....may be here.

The United States, 1, Algeria, 0.

Landon Donovan, the 28-year old American forward, after the United States' unlikely victory in the World Cup competition today:

This team embodies what the American spirit is about....We had a goal disallowed the other night, We had another good goal disallowed tonight. But we just keep going. And I think that's what people admire so much about Americans. And I'm damn proud.

Me too. I still wish people would use their hands from time to time, but you know what? I'm really getting to like this game.

Because I've pondered the issue before, Conor, your interesting post on Shelby Steele's latest made my eyes flash. One line of Steele's jumped out at you -- "we are pained to give Western Civilization primacy in our educational curricula lest we seem supremacist." You think there's more to the story. I agree -- in a way that challenges your thesis.

Here's some of what you write:

I've heard this kind of complaint before, paired with critiques of multiculturalism's excesses and foreboding warnings about the folly of politically correct educators. But [...] I can't help but conclude that the vast majority of our educational curricula is thoroughly western, that Western Civilization indisputably gets primacy [...].

At most, you claim, Steele's foes "want to augment the Western canon with voices by groups historically marginalized in the West -- so yes, maybe Thomas Paine is given a little bit less time, and Martin Luther King a little bit more, but almost everything concerns the west and its frames fully and automatically. There is no danger," you conclude, "of Westerners ceding the privileged place their own civilization and its norms enjoy in American education systems."

My experience is largely consonant with yours. Ironically, back in the old days at the single-shingle Pomocon I argued that Western civilization was so big, contained such multitudes, that it was already 'multicultural'. Western parochialism is almost, to use your phraseology, an oxymoron.

But the closer you look, here, the more you see, and if you're looking closely you can't help but confront the ugly truth at the center of Steele's op-ed. Because you omit it from your analysis, even though it follows directly after the line you quote, I have to conclude that you don't think it's central to Steele's claims about our PC self-editing and our fear of seeming supremacist. But I think it is central. Here's what Steele says right after the paragraph you quote and critique:

When the Israeli commandos boarded that last boat in the flotilla and, after being attacked with metal rods, killed nine of their attackers, they were acting in a world without the moral authority to give them the benefit of the doubt. By appearances they were shock troopers from a largely white First World nation willing to slaughter even "peace activists" in order to enforce a blockade against the impoverished brown people of Gaza. Thus the irony: In the eyes of a morally compromised Western world, the Israelis looked like the Gestapo.

I don't think you can make sense of Steele's complaint, or give it its due, unless you put it in this context. Steele is arguing that the typical American education treats Western civilization in a way that causes many of us to experience a profound moral confusion about the state of Israel. He characterizes the educators he criticizes as being at pains not to present Western civilization as primary, lest they appear to have judged Western civilization supreme.

What does it mean to present Western civilization as primary or (gasp) supreme? I think we would readily agree that it doesn't mean treating every Western idea, movement, ethnic group, and ideology as intellectually and morally equal. Hitler, Torquemada, Plato, Hobbes, Jesus, Machiavelli, Napoleon, Marx, Lenin, Locke, join hands! Respect all! Nobody thinks or talks this way, and for good reason. Western civilization is so great because of its tremendous power of auto-critique -- its willingness and ability to kill off, figuratively or literally, its worst ideas and its worst people. That's not at all to say we live in the best possible West, or that the best people and the best ideas always win. It is to say that judging Western civilization primary or supreme most commonly and correctly means judging on the basis of the best of the West.

And the fact is -- I think we'd both concede -- that here is exactly where you find the mincing and oversensitivity and the PC and the mania for theatrically staged revisionism. As western-centric as an American education may be, there seems to me no doubt at all that the attitude holding sway is dominated by a staunch refusal to judge the best of the West as proof that the West as such is the best -- not Western civilization as a precursor or evolutionary ape pointing toward some future human civilization where true justice will finally be achieved. When Martin Luther King, Jr., is praised -- as our own President has praised him -- it is (very often) only out of pride in Western civilization insofar as the west is understood as the only civilization that makes possible our enlightened elevation to the standpoint of a cosmic or global humanity that ultimately transcends the particularity of the west -- and, in so transcending, destroys it. The goodness and greatness of the west, when it is touted, must only be recognized as a means to an end that makes specifically western primacy or supremacy obsolete.

Now, Steele's contention, as I understand it, is that this attitude has caused many people to adopt a view of Israel that is intensely critical at the least. Indeed, I think Steele says that this attitude causes people to see Israel as bad, if not evil, and Israel's enemies as, if not exactly good, then at least as victims.

Why would this be so? Well, Steele provides his own answers, and he can hardly go as deep into the background as I am in a post which I'm sure is already longer than his op-ed. But let me venture to say that the attitude in question, in which the west is only redeemed insofar as it transcends and thereby abandons itself, is a secularization of a quite specifically Christian theological concept. The key scripture is Matthew 5:17:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

Now, Luther read these words of Christ and decided that the new dispensation ushered in by Jesus really did transcend the old dispensation of Moses in a way that made the abandonment of the old the prerogative, and indeed the sacred duty, of Christians. But Calvin offered a different interpretation -- in my view, one that accords better with the words of Christ. Calvin's interpretation is the more difficult one, because it teaches that Christians are stuck with a certain amount of Jewishness, both figurative and literal: even though the spirit (Christ/the love of God) perfects and understands what is first present, less comprehendingly, in the flesh (Moses/the law of God), it nonetheless is essential that the new dispensation fulfills, and not destroys, the old.

Return then to the Israel problem. A secularized version of Luther's interpretation of Matthew 5:17, as opposed to Calvin's, seeks just the same to free spirit of its fleshly particularity. Only, instead of spirit being the love of God, and the fleshly particularity being the law of God, spirit is our sense of common humanity, or the "arc of justice" -- insert your favorite line from Emerson, your second-grade classroom wall, or your Human Resources handbook -- and flesh is the incarnate particularity, locality, and uniqueness of Western people, western ideas, and western morality. As even Nietzsche recognized, western civilization is a nonsensical, murderous, and even suicidal abstraction when purged of its Jewishness -- and Jewishness is put on a similarly surreal footing when purged of its Mosaic character. Hitler realized that 'the Jewish problem' was the problem of a people who purported to have an irreducibly particular relationship with God himself; you could not get God out of the world unless you got that people out of the world.

Obviously I do not want to claim that the typical American education makes people think more like Hitler about Israel. But if your view of Western civilization is a secular one that rejects the centrality to the West of biblical civilization, in all its Jewishness, you are more likely to be made uncomfortable by people who think and act on the basis of their conviction that biblical civilization in all its Jewishness is central to the best of Western civilization. And you are more likely to view unfavorably both the insistence of many Israeli Jews on the peace and security of Israel and their willingness to support violent measures in pursuit of that goal. You will be inclined to see Israel as an atavistic impediment -- perhaps the atavistic impediment -- to the destiny of western civilization, namely, to transcend and outmode itself in the fulfillment of our human potential to one day realize global or cosmic secular justice.

I admit this is a lot to unpack from only a few lines, but I really do think this is an accurate depiction of the hugely high stakes playing out at their source. We're not focusing on what Steele is really saying, it seems to me, unless we take the conversation here. Since California soothes the mind and calms the soul, I'm certain you've read every word of this lengthy monologue with a placid and preternatural focus, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

My apologies for the radio silence, as I've taken a few days off and now find that I'm eager to get back on the road so I can dispense with these chores and get some rest. Keeping up with the General McChrystal situation as best I can, I have to wonder why in the world McChrystal allowed himself to get in this stew in the first place. 

With rare exception, dumb people don't become generals and someone with McChrystal's background is certainly not dumb.  Keep in mind that he had already been called on the carpet for publicly pressuring the Obama administration to stop the Hamlet routine and approve his troop level request.  Additionally, it appears that the general was rather under-whelmed with the President and members of his national security team.  Add to that the apparent fixed withdrawal schedule, and it may be that McChrystal found himself in an untenable position.  

An outright resignation would send the administration's Afghanistan policy into utter chaos, risking the mission and the troops.  Now, I admit that I'm running on very little sleep here, but I have to wonder if this "Death By Interview" was just the thing to allow McChrystal to exit a situation be could no longer function in, yet still give the mission in Afghanistan its best possible shot at success? 

He had to have known that this piece would be the death knell for his command.   Was that the point of the exercise? 

In January 2007, when President George W. Bush named Gen. David Petraeus commander of the multi-national forces in Iraq, the war had been going badly for almost four years. Support for the war in Congress had all but collapsed. The Pentagon, unable to win the war, seemed frozen, advising the President merely to pursue the same strategy that was already failing. A small group of officers and civilians—retired Gen. Jack Keane, Frederick Kagan, Vice President Cheney—had urged the President instead to attempt a new strategy, a surge, based largely on the work Gen. Petraeus had published in Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency.

Gen. Petraeus—it all came down to Gen. Petraeus. If he failed, the war in Iraq would be lost—and the prestige and strategic standing of the most powerful nation on earth would be damaged irreparably. From January 2007, when he took command in Iraq, until September 2008, when, having turned around the entire conflict, producing a genuine victory, he stepped down, Gen. David Petraeus was the most important man in the world.

Now a new President has given Petraeus a new command, “on the eve,” as Steve Hayes wrote on Ricochet earlier today, “of what could be the decisive front in the escalating battle.” No one else possessed the experience or standing to succeed Gen. McChrystal. Once again, it all comes down to Gen. Petraeus. Once again, he is the most important man in the world.

Looking back at the last 24 hours, I feel good about my prediction that CNN would hire Eliot Spitzer, and not so good about my prediction that Obama would keep General McChrystal.

Oh, wait. I didn't predict that CNN would hire Spitzer, I read that at TVNewser. So I guess that wasn't much of a prediction. Still, it was better than my forecast that Obama would keep McChrystal.

OK, so I will sit on the bench, prediction-wise, for a while. But I will allow myself a couple of comments on Obama's choice of David Petraeus to run Afghanistan, just as he ran Iraq.

First, it is inconceivable to me that Petraeus would accept this assignment without an assurance that he would have the civilian team in Kabul that he thinks he needs. So expect many changes, including perhaps the US ambassador to Afghanistan, who, interestingly enough is a former three-star general--but that doesn't mean that he and Petraeus have to like each other.

Second, expect some slippage on the timeline for withdrawal of US troops. Nobody thinks that counter-insurgency can work on a short time-leash. If Petraeus thinks he needs more time, Obama will give it to him. After all, Obama is not eager to see Afghanistan fall between now and his 2012 re-election campaign.

It's Alex Massie with the latest insanity:

consider this question, asked by the Irish Labour MEP Nessa Childers:

There has been an explosion in the usage of this online social networking tool across Europe: unfortunately many people have crossed the line from social networking to social dysfunction. This is a real health issue and I am calling upon the Commission to take action. Visiting your Facebook page frequently actually causes what psychologists refer to as ‘intermittent reinforcement’. Notifications, messages and invitations reward you with an unpredictable high, much like gambling. That anticipation can get dangerously addictive. Many people access their Facebook page once or twice a week; however, for others it has turned into a compulsion — and it is a compulsion to dissociate yourself from your real world and go and live in the Facebook world. Moderate usage is not a problem at all for most people, however some people do not seem to realise that it is not real life. With the passing into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU now has increased powers to legislate when there is a threat to public health in Europe. Will the Commission submit proposals to Parliament to address this growing threat to the mental health of European citizens?

I was uneasy when Elizabeth Edwards took to my teevee to explain how we must treat mental health like physical health and get with the nationalized health care. Not that I expect Congress to pass an anti-Twitter measure, complete with patriotic acronym, anytime soon. But I do expect to continue to see this pressure burden our idea of law -- the notion that everyone is sick in some way, and with each sickness comes a new degree of regulation and official care. What greater invitation to meddlesome micromanagement is there than an obsession with public mental health?

Breaking story here.

So it's official: CNN has hired disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer for its 8 pm ET slot. He and columnist Kathleen Parker will be replacing Campbell Brown.

Spitzer, destined to be remembered as "Client #9," takes another step in his, uh, comeback.

Ironies, as well as double entendres, abound.

First, the return of "Crossfire" to a network that had tooted its own corporate horn--easy, Eliot!--for being, er, down the middle. CNN's president, Jon Klein, made a big deal about cancelling "Crossfire," five years ago, because Jon Stewart told him to stop--and what liberal Manhattanite doesn't do what Stewart says? But in fact, audiences like lively discussion. Now, CNN is admitting its mistake, but it is doing it with a very strange set of characters. Spitzer, well, we know about him. And as for Parker, many would dispute that she is a genuine conservative, as opposed to the sort of housebroken conservative that the Washington Establishment favors.

Second, speaking of genuine conservatives, what do we suppose that another CNN contributor Erick Erickson, has had to say about Spitzer, and for that matter, what he has written or said about Parker? For reasons noted above, it obviously never occurred to CNN to put Erickson in the conservative "chair."

Third, speaking of genuine liberals, what are feminists going to say about Spitzer? Talk about yer objectifying women! If Fox hired, say, David Vitter, there'd be protestors and bullhorns out front of Fox HQ. But instead, we'll most likely get silence from feminist groups. Although maybe Rachel Maddow, now anchoring at MSNBC, can stir 'em up.

Full disclosure: I am a contributor to the Fox News Channel, although I can't say that I am worried about this new competition. There won't be a day that goes by that someone doesn't make a joke about Spitzer, or find a funny juxtaposition, or discover a pun.

And finally, let's state the obvious: There's something wrong with Spitzer. He's a rich kid--a rich, arrogant kid. But as in most such cases, the arrogance covers for insecurity and self-destructiveness. Spitzer destroyed himself once; my bet is that he'll do it again. Only this next time, it might well be televised.

Ricochet pride compels me to link to this excellent piece in today's New York Times, on Ricochet podcast guest and (soon to be) contributor, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. (If you haven't heard him on the Ricochet podcast, it's here; scroll down to Number 12....)

My favorite paragraph:

He has been deeply involved as an informal adviser to the party’s candidates for governor, whom he sees as the most likely sources of new Republican policy ideas. “It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be happening in Washington anytime soon,” Mr. Bush dryly observed.

For the past eight years, people have been saying, "Oh, wouldn't Jeb Bush be a great president? Too bad that can't happen."

Why can't it, again?

I know, I know: the usual stuff. But the "usual stuff" is what small-time thinkers (and political pundits) cling to when they feel like they're expected to predict the unpredictable. The great thing about American politics is how unpredictable it is. Whenever I hear people saying "Here's what's gonna happen...." or "There's no way the voters will accept...." I know two things for sure: it's not gonna happen that way, and the voters will get over it.

As Steve argues over at The Weekly Standard, and says in a comment here on Ricochet, "McChrystal Must Go." The Rolling Stone fiasco, Steve asserts, has weakened McChrystal irreparably, rendering him incapable of standing up to the civilians to whom he reports, including the commander-in-chief. Anyone commanding our troops in Afghanistan, Steve argues, must be in a position to tell Barack Obama things he just won't want to hear. If the President keeps him in his job, McChrystal will find himself too beholden to the President to stand up to him.

The argument strikes me as entirely compelling--except for one point: Who the heck would replace McChrystal? McChrystal commands the loyalty, even the devotion, of the troops on the ground; he represents perhaps the Pentagon's leading practitioner of counter-insurgency warfare; and he appears to be very nearly the only American in the military, the state department, the White House or anywhere else who has a good working relationship with Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. Steve endorses Bill Kristol's suggestion that the President should ask Gen. Petraeus to lay down his present duties at Central Command in Florida to replace McChrystal. Which leads me to ask two questions of Steve. (And I don't intend these as in any way tendentious. Steve covers the war beat. He's a lot more likely to know the answers than is yours truly.)

1. As a practical matter, is there truly any chance either that the President would ask Petraeus to replace McChrystal--or that Petraeus would agree to do so?

2. Absent Petraeus, can anybody name, say, two or three likely candidates whom we have reason to believe could do the job as well as McChrystal?

Cool! Politico is now sending reporters into the future to flash reports back to the present day. So it seems in this piece at least. Speaking at a debate yesterday, liberal legal scholar Walter Dellinger offered the opinion that Roe V. Wade would one day be overturned by conservative judges. Wasting nary a moment, Politico reporter James Hohmann jumped into his DeLorean and reported back from the world of tomorrow:

Such a decision by the Supreme Court would pour barrels of gasoline onto the now smoldering fires of the never-ending culture war.

Wow! I'm surprised actually. I mean, I believe parents should be able to terminate their children's lives up to the moment they are self-supporting, but it also seems clear to me that Roe V. Wade is one of the most divisive events in our history. I believe it's largely the cause of the culture war and expect that overturning it would do more to cool the national conversation than any other single act. When free Americans disagree on what is essentially a metaphysical issue, they need to debate and pass different laws in different states until something vaguely resembling consensus is reached--or not. When a few people in black robes imperiously rewrite the Constitution in order to impose their vision of morality on the entire populace, it, you know, ticks people off. If Roe were overturned, I figured there'd be a lot of media/feminist wailing and gnashing of teeth, then we'd get back to the business of politics as we should. But now that Hohmann's sent the word from his DeLorean, I guess I know better.

Yes: Straw, "Weird Superman." Crowning achievement of late-'90s Britpop, lost but not forgotten. In the comments, you'll see Straw's lead singer is now an English teacher at a community college. Warhol convinced us his infamous 15 minutes would be followed by oblivion; increasingly, it's just followed by real life. This is not a bad thing.

No: LCD Soundsystem, "I Can Change." Music that I don't like liking; references I enjoy, made awful by being worn like flair at Chotchkie's or hipster buttons on a skinny blazer. But I love this:

I'm not like, y'know, [mimes being on the Internet]. "What are the kids doing?" But it's tough. It wears you out, as Thom Yorke said. I just think there's too much music. It's too easy to release music. [...] You don't have to pussyfoot around it-- I'm old.

Mike Lee Wins in Utah

Orzsag Won the Policy, But Lost the Politics

Afghanistan Haulage Contract Helping Fund Taliban

Israel's Arab Minority Gets More Radical

Predicting an End to Roe v. Wade

Is It Individualism or Populism?

Meet the New Swing Voters: Walmart Moms

American Idol Lowers Contestant Age to 15

I was listening to an interview with Niall Ferguson last night. Although Ferguson is hardly a conservative, he surprised me by saying that Paul Ryan was one of the few congressmen talking "seriously" about the US fiscal mess, and that Ryan's Roadmap offered a chance to get us out of the mess.

I'm a big fan of Ryan and the Roadmap. Why isn't the GOP more forcefully rallying around the Roadmap? It's the one-stop answer to all those who say the GOP is just the "party of no." Couldn't the Roadmap be our "Contract with America" for 2010?

The comments in response to my earlier post about the terrorists who bombed my neighborhood yesterday made me realize that most Americans just don't know about the PKK.

I'd blame the media, but I am the media. So I guess it's my fault. Let me make it up to you. I'm going to explain the PKK problem and tell you why you should care about it. I've just got to figure out a way to do it without boring you. It's not a boring subject at all, believe me, especially when they're operating in your neighborhood. It's just a little complicated, and there are a lot of acronyms, which can be confusing. But really, give it a chance: Trying to figure out what's going on here is like playing Risk, only with real people and real blood. So get yourself a cup of coffee, pull out a map of the Middle East and some pushpins, and play along.

This Skype chat I had today with a friend of mine is a good introduction to the game. He's a mysterious private intelligence analyst who lives in an undisclosed location and goes by the name "Timothy Thompson." A very smart guy. For hire, by the way. If you have any private intelligence requirements, I'll put you in touch with him.

The chat begins with me wondering whether it could be true that the US and Israel are holding back intelligence from the Turks about PKK activity. I ask him whether he's heard anything on the grapevine ...

Timothy Thompson: No -- it's all the murky rumors that swirl around intelligence operations. The Turks have probably given a large bribe to Barzani, who issued a stinging denounciation of the PKK, but did little else.

Claire Berlinski: The thing is, the PKK was threatening to do this well before all of this happened. And they usually do have a summer bombing campaign. It's like bringing out the swimwear collection for them. And it's perfectly logically explained by the collapse of the Kurdish opening and Ocalan's comments. You don't need to invoke the US or Israel to explain why they've stepped things up. Attacks on Istanbul are hardly unprecedented.

Timothy Thompson: In terrorism and intelligence, everything is rumor and innuendo. Here's the aspect that is being talked about in Intelligence Community chat rooms. Erdogan talked up the humanitarian aspect of the flotilla. What he conveniently left out is that the aid recipient, Hamas, is a listed terrorist organization. Erdogan openly supports Hamas while still thinking the world owes him assistance against the PKK. That attitude isn't going to fly.

Claire Berlinski: The world doesn't owe him assistance against the PKK. But they're a terrorist organization, meaning, they target people -- like me -- at random. The world actually does owe me assistance against the PKK.

Timothy Thompson: The PKK may well have planned a summer bombing campaign months ago. The US and Israel would never assist in such planning. What has changed is that the US & Israel may have withdrawn intelligence support to the Turkish military and police.

Claire Berlinski: Anyone who knows they're planning to attack Istanbul better f***** cough up the information, or they're morally complicit.

Timothy Thompson: The rationale in planning circles is that Erdogan is steering Turkey on a course to war -- with high casualties -- and he must be slapped into reality now.

Claire Berlinski: There is simply no acceptable rationale for not sharing actionable information about a terrorist attack against civilians.

Timothy Thompson: I wrote weeks ago that while Turkey is threatening Israel, the Kurds and Armenians are quietly talking to Israel. The Kurds smell opportunity.

Claire Berlinski: They're idiots if they think the PKK equals opportunity. Idiots on exactly the order of Hamas.

Timothy Thompson: For the first time in decades, the Kurds sense that American support of Ankara may be withdrawn, giving them a tiny opening to defeat the Turkish government and force a withdrawal from Kurdistan. They probably will pull out all the stops to get rid of the Turks now during this small window of opportunity.

Claire Berlinski: I'm no fan of the AKP these days, but spitting on the Kurdish opening was more or less analagous to walking out of Camp David in 2000.

Timothy Thompson: Hint: think less about logic and more about perceptions and emotions. Also -- and this vital -- think about oil.

Claire Berlinski: I would be genuinely morally outraged if I discovered that my government had intelligence about impending PKK attacks that it didn't share. Absolutely nothing we say about terrorism would mean anything if that were so.

Timothy Thompson: The CIA does stuff routinely that is outrageous and immoral -- that's actually their job. Do it and don't get caught. Even worse for Mossad. And, to distill this, what we are telling the world is that if you help the terrorist enemies of the US and Israel, neither country will lift a finger to help you against your own terrorists. Again, we just don't know the facts -- and we won't ever know them.

Claire Berlinski: Look, this isn't something I can prove -- you can't prove a negative -- but Congress has made its feelings about the PKK quite clear; the Supreme Court just echoed it. If the CIA is sitting there thinking, "Well, we'll just help the frisky little devils," they're opening themselves up to major backlash if it comes out. And the folks there are so risk-averse these days that I just don't see it.

Timothy Thompson: It's not a case of helping the PKK. It is a case of not helping the Ankara government fight the PKK.

Claire Berlinski: Same thing. People die. Same result. If I know a bomb is going to go off in your neighborhood and I don't tell you -- well, it's perhaps not as bad as planting the bomb myself, but it's not far off it.

Timothy Thompson: As for the US Congress, the mood there has sharply changed. The Armenian genocide bill looks likely to pass this year. And Congress members are declining invitations to Turkish-American events. The intel provided to Turkey is much less about a particular bomb and much more about the location of PKK bases in northern Iraq.

Claire Berlinski: You know, I don't approve of that, either. Either the Armenian genocide happened or it didn't. You can't change history to punish Erdogan.

Timothy Thompson: Covert action and spycraft is dirty business. Erdogan had plenty of warnings to steer clear of Hamas and he ignored all of them. He is discovering the price of turning his back on America and Israel. He is also hearing about now that the price of his active support of Iran during a strike will be lives of himself and his family -- and probably the existence of the AKP. This message probably will get through his thick skull. Certainly it isn't lost on him that he now must worry about his own military. A message is also being sent to the Turkish people. It's a subtle one and it will take a while to permeate. "If you want to live like Arab Muslims, here's your chance. Daily terrorist bombings. Boastful, threatening leaders. No visas for travel to the West. Massive military budgets and conscription. Unelected Muslim religious figures influencing every aspect of daily life. Saudi and Gulf oil money buying influence everywhere. This is your new reality."

Claire Berlinski: It won't penetrate and will backfire.

Timothy Thompson: Claire, you seem rebelling against a fact. This a dirty business. The stakes are enormous.

Claire Berlinski: The whole message is absolutely appropriate, true and condign. But there are moral ways to deliver it and wicked ones. Not to mention effective ones and ways that will backfire completely.

Timothy Thompson: Something to remember. For Israel, the threat is existential.

Claire Berlinski: I do remember that.

Timothy Thompson: Israel will do anything and everything necessary to knock Turkey out of the coming war as a Muslim combatant nation.

Claire Berlinski: Tell me how well it would work to knock America out of a conflict by supporting al Qaeda.

Timothy Thompson: And if Erdogan does send the Turkish military after Israel, Israel will carve a new Kurdistan out of Turkey.

Timothy Thompson: Better analogy -- crippling the USA by supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Kurds have a functioning, pro-American government and state.

Claire Berlinski: Let's distinguish between the Kurds and the PKK, shall we?

Timothy Thompson: Yes. The US and Israel, again, are not likely to help the PKK.

Claire Berlinski: We go back, again, to my point: If you have intelligence about an impending attack and don't share it, you are helping them.

Timothy Thompson: Even if the street talk is "The Jews are helping the PKK!" -- that just isn't true.

Claire Berlinski: My gut says neither are true -- I don't think the US is withholding information about this; I don't think Israel is. I just think the PKK are doing what the PKK does. But of course I don't know.

Timothy Thompson: You and the various intel agencies see things differently.

Claire Berlinski: How do we know how they see things? By definition, they ain't talking.

Timothy Thompson: Intel agencies. Imagine an invisible boat in the water of a calm lake. You can't see the boat. All you can see is its wake.

Claire Berlinski: Unfortunately, you also see the wake of 6,000 other powerful forces, so you can't tell which boat left them.

Timothy Thompson: If you observe the Turks becoming ineffective against the PKK, you can safely assume that it is for a lack of intelligence --specifically, satellite targeting data. There is another indicator to watch. Turkey keeps military forces in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. If those forces are either attacked or expelled (with Iraqi Army and/or US assistance), the tide is turning against Turkey. This may not happen -- it is just something to watch. Erdogan has stumbled into a legal minefield as well. Erdogan is effectively challenging Israel's sovereignty. What he overlooked is that Turkey's borders are legally in doubt as well.

Claire Berlinski: There are other issues that might be at play, too. The rise of urban PKK militias versus rural units, for example. A consequence of immigration -- a long term trend.

Timothy Thompson: Turkey challenged through a civil war the establishment of Kurdistan by the Versailles Conference. When it did so, it was a losing combatant in WWI and violated he terms of the Ottoman Empire's armistice treaty. The War of Indepence was clearly illegal under international law. The Israelis are just playing turnabout with him. But the danger to modern Turkey is very, very clear: dismemberment. This was unthinkable a few years ago -- now people are counting it as a real (if unlikely) possibility. And this is 100% Erdogan's doing.

Claire Berlinski: Yes, I agree. But going back to your point -- why the uptick in PKK attacks? I can think of many plausible reasons other than the machinations of regional intel services ...

Timothy Thompson: There are dozens of plausible explanations for increased PKK activity.

Claire Berlinski: Frankly, most simple explanation: The military is too busy focusing on Israel to take care of the home front. Limited resources, spread too thin.

Timothy Thompson: That's one. Increased revenues from criminal activities is another. Increased Kurdish militancy in urban Istanbul is another.

Claire Berlinski: Exactly.

Timothy Thompson: PKK is almost 3 separate groups.

Claire Berlinski: TAK claimed responsibility for today's attacks.

Timothy Thompson: There is the PKK you can see in the mountains of southern Turkey and northern Iraq. There is the covert, deeply-hidden urban PKK -- aka the TAK. Then there is the vast criminal PKK gang in Europe. Nominally, the fund-raising arm of the PKK, it operates more like a strictly self-serving gang paying a small franchise fee to the insurgency. The black market activities in Istanbul are where the three intersect.

Claire Berlinski: Yep. And stole my great-granny's wedding ring.

Timothy Thompson: Many of the handguns sold in the Kurdish black markets come from Iraq these days. The trade in stolen luxury goods links the PKK criminal gangs with TAK foot soldiers. The PKK army helps supply both the handguns and drugs for the PKK operations in Istanbul & Europe. In writing about the PKK, it is always helpful to distinguish between these three aspects.

Claire Berlinski: Indeed. Well, this has been a most interesting conversation ... would you like me to post it, noting that you're for hire?

Timothy Thompson: Yes, please, I am for hire. Have gun. Will travel.

Keep in mind two things: First, the PKK are Maoists. Not Islamists, Maoists. And they are seeking to create an "ethnically pure" Kurdish state. We all know what that means, right? Second, 40,000 people have died here since the war with the PKK began.

So interesting though this is, it's actually not a game at all.

Over on the Corner, Mark Krikorian has posted a response to my Wall Street Journal column last week on Reagan and immigration:

I suspect…[Peter is] right that open immigration appealed to Reagan ideologically….He came of age and was formed intellectually in the post-immigration era; mass immigration came to an end when he was 13 years old. From the time he was 20 until he was 34, annual immigration never exceeded 100,000, and was usually much lower. When he gave his “A Time for Choosing” speech in 1964, total legal immigration was less than 300,000 and Ted Kennedy had not yet laid the statutory groundwork for today’s mass immigration of well over a million a year.

The context is vital—Mark is exactly right about this.  And to the statistics Mark cites, I’d add a few more.  As recently as 1980, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, in only ten of California’s 58 counties did the Hispanic proportion of the population stand at 25 percent or higher, while in 13 counties the Hispanic proportion of the population stood at five percent or less.  By 2006, the number of counties in which Hispanics accounted for 25 percent or more of the population had risen to 25, while the number in which Hispanics accounted for five percent or less had fallen to zero.  Ronald Reagan’s California—the California he encountered when he moved here to become a contract player at Warner Brothers and that remained overwhelmingly Anglo all the way through his two terms as governor—represented a kind of Iowa on the Pacific.  The California of today—the California, that is, in which non-Hispanic whites now account for less than 43 percent of the population—would have seemed unimaginable.

What would he have made of the changes immigration has wrought in California?  I thought a lot about this as I was pulling together my notes.  A man with a particular admiration for those who make their living from the land, Reagan would have been acutely aware of the changes in the Central, Salinas, and Imperial valleys, the regions devoted to agriculture.  Entire towns have become, in effect, outposts of Mexico, and from Stockton south to Calexico you can now trace a line of travel along which you would seldom hear a word of English.  To Reagan, immigration meant assimiliation—that, at a minimum, the children of immigrants would be brought up speaking English.  Yet in swaths of California today, English is the second language, seldom used.  Reagan would have found this unnerving.

Against that, though, Reagan would have recognized what nearly everyone who lives here in California recognizes:  that immigrants to the Golden State are overwhelmingly hardworking and decent.  Reagan would have known Mexican-Americans like the man who runs the auto repair shop here in my own town.  After working for years as a mechanic, he bought out the owner.  He’s cheerful, honest, and efficient—and he employs a dozen people.  Or like the man who does a lot of the gardening in our neighborhood.  He doesn’t speak much English, but he runs an efficient and friendly small business that employs, again, a dozen or so people.  After campaigning against an amnesty for illegal aliens in his primary challenge to Barbara Boxer, maverick Democrat Mickey Kaus put it like this:

On immigration, it’s a very hard row to hoe in a state like California where everybody appreciates the contribution of both legal and illegal immigrants to the state economy.  You can’t live here without sort of liking the people who have come here because by and large they are good people.

Reagan would have liked the people who have come here.  Even as he grew concerned about the effects they were having, he’d have liked the people themselves a lot.

Were he with us today, I argued in my column, Reagan would have insisted on restoring the rule of law at the border before we so much as considered comprehensive immigration reform.  Yet my ground for this argument concerned less the effects of immigration than the behavior of the federal government.  In failing to put into effect the enforcement mechanisms that the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act mandated, Reagan would have seen, the federal government has engaged in a protracted and utter dereliction of duty.  Reagan would have been beside himself.  

So the question remains:  On immigration itself, where would Reagan have stood?  Would he have argued that immigration of the kind that has taken place since 1986 has benefitted California and the nation?  And that we could use still more?  Or perhaps that despite the benefits of this last wave of immigration we now need time to assimilate these new millions among us?  And that we ought accordingly to reduce immigration by a half?  Or two-thirds?  Or—yet another alternative--that the massive immigration of these last couple of decades represented a terrible mistake?  And that we therefore ought to cut immigration by four-fifths?  Or six-sevenths?  I just don’t know how Reagan would have sorted all of this out.  The record permits too few clear inferences.  The context, as Mark argues, has changed too dramatically.  There is a limit, in the end, to the guidance we can derive even from as great and good a man as Ronald Reagan.  We’re on our own.

And yet we still have this.  “Let us resolve,” Reagan said when he returned from the 1988 Moscow summit, 

to continue one nation, one people…to keep America a shining city, a light unto the nations.

America, the shining city.  Our generation must decide how best to live up to that ideal, but Reagan offers us principles to draw upon.  We must be as generous as we can toward those who wish to join us, setting an example for all the world.  Yet we must recognize the need always to remain one nation and one people.

A New York Times article this morning entitled "Obama set to warn insurers over "rate gouging,'" included the following, which is one of the most astonishing things I've seen in print in -- oh, days, at least:

The White House is conceerned that health insurers will blame the new law for increases in premiums that are intended to maximize profits rather than covering claims.

Never mind the shoddy grammar -- did someone at the White House really say this, or is the Times just being factually sloppy as well? Dudes, the whole point of a for-profit corporation is to "maximize profits." This sort of statement reflects either mind-numbing ignorance of how microeconomics actually work in a (relatively) free economy -- inexcusable at either the Times or the White House -- or an inherent hostility to the "free" in free markets and an implicit belief that "capitalism" is fine as long as it's managed by the State, which alone has the wisdom to determine how much profit is enough.

I'd love to see this at a press conference or on a Sunday morning talk show: "Mr. President, do you believe that private enterprises operating legally in competitive markets here in the U.S. should be free to try to maximize their earnings? Yes or no?"

By the way, over the past three years at the five largest publicly-traded health insurers, an average of just under 5 cents of every dollar of premiums has gone to profits -- pretty average for corporate America, and hardly evidence of the sort of rapaciousness that cries out for control from the firm hand of Washington.

In South Carolina tonight, the state's GOP has nominated its first-ever female candidate for governor, its first-ever Indian-American candidate for governor, and it's first Black candidate for Congress since Reconstruction, and unfortunately that's news. So, ugh that it’s taken so long.

But it's good news because it means two important things:

First, it reaffirms that people aren’t prejudiced the way the media would like to have us believe (remember all those voices saying Obama couldn't possibly get elected because we were such a biased country? NOT). We can now include even those good ol' white boys some were so sure would never vote for Nicki Halley in the runoff.

Second, that groups that have been politically represented largely by members espousing the victimhood/grievance philosophy now have individuals who have had it with that approach and recognize that it doesn’t work. Sort of a belated assimilation thing, with “Movin’ On Up” playing in the background, and the original civil rights summation of freedom, equality and justice -- "I am a Man" -- as the undercurrent. The monolith begins to crack...

I see that fellow Ricochet-er Rob Long is passing along a report that General McChrystal "resigns." Well maybe, but maybe not. A report from a British newspaper--even one as good as The Telegraph -- is not the final word. Most obviously, just because McChrystal has or will tender his resignation, that doesn't mean that President Obama has to accept it. We will know for sure tomorrow. But as a straw in the wind, tonight on NBC News, White House reporter Chuck Todd seemed to go out of his way to emphasize that there's still a "path" for McChrystal to keep his job--presumably the Path of Maximum Groveling.

As I wrote this morning for Fox News' "Fox Forum,"  I don't think that McChrystal will end up leaving. Many have called this a "MacArthur Moment," as in Harry Truman vs. Douglas MacArthur, and Peter Robinson calls it a "Lincoln Test," as in, Lincoln vs. George McClellan, but I don't think that Obama is either Truman nor Lincoln. Instead, the practicalities of trying to fight a war with chaotic leadership will persuade Obama, I think, to keep McChrystal.

But one has to ask: Isn't it possible that McChrystal would be better off if he were fired? Isn't it better to be separated from a looming failure prior to the broad realization of that failure? I am old enough to remember General John Singlaub, the US commander in South Korea, who publicly differed from Jimmy Carter about the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea, and was fired, back in the late 70s. Singlaub became a hero on the right,and that was in the days when there was no conservative media echo chamber to speak of. Today, if McChrystal were cashiered by Obama, does anybody doubt that he would be a fixture on conservative media, and a much-sought speaker? But such a scenario might seem too cynical and defeatist to be plausible--and in any case, McChrystal, a gung ho guy, doesn't seem to embrace it. If he had wanted out, his apology would have been much more pro forma, much less abject. Instead, obviously he wants to keep his job--he wants to stay in command.

And so we come back to the issue of succeeding or not. McChrystal has clearly tried to emulate Gen. Petraeus' Iraq "surge" strategy in Afghanistan, but it's not working as well. And Obama has set up that mid-2011 deadline for drawing down, which just about everyone--opponents of the Afghan war as well as proponents--agrees only guarantees that the Taliban/Al Qaeda/Other forces will simply decide to wait it out. Although as the recent spurt of US/NATO casualties shows, even if the enemy is waiting us out, they are inflicting plenty of damage on us in the meantime. We are inflicting plenty of damage on them, too, but they seem to have a pretty strong support base in not only Afghanistan but also Pakistan. There's a lot of cannon fodder in those madrassahs.

And so we come back to Obama. If the news, and future news, from AfPak is this bad, he should want McChrystal to stay. Why? To soften the blow of bad news down the road. Afghanistan didn't work? How could that be, the Obamans will ask--we kept George W. Bush's top general, David Petraeus, in place at Centcom, and we picked one of his top proteges, McChrystal, to run Afghanistan? Even after such an argument, Obama wouldn't be spared the lion's share of responsibility for an Afghan debacle, but he and his spinners will be offload at least some of it on the shoulders of Petraeus, McChrystal, and the COIN-dinistas.

Such blame-shifting is by no means an ideal scenario for Obama--nor for America--but at least it's a plan for buying time. Time enough to gin up a Plan B, which might include, say, a regional or international political settlement--however fig-leafy it might be.

At least that's The Australian's take on the legislation John Conyers is hustling through the House of Representatives:

He said: "The Bill says in essence that if BP files for bankruptcy in the UK then the US courts will not co-operate. What they are doing is amending Chapter 15 of the US bankruptcy code. It would enable US creditors and US courts to take control of BP's assets."

Meanwhile, the spill's consequences extend beyond the United States. I am in London this week and people I meet are nervous about the impact on the British economy. Today's Telegraph reports that BP is shedding assets, raising concerns about the fate of the British oil industry.

It [a review of BP's North Sea assets] comes in a week when BP has been forced to pay attention to its operations outside America, having confirmed it wants to divest $10bn (£6.8bn) of assets a year to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

If the worst case scenario unfolds and BP goes under, at least Government Motors gets a captive fuel supplier: Barack Petroleum.

Democrats in the House have announced that they're just not into doing a budget this year. Bear in mind that making a budget is pretty much the most important thing that the House does.

Why the trouble? Because a budget mean making choices. It means figuring out how to pay for everything they've bought over the past year and a half. The choices are simple, and impossible: cut stuff, or raise taxes.

So they've done what every everyone does when they have a spending problem: they've decided to ignore it. To kick the can down the road. To hide the credit card bills.

Until after the midterms.

Abraham Lincoln put up with a lot from general-in-chief of the Union Army George B. McClellan. McClellan derided Lincoln in front of his staff and made no effort to hide his contempt for the president at social gatherings. Even in his face-to-face meetings with Lincoln, McClellan proved high-handed. Lincoln kept him on all the same--as long as McClellan proved effective in his job. Drilling and equipping the army, creating the huge logistical machine needed to feed, clothe and house the army--at all this McClellan shone. Then came the time to fight. After McClellan's Peninsula Campaign of 1862 ended in failure--McClellan lost the opportunity to capture Richmond and then, at Antietam, permitted Lee, commanding a smaller force, to maneuver the battle to a draw, preserving the Confederate army--only then did Lincoln remove McClellan. ("If Gen. McClellan does not want to use the army," Lincoln famously remarked, "I would like to borrow it for a time.")

Maybe the test Lincoln applied to McClellan applies to McChrystal as well. Has McChrystal mouthed off? He has indeed. But has he proven effective in Afghanistan? Has he done his job? Still more to the point, does the president--does anyone?--have any reason to suppose a different commander could do the job better?

It ends the way it had to.

Story here.

From the Los Angeles Times today:

Judge rules against Obama's deep-water drilling moratorium

Whenever I read anything beginning with the words, "Judge rules..." I usually clench my fists and take a deep breath in anticipation of some outrage against common sense. But sonofagun -- they got one right. Of all the dumb words and dumb actions that have followed the oil rig explosion, this moratorium was the dumbest.

Whew. Glad to know Obama's got his priorities straight ... er, in order. Despite the BP mess, McChrystal issue, the blockade-busting ship from Iran and more, Obama still has time to host a "gay pride reception" tonight at the White House.

At The American Conservative, Dan McCarthy groans:

we have indeed witnessed various manifestations of an anti-government, populist Right over the past 60 years. But what has happened every time? The Goldwaterites turn into Nixonians. A Reagan disappoints the populist hard right. Anti-Washington sentiment puts in power a Republican Congress which then embarks upon a K Street Project. Every time the GOP has lost power in the past half-century, it has reverted to anti-statist rhetoric. And every time the party resumes power, that rhetoric proves empty. Is there any reason to think this latest iteration will be any different?

Sure. Unparalleled brush with economic disaster. Not-so-popular president. Positively unpopular presidential policies. And a GOP reputation still in need of serious renovation. These are all fine reasons to think it might be different this time around. Dan himself concedes that the "variations" on this theme "matter" -- "the 1990’s Right, for all its problems, was at least anti-nation-building and concerned about government eavesdropping, even after the GOP took control of Congress."

Dan blames executive power, and I have to reiterate that I support a giant leap or two away from the cult of the presidency, and a number of hard-earned steps away from the politics of permanent crisis. But I'm not sure we can get there by insisting, as Dan does, that "the presidency itself, regardless of whether a Clinton, Bush, or Obama occupies the Oval Office, has become the gravest threat to Americans’ liberties."

I am heartened by Dan's conclusion that, as far as the tea parties are concerned, "one has to start with whatever resources are at hand." I think this is a more optimistic view than the one I heard when last we spoke. And for good reason: the faux-imperial presidency is looking worse than ever, and Republicans have a unique opportunity to present and sustain a clear alternative.

The big game today: Argentina versus Greece. Going into this match, Argentina leads Greece by six points. But if Greece defeats Argentina today, Greece can tie Argentina's overall score, remaining a contender for the world cup itself.

Scheduled to play for Argentina: the astonishing Lionel Messi (who all by himself--I'll admit it--has turned even me into a soccer fan). Just look at what Messi can do:

From the Associated Press:

JERUSALEM — Iran said Tuesday it would send a blockade-busting ship carrying aid and pro-Palestinian activists to Gaza, fueling concern in Israel, where commandos were training for another possible confrontation at sea.

There is no argument--none--that humanitarian supplies need to be delivered to Gaza by sea. Not when Israel has just loosened the blockade, permitting a wider array of materials to enter Gaza by land. Iran is instead engaging in a naked provocation. No doubt Teheran is happy enough to place pressure on Tel Aviv, but surely the mullah's principal target is Washington. President Obama has so far dedicated his administration to apologizing for American policy in the Middle East, pursuing utterly ineffectual diplomatic efforts to dissuade Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and placing increasing pressures on Israel. Now the mullahs have devised a neat probe. Just how far, they want to discover, will the Obama administration permit them to go?

Secretary of State Clinton should call an immediate press conference, reading a statement of forthright support for Israel, and stating, unambiguously, that the United States will refuse to tolerate this Iranian provocation. And then--what I hope is already happening--the Sixth Fleet should dispose of its forces so as to prove that we mean it.

Can poor foreigners save Detroit? It's a provocative question that Matt Yglesias poses, and there's a certain bent appeal to his logic:

There are clearly insurmountable logistical, legal, practical, constitutional, and political obstacles to doing this but I can’t help but think that with 165 million people around the world telling Gallup they’d like to permanently relocate to the United States that it would be possible to find 1.3 million people who’d be interested in permanently relocating to Detroit and bringing the city back up to its peak population level. Economic and governance opportunities in Detroit are poor by American standards (or even by Italian standards) but they’re great compared to what you’ll find in Haiti, Gaza, Myanmar, Chad, or Nicaragua.

Or Mexico! Of course, millions want to live in America forever but nobody wants to permanently relocate to Detroit. A more serious problem is that dreaming of the restoration of 'peak Detroit' is sort of like dreaming for the restoration of Greater Bulgaria -- perhaps even stranger, because there's no ethnonationalist rise to get out of a bigger Detroit. There's just a bigger Detroit. Presumably in Matt's mind the numbers would connect up with a restoration of Detroit's economic productivity and quality of life. But why? Maybe they'd head toward the level of Haiti's or Gaza's instead.

On the other hand, maybe America still offers the kind of opportunity that turns former residents of doomed regions into hardworking winners. The sad spectacle of Detroit suggests that's not the case. But Detroit is badly misleading, because Detroit has been captive to a crushing (liberal-approved) agenda of unearned government dollars and public-sector corruption for decades. That's not the only reason Detroit is on the skids. But it's a powerful, perhaps dominant, contributing factor. All the luck and pluck in the world won't make winners out of immigrants condemned to eke out an existence under that kind of yoke. Before we think about sending the foreigners in, it's time to think about rooting the government rot out.