Departing Istanbul today, I figured things would only get better.

Now mind you, that is some pretty long odds. I’d already been given tearful parting gifts by a waiter I’d met once, found a pal in my hotel staff barman and never yet been disappointed by a meal. The law of averages was sure to kick in soon, whether I was in the Land of Wonder or not.

After spending a day in Samsun, I assure you: It gets better and better.

Before I regale you with photos of what I saw in Istanbul, I’ll share an anecdote from my ongoing discoveries about Turkish hospitality – each a eureka moment:

I had managed to partial amputate the power cord of my laptop, then short out the adapter box. Given that it came with my laptop, and was from the US, I thought I was out of luck. I ended up in a small electronics store, faced with a taciturn Turk.

“Merhaba,” I say. “Cord broke.”

He then proceeds to grab the power cord from me. He pops off the rubber feet. He urges me to sit. Then he unscrews the whole adapter section of the cord and begins to tinker.

I wait, mystified that service was not only instant, but productive. The fellow works with a soldering iron on the adapter itself, cuts a new cord, wires it. All the while, he exchanges somnolent “Salaams” with various quiet visitors who enter, sit, mellow.

Finally, he’s done. We test it. Sure enough, it fits the laptop and runs perfectly.

How much, I ask.

“5 Lira.” He tells me. About three dollars and change.

This kind of thing is not uncommon here. It’s practically the rule.

Now for Istanbul:

On the first day, I saw the mosque of Sultan Akhmet – the Blue Mosque. Akhmet struck me as kind of like Reagan – he presided over a time of relative growth and strength for the Ottoman Empire, and pioneered new frontiers of debt in the process of making Ottomans proud of their country again.

Anyway, his mosque has more minarets than just about any mosque, so there.

There are more rug salesmen inside the mosque courtyard than worshippers in the mosque – and this is Ramadan, mind you. Inside is quiet lovely and dim, with lighting that webs every capacious and frilly angle with its dangling wires. It is a very peaceful place.

Outside the Blue Mosque is the Hippodrome, NASCAR track for its epoch – the place where tens of thousands of plebs gathered to get bombed, watch vehicles whirl around and around the track, and secretly hope for a crash.

Unlike Talladega, the Hippodrome’s chariot races revolved a gigantic bronze plated column (that had its awesome bronze plates melted down into weapons by invading Crusaders), a beheaded serpent column from 490 BC, and this mighty obelisk, a third of its original size, from 1500 BC.

The next day took me to Topkapi Palace, where generations of Turk decorators veered between saturating themselves in their steppeland frippery and emulating the design styles of Europe.

It was vast, drafty, and extremely ornate. The rambling green space is made for both cultivating flowers and playing Cirit – a form of polo where you hit the other riders, not a ball, with a stick. In this is, it is distinctly Turkish.

Quite distinct is the Hagia Sophia – our next stop – which is distinctly Byzantine. This means it’s looming, like some primeval dinosaur created by a Judgment Day deity, sleeping in red brick before the showdown. Its guts are dark and rumbling, enough to swallow the largest western church.

Once a basilica church, then a massacre site, then a mosque, and now a museum, the Sofia is one fierce, forty-story fossil.

A milder delight is the Archaeological Museum near the palace – the mot just of my trip. It has a great array of artifacts from the origins of the world up to the soaring economies of Pax Romana, and then down into the tribal clumsiness of Dark Ages Byzantine art.

Above is a statue of Oceanus, one of the patrons of Ephesus, with Zeus reclining behind him. They are but a few of the hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of beautiful old stone there – so many that they spill over into snack stands, cat gardens and bathrooms.

More to come as I head east!

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From the beginning of the campaign, The Economist has been wary of Barack Obama. This week, it declared that it has definite reason to worry about John McCain.

This is no “Obamaniac” rag. The Economist has dutifully regurgitated its fair share of distortions about the Democratic candidate – claiming he supported post-birth abortion; wringing their hands about Rezko.

But of late, they have been taking McCain to task for distracting from real issues by playing up personality issues and abandoning his past positions in order to cave to the “corporate socialist” faction of the GOP in Executive power. And when he appointed Palin, they cut to the quick.

Their most critical point, as often with The Economist, is found at the end. Here, in entirety, is the article, “The Woman from Nowhere.”

Lexington
The woman from nowhere

Sep 4th 2008
From The Economist print edition
John McCain’s choice of running-mate raises serious questions about his judgment

Illustration by KAL

THE most audacious move of the race so far is also, potentially, the most self-destructive. John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running-mate has set the political atmosphere alight with both enthusiasm and dismay.

Mr McCain has based his campaign on the idea that this is a dangerous world—and that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to deal with it. He has also acknowledged that his advanced age—he celebrated his 72nd birthday on August 29th—makes his choice of vice-president unusually important. Now he has chosen as his running mate, on the basis of the most cursory vetting, a first-term governor of Alaska.

The reaction from inside the conservative cocoon was at first ecstatic. Conservatives argued that Mrs Palin embodies the “real America”—a moose-hunting hockey mum, married to an oil-worker, who has risen from the local parent-teacher association to governing the geographically largest state in the Union. They praise her as a McCain-style reformer who has taken on her state’s Republican establishment and has a staunch pro-life record (her fifth child has Down’s syndrome). Who better to harpoon the baby-murdering elitists who run the Democratic Party?

Mrs Palin was greeted like the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan by the delegates, furious at her mauling at the hands of the “liberal media”. And she delivered a tub-thumping speech, underlining her record as a reforming governor and advocate of more oil-drilling, and warning her enemies not to underestimate her (“the difference between a hockey mum and a pitbull—lipstick”). But once the cheering and the chanting had died down, serious questions remained.

The political calculations behind Mr McCain’s choice hardly look robust. Mrs Palin is not quite the pork-busting reformer that her supporters claim. She may have become famous as the governor who finally killed the infamous “bridge to nowhere”—the $220m bridge to the sparsely inhabited island of Gravina, Alaska. But she was in favour of the bridge before she was against it (and told local residents that they weren’t “nowhere to her”). As mayor of Wasilla, a metropolis of 9,000 people, she initiated annual trips to Washington, DC, to ask for more earmarks from the state’s congressional delegation, and employed Washington lobbyists to press for more funds for her town.

Nor is Mrs Palin well placed to win over the moderate and independent voters who hold the keys to the White House. Mr McCain’s main political problem is not energising his base; he enjoys more support among Republicans than Mr Obama does among Democrats. His problem is reaching out to swing voters at a time when the number of self-identified Republicans is up to ten points lower than the number of self-identified Democrats. Mr McCain needs to attract roughly 55% of independents and 15% of Democrats to win the election. But it is hard to see how a woman who supports the teaching of creationism rather than contraception, and who is soon to become a 44-year-old grandmother, helps him with soccer moms in the Philadelphia suburbs. A Rasmussen poll found that the Palin pick made 31% of undecided voters less likely to plump for Mr McCain and only 6% more likely.

The moose in the room, of course, is her lack of experience. When Geraldine Ferraro was picked as Walter Mondale’s running-mate, she had served in the House for three terms. Even the hapless Dan Quayle, George Bush senior’s sidekick, had served in the House and Senate for 12 years. Mrs Palin, who has been the governor of a state with a population of 670,000 for less than two years, is the most inexperienced candidate for a mainstream party in modern history.

Inexperienced and Bush-level incurious. She has no record of interest in foreign policy, let alone expertise. She once told an Alaskan magazine: “I’ve been so focused on state government; I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” She obtained an American passport only last summer to visit Alaskan troops in Germany and Kuwait. This not only blunts Mr McCain’s most powerful criticism of Mr Obama. It also raises serious questions about the way he makes decisions.
Vetted for 15 minutes

Mr McCain had met Mrs Palin only once, for a 15-minute chat at the National Governors’ Association meeting, before summoning her to his ranch for her final interview. The New York Times claims that his team arrived in Alaska only on August 28th, a day before the announcement. As a result, his advisers seem to have been gobsmacked by the Palin show that is now playing on the national stage. She has links to the wacky Alaska Independence Party, which wants to secede from the Union. She is on record disagreeing with Mr McCain on global warming, among other issues. The contrast with Mr Obama’s choice of the highly experienced and much-vetted Joe Biden is striking.

Mr McCain’s appointment also raises more general worries about the Republican Party’s fitness for government. Up until the middle of last week Mr McCain was still considering two other candidates whom he has known for decades: Joe Lieberman, a veteran senator, independent Democrat and Iraq war hawk, and Tom Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania (a swing state with 21 Electoral College votes) and the first secretary of homeland security. Mr McCain reluctantly rejected both men because their pro-choice views are anathema to the Christian right.

The Palin appointment is yet more proof of the way that abortion still distorts American politics. This is as true on the left as on the right. But the Republicans seem to have gone furthest in subordinating considerations of competence and merit to pro-life purity. One of the biggest problems with the Bush administration is that it appointed so many incompetents because they were sound on Roe v Wade. Mrs Palin’s elevation suggests that, far from breaking with Mr Bush, Mr McCain is repeating his mistakes.

That point should have profound weight for readers of The Economist here in the United States: That in these critical times, Hail Mary passes to stir up the base with a wedge issue is the kind of pandering desperation that we cannot afford.

The issue of abortion is one that is grim and will surely not be resolved soon. But this only underscores the far greater importance of other issues in this election – for this election finds America not faced by challenges down the road, but by emergencies grappling with it now.

Abortion plays to the emotions of the voter, and it divides. But the most pressing concern we have now is not this long-term issue – it is whether the process of the last eight years should continue.

Should we continue with the same isolationist, belligerent and weak foreign policy – the policy that saw North Korea proliferate nuclear weapons and delivery systems; the policy that saw Russia resurgent; the policy that led to Iraq being so mishandled that it took three years and Petraeus’ defiance of White House order to stay its descent into chaos; the policy that has al-Qaeda stronger now than at the time of 9/11?

Should we continue the same economic policies – the policies that have led to record jobless rates, to record disparity of wealth between upper and middle classes, to lags in wages, to economic incentives that drive industry overseas to India and China while shunning foreign talent coming here, to lose our precious global advantage in the most important struggle of our century – resource management?

Do you want more of the same?

More enemies ascendant while America rages alone like a lunatic on a soapboax. Iran is growing terrifically powerful. Venezuela is conducting military exercises with Russia. South America is going socialist. North Korea now has both American aid /and/ nukes. Russia is unopposed. Darfur is still dying. These things were not inevitable. There is a reason they were not stopped, and the reason is that the same men who advise John McCain and George W. Bush said they should not be.

More decline of the middle class. Corporate money is pouring away from our manufacturing centers into Mexico and Asia. We have the most enormous debt in history, and China owns the lion share of it. We have neglected countless advances in energy technology and science while Europe leapt ahead, almost catching us. We have let so many, many businesses atrophy so that oil prices could soar. So many tax dollars go into corporate tax loopholes, “cost-plus” overcharging and subsidies. These things were not inevitable. There is a reason they were not stopped, and the reason is that the same men who advise John McCain and George W. Bush said they should not be.

More mishandling abroad.

More division here at home.

More wedge and fear politics.

These processes are not inevitable. They are not, like with abortion, long-term struggles.

They are immediate. They are making millions of lives worse rather than better, worldwide. They are costing lives now – as in Iraq and Afghanistan – and setting the field for costing more lives later.

They can be changed now, only now, and only by voting Democrat.

That is what matters now.

The media lives by a perversion of a good, old creed: If they don’t have anything bad to say, they don’t say anything at all. There’s ample evidence in this when it comes to the Convention coverage, culminating in their latest hamstringing non-story against the Dems: “The Greek Temple” story.

First they did all they could to make it seem like Hillary’s repetitively positive support speech was a closet betrayal of Obama:

My assessment of the speech is in line with Mike Huckabee’s – if Hillary had been any more Obama-centric, her people and the media wouldn’t have believed her:

And now, after Bill Clinton’s “Ready, Ready, Ready” speech, the media ran out of gas on its disunity story. It really has no leg to stand on when it comes to skeletons and closets, or on issues. So it decided to pluck a seed from the GOP and heap bullshit on it to make it grow:

The Greek Temple story, to those of you not watching the news today, is that Obama’s speech platform looks like a Greek temple. This, the media says, betrays his presumptuousness, or may cause problems with many voters who think him presumptuous. It is what everybody’s talking about – or, rather, what they decided everyone would.

On Drudge Report, we find no less than three headlines devoted to it, and all three cable news channels have been weaving it into all their coverage, FOX most of all.

I report this in the interest of scoring another fat, dark mark under what is rapidly becoming the central thesis of my political views for the 21st century: The Media Is The Problem.

Clearly, Obama meant to suggest Presidential gravitas by choosing architecture that looks like Washington, DC – Neoclassical. Far be it for him to be majestic; he is, after all, only running to be leader of the free world.

But the media’s obsession with making this aura of something great and noble look like a negative shames the entire process. McCain, in announcing it to be something shameful, is not only being disingenuous, but is also downright perverse. Why shouldn’t we aspire to better? Why shouldn’t we appreciate refinement and glory?

Reagan knew we should, as did Roosevelt and Kennedy. But their efforts would have been mocked and belittled by the media and the McCain camp – decreed out-of-touch, elitist, haughty. And in denying that majesty, they deny us the privilege of that grandeur resonating in us.

Obama himself said it well when speaking of his candidacy: That the excitement and the spectacle was not about him; that the greatness people invested in him was the greatness in themselves, and in America. I believe it. Many believe it. The media despises it.

They and McCain tear it down. And so, by extension, they tear us all down.

The manufactured story about the “Greek Temple” haughtiness shows that if there are no reasons to be ashamed and afraid, they will invent them. In a world informed by the demolition of grand spectacles, all we will have left is disaster.

News broadcasts are beginning to address the some key points that the media has been pussyfooting around for the ten days of the Georgia conflict:

* What about the history of ethnic cleansing and oppression against the Ossetians by the Georgians?

* What could Georgia have been thinking, massacring the Ossetians in Tshkhinvali when they knew full well the Russians were lying in wait on the border?

* Are there any ‘good guys’ in this?

Tragically, for the purposes of the media, the question to the latter is “no.”

The Georgians apparently thought because Bush shared hot dogs with their President in the White House rose garden, he could unleash multi-launch rocket systems on civilians and we would back him to the hilt when Russia predictably struck back.

The Russians did, in my estimation, stop an ethnic cleansing, but they have since acted in typical imperialistic fashion, visiting a serious serving of Shock And Awe on the Georgians as they dismantle their infrastructure, consolidate their defense in the separatist provinces, and generally gloat.

The closest to a hero would be the South Ossetians, but if the media paid attention to these people now – a fascinating, exotic ethnic minority with a colorful warrior tradition stretching back to ancient Greek times, of whom only 700,000 remain – it would really mess up the whole “poor Georgia, bad Russia” narrative. Besides, the Ossetians are honoring that warrior tradition by pillaging Georgian villages by all accounts.

The lessons in this conflict are many and tragic: The mainstream media still flat-out lies to turn a bloody buck out of a war. The USA is as impotent, thanks to the Bush military adventures, as was feared. Russia’s strategic capital is seriously on the rise.

One good thing is that, though around 2,000 of the 38,000 South Ossetians were killed, and almost all fled their homes, no more were lost because Russia didn’t check with the UN Security Council, or rely on sanctions, or insist on multi-party talks – but because they rolled in and stopped the massacre.

And this is finally being said – albeit without acknowledgment – on some major media outlets is a good thing indeed.

I recently received an annoying chain e-mail sarcastically listing reasons for voting Democratic, among them:

“I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.”

I wrote a reply of my own reasons, and submit it below for your amusement or to start our own counter chain e-mail.:

Why I’m Voting Democratic

I’m voting Democratic, because I want to be taxed less, and what I do pay should go to uses other than socialism for corporations’ bloated offshore operations.

I’m voting Democratic, because freedom of speech is fine even when the government, church and homeschool moms are offended by it — and because privacy of speech is for all American citizens, not just the ones the White House likes.

I’m voting Democratic, because it’s time to finish what we started in Afghanistan, and bring the 9-11 architects to justice, no matter what side of the Pakistani border they’re on.

I’m voting Democratic, because regardless of whether global warming is manmade, the future of business is resource management for out-of-control consumers like China – and I want America to lead the future of business.

I’m voting Democratic, because a nation that codifies religious belief into law is what we should be struggling against overseas, not trying to create here at home.

I’m voting Democratic, because the middle class needs financial help – not by the time profits “trickle down”; right now.

I’m voting Democratic, because the Constitution is a living document – and were it not for pointy-headed kooks, “separate but equal” would be the proud cry of the South today.

I’m voting Democratic, because my right to bear arms matters less to me than my desire to see my nation’s troops armed in the field properly, given a clear mission, and treated right when they’re brought home.

I’m voting Democratic, because marriage should always be a power of one’s church or faith, not of the state.

I’m voting Democratic, because oil companies need more help like Iraq needs more dead GIs.

Typical Democratic bungling turned what could have been chance to illuminate venal GOP priorities into heroic Republican theater today, as they flailed pathetically trying to stop a Republican filibuster.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats adjourned the House, turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.

This was absolutely moronic. By turning off the lights like a third grade teacher trying to settle a bunch of over-sugared students, Pelosi summoned the attention of the national media. C-SPAN, in /not/ covering an event, made for more exciting coverage than ever.

So, wishy-washy to the bitter end as they have been on everything from war funding to Constitutional rights, the Dems switched the lights back on. Then, hours later, off again. This turned what could have been an intriguing blob of talking blackness into an “edge-of-your-seat” media circus.

To say that it also galvanized support for the GOP with its sniffy behavior is an understatement. It transformed the tedium of a filibuster into a fired-up crowd that got to roll to a climax on its own terms.

… Right at the stroke of five Georgia Rep. Tom Price announced that House Republicans were ending their impromptu protest on the floor of the chamber, ending a five-plus hour rebellion with a round of “God Bless America.”

In case you were wondering what this was all about, here’s a brief summary:

The Republicans wanted to pass a new energy bill that opened up offshore drilling. They framed it as a source of relief from gas prices – nothing new to that line of bull, and the arguments debunking it come by the barrel: One, that offshore drilling wouldn’t actually provide any gas for nearly a decade. Two, that the oil companies already have loads of land-based leases that they haven’t exploited, so that the profits climb while supply is kept on their terms. Three, Exxon-Mobil reported historic profits yet again yesterday.

The only people who’re hurting for gas are those actually buying it from the pump. So, to force the GOP to put their money where their mouths are, the Dems allowed the deadlock.

See, they had time on their side – a troop-support bill was slated to come to a vote, and the GOP’s delay meant that pay hikes, war funding, mine-resistant vehicles and all the other yellow-ribbon services the bill contained would be held up, possibly even killed. The GOP was forced to choose between continuing their deadlock for the sake of big oil, or supporting the troops.

Not surprisingly, the GOP chose pro-oil over pro-troops.

And, not surprisingly, the Dems utterly mishandled the situation. First, they allowed the filibuster to go practically unnoticed, even though it would get the heartstrings singing with outrage over how depraved the rank-and-file Republicans’ priorities are. Now, today, they drew national attention to the determination and “Mister Smith Goes To Washington” gumption of the GOP by making them the victim.

This whole episode really casts light on the distinguishing problems endemic to both parties’ legislative efforts:

Namely, the GOP are moral idiots, while the Dems are emotional idiots. Republican policies – and I speak of the party here, not all individuals – are deranged and mercenary. Their sole moral loyalty is to the power elite in this country. From their pro-oil company energy policy, to their screw-the-majority tax burden, to their ridiculously reactionary social policies, they have thoroughly lost their claim to be crusaders for individual liberties.

Yet they remain the party of the people in many ways, because they know how to speak to the spirit of the people. They may be spinning a web of lies, but what they say gets people stirred up. Whether it’s fear of socialism, fear of raising taxes or fear of terrorists, they frame these issues in ways that enflame and inspire.

Democrats don’t, and so, regardless of any intellectual merit to their arguments, they end up looking like the liars – because with the “objective” media presenting both sides of any issue as equally valid, the GOP /feels/ more true, and so owns the truth. The Dems end up sounding complicated, or whiny, or just plain dense, while the gut of the masses easily digests the GOP message it inhales from its fast-food news outlets.

Fourteen years ago, Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” fired up a dispirited conservative movement and got them marching in lock-step. Fourteen years, and the Dems still haven’t won back the country’s heart.

Until they learn how to do so, the GOP will continue to be able to turn sacrificing the welfare of our men and women in uniform for the sake of higher oil company profits into heroic stands for the democratic process.

By request, here is the entirety of Obama’s statements from the guest book at Yad Vashem:

I am grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable institution. At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man’s potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim “never again.” And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.

I will never forget that it was John “Let The Eagle Soar” Ashcroft’s Justice Department that spent taxpayer dollars on covering up Lady Justice’s bosoms. Yet more and more these days, Ashcroft is also being indelibly identified as a man who stood by his principles against torture and warrantless spying in an administration that was scrambling for these and other perversions.

An article yesterday revealed that Ashcroft had made a list of five candidates to lead the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 – an office responsible for overseeing the legality of DoJ deeds – only to have the White House shoot down his candidates and insist on appointing a chief architect of pro-torture, pro-warrantless spying policy.

In an angry phone call hours after Ashcroft’s list reached the White House, President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., quickly dismissed the candidates, all Republican lawyers with impeccable credentials, the sources said. He and White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that Ashcroft promote John Yoo, a onetime OLC deputy who had worked closely with Gonzales and vice presidential adviser David S. Addington to draft memos supporting a controversial warrantless wiretapping plan and detainee questioning techniques.

Ashcroft’s response, despite ailing health and an uphill battle, was to dig in his heels. He fought hard for a compromise candidate, Jack Goldsmith by name. And it was Goldsmith who went on to help expose and undo a lot of the grim deeds of the Gonzales-Yoo policies.

This has brought an interesting distinction to light for me. This distinction is one that I anticipated to develop after the Bush administration, but considering how long and eventful the administration has been, I suppose it was crafted rapidly. It is the distinction that even among the cliquish Neo-Conservatives, as in practically any group, there are moral true believers and there are self-serving hypocrites.

John Ashcroft is, apparently, a man that does indeed walk the walk. He surely has a few skeletons in his closet, but by all indications he struggled to stick by the Constitution, even when the agenda of his cohorts was pulling hard in a dangerous new direction. He may have wanted to chip away at civil rights progress – there is no painting him as other than a staunch enemy to the ACLU, pro-choice movements and drug users – but apparently believed in his gut that there were certain lines America did not cross.

I would imagine in Ashcroft’s clean-cut, picket-fence America, they may have locked up the hippies, but they did not torture.

On one level, I’m happy to hear it. It’s nice when someone with dramatically opposing views turns out to have fought the kind of fight I’d want fought.

On the other, it strikes me as an eviscerating tragedy that because a fanatical social conservative doesn’t sink so low as to okay sexual assault as a means of interrogation, he stands out as an exceptional hero in an administration the greatest country in the world has lived under for eight of its most critical years.

In case there was any question, let me immediately clarify that this is my Saturday morning puff piece.

First, the sad news. I nearly didn’t report on this, but since it involves NASCAR and so defines “puff piece,” I had to throw it up here.

Obama will not, apparently, be sponsoring a NASCAR racing team.

BAM’s choice of drivers and car brands might have been a little too sticky politically for the Obama camp.

I think he missed one hell of a checkered flag by doing this. Nothing dispels the specter of elitism like sponsoring a group of men driving a machine around and around in a circle at reckless speeds – the Roman emperors knew it; Obama should have wised to it. But so be it.

See if I care.

But next up, McCain released a new commercial. I watched it and, I must say, I really like it.

My enjoyment has three aspects. First, it reminds me of the “old warhorse McCain” that I favored in 2000 – a guy who was genuinely distressed by sleazy politics and attack ads, rather than reliant on them. Second, it will offend some of the anti-immigration crowd; at least the ones who are in it for largely racial reasons.

Lastly, I love when the Hispanic-American military tradition is highlighted.

Two events that summon the increasingly common specter of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and veterans struck the news yesterday.

The first was that a storied soldier, Pfc. Joseph Dwyer, apparently killed himself after violently grappling with PTSD.

After breaking down the door to Dwyer’s home, officers found him surrounded by empty cans of aerosol-gas dusters and prescription pills.

The Army medic was featured in a famous photo of him carrying an Iraqi child to safety. What was not so well publicized was the inability of the military to help Dwyer, even after several incidents where his mental distress inspired him to blaze away with a pistol and drive off the road. The system wouldn’t commit him, the VA couldn’t help him, and the result was one becoming all too common.

A RAND study put this familiar catastrophe in proper context earlier this year.

Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression…

Just 53 percent of service members with PTSD or depression sought help from a provider over the past year, and of those who sought care, roughly half got minimally adequate treatment.

Meanwhile, the Army is trying to control the message that filmmakers are putting out there on the subject of PTSD.

That may sound sinister to some, but there’s nothing like censorship about it. The deal is that the military will swap assistance like loaned equipment and technical advisement in exchange for having input on what goes in the script.

Some films, like Paul Haggis’ exploration of PTSD, “In the Valley of Elah,” don’t find enough common ground of message for the military to lend a hand. But some, like Tim Robbins’ upcoming film, “The Lucky Ones,” still manage to tackle tough subjects like PTSD and remain linked with the Army.

“It captures the nuance. It is not a broad brush stroke or just about PTSD” — post-traumatic stress disorder — [Army program director] Breasseale said. “They manage to tell a story that is familiar but different.”

This shows promise, in all regards. Increasing comity between the military and the public, even anti-war elements, suggests a mutual respect. Mutual respect can only lead to mutual understanding, and understanding is what our discarded, suffering soldiers afflicted by PTSD need first and foremost.

A recent poll by CNN as to “whether the Founding Fathers would be proud how America turned out” shows that the vast majority of polled Americans continue to be stupid.

According to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, 69 percent of adult Americans who responded to a poll June 26-29 said the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed by the way the nation has turned out overall.

In the same poll, a majority of those polled said that they themselves were plenty proud of this great land of ours, in a desperate attempt to escape the scorn irreparably heaped on Michelle Obama:

Sixty-one percent said they were extremely proud to be Americans; another 28 percent said they were very proud.

Well just cue Lee Greenwood, then.

This poll joins the poll showing that one third of Americans believe federal agents participated in the 9/11 attacks and the poll showing a third of Americans choosing Reagan, Clinton or Kennedy as our greatest President ever in proving the alarming brainlessness of the polled public. It reminds us that no matter how ill-informed we think ourselves to be, the people whose opinions steer the course of the political winds are far, far dumber.

It also makes someone like myself, fan of history and of wig-wearing warrior men with enlightened ideals, ponder what exactly the polling base thinks would have so offended Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.

Would it have been the enormous prosperity? Perhaps the adherence to liberal democracy despite Civil War, global war and fierce internal strife? Maybe it would have been that their philosophies and works became an example to the world as to how to conduct government in a way not only most humane, but most efficient, inspiring revolutions in developed countries and former colonies alike.

I doubt the reasons that sprang to mind for me would have been the first into the mind of those polled. Likely something like, “lack of proud Americans” would have been the top of the list, followed by “all the immigrants” as to the guesses at the Founding Fathers grievances.

My own take, looking at their writing, would be that all of them – save maybe that currently hep John Adams character – would have been a bit troubled by the expansion of the Executive’s powers. The notion that the President was capable of running the law, a standing military force and the coffers of the nation would make them scared. From there, they would split.

Jefferson would get a big “told ya so” from Washington on the Domestic Spying debate going on, since Jefferson actually tried a domestic spying thing of his own, and Washington suggested doing away with the Executive powers after he split.

Washington would also be off on a limb by himself with his opinions about political parties – he hated them, while Jefferson, Hamilton and Franklin were very keen indeed on them. He also hated the idea of America deploying forces overseas, and was a fierce proponent of states rights who saw nothing wrong with hemp cultivation and slave ownership.

Jefferson was more iffy on the slave ownership – at least in writing – but knew where he stood on the economy and hemp cultivation: He was in favor of doing all he could to make the Federal government into one big agri-business subsidy source.

In sum, I think the Founding Fathers would only be irked about America given that it doesn’t more closely resemble the vision of Ron Paul or John Edwards. BET would certainly confuse them, as would the IRS and Air Force, what with all those flying machines, but they’d get over that.

But overall, I think the Founding Fathers would be torn between two poles:

The first, a shocked and gratifying pride that their little experiment, stretching from Maine to the Carolinas in a thin strip of coast, has turned into the most profitable, dynamic and inspiring political movement ever to sweep the globe.

And the second, a concern over how alarmingly stupid most polled Americans are.

Note: This article is in no way an endorsement of the Ron Paul candidacy. It is an endorsement of the theory that George Washington would endorse the Ron Paul candidacy – 7% of Americans who believe Washington was our greatest President, take notice.

This blog endorses Obama, who I think would make most Founding Fathers just shake their heads and chuckle in stupefaction for a good long while.

The extent to which our appreciation of the bizarre and horrid has turned from fear to curiosity was underscored for me today, as I found an article on how faceless aliens were showing up at various social events in Britain.

The faceless mutants have a penchant for A-list celebrity bashes and have been spotted at Elton John’s White tie ball and Harrods summer sale, opened by Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall.

That such phenoms would be sighted at all does not surprise me. We do, after all, share this planet with Virgin Mary tortillas and glowing green monsters. My surprise was that the throngs of people at the event seemed absolutely unperturbed by the presence of mute, faceless beings.

This indicates to me that our capacity for wonder is nearing critical mass. Shock and oddity, perversity and tragedy – all are being pushed by things like voyeuristic reality TV, increasingly sensational entertainment and leapfrogging technology toward a condition of numb expectation. We expect the weird in the same way we expect to be fed. Once it was evidence of something otherworldly – an omen, divine portent or miracle. Now it’s part of our diet.

You may disagree, and I do think we’re a long way off from finding all manner of derangement and surreality from being merely entertainment. But if you content the premise of my argument, I ask you this:

Why are these people paying more attention to the Harrods summer sale than to fleeing?

Regardless of whether candidate is game for a mudfight, the chum-slingers in print are all too pleased to amp up the character abuse, as two developments in the media surrounding the 2008 Election proved today.

Aimed at Obama are veteran operatives of the same outfit that took up the Swift Boat Vets’ cause in the interest of GOP political victory – conservative public relations firm Creative Response Concepts, the print arm Regnery Publishing, and right-wing operatives Jerome Corsi and David Freddoso.

Corsi and Freddoso are both releasing books in the interest of being “fair and balanced” – which is to say they intend to present every harmful rumor about Obama’s career in the most venomous and inflammatory way possible. The publisher in charge of Freddoso’s book as much as says so:

By highlighting negative aspects of Obama’s record and background, Ross says, Freddoso may compel others to offer more critical coverage of the Democratic nominee.

I’m sure this comes as a relief to the millions of Americans who, so sick of the brief glimpses at issue-based politics we’ve had so far, long for a return to the media’s obsession with matters like people’s pastors, beer preferences and bowling scores.

Corsi and Freddoso will surely provide plenty of fodder for the networks to ruminate over the pathetically irrelevant relationship of Obama to “radicals” and “radical agendas.” Their scurrilous tone will at the very least make the well of Obama’s proffered fresh approach to politics seem bitter. Expect periodic downpours of sneering insinuations about Obama and the Weathermen, and liberal – no pun intended – mention of the review of Obama’s voting record, a study courtesy of Freddoso’s own magazine, a periodical constitutionally devoted to destroying the reputation of political opponents.

But even John McCain is not immune to the media’s lust at echoing the voices from the fringe. Apparently some reporter at Fortune magazine led McCain’s chief adviser – the sociable, substantially soiled Mr. Charlie Black – into admitting that a terrorist attack would boost McCain’s chances.

It was hardly shark fishing on the Orca to get Black to take bait. The reporter got Black chatting about McCain’s surprise win in New Hampshire, in the same breath as talking about the Senator’s national security credentials:

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.”

What’s written out of the next part is glaring evident; the reporter following up – meaning, scenting blood in the water and going for the famously weak Black’s leaking mouth:

As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.

“Concedes” and “raise the issue” meaning put words in the fellow’s mouth, then pressuring him into admitting it. I don’t necessarily mind that kind of aggressive follow-up, but in this instance, it’s not follow-up, it’s a trick to get something provocative in print.

As venal and hollow as I find John McCain now, I strongly doubt the man wants another terrorist attack – Black, though he represented mass-murdering African dictators, either. Yet that’s precisely how things are being presented.

And this is my problem with both assaults on the candidates – not only are they provocative, they are also unfair and stupid in the extreme.

In the case of the CRC-promoted, Regnery-published, shill-written books on Obama, it is unfair because while all politicians must work with all manner of people – even some they disagree with; even the unsavory – not all politicians are inspiring. Obama is.

And while I think he has more integrity than the standard stock of politicians, I do not hold any illusions that he has had to cut deals, move money and make allies that would dismay many voters. Such is politics. Not everyone need be Hillary Clinton, but just about everyone has known a Tony Rezko or Bill Ayers.

That Corsi and Freddoso pass off their agenda of destroying a politician from a rival party as some kind of “need for perspective” is preposterous.

Similarly preposterous is the masquerade of shock by the media at Black’s comments. Unless that shock is, “I can’t believe he was so stupid as to walk right into that” – in which case, they haven’t been following Black or the McCain campaign very closely – then it’s the worst acting job this side of a sixth grade talent show.

Who doesn’t know that a terrorist attack would benefit the GOP in the polls? Everyone from TIME magazine to David Cross, HuffPost bloggers to the Pentagon has acknowledged that as soon as the bombs start going off, loads of Americans cozy up to the Republicans. There’ve been movies made about it, books written about it, endless hours of punditry yammering on it.

Is it news that Black leapt through the hoops of putting the obvious pieces together? That John McCain is a Republican, and terrorist attacks help Republicans in the polls, thus a terrorist attack would help McCain?

Under customary circumstances, these kinds of unfair distractions would be merely offensive. Given the world we live in, they’re travesties.

We require not only a President, but a political atmosphere, that has the focus and energy to combat crises as radical as any we’ve faced since World War II: Genocide in Darfur, ethnic cleansing in Palestine, nuclear brinksmanship in the Middle East, proliferation of uncontrolled nuclear, biological and chemical weapons from the former USSR, the rise of a belligerent Russia, the rise of China, the decline of the dollar, the pathetic dependence on oil, the agonies of human trafficking world wide, the dangerous senility of our public school systems, and on and on, from Pakistan’s tribal zones to the perils of a surge in American inner city gang violence.

Instead we get defamation and dumb-bell, melodramatic gotcha journalism.

It was said by Alexis de Tocqueville that, “In Democracy, people get the government they deserve.” Right now, we’re getting the government the sensation-drunk media allows us to have.

Let us hope that in November, the people realize they deserve better than that.

Tim Russert has died suddenly of a heart attack.

Russert was one of the first interviewers whose quality and purpose made me take note of broadcast journalism, and he was one of the last with a true sense of ethics, intelligence and discretion. He was most definitely a hero of mine – a member of the pantheon Hunter Thompson, Edward Murrow, Tom Friedman occupy. He was fierce, smart, had integrity and defined the apex of his art form.

More significantly, he was one of those rare breeds of luminary who makes an indelible and essential mark on the world, achieves fame, and still seems to manage being a very decent human being in the process.

Goodbye, Tim Russert. Humanity has lost a best friend.

I really love chain e-mails from jingoist war mongers.

It’s always exciting to hear what latest arguments for squandering our awesome and virtuous military might are floating around out there. It allows me to keep a finger on the fear pulse of the body politic, too, and see if there’s something to be genuinely concerned about – from either side; foreign or domestic.

And foremost, it allows me to flex the old research guns and fire off a few better-informed salvos at guys with more letters behind their name than me.

In this case, a friend of mine asked some people on his chain e-mail list whether the historical assertions of one Mr. Kraft were true. I replied, since many were not.

I tried to stay away from voicing opinion. At least I held out to the end.

See for yourself:

XXXXX- wrote:
SOME OF YOU ARE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THAT NEARLY EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA WAS GROSSLY AFFECTED BY WW II .. MOST OF YOU DON’T REMEMBER THE RATIONING OF MEAT, SHOES, GASOLINE, AND SUGAR. NO TIRES FOR OUR AUTOMOBILES,AND A SPEED LIMIT OF 35 MILES AN HOUR ON THE ROAD, NOT TO MENTION, NO NEW AUTOMOBILES. READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT HOW WE WOULD REACT TO BEING TAKEN OVER BY FOREIGNERS IN 2008.

This is largely true. Gas rationing went into effect for seven months, nationwide, in 1942. This article covers the History of Gas Rationing Laws in Ohio, and discusses that occurence.

This is an EXCELLENT essay. Well thought out and presented. Please read it all and think seriously about our future here on earth. It is critical.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Historical Significance

Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat. The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials.

Pretty true. Around 3,500 Allied merchant ships were lost during the course of the entire war with Germany. Also, bear in mind that this essay was likely written back in late 2004, which was 63 years after the entry of the United States in WW2.

At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war.

Not exactly true. Though US opinion had been isolationist for awhile, things had shifted dramatically by the beginning of 1941 – nearly a full year before Pearl Harbor. To quote:

“…in January 1941, after the Fall of France, and also the founding of the Tripartite Pact, which was clearly aimed against the United States, the question “Should we keep out of war, or aid Britain, even at the risk of war?”, AID BRITAIN got 68%”

This is proven by polls cited in Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight Series”.

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, who had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.

Not true. Republican legislators largely maintained opposition to going to war with Germany. Even the Democrats were hard pressed to advocate such an expansion of the war. Hitler forced the issue by declaring war on us – not the other way around – on December 11th. It was, indeed, a dicey thing for the Reich, considering they were busy losing a war on three fronts.

Again, we had war declared on us by Germany.

France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia. Together, Japan and Germany! had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe.

No real evidence exists to support the notion that Germany had serious plans to invade the United States – or North America. They were pretty bad at even scrambling together invasion plans to attack Britain’s shores, “Operation Sealion,” because Germany always expected the UK would sue for peace, or at least talk about a negotiated armistice. No dice. Japan did, in fact, invade Alaska – attacking the Aleutian islands and holding them with mixed success.

America’s only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it. All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel.

China was also a large and significant ally. They were the main focus of Japan’s Army effort, and a major drain on Japanese forces. Around 3,200,000
Japanese were in China at any one time, and the Japanese recorded up to 1.9 million casualties (of all kinds).

Let’s not forget their contribution, nor that the Japanese were also actively fighting the UK in Burma at the time.

The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW II, Army units were training with broomsticks, because they didn’t have guns, and cars with “tank” painted on the doors, because they didn’t have real tanks. A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.

The broomstick and “tank” cars were during the 30s – Great Depression, isolationism, populism – but things had turned around by the beginning of WW2.

Remember, we started the draft up in a big way in 1940, expecting that we’d need a massive army. The production we began, with Roosevelt and Marshall’s foresight, was just beginning to bear fruit in 1942.

We might not have been primed for a fight, but we had plenty of means to engage in one.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England (that was actually the property of Belgium ) given by Belgium to England to carry on the war, when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact).

Actually, Belgium surrendered after one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could .

Not true, again.

The Germans did bomb Brussels, it’s true, but I think the author refers to the truly tragic and unnecessary bombing of Rotterdam. Brussels was hit, but not carpet bombed like Rotterdam.

That horrible event took place on the day of the surrender of Belgium, and was regarded, even then, even by the Germans, as a mistake. Confusion of command, Dutch stalling tactics and the fog of war led to this atrocity.

Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of! its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany, only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brit’s were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler, first turned his attention to Russia, in the late summer of 1940, at a time when England was on the verge of collapse.

Kind of. Hitler didn’t go to war with the USSR until mid-summer, 1941. His war with Britain in the meantime was largely one of air and sea – and in the colonies like North Africa – because, as Operation Sealion above notes, he was unprepared for the UK sticking out the war.

Ironically, Russia saved America’s butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany .

Pretty true. Our politicians were eager to get into the fight, but cooler heads – and British urging – prevailed, and we didn’t deploy Army troops against Germany until nearly a year after Pearl Harbor.

Russia lost something like 24,000,000 people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone . .. 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers.

No. Sorry. I do love touting the sacrifice of the USSR – as many as 37 million, likely around 27 million, dead over the course of the war, if one counts the effects of the Holocaust and the counter-insurgency programs of Germany – but 24 million didn’t perish in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow.

Those numbers above are just made up.

Here are the real ones.

Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brit’s, then America. If that had happened, the Nazis could possibly have won the war.

All of this has been brought out to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another! one of those key moments in history.

There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants, and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world .

The Jihadist, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs — they believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. To them, all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated . They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews . This is their mantra. (goal)

This statement applies to some of the core of al-Qaeda, but not to most militant Islamists. Bin Ladin is a Wahabbist with a stated goal of world domination. Then again, he has no real plan for this goal.

Other forms of violent militants include:
* Nationalist Shia Muslims (like Hezbollah, the Iraqi ruling Dawah Party, and Iran) who have regional dominance as their goal.
* Extra-nationalist Sunni Muslims (like the Saudi operatives fighting the Shia in Lebanon and those fighting the Russians in Chechnya) who have “defense of the faith” as their goal.
* Opportunist Sunni Muslims (like the Taliban) who use the faith to take control of otherwise factious lands.

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East — for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not yet known which side will win — the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.

If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadist, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies.

The Wahabbists already do control the largest share of oil currently running in the Middle East – the Saudis are Wahabbists, and their state is administered by Islamic law.

The USA counts them chief among their allies, though of course, al-Qaeda’s money and banking is all handled by Saudi Arabia, and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi.

This is not to incriminate all Saudis, but to note that there is a difference between even the puritanical Wahabbis and jihadists.

The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC — not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadist. Do you want gas in your car? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything? You had better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.

If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims, who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.

We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We can’t do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing . . in Iraq. Not in New York, not in London, or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things.

(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam was a terrorist! Saddam was a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of probably more than a 1,000,000 Iraqis and 2,000,000 Iranians.

Try around 213,255 Iranians. Not 2,000,000. And slightly more – around 350,000 – Iraqis. That’s in the Iran-Iraq War.

Bear in mind that the US deliberately supported both sides in that war, in the hopes of extending it so that both Iran and Iraq would be weakened. We weren’t so fond of either of them. That’s why we gave Saddam advanced weaponry, didn’t object to his WMD programs at the time, and at the same time, traded arms to Iran (Iran-Contra).

The sanctions levelled against Saddam to discourage his recuperation of WMD programs after the Gulf War may have led to the deaths of around a million Iraqis, but those are projections. Also, Saddam’s ties with terrorism were largely limited to paying money to the families of Sunni suicide bombers in Palestine – something Saudi Arabian nobles do too.

(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there, we won’t have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.

The central assertion of this article – that the Iraq war limits, rather than expands, Islamic radicalism and militant activity – is highly debatable. Most sources (CIA, RAND corporation, Pentagon) believe the contrary is true.

One fact remains: The casualty counts don’t support the author’s assertion about killing the “bad guys.”

We have killed at least 16,500 insurgents. Al-Qaeda claims 4,000 of those, as of two years ago.

But various terrorists and our own soldiers have killed at least nearly ten times that many civilians. Ten times would be 151,000 – the lowest count. The highest by a legitimate source is over a million Iraqis killed because of the chaos caused by our invasion.

WW II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis, really began with a “whimper” in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before the US joined it. It officially ended in 1945 — a 17-year war — and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again . a 27-year war.

Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, and China in 1937.

WW II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year’s GDP — adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WW II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.

Most estimates say, adjusted for inflation, it would have cost around $5 trillion. It did cost the US $306 billion. The MIA numbers are apochryphal.
The KIA is accurate.

The Iraq war has, so far, cost the United States about $160,000,000,000 which is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York. It has also cost about 4,000 American lives, which is roughly equivalent to lives that the Jihad killed (within the United States) in the 9/11 terrorist attack .

Not true. Iraq war costs are $500 billion and climbing, by about $2 billion a week, according to a Congressional Research Survey.

It’s hard to estimate the cost of the 9-11 attacks, financially, as most of it was to the stock market. Relief costs were, at most, in double-digit billions.

The cost of not fighting and winning WW II would have been unimaginably greater — a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism .

This is not a 60-Minutes TV show, or a 2-hour movie in which everything comes out okay . The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be.

The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an ally, like England, in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world.

The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless somebody prevents them from getting them! ..

We have four options:

1 . We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

2 . We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran’s progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).

Four years from then, at earliest.

3 We can surrender to the Jihad an! d accept its dominance in the Middle East now; in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America .

OR

4 . We can stand down now, and pick up the fight later, when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and possibly most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.

If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.

The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.

Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them .

I would argue that the outcome of the Cold War does not bear this out. The Soviets were willing to be quite ruthless indeed.

Remember, perspective is everything, and America’s schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.

The Cold War lasted from about 1947, at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; forty-two years!

Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany !

Europe fought Napoleon for about 15 years. The assertion about Germany is rather silly, as sides were switching dramatically during that period.

World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan .. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50,000,000 people, maybe more than 100,000,000 people, depending on which estimates you accept.

The US has taken more than 3,000 killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.

In WW II, the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week — for four years. Most of the individual battles of WW II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war hasdone so far.

The stakes are at least as high . ! A world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms . . or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).

It’s difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.

“Peace Activists” always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it’s safe.

Why don’t we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most? I’ll tell you why! They would be killed!

Likely imprisoned.

The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.

Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy!

The central argument of the essay seems to be that we need to be more ruthless than the enemy to win. That’s rather alarming, and depraved, considering that it was al-Qaeda’s ruthlessness that was a major factor in motivating the Sunni nationalists – terrorists, yes – to join us against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Furthermore, the essay suffers from two major flaws in comparison:

One, comparing the “jihadists” to the Axis powers. The Axis powers were just that – governmental powers we could unseat and replace with our military presence. Terrorists aren’t. They’re customarily civilians who hide among civilian populations and strike out; kind of like politically-motivated criminals.

Furthermore, as I noted, there are a variety of Islamic terrorists. Many fight one another. Recently, we began giving money to the Saudis through the CIA, to give to Al-Qaeda, to fight Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon. For each different group, there is a different objective. All are mostly composed of middle-class, young males with wealthy money and influence brokers from places like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan supporting them.

So, the notion that we can consider the war on terror to be like World War Two is thoroughly foolish. One involves states fighting states, the other involves a state fighting several non-state actors spread throughout several countries.

The second failure of comparison is the equivalence of expense. World War Two saw us raise millions of men under arms, ship them across two oceans and have a supply train that, even though it was spread over several continents, was flooding with materiel like planes, trucks and gas. We annihilated, occupied and rebuilt numerous large nations. Now that’s a pay-off.

For a lesser but very significant cost, the Iraq War has allowed us to maintain a presence of about 160,000 troops in a single country. Said country has not been rebuilt, or secured by our forces. It has not had closed borders. Fighting still goes on. And, until recently, our troops had inadequate armor and equipment in some cases.

In short, World War Two – good investment. Iraq War – disastrous investment. Beware of comparing inapplicable metrics: We dropped as many munitions in Vietnam as we did on all of Europe in World War Two, and what good did it do us?

Lastly, I leave you with this consideration:

Do we /want/ to turn the War on Terror into World War Two?

Do we want to sacrifice that much? Do we want to make the stakes that dire? Because let me tell you, the reason why we were able to pull it off was because of the extent to which we sacrificed.

So before one considers Kraft’s call to battle, consider this:

Do you want America to have to marshal a force of millions of men? Turn all its industry toward creating the machines of war? Ration dramatically so that we can invade, dominate and reshape populations that – unlike Germany and Japan – are among the most historically disobedient and unruly?

If so, anchors aweigh for a lot of nations who we’ve been calling our allies for a long, long time now.

–Matt Funk
B.A. Political Science (USC); M.F.A. Professional Writing (USC)
www.matthewfunk.net