Whether or not our core liberties are being erroded is worth documenting and sparing over.

But what really is important is when people suspect their rights are being encroached...they absolutely MUST SHOUT BLOODY MURDER.

If no shouting ensues, the preceived can become the entrenched.

For power loves to flood into every unguarded crevice.

That is the central tenet of central governments everywhere and everywhen.

The Left's likely candidate -- John Kerry -- believes that the threat of terror is exaggerated and that it is primarily a matter for law enforcement, rather than military adventurism. But the Left despises any tool of law enforcement that gives any procedural advantage to the government. They are comfortable attacking the Patriot Act because they simply do not believe that America faces a material threat from terrorists.

A question for the non-Lieberman Democrats: If you don't want to fight the terrorists with our army overseas, and you don't like invasive law enforcement at home, what would you do differently now than was done before September 11?

I confess that I don't much like John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act. But that's precisely why I think we need to hunt terrorists down with our armed forces, whether or not the French approve. Better that we confront them abroad than turn our homeland into a hunkered down fortress waiting for the next big attack. Liberals don't want to do either.

Americans are easily panicked, and if there is another big attack we will surrender liberties so fast that John Ashcroft will look like a Roger Baldwin libertarian by comparison. Let's take the war to the enemy where the enemy lives, and keep our country free.

The Left's likely candidate -- John Kerry -- believes that the threat of terror is exaggerated and that it is primarily a matter for law enforcement, rather than military adventurism. But the Left despises any tool of law enforcement that gives any procedural advantage to the government. They are comfortable attacking the Patriot Act because they simply do not believe that America faces a material threat from terrorists.

A question for the non-Lieberman Democrats: If you don't want to fight the terrorists with our army overseas, and you don't like invasive law enforcement at home, what would you do differently now than was done before September 11?

I confess that I don't much like John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act. But that's precisely why I think we need to hunt terrorists down with our armed forces, whether or not the French approve. Better that we confront them abroad than turn our homeland into a hunkered down fortress waiting for the next big attack. Liberals don't want to do either.

Americans are easily panicked, and if there is another big attack we will surrender liberties so fast that John Ashcroft will look like a Roger Baldwin libertarian by comparison. Let's take the war to the enemy where the enemy lives, and keep our country free.

"Liberals, who favor big government, oppose the one we have now because of who controls it. "

There is no need to read the article from which that quote comes. It's the same old twaddle. Liberals favor big government ... to do what? To have a conservative authoritarian state? No. You can't take, say, a policy like progressive taxation, label this "big government" because it's a redistributive policy, and then claim that liberals who support prgressive taxation must therefore support any "big government" policy from rampant militarism to theocracy.

Well, those are the big questions for the Democratic nominee, aren't they? "To what degree would you say Clinton administration policies contributed to 9/11, and what would you do differently?" "The Clinton administration treated terrorism as a law enforcement issue, and the result was 9/11? What do you think it got wrong?" And so forth.

As long as the Democrats are talking among themselves they do not need to answer these questions, but when the primaries are over their nominee had better be prepared to. John Kerry, at least, is not prepared now. Criticized yesterday for his own record of supporting cuts in defense programs and intelligence spending by GOP Senator Chambliss of Georgia, Kerry had his campaign respond by citing his service (and Chambliss's deferment) during the Vietnam War. That's not a response that will stand up over the next nine months.

I've come up with a new test to see whether I should apportion a scarce resource, ie. my time, to reading something about Iraq or the war on terror. If the book/article/screed/bumper sticker contains any variant of the phrase "Bush took America to war unilaterally", there's only one thing to do... Move on...

I always hate the lame line "Liberals, who favor big government," especially when it is used as an argument that Liberals cannot possibly be against government programs or government intrusion.

"The truth is that even most liberals would not be so upset about tightening border controls and easing F.B.I. restrictions if this administration showed some understanding of how to confront militant Islam with something other than force."

Uhh, the Patriot Act was designed specifically as a means of curbing terrorist activity without the use of force.

What the hell do these people want? Indictments coupled with hugs and group therapy?

Larry,

I think he meant at the source.

God's my life - Isn't "taking unilateral action" the very working definition of Leadership in the arena of the real?

Has it come to this? That not only has the previous President redefined "is", but his supporters, as an encore, the very nature of Executive Leadership itself?

I'd like to see some more good ideas for confronting militant Islam at its source with something other than force.

Rich, It's the same old twaddle. Liberals favor big government ... to do what? To have a conservative authoritarian state? No. You can't take, say, a policy like progressive taxation, label this "big government" because it's a redistributive policy, and then claim that liberals who support prgressive taxation must therefore support any "big government" policy from rampant militarism to theocracy.

You miss the point. Of course liberals only favor big government to do some things. But you can't hand tons of power to people and then expect them to use it only the way you want them to.

You can't give the government the power to regulate drugs and strip constitutional limits on federalism, and then act shocked when the federal government tries to prevent the use of medical marijuana. You can't have a government big enough to handle all airport security but not have a government big enough to profile people at airports. Etc., etc.

Of course liberals don't want a "conservative authoritarian state." They want a liberal authoritarian state, a government with vast regulatory and enforcement powers to prevent everything they don't like -- up to and including free speech in political campaigns. But they never consider that the government may not end up in liberal hands.

"I'd like to see some more good ideas for confronting militant Islam at its source with something other than force."

I'd like to see that, too. So, you got any bright ideas? No? Then force it is.

Can some please point out how the Patriot Act has helped curb terrorism? Please! From my recolleciton, the Justice Department under Bush has completely f'd up its only 9/11 related prosecution -- due to what seems like gross incompetence or gross paranoia or both. Moreover, Aschroft is being sued by a federal prosecutor for encrouching terroritory and f'ng up another terrorist/related prosecution for what seems to be like the need to gather cases to support the Patriot Act.

The A.G. being sued by another federal prosecutor is relatively unprecedented. But then again, so many unprecedented things have happened with this Administration, that its not surprising most people here are closing there eyes and ignoring this. The point is, the Patriot Act in the years since its inception has garnered very little evidence for its effectiveness. So little, that Aschroft is scrambling for cases to show it works. This has been documented by a number of other people on how J.D. is inflating the number of P.A. cases by including absolutely ridiculous things.

If you think the P.A. is only opposed by "leftists", I suggest yo go talk to Barr or other republicans, who were appalled enough to join the ACLU.

You know I read the same NYTBR article (haven't read the books) and I'm still confused. Can someone really tell me how our liberties have been restricted in a serious way? I don't see it. Nothing like what happened to the Japanese in WWII has occurred--nothing remotely like that. Yet everyone is walking around in panic about the Patriot Act. It feels like progangda to me, but I'm willing to be convinced. Just don't scare me that I am about to lose my liberal credentials. ANd don't call names at John Ashcroft. That's boring bullshit. Talk turkey.

Has the Partiot act been used yet?

Dear all,

Personally the oldman would support increased government powers of search and seizure domestically if and only if those powers were restricted to terrorism and terrorism related activities. If a group is smuggling cigarettes to fund donations to Alqueda, throw the book at them. If not, throw the evidence out of the courtroom. Who makes these decisions? How about our much neglected judicial system that has an important and so far unutilized role in the WoT.

The problem with the Patrioit act is that it does not do enough against terrorism and has too much intrusion against ordinary citizens. I think if Americans were confident that information turned up in survellience, search, and seizure would be excluded from court proceedings unless they were terrorism related they'd let the Government have much more leeway in what after all is a threat to the common good.

As for taking the war to Alqueda, invading Iraq was not wrong but it was done on so many levels foolishly. The oldman advocates a robust law enforcement style counter-terrorism investigation coupled with a Special Ops/assassination program for dealing with terrorists. The thing is that law enforcement people in Treasury, DEA, ATF, FBI organized crime, etc. have experience in unraveling foreign networks. So let them help find the bad guys. Then use the military and CIA coordination to eliminate them.

It is completely unacceptable that we are invading countries with no real idea of their actual threat level, and with extremely confused or erroneous or deceptive characterizations of their threat level.

We need a complete overhaul of the CIA, NSA, etc. that includes among other things the oldman would suggest an Analysts Abroad program where Analysts are put in State Department positions and sent abroad to train in the countries they will later analyze for several months up to a year at a time. There should be a training program there to help them become involved in information collection and familiarization with the behind the scenes maneuvering. They can even be included as low-level aides in conferences and diplomatic meetings. Every decade or so, we should spring for them to visit the countries they analyze in question.

Even the scientists working for David Kay said that the analysts that held out the longest about whether there was WMD in Iraq were the ones who hadn't been there. They had to get them to come out on a plane and see for themselves. This Analysts Abroad step alone would vastly improve our intelligence capability.

Part of the Administration's strategy has been to rely on a Special Op's force called Joint Task Force 121 or JTF-121. You can read about a summary of news reports about them at
Disinfopedia. Here is also an overview of their recent known activities.

However as the LAT op-ed makes clear these guys are stretched thin. Unless we find some way to support them and narrow their operational missions from "search&destroy" to just plain old destroy it won't be a viable tactic. There just aren't enough of them. We can't afford to be sending these guys combing through the mountains of Afghanistan. We need to be able to paint at most a zone of a few square miles and then go in. If you look at the Saddam capture it's clear that these guys were only effective once you'd limited the search scope to basically one large farm.

Since recruiting local governmental and independent agent support is always going to be uncertain, we have to develop a rehabilitated counter-terrorism model with a stronger and larger anti-organizational aspect based upon law enforcement models of vusting organized crime, illegal financing, counter-smuggling, and network penetration. We also need to rehabilitate the analyst program with a systematic "grading" on history of prediction success and proactive training programmes like my suggested Analysts Abroad studies program. We know that we can build fairly large law enforcement style organizations that given clear mandates successfully execute these tasks.

However instead of prosecuting the individuals, we then have foreign governments pick up the individuals for us or go in with guys like JTF-121. Even this strategy does not let the Admin off the hook based on the need to "drain the swamp" of terrorism.

Forward advocates of democracy and economic progressivism are correct. Bringing prosperous democracies to nations around the world and being seen as the advocates of a progressive human future is the best forward strategy we can have in the long run. However the Bush43 Administration has shown itself completely incapable of negotiating this delicate task. They have zero credibility in this regard and are quickly going more negative each day.

We will never be able to talk around the fanatics. We can only eliminate them while moving to address the greviances that produce radical antagonists in the first place. Prevention and cure are both required here. If we do both then and only then can we make consistent progress forward on the issue.

It appears that the NYT is reporting that Pakistan gears up for Alqueda hunt in the next few weeks. Previous speculation that this was some sort of brilliant misdirection appears to be negative at this point. So much for trying to read into the Bush43 Administration's actions deeper meanings.

They are going to try a blunderbuss approach after all, it seems. Pakistan as the anvil and US forces as the hammer. If they're right they can nab binLadin and completely rewrite the equation for November's election. If they're wrong they could incite a backlash that conceivably topples Musharaff. It's a big gamble no doubt. At the very least risky. Let's see them roll the dice!

Hey Oldman! 'mornin everybody!

Everyone writing here should check out the Washington Post's series on the CIA hunt for Bin Laden in the waning days of the Clinton admin. It started yesterday, continues today. Eye opening stuff. Allow me to summarize: too many g*d*mn lawyers in Washington, too few US operatives outside it.

Usually I'm the member of the family turning purple over my coffee--these articles sent my calm, rational husband round the bend. The negotiations between lawyers at the CIA (in perpetual CYA mode, it appears) and lawyers at the Clinton WH (same, only worse) were endless and soooo counterproductive. In the end, they cooked up a lukewarm hash of a policy where the CIA paid scores of Afghan "fighers", up to and including Shah Ahmed Massoud, to not capture or kill suspected terrorists, up to and including b.L himself.

Where CIA and sp. ops guys were directly involved, planning ALWAYS had to center around capture, not killing, with contingency plans for evacuations and transfers that would NEVER happen (not in this dimension of reality--perhaps in lawyerland). Result: we constantly put our trust in people who could or would not deliver the goods we needed.

Here's my prediction: if Kerry does not denounce such "fight with one hand tied behind my back" tactics, Bush will get the votes of people like my husband (who likes Kerry now) and me (not so sure).

As for trying to "win over" Muslims in the battle with Islamofascists, here's what I'd like to see. All US foreign aid should be concentrated on primary schools. All of it. Let the Europeans tackle hunger, AIDS, prostitution, etc. Rejigger the Peace Corps, put it under control of a strengthened USAID, and send Americans out to construct and oversee schools. Schools for boys and schools for girls. Give them computers. Give them sports equipment. Give these kids some skills, and send them out into the world. This is big--it will require working constructively with some of the most disfunctional segments of gravely disfunctional governments. I don't care. We WOULD find allies on the ground--especially among women. It can be done and it will produce results. Just thing of the PTA meetings!

The punchline to all of this is that suddenly the gun control debate has effectively disapeared. Five years ago, arguing the individual right enshrined in the second amendment as the ultimate guarantee against an authoratarian takeover was usually met with howls of laughter by the left. Suddenly they dont find it so funny anymore. Of course the left is also famous for its uncannilly short memory when it comes to anything that interferes with their idiological purity, so I would assume that this lesson will be tossed by the wayside the first week a democrat takes office in the whitehouse again.

The Left's likely candidate -- John Kerry -- believes that the threat of terror is exaggerated and that it is primarily a matter for law enforcement, rather than military adventurism. But the Left despises any tool of law enforcement that gives any procedural advantage to the government.

Glad to see I was not alone in being struck by this point.

I also found it more than a little bit interesting and frankly, a little un-nerving in this context, to remember that Vietnam... (a conflict likley to take center stage in the next few months, given Mr. Kerry)... while involving the military, was considered by most, world wide, incuding the French, and I think, the UN,
to be an enforcement action.

Given, then, Mr. Kerry's reaction to our enforcement action in 'nam, and for that matter, the middle east, today, one wonders what kind of action he would favor. As yet, I've not seen an acceptable answer to this question from him, or his supporters.

I somehow doubt I will.

Mr. Oldman,

On an otherwise reasonble post you write:

"It is completely unacceptable that we are invading countries with no real idea of their actual threat level, and with extremely confused or erroneous or deceptive characterizations of their threat level."

But to correct your error, you should write :

"I find it completely unacceptable..."

In so doing, you will correct a statement that is demonstrably false, and replace it with one that is demonstrably true.

Agreed?

This is a little outside discussion of the Patriot Act, but part of the Bronner piece on Sunday touched on Guantanamo and the implications of holding detainees caught in Afghanistan there.

The legal implications of this are of less concern to me than the practical ones. It's going on two years since most of the detainees were captured. Perhaps they have provided in that time substantial information that we have been able to use against al Qaeda. Perhaps some of them are so dangerous that releasing them or even trying them in public would create unacceptable security risks, though frankly if there are that many detainees of this type in Cuba I wonder why we went to the trouble of capturing them instead of killing them in Afghanistan.

My concern is that after all this time there may be many detainees at Guantanamo who are being held out of inertia; we don't have enough on them to say they are definitely a threat, but we can't prove they are not, or that they will never be. It may well be that some cases there have not received sustained attention from American intelligence agencies, which have after all been badly stretched over the last two years. So we just keep them there, drawing opprobrium on ourselves and most likely detaining several hundred half-literate Afghans to no purpose.

Now I could be wrong about this. But if we are going to run a prison camp in Cuba it would be best if we had some means of assuring that the people held there need to be. Right now we have the Pentagon's word, and that's about it. Two years ago at this time that was enough for me, but we really should have more now.

Mr. Wellesley,

As you state so precisely, I cannot determine unlitarally the collective state of acceptability about whether or not going to war with doubftul or deceptive intelligence is acceptable. Though it makes the oldman grind his teeth, it might be viewed as acceptable by certain parties or the nation.

Certainly, I find it unacceptable. I will however assert that that objectively such a state is so far sub-optimum that it severely limits the credibility and forward planning capacity of the USA. And that I personally find unacceptable.

Oldman, if practicality is the issue, surely the jury is still out. There have been demonstrable positives on American credibility due to Iraq, Libya being a major example. Has our leverage with Europe actually been lessened? Perhaps, but I would argue that much of the good will we seem to have lost was an illusion to begin with, and it must be recognized that some of the loss has been offset by the French and German hamfistedness in overplaying their hand, particularly vis a vis the Eastern Europeans. Surely our relationships with the Poles, Czechs, and others has only grown stronger. I would equate it to having a bunch of friends and then one day asking for a favor. When some turn you down and stretch the 'friendship', have you lost anything in reality? Or have you simply revealed the true state of affairs? If Iraq in the next 10 years manages to become a stable, democratic ally of America, can it possibly still be argued that this was a blunder from a pragmatic standpoint?

“I cannot determine unlitarally the collective state of acceptability about whether or not going to war with doubftul or deceptive intelligence is acceptable.”

Please cease with the Orewellian silliness. The United States did not unilaterally invade Iraq! We had the support of a large number of countries. Thus, I have every right to describe you as a deluded individual--and even question your truthfulness. Most of the other countries also agreed with the opinion that Saddam Hussein represented a dangerous threat. This was not something simply cooked up by the Bush administration.

"The punchline to all of this is that suddenly the gun control debate has effectively disapeared. Five years ago, arguing the individual right enshrined in the second amendment as the ultimate guarantee against an authoratarian takeover was usually met with howls of laughter by the left. Suddenly they dont find it so funny anymore. Of course the left is also famous for its uncannilly short memory when it comes to anything that interferes with their idiological purity, so I would assume that this lesson will be tossed by the wayside the first week a democrat takes office in the whitehouse again."

Posted by Mark Buehner at February 23, 2004 09:42 AM

Mark, ignoring that some may disagree with your legal assertions, the real irony is that Afghanistan and Iraq showed more clearly than ever that individual gun ownership is no longer an effective deterrent to wayward regimes. Hunting rifles and handgrenades aren't holding back a modern military. (No, I'm not a gun control advocate.)

Stan, I can definately take issue with that assertion. The general public in Iraq was never armed during its years under the fascist regimes. It was only on the eve of the invasion that assault rifles were issued to the populace. The ability to withstand a modern force on good terrain was indeed proven by both the Kurds and to a lesser degree by the Northern Alliance (the Taliban could never be mistaken for a modern mechanized force). Looking at current events, its a testament to the level of acceptance that the majority of Iraqis and Aghanis feel for the coalition that we are able to operate at all. There is no doubt that if the Shiites and Kurds reached even the current Sunni level of resistance, our occupation would become a bloodbath, and I note that even Sunni resistance isnt the majority of their population. The same can be said of Afghanistan. The Red Army was absolutely mauled by these people in the same terrain and similar circumstances. If any but the remnents of the despised Taliban opposed us, we would be bloodied in short order. By men with rifles and grenades.

Sure, Mark the Taliban and Iraqi Army have proven to be great treats to the U.S. Armed Forces in direct combat. We'll just head up into the Rockies with assault rifles and shoot the B-52s out of the sky.

Stan, its sentiment like that that is going to lead a US army to a bloody defeat one of these days. Iraqs army has gotten a bad rap, they chose not to fight for the most part. We beat the crap out of them twice, not because they werent brave experienced fighters (the Republican Guard in fact requited themselves quite well in the first Gulf War) but because they were outgeneraled. The two gulf wars, particularly the last one, were some of the most inspired campaigns in history, thats why they were done with so little loss, not because we were so overwhelming in force. For one thing some of our tank drivers learned the hard way that M1A1s arent immune to Iraqi ordinance as some speculated.
As far as the importance of the second amendment to Americans (and make no mistake, every honest legal scholar including Lawrence Tribe have concluded that the 2nd amendment was absolutely crafted as an individual right), having a rifle in you hand is sight better than being stuck holding certain body parts. We cant forsee the future, but if a civil war ever did break out it wont be a few milita nuts fighting the whole US military. But I guarantee you that 100 desperate vets with assault rifles could grind most cities to a halt for weeks if not longer, even against our own forces. My observation remains valid, the left has gone quite mute on gun control in the last couple years, and I find it no considence taht the Hitler references to Bush have flown fast and furius during the same period.

Well, Oldman, as long as we're being polite - what of the General Barno's Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afganistan?

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040217-0446.html

Surely they fit the offered criteria of being "forward advocates of democracy and economic progressivism"?

I certainly hope, for both our sakes, that this is the thing we see more of.

I think they even do "Parent Teacher Conferences", Miss Kelli...

Well, those are the big questions for the Democratic nominee, aren't they? "To what degree would you say Clinton administration policies contributed to 9/11, and what would you do differently?" "The Clinton administration treated terrorism as a law enforcement issue, and the result was 9/11? What do you think it got wrong?" And so forth.

Actually, those are great questions for the 9/11 Commission. Too bad Bush has hindered and opposed the Commission at every turn.

Jack writes:

"A question for the non-Lieberman Democrats: If you don't want to fight the terrorists with our army overseas, and you don't like invasive law enforcement at home, what would you do differently now than was done before September 11?"

What a slimy question. Nearly all Democrats supported sending the military after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Also, although many Democrats supported invading Iraq, one of the prime arguments against invading Iraq was that it drew military resources away from fighting terrorists.

Finally, who is in favor of "intrusive law enforcement?" Let me turn the question around: do you think the government is doing everything exactly right to fight terrorism within the U.S.?

Mark, I apologize for the tone of my last reply. It reads worse than I planned.

I cannot disagree with your assessment more. I believe you make invalid assumptions which lead to false conclusions. Particularly your assumption of ruthlessness does not have to hold. For instance, your 100 Rambos could only grind a city to a halt if our military was determined to avoid harm to non-combatants. If they were willing to take out whole buildings without regard to innocents, your Rambos would have very little success.

The reality is that technology has made fewer and fewer people more and more powerful. It is a reality of war over the last couple thousand years. Even in the day of our founding fathers, armed militias were no match for trained armies. Ruthless tyrants could easily overwhelm armed civilians. The number of those politically beholden to them need not have been too large. The history of Napoleon in France proves that fairly well.

The atom bomb makes an individual with a missile capable of wiping out a whole city today. The ruthless could have wiped out your band of determined ex-GIs quite easily half a century ago. Technology has simply lowered the collateral damage over the last half a decade. Thus, the level of ruthlessness required has declined markedly. The efficacy of hunting rifles against ruthless authoritarian rule has become almost meaningless. I believe the evidence of Tora Bora suggests that hunting rifles and hand grenades would not hold our military back any more than knives and spears today.

I'm not going to argue with you regarding what the Constitution protects.

"For instance, your 100 Rambos could only grind a city to a halt if our military was determined to avoid harm to non-combatants. If they were willing to take out whole buildings without regard to innocents, your Rambos would have very little success. "

Stan, you are right on an absolute level, but you are missing a key factor. Guerilla warfare _intends_ to provoke mass retribution and destruction against the civilian population. If those 100 rambos succeeded in forcing the military to demolish a city, they have suceeded, particularly if many of them excape to fight another day. Of course our military can utterly destroy whatever it chooses, but we are back to the 'we have to destroy this village to save it' paradox. By the same rational, we should be having no trouble whatever in Iraq. Simply wipe out any area that gives us trouble. In theory that is true, but in practice it is both counterproductive and impossible politically.
Your Tora Bora example is a poor one I think. Despite all the combined might of the US most high tech and best trained troops, we failed to decisively defeat the enemy. Most of them (supposedly including OBL) lived to fight another day by retreating into Pakistan. For a guerilla this is a victory. And again, in a perfect world we would simply follow them and wipe them out, but in the real world international politics is a factor. The bottom line here is that perhaps 1000 terrorist fighters can pin down tens of thousands of coalition troops in Afghanistan, even without much local support from the populace. If they had that support, the number of troops required goes up geometrically. You are thinking on a conventional plane here, while guerilla war deliberately avoids a conventional fight at all costs. It is a long term strategy not based on military victory that a small number of men with simple weapons can inflict on a large unwieldy enemy. And it has worked time and again in history. Thats why we work so hard to win hearts and minds.

Mark, I do not believe we are arguing about the right to wear dynamite :). I think Tora Bora makes my point in spades. My point was about the effectiveness of simple arms against a modern military. You were suggesting that Iraq and Afghanistan showed that guns remain important in securing our freedom. I believe both actions clearly show how ineffective simple arms have become.

In Tora Bora a few Special Ops guys and a handful of Afghan militia, drove bin Laden and perhaps an equal number of his supporters from heavily fortified positions in a very mountainous region. Bin Laden's rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and small arms were easily overwhelmed by modern technology. Sure bin Laden had guns, but he might as well have had throwing knives. With our technology advantage he didn't stand a chance.

The ax, the flail and the spear remain dangerous weapons to unarmed individuals, but it is ludicrous to suggest that any of these weapons are important for securing our freedom from tyrants. Against a modern military guns and flails are both fairly impotent.

"it is ludicrous to suggest that any of these weapons are important for securing our freedom from tyrants. Against a modern military guns and flails are both fairly impotent"

Again, you are looking at this from a conventional point of view on a very short time frame. These same Afghanis chased out the most powerful military in the world in the Red Army twenty years ago using the same weapons. Because they had the local support of the populace. If they had it now they would be doing the same thing to us. Not by beating us on the battle field, but by attacking our supply lines, sniping and bombing soft targets, and basically doing what guerillas excel at. Look at Iraq, simple bombs and rifles are killing hundreds of US and Iraqis, and those are just a very small percent of the populace against us. Imagine what it would be like if even half of Iraqis decided to get rid of the US. It would simply be untenable. Ask the rangers in Mogadishu how dangerous a bunch of rabel with Kalishnivoks can be. For that matter we never lost a battle in Vietnam but still lost the war. To a bunch of guys with rifles and grenades.

Dear Dave Thomson,

I wrote:
“I cannot determine unlitarally the collective state of acceptability about whether or not going to war with doubftul or deceptive intelligence is acceptable.”

To which you responded:
Please cease with the Orewellian silliness. The United States did not unilaterally invade Iraq!

If you parse my original sentence again Dave, you will find that what I stated is that I cannot determine unilaterally ... namely that the unilateral attaches to my ability to determine, not a description of US actions.

Second, the sentence does not refer to the invasion as the prime subject. It refers to the acceptability of invasion on uncertain intelligence. This is like asking someone to discuss guns as opposed to discussing the acceptibility of guns to kill deer. The killing of deer may be acceptable by others means - say bows and arrows. Or it may be that guns are viewed as fit means of self-defense but a person disdains hunting as an archaic practice.

Sometimes I like to pull the leg of other people Dave, including Wellesley here but sometimes you make me wonder if you're not in la-la land. Learn to read. It might help. If you have trouble go ask some grade school kids. They might have some tips for you. Either that or get a prescription for some anti-psychotics.

Do you think that extreme a rebuke? Consider your own words:

"Thus, I have every right to describe you as a deluded individual--and even question your truthfulness."

Now apply that to yourself.

Mr. Wellesley,

Cheer up. You caught the oldman out on a point of argumentation if a minor one. This is something even seasoned debaters, politicos, and profs often have a hard time doing. Kudos to you. The formality is simply because the oldman always formally recognizes all points ceded whether on the field of battle or debate. It's my personal code of honor.

As for the provincial teams, the oldman has been hearing good things about them. He'd like to see more of this.

The oldman is however cautious. Elections may have to be postponed. The rule of law is still very weak. The central government remains factionalized and Karzai propped up by foreign support. Large regions of the country are very dangerous and the Taliban move freely in them. Heroin exports are up.

Finally, most damning is that NATO and the UN have struggled in both expanding security mandates and reconstruction. Inclusion of NATO and the UN into the Iraq venture was always going to be a cosmetic measure and a gesture of diplomacy, and this is where the real benefits layed mostly. Trying to get other countries in after the fact as the Bush Administration is trying to do is missing the point.

The value of the UN and internationalism is more than Bush administration apologists have granted it, but far less than Bush Administration critics have suggested. It is quite limited.

The difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan are more a measure of the general planning failures of the Bush43 Administration, of which the use or disuse of the UN was only one factor among many. Iraq may well end up a prosperous democracy in ten or so years as Mr. Buehner suggests, but it won't be getting any closer to that goal on account of the Bush Admn policies. The Bush Admin had a good idea - remove a tyrant. This was executed well by the military. Then they had no second act. No follow through. That things haven't completely fallen apart over there so far is mostly a credit to American troops and not any virtue of the leadership.

Mark, you believe you are arguing the case for guns, but you are instead arguing the case for popular support of guerilla war. My comment about the right to wear dynamite was intended to refocus the debate. I am looking at the basic proposition that guns are important to protect our freedom and I am denying it categorically.

Frankly explosives are by far the most important weapon in a guerilla war scenario against our armed forces. Unless you have a death wish, you want to avoid direct confrontation at all costs. The support available to our soldiers will make them far superior in direct confrontation combat situations. There is nothing particularly special about guns. The ability to snipe is great, but a bow and arrow can accomplish many of the same things. C4 is far more valuable than either.

As far as I can tell good communications are the only essential protection for liberty.

"As far as I can tell good communications are the only essential protection for liberty."

I hope your communication skills are up to par if the brownshirts ever kick in your door.

Explosives are an important component to guerilla war, but not nearly as important as a rifle. A man or woman with a rifle controls the destiny of every unarmed individual in their vicinity. A single armed individual is a major deterrant against any sized band of enemies, because nobody wants to die and most people require a cause bigger then themselves to take one for the team. History is repleat with small bands of armed men resisting entire military units. There is no more need to protect explosives in the constitution than shovels (another required guerilla tool). Explosives can always be devised from simple materials at hand. Not so assault rifles. They require careful engineering, modular parts, not to mention ammunition. It is simple to control the means of weapons manufacture. It is impossible to control the means of explosives manufacture (as we see in Iraq every day). If this historical example doesnt say it all, I dont know what does:

"In January 1943, the first armed resistance by the Jewish fighting organization was carried out with only 10 pistols. For three months after Nazis soldiers did not dare venture into the ghetto. Thereafter the Nazis under Himmler decided that they would have to burn down the ghetto house by house in order to conquer it. They proceeded to do so, although not without considerable difficulty in the face of armed Jewish resistance fighters."
http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/holocaust/armed_warsaw.htm

10 pistols stopped a German army.

Mark, I believe your argument is self defeating:

"A man or woman with a rifle controls the destiny of every unarmed individual in their vicinity."

As an example, I can rewrite your argument as follows: A man or woman with a HAND GRENADE controls the destiny of every unarmed individual in their vicinity. I think you'll agree that hand grenades aren't "the ultimate guarantee against an authoritarian takeover" either. I believe if you substitute BOW AND ARROW and you get the same result.

Why, when "History is repleat with small bands of armed men resisting entire military units" is the gun no longer all that important? Because our technology means that even a man's own body heat is a weapon against him today. Once our military knows where you are (something fairly unavoidable with firearms), the technology advantage is insurmountably steep with all of th support available to our troops. I believe Tora Bora shows this very well. Even in the example you chose the 10 pistols did not stop Himmler, they merely slowed him down. Indeed, I believe Tora Bora shows that the technological advantage of advanced militaries has increased markedly since the time you describe.

Although I believe explosives are a much more important weapon than firearms in guerilla warfare against advanced militaries, nevertheless when the brownshirts show up people better be able to tell somebody. While few weapons available to average citizens are really going to slow down the U.S. military in direct confrontations, good communications may at least allow coordination and stealth among those left behind (they are the attributes which might give armed resistance a chance against the U.S. armed forces). I believe Iraq and Afghanistan show that those in direct confrontation aren't going to be around to help unless they have something fairly exotic at their disposal (nuclear, chemical, etc.).

In the end I believe we are very dependent on the professionalism and commitment to democracy and civil leadership of our military. It would be very difficult to nth degree to resist a broad coup from the U.S. military with an authoritarian nature. There just isn't much difference between prying your cold dead hands from a pistol, shotgun or assault rifle than an ax, bow, or slingshot anymore. All are fairly futile.

(Although I disagree with you strongly, my last post again reads much worse than I intended. I am sorry. In my haste to respond I am not doing a good job of proofing what I write. I hope that this post preserves a better balance despite our divergence of views.)

"A man or woman with a HAND GRENADE controls the destiny of every unarmed individual in their vicinity. "

And when that grenade goes off he's defenseless. He can either kill or maim a bunch of people, probably including himself, or not. A rifle is a much more versatile tool. Why do you equip our soldiers and policemen with firearms instead of bombs?

". I believe Tora Bora shows this very well"
I believe it showed it very badly considered the lionshire of the terrorists strolled out of Tora Bora.

"Even in the example you chose the 10 pistols did not stop Himmler, they merely slowed him down."
Merely? Stopping the nazis from transporting jews from Warshaw to the gas chambers for over 3 months is _merely_? Come on now.

"when the brownshirts show up people better be able to tell somebody. "
Tell who?! The rest of the unarmed sheep? And what precisely are they going to do? Have a sit in?

"good communications may at least allow coordination and stealth among those left behind "
Again, what are those left behind going to do? Aside from the fact that an armed populace is quite simply the best deterrant to the situation we invision available (the Japanese in WW2 ruled out invasion of mainland USA noting that 'every blade of grass would have a rifle behind it'), 1000 (or pick a number) armed resistors is _clearly_ a greater problem for a occupyer than 1000 unarmed sheep. I simply fail to see how you can argue that point. If guns are so worthless why does every nation have them?

"There just isn't much difference between prying your cold dead hands from a pistol, shotgun or assault rifle than an ax, bow, or slingshot anymore. All are fairly futile. "
Ask JFK. That statement is simply not true. Ask anyone with a military background. The rifle is what makes the soldier. The rifle makes hunting efficient (important for a partisan). The rifle is an excellent weapon for assassination (much more certain than a bomb). The rifle is the basic unit of firepower for the footsoldier, particularly in urban and rough terrain. You are arguing a very specific scenario, the whole of the US military against a fixed position. SHould the unthinkable happen that is probably the _least_ likely scenario. How can you possibly invision what the future could hold? But once you take the guns away, its too late to get one when you need it. Thats what the founders thought most assuredly.

Mark, I believe you are arguing around the point. You stated that guns were "the ultimate guarantee against an authoritarian takeover." Your statement does not say that guns are handy or that guns are better than nothing. In order for that statement to be true, guns would need to stand out clearly as the protector of liberty in the universe of all other weapons likely available. It is not a question of guns or nothing. While they may be handy, they are not the only weapon available.

I believe the statement is clearly not true. If everybody has guns, they will not be even remotely effective as in resistance if they cannot communicate with each other. Minus communications they will have their guns pried from their dead hands one by one. If people have all other weapons but guns, they will still be a very effective resistance. The one weapon that a resistance to authoritarian rule cannot afford to lose is the ability to communicate amongst themselves. Therefore, communications are "the ultimate guarantee against an authoritarian takeover." I am not the first one to think of this. The framers of our Constitution placed an awful lot of store in the need for a free press. This was their purpose.

"But liberals must realize that some things are correct and legitimate even if George Bush believes them."

He could have credited his source, Thomas Friedman, for that line.