Today was a very good day.
Why? Because somebody in Washington is looking ahead, that's why. I don't really care who. I'm interested in results.
Here's the deal: terrorists are a short-term nuisance, not a long-term strategic threat. They can only become a long-term strategic threat if we ignore them or fail to deal with them. As long as we keep our nerve, they cannot win.
There does exist a long-term strategic threat, though. One that hasn't gotten much airplay recently.
Who would that be, you ask?
China.
Don't let the growing "market" economy fool you. It's still a repressive dictatorship. Chinese people do not enjoy basic freedoms that we take for granted. We know from Tiananmen Square what measures the government is willing to take to keep up the repression. What we don't know, and don't really want to find out, is what measures they're willing to take against their neighbors to prop up the regime at home.
But we now have a powerful new friend that we can count on to keep China in check. Who might that be?
Why, India.
India? When we think of India, we think of the teeming slums of New Delhi, or Calcutta. But that's changing. India's economy is also growing. They have a fairly well-educated work force. They have a strong warrior tradition, and therefore, a pretty good Army. They took good notes while the British were in charge, and kept the best of their practices. And, their technical schools are first-rate. The Indian Institutes of Technology are in the same tier as MIT as far as engineering schools go.
So, although they're not a Great Power yet, they're certainly an up-and-comer. Which is why this treaty is so very important for our future.
It's always good for a superpower to have an understudy. Britain did, while they were on top of the heap. It worked out well for them. Even though WWI and WWII between them cost Britain her empire, she was able to retain her prestige, thanks to her close relationship with her one-time protege, the United States.
Up to now, we really didn't have an ally with which we could have that sort of relationship. A nation that shared many of our traditions and values, but was on the upswing of their power curve.
Mind you, this is just a start. It's not a mutual defense treaty yet, though it will probably become one. And India gets a lot of goodies out of this, too. Access to technology, for a start. It would not astonish me to see India added to the list of nations being offered the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, once that goes into production. Nor would I be amazed if they managed to get in on the AL-1 project at some point. And, of course, there are the ever-popular joint training exercises. It gives us a chance to joust against former Warsaw Pact merchandise of the sort that China still fields.
Yes, this is a very good development. You can never have too many good, strong friends.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Damn You, Dick Durbin!
The furor over Dick Durbin's remarks on the Senate floor have largely come and gone, but they won't soon be forgotten.
One telling post over at VodkaPundit has produced some interesting comments, the most telling being this bit:
"Guys like Durbin are why I just can't take the Dems seriously when it comes to matters of national security." -- RandMan
Do note that people like RandMan may be in line with the Democrats' position on many social issues. But when one party is perceived to lack the desire, or even the WILL, to defend the Republic, social issues take a back seat to survival.
Here, gentlemen, is the payoff for spurning military affairs for the past three decades. While we have spent three decades running like scalded dogs from anything in a uniform, the Republican Party has made the military its own private playground. Ask virutally any young man in uniform which sort of politician has his best interests at heart, and he's far more likely to answer "Republican" or "None" before he responds "Democrat".
That oughtta tell you something. It oughtta tell you that we desperately need to change our thinking.
Durbin has proven himself to be a prime example of the bad, old thinking.
Mind you, we do need to do some serious, adult-level thinking about what to do about Guantanamo in the long run. It's obvious that keeping detainees in some indeterminate, in-between status cannot be done indefinitely. Eventually, as soon as practical in fact, they need to be either tried and sentenced, or released. But that's an issue I would like to save for another day.
The question is, how can Democrats approach this issue, and not appear to be raving lunatics?
Here's the problem: we may oppose the war all we like, but the ugly fact remains THAT WE ARE BLOODY WELL THERE!
That particular can of whoop-ass cannot be unpoured, once the pop-top has been popped and the contents emptied out all over someone else's real estate.
We must start with the ground-level reality that we are, in fact, engaged in combat operations and trying to rebuild a society that's been broken.
Point Numero Uno: The very worst thing we can do at this point is walk away right now. That virtually guarantees that people we don't like will win. Not that staying will guarantee that people we like WILL win, but staying increases those odds. Now that we're there, against what we might consider to be all sorts of good advice, we must see the thing through. Why? Why throw good money after bad? Because, part of Al-Qaeda's philosophy is based on the "fact" that Americans will always cut and run when the body bags start coming in. They learned that from our behavior in Vietnam, and in Somalia. We haven't the guts for street-level fighting. Eventually, we'll get sick of it, and go home.
We simply MUST break this image. We will have no peace until our enemies come to the realization that we WILL seek them out wherever they are, and stay as long as it takes to destroy their ability to do us harm. Reagan was half right. We must make them believe that they can neither run nor hide.
Point Numero Two-O: The second worst thing we can do is announce any kind of time-table for withdrawal. That's just the previous case, postponed. The enemy will know exactly how long they must lay low and conserve their strength, before their victory is assured.
What makes Durbin's comments so poisonous is that they can have only one purpose: they sicken the American public's will to see this matter through to its end.
Why, Senator? Why do you want to see us beaten? Not merely the American soldiers fighting in Iraq, but your own party here at home? Do you WANT the Republicans to own the White House for another generation? With every such comment, Senator, you give them more ammunition to use against us.
There are a couple of things that I think Democrats ought to be doing, if they ever expect to be taken seriously on national security again.
First: excise the words "Quagmire" and "Vietnam" from your vocabulary. A flat desert has damn little in common with a hilly jungle. And in the end, the NVA only won because we refused to support ARVN like we had promised to do. We have to stay in this for the duration. Our future as a major power depends on it.
Second: It does us no damn good at all to heap scorn on the President's policies unless we have something positive to put in their place. What, precisely, would we do in his place? Specifics, gentlemen. Do we really have any better ideas on what to do? If not, we'd bloody well better get some.
There's been some work in this direction. Take a look at the Truman National Security Project, and at the Arsenal of Democracy, if you haven't already.
We've got to get to where we're taken seriously in military and foreign affairs again, or we're lost as a national party. And that's got to happen soon.
One telling post over at VodkaPundit has produced some interesting comments, the most telling being this bit:
"Guys like Durbin are why I just can't take the Dems seriously when it comes to matters of national security." -- RandMan
Do note that people like RandMan may be in line with the Democrats' position on many social issues. But when one party is perceived to lack the desire, or even the WILL, to defend the Republic, social issues take a back seat to survival.
Here, gentlemen, is the payoff for spurning military affairs for the past three decades. While we have spent three decades running like scalded dogs from anything in a uniform, the Republican Party has made the military its own private playground. Ask virutally any young man in uniform which sort of politician has his best interests at heart, and he's far more likely to answer "Republican" or "None" before he responds "Democrat".
That oughtta tell you something. It oughtta tell you that we desperately need to change our thinking.
Durbin has proven himself to be a prime example of the bad, old thinking.
Mind you, we do need to do some serious, adult-level thinking about what to do about Guantanamo in the long run. It's obvious that keeping detainees in some indeterminate, in-between status cannot be done indefinitely. Eventually, as soon as practical in fact, they need to be either tried and sentenced, or released. But that's an issue I would like to save for another day.
The question is, how can Democrats approach this issue, and not appear to be raving lunatics?
Here's the problem: we may oppose the war all we like, but the ugly fact remains THAT WE ARE BLOODY WELL THERE!
That particular can of whoop-ass cannot be unpoured, once the pop-top has been popped and the contents emptied out all over someone else's real estate.
We must start with the ground-level reality that we are, in fact, engaged in combat operations and trying to rebuild a society that's been broken.
Point Numero Uno: The very worst thing we can do at this point is walk away right now. That virtually guarantees that people we don't like will win. Not that staying will guarantee that people we like WILL win, but staying increases those odds. Now that we're there, against what we might consider to be all sorts of good advice, we must see the thing through. Why? Why throw good money after bad? Because, part of Al-Qaeda's philosophy is based on the "fact" that Americans will always cut and run when the body bags start coming in. They learned that from our behavior in Vietnam, and in Somalia. We haven't the guts for street-level fighting. Eventually, we'll get sick of it, and go home.
We simply MUST break this image. We will have no peace until our enemies come to the realization that we WILL seek them out wherever they are, and stay as long as it takes to destroy their ability to do us harm. Reagan was half right. We must make them believe that they can neither run nor hide.
Point Numero Two-O: The second worst thing we can do is announce any kind of time-table for withdrawal. That's just the previous case, postponed. The enemy will know exactly how long they must lay low and conserve their strength, before their victory is assured.
What makes Durbin's comments so poisonous is that they can have only one purpose: they sicken the American public's will to see this matter through to its end.
Why, Senator? Why do you want to see us beaten? Not merely the American soldiers fighting in Iraq, but your own party here at home? Do you WANT the Republicans to own the White House for another generation? With every such comment, Senator, you give them more ammunition to use against us.
There are a couple of things that I think Democrats ought to be doing, if they ever expect to be taken seriously on national security again.
First: excise the words "Quagmire" and "Vietnam" from your vocabulary. A flat desert has damn little in common with a hilly jungle. And in the end, the NVA only won because we refused to support ARVN like we had promised to do. We have to stay in this for the duration. Our future as a major power depends on it.
Second: It does us no damn good at all to heap scorn on the President's policies unless we have something positive to put in their place. What, precisely, would we do in his place? Specifics, gentlemen. Do we really have any better ideas on what to do? If not, we'd bloody well better get some.
There's been some work in this direction. Take a look at the Truman National Security Project, and at the Arsenal of Democracy, if you haven't already.
We've got to get to where we're taken seriously in military and foreign affairs again, or we're lost as a national party. And that's got to happen soon.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Father's Day
In a bit of a reversal on the usual custom for the day, I'd like to offer a post in honor of my daughter.
IF (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of trials surpassed,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Woman, my lass!
IF (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of trials surpassed,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Woman, my lass!
Monday, May 16, 2005
Breakout and Pursuit
This has been an interesting week, mostly for the action surrounding Operation Matador in Iraq.
The War on Terror can be thought of in some ways as a conventional military campaign. There are elements that are decidedly UNconventional, and those may prove to be decisive, but the parts that we CAN see conform in some ways to the conventional model.
Afghanistan was essentially a Reconnaissance-in-Force. Although there were important strategic reasons for hitting Afghanistan -- we simply HAD to attack and eliminate Al-Qaeda's training and support infrastructure -- we also gained a great deal of information on our enemies. It's arguable whether or not the invasion of Iraq was necessary, but having done the deed, we were able to turn that into a Meeting Engagement, which we were better suited for doctrinally than our enemies were. The climax of that phase was Fallujah in November 2004, but in some sense the operations since then have followed the same theme.
But, meeting engagements don't last forever. One side runs out of something. It's either fighting men, food, water, munitions, the will to fight, or any combination, but once they're out of it, they're done. They stop fighting, and start running.
Then, you get into a very interesting and fluid phase sometimes called Breakout and Pursuit. It's not a complete analogy, mind you, but it seems to fit current events quite well. With the conclusion of Operation Matador, we sit astride the insurgency's lines of supply for cash, recruits, and armament. Armament they don't sweat so much. There's scads of that stuff left over from the old regime. Cash and recruits, now ... They're gonna hurt for those, and possibly soon.
We also have reports now of schisms within Al-Qaeda itself. This is very good news, if true. It speaks, partially, to the morale problems Al-Qaeda has been experiencing in Iraq. It also seems to indicate that those problems are spreading. There was talk a few years ago of Al-Qaeda recruiting armies of non-Arab muslims to do their bidding. Now it seems that such talk was premature, if not completely off-base from the start.
Which brings up the question, "Now what?" Well, I don't know, exactly. As I said, breakout and pursuit is a very fluid thing. It can even be temporary, if the pursuit is not maintained and the enemy can find new bases and sancturaries. But the guys running this show are well aware of that, and will keep the screws on with a vengeance.
The critical battlefield now is not a place as such. The critical battlefield now is the morale and resolve of every American citizen. Truly, that was always the case, but it is more true now that we are in such a fluid phase. The key thing to remember now is that, provided only that we maintain our resolve, WE WILL WIN. They're on the run. Keeping up the pressure may be expensive. There may be temporary reverses. There's still plenty of hard work ahead. But not as much hard work as we've already got behind us. It helps to keep a sense of perspective. Fifteen hundred of our best is a grim price, but ...
Fifteen hundred. Two years in Iraq. Tea-time at Gettysburg.
Stout hearts, citizens! Freedom will yet carry the day!
The War on Terror can be thought of in some ways as a conventional military campaign. There are elements that are decidedly UNconventional, and those may prove to be decisive, but the parts that we CAN see conform in some ways to the conventional model.
Afghanistan was essentially a Reconnaissance-in-Force. Although there were important strategic reasons for hitting Afghanistan -- we simply HAD to attack and eliminate Al-Qaeda's training and support infrastructure -- we also gained a great deal of information on our enemies. It's arguable whether or not the invasion of Iraq was necessary, but having done the deed, we were able to turn that into a Meeting Engagement, which we were better suited for doctrinally than our enemies were. The climax of that phase was Fallujah in November 2004, but in some sense the operations since then have followed the same theme.
But, meeting engagements don't last forever. One side runs out of something. It's either fighting men, food, water, munitions, the will to fight, or any combination, but once they're out of it, they're done. They stop fighting, and start running.
Then, you get into a very interesting and fluid phase sometimes called Breakout and Pursuit. It's not a complete analogy, mind you, but it seems to fit current events quite well. With the conclusion of Operation Matador, we sit astride the insurgency's lines of supply for cash, recruits, and armament. Armament they don't sweat so much. There's scads of that stuff left over from the old regime. Cash and recruits, now ... They're gonna hurt for those, and possibly soon.
We also have reports now of schisms within Al-Qaeda itself. This is very good news, if true. It speaks, partially, to the morale problems Al-Qaeda has been experiencing in Iraq. It also seems to indicate that those problems are spreading. There was talk a few years ago of Al-Qaeda recruiting armies of non-Arab muslims to do their bidding. Now it seems that such talk was premature, if not completely off-base from the start.
Which brings up the question, "Now what?" Well, I don't know, exactly. As I said, breakout and pursuit is a very fluid thing. It can even be temporary, if the pursuit is not maintained and the enemy can find new bases and sancturaries. But the guys running this show are well aware of that, and will keep the screws on with a vengeance.
The critical battlefield now is not a place as such. The critical battlefield now is the morale and resolve of every American citizen. Truly, that was always the case, but it is more true now that we are in such a fluid phase. The key thing to remember now is that, provided only that we maintain our resolve, WE WILL WIN. They're on the run. Keeping up the pressure may be expensive. There may be temporary reverses. There's still plenty of hard work ahead. But not as much hard work as we've already got behind us. It helps to keep a sense of perspective. Fifteen hundred of our best is a grim price, but ...
Fifteen hundred. Two years in Iraq. Tea-time at Gettysburg.
Stout hearts, citizens! Freedom will yet carry the day!
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
According to CNN, we've managed to intercept a letter purportedly intended for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Read the whole thing, and let it sink in.
Now, some points to ponder:
First, is this genuine? It seems reasonable that it would be. It's dangerous to fake something like this. When it comes out (and it's always when, not if), it's like handing ammunition to your enemy. Rather like, oh, those bogus National Guard memos from the campaign last year. It's only out of the kindness of his heart that Kerry hasn't put out a hit on the people responsible for that goat-rope. No, it's probably genuine. We snagged his laptop not too long ago, and have his entire electronic rolodex. We know who he's been making contact with lately, and have been rolling them up as fast as we can. This letter is fallout from that seizure.
Second, there's evidence of a bit of blowback for Cap'n Z for having decamped so expeditiously from Fallujah. This sort of thing never plays well. To this day, there are people who refer to General MacArthur as "Dugout Doug" for having bailed out of the Phillippines. He managed to salvage his reputation -- victory covers a multitude of sins. However, when all you can see of your Fearless Leaders are butts and heels, even fanatics can hit a bit of a slump. One of the functions of leadership is rallying the troops, and it's rarely so important as when your side is suffering a reversal of fortunes. This letter seems to indicate that al-Qaeda in Iraq is falling short on leadership.
Third, despite the continued bombings and violence, it's clear who has the momentum. And it's not Zarqawi. In any struggle, you can generally tell who has the momentum. They're the ones who are acting. Mind you, the terrorists had the initiative at one point, due to the fact that the post-invasion planning was so lackadaisical. The Coalition forces were reacting to the insurgency, not the other way around. They moved around the country at will, and had many safe areas. This included entire cities. We managed to get our act together, though, and things began to shift in Summer 2004. The momentum shifted decisively in Fallujah, during November 2004. That was a key tipping point, because it set up the environment that was necessary for the January elections to succeed. Having seized the momentum, we're keeping it. The new Iraq is taking firmer and firmer shape all the time, with new milestones seen almost daily. Today, for instance, we saw the installation of the new cabinet. With each passing day, the government gains power and legitimacy, while the terrorists gain more and more enemies. And their response? More bombings, more violence.
Didn't someone say once that a good definition for insanity was doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result?
All this adds up to an insurgency that's on its desperate last legs. And since the ex-Baathists threw in with Zarqawi, this might well pertain to them, as well.
There will probably be low-level violence for years. But a point will come when terrorist action becomes indistinguishable from garden-variety criminality. And I don't expect to have to wait all that long for that.
No, not all that long at all.
Especially with the opposition's leaders cowering under bridges, for fear of being seen in clear daylight.
Read the whole thing, and let it sink in.
Now, some points to ponder:
First, is this genuine? It seems reasonable that it would be. It's dangerous to fake something like this. When it comes out (and it's always when, not if), it's like handing ammunition to your enemy. Rather like, oh, those bogus National Guard memos from the campaign last year. It's only out of the kindness of his heart that Kerry hasn't put out a hit on the people responsible for that goat-rope. No, it's probably genuine. We snagged his laptop not too long ago, and have his entire electronic rolodex. We know who he's been making contact with lately, and have been rolling them up as fast as we can. This letter is fallout from that seizure.
Second, there's evidence of a bit of blowback for Cap'n Z for having decamped so expeditiously from Fallujah. This sort of thing never plays well. To this day, there are people who refer to General MacArthur as "Dugout Doug" for having bailed out of the Phillippines. He managed to salvage his reputation -- victory covers a multitude of sins. However, when all you can see of your Fearless Leaders are butts and heels, even fanatics can hit a bit of a slump. One of the functions of leadership is rallying the troops, and it's rarely so important as when your side is suffering a reversal of fortunes. This letter seems to indicate that al-Qaeda in Iraq is falling short on leadership.
Third, despite the continued bombings and violence, it's clear who has the momentum. And it's not Zarqawi. In any struggle, you can generally tell who has the momentum. They're the ones who are acting. Mind you, the terrorists had the initiative at one point, due to the fact that the post-invasion planning was so lackadaisical. The Coalition forces were reacting to the insurgency, not the other way around. They moved around the country at will, and had many safe areas. This included entire cities. We managed to get our act together, though, and things began to shift in Summer 2004. The momentum shifted decisively in Fallujah, during November 2004. That was a key tipping point, because it set up the environment that was necessary for the January elections to succeed. Having seized the momentum, we're keeping it. The new Iraq is taking firmer and firmer shape all the time, with new milestones seen almost daily. Today, for instance, we saw the installation of the new cabinet. With each passing day, the government gains power and legitimacy, while the terrorists gain more and more enemies. And their response? More bombings, more violence.
Didn't someone say once that a good definition for insanity was doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result?
All this adds up to an insurgency that's on its desperate last legs. And since the ex-Baathists threw in with Zarqawi, this might well pertain to them, as well.
There will probably be low-level violence for years. But a point will come when terrorist action becomes indistinguishable from garden-variety criminality. And I don't expect to have to wait all that long for that.
No, not all that long at all.
Especially with the opposition's leaders cowering under bridges, for fear of being seen in clear daylight.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Expensive Hardware Lobbing
In honor of the roll-out of Discovery to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, I offer the following walk on the lighter side of space exploration. To wit:
The history of planetary exploration, as written by a sports journalist.
It's a shame that they stop at Mars. There are four other planets to consider. But, the play-by-play wouldn't be quite as interesting.
Every so often, I get the urge to give that a shot. Here's a first cut.
Jupiter
Earth has stolen a commanding 0-7 lead on the king of the planets, beginning with the Pioneer 10 spacecraft in 1973, and ending the current series with a stupendous performance by Galileo in the mid to late 1990s. That last looked for a while as if it would be Jupiter's first goal in the match, when its antenna failed to deploy properly, but masterful play on Earth's part saved the streak.
Saturn
Saturn has fared little better, dropping four staight to Earth. Pioneer 11, along with Voyagers 1 and 2, grabbed three quick goals in the early 1980s. A lengthy delay followed, prompting many fans to wonder if Saturn would ever get a chance at a rematch. Earth obliged with the Cassini probe, which scored a successful goal in late 2004.
Uranus
Uranus has only hosted one match to date, dropping a flyby to Voyager 2 in 1986. Earth leads this series 0-1.
Neptune
Neptune, like Uranus, has only had one test, with the same result. Voyager 2 earned Earth a goal in 1989, becoming the only player ever to score four goals in succession. Voyager 2 has since gone on to a lengthy retirement tour, but still calls home regularly.
Pluto
Pluto has yet to host a match. The New Horizons probe is due for launch soon, however, so eager sports fans are watching their calendars for 2014 or thereabouts.
Comets, Asteroids, Minor Planets
In minor league news, there have been few results to report. Giotto slipped one in on Halley's Comet in 1986, giving Earth a quick 0-1 lead. Deep Space 1 edged out a squeaker, almost dropping the goal to failures in the navigation system. NEAR followed that up with a commanding tour-de-force at Eros, extending Earth's lead to 0-3. Genesis carried out a successful comet rendezvous to bring the score to 0-4, but sustained serious injuries sliding in to home plate.
And that's it for the sporting report. Good night!
The history of planetary exploration, as written by a sports journalist.
It's a shame that they stop at Mars. There are four other planets to consider. But, the play-by-play wouldn't be quite as interesting.
Every so often, I get the urge to give that a shot. Here's a first cut.
Jupiter
Earth has stolen a commanding 0-7 lead on the king of the planets, beginning with the Pioneer 10 spacecraft in 1973, and ending the current series with a stupendous performance by Galileo in the mid to late 1990s. That last looked for a while as if it would be Jupiter's first goal in the match, when its antenna failed to deploy properly, but masterful play on Earth's part saved the streak.
Saturn
Saturn has fared little better, dropping four staight to Earth. Pioneer 11, along with Voyagers 1 and 2, grabbed three quick goals in the early 1980s. A lengthy delay followed, prompting many fans to wonder if Saturn would ever get a chance at a rematch. Earth obliged with the Cassini probe, which scored a successful goal in late 2004.
Uranus
Uranus has only hosted one match to date, dropping a flyby to Voyager 2 in 1986. Earth leads this series 0-1.
Neptune
Neptune, like Uranus, has only had one test, with the same result. Voyager 2 earned Earth a goal in 1989, becoming the only player ever to score four goals in succession. Voyager 2 has since gone on to a lengthy retirement tour, but still calls home regularly.
Pluto
Pluto has yet to host a match. The New Horizons probe is due for launch soon, however, so eager sports fans are watching their calendars for 2014 or thereabouts.
Comets, Asteroids, Minor Planets
In minor league news, there have been few results to report. Giotto slipped one in on Halley's Comet in 1986, giving Earth a quick 0-1 lead. Deep Space 1 edged out a squeaker, almost dropping the goal to failures in the navigation system. NEAR followed that up with a commanding tour-de-force at Eros, extending Earth's lead to 0-3. Genesis carried out a successful comet rendezvous to bring the score to 0-4, but sustained serious injuries sliding in to home plate.
And that's it for the sporting report. Good night!
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
The Morality of Shields
I'd like to clarify something I wrote in my post on stupid intel tricks.
Specifically, the tone of the fourth and last item in that list.
It's a very serious topic, and some of you may not understand how anyone could be flippant about it. I understand. With me, it's a coping mechanism, more or less. Those of you of a certain age understand what I mean. Some things, if you can't laugh, you'll start crying and you might not be able to stop.
Atomic energy has, on the balance, proven a boon to civilization. It provides us a way of producing electricity without filling the air we breathe and the water we drink with industrial poison. If it's ever allowed to come into its own here in America, it can change lives for the better.
Atomic weapons ... are more problematic. On the one hand, I probably wouldn't even be alive without them. Had World War II lasted enough, my father probably would have had to participate in Operation Downfall, and may not have lived through the experience. He'd already survived bailing out of two airplanes. There's no reason to think he'd be three times lucky.
On the other hand, they are the most destructive weapons ever devised. Broadly, vastly, indiscriminately destructive. The only value they have is indimidation, the threat of wide scale annihilation.
They did manage to enforce a fragile peace between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We knew, they knew, that we could never cross swords directly. That way lay death in unimaginable numbers. The utter destruction of everything either side might have been fighting to protect. It was only imaginable in extremis. And, it stained the souls of everyone that considered the problem deeply.
I can only speak for myself on that. But I do know that I have seen the gates of Hell cracked open, and I have looked inside.
For ten years, I was able to put that nightmare vision aside. Between the end of the Cold War and the recent nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, I was able to forget those visions of horror.
See, here's the thing that I don't like: if some nut lobs a missile at us, even by accident, we only have one option open to us. It's what we've solemnly sworn to do for over half a century, now. We will bomb the perpetrators until they glow in the dark for the next ten thousand years.
I find it morally unacceptable that our only option in such a situation is mass murder. But since it is our only option, we must be prepared to make it happen, if it's forced upon us. I sure as hell don't have to like it, though.
How much better it would be, if we were somehow able to keep a stray missile from finding a home. How much better, if we could swat it down in flight, and keep it from erasing San Francisco, or Los Angeles, or Portland, or Sacramento. We would have so many more options, in such a case. A successful intercept, followed up by a surgical strike on the offending installations, would send a powerful message to anyone contemplating a similar move.
So why in the eternal name of God are so many people so violently opposed to America's attempt to attain such a system? Why is there such knee-jerk dismissal of such research as destabilizing?
Here's a thing that I find both repellent and curious: the most vehement opponents of missile defense aren't the ones who think it will not work. They're afraid that it WILL. They're afraid that it will provide an effective layer of defense, and provoke an arms race. Therefore, they contend that such a defense is immoral.
Again: the status quo is that our only defense against nuclear strike is the promise of swift and certain thermonuclear genocide. How is that more moral than deploying interceptor missiles and laser-armed aircraft?
In the end, I believe that it is always more moral to threaten things than people. It is more moral to swat an unmanned missile out of the air than promise fiery death to millions who've never done us any harm.
For those of you who still oppose missile defense, convince me of what I've missed in the paragraph above.
THEN we'll talk.
Specifically, the tone of the fourth and last item in that list.
It's a very serious topic, and some of you may not understand how anyone could be flippant about it. I understand. With me, it's a coping mechanism, more or less. Those of you of a certain age understand what I mean. Some things, if you can't laugh, you'll start crying and you might not be able to stop.
Atomic energy has, on the balance, proven a boon to civilization. It provides us a way of producing electricity without filling the air we breathe and the water we drink with industrial poison. If it's ever allowed to come into its own here in America, it can change lives for the better.
Atomic weapons ... are more problematic. On the one hand, I probably wouldn't even be alive without them. Had World War II lasted enough, my father probably would have had to participate in Operation Downfall, and may not have lived through the experience. He'd already survived bailing out of two airplanes. There's no reason to think he'd be three times lucky.
On the other hand, they are the most destructive weapons ever devised. Broadly, vastly, indiscriminately destructive. The only value they have is indimidation, the threat of wide scale annihilation.
They did manage to enforce a fragile peace between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We knew, they knew, that we could never cross swords directly. That way lay death in unimaginable numbers. The utter destruction of everything either side might have been fighting to protect. It was only imaginable in extremis. And, it stained the souls of everyone that considered the problem deeply.
I can only speak for myself on that. But I do know that I have seen the gates of Hell cracked open, and I have looked inside.
For ten years, I was able to put that nightmare vision aside. Between the end of the Cold War and the recent nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, I was able to forget those visions of horror.
See, here's the thing that I don't like: if some nut lobs a missile at us, even by accident, we only have one option open to us. It's what we've solemnly sworn to do for over half a century, now. We will bomb the perpetrators until they glow in the dark for the next ten thousand years.
I find it morally unacceptable that our only option in such a situation is mass murder. But since it is our only option, we must be prepared to make it happen, if it's forced upon us. I sure as hell don't have to like it, though.
How much better it would be, if we were somehow able to keep a stray missile from finding a home. How much better, if we could swat it down in flight, and keep it from erasing San Francisco, or Los Angeles, or Portland, or Sacramento. We would have so many more options, in such a case. A successful intercept, followed up by a surgical strike on the offending installations, would send a powerful message to anyone contemplating a similar move.
So why in the eternal name of God are so many people so violently opposed to America's attempt to attain such a system? Why is there such knee-jerk dismissal of such research as destabilizing?
Here's a thing that I find both repellent and curious: the most vehement opponents of missile defense aren't the ones who think it will not work. They're afraid that it WILL. They're afraid that it will provide an effective layer of defense, and provoke an arms race. Therefore, they contend that such a defense is immoral.
Again: the status quo is that our only defense against nuclear strike is the promise of swift and certain thermonuclear genocide. How is that more moral than deploying interceptor missiles and laser-armed aircraft?
In the end, I believe that it is always more moral to threaten things than people. It is more moral to swat an unmanned missile out of the air than promise fiery death to millions who've never done us any harm.
For those of you who still oppose missile defense, convince me of what I've missed in the paragraph above.
THEN we'll talk.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Requiem Donum Est, Domine, Et Lux Perpetuae
Karol Josef Wojtyla, better known as Pope John Paul II, was a giant of the late 20th Century.
I don't agree with everything he said. He was a staunch conservative in the Roman Catholic tradition. Not surprising, really, given his position. He could be obstinately unbending.
But, as with many other important people, you can at least partially judge a man by the enemies he's accumulated.
He fought the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland as a young man, when it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to just stand by and let it pass. Upon his elevation to the Papacy, he became a beacon of hope and freedom to many who groaned under the oppression of Communism in Eastern Europe. So much so, that he emboldened the Solidarity movement in Poland to do more than just talk. So much so, that the KGB tried to have him assassinated in 1981.
It's almost tautological that if the KGB wanted a man dead, he HAD to have been doing SOMETHING right.
He was very much an activist in his Papacy. He reached out across denominational boundaries, doing as much for the cause of Christian ecumenism as any other man I'm aware of.
And, agree with him or no, his championship of the worth of human life is consistent, end-to-end. He's fighting out his last hours to the last breath, the last gasp, as a testament to what he believes it's worth. Another might have given up when their health began to fail. Another might have resigned his office, at least. Not him. He's staying until his Boss says he's done.
We're losing a great man today. A man of tremendous courage and resolve, a true servant of Christ and His Church. We're diminished by his loss, even us Presbyterians.
I don't envy the next Pope at all. He's got a huge pair of shoes to fill.
You've lived long and labored hard, papa. May God gently speed you to your well-earned rest.
I don't agree with everything he said. He was a staunch conservative in the Roman Catholic tradition. Not surprising, really, given his position. He could be obstinately unbending.
But, as with many other important people, you can at least partially judge a man by the enemies he's accumulated.
He fought the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland as a young man, when it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to just stand by and let it pass. Upon his elevation to the Papacy, he became a beacon of hope and freedom to many who groaned under the oppression of Communism in Eastern Europe. So much so, that he emboldened the Solidarity movement in Poland to do more than just talk. So much so, that the KGB tried to have him assassinated in 1981.
It's almost tautological that if the KGB wanted a man dead, he HAD to have been doing SOMETHING right.
He was very much an activist in his Papacy. He reached out across denominational boundaries, doing as much for the cause of Christian ecumenism as any other man I'm aware of.
And, agree with him or no, his championship of the worth of human life is consistent, end-to-end. He's fighting out his last hours to the last breath, the last gasp, as a testament to what he believes it's worth. Another might have given up when their health began to fail. Another might have resigned his office, at least. Not him. He's staying until his Boss says he's done.
We're losing a great man today. A man of tremendous courage and resolve, a true servant of Christ and His Church. We're diminished by his loss, even us Presbyterians.
I don't envy the next Pope at all. He's got a huge pair of shoes to fill.
You've lived long and labored hard, papa. May God gently speed you to your well-earned rest.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Stupid Intel Tricks
That title is a bit harsher than what I actually have to say, but it will have to do. Besides, I've always liked the "Stupid Tricks" motif.
Several intelligence reports have come out in recent months. There was the final report of the 9/11 commission, back before the election. And now, we've got a report on the Iraq intelligence that was used in 2003 as a casus belli. I'm not linking any of them. They're easy enough to find if you go in for that sort of thing. But there are a few general points I'd like to make. They're all things I've been chewing over for months, and this seemed as good a time as any to go over them.
Point the first: "Being wrong" isn't the same thing as "lying".
This is something I have to remind my daughter of from time to time. Although they are alike in that both involve your having said something that was at variance with reality, there is nevertheless a vital difference. The people who said Columbus was crazy to sail east to find a new path to the Orient because the world was flat weren't lying. They were saying what they truly believed to be true. They were incorrect, but sincere. In his turn, when Columbus said that he'd discovered a new path to the Orient, he wasn't lying, he was just flat-out wrong. He'd discovered America, not China. But again, he was sincere. Sincerely wrong, but sincere.
What's all that in aid of? Well, I think that all the people crying, "Bush lied!" aren't really right. They're sincere in their detestation and hatred of the President, but I think they're wrong in saying that he lied. Granted, the intelligence he used as a justification for going to war was wrong. Vastly incorrect. But he, and everyone he worked with, thought it was correct. Just about everybody thought that Saddam had some sort of WMD program going on. After all, he wouldn't go to such absurd lengths of hide-and-seek with the UN inspectors to hide nothing, would he?
Actually, yes, he would. We found that out the hard and expensive way. Not as hard or as expensive for us as for Saddam, but hard and expensive enough for any ordinary purpose.
But, that's known as "being wrong", not "lying". He thought that to be the case, and acted on the best information he had at the time. Knowing what I knew then, I supported that decision. And in the end, it may still work out OK. But it was a decision made on faulty premises. That is something to bear in mind.
Point the second: It's not always what you don't know that will bite you, it's what you KNOW that ain't so.
Most of us have enough native common sense to keep our hands in our pockets when faced with something we know nothing about. No, what really lands our essentials in the grinder are the things we know with iron-clad certainty that are actually total bat puckey. That's what makes Intelligence so interesting, and so dangerous. We are rarely certain of what we know. What do we know, how well do we know it, and how do we know it to be true anyway? Some kinds of intelligence we do quite well indeed. We're probably the world's best when it comes to image intelligence, or signals, or things of that sort. The techno-geek stuff, we've got in spades. Lately, though, we have tended to come up short on good old-fashioned human intelligence. Agents in place, feet on the ground in places that we need eyes-on-target information about. The right ears listening to the right conversations. The sorts of things that we can use to corroborate bits and pieces of information we get elsewhere. Without that, it's easy to get into sticky situations where you end up acting on information that you're sure of, but that isn't factually correct.
Such as the cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998. There's evidence to suggest that OBL's crew hoaxed up those cell-phone calls, knowing Uncle Sam would be listening in. That's only one recent example.
This is something we have GOT to start doing better.
Point the third: Given that good, reliable information is so rare, a doctrine of pre-emption can be a very dangerous thing.
Intelligence data can't be thought of as nice, clean points on a graph. The points are there, all right, but they have big, fat error bars attached. Now, the premise undergirding any doctrine of pre-emption is that we know what the other guy is up to. The problem is, that's not always the case. A phrase we've heard a lot of lately is "actionable intelligence". It's a very hard thing to get. Intelligence that's truly good enough for you to act upon with a high degree of success is a very rare thing indeed. We had it in 1942, when we were reading the Japanese Navy codes almost as though they were broadcasting in the clear. We gave them a right splendid mauling at Midway that summer, and they never suspected that their codes were compromised. That was proper intel work, that was. But that's a very unusual situation. More often, we have situations like the Song Tay prison camp raid during the Vietnam war. Our special forces were able to infiltrate undetected, only to find that the prisoners had been moved out the week before. Tactically brilliant, but the undergirding intel was flawed.
Jumping the gun on bad intel can sometimes have disastrous consequences. Take the situation in 1984, for instance, when Soviet intelligence was reading a routine series of NATO exercises as a prelude to war. What if they'd taken that as actionable? The consequences would have been monstrously ugly. So much so, that their political leadership opted to take one more look at the situation, and see how things developed ... with the result that we're all still here.
And that's probably the first, last, and only time that I'll ever have anything good to say about that lot of miserable bastards.
Anyhow, I think it's pretty plain that in order to be usable for a doctrine of pre-emption, your intelligence has to be absolutely pristine. Not just pretty good. Not just indicative. It's got to be spot-on, unquestionably reliable. And even then, you're liable to make mistakes.
On the other hand, what if the consequence of not taking action means eating an inbound bucket of sunshine? Or, as Secretary Rice put it a couple of years ago, if the "smoking gun" takes the shape of a mushroom cloud?
Aye, there's the rub.
If the stakes are sufficiently high, you may just have to throw down anyway.
Which brings us 'round to:
Point the fourth: Don't play nuclear Dodge-em with a superpower that's got a case of whoop-ass under each arm and a thirsty gleam in his eye.
If, by some miraculous chance, someone from Iran or North Korea is reading this, take this lesson to heart. Nothing good can possibly come of provoking an atomic scrum with us. You might hurt us. You just might. But it will be the end of your history. We'll hate ourselves afterwards. There'll be absolute torrents of self-loathing, and recriminations galore. You, on the other hand, will be too busy being dead to have time for regrets.
Several intelligence reports have come out in recent months. There was the final report of the 9/11 commission, back before the election. And now, we've got a report on the Iraq intelligence that was used in 2003 as a casus belli. I'm not linking any of them. They're easy enough to find if you go in for that sort of thing. But there are a few general points I'd like to make. They're all things I've been chewing over for months, and this seemed as good a time as any to go over them.
Point the first: "Being wrong" isn't the same thing as "lying".
This is something I have to remind my daughter of from time to time. Although they are alike in that both involve your having said something that was at variance with reality, there is nevertheless a vital difference. The people who said Columbus was crazy to sail east to find a new path to the Orient because the world was flat weren't lying. They were saying what they truly believed to be true. They were incorrect, but sincere. In his turn, when Columbus said that he'd discovered a new path to the Orient, he wasn't lying, he was just flat-out wrong. He'd discovered America, not China. But again, he was sincere. Sincerely wrong, but sincere.
What's all that in aid of? Well, I think that all the people crying, "Bush lied!" aren't really right. They're sincere in their detestation and hatred of the President, but I think they're wrong in saying that he lied. Granted, the intelligence he used as a justification for going to war was wrong. Vastly incorrect. But he, and everyone he worked with, thought it was correct. Just about everybody thought that Saddam had some sort of WMD program going on. After all, he wouldn't go to such absurd lengths of hide-and-seek with the UN inspectors to hide nothing, would he?
Actually, yes, he would. We found that out the hard and expensive way. Not as hard or as expensive for us as for Saddam, but hard and expensive enough for any ordinary purpose.
But, that's known as "being wrong", not "lying". He thought that to be the case, and acted on the best information he had at the time. Knowing what I knew then, I supported that decision. And in the end, it may still work out OK. But it was a decision made on faulty premises. That is something to bear in mind.
Point the second: It's not always what you don't know that will bite you, it's what you KNOW that ain't so.
Most of us have enough native common sense to keep our hands in our pockets when faced with something we know nothing about. No, what really lands our essentials in the grinder are the things we know with iron-clad certainty that are actually total bat puckey. That's what makes Intelligence so interesting, and so dangerous. We are rarely certain of what we know. What do we know, how well do we know it, and how do we know it to be true anyway? Some kinds of intelligence we do quite well indeed. We're probably the world's best when it comes to image intelligence, or signals, or things of that sort. The techno-geek stuff, we've got in spades. Lately, though, we have tended to come up short on good old-fashioned human intelligence. Agents in place, feet on the ground in places that we need eyes-on-target information about. The right ears listening to the right conversations. The sorts of things that we can use to corroborate bits and pieces of information we get elsewhere. Without that, it's easy to get into sticky situations where you end up acting on information that you're sure of, but that isn't factually correct.
Such as the cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998. There's evidence to suggest that OBL's crew hoaxed up those cell-phone calls, knowing Uncle Sam would be listening in. That's only one recent example.
This is something we have GOT to start doing better.
Point the third: Given that good, reliable information is so rare, a doctrine of pre-emption can be a very dangerous thing.
Intelligence data can't be thought of as nice, clean points on a graph. The points are there, all right, but they have big, fat error bars attached. Now, the premise undergirding any doctrine of pre-emption is that we know what the other guy is up to. The problem is, that's not always the case. A phrase we've heard a lot of lately is "actionable intelligence". It's a very hard thing to get. Intelligence that's truly good enough for you to act upon with a high degree of success is a very rare thing indeed. We had it in 1942, when we were reading the Japanese Navy codes almost as though they were broadcasting in the clear. We gave them a right splendid mauling at Midway that summer, and they never suspected that their codes were compromised. That was proper intel work, that was. But that's a very unusual situation. More often, we have situations like the Song Tay prison camp raid during the Vietnam war. Our special forces were able to infiltrate undetected, only to find that the prisoners had been moved out the week before. Tactically brilliant, but the undergirding intel was flawed.
Jumping the gun on bad intel can sometimes have disastrous consequences. Take the situation in 1984, for instance, when Soviet intelligence was reading a routine series of NATO exercises as a prelude to war. What if they'd taken that as actionable? The consequences would have been monstrously ugly. So much so, that their political leadership opted to take one more look at the situation, and see how things developed ... with the result that we're all still here.
And that's probably the first, last, and only time that I'll ever have anything good to say about that lot of miserable bastards.
Anyhow, I think it's pretty plain that in order to be usable for a doctrine of pre-emption, your intelligence has to be absolutely pristine. Not just pretty good. Not just indicative. It's got to be spot-on, unquestionably reliable. And even then, you're liable to make mistakes.
On the other hand, what if the consequence of not taking action means eating an inbound bucket of sunshine? Or, as Secretary Rice put it a couple of years ago, if the "smoking gun" takes the shape of a mushroom cloud?
Aye, there's the rub.
If the stakes are sufficiently high, you may just have to throw down anyway.
Which brings us 'round to:
Point the fourth: Don't play nuclear Dodge-em with a superpower that's got a case of whoop-ass under each arm and a thirsty gleam in his eye.
If, by some miraculous chance, someone from Iran or North Korea is reading this, take this lesson to heart. Nothing good can possibly come of provoking an atomic scrum with us. You might hurt us. You just might. But it will be the end of your history. We'll hate ourselves afterwards. There'll be absolute torrents of self-loathing, and recriminations galore. You, on the other hand, will be too busy being dead to have time for regrets.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Too Broke To Pay Attention
There's been a lot of commentary these last few weeks about the bankruptcy bill.
The issue is fairly complex, and a wee bit outside my usual area of expertise, but I've managed to figure out a few worthwhile things to say about it. In a nutshell, while the system is fairly screwed up, the bill fixes the wrong problem. I want to spend a moment looking at both sides of the problem.
First, I'll put on my Financial Industry Executive hat.
They have a right to see that they get their money back. When they make a loan, they ordinarily make it with the expectation that they will see their principal again, with a bit of interest into the bargain. And that's all to the good. If it weren't for this system, I'd have had to come up with the full price of my house before I could buy one. By extending credit to consumers, they keep money in motion, which is what keeps the economy running. If bankruptcy is too easy, they stand to lose money on the deal. If that happens, they tighten credit, which may not bring things to a screeching halt, but will certainly heave a monkey wrench in the engine compartment.
On the other hand ... let me change hats, and put on my Poor Broke SOB hat. It's got a few holes in it.
He's got a problem. He got a fistful of pre-approved credit accounts in the mail, and sent them all back in. Lo and behold, he was now swimming in available credit. Mind you, he didn't use them all right away. But it made him happy to have it, for a rainy day. Well, that rainy day came soon enough when he lost his job. He began to use his credit to get by. Which worked, for a while, after a fashion. Weeks stretched into months, and job leads weren't panning out, and the bills were coming due. He kept up with them for a while. But inevitably, he fell behind. Then, BLAM! Up went all his rates. And SLAM! Here's a $35 late fee, and a $40 over-limit fee, on all of his open accounts. Pretty soon, he owes about $25,000, and isn't any closer to finding a job. Well, he gets a spot of luck and lands a job. But he's having trouble making his minimum payments, and the balances don't really go down. He gets a second job, and a third, and keeps hammering away at his debts, but can't keep up with the over-limit fees, and the occasional late fee when he misses a payment by a day or two. In a few years, his balances balloon to $50,000, and he's at his wit's end. Now what?
Here's the thing: while creditors have a clear right to get their own back, consumers also have a right to a fresh start if they well and truly go under. Mind you, there are people who try to game the system. It doesn't work very often. Judges and trustees are on the lookout for that sort of thing, and won't stand for it. What concerns me is that by tightening up the bankruptcy system, a valuable life-line for honest Americans who've fallen on hard times may slip away.
You see, a man who can seek a fresh start, who can negotiate a court-supervised repayment plan, is a free man and a citizen. But a man who can be enslaved to outrageous balances and usurious interest rates is not a free man at all, but a serf. A debt-peon.
What's liable to destroy the American middle class isn't necessarily the paucity of good jobs, although that's definitely not helping. No, what's going to do us in is this exciting new form of debt-peonage that the more unscrupulous lenders want to saddle us with. Smart people can usually figure out how not to fall into the trap in the first place. But with half the population being below average by definition, a lot of people are going to get caught. What happens to them?
This was a bad bill, bought and paid for by the banks and credit card companies. Shame on them, and shame on people like Senator Joe Biden, who ought to have known better. Do those thirty pieces of silver jingle merrily in your pocket, Joe? I hope so, 'cause you'll never see the inside of the White House now, except as a visitor.
Because in the long run, what goes around, comes around.
The issue is fairly complex, and a wee bit outside my usual area of expertise, but I've managed to figure out a few worthwhile things to say about it. In a nutshell, while the system is fairly screwed up, the bill fixes the wrong problem. I want to spend a moment looking at both sides of the problem.
First, I'll put on my Financial Industry Executive hat.
They have a right to see that they get their money back. When they make a loan, they ordinarily make it with the expectation that they will see their principal again, with a bit of interest into the bargain. And that's all to the good. If it weren't for this system, I'd have had to come up with the full price of my house before I could buy one. By extending credit to consumers, they keep money in motion, which is what keeps the economy running. If bankruptcy is too easy, they stand to lose money on the deal. If that happens, they tighten credit, which may not bring things to a screeching halt, but will certainly heave a monkey wrench in the engine compartment.
On the other hand ... let me change hats, and put on my Poor Broke SOB hat. It's got a few holes in it.
He's got a problem. He got a fistful of pre-approved credit accounts in the mail, and sent them all back in. Lo and behold, he was now swimming in available credit. Mind you, he didn't use them all right away. But it made him happy to have it, for a rainy day. Well, that rainy day came soon enough when he lost his job. He began to use his credit to get by. Which worked, for a while, after a fashion. Weeks stretched into months, and job leads weren't panning out, and the bills were coming due. He kept up with them for a while. But inevitably, he fell behind. Then, BLAM! Up went all his rates. And SLAM! Here's a $35 late fee, and a $40 over-limit fee, on all of his open accounts. Pretty soon, he owes about $25,000, and isn't any closer to finding a job. Well, he gets a spot of luck and lands a job. But he's having trouble making his minimum payments, and the balances don't really go down. He gets a second job, and a third, and keeps hammering away at his debts, but can't keep up with the over-limit fees, and the occasional late fee when he misses a payment by a day or two. In a few years, his balances balloon to $50,000, and he's at his wit's end. Now what?
Here's the thing: while creditors have a clear right to get their own back, consumers also have a right to a fresh start if they well and truly go under. Mind you, there are people who try to game the system. It doesn't work very often. Judges and trustees are on the lookout for that sort of thing, and won't stand for it. What concerns me is that by tightening up the bankruptcy system, a valuable life-line for honest Americans who've fallen on hard times may slip away.
You see, a man who can seek a fresh start, who can negotiate a court-supervised repayment plan, is a free man and a citizen. But a man who can be enslaved to outrageous balances and usurious interest rates is not a free man at all, but a serf. A debt-peon.
What's liable to destroy the American middle class isn't necessarily the paucity of good jobs, although that's definitely not helping. No, what's going to do us in is this exciting new form of debt-peonage that the more unscrupulous lenders want to saddle us with. Smart people can usually figure out how not to fall into the trap in the first place. But with half the population being below average by definition, a lot of people are going to get caught. What happens to them?
This was a bad bill, bought and paid for by the banks and credit card companies. Shame on them, and shame on people like Senator Joe Biden, who ought to have known better. Do those thirty pieces of silver jingle merrily in your pocket, Joe? I hope so, 'cause you'll never see the inside of the White House now, except as a visitor.
Because in the long run, what goes around, comes around.
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