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Monday, March 28, 2011

My  Pajamas TV interview with Glenn Reynolds is available at:

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=86&load=5084

============

For the latest reliable news on the Fukuyama Daiichi reactor situation, see http://mitnse.com/ and be sure to refresh if you are already tuned in. There have been many scares in the news -- at one point there was a report that radiation was ten million times allowable. That was later revised downward to one hundred thousand times allowable and falling. Since that's a factor of 100 I suspect units confusion, since a factor of 100 separates sieverts from roentgens. There are other problems at the reactors. They are all serious. There are still no reports of people not on the site being injured, and every day that goes on the situation gets better. Gets better slowly, but it gets better. Don't panic. People in the United States don't need iodine tablets. Russell Seitz observer that few in Japan need iodine tablets for that matter: seaweed is a staple part of the Japanese diet, and it contains plenty of iodine. Iodine tablet saturate the thyroid gland with non-radioactive iodine so that it can't absorb any radioactive iodine. If you eat lots of sea weed there's no room for any more iodine in your thyroid anyway.

The situation is serious but getting better. Things are more under control every day, and there are fewer unexpected events every day. It's winding down.

==========

The President will address the nation on Libya this afternoon, and presumably will explain US objectives there. I am of the old school that says that politics ought to end at the water's edge: I'll wait to hear what he says. Yes, I believe he ought not to have started a new war without explaining his war aims, and he ought to have gone to the Congress first: it isn't as if asking Congress would give away and secrets that weren't already given away by going to the UN Security Council. The UN is not a part of the Constitutional government of the United States and the US has a veto over all its actions.

But leave that: we have sent armed forces to fire on someone who has not -- at least recently -- fired on us. Yes, he engineered the downing of the Pan Am flight as it passed over Lockerbie. We bombed his palace in retaliation. We also saw Britain release the actual perpetrator for "mercy" to let him go home to die, but apparently he has been miraculously cured by the air of his native country. Perhaps that's worth some Tomahawk missiles. In the old days gunboats would bombard an enemy's harbors as a retaliation: today it's Tomahawks to the air defense radars, and a couple of holes in the palace roof. That being done, what's next?

In particular if Gaddafi pulls back to his most eastern stronghold and declares a cease fire, who does what to whom after that? I ask seriously. Do we have the UN draw a cease fire green line as has been done elsewhere? Do we let the parties on each side of the line fire rockets at each other do long as they don't fire too many? Kidnappings across the borders? Admit a new Libya to the United Nations and let it chair the human rights committee? I confess I don't know. Perhaps the President will tell us. In any event were I Gaddafi I would dig a defensive line and declare a truce. Cease Fire! No shooting! I am not flying! Go away and leave me alone.

The US can then spend a billion a week protecting -- what? I'd rather use that money to drill for oil in the United States. I'd get more return on the investment.

If we want Gaddafi dead, tell Delta Force to go do it. If that is too drastic, then just what should we do? A long time ago Allard Lowenstein said to me about Viet Nam, "You want to win it and get out. I just want to get out. But McGeorge Bundy and the Johnson people want to lose it and stay in."  I do not want Libya, Afghanistan, or Iraq to be places where we lose it and stay in.

And I do note the unrest in Syria. We have a lot more national interest in that even than we have in Libya. I do hope we aren't using Delta Force in Libya because we are saving it in case it is needed in Syria.

===========

We spent the day without water as the plumbers worked to restore our sewers. That's done, but it's going to be expensice. Which means another pledge drive, I am sorry to say.

I need New Subscribers. Our renewal rate is pretty good here, but the percentage of readers who subscribe is a bit low compared to other places that operate on this principle. KUSC and other places are getting more than a dollar a day and in fact that's about the minimum they ask for.  Patron subscribers here pay about a dime a day. Think of this as a reminder. If you don't subscribe to this place and you've been thinking you ought to, this would be a really good time to do it. We can used the money.

===================

The President's speech 

http://www.wwl.com/Full-transcript-of-Pres--
Obama-s-address-on-Libya/9496501 

If I understand aright, this is Woodrow Wilson redux -- create a global body to employ military action for the safety of the peace of the world. Fundamentally, America as global superman -- whenever, wherever there is a repression or injustice, and the bat-signal goes up, the US will go in IF it can get a willing coalition to help it and IF it is not playing the star role. He seems pretty definite that the US is playing a supporting role in Libya. Gaddafi will be overthrown, but not by us.

So .. if other nations are taking the leads, does that mean we are abdicating world leadership? If so, to whom? To the UN?

The issue I am most concerned about is overstretch. I suspected he wanted to make this country into a continental Sweden, with powerful social programs and a weak military. But it appears he wants both ... a powerful presence overseas AND a greatly expanded social scheme here at home. And the American taxpayer to pay for it all.

I can't argue with him on saving the people of Libya from a madman who threatened to mercilessly kill them all. As he said, we had the ability to stop it, and we did. I'm grateful he did. But this doctrine implies serious potential for overextending the US' military and financial capabilities.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Well said.

==============

I have more information in one place than anybody in the world.

I went looking about for something else and found the solution at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/
archives2/archives2view/view402.html#Saturday where it turns out that the entire Saturday entry was fairly interesting. I note an essay on Guantanamo among other matters. I also note a lot of typographical errors for which I apologize. But it was an interesting couple of minutes read.

I happened to see what purported to be a quote from me, and went looking for it.

"I have more information in one place than anybody in the world." -- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS"

The explanation is in the entry you will find at the link above. It's a couple of screens down and I read my way to it and then read the rest of that page. It was likely true at the particular time I said it, which was in a conversational context, not as a formal essay.

And it's bed time.

Eric was over earlier tonight and I learned a lot about getting works ready for Kindle publication. We also found that a reader has sent me fairly good electronic copies of the THERE WILL BE WAR anthologies. I would thank him profusely but I have only the DVD; apparently the envelope it came in has vanished, and my memory is no longer reliable, which is an awful way to thank someone for a very kind deed.

 ========

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011   

The New Sovereignty

The President has abandoned the principles of the Laws of War and Peace that began with Hugo Grotius publishing his book of that title in 1625. Grotius lived in the Spanish Netherlands and wrote during the early years of the Thirty Years War that devastated Europe. 

Fully convinced...that there is a common law among nations, which is valid alike for war and in war, I have had many and weighty reasons for undertaking to write upon the subject. Throughout the Christian world I observed a lack of restraint in relation to war, such as even barbarous races should be ashamed of; I observed that men rush to arms for slight causes, or no cause at all, and that when arms have once been taken up there is no longer any respect for law, divine or human; it is as if, in accordance with a general decree, frenzy had openly been let loose for the committing of all crimes.

Grotius tried to reconcile what was being done with what  ought to be done -- he believed there were natural laws --and his writings were influential. He became the Swedish Ambassador to Paris as a result of his book.

One principle of International Law is sovereignty. It is a difficult concept and particularly difficult to reconcile with the notion of natural law. Which sovereign powers are legitimate and which are not? If a King slaughters his own people as rebels, does that make him illegitimate? If a rebel leader executes prisoners of war -- Cromwell's "mercies" come to mind -- and later comes to power, does anyone hold him accountable for past actions? (After the Restoration, some of Cromwell's people were executed, but not many. Cromwell's bones were desecrated. As Macaulay tells us, the common hangman threw into the Thames the bones of the noblest prince ever to rule England. (Those are Macaulay's sentiments about Cromwell. Mine are a bit more mixed, but like Burke I can be grateful that the English Civil Wars turned out as well as they did; like the Framers I am grateful for our heritage  of rights as free Englishmen.)

To whom are sovereigns responsible? To man or God, and if to man, under what principles other than those of the Athenians at Melos? Of men we know and of the gods we suspect that they rule wherever they can said the Athenians. The strong do as they will, and the weak suffer what they must.

Grotius tried to make sense of this anarchy and proposed that there were universal principles of natural law to which all nations ought to conform. Over time his views took root and there did develop something called "International Law" and the Laws of Nations. There were even recognized principles sort of regulating war.

The long tradition of development of International Law was supposed to come to a triumphant conclusion with the creation of the United Nations: but the UN seems now to be a popular mechanism for interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations: an attempt to bring to bear some of the principles of natural law, and to hold accountable the wicked within sovereign nations, not only when they impact on the international community, but upon their own citizens. President Obama obviously supports that view. Some actions by some sovereigns cannot be condoned by the general community of mankind.

My tentative conclusion is that we have a new definition of "sovereign". Sovereign nations have nukes. Those who do not have nukes are not sovereign and may be judged by the UN Security Council, and possibly by American Intellectuals, and deposed by Great Powers acting in concert, or even by UN "Peace Keeping" forces depending on the military strength of the non-sovereign. Non-sovereign states may be overthrown.

Sovereign nations have nukes. Sovereign nations can exterminate dissenters in any manner they choose. They may indulge in ethnic cleansing at whim. All those who do not have nukes exist at the sufferance of the Great Powers. If you have nukes -- China, North Korea, Israel -- and a loyal army, you are pretty well safe from rebellion. If you have a loyal army but no nukes that is no longer true. Iran, Burma, Syria, Hamas in Gaza, and various other such states will take note: indeed already have. In other words, If Nukes then Sovereign, == Nukes or (Not Sovereign).

I am trying here to be realistic, not judgmental. I have no brief for Gaddafi. Few will mourn him if he goes the route of Saddam Hussein, his sons dead at the hands of invaders, hanged by jeering incompetents protected by soldiers of the Great Powers. I have no brief for the governments of Iran, Burma, Syria and such. Under the old International Law those were sovereign entities. As of today, they are not, and they are on notice that they are not. Sovereigns are those who have nukes. Those who do not have nukes can find themselves under fire from rebels armed and aided by the Great Powers, even when the Great Powers have not the foggiest notion of who those rebels are. It is not important who takes charge: it is important that the old rulers go. No safe place for them to go will be provided and the World Court waits with its prisons. Sun Tzu said we should build golden bridges for our enemies, but we are not taking that advice: we are burning the bridges for Gaddafi and his sons. Gaddafi has not sovereignty. He has an army but no nukes.

This is a new principle. I think its application is being studied in all the Muslim capitals of the world. The decent opinion of mankind can be enforced by Great Powers.  We can act on what's right. We have the power. We do not care to exercise that power against Muslims as Muslims because we do not judge Muslim as Muslim actions as wrong. This president does not care to exercise that power in those cases. We are not using this as a basis for Crusade. But we will spend a billion dollars a week to chase Gaddafi out and install -- well, we don't know. The rebels.

But we warn you rebels: you don't have nukes either. You may chase Gaddafi out, but you will not be sovereign either. And a new President may have different views.

=====================

 

For a reliable report on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, see   http://mitnse.com/. I note that MIT is standing down from these reports on the grounds that they are no longer needed so badly. The situation is stable. There are no reliable reports of anyone off the nuclear site being injured. The plant is a wreck, of course, but it is interesting to note that the real damage was from the return of the tsunami, which knocked out the emergency power systems. Given the magnitude of the earthquake and tsunami this is remarkable. Perhaps they should have foreseen a tsunami so high and wide that it flooded the entire countryside, and the returning water filled in behind the sea wall, drowning the emergency power systems.

Once again we have a very expensive test to destruction of a worst case, with the result that no one off site has been injured, and the off-site radiation contamination is very low. It is not zero, and thus this event caused more damage than TMI, but the effect is the same: no one off site has been seriously harmed. That's so far, and things could get worse, but that seems unlikely.

Breaking news: reactor two will never be repaired or brought back on line. At least some of the nuclear inventory is out of the reactor vessel. This is serious but not disastrous: it is not Chernobyl. It will be expensive.

 

============

As most of you know, my daughter, Dr. Jennifer Pournelle, wrote a novel, Outies, set in the universe of The Mote in God's Eye. It has been selling well, but the sales suddenly dropped. It happened so quickly that Jenny looked for reasons, and found that the event closely followed the appearance of pirate editions. Google was listing the pirate copies above the authorized copies. This is a serious matter. As Jenny says, she doesn't mind if people give a copy to a friend, or make copies so that multiple people can read a legitimately purchased copy, but they ought to have a chance to buy a copy instead of having Google present them with pirate sites above the Amazon sites.

She has cut the price of the book. The new price is not yet reflected in the Google summary, but it is correct at Amazon. The book has also moved up in the Amazon sales lists. Alas, the Kindle edition of The Mote in God's Eye is not yet posted. I think they are supposed to be working on getting an Amazon copy out.  I'm trying to get people moving on this, and I'm trying to get some of my older works onto Kindle.

Thanks to all who have recently subscribed. I still need a lot of new subscriptions: the Great Sewer Pipe Fix was an unexpected and remarkably high expense that must be met. If we can get the subscriber to reader ratio up that will be no problem. I'll try to stop bugging you about this, but just now I haven't much choice.

=============

Gaddafi has support on the ground in many of the areas he holds. I have no idea what will happen. He is popular with some elements of Libya. Think of George Washington if he had accepted the offer of his officers to become King. Many would have hated him, but some would have loved him. The rebels are people who fire their ammunition into the air in exuberance while having no assurance that anyone will supply them with more. NATO warplanes have given them some capability to advance. NATO can blast a path for the rebels, but at some point the butcher's bill will be high. Gaddafi has his home town back. Will he now declare a cease fire? I would. He is not a sovereign. He has few choices: he faces death for himself and his sons and much of his clan. He is not sovereign. Unlike Dear Leader in North Korea, who faces the same fate, but who is sovereign under the new rules. I suspect this is all being closely followed in Syria. And perhaps in Saudi Arabia as well?

It's a matter of sovereignty.

==================

 

 

 

 

 

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Wednesday,  March 30, 2011

 

Threats and Security

I have this mail:

Threats Claim Nuclear Bombs Hidden All Over U.S. « CBS Chicago

 The only way to be safe to give up for constitutional freedoms.  We must select a strong leader cool not waver nor falter.  We must elect a leader who will stop at nothing to cleanse our society of evil. 

 http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/03/29/
threats-claim-nuclear-bombs-hidden-all-over-u-s/

 Clearly the writer is in satirical mode, but I wouldn't be astonished if some did not actually believe that a threat like this would justify something like a Council of State Security that is more or less exempt from the Constitution. Look at what 9/11 did: at a cost of a couple of dozen agents al Qaeda caused the United States perhaps $40 billion in direct costs; whereupon the United States created the Department of Homeland Security which is more or less exempt from most of the limits we always thought were Constitutional; set up TSA at a cost of some $50 billion a year; expends like amounts annually on other intrusive security measures; and has spent well over a $Trillion in undeclared wars for which the end is not really in sight.

The costs of all this have pretty well ended the US search for energy independence: imagine what the economy would be like had we invested half that $Trillion in developing cheaper energy in the United States including development of measures to contain the added pollution from new coal, oil, and natural gas plants, redundant safety measures for nuclear plants, etc. If the US had a lot of cheap energy, consumers would have more to spend on something else. Manufacturing costs would be lower. 

Modern warfare often incorporates a form of jiu jitsu, the martial art that causes the opponent to use his strength against himself. Clearly al Qaeda is ahead on points in this conflict: they have taken casualties and sustained high costs and losses, but they have caused us to expend far more blood and treasure than they have. And now the Secretary of State tells us that the US is considering arming the Libyan rebels -- who are reported to be backed by al Qaeda. They have posed us a dilemma: we are verbally committed to regime change in Libya, but we have denied ourselves the us of our overwhelming power to do that. We can't send in Delta Force or let the Brits send in SAS teams to take Gaddafi out. We don't seem to have a candidate within Gaddafi's party structure that we can assist. We have not offered him and his family a place of safe refuge and retirement, nor do we dare do that. We must take him out but we cannot take him out; thus we toy with the notion of arming rebels among whom the only two organized factions appear to be the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda.

I would suggest that the United States has people better at strategic planning than this. We have people who know something of jiu jitsu -- we did, after all, win the Cold War despite many communist sympathizers among the leading intellectuals in the US -- but they do not seem to have a great deal of influence now.

Reflections on Revolution

Intellectual America divided sharply over the French Revolution. It happened just as the Constitution was adopted. The war with Britain was over, but we could not have won it without the consent and aid of the King of France. We had strong ties of sentiment to the French, and there was residual distrust of Britain.

The French Revolution was welcomed by many in Britain, until Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790. It is something that everyone should have read during their education, but I meet fewer and fewer people who have done so.

Most of Burke's criticism of the French Revolution can be applied to the situation in the Middle East. Rule by those who have the time and means to occupy the central city squares -- To the Barricades! -- does not always turn out well. Indeed, it's pretty hard to find examples in which is has turned out well. That does not mean that the US ought to support people like Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, the deposed President of Tunis, etc., but does it mean that we ought to engineer their downfall? And if so, by what means? The people who rose against Saddam Hussein were pretty well all dead by the time the US Army ended his reign at enormous costs to us and ghastly costs to the people of Iraq. We have no idea what will happen in Iraw when we bring the Legions home -- and now there is unrest in Bahrain as well as all over the Arabian peninsula. The Mamelukes of Egypt have stated fidelity to the treaty with Israel, but the mob in the streets sexually assaults Lara Logan in celebration while shouting "Jew! Jew!".  The Taliban was easily ousted in Afghanistan, but ten years war has not ensured that it cannot come back. The writ of Kabul runs not as far as it did when we began "nation building", and if the leaders of al Qaeda have taken casualties, we have paid the price of that in full.

In Egypt we hope for order: I would far rather Egypt be ruled by Mamelukes than by the mob that celebrated victory by assaulting an American woman. In Jordan we hope for order: should we support rebels against the King? In Bahrain we hope for order. In Arabia we hope for order. Does this mean that we should support the current governments? Should the Legions go in in the name of the King? We could have restored the Hashemites to the rulership of Iraq: one could argue they might have done better than what Iraq will get now. Would that have been worth the costs of the Iraq War? Is it likely that what happens next in Iraq will be better than they would have with a Hashemite King? We would hardly feel proud of restoring the Hashemites: will we be more proud of what will happen when we leave?

In Syria a Shi'ite (Alawite) President is chairman of an atheist party that rules a Sunni population. He rules ruthlessly. Brutally. Should we intervene? Should we intervene in Iran? Can we afford to? Can we afford not to? Is there anywhere an intelligent debate on these matters?

We are the friends of liberty everywhere. We are the guardians only of our own. That may be a simple statement of fact: a statement of the limits of our ability. How much liberty at home must we sacrifice as we go forth to export liberty with our tanks and attack aircraft?

If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God we ha' paid it in full, said Kipling of the old British Empire. It is America's turn to learn that price. We have been paying it, but we have not paid it in full.

=========

Reflections on the Revolution in France

Dr Pournelle:

While the Wikipedia article on Edmund Burke's, "Reflections on the Revolution in France <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflections_on_the_Revolution_in_France>  " makes a nice synopsis; the full publication can be found on Project Gutenberg at

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15679/15679-h/15679-h.htm#REFLECTIONS 

Mike Houst

 

Report on Fukuyama

The MIT engineers have an update to their report on Fukushima Daiichi and the detection of plutonium. It gives the facts and probable significance a lot better than I can: http://mitnse.com/

Dr. Pournelle,

You reported that MIT NSE was standing down, but two sites that supplied some of their source data will continue. I found http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/default.aspx  by reading the references cited by MIT NSE, and I found one of their sources, http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/  through your friends at TWIT.

I think these will continue to provide somewhat more truthful and less sensationalized (although perhaps slightly biased) news on Daiichi and other related stories.

-d

 

==========

I note that the President has just said we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He did not say how he will do that. I doubt that he will allow us to develop coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power sources. I presume he will continue to advocate that we throw away more and more money in "Green Energy", which will not only cost more, but so far seems to be creating more jobs overseas than in America as solar panel manufacturing goes to China. This does not look like an intelligent energy policy to me. I recall Carter saying much the same things during the fuel crisis of his time. Long gas lines. A decree that we would never increase oil importations: as of this day this is the maximum oil we will import. A pious wish. Would that it had been mandated: perhaps we would have developed domestic means of producing energy. But we did not then, and I see nothing in President Obama's latest dictum that makes me hopeful of any great increase in domestic energy. We are going to save and conserve our way to prosperity, be very frugal: perhaps we can learn something from Bangladesh; they have no choice but to be frugal. If we adopt their definitions of poverty we can end most welfare programs, and we can all begin saving.

=================

Data and a theory from Jordan:

Shabab March 24

For events in Jordan, this is useful. I am told by someone who knows Naseem Tarawnah from Jordan that he is a righteous dude and very knowledgeable about Jordanian society. He is clearly for the reformers, but is also respectful of the King and the tribes. The comments really bring out some of the tensions within Jordan, as well, between Jordanian Jordanians and Palestinian Jordanians (East Bankers and West Bankers). Apparently the tribal folk really, really don't like the Palestinians: they are characterized as wealthy, controlling the country's financing, clannish and not really committed to Jordan. They also "take jobs away" from "real Jordanians." The Palestinian Jordanians for their part regard the bedouin tribesmen as redneck ignoramuses. So the let's-take-over-a-public-square-and-demand-our-demands-be-met movement turned into a face off between the two parties. Since Jordan is the epicenter of the conspiracy theory, one side believed the other was receiving stones (for throwing) in truckloads supplied by the government while the other side believed the demonstrators were the Palestinian fedayeen from 1970. My informant pointed out that this would have put most of them in walkers, since Black September was 40 years ago. Jordan, she said, was a place where anyone will believe anything.

http://www.black-iris.com/2011/03/26/the-
quick-death-of-shabab-march-24-and-what-it-means-for-jordan/ 

I have been further informed that folks in Bilad-al-Shams (i.e., Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan, which constitute a single culture) look down on Egyptians and Iraqis, esp. the rich Iraqis who fled Iraq, came to Jordan, and drove up the prices of everything in Amman. But most of all, they look down on Maghrebis: Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, and Libyans, because they are not true Arabs, but rather Berbers with a coat of Arab paint. Hence the Arab League's willingness to compass Gathafi's downfall. The Turks and Persians, natch, look down on all the Arabs. (One dimly discerns the outlines of ancient civilizations: Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Persia and the Hittites. With Numidia out in the West. The more things change....)

MikeF

===========

Report on Fukuyama

The MIT engineers have an update to their report on Fukushima Daiichi and the detection of plutonium. It gives the facts and probable significance a lot better than I can: http://mitnse.com/  There is an exposition of what is known about plutonium in the latest updates. I recommend regular visits to this site for those who are interested in what's going on.

==============

My thanks to all those who have recently subscribed. This new drive is not directed to those who subscribe and regularly renew. You'll get hounded at the regular pledge drive intervals, but you should ignore this one. This is directed at those who have never subscribed. For those who can't remember when they last renewed and are inspired to do so now, thanks, but you too will be hounded at the regular pledge drives. This one is directed at those who keep thinking thinking they ought to subscribe but just didn't get around to it. This is a good time to find that round tuit. Subscribe now...

============

We are sending money to Brazil to let them learn how to drill for oil. We will then buy oil from Brazil. We'll be their best cust0mer. This is absurdity on stilts with Halloween masks.

America is broke, and this is a way to keep us there. We are becoming a nation of Eloi. The Morlocks are recruiting...

============

 

 

 

 

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Thursday,  March 31, 2011

The Entangling Alliance

We have transferred operational control of the Libya operation from a USAF general to a USN admiral, but the admiral is head of NATO. Presumably there is a logic to this, but I confess I don't understand it; but then I don't understand the necessity for the US to be in NATO in the first place. NATO is an entangling alliance. The warning against entangling alliances is usually attributed to George Washington, but we actually inherited it from Thomas Jefferson: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none." It is of a piece with Washington's warnings. The purpose of NATO originally was to keep the Russians from taking West Germany and going to the Rhine. NATO was formed by Truman during the early days of the Cold War when governments in Europe were falling to Communist coups and the Iron Curtain was descending. It became a military alliance with a formal structure as a result of the Korean War. In those days, NATO was a mutual security organization: an attack on one member was an attack on all of them.

When the Berlin Wall came down NATO no longer had a purpose, but the Iron Law of Bureaucracy took over and NATO actually expanded. Now it is expanding again:

NATO has just begun construction of a new $1.38 billion  headquarters in Brussels <http://email.spectator.org/ct/
5654829:8416111893:m:1:178374
974:9615294421B531FBB1C6ED02
2F9E41C3

And of course the expanded NATO must have more missions: it needs to justify its existence.

In fact it has no reason for existence. NATO is an expensive luxury we cannot afford. We do not have the money to build a billion dollar headquarters in Brussels, and we wouldn't need that if we did have the money. A new NATO headquarters will cost a lot more than a billion dollars -- it will find more ways to spend money. Mark my words. NATO is precisely the kind of entangling alliance that both Washington and Jefferson warned us against.

We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but we are the guardians only of our own; and the best thing we can do for liberty is to build America as a beacon of freedom, as a shining example of what a free people can do. Membership in NATO helps strangle the American dream. We burden our middle class with ever increasing debt in order to build billion dollar buildings in Brussels? To what end? Surely an alliance with Belgium does little to ensure the security of the people of the United States. An alliance with Slovenia does not defend Detroit. We encircle Russia with our "allies" to what end? I have great sympathy for the Baltic Republics and Norway, but an American military alliance with those countries does not make Americans safer.

Let Europe build NATO; let Europe consolidate with collective security. We cheer them on. But we do nothing I can see for the cause of liberty by remaining in this entangling alliance. The best thing America can do for the cause of liberty is to build an America based on freedom. A strong America as a friend of liberty will do far more for liberty than a billion dollar headquarters in Brussels.

===============

In Libya we are up to a billion dollars a week. That will now be overseen by NATO. What NATO will do is not so clear. We are told that US CIA officers on the ground are using laser illumination to choose targets for air strikes. So far this has not stopped Gaddafi from from consolidating his holdings. It is an interesting experiment in modern warfare. Up to now this kind of war has mostly been conducted in science fiction stories. Gaddafi's ministers are defecting, but Britain will not offer sanctuary: there is a threat of arrest and trial for war crimes. Why Musa Kusa chose London rather than Cairo as his destination when he defected from Libya is not clear. The defection does not augur well for Khaddafi. One supposes that Musa Kusa has intelligence to sell, and the Brits are known to be in that market. Of course British policy is chiefly governed by who controls Libyan oil, as demonstrated by the "mercy" release of the Lockerbie culprit. At the moment Qaddafi controls that oil. If he loses that control, it is not clear who will take it over, but few rebel factions have any affection for Musa Kusa. It all promises to be interesting...

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Friday,  April 1, 2011

What is Legitimacy

There is more going on in the world than Libya and the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex, but there's so much about those -- much of it nonsense -- that it drowns out everything else.

Case in point: in today's Wall Street Journal, Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator John McCain, both of whom aspire to national leadership, say "In Libya, Regime Change Should Be the Goal" (link). They say explicitly that the US ought to recognize the Libyan rebels as the legitimate government of Libya. They do not precisely say why. Here is one rationale:

If Gadhafi is allowed to hang onto power through the use of indiscriminate violence, it will send a message to dictators throughout the region and beyond that the way to respond, when people rise up peacefully and demand their rights, is through repression and slaughter—and that the rest of the world, including the U.S., won't stand in the way.

That sounds good -- but I do not think they have considered the implications. Suppose, for instance, that a large faction in the United States rises up to barricade the streets, occupy a state Capitol building, disrupt commerce and stop food deliveries, prevent people from getting to work and otherwise get in the way of people trying to get on with their lives. Eventually the police are called in to take these people away. Some are chained together. Some wreck police cars and set fires. When asked why they are doing this, they say they are rising up peacefully to demand their rights -- and the pigs are repressing them.

Actually, I do not have to suppose any of this, because it has happened at several times and and many places in the United States. The oppressed groups rising up to demand their rights have included teachers in Wisconsin, Latinos in Los Angeles (several times), blacks in Los Angeles who burned down part of the Wilshire Miracle Mile and looted Korean stores, hoodlums in Los Angeles exuberant over some basketball results -- and in every case there were many who came forward to condemn the police repression and brutality against people rising up peacefully to demand their rights. Fortunately the Mexican Armed Forces did not launch cruise missiles against the Los Angeles City Hall or the Police Headquarters; but perhaps the reasons for that lie more with the United States Air Force than with lack of sympathy for those who took to the barricades.

Is any group large enough to barricade a city and disrupt everyone's life a legitimate government?

In the days ahead, it is imperative that we maintain and if necessary expand our air strikes against Gadhafi's ground forces, which pose a threat to civilians wherever they are. In doing so, we can pave the way for the Libyan opposition to reverse Gadhafi's offensive and to resume their quest to end his rule.

The battlefield reversals suffered by the opposition this week, when weather conditions hampered coalition air strikes, underscore the need for a more robust and coherent package of aid to the rebel ground forces.

The U.S. should also expand engagement with the Libyan opposition, led by the interim Transitional National Council currently based in Benghazi. We have been encouraged by the Obama administration's growing rhetorical support for the opposition, but we hope to see more tangible manifestations of it in the days ahead.

Apparently the legitimate government of Libya hasn't got a chance without US intervention. The US must break things and kill people in order to put the opposition into power.

Another immediate priority should be getting humanitarian assistance into eastern Libya and restoring telecommunications access there, where Gadhafi has cut off land lines, mobile networks and the Internet. While top opposition leaders have satellite phones, we have both humanitarian and strategic interests in restoring the ability of people in liberated parts of Libya to communicate with each other and the rest of the world. We should also take steps to get Gadhafi's satellite, television, and radio broadcasts off the air, while helping the opposition air its broadcasting. [emphasis added]

In other words, the legitimate government -- the rebels -- cannot govern. They need help. They need us to provide the basics of actual government. They also need us to suppress the broadcasts of what was, until a few weeks ago, was the universally recognized government of Libya. Apparently we can't even be sure that the people rising up against the regime and whom we ought to recognize as the legitimate government can win even a propaganda war: we have to help them get their message out while suppressing any opposition to them. Or at least any opposition from what used to be the legitimate government. I doubt we would be asked to suppress the views of, say, fundamentalist monotheists who advocate the ruthless application of Sharia law for Libya. I presume there are some among the rebels. There usually are when people rise up to demand their rights in that part of the world. It was, after all, the Muslim Brotherhood who led the abortive rebellion -- rising up to demand their rights -- in Hama in Syria back in 1982.

But that won't be. Lieberman and McCain know better. How, precisely, I do not know.

Some critics still argue that we should be cautious about helping the Libyan opposition, warning that we do not know enough about them or that their victory could pave the way for an al Qaeda takeover. Both arguments are hollow. By all accounts, the Transitional National Council is led by moderates who have declared their vision for (as their website puts it) Libya becoming "a constitutional democratic civil state based on the rule of law, respect for human rights and the guarantee of equal rights and opportunities for all its citizens."

Ah. They say they are for a constitutional democratic state. Of course the government of Bangladesh insists that it is a democratic state.

Rape victim receives 101 lashes for becoming pregnant

A 16-year-old girl who was raped in Bangladesh has been given 101 lashes for conceiving during the assault.

The girl's father was also fined and warned the family would be branded outcasts from their village if he did not pay.

The girl died of the injuries from 101 lashes. The government of Bangladesh says this should not have happened, but the incident is not the only case of such practices; and of course if the government tries to prevent this application of Sharia the people of the village, all of whom stood by and watched the administration of the 1o1 lashes to a 14 year old girl, would likely rise up to demand their rights. Should the US then bomb the government of Bangladesh for attempting to stop this sort of thing? And do not think I am playing games here: much of the flame of Islam has arisen among the desert people of North Africa. The Berbers and Tuareg sometimes take their religion seriously. What happens when the rebels led by moderates cannot govern? Senators McCain and Lieberman say:

In particular, we and our allies should be providing the council with the communications equipment, logistical support, training, tactical intelligence and weapons necessary to consolidate rule over the territory they have liberated and to continue tilting the balance of power against Gadhafi. We do not need to put U.S. forces on the ground precisely because the Libyans themselves are fighting for their freedom. But they need our help, and quickly, to succeed.

I have no brief for Qadhafi, or for Bashar of Syria, or for Mubarak of Egypt. I will say I have not heard stories of 14 year old girls being lashed to death in public during their watch in their regimes, but that is not a great deal to be said to their credit. Or is it? In some parts of the world it is assumed that 14 year old rape victims will not be beaten to death in public, but there are places where that is demanded by the law, and is it bad form to point out that this is barbarism.

Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others.
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

At one time the "solution" to these matters would have been League of Nations mandates over countries that can't rule themselves and continue to disturb the international order. That form of imperialism is no longer fashionable. Two senators of the United States now pronounce legitimate a group that apparently can't keep its followers from firing all its ammunition into the air in celebration of victory before being routed in the counterattack they didn't expect after their victory. Let's hope that if they win they have better control than that.

Hope springs eternal.

=================

The news from Japan is about the same: the situation in Fukushima Daiichi remains serious, but no one off the plant site has been injured. There are detectable emissions from the plant found outside the perimeter including as far away as California, but none of those remains dangerous.

The reactors are pretty well a total loss and have become economic "bads" in that owning them is an unwanted expense. The effects on the nuclear industry are such that probably more people will die as more energy is produced by non-nuclear means that have a higher lifecost/kw than nuclear. Those who oppose nuclear power will rejoice.

From the MIT report site ( http://mitnse.com/ )

Air monitoring data for the region can be found at http://www.mext.go.jp/english/
radioactivity_level/detail/1303986.htm .

An isolated location outside the boundary of the evacuation zone displayed high levels of deposition of Iodine-131. The IAEA has announced that these levels, found in the village of Iitate, exceed their guidelines for evacuation. Local officials are assessing the situation.

Testing of various food products from the prefectures surrounding the damaged reactors show that all of the food product samples from outside Fukushima prefecture display either no radioactivity or levels below regulatory limits. However, 25 samples from the Fukushima prefecture did exceed Japanese regulatory limits.

Radiation levels in seawater immediately adjacent to the plant’s discharge canal rose yesterday (http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/
press/corp-com/release/11033109-e.html) . The cause of this increase is still not known.

====================

Mote in God's Eye 

A large number of your books are available in Kindle compatible format from Baen. I prefer to buy my books from when I can.

http://www.webscription.net/s-83-jerry-pournelle.aspx 

Brian

They are indeed, and it explains how they can be set up to be readable by Kindle devices and Kindle apps on iPads; but the process isn't automatic like clicking on a book and having it appear on your Kindle, and the result is far far fewer sales. Amazon sales are huge; all the rest added together are still pretty small. Baen ought to market through Kindle, but they don't.

But those who want some of my books as eBooks need to look at Baen. Jim was a pioneer in the eBook business.

===============

This is technically mail, but I will put it here:

Outies Now Available in Trade Paperback

1. Outies is now available in trade paperback from multiple outlets.

Please encourage purchase from : https://www.createspace.com/3536693  because that gives us maximum royalties.

The difference is significant: at the same price point, we get $7.11 from createspace, but only $3.92 from Amazon, and only $.73 from anywhere else.

2. And now, we are in the news for NSF: http://www.nsf.gov/news/
news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=
119138&org=NSF&from=news

Dr. Jennifer R. Pournelle, Ph.D.

The NSF news (point 2) covers her discovery and new theory of civilization from Iraq. It's worth your attention.

 

 

I do not do April Fool jokes. What, never? No, never. What, never? Well, hardly ever..."

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Saturday,  April 2, 2011

.

Rebels Blame Themselves For Deadly Air Raid | International News | Bristol News Centre - 106 JACK fm - Playing What We Want

Jerry,

When the UN has absolute air superiority, why would the rebels deploy AA guns rather than haul fuel and ammo? I realize these guns can be used against ground targets, but with them hard mounted on trucks it is difficult for them to engage from cover or concealment.

http://www.jackbristol.com/newscentre/
international-news/rebels-blame-themselves
-for-deadly-air-raid-15964848 

Jim Crawford

What do you expect from amateurs without discipline? Recall the scene in the wonderful classic Caesar and Cleopatra -- one of the ten best movies of all time, in my judgment -- when Caesar is trapped in the palace at Alexandria and is reviewing what the Egyptian rebels are doing. Rufio tells him of the dispatches from the field. Caesar is able to account for all of the Egyptian forces, and looks up in triumph. "So all this is left in the city is mob! Mob!" Shortly after the Roman legionaries sally out of the palace. The scene after that tells it all.

We used to understand that mob cannot stand up to regulars. Militia barely can and usually cannot. The wording of the Second Amendment is not accidental.

=============

It has been a long day and I've been trying to clean up matters here.

I am also in communication with Gina Smith who will be EIC for the new BYTE that they are reviving as an on-line magazine. I will be a part of it, and I wish it well. We have an arrangement: my column will remain here as well as be part of the magazine. I may also contribute in other ways. There may be dialogues with other writers. BYTE promises to be good.

==============

"We've Become a Nation of Takes, not Makers" in the Friday Wall Street Journal [link] is well worth your attention, although it may not tell you anything I haven't been saying for years.

=========

The new Firefox seems very buggy. It has crashed on me twice today. Alas. Nothing gets lost, but it's annoying. I am told that I ought to try Chrome, and perhaps I will. I'm pretty set in my ways, of course.

 

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Sunday,  April 3, 2011

The day has been devoured by locusts, mostly, but I have some good news: My crackerjack advisory team seems to have just about finished the work of getting ANOTHER STEP FARTHER OUT into eBook format. It really looks good. Another step -- parhaps 2 Steps? -- is another collection of my early essays about space, computers, science, and the general matter of technology and civilization. They were written from about 1978 to 1988, and include much about the very early days of small computers, as well as the space program, energy, nuclear power, and the like. I am astonished at how much I got right [preen]. Of course I got some wrong, too: I sure didn't see the early end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. I did see the rapid growth of small computer technology, but not THAT rapid. And so forth.

But I think it is interesting, and with luck it will be available on Amazon and Nook and all the major eBook formats and markets in a week or so. I've been reading over it, and I find myself reading rather than proofing, which means that it was interesting enough to suck me in; I hope it will do the same for you.

It's also tax time. Alas.

===============

The Libyan War goes on. The rebels offered a cease fire. Qadhaffi declined. I expect Colonel Qadaffi to offer his own cease fire soon enough, probably when he consolidates control over another oil refinery.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, we see just what we are shedding blood and treasure to protect.

============

The April 4 New Yorker has an article on "Who are the Rebels?" in Libya. http://www.newyorker.com/
talk/comment/2011/04/04/
110404taco_talk_anderson

I don't know  Jon Lee Anderson, the author, nor do I recall anything else he has written. I presume he shares the editorial views of the New Yorker. I have been impressed in the past with some of the New Yorker's in depth articles on a number of issues. In any event, this is one eye witness account of just who the rebels are, and it tends to ring true in the telling.

<snip> During weeks of reporting in Benghazi and along the chaotic, shifting front line, I’ve spent a great deal of time with these volunteers. The hard core of the fighters has been the shabab—the young people whose protests in mid-February sparked the uprising. They range from street toughs to university students (many in computer science, engineering, or medicine), and have been joined by unemployed hipsters and middle-aged mechanics, merchants, and storekeepers. There is a contingent of workers for foreign companies: oil and maritime engineers, construction supervisors, translators. There are former soldiers, their gunstocks painted red, green, and black—the suddenly ubiquitous colors of the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag. <snip>

<snip> Gheriani tried to assure me that the new state the rebels envision would be led not by confused mobs or religious extremists but by “Western-educated intellectuals,” like him. Whether this was wishful thinking, of which there has been a great deal here in recent weeks, was uncertain. After forty-two years of Muammar Qaddafi—his cruelty, his megalomaniacal presumptions of leadership in Africa and the Arab world, his oracular ramblings—Libyans don’t know what their country is, much less what it will be.

This rings true to me; but then the original Paris barricades crowds were not who ended up in charge after the Revolution. Mob does  not convert easily into a National Assembly. Democracy does not grow easily in a climate of revolution. Those who turn out to the barricades and who are successful in those efforts may or may not be deserving, but they generally have little success at ruling peacefully under a rule of law. Those who take charge tend to be the organized. The Bolsheviks (the name means Majority but they were in fact nothing like that). Robespierre and St. Just. The Ayatollahs. When all is flux and Whirl is king, confusion reigns. Black Swans appear. We can wish the Libyans well.

===================

 

 

 

 

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