The "Hidden Men"

I don't remember where I read it but dimly recall an article asserting that there was at least one case where our intelligence services mispredicted a major hostile capability development by 13 years! This entry by Austin Bay provides some beautiful illustration of the consequences of intel failures and diplomatic density:

Intel is never perfect and rarely certain. Those who argue it should be before acting are exemplars of Churchill's "unwisdom." Pathetic Neville Chamberlain waited for absolute proof of Hitler's perfidy. He got it -- Nazi blitzkrieg.

Smart enemies hide "proof," so intel analysts probe "indications" and make educated assessments. Analyses are bound to conflict. That doesn't make the mistaken analysis a lie.

Kay's report supports former U.N. Iraq inspector Rolf Ekeus' March 2000 assessment of Saddam's stockpile in Arms Control Today: "In my view, there are no large quantities of (chem and bio) weapons. ... Iraq has been aiming to keep the capability to start up production immediately. ..." He said Iraq saw the weapons "as tactical (battlefield) assets." In 2000, however, Ekeus hadn't seen 9-11. "Tactical" nerve weapons in terrorist hands are strategic weapons for gassing Manhattan -- and a practiced killer like Saddam certainly understood that.

The Bush administration had to end The Saddam War in order to defeat Al Qaeda at its root -- the Middle East's sick autocracies. The administration articulated this strategic rationale prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, though not often enough. However, to dismiss the tyrant's long-term intent to acquire weapons of mass destruction as no cause for toppling him is malignant "unwisdom." Sept. 11 necessarily reshaped all intel assessment, first with the freight of fear but ultimately with the weight of responsibility. After 9-11, Washington would have been unforgivably irresponsible to bet a million lives on a mass murderer's "good faith."

Churchill's history mentions German schemes to evade Treaty of Versailles sanctions. "Illegal" soldiers trained in secret programs to slip army manpower caps. The West caved on Versailles, and these troops quickly expanded the Wehrmacht.

When Hitler struck Poland, the "hidden men" were the core of his war machine.

[Emphasis added.] As Santayana said, those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it...

"No Evidence?" Update -- A MUST READ

I had meant to add the links to the Iraqis claims of Saddam training foreign terrorists if not Al Qaeda directly. Here's one just in today! (Hat tip to LGF.) More here and here.

ENCORE: The Best "Short Case"?

This is a classic by Hitchens and probably the most concise yet nuanced case for the war in Iraq: "Machiavelli in Mesopotamia". Enjoy -- and be discomforted no matter what your opinion of the war...

Deja Vu -- Part 459087

More brutal rebuttal for those who consider this morning to be ancient history: "Americans are Losing the Victory in Europe. My 30s deja-vu is now tinged with the 40s -- it was entirely predictable in retrospect...

The Weekend's Reading Assignment

The big kerfuffle today has been the OIC keynote speech by the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir which included this gem:

The enemy will probably welcome these proposals and we will conclude that the promoters are working for the enemy. But think. We are up against a people who think. They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our brains also. [Emphasis added.]

Read the whole thing -- the idea that in the middle of the war on Islamofascism the keynote of the year's most important gathering of Islamic countries only deserves the few paragraphs of fluffy, lipsticked coverage that most of our media has given it is amazingly absurd. Daniel Drezner's site has one of the best analyses and lots of comments -- some pretty good on both sides. (A particularly interesting comment by someone claiming to be Muslim is here.)

And just as good is this article on TCS titled "The Six Dilemmas of the Moderate
Islamist". VERY, VERY STRONG FOOD FOR THOUGHT HERE AND WELL WORTH THE READ FOR THOSE WONDERING WHERE ALL THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MODERATE MUSLIMS ARE HIDING...

To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle -- George Orwell

What's that you say? You didn't know that there was actually a detailed, congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq war and a detailed analysis concluding that it can already be said to be largely accurate? (Hat tip: QandO)

Lots and Lots of "No Evidence"!

"No Evidence?" (below) had been brewing for a while and was finally pushed out the chute by this little gem by Stephen Hayes. As I said, enough evidence and it starts to seem like proof -- unless you don't want to be confused by the facts...

UPDATE: And speaking of facts surrounding why we went to war -- even Clinton gets it when he's not trying to dissemble about it...

No Evidence?

As war opponents continue their strategy of “proof by repeated assertion” that there is “no evidence” of Iraqi links to Al Qaeda, it may be an opportune time to pull out the dictionary.

The relevant Cambridge Dictionary entries are as follows:

Evidence: one or more reasons for believing that something is or is not true.

Proof: a fact or piece of information which shows that something exists or is true.

In short, evidence is weaker than proof in that it is allowed to inform belief.

Why do the majority of Americans still believe that Iraq is linked to 911 if not actually responsible for it – much to the apoplexy of war opponents? Are most Americans really a bunch of stupid, brainwashed apes that just don’t understand evidence -- as many columnists and letter-writers seem to think?

Do we have proof that Iraq is linked to Al Qaeda? Perhaps not – but we certainly have a lot of evidence…

For openers, the U.S. Military now holds hundreds of foreign terrorists captured in Iraq – 19 of whom so far are Al Qaeda. That would seem to be at least evidence that Iraq sheltered terrorists if not Al Qaeda itself.

War opponents will then argue that you can’t prove that all of them didn’t enter Iraq after the war started so therefore Iraq didn’t shelter or have links with them. But you can’t prove that’s true either – certainly not yet.

Overshadowing that, there’s another problem with this counterargument: Even if the terrorists only entered Iraq after the war started then that’s still proof that they will support Saddam when he’s attacked. But if you apply that logic consistently, why wouldn’t they have supported him during the first Gulf War when we attacked him – and maybe even have hung around for a decade or so?

In fact, many of the newly liberated Iraqis say that’s what happened – and are even rightly resentful that the non-Iraqi terrorists got “red carpet” treatment from Saddam while the Iraqis suffered and starved. Evidence? At least. [UPDATE: Just in today. (Hat tip to LGF.) More here and here.]

The next retort of Saddam-supporters is that there is no evidence Saddam supported Al Qaeda because “it’s well known that Saddam was a secularist and not an Islamist and the two don’t work together.” Aside from the obvious fact that they both see America as a common enemy, there is another common enemy they share that unfortunately provides abundant examples that disprove this: Israel.

We do have proof that Saddam supported Islamists in his “blood money” payments for both the (supposedly) secular Arafat and the (known) Islamist Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And news media wasn’t exactly filled with stories of indignant Hamas families returning Saddam’s checks rewarding suicide attacks – so that’s at least evidence -- and almost certainly proof -- of Islamist acceptance of “secular” support.

Bin Laden may be more “principled” than the Palestinians, but there’s no proof that he is -- if he’s still alive.

At this point let me spare you all the evidence Colin Powell and the administration presented for yet another item that has gone largely unreported: There is strong evidence that Iraq had ties to Abu Sayyaf – the Philippine terrorists that are known to be affiliated with if not integral to Al Qaeda.

Ponder this snippet from a story in the Bangkok Times: “What is more, Abu Sayyaf leader Hamsiraji Sali told a reporter from the Philippine Daily Inquirer he had collected cash from Iraqi diplomats several times, to finance violent acts including a mass kidnapping of 78 students and teachers three years ago.” (Hat tip: Darren Kaplan.)

Evidence? At least. Proof? Enough evidence like this and it starts to seem like it...

Pay No Attention to What We Do...

After the attack on a clearly marked diplomatic convoy in Gaza -- killing 3 Americans, wounding 1 -- we'll doubtless hear that it wasn't the Palestinians that did it. Probably just their heroes in Al Qaeda. They are, after all, just the continuing helpless pawns of Western aggression LOL

Unfortunately for them, their actions always belie their words:

Several hours after the bombing, U.S. investigators were attacked by Palestinian stone throwers and sped away as their cars were pelted by rocks.

If you think their actions don't reflect what they're saying in Arabic, please contact me regarding your future real estate deals...

Whew, Lucky Bush Was ALL WRONG!

Thankfully, GW was all messed up about lumping the axis of evil together since they have absolutely nothing in common. Uh, never mind.

A Must Read on Anti-Semitism

I don't buy Frum's argument that it's not anti-semitism. It's a hell of a mess when we have to plant our tongues in our cheeks about something so blood-curdling as the (in progress in case you haven't noticed) second holocaust.

Money close:

His intentions are high, his conscience is clear, he hates nobody. His solution, however, is one that would expose millions of Jews – and not just those living in the Middle East – to persecution, expropriation, political oppression, exile, and murder. We cannot describe this outlook as anti-semitism. We need some new term. Here’s my nomination: genocidal liberalism. [Emphasis added.]

Deja-Vu -- But Nastiest on the Politics Side...

A useful very short course on myths of the great depression and parallels between the 1930s and today. Check out these excerpts:

I keep coming across parallels between the 1930's and the present day. An impassioned pacifism swept the western intelligentsia. In England in February of 1933, the Oxford Union passed a resolution declaring that "this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country." Similar petitions were popular on elite college campuses in the United States. Meanwhile, of course, 1933 was the year that Adolf Hitler consolidated his power in Germany.

...

What I had not realized until I read Alexander Field's article is that the Great Depression was also an era of high productivity growth. Field argues that the 1930's were also a period in which technological innovations were being exploited to increase productive efficiency.

The Depression certainly was an era of displacement. In fact I have borrowed the very term "displacement" from the late economic historian Charles Kindleberger, author of Manias, Panics, and Crashes and one of the eminent economists interviewed by Parker. Kindleberger's theory of manias, such as the Tulip Mania, the South Sea Bubble, or the Internet craze, is that they are triggered by a major change in the economic or geopolitical environment. The change creates new opportunities and sudden wealth, leading to greed and overspeculation. Kindleberger views the 1929 stock market boom and subsequent crash as a classic example of this theory. The geopolitical realignment following World War I, and the rapid growth of industries in automobiles and electronic communications, created displacement.

The development of motorized transportation must have affected every sector of the economy in the second quarter of this century. It permitted efficient farms located away from population centers to replace inefficient farms located close to cities and towns. It allowed people to enjoy the comfort and relative low cost of living in the suburbs while continuing to work in central cities. It allowed factories to relocate out of expensive central cities and into outlying areas and smaller towns.

Until World War II, however, the labor released by the progress of the 1930's was unemployed. The war brought full employment. After the war, to the surprise of most economists, the economy did not sink back into another recession. Instead, overall demand was high enough to absorb the nation's work force.

Overall: Optimism that we're pulling out of it and at least not repeating the fairly massive mistakes of the 30's like the "National Recovery Administration".

InstaPundit has the latest on polls in the US and Iraq. (If you don't check in with InstaPundit once in a while then you just aren't on the web -- sorry...) Anyway, the Iraq poll has some pretty strong affirmation of my "Wanted War" post below...

What French Bashing? (I published this in the local newspaper a few months ago...)

The Wanted War

Paul Lamia “begged” me to keep reading his letter (“Why do we protest?”, 4/19/2003) so I did.

The first thing that entered my mind as I read his assertion that if a culture wants to “change enough, they will sacrifice in order to pursue it” was a recent anecdote about a U.S. Congressman talking to a French diplomat at a party. The French diplomat was belittling the Congressman regarding his support for the impending Iraq war when the Congressman decided he had finally had enough. So he asked the Frenchman if he spoke German. The Frenchman looked back at him quizzically and said no, he didn’t speak German. The Congressman replied “you’re welcome” and walked away.

The point being that if you applied Mr. Lamia’s logic to World War II, America shouldn’t have entered it – we should have waited for the conquered Europeans to have sacrificed to set themselves free. Unfortunately, due to Hitler’s Nietzschean depravity we could still be waiting...

Then I thought of the recent UPI story published just as the Iraq war started that included the following:

“A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it [out] across the [Jordanian] border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip `had shocked me back to reality.` Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera `told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start.` They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler."

Mr. Joseph has since published an article titled “I Was Wrong About The War” where he lambasted the other human shields that were present with him in Iraq as follows:

[While in Iraq] “I began to talk to the so called `human shields`. Have you asked the people here what they want? Have you talked to regular people, away from your `minder` and asked them what they want? I was shocked at the response. `We don't need to do that. We know what they want.` was the usual reply before a minder stepped up to check who I was. With tears streaming down my face in my bed in a tiny house in Baghdad … I had to say to myself `I was wrong`. How dare I claim to speak for those for whom I had never asked what they wanted!”

Then the real applicability of Mr. Lamia’s comments struck me. You see, his blithe consignment of the Iraqi people to Saddam’s torture chambers is quite wrong – it’s not what they wanted as we now see.

But the more I think of the anti-Semitic wretchedness of the French in WWII that continues to this very day – see recent reports of anti-war Jews trying to join French protests being beaten with iron bars -- the more I realize that unlike the Iraqis now, many of the French then may not have really wanted our help.

All the more ironic since the French helped free us from the British in our own Revolution.

And Mr. Lamia’s thesis would argue that we are “dependent” on the French because of their past help and Americans are therefore not “ultimately free” of them.

He would be incorrect regarding dependency -- although “ultimate freedom” from the French grows in attraction daily…

Failed Fortitude

Well, I almost managed to observe my own holiday! Uff da, the simplisme of me...

French Bashing Holiday Declared

Since I've been known to say some less than charitable things about the French, I thought to declare a holiday from it all today based on Sabine Herold. Hat tip to Instapundit.

Off we go...