LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

HIATUS May 10-Sept. 25

No postings on LFTC until Monday, September 25.  On September 25 a document link will be posted enabling access to an in-depth evaluation of where we stand five years after 9/11/01.

Index 5/9/06

3 posts: (1) CIA Change: Does It Matter?--The Home Front; (2) Immigration: Conviction + Calculation = A Bill This Year?--The Home Front; (3) Darfur: Let George Do It?--Weenie Watch.

CIA Change: Does It Matter?

Having sailed through a passel of articles pro & con re the change at CIA, I think they all miss the point.  The real question is: Is America today capable of building even a competent, let alone top-flight, intelligence agency?  I think not.  Why do I feel this way?

Because America, as a society, is: (1) legalist, obsessed with law and legality; (2) moralist, in which right and wrong, in the old-fashioned sense, still matter more than in any other major country; and (3) media-centric, in that mass media are free to publish pretty much anything, without fear of adverse consequence, secrecy be damned.  Intelligence activities are: (1) law-free, in that they often skate the edge of, and cross over, lines drawn by the law; (2) amoral, in that actions are weighed on purely utilitarian grounds, independent of whether moral or immoral; and (3) clandestine, for all the obvious reasons.  See a pattern?

Other democracies are less constrained.  Britain can have a better intelligence service because they have Draconian legal prohibitions against disclosure.  French intel is effective because their national morality is pour la patrie, sauve qui peut.  Israeli intel is effective because their survival literally hinges on same.  America, in some ways for the better but as to intel for the worse, is not Britain, France or Israel.

Immigration: Conviction + Calculation = A Bill This Year?

Michael Barone sees a real chance that a compromise bill on immigration, acceptable to "conviction" pols and "calculation" pols, is within reach, because votes want a bill strongly enough to force action.  Stronger security and some form of provision for those already here, Barone believes, can pass this year.  Pols do not, he say, want to face voters having done nothing.

Darfur: Let George Do It?

Mark Steyn, who has an unmatched talent for writing amusing pieces about unfunny crises, pounces on George Clooney over Darfur, where Gorgeous George demands decisisve UN action.  Steyn explains in his inimitable way why the UN will never intervene in time to save anyone: because powers like Russia and China have a veto in the Security Council (as does France, too).  So, writes Steyn, unless Clooney supports a "coalition of the Anglosphere willing" nothing will happen.  Clooney and Angelina Jolie do not grasp what every sane individual not ideologically in denial understands: Decisive action by the UN is the world's foremost oxymoron.

Index 5/8/06

5 posts: (1) Iraq: Turning Point?--Us v. Them; (2) 20th Hijacker: After the Farce--3/11, 9/11 & N/11; (3) Modern Marriage, Muslim Style--Weenie Watch; (4) "United93": NOT Hollywood's Film--Class & Crass; (5) 21st Century Campus Brownshirts--The Home Front.

Iraq: Turning Point?

Ex-Green Beret Jack Kelly writes that by shifting from IEDs & suicide bombs to more conventional guerrilla tactics, the insurgents are playing into our hands.  Seems that there is now a shortage of foreign fighters and suicide fanatics.  Even Gulf War & Vietnam hero Barry McCaffrey, long a 43 critic, believes that the tide is turning.

20th Hijacker: After the Farce

The pathetic conclusion to the 20th hijacker trial spurred comment, above all, on the jurors having apparently weighed heavily that the defendant had been abused as a child, had a rotten upbringing, etc.  Andrew McCarthy compellingly explains the magnitude of the judicial farce, showing why terrorists should not be sent into courtrooms.  Peggy Noonan thinks we are obsessed with seeking a "moral high ground" staked out by our elites; Dan Henninger thinks the jurors might have been reminded of what mattered had they seen United 93 before voting; Rich Lowry thinks we suffer from a fixation on therapy as a nostrum of everything.  The NY Post says the defendant is headed for solitary in a "supermax" prison, which Dan Henninger thinks unlikely, because "our moral betters" will never stand for it; the Post also says that France is weighing asking extradition to France so he can do his time in a French jail.  Who says the French do not have a sense of humor?

Using the criminal justice system for this kind of case turns everything into a farce, and gives the defendant a public stage.  He gets to rant in court, his lawyers seek to bring witnesses from high up, ask access to classified documents, and then jurors turn themselves into pretzels seeking a rationale for mitigation.  Jurors are famously hard to predict--they are, simply put, capable of anything in any case at any time.  To entrust cases like this to a jury invites the circus we have endured now for nearly five years.

And what do our enemies do?  The latest is that online editions of video games are being re-programmed by Islamists so that Muslim youths learn to zap American troops.  With jihadist Islam the family that plays together slays together.  Let Mark Steyn wrap up the trial circus, in which, he writes, the defendant prevailed using West Side Story's "Office Krupke Defense" ("I'm depraved because I'm deprived!"), and thus was right to say he won:

"Hard to disagree. Not just because he'll be living a long life at taxpayers' expense. He'd have had a good stretch of that even if he'd been "sentenced to death," which in America means you now spend more years sitting on Death Row exhausting your appeals than the average "life" sentence in Europe. America "lost" for a more basic reason: turning a war into a court case and upgrading the enemy to a defendant ensures you pretty much lose however it turns out. And the notion, peddled by some sappy member of the ghastly 9/11 Commission on one of the cable yakfests last week, that jihadists around the world are marveling at the fairness of the U.S. justice system, is preposterous. The leisurely legal process Moussaoui enjoyed lasted longer than America's participation in the Second World War. Around the world, everybody's enjoying a grand old laugh at the U.S. justice system."

Modern Marriage, Muslim Style

Newly-minted WSJ columnist Bret Stephens opens his tenure as WSJ's new "Global View" columnist with tales of Islamic marriage in Germany.  Turks import brides--often pre-teen--into Germany, marry them without their consent and drag them into a life of domestic servitude.  There are 2.6 million Turks living in Germany.  This week Angela Merkel is introducing legislation that would require prospective immigrant brides to first learn German and to be at least 21 years of age.  Says a prominent Turkish author whose efforts exposed the trade: "It's the women who have felt the relapse into Sharia the most.  The boys might be slaves to their families, but on the streets they are free, and besides they can always look forward to a wife they can suppress.  It's the women who explode."  In the past 6 years there have been 55 "honor killings" in Germany--girls killed by male family members for disobeying Islamic law.  Europe is losing the culture war, bending over backwards to be tolerant of the intolerant, while 43 prattles on about the "Religion of Peace."

"United 93": NOT Hollywood's Film

George Will calls seeing United93 a "civic duty."  Of the movie made by Englishman Paul Greengrass, Will says: "He imported into Hollywood the commodity most foreign to it: good taste."  Thank heavens Tinseltown's denizens did not make the film.  He notes that despite 57 percent of 2005's film-goers being ages 12 to 29, 29 percent of those who went to see United93 have been under 30.

Will tartly contrasts United93 with Oliver Stone's JFK: "Greengrass's scrupulosity is evident in the movie's conscientious, minimal and minimally speculative departures from the facts about the flight painstakingly assembled for the Sept. 11 commission report. This is emphatically not a 'docudrama' like Oliver Stone's execrable 'JFK,' which was 'history' as a form of literary looting in which the filmmaker used just enough facts to lend a patina of specious authenticity to tendentious political ax-grinding."

21st Century Campus Brownshirts

Some 9,000 students at NYC's New School are protesting Dean Bob Kerrey's choice of commencement speaker: John McCain.  Among their complaints: McCain is "anti-gay."  Free speech?  Seems the students agree with Islamists that the concept is a non-starter.

Index 5/4/06

5 posts: (1) "United 93" Flying Highest at Box Office--Class & Crass; (2) Global Hegemony or Tribalism?--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (3) Petrodollar Perversity--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (4) Kofi Means "CofI"--Turtle Bay Tortoise; (5) 20th Hijacker Hijacks America, Finally--3/11, 9/11 & N/11.

20th Hijacker Hijacks America, Finally

The 20th hijacker laughed his way to victory in escaping death in his penalty trial.  Worse was this: America's maladroit notion of using the criminal justice system in a 9/11 trial was bound to fail.  At the outset, upon indictment, there were four possible verdicts: (1) guilty + death; (2) guilty + life imprisonment; (3) not guilty by reason of insanity; (4) not guilty.  Verdict 1 would have made the defendant a martyr, with massive media coverage--mostly anti-US--of a protracted process leading to the world's most highly visible execution since Eichmann, and with much of the world far less sympathetic to capital punishment for anyone.  Verdict 2 (the one rendered) gave him a trial in which to rant and sneer at the families.  Worse, it gave him his dream of fame: The same result--confinement for life--could have been achieved by holding him as an unlawful combatant for the duration of a decades-long war.  Verdict 3 would have been a major embarrassment, plus it would have encouraged future acquittals of terrorists, by endorsing the idea of suicidal terrorists as inherently insane.  And Verdict 4 would have hampered future conspiracy trials by making direct nexus a prerequisite for surefire conviction.  This kind of debacle is what happens when counter-terror policy is mesmerized by reflexive hyper-legalism.

"United 93" Flying Highest at Box Office

Grand news: United 93 has flown to the top box office ranking in the latest figures.  The astute James Bowman writes at TAS that the heroism of Todd ("Let's roll") Beamer & others was wrongly downplayed--apparently at the behest of relatives of the less-heroic passengers in 93 that day; he also objects to what he saw as a sympathetic humanizing of the terrorists, citing the cell-phone sentiment uttered by the Islamist pilot to his lady love, "Ich liebe dich."  Bowman also thinks it too soon to place the events in perspective.  Kathryn-Jean Lopez dissents and says it is ripe for showing.

The normally astute Bowman misses the point of the German expression of love in this film.  Yes, it humanizes the terrorists, but human they are, and their evil exists side by side with endearments for loved ones; humanity is a prerequisite for imposing moral responsibility on human actors.  The foreign language quote that matters is the pilot's last words, that end the film: "Allahu Akbar!"  It is the triumph, so to speak, of the fanatical Arabic "God is great!" over the gentle German "I love you" that captures the horror of the terrorists.

Global Hegemony or Tribalism?

Ralph Peters tells us that based upon his travels, he believes that tribalism will trump globalism.  He says that the global elites are a detached jet-set class divorced from the interests of the rest of humanity, much of which recoils at global markets and retreats to tribal cultural and familial loyalties.  The Kikuyu in Kenya see themselves as Kikuyu first, not Kenyans; the Basques in Spain are resurgent, etc.  Globalism is thus miles wide and inches deep.  Atavists thus make use of modern technology--to advance atavism.

Historically, visionaries have seen prospects for world peace enhanced by modern communications.  Increasingly it looks like modern communications enhances the spread of pathological beliefs and undermines rational views.  Most irrational of all is motion video, whose emotional intensity trumps facts presented in more abstract forms such as the daily paper.  The violent pathology that is Islamism thus plays out on a world stage, as does impotence of the largely passive civilizations it assails.  If world media neuters America, the last best hope for enlightened life, their members will be among the first casualties of their folly.

Oil: Petrordollar Perversity

Max Boot presents figures showing how petrodollars fund dictators and terrorists, and suggests we pursue more oil sources and impose a gas tax to place a floor under prices so as to encourage alternative investment.  Oil producers are reaping $500 billion more this year than just a few years ago--check out the country numbers Boot gives to see which horror-show government gets how much.  Robert Samuelson provides more details, and argues that the revisionist view of the 1970s oil shocks is that oil prices even then did not cause the recessions, the culprit being a broader price inflation.

Assume all that is true, so what does MB suggest?  Getting together with oil consumers to move away from gasoline.  Worth a try, but China has not proved a model of cooperation.  Worst of all are two realities that conjoin with our energy wake-up call: (a) even if the US were to go to zero petro-imports, hundreds of billions would still flow into the wrong governmental hands; (b) we have the bad luck to face in insurgent, resurgent Islam at the same time.  Fasten your seat belts.

Kofi Means "CofI"

Claudia Rosett delves into the latest Kofi dodge and asks why Kofi can ask the West to pony up more to the UN for purportedly humanitarian purposes when his own "charity" that he claims will be set up with his $500,000 prize will be run by him personally, rather than by the UN.  She notes that at the UN Kofi translates as CofI--Conflict of Interest.  Maybe Dopey Kofi ani't so dopey, after all.

Index 5/3/06

4 posts: (1) "The Star Spanish ('Spanglish'?) Banner--Class & Crass; (2) White Man's Burden: 21st Century Style--Weenie Watch; (3) "Mama Said": 21st Century Style--9/11, 3/11 & N/11; (4) Oil: Barrel Roll--"It's the Earth Stupid!"

"The Star Spanish ('Spanglish'?) Banner"

Our wonderful State Department--of which Jeane Kirkpatrick once famously quipped that Foggy Bottom needs "a Department of American Interests"--has no fewer than four Spanish-language versions of our national anthem posted at its website.  A 1919 Spanish version was the first one authored in a second language.  Time for a compromise: one anthem, entitled The Star "Spanglish" Banner.

White Man's Burden: 21st Century Style

In 1899 Rudyard Kipling penned his classic poem warning about the burdens taken up by American intervention in the Philippines ("The White Man's Burden").  Now there is a 21st century version, which author Shelby Steele calls white guilt and the American past.  Steele says that America is paralyzed by the prime cultural event of the postwar period: the destruction of white skin as a source of moral authority.  In its place is limitless white guilt that ties the hands of our military and political leaders, and emboldens our adversaries.  We fail not because we lack the power to win, but because we lack the will.  This is a superb column.

"Mama Said": 21st Century Style

The NY Post informs us that the Islamist bomber who planned to bomb the subway station in August 2004 at the Big Apple's  Herald Square (where Macy's is, for out-of-towners), told his two co-conspirators that he could not play courier for the bomb run without first asking...mom.  (You mean, not pop, Imam Ali Baba or Allah?)  So, at least, the defendant has testified at his terror conspiracy trial in Brooklyn.  Time then, for a new version of the Shirelles' huge 1961 du-wop hit, Mama Said, don't you think?

Mama Said: "Go Bomb It!"
(apologies to authors of the original lyrics to Mama Said)

Mama said they'll be jobs like this
They'll be jobs like this
My mama said
(Mama said, mama said)

Mama said
We'll jihad like this
We'll jihad like this
My mama said
(Mama said, mama said)

I went "casing" the other day
Every detail looked fine
A couple of cops stood in my way
And arrested me for crime

Mama said they'll be trials like this
They'll be trials like this
My mama said
(Mama said, mama said)
Mama said juries don't like this
Juries don't like this
My mama said

My eyes were wide open
But all that I see is
Jail time approachin'
For my two pals and me

But I don't worry 'cause
Mama said they'll be crimes like this
We'd do time like this
My mama said
(Mama said, mama said)

Mama said infidels will die
While in cell, sit I
My mama said

And then she said someone will look at me
Like I looked at the station that day
And then I might find
Suicide I mightn't mind

So I don't worry, 'cause
Mama said jihads go amiss
Jihads go amiss
My mama said
(Mama said, mama said)

Mama said "Allah gives us bliss!"
"Allah gives us bliss!"
My mama said

Mama said, mama said, said
"Don't worry!"
Mama said, mama said, said
"Imam is here!"
Mama, Imam an' me cheer!

Oil: Barrel Roll

Energy maven Mark Mills says that we can tolerate rising oil prices because electrons are supplanting barrels as the fundamental driver of the American economy.  In 1973 oil underlay 60 percent of our GDP and electricity 40 percent; today the shares are reversed.  Which is why we can continue to grow despite soaring oil prices.  Next generation: electricity runs cars, and oil goes away.

Index 5/2/06

5 posts: (1) "United Flight 93": SEE IT!--Us v. Them; (2) Congress Has 22 Percent--The Home Front; (3) A Great Turns 90--Us v. Them; (4) Reaming Rush--The Home Front; (5) Biz as Usual at Turtle Bay--Turtle Bay Tortoise.

"Unted 93": SEE IT!

Early returns have United 93 opening in second place among films released last week, despite much advance commentary suggesting it is "too soon" to depict such events.  I saw it Monday afternoon.  I give it 4 stars (here is a collection of critics' reviews).  The film is purely local: a contained narrative of events with plausible reconstructions of events not actually witnessed, excellent acting by unknowns (nice NOT to have "stars") and complete absence of intellectualizing B.S., deep thinking, multiculturalism, existentialist anomie, root causes, Western guilt, reaching out to the other side etc.  Its evocative power is its sparse, focused narrative, conveying the surprise, shock, fear, anger and--finally--the resolve shown by ordinary Americans on that awful day.  The terrorists are portrayed sincerely for the obscurantist, mass-homicidal, suicidal Islamist fanatics they were, a depiction as chillingly honest as the innocent targets are heart-rendingly depicted; no moral equivalence in sight, just imperfect good confronting perfect evil.  Far from being "too soon" the film may be "too late" to rally Americans.  Show this film in every school in America, every college, every newsroom.  Show it in every theater in every Islamic country, and tell Karen ("We apologize to Islam for Christianity's sins") Hughes to shut up.

Congress Has 22 Percent

George Will notes that 22 percent of Americans approve of the performance of Congress and wonders, as Butch & Sundance (but not GW) might put it: "Who are these guys?"  Not federales, to be sure.  GW lists the latest "crisis" funding follies in Congress's latest supplemental, and suggests that there be a provision re low-income energy entitlement relief: states whose Senators and districts whose Representatives in Congress oppose drilling for more oil cannot receive energy aid.  One is reminded of a Washington wag's observation that the difference between Congress and kindergarten is that the former lacks adult supervision.

A Great Turns 90

Orientalist Bernard Lewis receives a warm tribute from a FUD Jami upon BL's turning 90.  Chronicling BL's stellar career, Ajami quotes Lewis regarding this war, versus the one of BL's youth, WW-II: "In 1940, we knew who we were, we knew who the enemy was, we knew the dangers and the issues," he told me when I pressed him for a reading of the struggle against Islamic radicalism. "In our island, we knew we would prevail, that the Americans would be drawn into the fight. It is different today. We don't know who we are, we don't know the issues, and we still do not understand the nature of the enemy."

Another BL quote, on the West's doubt: "It may be that Western culture will indeed go: The lack of conviction of many of those who should be its defenders and the passionate intensity of its accusers may well join to complete its destruction. But if it does go, the men and women of all the continents will thereby be impoverished and endangered."

Reaming Rush

Two former prosecutors explain just how Rush Limbaugh was reamed by political prosecutors in Palm Beach; he was chased for two years for an offense no one is nailed for, and made to submit to a perp photo, even though the prosecutor could not make a case.  Read it and retch.

Biz as Usual at Turtle Bay

A German who served on a panel that voted Kofi Annan a $500,000 prize has been tapped by Kofi to head the UN's Environment panel.  Asked re possible conflict of interest, a Kofi flack explained that Kofi was donating the funds to an African charity to be set up in his name.  It is not set up yet.  Oh, and management reforms proposed by the US, Japan & (even) Europe--who together pay more than 80 percent of UN funding--were rejected by a UN budget panel last week.  How does one say "trip to the woodshed" in UN-speak?

Index 5/1/06

6 posts: (1) Happy Birthday, Empire State Bldg.--Class & Crass; (2) "Oh Say Can't You See"--Class & Crass; (3) Negotiating With Islam's Rhett Butler--Us v. Them; (4) Is Osama Slipping?--Us v. Them; (5) What's in a (Middle) Name Come 2008?--The Home Front; (6) Good Behavior, Union Style--The Ap & The Cap.

Happy Birthday, Empire State Bldg.

Today the Empire State Building turns 75.  Here is a history of her glory.  Perhaps the signal event of her life was the July 28, 1945 crash of a B-25 Mitchell bomber into her 79th floor, in fog, killing 14.  The grand landmark survived because the B-25 was far smaller and traveling far slower than the 767s that smashed into the WTC Towers on 9/11 to such evil effect.  Good thing, too, that the Fair Lady of 34th Street survived its 1945 aerial encounter (as well as 1933 & 2005 encounters with ersatz apes and silver screen sirens).  She is far more elegant than the Twin Towers or, for that matter, the misbegotten structures than will replace them.  Long may She live.

"Oh Say Can't You See"

Comes now a recording of the National Anthem in Spanish, titled Nuestro Himmo ("Our Hymn"). Seems like an oxymoron, singing the anthem in a foreign language?  Critics are already calling it the "Illegal Aliens Anthem."  Ummm, there are rewritten lyrics--such as "we are equal, we are brothers" in the second stanza.  43, who speaks Spanish, says the anthem should be sung in English.

All this reminds me of earlier travesties like Rosanne Barr Arnold screeching the anthem at a baseball game while grabbing her crotch.  Hispanic version Numero Uno, at the 1968 World Series, was Jose Feliciano's soul version.  (Why is it that America's "national pastime" attracts such artistic ghouls to mangle America's anthem?)

The anthem is a difficult song to sing, with a range spanning a 12th--operatic range, which is why so many singers struggle with it.  The melody is, as with all anthems, brittle; improvisation rarely helps.  (A shining exception: a few seasons ago, as part of the Kennedy Center's Coming to America festival celebrating American immigrants who made their mark in the arts, the National Symphony presented more than one dozen different orchestrated versions of the anthem, with musically pleasing results.)  The Star Spangled Banner started as a 1780s English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven."  Francis Scott Key added lyrics in 1814 after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, and it became the nation's official anthem in 1931.

It will get worse.  Coming soon to a TV screen near you--not making this up: a rap antiwar version.

Negotiating With Islam's Rhett Butler

David Ignatius sees a slight problem in dealing with militant Islam: they shun compromise.  Even those elected into power, such as Hamas, refuse to bend at all--never mind meeting folks halfway.  Of a possible UN Security Council resolution on Iran's nuclear program, Iran's Hitler-style Prez said Friday to a crowd: "The Iranian nation won't give a damn about such useless resolutions."

Rhett Butler in Iran?  True, Ahmadinejad does not look like an Islamic Clark Gable.  (If he did, presumably he would score with more than 72 black-eyed virgins--on Earth or in the Garden of Paradise.)  And who in Iran, or elsewhere in the wonderful world of Islam, will play Vivien Leigh?  OK, let's be fair--no one in fact does give a damn about UN resolutions.

Is Osama Slipping?

Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakharia sees not the West, but the terrorists, in disarray.  Attacks increasingly come from smaller groups lacking al-Qa'ida's strategic sense.  Terror strikes thus amount to small scale bombings like last week's attacks in Egypt, which enraged locals.  Markets flutter, but adjust.  The world, writes FZ, moves on.  There is some truth to all this--that is, so long as no major WMD attack succeeds.  FZ forgets that being ahead against an enemy who need get lucky but once as to certain kinds of strikes places our side at an inherent disadvantage.  And should a WMD disaster happen, look for a multi-trillion dollar hit on the world's purportedly stable stock and commodities markets, and on business activity for years.

What's in a (Middle) Name Come 2008?

A poll shows Hillary doing better if she uses her maiden name, Rodham, in the middle.  She does about 10 points worse in the South with the Rodham handle, runs about even among Democrats but with the rest of the country does about 10 points better.  Reminds one of 1992, when she campaigned as Hillary Clinton--having been Hillary Rodham in Arkansas, except when she changed it to assist in her husband's second gubernatorial bid, after he lost his first re-election race for Governor.  Upon entering the Oval Office in 1993, she immediately told reporters that from then it would be be Hillary Rodham Clinton again.  Yo, Hill, care to try this one in Muslim lands?

Good Behavior, Union Style

The transit worker union boss, Roger the Thug, was let out 4+ days early into his 10-day sentence, apparently for "good behavior."  This means, presumably, that he did not insult guards nor assault anyone.  The charade was understood, according to news reports, by all concerned.  Under NY law a prisoner who behaves gets an automatic 1/3 sentence reduction.  Then factor in that NY law forbids releasing prisoners on the weekend.  Starting a 10-day sentence on a Monday means that the Wednesday following is Day 10.  But subtracting 3-1/3 goodie days means a Sunday spring.  So the "get out of jail free" date is moved up to Friday, making 4-1/2 days out of 10 the final penalty-box tally.  That Roger the Thug openly expressed complete lack of remorse for causing $1 billion in damage to innocent parties, that he encouraged union members to march in a vigil while he served his mini-sentence, that he threatens future job slowdowns in targeted (read: key) areas if his union does not keep all the goodies it initially rejected, did not stop authorities from releasing him.  Neat message to send to all potential future violators of the State's anti-strike laws.