Mr. Geraghty has written a series of very intelligent posts responding to the "I'm frustrated about immigration/pork/_____(insert issue here) and so I'm gonna sit out the '06 election and teach those bums a lesson" meme that's been popping up among conservatives in the blogosphere, including many Rantburgers. Sorry for the long post, but this is good and important stuff and can't really be edited down any more without losing its impact.
. . . put me down as one of those guys who cannot comprehend the argument that conservatives ought to sit out this election to punish the GOP so that theyll learn a lesson and get better/more conservative in the future.
To advocates of this position, I must respectfully ask are you out of your flippin mind? By what logic does a constituency become more influential and powerful by becoming less active, and demonstrating less capability to turn out the vote and influence elections?
Lets say Congressman Tom Tancredo represents your views on illegal immigration. Youre angry at the GOP leadership for not espousing his positions; youve concluded that they dont listen to him. Do you really think the ball will get moved in your direction by throwing the party that has Tancredo out, and replacing it with the party that doesnt have a Tancredo figure in it at all?
Do you really think a Democratic Congress will get tough on illegal immigration? . . .
Or lets say youre unhappy about high federal spending. Your solution is to give Congress to Democrats, who have a long and well-established reputation for flinty tightfistedness on public spending and an ironclad commitment to spending taxpayers dollars wisely oh, thats right, they dont! . . .
What kind of foreign policy statements do you expect from Democratic Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi, or Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Biden, and majority committee members John Kerry, Russ Feingold, and Barbara Boxer? How about President Ahmedinjiad, we can work this out? Mr. Zarqawi, you can have Iraq, because were outta there? Kofi Annan, you're doing a heck of a job! . . .
In the second post, he gets more specific on the matter of consequences:
Who are the Republican lawmakers most angering the conservative base? Well, lets say Sens. Trent Im tired of hearing about Porkbusters Lott, Ted Bridge to Nowhere Stevens, John McCain for cosponsoring Kennedys immigration bill and campaign finance reform, Arlen Specter for being a pain in the tushie over judges, Chuck Hagel for being the New York Times favorite Republican senator to criticize Bush, and other minimally-conservative Republicans like Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Well, theyre not going to lose in 2006. Most of em arent even up for reelection this year.
Look at the Republicans most in jeopardy in 2006. (Im using National Journals most recent rankings.) In the Senate, a bad year for the Republicans would mean the loss of Rick Santorum (who has lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 88 out of a possible 100, and a 92 in 2005) in Pennsylvania, Jim Talent (93 rating lifetime, and a 96 in 2005) in Missouri, Conrad Burns (91, and a perfect 100 in 2005) in Montana and Mike DeWine (80 lifetime, only 56 in 2005) in Ohio. Of course, Ohio voters who sit this one out will replace DeWine with Sherrod Brown, who has a lifetime rating of 8 and 4 for 2005. And they wont get to revisit that decision until 2012. . . .
Yeah, maybe if conservatives stay home, theyll knock out liberal Republican Chris Shays of Connecticut. Whoop-de-doo. Whos going to be left standing? Trent Im tired of hearing about Porkbusters Lott, Ted Bridge to Nowhere Stevens, John McCain, Arlen Specter, Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.
Nice job, guys. Your effort to re-conservativize the Republican Party in Washington by staying home this year will have the effect of massacring the actual conservatives and empowering the moderates who you disdain. Perhaps we can call this counterproductive maneuver RINO-plasty.
But thats okay, the staying-at-home-conservatives insist. The GOP will win back the House and Senate in 2008, establishing a true conservative majority.
Maybe. But as I mentioned, what kind of lengths do you think the Democrats will go to in order to keep power once theyve got it? Does the Fairness Doctrine ring a bell? You think Pelosi and Reid wouldnt try that tactic to hinder conservative talk radio? How about McCain-Feingold 2.0, with a particular focus on controlling unregulated speech on the Internet and blogs?
Think the MSM was cheerleading for Democrats in 2004? How much more fair and balanced do you think theyll be when their task is to defend Democratic House and Senate majorities AND elect President Hillary Rodham Clinton? My guess is, theyll make the CBS memo story look accurate and evenhanded by comparison.
Think the GOP can prevail in close races once theyre out of power? Ask the members of the military who had their ballots in Florida blocked. Ask Doug Forrester how well his anti-Torricelli campaign worked when he suddenly faced Frank Lautenberg at the last minute. Ask Dino Rossi. Ask Democrat Tim Johnson if hes glad the last county in South Dakota to report its results just happened to have enough of a Democratic margin to put him over the top in 2002.
Once the Democrats regain control of Congress, a GOP takeover is going to be exponentially harder than it was in 1994. Youre never going to catch the Democrats as flatfooted again. . . .
We usually like looking at the Daily Kos crowd insisting for an immediate pullout of the troops or impeachment hearings right this second and we laugh at them for their ludicrously unrealistic expectations. But apparently the Kos are not the only ones with an all-or-nothing mentality. Sometimes in life you have to use the West Coast offense, nickel and diming your way down the field instead of going for the long bomb. It's how the Left got as far as it did in the 1960s and 1970s.
If I want a more conservative government, I get it by electing the more conservative of the two choices, even if he isnt as conservative as I would like. I do not get it by sitting on the sidelines and pouting, and letting the less conservative guy take the reins of power. . . .
So, if you're a frustrated conservative, what should you do?
Im spectacularly pleased that yesterdays post generated so much discussion around the web. . . . Some e-mailers agreed, some e-mailers disagreed, SOME WERE VERY ANGRY AND HAD FORGOTTEN WHERE THE CAPS LOCK KEY IS, but the most important and common question from e-mailers was, Okay, if sitting out the 2006 election doesnt get us where we want to go, what will? Its a great question; heres my best shot at answering it.
One: Frustrated with the GOP as a whole? Then support the guys you do like. I roll my eyes when somebody says, Ah, theyre all a bunch of crooks. That just says that the complainer hasnt bothered looking for a member of Congress that represents their views. If youre mad as heck about immigration, theres Rep Tom Tancredo and the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus or Sens. Jon Kyl, or Jon Cornyn. If youre mad about pork, theres Sen. Tom Coburn.
If you dont want to send money to the RNC, NRSC, or RNCC because they support too many Republicans-in-name-only, then fine; send money to the lawmakers who you see standing up for the conservative policies you want to see enacted. The rest of the GOP will notice if candidates like Tancredo and Coburn suddenly get a deluge of small donations for their stands. . . .
More than a few e-mail writers seemed supremely discouraged about this course of action after Pat Toomey fell about two percent short in his primary challenge to Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania in 2004. The reason the RNC, the NRSC, and RNCC always support incumbents against primary challengers is because it is, I am told, a part of their candidate recruitment strategy. Republican candidate recruiters often find themselves trying to convince happy, successful individuals in the private sector to give all that up and voluntarily sign on for at least a years worth of stress, expense, privacy invasions and aggravation of a campaign. One of the ways they can attract candidates is to say, once youre in, well always have your back. We wont abandon you two years from now, or four years now, or any time in the future. The leadership of the Republican Party will always stick by you in a tough campaign. . . .
Two: Vote for lesser of two evils? Maybe. If Chafee wins his primary, and you face a choice between a Democrat and a liberal Republican, maybe its worth leaving that slot blank. (You still ought to show up and vote, even if its just for other races.) But my hair goes grayer when I hear a conservative say, Im so mad at Bush that Im not even going to vote this year. My friends, Bush isnt on the ballot!
Show up at the ballot box, look for your congressmen, and if theyre running this year, your senator and your governor and your mayor and whatever other races, and judge them based on the job that they as individuals have done. Dont vote against your congressman because youre mad at Ted Stevens (unless, of course, your congressman IS Ted Stevens). Dont blame your local guy for Trent Lott. Maybe you decide that your local congressman has let you down and isnt worth supporting. Thats fair enough.
(By the way, once in a while a really angry e-mailer will exclaim, "how dare you tell me who I have to vote for!" Hey, it's your decision. Vote for whoever you like. But be aware of the consequences. Don't vote for the other guys because you're convinced it will set in motion some triple-bank-shot scenario that will help your guys in the long term. There's a lot of "things need to get worse before they get better" mentality out there, which strikes me as creepily similar to Marx's "immiseration" theory that the only way things get better is when they get much, much worse and reach the breaking point. I'd ask advocates of this mentality, do you see it a lot in your daily life? Do you often act against your best interest, because you want to hit bottom so that things will then get better later? How's that working out for ya? Cause I'm always trying to move the ball in my direction, even if it's three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust.)
Three: Realize some lawmakers will be a mixed bag. Theres a quote from former New York City mayor Ed Koch that begins Joe Kleins latest book: If you agree with me on nine out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.
You will rarely encounter a lawmaker who agrees with you on all your issues; youve got to prioritize, and decide which ones are dealbreakers for you. . . .
Another thing we do have to recognize electoral realities. Conservatives shouldnt have much ire at Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins. Maine is a pretty liberal state; the two nice ladies are about as conservative as youre going to get out of that state. Youre not going to get a rock-ribbed social conservative, so you make do with someone who votes our way on taxes and defense issues. If I still lived in New Jersey, I would prefer a Bret Schundler type, but its been proven, cycle after cycle, that a really conservative guy just isnt going to win in the Garden State; we have to take our tax-cutting Christie Whitmans until the political attitudes in the state change.
Four: The real fight on so many of these issues is in the Republican Presidential Primary. Obviously, many, many conservatives are furious with President Bush for his policies on spending, the Medicare prescription drug bill, and most of all, immigration.
The 2008 race will really begin early next year. Look hard at the candidates, and volunteer early for the guy who stands where you want the party to stand.
This is good advice, for anyone . . . of any political persuasion . . . on any issue . . . at any time.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/17/2006 08:50 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Pardon me, but I'm not a 'conservative republican'. I'm an independent who's always looked upon both parties with suspicion. And it has been a hold the nose and vote routine too many time. Take a look at voter registration. Neither party has a majority. Both have to rely upon those of us who are non-aligned to push either over the top in a competitive environment. However, when it's no longer competitive because they basically act and sound the same on immigration/pork/seriousness about the WOT, you've delivered me nothing.
Last time I checked, one of the protocols for cancer is to apply chemotherapy and radiation to kill the sucker. I guess we'll find out if that works. If they're too stupid to learn, then maybe I'll just wait around for Caesar after they destroy this experiment.
#2
If Congressman Tancredo would be kind enough to move to my district - I'd be delighted to vote for him. Unfortunately, he's not in my district. I've got politicians who believe that the GOP stands for spending like a bunch of drunken Kennedy's and leaving the back door open. I've had it - if they want another term, they can do it without my help.
By Navy Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which is responsible for detainee operations and intelligence gathering at the camp
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- On Sunday, the Tribune editorial page asked readers: What should the U.S. do with the Guantanamo Bay detention camp? Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo, offered this essay in response.
I lead the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and civilians responsible for the safe and humane care and custody of the unlawful enemy combatants held here at Guantanamo--a responsibility we take very seriously.
The question of what to do with enemy combatants--committed jihadists and terrorists--is relevant and important. As the person responsible for the detention of our nation's enemies held here, I appreciate and applaud the Chicago Tribune's posing of this serious question to your readership Sunday. Col. Robert McCormick would be pleased with the Tribune's efforts to address the pressing issues of our day.
The Tribune's characterization of Guantanamo as a "detention camp" is precisely correct. Despite our persistent efforts to correct the record, many mainstream outlets--print, voice and electronic--persist in referring to this facility as a "prison camp." This is not mere parsing of words or semantic folderol. Prisons are about punishment and rehabilitation; Guantanamo is about neither. What we are about is the detention of unlawful enemy combatants--dangerous men associated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban captured on the battlefield waging war on America and our allies, running from that battlefield, or otherwise closely associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban--and, as you correctly pointed out, preventing them from returning to the fight. We hold men who proudly admit membership at the leadership level in Al Qaeda and the Taliban, many with direct personal contact and knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, attackers. We are keeping terrorist recruiters, facilitators, explosives trainers, bombers and bombmakers, Osama bin Laden bodyguards and financiers from continuing their jihad against America.
Virtual tour
I do reject out of hand, however, the Tribune's notion that we are somehow delinquent in our moral responsibility to transform the camp and that the camp is "unsatisfactory." This is simply not true. Your editorial is either misleading or ill-informed. Conditions have improved dramatically for detainees since they first arrived in 2002. More important, we aggressively look for ways to build on the "safe and humane care and custody" mission with which I opened this dialogue.
Today, a large number of detainees live in Camp 4, a communal-living facility where they are housed in a barracks setting with access to 12 hours of recreation and exercise per day. We provide ample exercise areas and equipment for them. Additionally, work is nearly complete on our new Camp 6, a $30 million modern medium-security facility that will make life even better for the detainees, while adding safeguards for the troops and civilians who work here. The design of Camp 6 is based on a medium-security facility in the U.S.
All detainees at Guantanamo are provided with three meals a day that meet cultural (halal) dietary requirements--meals which, incidentally, cost three times what meals for our servicemen and -women here cost. We fully meet special dietary needs (e.g., Type 2 diabetics, vegetarians, fish-but-not-red-meat-eaters etc.) of many of our detainees. We provide safe shelter and living areas with beds, mattresses, sheets and running-water toilets. We also provide adequate clothing, including shoes and uniforms, and the normal range of hygiene items, such as a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and shampoo. Even so, many detainees have taken advantage of this--crafting killing weapons from toothbrushes and garrotes from food wrappers, for example.
In good faith
Detainees enjoy broad opportunities to practice their Muslim faith, including the requisite calls to prayer five times per day, prayer beads, rugs and copies of the Koran in their native languages from some 40 countries. Directional arrows pointing to Mecca have been painted in every cell and camp. The American guard force is specifically prohibited from touching detainees' Korans. Some detainees have attempted to use this restriction to their advantage by secreting messages, contraband and the like within their Korans. When prayer call is sounded, the guards set out "prayer cones"--traffic cones stenciled with the letter "P"--for the 30 minutes of prayer call, as a visible reminder for the guards to avoid noise and disruption. This procedure was implemented after it was suggested by a detainee.
We have other camps where detainees who fail to follow camp rules are housed. As with Camp 4, these detainees are provided fair and humane treatment, have ample access to recreation time and equipment, equal access to medical and dental care, equal opportunity to practice their religion and other privileges. As are their colleagues in Camp 4, they are well-cared for and protected from inhumane treatment.
Detainees have sent and received more than 44,000 pieces of mail since February 2002, and our fully staffed detainee library has thousands of books and magazines for their use. Our library team just returned from a book-buying trip, adding nearly 2,000 Arabic titles to the library.
Doctors in the house
We provide outstanding medical care to every detainee, the same quality as what our service members receive. We are improving the health and extending the life span of the detainee population in our charge. Last year, we completed building a $2.4 million camp hospital to treat detainees. To date, we have completed more than 300 surgeries, including an angioplasty, and more than 5,000 dental procedures. We provide eye care and issued almost 200 pairs of glasses last year. We have given nearly 3,000 voluntary vaccinations, including diphtheria, tetanus, mumps, measles and rubella--in many cases they are the first immunizations detainees have ever received--as well as treatment for hepatitis, influenza and latent tuberculosis. We offer complete colon cancer screenings to all of our detainees who are more than 50 years old, and a variety of medical specialists provide preventive and restorative care.
Two weeks ago, a detainee broke his ankle playing soccer--what makes his case extraordinary is that he is a one-legged man! The quality of the prosthetic device he was given and the therapy he receives enabled him to play soccer. I have every confidence that he will soon return to that playing field. That said, many detainees persist in mixing a blood-urine-feces-semen cocktail and throwing this deadly concoction into the faces of the American men and women who guard them, feed them and care for them. Most of the time after such an assault, our guards decline the opportunity to take a day off. After a quick medical checkup and a shower, they prefer to put on a clean uniform and return to duty. And the only retribution they exact on the detainees is to simply continue to serve with pride, dignity and humanity.
Passing inspections
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which enjoys full diplomatic status, has unfettered access to the detainees. Their reports are useful, meaningful and confidential. They have helped us improve conditions here. I will note that, on April 25, Reuters reported that "detainees are enjoying better treatment at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, and the Red Cross is satisfied with its access to them ... Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said detention conditions at Guantanamo had `improved considerably' over the past four years ... He called it `extremely regrettable' that the intense media focus on Guantanamo seemed to distract from troubled sites in places like Chechnya and Myanmar, where the ICRC has suspended prison visits over disagreements with local authorities."
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had positive remarks to say about us based on its visit here this past March. As reported by Reuters, Alain Grignard, deputy head of Brussels' federal police anti-terrorism unit, at a press conference following an OSCE visit, said, "At the level of the detention facilities, it is a model prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons." Anne-Marie Lizin, chairwoman of the Belgian Senate, told reporters at this same press conference that she saw no point in calling for the immediate closure of Guantanamo.
Danger within
The U.S. government remains committed to not detaining any person any longer than is absolutely required. We are, in fact, outright releasing or transferring detainees to their home countries and other nations willing to accept them. In my reading of history, simply releasing enemy combatants during the course of an ongoing war is unprecedented.
Despite articles written by defense attorneys and young translators arguing the contrary, these are, in fact, dangerous men in our custody. Make no mistake about it--we are keeping enemies of our nation off the battlefield. This is an enormous challenge. These terrorists are not represented by any nation or government. They do not adhere to the rules of war. That said, we treat them humanely, in full compliance with all laws and international obligations.
The young Americans serving here in Guantanamo are upholding the highest ideals of honor and duty in a remote location, face to face with some of the most dangerous men on the planet. Your readers should be proud of them. I am proud to be their commander.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/17/2006 09:17 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I'm proud of 'em too Admiral. Unfortunately, the left never lets facts get in the way of their opinion.
The madness of financial support to a hostile Hamas.
by Bruce Thornton
The drama being played out between Hamas and the West grows stranger by the minute, exposing the cultural toxins that are weakening our resolve in the fight against jihad. The murderous aims of Hamas are clear, as their spokesmen and sympathizers do not hesitate to remind us. Nor is their commitment to jihad against Israel and the West a minority obsession of a lunatic fringe. Just recently the religious leaders of several Muslim countries issued a statement of support for the goal of Hamas to drive Israel into the sea: The right to historical Palestine is an eternal right, and no soul can relinquish it, neither in an agreement, a document or a promise. They added that nobody can ban jihad for the liberation of Palestine or damn the jihadists.
And contradicting those Westerners who still believe the whole crisis is about Palestinian nationalist aspirations, a Sudanese cleric said, Palestine is a religious issue, not just a political one, and affects all Muslims. A representative for Hamas agreed: This meeting has reverted the Palestinian issue to its rightful depth as an Arab and Islamic issue. The upshot of the declaration is that there will be no land for peace, no recognition of Israels right to exist, no signing on to roadmaps or other desperate Western attempts to avoid facing one simple fact: Israel is the beleaguered Western salient in the frontlines of the war against jihad.
Yet even as Hamas and the religious leadership of Muslim nations tell us their intentions, we Westerners refuse to listen. Instead of facing the existential threat to our way of life, we continue to wring our hands over the hardships of the Palestinian people, with the result that our refusal to allow Western money into the hands of murderers gets ever more wobbly. Despite the fact that Hamas was democratically elected, which means that a critical mass of Palestinian Arabs agree with Hamas aims, we seem to think the Palestinians are somehow being held hostage by some alien ruling clique. Having created the myth of large numbers of Palestinians willing to accept Israel and merely wanting a state of their own, we ignore the mountains of evidence the Palestinians dancing in the streets after 9/11, the ubiquitous posters idolizing homicide bombers, the preschool pageants replete with three-year-olds wrapped in toy explosive belts suggesting that such moderates are few. Nor will we accept that years of support for the corrupt thug Arafat, and now for the terrorist faction Hamas, reveal a widespread willingness on the part of many Palestinians to endure political, economic, and social dysfunction as an acceptable price to pay for holding on to their bitter hatred of Israel.
The most absurd response to the cut-off of funds to these terrorists, who want to destroy not just Israel but us as well, is that we are punishing the Palestinians for their democratic choice. We forget that the flip side to democratic choice is responsibility for that choice. During our own Civil War, Southerners made a democratic choice to secede from the Union and test their right to do so by force of arms. The Confederate soldiers in the field were sustained in their fight by the moral and material support of their families back home, who wrote them letters of encouragement, held public rallies and celebrations honoring them, and worked on farms and factories providing them with food and weapons.
General Sherman understood this dynamic between soldier and civilian, and conceived his March to the Sea as a psychological as well as military action: I propose to demonstrate the vulnerability of the South and make its inhabitants feel that war and individual ruin are synonymous terms, he wrote. So too in a letter to the mayor of Atlanta: Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent carloads of soldiers and ammunition, and molded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance.
As hard as life has been for some Palestinians because of their support for terrorists, continuing Western aid over the years, and continuing Western restraint of Israel at the expense of her citizens, have both propped up Palestinian society just enough to keep Palestinians from feeling the full consequences of their stubborn hatred of Israel and refusal to acknowledge with deeds rather than mere words Israels right to exist. So too has the Wests willingness to accept empty declarations and carefully hedged condemnations of terrorism on the part of so-called moderates like the terrorist Mahmoud Abbas. After Oslo was followed by the intifada, after the great refusal at Camp David, only the most deluded or naïve could fail to see the duplicity of these protestations routinely contradicted whenever Arafat spoke in Arabic. Agreements and summits and road maps were all mere tactical feints that had nothing to do with the permanent long-term strategic goal of destroying Israel.
Yet here we go again, demanding that a terrorist organization make insincere, tactical statements so we can hang on to our pretense that a Palestinian state will solve the whole crisis, and that Israels refusal to sacrifice its citizens and its existence is the prime mover of Muslim discontent with the West. Apparently we didnt learn our lesson from Arafat and the P.L.O., who did precisely what we are demanding Hamas do: pretend to accept Israels right to exist and to abjure terrorism, all the while that the strategic goal of Israels destruction continues to be pursued, with terrorism when tactically necessary. So far Hamas refuses to play that rhetorical game. Perhaps they think that with the U.S. engaged in Iraq and confronting a belligerent Iran, they have the opportunity to take a more aggressive tack. And no doubt they are banking on the European instinct for appeasement and its deep-seated dislike of Israel to shake loose the money that will continue to prop them up.
And it seems their gamble will pay off. Fig-leaf mechanisms for getting money to the Palestinians are already in the works. The failure of Hamas to act like a legitimate government will be papered over with Western money, just as the Palestinian Authoritys failure and corruption were. Money being fungible, funds that should go to schools and hospitals and economic development will go to weapons, explosives, and the salaries of armed gangs. The contempt of the jihadists for Westerners, who will subsidize those eager to destroy the West, will grow only more intense, and their conviction that they will ultimately prevail will be held only more firmly.
Which all means that a resolution to the crisis is more distant, and the dead on both sides will continue to multiply. Imagine if, in 1864, Shermans plans to hasten the end of the war and the dying had been derailed by Northern and English concerns that Southerners should not be made to suffer. Imagine that Northern and English money had been channeled to the South, because Northerners were troubled at the thought that ordinary Southerners, most of whom didnt own slaves, were in distress because of the ideals of the plantation-owning minority. How much longer would that conflict had gone on, and how many more men North and South would have died? And what greater chance would there have been that the South would have prevailed and the Union be left divided?
The war against jihad will never be won until Muslims themselves are convinced that jihad will fail. If there are indeed large numbers of moderate Muslims who want to adapt their religion to a modern, interconnected world run on principles of secular law and human rights, then they have to step up and act in ways that demonstrate this desire. But this will never happen until the West makes it clear that terrorist jihad in the pursuit of lost Islamic grandeur is a dead end that will bring only suffering and ruin. Unfortunately, in the case of Israel for forty years we have not only failed to show that the wages of jihad is death and failure, but we have indulged, subsidized, and rewarded terrorism. If one dime of Western money is sent to the Palestinians while an elected terrorist organization is in control, we will be doing so again.
May 16, 2006 -- ALTHOUGH "silly season" is still several weeks away, the media are al ready in frenzy about a new war in the Middle East - this time involving the Islamic Republic of Iran.
A few American "investigative reporters," quoting anonymous sources, even insist that the war has already started, with U.S. Special Forces operating "deep inside Iran" since last summer. One "expert" who had fixed the date for a U.S. invasion of Iran for June of last year has just provided a new date: June of this year.
Well, there is not going to be a war involving Iran. As for The New Yorker's report of U.S. Special Forces operating in Iran, it is unlikely that the Islamic Republic has not found any of them after nearly 14 months.
And the Iran-U.S. war is not going to start in June - because it started on Nov. 4, 1979, when a group of "students" raided the American embassy compound in Tehran and seized its diplomats hostage. By any standards, that was a clear causus belli. It did not lead to a straightforward war because the American side chose not to treat the embassy raid as an act of war.
Apart from a brief moment in which the Reagan administration tried to wage a low-intensity war against the Islamic Republic, successive administrations in Washington adopted President Jimmy Carter's policy of "patience and forbearance" vis-à-vis Tehran.
The Islamic Republic, however, consistently maintained its war posture vis-à-vis the United States all along. In 1984, Muhammad Khatami, then minister of Islamic Orientation, wrote that the Islamic Republic was waging war "against Global Arrogance led by the United States" on behalf of mankind as a whole. In 1986, Hashemi Rafsanjani, then speaker of the parliament, went further: "We are at war with the United States - a war which must end with the victory of Islam over the Infidel led by America."
Perhaps Khatami and Rafsanjani were merely repeating the regime's mantra and did not really seek full-scale war against the United States. But anyone familiar with the history of the last two decades would know, whenever and wherever possible, that the Islamic Republic has waged a low-intensity war against the U.S. since 1979.
All along, the Iranian regime was content with small and incremental successes, taking care not to provoke a major confrontation that might force the Americans to hit back with any degree of determination. The idea was to wear the United States down with an endless campaign of small-scale violence and terror aimed against its citizens and allies.
The American policy of absorbing the small shocks administered by the Islamic Republic allowed Tehran to maintain its anti-U.S. posture at minimal cost to itself. But the policy was not cost free. Washington's refusal to recognize the Khomeinist regime as a legitimate member of the international community has cost Tehran dearly. For almost three decades, Iran has been shut out of the global capital market and prevented from normal access to the fruits of scientific and technological progress. The Islamic Republic's persistent economic failure must, at least in part, be imputed to the U.S. boycott.
Nowhere is the cost of the so-called "War against the Infidel" more apparent than in Iran's oil industry. Projections made in 1977 envisaged the Iranian oil off-take to reach a daily capacity of 6.5 million barrels, with another 1.5 million available as emergency reserves. The capacity of the Kharg terminal, the chief export facility for Iranian oil, was increased from 5.5 million barrels a day to 8 million.
But lack of investment, and the virtual impossibility of accessing highly complex technology, has meant a steady decline. Today, the Islamic Republic produces something like 3.8 million barrels a day - a level Iran had surpassed in 1973.
Worse still, Iran has become an importer of petroleum products. Because the Islamic Republic failed to build enough refining capacity, it is now forced to secure nearly half of the nation's needs in gasoline and special fuels through imports. So nearly 30 percent of Iran's income from oil exports is spent on imports of petroleum products.
Iran's gas industry is in even poorer shape. Projections made in 1977 saw Iran emerging as the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas by the year 2000. Iran owns the second-largest deposits of natural gas in the world, after Russia, almost 20 percent of the global reserves. Yet it is importing natural gas from Turkmenistan to feed the country's only gas-turbine power station (at Neka on the Caspian Sea).
And Oil Ministry officials say much worse is yet to come. Last month, the ministry unveiled invitations for investments worth more than $100 billion in Iran's oil and gas industries. Part of those investments is needed to prevent the total collapse of some of the country's largest oilfields (including Bibi Hakimeh, Maroun and Ahvaz), which now produce 25 to 30 percent less than in 1971.
Against that background, it would not be hard to see that the Islamic Republic has been the bigger loser in the low-intensity war it has waged against the United States. The U.S. is now four times richer, in constant dollars, than it was in 1979. Iran, however, is almost 50 percent poorer.
The Islamic Republic has succeeded in securing a foothold in Lebanon, through the Hezballah, and in the Palestinian territories through Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It also has allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and among the Shiite communities in the Gulf. Politically and diplomatically, however, the Islamic Republic today is more isolated than in 1979.
The United States, on the other hand, has made a spectacular incursion in what could be regarded as Iran's geopolitical habitat in West and Central Asia, the Caspian Basin, Transcaucasia and the Middle East. The Americans are now militarily present in all but two of Iran's 15 neighboring countries.
In a sense, the war that the Islamic Republic says it is waging against the United States has hurt it more than its designated enemy. The recent rise in tension has helped put that issue at the center of the debate inside the Islamic Republic. This is why people like Rafsanjani and Khatami, who once took pride in describing themselves as "jihadists" against the Americans, are now publicly critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's more militant anti-Americanism.
In other words, the real problem is an Iranian one, not an Irano-American one. At some point, the Islamic Republic must decide whether it is in its own interest to review a policy that has produced nothing but disaster over the last three decades. Ahmadinejad may well turn out to be the man who pushed such a review into the agenda of the leadership in Tehran.
Iranian author and journalist Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/17/2006 00:08 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
HAARETZ.com has an article whereby former Israeli INTEL boss Aharon Zeevi alleges MadMoud was "overheard" as casually saying that there will be "an end of history in 2-3 years", which Aharon took to mean that Moud is hell-bent to achieve Muslim empire and that possession of nuke-capable missles is Moud's path to get empire. Aharon is also quoted as believing that Israel may eventually or potentially face a conventional war wid militants, to infer even inside Israel itself, and that ME war may start first against SYRIA or areas north of Israel. IN SHORT, THE WEST IS TOAST BY 2008 OR 2009 - however true or not, will say again that RUNNING AWAY TO AMERICA OR FROM AMERICA, TO OR FROM PARTS UNKNOWN, ISN'T GOING TO SAVE ANYONE AS THE WOT, OTHER THAN VV THE DEFEAT, CONTROL, ADNOR DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA-WEST, IS ULTIMATELY ABOUT WHO GETS TO CONTROL THE WORLD AND FUTURE OWG AND WHAT -ISMS WILL DOMINATE SAID WORLD AND OWG!? Americans either stand and fight, or we will be destroyed, sooner or later, voluntarily or forcibly, nicely or violently, etc.
MadMoud has rejected the EU's incentives for peaceful energy, which basically means it does [anti-US]RUSSIA-CHINA no good to be against Dubya or the UNO, becuz MadMoud is coming to destroy them also once hyperpower America is finis'.
#2
Wishful thinking. Might as well say that North Korea has no choice but to change because they're dirt-poor and can't even feed their own population.
#3
It is in the best interest of the US if Iran starts the war. It just makes it so much easier. So the trick is to get them to start it in an obvious and ineffectual way, that results in no casualties on our side.
This would almost have to be a missile launch, so that the other nuclear powers would confirm it via satellite. Hopefully shot down over Iraq, with bits and pieces of the missile as evidence. Just the missile itself is enough, but if it contained any nuclear material, the US would have carte blanche to respond.
Now, the way to achieve this would be to snatch a few of their launchers in NW Iran, load them with incriminating evidence, and launch them right at our anti-missile defenses. With a theoretical sort of trajectory towards Israel.
And of course, done when our missile defenses are on full alert, so that if the Iranians say what the hell and launch everything else, we could blast several salvos down, too. Of course, we would have all sorts of cruise missiles targeting their launch sites and other targets, so by the time all was said and done, Iran would be more "done" than anything they might say.
#4
To the leaders of Iranian its not an issue of national economics. They are on top only because of their Islamic policies. So I suppose as well their personal economics are better in the current situation.
The new division in politics hinges on differing views of Islamic fundamentalism, writes Gerard Henderson.
WHAT a turnout of leftist luvvies. The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, was in London last weekend. The highest profile member of the Fidel Castro fan club was greeted with acclaim by many members of the British left, including the London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, the actor Vanessa Redgrave and the playwright Harold Pinter along with members of the Labour Friends of Venezuela. This group doubles up as Labour opponents of Britain's social democratic Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
It so happens that Castro persecutes Cuban intellectuals and homosexuals alike. You might expect that the likes of Livingstone, Pinter and Redgrave and left-wing Labour MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn would be embarrassed associating with the Castro-lover Chavez. But, no.
They dislike Blair and George Bush so much that all are too willing to make a commitment to a Latin American left-winger who has described the US President as an "arsehole" and depicted the British Prime Minister as "the main ally of Hitler".
It is of no concern to the British left that their latest hero supports a communist dictator or that he wants to use Venezuelan oil reserves to strike against such Western democracies as Britain and the US. To some, at least, alienation is thicker than blood.
The opinion polls reveal the obvious: Bush and Blair are in political difficulties. However, both will be gone by the end of 2008, the former due to a constitutional limit on the term of office, the latter following a decision, announced over a year ago, to retire before the next British election. It is certainly possible the Republican will be replaced in the White House by a Democrat and that the New Labour Government will be followed at No. 10 by a Conservative one.
Neither would be likely to engender much long-term excitement among the left since there is a growing bipartisan attitude about the need to combat international terrorism and any rogue nations which foment it.
Following al-Qaeda's attack on the US on September 11, 2001, the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002, and the suicide assault on the London transport system on July 7 last year, a new division is occurring in many Western democracies.
There are those who really believe that the world changed some five years ago and that Islamic radicals, who proclaim they want to destroy Western democracies and some Muslim governments alike, should be taken seriously. And then there are those who believe no real threat exists and that al-Qaeda and its numerous franchises are not genuine revolutionaries but, rather, are merely reacting to understandable grievances caused by Western societies. In other words, it is all or substantially our fault, mea culpa and all that.
It is by no means certain how Western leaders will respond to the new great divide in their societies which mirrors the essential debate during the time of the Cold War. Then there were those who said communist totalitarianism was not a threat to the West and that Bolshevik revolutionaries should not be taken seriously. And there were those who opposed communism because it was a genuine threat to Western societies and because it persecuted its people. It is a matter of historical record that a clear majority of voters in the West supported the latter approach - a strategy which eventually succeeded.
Prophesy is a fool's preoccupation. Yet the evidence suggests the terrorism-is-a-genuine-threat view is prevailing among voters in large parts of the West. At the moment the Republican John McCain and the Democrat Hillary Clinton appear to be the frontrunners to contest the US presidential election in November 2008. Both are tough on terrorism and neither favours an immediate pullout of US forces from Iraq.
In Britain, a key line of the new Conservative leader, David Cameron, is to maintain the Blair Government has not been strong enough on terrorism. This critique has intensified following the publication last week of the report on the July 7 bombings by the bipartisan Intelligence and Security Committee. In Australia, the Labor Party broadly supports the Howard Government's stance on national security.
Events in Europe suggest a not dissimilar development. Take Denmark. Its conservative leader, Anders Rasmussen, refused to apologise for the decision of Jyllands-Posten to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The position was that Denmark is a democracy which practises freedom of expression. Opinion polls show support for Rasmussen has increased in recent months.
On May 5, he was reported in The Washington Times as declaring the cartoons controversy had strengthened Denmark's resolve to maintain military forces in Iraq in support of the UN-sanctioned Iraqi Government. Rasmussen says Denmark is determined "to assist countries that are in the midst of very difficult social transformations".
In Sweden, the social democratic foreign affairs minister, Laila Freivalds, was forced to resign after attempting to shut down a website which ran the cartoons. It is notable that some of the most outspoken critics of Islamic revolutionaries are Muslim women, including the Syrian-born American writer Wafa Sultan, the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Canadian author Irshad Manji and the Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi.
In Australia the issue of integration is being addressed as well as in any Western democracy. The Howard Government's policy was spelt out by the parliamentary secretary Andrew Robb in an address to the Sydney Institute on April 27 - and seems to enjoy the general support of the Opposition frontbencher Tony Burke.
As in most Western democracies, the focus Down Under is on the big picture. Compared to which the antics of a Chavez and his Castro-loving supporters are a sideshow.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.
#1
The best way to successfully spread an outrageous lie is to wrap it in the truth, like this.
At the moment the Republican John McCain and the Democrat Hillary Clinton appear to be the frontrunners to contest the US presidential election in November 2008. Both are tough on terrorism and neither favours an immediate pullout of US forces from Iraq.
Hillary Clinton? Oh please. The worst part about this kind of propaganda is that it works. Give it a few more months of Hillary's PR machine stuffing the newsroom faxes with press releases like this and we will hear all the morons repeating this exact phrase in their automoatron voices, "H I L L A R Y I S T O U G H O N T E R R O R".
#2
The Sydney Morning Herald. I'm gobsmacked. The SMH is normally an unending spew of leftist drivel. Just possibly, as their circulation declines, they have decided telling the truth is a viable business strategy.
EFL Drug-war doves claim that you cant win the drug war because you cant defeat the laws of supply and demand. As long as there is demand for drugs, there will be a supply, and no acceptable amount of militarization of the drug war will change that. This argument gets flipped on its head when it comes to immigration. Suddenly, militarization is essential to the top priority of cutting off supply.
But the fact is, in all likelihood your average illegal immigrant, desperate to start a new life for himself and provide for his family, will be no less determined to sell his labor than a drug dealer would be to sell his goods.
Some drug legalization advocates hang their position on a lot of moral preening about the absolute right of the individual to do what he wants. But many of the same people will then argue that it isand should bean outrageous crime to hire an illegal immigrant. Well, conservative economic dogma considers the right to form contracts with whomever you wish to be sacrosanct. It is the socialist society according to the philosopher Robert Nozick, which would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.
My point here is not to say one position is more right than the other. Drugs and immigration are, ultimately, very different things, and its the differences that explain why the analogy isnt perfect. Citizenship, sovereignty, rule of law: These things are rendered meaningless if the distinction between legal and illegal immigration is meaningless.
But the key similarity is important. Most opponents of the drug war came to their position because they consider the effort worthy in principle, but ultimately futile in the face of a more determined enemy, and a bit silly since the gains of winning arent that important to them. The burgeoning war against illegal immigration has already been preemptively surrendered by many for roughly the same reasons. What that says about America probably depends on what you think about illegal immigrants or drugs.
#1
Mexicans ARE crack for business that are avoiding the free market and are hooked on cheap labor.
It gets them by, but ulitmately it is NOT good for them.
And Capitalism requires a republic of laws to function well - otherwise it deteriorates into cronyism (see any S. American country, excepting Chile), cartels (See the Trust Busting in late 19th, early 20th century USA), usurpative [not natural] monopolies (Microsoft).
The write is conflating lazzae faire Libertarian capitalism aith e Free Market republic capitalism.
Different beasts in spite of the similarity in names.
#2
For comic relief I replaced the word immigrant with wanker and immigration with wankfests:
Drug-war doves claim that you can't win the drug war because you can't defeat the laws of supply and demand. As long as there is demand for drugs, there will be a supply, and no acceptable amount of militarization of the drug war will change that. This argument gets flipped on its head when it comes to wankfests. Suddenly, militarization is essential to the top priority of cutting off supply.
But the fact is, in all likelihood your average illegal wanker, desperate to start a new life for himself and provide for his family, will be no less determined to sell his labor than a drug dealer would be to sell his goods.
Some drug legalization advocates hang their position on a lot of moral preening about the absolute right of the individual to do what he wants. But many of the same people will then argue that it is-and should be-an outrageous crime to hire an illegal wanker. Well, conservative economic dogma considers the right to form contracts with whomever you wish to be sacrosanct. It is "the socialist society" according to the philosopher Robert Nozick, "which would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults."
My point here is not to say one position is more right than the other. Drugs and wankfests are, ultimately, very different things, and it's the differences that explain why the analogy isn't perfect. Citizenship, sovereignty, rule of law: These things are rendered meaningless if the distinction between legal and illegal wankfests is meaningless.
But the key similarity is important. Most opponents of the drug war came to their position because they consider the effort worthy in principle, but ultimately futile in the face of a more determined "enemy," and a bit silly since the gains of winning aren't that important to them. The burgeoning war against illegal wankfests has already been preemptively surrendered by many for roughly the same reasons. What that says about America probably depends on what you think about illegal wankers or drugs.
The late Jean-François Revel, writing 25 years ago, pegged exactly the self-defeating attitude of Americas liberal Republicans and Democrats: we are at fault when our enemies attack us; foreign enemies are simply a distraction from bestowing ever more welfare-state entitlements without heed to their future cost.
Jean-François Revel, who died last week at the age of 82, was that exceedingly rare person: a French intellectual who didnt despise the United States, an intellectual who understood the cancerous prognosis of liberalism.
Revels 1983 How Democracies Perish described liberalisms debilitating effect on confronting the threat of domination by the Soviet Union. His observations apply equally today in our long-term struggle against Islamic jihad.
Revel wrote about democracy, meaning societies unhinged from historical tradition, in which people come to accept the idea that a constitution is nothing more than the latest social-justice fad formulated by intellectuals. That is a 20th century derangement, very different from what the Constitution instituted: a Federal republic with power divided between the states and the national government and split, within the national government, among the three main branches; a constitutional government designed to protect the rights of individuals against PC tyranny of the majority.
Regarding foreign enemies like the Soviet Union or todays Islamic jihad, Revel observed that democracies are ill suited to deal with them: Democracy tends to ignore, even deny, threats to its existence because it loathes doing what is necessary to counter them. Hence the chorus of campus liberals, and a few members of Congress, who declared that we deserved the 9/11 attacks, because of our imperialism and our failure to ratify the Kyoto environmental treaty. Hence liberals demand now that we evacuate Iraq and place our fate in the tainted hands of the UN.
What we end up with, he wrote, in what is conventionally called Western society is a topsy-turvy situation in which those seeking to destroy democracy appear to be fighting for legitimate aims, while its defenders are pictured as repressive reactionaries. Identification of democracys internal and external adversaries with the forces of progress, legitimacy, even peace, discredits and paralyzes the efforts of people who are only trying to preserve their institutions.
About the effects of post-Vietnam liberal recrimination, he wrote: .Civilizations losing confidence in themselves: an old story in history .[when citizens stop believing in themselves] civilization must choose between suicide and servitude. Liberal suicide, or Islamic sharia.
Revel accurately characterized what has been in process on college campuses for generations, producing a dismaying number of future voters who hate the United States and cheer the death of our military personnel. .Self-criticism is, of course, one of the vital springs of democratic civilization .But constant self-condemnation, often with little or no foundation, is a source of weakness and inferiority in dealing with a power that has dispensed with such scruples . Exaggerated self-criticism would be a harmless luxury of civilization if there were no enemy at the gate condemning democracys very existence.
As Osama Bin Ladin has affirmed repeatedly in his messages, Islamic jihadists see this only as contemptible weakness that invites increased aggression. Our enemies care nothing about liberals French Revolutionary Rights of Man. They respect only the power that grinds their faces in the dust. President Clintons treating bombings of our embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole as criminal matters to be handled by the FBI, instead of acts of war, led directly to 9/11.
Even if we muster sufficient backbone to resist Islamic jihad, liberal Republicans and Democrats will be undermining our future from within by loading more free services onto an economy unable to fulfill even it existing commitments under Social Security and Medicare.
Regarding that, Revel wrote: ..[What the quest for economic equality produces] is the growing role of government, the modern government of which democracys children ask everything and from which they consequently accept everything. . Tocqueville the visionary predicted [in his 1833 Democracy in America"] with stunning precision the coming ascension of the omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient state the twentieth-century man knows so well: the state as protector, entrepreneur, educator; the physician-state, impresario-state, bookseller-state, helpful and predatory, tyrant and guardian, banker, father and jailer all at once ..Its power borders on the absolute partly because it is scarcely felt, having increased by imperceptible stages at the wish of its subjects, who turned to it instead of to each other. In those pages by Tocqueville we find the germ both of George Orwells 1984 and David Riesmans The Lonely Crowd.
#3
LAW & ORDER TV SHow > former DemoLefty character McCoy and NYC DA's Office are now stolid, true-blue [moderate/right-of-cenmter] [still-Democrat?]Conservatives; while the GOP is now Flip-Floppy Dialectic Policratic Big Govt. LeftLiberals and Carpetbagging Robber Barons, with McCoy and DA Office as "Conservatives" having to depend on Lefty Internet Blogs and websites for tertiary/
exculpatory information to prove and win their case-of-the-moment. Iff LAW & ORDER, etal is any measure, Americans can surmise that the Left and MSM/LeftMedias are now both for and against itself, and wants to appear before aminstream America as both Parties, i.e. in control of all sides and will destroy alleged "Fascism" from all sides. GWOT > America is Custer at the Little Big Horn, US forces during the Battle of the Bulge, the Alamo, or even the red-coat Brits at Isandlwana, the Mythic "Nazi/Wehrmacht" ELEPHANT =America-West which will inevitably be eaten to the bone and destroyed by the ANGRY SWARMING ZILYUUHNS OF Soviet ANTS vv the battles on the Russian front during WW2. The Left wants America to fight for empire which America must eventually unilaterally give up, or forcibly lose at the ands of "world community" and INTERNATIONAL-GLOBAL SECULAR SOCIALISM - NO MATTER WHAT, AMERICA MUST LOSE ITS SOVEREIGNTY + CONTROL OF ITS OWN AFFAIRS. THE LEFT WANTS OWG - WHAT THEY DON'T WANT IS AMERICA-WEST DOMINATING OR CONTROLLING SAID OWG, ONLY PC "MACKINDER'S WORLD ISLAND aka COMMUNIST ASIA aka RUSSIA-CHINA. For the Left, the GWOT is a GLOBAL SUCKER'S/SUCKERS GAME, a diversion within a diversion within a diversion. What matters to the Left is that they don't get the blame, andor the bills.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
