Sep 29, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Peter Worthington in the Toronto Sun:
Comparing U.S. President George Bush with Winston Churchill may seem a stretch. Yet there's a parallel -- not with Churchill of the war years, when he was the "free" world's most admired leader, but with Churchill of the 1930s when he stood alone, warning about the rise of Nazism. Then, pacifism was rampant in Britain and Europe. Hitler's aggression was rationalized by wishful thinking. Peace at any price. Except for Churchill. He began warning that the Nazis must be stopped when they occupied the Rhineland in 1936. He urged an alliance of Britain, France and the Soviet Union to stop Hitler's expansion. [Churchill] was called a warmonger, an enemy of peace, reviled in print and in speeches. Few stood with him. History has proven Churchill right.
With the U.S. election entering the home stretch, Bush is under the same sort of attacks for his war on terrorism and Iraq that Churchill endured before WWII. Critics among both Republicans and Democrats worry that America acted alone, without approval of the UN Security Council, and without support of France and Germany. The "war" aspects of Afghanistan and Iraq were so successful that criticism was muted. It's the "peace" and trying to bring democracy to Iraq that has revived critics, who now give Bush the sort of treatment Churchill once received for warning about Hitler. Sen. John Kerry's prime theme is that Bush has made America resented -- especially by France and Germany. What most overlook is that by his war on terrorism, Bush is doing now what Churchill was advocating in the mid-1930s.
More than that, Bush is doing what the UN is supposed to do, but rarely has -- curb tyrannies that threaten security and stability, and which indulge in oppression and human rights abuses. Britain, under Prime Minister Tony Blair, supports America. So does Australia, and countries like Poland, and former communist countries of East Europe. Italy, too. And since the terrorist attack on the school in Beslan, Russia seems ready to join this new alliance against Islamic terror that threatens civilization...Bush's is not the only voice, but his is the loudest. Unlike Churchill, who had no power when he urged Britain and the West to wake up, Bush has power. And the "wakeup call" was 9/11. [Peter Worthington, "Why George Bush is today's Churchill", Toronto Sun, September 28, 2004. Hat Tip: Steve Michaud]
Sep 29, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The shamefully dishonest Children's "Defense" Fund blasted the U.S. House of Representatives today for passing a bill that would lift Washington D.C.'s unconstitutional (and immoral) ban on handguns "even as [brace yourself for some fraudulent sensationalism] children continue dying from gunfire on the city's streets." Just how that is possible given the city's draconian ban on firearms was not explained. Could it be that (shock!) violent criminals don't respect gun laws? Perhaps that would explain why D.C.'s murder and violent crime rates have increased since law-abiding citizens were disarmed by the ban in 1976. (Nice way for the capital to celebrate America's bicentennial...)
As a devious attempt to obscure the facts, the CDF dubbed the current firearm ban a "gun safety" law. Safety? Do CDF members view Prohibition as simply a nationwide "alcohol safety" policy, or Nazism as a mere extreme form of "Jewish safety?" And just what conclusion is one left to draw about an organization that is constantly advocating "child safety?"
Thanks all the same, CDF, but no children I know need your version of "defense."Sep 29, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
So I did the panel discussion this morning, and it went very well. A couple of exceptions though, a call-in panelist from the Anti-Defamation League said that the quote from my Columbus article, that some cultures are better than others contrary to the doctrine of cultural relativism, was "ignorant." Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to respond to that but I find it amusing in the extreme. Would the Anti-Defamation League condemn (as they should) a comment that Jewish or Israeli culture was/is no more valid than German culture through the lens of Nazism? Of course they would and should condemn such a barbaric statement and assertion immediately, not because they think all cultures are valid, but because it is painfully and tragically apparent that some cultures are savage, barbaric, and evil, while others are just the opposite. She even contradicts herself later on by admitting some practices of the Incas and Aztecs were indeed barbarous, which cannot be if one accepts fully the doctrine of cultural relativism.
Another point, the representatives of the Rebel Yell and the Hispanic and Indian student groups did not show up for the discussion. This makes the panel a bit long winded as the remaining panelists agreed almost entirely on the main topics. I was looking forward to a good debate and instead all I got was the vision of my detractors running scared.
You can listen to the program here.
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Christopher Columbus, We Salute You by Alexander Marriott
The legacy of Columbus was not death and destruction.
Sep 28, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From The Ayn Rand Insittute:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), meeting this week in Washington, hopes to convince the United States to approve a no-strings-attached foreign aid proposal that includes $465 million to Iran and $90 million to Syria. "Giving money to these known state sponsors of terrorism," says Dr. Andrew Bernstein, senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, "is akin to giving money to Stalin."
Iran, the spearhead of Islamic totalitarianism and a sworn enemy of the United States, is currently developing nuclear weapons. "Where," Dr. Bernstein asks, "will these no-strings-attached millions go--to finance nuclear bombs that will be used to annihilate Israel and to demolish New York City?"
"In the 20th century Lenin claimed that the capitalist West would sell communists the rope with which communism would hang it. And because the West lacked the understanding and self-esteem to uphold the ideals of freedom and capitalism, it did repeatedly deal with and appease the communist (and fascist) totalitarians. Today, because of the same lack of understanding and self-esteem, the United States is contemplating not selling the rope with which the religious totalitarians will hang us--but giving it to them for free."
Sep 27, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The scoop on the anti-hero Ernesto Che Guevara:
...Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a tragedy on the hugest scale.
The present-day cult of Che—the T-shirts, the bars, the posters—has succeeded in obscuring this dreadful reality. And Walter Salles' movie The Motorcycle Diaries will now take its place at the heart of this cult. It has already received a standing ovation at Robert Redford's Sundance film festival (Redford is the executive producer of The Motorcycle Diaries) and glowing admiration in the press. Che was an enemy of freedom, and yet he has been erected into a symbol of freedom. He helped establish an unjust social system in Cuba and has been erected into a symbol of social justice. He stood for the ancient rigidities of Latin-American thought, in a Marxist-Leninist version, and he has been celebrated as a free-thinker and a rebel... ["The Cult of Che: Don't applaud The Motorcycle Diaries", Paul Berman, Slate]
...and the result today of those who worship him:
...Right now a tremendous social struggle is taking place in Cuba. Dissident liberals have demanded fundamental human rights, and the dictatorship has rounded up all but one or two of the dissident leaders and sentenced them to many years in prison. Among those imprisoned leaders is an important Cuban poet and journalist, Raúl Rivero, who is serving a 20-year sentence. In the last couple of years the dissident movement has sprung up in yet another form in Cuba, as a campaign to establish independent libraries, free of state control; and state repression has fallen on this campaign, too.
I wonder if people who stand up to cheer a hagiography of Che Guevara, as the Sundance audience did, will ever give a damn about the oppressed people of Cuba—will ever lift a finger on behalf of the Cuban liberals and dissidents. It's easy in the world of film to make a movie about Che, but who among that cheering audience is going to make a movie about Raúl Rivero?
Sep 26, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
In the The Weekly Standard, William Kristol writes: Disgraceful: The disgraceful behavior of John Kerry and his team is sufficient grounds for concern about his fitness to be president. (Via InstaPundit)... Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi spoke to a joint meeting of Congress. Sen. Kerry could not be troubled to attend, as a gesture of solidarity and respect. Instead, Kerry said in Ohio that Allawi was here simply to put the "best face on the policy." So much for an impressive speech by perhaps America's single most important ally in the war on terror, the courageous and internationally recognized leader of a nation struggling to achieve democracy against terrorist opposition.
But Kerry's rudeness paled beside the comment of his senior adviser, Joe Lockhart, to the Los Angeles Times: "The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips."
Is Kerry proud that his senior adviser's derisive comment about the leader of free Iraq will now be quoted by terrorists and by enemies of the United States, in Iraq and throughout the Middle East? Is the concept of a loyalty to American interests that transcends partisan politics now beyond the imagination of the Kerry campaign?
John Kerry has decided to pursue a scorched-earth strategy in this campaign. He is prepared to insult allies, hearten enemies, and denigrate efforts to succeed in Iraq. His behavior is deeply irresponsible -- and not even in his own best interest.
There is some chance, after all, that John Kerry will be president in four months. If so, what kind of situation will he have created for himself? France will smile on him, but provide no troops. Those allies that have provided troops, from Britain and Poland and Australia and Japan and elsewhere, will likely recall how Kerry sneered at them, calling them "the coerced and the bribed." The leader of the government in Iraq, upon whom the success of John Kerry's Iraq policy will depend, will have been weakened before his enemies and ours -- and will also remember the insult. Is this really how Kerry wants to go down in history: Willing to say anything to try to get elected, no matter what the damage to the people of Iraq, to American interests, and even to himself?
Here's how Al-Jazeera reported Kerry's comments to the Middle East: Allawi's Congress speech draws flak. First they quote a "regional analyst.""Iraq is not free nor is it stable. There is nationwide chaos. Its infrastructure has been destroyed and its wealth pillaged and plundered by the US occupation," [Mustafa Bakri, editor of the weekly Egyptian news magazine al-Osboa] told Aljazeera.net.
Then they introduce Kerry's comments:The most severe criticism, however, came from Kerry, who claimed Allawi's speech was an attempt to put the "best face" on an Iraq campaign that is out of control.
You think al-Sadr and al-Zarqawi smiled when they read that? I do.
