Listening to Republican debate this morning I wonder if the candidates are idiots or if, in tailoring their canned responses to idiots, they end up sounding like idiots themselves? It's a quandary. One just doesn't know which abomination to reason came first, the politician or the voter...?

"... let's be honest here, let's be realistic: humans have unfortunate tendencies, the most salient for present purposes being that whenever two or more of them come together, no matter how noble the cause, something gets corrupted..."

... you might think it a good thing that a country has a pacifist constitution, that their laws proscribe against the developing of offensive capabilities - I imagine those who write poetry for peace and drink tea for peace and brood or well with tears for peace, I imagine such would get all giddy over such a thing - but, ya know, when a country makes itself so nervous that it has to write that fear into their constitution, well, isn't that a bit... off putting?

Apparently not if they're on your team - this time anyway. And so as Japan slowly unravels aforementioned constitutional limitations on use of force we find there are so many things once thought intolerable that end up being somewhat tolerable after all. You simply can't trust people...

... the administration has invested so much in Petraeus, have engaged in such a hagiographic inflation of his significance that one must ask - is the fix in? How can you trust what will be reported back no matter when it happens? How can Petraeus possibly report that he's failed after heroic expectations have been stoked this way? Is he a patsy or willing participant in a scam? He did go on an ultra right wing radio show - hard to believe that was innocent. This whole enterprise increasingly looks like a vapor hanging over a cesspool.

The push back from Republican senators is a clear sign that only the indoctrinated cool-aid drinkers are left believing this administration has not become dangerously unhinged from reality. Of course one hopes that's all it is, that they're merely unhinged - if they have in fact embraced an alternate reality with all the fervid delusion of religious zealots, well, that's a wee bit more disturbing. How can we be sure Petraeus is acting as an independent agent here, that his conscience has not been co-opted? This administration has so sullied the waters around them how can anyone who steps into that water possibly stay clean?

... nothing so dangerous as a person who's certain he's got it all figured out - so it's odd that the media seems to abound with the ilk. Guess there's something inherently appealing about the posture affected. Odder still though is that with so much figuring out going on so little seems to get figured out - or that so few seem to have figured out this figuring out business, but that's the danger, no...?

Dawn of the 10 year old Jihadist

"Holed up inside the complex behind the lines of troops and razor wire, the children – many of them girls whose families had sent them to the mosque to receive a strict Islamic education – repeatedly rejected relatives’ entreaties to leave before a threatened army onslaught.

There was evidence that many had been brainwashed into a cult of martyrdom, and the authorities feared last night that some were being prepared to be suicide bombers. In barely eight weeks, Saima had been transformed from a religious but fun-loving girl to a jihadi, grimly craving martyrdom."

To me it's laughable people who attempt to defend Islam and in their appeals lump it in with all religious expressions and faiths as if that made it just another rational pursuit. One can rationally defend religion's place in the world because it satisfies an unfortunate human need - but you can not defend religion itself as a rational expression. Christianity is better than Islam, not because of the quality of it's tenets and teachings and beliefs or the mellifluous beauty of its scripture - it's better because history has effectively subdued its darker purposes [albeit Bush et al strive to unravel that knot] whereas Islam runs free like a mad dog gone to rut. One fears what force bearing what carnage must be unleashed to tame it [Christianity? It truly is the age of irony].

... obviously Bush's strategy is to do so many things badly that the public will lose track of all that has gone wrong and fall forthwith into a stupor of lapsed attention. The end result will be the same as if he had done nothing at all, a state of affairs much favoured by the lazy and idiot-like - and the mischievous...

... weak and vulnerable as they are, people seek certainty. If they find it in something that in reality is fraudulent or fleeting, then reality doesn't matter - just so as long as they can feel certain that something has been found and it feels good to have found it...

now this is not deeply reasoned with precise logical postulates, I know - but those who say Israeli abuse of Palestinians and refusal to give back the West bank are the root of all the problems seem to want to gloss over an obvious question that arises: if such is the case why does Israel persist? They hate the Arabs? Irrationally seek unremitting vengeance against them? They prefer chaos as part of a long term strategy? All in part or whole may contribute to policies if one assumes the policies are abusive - but there's a simpler answer and much more practical: Israel needs the West Bank in order to properly defend itself come an invasion from Lebanon or Syria - you need space to maneuver in order to defend in strength and the West Bank is that space. On top of which, should a future war go badly, it gives them something to surrender to achieve a truce. You never hear this military argument when people discuss Israel's posture towards the Palestinians and the West Bank but it's the argument that makes the most sense - it's also the argument that suggests that there's no way in hell they're giving up the West Bank. Unfair, sure, I guess - but abusive? Not necessarily.

[and when China makes the same argument viz Taiwan? will you be so accommodating of practical necessity then? god damn Chinese - we're on a collision course: I wonder what it means that they're such bad drivers? My, that's an off colour joke. Very nasty. When did an expectation of anything else become the norm? Not sure, but I'm willing to blame television]

QED

Lot of shit, no shovel

This attempts to make the case for the surge and because it's written by an officer actually on the ground in Iraq and involved in COIN operations you respect the argument - except for three glaring flaws persistently hanging over it: 1] he never addresses how many troops would be required to make the strategy work in a general enough way to make it viable within any meaningful context; 2] he glosses over the fact that even if you can effectively marginalize the 'terrorists' and create secure corridors within the country there is absolutely no reason to believe that good things will then just naturally inhabit those corridors - ie the political motives and intentions of various factions are extremely confused; and 3] he glosses over the key element of security, once achieved, needing to be maintained indefinitely by a highly suspect Iraqi military and constabulary. Without three you just got a big pile of shit and no shovel.

In short, it all sounds nice and neat and professional on paper, but much like Descartes' proof for God, you already need to accept the existence of the thing you're trying to prove exists in order for the proof to be acceptable. Or - it's like buying a used car based on it having a nice paint job and never looking under the hood because, you know, under the hood is where all the bad stuff is and oh my you really need a car and would just rather assume it drives as nice as it looks.