As noted below, Jeff over at Caerdroia has a good post on the logic of distributed systems and redundant networks, and how we can apply some of that thinking to combating terrorist attacks. I’ll take his idea, that:

bq. “the government needs to encourage the population to arm itself with handguns and long arms; to offer training in spotting bombs, recognizing vulnerabilities, emergency medical care, planning in advance for contingencies and the like; and to give us the information we need to understand and react to threats”

…and differ in two places: [1] I’m reluctant to ‘encourage’ people to arm themselves without some measure of training (as opposed to ‘not interfering’), and [2] I think that the giving of information needs to be a two-way street. I think that the government needs to come up with some good communications channels that can go from citizen upward, as well as from local agency upward, since the local sheriff or firefighter is likely to be the first on the scene in the event of any kind of threat or attack.

Over the last few days, I’ve had some experience on how that shouldn’t be done. Let me tell you a story.I have a long commute from Thousand Oaks to the South Bay; one of the perks is that I get to ride my motorcycle through the Santa Monica Mountains, which have some of the most beautiful (and entertaining) roads in the nation.

About a week ago, I was commuting home up one of the canyon roads, and started closing on a car. Looking up, I saw that it was a big white car. As I got closer, I noticed that it was a Crown Victoria (a model of Ford favored by law enforcement). I slowed my progress, looked more closely and realized that it had a civilian license plate, as opposed to the ‘exempt’ plates police cars and other local agency public cars have. I looked, and decided that it probably wasn’t a police car, and so was safe to (illegally) pass, and moved up still closer. And saw that it had a cage (barrier in between the front and back seats), spotlights, and an antenna. Definitely not a civilian, but what? I have a fair amount of experience with law enforcement; two of my dearest friends are a working LEO and a retired one. UC cars don’t have cages, and typically aren’t Crown Vics. Command cars have exempt plates, and some agency markings on them. I puzzled for a moment, then decided not to pass and fell back and followed the car until it turned up into a driveway. I rode away going “huh?” and forgot about it.

Until the following Tuesday, when I drove in to work, and happened to catch the tail end of a news story about someone at large who had been imitating a police officer, and who drove – a white Crown Vic. A bell went off in my memory, and I wondered what to do. I’d decided to call one of my LEO friends and ask, when I pulled up next to a LA Sheriff patrol car. I beeped, rolled my window down, and asked for a moment of his time.

Note: when you do something like this, obey their instructions, and before he gets out of the car, roll your window down and make sure both forearms are on the sill…why make the officer nervous?

I told him what I’d seen and heard, asked him what to do, and he replied that frankly, he had no idea, but he’d pass my contact info on to the detectives when he went off shift. I gave him my card, and drove off.

No one called, and I put it out of my mind, until Saturday, when the L.A. Times ran a story:

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is investigating reports that a group of about six men masquerading as law enforcement agents … and calling themselves “the posse” … has been falsely arresting and robbing motorists in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

OK, now I’ve got to do something, I called my LEO friend at home, and told her what I’d seen, asking if maybe it was something she knew about…LEO vehicles with civilian plates. She berated me for not getting the plate, and said that yes, I should call it in to the San Bernardino Sheriff ASAP, particularly as I’d seen it drive up a driveway and could probably find it again.

So I called. No one could take a message on a Saturday, and I didn’t have the name of a detective to ask to be sent to his or her voicemail.

This morning, I called again. I was told that I couldn’t be transferred to the Detective Bureau, they didn’t take calls. After protesting that I was calling in response to a story in the Times about a crime they were investigating, I was transferred to the Public Affairs Division, whose mission is to serve:

as a departmental emissary by fostering relationships between the organization and the communities. Division staff works closely with media sources, citizen groups, labor units, residents, schools, and the faith community to facilitate the flow of information between the Sheriff’s Department and the citizens we serve.

In other words, I left a message about an active investigation with the guy who I’d ask to come speak to my son’s second-grade class.

Now, based on my knowledge of cops, they take the crime of ‘imitating an officer’ damn seriously, as they should. I have no reason to believe that the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department feel any differently.

But it’s pretty obvious that they don’t have a clue…and here I’ll bet they aren’t alone…on how to take information from the public that’s not of the 911 call variety.

I have no idea whether the car I saw was legitimate, or might have been associated with the investigation they have underway. But I can tell you for sure…and I have two sworn police officers who I’ve discussed it with who agree with me…that it’s information that the investigating officers ought to have.

And until we can build structures that make that kind of communication easy, useful, and pervasive, the kind of distributed defense that Jeff discusses, and Instapundit pushes aren’t going to be able to leverage on the existing safety and security infrastructures. Instead, we’ll get centralized bureaucratic systems that will shut out the information they aren’t interested in hearing.

And when that doesn’t work, they’ll get more and more intrusive and sadly, they won’t work any better.

As for my mystery car, I’m having lunch with my LEO friend tomorrow, and she’ll call San Bernardino when she goes back to the office; when she calls, they’ll listen.

(cleaned up grammar)

Over at Armed Liberal, I’ve got some comments up about the budget issues.

Two points:

California isn’t alone…go Google “state budget crisis 2003”, in the first three pages, you’ll see references to California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

and

I’m thinking about a budget and tax strategy (I don’t know enough detail, except in a very few areas, to actually propose tactics), and I’ll propose two basic goals:

1. Budget Integration. We need to look at State, county, and city budgets in some integrated way, to deal with the – transfers – between the levels which tend to mask spending and growth in a number of areas.

2) Tax stability. California is mandated to carry a balanced budget. We need to relook at our tax programs to attempt to get a more stable revenue stream for the state. This implies that we shift from personal income to corporate income, sales, and property taxes. This is pretty obviously nontrivial is so many ways…but I’ll suggest one point in each of these three areas that could make a difference.

The overall issue of the ‘structural fiscal crisis’ is a major one, and may be worth some thought itself.

From today’s L.A. Times:

A member of the Biotic Baking Brigade, a loose network of San Francisco pie-throwing politicos, said Wednesday that he did not believe that anyone from the group was responsible for the pastry flung in the face of Ralph Nader on Tuesday.

The brigade tends to target rich oppressors of working men and women and “wouldn’t get involved in progressive politics infighting. It’s not our bag,” said the operative, who goes by the moniker Agent a la Mode.

The group has pied San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, former Chevron Chief Executive Ken Derr and others.

“I do want to stress that anyone with a pie and a vision of a better world can deliver just desserts,” said Agent a la Mode. “But in the espirit de pie of the Biotic Baking Brigade, [Nader] is not a worthy target. He’s not deserving of a pie…This is one of the first times in recent history that I’ve actually cringed and said, ‘Oh my God.'”

Nader was pied – though some media reports said the dessert looked more like a cake – as he endorsed Green Party candidate for governor in the recall campaign. Camejo quickly blamed Democrats, who had lashed out at Nader for drawing liberal votes away from Al Gore in the 2000 presidential race. But a California Democratic Party spokesman suggested that it was internecine Green Party pie-fare.

OK, when do these guys start training Hamas in how to protest?

Over at Armed Liberal, I’ve started what I think will be a series of posts advising Ah-nold on how to lock up my support (and the support of the tens of thousands of Californians like me).

It’s not of global significance, so I’ll put them there and occasionally put a reminder like this up here.

Den Beste puts his Europhobic glasses on and writes about the emasculation of Harley-Davidson as a metaphor for Europe’s intended emasculation of America. All bloggers have viewpoints, and all bloggers tend to opine about things they know little or nothing about – isn’t that what blogging is for?

But in this case a) he touches on something close to home for me – motorcycles; and b) he does so in a way that allows me to make a point about those who persist in seeing things about Europe and the U.S. too negatively and rigidly. And c) I get to defend government regulation as a freebie. He writes:

(On Screen): An American institution is looking to expand its sales in Europe. Harley Davidson is the quintessential American motorcycle maker, and for about 3 decades it was the only one (though that has changed). Once there were many but all the others went out of business, fallen in commercial competition with Honda, Kawasaki, BMW, Suzuki, Yamaha.

Harley survived and prospered. It was seen by Americans as the ultimate motorcycle, the one you bought when you refused to make compromises. Harley earned a degree of brand loyalty that few companies could even dream of. Harley wasn’t just a bike, it was a lifestyle. One didn’t just buy a Harley, one became Harley. Harley wasn’t just a brand, it was a brotherhood. … Adapting to a market is good marketing, but what price victory if you lose your soul? Harley Davidson is changing everything that makes Harley Davidson what it is. To satisfy Europe, they will make them smaller, lighter, wimpier, less powerful, quieter, less in-your-face, more effeminate. Harley is trying to find its inner wuss.

These bikes will be Americans the way that Europeans wish Americans were, more like European men. And they’re probably going to sell extremely well, as European men everywhere take pleasure in riding on a castrated American bike.

Here’s where knowing your subject can be useful.

The ‘new bike’ he’s talking about is the V-Rod, the first overhead-cam, water-cooled mass production Harley (it’s based on a limited production, highly unsuccessful sportbike called the VR1000). For the gearheads in the crowd, I’ll point out that in 2003, all the other Harleys are still air-cooled, pushrod OHV engines – a design Japan and Europe largely abandoned twenty or thirty years ago. So let’s go to the stats (source: Motorcyclist Magazine):

bq. H-D Dyna-Glide: has 62.5hp and 76.3ft-lb of torque; turns the 1/4 in 13.5 seconds

bq. H-D V-Rod: has 109.3hp and 74.3ft-lb of torque; 1/4 mile in 11.31 seconds

For comparison:

bq. Triumph Sprint ST (my main bike, made in the UK): 99.8hp and 62.0ft-lb; 1/4 mile in 11.52

bq. Suzuki GSXR1000: 152.1hp and 78.0ft-lb; 1/4 mile in 10.08 seconds.

“…less powerful, quieter, less in-your-face, more effeminate.” Steven?

The loud part of most of the cruisers one sees on the street is aftermarket pipes, which manage to be illegal, annoying, and often actually reduce the available power…substituting the sensation of speed and power for the real thing.

Actually, Harley is in a kind of a pickle, It is very difficult to meet noise and pollution regulations with air-cooled engines; particularly large-displacement air-cooled engines. Regulations already on the books in Europe and California will make it difficult for them to sell their existing products over the next ten to fifteen years. The interesting business challenge (and the reason I’d short H-D stock) is to convert their customer base, built on tradition and style, to a new platform.

Now before we complain about the inherent unfairness of regulation in this case, let’s start with this: Harley-Davidson exists today because of government intervention in free markets. The Japanese started making transportation devices … mopeds and scooters, and by the 70’s had begun to develop good big-bore (which back then was over 500cc) motorcycles. Harley was owned at the time by AMF, a leisure and sporting-goods conglomerate, and they were building motorcycles which effectively represented the peak of 1950’s technology. They went to the mattresses:

In September of 1982, Harley-Davidson petitioned the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) for relief from the importation of heavyweight motorcycles and power-train subassemblies (an engine part). The petition was filed under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974, known as the “Escape Clause,” which allows an industry to request import relief from foreign competition when increasing imports are causing or threatening serious injury to the domestic industry. In these cases, the ITC investigates the claim and then reports to the president. If the finding is affirmative, the executive branch examines the matter and the president makes a decision within 60 days.

They got their tariff, and the Japanese and Europeans were effectively shut out of the big-bore motorcycle market.

They used their period of protection effectively, beginning a process of re-engineering their motorcycles and building a strong retail brand – using mainstream retailing and brand-building techniques.

De gustibus non disputum est (there’s no accounting for taste) is certainly true in the world of motorcycling. I’ve ridden most of the existing Harley models, and haven’t chosen to spend my money on them, because, like many riders, I feel they are overpriced, underpowered, handle and brake poorly, and have a reputation (which they are well on their way to shedding) for unreliability. And, bluntly, because instead of buying a motorcycle to ride, I would feel like I was paying an expensive initiation into a club.

Europeans ride. They ride a lot, both as cheap and economical transportation in their congested cities, and as recreation where they ride like absolute loons on their mountain and country roads. Tenacious G and I did a tour of Northern Italy, Corsica and Sardinia on motorcycles, and the people there ride damn well, hard and fast.

So I think I can pretty comfortably state that there just aren’t a lot of facts to support Steven’s thesis; and that, in fact, the post says more about him and his pre-judgment of Europe and the relations between them and us than about the reality of the motorcycle industry.

I’ve said before that they are not our allies except on a case-by-case basis. But we are going to need them in this case – we need them now. And the more we can see and respect them as they are – hard-riding, good engineers, with qualities that we can at times learn from – the better chance we have of getting them to see and respect us as we are as well.

— NOTES & UPDATES —

N.B. * = For those who don’t know, the idle of a Harley is typically sounded out as ‘potato, potato’. Harley, in fact, unsuccesfully attempted to trademark the sound.

* “That’s Mister Euroweenie Biker To You!”: As reader Jon Hendry notes in the comments, some of those Euro bikers carry shoulder-launched missiles.

* More deeply informed commentary from Mike Hendrix, who knows a thing or two about bikes himself. He’s less pleased by the changes, or the regulations, but he makes good points and notes some important subtleties. He follows that up with a good response to this article.

* Capitalist Lion says: “soul must eventually give way to innovation.”

Political quote of the day:

bq. “San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown observed to a TV reporter last week: “The people in California – as in many places – are pretty sick of people like Willie Brown. They’re pretty sick of politicians, smooth operators, who claim they’re going to do something and they don’t do it.”

Over at Dr. Frank’s What’s-it, a great post on Bad Philosophy, in the form of a commentary on an inter-blog dispute about the merits of the Baader-Meinhof gang and their buddies, the Red Army Fraction.

He takes off from a discussion of history to comment on what he saw in his Bay Area adolescence (one that I shared as well) and he comes to an important insight:

An important element of the complex, I’ve often fancied, is a general psychological condition that fetishized and aggrandized ordinary, adolescent rebellion against parental authority, and invested it with universal significance, making it and its concomitant sensations the focus of life and politics, to such a degree that experiences that do not include the sensations are found lacking, unexciting, inauthentic, suspect; the flame of sticking it to the old man had to be kept alive, and neither the absence of an actual old man to stick it to, nor the fact that one has become an old man oneself, has much bearing on the matter.

Here, I think, you find the psychological engine underlaying the Romantic attachment to (quoting Berlin) ‘…wholeheartedness, sincerity, purity of soul, the ability and readiness to dedicate yourself to your ideal, no matter what it was.’

And what could be more pure than the nihilistic act of terror that denies society’s parental power over you and at the same time destroyed the symbols of that power?

Only an act that destroyed yourself at the same time. Cody Jarrett, meet Mohammed Atta.

I finished the John Boyd biography last week, and have been digging into any source documents of his that I can find.

On reading many of them, they seemed right, but somewhat stale…and then I realized that they were stale because I have been reading about reflections of these ideas for the last twenty years. One reason I enjoyed the film ‘Shakespeare in Love’ so much was that it brought back to me the idea of what it must have been like to see ‘Romeo and Juliet’ fresh and free of preconception.

I have been paying particular attention to ‘Patterns of Conflict’ (available as a blurry pdf at Defense and the National Interest). I keep trying to weld together the liberal half of my worldview – which tells me that, short of something that looks like genocide, we can’t kill the opposition in this War on Bad Philosophy faster than they grow, and so we must somehow disrupt their growth cycle by changing political and social conditions to radically lowering the attractiveness of these causes – with the conservative, which suggests that confronting and killing the opposition is the way to go.

Boyd was there first.From Slide 108 of the pdf above:

Action:

Undermine guerilla cause and destroy their cohesion by demonstrating integrity and competence of government to represent and serve needs of the people – rather than exploit and impoverish them for the benefit of a greedy elite.*

Take political initiative to root out and visibly punish corruption. Select new leaders with recognized competence as well as popular appeal. Ensure that they deliver justice, eliminate grievances and connect government with grass roots.*

Infiltrate guerilla movement as well as employ population for intelligence about guerilla plans, operations, and organization.

Seal-off guerilla regions from outside world by diplomatic, psychological, and various other activities that strip-away potential allies as well as by disrupting or straddling communications that connect these regions with the outside world.

Deploy administrative talent, police, and counter-guerilla teams into affected localities and regions to inhibit guerilla communication, coordination, and movement; minimize guerilla contact with local inhabitants; isolate their ruling cadres; and destroy their infrastructure.

Exploit presence of above teams to build-up local government as well as recruit militia for local and regional security in order to protect people from the persuasion and coercion efforts of guerilla cadres and their fighting units.

Use special teams in a complementary effort to penetrate guerilla controlled regions. Employ (guerillas’ own) tactics of reconnaissance, infiltration, surprise hit-and-run, and sudden ambush to: keep roving bands off-balance, make base areas untenable, and disrupt communication with the outside world.

Expand these complementary security/penetration efforts into affected region after affected region in order to undermine, collapse, and replace guerilla influence with government influence and control.

Visible link these efforts with local political/economic/social reform in order to connect central government with hopes and needs of people, thereby gain their support and confirm government legitimacy.

Idea:

Break guerillas’ moral-mental-physical hold over the population, destroy their cohesion, and bring about their collapse via political initiative that demonstrates moral legitimacy and vitality of government and by relentless military operations that emphasize stealth/fast-temp/fluidity-of-action and cohesion of overall effort.

*If you cannot realize such a political program, you might consider changing sides.

(emphasis and footnote his)

What Boyd is suggesting is to do two things: First to reinforce the legitimacy of the government under attack, and second to do so in a way that bridges across to a fluid counter-guerilla strategy.

Now to an old Vietnam-era cynic like myself, this bespeaks the “hearts and minds” approach that ultimately failed.

But on a fundamental level, his proposed solution is the only one that can work.

We need to do two things, according to him (and do read the whole document, it’s fascinating even if it hasn’t completely gelled for me yet): a) create a fighting force that can outguerilla the guerillas; and b) ensure that the overall population has enough faith in our side – enough belief in the legitimacy of the government – that they will not only not willingly cooperate with the guerillas but will willingly cooperate with us.

I’ll even suggest that this is probably the best litmus test I can think of for how we’re doing…are people in the street helping us catch the bad guys? If they are, we’re winning.

And it’s a reminder that a purely military victory in our circumstance isn’t enough. We do have to win the hearts and minds of the people in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Iran, and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and so on).

We’re faced with a pest-control problem here. Like the coyote problem that besets suburban Angelinos; we can kill them as we find them; we can make our homes more resistant (both of which are good things). But to ultimately solve the problem, you have to reduce the population. We have the capacity to burn down the forests where they live and breed, but the cost of doing that is extraordinarily high. We need to examine the lifecycle of the pest, find the places where we can disrupt it, and do so.

In this, I will argue, the fundamental problem is the tolerance of kleptocracies convenient to our economies and to the investors in our political process. The injustice in those tyrannical societies is the fuel that the engine of Bad Philosophy consumes.

So we need to do four things, as I see it:

# Attack and kill the active terrorists where we can find them, and destroy the infrastructure (financial foremost, logistical, and physical). We need to convince other states that the cost of them not doing this is that we will.

# Attack the belief-structures which constitute the engine of Bad Philosophy; attack them by expounding our own Good Philosophies and by being willing to suggest that all things are not, in the end, equal.

# Deprive the engine of Bad Philosophy of fuel, by attacking the horrible conditions of life that many people in the kleptocratic states must endure – while watching us fete and fund their oppressors.

# Make our own society more resistant to the kinds of attacks they are likely to mount. This isn’t going to be done by some national-scale, Orwellian bureaucracy. It will be done by the coordinated efforts of tens of thousands of county officials and the millions of front-line public safety staff that work for them.

Boyd said (slide 118):

Observations Related To Moral Conflict

No fixed recipes for organization, communications, tactics, leadership, etc.

Wide freedom for subordinates to exercise imagination and initiative – yet harmonize within intent of superior commanders.

Heavy reliance upon moral (human values) instead of material superiority as basis for cohesion and ultimate success.

Commanders must create a bond and breadth of experience based upon trust – not mistrust – for cohesion.

I think that sums it up better than anything I can think of tonight.

So in the ‘good news’ department, I’ve successfully married off my brother to a wonderful woman, and they are off to Hawaii for a luxury golf honeymoon (…hey, I said she was wonderful, not sane…).

Congratulations to them!!

Via Grim’s Hall, a new blog to me but one that I’ll catch up on after my brother’s wedding, I see that someone’s concerned that we will lose the ‘War on Bad Philosophy’.

Spengler (which I assume is a pseudonym) writes a column in the Asia Times titled: ‘Why radical Islam might defeat the West‘. In it, he(?) writes:

Which brings us to the threat of radical Islam. “You are decadent and hedonistic. We on the other hand are willing to die for what we believe, and we are a billion strong. You cannot kill all of us, so you will have to accede to what we demand.” That, in a nutshell, constitutes the Islamist challenge to the West.

Neither the demographic shift toward Muslim immigrants nor meretricious self-interest explains Western Europe’s appeasement of Islam, but rather the terrifying logic of the numbers. That is why President Bush has thrown his prestige behind the rickety prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace. And that is why Islamism has only lost a battle in Iraq, but well might win the war.

Not a single Western strategist has proposed an ideological response to the religious challenge of Islam. On the contrary: the Vatican, the guardian-of-last-resort of the Western heritage, has placed itself squarely in the camp of appeasement. Except for a few born-again Christians in the United States, no Western voice is raised in criticism of Islam itself. The trouble is that Islam believes in its divine mission, while the United States has only a fuzzy recollection of what it once believed, and therefore has neither the aptitude nor the inclination for ideological warfare.

He goes on to talk about the demographic implosion in Europe, and ties it to the philosphic collapse of core faiths – by which I can only interpret that he means religious faith. His quote “The trouble is that Islam believes in its divine mission, while the United States has only a fuzzy recollection of what it once believed…” is certainly a powerful one.

But I’ll challenge Spengler on a few fronts.

The first one is simple; his statement of the problem from the radical Islamic point of view is factually incorrect. We can kill them all (and, as has been said, let God take his own). For the foreseeable future, will be able to do so with relative physical impunity, while they may be able to damage two or three of our cities and kill a few hundreds of thousands of our people.

Somehow one of the issues that has been forgotten here is the imbalance of absolute power between the United States (and the ‘Coalition of the Willing’) and the forces we confront. North Korea can badly damage Seoul before collapsing; they have a million hostages, and that is their source of power. The Islamists (my term for the followers of radical, militant Islam) can hijack a few planes and blow up a few hotels.

I’ve commented earlier on the imbalance between the power of Israel and it’s neighbors:

Let’s be clear. It would take Israel two, maybe three hours to demolish every structure in the West Bank and Gaza. The limit would be how fast they could rearm and turn around the aircraft. They could do it with conventional munitions and would easily have enough left over to defeat the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and mount a credible threat to the Iranians.

They haven’t. Why? Because they have to live with themselves, and because they are smart enough to realize that they ultimately have to live with their neighbors. The fact that they would mightily piss off the United States might factor into that as well.

The Islamist world is fragile economically and politically (a big part of the driver for Islamist growth), and as a result is fragile militarily as well.

Saddam Hussein’s daughters are convinced that the armies collapsed because they were betrayed. The reality is, as I kind of suggested, that the military might of Saddam’s Iraq was a sham. Col. Jeff Cooper (not the law professor) says that “owning a gun no more makes you a gunfighter than owning a guitar makes you a musician”; a mob of men in uniform, armed with AK-47’s may look like an army, may drill like an army, but without the training, doctrine, etc. etc. that makes up a real army, they are in fact, a mob of men armed with AK-47’s. Similarly, oil wealth may buy advanced fighters, and the tools to make missiles, but the ability to make – and use – these weapons is a part of a far more difficult task.

I can go buy much of the gear that a Ranger carries (I do, much of my backpacking and hiking gear is the effective equivalent). I may have some measure of the training with small arms that a Ranger has (as in fact I do); but that doesn’t make me and three friends like me the equivalent of a Ranger team.

Brutal dictators aren’t very good at the details. It’s a defect; they have a whole country to run and very few people they can trust.

So we have brittle armies defending weak states. They can (and will) resort to guerilla warfare and terrorism. Given time, and patience, we will defeat those.

It won’t be easy, painless, or cheap.

And we do have a potential vulnerability that Spengler correctly highlights; we do not appear to be as strong in our faith as our opponents. Our faith is harder to articulate, it is not based on a few greybeards who sit and read a holy book whose content is fixed.

But appearances can be deceiving; those who drive the nicest cars are not always the richest, nor those who spend all their time quoting scripture the most devout.

I’m confident that there is a deep well of faith in this country and in the values that we champion.

After all, I’ve met Sumi.

And while Spengler worries, and places his hope in

Grim men of faith – Loyola, Oldebarnevelt, Richilieu, Mazarin – led the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, while the Florentines amused the tourists (The sacred heart of darkness, February 11). The trouble with Strauss, I reiterate, is that he was an atheist, rather a disadvantage in a religious war. The West has no armed prophet. It doesn’t even have an armed theologian.

I’ll suggest that we do; it’s a nineteen year old girl driving a Humvee while listening to Pink Limp Bizkit. It happens that that girl is trained to maintain the communications equipment being used by five teams of twenty-something young men as they chase down and kill Saddam’s last soldiers or the remnants of the Taliban. Their religion – their faith, like that of Sumi, is in the freedom, and hope, and possibility that we represent.

I’ll take Sumi and a million like her over Loyola and we’ll win this war in a walkover.

UPDATES: Porphy comments.

(musical selection corrected by reader email)