An Interesting Hypothesis: Saddam’s Big Ruse

Jul 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Nobody at the [Iraqi mission to the United Nations] said they had any knowledge about the whereabouts of the weapons of mass destruction. It was from here that they had been telling the world so emphatically no such weapons existed. But their instructions, it seems, were also to make sure that no respectable weapons inspector could believe those denials.  It was all a big ruse, said Mr. Ahmad, who now gets his salary from the American-led administration of occupied Iraq. More than anything, he said, Saddam was interested in leaving intact the international sanctions imposed on the country since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. "He wanted Iraqis to be poor so they can work all day to feed their families," rather than thinking about rebellion, Mr. Said said. Poverty and constant wars were the regime's way of keeping Iraqis down and the regime in power. [NY Sun]

[What empowered Saddam was that no one with power, until George W. Bush, opposed him.--Editor]

Why Don’t Those Imperialist Americans Die To Save Us From Our Fellow Africans?

Jul 21, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Thousands of angry Liberians stood outside the embassy asking when U.S. troops would come to protect them. Refugees hurled rocks at an NBC News crew that approached the scene, demanding to know whether reporter Michael Davie was American. Davie, who is in Monrovia on assignment for MSNBC's "National Geographic Explorer," is Australian.

"People are dying!" a refugee yelled. "They can't come in to rescue us?" Relief workers made similar pleas. "We need international peacekeepers here now, not in one or two months' time," said Sam Nagbe of Oxfam. "People here are really suffering but as long as the fighting continues we are unable to help them. The U.S. must commit troops now and end this waiting game that is costing lives."

Why doesn't the U.N. do it? Or even better how about having the thousand or so peaceniks form a wall in Liberia. After all, those peacemongers were more than willing to attack U.S. policemen who are much better armed than a bunch of Liberian bandits.

[...] One man held up a hastily scrawled sign: "Today G. Bush kill Liberia people."

Liberians are killing the Liberia people--and the reason is failure to adopt the hallmark of American culture-- individualism--in favor of tribalism, a species of collectivism.

Bush has said any deployment of U.S. troops is conditional on the departure of Taylor, a former warlord indicted for war crimes in Sierra Leone, where he supported a brutal rebel movement. Taylor launched Liberia's last civil war in 1989, emerging in 1996 as the strongest warlord. He was elected president the following year, and now faces rebels who include former rivals from the earlier war. Taylor's enemies hold about two-thirds of Liberia. The fighting has its roots in tribal hatreds inflamed by a civil war in the 1990s in which at least 200,000 people died.

Suggested Reading:
Foreign Policy and Self-Interest: Liberia Campaign Would Be a Moral Crime
A foreign policy based solely on America's self-interest is not simply practical, but *moral*--which is why any "humanitarian" mission, such as the proposed campaign in Liberia, is a moral crime.

Jesus or John Galt?

Jul 18, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

The film, which Gibson directs, stars James Caviezel as Christ during the last 12 hours of his life and Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene. The $25 million production was shot in the Aramaic language of the time, but there were subtitles for Thursday's showing.

...Gibson said the film "was a strange mixture of the most difficult thing I've ever done, along with this incredible ease. Everyone who worked on this movie was changed. There were agnostics and Muslims on set converting to Christianity." ["Faith Guided Mel Gibson Through 'Passion'", Jun. 29, 2003]

The Muslims won't like that--and neither does it appear do crusading, anti-Passion groups:

This quest for fidelity has made some people nervous. Even without seeing the film, some Jewish and Catholic leaders have accused Gibson's film of fomenting "religious animosity" and even anti-Semitism. They worried that the film might blame "the Jews" for the death of Jesus. And they requested that a panel of scholars be allowed to review the script before the film's release.

Gibson's defenders include Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver. He wrote that he found it "puzzling and disturbing that anyone would feel licensed to attack a film of sincere faith before it has even been released." He reminded Gibson's liberal critics that when The Last Temptation of Christ--an attack on the historic Jesus--came out, "movie critics piously lectured Catholics to be open-minded and tolerant. Surely that advice should apply equally for everyone."

Writes editorialist David Reagan:

...Gibson doesn't want this to be like other "sterilized religious epic(s). I'm trying to access the story on a very personal level and trying to be very real about it." So committed to realistically portraying what many would consider the most important half-day in the history of the universe, Gibson even shot the film in the Aramaic language of the period. In response to objections that viewers will not be able to understand that language, Gibson said, "Hopefully, I'll be able to transcend the language barriers with my visual storytelling; if I fail, I fail, but at least it'll be a monumental failure."

I for one think the movie will be monumental success, in part for its graphic depiction of the death of Christ. It should also be a timeless demonstration of the most disgusting thing about Christianity: the idea of that the best of all men--according to Christian lore the "Son of God" Jesus--dying painfully on the cross for the sins of the evil. Or, to quote philosopher Ayn Rand (from a Playboy interview):

Now you want me to speak about the cross. What is correct is that I do regard the cross as the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. Isn't that what it does mean? Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the non-ideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture.

For a concrete demonstration of how the good should be treated see Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Cartoon: Meanwhile in Iran…

Jul 17, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Cartoon: Uncivil War

Jul 16, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From Cox and Forkum:

Writes Allen Forkum:

Some conservatives used the "states' rights" argument to condemn the recent Supreme Court sodomy ruling. Objectivist scholar Dr. Harry Binswanger concisely explained why that argument is mistaken in this letter to the editor of The New York Sun:

"Scalia in his dissent on the sodomy decision writes: 'It is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste.'

"Sounds like he's trying to keep meddlesome government out of people's lives doesn't it? But look at the switch he has pulled: the 'judgments' he wishes to protect are the laws passed by the Texas legislature -- laws arresting individuals for behavior that, whatever one thinks of it, is clearly within their rights. The meddlesome 'governing caste' is the Texas legislature, which the Supreme Court properly told: stop arresting individuals for private, peaceful, consensual activity.

"Yes, I'm sure the Texas law does reflect the will of the majority of Texans. So what? Slavery represented the will of the majority in the ante-bellum South. Hitler's Reich reflected the will of the majority of Germans in the Nazi era.

"Unlimited majority rule is a form of statism, not Americanism. Our system, contrary to Scalia's notion, holds individual rights above the power of any majority to infringe, 'and among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.' A right is the individual's protection against the will of any collective, whether that collective is called 'the State,' 'the people,' or 'Das Volk.'"

Canadian Journalist ‘Beaten to Death’ Iran

Jul 16, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses