Le weekend

I took a couple of grown up daughters and a couple of friends to Paris for the weekend. The 2.5 hour train from city-centre to city-centre is great, tho it would have taken as long to wait for a cab at Gare du Nord as the rest of the journey. Incroyable! My experienced nr.3 daughter led us down the Metro at midnight. What surprised me was how friendly the Parisians were. Smiles in every bar and eaterie, English spoken, quite other than the Paris of old. I believe it's a conscious change and I congratulate them.

'War on Terror' = 'Bunch of Inept Scuffles'

John Hawkins springboards off a story 'Brits Afraid To Use The Phrase, "War On Terror"' to conclude that:

the Brits of old are fading away and being replaced with people who have more in common with Spain or Italy than they do with their cousins across the pond. That's part of the reason that I think our "special relationship" with the Brits probably won't last much longer than Tony Blair's time in office.

I'll springboard off that with my British reply :

1. John Hawkins' understanding of the UK is probably based on filtered news. When PC stuff happens it's mocked and exposed and there's a strong British cadre in the war party, eg Melanie Phillips, Christopher Hitchens and Mark Steyn (I don't care about his passport, he's British).
2. The BBC and much of the bureaucracy IS screwed. Things can change fast though with the right leadership. Blair did a fine job on Iraq, but that policy stood outside a coherent conservative philosophy. Contrast Thatcher.
3. It IS amazing to me how feeble are voters and parties in the US and the UK. All 3 big parties in the UK are essentially anti-Bush in the most jejune way.

At bottom it's down to leadership within a credible philosophy. Bush, whom I much admire as a man, isn't credible on immigration or spending. Blair, Brown, Cameron (Conservative leader, the most pathetic creep of a politician I've come across) aren't credible as conservatives or patriots. But remember that when forceful leadership took us into Iraq, both electorates responded patriotically. The enthusiasm evaporated because the the post invasion policies ignored the regional context and were weak. Eg Syria and Iran needed terrorizing and al-Sadr needed killing. The Iraq conflict was successfully portrayed as a bunch of inept scuffles preceding an exit without honour. Bush and Blair needed to make it a war to the death with Islamofascism, fought like we mean it. WWII could never have been prosecuted as just a fight for Norwegian ports or Polish freedom.

The risible Insiders' Surrender Group report may provoke a rethink whether the 'War on Terror' is a war against an enemy who wants to kill/enslave us or a local operation in Iraq.

Melanie Phillips :

The ISG report, and his reaction to it, has now ruptured .. consensus management. The big question now is whether Bush has the capacity to follow through, to rise above his warring advisers and follow his moral instincts — to emerge from being a weak chief executive to become a world leader and statesman. In the dying fall of his presidency, does he have the wherewithal to go for broke? On this lonely and frail figure the fate of the free world now depends.

Deep pockets and long arms

God, I'm sick of politics. The only things that make sense are chess and sport. If anyone out there cares, here's a long interview with Jose Mourinho, the super-competent, super-confident manager of Chelsea Football Club. which is owned by the super-rich, super-shrewd Roman Abramovich. If you skim over the inside-soccer material (tho fascinating to me), there are insights of self knowledge and team management with zero therapy-speak. Mourinho is affectionately mocked as "The Special One". He'd been an average player who managed an unfashionable club, Porto, to victory in the Champions' League - aka the European Cup, the most prestigious title in club football - and is on track to make Chelski the top club in the world. Abramovich bought the fashionable but underperforming London club in 2003 and hired Mourinho in 2004. Chelsea then won their first English league title in 50 years, then did it again the next year. Abramovich has spent about a billion dollars on the club. It is hard to dream up a more fabulous life than his, a Jewish orphan who is now the richest Russian. He's 40.

The Utility of Useless

Do you remember the judgement of Anna Diggs Taylor against the NSA surveillance program with arguments so thin and embarrassing that it made the Administration's case for it? The Baker report does that for the Victory Strategy in Iraq, Iran and Syria. It holds up the unreality of ancien regime 'realism' for the world to mock.

God may not play dice, but he has a sense of humour to have timed this report to coincide with the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

Are Germans Cowards ?

Many instances from the World Wars and the brave performances over the decades in the World Cup suggest not, but the question arises from an incoherent, rambling article in Der Spiegel : Are the Germans Stationed in Afghanistan Cowards ? 2 extracts :
'The Germans at NATO headquarters in Kabul now face open hostility: They're mocked as cowards and cop-outs. Some Europeans "obviously resist the idea that you have an army in order to fight. And I have very little patience for that," says the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald Neumann. Neumann wants the Germans to join in the fighting -- and the dying, if necessary -- in southern Afghanistan.'
...
'And the Germans in the north? It may be a little cowardly to stay up there and radiate a feeling of security, dig a few waterholes, calm down a few of the warlords and cultivate trees.

But it may also just be smart.'

Note the Germanic name of the US ambassador.

My in-laws are German-Americans and the interactions between them and their close kin in Germany are fun to watch. The German-Germans, delightful people for the most part, seem pessimistic and cynical about society. One, a fine man who fought on the Eastern Front and has good memories of Americans and American chocolate at the end of the War and who lost his land to the communists, is pretty anti-American. My theory is that Germany is psychologically crippled by unexpiated guilt from history. My theory is that this extends to generations who had no part in the original evil. My theory is that psychological health is restored when national honour is restored by virtuous acts. But Germany has not acted virtuously. At great risk the Allies saved modern Germany from Nazism and Communism. Germans owe their freedom twice over to the courage of the Anglosphere. In return much of Germany sneers at the USA in general and Bush in particular. Neither an individual nor a collective psyche can be in good shape like that.

When we lived in the Hague and drove into Germany, the light became gloomier as we crossed over. People were just unhappier, more private and wore darker clothes. My wife felt the same.

So my advice to Germany is 'Regain your self-respect. Stand by those who stood by you (that's not France by the way).'

See also - "The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity."

Perfidious Albion

The USS John Bolton took on most of the rest of the world on Friday.

Bolton was furious over the adoption by the General Assembly of a resolution which said the assembly regretted the deaths of 19 civilians in an attack by the Israeli military in the town of Beit Hanoun last week.

"Many of the sponsors of that resolution are notorious abusers of human rights themselves, and were seeking to deflect criticism of their own policies," he said.

"....the United Nations must confront a more significant question, that of its relevance and utility in confronting the challenges of the 21st century. We believe that the United Nations is ill served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is a little more than a self-serving and a polemical attack against Israel or the United States," he said.


The United States, and Australia joined Israel in voting against the motion, together with four small Pacific island nations. All countries in Europe, including Britain, voted to support the resolution.


I'll be proud to help pay Bolton's salary should the Democrats defeat his nomination. The President should continue to nominate 1st class people like Bolton, Roberts, Alito and let liberal Senators defile themselves in full view.

Postcard from London

The Anglosphere

The USA, the UK, Australia and Canada as a committed military and cultural alliance would have immense reach. Superbly endowed with human capital, physical resources and a martial and self-correcting culture, that alliance would attract Israel, India, Japan, Eastern Europe. There would be huge gains for the security of all. Oh, and include brave Denmark as a founding member.

US foreign policy should remorselessly promote a formal Anglosphere alliance . That means winning hearts and minds in countries with an anti-American MSM nearly equal to your own. That means preferential treatment both ways to the countries who've fought together through several wars. Screu the EU.

I agree there's a problem with indigenous Islamists. That needs fixing under any scenario; reverse dhimmitude, perhaps.

This is a long-term project. Articulate it now. Start soon. Meanwhile many of us suave British males have been breeding with your most beautiful womenfolk and re-colonising the USA. There's Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Guy Ritchie, me, und,und,und..

Tattoo this on Baker's forehead

"For the rest of the world, the Iraq war isn't about Iraq; it's about America, and American will" - Steyn.

If America walks from Iraq, it will be challenged everywhere and will have to fight multiple wars or surrender its self-determination or both. Millions will die in those wars. Which future Tony Blair will risk his political life to help America in an unpopular war if Iraq is surrendered America is beaten now ?

The battle for influence between Bush snr "realists", like Baker, and Bush jnr "warriors", like Cheney, may define the history of the 21st century.

The "realists" are in the ascendant because the issue has not been correctly defined. It's not about Iraq. It's about America.

A timely shock

Liberal defeatists will run the House and likely the Senate.
A principled and visionary Defense Secretary resigns.
Islamists and the MSM smell victory over Bush.
A reliably conservative nominee to the Supreme Court will not get through the Senate.
Iraq policy will be Bakerized.
Iran will nuke up.

Hmmm. Maybe it's better to face this shitstorm now than later. Let America taste and smell what this means for the next 2 years so that the more important elections in 2008 will take place with reality close up and sweaty in voters' faces.

Scary, n'est-ce pas ?

He was nearly Commander-In-Chief :