Apr 1, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
Here’s Madeleine Albright joining the chorus of those who, apparently, think it’s better for us just to roll over and die:
The Bush administration’s decision to detain hundreds of people in Guantanamo, Cuba, may be helping the al-Qaeda network recruit terrorists, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said today. “It is possible and perhaps probable that anger over these detentions has helped (Osama) bin Laden succeed in recruiting more new operatives,” Albright, secretary of state in the Clinton administration, said in prepared testimony.
James Taranto comments: “Just about any antiterror measure can be expected to make terrorists or terrorist wannabes angry. Albright’s appeasement approach would lead to complete paralysis and, no doubt, to more terrorist attacks.”
Here’s Hillel Halkin on the same argument, applied to Palestinian terrorists:
The fear that Israel is now in for a worse wave of terrorist attacks than ever rests on the assumption that Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations have so far been showing restraint and will henceforth begin to get serious. This assumption is highly dubious, both because these organizations have already given every indication of doing their utmost to kill Israelis, and because it is unclear what possible motive they might have had for holding back until now.
Mar 31, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
James Taranto notices a double-standard, though he doesn’t go so far as to explain the reason for it:
How come no one ever points out that the terrorists are fueling our hate by attacking us…? How often did we hear last week that Israel had merely “fueled the hate” of Palestinians by killing Ahmed Yassin, who had already directed the murders of hundreds of Israelis…? How come no one ever points out that such belligerence–and the barbarity it incites–only prolongs the cycle of violence and leads to more dead Arabs?
James Taranto also found this one:
The Seattle Times has a Sunday section for kids called “Next,” and the current edition features an online poll that asks “Who do you blame for 9/11?” Three choices are offered: “Bush,” “Clinton” and “CIA.” There isn’t even a write-in category for those who blame the actual culprits, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. And people say it’s crazy to think Saddam Hussein might have been involved?
The following day, Taranto noted:
The Seattle Times has canceled its online poll…. A notice on the page now says: “Because too few options were presented, this week’s pulse question has been changed.” The new question is completely unrelated.
Jan 8, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
Michael Ledeen writes in the NYSun on how the war is going wrong:
[T]hose who expect to see dramatically greater tranquility in Iraq and Afghanistan in the near future will surely be proven wrong….
Afghanistan and Iraq were battles in the war, not ends in themselves, and we cannot consolidate our victories in those places, let alone proclaim a broader victory, without winning the war in the region….
The keystone of the terror network–the fanatical Shiite regime in Iran that has been home to most top Al Qaeda leaders since their flight from Afghanistan two years ago–remains in place, along with its Sunni bosom buddy, the Assad regime in Syria. Both are allied with powerful elements of the Saudi royal family. Because they all know that they cannot survive the success of democratic revolutions in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are funding, training and arming the terrorists in those two countries, just as they have long provided crucial support for Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Ansar al Islam, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the other components of the terrorist universe. Those who believe that the anti-American “insurgency” relies solely, or even primarily, on the shattered remnants of Saddam’s Baathist regime are living in a fool’s paradise….
We can only win, as President Bush has said ever since September 12, by changing the regimes that support them, and we must not await another September 11 to do it. But the president is not calling for regime change in Damascus or Tehran, and continues to speak as if he believed Saudi Arabia is an ally.
Recommended Reading:
Jan 5, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
From the Washington Times:
President Bush yesterday called for making his tax cuts permanent for the first time since signing a major tax-cut package in May that was touted as temporary in order to keep the price tag low. Critics saw the move as an attempt at yet another tax cut “costing more than $1 trillion over the next decade” at a time when Democratic presidential candidates are demanding that Mr. Bush repeal even his earlier, temporary cuts.
Cost whom? Blank out.
Tax cuts cost the government nothing, because government officials did nothing to produce the wealth that is taxed, to begin with.
Taxes cost taxpayers wealth because it is they, and not bureaucrats like Dean, Gephardt, Rangel – and even President Bush -who in their positions as government officials produce no wealth (as least George W. Bush has the decency to allow all taxpayers to keep more of their money).
It is taxpayers who had to work for and earn that wealth that is taxed–and the cost of that tax is the physical and mental effort they had to expend to produce that wealth that is involuntarily taken from them. All government has to do to get wealth is to point a machine gun at a disarmed citizen and threaten them with fines and imprisonment.
… “Some critics, who opposed tax relief to start with, are still opposing it,” [Bush] said. “They argue we should return to the way things were in 2001. What they’re really saying is they want to raise taxes.”
“People are more likely to find work if businesses and their workers can be certain that the lower tax rates of the last years will stay in place,” Mr. Bush said. “Today, you don’t have that confidence. That’s because at the end of next year, the $1,000 child tax credit will shrink to $700. In 2008, capital-gains taxes are scheduled to rise by a third. In 2011, the ‘death tax’ on estates will reappear just one year after being phased out. That doesn’t make any sense,” Mr. Bush told the business owners, who interrupted him with numerous standing ovations during the 42-minute speech. “We’re going to phase out the death tax — which is a bad tax to begin with — and then let it pop back to life. But that’s reality.”
But, unlike death, it doesn’t have to be.
Jan 1, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
Mark Steyn on John Kerry:
… All over the planet, men in late middle age are pretending to like stuff just ’cause it’s what the likes of Maureen Dowd tell them people want to hear. John Kerry pretends to like gangsta rap. Russia pretends it supports the Kyoto Accord. The European Union pretends Yasser Arafat is committed to peace with Israel. The Security Council pretends its resolutions mean something. Kofi Annan pretends the Oil-for-Fraud program is a humanitarian aid effort for the Iraqi people. The International Atomic Energy Authority pretends the mullahs in Tehran are good-faith negotiators on the matter of Iranian nukes.
It’s easy to pander to fashion–whether on pop music, the environment, the Middle East “peace process” or sentimental transnationalism.
From Cox and Forkum:
Dec 21, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
From FoxNews [Hat Tip: B. Harburg-Thomson]:
Libya has agreed to end its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and allow international inspectors to enter the country and search for such weapons, President Bush announced Friday…Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi has admitted trying to develop weapons of mass destruction and now plans to halt all such programs, Bush said…Bush said the United States and Britain, wary of Libyan promises, would watch closely to make sure al-Qaddafi keeps his word. And he said Libya’s promises on weapons aren’t enough; it must “fully engage in the war against terror” as well. If Libya “takes these essential steps and demonstrates its seriousness,” Bush held out the promise of helping Libya build “a more free and prosperous country.”
…The U.N. Security Council ended sanctions against Libya on Sept. 12 after al-Qaddafi’s government took responsibility for the [1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people] and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the victims’ families.
Observe that the best that the U.N. could offer Libya for their 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland was to give Libya chairmanship of the so-called U.N. Commission on Human Rights (while kicking the U.S. off the council). See Another United Nations Sham: Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi to Head the U.N. Human Rights Commission for details of the “U.N. Human Rights” sham. “Multilateralists” and advocates of the “international community” must be wondering how did the U.S. and Britain achieve such a concession without the “assistance” of the United Nations?
…But the United States has kept its own 17-year embargo in place.
If you are an admirer of “Old Europe” foreign policy you must be thinking: Doesn’t the U.S. know that such a policy does not “work”? All it does is to create “resentment.” How does one “build bridges” with such an “unilateral” foreign policy, clearly not approved by Howard Dean, Kofi-Annan, and his merry band of U.N. approved dictators? Dictators must be cuddled, kissed, and appeased.
…Libya had relied heavily on foreign assistance for its weapons programs. It had already made overtures suggesting it would slow or halt its programs to improve its international standing.
Foreign “assistance” from whom? Anyone from the “Axis of Weasels”? The report does not say.
The U.S. intelligence statements on Libya’s alleged weapons programs suggest efforts in that country were not as advanced as Iraq’s were before the U.S.-led invasion. At the White House, Bush said the war in Iraq and efforts to stop North Korea’s nuclear program had sent a clear message to countries such as Libya that they must abandon weapons programs.
“In word and in action, we have clarified the choices left to potential adversaries,” Bush said. That was an apparent reference to Iran and North Korea, two other countries that the United States contends are trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. Without naming them, Bush added: “I hope other leaders will find an example” in Libya’s action. [“Libya to Allow Weapons Inspections”, FoxNews, December 20, 2003]
To quote from a previous Dollars and Crosses new item from the The London Telegraph (September 13, 2003) that quoted an interview of Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi:
“I said, given the enormous and paradoxical success of fundamentalism, why don’t we reform the UN? Let us say to Mr X or Y in this or that dictatorship, you must recognise human rights in your country and we give you six to 12 months to do so, or else we intervene. “We can do this now because there is no countervailing power,” he said referring to the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union.
“…Yes! By force if necessary, because that is the only way to show it is not a joke. We said to Saddam, do it or we come. And we came and we did it.” A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi said the prime minister had been telephoned recently by Col Gaddafi of Libya, who said: “I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.“
Thanks to America’s words and deeds the world is, in fact, a safer place. America must not stop until it End States That Sponsor Terrorism.
***
From Cox and Forkum:
Recommended Reading:
Thinking it Alone: U.S. Must Reject the Evil Doctrine of “Multilateralism” by Alex Epstein
Military decisions are decisions about life and death–about what should be done to protect us from enemies who seek our destruction. If our leaders are to fulfill their obligation to defend our country, they must–starting with Iraq–reject the poison of “multilateralism” and replace it with the virtue of independent, rational judgment.
Libya Gets Away With Terrorist Acts Against the United States by Alexander Marriott
At a time when the United States of America are fighting a war against International Terrorism and Terrorist States, the last thing the country needs is the appearance of weakness or appeasement. But the settlement that is looking more and more likely between the families of those who perished in Pam Am flight 103 and the Libyan government, that had that plane destroyed, is just such an act of appeasement and weakness that, if it comes to fruition, will only embolden clandestine acts of terror by states hostile to the United States.
Another United Nations Sham: Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi to Head the U.N. Human Rights Commission by Brett Schaefer
Even the most creative scriptwriter couldn’t top the real-life plot twist the U.N. Commission on Human Rights will have concocted when Libya becomes its chairman.
“Multilateralism’s” One-Way Street by Robert W. Tracinski
The past week has shown us that “multilateralism” is really a one-way street–a street that consistently runs against American interests.
Lockerbie Verdict Vindicates Continued Sanctions Against Libya by James Phillips
The outcome of the Lockerbie bombing trial underscores the need for a firm U.S. policy toward Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi.
The UN Human Rights Agenda: A Strategy of Diversion by Anne Bayefsky
UN intergovernmental human rights machinery is not keen on specifics. Its members include some of the most notorious human rights violators in the world today: China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Those countries prefer devoting UN funds, (22% of which are from the United States), to criticizing Israel – lest attention wander too close to home.
The United Nations Against Individual Rights by Jeff Jacoby
If the UN ‘Human Rights’ Commission were really concerned with human rights, the accession of a ghoulish regime like Libya’s to the chair would indeed be a scandal. But the commission’s true purposes are to give Third World bullies a venue for grandstanding, to harangue Western democracies, to ensure that the world’s cruelest rulers escape condemnation, and, of course, to bash Israel. There’s nothing in that agenda to disqualify Libya. Or, for that matter, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, China, Syria, Sudan, or Zimbabwe — each a notorious human-rights violator and each a commission member in good standing.
UN Confidence Games: Libya as the Chairman of the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission? by Ken Adelman
With the official representatives of Libya and Syria having control over key United Nations agencies, you wonder just how much wisdom the UN can impart to guide American foreign policy.
