On Speaking in Tongues: The Real and the Bogus

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New Poetry Anthology

 

Today is Nowruz, the Iranian New Year celebration. And also the publication date for a new poetry anthology of poems in support of the current Iranian uprising. One of mine is included.

I urge all and sundry to order their own copy immediately. Show your support! At the link:

Where Words Defeat Bullets – Asemana Books

The Imperative of Art

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The Chucklehead Doctrine

 

I got this YouTube video forwarded by a leftist friend of mine. This guy never discusses politics. So this might be a sign that things are close to the breaking point on the left, in terms of their frustration with the outrageous actions of Trump.

I add my responses.

“America falsified history in order to advance its proud history of pushing its weight around...”

The history of the US is mostly one of isolationism—of avoiding engagement in foreign alliances or foreign wars. This has been the backbone of American polity since Washington. The US avoided empire during the period of hectic colonizing, in contrast to the nations of Europe. It could have owned all of the Western hemisphere.

America became engaged in the wider world reluctantly with the First World War, then reluctantly with the Second, and then with the Cold War; since the British and French were prostrate, and there was nobody else left to defend democracy. 

Notably, it is remarkable that over the many decades since 1812 the US has not ever “pushed its weight around” by trying to annex Canada with all its resources. As the Canadian military admits, it could do so in about two days.

“US participation in Vietnam was ‘ignoring allies, ignoring history...’”

The US became engaged in Vietnam in defense of an ally, the Republic of Vietnam. Among allies who fought at their side: France, Australia, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, New Zealand, Cambodia, Laos. They were diplomatically supported by the UK, who had just fought a similar action in Malaysia, and most other NATO countries.

“Millions dead, and they still called it peace with honour."

The US did not start the war in Vietnam, and so cannot be blamed for the body count. There is no way of knowing whether more or fewer would have died in the region without US involvement. Only fewer Americans.

Iraq - "allies begging them not to invade." 

Allies who participated militarily in the invasion: UK, Australia, Poland, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Ukraine.

Around 45–49 countries supported the coalition in some way. The worst that can be said is that it did not have official UN approval. Which the UN has only given for military action five times in its history. Hard to get that, with Russia and China having vetoes.

"UN inspectors saying ' look, there's nothing there.'"

UN inspectors did not declare Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction. They onl6 said they had not found any yet. Iraq had been refusing inspections, in violation of the ceasefire. They had finally allowed the inspectors in under threat of war.

Climate change—the rest of the world supposedly tackled the problem while the US "threw snowballs in the Senate."

US carbon emissions fell 20% from 2005 to 2023-- 30% per capita. Not as quickly as Europe, but much faster than other major emitters.

Over the same period, China’s and India’s emissions have been growing sharply.

Claim that “the American government is bringing drugs and crime into Canada.”

This is false, in that he blames the American government, who are not involved. It is true that drugs and crime are flowing both ways across that border, and it is true that there is more coming into Canada from the US than into the US from Canada. That is neither here nor there: the US government is of course more concerned with the flow south. They are cracking down on their borders, and they want Canada to do the same.

Giving Sight to the Blind

 

A few mysteries of John chapter 9.

Laughing at Jesus on the Cross

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Americans Killing Little Girls in Iran

 Much is being made of the US supposedly bombing the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in Iran.

Stop and think for a moment. Is there any way it would be in the American interest to bomb a school in Iran? They are hoping for the local population to rise up against the regime. It would be perfect counter-productive, sheerly in terms of self-interest.

If the US is responsible, therefore, it has to have been a tragic mistake.

This certainly might have been a missile misfire, from either side. If a misfire, however, this is intrinsically more likely from the Iranian side, since American and Israeli missiles seem to be highly accurate in finding their targets. Iranian missiles, by their own admission, frequently hit civilian targets in neutral countries by error throughout the Gulf.

It is also obviously in the interests of the Iranian government to bomb a school in Iran, if they think they can pin it on the Americans. If you were going to do this for propaganda purposes, you would choose an elementary school. You would choose a girls’ school. Maximum sympathy, maximum outrage.

Is it too much to suppose the IRGC and the mullahs would do this to their own people? 

Why, when they have been shooting them down in the streets?

Why Not the UN?

 

While empires are obviously a good idea, why is it that the EU is failing, the UN is so ineffective at stopping wars, and the League of Nations a notorious failure? Shouldn’t they be even better at preserving peace than any Empire, because more inclusive and more voluntary; and aren’t they more democratic and equitable?

The obvious answer is that these bodies have no Royal Navy nor Roman Legion nor Mounted Police. They have no enforcement arm. 

But that is not the only problem. That said, I would be uncomfortable with the UN or EU having an enforcement arm. They lack moral authority. They are not genuinely democratic, so they lack the mandate of the people. The British or the Roman Empire at least had to answer to their own citizenry; those in power could not run amok. And they lack shared governing values or principles. Without this moral constitution, they become a pork-barrelling among vested interests, inevitably to the detriment of the common man.

To one day have one world government, we will probably first need to have one world religion. Whether or not it is referred to as a religion, that is what it would be: a shared set of values, of principles of government. Confucian values held the large Chinese Empire together. Christian values did well for the Romans, and then Christendom; the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, and to a large extent the British. Lockean liberal values, as enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence, has done well early for the Brits and in more recent years for the large American confederation. But the attempt to internationalize them has come upon adamant opposition from some quarters, notably the Marxist and the Muslim worlds.

Failing this emergence of one world religion, the next best option is empire; or a confederation of co-religionists.

The Case for Empire

 

A friend laments the horrors of war. He thinks that surely mankind can do better than this.

Steven Pinker has shown that over the course of history, wars have indeed become more rare and human lives less violent. In a hunter gatherer society, war is a constant, more or less against everybody. As government spreads, violence declines—that is pretty much the reason for a government. So city states are less violent than tribes, and nation states are less violent than city states. 

And empires are less violent than nations. Empires oddly get a bum rap. They are the height of human civilization. They are the highest level of social organization achieved.

Europe was prosperous and at relative peace for the duration of the Roman Empire—the Pax Romana. The period of peace permitted rapid development in technology, infrastructure, philosophy, and the arts. Things got a lot uglier for centuries after it fell; the “Dark Ages.”

There was a similar and broader Pax Britannica between the Napoleonic Wars and WWI. During this period Britain was so dominant it could act as the world’s policeman. There were certainly breaches of the peace: the American Civil War, the Taiping Rebellion. This was generally in places where the British chose not to intervene. But the point and mandate of the British Empire, and other European empires of the time, was to preserve and protect trade, build infrastructure, and improve general prosperity. At the same time, Britain aggressively advanced human rights, intervening to end the slave trade and such practices as human sacrifice and widow burning. And the period of relative peace and prosperity allowed great advances again in culture, technology, infrastructure, philosophy, and the arts.

In broad historic terms, in Yeats’s words

All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,
And a great army but a showy thing;
What matter that no cannon had been turned
Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king
Thought that unless a little powder burned
The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting
And yet it lack all glory; and perchance
The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.

It was a great tragedy that the British Empire, and the other European empires, collapsed during and as a result of the First World War. We suffered through the Second World War and the Cold War; although it is hard to argue against a hypothetical, one can easily imagine that things could have gone better since 1920 in the arts, which seem increasingly moribund; and for all we know better in technology, in quality of life, and in general prosperity. There were a lot of new inventions in the steampunk 19th century: the steam engine, the railroad, the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, the telegraph, the camera, the submarine, the movie camera.... For all the smartphones and apps and lasers, are there really as many and as diverse ones now?

We are doing better than we might due to relative US dominance. Domestically, as a large and peaceful entity, the US has been able to foster the civilizational best in the arts, the culture, technology, and in human thought since the middle of the 20th century. Although without a formal empire, it has been strong enough to act at times as the world’s policeman, reducing strife elsewhere.

What exactly is the argument against empire? Simply that the people in charge at the top will not have the same skin colour or ethnic background as yourself? That is racism. What matters is that they are competent,  honest, and fair to all.

The danger is a hegemon or Empire that is rapacious, oppressive, or immoral. Not all empires are equal. We would not want the Japanese Empire, which dealt ruthlessly with subject populations. We would not want the Carthaginian Empire, which practiced child sacrifice. We would not want the Nazis to dominate the world. We would not want Kim Jong Un, or the CCP, or the Iranian mullahs.

That being so, probably the most honourable strategy for anyone who is genuinely and sincerely concerned with human welfare, as well as a general decline in war and violence in the world, is to support Donald Trump in his current push for greater US power. The US is the one nation in the best position to quickly become a world hegemon. It is also—let’s be honest--a nation unusually unlikely, given its history as the homeland of liberal democracy, to become oppressive or discriminatory or rapacious in this role. 

So if you are genuinely a lover of all mankind, and against war and violence, you should back Trump in his demands for Greenland, in his bombing of Iran, in his taking of Maduro, and indeed if he wants to annex Canada. 

It is our best hope for our grandchildren.

The Recessional

 It is heartbreaking how far the United Kingdom has fallen. The independence of Ireland was a blow. The fall of Singapore was a blow. The withdrawal from India was a huge blow. Suez was a TKO. Hong Kong is gone. But that was not the end of it. Now, the mighty Royal Navy is not even capable of sending a frigate to defend their base in Cyprus. Greece has sent two frigates; Spain is sending one. France is sending an aircraft carrier. The UK has nothing: a helpless mendicant. Global humiliation.

There seems a good chance that Northern Ireland will vote in a few years to rejoin Ireland. Demographics demands it, and economics makes it irresistible. There is a lively separatist movement in Scotland. And the native population of England is being replaced by immigrants. 

Will anything be left in fifty years?

It is pitiable.

Perhaps once you have had a mighty empire, it is not possible to just subside back into comfortable significance. A dynamic has been set up, a growing avalanche of morale that cannot be satisfied by mere respectability, but demands self-sabotage. 

Spain, after all, went from global dominance to being a European backwater for a couple of centuries. Western Rome did not retreat back into Italy and become a nation-state. It vaporized, and Italy formed into city-states. Babylon, Assyria, Carthage, the Mayans, Akkad, the Khmers, the Incas; when they left, they did not leave large or deep footprints.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
   Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Is the Attack on Iran Just?

Is America’s and Israel’s attack on Iran a just war?

According to Catholic teaching, to be justifiable a war must 

1. Be in a just cause 

2. Be a last resort 

3. Have a good probability of success 

4. Target an evil worse than war itself 

5. Be waged by legitimate government authority.

Let’s check them off one by one.

Be in a just cause.

Nominally, the war is waged to take out Iran’s nuclear and missile capacity before they develop a nuclear weapon, making them invulnerable. This seems to me just because defensive. Iran has declared its intent to destroy Israel. They have sponsored ongoing attacks by proxy forces—in effect, they are already conducting aggressive war.

Unofficially, the war is also waged to give the Iranian people an opportunity for freedom from an oppressive government.

Be a last resort.

Trump made a show of trying to negotiate an end to the missile and nuclear programs in recent weeks. The Americans claim the Iranians would not concede much.

This might have been window dressing, or a misdirection, but it does not matter. The Americans have negotiated for years, trying to get Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons. The Iranians just kept breaking the deals.

According to the Israelis, the Iranians were within weeks of having a bomb. According to the Americans, the Iranians actually boasted they already had enough enriched uranium to make eleven bombs.

So there was no longer any time left for diplomacy. It was indeed, if these reports are true, a last resort.

Have a good probability of success.

The proof of the pudding is this: the Americans and Israelis have so far indeed been spectacularly successful, in taking out the Iranian leadership, taking out the Iranian air force, taking out the Iranian navy, in just five days of sorties. Success seems in sight.

Target an evil worse than war itself.

The casualty list from this action so far is reportedly about one thousand Iranians. This must be tallied up against Iran’s record of killing about fifty thousand of their own civilians over the last month or so, the tolls from their sponsorship of terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East over the years, and the possible casualties from an eventual nuclear exchange with Israel.

Be waged by legitimate government authority. 

Obviously, Trump and Netanyahu are legitimate government authorities. Doubly legitimate in that they were democratically elected, an so have a popular mandate.

There Is a War

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The Need for an American Empire

 

The refusal by Britain to allow the US to use their air bases in the UK for the current attack on Iran, the similar refusal by the Gulf States, and the controversy over turning Diego Garcia over to Mauritius, makes a strong case for Trump that the US needs to own Greenland. As this shows us, in a crunch, simply having bases there is not enough.

Iran in Flames

 

Because I am among those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, I endorse the current Israeli and American attack on Iran. I question the morality of those who do not.

Whatever happens now, the ability of Israel to kill the Supreme Leader and 40 high officials in a first strike in broad daylight is decisive. Together with the arrest of Maduro in Venezuela, this must give any world leader pause who wants to pick a fight with the USA. It won’t be his faceless soldiers who die for him, as in older days—he will directly face the consequences. 

This has to be good news. War may now be close to unthinkable.

Given this apparent capability, from now on, the US calls the shots—perhaps without casualties on the American side. 

At least so long as nobody else has this capability. Russia proved it did not in its invasion of the Ukraine—instead of a surgical strike, it turned into brutal trench warfare. Could China do better?

Even if they could, this ability to target the top does not naturally lead to aggressive war. It would not be very useful for taking territory. It would not enable China, for example, to take Taiwan. It is obviously most effective against dictators. It won’t work agains a democracy.

As to what happens next, the Iranian drone and missile attacks on civilian targets in the Gulf states, on Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, are signs of collapse. They make no strategic sense; Iran at the moment does not need more enemies. It looks like desperation, the desperation of the suicide bomber. It is a regime in its death throes, thrashing about. They need to use those missiles somewhere quickly, or lose the chance. It is better to go out with a bang than a whimper. 

I do not assume this will provoke the participation of the Saudi or UAE air forces in the current conflict. But if it does, I believe they are formidable. I have lived in the Gulf. Every young man there dreams of becoming a pilot. And they may want to become involved, now that they have been attacked, for the sake of national honour. These are proud nations.

I do not expect the current Iranian regime of mullahs to survive this.