Once I noticed I was on fire, I decided to relax and enjoy the fall

I refuse to steal a title from a Bowie song no matter how justified it may feel

I think we forget how restlessly inventive we are. I think we fall back on old ways and old ideas more often then we have to, and shun our own brilliance to adapting and devising.

Not merely in technological matters, either. Sure, we invent new devices...coiled filaments that glow as electrical power passes through them, bullets without cases, bombs that can be targeted at a distance, a means of replicating the DNA of another, machines that can store information and simulate reality, even artifacts that hurtle through the debris choking space near our Earth, creating communion between two distant points on that fragile azure ball we live on. And all of these things are amazing. But they are not the be all and end all of our inventiveness.

Humans bristle when confined to old ways. They grow agitated when told there is but one way to do something, or when expected to parrot in agreement when told of the correct solution to a problem. More than two thousand years ago, at a time most of us are told no such artifact could exist, the Greeks were making use of a sophisticated star-mapping mechanical calculator. Two thousand years before that, the Egyptians had figured out how to use crocodile shit as a prophylactic. 13,000 years ago, a sophisticated stellar calendar was in use in France, in a region in Europe where, according to the same folks who deny that the Greeks knew how to make machines, there was no society to be making use of that calendar.

Humans invented the words of every language in existence. We came up with the concept of divinity (I do not believe that we invented divinity, but whether or not you do, you have to accept that humans can, and did, conceive of it, in all its forms) and then actually managed to create the concept of atheism. What's even more amazing, some human somewhere managed to create the concept of admitting ignorance. We actually know that we don't know things. Wrap your head around that one for a while. A human somewhere realized that human intellect has flaws using that selfsame intellect. In other words, our minds contain the seeds for their own future development, a self-diagnostic ability of almost paradoxical brilliance.

Every religion. Every philosophy. Every city. Every device. Every poem or story. Every language. All the accumulate flotsam of our all-too-short tenure on this planet as thinking beings. Some human or humans created it, shaped it, changed it, conceived it, recreated it. We are dancers, and one of our dances makes new things with a frenzy and a zeal unmatched and unheard of on this planet, so far as we know. Much is, of course, lost. For all we know, we are but the latest to rise from the evolutionary ferment to scratch our heads as we stare into the night sky. What am I could be said to be the primary question of any sapient being. Humanity seems to be determined to discover as many possible answers as it can, from artist to murderer, from parent to wanderer, a painting as big as forever created with a mutable palette.

A self-loathing recluse from my home state created a new religion as an aside for his goal of creating stark tales of existential horror, a mythos suited to a basic cosmological conceit, that the universe is far vaster than we can understand and that entities exist that view us with absolutely no regard or favor at all...as less than ticks to be swept aside as their hour comes round again. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos now inspires stuffed toys. I own several. Despite my appreciation for his bleak tales, I'm also enamoured of the mind that saw his idea and decided it would make a good toy. The whirling perversity of the human makes me sick with loathing and inspires the only optimism I can muster, the idea that we simply will not accept any final point, no terminus to development, no end to what can be done. We are told you can't do that, and for good and for ill, we do it.

This will either kill us or save us.

There are paradoxical things...for instance, contemplate this: if Saddam Hussein does not possess weapons of mass destruction, then when the US Military (a military composed of men and women who believe themselves to be in defense of myself and my fellow countrymen's lives and liberty, and thereby to be respected for that even if I disagree with the uses of that defense) attacks him, they will roll over his armed forces. If he does possess them, then we can expect him to use them against said armed forces, causing massive casualties. So if the President is telling the truth, he may well be sending hundreds of thousands of our soldiers to their deaths. If the President is lying, our soldiers will have no difficulty at all in overthrowing Hussein and will with any luck suffer minimum casualties...but we will have had no justification at all in overthrowing Hussein. We are thereby placed into a situation where we must hope that our leaders are lying to us and acting immorally, for the sake of our fellow citizens who will die if they are in fact being accurate. It is a strange thing to think about. To wonder what would be worse: is my nation to be an aggressor invading another for insufficient justification, or is it to be stunned by the use of atomic or bacteriological weapons against its military or even itself?

One atomic weapon in the trunk of a rented car driving into a city could well render September 11th moot. As it is, much of the world already believes that the thousands dead that day did not justify the thousands who died in Afghanistan, few of whom were Al-Qaeda, which has not been much affected by it...but what would one do, nothing at all? It is inconceivable that nothing should have been the penalty for such an unsurpassed act of evil. (Recently unsurpassed, at any rate. When talking about atrocity, there's always a bigger one somewhere in the world.) We had to do something. Yet, in the end, we didn't. We bombed those who had already been bombed by so many others, we overthrew one government and replaced it with another to no real effect...we displayed none of the creativity that we have so often showed before. Unless one counts deciding on September 17th, 2001 to attack Iraq in regards to actions it didn't commit as inventive. Which I suppose it is.

Compare this to the brilliance with which the FBI found Mir Aimal Kasi. Whatever your feelings as to the way they accomplished it, the fact is that the FBI was able to find one man in Pakistan and bring him back to the United States to face trial. How did they accomplish this? In part by being inventive, by refusing to accept that it could not be done and also refusing to confine themselves to the means they had previously employed. Kasi was, of course, nothing like the murderers of September 11th in that he was one man, alone, without the logistics and support network of Al-Qaeda. However, in some ways, that made finding him harder. And yet we accomplished it, whereas in the case of Al-Qaeda, we have made a lot of noise and stirred up a lot of dust and done nothing. It confuses me. This is a consideration merely of the creativity of the contrasting events, and not of the morality of either...it is almost as difficult for me to feel sympathy for Kasi as it would be for me to weep if we dragged Bin Laden in chains into the Hague and tried him. This doesn't make the US infallible.

Our tools are as advanced as any in the history of the world. Did we forget that we made them? The brilliance that created them does not have to stop with mere mechanistic tinkering. We do not merely create weapons. We certainly have, a great many times in human history, done just that. The stone axe. The spear. The war-chariot. The bow. The sword. The longbow and dane axe and crossbow and stirrups and the trebuchet and cannon and the personal firearm...the list is long, and stunningly inventive in its way. But we also created crop rotation and the printing press and diplomacy and international law. Everything that exists in this world that does not predate us is affected by us. Medicine and agriculture and debate and genocide and war profiteering are our creations. We starve one another and feed one another. We offer one another a helping hand and grind our boots into each other's faces. We reach crisis points...many times in the past, we failed to act in the best interest of all, and nations fell, civilizations were wiped out, and the long slow climb back to a community began again, often times made out of the ruins of the old. We could be at such a time again, as we were sixty years ago, as we were twenty years before that...there is a fractal nature to our history, a constant tension between forces that we affect through the intensity of our minds and hearts, the willingness to seek out new ways, to invent our way around difficulty. Sometimes this is seen in the spectacular effectiveness of our panoply and armament. Sometimes it is seen in the men least likely to do so reaching out and planting the sword in the earth.

Sometimes we forget this. We forget that we can choose how, and where, and when, and why to use our fearsome genius towards innovation. It does not have to be limited. We do not need to restrict ourselves towards the solutions of the past. Every situation is new, even as it carries a resonance from past events...and we can change, and adapt, and devise novel approaches to these crisis points, on the macroscale of world events and in the smaller scale of our own lives.

I have seen a child use a kite strung with fishing line to provide a cat with a safe means to escape a rooftop. I have seen a woman turn her back on the hate and bitterness of her entire family to provide love and support to her friends. I have seen a man who could build a gas turbine engine based on a plan in his mind twist the word of God itself to justify xenophobia and fear. We are a relentlessly innovative people. We do not have to fall back on the methods of the past merely because they have been established. It does not follow that we should shun all tradition, either, but just because you have a sword it does not follow that you must use it. Furthermore, if you do use it, it follows that you should use it well.

Often, we forget how good we are at creativity. Often, we twist that creativity into shortsighted uses. Sometimes, we do neither, and the world changes. I think the world could use some more change now, and I think we can still do it. Our rapacious desire to answer the question What are we can still be displayed in dizzying variety, in ways we have never seen before.

I refuse to steal a title from a Bowie song no matter how justified it may feel

I think we forget how restlessly inventive we are. I think we fall back on old ways and old ideas more often then we have to, and shun our own brilliance to adapting and devising.

Not merely in technological matters, either. Sure, we invent new devices...coiled filaments that glow as electrical power passes through them, bullets without cases, bombs that can be targeted at a distance, a means of replicating the DNA of another, machines that can store information and simulate reality, even artifacts that hurtle through the debris choking space near our Earth, creating communion between two distant points on that fragile azure ball we live on. And all of these things are amazing. But they are not the be all and end all of our inventiveness.

Humans bristle when confined to old ways. They grow agitated when told there is but one way to do something, or when expected to parrot in agreement when told of the correct solution to a problem. More than two thousand years ago, at a time most of us are told no such artifact could exist, the Greeks were making use of a sophisticated star-mapping mechanical calculator. Two thousand years before that, the Egyptians had figured out how to use crocodile shit as a prophylactic. 13,000 years ago, a sophisticated stellar calendar was in use in France, in a region in Europe where, according to the same folks who deny that the Greeks knew how to make machines, there was no society to be making use of that calendar.

Humans invented the words of every language in existence. We came up with the concept of divinity (I do not believe that we invented divinity, but whether or not you do, you have to accept that humans can, and did, conceive of it, in all its forms) and then actually managed to create the concept of atheism. What's even more amazing, some human somewhere managed to create the concept of admitting ignorance. We actually know that we don't know things. Wrap your head around that one for a while. A human somewhere realized that human intellect has flaws using that selfsame intellect. In other words, our minds contain the seeds for their own future development, a self-diagnostic ability of almost paradoxical brilliance.

Every religion. Every philosophy. Every city. Every device. Every poem or story. Every language. All the accumulate flotsam of our all-too-short tenure on this planet as thinking beings. Some human or humans created it, shaped it, changed it, conceived it, recreated it. We are dancers, and one of our dances makes new things with a frenzy and a zeal unmatched and unheard of on this planet, so far as we know. Much is, of course, lost. For all we know, we are but the latest to rise from the evolutionary ferment to scratch our heads as we stare into the night sky. What am I could be said to be the primary question of any sapient being. Humanity seems to be determined to discover as many possible answers as it can, from artist to murderer, from parent to wanderer, a painting as big as forever created with a mutable palette.

A self-loathing recluse from my home state created a new religion as an aside for his goal of creating stark tales of existential horror, a mythos suited to a basic cosmological conceit, that the universe is far vaster than we can understand and that entities exist that view us with absolutely no regard or favor at all...as less than ticks to be swept aside as their hour comes round again. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos now inspires stuffed toys. I own several. Despite my appreciation for his bleak tales, I'm also enamoured of the mind that saw his idea and decided it would make a good toy. The whirling perversity of the human makes me sick with loathing and inspires the only optimism I can muster, the idea that we simply will not accept any final point, no terminus to development, no end to what can be done. We are told you can't do that, and for good and for ill, we do it.

This will either kill us or save us.

There are paradoxical things...for instance, contemplate this: if Saddam Hussein does not possess weapons of mass destruction, then when the US Military (a military composed of men and women who believe themselves to be in defense of myself and my fellow countrymen's lives and liberty, and thereby to be respected for that even if I disagree with the uses of that defense) attacks him, they will roll over his armed forces. If he does possess them, then we can expect him to use them against said armed forces, causing massive casualties. So if the President is telling the truth, he may well be sending hundreds of thousands of our soldiers to their deaths. If the President is lying, our soldiers will have no difficulty at all in overthrowing Hussein and will with any luck suffer minimum casualties...but we will have had no justification at all in overthrowing Hussein. We are thereby placed into a situation where we must hope that our leaders are lying to us and acting immorally, for the sake of our fellow citizens who will die if they are in fact being accurate. It is a strange thing to think about. To wonder what would be worse: is my nation to be an aggressor invading another for insufficient justification, or is it to be stunned by the use of atomic or bacteriological weapons against its military or even itself?

One atomic weapon in the trunk of a rented car driving into a city could well render September 11th moot. As it is, much of the world already believes that the thousands dead that day did not justify the thousands who died in Afghanistan, few of whom were Al-Qaeda, which has not been much affected by it...but what would one do, nothing at all? It is inconceivable that nothing should have been the penalty for such an unsurpassed act of evil. (Recently unsurpassed, at any rate. When talking about atrocity, there's always a bigger one somewhere in the world.) We had to do something. Yet, in the end, we didn't. We bombed those who had already been bombed by so many others, we overthrew one government and replaced it with another to no real effect...we displayed none of the creativity that we have so often showed before. Unless one counts deciding on September 17th, 2001 to attack Iraq in regards to actions it didn't commit as inventive. Which I suppose it is.

Compare this to the brilliance with which the FBI found Mir Aimal Kasi. Whatever your feelings as to the way they accomplished it, the fact is that the FBI was able to find one man in Pakistan and bring him back to the United States to face trial. How did they accomplish this? In part by being inventive, by refusing to accept that it could not be done and also refusing to confine themselves to the means they had previously employed. Kasi was, of course, nothing like the murderers of September 11th in that he was one man, alone, without the logistics and support network of Al-Qaeda. However, in some ways, that made finding him harder. And yet we accomplished it, whereas in the case of Al-Qaeda, we have made a lot of noise and stirred up a lot of dust and done nothing. It confuses me. This is a consideration merely of the creativity of the contrasting events, and not of the morality of either...it is almost as difficult for me to feel sympathy for Kasi as it would be for me to weep if we dragged Bin Laden in chains into the Hague and tried him. This doesn't make the US infallible.

Our tools are as advanced as any in the history of the world. Did we forget that we made them? The brilliance that created them does not have to stop with mere mechanistic tinkering. We do not merely create weapons. We certainly have, a great many times in human history, done just that. The stone axe. The spear. The war-chariot. The bow. The sword. The longbow and dane axe and crossbow and stirrups and the trebuchet and cannon and the personal firearm...the list is long, and stunningly inventive in its way. But we also created crop rotation and the printing press and diplomacy and international law. Everything that exists in this world that does not predate us is affected by us. Medicine and agriculture and debate and genocide and war profiteering are our creations. We starve one another and feed one another. We offer one another a helping hand and grind our boots into each other's faces. We reach crisis points...many times in the past, we failed to act in the best interest of all, and nations fell, civilizations were wiped out, and the long slow climb back to a community began again, often times made out of the ruins of the old. We could be at such a time again, as we were sixty years ago, as we were twenty years before that...there is a fractal nature to our history, a constant tension between forces that we affect through the intensity of our minds and hearts, the willingness to seek out new ways, to invent our way around difficulty. Sometimes this is seen in the spectacular effectiveness of our panoply and armament. Sometimes it is seen in the men least likely to do so reaching out and planting the sword in the earth.

Sometimes we forget this. We forget that we can choose how, and where, and when, and why to use our fearsome genius towards innovation. It does not have to be limited. We do not need to restrict ourselves towards the solutions of the past. Every situation is new, even as it carries a resonance from past events...and we can change, and adapt, and devise novel approaches to these crisis points, on the macroscale of world events and in the smaller scale of our own lives.

I have seen a child use a kite strung with fishing line to provide a cat with a safe means to escape a rooftop. I have seen a woman turn her back on the hate and bitterness of her entire family to provide love and support to her friends. I have seen a man who could build a gas turbine engine based on a plan in his mind twist the word of God itself to justify xenophobia and fear. We are a relentlessly innovative people. We do not have to fall back on the methods of the past merely because they have been established. It does not follow that we should shun all tradition, either, but just because you have a sword it does not follow that you must use it. Furthermore, if you do use it, it follows that you should use it well.

Often, we forget how good we are at creativity. Often, we twist that creativity into shortsighted uses. Sometimes, we do neither, and the world changes. I think the world could use some more change now, and I think we can still do it. Our rapacious desire to answer the question What are we can still be displayed in dizzying variety, in ways we have never seen before.

Hi. I'm a liberal. I'm proud of it, too.

Sometimes, I hate that I watch The History Channel. The parallels between the modern American political scene and the events of the late 1930's and early 1940's are not cheering. I mean, you've got Roosevelt convening secret military tribunals to try suspected terrorist without risking the possibility of them being found innocent, detaining people for being of the same background as those that attacked us...is it just me, or is Bush ripping off Roosevelt's playbook? I find it amazing to consider that a Republican would so totally mimic not just any Democrat, but the one constantly villified as the man who began that hated Big Government that so twists the GOP's knickers in a bunch...at least, when selfsame big government isn't letting Enron set energy policy, as one example...and as we've discussed before, there were parallels to Enron then, too. All of this, and I haven't even mentioned the scary parallel's between modern America and 1930's Germany yet...the economic collapse, the rise of demagogues, the twisting of the electoral system to get into power, and the use of a spectacular act of terror (whether one created by those seeking to use it or grasped by opportunists) to so cow the populace into accepting invasive laws such as the Decree for the Protection of People and State. This was the law that was supposed to be temporary. This was the law that laid the groundwork for the police state.

So yeah, the History Channel has not been especially kind to me lately. Not for over a year now, really. (It really doesn't help when they try and blame the rise of the Nazi's on occultism and hypnotism. It was people that allowed it to happen. People who let their fear and hate blind them to the steady loss of their liberties, people who surrendered freedom in the name of safety and found themselves safe to do as they were told. The price of 'security' is always servitude. They can best protect you by preventing you from risk.) Then again, I'm one of those folk, you know, those liberals. You know how horrible we are. Well, just to show you, here's the hideous definition:
Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Oh, my God, I had no idea of the horror lurking beneath the surface! Free from bigotry! I apologize deeply for our lack. What else are we up to?
Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. I don't know if I can live with myself being one of these broad-minded folks who favor proposals for reform, not limited by dogma.

All that sarcasm aside (if you can get past it) I'll freely admit that many groups that would today be defined as liberal are in fact heavily dogmatic and even intolerant of the ideas and behavior of others...one merely has to attempt to smoke anywhere in Berkeley to have that experience rammed home...but nevertheless, looking at the definition, you've got to admit that it seems ridiculous on the face of it that being of a liberal outlook should ever be so thoroughly ridiculed and condemned. The very idea that liberalism is inherently bad suggests that liberty itself is somehow to be feared, that freedom and tolerance are unreliable attributes. If that's so, what the hell are we still keeping the Declaration of Independence and Constitution for? Why not rush full-tilt into totalitarianism and just get it over with? Let the state make our decisions for us, then, if there's only one correct viewpoint and we don't need to tolerate others.

In the repetition of such patterns...the side-stepping of the judical process, ignoring the idea that all should be equal under the law (and the concurrent idea that if the judical system is so crippled that it is undesireable to use it to try those who plan attacks against us, perhaps it should be repaired instead of merely ignored) and the creation of laws to suppress our rights to speak and protest freely...I find myself unable to imagine how anyone could ignore the need for liberal voices in our society. Without those willing to stand for tolerance and finding new ways, how will we progress as a people? How will we find our way out of fear and into liberty...assuming we still want to be a nation conceived in liberty...without liberalism? Right now, orthodoxy is as deadly as nerve gas and dogma is merely rubble cluttering our way forward. The last thing we need is any form of the Decree for the Protection of People and State, call it what you will.

I am a liberal. I don't mind it at all. It's good to always be looking for a new way without bigotry or dogma clouding the issue. I don't deny the importance of tradition or the need for our society to have an edge of conservatism and caution...but the other edge of this particular sword has to be naked, unabashed liberalism. The line between a state that exists to serve our needs and one that exists by forcing its needs on us is the one carved by that sword, and we cannot afford to dull or destroy it.

Hi. I'm a liberal. I'm proud of it, too.

Sometimes, I hate that I watch The History Channel. The parallels between the modern American political scene and the events of the late 1930's and early 1940's are not cheering. I mean, you've got Roosevelt convening secret military tribunals to try suspected terrorist without risking the possibility of them being found innocent, detaining people for being of the same background as those that attacked us...is it just me, or is Bush ripping off Roosevelt's playbook? I find it amazing to consider that a Republican would so totally mimic not just any Democrat, but the one constantly villified as the man who began that hated Big Government that so twists the GOP's knickers in a bunch...at least, when selfsame big government isn't letting Enron set energy policy, as one example...and as we've discussed before, there were parallels to Enron then, too. All of this, and I haven't even mentioned the scary parallel's between modern America and 1930's Germany yet...the economic collapse, the rise of demagogues, the twisting of the electoral system to get into power, and the use of a spectacular act of terror (whether one created by those seeking to use it or grasped by opportunists) to so cow the populace into accepting invasive laws such as the Decree for the Protection of People and State. This was the law that was supposed to be temporary. This was the law that laid the groundwork for the police state.

So yeah, the History Channel has not been especially kind to me lately. Not for over a year now, really. (It really doesn't help when they try and blame the rise of the Nazi's on occultism and hypnotism. It was people that allowed it to happen. People who let their fear and hate blind them to the steady loss of their liberties, people who surrendered freedom in the name of safety and found themselves safe to do as they were told. The price of 'security' is always servitude. They can best protect you by preventing you from risk.) Then again, I'm one of those folk, you know, those liberals. You know how horrible we are. Well, just to show you, here's the hideous definition:
Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Oh, my God, I had no idea of the horror lurking beneath the surface! Free from bigotry! I apologize deeply for our lack. What else are we up to?
Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. I don't know if I can live with myself being one of these broad-minded folks who favor proposals for reform, not limited by dogma.

All that sarcasm aside (if you can get past it) I'll freely admit that many groups that would today be defined as liberal are in fact heavily dogmatic and even intolerant of the ideas and behavior of others...one merely has to attempt to smoke anywhere in Berkeley to have that experience rammed home...but nevertheless, looking at the definition, you've got to admit that it seems ridiculous on the face of it that being of a liberal outlook should ever be so thoroughly ridiculed and condemned. The very idea that liberalism is inherently bad suggests that liberty itself is somehow to be feared, that freedom and tolerance are unreliable attributes. If that's so, what the hell are we still keeping the Declaration of Independence and Constitution for? Why not rush full-tilt into totalitarianism and just get it over with? Let the state make our decisions for us, then, if there's only one correct viewpoint and we don't need to tolerate others.

In the repetition of such patterns...the side-stepping of the judical process, ignoring the idea that all should be equal under the law (and the concurrent idea that if the judical system is so crippled that it is undesireable to use it to try those who plan attacks against us, perhaps it should be repaired instead of merely ignored) and the creation of laws to suppress our rights to speak and protest freely...I find myself unable to imagine how anyone could ignore the need for liberal voices in our society. Without those willing to stand for tolerance and finding new ways, how will we progress as a people? How will we find our way out of fear and into liberty...assuming we still want to be a nation conceived in liberty...without liberalism? Right now, orthodoxy is as deadly as nerve gas and dogma is merely rubble cluttering our way forward. The last thing we need is any form of the Decree for the Protection of People and State, call it what you will.

I am a liberal. I don't mind it at all. It's good to always be looking for a new way without bigotry or dogma clouding the issue. I don't deny the importance of tradition or the need for our society to have an edge of conservatism and caution...but the other edge of this particular sword has to be naked, unabashed liberalism. The line between a state that exists to serve our needs and one that exists by forcing its needs on us is the one carved by that sword, and we cannot afford to dull or destroy it.

Holy Fucking Shit, We're Actually Rounding Up People And Detaining Them For The Crime Of Being Muslim

I somehow managed to miss this yesterday. Probably because Tara was coming home and I was monomaniacally focused on that. Anyway, yeah, we're actually arresting people for being Islamic. INS spokesman Arcaute said those arrested had violated immigration laws, overstayed their visas, or were wanted for crimes. The program was prompted by concern about the lack of records on tourists, students and other visitors to the United States after the Sept. 11 hijack plane attacks on New York and Washington. I'm sure I'm going to hear how this is necessary, how we have to protect ourselves from future attacks, how these people violated due process.

They complied with a new regulation and were arrested. I've known people who had difficulty with their visas. Very rarely is someone arrested for that kind of thing. As the article points out, if you're in the US to commit a terrorist act you probably don't mind not complying with this order. So who does this actually catch? People who actually do comply with our Government. I don't think I even need to remind people of the Japanese Internment Camps but I'm going to do it anyway.

I've tried to come up with a phrase that best sums up my reaction to this. I would like it to be meaningful and eloquent. Holy fucking shit is what I keep coming up with. It amazes me to the point of almost Tex Avery-style facial contortions to realize that this is even happening. A few months ago I wrote an entry about the future I saw coming down the pike. It's one step closer today. I realize that we're about to start bombing the piss out of Iraq any day now, and that in order to commence our great national distraction it would behoove us to make sure we don't have to suffer any domestic attacks to distract people from the distraction, but I also realize that rounding up the people who obey the law seems somewhat, well, draconian and anti-American. Funny that the one thing that our current leadership admires about FDR isn't his social conscience, but his great mistake, the one that serves to this day as a national disgrace. You know all that talk about how Republicans hate big government? I gotta think rounding up the muslim population is going to create a bureaucracy, I really do. Actually, now that I think about it, it's not like the government shrank, did it? I guess that's a different rant. I'm sorry, I'm still a little messed up here. I'm going to try and keep a positive outlook and hope this little incident rebounds to bite some asses come next election day. If nothing else, I can hope, right?

Holy fucking shit.

Holy Fucking Shit, We're Actually Rounding Up People And Detaining Them For The Crime Of Being Muslim

I somehow managed to miss this yesterday. Probably because Tara was coming home and I was monomaniacally focused on that. Anyway, yeah, we're actually arresting people for being Islamic. INS spokesman Arcaute said those arrested had violated immigration laws, overstayed their visas, or were wanted for crimes. The program was prompted by concern about the lack of records on tourists, students and other visitors to the United States after the Sept. 11 hijack plane attacks on New York and Washington. I'm sure I'm going to hear how this is necessary, how we have to protect ourselves from future attacks, how these people violated due process.

They complied with a new regulation and were arrested. I've known people who had difficulty with their visas. Very rarely is someone arrested for that kind of thing. As the article points out, if you're in the US to commit a terrorist act you probably don't mind not complying with this order. So who does this actually catch? People who actually do comply with our Government. I don't think I even need to remind people of the Japanese Internment Camps but I'm going to do it anyway.

I've tried to come up with a phrase that best sums up my reaction to this. I would like it to be meaningful and eloquent. Holy fucking shit is what I keep coming up with. It amazes me to the point of almost Tex Avery-style facial contortions to realize that this is even happening. A few months ago I wrote an entry about the future I saw coming down the pike. It's one step closer today. I realize that we're about to start bombing the piss out of Iraq any day now, and that in order to commence our great national distraction it would behoove us to make sure we don't have to suffer any domestic attacks to distract people from the distraction, but I also realize that rounding up the people who obey the law seems somewhat, well, draconian and anti-American. Funny that the one thing that our current leadership admires about FDR isn't his social conscience, but his great mistake, the one that serves to this day as a national disgrace. You know all that talk about how Republicans hate big government? I gotta think rounding up the muslim population is going to create a bureaucracy, I really do. Actually, now that I think about it, it's not like the government shrank, did it? I guess that's a different rant. I'm sorry, I'm still a little messed up here. I'm going to try and keep a positive outlook and hope this little incident rebounds to bite some asses come next election day. If nothing else, I can hope, right?

Holy fucking shit.

I was going to call this entry Enormously Fucking Stupid and so far, that's still my favorite title. My runner up is Canada, stop copying us!

Was he just feeling his inner Trent Lott? When you read that story, you come upon quite a few paradoxical thoughts. I'll share a few of my favorite ones:

The Saskatchewan attorney general has called for a police investigation into whether Ahenakew's comments constitute a hate crime. Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said that under Canadian law, anyone making statements that can be "characterized as public incitement of hatred against any identifiable group," leading to a "breach of peace," could be sentenced to two years in prison. Jones said no violence has occurred as a result of Ahenakew's comments.
Now, say what you will about the USA Patriot Act, John Ashcroft's desire to declare folks enemy combatants, or what have you. But as disgusting as groups like the KKK, the Aryan Nation, et al are, we allow them to talk. Those folks have said things just as inflammatory as Ahenakew. Look at his comments here: He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany and Europe. That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the goddamned world. Now, let's compare them to what Ben Klassen of the Church of the Creator had to say: We take up the challenge. We gird for total war against the Jews and the rest of the goddamned mud races of the world - politically, militantly, financially, morally and religiously. The Church of the Creator, if you didn't know, is currently led by Matt Hale, and Hale is still running around saying this kind of thing. Every day. He directly incites for war on everyone who isn't white as mountain snow. Meanwhile, when he finds himself in trouble with the Illinois Bar Association, the ADL says We believe that denying an individual a license to practice law because of his views no matter how abhorrent those views may be sets a dangerous precedent. At another time, in another place, we could envision a circumstance in which another Committee on Character and Fitness could follow this lead to reject a candidate because that candidate has expressed support for abortion, opposition to school prayer, or other moral views contrary to the majority of his or her community. This becomes a very slippery slope. So, despite all the times we in the US have had to hear what Canadians think of us, there's apparently some unwillingness for Canadians to listen to what they think themselves, if those thoughts are ugly enough. Luckily, Canada is morally superior to the US, and thus, doesn't have this problem often. I'm picking on Richard, here. It's okay. He points out in his column that Canadians are feeling confident lately...even if he does seem to feel that this confidence is unusual for Canadians, which I disagree with. Every Canadian I've ever spoken to has, often in a quietly assured way, felt superior to the US as far as I could tell. Part of me wants to point out that I like quite a few of those Canadians, but then it starts to sound like I'm saying some of my best friends are Canadians and wham we're back in Trent Lott territory. Where were we? Oh yeah, Canada, and its manifest superiority. Which is fine, because I agree with Richard's view that we could stand to get poked from time to time. However, turnabout's fair play: if Canadians are so sure of their moral certainty, where's the confidence to allow the repugnant to express their repugnance? Defining what is and is not a hate crime is hard enough without dragging every bigot who shoots his mouth off to a reporter in, I would think...but then again, I lack that certain moral compass and all.

Another statement that puzzled me from Mister Ahenakew: In his speech, the Star Phoenix reported, Mr. Ahenakew said that while he served with the Canadian Army in Germany in the 1950s, the Germans had told him the Jews started the Second World War.
Not to point out something others might already have mentioned, but...did anyone tell David Ahenakew that the Germans were, well, not exactly our allies during that war? Neither Canada nor the US fought alongside the Germans, we fought against them. I realize the whole Cold War thing happening right after that might have made for some confusion, but it's just possible that German folk in the 1950's might have been a trifle biased in their relating of their wartime experiences. Just a thought. That whole unreliable narrator thing they drilled into my head in college and all. I mean, seriously, I'd like to think anyone would take the words of the people his nation just got done kicking the asses of with at least one or two grains of salt. It's the same reason I'm on a wait and see with this whole idea that Al Qaeda may have already reopened its camps in Afghanistan. Sure, Karzai denies it. He may even be right. However, considering we just bombed the hell out of the country, I'm thinking we should be very careful with trusting any intelligence gathered there. It's just possible that the people of Afghanistan did not enjoy being bombed and don't want it to happen again. I realize this is a radical idea, that people would lie to avoid being killed, but let's consider it. Likewise, and this one's a shout out for David Ahenakew, it's just possible the Germans he spoke to about the war lied to him for any number of reasons, from fear of a Soviet advance into their homes to bitterness over the defeat. I'm just saying.

A final little bit of analysis of our friend David's statements, and then I promise I'll stop. Asked by a reporter to clarify his statement, he said he agreed with the Germans, and in reference to the Holocaust, responded, "How do you get rid of a disease like that, that's going to take over, that's going to dominate?"
When it was pointed out to him that the Nazis had committed genocide, he said: "I don't support Hitler. But he cleaned up a hell of a lot of things, didn't he? You would be owned by Jews right now the world over."
Mr. Ahenakew told the gathering that he has warned provincial officials "40 years down the road, we're going to be taking over [because of population growth among Indian people]. We're going to be the government. You [non-Indians] are going to be the Indians, and we're going to be the bosses. And you [the government] better start preparing right now."
Is it just me, or does it seem that David is telling the Government of Canada to kill him? He starts off with likening the Jews to a disease that's going to take over, applauds Hitler for his goal of killing them all to prevent the takeover, and then threatens a First Nations takeover of Canada. Now, this is a man who has been awarded The Order of Canada. I assume he's a lot smarter than I am. And nevertheless, he does not seem to have grasped the essential flaw in his logic, that is, exhorting genocide on the one hand as a solution to the prominence of a minority group in a nation's affairs (I'm confused by all this, but again, David's the one who won the Order of Canada, that morally superior nation to our north, whereas I talk about comic books and Christmas) and then threatening the rise to prominence in his own nation's affairs of the particular group he happens to be a member of. It's not just me, is it? That really is fucking stupid, right!? I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything, you know, with my flawed US Citizen sense of moral and ethical standards. The twin posts of his argument seem to be that it was a good thing for Hitler to try and kill six million people because they were going to take over on the one hand, and that his people are going to take over on the other. Does he just not know how to connect his own thoughts enough to see the statement he's making? I have to wonder about this. A criminal charge under the country's hate laws would require the consent of Saskatchewan's Attorney-General. The offence, defined as advocating and promoting genocide, carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison, according to the article. It seems to me the genocide David is advocating here is genocide against the very groups he has spent so much time advocating and fighting for, and I'm sorry to say this, but that's just enormously fucking stupid.

So yeah. Thanks again, Canada, for distracting me from the whole Beer Hall Putsch we seem to have ruling us in the US with this particular example of, well, copycatting, really. Look, why don't you leave the colorful misstatments of racist politicians to this guy? It's kind of rude of you to steal his thunder like that...he had just begun to stick his foot down his throat and you had to come along and make him seem tolerable. Thank you very much, I guess. I'm sure Trent is very grateful.

I was going to call this entry Enormously Fucking Stupid and so far, that's still my favorite title. My runner up is Canada, stop copying us!

Was he just feeling his inner Trent Lott? When you read that story, you come upon quite a few paradoxical thoughts. I'll share a few of my favorite ones:

The Saskatchewan attorney general has called for a police investigation into whether Ahenakew's comments constitute a hate crime. Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said that under Canadian law, anyone making statements that can be "characterized as public incitement of hatred against any identifiable group," leading to a "breach of peace," could be sentenced to two years in prison. Jones said no violence has occurred as a result of Ahenakew's comments.
Now, say what you will about the USA Patriot Act, John Ashcroft's desire to declare folks enemy combatants, or what have you. But as disgusting as groups like the KKK, the Aryan Nation, et al are, we allow them to talk. Those folks have said things just as inflammatory as Ahenakew. Look at his comments here: He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany and Europe. That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the goddamned world. Now, let's compare them to what Ben Klassen of the Church of the Creator had to say: We take up the challenge. We gird for total war against the Jews and the rest of the goddamned mud races of the world - politically, militantly, financially, morally and religiously. The Church of the Creator, if you didn't know, is currently led by Matt Hale, and Hale is still running around saying this kind of thing. Every day. He directly incites for war on everyone who isn't white as mountain snow. Meanwhile, when he finds himself in trouble with the Illinois Bar Association, the ADL says We believe that denying an individual a license to practice law because of his views no matter how abhorrent those views may be sets a dangerous precedent. At another time, in another place, we could envision a circumstance in which another Committee on Character and Fitness could follow this lead to reject a candidate because that candidate has expressed support for abortion, opposition to school prayer, or other moral views contrary to the majority of his or her community. This becomes a very slippery slope. So, despite all the times we in the US have had to hear what Canadians think of us, there's apparently some unwillingness for Canadians to listen to what they think themselves, if those thoughts are ugly enough. Luckily, Canada is morally superior to the US, and thus, doesn't have this problem often. I'm picking on Richard, here. It's okay. He points out in his column that Canadians are feeling confident lately...even if he does seem to feel that this confidence is unusual for Canadians, which I disagree with. Every Canadian I've ever spoken to has, often in a quietly assured way, felt superior to the US as far as I could tell. Part of me wants to point out that I like quite a few of those Canadians, but then it starts to sound like I'm saying some of my best friends are Canadians and wham we're back in Trent Lott territory. Where were we? Oh yeah, Canada, and its manifest superiority. Which is fine, because I agree with Richard's view that we could stand to get poked from time to time. However, turnabout's fair play: if Canadians are so sure of their moral certainty, where's the confidence to allow the repugnant to express their repugnance? Defining what is and is not a hate crime is hard enough without dragging every bigot who shoots his mouth off to a reporter in, I would think...but then again, I lack that certain moral compass and all.

Another statement that puzzled me from Mister Ahenakew: In his speech, the Star Phoenix reported, Mr. Ahenakew said that while he served with the Canadian Army in Germany in the 1950s, the Germans had told him the Jews started the Second World War.
Not to point out something others might already have mentioned, but...did anyone tell David Ahenakew that the Germans were, well, not exactly our allies during that war? Neither Canada nor the US fought alongside the Germans, we fought against them. I realize the whole Cold War thing happening right after that might have made for some confusion, but it's just possible that German folk in the 1950's might have been a trifle biased in their relating of their wartime experiences. Just a thought. That whole unreliable narrator thing they drilled into my head in college and all. I mean, seriously, I'd like to think anyone would take the words of the people his nation just got done kicking the asses of with at least one or two grains of salt. It's the same reason I'm on a wait and see with this whole idea that Al Qaeda may have already reopened its camps in Afghanistan. Sure, Karzai denies it. He may even be right. However, considering we just bombed the hell out of the country, I'm thinking we should be very careful with trusting any intelligence gathered there. It's just possible that the people of Afghanistan did not enjoy being bombed and don't want it to happen again. I realize this is a radical idea, that people would lie to avoid being killed, but let's consider it. Likewise, and this one's a shout out for David Ahenakew, it's just possible the Germans he spoke to about the war lied to him for any number of reasons, from fear of a Soviet advance into their homes to bitterness over the defeat. I'm just saying.

A final little bit of analysis of our friend David's statements, and then I promise I'll stop. Asked by a reporter to clarify his statement, he said he agreed with the Germans, and in reference to the Holocaust, responded, "How do you get rid of a disease like that, that's going to take over, that's going to dominate?"
When it was pointed out to him that the Nazis had committed genocide, he said: "I don't support Hitler. But he cleaned up a hell of a lot of things, didn't he? You would be owned by Jews right now the world over."
Mr. Ahenakew told the gathering that he has warned provincial officials "40 years down the road, we're going to be taking over [because of population growth among Indian people]. We're going to be the government. You [non-Indians] are going to be the Indians, and we're going to be the bosses. And you [the government] better start preparing right now."
Is it just me, or does it seem that David is telling the Government of Canada to kill him? He starts off with likening the Jews to a disease that's going to take over, applauds Hitler for his goal of killing them all to prevent the takeover, and then threatens a First Nations takeover of Canada. Now, this is a man who has been awarded The Order of Canada. I assume he's a lot smarter than I am. And nevertheless, he does not seem to have grasped the essential flaw in his logic, that is, exhorting genocide on the one hand as a solution to the prominence of a minority group in a nation's affairs (I'm confused by all this, but again, David's the one who won the Order of Canada, that morally superior nation to our north, whereas I talk about comic books and Christmas) and then threatening the rise to prominence in his own nation's affairs of the particular group he happens to be a member of. It's not just me, is it? That really is fucking stupid, right!? I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything, you know, with my flawed US Citizen sense of moral and ethical standards. The twin posts of his argument seem to be that it was a good thing for Hitler to try and kill six million people because they were going to take over on the one hand, and that his people are going to take over on the other. Does he just not know how to connect his own thoughts enough to see the statement he's making? I have to wonder about this. A criminal charge under the country's hate laws would require the consent of Saskatchewan's Attorney-General. The offence, defined as advocating and promoting genocide, carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison, according to the article. It seems to me the genocide David is advocating here is genocide against the very groups he has spent so much time advocating and fighting for, and I'm sorry to say this, but that's just enormously fucking stupid.

So yeah. Thanks again, Canada, for distracting me from the whole Beer Hall Putsch we seem to have ruling us in the US with this particular example of, well, copycatting, really. Look, why don't you leave the colorful misstatments of racist politicians to this guy? It's kind of rude of you to steal his thunder like that...he had just begun to stick his foot down his throat and you had to come along and make him seem tolerable. Thank you very much, I guess. I'm sure Trent is very grateful.

Speak softly and carry a big stick, yes...just don't bash everyone you see over the head with it.

Let me just say now that I find the political stuff as boring as anyone else, and I certainly regret foisting it off on you. But I was having a Teddy Roosevelt moment and just sort of spun off from there. Again, I'm very sorry.

First off, I want the same right to self-defense my country seems to believe it has. If I suspect someone has a weapon they could use to harm me, I want to be able to kill them for it. That's fair, right? If I suspect you have a weapon that could harm myself or someone I love, should I not be able to attack you first? That's fair. I want that ability. I also want the ability to stockpile weapons that you can't have. If I suspect you have one of these weapons, I will then kill you before you can use it. That's fair, too.

After all, when I was younger, I was attacked and violated repeatedly and without provocation. I have the right to ensure that never happens to me again, right? So I should go around making sure no one but me has certain weapons, especially not the people I don't like. Those people even look like they might, and I'm justified in taking action. I'll get together with my friends and have them pressure those people I don't like, and if that doesn't work, I'm going to have to take whatever action is necessary to ensure I never suffer such abuse again, even if it means making a pre-emptive strike on someone.

What? You say that as American citizens, we're not allowed to attack people just because they might attack us? That it's illegal, even if they write letters saying they're going to, even if we've suffered attacks before and are justifiably afraid we may suffer them again? Hmm. Are you sure about that? You're telling me that it's an enshrined American concept, both legally and morally, that we don't engage in such pre-emptive behavior? That we don't hang people or shoot them or what have you just because we think they might be up to no good...not even if we're sure they are?

Hmm.

You might want to check on that. I'm fairly certain that you're mistaken.

I do realize things are more complicated than that, of course. I do understand that international diplomacy is not the same as living within one nation. I do understand that the US government has often used force or the threat of force as a deterrent since the formation of the nation. I also understand that there are consequences to the use of these types of deterrence...at this very moment, while the United States is trying to push North Korea to behave as we would have them to (and to be honest, in this case, I'll hardly weep if North Korea did choose to back off from building more nuclear bombs) the pressure is in fact alienating our own allies. I can already hear the cries of So What, Who Cares About South Korea to which I will simply say that if we don't have any allies, we will cease to matter. We will be unable to put any pressure on North Korea if we don't have a place to do it from. Sure, Japan's close...and do you think the Japanese are tremendously interested in having the possible North Korean missiles pointed at them? After all, Japan's in reach, a hell of a lot more so than we are. It all comes down to the judicious use of force or the threat of same. Lately, we have not been judicious in this regard at all.

We bombed Afghanistan, failed to so much as dent Al-Qaeda, failed to catch bin Laden. We now prepare to attack Iraq, a battle we will easily win. It will fail to harm Al-Qaeda, and fail to catch bin Laden. I hope we at least actually do topple Saddam Hussein this time. I don't want to have to see us invade again in a decade or so. For all the terror that supposed weapons of mass destruction are being assembled in various nations for use against us, let's consider that the weapons that brought down the WTC were American Airliners. Are we going to bomb any nation which possesses these dangerous flying bombs? We can run around attacking or threatening to attack anyone we want, and at least at first, no one can prevent us. But squandering our resources in this way, trying to control the world, leaping at every possibility (like, say the Bushehr plant in Iran) we actually act to hurt our own agenda. For instance, President Mohammad Khatami is the first reform minded leader Iran has had since the 1980's and the Shah's fall at the hands of hard-line supporters of Khoemeni Now, every time our President calls Iran evil, he does more to hurt Khatami's chances to bring about change in Iran than he does to help. Just as American actions in Korea could well cause the South Korean government to pass into the hands of those who do not agree with America as to the dangers of North Korean nuclear proliferation.

It's all about knowing when to use your power. As an example, don't appoint Henry Kissinger to anything. A great many people at home and abroad see Henry as the kind of person who would gleefully enact the scene from The Untouchables given the slightest provocation. I mean, I wouldn't get within ten feet of Henry without checking to make sure I wasn't standing on a tarp. So when you want to seem resolved to defend yourself, and not seem as though you hunger to unleash the fires of armageddon upon the world and caper in the flames as humanity dies screaming, don't appoint Henry Kissinger to anything. Just a thought.

I believe in focus. I believe in spending the time and the resources to pinpoint those who have commited atrocities on us, and destroying them. I once believed in trying to capture them and try them, but a conversation with a friend of mine who would be one of the people our nation would expect to risk his life to do that made me believe that the cost in lives would be too high. This is an enemy that seeks martyrdom. Fine. Then grant it to the specific people involved. Because as horrifying as it might seem, it has never been the case that we get to attack another nation because we suspect they might attack us...even in the original Gulf War, we acted because an ally had been invaded by the nation in question. Iraqi troops were in Kuwait. We did nothing, for instance, when Iraq invaded Iran (those wacky Axis of Evil folks can't even seem to agree that they're in it together! What nuts they are) because we weren't allied with Iran...far from it, in fact, following the 1980 US Embassy Hostage Crisis. You can't just lump nations into imaginary collectives and start agitating against them out of fear of what they might do, and not see your prestige erode away. You can't threaten attack repeatedly without alarming those who would be your allies. And you certainly cannot attack anyone you choose without alienating the nations you depend upon to make threats of deterrence credible. Eventually, we will have no place upon which we can stand to swing that godawful stick we're carrying. There's a reason Teddy told us to speak softly while carrying it...because there has to be a line between suggesting that you will use it if you must, and convincing them that you will use it no matter what.

Speak softly and carry a big stick, yes...just don't bash everyone you see over the head with it.

Let me just say now that I find the political stuff as boring as anyone else, and I certainly regret foisting it off on you. But I was having a Teddy Roosevelt moment and just sort of spun off from there. Again, I'm very sorry.

First off, I want the same right to self-defense my country seems to believe it has. If I suspect someone has a weapon they could use to harm me, I want to be able to kill them for it. That's fair, right? If I suspect you have a weapon that could harm myself or someone I love, should I not be able to attack you first? That's fair. I want that ability. I also want the ability to stockpile weapons that you can't have. If I suspect you have one of these weapons, I will then kill you before you can use it. That's fair, too.

After all, when I was younger, I was attacked and violated repeatedly and without provocation. I have the right to ensure that never happens to me again, right? So I should go around making sure no one but me has certain weapons, especially not the people I don't like. Those people even look like they might, and I'm justified in taking action. I'll get together with my friends and have them pressure those people I don't like, and if that doesn't work, I'm going to have to take whatever action is necessary to ensure I never suffer such abuse again, even if it means making a pre-emptive strike on someone.

What? You say that as American citizens, we're not allowed to attack people just because they might attack us? That it's illegal, even if they write letters saying they're going to, even if we've suffered attacks before and are justifiably afraid we may suffer them again? Hmm. Are you sure about that? You're telling me that it's an enshrined American concept, both legally and morally, that we don't engage in such pre-emptive behavior? That we don't hang people or shoot them or what have you just because we think they might be up to no good...not even if we're sure they are?

Hmm.

You might want to check on that. I'm fairly certain that you're mistaken.

I do realize things are more complicated than that, of course. I do understand that international diplomacy is not the same as living within one nation. I do understand that the US government has often used force or the threat of force as a deterrent since the formation of the nation. I also understand that there are consequences to the use of these types of deterrence...at this very moment, while the United States is trying to push North Korea to behave as we would have them to (and to be honest, in this case, I'll hardly weep if North Korea did choose to back off from building more nuclear bombs) the pressure is in fact alienating our own allies. I can already hear the cries of So What, Who Cares About South Korea to which I will simply say that if we don't have any allies, we will cease to matter. We will be unable to put any pressure on North Korea if we don't have a place to do it from. Sure, Japan's close...and do you think the Japanese are tremendously interested in having the possible North Korean missiles pointed at them? After all, Japan's in reach, a hell of a lot more so than we are. It all comes down to the judicious use of force or the threat of same. Lately, we have not been judicious in this regard at all.

We bombed Afghanistan, failed to so much as dent Al-Qaeda, failed to catch bin Laden. We now prepare to attack Iraq, a battle we will easily win. It will fail to harm Al-Qaeda, and fail to catch bin Laden. I hope we at least actually do topple Saddam Hussein this time. I don't want to have to see us invade again in a decade or so. For all the terror that supposed weapons of mass destruction are being assembled in various nations for use against us, let's consider that the weapons that brought down the WTC were American Airliners. Are we going to bomb any nation which possesses these dangerous flying bombs? We can run around attacking or threatening to attack anyone we want, and at least at first, no one can prevent us. But squandering our resources in this way, trying to control the world, leaping at every possibility (like, say the Bushehr plant in Iran) we actually act to hurt our own agenda. For instance, President Mohammad Khatami is the first reform minded leader Iran has had since the 1980's and the Shah's fall at the hands of hard-line supporters of Khoemeni Now, every time our President calls Iran evil, he does more to hurt Khatami's chances to bring about change in Iran than he does to help. Just as American actions in Korea could well cause the South Korean government to pass into the hands of those who do not agree with America as to the dangers of North Korean nuclear proliferation.

It's all about knowing when to use your power. As an example, don't appoint Henry Kissinger to anything. A great many people at home and abroad see Henry as the kind of person who would gleefully enact the scene from The Untouchables given the slightest provocation. I mean, I wouldn't get within ten feet of Henry without checking to make sure I wasn't standing on a tarp. So when you want to seem resolved to defend yourself, and not seem as though you hunger to unleash the fires of armageddon upon the world and caper in the flames as humanity dies screaming, don't appoint Henry Kissinger to anything. Just a thought.

I believe in focus. I believe in spending the time and the resources to pinpoint those who have commited atrocities on us, and destroying them. I once believed in trying to capture them and try them, but a conversation with a friend of mine who would be one of the people our nation would expect to risk his life to do that made me believe that the cost in lives would be too high. This is an enemy that seeks martyrdom. Fine. Then grant it to the specific people involved. Because as horrifying as it might seem, it has never been the case that we get to attack another nation because we suspect they might attack us...even in the original Gulf War, we acted because an ally had been invaded by the nation in question. Iraqi troops were in Kuwait. We did nothing, for instance, when Iraq invaded Iran (those wacky Axis of Evil folks can't even seem to agree that they're in it together! What nuts they are) because we weren't allied with Iran...far from it, in fact, following the 1980 US Embassy Hostage Crisis. You can't just lump nations into imaginary collectives and start agitating against them out of fear of what they might do, and not see your prestige erode away. You can't threaten attack repeatedly without alarming those who would be your allies. And you certainly cannot attack anyone you choose without alienating the nations you depend upon to make threats of deterrence credible. Eventually, we will have no place upon which we can stand to swing that godawful stick we're carrying. There's a reason Teddy told us to speak softly while carrying it...because there has to be a line between suggesting that you will use it if you must, and convincing them that you will use it no matter what.