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Bane writes back: That you can question the fact that we are in a state of war continually causes me to be amazed. You are either a bound servant to semantics, or you are teasing us to make an as yet unrevealed point. I refuse to believe you are just stupid.

I don’t deny that a war is being fought against us. It has been since at least 1983. But I deny that we, as a country, are in a state of war. We’re not. The average American is practically unconscious of it, and is being encouraged to stay that way, foolishly, by the administration, which is fighting a minimalist action, most likely in an attempt to win a gradual war of attrition at a minimal cost. Perhaps the strategy will work, but I don’t believe so. And if I were not a bound servant to the semantics of the Bible and, to a lesser extent, the Constitution, I would be just another globalist elitist using the glorious prospective ends to excuse the current means.

I thought that an invasion of Iraq would be only a first stepping stone from the very beginning, as soon as September 28, 2001, as a matter of fact. I was surprised when we started with Afghanistan instead. I didn’t like this sleight-of-hand – mostly because I believe that this sort of devious pragmatic manipulation tends to backfire in the long run – but I accepted it and even wrote a column later theorizing that Iraq would serve as the jumping off point to destabilize and topple the pro-jihad regimes nearby. However, as that looks increasingly unlikely to be the plan, I’m starting to suspect that Clouseau-not-Clausewitz, may indeed be the case. Even the magnet strategy of dilly, dilly, come and be killed would have been much better executed in a neighboring country.

A clean sweep of regimes followed by an immediate withdrawal, allowing internecine struggle to keep the jihad splintered and busy would have been a much more effective and less costly option than the nation-building plan, which I simply do not believe will work. Indeed, Palestinians are deeply concerned that this strategy lies behind Sharon’s move to withdraw the settlements. I don’t pretend to be a military expert, but then, history shows that military experts are not immune to making miscalculations that lead to stupid decisions.

Bane comments in his typically pithy style: utter crap

Actually, only the arguments put forth by the Bush administration and its defenders are utter crap. This isn’t that Jean Francois is any better – he absolutely is not – but he hasn’t even begun to make a coherent case, so it’s hard to criticize a nebulous thing of predominantly hypothetical existence. But let’s look at what the Bush administration has professed:

1. Islam is a religion of peace: it isn’t and never has been.

2. We are fighting a war on terror: it isn’t a war, the borders are open to self-declared enemy nations and we’re continuing to provide funding and protection to terrorist entities. Some war.

3. We are attacked because the jihad hates democracy: a blatant lie. The jihad loves democracy in majority Muslim countries. We’re the one’s actively opposing it. It’s a power game, just like almost every war in history. Rome used to get attacked on every side too, in response to its predominance. It comes with the territory.

4. Saudi Arabia is our friend and ally. Right. The global jihad is a Wahhabist one run by Saudis, using mosques funded by the Saudi government as operational centers. Better invade Iraq. By this logic, we should have invaded Franco’s Spain in response to Hitler’s overrunning Europe.

There are two possibilities. One is that the Bush gang bears more strategic resemblance to Clousaeu than to Clausewitz. The second is that it is blatantly and knowingly deceiving the American people about the war that it has unconstitutionally signed them up for. Bane, with all due respect, which is the case?

From the Star Tribune: By a single vote, the South Dakota Senate today killed a bill that would have banned almost all abortions in the state. The bill, which almost certainly would have been challenged in court as unconstitutional, had passed both the House and Senate earlier, but Gov. Mike Rounds issued a “form veto,” asking that some of the bill’s language be clarified. The Senate, which had passed the original bill on an 18-15 vote, rejected the revised measure today by 18-17…. Earlier today, the House easily approved Rounds’ proposed changes, which were designed to keep current state abortion restrictions in place if the new law was challenged in court, as expected. That vote was 54-16.

Rep. Matt McCaulley, a Sioux Falls Republican who wrote the bill with help from the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., had hoped the strict law might reach the U.S. Supreme Court and be used to overturn the court’s historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Some legislators with long records of opposing abortion lined up against the bill, however, fearing that a court challenge could backfire and further entrench the Roe decision.

I hate this sort of fake pragmatism. The notion that you can’t do the right thing – what you publicly state you believe to be the right thing – because someone might do the wrong thing down the road, is repugnant. Perhaps this entire affair wasn’t just a ritualized form of political kabuki designed to placate the anti-abortion majority in the state while not actually doing anything, in which case we should see the original ban back soon. I’m not optimistic, though. Isn’t it interesting to see how something that everyone supposedly supports somehow can’t make its way through the legislature, while things that everyone supposedly opposes, such as tax increases, often do.

I wonder what the justices have to do before the politicians are willing to consider reining them in. Declare George Delano dictator-for-life? Institute Islamic law? Personally cuckold every politician in the country?

In 1996, Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States. As near as I can tell, no one noticed. Now, every Republican will tell you at the drop of the hat that we must blindly support George Delano because “we are at war”, despite the fact that the only two enemies that the president has selected for us have been defeated. And this, of course, while ignoring the Constitution he is sworn to uphold.

Never trust a dissembler; they’re often worse than the outright liars. Congressional authorizations of the use of force against Afghanistan and Iraq do not mean that war has been declared against a third party. George Delano’s defenders dismiss this as mere semantics, which is stupid because that reduces the entire Constitution to mere semantics. It’s especially absurd coming from those who wish to make a flap about Jean Francois’ bizarre distinction between “more” and “foreign” leaders. The purpose for a declaration of war, and one coming from Congress, not the president, is not semantic, it is to ensure that the people are fully behind a martial effort that will require time, sacrifice and loss.

A mere use of force, on the other hand, can be portrayed as something that can be done easily, on the cheap, and without requiring anyone to sacrifice anything except a few hundred unfortunate parents who probably aren’t from the social class that matters anyhow. The 21-year old idiot son of a rich CEO here in Minnesota was front-page news when he managed to get himself killed by an Italian after mistakingly invading the guy’s property at 4:30 in the morning; the son of a farmer killed in Iraq the same week didn’t merit the same coverage.

The very fact that people constantly feel the need to remind everyone “we are at war” indicates that we are not, in fact, at war. Not anymore than we have been since 1996. This is the equivalent of October 1939 to May 1940, when WWII was dubbed “the phony war” because the populace and media did not see what was going on literally beneath the surface:

The British press dubbed it the “sitzkrieg” — the expected terror of Total War had not yet emerged. Overlooked was the hot war in the Atlantic. British merchantmen were fighting for their lives to keep Britain supplied with resources. What was happening was futile attempts by both sides to negotiate an end to the war that would not embarrass either side. Germany reached out to the Allies through Holland. Since the British held that Germany should recall her forces from Poland, there was not much leeway for either side to get out with a favorable position to both sides. Underscoring the U-boat menace was the swift and silent entry into Scapa Flow of U-47, commanded by Günther Prien on October 14, 1939. Prien slipped past sunken ships and chains that were used as antisubmarine nets, and sank the HMS Royal Oak with heavy loss of life. Hitler personally decorated Prien.

The only other notable confrontation took place in December 1939 off the coast of Uruguay. The German Pocket Battleship Admiral Graf Spee, a heavy cruiser armed with 15″ guns, was chased into Montevideo by three British cruisers. Much to Hitler’s dismay, the captain landed his crew, scuttled the ship, and killed himself. The Allies, desperate for victories, made a bigger deal of the Battle of the River Plate than its actual military significance. It did end a surface threat to the merchant lifeline to the United States and the Dominions. The U-boats were taking a fearful toll that was not generally reported. In the meantime, many opportunities were lost. The French did not fortify their border with Belgium, although a French officer had proved it was vulnerable during war games in 1938. The troops in the Maginot Line did not move — they did not conduct maneuvers at all, precluding the possibility that they might be needed somewhere else, like to invade Germany. The French Army had gone to ground, a bad mentality to have in fluid, mobile warfare.

The Phony War did lull many French and British citizens into a false sense of complacency, thinking the Germans would not prove to have the mettle to invade the vaunted Maginot Line.

So, the global jihad continues, while its primary supporters and suppliers and enthusiasts remain untouched. If George Delano is a war president, he is a worrisomely bad one, who neither understands the nature of the war that has been declared on America nor the need to have the full cooperation of the American people in fighting it. He might as well have blamed it on ETA as Iraq. And like Mariano Rajoy, the defeated Spanish Popular party candidate, he may well learn that attempting to deceive the electorate about the true nature of the enemy will lead to his defeat.

I don’t know how well that went, but Mr. Brown did keep me on for 15 minutes more than I’d been scheduled, so I suppose it must have been okay. There probably wasn’t a lot new there for readers of this blog, but that’s the mass media for you. I did start wandering off a bit at one point – lesson: don’t read a book while being interviewed live on the radio.

DAN Brown, the author of last year’s best-selling “The Da Vinci Code,” is nothing but a plagiarist, charges the author of two novels that are strikingly similar to Brown’s. Author Lewis Perdue is preparing to sue Brown for copyright infringement, claiming “The Da Vinci Code” is in large part stolen from his 1983 novel, “The Da Vinci Legacy” and its 1985 follow-up, “Daughter of God” – which were both recently optioned by “Survivor” creator Mark Burnett.

I talked to Pocket Books, which also publishes Brown’s Angels and Demons, last week, and one of the things that came up in the conversation was the similarity of The Da Vinci Code to The Da Vinci Legacy. I’d even considered writing a similar book three years ago, but decided that I’m not interesting in treading ground that has been previously trod – and trod better – before.

Speaking of which, I need to get back to work….

DR takes exception: I don’t mean to be unkind. But has anyone ever told you how spooky and weird you look? What the hell is with that haircut? I’ll bet your parents are heartbroken that you would go on a national website looking like a nincompoop. You look like a cross between a white-supremest skin head and one of those Raelians that was in the news last year. Then combine that with an obviously imaginary name like “Vox” – for god’s sakes! Really – What kind of an image is this for a supposed “Christian” news commentator? I would have a hard time taking anything you write seriously. You look like you would be a handsome man without that fucked up haircut.

It’s so hard to type through the tears. These sort of emails always greatly amuse me. Do I write or look as if I give an airborne rodent’s posterior about the general public’s attitude about my name or my appearance? I’m not saying my indifference is total, but it’s really very close. In this sphere, it is ideas that matter to me. If someone objects to Austrian theory because I happen to shave the sides of my head, I don’t even know where or how to begin talking to them.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that I met Space Bunny precisely because of this, and I quote, “fucked up haircut”. Lessons in style 101: the hot blonde chick is always right.

In case anyone is up late tonight, I’ll be appearing on a radio show called AMERICA AT NIGHT with ERNIE BROWN at 11 PM Pacific time to discuss today’s column. One myth I’d particularly like to debunk is the notion that the global jihad is somehow opposed to democracy. It’s a ludicrous notion. The United States is actually the party actively opposed to democracy, curently in Iraq as well as previously in Algeria.

If you want to listen, it appears there is a streaming broadcast on Newstalk 1530 KFBK. Thanks, DaVinci, for finding that out.

From the Star Tribune: John Petters, 21, of Wayzata was stabbed to death Saturday in Florence after he and the woman he was with followed another woman through a gate and into the park of her villa as she returned home from a nightclub, a Florence prosecutor said…. The 27-year-old woman whom Petters and his friend followed through the gate told them they should not be there. When they didn’t leave, she called her father, who tried to make them leave before pulling out a knife and stabbing Petters around 4:30 a.m., Caleca said. Petters and his friend “didn’t understand Italian,” and the alleged attacker and his daughter spoke Italian during the confrontation because they didn’t realize the intruders were Americans, he said.

What a stupid waste. It reminds me of when a Japanese kid was blown away trying to go to a Halloween party at the wrong house. I’ve lived overseas enough to be well-practiced in spotting idiot tourists, or as I’ve heard them called, the white-shoes, but this was just so unnecessary. Obviously, most idiot tourism isn’t fatal, but here’s a few basic pointers to make one’s European trip a little more pleasant for everyone – not that anyone is planning one after last Thursday’s bombings.

1. Bring at least $50 of money for each country you’re planning on traveling through. If your expat friends wanted to run a bank, they’d have started one. And no, you can’t always find an ATM or a bank to exchange traveller’s checks.

2. Don’t wear tennis shoes. There are plenty of rubber-soled dark shoes out there. Buy a pair. And bag the jeans too. Women, wear skirts; European women tend to actually dress like women, not quasi-males. This year’s color: frosty pink.

3. It takes about half a second to cut through a belly-pouch. Why not just stamp “I’m a tourist, rob me” on your forehead instead?

4. Don’t wander around a strange city at 4 in the morning. Would you wander around Detroit then? Do you know where Norway’s Detroit is? Neither do I, but I’m sure they’ve got one.

5. Learn how to say: “Hello”, “please”, “thank you” and “I’m sorry, I don’t speak X.” It’s the least you can do. It could even save your life.

6. Everyone does not, in fact, speak English.

7. Talking louder and slower does not actually help someone who doesn’t speak English understand it. CAPIREBBE PIU MEGLIO SE PARLO MOLTO LENTO? I didn’t think so.

Jonah Goldberg wonders what allies are good for: Recall Ramesh’s — and others’ — critique of Krauthammer’s AEI speech? The upshot was that Krauthammer doesn’t care enough about allies. I think the criticism was valid, but the Spanish election has me re-thinking the value of allies like Spain. I salute the courage of the Aznar Government, the Spanish troops in Iraq and no doubt countless individual Spaniards who see the war on terror for what it is. But at the end of the day it’s clear that the Spanish people were never with us. Public opinion was always against Aznar — which makes him all the more courageous — and this one attack was all it took for public opinion to have its way.

So, the question is, what good was it to have Spain as an ally at all? Yes, there was some political cover, but clearly not very much in the eyes of the “world community.” Spain’s membership in the Coalition didn’t sway any Americans to support the war who otherwise wouldn’t have. And, Spain didn’t alleviate a very significant share of the military burden. Meanwhile, if terrorists learn the lesson that blowing up a few trains will cause nations like Spain to drop out of the Coalition, that helps nobody.

In this age of peaceless Pax Americana, allies are worse than useless. They are simply illusion, political cover for American politicians who do not wish to be given the cold-shoulder at Davos and the UN. This does not mean that the very real contributions of allied troops from countries like Spain, Italy, Britain, Australia and other places are not valued, only that in a strategic sense, the position of America, upon whom the jihad has been repeatedly declared for more than two decades, is weakened by a case that is dependent in any way upon foreign approval.

The Bush administration will have to learn that the Wilsonian nation-building it is attempting in Iraq is a fool’s game and a distraction from the real war, the war that the administration is still attempting to deny, or at the very least, downplay. This is not a war of land and occupation; as usual, in the early stages the generals continue to try to fight the last war.

If something needs doing, it needs to be done. If we’ve got help, great. If not, so be it.

That is the truth of the matter.