Dr. Jack Wheeler
‘YES WE CAN’ WHAT?
A To The Point Editorial
Why is it that the left always denounces people on the right for ‘wrapping themselves in the American flag,' and is so fond of saying ‘patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels' - and then celebrates this same behavior when performed by illegal aliens?
The giant pro-illegal immigration rallies of Monday April 10 in many US cities have got to be the greatest exercises of phony flag waving in the history of America. And newspapers like the Washington Post promoted it to the hilt, with front page pictures of demonstrators waving a sea of American flags and carrying signs saying ‘We are all Americans'.
It was such an incredibly obvious act of mass political cynicism. The first mass pro-illegal alien demonstrations a couple of weeks before displayed the demonstrators' true loyalties by waving the Mexican flag. Now they all turn on a dime and there's hardly a Mexican flag to be seen. It's all we-love-America-red-white-and-blue. Yet the chant is still the same: Si se puede in Spanish, not ‘Yes we can' in English.
But ‘yes we can' what?CHINESE EASTER BUNNIES
Next week Thursday, April 20, four days after what many Christians consider their holiest day, Easter, and celebrate the resurrection of Christ, President Bush will meet with Hu Jintao, President of Communist China, in the White House.
The purpose of the meeting is being billed as an attempt to settle "trade differences" between the US and China. Bush may very well wheedle some minor trade concessions out of Hu, which will be piddling in terms of coming remotely close to correcting the gargantuan trade deficit we have with China.
Bush may also attempt to extract a concession from Hu regarding less Chinese oppression of Tibet - given that Hu was for some years the Chicom governor of Tibet and had a horrible record of tyranny over the Tibetan people.
Bush will talk to Hu about nuclear proliferation, North Korea, Moslem terrorism, Iran, devaluing the Yuan, and other weighty matters. Yet the topic Bush will be most interested in discussing with Hu is Christianity.HOW TO SPOT AN ILLEGAL ALIEN A MILE AWAY
There's a cheap and easy way for anyone protecting the US-Mexico border from the alien invasion - such as the Minutemen - to spot an illegal a mile away. So if you know any Minutemen, feel free to forward this to them.For here's how they can make their own Illegal Alien Detector.
RADIO FREE MEXICO
If we had Ronald Reagan here with us today, he would be puzzled over the entire debate on "illegal immigration." He would recognize that just like the Cold War, the liberals are arguing for appeasement and the conservatives for containment. He would be asking conservatives, "Don't you fellows realize that just playing defense doesn't work?"
Of course, defense is critical. You've got to prevent the other team from scoring touchdowns. So you've got to build the fence authorized by the Sensenbrenner bill in the House. You've got to shut the border down regarding the illegal flood. You've got to disallow illegals (and, yes, their children) from access to government benefits.
There are many other things you can do to defend America from this invasion - but, the crucial but for Ronald Reagan, would be we can't just play defense. We've got to go on the offense.
Which means an offense against Mexico. Not with guns and soldiers, but with ideas and information. "To explain the truth and go on an ideological offensive against the Soviet Union," Reagan would say, "we had Radio Free Europe beamed to the Soviet colonies of Eastern Europe, and Radio Liberty beamed to people within the Soviet Union itself."
"So, obviously," Reagan would conclude, "now you need a Radio Free Mexico beamed to the people of Mexico for the purpose of liberating them from the socialism, poverty, and corruption in their country that drives them to leave it."
BUSH NEEDS REAGAN IN IRAN
Ronald Reagan won the Cold War against the Soviet Union by supporting anti-Soviet liberation freedom fighters in Nicaragua, Angola, and Afghanistan with arms and money, and in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself with money and communications technology.
Ronald Reagan realized there was no need to militarily attack the Soviet Union to defeat it. All he had to do was support people oppressed by Soviet tyranny who were willing to fight for their own freedom.
George Bush needs to have the same realization with Iran. The opportunity to give the Tehran regime more trouble than it can handle internally so it can no longer trouble its neighbors is being handed to him on a silver platter. It is not Iraq that is about to split apart - it is Iran.
RIGHT ROCK AND ROLL
Want to turn your kids on to some great rock and roll? To right rock and roll, pro-American rock and roll, not the left-wing anti-American trashy sleaze they've overloaded their iPod with because they never heard anything else?
Then turn them on to The Right Brothers. They're a young, hip conservative trio out of Nashville whose hit song Bush Was Right is driving the left crazy. The music is hard driving rock, the beat is foot stomping, and the lyrics... well, just imagine your kids singing along to them:
Bush Was Right by The Right Brothers Lyrics by Frank Highland
Freedom in Afghanistan, say goodbye Taliban Free elections in Iraq, Saddam Hussein locked up Osama's staying underground, Al Qaeda now is finding out America won't turn and run once the fighting has begun Libya turns over nukes, Lebanese want freedom, too Syria is forced to leave, don't you know that all this means
Bush was right! Bush was right! Bush was right!
THE NIGHTMARE OF CONDI
Please sit down. Pour yourself a stiff drink. You're going to need it.
Something is being whispered on Capitol Hill that is so radioactive sweat breaks out on staffers' brows at its slightest mention. Here's the context.
For a long time now, we've been telling you in To The Point that Dick Cheney will step down, Bush will appoint and the Senate will confirm Condi Rice as Vice President, that this will catapult her into being the Republican presidential nominee, and that she will be elected President of the United States in November 2008.
A Rice Presidency will destroy the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party depends on blacks living on the Victim Plantation. A Rice Presidency obliterates the myth of Racist America, and it is upon this myth the modern Democrat Party is built.
Democrats cannot get elected without 90% of the black vote. Rice would deny them this 90% and more. At most they would get 50-60% if that. Any and all chance of Democrats regaining substantial political power in America would be over. The entire power structure of the Democrat Party would be in ruins.
Any chance of the Clintons being back in the White House would be over. A Condi vs. Hillary presidential race in 2008 is a fantasy. Hillary, the most hated woman in America, wouldn't stand a chance against Condimania. If Rice runs, Hillary won't.
MEXICO’S GLASS HOUSE
The Congress has received lots of free advice lately from Mexican government officials and illegal aliens waving Mexico's flag in mass demonstrations coast-to-coast. Most of it takes the form of bitter complaints about our actual or prospective treatment of immigrants from that country who have gotten into this one illegally -- or who aspire to do so.
If you think these critics are mad about U.S. immigration policy now, imagine how upset they would be if we adopted an approach far more radical than the bill they rail against that was adopted last year by the House of Representatives -- namely, the way Mexico treats illegal aliens.
In fact, as a just-published paper by the Center for Security Policy's J. Michael Waller, Mexico's Glass House, points out, under a constitution first adopted in 1917 and subsequently amended, Mexico deals harshly not only with illegal immigrants. It treats even legal immigrants, naturalized citizens and foreign investors in ways that would, by the standards of those who carp about U.S. immigration policy, have to be called "racist" and "xenophobic."Chapter Twenty Four: THE JADE STEPS
The Jade Steps
Chapter Twenty Four: The Jade Steps
When the food arrived, turkeys and maize cakes in great abundance, Malinali ate quickly. She had no time for conversation with Bernal, eager to talk about the wonders of the palace. She cast a knowing glance at Cortez and fled from the room. She returned within the hour, Cortez inviting her to join the group of officers with whom he was conferring. Everyone looked at her expectantly.
"I heard no talk around this palace or out on the plaza of any trap. I overheard talk between guards, nobles, priests, and common people. They all talk of you using the word teotl (tay-ottle), which means wonder, awesome, terrifying power. They talk of how the strangers are men from another more powerful world, men they have never seen before. Montezuma, it seems, can talk of nothing else. There is no anger in what I heard, only teotl."
The men started to express their relief and appreciation to her when there was a commotion. Several jaguar warriors had entered, followed by a procession of grandly cloaked and feathered nobles, perhaps as many as a hundred. In their center was Montezuma.BYE-BYE UPDATE
A year ago, in Bye-Bye Bolivia, you learned that if Evo Morales were to take over Bolivia, the country would split in two. Sure enough, after less than four months in office, Morales is well on his way.
Morales, recall, leads the Quechua and Aymara ethnic majorities up in the Andean highlands, and got elected by focusing their resentment on the Spanish and other European ethnic minorities in the eastern lowlands. Yet the lowlands have all the oil and gas reserves.
With Morales promising to nationalize - a euphemism for "steal" - the lowland resources, the governor of the lowland province of Tarija, Mario Cossio, has met with government officials of neighboring Paraguay and Argentina, asking their support in declaring Tarija's secession from Bolivia.
He is being joined by the governors of the lowlands' other three provinces, Santa Cruz, Pando, and Beni. The new country could be called after its nickname of Media Luna, "Half Moon," from the provinces' collective shape.
ALL FOUR STANZAS
[One year before his passing, in 1991, famed science and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote the following essay on America's national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. Thanks to TTP members Bill and Carole Gregory who brought it to our attention, we can share it with you. It seems particularly apt, given our country's many current travails. ---JW]
I have a weakness -- I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national anthem.
The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time. I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem -- all four stanzas.
This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said. "That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff."
I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas.
Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before--or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem. So now let me tell you how it came to be written.
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR
Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced he would schedule a vote in the Senate for a proposed Constitutional Amendment with the following wording:
The Congress and the States shall have Power to Prohibit the Physical Desecration of the Flag of the United States.
Such an amendment (it was passed by the House last June) would override Supreme Court decisions in 1989/90 proclaiming burning the American flag was a form of constitutionally protected free speech.
Yet just as yelling fire! in a theatre is not protected free speech, neither should burning an American flag, for it is a purposeful incitement to violence. Thus such an "anti-flag burning amendment" would be welcome.
Yet in truth, only the tiniest fraction of Americans have any desire to burn their country's flag. There is, however, another country's flag that millions of Americans feel like burning right now: the flag of Mexico.ILLEGALS AND SENATORS ON ONE SIDE, VOTERS ON THE OTHER
It is lucky America has more than two centuries of mostly calm experience with self-government. We are going to need to fall back on that invaluable patrimony if the immigration debate continues as it has started this season.
The Senate is attempting to legislate into the teeth of the will of the American public. The Senate Judiciary Committeemen - and probably a majority of the Senate - are convinced that they know that the American people don't know what is best for them.
The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus.
But if they would be dictators, it would be nice if they could at least be wise (until such time as the people can electorally kick their regrettable backsides out of town). It was gut-wrenching to watch the senators prattle on in their idle ignorance concerning the manifold economic benefits that will accrue to the body politic if we can just cram a few million more uneducated illegals into the country. I guess ignorance loves company.
MY MARCH MADNESS
I don't know when the term "March Madness" regarding the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship came into usage, but it was well after my college days in the 1960s. This year's madness is focused on the sympathetic favorite, George Mason, and the nostalgic favorite, UCLA. It certainly has caused me to recall a March Madness of my very own.
The nostalgia is for the greatest achievement in the history of college athletics, Coach John Wooden's 10 NCAA championships in 11 years (1964-75), including seven in a row (1966-73), the NCAA winning-streak record of 88 consecutive victories and 38 straight NCAA tournament victories.
But none of that had happened by Thursday, March 19, 1964. The Bruins, led by center Fred Slaughter and guards Gail Goodrich and Walt Hazzard, were undefeated in the regular season, 30-0, had won the regionals the previous weekend at Corvallis, Oregon, and for the first time in UCLA history, were in the Final Four. UCLA was to play Kansas State in the semi-finals at Kansas City, Missouri tomorrow, Friday, March 20.
And I was bummed.BAGHDAD ISN’T GETTYSBURG
If surgeons wielded scalpels as carelessly as to day's journalists misuse language, the mortality rate in our hospitals would soar. The latest example of this deadly abuse of terminology was the media's declaration of "civil war" in Iraq.
It was the equivalent of describing vandalism as genocide. The blaze faded, only to be reignited briefly by former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's statement last weekend that Iraq was in a civil war - a claim he swiftly retracted, to the disappointment of anchormen and -women everywhere.Perhaps it's time to consider what a civil war actually is.
CONTEMPT OF TRUTH
My friend Bill Roggio, an Army veteran and Web logger who was embedded with U.S. Marines in Iraq last fall, was a guest this week on a segment of the CNN show "On the Story." The topic was news coverage from Iraq.
"On the Story" gets even lower ratings than the average CNN show, so there's a question of how representative of American public opinion audience reaction is. But before the segment with Bill began, host Ali Velshi conducted a little poll.
"Give me a show of hands if you have confidence in the news coming out of Iraq," Mr. Velshi asked the studio audience. "It looks like about 30 percent of you."
"Let's see a show of hands of those of you who don't have confidence like (Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld says," he asked. "That looks like 90 percent of you."
Mr. Roggio responded by giving the media a D+. "Reporting often is inaccurate, usually lacks context, often aids al Qaeda, and is why Americans like those in the audience have been so misinformed."THE FRENCH DISEASE
On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus departed the Spanish port of Palos at the mouth of the Rio Tinto. After discovering islands he named San Salvador (in the Bahamas), Juana (Cuba), and Hispaniola on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, he returned from his epochal voyage, reaching Palos on March 15, 1493. According to the journal of Spanish physician Ruy Diaz de l'Isla, the pilot of Columbus's ship had contracted a previously unknown disease marked by severe fever and frightful skin eruptions.
The pilot wasn't the only one. By the time Columbus reached Barcelona, several of his sailors had come down with this strange new disease and were treated by the mystified Dr. de l'Isla. Unbeknownst to them, the sailors had acquired the disease through cohabitation with infected native "Indian" women on the discovered islands.
Europe had finally begun to recover from the Black Death of the bubonic plague in the middle 1300's, which had killed fully half of all Europeans. Once again, Europe was ravaged by a plague to become known as morbus gallicus, the French Disease. It would kill one third of the entire population of Europe.
Today we are witnessing the effects of another French Disease on the streets of Paris and on the campuses of dozens of universities throughout France. The social disease of the French Anti-Capitalist Welfare State has obviously caused severe brain damage among French students.
THE OPPORTUNITY OF APOSTASY
The way I look at things, the best news of the week is the story of Abdul Rahman being on trial and facing the death penalty in Afghanistan for converting from Islam to Christianity.
What a fantastic opportunity to put Sharia Islam on the defensive, make it once again the laughingstock of the world, and start forcing it out of the Dark Ages. The case of Abdul Rahman shines a spotlight on the moral inferiority of Sharia Islam compared to the world's other major religions.
Once again, like the Cartoon Jihad, Islam has demonstrated a mortal vulnerability. The lesson to be learned here is that the key to victory in the War on Islamofascism is to be on the constant search for its vulnerabilities.
THE NIGHTMARE OF METH
If it hasn't already arrived in your community, it will be there soon: the nightmare of addiction to methamphetamine. Supplanting cocaine in drug use, it's much easier and cheaper to make than coke. A "meth lab" requires only simple equipment like bottles and tubing, easily acquired ingredients, and can be set up in a small space in most any building.
Not only is it cheaper than coke, the high the addict gets from meth is far more intense - and thus far more addictive. Meth users get a sudden rush of pleasure lasting several minutes, followed by a euphoric high that continues for up to 12 hours. It leaves cocaine in the dust.
Both cocaine and meth cause the excessive release of the brain chemical or neurotransmitter that controls pleasure called dopamine. Having sex raises dopamine levels in the brain to about 200 units. Cocaine spikes dopamine levels to 350 units. Methamphetamine spikes at 1,250 - more than 12 times the base level of 100.
As Dr. Richard Rawson, associate director of Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at the UCLA Medical School, notes, "Methamphetamine produces the mother of all dopamine releases."THE 10TH CENTURY AND THE 20TH
When I was an undergraduate at UCLA, my favorite professor was Dr. H. L. Kostanick. He taught political geography. He never used a lectern or notes. Always dressed impeccably in a coat, tie, and sweater vest, he would stand before us, hands in his pockets, and explain the world to us.
Every lecture, no matter about what part of the world, was fascinating. But most memorable of all was his lecture on the Middle East. "Ladies and gentlemen, the most critical thing to understand about conflict in the Middle East," he told us, "is that it is not a conflict between Arab and Jew. It is a conflict between the 10th century and the 20th."
Dr. Kostanick (who was not Jewish - his family was from Macedonia in northern Greece) delivered that lecture in 1965. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw Dr. Wafa Sultan on Al-Jazeera TV.Chapter Twenty-Three: MALINCHE AND MONTEZUMA
When they woke up the next morning, Cortez and Malinali bathed in the freshwater pool in their courtyard, and strolled among the sweet-smelling fruit trees and rose bushes in their palace garden. "My captain," she asked him, "you have chosen this day to meet the Great Montezuma and enter Tenochtitlan. What do you call this day and why have you chosen it?"
"This day is November 8th in the year of Our Lord 1519. There is nothing special about this day - it just happens to be the day we have come here. Why do you ask, my Lady?"
"Because all the people of Tenochtitlan, I have heard, are talking about this day. They went to sleep last night in terror, including Montezuma. For just as you chose to arrive in the land of the Mesheeka in a 1-Reed year, Quetzacoatl's year of return, so now you choose to enter the Mesheeka capital on a 1-Wind day - the one day of the year that bears the sign of Quetzacoatl in his guise of the whirlwind. The whirlwind that brings upheaval and destruction. The whirlwind that brings, the Mesheeka are whispering, the ‘disembowelment of the world'."
"The whirlwind?" Cortez exclaimed with a snap of his head. He stopped, clasped his hand around Malinali's and held them tightly. "Every Christian who reads the Bible knows the story of the prophet Hosea," he told her. "He warned his people of Israel that God would allow them to be conquered for their unfaithfulness to Him. This happened many, many centuries ago[1]. Yet his famous warning seems now to be directed at the Mesheeka:
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: the grain shall have no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: and if it does, strangers shall swallow it up.[2]
"The Mesheeka have sown the wind with their evil. I know I am but a sinful man, not this god they confuse me with. But the One True God acted through Hosea, and these constant coincidences between me and these legends of Quetzacoatl are perhaps saying that He has sent us as the whirlwind which the Mesheeka must reap, that we are the strangers who must swallow up their evil."
Malinali's eyes were wide with wonder as they gazed into those of Cortez. "That is what my father prayed for, that is what I prayed for, my Captain, and that is what I now believe. Let us both pray to the Christian God in thanks for this whirlwind."
MAKING EXCUSES FOR MOSLEM VIOLENCE
On March 3, Mohammed Taheri-azar, a 22-year-old graduate of the University of North Carolina, rented an SUV and drove it into "the Pit," an area between two libraries on the UNC campus in Chapel Hill where students congregate, injuring nine.
Mr. Taheri-azar told police he made the attack "to avenge the deaths of Moslems around the world." He smiled and waved at his arraignment, and told reporters he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah."
In Chapel Hill, university officials have refused to characterize Mr. Taheri-azar's assault as either a hate crime or an act of terror. When some students protested the attack, there was a counter protest.
"By calling it religious violence, you are telling people that Moslems are violent," sophomore Johnathon Pourzal complained to the Durham Herald Sun.
Gee, I wonder what would give people that idea?NIGERIAN PERSIA
Nigeria is a large country in western Africa, more than twice the size of California with an enormous population of almost 130 million. It is a make-believe country, a colonial construction of the 19th century British cobbling together 250 ethnic groups for the imperial heck of it. The northern half of the place is mostly Moslem, the southern half mostly Christian or animist.
Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world. Bottomlessly, hopelessly corrupt. It is also one of the world's biggest oil producers, pumping out 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd), providing the country's greatest source of revenue. An overwhelming portion of the oil billions are ripped off by government officials and their cronies. The tiniest fraction goes to the people who live where the oil is produced.
That's the Delta region of the Niger, the river after which Nigeria is named. Inhabited by the Christian-animist Ijaw and Ibo tribes, there are almost no roads, schools, hospitals, or employment. It should be no surprise that a full-on armed guerrilla insurgency has emerged among these people - and their target is the oil installations.
Production is currently down 556,000 barrels to below 1.8 million bpd. The pipelines supplying gas to Nigeria's power stations have been blown causing a drastic reduction in national electricity output from 4,500 megawatts to 2,500. Large areas of the country are now experiencing blackouts.
Yesterday (Wednesday 3/16), Nigeria's Power and Steel Minister Liyel Imoke announced that the power blackout will continue "for some time," because repair workers accompanied by military forces "have not been able to access the vandalized areas of the gas pipeline. The situation is beyond our control."
Sounds just like Iran.
THE WORLD’S COOLEST HANDGUN
This is a Smith & Wesson 340PD .357 magnum. Incredibly powerful, a bullet fired from this gun will go right through an engine block. It weighs twelve ounces.
It is an American gun, manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts. The cylinder is titanium, and to get it to be that impossibly lightweight, the frame is made of scandium.
Scandium? What's that? Scandium is a basic element with the atomic number 21. It is a rare earth metal that is far stronger, lighter, and corrosion-resistant than stainless steel. So strong and lightweight that it can withstand the enormous forces generated by the sequencing of a nuclear warhead detonating.VOLTAIRE AND MOHAMMED
This Monday (3/6), the Wall Street Journal had a front page article about Moslems rioting in France over the staging of a play in a small village in the French Alps called Saint-Genis-Pouilly. The play was written in 1741 by Voltaire (1694-1778), and hasn't been staged for centuries. The title of the play is Mahomet, which is an older way to spell Mohammed.
The article provided very little information about the play's content. The author of the WSJ article clearly did not see the performance himself. An internet search turns up a French edition of the play but none in English. It's far out of print, so to actually read the play, you'd have to go a large public or university library.
It just so happens, however, that I have the English translation of the complete works of Voltaire - all 42 volumes - in my personal library. So I immediately sat down and read the entire play. It is a drop dead, stone cold, mind blow. It is fantastic. And it couldn't be more perfectly written for our day than if Voltaire was a clairvoyant.
Here's the play's synopsis.
BDS ON THE RIGHT
Ever since George W. Bush won the presidency by preventing Al Gore's hanging-chad attempt to steal it, liberal Democrats have become progressively infected with BDS - Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Here's how I think that the contagion of BDS is now infecting a number of conservative Republicans.
If you're a guy, perhaps you have endured this unpleasant and bewildering experience. You're in a relationship and you and the lady have had some disagreements but nothing major. From your perspective things are pretty ok. Then one day you and she disagree on some minor trivial issue - and suddenly, inexplicably, it escalates as she unloads on you.
It seems like the love of your life has had a personality transplant, you're facing a virago disgorging a torrent of anger, and all you can think is, "Where did this come from?"
If you're a guy, you're nodding your head in understanding. If you're a gal, you're muttering, "Men are so clueless. We give them all these hints for so long that things are bugging us, they never get the message, then when we finally can't take it any more and snap, they're mystified."
I think you get the analogy.
PROSECUTING JOURNALISTS – AND SENATORS – FOR TREASON?
Journalists will be paying rapt attention when Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman go on trial next month for violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.
Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. They received classified information from Lawrence Franklin, an analyst at the Department of Defense, which they passed on to an Israeli diplomat, and to journalists. They are the first private citizens ever to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.
Mr. Franklin pled guilty Jan. 20th and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison, though his sentence could be reduced in exchange for testimony against Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman.
Journalists note there is little difference between what Mr. Rosen and Weissman are accused of doing, and what reporters who have published stories based on leaks of classified information have done, and beads of sweat form on their brows.
TERRORIST MEDIA DENIAL
Denial is an often useful innate human trait. Few of us would be able to function in the present if we did not put out of mind many unpleasant realities - such as our inevitable death. The Woody Allen character in the movie "Annie Hall" stated the comic extreme version of not using the denial mechanism when, as a child he refused to do his homework because in 5 billion years the sun would explode, "So, what's the use?" But when a person, or a society, denies emerging or imminent dangers, the peace of mind it gains will be extremely short term, while the harm may be sustained or fatal.
Most of the world today not only is in denial concerning the truly appalling likely consequences of the rise of radical Islam, it often refuses to even accept unambiguous evidence of its existence.DUDE, WHERE’S MY CIVIL WAR?
BAGHDAD. I'm trying. I've been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it.
Maybe actually being on the ground in Iraq prevents me from seeing it. Perhaps the view's clearer from Manhattan. It could be that my background as an intelligence officer didn't give me the right skills. And riding around with the U.S. Army, looking at things first-hand, is certainly a technique to which The New York Times wouldn't stoop in such an hour of crisis.
Let me tell you what I saw anyway. Rolling with the "instant Infantry" gunners of the 1st Platoon of Bravo Battery, 4-320 Field Artillery, I saw children and teenagers in a Shia slum jumping up and down and cheering our troops as they drove by. Cheering our troops.CONDI TAKES RUSSIA TO THE WOODSHED
This Monday, March 6, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Washington to discuss the Middle East. Today, March 3, a high-ranking delegation of Hamas will visit Moscow at President Vladimir Putin's invitation, to meet with Lavrov. A coincidence? Hardly.
Russia aggressively courts Iran and Hamas. Last week, Russia negotiated in Tehran on establishing a uranium-enrichment joint venture, which will supply nuclear reactor fuel to the Islamic Republic.
A nuclear-armed Iran, allied with and armed by Russia and China will become a regional challenger hostile to the US, its interests, and its allies in the region.
This is why, during Mr. Lavrov's visit, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will inform her Russian counterpart that Moscow's actions in the Middle East are jeopardizing its presidency of the group of eight (G-8) leading industrial nations, its position in the Middle East Quartet, and its international role.
BREAKING OUR CULTURE’S BACK
Let's see, what shall I do this Sunday night - watch the Academy Awards or rearrange my sock drawer? That's a no-brainer: it's the sock drawer hands down. I'll pass on ridiculously-costumed America-hating egomaniacs spewing praise of homosexuality, tolerance for terrorists, and ridicule of everything normal Americans hold dear.
Hollywood thinks it is so avant-garde, courageously blazing new cultural trails, when the reality is that it is so behind the cultural curve. It will spend most of Oscar night praising itself for making a movie about homosexual sheepherders and pretend it's about happy cowboys.
Cowboys herd cattle, not sheep. "Gay" means happily carefree, as in the 1934 Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie, The Gay Divorcee. That homosexuals have hijacked the term in an act of linguistic thievery does not mean we should let them get away with it.
It turns out they haven't.THE DEAL ON DUBAI
In Dubai, everyone refers to their ruler, Emir Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, as "MBR." Just to give you an idea of how he is into tourism not terrorism, here's a quick story.
He has closed circuit television in his private office. And what are the cameras trained on? Immigration/passport control lines at the airport. If MBR sees the lines are getting too long, he picks up the phone and orders more personnel to reduce the lines. Again, his focus is tourism not terrorism.
The US Navy docks its ships at Dubai more often than at any other non-US port in the world. 25,000 Americans (and 100,000 Brits) live and work in the Emirates now.
The realization that Dubai and the UAE is the most pro-American Arab country on earth is sinking in to fevered Congressional brains as their spasm of knee-jerk xenophobia dissipates.
The shame in this is that Conservative Republicans in Congress, by allowing themselves to get suckered into Bush-bashing Democrat xenophobia, blew their chance to make a deal with GW.Chapter Twenty-Two: BETWEEN THE SMOKING MOUNTAIN AND THE SLEEPING WOMAN
The next morning, Cortez assembled the Cholulan caciques, commanders, nobles, and priests, together with the Tlaxcalan commanders, in the freshly swept courtyard. Mounted on his horse, he had the Mesheeka ambassadors standing on one side, and Malinali on the other. Behind him were arrayed his officers, resplendent in polished armor, and a contingent of Totonac warriors led by Mamexi, all in their finest feather headdresses. Cortez began speaking to the Cholulans sternly:
"Two days ago, the king of Cholula was guilty of a great treachery, which he and his followers paid for with their lives. The entire city of Cholula deserves to be destroyed for this treachery, and your enemies of Tlaxcala wished to do so. But you are subjects of the Lord Montezuma, and it is out of my respect for him that I will forgive Cholula. I will pardon and forgive Cholula on one condition: that the Cholulans make peace with Tlaxcala. Nobles and leaders of Cholula: have you chosen one among you to now be your king?"
A tall man stepped forward, enrobed in a beautifully feather-embroidered mantle.YES, VIRGINIA, HOLLYWOOD REALLY DOES HATE AMERICA
During the last few weeks some movies have come out that are, in effect, a plea for the case of terrorists. Steven Spielberg's "Munich" is one of them. (A little known fact is that there was a 1986 TV movie, ‘Sword of Gideon,' based on the same book, Vengeance, that Spielberg borrowed from freely.)
In "Munich," the murders of the 11 Israeli Olympians are treated as, well, sort of understandable, given the feelings and anxieties of the Palestinians who committed the terrorist act.
Forgive me for not finding the current explanation for treating terrorists with kid gloves very convincing. Instead, I suspect that what is going on is precisely a tad too much sympathy with terrorists. Why? Among other reasons that come to mind I would place on top the fact that terrorists are all thoroughly anti-American.
NO CIVIL WAR: IRAQ DISAPPOINTS THE NEW YORK TIMES ONCE AGAIN
The Associated Press reported Monday (2/27) that Sunni Arabs in Iraq are prepared to end their boycott of talks to form a national unity government, thus disappointing yet again those journalists who've been telling us for two years civil war is imminent.
It seemed last Wednesday (2/22) as if the pessimists might finally be right after terrorists destroyed the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam. Shia militias attacked more than a dozen Sunni mosques in retaliation. An unprecedented three day curfew was imposed in Baghdad in order to curb sectarian violence in which more than 100 people were killed.
To the grave disappointment of the New York Times, both Sunni and Shia religious leaders have called for calm. "We have much more evidence of a strong national unity movement in Iraq," says Iraqi Web logger Haider Ajina of the weekend demonstrations. "This attack was supposed to plunge Iraq into sectarian mayhem and senseless massive killing. This did not happen."
These peaceful demonstrations for peace drew little attention from a news media that is eager to report on a civil war, even if it isn't happening.
ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING WON WORLD WAR II
As a former intelligence officer who spent 23 years at the CIA, I am an intelligence history buff. So it is that the current media frenzy over "illegal NSA telephone taps" has an interesting precedent.
The New York Times and the Democrat Party are waging a campaign against Bush Administration electronic surveillance (misnamed "taps," by the way) of Al Qaeda communications with its contacts here in America. Their goal is for the Democrats to gain control of Congress this November, and impeach President Bush for the "crime" of "domestic spying."
Let's ask the New York Times editors if they would have President Roosevelt impeached for crimes that resulted in America's winning World War II?
CHRISTIANS FIGHTING BACK
Finally, finally, finally, at last. Christians are fighting back against rioting rampaging Moslem violence and oppression.
In Egypt back in the 7th century AD, most all Egyptians were Christians. Then Arabs swarmed out of the eastern deserts like human locusts to conquer Egypt and impose Islam. The native Egyptians were not Arab, and a few of them held on to Christianity in the face of enormous intolerance for centuries. These are the Copts.
Copts often have to hold their church services in secret, given all the government restrictions on building a church (there are no such restrictions on building a mosque). So when Moslems found out that an "unlicensed" building was being used as a Coptic Church in Odayssat, a village near Luxor on the Nile, a mob of them rioted, set fires, and tried to burn the building down.
The Moslems expected the Copts to just passively take it as always. But this time, January 18, 2006, the Copts fought back.TO THE POINT WASHINGTON CONFERENCE
It is my great pleasure to announce our First Annual To The Point Members' Conference, to be held in Washington DC from April 21-23.
I'll be your host and master of ceremonies. It's a marvelous opportunity for folks in our To The Point family to get to know each other.
Friday evening, April 21, we'll assemble at the Doubletree Inn in Pentagon City overlooking the Potomac River for a reception and dinner in the revolving restaurant with an extraordinary view of Washington. Yep, I'll give a speech.
Saturday morning, April 22, is devoted to panels and speeches by our To The Point writers - with lots of Q&A. You'll meet Dr. Joel Wade, Neal Asbury, Jack Kelly, Michael Ledeen, Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation, Enders Wimbush of the Hudson Institute, and Alex Alexiev, one of the world's grandmasters of geopolitics.
Your mind will be stretched wide and crammed full of insights about what's really going on in the world.
A JURISPRUDENCE OF PREVENTION
Next week a vastly important book will be published: Preemption, A Knife That Cuts Both Ways by Alan Dershowitz. Yes, that Alan Dershowitz: the hyper-liberal Harvard Law School professor.
Yet it is only for the lack of his legal scholarship that there is nary a sentence in the book that I - a very conservative editor of The Washington Times and former press secretary to Newt Gingrich - couldn't have written.
The premise of his book is that in this age of terror, there is a potential need for such devices as profiling, preventive detention, anticipatory mass inoculation, prior restraint of dangerous speech, targeted extrajudicial executions of terrorists and preemptive military action, including full-scale preventive war.
IS IT SMART TO ATTACK ALL MOSLEMS?
What do the arrests of three suspected Moslem terrorists in Ohio have to do with the purchase by an Arab company of the firm that manages facilities at six U.S. seaports?
Nothing...and everything.
The Justice Department indicted Tuesday Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 26, of Toledo; Marwan Othman al-Hindi, 42, of Toledo, and Wassim Mazloum, 24, of Cleveland, on charges of plotting to kill U.S. military personnel.
So what does this have to do with the purchase by Dubai Ports World of the British firm that manages commercial operations at ports in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans?