Give Em Surrender Harry Reid's claim - that the four al Qaeda in Iraq suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Baghdad Wednesday were proof that the surge has failed - is disingenuous at best. The truth is that Al Qaeda in Iraq is under tremendous pressure on two fronts. Al Qaeda is under attack in Anbar, fighting not only U.S. soldiers, but also their former Sunni hosts. And many of the al Qaeda that were in Baghdad, at least those who have not already fallen to the surge, have now largely fled to Diyala province. Diyala is an area that the U.S. intends to target as a part of the surge once all forces are on the ground. This is not a failure, nor is it Biden's water balloon theory in action. It is a textbook counterinsurgency operation.
Max Boot at the Weekly Standard has an excellent article covering his most recent trip to Iraq. He addresses Baghdad and his conversations with General Petraeus, as well as the state of hostilities in Anbar and Diyala Province. His assessment, thre are a lot of problems, but there have been substantial gains. The surge is quite viable. Take note, Give 'Em Surrender Harry.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
More Surge News
Dr. Sanity On Islamists' Child Rearing Practices and More
Dr. Pat Santy examines Muslim child rearing practices and treatment of women in Middle East societies and finds them more then a bit wanting:
Apparently, the character of today's Islam is such that it encourages the creation and nourishment of monsters.
, , , For anyone who cares to actually look at the evidence, the romantic idea that Islam has ever been a "religion of peace" has also been thoroughly debunked. The heirs of Mohammed have had ceaseless war, violence, oppression of women and children and frankly crazy cultural beliefs and practices since the religion's inception; and all of it has been culturally designed to keep practitioners from noticing their own religion and culture's inadequacies, irrationality, and barbarism.
. . . Is there anyone who believes that such medieval attitudes towards women don't have a profoundly negative impact on the personalities of both the men and women who develop in such environments? Males are encouraged to be psychopaths; females to be their willing victims and enablers; as well as breeders for the jihad. When you see large groups of men willingly blowing themselves up to kill innocents, you know there is some sort of psychopathy at work. When the only way to express "gender liberation" is for a woman to imitate the homicidal / suicidal rages of the males--you know there is a problem.Consider also, how a child could grow up in any sense normal-- knowing that their mother and father think of them only as fodder for jihad and that he has no worth to them otherwise.
Along with parenting issues, cultural factors in child-rearing play an extremely important role in personality formation and can, under certain circumstances, "stack the cards" against normal develoment even if all other factors, including biology, are benign. . . .
. . . As we see in the news stories coming out of the Middle East--from Iran to Pakistan; Gaza,Egypt and Saudi Arabia-- there is an ongoing abuse of children, both psychological and physical, of monstrous proportions. To become a ruthless, cold, semi-human serial murderer, you have to be carefully taught and nurtured.
Tiptoeing around this issue so as not to offend or make judgements about the sickness of Islamic culture is nothing more than enabling hate and true evil.
Do read the entire article. It is an exceptional essay. There is a reason we must win the war against radical Islam at all costs.
Jasser Calls the Mainstream Media Facilitators for Radical Islamists
M. Zuhdi Jassar, former U.S. Naval Officer and president of AIFD, has authored an excellent article criticizing MSM generally for enabling Islamists. His main emphasis is PBS's recent decision to censor a story on how moderate Muslims who support Western society are under fire from Wahhabi / Salafi Islamists in their midst:
I have previously discussed the harm of our government’s enabling of Islamists (like CAIR, MPAC, MAS, MSA, or ISNA) in the United States and how the governmental endorsement of Islamists publicly empowers them and allows them to dodge their responsibility of countering Islamism as an ideology. This order of magnitude is greater in impact when it concerns the media’s inability to wage the debate of the “struggle for the soul of Islam”. Stories about Islam and Muslims have been more and more ubiquitous since 9-11 and now are actually commonplace. Yet, the actual debate within the Muslim community has barely begun. Where’s the disconnect? Look no further than the Islamist enablers in the media.Read the entire article here. It is very good. And if you have not let PBS and your representatives in government how you feel, please by all means do so. You can find contact information at the bottom of the post here.
When so many ask across the nation, “where are the moderate voices of Islam?”, one cannot help lately but exclaim that they are being suffocated by misguided political correctness and by Islamist influence within mainstream media and government. The PBS censorship of the documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, highlights one of the best examples to date of the symbiosis of both government complicity and media complicity with the Islamist ideology.
Blair's EU Fixation & A Dirty Deal in the Works
This today from the Times (UK) on Tony Blair's backdoor machinations to bind Britain ever tighter into the EU:
Tony Blair was accused yesterday of preparing to introduce a scaled-down European constitution by the "back door" before he quits as Prime Minister this summer.Read the entire article here. This is madness. Outside of being a moderately successful economic bloc, and outside of keeping European countries from killing each other in open warfare over the past half century, it is very difficult to think of any single thing that the EU has done successfully. EU immigration policy and open borders policies are disasters. The EU Charter on Human Rights has caused significant problems in dealing with Muslim radicals and, if I recall correctly, some elements of it were adopted by Labour in in lieu of the UK actually holding a referendum to establish a formal Bill of Rights on the basis of its anglo-saxon mores (who needs the Magna Carta, anyway?)
The Conservatives and the UK Independence Party reacted angrily after Downing Street confirmed Mr Blair did not believe a referendum would be needed on a new European treaty expected to be agreed during his final days in office.
After the European constitution was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands, EU leaders are looking at ways of introducing many key changes by amending existing treaties.
Mr Blair told journalists on Thursday that a treaty amending the existing legal base would not have the characteristics of the constitution which aimed to re-establish the Union with the trappings of statehood, such as a flag and anthem.
A Brussels summit on June 21 will be Mr Blair's last appearance on the European stage and will tie the hands of his successor on key EU constitution issues.
The EU certainly has not created out of Europe a group of allies willing to help one another in a pinch. This was more then amply demonstrated by the EU's deplorable and cowardly refusal to help Britain during the recent Iranian UK-hostage taking incident. One would think, for the UK at least, that last one would have put the nail in the coffin of greater EU integration.
And it was not that long ago that France's Chirac sought hegemony over Europe using the EU as its vehicle. And given that Chirac also declared anglo saxon mores and its capitalist system as antithetical to France and all of Europe, it would certainly seem that Britain, and indeed every European country, should be very skeptical about ceding any sovereign power to the EU. Thus I am in absolute amazement over the latest machinations of Tony Blair, now seeking to do precisely that, and without submitting the question to the people of Britain for a vote
If you wish to follow all of this - and its like watching an accident on the highway, you almost have to look - the site EU Referendum consistently has excellent posts on it as well as all things UK.
The Internal Challenges For France
George Walden at the Times (UK) believes that Nicholas Sarkozy will win the upcoming election in France, but that the problems he will face in fixing the sick lady that is France are near insurmountable:
The country’s problems can be summed up in one dispiriting phrase: les droits acquis — acquired rights. Handing them out is electorally sweet, taking them back virtually impossible. Think of our own NHS: a Stalinist bureaucracy promising everyone everything free, which many politicians and professionals know can never work, but which popular sentiment makes untouchable. Apply that immobilisme to whole swaths of French life and you can see the new President’s predicament.Read the article here. While I agree Sarkozy faces a mission impossible, I think that he will be a vast improvement over any leadership France has had since 1945.
With typical chutzpah Jacques Attali, former head of the Bank for Reconstruction and Development, disagrees, claiming that we are all simply jealous of the French quality of life. “A kind of communism that works,” was how a French sociologist once described his country. . . .
The death of real communism has released a Hokusai-size wave of competition from the Far East in its wake, which points to more outsourcing, freer labour markets, social security cutbacks and the rest. In France, these will be ferociously resisted. Prescribing a dose of Thatcherism or Blairism is simplistic. The French are not only financially but also philosophically opposed to changes they believe would impoverish France humanly and culturally. Jacques Chirac proclaimed Anglo-Saxon liberalism the enemy not just of France, but of Europe, and millions on the Left and Right would agree. A highly educated French friend, who tells me he has “barricaded himself in a vigorous abstentionism” for the elections, thinks protectionism is the only choice, and he is far from alone.
So France this weekend faces both a moment of truth and a limited field of action. What could Mr Sarkozy do on immigration? After the recent riots he suggested that compulsory integration was failing, and perhaps the multicultural British had the answer. Ironically it was the moment that Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, began admitting that multiculturalism was a recipe for segregation. If both policies have similar results in practice — ghettos, unemployment, alienation, riots or terrorist attacks — where does France, with twice as many Muslims as Britain, go from here?
In foreign policy the options are equally few. Mr Sarkozy could unfreeze relations with America only as far as opinion in a secularised culture, which delights in regarding George Bush not just as a moron, but a God-struck moron, would allow. As for Europe, it is at the top of no one’s agenda.
And what could any president do about culture? It is not only in economics that there is a sense of backwardness, even if French productivity remains higher than ours. Young people envy the British cultural scene, for all its froth, but it is America’s all-round superiority that truly hurts: in universities, in science, in orchestras, in films, in the best popular culture, in literature. Where is the French E.O. Wilson, or Don DeLillo? Where are The West Wing, The Sopranos, The Simpsons? Like us they can nod their heads sadly but knowingly at the Virginia shootings, but they are not so prejudiced as to believe that one atrocity defines a country. The new president could increase cultural subsidies farther, but the best American universities, like The Simpsons, are financed privately.
A Frenchman once described America as having no identity, though wonderful teeth. But what happens when France’s own identity fades, and its teeth are still not the best?
I d-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Read the whole story here.A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal.
The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.
They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.
"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.
Bush Responds to "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry . . . Sort Of
President Bush spoke yesterday to a group in Western Michigan in an important speech on the war. He addressed the surge, but did not refer directly to "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry Reid and his unconscionable claim that the nascent surge has failed and the war in Iraq lost.
Mr. Bush acknowledged the violence and said that since he began sending the first of about 30,000 reinforcements in January, "we have seen some of the highest casualty levels of the war."
"And as the number of troops in Baghdad grows and operations move into even more dangerous neighborhoods, we can expect the pattern to continue," he said.
But the president said coalition forces have reduced by 50 percent the sectarian murders by militias and death squads in Baghdad. He also said coalition troops are getting an increasing number of tips from the civilian population, which have helped them capture weapons, chemicals, and members of death squads and car-bomb rings.
"This is a difficult period in our nation's history," Mr. Bush said. "It's natural to wish there was an easy way out, that we could just pack up and bring our troops home and be safe. Yet in Iraq, the easy road would be a road to disaster.
"The price of giving up there would be paid in American lives for years to come," he said, arguing that terrorists in Iraq would attack U.S. targets if troops withdraw prematurely.
Read the article here. While all that President Bush said is true, particularly that the cost of failing to succeed in Iraq will be far higher then leaving Iraq now, he utterly flubbed it by refusing to directly challenge "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry. We are not losing in Iraq, but we are in Washington where President Bush and Republican lawmakers have proven ineffectual at responding to the constant stream of charges and attacks from "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry and his cohorts busy mounting their own surge for political power.
Read the American Thinker Today
Hey . . . we made the American Thinker's lead article today. Read it there or you can read a slightly longer version of the same here with pictures and video.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Fausta Gone Wild
Fausta has been busy at her site today. She has some very fascinating posts on Chavez and Venezuela, where democracy has pruned from society and Chavez is spending his petro-billions on all but the poor. And Fausta has some equally fascinating posts on the EU's inability to nagivgate by GPS, as well as the name calling over the failure to get the airbuses up, running and profitable. Read them all.
Krauthammer et. al on the Massacre at VT and on Obama
What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less. The lives of 32 innocents, chosen randomly and without purpose, are extinguished most brutally by a deeply disturbed gunman. With an event such as this, consisting of nothing but suffering and tragedy, the only important questions are those of theodicy, of divine justice. Unfortunately, in today's supercharged political atmosphere, there is the inevitable rush to get ideological mileage out of the carnage.Read the entire article here. As I have said in other posts, our heart goes out to the those killed and injured by Cho, and to their families and loved ones.
. . . If we are going to look for a political issue here, the more relevant is not gun control but psychosis control. We decided a half a century ago that our more eccentric and, indeed, crazy fellow citizens would not be easily locked in asylums. It was a humane decision, but with the inevitable consequence that some who really need quarantine are allowed to roam the streets.
It turns out that Cho's psychiatric impairment had been evident to many. . . .
In a previous age, such a troubled soul might have found himself at the state mental hospital rather than a state university. But in a trade-off that a decent and tolerant society makes with open eyes, we allow freedom from straitjackets to those on the psychic edge, knowing that such tolerance runs a very rare but very terrible risk.
It is inevitable, I suppose, that advocates of one social policy or another will try to use the Virginia Tech massacre to their advantage. But it is simply dismaying that a serious presidential candidate should use it as the ideological frame for his set-piece issues.
. . . Barack Obama made [a speech] in Milwaukee just hours after the massacre. It must be heard to be believed. After deploring and expressing grief about the shootings, he continues (my transcription): "I hope that it causes us to reflect a little bit more broadly on the degree to which we do accept violence in various forms. . . . There's also another kind of violence . . . it's not necessarily physical violence."
What kinds does he have in mind? First, "Imus and the verbal violence that was directed at young women [of Rutgers]. . . . For them to be degraded . . . that's a form of violence. It may be quiet. It may not surface to the same level of the tragedy we read about today and we mourn." Good to know that Don Imus's "violence" does not quite rise to the level of Cho's.
Second, outsourcing. Yes, outsourcing: "the violence of men and women who . . . suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job has moved to another country."
Obama then cites bad schools and bad neighborhoods as forms of violence, before finishing with, for good measure, Darfur -- accusing America of conducting "foreign policy as if the children in Darfur are somehow less than the children here, and so we tolerate violence there." Is Obama, who proudly opposed overthrowing the premier mass murderer of our time, Saddam Hussein, suggesting an invasion of Sudan?
Who knows. This whole exercise in defining violence down to include shock-jock taunts and outsourcing would normally be mere intellectual slovenliness. Doing so in the shadow of the murder of 32 innocents still unburied is tasteless, bordering on the sacrilegious. . . .
You will find Obama's speech here. For my part, I have long believed Obama to be little more then a well spoken media construct. His core ideas on labor, economic and foreign policy issues do not seem to withstand the light of scrutiny. His speech in the wake of the massacre only adds to my belief that, while Obama may be a presentable candidate, he is a superficial one whose chances of ascending to the presidency absent a tremendous push by the MSM are nil.
As Ann Althouse comments:
Am I offended that Obama reframes his usual material with the Virginia Tech story? He had a speech to give that day, and it would not have worked to omit the subject. Plenty of other people went out of their way to use the massacre to promote their favorite issues -- notably gun control.
What really struck me about that audio clip though was what a gasbag Obama is. I hear a tired-sounding man, who rambles on and on. I know he's speaking before a group. I hear them respond now and then, when he mentions that Iraq is a war that should never have been waged and when he says teachers deserve higher pay. But if I didn't know who he was and that there was a crowd there, I would picture an old man slumped in an armchair, expatiating for the benefit of anyone unlucky enough to be within earshot. It's formless stream of consciousness. Oh, there is that theme of hope.
H/T: Instapundit
"Give 'Em Surrender" Harry Reid
It is one thing for a dissembling Joe Biden to pronounce the surge a failure, or a New York Times cheerleading for the far left to call the war lost, but quite another when a leader of the Democratic Party and the Senate Majority Leader does so. I am quite willing to bet that Give 'Em Surrender Harry is now the new poster boy for a much energized radical Muslim recruitment from Terhan to Ridyah to Morroco to London, Rome and Washington D.C. Does anyone doubt for a moment that Wahhabi / Salafi clerics the world over, even as you read this, are not praising Give 'Em Surrender Harry's pronouncement as "Allah's will" and pointing to it as proof that more bloodshed will ultimately see radical Islam ascendent throughtout the world. And if you want to forecast how Give 'Em Surrender Harry's statement will impact upon the average Iraqi who has a choice between supporting us and the Maliki government or the insurgents, be it al Qaeda in Iraq or the Iranian backed Mahdi Army, if you turn to the book authored by General Petraeus, the Army's field manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency, you will find this: Give 'Em Surrender Harry may succeed in his clear objective of gaining political power in the '08 election, but at what cost to America in blood and gold? Update: Now we know that, in the violent events of last Wednesday that "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry cited as proof the surge has failed, 3 of the 4 al Qaeda bombs were greatly limited by defenses put in place by the surge.
We as a nation now have two "Harry" bookends to our historical period. At one end is Harry Truman, who led us to victory in World War II, utterly defeating Japan and Germany. Truman then led us part way into the Korean Conflict, where we decimated the North Korean Army and then pushed back the Chinese hordes that crossed the Yalu. That Harry had a nickname. It was "Give 'Em Hell" Harry. And now, at the opposite end of the spectrum in time and substance, we have "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry, the Senate Majority leader.
"Give 'Em Surrender" Harry declared our nascent counterinsurgency stategy a failure and the Iraq war lost yesterday, making an analogy between Bush's surge and the futility of the Vietnam War.
As evidence that the surge had failed and our loss as a nation complete, “Give ‘Em Surrender” Harry cited to the violence in Baghdad of Wednesday - a series of 4 car bombs, 3 of them suicide bombs, for which Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility. To amplify “Give ‘Em Surrender” Harry’s analogy to Vietnam, this act of violence is his Tet Offensive.
For those who might not know, Tet was the defining event of the Vietnam War. It was a mass offensive by 84,000 North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldiers and Viet Cong. And it was a total military failure. Within thirty days of its start, the U.S. had killed 50,000, completely decimating the Viet Cong and taking a sizable chunk out of the NVA. U.S. losses were 1,100 soldiers. Nonetheless, the mass offensive shocked the press. Walter Cronkite led our nation's journalists in portraying the Vietnam Conflict as unwinnable and Tet as a victory for the North Vietnamese. It led directly to our withdrawal from the "quagmire" of Vietnam.
Back to Give ‘Em Surrender Harry. His defining "Tet" event is not quite as large. Give ‘Em Surrender Harry just declared that the United States and its nascent counterinsurgency operation have failed and been defeated by four members of al Qaeda.
Let that sink in for a moment.
The foe we face in radical Islam is every bit as much an existential threat to us and Western Civilization as Nazi Germany. We are one dirty bomb on Wall Street away from a recession or maybe a depression. We are one nuclear explosion in a port city away from much, much worse. And we are a series of coordinated attacks on our malls and infrastructure away from going into martial law.
As "Give 'Em Hell" Harry's predecesor, FDR, told the nation on December 9, 1941, "the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete," against such an existential foe, else there would never be "security for any nation-or any individual . . ." Give 'Em Surrender Harry obviously never read that speech discussing American values, American resolve, and the unthinkable consequences of failing to defeat such a foe. You can find FDR's speech here. If you have not read or heard it, it is very much worth taking the time and effort to do so. And someone might wish to pass it on to Give 'Em Surrender Harry.
Though the threat we face may be dire, "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry is declaring our defeat at a point when our losses are minimal by any measure. To date, our soldiers lost in Iraq number 3,315. Each is a tragedy, and as a former soldier and the father of soldiers, I deeply appreciate and grieve for each one. I am in no way belittling their loss when I point out, for the benefit of "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry, that 3,315 killed in Iraq is 3% of the losses we sustained in WWI to defeat German aggression; it is 1% of what we sustained defeating the Nazis in WWII; it is 6% of what we sustained in destroying the North Korean Army and then driving back the Chinese hordes in the Korean Conflict; and, it is 6% of what we sustained in Vietnam before we were pulled out.
And, just so you know, the U.S. has never lost an engagement in Iraq or Afghanistan involving a platoon size element or larger of U.S. soldiers. A platoon is about thirty men. Do you understand how significant that is?
With that track record, how can we possibly lose to Islamic extremists in Iraq or Afghanistan - or anywhere else in the world for that matter? Well, that is unless we are forced to embrace defeat predicated upon "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry's Tet Offensive of four al Qaeda suicide bombers.
Do you think Give 'Em Surrender Harry really means it when he says the surge has failed and our nation has lost in Iraq? Or is it just "Give Em Surrender" Harry who has decided that he wants us to lose? Is it just "Give Em Surrender" Harry who wants to insure that the surge does not succeed? And is it just "Give Em Surrender" Harry who is putting his quest for raw power above the horrid ramifications of a defeat for our national security and our foreign policy policy?
"Give 'Em Surrender" Harry offers no assessment of the costs that may arise out of his embrace of defeat. The mantra of "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry and his fellow Democrats has been that we cannot give President Bush a "blank check" to continue the war. I think any reasonable assessment of the costs of fighting a greatly emboldened radical Islam, flush with the victory of defeating the United States in Iraq, would utterly dwarf the costs of seeing Iraq to a stable democracy with all the major players - Sunni, Shia and Kurd - invested in its success.
To put it bluntly, Give 'Em Surrender Harry's claim of defeat in Iraq is cowardice, cynicism and hypocrisy writ on a grand scale. And in my view - traitorous. Perhaps we should nickname him "Benedict" Harry.
Update: Lest you think that last suggestion too over the top, consider this. Give 'Em Surrender Harry's statement that the Iraq war is "lost" is already having reverberations around the Islamic world. Read this from The Volokh Conspiracy:Iranian Press TV reports, in response to Reid's statement:
Leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, has said the US has lost the Iraq war, and Bush's troop surge has failed.... Reid's comments came a day after 200 fatalities were reported in bombings in Iraq, despite a much touted US Security Plan which the White House said sought to root out insurgency."
A Republican party e-mail also reported the following as translations of items from Al-Jazeera Online, and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, "The Leading Arabic International Daily"; please let me know if the translations are inaccurate:"Yesterday the leader of the Democratic majority in Congress, Harry Reid, announced that he conveyed to Bush that the United States lost the war in Iraq and that the additional America forces that were sent there will not succeed in the achievement of any positive progress."
"Leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, has said the US has lost the Iraq war, and Bush's troop surge has failed.... Reid's comments came a day after 200 fatalities were reported in bombings in Iraq, despite a much touted US Security Plan which the White House said sought to root out insurgency."
As I have said before, it may well be quite proper -- and certainly constitutionally protected -- for people to criticize the war; and sometimes the benefits of such criticism, even of the "war is lost" variety and even when said by leading U.S. politicians, outweigh the costs. Yet it seems to me hard to doubt that this statement will have grave cost.
. . . Yet my suspicion is that the harm will be quite substantial indeed.1-134: . . . The populace may prefer the HN [i.e., Iraqi] government to the insurgents; however, people do not actively support a government unless they are convinced that the counterinsurgents - [i.e., U.S. and Iraqi forces] have the means, ability, stamina, and will to win."
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Way to go Pinch . . . The NYT continues its Drop in Value
This is almost better then sex. The New York Times, more today a 527 advocacy organization then a newspaper, continues its steady march towards oblivion under the stewardship of Pinch Salzberger.
The string of bad business news for the New York Times Company and its shareholders grows longer and longer with each passing quarter. First quarter earnings were down a whopping 26%, propelled by trouble in the advertising print market, write-offs for the closing of the company's Edison, NJ printing plant, and slowing growth in the internet business, intended to replace print media as the driver of company growth. The write-offs on the printing plant will continue for some time.
All comparisons with last year exclude the business results of the company's television station group, which was sold last year. The starkest comparison, to my mind, comes with this data:Income from continuing operations dropped to $20.1 million, or 14 cents per share, from $30.5 million, or 21 cents per share, in the previous year.
It doesn't take much projecting forward a comparable rate of decline to see real trouble ahead in just a few years.
What better news can there be for America today. Actually, to make it even better, NYT stock value is down over 50% from its high just 5 years ago. Unfortunately, I can't copy the 5 year stock chart, but trust me, it looks like a killer ski slope. Read the entire post here.
The Constitution and the Red Herring of Abortion - Gonzalez v. Carhart
The recent Supreme Court decision in Gonzalez v. Carhart, upholding a federal law on partial birth abortion, is being played up as a huge assault on women's fundamental rights by pro abortion advocates. It's not. That does not of course stop the New York Times and others of their ilk who are already proclaiming it as such in order to generate money and votes for pro-abortion candidates in 2008. For the anti-abortion crowd, the decision is being played up as a huge victory. It's not that either. In all actuality, as Justices Thomas and Scalia suggested in their concurring opinion, this case might well have been decided differently if the proponents of abortion rights had simply argued in their case that the federal government did not have the power under the commerce clause to regulate partial birth abortion.
Does that latter surprise you, that the two most "conservative" Justices on the Court would suggest a willingness to strike down a federal law limiting abortion? I will get to their reasoning in a moment.
The federal law on partial birth abortion has no impact on 90% of all abortions conducted in the United States - that 90% occuring during the first trimester of pregnancy. And indeed, the federal law on partial birth abortions is itself only a partial ban on such abortions. It makes illegal just one gruesome method of conducting abortions during the second trimester of pregnancy. Specifically, the federal law makes it illegal to deliver the living fetus outside the vagina before killing it, something usually done by crushing its skull. In the decision to uphold this law against a facial challenge, the court found that the law was sufficiently clear that a doctor could know what method was made illegal by the law and, by banning only one method of abortion, the law did not unreasonably burden a woman's right to an abortion.
There is a much larger and more important issue at work here. You can be very much pro-abortion and still be against abortion as a "constitutitonal right" - at least without a specific amendment being passed to make it one. Indeed, one of the great proponents of abortion rights on the bench today is Justice Ginsburg, who herself criticized the Roe v. Wade decision ensconcing abortion as a constitutional right as a poorly reasoned decision.
The larger issue is whether the Constitution should be interpreted as written and, to the extent possible, in consideration of the intent of the people who drafted it, or whether it can be expanded beyond that to mean whatever a couple of sitting justices want it to mean on any particular day - in essence, imposing their own personal belief system on America as a matter of constitutional law. This latter approach is often referred to as the "living constitution." For a good look at this issue, see Justice Scalia's speech on the living constitution in 2005, and here is a transcript of the debate between Justices Scalia and Breyer on the issue of using foreign law to determine the meaning of the U.S. Constitution.
Looking outside the four corners of the written Constitution and the intent of the drafters makes of the Supreme Court a supra-legislature, taking over the position of Congress and the executive to create laws rather then to interpret them in light of the Constitution. That is not the function for which the Supreme Court is designed. Besides not being assigned any legislative role in the Constitution, the Supreme Court does not have the ability of Congress to hold hearings or subpoena witness - in essence, to make findings of fact beyond whatever record lies before it. Nor does allowing the Court such leeway comport with the concept of democracy. The Supreme Court justices are not subject to the will of the people, being an unelected body with tenure for life.
This is a much greater and more important issue then abortion because it has an effect on every case the Supreme Court hears. Unfortunately, it is also an issue that has, ever since the attack on Robert Bork led by Teddy Kennedy, been hidden by the rhetoric of the political left. They proclaim any attack upon Roe v. Wade as an attack on the "right of a woman to choose," irregardless of whether it is actually a well grounded criticism of the reasoning of Roe as bad law because the decision goes well outside of the framework of the Constitution. Roe created out of whole cloth a new constitutional right.
How dangerous is allowing the Supreme Court to treat the Constitution as a "living document" subject to the individual whim of Justices? Besides Roe v. Wade, which found a right to abortion in some ephemeral "penumbara of rights" outside of the text, possibly the worst decision that the Supreme Court has passed since the Dred Scott decision was the Kelo v. New London decided last year. That case, decided by the "liberal wing" of the Court, is a horrendous assault on private property rights, essentially rewriting the plain language of the Fifth Amendment to allow government to take your private property on the flimsiest of pretext and give it to another private party. It is horrible decision that is made possible only if one buys into the "living constitution" philosophy.
Which brings us full circle to the commerce clause and Justices Scalia and Thomas. Why would these two conservative justices possibly strike down a federal law limiting abortion? Because they see the Constitution and its drafters as silent on the issue, thus making its regulation a question for the states and, by its nature, beyond the power of the federal government to regulate under the commerce clause. That is appropriate jurisprudence. This nation would be well served if the left stopped their partisan pandering to NOW and other far left groups that want Roe v. Wade used as a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees. If you want a litmus test, it should be whether a prospective justice would support Kelo v. London.
Update: See also this similar take on the Cahart decision at the Wall St. J.
The Islamicization of Europe
The great fight of our time is between the values of Western Civilization that have their roots in the humanistic philosophies of ancient Greece, and the triumphalist, absoloutist, and medieval Wahhabi / Salafi sect of Islam - originating out of Saudi Arabia and tracing its origins back to the philosophy of Ibn Taymiya. The two cannot coexist. The battle is occurring at varying levels world-wide today, but is well on its way to reaching critical proportions in Europe. While the ultimate outcome of the Islamicization of Europe is perhaps debatable, the reality of it cannot be questioned at this point. It is a function of the suicidal philosophy of multiculturalism and all of the policies predicated thereon, not the least of which is immigration policy.
For example, today there is this from the Gates of Vienna:
In 1974, former Algerian President Houari Boumedienne warned Europe in a speech at the UN : “One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”Marie Simonsen, political editor of the Norwegian left-wing newspaper Dagbladet, wrote in March 2007 that it should be considered a universal human right for all people everywhere to migrate wherever they want to. This statement came just after a UN report had predicted a global population growth of several billion people to 2050, which amounts to a growth of more than one million people every week. It doesn’t take much skill to calculate that unlimited migration will spell certain death for a tiny Scandinavian nation such as Norway — not in a matter of generations, but theoretically even within a few weeks.
“Soon we will take power in this country. Those who criticize us now, will regret it. They will have to serve us. Prepare, for the hour is near.” — Belgium-based imam in 1994.
Do read the entire post. It has much worth reading on Islamicization going on throughout Europe. And there is an exceptional post in Dhimmi Watch. It is an essay by Fjordman on Islamicization in Sweden and how it is being encouraged by the state:
I decided to write this essay following the riots in Malmö this weekend. Malmö is Sweden's third largest city and by far the worst city in Scandinavia when it comes to Muslim aggression. I read recently that an Arab girl interviewed in Malmö said that she liked it so much there, it felt almost like an Arab city. Native Swedes have been moving away from the city for years, turned into refugees in their own country by Jihad, not too different from the non-Muslims in some regions of the Philippines, southern Thailand or Kashmir in India, or for that matter, Christian Serbs in Kosovo.
Sweden was presented during the Cold War as a middle way between capitalism and Communism. When this model of a society collapses – and it will collapse, under the combined forces of Islamic Jihad, the European Union, Multiculturalism and ideological overstretch – it is thus not just the Swedish state that will collapse but the symbol of Sweden, the showcase of an entire ideological world view. I wrote two years ago that if the trend isn't stopped, the Swedish nation will simply cease to exist in any meaningful way during the first half of this century. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe, and the "Swedish model" will be one of warning against ideological madness, not one of admiration. I still fear I was right in that assessment.
Jonathan Friedman, an American living outside Malmö, mentions that the so-called Integration Act of 1997 proclaimed that "Sweden is a Multicultural society." Notes to the Act also stated that "Since a large group of people have their origins in another country, the Swedish population lacks a common history. The relationship to Sweden and the support given to the fundamental values of society thus carry greater significance for integration than a common historical origin."
Native Swedes have thus been reduced to just another ethnic group in Sweden, with no more claim to the country than the Kurds or the Somalis who arrived there last Thursday. The political authorities of the country have erased their own people's history and culture.
Jens Orback, Minister for Democracy, Metropolitan Affairs, Integration and Gender Equality from the Social Democratic Party said during a debate in Swedish radio in 2004 that "We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us."
This is a government that knows perfectly well that their people will become a minority in their own country, yet is doing nothing to stop this. On the contrary. Pierre Schori, Minister for immigration, during a parliamentary debate in 1997 said that: "Racism and xenophobia should be banned and chased [away]," and that one should not accept "excuses, such as that there were flaws in the immigration and refugee policies."
In other words: It should be viewed as a crime for the native population not to assist in wiping themselves out.
Orback's attitude is what follows once you declare that culture is irrelevant. Our culture, even though we try to forget it, is steeped in a Judeo-Christian morality based on the Golden Rule of reciprocity: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Luke 6:31)
Muslims, on the other hand, are steeped in an Islamic tradition based on Muslim supremacy. Muslims view lack of force as a sign of weakness, and they despise weakness, which is precisely why Adolf Hitler stated his admiration for Islam, and thought it would be a better match for Nazism than Christianity, with its childish notions of compassion.
A Swedish man was nearly killed for the crime of wearing clothes with his own national flag while Sweden was participating in the 2006 football World Cup. Some "Multicultural youths" found this to be an intolerable provocation, and the 24-year-old man was run down by a car in Malmö, where Muhammad is becoming the most common name for newborn boys.
Feriz and Pajtim, members of Gangsta Albanian Thug Unit in Malmö, explain how they mug people downtown. They target a lone victim. "We surround him and beat and kick him until he no longer fights back," Feriz said. "You are always many more people than your victims. Cowardly?" "I have heard that from many, but I disagree. The whole point is that they're not supposed to have a chance." They didn't express any sympathy for their victims. "If they get injured, they just have themselves to blame for being weak," said Pajtim and shrugged.
The wave of robberies the city of Malmö has witnessed is part of a "war against the Swedes." This is the explanation given by young robbers from immigrant background in interviews with Petra Åkesson. "When we are in the city and robbing we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes." This argument was repeated several times. "Power for me means that the Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet." The boys explain, laughingly, that "there is a thrilling sensation in your body when you're robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if you've succeeded, it simply feels good." "We rob every single day, as often as we want to, whenever we want to. The Swedes don't do anything, they just give us the stuff. They're so wimpy."
"Exit Folkhemssverige – Ensamhällsmodells sönderfall" (Exit the People's Home of Sweden - The Downfall of a Model of Society) is a book from 2005 about immigration and the Swedish welfare state model dubbed "the people's home," written by Jonathan Friedman, Ingrid Björkman, Jan Elfverson and Åke Wedin. According to them, the Swedish Multicultural elites see themselves first of all as citizens of the world. In order to emphasize and accentuate diversity, everything Swedish is deliberately disparaged. Opposition to this policy is considered a form of racism:
"The dominant ideology in Sweden, which has been made dominant by powerful methods of silencing and repression, is a totalitarian ideology, where the elites oppose the national aspect of the nation state. The problem is that the ethnic group that are described as Swedes implicitly are considered to be nationalists, and thereby are viewed as racists."
The authors fear that the handling of the immigration policies has seriously eroded democracy because the citizens lose their loyalty towards a state they no longer consider their own. "Instead of increasing the active participation of citizens, the government has placed clear restrictions on freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of congregation."
Mona Sahlin has held various posts in Social Democratic cabinets, among others as Minister for Democracy, Integration and Gender Equality. Sahlin has said that many Swedes are envious of immigrants because they, unlike the Swedes, have a culture, a history, something which ties them together. Notice how Swedish authorities first formally state that Swedes don't have a history or a culture, and then proceed to lament the fact that Swedes don't have a history or a culture. A neat trick.
Sahlin has also stated that: "If two equally qualified persons apply for a job at a workplace with few immigrants, the one called Muhammad should get the job. (…) It should be considered an asset to have an ethnic background different from the Swedish one." In 2004, she was quoted as saying that "A concerted effort that aims at educating Swedes that immigrants are a blessing to their country must be pursued," stressing that her compatriots must accept that the new society is Multicultural. "Like it or not, this is the new
Sweden."
Mona Sahlin was elected leader of the Social Democratic Party, as thus a future contender for the post of Swedish Prime Minister, in 2007.
Why does the government dispense with the social contract and attack its own people like this? Well, for starters, because it can. Sweden is currently arguably the most politically repressive and totalitarian country in the Western world. It also has the highest tax rates. That could be a coincidence, but I'm not sure that it is. The state has become so large and powerful that is has become an autonomous organism with a will of its own. The people are there to serve the state, not vice versa. And because state power penetrates every single corner of society, including the media, there are no places left to mount a defense if the state decides to attack you.
It has been said jokingly that while other countries are states with armies, Pakistan is an army with a state. Likewise, it could be argued that Sweden started out being a nation with a bureaucracy and ended up being a bureaucracy with a nation. In fact, the bureaucracy formally abolished the very nation it was supposed to serve. Its representatives are no longer leaders of a people, but caretakers preoccupied only with advancing their own careers through oiling and upholding, if possible expanding, the bureaucratic machinery.
Swedes pay the highest tax rates of any (supposedly) free nation, and for this they get flawed social security, non-existent physical security and a state apparatus dedicated to their destruction. . .
Do read the entire essay here.
Once a Muslim . . .
The hypocrisy of Islam is mind boggling. Doesn't it say somewhere in the Koran that there shall be "no compulsion in religion?" Oh yes, verse 2:256. So why is it that to leave Islam for Christianity or Hinduism or just out of sheer agnosticism is considered a crime of apostacy under Sharia law and dealt with in Islamic countries by the sword or other coercive means? It is an outrage. Where is the UN on issues like this:
A Malaysian Islamic court has extended the detention of a Muslim-born woman living as a Hindu in defiance of the law after she refused to be rehabilitated, an opposition leader said Wednesday.Read the entire article here. Where is CAIR on this one? As to the UN, they are busy legislating that their can be no criticism of Islam in the West. In any sane world, they would be condemning the Islamic practice of enforcing its religion by the sword or by coercion on those who would leave it. That being one among countless human rights violations that can be laid at the doorstep of Islam.
Revathi Masoosai, an ethnic Indian, was detained by the Islamic Religious Department in southern Malacca state in January and sent for religious counseling in a rehabilitation center after they discovered she had been born to a Muslim family.
Revathi, 29, was born to Indian Muslim parents who gave her a Muslim name, Siti Fatimah. But she claimed she was raised as a Hindu by her grandmother and changed her name in 2001, opposition Democratic Action Party officials have said. Malaysian Islamic law regards people born to Muslims as being Muslims themselves.
Islamic officials seized her 15-month-old daughter from her Hindu husband, Suresh Veerappan, last month and handed the child to Revathi's Muslim mother.
Revathi married Suresh in 2004 according to Hindu rites but the marriage has not been legally registered because Suresh would have had to convert to Islam first. Revathi's official identification documents state she is Muslim because Malaysians who are born as Muslims cannot legally change their religion.
Parliamentary opposition chief Lim Kit Siang, who chairs the DAP, said the Malacca Shariah Court has extended Revathi's initial detention term of 100 days, which expired Wednesday, for an additional 80 days.
Her husband was informed by court officials that "she did not cooperate during the 100-day stay," Lim told The Associated Press.
Revathi was not brought to court and Veerappan's demand for a copy of the court order on the extension was rejected, he said.
Islamic Department officials in Malacca could not immediately be reached for comment.
"It is sad and tragic that this heart-rending tale of the father, mother and baby girl being forcibly separated into three different locations by law and religion had not been resolved today," Lim said.
"When law and religion comes together to break the family, it gives a bad name to our country. Something is very wrong and it must be put right."
Lim urged the government to intervene and ensure justice for Revathi's family, warning that the case could promote ill-will among Malaysia's different races.
H/T Dhimmi Watch
Fred Thompson on Tour
Or, as they put it at Hotline on call - the Tour De Fred. They are blogging on Mr. Thompson's trip to the House for a meet and greet with Congressmen. Hotline quotes Zach Wamp after the meeting:
On the field: “Fred Thompson actually has the ability to unite America, which our guys were saying was sorely needed.”
“They’re not getting the traction they need. They’re good people but frankly the race started so early that the momentum has been lost by some of them and people are looking for an alternative and they’re looking for more stature, they’re looking for someone who is presidential. Maybe it’s a time where our country is looking for somebody who didn’t crawl all over everyone else to try to become president.”
On social issues: “The conservatives say he checks the boxes but he also transcends our party. He reaches out to the middle. He brings Reagan Democrats back to our party. He has appeal that other candidates simply don’t have.”
If he’s running: “The man that came to see us today, in my view, is preparing to run for president.”
Read the Hotline post here. My own thoughts - Fred Thompson has common sense conservatism and a Reaganesque ability to communicate with thoughfulness and clarity. The importance of the latter cannot be underestimated, particularly in today's climate where one of the greatest failings of the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress has been an almost terminal inability to communicate or to answer the endless attacks of the left. It makes it all the easier to appreciate what Mr. Thompsom brings to the table.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Mass Murder at Virginia Tech
Jules Crittenden has a roundup of numerous sources looking at this horrid crime. Our deepest sympathy and condolences go out to those injured and killed, as well as their parents, friends and loved ones.
Reaction in America is still muted for the most part, as people try to come to grips with reality. In Europe, America-bashing is already in full swing over our gun laws.
Glen Reynolds at Instapundit puts the gun issue in perspective in an editorial he authored today in the N.Y. Daily News:. . . If there were more responsible, armed people on campuses, mass murder would be harder.
In fact, some mass shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. Though press accounts downplayed it, the 2002 shooting at Appalachian Law School was stopped when a student retrieved a gun from his car and confronted the shooter. Likewise, Pearl, Miss., school shooter Luke Woodham was stopped when the school's vice principal took a .45 fromhis truck and ran to the scene. In February's Utah mall shooting, it was an off-duty police officer who happened to be on the scene and carrying a gun.
Police can't be everywhere, and as incidents from Columbine to Virginia Tech demonstrate, by the time they show up at a mass shooting, it's usually too late. On the other hand, one group of people is, by definition, always on the scene: the victims. Only if they're armed, they may wind up not being victims at all.
"Gun-free zones" are premised on a fantasy: That murderers will follow rules, and that people like my student, or Bradford Wiles, are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers like Cho Seung-hui. That's an insult. Sometimes, it's a deadly one.
And this in the WSJ by David KopelThe bucolic campus of Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va., would seem to have little in common with the Trolley Square shopping mall in Salt Lake City. Yet both share an important characteristic, common to the site of almost every other notorious mass murder in recent years: They are "gun-free zones."
Forty American states now have "shall issue" or similar laws, by which officials issue a pistol carry permit upon request to any adult who passes a background check and (in most states) a safety class. Research by Carlisle Moody of the College of William and Mary, and others, suggests that these laws provide law-abiding citizens some protection against violent crime. But in many states there are certain places, especially schools, set aside as off-limits for guns. In Virginia, universities aren't "gun-free zones" by statute, but college officials are allowed to impose anti-gun rules. The result is that mass murderers know where they can commit their crimes.
Private property owners also have the right to prohibit lawful gun possession. And some shopping malls have adopted anti-gun rules. Trolley Square was one, as announced by an unequivocal sign, "No weapons allowed on Trolley Square property."
In February of this year a young man walked past the sign prohibiting him from carrying a gun on the premises and began shooting people who moments earlier were leisurely shopping at Trolley Square. He killed five.
Fortunately, someone else -- off-duty Ogden, Utah, police officer Kenneth Hammond -- also did not comply with the mall's rules. After hearing "popping" sounds, Mr. Hammond investigated and immediately opened fire on the gunman. With his aggressive response, Mr. Hammond prevented other innocent bystanders from getting hurt. He bought time for the local police to respond, while stopping the gunman from hunting down other victims. . . .
The Bane of the Surge
While the first two months of the surge have been successful, Al Qaeda in Iraq and its associated elements have now started a surge of their own. They may no longer own and operate the neighborhoods of Baghdad as their own mini medieval caliphates, but they can still drive into the Baghdad with large bombs to slaughter innocents, all with religous zealotry, and all making a profanity of their religion.
And so they did today - four bombings that occurred at different areas of Baghdad.
In accordance with the Baghdad security plan, Iraqi police have set up checkpoints at key areas throughout the city, one of which was at an entrance to Sadr City. And that checkpoint functioned appropriately today. It stopped a suicide bomber from entering Sadr City in the first bombing of the day -- the bomber detonated at the checkpoint itself. But part of the problem with checkpoints are that they stop and back up traffic - thus making the checkpoint itself a target rich environment for these animals. Though the police at the checkpoint succeeded in stopping the suicide bomber from entering Sadr City and causing untold damage and slaughter there, the butchers bill from the bomb was still significant. The bomb destroyed at least eight cars stopped by the checkpoint, killing 30, 5 of whom were Iraqi police, and injuring another 40.
The second bombing was much worse. Apparently a truck rigged with explosives was parked in the vicinity of the largest market in Baghdad, the Sadriyah Market in central Baghdad. A special security plan, dubbed Operation Safe Markets, calls for Baghdad's markets to be protected by creating a buffer zone with concrete barricades, keeping vehicles a safe distance away. Either the plan failed in this instance, or the bomb was so large that it was still able to do its damage despite the distance to the market. The total dead at this point is 84, with 94 wounded.
The other two bombings had much less effect, though we don't yet know enough facts to tell if this was due in any part to the security plan. "Other bombings, near a hospital in the central Baghdad area of Karrada and in a minibus in the northwest area of Risafi, killed at least 15."
Read the article here. These vehicle bombings are the bane of the surge, which has been very successful to date in driving al Qaeda and such organizations out of Baghdad. And the surge is generating a trememndous windfall of tips and intelligence from Baghdad residents who are coming to trust the soldiers now living among them.
How can this vehicle suicide bombing problem be resolved? Al Qaeda in Iraq and its related organizations are under pressure now, in Baghdad and in their former base of Anbar. Nonetheless, they obviously still occupy areas where vehicles can be safely brought and rigged for explosion, where a suicide bomber can be linked with a vehicle, and from where such vehicle can then be driven into Baghdad.
The default scenario is that we will not be able to stop such bombings until Al Qaeda in Iraq and its related organizations are substantively defeated in Iraq. I am unaware of any high tech solution that would allow vehicles to be scanned for explosives and precursor chemicals - nor any that would allow such vehicles to be identified absent stops and checkpoints.
To understand more about this, at Global Terror Alert, you will find a link to a video approximately half way down the page entitled "Al Qaeda's Convoy of Martyrs in Iraq." Three minutes into the video, it shows a "Saudi national, Abul-Abbas al-Jeddawi, [who] shows off an explosives-packed suicide car bomb and explains jubilantly, "At the end [of the wire], you can see the button which I will press on my way to paradise." Looking at the tape gives an idea of how the vehicle bombs are configured. In that instance, explosives occupy a goodly portion of the floor in the front of the car. Although it does not show it, other vehicle bombs that I have seen configured also have the trunk stuffed with explosives.
One thought is to require all non-governmental vehicles to remove their doors and trunk lids, and remove the spare tire from the wheel well. If you have ever ridden in an old army jeep, you will know that it is an open vehicle without doors or roof. Riding in such a vehicle is not that problematic - though it does become a bit dirty and dusty - and it would make it much easier to determine which vehicles to be concerned with - i.e., those carrying items under opaque coverings. The same could, to the extent possible, be done with trucks. It would also allow checkpoints to be more efficient and back up less traffic. If anyone has more practical solutions - or if you think this idea too impractical - please feel free to comment.
We Need FDR Back
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. On December 9, President Roosevelt made an incredibly stirring speech to the nation. In his words, you hear the echoes of a great nation – echoes of a people that were principled, proud, and willing to sacrifice their lives and their national treasure for freedom and the future of their children. In the speech, Roosevelt explained why war was necessary, why victory was necessary at any cost, and what responsibilities each bore to help achieve that victory.
I think very few people today have read this speech, though it is one that should be required reading for every high school student in this country – as well as every elected official. It is at once incredibly uplifting in the picture it paints of how Americans coalesced and sacrificed to win the Second World War - and it is incredibly saddening in its direct contrasts to our nation and the entire Western world today.
Today we face, in Wahhabi / Salafi radical Islam and in a Khomeinist Iran seeking nuclear weapons, essentially the same existential threat that our forefathers faced. Everyone should read this speech to understand the parallels to out current situation and to understand how we, as a nation, once did – and now must – face such threats or be undone.
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"There is no such thing as security for any nation-or any individual-in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism."
Address over the radio following the declaration of a state of war with the Japanese Empire, December 9, 1941
The sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese in the Pacific provide the climax of a decade of international immorality. Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America. The Japanese have treacherously violated the long- standing peace between us. Many American soldiers and sailors have been killed by enemy action. American ships have been sunk, American airplanes have been destroyed.
The Congress and the people of the United States have accepted that challenge. Together with other free peoples, we are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world neighbors in freedom and in common decency, without fear of assault.
I have prepared the full record of our past relations with Japan, and it will be submitted to the Congress. It begins with the visit of Commodore Perry to Japan 88 years ago. It ends with the visit of two Japanese emissaries to the Secretary of State last Sunday, an hour after Japanese forces had loosed their bombs and machine guns against our flag, our forces, and our citizens. I can say with utmost confidence that no Americans today or a thousand years hence, need feel anything but pride in our patience and our efforts through all the years toward achieving a peace in the Pacific which would be fair and honorable to every nation, large or small. And no honest person, today or a thousand years hence, will be able to suppress a sense of indignation and horror at the treachery committed by the military dictators of Japan, under the very shadow of the flag of peace borne by their special envoys in our midst. The course that Japan has followed for the past 10 years in Asia has paralleled the course of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and Africa. Today, it has become far more than a parallel. It is collaboration so well calculated that all the continents of the world, and all the oceans, are now considered by the Axis strategists as one gigantic battlefield.
In 1931, Japan invaded Manchukuo-without warning.
In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia-without warning.
In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria-without warning.
In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia-without warning.
Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland-without warning.
In 1940, Hitler invaded Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg-without warning.
In 1940, Italy attacked France and later Greece-without warning.
In 1941, the Axis Powers attacked Jugoslavia and Greece and they dominated the Balkans-without warning.
In 1941, Hitler invaded Russia-without warning.
And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand-and the United States- without warning. It is all of one pattern.
We are now in this war. We are all in it-all the way. Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories-the changing fortunes of war.
So far, the news has all been bad. We have suffered a serious setback in Hawaii. Our forces in the Philippines, which include the brave people of that commonwealth, are taking punishment, but are defending themselves vigorously. The reports from Guam and Wake and Midway Islands are still confused, but we must be prepared for the announcement that all these three outposts have been seized. The casualty lists of these first few days will undoubtedly be large. I deeply feel the anxiety of all families of the men in our armed forces and the relatives of people in cities which have been bombed. I can only give them my solemn promise that they will get news just as quickly as possible.
This Government will put its trust in the stamina of the American people, and will give the facts to the public as soon as two conditions have been fulfilled. First, that the information has been definitely and officially confirmed; and, second, that the release of the information at the time it is received will not prove valuable to the enemy directly or indirectly.
Most earnestly I urge my countrymen to reject all rumors. These ugly little hints of complete disaster fly thick and fast in wartime. They have to be examined and appraised. As an example, I can tell you frankly that until further surveys are made, I have not sufficient information to state the exact damage which has been done to our naval vessels at Pearl Harbor. Admittedly the damage is serious. But no one can say how serious, until we know how much of this damage can be repaired and how quickly the necessary repairs can be made. I cite as another example a statement made on Sunday night that a Japanese carrier had been located and sunk off the Canal Zone.
And when you hear statements that are attributed to what they call "an authoritative source," you can be reasonably sure that under these war circumstances the "authoritative source" was not any person in authority. Many rumors and reports which we now hear originate with enemy sources.
For instance, today the Japanese are claiming that as a result of their one action against Hawaii they have gained naval supremacy in the Pacific. This is an old trick of propaganda which has been used innumerable times by the Nazis. The purposes of such fantastic claims are, of course, to spread fear and confusion among us, and to goad us into revealing military information which our enemies are desperately anxious to obtain. Our Government will not be caught in this obvious trap-and neither will our people.
It must be remembered by each and every one of us that our free and rapid communication must be greatly restricted in wartime. It is not possible to receive full, speedy, accurate reports from distant areas of combat. This is particularly true where naval operations are concerned. For in these days of the marvels of radio it is often impossible for the commanders of various units to report their activities by radio, for the very simple reason that this information would become available to the enemy, and would disclose their position and their plan of defense or attack. Of necessity there will be delays in officially confirming or denying reports of operations but we will not hide facts from the country if we know the facts and if the enemy will not be aided by their disclosure.
To all newspapers and radio stations-all those who reach the eyes and ears of the American people-I say this: You have a most grave responsibility to the Nation now and for the duration of this war. If you feel that your Government is not disclosing enough of the truth, you have very right to say so. But-in the absence of all the facts, as revealed by official sources-you have no right to deal out unconfirmed reports in such a way as to make people believe they are gospel truth. Every citizen, in every walk of life, shares this same responsibility. The lives of our soldiers and sailors-the whole future of this Nation- depend upon the manner in which each and every one of us fulfills his obligation to our country.
Now a word about the recent past-and the future. A year and a half has elapsed since the fall of France, when the whole world first realized the mechanized might which the Axis nations had been building for so many years. America has used that year and a half to great advantage.
Knowing that the attack might reach us in all too short a time, we immediately began greatly to increase our industrial strength and our capacity to meet the demands of modern warfare. Precious months were gained by sending vast quantities of our war materials to the nations of the world still able to resist Axis aggression.
Our policy rested on the fundamental truth that the defense of any country resisting Hitler or Japan was in the long run the defense of our own country. That policy has been justified. It has given us time, invaluable time, to build our American assembly lines of production. Assembly lines are now in operation. Others are being rushed to completion. A steady stream of tanks and planes, of guns and ships, of shells and equipment-that is what these 18 months have given us. But it is all only a beginning of what has to be done.
We must be set to face a long war against crafty and powerful bandits. The attack at Pearl Harbor can be repeated at any one of many points in both oceans and along both our coast lines and against all the rest of the hemisphere. It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war. That is the basis on which we now lay all our plans. That is the yardstick by which we measure what we shall need and demand-money, materials, doubled and quadrupled production, ever increasing.
The production must be not only for our own Army and Navy and air forces. It must reinforce the other armies and navies and air forces fighting the Nazis and the war lords of Japan throughout the Americas and the world. I have been working today on the subject of production. Your Government has decided on two broad policies. The first is to speed up all existing production by working on a 7-day- week basis in every war industry, including the production of essential raw materials.
The second policy, now being put into form, is to rush additions to the capacity of production by building more new plants, by adding to old plants, and by using the many smaller plants for war needs. Over the hard road of the past months we have at times met obstacles and difficulties, divisions and disputes, indifference and callousness. That is now all past and, I am sure forgotten.
The fact is that the country now has an organization in Washington built around men and women who are recognized experts in their own fields. I think the country knows that the people who are actually responsible in each and every one of these many fields are pulling together with a teamwork that has never before been excelled. On the road ahead there lies hard work-grueling work-day and night, every hour and every minute.
I was about to add that ahead there lies sacrifice for all of us. But it is not correct to use that word. The United States does not consider it a sacrifice to do all one can, to give one's best to our Nation when the Nation is fighting for its existence and its future life.
It is not a sacrifice for any man, old or young, to be in the Army or the Navy of the United States. Rather is it a privilege.
It is not a sacrifice for the industrialist or the wage earner, the farmer or the shopkeeper, the trainman or the doctor, to pay more taxes, to buy more bonds, to forego extra profits, to work longer or harder at the task for which he is best fitted. Rather is it a privilege.
It is not a sacrifice to do without many things to which we are accustomed if the national defense calls for doing without. A review this morning leads me to the conclusion that at present we shall not have to curtail the normal articles of food. There is enough food for all of us and enough left over to send to those who are fighting on the same side with us. There will be a clear and definite shortage of metals of many kinds for civilian use, for the very good reason that in our increased program we shall need for war purposes more than half of that portion of the principal metals which during the past year have gone into articles for civilian use.
We shall have to give up many things entirely. I am sure that the people in every part of the Nation are prepared in their individual living to win this war. I am sure they will cheerfully help to pay a large part of its financial cost while it goes on I am sure they will cheerfully give up those material things they are asked to give up. I am sure that they will retain all those great spiritual things without which we cannot win through.
I repeat that the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.
In my message to the Congress yesterday I said that take very certain that this form of treachery shall never we "will endanger us again." In order to achieve that certainty, we must begin the great task that is before us by abandoning once and for all the illusion that we can ever again isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity.
In these past few years-and, most violently, in the past few days-we have learned a terrible lesson. It is our obligation to our dead-it is our sacred obligation to their children and our children-that we must never forget what we have learned. And what we all have learned is this: There is no such thing as security for any nation-or any individual-in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism. There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in the dark and strike without warning.
We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack-that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map. We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat of deception, perfectly timed and executed with great skill. It was a thoroughly dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that modern warfare as conducted in the Nazi manner is a dirty business. We don't like it-we didn't want to get in it-but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got.
I do not think any American has any doubt of our ability to administer proper punishment to the perpetrators of these crimes. Your Government knows that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan did not attack the United States, Japan would not share in dividing the spoils with Germany when peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive the complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area-and that means not only the Far East, not only all of the islands in the Pacific but also a stranglehold on the west coast of North, Central, and South America.
We also know that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations in accordance with a joint plan. . . .
The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers; we are builders. We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this Nation, and all that this Nation represents, will be safe for our children. We expect to eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini.
We are going to win the war, and we are going to win the peace that follows. And in the dark hours of this day-and through dark days that may be yet to come-we will know that the vast majority of the members of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying for us. For, in representing our cause, we represent theirs as well-our hope and their hope for liberty under God.
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In World War II, over a four year period, we sustained casualties of over 400,000 deaths and close to 700,000 wounded. At no point did the Congress vote to end our involvement in the war or to begin drawing down our military in Europe or the Pacific on a date certain. The Republican opposition in Congress was loyal and patriotic, placing national security ahead of any thoughts of partisan politics. Today, we have sustained a little over 3,311 dead from our operation in Iraq, and the opposition in Congress, anything but loyal and patriotic, is doing all they can to end our involvement in Iraq, including by buying votes on a massive scale and coercing its members to vote to end the war. Indeed, Democrats no longer conceed that we are even involved in a global war on terror.
You will recall FDR’s request to the press, above, to act responsibly. Since 2003, the New York Times and other major newspapers have routinely divulged classified information that has damaged our nation’s ability to protect its citizens. Indeed, Dana Priest won a Pulitzer Prize for such reporting last year. I am unaware of any newspaper knowingly divulging classified material during World War II.
FDR asked the press not to speculate or to rely on any but official sources. Yet in today’s newspapers, questionable sources are not only relied upon, but often treated as more authoritative then the military and government sources. The most recent example of this is the New York Times, in their treatment of the protest marches in Najaf, discounting the military’s figures in order to drive home a point to its readers. And at times it gets worse, when the MSM knowingly lie to the people about the war in Iraq. There is nothing loyal or patriotic about mainstream media in the United States today.
When FDR saw war was imminent, he made every effort to increase both the size of the military and to provide fully for its equipment. Today, four years into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our equipment posture is horrendous and the size of our military is at its smallest since 1945. These shortcomings up until 2003 must be shared by all prior administrations. But since 2003, that fault must be laid squarely at the doorstep of the Bush administration and the Republican majority in Congress – with record setting budgets, but not emphasis on a wartime military. We are paying the price for that lack of foresight today, yet I have not heard Bush address issue – only Jack Murtha.
Protection of our country was once a thing of which to be proud. Indeed, as FDR said, “The United States does not consider it a sacrifice to do all one can, to give one's best to our Nation when the Nation is fighting for its existence and its future life. It is not a sacrifice for any man, old or young, to be in the Army or the Navy of the United States. Rather is it a privilege.” That does not seem to be the case today, where John Kerry indicates that only the stupid end up in the military, and Barak Obama opines that our soldiers killed in Iraq have “wasted” their lives. Today, volunteers for the army are at the highest level they have been in ten years – but that is in spite of our elected representatives in Congress, who seem to view our soldiers with barely concealed scorn. I will only add here that I served in the military as a United States Infantry officer, and I am very proud that. The only thing of which I am more proud is that one of my children is a member of the U.S. Army, and my other child expects to join the service this year. Service to our nation is in fact an honor and a privilege.
As FDR said, "The fact is that the country now has an organization in Washington built around men and women who are recognized experts in their own fields." Yet, today, in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi chooses partisan political figures to head the most important posts based upon loyalty, not competence. She appointed Sylvester Reyes to be Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee over a far more qualified candidate. Chairman Reyes, in an interview shortly after his appointment, was unable to distinguish between the Sunni and Shia forms of Islam.
We have lived in a free and democratic world since 1945 for one reason – as FDR said “the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.” If we do not break the back of radical Islam and the nuclear threat posed by Iran, our children will never know the security that have allowed us to bask in a massive national narcissism since the 1960’s. The not so loyal opposition of today is quite willing to gamble – if not outright sacrifice – that security upon the alter of political power. A war lasting more then four years, but with about 1% of the casualties sustained in World War II, does not feel good. And because it does not feel good – and because it presents an opportunity to take power – they can accept a result other then victory. It is craven, cynical, and quite potentially suicidal.
As FDR said, “We must be set to face a long war against crafty and powerful bandits. The attack at Pearl Harbor can be repeated at any one of many points in both oceans and along both our coast lines and against all the rest of the hemisphere. It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war. That is the basis on which we now lay all our plans. That is the yardstick by which we measure what we shall need and demand-money, materials, doubled and quadrupled production, ever increasing.” Yet, today the Democratic mantra to attack the war is that Bush wants an “open ended commitment and a blank check.” Those are not reasons to quit a war in Iraq where we are engaging both radical Islamists and Khomeinist Iran. As FDR I think would say, the commitment ends when victory is achieved, and the costs of that victory, no matter how dear, will be far less then the costs for not achieving a victory.
In World War II, FDR authorized the incredibly dangerous D-Day operation that saw the U.S. and allied forces gain a foothold in Europe against tremendous German opposition, and at tremendous cost in loss of life. At no time during this operation did the press of that era call for it to end, arguing that could not succeed. Yet today, we have Harry Reid, Joe Biden, and the editors of the New York Times arguing that the surge, still in its nascent beginnings, cannot possibly succeed and that we should withdraw from Iraq immediately. Having all changed their tune to one of defeat, they want to insure that the surge is not given a chance to succeed. Apparently while the Bush doctrine calls for preemptive war against our national enemies, the Democrat's doctrine calls for preemptive war against Bush and the surge.
As FDR said, “There is no such thing as security for any nation-or any individual-in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism. There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in the dark and strike without warning. We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack-that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map.” Can that description be anymore apt to the situation we face today? We will either defeat radical Islam and Khomeinist Shiaism, or we, and then our children, will be ever at risk of catastrophic attack anywhere in the world, including at home in the United States. Leaving Iraq to be fought over by radical Sunnis and Khomeinists from Iran is a sure ticket to this future of insecurity and looming chaos.
And lastly, FDR said “through dark days that may be yet to come-we will know that the vast majority of the members of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying for us. For, in representing our cause, we represent theirs as well.” In fighting to protect ourselves, we are also fighting to protect Europe from this scourge of radical Islam. Yet America is hated and reviled on the Continent, and in Germany, many believe that America is more a threat to world peace then the theocracy in Iran. And when Iran kidnapped fifteen UK sailors and marines who were conducting a UN mandated mission, not a single European nation offered to assist. Suicidally, these nations, after fifty years of being protected by the U.S., are acting as if they bear no responsibility for their own defense, nor the continued existence of their individual cultures. But for the UK, precious few of the continental European nations are “on our side” today.
Rereading FDR, it is clear that the people that fought German and Japanese aggression, their values and mores, are in large measure gone from the West today. But I posit that our only hope of survival depends on recapturing them. 
