Iraq Study Group Report

Dec 7, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

In 1945, Americans knew that there was truly "no substitute for victory," as General MacArthur said in his farewell speech to Congress. In 1945, Americans also knew the meaning of "victory." It was not a mere word, empty of content. It named a specific task, and a precise goal. To say that our aim today is "to attain victory" can be as empty and futile as urging a college student to "do well," or a businessman to "succeed." What constitutes "doing well"? What is "success"? How will we know when we have achieved "victory"? The question is: What is it that we really need from the enemy? History offers yet another example. The words proclaimed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which defined the terms of victory, and which he held intransigently for over two years, are "Unconditional Surrender." Bringing long-term peace to the world, said FDR,

involves the simple formula of placing the objective of this war in terms of an unconditional surrender. . . . Unconditional surrender means not the destruction of the . . . Japanese populace, but does mean the destruction of a philosophy . . . which is based on the conquest and subjugation of other peoples.

In other words, continued FDR:

We have learned that if we do not pull the fangs of the predatory animals of the world, they will multiply and grow in strength . . . [they] must be disarmed and kept disarmed, and they must abandon the philosophy which has brought so much suffering to the world.

The term "Unconditional Surrender" has been closely linked to Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant, who demanded "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender" from his southern foe at Fort Donelson, Kentucky. For this victory, Grant was heroized as "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. To Americans of the time, "U. S." stood for Ulysses S. Grant, for the United States, and for Unconditional Surrender. Americans demanded nothing less than victory, and equated victory with their own identity as a nation.

This is what we must regain today: the sense of ourselves as right to drive victoriously over a viciously evil enemy. We must demand the unconditional surrender of the Islamic State in Iran--and of every other Islamic Totalitarian State on earth--to the legitimate laws of man, the laws that protect individual rights.

After talks with his top Iraq war ally President Bush on Thursday indicated that Iran and Syria might be included in regional talks about Iraq, if they meet certain conditions. ... The Iraq Study Group report also called on the United States to hold talks on the war with Iraq's neighbors, including Syria and Iran, a nation which has not enjoyed diplomatic relations with Washington in the nearly three decades after the Iranian revolution.

"Having an international group is an interesting idea," Bush said.

"We have made it clear to the Iranians that there is a possible change in U.S. policy, a policy that's been in place for 27 years," said Bush. "And that is that, if they would like to engage the United States, that they've got to verifiably suspend their [nuclear] enrichment program."

Lecture: Flemming Rose on “Why Publish the Danish Cartoons?”

Dec 1, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism

Nov 30, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

On December 7, 1941, we were attacked by Japan, a country then governed by a militaristic, religious ideology, in pursuit of a divine empire, with indoctrinated soldiers who soon used suicide tactics. We chose the ruthless, offensive response. Three years and eight months later, the Japanese surrendered, their country in ruins, their people starving. Five years after the attacks, Japan had a constitution that included the following (from its famous Article 9): "[T]he Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation. . . . The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

Sixty years after the U.S. ended two generations of aggressive Japanese warfare, Japan remains free, productive, and friendly to America. The Japanese have not abandoned their traditions—nor has anyone asked them to do so—but they no longer use them to kill and enslave others. Rather than seek our destruction, Japan has become a staunch political ally, a robust free-market competitor, and an invaluable economic producer. Rather than build bombs and fighter planes with which to attack us, the Japanese build cars and computers that contribute immensely to our own high standard of living.

In perfect contrast, the second option—the pragmatic, altruistic, limited-military response—has been the basic approach of the Bush Administration to the attacks of September 11, 2001. What are the results?

Putin and the Rule of Law

Nov 29, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

This cartoon was originally posted on February 22, 2005, and is one of over 400 illustrations in our new book, Black & White World III, which can be purchased online through us, or Amazon.com

From FoxNews: British Airways to Contact Passengers After Traces of Radiation Found on Planes.

Two British Airways jets tested positive Wednesday for low-level radioactive contamination as the probe into the apparent murder of a former KGB agent uncovered a trail leading directly from London to Moscow. FOX News has learned that British authorities are checking into whether anyone onboard the planes are associated with the radiation poisoning death of ex-Russian spy and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko. ...

Litvinenko, who died Nov. 23 in a London hospital, claims Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind his death.

The former spy said he believed he had been poisoned on Nov. 1, while investigating the death of another Kremlin detractor investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. His hair fell out, his throat became swollen and his immune and nervous systems were severely damaged, he said.

From the San Francisco Chronicle: Russia -- the usual suspected assassin; Kremlin denies all, everybody shrugs.

Whether the Russian government is really behind the death of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, 21st century Russia still looks like the kind of country that would assassinate its adversaries James Bond-style by slipping radioactive polonium-210 into their sushi. After all, a former KGB spy holds the nation's highest office [President Vladimir Putin]. Former intelligence operatives are senior Cabinet members. The state controls virtually every media outlet. Many who, like Litvinenko, dare to criticize the government are intimidated, imprisoned or exiled. Some are murdered, their cases unsolved.

The Kremlin obstructs the work of international civil liberties watchdogs and silences domestic adversaries who criticize human rights abuses, particularly in the war-torn republic of Chechnya.

Given this record, it is not surprising that many people have been quick to pin the blame on the Kremlin, even though the Kremlin's many accusers have offered no evidence of its guilt, said Sarah Mendelson, an expert on Russia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

From CNN: Full statement by Alexander Litvinenko.

You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilized men and women.

You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.

Lecture: The Fountainhead as a Romantic Novel

Nov 29, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

Free-Speech, Kramer and the “N-Word”

Nov 28, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

Black leaders challenged the entertainment industry, including rap artists, actors and major studios, to stop the use of the racial slur that triggered the scandal involving "Seinfeld" comic actor Michael Richards. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader, and others said Monday they will meet with TV networks, film companies and musicians to discuss banning the racial slur that is a derogatory term for blacks. They also sought an effort by the public to stop using the term. ... Richards, who played the wacky neighbor Kramer on "Seinfeld," triggered outrage with a November 17 racial rant against two black men when he was heckled during a stand-up comedy routine at the Laugh Factory nightclub in West Hollywood. ... Richards has made several apologies, including one Sunday on Jackson's syndicated radio program, in which he has said he is not a racist and was motivated by anger.

At the press conference, comedian Paul Mooney said he has used the "n-word" numerous times during stand-up performances but will no longer do so after watching Richards' rant. "He's my Dr. Phil," the black comedian said. "He's cured me."

Asked about free-speech issues, Jackson said the word is "unprotected."

A white aide to Washington Mayor Anthony Williams who resigned after using the word "niggardly" in a conversation will be returning to city government, ending a flap over what critics derided as political correctness run amok. ... On January 15, Howard used the word "niggardly" -- a synonym for "stingy" -- in a conversation with two aides. Eleven days later, he resigned as rumors were spreading that he had used a racial epithet. ... But columnists and commentators pounced on the incident as yet another example of the ludicrous state of politics and race relations in Washington.

Snow Gray

Nov 21, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

THE Bush administration has not been known for dramatic policy shifts, until last week. For while the US President was making tentative noises that Syria and Iran might have a role to play in salvaging something from the wreckage of Iraq, the previously unthinkable was already happening.

Damascus and Tehran have been talking to senior Washington diplomats and advisers about their role in creating some kind of stability in the region.

James Baker, the former Secretary of State leading a task force of Washington's "wise men" to try to find the most palatable policy options available is acting as a proxy for the administration as it tries to persuade Iran to put pressure on Shi'ites to compromise while also pressuring Syria to use its influence with the Sunni leaders of the insurgency.

The US's new willingness to engage Iran was demonstrated when Baker recently had a three-hour dinner with Tehran's ambassador to the UN. ...

Although the US is not officially speaking with either Damascus or Tehran, Baker's talks point the way towards a future in which it is compelled to shift direction in private, even if it continues to take a hard line publicly.

Baker himself has repeatedly argued that "it is not appeasement to talk to your enemies". Even so, the remaining hawks in the administration ask what possible carrots the US can offer Syria and Iran - the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism - in return for their help in Iraq that would not themselves negate key elements of American foreign policy.

The Baker view, however, has at least one powerful ally in the administration. Robert Gates, nominated to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defence, is also in favour of talks with Iran and Syria. Gates, who is currently serving as a member of the Iraq Study Group, will now advocate engagement from inside the administration.

Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, a frequent adviser to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, has concluded that the United States must choose between stability and democracy in Iraq -- and that democracy, for now, is out of reach.

Discovery vs. Ignorance: The Difference Between Science and Religion

Nov 21, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

[...] Scientists may scoff at people who fall back on explanations involving an intelligent designer, [Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson] said, but history shows that "the most brilliant people who ever walked this earth were doing the same thing." When Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathematica" failed to account for the stability of the solar system — why the planets tugging at one another's orbits have not collapsed into the Sun — Newton proposed that propping up the mathematical mobile was "an intelligent and powerful being." It was left to Pierre Simon Laplace, a century later, to take the next step. Hautily telling Napoleon that he had no need for the God hypothesis, Laplace extended Newton's mathematics and opened the way to a purely physical theory.

"What concerns me now is that even if you're as brilliant as Newton, you reach a point where you start basking in the majesty of God and then your discovery stops — it just stops," Dr. Tyson said. "You're no good anymore for advancing that frontier, waiting for somebody else to come behind you who doesn't have God on the brain and who says: ‘That's a really cool problem. I want to solve it.' "

"Science is a philosophy of discovery; intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance," he said. "Something fundamental is going on in people's minds when they confront things they don't understand."

He told of a time, more than a millennium ago, when Baghdad reigned as the intellectual center of the world, a history fossilized in the night sky. The names of the constellations are Greek and Roman, Dr. Tyson said, but two-thirds of the stars have Arabic names. The words "algebra" and "algorithm" are Arabic. But sometime around 1100, a dark age descended. Mathematics became seen as the work of the devil, as Dr. Tyson put it. "Revelation replaced investigation," he said, and the intellectual foundation collapsed. He did not have to say so, but the implication was that maybe a century, maybe a millennium from now, the names of new planets, stars and galaxies might be Chinese. Or there may be no one to name them at all. ["A Free-for-All on Science and Religion", NY Times, November 21, 2006, ]

The Rational Basis of Happiness: Ellen Kenner on iTunes

Nov 19, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

Nutritional Wisdom with Joel Fuhrman M.D.

Nov 15, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is board-certified family physician and graduate of The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. A nationally recognized nutritional expert, Dr. Fuhrman is also the author of several acclaimed books including; "Eat To Live", "Disease Proof Your Child", "Cholesterol Protection For Life", and "Fasting and Eating for Health". Dr. Fuhrman's books have helped thousands to lower cholesterol, reverse diabetes, and lose weight. As a former world class athlete and coach, Dr. Fuhrman was a member of the United States International and World Figure Skating Team, winning medals in pair skating on both the national and world levels. He has dedicated his life career towards understanding nutritional science applying it in his medical practice. Over the years, Dr. Fuhrman has helped thousands of patients lose weight permanently and achieve dramatic recoveries from "so-called" irreversible diseases via nutritional excellence.

The Scientific Pros and Social Cons of Calorie Restricted Diets

Nov 15, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

[...]Seat belts, vaccines, clean tap water, and other modern miracles have dramatically boosted average life expectancies, to be sure—reducing annually the percentage of people who die before reaching the maximum life span—but CR alone demonstrably raises the maximum itself. In lab studies going back to the thirties, mice on severely limited diets have consistently lived as much as 50 percent longer than the oldest of their well-fed peers—the rodent equivalent of a human life stretched past the age of 160. And it isn't just a mouse thing: Yeast cells, spiders, vinegar worms, rhesus monkeys—by now a veritable menagerie of species has been shown to benefit from CR's life-extending effects. Despite the mounting evidence, however, the link between CR and longevity remained for many years a medical curiosity, its implications for human health intriguing, certainly, but unexplored.

[...] In 1991, however, the proposition was simplified somewhat when a team of eight bioscientists sealed themselves up for a two-year stint inside a giant, airtight terrarium in the Arizona desert—and promptly discovered that the hypothetically self-sustaining ecosystem they'd settled into could barely grow enough food to keep them alive. This revelation might have doomed the experiment (known as Biosphere 2) but for the fact that the team's physician, UCLA pathologist Roy Walford, had been studying the Calorie Restriction phenomenon for decades and convinced his fellow econauts that—as long as they all ate carefully enough to get their daily share of essential nutrients—a year or two of near starvation wouldn't hurt. When at last the Biosphere 2 crew emerged from their bubble, tests proved them healthier in nearly every nutritionally relevant respect than when they'd gone in, and the case for Calorie Restriction in humans was no longer purely circumstantial. ["The Fast Supper", Julian Dibbell, New York Magazine]

The Moral Greatness of Sports Heroism

Nov 14, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

Bush Foreign Policy is Evil

Nov 7, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

In other words, 340 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan fighting for absolutely nothing. In Iraq, 2801 American soldiers have died for worse than nothing, i.e. in order to create yet another virulently anti-American Islamic regime. In both conflicts, over 10,000 American soldiers have been seriously wounded.Yet in a recent (11/2) TIA Daily article entitled "Is Bush All Hat and No Cattle?", Robert Tracinski claims that "All of Bush's errors [in Iraq] could have been, and still can be, corrected." Did I miss something? Has Jesus granted President Bush the power to raise the dead and heal the wounded?It's not mere "error" to kill over 3,000 American soldiers and seriously wound more than 10,000 for the sake of granting our Islamist enemies the power to vote in Islamist governments that will shelter, organize, and finance the terrorists who will attack America and other civilized nations in upcoming years. It's not mere "error" for an American President to pursue that strategy despite overwhelming evidence of its grossly self-destructive results.So let's call a spade a spade: President Bush's foreign policy is active, deliberate, and blind self-sacrifice. That's not error. It's evil.

One argument made for a Republican vote in this election—and the support it will bring to President Bush—is that Bush has the right foreign policy aims in mind; he errs only in their pursuit. If we would just give him the support he needs, he will correct his errors—thus speak his apologists.Well, some 3,000 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and over 10,000 have been maimed. Until those apologists raise the dead and restore lost limbs, the "errors" remain uncorrectable.Bush has had nearly four years to watch this horrendous destruction of our youth—and to understand its purpose, and its cause. But the more body bags and stretchers come home, and the more our position deteriorates, the more he demands we "stay the course." What course? The good of the Iraqis, which trumps all other considerations.This is not error. This is the intentional, ongoing, committed sacrifice of our young people to foreign strangers. This is evil.Please spare me the rejoinder that Iraq is a "small war" next to World War II, and that we lost 12,500 dead and over 50,00 wounded at Okinawa alone. The war is not small to that 25 year old soldier who wanted to protect his country, but ended up losing his legs for the Iraqis. It is the purpose of the war—sacrifice on behalf of others—that makes it evil, not the body count.The withdrawal of support for the Iraq war by the American people is a healthy response to this sacrificial carnage. It is their recognition, even though implicit, that that the Iraqis have no claim on the lives of our young people.

On Veterans Day we must call for a stop to the sacrifice of our soldiers

Nov 6, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

Sacrificing our Soldiers in Sadr City

Nov 2, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

Black and White World III

Nov 1, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

"Many of us discovered Cox & Forkum in the days after September 11th. It was a strange time. After cartoonists had done their initial muted-in-sorrow Statue-of-Liberty-with-head-bowed-to-the-missing-towers tastefully tragic responses to the day itself, many seemed to have great difficulty finding a tone for the new era. And into the void stepped Cox & Forkum." -- MARK STEYN from the introduction

We're proud to announce our latest book, BLACK & WHITE WORLD III. All our editorial cartoons from November 2004 to October 2006 are included, plus:

-- An introduction by Mark Steyn, author of the New York Times bestseller America Alone;
-- A Cox & Forkum interview with Cox & Forkum, for an inside look at how we create cartoons together;
-- Newsmaker and other caricatures by John;
-- Pages from John's sketchbook;
-- "Cartoon Jihad": A section devoted to our Mohammed-related cartoons, including a previously unpublished interview by Robert Tracinski (publisher of The Intellectual Activist), and his "Publish or Perish" editorial;
-- "The Ahmadinejad Code": A section devoted to our covert cartoon for Iran's Holocaust cartoon contest, including developmental sketches;
-- "Ground Zero": A section devoted to our cartoons about the battle for a proper 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center site, including the editorial by Debra Burlingame that started it all;
-- Gag cartoons for the Buster McNutt humor column;
-- And more ... over 400 illustrations!

Physics By Induction: A Revolutionary Science Curriculum

Oct 30, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

"Dave Harriman seems to know effortlessly everything worth knowing about physics and its history; yet he also knows that the student must be led through the material carefully, in crystal clear steps, if he is to understand the logic and power of the subject. As a result, physics taught by Harriman comes alive in the student's mind as a real part of his thinking. Harriman taught me physics personally, so I know whereof I speak." -- Dr. Leonard Peikoff

A Tale of Two Conservatisms

Oct 26, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses

What the mandarins of the conservative establishment do not and cannot understand, given their philosophy, is that conservatives—to the extent that they ever had any interest in defending individual rights and limited government—lost the fight because they never engaged the enemy with the only kind of weapon that could win: a moral argument against the claim that those in "need" have a moral claim on one's life, liberty, and property. More importantly, mainstream conservatives have never made a philosophic argument for individual rights, limited government, and capitalism on explicitly moral grounds. Ultimately, they are embarrassed by, and have always worked very hard to hide, the fact that capitalism can only be justified if each and every man has a moral right to live and work for his own sake and not as a sacrificial beast of burden to the "needs" of society. It is true that the GOP and its intellectual allies in the conservative movement have employed the rhetoric of rights, but there has never been any philosophic substance to their arguments. Once one peels away the folksy rhetoric, the hollow bromides, and the patriotic slogans, the conservative position comes down to this: The free-enterprise system is good because it "works" better than any other system, because it produces more wealth that can be subsequently "shared" with the less fortunate.

Not even Goldwater conservatives can offer an alternative to the welfare state, because they too accept its moral premises. Why? Why do all conservatives accept the moral premises of the liberals? The answer, in a word, is religion.

[...]

Liberalism invokes the altruism of Marx; conservatism invokes the altruism of Jesus; and both camps are indebted to Rousseau for his emphasis on compassion. With respect to individual rights, there is and can be no fundamental difference between a secular-liberal welfare state and a religious-conservative welfare state. It matters not one whit to me whether my earned wealth is forcibly redistributed by a Hillary Clinton or a George Bush government; either way, my money is seized. The political subjugation of the individual in the name of the morality of sacrifice is the essence of both.

Compassionate conservatism and neoconservatism have not corrupted the GOP as some conservatives have argued; they have simply exploited and brought to the surface principles that have been at the heart of the conservative intellectual movement from the beginning. Consequently, after decades of an impossible struggle in which conservatives fought liberal government programs while accepting and agreeing with liberal altruism, they have finally and officially given up, abandoned their former half-formed principles, and openly embraced the philosophical roots of the Left.