Bibi's Speech

Benjamin Netanyahu during his IDF days. Shamelessly pinched from here. 

(Wikicommons/GPO)

Before we get to Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech, may I just pause to say: hubba hubba?

Now that I have squandered my right to be taken seriously, I proceed. 

Not sure what I think about Bibi's having been invited to speak to Congress in the first place. My initial instinct was to think the act was shameful on Speaker Boehner (not Bibi's) part. Not unconstitutional, but shameful, as it undermines the President's foreign policy and no matter how feckless that policy or the President is, showing a divided face to the world is not going to strengthen, but weaken, the nation. The precedent is just awful, and in Democratic hands will lead, mark my words, to craptastic scenes of tinpot dictators coming before Congress to undermine any Republican president's foreign policy efforts. I thank God it didn't occur to Tip O'Neill to invite the Soviet Premier to Congress to talk about a nuclear freeze during the Reagan administration.

I can make two counter arguments. The first is that President Obama is so weak in foreign policy that his own administration is already operating at counter purposes with itself. The Washington Times ran a story in January that I am surprised didn't get more play. The thrust of the story was Hillary Clinton's utter incompetence and malfeasance in Libya, but to me the truly stunning revelation was that the Pentagon was actively undermining her and conducting its own negotiations. 

Top Pentagon officials and a senior Democrat in Congress so distrusted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2011 march to war in Libya that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime in an effort to halt the escalating crisis, according to secret audio recordings recovered from Tripoli.
The tapes, reviewed by The Washington Times and authenticated by the participants, chronicle U.S. officials’ unfiltered conversations with Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s son and a top Libyan leader, including criticisms that Mrs. Clinton had developed tunnel vision and led the U.S. into an unnecessary war without adequately weighing the intelligence community’s concerns.

I read that story and thought: "Expletive!" Forget whether Hillary was right or wrong, who the hell is running the country if State and Defense are conducting independent negotiations? And where the hell is the President? Someone ought to have been sacked and made an example of. If I were President and found out my own Defense Dept. was running its own independent foreign policy, heads would have rolled immediately. No one else seems to have been the least bit troubled by this revelation, however -- neither that we have a rogue Defense dept, nor that the President seems uninterested in the fact that his two most powerful agencies are showing two different faces to the world. 

Which leads to the second argument in defense of Boehner, which is that there comes a point where the threat to the nation or the world is so serious that you've no choice but to put the usual rules aside in a desperate attempt to thwart a deadly stupid policy. If the President has lost control of his own foreign policy, are you supposed to just sit there?

Then I heard Netanyahu's speech, which made a good case that Boehner's in this latter, uncomfortable position. The President is desperate to do something very foolish, to the entire world's harm -- and aren't we even going to discuss it?  

I am not one who believes Iran can be prevented from developing the bomb if it's determined to do so ( my big gripe with conservative critics of the President has been that no one ever explains how they'd prevent Iran from getting the bomb -- they just complain that he's not stopping them).  Nor do I believe for a second that Iran is going to abide by any agreement in the first place. So I don't see why we have to help them along by dropping sanctions. So I agree wholeheartedly with at least this portion of what Bibi had to say: 

I don't believe that Iran's radical regime will change for the better after this deal. This regime has been in power for 36 years, and its voracious appetite for aggression grows with each passing year. This deal would wet appetite -- would only wet Iran's appetite for more.
Would Iran be less aggressive when sanctions are removed and its economy is stronger? If Iran is gobbling up four countries right now while it's under sanctions, how many more countries will Iran devour when sanctions are lifted? Would Iran fund less terrorism when it has mountains of cash with which to fund more terrorism?
Why should Iran's radical regime change for the better when it can enjoy the best of both world's: aggression abroad, prosperity at home?
This is a question that everyone asks in our region. Israel's neighbors -- Iran's neighbors know that Iran will become even more aggressive and sponsor even more terrorism when its economy is unshackled and it's been given a clear path to the bomb.And many of these neighbors say they'll respond by racing to get nuclear weapons of their own. So this deal won't change Iran for the better; it will only change the Middle East for the worse. A deal that's supposed to prevent nuclear proliferation would instead spark a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet.

 So. Still thinking about it. Post speech, I feel mildly better about the fact of its having been given. To close on a style point, qua speech, it was enormously refreshing to hear a straightforward argument, introduced graciously, backed by evidence, and delivered as if something were at stake. As an audience member, I felt I was a grown up being addressed by a grown-up. It wasn't another Sophomore student government speech. 

Apocalypse Now

Everyone's telling you to read this, and you really should, at least if foreign policy interests you in any way.  What ISIS Really Wants.

Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.

At Least The French Like Cheese

It's been a while since either ninme or I chanted "Die, Boomers, Die," but if the Sec. of State sending a mix tape to France to make amends for not showing up for the anti-terror rally in Paris doesn't convince you, you probably ARE a Boomer.

Kevin Williamson with more on that. 

A word of advice: Next time, send Slayer.
Seriously: If you’re going to send a past-its-prime musical act to an ally in distress — instead of showing up to join the rest of the heads of state in a show of solidarity — then send in the wild boys from Huntington Park, Calif., who are, like the last effective foreign policy maintained by this country, born of the 1980s. James Taylor tells France, “You’ve got a friend.” Slayer tells the world, “You’ve got a problem.” And there’s something in the Slayer catalog for everybody: “Jihad” for the most literal-minded; “Evil Has No Boundaries,” a sentiment that social conservatives could surely endorse; “War Ensemble” for the neocons; and President John Bolton’s agenda for his first 100 days in office: “Raining Blood.” (“Endless war?” President Bolton scoffs. “Try three weeks.”) If you find yourself in a fight, you want to know that you’ve got a friend. But do you really want that friend to be James Taylor?

Meanwhile, in Egypt & Turkey

Turkey allows a new Christian church to be built.

And the President of Egypt has a Regensburg moment with the Mullahs.

"I am referring here to the religious clerics. … It's inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma (Islamic world) to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!

"That thinking — I am not saying 'religion' but 'thinking' — that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It's antagonizing the entire world! ... All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.

"I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move … because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands."

  And goes to Coptic Mass. 

Francis In Turkey

Some people eat turkey for Thanksgiving; the Roman pontiff GOES to Turkey. Not all his addresses are translated yet, but he got off to a nice start w/ this brief address greeting the Turkish prime minister and Diyanet, a religious council engaged in "dialogue" with the Vatican.

I was just reading an account of his press conference on the flight home, in which the Pope emphasized his insistence that there be more public Muslim opposition to terrorist barbarism, which suggests that was a strong note throughout the trip, since he also opened with it:

As religious leaders, we are obliged to denounce all violations against human dignity and human rights. Human life, a gift of God the Creator, possesses a sacred character. As such, any violence which seeks religious justification warrants the strongest condemnation because the Omnipotent is the God of life and peace. The world expects those who claim to adore God to be men and women of peace who are capable of living as brothers and sisters, regardless of ethnic, religious, cultural or ideological differences.

Not The Chemical Weapons You Are Looking For?

For ten years the Grey Lady has insisted there were absolutely, positively, no chemical weapons in Iraq. Today she says, "there, like, totally were chemical weapons in Iraq," but the government lied about finding them -- even though they were reported in the 2004 Duelfer report as she herself admits.

The policy seems to be: if chemical weapons caches might support the policy of the president you hate, they don't exist. If ten years later you can use those same non-existent caches to pitch a "US bad to its own soldiers" story to your editors, well suddenly an ontological change occurs and those weapons become highly, highly significant.

Update: the more I think about this story, the more it burns me. I will let Gabriel Malor spell out why, but the gist is that Bush NEVER claimed Saddam had an active weapons program. Read the speeches again (they're linked at Malor's piece).

The first sentence is an absolute lie, uttered at Bush 43's expense, and made to justify the terrifying conclusion, laid at Obama's feet, in the last sentence.
This NYTimes piece has an overarching political goal: to cement forever the lie that the Iraq War was directed solely at stopping an active weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq. As we know, the military never found an active weapons program, which makes this a particularly compelling slander.
[...]
So let me remind you about the actual casus belli for the Iraq War.
In 2002, Saddam Hussein was doing everything he could to foil the UN weapons inspections teams about his existing weapons caches (the ones the NYTimes just "found" in its hit piece). You might recall, the U.S. was enforcing no-fly zones over Iraq at the time and attempting to ensure that Hussein remained disarmed. Hussein, for his part, was attempting to obscure both what he was capable of doing and what WMD, particularly biological and nuclear, remained to him. He was well-known, of course, for using chemical weapons against his own people and against the Iranians. Of particular concern going forward were his nuclear plans and the possibility that he would sell or give weapons to terrorists with Western ambitions.
On September 12, 2002, Bush went to the UN to plead with the useless world body to actually enforce sanctions and impose thorough weapons inspections. Nowhere in his speech will you find a claim that Hussein had an "active weapons program," as the NYTimes writers would now have you believe. Rather Bush talked about finding Hussein's old weapons and deterring his hope to once again restart his weapons programs

RTWT

Dark Forces

This is a devastating charge if it's true -- and I absolutely believe it is because I know the reporter somewhat and he is a careful and serious fellow.

Did you catch Bret Baier’s special last night about Benghazi? 
If not, know this: the battle of Benghazi lasted a full 13 hours, and throughout it all, the President of the United States and the Secretary of State refused to allow U.S. Forces to deploy to rescue our people who were under attack.
As one former senior CIA official told me: we could have had aircraft overhead in 40 minutes, and troops (from Croatia) in 4 hours. But those orders to deploy were never given.
I’ve got all that and more in my new book, Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi. 

 From an email from Ken Timmerman, www.KenTimmerman.com

So We're Clear

Shamelessly pinched from CatholicVote.org

"Not Me" Foreign Policy

Shamelessly pinched from here.

I know I'm late to the party in denouncing the President's admitting publicly that he hasn't a clue what to do about IS. (I can't call it ISIS, that just makes me think of Saturday morning television.) Dude, here's how you pronounce that: "All options are currently on the table." Same thing, threatens the enemy rather than giving him a good laugh.  You're not just talking to the people in the room, you know.  Which brings me to Noemie Emery's piece:  

When one thing goes wrong, it may be an accident, but when five do at once—Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and our border—the man at the helm may have something to do with it, and a foreign policy based largely on John Lennon lyrics may be the proximate cause.

And then there's this (curtsy American Digest), in which a Facebook friend of Glenn Reynolds says America's becoming Potterville. Quoted in full.

Let’s accept, arguendo, that the outgoing DIA chief is right, and that we are now in an era of danger similar to the mid-1930s. How did we get here? It’s worth looking back into the mists of time — an entire year, to Labor Day weekend 2013. What had not happened then? It’s quite a list, actually: the Chinese ADIZ, the Russian annexation of Crimea, the rise of ISIS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fall of Mosul, the end of Hungarian liberal democracy, the Central American refugee crisis, the Egyptian-UAE attacks on Libya, the extermination of Iraqi Christians, the Yazidi genocide, the scramble to revise NATO’s eastern-frontier defenses, the Kristallnacht-style pogroms in European cities, the reemergence of mainstream anti-Semitism, the third (or fourth, perhaps) American war in Iraq, racial riots in middle America, et cetera and ad nauseam.

All that was in the future just one year ago.

What is happening now is basically America’s version of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The President of the United States — supported to an exceptional extent by an electorate both uncomprehending and untrusting of the outside world — is Clarence the Angel, and he’s showing us what the world would be like if we’d never been born, Unsurprisingly, Bedford Falls is now Pottersville, and it’s a terrible place. Unfortunately we do not get to revert to the tolerable if modest status quo at the end of the lesson: George Bailey will eventually have to shell the town and retake it street by street from Old Man Potter’s Spetsnaz.
But the larger point here is not what’s happening, because what’s happening is obvious. Things are falling apart. The point is how fast it’s come. It takes the blood and labor of generations to build a general peace, and that peace is sustained by two pillars: a common moral vision, and force majeure. We spent a quarter-century chipping away at the latter, and finally discarded the former, and now that peace is gone. All this was the work of decades. 

Look back, again, to Labor Day weekend 2013, and understand one thing: its undoing was the work of mere months.

No Service for Jews

Belgian Doctor Refuses Treatment to Jewish Patient reads the headline. A woman's son called a health hotline for her, and was told to let her go to Gaza, where she'd find pain relief. The story includes other alarming news:

Joods Actueel editor-in-chief Michael Freilich said the incident is particularly alarming because it comes amid a string of recent incidents which involved boycotts against Jews in Belgium since the start of Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza on July 8.
Since then, an Orthodox Jewish woman was refused service at a clothes store in Antwerp, and police removed a sign in French and Turkish from a café near Liege which said dogs were allowed but Zionists and Jews were not.

What the story doesn't tell me is if (as I assume) these are Arab immigrants doing these things or generalized anti-Semitism. 

Attention Middle Ages History Buffs

If you were wondering what a Crusade looks like....

Rome will be conquered next, says ISIS leader.

Baghdadi, who holds a PhD in Islamic studies, said Muslims were being targetted and killed from China to Indonesia. Speaking as the first Caliph, or commander of the Islamic faithful since the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, he called on Muslims to rally to his pan-Islamic state."Those who can immigrate to the Islamic State should immigrate, as immigration to the house of Islam is a duty," he said in an audio recording released on a website used by the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham."Rush O Muslims to your state. It is your state. Syria is not for Syrians and Iraq is not for Iraqis. The land is for the Muslims, all Muslims."This is my advice to you. If you hold to it you will conquer Rome and own the world, if Allah wills."

This guy is (wickedly) awesome. He's gone bin Laden one better -- not just working for a caliphate, but declaring it already exists, and he's the Caliph. The last devil comes back 7 times stronger. 

Too Down to Blog

Statism isn't even what I'm depressed about at the moment. It's foreign policy. John Kerry seriously floated the idea of joint US -Iranian missions in Iraq. Do you think he ever reads a paper, much less an intelligence report?  The President is the Pied Piper of South American children and they're sending Joe Biden South to plead with people not to send their kids here. Which a) appears weak and stupid ("Control your own damn border, Yanqui!)  and b) will have the effect of further piping the pied piper's tune.

I was prepared for the wicked when this administration was elected. Nothing could have prepared me for the stupid. Wicked stupid, with callous disregard for the American personnel, decent Iraqis, and South American children who will die for this incompetence.

The Fall of Mosul

Mosul has fallen, needlessly I believe, and I am heartbroken over it. Gone, wasted, squandered, the promise of the Anbar Awakening, and with it probably, the hopes for freedom and a decent life for all Iraqis. Poor people, abandoned by the feckless West and the weakling-in-Chief, deliberately losing a war that had been won. And poor us, as al-Qaeda is on the rise again everywhere. A Dominican priest in Mosul writes, pathetically, of conditions on the ground.  

Bad news. I write you in a situation of violence in Mosul that is very critical and even apocalyptic. Most of the inhabitants of the city have already abandoned their houses and fled into the villages and are sleeping in the open without anything to eat or drink. Many thousands of armed men from the Islamic Groups of Da’ash have attacked the city of Mosul for the last two days. They have assassinated adults and children. The bodies have been left in the streets and in the houses by the hundreds, without pity. The regular forces and the army have also fled the city, along with the governor. In the mosques, they cry “Allah Akbar, long live the Islamic State.” Qaraqosh is overflowing with refugees of all kinds, without food or lodging. The check points and the Kurdish forces are blocking innumerable refugees from entering Kurdistan. What we are living and what we have seen over the last two days is horrible and catastrophic. The priory of Mar Behnam and other churches fell into the hands of the rebels this morning. . . . and now they have come here and entered Qaraqosh five minutes ago, and we are now surrounded and threatened with death. . . . pray for us. I’m sorry that I can’t continue . . . They are not far from our convent. . . .Don’t reply. . . .

Off to a Good Start

Pope Francis is in the Holy Land, starting off in Amman, Jordan. I think this simple text greeting the authorities in Jordan gets off to a great start. 

He thanks Jordan for accepting refugees and for its moderation, and I like the careful way he phrased this (my emphasis): 

I take this opportunity to reiterate my profound respect and esteem for the Muslim community and my appreciation for the leadership of His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues taught by Islam and a climate of serene coexistence between the faithful of the different religions.

That strikes just the right note, it seems to me. It avoids religious indifferentism (hey, we're all great religions!)  but it would be dishonest and ungenerous not to acknowledge and admire certain virtues in moderate Islam. (Just as an aside...do Mohammed & Nietzsche basically share the objection to Christianity? Namely that it makes men weak? Do Islam and the will to power share an intellectual starting point? Just tossing that out there as an aside...), 

The main point, however, is religious liberty. I expect to hear this note sounded repeatedly throughout the trip. Great that these are the first substantive words out of his mouth. 

Religious freedom is in fact a fundamental human right and I cannot fail to express my hope that it will be upheld throughout the Middle East and the entire world. The right to religious freedom “includes on the individual and collective levels the freedom to follow one’s conscience in religious matters and, at the same time, freedom of worship… [it also includes] the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public” (Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, 26). Christians consider themselves, and indeed are, full citizens, and as such they seek, together with their Muslim fellow citizens, to make their own particular contribution to the society in which they live.

Hammer it home, Holy Father -- and Lord, protect him.

Was That So Hard?

I've been in Rome (woohoo!), camping out with my 2.5 million besties to attend the first-in-history Mass concelebrated by two popes: Reigning & Emeritus. It happens they were canonizing two other popes: John XXIII & JP the Great.  More on that when the jet lag passes (returning West is always much harder on me than going, plus we pulled a few all-nighters while away).


Meanwhile, two items. First: Ugh! Am I going to read this stupid Pikkety book? Not that book is stupid, just that it's everywhere and I don't feel like tackling it. But it's everywhere.

Second: You know how for a while I was incensed about how popular Catholic writers objecting to "enhanced interrogation techniques" always begged the question? They'd start with the true premise, "The Church forbids torture," and then conclude, "Waterboarding is wrong, QED, and you're less than human if you disagree."

Drove me crazy not because I wish to defend torture, but because I'd like to see an ARGUMENT laid out instead of the usual jump-straight-to-name-calling. (Though I did find a decent exchange at last in 2009.) Not sure why this comes up again --apparently Sarah Palin said something while I was away that got everyone exorcised about this topic? Anyway, here's the pro-argument, although as you will see it is not exactly "pro," it's just careful not to make too sweeping a judgment.

And here's a good response (minus the last paragraph which is a bit much).

My point in bringing this up is not to discuss the merits of waterboarding, though. It's simply to congratulate Todd Aglialoro & Michelle Arnold for showing the blogosphere what a dispassionate and well-reasoned discussion looks like. I feel better!

The Silence of Our Friends

Not such a sabbath-y subject, but I meant to post this yesterday -- on the silence of American Christians when 150,000 Christians/ year are being slaughtered for their faith.

As usual, Jews to the rescue:

It’s no surprise that Jews seem to understand the gravity of the situation the best. In December 2011, Britain’s chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, addressed Parliament saying, “I have followed the fate of Christians in the Middle East for years, appalled at what is happening, surprised and distressed … that it is not more widely known.” “It was Martin Luther King who said, ‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’ That is why I felt I could not be silent today.”

The link above will take you to other links documenting the systematic driving of Christians from the birthplaces of Christendom: not only the Holy Land, but Alexandria, Antioch, etc. Plus Kenya.

This morning there's another headline:  Islamists attacked a college in Nigeria.

Read the Kristen Powers link and ask yourself where are the Churches? Why are most of them silent? That came to mind this morning as I was thinking about the Holy Father's recent address to catechists. The Pope reflects on some harsh words of rebuke from the prophet Amos: "“Woe to the complacent in Zion, to those who feel secure … lying upon beds of ivory!”

What is it that this messenger of God denounces; what does he want his contemporaries, and ourselves, to realize? The danger of complacency, comfort, worldliness in our lifestyles and in our hearts, of making our well-being the most important thing in our lives. This was the case of the rich man in the Gospel, who dressed in fine garments and daily indulged in sumptuous banquets; this was what was important for him. And the poor man at his doorstep who had nothing to relieve his hunger? That was none of his business, it didn’t concern him. Whenever material things, money, worldliness, become the centre of our lives, they take hold of us, they possess us; we lose our very identity as human beings. The rich man in the Gospel has no name, he is simply “a rich man”. Material things, his possessions, are his face; he has nothing else.

Let’s try to think: How does something like this happen? How do some people, perhaps ourselves included, end up becoming self-absorbed and finding security in material things which ultimately rob us of our face, our human face? This is what happens when we no longer remember God. If we don’t think about God, everything ends up being about “me” and my own comfort. Life, the world, other people, all of these become unreal, they no longer matter, everything boils down to one thing: having. When we no longer remember God, we too become unreal, we too become empty; like the rich man in the Gospel, we no longer have a face! Those who run after nothing become nothing – as another great prophet Jeremiah, observed (cf. Jer 2:5). We are made in God’s image and likeness, not that of material objects, not that of idols!

You should RTWT --it's quite lovely what he says about the role of catechists in preserving and handing on the memory of God. But what called my attention was the inability to see our neighbor and stand up for him.

Funny But Not Quite Right

Shamelessly pinched from here.

This and lots of "memes" like it are showing up everywhere. It's funny, but it leaves me a little uncomfortable because while it may be intended to mock Obama's policy, it seems actually to undermine the international convention that discourages civilized people from using inhumane weapons. If the upshot of this debate is that chemical weapons are just fine by everyone -- just one more way to kill, no different than conventional weapons-- that's a loss for humanity.

The point is that this is not the US' battle; we're not the enforcer of the Geneva Conventions. It really is for the community of nations to make Assad pay the price for being an inhumane SOB who gases his own people (assuming that is what happened). 

Unlike Saddam Hussein, Assad has not threatened the US directly, has not bragged about stockpiling WMD and hinted he was building nukes for the purpose of targeting Americans, is not daily and flagrantly violating the terms of a cease-fire in a war with the U.S. There's no accumulated evidence of him making deals to sell WMD to al-Qaeda. He may be a dangerous and wicked schmuck, but unlike Saddam he has not picked a fight with us, and therefore we would be an aggressor in this action -- for which, arguably, he would be entitled to retaliate. That -- plus (see a few posts below) the fact that we are likely to make a terrible situation much worse-- is the reason to oppose Syrian action.

By the way, where IS the UN and the "international community"? We are all still opposed to chemical weapons, right? Or is that another humane convention we no longer care about?

Syrian Manhands

Update: Well, apparently, as I feared, I'm just being a jerk. A commenter over at Brutally Honest links to this video, which appears to be the same nun. I'm sorry! I still maintain it's awfully weird that she is taking the Russian line that there was no chemical attack by anyone. 

Shamelessly pinched from Russian Times

I hope I am not just being a jerk, picking on a nice lady who has given her life for Christ (and I did learn from Seinfeld that women with manhands are a thing), but the internets are astir with this Russian Times story of a Syrian nun who says the chemical weapons attack is a frame-up.

Look at the face and look at the hands. Is that a woman in the picture, or a KGB agent? And isn't it just a wee bit suspicious that not only does this nun somehow come across secret evidence, but she also just happens to take the Russian line on the whole matter --i.e., not just that there was no chemical weapon attack, but also, get a load of this Q and her A:

RT: What should the Syrians do to stop the tragedy they are going through?

MA: The Syrians themselves can do nothing to stop it. They can only rely on the international community, friendly nations, world powers, such as Russia, China, and India.

A Christian nun doesn't think Syrians should work for peaceful engagement with each other and simply stop fighting each other, she thinks Russia & China should step in? I'm not saying no -- when I was in the Holy Land I spoke with a fair share of Arab Christians who are Arab first and Christian second, and their politics follow-- but I'm sorry, I think this is a manufactured story from a manufactured nun, and even if the nun is legit, the Russian Times ain't.

National Review's Jim Geraghty, in his Morning Jolt newsletter, highlights this thought-provoking piece about Putin out-maneuvering us in the Mid-East. It says Putin is the guy who ordered the nerve-gas attack, as a classic Soviet-style "provocation" designed to make the aggressor look like the victim and demoralize on-lookers. 

The prize Putin is seeking for obliterating the American “red line” is not victory in Syria—since his client Assad is clearly winning anyway. The point of the attack is to publicly expose Obama’s deep ambivalence about the use of force to stop Iran. If Obama’s red line against the use of chemical weapons in Syria can fall so easily, after the public deaths of more than 1,000 innocent people, including hundreds of children who died foaming at the mouth, how many cruise missiles might Iran’s putative acquisition of nuclear weapons capacity cost? Two hundred? One hundred? Zero? The answer now is plain: However many missiles they might fire, America has no stomach for fighting a war in Syria, let alone in Iran.

And a little later: 

By showing that Obama's America is unable and unwilling to keep its promises, Putin has widened the leadership void in the Middle East—as a prelude to filling it himself. By helping to clear Iran's path to a bomb, Putin positions himself as Iran's most powerful ally—while paradoxically gaining greater leverage with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, who would much rather negotiate with Russia than with Iran, their sworn enemy. While the Americans were heading out of the Middle East, and the Chinese were too busy with their own internal debates about the future of their economy and society, Putin saw that something valuable had been abandoned on the world stage, and he took it. For the price of 1,000 dead civilians in Damascus, he has gained great power status in the oil-rich Middle East. Iran, for its part, gets the bomb, which isn't great news for anyone, but was probably going to happen anyway.

RTWT. Seems plausible, though it doesn't change my mind about intervention in Syria, in fact it strengthens my opposition. Obama is weak and side-stepping a confrontation with Russia is preferable to losing one. However, this analysis does strengthen my suspicion that's no nun in the picture above. While there seems to be conflicting evidence about which side used the chemical weapons, only the Russians are taking the line there was no such attack. 

Say! In light of this, remember how everyone laughed at Mitt Romney for being stuck in the Cold War when he said Russia was our greatest geo-political enemy? Not looking so stupid now, is he?

On a side note, Geraghty's Morning Jolt notes that NBC brought in body language experts who looked at the photos of Obama & Putin at the G20 in Moscow and concluded Putin was intimidated by Obama. Geraghty quite correctly snorts in derision: 

Right. The lifelong KGB officer is quaking in his boots at the sight of the community organizer.  

For my part, since the war resolution seems dead in the House, I think the only possible way for Obama to muster support when he speaks to us Tuesday night is if he uses his Dalek voice and says, "This is not war, this is pest control." Then he'd have all the Whovians on his side. 

The Stupid Party Strikes Again (Or: Syriously?!)

Can someone explain WHY on earth John Boehner is supporting strikes on Syria?

• It's not moral. As my twitter friend says:

Nowhere on the list of conditions required to prosecute a just war will you find...Face Saving. #Syria
— Stephen Hollingshead (@PolicyDr) September 2, 2013

What Just War DOES require is "proportional response" -- meaning proportionate to a moral end. Obama's own words "shot across the bow" tell us this strike isn't intended to DO anything, it's just for show.

• Moreover, strategically, such a strike will either do nothing whatever OR what if by some fluke it were to actually take out Assad and even further chaos were to descend? Then we're drawn into a war and for what? Who are we supposed to side with? Al Qaeda? Iran? There are zero good outcomes for us in Syria. And a "shot across the bow" is liable to embolden our enemies, not teach them a lesson, as Marc Theissen argues in the link just above. 
• Politically, what does the GOP gain? A share in the blame for a stupid -- and enormously unpopular on a bi-partisan basis-- policy. It's important the President take all the blame for this policy if he's going to go through with it. 

Immoral, politically and strategically stupid..... why?

More and more the GOP just seems like an unthinking caricature of itself. Tax cuts and military tax cuts and military tax cuts and military. Anyone thinking about how to apply principles in specific situations?


I suppose what they think is they are going to prove they aren't obstructionists. Fine fellas, but not even of wicked deeds?

Sigh. Neither the cause of peace in the Middle East, nor the country, nor the party, nor any individual politician stands to gain anything from supporting the strikes in Syria. So why?

Update:  Eliot Cohen makes as good a case FOR the Syrian intervention as can be made (subscribers only), but he front-loads all the counter-arguments, which to my mind outweigh the alleged good which he states as follows (link is to a Weekly Standard excerpt of the full piece:

[A]s a practical matter, critics can ask why the U.S. should intervene after a massacre, however hideous, of some 1,400 Syrians, when America has refused to act over the slaughter of 100,000 in the preceding two years. And, even if the U.S. strikes at Assad and helps bring about his downfall, the danger is real that having administered a defeat to the regime and its sponsor, Iran, America will hand a victory to al Qaeda.
These are all serious arguments. But weightier are the counterarguments. For better or for worse, the credibility not only of this president, but of America as a global power and a guarantor of international order, is on the line. If the U.S.—after its president said two years ago that Assad must go and then, a year later, drew a red line at Syria's use of chemical weapons—now does nothing, profound conclusions will be drawn by a China ready to bully its neighbors, by a North Korea whose scruples are already minimal, and by an Iran that has already killed many Americans in a covert war waged against us in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America's friends will realize that its word means nothing. As a result, they will either abandon us, or arm themselves with nuclear weapons. And these countries will be increasingly willing to wield them in a world in which they have no great ally who may be counted upon to stand by them in an hour of need.

I say it's too late for that. The world already knows we're unserious and not going to stand by our friends because we elected Obama twice: Obama who needlessly insults our allies; Obama who turned victory in Iraq into defeat and Obama who is busily withdrawing from Afghanistan by blowing up our own materiale we're leaving behind in our haste to exit. And Obama who, as Cohen points out in earlier 'graphs, declared a red line, declared he was going to strike and then:

On Saturday, when President Obama overruled his advisers, reversed his own policy, and declared that he whould not act against Syria until Congress had its say, he did not -- as he might have-- recall Congress for that purpose. Instead, Mr. Obama said he would wait for 10 days or more. Then he promptly left the White House for the golf course. Later this week, he'll travel to Stockholm and then to St. Petersburg, Russia, for a G-20 Economic summit. 

To make a serious point about America's policing the world, you have to BE serious, and if your little message has unforeseen consequences, you have to do serious follow up on the mess you make, which Obama won't. It is not possible for Obama to command the respect of the world; he isn't a serious person, he has no commitment to this task, and the American people are tired of war and he is not the man to rally us. So, even though I take the point about our standing in the world and see that he has made things more dangerous for Americans everywhere, still no. Because he is not the man for the job and is just going to make things worse. A "shot across the bow" invites more mockery and looks just as weak if not moreso than doing nothing.  And there's a serious chance of turning Syria over to al-Qaeda.

Update 2: Heh. Similar points but oh so deliciously expressed. 

Syria, Daleks & Holy Cookies

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Well that was fun! We all learned a lot and it was great seeing our friends again. Is it summer vacation yet?

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I'm with Albert Brooks on the Syrian question:

I don't know the right decision on Syria, but basically telling them Saturday between 3 and 4 seems stupid.
— Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks) August 29, 2013

Obama says it'll just be limited, a "shot across the bow." So he's going to try to miss?

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Heheheheheh. Bottum. That is all I really have to say about that (other than 10,000 words to not make one's position clear is itself a crime against nature -- no wonder he's having difficulty embracing the natural law). 

Oh, ok, two quick things. Now that Bottum's gone on record that he accepts magisterial teaching and didn't intend to suggest otherwise, I'd like to point out that what's really at issue is the "weakness" of natural law arguments in the public square and that Bottum isn't the first past or present First Thing-er to wrestle with the question -- there's a whole symposium on the future of First Things in the current issue. Here's George Weigel uncharacteristically hand-wringing for example. He hasn't lost his faith (neither has Jody Bottum), but he admits he doesn't know what to do next.  More on this another time -- bluntly, I am going to try to sell an essay on this topic, so $$ for the family first, self-indulgent blogging later. 

Bottum's piece was dis-spiriting in one way (if you have kids, you think about them when people frame arguments), but the blogospheric reaction to it was equally so (though I did like this one -- tough and funny --so I am not being consistent). Is it not safe to pose a question to a Catholic anymore? If the Left makes an argument ad hitleram about everything, must the Catholic Right make an argument ad heresiam about everything? Can't a guy admit he's struggling with an issue and meet with an argument to persuade him instead of a lot of angry denunciations of his character? 

I find that so dreadfully tedious, and it's everywhere. Raise a question, and so many Catholics respond with moral indignation and their favorite magisterial proof-text. Yes, I get it, I know what Church teaching is and that I'm bound by it. Now could you please answer my question because I am wrestling to understand it or wrestling to find a way to articulate it to my atheist neighbor? All you are saying, effectively, is Shut Up. 

Update: Here's a nice post, the best that can be said in Bottum's defense while still critical -- and it takes him seriously instead of just flying off the handle. 

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Toll House cookies? Yuck! You may find this to be heresy, but some years ago we were converted to Holy Cookie-ism. Tonight we were out of oatmeal so Middle Weed made Toll House. Uck. Too sickly sweet, couldn't stand them. Even if you are uninterested in cookies, you must go read about the Holy Cookie, which is as much about the antics of naughty boys as anything else. 

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We discovered Dr. Who this summer. Therefore we now say everything in Dalek voices. Currently Girl Weed is reciting the tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow soliloquy from Macbeth as a dalek. 

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It was murder. 

While out walking the dog Wednesday I came across this beautiful blue dragonfly spread-eagled and being murdered by a cicada hawk (remember them?). I caught the wasp in the act and it was ashamed and tried to drive me off, which is why I didn't get a picture of her stabbing her hapless victim. But apparently I shamed her enough not to take the carcass to her lair, because it was still here today -- and I think the same bug flying around patrolling the area.

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Nope, I only have six takes. Have a great weekend!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!