White House defends Bush handling of stock sale
Look, Bush is a corporate oligarch. He and his country-club blacklisting, inside trading, factory-job exporting buddies have played the US economy like a pinata for the last fifteen years.
But then again, Gore is too. And so are most of our millionare-occupied Senate.
That’s why they want to build SkyBoxes in the Capitol building…so the corporate sponsors can watch their teams play.

Howard Owens, in this article (what are these things, anyway? Posts? Articles? Blogs? Let me know…) titled ‘Where Are The Patriotic Muslims?’
Personally, I’ll guess that they are quietly being soldiers, sailors, airmen, police officers and firefighters.
But damn, it would be nice if the leaders in that community stood up and took a position other than ‘Islam is, of course, a religion of peace’.

Kevin Reybould, of Lean Left comments (and blogs):

[quoting me]”, I’m firmly on this team, and I think that thinking folks of all stripes should be as well.”
The problem a lot of us have is that this statement is very often used (and I am not saying you do this) as an excuse to demonize the “other team” (Raymond’s notion that the West is somehow less violent than the Islamic world is a joke, and bad logic. It ignores every other factor that shapes a society and the decisions it makes in favor of the one factor that differentiates the given society from ours) and to paper over or ignore our side’s contribution to the problems.
Many of the things that people broadly criticize the Islamic world for are things that we help create. We are the largest supporter of Egypt, we are the largest customer of Saudi Arabia, we are the nation that overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran. Those actions have the consequence of suppressing democratic forces in the Arab world. In a very real sense, the West has chosen to back those who would make the Qu’ran a book of war.
That is what is so infuriating about pieces like Raymond’s, and the whole notion that the Arab world is just inherently violent. Not only is it bigotry, it is exceedingly dangerous bigotry. By ignoring our own actions, and steps we can take to correct the consequences of those actions, we merely run in place. Killing terrorists is not enough – we must try and make a world where terrorists can gain no foothold. We cannot do that by hiding behind comforting illusions.

I think I disagree. I say “I think” because I’m consciously withholding a decision on a core set of issues here. I’m not 100% convinced that we are at war with the Islamic world; I am sure that a group within that world is trying to foment a war. But we’re at a crucial point where we will either decide that there are elements in the Islamic world to make peace with…because they themselves step forward…or not.
There are two places where I’ll expand, though: Yes, the “other team” is more violent than we are…in the sense that our violence is contained, managed as tightly as an encompassing legal system and bureaucracy can make it. We can turn it on and off like a switch. The violence in the Islamist (and possibly the Islamic) world is ingrained in the daily lives of people who, as a celebration of a wedding, try and fire a live mortar, and who routinely celebrate by firing guns into the air.
Yes, we have often chosen our commercial interests over the “will of the people”, in places all over the globe. And ultimately what makes me a liberal is that I share the belief in humanity’s ultimate perfectibility. But I don’t think simply “declaring democracy” and withdrawing is going to work.
I’m just not certain that we’re anywhere near there yet, and that simply, as Fly Over Country so eloquently put it:

Some people, and I mean liberal in the current defintion, think they can dream up the way it supposed to be, snap their fingers, and the whole world will be remade over in their image. Fishing allows me to not fall into that mindset. Fishing, like hunting, allows me to plug in on the ground floor of a market economy and begin to piece together the relationship between what I get from the grocery store and the forces it took to get it there. Running cattle offers the same sort of insight, only it is a lot more messy and the potential for getting hurt is exponentially bigger. But, that is for another time.

When it’s democracy time, countries develop democracy. It is not a plant that can simply be transplanted onto violent tribal roots.

Jeff Cooper (the law professor) responds to my comment about removing settlements with a reasonable post:

Given the continuing suicide bombings, this isn’t an appropriate time for large-scale removal of settlements, as any such action would likely be seen as proof that terrorism works. And the settlements present a practical political problem for Sharon, whose governing coalition depends in part on those who support the settlements. At some point, though, it’s going to have to be made clear—both as a carrot to the Palestinians and as a message of reality to the Israeli far right—that the majority of the settlements ultimately will have to be dismantled.

I agree that it would be a mistake to reward murder-bombings through a meaningful reduction in Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza; in fact I think the reoccupation is a Good Idea.
But in part, I negotiate for a living, and one principle I’ve found to work well in contentious negotiations (like the ones we’re going through right now on the house we will buy on Tuesday) is to periodically show the other side a little daylight. Show them that they can in fact get something if they cooperate.
Now I remain unconvinced, as I’ve said earlier, that there is anyone to negotiate with on the Palestinian side. But if I’m wrong, and there is, the question is how to show them some daylight without giving up anything material. And it looks to me like the Israelis have done exactly that.

Mike Kielsky has a good post about the ICC (International Criminal Court) in Uncommon Sense, his blog. Like me, he’s against it. He puts it well:

Personally, I couldn’t care less whether we’d have to go invade the Netherlands, Nepal, or New Zealand. If one of OURS is being prosecuted by a politicized court composed of members primarily from nations with anti-U.S. views, then so be it.
I say this with straight face, because I can quickly dismiss the legitimacy of a war crimes complaint issued by a brutal dictatorship, but this court cannot. As organized, it will be skillfully manipulated by those governments opposed to true freedom and justice within and without their own borders, just as the U.N. finds itself so manipulated.

The reality is that the international bureaucracy is reflective of the governments that support it in a roughly democratic proportion. The notion that Zimbabwe or Albania might have an equal voice with us in judging one of ours will never be acceptable to me.
I once described myself to someone as having the politics of “Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Harry Truman having been run through a Cuisinart”. One of the core things our government should do is protect our citizens abroad from threat and violence.
I think Instapundit also put it well: “Kill an American, and you’re toast.” I have zero problems with that policy.

This came in as a comment from Michael Greene on the post below concerning Eric Raymond’s articles on the bleak future of Islamic/Western relations, and seemed interesting enough to move up from comment to the blog. As usual, my comments are interspersed.

If war is ‘built into’ the Islamic faith, why have they fought such comparably fewer wars than the West has? Millions and millions have died in European wars, what was the last major war the Islamic world participated in, Iran-Iraq?
I think the whole idea of Europe and America trying to pretend that the Islamic people are more war-like is joke given the past 100 years of modern history.

First, I’ve never said that Western culture isn’t warlike. I was overly casual in my statement; the argument made is that war is built into the conflict between the Western and Islamic cultures. Having said that, I’ll point out that the West has been and is moving away from war and toward markets and diplomacy, while in the Islamic world militancy (in the military sense) is rising. This is partly caused, I would guess, by the need of increasingly dictatorial governments to stay in power, and partly by the real or perceived threats from their neighbors and the West. Let’s see…Iran/Iraq, Iraq/Kurd, Iraq/Kuwait, Pakistan/India, Kyrgyzstan, Chechnya, the Moluccas…that’s just off the top of my head.

Furthermore, Eric Raymond has apparently done absolutely no research on Islamic history. The entire history of early Islam and the later spread of the relgion has many instances of war, but virtually every one of them is seen as a final step necessary only after negotiation has failed. Furthermore, a fundamental aspect of Islamic war is that you must treat your enemy with respect and dignity once the battle is over.
To go even further into this poorly constructed argument between this site and Eric Raymond’s, Huntington does not say at all that Islamic society is more war-like than Western, rather that the two are destined to war over a clash in ideas and values.

As noted above, that was my careless construction. I’d love some evidence (cites) on this. As I noted, I’m relatively ignorant on Islamic history (which still probably means I know more than a lot of folks), and would love to see some examples which lead one away from Raymond’s bleak conclusion.

While I agree with you that diplomacy might mean different things to different cultures, there is absolutely no evidence that one society is inherently more warlike than any other. In fact, on the basis of the evidence it would seem that Europe and the United States are the most war-like, but certainly that could not be the case, could it? Furthermore, the things being asked for by the respectable (non-fanatic) Muslims are all very reasonable things. Mostly they are asking for a fair solution in Israel/Palestine, and for greater democracy and freedom in their lands which leads to more economic prosperity (or vice-versa). My own travels have revealed a world whose people (if not governments) are rapidly coming together. It would be a huge mistake to listen to an Eric Raymond type who sees fundamental differences in humanity itself that make one group “more warlike” even though the evidence is clearly against that view. Such divisions are precisely what is not needed to engage the moderate majority of people in the world who want economic prosperity first and foremost.

The points I see here are:
1) not clear which society is more warlike; I’ll say it is more a matter of trends than absolutes. I think it is clear the we are militarily the strongest power on earth, and in an earlier post, I worried that if the conflict between the West and the Islamic world got serious enough, there might not be an Islamic world any more.
2) Your point about ‘respectable’ Muslims would be taken a lot more seriously if I saw any evidence of them in the Muslim media I read here; similarly I think we might have very different ideas of what constitutes a ‘fair solution’ in Israel/Palestine. I’d love references and reading suggestions.
3) You suggest that your travels show you people who are rapidly coming together; mine have shown me that we see things that tell us that is the case superficially (we all like Coke, and love Britney) but that at the deeper levels of culture and politics, there is a lot of room for conflict. The ‘Lexus and the Olive Tree’ suggests (in part) that we’re all coming together into one global set of brand-conscious consumers; I’m not completely sure I agree.
Look, as in most arguments, there are certainly cases to make on both sides. But I have a hard time (as I’ve said over and over again) with the ‘moral equivalence’ position, that delegitimizes all of U.S. history because we took the land from the Indians (and so on). Comparing civil life, political freedom, personal freedom, and a whole bunch of things that I value highly, this is a much better place to be than there, and while I’d never force anyone to adopt our lifestyle at the point of a gun (can we say that about them?), I’m firmly on this team, and I think that thinking folks of all stripes should be as well.

Blogging may be somewhat lighter than usual over the next week, as we’re moving next Tuesday (a sure sign that the housing market has peaked…we are buying a house…wonder what Brad DeLong thinks?) and then off to Chicago for the weekend to visit Tenacious G’s family. Sadly, I’ll miss the LA Blogger Bash, and my chance to meet the Olsens…but soon!!

Unlike everyone else who blogs, I’m obsessive about my referrer logs. I tend not to look a the counters too much (when gambling, I seldom count the pot either), but I’m always interested in where people came from, and make it a point to go look at websites that send me traffic. There are a few odd ones…someone keeps going to the Shonen Knife fan website, then here…you know who you are!…and the search hits are always funny. “buy vicodan online” is a big one, along with “Enron + smoking crack”.
So I’ve gotten a few hits from http://courseofthought.blogspot.com, and I go over there today. jenni b is a tough chick alright, and somehow I get this great strong sense of personality from her bio, which I enjoyed immensely. Part of it:

i studied engineering (electrical and mechanical) at the university of colorado. took a job as a civil engineer with the state, designing highways. after a couple years the boredom was to much to handle so i moved to san francisco to see what the leather crowd was up to out there. i starved as an artist so gave that up. i drove trucks otr but got home sick. i designed handicap mobility equipment but was put out of business by the irs. i spent a few years as a thief but knew my luck would eventually run out and i don’t like jail. now i run an auto parts store but not for much longer.

One interesting this about this whole blogging phenomenon is that I encounter all kind of people I’d love to sit down and have a few beers with but would never otherwise hear about. She’s a libertarian lesbian bottom Harley rider, I’m a liberal straight vanilla sportbike rider, and it’s just not too damn likely that we hang in the same social circles.
Forgive me if this sounds sappy, but there are voices out there folks, a great chorus of different voices, and when you listen to the song we’re all singing…well, to me, the song sounds sort of like America.

…the weird turn pro. –Hunter Thompson
The estimable Joe Katzman has actually gotten paid for this summary of his great 4th Generation Warfare posts.
A tip of the hat…

Eric Raymond has a four-part series, of which this is the latest chapter.
His position is clear; this is war, and the war is inevitibly built into the structure of Islamic society. This is a pretty clear Bernard Lewis/ Samuel Huntington position, and I agree with him more than a little.
But personally, I’m not ready to give up on peaceful outcomes yet, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to be sure that this is the ‘Clash of the Civilizations’.
But it won’t hurt for us to prepare for war while we try and reach peace, and in this chapter, I think he’s spot-on in stating that diplomacy means very different things to the Arab world and to us, and that a clear-eyed understanding of that difference (which may or may not be the one he outlines) is the only way to practice real diplomacy and avoid war.