The recent coup d'etat in Honduras is not a coup against democracy, but one in defense of it, even though it was against an elected president. The Honduran President had violated the Constitution in undertaking to conduct an illegal referendum in order to rule for another term beyond the constitutional limit. In circumventing the constitution, he was emulating his left-wing comrade, the authoritarian Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has been trying to spread his style of socialist/communist dictatorship accross Latin America.
The Honduran military was not acting on its own in overthrowing the President, but on the orders of the Supreme Court, with congressional support. The President's moves had also been opposed by his own attorney general. Elections remain on schedule for later this year.
The Honduran coup is like the coup attempt against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002. At that time, liberals criticized U.S. President George W. Bush for appearing sympathetic to the coup against an elected leader. Bush and other conservatives have been vindicated by the subsequent flagrant authoritarianism by Chavez. Yet the Obama Administration is repeating the same mistake that liberals made in 2002 in regard to Venezuela by condemning the coup in Honduras.
Indeed, the pattern is recognizable at least as far back as the early years of the Clinton Administration, after the overthrow of Haiti's elected left-wing president, Aristide. Bill Clinton demanded the restoration of Aristide, and backed up his demand by sending troops to keep peace after his restoration. Aristide turned out to be authoritarian and had to be forced from power once again during the Bush Administration. By that time, there were few complaints about Aristide's departure, as it had become obvious that he was not democratic. Indeed, his departure has permitted Haiti to become a relatively peaceful representative republic, which makes it an extraordinary event in Haitian history.
Liberals must put aside their sympathy toward left-wing anti-American leaders just because they are democratically elected and remember that history shows that such a leader can be become a dictator, like Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolph Hitler. Thus, a coup that prevents a representative democracy from becoming a dictatorship is not anti-democratic, but pro-democratic. In short, it is not so much how a government came to power that matters but whether that government protects the freedom of its people.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Victory in Iraq
The imminent withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities is being hailed by Iraq's government as a victory over the insurgency. The withdrawal had been planned long in advance once conditions permitted it to occur. Although the insurgents have not yet been completely vanquished, the move means that Iraqi troops are taking an increasingly lead role in putting down the insurgency themselves, which will allow the eventual withdrawal of all foreign forces, if the Iraqis desire.
It is an appropriate time to consider what American troops, together with their allies in the Coalition of the Willing, as well as the Iraqis themselves, have achieved thus far in the Liberation of Iraq.
First, United Nations resolutions were enforced. The resolutions had required Iraq to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, which it had refused to prove that it had done. The Liberation of Iraq removed from power Saddam Hussein's Baath regime that maintained a WMD program. Not only is the regime no longer able to threaten its neighbors and U.S. allies, interests and troops in the region conventionally or by WMDs because it has been removed from power, but hundreds of chemical weapons (WMDs) were discovered and destroyed, as well as many chemicals that could have been weaponized quickly and other materials such as enriched uranium. Baathist leaders who had used WMDs (e.g. "Chemical" Ali) were captured and punished. Enforcement of UN resolutions is critical in international efforts to limit the proliferation of WMDs and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
Second, the removal of the Baathist regime also represented a victory in the War on Terrorism, insofar as it removed from power a state sponsor of terrorism. Iraq had harbored and financed terrorists, including some who targeted and killed Americans. For example, Abu Abbas, a Palestinian terrorist who had killed an American, had been given safe harbor in Iraq, where he was the conduit for Hussein's funneling of money to Palestinian suicide bombers, some of whom killed Americans. Because state sponsorship of terrorism not only gives terrorists a haven and money, but confers legitimacy to terrorism, the removal of state sponsors of terrorism is critical to defeating terrorists.
Third, Iraq's neighbors no longer must live in fear of another invasion by Hussein -- the world's only serial aggressor since World War II. As a result, the United States no longer needed to maintain troops in Saudi Arabia, where they were targeted by militant Islamist bombers. The presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia was the major source of irritation for Islamists like Osama bin Laden. The U.S. was able to withdraw its troops on its own terms instead of through the intimidation of Muslim militants, while taking away their chief excuse for opposing the U.S.
Fourth, the Iraqi people were liberated from one of the most brutal tyrants of his time. Liberated from oppression, Iraqis were free to determine their own destiny. They have chosen freedom and representative democracy for their republic, which provides a model for others in the Arab and Muslim world. Oppression is another one of the excuses that terrorists use in order to attempt to overthrow Muslim governments and replace them with more militant Islamist ones. Because of the Liberation of Iraq, freedom is now an acceptable alternative for Arabs and Muslims.
Fifth, the war in Iraq led to an additional victory in the War on Terrorism -- a military victory over al-Qaeda. As in Afghanistan, jihadis from around the Muslim world came to Iraq to fight the Coalition in the hope of defeating it and establishing an Islamist state there. Al-Qaeda was defeated military by the Coalition and the Iraqi government in part because the Iraqi people themselves rejected the foreign terrorists. As a battle in the War on Terrorism, the Liberation of Iraq represents a strategic defeat for al-Qaeda, which has diminished its credibility as a military force.
We should be grateful to the American troops who led the Liberation of Iraq. They have accomplished much in the fight for freedom and against terrorism and militant Islam.
It is an appropriate time to consider what American troops, together with their allies in the Coalition of the Willing, as well as the Iraqis themselves, have achieved thus far in the Liberation of Iraq.
First, United Nations resolutions were enforced. The resolutions had required Iraq to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, which it had refused to prove that it had done. The Liberation of Iraq removed from power Saddam Hussein's Baath regime that maintained a WMD program. Not only is the regime no longer able to threaten its neighbors and U.S. allies, interests and troops in the region conventionally or by WMDs because it has been removed from power, but hundreds of chemical weapons (WMDs) were discovered and destroyed, as well as many chemicals that could have been weaponized quickly and other materials such as enriched uranium. Baathist leaders who had used WMDs (e.g. "Chemical" Ali) were captured and punished. Enforcement of UN resolutions is critical in international efforts to limit the proliferation of WMDs and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
Second, the removal of the Baathist regime also represented a victory in the War on Terrorism, insofar as it removed from power a state sponsor of terrorism. Iraq had harbored and financed terrorists, including some who targeted and killed Americans. For example, Abu Abbas, a Palestinian terrorist who had killed an American, had been given safe harbor in Iraq, where he was the conduit for Hussein's funneling of money to Palestinian suicide bombers, some of whom killed Americans. Because state sponsorship of terrorism not only gives terrorists a haven and money, but confers legitimacy to terrorism, the removal of state sponsors of terrorism is critical to defeating terrorists.
Third, Iraq's neighbors no longer must live in fear of another invasion by Hussein -- the world's only serial aggressor since World War II. As a result, the United States no longer needed to maintain troops in Saudi Arabia, where they were targeted by militant Islamist bombers. The presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia was the major source of irritation for Islamists like Osama bin Laden. The U.S. was able to withdraw its troops on its own terms instead of through the intimidation of Muslim militants, while taking away their chief excuse for opposing the U.S.
Fourth, the Iraqi people were liberated from one of the most brutal tyrants of his time. Liberated from oppression, Iraqis were free to determine their own destiny. They have chosen freedom and representative democracy for their republic, which provides a model for others in the Arab and Muslim world. Oppression is another one of the excuses that terrorists use in order to attempt to overthrow Muslim governments and replace them with more militant Islamist ones. Because of the Liberation of Iraq, freedom is now an acceptable alternative for Arabs and Muslims.
Fifth, the war in Iraq led to an additional victory in the War on Terrorism -- a military victory over al-Qaeda. As in Afghanistan, jihadis from around the Muslim world came to Iraq to fight the Coalition in the hope of defeating it and establishing an Islamist state there. Al-Qaeda was defeated military by the Coalition and the Iraqi government in part because the Iraqi people themselves rejected the foreign terrorists. As a battle in the War on Terrorism, the Liberation of Iraq represents a strategic defeat for al-Qaeda, which has diminished its credibility as a military force.
We should be grateful to the American troops who led the Liberation of Iraq. They have accomplished much in the fight for freedom and against terrorism and militant Islam.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Blog Post Recieves 100th Hit
I am pleased to report a significant milestone for my blog. One of the posts on my blog, "The Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization," has received its 100th hit. Hits from this post alone have come from the United States and 21 foreign states on 5 continents. I am not including several readers who viewed my blog homepage when this post was still among the seven that are always viewable there, some of whom I know also viewed the post. Several of those searchers who viewed my post viewed the post multiple times (I define a second hit as a visit at least one hour later than the first one) or went on to view other posts, especially "Follow-up to the Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization."
I am especially pleased that a post on my blog has reached such a milestone, considering that I do not publicly advertise this blog, which has received almost 430 hits overall since April 2, not including my own. Thank you, dear readers, for your support!
I am especially pleased that a post on my blog has reached such a milestone, considering that I do not publicly advertise this blog, which has received almost 430 hits overall since April 2, not including my own. Thank you, dear readers, for your support!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Let Us Stand with the Iranian People
In my last post, "Follow-up on the Definition of Terrorism," I discuss how a protest organized by a terrorist group or terrorist-sponsoring regime could itself be an act of terrorism. But the converse -- a protest against a terrorist-sponsoring regime -- could be an act of terrorism, which is a major reason why we must stand with the Iranian people in their struggle for liberty.
The current demonstrations against the Iranian theocratic dictatorship are the largest observed since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. I recall how the daily protests then forced the Shah to flee, which allowed the Islamist forces led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to take power in what has thus far been the only other revolution besides the American Revolution to be successful. The current demonstrations against the Islamist dictatorship represent a grave threat to the Khomeinist regime.
The opposition to the Iranian dictatorship is led by a former prime minister who served during the worst period of oppression of the Islamic Revolution who has accepted the popular demand for reform. Although his proposals represent only modest reform, those Iranians opposed to the regime supported him, as well as another moderate candidate in recent presidential elections against the current president who is backed by the tyrannical mullahs who represent the real center of power of the regime. The dictatorship prohibits more reformist candidates from running for president or parliament. The demonstrators are protesting allegations of voter fraud committed by the regime in the election, in which it claims the incumbent easily won reelection, but their cause is broader than the election dispute; the demonstrators seek the overthrow of the dictatorship. Many of them want it to be supplanted by a representative democracy.
The regime's harsh repression of the peaceful demonstrations underscores the lack of liberty in Iran, in contrast to its neighbors to the east and west, namely Afghanistan and Iraq. The stakes are high for the world and the War on Terrorism, not only because Iran is the mother of terrorism and is seeking to build nuclear weapons, but because it has been an example to militant Muslims as the first modern Islamist state, that is to say one ruled by theocrats who impose Islamic law based upon a strict interpretation of Islamic Scripture. A popular Muslim counter-revolution against Islamist rule in Iran would be a major blow to militant Islam, as it would suggest that Islamist rule is intolerable even for Muslims. Many Muslims, like the people of Iran, crave their birthright of the blessings of liberty. Therefore, let us stand with the Iranian people in support of their freedom.
The current demonstrations against the Iranian theocratic dictatorship are the largest observed since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. I recall how the daily protests then forced the Shah to flee, which allowed the Islamist forces led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to take power in what has thus far been the only other revolution besides the American Revolution to be successful. The current demonstrations against the Islamist dictatorship represent a grave threat to the Khomeinist regime.
The opposition to the Iranian dictatorship is led by a former prime minister who served during the worst period of oppression of the Islamic Revolution who has accepted the popular demand for reform. Although his proposals represent only modest reform, those Iranians opposed to the regime supported him, as well as another moderate candidate in recent presidential elections against the current president who is backed by the tyrannical mullahs who represent the real center of power of the regime. The dictatorship prohibits more reformist candidates from running for president or parliament. The demonstrators are protesting allegations of voter fraud committed by the regime in the election, in which it claims the incumbent easily won reelection, but their cause is broader than the election dispute; the demonstrators seek the overthrow of the dictatorship. Many of them want it to be supplanted by a representative democracy.
The regime's harsh repression of the peaceful demonstrations underscores the lack of liberty in Iran, in contrast to its neighbors to the east and west, namely Afghanistan and Iraq. The stakes are high for the world and the War on Terrorism, not only because Iran is the mother of terrorism and is seeking to build nuclear weapons, but because it has been an example to militant Muslims as the first modern Islamist state, that is to say one ruled by theocrats who impose Islamic law based upon a strict interpretation of Islamic Scripture. A popular Muslim counter-revolution against Islamist rule in Iran would be a major blow to militant Islam, as it would suggest that Islamist rule is intolerable even for Muslims. Many Muslims, like the people of Iran, crave their birthright of the blessings of liberty. Therefore, let us stand with the Iranian people in support of their freedom.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Follow-up on the Definition of Terrorism
A timely story was reported about the U.S. Department of Defense's employee test that asked a multiple-choice question of what would be an example of "low-level terrorism." I am not certain what was meant by "low-level," as all terrorism terrorizes the populace, the only difference being the degree of terror an attack causes. However, it was not the question that has generated controversy, but the answer.
The four choices for what would constitute an example of low-level terrorism on the Pentagon's test were the following: 1) "Attacking the Pentagon," 2) "IEDs," 3) "Hate crimes against racial groups" and 4) "Protests." The correct answer was #4, "Protests." So-called civil libertarians objected to the implication that dissent equates to terrorism, however an analysis of the question and answers would suggest that the so-called civil libertarians are not necessarily correct.
First, it is necessary to demonstrate why the first three answers are incorrect, and therefore why the fourth answer is the most correct. Attacking the Pentagon would be attacking a military target, which would not represent an example of terrorism, as terrorism targets innocent civilians (by "innocent," I do not mean civilians working for government, such as civilian employees working at the Pentagon, which does not imply in any way that civilian employees of the government are "guilty," as opposed to "innocent," as the latter terms means only that they are not participants in any conflict, such as to be considered a legitimate target in war). Note: The September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon is a terrorist attack, however, because of the method of the attack, which was the hijacking and crashing of a civilian airliner into the building. Also, the attack on the Pentagon was part of a coordinated terrorist attack on other civilian targets. However, the September 11 attack was an exception to earlier other attacks on the Pentagon, which were militant attacks like other attacks that target the military, and thus not examples of terrorism. It is critical to understand that attacks on the military are not examples of terrorism because a failure to understand the particular evil of terrorism, which targets innocent civilians, allows both the terrorists and their sympathizers and apologists to make a moral equivalence between terrorist acts and military forced used in resistance to terrorism.
IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are not an example of terrorism because they are weapons, not attacks. Yet even an attack by IED would not necessarily constitute terrorism because the target might be military, or the reason for the attack may not be in order to terrorize the populace. For example, it could be an act by an insane person, a crook, a disgruntled employee or a jilted lover, let alone be motivated by some sort of political reason. Even if it were politically motivated, it would not necessarily be a terrorist act. As I have noted before, terrorism is in the target (innocent civilians, not individuals whom the attacker opposes), not the method.
The third answer, "Hate crimes against racial groups," would not necessarily constitute a terrorist act, even if the attack were some sort of massacre. Genocide is the killing of a people. Terrorists often kill people, but not strictly for the sake of killing out of some bigotry that causes them to want to eliminate entirely that group of people. Terrorists kill some people within a populace in order to terrorize all of the other people in that populace. In other words, the intended target of the terrorist is not only the innocent people he kidnaps, injures or kills, but every other innocent person within that populace because he wants to intimidate them into acquiescing to his demands. A terrorist cannot get a populace to give in to his demands if he kills all of them. A person whose intent is strictly to hurt or kill people is not a terrorist. Regardless of how much hatred a terrorist might have for the people he targets, a terrorist's intent is to terrorize, as the word terrorism implies because a terrorist terrorizes people not necessarily out of hatred for them, but for a political motivation.
The fourth answer, "Protests," is the most correct, even though some protests may not be terrorists act at all because they may have nothing to do with terrorism or resistance to it. Some protests, however, might be examples of terrorism, which makes this answer the least incorrect, and thus the most correct one on the Pentagon's test. A mass protest organized by a terrorist group or terrorist-sponsoring regime is obviously an act intended to terrorize by intimidating a populace to give into the terrorists' demands. It is critical to understand that an act does not necessarily have to injure or cause any damage in order to terrorize people. For example, even though an unexploded bomb planted in a public place does not cause any any physical harm, it is sufficient to terrorize people. Even a false bomb scare has the same effect. Therefore, the media is wrong to call all false bomb scares "hoaxes," as these might be acts intended to terrorize even if no physical harm potentially can be caused, or are intended to probe defenses or cause such weariness as to decrease vigilance (in other words, in order to get people to become complacent and drop their guard). The possession of weapons of mass destruction by a terrorist-sponsoring regime is ipso facto an act of terrorism, such as North Korea's current attempts to intimidate all Americans within range of its nuclear missiles. A protest by terrorists or their sponsors demonstrates the terrorists' zeal for their cause and is an attempt to show their popular support, which suggests that they have adequate motivated personnel in order to carry out numerous attacks.
A protest by those sympathetic to, or who are apologists for, terrorists, is not quite as obvious a terrorist act, however, it could nonetheless also be an example of terrorism. If someone improves the morale of an enemy, while harming the morale of the soldiers of his own country, he is aiding and abetting that enemy, which, in wartime, meets the definition of treason. A protest that opposes fighting the enemy is an example of aiding and abetting that enemy. Thus, "peace" protests are truly violent acts, whether intentional or not, just as the so-called peace protests during the Vietnamese War led to the violent deaths of more than a million Indochinese civilians because the protesters achieved their goal of ending U.S. involvement in that war. Protests against the War on Terrorism are protests against fighting the terrorists, which means that they are protests in favor of victory by the terrorists, just as protests against the Vietnamese War were intended to produce a victory by the Communists. Just as Communists and their sympathizers helped to organize the protests against the Vietnamese War, so too do those sympathetic to terrorism or other anti-Americans help to organize protests against the War on Terrorism. Note: I am referring in particular to protests against the War on Terrorism in general, which I have observed firsthand, which are not protests against this or that particular government policy, but against the entire concept of opposing terrorism militarily. Protests that suggest that it is illegitimate to fight terrorists are intended to unilaterally disarm the United States in the terrorists' asymmetrical fight against the U.S.
As I have noted, the goal of terrorists is to intimidate a populace. When some within that populace begin to agitate for acquiescence to the terrorists' demands, even if they are doing so out of fear, they are doing exactly what the terrorists want them to do, even if unintentionally. Thus, they are force multipliers of terrorists, especially within a pluralistic society, even if they are not part of a "Fifth Column" like terrorist sympathizers and apologists. However, such foolish protesters are not guilty of committing an act of terrorism, even if the act is effectively an example of terrorism, because their intent is not malice, but cowardice. I am not referring to such cowards, but to those anti-Americans who protest against the moral legitimacy of any resistance to terrorism at all, who are demagogues because they use the legitimate fear of terrorist attacks as a justification to avoid fighting terrorists, all the while falsely claiming to be patriotic by availing themselves of the right to assemble, and claiming to represent the best interests of the U.S. that they truly despise. They fail to note the qualifier "peaceably" before the right "to assemble" in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A protest intended to give a military victory to an enemy is not a peaceable assembly, even if no violence occurs at the protest. Protests are violent if they are intended in favor of rewarding violence, whether organized by terrorists or their anti-American sympathizers. Therefore, protests may be acts of terrorism, which would make the fourth answer in the Pentagon's multiple-choice question the most correct one.
The four choices for what would constitute an example of low-level terrorism on the Pentagon's test were the following: 1) "Attacking the Pentagon," 2) "IEDs," 3) "Hate crimes against racial groups" and 4) "Protests." The correct answer was #4, "Protests." So-called civil libertarians objected to the implication that dissent equates to terrorism, however an analysis of the question and answers would suggest that the so-called civil libertarians are not necessarily correct.
First, it is necessary to demonstrate why the first three answers are incorrect, and therefore why the fourth answer is the most correct. Attacking the Pentagon would be attacking a military target, which would not represent an example of terrorism, as terrorism targets innocent civilians (by "innocent," I do not mean civilians working for government, such as civilian employees working at the Pentagon, which does not imply in any way that civilian employees of the government are "guilty," as opposed to "innocent," as the latter terms means only that they are not participants in any conflict, such as to be considered a legitimate target in war). Note: The September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon is a terrorist attack, however, because of the method of the attack, which was the hijacking and crashing of a civilian airliner into the building. Also, the attack on the Pentagon was part of a coordinated terrorist attack on other civilian targets. However, the September 11 attack was an exception to earlier other attacks on the Pentagon, which were militant attacks like other attacks that target the military, and thus not examples of terrorism. It is critical to understand that attacks on the military are not examples of terrorism because a failure to understand the particular evil of terrorism, which targets innocent civilians, allows both the terrorists and their sympathizers and apologists to make a moral equivalence between terrorist acts and military forced used in resistance to terrorism.
IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are not an example of terrorism because they are weapons, not attacks. Yet even an attack by IED would not necessarily constitute terrorism because the target might be military, or the reason for the attack may not be in order to terrorize the populace. For example, it could be an act by an insane person, a crook, a disgruntled employee or a jilted lover, let alone be motivated by some sort of political reason. Even if it were politically motivated, it would not necessarily be a terrorist act. As I have noted before, terrorism is in the target (innocent civilians, not individuals whom the attacker opposes), not the method.
The third answer, "Hate crimes against racial groups," would not necessarily constitute a terrorist act, even if the attack were some sort of massacre. Genocide is the killing of a people. Terrorists often kill people, but not strictly for the sake of killing out of some bigotry that causes them to want to eliminate entirely that group of people. Terrorists kill some people within a populace in order to terrorize all of the other people in that populace. In other words, the intended target of the terrorist is not only the innocent people he kidnaps, injures or kills, but every other innocent person within that populace because he wants to intimidate them into acquiescing to his demands. A terrorist cannot get a populace to give in to his demands if he kills all of them. A person whose intent is strictly to hurt or kill people is not a terrorist. Regardless of how much hatred a terrorist might have for the people he targets, a terrorist's intent is to terrorize, as the word terrorism implies because a terrorist terrorizes people not necessarily out of hatred for them, but for a political motivation.
The fourth answer, "Protests," is the most correct, even though some protests may not be terrorists act at all because they may have nothing to do with terrorism or resistance to it. Some protests, however, might be examples of terrorism, which makes this answer the least incorrect, and thus the most correct one on the Pentagon's test. A mass protest organized by a terrorist group or terrorist-sponsoring regime is obviously an act intended to terrorize by intimidating a populace to give into the terrorists' demands. It is critical to understand that an act does not necessarily have to injure or cause any damage in order to terrorize people. For example, even though an unexploded bomb planted in a public place does not cause any any physical harm, it is sufficient to terrorize people. Even a false bomb scare has the same effect. Therefore, the media is wrong to call all false bomb scares "hoaxes," as these might be acts intended to terrorize even if no physical harm potentially can be caused, or are intended to probe defenses or cause such weariness as to decrease vigilance (in other words, in order to get people to become complacent and drop their guard). The possession of weapons of mass destruction by a terrorist-sponsoring regime is ipso facto an act of terrorism, such as North Korea's current attempts to intimidate all Americans within range of its nuclear missiles. A protest by terrorists or their sponsors demonstrates the terrorists' zeal for their cause and is an attempt to show their popular support, which suggests that they have adequate motivated personnel in order to carry out numerous attacks.
A protest by those sympathetic to, or who are apologists for, terrorists, is not quite as obvious a terrorist act, however, it could nonetheless also be an example of terrorism. If someone improves the morale of an enemy, while harming the morale of the soldiers of his own country, he is aiding and abetting that enemy, which, in wartime, meets the definition of treason. A protest that opposes fighting the enemy is an example of aiding and abetting that enemy. Thus, "peace" protests are truly violent acts, whether intentional or not, just as the so-called peace protests during the Vietnamese War led to the violent deaths of more than a million Indochinese civilians because the protesters achieved their goal of ending U.S. involvement in that war. Protests against the War on Terrorism are protests against fighting the terrorists, which means that they are protests in favor of victory by the terrorists, just as protests against the Vietnamese War were intended to produce a victory by the Communists. Just as Communists and their sympathizers helped to organize the protests against the Vietnamese War, so too do those sympathetic to terrorism or other anti-Americans help to organize protests against the War on Terrorism. Note: I am referring in particular to protests against the War on Terrorism in general, which I have observed firsthand, which are not protests against this or that particular government policy, but against the entire concept of opposing terrorism militarily. Protests that suggest that it is illegitimate to fight terrorists are intended to unilaterally disarm the United States in the terrorists' asymmetrical fight against the U.S.
As I have noted, the goal of terrorists is to intimidate a populace. When some within that populace begin to agitate for acquiescence to the terrorists' demands, even if they are doing so out of fear, they are doing exactly what the terrorists want them to do, even if unintentionally. Thus, they are force multipliers of terrorists, especially within a pluralistic society, even if they are not part of a "Fifth Column" like terrorist sympathizers and apologists. However, such foolish protesters are not guilty of committing an act of terrorism, even if the act is effectively an example of terrorism, because their intent is not malice, but cowardice. I am not referring to such cowards, but to those anti-Americans who protest against the moral legitimacy of any resistance to terrorism at all, who are demagogues because they use the legitimate fear of terrorist attacks as a justification to avoid fighting terrorists, all the while falsely claiming to be patriotic by availing themselves of the right to assemble, and claiming to represent the best interests of the U.S. that they truly despise. They fail to note the qualifier "peaceably" before the right "to assemble" in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A protest intended to give a military victory to an enemy is not a peaceable assembly, even if no violence occurs at the protest. Protests are violent if they are intended in favor of rewarding violence, whether organized by terrorists or their anti-American sympathizers. Therefore, protests may be acts of terrorism, which would make the fourth answer in the Pentagon's multiple-choice question the most correct one.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Analysis of Recent Foreign Elections
The recent elections for European Parliament represented a general shift toward conservative parties, including some Euroskeptic (those opposed to greater European integration) ones. It is a harbinger for the impending loss of power of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom and victory for the Conservative Party.
Some of the parties that gained seats were labeled “far-right” by the media, even though they are fascist (national socialist), which makes them far-left. At least one of the parties that the media labeled “anti-Islamic” was not, namely the one led by Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, which is anti-Islamist (meaning it is against Islamic militancy), but not necessarily anti-Muslim.
Some in the media have blamed the loss by liberal and socialist parties in these elections on the economy. The fact that leftists were blamed in those foreign states for the recession abroad is inconsistent with the blame by the left in the United States for conservatives for the recession. Indeed, the general anti-incumbent trend during this decade suggests that the recession was not so much caused by government policy at all, especially not conservative policies, but by external forces. The blame by liberals of American conservatives for deregulatory policies is inconsistent with the worse economic downturn being experienced in those European quasi-socialist states with even more regulation. The natural boom and bust cycle seems more to blame for the recession: the global prosperity of the 2000s led to higher energy demand, which led to higher energy prices, which led to higher interest rates, which caused the housing bubble to burst. If government policies played any role in causing the recession, it was excessive regulatory policies, such as the Carter and Clinton Administration policies of encouraging risky lending to home buyers that only contributed to the problem, not insufficient regulation.
There has been a general anti-incumbent trend in the West since a few years after the War on Terrorism, which is to say, well before the global recession, which has become even more noticeable since. It is noteworthy, therefore, that conservatives gained seats in the European Parliament even in states like France and Italy that were led by relatively new conservative governments. The anti-incumbent trend has been noticeable the last few years beyond the West, as well. One of the most noticeable exceptions has been Iraq, which underscores public contentment there with improved security and a rejection of Islamist terrorism.
Incumbent parties also won in two other states recently, India and Lebanon. India’s elections were understandable because it has enjoyed strong economic growth, albeit unevenly. The election victory of the pro-Western coalition in Lebanon despite the strong challenge from the Hezbollah-led coalition is highly significant to the War on Terrorism. A win by the Iranian-backed Shi’ite terrorist Hezbollah would have necessitated a cut-off of most U.S. aid to the fledgling representative democracy and possibly led to a second war with Israel, or at least complicated efforts toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Sunni Muslims were joined with some Christians and others over the Shi’ite Muslims, who had attracted a bloc of Christians to their coalition. The Lebanese people thereby asserted their independence from Syria, which also backs Hezbollah, the main power-broker in the Land of the Cedars. They also demonstrated that representative democracy has spread beyond Iraq in the Arab world.
Some of the parties that gained seats were labeled “far-right” by the media, even though they are fascist (national socialist), which makes them far-left. At least one of the parties that the media labeled “anti-Islamic” was not, namely the one led by Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, which is anti-Islamist (meaning it is against Islamic militancy), but not necessarily anti-Muslim.
Some in the media have blamed the loss by liberal and socialist parties in these elections on the economy. The fact that leftists were blamed in those foreign states for the recession abroad is inconsistent with the blame by the left in the United States for conservatives for the recession. Indeed, the general anti-incumbent trend during this decade suggests that the recession was not so much caused by government policy at all, especially not conservative policies, but by external forces. The blame by liberals of American conservatives for deregulatory policies is inconsistent with the worse economic downturn being experienced in those European quasi-socialist states with even more regulation. The natural boom and bust cycle seems more to blame for the recession: the global prosperity of the 2000s led to higher energy demand, which led to higher energy prices, which led to higher interest rates, which caused the housing bubble to burst. If government policies played any role in causing the recession, it was excessive regulatory policies, such as the Carter and Clinton Administration policies of encouraging risky lending to home buyers that only contributed to the problem, not insufficient regulation.
There has been a general anti-incumbent trend in the West since a few years after the War on Terrorism, which is to say, well before the global recession, which has become even more noticeable since. It is noteworthy, therefore, that conservatives gained seats in the European Parliament even in states like France and Italy that were led by relatively new conservative governments. The anti-incumbent trend has been noticeable the last few years beyond the West, as well. One of the most noticeable exceptions has been Iraq, which underscores public contentment there with improved security and a rejection of Islamist terrorism.
Incumbent parties also won in two other states recently, India and Lebanon. India’s elections were understandable because it has enjoyed strong economic growth, albeit unevenly. The election victory of the pro-Western coalition in Lebanon despite the strong challenge from the Hezbollah-led coalition is highly significant to the War on Terrorism. A win by the Iranian-backed Shi’ite terrorist Hezbollah would have necessitated a cut-off of most U.S. aid to the fledgling representative democracy and possibly led to a second war with Israel, or at least complicated efforts toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Sunni Muslims were joined with some Christians and others over the Shi’ite Muslims, who had attracted a bloc of Christians to their coalition. The Lebanese people thereby asserted their independence from Syria, which also backs Hezbollah, the main power-broker in the Land of the Cedars. They also demonstrated that representative democracy has spread beyond Iraq in the Arab world.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Analysis of Recent Media Comments on Terrorism and U.S.-Muslim Relations
In my recent post, "Terrorism" vs. "Militancy," I defined the word terrorism and explained the difference between it and general militancy. Subsequently, there were numerous comments expressed in the media that described certain acts of domestic political violence as "terrorism." I had kept my post general, but in this one I shall be more specific in order to refute the argument that such acts are terrorism.
Anti-abortion militants target the abortion industry specifically because their goal is to limit abortion by targeting abortion centers (which is sabotage) or those that perform abortions. They do not target the general populace. Therefore, they do not terrorize the populace in order to intimidate it into submitting to their demands. Similarly, animal rights militants specifically target research laboratories where animal experiments are performed, not the general populace. Animal rights militants are saboteurs. Environmental militants also specifically target only certain targets they oppose, usually with sabotage. They, too, do not target the general populace. Environmental militant Ted Kazinski, the "Unabomber," only crossed over into terrorism once he threatened to blow up a civilian airliner, which terrorized innocent civilians instead of only government officials or those whom he opposed. Anti-government militants target the government -- not civilians -- which does not terrorize the populace. Such militancy crosses over into terrorism only if the government target is filled with innocent civilians (which is why bombings of embassies are acts of terrorism).
As noted in my earlier post, terrorism is particularly evil because it targets innocent civilians. The word terrorism should not be diluted by applying it to all forms of political violence, which is usually done in order to discredit the cause in support of which the militant acts were performed. Whether the cause is just or not is irrelevant as to whether the militancy constitutes terrorism. Unless the distinction between terrorism and other forms of militancy is learned, terrorism will never be eliminated.
In analyzing President Barak Obama's address to the Muslim world, there was some media commentary that he had broken from the "arrogance" and "bullying" of the administration of President George W. Bush. I submit that Bush was neither the one who was arrogant or the bully in regard to relations between the United States and the Muslim world.
It was Bill Cinton who was arrogant during his presidency when he attempted to force peace upon the Israelis and Palestinians when Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat was not ready to make peace. The result of Clinton's "peace process" was a Palestinian uprising that killed thousands of people, including many civilians, that lasted for years. Clinton had wanted the photo opportunity of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders shaking hands with each other with him in the middle, as well as the legacy of being a peacemaker. He should have pursued a policy of justice instead. Bush pursued a policy of humility and did not try to force peace on parties that were unwilling to make it. For doing so, liberals criticized him for failing to engage as actively as Clinton in peace talks because his humility did not match their characterization of him as arrogant. Bush's policies did not lead to any bloody Palestinian uprising and his overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who had been financing Palestinian suicide bombings, together with Israeli security measures, led to relative peace, with the exception of the 2008 war between Israel and Hamas. Israel even withdrew permanently from the Gaza Strip, which represented more progress than Clinton had made. It is difficult for liberals to accept the fact that phony peace negotiations cause more bloodshed than all-out war and tend to prolong conflicts.
As for the charge of bullying made against Bush, it was Saddam Hussein who was the bully, not Bush. Hussein had invaded and attempted to annex all or part of two of his neighbors, which gave him the unique distinction of being the only serial aggressor since the Second World War. I should note that the distinction that Obama and most other liberals as well as isolationists who opposed the Liberation of Iraq, make between Afghanistan and Iraq is not one made by militant Muslims. While Obama and some of the other critics see Afghanistan as a just war and Iraq as unnecessary, militant Muslims accuse the United States of bullying for overthrowing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that harbored the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for September 11. Thus, the concern that liberating Iraq angered Muslims, which supposedly proves that Iraq was an unnecessary war, is inconsistent because even liberating Afghanistan had angered them. Liberating tens of millions of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq from brutal tyrants who sponsored terrorism is the antithesis of bullying.
Anti-abortion militants target the abortion industry specifically because their goal is to limit abortion by targeting abortion centers (which is sabotage) or those that perform abortions. They do not target the general populace. Therefore, they do not terrorize the populace in order to intimidate it into submitting to their demands. Similarly, animal rights militants specifically target research laboratories where animal experiments are performed, not the general populace. Animal rights militants are saboteurs. Environmental militants also specifically target only certain targets they oppose, usually with sabotage. They, too, do not target the general populace. Environmental militant Ted Kazinski, the "Unabomber," only crossed over into terrorism once he threatened to blow up a civilian airliner, which terrorized innocent civilians instead of only government officials or those whom he opposed. Anti-government militants target the government -- not civilians -- which does not terrorize the populace. Such militancy crosses over into terrorism only if the government target is filled with innocent civilians (which is why bombings of embassies are acts of terrorism).
As noted in my earlier post, terrorism is particularly evil because it targets innocent civilians. The word terrorism should not be diluted by applying it to all forms of political violence, which is usually done in order to discredit the cause in support of which the militant acts were performed. Whether the cause is just or not is irrelevant as to whether the militancy constitutes terrorism. Unless the distinction between terrorism and other forms of militancy is learned, terrorism will never be eliminated.
In analyzing President Barak Obama's address to the Muslim world, there was some media commentary that he had broken from the "arrogance" and "bullying" of the administration of President George W. Bush. I submit that Bush was neither the one who was arrogant or the bully in regard to relations between the United States and the Muslim world.
It was Bill Cinton who was arrogant during his presidency when he attempted to force peace upon the Israelis and Palestinians when Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat was not ready to make peace. The result of Clinton's "peace process" was a Palestinian uprising that killed thousands of people, including many civilians, that lasted for years. Clinton had wanted the photo opportunity of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders shaking hands with each other with him in the middle, as well as the legacy of being a peacemaker. He should have pursued a policy of justice instead. Bush pursued a policy of humility and did not try to force peace on parties that were unwilling to make it. For doing so, liberals criticized him for failing to engage as actively as Clinton in peace talks because his humility did not match their characterization of him as arrogant. Bush's policies did not lead to any bloody Palestinian uprising and his overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who had been financing Palestinian suicide bombings, together with Israeli security measures, led to relative peace, with the exception of the 2008 war between Israel and Hamas. Israel even withdrew permanently from the Gaza Strip, which represented more progress than Clinton had made. It is difficult for liberals to accept the fact that phony peace negotiations cause more bloodshed than all-out war and tend to prolong conflicts.
As for the charge of bullying made against Bush, it was Saddam Hussein who was the bully, not Bush. Hussein had invaded and attempted to annex all or part of two of his neighbors, which gave him the unique distinction of being the only serial aggressor since the Second World War. I should note that the distinction that Obama and most other liberals as well as isolationists who opposed the Liberation of Iraq, make between Afghanistan and Iraq is not one made by militant Muslims. While Obama and some of the other critics see Afghanistan as a just war and Iraq as unnecessary, militant Muslims accuse the United States of bullying for overthrowing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that harbored the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for September 11. Thus, the concern that liberating Iraq angered Muslims, which supposedly proves that Iraq was an unnecessary war, is inconsistent because even liberating Afghanistan had angered them. Liberating tens of millions of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq from brutal tyrants who sponsored terrorism is the antithesis of bullying.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Obama's Anti-American Address to Muslims Fails to Achieve its Purpose
During his campaign for President of the United States, Barak Hussein Obama and his supporters discouraged the use of his middle name and dismissed any other references to his Muslim background as unfair, but now that he is in office, he uses his background as an asset in his efforts to establish better relations with Muslims abroad.
Obama used much of his address in Cairo to Muslims to criticize the West, the United States in particular, and especially former President George W. Bush. Obama even criticized Western colonization of Muslim lands, even though the U.S. never colonized one square inch of any Muslim state.
Obama says that he wants a new relationship between the United States and the Muslim world based upon mutual respect, as if the liberation by the U.S. under Bush of tens of millions of Muslims from brutal tyrannies was disrespectful. Obama's frequent criticism of the U.S. throughout his speech, makes the U.S. seem weak. His weak foreign policy, characterized by his offering of olive branches to mortal enemies like Iran without preconditions, have thus far proven unsuccessful. Obama's comments on Iran's nuclear program seeme to make a moral equivalence with the possession by the U.S. of nuclear weapons, which will only undermine his own opposition to Iran's nuclear weapons program. Obama's criticisms of the U.S. were disproportionate to his criticisms of Islamic militants. He never even used the words terrorist or terrorism, and yet made a moral equivalence between terrorist attacks by Muslim militants and the aggressive interrogation by the U.S. of three of the terrorists, which was enough for him to claim that the U.S. had failed to abide by its own principles. To make it even worse, Obama blamed the aggressive interrogations on anger, instead of on the intent of preventing any further attacks.
Obama criticized the Liberation of Iraq in three ways, although he did acknowledge that Iraqis were better off now that they are living in freedom than they were under the oppression of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. He criticized the imposition of a system of government on Iraq, called its liberation a "war of choice,"as if it were unnecessary, and suggested it were avoidable by declaring that he believed that the war proved that the U.S. should have depended more upon diplomacy. All three of Obama's criticisms were contradictory of his praise for the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban.
First, the U.S. did not impose a system of government on Iraq. Saddam Hussein was the one who had imposed a tyrannical system of government on the Iraqi people. I note that his Baathist regime imposed socialism, for example, which was an idea foreign to the Iraqi people. The U.S., out of necessity, did choose a provisional goverment during the occupation, but even some of its leaders, like the Khurds, had been popularly elected, while others were leaders of other opposition parties or were religious or tribal leaders. But the system of government that Iraqis adopted oncen they approved their new constitution for the Republic of Iraq was one that they chose, not one imposed by the U.S. The proof that it was not the same as our system was that although it is representative, it is parliamentary in form, unlike the American system. Also, the Iraqi constitution acknowledges Islam. In short, the U.S. did not impose any system of government on Iraq, but liberated that country so that it could exercise self-determination. The recent reelection of the Iraqi governing party suggests contentment on the part of the Iraqi people, which is hardly a sign that Iraqis consider their government system to be one that was imposed by foreigners. In referring to Iraq's system of government, Obama undermined the premise of his speech of trying to establish mutual respect between the U.S. and the Muslim world by disrepecting the free choice of millions of Iraqis.
Second, Obama dismissed the Liberation as a "war of choice." All wars are wars of choice, even invasions by foreigners, as one could choose to make peace or even surrender instead of resisting. But what Obama and other liberal critics of the war, as well as isolationists, mean is that the U.S. could have survived without having liberated Iraq, as if U.S. survival were the standard for justification of war. Apparently, the survival of individual Americans does not justify war to them. Iraq's almost daily firing of missles at U.S. aircraft and its harboring and financing of terrorists who had targeted and killed Americans were acts of war, but to Obama, these attacks on the U.S. were tolerable acts, as was Iraq's defiance of United Nations resolutions to disarm its weapons of mass destruction programs. But one of the lessons of September 11 is that the U.S. must not tolerate terrorism anywhere. Obama made no mention in his speech of Iraq's sponsorship of terrorism.
Obama's third criticism of the Liberation of Iraq is that it might have been avoidable had the U.S. made more use of diplomacy. Apparently, 12 years and 14 U.N. resolutions was not enough diplomacy. And when liberals and isolationists argue that the U.S. should have relied more upon diplomacy, I ask: diplomacy with whom? With Saddam Hussein? He was already bound by a cease-fire and U.N. resolutions. No, they apparently mean diplomacy with the French and Germans. And to do what? To buy Hussein more time to stall weapons inspectors while he undermined the sanctions? The evidence learned since his overthrow is that he did retain some chemical weapons and materials and could have restarted his weapons of mass destruction program quickly once the sanctions, upon which he was cheating, had been lifted. Hussein also had missiles with ranges longer than permitted. Indeed, American troops in Kuwait were within his range, which refutes the notion that he did not pose a threat to Americans. Obama did not explain what he meant by more diplomacy. But he did attempt to justify more diplomacy by quoting Thomas Jefferson, who said "the less we use our power the greater it will be." However, Obama should contemplate why Jefferson used power against Muslims for economic reasons --the wars against the Barbary pirates.
In all his criticisms of Bush's decision to liberate Iraq, Obama contradicts his justifications for the war in Afghanistan. Obama, like other liberals opposed to the Liberation of Iraq, claims the U.S. imposed democracy on Iraq, but does not complain of an imposition of democracy in Afghanistan. He calls the overthrow of a terrorist-sponsoring regime in Iraq with the blood of Americans on its hands a "war of choice," but regards the overthrow of a terrorist-sponsoring regime in Afghanistan that itself had never attacked Americans as justified. The Taliban, had never attacked Americans, although it had harbored terrorists who did. Hussein had both harbored terrorists who had targeted and killed Americans, as well as financed suicide bombers who also had targeted and killed. Obama makes the same error as other opponents of the Liberation of Iraq in claiming that Iraq had never attacked Americans. Finally, Obama complains of insufficient diplomacy after 12 years in Iraq, but does not complain of the shorter wait in Afghanistan. In short, Obama, like other supporters of the War in Afghanistan who oppose the Liberation of Iraq, are inconsistent because they oppose the Liberation of Iraq for other reasons, either because of ignorance of the facts or political opposition to Bush, or as political cover to conceal their discomfort even with the overthrow of the Taliban, as many isolationists and those on the far left opposed.
Moreover, Obama's criticisms of the overthrow of Iraq's terrorist-sponsoring regime disrepects the American troops he commands who have been serving there. Instead, he should express gratitude to them for their service in the War on Terrorism. As I have noted in previous posts, Obama mostly has continued Bush's policies in the War on Terrorism, including in Iraq, but Obama's statements continue to be irresponsible. Going to such absurd lengths to seem humble in order to be sensitive to any Muslim perception of American arrogance only makes the U.S. seem all the weaker to its enemies, and therefore, all the more contemptible. Indeed, Obama undermines his own policy of mutual respect between Americans and Muslims if he fails to demonstrate enough respect for America, for if he cannot respect America, he cannot expect Muslims to reciprocate. Furthermore, no one can win an idealogical conflict, such as the struggle against Islamic militancy, by undermining the truth, as Obama does every time he criticizes the U.S. for defending itself and its allies against Muslim militants.
Obama used much of his address in Cairo to Muslims to criticize the West, the United States in particular, and especially former President George W. Bush. Obama even criticized Western colonization of Muslim lands, even though the U.S. never colonized one square inch of any Muslim state.
Obama says that he wants a new relationship between the United States and the Muslim world based upon mutual respect, as if the liberation by the U.S. under Bush of tens of millions of Muslims from brutal tyrannies was disrespectful. Obama's frequent criticism of the U.S. throughout his speech, makes the U.S. seem weak. His weak foreign policy, characterized by his offering of olive branches to mortal enemies like Iran without preconditions, have thus far proven unsuccessful. Obama's comments on Iran's nuclear program seeme to make a moral equivalence with the possession by the U.S. of nuclear weapons, which will only undermine his own opposition to Iran's nuclear weapons program. Obama's criticisms of the U.S. were disproportionate to his criticisms of Islamic militants. He never even used the words terrorist or terrorism, and yet made a moral equivalence between terrorist attacks by Muslim militants and the aggressive interrogation by the U.S. of three of the terrorists, which was enough for him to claim that the U.S. had failed to abide by its own principles. To make it even worse, Obama blamed the aggressive interrogations on anger, instead of on the intent of preventing any further attacks.
Obama criticized the Liberation of Iraq in three ways, although he did acknowledge that Iraqis were better off now that they are living in freedom than they were under the oppression of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. He criticized the imposition of a system of government on Iraq, called its liberation a "war of choice,"as if it were unnecessary, and suggested it were avoidable by declaring that he believed that the war proved that the U.S. should have depended more upon diplomacy. All three of Obama's criticisms were contradictory of his praise for the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban.
First, the U.S. did not impose a system of government on Iraq. Saddam Hussein was the one who had imposed a tyrannical system of government on the Iraqi people. I note that his Baathist regime imposed socialism, for example, which was an idea foreign to the Iraqi people. The U.S., out of necessity, did choose a provisional goverment during the occupation, but even some of its leaders, like the Khurds, had been popularly elected, while others were leaders of other opposition parties or were religious or tribal leaders. But the system of government that Iraqis adopted oncen they approved their new constitution for the Republic of Iraq was one that they chose, not one imposed by the U.S. The proof that it was not the same as our system was that although it is representative, it is parliamentary in form, unlike the American system. Also, the Iraqi constitution acknowledges Islam. In short, the U.S. did not impose any system of government on Iraq, but liberated that country so that it could exercise self-determination. The recent reelection of the Iraqi governing party suggests contentment on the part of the Iraqi people, which is hardly a sign that Iraqis consider their government system to be one that was imposed by foreigners. In referring to Iraq's system of government, Obama undermined the premise of his speech of trying to establish mutual respect between the U.S. and the Muslim world by disrepecting the free choice of millions of Iraqis.
Second, Obama dismissed the Liberation as a "war of choice." All wars are wars of choice, even invasions by foreigners, as one could choose to make peace or even surrender instead of resisting. But what Obama and other liberal critics of the war, as well as isolationists, mean is that the U.S. could have survived without having liberated Iraq, as if U.S. survival were the standard for justification of war. Apparently, the survival of individual Americans does not justify war to them. Iraq's almost daily firing of missles at U.S. aircraft and its harboring and financing of terrorists who had targeted and killed Americans were acts of war, but to Obama, these attacks on the U.S. were tolerable acts, as was Iraq's defiance of United Nations resolutions to disarm its weapons of mass destruction programs. But one of the lessons of September 11 is that the U.S. must not tolerate terrorism anywhere. Obama made no mention in his speech of Iraq's sponsorship of terrorism.
Obama's third criticism of the Liberation of Iraq is that it might have been avoidable had the U.S. made more use of diplomacy. Apparently, 12 years and 14 U.N. resolutions was not enough diplomacy. And when liberals and isolationists argue that the U.S. should have relied more upon diplomacy, I ask: diplomacy with whom? With Saddam Hussein? He was already bound by a cease-fire and U.N. resolutions. No, they apparently mean diplomacy with the French and Germans. And to do what? To buy Hussein more time to stall weapons inspectors while he undermined the sanctions? The evidence learned since his overthrow is that he did retain some chemical weapons and materials and could have restarted his weapons of mass destruction program quickly once the sanctions, upon which he was cheating, had been lifted. Hussein also had missiles with ranges longer than permitted. Indeed, American troops in Kuwait were within his range, which refutes the notion that he did not pose a threat to Americans. Obama did not explain what he meant by more diplomacy. But he did attempt to justify more diplomacy by quoting Thomas Jefferson, who said "the less we use our power the greater it will be." However, Obama should contemplate why Jefferson used power against Muslims for economic reasons --the wars against the Barbary pirates.
In all his criticisms of Bush's decision to liberate Iraq, Obama contradicts his justifications for the war in Afghanistan. Obama, like other liberals opposed to the Liberation of Iraq, claims the U.S. imposed democracy on Iraq, but does not complain of an imposition of democracy in Afghanistan. He calls the overthrow of a terrorist-sponsoring regime in Iraq with the blood of Americans on its hands a "war of choice," but regards the overthrow of a terrorist-sponsoring regime in Afghanistan that itself had never attacked Americans as justified. The Taliban, had never attacked Americans, although it had harbored terrorists who did. Hussein had both harbored terrorists who had targeted and killed Americans, as well as financed suicide bombers who also had targeted and killed. Obama makes the same error as other opponents of the Liberation of Iraq in claiming that Iraq had never attacked Americans. Finally, Obama complains of insufficient diplomacy after 12 years in Iraq, but does not complain of the shorter wait in Afghanistan. In short, Obama, like other supporters of the War in Afghanistan who oppose the Liberation of Iraq, are inconsistent because they oppose the Liberation of Iraq for other reasons, either because of ignorance of the facts or political opposition to Bush, or as political cover to conceal their discomfort even with the overthrow of the Taliban, as many isolationists and those on the far left opposed.
Moreover, Obama's criticisms of the overthrow of Iraq's terrorist-sponsoring regime disrepects the American troops he commands who have been serving there. Instead, he should express gratitude to them for their service in the War on Terrorism. As I have noted in previous posts, Obama mostly has continued Bush's policies in the War on Terrorism, including in Iraq, but Obama's statements continue to be irresponsible. Going to such absurd lengths to seem humble in order to be sensitive to any Muslim perception of American arrogance only makes the U.S. seem all the weaker to its enemies, and therefore, all the more contemptible. Indeed, Obama undermines his own policy of mutual respect between Americans and Muslims if he fails to demonstrate enough respect for America, for if he cannot respect America, he cannot expect Muslims to reciprocate. Furthermore, no one can win an idealogical conflict, such as the struggle against Islamic militancy, by undermining the truth, as Obama does every time he criticizes the U.S. for defending itself and its allies against Muslim militants.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Monthly Blog Hit Report
I am pleased to report that in the two months since I installed my blog's new counter, Statcounter.com, my blog has received nearly 320 hits. Almost 20 people visited my blog directly or after searching for my name, while nearly 220 others landed on my blog after searches led them to various posts.
Readers were attracted to my blog by 34 posts, including several from as far back as January, not including those who visited my blog homepage directly. Several of these readers also viewed my blog homepage or went on to view other posts, including several in addition to the 34 posts upon which they landed.
Hits have come from 34 states and the District of Columbia, as well as 26 foreign states on six continents! The most hits in the United States have come from California, New York, New Jersey and Florida. The most foreign hits have come from the United Kingdom, Canada and Malaysia.
My blog's most popular post has been The Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization (with hits from the U.S. and 14 foreign states on 4 continents), which has recieved over 70 total hits. The next most popular posts have been Father Stanley Jaki, Rest in Peace, Obama Did Not Inherit the Economy From Bush; The Economy, Deficit and Debt at George W. Bush’s Inauguration and Lepanto, by GK Chesterton.
In addition to the hits from the Holy See and the New York Times mentioned in my first monthly blog hit report, since then other interesting hits came from JP Morgan Chase, the Faculty of Advocates, the Province of British Columbia and the U.S. House of Representatives. Hits have also continued to come from numerous secondary schools, colleges and universities.
Thank you for visiting my blog, dear readers, especially those who are Followers, or who post comments, or have passed along comments to me externally from my blog. I appreciate your support!
Readers were attracted to my blog by 34 posts, including several from as far back as January, not including those who visited my blog homepage directly. Several of these readers also viewed my blog homepage or went on to view other posts, including several in addition to the 34 posts upon which they landed.
Hits have come from 34 states and the District of Columbia, as well as 26 foreign states on six continents! The most hits in the United States have come from California, New York, New Jersey and Florida. The most foreign hits have come from the United Kingdom, Canada and Malaysia.
My blog's most popular post has been The Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization (with hits from the U.S. and 14 foreign states on 4 continents), which has recieved over 70 total hits. The next most popular posts have been Father Stanley Jaki, Rest in Peace, Obama Did Not Inherit the Economy From Bush; The Economy, Deficit and Debt at George W. Bush’s Inauguration and Lepanto, by GK Chesterton.
In addition to the hits from the Holy See and the New York Times mentioned in my first monthly blog hit report, since then other interesting hits came from JP Morgan Chase, the Faculty of Advocates, the Province of British Columbia and the U.S. House of Representatives. Hits have also continued to come from numerous secondary schools, colleges and universities.
Thank you for visiting my blog, dear readers, especially those who are Followers, or who post comments, or have passed along comments to me externally from my blog. I appreciate your support!
"Terrorism" vs. "Militancy"
The recent shooting of Army personnel in Arkansas by a Muslim apparently motivated by Islamic militancy, which followed a shooting days before of a notorious abortionist, raises the question of the definition of terrorism, in order to answer the question about whether such domestic political acts of violence constitute terrorism. These attacks were examples of militancy, not terrorism.
The word terrorism has been used so broadly that it has become diluted. Thus, its degree of evil has been minimized. When one labels all forms of violence as terrorism, one minimizes the particular evil of terrorism. Indeed, terrorism has been confused with all acts of political violence -- and even some that are not political. On the other hand, terrorism has been confused with other great evils such as mass-murder motivated by revenge or genocide. In short, terrorism has become so broadly used a word that it has lost its meaning.
Terrorism is the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians with violence or the threat of violence in order to intimidate a certain populace into demanding that its government change its policies according to the wishes of the terrorists. Although I could write an essay explaining each point in great detail, I shall let the above definition suffice for now.
Indeed, not all forms of political violence are acts of terrorism. Terrorism is a strategy defined by its target, not its cause. Whether a certain cause is just or not is irrelevant to the definition of terrorism. Therefore, it is not true that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The particular evil of terrorism is that it targets innocent civilians instead of political or military leaders.
Terrorism is not defined by its methods, either. A bombing, for example, even if motivated by political purposes, is not necessarily a terrorist attack. A bombing may be motivated by political opposition or revenge, or be intended to target only a few individuals, neither of which would be intended to intimidate the populace.
Those who target political leaders or military forces are "militants" and could be called "insurgents" or "guerrillas," while those who militants who target property are "saboteurs" specifically. Attacks that are targeted on specific individuals with whom the attacker has a grievance are not terrorists because the target is not innocent civilians with the intent to intimidate them. In contrast, although some people might be frightened by attacks that target others, such attacks are not terrorism because the intent of a terrorist is to intimidate all innocent civilians within a certain populace, not to harm just certain individuals.
Most political acts of violence that have occurred within the United States have been called "terrorism" by the media, politicians and other commentators. These acts are not terrorism, but are militancy of some kind or another, in contrast to the September 11 Attacks. All such militancy is unacceptable and must be prevented or punished, but it is not the same thing as terrorism. Even the legitimate exercise of self-defense by the United States or others is called "terrorism" by its foreign and domestic opponents, but the charge is baseless because legitimate self-defense targets enemy military forces in order to prevent more attacks, not innocent civilians.
The purpose of the War on Terrorism is to eliminate the threat of terrorist attacks against Americans or their interests, but although one of its aspects is to eliminate terrorism against the United States in particular, its broader aspect is to eliminate all militancy that is hostile to the U.S. Islamic militancy, both abroad and domestically, especially continues to pose a threat to Americans. It must be resisted in all its strategies and tactics.
The word terrorism has been used so broadly that it has become diluted. Thus, its degree of evil has been minimized. When one labels all forms of violence as terrorism, one minimizes the particular evil of terrorism. Indeed, terrorism has been confused with all acts of political violence -- and even some that are not political. On the other hand, terrorism has been confused with other great evils such as mass-murder motivated by revenge or genocide. In short, terrorism has become so broadly used a word that it has lost its meaning.
Terrorism is the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians with violence or the threat of violence in order to intimidate a certain populace into demanding that its government change its policies according to the wishes of the terrorists. Although I could write an essay explaining each point in great detail, I shall let the above definition suffice for now.
Indeed, not all forms of political violence are acts of terrorism. Terrorism is a strategy defined by its target, not its cause. Whether a certain cause is just or not is irrelevant to the definition of terrorism. Therefore, it is not true that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The particular evil of terrorism is that it targets innocent civilians instead of political or military leaders.
Terrorism is not defined by its methods, either. A bombing, for example, even if motivated by political purposes, is not necessarily a terrorist attack. A bombing may be motivated by political opposition or revenge, or be intended to target only a few individuals, neither of which would be intended to intimidate the populace.
Those who target political leaders or military forces are "militants" and could be called "insurgents" or "guerrillas," while those who militants who target property are "saboteurs" specifically. Attacks that are targeted on specific individuals with whom the attacker has a grievance are not terrorists because the target is not innocent civilians with the intent to intimidate them. In contrast, although some people might be frightened by attacks that target others, such attacks are not terrorism because the intent of a terrorist is to intimidate all innocent civilians within a certain populace, not to harm just certain individuals.
Most political acts of violence that have occurred within the United States have been called "terrorism" by the media, politicians and other commentators. These acts are not terrorism, but are militancy of some kind or another, in contrast to the September 11 Attacks. All such militancy is unacceptable and must be prevented or punished, but it is not the same thing as terrorism. Even the legitimate exercise of self-defense by the United States or others is called "terrorism" by its foreign and domestic opponents, but the charge is baseless because legitimate self-defense targets enemy military forces in order to prevent more attacks, not innocent civilians.
The purpose of the War on Terrorism is to eliminate the threat of terrorist attacks against Americans or their interests, but although one of its aspects is to eliminate terrorism against the United States in particular, its broader aspect is to eliminate all militancy that is hostile to the U.S. Islamic militancy, both abroad and domestically, especially continues to pose a threat to Americans. It must be resisted in all its strategies and tactics.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Misleading Media Phrases
There are several phrases used lately by the media, politicians and other commentators that are misleading. Although some of them are of particular interest to conservatives, there are others that are more generally problematic.
“Health care” vs. “health insurance”
The issue of how to pay for health care, as opposed to the providing of health care itself, is being called “health care.” Many of the current issues concerning health are not related to the quality or manner of health care, but are about how to pay for it. The matter of paying for health care is called “health insurance,” not “health care.” Indeed, the United States has the finest health care system in the world, which is evidenced by the fact that many foreigners come to the U.S. for treatment (especially Canadians fleeing their government health care system). Moreover, no one legally may be denied emergency health care because of an inability to pay for it. In short, health care is not the main problem, but health insurance is. There is a point to be made that having health insurance is healthier because it makes one likelier to avail one’s self of health care, but despite any degree of relationship between the two, health care and health insurance are nevertheless two distinct matters. The media is deliberately conflating the two in order to make it appear as if the issue is about providing health care to people who otherwise would not have access to it (Note: the media and others use the code word access to health care in order to mean insurance, in order to imply the right to receive health care; thus, when they advocate for government health insurance, they refer to government health care misleadingly as "access to health care," as if the lack of health insurance necessarily equals a lack of access to health care).
Furthermore, the media and other commentators are wrong when they describe those who do not have health insurance as individuals “who cannot afford health care” or even “health insurance.” As noted, emergency health care is free, but even referring to people without health insurance as those who are “unable to afford it” is not necessarily correct, as many are wealthy people who do not need health insurance because they can afford to pay for their health care or others (like the Amish) who not believe in it. Many others are simply between jobs, and the most are healthy young people who exercise the choice not to purchase health insurance after calculating that the benefit of having it is not worth the cost, even if they could afford it.
“Technically at war” vs. “legally at war”
The media often describes North and South Korea as still “technically at war,” as if they have been at peace since the 1953 Armistice, except only for the legal formality of not having concluded a peace treaty. The term “technically” is misleading because it appears to reduce the situation to a mere technicality, that is to say, one that implies that the opposite is true (in this case, it falsely implies that they really are enjoying peace), instead of accurately reflecting reality. What the media means to say is that the two Koreas are still “legally at war,” meaning that they are effectively only in a truce, not at peace. However, it has been a shaky truce, one that has been violated often. Indeed, the two Koreas have been effectively in a continuous state of war since the signing of the Armistice – albeit sporadically or at a relatively low level – which has caused several hundred fatalities, including many Americans. Referring to the Koreas as "technically at war" minimizes the threat from North Korea, which has frequently violated the Armistice and even engaged in terrorism. Now that North Korea has renounced the Armistice, it will be interesting to see how the media explains the state of war without even any legal truce that exists between the two Koreas, regardless of whether any more combat occurs.
“Abortion rights” vs. “the [supposed] right to an abortion”
Without examining the issue of whether abortion is a right in the first place -- which it is not --even if it were, it would be one right, not a plural amount of “rights.” There is either a "right to an abortion," as to any other medical procedure, or there is not, but there are not multiple rights associated with abortion. A supposed "right to abortion" is not like “property rights,” which include a bundle of specific rights (the right to buy, the right to sell, the right to lease, etc.). It is one right, if it were a right at all. The media is referring to "abortion rights" in order to make the concept of a right to an abortion seem even more acceptable by implying that it is based upon multiple rights.
“Homicide attack” vs. “suicide attack”
Some in the media have adopted the practice of referring to terrorist attacks carried out by suicide attackers as “homicide attacks” or “homicide bombings,” etc. Although their intention to take the focus of the attack from the terrorist and place it on the victims is good, the term is misleading because it reduces clarity. All terrorist attacks that cause fatalities, whether they are carried out by suicide attackers or not, are homicidal, whereas only those specific attacks carried out by suicide attackers are “suicide attacks.” Referring to all attacks as “homicide attacks,” therefore, loses the distinction between the general kind and the specific kind of attack.
On a related note, the media has adopted the practice of referring to the Taliban, at times, as “militants,” instead of referring to them as “Taliban militants.” Leaving aside the issue of whether it as appropriate to refer to terrorist sponsors like the Taliban as “militants” just because they engage in lawful combat in addition to sponsoring unlawful combat, the point is that when the media refers to combat fatalities in Afghanistan, its reference to the deaths of “militants,” a term general enough to include presumably even American allies, fails to express clearly that the Taliban are the ones suffering most of the fatalities. Instead, the general term “militants” allows the media to continue its narrative that the United States has been losing the war in Afghanistan, the evidence for which they cite being the increase in combat fatalities, especially of “militants,” even though it is the Taliban who have suffered the overwhelming majority of the fatalities. In other words -- in a shocking twist of the facts -- the fact that the Taliban enemy is killed by the dozens every week, while the U.S. and its allies suffer relatively few fatalities, is used by the media as propaganda for the notion that the Taliban is winning the war in Afghanistan because the media uses the total number of combat fatalities in Afghanistan as evidence that the U.S. is losing the war!
We conservatives, as well as anyone else concerned about accuracy, should avoid these misleading phrases.
“Health care” vs. “health insurance”
The issue of how to pay for health care, as opposed to the providing of health care itself, is being called “health care.” Many of the current issues concerning health are not related to the quality or manner of health care, but are about how to pay for it. The matter of paying for health care is called “health insurance,” not “health care.” Indeed, the United States has the finest health care system in the world, which is evidenced by the fact that many foreigners come to the U.S. for treatment (especially Canadians fleeing their government health care system). Moreover, no one legally may be denied emergency health care because of an inability to pay for it. In short, health care is not the main problem, but health insurance is. There is a point to be made that having health insurance is healthier because it makes one likelier to avail one’s self of health care, but despite any degree of relationship between the two, health care and health insurance are nevertheless two distinct matters. The media is deliberately conflating the two in order to make it appear as if the issue is about providing health care to people who otherwise would not have access to it (Note: the media and others use the code word access to health care in order to mean insurance, in order to imply the right to receive health care; thus, when they advocate for government health insurance, they refer to government health care misleadingly as "access to health care," as if the lack of health insurance necessarily equals a lack of access to health care).
Furthermore, the media and other commentators are wrong when they describe those who do not have health insurance as individuals “who cannot afford health care” or even “health insurance.” As noted, emergency health care is free, but even referring to people without health insurance as those who are “unable to afford it” is not necessarily correct, as many are wealthy people who do not need health insurance because they can afford to pay for their health care or others (like the Amish) who not believe in it. Many others are simply between jobs, and the most are healthy young people who exercise the choice not to purchase health insurance after calculating that the benefit of having it is not worth the cost, even if they could afford it.
“Technically at war” vs. “legally at war”
The media often describes North and South Korea as still “technically at war,” as if they have been at peace since the 1953 Armistice, except only for the legal formality of not having concluded a peace treaty. The term “technically” is misleading because it appears to reduce the situation to a mere technicality, that is to say, one that implies that the opposite is true (in this case, it falsely implies that they really are enjoying peace), instead of accurately reflecting reality. What the media means to say is that the two Koreas are still “legally at war,” meaning that they are effectively only in a truce, not at peace. However, it has been a shaky truce, one that has been violated often. Indeed, the two Koreas have been effectively in a continuous state of war since the signing of the Armistice – albeit sporadically or at a relatively low level – which has caused several hundred fatalities, including many Americans. Referring to the Koreas as "technically at war" minimizes the threat from North Korea, which has frequently violated the Armistice and even engaged in terrorism. Now that North Korea has renounced the Armistice, it will be interesting to see how the media explains the state of war without even any legal truce that exists between the two Koreas, regardless of whether any more combat occurs.
“Abortion rights” vs. “the [supposed] right to an abortion”
Without examining the issue of whether abortion is a right in the first place -- which it is not --even if it were, it would be one right, not a plural amount of “rights.” There is either a "right to an abortion," as to any other medical procedure, or there is not, but there are not multiple rights associated with abortion. A supposed "right to abortion" is not like “property rights,” which include a bundle of specific rights (the right to buy, the right to sell, the right to lease, etc.). It is one right, if it were a right at all. The media is referring to "abortion rights" in order to make the concept of a right to an abortion seem even more acceptable by implying that it is based upon multiple rights.
“Homicide attack” vs. “suicide attack”
Some in the media have adopted the practice of referring to terrorist attacks carried out by suicide attackers as “homicide attacks” or “homicide bombings,” etc. Although their intention to take the focus of the attack from the terrorist and place it on the victims is good, the term is misleading because it reduces clarity. All terrorist attacks that cause fatalities, whether they are carried out by suicide attackers or not, are homicidal, whereas only those specific attacks carried out by suicide attackers are “suicide attacks.” Referring to all attacks as “homicide attacks,” therefore, loses the distinction between the general kind and the specific kind of attack.
On a related note, the media has adopted the practice of referring to the Taliban, at times, as “militants,” instead of referring to them as “Taliban militants.” Leaving aside the issue of whether it as appropriate to refer to terrorist sponsors like the Taliban as “militants” just because they engage in lawful combat in addition to sponsoring unlawful combat, the point is that when the media refers to combat fatalities in Afghanistan, its reference to the deaths of “militants,” a term general enough to include presumably even American allies, fails to express clearly that the Taliban are the ones suffering most of the fatalities. Instead, the general term “militants” allows the media to continue its narrative that the United States has been losing the war in Afghanistan, the evidence for which they cite being the increase in combat fatalities, especially of “militants,” even though it is the Taliban who have suffered the overwhelming majority of the fatalities. In other words -- in a shocking twist of the facts -- the fact that the Taliban enemy is killed by the dozens every week, while the U.S. and its allies suffer relatively few fatalities, is used by the media as propaganda for the notion that the Taliban is winning the war in Afghanistan because the media uses the total number of combat fatalities in Afghanistan as evidence that the U.S. is losing the war!
We conservatives, as well as anyone else concerned about accuracy, should avoid these misleading phrases.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Politicians Influence Consumer Confidence
Consumer confidence is crucial to the economy, as the more confidence people have, the more consumption they are willing to do or risk they are willing to take, which means the more investments they are willing to make. Conversely, the less confidence people have, the less investment is made. Politicians can significantly effect the economy by influencing consumer confidence, for better or worse.
The always-optimistic President Ronald Reagan inspired confidence in the American people that the obvious-distressed economy would recover, despite the challenges his recovery plan encountered. His tax cuts allowed people to keep more of their earnings and to work more without the fear of losing their increased earnings to greater taxation, but Americans needed the confidence to spend their greater disposable income, which the cheerful Reagan amply supplied. In this sense, even his liberal critics gave him a left-handed compliment when claiming that all he did was to make people feel better; they are admitting that at least his encouragement caused some benefit to the economy.
After the prosperity of 1982-1990, the economy entered into a mild, brief recession. However, the recovery took longer than usual. By 1992, Bill Clinton adopted the economy as his main presidential campaign issue, exaggerating its condition as "the worst economy in fifty years." There was no criticism of him for reducing consumer confidence with his pessimism. The recovering economy was growing robustly by the final quarter of the administration of President George H.W. Bush, but Clinton took the credit soon after taking office for the increased prosperity, by which point Clinton had switched sharply to being optimistic about the economy. He then boasted about the state of the economy during his time in office, despite some of his harmful policies, like tax increases, and the contribution made by Congress in blocking his worst proposals, and once Republicans gained the majority, of forcing Clinton to acquiesce to better policies. Clinton bragged as if it were the greatest economy ever, even though the economic statistics were similar to those of the 1980s, which Democrats and liberals had mostly dismissed.
By the end of the Clinton Administration, economic growth began to slow. As a candidate for the office of president, George W. Bush cited the "warning signs" of an economic slow-down as a need for his proposed tax cuts, which represented a refund of the budget surplus. Liberal Democrats accused him of "talking down" the economy, the danger of which they suddenly recognized now that they were in power at a time of economic stress. No one seemed to notice the contradiction that these liberal defenders of Clinton were making, that the economy supposedly was still strong, but yet vulnerable to being undone by a few carefully-chosen words by one man. But in a sense they were admitting that Bill Clinton had done the same thing in 1992. The difference was that Bush had done so far more responsibly, and necessarily, than Clinton had. Moreover, Bush did so in order to propose policies to improve the economy (tax cuts), instead of ones Clinton proposed (tax increases) that worsened it. The liberals were right that even presidential candidates can effect the economy, but their inconsistency about it is noteworthy.
Like Clinton, Barak Obama also campaigned on the economy, making the "worst financial crisis," meaning the worst banking crisis, "since the Great Depression" sound like the economy was in even worse distress than it was. And like Clinton, Obama talked the economy down irresponsibly in order to win election. Although Obama proposed some tax cuts, he also proposed some tax increases, along with massive borrowing and spending. Unlike Clinton, however, Obama continued to sound pessimistic during the first few months of his administration, even though the overwhelming majority of ecnomists predicted the economy would recover on its own, in order to gain approval for his radical policies, blaming Bush for the bad economy all the while. When Obama's pessimism became too much for the market to bear, he made a belated sudden sharp turn toward optimism, attributing the early signs of the expected recovery to his own policies. Just as his pessimism was harmful to the economy, his optimism was probably beneficial. The recent jump in consumer confidence suggests that consumers will begin to increase spending, and investors their investing, although how much of their optimism is attributable to recent better economic news or to Obama's change in attitude remains to be seen.
One noteworthy difference between Ronald Reagan as a candidate, and Bill Clinton and Barak Obama, is that Reagan's strong criticisms of the economy were not exaggerations, as the economy during the Carter Administration was obviously in poor condition. Indeed, President Jimmy Carter adopted pessimism as his official policy, notably in his infamous "Malaise" speech, in which he urged Americans to accept economic decline, which precluded any criticism of Reagan for talking the economy down. Like Reagan, Clinton and Obama deserve credit that their expressions of optimism benefited the economy. The more important difference between Reagan and the two Democratic presidents who took office after him is that he proposed, and later implemented, economically beneficial policies, which he could boast had benefited the economy, whereas Clinton and Obama's proposals were more more mixed, at best. George W. Bush was different from all of these presidential candidates in offering only tempered criticism of the economy, and yet was the only one who received criticism for his comments about the economy as a candidate.
Obama should continue to sound optimistic about the American economy, but, like Reagan and Bush and unlike Clinton, this optimism should be based upon confidence in American resilience more so than in specific policies. He should resist the temptation to attribute all economic improvements to government, and give the American people any credit they might deserve for economic recovery. Obama's optimism would be more effective in inspiring consumer confidence if he adopted more economically beneficial policies.
The always-optimistic President Ronald Reagan inspired confidence in the American people that the obvious-distressed economy would recover, despite the challenges his recovery plan encountered. His tax cuts allowed people to keep more of their earnings and to work more without the fear of losing their increased earnings to greater taxation, but Americans needed the confidence to spend their greater disposable income, which the cheerful Reagan amply supplied. In this sense, even his liberal critics gave him a left-handed compliment when claiming that all he did was to make people feel better; they are admitting that at least his encouragement caused some benefit to the economy.
After the prosperity of 1982-1990, the economy entered into a mild, brief recession. However, the recovery took longer than usual. By 1992, Bill Clinton adopted the economy as his main presidential campaign issue, exaggerating its condition as "the worst economy in fifty years." There was no criticism of him for reducing consumer confidence with his pessimism. The recovering economy was growing robustly by the final quarter of the administration of President George H.W. Bush, but Clinton took the credit soon after taking office for the increased prosperity, by which point Clinton had switched sharply to being optimistic about the economy. He then boasted about the state of the economy during his time in office, despite some of his harmful policies, like tax increases, and the contribution made by Congress in blocking his worst proposals, and once Republicans gained the majority, of forcing Clinton to acquiesce to better policies. Clinton bragged as if it were the greatest economy ever, even though the economic statistics were similar to those of the 1980s, which Democrats and liberals had mostly dismissed.
By the end of the Clinton Administration, economic growth began to slow. As a candidate for the office of president, George W. Bush cited the "warning signs" of an economic slow-down as a need for his proposed tax cuts, which represented a refund of the budget surplus. Liberal Democrats accused him of "talking down" the economy, the danger of which they suddenly recognized now that they were in power at a time of economic stress. No one seemed to notice the contradiction that these liberal defenders of Clinton were making, that the economy supposedly was still strong, but yet vulnerable to being undone by a few carefully-chosen words by one man. But in a sense they were admitting that Bill Clinton had done the same thing in 1992. The difference was that Bush had done so far more responsibly, and necessarily, than Clinton had. Moreover, Bush did so in order to propose policies to improve the economy (tax cuts), instead of ones Clinton proposed (tax increases) that worsened it. The liberals were right that even presidential candidates can effect the economy, but their inconsistency about it is noteworthy.
Like Clinton, Barak Obama also campaigned on the economy, making the "worst financial crisis," meaning the worst banking crisis, "since the Great Depression" sound like the economy was in even worse distress than it was. And like Clinton, Obama talked the economy down irresponsibly in order to win election. Although Obama proposed some tax cuts, he also proposed some tax increases, along with massive borrowing and spending. Unlike Clinton, however, Obama continued to sound pessimistic during the first few months of his administration, even though the overwhelming majority of ecnomists predicted the economy would recover on its own, in order to gain approval for his radical policies, blaming Bush for the bad economy all the while. When Obama's pessimism became too much for the market to bear, he made a belated sudden sharp turn toward optimism, attributing the early signs of the expected recovery to his own policies. Just as his pessimism was harmful to the economy, his optimism was probably beneficial. The recent jump in consumer confidence suggests that consumers will begin to increase spending, and investors their investing, although how much of their optimism is attributable to recent better economic news or to Obama's change in attitude remains to be seen.
One noteworthy difference between Ronald Reagan as a candidate, and Bill Clinton and Barak Obama, is that Reagan's strong criticisms of the economy were not exaggerations, as the economy during the Carter Administration was obviously in poor condition. Indeed, President Jimmy Carter adopted pessimism as his official policy, notably in his infamous "Malaise" speech, in which he urged Americans to accept economic decline, which precluded any criticism of Reagan for talking the economy down. Like Reagan, Clinton and Obama deserve credit that their expressions of optimism benefited the economy. The more important difference between Reagan and the two Democratic presidents who took office after him is that he proposed, and later implemented, economically beneficial policies, which he could boast had benefited the economy, whereas Clinton and Obama's proposals were more more mixed, at best. George W. Bush was different from all of these presidential candidates in offering only tempered criticism of the economy, and yet was the only one who received criticism for his comments about the economy as a candidate.
Obama should continue to sound optimistic about the American economy, but, like Reagan and Bush and unlike Clinton, this optimism should be based upon confidence in American resilience more so than in specific policies. He should resist the temptation to attribute all economic improvements to government, and give the American people any credit they might deserve for economic recovery. Obama's optimism would be more effective in inspiring consumer confidence if he adopted more economically beneficial policies.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Memorial Day Is Not Meant to Be a Happy Holiday
I am pleased to return to my blog to post, after an absence of over a week in order to tend once again to local political matters. Thank you for your patience and continued loyalty to my blog.
The United States will commemorate Memorial Day on Monday, May 25. This federal and state holiday, first observed after the War Between the States, honors those who gave their lives in service to the U.S. Thus, it is not a day of celebration, but a day of mourning, albeit one tempered by gratitude for the liberty won by the supreme sacrifice of others.
As such, it is inappropriate to speak of "celebrating" the holiday, or to wish someone a "Happy Memorial Day," or to make some similar statement. Although the intention is good, it is disrespectful to our war dead to dilute the purpose of the day by watering it down with extraneous concerns.
The time will come soon to celebrate the blessings of liberty -- on Independence Day, but for now it is the time to honor the dead who made that liberty possible. Perhaps it is no irony that Memorial Day comes before Independence Day on the calendar, just as the blood of the first patriots had to be shed in order to water the tree of liberty.
The United States will commemorate Memorial Day on Monday, May 25. This federal and state holiday, first observed after the War Between the States, honors those who gave their lives in service to the U.S. Thus, it is not a day of celebration, but a day of mourning, albeit one tempered by gratitude for the liberty won by the supreme sacrifice of others.
As such, it is inappropriate to speak of "celebrating" the holiday, or to wish someone a "Happy Memorial Day," or to make some similar statement. Although the intention is good, it is disrespectful to our war dead to dilute the purpose of the day by watering it down with extraneous concerns.
The time will come soon to celebrate the blessings of liberty -- on Independence Day, but for now it is the time to honor the dead who made that liberty possible. Perhaps it is no irony that Memorial Day comes before Independence Day on the calendar, just as the blood of the first patriots had to be shed in order to water the tree of liberty.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Pelosi Is the One Who Is Misleading on WMD in Iraq, Not the CIA
The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has been attempting to defend herself by accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of "misleading" on the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Pelosi, who was among the liberal Democratic critics of the Bush Administration's enhanced interrogations of terrorist suspects, is trying to deny the CIA's claim that she was briefed about the techniques, along with other members of Congress, and did not object to the interrogation techniques at the time or afterward.
In order to dismiss the convincing evidence that she was, in fact, briefed about the enhanced interrogations, Pelosi is attempting to impeach the CIA's credibility by smearing it with the canard that it misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The charge that WMD were not found in Iraq has been repeated so frequently -- without challenge --that it has become widely believed. But it is not true. Coalition forces have found several hundred weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the form of artillery shells with chemical warheads. According to a declassified report by the Department of Defense, over 500 chemical weapons had been found already as of three years ago. Moreover, other prohibited chemicals have been found that could have quickly been weaponized, a fact which would have made the question of assembled weapons of mass destructive moot. Although no stockpiles of WMDs were found, it is false to say that none were found, as many WMDs were scattered amidst Iraq's conventional munitions.
What was more misleading than any exaggerations by intelligence officials or others about Iraq's WMD programs during the Saddam Hussein era, were the claims before the Liberation of Iraq by liberals and isolationists that Iraq did not have WMD. These claims were based upon a belief that the dishonest Hussein had told the truth that he had destroyed his known WMDs, despite his refusal to prove that he had done so, as he was obligated to do by United Nations resolutions. It was not necessary to find WMDs or WMD materials in order to be skeptical of Hussein's claims that Iraq did not have WMDs. But the finding of Iraq's WMDs and materials proves beyond any doubt that it is liberals like Pelosi, not the Bush Administration and its supporters, who are misleading about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, something that needs to be said more often. In short, with her attempt to impeach the CIA's credibility, Pelosi has impeached her own.
In order to dismiss the convincing evidence that she was, in fact, briefed about the enhanced interrogations, Pelosi is attempting to impeach the CIA's credibility by smearing it with the canard that it misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The charge that WMD were not found in Iraq has been repeated so frequently -- without challenge --that it has become widely believed. But it is not true. Coalition forces have found several hundred weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the form of artillery shells with chemical warheads. According to a declassified report by the Department of Defense, over 500 chemical weapons had been found already as of three years ago. Moreover, other prohibited chemicals have been found that could have quickly been weaponized, a fact which would have made the question of assembled weapons of mass destructive moot. Although no stockpiles of WMDs were found, it is false to say that none were found, as many WMDs were scattered amidst Iraq's conventional munitions.
What was more misleading than any exaggerations by intelligence officials or others about Iraq's WMD programs during the Saddam Hussein era, were the claims before the Liberation of Iraq by liberals and isolationists that Iraq did not have WMD. These claims were based upon a belief that the dishonest Hussein had told the truth that he had destroyed his known WMDs, despite his refusal to prove that he had done so, as he was obligated to do by United Nations resolutions. It was not necessary to find WMDs or WMD materials in order to be skeptical of Hussein's claims that Iraq did not have WMDs. But the finding of Iraq's WMDs and materials proves beyond any doubt that it is liberals like Pelosi, not the Bush Administration and its supporters, who are misleading about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, something that needs to be said more often. In short, with her attempt to impeach the CIA's credibility, Pelosi has impeached her own.
Obama Reverses Himself on Military Tribunals
President Barak Obama has decided to reverse his earlier decision to suspend military tribunals for suspected terrorists. In addition, he will continue to detain some terrorists indefinitely, without trial -- even on American soil!
Obama will make minor changes to the military tribunals, such as eliminating hearsay evidence, in returning to the policy of the Bush Administration that Democrats and liberals had criticized and that he had sought to eliminate. Some terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay will be released to foreign governments or tried in civilian courts.
The indefinite detention of terrorists who cannot be released to foreign states or tried in civilian courts represents yet another continuation of another policy of former President George W. Bush that was criticized harshly by Democrats, liberals and other civil libertarians. Obama had promised during the presidential election campaign to close down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, although so did his Republican opponent, John McCain. Indeed, even the Bush Administration had agreed to close it down. But Obama authorized the camp's closure early in his Administration without having announced any plan for what to do with the inmates there. Now the supposedly un-Bush president will continue with the indefinite detention of terrorists, which was the most controversial part of the Bush policy for terrorists captured on the battlefield abroad. The Bush Administration sent the detainees to Guantanamo because it is not U.S. soil, believing it to be out of the jurisdiction of the judicial branch. That the Obama Administration will detain the terrorists on American soil is all the more extraordinary.
As I have noted in previous posts, Obama is vindicating Bush by following most of his predecessor's policies after having been his harshest critic. Apparently, either Obama has concluded that Bush was right and he was wrong, or that the difference between him and Bush was more personal, that is to say, that the policies are good as long as Obama is the one who implements them, instead of Bush.
I should note that the military tribunal reversal comes just days after Obama reversed himself on the publication of photographs of excessive interrogations (not the enhanced interrogations currently in controversy, but ones that went beyond the legal limit, for which the perpetrators have already been punished) during the Bush Administration, apparently coming to the conclusion that the concerns expressed most vociferously by Dick Cheney, and echoed by the military's top generals responsible for the War on Terrorism, were valid.
Obama's decision on the photographs comes after his decision not to prosecute Bush Administration lawyers for their advice that the enhanced interrogations would not constitute torture. Both decisions disappointed liberal critics of the Bush Administration, although there remains the concern that Obama's consideration of prosecutions of interrogators and even lawyers (the latter of which would have been unprecedented) were sufficient to have a chilling effect on intelligence agencies, even though he eventually came to the right decision.
Obama's vindications leave only one significant policy change in the War on Terrorism remaining -- his elimination of aggressive interrogations and his publication of what techniques are permissible. But one change could be all the terrorists need in order to carry out their next successful attack.
Obama will make minor changes to the military tribunals, such as eliminating hearsay evidence, in returning to the policy of the Bush Administration that Democrats and liberals had criticized and that he had sought to eliminate. Some terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay will be released to foreign governments or tried in civilian courts.
The indefinite detention of terrorists who cannot be released to foreign states or tried in civilian courts represents yet another continuation of another policy of former President George W. Bush that was criticized harshly by Democrats, liberals and other civil libertarians. Obama had promised during the presidential election campaign to close down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, although so did his Republican opponent, John McCain. Indeed, even the Bush Administration had agreed to close it down. But Obama authorized the camp's closure early in his Administration without having announced any plan for what to do with the inmates there. Now the supposedly un-Bush president will continue with the indefinite detention of terrorists, which was the most controversial part of the Bush policy for terrorists captured on the battlefield abroad. The Bush Administration sent the detainees to Guantanamo because it is not U.S. soil, believing it to be out of the jurisdiction of the judicial branch. That the Obama Administration will detain the terrorists on American soil is all the more extraordinary.
As I have noted in previous posts, Obama is vindicating Bush by following most of his predecessor's policies after having been his harshest critic. Apparently, either Obama has concluded that Bush was right and he was wrong, or that the difference between him and Bush was more personal, that is to say, that the policies are good as long as Obama is the one who implements them, instead of Bush.
I should note that the military tribunal reversal comes just days after Obama reversed himself on the publication of photographs of excessive interrogations (not the enhanced interrogations currently in controversy, but ones that went beyond the legal limit, for which the perpetrators have already been punished) during the Bush Administration, apparently coming to the conclusion that the concerns expressed most vociferously by Dick Cheney, and echoed by the military's top generals responsible for the War on Terrorism, were valid.
Obama's decision on the photographs comes after his decision not to prosecute Bush Administration lawyers for their advice that the enhanced interrogations would not constitute torture. Both decisions disappointed liberal critics of the Bush Administration, although there remains the concern that Obama's consideration of prosecutions of interrogators and even lawyers (the latter of which would have been unprecedented) were sufficient to have a chilling effect on intelligence agencies, even though he eventually came to the right decision.
Obama's vindications leave only one significant policy change in the War on Terrorism remaining -- his elimination of aggressive interrogations and his publication of what techniques are permissible. But one change could be all the terrorists need in order to carry out their next successful attack.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Economy, Deficit and Debt at George W. Bush's Inauguration
From some of the searches that have led readers to visit my post entitled Obama Did Not Inherit the Economy from Bush, I can see that some people were curious about the economy, deficit and debt when George W. Bush was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States on January 20, 2001.
Note I did not say that Bush "inherited the economy," for, as noted in previous posts, government is not responsible for the economy; therefore, one president cannot inherit it from another. Similarly, a president cannot inherit the budget deficit totally, as he takes office part way through the fiscal year. Thus, he can sign spending recisions into law, or, conversely, sign new spending bills. However, a president does "inherit" -- metaphorically -- the public debt, which is the accumulation of all previous deficits, which currently date back to 1837.
The Economy
When Bush was inaugurated, the economy, after a record-long period of growth, was beginning to decline. The tax cuts he signed into law began to stimulate economic growth, but a recession became unavoidable later that year after the trillion-dollar blow of the September 11 Attacks. In other words, although the economy was not in recession when Bush took office, it was in a decline that weakened it enough that it was unable to continue to grow after September 11, until the Bush tax cuts more fully took effect an began to return the economy to prosperity.
Another significant drag on the economy at the time Bush took office, as it was later discovered, was that some corporations had misstated their financial conditions. These misstatements slightly inflated the measurements of growth during the 1990s under the Clinton Administration, and their corrections, and the bankruptcies that followed, correspondingly reduced it during the Bush Administration.
The Deficit
At the time Bush became president, the budget was in surplus of several hundred billion dollars, thanks in part to the Republican Congress in the 1990s that cut spending and taxes. However, Bill Clinton kept income taxes at the level to which he had raised them. In other words, the surplus was generated partly by the overtaxation of income. In generating the surplus, the federal government had taken hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy that it did not need for its annual expenditures. In short, large surpluses are bad for the economy, although Clinton, Albert Gore and the Democrats continued to boast about the huge surplus their overtaxation had caused. However, political pressure began to mount to refund the surplus, which suggested that the relatively high income tax rates were not justified.
Both George W. Bush and Gore campaigned on promises to eliminate the surplus by various means, including refunding at least part of it to the taxpayers, although they disagreed on how much, with Gore preferring to spend more of it than Bush. After Bush's inauguration the Democratic Congress promised to refund $900 billion of the surplus through tax cuts, while Bush succeeded in getting Congress to approve refunding $1.3 trillion. Thus, the Congressional Democrats had proposed refunding over 75% of the surplus. Yet Democrats and other liberals have continued ever since to take cheap shots at Bush for "losing the surplus." In fact, by refunding the surplus generated by overtaxation, Bush was keeping his campaign promise, with which both his opponent and the Congressional Democrats agreed with, in part.
The Debt
The debt was $5.7 trillion at the time George W. Bush became the 43rd President. But this astronomically high figure was destined to increase not so much because of the refund of the surplus and the tax cuts, which actually increased federal revenue by helping to stimulate growth, but because of the economic downturn at the time Bush took office, followed by the corporate scandals and September 11. In addition, the Clinton Administration had made drastic cuts to the military. Bush had promised to restore the military during his campaign. In short, although the debt was already high when Bush took office, the situation he "inherited" from Clinton made an increase in the debt at that time inevitable.
It is not necessary to discuss the economy, deficit and debt throughout the Bush Administration, as my intent was only to describe the situation at the time he took office, one that was not the worst situation in history, but one that was nonetheless relatively challenging.
Note I did not say that Bush "inherited the economy," for, as noted in previous posts, government is not responsible for the economy; therefore, one president cannot inherit it from another. Similarly, a president cannot inherit the budget deficit totally, as he takes office part way through the fiscal year. Thus, he can sign spending recisions into law, or, conversely, sign new spending bills. However, a president does "inherit" -- metaphorically -- the public debt, which is the accumulation of all previous deficits, which currently date back to 1837.
The Economy
When Bush was inaugurated, the economy, after a record-long period of growth, was beginning to decline. The tax cuts he signed into law began to stimulate economic growth, but a recession became unavoidable later that year after the trillion-dollar blow of the September 11 Attacks. In other words, although the economy was not in recession when Bush took office, it was in a decline that weakened it enough that it was unable to continue to grow after September 11, until the Bush tax cuts more fully took effect an began to return the economy to prosperity.
Another significant drag on the economy at the time Bush took office, as it was later discovered, was that some corporations had misstated their financial conditions. These misstatements slightly inflated the measurements of growth during the 1990s under the Clinton Administration, and their corrections, and the bankruptcies that followed, correspondingly reduced it during the Bush Administration.
The Deficit
At the time Bush became president, the budget was in surplus of several hundred billion dollars, thanks in part to the Republican Congress in the 1990s that cut spending and taxes. However, Bill Clinton kept income taxes at the level to which he had raised them. In other words, the surplus was generated partly by the overtaxation of income. In generating the surplus, the federal government had taken hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy that it did not need for its annual expenditures. In short, large surpluses are bad for the economy, although Clinton, Albert Gore and the Democrats continued to boast about the huge surplus their overtaxation had caused. However, political pressure began to mount to refund the surplus, which suggested that the relatively high income tax rates were not justified.
Both George W. Bush and Gore campaigned on promises to eliminate the surplus by various means, including refunding at least part of it to the taxpayers, although they disagreed on how much, with Gore preferring to spend more of it than Bush. After Bush's inauguration the Democratic Congress promised to refund $900 billion of the surplus through tax cuts, while Bush succeeded in getting Congress to approve refunding $1.3 trillion. Thus, the Congressional Democrats had proposed refunding over 75% of the surplus. Yet Democrats and other liberals have continued ever since to take cheap shots at Bush for "losing the surplus." In fact, by refunding the surplus generated by overtaxation, Bush was keeping his campaign promise, with which both his opponent and the Congressional Democrats agreed with, in part.
The Debt
The debt was $5.7 trillion at the time George W. Bush became the 43rd President. But this astronomically high figure was destined to increase not so much because of the refund of the surplus and the tax cuts, which actually increased federal revenue by helping to stimulate growth, but because of the economic downturn at the time Bush took office, followed by the corporate scandals and September 11. In addition, the Clinton Administration had made drastic cuts to the military. Bush had promised to restore the military during his campaign. In short, although the debt was already high when Bush took office, the situation he "inherited" from Clinton made an increase in the debt at that time inevitable.
It is not necessary to discuss the economy, deficit and debt throughout the Bush Administration, as my intent was only to describe the situation at the time he took office, one that was not the worst situation in history, but one that was nonetheless relatively challenging.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Follow-Up on the Fall of Islamic Civilization
A reader from Bangladesh posted a comment to my post "The Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization" in which the reader thanked me for my article and asked me to write more about the Fall of Islamic Civilization, which provides me the opportunity to expound on this topic.
My post was a brief explanation of of the late Father Stanley Jaki's treatment on this subject, in which he describes the influence of the ideas of the medieval Islamic philosopher, al-Ghazali, on Islamic science, in particular. I refer readers to Fr. Jaki's writings, which suggest that al-Ghazali's assertion that God is above reason inhibits the development of Islamic science because modern science is dependent upon the acceptance of the idea that God created a rational universe that can thus be observed and understood rationally. I would refer Muslims especially to Avicenna, another medieval Islamic philosopher, who wrote a refuation of al-Ghazali's beliefs about the degree of God's incomprehensibility. The lack of a clear successor to Muhammad as the unchallengeable human authority for the interpretation of the Islamic scripture, the Quran, apparently precludes the definitive settlement of the dispute between al-Ghazali and Avicenna, but it might be worthwhile for Muslims nevertheless to debate the matter, for it could lead to a return of the development of science and technology in Islamic Civilization.
For a civilization as magnificent as Islamic Civilization to decline to such a degree, more than one factor must be necessary, but Fr. Jaki at least explains the decline of Islamic science, which, in turn, allowed the West to gain technological superiority in warfare.
There were likely other contributions to the decline of Islamic Civilization, including many minor issues that those more expert on the subject could identify. I have observed that all empires face the challenge of maintaining control of territory, which is especially difficult in areas where the population is unwilling to be subject to foreign rule. The challenge was made all the more difficult in Spain, for example, where Arab Muslims failed to live up always to their reputation as tolerant of other faiths.
Another contribution to the decline of Islamic Civilization is infighting among Muslims, especially Arabs. In contrast, the Christians were able to unite at critical moments, such as when they formed the Holy League under Pope Pius V in order to prevent the Ottoman Turks from seizing Rome, which the Christians accomplished by a spectacular naval victory at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, whereas the Arab rebellion against the Ottomans, assisted famously by the leadership of Lawrence of Arabia during the First World War, led to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
The return of the development of science and technology in Islamic Civilization would benefit not only Muslims, but also the West, just as Muslims have benefited from Western technology. But the West would further benefit from an improvement in the quality of life for Muslims if Muslims feel less dependent on Western technology, and less full of despair and inferiority. As the Muslim standard of living rises, trade with the West would increase, which, in turn decreases the likelihood of armed conflict between the two civilizations.
Peaceful coexistence between Islamic and Western civilizations is possible. A successful example is the agreement reached between the Muslim leader Saladin and Christian leader King Richard the Lionhearted during the Crusades, in which to this day a Muslim family maintains the key to the holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and allows Christians access to them. In turn, the local Muslims gain from the commerce generated by the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.
I hope that my discussion about the decline of Islamic Civilization promotes better understanding of the theological foundation of modern science, which would benefit both Islamic and Western civilization.
My post was a brief explanation of of the late Father Stanley Jaki's treatment on this subject, in which he describes the influence of the ideas of the medieval Islamic philosopher, al-Ghazali, on Islamic science, in particular. I refer readers to Fr. Jaki's writings, which suggest that al-Ghazali's assertion that God is above reason inhibits the development of Islamic science because modern science is dependent upon the acceptance of the idea that God created a rational universe that can thus be observed and understood rationally. I would refer Muslims especially to Avicenna, another medieval Islamic philosopher, who wrote a refuation of al-Ghazali's beliefs about the degree of God's incomprehensibility. The lack of a clear successor to Muhammad as the unchallengeable human authority for the interpretation of the Islamic scripture, the Quran, apparently precludes the definitive settlement of the dispute between al-Ghazali and Avicenna, but it might be worthwhile for Muslims nevertheless to debate the matter, for it could lead to a return of the development of science and technology in Islamic Civilization.
For a civilization as magnificent as Islamic Civilization to decline to such a degree, more than one factor must be necessary, but Fr. Jaki at least explains the decline of Islamic science, which, in turn, allowed the West to gain technological superiority in warfare.
There were likely other contributions to the decline of Islamic Civilization, including many minor issues that those more expert on the subject could identify. I have observed that all empires face the challenge of maintaining control of territory, which is especially difficult in areas where the population is unwilling to be subject to foreign rule. The challenge was made all the more difficult in Spain, for example, where Arab Muslims failed to live up always to their reputation as tolerant of other faiths.
Another contribution to the decline of Islamic Civilization is infighting among Muslims, especially Arabs. In contrast, the Christians were able to unite at critical moments, such as when they formed the Holy League under Pope Pius V in order to prevent the Ottoman Turks from seizing Rome, which the Christians accomplished by a spectacular naval victory at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, whereas the Arab rebellion against the Ottomans, assisted famously by the leadership of Lawrence of Arabia during the First World War, led to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
The return of the development of science and technology in Islamic Civilization would benefit not only Muslims, but also the West, just as Muslims have benefited from Western technology. But the West would further benefit from an improvement in the quality of life for Muslims if Muslims feel less dependent on Western technology, and less full of despair and inferiority. As the Muslim standard of living rises, trade with the West would increase, which, in turn decreases the likelihood of armed conflict between the two civilizations.
Peaceful coexistence between Islamic and Western civilizations is possible. A successful example is the agreement reached between the Muslim leader Saladin and Christian leader King Richard the Lionhearted during the Crusades, in which to this day a Muslim family maintains the key to the holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and allows Christians access to them. In turn, the local Muslims gain from the commerce generated by the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.
I hope that my discussion about the decline of Islamic Civilization promotes better understanding of the theological foundation of modern science, which would benefit both Islamic and Western civilization.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Jack Kemp, In Memoriam
Former United States Representative and presidential Cabinet Secretary Jack Kemp passed away yesterday at the age of 73. The conservative Republican represented Buffalo in Congress for nine terms before serving as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for President George H.W. Bush. Kemp was the GOP nominee for Vice President in 1996, with Robert Dole at the top of the ticket.
The National Football League Hall of Fame quarterback was best known for his promotion of supply-side economics. Indeed, Kemp was one of the prime sponsors of the revolutionary Reagan tax cut bill, known as Kemp-Roth (William Roth was a Republican Senator from Delaware). The tax cuts helped spark an economic prosperity that set a then-record for peacetime economic expansion, until the 1990-1991 recession, characterized by low inflation. However, like the 2001-2002 recession, the recession of the early 90s was brief and mild, meaning that the quarter century from 1982-2007 was a period of unprecedented prosperity. The tax cuts also increased revenue to the U.S. Treasury because of the economic growth they stimulated.
Kemp was also known for his strong support for civil rights for blacks, in the tradition of Lincoln and other early Republicans. He was pro-life and supported President Ronald Reagan's Cold War policies. As Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, Kemp promoted plans that weaned welfare recipients off subsidized rent toward home ownership. He was for many years a reliable, enthusiastic, optimistic spokesman for conservatism.
Jack Kemp's legacy is the many years of prosperity and liberty that proved that the conservative policies he championed were right. May he rest in peace.
The National Football League Hall of Fame quarterback was best known for his promotion of supply-side economics. Indeed, Kemp was one of the prime sponsors of the revolutionary Reagan tax cut bill, known as Kemp-Roth (William Roth was a Republican Senator from Delaware). The tax cuts helped spark an economic prosperity that set a then-record for peacetime economic expansion, until the 1990-1991 recession, characterized by low inflation. However, like the 2001-2002 recession, the recession of the early 90s was brief and mild, meaning that the quarter century from 1982-2007 was a period of unprecedented prosperity. The tax cuts also increased revenue to the U.S. Treasury because of the economic growth they stimulated.
Kemp was also known for his strong support for civil rights for blacks, in the tradition of Lincoln and other early Republicans. He was pro-life and supported President Ronald Reagan's Cold War policies. As Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, Kemp promoted plans that weaned welfare recipients off subsidized rent toward home ownership. He was for many years a reliable, enthusiastic, optimistic spokesman for conservatism.
Jack Kemp's legacy is the many years of prosperity and liberty that proved that the conservative policies he championed were right. May he rest in peace.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Blog Hit Report/Thank You for Your Patronage
One month ago, I began to employ a better hit counter, StatCounter.com, for this blog. The results have been fascinating and heartening. My blog is attracting more attention than I realized. Also, now I can know why people are attracted to it.
Over that month, over 100 people viewed my blog (about 15 initiated their visit by directly viewing my homepage or after having searched for it, and another nearly 90 after being attracted to particular posts, several of whom also went on to view my blog homepage or other posts), a total of almost 150 times. I am not counting my own visits as hits and only count a multiple visit if it is more than an hour after a previous one. The searches that led people to land on my posts suggest that in many cases my blog provides useful specific information to those seeking it.
The counter has also revealed that several individuals are loyal readers, with multiple visits to my blog. Thank you for your patronage! And thank you for your comments, whether they are posted on my blog or relayed to me directly.
The following are some interesting statistics: My blog has attracted hits from 24 states in the Union and the District of Columbia, as well as 15 foreign states on five continents; in the U.S., the most hits came from NY, CA, FL, PA (even excluding local readers) and NJ; The most foreign hits came from the United Kingdom, Canada and Italy; Readers were attracted to 21 posts, including several from as far back as January, not including those who initiated their visit to my blog on its homepage; The most popular posts, by far, were Father Stanley Jaki, Rest in Peace (with hits from the U.S. and 4 foreign states on 3 continents) and The Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization (the U.S. and 9 foreign states on 4 continents); Also relatively popular were Lepanto, by GK Chesterton, Freedom of the Seas/Freedom of the Seas Update, Politics and Propaganda: Misused Words, and Clinton Wrong to Compare Sanger to Jefferson; Hits have come from numerous colleges, universities and secondary schools; The most unexpected places where hits came from were the University of California at Berkley and The New York Times, both of which were of Father Stanley Jaki, Rest in Peace; The only hit from a government (other than public schools) was from the Holy See, Vatican City, of Lepanto by GK Chesterton.
Again, thank you, dear readers, for viewing my blog. I hope you are enjoying reading and posting comments to it as much as I am enjoyed posting to it.
Over that month, over 100 people viewed my blog (about 15 initiated their visit by directly viewing my homepage or after having searched for it, and another nearly 90 after being attracted to particular posts, several of whom also went on to view my blog homepage or other posts), a total of almost 150 times. I am not counting my own visits as hits and only count a multiple visit if it is more than an hour after a previous one. The searches that led people to land on my posts suggest that in many cases my blog provides useful specific information to those seeking it.
The counter has also revealed that several individuals are loyal readers, with multiple visits to my blog. Thank you for your patronage! And thank you for your comments, whether they are posted on my blog or relayed to me directly.
The following are some interesting statistics: My blog has attracted hits from 24 states in the Union and the District of Columbia, as well as 15 foreign states on five continents; in the U.S., the most hits came from NY, CA, FL, PA (even excluding local readers) and NJ; The most foreign hits came from the United Kingdom, Canada and Italy; Readers were attracted to 21 posts, including several from as far back as January, not including those who initiated their visit to my blog on its homepage; The most popular posts, by far, were Father Stanley Jaki, Rest in Peace (with hits from the U.S. and 4 foreign states on 3 continents) and The Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization (the U.S. and 9 foreign states on 4 continents); Also relatively popular were Lepanto, by GK Chesterton, Freedom of the Seas/Freedom of the Seas Update, Politics and Propaganda: Misused Words, and Clinton Wrong to Compare Sanger to Jefferson; Hits have come from numerous colleges, universities and secondary schools; The most unexpected places where hits came from were the University of California at Berkley and The New York Times, both of which were of Father Stanley Jaki, Rest in Peace; The only hit from a government (other than public schools) was from the Holy See, Vatican City, of Lepanto by GK Chesterton.
Again, thank you, dear readers, for viewing my blog. I hope you are enjoying reading and posting comments to it as much as I am enjoyed posting to it.
Italian News
The recent deadly earthquake that struck near L'Aquila, the capital of Abruzzo, occurred near my ancestral home town of Villamagna, in the Province of Chieti. Although it was felt in Villamagna, my paternal grandfather's home town was far enough away to escape damage. The quake, which did damage even in Rome to the ancient Baths of Caracalla, was felt by the Pope, who recently toured the area of devastation. Please continue to pray for the victims.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has been actively engaged in the recovery efforts, as well as the restoration of the medieval treasures damaged by the temblor, recently announced that he would change the venue of the Group of Eight summit of industrialized powers Italy was hosting from Sardinia to L'Aquila, which besides allowing for better security and convenience for the guests, would provide an economic stimulus for the devastated area.
Berlusconi has been praised for his leadership on the earthquake, which is reflected in his high approval ratings in opinion polls. The pro-American leader announced he would be sending more troops to the NATO contingent in Afghanistan, although the size of the force was small, as with all the increased troops pledged by the NATO allies. Berlusconi had earlier resolved a disastrous sanitation strike in Naples upon taking office and also issued the order for the construction of a bridge from Italy to Sicily, which would be the world's longest.
Berlusconi probably received a further boost recently when the Italian automaker Fiat SpA agreed to partner with American automaker Chrysler in order to save the American company from liquidation. Fiat, which also owns Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati, will give Chrysler smaller, more fuel-efficient car technology and platforms, as well as access to the European market for Chrysler models like Jeep, in return for gaining reentry to the American market from Chrysler after an absence of many years. The Fiat deal is a sign of hope for both Italy and the United States, but it will be some time until its economic effects are felt.
It is important to the United States that the pro-American Berlusconi, who is serving as prime minister for the third time, be successful. Under Berlusconi, Italy has been a staunch ally in the War on Terrorism. Not only have the Italians cracked down on al-Qaeda, which had several cells in Italy, so successfully as to prevent any attack, but Italian provided significant forces to the coalitions of the willing in Afghanistan and Iraq. The standard is especially high this time for Berlusconi because his conservative party won an unprecedented majority in parliament with only two junior partners, unlike the usual multiple partnerships required in order to form a coalition government. The last time he was premier, he failed to make adequate reforms because moderate parties that were critical junior partners in his coalition blocked major reforms, although he was able to lower taxes. Let us hope that Berlusconi is successful in both political reform, as well as in shepherding Italy through the fiscal crisis and economic downturn which is affecting Europe worse than the United States. He must take advantage of his opportunity.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has been actively engaged in the recovery efforts, as well as the restoration of the medieval treasures damaged by the temblor, recently announced that he would change the venue of the Group of Eight summit of industrialized powers Italy was hosting from Sardinia to L'Aquila, which besides allowing for better security and convenience for the guests, would provide an economic stimulus for the devastated area.
Berlusconi has been praised for his leadership on the earthquake, which is reflected in his high approval ratings in opinion polls. The pro-American leader announced he would be sending more troops to the NATO contingent in Afghanistan, although the size of the force was small, as with all the increased troops pledged by the NATO allies. Berlusconi had earlier resolved a disastrous sanitation strike in Naples upon taking office and also issued the order for the construction of a bridge from Italy to Sicily, which would be the world's longest.
Berlusconi probably received a further boost recently when the Italian automaker Fiat SpA agreed to partner with American automaker Chrysler in order to save the American company from liquidation. Fiat, which also owns Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati, will give Chrysler smaller, more fuel-efficient car technology and platforms, as well as access to the European market for Chrysler models like Jeep, in return for gaining reentry to the American market from Chrysler after an absence of many years. The Fiat deal is a sign of hope for both Italy and the United States, but it will be some time until its economic effects are felt.
It is important to the United States that the pro-American Berlusconi, who is serving as prime minister for the third time, be successful. Under Berlusconi, Italy has been a staunch ally in the War on Terrorism. Not only have the Italians cracked down on al-Qaeda, which had several cells in Italy, so successfully as to prevent any attack, but Italian provided significant forces to the coalitions of the willing in Afghanistan and Iraq. The standard is especially high this time for Berlusconi because his conservative party won an unprecedented majority in parliament with only two junior partners, unlike the usual multiple partnerships required in order to form a coalition government. The last time he was premier, he failed to make adequate reforms because moderate parties that were critical junior partners in his coalition blocked major reforms, although he was able to lower taxes. Let us hope that Berlusconi is successful in both political reform, as well as in shepherding Italy through the fiscal crisis and economic downturn which is affecting Europe worse than the United States. He must take advantage of his opportunity.
Good News, Bad News on Abortion
The good news on abortion was that, despite Barak Obama's presidential campaign pledge that the first thing he would do once he were sworn into office as president would be to sign the radically pro-abortion Freedom of Choice Act, he did not sign such a bill in his first one hundred days in office. The proposed law would eviscerate state abortion-control laws, such as parental notification provisions, end the federal ban on partial birth abortion, and require all hospitals to perform abortions, even over their moral or religious objections. However, Congress did not pass such a bill, which Obama did not focus his attention upon urging it to do.
The bad news, on top of the executive orders Obama did sign to require federal taxpayer money to fund groups that advocate abortion in foreign states and to end the moratorium on federal taxpayer money for embryonic stem cell research, is that Supreme Court Justice David Souter will retire soon, leaving Obama the opportunity to replace the pro-Roe v. Wade Justice with another. Had a pro-life candidate been elected president, any liberal like Souter or other older Justices would have been replaced by a strict constitutional constructionist who would likely have overturned the anti-federalist Roe v. Wade opinion. In other words, by just a few hundred thousand votes in a few states, instead of eliminating the federal requirement that states permit abortion, Obama will be able to continue to require that states permit abortion indefinitely.
The bad news, on top of the executive orders Obama did sign to require federal taxpayer money to fund groups that advocate abortion in foreign states and to end the moratorium on federal taxpayer money for embryonic stem cell research, is that Supreme Court Justice David Souter will retire soon, leaving Obama the opportunity to replace the pro-Roe v. Wade Justice with another. Had a pro-life candidate been elected president, any liberal like Souter or other older Justices would have been replaced by a strict constitutional constructionist who would likely have overturned the anti-federalist Roe v. Wade opinion. In other words, by just a few hundred thousand votes in a few states, instead of eliminating the federal requirement that states permit abortion, Obama will be able to continue to require that states permit abortion indefinitely.
Obama Praises One Bush Policy, Considers Copying Another
President Barak Obama praised the Bush Administration for its policy of stockpiling vaccines across the United States in the event of a biological attack or a natural pandemic, a policy which the Obama Administration is employing.
Also, the Obama Administration is reportedly considering reversing itself on the subject of military tribunals for unlawful combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay on charges of terrorism. As explained in an earlier post, Obama had issued an executive order ending military tribunals established by President George W. Bush and Congress, in favor of civilian ones, which would have made successful prosecution of the alleged terrorists much more difficult, especially without revealing intelligence secrets. Faced with the challenges presented by civilian prosecution, the Obama Administration may return to the military prosecution policy after all. Let us hope that it does.
Also, the Obama Administration is reportedly considering reversing itself on the subject of military tribunals for unlawful combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay on charges of terrorism. As explained in an earlier post, Obama had issued an executive order ending military tribunals established by President George W. Bush and Congress, in favor of civilian ones, which would have made successful prosecution of the alleged terrorists much more difficult, especially without revealing intelligence secrets. Faced with the challenges presented by civilian prosecution, the Obama Administration may return to the military prosecution policy after all. Let us hope that it does.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Obama Did Not Inherit the Economy from Bush
President Barak Obama's claim that he "inherited" the economy of the United States from President George W. Bush is false.
I had already noted in an earlier post that Obama claimed to have inherited budget deficits from Bush. Although he he had inherited the debt, he had not inherited all of the current annual budget deficit, which he himself added to dramatically as president, and certainly not any deficits after this fiscal year, which are approved under his administration. It is worth noting that Obama, as a U.S. Senator during Bush's second term, had voted for much of the excessive domestic spending during that time, especially the increase in the final two years of the Bush Administration when Obama's Democratic Party gained the majority control of both houses of Congress, which authorizes all spending. Obama nevertheless criticized Bush for fiscal irresponsibility, as if he had not contributed to it as a Senator, and as if somehow Bush's budget deficit helped cause the recent economic downturn, yet has approved or proposed far more domestic spending, supposedly in order to stimulate economic growth, even though his spending plan is hardly stimulative in the short term. My point is not to equate the budget with the economy, but to demonstrate that Obama and his liberal supporters are misleading when claiming that everything bad was inherited by Obama from Bush.
The claim that Obama inherited the bad economy from Bush is like claiming that when Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009, he inherited Winter from Bush. Neither Bush nor any other president is responsible for the economy because the economy is not the responsiblity of government in the first place, especially the federal government of the United States. In other words, to complete the metaphor about inheritance, Obama did not inherit the economy from Bush because Bush could not have bequeathed something to his successor of which he never had title.
Presidents are not responsible for the economy because it is generally not their duty to promote prosperity. Their duty is to protect our rights. Although presidents, together with Congress, have areas of authority that impact the economy, and they ought not to harm the economy unnecessarily, the federal government does not control the entire economy, such as socialist or fascist governments totally control the economies of their states. Therefore, presidents do not have economic policies per se, only economic aspects to their fiscal or other policies. At times, presidents must even engage in policies that are harmful to the economy in order to protect our liberty. For example, President Thomas Jefferson approved a trade embargo against the United Kingdom for its impressment of American sailors on the high seas, which caused an economic depression. Yet many liberals who seem to hold the state of the economy as one of the most significant barometers of a president's performance judge Jefferson's presidency favorably. But even if all of a president's policies approved by Congress are economically beneficial, the economy may not necessarily prosper because of other problems beyond his control, just as he cannot receive fairly all of the credit for any prosperity his policies helped to stimulate. Conversely, the economy may continue to grow despite harmful government economic policies.
George W. Bush was not responsible for the economic downturn that occurred in the latter part of his second term, after a lengthy period of prosperity. Inflation, caused in part by a rise in energy prices because of increased global demand for oil (because of an increase in global prosperity), damaged the economy. Liberals blamed Bush for the price of oil, as if he ought to be responsible for it, even though many liberals, like Obama, favor higher energy prices.
Obama's economically fascist policies (i.e. indirect socialism whereby ownership of businesses remains private, but under the control of the State), however, are bringing the United States to the point that the president will become responsible for the economy. Then Obama will be unable to escape much of the blame for his economically harmful policies.
I had already noted in an earlier post that Obama claimed to have inherited budget deficits from Bush. Although he he had inherited the debt, he had not inherited all of the current annual budget deficit, which he himself added to dramatically as president, and certainly not any deficits after this fiscal year, which are approved under his administration. It is worth noting that Obama, as a U.S. Senator during Bush's second term, had voted for much of the excessive domestic spending during that time, especially the increase in the final two years of the Bush Administration when Obama's Democratic Party gained the majority control of both houses of Congress, which authorizes all spending. Obama nevertheless criticized Bush for fiscal irresponsibility, as if he had not contributed to it as a Senator, and as if somehow Bush's budget deficit helped cause the recent economic downturn, yet has approved or proposed far more domestic spending, supposedly in order to stimulate economic growth, even though his spending plan is hardly stimulative in the short term. My point is not to equate the budget with the economy, but to demonstrate that Obama and his liberal supporters are misleading when claiming that everything bad was inherited by Obama from Bush.
The claim that Obama inherited the bad economy from Bush is like claiming that when Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009, he inherited Winter from Bush. Neither Bush nor any other president is responsible for the economy because the economy is not the responsiblity of government in the first place, especially the federal government of the United States. In other words, to complete the metaphor about inheritance, Obama did not inherit the economy from Bush because Bush could not have bequeathed something to his successor of which he never had title.
Presidents are not responsible for the economy because it is generally not their duty to promote prosperity. Their duty is to protect our rights. Although presidents, together with Congress, have areas of authority that impact the economy, and they ought not to harm the economy unnecessarily, the federal government does not control the entire economy, such as socialist or fascist governments totally control the economies of their states. Therefore, presidents do not have economic policies per se, only economic aspects to their fiscal or other policies. At times, presidents must even engage in policies that are harmful to the economy in order to protect our liberty. For example, President Thomas Jefferson approved a trade embargo against the United Kingdom for its impressment of American sailors on the high seas, which caused an economic depression. Yet many liberals who seem to hold the state of the economy as one of the most significant barometers of a president's performance judge Jefferson's presidency favorably. But even if all of a president's policies approved by Congress are economically beneficial, the economy may not necessarily prosper because of other problems beyond his control, just as he cannot receive fairly all of the credit for any prosperity his policies helped to stimulate. Conversely, the economy may continue to grow despite harmful government economic policies.
George W. Bush was not responsible for the economic downturn that occurred in the latter part of his second term, after a lengthy period of prosperity. Inflation, caused in part by a rise in energy prices because of increased global demand for oil (because of an increase in global prosperity), damaged the economy. Liberals blamed Bush for the price of oil, as if he ought to be responsible for it, even though many liberals, like Obama, favor higher energy prices.
Obama's economically fascist policies (i.e. indirect socialism whereby ownership of businesses remains private, but under the control of the State), however, are bringing the United States to the point that the president will become responsible for the economy. Then Obama will be unable to escape much of the blame for his economically harmful policies.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
"The Hundred Days" Update
I posted on April 3, upon congressional approval of President Barak Obama's budget, about the practice of judging new presidents after their first one hundred days, noting how arbitrary the practice is. I submitted at that time that a better milestone is at least upon the approval of the new president's budget, or perhaps as late as the end of the congressional session.
The last 26 days have vindicated me, as few policies of any major significance have been changed or initiated by the Obama Administration since then. The Administration did score a minor victory against the Somali pirates, but a comprehensive strategy to defend the freedom of the seas has yet to be announced. One significant policy change supported by Obama has been approved by Congress: killing the successful school voucher system in the District of Columbia that allowed parents to rescue their children from one of the worst public school districts in the United States.
Obama's policy of criticizing the U.S., which he applied often this month during his travels abroad, is counterproductive to advancing American interests. Instead of making terrorists and anti-American dictators hate the U.S. less, Obama validates their views, in addition to appearing weak. Obama's policy, which also validates every foreign liberal critic of the U.S., reflects the common liberal view that terrorism is created by American actions, instead of by an immoral ideology that is based upon a hatred for who Americans are more so than a reaction to what Americans do. It is because Islamic militants hate Americans in the first place that they dislike what Americans do to defend themselves or advance their interests.
Liberals criticized the Administration of President George W. Bush for its alleged counterterrorism excesses out of some supposed concern about foreign opinion, when they should have been defending America against any criticism by foreigners that even the liberals know to be false or unfair. In other words, instead of complaining about how Bush had hurt the image of the United States among Muslims and others, I challenge liberals to defend the U.S. image. But the liberals have preferred to score political points against Bush and the Republicans than defend the U.S. I suspect that the liberals focus on how Bush supposedly created more terrorists through aggressive interrogations of September 11 plotters in order to avoid having to acknowledge how many terrorists he captured or killed, let alone deterred from attacking the U.S. again. In short, liberals refuse to give Bush any credit for thwarting any terrorist attack like September 11 for over seven years because they insist, despite the lack of an attack, that he supposedly made us less safe by angering Muslims with his domestic counterterrorism strategy or by liberating Iraq from a state-sponsor of terrorists and defeating the terrorists who flocked there to try to defeat the U.S. Obama's recent statements about the aggressive interrogations will have a chilling effect on American counterterrorism.
The other troubling pattern that has emerged in Obama's foreign policy is his willingness to engage in talks with anti-American dictators, including terrorist sponsors. Talking with dictators legitimatizes them, especially when it is a superpower doing the talking, which provides these rogues with domestic propaganda in order both to gain favor among their populations and to demoralize dissent. Talks with other foreign governments are a tacit recognition of the dictator's legitimate authority, let alone a sign of respect for his equal status with the state that enters into negotiations with him. Furthermore, the talks are a kind of strategic victory for such dictators because negotiations represent a reward for the bad behavior that the dictator used in the first place in order to get the attention of the U.S. and force the Americans to the bargaining table, who thus appear weak by showing up to negotiate.
I must respond at this point to the liberal argument to refute criticism by conservatives for the policy of negotiating with dictators that the practice must have been acceptable to Republicans because the Bush Administration had tried to negotiate with North Korea (although, by this argument, one would have expected the anti-Bush Obama to reject negotiations with North Korea because they were Bush's policy), and the further liberal argument that Bush had failed to prevent that dictatorship from acquiring nuclear weapons. It was the Clinton Administration that first negotiated with North Korea and appeased the North Koreans by giving them aid in return for a promise not to acquire nuclear weapons, which they broke. When the Bush Administration discovered North Korea's violation of the agreement, it engaged North Korea in six-party talks that included all of the regional states besides the U.S. and North Korea: South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, so as to bring leverage upon North Korea without rewarding North Korea with bilateral talks with the U.S. alone. Although the Bush Administration failed to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons, it accomplished much more than the Clinton Administration: it punished North Korea by withdrawing aid to North Korea and imposing economic sanctions on the Hermit Kingdom, got the United Nations to impose harsh sanctions on North Korea, implemented an international interdiction program on the high seas to prevent North Korean nuclear proliferation, and implemented missile defense.
An even worse aspect of Obama's foreign policy is that he seems to be the only one making any concessions before engaging in any negotiations. For example, Obama loosened the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which will provide an economic lifeline to that failed socialist state without any concessions by the Cuban dictatorship of human rights to the Cuban people in return.
Although Obama has mostly followed Bush's policies in the War on Terrorism, Obama's rhetoric and behavior, which is probably motivated by a desire to differentiate himself stylistically from Bush, is undermining his ability to protect the United States from terrorist attacks and defend American interests against a rise in left wing authoritarianism.
The last 26 days have vindicated me, as few policies of any major significance have been changed or initiated by the Obama Administration since then. The Administration did score a minor victory against the Somali pirates, but a comprehensive strategy to defend the freedom of the seas has yet to be announced. One significant policy change supported by Obama has been approved by Congress: killing the successful school voucher system in the District of Columbia that allowed parents to rescue their children from one of the worst public school districts in the United States.
Obama's policy of criticizing the U.S., which he applied often this month during his travels abroad, is counterproductive to advancing American interests. Instead of making terrorists and anti-American dictators hate the U.S. less, Obama validates their views, in addition to appearing weak. Obama's policy, which also validates every foreign liberal critic of the U.S., reflects the common liberal view that terrorism is created by American actions, instead of by an immoral ideology that is based upon a hatred for who Americans are more so than a reaction to what Americans do. It is because Islamic militants hate Americans in the first place that they dislike what Americans do to defend themselves or advance their interests.
Liberals criticized the Administration of President George W. Bush for its alleged counterterrorism excesses out of some supposed concern about foreign opinion, when they should have been defending America against any criticism by foreigners that even the liberals know to be false or unfair. In other words, instead of complaining about how Bush had hurt the image of the United States among Muslims and others, I challenge liberals to defend the U.S. image. But the liberals have preferred to score political points against Bush and the Republicans than defend the U.S. I suspect that the liberals focus on how Bush supposedly created more terrorists through aggressive interrogations of September 11 plotters in order to avoid having to acknowledge how many terrorists he captured or killed, let alone deterred from attacking the U.S. again. In short, liberals refuse to give Bush any credit for thwarting any terrorist attack like September 11 for over seven years because they insist, despite the lack of an attack, that he supposedly made us less safe by angering Muslims with his domestic counterterrorism strategy or by liberating Iraq from a state-sponsor of terrorists and defeating the terrorists who flocked there to try to defeat the U.S. Obama's recent statements about the aggressive interrogations will have a chilling effect on American counterterrorism.
The other troubling pattern that has emerged in Obama's foreign policy is his willingness to engage in talks with anti-American dictators, including terrorist sponsors. Talking with dictators legitimatizes them, especially when it is a superpower doing the talking, which provides these rogues with domestic propaganda in order both to gain favor among their populations and to demoralize dissent. Talks with other foreign governments are a tacit recognition of the dictator's legitimate authority, let alone a sign of respect for his equal status with the state that enters into negotiations with him. Furthermore, the talks are a kind of strategic victory for such dictators because negotiations represent a reward for the bad behavior that the dictator used in the first place in order to get the attention of the U.S. and force the Americans to the bargaining table, who thus appear weak by showing up to negotiate.
I must respond at this point to the liberal argument to refute criticism by conservatives for the policy of negotiating with dictators that the practice must have been acceptable to Republicans because the Bush Administration had tried to negotiate with North Korea (although, by this argument, one would have expected the anti-Bush Obama to reject negotiations with North Korea because they were Bush's policy), and the further liberal argument that Bush had failed to prevent that dictatorship from acquiring nuclear weapons. It was the Clinton Administration that first negotiated with North Korea and appeased the North Koreans by giving them aid in return for a promise not to acquire nuclear weapons, which they broke. When the Bush Administration discovered North Korea's violation of the agreement, it engaged North Korea in six-party talks that included all of the regional states besides the U.S. and North Korea: South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, so as to bring leverage upon North Korea without rewarding North Korea with bilateral talks with the U.S. alone. Although the Bush Administration failed to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons, it accomplished much more than the Clinton Administration: it punished North Korea by withdrawing aid to North Korea and imposing economic sanctions on the Hermit Kingdom, got the United Nations to impose harsh sanctions on North Korea, implemented an international interdiction program on the high seas to prevent North Korean nuclear proliferation, and implemented missile defense.
An even worse aspect of Obama's foreign policy is that he seems to be the only one making any concessions before engaging in any negotiations. For example, Obama loosened the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which will provide an economic lifeline to that failed socialist state without any concessions by the Cuban dictatorship of human rights to the Cuban people in return.
Although Obama has mostly followed Bush's policies in the War on Terrorism, Obama's rhetoric and behavior, which is probably motivated by a desire to differentiate himself stylistically from Bush, is undermining his ability to protect the United States from terrorist attacks and defend American interests against a rise in left wing authoritarianism.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Specter Departure Strengthens GOP
The not-surprising switch of United States Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania from the Republican Party back to the Democratic Party strengthens the GOP Senate caucus by leaving it relatively more conservative. Republican Senators now have more flexibility to stick to their conservative principles without having to be concerned about losing Specter's vote to the Democrats.
Although Arlen Specter occasionally sided with conservatives, he often voted with liberals on key votes, such as taxes, judges and abortion, which gave him a liberal, not a "moderate" voting record -- as liberals and media commentators claim. Many of us Pennsylvania Republican conservatives therefore opposed Specter, whom we nearly defeated for the GOP nomination in 2004. But some Republican conservatives sided with moderates and liberals in backing the Senior Senator from Pennsylvania because of his seniority and ability to direct federal spending to the Keystone State, as well as the perception that he would be electable more easily, which would be critical in keeping the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.
President George W. Bush and incumbent Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum backed Specter in 2004 against former U.S. Representative Pat Toomey, but Bush and Santorum were not supporting Specter for renomination in 2010. More importantly, recent political polls indicated a strong lead for Toomey among Pennsylvania Republicans in the rematch for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.
Apparently, conservative Republicans have finally become fed up with Specter's liberal voting record, especially his recent vote for Barak Obama's $800 billion spending spree that would necessitate higher taxes because of excessive borrowing and also undoes welfare reform. Specter, who usually would tack to the starboard side at election time, tried his familiar strategy when he recently announced his opposition to the union "card check" proposal that would eliminate the secret ballot in union organizing elections, which effectively killed off the proposal for now, as his was the necessary 40th vote to oppose ending the Republican filibuster against the unpopular measure. But the he was disappointed to learn that his vote against his Big Labor supporters had regained him little political support among likely Republican primary voters.
Specter's vote for Obama's so-called stimulus had proved to be a watershed moment among Pennsylvania's conservative Republicans. By failing to oppose excessive spending by the federal government and the concomitant increase in its size, he had cast his vote for higher taxes and less liberty. Specter had failed the minimum standard for being a Republican.
Specter's excuse in switching back to the Democratic Party that the Republican Party had moved far to the right since Ronald Reagan was belied by recent Republican Congressional excessive spending. The Senior Senator from Pennsylvania had freely participated in that spending, culminating in his own vote in favor of Obama's $800 billion plan, in which he joined with only two other liberal Republican Senators to provide the necessary votes to block a GOP filibuster against the plan. Indeed, Specter's vote for Obama's spending spree was possibly his most anti-Reagan Revolution vote in his 28-year Senate career.
Now conservative Republicans can campaign against Specter's vote for Obama's excessive spending, borrowing and taxing, and in favor of fiscal responsibility and liberty. Keystone State conservatives will be energized to support Toomey over Specter in 2010, which will help all conservative Republicans on the ballot in Pennsylvania.
In short, Arlen Specter's vote for Obama's so-called stimulus plan cost him the Republican renomination for U.S. Senate, but his return to the Democratic Party makes it easier for the GOP to return to its Reaganesque conservative principles, which, no matter what the outcome of the 2010 Pennsylvania Senate race, will strengthen the Republican Party and the conservative movement for the next several years.
Although Arlen Specter occasionally sided with conservatives, he often voted with liberals on key votes, such as taxes, judges and abortion, which gave him a liberal, not a "moderate" voting record -- as liberals and media commentators claim. Many of us Pennsylvania Republican conservatives therefore opposed Specter, whom we nearly defeated for the GOP nomination in 2004. But some Republican conservatives sided with moderates and liberals in backing the Senior Senator from Pennsylvania because of his seniority and ability to direct federal spending to the Keystone State, as well as the perception that he would be electable more easily, which would be critical in keeping the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.
President George W. Bush and incumbent Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum backed Specter in 2004 against former U.S. Representative Pat Toomey, but Bush and Santorum were not supporting Specter for renomination in 2010. More importantly, recent political polls indicated a strong lead for Toomey among Pennsylvania Republicans in the rematch for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.
Apparently, conservative Republicans have finally become fed up with Specter's liberal voting record, especially his recent vote for Barak Obama's $800 billion spending spree that would necessitate higher taxes because of excessive borrowing and also undoes welfare reform. Specter, who usually would tack to the starboard side at election time, tried his familiar strategy when he recently announced his opposition to the union "card check" proposal that would eliminate the secret ballot in union organizing elections, which effectively killed off the proposal for now, as his was the necessary 40th vote to oppose ending the Republican filibuster against the unpopular measure. But the he was disappointed to learn that his vote against his Big Labor supporters had regained him little political support among likely Republican primary voters.
Specter's vote for Obama's so-called stimulus had proved to be a watershed moment among Pennsylvania's conservative Republicans. By failing to oppose excessive spending by the federal government and the concomitant increase in its size, he had cast his vote for higher taxes and less liberty. Specter had failed the minimum standard for being a Republican.
Specter's excuse in switching back to the Democratic Party that the Republican Party had moved far to the right since Ronald Reagan was belied by recent Republican Congressional excessive spending. The Senior Senator from Pennsylvania had freely participated in that spending, culminating in his own vote in favor of Obama's $800 billion plan, in which he joined with only two other liberal Republican Senators to provide the necessary votes to block a GOP filibuster against the plan. Indeed, Specter's vote for Obama's spending spree was possibly his most anti-Reagan Revolution vote in his 28-year Senate career.
Now conservative Republicans can campaign against Specter's vote for Obama's excessive spending, borrowing and taxing, and in favor of fiscal responsibility and liberty. Keystone State conservatives will be energized to support Toomey over Specter in 2010, which will help all conservative Republicans on the ballot in Pennsylvania.
In short, Arlen Specter's vote for Obama's so-called stimulus plan cost him the Republican renomination for U.S. Senate, but his return to the Democratic Party makes it easier for the GOP to return to its Reaganesque conservative principles, which, no matter what the outcome of the 2010 Pennsylvania Senate race, will strengthen the Republican Party and the conservative movement for the next several years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)