Sep 21, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Another brilliant piece by Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute:
Consider, for instance, the beleaguered UN Human Rights Commission, ostensibly responsible for protecting rights across the world. On the principle of neutrality, a country's brutal practices are no disqualification from joining this commission. Indeed, it has become infested with tyrannies; Syria and Cuba, two blood-soaked dictatorships, have each served as its chairman. And through the commission, notorious violators of individual rights scheme to bury any criticism of themselves. A bloc of Islamic countries, for example, self-righteously defends barbaric practices--stoning to death, crucifixion--carried out in certain states governed by Sharia. When a proposal was drafted to censure North Korea, which arbitrarily executes its enslaved citizens, the motion was soundly defeated thanks to Cuba, Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and others all guilty of similar and worse atrocities. (The toothless proposal to replace the commission with a new council on rights was foreseeable. Since tyrannies have voting prerogatives on UN "reforms," they will sink any proposed council or mold it into a new shield to deflect censure of them.)
Or consider the money corrupt regimes gain access to. For years the UN has showered millions of dollars in aid on the Palestinian Authority, the interim government in Gaza and the West Bank. That aid, mostly swallowed up by the leadership, has buoyed up a brutal regime that strips its people of their rights, their wealth, their dignity, and foments terrorism against Israel. UN aid has also flowed into North Korea's belligerent Stalinist dictatorship, which starves its people in order to fund an enormous military machine and a nuclear-weapons program. What these handouts do is reinforce the walls of prison regimes like North Korea, exacerbate the misery of their citizens, and arm corrupt rulers. [Elan Journo, The UN's "Virtue" Is Its Vice]
For more on the UN see: www.UNisEvil.comSep 19, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From the New York Post: Anon, Annan.
The 840-page Oil-for-Food report released last week by the Volcker Independent Inquiry Commission is a damning document: It demonstrates as clearly as possible that not only is the United Nations broken, but that present management -- specifically, Kofi Annan -- is ill-equipped to fix it.
Related:
The Volcker Oil-for-Food Interim Reports: No Exoneration for U.N. Corruption (April 20, 2005)
Contrary to Annan's claims, the reports do not in any way vindicate him or the United Nations.
United Nations Scandal: Kofi Annan Aide Shredded Thousands of Documents (April 9, 2005)
The destruction of highly sensitive documents by Kofi Annan's chief aide is a massive obstruction of justice that demands major congressional investigation. It gives the impression of a huge cover-up at the very heart of the United Nations, and casts a dark cloud over the credibility of the UN secretary-general. It projects an image of impunity, arrogance and unaccountability on the part of the leadership of the United Nations.
Sep 19, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--Four years have passed since the Sept. 11 massacre by Islamic terrorists, and the threat of yet another attack still looms. That's because a real war has yet to be waged.
The terrorists fighting for Islamic totalitarianism were and are made possible by the dictatorial regimes--including Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia--that support them. Victory requires defeating these regimes. At the very least, we must eliminate the biggest sponsor of Islamic totalitarianism, Iran, which is rapidly trying to build a nuclear bomb while its mullahs chant "Death to America!"
But the Bush administration has substituted the legitimate goal of ending hostile regimes in self-defense with the illegitimate goal of bringing "democracy" to Afghanistan and Iraq. This has allowed Iran and others to orchestrate an insurgency in Iraq that has emboldened the Islamic totalitarians and their supporters and demoralized the United States. Longer term, there's a significant chance that Iraq (or major parts of it) will vote itself into an Islamo-fascist state like Iran.
History demonstrates that the way to defeat an enemy is to destroy its capacity and will to fight by bringing the war into its heartland. That's how Japan and Germany were rendered non-threatening.
The United States must focus its energy on ending the bomb-building, terrorist-sponsoring dictatorship of Iran. Let the real war on terrorism begin, before it's too late. [Source: ARI]Sep 15, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From AP: Iran Proclaims Right to Nuclear Energy.In a fiery speech to the U.N. General Assembly, [Iranian] President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied his nation had any intention of producing nuclear weapons. To prove that, he offered foreign countries and companies a role in Iran's nuclear energy production.
The Iranian leader lashed out at the United States for its insistence on keeping its nuclear weapons even as it rejected Iran's efforts to build a peaceful energy program.
He said Iran has a right to produce nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and implicitly accused the Europeans and Americans of "misrepresenting" Iran's desire for civilian nuclear energy "as the pursuit of nuclear weapons."
"This is nothing more than a pure propaganda ploy," he said.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates its previously and repeatedly declared position that in accordance with our religious principles, pursuit of nuclear weapons is prohibited," Ahmadinejad said.
Sep 11, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Required reading on September 11th:
End States Who Sponsor Terrorism by Leonard Peikoff
Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The climax was September 11, 2001.
Nihilism and the War Against Western Civilization by J. David Lewis
The attack of September 11, 2001 was only one incident in a concerted war on western civilization.Hatred of Western Civilization: Why Terrorists Attacked America by J. David Lewis
The hatred of the West is not based on jealousy but on hatred of the good because it is good. Nihilism, the desire to destroy, is why the enemies of freedom fly planes into buildings and blow themselves up with dynamite.
Diverting the Blame for September 11th by Onkar Ghate
Sept. 11 could have been prevented only by having a principled foreign policy.
What Have We Lost? by Robert W. Tracinski
One year later, the hole in New York's skyline where the World Trade Center towers once stood is a visual reminder of something else that is missing: the ideas and attitudes that make a vigorous war in America's self-defense possible.
The Betrayal of The Bush Doctrine by Alex Epstein
One year after his speech to Congress, President Bush has failed to fight a real war on terrorism.
Forgotten Heroes of 9/11 by Onkar Ghate
On the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack on our way of life,justice demands that we acknowledge an overlooked hero: the businessman.
Columbus Day: The Cure for 9/11 by Thomas A. Bowden
Columbus Day's celebration of Western Civilization reminds Americans why they deserve to win the war against Islamic totalitarianism.
Reflecting America: World Trade Center Memorial Should Celebrate America's Producers by Diane Durante
The people who worked at the World Trade Center (WTC) were all productive people: they were there to do a job and earn money. They died on September 11 because they symbolized that productivity, not just to millions around the world who aspire to live like Americans, but also to the terrorists who despise all that America stands for.
Is Islam at Fault? by Warren Ross
There is a lot of confusion about the nature of Islam, and the extent to which it is the religion itself, as opposed to an "extremist" wing of it, that breeds terrorism. President Bush believes that Islam has been "hijacked" by the terrorists for their own use, and that Islam itself is a peace-loving religion. Is that true? Or is there something about Islam that promotes, condones or ideologically endorses terrorism? Is it a fundamental aspect of Islam, or a perverted interpretation?
A New Yorker Remembers the World Trade Center by Andrew West
"[P]eople tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pest-hole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York."Sep 5, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Andrew Bernstein's The Capitalist Mainfesto has a new website/blog at thecapitalistmanifesto.com
From AP: