The United States has conducted for several years a ridiculous, melodramatic, and embarrassing debate about the supposed “torture” of murderous terrorist prisoners. Most of the controversial methods of brutality denounced by many of the blogosphere’s most prominent sissies in alliance with the high-minded mahatmas of the mainstream media, obligatory standing, shaking, and face slaps, were punishments routinely doled out in the elementary school I attended by nuns.

The most controversial, of course, was a technique not actually favored by the Sisters of St Casimir (presumably because it would have been too messy), i.e. water-boarding, a form of negative reinforcement in which a supine prisoner has a cloth or a piece of cellophane placed over his face and then gets water poured over it.

Water-boarding has been variously imagined and discussed in the media. Initial reports pretty much equated water-boarding on the scale of man’s inhumanity to man with the rack-and-pincers or the death of a thousand cuts. So terrible was the simulated experience of drowning, press reports breathlessly observed, that the fiercest and most fanatical jihadi could be reduced to a quivering pile of jelly in a matter of minutes, eager to tell interrogators all he knew. The terrible Khalid Sheikh Mohammed allegedly won the admiration of interrogators by holding out for two and a half minutes.

A recent journalistic stunt in which Kaj Larsen paid two former SERE instructors $800 to waterboard him for 24 minutes tends to undermine that earlier perspective.

10:03 video

Larsen is obviously far from the toughest hombre who ever came down the pike, and he not only endured being waterboarded voluntarily for a lot longer than Khalid Sheik Mohammed, he is seen laughing at its conclusion. Kaj Larsen’s exercise in moral instruction also backfires by revealing to everyone that US military personnel routinely experience waterboarding during SERE training.

And now, after considerable national, international, and Senatorial fuss, we learn that only three al-Qaeda terrorists were ever waterboarded, no waterboarding has occurred since 2003, and that the CIA banned waterboarding some time ago.

What all this demonstrates is that contemporary bourgeois life in Western societies is so safe and so non-violent that a profound physical cowardice, an exaggerated fear of violence inflicted by others upon one’s person, is a common characteristic of members of the Western intelligentsia. That cowardice becomes for many an incapacitating phobia, which impairs their judgement and destroys all sense of proportion.

Gethin Chamberlain (Neville’s grandson?), in the Telegraph, talks to a senior officer of the British Army in an era of Labour Government, who tells him that they are “tired of fighting,” have concluded that their cause was wrong, have been bled white by 171 casualties, and are ready (in the glorious tradition of Percival of Singapore) to give up.

It was as astonishing an admission as any that has emerged from the lips of a British officer in the four and a half years since the tanks rolled over the Iraqi border. The British Army, said the man sitting in a prefab hut in Britain’s last base in the country, were tired of fighting.

“We would go down there [Basra], dressed as Robocop, shooting at people if they shot at us, and innocent people were getting hurt,” he said. “We don’t speak Arabic to explain and our translators were too scared to work for us any more. What benefit were we bringing to these people?”

The officer — one of the most senior in Iraq — agreed to speak to The Sunday Telegraph only on the highly unusual condition of anonymity, but he made clear that what he said reflected a major change in British tactics. “We are tired of firing at people,” he said. “We would prefer to find a political accommodation.” ..

For Britain, in southern Iraq, it is all but over. It tried force, and ultimately had to admit that force failed. Since March 2003, 171 British men and women have lost their lives in the war.

British commanders can only hope that the Iraqis have more luck. But if, as the British mantra now runs, the answer is “an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem”, the question that must now be asked is why it took so long to reach that conclusion, and whether it should have been reached much earlier, at a cost of far fewer British lives.

Let the bands play Monty Python’s Ballad of Brave Sir Robin as that “senior officer” marches (or scuttles) away.

Packing it in and packing it up
And sneaking away and buggering off
And chickening out and pissing off home
Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge

The New York Times describes the latest approach to self-defense in Japan, a country with a centuries-old tradition of state monopoly of force: disguising yourself as a vending machine. More active resistance would be “too embarrassing.”

On a narrow Tokyo street, near a beef bowl restaurant and a pachinko parlor, Aya Tsukioka demonstrated new clothing designs that she hopes will ease Japan’s growing fears of crime.

Deftly, Ms. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old experimental fashion designer, lifted a flap on her skirt to reveal a large sheet of cloth printed in bright red with a soft drink logo partly visible. By holding the sheet open and stepping to the side of the road, she showed how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers — by disguising herself as a vending machine.

The wearer hides behind the sheet, printed with an actual-size photo of a vending machine. Ms. Tsukioka’s clothing is still in development, but she already has several versions, including one that unfolds from a kimono and a deluxe model with four sides for more complete camouflaging.

These elaborate defenses are coming at a time when crime rates are actually declining in Japan. But the Japanese, sensitive to the slightest signs of social fraying, say they feel growing anxiety about safety, fanned by sensationalist news media. Instead of pepper spray, though, they are devising a variety of novel solutions, some high-tech, others quirky, but all reflecting a peculiarly Japanese sensibility.

Take the “manhole bag,” a purse that can hide valuables by unfolding to look like a sewer cover. Lay it on the street with your wallet inside, and unwitting thieves are supposed to walk right by. There is also a line of knife-proof high school uniforms made with the same material as Kevlar, and a book with tips on how to dress even the nerdiest children like “pseudohoodlums” to fend off schoolyard bullies.

The devices’ creators admit that some of their ideas may seem far-fetched, especially to crime-hardened Americans. And even some Japanese find some of them a tad naïve, possibly reflecting the nation’s relative lack of experience with actual street crime. Despite media attention on a few sensational cases, the rate of violent crime remains just one-seventh of America’s.

But the devices’ creators also argue that Japan’s ideas about crime prevention are a product of deeper cultural differences. While Americans want to protect themselves from criminals, or even strike back, the creators say many Japanese favor camouflage and deception, reflecting a culture that abhors self-assertion, even in self-defense.

“It is just easier for Japanese to hide,” Ms. Tsukioka said. “Making a scene would be too embarrassing.”

In the US, companies are marketing bulletproof book bags:

MJ Safety Solutions

BackPackShield

While in Britain, Cox News Service recently reported:

An East London company called BladeRunner has started selling school uniforms lined with knife-resistant Kevlar. The customers are mostly worried parents seeking peace of mind in a city that has seen seven teens stabbed to death this year.

“My son is 14 and rides his bike to school, and I feel he’s a moving target,” said Andrea Lovell, an East London mother who recently bought a Kevlar-lined jacket for her son. “A few of my friends have bought the jackets as well for their children.

“We all worry about our kids, and this makes us feel a little better when they go out the door,” she said.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

At least 25 of the 200 newspapers carrying Berkeley Breathed’s comic strip Opus, including the Washington Post, the comic strip’s own syndicator (!), refused to carry the last two weekly episodes.

Editor&Publisher reports that the Post’s Sales Manager explained that “some client papers hesitated to run a sex joke and others won’t publish any Muslim-related humor.”

But, as the Chicago Tribune makes clear, it doesn’t seem likely that mere mild sexual innuendo caused panicky editors at 25 newspapers to shun the last two episodes.

Some newspaper editors think cartoonist Berkeley Breathed might have crossed a line when he incorporated sexual innuendo into an “Opus” comic strip about a character’s conversion to radical Islam. But it’s not the first strip by the artist to poke fun at religion.

The cartoon ran in the Tribune, but not in The Washington Post, the strip’s home newspaper, or in a couple dozen other papers that pick up “Opus.”

Editors at the Washington Post reportedly showed the strips to Muslim employees, who disapproved of the depiction of the Lola Granola character dressed in traditional Muslim garb, declaring conservative Islamic views and making a sexual innuendo.

But the same care apparently was not taken with any of the previous irreverent cartoons that referenced Lola’s spiritual quest, which included introducing the Amish to nude yoga. The punch line of an Aug. 19 “Opus” poked fun at the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

The Weekly Standard wonders:

Why would editors have felt constrained to solicit the views of Muslim staffers?

Were all the Baptists in the Post newsroom consulted about the Jerry Falwell joke? Is “Doonesbury” shown in advance to all the Republicans in the Post newsroom?

6:32 MSNBC video

Islamic-themed comic strips:

26 Aug 07

2 Sep 07

Jerry Falwell-themed comic strip:

19 Aug 07

The same Washington Post which was not afraid to publish leaks disclosing secret National Security operations in time of war behaves like this over… cartoons!

Dr. Stephen Rittenberg think the roots of our liberal punditocracy’s pacificism can be found in childhood.

In that freewheeling world of the schoolyard, the good little girls and physically timid boys who craved teacher’s praise were at a disadvantage. The schoolroom was their utopia, where physical aggression was banned and all problems had a verbal solution. Girls are usually more verbally adept in the early childhood years and gain surplus praise from teachers. In addition, such children, including boys who crave teacher’s approval, receive moral approbation for being “good” while aggression is, “bad”. Hence the future wordsmith intellectual grows up feeling smarter, morally superior, a caring idealist.

These self-flattering views carry over to adulthood, and shape the future wordsmith intellectuals’ political views. If words can resolve all conflicts, then wordsmiths are exceedingly important. If conflicts within and between human beings can be “resolved” with words, then who better to play the role of savior than the wordsmith intellectual?

One of the central features of utopian politics, explaining their appeal to intellectuals, is the promise that conflict can be abolished and human nature fundamentally changed. Whether Communism, Nazism or Islamism, the aim is a unified, submissive, happy mankind led by an elite in possession of the truth, just like Miss Murphy when she taught 6th grade. Aggression will then vanish when egalitarian paradise prevails.

Read the whole thing.

One of those liberal European bishops thinks he has the answer for mollifying intolerant Muslims.

AP:

A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.

Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word “Allah” while celebrating Mass.

“Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? … What does God care what we call him? It is our problem.”

Like certain other liberals in the past, perhaps a man this friendly to Islam could be transferred to one of those inactive North African dioceses, abandoned to the desert or overrun by the Saracens long centuries ago.

Prince Charles proposed a number of historic names with local associations for the names of streets in a newly developed portion of Poundbury, Dorset.

The Prince’s suggestions included the names of a number of soldiers and sailors from Dorset, who served in the Dorset Regiment, or were otherwise connected to Dorset, and were awarded the Victoria Cross;

(descriptions from London Times)

Private Samuel Vickery, of the 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment who was awarded the Victoria Cross for the rescue of a comrade under enemy fire in India in 1897.

Seaman Joseph Kellaway, a Dorset-born Royal Navy boatswain, won the Victoria Cross in the Crimea in 1855 after taking on 50 Russians almost single-handed. He landed in a small boat on the shores of the Sea of Azov with orders to burn some haystacks and a farm building. Within minutes Kellaway and four seamen from HMS Wrangler were surrounded by soldiers. Despite a furious onslaught of musket fire Kellaway, 29, went to the aid of two wounded comrades and held off the Russians until his powder ran dry. Kellaway, was presented with the newly instituted Victoria Cross by Queen Victoria at a ceremony in Hyde Park.

Captain Lionel Queripel, of the 10th Parachute Battalion, was wounded in the face and arms by withering German fire during nine hours of fierce fighting at Arnhem in 1944. He was awarded a posthumous VC for fighting on with hand grenades and a revolver to cover the retreat of his men. He was not seen alive again.

Captain Gerald O’Sullivan won the VC for leading an attack on a Turkish trench during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. He was killed two months later.

a Dorset survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade;

Trooper Thomas Warr, who died in Dorchester in 1916 aged 87, was one of the last survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade when the British cavalry was cut to pieces by Russian guns during the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. Old Tom died penniless in Dorchester in 1916 and was soon forgotten but his grave was refurbished before a special ceremony by his old regiment last year.

a troopship, saved from fire by the Dorset Regiment;

Sarah Sands was a troop ship which caught fire in the Indian Ocean in 1857. Queen Victoria honoured the Dorsets who helped to fight the blaze.

and the WWII battle of Kohima and the Peninsular Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars in which the Dorset Regiment served.

But the Dorchester town planning committee rejected the proposed street names, contending that naming streets for war heroes, acts of bravery, or victories might offend someone and would set a dangerous precedent.

Dorset Echo

Chairman of the planning committee, Fiona Kent-Ledger said:

From the start of the Poundbury development the Duchy had a policy of using names from Duchy farms and estates, such as Highgrove House and Hascombe Court, and that’s a nice connection – we like to keep a theme.

“It’s quite a sensitive subject as there are people in Dorchester who have lost loved ones in past and recent conflict.

“We can’t continue to name streets after people, once one street is named the floodgates are open.” …

“It’s not for political reasons or the fact we’re celebrating war, it’s just trying to be practical about where names are used because once they’re there, they’re there forever.”

Max Davidson thought the council’s decision “smacked of feeblemindedness.”

And veterans thought the decision was an insult.

Mr Julian, who fought in Korea with the Dorsets – now amalgamated into the new West Country regiment The Rifles – said he was furious with the decision.

He said: “This is an insult to the memory of those soldiers who fought and died. It’s a disgrace to the county.

“I bet those people who took this decision have never fought in a campaign. …

He said only three former members of the Dorset Regiment who fought in the Second World War are still alive – and that the rejection was an insult to them as well.

He said names forwarded to the town council for consideration included Kohima, the Second World War battle that saw the Dorsets in the forefront to get the Japanese out of India. The regiment was awarded battle honours for its part in this action.

Mr. Julian found the council’s explanation for its decision unpersuasive.

He said: “Tell that to the young soldiers whose bones still lie out at Kohima. I’m incensed about it.”

Rhode Island News reports that in Pawtucket:

The suspicious-looking object that forced the evacuation of Tolman High School on Thursday wasn’t a pipe bomb — it was part of a pipe organ.

Tolman Principal Frederick W. Silva said yesterday that a couple of students had pried the pipe loose from the school’s circa 1927 pipe organ, which was walled off in a recent renovation of the high school auditorium and forgotten.

Tolman’s 1,300 students were sent home and the state fire marshal’s bomb squad was called in after a teacher spotted the object in a second-floor locker and alerted school officials.

Bomb squad members couldn’t figure out what the object was. They destroyed it as a precaution, applying a small explosive charge.

Because the detonation wasn’t followed by a bigger explosion, officials concluded that the object probably wasn’t a bomb. But because it looked so sinister, Pawtucket police officials asked the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to get involved, handing the fragments over to a BATF agent late Thursday afternoon.

Silva said school officials learned the object was part of Tolman’s decommissioned pipe organ when the two students who took it confessed, saying they had stuck the object in the locker for safekeeping.

Isn’t it marvellous that we have all these public agencies staffed with trained experts and professionals to protect us?

When I read this kind of thing, I inevitably reflect that there was a time when America had high schools with organs which they actually used, and when nincompoops were not empowered and placed in charge of public safety. But we don’t live in that time. Sigh.

Manichi Daily News reports that 11 Japanese kids were hospitalized by ghost stories.

UJI, Kyoto — Eleven junior high school students suffered hyperventilation and were rushed to hospital after talking about ghosts on a bus during a school trip Saturday afternoon, school officials said.

They are fully conscious and their conditions are not serious. Doctors said they suspect that the students suffered hyperventilation as a result of anxiety caused by the tales about ghosts.

AFP:

The war in Iraq “is lost” and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.

“I believe … that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week,” Reid said, on the same day US President George W. Bush was giving a speech at an Ohio town hall meeting defending the war on terror.

At the First Battle of Manassas, it is reported that General Barnard Bee, whose troops were beginning to break under the attack of superior Union forces, informed General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, “General, sir, the day is going against us,” to which Jackson replied: “If you think so, sir, you had better not say anything about it.”

Jackson kept his brigade standing there steady (like a stone wall), then attacked with the bayonet and won the day.

If Harry Reid had been commanding the First Virginia Brigade at the First Battle of Manassas, the American Civil War would have been very short.

John O’Sullivan describes the increasingly critical response to Britain’s humiliation.

if the Brits noticed the Iranian insult, they might have to do something about it themselves (or in company with the United States). They were saved from this awful possibility by the Iranian release of their captives. For a single day there was an outburst of national rejoicing. Newspapers and television showed the military captives, clutching their “gift” bags, alongside a smiling Iranian president under headlines of relief and celebration.

Why did it remind me of Princess Diana’s funeral? It seemed that Brits, once a tough-minded nation marked by self-control, had been transformed into touchy-feely devotees of a loose and self-forgiving emotionalism.

Then the mood changed.

This change was helped along by the murder that day of four British soldiers, two of them women, by a roadside bomb in Basra. Prime Minister Tony Blair cited them as victims of the same terrorism that had held the 15 Brits hostage. On the following day the Daily Mail put their photographs on the front page under the headline “Heroes,” relegating the 15 to the inside pages and a lesser status.

Suddenly the earlier mood of rejoicing seemed cheap and self-delusional. The leading military commentator, Sir Max Hastings, wrote an influential article — “Heads Must Roll” — arguing that the episode had been a mixture of military incompetence and national humiliation.

Others took up his theme, calling for a naval Board of Enquiry. Hard questions began to be asked: Why had the helicopter protecting them flown away when Iranian military vessels were nearby? Why had the British commander not asked other vessels under his command, including U.S. ships, to intervene? Why had the 15 cooperated so readily with Iranians?

Britain’s Ministry of Defense, under siege, retaliated in an ingenious way: It exempted the 15 captives from the usual restriction on service personnel selling their stories to the media — only to have to backtrack after an outcry against it. Doubtless the defense ministry had reckoned that their tales of being subjected to psychological warfare and forced to sleep in tiny cells would play well with a British public in an emotional state. But the Dianification of Britain had not gone quite that far.

There was a firestorm of criticism. Families of the dead soldiers criticized the payments — some as high as $200,000. Not all the 15 agreed to sell their stories. One said the idea was undignified. And while this reaction was building, the Iranians released footage of the 15 captives playing table tennis and tucking into hearty dinners.

No one likes this. Commentators in the media and the blogosphere make pointed comparisons with previous British (and American) captives who resisted more resolutely. But they have difficulty in explaining exactly why the 15 should have behaved in a more manly way. After all, isn’t this how post-imperial Sensitive Man is supposed to behave?

The crisis has held up a mirror to the new post-imperial and Dianified Britain — and the Brits don’t like their own reflection.

Read the whole thing.