Codex Manasserii

In case anyone comes to look:

Because my system is sooooo ancient (7+ years old), I cannot access the updating system of blogspot on my home computer. Therefore, I am starting a new LiveJournal (also called Manasserius), which I can access at home. So when I get the urge to post, I'll post there. If I ever update, I may return to this blog.

Just to confuse you.

In today's Boston Globe, there was an article called Rift Emerges in GOP After Schiavo Case. I found this article to be truly frightening. It reports that a group of conservative leaders is annoyed at the Republican leadership for not being more forceful in the Schiavo case. What bothers me is not the rift in the GOP, but in what the conservatives were demanding.

To whit:

They blamed the president's brother, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, for failing to employ State Police powers to take control of Schiavo. They condemned comments by Senate majority leader Bill First of Tennessee and Vice President Dick Cheney expressing support for the nation's judges.

And yesterday they issued an "action plan" to take their crusade for control of the nation's courts well beyond Senate debates over judicial nominees, pressing Congress to impeach judges and defund courts they consider "activist" and to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts over some sensitive social matters...

Apparently, they are not even happy about some judges appointed by Republicans. One example is Roy S. Moore, the former chief justice of Alabama who was removed during a controversy over a large Ten Commandments display, and his comments about William H. Pryor, a former Attorney General whose nomination to the 11th District Appeals Court was filibustered twice before President Bush used a recess appointment to put him on the bench. During the Ten Commandment's controversy, then Attorney General Pryor asked Judge Moore "whether he would 'continue to acknowledge God' inside the court, even if ordered to stop." Yesterday, according to the article, Moore made a comment on whether conservatives should support the so-called "nuclear option" about judicial filibusters. Moore replied: "What's the point? To get judges on the court who say you cannot acknowledge God, like Bill Pryor?"

Moore instead supports legislation to strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over cases in which public officials have cited God "as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government."

To sum up, what scares me is that the conservatives appear to be pushing to remove the concept of an independent judiciary, one that is dedicated to the law instead of which ever political faction is in power at that moment. In addition, some are advocating removing the separation of church and state, by placing some issues out of the bounds of the courts when religion is used as the source for the law.

Does this scare the bejeebez out of anyone else?

I saw an op-ed piece today in the Boston Globe about secularism, called The Dark Side of Secularism, by James Carroll. It was, in many ways, a disturbing column. From reading it, he takes the view that separating 'church and state' has involved separating morality from law.

Early on, "church and state" became a euphemism for the separation of the private realm from the public – the separation of morality from law. "You can't legislate morality," Americans told each other. Because the language of morality was associated with religion, the discourse of "secular" politics became ethically hollow. Thus, for example (in an observation made by the writer Wendell Barry), Thomas Jefferson could in his public role argue against slavery, while clinging to slaves as "private" property, about which the state had nothing to say. On this issue, Americans would fight a war to enshrine morality in law.

The choices we have made have reached into all aspects of life, such as now, "hospitals and corporations have "ethicists" – specialists who, alone of officials, are held to a high standard of moral reasoning. Ethicists, of course, are not decision makers. WorldCom and Enron are the result."

Have we who defend the concept of separation of church and state truly allowed this separation of morality from the public life? The advantages of having strong churches was that they had the power to enforce morality, and by denying those churches their power, we have limited one way of making sure that people act with some moral convictions.

However, the problems with strong churches is that they are anathema to pluralist societies. Churches enforce moral behaviors, but over the centuries, they have shown that they only do so about treatment among their community. Christianity has placed the fear of Hell for those who behave badly, but generally only when one behaves badly to fellow Christians; "pagans" can be abused with impugning. This has traditionally extended to the individual sects of Christianity, so that a Calvinist can sneer at and defame the "popery" of Catholics, and vice versa. So the question arises: if we keep any one religion in the public sphere so that we can have societal morality, which one? And what do we do with those of different religions?

Can secularism come up with its own code of enforceable morality? Does it want to?

I was just watching Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) on the NewsHour on PBS. He was making his usual rants about how the Democrats have filibustered seven judicial nominations by the Administration, and how this is unprecedented. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that the reason there were no filibusters before was that, prior to the Republican take over of both the White House and the Senate, there was a rule saying that a senator on the Judicial Committee could could place an anonymous hold on a nomination, effectively killing it. This rule was removed by the Republicans, probably because they had used it to such a great extent during President Clinton's Administration. Deprived of this method of expressing its voice, the Democrats were forced to rely on the filibuster.

The use of the filibuster has apparently so angered the Republican leadership (and perhaps the entire caucus), that they are now threatening to change the rules once again so that the Democrats can not even do this. Perhaps it's just me, but it appears as if what Sen. Frist really wants is not to uphold the concept of "advice and consent" that is put forward in the Constitution, but in fact, to deny the minority party any voice in the appointment of the Judiciary, a voice, I might add, that was allowed to the Republicans when they were the minority. If this rule change goes through, then the Senate would no longer be a place that the White House must consider before making nominations; it would become a rubber stamp for anyone the Administration chose for the bench. Our system of government is based on checks and balances, but the Administration and the Republican leadership appears to want to remove them from the White House's way.

Rafik Hariri, former Prime Minister of Lebanon, has been assassinated. Mr. Hariri was becoming more and more vocal about his opposition to Syrian influence in his country. So the Bush Administration reasons that the Syrians were the ones who killed Mr. Hariri, or at least the ones who had him killed, and recalled ambassador Margaret Scobey. Of course, since they came to that conclusion about a minute and a half after the news reached America, they didn't have any proof of their belief, so they said that the recall was because of serious "continued presence and operational activities of international terrorist groups and the Iranian regime on and through Syrian territory." (State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher)

However, this whole timing of the withdrawal of Amb. Scobey seems fishy, especially as has been pointed out in the article and in last night's All Things Considered, Syria really had little reason to assassinate Mr. Hariri, and absolutely none to do so in such a loud way. It seems as if the Bush Administration is seeking any excuse to show Syria as a bad guy in the region, with no regard to such things as facts.

Unfortunately, this sounds all too familiar to me.

(See also Noz for more to think about.)

In today's Boston Globe there was an article called Arms Reductions, Troop Increase Eyed by Bryan Bender. He uses as a source Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute, who blasted Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his 'Transformation' policy in a paper called Rumsfeld's War, which was posted on 16 December. After talking about how the Secretary has consistently strove to place the needs of the high-tech weaponry over the need for troops, Mr. Donnelly gives this interesting statement: "Thus we have a Defense secretary more concerned about the Army and the force he'd like to have--the high-speed-low-drag transformed force of the future--than the force with which he actually has to fight today's wars."

Is it just me, or doesn't that sound remarkably similar to something we just heard the Secretary say about why the army in the Iraq doesn't have enough armor for its transportation?

I just finished reading Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, by Anonymous (Michael Scheuer) (Brassey, Inc: Dulles, VA, 2004). Mr. Scheuer, who was an active CIA analyst when the book was published (hence the reason it came out as "Anonymous") but recently retired, spent nearly two decades specializing in the Muslim areas of Asia. This book is his latest on the subject of the conflict between Islam and the West, his first being Through Our Enemies' Eyes. He claims that he used entirely unclassified material in the book, although seen through his years analyzing the subject for the CIA.

To begin with, the man can write. Mr. Scheuer makes his points succinctly and with a certain amount of humor.

His conclusions are rather disturbing and at the same time thought provoking. To sum up, he says the following:

1) The Muslims who are fighting the US do not hate us for our values, but for our policies.

Bin Laden has consistently articulated 6 points in which he criticizes the US and justifies his defensive jihad. The points are:
1) The US unilaterally supports Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians.
2) The US keeps non-Muslim, ergo infidel, troops on the Arabian peninsula. This would be akin to having avowed pagan troops occupying parts of the Vatican.
3) The US has attacked and is occupying parts of the Muslim world, i.e., Afghanistan and Iraq.
4) The US supports Russia, India, and China in killing and repressing Muslim seperatists in their states.
5) The US exploits the natural resources of the Arabs, i.e. oil, and works to keep the cost of such low, thereby denying Muslims what is justly owed.
6) The US supports violent and bloody Muslim regimes, such as the Saudi royal family, which appear to exist solely for the benefit of those in power and not for the average Muslim. Bin Laden calls these regimes 'apostate.'

2) We are fatally mistaken when we look at Osama bin Laden as we want him to be, not as how he seems himself and how his followers see him.

The common picture of bin Laden in the West is a lone, radical fanatic, a psychopathic killer who is on the fringe of the Muslim world, spouting hateful lies against the well meaning West. The problem is that he is often seen by his followers as a devote and holy man who is striking at those who seek to oppress the world's Muslims, in the same vein as Robin Hood. His living in caves, which is often derided by the U.S., is seen as part of his nobility, as he voluntarily gave up the luxury that he could have had in order continue his fight (such as the knight Robin of Locksley surrendering his lands to live in the wilds of Sherwood Forest). He is hunted by the oppressors and has a substantial bounty placed on his head (how much money did the Sheriff of Nottingham offer for Robin?). Still, his people do not turn him in, and he strikes the enemies of Muslims, then eludes capture.

In addition, Mr. Scheuer claims that we should stop thinking of bin Laden as a terrorist. The common picture of terrorists are small groups of people who focus on blowing things up and so far on the fringe that they need states such as Iran, Syria, or the old Soviet Union to provide them funding. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are vast, and it appears from the training camps we have seen that they churn out not terrorists, but that they train para-military insurgents, similar to those trained by the CIA in Afghanistan when it fought against the Soviet Union.

3) So long as the U.S. keeps its present policies, we will only win with the military. More importantly, the war will be long, drawn out, and extremely bloody.

The second part is regardless of whether we take a winning strategy or not. The winning strategy, militarily speaking, will be to hurt al Qaeda and bin Laden's followers hard enough to make them want to stop fighting. This doesn't mean arresting them, it means killing them. He uses numerous quotes at the beginning of his chapters, and they are mostly either from the U.S. Civil War or from historians about them. To win the war with the army, we must follow the example of Grant and Sherman, who did not just defeat the Confederate South, but crushed the civilians in such a way that there are many who still hold those names in contempt.

4) The present crop of U.S. leaders are incapable of defeating bin Laden.

The term he uses to describe them is 'moral cowardness.' He does not reserve this term to the present Administration, but to the Clinton administration, other politicians in Washington, to top generals, and to the upper management of the CIA. None of these people, in Mr. Scheuer's opinion, have the guts to stomache the kind of all out war that is necessary to crush al Qaeda, because the kind of death and destruction that are necessary are bad politically.

These are the main points he makes. In addition, he spends the entire second chapter describing how and why the U.S. blundered blindly into Afghanistan, despite have an abundance of information and experts in the area, and why the Karzai government is destined to fall. He also at one point tallies up the U.S. victories over al Qaeda (from pages 87 to the top of 91) and al Qaeda victories over the U.S. (pages 92 to 100).

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is that, while he constantly implies that the root cause of our problems with the Muslim world come from our policies, he does not argue for changing most of them. Perhaps he feels that the 'moral cowardness' of our leaders makes that the least likely choice, since it would require admitting that we were wrong about cetain things and that we would relinquish some of our power in the world.