Dear President Trump: The West has already surrendered

In Poland Thursday, President Trump gave a speech that was truly historic. It was a speech that was near-Churchillian in focus and tone and world view. And it basically renounced successive American administrations of either party going back to at least Reagan's.

President Donald Trump waves to the crowd in
Krasiński Square, Warsaw, Thursday.

Speaking to a huge crowd in Krasiński Square, Warsaw, the president spoke of Poland's many decades of war against tyranny and oppression, but mainly he spoke thematically about what made Western civilization strong to begin with and why it must recover and reinforce its roots to prevail against Islamist imperialism, but also to suppress the waxing bureaucratic statism that grips every European country today. An excerpt:

Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger -- one firmly within our control.  This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles:  the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people.  The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.

We have to remember that our defense is not just a commitment of money, it is a commitment of will.  Because as the Polish experience reminds us, the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail and be successful and get what you have to have.  The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.  Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost?  Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?  Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?

We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive. [Italics added]

Almost at the end, the president said,

 I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken.  Our values will prevail.  Our people will thrive.  And our civilization will triumph.  

Ah, how I want to like this speech. And at a very basic level, I do. A lot. But President Trump is sadly calling for ramparts to be manned that were abandoned decades ago and for which there are no human resources left to rebuild them. "Strong families" have disappeared from most of Europe, Mr. President, because families themselves are simply disappearing.

Put simply: Europe long ago broke itself. Its values will not prevail (they are barely hanging on now, and being weakened daily - by design and on purpose. See: Merkel, Angela).

And European civilization will not triumph. It is in full retreat now. Whether Western civilization can survive is still open to question, but if it does it will not be to Europe's credit and will almost certainly not survive there at all. Europe's future is distinctly non-European as history has known it and will be definitely non-Western.

Let's start with Poland. David Goldman posted on FB today,

There won't be a Poland in 100 years. At a total fertility rate of 1.29, Poland will have one retiree per working-age citizen by 2075. Poland in fact has one of the world's very lowest fertility rates, which means (in Mary Eberstadt's way of looking at the problem) that it is losing its religion. President Trump's speech was magnificent, but it brings to mind Schiller's dictum that history brought forth a great moment, but the moment encountered a mediocre people. Trump is doing the right thing, but we should remember that Europe is a case not for cure but for palliative care.

I have written a lot of demographic trends in the world, concentrating on Europe and the US. Nine years ago in, "What has NATO done for us?" In 2008, Russia was making military incursions into Georgia, on which Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin decided that NATO should bring Georgia into membership. I assessed not only why NATO is a strategic nullity but asked a pointed question concerning Europe's demographic death spiral:

There is another point that Mark Steyn touched on when discussing Sarah Palin's bright idea to bring Georgia into NATO. I can't find a link now, but Steyn pointed out is that Georgia's birth rate has tanked more than practically any other country in the world. In fact, by 2050 there will be only 100,000 Georgian women of childbearing age, if current trends continue. So, he said, if Georgians won't have children to grow up to defend Georgia, why should Americans have children to grow up to defend Georgia? I can't think of any good reason.

And the same question can be asked of every other European NATO member, except perhaps Britain and France. The birth rates of Germany, Spain, Italy and every other NATO country except Turkey are below the stable replacement rate of 2.1 average births per woman, most far below. Italy’s rate is 1.23 births per woman , for example, meaning that Italy’s population could shrink by one-third by mid-century. (Turkey’s birth rate is about twice as high as Italy's.)

Again the question for NATO’s countries: if you will not have enough children to preserve your country, why should American women bear children to make up your deficit?

Demographers agree that a minimum rate of 2.1 live births per woman is required to maintain a level population from one generation to the next. And what is the demographic trend across Europe?

When a culture decides not even to reproduce itself, then it had already surrendered. It had decided to go quietly into the night and fade away. That is what Europe is doing now. Despite the president's soaring rhetoric, there will be no recovery from this decision. There is far from enough time left to do so. Tens and tens of millions of women in Europe are not going to decide suddenly to start having and average of more than 2.1 children each. The Europeans economies cannot support such a change anyway. In fact, they cannot support their present, aging populations now, which is why so many Euro nations decided long ago to reply on "The Mohammed Retirement Plan" that will nail the continent's coffin shut.

Europe is not just millions of square miles of terrain. Our affiliation with Europe, and the reason our military shed so much blood on Europe's soil, was not to defend dirt. It was to defend and preserve a cultural heritage the was the wellspring of human flourishing of the modern era. That the Europeans themselves sometimes seemed hellbent on killing one another in carload lots did not negate the fundamental virtues of the Western heritage of faith and reason.

But those are the very virtues that most of Europe has abandoned. That is why I really want to like President Trump's Warsaw speech but cannot. It's at least 50 years behind the times and for all its rhetorical inspiration, there is almost no one left in Europe to hear it with understanding of what it really would have to mean, and I doubt that Trump himself knows, either.

Update: "... of the six founding members of what evolved into the European Union, five are now led by childless prime ministers or presidents." See more at Powerline.

We become what we focus on

The severest punishment God ever lays upon us is to let us have what we want.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."
Proverbs 29.18, King James Version

This is probably the most well known rendering of that short verse, but it poorly communicates what the verse is trying to say. The KJV was done in the very early 1600s and for today, it just is not a good translation.

"Vision" refers to spiritual sight, more properly, spiritual insight. The verse, properly understood in its context and intention, is actually one of the most important warnings and assurances in the entire Bible.

Try this: When the people lose sight of God’s will, they go astray, but they prosper when they keep God’s law.

"The people" in the verse does not refer just to a worshiping congregation, but in the context of its time, a national people, the people of ancient Israel. The verse is talking about national consequences of ignoring God and the benefits of cleaving to God's commandments.

Bible Gateway has a long list of different translations and renderings. The ERV's translation is probably the best: "If a nation is not guided by God, the people will lose self-control, but the nation that obeys God’s law will be happy."

One Hebrew word study I read said that the real thrust of the verse is that when the nation loses sight of godliness, it descends into anarchy. We become what we focus on. When we lose sight of God and God's will for our lives, we become ungodly. That never ends well, either for individuals, churches or nations.

Here is a key point: God commandments were revealed to humanity. We did not make them up. We are so far removed from their revelation that we think that morality, as we understand it, is the natural way that people live together. In fact, the societies around the ancient Jews and early Christians were brutal. The Romans considered mercy, charity and forgiveness to be vices, not virtues. Roman parents beat their children for the showing weakness of mercy. Human morality absent divine commandment is base and as Proverbs says, descends finally into anarchy. We will either rule our passions or be ruled by them. As St Paul put it, "God can't be disregarded" -- note well, not "should not be" or "must not be," but cannot be disregarded; it is not possible. He continued, "You will harvest what you plant."

Morally, our capacities are weighted toward the negative side of the scale. People intend greater good than they achieve. Treaties, alliances, aid organizations, political parties, civic groups, even churches – all begun for good reasons to accomplish good things, and all fall short of what their founders intended.

 Hence the necessity of God giving the moral law. My friend and former co-author Rabbi Daniel Jackson wrote, "There are obvious logical elements of the Law of Sinai that might be deduced logically (or rationally). Yet, much of the Scriptures is based on directives and rules that [we] would not have known if the Scriptures did not tell [us] so."

God's Law frees us from the baser demons of our being so that we may discover the better angels of our nature. Every choice to depart from God's Law chips away at our integrity as persons belonging to Jesus. Integrity matters!

During his time as a rancher, Theodore Roosevelt and one of his cowpunchers lassoed a maverick steer, lit a fire, and put a branding iron in it to heat. The part of the range they were on was actually owned by Gregor Lang, one of Roosevelt's neighbors. According to the cattleman's rule, the steer therefore belonged to Lang. Roosevelt saw his employee, the cowboy, raise the glowing branding iron toward the steer, but it was Roosevelt's brand. "Wait, it should be Lang's brand," he said.

"That's all right, boss," said the cowboy. "Lang will never know."

"Drop that iron," Roosevelt demanded, "go back to the ranch, get your things and get out." Roosevelt later explained, "A man who will steal for me will steal from me."

Integrity, says Webster's, is "adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty." And that takes the willingness and ability to cleave to a standard, whether you call it the law or a code or something else. Choices matter, and the choices we make are not isolated from one another.

The issue is more acute for young people than for me or those older than me. It sounds trite to say but it's nonetheless true that we grew up in a different time than you. The advice to "do your own thing" was unknown to us and we would never have even thought of agreeing that something may be right for you and wrong for me, or vice-versa, depending on our own inclinations, points of view and what we simply want to believe.

The problem is that to be a modern man or woman is to believe in nothing. Or more accurately, to believe in nothing in particular. Americans have come to prize personal autonomy so much that the spirit of this age gleefully embraces that nothing underlies fundamental reality, making, in the words of David Hart, "a fertile void in which all things are [claimed] possible, from which arises no impediment" to our desires and therefore we may decide for ourselves what is right or wrong and what we choose.

Which is to say that modern America as a whole no longer believes that there are objective criteria by which to judge our choices because being able to choose in the first place is the highest good there is. Therefore, all judgment, whether divine or human, infringes on choosing – and being able to choose according to one's own standards exercises "an almost mystical supremacy over all other concerns."

This is a purely modern idea. In centuries past, even before Jesus was born, true human freedom was understood as liberation "from whatever constrains us from living a life of rational virtue" and that led to our intellectual and spiritual flourishing. Freedom was the ability to overcome "our willful surrender to momentary impulses, [including] our own foolish or wicked choices."

"In this view of things [said Hart], we are free when we achieve that end toward which our inmost nature is oriented ... and whatever separates us from that end -- even if it comes from our own wills -- is a form of bondage. We are free not merely because we can choose, but only when we have chosen well."

For to choose poorly is to enslave ourselves to the impermanent, the irrational and eventually the destructive. Simply choosing, unconnected from divine guidance and godly standards, is to choose ultimately to reject freedom and to be enslaved to what Paul called the body of death and finally to choose to perish rather than attain everlasting life.

God's law enables human beings to be freed from the shackles of spiritual and mental bondage that prevent us from being saved in this life and the next. Paul's advice of Romans 12 holds true: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Even Jesus understood that a life of choosing rightly is not easy. "Enter through the narrow gate," he said, "for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

What to do and how? Paul tells us that in Philippians 4:8: “… Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

It's not easy to live rightly to remain free. It is bondage to death and sin that is easy. But we can break those chains if we keep focused on God. Then we will be free indeed.

See also, "How Jesus invented individual liberty."

Jill Stein says Hillary will just nuke 'em

Get ready for Hillary, says Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein:

Jill explains why voting to continue the status quo, which is what voting for Hillary does, is a really, really bad choice.

The wars have gotten bigger, we are now bombing seven countries.

It is important to not just look at the rhetoric but also look at the track record and the reality is the lesser people and greater people is a race to the bottom, and even Donald Trump in the right wing extremism grows out of the policies of the Clintons, in particular Nafta, which sent our jobs overseas and Wall Street deregulation, which blew 9 million jobs up into smoke.

That is what is creating this right wing extremism. A vote for Hillary Clinton isn't going to fix it...

It is now Hillary Clinton that wants to start an air war with Russia over Syria by calling for a no fly zone.

We have 2000 nuclear missiles on hair-trigger alert. They are saying we are closer to a nuclear war than we have ever been.

Under Hillary Clinton, we could slide into nuclear war very quickly from her declared policy in Syria. ...

On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary's policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia. 

 Well, for quite some time, Hillary has been seen to have the potential to be the most uncompromising wartime President in United States history. And remember, a certain Nobel Peace Prize laureate just this week sent cruise missiles into Yemen.

BTW, Jill, I think we are still waiting to hear your plan for dealing with Putin.

The coming European civil wars

Giles Kepel, one of the foremost scholars of Islam in the Western world, has said Europe better get ready for war:

According to German newspaper Die Welt, Kepel said the terror group’s [ISIS] aim is to incite hatred towards Muslims from the rest of the society which would eventually radicalise others to the point that Europe could enter into full-blown civil war.

Kepel, who is a specialist on Islamic and contemporary Arab world, added these ISIS fanatics not only want to destroy Europe, but to eliminate more moderate Islamic opposition.

“The terrorism is above all an expression of a war within Islam,” he explained. “The long-term goal of the Jihad Generation is to destroy Europe through civil war and then build an Islamic society from the ashes.

See also my 2005 series, "The Forever Jihad."

And from January, "Europe's coming civil war," in which Swiss

Lieutenant-General André Blattmann has issued a warning to the Swiss people that society is dangerously close to collapse and advised those not already armed as part of the Swiss Army reserve to take steps to arm themselves.

The ruins of the Meathead Generation

There was a hugely popular TV series in the 1970s called All in the Family, starring Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, a blue-collar northeasterner of very outspoken traditional values. Rob Reiner played his son-in-law, Michael, very liberal, unemployed (a permanent student), who lived in Archie's house along with his wife, Archie's daughter (of course).

Archie called his son in law "Meathead," and viewing only one episode convinced you why. Reiner's character was a snooty, self-impressed, never-wrong, empty-headed jerk.



Very recently, Reiner, whose intellect and personality show that he was perfectly cast as Michael, disparaged Trump supporters as uneducated, ignorant, racist know nothings, etc., sort of like Hillary did, too. For the record, I am not a Trump supporter, although I would drink Drano before I'd vote for Hillary. But what Reiner's smug tirade shows is what has happened with what some commentators have called the "Meathead Generation," which makes sense:

Meathead was a loudmouth know-it-all boomer, who enjoyed lecturing his father-in-law about the terribleness of America and the men that had made the country. The irony was that Meathead lived off the people he ridiculed. Archie, the patriarch, worked and paid the bills while his daughter and son-in-law lived in his house. It was a perfect metaphor for what was happening in the country. The parasites were determined to kill the host, but in the mean time they were perfectly willing to enjoy the fruits the host had accumulated.

Years ago, the great Paul Gottfried remarked that the country had long been taken over by the Meathead generation and their ethics. The Archie Bunkers were all gone. By that he meant traditional working and middle class America had been lost and the country was now run by fashionable liberals, who occupied the first ruling elite in history to be actively working to destroy the foundation on which it rests. Look around the culture and all the high ground is occupied by degenerate boomers, who carry on as if it is still 1968. [HT: American Digest]

Which is pretty interesting because I am a early mid-term Boomer. Having lived a year into my seventh decade now, I want to avoid sounding like one of those old geezers who says, "Back in my day . . ." But I will say, well, that back in my day my peers and I were actually taught Truth existed that was not mere opinion and was still true whether it made you happy, sad, angry or contented. We did believe, and I still do, that there was (and is) such a thing as absolute truth, like it or not.

Yes, the idea of absolute truth was closely linked to religious belief and that just what absolute truth was differed between religions and often between even denominations of a religion. My point here is not what declarations are or are not absolute truth, but that across the great majority of Americans there was conceptual agreement that there was such a thing as absolute truth, even if we did not all agree on the particulars.

That conceptual agreement is gone today.

• In 1997, 50% of Christians and 25% of non-Christians said that there are moral truths which are unchanging, and that truth is absolute, not relative to the circumstances.
• In 2000-JAN, they found that 38% of adult Americans believed that absolute true exists. 
• Later in 2000, 40% of individuals involved in a Christian disciplining process believed that there is no such thing as absolute moral truth. 
• In 2001-NOV, another Barna poll showed that adults believing in absolute truth had dropped almost in half -- to 22%. 

In short order, the idea of absolute truth was replaced by relative truth, that declarations could be true based on their circumstances, or that a statement might be true for Thelma but not for Louise. The problem is not that this idea of truth has no validity; the conceptual affirmation of absolute truth never meant that nothing was true unless it was absolutely true. The problem is that relative truth has come to be affirmed as the only kind of truth there is.

That means that truth is nothing more than opinion. And if there is no Truth, there is no falsehood, either. Yet something must serve as the basis for making decisions, especially moral decisions. Hence the rapid downhill slide to this: "Americans Are Most Likely to Base Truth on Feelings."

Truth Is Relative, Say Americans 

In two national surveys conducted by Barna Research, one among adults and one among teenagers, people were asked if they believe that there are moral absolutes that are unchanging or that moral truth is relative to the circumstances. By a 3-to-1 margin (64% vs. 22%) adults said truth is always relative to the person and their situation. The perspective was even more lopsided among teenagers, 83% of whom said moral truth depends on the circumstances, and only 6% of whom said moral truth is absolute.

The gap between teen and adult views was not surprising, however, when the adult views are considered by generation. While six out of ten people 36 and older embraced moral relativism, 75% of the adults 18 to 35 did so. Thus, it appears that relativism is gaining ground, largely because relativism appears to have taken root with the generation that preceded today’s teens. ...

The surveys also asked people to indicate the basis on which they make their moral and ethical decisions. Six different approaches were listed by at least 5% of the teenagers interviewed, and eight approaches were listed by at least 5% of adults. In spite of the variety communicated, there was a clear pattern within both groups. By far the most common basis for moral decision-making was doing whatever feels right or comfortable in a situation. Nearly four out of ten teens (38%) and three out of ten adults (31%) described that as their primary consideration.

That article was published in 2002. Since then, the trend has only intensified. Note that sentence, "... relativism is gaining ground, largely because relativism appears to have taken root with the generation that preceded today’s teens." In the intervening 14 years, we have begun our third generation of truthlessness. I am a Boomer so the move to relativism began in my generation, the Boomers born after me, I am guessing, which would be the majority of them. At the time this article was published, Boomers' kids were barely in their teens at the young end and 50-plus at the old.

From the idea that all truth is relative (which is a self-contradictory statement when you think about it) is a short slide to three highly dysfunctional beliefs and practices:

1. With no idea of transcendent authority, human relationships become merely contests of power.  Posted.

2. Religion is suppressed but the inherent religious nature of humanity simply finds other outlets. 

3. Human life is meaningless and serves no higher purpose because there is no higher purpose to serve. 

About which much more later.

Whose chickens are coming home now?

Europe on the Brink | World Affairs Journal

And Europe will continue to be terrorized. In The Observer, John R. Schindler argues that Europe now has so many ISIS-supporting extremists in its midst that it isn’t facing mere terrorism any longer, that the problem has been upgraded, if that’s the right word, to a guerrilla war or an insurgency. ...

We should expect more guerrilla-like attacks like [in] Brussels yesterday: moderate in scale, relatively easy to plan and execute against soft targets, and utterly terrifying to the public. At some point, angry Europeans, fed up with their supine political class, will begin to strike back, and that’s when the really terrifying scenarios come into play. European security services worry deeply about the next Anders Breivik targeting not fellow Europeans, but Muslim migrants. “We’re just one Baruch Goldstein away from all-out war,” explained a senior EU terrorism official, citing the American-born Israeli terrorist, fed up with Palestinian violence, who walked into a Hebron mosque in 1994, guns blazing, and murdered 29 innocent Muslims.

When that violence comes, a practically disarmed Europe will be all but powerless to stop it.

 Americans won’t likely ever forget how the supposedly “sophisticated” European opinion-makers said America’s chickens were coming home to roost when Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center, and how we—for one brain-dead reason or another—had it coming. 

Related:

"Europe's Coming Civil War"

"Europe at the Edge of the Abyss"

And an English writer wonders when the Continentals will start thinking about regime change in their countries, even if not peacefully:

When you have to start putting your wife and daughter on a segregated train car, for fear the Muslims may rape them or simply go crazy seeing an uncovered female head, the mad king is no longer a man for whom you will pledge allegiance. When the king cancels the “March Against Fear” out of fear of offending the invaders, it’s hard to love the king. Instead, you start thinking it is time to kill the king. It’s either him, or you, no matter what comes next.

Finnish rape prevention is sadly not a joke

I have commented before that it is getting increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from satire. Now from Finland is a state-made video advising women on how to ward off sexual predators.

I have tried and tried to make sure that this is not a satire video, but sadly, it is, as best as I can ascertain, genuine. And it is appalling.



Honestly, my first reaction seeing this was, "The Force is strong with this one!" I am sure the "Stop!" technique would be even more effective if the woman says, "I am not the rape victim you are looking for."

Then there is this smartphone video made by an attendee at a town meeting in Germany. One gathers from the video (English subtitles) that there is a Muslim migrant camp in or on the edge of town. The townspeople want to know what the mayor is going to do to ensure the safety of schoolchildren, especially girls, who walk near the camp on the way to and from school. There were events recently that caused real concerns among families.

The mayor's answer? "Don't provoke them and don't walk in these areas."

Needless to say, this does not go down well with the town's families.

NATO continues to pretend it matters

Well, this sure will have Putin quaking in his boots:

WASHINGTON — As Ukrainian leaders warned on Monday of “a great war” with Russia, NATO leaders meeting in Wales this week were expected to endorse their most concrete response yet to increased Russian military intervention in Ukraine: establishing a rapid-reaction force capable of deploying quickly to Eastern Europe, officials of the alliance said.

The new force of some 4,000 troops, capable of moving on 48 hours’ notice ... .

And you can just stop reading there because:

1. Four thousand troops is not even a decent speed bump against Russia or most any other potential enemy. Of the 4,000, probably no more than 800 are trigger pullers.

2. There is nothing to back them up. NATO has no strategic "throw" apart from the US Air Force or Navy, except for (believe it or not) Canada. The Royal Air Force has a few new C-17s, but not many. That's the capability to sustain major operations an extended distance away through supply and troop reinforcements or rotations. NATO just doesn't have it.

3. That means that the RRF will actually never be deployed into combat and that this is simply a symbolic gesture.

4. "Capable of moving on 48 hours notice" is in fact not rapid. The US 82d Airborne Division with its USAF support gets a battalion in the air within 18 hours of the go order, with additional battalions following quickly.

5. Remember the "NATO Response Force?" Neither do I.

Six years ago I asked, "What has NATO done for us?" discussing the usefulness of NATO to the United States in confronting the Russian threat (Russia had just invaded Georgia) to Ukraine or Islamist terrorism. Except for the date, I wouldn't change a word. For example:

Ukraine? Not a NATO member, and Russia could easily march in. But Ukraine is hardly defensible by NATO. From the west, NATO forces would have a very long ground journey, across NATO-member Poland, then another 300 miles just to reach Ukraine's capital, Kiev. The logistics problem would be immense, especially for ammunition and spare parts.

Ukraine’s sea approach, from the Black Sea, has a natural choke point at the Bosporus straits. The sea approach to the Bosporus has its own choke points, the Dardanelles strait which empties into the Sea of Mamara, between the Aegean Sea and the Bosporus straits. Fortunately, Turkey is a NATO member whose forces have been focused for decades on keeping the sea lanes open. Of course, Russia has worked the opposite problems for decades, too. So there would almost certainly be a battle royal there between NATO and Russian air and naval forces.

Finally, Ukraine is a big country, almost 800 miles east to west, 233,000 square miles, and NATO's manpower commitment would have to be correspondingly large, probably too large for NATO's existing forces, even under mobilization, since substantial forces would need to be retained in Poland and points west to deter Russian moves in that direction.

As well, western Europe's standing forces are too few to offer substantial, long-lasting reinforcements to deployed units. Many of their regular brigades are permanently staffed by regulars at a fraction of full strength, with the rest (usually one-third or even more) of the troops being reservists whose readiness level is substantially lower. If you use your reserves to man up your regular battalions, who exactly is manning the reserves? In all, since the dissolution of the USSR, Europe's defense planning has been focused on economy rather than war readiness.

In 2009 I asked, "Is NATO approaching its end game?" to which the answer is perpetually yes. Without any clear sense of mission and purpose remaining, NATO has become a fiefdom of typical Euro-Buro nature, existing for prolonging the job security of its massively bloated staffs.

NATO is actually rather pointless and they know it.

It's telling that the French are complaining about NATO's bureaucratic inefficiency. Man, when the French complain about unwieldy bureaucracies, you know there's a problem! And here is Exhibit A:

This is NATO's new, $1.38 billion headquarters sitting on 100 acres near Brussels, under construction now. This for an organization that has essentially no purpose.

And NATO's European nations are broke, or at least unwilling to spend money on the military. In 2000, the US provided 50 percent of NATO's funding. By 2011, it was 75 percent. NATO is broke, leaderless and pointless.

As Richard Perle, an assistant defense secretary under Reagan, said about NATO, "If it didn't already exist, you couldn't start it today. It's living on its legacy."

Dhimmitude Watch

Dhimmitude is the Islamic term for the third-class status of non-Muslims living in Islamic countries. Non-Muslims are severely restricted in their civil rights, including denial of freedom of worship and prohibition of certain civil activities. Its terms and condition have varied over time and place, but one thing it always does is make non-Muslims subservient to sharia law and Muslim rule without recourse. See here.

Comes now this report of self-dhimmitude in Great Britain: "Cafe owner ordered to remove extractor fan because neighbour claimed 'smell of frying bacon offends Muslims."

A hard-working cafe owner has been ordered to tear down an extractor fan - because the smell of her frying bacon 'offends' Muslims.

Planning bosses acted against Beverley Akciecek, 49, after being told her next-door neighbour's Muslim friends had felt 'physically sick' due to the 'foul odour'.

Councillors at Stockport Council in Greater Manchester say the smell from the fan is 'unacceptable on the grounds of residential amenity'.

As I wrote here, the West is being attacked not merely by violent jihadis, but by practitioners of "stealth jihad," or creeping sharia in Europe and North America. Muslims in the West, especially the so-called "moderates," are actively working to integrate sharia law into Western societies and legal systems.

The method: Acceptance-Endorsement-Enforcement.

Nonviolent jihadists use our political institutions against us. This is the method that the Muslim Brotherhood, ideological wellspring of Islamism, calls dawa, or “summons” to the West to become Muslim. I assess their method as threefold: Acceptance-Endorsement-Enforcement.

First, Muslims in the West plead for acceptance of Muslim practices in America, especially the building of mosques. Mosques are the primary means of radicalizing native-land converts. And if building mosques gains public controversy, the door opens for them to claim oppression and plead for religious tolerance.

Second, greater jihadists demand endorsement of Muslim claims of exceptionalism, such as Islam, the Quran or Muhammad being off limits to public debate or criticism. Here also they have learned how to play the victim card by claiming to be offended by the insensitive, intolerant critics.

Finally, they demand enforcement by Western governments of Muslim privileges and special rights. This process is so far along in Europe that I think my thesis hardly needs defending.

As this unjustifiable ruling in England shows. And here's the kicker - the complainant who got the order to shut down the fan is not even Muslim!

Mr Webb-Lee objected to the aplication - complaining that his Muslim friends refused to visit him becase they 'can't stand the smell of bacon'.

Makes me wonder who is more gutless, the town councillors who gave the order or Mr. Webb-Lee for his groveling self-dhimmitudiness.

Hogwashing history

Professor Bruce Thornton writes, "Whitewashing Islam: “Who Controls the Past Controls the Future,” subtitled, "Painting Out History with Thick Coatings of Hogwash."

[T]he glories of Islamic civilization are celebrated even as Christianity is chastised for its history of pogroms, witch-burning, and religious wars. We hear all about the Inquisition, which in its entire history executed at most 5000 people, a fraction of those killed just in the Muslim conquest and occupation of Spain. The Crusades are trotted out repeatedly as the premier example of Western proto-imperialist aggression fueled by religious and racial bigotry. Forget the persecution of Christian pilgrims in Palestine, forget the fact that the region was Christian, Jewish, and Hellenic for six centuries before it was brutally conquered by Muslim armies and absorbed into the Islamic empire. And by no means point out that the Crusaders, whatever their baser motives, were pushing back against centuries of Islamic invasion, raids, and plundering of Christian lands.

For the jihadists and their Western apologists, that history “never happened,” which is why the jihadist narrative has gained traction among so many in the West. By accepting that distorted history, we put ourselves in the role of the aggressor who has provoked by his depredations the current terrorist attacks against us. Our behavior, not the religious motives of the jihadists, is the key to the conflict. Hence the futile attempts at outreach, displays of respect, protestations of admiration for Islam, celebrations of Muslim holy days in the White House, fawning school curricula, groveling apologies, and all the other ways in which we tell Muslims that our own historical crimes and continued bigotry against their wonderful religion is the real problem.

No, Islam is the problem, along with our duped willingness to place ourselves into submission to it. Jihad is the fundamental duty of a Muslim. This is explicit in the Quran. Violent, or lesser jihad, gets the attention, but greater jihad is more pernicious and threatening in the longer term. Please see my column, "The Threat of a Greater Jihad - Why talk of 'moderate Muslims' is so misguided."

"Scared of Muslims"

Matt Welch at Reason writes, "Just Admit it, Newspapers: You're Scared of Muslims."

As Radley Balko noted in yesterday's Morning Links, the Washington Post and other newspapers pulled Wiley Miller's syndicated "Non Sequitur" cartoon [right]from their comics pages two Sundays back, because Miller pulled a familiar-to-Reason-readers "where's Waldo?" gag with the Prophet Muhammad, satirizing the new 21st century taboo on the depiction of even jokes about the fear of depicting a historical figure who really existed.

Then he recounts the excuses given by editors, consisting mainly that the cartoon was "provocative" without a "clear point" and "not of high quality." Well, it seems pretty clear to me. As Matt says, though, "A boundary-stretching case comes before you, and suddenly everyone's an art critic."

I don't get how the WaPO's executive editor Marcus W. Brauchli could say that the cartoon is both provocative and pointless.It is provokes, then doesn't that prove that it has a point? And if pointlessness is now a cause for rejection, how does Doonesbury survive (or half the other comics in the paper)?

No, as Matt says clearly to the editors, "you pulled the cartoon because your fear of Muslims outweighs your commitment to free expression, period." This is another example of our self infidel-ization.

If Only They Could See

Way, way back in December, 1979, I was in gradual school at the University of Washington. I had just returned from a year of language studies in south India and was mildly interested in alternative employment opportunities. I got a call from the Placement Office asking if would entertain a meeting with the NW recruiter for the CIA. "Sure," I said.

Shortly thereafter, I received a call from a mysterious Colonel X who asked if I would meet him at the Federal Building, in beautiful downtown Portland, Oregon. I was heading to California to meet my girl friend's parents so we agreed to meet on the way south. I was instructed to go to the rear elevator, go to the fifth floor, and we would meet in an office he had borrowed just for that interview. Oh yes, I should bring my girl friend.

Well, we took the wrong elevator, took the wrong corridor, and were greeted by two HUGE gentlemen dressed in three piece suits less the jacket and very substantial side arms. We were ushered into Colonel X's borrowed office, which was decorated with scores of images of Colonel X in various action poses.

The interview unfolded at a delicate pace. He as considering me for an analyst position in their "MA Shop" with 1200 other analysts and would be expected to generate a MA Thesis a week--for example, everything that could be known about the cabinet officers of the Pakistani government--EVERYTHING. Of course, nothing about my work there could be on a resume and if I wanted to continue my gradual education, there was no Uncle Sugar scholarship available (just 3 grants per year available for 1200 dudes and dudettes).

I had not minded the mistaken identity of a Kurdish scholar when I had just completed a Diploma in Tamil Studies at Kamaraj Madurai University, in Tamil Nadu. He did not mind that I had experimented with SDS in college ("we all make mistakes"). But the lack of educational benefits for me was the deal breaker. I declined. Thinking that maybe I would reapply after I completed my PhD, I asked what were the burning questions facing the CIA and State Department in December of 1979.

"Well," he said, sez he. "We are a bit puzzled by the resurgence of religious politics in the world today. Now, being a student of sociology, you of course know that the theories of modernity and secularization of capitalist society should be sweeping away the antequated notions of religious identification--to say nothing of religious ethnic political movements. And yet, we are confronted with continued religous cleavages in Ireland, South Asia, and the Middle East is a mess. Now, THAT's a question WE would like answered."

Okaaay. With that, I was ushered out the proper door, down to the parking garage with a validated parking sticker and an entrance card to the CIA compatibility tests given regularly at the UW. My girl friend was impressed. She asked what I thought. I said that after living in India for a year, where EVERYTHING is based on relgious ethnic affiliation, I was having a really difficult time. How so, she asked. I always thought the CIA knew everything.

Maybe if I had not gone south, things would have been different. Thirty nine years later, nothing has changed. The US still ignores the importance of religion in international matters. The result? I have written here before that Iran WILL get its bomb and WILL use it on Israel.

Over at Pajama's Media, someone else has the same idea. In an Open Letter To President Obama on Appeasing Iran, 'Reza Kahlili' writes the same thing. Iran WILL get its bomb, Iran WILL use that bomb on Israel, and Iran WILL do so for RELIGIOUS reasons.

Just as Carter and Company had not a clue how to deal with the then unfolding Tehran Hostage Situation, Obama and Company still have not a clue how to deal the same players of the same Hostage Situation. If anything, the US is still a hostage to the same student activists. With all the money in the alleged Stimulus Package, maybe Obama and Company should at least listen to Dennis Miller, break into the Piggy Bank, and buy a clue.

Of course, all that is predicated that if turned to face the light, they would be able to see. If only.

Islamism v. the West

"Islam and the West: Lines of Demarcation - What it is about our civilization that causes such resentment, and why we must defend it," by Roger Scruton. Like everything Roger Scruton writes, drop what you're doing and go read it.

What has NATO done for us?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has no rasion d'etre any more and is proving it almost daily.

To the point: it's time for the US to disengage from NATO.

NATO was founded to form a bulwark against Soviet invasion of western Europe in 1949. As the charter's Article 5 states,

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them ... will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith ... such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

So just what does this mean today? Pretty much nothing. Strictly interpreted, Article 5's provisions are not tripped by an attack on United States' interests outside North America. One must wonder whether an attack by someone against Guam, a non-North American, American territory, would trigger Article 5, but the question is actually moot since there is no imaginable threat to mount such an attack.

So: Who is there to attack either North America or Europe? There are really only two threats reasonably imaginable - Russia and Islamist terrorists. Let's consider them seriatim:

1. Russia.

The original threat for which NATO was founded, there's no chance that Russia either would or could invade western Europe now or in the far foreseeable future.

Certainly Russia's invasion of Georgia shows that Russia's militarism is alive and well, but the prospect of Russia invading western Europe is simple nitwittery. Russia, oil flush though it is, is not rich enough, militarily powerful enough, nor populous enough to extend a campaign that far or that long. Western Europe in aggregate is still more powerful than Russia militarily (on its own soil, defending its home territories) and is rich enough to outlast Russia in such a war. But the real bottom line is that Russia needs Europe peaceful and prosperous rather than wrecked and impoverished.

But what of the Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania? Certainly Russia could invade them, and they are NATO members. They are also defensible by NATO to some minimal level because their sea approaches are a short trip from Germany's and Poland's northern ports.

I am trying to remember the good reasons that the Baltics were admitted into NATO, but memory fails me except to remember that there were no good reasons. (Review NATO's own assessment and see whether it's held up.) At the time, even Russia was being talked about as a potential NATO member of some kind, political membership if not part of the military alliance. See here, for example. It was then presumed membership would have a tamping effect on Russian militarism which would help ensure peace in our time. Russia has in fact been a "partner country" with NATO since 1997. (Some “partner.” As Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that worked out for us?”)

Ukraine? Not a NATO member, and Russia could easily march in. But Ukraine is hardly defensible by NATO. From the west, NATO forces would have a very long ground journey, across NATO-member Poland, then another 300 miles just to reach Ukraine's capital, Kiev. The logistics problem would be immense, especially for ammunition and spare parts.

Ukraine’s sea approach, from the Black Sea, has a natural choke point at the Bosporus straits. The sea approach to the Bosporus has its own choke points, the Dardanelles strait which empties into the Sea of Mamara, between the Aegean Sea and the Bosporus straits. Fortunately, Turkey is a NATO member whose forces have been focused for decades on keeping the sea lanes open. Of course, Russia has worked the opposite problems for decades, too. So there would almost certainly be a battle royal there between NATO and Russian air and naval forces.

Finally, Ukraine is a big country, almost 800 miles east to west, 233,000 square miles, and NATO's manpower commitment would have to be correspondingly large, probably too large for NATO's existing forces, even under mobilization, since substantial forces would need to be retained in Poland and points west to deter Russian moves in that direction.

As well, western Europe's standing forces are too few to offer substantial, long-lasting reinforcements to deployed units. Many of their regular brigades are permanently staffed by regulars at a fraction of full strength, with the rest (usually one-third or even more) of the troops being reservists whose readiness level is substantially lower. If you use your reserves to man up your regular battalions, who exactly is manning the reserves? In all, since the dissolution of the USSR, Europe's defense planning has been focused on economy rather than war readiness.

Don't count on NATO's new NATO Response Force (NRF), which consists of only 25,000 troops of all arms.

This includes a brigade-size land component with forced-entry capability; a naval task force including a carrier battle group, an amphibious task group and a surface action group; and an air component capable of 200 combat sorties a day.

A brigade-size ground force (5,000-6,000 soldiers) is barely speed bump size defending Ukraine or the Baltics. And 200 combat sorties per day would be exhausted before noon in mid-intensity operations.

Sarah Palin said in her Gibson interview that the US should push to admit both Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. I have two words: In. Sane. The idea that the United States should (or can) go to war to eject Russian forces therefrom is foolish in the extreme. A return of Russian occupation of Ukraine or the Baltic countries would be dreadful for the people of those countries. But it's hard to see what US national-security interest would make warring with Russia worth it. NATO's relations with Ukraine, very extensive since 1991, are almost exclusively political-commercial rather than military, or even political-military. Even the NATO Handbook admits tacitly that its goal is development of a market economy and human rights in Ukraine, rather than strengthening of NATO as a military alliance.

It may be argued that for the US to withdraw its NATO military membership would in fact invite Russian moves against Ukraine or the Baltics. I think Putin's government is a more calculating than that. Putin, et. al., surely realize that moving against Ukraine would not evoke military counter-moves from NATO, whether Ukraine is a NATO member or not. The reason is very simple: NATO nations simply do not have the military forces, nor strategic "throw," to make the counter. Simply getting tactically significant forces to the right places in Ukraine, then supplying them, would be an enormous challenge that could well be insurmountable. Only recently have Canada and the UK begun to fly strategic-range airlift, C-17s manufactured by the US. "Ironically," says commenter Adam, "Canada also leases Strategic Airlift capability from the Ukraine, which has a fairly extensive collection of late Soviet-era Antonov heavy lifters designed for strategic airlift." Even so, the great majority of such flying would fall to the US Air Force.

In summary: Russia is no military threat to western Europe. And though its threat to the Baltics and Ukraine is more realizable, there is not much NATO can do about it in the event, anyway.

2. Islamist terrorists.
Islamo-terrorists have already attacked both North America and Europe, it hardly bears pointing out. And what was NATO's response? Except for Canada and Britain, pretty much nothing. Even worse, near surrender: al Qaeda killed 191 Spanish train commuters in March 2004, demanded Spain's withdrawal of its forces from Iraq, and Spain rolled.

We'd also wish to ask just why Islamists would attack Europe in the first place (well, yes, they're terrorists) when if they just bide their time, most of western Europe will become substantially Muslim in just a few decades, and some nations majority Muslim.

What NATO has not done, even under Article 5, is actually fight al Qaeda or the Taliban (again, except for Britain and Canada). For example, Germany sent an entire special-forces detachment to Afghanistan. They literally never left their base camp for a whole year, then Germany brought them home. Except for Canada and Britain, this is typical of the NATO troops, paltry as they are, in Afghanistan. (NATO, qua NATO, had no involvement in Iraq.)

But let us imagine that al Qaeda mounts a truly devastating attack against a NATO capital city, killing thousands. Just how can NATO respond? It can't, certainly not for any response that would require self-lifting across strategic distances. The strategic transportation of NATO has always been oriented one way: US and Canadian forces flowing into Europe to defend it from the USSR, not forces flowing out of Europe to somewhere else in the world. NATO forces cannot go anywhere in the world in substantial force without the US Air Force or Navy carrying them.

Let us then ask the pointed question: Just how does continued NATO membership actually benefit that United States? I can think of only one way - forward stationing of US forces as a deployment point to locales farther east or toward the Middle East.

That's it. Is that worth the cost of national treasure and aggravation we have with the alliance, and which show no sign of abating?

There is another point that Mark Steyn touched on when discussing Sarah Palin's bright idea to bring Georgia into NATO. I can't find a link now, but Steyn pointed out is that Georgia's birth rate has tanked more than practically any other country in the world. In fact, by 2050 there will be only 100,000 Georgian women of childbearing age, if current trends continue. So, he said, if Georgians won't have children to grow up to defend Georgia, why should Americans have children to grow up to defend Georgia? I can't think of any good reason.

And the same question can be asked of every other European NATO member, except perhaps Britain and France. The birth rates of Germany, Spain, Italy and every other NATO country except Turkey are below the stable replacement rate of 2.1 average births per woman, most far below. Italy’s rate is 1.23 births per woman , for example, meaning that Italy’s population could shrink by one-third by mid-century. (Turkey’s birth rate is about twice as high as Italy's.)

Again the question for NATO’s countries: if you will not have enough children to preserve your country, why should American women bear children to make up your deficit?

I think the United States should reassess whether the NATO alliance really is serving American interests. I don't think it is, and I don't think it will do better in years to come. Though we must stay politically engaged, I think we'd be better off withdrawing from the military alliance, and work toward building an Anglosphere military alliance in its stead.

Update: Yes, I titled the post having in mind Monty Pythons sketch from Life of Brian, in which some ancient Judeans ask, "What has Rome done for us?" Unlike them, however, we have no important, affirmative answers to the question of my post.

Some follow-on posts:

NATO: Broke, Leaderless and Pointless

What has NATO done for us redux

NATO continues to pretend it matters

The pointlessness of NATO

No Action, Talk Only

Europe's non-European future

Europe's demographic death spiral

Update, July 2017: "Dear President Trump: The West has already surrendered"

Update, July 2018, Victor Davis Hanson:

In most high-stakes diplomacy—denuclearizing North Korea, attempting to make China play by international norms of trade and commerce, keeping Vladimir Putin within his borders, destroying ISIS, isolating a theocratic and potentially nuclear Iran, and the perennial Israel and Palestinian problem—Europe is largely a spectator. Its once heralded “soft power” of the 1990s and early 21st century is more soft than powerful. The friends of Europe no longer count on it; its enemies do not fear it.

The high-tech revolution that birthed Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft passed Europe by. Judged by the great historical determinants of civilizational power—fuel, energy, education, demography, political stability, and military power—Europe is waning. It is spending a mere 1.4% of its collective GDP on defense. Most analysts conclude that even what Europe does spend on security does not translate directly into military readiness, at least in comparison with the U.S. military. And with a fertility rate of less than 1.6%, Europe is slowly shrinking and aging—hence the short-sighted immigration policy of Angela Merkel who apparently sees immigration also as a solution to the demography crisis and a shortcut to low-cost labor.

Across the continent, laws against fracking, German dismantling of nuclear power plants, and massive green subsidies for erratic wind and solar generation—all self-inflicted wounds—have made European gasoline and electricity costs among the highest in the world. Europe remains dependent on Russia, Central Asia, and the OPEC countries for much of its energy needs. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings of the world’s top 20 universities, only 1 was a continental European university; in contrast, 15 were American and 4 British.

Politically, the European Union has not squared the circle of uniting diverse peoples, languages, and cultures with long historical grievances into a pan-European nation—at least without a level of coercion that is inconsistent with democratic values. Instead, members increasingly find European Union dogma at odds with human nature, at least in terms of entitlements, immigrations, and national security. For a continent that celebrates diversity, the European apparat is quite intolerant of dissident voices.

Comments are now turned off.

Update, January 2022: "Fateful Collision: NATO’s Drive to the East Versus Russia’s Sphere of Influence" by James Kurth. An excellent explanation of how and we got to the mess we're in. 

Our self infidel-ization

It is one thing for Islamists to say we are infidels. It is quite another for us to agree and act like it.

... Random House has been one of the distinguished names in American publishing since the halcyon days of Bennett Cerf. So it is particularly repugnant to see the company knuckling under to essentially the same reactionary, anti-democratic, anti-free speech forces that repressed the Danish cartoons. As we learned in the Wall Street Journal today, the company has decided not to publish Sherry Jones’ historical novel “The Jewel of Medina” about Mohammed’s child bride Aisha. The book was part of a $100,000 two-book contract with the author. ...

As Asra Q. Nomani writes in the WSJ: Random House feared the book would ecome a new “Satanic Verses,” the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book’s Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones’s novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it “disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now.” He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” [Italics original]

Another example of creeping sharia.

"So what would it take to alarm you?"

Today's must-read essay by Mark Steyn.

The decline of the West

One-fourth of Britons think that Winston Churchill is a mythical character and well more than half think that Sherlock Holmes was real. Read it and weep.

The media need to be biased

I want the news media to be biased, but the question is, which bias?

Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Richard Myers entreated a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors to tell the full stories in Iraq and Afghanistan a week ago.

Myers told the editors he reads far more about the problems of servicemembers’ equipment and the latest insurgent attack than about “the thousands of amazing things our troops are accomplishing.” This concerns him, he said, because American resolve is key to success.

The chairman said that part of the problem lies with the military. He said commanders must be more responsive and give more access to reporters. “We’re working on that,” he told the editors.

But still, “a bomb blast is seen as more newsworthy than the steady progress of rebuilding communities and lives, remodeling schools and running vaccination programs and water purification plants.”

This is such a dead horse that it is painful to flog it any more, but we can't blame Myers for trying. I would like the managing editor of any major news outlet, print or broadcast or cable, to explain why the only regular reports of Good News from Iraq come from blogger Arthur Chrenkoff, not from a MSM outlet. Really, I would like to hear an answer.

OpinionJournal, the WSJ's online commentary pages, does carry the GNFI series but Mr. Chrenkoff is not a WSJ staffer. He blogs from Australia and was born and raised in Poland. How interesting that America has shed the vast majority of blood for Iraq and spent the overwhelming majority of treasure, but no American writer (including me, I plead guilty) originated the series.

I have said before and I'll say again: There are only four basic outcomes of this war:

1. Over time, the United States engenders deep-rooted reformist impulses in Muslim lands, especially Arab countries, leading their societies away from the self- and other-destructive patterns they now exhibit. It is almost certainly too much to ask that the societies become principally democratic as we conceive democracy (at least not for a very long time), but we can (and must) work to help them remit tendencies toward violent Islamism from their cultures so that terrorism does not threaten us or them. This goal is what amounts to total victory for the United States.

2. The Islamofascists achieve their goals of Islamismicization (there's a word for you!) of the entire Middle East (at the minimum), the ejection of all non-Muslims from Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf, the destruction of Israel, and the deaths of countless numbers of Americans. This outcome is what amounts to total victory for al Qaeda.

3. Absent achieving the goals stated just above, al Qaeda successfully unleashes a mass-destructive, mass-casualty attack against the United States and full-scale war erupts between the US and, at the minimum, Syria and Iran. This would amount to a defeat for all concerned.

4. None of the above happen, so the conflict sputters along for decades more with no real changes: we send our troops into combat intermittently, suffer non-catastrophic attacks intermittently, and neither side possesses all of the will, the means and the opportunity to achieve decisive victory. The war becomes the Forever War.

Perhaps you can think of other, different outcomes, but I think these pretty much cover the possibilities.

So the question for us commentati, whether based on the web or in traditional media, is simply: which of these outcomes is best? Which will be most favorable to human flourishing?

As for me, I choose the first, and have no qualms admitting I am heavily biased in favor thereof. And that bias certainly shapes my blogging!

The basic issue for news media:

For the news media, I ask you: which outcome do you want? It is not possible to pretend neutrality here, for the power of the media to frame the public's debate is too great to claim you are merely being "fair and balanced." There literally is no neutral ground here, no "God's eye view" of events, and hence no possibility of not taking sides. One way or another, what you print or broadcast, what stories you cover and how you cover them, what attention you pay to what issues and how you describe them - all these things mean that you will support one outcome over another. Which will you choose? How will you support it? These are the most important questions of your vocation today. But you are not facing them at all.

These questions seem especially relevant in light of the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize for "breaking news" photography earlier this month to the Associated Press for this series of photos from Iraq. Stop reading now and look at the photos before reading on to see whether you believe with my own conclusions, that Wretchard cut to the quick so well:

One of these stunning photographs shows the Blackwater contractors strung up on the Fallujah bridge; another is a photograph which appears to show US soldiers cowering in fear; and the third is the famous execution on Haifa Street. The rest show US troops humiliating Iraqis to one degree or the other. There are no pictures of the Iraqi elections.

Since news by definition shows the truth one would expect the insurgency so lovingly depicted in these AP photos to have triumphed. But since that never happened and prospects grow dimmer by the day, the Pulitzer should be awarded instead for Poetry, since according to the Greeks history is reserved for things as they are but poetry may deal with things as they should be.

The award of the Pulitzer to this disgusting series of photographs should be welcomed by posterity. Fifty years hence people can look back at the work of people who called themselves journalists and judge.

Michelle Malkin has a compendium of commentary, including Riding Sun's "content analysis:"

U.S. troops injured, dead, or mourning: 3 (2, 3, 11)

Iraqi civilians harmed by the war: 7 (4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13, 18)

Insurgents looking determined or deadly: 3 (6, 15, 20)

US troops looking overwhelmed or uncertain: 3 (7, 12, 14)

US troops controlling Iraqi prisoners: 2 (16, 17)

Iraqis celebrating attacks on US forces: 2 (1, 19)

Equally telling is what the photos don't show:

US forces looking heroic: 0

US forces helping Iraqi civillians: 0

Iraqis expressing support for US forces: 0

Iraqis expressing opposition to insurgents: 0

With the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize for these photos, it's not hard to conclude that the decision makers of the media establishment are indeed facing which outcome of the war they support, and the answer is Islamism.

The last word for this post goes to Kevin Myers of the UK Telegraph, writing last November:

We in the media must learn what our role in that struggle will be. Vicarious indignation at so-called atrocities is a moral frivolity: it proves that we are unaware of the scale of the crisis we face, now and into the foreseeable future. Our common enemy has vision, dedication, courage and intelligence. He is profoundly grateful for whatever tit-bits come his way: our media have a moral obligation to ensure that we are scattering absolutely none in his direction.

We'll wait to see whether Gen. Myers' entreaties have any effect. Personally, I don't think they will.

(see James Joyner's Beltway Traffic Jam.)