The Neutralist announces a contest!

Previously, the Neutralist has noted smears against candidate Ron Paul, McCain blaming him for the rise of Hitler and Heffernan trying to make him out a white supremacist. Nobody has yet tried to actually equate him to Hitler.

The Neutralist is stymied by this. Such restraint across the board from the MSM to the Neocons to Chomskyite crazies is amazing, but can it last?

The Neutralist has decided to take the bull by the horns. We therefore announce a contest. The first media person to equate Ron to Dolph will have a prescription of whatever psychotropic substance has been legally prescribed him or her paid for by the Neutralist.

Can we be more fair?

I am an accursed man, I live in interesting times

The Neutralist has no great insights into the Pakistani political world. No sage prediction. It is just more of the international game of twister we keep playing.

The comedy continues.

To the Editors,

To the editor of the New Yorker,

Dear Mr. Remnick,

I am writing to inform you of a problem your magazine may have. One Virginia Heffernan has recently had a hit piece about presidential candidate, Ron Paul, published by the New York Times. It appears that this woman's idea of what is a "fact" may be a problematic.

I believe the lass was once employed by your magazine as a "fact" checker. You may be wanting to do two things. First, check through all her work to see that she actually did the job she was assigned. Second, you might want to review your hiring procedures so that you are sure those whom you take on board for the position in question actually know what a "fact" is.

I know you will want to do this as the reputation of your publication is at stake.

All the best.

The Neutralist

John Derbyshire Wins 2007 Neutralist Award for Most Progress

I favor war against Iraq. I believe a successful war against Iraq would trigger major attitude adjustment in the Middle East, to the benefit of us and the promotion of our values. I believe it would greatly enhance this country’s security by removing a major supplier of WMD to terrorist gangs.

John Derbyshire wrote the words above for the article, The U.S. Will Not Go to War Against Iraq. The title and the date, May 20, 2002 insure that no future religious book will ever refer to him as the Prophet Derb. The article is not without interest, the man can write. Sometimes, the conclusions are stupid as above, but he has style.

Unless my memory fails me, I believe Mr. Derbyshire done a few mea culpas about the war, though I can't swear to it.

Between 2002 and his current attainment of enlightenment, he has made statements that the Neutralist would put, if forced, the label, mindlessly barbaric on. On the other blog, the voice of humility we commented on Derb in a post titled Hard as Nails

I agree with Gene Healy's agreement with Julian Sanchez's take on John Derbyshire. "his views are, often as not, absolutely vile. But he's exceptionally sharp and learned, and expresses his thuggish views without cant or sugar coating, which I suppose is a virtue. It's almost as if a team of genetic scientists took a mouth-breathing, beer-swilling, Pak-bashing specimen of pure Cockney trash and raised his IQ by 100 points. How can he fail to be interesting?"

Mr. D is in trouble with some people for giving up religion. An ability to argue Episcopal theology is absent here so others can have a go at him for that. I did read his un conversion story and it seemed reasonable enough. I get the feeling he stayed as long as he did out of filial piety or he was no longer in his comfort zone. Anyway, now that he has left his up scale (in American eyes) denomination, it may be easier to think of him as that lager lout.

No, I found something else to to discuss. Actually, he makes a pretty good case for his having that genteel thuggish side in his review of Mark Steyn's America Alone,

"I am, in fact, willing to confess myself a collateral-damage armchair warrior, who would be happy to see us trade in our inventory of smart laser-guided precision munitions for lots and lots and lots of old-style iron bombs, and fleets of great big iron planes to deliver them. Remember those photographs of mid-1945 Berlin, fragments of broken wall sticking up out of vast drifts and dunes of pulverized masonry? Now that’s rubble.

Oh, and we won that war."

That is certainly refreshing. He just loved the Hun suffering. Ooh, forgot to mention that arm sticking up through that rubble.

Of course, that his point is ridiculous goes without saying. No expert has ever suggested that conventional bombing won the war in Europe. I hate to jog anyone's memory as I know of my own early onset, but it was the Big One that ended the Pacific War.

So, okay, you might think from a neutralist point of view he's a no hoper. Now, I would not say he is actually a neutralist, it is the distance he has traveled. He has come out for Ron Paul. I called him a chickenhawk in my post above. I take that back as he came out for Ronnie at NRO online, a hotbed of neocons who can't be to happy about JD's conversion which is the biggest turn of a coat since Paul traveled the Jerusalem-Damascus Interstate.

Anyway, His article, Liberty! Liberty! is worth reading. Best line, "If those people are crazy, though, I want to be crazy with them. I’m for liberty, too. That’s why I’m for Ron Paul. And why do we have 75,000 soldiers in Germany?"

The Neutralist confers the award as stated in the title of this post and pronounces John Derbyshire sane.

New Links

Defense and the National Interest is moving to blog like their man Fabius Maximus did.

Glen Greenwald may be a lefty, but so far there is little in the foreign policy area where the Neutralist disagrees.

I doubt that we shall be really helping Mr. Bruce Schneier by linking to him, but as he linked to the Downsize DC website, well he will have to suffer the ignominy of a link from the Neutralist. He was linking to a particularly interesting article.

Will World War I Ever End?

Both Nebojsa Malic at antiwar.com and George Friedman at Stratfor have timely articles on our foreign policy foolishness in the Balkans. Basically, we are promoting Albanian independence.

The big question is why are we pushing this now as we don't have all that many cards. Here is George Friedman's take on it,

The re-engineering of the Balkans always has assumed that there is no broader geopolitical price involved. Granting Kosovo independence would put Russia in a position in which interests that it regards as fundamental are challenged. Even if the West doesn't see why this should be the case, the Russians have made clear that it is so -- and have made statements essentially locking themselves into a response or forcing themselves to accept humiliation. Re-engineering a region where there is no risk is one thing; re-engineering a region where there is substantial risk is another.

more importantly,

The Germans have neither the resources nor the appetite for such a crisis. The Americans, bogged down in the Islamic world, are hardly in a position to deal with a crisis over Kosovo. The Russian view is that the West has not reviewed its policies in the Balkans since 1999 and has not grasped that the geopolitics of the situation have changed. Nor, in our view, has Washington or Berlin grasped that a confrontation is exactly what the Russians are looking for.

George is dead on, but let us take a warning from history as given by Nebojsa Malic,

When Otto von Bismarck called the Congress of Berlin in 1878, he hoped it would resolve the Balkans crisis. It ended up destroying his alliance with Russia, and setting the stage for the Great War in 1914. Austria started that war hoping to crush the pesky little Serbia and establish hegemony in the Balkans. Serbia survived, if just barely. Austria-Hungary did not.

Somehow, I don't think the lads at State or in the White house are doing an adequate risk/reward assessment

The Neutralist is posting this to bang the drum again, that an interventionist foreign policy inevitably causes more problems then it could ever solve and will eventually lead to the disaster of self defeat.

As a little note, the propaganda war against Vladimir Putin since Time anointed him has intensified with the ludicrous David Frum on Marketplace. This is the man that coined the Axis of Evil buffonery. He is after Vlad for getting rich in politics, Writing puff pieces for Presidents and American state radio is a living, but I can see where he might be jealous. He laments,

Russia, which once seemed to be evolving into something like a normal country, has retreated into enigma and authoritarianism.

Oh, gee, when was that evolution occurring? Was it that era when sharpies were looting commie property and driving all of Russia into poverty?

The man is an embarrassment.

As an aside, we oft hear of the Islamic practice of Taqqiyah which I guess might be loosely translated as lying for the cause. Such an idea is loathsome. When we ended the Bombing of Serbia, we agreed Kosovo would remain, at least de jure, part of Serbia. That was a deliberate lie. We have taqqiyah, in a subtle sort of way.

Is Tehran University Historically a Part of New Hampshire?

As you drive through the Granite State you see the words "Live Free or Die" on License Plates issued by the DMV. You now see them defiantly proclaimed by lads risking life and limb to do it. Maybe not the Battle of Bennington (The New Hampshiremen were at least armed) but it's something.

There are also some lassies holding signs about gender problems. Nothing as important as worrying about heteronorming at Hahvud. The Persian girls only have little stuff to worry about like being partially buried and stoned.

The Neutralist always subscribes to the doctrine of John Quincy Adams that "America is the friend of liberty everywhere but the guarantor only of our own." We do not wish to send the fleet and army to end the current theocracy. If we did it would taint the effort that the people of Iran must do for themselves.

Still, we admire the cause and wish it well. As a former resident of New Hampshire, and by the authority not invested in me, I hereby constitute the Order of General Stark and induct the lads holding the sign as charter members.

"Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils."

It's Alive

Yesterday, we opined that the war was maybe on hold permanently. That is, of course, to be hoped, but may not be so. Our Bourbon president has refused to rule out a strike against Iran in light of the NIE findings, saying,

"Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon," he said at the White House.

"What's to say they couldn't start another covert nuclear weapons program?"

Yup, time to reopen the search for Judge Crater as well.

Of course our Pres is not the only one to feel the the Persians may still need some discipline. Justin Raimondo over at Antiwar.com has a ball with the NRO corneristas and others. My fav little bit, "Podhoretz has "dark suspicions," he confides, that the intelligence community is "bending over backwards" to avoid the mistakes it made during the run-up to war with Iraq. Naturally, he avoids mentioning that he, Norman Podhoretz, was just as wrong as they were, if not more so – so why, given his own Bizarro World logic, should we believe anything he says?" Do ya think Justin just might be a tad hard here? You go boy.


What most warmed the cockles of my heart this cold morning was a bit from the Antiwar blog, Ron Paul Vindicated on Iran. I have debate fatique at this point and could live without seeing another one. Still, it would be nice to at some point have the questioner say to Ronnie, "We owe this to you, if you wish, you can take a minute to gloat."

Phew

The Iranian adventure appears to be on hold, and with the clear statement of the National Intelligence Estimate, maybe permanently so.

The Neutralist is happy with the announcement that,

We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program

Isn't that lovely. Is it possible that the conclusions of our intelliegence are policy driven and policy has changed? Let us quote George Friedman Strafor article of December 3, 2007 entitled The NIE Report: Solving a Geopolitical Problem with Iran

In looking at the report, a number of obvious questions come up. First, how did the intelligence community reach the wrong conclusion in the spring of 2005, when it last released an NIE on Iran, and what changed by 2007? Also, why did the United States reach the wrong conclusions on Iran three years after its program was halted? There are two possible answers. One is intelligence failure and the other is political redefinition.

Also, from the article's previous paragraph,

The NIE release represents a transformation of U.S. policy toward Iran. The Bush administration made Iran's nuclear weapons program the main reason for its attempt to create an international coalition against Iran, on the premise that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. If there is no Iranian nuclear program, then what is the rationale for the coalition? Moreover, what is the logic of resisting Iran's efforts in Iraq, rather than cooperating?

So does someone high up say, "Today the alliance is between Eastasia and Oceania and we need an intel estimate reflecting that." Nothing so crass, I am sure.

Mr. Friedman's article goes through the problems of collecting and using intelligence. They are many and varied and reading his article will give more detail. Suffice it to say, in our overseas adventuring (not wishing to cause a hissy fit amongst those offended by calling our having troops, fleets and aircraft in all corners of the Earth imperialism)intelligence must serve policy and propaganda as well as actual knowledge of other countries intentions.

This is why we beat the drum constantly (if not frequently enough) for a neutralist national ethos. If we are less places the need for political uses of intelligence will go down, as well as, one hopes, costs and corrupting influences.

Thanks, Senator McCain

Those few of us in the not so vast neutralist conspiracy owe a debt of gratitude to John McCain. Yes, he is arrogant and cranky and wrong about most things, but I am grateful to him for making a mistake that was beneficial to the cause of not getting into stupid wars. Not that it will in the end be of too much help. Still, we must be thankful for even the small victories that come our way.

There were all the lower tier candidates being ignored on the CNN Youtube festival of silliness when McCain, without really needing to, went after Ron Paul for the sin of causing Adolph Hitler.

We allowed (Adolf) Hitler to come to power with that attitude of isolation

I suspect the congressman from Texas might not have been alive or certainly only a child at the time Dolph started to rise to power. No matter, it gave my boy Ronnie a chance to try and undim the Senator by explaining his position,

I want to trade with people, talk with people, travel, Paul explained. But I don't want to send troops overseas using force to tell them how to live.

This is a good shorthand explanation of neutralism. As to what brought about Hitler and WWII, the Neutralist has explained it all before. If you have John's phone number and want to explain it to him, you can read to him from America's greatest 20th century victory, relevant passage here,

There was WWI, The Great War. I've wondered about that name, "The Great War." It is doubtful that the lads who spent all those years in the trenches would have thought it so great. We got into it because the president at the time, Wilson, wanted to "make the world safe for democracy" by fighting "the war to end all wars." Now sober reflection - an endeavor, I used to avoid like the plague - would tell one that such comments were moronic. Certainly, history has proved Mr. Wilson wrong. Still, it led our country to send enough men over to pull the Allies' chestnuts out of the fire. Wilson, fresh from a rhetorically successful Mexican adventure gave a war message that went something like this, "Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia." No, well close enough.

Did our country get anything out of this? Of course: war dead, left where we had no compelling national interest. Worse, while our troops were overseas, the early twentieth century version of the soccer moms managed to slip through a constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale and use of alcohol. In a way, this brought about a continuation of World War I on the home front (Let me digress a second, religious Jews were allowed wine for certain holidays. I can see the handwriting on the wall. Maybe someone will want to join me in starting a new religion with bacon and other high cholesterol foods as sacraments so we can be ready when the health Nazis ban them.)

There were other results from that "Great War" including Hitler. Yes folks, without Woody, Dolph would have probably spent his declining years raving in a Bavarian old soldiers' home. By demonizing Kaiser Bill and getting rid of the Imperial German Government we insured instability in Germany. Maybe an Allied victory did not lead to Hitler in an algebraic equation (Allied victory + German defeat = Hitler) but it is impossible to imagine the Third Reich, the holocaust, etc. had the Kaiser stayed in power after a peace of exhaustion.

Please let John know we are here for him. We don't want to see him ever again make himself look as silly.

Fabius Maximus

Over to the right, one can see a new link. It is to the blog of Fabius Maximus. He has usually been seen at the Defense and the National Interest cite also linked. I do not always agree with him or his mate William S. Lind but I always find them interesting and can always take the neutralist conclusion from their writings even when they might not be able to.

So check the lad out.

They're Taking Him Seriously

Yup, people are taking notice of Ron Paul. On the strength of a $500 donation from a white supremacist wacko Ronnie is being accused of all but Holocaust Denial at Bald Headed Geek. Daniel Sieradski is upset that the candidate is not in constant contact with him.

Look kids, if a non interventionist foreign policy scares you that much, the voice of humility will tell you how to kill my boy's candidacy the easy way. All you have to do is bring up his ideas about Social Security.

"We’ve all heard proposals for “privatizing” the Social Security system. The best private solution, of course, is simply to allow the American people to keep more of their paychecks and invest for retirement as they see fit." American voters won't be scared about Ron Paul's thoughts on the gold standard, but they do get worried when you tell them they might not be getting a "free" check no matter how inflated the currency it is paid in.

This method of attack is also dishonorable. Still, it is preferable than using up the term anti-semite. Reserve that for people who really deserve it.

Steven LaTulippe tells us why we should not bug the Muzzies

Steven LaTulippe has an article posted at Takimag (November 7, 2007) that channels the thoughts of the neutralist. In Let’s Sit Out World War IV He gives reasons why the US should bug out of the Middle East. We agree and though it is not exhaustive in discussing all our geopolitical problems, it is dead on in the area it does cover:

America does not border the Islamic world. It has a statistically insignificant Muslim population that is better assimilated than that of any other Western nation. America is bounded on its east and west by vast oceans and to the north and south by two militarily weak and predominantly Christian nations.

The irony resides, of course, in the fact that despite these blessings, America is the nation doing most of the fighting against radical Islam.

When analyzing the likely course of these civilizational struggles – and plotting a strategy for America to deal with them – one must also recognize another important fact: The ultimate outcome of Islam’s civilizational wars has already been determined. Radical Islam is not a viable paradigm upon which a modern society can be built. It is destined, like communism before it, to collapse from within. The trajectory of political Islam can already be seen in Iran, where it first came to power. As a governing system, the Islamic Republic has been discredited in the eyes of the masses and survives mostly by repression and manipulation. Economically and culturally, it is an utter failure.

Furthermore, radical Islam is not now, nor will it ever be, a civilizational threat to America. Nor will it conquer the world or overturn modern civilization. These goals are simply beyond its capacity

When these two ideas are considered together (i.e. the lack of geopolitical conflict between America and Islam, and the inevitable collapse of Islam as a political ideology), America’s most prudent path becomes obvious: The United States should withdraw from the Middle East and declare itself a non-belligerent in Islam’s civilizational wars. In so doing, America can avoid the casualties and ruinous costs of wars which have nothing to do with our national survival.

Given the immediate proximity of numerous, ancient enemies (and the many bloody divisions that exist within the body of Dar-al Islam itself), the Muslim combatants will not long bother themselves with a non-threatening nation on the other side of the planet. America’s tragic involvement in these wars was wholly the product of our wrong-headed, interventionist foreign policy. When that provocation is removed, so will the cause for enmity.

While obviously beneficial to America, this strategy leaves open the issue of what will happen in the aftermath of our withdrawal.

In all probability, the civilizational struggles between Islam and its neighbors will progress along their natural trajectories.

And what would those trajectories be? Well, when the West had nothing to worry about as regards the non west, we managed to slaughter each other in the two big Twentieth Century conventional intramural contests. Maybe the Islamic world can return the compliment and show us how they can kill each other in fourth generation contests amongst themselves. Or, maybe, without us there, they will stabilize and built a great international civilization. Maybe not. We do not predict the outcome, but believe the world would be no worse and ourselves much better under Neutralism.

We might feel differently if the nations of the region possessed carrier fleets. As it is, all we need do is not let in lads who want to go to flight schools with a non landing curriculum and overstay visas along with a general tightening up of immigration policies and practices.

That Guy Murphy Must Have Worked At State

His law, "What can go wrong, will" should be memorized by all the geniuses there.

So we hardly get over containing the Turkish intervention brouhaha and now there is the Pakistan neo coup.

Of course, many of the brainiacs over at foggy bottom probably view this as an opportunity rather than a crisis. Breathes there a Georgetown or Kennedy School graduate with soul so dead that they can't whip up an op ed for Wapo or NYT in a trice?

Of course, surely there is someone ahead of the game who is already working on the book rights for Who Lost Pakistan.

Stratfor on Iran

George Friedman over at Stratfor has written an article titled War Plans: United States and Iran. In his first paragraph, the words I found most interesting are,

A possible U.S. attack against Iran has been a hot topic in the news for many months now. In some quarters it has become an article of faith that the Bush administration intends to order such an attack before it leaves office. It remains a mystery whether the administration plans an actual attack or whether it is using the threat of attack to try to intimidate Iran -- and thus shape its behavior in Iraq and elsewhere

So the well informed (after all it is his business to be in the know) Mr. Friedman is not certain that the attack is going to happen. This, pour moi, is cause for some optimism.

Most of his piece is a discussion of what the shape of an attack could take and the drawbacks. There is no dearth of negatives and Mr. Friedman takes the time to point them out. It is starting to get cold up here in Nova Anglia so he is at his most scary when he states,

consider the Iranian response. Iran does not expect to defeat the U.S. Air Force or Navy, although the use of mine warfare and anti-ship cruise missiles against tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz should not be dismissed.

So heating the old homestead should increase in cost if the Persians get some mines out and a few lucky hits, eh. Actually, they don't even have to do that, according to George,

A campaign against economic infrastructure would take some 4 million barrels per day off of the global oil market at a time when oil prices already are closing in on $100 a barrel.

Which means that all those wishful thinkers who believe that the Iranian people are just waiting to see the regime end and will be grateful to the Great Satan should think about Mr. Friedman's follow up,

Such a campaign is more likely to drive a wedge between the American people and the American government than between the Iranians and their government.

Tellingly, he says,

The United States is stretched thin, and everyone knows it.

Especially the Iranians. They have not budged and they don't appear scared. My guess is (and George seems to agree) they've done their homework and when they hear us huff and puff and threaten to blow the house down, their reaction could be something like, "yeah, you and what army?"*

George ends with this,

The United States could have defeated North Vietnam with a greater mobilization of forces. However, Washington determined that the defeat of North Vietnam and the defense of Indochina were not worth the level of effort required. Instead, it tried to achieve its ends with the resources it was prepared to devote to the mission. As a result, resources were squandered and the North Vietnamese flag flies over what was Saigon.

The danger of war is that politicians and generals, desiring a particular end, fantasize that they can achieve that end with insufficient resources. This lesson is applicable to Iran.

What is unsaid is the level of commitment we would have to make. Massive increase in defense spending (really, offense spending) and a draft. That is not on. From a neutralist point of view, this is a stupid idea. Truly, to anybody with an intelligence above minimally conscious, it should be a bad idea.

Mr. Friedman's article is well worth your time.

*I know, I've used this before.

More Phony Soldiers

"According to a Houston Chronicle analysis of the third-quarter finance reports, Ron Paul once again leads in donations from those who list the military as their employer. He is followed by Barack Obama, and then by John McCain." Thus reports Eric Garris at the Antiwar.com blog.

What the heck is going on here? Have libertarians been sneaking past recruiters? Or do real soldiers support ending the war? Gee, maybe there are no phony soldiers, just phonies with microphones.

Message to Rush Limbaugh

Sir,

A warrior like yourself cannot let this pass. A fellow by the name of Ricardo Sanchez is going around claiming to be a lieutenant general. Not only that, he proclaims that The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight."

Rush, a true warrior like you cannot let this stand. Expose this fellow for the phony soldier he is.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Hat tip to antiwar.com.

A Non Report Card On The War

Interesting article at Defense and the National interest discusses a presentation by LTC Kilcullen, the Ozzie wunderkind of counterinsurgency. The article author, Fabius Maximus (for any neocons reading, that's a pseudonym)thinks the light colonel is explaining to his audience why we are losing even though that is not his stated purpose.

Anyway, Fab gives us the goods:

A well-intended but colonial attitude might be unavoidable in these wars. In Vietnam we spoke highly of our loyal South Vietnamese allies, our “little brown brothers.” Forty years later we treat the Iraq government with a similar friendly contempt, which its own people see and imitate. Their rebellion to foreign occupiers (like us) is a natural, if counter-productive result.

He describes a “Kiss of Death” syndrome” on slide 22. This powerful label also applies to our relationship with local governments under current COIN doctrine when we get too helpful. We take control, which diminishes the government’s legitimacy, which strengthens the insurgency, which incites us to try harder, which starts another cycle.

The government becomes seen by many of its own people as lackeys or even quislings, only regaining legitimacy by opposing us – as they do today over symbolic issues like the role of Blackwater, or passive aggressive behavior (e.g., failure to pass the oil exploitation legislation we require).

I think that "Only gaining legitimacy by opposing us" says a mouthful.

Fab wonders if Kilcullen is having his audience on. I hope he is as the alternative is that a very smart man is intentionally stupid.

Message from Greg Cochran: Just Hop on the Bus Gus

At least that's the impression one gets from the September 24th, 2007 American Conservative Magazine's front cover. Mr. Cochran's article can be summed up in one word, Go!

The article is worth reading because of the way your man elaborates on the go statement. He writes well,

Politicians, for the most part, have accepted statements about withdrawal requiring anywhere from one to two years. They want to be “responsible”—that’ll be the day. Some may have calculated that slow withdrawal might better disguise defeat and thus be more politically palatable, but I don’t think many are that Machiavellian. I think instead that, with a few honorable exceptions, they’re profoundly ignorant of war and thus have to blindly accept anything the professional military says. That ignorance is, of course, one of the reasons we got into this mess in the first place. That goes double for columnists: in pundit-land, a military expert is someone who thinks that the phalanx is cutting-edge technology.

It seems to be raining Greg Cochran lately. The Neutralist is okay with that. If our budget were larger, ah, if there were a budget, we would commission him to write for us.

Watch for the glossy print version of The Neutralist, coming within a millennium.

We have been remiss in not including The American Conservative in our links and that shall be remedied immediately.

If Greg Cochran Is Not A Neutralist, We Will Pretend He Is Anyway

It all started over at the 2blowhards website. One Friedrich von Blowhard posted a piece wherein he quoted the frontrunning candidates' foreign policy views that had the effect of letting them make themselves look foolish. Whether or not that was his intention it worked so well he titled it:

Where's Snow White? We've got the Dwarves...

One Greg Cochran left a comment:

There is no threat out there that can be usefully addressed by a larger ground army. In fact, there's not much of a short-term threat out there at all. Except the threat from within: crazy people. That one is serious, as always.

You have to have physical power to be a substantial short-term threat, and jihadists don't have any: not one tank, not one jet, no money, no industrial base, no scientists. Oh, and I forgot, no _country_, no state. No nukes and no prospect of getting any. Shit, if they had the entire Arab world under their imaginary caliphate, they'd still be weak as a kitten: the contemporary version of the Ottoman Empire.

In the longer run, someone without physical power can sometimes make a difference (i.e. cause trouble) with ideas: but of course the Moslem world doesn't have any. "No major invention or discovery has emerged from the Moslem world for well over seven centuries now." They haven't even managed to come with up with fast-selling bullshit like Marxism or psychoanalysis. _I'm_ likely to cause more of that kind of trouble than all the Moslems on Earth without even trying.

This is essentially the Neutralist analysis and therefore we appropriate it, giving proper credit to its author.

As if that were not enough Mr. Cochran submitted to questioning from Michael Blowhard. Mr. Blowhard characterized Greg Cochran as:

It's eerie how right his predictions have been, and it's impressive that he arrived at them not from some uninformed political point of view but from a practical, fact-driven, and down-to-earth one. No one can accuse Gregory Cochran of being a sentimental, knee-jerk leftie, let alone a frisee-munching, Manhattan-dwellin' metrosexual, that's for sure. Cochran looked into the facts, he assessed the facts, and he reached conclusions that have so far proven to be 100% correct.

The interview, in two parts is worth reading. Our takeaway was provided by Steve Sailer quoting the Blowhard interview in his blog:

2B: As far as Mideast policy goes, how could we do better than we do?

Cochran: I think we have little chance of running a practical Middle East policy. The political class is ignorant and / or crazy (and also lazy) and seems to enjoy being manipulated by groups whose interests are not closely aligned with those of the United States. For example, Bush Senior had Prince Bandar try to prepare Junior for the world stage. Why the hell would anyone pick a fat Saudi thief as a political science instructor? Why not someone on our side? And when Rudy has Norman Podhoretz as a foreign policy adviser -- Norman who wants to invade Arab countries that haven't even been discovered yet -- well, I tremble for my country.

2B: So what's the right general course of action for the US as the world's premier power?

Cochran: Do little. Stay strong -- although this can't possibly require the current high level of military expenditures. If I were picking an actor to represent the right policy, it'd be Jimmy Stewart -- a nice guy that you never, ever want to threaten. A mix of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Winchester '73."

2B: What are some basic things that you wish more Americans understood about the mid-east, and about their own government?

Cochran: 1. Iraq is a Seinfeld war -- a war about nothing. 2. The Mideast isn't that important. 3. The people running the country have no idea what they're doing.

Steve Sailer wrote in his own blog comments

Well, at least Prince Bandar isn't dumb. And that Ahmad Chalabi guy, with his Ph.D. in Math from the U. of Chicago, is downright smart.

Figuring out a foreign policy that's in the best interest of America ... a job Americans just won't do anymore!

I have been reading Mr. Cochran's astute comments for years now. I've always been impressed by his agreement with my viewpoint:) He expresses it with a better analysis than I could. He knows the science, and even some of the insiders.

I explained how I knew in a prior posting

I'm sorry, I was against this war from the beginning. I knew it was a fraud from well before day one. How you may ask could a nobody from a backwater know such a thing. I was born and raised in a state unexcelled for its culture of corruption. Politicians from Louisiana could learn a few tricks. A lot of it is done without any bribery. No, it is done much more smoothly. first, someone starts mentioning un met needs. Then, the newspapers have articles that morph the un met need into a crisis. State reps and senators start using phrases like " we need to do it for the children" and "the kids are our future." Soon enough there is a new state agency and cronies are being hired all over the place.

It was a little bit different with the war drumbeat. First, we have Iraq mentioned as part of the Axis of Evil. Then, do we remember the Anthrax scare? I do. I remember pundits hot for action, for others of course. As I live up on a hill, I can get Boston stations on the car radio. One talk show host, Jay Severin was shilling for the war big time. One afternoon he breathlessly intoned that it was reported that the anthrax involved in the letters had the footprint of an Iraqi lab and that if it did have that footprint, then, "We are at war with Iraq." Cut to a break.

The anthrax scare faded away but the drumbeat continued. I remember some peacenik type acquaintances talking about going down to New York for a march and hearing them hopeful about stopping the juggernaut. I remember telling them that the people who want the war, can have the war and that is that. Of course that was discounted, but that is life. If common sense had ever prevailed in this country, the slogan would have been, Forget the Maine. Contriving a war has a history here.

Some of the propaganda was so obviously stupid that it embarrasses me as an American to think it was said and quoted. Condoleeza Rice's remark about the smoking gun turning out to be a mushroom cloud was, maybe, the worst. A few unfortunates might have believed that Iraq was somewhat near the bomb, but no one suggested they had any inkling of a delivery system. So, Condi, how were they to get it to a target? "Quick Achmed, get it on to the donkey cart, we will get it on a cargo ship as part of a shipment of dates and when it gets to New York Harbor, it gets set off. I volunteer you, Achmed, for this important mission."

Anyway, it does not matter how you attain your "Neutralismo," only that you get there.