More on polygamy in France

A reader wonders whether the French are using the term "polygamy" to refer to the general tendency of black Africans toward low paternal investment family structures, which is bound up with low paternal certainty. My impression is that there is some degree of formal polygamy found in France, but that he may be on to something. The French may be using "polygamy" to refer to what we call "illegitimacy:" the whole complex of low-father involvement family structures that are found more among blacks than other groups:

What does your French correspondent mean by "polygamy"? Does France permit polygamy? Or does it just mean that black men in Africa live with several women at the same time without benefit of marriage under the same roof? Or do they indeed live under the same roof? In some forms of polygamy each woman and her children have separate homes.

Thus, if there is no marriage in France, and the "wives" live with their own respective children in separate dwellings, what we see is the classic ghetto pattern in the USA: black men servicing several women concurrently, traveling from house to house as the spirit moves, and leaving it up to the women to take care of themselves and their children.

And by extension, American ghetto patterns are nothing more than a reversion to the classic peasant African social pattern: marginally employed males traveling from hearth to hearth impregnating females, and leaving it up to the women to take care of themselves and their children, typically by growing food in small plots in the homelands areas [or, in America beginning in the 1960s, by collecting welfare].

The New York Times occasionally pays note to how little work men in Africa do compared to their womenfolk. Helene Cooper recently wrote on the NYT editorial page an essay entitled "Waiting for Their Moment in the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman" [i.e., Africa] about a memory from her trip to the Congo:

I've been unable to get one image from Bukavu out of my mind. It is of an old woman, in her 30's. It was almost twilight when I saw her, walking up the hill out of the city as I drove in. She carried so many logs that her chest almost seemed to touch the ground, so stooped was her back. Still, she trudged on, up the hill toward her home. Her husband was walking just in front of her. He carried nothing. Nothing in his hand, nothing on his shoulder, nothing on his back. He kept looking back at her, telling her to hurry up.

Likewise, respectable publications have started to discuss a major reason why the AIDS rate is so high in black Africa: the tendency of women to have "multiple concurrent relationships."

Of course, only individual aspects of the African tradition are open for criticism in polite society. Anyone who puts the pieces of the puzzle together, like my reader, is banished. Especially verboten is linking African customs to black social patterns in America or Europe.

I speculate that, at least in the western half of Eurasia, Europe and Africa, there is a "cline" running from, say, Finland in the north to sub-Saharan Africa in the south, of decreasing personal tendency toward monogamousness.

The roots are probably economic: women have traditionally been more reliant on men for food for their children the farther north they are, for various reasons. For example, in the the heavy soil of the north a man's labor is required to get rid of weeds by plowing, but in the light soil of tropic Africa, women with hoes can do the weeding.

The mechanism, I would guess, is shyness. Finns are painfully shy, so chasing women is hard work. Once you've got one, you do what it takes to keep her happy so you don't have to go through the agony of meeting another woman.

The farther south you go, the more forward men become. This leads to a "jealousy belt" in the lower temperate latitudes, like Sicily, where shyness is low and men tend to be vain and cocksure, but the economy and culture still require intense paternal investment. There, the men are constantly trying to seduce all the women they meet and trying to keep their womenfolk from meeting and being seduced by other men. Life is full of interest in the jealousy belt!

South of the Sahara, men tend to be extremely outgoing, and talented in the arts of seduction (chatting up girls, dancing, singing, and so forth). But the traditional low paternal investment tropical agricultural economy doesn't require much certainty of paternity, so they invest more effort in chasing new women than in providing for their current women or keeping other men away from their women.

Islam's attitude toward women is very much a product of the jealousy belt. Indeed, I suspect that Islamic social customs are driven in part by Arab revulsion toward the seemingly chaotic black African family structures that Arabs came in contact with when slaving in Africa.

This is one of the reasons it's likely that Islamic fundamentalism will become even more popular in the slums of Europe. Its strictures can serve to prevent moral collapse in a welfare state. When American states followed the Scandinavian lead and boosted AFDC payments to single mothers in the early 1960s, the moral collapse of poor blacks was almost instantaneous. Crime, illegitimacy, and drug use shot upwards as many black men reverted to their forefathers' family structures and started to live off their women.

Very roughly speaking, the farther north a people originated, the slower the welfare state works its moral rot. But nobody is immune. Illegitimacy has reached 24 among whites in America and almost twice that among Hispanics.

Islam can retard the process. Saudi Arabia became a feather-bedded welfare state over 30 years ago, but, while it's hardly thriving today, it hasn't yet decayed into the moral chaos of the American slums, probably due to the fanatical version of Islam practiced there.

It's likely that Muslim immigrant parents in welfare-state Europe, in the hopes of keeping their sons out of a life of street crime, will try ever harder to inculcate fundamentalist Islam in their children. Like the Black Muslims in America, whose Death Angels offshoot was apparently responsible for 71 executions of random whites in Northern California during the Zebra murders reign of terror in the 1970s, it would be logical for fundamentalist Muslims in Europe to attempt to restrain crime within their own communities by turning their young men's aggression outward against a common enemy, their host society.

We shall be living in interesting times.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Polygamy and race in France

A reader writes:

Your quote about French riots and polygamy is interesting, but as a Frenchman I can tell you that the majority of the people who practice polygamy in France are from muslim sub-saharan Africa (like Mali and Senegal) not North-Africa. In fact polygamy is much more widespread in sub-saharan Africa, even when the countries are christian than in North-Africa or Middle East, with the exception of the Arabian peninsula.

In the ultra-politically-correct-never-talk-about-race country like France, what the right-wing deputies wanted to say when they said that "polygamy is the problem" is "black people are the problem" since the majority of the rioters were of Black ancestry. This is why there relatively few riots in Marseille or Lyon, these cities have many Arabs but few Blacks, compared to Paris. So the riots are more related to I.Q. and race than to religion in my humble opinion.

Massive polygamy is rare in the Arab world because it's hard to afford in a culture where men are supposed to be providers and women are supposed to stay home and not work in the money economy. In contrast, in much of sub-Saharan Africa, men are less concerned about insuring that their wives' children really belong to them because they don't contribute as much to their upkeep. It's the mother's job to earn enough to feed her children.

Similarly, Martin Walker wrote for UPI:

AUBERVILLIERS, France (UPI) -- It still smells of smoke along the Rue Henri-Barbusse in the French suburb of Aubervilliers, but the skeletons of burned-out cars are cold now and look oddly like randomly parked pieces of modern sculpture in the shadow of the giant Quatre-Chemins housing estate that saw some of the worst riots in the two-week spasm of riots that swept France.

The sullen faces that gaze on the handiwork of the local rioters and sneer at the vans of the riot police are black rather than brown: Africans from Mali and Martinique rather than Arabs from Algeria and Morocco.

Dressed in expensive sneakers and track suits with designer logos, with the white wires of iPod headphones snaking from their ears, they look neither poor nor much intimidated by the police patrols that now dominate their quarter. The young blacks refuse to talk to white reporters, turning silently away to spit and talk among themselves.

'You (expletives) wouldn`t dare show your faces round here if it wasn`t for the (expletive) cops,' says one, using the slang term 'keufs' for the police.

He may be right. Taxi drivers will not come here. Black adults seem cowed by the gangs of their own young people, glancing at them nervously if they stop to talk.

'We still have to live here when this is all over,' muttered Bakil Anelka, who came to France eight years ago from Ivory Coast and works as a cleaner for the Metro. 'The police will not stay here forever, but the gangs will still be here, back in charge of this district. As soon as I can, I`m moving. I don`t want my kids to grow up here.'

One of the striking features of the two weeks of rage that swept France is that so many of the rioters are black rather than Arab, though North Africans from Algeria and Morocco and Tunisia make up more than two-thirds of the estimated 6 million immigrants, their families included, in France.

Another important element is that in places where the rioters were 'beurs,' as the French Arabs call themselves, Islam and religion seemed to play only a minor role. A tear gas bomb fired into the mosque of Clichy-sous-Bois on the first day of the riots infuriated local Muslims, but there have been no Islamic slogans and no taunts against the French as Christians. They are identified instead, by young blacks and beurs alike, as the Gaulois, the Gauls, a taunting reference to the way French primary schools traditionally begin their history lessons with the phrase 'Our ancestors, the Gauls...'

Local Islamic leaders who tried to calm the young mobs have been routinely ignored, as have the fatwas issued by the leading Imams saying rioting and attacks on innocent people are against Islam...

Experts who work with France`s black community point to a different kind of family breakdown. Sonia Imloul of Respect 93, a non-governmental organization, says one of the biggest problems is polygamy, and cites the example of one family she knows with one father, four wives and thirty children, all living in the same standard 4-room apartment of French public housing.

'The kids sleep in shifts, and when others are asleep, they are on the streets because there is nowhere else to go,' she says, adding the new curfew imposed under the government's state of emergency regulations is simply adding to the pressure.

But I still want to know why there wasn't much looting.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

France: Situation Normal, All Fouled Up:

Reuters reports:

Urban violence in France fell to normal levels on Thursday after three weeks of rioting in run-down suburbs, allowing the government to begin mapping out plans to tackle the problems that sparked the unrest.

Ninety-eight vehicles were set ablaze during the night, a sharp drop from the peak of the violence when 1,400 vehicles were torched in one night on November 6 by youths who say they are excluded from mainstream French society.

"The situation has returned to normal because about 100 vehicles are set on fire each night in France," a police spokesman said. [Via Mangan]

Since France's population is 1/5th that of America's, that would be the equivalent of 180,000 cars set on fire hear each year.

I've been poking around trying to find out how many car fires there are in America annually. So far, all I've found is that there are a lot in Detroit:

A big problem, the [[Detroit] arson squad member said, comes from car owners looking to illegally cash in on their auto insurance policies. The arson squad handles about 4,000 vehicle arson cases a year.

"Most car fires are set in southwest Detroit, for a few reasons," Sanders said. "First, there are a lot of remote places in that area where people can take their cars to be burned.

"Also, southwest Detroit is easily accessible from suburbs such as River Rouge and Melvindale. A lot of people bring their cars in from the suburbs to burn them in the city because of all the remote areas here." [Maybe the Detroit Tourism Board's new slogan should be: "Tired of civilization? Want to get away from it all? Come experience true isolation in Detroit!"]

But a state law passed last year is making would-be auto arsonists think twice about torching their cars in Detroit. Michigan Public Act 413, which took effect in 2001, mandates that anyone making an insurance claim for a car burned in Detroit must first be interviewed by members of the arson squad before collecting any insurance money.

Detroit's disastrous "Devil's Night" orgy of arson centering around the night before Halloween peaked at over 800 incidents during 1984 (it has sensed declined), but only a few dozen of them were car burnings even in the mid-1980s.

And here's a 1994 statistic citing 41,000 cases of vehicle arson in the U.S., or about 1/4th the French rate.

But, are the 100 cars burned on the average night in France auto-immolations by owners trying to cheat their insurance companies or vandalism by endemic rioters?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Law & Order v. the Minutemen

A reader writes:

Steve - It should not surprise anyone that NBC would do a thinly disguised hit piece on the Minutemen. I think NBC owns Telemundo, which means they have a financial interest in keeping the borders wide open. So NBC's official, if unpublicized, corporate policy would be one of antagonism to the Minutemen.

Another writes:

I have checked the show for the last several weeks. Every week, they have a white defendant for Sam Waterston to prosecute. Last night ende with Waterston telling an evil white man, "We're extraditing you to Arizona. It has a 25% Latino population and is a death penalty state. Good luck." Then, the final scene had ex-Senator Thompson, now playing the NY DA, being served lunch by a Latino waiter. Thompson thanks him by saying, "Si."

Yes Steve, They're going all the way on this show. Incidentally, Fred Thompson is from my home county. In 1968, his father headed the George Wallace campaign in Lawrence County, Tennessee.

More from TV's alternative universe:

Last night on "E-Ring," Benjamin Bratt and his crew at the pentagon saved a loving, patriotic mosque in Detroit from a deadly, suicidal, radical Christian militia bent on fighting a holy war against Islam. I couldn’t imagine a greater parody.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Letter from a Marine's father

UPDATED: Email from a Marine in Ramadi: No way to tell if this email that's been going around is authentic, but it sounds realistic. [Actually, it appears to be written by the father of a Marine named Jordan after discussions with his son on leave after seven months in Ramadi.] First it discusses our weapons, then their weapons, then tactics, then strategy (attrition).

1) The M-16 rifle : Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there... Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead insurgents shows a high level of opiate use.

The M-16 had chronic jamming problems in Vietnam. One of the first newspaper articles I can remember reading from when I was around 8 was about a letter-writing campaign by Marines' parents complaining to the Pentagon about their sons' M-16's jamming in the jungle. Can't the Pentagon fix something when it has 38 years to work on it?

2) The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon): .223 cal. Drum fed light machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of ****. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial disassembly. (that's fun in the middle of a firefight).

Is there such a weapon as the M243 SAW, or is that supposed to be the M249 SAW?

3) The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun, performs well in desert environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight.

4) Mossberg 12ga. Military shotgun: Works well, used frequently for clearing houses to good effect.

5) The M240 Machine Gun: 7.62 Nato (.308) cal. belt fed machine gun... Thumbs up. Accurate, reliable, and the 7.62 round puts 'em down. Originally developed as a vehicle mounted weapon, more and more are being dismounted and taken into the field by infantry. The 7.62 round chews up the structure over there.

6) The M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun: Thumbs way, way up. "Ma deuce" is still worth her considerable weight in gold. The ultimate fight stopper, puts their dicks in the dirt every time. The most coveted weapon in-theater.

7) The .45 pistol: Thumbs up. Still the best pistol round out there. Everybody authorized to carry a sidearm is trying to get their hands on one. With few exceptions, can reliably be expected to put 'em down with a torso hit. The special ops guys (who are doing most of the pistol work) use the HK military model and supposedly love it...

8) The M-14: Thumbs up...

9) The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular range and accuracy and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to take out vehicle suicide bombers ( we actually stop a lot of them) and barricaded enemy. Definitely here to stay.

The sniper in "Jarhead" was trained on this, although the gun doesn't appear in the movie version. Blasts hell out of just about anything.

10) The M24 sniper rifle: Thumbs up.... Snipers have been used heavily to great effect. Rumor has it that a marine sniper on his third tour in Anbar province has actually exceeded Carlos Hathcock's record for confirmed kills with OVER 100.

11) The new body armor: Thumbs up. Relatively light at approx. 6 lbs. and can reliably be expected to soak up small shrapnel and even will stop an AK-47 round. The bad news: Hot as **** to wear, almost unbearable in the summer heat (which averages over 120 degrees). Also, the enemy now goes for head shots whenever possible. All the stuff about the "old" body armor making our guys vulnerable to the IED's was a non-starter. The IED explosions are enormous and body armor doesn't make any difference at all in most cases.

12) Night Vision and Infrared Equipment: Thumbs way up. Spectacular performance. Our guys see in the dark and own the night, period. Very little enemy action after evening prayers. More and more enemy being whacked at night during movement by hunter-killer teams.

13) Lights: Thumbs up. Most of the weapon mounted and personal lights are Surefire's, and the troops love 'em. Invaluable for night urban operations.

Bad guy weapons:

1) Mostly AK47's The entire country is an arsenal. Works better in the desert than the M16 and the .308 Russian round kills reliably. PKM belt fed light machine guns are also common and effective. Luckily, the enemy mostly shoots poorly. Undisciplined "spray and pray" type fire. However, they are seeing more and more precision weapons, especially sniper rifles. (Iran, again) Fun fact: Captured enemy have apparently marveled at the marksmanship of our guys and how hard they fight. They are apparently told in Jihad school that the Americans rely solely on technology, and can be easily beaten in close quarters combat for their lack of toughness. Let's just say they know better now.

2) The RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade]: Probably the infantry weapon most feared by our guys. Simple, reliable and as common as dog****. The enemy responded to our up-armored humvees by aiming at the windshields, often at point blank range. Still killing a lot of our guys.

3) The IED [Improvised Explosive Devices]: The biggest killer of all. Can be anything from old Soviet anti-armor mines to jury rigged artillery shells. A lot found in Jordan's area were in abandoned cars. The enemy would take 2 or 3 155mm artillery shells and wire them together. Most were detonated by cell phone, and the explosions are enormous. You're not safe in any vehicle, even an M1 tank. Driving is by far the most dangerous thing our guys do over there.

Lately, they are much more sophisticated "shape charges" (Iranian) specifically designed to penetrate armor. Fact: Most of the ready made IED's are supplied by Iran, who is also providing terrorists (Hezbollah types) to train the insurgents in their use and tactics. That's why the attacks have been so deadly lately. Their concealment methods are ingenious, the latest being shape charges in Styrofoam containers spray painted to look like the cinderblocks that litter all Iraqi roads. We find about 40% before they detonate, and the bomb disposal guys are unsung heroes of this war.

4) Mortars and rockets: Very prevalent.... Marine's base was hit almost daily his entire time there by mortar and rocket fire, often at night to disrupt sleep patterns and cause fatigue (It did). More of a psychological weapon than anything else. The enemy mortar teams would jump out of vehicles, fire a few rounds, and then haul ass in a matter of seconds.

5) Bad guy technology: Simple yet effective. Most communication is by cell and satellite phones, and also by email on laptops. They use handheld GPS units for navigation and "Google earth" for overhead views of our positions. Their weapons are good, if not fancy, and prevalent. Their explosives and bomb technology is TOP OF THE LINE. Night vision is rare. They are very careless with their equipment and the captured GPS units and laptops are treasure troves of Intel when captured.

Who are the bad guys?:

Most of the carnage is caused by the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group. They operate mostly in Anbar province (Fallujah and Ramadi). These are mostly "foreigners", non-Iraqi Sunni Arab Jihadists from all over the Muslim world (and Europe). Most enter Iraq through Syria (with, of course, the knowledge and complicity of the Syrian govt.) , and then travel down the "rat line" which is the trail of towns along the Euphrates River that we've been hitting hard for the last few months.

See below for an article disputing the contention that foreigners play a significant role in the fighting.

Some are virtually untrained young Jihadists that often end up as suicide bombers or in "sacrifice squads". Most, however, are hard core terrorists from all the usual suspects (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas etc.) These are the guys running around murdering civilians en masse and cutting heads off. The Chechens (many of whom are Caucasian), are supposedly the most ruthless and the best fighters. (they have been fighting the Russians for years).

In the Baghdad area and south, most of the insurgents are Iranian inspired (and led) Iraqi Shiites.

If true, this is not good news, not at all. If the Shi'ites start fighting us on a large scale, well, forget it.

The Iranian Shiia have been very adept at infiltrating the Iraqi local govt.'s, the police forces and the Army. The have had a massive spy and agitator network there since the Iran-Iraq war in the early 80's. Most of the Saddam loyalists were killed, captured or gave up long ago.

Not what the Bush Administration claims!

Bad Guy Tactics: When they are engaged on an infantry level they get their asses kicked every time. Brave, but stupid. Suicidal Banzai-type charges were very common earlier in the war and still occur. They will literally sacrifice 8-10 man teams in suicide squads by sending them screaming and firing Ak's and RPG's directly at our bases just to probe the defenses.

They get mowed down like grass every time. ( see the M2 and M240 above). Jordan's base was hit like this often. When engaged, they have a tendency to flee to the same building, probably for what they think will be a glorious last stand. Instead, we call in air and that's the end of that more often than not. These hole-ups are referred to as Alpha Whiskey Romeo's (Allah's Waiting Room). We have the laser guided ground-air thing down to a science. The fast mover's, mostly Marine F-18's, are taking an ever increasing toll on the enemy. When caught out in the open, the helicopter gunships and AC-130 Spectre gunships cut them to ribbons with cannon and rocket fire, especially at night.

Interestingly, artillery is hardly used at all. Fun fact: The enemy death toll is supposedly between 45-50 thousand. That is why we're seeing less and less infantry attacks and more IED, suicide bomber stuff.

"Evolution in action," as Pournelle and Niven say.

The new strategy is simple: attrition.

The insurgent tactic most frustrating is their use of civilian non-combatants as cover.

Welcome to Guerilla Warfare 101.

They know we do all we can to avoid civilian casualties and therefore schools, hospitals and (especially) Mosques are locations where they meet, stage for attacks, cache weapons and ammo and flee to when engaged.

They have absolutely no regard whatsoever for civilian casualties. They will terrorize locals and murder without hesitation anyone believed to be sympathetic to the Americans or the new Iraqi govt. Kidnapping of family members (especially children) is common to influence people they are trying to influence but can't reach, such as local govt. officials, clerics, tribal leaders, etc.).

The first question in a guerrilla war is: Are you willing to go to the mat with the bad guys, to play as dirty as they do? The second question is: Is your country willing to to back you in going to the mat for as long as it takes?

The essential psychological problem in convincing the local populace to side with us rather than with the indigenous guerillas is that we have a nice country to go home to on the other side of the sea, while they all live there and don't have anywhere else to go.

The French wiped out the terrorist bombing organization in Algiers in 1957 by rolling up the cells using torture to extract information. It worked, but when the French people found out about it, they lost enthusiasm for the war, and De Gaulle eventually pulled the plug.

A civilized country can win a guerilla war, like we won in El Salvador in the 1980s, if we have a local proxy force to do the dirty work. (Our biggest problem in El Salvador was keeping the
Salvadoran rightwing savages from completely disgracing our anti-Communist cause with their over-enthusiasm.)

The first thing our guys are told is "don't get captured". They know that if captured they will be tortured and beheaded on the internet.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. -- Kipling

Zarqawi openly offers bounties for anyone who brings him a live American serviceman. This motivates the criminal element who otherwise don't give a hoot about the war. A lot of the beheading victims were actually kidnapped by common criminals and sold to Zarqawi. As such, for our guys, every fight is to the death. Surrender is not an option.

The Iraqi's are a mixed bag. Some fight well, others aren't worth a ****. Most do okay with American support. Finding leaders is hard, but they are getting better.

That sounds diplomatic. I suspect his son had a saltier opinion of his "allies."

It is widely viewed that Zarqawi's use of suicide bombers, en masse, against the civilian population was a serious tactical mistake. Many Iraqi's were galvanized and the caliber of recruits in the Army and the police forces went up, along with their motivation. It also led to an exponential increase in good intel because the Iraqi's are sick of the insurgent attacks against civilians.

As well they should be.

Blowing up civilians wholesale is probably a less effective tactic for guerillas than murdering snitches and collaborators retail. Perhaps foreign guerillas lack the kind of intel needed to discriminate between friend and foe among the local population?

The Kurds are solidly pro-American and fearless fighters.

Are they doing us any good, or just pursuing their own aims by ethnically cleansing Arabs and Turkmen from the Northern oil region?

According to this Marine, morale among our guys is very high. They not only believe they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted. They are inflicting casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see things like "Are we losing in Iraq" on TV and the print media.

I'd like to see our death rate trend downward. Instead, the per day average in October and November have been the highest since January.

For the most part, we are satisfied with equipment, food and leadership. Bottom line though, and they all say this, there are not enough guys there to drive the final stake through the heart of the insurgency, primarily because there aren't enough troops in-theater to shut down the borders with Iran and Syria.

What are landmines for?

The Iranians and the Syrians just can't stand the thought of Iraq being an American ally (with, of course, permanent US bases there).

Attrition has worked in the past, but it has also failed (Vietnam) or proven enormously, almost civilization-destroyingly costly (WWI). One big question is: In Iraq, a society based on honor and vengeance, how many new insurgents do we create for each insurgent we kill and for each civilian we kill accidentally? You can see from the obsession with high caliber weaponry above that we're no doubt killing a lot of bystanders with bullets that keep on flying and even smash through walls.

Has anybody tried to graph these casualty vs. recruitment curves to see what's actually happening?

In general, pursuing a strategy of attrition means that you've lost the strategic initiative. You're counting on the other guy to keep doing dumb things that get him killed in numbers faster than he can replace. War, however, smartens combatants up quickly. Thus, you're seeing the bad guys get in a lot fewer firefights and instead rely more on their stand-off weapon, the remote-control IED.

Another big question: whose learning curve is steeper? Our boys came in superbly trained, but inexperienced in the local environment. They came in with virtually no experience at guerilla war, but familiar with their own neighborhoods. It's not at all clear who is getting smarter faster.

The Washington Post raises questions tonight about the importance of foreign fighters:

Among Insurgents in Iraq, Few Foreigners Are Found

By Jonathan Finer, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD -- Before 8,500 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers methodically swept through Tall Afar two months ago in the year's largest counterinsurgency offensive, commanders described the northern city as a logistics hub for fighters, including foreigners entering the country from Syria, 65 miles to the west.

"They come across the border and use Tall Afar as a base to launch attacks across northern Iraq," Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which led the assault, said in a briefing the day before it began.

When the air and ground operation wound down in mid-September, nearly 200 insurgents had been killed and close to 1,000 detained, the military said at the time. But interrogations and other analyses carried out in recent weeks showed that none of those captured was from outside Iraq. According to McMaster's staff, the 3rd Armored Cavalry last detained a foreign fighter in June.

In a recent interview, McMaster maintained that, before insurgents were driven from Tall Afar in September, foreigners were at least partly responsible for the "climate of fear" that pervaded the city -- a result of beheadings, suicide attacks and the abduction of young men to conscript them as fighters.

"They trained indigenous terror cells and moved on somewhere else," he said.

That's always been one of the obvious loopholes in the Flytrap attrition strategy of inviting all the anti-American fighters in the world into Iraq and then killing them all there: newcomers are mobile. When they hear the U.S. Marines are coming to town, they skedaddle and leave the poor dumb locals to die. Of course, the alternative possibility is that there never were many foreigners in Iraq in the first place.

The relative importance of the foreign component of Iraq's two-year-old insurgency, estimated at between 4 and 10 percent of all guerrillas, has been a matter of growing debate in military and intelligence circles, U.S. and Iraqi officials and American commanders said. Top U.S. military officials here have long emphasized the influence of groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, an insurgent network led by a Jordanian, Abu Musab Zarqawi. But analysts say the focus on foreign elements is also an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the insurgency in the eyes of Iraqis, by portraying it as terrorism foisted on the country by outsiders.

"Both Iraqis and coalition people often exaggerate the role of foreign infiltrators and downplay the role of Iraqi resentment in the insurgency," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who is writing a book about the Iraqi insurgency.

Playing up the foreign fighter role offers us a potential save-facing deal with the Sunnis: "Patriotically turn your guns against the foreigners, bring us the head of Zarqawi, and we'll guarantee you Sunnis a share of the oil wealth in return for peace." (It would sure help if we could figure out how to guarantee everybody their cut of the oil money without us hanging around to dole it out.)

One issue the article doesn't address is the popular idea that the foreigners are most responsible for the suicide bombings on civilian targets. One of the advantages of suicide bombings is that they don't leave anyone around to be captured and interrogated, so we really don't know for sure. We're all hoping that the suicide bombers are foreigners rather than Iraqis because if we can get the Iraqi victims' relatives to believe they were the work of foreigners, then there is more hope for reconciliation within Iraq. There are thousands of murdered Iraqi civilians whose kin must avenge their deaths if they are to call themselves men of honor, and if they believe they must avenge themselves upon other Iraqis, well, killing is going to go on a long time in Iraq.

If foreign fighters are significant, well, it's not terribly hard to close off a border: that's what landmines are for.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The French riots and polygamy

The Financial Times reports:

France’s employment minister on Tuesday fingered polygamy as one reason for the rioting in the country. Gérard Larcher said multiple marriages among immigrants was one reason for the racial discrimination which ethnic minorities faced in the job market. Overly large polygamous families sometimes led to anti-social behaviour among youths who lacked a father figure, making employers wary of hiring ethnic minorities, he explained.

The minister, speaking to a group of foreign journalists as the government stepped up efforts to improve its image with the foreign media, said: “Since part of society displays this anti-social behaviour, it is not surprising that some of them have difficulties finding work ... Efforts must be made by both sides. If people are not employable, they will not be employed.” -- Via Daniel Larison's Eunomia

It's good to see there's one official left in the French government who can still use the French language as it was meant to be used: to express logical ideas with clarity: "If people are not employable, they will not be employed."

Another problem with polygamy is that it often leaves lots of younger men without women to calm them down, so they go out and raise hell.

Also, it's common for a Muslim father in Europe to arrange for his daughter to marry his nephew (her cousin) so he can bring another member of the extended family into Europe. This could cause a girl shortage for young Muslim males in Europe, especially if they come from broken families where the father won't arrange a marriage for his son to a female cousin from the old country.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Dave in Boca's blog looks promising:

Dave's a retired Foreign Service Officer who lived in such countries of interest as France, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, as well as serving in Foggy Bottom and advised a big oil company on international political risk. I've posted some of his emails before, such as his story of how Prince Bandar conned the King of Saudi Arabia into letting American troops into his kingdom during Desert Shield. His first posts include some speculations on the career of Michael Ledeen.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Email from a Marine in Ramadi: No way to tell if this email that has been going around is authentic, but it sounds realistic. (Actually, it appears to be written by the father of a Marine, after discussions with his son Jordan when Jordan was on leave.) First it discusses our weapons, then their weapons, then tactics, then strategy (attrition).

1) The M-16 rifle : Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there... Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead insurgents shows a high level of opiate use.

The M-16 had chronic jamming problems in Vietnam. One of the first newspaper articles I can remember reading from when I was around 8 was about a letter-writing campaign by Marines' parents complaining to the Pentagon about their sons' M-16's jamming in the jungle. Can't the Pentagon fix something when it has 38 years to work on it?

2) The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon): .223 cal. Drum fed light machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of ****. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial disassembly. (that's fun in the middle of a firefight).

Is there such a weapon as the M243 SAW, or is that supposed to be the M249 SAW?

3) The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun, performs well in desert environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight.

4) Mossberg 12ga. Military shotgun: Works well, used frequently for clearing houses to good effect.

5) The M240 Machine Gun: 7.62 Nato (.308) cal. belt fed machine gun... Thumbs up. Accurate, reliable, and the 7.62 round puts 'em down. Originally developed as a vehicle mounted weapon, more and more are being dismounted and taken into the field by infantry. The 7.62 round chews up the structure over there.

6) The M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun: Thumbs way, way up. "Ma deuce" is still worth her considerable weight in gold. The ultimate fight stopper, puts their dicks in the dirt every time. The most coveted weapon in-theater.

7) The .45 pistol: Thumbs up. Still the best pistol round out there. Everybody authorized to carry a sidearm is trying to get their hands on one. With few exceptions, can reliably be expected to put 'em down with a torso hit. The special ops guys (who are doing most of the pistol work) use the HK military model and supposedly love it...

8) The M-14: Thumbs up...

9) The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular range and accuracy and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to take out vehicle suicide bombers ( we actually stop a lot of them) and barricaded enemy. Definitely here to stay.

The sniper in "Jarhead" was trained on this, although the gun doesn't appear in the movie version. Blasts hell out of just about anything.

10) The M24 sniper rifle: Thumbs up.... Snipers have been used heavily to great effect. Rumor has it that a marine sniper on his third tour in Anbar province has actually exceeded Carlos Hathcock's record for confirmed kills with OVER 100.

11) The new body armor: Thumbs up. Relatively light at approx. 6 lbs. and can reliably be expected to soak up small shrapnel and even will stop an AK-47 round. The bad news: Hot as **** to wear, almost unbearable in the summer heat (which averages over 120 degrees). Also, the enemy now goes for head shots whenever possible. All the stuff about the "old" body armor making our guys vulnerable to the IED's was a non-starter. The IED explosions are enormous and body armor doesn't make any difference at all in most cases.

12) Night Vision and Infrared Equipment: Thumbs way up. Spectacular performance. Our guys see in the dark and own the night, period. Very little enemy action after evening prayers. More and more enemy being whacked at night during movement by hunter-killer teams.

13) Lights: Thumbs up. Most of the weapon mounted and personal lights are Surefire's, and the troops love 'em. Invaluable for night urban operations.

Bad guy weapons:

1) Mostly AK47's The entire country is an arsenal. Works better in the desert than the M16 and the .308 Russian round kills reliably. PKM belt fed light machine guns are also common and effective. Luckily, the enemy mostly shoots poorly. Undisciplined "spray and pray" type fire. However, they are seeing more and more precision weapons, especially sniper rifles. (Iran, again) Fun fact: Captured enemy have apparently marveled at the marksmanship of our guys and how hard they fight. They are apparently told in Jihad school that the Americans rely solely on technology, and can be easily beaten in close quarters combat for their lack of toughness. Let's just say they know better now.

2) The RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade]: Probably the infantry weapon most feared by our guys. Simple, reliable and as common as dog****. The enemy responded to our up-armored humvees by aiming at the windshields, often at point blank range. Still killing a lot of our guys.

3) The IED [Improvised Explosive Devices]: The biggest killer of all. Can be anything from old Soviet anti-armor mines to jury rigged artillery shells. A lot found in Jordan's area were in abandoned cars. The enemy would take 2 or 3 155mm artillery shells and wire them together. Most were detonated by cell phone, and the explosions are enormous. You're not safe in any vehicle, even an M1 tank. Driving is by far the most dangerous thing our guys do over there.

Lately, they are much more sophisticated "shape charges" (Iranian) specifically designed to penetrate armor. Fact: Most of the ready made IED's are supplied by Iran, who is also providing terrorists (Hezbollah types) to train the insurgents in their use and tactics. That's why the attacks have been so deadly lately. Their concealment methods are ingenious, the latest being shape charges in Styrofoam containers spray painted to look like the cinderblocks that litter all Iraqi roads. We find about 40% before they detonate, and the bomb disposal guys are unsung heroes of this war.

4) Mortars and rockets: Very prevalent.... Marine's base was hit almost daily his entire time there by mortar and rocket fire, often at night to disrupt sleep patterns and cause fatigue (It did). More of a psychological weapon than anything else. The enemy mortar teams would jump out of vehicles, fire a few rounds, and then haul ass in a matter of seconds.

5) Bad guy technology: Simple yet effective. Most communication is by cell and satellite phones, and also by email on laptops. They use handheld GPS units for navigation and "Google earth" for overhead views of our positions. Their weapons are good, if not fancy, and prevalent. Their explosives and bomb technology is TOP OF THE LINE. Night vision is rare. They are very careless with their equipment and the captured GPS units and laptops are treasure troves of Intel when captured.

Who are the bad guys?:

Most of the carnage is caused by the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group. They operate mostly in Anbar province (Fallujah and Ramadi). These are mostly "foreigners", non-Iraqi Sunni Arab Jihadists from all over the Muslim world (and Europe). Most enter Iraq through Syria (with, of course, the knowledge and complicity of the Syrian govt.) , and then travel down the "rat line" which is the trail of towns along the Euphrates River that we've been hitting hard for the last few months.

See below for an article disputing the contention that foreigners play a significant role in the fighting.

Some are virtually untrained young Jihadists that often end up as suicide bombers or in "sacrifice squads". Most, however, are hard core terrorists from all the usual suspects (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas etc.) These are the guys running around murdering civilians en masse and cutting heads off. The Chechens (many of whom are Caucasian), are supposedly the most ruthless and the best fighters. (they have been fighting the Russians for years).

In the Baghdad area and south, most of the insurgents are Iranian inspired (and led) Iraqi Shiites.

If true, this is not good news, not at all. If the Shi'ites start fighting us on a large scale, well, forget it.

The Iranian Shiia have been very adept at infiltrating the Iraqi local govt.'s, the police forces and the Army. The have had a massive spy and agitator network there since the Iran-Iraq war in the early 80's. Most of the Saddam loyalists were killed, captured or gave up long ago.

Not what the Bush Administration claims!

Bad Guy Tactics: When they are engaged on an infantry level they get their asses kicked every time. Brave, but stupid. Suicidal Banzai-type charges were very common earlier in the war and still occur. They will literally sacrifice 8-10 man teams in suicide squads by sending them screaming and firing Ak's and RPG's directly at our bases just to probe the defenses.

They get mowed down like grass every time. ( see the M2 and M240 above). Jordan's base was hit like this often. When engaged, they have a tendency to flee to the same building, probably for what they think will be a glorious last stand. Instead, we call in air and that's the end of that more often than not. These hole-ups are referred to as Alpha Whiskey Romeo's (Allah's Waiting Room). We have the laser guided ground-air thing down to a science. The fast mover's, mostly Marine F-18's, are taking an ever increasing toll on the enemy. When caught out in the open, the helicopter gunships and AC-130 Spectre gunships cut them to ribbons with cannon and rocket fire, especially at night.

Interestingly, artillery is hardly used at all. Fun fact: The enemy death toll is supposedly between 45-50 thousand. That is why we're seeing less and less infantry attacks and more IED, suicide bomber stuff.

"Evolution in action," as Pournelle and Niven say.

The new strategy is simple: attrition.

The insurgent tactic most frustrating is their use of civilian non-combatants as cover.

Welcome to Guerilla Warfare 101.

They know we do all we can to avoid civilian casualties and therefore schools, hospitals and (especially) Mosques are locations where they meet, stage for attacks, cache weapons and ammo and flee to when engaged.

They have absolutely no regard whatsoever for civilian casualties. They will terrorize locals and murder without hesitation anyone believed to be sympathetic to the Americans or the new Iraqi govt. Kidnapping of family members (especially children) is common to influence people they are trying to influence but can't reach, such as local govt. officials, clerics, tribal leaders, etc.).

The first question in a guerrilla war is: Are you willing to go to the mat with the bad guys, to play as dirty as they do? The second question is: Is your country willing to to back you in going to the mat for as long as it takes?

The essential psychological problem in convincing the local populace to side with us rather than with the indigenous guerillas is that we have a nice country to go home to on the other side of the sea, while they all live there and don't have anywhere else to go.

The French wiped out the terrorist bombing organization in Algiers in 1957 by rolling up the cells using torture to extract information. It worked, but when the French people found out about it, they lost enthusiasm for the war, and De Gaulle eventually pulled the plug.

A civilized country can win a guerilla war, like we won in El Salvador in the 1980s, if we have a local proxy force to do the dirty work. (Our biggest problem in El Salvador was keeping the
Salvadoran rightwing savages from completely disgracing our anti-Communist cause with their over-enthusiasm.)

The first thing our guys are told is "don't get captured". They know that if captured they will be tortured and beheaded on the internet.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. -- Kipling

Zarqawi openly offers bounties for anyone who brings him a live American serviceman. This motivates the criminal element who otherwise don't give a hoot about the war. A lot of the beheading victims were actually kidnapped by common criminals and sold to Zarqawi. As such, for our guys, every fight is to the death. Surrender is not an option.

The Iraqi's are a mixed bag. Some fight well, others aren't worth a ****. Most do okay with American support. Finding leaders is hard, but they are getting better.

That sounds diplomatic. I suspect his son had a saltier opinion of his "allies."

It is widely viewed that Zarqawi's use of suicide bombers, en masse, against the civilian population was a serious tactical mistake. Many Iraqi's were galvanized and the caliber of recruits in the Army and the police forces went up, along with their motivation. It also led to an exponential increase in good intel because the Iraqi's are sick of the insurgent attacks against civilians.

As well they should be.

Blowing up civilians wholesale is probably a less effective tactic for guerillas than murdering snitches and collaborators retail. Perhaps foreign guerillas lack the kind of intel needed to discriminate between friend and foe among the local population?

The Kurds are solidly pro-American and fearless fighters.

Are they doing us any good, or just pursuing their own aims by ethnically cleansing Arabs and Turkmen from the Northern oil region?

According to this Marine, morale among our guys is very high. They not only believe they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted. They are inflicting casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see things like "Are we losing in Iraq" on TV and the print media.

I'd like to see our death rate trend downward. Instead, the per day average in October and November have been the highest since January.

For the most part, we are satisfied with equipment, food and leadership. Bottom line though, and they all say this, there are not enough guys there to drive the final stake through the heart of the insurgency, primarily because there aren't enough troops in-theater to shut down the borders with Iran and Syria.

What are landmines for?

The Iranians and the Syrians just can't stand the thought of Iraq being an American ally (with, of course, permanent US bases there).

Attrition has worked in the past, but it has also failed (Vietnam) or proven enormously, almost civilization-destroyingly costly (WWI). One big question is: In Iraq, a society based on honor and vengeance, how many new insurgents do we create for each insurgent we kill and for each civilian we kill accidentally? You can see from the obsession with high caliber weaponry above that we're no doubt killing a lot of bystanders with bullets that keep on flying and even smash through walls.

Has anybody tried to graph these casualty vs. recruitment curves to see what's actually happening?

In general, pursuing a strategy of attrition means that you've lost the strategic initiative. You're counting on the other guy to keep doing dumb things that get him killed in numbers faster than he can replace. War, however, smartens combatants up quickly. Thus, you're seeing the bad guys get in a lot fewer firefights and instead rely more on their stand-off weapon, the remote-control IED.

Another big question: whose learning curve is steeper? Our boys came in superbly trained, but inexperienced in the local environment. They came in with virtually no experience at guerilla war, but familiar with their own neighborhoods. It's not at all clear who is getting smarter faster.

The Washington Post raises questions tonight about the importance of foreign fighters:

Among Insurgents in Iraq, Few Foreigners Are Found

By Jonathan Finer, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD -- Before 8,500 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers methodically swept through Tall Afar two months ago in the year's largest counterinsurgency offensive, commanders described the northern city as a logistics hub for fighters, including foreigners entering the country from Syria, 65 miles to the west.

"They come across the border and use Tall Afar as a base to launch attacks across northern Iraq," Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which led the assault, said in a briefing the day before it began.

When the air and ground operation wound down in mid-September, nearly 200 insurgents had been killed and close to 1,000 detained, the military said at the time. But interrogations and other analyses carried out in recent weeks showed that none of those captured was from outside Iraq. According to McMaster's staff, the 3rd Armored Cavalry last detained a foreign fighter in June.

In a recent interview, McMaster maintained that, before insurgents were driven from Tall Afar in September, foreigners were at least partly responsible for the "climate of fear" that pervaded the city -- a result of beheadings, suicide attacks and the abduction of young men to conscript them as fighters.

"They trained indigenous terror cells and moved on somewhere else," he said.

That's always been one of the obvious loopholes in the Flytrap attrition strategy of inviting all the anti-American fighters in the world into Iraq and then killing them all there: newcomers are mobile. When they hear the U.S. Marines are coming to town, they skedaddle and leave the poor dumb locals to die. Of course, the alternative possibility is that there never were many foreigners in Iraq in the first place.

The relative importance of the foreign component of Iraq's two-year-old insurgency, estimated at between 4 and 10 percent of all guerrillas, has been a matter of growing debate in military and intelligence circles, U.S. and Iraqi officials and American commanders said. Top U.S. military officials here have long emphasized the influence of groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, an insurgent network led by a Jordanian, Abu Musab Zarqawi. But analysts say the focus on foreign elements is also an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the insurgency in the eyes of Iraqis, by portraying it as terrorism foisted on the country by outsiders.

"Both Iraqis and coalition people often exaggerate the role of foreign infiltrators and downplay the role of Iraqi resentment in the insurgency," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who is writing a book about the Iraqi insurgency.

Playing up the foreign fighter role offers us a potential save-facing deal with the Sunnis: "Patriotically turn your guns against the foreigners, bring us the head of Zarqawi, and we'll guarantee you Sunnis a share of the oil wealth in return for peace." (It would sure help if we could figure out how to guarantee everybody their cut of the oil money without us hanging around to dole it out.)

One issue the article doesn't address is the popular idea that the foreigners are most responsible for the suicide bombings on civilian targets. One of the advantages of suicide bombings is that they don't leave anyone around to be captured and interrogated, so we really don't know for sure. We're all hoping that the suicide bombers are foreigners rather than Iraqis because if we can get the Iraqi victims' relatives to believe they were the work of foreigners, then there is more hope for reconciliation within Iraq. There are thousands of murdered Iraqi civilians whose kin must avenge their deaths if they are to call themselves men of honor, and if they believe they must avenge themselves upon other Iraqis, well, killing is going to go on a long time in Iraq.

If foreign fighters are significant, well, it's not terribly hard to close off a border: that's what landmines are for.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Will tonight's episode of Law & Order do a smear job on the Minutemen?

Here's the official synopsis from NBC:

NEW YORK MINUTE
10pm [9pm CST] 2005-11-16 ALL NEW!

MURDER OF SMUGGLING TRUCKER COULD BE LINKED TO BORDER PATROL GROUP -- When the owner of a big-rig trucking company is shot to death, Detectives Fontana (Dennis Farina) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) learn that the victim was hauling illegal aliens and suspect a member (Daniel Roebuck) citizen's border patrol group -- but their only witness is an undocumented Hispanic woman (Aixa Rosario Medina) who risks deportation if she testifies. Meanwhile, prosecutor McCoy (Sam Waterston) is incensed when the witness is physically intimidated as he tries to turn one organization member against the other in court

Do you remember when Law & Order used to be good, back at the dawn of time? There's no show on television that demonstrates more clearly that white people just want to compete with other white people for status as morally superior, and think of nonwhites as mere props and stepping stones as they claw their way to the top of white status heap.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Muslim cousin marriage in Britain

The Guardian reports:

British Pakistanis should stop marrying cousins, says MP

Riazat Butt Wednesday November 16, 2005 The Guardian

The Labour MP Ann Cryer has called for British Pakistanis to stop marrying their first cousins after a study suggested that they were more likely to have children with recessive disorders than the general population. An investigation by BBC Newsnight claims that British Pakistanis account for 30% of all British children with recessive disorders, which include cystic fibrosis. Dr Peter Corry, a consultant paediatrician at Bradford royal infirmary, says his hospital sees a disproportionately high rate of recessive genetic illnesses.

The Times of India reported:

The research, conducted by the BBC and broadcast to a shocked nation on Tuesday, found that at least 55% of the community was married to a first cousin.

This is thought to be linked to the probability that a British Pakistani family is at least 13 times more likely than the general population to have children with recessive genetic disorders.

The research found that while British Pakistanis accounted for just 3.4% of all births, they had 30% of all British children with recessive disorders and a higher rate of infant mortality.

In my "Cousin Marriage Conundrum" article of 2003, I reported that Muslims in Europe use arranged cousin marriages to get around laws restricting immigration:

According to the leading authority on inbreeding, geneticist Alan H. Bittles of Edith Cowan U. in Perth, Australia, "In the resident Pakistani community of some 0.5 million [in Britain] an estimated 50% to 60+% of marriages are consanguineous, with evidence that their prevalence is increasing." ...

European "family reunification" laws present an immigrant with the opportunity to bring in his nephew by marrying his daughter to him. Not surprisingly, "family reunification" almost always works just in one direction -- with the new husband moving from the poor Muslim country to the rich European country.

If a European-born daughter refused to marry her cousin from the old country just because she doesn't love him, that would deprive her extended family of the boon of an immigration visa. So, intense family pressure can fall on the daughter to do as she is told.

First cousin marriages also lower IQ by a few points on average, which Arabs can't afford. One study found a seven point depression in IQ, but other studies point to maybe half that. In any case, it's one reason that IQs among Caucasian Muslims are lower on average than among other Caucasians.

Of course, this has major implications for the question of the day about why Muslim immigrants aren't integrating into European societies, with everybody who is anybody denouncing European racism. But if the Muslims force their daughters to marry their cousins from the Old Country, they aren't going to engage in the most effective form of integration: inter-ethnic marriage.

A racial group is a partly inbred extended family. Due to cousin marriage, Muslims are particularly inbred within particularly limited extended families, which is a major reason why Muslim cultures are so fractious and integrate so poorly into larger societies.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Muslim rioting caused by shortage of celebrities?

One of the more common arguments put forward to explain the riots in France is the lack of Muslim celebrities on French TV.

That sure explains a lot, like why Asian American guys are rioting all the time.

Or how about the 25 million Mexican Americans? Obviously, the reason they riot less than African-Americans is because there are so many more Mexican than black celebrities in this country. There's Salma Hayek, George Lopez, boxer Oscar de la Hoya, that Desperate Housewife, and ... well, uh ... there's that Mexican baseball player with the really short arms and legs, Erubiel Durazo, and, uh, ... (In reality, most Hispanic celebrities in America, like Jennifer Lopez, are from the Caribbean.)

But, in truth, there's no shortage of African-American celebrities (or of African-American rioters and looters, for that matter). A reader writes:

Part of the reason, I think, that black men reject low-end jobs is that their culture has been overwhelmed by stars: the success of black pro athletes and entertainers. Black boys grow up dreaming to be a star, and focus their energy into sports, or rap, or comedy; anything but academics. This is a high-risk strategy. A tiny number become highly successful millionaires (or just decently successful minor leaguers); most fail to become anything in particular. Like being an actor in LA.

Mexicans, for better or worse, don't seem to be particularly high-testosterone men. They have little athleticism and don't seem to have any particular gifts in music or charisma in general. So it is to be hoped that their culture will not follow black culture in adopting a sort of all-or-nothing attitude about success. (On all or nothing, well, just look at the recent "50 Cent" movie "Get Rich or Die Trying.")

One wonders what the prospects for French Arab-descended men are.

I think "all or nothing" culture may be in part a result of fatherlessness. Having a father with a mundane job helps to make boys realize they may not be a star. Also, having old men around who you can trust to tell you that you don't have what it takes can prevent a young man from spending his formative years trying to do something he's not suited for.

Of course, a group is also going to be lacking in celebrities if it doesn't want its women-folk flaunting their charms on TV. Take a look at Spanish-language talk shows sometime. The guests primarily fall into two classes: Hot-cha-cha bimbas with, mostly, bottle blonde hair and breast implants wearing practically nothing, and middle-aged buffoon comedians, of the Benny Hill meets the Bee Guy on The Simpsons ilk.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Muslim rioting caused by shortage of celebrities?

One of the the more common arguments put forward to explain the riots in France is the lack of Muslim celebrities on French TV.

That explains a lot, like why all those Asian American guys are rioting all the time. Or how about the 25 million Mexican Americans? There sure are a lot of Mexican celebrities in this country: Salma Hayek, George Lopez, boxer Oscar de la Hoya, that Desperate Housewife, and ... well, uh ... there's that Mexican baseball player with the really short arms and legs, Erubiel Durazo, but, clearly, we're scratching down toward the bottom of the celebrity barrel already. (In reality, most Hispanic celebrities in America, like Jennifer Lopez, are from the Caribbean.)

But there's no shortage of African-American celebrities (or of African-American rioters and looters, for that matter). A reader writes:

Part of the reason, I think, that black men reject low-end jobs is that their culture has been overwhelmed by stars: the success of black pro athletes and entertainers. Black boys grow up dreaming to be a star, and focus their energy into sports, or rap, or comedy; anything but academics. This is a high-risk strategy. A tiny number become highly successful millionaires (or just decently successful minor leaguers); most fail to become anything in particular. Like being an actor in LA.

Mexicans, for better or worse, don't seem to be particularly high-testosterone men. They have little athleticism and don't seem to have any particular gifts in music or charisma in general. So it is to be hoped that their culture will not follow black culture in adopting a sort of all-or-nothing attitude about success. (On all or nothing, well, just look at the recent "50 Cent" movie "Get Rich or Die Trying.")

One wonders what the prospects for French Arab-descended men are.

I think "all or nothing" culture may be in part a result of fatherlessness. Having a father with a mundane job helps to make boys realize they may not be a star. Also, having old men around who you can trust to tell you that you don't have what it takes can prevent a young man from spending his formative years trying to do something he's not suited for.

Of course, a group is also going to be lacking in celebrities if it doesn't want its women-folk flaunting their charms on TV. Take a look at Spanish-language talk shows sometime. The guests primarily fall into two classes: Hot-cha-cha bimbas with, mostly, blonde hair and breast implants wearing practically nothing, and middle-aged buffoon comedians, who are a cross between Benny Hill and the Bee Guy on The Simpsons.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

America Is Dumbing Down

However, there's good news for the President: his master plan is working. Each day, the fraction of people in America who make him feel mentally inferior is shrinking. Business Week reports:

How did the U.S. become the world's largest economy? A key part of the answer is education. Some 85% of adult Americans have at least a high school degree today, up from just 25% in 1940. Similarly, 28% have a college degree, a fivefold gain over this period. Today's U.S. workforce is the most educated in the world.

But now, for the first time ever, America's educational gains are poised to stall because of growing demographic trends. If these trends continue, the share of the U.S. workforce with high school and college degrees may not only fail to keep rising over the next 15 years but could actually decline slightly, warns a report released on Nov. 9 by the National Center for Public Policy & Higher Education, a nonprofit group based in San Jose, Calif. The key reason: As highly educated baby boomers retire, they'll be replaced by mounting numbers of young Hispanics and African Americans, who are far less likely to earn degrees.

Because workers with fewer years of education earn so much less, U.S. living standards could take a dive unless something is done, the report argues. It calculates that lower educational levels could slice inflation-adjusted per capita incomes in the U.S. by 2% by 2020. They surged over 40% from 1980 to 2000...

Callan's projections are based on the growing diversity of the U.S. population. As recently as 1980, the U.S. workforce was 82% white. By 2020, it will be just 63% white. Over this 40-year span, the share of minorities will double, to 37%, as that of Hispanic workers nearly triples, to 17%. The problem is, both Hispanics and African Americans are far less likely to earn degrees than their white counterparts. If those gaps persist, the number of Americans age 26 to 64 who don't even have a high school degree could soar by 7 million, to 31 million, by 2020. Meanwhile, although the actual number of adults with at least a college degree would grow, their share of the workforce could fall by a percentage point, to 25.5%.

STEEP SLIDE IN TEXAS
These trends aren't carved in stone, of course. Bush's No Child law is helping to lift minority kids' test scores, says Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington think tank that studies No Child. But the gaps are still enormous. On the recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, 39% of white eighth graders were proficient in reading, vs. just 15% of Hispanics and only 12% of blacks. "Given these scores, there's no way the country will reach the 100% proficiency goal" of the No Child law, predicts Jennings.

Even with No Child, backsliding already has happened in Texas, the laboratory President George W. Bush used for the law when he was governor of the state. Why? The Lone Star State's Hispanic population is exploding. Because minority students are far more likely to drop out of high school, Texas now ranks dead last among the 50 states in the percentage of adults who have a high school degree. That's down from 39th in 1990.

Similarly, Texas ranks 35th among the states in the percentage of adults who have a college degree, down from 23rd in 1990. State demographer Steve H. Murdock is telling anyone who will listen that Texas public schools will be 80% minority by 2040, up from 57% in 2000. If the education gap persists, he warns, the income of the average Texas household will fall by $6,500 by 2040, after inflation adjustments -- potentially fueling a spike in poverty, the prison population, and other social problems. "We've been very hard hit," says Murdock.

This helps explain the long term problems of the LA Times. I rather like the LA Times -- it is sober, intelligent, staid, and high-minded, an NY Times Jr. that's just a little weaker than the NYT in most regards (especially science). But that's exactly the wrong approach for Southern California's demographic trends, changes that the LAT (suicidally) supports editorially. It should instead be giving us front-page color pictures of bullet-riddled corpses, telenovela starlets caught in sex scandals, and cute puppies.

Now, LA is one of the most interesting cities in the world if you want to study where we're headed. But where we're headed is the last thing the LA Times wants to think about, both because any valid inferences are politically incorrect and because there won't be much room for the LAT in its current incarnation in the LA of the future, so the LAT is both dull and irrelevant to its own city.

Fred Reed writes:

The hemorrhaging circulation of the paleomedia gratifies me better than bubblegum. Lord I love it. The tube worms of the network suites have discovered that lo! Fewer of the citizenry sit nightly before the flickering propaganda modem. The readership of newspapers yet falls...

What are the topics of most fascination in the United States? Of most importance? Certainly among them are race, sex in the social sense, crime, and immigration. Now, let’s see whether we can name four subjects about which the media speak with calculated mendacity obvious to everyone one. How about…oh, say…race, sex in the social sense, crime, and immigration?...

I found the account of a black man, one Dr. (of what, I wonder?) Kamau Kambon , who while speaking to a panel at the law school of Howard University (a black school in Washington, DC) said that the white race should be exterminated.

This is not my interpretation but rather his explicit, repeated statement. I quote: white people "have retina scans, they have what they call racial profiling, DNA banks and they're monitoring our people to try to prevent the one person from coming up with the one idea. And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that, in my estimation, is the only conclusion I have come to. [sic] We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem." He wants to kill me, my daughters, and my friends.

This produced from the media…near silence. From Howard University…silence. From professional blacks…silence.

Now, this column is not about race relations, but about the dishonesty of the media. I do not think that blacks want to exterminate whites, though Mr. Kambon needs to take his medication. Nor do I want to exterminate anyone, with the possible exception of lawyers and people in public relations. Nor do I know any whites who want to exterminate blacks. (You can find some very strange websites that might, though.)

We all know the pattern. When Larry Summers, president of what once was Harvard University, mentioned that men are better than women at mathematics, a fact studied to death and well settled, it was national news practically forever. Hissyfits were everywhere thrown. Summers duly whimpered and licked all feet within range. Ah, but when Mr. Kambon wants to kill most of the United States, why…ah, heh…cough.

Also about the same time, the coach of the football team of the Air Force Academy suggested that his team was faring badly because it didn’t have enough black players. “It just seems to be that way, that Afro-American kids can run very, very well. That doesn't mean that Caucasian kids and other descents can't run, but it's very obvious to me they run extremely well," DeBerry said, not too articulately, in remarks first broadcast Tuesday night by KWGN-TV in Denver.”

Conventional outrage gurgled tiredly forth as from a broken drain. Like Summers, DeBerry ended up squirming on the rug in apology. (Why? Whatever happened to manhood?) It is of course a fact that blacks run fast. Are they overwhelming in the running slots of the NFL because they are slow, do you think? Then why does the league not recruit me at, say, six million green ones a year? I am, I promise, far slower than any running back in football.

To point out that blacks are good athletes is virtually a firing offense, but to urge killing millions is fine. Welcome to the media.

What has this to do with the circulation of newspapers? Lots. For one thing, whites who are to be killed may weary of hostility from the media, and they are most of the readership. Except I’m not any longer. For another, coverage is boring because predetermined, irritating because antagonistic and mendacious, and useless because it contributes nothing to solving, or even to understanding, the racial problems of the country. Or any problems of the country.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer