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Tuesday, 10 August 2010
The Nukes We Need
Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, previously at Foreign Affairs, "Preserving the American Deterrent":
The success of nuclear deterrence may turn out to be its own undoing. Nuclear weapons helped keep the peace in Europe throughout the Cold War, preventing the bitter dispute from engulfing the continent in another catastrophic conflict. But after nearly 65 years without a major war or a nuclear attack, many prominent statesmen, scholars, and analysts have begun to take deterrence for granted. They are now calling for a major drawdown of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and a new commitment to pursue a world without these weapons.More at the link.
Unfortunately, deterrence in the twenty-first century may be far more difficult for the United States than it was in the past, and having the right mix of nuclear capabilities to deal with the new challenges will be crucial. The United States leads a global network of alliances, a position that commits Washington to protecting countries all over the world. Many of its potential adversaries have acquired, or appear to be seeking, nuclear weapons. Unless the world's major disputes are resolved -- for example, on the Korean Peninsula, across the Taiwan Strait, and around the Persian Gulf -- or the U.S. military pulls back from these regions, the United States will sooner or later find itself embroiled in conventional wars with nuclear-armed adversaries.
Preventing escalation in those circumstances will be far more difficult than peacetime deterrence during the Cold War. In a conventional war, U.S. adversaries would have powerful incentives to brandish or use nuclear weapons because their lives, their families, and the survival of their regimes would be at stake. Therefore, as the United States considers the future of its nuclear arsenal, it should judge its force not against the relatively easy mission of peacetime deterrence but against the demanding mission of deterring escalation during a conventional conflict, when U.S. enemies are fighting for their lives.
Debating the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is critical now because the Obama administration has pledged to pursue steep cuts in the force and has launched a major review of U.S. nuclear policy. (The results will be reported to Congress in February 2010.) The administration's desire to shrink the U.S. arsenal is understandable. Although the force is only one-fourth the size it was when the Cold War ended, it still includes roughly 2,200 operational strategic warheads -- more than enough to retaliate against any conceivable nuclear attack. Furthermore, as we previously argued in these pages ("The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy," March/April 2006 [1]), the current U.S. arsenal is vastly more capable than its Cold War predecessor, particularly in the area of "counterforce" -- the ability to destroy an adversary's nuclear weapons before they can be used.
Simply counting U.S. warheads or measuring Washington's counterforce capabilities will not, however, reveal what type of arsenal is needed for deterrence in the twenty-first century. The only way to determine that is to work through the grim logic of deterrence: to consider what actions will need to be deterred, what threats will need to be issued, and what capabilities will be needed to back up those threats.
The Obama administration is right that the United States can safely cut its nuclear arsenal, but it must pay careful attention to the capabilities it retains. During a war, if a desperate adversary were to use its nuclear force to try to coerce the United States -- for example, by threatening a U.S. ally or even by launching nuclear strikes against U.S. overseas bases -- an arsenal comprised solely of high-yield weapons would leave U.S. leaders with terrible retaliatory options. Destroying Pyongyang or Tehran in response to a limited strike would be vastly disproportionate, and doing so might trigger further nuclear attacks in return. A deterrent posture based on such a dubious threat would lack credibility.
Instead, a credible deterrent should give U.S. leaders a range of retaliatory options, including the ability to respond to nuclear attacks with either conventional or nuclear strikes, to retaliate with strikes against an enemy's nuclear forces rather than its cities, and to minimize casualties. The foundation for this flexible deterrent exists. The current U.S. arsenal includes a mix of accurate high- and low-yield warheads, offering a wide range of retaliatory options -- including the ability to launch precise, very low-casualty nuclear counterforce strikes. The United States must preserve that mix of capabilities -- especially the low-yield weapons -- as it cuts the size of its nuclear force.
VIDEO HAT TIP: William Jacobson.
RELATED: "Hiroshima - Nagasaki, August 1945," and "Do States Ally Against the Leading Global Power?"
CROSS-POSTED FROM AMERICAN POWER.
DSM-IV "doofus" Proposition 8.........from Rico
I could NOT find the clinical definition of "doofus" in the Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV, but this cartoon comes pretty damned close. One gay judge telling millions of voters to go pack fudge by overturning Proposition 8 actually illustrates the point quite well. 
Monday, 9 August 2010
Trailer: 'I Want Your Money' (2010)
Set against the backdrop of today's headline - 67% of Americans don't approve of Obama's economic policies, the film takes a provocative look at our deeply depressed economy using the words and actions of Presidents Reagan and Obama and shows the marked contrast between Reaganomics and Obamanomics. The film contrasts two views of the role that the federal government should play in our daily lives using the words and actions of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Two versions of the American dream now stand in sharp contrast. One views the money you earned as yours and best allocated by you; the other believes that the elite in Washington know how to best allocate your wealth. One champions the traditional American dream, which has played out millions of times through generations of Americans, of improving one's lot in life and even daring to dream and build big. The other holds that there is no end to the "good" the government can do by taking and spending other peoples' money in an ever-burgeoning list of programs. The documentary film I Want Your Money exposes the high cost in lost freedom and in lost opportunity to support a Leviathan-like bureaucratic state.
H/T Nebraska Bob
Complaints to Councils in Britain
1. It's the dogs mess that I find hard to swallow.
2. I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off.
3. I wish to complain that my father twisted his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage.
4. Their 18 year old son is continually banging his balls against my fence.
5. I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was bad wind the other day that blew them off.
6. My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?
7. I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.
8. Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.
9. I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.
10. 50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster, and 50% are just plain filthy.
11. I am still having problems with smoke in my new drawers.
12. The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.
13. Will you please send a man to look at my water, it is a funny colour and not fit to drink.
14. Our lavatory seat is broken in half and now is in three pieces.
15. I want to complain about the farmer across the road. Every morning at 6am his cock wakes me up and it's now getting too much for me.
16. The man next door has a large erection in the back garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.
17. Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a third, so please send someone round to do something about it..
18. I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.
19. Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy my wife.
20. I have had the clerk of works down on the floor six times but I still have no satisfaction.
21. This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broke and we can't get BBC2.
22. My bush is really overgrown round the front and my back passage has fungus growing in it.
23. He's got this huge tool that vibrates the whole house and I just can't take it anymore.
H/T DML
Rare event this morning
At 6mins and 7secs after 5 o'clock on Aug 9th 2010, was 05:06:07 08/09/10. This won't happen again until 3010.
H/T DML
News.......
Day 31 – August 9th 1940
America Is at Risk of Boiling Over
Obama Choppers Six Miles For Economy Comments
The Mexicans In The Living Room: Why Won't Greenies Admit Immigration's Global Warming Impact?
Roseanne Barr is Fat and Ugly (on the inside)
BBC's £800m licence to spend: 23% rise in budget as public sector faces savage cuts
Finalist Dies at World Sauna Championships
Radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir arrested in Indonesia
BBC laptops and mobiles worth £240,000 lost or stolen
Briton to walk the entire span of the Amazon
Groom accidentally kills three relatives at wedding
Hugo Chavez wants new US ambassador
and finally...
A bias against beauty
Brazilian World War II workers fight for recognition
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Sunday, 8 August 2010
The Muslim Hijacking of Ground Zero
This Ground Zero controversy is shaping up as a defining political and security issue in American politics, timed perfectly for the 9th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I've commented previously at length. It's to the point that folks left and right are talking past each other and it's doubtful a whole lot of additional commentary will win the day with either side. Two of the best analyses were offered by Dan Senor and Thomas Kidd. At bottom is a roundup of opinions. Note though that if the proposed Mega Mosque at Ground Zero is defeated, we can mark it down not so much to the opposition but to the bad faith and dishonesty of the developers themselves. There are two key reports out pointing to a degree of secrecy and deceit that is surprising for a project that's widely touted on the left as about "building bridges." Why lie and obfuscate if this is such a great project, so obviously in the public interest?
The second piece, which is even more breathtaking, is Claudia Rosett's at Forbes, "Further Travels of Imam Feisal." As reported by Rossett, Imam Rauf is "about to embark on a nearly month-long swing through the Middle East, with plans to visit Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar." This could well be considered a routine goodwill visit to the region, and not a Persian Gulf fundraising drive for the Ground Zero Mosque. The problem is that Imam Rauf's tour is actually a junket sponsored by the U.S. State Department, and apparently no one at Foggy Bottom wants to talk about it:
At the State Department, which presumably will be spending taxpayer money on Rauf's tour, I have yet to receive confirmation or any other information about his program, despite three days of my repeated requests by phone and e-mail. Apparently it is taking a while for State's Bureau of Public Diplomacy to get "clearance" to release any details of this particular public outreach effort, though Rauf's wife says it has been in the works for months.Rauf's wife is Daisy Khan, now coming under fire for her "ignorance" of Con Ed's half-ownership of Park Place. And Rossett continues on why the State Department tour is problematic:
All this comes at a moment when Rauf and his partners in New York are preparing to raise $100 million to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero. A Manhattan Landmarks committee gave the necessary approval on Aug. 3 to tear down the old Burlington Coat Factory building already purchased for $4.85 million by a real estate developer partnering with Rauf. That building is so close to Ground Zero that on the morning of the Sept. 11 attacks parts of one of the hijacked planes damaged its roof. On that lot, the Islamic center project is now cleared to roll forward, once the money rolls in.
In May the English-language website of Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Rauf, in a London interview, had said his Islamic center will be financed by donations both from Muslims in the U.S. and from Arab and Islamic countries. Asked recently how this might work in detail, Kahn said she doesn't know; all plans are still in flux while a new entity to handle the Islamic center project "is being formed."Damn straight.
To some of the defenders of this project, such specifics don't matter. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week said he doesn't care where the $100 million comes from; he sees it as none of the government's business. If the only criterion here is that Rauf and his partners comply with the minimum due diligence and disclosure required by law, Bloomberg has a point.
But to a great many Americans, it quite likely does matter where the money comes from. For one thing, there is always the potential for the preferences of big donors to sway the behavior of nonprofit ventures. Countries such as Saudi Arabia are not known for full-throated support of American values and freedoms.
For another, the current uproar over the project is testimony all by itself that to many Americans, the site of the World Trade Center is freighted with symbolism. That may not always register as a matter of law, but it does matter. Ground Zero is both the geographic and symbolic heart of the attacks in which Islamist terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, murdered almost 3,000 Americans.
Of those 19 terrorists, 15 were from Saudi Arabia and two were from the United Arab Emirates; the others were Egyptian and Lebanese. If Rauf wishes to raise money from the part of the world that raised these terrorists, especially from Saudi Arabia or the UAE, then within normal constraints of U.S. law, he is entitled to do so.
But if Rauf's aim is truly, as he says, to build bridges, reach out and promote harmony in America, then punctuating his Ground Zero project with a summer swing past fonts of Islamic oil money seems an odd way to go about it. With emotions rubbed raw among some families of Sept. 11 victims, with arguments boiling over the "bridge-building" project Rauf himself set in motion, it would seem far more fitting for him to spend his time in America, answering, not least, the many questions he has repeatedly deflected about the money.
It's going to take more reporting like this for these facts to sink in among the jihadi-enabling MSM. These questions are worth investigating, but the debate is completely polarized, just as we saw with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab ("the system worked") and Major Nidal Malik Hasan ("he was just, sort of, a religious nut").
Meanwhile, I've borrowed the title of this post from Daniel Greenfield, "The Muslim Hijacking of Ground Zero":
Islam doesn't just hijack planes, it hijacks the things that mean something to people. The great cities of the world are littered with relics of the Muslim occupation of their sacred places. Jerusalem, Delhi, Constantinople and Alexandria all testify to the Muslim predilection for taking over other people's sacred places, and turning them into mosques. It wasn't enough for Muslims to conquer Jerusalem and subjugate its inhabitants. No, they also had to take the holiest place in Judaism and build a mosque on top of it. Similarly it wasn't enough for them to conquer and rename Constantinople, they also had to turn the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. These are not exceptions to the rule. In Asia, the Middle East and Europe, there are numberless examples of the same thing ...Powerful.
Ground Zero is not only the central point of the Muslim massacre of 3000 people. It is also the central point of the memory of that massacre. The area is the place where people come to remember what happened. To see, to hear and to pay tribute to the dead. Which is exactly why Muslims are determined to hijack it for their own purposes, with a highly visible mosque and their own 9/11 museum that will feature a radically altered version of history. What they are after is the equivalent of putting up a Holocaust Revisionism museum outside the Holocaust museum ...
At Ground Zero, all Americans realized that Islam was an inescapable question that they must grapple with. It is a powerful symbol. And symbols are dangerous. People will fight and die for symbols, as they will not for cold hard facts. It is why the left has tried to hijack it using the IFC. They failed. Now where they failed, the Islamists intend to succeed. And just as the IFC was backed by Bloomberg, so too the Ground Zero mosque is being backed by Bloomberg. It's why the media and liberals are shouting down all criticism of the Ground Zero mosque. Islam and the left both want to suppress the real history of September 11. They want Americans to forget who did it, and instead feed them excuses about "American foreign policy" and of course those omnipresent Jews, who are really to blame for it all ....
The Great Lie told and retold over and over again for the last 9 years, is that Islam was not responsible for 9/11. That lie has been repeated over and over again. It has permeated our culture. It has filled our media. The politicians have echoed it. Books and articles are written that treat it as something every reasonable person understands. Islam had nothing to do with 9/11. Not a damn thing.
The Ground Zero mosque is that lie made flesh. It is that revisionist history given physical form, turned into brick and mortar, steel and cement, raised up to the sky, to look down mockingly on the Ground Zero construction site itself, and the people who come there to reflect and remember. It mocks their memories. It mocks the dead. Its arrogance is the same as that of the Muslim burners of the Great Library of Alexandria, of Hanan Ashrawi claiming there was no Jewish connection to Joseph's Tomb, or Anwar Al-Awlaki, who had advised the 9/11 hijackers, telling reporters after the attacks that Islam opposes terrorism. It is an act of beheading, not of flesh, but of identity. It takes a blade and saws at the neck of a culture, cutting off its head through lies and deceit.
I can't add to that, but see also:
* "Ground Zero Mosque Would Desecrate the Memory of 9/11 Victims."RELATED: At NYT (FWIW), "Battles Around Nation Over Proposed Mosques."
* "Dishonest Imam Rauf in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar for Ground Zero Mosque Money."
* "A Muslim victim of 9/11: 'Build your mosque somewhere else'."
* "Dershowitz vs. Hanson on the ADL and the Ground Zero Mosque."
* "Why won't the Left defend Christians as fiercely as it defends Muslims?"
Cross-posted from American Power.
Rebel News
Giving Our Friends the Ol' Dutch Rub
Cicero's Blog of the Week: I Want a New Left
In response to my post, The Quickening, TL goes Shopping for God
Col. B. Bunny on Obama's World View
Caught this at Vanderleun's Tumblr Account Ka-Ching!:
HOW IS THIS A CRIME?
Sean Linnane explores the concept of reverse statutory rape . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . STORMBRINGER
The REAL Gaza The Media Will Never Show You - Gaza Exposed
P90X - Bring It!
The Sunday Best............
Day 30 – August 8th 1940
Happy 20th Anniversary, Operation Desert Shield
Marking 20 Years Since Operation Desert Shield
Jewel stole a car!
UN panel: New taxes needed for a climate fund
The Battle of Britain and a boy called Bill
Canny grouse help save the Glorious Twelfth
Speed camera switch-off sees fewer accidents
Has our fear of nuclear weapons faded?
Special forces under investigation for abuse of Iraqi prisoners
MoD cuts: Loss of big boys' toys will change forces forever
Soldier in uniform refused service in supermarket
Afghanistan despatch: 'If Nato pulls out too early there will be civil war again'
My Memories of Marilyn
Save Ole Miss
Video: North Platte Canteen
When the "Greatest Generation" passed through North Platte, Nebraska during WWII, they got a hug and a handshake, homemade cakes and cookies, and a moment of respite and prayer provided by thousands of volunteers from the surrounding communities. This spirit of service is vital to America today. You can give something back to our military members and their families. Visit militaryministry.org to see how!
H/T Shelly
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Twitter Quote........
'Naomi Campbell in a war crimes trial? How BLOODY hard did she hit that cleaner?'
H/T Sir Frank Butcher
What "Health Care Reform" could mean to YOU...........from Rico
The Vasectomy:
A man goes into the hospital for a vasectomy.
Before the procedure the nurse comes in and take his vitals, then tells him to take all of his clothes off.
When he is fully undressed she instructs him to lie down on the table.
The man obeys.
The nurse then takes all of her clothes off and climbs on top and has her way with him.
Upon the completion of the act the man catches his breath and asks what that was all about.
The nurse informs the patient that studies have shown that if the man has an ejaculation, he will be more relaxed and that the vasectomy is easier for the surgeon to locate and sever.
The nurse then wheels the patient to the operating room.
While they are going down the hall the patient sees six men in a room masturbating.
Curious, the man asks "What are they doing in there"?
The nurse responds, "They are getting vasectomies too, but you have Blue Cross and they have Obama Care."
Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947
An update to my post yesterday on the decision to drop the bomb on Japan. Glenn Reynolds' reader Josh Fagan writes:
I read Giangreco’s Hell to Pay recently. I believe it was you who linked to it a while back that made me aware of this book; and what a good book it is. It thoroughly details what it would have taken to invade the jap home islands, and left me wondering whether we could have actually ever forced them to surrender without the additional shock to their regime of using the few atom bombs we had in our arsenal against them.And that anti-American narrative is powerful, as I've experienced with my students. It gets quite emotional even, I think from the extreme frustration some have in resisting a rational explanation to why we dropped the bomb. In any case, I hadn't heard of the book and I'm putting on my list for birthday presents.
Maybe give it another plug. This book certainly counters the pervasive anti-American narrative under which we exist.
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