More Pseduo-Tamburlaines Captain Langston

Ah, Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute (along with Dan Blumenthal and Newt Gringrich) might not drink "Foggy Bottom Kool-Aid" but again the Churchill reference makes you wonder what "Churchill" they've created in their minds. Of course, it's not clear eaxactly what they believe the "Churchillian" response would-be, in North Korea, Iran or Iraq, but they sure love to talk tough. To each other.

"The North Korean nuclear test is significant for two reasons. First, it has stripped any plausibility to arguments that engaging dictators works. Our failure was bipartisan. Clinton’s strategy was ill-conceived, but when push came to shove, the Bush White House drank the same Foggy Bottom Kool-Aid. Second, we are at a watershed. We know our opponents’ playbook. Will we think several steps ahead? Or embrace short-term illusion? This crisis is not just about North Korea, but about Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba as well. Bush now has two choices: to respond forcefully and show that defiance has consequence, or affirm that defiance pays and that international will is illusionary. Diplomats crave wiggle room, but it has just run out. Multilateralism is like Diet Coke; it may taste good, but it lacks substance. Conversations with foreign leaders aren’t enough if they do not produce results. Nor should consultation or declaration substitute for results. Bush must now choose whether his legacy will be one of inaction or leadership, Chamberlain or Churchill?"

Getting Testy
A Symposium on Pyonyang Policy
By Dan Blumenthal, Michael Rubin, Newt Gingrich
Posted: Tuesday, October 10, 2006
ARTICLES
National Review Online
Publication Date: October 10, 2006

Ah, the "Iraq Study Group" or as it's also known, "Those Who Seek A Way Out of Folly" and "Drifting Sideways? Give Em Merlot"

James Baker III, William Perry, Rudolph Giuliani, Sandra Day O'Connor, Vernon Jordan are all charged with figuring out how to maintain a US presence ("stay the course") and begin the withdraw ("cut and run"). Yes, according to a New York Times report today, it seems clear that a planned extraction of the US from Iraq is being developed by Baker and friends. This as last week the NYT reported that the US military is beginning to develop a counter-insurgency program especially focused on Iraq, and that the Rumsfeld mandate of reducing the size of the military is being reversed to address the reality of a two-front (at least) war. Late, but possibly not too late. Meanwhile, sacntions against new nuclear-player North Korea? Why? Anyone with the "balls" to pressure China to reign in their naughty neighbor? Seems the scorecard on US versus the Axis of Evil is not in our favor. How about talking and an effective use of force? Appears Mr. Baker is going to suggest to the American Colossus that he talk with Iran and Syria. Maybe Mr. John Yoo should take a break from his abstract, theoretical world of ever-increasing executive power and see what happens when the American Colossus is not as important or as "real" as his advisors. Instead of increasing the range of the executive branch, we should take a "real-world" lesson form the last six years and make sure the other two branches--legislative and judicial--have the nerve and the law to stand-up to an executive branch talking to Yahweh.

And Then There's That Pesky Colossus On The Koren Peninsula

This from the Brookings Institution.

Wrong on North KoreaAmerica Abroad Weblog, July 13, 2006 cont occurs here -->Ivo H. Daalder, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies

"As for isolation leading to the North's collapse, the problem is that whether to isolate the North or not is a matter for Seoul and Beijing to decide, not Washington. There's little more we can do to isolate the North; we're all sanctioned out. But there's plenty Pyongyang's neighbors can do to life there even more unbearable. Yet, while we may see the collapse of an evil regime like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as an unquestioned blessing, neighboring countries that will have to live the consequences of its implosion have a decidedly different view of the matter. They don't want to be responsible for the destitute millions that would come streaming across their borders - or have to provide the hundreds of billions of dollars necessary to turn things around in the North. Instead, their number one priority is to avoid the chaos that comes from collapse and disintegration - which is why basing a policy on the hope that China and the ROK will help bring about the North's collapse is so naïve and wrong-headed. "

Maybe Kristol Just Needs Pairing With Someone Serious, But Here's Some Sound Advice for the American Colossus

The Consensus for a Larger Army Is about as Complete as It Could Be
By Frederick W. Kagan, William Kristol
Posted: Monday, September 25, 2006
ARTICLES
The Weekly Standard
Publication Date: October 2, 2006

"Now, the fact is that there are more troops available to be sent to Iraq. But we also are stretched too thin, and need a larger military. In a front-page article on September 22, the New York Times's Thom Shanker and Michael Gordon reported that "strains on the Army from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become so severe that Army officials say they may be forced to make greater use of the National Guard to provide enough troops for overseas deployments." This prospect "presents the Bush administration with a politically vexing problem: how, without expanding the Army, to balance the pressing need for troops in the field against promises to limit overseas deployments for the Guard." Actually, this "vexing problem" has a solution: expanding the Army.
Analysts outside the government are increasingly in agreement: Researchers at conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation call for larger ground forces, as do thinkers at centrist and liberal organizations like Brookings, CSIS, and even the Center for American Progress. The more modest recommendations call for increasing the Army, over the next few years, by 50,000 to 100,000 new troops from its current 500,000. We would urge an immediate expansion toward a 750,000-person Army. In any case, the consensus for a larger Army is about as complete as it could be. Except within the administration.
What's preoccupying the Defense Department, even the top brass at the Army like Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker, is the Future Combat System--the Army's major "transformational" weapons system. Schoomaker has said that he would even cut the number of soldiers in uniform to pay for the system. The key premise of this argument is that Iraq is a blip, and the strain on our ground forces a temporary problem, while the FCS will ensure the Army's superiority for decades to come. But the armed forces have been strained for almost a decade now. And is Iraq really a "blip"? Most of the wars in the last 15 years have led to protracted deployments (the first Iraq war, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, for example). Only Haiti and Somalia--two signal failures--allowed a rapid exit.
The military should not be forced to choose between modernization and manpower. Army and Marine Corps vehicles are more than 20 years old and burned out by years of hard use. They need to be replaced. The president keeps saying that we are a nation at war, but the military keeps having to make budget decisions as though we were at peace. If this trend continues, we could lose in Iraq and break the ground forces as well.
The strain on the soldiers and Marines must be eased. Recruiting and training takes time, of course, and many will argue that it is too late: We'll be out of Iraq before they take the field. That same argument was made in 2003, 2001, 1999, and 1997. If we'd started at any of those times to increase the size of the ground forces, new soldiers would be on the ground today where they are badly needed. How many times are we going to repeat this mistake? How long will it take this administration, properly committed to a robust foreign policy, to provide the tools needed to do the job?"
Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at AEI. William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard."

Sunday Morning with Cioran and Petronius

"One should not forget that philosophy is the art of masking inner torments." E.M. Cioran

Well, and maybe, food: " . . . the servants made a lane, and a calf was brought in on a two-hundred pound plate: it was boiled whole and wearing a helmet. Following it came Ajax, slashing at the calf with a drawn sword like a madman. After rhymically cutting and slicing, he collected the pieces on the point and shred them among the surprised guests." Petronius

And the madness of Ajax? He's slaughtering cattle he believes to be fellow Greeks who have wronged him. Ah, Greek tragedy--the art of unmasking inner torments and letting them breathe; of course, with some Moet on a fine Sunday morning.

Yours Truly,
Mr. Pantagruel

Ah, History

Op-Ed Contributor (New York Times)
Pirates of the Mediterranean

By ROBERT HARRIS
Published: September 30, 2006
Kintbury, England


IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.
The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.
Consider the parallels. The perpetrators of this spectacular assault were not in the pay of any foreign power: no nation would have dared to attack Rome so provocatively. They were, rather, the disaffected of the earth: “The ruined men of all nations,” in the words of the great 19th-century German historian Theodor Mommsen, “a piratical state with a peculiar esprit de corps.”
Like Al Qaeda, these pirates were loosely organized, but able to spread a disproportionate amount of fear among citizens who had believed themselves immune from attack. To quote Mommsen again: “The Latin husbandman, the traveler on the Appian highway, the genteel bathing visitor at the terrestrial paradise of Baiae were no longer secure of their property or their life for a single moment.”
What was to be done? Over the preceding centuries, the Constitution of ancient Rome had developed an intricate series of checks and balances intended to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual. The consulship, elected annually, was jointly held by two men. Military commands were of limited duration and subject to regular renewal. Ordinary citizens were accustomed to a remarkable degree of liberty: the cry of “Civis Romanus sum” — “I am a Roman citizen” — was a guarantee of safety throughout the world.
But such was the panic that ensued after Ostia that the people were willing to compromise these rights. The greatest soldier in Rome, the 38-year-old Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) arranged for a lieutenant of his, the tribune Aulus Gabinius, to rise in the Roman Forum and propose an astonishing new law.
“Pompey was to be given not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone,” the Greek historian Plutarch wrote. “There were not many places in the Roman world that were not included within these limits.”
Pompey eventually received almost the entire contents of the Roman Treasury — 144 million sesterces — to pay for his “war on terror,” which included building a fleet of 500 ships and raising an army of 120,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Such an accumulation of power was unprecedented, and there was literally a riot in the Senate when the bill was debated.
Nevertheless, at a tumultuous mass meeting in the center of Rome, Pompey’s opponents were cowed into submission, the Lex Gabinia passed (illegally), and he was given his power. In the end, once he put to sea, it took less than three months to sweep the pirates from the entire Mediterranean. Even allowing for Pompey’s genius as a military strategist, the suspicion arises that if the pirates could be defeated so swiftly, they could hardly have been such a grievous threat in the first place.
But it was too late to raise such questions. By the oldest trick in the political book — the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as “soft” or even “traitorous” — powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned. Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.
Those of us who are not Americans can only look on in wonder at the similar ease with which the ancient rights and liberties of the individual are being surrendered in the United States in the wake of 9/11. The vote by the Senate on Thursday to suspend the right of habeas corpus for terrorism detainees, denying them their right to challenge their detention in court; the careful wording about torture, which forbids only the inducement of “serious” physical and mental suffering to obtain information; the admissibility of evidence obtained in the United States without a search warrant; the licensing of the president to declare a legal resident of the United States an enemy combatant — all this represents an historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive.
An intelligent, skeptical American would no doubt scoff at the thought that what has happened since 9/11 could presage the destruction of a centuries-old constitution; but then, I suppose, an intelligent, skeptical Roman in 68 B.C. might well have done the same.
In truth, however, the Lex Gabinia was the beginning of the end of the Roman republic. It set a precedent. Less than a decade later, Julius Caesar — the only man, according to Plutarch, who spoke out in favor of Pompey’s special command during the Senate debate — was awarded similar, extended military sovereignty in Gaul. Previously, the state, through the Senate, largely had direction of its armed forces; now the armed forces began to assume direction of the state.
It also brought a flood of money into an electoral system that had been designed for a simpler, non-imperial era. Caesar, like Pompey, with all the resources of Gaul at his disposal, became immensely wealthy, and used his treasure to fund his own political faction. Henceforth, the result of elections was determined largely by which candidate had the most money to bribe the electorate. In 49 B.C., the system collapsed completely, Caesar crossed the Rubicon — and the rest, as they say, is ancient history.
It may be that the Roman republic was doomed in any case. But the disproportionate reaction to the raid on Ostia unquestionably hastened the process, weakening the restraints on military adventurism and corrupting the political process. It was to be more than 1,800 years before anything remotely comparable to Rome’s democracy — imperfect though it was — rose again.
The Lex Gabinia was a classic illustration of the law of unintended consequences: it fatally subverted the institution it was supposed to protect. Let us hope that vote in the United States Senate does not have the same result.

But Has The American Colossus Learned How to Interpret?

If the American Colossus makes an interpretive claim that may not be challanged, then are we sure the American Colossus has the knowledge and wisdom to interpret for the rest of us? How Hobbesian is this administration becoming?

A fine paragraph by Glenn Greenwald:
"There is a profound and fundamental difference between an Executive engaging in shadowy acts of lawlessness and abuses of power on the one hand, and, on the other, having the American people, through their Congress, endorse, embrace and legalize that behavior out in the open, with barely a peep of real protest. Our laws reflect our values and beliefs. And our laws are about to explicitly codify one of the most dangerous and defining powers of tyranny -- one of the very powers this country was founded in order to prevent."
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/legalization-of-torture-an_115945829460324274.html

And as the NYT states today in their news analysis: "Rather than reining in the formidable presidential powers Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have asserted since Sept. 11, 2001, the law gives some of those powers a solid statutory foundation. In effect it allows the president to identify enemies, imprison them indefinitely and interrogate them — albeit with a ban on the harshest treatment — beyond the reach of the full court reviews traditionally afforded criminal defendants and ordinary prisoners."

It does appear that John Yoo and others are bringing American back to a Hobbesian definition of the soveriegn: "The law is all the right reason we have, and (though he, as often as it disagreeth with his own reason, edny it) is the infallible rule of moral goodness. The reason whereof is this, that because neither mine nor the Bishop's reason is right reason fit to be a rule of our moral actions, we have therefore set up over ourselves a sovereign governor, and agreed his alwas shall be unto us, whatsoever they be, in the place of right reason, to dictate to us what is really good" (Hobbes debate with Dr. Bramhall, Bishop of Derry as qtd. in The Philosophy of Hoobes by W.G. Pogson Smith.)

In place of an objective right, we have the sovereign's right. And in Chapter XXVI of Part II of Leviathan, Hobbes writes:m "The Legislator known; and the Lawes, either by writing, or by the light of nature, sufficiently published; there wanteth yet another very materiall circumstance to make them obligatory. For it is not the Letter, but the Intendment, or Meaning; that is to say, the authentique Interpretation of the Law ( which is the sense of the Legislator,) in which the nature of the Law consisteth; And therefore the Interpretation of all Lawes dependeth on the Authority Soveraign . . . ."

Yet, for The American Colossus, another document curbs his "Authority Soveraign."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.table.html

Especially Seciton 2 of Article III. It's time now for the Supreme Court to have a talk with the American Colossus about his tripe recipes.

Ah, the Humorous Mr. Kristol!

In response to Bob Woodward's well-timed sea-change on the Bush administration, the King of Comedy Mr Kristol finds more reasons to blame . . . of course, the Democrats. The Democrats have failed plans, whereas Bush is lauded because . . ."Bush, on other hand, understands that the only acceptable exit strategy is victory. (If, as Woodward reports, he's been bolstered in that view by Henry Kissinger, then good for Henry. Invite him to the Oval Office more often!) ."

If only Mr. Kristol had at his fingers the plan for victory that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld have crafted. If only a plan for the inadequate troop level in the Anbar province existed, if only a plan to correct corruption within Iraq and Afghanistan existed, if only a "real" conversation between this administration and the military existed. Good laughs Mr. Kristol, good laughs.

Laughing with Hobbes

"Ignorance of the causes, and originall constitution of Right, Equity, Law, and Justice, disposeth a man to make Custome and Example the rule of his actions; in such manner as to think that Unjust which it hath been the custome to punish; and that Just, of the impunity and approbation whereof they can produce an Example, or (as the Lawyers which onely use this false measure of Justice barbarously call it) a Precedent; like little children, that have no other rule of good and evill manners, but the correction they receive from their Parents, and Masters; save that children are constant to their rule, whereas men are not so; because grown strong, and stubborn, they appeale from custome to reason, and from reason to custome, as it serves their turn; receding from custome when their interest requires it, and setting themselves against reason, as oft as reason is against them: Which is the cause, that the doctrine of Right and Wrong, is perpetually disputed, both by the Pen and the Sword: Whereas the doctrine of Lines and Figures, is not so; because men care not, in that subject what be truth, as a thing that crosses no mans ambition, profit or lust. For I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, That the three Angles of a Triangle, should be equall to two Angles of a Square; that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of Geometry, suppressed, as farre as he whom it concerned was able."

With the Rest of the World Going Mad (read Tom Friedman's op-ed in the NYT today) How About Some Cironian Madness

"I would like to go mad on one condition, namely, that I would become a happy madman, lively and always in a good mood, without any troubles and obsessions, laughing senselessly from morning to night. Although I long for luminous ecstacies, I wouldn't ask for any, because I know they are followed by great depressions. I would like a shower of warm light to fall from me, transfiguring the entire world, an unecstatic burnst of light perserving the calm of luminous eternity. Far from the concentrations of ecstacy, it would be all graceful lightness and smiling warmth. The entire world should float in this dream of light, in this tgransparent and unreal state of delight. Obstacles and matter, form and limits would cease to exist. Then let me die of light in such a landscape." E.M. Cioran, "On The Heights of Despair."

Light for Cioran? "The premonition of madness is complicated by the dread of lucidity in madness, the dread of the moments of return and reunion, when the intuition of disaster is so painful that it almost provokes a greater madness." Let's hope that some in this current madness have the ability to be lucid, light-filled, happy--turning dread into delight.

Worthwhile Comments on the NIE Report

If you like what you read, click on the title and go to http://blogs.chron.com/bluebayou/

" . . . President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also have highlighted the war in Iraq as the United States' main thrust in the fight against terrorism, contending that the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power.
Also, Sunday's newspaper articles on the National Intelligence Estimate -- by the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times -- were "not representative of the complete document," the White House said. That assessment was echoed by National Intelligence Director John D. Negroponte, whose office prepared the report.
In a statement e-mailed to reporters Sunday afternoon, Negroponte said "the conclusions of the intelligence community are designed to be comprehensive, and viewing them through the narrow prism of a fraction of judgments distorts the broad framework they create."
"The Estimate highlights the importance of the outcome in Iraq on the future of global jihadism," he said. If Iraq develops "a stable political and security environment, the jihadists will be perceived to have failed, and fewer jihadists will leave Iraq determined to carry on the fight elsewhere."
Negroponte is probably right about the importance of resolving the situation in Iraq, but again, this is a rather evasive response; it's perfectly reasonable for a report to observe that the war has increased the level of danger, but needs to be won. In other words: we've created a bad situation, but we've got to get out of it.
As for whether this part of the document is "representative," I find myself wondering whether any single part of a document that summarizes a wide range of information is going to be "representative." A more interesting question is whether that part of it is accurate and that's the question that the White House is dodging.
It's important to remember that documents like this are not policy documents; they are information to help those who create policy make good decisions. It would be perfectly legitimate for this or any administration to review this kind of data and conclude that while an action might actually endanger us, there are other policy goals that make it, on balance, worthwhile.
The situation is a bit analogous to scientific data that's presented to Congress and the White House. A scientific study will tell you that a certain chemical poses a health risk, or that current levels of carbon emissions are contributing to global warming. The job of policy makers is to weight that evidence against other concerns and decide how to act.
The response to both kinds of information by the Bush administration is revealing. Rather than make an honest determinations ("We understand this risk, but it is outweighed by the following...") this administration generally simply denies that the information is real.
When the administration reacts to these things by ignoring information, rather than putting it in context and explaining how other issues outweigh it, we should be very suspicious. The entire history of the Iraq war has been characterized by this sort of thing, from the ever-shifting rationales that were revealed as wrong one after the other, to the completely unrealistic predictions of the effort (in terms of time, money, and soldiers' lives) required, and now to the impact of our actions.
Dishonesty or incompetence? It's hard to say. As long as the administration chooses to operate in an alternate reality rather than deal with the one its own advisors are presenting to it, we're unlikely to know. "
Posted by John Whiteside at September 26, 2006 11:05 AM on Blue Bayou

Reviews of Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

http://billmon.org/archives/002746.html

http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/vls/178/giuffo.shtml

http://www.policyreview.org/OCT02/miller.html

http://www.hooverdigest.org/014/ash.html

Click This, Read, And Send the American Colossus A Copy of Politics and the English Language

Noteworthy compilation of Orwell, Bush, Cheney, Chirac and others. Thank Captian Langston.

Captain Langston Illuminates Inwards

Captain Langston: "As Foucault famously shows, time and again, power is a medium, a relationship."

And for Machiavelli and Hobbes, "desire" is the key.

Machiavelli: "It is a thing truly very natural and ordinary to desire to aquire; and when men who are able to do so do it, they are always praised or not blamed; but when they are not able and yet want to do so in every mode, here is the error and the blame" (Prince, Mixed Principates).

Hobbes: "Nor can a man anymore live, whoe Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the later."

Hobbes also establishes knowledge (that which we have when we "pretend to Reasoning") is of consequences--such as, "Science, that is Knowledge of Consequences; which is called also Philosophy" or "Consequences from the Accidents of Politique Bodies which is called Politiques and Civill Philosophy: 1. Of Consequences from the Institution of Common-Wealths, to the Rights and Duties of the Body Politique, or Soveraign. 2. Of Consequences from the same, to the Duty, and Right of the Subjects."

This is what worries us all about the Bush Administration's use of power, which appears to only be able to repeat a status quo without being able to study and learn from the consequences of misapplied force and a population that is not homogeneous. Again Chapter III from the Prince:
"For the Romans, in these cases, did all that wise princes ought to do, which is, to have regard not only for present disorders, but also for future ones, and with all industry to anticipate and provide for them; because, when one forsees them from afar, once can easily remedy them; but if you wait until they are near the medicine is not in time, for the malady has become incurable."
Also, "In this mode you have as enemies all those whom you have hurt in seizing that principate; and you are not able to maintain as friends those who have placed you there, being unable to satisfy them in the mode that they had expected and by your not being able to use strong medicines against them, being obligated to them, for even if one has the most powerful of armies, one always has need of the favor of the inhabitants of a province to enter it." Saddam Hussein's Iraq appears to meet the definition of a mixed principate. But, of course, others might better advise me on this.

Lively Debate Between Helprin, Hitchens and Kristol

Certainly one of the best forums I've seen recently. Check C-Span to see if it replays.

Saturday Morning Serving of Hobbesian Power or Gargantuan Power is a Thirsty One

"The Greatest of humane Powers, is that which is compounded fof the Powers of most men, united by consent, in one person, Naturall, or Civill, that has the use of all their Powers depending on his will; such as is the Power of a Common-wealth: Or depending on the wills of each particular; such as i the Power of a Faciton, or of divers factions leagued. Therefore to have servants is Power; To have friends, is Power: for they are strengths united."

"The palaver of the potted.

Then in the same place they started talking about dessert. Then flagons got going, hams trotting, goblets flying, glasses clinking . . . You wine stewards, creators of new forms, from not drinking make me drinking" and "Great God made the planets [planettes] and we make the plates clean [platz netz]."

Therefore to have wine stewards is Power; to have stewed friends is Power.

Captain Langston Sees the Gorgons and Raises Them an Alice

"The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin at HIS time of life. The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense. The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Yes, of course, the discourse has to have a possiblity of making sense. Given yeserday's UN speeches and that odd man with the beard on CNN interviewing the American Colossus, I suggest that Lewis Carroll be deemed a political philosopher.

United Nations Debacle or Rabelais for 500?

Sweet, sweet Jesus yesterday's gamut of disorientation was impressive. The American Colossus presented Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon as election-success stories, obviously relegating all this talk of bodies, torture, civil war, corruption, opium, infrastructure ruin to the status of illusion. Will somebody please investigate why the liberals and the media have invented all this "negative" and "unreal" news? Then there's the performance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who responded to a wtiness to Dachau with "I think we should allow more impartial studies to be done on this." And then of course there's Mr. Chavez who tried out his merengue moves on a journalist and kept referring to the presence of Satan, and (this is my favorite) lamented that he had not been able to meet Noam Chomsky before his death (the Noam Chomsky who is still alive). Then of course there is the rejection of UN forces by the President of Sudan because they're in the middle of genocide and would like to get on with it. What shall we say of politics as exampled by the above: "I discovered," said Gargantua, "by long and painstaking experiments a way to wipe my ass, the most lordly, the most excellent, the most expedient that was ever seen." Oh Rabelais! Oh humanity!

Ah, Pericles . . . or why Mr. Snow Might Want to Have a Conversation with The American Colossus on Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War

"Our policies are considered and evaluated. We do not believe that talking endangers action. The real danger comes when we do not talk the plan through before doing what has to be done. We are unique in the way we combine bravado with reasoned debate about every project."

Can Someone Help the American Colossus II?

""This debate is ocurring because of the Supreme Court's ruling that sauid that we must conduct ourselves under the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, and that Common Article 3 says that, you know, there will be no outrages upon human dignity. That's like--it's very vague. What does that mean, "Outrages upon human dignity?" George W. Bush, September 15, 2006

Common Article 3 is actually more specific than the President's language would indicate. Read the following.

"Common Article 3
Common Article 3 reads, in its entirety:
Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.
An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.
The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.
The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict. "

For more on this issue go to the Center for Derense Information home page. Link to the side of this page.

Can Someone Help the American Colossus?

"The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozen of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday."
Edward Wong, New York Times, September 16, 2006

"President Bush made an impassioned defense on Friday of his proposed rules for the interrogation and prosecution of terrorism suspects, warning that the nation's ability to defend itself would be undermined if rebellious Republicans in the Senate did not come round to his position."
Jim Rutenberg and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times, September 16, 2006

Quite possibly the nation's ability to defend itself will be compromised if an effective strategy for winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is not devised. Creating medieval seige defenses doesn't look like a way to effectively protect the home front, even if we have the "right" to pull off the fingernails of "the enemy."

What Queequeg Said As We Hoisted the Boats

Upon hearing of my pairing Hobbes with Darwin on the nature of the human condition and the struggle for existence, Queequeg coughed and wiggled out, "Yuh don' mean yur channelin' Anaximander?" Upon looking at Queequeg with deliberate non-comprehension, he remoeved from his pocket a folded piece of paper, which when I opened it revealed three different versions of Anaximanders view of the necessity of destruction (also some god-awful looking snot on that piece of paper that it appears Q. used to wipe his nose).

"Simplicius referring to Anaximander:
And the source of coming-to-be for existing things is that into which destruction, too, happens 'according to necessity; for they pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice according to the assessment of Time,' as he describes it in these rather poetical terms."

"Hippolytus (unfortunate name) referring to Anaximander:
This nature is eternal and unageing, and it also surrounds all the worlds. He talks of Time as though coming-to-be and existence and destruciton were limited."

"Plutarch referring to Anaximander:
He declared that destruction, and much earlier coming-to-be, happen from infinite ages, since they are all occurring in cycles."

If this is a case, then we can draw a "nice" line from Anaximander to Hobbes to Darwin to Borges, "The Circular Ruins."

Now, what am I going to do with Q.'s snot-rag?

Orwell Award of the Day or Cheney's Drumbeating Makes Sunshine

"CHENEY'S LOGIC
ONE OF the few college textbooks I still have is "Introduction to Logic" by Irving M. Copi. When I read Vice President Cheney's argument that because of the war in Iraq, 'there has not been another attack on the United States' ("Cheney defends hard-line role," Page A9, Sept. 11), I pulled that book from the shelf. Sure enough, there it was - a logical fallacy so old that it has a Latin name (post hoc ergo propter hoc, or "false cause"). The example Professor Copi gives is remarkably apt: 'Certainly we should reject the savage's claim that beating his drums is the cause of the sun's reappearing after an eclipse.'"


The Boston Globe
September 12, 2006 Tuesday THIRD EDITION
LETTERS; Pg. A14
ROGER GOULET

Succulent Hobbesian and Darwinian Salivary Glands

Hobbes, Part I Chapter XIII:
"Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man. For WARRE, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather. For as the nature of Foule weather, lyeth not in a showre or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many dayes together: So the nature of War, consisteth not in actuall fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE."

Darwin, Chapter III, Struggle for Live Most Severe between Individuals and Varieties of the Same Species:
"It is good thus to try in imagination to give any one species an advantage over another. Probably in no single instance should we know what to do. This ought to convince us of our ignorance on the mutual relations of all organic beings; a conviciton as necessary, as it is difficult to acquire. All that we can do, is to keep steadily in mind that each organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical ratio; that each at some period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply."

When Students Don't Think / When Students Don't Read And Exactly Why Do I Want Them to Do Both

Tuesday Morning. Multicultural Literature. We're discussing Marquez's "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings." The first question concerns why the villagers have found a woman turned into a spider more interesting, more compelling than an apparent ancient angel who has crash-landed in the courtyard of Pelayo and Elisenda. Answers, proposals, thoughts are slow in coming and as I proceed with observations of how the "angel" does not live up the expectations of Father Gonzaga, how the villagers poke it with a burning iron, and how the angel and a child both come down with chicken pox, I begin to wander (to myself) if my students just believe this is a crazy story about a decrepit angel when everyone knows that angels are bright, young and above ill-repute. Conceptual thinking is slow-going at the mall-about-to-be-destroyed. How should I let them know that reality is put together each day in more or less the same way that the angel is shoved into a chicken coop and that the "human story" of a girl punished for defying her parents and going out at night to dance by being turned into a spider is going to win over the incomprehensible and incommunicative any day? And then, why do I especially want them to know this?

Reading the Rand

Brian Michael Jenkins on the RAND Corporation site offers his view on the war on terrorism. On of his salient points follows:

"Preserve American values. “Whatever we do . . . must be
consistent with our values, and here I think we in America are
in some danger,” warns Jenkins. “We have too readily accepted
assertions of executive authority as necessary for our security.
We have confused the appropriate need to gather intelligence
with the rejection of all rules that govern collection. We have
yielded too much to fear, and it is fear that could destroy us.”
Jenkins concludes: “We cannot claim to be a nation of laws, a
champion of democracy, when we too easily accept a disturbing
pattern of ignoring inconvenient rules, justifying our actions
by extraordinary circumstances, readily resorting to extrajudicial
actions based on broad assertions of unlimited executive
authority, and espousing public arguments against any
constraints on how we treat those in our custody. Th e defense
of democracy demands the defense of democracy’s ideals. To
ignore this is to risk alienation and isolation. And defeat.”

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9193/

Monday Morning Melville

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball."

I get to the whale as soon as I can. That and a magaritta with Cabo Wado tequilla (reposado), Patron Citronge, lime juice, and a jalapeno slice--all vigorously shaken, not blended.

Shock and Awe Advocates: Al Qaeda and Neo-Cons or What A Healthy Respect for Force Might Lead You to Avoid And How to Combine Brookings and Heritage

"Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how to respect it, is capable of love and justice." Simone Veil, "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force."

"Thus, in the Iliad, force appears as both the supreme reality and the supreme illusion of life. Force, for Homer, is divine insofar as it represents a superabundance of life that flashes out in the contempt for death and ecstacy of self-sacrifice; it is detestable insofar as it contains a fatality that transforms it into inertia, a blind course, on to its own abolition and the obliteration of the very values it engenders." Rachel Bespaloff, "On the Iliad."

From Brookings:
"What about the losers? Top among them must be Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization he created and led. With his organization smashed, many of his lieutenants killed or captured, and his Afghan sanctuary closed down, the world's leading terrorist is living a life on the run, from one cave to the next, with little more to do than issuing the occasional video or audio tape. That is quite a change from five years ago, when bin Laden watched his hand-picked terrorists commit their horrific acts on CNN International via satellite high up in the Afghan mountains. Of course, in one crucial respect, bin Laden has emerged victorious: his idea of a global jihad against America and its supporters is now embraced throughout the Muslim world. But by all accounts he has lost his ability to direct the movement or to plan and execute the kind of attacks that shook the world five years ago. Neoconservatism is another major loser. The idea that America had the power to remake the world in its own image — and that after 9/11 it had the opportunity to do so largely on its own — was dealt a deadly blow in the sands of Mesopotamia. The forceful ouster of Saddam Hussein set in motion political forces that America did not, and probably could not, contain — sectarian forces that are now ripping the country violently apart. Far from Iraq becoming a positive example of change and reform for the wider region, the chaos that has befallen it stands as testament of the limits of American unilateralism and the failure of an ideology that relied on it to effect positive change throughout the Mideast."
"Five Years After 9/11 - A Balance Sheet" America Abroad Weblog, September 6, 2006 Ivo H. Daalder, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution.

From Heritage:
"There is no practical U.S. military solution to the instability in Iraq. Neither the U.S. nor
other Western allies have the troops to fully garrison Iraq. Even maintaining the status quo helps neither Americans nor the Iraqis. The operational troop levels and tempo of operations are undermining long-term U.S. readiness and are perpetuating a condition of dependency on the part of the Iraqis."

"The United States has an important role to play outside Iraq. The Bush Administration must work to contain Syria and Iran; press for dismantling Hamas and Hezbollah; strengthen ties and cooperation and promote growth and healthy civil society in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Coast states, Jordon, and Turkey; support a strong Israel that negotiates for peace from a position of strength, not weakness; combat transnational terrorist groups and proliferation; maintain a well-funded military, and build missile defenses. These are security policies that will help make the Middle East safer for a free Iraq and the peoples of the region."
"U.S. Military Policy in Iraq: “Cut and Run” a Disaster for the U.S. and the Middle East" by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., and James PhillipsWebMemo #1207

I Am Travis Bickle and Tyler Durden

Teaching at the mall-soon-to-be-demolished includes actively being aware of the existence of parallel realities. In the reality (supposedly that I inhabit) I lead a Humanities class on Thursday evenings; in the reality of the computer (the one I suppose I'm supposed to actually be in) I am teaching an American Literature II class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and it has eight students. Maybe I am really teaching that class as well as the one that I am teaching. Yes. Today I meditated on what "huge genitals" means as my Multicultural Literature class discussed Carter's "The Company of Wolves;" and angry, young men with golf clubs as my American Literature II class pondered Rivera's "Marisol." Tonight: more golf clubs and a war in heaven. Omophagos. Omophagos.

Damnorum Experientia for The American Colossus or Why an Infernal Three-Way Between Thomas Hobbes, Leo Strauss and Angela Carter May Save Us All

Ah, Mr. Strauss, this does sound like a Gargantuan morning:
"Living in the world of his imagination, he need do nothing, in order to convince himself of his superiority to others, but simply think out his deeds for himself; in this world, in which indeed 'the whole word obeys him', everything is accomplished according to his wishes."

But the cave has cases of Amarone Valplicella or for a far more reasonable price Allegrini Valpolicella Classico 2004 (which, Mr. PrudentStarbuck, you may find in the Dining Section of the New York Times paired with a Lobster Spaghetti with Fresh Tomatoes (get those Heirloom Tomotoes at WholeFoods)--tell me, can the Weekly Standard say the same?). What could possibly make the American Colossus leave?

"He can awaken from his dream-world and come to himself only when he feels in his own person--by bodily hurt--the resistance of the real world."

Oh yes, kick the rock and the gigantic foot swells. Baghdad has that affect. But still, why should the large man on campus leave the pleasant restraints of dim places?

"By damnorum experientia man becomes reasonable." (Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes)

Oh. Well then, time to assign Angela Carter's "The Company of Wolves" for The American Colossus to read:

"Those slavering jaws; the lolling tongue; the rime of saliva on the grizzled chops--of all the teeming perils of the night and the forest, ghosts, hobgoblins, ogres that grill babies upon gridirons, witches that fatten their captives in cages for cannibal tables, the wolf is worst, for he cannot listen to reason."

I knew cannibalism wasn't that bad. And further,

"We keep the wolves outside by living well."

But eventually,

"She will lay his head on her lap and she will pick out the lice from his pelt and perhaps she will put the lice into her mouth and eat them, as he will bid her, as she would in a savage marriage ceremony."

Yes, let the wolf into the cave. Ah, so the American Colossus can still enjoy the lobster and spaghetti with a valpolicella and the rapturous notes of Swan Lake if he goes to bed with his dark old self. Hmmm, let's end with little bit from Mr. Hobbes.

"And from hence it comes to passe, that men have no other means to acknowledge their owne Darknesse, but onely by resoning from the un-foreseen mischances, that befall them in their ways . . . ." If one remembers that "the wolf cannot listen to reason."

Pentagon and White House Dreaming (A summary of Monday's Blog with Hamlet added) or Between Dreams and Lime-Twiggs Lies the Rub

". . . dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance of the ambition is merely the shadow of a dream". Hamlet, Act I, sc. ii

"Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for; and to place it accordingly; or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twiggs; the more he struggles, the more belimed." Hobbes, Leviathan.

"Thus, the violence in Iraq cannot be categorized as the result of a single organized or unified opposition or insurgency; the security situation is currently at its most complex state since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Similarly, Iraqi or Coalition security strategies must be tailored for the different objectives, methods, and support structures of each particular threat." "Measuring Secuity and Stability in Iraq" August 2006 / http://www.defenselink.mil/

"The Terrorists Serve A Clear And Focused Ideology. The ideology known as Islamic radicalism, militant Jihadism, or Islamo-fascism - different from the religion of Islam - exploits Islam to serve a violent political vision that calls for the murder of all those who do not share it. The followers of Islamic radicalism are bound together by their shared ideology, not by any centralized command structure. Although they fight on scattered battlefields, these terrorists share a similar ideology and vision for the world openly stated in videos, audiotapes, letters, declarations, and websites. ""Fact Sheet: President Bush Remarks on the War on Terror" / http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051006-2.html

At Home Thinkeries . . . Yeah!

Thank you anonymous cloud (in response to Why Mr. Hobbes, That is a Thinkery! ).

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Screw the professorhsip at the demolished mall, I'm starting my own little think-yank.

Hobbes the Father of Orwell and Americans Belimed

"Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for; and to place it accordingly; or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twiggs; the more he struggles, the more belimed."

Ah yes, the importance of naming. Very well, what names are used by the Pentagon's assessment of the conflict.

"The Nature of the Conflict
Violence in Baghdad is the most prominent feature of the conflict in Iraq in this period, as Sunni and Shi’a extremist death squads pursue their sectarian agendas. The resulting violence overwhelmingly targets civilians, causing segments of the populace to tolerate or even endorse extremist actions on their behalf as an effective means to guarantee their safety, undermining both the Government of Iraq’s ability to deliver security and its pursuit of a reconciliation program. Although Baghdad remains the focus for sectarian and terrorist violence in Iraq, violence tied to the Rejectionist insurgency, terrorist intimidation, political and tribal tensions, and criminality continue in other regions. Sectarian violence is gradually spreading north into Diyala Province and Kirkuk as Sunni, Shi’a, and Kurdish groups compete for provincial influence. Conflict in Anbar Province remains centered on the Sunni insurgency. Although al-Qaeda in Iraq continues its intimidation to coerce passive Sunni support, tribes are pushing back to eject al-Qaeda in Iraq and reestablish their dominant role. In the southern, predominantly Shi’a region of the country, political and tribal rivalries are a growing motive behind violence, particularly in
Basrah, with limited anti-Coalition forces attacks likely undertaken by rogue Shi’a militia with Iranian support. "

And what about the enemy?

"The Enemy
Violence against the Iraqi people and Coalition forces is committed generally by a combination
of both Sunni and Shi’a groups, who are overwhelmingly Iraqi but with a small yet significant component of foreign suicide operatives. Sunni groups include Rejectionists— many of whom were members of, or associated with, the former regime—and terrorists groups, including al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al Sunnah (AS), and other smaller groups. Shi’a groups include elements of militias and illegal armed groups, many of whom receive Iranian support. The threat posed by Shi’a illegal armed groups, filling perceived and actual security vacuums, is growing and represents a significant challenge for the Iraqi government. The appearance and activity of death squads is a growing aspect of the violence in Iraq, with both Sunni and Shi’a death squads adding to the violence by targeting civilians and inciting reprisal. Al- Qaeda in Iraq and elements of JAM (nominally under the control of Muqtada al-Sadr) are among most prominent groups engaging in a continuing pattern of attacks and reprisals against individuals or communities representing the other’s sectarian affiliation. Thus, the violence in Iraq cannot be categorized as the result of a single organized or unified opposition or insurgency; the security situation is currently at its most complex state since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Similarly, Iraqi or Coalition security strategies must be tailored for the different objectives, methods, and support structures of each particular threat." "Measuring Secuity and Stability in Iraq" August 2006 / http://www.defenselink.mil/

And yet.

"The Terrorists Serve A Clear And Focused Ideology. The ideology known as Islamic radicalism, militant Jihadism, or Islamo-fascism - different from the religion of Islam - exploits Islam to serve a violent political vision that calls for the murder of all those who do not share it. The followers of Islamic radicalism are bound together by their shared ideology, not by any centralized command structure. Although they fight on scattered battlefields, these terrorists share a similar ideology and vision for the world openly stated in videos, audiotapes, letters, declarations, and websites. "
"Fact Sheet: President Bush Remarks on the War on Terror" / http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051006-2.html

A difference between then Pentagon assessment (the war in Iraq) and the Bush message (the War at Home). A purposeful entanglement?

Beware the Library

I entered through transparent doors, believing if I could only see the proxima and the laptop then all would be fine. First return trip: no power cord for Proxima. Second return trip: Cord from Proxima to Laptop doesn't fit. Third Return trip: New Proxima doesn't read laptop. Final Defeat: Proxima finally reads laptop, but laptop doesn't recognize USB device. All I wanted to show: images of the divine and the sublime. Obviously, my abyss. The gods of the slowly-being-demolished-mall-that-passes-as-a-college are angry and festering in the library. Thank God that a trustworthy paladin works in the library (he commiserated and said, "you know this is a good week for evil")--he also brings my mighty fine beer--Go Double Bastard Ale! When I returned home: no ice, and yes that makes for a warm magaritta or vodka and orange juice.

Tomorrow: Is it just me, or is Iraq the perfect Hobbesian universe?
Also Tomorrow: My friend from Trinidad brings back mighty fine 15 year-old rum, and no I don't feel like a pedophile.

Teachin' Murder

Multicultural Literature
Day one of discussion. The class has been assigned the "Tell-Tale Heart." Realities faced: I teach in a mall; I teach in a mall being demolished; students don't read; at times, students don't even show up with the book. My revenge? I assign Sophocles' Antigone.

American Literature II
This is a team-taught class, and my "teammate" is ArtBoy. ArtBoy doesn't like Rennaissance painting. Too many images of Baby Jesus. He's going to do most of the talking today on the divine in sublime art. I'll talk Tuesday about Rivera's Marisol--New York subways, apocalypse, and gulf clubs. I'll be happy.

Why Mr. Hobbes, That is a Thinkery!

Maybe not a furnace, maybe not people as charcoal, but it appears I am teaching my young wards that angels are about to engage in an all-out war with God (Marisol), dead children come back for visits (Beloved) and that those we kill haunt us (Neon Vernacular). I feel Mr. Hobbes breathing on my neck and whispering,

"If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitions persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted than they are for civill Obedience."

Wait, Mr. Hobbes, wait. I promise these youths will learn how to further the good of the Common-wealth . . . by "taking-out" God, not killing children, and listening to the voices that have a claim on us.

Tomorrow: What Mr. Hobbes Might Say about the WWII analogy as a tactic to fight terrorism throughout the world.

Why More Rhetoric Will Save the Day, Islamic Fascists For 500 Jack, And Why Liberal America May Be Defeated By Losing the War in Iraq

"Bush used the term earlier this month in talking about the arrest of suspected terrorists in Britain, and spoke of "Islamic fascists" in a later speech in Green Bay, Wis. Spokesman Tony Snow has used variations on the phrase at White House press briefings.
Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., in a tough re-election fight, drew parallels on Monday between World War II and the current war against "Islamic fascism," saying they both require fighting a common foe in multiple countries. It's a phrase Santorum has been using for months."
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

Rumsfeld alluded to critics of the Bush administration's war policies in terms associated with the failure to stop Nazism in the 1930s, "a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the Western democracies."
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

Yet in the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, here is the language:

"OUR ENEMIES AND THEIR GOALS
The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida. These three groups share a common opposition to the elected Iraqi government and to the presence of Coalition forces, but otherwise have separate and to some extent incompatible goals.
Rejectionists are the largest group. They are largely Sunni Arabs who have not embraced the shift from Saddam Hussein's Iraq to a democratically governed state. Not all Sunni Arabs fall into this category. But those that do are against a new Iraq in which they are no longer the privileged elite. Most of these rejectionists opposed the new constitution, but many in their ranks are recognizing that opting out of the democratic process has hurt their interests.
We judge that over time many in this group will increasingly support a democratic Iraq provided that the federal government protects minority rights and the legitimate interests of all communities.
Saddamists and former regime loyalists harbor dreams of reestablishing a Ba'athist dictatorship and have played a lead role in fomenting wider sentiment against the Iraqi government and the Coalition.
We judge that few from this group can be won over to support a democratic Iraq, but that this group can be marginalized to the point where it can and will be defeated by Iraqi forces.
Terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida make up the smallest enemy group but are the most lethal and pose the most immediate threat because (1) they are responsible for the most dramatic atrocities, which kill the most people and function as a recruiting tool for further terrorism and (2) they espouse the extreme goals of Osama Bin Laden -- chaos in Iraq which will allow them to establish a base for toppling Iraq's neighbors and launching attacks outside the region and against the U.S. homeland.
The terrorists have identified Iraq as central to their global aspirations. For that reason, terrorists and extremists from all parts of the Middle East and North Africa have found their way to Iraq and made common cause with indigenous religious extremists and former members of Saddam's regime. This group cannot be won over and must be defeated -- killed or captured -- through sustained counterterrorism operations.
There are other elements that threaten the democratic process in Iraq, including criminals and Shi'a religious extremists, but we judge that such elements can be handled by Iraqi forces alone and/or assimilated into the political process in the short term. "

No, no "fascists" there. But possibly I have it all wrong, possibly quoting Churchill's "a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last" is a very effecitve, direct tactic to combat this: "Violence across Iraq has spiked in recent days, with more than 200 people killed since Sunday in clashes, bombings or shootings - despite U.S. and Iraqi officials' claims that a new security operation in the capital has lowered Sunni-Shiite killings there, which had risen in June and July."
By REBECCA SANTANA Associated Press Writer

Will We Choose To Win in Iraq?

Ah . . . thoughts about Iraq . . . that is domestic-political thoughts about Iraq. Another aritcle about the war in Iraq, and another article that makes it clear that for those on the right and the left it's not about an actual plan to win the war overseas, it's about winning an ideological war at home. Please tell William Stuntz that defeating the Mahdi army is not about defeating liberal Democrats. Sigh. And eerie. It appears that the will of the American Colossus is enough to "get the job done." Cuts down on thinking.

The Apocalypse is at Hand . . . Please

Half-hour to go before I meet my Multicultural Literature class. For Thursday they are to read Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" which I'm following with Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find." I want them to understand my personal views on murder. How does this apply to the American Colossus? When this gargantua muses on what's going on inside people's homes or on backwoods roads, I want him to have one word rattling in his brain: murder. By September 19 we will be discussing "A Rose For Emily." Yes . . . .

I foolishly began the morning watching Washington Journal and hearing caller after caller turn Katrina into a battleground for conservatives and liberals. My guess is that both sides have agreed that as long as they are repetitive and shrill then the status quo they so love will remain in place.

Plenty of stress in my back. Why? Because I know my little charges will again demonstrate the bathos of American Education--and yet, somewhere in this lot, may be the next American Colossus. What to do . . . .

Renewal in Iraq . . . Lovely word . . . Re-new-al.

Cool. Just click on the title to this entry and you'll be taken to the site where all will be expalined. I recommend the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" link. A Knight of the city told me such a plan existed, and now I've found it. Possibly someone should let Mr. Kirstol know this. Now to get to readin'.

Tuesday: First installment of "Teachin' in the Leviathan." This will be a Tuesday and Thursday journal of my engagin' with young barbarians and makin' them learn to trust the darkness . . .
love the darkness, because anyone of them might grow up to be the American Colossus, and then wont' that be sweet, I mean I'll be set, probably make me Secretary of Defense. Better get workin' on my plan to liberate Crete from it's Attic oppressors. FREEEEEEDOMMMMMM!

Blogging the Bible . . . Yes.

Along with Marc Zvi Brettler's book "How To Read the Bible" this should help me navigate the rapturous world of Hebraic sacrifice that bears some resemblance to the transcendent world of Hellenic sacrifice. Oh yeah!

And Yuh Thought Governing By Divine Right Was A Thin' Of The Past

MIAMI - U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris (news, bio, voting record) told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.
Harris made the comments — which she clarified Saturday — in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues.
Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."
"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris said.

And here's an excerpt from the full interview in Florida Baptist Witness:
"The Bible says we are to be salt and light. And salt and light means not just in the church and not just as a teacher or as a pastor or a banker or a lawyer, but in government and we have to have elected officials in government and we have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s certainly isn’t what God intended."

U.S. Constitution
Article VI
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Thanks to C-Span and the Associated Press

What The American Colossus May Read Upon Waking From Uneasy Dreams

From The Brookings Institution:
"Hubris, the ancient Greeks taught, is followed by Nemesis; overbearing presumption always finds the goddess of divine retribution and vengeance baying at its heels. Washington is learning that painful lesson again today -- and Iraqi civilians and American troops are paying the price for the pride that drove the United States to try to implant democracy on the cheap in the heart of the Arab world."
Daniel L. Byman, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

From the Heritage Foundation:
"Washington should remember that the British, welcomed as liberators in Baghdad in 1917 after defeating the Ottoman Empire, were the target of the "Great Iraqi Revolution" three years later. That uprising took the British more than four months to quell, at the cost of 450 British dead and 1,250 wounded, and was followed by repeated tribal and nationalist uprisings until 1936. Britain established the trappings of democracy--a constitution, parliament, king, and council of ministers--but British meddling, Iraqi political corruption, and the government's inability to meet basic needs discredited democracy in the eyes of many Iraqis. Iraq's army eventually terminated Iraq's democratic experiment, staging 15 coups between 1936 and 1968, when Saddam Hussein's Baath Party finally seized power."
Democracy, Federalism, and Realism in Postwar Iraq by James A. PhillipsExecutive Memorandum #873

From the Liberty Fund:
"To this very ingenious reasoning, and these refined distinctions between natural and social rights, the people may possibly object, that in delivering themselves passively over to the unrestrained rule of others on the plea of controling their inordinate inclinations and passions, they deliver themselves over to men, who, as men, and partaking of the same nature as themselves, are as liable to be governed by the same principles and errors; and to men who, by the great superiority of their station, having no common interest with themselves which might lead them to preserve a salutary check over their vices, must be inclined to abuse in the grossest manner their trust. To proceed with Mr. Burke’s argument—should the rich and opulent in the nation plead their right to the predominant sway in society, from its being a necessary circumstance to guard their wealth from the gripe of poverty, the men in an inferior state of fortune might argue, that should they give way to this plea in all its extent, their moderate possessions would be exposed to the burden of unequal taxes; for the rich, when possessed of the whole authority of the state, would be sure to take the first care of themselves, if they should not be tempted to secure an exoneration of all burthens, by dividing the spoils of the public; and that the abuse of such high trusts must necessarily arise, because to act by selfish considerations, is in the very constitution of our nature.
To such pleas, so plausibly urged on all sides, I know of no rational objection; nor can I think of any expedient to remove the well grounded apprehensions of the different interests which compose a commonwealth, than a fair and equal representation of the whole people;—a circumstance which appears very peculiarly necessary in a mixed form of government, where the democratic part of the constitution will ever be in danger of being overborne by the energy attending on its higher constituent parts. "
From Catharine Macaulay, Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, on the Revolution in France (1790).

Emily on Dreams And the First Text For The American Colossus To Read

531

We dream - it is good we are dreaming -
It would hurt us - were we awake -
But since it is playing - kill us,
And we are playing - shriek -

What harm? Men die - externally -
It is a truth - of Blood -
But we - are dying in Drama -
And Drama - is never dead -

Cautious - We jar each other -
And either - open the eyes -
Lest the Phantasm - prove the Mistake -
And the livid Surprise

Cool us to Shafts of Granite -
With just an Age - and Name -
And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian -
It's prudenter - to dream -

Hobbes as Heraclitus Equals Borges And What Does This Mean For The American Colossus?

Well, before the Vodka Gazpacho recipe let's drink some coffee (Sumatra Blue Batak--ah the deliciousness of dirt and flowers) and savor a bit of Hobbes:
"For the continuall change of mans body, destroyes in time the parts which in sense were moved: So that distance of time, and of place, hath one and the same effect in us. For as at a great distance of place, that which wee look at, appears dimme, and without distincution of the smaller parts; and as Voyces grow weak, and inarticulate: so also after great distance of time, our imagination of the Past is weak; and wee lose (for example) of Cities wee have seen, many particular streets; and of Actions, many particular Circumstances. This decyaing sense, when wee would express the thing it self, (I mean fancy it selfe,) wee call Imagination, as I said before: But when we would express the decay, and signifie that the Sense is fading, old, and past, it is called Memory. So that Imagination and Memory, are but one thing, which for divers considerations hath divers names."

And a taste of Heraclitus: "A man in the night kindles a light for himself when his vision is extinguished; living he is in contact with the dead, when asleep, and with the sleeper, when awake."

And in my recipe when you combine Hobbes' imagination with Heraclitus' sleeper, well you arrive at Jorge Luis Borges' "The Circular Ruins." Somebody check my math, it may be the brown sugar notes in the Blue Batrak talking, or . . . in order for The American Colossus to protect the city, he must work on the quality of his dreams.

Footnote: One may contend that Heraclitian dreamin' is found in this bit from Hobbes: "The imagination of them that sleep, are those we call Dreams. And these also (as all other Imaginations) have been before, wither totally, or by parcells in the Sense."

What are you dreams for the city? Mine? That's right. The Furies.

Tomorrow: How My Syllabus for ENGL 2328 (American Literature II) Will Improve the Dreams of the American Colossus.

Was Breifly . . . Ah, yeah.

From the Newshour segment, Failed States, August 21, 2006:

"The danger in a failed state, as Afghanistan was briefly, is it throws up a radical movement that provides a safe haven for terrorism which then directly threatens the United States."
"Ralph Peters is a retired Army lieutenant colonel. His new book, "Never Quit the Fight," assesses U.S. strategic challenges in the Middle East."

From the New York Times, August 23, 2006:

"Interviews with ordinary Afghans and with foreign diplomats and Afghan officials make it clear that the expanding Taliban insurgency in the south represents the most serious challence to his [Karzai] presidency . . . corruption is so widespread, the government apparently so lethargic and the divide between rich and poor so gaping that Mr. Karzai is losing public support . . . ."

The American Colossus asked, "And the question facing this country is: Do we, one, understand the threat to the America? In other words, do we understand that a -- failed states in the Middle East are a direct threat to our county's security?" Indeed, do we, and is there a plan?

Rummy As Caliban

'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"(Ron Suskind on an anonymous source, New York Times Magazine, Oct 17 2004)

Yes, suggested reading, Prospero to Ferdinand, that is advice from an old colossus to a neo-prince.

"These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And--like the baseless fabric of this vision--
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant fades,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our litte life
Is rounded with a sleep."

Also, follow this link. Interesting discussion where both panelists are correct though they disagree with each other. Is this too nuanced for the American Colossus?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec06/failed_08-21.html

For Christmas, Give Yur Politician The Iliad, Simone Weil's "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force" . . . and a bottle of Corazon tequila

Simone Weil's analysis of the Iliad entitled "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force," has been read as a pacifist statement, a reading that with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 9, 1939 Weil rejected, but it is more successful as an analysis of the dangers of using force, and the humility that should reign when one weilds it. "Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates." We've seen the results of the Bush administration's hubris in Iraq (this is not an argument against the use of force, it's an argument against a naive, oversimplistic, immature use of force) and the Olmert administration's use of air power in Lebanon. Now it appears there are plans to bomb sites in Iran, as if maybe this time air power alone will save the day. Force, as our technological skill, certainly has become intoxicating to contemporary politicians, while those who are assigned "enemies" are quickly learning that they can oppose that technological force by not responding in kind. What's clear in Weil's reading of force in the Iliad is that no one can possess it exclusively. Writing about Agamemnon, Achilles and the rest of the Greeks Weil posits, "But at the time their own destruction seems impossible to them. For they do not see that the force in their possession is only a limited quantity; nor do they see their relations with other human beings as a kind of balance between unequal amounts of force. Since other people do not impose on their movements that halt, that interval of hesitation, wherein lies all our consideration for our brothers in humanity, they conclude that destiny has given complete license to them, and none at all to their inferiors." On one side religion appears to justify "complete license," on the other side political ideals and technology. What this calls upon the American Colossus to do is to avoid oversimplifications that the "enemy" from Iran to Gaza only gather together to oppose democracy (keep in mind Hamas was elected, keep in mind a democratically-elected goverment was undermined in Lebanon) and instead of obfuscating the situation, sit down and begin to learn what language fits the force that's necessary to solve the problem.

Tuesday: Captain Langston on Rhetoric and a link to a Newshour conversation on Failed States in the Middle East.
Wednesday: Decaying Imagination, Frigglefraggling, and a new Bloody Mary recipe or as my wife says, "maybe your just heading toward alcoholic gazpacho"

Cioran, Bloody Mary, and Swan Lake

Act II and the swans are out. Gorgeous . . . the legs, the . . . Now once you've filled a highball glass with ice, pour in an ounce of vodka (today I'm pouring Tito's, made right here in Texas) and repeat after me, "Love's great (and sole) originality is to make happiness indistinct from misery." Only have to read Sappho's Fragment 33 to know this . . . well and to have done a wee bit of stalkin'. Now, let's backtrack, and look at what you should have already prepared. Pour one cup of organic tomato juice into your blender of choice, also add one tablespoon of lime juice, lemon juice and this Cioran morsel, "He worked and produced, he flung himself into massive generalizations, astonished by his own fecundity. He was quite ignorant, fortunately for him, of the nightmare of nuance." Delicious. Now add a tablespoon of Worcestershire and a tablespoon of Blair's original Death Sauce, and then carefuly add "To see in every baby a future Richard III . . . ." Follow all of this with pinches of paprika, mustard powder, garlic powder, cumin, and coriander; blend it all together, chill it . . . and now return to your glass full of ice and one ounce of vodka . . . and add. Stir and along with a sprig of mint add "Who does not believe in Fate proves he has not lived." Oh yes. Look at those swans. Oh yes, read Frank Rich in the Week in Review section of the Times. Synchronicity between the Times and the Weekly Standard?

Saturday Sweetbreads and Gargantua Rump Roast in a Hobbesian Sauce (Chapters 1 in Leviathan and Gargantua)

Don't have access to wild mushrooms, never mind, and don't worry about the garlic and shallots, just make sure you have a pig butt and that good ol' thymus gland from a cow and let's get to work. After you've boiled that gland, saute it with Hobbes' observation that our perception of objects "is Fancy, the same waking, that dreaming." Yes, don't use all of it though, we'll want to save some for that Salad Borges we'll be working up later this month. Also, make sure to use the small yet powerfully suggestive "I say not this, as disapproving the use of Universities: but because I am to speak hereafter of their office in a Common-wealth." Good advice: next time you are around "insignificant speech" at your local college or university just ask yourself--"What good is this to the Common-wealth?" Keep in mind also my dear readers, that all of these recipes are only to be digested according to their office in the Common-wealth, or as we are calling it, the American Colossus. But what of that rump roast? After you have drowned the rump in a couple of bottles of Chimay, then you need to grate Gargantua's genealogy making sure that you cover the rump with as much detritus as you can. Remember: don't get sqeaumish about dead family members--cheese, wine and so on are the gifts of lovely decay; just think what your dead relatives might afford! Yes indeed, bits of a throat that have soaked in a resolve not to test whether you are awake or not will certainly help you down the bits of rum braised in all those bits of mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins you never were sure what to do with--until now!

Remember Pantagruelizing is the same waking or dreaming when drunk, hung-over or depressed sitting in front of the television on a Sunday morning with a bloody mary and the comedically banal Wolf Blitzer.

Coming Sunday: Quotes from Cioran and my Bloody Mary recipe.
Monday: What the United States, Great Britain, France and Israel may learn from reading the Iliad.

Politics and Comedy or Why Aristophanes Had it Right

"'You can't send in men telling them: Look what's going on but you don't have the right to defend yourself or to shoot,' the French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told RTL radio."
From the very government who insisted on forging a peace process, insisted upon doing the right thing for the Lebanese people. Brilliant comedy from the French.

"Hizbollah handed out bundles of cash on Friday to people whose homes were wrecked by Israeli bombing, consolidating the Iranian-backed group's support among Lebanon's Shi'ites and embarrassing the Beirut government. "
So let me understand this. Your crazy uncle firebombs your neighbors, who retaliate by firebombing your house, and then your crazy uncle comes over and says no problem I'll giv e you money to rebuild so we can do this all over again. Outstanding "New" Middle East Comedy.

"Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary was a triumph for the European wing of the Democratic party. So it's fitting that Lamont is pro-carrot. It was impossible to go to Europe during Bush's first term without getting a lecture about the utility of carrots, the futility of sticks, and the Bush administration's regrettable neglect of the former and unfortunate proclivity for the latter. So Lamont is an appropriate spokesman for what one might call the Bugs Bunny caucus that now dominates the Democratic party."
An embarassing and shameful debacle in Iraq, but it all can be summed up here at home by references to Warner Borthers' cartoons. One of the great comedians of our day, ladies and gentlemen, William Kristol. Not that well-schooled of a comedian however. If Mr. Kristol knew anything about Loony Tunes he might have avoided Bugs Bunny. As scholars of American cartoons know, Mr. Bunny's nemesis is one Elmer J. Fudd who carries a big stick called a gun and is constantly shown to be the most incompetent hunter on the planet. Well, at least that part of the sketch works.

Readin' Little Boxes

Here are two quotes from Rabelais' Gargantua and Hobbes' Leviathan.

"Sileni were in olden times little boxes, such as we see nowadays in apothecaries' shops, painted on the outside with merry frivolous pictures, such as harpies, satyrs, bridled goslings, saddled ducks, flying goats, harnessed stags, and other such paintings imagined at will to set everyone laughing (such was Silenus, master of good old Bacchus); but inside they perserved fine drugs such as balm, amergris, amomum, musk, civet, precious stones, and other valuables"
(Gargantua).

"But to teach us, that for the similitude of the thoughts, and Passions of one man, to the thoughts, and Passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he doth, when he does think, opine, reason, hope, feare, &c, and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions" (Leviathan).

Mr. Pantagruel looks at his own little boxes, which are the views that Mr. Pantagruel has of himself, and even though of himself, are "merry frivolous pictures," and yet Mr. Pantagruel plans to decipher accurately the "balm" within; so as to know, what are the "merry frivolous pictures" in the American Colossus (a composite of all humanity, and thereby quite a shortcut) and by extension of the above logic, a view of what is balm to the American Colossus.

Something healing resides within the laughter of Mr. Pantagruel--but what is it?
Something healing resides within the laughter of the American Colossus--but what is it?

Captain Langston, Make Em See the Gorgons

When sailors don't read, and you're on the high seas,
what do you tell the miscreants?

"Terrors--terrors to tell, terrors all can see!
Their heavy, rasping breath makes me cringe.
And their eyes ooze a discharge, sickening . . . ."

A book unread demands retribution, retaliation,
demands for the unwashed and unread
to be hunted down and made keenly aware
of their disgrace.

So next time your charge respond with "I didn't read that,"
well dance around them souting "Aieeeeeeeeeeeeee"

It was a difficult Summer II semester, and only finely tuned magarittas
and this little speech helped me.

"But show us the guilty--one like this
who hides his reeking hands,
and up form the outraged dead we rise,
witness bound to avenge their blood
we rise in flames against him to the end!"

Shepherds and Sheep

Ah, Thrasymachus. Ah, Karl Rove.

"Because you suppose shepherds or cowherds consider the good of the sheep or the cows and fatten them and take care of them looking to something other than their master's good and their own; and so you also believe that the rulers in the cities, those who truly rule, think about the ruled differently from the way a man would regard sheep, and that night and day they consider anything else then how they will benefit themselves" (343b).

As a sheep, what good do you provide the American Colossus, what good do you provide to yourself? You see the American Colossus staring out his great window at the great expanse of pastures and woolly flocks and pondering, "What is the best way for them to die--for me and for themselves? Or do I keep them fat and shear them, taking from their hides what I need to warm myself?"

The American Colossus reads further: "And you are so far off about the just and justice, and the unjust and injustice, that you are unaware that justice and the just are really someone else's good, the advantage of the man who is stronger and rules, and a personal harm to the man who obeys and serves" (343c).

The American Colossus now understands its own words even more fully. "Why," it begins, "when I say it's about fightin' them over there and not here . . . why, I'm really talkin' about fightin' the war here by fightin' the war over there. It's so clear now. It's about defeatin' liberals, the true enemy, by lookin' like I'm fightin' Osama what's his name. Thank you sheep, thank you. Because, you see, the soul of the city is my duty, not that of the world, and the soul of the city is best protected by sacrifice, constant sacrifice . . . of the sheep. We must defeat the liberal enemy that wants to put the sheep on cage-free land, feed them organic meat and vegetables, and teach them that they're part of nature and not descendants of angels who came to earth and pleasured themselves with Halle Berry. And the sheep, hell the sheep will smile and lick my hand as I adjust the settings on the jackhammer because they know that sacrifice means there's something to sacrifice for and that idea . . . well it even puts a smile on my face. Not that I'm fighin' all the liberals--hell those Kerrys and Clintons and Libermans they're all right, they defend the killin' too. It's the few crafty sheep, the ones that read this same book but draw a far different message, those are the ones I'm fightin'. Funny thing is, I can't name one. Oh well, doesn't matter, Karl tells me they're there and Karl's always right. Just like them Right Brothers, I like them boys, I'll think I'll just put down this book, look at the casualties for today, and listen to "Bush was Right." Maybe I'll even sing along."

Of course, dear reader, this is Thrasymachus' view in the Republic, and we all know that Socrates carries the day. We all know it is about justice . . . that and a good bowl of Lamb Curry.

Erasmus' Tongue

For this recipe you need the tonuge of a calf (besides the young dyin' overseas they can also be sacrificed for taste), olive oil, red wine vinegar, onions, tomato sauce, parsley, and this sweet little statement by Folly from Erasmus' "The Praise of Folly": "I hardly need mention Minos and Numa, both of whom reigned over their stupid subjects on the strength of fabulous stories. It is trifles like this that stir to action the great beast the people." Let that simmer with the tongue and the young will even more willingly say, "Yeah, vacation in Baghdad!" Interesting note that the Norton Critical edition (edited by Robert Adams) supplies for Minos and Numa: "Minos on Crete and Numa in Italy both claimed they had supernatural guidance and imposed that belief on their people." Important Note for the American Colossus: seek divine inspiration, at least, tell a story of hearing divine voices. Also tell "fabulous stories." For instance, have you heard the one about the mushroom cloud that got away?

Tuesday: Shephards and Sheep Shearin'
Wednesday: Why Captain Languston should use the Furies in his classroom.
Thursday: Back to Hobbes and Rabelais.

Pickin' Sunday Brains

Compact and circular, I recommend Brain Masala / Maghaz--a delightful Pakistani dish to celebrate our ally in the War on Terror and their ingenious method of allowing Mr. Al Qaeda (who we know from Generalissimo Cheney subscribes to the Hartford Advocate and regularly calls into the Washington Journal on C-Span on the "Support Republicans" line) to gather and disseminate crucial terrorist recipes, thereby allowing us to know that they know that we know that they know. Green Chillies, Red Chillies, Garlic and Ginger paste, what' s not to like, especially when you serve it with Simone Weil's very tasty definition of force in the Iliad: "To define force--it is that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him."

Here's the first use of such force in Book 4 of the Iliad: "Antilochus was the first to kill a Trojan captain, / tough on the front lines, Thalysias' son Echepolus. / Antilochus thrust first, speared the horsehair helmet / right at the ridge, and the bronze spearpoint lodged / in the man's forehead, smashing through his skull / and the dark came whirling down across his eyes-- / he toppled down like a tower in the rough assault."

Note the movement of Echepolus from a son to a forehead split open by a spear to eyes covered by darkness.

The American Colossus has such force at the ready to turn anybody into an x. Many x's in Iraq. Many x's in Afghanistan. What guides the marking of an x on someone's son? We know the terrorists appear to mark anyone, what about the American Colussus? Do you think that as the American Colossus munches on it's Maghaz that it contemplates Acquinas' double effect which permits an action causing serious harm, such as the turning of a son into a corpse, as an effect of attaining a good end. And as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy goes onto explain, "This reasoning is summarized with the claim that sometimes it is permissible to bring about as a merely foreseen side effect a harmful event that it would be impermissible to bring about intentionally." How does this work with bringing down a dictator and achieving at least what in Thucydides' view would be a civil war (see 3.84.85 in The Peloponnesian War)? How does this work with civilian casulaties? Has the American Colossus puzzled this out as it washes cow brains down with a tasty beverage? What about the prudent councillors to the American Colossus?

Tomorrow--Erasmus' Tongue.

Saturday Sweetbreads

Yum. Thymus gland . . . but from what animal . . . let's choose a lamb. Since it's summer, let's grill em! After boiling, salting, and placing on a fire, you'll want an appropriate sauce to finalize the full flavor. May I suggest the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which looks surprisingly like previous resolutions (here's a sample):

"8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:
Full respect for the Blue Line by both parties;
security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorised in paragraph 11, deployed in this area;
Full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state;
No foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government;
No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government;
Provision to the United Nations of all remaining maps of land mines in Lebanon in Israel's possession . . . ." (You can read the full text at the BBC link provided on this page.)

So, about two billion dollars worth of damamge to the Lebanonese infrastructure (as esimated by the Public Works Minister to Reuters), and also according to Reuters "at least 1,011 Lebanese, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war. On the 30th day, Israel's death toll has risen to 121 including at least 38 civilians . . . ." and billions in damage to Israel's economy. And so, does the above resolution provide an acceptable text on the right side of the equals sign for the numbers just provided that go on the left side of the equals sign. There's your full sauce for those grilled sweetbreads. Dip them in and chew. As your chewin', let's begin to think about force--what it is, what is it for, and how do you determine when it's worked or not, and then how should that determination affect your decisions?

Soon--the Iliad, Simone Weil, and Garganua goes to war.