compares the European situation to the one in the U.S. and finds important differences. He opines:

The integrative dream has faded. Europe, for the foreseeable future, will remain in the halfway house of monetary union, fiscal divergence and à la carte national politics.

Harry Harried

Power Line blog summarizes data from the Las Vegas Review Journal's poll indicating that Harry Reid may fail to get reelected. He is apparently much less popular than either of the Republicans who might run against him.

How great if two Senate Democratic leaders in a row fail to be reelected: Tom Daschle and then Harry Reid. The position might come to be viewed as jinxed, like that of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.

Political Humor Alert

John Hinderaker, writing in the Power Line blog about the competing cable news networks (Fox, CNN, MSNBC):

I'd rather get a root canal than watch Olbermann.

Mommy vs. Daddy

David Paul Kuhn has written an insightful column for RealClearPolitics, focusing on the mommy-like characteristics of the Democrat Party and the daddy-like characteristics of the Republican Party. He lays it out very clearly, without obvious bias in either direction.

Kuhn reports that the Pew Research Center asked Americans to prioritize 21 issues a couple of months ago. The economy was most important for everybody. After that, see what they found:

Democrats five most partisan issues: health care, the environment, aiding the poor, education and securing Medicare. In short, maternal.

Republicans five most partisan issues: strengthening the military, illegal immigration, influence of lobbyists, terrorism and the moral breakdown. In short, paternal.

You need to read this article.

Barone: Obama's Nanny Care

See Michael Barone's take on Obamacare, with reasonable sociological analysis thrown in for good measure. It is here courtesy of The Detroit News online. In conclusion, Barone says of Obama:

His greater problem, on health care and other issues, is strategic. Most Americans don't share his view that they are victims, in need of protection and supervision by "the educated class."

And that includes some of us who are members of the educated class.

Pelosi's Problems

See this article by John Bresnahan and Jonathan Allen of Politico which looks at the problems facing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. While it is relatively even-handed, it suggests Pelosi has substantial issues facing her. For example, about health care they report:

Pelosi and other top House Democrats say publicly that they have the votes to push through a comprehensive package, but privately, they know they don’t.

Money Trouble Where?

See this Forbes article reporting the relationship between states' financial conditions and their political orientations. Did you guess that heavily Democratic states were more likely to have financial difficulties? If so, you were correct. For example, Forbes says:

Of the 10 states in the worst financial condition, eight are among a total of 23 defined by Gallup as "solidly Democratic," meaning the Democrats enjoy an advantage of 10 percentage points or greater in party affiliation.

Forbes reasons:

Why do Democratic states appear to be struggling more than Republican ones? It comes down to stronger unions and a larger appetite for public programs.

The unions they identify as problem sources are mostly public employee and teacher unions.

Steyn: The Greek Problem

See what demographer Mark Steyn, writing for The Washington Times, has to say about the extent to which the problems of the Greeks are about to be replicated in other developed nations, including the U.S. Here is his conclusion:

In Greece, they've run out Greeks, so they'll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?

See the whole article.