Right Wing Nut House

She lies underneath the skylight for hours during the day now, basking in the warmth of the sun, allowing the heat to warm her old bones because her failing body can’t do it for her. When she rouses herself to eat or drink or, if she’s in the mood, make it to the litter box, she rises slowly, painfully to her feet and waddles in a very uncatlike manner the few feet to her destination.

It is very hard to watch a good friend and companion grow old and die. It reminds us of our own mortality and how there is more of life to be seen in the rear view mirror than there is looking down the open road ahead. I believe it is hard for cats as well. You will forgive my anthropomorphic take on this but after having spent a good deal of my life in the presence of these creatures, the one universal truth that can be ascribed to cats is that there is nothing else like them in the animal kingdom. Domestic or feral, big or small, cats are different because, at bottom, their mammalian brains work disturbingly much like ours.

So little research has been done into the nature of cat intelligence compared to dog intelligence that it makes one wonder whether or not there is an academic bias against kitties. I think the truth is a little more prosaic. Cats are basically unreachable. Their behavior is such a troubling mix of instinct and intelligence that delving into the mysteries of what they think, how they think, do they think seems an almost impossible job. Once you think you have them pegged, they go and do something so outrageously original and different that you have to rewrite the book.

Much more than dogs, cats have learned to manipulate their human keepers until they know exactly which buttons of ours to push in order to get what they want. They do it so effortlessly that we hardly notice our enslavement to their wishes. For example, a cat will learn exactly what pitch their meow needs to be in order to tug at the heartstrings of their human companions and get them to pay attention. You can hear this phenomena in growing cats. Like feline scientists, they experiment until they find the perfect combination of demanding arrogance and vulnerable pleading.

All of this, of course, is completely unscientific and admittedly, a little fanciful. But after watching my Ebony for going on 14 years (and having been kept by cats for my entire adult life) one cannot escape the conclusion that our feline companions and their wild cousins are indeed otherworldly.

I get the distinct feeling that she knows the end is near. Her personality has undergone a dramatic change these last few months. She seeks out my company and affection almost every waking moment. She lays quietly at my feet while I write or read and gladly cuddles at night in the crook of my arm while I sleep. There are times when I catch her looking at me - as if trying to say something. You don’t need to be an animal behaviorist to understand what passes between us when we look at each other. If I begin to speak, her face gets a familiar squint as she closes her eyes and pulls her ears forward, connecting with the sounds on what seems to be a spiritual level. Her name, repeated endlessly and endearingly, causes her to purr loudly.

She looks at me now with no art or artifice in her heart; just the pleasure of being together suffices. She doesn’t seem demanding at all. In fact, she’ll let our other two cats Aramas and Snowball do all the manipulating for food, for treats, for love. For now, she seems beyond it all and we simply bask in each other’s company.

She is in no pain as far as I can tell. Her stiffness after lying down a while has robbed her of the extraordinary grace and athleticism she had as a youngster. She used to love the snow. Following a big accumulation, the parking lot behind my apartment would be cleared and all the snow piled into a gigantic hill of frozen fun. What an incredible sight it was to see her climb nimbly to the top of that hill and slide down on her black belly, picking up speed and then tumbling and rolling over and over when she got to the bottom.

Shaking herself off, she’d run around to the side of the hill and once again leap from snow ledge to snow ledge, effortlessly traversing the white mountain side like an expert climber until she found herself once again poised on the precipice. And then down she’d slide, again and again, until exhausted and soaking wet, she would come in to eat, take a long leisurely bath, and then lie down next to the heating vent. perhaps to dream of other mountains to conquer.

Sue and I have decided to take her to the vet after the New Year to make sure that she’s not in any pain and to see if there’s anything we can do about her litterbox habits which have become more and more erratic. But as I sit here writing and looking at her, I get the distinct feeling that she knows something that I don’t about how much longer she has on this planet before she’s called back to commune with the superior beings from which her kind sprang.

It is good we have this time together. But it is oh so sad to know that every stroke of my hand over her head - a gesture she returns by arching her neck to greet the caress - takes us both closer to a goodbye that neither of us wants but both of us realize is now inevitable.

I can’t tell you the number of slings and arrows that have been flung my way for advocating dialogue with Syria and Iran in the context of a regional conference on Iraq. When I give the reason for my advocacy - a burgeoning refugee problem that threatens to overwhelm those two Iraqi neighbors which might make them more amendable to helping us stem the violence - I have been pilloried as a tool of the enemy or worse, a closet lefty.

For those who don’t think that there’s trouble a’brewing in both Iran and Syria as a result of the uncontrolled flight of Shias and Sunnis from Iraq due to the violence,think again. Here is a map published in the New York Times based on figures compiled by the UN:

(HT: American Footprints)

Talking to both Iran and Syria the same way we dealt with North Korea in the 6 party negotiations would be different than carrying on bi-lateral discussions - something I vigorously oppose. The violence in Iraq is causing enormous problems for Syria and soon will become a very big problem for Iran. Neither wants a failed state on their borders where the refugee problem - already at crisis levels - would spiral out of control and begin to affect the internal politics of both countries.

This has been the basis for my advocacy of dealing with Iran and Syria in the multi-party context of regional security and stability. And Syria especially, may be willing to discuss measures to assist in tamping down the violence in Iraq:

[Syria] can’t maintain its open-door policy without international support. Refugees already strain social services. Yet, the international response to the Iraqi refugee crisis has been dismal. Despite numbers that rival the displacement in Darfur, there has been scant media attention and even less political concern. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is doing little.

An increase in resources for UNHCR could make a huge difference. As winter approaches, the need is growing for portable heaters, warm clothing and help in paying electric bills and warm clothing. Mental health services for traumatized Iraqis are equally needed. And legal and financial help to maintain their visa status would prevent deportations back to a precarious life in Iraq.

One thing these refugees bring to the countries where they flee is instability. And authoritarian regimes like Syria and Iran detest instability. The question is do they fear it enough to stop stirring the pot in Iraq?

Obviously we won’t find out unless we join with other countries affected like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt to find solutions. And that can only be accomplished via some kind of regional dialogue.

And what of the tens of thousands of Iraqi “collaborators” who have so bravely assisted us for the last 4 years? Are we to abandon them to the tender mercies of whatever forces emerge in the wake of our withdrawal as we did our South Vietnamese allies 30 years ago?

We should start issuing visas in Baghdad, as well as in the regional embassies in Mosul, Kirkuk, Hilla, and Basra. We should issue them liberally, which means that we should vastly increase our quota for Iraqi refugees. (Last year, it was fewer than 200.) We should prepare contingency plans for massive airlifts and ground escorts. We should be ready for desperate and angry crowds at the gates of the Green Zone and U.S. bases. We should not allow wishful thinking to put off these decisions until it’s too late. We should not compound our betrayals of Iraqis who put their hopes in our hands.

I honestly don’t think that kind of effort will be necessary - at least I hope not. If it is then it will mean that we’re being run out of Iraq on a rail - something I doubt will materialize. We will not abandon our embassy regardless of when our troops leave. And I suspect that no matter who is in power in Iraq, we will maintain relations with them.

But it does open the question of not abandoning those who might suffer in a post-occupation Iraq as a result of their cooperation with us. The idea that we are only allowing 200 Iraqis a year to enter the US is absurd. It should be at least 10 times that number. The author of that article has the right idea; no betrayals of those who risked their lives to help us.

Those refugee numbers will only start to get worse as Sunnis continue to leave Iraq for good. An estimated 15% have left in the last 3 years alone. And with so many internally displaced by the violence directed against them, it may be only a matter of time before they leave the country for good.

The refugee problem in Iraq is a symptom. And since it involves all of Iraq’s neighbors, a regional solution would logically seem to be the answer. That, and a brake on Iran and Syria’s efforts to keep the violence at a high level.

Whatever we do, we better start doing it sooner rather than later.

“Iraq needs a Pinochet” is the name of a column written by one of the supposed leading lights of the conservative movement, Jonah Goldberg. The sub-head is even better: The general was no saint, but he’s a better model to follow than Castro.

Saying that Pinochet was “no saint” is something akin to to saying that Genghis Khan had an anger management problem. There are more than 3,000 families in Chile whose loved ones were “disappeared” (a Pinochet gift of nomenclature to the English language) who might take issue with Goldberg’s milquetoast denunciation of truly one of the more brutal dictators of the late 20th century. And then there were the tens of thousands who were jailed and tortured - most of whom committed no crime save that they were to the left of Mr. Pinochet on the political spectrum. Considering that your average Short Haired Marmoset in Chile was to the left of Pinochet, it’s amazing that most of the country didn’t end up in one of the dictator’s torturing hospitality suites during his ignominious rein.

Here’s the gist of Goldberg’s argument regarding Pinochet being preferable to the soon to be mummified Castro:

I

THINK ALL intelligent, patriotic and informed people can agree: It would be great if the U.S. could find an Iraqi Augusto Pinochet. In fact, an Iraqi Pinochet would be even better than an Iraqi Castro.

Both propositions strike me as so self-evident as to require no explanation. But as I have discovered in recent days, many otherwise rational people can’t think straight when the names Fidel Castro and Augusto Pinochet come up.

Let’s put aside, at least for a moment, the question of which man was (or is) “worse.” Suffice it to say, both have more blood on their hands than a decent conscience should be able to bear. Still, if all you want to do is keep score, then Castro almost surely has many more bodies on his rap sheet. The Cuba Archive estimates that Castro is responsible for the deaths of at least 9,240 people, though the real number could be many times that, particularly if you include the estimate of nearly 77,000 men, women and children who have died trying to flee the “socialist

Frankly, I think that all “intelligent, patriotic and informed people” should throw a metaphorical pie in Goldberg’s face. This cutesy argument about body counts is meaningless - unless you’re a Cuban or a left wing Chilean who lived during the time of Pinochet’s tyrannical regime. On the International Thuggery Scale, both men rate around a 4 or 5 on a 10 point scale. Castro would be ranked slightly higher for being stupid enough to believe that not only Communism works, but that he should export that ideology to his reluctant neighbors.

Neither brute enters the truly sublime territory occupied by Mao, Stalin, Kruschev, or Pol Pot (in that order). But while we’re at it, why not make the argument that what Iraq really needs is a Mao? Now there was a guy who knew how to put down an insurgency! If a peasant from some village casts a sideways glance at the authority of the Chinese government, don’t bother with the dissident or his family. Wipe out the whole village and raze it to the ground.

Of course, Goldberg isn’t advocating that, is he?

But on the plus side, Pinochet’s abuses helped create a civil society. Once the initial bloodshed subsided, Chile was no prison. Pinochet built up democratic institutions and infrastructure. And by implementing free-market reforms, he lifted the Chilean people out of poverty. In 1988, he held a referendum and stepped down when the people voted him out. Yes, he feathered his nest from the treasury and took measures to protect himself from his enemies. His list of sins — both venal and moral — is long. But today Chile is a thriving, healthy democracy. Its economy is the envy of Latin America, and its literacy and infant mortality rates are impressive.

I ask you: Which model do you think the average Iraqi would prefer? Which model, if implemented, would result in future generations calling Iraq a success? An Iraqi Pinochet would provide order and put the country on the path toward liberalism, democracy and the rule of law. (If only Ahmad Chalabi had been such a man.)

On the plus side, Goldberg only writes columns for the LA Times once a week. Otherwise, we’d be forced to endure this kind of sophistry far more often. And yeah, Pinochet made the trains run on time and infant mortality went down, and his “free market” reforms (short hand in Latin America for enabling crony capitalism and other kleptocrats) created some trickle down wealth - after he left. And while I understand the realpolitik reasons for the US supporting this thug, I think to wish his kind of rule on anyone - especially an ally - is the height of idiocy.

First of all, to even think that a secular anything will emerge from the current chaos in Iraq is loony. Whatever kind of government shakes out will almost certainly be dominated by fundamentalist Shias allied to either Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) or Mookie al-Sadr and his merry band of cutthroats. Those two will eventually fight it out; hopefully in the halls of government rather than in the streets but don’t count the latter out.

So we can dispose of Goldberg’s fantasy that some kind of benevolent tyrant will emerge from the current violence and lead the country to some kind of “liberalism” or “democracy.” As for “the rule of law,” if you’re talking about the application of Sharia law, it’s already happening in the southern part of Iraq, the stronghold of our new buddy al-Hakim who is laboring to form another governing coalition as we speak. In some areas, Islamic courts have been set up to mediate disputes and religious “police” patrol the streets enforcing dress codes.

Finally, Goldberg tries to make the point that because only “bad options” are available in Iraq, what he’s proposing is actually “moral” because it is “less immoral” than other alternatives - like a Castro style government:

Now, you might say: “This is unfair. This is a choice between two bad options.” OK, true enough. But that’s all we face in Iraq: bad options. When presented with such a predicament, the wise man chooses the more moral, or less immoral, path. The conservative defense of Pinochet was that he was the least-bad option; better the path of Pinochet than the path toward Castroism, which is where Chile was heading before the general seized power. Better, that is, for the United States and for Chileans.

I bring all this up because in the wake of Pinochet’s death (and Jeane Kirkpatrick’s), the old debate over conservative indulgence of Pinochet has elicited shrieking from many on the left claiming that any toleration of Pinochet was inherently immoral — their own tolerance of Castro notwithstanding.

This might be termed the “Kirkpatrick Doctrine” - a strict reading of which would put Goldberg’s argument in the garbage where it belongs. Kirkpatrick’s “double standard” was a response to an existential threat to the United States; that not only Castro but Soviet Russia would gain a foothold on the South American continent. Castro has been a burr under our saddle for nearly 50 years but never posed a direct threat to our existence. Salvador Allende on the other hand, made it clear that he would happily take on the mantle of a Soviet client state - a turn of events that the realpolitikers in the Nixon Administration realized would be a strategic setback. Hence, their support (and the support of subsequent administrations) for Pinochet.

How this translates into a more or less moral lesson for Iraq is a little murky. Iraq itself presents no threat to the US anymore. And while there are some scenarios where Iraq could degenerate into a failed state unless order is re-established and become a base for al-Qaeda and perhaps even Shia terrorists, the fact is that Iraq’s neighbors will probably not allow that to happen. Of course, the only way such a scenario could take place is if the US leaves precipitously - something our lefty friends have been agitating for.

There are other options in Iraq that are bad but don’t involve a Pinochet-inspired thug to rise to power. Groveling before Syria and Iran, begging them to help us pull our chestnuts out of the fire is bad but not as bad as siccing a Castro or Pinochet on the Iraqi people. Mookie al-Sadr running things would be almost as bad as a murderous strongman like Pinochet or Castro in charge. The point being, while there may be only bad options left in Iraq, some bad options are worse than others. And Goldberg’s Pinochet fantasy is about as bad as it gets.

Goldberg has now confirmed every nasty thing that the Glenn Greenwalds, Dave Neiwerts, and Jane Hamshers have been saying about the right being in love with authoritarianism and dictators. For that, he should be criticized roundly by all sides of the political spectrum. But let’s also keep in mind that the left’s love affair with the lickspittle Castro has been one of the most astonishingly stupid and ignorant manifestations of moral blindness in the post World War II world. It will be marvelled at by future historians who may very well wonder what magic spell the strutting, arrogant, murderous tyrant in Cuba cast over the western left that caused them to ignore so much suffering and death dealt out by the evil and barbarous men who kept that beautiful island imprisoned for so many years.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is American Future for “On Negotiating with Iran and Syria — Part II.” Finishing second was The Glittering Eye for “How to Lose Support for a War.”

Leading the pack in the non Council category was Watchers alumni Doc. Sanity for “Come for the Egalitarianism, Stay for the Bestiality and Tyranny.”

If you’d like to participate in the weekly Watchers vote, go here and follow instructions.

The server used by Blogs About Hosting has been under a severe denial of service attack for a couple of days now. If you’ve experienced slow loading or have been unable to access the site, I apologize.

What has me very concerned is that I think that this has been going on now for a couple of weeks. If you click on my Sitemeter icon, you will note that my average daily visits are down to less than 1600. That number hasn’t been as low for about a year.

Until the end of November, I was averaging around 2200-2400 visitors a day. But in the last two weeks, I seem to have lost about 30% of my readership. I realize some may have been upset over a few of my recent Iraq posts but 30% would be an unprecedented exodus as far as I know.

I was wondering if you have tried to access the site and failed in the last couple of weeks. Or if you’ve had any other problems like not being able to leave comments. If so, please leave a comment to this effect. I have Blogs About looking into this but any help you can give would be most appreciated.

This post is a penance of sorts. Consider it an apologia for an overabundance of cynicism on my part about the President’s intentions regarding Iraq. For if reports from the Pentagon and elsewhere in government can be believed, it appears that the President is about to step up to the plate and go for the long ball in this, his last attempt at both defining victory and turning around the situation in Iraq.

The two are interconnected. In order to achieve victory, we must define it in the most realistic terms possible. This will necessitate a total rethinking of our strategy - a process underway as I write this - as well as the realization that what we want to happen in Iraq and what will happen in that country are irreconcilable and that our strategy must change to reflect that fact.

For instance, The goal of bringing “democracy” to Iraq will probably not be up to this generation of Iraqi leaders. Old hatreds, old scores to settle appear to be too much to put aside at the present. The best we can hope for is to stop the slaughter of the Sunnis and prevent a tragedy of historic proportions. We can do this by continuing to fight the insurgency while going after the perpetrators of the Shia on Sunni violence; the militias that are outside of government control and answer only to their warlords. The kind of government that will emerge from this process will not be entirely to our liking. It will be dominated by fundamentalist Shias who will see Iran as a natural ally.

The secular parties in Iraq are too weak, too divided at the moment to fight this trend. The two largest political parties - the United Iraqi Alliance and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) are too well organized and well financed to defeat at the ballot box. We must accept the fact that a united, secular Iraq is a goal for another generation of Iraqis and will not happen while the current crop of leaders govern there.

Where we can succeed is in making Iraq stable. As Tony Blankley so eloquently put it:

If Washington gossip is right, even many of the president’s own advisers in the White House and the key cabinet offices have given up on success. Official Washington, the media and much of the public have fallen under the unconscionable thrall of defeatism. Which is to say that they cannot conceive of a set of policies — for a nation of 300 million with an annual GDP of more than $12 trillion dollars and all the skills and technologies known to man — to subdue the city of Baghdad and environs. Do you think Gen. Patton or Abe Lincoln or Winston Churchill or Joseph Stalin would have thrown their hands up and say “I give up, there’s nothing we can do?”

Absolutely spot on. And that’s what was so extraordinarily disappointing about the ISG’s recommendations. While we may have been expecting too much given the fact that James Baker was in charge, there were other members of that group who should have dug in their heels until “The Way Forward” would have had the addendum “To Victory” attached to it.

I realize I’m raising the hackles of my lefty friends by talking about “victory” in Iraq. You have already decided that because our original criteria for winning the war has been superseded by events - admittedly largely as a result of our own blunders - that there is no honorable strategy that would lead to success. I would answer by saying that while you are technically correct that the kind of victory first envisioned by the Administration is not attainable, the fact is that we can vastly improve the security situation and assist the Iraqi government with training its troops as well as mediating deals on power sharing, reconciliation, and oil revenue - in other words, cobble together a viable Iraqi state. And while you and much of the rest of the world might insist on referring to our “defeat” in Iraq, it won’t matter if we can accomplish those goals in the next few years.

All depends on whether or not the President has it in him to go against the conventional wisdom in Washington as well as a skeptical and even hostile American public and dramatically - dramatically - alter course. Tony Blankley sums up Bush’s dilemma:

For rarely has a president stood more alone at a moment of high crisis than does our president now as he makes his crucial policy decisions on the Iraq War. His political opponents stand triumphant, yet barren of useful guidance. Many — if not most — of his fellow party men and women in Washington are rapidly joining his opponents in a desperate effort to save their political skins in 2008. Commentators who urged the president on in 2002-03, having fallen out of love with their ideas, are quick to quibble with and defame the president.

James Baker, being called out of his business dealings by Congress to advise the president, has delivered a cynical document intended to build a political consensus for “honorable” surrender. Richard Haass (head of the Council on Foreign Relations) spoke approvingly of the Baker report on “Meet the Press,” saying: “It’s incredibly important… that the principle lesson [of our intervention Iraq] not be that the United States is unreliable or we lacked staying power… to me it is essentially important for the future of this country that Iraq be seen, if you will, as Iraq’s failure, not as America’s failure.”

That such transparent sophism from the leader of the American foreign policy establishment is dignified with the title of realism, only further exemplifies the loneliness of the president in his quest for a workable solution to the current danger.

The elites have abandoned Iraq. Democrats want to but don’t want it to look as if they countenance defeat. Republicans are scrambling for cover. The rank and file of his party have all but given up. As Blankley so eloquently points out, the President is quite alone.

Or is he?

Apparently, the President still has the support for victory among the soldiers:

As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to “double down” in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff will present their assessment and recommendations to Bush at the Pentagon today. Military officials, including some advising the chiefs, have argued that an intensified effort may be the only way to get the counterinsurgency strategy right and provide a chance for victory.

The approach overlaps somewhat a course promoted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). But the Pentagon proposals add several features, including the confrontation with Sadr, a possible renewed offensive in the Sunni stronghold of Al Anbar province, a large Iraqi jobs program and a proposal for a long-term increase in the size of the military.

Such an option would appear to satisfy Bush’s demand for a strategy focused on victory rather than disengagement. It would disregard key recommendations and warnings of the Iraq Study Group, however, and provide little comfort for those fearful of a long, open-ended U.S. commitment in the country. Only 12% of Americans support a troop increase, whereas 52% prefer a fixed timetable for withdrawal, a Los Angeles Times/ Bloomberg poll has found.

“I think it is worth trying,” a defense official said. “But you can’t have the rhetoric without the resources. This is a double down” — the gambling term for upping a bet.

This is most welcome news. And before someone in the comments suggests that there are no troops to send, you are incorrect. There are tens of thousands of National Guardsmen and reserve troops who could be deployed in Iraq within 6 months. The problem is that the political pain involved in dipping even more into the National Guard units and Reserves for forced call ups could very well start a mass anti-war movement that would would be reminiscent of the Viet Nam era. There is also the chance that denuding the United States of these troops, we would be vulnerable if another conflict broke out in the world where American troops would be necessary. And there’s always the chance that the Democrats and some Republicans would cut war appropriations if such a plan were proposed.

But if Bush is willing to give it a shot, I’ll be with him. The military realizes that there’s still a chance for success in Iraq if we gamble that increasing troop strength by 30% will allow us to fight the insurgency as well as keep the peace in Baghdad. We will have increased casualties. And I have no doubt that the insurgents will see to it that civilian casualties skyrocket by hiding amongst them whenever they get the chance and daring us to ferret them out. But if the military can do its job and the bureaucrats can do theirs, there is a chance - just a chance - that we might succeed.

Much will depend on the new Iraqi government that we are organizing - one that will not include Prime Minister Maliki or his puppetmaster Muqtada al-Sadr. And if the Iraqis can put someone in charge that will allow us to go after Sadr and his militia, I would up our chances for success greatly. It will then be up to the Iraqi government to convince the people that they are serious about governing the country for all Iraqis - not just the Shias. For this, national reconciliation is absolutely essential. This would mean bringing to justice some of the worst of the Saddam era gangsters as well as hunting down some of the more recent Shia death squad leaders who have taken such a fearful toll on Sunnis.

This is not impossible. It can be done. But it starts with security for the people. And until the insurgency is cut down to size and the militias and death squads put out of business, the rest won’t mean a thing.

And the only way to better security is by substantially upping our commitment of troops. Argue that they should have been there all along if you want to. All it proves is that you are looking at Pearl Harbor while the rest of us are looking at V-J Day, to use a WW II analogy. And given all that has gone before - the mistakes, the waste, the miscalculations, and yes, the lies told by our government to downplay the seriousness of the situation there - I will support moving forward dealing with the situation we have now rather than criticizing or bemoaning how we got ourselves into this serious crisis.

There’s nothing we can do about what’s gone on the last three years. What is important is what we do now. And in that, I will support the President as long as he is committed to really changing the situation in Iraq for the better and not just fiddling with his policy around the edges.

Boldness will win the day in Iraq. Let’s hope the President, lonely as he might be, has it in him to see this venture through to success.

UPDATE

Justin Logan at Cato at Liberty disputes the idea that any number of troops (save a massive commitment) would make any difference in counterinsurgency efforts.

His reasoning is probably sound but I don’t think mere numbers can tell the story here. Can a 40-50,000 increase in troops for Baghdad improve the security situation enough that more Iraqi troops would be able to do some good there?

This NY Times article would seem to indicate that much of Logan’s numbers deficit might be made up by Iraqi troops. And as far as “defeating” the insurgency, there are other aspects to the “neo con” plan such as the jobs program and a stronger government that might affect his conclusions there as well.

All things considered, don’t give me a “mulligan” as Logan sneeringly refers to this final effort but rather one more round before throwing in the towel. What Logan doesn’t allude to are the consequences of total failure - a place that he believes we’ve already arrived at. I reject that idea completely. Vast improvements can be made if we make the effort and if the Iraqis do their part. And that is definitely worth it.

UPDATE II

Nikolay correctly points out in the comments that the SCIRI and the UIA are the same party.

Technically, the UIA is the governing coalition made up mostly of Shia parties - including SCIRI - as well as Chalabi’s secular Iraqi National Congress, al-Maliki’s Dawa party, and a smattering of smaller Shia and Sunni parties. Al-Sadr’s influence arises from a party that he does not officially endorse but that is made up largely of his militia, the National Independent Cadres and Elites. The hidden hand behind the UIA was at one time the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. But jostling for power by the likes of al-Sadr soured the old man on politics and he supposedly “retired” from the fray last summer.

At the moment, there is no serious rival to the SCIRI although al-Sadr weilds influence in several of the minor Shia parties as well as the Cadres and Elites party. Whether he can emerge as a true electoral rival to the SCIRI remains to be seen.

Thanks to Nikolay for correcting the error.

My 30 day countdown post to the season premier of 24, as much a holiday tradition here at The House as roasting liberals over an open fire, has always started the juices flowing, building excitement for the shows opening two night, 4 hour extravaganza (January 14-15 at 7:00 PM Central). This year, judging by the preview clip released by Fox in October, it appears we’re in for another edge of your seat thrill ride as the best dramatic production team in television pulls out all the stops to entertain us, amaze us, and maybe even scare us a little.

As I have done for the past two years, I will post a summary and analysis every Tuesday morning following the previous evening’s show filled with snark, speculation, and my much copied but never equalled body count. Last year, the Official Body Count for Jack Bauer was 35 confirmed kills with the shows total at 201. As I’ve explained, the number of deaths for the entire show is almost certainly much higher but I only count deaths that can be confirmed on camera. The same goes for Jack’s number, although it is much easier to keep track of his kills since he literally kills almost everything he shoots at. Jack Bauer is the most efficient killer in TV history. An analysis of his body count to ammo expended would be pretty close to 1:1.

If you haven’t seen the trailer, click on the link above and then come back. Or if you want to be totally surprised on opening night, stop reading. This is a spoiler free site but since the trailer has been out there for two months, I’m not going to be commenting on anything that most of you haven’t already seen.

As I see it, the show this year is entering very dangerous territory for a long running drama; how do you top what you did the previous year? For 24, the answer last year was to shrink Jack’s universe by killing off his closest friends, making his quest to bring down the bad guys almost a personal vendetta. I commented last year at the cold blooded way he killed Palmer’s assassin as well as his execution of Henderson and thought that this marked a divergence for the character:

The shooting of the actual assassin of David Palmer in cold blood was shocking to me. If he had done anything similar in past years, it didn’t register. There was no reluctance, no hesitation. He could have been putting a bullet in an injured buck for all the emotion he showed in killing him. I got a similar reaction to his execution of Henderson, although admittedly, the feeling that old Buckaroo had it coming to him was also present. But it seemed that with those two murders – and there is no getting around it, that’s what they were – Jack has crossed a line and there’s no turning back. Can he really be any use to CTU and the United States in any official capacity any longer? My prediction is that Jack is going black from here on out and that any help he gets from the government will be off the books.

It’s hard to tell from the preview clip precisely what Jack’s relationship with CTU is going to be but it would not surprise me if he ends up at odds with the entire government and only his personal friends at CTU on his side. This would be in keeping with the shows shift last year to a darker, more troubled Jack Bauer whose personal life is so crummy that there are times that it almost appears he would welcome death. From the clip, it looks like Jack will be asked to sacrifice his life to save the country from a wave of terrorist attacks carried out by (go to hell, CAIR) Muslim terrorists. In fact, the car and truck bombings in several cities simultaneously are probably more realistic as far as what we might expect from the next attacks on US soil rather than a bio/chem or nuke attack as the show has dealt with the last 5 seasons.

Actually, it makes sense from the shows standpoint. About the only way you could top a nuclear or biological threat on American soil would be to write in a rogue asteroid about to hit the earth; exciting but unrealistic. And not much that Jack Bauer could do to stop it either.

The preview clip (and others I won’t link to because they give too much away) reveal a much more fatalistic Jack, a man resigned to the fact that his life is really not his anymore, that whatever happens to him is secondary to giving his life meaning. If that can be done by dying, Jack will embrace death willingly. In this sense, he becomes an even more vulnerable character - one that we are compelled to protect and keep safe. I predict our emotional attachment to Jack will be even more powerful which is surely what the writers intend.

As for other characters, here are a few that have been written about in various entertainment media so there’s no real surprise if we look at them.

CHARACTERS

Old Friends:

Mary Lynn Rajskub as our favorite bitch with a heart of gold Chloe O’Brian

D.B. Woodside as Wayne Palmer. Wayne played a minor role in last year’s investigation into the death of his brother, the ex-President. This year, he rides a sympathy vote all the way to the White House and plays the President.

James Morrison as “By the Book” Bill Buchanan returns as CTU chief.

Jayne Atkinson as Karen Hayes. Karen moves to National Security Adviser to the President.

Carlo Rota as Morris O’Brian. Chloe went out for pizza with Morris, her ex husband, at the conclusion of last year’s show. Could this be the restart of a beautiful friendship?

Eric Balfour as Milo Pressman. Milo, last seen 5 years ago working on a CTU key card, will be a regular for season 6.

Gregory Itzin as Charles Logan. Why isn’t this guy in jail for the rest of his natural life? His will be a “reoccurring role” which probably means he gets a very satisfying bullet sometime during the course of the show.

Jean Smart as Martha Logan. Not still together I hope. Still, an interesting character with a lot of moxie. With her connections, she could be useful to a man on the run from the government.

Glenn Morshower as Aaron Pierce. Probably still protecting Martha. The straightest arrow on the show.

Kim Raver as Audrey Raines. Forget Jack and find someone else, Audrey.

Roger Cross as Curtis Manning. The only man to partner with Jack Bauer and live more than an hour.

Paul McCrane as Graham. The shadowy bad guy from last year and head of the so called “Blue Tooth” mafia - named after the Blue Tooth cell phones used by all the bad guys.

Tzi Ma as Cheng Zhi. The Chinese consular official who captured and tortured Jack.

William Devane as James Heller. Another straight arrow but someone unlikely to be very helpful to Jack.

New Characters:

James Cromwell as Phillip Bauer, Jack’s father. One more potential hostage for Jack to worry about.

Peter MacNicol as Thomas Lennox. Karen Hayes and Lennox will be the ying and yang of the liberty vs. security debate in the White House.

Powers Booth as Vice President Daniels. Booth is a versatile actor, having played Jim Jones as well as good guys in the past. Should be interesting to see how they use him.

Rick Schroeder as CTU Agent Doyle. I liked him in NYPD Blue. But is he tough enough to team up with Curtis and Jack?

There are also scads of Middle Eastern bad guys - a welcome sign that perhaps this year Fox will embrace the concept that while Chechens and South American drug czars are also terrorists, that the existential threat to America comes from Muslim extremists. Expect howls of outrage from both CAIR and the politically correct left. But if Fox doesn’t back down and carries through with the plot, it will be a welcome change from the milquetoast portrayals of terrorists in the past on this and other dramas.

Only the brilliant Marwan from Season 4 (who was aided by rogue American intelligence operatives) gave us a glimpse into the mind of our major enemy. Let’s hope that they do half as well this year.

From what I’ve seen on the preview clips, this may be a season with just as much suspense as in the past but perhaps less bloody and more of a chess match between Jack and our enemies. Whatever happens, I’m sure the writers will not disappoint us too much - as long as we are willing to suspend belief, don’t take the show literally, and simply enjoy being drawn in and captured by the characters as we live their lives vicariously one pulse pounding hour at a time.

Saying that his investigation has reached a “critical stage,” Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz says that he has now identified suspects in the killing of ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and has also made connections between that crime and 14 other politically motivated killings over the past 2 years:

The U.N. probe into ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination has now identified suspects and witnesses and found possible links to 14 other murders or attempted killings in Lebanon over the past two years, chief investigator Serge Brammertz said.
Brammertz, a Belgian prosecutor, said his investigation has reached “a critical stage.”

In its fourth report to the U.N. Security Council issued Tuesday, the International Independent Investigation Commission which Brammertz heads provided new evidence and tantalizing clues about the suicide bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others on Feb. 14, 2005.

Brammertz said his investigators have now identified a number of suspects and witnesses but agreed with Lebanon’s prosecutor general that none of their names should be made public to avoid prejudicing any trial.

“The commission has reached a critical stage in its investigations, and with this in mind, the commission and the prosecutor general of Lebanon believe that placing information concerning witnesses and suspects in the public domain would be contrary to the principles of fairness and justice,” Brammertz said.

He also revealed that the commission’s work on 14 other cases of murder and attempted murder since October 2004 “continues to elicit significant links between each case, and to indicate links to the Rafik Hariri case.”

While not revealing the names of any suspects, Bramertz’s predecessor Detlev Mehlis, in his first report to the United Nations on behalf of the Commission, did in fact reveal several Syrian suspects in the killings. The information was later redacted at the request of the American State Department according to a report in the Daily Star at the time. Other reports indicate that Kofi Annan himself requested that the names be squelched. But the names were out in the open nonetheless, thanks to a mistake in releasing the report in Microsoft Word format. And, if the witnesses can stay alive until the Tribunal hears from them, the world will indeed be shocked to discover that Syrians at the highest levels of government not only knew of the plot to kill the beloved Hariri but actively planned and participated in the murder.

Some of the Syrian government officials named in the Mehlis report are:

* Maher al-Assad, brother of President Bashar Assad

* Assef Shawkat, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law and head of Syrian intelligence;

* Bahjat Suleiman, a high ranking Syrian intelligence officer;

* Ghazi Kenaan, the former Syrian Interior Minister and commander of Syria’s intelligence apparatus in Lebanon between 1982 and 2002.

President Assad himself threatened Hariri personally in a meeting just weeks prior to the assassination according to Saad Hariri, the ex-Prime Minister’s son and current leader of March 14th Forces in Parliament:

Saad said: “I discussed with my father, the late Rafik Hariri, the extension of President Lahoud’s term. He told me that President Bashar Assad threatened him telling him: “This is what I want. If you think that President Chirac and you are going to run Lebanon, you are mistaken. It is not going to happen. President Lahoud is me. Whatever I tell him, he follows suit. This extension is to happen or else I will break Lebanon over your head and Walid Jumblat’s. (…) So, you either do as you are told or we will get you and your family wherever you are.”

(Here is a link to the unexpurgated Mehlis Report)

Besides President Assad, Hariri was warned by Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister and former Ambassador to Washington Walid Mouallem, in a meeting just days before the assassination, who told him that Syrian security services had him “cornered” and not to “take things lightly.” The former Prime Minister said after the meeting that “it was the worst day of his life.”

In addition to the Syrians, four Pro-Syrian Lebanese generals have been in jail for 15 months, suspected of being involved in the conspiracy. There are also indications that perhaps even one or more of Hariri’s bodyguards may have been involved, given that the assassins knew precisely when Hariri would be passing the King George’s hotel, in front of which the massive truck bomb was detonated killing 22 others in addition to the ex-Prime Minister.

The investigators have discovered that a team of bombers used aliases and six cell phones to communicate on the day of the Hariri bombing and there were indications that they had significant knowledge about security measures.

“The location of the telephones when used, and the purposes for which some of the linking numbers were used have revealed the high degree of security-aware behavior exhibited by individuals under investigation,” Brammertz said.

One of those cell phones was used by a mysterious Lebanese who has connections to President Lahoud:

One shadowy Lebanese operative appears to have been a conduit for several of the factions involved in the killing. Sheikh Ahmad Abdel-Al, a prominent figure in the Al-Ahbash, Association of Islamic Philanthropic Projects, and a close friend to President Lahoud, made a call minutes before the blast, at 1247 hrs, to the mobile phone of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and at 1249 hrs had contact with the mobile telephoneone of one of the Lebanese Generals implicated in the plot, Raymond Azar.

Connections to the 14 other politically inspired murders in Lebanon reveal a systematic campaign by the Syrians to strike fear into anyone who would oppose their rule in Lebanon as well as an effort to destroy organized efforts to kick the Syrians out of the country:

The report said some of the victims of the targeted attacks were directly or indirectly linked to the March 14 Forces. Samir Kassir, Gebran Tueni, George Hawi and Marwan Hamadeh were associated with it in one context or another.

It said another link between Marwan Hamadeh, Rafik Hariri, Samir Kassir and Gebran Tueni was their association with An Nahar newspaper.

Some of the victims were also connected to each other or to Rafik Hariri through family ties, friendship or other personal association, the report added.

Brammertz said 240 “exhibits” related to the killing have been sent to a laboratory for forensic research and analysis.

Among the forensic exhibits being analyzed are body parts of the suspected suicide bomber, who, according to the Lebanese Medical Examiner was Palestinian. This points to another probable accomplice in the conspiracy; the notorious head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command Ahmad Jibreel. The PFLP Commander has been a thorn in the side of Israel for many years and is the author of dozens of terrorist attacks directed against the Jewish state.

A Palestinian also made a videotape claiming responsibility for the attack:

Brammertz said the commission is also investigating Ahmed Abu Adass, a Palestinian who lived in Lebanon and appeared on a video tape claiming responsibility. The investigation “has elicited some useful information” from individuals associated with him in Lebanon and abroad.

A previous report from Brammertz in June said there was no evidence Adass was involved. But in Tuesday’s report, he said investigators were focusing on how Adass was chosen “for the role he played” and his alleged involvement with unnamed individuals in late 2004 and early 2005, when he disappeared.

(Here’s a link to the entire Brammertz Report)

I mentioned earlier the problem with keeping witnesses alive long enough to testify before the International Tribunal who will hear evidence connected with the assassinations. That’s because several witnesses have already disappeared or been murdered. It’s no wonder that Brammertz wants to keep much of his evidence hidden because revealing too much will give Syrian intelligence an idea of who might be squealing. This from the Wikpedia entry on the Mehlis Report:

In December 2005 the UN’s case against Syria came under scrutiny when a main witness of the Mehlis report (Hussam Taher Hussam) was publicly identified and dramatically recanted his testimony, claiming he had been bribed and tortured by Lebanese interests to testify against Syria.[2]

However, the 10 December Mehlis report asserts receipt of “credible information that, prior to Mr. Hussam’s recent public recantation of his statement to UNIIC, Syrian officials had arrested and threatened some of Mr. Hussam’s close relatives in Syria.”

Similar circumstances surround Zuhair Ibn Muhammad Said Saddik, who was later revealed to be the unnamed primary witness in the report. He originally approached the commission with detailed information about the planning of the attack but then later changed his testimony and confessed to participating in the attack. In his testemony, Saddik said that senior Syrian and Lebanese officials had met in his apartment to plan the assassination. He is currently under arrest in Paris at the request of Mehlis for his possible involvement in the Hariri assassination.[3]. Subsequent to this, the UN commission which had submitted the Mehlis report to the UN security council has raised serious doubts about the reliability and the credibility of the Siddik declaraions.

Nawar Habib Donna, a Tripoli cellphone dealer who sold five of the eight prepaid phone cards connected to the killing, was killed in an apparent car accident in November 2005.[4]

Then there’s the case of the strange “suicide” of a key witness Ghazi Kanaan, the former Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon. He gave some preliminary interviews to the Mehlis team but he died before a formal statement could be given. He was living in France at the time of his “suicide” and there has been ample speculation about who might have wanted him dead - including a bizarre plot involving Hafez al-Assad’s exiled brother who might have been manipulating Kanaan in order to oust current President Bashar. At any rate, is is thought that another reason (among many) that Assad wants the Tribunal squashed is that the investigation by both Mehlis and Brammertz will reveal internal Syrian power struggles and details of other plots.

But nothing will happen until the Lebanese Parliament approves the enabling legislation for the Tribunal to go forward. At the moment, given the political turmoil in Lebanon, that appears a long way off.

The proposal by Arab League members that was accepted “in principle” by both sides in the Lebanese cabinet crisis appears to be unravelling as the opposition led by Hizbullah’s Hassan Nasrallah is balking at one of the major items contained in the agreement.

The proposal, similar to one offered by Prime Minister Siniora weeks ago, would expand the cabinet from 24 to 29 members and grant the opposition 9 ministries while giving the March 14th Forces 19 slots. The remaining member would be chosen by the opposition, subject to approval by the majority, and would be a non voting minister, thus preserving the government’s supermajority and preventing Hizbullah from blocking government actions.

In addition, the Arab League plan calls for the resignation of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, a new Presidential election, and the approval of legislation that would authorize the International Tribunal looking into the Hariri assassination.

It is the last item that Nasrallah and his patron in Damascus are balking at. Nasrallah still wants a blocking minority (10) ministers in any new unity government so that efforts to pass the Tribunal agreement with the UN will be stifled. Siniora refuses to give up on the majority that was voted in by the Lebanese people. As if to emphasize this point, Siniora’s cabinet yesterday approved enabling legislation for the Tribunal and sent it on to Parliament for final passage despite President Lahoud’s claim that any action by the cabinet on the Tribunal was unconstitutional. Since Lahoud did not act on the initial approval by the cabinet, it was returned and has now been approved and passed on to the legislature.

Unfortunately, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a leading member of the opposition, is refusing to call Parliament into session in order to approve the legislation. And there seems to be no way that the March 14th majority can legally get around Berri’s refusal. For the moment, the Tribunal hangs in limbo awaiting a resolution of the cabinet crisis.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa is still hopeful that an agreement can be reached:

The cabinet move coincided with the arrival of Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa in Beirut for another round of talks with the feuding camps in an attempt to defuse the rising tensions.

“There is hope… but we are only beginning,” Moussa told reporters after a first round of talks with Saniora and Berri.

Moussa also met later Tuesday with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and MP Saad Hariri.

“There is an optimistic atmosphere,” Moussa told the daily As Safir late in the evening.
“I’m holding on to hope and to the will of the Lebanese to overcome the crisis,” As Safir on Wednesday quoted Moussa as saying.

Moussa’s visit followed that of Arab League envoy Mustafa Ismail who is trying to mediate between the Saniora government and the Hizbullah-led coalition.

Abu Kais has some interesting thoughts about Nasrallah’s position:

It is perhaps too early to discuss the so-called Arab initiative, which has reportedly won Hizbullah’s and Assad’s support. That this “breakthrough” was announced in Damascus, and not in Beirut, speaks volumes about what these protests were really about…

Assad must think himself important and “yielding influence” again. Only let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There is no “deal” yet, and, unlike what some people are already predicting, nobody has been declared winner, especially not Hizbullah, Aoun and the Assad regime.

Indeed, one would think that any agreement that allowed the Tribunal to sit with the cooperation of the Lebanese government would be a huge blow to both Damascus and Nasrallah. Again, despite the best of intentions by the Arab League (who based their formula on proposals aired by the Maronite Church leadership last week) it appears that the two sides are exactly where they were before this initiative began.

And where is that exactly? If you ask Michel Aoun, Christian head of the Free Patriotic Movement and junior partner in Nasrallah’s coalition, the government is close to being overthrown:

Speaking to MBC television station late Tuesday, Aoun upped the tensions with his continued threats to topple the government, saying: “Even though there are many legitimate and nonpeaceful means to topple a government, we are dedicated in toppling this government by peaceful means.”

Despite some of his allies’ refusal to storm the Grand Serail, the former army general said that “the natural tide can carry the demonstrators to the Grand Serail, which is why they increased the metal barriers.”

“Siniora should not take this as a threat but rather a warning, to him and to all those who support him, that the people will not wait much longer for him to step down. They don’t even need encouragement from the leaders.”

Religious and political leaders - many of whom are allied with the Free Patriotic Movement and Hizbullah - have said that breaking into the Serail is a “red line” that the opposition cannot cross.

Aoun is either letting the cat out of the bag by disclosing Hizbullah’s true intentions or he is talking through his oversized hat. If the former - and few put it past Nasrallah to eventually tire of the street protests and initiate “direct action” against the cabinet, holed up now in the Grand Serail for nearly a month - then there will be civil war. But Aoun has been known to exaggerate in the past and his bombastic pronouncements should be taken with a very large dose of salt.

And so the crisis drags on. Meanwhile, Prosecutor Brammertz has issued another report on his investigation into the Hariri assassination which purportedly names names of who was involved. I’ll have some thoughts on this report later so stay tuned for a separate post on the Tribunal.

When I saw this in World Net Daily this morning, I knew it was a story made for the blogosphere:

There’s a slow poison out there that’s severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture. The ironic part is, it’s a “health food,” one of our most popular…

The dangerous food I’m speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.

have nothing against an occasional soy snack. Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you’re also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.

Estrogens are female hormones. If you’re a woman, you’re flooding your system with a substance it can’t handle in surplus. If you’re a man, you’re suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your “female side,” physically and mentally.

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.” No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.

The rest of the piece deals with other deleterious effects of soy products - cancer, obesity, leukemia, enlarged uterus, weak thyroid, heart problems, and infertility.

I’m waiting for the study which shows all these effects are reversed by cigarette smoking. That or living a dissolute lifestyle. Or maybe even taking a rabid interest in sports. The reason being, I was raised on soy milk myself and do not suffer any of the effects mentioned in the article. But I smoke, liked to party down in my youth, and have had a lifelong passion for baseball and football. I wonder if any of those activities saved my masculinity from a fate worse than death? The last time I looked, my penis was not stunted. On the contrary…

The only sexual confusion I have happens whenever I read the Kama Sutra (Zsu Zsu, being a practical woman, is able to cure my befuddlement quite easily).

I once had a crush on Melissa Etheridge. Does falling in love with a lesbian make me gay? Perhaps I should ask the author of this piece. James Putz, er Rutz is Chairman of something called the Megashift Ministries. What sounds like some kind of monster truck worship apparently refers to the fact that the world is changing fast - but not quite the way we’ve thought these last few years. From Rutz’s book:

This book is not about a theory, but a worldwide fact: a megashift now producing documented miracles that stagger belief, the most shocking being the resurrection of hundreds of people in 49 nations, mainly since 1990. A whole new era of humanity is upon us, plus a fresh new phase of Christianity with a dramatically new way of living.”

Also on the website is this jaw dropper:

“The world is rapidly becoming all Christian.” Christianity, not Islam is the worlds fastest growing religion. The “church” is exploding in growth by those who do not identify with Catholicism or Protestantism. The growth is so humongous that “There will be pockets of resistance and unforeseen breakthroughs,” writes Rutz. “By tomorrow, there will be 175,000 more Christians than there are today.” “Still, at the rate we’re growing now, to be comically precise, there would be more Christians than people by the autumn of 2032, about 8.2 billion”

Instead of worrying about beheading jihadis, all we really have to fear are masses of Christians running around raising up the dead and performing other miracles. After all, just suppose someone doesn’t want to be raised from the dead? Who really wants to be yanked back from the gates of heaven anyway? Color me a party pooper but if I was already enjoying my richly deserved rewards in the afterlife, I hardly think getting a call from a Rutzian Megashifter to come back to earth would improve my mood any.

Allah is inviting comment from the true believers:

Exit question: in which ways, if any, is soy being manipulated to facilitate the North American Union? Check out the export list. We’re softening them up across the border before the merger!