Right Wing Nut House

Gordon Cooper died last night.

For those of a certain age who grew up in a certain time, that news makes us feel very old indeed.

Gordon Cooper was one of Tom Wolfe’s “single combat warriors” described so eloquently in “The Right Stuff”. Wolfe compared the 7 Mercury astronauts to the “King’s Champions” of old who would venture forth before a battle to engage in single combat with his counterpart from the enemy. The winner of the contest would sometimes so discourage the enemy that they would quit the field of battle.

Alone, sitting atop the Atlas rocket (a midget compared to today’s mighty boosters) Cooper and the other Mercury astronauts took part in, what looking back on today, seems like a foolhardy venture. With no on board computer to speak of and an unproven rocket and space capsule Cooper and his fellow Mercury astronauts flung themselves into the unknown in, what Wolfe described as “The greatest death-defying stunt ever broadcast.”

Cooper was the last American to orbit the earth alone. Lt. Col Yang Liwei of China made a solo orbital flight in April of 2003.

The juxtaposition of Gordon Cooper’s death and the successful launch of Spaceship One is too perfect, too poetically just to simply pass off as one of those strange coincidences that life offers up now and then. It makes one realize that yes, perhaps there is order to the universe, a “grand design” as my fellow agnostics might speculate about. While at the same time-like the passing of other heroes from our childhood-it reminds us of our own mortality and allows for an introspection that we take advantage of far less often than we should.

For now, the future belongs to space ventures like Spaceship One. For a measly $200,000, you’ll be able to take a 20 minute sub-orbital flight and experience the thrill of weightlessness for 5-8 minutes.(I hope Richard Branson, who’s backing the space tourism venture, supplies plenty of vomit bags for the 50% of people who throw up when experiencing weightlessness!)

And what about the X-Prize? The $10 million won by Spaceship One designer Burt Ruttan and his company Mojave Aerospace Ventures covers less than half of the $25 million in development costs for the vehicle. While technically a brilliant achievement, the spacecraft falls short of revolutionizing space travel. It’s not launched from the ground but rather dropped from a plane. And being limited to suborbital flights of less than 20 minutes, it will for the forseeable future, be little more than a novelty, garnering headlines but not making much money.

Before dismissing the venture out of hand there are other, more exciting possibilities just beyond the horizon. Bill Sprague’s American Astronautics is building a larger vehicle that may, someday, achieve orbit. Sprague’s 30 years as an aerospace R&D engineer has investors interested…but not ready to commit. And that’s where the value of Spaceship One can be found.

If there is ever going to be a private sector manned space flight industry, there’s going to have to be some kind of track record for investors to have confidence in. Perhaps the value of space tourism will be to show venture capitalists that a market exists beyond tourism for manned spaceflight. Medical research, metallurgical breakthroughs, even something as pie-in-the-sky as mining asteroids could all be huge moneymakers by the middle of this century. This will not be acheived by government owned space programs which are, by their very nature, “risk averse” but by private companies whose desire to make a profit will lead to the next great leap forward in man’s quest to explore the unknown.

UPDATE:In an interview with Newsmax, Yossef Bodansky, director of research at the International Strategic Studies Association and director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as best-selling author of “Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America,”says we’re losing the war on terror.

“Despite the formulation of a correct policy by the Bush Administration, the war is in a dire state primarily because the U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly failed the White House by providing scant concrete data and wrong threat analysis.”

He cites the “institutional culture that taints and tilts analysis” for this failure.

Here’s the interview.

Robert Charles is a diplomat. A career foreign service officer, he recently visited Iraq to assist in training the new Iraqi police force. Flying in a helicopter over Bagdhad, Charles passed over some Iraqi’s who had come out of their houses…

“Below us, people come out into the streets. They are trying to process us as fast as we are them. They turn, pointing. Some smile. Are they pointing something at us? No, they are smiling and waving. Are they just waving and smiling? Yes. The soldier behind the machine gun sees them as well. He waves back.
Extraordinary. Did I really see this culture-bridging communication? Yes. Underscoring conversations with Iraqis in Baghdad, the majority of Iraqis and Americans in uniform speak a private language based on shared and unique knowledge — the language of hope.”

The language of hope! It seems like I’m belaboring the obvious but I have to ask myself, why this “language of hope” fails to make it into our living rooms when the press reports what’s going on in Iraq? Mr. Charles has an interesting take on this. Writing about the exchange of waves at “100 miles per hour”:

“They know and share the same basic hope for democracy, freedom, sustainable security, a place safe for raising children, an end to violence and terror.
Moreover, they know their hope is shared. It is a remarkable thing to witness. It repeats itself. An electric current of belief runs between them — even at 100 miles per hour.
This symbol gives the lasting lie to all the negative media, with their preternatural focus on tragedy. Blood sells, waves do not.
These Americans and Iraqis share a wordless language — and a belief that seemingly transcends religion, ideology, culture, personal history, sadness, resentment, regret and impatience.
Something big and good is most assuredly happening. Most Iraqis know this is all about the future: their and ours — intertwined, worth the fight, worth keeping faith. They understand America’s sacrifice has been real, our intentions good. In a swirl of emotion, most Iraqis appreciate what is happening and who made it happen.”

“Blood sells. Waves do not.” It’s sort of like “dog bites man.” Aren’t the Iraqi’s supposed to like us? After all, we liberated them, didn’t we? It’s much more of a “story” to interview Iraqis who are mad at us and want us to leave than writing about soldiers building schools or playing with children.

Every network does stories on what’s going well in Iraq. The fact that they do ten negative stories for every one positive one is simply the nature of the beast. It’s news when people die…it’s not when children wave.

Mr. Charles’ column can be found here.

As US troops move into Samarrah in what is hoped is the long anticipated offensive against sunni insurgents and terrorists, several well repected and knowledgable columnists have written conflicting analyses of what’s going on in Iraq as well as offering strikingly dissimilar remedies on what can be done to improve both the tactical and strategic position of coalition forces.

Who do we believe?

Take Arnoud de Borchgrave, one of the more informed and knowledgable sources on terrorism writing today. De Borchgrave made his bones by uncovering the Bulgarian connection to the assasination attempt on the Pope and has written and traveled extensively in the mid-east. This column, so relentlessly pessimistic about the outcome in Iraq, should make even the most partisan amongst us (myself included) begin to think.

Then there’s Reul Marc Gerecht, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who’s gloomy predictions about the radicalization of Sunni moslems-with the help of our erstwhile ally, the Saudi’s-point to a very bleak future indeed for a secular Iraq.

And Thomas Friedman whose informative books on the arab-israeli conflict are a must read for anyone who wishes to understand that troubled region, takes apart the Bush administration’s Iraq policy piece by piece until all that’s left is his conclusion that conservative politics were more at play than national security.

These are not the rantings of the paranoid left. These are three thoughtful men whose judgements we should respect and whose politics have been more often than not right or right of center.

But is it really all gloom and doom?

Check this column out by Ollie North. North, who’s shown in the past that he can be critical of the Bush Administration when it comes to mis-using his beloved Corp or mismanaging Fallujah, is much more optimistic. North has reported extensively from the front…the REAL front in Iraq, not the Green Zone in Bagdhad where most western reporters seem to have concluded that Iraq is in total chaos.

And what about the Iraqi’s themselves? Mohammed, Ali and Omar whose Iraq The Model has been an extremely reliable source of information regarding Iraqi hopes and dreams as well as local political developments which point to several key developments in Fallujah.

Does any of this really matter? I think it will only matter if the American people lose heart and succumb to the siren song of defeatism being sung by John Kerry and his strange coalition of “the wild-eyed and the petrified.”

Read this from Wesley Pruden or Chris Hitchens, one of the few leftists who’ve taken a principled position on the war on terror (in the process costing him longtime friends). And then, most poignantly, the 150 9/11 widows whose courage inspires us to not despair.

Thirty days to go before the election and we’re all going to have to decide. That’s what elections are about…that and the future.

UPDATE:, Here’s some feel-good news about Afghanistan.

As bad as things may be in Iraq, will elections on October 9 in Afghanistan give Bush the momentum again? (Superhawk shrugs his shoulders as if to say…”Time will tell…”

The battle of the Sunni Triangle has finally been joined as more than 5000 US and, more importantly, Iraqi troops have moved in to secure the city. First reports are encouraging and there can be no doubt of the outcome.

This may be an attempt to preempt any effort by the terrorists to mount some kind of Iraqi version of a “Tet” offensive in hopes of affecting the American Presidential election. If so, it’s a brilliant tactic. If, in the next week or so, US and Iraqi troops being moving into other areas currently under the control of the terrorists, it should clear the way for the UN to set up the voter registration apparatus that will allow most of the sunnis to participate in the January elections. This is critical if the Iraqi government is to have “street cred” with people in those terrorist occupied cities.

What’s even more encouraging comes to us courtesy of Iraq The Model. They report that various elders of local tribes have pledged to assist the coalition in cleaning out not only Fallujah, but other areas as well.

“…sources confirmed that a meeting was held between the chiefs of Al Hamamda tribe in Ramadi, Al Juboor in Tikrit, Al Gareer in Yousufyia and a branch from Al Janabyeen in Latifyiah to discuss situations in Fallujah, the flow of terrorists from outside Iraq into the city and the role of clerics in provoking violence and justifying murder and kidnap in the name of Islam. The chiefs showed determination to end this situation either peacfuly or by force.”

This is good news indeed. It’s becoming more and more apparent that the Iraqi people are willing to fight for their freedom. Tribal loyalties in the sunni triangle are extrememly important. For years, these tribes benefited from the former regime as Saddam sought to cement his power by bestowing favors on tribes who demonstrated loyalty. And now the sunnis-who are more secular in their orientation-have pledged to fight with the new government to clear out the religious fanatics and jihadists who’ve taken over.

The coming offensive is going to be bloody. Already, indications in Samarrah are that dozens of civilians were killed along with the terrorists. I think the big question for Allawi and his government is will they be able to stay the course despite the innocent blood that’s going to be spilled. Looking at their track record in Najaf, I’m not very encouraged. However, it may be that this time Allawi means to see military action through to its conclusion.

I don’t think he has much choice…he’s running out of time.

UPDATE: Glen Anderson of Instapundit makes some good points with other links.

I decided to wait until morning to blog the debate so that I could get a feel for what most of the pajama people and the MSM thought about it. (This is really amazing because you’d be surprised how much agreement is out there). I don’t know if this is due to people reinforcing one another’s position or whether independent viewpoints tend to converge. Whatever the reason the consensus seems to be as follows:

1. Kerry won. Not by a lot but by enough that he will probably get a bounce out of this. Bushteam must counter this QUICKLY before the snowball starts to roll downhill and Kerry gets momentum. If that happens, expectations skyrocket for second debate for Bush. I think he’ll do better in townhall forum…maybe even decisvely.

2. Kerry didn’t contradict himself…remains to be seen if he can keep this up for more than 24 hours…Bushteam should be ready to pounce if he strays.

3. Bush looked “mad” or “annoyed.” I don’t know how that will play. Being less than 90 miles from Peoria, I think the effect will be more subconcious and add to the impression that Kerry looked Presidential.

4.Bush got a few good zingers in re: Kerry flip flops…especially when talking about $87 billion and Kerry’s vote to go to war. Kerry’s problem outlined by Dick Morris is that he can’t defend BOTH voting to go to war AND opposing it. The basic incoherence of this position may not be obvious but contributes to impression of Kerry as indecisive.

Gallup says Kerry won…but internals are VERY interesting. Bush still WAY up in who could handle Iraq (54-43) and likability…and undecideds went 10% for Kerry and 12% for Bush! These numbers could change in 24-48 hours-which is why Bushteam must blanket airwaves with quotes from debate vs. Kerry quotes from campaign that show him flip flopping.

All in all, best debate I’ve seen since Carter-Reagan in 1980. Much more substantive than 2000 and, for once, neither candidate made any huge gaffes that will be replayed over and over on MSM.

UPDATE: Funny cartoon here.

Looks like Kerry’s comment about preemption having to pass some sort of nebulous “global test” may come back to haunt him. If we don’t see some sort of campaign commercial from Bushteam in next 72 hours with that sound bit in it, they’ll have missed a golden opportunity.