The Gathering Iran Delusion

An unintentional consequence of capturing and killing Saddam Hussein is that conservatives don't have Saddam Hussein to kick around any more. If Saddam didn't turn out to be the Hitler figure threatening to "take over the world," who is going to be the villain to "test American resolve," justify new military adventures, and provide the easy victories that conservatives crave. Neither Osama bin Laden (hiding in Pakistan) nor Moqtada al-Sadr seem to pass the super-villan test. So who is going to be the next target of right-wing delusion? We already have an answer. It's IRAN! While absorbing the horrors of American failure in Iraq, the right-wing media apparatus has also been pumping up "the Iranian threat." Indeed, Iran is a logical choice for the new "enemy." Because their Shiite theocracy actually is antagonistic to the United States and the West, the Iranians provide all kinds of statements that right-wing propogandists at places like the American Enterprise Institute can work up into a state of Nazi-like expansionism.

Here's a good example of Iran delusion-making in a Dec. 21 article Michael Ladeen of AEI. "With Ahmadinejad [the Iranian president], the mullahs [the actual leaders of Iran] bared their fangs to us. Convinced they were winning in Iraq, foreseeing the destruction of Israel, the domination of Lebanon, a jihadist reconquista in Afghanistan and the expansion of their domain into the Horn of Africa, they gave us the face of the unrepentant conqueror. He's played his role well, and he will continue to play it."

This has all the hallmarks of right-wing delusion. Most pointedly, there is the characterization of President Ahmadinejad as a Hitleresque "unrepentant conqueror." Indeed, Ahmadinejad has made several provocative statements concerning the Israelis, but Ladeen overlooks the important fact that no Iranian army has attacked or conquered anyone since Ahmadinejad took office. Given Iran's paltry defense budget of $6.2 billion in 2005, it is also unlikely that the Iranians will attack anybody. More importantly, it's unlikely that the Iranians would defend themselves very well if the U. S. attacks them. To compare, the U. S. had a defense budget of $419 billion for 2005 (more than 67 times the Iranian budget). It's also well known that the Iranian military are still using the 70's vintage American military equipment that they inherited from the Shah regime.

Of course, Ladeen and the other right-wingers who promote the "Persian Menace" know all this. Nevertheless, pumping up a cream puff like Iran into a world-class fighting machine is the standard method of right-wing delusion. For the right, the point is to have enemies who can be beaten without much effort or much domestic controversy in the U. S. Bush's people and pundits on the right all knew that the Saddam regime was weak even though they were promoting the fictional "bio-terror" threat posed by the Iraqis. That's much of what made attacking Iraq so attractive to the right.

The same is the case with Iran. The conservatives are promoting an attack on Iran know that the Iranians are not capable of retaliating against any American attack. Guys like Ladeen see an attack on Iran as a chance for the right to have its military aggression without paying a real price. In other words, attacking Iran would be the conservative utopia that attacking Iraq was supposed to be.

Second, there is a domino theory in which Iran conquers all the way from the Persian Gulf to Somalia and Ethiopia (the horn of Africa). That's the same domino theory that had the Vietnamese Communists moving on Australia soon after the fall of Saigon and Saddam Hussein (the last and now late embodiment of Hitler before Ahmadinejad) conquering his way across Africa, South America, and Mexico before reaching Texas. Or was that New Orleans. Every bit of Ladeen's scenario is either clownish exaggeration or wholly false. The Iranians are not "winning in Iraq" because they're not part of the struggle in Iraq. As a result of two elections, the U. S. handed the Iraqi government to political parties like SCIRI and Dawa that have long-standing ties to Iran. The Shiite parties in Iraq are winning, but that does not mean that Iran is winning in Iraq.

The same goes for the other scenarios. If there is a "jihadist reconquista" in Afghanistan, Iran won't be involved because the Iranians have been just as much enemies to the Taliban as they were to Saddam Hussein (with whom they fought an eight year war). Of course, Ladeen knows this, a fact that gives the whole scenario an aura of dishonesty as well as delusion. As has already been mentioned, Iran has no assets which would allow them to "destroy Israel," "dominate Lebanon," or conquer (unrepentently) through the Arabian peninsula and on to the Horn of Africa. Ahmadinejad has talked about the desirability of wiping Israel off the map, but if talk were conquest the U. S. would have conquered Syria and Iran by now. After all, administration neo-cons have been talking about "regime change" in these countries for at three or four years now.

Of course, proving that the Iranians are not a Hitler-like threat is not enough. American right-wingers are "unrepentently" bent on instilling the idea that the Iranians have replaced Saddam Hussein as a remorseless threat to American interests and national security. As they did with Iraq in the run-up to the invasion, the right-wing will exaggerate and lie to make their case, relentlessly repeat their lies as long as they have any credibility, and then make up new lies when the old ones no longer work. If the right-wing can sell the Iran delusion, they think they'll be able to salvage some part of their war-mongering foreigh policy despite the disaster in Iraq. That's why it's necessary to keep exposing the lies and distortions of the Iran delusion before the right leads us into yet another foreign policy disaster.

Disconnects

"Meet Me in St. Louie." In today's St. Lous Post-Dispatch, there's a picture of an American soldier being greeted a wheel-chair bound comrade as he disembarks his plane. The disconnects are painful. Spc. Nathaniel Krotzer of the 463rd MP unit exudes health, wholeness, and physical authority as he leans to talk with Spc. Brandon Breyer in his chair. But Breyer lost part of a leg while he was serving in Iraq and looks thin and helplessly eager in his chair. Any physical authority Breyer had is gone as the aura of his immersion in rehab and his dependence on government services hangs about him. Still, both men are aware of the thin line that separates their disconnected physical conditions. It's a big part of what ties them together.

Moqtada! The execution of Saddam Hussein was supposed to be a sweet moment of vindication for the Bush administration. But it's yet another measure of the disconnect between the Bush administration and events in Iraq that Saddam's death turned out to be a vindication of Shiite rather than American power. According to one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers, Prime Minister al-Maliki timed the execution to coincide with the Muslim holy day of Eid as " a gift" to the Dawa religious party without any expression of gratitude to Maliki's American allies. To add insult to injury, the guards shouted Moqtada in tribute to the firebrand Shiite cleric as Saddam was being prepared for hanging. It was Moqtada's power that was triumphing over Saddam Hussein not the power of the Americans. Indeed, Saddam's last word was "Moqtada."

The spectre of Iran. Neo-conservatives like Sen. Joseph Lieberman are working overtime to recast the conflict in Iraq as part of the regional struggle between "moderation" and the "extremism" directed from Iran. But the "spectre of Iran" is yet another attempt by the right-wing to promote the war by creating a disconnect between the American public and the situation in the Middle East. Iran is a bit player in Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr might get a bit of financial help from the Iranians, but his power base is in Iraq's democratic political structures and popular Shiite resentment over the American occupation. The American occupation made al-Sadr into a popular leader not the Iranians. But once Sadr became an important figure, he felt much more of a natural connection with fellow Shiites in Iran than he felt with the American occupiers. The same has been the case with the other Shiite parties which look at the Iranians as a potential stabilizing force while they see the Bush administration as fundamentally disconnected.

Consolations, Fantasies, and Real Wars

Manhood Moment Almost Here. It looks like Saddam Hussein is going to be executed within an hour. In a lot of ways, this is the Bush administration and neo-con's consolation for failing so badly in the war in Iraq. Bush, Cheney, and the neo-cons may be incompetent buffoons, but they get to prove that they're bigger men than Saddam Hussein in the most definitive way possible--by executing him.

Meet the New Saddam. Given that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated so badly since the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003, it's been necessary for the neo-cons to conjure up a new enemy figure in the Middle East--Iran. Who's behind the Shiite militias? The neo-cons would have you believe it's Iran? The same with the death squads that working in Iraqi ministries. A good example of this kind of fantasizing can be seen in Joe Lieberman's Washington Post op-ed today. Also Hezbollah attacks on Israel. In fact, neo-con pundits have inflated the Iranians to such an extent that they now have the Iranians (with their Syrian lackeys) trying to create a greater Shiite empire in the Middle East. But neo-con fantasies about Iranian power and intentions are even less grounded in reality than their fantasies about Saddam Hussein. Iran is militarily weak, relatively poor, and fundamentally defensive. But neo-cons like Lieberman are going to inflate them into the next manifestation of Adolf Hitler as long as they maintain their independence from American influence.

Retaliation for Saddam's Execution. I would be surprised if there were extensive Baathist or Sunni retaliation for the execution of Saddam. The fact of the matter is that Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade have had the upper hand in the sectarian terror campaigns that have going on since the bombing of the dome in Samarra last March. They would still have the upper hand in any post-execution exchanges. The new reality in Iraq is that the emergence of the Shiite militias has shifted the locus of war from Sunnis vs Americans to Sunnis vs Shiites. Although the war in Iraq is still an insurgency, it is now much more of a civil war.

George Bush Inspires American Youth

One of the unintentional consequences of George Bush's disastrous presidency is a renewed interest in American history among young people.

My twelve year old daughter Katy was riding up to a ski resort in Indiana when one of her friends Egan started a conversation by arguing that she didn't think George Bush was the worst president in American history. "What about Richard Nixon," she asked? My daughter replied that "James Buchanan was the worst president. He just sat around while the Civil War got started."

And on it went.

Would kids have been having a historical conversation like that if Al Gore or John Kerry had been president?

I don't think so.

The Saddam in the Mirror

Hanging Saddam. It appears that Saddam Hussein is going to be executed by hanging at about the same time that President Bush is going to announce plans for his mini-escalation of the war in Iraq. No doubt Saddam will richly deserve this death and many more besides. Mass executioners like Saddam, Pinochet, or General Suharto of Indonesia deserve more deaths than they can suffer.

Hanging with Saddam. It's hard to over-estimate what the execution of Saddam Hussein means to George W. Bush and the other gunslingers in the Bush White House. The toppling of Saddam's statue and the capture of Saddam confirmed the Dubya's image of himself as a frontier sheriff who is stronger and tougher than both the bad guys and the critics who worry about the rights of defendants, whether the death penalty is cruel and unusual, and all the complexities of invading and occupying. The execution of Saddam will do the same. It will prove that Bush is stronger than Saddam, stronger than all his "pussy" liberal critics in the United States, and stronger than global opinion.

Of course, the execution of Saddam has a special poignancy for Bush because he has his own version of Saddam's special kind of problem. For Saddam, the problem is how to keep thinking of himself as the strongest man in the world even as the hangman comes to his door. Of course, there will be no hangman at Bush's door, but the spectre of a definitive, unmanning defeat hangs as heavy about George Bush as the hangman looms over Saddam. Bush has already suffered a stinging defeat at the hands of his liberal enemies, been rebuked by a collection of his dad's friends, and abandoned by most of his neo-con allies. The invasion of Iraq that was supposed to be the enduring testimony to the president's manhood is now seen as a monument to blundering incompetence and immature egotism. Like Saddam, George Bush did not turn out to be such a tough guy at all.

The Damage Done. The second analogy between President Bush and Saddam Hussein lies in the enormous damage they've done to Iraq. Saddam Hussein will be known primarily by his pogroms against the Kurds and Shiites and his legacy will be the tens or hundreds of thousands Iraqi men, women, and children who died at his hands. Such is the price of tyranny. George Bush will also be known by the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have died as a result of the American invasion. The U. S. is spending 2 billion a day in Iraq and the American military has lost almost 3,000 men and women, but the most important testimony to the horrific failure of the American mission in Iraq will be the mounting number of dead civilians. Such is the price of having a fool at the head of the most powerful nation in the world.

Tasty Holiday Follow-Ups

The Opposite of War. My panoscopy turned out to be the opposite of the Iraq War. The Iraq War had such an easy build up that it's still hard to believe what a grinder it's become. To the contrary, my panoscopy prep was pretty tough. Unable to eat or drink anything after midnight, I had such bad indigestion that I only slept for an hour before I had to go to the hospital. After I got into the surgery room everything was easy. After being told to breathe through my nose, I took four or five breaths and woke up 90 minutes later in the recovery room. If only the Bush administration had been as well prepared for the Iraq War as my medical team was for my procedure.

Old-Looking Oden. I'm not the only one who notices how old Greg Oden looks. Sports writer Jerry Tipton of the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader notes in a parenthetical comment that Oden "looks like he's 30." Tipton further observes that freshman basketball players generally seem more mature these days because of AAU basketball and the extensive travelling of high school teams. The same could be said of college athletes in general. Because sports are much more intense and grueling than they used to be, the wear and tear shows.

Killing the Surge. The chances that an increase in American troops would help the situation in Iraq were always minimum at best. By putting off the decision until sometime in January, President Bush has reduced that chance even further. As a result of the delay, Bush lost any element of surprise and the new American troops and their officers will half expect to be useless once they arrive in Baghdad, an expectation which they'll share with the Iraq Study Group, most of the military establishment, and American public opinion. Even Jerry Ford is speaking out against the war in death.

There's Old and Then There's Oden

Ohio State's Greg Oden is the poster boy for this year's college basketball season. Although he did not play particularly well against Florida last weekend, the 7' 1" Ohio State freshman is expected to be the first draft pick in the NBA next year.

Greg Oden is also the oldest looking college freshman I've ever seen. I can't generate pictures here, but Oden has deeply set eyes, an even more deeply lined forehead, and an expression that is so mature it looks almost world-weary. Most college football players and male basketball look older than the rest of the student body and I've heard female athletes make fun of football players for looking like old men. The reason is that the pounding involved in football and basketball takes its toll on young men. Six to ten months a year of organized sports not only damages knees, backs, and shoulders, it puts enormous stress on internal organs. However, Oden looks older than the oldest looking college football player. Greg Oden may be a "man among boys," but it won't be long before he's an "old man among men."

This is another reason people should not begrudge professional athletes their high salaries. They not only have relatively short professional careers, they sometimes have short lives as a result of their professional careers.

Showing the Iraqis Who's in Charge

More than anything else, the arrest of the Iranian diplomats in Iraq seems to be an exercise in showing the Iraqi government who's really in charge.

Details are sketchy, but it is clear that two of the Iranians were in Iraq at the invitation of Iraqi President Jalil Talabani. Likewise, at least one of the Iranians was seized in a raid on the compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The American military has been telling the usual lies that the Iranians had "a lot of material" on them that justified the detentions. But, the obvious message to both Talabani and al-Hakim is that "you are being watched. The American government opposes official contact between Iraq and Iran and you are subject to arrest or worse if you continue such contacts. You may think you're leaders of a sovereign government, but we're in charge here."

It's a curiously stupid policy. No doubt, the Bush administration would prefer to see the Iraqi government view the U. S. and Israel as it's natural allies. However, Iraq has become an Islamist religious society in both both the Sunni and Shiite sectors. It follows therefore that the Iraqi government would be an Islamist government fundamentally opposed to Israel. Likewise, it should not be surprising that the Iraqi government is looking to Iran as a potential counter-weight to American influence. Even though the American military occupation is failing to pacify the country, the U. S. still has a commanding position in relation to the Iraqi government. One of the few ways that Iraq could gain a real independence from the U. S. is to counter-balance American influence through ties with other countries. Given that Iraq's Shiite leaders and President Talabani all have close ties with Iran, Iran is the most logical candidate for counter-balancing ally. The U. S. might grimace at the prospect of an Iraq allied to Iran, but the alliance is a sign of the independence that we want the Iraqis to have.

Over the last two years, the Iraqi government, in fact, has become independent from the U. S. in several ways. This is especially the case with the government factions that have sponsored Shiite militias like al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and SCIRI's Badr Brigades. However horrific the death squad activities of the militias have been, they constitute a source of power for the Iraqi government that is independent of the American military and thus are a sign of real independence for Iraq. At the same time, the militia campaigns against Sunni civilians and insurgents have demonstrated that the Shiite population is willing and able to defend itself against global terrorist groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq as well as Sunni insurgents. The Sunnis may still be able to establish an independent enclave in al-Anbar, but there would be no Sunni takeover in Baghdad even if the U. S. withdrew from Iraq tomorrow. Indeed, the main immediate danger created by an American withdrawal would be the possibility of Shiite militias engaging in a bloody ethnic cleansing campaign against Sunnis in the Baghdad area.

Even though the American military can still humiliate political leaders, Iraqi Shiites are gradually taking control of their own affairs.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to RSI readers.

Op-ed Published. On Christmas Eve, my "Why I Like Santa Better Than Jesus" article appeared as an op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader. I was happy about getting the piece published and even happier about not getting any hate mail.

At least not yet.

Don't Poison the Dog. Last night, we left milk, cookies, and a little fudge out for Santa as we were cleaning up the house. Unfortunately, our dog Missy beat Santa to the fudge and cookies. Given that dogs do poorly with chocolate, we're lucky that she didn't get very sick.

The Dreaded Panoscopy Prep. Tomorrow, I do my prep for my panoscopy on Wednesday. For those who are not connoisseurs of panoscopies, a panoscopy is a colonoscopy where they also stick a tube down your throat to check for damage to the esophogus from acid reflux. Two uncomfortable procedures for the price of one.

Actually, the prep is the worst part for anyone who does not have colon cancer. Besides fasting for 24 hours on "clear liquid meals" and water, you have to take enough in the way of laxatives to clear out your colon for the procedure. And all of that clearing is done while sitting on the toilet.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

Merry Christmas And Remember to Forget Jesus

The "War on Christmas" has turned out to be a great fundraiser for right-wing Christian organizations. According to the LA Times, The American Family Assn., the Liberty Counsel and other conservative groups have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sale of "Merry Christmas" items.

But what about Jesus?

Of course, a big part of Christmas is the nativity scenes of shepherds, wise men, and parents standing aside the cradle in the manger. After all, the Christian gloss on the old Roman Saturnalia is that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus.

But what does the birth of Jesus have to do with Jesus?

The baby Jesus wasn't saying anything yet. It wasn't the baby Jesus who was supposed to have rejected temptation in the desert, spoken the Sermon on the Mount, attracted followers, formulated a "new law" for the Hebrew people, come into conflict with the Temple authorities, or been resurrected after a cruel execution. In celebrating Christmas, Christians seem to be celebrating the least "Christian" part of Jesus, the time when Jesus was least connected to the work and doctrine of his adulthood.

In fact, Christmas seems to be more about creating a personal mythology around Jesus than anything that Jesus would ever say or do. Given the resemblance to the story of Moses in Herod's killing of the young children in Bethlehem, the story of the birth of Jesus in Matthew 2 is one of the most mythological parts of the gospel. That's a big reason why it was easy for popular writers to use Christmas as a hook for stories about failing bankers and jolly old elves flying in the night or songs about the wonders of snow. Christmas has always been about creating and embellishing a "heart-warming story" first.

But why would Christians want the biggest holiday of the year to celebrate something as far away from the core of their religion as the birth of a Jesus? In Christian doctrine, Jesus is the "Word [of God] made flesh." To the contrary, what Christians are celebrating at Christmas is a wordless Jesus. Perhaps that is what Christians in fact mean to celebrate--the silent Jesus, the Jesus whose words no longer have authority in their lives, the Jesus who does not condemn wealth, possessions, authority, social respectability, family ties and other things that most people value in life.

Christianity is a very demanding religion. Even the most simple formulations to "love god with all your heart" and "love your neighbor as yourself" involve breathtaking claims on human affection that religions like that of the ancient Greeks never dreamed of. By celebrating the infant, silent Jesus instead of the Jesus who speaks this particularly harsh doctrine, Christmas gives Christians an opportunity to take an extended break from the adult Jesus and his doctrine just as it gives them a holiday from their jobs, schools, businesses, and other avocations. No doubt, the Christmas "vacation from Jesus" was one of the reasons why our Puritan forebears sought to ban Christmas celebrations. Celebrating Christmas is a way for Christians to be "Christians" and revel in Christian mythology without dealing without everything that's discomfiting about the adult "Jesus." For Christians, Christmas isn't so much about the birth of Jesus as it is about the sense of comfort and release in having Christianity without having to deal with the person of Jesus at all. Christmas is about forgetting Jesus.

This puts an ironic twist on the whole "Merry Christmas" business. If Christmas is about forgetting Jesus, then the secularization of Christmas means that Christians won't be able to forget Jesus during the "holiday season." Instead of celebrating Baby Jesus between Thanksgiving and New Years, they'll be stuck with the Jesus of "woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep" (Luke 6:25) all year long. That's a sure-fire prescription for guilt, failure, inadequacy, and self-doubt and a number of other burdensome feelings. So Everybody! Give your Christian brothers a break. Say "Merry Christmas" and remember that you're helping them forget Jesus.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Scar

Today's announcement that the title for the final Harry Potter book is going to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sparked some renewed Harry Potter speculation at the local book store. The question wasn't whether Harry was going to live or die, but whether Harry's scar was a horcrux or a hiding place for part of Voldemort's soul.

If the scar was a horcrux, that would be a neat solution to the dilemna of whether Harry is going to live or die. If the scar is a horcrux, Harry has to die if Voldemort is ever going to be killed. So, Harry has to die and the series comes to a definite conclusion assuming that no one wants to explore Harry's existence after death, whether Harry gets involved in the life of his friends, or not. A second consideration is that Rowling has said that the last word of the last book is going to be scar. Harry's scar obviously has tremendous significance at the end of the book where Harry's fate will be decided. Perhaps, it's significance will be as a horcrux.

However, the scar/horcrux concept is a neat solution that does not quite work. At least in a simple way. If Harry's scar is a horcrux, Harry has to be able to get rid of the horcrux without dying. Because all the horcruxes have to be destroyed before Voldemort is killed, Harry has to live through the destruction of his own horcrux if he is going to be the one who kills Voldemort. If Harry is going to die, there has to be another scenario besides the possibility of his scar being a horcrux.

Dissecting the Surge

One of the good things in life is the wisdom comes out of casual conversation. At Morehead State, I've always been fortunate to have sensible friends with whom I could work out my ideas and theirs. Ed Reeves of Sociology is one of those friends. In talking with Ed on the steps outside our building the other day, I found that one of his other friends had discussed a "graceful exit" option to the upcoming build-up of American troops in Iraq. The Bush administration could increase the number of American troops by 25,000 for a year, claim in Spring 2008 that the U. S. had done everything it could in Iraq, and then begin major troop reductions in plenty of time for the 2008 election.

That makes three basic options connected with the troop buildup.

1. The Dissipation Option. Bush adds 25,000 troops, no progress is made, and the build-up is another embarrassment that hurts the Republicans in 2008. Hillary/ Obama get a ten point win and the Democrats pad their majority.

2. A Graceful Exit. Bush adds 25,000 troops, no progress is made, and the U. S. uses the lack of progress as a rationale for drastically reducing our commitment. The Hillary/ Obama ticket still wins, but the Republicans hold their own.

3. Making the Disaster Worse. Bush adds 25,000 troops, attacks the Mahdi Army militia, and makes the situation in Baghdad even worse than the current nightmare. The American public recoils in disgust, Hillary/Obama landslide, and Congressional Democrats get their biggest majority since 1964.

All of these options and more are being debated in the Bush administration. However, my bet is that the pressure for #3 builds up within the White House bunker. If attacking al-Sadr actually did stabilize Baghdad as the Bush administration hopes, Bush would be able to claim a real victory. So, there will be a lot of pressure from Dick Cheney's office and some military people to go for broke and take option #3. Unfortunately, the odds on the U. S. achieving a higher level of stability are a lot longer than the odds on making things worse. As a result, I conclude that option #3 will make the current disaster even worse and lead to a Republican apocalypse in the 2008 elections.

The Evil of Abstinence

What everybody knows. The news that 95% of Americans have had pre-marital sex probably wasn't a surprise to most people. Given that rates of pre-marital sex were high even for people born in the 1940's, it's evident that American teens and singles were leading sex soaked lives even before there was a sex soaked media. I'm glad of it myself. Having been a product of pre-marital sex, I've always had a soft spot for the idea of sex before marriage.

The failure of abstinence. The author of the study, Lawrence Finer, used the results to question the federal government's support of abstinence programs. According to Finer, "the data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds." In other words, abstinence programs can't work because teens and singles are going to have sex in the way they've always had sex.

The Evil of Abstinence. Abstinence programs don't harm most young people because most young people listen to peer-group messages encouraging sex instead of the abstinence message of purity and virginity. Of course, the ones who don't listen are the lucky ones. The abstinence message harms those who listen intently to the advocates of purity and sign the pledge to abstain from sex until marriage, but are still involved in sex. Viewing sex primarily in terms of guilt and disease, these kinds of teens and singles are less likely to be knowledgeable about contraception, less likely to see sex in terms of building relationships, and therefore less likely to develop any maturity about sex as they go along. Those who listen to the abstinence message would be more likely to have unwanted pregnancies and less likely to be emotionally ready for marriage on the day of the wedding. Because so few people listen to it, the abstinence message is not one of the world's great evils, but it is still an evil nonetheless.

The Bush Truth Translator

I have no idea why the mainstream media is crowing so much over Bush admitting that we're no longer "winning" in Iraq. After all, the President only retreated to "we're neither winning nor losing," and the meaning of the rhetorical retreat might be that things are getting much worse, perhaps much worse than pessimists already belief.

Here's how the administration's rhetoric has translated into reality so far.

"Mission Accomplished" = "We have not yet begun to fight"

"A Few Dead Enders" = "The remnants of the Hussein regime have quickly organized an effective resistance

"The Insurgents are Desperate" = Insurgent attacks spiked again.

"The Last Throes of the Insurgency" = "We haven't been able to eliminate the insurgency despite continual offensives in al-Anbar"

"Very Tough" = "Baghdad has descended into a state of anarchy while al-Qaeda in Iraq dominates in Anbar.

"History will vindicate" = "I'm still better than Buchanon and Hoover"

This is how the President's latest formulation translates into reality:

"We're Neither Winning Nor Losing" = "It's too late to stave off disaster"

Tough on Hillary

Hillary Clinton lost the support of my 12 year old daughter when the senator from New York talked as if "national security" was a more important issue than global warming during an NPR interview. Maybe I shouldn't have bought An Inconvenient Truth for her after all.

The Loaded Dice

The Throw. Today, President Bush threw the dice on his new Iraq strategy--increase the number of troops by 25,000, primarily by keeping the next rotation of troops in Iraq rather than taking them out as planned. Merry Christmas guys!

The Dice. As a result of his own incompetence and cynicism, the dice are heavily loaded against the President and American interests in general. What are the 25,000 troops going to do. If we had 25,000 troops, that would double the number of Americans in al-Anbar but still wouldn't allow us to maintain the continuous offensives and massive economic reconstruction needed to stabilize the province. In fact, it wouldn't come close.

The most likely deployment would be to Baghdad where the additional troops would either be driving around the streets trying to provoke attacks (it's called DAB--Driving Around Baghdad) or launching a major offensive against Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The former deployment would be pointless; the latter a major disaster. Attacking and defeating al-Sadr would leave the remnants of his fighters fragmented, angry, and ready for the sort of long insurgent campaign being conducted by the Sunnis in Anbar. Defeating al-Sadr would also inflame a big part of the Shiite population into being more sympathetic with or joining a Shiite insurgency. The American military would "win," but the victory would be self-defeating. Just like the all the other American victories in Iraq.

Why Can' t Anybody Say Anything Good About Hillary?

Hillary Clinton is the leading early candidate for the presidency in 2008. Today, a Newsweek poll came out showing her leading John McCain by 7 points at (50-43) and Rudy Giuliani by 1. She's also far ahead of Barack Obama among Democrats at 50-32. Aside from the right-wing attack media, however, there is practically a blackout of any positive news on Hillary. Almost all the items about a Hillary candidacy from the mainstream media, pundits, columnists, and bloggers are bad. She's portrayed as either too much or too little--too polarizing on the one hand, but not charismatic enough, not visionary enough, not moderate enough, not liberal enough.

In addition, Hillary's popularity has grown without her doing much to promote it. Hillary isn't in the media nearly as much as John McCain or Barack Obama, does not say anything particularly noteworthy about the great issues of the day, and has intimidated her closest supporters into silence. There's been no Hillary hype, no Hillary media machine, and no Hillary for Hillary public relations campaign.

As a result of all this, there is a deep gap in our information. Hillary Clinton is the most popular politician in the United States, but hardly anybody has given any thoughts as to why a majority of people support her in head-to-head match-ups. What is it about Hillary that makes her popular even if it doesn't make her as lovable as Obama is on the left or George Bush used to be on the right?

Racism Central High in Kentucky

In many parts of rural America, white supremacist loyalties lead a semi-public kind of existence. White racism is in the public square, but not justified in explicitly racist terms. That's especially the case with the Confederate flag. Confederate flags and Confederate flag paraphernalia have popped everywhere in my home town of Morehead, KY since the flag controversies in Georgia and South Carolina in 2002. The Confederate flags are especially popular as bumper stickers on cars, but can be seen in yards, on shirts, as bandanas, and on motorcycle helmets. If Confederate flags aren't more popular than American flags in Morehead, they're running a close second.

The Confederate "flaggers" have all types of non-racial justifications for their displays that they'll tell you with a little smirk on their faces. For the flaggers, the Confederate battle flag is about regional pride, family, independence, rebel spirit, and opposition to political correctness instead of racism. However, the flaggers know just as well as everybody else that Confederate flags are the pre-eminent symbol of racism all over the South. In adapting the battle flag as a general symbol for everything they like about the South, flaggers have made white racism the uber sentiment that defines all things Southern.

The flag controversy has sprouted back up in Kentucky this week as controversy has erupted over the use of the Confederate flag as a school symbol at Allen County Central High School in Prestonsburg. The all-white high school uses a version of the Confederate flag as its school emblem, features rebel flags at all of its sporting event, and fosters "rebel pride" on its web site right next to educational cliches like "authentic," "interactive," and "learner centered." The few black students and athletes at other high schools in mountainous Floyd County and neighboring Pike County are offended by the flag but don't protest or seek boycotts. Members of the Louisville-based Justice Resource Center travelled to Prestonsburg to talk with the school superintendent about the connection between the Confederate flag and slavery and emphasize the need to prepare students to live in "a diverse society where these symbols have already been eliminated." Unfortunately, their appeals fell on deaf ears as students rallied to the defense of the flag, defending it as "our tradition."

And that's really the core of the issue. Many people in Eastern Kentucky and other rural areas bordering on the South have made the symbolism of slavery and bigotry into the defining element of "their tradition." Of course, Allen Central could embrace its tradition more closely if it just renamed itself "Racism Central High."

What the World Needs Now

More Gaffes from Public Figures: Last week, head coach Jim Mora of the Atlanta Falcons committed the bone-headed gaffe of talking on a radio show about how much he wanted the head coaching job at the University of Washington. Of course, Mora is already being paid a couple mill to coach the Falcons by the now unhappy owner Arthur Blank.

But few people realize how tough politicians, celebrities, and sports figures have it in their almost daily rounds of broadcasts, interviews, and call-in shows. All of these are impromptu forms of entertainment in which the person being interviewed--here the coach of the Atlanta Falcons--is supposed to be interesting, funny, emotionally compelling, or entertaining in some other way without having the benefit of a script or a writer. It's not easy to be creatively entertaining on the spur of the moment like that, especially if you're being asked about something that's personally touchy or something that you don't know anything about as all. A few weeks ago, the campus newspaper interviewed me about the presentation of an artist named Matuschka on my campus. I had gone to the presentation, enjoyed it, and had some vaguely formulated ideas, but I don't know anything about art and I was tired at the end of the week. So I tossed out a couple of boring platitudes and gave up to the disappointment of the interviewer who had been counting on me to say something interesting.

Personally, I think we should be more accepting of political, celebrity, and sports gaffes. If we expect people to say interesting things all the times, then we should also allow for a certain percentage of gaffes to allow for the human element. Maybe they get paid well, but politicians, celebrities, and sports figures are human like the rest of us.

More Brawling in the NBA. Well, David Stern handed down penalties from last weeks big NBA brawl. Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggests was suspended for 15 games while J. R. Smith of the Nuggets and Nate Robinson of the Knicks will sit for 10. Once again, I'm surprised that there aren't more brawls in both pro and college sports. Athletes play at tremendous peaks of intensity seeking to "impose their will" on their opponents and are expected to exercise the super-human self-control needed to stay within the rules of the game. In football and basketball, it's all about manhood--proving that you're nothing less than a man or "the man" and fighting against any aspersions on your manliness. Nobody should be shocked when a player like Mardy Collins loses control and commits a flagrant foul or when Carmelo Anthony steps in on behalf of his teammate. In fact, basketball and football players should be allowed the same emotional flexibility as coaches. Coaches, both professional and college, regularly explode into histrionics--often at their own players. For a variety of perverse reasons--quite often race-- the emotional outbursts of authority figures like coaches are much more acceptable than any loss of control by their subordinates.

Love, Sweet Love. Mrs. RSI says that I should include love in the things that the world needs more of. Who am I to argue with her or with Burt Bacharach? But one of the ways that we create a little space for love is to allow a little more space for the less dignified human emotions and enormous spur-of-the-moment errors. I'm not talking Oprah-like confessions or Bill O'Reilly bombast--just some more openness to the emotional irregularities of the human condition.

Crashing Republicans and Big Gestalt Shifts

The Bush Burden on the GOP. Like the rest of the country, the right-wing dreams of a time they'll be free of George W. Bush. According to an internet Republican styling himself as JackDallas, "a Republican can run, unfettered [in 2008]". There will be no Bush stigma attached to the next republican candidate." If Bush decides to increase the number of troops in Iraq by 25,000 and launch new offensives in Iraq, that won't be the case. What a burden for Republican candidates. Expected to show loyalty to the idea of "victory" during the primaries, Republican candidates have about as much luck selling the war during the general elections as Mondale had in selling higher taxes in 1984. And they'll drag down a lot of Republican candidates for the Senate and House with them. Instead of the McKinley-like long-term Republican majority that Karl Rover originally imagined, the Bush era is going to end in a Hoover-like disaster for the GOP.

The Hillary/Obama Choice. One of the major legacies of the Bush years is going to be either the first female president in the history of the U. S. or the first black president in the history of the U. S. Probably anyway. If the Bush administration drags down Republican candidates to the extent I am forecasting, the GOP nominee in 2008 could be beaten by a potted plant let alone genuinely popular politicians like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Obviously, any Democratic president is going to have a hard time cleaning up the Bush mess, but electing a woman or a black person as President will be a major event in American culture. Too bad the Bush administration is going to make us pay such a high price for our cultural breakthrough.