Staying Faithful to America

This morning, I opened my email to find a message from a right wing correspondent. The message simply contained a link to an article entitled: Guantánamo detainee resurfaces in terrorist group.

I guess the implication is supposed to be: "See? Barack HUSSEIN Obama has only been in office for a few days and LOOK! He's turning all of his brother terrorists loose..." or something like that.

I have to say, however, that the article prompted me to think a little bit about what it means to be an American. Here's part of my email back:

I don't deny that most of these folks are VERY BAD MEN...

What bothers me about Gitmo is that a Free Country, like the United States, can lock up people who are NEITHER Prisoners of War- and thus protected by the Geneva Conventions, or CRIMINALS- thus protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Why is "protection" important? Do I really care about a bunch of grease-ball desert dwelling killers?

The answer is no, I don't give a damn.....If I just left it up to my personal feelings I would love to see them all fry in hell.

I could allow myself to say all the foulest things I sometimes feel about them...

But there are two good reasons why I try NOT to give into the hatred I often feel.

THE SELFISH REASON:

The first is, I admit, selfish: I know that if certain people on the far left came to power, they'd toss the likes of you, my conservative friend, in jail so fast it would make your head spin...

...I also know that that, if certain people on the FAR RIGHT came to power, I would wind up in an internment camp before I could say "My Country 'tis Of Thee".

The Men who wrote the Constitution knew this, as well; on almost every page of the Federalist Papers, they warn that human nature can be a wicked thing- and that our only hope of escaping the evil side of human nature is to bind it up in rules and regulations- to keep us from acting like the animals we are.

Because I would not want to be subject to the whims of others, with a right to due process of law, so too, I would extend that right to others...

Notice, I didn't say I would let them off the hook- what I said was I would FOLLOW THE RULES - before throwing them into prison...because I know that, in the long run, those RULES are there to protect ME not THEM.


THE OTHER REASON:

As I said before, if it were just up to me and my emotions, I'd love to see these people fry in hell. I am not a nice, or civilized guy at heart...If I didn't TRY really hard, I personally could find hatred in my heart for these people. If I gave into the emotions I felt on 9-11, I could easily vote to "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."

But while that is sometimes who I am, it's really not who I WANT to be.

And that is also my wish for my country... OTHER Nations can lock prisoners up without trial, because it's the easiest, and often the SAFEST way to do business....

but America needs to stand for something MORE than just safety and simplicity- don't you agree?

Ever since the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, we have aspired to be the "Shining City on the Hill"- first articulated by John Winthrop and alluded to by Americans as different as John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

If we wish to stay faithful to that dream, then we must hold ourselves to a HIGHER standard than the rest of the world. For other countries, their thinking can be limited to "self-interest"...but for the United States...we can only START at self interest....if we are to fulfill the dream to become a shining city on a hill, a place where Justice always Triumphs, where Hard Work is always rewarded, and where we are free to worship as we wish, study as we wish, think as we wish...then we must be better than average....

We've got to Catch the Bad Guys...AND we have to catch 'em fair and square.

I'm not sure that Gitmo has lived up to that standard. In some ways, I think this was one of George W. Bush's big mistakes...to treat these people, not as criminals, but as something like prisoners of war.

Because they are prisoners of war, and because the world EXPECTS more of us...because we ARE America...we have to live up to the Geneva Convention, etc.

IF we had treated these guys as common criminals, I think we could have brought them into our justice system, given them a fair trial and then, when the crime warranted, sent them to the gas chamber.

To me, that's part of the tragedy of Dick Cheney and co. The man got so frightened after 9/11 that he forgot that our country, and our freedom are greater and stronger than any scraggly band of thugs from the desert....

...in his panic, he chose to throw away the rules...which he should have HELD all the more tightly- for that is our best protection as Americans.

I know it's a case of "coulda, shoulda, woulda" but I have to wonder if, had we followed our own rules, and sent this creep to trail, would we be reading about his death by lethal injection today, rather than the fact that he is free to kill again.

Looking forward to your response....

Climate Change and National Security

The debate about Global Warming has often been presented as a fight between hard-headed, profit seeking business types and fuzzy minded bunny hugging hippies.

It is time however, that America woke up and started confronting some of the REAL issues which may arise from a massive change in our climate. These go far beyond the loss of habit for small furry creatures...and may include famine, flooding, terrorism and war.

The US intelligence community has released a secret report to Congress, The National Security Implications of Global Climate Changes to 2030, which outlines to the nation's law makers the potential for global instability arising from massive migrations, failure in food supply, and opportunities for extremists to exploit political failures and up the tension levels.

As NPR's Tom Gelton puts the case: "With this report, the National Intelligence Council, coordinating the analysis of all US intelligence agencies, puts climate change in the same category as nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and radical Islam: it's officially a security threat."

Listen to the story at National Public Radio. (Where you are there, check out their story about off-shore drilling as well, another story Rip and Read has been squawking about.)

McCain Confused or Worse

If you are on Howard Dean's mass mailing list for the Democratic Party, then you got this message too. Still, I think it is worth repeating and thinking about. John McCain has repeated the same gaffe several times.

The Democrats wrote:

Today, as he was questioning Gen. David Petraeus, he again confused the difference between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

At least five times as a candidate John McCain has stated that Iran (a Shiite nation) is supporting Al-Qaeda (a Sunni group) in Iraq. This is not some minor mistake, but a significant gaffe. He clearly does not understand the sensitive political dynamics in that region of the world.

The website Media Matters has been tracking McCain's habit of misstatement, going back to the Middle Eastern Trip he took with Joe Lieberman in March.

Much of the mainstream media has been ignoring McCain's linking of Shiite Iran with Sunni Al Qaeda, treating it as a simple gaffe- but the fact is that McCain has made this mistake more than once.

In the face of McCain's repetitions, it is impossible for us not to remember the post 9/11 rhetoric of the Bush Administration, in which they cited Bin Ladin and Saddam in the same breath so many times that, for the American public, the two became linked, despite the overwhelming lack of evidence to support any conjecture that they acted together.

Is McCain displaying a severe case of absent mindedness? If so, we should think twice about his ability to act as commander in chief.

But if McCain is resorting to the same kind of rhetorical duplicity that got us into 9/11 in the first place, and set us back so far in the fight against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, then there is no need to think twice...he is unfit and unworthy to serve.

And if McCain is truly unable to see a difference, then he is guilty of the same tendency that Americans have often displayed in their world view: to see only a monolithic conspiracy, where there are, in fact, cracks and divisions to be exploited.

It was this tendency to treat the Communist Block as a monolith that brought America to grief in Vietnam, and it was the genius of Nixon and Kissinger to recognize that the seeming monolith of Communism actually masked a network of fissures and fault-lines which could be used against the enemy.

It has been America's tragedy (and Iraq's as well, perhaps) that the Bush Administration has fallen into the trap (out of mendacity or stupidity or a nefarious combination of both) of the Monolithic Block.

America will need, as her next President, a person who knows EXACTLY what the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni is....and how to exploit it to bring stability back to the world.

John McCain doesn't seem up to the job.

IT WILL MAKE YOU CRY: The American Embassy In London

There are many reminders in London that our two nations share a rich heritage, and enjoy an abiding friendship (however strained it may be from time to time). In front of the National Gallery is a small, but tasteful statue of George Washington, in Saint Paul's Cathedral, in the place of high honor behind the alter is the American Memorial Chapel, built by the people of the British nation as a gesture of thanks to those American service men who joined Britain in her fight against Nazi Germany, just off Parliament Square, a statue of Abraham Lincoln, erected at the behest of Queen Victoria, gazes across at the Mother of Parliaments. And, above the door at Westminster Abbey, you can see a statue of the Reverend Martin Luther King.

So given this deep nature of the friendship between the nations I was anxious to see the official expression of that good will, our American Embassy.

The American diplomatic mission to London has a long history. Benjamin Franklin served as a agent for the colonies, searching for a way to reconcile our differences with the Mother Country...our first Ambassador to the Court of Saint James (following the establishment of our Republic) was John Adams- named by some the "Atlas of Independence", and our second President.


The embassy is located in Grosvener Square, one of London's most fashionable addresses. I've been waiting to get a chance to go see it, expecting, perhaps a burst of pride when I came upon this little piece of home so far from home.

I expected a building worthy of the deep friendship between the Untied States and the United Kingdom. I expected a building worthy of the memory of Franklin and Adams. I expected to see a building that somehow called to mind the promise inscribed on Liberty's Tablet- give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free....I expected something elegant, because it's Grosvener Square after all, but something too that proclaimed a certain respectable pride in what it means to be an AMERICAN.

But as I approached the square, I felt the bottom fall from my heart. "Surely," I thought, "that cannot be it....please, tell me...that this is not the...." and then I rounded the corner and saw my little home state flag of Vermont; open, friendly, freedom loving Vermont, TRAPPED with all the other State flags behind a barricade.



The barricades are rather new... and of course we can blame that on 9/11...

But the building itself is...it is....well, in short, it is the ugliest building I have ever seen. It is a blight. A smear upon the landscape...if an architect had set out to confirm the worst stereotypes about America, he could not have done a better job. As a piece of propaganda, this building is an eloquent argument for the "other side" (whoever they may be at the moment.)


In short, it is a giant monolith- a huge concrete bunker (one could easily envision Hitler and Eva Braun huddled in the middle of it, waiting for the end). It has no face, but looks out upon the world with cold contempt (and, I think, a little fear- now reinforced by the barricades.) It is flat and without soul. Mechanical and Corporate. The windows recessed behind deep ribs of concrete... The perimeters are patrolled by men with automatic weapons.

I've never had a building make me want to cry before, and I've never in my life felt ashamed of my country. But the day I saw our Embassy in London was a very sad day....

After all, what does it say when Dwight Eisenhower- the liberator of Europe- is imprisoned behind a fence?

Reviewing Recent History: Getting The Basic Premise Wrong

A few days ago, I started watching webcasts of the PBS documentary show: Frontline. As we enter the fifth year of war in Iraq, it has been both fascinating and frustrating to review this recent history and perhaps to better understand how we have arrived here.


In addition to the opportunity to watch, or re-watch, these episodes, Frontline provides extended transcripts of the interviews conducted for the program. Consisting of material that often wound up on the cutting room floor, these interviews can provide flashes of insight to those willing to peruse them.

In the Frontline film, "The Dark Side", Collin Powell's former chief of Staff, Lawerence Wilkerson was interviewed. While he spoke on camera about the tense relationship between the "moderates" (like Powell) and the "hawks" (Chaney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz)- but one of the most prescient things Wilkenson said is found in his extended interview transcript:

Carl von Clausewitz [says]... that you must make sure you identify the nature of the conflict you're in. You must. That's absolutely essential. If you misidentify that nature, you're not ever going to get back on the right sheet of music.

But from the beginning, Wilkerson implies, mistake the nature of the conflict we were involved in against Al Qaeda. Their impulse was to see it as a new version of the Cold War against the Soviet Union- a struggle which had shaped their careers molded their personalities.

[Cheney, Rumsfeld and others bought the notion] that Al Qaeda has the capability to destroy the United States of America, its institutions, its very being, much as a 20,000-plus nuclear-tipped missile [arsenal] had the capability to had we gone to war with the Soviet Union and everyone unleashed his full panoply of weapons. This is ridiculous. This is utterly ridiculous. It begins marching you down in your decisions this road that is full of dangerous and even inept decisions, because we're not in an existential conflict with Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda doesn't even remotely have the capability to bring the United States down...[T]his is a conflict of ideas; it is not a conflict of bombs, bullets and bayonets. ...

Wilkerson describes a briefing he received from a CIA agent. If Al Qaeda was the top of a pyramid, then, at the base, are ordinary people throughout the Islamic world, who, while they do not personally advocate killing (and especially not the killing of fellow Muslims) nevertheless "went into mosques all around the world and put shekels, dinars, dollars in the second box, knowing full well that the second box was not for charity; it was not for the mosque; it was for Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-like organizations."


How many people are dropping money in the box, wondered Wilkerson. The answer came back: Between 40 and 100 million people around the world. Those people, Wilkerson says, are:

the center of gravity of this war, and you don't get at the center of gravity by killing it or by killing others. You get at that center of gravity by proving to them your ideas: that democracy is the best form of government; freedom is the best human condition; and market economies, open, free trade is the best way to prosper in those systems of governance; and violence and killing people is antithetical to that. That's how you win that conflict. It's a conflict of ideas. You have to capture the hearts and minds of those people who are putting the shekels, dollars, dinars in that second box in mosques all over the world. You don't do that with bombs, bullets and bayonets.

This is not new, of course, this has been part of the debate (such as it has been) in the United States for a few years...but it is chilling to think back on five years of violence and death- resulting, perhaps in a weakened America, all arising from the acceptance of a false premise about the nature of the conflict in Iraq.

Family Security

As an American living in the United Kingdom, I can't help but be fascinated by this country's relationship with Islam. While we have a fairly large Islamic population in the United States, our nation is so vast that most of us do not often encounter our Islamic fellow citizens unless we live in certain cultural enclaves.

In Britain, however, the situation is much different. Here in these Islands, people live cheek by jowl, and contact is constant. There is another difference, as well. While the United States was attacked on September 11th by outsiders, the United Kingdom has suffered from attacks by Muslims who were born here, who were raised here and who chose to kill here.

Therefore, in the United States, we are still somewhat free to view Islamic Terror is an external threat. While here in the United Kingdom, this is a threat that came from within.

I've been thinking about these matters lately because the head of MI5 recently warned of the dangers posed by a growing number of radicalized youth, and a study reveled that Jihadist literature was being sold in some of the nation's leading Mosques.

Today, the story again intruded on my thoughts. This time because I received an email from a right-wing correspondent back home in the States.

The email piece was entitled: "Salute the Danish Flag - it's a Symbol of Western Freedom." Originally run on a website called, Family Security Matters, purports to tell the story of how liberal Denmark fell from grace by allowing Muslims to enter their country, and then hold it hostage.

Here is the opening:

[I]n 1978 ...[t]he Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic, went out of its way to protect each of its citizens. It was proud of its new brand of socialist liberalism - one in development since the conservatives had lost power in 1929 - a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time.

The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boasted low crime rates, devotion to the environment, a superior educational system and a history of humanitarianism.

However, because this brave and advanced little nation allowed radical Muslims into the fold, all of this began to change. (By the way, did you notice that paean to the welfare state? How often do you hear that in the Right Wing Cannon!? "a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time"-- bet the ditoheads didn't read that very carefully the first time!)

In fact, according to the article, Danish "commitment to multiculturalism would come back to bite".

By the 1990's the growing urban Muslim population was obvious - and its unwillingness to integrate into Danish society was obvious. Years of immigrants had settled into Muslim-exclusive enclaves. As the Muslim leadership became more vocal about what they considered the decadence of Denmark’s liberal way of life, the Danes - once so welcoming - began to feel slighted. Many Danes had begun to see Islam as incompatible with their long-standing values: belief in personal liberty and free speech, in equality for women, in tolerance for other ethnic groups, and a deep pride in Danish heritage and history.



The New York Post in 2002 ran an article by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard, in which they forecasted accurately that the growing immigrant problem in Denmark would explode. In the article they reported:

· "Muslim immigrants…constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending."

· "Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes."

· "Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane."

· "Forced marriages - promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death - are one problem..."

· "Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark's Muslim population grows large enough - a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim."

Leaving aside the veracity of the Post as a news source for a moment, this article unintentionally exposes the paradox of our Western Delema. On the one hand, the author praises the multiculturalism of the Danes, noting their national heroism as they smuggled most of their Jewish population to safety in the face of Nazi aggression. On the other hand, she all but blames that same openness on the part of the Danes for allowing the Muslim stranger to enter into this citadel.

And she offers the whole thing up as a cautionary tale for us at home:

meanwhile, Americans clamor for stricter immigration policies, and demand an end to state welfare programs that allow many immigrants to live on the public dole. As we in America look at the enclaves of Muslims amongst us, and see those who enter our shores too easily, dare live on our taxes, yet refuse to embrace our culture, respect our traditions, participate in our legal system, obey our laws, speak our language, appreciate our history . . . we would do well to look to Denmark, and say a prayer for her future and for our own.

There IS a thorny problem for us here, because the danger is real, and we in the west, as evidenced by the threat, and the fact, of home grown terrorism MUST deal with the balance between acceptance and assimilation.

This site, however, does the discussion no good service. Instead of seeing this as a n intense problem of justice, this site suggests that we view the problem in simple racial terms. (If you don't understand why I might say this, look again at the picture on the site's banner- a fashion-model mother, white, holds a fair-haired Aryan boy up against the American Flag. If this is NOT a subliminal appeal to racism that, in it's pandering to the subconscious, would make Freud blush, I don't know what is.)

I must admit, however, that I am so baffled by this problem that I couldn't finish this blog entry when I originally wrote it. I fear for us if we can't find that balance- and yet I distrust both a right-wing too prone to fascist tactics (see Newt Gingrich's calls for the restriction of Free Speach) and a left wing too devoted to a fantastical view of a human nature unsoiled by anything other than Americanism.

For more about this fun little white-wing, oops, RIGHT-Wing, front group- go to Source Watch

Terror in the UK: More Alarming News

A few days ago, the story broke in the British Press that radical Islamic tracts were being sold in 25% of the nation's mosques, including some categorized by HM Government as "mainstream". The literature called for the oppression of women, the killing of apostates and jihad against all unbelievers.

When we stop to consider that these are being directed, not toward the inhabitants of some far away land, but to the children of British Citizens right here in the islands, we might be pardoned for being more alarmed than we might have been if these tracts were found in, say, Pakistan.

Today, more bad news. According to the Times, John Evans, director of MI5, announced that:

“Terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country.

“They are radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism.”

In an address to the Society of Editors in Manchester, he said: “This year, we have seen individuals as young as 15 and 16 implicated in terrorist-related activity.”

According to Evans, there is a "steady stream" of young BRITISH recruits to Al Qaida's efforts to bring violence and death to the West.

These reports indicate two important facts:

• 1) That there IS a "war on terror" to be fought. (Those on the fringes of the politically correct left will doubt this, but they do so at their peril.)


• 2) That the war on Terror, as it is currently being fought, is not a success.

If George W. Bush had gone after Bin Ladin and choked him in his lair when he had the chance, these young terrorists would have no rallying point around which to gather, and no force to exploit, and to coordinate their hatred and anger.

But of course, that is what begs the major question. WHAT is BREEDING this hate and anger in the first place. How is it that here, in the heart of the Western World, young people are being being bred who want to use flames and blood to bring us back to the 9th Century?

Make no mistake, there is a war going on...a struggle between the values of the Western Enlightenment and the forces of religious fundamentalism, prejudice, superstition and darkness.

We see these forces at work in the United States as we watch our Democracy fall prey to the machinations of the evangelical right wing.

We see these forces at work abroad in the world most obviously in the rising tide of Islamic Fundamentalism.

How then, is Western Civilization to triumph? By what combination of reason, justice (to ALL of our people- including the fundamentalists amongst us) and, yes, on occasion, shear force, are we to ensure that the world continues to move forward, and not fall back into the dark ages.

Is the Melting Pot Broken?

The cultural melting pot is, of course, an American idea...but it is not without relevance to the British situation. As I've pointed out, one of the most striking things about London, to me, is the the Amazing multi-cultural patchwork that makes up this city- so much so that it seems that the one language not heard very often is English.

That is why the headlines in this morning's Times were so unsettling:

Lessons in hate found at leading mosques

Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain’s leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times...
Extremist literature, including passages supporting the stoning of adulterers and waging violent jihad, was also found on sale at many other mosques regarded as mainstream institutions.

One of the researchers pointed out that while most books didn't make explicit calls for violence, they served to foster "a climate of intolerance and contempt for nonMuslims that could be exploited by violent jihadists".

In a country which has suffered at the hands of British-Born jihadists, most notably in the London Tube Bombings of July 7, 2005 in which 52 innocent people were slaughtered while commuting across the city, this is a serious issue.

The fact that such killers have been bred here in the very heart of Western Civilization, and the evidence that this is not some subterranean phenomenon but rather something much closer to the mainstream of the culture, is something which must be discussed, diagnosed and reversed- this is important, not only to the United Kingdom, but also to us at home.

My worry is that, because of the demands of political correctness on the left and the vested interests of the Oil aristocracy on the right (not to mention a basic level of sheer incompetence on the part of the current American administration) this issue will remain unexamined and undiscussed except by those least qualified to do so.

Signs of Peace on the Market Place

For many years to come, September 12th will be a day dedicated to reviewing what happened the day before. It will be strewn with artifacts from September 11th far into the foreseeable future.

Today, the Church Street Market Place is strewn with leftovers from yesterday's demonstrations marking 9-11.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, given the political climate in Burlington, the most prominent leftovers are peace signs, hurriedly scribbled on the brick street.

While I don't disagree with the underlying symbolism, I was very sad to see that people found it necessary to deface public property in order to make their point about George W. Bush's war.

I was sitting near the top of Church Street this morning, drinking my coffee, and I watched a Marketplace employee pull up his cleaning cart, pour some water over one of the poorly executed peace symbols and scrub hard with a bristle brush for a few moments. It quickly became clear that this piece of graffiti would not wipe away easily.

As he was driving away, presumably to collect a heavier arsenal of cleaning products, I asked him what he was going to have to do to remove the peace sign. "Well, probably, I'm going to have to use acid," he said. "The chalk ain't so bad, but when they use crayons or paints, it just soaks right into these old bricks."

Acid! I thought. And then I imagined the barefoot toddlers who would be running in and out of the fountain and across those acid covered bricks once the sun had climbed higher in the sky.

And how long, I asked, will it take to clean these up? "Oh, let's see, I've been at it since around seven this morning...it's almost 10 now, and I still haven't got too far...so, well, at least longer than three hours."

I suppose someone could look at these peace signs and think: "Cool. No matter how hard THE MAN scrubs, the truth won't rub out."

But I can't see it that way. All I could think of was the money we as a city were paying for this labor...we could have put it toward a band, or housing subsidies, or urban renovation.

But why not let the message stand? Of course the answer to that seems easy to me- but I'll be obvious...if you have the right to scribble peace signs, what would prevent someone else from scribbling swastikas?

"With great power comes great responsibility." Sure, it's a line from a Spiderman movie, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Being right is pretty powerful stuff...but with that, of course, comes responsibility. Attempting to spread a message of truth by putting graffiti on public property doesn't add to that power...it only detracts.

To put it another way...Adults take a stand and do something...very little children write on walls.

Newt Gingrich- A Video Worth Watching

A neo-conservative contact of mine, and a great fan of Newt Gingrich, sent out a link to the following video this morning. I think that it is worth watching.

Gingrich here, and in other places, states the case in a fairly rational way that those of us who are of a secular frame of mind cannot even fathom the depths to which a religious mind will go in the service of it's conviction.

He also makes the point that not many in the Islamic world (and no prominent figures) have spoken out against the kind of terrorist acts we have seen from the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The video is worth watching, because, in my opinion Gingrich is addressing an ugly reality that we on the left refuse to confront: that Islamic Terrorism is insanely real...and was, even before our disastrous detour into Iraq.

Set through the pre-role ad and watch the snippet of the speech here.

Gingrich also warns those of us who care about Civil Liberties. "Those of you who care about Civil Liberties had better be thinking through how we win this war, before the casualties get so great that the American People Voluntarily give up those liberties."

Gingrich makes a very true point- following the loss of an American city, he says, we will chuck our Freedoms aside so fast our heads will spin.

What frightens me about Gingrich, of course, is that this might be his "Mien Kampf" moment- given his remarks in New Hampshire in 2006, which I posted on back in June.

An excerpt from that post:

“This is a serious long term war, and it will inevitably lead us to want to
know what is said in every suspect place in the country, that will lead us to
learn how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to
a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and
advocate the use of nuclear of[sic] biological weapons.”

Newt Gingrich is seriously proposing that we: "adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break
up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill
us"

In effect, Newt is saying, we are going to need to place Freedom of Speech in a sort of Blind Trust, until we win the war on Terror.

That Newt Gingrich faces truths that most of us liberals would like to ignore makes him worth listening to now and again. That Newt Gingrich may well find himself in a position to "protect" us from those truths he addresses makes in imperative that we guard against him.

Links

Video: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/08/gingrich/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Gingrich Post: http://rip-and-read.blogspot.com/search?q=Gingrich

Inept: The Threat From Al-Qaida Grows

I have an email pen-pal who is very conservative. When challenged (on almost anything political), he almost inevitably responds with a jab toward the "Rad-Libs" (Radical Liberals- a group which seems to include everyone from Jane Fonda to the Clintons to Lee Iacocca and perhaps even including Republican Pete Domenici). In general, the refrain from the right reads as follows: "Well, perhaps you Rad-Libs will realize how wrong you are when Al-Qaida has blown up Boston. You just don't seem to get it: everything you say is helping the terrorists."

There is news today that will fuel the fires of the debate. The AP is reporting that: "A new threat assessment from U.S. counter-terrorism analysts says that Al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001."

Conservatives will use this report to say: "See? We told you so."

But the real question is: "George W. Bush has had SIX YEARS to deal with this very real threat. During FIVE of those years HIS PARTY held control of both houses of Congress. What the Hell is he Doing? Why is Al-Qaida STRONGER THAN EVER?"

The answer is, of course, that this President is either Inept, or Corrupt, or, most probably, both.

George W. Bush and his administration had the support of the Congress, the People of the United States and most of the World to send our military into Afghanistan, and demolish Al-Qaida once and for all.

Instead, they chose to use their opportunity to invade Iraq and attempt to secure it's oil supply for the United States. At the time of the United States action against Iraq, there was no Al-Quada presence in Iraq. But now, according to the reports:

The Bush administration has repeatedly cited Al-Qaida as a key justification for continuing the fight in Iraq.

"The No. 1 enemy in Iraq is al-Qaida," White House press secretary Tony Snow said Wednesday. "Al-Qaida continues to be the chief organizer of mayhem within Iraq."

In other words, we sent our troops to Iraq to fight an enemy that was not there when we arrived but who managed to get in AFTER we entered. Meanwhile, Bush has allowed Al-Qaida's forces to dribble across the boarder into Pakistan, where we have no political authority to pursue them.

The Clinton Card

Right-wing friends will, at this point, offer up their old Chestnut: Clinton Had Al-Qaida's Osama Bin Laden in his sights and failed to kill him.

Like a lot of propaganda, this is a distortion of the facts wrapped around a tiny nugget of truth. The Clinton White House did have Osama Bin Laden in their sights and did fail to act. MSNBC had the story here in 2004.


Yes, Clinton DID miss an opportunity, no doubt. It will be yet another imperfect spot on his imperfect record.*

However, just because Bill Clinton screwed up- this is no excuse to let George W. Bush off the hook.

As your mother used to say to you: "If Bill Clinton Jumped off the World Trade Center, would you do it too?"

What Now?

The AP article also includes this speculation:

The findings could bolster the president's hand at a moment when support on Capitol Hill for the war is eroding and the administration is struggling to defend its decision for a military buildup in Iraq.

WHY? Why, every time this President Screws up, are the media and the right-wing noise machine able to drum up the argument that, because he has been so horribly wrong for so horribly long, that we need to give him MORE support?

This.
Makes.
No.
Sense.

But enough about Bush. This is what Democrats must do:

My right-wing friend is right about one thing: THERE IS A GRAVE ISLAMIC TERRORIST THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES.

This threat must be countered.

In the short term, we need to consolidate our military operations, and refocus the fight on AL-QAIDA...

In the long term, we must, WE MUST refocus our energy policy to find a way to cure ourselves of our oil addiction. As long as we are addicted, militant Islam will be our drug dealer.

That is a plain and simple fact.

*Postscript

And, of course, I'm not going to just sit here and let the "Clinton Chestnut" stand unchallenged. As the MSNBC article points out, when Clinton was hunting Osama Bin Laden in 1998, it was a very different ballgame:

A Democratic member of the 9/11 commission says there was a larger issue: The Clinton administration treated bin Laden as a law enforcement problem.

Bob Kerry, a former senator and current 9/11 commission member, said, “The most important thing the Clinton administration could have done would have been for the president, either himself or by going to Congress, asking for a congressional declaration to declare war on al-Qaida, a military-political organization that had declared war on us.”

In reality, getting bin Laden would have been extraordinarily difficult. He was a moving target deep inside Afghanistan. Most military operations would have been high-risk. What’s more, Clinton was weakened by scandal, and there was no political consensus for bold action, especially with an election weeks away.[emphasis added]

The American Public had not yet solidified their support for an all out war on Al-Qaida in 1998...at that point the largest terrorist attack in American History had not been perpetrated by Islamic Terrorists, but by home-grown right-wing nutballs in Oklahoma. Even the USS Cole attack (in October 2000) was two years in the future.

The situation for Clinton was muddy...and he bungled it.

The situation for Bush was crystal clear...and he screwed it up beyond belief, paying the price with thousands of American Lives.

It is not hard to know where the Lion's Share of the Blame belongs.

Newt Gringrich Slams BushBeware Geeks Bearing Gifts

There is an old proverb which warns us: Beware of Geeks bearing gifts. (The Romans later changed this to “Greeks”, but I am sure it was a type-o.)

This week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a geek* in the true and original sense of the word, gave a gift to we-who-hate-Bush, he went onto the Fox Network and denounced the utter and complete incompetence of the Bush Administration.

The AP summed up part of Gingrich’s argument:

"All you have to do is look at the examples I've given you today where the government simply fails," said Gingrich, citing the administration's handling of the war in Iraq, its immigration policies and response to Hurricane Katrina.

And according to the article by the Bloomberg News Service:

``The administration has very, very high goals -- democracy throughout the Middle East -- and very weak bureaucratic support for those goals,'' Gingrich said on Fox. ``And the result is an enormous mismatch in just sheer implementation.''

Bush ``doesn't methodically insist on changing things,'' Gingrich said.

``Here we are, 5 and ½ years after 9/11, and the fact is, I would argue, we're losing the war around the world with Islamic extremists and they are, in fact, gaining ground,'' he said.

HA! HA! Gingrich is making our points for us! What a great day! But wait…something is not right. There is a fly in the buttermilk. You see, as much as I LOVE watching one Republican Elder eviscerating another, I can’t help but dwell on those last two points:

The terrorists are getting stronger, and so, we must insist on changing things.

Perhaps, Gingrich simply means we have to clean up and streamline the workings of the government bureaucracy.

But I keep thinking about a little noted speech Newt gave over in New Hampshire in 2006. I didn’t find it until months later, when I tried to write a funny essay on Newt’s infidelity during the Clinton crisis….I remembered then, and am recalling now, that there is absolutely NOTHING funny about Newt Gingrich:

“This is a serious long term war, and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country, that will lead us to learn how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and advocate the use of nuclear of[sic] biological weapons.”

Newt Gingrich is seriously proposing that we: "adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us"

In effect, Newt is saying, we are going to need to place Freedom of Speech in a sort of Blind Trust, until we win the war on Terror.

I think that when Newt Gingrich talks about drastic changes, he actually has something like THIS in mind.

And I shudder to think of it. All too often, we liberals tend to think that, if the American People are deeply dissatisfied with the Republicans, they will turn to us.

But what would they do if they were offered a choice even FURTHER to the right?

That’s what keeps me awake at night.

*Post-Script

The term Geek,in it's origional usage, denoted a performer in a circus who captured attention by perferming unspeakable acts.

Poll Position

OH BOY! The right wing are in a tizzy this week. A new Gallup Poll has come out that indicated that Congress's approval ratings are even lower than the President's (29% to 33%).

The Reverend Moon's arch-Conservative Washington Times is crowing that the "Democrat-led" Congress is now trailing the President in popularity. (I will say this for the Right-Wingnuts: You have to have incredible powers of imagination and creativity to find good news in the fact that your fearless leader is running at at steady 33%; of course, on the other hand, Reverend Moon- founder of the Washington Times- does believe himself to be the Messiah- so he's got what it takes to engage in this kind of powerful self-delusion.)

At any rate, my friends in the DOP (that would be: Damned Old Party)were quick to start forwarding the news of their President's latest "victory".

Here is my response:

Dear R---,

Thanks for sending this along. What is interesting about the way Big Corporate Media handles the story is that they use this Headline: "Congressional Approval Down" and yet, a little deeper into the story, buried, we learn that: "Although ratings are quite low, Americans have been more positive in their assessments of Congress this year than last year, when an average of just 25% approved of Congress."

In other words- MORE Americans approve of this Democratic Congress than of the Republican Gangsters and Yes-Men who were in Washington last year.

But, of course Congressional approval is still low. Understandable, because this Congress was elected to bring an end to your crazy president's war against the wrong thug in the wrong country. To date, they have not been able to do that.

However, we can still hope, there is lots of good work going on in Washington. Perhaps we can still find a way to win the war on terror by going after the villains who actually attacked us on 9/11 rather than by being distracted by providing business opportunities for the Bush cronies.

And make no mistake, we MUST do this...after all, in just a few months, we will mourn the the SIXTH anniversary of September 11, 2001. And for SIX years, Osama bin Laden has eluded this hapless President.

Afghanistan, despite all of our Military's hard work and sacrifice, is once again becoming a strong hold for the Taliban and a source of Opium and Crime. Of course, this is because George W. Bush pulled our troops off the job.

However, as ever MORE corruption is uncovered in this, the most shiftless administration since that of Warren G. Harding, perhaps we can send Bush to jail where he belongs. Then, perhaps, this Congress approval ratings will rise.

God Bless America.

Hatred Vs. Hope

I have to admit to being a bit discouraged. Or at least, I was before this morning.

Yesterday, I found out that I was wrong, and that Mickey Ha-Mouse was not just another piece of right-wingnut propaganda, but a real production of Hamas- teaching Palestinian children that their mission was to dominate the world as Islamists.

Today, I read of the thwarted attack on Fort Dix by a group of Muslims in New Jersey.

My taxi driver this morning said: I don’t know where you come down on this, but it sure seems like it was awful convenient for them guys down there in Washington for this to happen right now.


I might have thought the same thing, but then I remembered Farfour the Mouse: teaching hatred to children, and I realize once again that there really IS a war going on – and that the United States, under George Bush, may have lost our best chance to end it quickly by allowing himself to be distracted by Iraq.

If we had treated this as a police action, instead of as the "Holy War" American Pentecostals were hoping for, we might have brought Osama to justice, rather than allow him to remain at large and free to inspire other crazies.

With this new escalation, I realize that it will be harder and harder for the voice of common sense to be heard.

That got me a little depressed.

Until I went out on to my front porch this morning. My fiancée is away for the year, and she didn’t trust me to take good care of the hanging flower basket on the front porch. So she replaced it with an artificial basket of flowers.

This morning, I went out to the front porch to drink my coffee and I noticed that the porch railing under the fake plant was daubed with mud. That shouldn’t be, I thought.

So I went over to look, and there, buried deeply within the plastic leaves, was a tiny little nest with 4 brilliant blue robin’s eggs in it.

I’m not going to come up with some sappy bit of glurge about how the truth shines through like bright blue robins eggs….but I will say that, for just a moment, I was able to take some hope from the sight.

PS-

If you are looking for some anti-glurge, check out this site.

The Jesus and the Bunny Story

Mickey Militant Or "Hamas" Presents- Mickey Hah-mouse

Mickey Militant

The Right-Wing Nut Jobs come up with so much Garbage: the Weapons of Mass Destruction are in Iraq….no, no, wait…they’ve been moved to SYRIA….or, wait, oh, I know—the DOG ate them….

I just get used to discounting EVERYTHING they say.

So, when I got an email this morning from some right-wingers with whom I fight a running gun-battle about an ARAB MICKEY MOUSE teaching children to “hate Israel and America, and aspire to what is claimed as Islam's inevitable and impending world domination.” I thought yeah, yeah…this from the same people that bring us fascist dolphins and Rush Limbaugh singing “Barack the Magic Negro” ...


http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/16705/1/rush-barak.mp3

So…I blew it off.

But, it turns out, it is true…according to the Associated Press

A giant black-and-white rodent _ named "Farfour," or "butterfly," but unmistakably a rip-off of the Disney character _ does his high-pitched preaching against the U.S. and Israel on a children's show each Friday on Al-Aqsa TV, a station run by Hamas. The militant group, sworn to Israel's destruction, shares power in the Palestinian government.
"You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," Farfour squeaked on a recent episode of the show, which is called "Tomorrow's Pioneers."

So…to my right correspondents, I apologize…you were right and I was wrong. Hate won another battle today, both in the middle-east, and here at home.

It's Really Not that Funny After All: Newt's Infidelity

At the behest of a friend, it was my intention to write a humorous post about Newt Gingrich's revelation today that he was screwing around at the same time Bill was teaching Monica about cigars.

In an interview with the Oily James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, Gingrich was asked if the allegations of sexual impropriety were true.

According to the AP Gingrich replied: "The honest answer is yes...There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."

Gingrich makes the case, however, that he is not a hypocrite. After all, he was just committing adultery, Clinton was accused of lying in court. (Have you ever noticed that conservatives ALWAYS have a reason why THEY aren't guilty?)

At first, it seemed like an easy way to have a little fun. After all, there hasn't been a story this good since Rush the Pill Popping Pundit.

But then I listened to the interview. This is certainly not an example of "Gotcha Journalism" from the Right. This is no hit job. Listening to Dobson and Gingrich talk, it is obvious that this is a "dramatic re-creation" of an earlier conversation. One which each party seems to have felt would be worth airing in public.

Why would Newt deliberately expose himself?

It's pretty obvious that the Right Wing tossed a softball for Newt to belt out of the park. By the time Newt throws his hat into the Presidential ring, which he will do next fall, after it becomes clear that the Radical Right is not at all happy with their less than completely crazy choices, this story will have become OLD NEWS.

The story obviously won't hurt Gingrich with the Religious Right, because there is nothing the Born Again Snake-Handlers love more than a sinner come home to Christ! He's Sinned, He's Confessed, He's Repented, He's Forgiven. Amen.

It's a neat trick, and it could be a fun post. But I'm not writing it.

Why? Because as I think about it, this looks like the beginning of an effort by the Right to Dust Newt Off and Return Him to Power.

And that is scary, very scary.

Because the REAL FOCUS of the interview was not the cute little Come to Jesus moment.

The REAL FOCUS was what Newt Gingrich calls: The Genuine Danger of Terrorism.

At a speech in New Hampshire Last Fall, Gingrich said:

This is a serious long term war, and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country, that will lead us to learn how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and advocate the use of nuclear of[sic] biological weapons.

Newt Gingrich is seriously proposing that we: "adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us"

In effect, we are going to need to place Freedom of Speech in a sort of Blind Trust, until we win the war on Terror.

At this moment, as I write, stories are going up on the internet about the recent findings of a Justice Department Audit:

The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.
And for three years the FBI underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found.

These are exactly the people and the institutions Mr. Gingrich proposes to trust with protecting our free speech.

Mr. Gingrich is the person the right wing wants to be our next President.

And there is nothing funny to write about there. Not one funny little word.

Because if you thought Bush and Cheney were scary, you ain't seen nothing yet. You see, unlike Bush, Newt Gingrich is NOT stupid..EVIL..but not stupid. And unlike Cheney, Newt Gingrich would NEVER shoot anyone...at least, not accidentally.

It will make you sick, I know, but you owe it to yourself to go to the Focus on the Family site and here the "interview" between Dobson and Gingrich for yourself.

Because, unfiltered by the "Liberal" Media, which totally misses the real story in persuit of a joke, it will make your blood run cold.


It's Here: http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Focus_on_the_Family/archives.asp?bcd=2007-3-9