Impossible Scissors

Producer Mark Ronson has confirmed that Amy Winehouse started work on the theme song for the next James Bond adventure, Quantum of Solace, but claims that it would take "a miracle of science" for her to finish it. The story meshes with the prediction of my co-worker who expected Ms. Winehouse to be "either dead or in jail" by the time the new Bond flick hits the silver screen.

If the rumor is true, it should be asked who else is appropriate to sing a James Bond theme song. I would posit that Sara Bareilles would be a perfect choice. While she's a relative newcomer to the world of pop music, her brand of moody, piano-driven jazz-pop is perfect for setting the tone to the next Bond movie. It doesn't hurt that her big-label debut album, Little Voice, was probably the best album of 2007.

Sara Bareilles's knack for writing lyrics that are sassy, defiant and still upbeat would pay off in spades for a Bond theme. Add to that the studio sense of veteran Bond producer David Arnold and we could have a real winner on our hands.

After much speculation on the part of fanboys everywhere, it's been announced that the new X-Files movie will be entitled The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The plot will not involve the alien conspiracy that characterized the long-running sci-fi drama; the topic of Fox Mulder's faith will be a central theme within the self-contained storyline.

Many of the self-contained "monster of the week" episodes of The X-Files dealt with issues of faith. They usually revolved around the theme that some things in life are truly miraculous and beyond human scientific comprehension, serving as articles of faith. The issue of faith was primarily addressed with Agent Dana Scully, a scientist and an initial skeptic in Mulder's "Alien Conspiracy" who often turns to her dogmatic Catholic upbringing when her faith in science is shaken. For Fox Mulder, his faith is primarily placed in his desire to believe in the alien conspiracy. He believes in a Deist, non-interventionist God who 'serves as the stats keeper in the universal baseball game.'

The further exploration of Mulder's faith is an interesting avenue for a series that has seemingly exhausted the realm of fantastic ideas. I really hope that this movie makes me want to believe in The X-Files as a franchise again. After six years off television, I hope that Chris Carter's batteries are recharged to the point where he can deliver a movie worthy of a great franchise. The X-Files was one of my favorite dramas of all time, alongside Tour of Duty and House. Let's hope that Chris Carter & co. can rekindle the magic and make us all want to believe again.

Charlton Heston was laid to rest on Saturday, a week after his passing. He was a great American who will be often imitated, but never duplicated.

As an actor, Charlton Heston rose from humble beginnings to become a Shakespearean actor with a penchant for depicting larger-than-life characters. He gave us stoic legends like Moses, Judah Ben-Hur, Marc Antony, El Cid, and John the Baptist. Charlton Heston animated characters like Robert Neville (The Omega Man,) Captain Garth (Midway,) and Robert Thorne (Soylent Green.) He was unforgettable as the bitter and cynical George Taylor in Planet of the Apes. His career spanned six decades, with a pause for his service in the second World War.

As an activist, he could best be remembered as a man who loved America and loved freedom. As a civil rights marcher in the 60's and president of the Screen Actors Guild, he might have been pigeon-holed as a member of the political left during that era. But his involvement in the National Rifle Association, culminating with his service as president from 1998-2002, led many to dismiss him as a "right-wing wacko."

The defining trait of Charlton Heston is that he believed not only in the American nation, but he believed in the power of Americans, as individuals, to take control of their lives for the better. That belief in the power of the individual's spirit should be neither "right" nor "left." It should be a core belief of all Americans.

Nearly four years after being captured by Iraqi insurgents, Sergeant Matt Maupin is finally coming home. Obviously it's not the news we wanted to hear. But as hope for finding Matt alive faded with time, the need to bring him home one way or another never wavered.

The final details of Matt Maupin's life may never be known, and the Army probably won't reveal what it does know out of respect for the family and to protect ongoing operations and intelligence sources. But it is testament to the tenacity and dedication of the Army personnel who worked tirelessly to give Matt Maupin the best homecoming they could manage under very challenging circumstances.

The only certainty about Matt Maupin's last moments in captivity is that he was an American soldier, he defied his captors, and he resisted until the bitter end. He will be missed by all, and our prayers should be with his son and the rest of his family.

It should be noted that two American soldiers remain missing, not mentioned in the AP story. They are Specialist Alex Jimenez and Private Byron Fouty, abducted during a May 12, 2007 ambush by al Qaeda on their outpost. Undeterred by fear and doubt and sadness, we must continue to search for them and ensure they come home, one way or another.
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In other Iraq news, the Washington spin machine is already at work trying to manipulate the Basra situation as "proof" that the surge has failed. It must be noted that Basra has not been subjected to the Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy. It was subject to the British zone of occupation, where the British tried "soft" counterinsurgency tactics that were aimed at building goodwill. The tangible result is that Shiite militiamen grew in numbers and firepower, drove out police and other government authorities, and assumed de facto control of Basra. By summer 2005, violence against the Brits in Basra spiked, and Royal Army forces retreated to defensive positions which made it impossible to deal with the militias.

While the Shiite militias grew in military strength, they were also empowered politically through gains in the polls. They control a sizable bloc of the Iraqi parliament, hold key cabinet positions, and have the power to bring the fragile government to a crashing halt.

The genius of Moqtada al Sadr lies not in his military tactics, but his political maneuvering. He understands that America must keep the Baghdad government together, he understands that America is too religiously-sensitive to give pursuit when his militia takes refuge in religious shrines, he exploits sectarian violence to undermine the American position while building political support for his militia, and he understands the American public's reluctance for continued warfare. His militia is a poor excuse for a military unit, but all of its tactics thus far have created the desired political effects: degrading security, furthering sectarian tension, and discrediting America's efforts to build a broad-based, parliamentary government.

I truly believe that Moqtada's political power is an insurmountable obstacle to military action against his militia at this stage in the game. He can only be destroyed in the same way he has built power: politically. He needs to be depicted as a sower of sectarian violence, rather than the solution to the needs of Iraqis. During provincial elections this October, the only means for undermining him is a broad-based coalition of Sunni nationalists, Kurdish democrats, and Shiite secularists. Forging such a coalition will be extremely difficult, but the leaders of all these factions must be made to realize that the alternative is Moqtada al Sadr gaining a plurality of seats in parliament and establishing himself as Tehran's enforcer over Iraq. While I don't hold too much hope in the short term for using "soft" power to peel away elements of the Sadrist movement, it's worth trying as the only viable strategy in the run-up to elections.

Assuming that the US and its allies can pull off a miracle and unseat the Sadrists at the polls, there's always the risk that the Mahdi Army would be unleashed in full force. If that's what goes down, the gloves will have to come off, and the militia will have to be destroyed militarily.

The most foolish actor here is Nouri al Maliki, for ordering a military operation which would certainly fracture his government. While he and his army showed initiative, it was the wrong fight at the wrong time for the embattled government. The only upside is that the use of Iraqi Army and US airpower working in synergy is a model for future counterinsurgency in Iraq.

With a Hitler-esque smiley face and the title "Liberal Fascism" gracing the cover, a casual political observer might view Jonah Goldberg's new tome as a work of contradictory hyperbole. But after reading the introduction, it becomes clear that Goldberg is laying out a serious and somewhat-scholarly argument that modern American liberalism is a sibling of the Fascist movements that swept Italy and Germany prior to World War II. His central thesis is that, while "fascism" is a political movement with no agreed-to definition, it can best be summarized as "the religion of the state." The book's title comes from a speech by socialist author H.G. Wells, and the cover illustration was suggested by George Carlin during the course of an anti-Bush tirade.

Part partisan-polemic and part historical exposition, Liberal Fascism looks at the philosophies that fed into American progressivism (from the French Revolution to the writings of Georges Sorel) and argues that the same beliefs underpinned the European fascists. Jonah Goldberg does not argue that fascism is inherently-evil; he simply claims that it is similar to the economic planning and government interventionism that are advocated by progressives and modern liberals. He also tries to dispel the belief that fascism and communism are polar opposites; that fascism is a nationalist-socialism while Leninist communism takes more of an internationalist flavor, but Goldberg argues that both are populist and leftist movements.

In response to Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist It Can't Happen Here, Jonah Goldberg points out that it HAS happened here. Whether you call it Wilsonian war socialism, the New Deal, the Great Society, or Compassionate Conservatism, America has often strayed from its founding principles of limited government in the form of "smiley-face, nice fascism."

The book's strongest suit is the fascinating history it dredges up, exposing historical facts that have been swept under the rug (such as Nazi animal-rights laws, or Rexford Tugwell's admission that the New Deal was a logical extension of Hoover Administration policies.) But the demands of brevity and the need to selectively choose historical facts to fit the thesis often erode the historical discussion. Goldberg often speaks in generalities and omits concrete examples when making his points. His chapter on "Liberal Racism" and eugenics could have benefited by talking about America's flirtations with imperialism at the turn of the last century, particularly in regards to the Philippines.

In spite of its partisan pretenses, Liberal Fascism is an entertaining and educational read. The hyperbole suggested by the cover is kept in check repeatedly throughout the text with sober assessments and monologues on the points the author wants the reader to take away. I give it four of five stars, but I'd only recommend it to libertarians and conservative believers in small government. Jonah Goldberg argues very effectively that the Italian and German fascist movements sprang from the same progressive ideals that were active in America, albeit with a twist imposed by the cultural conditions that existed in Italy and Germany between the World Wars. While he attempts to label fascism as a movement of the political left, he inadvertently demonstrates how the labels of "left" and "right" are utterly devoid of meaning in our society.

In a major foreign policy address today, Senator John McCain called for a "League of Democracies" that would address the world's problems. It's unclear if this would be a formal alliance, but it would appear to offer a stark difference from the perceived unilateralism of the Bush Administration. But in a sense it represents a similar preference to President Bush's formations of "Coalitions of the Willing" rather than working with the United Nations.

Whether formal or informal, a "League of Democracies" has potential to be a much greater force for good than the United Nations. Because the UN has always grouped together nations with diametrically-opposed interests, it has rarely become more than a debating society or a humanitarian organization. The future of American foreign policy must see the country cooperating with nations that share our common values, in pursuit of common interests. Senator McCain foresees such a league as a means of fighting the global spread of AIDS, alleviating the suffering in Darfur, and even combating climate change (hopefully in a more equitable manner than the Kyoto Accord, in which China was relieved of all responsibility for fighting emissions.)

For the far right, the League of Democracies is one step closer to a "One World Government." For the far left, a League of Democracies undermines the UN (which assumes the UN is much more effective than it actually is,) and excludes "Illiberal Democracies." For example, Iran is nominally democratic, but the elected leadership serves at the pleasure of the clerical autocracy. And the appearance of democracy in Putin's Russia seems to crumble on a daily basis as freedoms erode. For that reason, I would favor an informal "League of Democracies" that is assembled on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than a standing body whose membership is open for acrimonious debate.

In some ways, a League of Democracies already exists. It's called NATO, and its chief drawback is that it only applies to the US, Canada and Europe. I have long thought that NATO should be replaced with a new alliance between the current NATO nations and other democracies like Japan, Australia, South Korea, and India. Such an alliance would be better equipped to deal with the global threats posed by terrorism, rogue states, and humanitarian crises.

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Post script: Impossible Scissors is proud to add Meghan McCain's blog, McCain Blogette, to the blogroll. It's a quirky and somewhat-irreverent look from the inside of the McCain campaign.

The recent fighting between the Mahdi Army and US & Iraqi forces, taking place in key Shiite cities across Iraq, represents a critical moment in the recent history of that nation, and is probably the most worrisome point in that war in at least a year.

At stake is the cease-fire with the Mahdi Army that has helped to make the country more peaceful during the past six months. The current violence stems in part from the militia's resistance to US-backed operations against "rogue groups," the milspeak used for Iranian-backed militiamen who operate outside of Moqtada al Sadr's authority. At this point I am surprised that Moqtada al Sadr even considers the cease-fire to still be in effect.

The fighting in the southern city of Basra represents an effort by the Maliki government and the army to act against the militias in a way that benefits the Iraqi nation. The Iraqi Army must be able to pull off large-scale counterinsurgency operations, with little support from the US, in order for America to begin substantial drawdowns. The Faustian bargain here is that the Iraqi army and government are trying to assert themselves in a way that could potentially shatter the fragile peace brought on by the surge.

Tonight, PBS concluded its special two-part episode of Frontline which chronicled the battle for Iraq. One of the most striking aspects in the documentary recalls the instances in summer and fall 2003, when Jerry Bremmer and LtGen Ricardo Sanchez argued for an Iraqi-led operation to neutralize Modtada al Sadr. While the two men could agree on little during their service in Iraq, they both saw the once-obscure cleric as a ruthless killer who represented a long-term threat to Iraq's stability. On the other side of the token, both Condi Rice and Don Rumsfeld (who, like Bremer & Sanchez, could find little common ground,) tragically let the requests to eliminate Moqtada fall on deaf ears. America now finds itself in a situation where this unpredictable and audacious cleric with Iranian backing is feeding off Shiite frustrations and challenging the authority of the Baghdad government.

If the cease-fire breaks, the results will probably not bode well for America's long-term plans. If past experience is an indicator, the Mahdi Army consists of zealous masses with little ability to make a military impact. They will take massive casualties and retreat until they seek shelter in religious shrines. But a large-scale Shiite uprising will dash any hopes of holding provincial elections this fall, and any chance that oil legislation will pass through the parliament that has so many Sadrists in its ranks. It will likely inspire simultaneous revolts by Sunni groups who are losing patience with America, and allow al Qaeda to take advantage of the chaos.

The Iraqi Government and Iraqi Army do need to assert themselves with victories over enemies that all Iraqis despise, like al Qaeda. But Moqtada al Sadr has too much popular support to allow the Iraqi Army to go toe-to-toe with his militia. He can only be discredited when the Iraqi Government and Iraqi Army rise up to meet the needs of the people.