Guest Post: Trust Freedom

Veteran James Baxter has kindly permitted me to reprint his story on my blog:

Every September, I recall that is more than half a century (62 years) since I landed at Nagasaki with the 2nd Marine Division in the original occupation of Japan following World War II. This time every year, I have watched and listened to the light-hearted "peaceniks" and their light-headed symbolism-without-substance of ringing bells, flying pigeons, floating candles, and sonorous chanting and I recall again that "Peace is not a cause - it is an effect."

In July, 1945, my fellow 8th RCT Marines [I was a BARman] and I returned to Saipan following the successful conclusion of the Battle of Okinawa. We were issued new equipment and replacements joined each outfit in preparation for our coming amphibious assault on the home islands of Japan.

B-29 bombing had leveled the major cities of Japan, including Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Tokyo.

We were informed we would land three Marine divisions and six Army divisions, perhaps abreast, with large reserves following us in. It was estimated that it would cost half a million casualties to subdue the Japanese homeland.

In August, the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima but the Japanese government refused to surrender. Three days later a second A-bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. The Imperial Japanese government finally surrendered.

Following the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese admiral said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." Indeed, they had. Not surprisingly, the atomic bomb was produced by a free people functioning in a free environment. Not surprisingly because the creative process is a natural human choice-making process and inventiveness occurs most readily where choice-making opportunities abound. America!

Tamper with a giant, indeed! Tyrants, beware: Free men are nature's pit bulls of Liberty! The Japanese learned the hard way what tyrants of any generation should know: Never start a war with a free people - you never know what they may invent!

As a newly assigned member of a U.S. Marine intelligence section, I had a unique opportunity to visit many major cities of Japan, including Tokyo and Hiroshima, within weeks of their destruction. For a full year I observed the beaches, weapons, and troops we would have assaulted had the A-bombs not been dropped. Yes, it would have been very destructive for all, but especially for the people of Japan.

When we landed in Japan, for what came to be the finest and most humane occupation of a defeated enemy in recorded history, it was with great appreciation, thanksgiving, and praise for the atomic bomb team, including the aircrew of the Enola Gay. A half million American homes had been spared the Gold Star flag, including, I'm sure, my own.

Whenever I hear the apologists expressing guilt and shame for A-bombing and ending the war Japan had started (they ignore the cause-effect relation between Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki), I have noted that neither the effete critics nor the puff-adder politicians are among us in the assault landing-craft or the stinking rice paddies of their suggested alternative, "conventional" warfare. Stammering reluctance is obvious and continuous, but they do love to pontificate about the Rights that others, and the Bomb, have bought and preserved for them.

The vanities of ignorance and camouflaged cowardice abound as license for the assertion of virtuous "rights" purchased by the blood of others - those others who have borne the burden and physical expense of Rights whining apologists so casually and self-righteously claim.

At best, these fakers manifest a profound and cryptic ignorance of causal relations, myopic perception, and dull I.Q. At worst, there is a word and description in The Constitution defining those who love the enemy more than they love their own countrymen and their own posterity. Every Yankee Doodle Dandy knows what that word is.

In 1945, America was the only nation in the world with the Bomb and it behaved responsibly and respectfully. It remained so until two among us betrayed it to the Kremlin. Still, this American weapon system has been the prime deterrent to earth's latest model world- tyranny: Seventy years of Soviet collectivist definition, coercion, and domination of individual human beings.

The message is this: Trust Freedom. Remember, tyrants never learn. The restriction of Freedom is the limitation of human choice, and choice is the fulcrum-point of the creative process in human affairs. As earth's choicemaker, it is our human identity on nature's beautiful blue planet and the natural premise of man's free institutions, environments, and respectful relations with one another. Made in the image of our Creator, free men choose, create, and progress - or die.

Free men should not fear the moon-god-crowd oppressor nor choose any of his ways. Recall with a confident Job and a victorious David, "Know ye not that you are in league with the stones of the field?"

Semper Fidelis
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WW II and Korean War

James Baxter offers us selected articles at his website, The Choicemaker

Lebanon: The Perils of Partition

Abu Kais, I suspected from your previous report that if "everybody" is talking about partition, the rumor probably originated with Hezbollah itself. Hezbollah has effective control of a large portion of the Shia community and in police states rumors are circulated by a special service for the purpose of obscuring the truth [re: "Viktor Suvorov", Inside the Aquarium] and establishing the meme rulers feel is desirable to be at the top of the minds of the people.

Partition might have worked six years or even twelve months ago, but not now; Hezbollah is preparing. While I feel sure Syro/Hezb/Iran wants Lebanon intact as a pliable cover for anti-Western military and terrorist activity, they are preparing a fallback position in case their effort to install a compliant Lebanese president fails.

I figure that Syria and Iran, through Hezbollah, has been offerring Lebanese a choice: peace (that is, no assassinations, mob violence, or civil war) and prosperity (enjoy the things Saudi capital helped you build) in areas outside Hezbollah territory in exchange for a free hand at extending Iranian imperialism, or throw in with the West and see your leaders die, and possibly a resumption of the civil war.

Berri practically promises that siding with the West will bring immediate violence. Of course, siding with Iran reduces Lebanon to what diplomats call a "captive state". I believe this will lead to the eventual extinction of a large portion of the Lebanese population once Hezbollah's super-protected missiles are believed to be armed with weapons of mass destruction. Lebanon's current leaders may realize the paradoxical danger of opposing the West that more weapons means less security, but a few honeyed words from Persian lips, something along the lines of, "We'll get you and your family and money out before They attack", may be enough to sway some people.

I have been reading the Lebanese Constitution. The president is far from being a potted plant, especially when the threat of domestic strife is present. His powers are comparable to yet greater than those of the British monarch. In a "normally" functioning parliamentary democracy his functions would indeed be mostly ceremonial, but the Lebanese president has the capacity to single-handedly throw much of the chess-playing carpet-weaving mullahs' careful plans for a loop, and seriously complicate their plans for regional domination.

How is that? I'll just give you one example: Article 53-7 states that the President "accredits ambassadors and accept the credentials of ambassadors." In ordinary countries, that just means the President shakes the hand of the new ambassador when he arrives. But in Lebanon, the president - and ONLY the president - has the power to kick Iranian and Syrian "diplomats" out of Lebanon entirely, and putting a padlock on their embassies so none can enter.

You can now see why the presidency is such a concern to the Iranians and Syrians: without an embassy to serve as an intelligence and command center not subject to Lebanese law, their underhanded operations in Lebanon are seriously curtailed.

Syria/Hezb/Iran are not completely sure their intimidation plan will succeed. Thus their fallback plan of partition: they establish a contiguous territory subject to their control.

Why discuss partition now, rather than years earlier, and how is this linked to the presidency? Because of the Lebanese president's oath:

I swear by Almighty God to observe the Constitution and the laws of the Lebanese Nation and to maintain the independence of Lebanon and its territorial integrity."

The current Syria/Hezbollah/Iran axis has a "fig-leaf" arrangement where "territorial integrity" is just a convenient fiction, but partition is the reality. Already it is said that the Syrian Army occupies dozens of kilometers of Lebanese territory without a peep of objection from the Lebanese president responsible for his country's "territorial integrity".

A puppet president like Lahoud accepts this arrangement without blinking. But another sort of president might object, feeling that accepting it means breaking his oath. He might decide, for example, to honor his oath by calling foreign forces to assist in defend the borders.

Hence the importance of the relation of the president to the partition issue. Hezbollah's could declare partition by fiat under a compliant president who would simply comply with his masters' wishes. But Hezbollah could also bring up the question of partition under a non-puppet president via the political process, and try to use it to destroy Lebanese democracy: either accept partition or it's civil war, or accept partition and lose your democratic legitimacy.

I suppose Lebanese both at home and abroad must feel like fish in a slowly constricting net, paralyzed by fear and lack of fresh oxygen from escaping their fate. It need not be so, but in my opinion Lebanese require both a leap in logic and a leap of faith to escape their deadly fate. They did it once before when King Hariri was assassinated. Can they do it now?

"Radical Justice"

Enjoy, before YouTube wipes it out for copyright infringement:

Part I:


Part II:

"The Truth Is What the Truth Is"

Those were the fateful words of convicted Congressman Bob Ney's Chief of Staff. Truth was his ultimate loyalty, so his relationship with his boss and friends had to suffer.

That is why the opposite criteria, taught by an Egyptian cleric to his class of children, is so disturbing:

Ahmad quarrels with Mahmoud, and the two are mad at each other, After the show, they might got out and hit each other. What should we do? We take Ahmad aside, and say to him: “Ahmad, you are mad at Mahmoud, but Mahmoud loves you very much, and keeps saying: I love Ahmad very much and don’t know why he’s mad at me. I want to make up with him, and if I was sure he would agree to make up with me, I’d tell him I love him very much.” And then you go to Mahmoud and say to him: “Why are you mad at Ahmad? Ahmad praises you, and loves you very very much.” Did I lie to him? Yes, I did. But is this lie permitted or forbidden?

Children: It’s permitted.

Mahmoud Al-Masri: How come? Because we are reconciling two Muslims.

Is this truly a Muslim teaching? It is easy to imagine that this teaching endorses any action a Muslim takes to blame Jews for any wrongs Muslim do to each other, because it encourages reconcilement between Muslims. It explains a lot of things, like the easy acceptance of Israel-hatred once a community is conquered by Islamic militants.

If Heaton had been a Muslim, would he ever have turned in his boss?

"The Truth Is What the Truth Is."

It was only when Heaton uttered the words above that he "began cooperating proactively with government prosecutors and investigators" rather than merely being a target of the investigation.

Do Muslims currently follow a different standard? If so, is there any hope this could change for the better? I invite my readers' feedback in the comments section.

"I Guess I've Done My Duty"

Situation for a wounded specialist reluctantly returning home from Iraq:

An estranged parent.
A mid-tour divorce.
Attacked by IEDs four times.
Two best friends blown to bits.
Two offspring dead in an explosion.

But these little things aren't the reasons why this soldier has to return home. To read more about this remarkable woman, click here to read this latest post at "Notes from Downrange", the hot warblog-for-a-month written by Petraeus protegé and nineteen year-old Princeton sophomore Wesley Morgan.

Update, 9/2/07: The linked post has been removed. As "Truck" pointed out in the comments, this woman took Wes for a ride. He thought confirming her story with her sergeant was enough, and so did I.

That doesn't mean the rest of young Mr. Morgan's work isn't good reading. His tour is almost over; you can get the latest updates here.

The Bark of the Aardvark

Abu Aardvark complains

Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are actually working at cross-purposes. Petraeus's military 'successes' and local initiatives come at the expense of the national political track, not in support of it...

Crocker's job is to encourage political reconciliation at the national level, which has been the Bush administration's stated goal from the start and which was the declared goal of the 'surge'...Petraeus's strategy thus far has been to work at the local level. His signature initiative to date, the arming and tactical alignment with Sunni tribes and former insurgents, largely ignores the Iraqi state.

They aren't working at cross-purposes, exactly. By appealing to Iraqis more directly, Petraeus is moving the entire table.

It's a little like the medieval practice of circuit courts: by demonstrating that Iraqis can get better results at the hands of the Americans rather than their own government, the U.S. increases its credibility among the populace, just as English citizens' discovery that they received better justice at the hands of the King's servants' rather than their local lords increased loyalty to the King.

Maliki can no longer drive out the Sunni populace by withholding state funds from them and turning a blind eye (at best) to the Shia militias and the Al-Qaeda groups used to justify their existence. The root problem, I guess, is in the Iraqi Arab winner-take-all approach to government, no matter if it is democratic or not. Just look at how a Saddam-era law was revived to protect government ministers AND their entourage from prying eyes, once again enabling high-level corruption.

If Maliki and his ilk refuse to change their purposes very soon, answers to these problems can only be found at the political, not diplomatic, level. Possibly the U.S. could help by taking a more active role in the Iraqi political process, openly pointing out Maliki's failures and proposing that Iraqis support a government that truly embraces the country, rather than sectarian desires. Perhaps the U.S. can encourage the development of local leaders, especially those who have become prominent in the wake of The Surge. These can then band together and, because of their popularity, apply pressure to the "national" government, or start a national campaign themselves.

This makes the success of The Surge more important than ever. Not only must Al-Qaeda be dealt with, but the Shia militants as well, to better forestall any campaign to silence or assassinate moderate Shia leaders by militant extremists of any stripe.

I-35W Bridge Collapse Speculations

Over at The Belmont Club.