Jan 12, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Here's a brilliant article by Mark Steyn on why "events" don't just "happen" but depend on the political context in which they take place. His examples include:- How a miner's strike could cripple Britain in the 1970s but not the U.S. owing to the influence of public-sector unions
- Why, when an ice storm hit the Eastern Seaboard, the power came back on in days in the U.S., but on the Quebec side some people had no power for months
- How rescuers in the World Trade Center tried to get people out, while in Saudi Arabia the authorities pushed girls back into a burning building lest they come out without headscarves
- Why the recent earthquake in California, stronger than the one in Iran, caused only 2 deaths
- How the Chinese government enabled the SARS breakout
- Why the heatwave killed so many in France but not in the US
The New York Sun's Hillel Halkin writes a remarkably unconvincing essay on European support for the Palestinians as being rooted in Christian antisemitism. He is completely blind to the role of altruism--which is why the left supported Israel while it was the underdog, and has abandoned it now that it is strong and powerful.
The Middle East Quarterly's Martin Kramer on how Rashid Khalidi-- holder of Columbia University's Edward Said chair in Arab Studies and director of the university's (government-subsidized) Middle East Institute--says one sort of thing in English, and an entirely different sort of thing when he's speaking in Arabic.Jan 11, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson, a critic of the Iranian regime, is going back to Iran after threats to his family there (and promises he won't be harmed if he goes back) according to Michael Ledeen in a special to the New York Sun:
He had been unable to obtain permission for his wife and children to join him in Iraq, and his wife had recently been visited by Iranian security agents who told her,"if your children suddenly die in the streets, you must know that it was not our doing."
His grandmother sent him a message a few days ago, which stressed the importance "for the family" for him to return, warned of the danger to his children, and contained a promise from the regime that no harm would be done to him. [January 6, 2004]
Recommended Reading:Jan 11, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The New York Sun's liberal columnist Errol Louis makes a good point about "three-strikes" laws:
In 1997, [Santos] Reyes was caught at a Department of Motor Vehicles office in San Bernardino, using a cheat sheet to complete the written portion of a driver's test.
At trial, where his limited English skills required the use of translator, Reyes freely admitted he was trying to help get a license for one of his cousins, who knows how to drive but is illiterate. What Reyes didn't know--and what his court-appointed attorney apparently failed to explain--is that lying on a DMV application constitutes perjury.
Reyes was convicted of perjury, and the court found two prior strikes: a robbery committed 10 years earlier, and a burglary committed in 1981, when Reyes was a juvenile. He was duly sentenced to 26-to-life....
[A] heroin addict named Leandro Andrade [was sentenced] to prison for 50 years. The final two of that wretched thief's three strikes occurred when he stole a few videotapes from a K-Mart, then returned two weeks later to shoplift another five tapes from the same store (estimated value: $84.70)....
[A] concerted political drive to make American law more conservative resulted in a one-vote majority in support of the view, advanced by Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas, that "cruel and unusual" means only what the 18th-century framers of the Constitution would consider cruel and unusual
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 7, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
FoxNews reported that Ad Comparing Bush to Hitler Gets Heat.
MoveOn.org is "using the memory of that genocide as a political prop," American Jewish Congress President Jack Rosen wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, referring to the Holocaust. "President Bush has shown us leadership in Iraq, and our troops have liberated a people who were oppressed by another murderous dictator … comparing the commander-in-chief of a democratic nation to the murderous tyrant Hitler is not only historically specious, it is morally outrageous," Rosen continued.
From Cox and Forkum:
Jan 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Democrats.com:
GOP Demands Censorship of Moveon Ad Comparing Bush with Hitler Once again, the comparison of Bush with Hitler strikes terror in the hearts of Republicans - because they know how close it cuts to the truth. A proposed TV ad submitted by a Moveon member had RNC chair Ed Gillespie spitting bullets. According to Drudge, Moveon removed the ad from its contest - one more victory for GOP censorship, bringing us ever closer to a Nazi dictatorship.
Censorship is speech blocked by physical force--such as when the government physically prevents you from presenting your views (See NY Times Commentator has a Confused Concept of Censorship, The Censorship Smokescreen, and Censorship on Campus? Time to Privatize America's Universities). MoveOn voluntarily removed the ad from their site--no gun or prison sentence was required. Censorship is not the removal of an ad because the advertiser is actually embarrassed by the ad's content. If Democracts.com thinks the ad is so truthful perhaps they should place it on their front page?
