Impossible Scissors

John Karr, the pedophile who confessed to the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey, will be back in the US tomorrow. While he will be headed for Boulder, CO for questioning and possible charges, it should be clear that Boulder has nothing on him. Once again, the law enforcement agencies of Boulder have been barking up the wrong tree.

It should become clear, based on Karr's previous obsession with the Polly Klass murder, that he is obsessed with the murders of young girls. While the Boulder District Attorney's office says that Karr knows details of the case that were not made public, it's more likely that Karr's obsession has allowed him to track down the most obscure details of the Ramsey murder, including some that had not been released by the Boulder police or district attorney. Of course, those details may have been leaked by people close to the investigation, making them public knowledge (no matter how obscure they may be.)

I feel bad for the Ramsey family, having been given false hope that justice was just around the corner. It's bad enough that Patsy Ramsey was named as a suspect and was never able to fully clear her name in the court of public opinion. To have the officials in Boulder now creating false hope for the Ramseys is unforgiveable.

Much of the blame must rest with the media, who latched on to a rumor and blew it out of proportion, much like they did with the West Virginia miners earlier in the year. Karr's arrest should have been played down until more facts were known. I knew that Karr wasn't the murderer from the moment I heard his confession.

It's impossible to say what motivated Karr to confess, whether it be his obsession with JonBenet or a desire for attention. It's clear that he's not playing with a full deck. It should be said that pedophiles do not operate in a logical way. In any event, we should be happy that Karr will be able to face justice in California for his outstanding child pornography charges. But the law enforcement agencies in Boulder need to start looking down alternate paths in the search for JonBenet Ramsey's murderer.

When does the phrase "ceasefire" not mean "ceasefire"? That's the situation currently existing in South Lebanon. Even though both sides have agreed in principle to this cease-fire, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah says that his militia will continue to resist Israel in the occupied territories. That doesn't sound like a real ceasefire to me. Small groups of Hezbollah are following Nasrallah's rhetoric, and their attacks on Israeli soldiers have met with the demise of these militiamen.

While the long-term victor of this conflict has yet to be determined, Hezbollah has clearly won in the short term. When President Bush talks about the end of Hezbollah's "state within a state," he is correct for all the wrong reasons. Hezbollah is no longer distinct from Lebabese society. It has established itself as the widely-praised saviors of Lebanon. This development comes little more than a year after Hezbollah marginalized itself by siding with Syria during the Cedar Revolution. It can truly be said that Israel is the greatest gift that proponents of Arab unity could have ever asked for.

As for any kind of peace in southern Lebanon, it will likely be short-lived. In a few days time, 30,000 Israelis will be replaced by 15,000 Lebabese Army and 15,000 UN peacekeepers. We can count on the Lebanese to sympathize with Hezbollah. The UN peacekeepers, on the other hand, have been defined as a "defensive" force. This likely means that they will only use force if they come under direct attack. Will these French-led peacekeepers take action when Hezbollah tries to resume rocket attacks from Tyre? Will Hezbollah declare holy war against France and the UN? Frankly, I expect to see a repeat of Beirut in '83. Within months, the UN force in Lebanon will dissolve, and war will break out again.

A while ago, I came to the conclusion that diplomacy, like bargaining, boils down to the degrees of leverage that each of the players can exert. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, the US embarassed the Soviets with the photo recon of the missile sites, which was presented to the UN. The Soviets backed down, in exchange for the covert withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey.

From Iran to North Korea, the US is negotiating from a position of vulnerability because we have no leverage. Iran and North Korea know that we cannot launch a full-scale military option against their countries; nor can we inflict real economic damage (for Iran, it's because of our thirst for oil and our UN "allies" who refuse to sanction Iran; for North Korea, it's because China props up the crumbling Kim regime in the name of regional stability.) At the same time, Iran can strike at the US (our troops in Iraq) and Korea can strike our South Korean allies. It's easy to see how these rogue states can dominate the debate with the United States.

Now the table turns to Lebanon, whose government has rejected a US-French peace proposal. Lebanon wants Israel to leave Lebanon before a French-led peacekeeping force can take control of southern Lebanon. The US and allies want the Israelis to hand the area over to the peacekeepers with no gap in coverage. The difference between the plans is stark. Lebanon's "withdraw first" demand allows a period of time where Hezbollah is free to return to south Lebanon. The US-France plan wants to ensure that Hezbollah is denied this opportunity. Seeing as how nobody at the UN has been willing to enforce the resolutions which call on Hezbollah to disarm, the US-France plan is a welcome step towards restoring real peace in Lebanon.

My immediate reaction is to call Lebanese president Fouad Siniora an idiot for turning down this peace proposal. After all, his country is being hammered from the air and from the ground. The best he can do is to slow the progress of the Israeli Army. He has no leverage to negotiate for a more favorable ceasefire. However, the influence that Hezbollah terrorists are yielding over the Siniora government cannot be overstated. Hezbollah could easily bring his government down if he doesn't allow them their enclave in the south. The relationship between the Siniora government and Hezbollah also reflects the stature that the terrorist organization has taken on in the midst of Israeli invasion. Hezbollah is widely viewed as an Arab national resistance organization rather than a band of Shiite militants. This has been recently reinforced within groups like the Lebanese Christians, who have previously been reluctant to support a group that wants to oppress non-Shiites.

Unfazed, Israel is vowing to push further into Lebanon. If the Lebanese won't accept an immediate peacekeeping force, Israel will continue to destroy Lebanon. The Israelis continue to build leverage to use at the bargaining table. But if the stubbornness of Hezbollah and the Lebanese are an immovable object in the way of peace, then all the leverage in the world will not allow Israel to move it.

With little media attention being paid, the US is redeploying its forces in Iraq into the Baghdad area to quell the intensifying sectarian violence, in hopes of preventing an all-out war between Sunnis and Shiites. Yet our force levels in Iraq have always been at a very precarious level: too small to provide the needed level of security, and too large to be tolerated by Iraqis. For three years we have been at a force level that attracts violence while not providing a sufficient level of security.

In November 2004, the US waged another offensive at taking back Fallujah, which had fallen into insurgent hands. While the operation was a success, two observations must be taken into account. First, the victory came at a very high cost in terms of American lives, and the city was so devastated by the fighting that it may never fully recover. The other observation is that, by massing our forces in Fallujah, areas like Mosul were left with insufficient force levels, and violence flared up again. Making things even harder for us this time around is a new Iraqi government which feels that it can dictate restrictions on the tactics that we need to establish security in the capitol.

Our force levels haven't changed, and the results in Baghdad will likely not be any different. We may be able to make the capitol more secure, but it will come at the expense of the rest of Iraq (especially the southern areas where Shiite militias have infiltrated the police forces.) We are playing a game of whack-a-mole, moving from hotspot to hotspot while new trouble spots emerge behind our backs.

The most successful military occupation in recent history was the American rebuilding of postwar Japan. While this period of our history is worthy of a lengthy discourse, it should be briefly noted that it required 350,000 Americans in country, plus 40,000 soldiers from the British Commonwealth. Can we field that level of forces in Iraq? Perhaps, if you're counting the fledgling Iraqi army in those numbers. But in terms of expertise, the Iraqi Army has a LONG way to go before we can match the proficiency of the force that occupied Japan. (There are plenty of other reasons why the Japanese occupation succeeded, which will be discussed in a future post.)

In short, there aren't sufficient forces in Iraq to accomplish the mission. In fact, the Army isn't big enough to do Iraq correctly, and it hasn't been big enough to do the job since the Cold War ended. Because most of the Army is either deployed, returning from theater, or preparing to return to theater, there really aren't any more troops to give to the fight. The Army needs to expand. Congress and the American people should be prepared to support the costs (fiscal and human) that come from doing so if they believe the mission is worth it.

Then again, maybe Iraqis need to have a civil war. Sunnis and Shiites have been at each others' throats for centuries; perhaps they will learn to tolerate each other after seeing several million Iraqis killed in a civil war. Civil Wars aren't pretty (with the American Civil War being one of history's least messy civil wars,) but they are often decisive events. In that case, the best we can do is to create an enclave in Northern Iraq where Kurds, Christians and other minorities in Iraq can flee the Shiite-Sunni war.

America wants to believe in Floyd Landis. As the heir apparent to Lance Armstrong, Landis seemingly came from behind and crushed his opponents on the July 20 stage to win the Tour De France, despite a painfully destroyed hip that will need replacement.

If Landis had dreamed of fame and fortune, it all evaporated when Landis tested positive for elevated testosterone levels, reflecting use of synthetic testosterone on July 20. While Landis's lawyer has tried to dismiss the result as a sign of dehydration, the sports experts have been much more condemning of the test result.

While I have no background in biochemistry, I have plenty of questions to ask before we dismiss Landis as another Barry Bonds and strip him of his yellow jersey. 1) While both the A & B urine samples were tested, why were they tested at the same lab? Could another lab run the tests on these samples to validate the first lab's results? 2) How long does synthetic testosterone stay in the body? If the July 20 sample shows synthetic testosterone, shouldn't there be some trace of it in the July 21 sample? 3) What benefit does a one-day injection of testosterone provide? Athletes have to be doping with testosterone for months to see a benefit. 4) Could this positive result be a false positive from the use of a legal product, such as a steroid-based topical cream?

In my mind, Floyd Landis will be innocent until proven guilty. The results of lab tests from a sole French laboratory aren't sufficient to prove guilt in my mind. I want to see independent validation of the tests before we throw Floyd to the dogs.

Jack Murtha, who has served as judge and jury in publicly convicting the Marines in the Haditha Incident, is now being named in a libel suit brought by Sgt. Frank Wuterich. The goal of the suit is twofold: to clear the good names of the Marines who have been linked to Haditha, and to force Jack Murtha to reveal the "anonymous sources" which are telling him that the Haditha Marines murdered Iraqis in cold blood. Both aims will greatly assist Wuterich and his fellow Marines in an anticipated court martial.

If Murtha speaks out about his anonymous sources, he will likely divulge the names of high-ranking military leaders who want to see the Marines railroaded. Right now the Pentagon is in damage control mode; they see Iraqis angry over this incident, and they want to throw somebody to the dogs in a vain attempt to show Iraqis that the American justice system works. The problem is that 1) there is no evidence that these Marines violated their rules of engagement or the laws of armed conflict, and 2) the Iraqis don't want American justice, they want Islamic justice.

Jack Murtha is not alone in biasing the public against these Marines. Plenty of military leaders, many anonymously, have leaked statements to the media which make these Marines look guilty. Even Marine General Michael Hagee has made statements prejudging these Marines.

Unless the Iraqis consent to exhuming the dead from Haditha, which they currently refuse to do, there's no way that any sane court can allow the prosecution of the Haditha Marines. With no way of determining whose bullets were in the bodies or the range at which they were shot, all we are left with is hearsay from a group of Iraqis who hate us with their hearts and souls. This may be how Iraqi justice is dished out, but in America this cannot be allowed to stand.

Nevertheless, with the power of the Pentagon and the media against them, the Haditha Marines face an uphill battle. Hopefully their legal struggle will metaphorically resemble the charge up Mount Suribachi.

When The Passion of the Christ was first released in Feb 2004, it was criticized by many as anti-Semitic propaganda. After all, the passion plays of old were largely motivated by bigotry against Jews (a tradition which was much stronger in the old Orthodox church than the Catholic church.) At the time, I dismissed these allegations, and found Mel Gibson's movie to be a powerful and artistic depiction of our Savior's sacrifice for us.

Over two years later, Mel Gibson and anti-Semitism are back in the media as a result of Mel's horrible proclivity for drunk driving and verbal tirades. It does make me question what were some of Mel's motivations in making The Passion of the Christ. At the same time, I usually try to separate the artist as a person from the art. I still think that The Passion of the Christ is a fine movie. In fact, I'm also intrigued by Mel's upcoming Apocalypto, and I'll probably watch a pirated version once it's complete (I have no desire to subsidize Mel Gibson by buying a ticket.)

As for the artist himself, Mel Gibson will have to engage in the Catholic tradition of examining his conscience and atoning for his sins. The most immediate danger is that his alcoholism not only puts himself at risk, but he harms his family, and he could kill innocents every time he gets behind the wheel while intoxicated. Beyond that, he should examine his conscience and determine how he honestly feels about the Jewish people. Is Mel some nut who believes that a Jewish cabal is conspiring against him? Does he really believe that Jews are responsible for mankind's sad history of warfare (which would put him in the same boat as Juan Cole and Eric Cartman)? These are issues that Mel will have to answer for himself.

Ironically, The Passion of the Christ holds valuable lessons for Mel Gibson in the midst of the anti-Semitism scandal. By putting his faith in The Lord's hands, Mel Gibson can still find spiritual redepmtion from the dark abyss he has fallen into.