Never Mind

I admit that I was suffering a mild infection by the whole two-aircraft-carriers-mean-war-with-Iran meme. Now, I am virus free.

The cure? Although there are two Carrier Strike Groups the the Gulf, the two Expeditionary Strike Groups assigned to the Fifth Fleet have their ships scattered. These ESGs are led by aircraft-carrier-like LPD's that can land, along with their accompanying vessels, thousands of marines supported by helicopter gunships. Unfortunately, one amphibious assault ship in the USS Boxer ESG is currently in the South China Sea. Elements from the USS Bataan ESG are currently participating in exercises with the Kenyan military.

Now, if I were going to launch a strike against a heavily defended country from within the confines of a narrow body of water, I would not allow critical assets to be sent as far away as the Pacific Ocean. I would be gathering them up like a clenched fist.

I Think Mike Shula Is Available

A White House spokesman had asserted that the President retains full confidence in the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.

If Gonzales were a College Football Coach, he'd be cleaning out his office by next Thursday.

Sweet Charity

The Rev. Franklin Graham, as quoted by Katy Pownall, AP:

"I want to help people physically, I want to help them with their hurt, with their pain, but I want to do that so I can tell them about God's son, Jesus Christ. The conversion we do is through persuasion, through reasoning. ... They will receive material help from us regardless.''

Forget everything you have been told about Christian Love. There are Christians out there doing wonderful works out of a pure desire to help their fellow man, but the credit goes to Human Nature not the the influence of Religion. This quote exposes the twisted logic of evangelism which, starting with Paul, has lied, deceived, tricked and eventually tortured people into Believing. Another notch on the crucifix!

I remember an office mate (stop me if I have told this story before) who was involved with church affiliated youth home. She really cared for those children and worked tirelessly. One day, after enlisting some assistance (or was it a donation?) from another co-worker, she thanked him for his support. His reply floored me. He said, "Anything to stop another abortion." He didn't give a rat's ass about those abandoned and abused kids. There was no Love there. All he was interested in was scoring points with Jesus.

70-80% of the US population considers itself "Christian." Almost half of these are what George Barna calls Notional Christians - they like the idea of God and being Christian but it has no real impact on the way they live their lives. Fair enough. Intuitively, that feels right. He divides the rest into Born Agains and Evangelicals by what they claim to believe (Biblical accuracy, belief in Satan, etc) - as good a method as any, I suppose. The elite group is the Evangelicals at a mere 7% of those surveyed and adhering to the strictest set of beliefs. I am pretty sure that my Mr. Holier-Than-Thou, above, made the cut. My point here is that if Mr H-T-T represents the most "serious" group of believers , than it is time for sensible people to re-examine the special status we routinely grant Faith in our public discourse and start calling a spade a spade.

Alternatively, Mr Barna may be ideologically blinded and his precious little Evangelicals (along with the "Reverend" Franklin and "Saint" Paul) represent the group farthest away from what their Creator intended. If this is the case, all those Notional Christians were right all along in demonstrating that love and compassion do not require absolute adherence to the Nicene Creed. Of course, if that is the case, what exactly do we need Religion for?

Defensive Posture

I found this in the StratFor.com free newsletter. The topic itself was Ballistic Missile Defense but this brief retrospective view provides some interesting perspective.

The second idea dovetails with long-standing U.S. strategic doctrine -- a philosophy that long predates the Cold War. That doctrine has always aimed to push threats away from the continental United States -- initially by securing U.S. sovereignty over the North American land mass, achieving strategic depth and controlling sea approaches. Ultimately, the doctrine calls for the United States to project power into Eurasia itself, establishing as much stand-off distance as possible. In the early 20th century, naval power allowed the United States to do this just fine. But in the early 21st century, with the proliferation of intercontinental ballistic missile technology, naval power is only one leg of such a strategy.

The Pakistan Americans Don't Know

Sitting in our living rooms watching Fox News, we Americans assume that Dick Cheney can fly to Islamabad and demand that President Musharraf to do whatever we need him to do. Kill Osama Bin Laden? Yes, Sir! Disband the Taliban? Will be finished on Thursday!

Well here is a piece in the Asia Times illustrating just how different US and Pakistani interests are. Basically, it claims that Pakistan is setting up a Talibani Mullah to take over Afghanistan and move Kabul's orientation away from India and to Pakistan.

[Update: fixed subject agreement issue]

I may be slow but ...

I have not bought into the whole "Oil War" theory of the Iraq War. I have been willing to grant that oil is a factor in our Middle East policies but the idea that oil would explicitly drive us to attack another country just smelled too much like conspiracy theory.

Then I saw this quote from the 2007 State of the Union speech in a Michael Klare piece.

.. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country -- and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.

For America, this is a nightmare scenario...

The invocation of "a nightmare scenario" caused by instability of some desert kingdoms, many thousands of miles away, can only be about oil. The President is explicitly stating here that our decisions about whether or not to start a war with Iran will be based on mainly our access to oil.

Now whether the Iraq war was intended by Dick Cheney to prevent China from winning access to the region's energy supply is highly speculative (and smells of conspiracy theory.) Whether an attack on Iran has already been ordered is also only one interpretation of events among many. All those ideas, wild or merely feral, will be left for another day. Sure, its nice to support Israel, with the holocaust and all, but would we grant Tel Aviv carte blanche if we weren't desperate for allies in that part of the world. It is at last clear (belatedly to me), that the only serious consideration about war and peace with Iran is the oil. Period.

I am reminded of the "hidden" cost of gasoline - the billions sunk into maintaining access to the Middle East. If only Bush took seriously our "addiction to foreign oil" he would see that the cost of changing our gas-guzzling ways would pale next to the benefits in money and American lives saved.

The J-C Bomb

Christians and Jews
Judeo-Christian
Christian and Jewish

How many times have we heard these phrases used as if the two were perfectly compatible and complimentary, especially when contrasting Us against the Muslim Them. Or the Mormon. In light of Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign, this article by Richard John Neuhaus is making the rounds in the blogosphere. In it Rev Neuhaus uses some formulation of these stock phrases but, more specifically, writes the following:

Some have suggested that the LDS is a Christian derivative much as Christianity is a Jewish derivative, but that is surely wrong. The claim of Christianity is that its gospel of Jesus Christ is in thorough continuity with the Old Testament and historic Israel, that the Church is the New Israel, which means that it is the fulfillment of the promise that Israel would be "a light to the nations." The Church condemned Marcion’s rejection of the Old Testament, and she never presumed to rewrite or correct the Hebrew Scriptures on the basis of a new revelation. On the contrary, she insisted that the entirety of the old covenant bears witness to the new.

On what planet does Christianity not replace/supersede/obsolete Judaism? Only with eyes squinting nearly shut can you claim that Jesus (threw out the Jewish divorce laws) or Paul (threw out any reasonable interpretation of the Law completely) were only fulfilling the Torah. Ask a Jew if Christianity fulfills the Torah and see what answer you get.

Now, there are plenty of liberal “Christians” out there who view Judaism as an equally valid way of experiencing God. Unfortunately, the Rev Neuhaus’ Catholic Church and your average Evangelical are sending these Episcopalians to the same Hell they have reserved for the Jews. It is disingenuous in the extreme to adopt beliefs that invalidate 80% of what it means to be Jewish and denies them salvation and at the same time complain that Mormonism is too radically different from Christianity to remain a part of it.

The Judeo-Christian alliance works only so long as the Jewish participants don’t get too uppity and point out that their partner is only using them as a loincloth to cover their “anti-Semitism”. Or, were there ever any Jews in the alliance to begin with? Are people who like to drop the J-C bomb desperately trying to cling to the idea that their religion is based on anything more than a failed Galilean insurgent rabbi and a frustrated Cilician hanger-on.

Technological Evangelism

Since no one actually reads this blog, I can take a moment to vent...

I have been informed that the software project on which I work will be modified to use something called the Spring Framework. Naturally I googled it to get a taste of what it involves before diving in. As near as I can tell, the "core" framework involves building XML files that contain all the definitions and dependencies of your classes and then using Spring to instantiate them , blah blah blah. Whatever. The lulu is that the proponents of Spring are claiming that this "removes the class dependencies from my code." Huh? Do these guys not realize that my new XML file IS my code. To boot, the XML is far harder to read than Java! Guess what? Since the XML is essentially my Java program rewritten in XML, I better have a way to test it. I have gained something questionable at the cost of more complex and error-prone code.

This reminds me of the Code-To-Test movement where you write a bazillion unit-tests and then use them as your "specification" - once you pass all the tests, you're done. Um, guys... your unit-tests ARE your code. They have to be tested, too. You gonna write unit-tests for your unit-tests?

A number of critiques of Spring make the disclaimer that they are not impugning Spring originator Rod Johnson's intellect. I am not sure I can extend the same charity to every one of his disciples. Aside from the marketing copy quality of some of the tutorials (isn't "versatile and flexible" redundant?), the concept of what constitutes "code" is a pretty basic to computer science. Is this too abstract for the average open source user?

It has sometimes been claimed that the problem with software development is that it is not enough like engineering. Having at least graduated as an engineer, I can see some truth to that claim. The alarming thing is that we are moving rapidly in the opposite direction. People are adopting all sorts of crap because it's hyped and it's free (I was personally burned by Log4J) .

Perhaps a great new software paradigm will emerge from this wild west free-for-all. Perhaps we can all get back to writing applications instead of tools. Or maybe I will just continue in my curmudgeonry, decrying the poor state of our university education system.

Risk

I listened to an NPR report about the "surge" plan to station US soldiers in small outposts throughout Baghdad rather than in large, isolated bases. While discussing the exposure to violence that such soldiers would experience, the sentiments of an American General were relayed to the effect that they all knew there would be "risk" in this new arrangement.

Risk.

Don't they mean Death? Don't they mean brothers, sons, mothers and fathers who would not be going home to see their families? Ever? If they want a war and they want to rhapsodize about sacrifice then let them (along with the media) call it what it is: War means Death, not Risk. The sooner they get it through their crack-addled brains, the sooner we can avoid more senseless messianism and adventurism.

Afghanistan Redux

Retired Gen. Victor Yermakov who commanded the Soviet Army's efforts around Tora Bora, Afghanistan in the 1980s is quoted in this McClatchy item:

"I was very impressed by the Americans," he said. "Gaining control of Tora Bora is a great accomplishment. I should know. I did it three times."

He shook his head ruefully, then added: "Unfortunately, the second I turned my back on the place, I needed to conquer it again. It is the same now. It will never change."

Still, he said, "every nation believes it is more clever than those who came before."

Nothing to add.