Impossible Scissors

John Kerry is totally unapologetic after saying that if you don't do well in school "you'll be stuck in Iraq." The comments were probably intended as a juvenile jab at the president, but the current and former members of our armed forces don't find it too funny. If Senator Kerry viewed the troops as anything other than a political pawn, he would apologize for any ill-will caused by his remarks, and he should promise to word his statements more diplomatically in the future. Perhaps he should actually visit Iraq to deliver his apology. For some reason, I doubt we'll be seeing that.

Furthermore, it's downright hypocritical for Senator Kerry to equate academic failure with the decision to go to war. After all, Senator Kerry voted to authorize this war, back when it was politically expedient to do so. Are we to believe that he suddenly went dumb when his name was called to vote? And then he magically gained 50 IQ points when it became politically expedient to oppose the war? What kind of fools does John Kerry play us for?

John Kerry's mishandling of this debacle is creating a mini-quagmire which may consume him and harm his fellow Democrats. When Americans take off the partisan blinders and look at John Kerry, all they'll see is a political opportunist with few, if any, core beliefs or values. Democrats would be wise not only to distance themselves from Kerry personally, but to do some soul-searching and decide to take a stand for something out of principle rather than political expediency.

Over the weekend, the Pakistani government claimed that it had killed eighty militants in an airstrike (believed by some to be an American Predator rather than a Pakistani helicopter) on a madrass. The religious school in question was located just a few miles from the location where Ayman al Zawahiri was believed to be hiding during a January airstrike.

The Pakistani reaction was that America had bumbled yet again, and innocent schoolboys were killed. The sycophants in the western media were quick to pick up on that whopper, without prefacing the Pakistani claims with due skepticism.

Madrassas specialize in teaching only one course: Islamist Hatred 101. The students (all men, as the assholes we're up against bar women from schooling) are being trained as the next generation of Jihadis and suicide bombers. It's truly sad to see Islamic societies throwing generation after generation into the trash in their misguided jihad, when they should be looking inwards and fixing the problems that lie within Islamic societies.

Over the weekend, one madrass was destroyed, its students and teachers martyred. The terror wars will not end until Pakistanis, Saudis and all other Muslims reject the religious hatred that feeds the madrassas. Muslims should close down the madrassas themselves after spurning everything that these evil institutions stand for.

It would appear that the US is focusing its efforts in hunting down Ayman al Zawahiri, and apparently the intelligence on his whereabouts is a lot better than whatever we know about Osama bin Laden. Eventually we'll find this asshole, blow his balls off, and send his worthless ass back to Allah. The sad part is that Americans have grown increasingly cynical about this effort. Irrespective of the operational restraints that Pakistan places on the US military, Americans will say that George Bush's incompetence is responsible for not killing the top al Qaeda leaders. If America should succeed in killing an al Qaeda leader, cynical Americans will say that it's an October Surprise, an attempt by George Bush to boost his poll numbers.

Americans need to rally together again, as they did when our nation was attacked, and support the killing of the remaining al Qaeda leaders. Americans must also keep the faith. In the same fashion that Mohammed Atef and Abu Musab al Zarqawi were greased from the air, the same will probably happen for bin Laden, Zawahiri, and even Mullah Omar. America is bigger than George Bush; it's the sum of its people's greatness. If America keeps the faith as a nation, America will triumph over Islamist fascism.

Michael J. Fox's recent ads in favor of federally-funded stem cell research (and Rush Limbaugh's accusations of being off-the-meds) have muddied what is already a toxically-polluted debate in Washington and across the country. Unfortunately, the issue is being framed as one of whether stem cell research should be legal and practical. Instead, it should be cast as a question of whether government funds will be used to pay for the research.

At the same time the ads were hitting television, I watched an episode of PBS's "The American Experience" which talked about the development of In-Vitro Fetilization. It's not ironic that IVF is the source for the embryos that are currently used for stem cell research. It also happens to be the case that IVF in America advanced based on private funding rather than government grants.

The debate in this country has been a negative one about "baby-killing Democrats" against "anti-science, religious-right Republicans." This debate is both false and destructive. Stem Cell research is going to carry on regardless of what party is in charge or who is funding it. The question is whether the federal government will contribute money to it.

As a proponent of the private sector, I feel that the private sector should bear the responsibility for funding all stem cell research. If the private sector fails in this regard, then the government should pick up the slack after having an ethical debate on whether embryonic stem cells will be funded, on top of current research into adult and infant stem cells.

The strategy for "anti-science, religious-right Republicans" is not to go on the attack, but to educate voters on the level of private-sector research that is currently ongoing. Name the firms that are conducting research and tell us how much they are spending. Tell taxpayers that we will not subsidize research that will benefit the pharmaceutical industry.

I fully expect the pharmaceutical companies (long villified by Democrats) to queue up behind stem cell research. If the benefits promised by stem cell proponents are real, the pharmaceutical giants would be foolish to avoid stem cell research. While government money can have the effect of accelerating development of medical procedures (in the US, a successful IVF pregnancy lagged behind Britain for four years,) the development of stem cell cures is regarded as a long-term prospect that is still in its infancy.

Fareed Zakaria, probably the brightest guy on the Newsweek staff and a rationalist on middle eastern affairs, has a plan for the future of America's mission in Iraq. The story is a must-read, which is something I am loathe to say about the average Newsweek article.

The story begins with an analogy comparing President Bush and Iraq to Harry Truman and Korea (something I have thought about before, and an idea with more creibility than a comparison to LBJ and Vietnam.) In Korea, we set a lofty goal of a united and free Korea. What we got instead was outside intervention from China, a divided Korean peninsula, and a pot-bellied dictator who possesses nuclear weapons. We had to compromise our goals to mitigate a bad situation. Iraq will be no different.

The heart of the Zakaria plan (which will likely be echoed by James Baker's commission) is the redeployment of US forces in Iraq. Without getting into specifics mentioned by Zakaria, I sum it up by saying that Iraqis will take the lead, while the US will act as advisors and as a backup to prevent Iraqi forces from being overwhelmed. Casualties amongst Iraqis due to the low-grade civil war will likely get worse before they get better. Then again, Iraqis need to learn how to control the violence when the majority of it is inflicted by Iraqis against Iraqis.

Because no war can be won through combat alone, the political solution requires a strenghtened central government who will act against militias, grant amnesty to insurgents who give up the fight, and make peace with anti-government tribes. Syria, Iran and other neighboring states will need to be engaged by both the Iraqis and the US.

The Zakaria plan makes a lot of sense (then again, I said the same thing when he endorsed "Clear, Hold, Build.") At the same time, I would leave it up to the generals and military historians for setting up schedules for the Iraqis to take the lead and for determining the US force posture inside Iraq.

It's not quite fair to mock the mantra "stay the course," as "the course" always envisioned Iraqis taking the lead and Americans moving into the background. It's just that, with the sectarian situation deteriorating like it is, the Iraqi forces will have to take the lead before they are really ready. It's sink or swim time, and the Iraqi nation state is strugging to keep its nose above water.

At the same time, I don't have a lot of faith in this plan because the Iraqi government is indecisive and inept, while the Iraqi Army is so bad that insurgents have taken temporary control of cities for hours before the Iraqi Army could repel them. The Iraqi Army took heavy casualties against Mahdi Army fighters who would have been no match for US forces. Will the Iraqi government be capable of the diplomacy that's needed for pacifying Iraq and ending the sectarian war? Will Iraqi forces be able to stick together, repel violence, and stay loyal to their elected leaders? The outlook on both of these questions is not optimistic right now.

America has reached a watershead where it must force Iraqis to take more responsibility for their country. This should not be viewed as a defeat in itself. If the Iraqis manage to take control and establish a stable nation-state, it's still a victory, in that US policy goals have been achieved. The difference between the quick victory envisioned by the administration in March 2003 and the long-term victory that Iraqis will have to forge is that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans will have been killed and tens of thousands will have been wounded because the administration and the military leadership had an unviable plan for securing and rebuilding the Iraqi nation after Saddam fell.

I just finished reading Rep. Curt Weldon's (R-PA) book Countdown to Terror, at the same time that Weldon faces improbable odds of re-election and is being investigated by the FBI. The book gathered much attention when it was published in Summer 2005 for some sensational claims it makes (and one that Weldon announced after publication, the claim that the Able Danger cell was hot on the trail of the 9/11 hijackers before Pentagon lawyers intervened.)

A cynic will look at Countdown to Terror and view it as an attempt for an incumbent congressman to toot his own horn and shore up his national security credentials. While that may be a factor, I think that Weldon was genuinely motivated by a belief (greatly exaggerated, in my view) that Iran is the central force behind anti-American terrorism across the world.

Countdown to Terror is a paltry 200 pages long, most of which is dedicated to Weldon's contacts with a single intelligence sourced nicknamed "Ali." Weldon places a tremendous amount of trust in Ali, a man who admits to having a vested interest in overthrowing the current Iranian regime. To Weldon's credit, he admits as much and lets the reader decide whether Ali is to be believed. Yet Ali makes some claims that are too outrageous to be believed, including:
--The Iranian government has hosted Osama bin Laden and the top tiers of the al Qaeda leadership within Iran, even going as far as harboring them in Tehran
--Iran is the primary force driving the Iraqi insurgency
--Iran is working closely with al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other feared terrorist groups
--Iran plotted to assassinate George H.W. Bush and Yassir Arafat
--The Toronto 12, a group of Pakistani (and one Indian Muslim) immigrants who were arrested in August 2003, were plotting to crash airliners into the Seabrook Nuclear Plant
--Iran is close to, or has already assembled, an atomic bomb (possibly with North Korean assistance)
--Iran had turned to Moqtada al Sadr for support in Iraq as early as April 2003
--Iran tried to ensure that President Bush wouldn't be re-elected in 2004
--Iran is still plotting its "12th Imam" operation, which would bring immeasurable death and destruction to American soil

Ali gives a good explanation of the Iranian government's inner workings, trying to help western readers understand how Iranian "democracy" works under the authority of the mullahs. Ali does get a few of his claims correct, which gives him credibility in Rep. Weldon's eyes. It should be remembered, though, that Ali has used his wealth to buy intelligence from other intelligence sources who could not be interviewed by US authorities. The ability to verify Ali's claims is almost non-existent.

The rest of Weldon's book examines the intelligence community's failures in the current world war and breaks them into two categories: institutional problems, and Clinton-induced problems. While I agree with much of what he says, he does so in a blatantly partisan way that allows for no criticism of the Bush Administration and the failure to gauge Iraq's disarmament. Weldon then makes viable and constructive suggestions for reforming the intel community (my favorite is his proposal to fire everyone higher than SES-I and promote the younger management to leadership roles.) Finally, Weldon argues for a treaty on equal terms with Russia that would promote long-term cooperation between the former enemies. Such a treaty would definitely create aRusso-American alliance against terrorism, but it would also provide for long-term cooperation in agriculture, technology and the arts.

Countdown to Terror isn't a particularly memorable book, but its role in Weldon's anti-terror advocacy and the Able Danger allegations (which appear to have been successfully whitewashed by the Pentagon) make it an object of historical curiousity. Countdown to Terror should primarily be an example of why independent verification is needed for all intelligence sources, and should point out the uncertainty and risk involved in the human intelligence field.

James Baker, who assembled the first coalition against Iraq while serving as George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State, may just be the person who sets the current President Bush on the right course in Iraq. His congressionally-mandated panel is looking at alternatives to "staying the course" and precipitous withdrawal that aim to salvage some measure of success in Iraq.

If current media reports are accurate, the Baker panel is looking at three options: phased withdrawals, engagement with Iran and Syria, and focusing on stability instead of democracy. I feel that the three options are sound, but have to be used in conjunction with each other if the US is to ever see stability realized in Iraq.

Many Americans are probably reluctant to negotiate with Iran and Syria, who are both intimately involved with anti-Israeli terrorism. Americans should justifiably be leery about this prospect, but the choice we face is between negotiating with the terror masters or watching Iraq descend into the spiral of civil war, anarchy, Islamist fervor, and international terrorism (just like the Lebanese Civil War, post-Barre Somalia, or post-Soviet Afghanistan.)

The idea of "stability first, democracy later" may sound un-democratic and un-American, but it's an idea supported by history's successful occupations. Iraqis elected their first government in January 2005, just 20 months after Baghdad fell. By contrast, it took far longer to establish democratic governments in West Germany and Japan after Berlin and Tokyo surrendered in 1945. Early American efforts were aimed at providing essential humanitarian services and making fundamental societal changes. In fact, the German occupation was headed towards failure until the Truman administration decided to change course. The original plan for post-war Germany was based on the "Potato Patch Policy," making Germany into an agricultural state. It wasn't until 1948 that the US and allies realized this was unrealistic and doomed to failure. West Germany reindustrialized and became a vital cold-war ally. While Japan and Germany did not see a significant armed insurgency, there was always the risk that Communists would take over a weak, ineffectual government.

To an extent, phased redeployment is occurring in Iraq. In two provinces, Iraqi forces are in the lead, while American forces are taking positions in the rear echelons in case they are needed. The wisdom of this strategy is debatable, as the Iraqi Army has a long way to go before it is ready to fight the insurgency. The US should set quantifiable goals along the path to stability for Iraq, and draw down its forces as those goals are met. Such withdrawls would be necessary for securing Iranian and Syrian support. Those countries would also be assured by a US promise to not promote further democracy in Iraq (choosing stability instead) because liberty is a frightening thought to their autocracies; in Iran, for instance, freedom is anathema because it includes the freedom to violate the Sharia and do other things they view as un-Islamic.

Nibbler, the last of my family's fourteen lizards, died yesterday from an intestinal blockage. His passing marks the end of a twelve-year era of lizards in the family. It started as part of a scout badge I was working on and quickly took on a life of its own. My father quickly went from begrudging acceptance to the number-one advocate for our Anole farm. The journey was filled with sorrows and great joys, grave mistakes and lessons learned. The lizards themselves revealed their indomitable spirits and unique personalities, quickly becoming a part of the family.

The beginning of the end started when I left for college and my father and brother had to adopt my share of the responsibilities. Soon my brother was out of the house, but my sister had moved up and became part of the little guys' lives. Not only were the lizards part of the family, but they strengthened the original family. At the same time, the death of Nibbler's mate, Marge, in March 2005 made us realize that the lizard era was in its twilight.

Godspeed, Nibbler, and all the lizards that came before you. Live in our hearts until that day we meet again.

Certain indicators point to North Korea's "nuclear" test being a dud or a fake, not the result of a fission reaction. After the failure of their Taepo-Dong 2 ICBM, I'm not surprised by the Kim regime's inability to produce the terrifying displays of strength that they seek. I'm certain that Kim's had several people executed over these failures.

From a physics perspective, North Korea chose a very difficult bomb design based on Plutonium. While it's fairly easy (assuming one has a "fast" reactor) to make Plutonium-239 from natural Uranium and separate it from the Uranium by chemical means, building the bomb itself is quite difficult. It requires several precisely-milled blocks of Plutonium to implode on the same point at a precise instant through use of high explosives.

While Uranium is hard to enrich, it's fairly easy to build the actual weapon once the Uranium is available. The "Little Man" bomb dropped on Hirshima was a Uranium-fueled bomb of an untested design (Trinity was a test of the Plutonium bomb that would fall on Nagasaki.) The Manhattan Project engineers had a very conservative design for Little Man that was assured to work. During the period from 1994-2002, when the US was honoring the Agreed Framework with North Korea, the Kim regime had secretly purchased the assistance of Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan and began to experiment with Uranium enrichment. However, it's believed that Kim's current arsenal consists of Plutonium bombs derived from pre-1994 breeding experiments at the Yongbyon reactor.

Assuming that further analysis proves the test wasn't nuclear, there are at least three possibilities to explain what the test represented:

1) It was an intended nuclear test that failed to achieve critical mass. I'm skeptical about this because I don't think that the explosive triggers would have been enough to trigger the seisomgraphs that were reported in South Korea.

2) It was a test of the explosive triggers without the fissile fuel present. This would make more sense than a nuclear test because of what a test would mean in terms of depleting Kim's small arsenal. Again, I'm skeptical because of the size of the explosive triggers versus what was recorded by the seismograph.

3) It was a poorly-designed hoax by North Korea, using a large amount of conventional explosive to fool the rest of the world into thinking it was nuclear. We should not rule this scenario out. Because the main purpose of North Korea's nukes is to extort concessions from the US and its allies, North Korea needs to make its program look as potent as possible. Again, detonating a nuke for real would decrease the North Korean arsenal by 1/6 or 1/8, depending on whose estimate you believe. We shouldn't rule out the possibility that North Korea's been bluffing all along about its nuclear capabilities, either. If this is really a North Korean hoax, they must have taken America and its allies as fools to think we wouldn't try to confirm the test.

Stay posted on this story, fellow members of the Film Actors Guild.

It appears that Kim has finally tested the nuclear "deterrent" that his country has been bragging about since 2002, and has likely stored in its arsenal since the early 90's or earlier. Preliminary reports suggest that the bomb had a yield of less than 400 kilotons and was tested in an abandoned mine.

The North Korean nuclear test is stupid for a number of reasons, most important of which is the alienation of traditional supporters like China. In the past, the crumbling regime has been propped up by China and South Korea to avoid a refugee crisis. The nuclear test might help to strengthen international resolve to punish North Korea economically, and to accept the regime's collapse as a preferable alternative to a nuclear Kim Jong-Il.

It's also worth nothing that North Korea's nuclear arsenal was estimated at eight or less nuclear weapons prior to this test. The recent shot reduces his arsenal. It also runs the risk of contaminating the water table in the Korean peninsula, owing to North Korea's lack of deserts.

Everything that's been said about North Korea's nuke test should be treated with some skepticism until we know for certain that a nuclear test was conducted. Until then, you can enjoy this interesting piece by T.A. Heppenheimer about how the US first confirmed the Soviet nuclear test of 1949. Inspect that, Hans Blix!

Five years ago, Operation Enduring Freedom began with missile and bomber strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan (including an aborted airstrike that would have targeted Mullah Omar.) Since then, the US military has worked tirelessly to fight insurgency and build nations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar are still on the loose, although Saddam Hussein and most of his cohorts have been captured. America has avoided an attack on its soil against its population, but it's universally accepted that eventually a group of terrorists will slip between the cracks of the security net we have placed up.

It was five years ago that al Qaeda was viewed as a tightly-woven net of terrorist cells. We know now that this is not the case, and the fragmentation of the global jihad movement (both al Qaeda affiliates and non-affiliated groups that share in the philosophy of jihad) has only gotten worse. Evidence of this comes in the form of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who started as an eager follower of bin Laden who was initially rejected by the terror-master. He was wounded in Afghanistan, was able to link up with Iraqi-based Ansar al Islam in 2002 (an al Qaeda affiliate,) start his independent al Tawhid wal Jihad in 2003, link up with al Qaeda as the Iraqi franchise in 2004, and loosely unite Iraq's Sunni insurgents as the Mujahedeen Shura Council in 2006.

The United States is now fighting for the souls of Iraq and Afghanistan (and the entire Islamic world, by proxy.) No matter how hard we fight, we are finding that the Islamic world has become increasingly radicalized over the past half-century, and is inherently hostile towards the values that democracy is built on.

America has learned the hard way that fighting is good in the short term for distrating the enemy and hindering his ability to attack our homeland, but it can't be sustained to provide lasting security for America. The only way to achieve real peace is to break the hearts of the wicked by waging a war of ideas. This is a fight we've put barely any of our national resources into. Muslims need to learn fundamental ideas like gender equity and religious tolerance. Otherwise, Muslim mothers will sit idly by as their sons blow themselves up in Baghdad markets and aboard Israeli buses. As long as Sunnis and Shiites cannot tolerate each other, we will continue to see kidnappings, group executions and mass graves. Muslims have to realize that their quality of life is barely above the stone age because of constant infighting and oppression inflicted by fellow Muslims, rather than external oppression by Crusader infidels.

The only alternative to a future of perpetual war (which cannot be sustained without a draft,) or a war of ideas, is what I have termed "Fortress America," in which America uses its economic weapons to destroy the Islamic world. America ends all travel and trade with the middle east, and expels all resident aliens from countries that support terrorism. Let's see how long it takes for the quality of life in the middle east to sink from "somewhat above the stone age" to "stone age." America would suffer to some degree by losing 20% of its petroleum imports, but America's resourcefulness will help it to survive.

The way ahead for America is probably a combination of all three: impose stable, secular dictatorships in Iraq and Afghanistan, step up our attempts at outreaching to Muslims while marginalizing anti-American clerics, and reduce our oil imports by 20% within the next decade. I don't profess to know the answers; I just know that our approach over the past five years has been flawed and cannot work over the long term in its current form.

Disgraced former congressman Mark Foley isn't running out of excuses as he tries to change the subject. First he admits that he's gay. Then he claims he was raped by a priest when he was younger. Finally, he checks into rehab, claiming that he's an alcoholic. While all of these things may be true, they don't change the fact that Foley abused his power as an elected official and made sexual overtures to an underage congressional page. Foley is a despicable excuse for a human, and there's no excuse for his sexual crimes towards a child.

At the same time, he's not the first politician to use his orientation as a means of changing the subject when confronted with charges of wrongdoing. In August 2004, New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey made his "I am a gay American" speech and announced his resignation. Politically, the speech was a masterful move by McGreevey. It generated a lot of public sympathy for him and caused the public to forget that McGreevey had appointed Golan Cipel, his former lover, as his Homeland Security advisor. The hiring decision was both unethical and dangerous for the state of New Jersey.

McGreevey is still living without much consequence from his hiring of Golan Cipel. After all, he recently published his life story and appeared on Oprah. Americans set a bad precedent with Jim McGreevey, and Mark Foley should face severe punishment in the court of public opinion. Nobody should be allowed to hide behind their sexual orientation to cover up for illegal and irresponsible acts while in office.

The United States has paid much attention to Iraq's Kurds (the only one of the three major demographics which has been largely appreciative of US efforts in that country,) but has been far less supportive of the Kurds in Turkey, Iran and other lands. America's Kurdish policy is schizophrenic and in dire need of repair.

The Kurds have always been a fierce mountainous people who have resisted whichever country controls their portion of the Kurdish homelands. They also largely practice a secular Sunni lifestyle, which is a marked improvement over many other groups within their region. In the great screw-job orchestrated by Britain and France when the Ottoman Empire fell, the Kurdish homelands were split apart, being granted chiefly to Iraq, Turkey and Iran. In all of those countries, the Kurds and the majority government have fought for control of the Kurdish zones.

Traditionally the United States has defended the right of all cultural-ethnic groups to govern themselves. Sometimes it has been through the granting of regional autonomy, and other times the US has supported full independence. In the case of the Kurds, the US has opposed independence for Iraq's Kurds, primarily out of Turkish concerns. At the same time, the US has aided Turkey in its fight against Kurdish "terrorists."

America has aided the Kurds on many occasions throughout recent history (with the noted exception of the 1991 rebellion against Saddam Hussein,) and should stay true to its word. In his book Never Quit the Fight, foreign policy pundit Ralph Peters argues for a complete rework of the arbitrary borders in the middle east, including an independent Kurdish state. The US can start by blessing the Iraqi Kurds in their bid for independence (including control over the disputed city of Mosul.) The US should also support, in principle, the cession of Turkish-controlled and Iranian-controlled Kurdistan to the emerging Kurdish Free State. While Turkey is the best example of responsible governance in the Isalmic world, Turkey's desire to retain the Kurdish homelands against the wishes of the Turkish Kurds is un-democratic.

A free and united Kurdistan is completely in line with the principles which have guided America for a century. For a group that has shown us strong support in our fight against terrorists who kill in the name of Islam, the US has had a funny and sad way of repaying the favor done to us by the Kurds.