Conservative-Century

The Iranian 1953 Coup d'état and the CIA’s Involvement

2005-12-30T02:15:00.000-08:00

By Tetracide

The relationship between the United States and Iran has been one roller coaster ride after another. In the past, our economic ties enriched a strong yet unique friendship between the U.S. and Iran, but today, the U.S. has branded Iran as part of an axis of evil and a country which has stubbed its nose to the international demands to stop the research and development of nuclear technology. 1953 Iran was no exception.

One of those roller coasters did an entire 360 degrees around the once Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mosaddeq in mid August, 1953. It is a fact that a coup d'état occurred, and that coup d'état was assisted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Anyone might conclude that this is basic knowledge of the 1953 incident. So how did the sentiment leak into the minds of the Left that we “trained his [the Shah’s] own personal secret police” or that the government which followed after the coup “was installed by the west”?

While I could dive into a diatribe of the low standards some Americans have for their own country, a historical perspective and a rekindled enlightenment of the situation that was the 1953 Iranian coup d'état are required and would be more suitable.

Events surrounding the Iranian coup are important and like many other historical issues and concepts, any discussion should start with the context of the situation. While it is odd that anyone would defend a self-proclaimed communist, it nevertheless should be established that Mosaddeq was no innocent bystander that just so happened to be trampled by the immoral CIA machine. Some like to claim Mosaddeq was democratically elected, yet this is certainly not the case. To replace the Prime Minister Ali Razmara, who was assassinated thirty-nine days before his term was over, Mosaddeq was appointed on April 27th, 1952 by Iran’s legislative assembly, the Majlis. At the end of those thirty-nine days, against the consent of the Shah, and certainly undemocratically, Mosaddeq was appointed. With a clear horizon in front of him, his quest for power was ready to begin.

Almost immediately after his second appointment, Mosaddeq demanded ultimate power over all economic, financial, and personnel aspects of the government. The Majlis refused, and Mosaddeq childishly resigned on July 16th. General Zahedi was to be the new Prime Minister but after much political unrest and even riots, Mosaddeq came back to power on the 22nd, and his bill to give him dictatorial powers over Iran for a time period of six months was passed. The Mosaddeq regime was now in place.

In complete control of his future, things only went downhill for the Iranian people. Twenty days later, not only were economic, financial, and personnel powers in the hands of Mosaddeq, but so was every aspect of Iranian life. In a failed attempt to stop Mosaddeq’s consolidation of power, fifteen Iranian generals were dismissed from service or were forced to retire. Dissent would not to be tolerated by the new regime. As the socialist he was, the dictator enacted communistic economic reform which burdened small villages and farmers to surrender 20% of their land of which would then be divided up into equal parts for the better good. Along came tax increases and the specific targeting of wealthy Iranians. If they refused to pay, they were imprisoned and their property confiscated. It was the decree of the regime that all funds gained were to be redistributed equally to the masses.

Mosaddeq’s stern nationalistic approach to his governing not only ran counter to the Shah’s wishes, but to the United Kingdom’s interests in the region. Mosaddeq’s illegal seizure of western assets spurred even more unrest. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) fiasco led Iran down an extremely difficult path of trying to stimulate its own economy. The UK oil trade was calculated in to Mosaddeq’s economic development plan, but due to Mosaddeq’s personal ego, and his lack of ability to do what was right for his country and his people, UK-Iranian relations, for the first time since 1859, were severed.

Mosaddeq quickly lost support from the military to the religious figures in Iran. The United States also saw this situation as a problem. The early stages of the Cold War were in full swing at this time, and to the U.S.-led Western bloc and the Soviet-led Eastern bloc, any political moves made around the world were considered “wins” or “losses.” With Iran’s failed economy, and severed ties with their leading foreign trade dealer the UK, Iran was left with only once choice – do business with the Soviets and thus, be engulfed into the Soviet sphere of influence.

Because the U.S. did not want to “lose” Iran, Kermit Roosevelt, a senior agent for the CIA, developed a plan to assist the Shah and opposition parties of the Mosaddeq regime in a coup. The operation was dubbed Operation Ajax and a total of $1 million was set aside for the project.

And we’re off to the races!

Operation Ajax had international support. British MI6 agents and CIA operatives made up the operating group. The Qashqai tribal leaders arranged for the two governments, the UK and the U.S., to operate in secrecy in their part of southern Iran. With a footing in place, and the objective clear, it was time to act.

Unexpectedly and only a mere hours before the coup was to take place, Mosaddeq was tipped off. Iranian troops loyal to Mosaddeq spread across Tehran intercepting pro-Shah soldiers in their tracks. Despite what seemed to be a huge setback, CIA agents on the ground as well as General Zahedi himself thought otherwise. Kermit Roosevelt and Zahedi agreed that if the Shah sent a decree detailing the removal of Mosaddeq and the appointment of the lawful Prime Minister, General Zahedi.

The CIA made the arrangements, but before there was any implementation, another decisive blow to the operation came about when the Shah was reported to have fled to Baghdad. Kermit and CIA operatives on the ground now had no communication with the Shah to inquire him for the two decrees needed. In a last ditch effort to instigate the coup, and taking advantage of Mosaddeq’s premature removal of Iranian troops in Tehran, the CIA contacted the Associated Press in New York as well as some Tehran newspapers and told them the coup leaders were armed with the two decrees hoping the Shah would get the message and follow through.

On August 17th, the Shah got the message, and made an announcement that he had signed the decrees however some feared that it was too late. Pro-Mosaddeq newspapers declared the end of the Pahlevi dynasty and the Communist Party’s central committee attributed the coup had failed. Just as the CIA were packing their things to go home, heads hung low, word on the street changed and pro-Shah rallies raged through the avenues of Tehran. Iranian CIA agents, without specific orders, led the crowds to vandalize and overrun pro-Mosaddeq newspaper publishing buildings. Things were moving far more quickly than even the CIA had anticipated. An Iranian general that helped with the original coup days before showed up in front of the Parliament with a tank. Truckloads of military personnel were at every large intersection. In light of the situation, Mr. Roosevelt personally brought General Zahedi to one of the radio stations which were already broadcasting the success of the coup and the decrees from the Shah. Zahedi addressed the nation for the first time as Prime Minister.

Well, let’s hold on a second here. What did the CIA do again? Did they amass the crowds, arm them with AK-47s and point them in the right direction? Actually no, they didn’t. The will of the people and Mosaddeq’s totalitarian and communistic views and policies is what triggered the movement. While the CIA was packing their things due to their failure, the Iranian people stepped up. The full $1 million wasn’t even spent. A measly $75,000 was spent on only mobilizing personnel.

Hindsight is always 20/20, and in light of the aftermath of the 1953 coup, blatant blaming and condemnation of the CIA expectedly follow, but the question still remains; how did the sentiment leak into the minds of the Left that we “trained his [the Shah’s] own personal secret police” or that the government which followed after the coup “was installed by the west”? The CIA surly did not set up any training camps, nor was their any installation of a leader. The Iranian people followed the will of their legal leader, the Shah. Simply and honestly put, the CIA set an already strong movement in motion, and made room for General Zahedi to take his rightful position.

It is in the wish of history, that accurate perspective and informed conclusions remain potent. In 1953, Mosaddeq’s regime was one of brutality, social, and economic unrest brought about by communism. The United States, being the beacon of freedom and prosperity that it is, assisted little in the removal a dictatorship, and that is simply all.

The New Manifest Destiny

2005-12-19T00:18:00.000-08:00

by Hobbie

The prevailing wisdom among the cultural "elites" in America is that the concept of manifest destiny, which emerged in the early and mid 1800's, was in fact an amoral imperialistic endeavor designed to forcefully assimilate or annihilate the Indians for hegemonic expansion. Nevermind the previous century and a half of unmitigated warfare; first against the Indians, then against the French and French-allied Indian mercenaries, and of course the two subsequent wars against Great Britain, followed by even further skirmishes against Mexican militias. Just ignore context, and embrace the fact that our forefathers were the forerunners to fascism. Simple enough? Good.

Now fast forward some one hundred and seventy years and take a look at modern-day America. Culturally magnanimous. Economically superior. Militarily unstoppable. Oh, and of course, once again engaged in an imperialstic endeavor designed to forcefully assimilate or annihlate people (this time Muslims) for hegemonic expansion. The prevailing wisdom seems to depict a pattern of behavior for this "evil empire" we've created. What's an ashamed and guilt-ridden American to do?

The answer to that question is "I have no idea." I'm not an ashamed or guilt-ridden American, but if you want to hear from some, I think Harry Belafonte is offering free guilt seminars in addition to his renditions of the "Banana Boat Song."

Manifest Destiny was, contrary to popular belief, not an evil plan for domination. It was not a hegemonic power grab. It was not a campaign to wipe out the Indians. It was, simply put, a campaign to further explore, chart, and settle the territory that Thomas Jefferson acquired in the greatest land appraisal of all-time, the Louisiana Purchase. Much of the political rhetoric surrounding the expansion of the nation was less focused on the necessity of expansion, and more centered on the debate of free states and slave states and the role that they would play in new territories. You had the occasional caterwauling of a Whig, opposed to the idea of rapid growth, but the debate wasn't as much about expanding, as much as it was about how to expand.

Population growth certainly had a great deal to do with the burgeoning of manifest destiny. But so did national security, and the pursuit of liberty. The west offered opportunity for blossoming entrepreneurs, classic adventure capitalists, and poorer families seeking to start a new life. Yet, expansion also served another purpose. The acquisition of new land, resources, and territory provided additional buffers against further foreign incursions from either the British Empire or the armies and militias in Mexico. This is what the debate should focus upon, as opposed to the rhetoric of the America bashers.

Unlike actual imperial powers, like Japan, the United States did not send its armies into the west to establish control, pillage the indigenous tribes, and seize the land by force for the purpose of consumption. The effort was spearheaded by American citizens and American families, all following some rather sage advice on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The goal was not to dominate. The goal was to emancipate. This has since been lost in the annals of history; rewritten and forged into a myth about lust for power, when, if anything, it was lust for liberty.

Now fast forward one hundred and seventy years to modern-day America. In the aftermath of a tragedy of catastrophic proportions, America is once again engaged in her manifest destiny. The region is not the west. The region is the east. Specifically, the Middle East. And the battles, once again, are being waged for security and liberty; yet, it is not just for our interests this time. It is for the interests of free peoples everywhere. And yet, the elite and the America bashers have returned, and right on schedule. Instead of liberty, they see oppression. They'd make Orwell proud.

The 21st Century opened with a revelation of a global enemy with global support seeking to establish global oppression; and in that opening salvo, thousands perished. In return, America has reassumed her role of emancipation. This is the new manifest destiny:

Yet now there are only two options before our country — victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party because the security of our people is in the balance.--George W. Bush

Let's roll.

When the Going Gets Rough

2005-11-20T09:53:00.000-08:00

By Chingu

America and American’s share a history of overcoming obstacles and hardships. The very founding of our nation was an enduring feat of providence that beat overwhelming odds. We faced up to the British Empire then thought (and rightly so) to be the preeminent power on Earth. And, we won our freedom. We fought our way out from underneath the tyranny of the crown. The going got rough and we overcame.

In a world of assorted government bodies, mainly monarchies, a collection of thinking men gathered and combined talents to script a paper that would forever embrace the spirit of humanity. In that incredibly well thought document, “The Declaration of Independence.” A national ideal was born and lives on to this day. Hopefully, we will see that torch of insight lit brightly well into the future. That document declared that all men are created equal and have certain inalienable rights. This concept mandated that a form of government be created that would embrace those seemingly simple truths. Not an easy road to travel. Not in a world where such a concept had come and gone several times and had failed due to certain inadequacies. The Venetians, the Romans and the Greeks had all dared to ponder similar concepts but they’d not considered the most important aspect. The Declaration of Independence covered that.

These founding fathers, as we now so name them, took on a task as bold as any. In the dim light of new nation they debated and argued and thought and voted and finally scribed a document worthy of their consideration. The Constitution was born and the United States of America was a nation governed by the people for the people. That was a tough battle that took serious men incredible energy to consider and agree upon. The going had been rough. But, we overcame.

Through thick and thin, the American has endured hardship. All the glory that is ours to either enjoy or squander was not won with restful and satisfied bellies. We would face a crisis and we would overcome it. The Civil War was one such crisis wherein the future of our grand nation, then a fully sovereign new world boldly growing and prospering faced a divergence of views not reconcilable through debate, diplomacy or the penned word. Suffice to say the going was tough. America survived.

We faced as a people a world devolving into a period of wars that would encircle the globe. We saw the rise of terrible powers in the Japanese immoral Imperialists and the Nazi Germans and the Fascist Italians who’s aim was to recreate the world under the iron fisted control of a militaristic few. And as the world fell like dominoes, one nation after the other, it wasn’t until the Americans rose up in defense of their collective vision of liberty that the world order was set right again. Oh, the going was tough - the outcome uncertain at best. But the ideals of liberty prevailed.

Again we faced the rise of evil. The Soviet Union wrote in their manifesto; a national directive, to bring Communism / Marxism to the world. Their aim was to defeat all other forms of government and to hold the people of the world hostage to this new concept rooted in fairness. Of course, that fairness was at the expense of the individual and ignoring the individual ignores the concept of Liberty and therefore, Marxism was in direct opposition to the ideals that American’s had learned to hold dear.

This new superpower, having risen out of the ashes of World War Two, threatened our liberty. The challenge was as simple as winning or loosing – a challenge we’d faced before. But now, the stakes were higher. No longer would there be pitched battles but these would be replaced by nuclear weapons capable of shattering entire cities in one blow. Defending against this new enemy was no easy task. It took the best minds and the greatest strategies and an enduring will to protect our liberty to overcome. And, we did.

Through all of these hardships and tests of will there were the voices of appeasement. Through each manifestation of evil there were those unwilling to or unaware of the dangers we faced. In the end though, the voices of reason, with a passion unequalled, won the battle of necessity and we were able to fend off whatever challenged to steal away with our liberties. No matter how tough the road, we always managed to rise to the challenge and overcome.

And now we face our contemporary challenge. As with all new crisis, this one takes a unique form. Yet, its purpose is not dissimilar to any challenge we have faced throughout time. On one hand you have a nation of people who believe in liberty and on the other, you have a force, which intends to take liberty away.

Again, we hear the voices of those who are unwilling to face the challenge. We hear the rhetoric of the ones who prefer the status quo. They seemingly think no case is strong enough to call men to arms in the defense of liberty. Perhaps, these voices are held by those who take their liberty for granted?

We faltered in the past. We fought a war half-heartedly and failed to win. That was the Vietnam War. The idea was to contain Communism, a global policy of the United States and our allies that eventually worked despite our having failed this one time. So, we have a precedent for what happens when American’s falter. What happened was that Communism gained momentum, over a million people died, another few million were forced into Communism and the Soviet Union and Communist China were emboldened and became more provocative. The global view was that America was not the end-all be-all of the world any longer. There was an unspoken fear that perhaps the age of Liberty was dying. There was a strange acceptance in certain realms that believed any fate was better than war, and the ideal of liberty was hanging tenuously like the proverbial Newtonian Apple ready to fall from the tree.

From the post Vietnam era disrepair and disrespect, we slowly pulled up our bootstraps under the guidance of an impassioned leadership and again, Americans were re-energized with the concept and practice of Liberty. It seems that all we needed was a demonstration of how tenuous our liberty is to wake us up and set us straight.

For decades we lived with the fear of nuclear war. We witnessed two diametrically opposite strategies for preserving our liberty in the face of the threat. One, under a liberal view nearly surrendered it while, thankfully, the following preserved it and built it and then eventually defeated through attrition, the dark force of the Soviet Union. It hadn’t been easy. The going had been tough. But, we survived and overcame.

In each instance we won or survived and preserved our liberty not though appeasement or by taking the easiest path but by boldly challenging those forces of evil that threatened to compromise our liberty. We have learned over time that these forces of evil that gather like storm clouds on the worlds horizon do not dissipate when we ignore them. They do not ignore us when we fail to recognize them. They do not shrink away when we speak about them. They do not crumble under the weight of diplomacy. They are defeated by force.

We face such a crisis now. We can not say in the framework of time how far into that threat we are or how much it might grow. We can not guess the strength this rising movement of evil might gain – what momentum it might gather. But, history tells us that we should never underestimate its potential.

And as we stand on the shore of this crisis, understanding full well that the crisis exists, it is disheartening to hear the same rhetoric and the same voices as we’ve heard before. Those voices insisting that the threat is minimal, that warring with them is wrong and that diplomacy is the proper course. It is disappointing to hear these voices again concern themselves more with the nuances of domestic political power than to attend to the certain threats we face. And, it is entirely terrible to understand that such voices are willing if not eager to let Liberty fall rather than stand up and defend it.

So, we must ask ourselves what history will say about the United States here and now. Will history be written by us or by the ones who have stolen liberty away from the people? Yes, the going is tough and people have died. Yes, everything is not perfect and we are forced to sacrifice. Yes, the status quo is no longer valid and yes, the world is unfair. The going is tough. We MUST overcome.

What a Tory Revival Needs

2005-11-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

By Lord Hargreaves

I'd like to talk about the UK Conservative Party if I may:

In some respects the current Tory Leadership contest is rather asinine, because both Davids don't really disagree on much. Perhaps this is why I still haven't decided who to vote for, because of the lack of choice - yes, both sidesplay up their differences, but they are of style and method, not substance. Both agree that the Conservative Party's problem is one of image rather than policy.

Lets focus on one clear area of disagreement: tax policy. David Cameron, in his wisdom, has called for "the proceeds of growth to be shared between tax reduction and public services".

Eh?

It seems Cameron has not learned anything - when we call for lower taxes and increased public spending at the same time, voters usually scratch their heads and wonder "How does that work?"

Answer: It doesn't, not really.

In contrast, David Davis promises a 3% tax cut of £1,200. The reaction to this was largely a rather hysterical hissy-fit, and we were treated to warnings of how if we only focus on our "core vote" we were doomed to loose again. And this is over 3%!!! How can people say belief in conservatism is not dying before our eyes?

A Tory revival starts with a 10% tax cut.

I believe 10% is a good number to begin with but the prospect of further cuts must be kept in mind — and this is the beginning of economic wisdom, and we are the party of that. Economic initiatives must be encouraged for economic growth to happen. Yes, the Treasury will say that you must cut spending to make this possible. This insistence will make tax cuts impossible.

On social policy, I believe a Tory revival must incorporate Liam Fox's vision of addressing the "broken society". Left-Wing ideas about crime, immigration, health and education should be attacked and discredited. The family is one archetypically conservative institution and should be privileged as such. Cameron has mumbled something about tax benefits, but other than this the leaders seem all too silent.

A word on foreign policy. The Conservative party should announce that European integration has gone too far. A common European market is a good idea and those commonalities that emerge naturally among its members are usually good ideas as well. But what is developing is not a European union of nations but a transnational Europe with its political centre in Brussels. This is unacceptable — or should be — to the UK. Why is this so difficult to say?

Yes, it is absolutely essential for a Tory revival that we address public services, the environment and global poverty. However there is no need for our solutions to be left-wing. The public services require real choice, the environment can only be saved with technological solutions and not a subversion of capitalism, and global poverty can only be addressed with a defence of free trade and responsibility in the governments of recipient nations.

It is also essential we do not forget that our logo is the torch of liberty - We must begin to trust the people again - to manage their own money and their own lives. The best way to start this is to restore powers to local government, and allow elections for police comissioners, and perhaps judges too.

Our party has an excellent chance of winning the next election under either Cameron or Davis, like we had an excellent chance of winning in 1979 without Thatcher. We can always find ways to win elections. I am arguing that for a true revival of a party capable of building a legacy, we must do these things.

One other thing: a conservative party historically, in all countries, has been the patriotic nationalistic party. The Conservative party of Great Britain should celebrate this spirit. Fly the flag on school buildings - bring it on baby

The Ultimate Question

2005-11-10T21:01:00.000-08:00

By Tetracide

The left are entertaining in the fact that they put all their energy into one matter, whichever is prominent at that moment, and consistently fail to succeed or at least leave the situation with a victorious light of which they crave.

Not too long ago we had the John Bolton nomination, where the Democrats were caught off guard while gussying up for the celebrating press conference, when the President appointed Mr. Bolton directly to the UN. To the left, John Bolton was a fascist, unethical, dirty old man, and not worthy of such a position. Putting their heart and soul into every speech, they painted that man as unfit for the job, and criticized the President for sending such an obvious moron to the likes of them. However, now, he isn’t talked about at all. We haven’t heard much about him, his business at the UN, and the policies he supports or denounces.

This brings up an interesting question. If Bolton was a spawn of Satan, like the left portrayed him and many others to be, why was he suddenly ignored once the opportunity to obstruct such an evil human being was much more difficult?

The left have amazing and admirable fidelity, whether it be tarnishing the wife and kids of a Supreme Court nominee, or the giddy publicizing of the 2,000 fallen American men and women in the armed service. If history respected the opposing parties of the time more, the modern left would certainly take the cake. Horrific comments made by their idols like Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, or Howard Dean were widely accepted or quietly ignored, highlighting the fact that they refuse to protect America on the political battlefield when it is so clearly under attack from within.

A shrug or a sigh is surly in order, but one cannot help but to think where the party of hate and obstruction is headed. The presidency?

In 2004, the harsh reminder that such anger and antagonism is not strong enough to win the hearts and minds of the American public was all too apparent. However, the left, in their attempt to analyze why the right won (not why they lost), they decided to not re-illustrate their base with their solid positions and values in the arena of ideas, but to rather deceive (Hillary Clinton) and continue to increase the size of their “hate base” (Harry Reed, and many others).

The ultimate question of life is “why?” and while three letters seems easy to say, type, and write, many if not all Americans are still confused in regards to the answer the left may provide to that question. They can run and hide from answering the question for as long as they want, but until they finally answer the silent majority; the voters; the people, they will never taste the sweet taste of power they so eagerly strive for.

Muslim Thuggery in France

2005-11-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

by Hobbie

The recent firestorm in Paris has caught media headlines. At the time of this writing, the 'riots' have been raging for nearly two weeks. On the surface, one is tempted to view the widespread mayhem as the anarchistic actions of French youth rebelling against the status quo or the social hierarchy. But the surface rarely tells the story.

The violence is almost universally comprised of Muslim youth. The talking heads of the media believe that the 'riots' are a result of disaffected and disillusioned people who feel that they are economically and socially repressed. That's probably a part of it. But let's be honest for just a few moments. This is not a 'riot.' This is a national uprising. As has been reported at Fox, , the 'riots' have spanned the course of three hundred cities and towns. This is a movement, and a very dangerous movement at that. Already, schools, cars, buildings, and buses have been burned. A dozen police officers were shot in the southeastern town of Grigny. Close to 10,000 reserve officers have been called up. Clearly, this is an uprising on a scale that hasn't been seen in sometime. So, what's the catalyst?

France is a socialist welfare state. Their unemployment, nationally, stands in the double digits (around 10%). France is also home to millions of unemployed and culturally unassimilated Muslims. Enter the "perfect storm."

While some intellectually dishonest people may be upset with the accurate analysis of the situation and thereby accuse one of 'bigotry' for pointing out the unavoidable facst that these thugs are Muslims, it's important that clear-thinking individuals recognize both the problems and the culprits. One cannot hope to solve a problem without first identifying it.

The first step is for France, and the rest of Europe, to wake up. We're at war. We're not at war with Islam, but we are at war with Islamic fascists, and it's imperative that we recognize the effect radical Islam can have on Muslim youth. There's already an underlying stigma toward the west, and France's pacifistic approach toward reform in the Middle East isn't doing itself any favors in the eyes of both peaceful and violent Muslims. Surprisingly, the French Interior Minister, de Villepin, has taken a hardline stance on ending the uprising, even threatening to use the military (I know, I know, I was shocked to hear they had one, too). This is precisely what is needed at this hour. But that's the short-term approach. The long-term approach isn't likely going to sit well with most French people.

If France, and other European nations, wish to prevent this from happening again, they must abandon their welfare state and socialist policies. You cannot hope to spurn economic growth and encourage the creation of wealth by placing the government on a pedestal, by replacing opportunity with government handouts. The entitlements and easy money available through welfare is a poverty trap. It's always there, and it stymies potential drive to work to earn a living. In France, welfare is almost an encouragement among many minority groups. Sadly, while welfare means well, it completely fails to do the very thing it's meant to do. This is where the onus falls on France--abandon the welfare state and open up the free market and limited government approach that will allow immigrants and minorities greater opportunities.

But the second half of the long-term solution falls on the Muslim community itself. Islam must find its Reformation. There's a serious problem pervading Islam--and that problem is jihadism aimed at the west. Lashing out at western nations and western society, particularly when a segment of the Islamic religion has all but declared Armaggeddon on the west, isn't a good way to make yourselves look better. The actions by the Muslim community in France is thuggery--pure and simple. It's widespread, and it's using anti-western sentiment to fuel the violence.

Where is the Martin Luther of the Islamic faith? Where are the 95 Theses? Where's the Pope John Paul II? Islam is failing to define who its leaders are, and in turn, Islam is being defined by the most outspoken of its members--mainly, the Islamofascists like Zarqawi, the new President of Iran, and bin Laden. This is why pushing and fostering political reform in the Middle East is so vital to winning the War on Terror. We have to push and push until someone steps up to the plate. People like Karzai and Jaafari are good to counter Islam's image problems, but there is no defined figurehead within Islam that stands to counter the likes of bin Laden.

Perhaps a successful and democratic Iraq will yield that individual. Perhaps a Syria-free Lebanon will.

Regardless, the clock is ticking.

'Bush or Bust'

2005-10-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

The conservative movement must decide whether its interests still reside with the President.

by Lord Hargreaves

In this space I have already written about discontent with George Bush's foreign policy, in Where is our cowboy?, so I do not come at this from an entirely new perspective.

What is different now is not just concern over foreign policy, but goes much deeper - yes to domestic politics, but more crucially whether the base that ensured Dubya's re-election still has the confidence in him necessary for his presidential agenda to move forward in any meaningful way.

In the first term the Republican Party did have tax cuts, which have worked, and then certainly after 9/11 many people were more than aware of what needed to be the government's priority - the war on terror. Now, though, hostility over high spending, a general failure to curb federal government, and a soft stance on illegal immigration has reached a boiling point with Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the supreme court.

To critics, this nomination symbolises Bush's faults rather well. Firstly, there is the issue of "cronyism". I know some may disagree with me on this, but how come the best person for the job is always someone Bush knows? The world can't be that small, can it?

Take this from Chief Justice Roberts, just recently on CBS:

The President conducts a nationwide extensive search for the best person for the job to be the nominee to be associate justice to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and finds her down the hall

Strange coincidence eh?

Secondly, there is a sense of arrogance, almost aloofness, at choosing this type of untested nominee when the conservative movement is spoiling for a fight. How could the White House be so caught off guard by the reaction it recieved from the Right? Has no one in the entire administration ever listened to Rush Limbaugh or read Powerline? The mind boggles.

Thirdly, the irony of the White House come-backs should not be lost either. Should a conservative Republican administration really be accusing critics of a female nominee sexist, and asking us to look at her character?

Indeed, one now senses that conservative might be ready to desert Bush, out of a feeling - not without justification - that he has already deserted them. But will they?

Can George Bush regain conservative confidence - and if not, is that the end of his presidency? And perhaps more importantly: can the conservative movement itself survive an open split with a Republican administration?

Well, of course, we know how Bush can regain conservative confidence - slash spending, drop the bizarre strategy of using "big government for conservative ends", institute more tax cuts, tougher border control, re-engage the social agenda, and even perhaps withdraw Miers and nominate a proven and outspoken conservative... someone we know the Left will be throwing themselves out of buildings over.

Yet is this realistic? From what we've seen, it seems highly doubful. President Bush is stubbon and loyal (often this is a great quality of course) and he is unlikely to change.

As the polls appear to be showing, Bush may be done without the conservative vote of confidence. So now we must decide whether it is in our interests, as the grassroots, to continue to rally behind Bush for the final 3 years; or to now look for a new leader and direction, someone who can re-establish limited government conservatism as the dominant force in the Republican Party to fight the 2008 election.

The time is nigh, and the choice is yours. Both strategies have huge pitfulls if they fail, but the right choice could lead to increased success. Needless to say I haven't made up my mind. But within the next few months, we will surely see where the popular consensus lies......

Comparing WWII and the War in Iraq

2005-10-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

By quicksurf28

There is nothing wrong with criticizing the war in Iraq. In fact, it is important that we have two political parties in our country to balance each other out. Even in World War II, people were against going to war in Europe. Protestors said that, "Europe's problems were Europe's problems." In 1941, of course, we were attacked in Pearl Harbor. Now it seems to me that in some respects, history has repeated itself. During the Clinton administration, little was done to combat terrorism, well not enough. On September 11, 2001 we were attacked by terrorists. The logic of not helping out other countries actually hurts our own country. By saying that, it is important that we continue to fight evil dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Hitler. Notice in 9/11 we were not attacked directly by Saddam Hussein. Nor in WWII were we attacked directly by Hitler. We were attacked by Al- Quieda and the Japanese. Who was the root of the problem in WWII? Of course, Adolph Hitler, so it is important that people understand that we must eliminate the source of the problem. Destroy the ant hill, not just the ant that bit you.

Also, it is important to realize that in WWII, after we took Germany, there were insurgents then too. Years, and years of wrong thinking doesn't end immediately. It is important that our country is patient and realizes that brainwashed insurgents wont discover the values and positives of our democracy unless we are patient and we stay the course. So why compare Iraq to WWII? Well, because WWII was a story of democracy and freedom conquering evil and isolation. Only time will tell, but maybe what we are doing in Iraq will again show to the world that freedom will never be free, and someone will always try to take it away from you.

Spreading the Truth

2005-10-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

By Sid

The anti-war leftists grow more and more hateful of the US every day, and recruit more and more blind teens, who can't see the forest for the trees. Please take into account that I am not talking about your normal leftist, who knows what freedoms he is given, and wants more, I'm talking about the radical lefties, who believe America is in a police state.

America is in no way in a police state, I enjoy the freedom to criticize the administration as much as I want, and so do the leftists. Despite their notions that Bush is Hitler reincarnated, they haven't been shot for speaking out against our fearless leader, they aren't being tested on in laboratory, and they're not forced into Ghettos.

The radical lefties have been tricked, by places like D-Underground, which doesn't allow conservatives to post(so they get no feed from the other side of the coin), and are kept in the dark, being spoon fed this foolishness, thinking what they do is for the best.

Recent events, those being Katrina and Rita, mainly Katrina, are bringing to light the Blind Hatred for Bush. The leftists want to stick him with any accusation that they can, in this light, him being a racist, since all but about 2% of Katrina Victims are black. In all truth, it wasn't because of race, I mean, think about it, Bush has more Blacks in office than any before him. Unfortunately for the administration the lower class in N.O. was disproportionately black, their inability to evacuate gave the Lefties more and more ammo, and they eagerly snatched it up, disregarding it's lack of truth. What we as Republicans must do is pull together, to help gain more ground, to show people the truth.

While we may have the radio, The lefties took the Television and Newspaper decades ago. Now the battle rages for the Internet, and while being vast, and impossible to dominate, we as conservatives should try our best to spread the truth as far and wide as we can.

Thinking Big - The Left's Handicap

2005-10-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

By Tetracide

It has become very apparent that the left has been unable to view any big picture either regarding domestic or foreign policy. Now, to prove this, I could go all the way to the birth of the United States, but the more interesting and most illuminating arguments spur from recent history.

In 1979, Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, an attack on American soil, and held captive innocent people for 444 days. Our response was pathetic. There was a lot of talk, and a lot of promises, but failed military operations one right after the other resulted in a miserable reaction to an outright attack.

In Vietnam, our image as this large power force was tarnished by inability to bring about political success. The international impression was that we retreated with out tail between our legs. Americans abroad began to be kidnapped by terrorists. The U.S. could do little for its own citizens and terrorists noticed. In 1983, a car bomb kills 63 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Our response was lame, slow, and unorganized. Six months after this attack, another suicide car bomb explodes at the gates at the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut killing 241 U.S. servicemen. We respond by pulling troops out of Lebanon.

In December of ’83, another embassy bombing in Kuwait goes unnoticed. The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gate of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept. Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe. In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid. Then in August a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rhein-Main, 22 are killed and the snooze alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US interests are continually attacked. Fifty-nine days later a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed. Again, nothing is done.

The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259. The U.S. treated these terrorist acts as crimes; in fact we are still trying to bring these people to trial. These are acts of war.

The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America. In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The following month, February 1993, a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war? The Snooze alarm is depressed again.

Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women. A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500. The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively.

They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. These attacks were planned with precision. They kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.

The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on October 12th, 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.

And of course you know the events of September 11th, 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America. How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we chose to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep time and time again.

These actions have given terrorists the mindset that their actions are can go unquestioned. This is the logic people like Osama bin Laden, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tout to their supporters and possible supporters in hopes to gain men and even children to train, fight, and die for their cause. This is but one piece of their propaganda, and it is an effective one.

Responding to terrorists incidents, and showing no mercy to those who show no mercy to others sends a clear signal. The free world has made a commitment, and we are sticking to it. No anti-war crowd, and no terrorist attack of any magnitude will stop us from finishing what they started.

The End

2005-09-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

by Lord Hargreaves

Death...

...Such a monumental issue of our times, yet how often do we really think about it? I don’t mean merely acknowledge its existence, but truly focus on our own demise. Maybe people don’t have the time, or maybe the issues that they are confronted with when they do focus are so complex and immense that we fear for the answers. There are three main schools of thought concerning death - there are those that believe that death is not the end but only the beginning of an eternal life to be determined by a creator - the religious; there are those that believe death is death and no more - the atheists; and there are those than really don’t know - the agnostics. I ask myself, what do I believe - what is my position on death?

For sure, the most intellectually honest is the agnostic, since the answer to the meaning of death can never be answered. In fact, to think of it in those terms, is it not simply absurd to think that us humans, so imperfect and so insignificant, could ever have a dream of knowing the point of it all? Probably, but intellectual honesty doesn’t get you up at 6am and bother to strive for excellence in your own lives. How could one be satisfied by an answer which merely acknowledges the difficulty of the question? Surely humans need more - well, at least I do.

But then there is the atheist. Atheists have always intrigued me for this very reason - because I don’t understand why someone who believes there is no significance in death would bother to prolong it by living. If we all return to dust and there is no more, then why should you bother getting up and going to work? There is nothing you can hope to achieve except for mere human gratification (thus explaining why liberals are usually atheists), and its hard to see why even this could be considered worth anything.. If the answer is irrelevant, why bother with the question? This isn’t for me.

The religious, on the other hand, not only provide a significance for death but actually celebrate it as the return of the people to his creator. Here death determines where you spend eternity, thus puts one hell of a burden on you during life. Life becomes a test with the answer only be revealed when you can no longer return to the question. Of the three schools of thought on death, this seems by far the most demanding. Is this really and truly worth this?

Secular humanists and atheists tell us that God loves us all, but they do not understand the subtle difference between God’s love of his own creation - which is unalienable and universal for all, and God’s love for us as people - which as the Bible teaches, must be earned. Even with a higher being which is so great that we cannot comprehend , surely the usual laws apply here - that love cannot exist without hate. After all, for the religious, this is a God that makes them take this test and reminds them of their mortality at any time of his choosing. So then, is every God of love also a God of justice, and therefore of punishment and death? . If this were not so, if God did not care to sort out good from evil, what would his love be worth?

I am reminded of “Pascal’s Wager”, in which the issue of death is summed up nicely as a simple game of chance:

A Game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

They are cynical words from an agnostic, but then how could you not be otherwise when faced with such a challenge? I think again of death and wonder of the options before me, and I decide. I can either accept by human faults and acknowledge that I will never know what death means. I can believe death means nothing, but to do this I can see no other way out but suicide. Or, I can take a leap of faith, put my money on red, and try to live my life in a way that will please God, so that when death takes me by the hand I will have either lived a fulfilled life of virtue if He is not, or live in paradise if He is. My mind just got made up.

Now you go away, and you think about death. Shut yourself away from the world for 5 minutes in a quiet room, and ponder your own passing. Because if you reach the same answer I did, or even if you reached another one, you will certainly find your life will mean more to you.

Funny, when I started typing this I never thought death could simplify things and not complicate them, but here we are. Kind of ironic isn’t it?

September 11th

2005-09-10T00:11:00.000-07:00

By Tetracide

With the fourth anniversary of September 11th looming, we as a group of individuals, and as members of the free and democratic world, must once again revisit the origins of our long held positions. We need to remind those who have forgotten of who we are; a people devoted to a cause of just, and sound principal. We are a people who can see the larger picture for what it is, note its negatives, and embrace its positives.

We need to remind them of who the enemy is; a people with pure hatred, and a vicious, bloodthirsty dream of killing the innocent. They are a people that see no rules, nor abide to any and will stop at nothing to die for their cause.

We need to remind them why we must prevail; such a success would send shockwaves of liberty as it as already begun to. Hoping to win, which may seem to be one of the most fundamental elements of a patriotic society, is vital, and will be the key to such success.

We need to remind them why the enemy will fail; such a failure would send shockwaves of not only disbelief to those who did not support us originally, but send a clear signal to all those who stand for evil, that when the United States and the free world make a commitment, we stand to it.

Thus far on this War on Terrorism, millions have been freed from tyranny, and terrorist networks have been dismembered, disorganized, and maimed more so than ever before. Osama Bin Laden is on the run, instead of planning attacks. Al Qaeda is no longer the functioning terrorist network it once was. Saddam Hussein is behind bars, instead of sending innocents behind bars. Libya no longer seeks nuclear weapons. Freedom has touched Lebanon and eyes have been opened to recognize the United Nations for the corrupt organization it is.

Every anniversary before this one of September 11th, these things have crossed our minds. Images, sounds, smells, feelings, were all things that defined that day. We were angry, sad, and shocked. As some may fail to see, freedom was attacked those fateful hours, yet to this day, we remain free. We will never suffer from such ideologies of hate again, so we will always embrace and spread such ideologies of freedom.

Aftermath

2005-08-31T14:49:00.000-07:00

by Hobbie

The horrific results of Hurricane Katrina have left the Gulf Coast states (including parts of my own--Alabama) devastated beyond belief. It's being touted as the worst natural disaster in US history.

On behalf of everyone with the Political Crossfire Republicans and Conservatives, our thoughts and prayers are with everyone whose lives have been torn away or wrecked by this tragedy.

God bless you all. We will make it through this together, and we'll be stronger than ever for it.

P.S. Prae, please let us know you're okay. We're really wanting to hear from you...it would really put my spirit at ease if I knew you were okay.

Conservatives for Gaza Withdrawal?

2005-08-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

By Lord Hargreaves, lifted from SSSI

There are a few arguments hovering around from pro-Israeli conservatives suggesting that Gaza Withdrawal was the correct decision to make. I’d like to address a few here.

Pro-War and Pro-Israel Conservative (who writes one of my favourite blogs) David Frum wrote an article entitled The Secrets of Gaza, in which he tried to answer the question “Why is Ariel Sharon evacuating Gaza?”. He first acknowledges:

It is not because he believes that a decent Palestinian state will emerge after the Israelis withdraw. Nobody believes that. The almost universal consensus among experts on the region is that post-occupation Gaza will become a Mediterranean Somalia: an unstable failed state in which gangs compete for power and extremist Islam finds a sanctuary.

So why? Well, he tries a theory:

Could it be that Sharon is calling the bluff of Western governments and the Arab states? By creating the very Palestinian state that those governments and those states pretend to want but actually dread--Sharon is forcing them to end their pretense and acknowledge the truth:

The Palestinian leadership is incapable of creating a state that can live at peace with anyone, not Israel, not the other Arab states, not Europe, not the world. Somebody else must govern the restless and violent Arab-majority territories west of the Jordan River. Israel has suffered four decades of condemnation for doing the job. Sharon is now resigning the task to anybody else who would like to step in and take over the job. Nobody wants to. But Egypt and Jordan may soon realize that they have no choice. If there is a secret behind Sharon’s plan--that is it.

But is it? I remain unconvinced. Why? Well, I have two reasons. Firstly, Mr. Frum seems to be under the impression, totally unfounded in recent history, that Western governmenst and Arab states are even capable of “end[ing] their pretense and acknowledg[ing] the truth”. The desire for a Palestinian state is largely not based in logic but in emotion - and when emotion drives what your newsrooms produce and what your leaders say, there is little if anything that can be done to convince one otherwise. To me, the very notion that Western or Arab government policy is determined by the rational and commonsense reality on the ground is wholly naïve, thus I cannot accept the premise that whatever hellhole is produced in Gaza will change their minds.

Secondly, even if everything I just said was false, Sharon would still be engaging in Machivelian-style power politics, with his decisions and policies being concerned more with getting “one up on” outsiders rather than actually doing what is best for Israel and her people. Are Israeli citizens more likely to be in danger with this withdrawal -and if so, is that not the only consideration that should cross a prime ministers mind? Maybe its my turn to be naïve on this, but I suspect the answer to this question would be yes.

But David Frum was not alone. Even today, the greatest historian known to man (quite some praise) Victor Davis Hanson has a piece on his “Private Papers” website entitled Right Strategy Again. In this, he cites reasons on a security standpoint which I find much more believable, but still am unsure over:

The Israeli military is crafting defensible borders, not unlike the old Roman decision to stay on its own side of the Rhine and Danube rivers. In Sharon's thinking, it no longer made any sense to periodically send in thousands of soldiers in Gaza to protect less than 10,000 Israeli civilians abroad, when a demographic time bomb of too few Jews was ticking inside Israel proper.

But Gaza itself is only a tessera in a far larger strategic mosaic. The Israelis also press on with the border fence that will in large part end suicide bombings. The barrier will grant the Palestinians what they clamor for, but perhaps also fear — their own isolated state that they must now govern or let the world watch devolve into something like the Afghanistan of the Taliban.Once Israel is out of Gaza and has fenced off slivers of the West Bank near Jerusalem deemed vital for its security, Sharon can bide his time until a responsible Palestinian government emerges as a serious interlocutor.

From my position of knowing very little on military strategy, and his position of being a famous military historian, I do not feel qualified to debunk this. However, I would like to question why this commonsense has only just come to people now, and not 10 to 15 years ago. Why the apparent change of heart, especially when Sharon said he would not withdraw in the last election? Plus, how can an area left alone and merely watched by the IDF on the sidelines be of less dangerous than an area in which the IDF enters into on a (relatively) regular basis?

Hanson also adds:

Palestine as a sovereign state rather than a perpetually "occupied" territory also inherits the responsibility of all mature nations to police its own. So when Hamas and co. press on with their killing - most likely through rocket attacks over the fence - they do so as representatives of a new Palestinian nation

Again, this makes perfect sense… to a conservative, who bothers to watch the region. Even when Hamas kill Jews as representatives of a Palestinian state, the Left would surely do their utmost to pretend these people are both part of a lunatic fringe and are reacting to Israeli wrongs against them, even if these wrong were in the past. Hanson is right of course, and it would be foolish of me to say that all western governments are inseparable from the Left in one sweeping stereotype - but still, from what they say and how they act you’d be easily forgiven for thinking that it is the case in most.

Hanson concludes:

The pullout from Gaza is bringing long-needed moral clarity to a fuzzy crisis. Heretofore the Palestinians have counted on foreign support through fear of terrorism, influence with oil producers, unspoken anti-Semitism and carefully crafted victim status accorded savvy anti-Western zealots. But now they are increasingly on their own, and what transpires may soon end their romance of the perpetually oppressed.

Indeed, it will be interesting to see what happens when the Palestinians loose “their romance of the perpetually oppressed”, and how people react - and whether they will change their minds. (Its already happening, leftist Christopher Hitchens just wrote a piece calling Iraq "A War to be proud of"). So I can stay hopeful.

But however much the two great minds of Frum and Hanson believe Disengagment to have been the right decision, from what I am seeing I simply cannot agree. Perhaps they will be proved right, and me wrong - and I wish for Israeli sake that that be the case. But with Hamas militants acting increasingly confident around the area, and with Palestinian children in brainwashing centres they call “schools” being taught how the Zionist enemy surrendered to terror, and with the move made in such blatant disregard to religious Jews in a blind belief that their sacrifice will aid peace, I cannot be optimistic.

Illegal Immigration

2005-08-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

By Tetracide

While the President and I agree on many issues pertaining to domestic and foreign policy, there is one that he and I violently disagree on and the one that I continue to hold against him to this day, and that is border security.

It is a common fact that millions of illegal immigrants move into the U.S. yearly, while only an approximated million are apprehended on the border with Mexico. I find this simply outrageous. How is it that a president so focused and determined to protecting this county (i.e. creating the Department of Homeland Security, the creating of the Patriot Act, the rebirth of the CIA, two ongoing wars in the Middle East) and yet systematically neglect our borders as hundreds of thousands of possibly harmful individuals of either Mexican or Middle Eastern decent this country on a yearly basis?

Some action has been taken, but in my opinion, it is not enough. I would call for the military to have an active roll in protecting our borders, along with a very blunt and final warning Mexican officials that they too need to assist in the fixing of this problem. It has gotten so absurd that the “leading contenders for the presidency of Mexico plan to launch their 2006 campaigns this fall – in Los Angeles,” as reported by NewsMax.com just this Monday.

I also understand what the opposition has to say on this issue as well. There are economic reasons for leaving these borders so porous. While I am a conservative, and while we tend to favor the competition of capitalism over utopian equality for all, we need to draw the line when such issues become issues of national security. This is one of them, and the Republican Party needs to stand of and take charge in this issue before the Democrats do, because both are capable of doing so to get a leg up.

Darkest Before Light

2005-08-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

by Hobbie

Let's face it, folks. Since Vietnam, America has been in a permanent war trauma mindset. While I don't enjoy dwelling on the past, the fact that people (see: liberals) start chanting Vietnam mantras in every combat engagement, conflict, or war where American soldiers die is indicative that we haven't healed.

Iraq is a tough slog. Support for the war is faltering, even among some conservatives and some hawks. Mired in the inherent negativity of the battle and by a constant media infatuation with making every single attack in Iraq headline news, people are growing weary of the violence and death. The specter of the past has re-emerged, and the short-sighted, the anti-American, and the appeasers are becoming louder and louder in their call for another self-inflicted deathblow against our nation. So here we are; at a crossroads against our enemies and ourselves.

Questions have arisen concerning whether Iraq is going to be a theocratic nightmare like Iran. The answer to that question has not been resolved with the new Iraqi constitution. While the draft of that document was comforting in that it secured freedom of religion and only stated that Islam was a source of law and not the source of the law, the ultimate incarnation of Iraq is still up in the air.

And it's primarily this fact that has made support for the war dwindle. Nobody wants to have gone to war losing hundreds of Americans only to create another Iran. The Bush Administration has been pressuring the Iraqis to protect women's rights and adopt federalism. If these two items are resolved and Islam becomes simply a source, instead of the end-all, be-all that it is in Iran and Saudi Arabia, we will have won a significant victory.

That is, if the 'insurgency' and Islamofascists are defeated. Mistakes have been made in post-Saddam Iraq. We have failed to secure the borders and the Iraqi government doesn't have the resources and money to fully equip, pay, and keep many of their soldiers and security forces in-line. These two things have to change.

Victory, as the President recently stated, must be achieved. And in order for this to happen, we must address the above two military problems. Syria and Iran need to be taught a lesson. Cross-border operations against supporters of the 'insurgents' and Islamofascists must be launched. Al-Anbar Province must be crushed. And the funds from the Oil Ministry must be diverted to adequately compensate and pay the Iraqi soldiers fighting and dying for their country. The hammer is long overdue.

This is, despite the inane tripe of the left, not Vietnam. As my friend, Lord Hargreaves, mentioned earlier, if this war was similar to Vietnam, well we've captured Ho Chi Minh, Saigon is in our hands, Russia and China are on our side, and the NVA Army has been crushed.

There has been a wave of bad news over the past few months and the prospect of an Islamic state in Iraq has many supporters of the war worried. I don't believe that's what's going to happen, but unfortunately we're in a waiting game now.

The Iraqis, be it good or bad, have to make the next move on the political front. Their final answer on the role of Islam, women's rights, and federalism will ultimately determine whether Iraq was worth it or not. Going to Iraq, removing Saddam, and promoting democracy, while battling the terrorists on their own turf, was the right thing to do.

Whether it works out or not is in God's hands.

Regardless, it's time we come to face the ghosts of the past once and for all. We have not conquered our fears and the American people must come to grips that the Vietnam Syndrome has to be overcome one way or another, else we have inflicted a deathblow on the west and our nation. This is a just and noble cause. Do people have the willpower to stick it out? Or are they going to falter and listen to the "weak sisters in our ranks," as former Delta Force Founder and Sergeant Eric Haney put it in his book.

It's time to face the specter of our past in order to preserve the vision of the future.

"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." -Luke 23:46

In His hands indeed...

A Chamberlain Story

2005-08-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

The Ghost of Appeasements Past Haunt Israel as Gaza Pullout Wraps Up
By battleax86

As of this writing, the Israeli army (officially known as the Israel Defense Force, or IDF) is in the final stages of removing the last remaining Jewish settlers and protestors from the settlements that Israel has maintained in the Gaza Strip for the last thirty-eight years. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, once the outspoken champion of Israeli settlements in the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, now stands accused of treason by his one-time biggest supporters. As the newspapers and TV screens fill up with pictures of Israeli troops in full riot gear scuffling with brick-wielding settlers and carrying them away from the homes that they've lived in for, in some cases, nearly forty years, one has to wonder why Ariel Sharon (and 75% of the Israeli public thinks that this latest attempt at appeasement, based on the old Land-for-Peace formula, will have any positive results for Israel. All one must do is pick up an accurate history book to see that not only has every attempt in modern history at appeasement of this type, with an enemy of this magnitude of evil, failed, but it seems that these attempts have, in one way or another, involved the Jews. Israel is continually haunted by these ghosts of appeasements past, while their Arab enemies build on each concession in their ultimate goal of driving the Jews into the sea.

The first such attempt occurred in Britain, nearly two decades before British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain delivered his infamous "peace in our time" speech. In October 1917, the Cabinet of Prime Minister David Lloyd George authorized Lord Arthur Balfour, Britain's foreign minister at the time, to issue what is now known as the Balfour Declaration. Signed by Balfour, Chaim Weitzmann (leader of the international Zionist movement), and Emir Faisal ibn-Hussein (leader of the Arab revolt that marginally helped the British take the Middle East from the Turks in World War I), it called for an independent Jewish state that would be established as soon as Jewish immigration and development was sufficient in the barren wilderness of Palestine. The borders of this Jewish state-to-be included all of Israel, all territories later captured in the Six-Day War, all of modern-day Jordan, and even parts of southern Lebanon. This declaration was codified into international law by the League of Nations in the same 1920 act that created the French and British mandates in the Middle East. Simultaneously, Britain and France granted Arab independence in Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. After being granted nearly all of the Middle East, when they had owned nothing for centuries, Lord Balfour could not imagine that the Arabs would "begrudge this small notch of land" earmarked for the Jews.

Lord Balfour's assumption held true for about one year. In 1921, Abdullah, the brother of Faisal ibn-Hussein, who was also the leader of the Hashemite tribe, demanded that Britain give him Transjordan, the area set aside for Israel east of the Jordan River, to be his own kingdom. The Hashemites had just been driven from Mecca and Medina by the House of Saud and Abdullah argued that Britain had reneged on its promises to give him land based on T.E. Lawrence's mostly-fictional account of Abdullah's role in the Arab revolt of World War I. After a costly campaign in Iraq, Britain was weary of becoming involved in further conflicts with the Arabs. This resulted in the British Foreign Office giving nearly 75% of the land mandated to become a Jewish state to Abdullah, a clear violation of the League of Nations mandate upon which British authority in the region was based. This was the beginning of the appeasement idea which would later come to be known as "Land-for-Peace." Unfortunately, this would not be the last time that Jewish land would be given away in hopes of placating an implacable enemy.

Shortly after World War II, Britain's own failed attempt at appeasement, the international sympathy generated by the discovery of Hitler's death camps led to a serious UN effort (one of the few in their history) to re-establish the Jewish homeland along the 25% of the old League of Nations mandate that remained intact. However, the objections of Arab member states caused the UN to further whittle away about half of this land in a region where Arabs already controlled 98% of the land. This second attempt at appeasement failed spectacularly when Israel, in an area about 10% of its original mandated size, declared independence. The surrounding Arab countries, still unwilling to accept a Jewish state, no matter how small, invaded immediately, intending to drive the Jews into the sea. Fortunately, for Israel, the fledgling state was able to drive back her invaders and expand the nation to more defensible, albeit still tiny, borders.

Now, one would think, having observed first-hand and defeated the effects of appeasement of their Arab neighbors, that Israel would never again be willing to try such a failed measure. However, through widespread international acceptance of Arab revisionist history, Israel would later succumb to the pressure of naively attempting to appease an enemy that seeks to destroy her in hopes that their latest concession would change their minds.

On August 20, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands in a public display that marked the mutual acceptance of the Norwegian-brokered Declaration of Principles, commonly referred to as the The Oslo Accords. Based on the repeatedly failed Land-for-Peace formula, Israel granted Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, the terrorist group that had been murdering Israeli civilians and attacking Israeli troops for the last quarter-century, governmental control over all Arab population centers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which would be the first step to a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Jericho. In exchange for recognizing these terrorists as the legitimate representatives of the "Palestinian" people and allowing them to control the land that they had been fighting over for the last 25 years, the PLO officially recognized Israel's right to exist, renounced terrorism, and (officially) abandoned its goal of Israel's destruction. On paper, it looked like appeasement of Israel's enemies had, for the first time ever, succeeded. However, like all previous attempts at appeasement, the Oslo Accords were doomed to failure.

The first few years after the signings at Oslo saw the rise of a new Arab terrorist group known as Hamas. This terrorist group, which has repeatedly denounced the Oslo agreements and openly calls for Israel's destruction, killed dozens of Israeli civilians in suicide bombings throughout Israel proper from 1994 through 2000, at the same time that Israel was gradually withdrawing and reducing its presence in the West Bank. Yet, despite this and evidence that Arafat's Palestinian Authority (the Oslo-established descendant of the PLO) was allowing these actions to occur, it seemed that the Oslo Accords might yet have a chance to bring a lasting peace. Amazingly, in the July 2000 Camp David negotiations between Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, Israel offered the Palestinian Authority nearly everything that they had been fighting for all those years. The terms of the proposed agreement called for a Palestinian state comprising all of the Gaza Strip and 97% of the West Bank, excluding largest Jewish settlement in the region, which contiguously bordered Jerusalem. In exchange for the remaining settlement, the new state of Palestine would receive the same amount of Israeli territory. Arafat had been offered everything that his organization claimed to want. The only problem was that this agreement would leave Israel without any pressing security concerns, a condition that the Arab goal to remove Israel from the face of the Earth could not endure. Arafat introduced one last demand, one which would kill any democratic, non-apartheid Jewish state: the right of former Arab residents of Israel and millions of their descendants to return to the cities that they evacuated during the Arab invasion of 1948. The Palestinians knew that such a condition, if accepted, would mean national suicide for Israel. It's obvious that this is exactly what they wanted. Barak, as expected, refused this unacceptable demand and the Camp David Peace Talks, the best chance that the Arabs had of establishing yet another Arab state in Jewish land, found its way into the historical dustbin of failed Middle East peace attempts.

The last remnants of that faint hope from Oslo disappeared in September 2000 when the Palestinians, under the pretext of outrage over a visit by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount (a site holy to both Muslims and Jews), launched a second insurrection against Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza. Hundreds of Israelis civilians died as suicide bombers attacked civilian centers on an almost-daily basis. However, this time, it was not just Hamas or other groups doing the killing, groups that Arafat could conceivably claim were outside of his control. Most of the deadly attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians were now coming from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group directly linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. The Arabs had proven, once again, that peace with Israel was not on their agenda. To deal with this new emergency, the Israeli electorate removed the dovish Ehud Barak as prime minister and replaced him with Ariel Sharon, viewed as someone who had the will to decisively deal with the terrorism that he had been fighting as a soldier and politician for the last sixty years.

Now, it seems that these ghosts of appeasements past haunt Ariel Sharon. Hamas, and most of the Arab world, rightfully regard this as a huge victory for their terrorist campaign. They have publicly stated that attacks on Israelis will continue until "all of Palestine is liberated" (translation: until Israel is destroyed). Sharon has claimed that this evacuation of Gaza will be first step towards peace. In reality, it will only lead to more attacks on southern Israeli towns. He claims that Israeli lives will be saved. In reality, more Israelis will die as energized Arab militants seek to finish the job that resulted in the Gaza withdrawal. One would hope that Ariel Sharon would learn from past attempts at appeasement, as Ebenezer Scrooge did from the ghosts of Christmases past. Now it appears that he will add his own ghost to the list as Israelis suffer for the idea that they can appease an enemy who seeks the annihilation of their race.

Where is our cowboy?

2005-08-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

By Lord Hargreaves

In last Fridays column for National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson brings up the wide gap between how our actions are perceived in widening US opinion and in the eyes of terrorists.

As an example, here is the effect in Fallujah:

After the spring 2004 butchery of American contractors, we went into, and then withdrew from, Fallujah — apprehensive that global media scrutiny would portray us as storm troopers.

In fact, the enemy considered us too equivocating and claimed the retreat as a great victory. So until we retook the city in November, we fretted that the Fallujah encirclement was an example of our blunt-headedness, while our enemy equated it with softness.

Indeed, throughout this conflict the United States has been apprehensive that it was becoming too brutal in its effort even as the Islamic fascists were convinced that we were too weak to fight such a war.

He calls this effect "Biteback", and goes on to explain it further:

So why do we see so much biteback these days?

In the age of utopianism we demand impossible standards of perfection. Then when they cannot be met, we conclude that we are not good at all, but the equivalent of a Pol Pot, Hitler, or Saddam himself — an elected American president who is a worse terrorist than Osama bin Laden.

And in a war with enemies like few other in our recent history, the contrast between rhetoric and reality is only accentuated: panties over the head of an Iraqi inmate, no head at all on an American prisoner; Korans given to the enemy terrorists in jail, Bibles outlawed for visitors to our friends the Saudis; our elected president becomes a member of the "Bush crime family" as we worry about proper barristers for Saddam Hussein's genuinely criminal family. As we fear that we have fallen short of the postmodern therapeutic age, Islamic fascists brag they are avatars of the Dark Ages.

This all relates to an increased feeling I have developed over the past few weeks:

Hellooooooooooo, THIS IS A WAR!!!

I fear that while the left complains we have been too tough on the war on terror, it is becoming clearer to me that in fact we haven't been tough enough. In Iraq, the whole definition of our mission is being redefined: it is no longer to achieve victory, it is to enable Iraqis to take our place in the fight; and that getting troops home is now the priority over actually completing the job that they were sent there for. Has anyone else noticed how dates for leaving are now being floated around, in the form of "targets" and "projections"? Its a worrying trend, edging near defeatism.

Take the Iraqi Constitution. We are getting reports that the US Administration is actually pushing for Islam to be included in the text, just to speed up the process. They argue this because they say after Iraq has a constitution that the terrorists will have been dealt a fatal blow, but after the Interim government and the January elections, most of us are not that naive any more. Rather, it seems that the portraying the illusion of success is actually more than important than success itself.

The Washington Post has this from a man named Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the constitutional committee:

"Really, we are disappointed with that. It seems like the Americans want to have a constitution at any cost . These things are not good -- giving the constitution an Islamic face. It is not good to have a constitution that would limit the liberties of people, the human rights, the freedoms,"

Not good indeed.

And the same story in the military effort. A few weeks back, we heard the awful story of a suicide bomber killing US troops and Iraqi children when US troops were giving out sweets to nearby Iraqi children. Tragic indeed. But why are troops who have been sent to kill and destroy the enemy taking part in their own PR? Thats not their job is it? Do our war effort a favour, and let Coalition troops kill people and blow things up like they were trained to do, and demand others like the media do the PR. (But isn't it heartbreaking in another way? That the very act of sacrificing their lives to fight the people killing their friends and relatives is not enough to portray them in a positive light... but sweets can?)

This softening trend seems the same all over the region. We see terrorist launch pads into Iraq based in Syria, but we won't so anything about it. On Iran, Bush has said he will not "rule out" the use of force, but his actions seem to suggest he would rather let the Europeans and the United Nations continue to fumble around than actually confront the ultimate terror state. And on Israel, Bush seems to be reverting to the old foreign policy view, and refuses to publically acknowledge the obvious link between Israel's enemies and the enemies of freedom in Iraq, America and Europe.

So, why is this happening? Has Bush been spending too much time inside the beltway ,or is he having a change of heart - rethinking the whole war on terror? Well, I suspect his recent pilgrimage to Texas gives us the answer to that. But whatever the reason, I don’t think its fatal - and Bush on a bad day is infinitely better than Kerry on a good day in the war on terror. Bush may just be getting his head together, but nevertheless, he may still need a push from his base:

Cowboy, come back

Spreading Freedom

2005-08-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

By Tetracide

"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." – President George W. Bush, 1/20/05

To some, the phrase “spreading freedom” is something that they could consider wishful thinking, sophistry, or even an idea too ambitious for the times we live in. What some fail to see, is that the spreading of this ideology that has given each and every one of us the ability to speak our minds, work for a living, and enjoy a life as they see fit, is something that will affect the United States in the long run significantly. Democracies, and the related freedoms, are ones that promote peace, lasting governments, and addresses the needs and wants of the people.

Not only is this lifestyle less likely to spur war, it is also a major blow to the threats of today – international terrorism. Freedom, liberty, and democracy are radical opposites of oppression, fear, and authoritarianism. Those elements of good versus evil are in a critical battle right now, and this clash of forces presents new challenges for both sides. Radical Islam has never been more threatened in its history than it is today, and the same goes for the democratic nations of this world. With democratic nations within the center of the major breeding ground of terrorism, radical Islam now has more troubles to face.

When millions of Afghans and Iraqis went to the polls and expressed their willingness to embrace democratic change, they stood up to the elements that oppressed them, and became their enemy. With the freedom given to those people, terrorism can no longer operate with impunity in these countries, but in fact, are being overcome by Iraqi, Afghan, and coalition forces.

So as one could see, spreading freedom where tyranny once existed demolishes the hopes and dreams terrorists hold concerning their location of operation. Iraqi civilians are assisting troops in giving tips to Iraqi and coalition troops. Newly trained police forces are taking the lead in finding and eliminating the enemy, destroying weapons caches, and communicating with the Iraqi people.

These are the prime examples of the right’s foreign policy as it has been implemented into the War on Terror. The will to survive and thrive in a democratic society are so much stronger than the blind hate radical Islamists have for the west, and this is why regime change is so critical to the War on Terrorism. Terrorism flourishes where tyranny exists, so to solve the problem, we are eliminating the breeding ground for those terrorists, and offering a democratic alternative. Nothing could be more effective short of completely annihilating any and all living things in the Middle East (which of course is a ridiculous option).

Fair and balanced

2005-08-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

By janis.

I have been growing more and more frustrated as time goes by. I'm finding nothing fair and balanced about the coverage of our struggle in Iraq. Even Fox news has not grasped the real important untold stories coming out of the Middle East.

Iraq is not just about the terrorist element and our military. There is more going on which the average American never hears about. The American people need to see what the Iraqis are seeing televised on Iraq news. One of the most popular programs is the Syrian confession TV. Iraqis have been watching the murderers confessions and are well aware that their neighbors are the source of the misery and terrorism that exists there today. They are being informed, but what about us Americans?

There is a trinity of sorts when it comes to the story of Iraq. We all know all to well the hardships our soldiers endure and the twisted mentality of the terrorists. That doesn't tell the entire story. There are not only 2 sides to this war. It is our story to tell. It is obvious the responsibility resides with us. It must be our duty to report the good, heartfelt stories buried in the back pages or even worse non-extistant.

For the word to get out it will have to happen through the efforts of the blogging community. Never was the Internet more important that in todays war against terrorism. There is the story of the Sunni Muslim who is a Marine who joined to defend his religion against the preachers of hate. There is the story of the Army Staff Sgt. who gained such respect and admiration from Iraqis he is called the American Sheik. How about the bond between the new Iraqi army and ours?

Lets not get caught up in defense of our actions in Iraq. Lets lead in bringing the untold stories to the forefront of the discussion. There can be nothing but victory in the Middle East. The American people deserve to be exposed to the entire trinity of players here. We must help the defenders of freedom and those who risk their lives be it soldier or regular citizens.

I have been frustrated with the so-called "fair and balanced" news venues. This is why you find people like me writing articles for blogs like this one. Thank you all for that.

My sources and links:

U.S. soldier enjoys new role as American sheik in Iraq
By Antonio Castaneda
Associated Press

Dale L. Horn/Associated Press Iraqis chose Staff Sgt. Dale Horn of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to be sheik, a village elder and rural power broker. QAYYARAH, Iraq -- Sheik Horn floats around the room in white robe and headdress, exchanging pleasantries with dozens of village leaders.

But he's the only sheik with blonde streaks in his mustache -- and the only one who attended country music star Toby Keith's recent concert in Baghdad with fellow U.S. soldiers.

Officially, he's Army Staff Sgt. Dale L. Horn, but to residents of the 37 villages and towns that he patrols he's known as the American sheik.

Sheiks, or village elders, are known as the real power in rural Iraq. And the 5-foot-6-inch Floridian's ascension to the esteemed position came through dry humor and the military's need to clamp down on rocket attacks.

Late last year a full-blown battle between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces had erupted, and U.S. commanders assigned a unit to stop rocket and mortar attacks that regularly hit their base. Horn, who had been trained to operate radars for a field artillery unit, was now thrust into a job that largely hinged on coaxing locals into divulging information about insurgents.

Horn, 25, a native of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., acknowledges he had little interest in the region before going to Iraq. But a local sheik friendly to U.S. forces, Dr. Mohammed Ismail Ahmed, explained the inner workings of rural Iraqi society during one of Horn's first Humvee patrols.

Full story.

Sunni Muslim fights in Global War on Terrorism
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division Story Identification #: 200572741650 Story by Cpl. Ken Melton

HADITHA DAM, Iraq (July 27, 2005) -- As the Marines with 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment continue their fight in the Global War on Terrorism, most of them think of it as business and not personal.

However, for some Marines who are of the Islamic faith, the war in Iraq hits a personal note. Cpl. Mohammed N. Rahman, who is a Sunni Muslim, fights not only to free the people of Iraq from the insurgents grip and to protect his country (America), but also to redeem his beloved religion.

This is a personal offense, not only to me but others who share my faith, said the 23-year-old infantryman with 2nd Platoon, Company L. The insurgents have scarred
the image of my religion.

Full story.

Iraqi TV airs 'fighters' confessions'
Friday 25 February 2005
The arrested men claimed to have been trained in Syria. Alleged Sudanese, Egyptian and Iraqi fighters have confessed on television to being trained by Syrian intelligence officers to bomb Iraqi security forces and behead police officers and civilians.

"I took part in the decapitation of 10 Iraqis, all of them policemen," a man who gave his name as Muhammad Hamud Muhammad Musa and claimed he was Sudanese, old the US-financed Iraqiya television station.

"I was paid $50 for each beheading even though I'd been promised a lot more." Musa's "confession" came in one of three programmes this week in which men detained by security forces were brought forward one by one to tell a police interviewer of their alleged crimes.

Full story.

Hypocrisy As Usual

2005-08-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

By JRM4833

So the verdict is in. Soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has submitted his answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire, and as expected, liberal interest groups are fuming. But a simple perusal of a standard dictionary will tell us that it is pure nonsense. John Roberts has been nominated for appointment on the highest court in the land. But his job, in essence, will still be that which it has been since he was first appointed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001: to judge. The most basic definition of the word tells us that he will determine the result of a competition. In this case, the competition is obviously a court case.

According to the Washington Post, liberal interest groups are angry at the fact that Roberts has chosen not to state whether he would uphold Roe v. Wade. This is where my confusion sets in. This man is to be a judge, yet liberals would prefer he determine the outcome of such a case before hearing both sides. Now, obviously we all have our own opinions on whether or not Roe was decided correctly. But nevertheless, shouldn't we fight to uphold the concept that judges not decide cases before hearing out both sides? Am I the only one who sees the common sense in this?

Roberts does not have a set of facts before him to analyze. He has not been asked to examine a specific law which may or may not be constitutional. And even if he did, do we want judges deciding cases without actually listening to full arguments from both sides? This concept seems to go against the entire structure of our judicial system.

So why are these liberal groups so angry at Roberts' choice to remain silent on the issue? Well, according to the same Post article, these groups now see the stakes as "too high." His "lawyerly answers fall far short of the candor American people expect." Well pardon Roberts for not dumbing down his answers. The man is a lawyer and has been for decades. What exactly do they expect from him? Some kind of absurd promise to keep the status quo no matter what the law says?

Roberts did state that he would remain "fully open" and will approach cases as a "thoughtful skeptic." Are these not the ideal views the American people should expect from Supreme Court Justices, and all judges for that matter?

The fact that no such outrage took place when previous nominees refused to comment specifically on Roe is telling. But the fact remains that abortion is a social issue. Roe and Griswold's right to privacy, on the other hand, is a legal one. Why don't we leave the legal issues to judges who will look at a specific case or controversy and do their best to decide what the Constitution says. And we can leave the hypocrisy to those who are best at it: the ever-changing "liberal interest groups."

The United Nations, its Failures, and its Future

2005-07-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

By JRM4833

"The last stage but one of every civilisation, is characterized by the forced political unification of its constituent parts, into a single greater whole." - Arnold J. Toynbee

The United Nations was created with the most noble of goals: to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and to "maintain international peace and security." Accordingly, its effectiveness must be judged by these idealistic goals and its future must be determined by looking at its success toward these ends.

It is true, as proponents of the U.N. claim, that no general war between world powers has occurred during the 60 years since its founding. But can it honestly be said that the UN is responsible for this alleged period of peace? In an era of "conflicts," can the lack of major warfare even be seen as a real success? And has it lived up to its responsibilities of maintaining international peace and security? Unfortunately, history tells us that the answers to each of these questions is no.

As it stands today, the U.N. is burdened by numerous deeply rooted flaws which stand in the way of the very purpose for which it was created. Among these flaws, four stand out above the rest and make up the focus of this analysis: structural flaws in the U.N.'s organization; a system based on misguided values; deep-rooted corruption; and vast incompetence throughout its management.

First and foremost among its structural flaws, the U.N. does not distinguish between democratic and non-democratic states. Instead, it treats member states as equals, regardless of the character of their governments. Failing to make such a distinction implicitly approves of authoritarianism and the world threat that accompanies such governments. How could Iraq, a country who ignored almost two decades of resolutions demanding that they discontinue their weapons of mass destruction program, be named chair of the UN Conference on Disarmament? How can Sudan, a country notorious for its genocidal civil war and human rights violations, be voted onto the U.N. Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) while the U.S. is removed? True progress will never be made in a system which allows an equal voice for those who epitomize what we are seeking to eliminate.

Yet another structural flaw in the UN is the ease and frequency with which countries can ignore its Security Council based on nothing more than their own interests. Russia has frequently used the U.N. to halt U.S. policies in Iraq, while ignoring strong objections against its own unjust military actions in Chechnya. The Peoples' Republic of China has used the U.N. as a soapbox to harshly criticize America's actions in Iraq. At the same time, however, China has continued its unlawful occupation of Tibet and has taken steps toward military action against Taiwan, regardless of UN protests. Additionally, France has initiated 48 separate military interventions in Africa since 1960, of which very few received UN approval. But this did not stop France from using the U.N. in attempts to block military action by the U.S. in Iraq. Obviously U.N. approval is not determinative on whether a certain military action is "right" or "wrong," but it must be acknowledged that today's system is simply too susceptible to manipulation.

The U.N. also allows too many countries that do not share American values to wield power. Regardless of the fact that failing to "toe the line" of American values is not necessarily a bad thing for the world, it has led to harmful consequences to our interests and continues to do so. As stated previously, the U.S. was voted off of the UNHRC in 2001. While the U.S. has since regained its, we must now share the table with notorious human rights abusers such as current chairman Indonesia, Libya, Cuba, Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. The UNHRC has even gone as far as repeatedly chastising the U.S. for its alleged human right violations, while basically turning a blind eye to much more systematic abuses in other countries. The absurdity of countries like Libya and Sudan sitting in judgment over democratic nations such as the U.S. is obvious and profound. This hypocrisy finally came to a head in 2004 when the US delegation walked out of a UNHRC meeting in protest of Sudan being elected to a third term.

The fact that the U.S. and U.N. do not see eye to eye goes much deeper and threatens our own sovereignty. A 2001 UN initiative was aimed at convincing the world to pressure the US to remove the right to bear arms from the US Constitution. The U.N. has also proposed global taxes as part of its recent position as a promoter of global wealth redistribution. In an effort to find new sources of funding for the U.N., Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been a strong supporter of an international income tax which would require raising taxes in wealthy countries such as the U.S., U.K., and Australia. But why should the U.S., who has always been the U.N.'s largest contributor, be forced to increase funding to even higher levels when America's best interest seems to be far from their intentions? Additionally, even Annan's most recent proposals for U.N. reform include requiring council approval for all military action. It is true that war should always be a last resort, but America must hold strong to its sovereignty and not allow a group of non-democratic nations determine when we should be permitted to declare war.

Corruption, unfortunately, is a third long-standing flaw of the United Nations. The most obvious example of this corruption is the oil for food scandal. Under the oil for food program, the U.N. controlled all Iraqi oil contracts, from which the revenues were to be used to for humanitarian aid for the people of Iraq. But instead, 10% (or $10 billion went straight into the hands of Saddam Hussein, much of which was used to bribe U.N. leaders in charge of the oil for food program. Additionally, 270 lucrative oil contracts were handed out to companies in return for backing Iraq against America. Furthermore, during the 1990's, an independent inspector found vast amounts of abuse and waste including, but not limited to: $10 million embezzled from the U.N. Children's Fund; $4 million in cash stolen outright from U.N. headquarters in Mogadishu; and $370,000 which was paid for peacekeeping supplies that were never delivered. The fact is that the United Nations, a system set up involving no real accountability, is far too susceptible to corruption. If the U.N. were to survive, it would have to be as an organization which is both transparent and accountable.

Finally, the U.N. has been terribly mismanaged which has led to millions of innocent deaths. The Brahimi Report, an independent report released in 2000, confirmed that the U.N. had "failed to meet the challenge" of its most basic goals. The record of failure is vast and disturbing and something must be done to alter the current system. What kind of peacekeeping organization stands by while 800,000 innocents are slaughtered in Rwanda? How can three separate U.N. peacekeeping missions to Angola not deter 500,000 civilian deaths? Looking deeper, U.N. peacekeeping mission have failed to prevent mass violence over many decades: 7,000 Muslim civilians brutally murdered in Bosnia under U.N. watch; 70,000 lives lost in Eritrea during a two-year conflict during which UN peacekeepers have been accused of disgusting crimes in the region (including pedophilia); and at least 70,000 killed and 2,000,000 displaced in Sudan in what the U.N. refuses to call a genocide. This is no way to "keep the peace."

So what is the future of the United Nations and how does America play into it? It certainly can not continue as it has over the past few decades. There is quite a strong argument for the U.S. to leave the U.N. altogether, and thus practically bringing the organization to an end. But a much more realistic approach that has been proposed in the past is the formation of an alliance of democracies which would work both within and without the U.N. to further human rights, combat terrorism, diminish weapons proliferation, and promote democracy throughout the world. Such an alliance could work together to counter the powerful thugs that are represented in the United Nations. Apparently, such a concept even has the support of U.N.

Encouragingly, an alliance of democratic nations has already been effectuated. The Community of Democracies first convened in Warsaw in 2000 and saw 110 signatories to a declaration aimed at "promoting and strengthening democracy worldwide." America must work to strengthen this alliance and commit to working with democracies across the globe in two ways.

First, the Community of Democracies must work inside the U.N. to create a Democracy Caucus. In such a role, it could act similar to political parties in the America, by taking stands on issues, proposing resolutions and working to make the U.N. a more effective and responsive institution. The Community of Democracies, if necessary, could also act outside of the U.N. when essential actions become bogged down by bureaucracy and the "international system" that has led to millions of deaths throughout the years. Apparently, even the Secretary-General of the U.N. himself agrees with a democratic alliance: "When the United Nations can truly call itself a community of democracies, the Charter's noble ideals of protecting human rights and promoting "social progress in larger freedoms" will have been brought much closer."

As Edmund Burke once said, "[a]ll that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." The United Nations is made up of many good men. The time has come that they stand up and do something.

The Root Causes of Terrorism

2005-07-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

by mwm1331

The root cause of terrorism; listen to any liberal broadcast, read any liberal blog, or speak to any liberal, and you will hear this phrase: "the root cause of terrorism." We are told that the root cause of terrorism is due to the "west's imperialist foreign policy" which we are informed "props up despotic dicators at the cost of their peoples in order to serve American interests". The root cause of terrorism, so the theory goes, is "the west's colonial presence in the Middle East, and our blatent disregard for their sovereignty." The root cause of terrorism, so they claim, is "Our dependence on foreign oil, and the need to secure its supply". The root cause of terrorism, they preach, is us.

To those of the anti-war bent, this is gospel truth. The attacks on 9/11 in New York, 3/11 in Madrid, and now, 7/7 in London, are nothing more than "what goes around comes around." "Interfere in the affairs of other nations, attempt to create a western hegemony, and disregard the actions of oppressive and brutal dictators", they claim and "you create terrorism." But is this the truth? I don't deny that both America and the west in general, have certainly had foreign policies which at best could be described as "the lesser of two evils" far more often than I would like. Nor can I deny, as much as I would like to, that America hasn't always been on the side of the angels. I don't doubt that the suufering caused by the many dictators we have done business with has led to a climate in which terrorism can breed. Nor do I deny that some of our actions worldwide both recently, and historically, have caused resentment. To say, however, that the US, or the West in general, is responsible for terrorism, is merely the rhetoric of doubt and fear.

There are any number of dictaors in the Middle East who are oppressive, brutal, dictatorial, and cruel; just as there are any number of regimes with the same characteristics. Some we have supported, and some we have opposed. Yet, even on those rare occasions when a terrorist action happens in these countries, (i.e. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran) they are always directed against westerners. If our support of brutal dictators is the "root cause of terrorism," then why aren't those whom we are supposed to have supported, targeted? If our support of Saddam Hussein in the 80's against Iran is part of the "root cause of terrorism," then why wasn't there ever suicide bombings in Bagdhad before the liberation of Iraq, yet so many after? Why, when Saudi Arabia was attacked by terorists a while back, were the attacks directed at westerners, and not the Saudi royal family?

The simple anwser is because our actions have nothing to do with terrorism. The "root cause of terrorism" is hate. Hate is never rational. Hate never has reason. Hate simply is. But why do they hate us? This is a question that provokes many common liberal responses: "Don't you think our actions over in their region of the world have something to do with it?" or "Isnt it posible that our actions have caused them to hate us?" And I admit, it is a powerful line of questioning; at least untill you apply that same question to other ideologies defined by hate. Would you be willing to accept the same line of thinking, for example, if the terrorists were Nazis and the victims of their bombings were Jews? Would you be willing to accept, that becuase the average Jew in Germany in the late thirties and early forties was relatively comfortable financially that "they had it coming" when the Germans began to pack them into railway cars? Did the Nazis have a reason for their hate? Would you be willing to accept, for example, that because black and whites do intermarry in America, that the KKK is justified when they lynch a black man for "disgracing" a white woman? Does the KKK have a reason to hate those with darker skin than their own? The anwser in bothc ases, would be a resounding "No." So, why then do you accept the argument that the hate of Islamic terrorists, which is just as irrational, just as bitter, and just as poisonous, is any more justified than the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, or the lynch mobs of the old deep south? Why are we so quick to accept the rationalizations of terrorists?

I believe the answer is fear. Not of terrorism itself, but of the loss of control we feel when it strikes. There is no NORAD early warning system to detect and warn us of terrorists strikes, nor is there any MAD policy with Al-Qaeda, which nullifies attacks by either side like we saw during the Cold War. Our enemy is not a nation. They have no standing army. They lack geographic borders. There's no flag to represent them. There is no ambassador our politicians can sign a treaty with, and there is no embassy we can protest against. Our enemy is formless, faceless, and largely nameless. We have no control over when and where he will strike, and we have no way of knowing if he is already in our midst. We have no way of knowing whether we will be next. Unlike any other enemy our nations have faced, terrorism has robbed us of the feeling of control. Unless of course "the rootc ause of terrorism" is us.

If we are the "root cause of terrorism", then we do have control after all, and therefore we are not fighting a faceless, nameless enemy in a war with no clear end strategy. If the "root cause of terrorism" is our own policies then all we have to do to control whether or not he strikes is to change those policies. By making ourselves the "root cause of terrorism," we go from powerless victims of terrorism, to the creators, and thus controllers of, terrorism.

But if we are not the "root cause of terrorism," and if our policies are not the reason for terrorist acts, then we have no control, and our only option is to fight an ambiguous war against a faceless enemy, for as long as it takes. How long that may be, no one knows. How successful President Bush's policy of "democratization" will be, no one knows. Will this ever end? No one knows. And so, for some, it is less frightening to believe that we have culpability in, and thus, control over, terrorism. For some, it is better to be a "western imperialist who has robbed the Middle East of its resources, independence, and freedom" than to be powerless.

So, next time someone starts talking to you about the"root causes of terrorism," give them a hug, tell them it'll be OK, and help them overcome their fear of being out of control, so that we as a nation, as allies, and as a shared culture, can finally put the blame where it belongs: on the men and women who support, train, fund, plan, give succor to, apologise for, and take part in terrorism and terrorist attacks. Let go of the fear, and place the blame where it belongs, on those who intentionally kill innocent men and women and children trying to live their lives.

God Bless America, and in this time of need, may He also give his blessing to our greatest and staunchest ally, The United Kingdom.

London Attacks

2005-07-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

By Tetracide

Some said that terrorism was not a gathering threat. Many agreed. Many disagreed. What are they to say now?

On July 7th, 2005, the free world again became under attack by Islamofascism. The brave and level-headed came forth and gave a direct response to these acts. They said terrorism will not change the British way of life, nor will it detour their resolve to fight such threats. The isolationists and liberal-hearted, came forth and were reluctant to call this an attack, but rather simple murder. They said that Great Britain deserves the attacks that killed dozens, and injured a thousand; that it was due to the war drumbeat coming from the United States that inflicted these attacks.

Little do they understand our enemy and even quainter their desire to comprehend them. The people that so willingly sacrifice themselves to kill innocent others are not reasonable people, ones that can sit down to sign treaties, or appease. Islamofascists are people who guide their lives, down a one way street, blindfolded by people like Osama Bin Laden, and Zarqawi.

The British people are strong, and steadfast allies. They will not buckle under terrorism, nor the constant contempt from particular elements from the Left. My country – the United States – will stand next to our British brothers and sisters in this time of mourn and retaliation soon to follow. This attack in London will only strengthen the resolve of the brave and free people. London will not turn into Madrid, but the exact opposite.

Our hearts are with those who were killed or injured on that dreadful day.

The Great Unsilent Majority

2005-07-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

By mwm1331

As this is the first edition of my new blog I would like to set the tone for my future writing. I am no wordsmith and this is the first attempt I have made at communicating coherently online in this fashion, so bear with me if my skills are not as polished as some. I suppose I should start by stating what has motivated me to begin this blog and what chutzpah makes me believe that what I have to say is of enough value for you to read. I am by turns a conservative, a republican, a neo Conservative, an ultra patriot, a skeptical cynic, a hopeful dreamer, and a tired eyed realist. As an American living in an former Soviet-controlled Eastern European country, who was born and bred in the USA, I like to think that I may have a unique, if sometimes skewed, view of the world we live in and the world we are making. It is this perspective I hope to share with you. I will warn you in advance that much of what I write will be obviously and glaringly biased and I make no apologies for that. I see no evil in bias; in point of fact it is my fervent belief that it is the competition between biases, not the lack of, which advances though the most. I will use this space to discuss, with myself as it were; the issues I feel are most important as well as to rant and rave like a sweaty toothed madman in the middle of a three week whiskey bender. If this proves amusing please continue to read if not, I am writing for myself so feel free to ease on down the road.

They say a man who talks to himself is fine so long as he neither answers nor argues with himself, I will do both and in writing. It might make me crazy but then talking to myself is often the only way I can get involved in an intelligent conversation. And this is a world which is in desperate need of intelligent conversation. In the months and years since George W. Bush was elected president, the national debate has degraded to a monkey fight at the local zoo, with liberals and leftists discussing such weighty matters as whether President Bush is a dry drunk or a retarded schizophrenic with a messiah complex. Meanwhile, the debate on Social Security reform is non existent save for accusations of theft and fraud from both sides; outweighing intelligent proposals by a factor of 10 to 1. The houses of Congress are mired in partisan bickering that is less intelligent than a third grade "my daddy can beat up your daddy" argument, and legislation withers on the vine while our representatives argue about who is the biggest Nazi.

When I look at most of those we have elected to represent us, on both sides of the aisle, I am overwhelmed with the desire to cover our great country in a shroud so as to hide shameful and violated form. I read the recent decisions from the Supreme Court and wonder what has happened to our Constitution and pray that it can be revived before our "leaders" recycle it as toilet paper. And when I watch our "experts" and "pundits" on television, I am reminded of stray dogs fighting for territory in the back alleys of a slum. I see division in this country but I do not fear division. It is our division, our diversity, (ever wonder why division and diversity are so similar?) that makes us strong. It is the competition between our biases that has, for the last 200+ years, ensured America was always at the forefront of thought. It is the battle between liberals and conservatives which keep our body politic vibrant and relevant. It is the passion of the right and left which fuels America's constant desire for improvement. It is the verbal and ideological combat that rages within our hearts and minds that keeps us on top. It is the opposition between faith in the "individual" and "the people" which ensures our liberties and our rights. But not when it is juvenile, petty, and low.

It is my most heartfelt desire that I can play some small part in helping to restore our competitions to the intelligent, passionate, and respectful duels that Americans deserve. I am The Great Unsilent Majority, and I will be heard.

The Fourth of July

2005-07-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

by Hobbie

It's that time of year again. Our nation's 229th birthday has rolled around once more at a time when the United States is at war. And while many of you, like myself, are keeping tabs on the war effort and the struggle for the heart of the Middle East, this is a time for all Americans to be just that; Americans.

We have overcome great challenges to both create and maintain the vision our Founding Fathers had when they laid the foundation for our country. We should never forget the courage and bravery of those 55 souls who signed our Declaration of Independence in the face of certain death for them and their families; and that was, tragically, what many of them experienced. Their homes were burned to the ground, their families killed, their lives destroyed, and for some, they themselves were hunted down for their signature on that piece of paper that gave us our voice.

Much has changed since those days, but much remains the same. Enemies have become the closest of friends. Former allies have become enemies. And yet, many of the challenges that our ancestors faced, are still around, plagueing people in far away nations who share the same dream that they once did.

We have much to be grateful for. But we should never forget the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson: "[It is] my disposition to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself." We all hate war. We hate the carnage. We hate the bloodshed. We hate the loss of life, particularly of our brave men and women. But we should be prepared to fight that war when peace is no longer a viable option; and I think it's safe to say that a weak America would spell disaster for both our people and the people of the world.

It should be noted that life is a precious gift. And on the 4th of July, we should always be looking to prolong the life of our nation, which has long been and long will be, a beacon for the rest of the world. We should always be prepared to support our government when it's doing the right thing and criticize our government when it's doing the wrong thing; regardless of party, affiliation, or ideological beliefs.

As conservatives, it is our duty and responsibility to uphold the traditions that our forefathers enabled and to carry the burden that every generation has thus far been required to carry. We are Americans because we have been willing to wage war for both our own peace and the peace of others who desperately desire to have what we have. We are Americans because we have been willing to stand up for that which we believe in. We are Americans because we have always believed in giving the minority a voice and respect, while simultaneously adhering to the constitutional will of the majority.

Do not forget, that in the end, we're all Americans. It is difficult when tensions are running high amongst our own brothers and sisters to remember that; particularly when some of these brothers and sisters seem more concerned about retaining political power than winning the fight for liberty. Such is the way of things. And we should be prepared to lambast those who put politics above principles, and to call them for they really are. But we must never forget that they have the right to be so utterly wrong.

Be guided by something greater than yourself and stick to your beliefs and do not be afraid, ever, to share those beliefs and defend those beliefs and promote those beliefs. We are entitled to that. Blood has been shed for that right. And as Thomas Jefferson stated: "[The] best principles [of our republic] secure to all its citizens a perfect equality of rights."

We have a responsibility to maintain the vision set forth by our Founders. And that, my friends, is what a conservative truly is.

Have a wonderful Fourth of July. And God Bless America. Now and forever.

Iraq - Stay the Course

2005-07-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

By Lord Hargreaves

Iraq Today

Last Tuesday, President Bush addressed the USA and the world about the War in Iraq, arguing that although the road has and will be difficult, victory will be on the side of coalition forces, the Iraqi people, and of freedom. Of course, he is right. But over recent months, with large amounts of violence still be committed by terrorists and insurgents, the outcome has, I think it is fair to say, become less certain in the eyes of many people, even those who supported the war originally.

Things are difficult in Iraq, of that there is no doubt. Every day there are skirmishes and violence, and people are dying. As President Bush said, “the suffering is real”. There are over 100 car bombings a month, with hundreds of totally innocent people dying at the hands of terrorists and insurgents, along with many Coalition troops being killed in the line of duty. Also, it must be said, certain reconstruction work, such as electricity and oil production, have not met the expectations of many - and the disruptive actions of terrorists and insurgents has meant that many westerners who want to travel to Iraq, so as to help rebuild that country and increase the living standards of the people there, have been prevented in doing so by the unstable security situation.

All these things will of course deeply sadden all but the most extreme anti-war liberals, and of course they are bad news. But, at the same time, it is also true that progress is being made.

In Brussels, the American/European divide over the road to war came to a virtual end with a Joint American-European Union Conference united attempt to get the international community to support Iraq. They all gave their full backing to the new Iraqi government’s road map for reform, whilst promising support, expertise and aid as Iraqis work to secure order, rejuvenate the economy and draft a new constitution. At the same time, in Iraqi domestic politics, (the mere concept of which is totally new to most Iraqis), The president of the Iraqi constitutional committee, Humam Hamudi, has in fact announced that the constitutional committee has completed 80% of its work already In another good news, a compromise has been reached about the participation of members of the Sunni community in the constitutional process.

All around Iraq, the terrorists and insurgents are steadily loosing any support they did have with the general Iraqi population. For instance, here an important conservative religious figure has condemned terrorism and incitement. And it is still true, despite what many have said, that the Iraqi people still want us there.

Add to this an Iraqi economy starting to get off the ground after the simply staggering amount of debt that Saddam ran up (twice the amount of current US debt), reconstruction going well in the south, education getting much better, plus many western imports to improve the quality of life of the people: There is now a radio talk show on women’s rights, plus internet usage amongst Iraqis continues to grow

In short, all the aspects of liberty. For while the terrorists and insurgents continue their spree of death and destruction, the Iraqi people are beginning to enjoy the flower of freedom (albeit obviously to a lesser extent for Iraqis in the dangerous areas). This is most certainly worth celebrating. Even from the progress we have seen so far, we have more than enough to inspire us and the Iraqi to press ahead and fully secure the country from the clutches of tyranny and evil. And it is also true that now, more than ever, victory is essential.

Why we must prevail in Iraq

Iraq has become, without a shadow of a doubt, the new forefront of the global war on terror. Throughout Bush’s speech about Iraq on Tuesday, he made repeated references to 9/11. Many anti-war liberals were of course up in arms, just assuming that Bush was trying to blame Iraq for 9/11 because they were and are too far up their own arses to actually bother to watch the damn speech.

Bush did not, and has never, argued that Saddam Hussein helped in the planning and execution of the attacks of September 11th. He has not argued this because even though we will never truly know that he didn’t there isn’t actually any evidence of a direct link. Rather, Bush made three arguments for linking 9/11 and Iraq:

(1) Firstly, he argued during the road to war that Iraq had sheltered Al-Qaeda, affiliates of Al-Qaeda, and other terrorists prior to 9/11 (although this argument has not directly made Tuesday). And of this, there is much evidence, despite the ignorant rantings of many anti-war liberals. What does the “no link whatsoever” crowd have to say about this:

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir — the Iraqi Intelligence operative who facilitated a 9/11 hijacker into Malaysia and was in attendance at the Kuala Lampur meeting with two of the hijackers, and other conspirators, at what is roundly acknowledged to be the initial 9/11 planning session in January 2000?

Who was arrested after the 9/11 attacks in possession of contact information for several known terrorists? Who managed to make his way out of Jordanian custody over our objections after the 9/11 attacks because of special pleading by Saddam’s regime?

Saddam's intelligence agency's efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990's?

Mohammed Atta's unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which — notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses) — the Czechs have not retracted?

The Clinton Justice Department's allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam's henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?

Saddam's hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990’s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?

Saddam’s ten years of harboring of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin?

Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Laden’s fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?

Saddam’s official press lionizing bin Laden as “an Arab and Islamic hero” following the 1998 embassy bombing attacks?

The continued insistence of high-ranking Clinton administration officials to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 retaliatory strikes (after the embassy bombings) against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory were justified because the factory was a chemical weapons hub tied to Iraq and bin Laden?

Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarke’s assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke’s memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and “[a]rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad”? (See 9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 134 & n.135.)

Terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi's choice to boogie to Baghdad of all places when he needed surgery after fighting American forces in Afghanistan in 2001?

Saddam's Intelligence Service running a training camp at Salman Pak, were terrorists were instructed in tactics for assassination, kidnapping and hijacking?

Former CIA Director George Tenet’s October 7, 2002 letter to Congress, which asserted:

Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non aggression.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.

NRO

(There's more. Stephen Hayes’s book, The Connection, remains required reading.)

These links were never disputed either by the 9/11 Commission, even though the MSM has tried to spin it as such. The 9/11 Commission’s job was, shocking, only to find a link of Iraq being involved in 9/11 (hence the name 9/11 Commission) - and not of a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. In fact, Ex-Rep. Lee Hamilton (D, IN) , the 9/11 Commission’s Vice-Chairman is on record as having said:

[T]here were contacts between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, going back to the 1990s, when Osama Bin Laden was in Sudan, then he was in Afghanistan. I don’t think there is any dispute about that

Heh

And in fact, the Left has even forgotten the Iraq-Al-Qaeda links cited in the very resolution declaring war on Iraq, a resolution many Democrats now criticising Bush actually signed:

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;
Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Transcript

And thus, Iraq and 9/11 are linked in the need to defeat Al-Qaeda. And this is more prevalent now than ever. Because while most estimates indicate that foreign fighters are still the minority of those causing trouble in Iraq, those same estimates also indicate that foreign fighters are by far the most destructive. Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian and Al-Qaeda’s head in Iraq - who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq. - is behind the “main” attacks in Iraq, I.e. suicide bombings directly targeting Iraqi civilians. And it is these terrorists (as opposed to the “insurgents” like former Ba’athists and Sunni resistance who are mainly after political again) that the Coaltion must hunker down and defeat before Iraq will become fully stable and democratic.

And what of the second reason that Bush gave for linking Iraq and 9/11?

This was, of course, that Iraq is now the frontline of the wider war on terror, a war launched in the first place because of 9/11. Its really that simple, yet it is by far the most important link, and by far the most important reason for arguing that we must prevail in Iraq. To retreat in Iraq, to withdrawal our troops before the job is done, would be a total disaster. That is because we will not only have betrayed a country, but we would have also admitted defeat at the hands of terror, tyranny and evil - and in doing so, have betrayed democracy itself. This is such an obvious yet fundamental point that even most anti-war liberals understand it (although obviously there are lefty extremists that do not). To admit defeat in Iraq is, effectively, to forget the lessons of 9/11, as it would mean a retreat of the West back into its shell, to ignore than part of the world, and to let it fester unmolested, which of course would lead to another 9/11 style terrorist attack.

I leave it to President Bush, speaking at Fort Bragg, who said it best:

The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us -- and the terrorists we face -- murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. Their aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression -- by toppling governments, by driving us out of the region, and by exporting terror.
[…]
After September the 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy.
Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home.
The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq -- who is also senior commander at this base -- General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said: "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."
[…]
They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. They know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty, as well. And when the Middle East grows in democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits, and lose their hopes for turning that region into a base for attacks on America and our allies around the world.
Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq. "The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory, or misery and humiliation." The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened, or defeated. So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take.
Full Transcript

And so In Iraq, we must stay the course. I urge everyone to put the divisive arguments of the pre-war debate squarely behind them, because now we need a united Coalition, both to sustain the political will to continue and to keep support for our troops in the field, troops who are literally putting their lives on the line for freedom. You see, the fact of the matter is not that we will prevail in Iraq, although of that I have no doubt - rather, it is that we must prevail in Iraq. We have no choice in the matter. The freedom and the security of western nations ultimately depends on the freedom and the security of Iraq in this time. And that is why, despite all difficulties, complications and human tragedy, I will repeat the heroic words of Tod Beamer, the man who led passengers to fight back on Flight 93 on that fateful day in September (and later repeated and made famous by President Bush):

“Okay, lets roll”

The Left and Terrorists

2005-07-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

A Conservative’s View of Their Relationship
By Tetracide

“I'm sure I don't have to remind of the Amnesty International report quantifying Gitmo as the worst human rights violations of our times? And of course, we don't need to investigate it... not like we have a history *ahem* Abu Graihb *ahem* of prisoner abuse....” – lordcelerborn, Jul 01, 2005

“Just because you've been hauled away to Guantanimo Bay isn't in itself cast-iron proof you're a terrorist. In some cases, it just means you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” – thundertaker, Apr 20, 2005

“What evidence have you seen that says they are terrorists? Perhaps the gov't made a mistake as is detaining the wrong person? It happens everyday in the legal system, why can't in happen in the military?” – Gdawg007, Jun 15, 2005

“After all the stories I've heard of people being swept up and shipped off to Gitmo or elsewhere based on thin suspicion or false allegations I have no doubt that the majority of those being held are nothing near extremism.” – Anticlimates, May 17, 2005

Lately, here at the great battleground of ideologies – Political Crossfire – I have noticed a continued theme that has translated through these “allegations” towards American soldiers at Guantanimo Bay, Cuba, and the abuse that is “supposedly” went on there. And I have seen many posts and topics all behind the effort to debase the President and the American government in their decision to detain illegal combatants at this prison in Cuba. I stand appalled at these efforts, and, as I have before, I will bring forth that effort, and while attempting to bring the alien substance called truth to the matter, I will be more than happy to see some admissions to my statements in this paragraph.

These allegations all started when the liberal news media was caught with their pants down in their bias crusade to bring down President George W. Bush. The conservative leadership and voter all raised an eyebrow and demanded that these allegations be investigated with the full resources of which they could provide. Congressional leaders, Republican and Democrat, swarmed Guantanimo Bay with visits, and came back with the same attitude they left with. Liberals, on the other hand, demanded Bush be impeached, Rumsfeld to resign, and Guantanimo dismantled in direct appeasement to terrorists. “Newsweek was right” claimed some that were more than willing to accept this damning event to the American image. “Gitmo is definitely racist, [and] it needs to be shut down,” stated The AntiChrist, in a diatribe consisting of accusing the U.S. of being hypocritical.

I can understand the notion that those on the Left care about our image around the world – and in turn – about America. However, in a not-so uncommon reference to Hitler, KidRocks stated, “Hitler kept telling his people that all is going well with the war effort in order to pacify the ignorant masses,” and it is comments like these that make me question that compassion for America’s image. To expand on that, I would make a reference to the topic Anticlimates made back on the 22nd of June, nearly praising and parading around the advancement of terrorists in their bomb making. Why else would such an anti-war activist post such a topic?

The facts remain. Terrorism, and those that execute it against our soldiers are classified as illegal combatants and due to the lack of protocols prior to the War on Terrorism, the United Stated decided that Guantanimo Bay would be the place to send these combatants. As the Left reined hell in their indefatigable efforts for civil liberties for terrorists at Guantanimo, special military tribunals were already being held for the hundreds of detainees. With that process, some 38 individuals have been set free. All the conspiracy theories that have been blurted out that Middle Easterns have handed over random individuals for money are completely unsubstantiated, and false.

In a Pentagon briefing, Donald Rumsfeld responded to this outrage of civil liberties;

"The U.S. military has instituted numerous reforms of the conduct of detainee operations, with a renewed emphasis on standards and training. The U.S. military has also gone to unprecedented lengths to respect the religious sensibilities of the enemies of civil society, including the issuance of detailed regulations governing the handling of the Koran and arranging schedules for detainees around their five daily calls for prayer, required by the Muslim faith. In fact, at Guantanimo, the military spends more per meal for detainees to meet their religious dietary requirements than it spends per rations for U.S. troops."

So I ask those who are hell-bent on supporting the liberties of terrorists in the same fashion they are hell-bent on liberties for homosexuals; why? Why be so determined to bring a question mark over the morality of the United States of America? Why raise terrorists up on a pedestal, and systematically accuse the government (something they too hold dear) of crimes against humanity?

Time to End the Iraq Debate

2005-06-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

By Tetracide

I: Contempt for Troops

“The war also brought Iraqis the right to have their homes invaded by foreign troops; the right to be locked up and tortured, and the right to be killed in the chaos that has followed the invasion.” - Boondoggle, May 25, 2005

“The USA will then also deserve whatever revenge is taken for the innocents that were swept up into Gitmo or Iraqi/Afghanistan prisons and tortured.” – Anticlimates, May 18, 2005

“I'm sure you feel very proud of your Bushit -- but what goes around comes around, and eventually your lives will suffer the consequences of your despicable support of the mass-murderers you have encouraged and rallied behind.” – Tracker, Feb 17, 2005

The left and their obsession with the “crimes” of the United States is something we see in every argument. The shadow of hatred and distaste towards other fellow Americans and America itself is something the right is all too familiar with. Some see it at face value; simply as a tactic of arguing that makes the opponent feel guilty for supporting such a country. Others can look behind the meaning, and understand the real defining notion behind every revulsion-filled post.

The quotes above are just three prime examples of this tactic. Threatened with good news about The War on Terror, and how it has sent shockwaves of democracy across the Middle East, the left will always fall back on arguments like these. Memorial Day has come and gone, and we saw, for a brief moment, the reluctance of some to give honor to those who have fallen, and to those who still give their best for their country.

With an ideology that grows with every number added to the death count in Iraq, the liberal extremists here on this forum use every chance they get to tear down the decency of America’s image, as the conservative movement struggles to uphold it. I know I speak for not only a majority of conservatives on this board, but for millions of conservatives around this great nation when I say, “I’ve had enough.”

Our men and women serving in Iraq are those who return as idols and heroes. An undisputable fact remains; Americans love them for what they do, and nothing, not even the hatred-filled rhetoric from the modern left will shake that. However, time and time again, we see radical leftists burn and tarnish our soldiers for what they have supposedly done. The current administration or even the United States itself is always the ring leader behind every scandal in the world. “We are going to turn the country into a police state and rebuild it like the Abu Garaib model that was recently beta tested in Iraq,” said Deemoore. “What unmitigated hypocrisy!!!!” proclaimed Danahrea, linking absolute proof that the U.S. was another conspirator behind the Oil-for-Food Program scandal.

Things like this can be outrageous to some, typical to others. The continued bashing of our men and women in uniform is something I will not stand for.

While the liberal media refuses to share the circumstances of bloody incidents in Iraq, the liberal movement here at home continue to destroy any hope of a positive outcome as seen in this topic. Why do some refuse to see the facts that things are looking up? Why do some refuse to appreciate the existing government as it is? Why do some continue to paint the picture of our troops as ruthless savages? What prompted their contempt? It sure as hell isn’t the death toll, since they care very little about it, proven by their giddy nature when we reach a fatality “landmark.”

The left’s contempt for our service men and women is growing from the dead carcass of the old Democratic Party. The radical leftist, moveon.org, and environmentalist activists have become the mainstream of the new Democratic Party, and it is a sad entity to watch. Not only is it sad, it is hurtful to those who truly love their country, and to those who put their lives on the line to save it. If the party wants any hope of winning back the hearts and minds of the American people, they need to take a moment, sit down in front of the mirror, and realize who they have become. Till then, they will have a large obstacle to overcome, and that is the warm patriotic wills of the American people.

Pavlovian Politics

2005-06-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

By Jeff Swanson

Like meat powder for the masses, political rhetoric is the conditioned response to disagreeable discourse. When the subject turns away from that which we agree, the default is to turn to what is easy; to say very hateful, extreme or harsh things. It is no longer acceptable to discuss the validity of an idea without some degenerative element introduced into the discussion. Name calling mostly. It’s usually preceded by a really good point. The goal is no longer to seek what is true but, truth be damned, just be right. Assume now and ask questions later.

An early morning in 1804, imagine a mist lifting from the still waters of the Weehawken, two boats row across to a little isle. They call it an interview. It’s a duel. The interviewees are Aaron Burr, sitting Vice President under Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, the great Federalist. Two shots ring out. One goes intentionally skyward and the other goes straight into Alexander Hamilton. There by killing him within a day.

It sounds pretty dramatic. Overly so, I’m sure that a running river probably didn’t having still morning mist lifting from it but it sounds nice.

A duel? What for? Pride mostly. Boastful pride and injured ego. These two men never agreed on much it would seem. Imagine if what you said ended with “Get the guns!” They had a nice long history of rhetoric…and you thought these cold hard words emblazoned on your cornea via a backlit display were the genesis of bad political discourse.

Nay. It is the American way.

I don’t suggest that we take pride in this. I don’t think that simply because the brilliance of some founders culminated in this so-called interview that we take solace in this fact. That we don’t want our detractors actually dead! During the infant years of our country’s founding, the fathers not only did partake in extensive rhetorical dalliance but it appeared that many reveled in it. Some just lied. Just get the press in your pocket and some wholly untrue story about your enemy just might appear in the local paper. Sound familiar?

The press is our feed bar the serves us this rhetorical meat powder. This was a mechanism that worked then and it works just as well now. We can have Ted Kennedy call Iraq Bush’s Viet Nam. It stirs this strange mix of remorseful remembrance with the warm and fuzzy idealism of those who thought they changed the world with sit ins. It is still rhetoric and it is calculated for a reaction. It’s also how we debate personally. It is no longer meant to be the cultivation of ideas or the elastic multi-directional pull of a disagreement.

We go for homers now. We want our rhetoric to hit one out of the park. If a president double parks his motorcade, we scream for impeachment. Both sides are guilty of this. I am sorry for mixing my metaphors but it’s much easier to say it by painting the picture. If I may introduce another metaphor, it is now about the kill and no one cares about the thrill of the chase anymore.

This is what Burr thought in 1804. Hamilton in his pseudo-elitism only wanted to push the ideas but his mouth got him in trouble. Burr was just angry. Instead of navigating the rather difficult discourse of ideas, just kill him and get on with it. So Burr must have thought. It solved nothing. Neither does extreme rhetoric.

If you’ve compared Bush to Hitler or think that Clinton was a sexual deviant, you’re guilty too. You have shrugged the cumbersome weight of logic and reason for a quick fix of political pugilism.

So, we sit in front of TV’s and computer screens looking for something that makes us feel like we are right. We are looking for more of that meat powder. Seeking more rhetoric that agrees with us so that we can use it as ammunition. We will push that Pavlovian bar until we are fat with half baked political conspiracies and some even called, you know, vast. We can no longer be satisfied with a small cabal of political operatives but that it must be vast and far reaching. Believing that things that aren’t agreeable with you must be wrong and how can the public not know it! Since the public at large ain’t buyin’ it, it must be the great conspiracy. At least that’s the rhetoric you’ll be using.

Or it could be that someone whom disagrees with you who is not some hack pundit may well have a point.

Alas, it might change but we’ve been this way for over two hundred years. It is a strange polemical panacea to spew this type of vitriol, some how getting personal solace from the disparagement of others ideas. Strange indeed.

And now back to our Bush hating and Liberal bashing.

Paper Tiger, Frightened Dragon

2005-06-03T18:15:00.000-07:00

By battleax86

The Connection between Terrorism, Genocide, and American Foreign Policy in the 1990s

It is not often that a movie encourages deep thought on issues of foreign policy, but any reasonably informed person who watches the 2004 motion picture Hotel Rwanda cannot help but allow some thoughts on foreign policy matters to creep into his or her head, particularly the role of the United States and other Western powers in global affairs. Hotel Rwanda is the story of Paul Rusesabagina, the Hutu manager of a Belgian-owned four-star hotel in Rwandan capital city of Kigali, who hid over 1,200 Tutsi refugees in his hotel during the 1994 Hutu genocide against the Tutsis in that country. As the movie unfolds, as raucous protests and sporadic racial violence turn into wholesale massacres and targeted genocide, Rusesabagina goes from a reluctant bystander who is simply trying to run a hotel and please his rich (mostly Western) guests to the manager of what has essentially become a fancy refugee camp who is bribing military officers and calling on old favors from anyone that he can in order to save the lives of the 1,268 Tutsi refugees who were basically thrust upon him by fleeing Western aid workers, Catholic orphanage staffers, and Tutsi locals who are looking for some place to escape from the madness engulfing the city.

Although Rusesabagina was ultimately successful in saving the refugees who fled to his hotel, thanks in large part to his bribing (and later, extortion) of a high-ranking army general and the assistance of a guilt-driven Canadian colonel in command of UN peacekeepers, one of the most dramatic scenes in the movie occurs when a group of British and Belgian soldiers, who the people holed up in the hotel believe to be intervention forces, arrive at the hotel. Their glee over the arrival of the European troops quickly turns to dismay when Colonel Oliver (the Canadian commander of UN forces), overcome with guilt, reluctantly informs Paul that the troops are not there to intervene and stop the bloodshed, but to evacuate the mostly white Westerners who essentially serve as the hotel’s only protection against the machete-wielding Interahamwe mobs. The next few scenes show the sense of abandonment that the Rwandans inside the hotel feel as the Western nations, the global powers that they had depended on and been assured would stop the genocide against the Tutsi people, packed their bags and ran away.

Despite the fortunate fact that Paul Rusesabagina was successful in saving the refugees, in spite of the West’s defection, the scene of the powerful Western nations abandoning the very people that they had assured of help, combined with the blind eye that America and Europe turned towards Rwanda during the genocide and their absolute refusal to do anything about it, shows a dangerous aspect of American foreign policy in the 1990s that has inspired anti-American terrorists and other war criminals to believe that they can get away with their atrocities against their own people and even have success attacking Americans themselves: fear.

This aspect of American foreign policy first asserted itself in October 1993, when President Clinton ordered the evacuation all American troops from Somalia, a relatively large country in East Africa, after a U.S. operation intended to capture a Somali warlord left eighteen U.S. soldiers dead and led to a scene (which found its way into American news broadcasts) where a dead, half-naked American helicopter pilot was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, by a truck. The troops had been sent there originally by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 as part of a U.N.-backed peacekeeping operation intended to relieve the suffering from a severe famine caused by a nationwide tribal conflict, similar to the Rwandan conflict, albeit on a much smaller and less genocidal scale. However, despite the U.N. and U.S. efforts to help the people of Somalia during the conflict, Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaeda terrorist group had declared war on the United States three years earlier over the issue of American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa (a Muslim religious edict) labeling the humanitarian mission there as an act of American aggression and calling on all Muslims to attack U.S. troops in the country. After a series of minor attacks against U.S. troops that killed four U.S. Army military policemen, President Clinton ordered an elite Army commando unit to capture General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, an Islamist warlord who was believed to be planning the attacks. Although several military planners, including Gen. Colin Powell, expressed misgivings about an operation in a crowded area of Mogadishu that contained many hiding spots, places that Aidid, as the former chief of the Mogadishu police, knew well, Clinton ordered the attack to proceed. It was doomed from the beginning, as U.S. Army Delta Force commandos entered the wrong building and landed right into an ambush pitting three hundred American soldiers against upwards of one thousand Somalis armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Although U.S. troops inflicted far greater casualties on their attackers than they received (about three hundred Somalis died as opposed to eighteen Americans), the entire incident was a huge political victory for Aidid, who had stood up to the military might of the world’s only remaining superpower, and a huge political disaster for the United States. With one eye glancing towards his 1996 re-election bid and with a background of Democratic congressmen loudly demanding that the United States withdraw troops from what they perceived to be another Vietnam, Clinton announced that all American soldiers would leave Somalia by March 31, 1994. In the eyes of Osama bin Laden, his call to arms against the Americans had not only shown the strength of his influence over Muslim warriors, but an inherent American cowardice that could cause the world’s strongest military (on paper) to run away after taking relatively minor casualties.

It was undoubtedly this calculation of the American government’s lack of any desire to involve itself in another potentially explosive African conflict that led the Hutu leaders who were responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to correctly assume that the United States and the European nations would not interfere with their attempt to eradicate their Tutsi neighbors from the country. However, even though there was no direct military intervention from either the Americans or the Europeans, who turned tail and ran from Somalia right beside the United States, a 2,500-man United Nations peacekeeping force consisting primarily of European soldiers arrived in Rwanda led by Canadian General Romeo Dallaire. After members of the Interahamwe, the Hutu militia responsible for a significant portion of the genocide, murdered ten Belgian peacekeepers, over half of the UN forces in Rwanda, including the Belgians, were recalled by their respective countries, reducing the UN presence in Rwanda to an insignificant 270 troops. The world, including the anti-Western terrorists and oppressive dictators such as Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, once again saw the West promise aid to suffering Africans, then run away after taking minimal casualties at the hands of third-world militias.

As the decade progressed, bin Laden and other terrorist organizations, as well as a few hostile third-world nations, tested this newfound American timidity with success. In 1996, the American military barracks at Khobar Towers in Dharan, Saudi Arabia was destroyed, killing nineteen U.S. servicemen and wounding 372 others. An FBI investigation found that the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, backed by Iran, was responsible for the attack. The Clinton administration responded by forcing the Air Force general who had been in charge of the barracks’ security into early retirement. Also in 1996, Iraqi ground forces under Saddam Hussein attacked the Kurdish city of Irbil, which was in the UN-designated No-Fly Zone designed to protect the Kurds from Saddam’s attempt to eradicate them from Iraq, as Rwanda’s Hutus had tried to do to the Tutsis. Within hours of the attack, hundreds of Kurdish men, women, and children were rounded up and executed by the Iraqi secret police. However, far from helping the Kurds withstand the Iraqi regime’s latest attempt at genocide, as they had promised, the United States and the other Western powers did nothing. American pilots, under strict orders from Washington to hold their fire, watched from above as Iraqi helicopters gunned down fleeing Kurdish families on the roads of northern Iraq. It was not until Saddam’s forces were driven from the area by the Kurdish peshmerga militia that the killing stopped. In 1998, al-Qaeda, bin Laden’s own terrorist group, attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 246 East Africans and 12 Americans, as well as wounding around five thousand others. The Clinton administration weakly responded by using cruise missiles to destroy one section of one of bin Laden’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan (while ignoring the dozens of other camps in that country) and a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, that the State Department erroneously believed was producing nerve agents. Strengthened by yet another weak American response to his terrorist attacks against the United States, bin Laden’s terrorist network attacked an American warship, the USS Cole, in Yemen’s Aden port in October 2000, killing seventeen U.S. sailors and wounding thirty-nine others. The United States, still under the Clinton administration’s timid foreign policy, responded with federal indictments against the bin Laden lieutenants that were directly involved in the attack. Of course, with bin Laden and his lieutenants under the protection of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia, which the administration had no desire to take military action against, the indictments were not worth the paper that were written on. It was these series of events, each one accompanied by a weak American response, that led Osama bin Laden to believe that he could defeat the United States through terrorism, not because the United States was weak, but that the United States, as evidenced by their foreign policy in the 1990s, was too cowardly to win a war against him.

There is little doubt that Osama bin Laden was using this line of thinking when he attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. The timid American foreign policy of the 1990s made him think that he could cause another spectacular loss of American lives without any serious repercussions against him or his terrorist network. Obviously, he was wrong. The United States, under a different administration, destroyed his terrorist camps in Afghanistan and now occupies that country, as well as the country of another dictator who depended on a weak American foreign policy: Iraq. However, when one looks at the way that the American foreign policy of the 1990s shaped the views of the rest of the world towards the United States, it is clear that it is indirectly responsible for the high death toll of the genocide in Rwanda, the hundreds of deaths in northern Iraq during Saddam’s attempted genocide in 1996, the dozens of American deaths from the terrorist attacks following the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia, and the miscalculation that caused Osama bin Laden to launch the current War on Terror that America is now fighting. America and her allies are now paying the price for spending eight years with a foreign policy that allowed some of the worst atrocities in the history of the world to proceed unchallenged and some of the worst despots in recent memory to flourish. For America to return to this sort of foreign policy would invent more genocides and terrorism. It would be a disaster for America and hundreds of millions of others worldwide.

Works Cited
Johnson, David and Ben Snowdon. “Primer on the U.S. Embassy Bombings and the U.S. Strikes
on Sudan and Afghanistan.” infoplease. (2005) 1 May 2005

“Khobar Towers Release.” FBI Press Room. Washington: Department of Justice, 2001
Parloto, Dolores L. “U.S. Navy – Images from USS Cole (DDG 67).” United States Navy. (3
Nov. 2000) 1 May 2005

“Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” U.S. Department of State. (23 Feb. 2000) 1 May 2005

Sloyan, Patrick J. “Series: Mission to Somalia.” Newsday. (5 December 1993) 29 April 2005

“Terrorism: Questions and Answers.” Council on Foreign Relations. (2004) 29 April 2005

“UNAMIR.” United Nations. (1999) 1 May 2005

Windsor, Lee A. “Getting the Facts Straight: Rwanda 1994.” CDA Institute Defence Forum Current CF Operations. (1997) 29 April 2005

Memorial Day 2005

2005-05-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Posted by Hobbie

Every year, at the end of May, Americans gather together for the Memorial Day holiday. Barbecues, cookouts, and travel is common, as families gather for the official start of the summer season. Unfortunately, many seem to forget the importance and meaning of this often overlooked and all-too-vital holiday; honoring our fallen soldiers.

As US and Coalition forces brave the fierce terrorist and Baathist 'insurgency' in Iraq and continue taking the fight to those who would do us harm, it is vital that we remember their service and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.

Some of you, like myself, may know members of our Armed Forces, whether through business relationships, friendships, or family ties. Regardless, every American, black or white, rich or poor, young or old, owes so much to our men and women in uniform. They fight for their country. They fight for their families. They fight for the mission. They fight for their comrades-in-arms. And ultimately, they fight to preserve that which we often take for granted; our way of life and the freedoms and liberties we have so mercifully been blessed with.

So, as you sit down at the dinner table, or as you tell an old joke to your friends by the grill, or as you watch an old war flick with your grandparents, remember those whose final resting places lay within the vast plains of Arlington Cemetery, the gray beaches of Normandy, the harsh mountains of Afghanistan, and the arid deserts and merciless cities of Iraq.

The gift of freedom does not come without a heavy cost.

Senate Compromise

2005-05-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

This about sums it up doesnt it? The RINO's strike again. And now just a few days later it appear the Senate has been shut down again with the John Bolton nomination. It seems you really scared the Democrats guys!

Puff, Puff......I think I'll Pass

2005-05-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

By soldierofchrist

There are many liberal-tarians, and liberals alike that are advocating the insane idea of drug legalization. We can't afford for this to happen though. For one, it'll send a very wrong, very dangerous ideas. Drugs have been illegal for many decades now, and people have been pushing the limits of this law, calling it an "infringement" of our rights. Liberal-tarians love the word infringement, makes them feel important. And if we cave in now, and give these evil criminals there drugs, it will give people the idea, that no matter how old the law, if they push the limit of the law long and hard enough, liberal-tarians will push for it's legalization. And that eventually the government will cave in and give it to them. We've drawn the line already people. If we start to bump the line back a little bit...then a little bit more, then more, people will push the line into practical oblivion. We can't allow for these criminals to win the day. People whine, " but the 'war on drugs' is an ineffective deterrent." Well jail is hardly a deterrent for any criminal. Should we make everything legal, because after all, fighting crime is expensive, ineffective, and "an infringement on our rights." Sure, the war on drugs is tough. Sure it's expensive. But, so what? Expensive compared to what? And it's an investment in keeping our streets safe and clean. Millions of new pot smokers will go to the job high, and injure someone. High drivers will get into a car accident. The war on terrorism is expensive, and possibly ineffective, should we just up and quit that? Oh, wait millions of liberal-tarians don't want us to have valuable legislation such as the Patriot Act.

And before you say that I'm inconsistent for not wanting alcohol illegal, just know that I do want it illegal, but at this moment we don't have the money or resources to pull that off. Alcohol and drugs are dangerous, they put are youth and everyone else at risk. Having them legal infringes on my right to keep me and my family away from such behavior. They are a menace to society; we must rid ourselves of these behaviors.

The Left and Their Blind Spot

2005-05-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

By Tetracide

The Left, and their inability to comprehend the complexity of the war in Iraq, and the war on terrorism abroad, has left them with very little to work with when it comes to debating the issues and reasons why we engage such threats. Through my interest in politics, I have found myself in situations where I come face-to-face with voters, adults, and scholars that have very opposing views. At times, I’ve completely surrounded myself in their views, and I watched in awe. At first, appalled, and just disregarded their opinions as uneducated and full of anger. And then, I realized that I needed to get to know my opponents. Reading very biased articles, opinionated commentary, and slanted news coverage were some of the things that I indulged in. I came out of that experience feeling the same way I did when I walked in, only more informed.

As much as we try and understand the Left’s arguments, there is always that undefined gap that keeps some away from drawing a final conclusion from the very important question, “Why?” Why do some from the left question every single move the U.S. makes against a common world enemy; terrorism? From the beginning, the Left has criticized anything and everything the President or his Administration have said to further promote our cause, and it has gone beyond politics, and I don’t even think they know it.

Terrorism is an intricate web of hate, stealth, and deceit which covers this world in no particular pattern, but for sure, one concentrated area would be the Middle East. To the Left, Terrorism is a crime, and that the actions they make (Mogadishu, Khobar Tower, US Embassy bombings, WTC 93’), deserve to be approached like any police response. This is a dangerous, short-sighted point of view, one that cannot be implemented in this government any longer. We decided to give the Terrorists hell where they lived, planned, and trained. While combating Saddam’s Iraq, we heard the never ending rhetoric of how we are bound to fail, that our cause was unjust, and indirectly demonstrating that the freedom of 25,374,691 Iraqi civilians wasn’t worth one soldier’s life in a “sovereign country”.

During the Iraq war, we saw the outrage of the Left in complete awe. “Shock and Awe” was indeed a jaw dropping display of American air superiority, and precision, yet when civilian casualties became apparent, the Left decided that this war was not worth it, too bloody, too costly, and we should pull out right away because we were never going to win. By the time President Bush announced “mission accomplished”, Iraqi hospitals were being repaired, rebuilt and rehabilitated. Same with clinics, schools, etc. Yet, the liberal news media never showed you that bit of news. It was more important to have Democratic Analysts scorning Bush for giving troops false hope by saying “mission accomplished”.

During the operation, the Left continued to mock the justifications for going to war, and still held out hope that Saddam would prove the ignorant U.S. wrong. As the months passed, the Left screamed that there were no weapons of mass destruction, never was, and never could be. Unfortunately they were wrong again. Detailed documents found in Iraq pointed to a very potent operation regarding the Syrian border, Iraqi agents, and mysterious cargo. Other documents pointed to nuclear planning. How will the left react to this? They will call it bogus, proved wrong, and not enough evidence, when in fact the evidence in right in front of them.

This hatred, this utter refusal to accept the Iraq war seemed to peek at its end. The Left screamed that no exit plan was constructed, and that Bush did not have a plan to win the peace. It seems they look at only information that helps their view, because the U.S. Government had a detailed plan for post-war success. While the Left continued to attempt to prove Iraq was wrong, using theories or just plain false information, massive weapons caches were being found, chemical weapons and labs were uncovered. It was an amazing shock, for such information to not be more attractive to the news media, but Abu Graib, or missing weapons in Iraq was more significant. Working with the media, the Left engaged in a massive campaign to prove that Iraq was not worth it. To prove that, every singe time American blood was split, they used it as another example, exactly like Michael Moore did with the mother that hated the President because a terrorist killed her son. These kinds of tactics prove that the Left love to have more blood to debate with. The more blood split, the stronger their case. The stronger their case, the more they can bash Bush. The more they bash Bush, the closer they think they get to the Presidency.

On September 11th, we had a national tragedy. Three-thousand innocent Americans were killed by radical Islamists. At that moment in time, the world stood still and watched as New York fire fighters and volunteers attempted to save lives. News anchors like Dan Rather broke down in tears on air, as did Brit Hume and many, many Americans on that day. In the following weeks, we saw America at its best. We saw random individuals waving flags on top of overpasses. American stickers on every car, and flags posted and raised on every house. It was truly spectacular to see such patriotism. As the weeks went by, and the tough decisions were being made, we saw a gradual, yet very apparent shift in attitude. Bits and pieces of the left, some more radical than the others, opposed our actions to defend ourselves.

How can noble countries such as the United States, Great Britain, and Australia lead the fight against a threat that is so apparent, when the ignorance residing in their own country, and even their own governments, continue to slow, demonize, and debase the process. In the time of war, in the time of peace, in the time we sit down to eat dinner, my country, and all those who fight along side her have continuously been under attack for years.

I hope that the Left in America will get a reality check, because obviously millions of votes and hundreds of polls aren’t enough. Good luck guys.