View 596 November 9 - 15, 2009 (original) (raw)

Sunday, November 15, 2009

I'm in Tyson's Corners, waiting for a visit from family members who live in the DC area. The news is interesting. I see that a general consensus is forming on Afghanistan: that we cannot make the kind of commitment it will take to transform Afghanistan into a liberal democracy allied with the US.

What will happen? Probably a compromise. Some extra troops will be sent so that it can be spun that a surge did not work. This will cost blood and treasure spent to buy some kind of credibility to the administration and to the United States. I doubt that it will buy much face saving for the nation, but I can hope it does so.

The only real interest the United States has in Afghanistan is that neither the central government nor the provinces harbor our enemies. That can be done with silver bullets. Note I said silver bullets, not pieces of silver. Bullets can be fired, if need be.

It is not really in our interest to force the Afghan provinces into subservience to Kabul, even if that were in our power, which is doubtful. We need a way out that relieves us of most responsibilities in Afghanistan and saves as much of our reputation as we can save. I wish Obama well in finding such a solution; it appears that he wants that as much as we do. I think the Republicans ought to make that as easy on him as they can. In this case, politics probably should end at the water's edge.

That does not in any way diminish my opposition to the health care grab, the carbon tax, and the continued attempts to Nationalize America. Unlike foreign policy, these are very much the stuff of politics.

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Regarding the show trial in New York: it is not obvious that this is the best way to dispose of the matter. If that sounds ambiguous not to say wishy-washy, perhaps: as I say, it is not obvious. The 9/11 attacks, like the Fort Hood Massacre, were acts of war against the United States. We do not traditionally deal with such enemies in the open courts. They are not citizens. Dr. Hassan is, and is entitled to his day in court -- in, my judgment, to a trial for treason. He can always be tried in Texas for murder. The Federal charge ought to be for levying war against the United States.

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I presume that the Administration and the public authorities of New York have considered the security implications of these show trials. We can all think of increasingly horrifying scenarios. I thought of one last night that I don't think I'll publish just yet. That's either squeamishness or arrogance, I guess: I really don't think that anything I can think of in the course of dinner with my son Phillip is beyond the ability of determined terrorists to come up with. They have a better idea of their resources and technologies than I do. Do not underestimate your enemies -- nor take counsel from your fears. How's that for ambiguities? Yet each principle is true and important to a stragtegist.

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I will also note that the conviction rate in DC on drug charges is in essence zero in jury trials. Contemplate that when considering the upcoming show trials in New York. Contemplate the OJ Simpson trial in Los Angeles. The administration is bold.

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Sarah Palin's newest book is already a best seller and it is not yet in stores. She is a strikingly accomplished young woman. She would not be my first choice for President of these United States, but that should not be taken as condemnation -- I wouldn't be my first choice either. I will get her book next week.

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There seems to be a tizzy about President Obama bowing to the Emperor of Japan.

I can't think why. John Adams went through the usual ceremonies including three bows when he present his credentials as Ambassador to the Court of St. James after the Revolutionary War. He took some satisfaction over the fact that His Majesty had no choice but to deal with Mad Dog Adams. The United States has generally gone along with the accepted protocols. At the Congress of Vienna everyone was concerned about precedence who should bow to whom. It's the kind of fetish the US has tended to avoid -- it was Adams who declined to address President Washington as His Excellency or any of the other appellations fashionable at the time among Republics and addressed the President simply as "Mr. President."

It is true that we have no "Chief of State" other than the President, and thus we can't shuffle off some of those niceties onto a Royal Family; but we have managed it for a long time. If Obama chooses to go along with the protocol niceties of court procedure, that does no harm to the United States. It's what he agrees to that disturbs me, not his adherence to protocols of long precedence.

Incidentally, even into the early Twentieth Century the Prime Minister of England presented his reports to the reigning monarch on his knees...

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The President made a good speech as Chief Mourner in the Fort Hood Massacre.

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It's time for bed. I have to get up very early tomorrow.

If the administration admits that Hasan committed treason and an act of war against the United States, there are implications that at least some of his advisors do not want to hear.

That would apply to allowing the Purple Heart for the Fort Hood victims: it would have the same implications. Either this is a war on terrorism or -- or what?

I still wonder: suppose they got to Afghanistan and Hasan had shot them down in Kabul just after they landed. Would they get Purple Hearts? If they were killed in a travel way station? On board a US troop carrier on the way to Afghanistan? On an airplane to Afghanistan from the US? What if the airplane was still flying over the United States? Or was on US soil on a runway, ready to take off for Afghanistan or Iraq, and a Muslim soldier aboard jumped up, yelled Allahu Akbar!, and started shooting? I ask not to be witty but to make a point.

And now to bed.

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