May 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
John Kerry protested the following statement reported by CNN, but the Bush Administration has been silent:
Crown Prince Abdullah said on Saudi state-run television that "Zionists" are behind terrorist attacks in his country. Abdullah and other Saudi officials have consistently blamed al Qaeda for attacks on Saudi soil, and the terrorist network has claimed responsibility for several. Abdullah did not suggest that Israelis or Israel supporters plotted or carried out any of the attacks. But he said, "I am 95 percent sure that Zionism is behind the attacks, for I believe that [Zionists] play in the minds of those who are committing the attacks." He did not spell out precisely how he believes Zionists influence those launching the acts of terrorism in his kingdom. [CNN]
May 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
The London Telegraph reports: French 35-hour week 'a disaster'.The French government yesterday described the 35-hour working week as a financial disaster that was costing the state billions of pounds and promised to reform the system despite fierce union opposition.
This story comes via TIA Daily, where Robert Tracinski noted:This "war on ambition," as I dubbed it, has been enforced by such repugnant measures as searching the briefcases of young executives as they leave their office buildings, to ensure that they are not taking extra work home with them.
Is it any wonder why France's economy is on the skids?May 19, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
AP reports: Surveys: More Iraqis Want Democracy. (Via Brain Terminal)"Very low down the list is an Islamic theocracy, in which mullahs and religious leaders have a lot of influence, such as in Iran," said Burkholder, who polled in Baghdad in August and nationwide in late March and early April for CNN and USA Today.
This is good to hear, but it's nonetheless disturbing that a theocracy is even being considered. But much worse still is the fact that, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell, we would allow an Islamic theocracy to be established in Iraq.
From this weekend's Tim Russert 'Meet The Press' interview with Powell:RUSSERT: In those free, open and fair elections, if the Iraqi people choose an Islamic theocracy similar to what we have in Iran, we would accept that?
POWELL: We will have to accept what the Iraqi people decide upon. [...] [Emphasis added]
Powell goes on to say the "thinks" the Iraqi people will make the right choice, saying: "[M]y sensing of what the Iraqi people want is a democracy with a majority, but with respect for all the minorities, all working together to create the kind of country they'll be proud of."
The possibility of an Islamic theocracy being established in Iraq should be absolutely out of the question, regardless of what the majority of Iraq people want. The primary reason for our soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq was to eliminate a threat to America, not to give the Iraqi people a chance to democratically vote themselves into an Islamist dictatorship that would be yet another threat to America. That Powell is openly counting on what he "senses" Iraqis will do does not inspire confidence that he holds our national security as the primary issue.
In his May 17 TIA Daily editorial, titled "A Roadmap for American Defeat," Jake Wakeland named a likely reason for the Bush Administration's compromising position:At a meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations on Friday, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that the United States military would withdraw from Iraqi if that nation's new government requests it. The foreign ministers of Britain, Italy, and Japan joined him in pledging they also would withdraw their troops if asked.
This is the Bush Administration's answer to the question of whether it truly intends to transfer sovereignty of Iraq to Iraqis on June 30.
This is the sacrifice the Bush Administration intends to make to prove that the United States did not invade Iraq for the 'selfish' purposes of national security. President Bush has often claimed that the invasion benefits the Iraqi people. Now he is going farther. To prove that their liberation from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship was a purely altruistic act, Mr. Bush is now deliberately putting the security of the American people up for a majority vote -- by a majority of the Iraqi people.
After WWII, we imposed on Germany and Japan democratic, secular, rights-respecting systems of government to ensure that neither would be long-term threats to America. We should do the same in Iraq and Afghanistan for the same reason.May 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From BBC News:
Battered Indian shares have rebounded after their worst ever day of trading. The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex index closed 8.3% higher at 4,877.02. It had lost more than 16% during trading on Friday and Monday. The news that Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born leader of the Congress party, was not planning to take the position of prime minister was a key factor in Tuesday's rally, traders said. She later confirmed the reports and withdrew from the race. A possible replacement is Manmohan Singh, a senior party member and the man who launched India's economic reforms in the 1990s. In an interview, he said that the new government's "policies will be pro-growth, pro-savings, pro-investment".
May 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From the BBC:
Government fears hit India shares Indian shares have recorded their biggest-ever fall in a single day's trading amid fears the new government could stall economic reform. The Bombay Stock Exchange plummeted more than 700 points, a 15% drop, before recovering slightly. Traders have fears about the economic plans of the new government, set to be led by Sonia Gandhi after her Congress party's surprise election win.
...The BJP is against the Italian-born Mrs Gandhi becoming prime minister because of her foreign origins. ["Government fears hit India shares"]
The BJP lost because it was unable to properly communicate the importance of market-reforms--which cannot instantly repair the decades of damage done by India's former socialist policies. Rather then focusing on the Italian-born Gandhi's "foreign origins" they should have focused on the origins of her suggested left-wing domestic policies. On the plus side, as a Roman-Catholic, she may symbolically help bring peace between India's warring religious-tribal groups as she is neither Muslim or Hindu--if she advocates the principle of individual rights as a solutuion, as opposed to the balkanization of promoting "group rights."
The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 30-share sensitive index fell 553.29 points in the first few minutes of trading, falling below the psychologically important 5,000-point mark and wiping billions of dollars off the value of India's listed companies. Trading was temporarily suspended but the index slid a further 200 points after it resumed, forcing a second suspension. The BSE sensitive index closed the day at 4,505.87 points, down 11%. Analysts say the market crashed after foreign institutional investors, who had invested some $10bn in the Indian stock markets over the past year, began to sell heavily...Investors fear the Communists, who hold the key to the new government, would block economic reforms especially privatization of state-owned companies.
...The BJP and its allies had been widely expected to win on the strength of a buoyant economy and peace moves with Pakistan.
Hopefully, the Gandhi government will understand that whatever reforms they make they should not attempt to derail the Indian economic engine my throwing a socialist wrench into its motor. If Gandhi continues the previous "free-market"-like economic reforms expect the Indian stock market to rise over time.May 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From the UK Telegraph:American athletes have been warned not to wave the US flag during their medal celebrations at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens for fear of provoking crowd hostility and harming the country's already battered public image....The plan is part of a charm offensive aimed at repairing the country's international reputation following the deepening crisis in Iraq and damaging revelations of torture and mistreatment of detainees by US forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.
Given Saddam's actual rape and torture of his own people (i.e., raping of 13 year old girls by his sons; chopping off of tongues and beheading for disobedience; throwing handcuffed dissenters off the tops of building; whips and slashes that make Mel Gibson's Christ-flick seem like kindergarten; thousands upon thousands murdered) while for nearly a decade U.N. bureaucrats under Kofi Annan moved billions into Swiss bank accounts in the "Iraqi oil money to U.N. crony Swiss Bank account" program, while the useful idiots at CNN drank champagne as they profited over Saddam's manufacture of Iraqi corpses--only a fool would have the gall to even hint that America's reputation has anything to do with Abu Ghraib prison.
"American athletes find themselves in extraordinary circumstances in Athens in relation to the world as we know it right now," said Mike Moran, a veteran former spokesman for the US Olympic Committee who has been retained as a consultant to advise athletes about the correct way to behave.
"Regardless of whether there is anti-American sentiment in Athens or not, the world watches Americans a lot now in terms of how they behave and our culture. What I am trying to do with the athletes and coaches is to suggest to them that they consider how the normal things they do at an event, including the Olympics, might be viewed as confrontational or insulting or cause embarrassment."
It is precisely because the world watches how Americans behave that America's athletes should set the opposite example. Despite its contradictions America is still the freest country on earth (heaven knows for how long given its anti-American intellectual climate). If anyone should be ashamed it should be the supporters of Saddam's regime.
Cartoon by Cox and Forkum
Humilty as a response for achieiving a long-range goal is to commit a moral fraud for the sake of flattering the of others. For an athlete to act humble for winning a gold medal is to spit in his own face. It is to dishonor his own accomplishments. Observe Aristotle's comments on the man of pride:
He must also be open in his hate and in his love (for to conceal one's feelings, i.e. to care less for truth than for what people will think, is a coward's part), and must speak and act openly; for he is free of speech because he is contemptuous, and he is given to telling the truth, except when he speaks in irony to the vulgar. He must be unable to make his life revolve round another, unless it be a friend; for this is slavish, and for this reason all flatterers are servile and people lacking in self-respect are flatterers.
The model for American athletes to follow is that of Mel Gibson in The Patriot: to wave the American flag proudly. Returning back to the UK Telegraph article:
"What I am telling the athletes is, 'Don't run over and grab a flag and take it round the track with you.' It's not business as usual for American athletes. If a Kenyan or a Russian grabs their national flag and runs round the track or holds it high over their heads, it might not be viewed as confrontational. Where we are in the world right now, an American athlete doing that might be viewed in another manner."
Why the double standard? Why is it that athletes of every present and former third world dictatorship can flaunt their countries' flag proudly, but the athletes of greatest country on earth--economically, politically, and morally--may not? No matter what American's do they will be condemned: if American athletes do not show pride it is their own admission of guilt; if American athletes do show pride it is proof of the evil of American arrogance. American's are dammed by the "international community" if they do, and they are dammed if they don't.
Cartoon by Cox and Forkum
It is entirely second-handed for Americans to base their actions on the irrational beliefs of others. The only thing that makes such a setup possible is America's moral sanction. It is far time that Americans withdraw that sanction. Given the moral cowardice and turpitude of America's congressman and diplomats, it is doubtful that the U.S. will withdraw from the U.N. But, America's athletes--the greatest in body, but not necessarily in mind--may take an intellectual, and profoundly moral stand: by withdrawing their moral sanction by refusing to appease the envy and ignorance of others.
The U.S. should have first taken out Iran, but that they deposed of Saddam Hussein without the permission of the U.N. is no grounds for condemnation, but for applause. Despite all his European defenders, Hitler had no right to exist--and despite all of his European supporters neither did Saddam have any right to exist either. Hopefully, Arafat and the monsters who rule Iran will be next--but then I am expecting far too much from President Bush, who waivers between the moral "cowboy" attitude of American self-assertivebess and the altruistic, immolation of Christian "turn the other check" self-sacrifice. The latter is shamefully evidenced in Bush's rule of permitting Americans to die, in order to save a pile of bricks used to protect terrorists who slaughter American troops, because those bricks are declared as a "holy site" of Islam. The proper viewpoint is that if any terrorist attempts to kill Americans while hiding in a "holy site", is to make that site into one big hole.
...And at an Olympic football qualifying match in Mexico earlier this year the American team was subjected to sustained barracking by a section of the crowd, including chants of "Osama, Osama".
Given the fact of September 11th this is proof of why Americans should wave the flag proudly--and why the trash who made such smears should be ignored.
...The irony is that finishing the Games as the most powerful nation is unlikely to endear them to the rest of the world.
The may the "rest of the world" be damned. American athletes--wave your flag proudly--and if you are silent, let it be in remembrance of your fellow American athlete Pat Tillman.
AP reports: 
