I followed the referrer logs (as I do obsessively) over to Donald Sensing’s, and got a present. He writes about the nature of poverty in the U.S. and the world, and talks about a couple of hours he spent lessening the burden on one specific poor person he met as she walked down the highway away from her flat-tired car. If you haven’t read it yet, go read it now. He manages in one post to do three things:

* He illuminates what the life of the struggling poor looks like here in the U.S.;

* He compares it effectively with what it looks like in the rest of the world, and talks about the hopeful changes that are happening with little notice (linking to M. Simon’s piece below);

* And most of all, he lets you see what goodness looks like from the inside, and the cascade effect that one good act can have in inducing others to do good.

“She was en route from Murfreesboro, 30 miles distant, to my town of Franklin to appear in court appearance for a non-traffic misdemeanor charge. She was late, so I took her to the court and went in to verify her reason for lateness to the judge if necessary. It wasn’t, but I hung around anyway.

Rhonda was in her mid-thirties, a single, welfare mom with a four-year-old daughter. She had no family in Tennessee, nor any real friends, being a fairly new resident to the area. She had lost her job last week (she had been a restaurant hostess) because no child care was available for her evening shift. She had been taking her daughter to work but management had let her go for that reason.

I had called the sheriff’s dispatch and asked them not to tow her car if possible, but when thunderstorm moved in the deputy on patrol decided it had to go. Knowing the road, I can’t blame him. But the tow charge would cost Rhonda $75, which she didn’t have, and she’d still have to fix her tire.

The judge threw out the legal charge. Her public defender wrangled a deal with the tow operator and the sheriff’s department that if the department called that tow company for the next tow, they’d not charge Rhonda. Everyone agreed, so that was a relief. The tow lot hosed enough air into her tire to get up the road a stretch to a a Marathon gas station that had a garage.”

Now I know that things like this happen almost every day. I make it a habit to stop and help people – I’m a first responder. To be honest, I’m also somewhat less vulnerable than the average highway user, so it’s pretty safe for me. And I’m forever in the debt of people who’ve stopped to help me and mine; Miguel, who stopped his pickup truck and offered his cell phone – mine, being digital, of course had no signal – when Tenacious G had her motorcycle crash outside Bakersfield two years ago, and others over the years as well.

I’ll also toss in a (doubtless controversial) policy suggestion we can take where the French actually do something right: My ex – sister in law runs a creche in Paris. The French have a system of public childcare that plugs directly into the public school system, and can deal with children as young as 18 months.

Sensing commented: “That’s the nutshell problem: babysitting or child care, low wages and generally unreliable transportation.” The leg of this tripod that can best b dealt with is childcare. While in an ideal world, a parent would stay home with children, for low wage workers this isn’t remotely an option.

And while I’m not thrilled with the job our public school systems are doing, they’re nonetheless doing a pretty good job as I can directly testify from the experience of my three sons.

I’ve been lucky (and hardworking and disciplined) enough that childcare for my sons was never an issue, and been able to be at jobs where I could walk off for a day to take care of a sick child without feeling my job was at risk. Rhonda, and the millions like her in the U.S. aren’t.

I’m glad beyond belief that Donald was there to help, and that he’s the kind of man he obviously is.

I’d hope that I, and those of you reading this, might think to do the same.

And, in case you wonder why I’m a liberal, it’s because I’d love to see if there is anything we can do to lighten the burden and smooth the path of all the Rhondas out there.

Libertarian Arthur Silber’s rant about the review of the Bush Administration’s conduct of the war (from an article in the Democratic Washington Times) took me to Stanley Kurtz’s (his e-mail) lame defense of today’s actions in The National Review. I know it’s bad form to Fisk in 2003, but sometimes life just hands you a hanging curveball and you have to swing away:

The president’s decision to turn to the United Nations for assistance in the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq makes a great deal of sense. It certainly isn’t the ideal approach, but given the divisions within our country, and our general unwillingness to enlarge our military, the president’s decision is reasonable.

I’m sorry, I thought the President was the one who made decisions about the size of the military; it is after all, his Constitutional legal (under the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921) duty to propose a budget. I wasn’t aware that it was a consensus activity; no one’s asked me, for example.

[Update: Bush to mount ‘very aggressive’ campaign to explain U.S. mission in Iraq. About freaking time.For one thing, it might actually work out. To the extent that we can make use of United Nations troops, while continuing to exercise control, the move will have been a success. But of course, the French and Germans, and the United Nations as a whole, will do their best to wrest control from the United States.

If you believe in fairies, clap your hands now…(and as in “What’s Up, Tiger Lily,” the hero’s gun will be magically reloaded…)

The real point is that politically, this was the least bad option. As I pointed out a year ago in “Supersize It,” http://nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz080202.asp our too small military put the president in a political trap. The choice was either to break the budget, eliminate domestic spending and lose the claim to a compassionate conservatism, or repeal the tax cut.

Damn right. Can’t let national security get in the way of a tax cut!! Can’t make any demands on the American people, or lead us in any way whatsoever. Let the other generations sacrifice, we’re on Atkins.

All of these are politically unacceptable. So the alternative was to hand off at least some control of Iraq to the U.N.

No, there were a number of other alternatives, among which was carefully weighing the costs before invading and making sure we had the assets in hand to succeed. We could have done a better job isolating the French and Germans before the war. We could have tried to split the Russians off from the French and Germans after we invaded. Those are three reasonable alternatives, and I’m only a voter.

That actually has the political upside of taking an issue away from the Democrats, who had hoped to run on the claim that the Bush administration was dangerously unilateralist.

Who was it who criticized the Democrats for creating defense policy by worrying about how it would play, and not how it would work?

Is this the best foreign policy? No. The best foreign policy requires not the United Nations, but a united nation. Unfortunately, our nation is not united. The occupation of Iraq is not the occupation of Japan or Germany. This is even more because of the fact that we are different than we were back then than the fact that Iraq is not Japan or Germany.

What kills me is that the victim mentality has, according to this, reached the Oval Office. Bush isn’t a leader, and isn’t to be judged by his success as a leader; he’s just the helpless captive of forces beyond his control. Hang on, I’m going to go rewrite Lincoln’s speeches in that light…

A house divided against itself cannot stand. A nation where the political opposition stands against our foreign policy, and even secretly (and not so secretly) hopes for its failure, cannot reform a region as recalcitrant as the Middle East.

Well, Bush had the opportunity to take that political opposition and weld their feet to a set of policies. He chose short-term political advantage instead. Sorry ’bout that.

A nation where…even after an event like 9/11…a draft can be offered as a political tactic against the hawks, is a nation unready to manage social transformation on the other side of the world. Our culture war is real. Now it has taken its toll.

That’s because the hawks did a piss-poor job of selling the reasons for this war to the general public.

In many ways we are strong. Yet disunited we are weak. Our turning to the U.N. is not necessarily a disaster. But it is a sign that our internal divisions have finally exacted a cost.

He gets paid for this? He’s one of the leading neo-con commentators and he can summarize his argument with this pablum? “…is not necessarily a disaster?” “…have finally exacted a cost?” I’m sorry, I thought the destruction of the WTC and damage to the Pentagon was a disaster. I thought that our incoherent foreign policy over twenty years, which tolerated Wahabbism and radical Islamist institutions, and helped create Al Queida exacted a cost. Bush’s weakness at a critical moment is what’s exacting a cost.

MORE UPDATES:

* In a great post extending this and the post below, Porphy busted me on a point of law; the Constitution says nothing about the President submitting a budget. I will stamp my feet and insist he’s wrong about my use of ‘crowing’ however…it may not be OED, but it’s current usage). See also his follow-up post.

* Caerdroia comments.

I’m really unhappy about the Administration’s new approach to the U.N. in search of troops, financial support, and legitimacy for the Iraq occupation.

I’m unhappy for four reasons.

First, and foremost, I’m unhappy because I think that the U.N. as presently constituted is damn unlikely to be a positive force in Iraq. The forces within Germany and France that traded oil for weapons with Saddam will see this as a way to avoid the scrutiny they deserve, and the dysfunctional U.N. will itself see this as a shot in the arm, keeping it from going through the changes it needs to become a truly effective and legitimate international organization, as opposed to what it is…a corrupt debating club, that is used to provide diplomatic cover for oligarchs, kleptocrats, and the corporate and political bureaucrats who serve them.Second, I’m unhappy because the one thing I know we need to succeed in this war is an iron butt…the patience and solidity to just stick it out long after it stops being comfortable. And this feels to me like a demonstration that the anticipation of discomfort is backing us way up on the positions we’ve taken up to now.

Third, I’m unhappy because we’ve wasted what should have been a political and diplomatic opportunity to create a new set of ad hoc international structures more to our liking and, more important, more likely to be effective in the current conflict; whether the alliances would have been with Russia or Brazil, India or Norway. Instead of sticking it out and doing the diplomatic horsetrading that we should have done…and I’m hard pressed to believe that there weren’t horses to trade…we looked our opponents in the eyes, raised big, and then folded at the next opportunity.

Finally, I’m unhappy because this will make any followup to Iraq…whether it involves pressure on Iran or Syria…vastly more difficult, as we’ll be dependent on the goodwill…if such a thing exists…of the U.N.

I think there is a chance to reform the U.N. and the existing international organizations. That slim chance will only exist if there is a real threat to the organizations, and they see their only options as reform or irrelevance – because irrelevance will be followed by defunding, and the cushy, tax-free jobs will vanish.

I don’t see how this gets spun as anything but what it is, which is Rage, Rage, Against the Dying of the Light” and “Clarification“. But thanks to Chirac et. al., within 48 hours “Happy Days Are Here Again“.
* Michael Ubaldi comments: “Nerves Fail, A Little Bit.”
* Cold Fury comments: “Guzzling the U.N. Kool-Aid”
* Caerdroia comments: “Why the U.N.? Why Now?”
* Flame Turns Blue comments: “U.S. Seeks U.N. Resolution“

One of the problems with blogging is the ‘scrum’ nature of it; ideas circulate, everyone piles on, trying to add their $0.02 before the ball squirts away and you start all over.

It also means that sometimes if you wait a little bit, someone else will write your blog post for you.

In my case, I’ve spent the weekend doing house maintenance and kid stuff, while thinking about a post on MEChA and Bustamante. Then Ted Barlow went and wrote my post for me, posted over at ‘Crooked Timber’. Go take a look…I’ll wait.Now in the traditional political spectrum, the average reader of this blog is more than a wee bit to my right, I’ll hazard. And that makes them quite a bit to Ted’s right. So you’ll forgive me if I make some assumptions about what your reaction might be:

1. It is not a ‘bullshit issue’, Bustamante was a part of a secretive organization which as recently as 2001 reaffirmed it’s intention to pull the Southwest states out of the U.S.!!

First, and foremost, let’s talk about MEChA. It’s a campus organization, formed in the late 60’s, with the express intent of creating a support network and advocacy group for Latino students. It has never done anything else. The rhetoric in which that group was wrapped – and still is wrapped – is rhetoric which I heard day in and day out as a politics student and student politician in California universities in the early 70’s and again as a grad student in the late 70’s.

There’s a funny thing about historical perspective. On one hand, you look at things and say, “Jefferson and Washington owned slaves,” and you agree “yeah, that was wrong, but that’s what gentlemen did back in that era.” Do you judge them – and their era – entirely by today’s values, or do you judge them by the values – however appropriate or inappropriate – that were in force at that time and in that place? Or, better still, do you meld the two and understand them in the context of what was, and judge them both for who they were in that context and outside it?

At every American university in the late 1960’s, radical left politics became the framework within which most issues were viewed, analyzed, and acted upon. Not by everyone, certainly. And not to the same extent in every case. But the language…the metaphors and the means of description…changed.

And language like that of the MEChA constitution became common.

Now part of what’s always been interesting to me about the New Left is how shallow the beliefs really have always been. It was what kept me out of it then and what makes me look on it now more as a kind of affectation. I’ve always felt that the underlying corrosive beliefs were far more dangerous than the actions of the self-styled radicals, who were acting out their adolescent rebellion using the political excuses the ideology gave them. I always felt (and feel I was right) that they would slot neatly into their white-collar career tracks as soon as they got through the “rebellion, sex and drugs” experimentation to which their new liberty entitled them.

And, similarly, in looking at the reality of MEChA – the actual organization and the behavior of its members, it is an ethnic advocacy group, neatly bound within the confines of typical interest group university politics. It’s interesting to me that in all the brouhaha over MEChA, that there are no concrete examples of antiwhite, deeply radical, dangerous behavior on the part of all these MEChA chapters. And that everyone who has direct experience with the organization is dismissive of the claims that it is a subversive or radical organization – or even a racist one, outside the current standard of ‘ethnic correctness’ and minority empowerment. Note that I’m not happy with those standards, and that I tend to share Erin O’Connor’s views of many of them. But to raise an organization which has no existence outside campuses to the level of the KKK – which murdered and lynched people into the 1960’s – is itself rhetorical bullshit of the highest order.

2. Bustamante should have disavowed his membership! Yes, if in fact MEChA was some secretive group of nightriders, he should have. But much of the Latino political leadership of California – as well as other states’ – is a product of MEChA. The problem lies much in the same vein as the problem politicians who are members of exclusive clubs had in the 80’s, in which their clubs tended not to include minorities and women but did tend to include much of your power base – if you repudiate the club, you are by extension isolating yourself from the key players on whom you rely for your power.

And I tend to think that the problem is going to be solved in much the same way. I think that like the University Club and the California Club, MEChA will change because it will otherwise be a liability to the Latinos who are already taking power within the larger institutions.

I think that this “crisis,” as minor as it may be – will force MEChA and the politically ambitious young Latinos who make up it’s membership today to confront the contradiction between their charter documents – which are an empty expression of adolescent ethnic pride – and their desire to succeed on the larger scale.

I have teenage sons, and so I’m used to the exaggerated rhetoric that youth uses to define itself against age; that’s part of the process of standing up for oneself and becoming an adult.

Similarly, I’ve come to the personal conclusion that the kind of rhetoric and exaggerated ethnic nationalism were appropriate for that first crop of Latino kids who got into the universities through affirmative action, and who had a thin field of Latino mentors and role models to look up to.

But in an adult, teenage behavior is both tiresome and counterproductive. And it’s time for MEChA to put aside the things of its youth – to look at them, if they choose, as historical artifacts, and to acknowledge that the Latino experience has moved far past the point where Aztlan – as a place or a state of mind – is worth pursuing. Because it’s not needed any more and because there’s something better out there.

UPDATES:

* Porphy comments
* Juan non-Volokh of Volokh Conspiracy comments

In response to the Alabama/10 Commandments flap which I blogged in “God and Man In Alabama” and “Moses Supposes“, Donald Sensing put up 2 thoughtful posts.

In the first, he challenges the parties to the decision to answer a set of thought questions designed to explore the boundaries of whether the State can honor God. In the second, he challenges the supposition that no state-favored display of religion is possible by pointing to the statue of Athena placed in a park.

I’m going to leave the first alone as more of an issue for Lawrence Solum or one of the Volokhs; but I do want to talk about the second.
In one of my comments to ‘Moses Supposes‘, I said:

I’ve always been irked at people who challenge Nativity displays or menorahs in parks, because I find that to be well within the tradition of ‘reverence’ I talk about above. Other, similarly celebratory expressions don’t bother me at all.

But to put it in the courthouse (or the legislative chamber) says to me that this law isn’t the law of the State, but the law of God, and at that point I start to itch pretty badly.

And that pretty neatly wraps my position; I think we should encourage public displays of reverence … of all kinds, including the occasional statue of Gautama and even Ganesha. Clearly there are some lines; I’d rather followers of the houdoun don’t slaughter goats in public parks, and believers in Bacchus hold their bacchanals on private property.

Now, in truth, some of these have become secularized through use over the years – Athena in most architectural art represents a generalized ‘wisdom symbol’, and there are no living worshippers at her temples as far as I know.

But displays tied to living religions must be carefully separated from the power of the state. I don’t want to walk into a courtroom and see a Torah, or a Gohonzon. Judges are certainly free to keep them in their chambers, or keep them on their person, but to display them as a part of the fabric of the building, or of the institution, is to imply that the fabric of the law is tightly bound with a religious – as opposed to cultural – doctrine. That is to me deeply offensive.

Believers and nonbelievers may come to the state capital and do business. Animists and Episcopalians alike may come to City Hall and get their zoning ordinances, and I think that anything that suggests otherwise needs to go.

So parks and public squares – sure! Courthouses, legislative chambers, city halls – nope. To me, there is a clear difference, in that there are many parks, which may embrace many historic or cultural or religious themes. I’m free to work to get my hero, god, or symbol incorporated into one.

But the instruments of state power cannot be escaped. And anything that suggests that they favor one religion or culture or group over another – that we are not all equal before the majesty of the law – is wrong.

In the comments to this post about the need for an international effort in Iraq, Porphy wound up and tossed a fastball over the plate, challenging me to show:

…an outline of

1) Who they think we will get on board that we don’t already have.

2) What terms they will demand.

3) Taking into account their stated position on the expansive, ambitious goals we have vs. “stability” in the region.

OK, here goes.

Typically, when I think about a market, one of the first things I think about is ‘the marketing universe’; how much effective supply or demand is out there? In this case, the issue is where is the effective supply of military power?

In 2000, the Top 10 looked like this:

| 1. China | 2,810,000 |
| 2. Russia | 1,520,000 |
| 3. United States | 1,366,000 |
| 4. India | 1,303,000 |
| 5. Korea, South | 683,000 |
| 6. Pakistan | 612,000 |
| 7. Turkey | 610,000 |
| 8. Iran | 513,000 |
| 9. Vietnam | 484,000 |
|10. Egypt | 448,000 |

The numbers are the total numbers of armed forces personnel.The rest of the Top 25 looked like this:

|11. Ethiopia|352,000|
|12. Burma|344,000||
|13. Syria|316,000|
|14. Ukraine|304,000|
|15. Thailand|301,000|
|16. Indonesia|297,000|
|17. France|294,000|
|18. Brazil|288,000|
|19. Italy|251,000|
|20. Japan|237,000|
|21. Germany|221,000|
|22. Poland|217,000|
|23. United Kingdom|212,000|
|24. Romania|207,000|
|25. Saudi Arabia|202,000|

So let’s assume that in the Top 10, South Korea is kinda busy right now. Pakistan is Right Out, as are Iran and Egypt (and the rest of the Arab world; right now to be a part of the occupation of Iraq means you may be deployed against some of these countries at some point in the semi-near future). That leaves China, Russia, India, Turkey, and Vietnam.

Let’s stick to the Top 10 right now. China and Russia both have huge dogs in this fight, as each of them faces their own issues with Islamists. India is certainly a possibility, but a) they probably realize that occupying – which will mean actively policing and intermittently killing people – a Muslim country right now won’t help tensions at home, and b) their eyes appear to be on the U.N. right now. But they are a possible player. Vietnam is a possible player, but they have no interests in the area. Turkey has been asked to dance, and has declined.

So we go back to China and Russia.

We don’t have much leverage in this area over China, and their willingness to see us taken down a peg certainly doesn’t motivate them to do much here.

But I think we do have huge leverage – positive and negative – with Russia, and that this presents a major opportunity that ought to be considered.

A few disclaimers: I’m not a policy wonk; I have access to nothing but the Wall Street Journal. The Economist, and Google. Foreign policy in the tactical sense isn’t my metiér, to say the least. But this notion has been nagging at me since I wrote the ‘Internationalization’ piece, and none of the research I’ve done since then has blown it up in my face. So I’ll toss it out here and see if you folks can blow it up.

I think we should be all over Vladimir Putin on this. I think the Russians have three strong interests in Iraq:

1) The Iraqis owe them a bunch of money for arms and oil equipment, and have outstanding contracts to allow them to explore for oil.

Russian weapons manufacturers have a powerful stake in Iraq. The latter owes Russia $7 billion for past weapons deliveries, which the Russian side still hopes to collect. Beyond that, Iraq is an attractive future market for their wares once the sanctions regime is removed. It has a long tradition of buying Soviet equipment. Both new equipment purchases and contracts to upgrade existing systems are a source of high hopes of Russian defense industrialists and exporters. Coupled with Iraq’s ability to finance its purchases with oil revenues, these hopes have resulted in a powerful domestic pro-Iraqi lobby in Russia.

…

For Russian oil companies, Iraq represents an attractive business opportunity — Iraqi oil is a good deal more accessible and cheaper to produce than oil from fields in remote regions of Russia, which is yet to be explored and developed. Russia’s special relationship with Saddam Hussein has put Russian companies in an advantageous position for political, rather than commercial reasons.

Thus, a handful of Russian oil companies have — depending on the mood of the Iraqi regime — held potentially lucrative contracts to develop oil fields in Iraq, once the sanctions regime is removed. Fully cognizant of the political motivations behind Saddam’s decision to award these contracts to Russian companies in the first place, Russian oil industry leaders and analysts suspect that in the event of regime change in Baghdad, Russian companies will be among the losers in the Iraqi oil sweepstakes–Saddam’s successors will be more likely to reward their backers with lucrative contracts.

2) The Russians have an immense stake in what happens to world oil markets once Iraqi oil comes on-line:

What quietly drives President Vladimir Putin’s strategy in Iraq is that Russia needs stability, especially in the oil markets. The pressure on Iraq has kept large volumes of crude oil off world markets and allowed the Russian government to navigate out of its debt trough on the back of high oil prices. But an American invasion is bound to upset everything. To be sure, in the first days of the attack, oil will jump to US$30 or $35 a barrel. But if the Americans establish the protectorate they say they are aiming for, then it is near certain that the spigot on Iraqi taps is going to open. The flood of new oil on to the market, by which the fresh Iraqi democracy will pay for its American tutors, will be so great, prices are likely to collapse to between $10 and $15. The American people will celebrate the victory all the way to their petrol pumps. The Russian people – approaching by then a parliamentary election, followed by a presidential poll – won’t be so cheery. They can kiss goodbye to much of the planned investment in the Arctic, St Petersburg and the Baltic shore, on Sakhalin and along the Pacific coast, all of which depends on the stability of oil prices at around $20.

3) The Russians have a similar worldview to the U.S., and even more at stake than the U.S. in combating Islamist terrorism:

Let’s take the following example. Europeans and Americans treat international terrorism in different ways. The US sees terrorism as an evil foe, which must be repelled by any means necessary. Bush has declared a war. US military policy toward terrorism is a wide-scale war, with bombings, offensives, soldiers, missiles, with death and destruction. If we don’t get them, they will get us. This outlook is rooted in the culture and messianic tradition of the US, their refusal to see shades of gray. A friend of mine told me that Americans are ready to defend a city whether or not its residents want to be defended.

If you look at the European approach to the same problem, you will see a fundamentally different outlook. Europeans see terrorism as criminality, not as a military foe, and fight it not with an army but with police force, with more stringent laws, stricter visa regimes – by sending the terrorists to jail. Americans don’t even want to bother with that, their position is to kill and destroy terrorists wherever they may be. And, starting from that dichotomy, the issue is not that the Europeans were against the war in Iraq. The issue is the appearance of diverging approaches to the same problem. In that sense, I am deeply convinced that Russia today will have a much easier time negotiating its military doctrine with the US rather than with Europeans, who live under a blanket of illusions and believe that nothing will harm them. Even in Great Britain, which is much closer, ideologically and mentally, to the US, Tony Blair has had a very difficult time convincing the public of the necessity of directly supporting the US. I believe that Putin will have a much easier time forming Russia’s military doctrine because Russia, in my view, looks at life and society in general more realistically than the Europeans.

and:

Russia’s professional national security bureaucracy’s interest in the Gulf is of a less material nature. Lacking a concrete commercial interest, this group has not come to terms with the loss of superpower status. It harbors deep resentment of the United States and its preeminent position in the world–as well as in the Persian Gulf–and sees it in Russia’s national interest to oppose the United States, to undercut its influence and initiatives in the region regardless of their impact on Russian security or well-being. Thus, this group’s outlook is shaped by traditional, albeit outmoded, geopolitical considerations. However, given Russia’s diminished circumstances, this group’s ability to influence Russian policy is quite limited.

The professional national security bureaucracy has a further interest in the Gulf prompted by the increasing challenge of militant Islam to Russian national security. The war in Chechnya has attracted a good deal of attention in the Islamic world. The Chechen side is reported to have received support from a number of Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, in the form of both volunteers and material assistance. Russian authorities have also claimed repeatedly that Osama Bin Laden has provided support and training for Chechen fighters. As a result, curbing international Islamic support for the Chechen cause has become an active concern for Russian policy in the Gulf.

Overall, this presents a strong opportunity to do two things: first, bring the sponsor of much of the Arab Nationalist movement on board in striving for a remodeled Middle East, open a new rapprochement between Russia and the United States at a critical moment when the EU is attempting to create a EU/Russian anti-U.S. axis, and bring the resources of the second-biggest armed forces in the world to bear on the problems we will face.

There are huge obstacles; the Russian army has a history of brutal practices in Afghanistan which will be unacceptable; allying with the Russians will strengthen the mujads who remember fighting them; integrating our two armies will prove extremely difficult.

But for us, the benefits would be immense, in marginalizing the European opponents and taking the U.N. out of the center of the argument; bringing a major military to assist ours; and finally, in opening the doors for a real long-term association (“alliance” is too strong a term) with the Russians.

Ironically, the prospect of war in Iraq must be seen as an opportunity by some of Russia’s business leaders. They have been relentless in telegraphing to Washington with unprecedented clarity the price of Russian acquiescence to regime change in Iraq – a seat at the table when the time comes to divvy up the spoils of war, or in other words, assurances that they will get a piece of Iraqi oil after the war. With that they want acceptance and a chance to establish a dialogue with the political establishment in Washington. In exchange they offer their – considerable–influence at home, which they are prepared to deploy in order to help bridge the gap between the United States and Russia.

From a U.S. perspective, this is an opportunity that’s well worth exploring.

I couldn’t agree more.

So to answer Porphy’s 3 questions:

1) The Russians

2) Honoring prewar debts and oil contracts, stability in future world oil prices

3) See above.

OK, I step out and swing and…

— UPDATES —

* Flit comments.
* So do our readers. Very intelligently, as usual… to the point that they made this a “Best Of…” category post.

Sorry, that’s just a line from a song in what’s probably my favorite movie of all time (“Singin in the Rain”).

The issue keeps being raised that “the Ten Commandments are on the U.S. Supreme Court building, so why can’t they be placed in the Alabama Supreme Court building?“, in Chief Justice Moore’s column, and in Jeff Brokaw’s comments below. Andrew Case answered in the same comments, and I thought I’d add a little detail:

This sculpture is a frieze located above the East (back) entrance to the Supreme Court building. Moses (holding blank tablets) is depicted as one of trio of three Eastern law givers (Confucius, Solon, and Moses). The trio is surrounded by a variety of allegorical figures representing legal themes. The artist, Herman MacNeil, described his intentions in creating the sculpture as follows:

Law as an element of civilization was normally and naturally derived or inherited in this country from former civilizations. The “Eastern Pediment” of the Supreme Court Building suggests therefore the treatment of such fundamental laws and precepts as are derived from the East. Moses, Confucius and Solon are chosen as representing three great civilizations and form the central group of this Pediment (Descriptions of the Friezes in the Courtroom of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the East and West Pediments of the Building Exterior, p. 9).

The Courtroom friezes were designed by sculptor Adolph Weinman. These friezes are located well above the courtroom bench, on all four walls. The South and North wall friezes form a group that depicts a procession of 18 important lawgivers: Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius, Augustus, Justinian, Mohammed, Charlemagne, King John, St. Louis, Hugo Grotius, William Blackstone, John Marshall, and Napoleon. Moses is holding blank tablets. The Moses figure is no larger or more important than any other lawgiver. Again, there is nothing here to suggest and special connection between the 10 Commandments and American law.

…

The Curator’s office makes the following comments on Weinman’s North and South frieze sculptures:

Weinman’s training emphasized a correlation between the sculptural subject and the function of the building and, because of this, Gilbert relied on him to choose the subjects and figures that best reflected the function of the Supreme Court building. Faithful to classical sources, Weinman designed for the Courtroom friezes a procession of “great lawgivers of history,” from many civilizations, to portray the development of secular law (p. 2, emphasis ours).

Look, Western Civilization isn’t called ‘Judeo-Christian’ for nothing. Our culture has deep roots in Christianity (and Judaism), and we’re better off for it. We’d certainly be far different without those roots, and we can’t and shouldn’t repudiate of them.

But the strongest trees aren’t defined by their roots; it is the branches and leaves, growing and reaching outward. (submitted to the Bad Analogy Hall of Fame)

A truly scary column by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore in the Opinion Journal (registration required) this morning. I’m actually surprised that it hasn’t caught fire in the blogoverse today.

It’s a defiant screed on the issue of separating God and state, and his position can be well summed up by this:

For half a century the fanciful tailors of revisionist jurisprudence have been working to strip the public sector naked of every vestige of God and morality. They have done so based on fake readings and inconsistent applications of the First Amendment. They have said it is all right for the U.S. Supreme Court to publicly place the Ten Commandments on its walls, for Congress to open in prayer and for state capitols to have chaplains–as long as the words and ideas communicated by such do not really mean what they purport to communicate. They have trotted out before the public using words never mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, like “separation of church and state,” to advocate, not the legitimate jurisdictional separation between the church and state, but the illegitimate separation of God and state.

For Chief Justice Moore, God … not in the abstract sense of an all-encompassing Creator, but in the very literal sense of the God of the New Testament … is at the root of our laws, and more, at the root of the legitimacy of our government which is, after all, founded on and defended by laws.
Now many of the founders were religious Christians, but many were also Deists:

…those thinkers in the 17th and 18th cent. who held that the course of nature sufficiently demonstrates the existence of God. For them formal religion was superfluous, and they scorned as spurious claims of supernatural revelation. Their tenets stemmed from the rationalism of the period, and though the term is not now generally used, the tenor of their belief persists. The term freethinkers is almost synonymous. Voltaire and J. J. Rousseau were deists, as were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.

And while it makes clear historic sense to tie the roots of the American foundation to the Christian gentlemen who led the Revolution, the role of explicit Christianity in American politics has a complex history, and a deeply complex present.

The English immigrants came to the Americas, like the modern immigrants I’ve lunched with, to gain their fortune and to escape from religious and political oppression. Of that, we can be clear.

I’m not sure how Chief Justice Moore feels that displaying the Ten Commandments in the Supreme Court building – not in his home, not in a private business, but in the hall where the highest decisions of law and power are made in Alabama – ties his actions to that history and that desire for freedom to worship in our own ways.

Over at Oxbog, Patrick Belton talks about Iraq and international cooperation:

This Weekly Standard piece by Bob Kagan and William Kristol is worth noting. The authors begin by repeating – correctly – that “American ideals and American interests converge … a more democratic Middle East will both improve the lives of long-suffering peoples and enhance America’s national security.” They then applaud statements to that effect by Condoleezza Rice and President Bush calling for a “generational commitment” to Iraq and the Middle East comparable to the U.S.’s commitment to Western Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War. And in this, the security advisor and the president are also indeed applauseworthy: the intertwined task of promoting democracy and pursuing counterterror in the Middle East is as obviously central to U.S. security today as creating a secure, commercially prosperous free Europe was then.

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I could not agree more completely, and endorse everything that I have quoted, as far as the authors go. However – and although they are two writers I respect deeply on the subject – I think they might be too quick to reject out of hand the prospect of looking overseas for soldiers. The authors seem to think of the matter as a choice between two options: simply asking our dedicated soldiers to do more of what they have been doing so well, or giving the entire enterprise over to the internationals – in which case either Kofi and Jacques Chirac will be the ones to determine the pace of Iraq’s democratization, or still worse, we may suffer “the possibly unfortunate effects of turning over the security of Iraqis to a patchwork of ill-prepared forces from elsewhere in the world.”

Hmmm. Though I agree with Kagan and Kristol on their other points, this particular bit seems a bit of a false dichotomy.

I couldn’t agree more; this nails the Thomas Friedman point I only alluded to below, about the need to alliance.

UPDATE: Once again, the Comments for this article feature some pretty smart people elevating the content of this blog.