Think Palestinian terrorists are using the "ceasefire" to search for a peaceful solution to the conflict? Think again: Militants re-arm under cover of Israel truce.

The head of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza strip has admitted the militant group is using an ongoing truce with the Israeli military to re-arm, heightening fears of an explosion of bloodshed when the ceasefire comes to an end next month. In an exclusive interview with Scotland on Sunday, Mohammed al-Hindi warned that militant Palestinian groups are preparing for confrontations in the wake of Israeli military operations that could even lead to the collapse of the fragile truce ahead of next month's deadline.

Al-Hindi said: "It is natural that we strengthen ourselves during hudna [the three-month ceasefire declared by Palestinian groups in June]." The Islamic Jihad leader was responding to Israeli accusations that his group, which has carried out numerous suicide bombings and other attacks, is using the lull in hostilities to gather weapons and re-build its armed wing. And he said that other groups, including Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and Hamas, should follow Islamic Jihad's example. "It is natural that the Palestinians, Fatah, the Islamic Jihad, Hamas, be ready to defend their people in the coming stages," he added.

An AP article titled "China Planning Constitutional Changes" reports that the communist nation is considering a formal acceptance of capitalistic ideas.

"The news reports gave no details of the possible changes. But foreign analysts say they include the communist era's first guarantee of property rights for entrepreneurs who have driven China's two- decade-old economic boom. [...] "It wasn't until 1999 that the constitution was amended to declare private business an 'important component' of the economy, not just a 'complement' to state industry."

In "Confession of an Anti-Sanctions Activist," Charles M. Brown exposes one leftist, anti-American "peace" group for what it really was: a tool for Iraqi Baathist propaganda.

"Our uncritical treatment of the Iraqi regime was not a case of ignorance. It was the result of a deliberate choice we made among our priorities. We had to decide which moral challenge we wanted to make. We chose to limit that moral challenge to the U.S. policy of maintaining sanctions against Iraq. We were never particularly interested in or suited to challenging Saddam and his regime over their invasion of two neighboring states, the systematic genocide against the Kurds, or Saddam's consolidation of one of the most violent internal security systems in the world."

This article is a good study in the massive evasion necessary to support leftist causes. The author even traces the roots of the group (Voices in the Wilderness) back a Catholic radical group from the '70s. Ultimately, however, the author fails to see the altruist/socialist connections between the group and Saddam's regime:

"It was tragically ironic: Voices and the regime did not share a single value. Voices [in the Wilderness] was an attempt by Catholic radicals and their disciples to promote their vision of world peace; Saddam Hussein's only apparent desire was to maintain his iron grip over Iraq. Voices and the regime agreed only that the sanctions crisis was rooted in U.S. policy. Yet that single point of agreement became the fulcrum of Voices' venture in Iraq. This was yet another case of politics making for the strangest possible bedfellows."

 Also of interest from the archives:

• "I Was Wrong." by Ken Joseph, Jr. (April 1, 2003)
  I had been demonstrating against the war thinking I had been doing it for the very people I was here with now and yet I had not ever bothered to ask them what they wanted...Over and over I questioned them 'Why could you want war? Why could any human being desire war?' They're answer was quiet and measured. 'Look at our lives! We are living like animals. No food, no car, no telephone, no job and most of all no hope.'
• Smashing Windows for Peace by Robert Garmong (March 28, 2003)
• Peaceniks: Warmongers for America's Enemies by Alex Epstein (December 10, 2002)
• Debunking the Clichés of Pacifism by Kevin Delaney (October 13, 2001)

If Democrats were really concerned about America's security, they would be criticizing Bush not for attacking Iraq, but for not also attacking Saudi Arabia and Iran. Not for failing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but for failing to identify militant Islam as our ideological enemy. Not for increasing law enforcement's focus on Arabs and Muslims coming into America, but for shying away from really doing it. Not for failing to prevent the September 11 terrorist attacks, but for failing to act forcefully enough to prevent the next ones.

But if Democrats changed their rhetoric and criticized Bush for all the above they would have to embrace self-interest as the basis for American foreign policy. But then they wouldn't be Democrats, would they?

In September of 1857, a wagon train passing through Utah was trapped and viciously attacked in one of the most despicable acts of  religious fanaticism ever perpetrated on American soil. The travelers were set upon by white men disguised as Indians, and within a matter of minutes approximately 140 men, women, and children were killed in an open area called Mountain Meadows. Young girls begged for mercy and had their throats slit; men were shot execution-style or, in some cases, bludgeoned to death. Their bodies were then stripped of clothing and valuables and left to rot in the open field. The incident, the subject of contentious debate for more than a hundred years, was most likely officially sanctioned by leaders of the Mormon church.

The second example is from a review in the New York Times of the current film The Magdalene Sisters, which is apparently based on reality:

 "[B]ad girls" exiled from their families and communities, often  after becoming pregnant out of wedlock, were forced to do slave  labor in convent laundries that proliferated in Ireland until  recently. The existence of these religious labor camps run by the  Sisters of the Magdalene Order came to light only in the 1970's with  the discovery of the unmarked graves of women who lived there. After  the scandal broke, the laundries were closed, the last in 1996. Some 30,000 women are thought to have passed through their gates. Once incarcerated, the women were forced to toil long hours under close guard doing unpaid work that was deemed fitting penance for  their sins....Forbidden to talk while on the job, the prisoners were continually  harangued by the nuns in charge about their sins and the  unlikelihood of salvation. Disobedience was punished with beatings  and the shearing of their hair. Although some of these outcasts were  eventually reclaimed by family members, others were simply abandoned to spend the rest of their lives behind locked institutional doors.

Rather than promote religious tyranny, America should see its military objectives through and get out of Iraq--outside of maybe a few military bases--with the proviso that we'll be back to topple any future government that should threaten our interests. Outside that, if the Iraqis insist on being savages, they deserve what's coming to them.

For decades liberals have been telling everyone that they should be more race conscious. They have convinced the government and even the Supreme Court to not only allow but to force businesses and universities to select employees and college students according to racial criteria. The unsurprising result has been that everyone has become more racist. The latest consequence of this focus on race is that now blacks are being accused in EEOC cases of being racist towards other blacks based on the particular shade of their blackness--those with lighter skin color considering themselves superior to those with darker skin!

When will all this absurdity stop? Only when people, with the government's blessing, begin to treat people as individuals. What counts is not our skin color but our character. Character is determined not by our pigmentation genes but by the choices we make in life. The only cure for racism is individualism: the doctrine that each individual is a being of self-made soul and is to be judged accordingly, regardless of race, color or nationality.

Budgeting several billion dollars to build a nuclear bomb by the  time of the next American presidential inauguration, in January 2005. ...Moving aggressively to expand Iranian influence in Syria by building mosques in Damascus and by providing free and low-cost oil to the Syrians. ...Undermining America in Iraq by working with Saudi Arabia, Syrians,  and loyalists to Saddam Hussein.

In addition,

"They were very anxious to get face-to-face time with American  officials," [Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy  Education Center, Henry] Sokolski said, describing the Iranians as  "pleading" for him to go to New York to meet with officials at the  Iranian mission to the United Nations. He declined. "I think they  want to make folks believe they are meeting with Americans all the  time, that the dissidents should give up..."