David Evans, former consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office, says what I've been saying about the global warming controversy:
There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts.
This guy is open to all the facts, even the new evidence that contradicts his earlier theories. Read his whole story.
Frank Warner
John McCain two days ago said that, despite Barack Obama’s predictions that the “surge” would not reduce sectarian violence, the “surge” has worked to do just that, and victory is at hand.
“I am happy to stand in front of you to tell you that this strategy has succeeded. It has succeeded. It has succeeded,” McCain said first at a Kansas City, Mo., town hall meeting.
He then reiterated the line for reporters aboard his campaign bus.
“I repeat my statement that we have succeeded in Iraq — not we are succeeding — we have succeeded in Iraq,” he said. “The strategy has worked and we now have the Iraqi government and military in charge in the major cities in Iraq. Al Qaeda is on their heels and on the run.”
The success has been so pronounced that even Obama’s 16-month withdrawal deadline is starting to look accidentally sensible. If Prime Minister Maliki is clever, he’ll have Obama declaring victory this week.
Frank Warner
Defeatists are celebrating Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s statement that Barack Obama’s 16-month deadline for a U.S. pull-out “would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”
Two quick questions:
1. Maliki say he sees “the possibility of slight changes” in Obama’s withdrawal schedule. Would Obama agree to such “slight changes,” if they were related to Iraq’s real security situation in early 2010,” or is Obama’s random deadline firm and fixed, totally oblivious to what is happening to Iraq?
2. Maliki also says, “If we come to an agreement [on withdrawal], it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on al-Qaida and the militias.” Does Obama agree with declaring victory in Iraq?
Just wondering how much Obama and Maliki agree.
Frank Warner
Investment is an act of altruism and greed.
It is altruistic in its unspoken statement: I believe the consumers will want this product, so let me risk my wealth to assure they can buy what they want. It is greedy in the selfish calculation: I believe the risk is so low that I probably will make an easy profit.
These conflicting impulses apply to oil production as much as anything else.
Four-day skid. That said, if you invested in oil in the last few months in the belief oil prices only can go up, my guess is there was little altruism and a whole lot of greed at work.
So if you lost a lot of dough as oil prices fell the last four days, screw yourself, you deserve it.
Frank Warner
Here are the members of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the members of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
The Commission:
* Jennifer Lynch, Chief Commissioner
* David Langtry, Deputy Chief Commissioner
* Harish Chand Jain
* Robin A.M. Baird
* Roch A. Fournier
* Sandi Bell
* Yvonne Boyer
The Tribunal, which holds the hearings:
* J. Grant Sinclair, Chairman
* Athanasios Hadjis, Vice Chairman
* Karen Jensen
* Michel Doucet
* Kathleen Cahill
* Matthew D. Garfield
* Kerry-Lynne Findlay
* Wallace G. Craig
* Marc R. Guignard
* Rejean Belanger
* Edward Lustig
Times 10. And then each of Canada’s 10 provinces has its own “human rights” commission or tribunal or both.
In Alberta, for example, the Human Rights and Citizenship Commission is:
* Brenda F. Scragg, Acting Chief Commissioner
* Lori Andreachuk
* Beth Bryant
* Brenda Chomey
* Diane Marie Colley-Urquhart
* Delano Winston Tolley
In Ontario, the Human Rights Commission is:
* Barbara Hall, Chief Commissioner
* Patrick Case
* Pierre Charron
* Ruth Goba
* Kamala-Jean Gopie
* Alana Klein
* Raja Khouri
* Fernand Lalonde
* Christiane Rabier
* Ghulam Abbas Sajan
* Bhagat Taggar
* Richard Theberge
* Maggie Wente
* Albert Wiggan
In British Columbia, the Human Rights Tribunal is:
* Heather MacNaughton, Chairwoman
* Tonie Beharrell
* Barbara Humphreys
* Barbara Junker
* Lindsay Lyster
* Diane MacLean
* Ana Mohammed
* Kurt Neuenfeldt
* Abraham Okazaki
* Judith Parrack
* Marlene Tyshynski
Grand censors. These people, and those in the other commissions and tribunals, have claimed the power to censor, in speech, in the press and on the Internet, words that they find offensive. They arbitrarily decide when certain words are “racist” and when other words are “hate,” and they make speakers and authors suffer for freedom of expression.
The Canadian Human Rights Commissions and Human Rights Tribunals clearly demonstrate their hatred and contempt for freedom of thought and freedom of expression. These agencies are tools of criminal oppression and have no legitimate place within a democratic society.
That Canada has such vile agencies is a disgrace to that nation. That a few ruthless Canadians are willing to serve on boards that do such violence to liberty is a shame that will forever stain their reputations and the honor of their families.
Skill for tyranny. With the possible exception of one or two trying to stop the panels’ atrocities from within, you can’t get much lower than these sell-outs. They should leave the Western Hemisphere and find a regime that might welcome their skill for tyranny. (The Castros can’t afford them.)
And they should take their pathetic families with them. Innocent relatives should not have to witness how history deals with these traitors to freedom.
Frank Warner
I’m happy to hear that part of the American Physical Society is welcoming a debate (of at least two sides) on the once-undebatable global warming doctrine, but some odd things are going on.
The APS seems to be wrestling with itself.
One APS group, “Forum on Physics & Society,” says on its Web site:
There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC [the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change] conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion.
‘Incontrovertible’ reaffirmed. But as soon as this acknowledgement of a “considerable presence” of skepticism appeared in the blogosphere today, the parent American Physical Society issued a statement saying the APS Forum doesn’t speak for the APS.
The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:
“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that “Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.” This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.
Article of faith. Exactly what is the APS saying? That there is no “considerable presence” of scientists who question whether rising levels of CO2 and methane are increasing global temperatures?
Here is the full APS official position of Nov. 18, 2007:
Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.
Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
Minds closed or open? So APS says “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.” Really?
It’s hard to start a debate with the moderator announcing the debate is closed, but OK. This “incontrovertible” position can be tested. Is our atmosphere growing hotter every year? Let’s see the evidence, and let’s have an honest, scientific debate, free of faith-based politics.
Frank Warner
Barack Obama should not have locked into his 16-months-and-out Iraq plan just before packing for his first Iraq trip since the “surge.” The trip is next week.
But his 16-month withdrawal plan doesn’t matter. Everyone knows that position is just to appease the appeasers. Obama already has said he’s ready to “refine” his Iraq policy, and he’d keep a “residual force” in Iraq after his pull-out. If he’s elected president, he’ll have to adapt to what really is happening in Iraq.
There’s better than half a chance his withdrawal schedule can work. The Iraqi Army is expanding at its fastest rate since the liberation, and it may be ready to take care of Iraq, with U.S. intelligence assistance, by 2010.
Democracy now. Obama eventually will have to drop withdrawal deadlines. I know the defeatists wanted surrender dates two years ago, but that was then. Now it would be worse than irresponsible to give the enemy any chance of upsetting Iraq’s hard-won democracy.
Frank Warner
Thomas Jefferson, 1823:
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
No, you don’t hear too much Christianity from the Founding Fathers. In fact, early America’s 1796 Treaty of Tripoli explicitly states “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
Certainly, the founders were respectful of religion, in the sense they were respectful of all religions. But one need look no further than “The Jefferson Bible” to see he was far more dedicated to liberal philosophy than orthodox theology.
Frank Warner
Now it’s time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.It sure looks promising over there.
Frank Warner
Thomas Friedman makes the point today that the United States, imperfect as it is, still points the world in the right direction, toward freedom and human rights.
He asks what kind of world it would be if its dominant influences were from China and Russia, who just vetoed a United Nations resolution to punish Robert Mugabe for his abuses in Zimbabwe.
Maybe Asians, Europeans, Latin Americans and Africans don’t like a world of too much American power — “Mr. Big” got a little too big for them. But how would they like a world of too little American power? …
I am neither a Russia-basher nor a China-basher. But there was something truly filthy about Russia’s and China’s vetoes of the American-led U.N. Security Council effort to impose targeted sanctions on Robert Mugabe’s ruling clique in Zimbabwe.
The U.S. put forward a simple Security Council resolution, calling for an arms embargo on Zimbabwe, the appointment of a U.N. mediator, plus travel and financial restrictions on the dictator Mugabe and 13 top military and government officials for stealing the Zimbabwe election and essentially mugging an entire country in broad daylight….
Veto! …
Perfect we are not, but America still has some moral backbone. There are travesties we will not tolerate. The U.N. vote on Zimbabwe demonstrates that this is not true for these “popular” countries — called Russia or China or South Africa — that have no problem siding with a man who is pulverizing his own people.
Another world. The governments of China and Russia clearly don’t care about freedom or human rights. If there were no United States, which nation would stand up to China and Russia (and Iran and North Korea)? Which nation would stand for freedom, and back up that principle with action?
Frank Warner
I am intrigued by this new polling result:
The ABC-Washington Post poll also found that a 51 percent majority believes the U.S. must win in Afghanistan for the War on Terror to be a success. Sixty percent responded that the U.S. War on Terror could be a success without winning the war in Iraq.
So the war for freedom in Afghanistan has only 51 percent support of the American public? Or at least, only 51 percent say we have to win in Afghanistan if the War on Terror is to be won.
Think about it. Afghanistan is supposed to be The War Everyone Supports. Osama bin Laden trained the 9-11 murderers there. The Taliban harbored al-Qaida there. And 49 percent of the American people don’t care if democracy wins there, or if the fascists and fanatics are defeated there.
That takes us to the other part of that polling story. The part on Iraq: “Sixty percent responded that the U.S. War on Terror could be a success without winning the war in Iraq.”
Who came up with that question? “If we lose the war in Iraq, can the War on Terror be successful?” How about these alternative questions: “If we lose in Iraq, can democracy in Iraq win?” “If we lose in Iraq, does democracy in the Middle East have a chance?”
Small difference. Sixty to 65 percent of the American public says the Iraq invasion was a mistake. And no wonder, considering how the Democrats so easily abandoned liberation as a noble goal -- and a necessary goal if the region is to see peace or progress.
And yet the difference between support for the Afghanistan fight and support for the Iraq fight is only 10 or 15 percent.
It makes you wonder about patience and commitment to hard, but essential work. How much longer would we have fought World War II if the Soviet Union hadn’t done much of the dirty work in Germany and if we hadn’t had those two atom bombs for Japan?
Limit to resolve. Some argue a free nation is willing to give any principled fight two to four years, and then the people forget their principles. Is this true? Does public resolve have a four-year limit?
Frank Warner
The new HBO series, “Generation Kill,” reportedly is super-accurate on how today’s weapons of war work in Iraq. But as the title implies, the series is founded on the super-inaccurate idea that all U.S. Marines are misfits and psychopaths.
If the early reviews are correct, not one of the Marines in this dramatization of the early days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq knows why the United States is there.
(“Generation Kill” aired the first of its seven installments last night.)
Not one of these HBO Marines is aware that President Bush has been talking about removing a totalitarian regime, ending Saddam’s support for terrorists, penalizing Saddam’s diversion of Oil for Food money, or even punishing Saddam for reneging on his requirement that he cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors, who repeatedly demanded proof WMD stockpiles were gone. Not one of the Marines knows that President Clinton gave the same reasons for signing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.
No freedom talk. Nope, none of these “Generation Kill” Marines can imagine outloud that it’s time to finish the war that Saddam started in 1991, or that it’s time to replace Baathist tyranny with democracy, freedom and a lasting peace. The discussion never comes up among movie jugheads. According to this TV fiction, all Marines are too stupid to see a good reason for Operation Iraqi Freedom, or they’re certain the invasion is for conquest and nothing else.
“White man’s gotta rule the world,” a non-white Marine says in the film.
Another Marine says his comrades are going in to “loot and pillage a country.”
OK, OK, I get what Susanna White, Simon Cellan Jones, Evan Wright, David Simon and Ed Burns are hammering us with. It’s right there in the title. There was a “Greatest Generation.” They were the army of saints who won World War II over Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini, and replaced tyranny with liberty. Today, this new story goes, we have raised a “Generation Kill,” the army of perverted criminals who make war, not to end fascism, but to kill for killing’s sake.
No hearts or minds. The Marines in this story represent, as Wright put it in his book, “more or less America's first generation of disposable children,” rendered subhuman by hip hop, Internet porn, video games, reality TV and Jerry Springer.
Of course, joining the Marines only completes the mind-numbing and heart-hardening.
A corporal in the show says, “You know what happens when you get out of the Marine Corps? You get your brains back.”
Yeah, right.
Your neighbors. This is worse than nonsense. Shame on you writers and directors of “Generation Kill.” And here’s a casting tip for your next series: Forget the monster military stereotypes. The U.S. Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen liberating Iraq aren’t a bunch of thick-headed brutes. They are your neighbors. They may not be perfect, but they’re pretty good people. They took unselfish risks in 2003 and they’re still taking unselfish risks today to give 25 million Iraqis a chance to enjoy the same freedoms you take for granted.
White, Jones, Wright, Simon and Burns may believe Iraq was better off under fascism. They may believe Iraqis enjoyed having their tongues cut out for criticizing Saddam. They may believe Iraqis were happy to starve while Saddam built palaces and bought appeasers. They may believe Iraqis longed for the night they’d be hauled off to arbitrary executions at mass graves.
The filmmakers may believe the freedom of strangers isn’t worth fighting for. But the history of the last 200 years shows that, whenever we Americans ignored the oppression of strangers, it always came back to bite us, and when we freed nations, those nations kept the peace.
Story balance. How many episodes of “Generation Kill” will I have to watch to hear anything about the relationship between democracy and a lasting peace? If the first reports are any hint, I shouldn’t waste a minute watching or listening for that point of view.
In “Generation Kill,” it seems we only get the viewpoint of fascists.
Frank Warner
* * *
Afterthought: I'd like the writers and directors of this HBO series to cite one scene that they think isn't written from the fascist perspective. Other than not including a scene that declares Saddam a god, what makes “Generation Kill” different from fascist propaganda?
Note: As for “The Greatest Generation” versus “Generation Kill,” there really is no match. In five years of fighting in Iraq, the Americans have killed about 30,000 in combat. In two months of 1945, on Okinawa, the Greatest Generation killed 90,000 Japanese.
The Nation magazine, normally a hater of everything with a relationship to President Bush, today recognized that former Bush press secretary Tony Snow brought “dignity” to his job.
Snow died today.
Snow was good. He could answer questions as directly as the circumstances allowed, and unlike former press secretary Scott McClellan, he didn’t dishonor with verbal ineptitude such difficult and noble undertakings as the liberation of Iraq.
Of course, The Nation says Snow brought dignity by distancing Bush from the “noxious influence” of Vice President Dick Cheney. That’s the way The Nation has to look at things. (Cheney should have resigned before the Iraq invasion, but not for The Nation’s reasons.) Snow simply explained clearly what Bush was doing. McClellan could not do that.
Skill and integrity. McClellan seemed unable to refuse the defeatist reporters’ bait. He often left erroneous assumptions go unchallenged and inevitably fed every diabolical conspiracy theory. (McClellan never did understand the Valerie Plame case.) On the other hand, Snow turned aside the biased questions gracefully, and gave the public a chance to hear Bush’s side of the story.
Under Snow, it was inspiring to see how a spokesman’s competence and integrity could so naturally make the case for freeing the oppressed. It’s too bad, and sad, that Snow took sick much too young.
Frank Warner
It’s hard to understand Jesse Jackson’s anger or resentment toward Barack Obama. How was Obama “talking down” to black people in that June 15 Chicago Father’s Day speech -- the one that said real fathers raise their own children?
Five days ago, as he steamed about Obama’s “talking down,” Jackson said of Obama, “I want to cut his n-ts off.”
Both Spike Lee and Jackson’s own son repudiated Jackson for the remarks, whispered over an open Fox News microphone.
Jealousy and fear? But I don’t see this simply as Jackson being jealous of Obama’s youth and popularity, or Jackson’s fear he’ll lose the victimization argument if suddenly an African American is elected president, though there probably is some truth in both ideas. I think this is more mysterious.
Understanding Jackson’s feelings here would go a long way toward understanding many things from the perspective of minorities.
Frank Warner
Sen. Phil Gramm, speaking semi-officially for Sen. John McCain, was quoted yesterday as calling the United States “a nation of whiners.” The phrase was too broad and unsympathetic for McCain, who rebuked Gramm for the remark.
But are we a nation of whiners?
I don’t think so. Right now, we’re a nation generally trying to pursue our dreams, and particularly on the rising cost of gasoline and health care, we have our complaints.
Simply not being in a recession doesn’t mean our complaints sink to the level of whining. But maybe if we all had a senator’s pay and a senator’s benefits, and expected a senator’s pension, we wouldn’t complain about gas and health care costs, and we’d wonder why anyone but a whiner would.
Frank Warner
After all those false rumors that Barack Obama doesn’t have the natural born citizen eligibility to be president, John McCain’s eligibility might be seriously in doubt.
Gabriel J. Chin at the University of Arizona puts together some research to show John McCain, born in the Panama Canal Zone on Aug. 29, 1936, came into this world 11 months too early to be covered by a 1937 law that would have made him a U.S. citizen at birth.
I don’t know what these facts do to McCain’s candidacy. A few notable lawyers already have declared McCain eligible. But did they have all the facts?
How to ignore? To avoid a problem, would the Supreme Court just ignore the law and declare that the “evolving Constitution” implies that McCain is a “natural born citizen”?
If you thought the 2000 election was ugly, prepare for more electoral horror with this problem. On the other hand, both major party candidates simply may tell their respective parties, early on, that this is a controversy not to be raised.
Frank Warner
Barack Obama now plans to deliver his Aug. 28 acceptance speech, not at the Democratic National Convention hall at Denver’s Pepsi Center, but at the nearby 76,000-seat Invesco Field.
What to name this glorious event? Clarice Feldman advises Obama, in the spirit of Leni Riefenstahl:
“My first thought about a name is Democratischeparteitag der Einheit und Starke, or, as you would say, Democrat party Rally Day of Unity and Strength.”
Ouch. It does seem a bit over the top. Yeah, the name, too!
Frank Warner
Setting an arbitrary U.S. Iraq withdrawal date is different from setting a victory-first U.S. withdrawal date. It’s the difference between deploying an airplane’s emergency slide in flight (interfering dangerously with the plane’s hydraulic control lines) and simply landing the plane first.
Frank Warner
From Sameh El-Shahat of Britain:
Something had to be done about Iraq and our government was all for attacking it too. So let’s not blame G.W. [Bush] for the war. ...
Let’s not forget how Europe does wars.
Usually we wait and wait until the enemy starts attacking, then we let them win a bit, then we fight until we are tired, then we just call the US to come over to clean our mess.
That is what happened in WWI, WWII, and the Balkans.
Bush is just showing us what a bunch of dangerous ditherers we are and we hate him for it. Naturally.
Racist cynicism. It’s the height of selfish cynicism to let someone else do the hard and heroic work and then to belittle their liberation of millions just to hide your lazy racist shame.
Frank Warner
Some of the defeatists now are saying Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s call for a U.S. withdrawal date forces John McCain to abandon his opposition to a withdrawal date. Not so fast.
McCain’s position has been that the U.S. not announce a withdrawal date that arbitrarily conflicts with what Coalition military commanders in Iraq say they need to win. The obvious trump card always has been what the duly elected government of Iraq wants.
If Iraq’s democratic leaders feel certain they’ll be safe without us by the end of 2010 or 2011, fine, it’s their country. Unless they make some overt move to turn Iraq over to a dictatorship, Iraq’s leaders have final say. If they want us to leave, we leave.
No surrender. McCain certainly was not mistaken to label as “surrender” the earlier calls by Democratic leaders, and some Republicans, for a firm pull-out date, especially considering some Democrats were calling for withdrawal at the same time they were declaring the war “lost.”
What is the name for saying you’ve lost and then going home? It think that would be surrender.
Had we brought all U.S. troops home as called for by Congressman John Murtha in 2005, Iraq would have been abandoned to the fascists and fanatics on May 17, 2006 – three months after the bombing of the Golden Mosque of Samarra -- and Iraq would have descended into chaos and genocide with no force to help stabilize it.
Reasonable pace. Had we pulled out in 2006 or 2007, the Democrats would have closed their eyes to the bloodshed and the resurgence of totalitarian forces, just as they feigned blindness to the Boat People, re-education camps and Killing Fields after the U.S. abandoned Southeast Asia in 1975.
Now that democracy appears to have won in Iraq, and the level of violence clearly is dropping, the U.S. is withdrawing some troops, on the advice of U.S. military commanders. The Long War Journal’s experts predict the Iraq Army will have many of its divisions in place by the end of 2010, so maybe that is a reasonable time to set for a withdrawal, or the beginning of a withdrawal.
But keep in mind, the Iraqis aren’t suggesting an arbitrary timetable, as the Democrats wanted. To put the lie to the conspiracy mongers who say the Americans want to stay in Iraq forever, they’re looking for a reasonable pull-out timetable.
Local incentives. By now, Iraq’s leaders probably understand their military needs as well as any Coalition commanders on the ground. They also have every incentive to avoid a pull-out date divorced from reality. They have to live with the consequences. They’re looking for a U.S. withdrawal date that would give them time to complete their own army. They want a date that guarantees victory.
That’s the opposite of saying you’ve lost and leaving. The Iraqis certainly aren’t saying they don’t care if they win or lose. They’re saying that, because Iraq is where they’ll make their future, freedom must win.
Democrats’ arbitrary timetables never say freedom must win. McCain is right to insist on victory. Barack Obama should do the same.
Frank Warner
The talk seems to have turned to Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana as Senator Barack Obama’s most likely choice as running mate. Obama’s biggest challenge will be to honor Hillary Clinton somehow at the convention.
For Senator John McCain, the vice presidential pick almost has to be Mitt Romney. McCain could pick a woman, but most of the qualified Republican women are at an age that would make McCain look hopelessly disconnected from generations of voters. So unless McCain chooses Dana Perino, Romney has a good shot.
Frank Warner
Ask any totalitarian monster. War is not futile.
When a tyrant wins a war, he wins power, glory, territory and slaves. With any luck, he can enjoy the spoils of war for years, even decades. Without election by the people, he wins power over the people. Accountable to no one, he can torture his slaves and start more wars in service to himself. If he is discreet with torture and skilled at war, he can hold power even as he claims more territory and more slaves, suffocating every democratic impulse while he basks in the glory of dazzled appeasers. For the tyrant, winning a war is not futile at all, but no one but the tyrant wins.
There being no treasure more valuable than freedom, the reward is infinitely greater when democrats win a war. Of course, war is less likely with free nations. Because they are open and accountable, democratic governments are less likely to start a violent fight, and more likely to give a despotic opponent a cease-fire as a chance to mend his ways. But when despots force wars, democracies have every reason to fight. When liberty is at stake and victory is possible, fighting tyranny is no exercise in futility. It is a human necessity and a moral mandate. The victory of democracy is the only chance for freedom, the only chance for true progress, the only chance for a lasting peace.
Wars are hell, but wars aren’t futile. The victors are rewarded. For the people, it’s best if the victors are democrats.
Frank Warner
Did Nancy Pelosi, like Colombian Senator and FARC sympathizer Piedad Cordoba, not want the liberation of all 15 hostages (the ones Colombia’s anti-terrorist forces freed July 2)? Did she want the FARC terrorists to hold onto Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt as a bargaining chip?
Why was Pelosi offering any assistance in a secret plan to release legally imprisoned FARC terrorists in exchange for FARC’s hostages? Did the United States elect her to establish a separate pro-totalitarian foreign policy? Did Congress authorize anything she did to help FARC?
Study Pelosi’s statement on the July 2 hostage rescue:
“The news that three Americans and their fellow captives held by Colombian rebels have been freed is the answer to the hopes and prayers of so many. That the rescue operation succeeded without loss of life is an additional reason to give thanks. Americans share in the gratitude that the families and loved ones of the freed hostages feel today as they will be able to celebrate their freedom this Independence Day weekend.”
A close read. Notice the lack of condemnation for FARC in Pelosi’s statement. Notice how the first sentence says the rescue answered the prayers of “so many,” but didn’t say she was one of the many. Notice she is thankful the rescue operation was carried out without loss of life, as if perhaps she might be relieved no FARC terrorist was harmed. Notice she says “Americans share in the gratitude,” but possibly not all Americans, possibly not even Pelosi herself. Notice she doesn’t call the terrorists “terrorists,” but “rebels.”
How many ways could a U.S. Speaker of the House avoid saying she was personally thrilled that three Americans and 12 others were heroically freed from the hands of totalitarian terrorists in Colombia? It is as if FARC itself wrote Pelosi’s press release.
Pelosi has some explaining to do on this. As if I hadn’t noticed before, she really has gone off the deep end to oppose anything President Bush is for.
Frank Warner
Update: The freed Americans to FARC: FARC you!
An international archaeological team has found no evidence that the U.S.-led invasion and liberation of Iraq led to widespread looting of Iraq’s archaeological sites.
As we know, months of news reports that looters had taken 50 to 100 percent of the artifacts of the Iraq National Museum turned out to be untrue. Only 3 percent of those items were stolen, and 2 percent were taken in an inside job before U.S. troops even arrived.
Now it appears that, despite angry reports to the contrary, Iraq’s many archaeological research sites were protected, too. Very little damage and theft has been found.
The worst artifact, Saddam Hussein’s fascist regime, is gone. We’re not bringing that back.
Frank Warner
You have to admire the Colombians for using Che Guevarra T-shirts as their disguise in tricking the FARC Communists July 2 into letting down their guard while the 15 hostages were freed.
I guess that’s called cultural sensitivity.
Know your totalitarian enemy. Wear their T-shirts like a Trojan Horse. Then free the oppressed.
Frank Warner
The Fourth of July fireworks were postponed because of rain, but I enjoyed the lovely July 3 parade in Lititz, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Check out the Amish boys studying the bagpipers and drummer in kilts.
This is how one town celebrates life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Frank Warner
At the Al Faw Palace in Baghdad, 1,215 American troops this Fourth of July re-enlisted at the same time.
Gen. David Petraeus administered the oath. Never before in the history of the U.S. armed forces had so many members of the services taken part in the same re-enlistment ceremony. Most of them re-upped for four more years.
To American troops, there is something uniquely inspiring about defending freedom and defeating its foes.
Frank Warner
Democrats should stop defending their abuse of John McCain’s Vietnam War record by saying, well, John Kerry was “Swift Boated” in 2004.
In 1968, months of torture at the Hanoi Hilton prison camp had broken McCain’s left arm, broken his ribs and re-broken his left arm. On Christmas, his guards demanded that he write a holiday message to his fellow prisoners. So he wrote, from his solitary confinement:
“To my friends in the camp who I have not been allowed to see or speak to, I hope that your families are well and happy, and I hope that you will be able to write and receive letters in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1949 which has not been allowed to you by our captors. And may God bless you.”
His guard did not pass the note on.
That’s the truth.
Swift Boating. Now look up what John Kerry repeatedly said before 2004 about what he was doing on Christmas 1968. That’s a lie.
The Swift Boaters exposed that lie, other whoppers and exaggerations that Kerry offered as the facts of his four months in Vietnam.
Unless the Democratic slow-boaters can expose some similar dishonesty by McCain about his 23 bombing missions and his five and a half years in stinking Communist prisons during the Vietnam War, they’d be wise to lay off.
Frank Warner
Democracy in Afghanistan has been under fire lately, principally because the Pakistan government is too fearful to crack down on the Taliban and al Qaida on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
As a result, in June, attacks in Afghanistan killed 45 foreign Coalition troops.
In the same month, attacks in Iraq killed 31 foreign Coalition troops.
Obviously, Iraq’s security is improving fast. And soon, someone has to knock some terrorist heads in Pakistan.
Frank Warner
Many stories of early American slavery are so poorly documented, and so often shaped for a preconceived point, that they inevitably make you ask, how much of that was true?
The story of Sally Hemings, one of Thomas Jefferson’s slaves, is one such tale, with ever-changing “facts” and ever-changing lessons learned.
But here’s a story that’s documented better than most.
Wedding present. It’s about Oney Judge. Born in Mount Vernon in 1774, she was one of George Washington’s slaves. She appears to have been the daughter of a black slave seamstress and a white indentured tailor.
In 1790, the Washingtons brought 16-year-old Oney Judge to Philadelphia, when that city was the nation’s capital. She was one of nine slaves the Washingtons kept in Philadelphia.
In 1796, as the first president prepared to step down after two terms, Martha Washington decided to give Judge away to a Virginia couple as a present, a wedding gift, a thing.
While they ate. Judge got wind of the pending transfer. She didn’t want to be anyone’s slave, much less the slave of new “owners” in Virginia. So she ran off to New Hampshire.
Decades later, Judge explained to an abolitionist:
“Whilst they were packing up to go to Virginia, I was packing to go, I didn’t know where; for I knew that if I went back to Virginia, I should never get my liberty. I had friends among the colored people of Philadelphia, had my things carried there beforehand, and left Washington’s house while they were eating dinner.”
‘The ingratitude.’ George Washington was indignant that Oney Judge should flee. He asked Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott for help finding her. The letter is in Washington’s own writing:
“I am sorry to give you, or any one else trouble on such a trifling occasion, but the ingratitude of the girl, who was brought up and treated more like a child than a Servant [and Mrs Washington’s desire to recover her] ought not to escape with impunity if it can be avoided.”
A few years later, Judge was almost tracked down in Greenland, N.H., to be brought back to the Washingtons, but she eluded capture.
Died a fugitive. Oney Judge eventually married a sailor, Jack Staines, had three children and taught herself to read. She died in 1848. She was 75 years old, a pauper, a fugitive, but free.
Now let’s see the movie version.
Frank Warner
If this won’t push us to pump our own oil and buy flexible fuel cars, nothing will:
As Robert Zubrin, author of the best-selling Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil, puts it: “OPEC will clear $1.5 trillion in net export profits this year. The entire worth of the US Fortune 500 is $18 trillion. So at their current rate of looting, OPEC will accumulate enough cash to buy majority control of the entire Fortune 500 within 6 years.”
There’s a whole lot of cash draining out of this country for oil. And the truth is, only a tiny part of it is going to ExxonMobil.
It’s time to stop the bleeding.
Frank Warner
It’s no secret I’m leaning toward Barack Obama for president. But it’s equally obvious I have misgivings about him, particularly in his opposition to the liberation of Iraq.
Which makes me so grateful that John McCain is running against Obama. McCain is so fully in favor of winning the war, so offended by any inclination to surrender to the fascists, that he gives Obama a mile of room to move toward a policy of Iraq victory, without looking pro-Bush to Democratic Bush-hating zealots.
Yesterday, McCain was interviewed in Pennsylvania about his stand on Iraq.
Q: Do you think the election will be a referendum on the Iraq war?
A: I have said many times, and I will say it today, I would much rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. We are winning in Iraq, and I believe it is becoming more apparent to the American people that we are winning. I'll take my stand on success in Iraq….
Q: So it’s stay the course?
A: Not stay the course, no. It’s continuing the strategy that is succeeding. That’s like saying staying the course. We stayed the course in World War II when we fought against the Germans and the Japanese. We stayed the course in Korea when we fought the Chinese and North Koreans to a standstill, and they agreed to a truce. We stayed the course in the first Gulf War when we drove Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. We stayed the course in World War I. We have stayed the course in every war in which this country has been victorious. So if you want to call it staying the course, no; it is the pursuit of a strategy that is winning. And everyone is free to disagree with that. I think the facts on the ground are very clear that we are winning.
Political wisdom. Complain as we will, we actually have two pretty good candidates running for president. Both McCain and Obama are intelligent men with fairly good senses of humor. Both appear flexible, open to new ideas, and both appear dedicated to solving problems.
If the Iraq war were the only issue, McCain would deserve my vote. If Obama ends up opposing victory in Iraq, McCain still would deserve my vote. But I doubt Obama will run up the white flag, and there are other issues.
However I vote, I can admire McCain for his resolve and for his deep understanding that, if you let tyrants win a war, you can count on a harsh and bloody “peacetime” to follow, and usually, another war.
McCain is wise, courageous and inspiring. I thank him for that.
Frank Warner
Thirty-one thousand Americans died from gunshot wounds in 2005, the latest year for complete statistics. Most of those deaths weren’t in crimes or in defense against crimes. Fifty-five percent of them were suicides.
People obviously suffering from emotional chaos took their own lives with firearms because guns made it too easy for them to end everything before they had a chance to calm down and think twice.
America has about 32,000 suicides a year. About 17,000 of them are carried out with guns.
It’s another argument against the wisdom of allowing anyone to keep and bear firearms.
Frank Warner
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, in a 5-4 vote, that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to have firearms, including handguns.
But was the Supreme Court correct, in the District of Columbia vs. Heller, to come up with that individual right to keep guns for personal self-defense?
It seems to me there have been three basic positions on what “the right to keep and bear arms” means.
1. It’s the right of individuals to keep and bear all sorts of arms, from flintlocks to battleships, just in case the people -- all private adults -- have to act as a militia to defend the states against invaders, or even to defend against a wayward U.S. government.
2. Or, it’s the right of the states or federal government to arm a state-controlled militia, such as the National Guard.
3. Or it’s the right of individuals to arm themselves to protect themselves and their homes, and the right of the states to arm National Guards.
Arms of war. I believe the best case can be made that the Founders meant No. 1. In other words, the right of civilians collectively to keep the arms of war ready to defend the states from aggression or oppression. It seems a little crazy today, but that’s probably what the words meant.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court picked No. 3, declaring the right to keep and bear arms the right to keep firearms to defend each individual and his or her household. The decision last week said the right does not apply to “dangerous and unusual” arms, but did not define that exception.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
(You can see how advocates of the No. 2 interpretation argued that the word “regulated” made their case.)
Nine unanimous? Today, Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit blogger and law professor at the University of Tennessee, makes an intriguing observation about the Heller decision:
I’M WRITING A SHORT PIECE ON HELLER FOR NORTHWESTERN, and something became clear to me as soon as I started writing: What’s most striking about Heller is that absolutely everybody -- majority and dissents -- says the Second Amendment protects an individual right.
It’s true that the dissenters; view of that right is somewhere between “minimalist” (to be charitable) and “incoherent” (to be accurate). But nonetheless, all nine Justices specifically said the right is individual, and thus rejected the “collective right” position on the Second Amendment, a position that's been the mainstay of gun-control groups, newspaper editorialists, and lower federal courts for decades, and one that was presented by those adherents as so obviously correct that those arguing for an individual right were called “frauds” and shills for the NRA.
Yet the collective right theory could not command a single vote on the Court when actually tested. It was, it seems, a paper tiger all along.
Personal self-defense? I’ll have to read over the dissents, but my first reaction is, did all nine justices say there was an individual right to firearms for personal self-defense? Or does it come to nine because some of the dissenters found an individual right applicable only to the private, collective “militia”?
Frank Warner
My Uncle Carl J. Dorsey got married to my Aunt Mary on June 24, 1950. Five days later, on a June 29th like today, the North Koreans invaded South Korea.
Uncle Carl was called from his honeymoon to respond to the Korean emergency. He was in the Air Force, and soon he was in Japan, where his C-199 crew was loading supplies and flying them to the Americans and South Koreans fighting the Communists.
On June 2nd, 1951, while he made one of those deliveries, the South Koreans accidentally shot down his plane over South Korea. Everyone aboard the “Flying Box Car” died. My Aunt Mary was a young widow.
That civil war cost 33,600 American lives, and 227,000 South Korean lives. The North Koreans never revealed how many lives they wasted in the name of repression. Today, even satellites in space can see the difference men like Uncle Carl made. North Korea is dark, always on the brink of starvation and in chains. South Korea is full of life, prosperous and free.
I know it was terrible for my Aunt Mary to lose Uncle Carl. I know, too, he died for the most unselfish cause.
Frank Warner
How many ways can Gen.Wesley Clark prove himself a weasel? For at least four years now, he’s been spinning the news to insist on surrender in Iraq, to argue that President Bush is always bad, to say please, please, please, some Democrat, please hire me.
Clark has been desperate for a job under, first, President John Kerry, and now, President Barack Obama.
Where did Clark’s sucking up sound come from today? From CBS’ “Face the Nation.” There he said Sen. John McCain’s Vietnam War experience isn’t anything special:
“Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”
The vile echo. It’s quite similar to what Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV said of McCain in April:
“McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”
At least Clark mentioned that McCain did get a taste of what it was like to be on the ground in North Vietnam. But Clark pretends that McCain learned nothing from more than five years tortured and abused by his Communist captors, or from his military family, including his son Jim McCain’s current service in the Marines.
In North Vietnam, McCain saw what happens to all democrats when the totalitarians catch up to them. Eventually, he saw what happens when Democrats surrender. On a 2000 visit to Vietnam, he said, “The wrong side won the war.”
Self promoter. Senator Obama, whatever you do, don’t hire Wesley Clark. He’s far too interested in promoting himself and too little interested in freedom or truth. He’ll tell you only what you want to hear. From “expert” advisers, that’s no help.
Frank Warner
Faced with a critical U.S. oil shortage, Democratic Party leaders are saying (again) there’s no point in drilling for new American oil because it would take five or 10 years to start pumping it.
Well, just how many of us don’t expect to be alive in five or 10 years?
By the Democratic logic, any problem that takes more than six months to solve should be ignored. No wonder they can’t handle the liberation of Iraq. It’s beyond their attention span. It’s certainly beyond their dedication to freeing the oppressed.
Money drain. So if we can’t drill for our own oil now because it would take five years to get it, and we can’t drill five years from now, and so on, for the same dumb reason, then we’ll needlessly be shipping out hundreds of billions of dollars a year for foreign oil until 2108 and beyond.
Democratic leaders have the recipe for a 100-year recession. A child can see their position is insane. I don’t understand why even Barack Obama clings to this partisan madness.
Frank Warner
In the gun-control debate two days ago, two of our commenters “quoted” George Washington as saying:
“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people’s liberty teeth.”
I said then that, in all the writings I’ve seen by Washington, I have never seen anything so succinct. He just didn’t talk or write like that. He never wrote a straightforward clause of nine words if it could be said more obtusely in 50 words. He was the greatest, most indispensable hero of our democracy, but he simply wasn’t the clearest, most direct writer.
Quotation invented. It didn’t take long to check out this “liberty teeth” statement. Washington never said it. Someone made it up. Fortunately, the “Pious Frauds” Web site has done the research on the words, often claimed to have been spoken by Washington at the second session of the first U.S. Congress.
Here is the full text of the firearms “quote” regularly attributed to the Father of Our Country:
“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prarie wagon, and citizen’s firearms are indelibly related. From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and the pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference; they deserve a place with all that’s good. When firearms, go all goes; we need them every hour.”
Alarm bells. Here is what “Pious Frauds” found:
This quotation, sometimes called the “liberty teeth”quote, appears nowhere in Washington’s papers or speeches, and contains several historical anachronisms: the reference to “prarie wagon” in an America which had yet to even begin settling the Great Plains (which were owned by France at the time), the reference to “the Pilgrims” which implies a modern historical perspective, and particularly the attempt by “Washington” to defend the utility of firearms (by use of statistics!) to an audience which would have used firearms in their daily lives to obtain food, defend against hostile Indians, and which had only recently won a war for independence. The “99 99/100 percent” is also an odd phrase for 18th century America, which tended not to use fractional percentages. It’s clear that “Washington” is addressing “gun control” arguments which wouldn’t exist for another couple of centuries, not to mention doing so in a style that is uncharacteristic of the period, and uncharacteristic of Washington’s addresses to Congress, both of which exhibited a high degree of formality.
According to “Pious Frauds,” Playboy Magazine used this quote in December 1995 and was forced to retract it in March 1996. (Somebody reads Playboy?)
“Bogus Founder Quotes,” a gun rights Web page, also warns against using this very dubious Washington “quote.”
Test on Washington. Think about it. Can you recall anything George Washington ever said? “I cannot tell a lie?” We’ll never know if he really said that. How about “Beware of foreign entanglements”? That seems to be the only Washington statement anyone tries to quote word for word.
But did Washington say “Beware of foreign entanglements” that directly? Was it just four words? Here’s the full context in his 1796 farewell address:
“Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
“Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?”
Complex style. He never even said, “Beware of foreign entanglements.” He talked in long, complex sentences, or, where the sentences are relatively short, they seldom sum up a major point. His words are nothing like the poetry of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.
Washington really couldn’t have said, “Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.” That wasn’t his style.
Frank Warner
Some gun advocates claim that more than 1 million Americans -- and perhaps 3 million Americans -- each year use guns in self-defense.
Bullcrap.
The claim that 2.5 million citizens use guns in self-defense comes from a Florida State University study, which was replicated in part by a 1994 National Institute of Justice survey. The National Institute study found 1.5 million to 3.1 million Americans used guns in self-defense in a year (as many as 23 million times in total).
Data from where? How were the National Institute’s “National Survey on Private Ownership and use of Firearms” and the Florida State study conducted? By telephone.
The National Survey and the Florida State story weren’t based on police reports, in which a crime is at least partially confirmed and in which a third party – the police – can evaluate evidence, including the victim’s account.
I just saw a summary of the National Survey, which has some interesting highlights. How many people did the National Survey telephone? 2,568. Sounds like a lot.
How many people said they used a firearm in self-defense in the preceding year? Just 45. And because 45 was about 1.7 percent of the sample, those 45 translated into 3.1 million adult Americans.
Only 19 cases. When the National Survey narrowed things down more, and counted only those who said they used their guns in self-defense and actually showed their guns to someone trying to commit a crime, the number went down to 19 people.
Nineteen people out of 2,568 said they had used guns in self-defense. 19. That’s a pretty small sample. And yet because it’s 0.8 percent of the sample, it became 1.5 million Americans.
That’s so weak it’s bogus.
The braggart factor. First, the sample is too small. Second, it’s not done with official police reports. Third, the phone calls were much too likely to find 1 or 2 percent who were insane or bragging falsely about heroic self-defensive measures. (One woman told a survey caller that she had used a gun to defend herself 52 times that year! And of the 19 reporting self-defense with a gun, six said, in answer to a follow-up question, the “perpetrator” did not threaten, attack or injure them. Figure that out.)
The National Institute of Justice discovered the flaw when it compared the survey’s conclusion that women had used guns to defend themselves against rape 322,000 times in the previous year, when there were only 316,000 rapes and attempted rapes reported that year.
How can people defend themselves more often than there is something to defend against?
Over-reported uses. The report notes that, in real life, women seldom defend themselves against rape with a gun, and yet the self-defense statistics showed they used guns to ward off rapists more often even than rapes or rape attempts happened.
The study also found that 466,000 Americans had defended themselves against robbery in 1994, a year of 1.3 million robberies. That’s way off. No law enforcement official will tell you seriously that victims pull out guns in 36 percent of robberies.
The study’s sample – 19 people! – was simply too small, and the likelihood of falsification, exaggeration and error was simply too high.
Need a real study. I believe that self-defense using a gun is rare, maybe 100,000 times a year. I’d like to know the real number, or something close to it, so we can compare honestly the benefits and risks of gun ownership. A reliable study should be done, and police reports should provide the data.
If police aren’t currently required to note on their uniform crime reports whether a firearm was used in self-defense, the report forms should be changed to require that information.
The more we know, the better.
Frank Warner
I’ve long thought it wise and fair to ban handguns, but require that every household (except conscientious objectors) have a rifle. This is what they do in Switzerland.
Well, the Supreme Court dumped that idea today.
In its 5-4 District of Columbia v. Heller decision, invalidating D.C.’s handgun ban, the court says specifically:
It is no answer to say, as petitioners do, that it is permissible to ban the possession of handguns so long as the possession of other firearms (i.e., long guns) is allowed. It is enough to note, as we have observed, that the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon. There are many reasons that a citizen may prefer a handgun for home defense: It is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long gun; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police. Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.
Undefined limits. Is that a legal ruling, or a commercial advertisement for handguns? For every “reason” to prefer a handgun, there is at least an equal danger in keeping one. But that is the whole debate, isn’t it?
In any case, that scuttles the Swiss compromise for us. In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that there is a limit to the right to keep and bear arms, but other than saying felons and loons can’t have a gun, he does not spell out that limit.
I suppose we should be content the Supreme Court didn’t rule, at least not clearly, that, considering what the Founders meant in the Constitution, private citizens have the right to keep everything from handguns to battleships.
Frank Warner
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