Peggy Noonan offers what reasonable people would characterize as gentle criticism of the President in her latest editorial in the Online Journal.

It’s not a comprehensive essay, rather more disjointed travelogue through Noonan’s troubled consciousness about George Bush, his habits of mind, his political philosophy, even his sometimes too-familiar manner.

That latter point sticks in Noonan’s craw over the President so frequently referring to Secretary Rice as “Condi.”

I have been a big and early fan of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. I greatly admire her intellect, her drive, her professional credentials, her personal history. Whatever reservations I harbor about her recent out-front diplomatic efforts – she remains, after all, Secretary at the helm of the Department with the well-deserved reputation for foggy bureaucracy – I nevertheless appreciate that Madame Secretary is bright, tough, decisive, and charismatic.

And no, I wouldn’t dream of calling her Condi either. But then, we’re not old friends or trusted colleagues, either.

Perhaps she takes the tact that I often use with my superiors in the military. Many of my superior officers, and most often my Command Sergeant Major (CSM, one enlisted rank higher than I, and a level higher in authority), call me Jeff and are otherwise very familiar with me. I always address officers as Sir, the CSM as “Sergeant Major,” and expect my subordinates to do likewise with me.

Rank has its privileges as they say, and I am quite certain that most Presidents use familiar names and even nicknames for their most trusted aides, advisors and cabinet Secretaries, they just don’t mention them in private.

Think FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ and Nixon (especially), Ronald Reagan and Clinton. We may never have heard the familiarities, I have no doubt whatsoever others did. Call it discourse in the electronic age.

Noonan also remarks on a social construct, a habit of discourse and mind, for which she finds no proper label. The circumstance was the staged-for-public-consumption meeting between Secretary Rice and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. They shared kisses on the cheek when greeting it other before cameras, “as if they had a personal relationship unstressed by the current war.”

Noonan explains what she thought about this (emphasis mine):

I know it is spin. You know it too. And yet it worked for me. I found it a relief. I believed both Ms. Rice and Mr. Saniora were well-meaning friends who can help see the world through the mess. I was being spun, knowing I was being spun, and aware that I'd been spun successfully. There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully--that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.

I know what she means, but I think Noonan misses what is a more timeless, universal quality to what she notes in such mutually-agreed-upon portrayals.

There is a kind of tacit understanding, some primitive desire for community that formed the basis for all of civilization. I believe in God, so I’d want to say He gave us that desire; others can chalk it up to some evolutionary hardwiring that gave humanity their ability to be social animals, first and foremost. To allow this, people must be willing to not kill each other, for food or anything else, to entertain the possibility of friend and partner.

Civilization is impossible without it. It is also – by the way – what separates us from the modern-day fans of the 7^th Century Caliphate, as well. Understandable that Noonan might see such a phenomenon as just one more political construct, but if so, it’s the politics of humanity. And well might we thank Providence, else all would be war.

“Heh” if ever there was a “Heh.”

Glenn Reynolds notes some good evidence against the idea that Hezbollah is winning in their misadventure against Israel, namely that Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, “is hiding in a foreign mission in Beirut, possibly the Iranian Embassy, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.”

Glenn offered what will have to stand as the best commentary for the entire 2006 season of the Hezbollah – Israel War:

The Iranians are no doubt confident that no one would be so depraved as to disregard the sanctity of an embassy.

Wretchard of The Belmont Club speculates on what how the current fight in Lebanon came out, Israel’s information operation and what may be the deception plan at its core, and similar fascinating insights. His initial post here, and a postscript here.

Here’s a taste, but go read the whole thing:

From this observation I'm going to say that despite the received wisdom of the newspapers to the contrary, the fighting at Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil have been and continue to be an unmitigated defeat for the Hezbollah. The Hezbollah are doing the single most stupid thing imaginable for a guerilla organization. They are fighting to keep territory. Oh, I know that this will be justified in terms of "inflicting casualties" on the Israelis. But the Hez are probably losing 10 for every Israeli lost. A bad bargain for Israel you say? No. A bad bargain for Hezbollah to trade their terrorist elite for highly trained but nevertheless conventional infantry. Guerillas should trade 1 for 10, not 10 for 1.

Reduced to its essentials, the IDF strategy may be ridiculously simple: fix the Hezbollah force in Southern Lebanon while detaching its command structure from the field by simultaneously striking Beirut. One of the great mysteries, upon which newpaper accounts shed no light, is why the IDF should so furiously pulverize Hezbollah's enclaves in southern Beirut, blockade the port and disable the airport. The object isn't to shut down Lebanon. It is to momentarily disorient the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, so that in a moment of absentmindedness, the Hezbollah forces in Southern Lebanon will do what comes most naturally: commit themselves against the IDF.

Wretchard makes many more fine points, but go read his initial post here, and a postscript here.

(H/T Rich Lowry at The Corner, cross-posted at Milblogs)

Could there be any set of reactions more predictable? There they were, lined up this morning over at Real Clear Politics:

Dems' New Approach: Pander and Run - Peter Beinart, Washington Post
How to Win in a Red State - Sen. Ken Salazar, Blueprint Magazine
Bring the Bloodshed to an End - Warren Christopher, Washington Post
Let Israel Win the War - Charles Krauthammer, New York Daily News
Room for Diplomacy in the Middle East - Sen. Joseph Biden, Boston Globe
Negotiations Alone Never Brought Peace - Ed Koch, RealClearPolitics
Beinart, a Liberal Hawk that defines the type, argues that Democrats risk convincing the American public that they only move to the right to score political points, not ever out of conviction. By pandering, they remind the public that they have no core beliefs save winning office.

Senator Salazar offers a unintended rebuttal of sorts, that demonstrates that all those red state right side issues that Democratic pols need to sound right on, are genuinely held. Really, they mean it, it’s not just pandering.

Here’s Sen. Salazar’s list, with some translation for the politically unsophisticated:

Security first. We all know why this needs to be first for Democrats, as counter-argument to the prevailing wisdom.

Traditional values. Here, Sen. Salazar uses the codeword “rural.” That’s red state on the local level.

Faith. This has been thoroughly Dem-tested by now. The aim is to talk about “Beautitudes.” That’s all the easy and nice parts of Christianity without any of those offensive sin problem and “Jesus as Savior” parts that offend everybody.

Restrictions on abortion. Just so long as we maintain the Roe v. Wade status quo, and we won’t say another word about it, okay?

Security again. Mention WWII and the Greatest Generation. See the first item.

Opportunity. Come on, we’re Democrats, and gosh doesn’t it sound hopeful and positive?

Energy Independence. Oh, yeah, it’s all about oil.

Former (and largely ineffective) Secretary of State Warren Christopher says we need to “bring bloodshed to an end.” Do we really need to read the article?

No, but by way of confirming one’s preconceptions: Christopher intentionally distorts the public, diplomatic statements of the current Secretary of State, describing her position as insisting “that any cease-fire be tied to a "permanent" and "sustainable" solution to the root causes of the conflict.’ That’s not what she’s been saying. What she said amounts to, “there’s no point to calling a cease fire in which only one of the warring parties actually stops fighting.” If Israel ceases military operations, yet Hezbollah (and their Iranian and Syrian backers) continues to engage in terrorist attacks against Israel, out of self-preservation, Israel will be forced to resume military operations. With a worsened security situation, thanks to trusting those who have proven themselves untrustworthy. (Not just Hezbollah, but most of the International Community, the EU, and surely the UN.)

Christopher’s prescriptions are as irrelevant as the revisionist history he peddles. Quite understandable, since he seeks to burnish the reputation of an Administration that fiddled with Interns while the world burned.

The ever sharp and insightful Charles Krauthammer beseeches us to just “let Israel win the war.” I say again, do we really need to read the article?

No, but by way of confirming one’s confidence, here’s Krauthammer at his best:

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.

In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do.

But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die in order for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents must also die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty.

Let Israel win. Hezbollah and all those who support such evil need to be fought (against).

Senator Joe (“Listen, Jack”) Biden charts the great obtuse middle ground by cautioning us that “there’s room for diplomacy, Jack.” (And my name’s not Jack, Joe.)

Sen. Biden starts off his Ode to Self with this bromide: “As bad as the situation looks, there is an opportunity for an outcome that sets back the extremists and benefits the moderates. Producing that outcome requires imaginative, energetic, and sustained diplomacy, led by the United States.”

Wow, that’s all it needs, imagination and energy. That sure doesn’t sound like a military solution, but it doesn’t sound really mean or critical, either. He follows with several suggested steps that rely entirely on the spontaneous goodwill of others and not at all on anything from us. Wow, that’s imaginative, alright. Not too energetic for us, plenty of energy required from others. Sounds just right. If it fails, it’s Bush’s fault. If it succeeds, then it’s those Imaginative Dems that can take credit. Don’t take my word for it, here again is Sen. Biden:

It won't be easy, but if we succeed, we can do what our misadventures in the region have so far failed to accomplish: Shift the balance in the Middle East in favor of progress and moderation.

Thank God for former New York City Ed Koch, always a helpful voice, but especially so after what 9/11 brought to his beloved city. He preaches to the choir, pointing out the time-tested limitations on diplomacy, especially against those so dedicated to evil, as to use our very humanity against us.

There are those who believe that negotiations without the will to engage in military action will suffice. They are wrong. For 58 years, Israel has tried both negotiations and self-defense by its armed forces. The work of its armed forces has given it considerable security vis-à-vis those states and terrorists who seek to destroy it. Negotiations alone never brought peace.

Negotiating after defending oneself -- as Israel did with Egypt and Jordan, with which it now has peace treaties -- is far more successful and preferable to blinking, hesitation and faintheartedness.

Rarely do you see the contrast of arguments and political stances so clearly delineated, as has been made very clear with Hezbollah’s recent aggression against Israel, and Israel’s military response.

What a day for Opinion!

Two excellent reads, over at Winds of Change:

Donald Sensing on ground fighting in Lebanon

A Link from Michael Totten, with full coverage at his site

Totten is a singularly insightful commentator into the Middle East, and a brave and dedicated journalist as well. He was an early observer and advocate for the Lebanese Spring, the emergence of nascent democracy even as Syrian occupiers were hounded out. He is greatly dismayed by current events, and had refrained from public comment other than a few bleak and angry comments about Israel and the tragedy this represents for the Lebanese people.

They have grown dear to Totten, and I think he needed the distance and space of time that a prescheduled commitment gave him, to refrain from blogging at his site. He breaks that silence with this very pessimistic piece, an assessment as accurate as it is dark:

Disarming Hezbollah through persuasion and consensus was not possible in the first year of Lebanon’s independence. Disarming Hezbollah by force wasn’t possible either. The Lebanese people have been called irresponsible and cowardly by some of their friends in America for refusing to resume the civil war. Unlike Hezbollah, though, most Lebanese know better than to start unwinnable wars. This is wisdom, not cowardice, and it's sadly rare in the Arab world now. They are being punished entirely too much for what they have done and for what they can't do.

Israel and Lebanon (especially Lebanon) will continue to burn as long as Hezbollah exists as a terror miltia freed from the leash of the state. The punishment for taking on Hezbollah is war. The punishment for not taking on Hezbollah is war. Lebanese were doomed to suffer war no matter what. Their liberal democratic project could not withstand the threat from within and the assaults from the east, and it could not stave off another assault from the south. War, as it turned out, was inevitable even if the actual shape of it wasn’t. Peace was not in the cards for Lebanon. Its democracy turned out to be neither a strength nor a weakness. It was irrelevant.

This speaks a greater truth, not just for the Middle East, but for all of civilization. To realize any of the fruits of Democracy, people need to first be free in their physical safety and security. The freedom to die or be taken into captivity is no freedom at all.

First things first, after all. If the strongman and the gunman and the executioner are allowed “free” reign, no other freedoms have any real meaning. This is the poverty of options that Michael so laments for the Lebanese.

In the end, the very principles of Democracy and Freedom remain irrelevant in the face of terrorist violence and brutal aggression. That is why we fight.

Real Clear Politics published a translated text of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s remarks before Congress Wednesday, July 26^th.

The speech is terrific, as several have said, as good as or even better than US Presidential speeches, and far beyond anything the war’s opponents have been able to muster. He knows who the enemy is, and knows that same enemy attacked America on 9/11, and Iraq since its liberation from the brutality of Saddam Hussein.

PM Maliki sounds like a man of deep religious convictions, and stands as proof that one can be a committed Muslim and still honor and desire freedom and democratic principles. He and his fellow free Iraqis risk their very lives on that premise.

Here are some extracts:

Thank you for your continued resolve in helping us fight the terrorists plaguing Iraq, which is a struggle to defend our nation's democracy and our people who aspire to liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. All of those are not Western values; they are universal values for humanity.

They are as much for me the pinnacle embodiment of my faith and religion, and they are for all free spirits.

The war on terror is a real war against those who wish to burn out the flame of freedom. And we are in this vanguard for defending the values of humanity.

I know that some of you here question whether Iraq is part of the war on terror. Let me be very clear: This is a battle between true Islam, for which a person's liberty and rights constitute essential cornerstones, and terrorism, which wraps itself in a fake Islamic cloak; in reality, waging a war on Islam and Muslims and values.

And spreads hatred between humanity, contrary to what come in our Koran, which says, "We have created you of male and female and made you tribes and families that you know each other." Surely (inaudible) of you in the sight of God is the best concept.

The truth is that terrorism has no religion. Our faith says that who kills an innocent, as if they have killed all mankind.

Thousands of lives were tragically lost on September 11th when these impostors of Islam reared their ugly head. Thousands more continue to die in Iraq today at the hands of the same terrorists who show complete disregard for human life.

Your loss on that day was the loss of all mankind, and our loss today is lost for all free people.

And wherever humankind suffers a loss at the hands of terrorists, it is a loss of all of humanity.

It is your duty and our duty to defeat this terror. Iraq is the front line in this struggle, and history will prove that the sacrifices of Iraqis for freedom will not be in vain. Iraqis are your allies in the war on terror.

Maliki knows his enemy, and he knows his enemy is the enemy of freedom and liberty, and any democratic nation that tries to maintain these principles in the face of terrorist aggression:

The greatest threat Iraq's people face is terror: terror inflicted by extremists who value no life and who depend on the fear their wanton murder and destruction creates.

They have poured acid into Iraq's dictatorial wounds and created many of their own.

Iraq is free, and the terrorists cannot stand this.

They hope to undermine our democratically elected government through the random killing of civilians. They want to destroy Iraq's future by assassinating our leading scientific, political and community leaders. Above all, they wish to spread fear.

Do not think that this is an Iraqi problem. This terrorist front is a threat to every free country in the world and their citizens. What is at stake is nothing less than our freedom and liberty.

Confronting and dealing with this challenge is the responsibility of every liberal democracy that values its freedom. Iraq is the battle that will determine the war. If, in continued partnership, we have the strength of mind and commitment to defeat the terrorists and their ideology in Iraq, they will never be able to recover.

Maliki promised our enemies that they would not break the resolve of the Iraqi people, who long suffered violence at the hands of a tyrant. Maliki vowed that terrorists will not achieve their dreams of the Caliphate, rather they would find their graves:

We faced tyranny and oppression under the former regime. And we now face a different kind of terror. We did not bow then and we will not bow now.

I will not allow Iraq to become a launch pad for Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations.

I will not allow terror to rob Iraqis of their hopes and dreams. I will not allow terrorists to dictate to us our future.

For decades, we struggled alone for our freedom. In 1991, when Iraqis tried to capitalize on the regime's momentary weakness and rose up, we were alone again.

The people of Iraq will not forget your continued support as we establish a secure, liberal democracy. Let 1991 never be repeated, for history will be most unforgiving.

The coming few days are difficult and the challenges are considerable. Iraq and America both need each other to defeat the terror engulfing the free world.

In partnership, we will be triumphant because we will never be slaves to terror, for God has made us free.

Trust that Iraq will be a grave for terrorism and terrorists.

Trust that Iraq will be the graveyard for terrorism and terrorists for the good of all humanity.

How do the Democrats respond to this incredibly moving and heroic speech? They called the Iraqi Prime Minister an Anti-Semite:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean on Wednesday called Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki an "anti-Semite" for failing to denounce Hezbollah for its attacks against Israel.

Mind you, they don’t call UN Secretary General Kofi Annan an Anti-Semite (despite a lot more evidence that he is). Annan’s pronouncements have been far more critical of Israel and tolerant of Hezbollah, than anything Maliki has said. Consistency, logic, or even common sense are beyond the DNC Chair, I suppose.

Hat tips to other commentary, several of whom note the hypocrisy of calling Maliki an “anit-Semite while giving Annan his usual free pass: James Taranto, The Real Ugly American, Carol Platt Liebau, Flopping Aces, Dinocrat, The Zero Point, INDCJournal, Blue Crab Boulevard.

Bill Whittle, if you don’t already know, is one of the finest essayists alive.

He has Chapter One of his new book posted on his website, please go read the whole thing. The Introduction is posted here.

I won’t excerpt, you need to absorb Bill in big chunks to truly appreciate his work. Suffice it to say that Bill takes on big ideas with both seriousness and humor. His operant metaphor in his Introduction was Coastlines and Maps; his premise in Chapter One is Civilization and The Web of Trust.

I can’t do these justice, you just have to read them.

I will mention by way of referral, Bill’s previous series of essays were the excellent TRIBES and SANCTUARY (part 1) / SANCTUARY (part 2).

Bill has written an earlier book, Silent America. I haven’t read it, but if it in any measure reflects the keen insight Bill shows in his essays, it would be worth the read.

Mark Steyn casts a critical eye on Arab state reluctance to turn (as a block) against Israel in the latest crisis, and suggests that Arabs may not be happy with the monster their anti-Israeli policies have created.

Here’s where Steyn gets started:

A few years back, when folks talked airily about "the Middle East peace process" and "a two-state solution," I used to say that the trouble was the Palestinians saw a two-state solution as an interim stage en route to a one-state solution. I underestimated Islamist depravity. As we now see in Gaza and southern Lebanon, any two-state solution would be an interim stage en route to a no-state solution.

In one of the most admirably straightforward of Islamist declarations, Hussein Massawi, the Hezbollah leader behind the slaughter of U.S. and French forces 20 years ago, put it this way:

"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."

This just gets Steyn warmed up. The public declarations of terrorist intent have long served as the best possible explanation for what our enemies have in mind, and Steyn steadfastly makes the point: listen to what our enemies are saying. In the case of those who have at times been our enemies, who may now have an opportunity to reconsider, equally instructive is what’s not said.

What’s not happening are Middle Eastern Arab state denunciations of Israeli provocation and aggression. No public exhortations to fellow Muslim warriors, to annihilate the hated Zionist Oppressor.

Why the Arab State reluctance to revert to form? According to Steyn, the horror of their own inaction, and the monstrous creature it has birthed:

But Saudi-Egyptian-Jordanian opportunism on Palestine has caught up with them: It's finally dawned on them that a strategy of consciously avoiding resolution of the "Palestinian question" has helped deliver Gaza, and Lebanon and Syria, into the hands of a regime that's a far bigger threat to the Arab world than the Zionist Entity. Cairo and Co. grew so accustomed to whining about the Palestinian pseudo-crisis decade in decade out that it never occurred to them that they might face a real crisis one day: a Middle East dominated by an apocalyptic Iran and its local enforcers, in which Arab self-rule turns out to have been a mere interlude between the Ottoman sultans and the eternal eclipse of a Persian nuclear umbrella. The Zionists got out of Gaza and it's now Talibanistan redux. The Zionists got out of Lebanon and the most powerful force in the country (with an ever-growing demographic advantage) are Iran's Shia enforcers. There haven't been any Zionists anywhere near Damascus in 60 years and Syria is in effect Iran's first Sunni Arab prison bitch. For the other regimes in the region, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria are dead states that have risen as vampires.

I have to say, any time you can compare nations to the living dead, you’re in rare rhetorical form. And in these cases, surely on target.

Other commentators: The Volokh Conspiracy, Blue Crab Boulevard.

Austin Bay posts expert military analysis on the recent attack on the Israeli corvette, INS Ahi-Hanit, enlisting  Kirk Spencer and Trent Telenko, who’s analysis Bay compiles in this report. Here’s a summary of the discussion:

On July 14, 2006, an anti-ship missile fired from Lebanon struck the Israeli SAAR-5 Missile Corvette (http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/naval/saar5/Saar5.html) INS Ahi-Hanit. Reports are mixed as to exactly what kind of missile struck the INS Ahi-Hanit.Initial reports centered in an armed UAV as being the culprit based on Hezbollah propaganda.

(snip)

Haaretz.com reported (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738695.html) another ship, a Cambodian flagged merchantman, was struck and sunk shortly after INS Ahi-Hanit was hit. The merchantman was 60 km from the coast and 44 km down range from the INS Ahi-Hanit and was hit by the missile that missed/was decoyed from the INS Ahi-Hanit. Both Debka (http://debka.com/article.php?aid=1184) and Defense-Update.com
(http://www.defense-update.com/2006/07/ins-hanit-suffers-iranian-missile.html) are reporting a “High-Low” missile attack was conducted on the INS Ahi-Hanit with the initial C-802 being set for a higher trajectory to draw out the INS Ahi-Hanit’s electronic defenses and chaff while a second sea skimming missile came in behind it and activated its seeker while it was almost on top of the INS Ahi-Hanit.

The difference between the accounts is that Debka says the first C-802 was set for a “pop-up” trajectory and dove into the sea while Defense-Update.com says the second missile was a TV guided Chinese C-701, also known as the Kosar in Iranian service.

(snip)

The C-802 series missile is clone of the rocket powered French Exocet missile upgraded with a turbojet to give it performance comparable to early marks of the US Navy Harpoon anti-ship missile.

(snip)

We are of the opinion that the missile strike was indeed “high-low,” as both sites described, but we think it involved two C-802 missiles.  The use of missiles of two different types implies two different launchers trucks being coordinated by radio under Israeli UAV and signals intelligence surveillance nets.  The simpler and safer operational mode would be a single truck launcher with two C-802’s.We are also in agreement with it being two C-802 missiles, but not necessarily with the same-truck launcher scenario. The reason for the agreement is the damage done to the ship -it was a bit much for a 29kg warhead.

Milblogs covered much of this ground earlier, here, here, and here.

When we see advanced armaments used in the service of terrorists, we can suspect a couple of several possibilities. Either the these weapons have been sold directly to Hezbollah, or they Iranian armaments made available to Hezbollah, or used on their behalf.

Given the military sophistication of this attack, it is virtually certain that this was conducted by Iranian military personal or technicians. Hezbollah would lack the technical training or expertise with such a weapon system. These are not a terror weapons, after all, but precision guided, anti-ship munitions. Not useful at all at killing innocent civilians.

(Via Winds of Change)

Ryan Sager, posting on the RCP Blog, notes a report from ABC's Jake Tapper on the "Snowflake" adoption program referenced by the President when he vetoed the embryonic stem cell bill.

Tapper’s report included an interview with Ron Stoddart, Executive Director of Nightlight Christian Adoptions. Sager posted this clip from that report:

Stoddart says that 110 babies have been born in total, with "20 more on the way." There have been 273 donor families, he says, donating anywhere from one to 10 embryos per couple. They have been matched with 178 adopting parents. My math was correct - that means 143 embryos did not survive the process.

"Typically when we transfer or thaw the embryos, about half of them survive thawing," Stoddart reports. "Of those that survive, about a third result in a birth." Two-thirds of the embryos that survive thawing don't become a baby either because of miscarriage or failure to implant in the adoptive mother's uterus.

Sager offers the following summary of what that means:

Even in the creation of the snowflake children being used as the face of opposition to stem-cell research, other embryos were destroyed. What's more, simply as a byproduct of in vitro fertilization treatment in general, thousands of embryos are discarded/destroyed every year. I just can't get my head around any logic that says it's OK to destroy those embryos, but not to use them for research that might vastly improve the quality of life for thousands (and eventually millions) of living, breathing human beings.

And concludes with this:

It seems to me you either have to support banning any process that willfully leads to the destruction of embryos -- including IVF -- or you have to accept stem-cell research and fund it like any other type of basic science.

I support the President’s veto, and think that Sager has it exactly right. I am greatly disturbed that nowhere do I see this argument (and controversy) so precisely captured, and even more upset that I find it embedded within a criticism of the President’s decision.

What has created this controversy is exactly the (at best) amoral line of thinking that has created the huge Pandora’s box of medically assisted procreation.

Ends, in and of themselves, never justify the means. Our hearts can go out to childless couples, frustrated with their attempts at parenthood and the often Byzantine world of modern adoption. Nevertheless, look at the harm such well-intentioned medical manipulation has done.

Human beings have been created based on the hope of a miracle pregnancy, and several multiples of those beings are routinely sacrificed to fulfill the desires of a few.

Having seen some of the debris and detritus of broken families first and second hand over many years, I would argue that Parenthood, in and of itself, is not an unadulterated good. I mean no insult or hurt to those who struggle to become parents, but not everyone who wants to have children should have them.

Maybe those who want them so desperately might make the best of parents, when children are a long-hoped-for gift from God. Perhaps. But for many, it’s a gift that takes the place of a possibly greater gift -- that of adopting already existing children who much more desperately need parents – and arguably have a greater claim to our compassion than a childless couple who doesn’t want them.

The ends don’t justify the means. Or to put it another way, just because we have the technology to do certain things, doesn’t mean we should do them. Which is why I think the entire field of medical ethics is bankrupt. If people logically get themselves this convinced that human life can be a commodity, justified on the basis of some greater good, that same form of ethics can begin to value one human life over another.

That kind of ethics is no kind of ethics at all.

Wretchard at The Belmont Club posts a transcript of a speech delivered by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) July 11, 2006.

From the transcript:

I will give my bottom line up front. I believe Americans, while remaining tactically patient about Iraq, should be strategically optimistic. Most important, a major change - a tectonic shift - has taken place in the political orientation of the Sunni Arab community. A year ago, Sunni Arabs were outside of the political process and hostile to the United States. They boycotted the January 2005 election and were underrepresented in the transitional national assembly. Today, Sunni Arabs are full participants in the political process, with their representation in the national assembly now proportional to their share of the population. Also, they have largely come to see the United States as an honest broker in helping Iraq's communities come together around a process and a plan to stabilize the country.

Moreover, al Qaeda in Iraq has been significantly weakened during the past year. This resulted, not only from the recent killing of Zarqawi, but also from the capture or killing of a number of other senior leaders and the creation of an environment in which it is more difficult and dangerous for al Qaeda in Iraq.

Here’s how Khalilzad concluded his speech:

I want to end by saying a word on the importance of succeeding in Iraq. I am aware of the dangers of staying too long in Iraq, as well as the risks of leaving too soon, before success is ensured. A precipitous Coalition departure could unleash a sectarian civil war, which inevitably would draw neighboring states into a regional conflagration that would disrupt oil supplies and cause instability to spill over borders. It could also result in al Qaeda taking over part of Iraq, recreating the sanctuary it enjoyed but lost in Afghanistan. If al Qaeda gained this foothold - which is the strategy of the terrorists - it would be able to exploit Iraq's strategic location and enormous resources. This would make the past challenge of al Qaeda in Afghanistan look like child's play. Finally, a precipitous withdrawal could lead to an ethnic civil war, with the Kurds concluding that the Iraqi democratic experiment had failed and taking matters into their own hands and with regional powers becoming involved to secure their interests.

Whatever anyone may have thought about the decision to topple Saddam - whether one supported it or not - succeeding in Iraq is now essential to the future of the region and the world. Most of the world's security problems emanate from the region stretching from Morocco to Pakistan. Shaping its future is the defining challenge of our time. What happens in Iraq will be decisive in determining how this region evolves. Therefore, the struggle for the future of Iraq is vital to the future of the world.

Via Instapundit, also linked at by Jimbo at Blackfive.

As evidenced by the comments over at Blackfive, there are those that can read or hear this speech and see nothing more than an American spokesman, spouting propaganda in the face of much-hyped evidence to the contrary. (Cue the next car bomb attack against civilians.)

Those of us who, like Khalilzad, view the war in Iraq as of immense and of multi-generational strategic significance, will never be able to argue such contrarians out of their prejudices. Any violence serves as further evidence of failure, good news is only propaganda, yet extend to our enemies the opposite presumptions.

The New York Times slanders the US military, again, in an outrageous editorial, with which it likewise slanders an “administration that tossed aside the Geneva rules years ago.”

I’m in the military that the Times Editors so thoroughly despise and disparage at every opportunity, and I can tell them this: No military on the face of this earth more thoroughly complies with both the letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions, than the US Military.

The Times suggests that the Bush Administration can’t be trusted with abiding by the Geneva Conventions:

The administration has professed its allegiance to the humane treatment of prisoners and to the rule of law before. But repairing the constitutional balance of powers and America’s profoundly damaged global image demand more than lip service.

Al Qaeda propaganda at its finest. More than lip service, indeed it is. The Times endorses the outright falsehood that the US Military, as a reflection of official US Policy, rejects the rules and obligations of the Geneva Conventions.

As proof, they have spent the better part of the last 5 years pointing to one incident or another of supposed violation. All conducted by individuals, reported by superiors (NCOs and officers), investigated by the military, and punished as appropriate. All under a microscope of dedicated propaganda and partisan point-taking by bitter political opponents of the President, and their media enablers such as the Times.

The latest statement by Department of Defense (DoD) officials states that “prisoner policies already generally complied with the Geneva Conventions” because they always have. Soldiers take the Geneva Conventions and similar standards in the Laws of War quite seriously, and orders or directives to violate those standards would create a loud groundswell of rebuke and public insubordination within the military.

There have been some discussions, debate, and reasonable steps taken to expand tools and techniques of interrogation as they apply to a class of enemy combatants that are neither prisoners of war, nor definable by current Convention articles, much less recognizable as signatories or adherents of international treaty.

Outside of some judge advocate corps (JAG) purists who argue on fine points of military legalese, no serious observer questions the difficulties and contradictions in affording criminal or military justice protections to possible terrorists detained in a battle space, not abiding by rules or conventions. The thought of affording these detainees with what may be highly classified evidence against them, information they can use to thwart interdiction efforts against their fellow Hirabah.

Global terrorism is a grave and evil threat to our way of life, to civilization itself all over the world, as recently evidence by the horrible bombings in Mumbai (Bombay).

If anything, the US Military is a peerless exemplar of how to fight such a threat with honor, humanity, civility, and professionalism against a determined enemy that evidences none of those things. The very few exceptions prove the rule.

Not that the Times is paying attention. They’re too busy carrying water for the Hirabah public relations and propaganda effort.

Grim at Milblogs links to a great article by Philip Bobbitt in the UK Spectator, The London bombings: one year on.

As the subtitle of Bobbitt’s piece suggests, “We haven't absorbed the lessons.”

The lessons unlearned include continuing to view our extra-state enemies as aspiring Nation States. I’ll explain my formulation, “extra-state,” following an excerpt from the Spectator:

In the 20th century, national liberation and ethnic secessionist groups used terror to gain the power exercised by nation states. Indeed, terrorism in the period immediately past typically represented nationalist ambitions — the PLO, PKK, Tamil Tigers and the Stern Gang are all examples — pitting established powers against embryonic ones in a struggle to control or create states.

Terrorism in the 21st century will present an entirely different face. It will be global; it will be decentralised and networked much like a multinational corporation; it will outsource many of its operations. This terrorism, of which al-Qa’eda is only the first exemplar, does not resemble or seek to become a nation state. Terrorism in its new guise has no national focus or nationalist agenda; it operates in the globalised marketplace of weapons, targets, personnel, information and media influence. Neither Europeans nor anyone else can claim familiarity with this phenomenon.

Second, the analogy to 20th-century, nation-state terrorism has led some to conclude that there is no more to fear from al-Qa’eda than there was from the IRA. When we realistically compare the apocalyptic visions of Osama bin Laden and the practices of the Taleban when they were in power, however, we ought to realise that we are not dealing with Michael Collins. Yet there are quite a few commentators who, still pressing the IRA analogy they think they understand, have simply concluded that there is no al-Qa’eda. It is a myth, concocted by the government to instill fear in order to increase the power of the state. The killers of 7 July are, in this view, a few self-generated sympathisers who identify with a distant struggle. Because they are not structured along the hierarchical lines of 20th-century terrorist groups, it is thought that angry Muslim bands spontaneously appear, and then manage to carry out complex, synchronised atrocities. In reality, as Peter Neumann concludes in the current issue of Survival, ‘this is a ridiculous distortion’. We can see that when we compare the 7 July conspiracy with the terrorist plot recently interrupted in Miami, where a true group of amateurish misfits tried to link up with al-Qa’eda and connected only with an FBI agent. Simply because the al-Qa’eda networks are less structured and are based on personal relationships rather than corresponding to military hierarchies — because, that is, they organisationally resemble Visa or Mastercard more than the IRA — does not mean that al-Qa’eda is an imaginary enterprise.

I think Bobbitt describes the situation perfectly. This rehashes my earlier criticism

of Michael Hirsh in Newsweek, whereby flawed and incomplete analytic frameworks leads to inaccurate analysis and misjudgments. I first posted on some of the reasons for this in the context of how our Intelligence Analysts displayed similar or at least analogous patterns of analysis.

Bobbitt alludes to the same illogic that bedevils Hirsh and his sources within the Intelligence community, whereby the absence of attacks are taken as proof that the threat was exaggerated. Is it not rather more likely that the demonstrable examples of broken plots and failed attempts reflect success against an enemy that was all too capable, were we to go back to ignoring the threat?

I can always count on Mark Steyn to strip away vast layers of pretense, and offer up the core of an issue, and likewise always with wit.

His Sunday Chicago Sun-Times piece more than met my expectations, this time dealing with the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ill-considered Hamdan decision:

There are several ways to fight a war. On the one hand, you can put on a uniform, climb into a tank, rumble across a field and fire on the other fellows' tank. On the other, you can find a 12-year-old girl, persuade her to try on your new suicide-bomber belt and send her waddling off into the nearest pizza parlor.

The Geneva Conventions were designed to encourage the former and discourage the latter. The thinking behind them was that, if one had to have wars, it's best if they're fought by soldiers and armies. In return for having a rank and serial number and dressing the part, you'll be treated as a lawful combatant should you fall into the hands of the other side. There'll always be a bit of skulking around in street garb among civilian populations, but the idea was to ensure that it would not be rewarded --that there would, in fact, be a downside for going that route.

The U.S. Supreme Court has now blown a hole in the animating principle behind the Geneva Conventions by choosing to elevate an enemy that disdains the laws of war in order to facilitate the bombing of civilian targets and the beheading of individuals. The argument made by Justice John Paul Stevens is an Alice-In-Jihadland ruling that stands the Conventions on their head in order to give words the precise opposite of their plain meaning and intent. The same kind of inspired jurisprudence conjuring trick that detected in the emanations of the penumbra how the Framers of the U.S. Constitution cannily anticipated a need for partial-birth abortion and gay marriage has now effectively found a right to jihad -- or, if you're a female suicide bomber about to board an Israeli bus, a woman's right to Jews.

Much of the commentary and public statements by those who view Hamdan as a “triumph” reveal these dreamers as so many “Alices-In-Jihadland.”

I agree whole-heartedly with those who argue that the US must uphold a higher standard, that our military must fight a civilized fight, that there are vital national interests in preserving the highest ideals in how we fight, and how we operate in a post-9/11 world.

The difference between me and my fellow Milbloggers, and this passel of Alices, is that we Milbloggers know that the US and its military have always have upheld those higher standards, notwithstanding isolated violations by individuals, and only very rarely, those who represent official government policies.

The rare exceptions prove the rule. Our enemies everywhere, for decades, have know that it is infinitely better – and often more profitable – to fall into our hands, than to fall into the hands of others, or worse, fall afoul of their own masters.

Ask any German soldier who survived World War Two as a Prisoner of War. Look at survivability of US captives versus Russian. Look at the treatment of Japanese prisoners, even the regrettable internment of Japanese Americans, versus the brutal treatment by Japan of any people or community they occupied or with whom they otherwise came into contact.

The Geneva Conventions were created and remain a noble statement of higher principles in the face of the horrors of war. But they were only a hope against future enemies, that we could appeal to their humanity in maintaining a bare minimum of civility even in this most hellish of human enterprises, war. No surprise that some find their provisions quaint in the face of stateless enemies who intentionally target civilians, countenance the most brutal savagery against them, and in fact adopt horrific practices specifically to weaken our resolve.

Finding them quaint doesn’t mean we cease valuing them, rather, that we don’t waste any time deluding ourselves into thinking our enemies consider upholding these principles, or even consider them at all.

Whatever else they may see through those looking glasses of theirs, these Alices can’t find any answer to the terrorists we face, nor there Mullahcratic Masters who set them in motion.

(Via The Corner)