Syria: Obama Paints His Corner Ever Tighter, And Putin Plays Chess With The Middle East

I am constrained in recent times, as I have mentioned before, to drive-by blogging, and this has manifested itself as a major problem when trying to keep up with the whip-saw pace of events building around Obama's problem with Syria and its chemical weapons.  Let us examine the background and some of the wildly divergent positions taken by Obama and his enablers.

                                                                                             (11alive)

 

Two years ago, Obama first stated that Assad had to go, "step aside".  A year ago, Obama stated that he has "indicated repeatedly that Assad needs to step down" and added that it was "very clear … that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch o' chemical weapons movin' around or being utilized", and that would "change my calculus … change my equation."  Some apologists have said that the "changed calculus" comment fell far short of the hard response that Obama's critics have cited him as saying, but they ignore his remarks of a few months later, in December 2012, after strong evidence that the chemicals had been "movin' around", when he warned that "the world was watching" and that if Assad used chemical weapons, "there will be consequences and you will be held accountable." 

The contrast with Obama's actions in Libya is striking.  In his "lead from behind" attempt at foreign strategy with the European allies more dependent on Libyan oil, he plainly stated that the Qaddafi regime would be toppled within a month.  But the Libyan dictator continued on for six more months, finally brought to account by accident after a French Air Force fighter strafing run on a small convoy revealed that he was one of the passengers, and the wounded Qaddafi was killed within moments by a surging mob around his wreck.  Obama was compelled to act, he said, by the prospect that the Libyan Army, closing in on Benghazi, could be responsible for a thousand deaths if we didn't respond to this humanitarian crisis.  Obama and his people have roundly criticized Bush for not anticipating the insurgent uprising in Iraq at the end of the initial hostilities, but they and the press have given a pass to the fact that Libya has been abandoned, with no pretext of an attempt to stand up a viable government.  Libya has become a Mediterranean version of Somalia, and as Somalia had its Blackhawk Down incident that exposed Clinton's disregard of his duties as Commander in Chief, so Libya had its Benghazi consulate attack, the difference being that we have an accounting for Somalia but only a continuing cover-up in Libya. 

So with the prospect of a thousand deaths in Libya being a reason for involvement, the obvious question remains that 100,000 deaths in Syria somehow doesn't rise to the level of his rationale for intervention.  Excuses include that the situation is more complex (true, but sufficient?) and Syria has a more sophisticated air defense system supplied by the Russians, including some Russians who are manning it.  Somehow, that hasn't been a deterrent to Israel, who has bombed an almost-complete nuclear reactor and an arms convoy headed to Lebanon.

Chemical weapons use in Syria was claimed several times after Obama's stern warnings, most notably near Aleppo in March, but then Obama began waffling, saying that we didn't have a "chain of custody" as to who had used them, that we would have to await a UN study of the problem.  Even those with only a passing knowledge of the history of the UN would agree that a move like that practically consigns the problem to a black hole. 

The attacks mounted in number and severity – Aleppo again in April, Homs and Adra in May, and the administration begin to assert that we have assurances that Assad's forces are involved.  We would now supply military aid to the "moderate" rebels, though to date no weapons or similar support has been sent. 

Then came the attack on 21 August on a rebel-held area on the eastern edge of Damascus, which killed an estimated 1429 people.  The administration stated that it was convinced that Assad's forces launched the attack.  Along with other evidence not disclosed, one source cited a recording of a conversation between higher headquarters and the local Syrian Army commander which included an initial refusal of the commander on the scene to fire on civilians, followed by a threat of death if he did not.  Another source indicates that the attack was far more intense than ordered, a mistake in magnitude.  New indications are that Basher al-Assad has lost direct control of the weapons, that his hot-headed, high-ranking brother Maher had hijacked the system and authorized the attack. 

Doubts were initially raised: perhaps the attack was staged, the victims only actors, the symptoms not matching the textbook explanations.  That could be theoretically possible for some of the footage that I saw, but the scene of one adolescent boy, gasping for breath and flailing, was enough to convince me that his case, and likely the others, were genuine.  I also agree, skipping a long explanation, that the attack was not a rebel provocation. 

Obama was brought to account for his previous declarations: his red line was surely crossed.  What serious response would we see?  Obama has become a victim of his own words; his credibility is now called into question, which he conflates as the credibility of the United States in a l'etat cest moi sort of way.  Something must be done.  His attempt in Sweden to claim that the "red line" was not his but the world's was inartful at best. 

John Kerry came out in full-throated battle cry that the attack was a "moral obscenity".  Chemical weapons use was "undeniable", and President Obama, he said, "believes that there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people."  One would think that he was referring to attacks "in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan", or to his American compatriots in Viet Nam, or to Saddam Hussein.  It must be difficult for Kerry to sort it all out, assuming that he pays much attention to that. 

Obama consulted overseas allies for a joint response.  Both he and David Cameron agreed that a "serious response" was necessary, but then Parliament, in a move not seen since 1798, removed a British option for a military response in Syria.  François Hollande was quick into the verbal breach and agreed that France must respond, encouraging Obama, then demurred that he would consult the Parlement français (though not required) while soon saying that he would support an American response if it was forthcoming (though now even that is questionable).  Other than Kerry saying in Congressional testimony that some Arab states would pony up some cash for us to defray our expenses (essentially phoning in their support, an Arab form of condescension), there is no overt support of an American strike.  Debbie Wassermann Shultz, if she is to be believed (and why start now?), claimed that "There are dozens of countries who are going to stand with the United States, who will engage with us on military action and also that back us 100 percent."  Yet when pressed, she claimed that all of them were classified and refused to name a single one. 

Obama was losing his parade.  In a Rose Garden announcement, he said that, though he had the power to order an attack on his own, he would seek the approval of Congress.  General Dempsey, he said, assured him that an attack on Syria could be postponed for a month if need be.  The urgency of the issue instantly deflated, coupled with the fact that Obama was content to wait for Congress to reconvene the following week rather than call it back into session.  Cynics (such as I am) could see him angling for an excuse about his hip-shot red lines fading away because he expected that the Republicans would take the bait, fighting him on the issue.  Speaker Boehner and Majority Whip Cantor quickly disabused him of that notion, stating that they supported his option of a military strike, providing a unified front in this case of American overseas priorities, while saying plainly that it was Obama who would have to make the case for Congress and the American people.  The question then became truly bipartisan and was placed back into Obama's lap, and Obama's attempt to pass the buck to the Pentagon and the Republicans has plainly failed.  Whatever support he had in Congress has steadily deteriorated, even among his staunchest supporters. 

Obama and Kerry and other spokespersons kept defining downward the character of our response in hiccups of 'policy as you go': there would be no "boots on the ground" (an instant cliché); it would be "limited in duration and scope"; involving no "regime change"; the attack would be a "pinprick"; no, we "don't do pinpricks"; the attack would be a "very limited, very targeted, short-term effort that degrades [Assad's] capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria's civil war" and (Kerry's most bewildering comment) it would be "unbelievably small", though Kerry also said "Nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of a hanging."  In joint statements before Congress, Kerry said that we are not going to war, but Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel referred to the war plans for Syria. 

The desperation was beginning to show: an unidentified State Department spokesman described the result of the degrading of Syria's capability as eating Cheerios with a fork instead of a spoon.  Marie Harf, one of the talking heads of the State Department briefings was asked that, if an authorization from Congress would mean that America was speaking with one voice (she agreed), then would a denial of authorization by Congress also mean that America was denying the authorization with one voice as well?  Her reply was "Not at all, because the President obviously would still believe that we should do it."  Incredibly, the voice of the American people counts only if it is in agreement with Obama.

 

                                                                                            (nydailynews)

 

An unexpected glimmer of hope gleamed faintly Monday morning.  Kerry responded to a question in London with a theoretical speculation that the crisis could be averted if Syria were to turn over their chemical weapons stockpile "to the international community … all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting [of it], but [Assad] isn't about to do it and it can't be done."  But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moualem, meeting in Moscow, quickly took up the speculative offer and said that Syria would seriously consider it.  The administration, in turn, leapt at the chance to save themselves despite the clear appearance to all the world that Russian President Putin had taken the initiative away from a foundering American position.  Obama, at this point, frankly doesn't care how it looks overseas; he is only interested in saving his hide here at home.  He rose to the bait, even going so far as to say that this was a deal that he cooked up with Putin during last week's G-20 summit.  But Putin's schooling and humiliation of Obama was just getting started. 

The Americans and French immediately started to begin codifying the idea within the context of the UN, but Putin scrapped that idea, again showing that he is the one in charge now.  Another chink emerged late yesterday when Putin insisted that an American pledge of no military action against Assad was a further requirement.  What was it Obama said about this being his idea along with Putin?  Yet another humiliation. 

With this, we have the beginnings of the tried and true strategy that has proven quite successful before.  There will have to be talks to determine how such an agreement is to be designed.  Some organization will have to be created to oversee the project.  The actors will have to be chosen.  A system for how the weapons are to be secured, how they will be accounted for, where and how they will be removed and transported, how they will be neutralized – all must be decided by an international cast of characters that promises to take years, if not decades. 

Saddam Hussein took on the world and won throughout the Clinton administration, defying every UN sanction, shooting at our aircraft, co-opting the easily corruptible UN to siphon billions from the Oil for Food program, laughing on state television as they portrayed the UN inspectors stymied at the front gates of Iraqi bases as truck loads of material escaped out the back.  Qaddafi of Libya later gave up his WMD program after the fall of Iraq scared him into doing so, but there was still far from an accurate accounting of his weapons and capabilities when he finally succumbed eight years later.  The Iranians are stringing along the West during interminable talks about their nuclear weapons program, even going so far as to publically proclaim that we are being hornswoggled, with absolute impunity other than the bother of a computer virus that merely slowed their progress. 

Besides the endless talking with no progress, there will be the Castro option as well.  The 1962 settlement between Kennedy and Khrushchev that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis contained the much ballyhooed withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba (and the less known withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey and Italy), but also the American pledge to no longer attempt regime change and topple Castro and the Communist government.  Putin's insistence of ending the American military threat to the Assad regime is much the same, an assurance that the Russian-protected Syrian dictatorship will survive and thrive politically. 

The accounting process will be a dodge as well.  The Russians want to be sure that evidence of earlier massive Soviet assistance in the enormous Syrian stockpile of chemical weapons is covered up, and the nagging question of the Iraqi chemical weapons and the large convoys from Iraqi ammo dumps into Syria prior to the American invasion in 2003 will remain a mystery, or at least hard fought over by our own Left who must insist on their gospel that Iraq had no WMDs whatsoever despite clear evidence to the contrary. 

A question that will soon arise will concern Israel: since the raison d'être of the Syrian chemical weapons program was as a deterrent to the Israeli nuclear program, Syria and Russia will insist on negotiating a solution to avoid leaving Syria strategically 'defenseless'. 

Russia and Putin's position in the Middle East will gain immensely almost overnight.  Iran and its proxies will solidify their control in the region as they will be expected to ably assist Assad in his eventual victory.

It is hard to imagine, though it is certainly possible, how Obama could project a more vacillating and feckless position, not so much against the chemical warfare attack in Syria but also to the concept of America as the power that can forge a coalition of the willing to right wrongs against humanity, or even rightfully respond to a war crime.  He is a dilettante in foreign policy, committing American power, which he has tried to "fundamentally transform" into a more compatible neighbor to his fellow 'citizens of the world', in a hip-shot fashion that is contradictory from one crisis to another. 

From his New Beginnings apology in Cairo, to his silence during the 2009 Iranian street demonstrations against the mullahcracy, to his abandonment of any influence in post-war Iraq, to his self-contradiction of an Afghan strategy (less troops than needed but then bring them home by a date certain, with no thought to the ramifications), his blatant ball-spiking over the bin Laden mission, his preference to avoid capture of terrorists and the always-fluid definition of what constitutes 'torture' in favor of killing them instead by lobbing in drone strikes, his insistence that al Qaeda was finished despite clear evidence to the contrary (still stonewalling and covering up the Benghazi attack), the welcoming of the 'Arab Spring' with no attempt to influence the events in our favor, the fumbling attitude to the government crisis in Egypt (with the millions of demonstrators against Obama and his ambassador almost as much as they are against Morsi and his attempt to overthrow their constitution), dragged into the 'lead from behind' operation in Libya (leaving Libya as an al Qaeda-rich environment), and now, after two years of empty threats and hand-wringing, he gave us his speech last night that appealed to our better angels (mentioning 'children' seven times) but failed to give any clue about what it is we are supposed to accomplish with a strike on Syria. 

My background and experience drives me to seriously include military options in regards to stark geopolitical problems involving national security, but I expect to see a clear objective, a means to accomplish it, and a plan to follow through to that end with full support from the Congress, the people, and the military itself when lives are committed.  The President has the power as Commander in Chief to commit our military in short-term operations that affect that national security, subject to approval of Congress – mere authorization without a formal declaration of war is sufficient. 

Obama has failed to establish any of that.  Instead, he is emblematic of the warning of St Paul: "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Corinthians 14:8)

Colorado: Anti-Gun Legislators Recalled

The first recall election in Colorado history, brought about by the public reaction to a series of stringent anti-gun laws driven through the state legislature, has resulted in the surprise upset of two of the main supporters of the legislation, both Democrats.  Senate President John Morse and Senator Angela Giron, representing districts that bookend Fort Carson to the north and south, were overthrown in the polls in a recall effort that has national overtones for gun rights.

                                                                                     (Denver Channel 7)

 

Morse lost by two points (51-49) to former Colorado Springs city councilman Bernie Herpin, and Giron lost by a stunning twelve points (56-44) to retired Pueblo deputy police chief George Rivera.  Morse, representing a more conservative district, was considered the more vulnerable of the two and thus drew the majority of the large contributions – totaling some $3 million – coming from major Democrat sources, such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($350,000), which saw a 7-to-1 spending advantage, as well as efforts by Democrat national leaders to influence the turnout, including Joe Biden and Bill Clinton, and the staff of Obama's Organizing for America. 

Giron's margin of defeat was surprising since her district is composed of mostly blue-collar union workers, who were expected to vote in a traditional lock-step according to the party wishes. 

Morse and Giron were among those, including Governor John Hickenlooper, who pushed for state bills that limited rifle magazines to no more than 15 rounds, required background checks for private sales and transfers of guns, and held manufacturers liable for damages caused by criminals who used their guns in the commission of a crime.  The uproar has caused companies such as Magpul, HiViz, and the Outdoor Channel to announce that they are leaving the state to find a manufacturing home where citizens and law enforcement can purchase their products and be free of legislators who lobby against their businesses. 

Morse was the larger target of the effort due to his impact on forcing the bills through the Senate, and he spoke of the anti-gun effort as "cleansing a sickness from our souls", a widely reported comment that many voters found offensive. 

The drive was primarily a grass-roots effort, though the NRA contributed a share equal to Mayor Bloomberg, and coalesced around three young plumbers with no experience in rallying election victories, running the campaign off of lap tops.  One of them, Victor Head, was dismissed as an "unemployed plumber" by Morse during an interview on MSNBC.  Last night, Head, who runs his family plumbing business, responded with "And I have a message for John Morse: who's unemployed now?"

Analysis of a Defensive Threat of Force

Andrew Branca at the Legal Insurrection web log has a good follow-up to the video running about the blogosphere of a recent attempt of a liquor store robbery in Missouri, wherein the would-be robber – a rank amateur, it would certainly seem, but no less potentially dangerous (or probably even more so) – confronts the store clerk who turns out to be a retired Army veteran of four tours in Iraq, a former corrections officer, and a private detective.  The robber quickly arrives at the understandable conclusion that he should flee the scene.

"You need to get out of here before I blow your head off."
 

Branca, a lawyer and expert on the Law of Self Defense, provides his perspective on the unfolding situation with a step-by-step analysis.  One of the more cogent points he makes is:

It's worth noting that this is how the vast majority of defensive uses of firearms end – without a shot being fired, the defensive display of the firearm being sufficient to defuse the situation without injury to either party.

Branca goes on to write about the elements necessary to determine a proper armed defense response, points that one should grasp well prior to any such situation because it is typically spontaneous.  This leads to the usual 'what if' discussion revolving around the question of "Would the clerk have been justified in firing on the robber?"  The robber drawing his weapon and stating that the clerk needs to give him "all his money" would constitute a reasonable conclusion in my mind that the robber meant imminent harm, thereby granting permission to the clerk to blow him away by any means at his disposal. 

The comments section contains some good discussion as well – avail yourself of it (other than a needlessly prolonged 'who has the bigger gun' argument – and I mean 'gun' euphemistically). 

For my own input, it would appear that the robber would be 'under the influence', which to my mind would affect the reaction, and note that the clerk is carrying openly, with his handgun (apparently a Glock or variation) in a molded holster – Blackhawk or some such.  One would think that any self-respecting robber would want to notice that before starting a confrontation.  Other than gun stores hereabouts, I haven't seen store clerks carrying in a manner to provide optimum protection to themselves and the public, but then I live in a indigo-blue state that loves to intimidate the populace to make up for the fact that there are rather sensible laws left on the books from a time when the political climate involved more outside-the-beltway reality. 

Remember, the police show up only after a crime is committed. 

H/T to the Texas Scribbler.
 

Texas: Fort Hood Victims Were "Casualties of War" (Update: Effort to Overturn "Workplace Violence" Designation)

A Texas state agency has taken the latest initiative in the continuing conflict between Texas and the Obama administration, addressing the discrepancy of labeling the massacre at Fort Hood by the recently condemned self-declared jihadi Nidal Hasan as "workplace violence".

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has announced that the Texas Veterans Land Board, part of the network of state agencies that exemplify the generous attitude toward the sacrifices of Texas veterans, will now classify those killed and wounded at Fort Hood as being "casualties of war".  This specifically applies to the spouses of the victims.  According to Patterson:

This wasn't workplace violence – these were casualties of war and we're going to change the rules to give these families full access to VLB benefits.  We'll let the lawyers work out the details, but I intend to make sure we honor their sacrifice.

Each of the active and retired military members who died in the Fort Hood terrorist attack lost their life while assigned to duty in Texas or in support of the military in Texas.  They were physically on duty in Texas and chose to remain until the time of their death in defense of both the citizens of the United States and Texas.  Like Travis and Crockett, their spilled blood remains forever intermingled with Texas soil.  Their surviving spouses who are residents of Texas at the time of application should be eligible for VLB programs.



Fort Hood memorial service

 

The lines preceding Patterson's reference to two of the great heroes of the Texas Revolution speak parenthetically to the particulars of state law, and have the whiff of familiarity with my time dealing with Vernon's Annual Statutes.  The sentiment expressed, however, is pure Texas. 

Jerry Patterson (Texas A&M, Class of 1970) was an officer in artillery and aviation in the US Marine Corps, both active and reserve, retiring in 1993 as a Lieutenant Colonel.  He was elected to the Texas Senate in 1992, representing the area around Houston, and as the Texas Land Commissioner in 2002.  (All major state government positions are independently elected in Texas, which simply adds luster to the cachet of what some would call the almost Byzantine nature of Texas politics.)  Patterson's accomplishments in the Senate include his authorship of the state Concealed Carry Law, the properly environmental Coastal Management Plan, creation of the state Veterans Home Program (the VLB manages eight veterans homes and four state veterans cemeteries), and his chairmanship of the first Veterans Affairs Committee.

 

As Land Commissioner, he helps oversee what is likely the most generous compilation of state programs for support of veterans in the nation, and his passion for Texas history ensures that he takes his charge seriously.  (Texas' generosity includes the Hazlewood Act, an additional college GI Bill for Texas veterans, meaning those born in the state or who joined the military while in Texas.  This reflects the cultural identity that a Texan needn't have to be native born, but willing to take up the identity of a Texan and all that that entails.)

The Texas legal structure benefits from Texas having been a sovereign nation.  The Texas Land Commission, which includes the VLB, derives its powers from the original Texas General Land Office established after the independence of the Republic of Texas in 1836, and was created in part to ensure that veterans of the Texas Revolution against Mexico (and General Santa Anna in particular) received the land grants they were promised as a result of their service in that war and the ensuing military actions against Mexican army incursions into the Republic, and subsequent state after 1845.  That codified promise was updated in 1946 with the creation of the VLB, to ensure the same courtesy to veterans of World War II. 

The Obama administration, particularly in the form of the obdurate Attorney General Eric Holder, has been waging a petty war on Texas and the increasingly conservative political atmosphere of the state, and this continuing battle takes its form in Patterson's declaration of the obvious against the political expediency of the Obama nomenklatura.  Examples of this conflict include the season of wildfires that burned more than 2.5 million acres statewide in 2011 without a viable response of federal disaster aid; withholding of federal aid for the massive explosion in the town of West; battles over education funding; victory over the EPA when it violated the Clean Air Act; allocating the remaining space shuttles – remnants of the defunct American manned space program before Obama shut it down – to safely Democrat-voting cities, snubbing the obvious choice of Houston and the Johnson Space Center (You remember, don't you?  "Houston, this is Tranquility Base…"?).

Eric Holder, the day after the Supreme Court struck down the antiquated bondage in which some states had to ask permission of the federal government to affect voting laws (a status Constitutionally reserved to the states alone), announced that his Department of Justice would do precisely that anyway in the case of Texas and its move to require voter ID.  And in a related move, the Democrats have announced an all-out effort to target Texas in particular in order to move it from its conservative political make-up to a state that turns out predominantly blue results.

There is pre-eminently the political battle over border security, with the Texas border with Mexico covering over half the length of our 1954-mile frontier with that huge source of illegal drugs and massive illegal immigration, or as Jay Leno put it, "undocumented Democrats".  The press ballyhooed Obama allocating a temporary posting of a paltry 1200 National Guard troops to the southern border.  Only 286 of the troops were sent to Texas.  Governor Rick Perry railed against the federal abandonment of the issue, and called for more troops as well as enhanced security measures, and after being ignored on the issue, went so far as to press a letter to that effect onto Obama when he passed through the Austin airport on a campaign swing.  Obama refused to accept it and the ever-present Valerie Jarrett took it instead, with the same result of being pigeon-holed.

 

Perry turned down attendance at a useless briefing in Washington, DC, and an offer to briefly meet Obama in El Paso at another campaign stop, but that would have turned into another public dressing-down like Obama's 2010 State of the Union public berating of the Supreme Court over the Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission decision, or Obama strongly criticizing Paul Ryan's budget proposals at a speech at George Washington University in 2011 as Ryan sat directly in front of him in the front row of the audience.  (The last laugh was on Obama at the El Paso appearance, should anyone have caught it: he laughed at his border security critics, saying that they wanted to build a moat along the border, with alligators.  Obama keeps presenting us with a running gag of how ignorant he is of simple geography: the Texas border with Mexico consists of its entire length being comprised of the Rio Grande, a habitat of alligators from Laredo all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.) 

If the administration seeks a political benefit over the bodies of the victims of the massacre at Fort Hood, insisting that the incident was a crime and not an act of war in the continuing effort to change our historical jurisprudence, then at least Texas in the form here of Jerry Patterson will stand athwart the 'progress' of Obama's minions, as William Buckley put it, and yell 'stop'.

*****
Update: The effort continues, from the same source of Texas but on another front, attacking the "workplace violence" nonsense directly. 

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), Representative John Carter (R-Texas), and Representative Roger Williams (R-Texas) are introducing the Honoring The Fort Hood Heroes Act to the US Congress, which would overturn the designation of the Justice Department and make the shooting a terrorist attack. 

The bill would grant the victims the same status as those of the attacks of 11 September 2001, and make them eligible for a Purple Heart or a Defense Department civilian award, with the appropriate benefits accruing thereto.

Hasan Sentenced to Death

Nidal Hasan has been sentenced to death, by lethal injection, by the panel of thirteen officers (some news stories incorrectly call it a "military jury") and the military judge.  It is common in modern  American jurisprudence, and certainly in the press, to perform all manner of legal gymnastics to avoid a death sentence at all costs for essentially philosophical reasons, but not only is this sentence entirely legal, it is also just.

Death

Hasan (he has also lost his rank – 'dismissed', equivalent to a dishonorable discharge – so we no longer have any compulsion whatsoever to include what would otherwise be an 'honorific' title of Major) is convicted and sentenced for the premeditated murder of 13 people (14, if one includes – as I do – the fact that one of the victims was a pregnant Private Francheska Velez, 21, who begged him over and over to spare her baby) and attempted murder of the 32 wounded victims in the crowded clinic waiting room.  We should all be familiar with the fact that he continued to yell "Allahu akbar" ('God is greater [than all other gods]') throughout his rampage inflicted upon the unarmed and helpless crowd until he was finally cut down after ten minutes by responding policeman Mark Todd. 

Objections are already being raised by the usual crowd.  One of these, his anticipated martyrdom, was anticipated by the lead Trial Counsel (prosecutor) Colonel Mike Mulligan during closing arguments in the sentencing phase:

You cannot offer what you don't own; you cannot give away what is not yours.  He can never be a martyr because he has nothing to give….  Do not be misled; do not be confused; do not be fooled.  He is not giving his life.  We are taking his life.  This is not his gift to God; it's his debt to society.  He will not now and will not ever be a martyr.  He is a criminal, a cold-blooded murderer.  On 5 November he did not leave this earth, he remained to pay a price.  To pay a debt.  The debt he owes is his life.

Yet those who would piously defend his life will argue nonetheless that he will be a martyr to the cause, a "recruiting tool" for other Islamic Supremacists.  Soon after the attack of 11 September, which was not the beginning but only the most egregious of the attacks in the crusade against the West, we heard from these same people that "only ten percent" of the Muslim world was so allied to the cause of eliminating or subjugating the world to Islam.  I take small comfort indeed that the resultant 160 million jihadis are perfectly fine with killing me, killing my family, and destroying my religion and way of life.  These people are fanatics, and like all true fanatics they will not be swayed in one direction or another from their purpose, so it makes no difference to them whether Hasan is executed or not, just like the canard about Guantánamo somehow being an excuse for all the attacks before 11 September.

I also reject the Obama administration's refusal to characterize the crime as anything other than "workplace violence", in order to preserve the nicety of treating this as a crime and not an act of war, playing to their dogged insistence that all such threats be treated in a court of law as a civil crime and not within a military tribunal during a time of war.  Yet Hasan was not insane – a legal and not psychological term of art – in that he methodically planned out this attack over a considerable amount of time, and proclaimed his theoretical justification for such an attack to many others who were cowed by the toxic political correctness that would damage their careers if they were to utter anything that could (and would) be construed as anti-Islamic.  Hasan proclaimed himself as an enemy combatant, and that is all that is necessary to classify this as a war crime.  He effectively renounced his allegiance to the Army and to the United States by doing so, and his rights in this matter are so altered.

As for martyrdom being some attempt at a perverted sense of honor, he betrayed his oath to the Constitution and his native country as well as his oath to Hippocrates as a doctor to "do no harm".  He is without honor and can claim no such consideration.

We have abandoned any concept of a speedy trial (it has taken almost four years to arrive at this point) and we should expect no less in the slow trudge to that day when Hasan will finally be punished for his crime, just as applicable under the Law of Land Warfare as well as the UCMJ.

It will be said that on that day when he finally goes to his god that mercy should be shown to his soul.  That is within the purview of God.  I cannot, imperfect being that I am, for I can dredge up no mercy whatsoever for such a cold-blooded murderer.

John F Kennedy Addresses the Current Economic Dilemma

Very little is said these days about the economic opinions and actions of one of the great Democrats, John F Kennedy.  Popular commentary dwells on the fluff of his Camelot days, a term invented by Theodore White in the few days after Kennedy's funeral, and one still hears of the supposed Kennedy plan to withdraw troops from Viet Nam, both post-mortem, since refuted.  From the savvy "Let us continue …" campaign strategy of Lyndon Johnson after the assassination, including the 'Goldwater will use the bomb' spot, to the present day, Democrats use the Kennedy administration as a Golden Age of American democracy.

But with our current catastrophic economic policy, with massive debt getting larger and the only plan being to make it larger still, Kennedy is not the source that Democrats rely on to make their point about larger government being the panacea for all social ills.

Neil Cavuto unearthed the following exchange in an audio segment.  It exists today as an outtake from an NBC News interview with Kennedy on 9 September 1963, just over two months from the day that he would be assassinated, by the iconic Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.  (The relevant portion in the video is between 7:00 and 9:30.)  Compare Kennedy's take on a major across-the-board tax cut, a move opposed by his own party, and compare it to today's eat-the-rich tax policy of Obama:

Brinkley: Mr President, Harry Truman was out for his walk this morning and he said he did not think we should have a tax cut until we get the budget balanced, and the other day Senator Humphrey was saying in the Senate that what the American people think is true is often more important than what actually is true.  What, in view of that, what do you think about cutting taxes while the budget is still in deficit? 

Kennedy: The reason the government is in deficit is because you've got more than 4 million people unemployed, and because for the last 5 years you've had rather sluggish growth, much slower than any other Western country.

I'm in favor of a tax cut because I'm concerned that if we don't get the tax cut that we are going to have an increase in unemployment and that we may move into a period of economic downturn.

            We had a recession in '58, a recession in 1960.  We've done pretty well since then, but we still have over 4 million unemployed.  And I think this tax cut can give the stimulus to our economy over the next 2 or 3 years.  I think it will provide for greater national wealth.  I think it will reduce unemployment.  I think it will strengthen our gold position.  So I think that the proposal we've made is responsible and in the best interests of the country. 

Huntley: The affirmative economic response to Britain's tax cut seemed to be almost immediate.  Would it be as immediate in this country, do you think? 

Kennedy: I think it would be.  Interestingly enough, the British came forward with their tax cut in April, passed it within a month.  They have experienced economic benefits from it.  Unemployment's been substantially reduced.

            They have a larger deficit than we do.  Yet the only criticism was that it wasn't enough.  Every… nearly every economist has supported us.  I think it's in the best economic interests of the country, unless this country just wants to drag along, have 5 or 6 million people unemployed, have profits reduced, have economic prospects… have our budget unbalanced by a much larger proportion.  The largest unbalanced budget in the history of this country was in 1958 because of the recession -- $12.5 billion.

            The fact of the matter is that, of course, government expenditures do go up in every administration, but the country's wealth goes up.  President Eisenhower spent $185 billion more than President Truman.  But the country was much wealthier.  It is much wealthier now than it was in the last year of President Eisenhower's administration.

I think our economic situation can be very good.  I think what we have proposed is a responsible answer to a problem which has been part of our economic life for 5 or 6 years, and that is slack, failure to grow sufficiently, relatively high unemployment.  And if you put that together with the fact that we have to find 35,000 new jobs a week, I think the situation in this country calls for a tax reduction this year.  [pauses in original]

Times have changed from the early 1960s, certainly.  Kennedy cites the public concern with the unemployment rate, which at the time of the interview was at 5.4%, compared to 7.4% now.  If the economy had to grow by 35,000 jobs per week then, it must grow, using the same calculations, by 75,000 jobs now.  A 1963 dollar is worth $7.55 now.  There are more variables to compare, but that will give you a start.

Some Thoughts on Rat Bounties

I came across a news item about the township of Southgate, Michigan and its problem of an infestation of rats.  The story doesn't specify, but I notice that the town abuts the southern edge of Detroit, which immediately brings to mind that perhaps even the rats are electing to desert this urban equivalent of a sinking ship.

At any rate, the story describes one resident's improvised method of trapping the varmints: a bucket two-thirds full of water with some grass clippings spread on top, baited with peanut butter, and a small wooden strip of wood serving as a rat ramp to provide easy access, a microcosmic drowning pool that would appeal to the lemming in every rodent.  His tally so far that day was fourteen. 

His is a small example of the compulsive drive that seeks to better himself and thereby also others.  He was motivated initially by the idea that he should take his harvest of vermin to city hall in the hope that the fetid mess would provide some negative motivation for the city to "do something".  He was further motivated by somehow discovering an old law from 1919 (shown in the televised story) that put a bounty of 10¢ a head on rats, a not-insignificant sum in those days and one that would still appeal to the gentleman in the story due to the target-rich environment.  The mayor is interviewed and replies that (1) he is predictably "unaware" of such a law but more importantly that (2) the city is somewhat constrained in the magnitude of services which it is supposed to provide for the commonweal and instead suggests that the citizens may wish to take it upon themselves to eradicate whatever rats that are thereabout to the extent that they may – nothing after all prevents people from taking their own best interest to heart in circumstances such as these. 

The gentleman is moved by the offer of a mere dime per head, yet other communities offer far more.  The nearby Oregon settlement on Puget Island (served ironically from the state of Washington), offers from $5 to $8 per rat, and Louisiana (as we were recently reminded by that cunningly popular Duck Dynasty) offers $5 for Nutria, a particularly insidious rat Goliath.  Other states and communities offer such bounties, and even St Claire Shores, only a few miles from Southgate, is considering a $5 bounty as well. 

Nutria (Did I say 'big'?)

His remarks remind me of the aftereffects of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, a category 5 storm and one of the top three hurricanes of the 20th century, which smashed through southern Florida (receiving an enormous amount of press coverage) and then crashed into Louisiana (which did not).  I put together a church group of volunteers that traveled to Berwick, Louisiana to aid with the cleanup, and the contrast of the attitudes between what we saw in Louisiana ("Another hurricane.  Well, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.") and the televised reactions in Florida were striking.  What stuck in my mind as an example of Florida was the scene of one woman sitting in front of what had been her house, complaining that the government simply wasn't quick enough in providing aid, and cited the fact that there were dead dogs around that needed to be disposed of.  My mental reaction was that, if getting rid of dead dogs was a priority for her, then maybe she should consider getting off her duff and burying them herself, because everyone was rather busy trying to restore civilisation.  At that moment, my reaction was tinged by the fact that I was almost literally "up to my ass in alligators", and I dwelt on the fact (as I have so often had the opportunity to do) that a strong dose of reality has a way of focusing one's mind on the truly important priorities of life. 

In thinking on the pest control improvisator in the story, it brings to mind the famous observation of the great Adam Smith and his classic Wealth of Nations, wherein he says: 

Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can.  He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.... He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention.  Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it.  By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.  I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

In doing so, Smith reminds us that the individual most commonly must surmount "a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operation."

Yet Mark Twain has another observation on the subject, and just as germane:

[T]he best way to increase wolves in America, rabbits in Australia, and snakes in India, is to pay a bounty on their scalps.  Then every patriot goes to raising them.