Ground State

I don't believe the man in the photo speaks English - but he's certainly doing his part for the cause. Now of course there was a time when kidnapping subjects of the British realm resulted in Knights of the British Empire being dispatched to mete out an appropriate response.

Lo and behold, the British have a new Knight - Sir Bono of U2, an Irish Knight no less. Sir Bono is assembling his squad, to include Sir Elton and Sir Mick, to rescue the British subjects from mullah's hands. It's just like Gordon to Khartoum. Bono to Basra.

Meanwhile the British have their massive Persian Gulf naval presence, a frigate, two minesweepers, and quite a number of inflatables - ready to support the rescue. The ever-vigilant HMS Cornwall is steaming into Iranian waters. The crew has sworn not to be taken captive by a pair of 18-ft motor boats.

This Reuters report (H.T. Drudge) quotes CIA Director Michael Hayden:

"The United States does not recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons state," Hayden was quoted as saying by a South Korean defense official in the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. "It's because the nuclear test last year was a failure."

This is a disingenuous summary of what occurred on October 9 of last year. There was a detonation with nuclear fission products released. A better statement of Kim Jong's nuclear capability at the moment would be that he has nothing that can be delivered on the top of a Taepo Dong missile, but he can load up an old cargo ship with a one kiloton nuclear device and sell it for quite a markup. If you happen to live within a few miles of a seaport, you may not appreciate the distinction between the two levels of nuclear capability.

The point of the statement is not to convince Dear Leader that he failed - they know what they have - an inefficient nuclear device. Presumably we're not trying to encourage him to try harder. Why characterize it as a failure publicly? It's a political fig-leaf for the administration. President Bush has been unequivocal that a nuclear-armed North Korea will not stand. It turns out it will stand, and we'll be sending them food and oil in exchange for better press releases, the Clinton policy redux. Is North Korea a nuclear-armed state? That depends on your definition of "is".

Taking the British sailors and marines is an act of war, but that is nothing new. Iran has been at war with Great Britain from the day the first British soldier arrived in Basra. What makes this stand-out is that they've made no attempt to hide their hand. The Iranians are nothing if not consistent. The American embassy. The British sailors in 2004.

The Wall St. Journal's Opinion Journal has the relevant point (H.T. EU Referendum).

Most important, the world should keep in mind that Iran has undertaken this latest military aggression while it is still a conventional military power. That means that Britain and the U.S. can still respond today with the confidence that they maintain military superiority. That confidence will vanish the minute Iran achieves its goal of becoming a nuclear power. Who knows what the revolutionaries in Tehran will then be capable of.

As it happens - I know what the revolutionaries in Tehran will be capable of. Right now fifteen British miltary personnel are hostage to Iran. It is Iran's intention that the entire world be hostage to them quite soon.

If you like parody - check out the Onion. Here's a recent entry - oh how I wish it were true.

"I'm pleased to announce that the Department of Defense and I have formulated a plan for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq," Bush announced Monday morning. "We'll just go through Iran."

JCS Chairman General Pace has been tagged. We now know that he is a man with a personal conviction as to what is right and what is wrong. How non-PC is that? Let us make him crawl before the Media Gods, and "regret his comments". Maybe he can get in rehab with the NBA guy.

And that is the game - Gotcha. In all the hours of speeches and interviews by General Pace, they got their soundbite, something they can beat him up with - if not ruin him.

Scooter Libby has been tagged. The crime for which the independent counsel was appointed to investigate did not occur. But the investigation goes on until they get someone. Why did they stop at Libby? They could have prosecuted 5000 members of the executive branch of government this way. They stopped at Libby because Fitzgerald won Gotcha! They appointed him to prosecute and by God he will prosecute some sap.

Scooter and Peter are off the island - stay tuned for the next round of Survivor Washington - where AG Gonzales faces the special Schumer challenge without immunity!

It is easy to blame the left and the media for this elevation of trivia to national issues "consuming Washington" - and I do. But I also blame the passive-voice administration. What the hell? Do you think these people are going to like you if you play their game? They will hold you in even larger contempt than they do now. President Bush has reportedly already expressed his discontent with the way the US attorney firings took place. Why do that? If you have a problem with your AG - discuss it privately or fire him. Why set the country up for another round of this pathetic game show? Publicly castrating the people working for you does not get it done.

I dare you to watch this Hotair podcast and then NOT donate to Major Eglands campaign here. What a hero. He's a reserve officer, and as soon as he's off-duty, he turns around and invests his own time and money to make a difference in the war that called him up. What an American thing to do, unimaginable in most countries.

Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight

An African Lion much like this is responsible for the death of 28 Cambodian Midgets
Spectators cheered as entire Cambodian Midget Fighting League squared off against African Lion ...

I dunno - maybe they did make it up. But it has the ring of truth when you read that the Cambodian government allowed it after being promised a 50% commission on ticket sales.

Little Green Footballs posted this video from CBS news of all people. Really worth watching. And hat's off to CBS news - I haven't had much good to say about them on this blog.

This cracks me up.

The Pentagon Channel creates podcasts from Multi-National Force briefings held in Iraq. I don't know how to find the podcasts on the web-site, but you can subscribe to them in the iTunes store under Podcasts|The Pentagon Channel|Briefings. A few days ago the briefer began by relating the good news story of how he had just come from a ceremony marking the 3'rd anniversary of the Boy Scout program in Iraq. The briefer was clearly pleased to have seen it.

But of course many Americans won't be. Some fraction of the population believes the Boy Scouts are discriminatory, uniformed, and therefore misguided at best if not outright evil. Whatever fraction of the population that is, they have found success in American courts and in Hollywood. It is ironic indeed the the Boy Scouts in Iraq are supported by the DOD.

Part of the problem with nation-building for America today is that you cannot transmit something you haven't got. There is a set of American values more or less in common amongst the all-volunteer services. But how common are these values at large in America? It is difficult to see them in play in popular culture. It is difficult to see them in Congress, in the courts. In much of televised America we are working to demonize what the Boy Scouts are trying to instill.

My sons, poor fellows, pay the price for my perception of America's forgetfulness. They can recite the first paragraph of the Gettysburg address, a portion of the Declaration of Independence, and the inscription from the tomb of the unknown soldier. They know who Gary Gordon and Randall Shugart are and what they did. Surely my boys need to know about other Americans too, civil-rights leaders, labor leaders, leaders in what I think of as victim issues. There are many legitimate and honorable heroes to be celebrated in the victim issues, but I don't focus on them at home. They are getting very thorough coverage in public school, very thorough. I'm rather more concerned with what's lacking there.

In Dinesh D'Souza's good book, What's So Great About America, he relates the story of one of his teachers in India who told his students that had the Germans colonized India, Ghandi would have been a lampshade. It is good and appropriate that we celebrate the Ghandi's - it is also good and appropriate that we celebrate the imperial force which, at the end of the day was the required instrumentality to bring civilization to the Indian sub-continent. Martin Luther King was a brave and honorable man in many ways, as were the troops sent in to enforce the law at the point of a gun in the segregated states. Lacking the will to use such force, Martin Luther King's words remain just that - unheeded words.

What's so great about America includes a belief that our commitment to individual liberty is so important and so fundamental that we will use force to see it's benefits maintained at home and spread abroad. The use of force in this cause is sacrosanct and a service to man, not an evil which must be routed out. If we do not teach our children this, they will be intellectually disarmed - unable to deal with the violence that is most assuredly coming.

Teaching tolerance is inadequate. We do not tolerate KKK lynchings. We should not tolerate burning of embassies and shooting nuns in the back of the head in response to an offensive cartoon. We should not tolerate a UN member nation arming itself with nuclear weapons while openly committed to the destruction of another UN member state. We should not for a moment have tolerated Iranian and Syrian complicity in attacks on our soldiers. If we do not believe these things are worthy of the use of force, then we do not believe them at all, and we're simply engaged in self-righteous bleating.