Color Me Skeptical

The idea that someone can market non-standard colors with "masculine" terms that will appeal to men is doomed to failure:

Real men don’t paint their basements in Butterscotch Tempest. They colour the walls with Beer Time.

CIL Paints has launched Canada’s first “paint colours for men” collection, Ultimate Man Caves, designed to get men more excited about painting projects. Or, judging by the chosen names, at least get the Canadian paint company some free publicity.

I'm voting the latter. I won't claim to be the manliness of men. I have but two power tools and I realize that this is inadequate. In my own defense one is a multi-tool and I lack either a basement or a garage.

But when I think of colors, I go through red, blue, green, yellow, pink, black, white, brown, gray, purple,... orange! Ok, that's it--oops. That's eleven. Wait, tan! Twelve. I'm not even up to a basic crayon box of 16 colors. But what else do you need? Really, even "tan" is a chick color. It's really just light brown. Isn't it?

That's how real men deal with colors. It is reddish--orange. Or dark blue. Or light brown. I have no idea what "Beer Time" is! Is it black or tan or whitish-tan (if you have a Bud Light)? Or does Beer Time imply something greenish if you are worshipping the porcelain throne after too much beer time? I have not idea. Shoot, at least Butterscotch Tempest offers a clue. I've seen buttescotch candy. So it is yellow of some sort, right? But how does Tempest affect that? Is it lighter? Darker? A hint of gray mixed in? Who on God's green Earth knows that?

No real man would. A girl will remember what complicated combination of colors from the limited palette that we men have goes into Zombie Apocalypse--and know what colors complement it. Does Beer Time? No clue, quite honestly.

Nor do I have any interest in understanding. This is just an evil corporate plot to give women ammunition to drag their significant male other to a paint store when we really couldn't care less what the color of our basement walls is (off white is best, if you ask) and we care only as far as insisting that the project doesn't interfere with sports on television.

Seriously, do you wonder why skimpy women's underwear seems to be sold in red, white, and black? That's about the limit we can handle. If it's skimpy, we're cool.

Only women will know these new colors, and so they will simply become girl colors. We men are going to stick with the basic box of crayons (well others who can think of 4 more basic colors than I can will stick with that). Look, the fact that a girl (well, an adult woman, but let's not stray far from caveman writing) thinks "Zombi Apocalypse" sounds cute is a dead giveaway (so to speak).

Give Me Your Thugs and Rapists?

Who knew there were so many lacrosse players in Germany?

Groped between the legs and a firework thrown into a hoodie: Brave female victims reveal the horrifying details after attacks by sex mob of 2,000 'North African and Arab' men in Cologne[.]

Yes, this was part of an effort to steal. But why some people seem eager to excuse the attacks because the women were sexually assaulted and robbed rather than only being sexually assaulted is beyond me.

I know we're supposed to feel really bad about these refugees. But what part of "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" tells us we must let into the West thieving rapists?

Yeah, I'm not really seeing the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" part.

Although the native German women get to be the tempest-tost, I guess.

The Victory of the Tempest-Tost

In many ways, contrary to the charge that we fight in Iraq for oil or Halliburton, our fight in Iraq is highly idealistic. Rather than settling for putting "our sonofabitch" in charge of Iraq, we are attempting to give the Iraqis the chance to live in a free country where ballots decide who sits in the government's offices.

Our Left, which you'd think would be sympathetic about this goal if not the methods, is strangely committed to the idea that Arabs aren't ready for democracy.

I've asserted that one day our president will be known as George the Liberator for his role in starting this process, no matter how long it takes to take root and spread:

Our victory in Iraq will change the rules in a region still frozen in the Cold War era standards of strongmen who rule without regard to their people or their well being. When the history of the Middle East in this era is written, President Bush may well be known as George the Liberator.

This article states similarly:

It may take a little time, but a democratic Iraqi people will someday get a government that reflects their new, hard-earned values. While it has been an often bumpy road, the Iraqi experiment now looks like it has a real chance of success. Hopefully George W. Bush, before his time in office expires, will be able to travel to Baghdad and deliver a speech that publicly recognizes the Iraqi people's will to join the family of civilized nations. Yes, American blood and treasure have given Iraq its freedom, but Iraqis have had to bleed to keep it.

When George W. Bush addresses a free Iraq, a heterogeneous Islamic nation that America freed and whose people of their own volition opted for a peaceful and tolerant democracy, it will represent one of America's greatest accomplishments. Iraq will truly serve as a beacon to other nations of the region. It's very presence will strike perhaps the lethal blow in the war of ideas we are fighting with fanatics across the region.

Not acknowledging the progress the Iraqi people have made is unconscionable. Abandoning them would be unforgivable.

I don't know how so-called progressives can write off Arabs as unready for democracy. Once, Asians were said to be too steeped in Asian despotism traditions. Once Latin America was viewed as too hobbled by Catholic centralism to have democracy. And once Eastern Europeans were said to be too crippled by Soviet domination and a lack of a democratic tradition even before that communist trauma. Indeed, the raw material we built our democracy on was hardly what you'd think of as fertile. We took in the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses whose only strength was their desire to breathe free and build a better life for their children.

Yes, ultimately it will be up to Arabs themselves to build free societies. We can't do it for them. But in the face of ruthless jihadi killers who will bomb and behead any who oppose the Islamo-fascist dream of a caliphate of the submissive, the protection of the homeless tempest-tost by our armed forces and our allies while they build the strength to fight the terrorists and despots is critical to success.

UPDATE: President Bush spoke on Thursday on exactly this topic:

And now we're at the start of a new century, and the same debate is once again unfolding -- this time regarding my policy in the Middle East. Once again, voices in Washington are arguing that the watchword of the policy should be "stability." And once again they're wrong. In Kabul, in Baghdad, in Beirut, and other cities across the broader Middle East, brave men and women are risking their lives every day for the same freedoms we enjoy. And like the citizens of Prague and Warsaw and Budapest in the century gone by, they are looking to the United States to stand up for them, speak out for them, and champion their cause. And we are doing just that. (Applause.)

We are standing with those who yearn for the liberty -- who yearn for liberty in the Middle East, because we understand that the desire for freedom is universal, written by the Almighty into the hearts of every man, woman and child on this Earth. (Applause.)

We are standing with those who yearn for liberty in the Middle East, because we know that the terrorists fear freedom even more than they fear our firepower. They know that given a choice, no one will choose to live under their dark ideology of violence and death.

We're standing with those who yearn for liberty in the Middle East, because we know that when free societies take root in that part of the world, they will yield the peace we all desire. See, the only way the terrorists can recruit operatives and suicide bombers is by feeding on the hopelessness of societies mired in despair. And by bringing freedom to these societies, we replace hatred with hope, and this will help us to marginalize the extremists and eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism, and make the American people more secure.

The lessons of the past have taught us that liberty is transformative. And I believe 50 years from now an American President will be speaking to Heritage and say, thank God that generation that wrote the first chapter in the 21st century understood the power of freedom to bring the peace we want. (Applause.)

This was just a coincidence of timing. And lest I lose my Rove email instructions privilege, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

First Line of Defense

Our carriers are important assets in fighting a war against Iran. But even Iran poses too many threats to justify putting our carriers close to Iran in the Persian Gulf.

Our small combatant force in the Persian Gulf is up to eight Cyclone class coastal patrol craft:

Coastal Patrol (PC) ships USS Tempest (PC 2), USS Squall (PC 7) and USS Thunderbolt (PC 12) arrived pierside in Bahrain July 3, as part of a realignment that will see a total of eight PCs permanently stationed in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility (AOR).

USS Hurricane (PC 3) and USS Monsoon (PC 4) will complete the Navy's plan to station 10 PCs in Bahrain by spring of 2014.

"Having additional PCs here in Bahrain will give us incredible flexibility in the 5th Fleet area of operations since they are uniquely capable of operating in this dynamic environment," said Vice Adm. John W. Miller, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet, Combined Maritime Forces. "They will allow for continued maritime security operations and theater security cooperation in the 5th Fleet."

PCs provide the U.S. Navy with a fast, reliable platform that can respond to emergent requirements in a shallow water environment.

This is good. They join USS Ponce as an asset appropriate for the Gulf while allowing our carriers to remain a safe distance away to send aircraft in support of the smaller (and more expendable) assets.

Actual Brown Water Combatants

Keep those expensive Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) out of the littorals. You want green and brown water vessels? Send the Cyclones.

Ah, the sweet smell of sanity (via my Jane's email updates):

The US Navy (USN) will forward deploy five more coastal patrol (PC) boats to US 5th Fleet in Bahrain with plans to move its remaining fleet from Virginia to Florida, officials told IHS Jane's on 14 May. Cyclone-class PCs USS Tempest (PC 2), USS Squall (PC 7), and USS Thunderbolt (PC 12) are scheduled to arrive in Manama by the third quarter of 2013[.]

Insanity is expecting LCS to operate close to shore. Patrol craft like the Cyclone class are cheap enough to risk in the littorals if we can't patrol them with drones.

But the Cyclone's are wearing out.

Why not build a new class of this type with the room to mount Griffin missiles to give the little ships a little more range?

Becoming Irrelevant is the Whole Idea

We remain the most powerful country in the world. That doesn't mean we don't face limits to our power either in achieving military objectives or in trying to achieve non-military objectives with military power. But military power is often necessary for us to achieve the latter category of objectives.

I find value in reading Stratfor's analysis ,but this is kind of funny:

The United States may have committed one blunder after another in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, yet through all of these misbegotten wars the United States remains by a yawning margin the greatest military power on earth[.] ...

But one thing American power cannot accomplish, as a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan showed, is to rebuild complex Islamic societies from within. And rebuilding societies from within will be the fundamental challenge faced by the Arab world for at least the next half-decade. Thus, America, in spite of its latest military intervention, becomes less relevant to the region even as the region itself no longer represents quite the primary interest to America that it used to. We should keep this in mind now that the war against the Islamic State threatens to distract us from other theaters. [emphasis added]

Well, yeah, ultimate victory requires Islamic societies to reform themselves. That's why it is the Long War.

But the notion that our military power hasn't had a role in setting the stage to allow Islamic societies to reform themselves by destroying or fighting the Islamist pro-jihadi elements within those societies that resist reform is nonsense.

So yeah, because of--not despite--our military interventions over the last decade, we and our military power are less relevant to the region. That was the bloody point of fighting. We don't want our military--or our increasingly intrusive homeland security--to be the only thing standing between ourselves and jihadi murderers.

The notion that our military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan were pointless--misbegotten, even--in the arrival at the stage where we can say the Middle East has to reform itself is to ignore the role of our military interventions to allow those internal forces to have any hope at all of reforming Islamic societies:

Yes, ultimately it will be up to Arabs themselves to build free societies. We can't do it for them. But in the face of ruthless jihadi killers who will bomb and behead any who oppose the Islamo-fascist dream of a caliphate of the submissive, the protection of the homeless tempest-tost by our armed forces and our allies while they build the strength to fight the terrorists and despots is critical to success.

Military force is a blunt force and could never reform the Islamic world, but just as in counter-insurgency, while military force isn't the entire solution compared to non-military means of defeating insurgents, whatever percent of the solution that military force's provision of physical security is, it has to be the first part of the solution.

The Vietnam War itself should be seen as part of this notion. Despite losing the Vietnam War in 1975 (despite winning it militarily by the time we left in 1973), losing the war in 1965 would have had far greater repercussions throughout Asia.

Communism in Asia was far stronger in 1965, and a refusal to intervene in South Vietnam could have encouraged communists from India to Japan. The Vietnam War was a firewall limiting the spread of communism.

Indeed, the historian John Keegan argued that Western Europe--where "Eurocommunism" thrived--itself was strengthened by Russia seeing us willing to lose tens of thousands of troops in a Third World war. If we'd sacrifice there, what more would we sacrifice in a Third World War to defend Western Europe from the Soviet Union?

And if you put aside the misery of South Vietnam's conquest by North Vietnam, in time Vietnam has moved toward us to resist China. So even that Vietnam War loss may be reversed in time, hopefully to the benefit of those we abandoned in the south.

The struggle for Islamic societies continues. But you can't just look at the Islamic world in 2001 and 2014 and ignore the time between as having nothing to do with the changes.

The terms of struggle have moved beyond autocracy or Islamist rule by mullahs. If this Long War is won, we can surely be called a father of what is born because of our military efforts at the beginning of the process mad our military power irrelevant to the struggle that moved to internal reforms that defeat the forces of jihad.

Null and Nuller

So the world doesn't like the American decision to eventually move our embassy to Jerusalem even though the situation on the ground and legally has really changed not one bit.

Question: if America's statement that we will remember who voted against us in the UN General Assembly on the Jerusalem embassy decision will harm American interests by undermining programs that develop pro-American policies as so many liberals have claimed, why did the UN General Assembly vote so heavily (128-9 with 35 abstentions and 21 who made themselves absent during the vote) against America?

If unconditional aid is key to maintaining good relations, shouldn't past American unconditional aid over decades have built up quite the reservoir of good will to get at least some significant portion of the votes?

Why are all these nations outraged rather than saying, "Well, America has been good to us for a long time so we'll pass on joining the mob to pound on America today."

I know I am grossly deficient in nuance, but isn't this a difficult argument for unconditional aid that our liberal brethren are making?

Face it, either the complaint that the embassy location harms American diplomacy is silly because the General Assembly is just pointless posturing and won't affect how other countries act; or the complaint is wrong about the effect of American generosity.

And again, in a world of problems, just who made the Palestinians queen of the friggin' prom to get such exaggerated attention from the sainted international community?

Although resolution backers expected over 150 votes in favor of the document declaring our move "null and void," so we had an impact, I guess.

This tempest in a teapot will pass. Nobody gives a damn to do more than vote and move on.

A Land of Second Chances

I wish Ted Williams all the luck in the world as he gets a second chance to redeem his broken life.

America has been a land of opportunity for the homeless, tempest-tost of the world. And that chance applies to those born here, too, of course.

This is a source of our greatness, I believe. Nobody is guaranteed success and nobody is denied the chance to excel. Your station at birth will certainly influence your destiny here, but ultimately you make the call. Mr. Williams made the wrong call, once. Let's hope he sees the right path lit by the lamp beside the golden door to success.

He really does have an incredible radio voice.

Not a Single Word About Sending Fanatical Killers

God help me, I don't understand why leftists spend all their time worrying about the backlash (via Instapundit) that never takes place here, while ignoring the actual lash that is going on all the time, all around the world.

This is pretty clear:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

What part of that inscription on the Statue of Liberty says we must welcome those who would destroy us rather than those who would join us?

It isn't bigotry or a violation of our Constitution or ideals to make sure we welcome Moslems who seek and embrace our freedoms to be good citizens and residents and make sure we screen out those proto-jihadis and jihadis who would kill the freedom-loving Moslem immigrants as readily as they kill non-Moslems here.

Use that lifted lamp to better see who is trying to enter our golden door.

We are a nation of ideas and ideals rather than a nation of blood and soil. So anybody--Moslems included--can become an American.

But make sure that those we invite into our borders want to become an American rather than kill an American.

This isn't that complicated, people.  Until Islam sorts out its house to define Islam in a way that does not threaten us (and other Moslems who don't like the jihadi impulse), this is something we must do.

And it isn't bigotry to want it. The American people are better than that.

Helping others fight these jihadi scum overseas to allow this sorting out to take place is vital, too. We can help. If necessary we can participate. We're actually pretty good at it.

It's a Long War. Work the problems. Don't get tired. Protect the homeland. Win.

UPDATE: And sound the alarm, of course, even if our elites seem to believe that an occasional San Bernardino jihadi killing spree represents acceptable collateral damage if we can avoid waging a real war on the jihadis in the hope that 9/11-scale killings won't happen again.

The 99% Who Won't Kill Us in Our Sleep

The Long War is tough and complicated--and seems to get tougher and complicated as time goes on as the Arab Spring unfolds in ways that in the short run aren't necessarily good--but this is no time to get tired of the struggle. This doesn't mean endless wars are our future, but it means we must stay focused on the objective of eliminating the appeal of Islamist fanaticism in Moslem society that spawned the 9/11 attacks and countless other attacks around the world against Christians, nominal Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buhhhists, animists, and (mostly) Moslems not Moslem enough for the jihadis.

I am especially disappointed that conservatives are growing tired. I expect liberals to retreat when the going gets tough. Conservatives have largely been the strongest supporters of this long war--even under President Obama--yet too many are now embracing the stupidity of believing "it takes two to make war." It just takes one for war. Indeed, for those who want war, that's the ideal form since it means the other side doesn't fight back. Even President Obama believes this, given his reliance on drone strikes and the template he hopes our intervention in the Libyan Civil War will be for future wars.

This is a good article on many related war on terror issues, but I'd like to note one part:

In great part, the president, his Predators, and the raid on Abbottabad loom large because Republicans have become so small. The world that George W. Bush gave them they cannot handle. The second Iraq war is probably the single greatest catalyst behind the Great Arab Revolt. In much the way that former national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, twin beacons of American “realism,” predicted, the war shocked the region. What had been seen as immovable autocracies became fragile regimes fearful and contemptuous of all the talk of democracy that poured forth from Westernized Arab expatriates, disenchanted youth, and Islamists. The Iraq war provocatively and irrepressibly introduced the discussion of popular government into the region: “democracy through the barrel of a gun,” as antiwar Westerners and Arabs put it. For those Westerners who had eyes to see, knew Arabic, and kept an open mind, the conversation was deafening. All that was needed was a spark. The self-immolating Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi provided it.

Those who condemn the Arab Spring as just giving jihadis a chance to seize power in elections neglect the fact that jihadis had the potential of seizing power against weakened autocrats who gave their people only two choices--live with the autocrat or turn to the violent jihadis. Indeed, as autocrats tried to exploit Islamist thinking to support their regimes, they primed the people to turn to the jihadis. So we had a choice of supporting autocrats who had to make policies constrained by the jihadi thinking that the autocrats supported (but tried to control) or see actual jihadis take power and go full Islamist on us. How's that for your foreign policy "realism?"

As our president is happy to remind you now that he seeks reelection, hope and change take time. We need to teach Moslems how to elect good men and not be so focused on who the next man in the presidential palace is. Oh sure, we should work hard to keep the thugs from being elected--we did that in post-World War II Italy to keep the communists out of power. But repeated free elections are the long-term key. Which is why I hoped we'd be in Iraq for the long term. It will be a real victory if there is a real transition of power after an election that sees Maliki step down peacefully. And it will be a real defeat for changing the Middle East to deprive Islamofascism of support if that doesn't happen.

The success of the surge in Iraq set the stage for a wider victory in the wider Moslem world. I could see even before the surge kicked in that Bush had set the stage for making that spark set off a conflagration in the autocratic Arab world that could prevent us from needing to wage endless (and perhaps a total) war to keep jihadis from killing us and to prevent such a long war from wrecking our civil liberties as every terror attack--whether successful or failed--leads us to ratchet up our defenses at home.

If we can't support the tempest tost--the real 99% who need our support--who would live under neither mullah nor autocrat, who will?

We can pretend the war is over and that we can look inward. We've recently had proof of President Obama's desire to buy with American concessions "space" from our foes until after the election, but this is something I've long feared is our president's real foreign policy. But enemies understand that if they are the only side that fights, that it is pretty ideal for them. They may hope that our president's aversion to fight until at least after the election is a welcome opportunity to hit us as hard as they can.

We can't afford to be tired when our enemies still want to kill us. We must press on every front--whether on battlefields or in society--if we don't want to return to large-scale wars to fight the jihadi and their friends. If you fear the effects of a long war, it will only be longer if we let up the pressure before we can really win this war on terror and instead let our enemies recover from the very real defeats we've inflicted on them over the past decade.

UPDATE: The Islamists hardly welcome the Arab Spring:

Saudi Arabia's top religious official has blamed Muslim sinfulness for instability in the Middle East, where pro-democracy unrest has toppled four heads of state.

"The schism, instability, the malfunctioning of security and the breakdown of unity that Islamic countries are facing these days is a result of the sins of the public and their transgressions," Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh was quoted as saying by al-Watan newspaper.

The Islamists may exploit the Arab Spring to win, but that isn't because the unrest favors them. If refomrers lose it will only be because we fail to help the reformers win the battles on the unlevel playing field they face.

The Tempest Rages Still

It was too much to hope that the Arab Spring would provide instant success in reforming corrupt autocracies. All we can hope is that it was the start of a generations-long battle that changes Arab societies to reject autocrats and Islamists in favor of rule of law and democracy. So the Egypt unrest is actually a good thing when you consider the time frame.

The promises of the ouster of Mubarak were betrayed by the election of Mursi who is only a different type of autocrat. The Egyptian people, to their credit, don't want that:

Hundreds of thousands of opponents of Egypt's Islamist president poured onto the streets in Cairo and across much of the nation Sunday, launching an all-out push to force Mohammed Morsi from office on the one-year anniversary of his inauguration. Fears of violence were high, with Morsi's Islamist supporters vowing to defend him.

Nationwide, the rallies were among the most gigantic Egypt has seen in nearly 2 ½ years of continuous upheaval, including during the square-packing, 18-day uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in early 2011.

I fear that the facade of democracy that allowed a tyranny of the majority to take control will taint the concept of democracy as an alternative to autocrats and Islamists. Without rule of law, voting for your ruler--while necessary--isn't enough for real democracy.

And instead of bolstering civil society to help Egyptians constrain the government within the law and making sure future elections would be free to allow discontent to be registered at the polls, we just backed Mursi (tip to Instapundit) hoping for "stability" at the expense of real democracy:

“We are very critical of the Obama administration because they have been supporting the Brotherhood like no one has ever supported them,” Shadi Al Ghazali Harb, a 24-year-old member of Egypt’s Revolutionary Youth Coalition, told the Washington Free Beacon on Friday afternoon during a telephone interview from Cairo.

The White House is “the main supporter of the Brotherhood,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the American support this president would have fallen months ago.”

The protesters are edging toward open fighting:

Protesters stormed and ransacked the Cairo headquarters of President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group early Monday, in an attack that could spark more violence as demonstrators gear up for a second day of mass rallies aimed at forcing the Islamist leader from power.

What will the army do? We hope our ties to Egypt's officers will keep them a force for order. Can the army prevent a civil war? Or choose sides to enable one side to win? Or will the army break apart under the pressures on their society that provides the lower ranks of the army?

The Western left reviled George W. Bush for his freedom agenda. Now President Obama has a faux stability agenda.

Those who might have benefited from that confidence in their worthiness for freedom may yet come to call him George the Liberator. But we shouldn't abandon our ideals of freedom just because freedom isn't easy, and seek refuge in the fake stability of "friendly" autocracy that crushes hope and creates quiet--for a while.

UPDATE: And yes, I warned at the time against getting hopes up for instant democracy led by the Twittering class; and warned against an election that puts the next autorcrat into power. I wanted and still want us to teach them how to elect good men.

Don't give up trying for good things just because it is hard. I assure you, people who want bad things (or societies that breed bad things) won't tire of their fight.

UPDATE: Well, that's interesting:

Egypt's armed forces handed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi a virtual ultimatum to share power on Monday, giving feuding politicians 48 hours to compromise or have the army impose its own road map for the country.

A dramatic military statement broadcast on state television declared the nation was in danger after millions of Egyptians took to the streets on Sunday to demand that Mursi quit and the headquarters of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood were ransacked.

Once again, the military is appearing to side with the people against the autocrat. Two years ago the military just managed to get rid of one autocrat and pave the way for another autocrat.

I hear third time's the charm. We're on number two ...