The American Conservative

Sigfrido Ranucci, who made the documentary for the RAI television channel aired two weeks ago, said that a US intelligence assessment had characterised WP after the first Gulf War as a “chemical weapon”.

The assessment was published in a declassified report on the American Department of Defence website. The file was headed: “Possible use of phosphorous chemical weapons by Iraq in Kurdish areas along the Iraqi-Turkish-Iranian borders.”

In late February 1991, an intelligence source reported, during the Iraqi crackdown on the Kurdish uprising that followed the coalition victory against Iraq, “Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorous chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil and Dohuk. The WP chemical was delivered by artillery rounds and helicopter gunships.”

According to the intelligence report, the “reports of possible WP chemical weapon attacks spread quickly among the populace in Erbil and Dohuk. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled from these two areas” across the border into Turkey.

“When Saddam used WP it was a chemical weapon,” said Mr Ranucci, “but when the Americans use it, it’s a conventional weapon. The injuries it inflicts, however, are just as terrible however you describe it.” ~The Independent

Mr. Ranucci’s last point is perhaps the most important. However one wants to classify it (and it does make sense, on thinking about it, to classify phosphorus as a chemical weapon), the important thing to keep in mind is that white phosphorus is an indiscriminate weapon and that it evidently was used against at least one civilian population center. If anything is a war crime, it is the use of such weapons against civilian centers. The jingoes can attempt to justify it however they like. They can invoke mitigating circumstances, the ambiguities of war and try to shift the blame back onto the enemy, but they can really only justify it by turning to the ethical redoubt of every totalitarian and tyrant: the ends justify the means.

Two government-subsidized Brussels organisations, the “intercultural youth platform” Kif Kif and the “movement against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia” MRAX, have lodged a complaint before the Belgian judicial authorities against Filip Dewinter, a member of the Flemish regional parliament and one of the leaders of the Flemish-secessionist Vlaams Belang, which is the largest party in Belgium. They demand that Dewinter be convicted for “incitement to racist hatred” and that his party be deprived of its funding. In Belgium, political parties are almost entirely government-funded, as accepting private donations is mostly illegal.

The reason for the complaint is an interview which Dewinter says he recently gave to the New York magazine Jewish Week (and which he put on his website). When asked whether he espoused xenophobia, Dewinter replied:

“Xenophobia” is not the word I would use. If it absolutely must be a “phobia” let it be “islamophobia”. Yes, we’re afraid of Islam. The islamisation of Europe is a frightening thing. Even distinguished Jewish scholars as Bat Ye’or and Bernard Lewis warned for this. If this historical process continues, the Jews will be the first victims. Europe will become as dangerous for them as Egypt or Algeria.

The fact that Dewinter used the word “islamophobia” has outraged the Belgian media, since xenophobia (and islamophobia) is a criminal offense. Under Belgium’s very broad Anti-Racism Act of 1981, racial discrimination is defined as “each form of distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference, which has or may have as its aim or consequence that the recognition, the enjoyment or exercise on an equal footing of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social or cultural sphere or in other areas of social life, is destroyed, affected or restricted.”

Contrary to the European anti-discrimination treaties, the Belgian bill not only prohibits distinctions that have restrictions as their aim or consequence, but also distinctions that may have these restrictions – or even simply effects – as their consequence. Anyone who describes himself as an “islamophobe” is pronouncing a preference which may have as its consequence that the enjoyment of a freedom in an area of social life be affected. Moreover, the Belgian Anti-Discrimination Act of 2003 reversed the onus of proof. The complainant does not need to prove that the accused “discriminates” or propagates “discrimination,” but it is up to the latter to prove that he does not. ~Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal

I have to congratulate Mr. Dewinter and his party on continuing to challenge the oppressive laws of the Belgian state. In spite of the fact that he probably knew he could be sued and his party defunded (again), he has not allowed tyrannical laws to cow or intimidate him from stating his quite reasonable opinions. Mr. Dewinter and the Vlaams Belang have our best wishes for defeating these scurrilous attacks and continuing to have success to determine the political fortunes of a Flanders that will one day, let’s hope, be independent and free.

[Col.] Bubp, a GOP state legislator and Marine Corps Reserve officer, had campaigned for Schmidt. He put out his own statement yesterday: “The comments and concerns I shared with Congresswoman Schmidt were never meant as a personal reference to Mr. Murtha. . . . We never discussed anyone by name and there was no intent to ever disparage the congressman or his distinguished record of service for our nation.” Bubp, through a spokeswoman, declined an interview request.

Schmidt recalls their Friday phone conversation somewhat differently. “I wrote down what he was saying,” she said in the interview. “He did ask me to send a message to Congress, and he also said send a message to ‘that congressman.’ He did not know that congressman’s name, but I did. Neither one of us knew he was a Marine.”

Schmidt said she had not noticed the numerous references to Murtha’s military background in the newspaper, radio and TV accounts of his troop-withdrawal proposal, made Thursday. “They keep us pretty busy,” she said.

Paul Hackett, a veteran of the Iraq war who lost the August special election to Schmidt, said her comments on the House floor “were at best irresponsible and at worst grossly unpatriotic.” Hackett, who has sharply criticized President Bush’s Iraq war policy, is running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, but some Democrats are trying to talk him into a rematch against Schmidt. ~The Washington Post

I find her excuse very hard to believe. Who hasn’t seen a reference to his military career in every news story about Rep. Murtha? Most of the articles out there have made a point of mentioning it to highlight the fact that, as a veteran and supporter of activist foreign policy, his growing opposition to the war is more significant than that of other members of his party.

Mmebers of Congress do have staffers for many reasons–one of them is to keep the members from missing or misstating facts that are common knowledge to any literate and informed citizen. It reflects very badly on Rep. Schmidt and her party that she cannot simply acknowledge that her choice of words could only have appeared to be designed to insult Rep. Murtha and imply that he was exhibiting a kind of cowardice. It simply cannot be just a coincidence, and even if it was a coincidence she ought to be able to understand why her remarks were immediately offensive to those that heard and read them. No spin was required to make people across the spectrum understand the trashy nature of the attack–everyone knew what she meant to say, even if she is too much of a coward to admit it.

When Murtha says “redeploy” – instead of withdraw – the troops from Iraq, he makes clear that – despite his rhetoric – he doesn’t want to really bring them home, but to station them in the Middle East. As he told Anderson Cooper of CNN:

“We … have united the Iraqis against us. And so I’m convinced, once we redeploy to Kuwait or to the surrounding area, that it will be much safer. They won’t be able to unify against the United States. And then, if we have to go back in, we can go back in.”

Moreover, Murtha’s resolution calls for the U.S. to create “a quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines” to be “deployed to the region.”

We strongly disagree. The antiwar movement cannot endorse U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, whether over or under the horizon. We don’t want American troops remaining in the region and poised to go back into Iraq. They don’t belong there, period. Some – though not Murtha – suggest keeping U.S. bases within Iraq, close to the oil fields or in Kurdistan, in order to intervene more or less on the pattern of what U.S. forces are doing in Afghanistan. But this is a recipe for disaster, since the Iraqi view that the United States intends a permanent occupation is one of the main causes inciting the insurgency. Moreover, stationing forces in Kurdistan could only deepen the already dangerous ethnic animosities among Iraqis. In any event, if our troops continue to be used in Iraq – whether deployed from bases inside the country or from outside – they will inevitably continue to cause civilian casualties, further provoking violence. Having a U.S. interventionary force stationed in Kuwait or a similar location will continue to inflame the opposition of Iraqis who will know their sovereignty is still subject to external control. As for the impact of keeping U.S. forces anywhere else in the larger region, it should be recalled that their presence was the decisive factor leading to 9/11 and fuels “global terrorism” in the same way that their presence in Iraq “fuels the insurgency.”

Murtha, we need to keep in mind, is not opposed to U.S. imperial designs or militarism. He criticizes the Bush administration because its Iraq policies have led to cuts in the (non-Iraq) defense budget, threatening the America’s ability to maintain “military dominance.” ~Gilbert Achcar and Stephen R. Shalom, Antiwar.com

The authors make a very good point. If opponents of the war wish to be truly successful, we will need to accomplish the complete scrapping of the interventionist model of foreign policy that put us into the Persian Gulf 15 years ago and has kept us there ever since. Rep. Murtha is not exactly “on our side,” but he has slowed the jingoist juggernaut more effectively in just one week than anything the hopelessly fragmented and aimless antiwar movement has achieved in three years. For sake of extracting Americans out of this pointless and unjust war, supporting “redeployment,” even if it is motivated by hegemonist and interventionist concerns, is the best course available. Demanding unconditional withdrawal as the gold standard of the antiwar movement, as the authors do, will have the same effect that demanding unconditional surrender has in war: the war will go on with moderate levels of popular support and a majority of Congress unwilling to change course, and more American and Iraqi lives will be claimed in the absurd conflict.

In other news, not entirely surprisingly, media darling Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has inched his way to a position of gradual reduction of forces from Iraq. It is admittedly not much, and it comes from a Senator whose career has been typified by embracing the far left, which will hardly lend the idea much credibility with the members who need to change their positions for the policy to change. Nonetheless, it is a bit of movement.

An appeal only to race selects the thinnest possible reed on which to base a movement. Race, as it is understood today in scientific terms, is largely an abstraction, and while it serves to explain much about society, history, and human behavior, it remains too much of an abstraction to generate much loyalty or motivate much action. The skeleton of race acquires concrete meaning and generates concrete loyalties only as it takes on cultural and political flesh, as race becomes tied up with community, kinship, nationality, territory, language, literature, art, religion, moral codes and manners, social class, and political aspirations. It is precisely such accretions that convert the biological abstraction of “race” into the concrete category of a “people.” ~Samuel Francis, American Renaissance (March 1995)

The late Dr. Francis makes a great deal of sense here, and this statement fits very well with my own thinking on the matter. Perhaps this might serve as a kind of compromise position for the opposing arguments in what I believe is an artificial opposition of Mr. Sailer’s citizenism to Mr. Taylor’s white nationalism as mutually exclusive views.

In the House, a group of immigration hard-liners thinks this precept that has been around for a century and a half is a detriment to the nation because, they say, it can serve as a magnet for undocumented people to slip across the border and bear children. Such offspring can eventually serve as the “anchor” that other family members may use to gain citizenship themselves.

According to this point of view, many pregnant women, or young couples of childbearing age, may decide to try to get to U.S. soil so the children will reap American citizenship and the opportunities and benefits that go with it.

And once the children reach age 21, they can begin to sponsor family members to legally immigrate. To Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and others on a House immigration task force, that effectively rewards those who break immigration laws.

Citizenship “should not be bestowed on people who are the children of folks who come into this country illegally,” Tancredo said.

But critics of doing away with what is sometimes called “birthright citizenship” say the constitutional provision has actually been a boon for the United States, one of the few countries in the world to grant such immediate status.

By embracing all babies at birth as Americans, the nation has avoided the societal unrest that has festered in France, where even the French-born children of Arab and other legal immigrants do not automatically become citizens until they reach 18.

Resentment and discrimination from that segregated status is blamed for contributing to the rage that exploded into riots in recent weeks across France.

“It has served us well by giving (everyone born in the United States) the sense of belonging from day one,” said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. “It’s how we built our country.” ~Scripps-Howard News Service

Where does Mr. Papademetriou go astray? He assumes that citizenship in this country implies a sense of belonging. That is exactly what birthright citizenship does not do–it provides membership in the polity on the basis of nothing more than an accident of birth. That it was originally designed to counteract that other accident of birth, namely servile status, is no excuse. The proper solution is to make a requirement that newborn children are citizens only if at least one parent is already a citizen, whether native or naturalised. That would require some greater conscious commitment on the part of the parents to adapt to this country, and it would prevent the abuse of the 14th Amendment provision that is obviously egregious and indefensible.

Belonging implies meaning, and for citizenship to be meaningful it must have been actively embraced and then inculcated in one’s children. We (and this includes many of the fans of mass immigration) don’t assume that people who come to this country should be spared the process of naturalisation, nor do we assume that native-born children automatically understand their roles as citizens but instead have to be educated in these things by their parents and (God help us) their teachers. Ending birthright citizenship would force immigrants to become at least a little better acquainted with this country by making sure that every new citizen has had to be raised up by citizen parents, so that their children’s integration, such as it is, is premised on their own willingness to become fully American.

Incidentally, the French integration model allows for naturalisation, and, as so many dimwits have been fond of pointing out in the last month, many of the rioting “youths” were technically French citizens–so much for the sense of belonging! Citizenship is a legal and political category–it does not carry much meaning for those not raised in the cultural traditions of the peoples who fashioned the Republic and transmitted the constitutional and legal principles embodied in our institutions and laws. Citizenship is, as Steve Sailer correctly pointed out in another context, an extremely weak and relatively unnatural form of allegiance. It may excite fewer passions, but it also stirs relatively little loyalty unless it is augmented by other more natural affinities that give that citizenship some heft and substance.

I might put it, perhaps a bit too simplistically, this way: I am not a patriot because I am a good citizen, but I am a good citizen because I am a patriot. And so on. As important as the land may be to patriotism, simply being born on its soil does not in itself lay the foundations for patriotic instinct. This instinct grows through living a particular way of life suited to that land, and through accommodating oneself to that way of life.

Ending birthright citizenship will also clarify a bit more whose birthright this country is and whose it is not.

On the lighter side, here is the abstract of a law review article by one Prof. Benjamin Barton detailing the profoundly negative portrayal of bureaucracy in the Harry Potter novels, showing how this portrayal supports public choice theory and advancing the thesis that there will be increasing “distrust of government and libertarianism” as the Harry Potter generation grows up.

Via Jeffrey Tucker at Mises via Volokh.

I am proud to say that I have never cracked a Harry Potter book, but I have seen the four movies made to date and so have some idea what Prof. Barton is talking about in his review article. The claim that libertarianism will increase in the generation that has been growing up with these stories (section 5 is called “Harry Potter and the Future Libertarian Majority”!) is pretty implausible, as Prof. Volokh has more or less already said. What I find curious is how anyone could view the Harry Potter world as anything other than a dystopia populated with a few heroic figures–more in keeping with the spirit of a saga than with Atlas Shrugged.

Aside from the not infrequent approval of necessary rule-breaking, which serves to provide Rowling’s plot devices, it would be hard to find an affirmation of any political idea in these stories (except for the de rigueur affirmation of wizard-’muggle’ intermarriage that permeates, say, Chamber of Secrets). As I understand the story, the entire world of wizards is kept hushed up by an immensely intrusive and powerful state (taking the neocon claim that “the government knows things we don’t” to a new level), and the sole means of legitimate education comes by means of the Etonian state-run academy that is Hogwarts. Even for the wizards who do not openly despise the ‘muggles’, a very British condescending elitism is always in the air. The young heroes may occasionally flout the rules in moments of emergency, but seem to fundamentally accept the system, at least until it directly turns on them. Maybe Rowling’s books will encourage a new generation of Platonists.

But supposing these books do encourage a small boom in libertarianism, the libertarians are welcome to Rowling and her fans. Lewis and Tolkien, with whose works Rowling’s are sometimes rather preposterously compared, may not have directly influenced the politics of the English-speaking world in the ways that they might have liked, but their stories will have a far more enduring significance, as they are founded on structures of revelation and myth that will long outlast the amusing, but ephemeral tales of wizard children.

The anti-Murtha juggernaut will fail. The Pennsylvania Democrat may not be Scoop Jackson but he is certainly not Michael Moore, no matter how much some in the White House might want to link the two. A majority of Americans are now entertaining second thoughts about the Iraq war, not just a far-left fringe.

Yet by refusing to question the war or respond to changing circumstances on the ground, Republicans risk driving the country into the left’s arms. An inability to rethink military action while combat is ongoing prevents a realistic assessment of our current policy — a policy that a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 52 percent of Americans no longer believe to be worthwhile.

It does no disservice to our troops to question the policies of their civilian leaders. It is not surrender to abandon a course if it was misconceived from the beginning. We must not continue to spend blood and treasure in Iraq based on premises as faulty as those which led us into war in the first place. ~W. James Antle III, Enter Stage Right

Not only did Rep. Jean Schmidt slander Rep. Murtha by suggesting that he was a coward and not a ‘real’ Marine because of his Iraq withdrawal proposal–she apparently also misrepresented the conversation she had with Marine Col. Bubp, whose sentiments she claimed to be conveying to the House:

But a spokeswoman for the colonel, Danny R. Bubp, said Ms. Schmidt had misconstrued their conversation.

While Mr. Bubp, a Republican member of the Ohio House of Representatives, opposes a quick withdrawal for forces, “he did not mention Congressman Murtha by name nor did he mean to disparage Congressman Murtha,” said Karen Tabor, his spokeswoman. “He feels as though the words that Congresswoman Schmidt chose did not represent their conversation.” ~The New York Times

Meanwhile, Rep. Schmidt continues to retreat from her obnoxious remarks in the most disingenuous way possible:

Asked to respond on Monday, the congresswoman’s office said only, “Mrs. Schmidt’s statement was never meant to disparage Congressman Murtha.”

Hat tip to Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly.

Modern isn’t anything. It isn’t American, it isn’t English, it isn’t Italian. It has no characteristics. It certainly isn’t civilization, and may not even be culture. But the old America is real, and that is the West. The old South used to be real, and that’s been modernized to the point where it isn’t a civilization anymore.

Modern is a state of mind more than it’s a state of development…. ~Chilton Williamson, Interview with The Washington Times