"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region. We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay
limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt. It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals (Israel). . . . This is an ultimatum."
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Ahmadinejad Rattles His Saber...Again.
Ahmadinejad made the following statement on the tail of the latest discussions in the U.N. Security council concerning his drive for nuclear weapons. Notice how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is once again being employed by Ahmadinejad as justification for his outlandish public statements. The only difference between Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il is their barber.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Bush Motorcade
I took this shot of the President's motorcade passing ground zero on West Street. There were secret service snipers stationed within full view in numerous vantage points in the area. Two were within 15ft of me when I snapped this picture.
Ground Zero as it Appears Today
Here's a picture I took with a cellphone camera a few days ago. There haven't been any substantial changes to this site in some time, construction on the Liberty Tower is slated to begin sometime within the next year.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Understanding the Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism
Here's a portion of an essay I happened to find, which offers some interesting analysis of Islam's latest shift toward orthodoxy. Source
Part II.
Islamic Responses to the West
Westernization, Modernism, Fundamentalism
As European power expanded in the 19th Century, there were attempts by Islamic societies to modernize. The introduction of newspapers and the telegraph by Europeans in the 19th Century made widely evident the “backwardness” of the “Oriental” Other. Two major strategies were developed to proactively respond to Western power and its expanding hegemony (Davidson 1998). First, leaders and intellectuals advocated westernization and secularization as the surest way to compete with Europe. This vein won out in terms of political power. As the west carved up the Islamic world into various states, indigenous leaders led the secularization of some Islamic societies, notably Turkey, promoting western education, law, science, etc. Much like the Japanese Restorationists, modernity was backed by the military. Second, a relatively small circle of intellectuals advocated an Islamic Modernism, arguing that Western methods and key institutions, legislatures, modern administrations, banks, could be revised along the lines of Islamic law. This movement was neither able to influence either the Westward leaning, secular political elites of the day nor the conservative Islamic religious authorities. These ideas did not reach the uneducated masses. Hence, Islamic development generally became polarized between Westernizing and conservative extremes.
Theorizing in the early 20th Century, Weber was personally troubled and theoretically concerned with the negative side of modernity, its rationalization of the world that dehumanized the person and reduced everything to what could be quantified. Economic striving, detached from a religious ethic, had become an empty striving for shallow materialism. A new industrial elite was emerging. A century after Weber wrote about the moral nullity of Western civilization, mass mediated consumerism, privatized hedonism devoid of meaning, has proliferated everywhere. The globalization of capital, secularization, and rapid social and cultural changes, together with population movements, has fostered both anomie and the attenuation of social ties. In face of changes, crises and challenges, one of the typical responses has been the embrace of dogmatic, orthodox positions. In a similar way, countries with economic challenges often embrace authoritarian governments, if not fascism. Fundamentalism and terrorism are both reactions to and moments of resistance to the dominating aspects of modernity and the shallowness of secularism. And, as discussed in Part III below, ressentiment mediated through radical fundamentalism can become part of the impetus for religious terrorism.
The Nature of Fundamentalism
One of the most important religious social transformations of the last century has been the gradual rise of fundamentalism, the embrace of anti-modern religious orthodoxies. Why has there been a rise of fundamentalisms? Jurgensmeyer (2001) notes that religious fundamentalism across various religious cultures is on the rise globally for three common reasons: first, radical conservative religious movements reject the liberal values of secular institutions and blame society’s decline on the loss of religious inspiration; second, these radical religious movements refuse to accept boundaries of secular society which keeps religion a private observance and not the public sphere; and third, these conservative movements are seeking to restore religion as central to social life. As noted above, in the face of challenges, groups may become more dogmatic and intolerant. We have suggested that in response to challenges, ranging from the sacking of Baghdad to the expulsion from Spain to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, that Islamic leaders have repeatedly embraced more conservative positions. This created conservative traditions as the basis for a conservative response to Western secular encroachments. This, however, is a general global cultural phenomenon in response to rapid social change, uncertainty, attenuation of social ties, challenges to ingrained value precepts, etc.
Fundamentalisms generally require unquestioning acceptance of transcendent religious precepts, a strict adherence to compulsory rituals and a subjugation of the self to higher powers. Fundamentalism may be defined as a conservative religious reaction to secular society that typically includes the following characteristics: Exclusive truth claims are typically based on a sacred text. It often has Manichean truth claims in which non-believers are constructed as immoral and an apocalyptic view of the world. Fundamentalism seeks to restore a glorious past from which people had strayed. Fundamentalism makes exclusive truth claims grounded in canonical religious, spiritual texts and seeks to recreate an idealized religious community while paradoxically embracing modern means: mass media, bureaucratic institutions, and destructive technologies in militancy. Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Islamic fundamentalisms more or less follow this pattern. Thus, fundamentalisms resist the usually hedonistic, secular, materialistic values of modernity. At the same time, fundamentalists are modernists in that they use elements of tradition in combination with modern methods-advanced technology, institutional forms, and instrumental rationality-to transform the political order (Tibi 1998).
Radical religious movements often position themselves to act in the public sphere as moral agents. From the viewpoint of religious radicals, it is not so much that religion has become political as much as politics has become religious. The reasons for this deep antagonism are not merely political. Secular modernity and its valorization of Reason has made an assault on religious values and worldviews that erode the impact and power of religious institutions leading to a general crisis in religious belief. As secular society is suffering a crisis of morality and meaning, there is a space for religious critiques of secular modernity and transcendental alternatives. The West, celebrating the secular materialism of modernity, spread through a political economic imperialism and mass mediated consumerism has created spaces for radical religious movements, both in the developed and developing countries.
Islamisms
Islamic fundamentalisms arose in various Islamic states. For example, Wahabbism was embraced in Saudi Arabia, as the Ottoman Empire declined in the later 18th, early 19th Century. As Western power grew and the division of the Islamic world proceeded, Western interests encouraged the suppression of progressive movements in the Middle East such as socialism or even nationalism. (Note that there have been intrinsic reasons why these Western ideologies were not embraced.) For example, the US has strongly supported the (oil rich) House of Saud, where Islam has turned increasingly conservative and militant in resistance. Islamic fundamentalism is a response many factors, central among which are the domination by the West, the relative poverty and underdevelopment of the Muslim world, and the lack of political outlets to express discontents.
In the 20th Century, Westernization did not yield its promised results. Modernity failed Islamic states, for a variety of reasons mentioned above, especially the conservatism of its religion, the underdevelopment inherent in colonialism and foreign sponsoring of local elites, the lack of education of the populace, and, the conservatism of religious leaders. Islamic states generally secured the wealth and power of the elites and sustained oppressive secular governments rather than seek expansions of democracy and human rights. With the failure of modernity to bring its promised benefits, conservative Islamic brotherhoods and movements, originally organized to address social justice issues attempted to reinvigorate, reform and reestablish Islam as the basis for revitalized Islamic states. As westernizing strategies in Islamic states failed and/or were suppressed in the 20th Century, conservative religious responses grew more pronounced, generating various Islamisms, Islamic fundamentalist movements. Note that in many developing nations, secular thought and autonomous institutions, especially democratically elected legislative bodies and executive are not very well formed or advanced. Religious ways of life and social-political institutions hold more public power, especially in Islamic countries. Hence, there is a strong link between religious belief and resistance to Western hegemony among radical religious movements in the Islamic world. We also note that the rigid claims and orthodoxy of fundamentalism generally prevents a group from self-examination and critical reflection. This is not likely to change as long as the educational processes in the developing world remain tied to traditional religious institutions. Studying the Quran and/or Islamic studies does not much prepare the student for science, industry, commerce or critical thought.
Conservative Islamic movements have pursued three main ends in Islamic society: reformism, revivalism, and radical defense. The main interest of these movements is to reestablish the moral and political virtues of traditional Islamic society (Choueiri 1990). Islamism is modeled on the attempt to recapture Muhammad's early role of rebel in Mecca in criticizing moral corruption and need for lifestyle and political economic reforms grounded in religious mores. For revivalists, just as Muhammad challenged false gods and immoral ways instead of a righteous life, Islamism is seen as a path to justice and equality against the Western ways of corruption and worship of its false gods. Islamist ideological analysis offers these reasons for the decline of Islam: 1) Islamic society declined due to the departure from the practice of religious values and dictates; 2) This decay made possible the Western intrusion; and, 3) The solution is to revitalize and return to Islam by a) reintroducing the Shariah, Islamic law, while purging most Western cultural influences, but not science and technology and b) re-politicizing Islam, along lines of Muhammad's role as administrator and law giver in Medina.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism was the result of many factors beginning with general factors that have also fostered the growth of Christian fundamentalism, Orthodox Judaism and even Hindu fundamentalism. But further, in Islamic societies, the barriers to modernity mentioned in Part I above, have joined together with economic underdevelopment, traditional education, and the suppression of political dissent to dispose fundamentalism. Further, various Islamic institutions have provided cheap alternatives to public education, in which young boys learn strict conservative forms of Islam, as for example the madrassas of Pakistan funded by Saudi Arabia. Islamism has often been directly reproduced through strictly enforced civic codes in which “moral police” vigorously patrol the borders of virtue as in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and the former Taliban controlled Afghanistan.
There have been wide variations in the extent to which Muslim societies have embraced Islamisms, and within particular societies, there have been wide disparities in the appeal of Islamisms. For example, Afghanistan, under the Taliban, was an extreme, even by fundamentalist standards. But so too was (is) Afghanistan one of the poorest, least educated societies in the world. In contrast, Pakistan was (is) not a fundamentalist country. After General Zia took power, he tried to impose fundamentalism from the top down. It had few adherents, not more than about five percent of the people, primarily among tribal groups-looked down upon in Pakistani society. The Saudis financed madrassas that were accepted by subsequent governments in order to divert scarce funds to nuclear weapons programs, in response to India. Islamic fundamentalism was accepted by elements within Pakistani Security (the ISI) who used these schools to provide “volunteers” to fight against India in Kashmir as well as train US-financed mujahadeen that would fight a proxy war against Russia. In Algeria, a prolonged conflict between urban, Western modernists and rural fundamentalists has cost perhaps 200,000 lives. Although fundamentalism has been widely embraced in the Muslim world, and it often promotes hatred of infidels, the vast majority of fundamentalists do not become terrorists, and not all terrorists in Islamic societies are “holy warriors”. Nevertheless, the world wide rise of fundamentalism, with its Manichean division of the world into those who are good and those who are evil, with it assertions of patriarchy and promises of redemption, creates an atmosphere in which terrorism can thrive.
Part II.
Islamic Responses to the West
Westernization, Modernism, Fundamentalism
As European power expanded in the 19th Century, there were attempts by Islamic societies to modernize. The introduction of newspapers and the telegraph by Europeans in the 19th Century made widely evident the “backwardness” of the “Oriental” Other. Two major strategies were developed to proactively respond to Western power and its expanding hegemony (Davidson 1998). First, leaders and intellectuals advocated westernization and secularization as the surest way to compete with Europe. This vein won out in terms of political power. As the west carved up the Islamic world into various states, indigenous leaders led the secularization of some Islamic societies, notably Turkey, promoting western education, law, science, etc. Much like the Japanese Restorationists, modernity was backed by the military. Second, a relatively small circle of intellectuals advocated an Islamic Modernism, arguing that Western methods and key institutions, legislatures, modern administrations, banks, could be revised along the lines of Islamic law. This movement was neither able to influence either the Westward leaning, secular political elites of the day nor the conservative Islamic religious authorities. These ideas did not reach the uneducated masses. Hence, Islamic development generally became polarized between Westernizing and conservative extremes.
Theorizing in the early 20th Century, Weber was personally troubled and theoretically concerned with the negative side of modernity, its rationalization of the world that dehumanized the person and reduced everything to what could be quantified. Economic striving, detached from a religious ethic, had become an empty striving for shallow materialism. A new industrial elite was emerging. A century after Weber wrote about the moral nullity of Western civilization, mass mediated consumerism, privatized hedonism devoid of meaning, has proliferated everywhere. The globalization of capital, secularization, and rapid social and cultural changes, together with population movements, has fostered both anomie and the attenuation of social ties. In face of changes, crises and challenges, one of the typical responses has been the embrace of dogmatic, orthodox positions. In a similar way, countries with economic challenges often embrace authoritarian governments, if not fascism. Fundamentalism and terrorism are both reactions to and moments of resistance to the dominating aspects of modernity and the shallowness of secularism. And, as discussed in Part III below, ressentiment mediated through radical fundamentalism can become part of the impetus for religious terrorism.
The Nature of Fundamentalism
One of the most important religious social transformations of the last century has been the gradual rise of fundamentalism, the embrace of anti-modern religious orthodoxies. Why has there been a rise of fundamentalisms? Jurgensmeyer (2001) notes that religious fundamentalism across various religious cultures is on the rise globally for three common reasons: first, radical conservative religious movements reject the liberal values of secular institutions and blame society’s decline on the loss of religious inspiration; second, these radical religious movements refuse to accept boundaries of secular society which keeps religion a private observance and not the public sphere; and third, these conservative movements are seeking to restore religion as central to social life. As noted above, in the face of challenges, groups may become more dogmatic and intolerant. We have suggested that in response to challenges, ranging from the sacking of Baghdad to the expulsion from Spain to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, that Islamic leaders have repeatedly embraced more conservative positions. This created conservative traditions as the basis for a conservative response to Western secular encroachments. This, however, is a general global cultural phenomenon in response to rapid social change, uncertainty, attenuation of social ties, challenges to ingrained value precepts, etc.
Fundamentalisms generally require unquestioning acceptance of transcendent religious precepts, a strict adherence to compulsory rituals and a subjugation of the self to higher powers. Fundamentalism may be defined as a conservative religious reaction to secular society that typically includes the following characteristics: Exclusive truth claims are typically based on a sacred text. It often has Manichean truth claims in which non-believers are constructed as immoral and an apocalyptic view of the world. Fundamentalism seeks to restore a glorious past from which people had strayed. Fundamentalism makes exclusive truth claims grounded in canonical religious, spiritual texts and seeks to recreate an idealized religious community while paradoxically embracing modern means: mass media, bureaucratic institutions, and destructive technologies in militancy. Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Islamic fundamentalisms more or less follow this pattern. Thus, fundamentalisms resist the usually hedonistic, secular, materialistic values of modernity. At the same time, fundamentalists are modernists in that they use elements of tradition in combination with modern methods-advanced technology, institutional forms, and instrumental rationality-to transform the political order (Tibi 1998).
Radical religious movements often position themselves to act in the public sphere as moral agents. From the viewpoint of religious radicals, it is not so much that religion has become political as much as politics has become religious. The reasons for this deep antagonism are not merely political. Secular modernity and its valorization of Reason has made an assault on religious values and worldviews that erode the impact and power of religious institutions leading to a general crisis in religious belief. As secular society is suffering a crisis of morality and meaning, there is a space for religious critiques of secular modernity and transcendental alternatives. The West, celebrating the secular materialism of modernity, spread through a political economic imperialism and mass mediated consumerism has created spaces for radical religious movements, both in the developed and developing countries.
Islamisms
Islamic fundamentalisms arose in various Islamic states. For example, Wahabbism was embraced in Saudi Arabia, as the Ottoman Empire declined in the later 18th, early 19th Century. As Western power grew and the division of the Islamic world proceeded, Western interests encouraged the suppression of progressive movements in the Middle East such as socialism or even nationalism. (Note that there have been intrinsic reasons why these Western ideologies were not embraced.) For example, the US has strongly supported the (oil rich) House of Saud, where Islam has turned increasingly conservative and militant in resistance. Islamic fundamentalism is a response many factors, central among which are the domination by the West, the relative poverty and underdevelopment of the Muslim world, and the lack of political outlets to express discontents.
In the 20th Century, Westernization did not yield its promised results. Modernity failed Islamic states, for a variety of reasons mentioned above, especially the conservatism of its religion, the underdevelopment inherent in colonialism and foreign sponsoring of local elites, the lack of education of the populace, and, the conservatism of religious leaders. Islamic states generally secured the wealth and power of the elites and sustained oppressive secular governments rather than seek expansions of democracy and human rights. With the failure of modernity to bring its promised benefits, conservative Islamic brotherhoods and movements, originally organized to address social justice issues attempted to reinvigorate, reform and reestablish Islam as the basis for revitalized Islamic states. As westernizing strategies in Islamic states failed and/or were suppressed in the 20th Century, conservative religious responses grew more pronounced, generating various Islamisms, Islamic fundamentalist movements. Note that in many developing nations, secular thought and autonomous institutions, especially democratically elected legislative bodies and executive are not very well formed or advanced. Religious ways of life and social-political institutions hold more public power, especially in Islamic countries. Hence, there is a strong link between religious belief and resistance to Western hegemony among radical religious movements in the Islamic world. We also note that the rigid claims and orthodoxy of fundamentalism generally prevents a group from self-examination and critical reflection. This is not likely to change as long as the educational processes in the developing world remain tied to traditional religious institutions. Studying the Quran and/or Islamic studies does not much prepare the student for science, industry, commerce or critical thought.
Conservative Islamic movements have pursued three main ends in Islamic society: reformism, revivalism, and radical defense. The main interest of these movements is to reestablish the moral and political virtues of traditional Islamic society (Choueiri 1990). Islamism is modeled on the attempt to recapture Muhammad's early role of rebel in Mecca in criticizing moral corruption and need for lifestyle and political economic reforms grounded in religious mores. For revivalists, just as Muhammad challenged false gods and immoral ways instead of a righteous life, Islamism is seen as a path to justice and equality against the Western ways of corruption and worship of its false gods. Islamist ideological analysis offers these reasons for the decline of Islam: 1) Islamic society declined due to the departure from the practice of religious values and dictates; 2) This decay made possible the Western intrusion; and, 3) The solution is to revitalize and return to Islam by a) reintroducing the Shariah, Islamic law, while purging most Western cultural influences, but not science and technology and b) re-politicizing Islam, along lines of Muhammad's role as administrator and law giver in Medina.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism was the result of many factors beginning with general factors that have also fostered the growth of Christian fundamentalism, Orthodox Judaism and even Hindu fundamentalism. But further, in Islamic societies, the barriers to modernity mentioned in Part I above, have joined together with economic underdevelopment, traditional education, and the suppression of political dissent to dispose fundamentalism. Further, various Islamic institutions have provided cheap alternatives to public education, in which young boys learn strict conservative forms of Islam, as for example the madrassas of Pakistan funded by Saudi Arabia. Islamism has often been directly reproduced through strictly enforced civic codes in which “moral police” vigorously patrol the borders of virtue as in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and the former Taliban controlled Afghanistan.
There have been wide variations in the extent to which Muslim societies have embraced Islamisms, and within particular societies, there have been wide disparities in the appeal of Islamisms. For example, Afghanistan, under the Taliban, was an extreme, even by fundamentalist standards. But so too was (is) Afghanistan one of the poorest, least educated societies in the world. In contrast, Pakistan was (is) not a fundamentalist country. After General Zia took power, he tried to impose fundamentalism from the top down. It had few adherents, not more than about five percent of the people, primarily among tribal groups-looked down upon in Pakistani society. The Saudis financed madrassas that were accepted by subsequent governments in order to divert scarce funds to nuclear weapons programs, in response to India. Islamic fundamentalism was accepted by elements within Pakistani Security (the ISI) who used these schools to provide “volunteers” to fight against India in Kashmir as well as train US-financed mujahadeen that would fight a proxy war against Russia. In Algeria, a prolonged conflict between urban, Western modernists and rural fundamentalists has cost perhaps 200,000 lives. Although fundamentalism has been widely embraced in the Muslim world, and it often promotes hatred of infidels, the vast majority of fundamentalists do not become terrorists, and not all terrorists in Islamic societies are “holy warriors”. Nevertheless, the world wide rise of fundamentalism, with its Manichean division of the world into those who are good and those who are evil, with it assertions of patriarchy and promises of redemption, creates an atmosphere in which terrorism can thrive.
Friday, July 28, 2006
WAR IS PEACE
The strident calls for a cease-fire in Lebanon, if accommodated, will all but guarantee further suffering and bloodshed. This battle must be fought to its conclusion if peace will ever be had in the region. Thomas Sowell makes a case for just this in a recent article:
An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.Read Sowell's full article here.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Israel: Created to be Destroyed?
The map below shows how the U.N. first partitioned the British mandate of Palestine in 1947. Looking at this map leaves one to wonder how Israel was expected to protect itself from hostile Arabs who had rejected the partition plan out of hand. The partition plan seems almost to have been created in order to assure the destruction of the then nascent state of Israel (As almost happened during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war). It should be noted that Israel has occupied almost all of the yellow, Arab-state areas, with most of the occupation coming as a result of Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day war.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Is the Summer of 1914 an Apt Analogy for the Current Situation in Lebanon?
Here's an interesting take on the current Israeli situation by William S. Lind:
With Hezbollah’s entry into the war between Israel and Hamas, Fourth Generation war has taken another developmental step forward. For the first time, a non-state entity has gone to war with a state not by waging an insurgency against a state invader, but across an international boundary. Again we see how those who define 4GW simply as insurgency are looking at only a small part of the picture…Read the rest here.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
It's All or Nothing for Olmert
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel will press on with its weeklong Lebanon offensive until its captured soldiers are released and its citizens are safe from attacks. "Israel will continue to combat Hezbollah and will continue to strike targets of the group," Olmert said in a statement.
Source
First, I don’t believe, short of a full scale invasion of southern Lebanon, that Hezbollah’s fighting capacity will be effectively diminished. Such an invasion would have two important effects on the IDF, one would be that they’d suffer huge losses due to Hezbollah’s mining of their defensive positions, and the second would be an extremely high chance of triggering Syria’s forces into re-entering Lebanon. I don’t believe Olmert desires either of these effects, and so he will stay out of Lebanon and continue inflicting minor losses on Hezbollah until the UN finally steps in and supplies him with a face-saving exit.
The best Olmert can gain from the hostilities of the past week is for things to return to the status quo ante. Short of all out war with Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran -- a war that would see the use of nuclear weapons seriously considered by Israel-- Olmert will achieve nothing, and Hezbollah will have its hero status reaffirmed by the Muslim world for once again outlasting Israel in Lebanon.
A Compelling Argument for the War in Iraq
This lengthy, though powerful essay, by Spengler of the Asian Times, is vital reading for those against the war in Iraq and uncomfortable with aggressively denying nuclear weapons to North Korea and Iran.
In praise of premature war
By Spengler
The West should be thankful that it has in US President George W Bush a warrior who shoots first and tells the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to ask questions later. Rarely in its long history has the West suffered by going to war too soon. On the contrary: among the wars of Western history, the bloodiest were those that started too late. Why should that be the case? The answer, I believe, is that keeping the peace requires prospective combatants to maintain the balance of power, for example between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC, between Catholic and Protestant states in the 17th century AD, and between the Central Powers and the Allies at the turn of the 20th century. Once powers truly are balanced, however, neither side can win, except by a devastating war of attrition. Postponing war therefore creates equally matched opposing blocs who eventually will annihilate each other.
More than ever does this principle apply to the present race for nuclear weapons. It brings to mind the old joke about the housewife in Hertfordshire who telephones her husband and says, "Dear, be careful driving home. The news report says that there is a maniac driving in the wrong direction on the motorway." He replies, "What do you mean, one maniac? Everyone is driving in the wrong direction!"
Whether or not Saddam Hussein actually intended or had the capacity to build nuclear weapons is of trifling weight in the strategic balance. Everyone is planning to build nuclear weapons. They involve 60-year-old technology no longer difficult to replicate. It hardly matters where one begins. "Kill the chicken, and let the monkey watch," as the Chinese say. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, the theocrats of Iran, the North Koreans and soon many other incalculable reprobates have or will have such plans. It hardly matters which one you attack first, so long as you attack one of them.
But isn't it cruel to cast the die for war before it is proven beyond doubt that war cannot be avoided? Given the frightful cost of war, should peace not be given every chance? Some wars of course should not be fought, such as the threatened hot war between the United States and the Soviet Union. In many cases, however, risk and reward are highly asymmetric; the cost of a short and nasty small war vanishes toward insignificance compared with the price of a grand war of attrition, particularly when nuclear weapons are concerned.
Many writers, to be sure, have offered apologies for war. Under the title "Give war a chance", Edward Luttwak wrote in the Summer 1999 edition of Foreign Affairs, "Since the establishment of the United Nations, great powers have rarely let small wars burn themselves out. Bosnia and Kosovo are the latest examples of this meddling. Conflicts are interrupted by a steady stream of ceasefires and armistices that only postpone war-induced exhaustion and let belligerents rearm and regroup. Even worse are UN refugee-relief operations and NGOs [non-governmental organizations], which keep resentful populations festering in camps and sometimes supply both sides in armed conflicts. This well-intentioned interference only intensifies and prolongs struggles in the long run. The unpleasant truth is that war does have one useful function: it brings peace. Let it."
I have no quibble with Luttwak, but propose to go further. He proposed to let small wars burn out; I propose to let major wars break out, the sooner the better.
Historians allow that the Allies should have attacked Germany in 1936 rather than 1939, but dismiss World War I as "a tragic and unnecessary conflict", in the words of Sir John Keegan. Tragedy stems from necessity. From the Congress of Berlin in 1878, when Germany and Austria set limits to Russian expansion in the Balkans, Pan-Slavism set Europe on a course toward inevitable war. France allied with Russia, seeking help against Germany after its humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Already in demographic decline, France knew that it could not wait to attack Germany one more generation. Germany knew that if Russia completed its railroad network its bulk might make it undefeatable a generation hence.
If Kaiser Wilhelm II had had the nerve to declare war on France during the 1905 Morocco Crisis, Count Alfred von Schlieffen's invasion plan would have crushed the French within weeks. Russia's Romanov dynasty, humiliated by its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and beset by popular revolt, likely would have fallen under more benign circumstances than prevailed in 1917. England had not decided upon an alliance with the Franco-Russian coalition in 1905. The naval arms race between Germany and England, a major source of tension, was yet to emerge. War in 1905 would have left Wilhelmine Germany the sole hegemon in Europe, with no prospective challenger for some time to come. Germany's indecision left the initiative in the hands of Russia, elements of whose secret service backed the Serbian terrorists who murdered the Austrian crown prince in 1914, forcing Germany into war under far less favorable circumstances.
Both World Wars of the 20th century, in my view, started too late, with catastrophic consequences for Western Europe. America's Civil War, by contrast, was a war that began just in time, and I attribute the future flowering of the United States to Abraham Lincoln's ruthlessness in pushing the country into war.
General Ulysses S Grant, the Northern commander-in-chief and later president, wrote in his memoirs that the Civil War began with America's 1846 invasion of Mexico, which seized territory to permit the expansion of slavery. Because cotton destroyed land within a decade, the slave-owning caste required perpetual expansion of the slave system into new territories. The Southern Confederacy planned to march southward and create a slave empire in Mexico and the Caribbean (Happy birthday, Abe - pass the blood, February 10).
Was it coincidence that France, England and Spain determined to invade Mexico after Benito Juarez suspended debt-service payment to Mexico's European creditors in 1861, just as the American Civil War began? French, English and Spanish forces landed in Mexico in December 1861, after the South's early victories in the Civil War convinced European governments that the slaveholders would prevail. By 1862, after Stonewall Jackson's success in the Shenandoah Valley, England came close to recognizing the Confederacy. In October of that year, William Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer, stated, "We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so far as regards their separation from the North." The Union half-victory at the Battle of Antietam in September came just in time to abort British recognition of the South.
Had the war broken out two years later, the European powers already would have been entrenched in Mexico, providing the South with a natural ally against the Lincoln government, and a base with which to expand the slave system southward. America would have split in two (at least), and the history of the world would have been radically different, and radically worse.
Before America's invasion of Iraq, I wrote, "Iraq's nuclear program is the 21st-century equivalent of Russia's railroads in 1914. The United States must prevent Saddam Hussein from building nuclear weapons now, or the cost of stopping him (and others in the future) will be incalculable. The trouble is that today's Arabs (and to a great extent other Islamic populations) are in the position of the Slavs of 1914. They are an endangered culture, and like many endangered cultures, the extremists among them will take desperate measures" (, October 29, 2002).
That is why George W Bush has my moral support in the upcoming US presidential election. He may not fathom what he is doing, and he may have made a dog's breakfast of Iraq, but at least he is willing to go straight to war, no questions asked. That is precisely what the world needs.
Source
In praise of premature war
By Spengler
The West should be thankful that it has in US President George W Bush a warrior who shoots first and tells the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to ask questions later. Rarely in its long history has the West suffered by going to war too soon. On the contrary: among the wars of Western history, the bloodiest were those that started too late. Why should that be the case? The answer, I believe, is that keeping the peace requires prospective combatants to maintain the balance of power, for example between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC, between Catholic and Protestant states in the 17th century AD, and between the Central Powers and the Allies at the turn of the 20th century. Once powers truly are balanced, however, neither side can win, except by a devastating war of attrition. Postponing war therefore creates equally matched opposing blocs who eventually will annihilate each other.
More than ever does this principle apply to the present race for nuclear weapons. It brings to mind the old joke about the housewife in Hertfordshire who telephones her husband and says, "Dear, be careful driving home. The news report says that there is a maniac driving in the wrong direction on the motorway." He replies, "What do you mean, one maniac? Everyone is driving in the wrong direction!"
Whether or not Saddam Hussein actually intended or had the capacity to build nuclear weapons is of trifling weight in the strategic balance. Everyone is planning to build nuclear weapons. They involve 60-year-old technology no longer difficult to replicate. It hardly matters where one begins. "Kill the chicken, and let the monkey watch," as the Chinese say. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, the theocrats of Iran, the North Koreans and soon many other incalculable reprobates have or will have such plans. It hardly matters which one you attack first, so long as you attack one of them.
But isn't it cruel to cast the die for war before it is proven beyond doubt that war cannot be avoided? Given the frightful cost of war, should peace not be given every chance? Some wars of course should not be fought, such as the threatened hot war between the United States and the Soviet Union. In many cases, however, risk and reward are highly asymmetric; the cost of a short and nasty small war vanishes toward insignificance compared with the price of a grand war of attrition, particularly when nuclear weapons are concerned.
Many writers, to be sure, have offered apologies for war. Under the title "Give war a chance", Edward Luttwak wrote in the Summer 1999 edition of Foreign Affairs, "Since the establishment of the United Nations, great powers have rarely let small wars burn themselves out. Bosnia and Kosovo are the latest examples of this meddling. Conflicts are interrupted by a steady stream of ceasefires and armistices that only postpone war-induced exhaustion and let belligerents rearm and regroup. Even worse are UN refugee-relief operations and NGOs [non-governmental organizations], which keep resentful populations festering in camps and sometimes supply both sides in armed conflicts. This well-intentioned interference only intensifies and prolongs struggles in the long run. The unpleasant truth is that war does have one useful function: it brings peace. Let it."
I have no quibble with Luttwak, but propose to go further. He proposed to let small wars burn out; I propose to let major wars break out, the sooner the better.
Historians allow that the Allies should have attacked Germany in 1936 rather than 1939, but dismiss World War I as "a tragic and unnecessary conflict", in the words of Sir John Keegan. Tragedy stems from necessity. From the Congress of Berlin in 1878, when Germany and Austria set limits to Russian expansion in the Balkans, Pan-Slavism set Europe on a course toward inevitable war. France allied with Russia, seeking help against Germany after its humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Already in demographic decline, France knew that it could not wait to attack Germany one more generation. Germany knew that if Russia completed its railroad network its bulk might make it undefeatable a generation hence.
If Kaiser Wilhelm II had had the nerve to declare war on France during the 1905 Morocco Crisis, Count Alfred von Schlieffen's invasion plan would have crushed the French within weeks. Russia's Romanov dynasty, humiliated by its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and beset by popular revolt, likely would have fallen under more benign circumstances than prevailed in 1917. England had not decided upon an alliance with the Franco-Russian coalition in 1905. The naval arms race between Germany and England, a major source of tension, was yet to emerge. War in 1905 would have left Wilhelmine Germany the sole hegemon in Europe, with no prospective challenger for some time to come. Germany's indecision left the initiative in the hands of Russia, elements of whose secret service backed the Serbian terrorists who murdered the Austrian crown prince in 1914, forcing Germany into war under far less favorable circumstances.
Both World Wars of the 20th century, in my view, started too late, with catastrophic consequences for Western Europe. America's Civil War, by contrast, was a war that began just in time, and I attribute the future flowering of the United States to Abraham Lincoln's ruthlessness in pushing the country into war.
General Ulysses S Grant, the Northern commander-in-chief and later president, wrote in his memoirs that the Civil War began with America's 1846 invasion of Mexico, which seized territory to permit the expansion of slavery. Because cotton destroyed land within a decade, the slave-owning caste required perpetual expansion of the slave system into new territories. The Southern Confederacy planned to march southward and create a slave empire in Mexico and the Caribbean (Happy birthday, Abe - pass the blood, February 10).
Was it coincidence that France, England and Spain determined to invade Mexico after Benito Juarez suspended debt-service payment to Mexico's European creditors in 1861, just as the American Civil War began? French, English and Spanish forces landed in Mexico in December 1861, after the South's early victories in the Civil War convinced European governments that the slaveholders would prevail. By 1862, after Stonewall Jackson's success in the Shenandoah Valley, England came close to recognizing the Confederacy. In October of that year, William Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer, stated, "We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so far as regards their separation from the North." The Union half-victory at the Battle of Antietam in September came just in time to abort British recognition of the South.
Had the war broken out two years later, the European powers already would have been entrenched in Mexico, providing the South with a natural ally against the Lincoln government, and a base with which to expand the slave system southward. America would have split in two (at least), and the history of the world would have been radically different, and radically worse.
Before America's invasion of Iraq, I wrote, "Iraq's nuclear program is the 21st-century equivalent of Russia's railroads in 1914. The United States must prevent Saddam Hussein from building nuclear weapons now, or the cost of stopping him (and others in the future) will be incalculable. The trouble is that today's Arabs (and to a great extent other Islamic populations) are in the position of the Slavs of 1914. They are an endangered culture, and like many endangered cultures, the extremists among them will take desperate measures" (, October 29, 2002).
That is why George W Bush has my moral support in the upcoming US presidential election. He may not fathom what he is doing, and he may have made a dog's breakfast of Iraq, but at least he is willing to go straight to war, no questions asked. That is precisely what the world needs.
Source
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Supreme Court Blocks Bush, Gitmo War Trials
The Supreme Court has decided 5-3 (Roberts recused himself) that the administration cannot try detainees being held in Guantanamo in the military tribunal format they had hoped to use.
The confinement of enemy combatants captured on the field of battle has never resulted in habeas corpus issues in the past, and the ability to wage this new type of war, in my opinion, has been greatly diminished by this ruling.
Justice Thomas dissents:
Justice Thomas puts his finger on the central issue when he asks how much power we are willing to give President Bush with which to carry out his constitutional duty to provide security for our nation. People not happy with the administration’s tactics so far will find no relief in precedent; all the rules changed on 9/11, and all three branches of government are making this up as they go along.
Just yesterday, I heard an interview with an assistant to the SecDef, where he explained that 15 freed detainees have subsequently been recaptured after again taking up arms against U.S. forces. I think, based on their dissents, that Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, are the only ones that seem to realize the ramifications of today’s decision.
Go here for the full story.
Go here to read the SALIM AHMED HAMDAN, PETITIONER v. DONALD
H. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al. decision in its entirety.
The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of about 450 men still being held at Guantanamo and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them.
The confinement of enemy combatants captured on the field of battle has never resulted in habeas corpus issues in the past, and the ability to wage this new type of war, in my opinion, has been greatly diminished by this ruling.
Justice Thomas dissents:
For the reasons set forth in Justice Scalia's dissent, it is clear that this Court lacks jurisdiction to entertain petitioner's claims, see ante, at 1-11. The Court having concluded otherwise, it is appropriate to respond to the Court's resolution of the merits of petitioner's claims because its opinion openly flouts our well-established duty to respect the Executive's judgment in matters of military operations and foreign affairs. The Court's evident belief that it is qualified to pass on the "[m]ilitary necessity," ante, at 48, of the Commander in Chief's decision to employ a particular form of force against our enemies is so antithetical to our constitutional structure that it simply cannot go unanswered. I respectfully dissent.
Justice Thomas puts his finger on the central issue when he asks how much power we are willing to give President Bush with which to carry out his constitutional duty to provide security for our nation. People not happy with the administration’s tactics so far will find no relief in precedent; all the rules changed on 9/11, and all three branches of government are making this up as they go along.
Just yesterday, I heard an interview with an assistant to the SecDef, where he explained that 15 freed detainees have subsequently been recaptured after again taking up arms against U.S. forces. I think, based on their dissents, that Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, are the only ones that seem to realize the ramifications of today’s decision.
Go here for the full story.
Go here to read the SALIM AHMED HAMDAN, PETITIONER v. DONALD
H. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al. decision in its entirety.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Italian Blogger Convicted of Defamation
Bloggers, particularly those residing in Italy, should take note of this recent decision:
Traditionally, in order for a written communication to be considered libelous, it must be shown to be untrue. This particular case does not seem to meet such a test:
The most perplexing aspect of this case is that journalists themselves initiated the suit; the last people one would expect to be party to the diminution of freedom of the written word.
Full story here.
Understand the issue better by going here.
Reporters Without Borders condemned a 13,500-euro sentence against blogger Roberto Mancini in fines, damages and costs imposed by a court in Val d’Aosta, in northern Italy on 26 May 2006, after local journalists brought a defamation suit.
Mancini, 59, is suspected of creating a US-hosted blog in 2005 - Il Bolscevicostanco, which reports on local news in sarcastic and crude terms. Using the pseudonym, General Sukhov, he apparently wrote several articles directly attacking local figures.
Traditionally, in order for a written communication to be considered libelous, it must be shown to be untrue. This particular case does not seem to meet such a test:
"The columns by-lined General Sukhov are certainly written in an extreme style, but the complainants were not able to show they were untrue,” the press freedom organisation said.
The most perplexing aspect of this case is that journalists themselves initiated the suit; the last people one would expect to be party to the diminution of freedom of the written word.
The case was brought by two journalists on regional newspaper Gazzetta Matin, Luca Mercanti and Christina Porta, the press officer for the Val d’Aosta regional chamber of trade and of a local firm, Pier Maria Minuzzo, and a webmaster, Marco Camilli.
Full story here.
Understand the issue better by going here.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Liberty Part I
The concept of liberty has been the centerpiece of philosophical thought ever since man first realized the advantages of forming social groups. Indeed, mankind’s ability to resist the arbitrarily hostile environment that surrounds him rests solely on his ability to adapt to and exploit what little nature has provided him. Spreading the skills necessary to survive among the many instead of the few has the effect of giving each group participant access to protection, food, medical care, and shelter that he could not have had, had he been left to his own device. Entering into such a pact of mutual assistance is not, however, without its drawbacks: the more we rely on one another to survive, the less freedom we will have to make our own unrestricted choices.
The freedom to make unrestricted choices is the essence of liberty. In order for the members of a given society to survive, they must surrender a certain amount of their own liberty or self-determination. This self-determination is the currency of survival.
Let us take a man who specializes in producing food, and one who has dedicated his time to the study of medical science as an example of the transactions of liberty that may occur in a functioning society. The farmer spends his time growing food, as time goes on his ability to grow food becomes a specialized skill not shared on the same scale with an individual who has used his time becoming expert at the medical sciences. Both men in this example have something the other covets: the farmer can offer the doctor sustenance and conversely, the doctor, through his specialized training, is now in the position to offer the farmer medical care as needed. It must be stressed that either man will have at least a modest ability to accomplish the other man’s task but not to the extent where either will be performing optimally for the society in which they have contracted to take part. A society that does a poor job of matching its needs with the best suited to satisfy these needs, is not giving itself the best chance to survive.
So how does liberty fit into the above example? To be continued soon.
The freedom to make unrestricted choices is the essence of liberty. In order for the members of a given society to survive, they must surrender a certain amount of their own liberty or self-determination. This self-determination is the currency of survival.
Let us take a man who specializes in producing food, and one who has dedicated his time to the study of medical science as an example of the transactions of liberty that may occur in a functioning society. The farmer spends his time growing food, as time goes on his ability to grow food becomes a specialized skill not shared on the same scale with an individual who has used his time becoming expert at the medical sciences. Both men in this example have something the other covets: the farmer can offer the doctor sustenance and conversely, the doctor, through his specialized training, is now in the position to offer the farmer medical care as needed. It must be stressed that either man will have at least a modest ability to accomplish the other man’s task but not to the extent where either will be performing optimally for the society in which they have contracted to take part. A society that does a poor job of matching its needs with the best suited to satisfy these needs, is not giving itself the best chance to survive.
So how does liberty fit into the above example? To be continued soon.
Friday, June 16, 2006
The Truth in Iraq
One Democrat after another, during the Iraq war resolution debate on the house floor today, informed C-Span viewers that America is losing the war in Iraq. Some of them insisting emphatically that things had gotten so bad that U.S. forces should be withdrawn immediately.
The question is, who are we to believe? Democrats angling for a majority control of Congress in November, or al-Zarqawi’s documents clearly stating that the insurgency had become ineffective due to the actions of American forces in Iraq. If the authenticity of these documents holds up to scrutiny, I’ll choose al-Zarqawi's account of the state of the war in Iraq as the more likely one. After all, what possible motivation could he have had to understate the effectiveness of insurgent operations in memos to his own al-Quaeda underlings?
“'Stay the course' is not a strategy, it's a slogan,” answered House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as she called for a new direction in a war she labeled “a grotesque mistake.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who voted against the measure, said the resolution was an ``affirmation of the president's failed policy in Iraq.''
John Murtha, D-Pa.: “It's not a matter of stay the course. It's a matter of change direction.”
The question is, who are we to believe? Democrats angling for a majority control of Congress in November, or al-Zarqawi’s documents clearly stating that the insurgency had become ineffective due to the actions of American forces in Iraq. If the authenticity of these documents holds up to scrutiny, I’ll choose al-Zarqawi's account of the state of the war in Iraq as the more likely one. After all, what possible motivation could he have had to understate the effectiveness of insurgent operations in memos to his own al-Quaeda underlings?
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Iran Bans Economist Magazine
Apologists for the current Islamist regime in Iran were handed yet another challenge today:
Source.
Let’s face it; Ahmadinejad and company hate the concept of democracy and anyone who promotes it. Can a government, capable of both hiding a uranium enrichment program for 15 years and banning reputable publications for simply adhering to modern journalistic shorthand, be trusted when it says it has no intention of producing nuclear weapons?
TEHRAN, June 15 (UPI) -- The government of Iran has banned The Economist magazine for describing the Persian Gulf as merely "the Gulf" in a map in the latest edition.
State television made the announcement Wednesday night, noting it is the second time the government has made such a move to protect the country's Persian roots.
In November 2004, it banned the National Geographic atlas when a new edition was published with the term "Arabian Gulf" in parenthesis beside the more commonly used Persian Gulf.
Criticism on the Persian Journal's Web site was more scathing, calling the London-published Economist "nothing but another worthless tabloid" that alters the news to appease various readers.
There was no immediate response to the ban Thursday on The Economist's Web site.
Source.
Let’s face it; Ahmadinejad and company hate the concept of democracy and anyone who promotes it. Can a government, capable of both hiding a uranium enrichment program for 15 years and banning reputable publications for simply adhering to modern journalistic shorthand, be trusted when it says it has no intention of producing nuclear weapons?
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Scientists Question Gore's "Inconvenient Truths"
It seems that a number of climatologists are not particularly impressed with former American VP Al Gore’s theory of global warming:
Is Gore giving the movie-going public an impartial account of global warming, or is he, as is concluded in this particular article, merely using a controversial topic to gain political points? Admittedly, I’m far from being qualified to answer any such question definitively, but I’d also dispute Gore’s expertise in global climatology considering that his academic background was not in the sciences but in government studies. The bottom line is that it makes good sense to be skeptical of any scientific claims made by a politician, or, for that matter, anyone else without extensive scientific training.
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame.
Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap." This is misleading, according to Ball: "The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology."
Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science, and its many fine practitioners, a lot of who know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."Full story here.
Is Gore giving the movie-going public an impartial account of global warming, or is he, as is concluded in this particular article, merely using a controversial topic to gain political points? Admittedly, I’m far from being qualified to answer any such question definitively, but I’d also dispute Gore’s expertise in global climatology considering that his academic background was not in the sciences but in government studies. The bottom line is that it makes good sense to be skeptical of any scientific claims made by a politician, or, for that matter, anyone else without extensive scientific training.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
A Dire Warning from North Korea
Here's the latest gem out of the DPRK:
Pyongyang, June 12 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialist warmongers committed one more grave military provocation by illegally infiltrating a strategic reconnaissance plane into the sky above the DPRK's economic waters on June 12. In this regard the Air Force Command of the Korean People's Army issued the following report on Monday: At around 12:05 on June 12, an overseas-based strategic reconnaissance plane of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces infiltrated into the sky above the waters of the DPRK east of Chongjin and Hwadae and made a shuttle flight there for hours to spy on its strategic targets.
Such ceaseless illegal infiltration and aerial espionage are arousing a bitter indignation from the officers and men of the KPA Air Force.
It is an indigenous disposition of our revolutionary armed forces to mercilessly punish the aggressors.
The KPA Air Force warns again that the U.S. imperialist warmongers will be buried in the East Sea of Korea if they continue running amuck without discretion despite our warnings.
It took me a moment, but I finally figured out why the tone of this kooky admonition seemed so familiar. There can be but one answer: Stanley Kubrick isn't really dead. North Korean intelligence officers faked his death after recruiting him as Kim Jong Il's personal propagandist. (This would explain how Kim Jong Il learned to stop worrying and love the bomb).
Monday, June 12, 2006
The Christian Coalition
The Christian Coalition of America’s website points to a very specific brand of faith as the primary reason for America’s success as a nation:
I wonder if these people realize how many of America’s founding fathers were not practicing Christians. Here are some quotes from the men themselves:
The American value system, as heralded by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, arose directly from the Age of Reason, which was presided over by those seeking to distance themselves from organized religion. To their minds, these great and emancipated thinkers saw formalized religion as nothing more than a superstition-based attack on their freedom to question and objectify the world around them.
The Enlightenment, for the most part, took place before America had adopted its constitution. This means that scripture-based legislation is not conservatism, but instead, fear-inspired regressionism. It used to be that one need only follow Jesus’ teachings in order to be called a Christian; now, unless a Christian is in lockstep with a certain political agenda, their Christianity has apparently lost all validity.
To that end, we continuously work to identify, educate and mobilize Christians for effective political action! Such action will preserve, protect and defend the Judeo-Christian values that made this the greatest country in history.
I wonder if these people realize how many of America’s founding fathers were not practicing Christians. Here are some quotes from the men themselves:
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.- Thomas Paine
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.- James Madison
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines, which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself, are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained.- Thomas Jefferson
Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!- John Adams
The American value system, as heralded by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, arose directly from the Age of Reason, which was presided over by those seeking to distance themselves from organized religion. To their minds, these great and emancipated thinkers saw formalized religion as nothing more than a superstition-based attack on their freedom to question and objectify the world around them.
The Enlightenment, for the most part, took place before America had adopted its constitution. This means that scripture-based legislation is not conservatism, but instead, fear-inspired regressionism. It used to be that one need only follow Jesus’ teachings in order to be called a Christian; now, unless a Christian is in lockstep with a certain political agenda, their Christianity has apparently lost all validity.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Somalian Hardliners Ban World Cup Broadcast
The nascent Islamist regime in Mogadishu has moved to block Somalis from viewing the World Cup Football tournament. This is just another reminder of how repressive Islamist systems are, and how thankful those not living under them should be.
Hardline Islamic courts shut cinema halls and barred residents from watching the World Cup, prompting scores of civilians to protest the ban in which two people were killed, court officials and residents have said.Full story here.
The JIC deputy chairman AbdulKadir Ali Omar said the Islamic tribunals would crackdown on halls that defy the order to show western films and video, including the World Cup.
"This is war against all people who show films that promote pornography, drug dealing and all forms of evil," Omar told AFP.
"We shall not even allow the showing of the World Cup because they corrupt the morals of our children whom we endeavor to teach the Islamic way of life," he added.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
U.S. Strike Kills Iraq Terror Chief Al-Zarqawi
Apparently, the media can't suppress all the good news coming out of Iraq:
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the topFull story.
target of the military coalition supporting the country's nascent democracy, was
killed Wednesday in an airstrike, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Clinton's Failure in Somalia Now Complete
The lack of resolve shown by former President Bill Clinton in Somalia after the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 has finally paid off...for the Islamofascists:
We will fight and die for Somalia and Islam," said Sheikh Mohamoud Sheik Ibrahim, a senior cleric in the coalition of Sharia courts accused by the US and the alliance of harbouring terrorists.Story here.
"We will die for the sake of Allah and we will emerge victorious in our war against the US proxies here," he said. "We will never be ruled by US-paid mercenaries."
He dismissed Bush as a modern-day "Nazi" and "pharaoh", as men, women and children clad in traditional Islamic dress waved placards reading "Down with United States" and "No infidels in Mogadishu".
The implications are obvious; leaving Somalia as we did in 1994 has all but guaranteed yet another platform for freedom-hating terrorists to operate with impunity. It would have been much less costly in lives and resources to have stabilized Somalia when we first had the chance.
Here's a short piece putting Clinton's failed Somalia policy in context:
Most of the American troops were out of Somalia by March 25, 1994. A few hundred Marines remained offshore to assist with any noncombatant evacuation mission that might occur regarding the 1,000-plus U.S. civilians and military advisers remaining as part of the U.S. liaison mission. All U.S. personnel were finally withdrawn by March 1995.Source.
The Battle of Mogadishu led to a profound shift in American foreign policy, as American politicians became increasingly reluctant to use military intervention in Third World conflicts, failing to assist in the halt of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and affected America's actions in the Balkans during the later half of the 1990's. President Clinton preferred to use the "air power alone" tactic and hesitated to use U.S. ground troops in fighting Serbian military and para-military ground forces in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999, out of fear of losing American soldiers in combat, as well as fear of repeating what happened in Mogadishu in 1993.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Possibility of Human-to-Human Transmission of Avian Flu Cited by the W.H.O.
Here's a troubling story about a possible mutation in the Avian flu virus:
As I have understood it to this point, the Avian flu, once it had successfully passed from one human to another, would immediately spread like wildfire, quickly reaching pandemic proportions. It seems here that there are instead levels of communicability; the virus slowly mutates through discrete stages until its transmission mechanism has sufficiently evolved to allow for easy infection. I'm no epidemiologist, but if these latest comments by the W.H.O. bear out, the Avian flu now has a communicability comparable with that of Tuberculosis. T.B., in general, needs 6 months of close contact with an infected person in order to be successfully transmitted to a healthy one.
This is definitely a story worth following. Here's the World Health Organization's Avian flu update site.
In the wake of a cluster of Avian flu cases that killed seven members of a rural Indonesian family, it appears likely that there have been many more human-to-human infections than the authorities have previously acknowledged.
The numbers are still relatively small, and they do not mean that the virus has mutated to pass easily between people — a change that could touch off a worldwide epidemic. All the clusters of cases have been among relatives or in nurses who were in long, close contact with patients.
The W.H.O. is generally conservative in its announcements and, as a United Nations agency, is sometimes limited by member states in what it is permitted to say about them.Full story here.
Still, several scientists have noted that there are many clusters in which human-to-human infection may be a more logical explanation than the idea that relatives who fell sick days apart got the virus from the same dying bird.
As I have understood it to this point, the Avian flu, once it had successfully passed from one human to another, would immediately spread like wildfire, quickly reaching pandemic proportions. It seems here that there are instead levels of communicability; the virus slowly mutates through discrete stages until its transmission mechanism has sufficiently evolved to allow for easy infection. I'm no epidemiologist, but if these latest comments by the W.H.O. bear out, the Avian flu now has a communicability comparable with that of Tuberculosis. T.B., in general, needs 6 months of close contact with an infected person in order to be successfully transmitted to a healthy one.
This is definitely a story worth following. Here's the World Health Organization's Avian flu update site.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Bolivia Does the Marxist Thing
Bolivian president, Evo Morales is wasting no time in redistributing Bolivia's farmland to his nation's poor, indigenous Indians. These land redistribution schemes, though wildly popular with the poor, always make a bad economy worse in the end. Bolivia, long one of South America’s poorest countries, is about to become even poorer. When will people learn that reactionary socialism is exactly the wrong response to widespread poverty?
Apparently, Morales hasn’t given the disastrous land reform experiment in Zimbabwe (a policy responsible for changing Zimbabwe from being a net food exporter to a nation that can no longer feed itself without importing food) its proper consideration. Bolivia’s GDP per capita is currently $2900; look for it to drop to below $2500 within the next 5 years. These developments are particularly ignominious when considering how vigorous Bolivia’s economy was in the 1990s, a decade that saw the nation's GDP growth average 4% per annum.
Here's an excerpt from a relevant AP article:
Leftist President Evo Morales launched a sweeping land reform plan on Saturday by handing over roughly 9,600 square miles of state-owned land to poor Indians.Full story here.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
An Unpleasant Reminder
There are still plenty of deranged people out there intent on killing you and your family if given the slightest opportunity:
It’s reasonable to assume that similar plots are being planned in the U.S., and I would expect, in light of these recent arrests, that questions about the NSA’s wiretapping program by such politicians as Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, will now begin to subside.
Seventeen Canadian residents were in custody Saturday on terrorism- related charges, including plots to use explosives in attacks on Canadian soil, authorities said.Full story here.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they arrested 12 male adults and five youth and foiled plans for terrorist attacks against targets in southern Ontario.
British anti-terrorist police are hunting for a "dirty" chemical bomb that could be used in an attack in Britain after a major raid failed to uncover a device they believe exists, newspapers reported on Saturday.Full story here.
More than 250 officers, some wearing chemical, biological, and radiological protection suits, shot one man and arrested another during a dawn raid on an east London house on Friday.
It’s reasonable to assume that similar plots are being planned in the U.S., and I would expect, in light of these recent arrests, that questions about the NSA’s wiretapping program by such politicians as Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, will now begin to subside.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Bush Crusades Against Same-Sex Marriages
George Bush makes like a good Christian:
Personally, I don't care one way or the other whether homosexuals can get legally married or not. What I do find troubling, however, is the main argument being employed against gay marriage. Namely, marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman. Marriage as a civil institution remains unmentioned in the U.S. constitution and so, in essence, this claim remains a moral, not a legal one.
I become very uncomfortable whenever someone claims some kind of special moral insight into another’s life, and further, attempts to introduce this moral prerogative into the law of the land. A democracy, in order to be sustainable, must deal strictly with the will of the people and can never defer to any religious scripture or subjective morality.
If we allow the Christian right to push scripture-inspired legislation through, are we any better than Iran, Saudi Arabia or any of the other theocratic dictatorships, which we so instinctively berate as insults to humanity’s natural right to freedom?
This amendment has a zero chance of passing, and what's more, the politicians all know this. The gay marriage ban proposal is nothing more than an attempt to energize the GOP’s base for the coming midterm elections in November. Americans should be outraged at this frivolous pandering, which is taking precious time and money away from much more important issues such as the war in Iraq and the urgent need to develop alternate fuels.
President Bush will promote a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on Monday, the eve of a scheduled Senate vote on the cause that is dear to his conservative backers.Read story here.
The amendment would prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages. To become law, the proposal would need two-thirds support in the Senate and House, and then be ratified by at least 38 state legislatures.
Personally, I don't care one way or the other whether homosexuals can get legally married or not. What I do find troubling, however, is the main argument being employed against gay marriage. Namely, marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman. Marriage as a civil institution remains unmentioned in the U.S. constitution and so, in essence, this claim remains a moral, not a legal one.
I become very uncomfortable whenever someone claims some kind of special moral insight into another’s life, and further, attempts to introduce this moral prerogative into the law of the land. A democracy, in order to be sustainable, must deal strictly with the will of the people and can never defer to any religious scripture or subjective morality.
If we allow the Christian right to push scripture-inspired legislation through, are we any better than Iran, Saudi Arabia or any of the other theocratic dictatorships, which we so instinctively berate as insults to humanity’s natural right to freedom?
This amendment has a zero chance of passing, and what's more, the politicians all know this. The gay marriage ban proposal is nothing more than an attempt to energize the GOP’s base for the coming midterm elections in November. Americans should be outraged at this frivolous pandering, which is taking precious time and money away from much more important issues such as the war in Iraq and the urgent need to develop alternate fuels.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
College Commencement = Campaigning on the Cheap
The tradition of using commencement ceremonies as a platform to grind political axes has to stop. Graduating students work hard to earn their degrees, and deserve better than to be used as cheap political props. Cases in point:
NEW YORK -- State Comptroller Alan Hevesi publicly apologized Thursday for a "beyond dumb" remark about a fellow Democrat putting "a bullet between the president's eyes."Source
Dozens of faculty members and students at the New School turned their backs and raised signs to protest an appearance by Sen. John McCain at their graduation ceremony.Source
Michael Moore Being Sued for $85 Million
What, you mean "Fahrenheit 9/11" wasn't an academically objective documentary?
Sgt. Peter Damon, 33, a supporter of President George W. Bush and the Iraq war, claims Moore misused the footage to portray him "in a false light" and as "disagreeing with the president about the war effort and as disagreeing with the war effort itself."
"It was kind of almost like the enemy was using me for propaganda. What soldier wants to be involved in that?” Damon told CBS's local television news affiliate. "I didn't lose my arms over there to come back and be used as ammunition against my commander-in-chief."
Read story here.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Ahmadinejad Spider-Hole Bound?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rebuffed what will be, in all probability, the most reasonable offer for face-to-face talks with the U.S. that he's likely to get.
The United States said Wednesday it would join in face-to-face talks with
Iran over its disputed nuclear program if Tehran first agreed to put challenged
atomic activities on hold, a shift in tactics meant to offer the Iranians a last
chance to avoid punishing sanctions.
Iran dismissed the offer as "a propaganda move."
As I read this report, I couldn't help imagining a once-proud and intransigent Ahmadinejad, disheveled and covered in mud, being pulled out of his carefully concealed spider hole a la Saddam Hussein. I believe that Ahmadinejad, as Saddam did in 2003, is underestimating the resolve of his Western opposition. The difference is that the Europeans are all on board for this one, which makes the possibility of a military intervention increasingly likely.
Full story.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Letter sheds light on 1950 refugee deaths
President Truman pretends he doesn't hate Gen. MacArthur just long enough to pin him with The Distinguished Service Medal - Oct. 14, 1950, Wake Island. More than a half-century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war's chaotic early days has come to light — a letter from the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines.
“If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot," wrote Ambassador John J. Muccio, in his message to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk.Source
This is the first I've heard of this story, and I don't think the Korean War would have lasted beyond its second year if it had been scrutinized as the war in Iraq is today. What chance will open societies have in future wars with the minute-by-minute coverage of combat now available to anyone with a TV or a computer? The Vietnam and Iraq wars are two good examples of how the toughest opponent a democratic nation's army can face is the one back home.
Der Spiegel Interviews Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Here's an interview that Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently gave to the German magazine, Der Spiegel. I don't think there's any doubt, given his sustained anti-Israeli rhetoric, that Ahmadinejad is doing his best to derail any chance of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Ahmadinejad's persistent pandering to anti-Israeli elements in the Middle East makes sense when considering the intractable, ethnic strife within his own country, which has been building for longer than most realize:
Basic political doctrine dictates that domestic turmoil is best subdued by focusing attention away from it, and onto an external threat.
SPIEGEL: Are you still saying that the Holocaust is just "a myth?"Full interview here.
Ahmadinejad: I will only accept something as truth if I am actually convinced of it.
Ahmadinejad's persistent pandering to anti-Israeli elements in the Middle East makes sense when considering the intractable, ethnic strife within his own country, which has been building for longer than most realize:
During the last week of May, thousands of Iranians demonstrated in the northwestern city of Tabriz, and the previous week there were protests at universities in five cities. The protests were triggered by the official government newspaper - the Islamic Republic News Agency's Iran - publishing a cartoon which depicts a boy repeating "cockroach" in Persian before a giant bug in front of him asks "What?" in Azeri.Source
The recent incidents of ethnic tensions are only the latest examples of what has been escalating for more than a year. In mid-March in the southeast, which is home to many of Iran's 1.4 million Baluchis, a Baluchi group called Jundallah took responsibility for an attack on a government motorcade in which 20 people were killed. Jundallah seized a number of hostages and claimed that it executed one of them, a member of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps. At least 12 people were killed in a similar attack in the second week of May. Nobody has taken credit for explosions May 8 in Kermanshah, which is home to Iran's 4.8 million Kurds, but the July 2005 shooting of a young Kurd by security forces led to demonstrations in several northwestern cities and the deaths of civilians and police officers. Since April of last year, there have been a number of violent incidents - including bombings that have targeted government facilities and which also have killed innocent bystanders - in the southwest, where many of Iran's 2 million Arabs live.
Basic political doctrine dictates that domestic turmoil is best subdued by focusing attention away from it, and onto an external threat.
A Reader's Response
Repack Rider responds to my "Murtha Knows Best: Pronounces Marines Guilty Before Charges Filed in Haditha Scandal," post:
First, thanks for your cordial response, I’m always glad to receive polite feedback whether or not its conclusions are in agreement with my own.
In reading your response, I think it’s safe to say that you’ve taken issue with my characterization of Murtha’s comments as a verdict. Let me reiterate his comment here for clarity:
Murtha is not simply pointing out that a crime may or may not have taken place; he’s instead unequivocally stating that the Marines in question have killed civilians in cold blood. The legal ramifications for committing such an act are defined locally as murder, and in an international context, as an atrocity against humanity, i.e., a war crime.
The point of this post was to indicate that some people who have come out against the war in Iraq, Murtha, in particular, have indeed declared these Marines guilty of a crime for which they have not yet been formally charged – I don’t honestly see any other way of interpreting Murtha’s statements. A declaration of innocence or guilt is a verdict; this is exactly what Murtha did, and I, for one, will never allow the presumption of innocence to be abandoned so willfully and irresponsibly, without expressing my strong disapproval.
As to your final point of clearing up “what seems to be confusion on the right,” I must respond by saying that the only confusion I see is that you've automatically assumed that I am from the right in the first place. Do you think that anyone who doesn't rant against the president and the war in Iraq at every opportunity is one of "those" people on the right? I surely hope not; such thinking is anathema to substantive debate.
The purpose of this site is to combat just that mode of thinking. My opinions about the war in Iraq and John Murtha’s selfish statements are based solely on my own analysis, and have nothing to do with an allegiance to any media-defined political philosophy. My goal here is to dismantle the artificial, groupthink-driven rhetoric, which regrettably passes for enlightened political thinking these days. So, with this in mind, let me thank you for giving me this opportunity to clear up your confusion.
You seem to be confusing "verdict" with the observation that a crime has
taken place.
A "verdict" is an identification of a perpetrator, but that is the last
part of the question. When you find a bullet riddled corpse, or 24 of them
including children, you know a murder has taken place. That is not a "verdict,"
it is an observation of fact that is the initial stage of developing a verdict,
because you can't have a verdict until you know there was a crime. We also know
from the initial action reports that they were killed by United States Marines,
although the action reports told a different story about the events than the
evidence did.
If the story we are told conflicts with the physical and photographic
evidence, someone is lying, and someone is a murderer, but that is not a
"verdict." That is the starting point to the investigation leading to a verdict,
which would identify who is lying and who is a murderer.Thank you for this
opportunity to clear up what seems to be confusion on the right as to the
difference between observing that a crime has taken place, and the resulting
"verdict."
First, thanks for your cordial response, I’m always glad to receive polite feedback whether or not its conclusions are in agreement with my own.
In reading your response, I think it’s safe to say that you’ve taken issue with my characterization of Murtha’s comments as a verdict. Let me reiterate his comment here for clarity:
“Democrat John Murtha, a former Marines colonel who has retained close links to
the military despite his denunciation of the Iraq occupation, said Marines
"killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Murtha is not simply pointing out that a crime may or may not have taken place; he’s instead unequivocally stating that the Marines in question have killed civilians in cold blood. The legal ramifications for committing such an act are defined locally as murder, and in an international context, as an atrocity against humanity, i.e., a war crime.
The point of this post was to indicate that some people who have come out against the war in Iraq, Murtha, in particular, have indeed declared these Marines guilty of a crime for which they have not yet been formally charged – I don’t honestly see any other way of interpreting Murtha’s statements. A declaration of innocence or guilt is a verdict; this is exactly what Murtha did, and I, for one, will never allow the presumption of innocence to be abandoned so willfully and irresponsibly, without expressing my strong disapproval.
As to your final point of clearing up “what seems to be confusion on the right,” I must respond by saying that the only confusion I see is that you've automatically assumed that I am from the right in the first place. Do you think that anyone who doesn't rant against the president and the war in Iraq at every opportunity is one of "those" people on the right? I surely hope not; such thinking is anathema to substantive debate.
The purpose of this site is to combat just that mode of thinking. My opinions about the war in Iraq and John Murtha’s selfish statements are based solely on my own analysis, and have nothing to do with an allegiance to any media-defined political philosophy. My goal here is to dismantle the artificial, groupthink-driven rhetoric, which regrettably passes for enlightened political thinking these days. So, with this in mind, let me thank you for giving me this opportunity to clear up your confusion.
Monday, May 29, 2006
A Marine Decries Murtha's Rush to Judgment
Regardless of how the investigation of the Haditha killings turns out, I think Rep. John Murtha has finally been exposed as the political opportunist that he is. The anti-war movement, if it expects to be taken seriously from here on in, would do well to distance itself from him as quickly as possible.
Here's a powerful letter to the editor of the Washington Post by Marine veteran Ilario Pantano, which underlines the irresponsibility of Rep. Murtha’s recent statements perfectly:
A year ago I was charged with two counts of premeditated murder and with other war crimes related to my service in Iraq. My wife and mother sat in a Camp Lejeune courtroom for five days while prosecutors painted me as a monster; then autopsy evidence blew their case out of the water, and the Marine Corps dropped all charges against me ["Marine Officer Cleared in Killing of Two Iraqis," news story, May 27, 2005].
So I know something about rushing to judgment, which is why I am so disturbed by the remarks of Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) regarding the Haditha incident ["Death Toll Rises in Haditha Attack, GOP
Leader Says," news story, May 20]. Mr. Murtha said, "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
In the United States, we have a civil and military court system that relies on an investigatory and judicial process to make determinations based on evidence. The system is not served by such grand pronouncements of horror and guilt without the accuser even having read the investigative report.
Mr. Murtha's position is particularly suspect when he is quoted by news services as saying that the strain of deployment "has caused them [the Marines] to crack in situations like this." Not only is he certain of the Marines' guilt but he claims to know the cause, which he conveniently attributes to a policy he opposes.
Members of the U.S. military serving in Iraq need more than Mr. Murtha's pseudo-sympathy. They need leaders to stand with them even in the hardest of times. Let the courts decide if these Marines are guilty. They haven't even been charged with a crime yet, so it is premature to presume their guilt -- unless that presumption is tied to a political motive.
ILARIO PANTANO
Jacksonville, N.C.
The writer served as a Marine enlisted man in the Persian Gulf War and most recently as a platoon commander in Iraq.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Uribe Sweeps Election in Colombia
No surprise here:
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Law-and-order President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected in a landslide Sunday in Colombia's most peaceful elections in more than a decade, strengthening the U.S. ally's mandate to crack down on armed groups and drug traffickers.Full story.
A Contrast in Governments: Canadians Decisive in Illegal Immigration Policy
The Canadian government seems immune from the political inertia inflicting their American counterparts:
Full story here.
Canada's Conservative government took on a tough stance on illegal immigrants, having deported planeloads of undocumented workers since April.
Immigration Minister Monte Solberg has said the government "has an obligation to the hundreds of thousands of people waiting to get into this country to make sure we don't reward those who don't play by the rules.”
Full story here.
Murtha Knows Best: Pronounces Marines Guilty Before Charges Filed in Haditha Scandal
Although details are just beginning to come out concerning the alleged Marine massacre of between 15 and 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha on November 19 of last year, it seems that some of the most outspoken detractors of the war in Iraq are unwilling to wait for a verdict before cashing in:
Source
If it is established that the marines under scrutiny did indeed commit the atrocities attributed to them, then let them feel the full weight of justice. However -- it should be noted that there have been no charges filed against any marine currently under investigation.
I believe John Murtha's statements were ponderously premature and irresponsible, and I wonder how many U.S. servicemen will die as a direct result of his agenda-driven rush to judgment.
Democrat John Murtha, a former Marines colonel who has retained close links to the military despite his denunciation of the Iraq occupation, said Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War Coalition, said: "It's clear that what happened in Haditha is a war crime. It would be idle to think this is the first war crime that has been committed in the last three years. It must be assumed that more of this is going on."
"What happened at Haditha appears to be outright murder," said Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch. "It has the potential to blow up in the U.S. military's face."
Source
If it is established that the marines under scrutiny did indeed commit the atrocities attributed to them, then let them feel the full weight of justice. However -- it should be noted that there have been no charges filed against any marine currently under investigation.
I believe John Murtha's statements were ponderously premature and irresponsible, and I wonder how many U.S. servicemen will die as a direct result of his agenda-driven rush to judgment.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Bush Likens War on Terrorism to Cold War
President Bush, likening the war against Islamic radicals to the Cold War threat
of communism, told U.S. Military Academy graduates on Saturday that America's
safety depends on an aggressive push for democracy, especially in the Middle
East.
Here’s a quote from president Bush’s speech to the graduating class at West Point.
As President Truman put it towards the end of his presidency, 'When history says that my term of office saw the beginning of the Cold War, it will also say that in those eight years we set the course that can win it.' His leadership paved the way for subsequent presidents from both political parties - men like Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan - to confront and eventually defeat the Soviet threat.I entirely agree with the president's assessment, and wonder what isolationists would do differently to guarantee stability in the Middle Eastern oil market. I will be the first to say that Bush’s efforts in Iraq have been less than satisfactory, but I don’t think that his incompetence in prosecuting the war makes his overarching policy of stability via the democratization of the Middle East, any less valid.
Remember that Truman’s first substantial confrontation with communism in Korea was a nightmare. Truman had actually withdrawn all American troops from South Korea by 1949, which, as it turned out, was an open invitation for the communist North Koreans to invade. If Truman had been more resolute in his anti-communist convictions and maintained a strong military presence in South Korea, the war, in which 33,686 Americans perished, would never have occurred.
Will Illegals Have More Rights Than U.S. Citizens?
Thomas Sowell discusses the advantages illegal immigrants will have over American citizens if the U.S. Senate's immigration bill were to become law:
Go here for the full text of the senate's immigration bill.
Since most of the illegals are Mexican, that makes them a minority. Under affirmative action, combined with amnesty, they would have preferences in jobs and other benefits.Read the rest of Sowell's editorial here.
Those who set up their own businesses would be entitled to preferences in getting government contracts. Their children would be able to get into college ahead of the children of American citizens with better academic qualifications.
Go here for the full text of the senate's immigration bill.
Azerbaijan may supply gas to Europe, says president
Aliyev said Azerbaijan was also ready to play a role in the transit of oil and gas, citing two major pipelines nearing completion, which would take gas from his Caspian nation to Turkey and Georgia.
There’s no doubt that Azerbaijan could benefit immensely from a European contract as 49% of its population is currently living below the poverty line. The question that remains is whether the corruption endemic to Azerbaijan can be stifled sufficiently to allow it to become more than just another one-dimensional petrostate.
Full story here.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Feel-Good Legislation, But for Whom?
The Senate passed what could become the most sweeping immigration overhaul in two decades. The bill, which passed 62-36, includes stronger enforcement, a new guest worker program and a plan to allow many of the 12 million illegal immigrants now living in the United States to earn their way to citizenship.
Vicente Fox’s reaction:
Fox said the Senate vote was "the moment millions of families have been hoping for ... that millions of people have been working for."Source.
Flashback:
The Mexican government drew fire from American advocates of tighter borders on Wednesday for publishing a pamphlet that instructs migrants how to safely enter the United States illegally and live there without being detected.Source.
The Senate's passing of the immigration bill was, at best, a Pyrrhic victory. The watered-down bill will be rejected out of hand once it comes before the house. Vicente Fox’s strong support for the bill only makes this more likely.
Illegal immigration to the U.S., from Vicente Fox’s perspective, is nothing more than a political expedient; a safety valve, which reduces pressure on his government to make any serious economic reforms. This whole fiasco attests perfectly to the lengths that both American and Mexican politicians will go to retain their power.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
DPRK Braces for War
Apparently, an American-led invasion of North Korea is imminent. Here's a recent offering by the DPRK's state run media:
Full text here. (Select the "U.S. Moves to Involve "Multi-national" Troops in Second Korean War under Fire" link from the main menu).
Now that the U.S. move for a war of aggression against the DPRK has become undisguised, its army and people will further strengthen its self-reliant defence power in order to safeguard the security and sovereignty of the nation. The U.S., mindful of this, should immediately dissolve the illegal "UN Command" and take a measure for the withdrawal of its troops from south Korea.
Full text here. (Select the "U.S. Moves to Involve "Multi-national" Troops in Second Korean War under Fire" link from the main menu).
Avian Flu Update
There have been some significant developments of late, regarding the potent H5N1 flu strain. Healthcare officials have warned that human-to-human transmission of the so-called bird flu virus would have disastrous global health-care ramifications. Let's hope that no such transmission has occurred in Indonesia.
This is being reported out of Romania:
Jakarta - Tests have confirmed that two more people have died of bird flu in Indonesia, says a senior health ministry official.Read the full story here.
One of the victims belonged to a Sumatran family at the centre of fears of human-to-human transmission after six members of the family died this month of bird flu.
Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control at the health ministry, said: "One man from the same Sumatra cluster died this morning. He is the father of the child who died on May 13.
This is being reported out of Romania:
Bucharest - About 13 000 people were quarantined in the Romanian capital on Monday as troops and police sealed off streets in response to the city's second bird-flu outbreak, said officials.Story here.
The mayor of the southern fourth district, Adrian Inimaroiu, said residents would be cut off and all businesses in the area would be closed during the quarantine period of up to three weeks.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
In Range?
Read the full story here.Iran conducted a test launch Tuesday night of the Shihab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile, which is capable of reaching Israel and US targets in the region, Israel Radio reported. The test came hours before Prime minister Ehud Olmert met with US President George W Bush in Washington to discuss the Iranian threat.
Is this Israeli propaganda or Iranian provocation? My guess is that it’s probably a little of both. This renewed brinkmanship will more than likely push oil prices back over the $70 mark. Happy motoring.
The Iranian Badge Story Persists
It seems that this story will not die easily. Amir Taheri, author of the original article, which said that non-Muslims in Iran may soon be wearing identification badges, responds here to accusations that his claim is groundless. Here's an excerpt of his latest statement:
Regarding the dress code story it seems that my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun. As far as my article is concerned I stand by it.The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation. Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation, including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such. The zonnar was in use throughout the Muslim world until the early 20th century and marked out the dhimmis, or protected religious minorities. (In Iran it was formally abolished in 1908).
Monday, May 22, 2006
It's the Oil, Stupid
Here’s the latest assessment of Iraq’s oil production capabilities according to James Jeffrey, senior advisor to the Secretary of State:
Jeffrey said oil production has been restored to over 2 million barrels per day. Iraqi oil exports are reaching 1.6 million barrels per day, and Jeffrey said he would like to see Iraq exporting 2 million barrels per day.What were Iraqi production capabilities before the first Gulf war? Look here:
Shortly after its failed 1990 invasion of Kuwait and imposition of resulting trade embargos, Iraq's oil production fell from 3.5 million barrels per day to around 300,000 barrels per day. By February 2002, Iraqi oil production had recovered to about 2.5 million barrels per day. Iraqi officials had hoped to increase the country's oil production capacity to 3.5 million barrels per day by the end of 2000, but did not accomplish this given technical problems with Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, and other oil infrastructure.Here’s a reference to a declassified British document showing Nixon’s resolve to break the Arab oil embargo in 1973:
The United States government seriously contemplated using military force to seize oil fields in the Middle East during the Arab oil embargo 30 years ago, according to a declassified British government document made public on Thursday.The point to be made here is that oil is the lifeblood of the West, and that the current war in Iraq, whether you support it or not, was inevitable. Incompetence in the war’s prosecution does not invalidate the desired goal of stabilizing the Middle Eastern oil market.
The top-secret document says that President Richard M.Nixon was prepared to act more aggressively than previously thought to secure America's oil supply if the embargo, imposed by Arab nations in retaliation forAmerica's support for Israel in the 1973 Middle East war, did not end. In fact,the embargo was lifted in March 1974. The declassified British memorandum said the United States considered launching airborne troops to seize oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, but only as a "last resort."
Baghdad ER: It's About Time
As I watched the HBO documentary, Baghdad ER, last night, I was struck with the sense that this film would have more of an impact on how the war in Iraq is perceived at home, than any speeches, movies, or protests that preceded it. As the film clip showing Brig Gen. Nguyen Ngoc executing a Vietcong officer assaulted the sensibilities of Americans back home in 1968, Baghdad ER may have much the same effect in 2006.
It is vitally important for the American public to understand the tremendous sacrifices made by their countrymen in Iraq on a daily basis. In that regard, Baghdad ER is an important, albeit modest, step in the right direction. If your knowledge of the war in Iraq is limited to mind-numbing media abstractions, i.e., vague, politically motivated bombast, which does nothing to communicate the true carnage in Iraq, how can you possibly know whether the war is worth fighting?
Baghdad ER, as it turns out, did nothing to dissuade me from my previously held views on the war. What it did do, however, is significantly increase the appreciation I have for the profound sacrifices that have been, and continue to be, undertaken on my behalf. To all the U.S.,British, and Coalition forces serving in Iraq: Thank you.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
The Wealth of Nations
The Seattle Post Intelligencer ran an article yesterday reporting on China's completion of its Three Gorges dam across the Yangtze River. Apparently, this is the largest hydroelectric project the world has ever seen. This was, however, not what caught my attention. At the very end of the article there was a reference to China's growing wealth disparity, which piqued my interest:
It turns out that the universally accepted statistic for measuring wealth disparities within a particular country is known as that country’s Gini coefficient. As I understand it, the Gini coefficient is a value between 0 and 1, with 0 meaning everyone in a particular country shares that nation’s wealth equally and 1 meaning, as you might expect, that a single person controls all wealth of that nation. Pretty straightforward stuff, right?
So, how well did China do? Well, the answer to that was surprising to say the least: China’s Gini index (the Gini coefficient multiplied by 100), it turns out, is 44, better than America’s, which is rated at 45! This, I believe, is a perfect illustration of media bias. Without looking more closely at the actual data associated with the above contention, there’s no doubt that many would have come away from that article with a much more negative opinion of China’s economic situation than appears to be warranted.
Here’s a link to a site that ranks countries by their Gini index. Remember, the lower the number, the more equal the distribution of wealth.
Plans for a more elaborate celebration were canceled, Xinhua reported, without giving a reason. Elaborate state celebrations have been rolled back amid a growing disparity between the urban rich and rural poor.Having, in recent years, heard a number of references to this troubling economic trend in China, I decided that it was about time I got to the bottom of things.
It turns out that the universally accepted statistic for measuring wealth disparities within a particular country is known as that country’s Gini coefficient. As I understand it, the Gini coefficient is a value between 0 and 1, with 0 meaning everyone in a particular country shares that nation’s wealth equally and 1 meaning, as you might expect, that a single person controls all wealth of that nation. Pretty straightforward stuff, right?
So, how well did China do? Well, the answer to that was surprising to say the least: China’s Gini index (the Gini coefficient multiplied by 100), it turns out, is 44, better than America’s, which is rated at 45! This, I believe, is a perfect illustration of media bias. Without looking more closely at the actual data associated with the above contention, there’s no doubt that many would have come away from that article with a much more negative opinion of China’s economic situation than appears to be warranted.
Here’s a link to a site that ranks countries by their Gini index. Remember, the lower the number, the more equal the distribution of wealth.
A Few Questions, Mr. President...
The British call it Questions to the Prime Minister; New Zealanders and Australians refer to it as Question Time; and the Canadians, as Question Period. These terms all describe the time set aside for the representative bodies of each of these nations to directly address any concerns they may have with decisions made by the chief executives of their governments. These question periods are an invaluable tool in establishing a transparent, democratic rapport between leaders and the people they are sworn to serve and protect. Conspicuously absent from this list is the United States of America. The president of the U.S. takes part in no such question period, and I believe it’s time for this to change.
There has been, since President Bush first took office in 2000, a progressively widening disconnect between the executive and his constituency. Approval ratings aside, the American president, regardless of his ebbing popularity at any given time, has chosen to greatly limit his public exposure. President Bush is more than happy to limit the debate by selectively feeding the media with carefully scripted sound-bites, specially formulated to fend off questions instead of answering them.
That participation in these tightly controlled presentations is generally limited to the media is equally vexing to me. The media does not represent me, so why are they given the exclusive privilege of questioning MY employee: the president?
In light of the myriad questions swirling around the president’s handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, illegal immigration, NSA wiretaps and official policies toward torture in the so-called war on terrorism, it is time for the president to make an accounting of himself.
I would like to have the president appear once a week before the U.S. Senate and once a month before the U.S. House of Representatives (The last week of each month would include the entire U.S. Congress). In these hour-long, publicly televised sessions, the president would take questions inspired by letters written to the congress by private American citizens. These sessions would be presided over by a member of the U.S. Supreme court; justices would serve in rotation and their power over the proceedings would be absolute.
Just imagine, all three branches of the U.S. government represented in the same chamber, locked in vigorous debate over the issues that WE, the people, think are important. I ask you, would this not electrify the American public? Never mind American Idol, such a spectacle would command ratings on par with the super bowl.
I firmly believe that the establishment of such a tradition would go a long way both in demystifying the American political process, and in giving the American people a much-needed assurance that their participation in government is not in vain. We get the government we deserve – It’s time to show that we deserve better.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Update to Iranian Badge Story
Iran's Jewish MP denies reports pretending to force non-Muslims to wear colored badges
Source
"Iran's Jewish MP Maurice Motammed, strongly denied reports in a Canadian
newspaper that Iran may force non-Muslims to wear colored badges in public so
they can be identified. He told AFP that quote: "The report is a lie, and the
people who invented it wanted to make political gain by doing so."
Motammed said he had been present in parliament when a bill to promote
"an Iranian and Islamic style of dress for women" was voted adding quote: "In
the law, there is no mention of religious minorities; this is an insult to the
Iranian people and to religious minorities in Iran."
Source
The Great Ethanol Debate
Watching a congressional hearing on gasoline and ethanol prices yesterday on C-span prompted me to write this article. It seems that ethanol, according to yesterday's testimony, is not yet the answer (unless you happen to grow corn for a living).Proponents say ethanol has a positive energy yield (yields more Btu’s than are needed to produce it) while its detractors assert the opposite: more energy is needed to produce ethanol than the finished product will yield.
This debate is beginning to look more and more like the global warming debate: pick a side and enjoy the ride. I have sourced a few interesting tidbits, some more reputable than others, which, on the balance, seem to imply that ethanol is nothing more than corn grower's welfare. At approximately $2.90 a gallon (the same as the U.S. gasoline average price) you can expect 2/3 the energy output of gasoline - and whether you use any of the ethanol derivatives (E10,E85) your tax dollars will still go to subsidize ethanol at a .54/gallon rate. Feel free to add any additional viewpoints/data; balance, as always, is the name of the game here.
Here's a response by The American Coalition for Ethanol:
Ethanol Futures are currently trading at $2.90/galSee price history here: Source
Note: I have added a U.S. gas price ticker to the side column; just type in your state to see the updated average prices.
This debate is beginning to look more and more like the global warming debate: pick a side and enjoy the ride. I have sourced a few interesting tidbits, some more reputable than others, which, on the balance, seem to imply that ethanol is nothing more than corn grower's welfare. At approximately $2.90 a gallon (the same as the U.S. gasoline average price) you can expect 2/3 the energy output of gasoline - and whether you use any of the ethanol derivatives (E10,E85) your tax dollars will still go to subsidize ethanol at a .54/gallon rate. Feel free to add any additional viewpoints/data; balance, as always, is the name of the game here.
The cost of producing and transporting ethanol will continue to limit its use asSource
a renewable fuel. Ethanol relies heavily on Federal and State subsidies to
remain economically viable as a gasoline-blending component. The current Federal
subsidy, at 54 cents per gallon, makes it possible for ethanol to compete as a
gasoline additive. Corn prices are the dominant cost factor in ethanol
production, and ethanol supply is extremely sensitive to corn prices, as was
seen in 1996. Ethanol production dropped sharply in mid-1996 (Figure 3), when
late planting due to wet conditions resulted in short corn supplies and higher
prices.
From a national supply perspective, it is useful to note the energy impacts ofSource
adding ethanol to gasoline as well as the volume effects. Conventional gasoline
without ethanol contains about 115,000 Btu in a gallon8. Ethanol contains 76,000
Btu in a gallon, or about two-thirds the energy of gasoline. Thus, when 90
gallons of conventional gasoline are extended to 100 gallons by adding 10
gallons of ethanol, the volume of the base 90 gallons has increased by about
11.1 percent, but the energy has only increased about 7.5 percent. Table 2
summarizes both the energy and the volume impacts of adding ethanol to gasoline
with and without an RVP waiver.
Most expensive is Washington's 54 cent-per-gallon tax break for gasohol. ThisSource
special-interest loophole accounts for the bulk of the more than $10 billion in
subsidies to ADM since 1980. All told, analyst James Bovard estimates that every
dollar in profits earned by ADM costs taxpayers $30.
Here's a response by The American Coalition for Ethanol:
What does “net energy balance” mean?Source
What is ethanol’s energy balance? Net energy balance is a term used to
describe how much energy is needed to produce a product versus how much energy
that product provides. Two professors that are long-time critics of ethanol
claim that ethanol has a negative energy balance, meaning more energy is
required to produce ethanol than ethanol offers as a motor fuel.This is not
true. Scientific study after study has proven ethanol’s energy balance to
clearly be positive. The latest USDA figures show that ethanol made from the dry
mill process provides at least 77% more energy as a fuel than the process it
takes to make it.The bottom line is that it takes about 35,000 BTUs (British
Thermal Units) of energy to create a gallon of ethanol, and that gallon of
ethanol contains at least 77,000 BTUs of energy.
Ethanol Futures are currently trading at $2.90/galSee price history here: Source
Note: I have added a U.S. gas price ticker to the side column; just type in your state to see the updated average prices.
Friday, May 19, 2006
NYPD warns officers about cell phone guns
"NEW YORK - The New York Police Department has warned officers to watch out for a type of rare custom-made pistol, disguised as a cell phone.
Federal authorities have been issuing warnings about the specially made .22 caliber handgun since at least 2000, when several were recovered by law enforcement authorities in Europe.
The weapons, which use a spring-wound percussion system to fire up to four .22 caliber bullets, have continued to surface occasionally overseas." More here.
Iran may force badges on Jews, Christians
"TEHRAN, May 19 (UPI) -- Iran's parliament passed a new law this week that would
force the country's Jews, Christians and other religious minorities to wear
color-coded ID badges.
Iranian expatriates confirmed reports the Iranian parliament, or majlis, has approved a law that would require non-Muslims to adhere to a dress code which mandates they wear "standard Islamic garments,"according to Canada's National Post.
The roughly 25,000 Jews living in the Islamic Republic would have to attach a yellow strip of cloth to their clothing, Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would wear blue ones." More here.
Microsoft Launches "Vista Get Ready" Web Site
For some time Microsoft has been dancing around the topic of the actual system specs you'll need to run Windows Vista in all of its graphical glory. Today that changed with the company's launch of a new website dedicated to explaining what you need to have a "Vista-capable PC" and a "Vista Premium-Ready PC.More here.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Venezuela May Buy Russian Fighter Jets, Chavez Says
Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, responded to the announced suspension of
arms sales from the U.S. by suggesting that Russia and China could become
alternatives as suppliers to the Venezuelan military.
See the story here.
Chavez, a self-proclaimed savior of the impoverished in both his country and the world over, has gotten a great deal of mileage out of his anti-American rhetoric, and more recently, claims of an impending American invasion of his country. The thought of a Venezuelan invasion by the U.S. is of course laughable: American politicians are divided as to whether 6,000 National Guard troops can even be spared for duty along the Mexican border, let alone an invasion of Venezuela.
I believe Chavez is simply continuing his effective campaign of using America as a convenient excuse for the intractable problems within his own country; problems which he is having little success in addressing.
Chavez, who has all but nationalized his country’s oil industry, seems to spend more petrodollars on strengthening his own prestige than on building an economy that doesn’t rely heavily on oil revenues. 47% of Venezuela’s population is currently living below the poverty line – perhaps Chavez should withdraw from the world stage until he’s gotten his own house in order.
Chavez, a self-proclaimed savior of the impoverished in both his country and the world over, has gotten a great deal of mileage out of his anti-American rhetoric, and more recently, claims of an impending American invasion of his country. The thought of a Venezuelan invasion by the U.S. is of course laughable: American politicians are divided as to whether 6,000 National Guard troops can even be spared for duty along the Mexican border, let alone an invasion of Venezuela.
I believe Chavez is simply continuing his effective campaign of using America as a convenient excuse for the intractable problems within his own country; problems which he is having little success in addressing.
Chavez, who has all but nationalized his country’s oil industry, seems to spend more petrodollars on strengthening his own prestige than on building an economy that doesn’t rely heavily on oil revenues. 47% of Venezuela’s population is currently living below the poverty line – perhaps Chavez should withdraw from the world stage until he’s gotten his own house in order.
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