The site began with Adam and myself, and quickly Rojas rounded out our founding fathers. The intention of this site has always been to provide a voice for a thinking man’s conservatism, people who fall outside the normal partisan spectrum but nevertheless all believe, in varying ways and to varying degrees, in the principles of small government and positive liberty. Our dual hook is we’re all people who come from a wildly divergence background, geographically as well as ideologically. An expat Englishman, a Kansan rhetoritician, and a roamer. The site, in those respects, has been about crossing borders.

We went on to add James, curmudgeonly East Coast conservative, Jack, a left-libertarian military man, the mysterious and rarely-sighted Mark, and, on occasion, Dizzy, our English instigator friend. All of our participations wax and wane as real life demands, and to keep things fresh, we’re always on the lookout for new voices who can add more to the ongoing conversation.

Today, we add three more. None of them will be new to regular readers, but we felt it was worthwhile to give all an extended platform.

The first is Cameron. Cameron is one of our most veteran commenters, and we’ve always been impressed with his thoughtful cynicism. I’d describe him as right of centre, a fiscal conservative, though anything but dogmatic or partisan.

Liz is a relatively recent transplant to our site. She’s a libertarian-sympathetic, with a background in literature and cultural studies (near and dear to my own heart). Also, she’s a woman. So…she’s got that going for her.

Jerrod is a friend that pre-dates the site. He’s an Idaho transplant, who has settled in Japan teaching anthropology. He’s hard to plot politically, and will be providing us with some more pond-crossing perspective.

I’ll leave it to them to post more formal introductions later. But they’ll be part of our transition team as we head into the new administration, so we figured we’d add them to our election day coverage team. Welcome.

As I mentioned, we hope to have things hyper active tomorrow. I’ll be around blogging all day (I now work freelance full time, so I set aside Tuesday), and all of our bloggers will be blowing through at one point or another. We’ll have updates on everything, and plenty of liveblogs. I can’t promise any kickass widgets or automatically updated whatsits, but at least you get the personal touch! We’ll have one long rolling chatter-fest, and you’re all invited.

I also mentioned, though you may have missed it, that we mean to add some new blood to the blogging team here. Tomorrow, they will be making their debut, helping us keep things lively. They will formally introduce themselves a bit later, but they’ll start posting tomorrow. So that’s another good reason to have us in your browsing schedule, and after tomorrow, they’ll allow us to move into the next phase of politics-watching with some fresh pairs of eyes.

Also, we are almost finished up with endorsements. Despite the fact that most of us are beginning from relatively similar places, I think you’ll find it somewhat amazing how diverse our picks are. Adam has had a lot of exciting real life stuff going on, but he’ll have one out tomorrow as well.

So, join us tomorrow, and keep checking back. It’ll be interesting to see what the New Year brings.

The first is, as we did for the primaries, we’re going to write endorsements this election season. I’ve even created a new post category to catalogue them right over there —>

So you can sift through the old ones.

Unlike my one-off VP ones, or the group-exercise of our primary endorsements, this time we settled on doing it individually. “Officially”, that’ll be me, Rojas, and Adam, each writing a case for our candidate of choice (though of course the other bloggers may well jump in and post their own if’n they like). It’s a way of both focusing our own arguments, archiving what-we-thought-when, and maybe helping readers clarify their own thinking, either in agreement or contrast or whatever. Mostly, I dislike when blogs comment incessantly on politics, clearly have their favorites and preferences, but refuse to put that on the table. I’m not sure our endorsements will be any great surprise, but it will be a bit more thoughtful than the comment back-and-forths. We’re shooting to post all three on Tuesday, October 21st. “Get Off The Fence and Say What You Mean Day” here at The Pond.

The second thing is the problem all political blogs face coming off a big election…where do we go from here? From pretty early on we decided we weren’t just interested in hearing each other talk, but were interested in keeping a lively roster of other voices, mostly people we enjoy reading ourselves. We’re also hoping, coming off the electoral hangover, to push ourselves a bit more, and we hope to come back more to part of our site’s purpose, crossing ponds, pushing boundaries, jumping borders. As such, we’ll be welcoming a few new faces to our authors’ list come the second week in November, new blood, which we think will prove to be a diverse set of voices and perspectives and issues to add to the conversation.

And we might also finally get around to a few functional changes.

So, keep coming back. Tell your friends. More in store.

Variant Press was kind enough to ask me to contribute to a Ron Paul biography. It’s a fairly unusual model for a biography, in that each chapter of Ron’s life is authored by a different “prominent writer/activist” who was involved in his campaign.

The authors include Christopher Horner, Karen Kwiatkowski, J. H. Huebert, Stephanie Murphy, and…me.

Don’t ask me why.

In any case, the publisher is Variant Press. And the book is described thusly:

The first biography of 11-term congressman and Internet phenomenon Dr. Ron Paul, this comprehensive volume includes never before published private interviews with Ron Paul, his wife, Carol, plus close friends and associates. Tracing the life of this self-made man through painstaking research, this book covers his formative years spent in Pennsylvania; his careers as an Air Force flight surgeon and, later, an obstetrician; and, finally, his political journey from U. S. Congressman to presidential contender. Known as “Dr. No” for his refusal to spend taxpayer money unnecessarily, Paul repeatedly overcame substantial opposition to become a nationally recognized political figure, grabbing the spotlight in American politics despite a media that was determined to ignore him. This compelling portrait also chronicles how Paul’s 2008 campaign broke several fundraising records through its innovative use of the Internet, culminating in a new movement for freedom.

You can order it at Amazon, or directly through the publisher.

It’s a small press book, but it was a really interesting exercise in how to write a biography. I guess I would have to call myself a freelance writer by trade by now, but I’d never really been involved in a “labor of love” kind of project before. We interviewed Ron and Carol Paul, Kent Snyder (RIP), Jesse Benton, and the usual gang, but we also made it a point to interview some prominent critics (I spoke a lot with Eric Dondero, for instance, and many of Ron’s Libertarian Party critics), and some outside the-box-sources (his old medical practice partner, colleagues, former campaign staffers, etc.). So the book, I’m fairly confident in saying, is certainly written by supporters, but it’s not a cheerleading exercise.

I haven’t read the entire thing yet, so I can’t vouch for the book in total, but I will say this: I’m pretty “read in” on the history and career of Ron Paul, and even I learned a helluva lot just in writing my own chapter. So I’m pretty certain there’ll be something there for everybody, from people looking for an introduction, to die-hard supporters.

Because I am a nobody, you won’t find my name on any of the online listings, but for the record, I was asked to write the chapter on Ron’s 1988 campaign for President as the Libertarian Party candidate. I was kind of honored to be tasked with such a big (I guarantee you my word count exceeds all others, heh) and pivotal chapter of Dr. Paul’s life.

And for the record I get no back end, so I’m not just saying that.

So, if you’re of a mind to, or if you’re looking to either learn about Ron Paul, or learn more, I’d suggest Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas.

But don’t take my word for it…

…

Well, yes. Take my word for it.

James, as we’ve been arguing, more or less correctly identified the Hillary Clinton speech for what it was, and has been more or less right on her throughout the primaries. Rojas cut through the noise and nailed the likely truth behind the John Edwards fiasco. And I managed to get all four major candidates right.

In December of last year, I correctly picked not just both major party nominees (I called it Obama and McCain before Christmas), but more or less accurately predicted the ORDER of how all the candidates would finish (McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani/Paul; Obama, Clinton, Edwards)(though the reasonings didn’t all pan out 100%, but what do you want, voting hadn’t even started). And, as I’m crowing about presently, by July, I nailed both VP candidates (though that wasn’t a prediction per se). So I’m mildly impressed with myself tonight.

The Crossed Pond: Where You Go When You Want Right.

Powell is only slightly younger than McCain, so the “youth” factor would be out the window. However, Powell has at least a little support from every corner of the political landscape, and a lot of support from much of it. A McCain/Powell ticket would be a formidable team for Obama/Biden to tackle. The question is: Is it even possibility? Powell has been reticent about everything political for a long time. Could he ever be persuaded to jump into the cesspool of a presidential campaign? I have no idea, I am just thinking out loud.

What do you think? Is a McCain/Powell ticket an impossibility?

But, in the glory of getting them back, one thing that had honestly not occurred to me at the time:

The International Red Cross said Wednesday that Colombia broke the Geneva Conventions by deliberately using its humanitarian emblem during the covert military mission that freed Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages…. “It seems to be a deliberate improper use of the emblem,” said Anna Schaaf, an ICRC spokesman. She said this was a violation of international law.

Use of the Red Cross symbol in a military operation violates the first Geneva Convention because it could damage the relief group’s neutrality in conflicts, endangering medical personnel on the battlefield who are using the red cross for protection.

In the July 2 rescue, a team of Colombian military intelligence agents posing as members of a fake international humanitarian group airlifted the hostages safety, including Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate, and three U.S. military contractors….

Now, fat chance the Colombian government is going to give a toss what the Red Cross says on this matter. And Andy McCarthy will not be alone in blowing a big fat raspberry on the whole notion of it. And, quoting WSJ’s Best of the Web, this attitude probably sums up most people’s immediate response:

“Maybe we’re dense, but it seems to us that rescuing civilian hostages from a terrorist group is a higher humanitarian priority than preventing unauthorized use of a trademark. The way the Red Cross interprets them, the Geneva Conventions seem almost quaint.”

….but…

The Red Cross is making nothing other than a very plain reading of the Geneva Conventions—and the American Field Manual for that matter (though America, let’s note, was not really involved here, just using that as an example). The relevant section is the prohibition on perfidy—battlefield trickery—and the very few prohibitions in that regard represent some of the oldest and most core values of Western society on what is and isn’t appropriate conduct in warfare.

And they matter.

A lot.

The relevant section of the Geneva Convention:

Article 37.-Prohibition of perfidy

1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy:
(a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender;
(b) The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness;
(c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and
(d) The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.
2. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation.

Article 38.-Recognized emblems

1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the red cross, red crescent or red lion and sun or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Conventions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to misuse deliberately in an armed conflict other internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals, including the flag of truce, and the protective emblem of cultural property.
2. It is prohibited to make use of the distinctive emblem of the United Nations, except as authorized by that Organization.

Article 39.-Emblems of nationality

1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conflict of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.
2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations.
3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37, paragraph 1 ( d ), shall affect the existing generally recognized rules of international law applicable to espionage or to the use of flags in the conduct of armed conflict at sea.

And needless to say every military code of conduct we have in America on the matter reflects that (indeed, predates that, having been adopted and exulted as central tenets of our national identity during the Revolutionary War and in all wars since).

Important to note: that quote above is literally the sum total of civilized prohibitions on the use of battlefield deceptions as it relates to flags.

Far from being a massively constraining set of articles, really the Geneva Conventions only specifically prohibit a very small few actions that it considers so out of bounds they must be recoiled from at all times (N.B. that is true regardless of whether your enemy is respecting them or not, and if you don’t understand that, you don’t have any business getting involved in issues of war or being accorded any respect or consideration when you do, simple as that.).

In fact, there are really only three. Torture, is the most obvious example. A sub-division principle of that is that a wounded enemy in custody is of no nationality; you treat all wounded men the same, as human beings first and as enemy second (corollary: you do not attack hospitals or enemy medics and doctors).

The second prohibition: you also don’t assassinate enemy political leaders. As the army handbook puts it:

Under this rule are prohibited acts of assassination, the hiring of assassins, putting a price on an enemy’s head, offering a reward for an enemy “dead or alive,” proscription and outlawry of an enemy . . . Perpetrators of such acts should be tried as war criminals.

We’ll leave that one aside for another day.

And the third and final one, which may seem quaint but is actually as fundamental as the other two: you do not fly false flags of non-combat. Very specifically, the white flag of surrender, and the red cross of impartial medical assistance, are inviolable.

There is damn good reason for that. The first and most obvious is…that way, nobody is inclined to shoot at the Red Cross, or surrendering soldiers.

But there’s a lot more to it.

On the subject of perfidy, and I’ve been meaning to suggest it for awhile, I not only recommend, but I demand you all read “Rules of Engagement: Why Military Honor Matters” in which Elaine Scarry, a Harvard professor whose specialty is war and the social contract, looks at exactly this issue, and a few more. If you hadn’t guessed it with the “Wanted Dead or Alive” stuff, pretty much every prohibition on conduct in warfare we are currently, as a civilization, in the process of annulling, led by the United States.

In the War in Iraq alone, we have attacked hospitals, flown false flags, hired private assassins and put prices on peoples heads, and of course systemically and as a matter of national policy tortured prisoners (including wounded and surrendered ones) in our care. Scarry walks you through all that.

Here is what she says on the subject of the Red Cross, and it’s worth the big blockquote:

But the fraudulent use of a white flag or a red cross (or the equivalent of the red cross in other cultures—the red crescent or the red lion, for example) is prohibited for three reasons. First, some small pieces of language in war must remain wholly intact, uncompromised, unwavering, undiluted in their meaning. These few insignia are placed hors de combat, or “out of combat”; they constitute a civil structure that remains in place in the international sphere (in the same way that inside a country the military is kept inside a civil frame). These small but sacrosanct pieces of language act as a location from which other true sentences can be spoken: without them, as Morris Greenspan observes in Modern Law of Land Warfare, neither party would “be able to place the slightest credence in the word of the other.”

The second reason points to the future rather than the present, the period of peace rather than war. Unless certain pieces of language remain uncontaminated by war, no international framework of trust remains available for a truce or peace accord. These small pieces of language must be kept intact, then, because they will provide a bridge back to civilization.

The first and second reasons tell us that some pieces of language must carry the guarantee of truthfulness without telling us why these particular pieces of language must do so. This explanation is provided by a third principle, which is hard to formulate. One formulation states … that it is a “grave breach . . . when the use invites the confidence of the enemy with the intent to betray confidence.” [...] What is key in cases of treachery is that one party invites its opponents to refrain from injuring others and to refrain from protecting themselves against injury by appealing to the higher frame of language, the hors de combat language, and then, thanks to the opponents’ willingness to honor this higher call, injures them…

The stark prohibition on the false use of the red cross is derived from a logically prior and overarching prohibition: that a Red Cross vehicle or building cannot itself be the target of assault. It is because all participants are obligated to regard the white flag and red cross as inviolable that a secondary obligation arises not to use either sign falsely.

“Well Brad, the enemy won’t respect that prohibition”. Well, in that case, you drag them before a war crimes tribunal, try them, and hang them. Simple as that.

But prohibitions on perfidy exist precisely to allow us to retain some measure of humanity even—especially—in wartime. And—I like Scarry’s quote here—allow us a “bridge back to civilization”.

But here is what it boils down to at its core, and the principle violation that the actions of Columbia in this case represent:

If it is legitimate for a national force to pretend to be the Red Cross to conduct combat operations, then it is legitimate—legitimate and justified—for opposing enemy forces to attack the Red Cross. There is, simply put, absolutely no other reading you can make within the logic of combat.

This is precisely why we deem both modes of conduct to be wholly out of bounds.

Now, I’m of course ecstatic that the Colombian government finally infiltrated FARC and got our guys back. And I was not the only one who praised them their ingenuity in how they did it. And, in truth, I would rather they did it this way than not did it at all (and that makes me weak).

There were, as I understand it, no casualties (in that sense and most others, it was a startlingly successful mission), so the Colombian government can (and would) get off with a slap on the wrist.

But a slap on the wrist here is probably appropriate. Somebody, somewhere, should say something…and we shouldn’t mock and deride them when they do. One thing you can already probably safely say: future prisoners of the FARC will no longer be treated to visits from humanitarian workers. And if future humanitarian workers attempt to do so, they run the risk of being attacked—and I say this again, legitimately, in the logic of warfare as defined by the Columbian government.

It is worth pausing and reflecting, if ever so briefly, that we really have entered a period of modern combat history where not only do some people not respect the rules of warfare (and that has always been true, particularly for barbarous and illegitimate enemies), but nobody does. Where even the suggestion that we consider them is considered liberal and whiny, rather than honorable and steadfast (through our history, nobody have been bigger advocates of these regulations than the most hard-and-fast steely soldiers and military leaders the world has ever seen—we are not talking Jeffersons or civil rights attorneys, we are talking Washingtons and The Marine Corps). Where the very notion of civilized conduct during combat has become sneered at. We are now moving, not on the basis of Al Queda and FARC but on the demands of the United States and Columbia, to discard any notion of fidelity to these principles whatsoever.

We can always be happy that in this case or that, things worked out for the best. And I certainly am, as it pertains to Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell.

But it’s worth at least reflecting that we’re giving away an awful lot for the sake of the path of least resistance.

An immediate point, it seems to me, is that Obama’s ceiling is a ceiling in which he’s solidly ahead so he shouldn’t worry too much; the people that might worry are the people that want a national Democratic Party candidate to stomp across party lines, but those people might as well wait for the unicorns to appear with a working solution to Social Security shortfalls impaled on their fluted horns. The Democrats’ hope for national success is to be based, as Dean has based it, on local organisation for well-chosen local candidates; even if a Democrat wins a mighty national victory in a presidential race, I think that would say more about the candidate and their opponent than it would about changes in national preferences and breakdown of partisan politics.

Another point is that, of course, this is national polling, which is interesting as a measure of national sentiment (indeed, it’s a good measure of national sentiment) but not particularly predictive of general election outcomes via the electoral college and mostly winner-takes-all state elections. Obama seems fine in that regard, where he has sufficient states in which he’s close or ahead that he could lose all the 50-50s and still emerge a winner. Indeed, he could win 52-47, say, and still have an Electoral College blowout.

What it does show, I think, is that further progress for Obama or McCain will require more work from them to attract leaners or uncommitteds and the needle to thread there is how to do it without losing from the core, either in their enthusiasm (more of a problem for Obama, who has generated enormous enthusiasm from which has flowed cash on which he’ll depend now he’s not taking matching funds) or in their traditional support (more of a problem for McCain, I think, who has less of a hold on the Republican base by far than does Obama on the Democrat base).