Site Maintenance

Enduring America may disappear for a time this evening (GMT) while we perform an upgrade. Mike's sincerely hoping he knows what he's doing and that the site shouldn't be down for too long.

We're back. Upgrade not too painful. No shoes were thrown.

Scientific Update: How Can There Be Non-Conservatives?

Conservapedia continues to amaze us with the rapid development of its special section, "Why do Non-Conservatives Exist?". We're especially impressed with the "scientific" calculations now defining the reasons for liberal deviance.

It's heartening, for example, to see that colleagues and I are responsible for "20% [who] refuse to let go of their...desire for a sense of acceptance by liberal friends or teachers", but I'm personally encouraged by "20% who] refuse to rise above their personal temptations, often self-destructive, to act in a way that conflicts with conservative values, such as irresponsible sexual promiscuity".

Of course, I have asked Mike Dunn to set up our own Enduring America poll to support Conservapedia's findings.



Those Scientific Findings in Full

40%: did not hear about conservative principles and the logic behind them until after they made up their mind, perhaps due to pervasive societal bias, and refuse to reconsider

20%: refuse to rise above their personal temptations, often self-destructive, to act in a way that conflicts with conservative values, such as irresponsible sexual promiscuity

20%: refuse to let go of their past, or let go of their desire for a sense of acceptance by liberal friends or teachers

10%: work in a job having a salary dependent on keeping conservatives out of power, such as public school teachers, and refuse to rise above self-interest

5%: were told off or disciplined once by a conservative, often a parent, and refuse to rise above the animosity.

5%: like an anarchist, genuinely want to believe in and propagate destructive ideas.

Iraq Non-Surprise of the Day (2): Deconstruction

In the category of If You Don't Build It, The Insurgency Will Come, from The New York Times:

An unpublished 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.

The report's conclusion is a bit of a downer:

The hard figures on basic services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed.

It could have been worse, however. The authors might have noted that this failure was a major cause of the immediate breakdown of "Mission Accomplished" into a war by local groups against the US-led "coalition". And, since the report is still private as it is passed amongst "technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials", it may be watered down even further to spare Bush Administration blushes.

Kudos to the Times, then, for providing a full draft version of the report.

Iraq Non-Surprise of the Day: We'll Stick Around for A While

It didn't take long for the US military to confirm our speculation that a lot of US troops won't be coming home soon. From The New York Times:

The top American commander in Iraq said Saturday that some soldiers would remain in a support role in cities beyond summer 2009, when a new security agreement calls for the removal of American combat troops from urban areas.

The commander, Gen. Ray Odierno, said American troops would remain at numerous security outposts in order to help support and train Iraqi forces. “We believe that’s part of our transition teams,” he told reporters in Balad while accompanying Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrived on an unannounced trip Saturday.

Odierno's spokesman coined a new term to cover the retention of troops --- they're now "enablers" --- but his boss tipped off the long-term strategy:

General Odierno said Saturday, as Pentagon officials have said previously, that the agreement might be renegotiated with the Iraqi government. “Three years is a very long time,” he told reporters.

And, just to drive the point home, Secretary of Defense Gates identified the Bad Guy to justify Occupation Lite:

The president-elect and his team are under no illusions about Iran’s behavior and what Iran has been doing in the region and apparently is doing with weapons programs.

To me, it looks like US policy is now being fashioned, not by the President or the President-elect, but by Gates, Odierno, and General David Petraeus, the head of the US military's Central Command. This doesn't mean that Obama is opposed to the policy --- far from it, if he put his foot down, he would have a chance of limiting the commitments --- but with his increasingly unreal statement that US troops will be withdrawing from iraq within 16 months, Barack is letting himself be boxed in.

Indian Jets Enter Pakistani Airspace

I should be in bed, but it looks like Indian fighter jets may have entered Pakistani airspace sometime in the past few hours. Dawn reports:

A Pakistan air-force spokesman confirmed that fighter jets from the Indian air-force violated the Kashmir and Lahore sectors of Pakistan’s airspace on Saturday.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman said that Pakistan responded to the situation by hailing the jets and having the air-force escort the fighter planes back to Indian airspace.

Speaking with Dawn News, Rehman said that the Indian leadership had been contacted, and that the incident was described as ‘inadvertent’, and that the Pakistan air-force and army had been placed on alert, but ‘did not wish to escalate the situation’ any further.

Reports on Twitter also suggest there may have been a "loud explosion" in the Arabian sea. (Unlike the BBC I'm not having second thoughts about blogging information found on Twitter- you all know how to separate fact from hearsay and opinion, right?).

Further information from our readers is always welcome.

UPDATE: The Indian Air Force is denying the incident.

(Thanks to UJ for the initial tip.)