Dr. Sanity: July 2005

Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life

Sunday, July 31, 2005

The 'Real "Quagmire"

Iraq is a quagmire, all right. But not for the U.S..

Great quote:

If al-Qaida is indeed shifting personnel out of Iraq, expect to hear more about Iraq as an "incubator" for terrorism. But what, pray tell, do the promoters of this theory imagine Zarqawi and his minions would have been doing these past two years if there had been no war in Iraq? Origami?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:51 PM |

Carnival of the Insanities

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:49 AM |

Saturday, July 30, 2005

ISLAMIC DELUSION

Let us take just a moment to list some recent examples of delusion, denial, paranoia, and projection in Islam that were in the news in just the past two weeks. It will be illuminating.

LEADING CLERIC RAILS AT INJUSTICE OF MUSLIM BASHING
Money quote: Mohammad Naseem, the chairman of the city's central mosque, called Tony Blair a "liar" and "unreliable witness" and questioned whether CCTV footage issued of the suspected bombers was of the perpetrators.

He said that Muslims "all over the world have never heard of an organisation called al-Qa'eda".

SAUDI PRINCE SAYS ZIONISM RESPONSIBLE FOR ATTACKS
Money quote:Last month, an attack on contractors at the Saudi oil facility in Yanbu killed six Westerners, two of them Americans. Senior Saudi officials told the world al-Qaida terrorists were to blame and al-Qaida claimed responsibility.

But tape obtained by NBC News reveals that, inside Saudi Arabia, on Saudi television, Crown Prince Abdullah told a strikingly different story about who was to blame.

NBC News translated Abdullah's remarks from Arabic: “Zionism is behind it. It has become clear now. It has become clear to us. I don’t say, I mean... It is not 100 percent, but 95 percent that the Zionist hands are behind what happened.”

Other senior Saudi officials reaffirmed the claim that supporters of Israel — Zionists — were behind the terror attacks.

Prince Nayef, the Saudi Interior Minister said, “Al-Qaida is backed by Israel and Zionism.”

LEBANESE GENERAL ON HIZBULLAH TV: "GLOBAL ZIONISM" BEHIND LONDON BOMBINGS AND 9/11"
Money quote: Several Egyptian "security experts" and "political analysts" interviewed by Arab TV stations after the Sharm e-Sheikh bombings on Saturday claimed that Israel and Jews were behind the carnage.

The accusations were made despite a claim of responsibility by a group citing ties to al-Qaida, according to a statement posted on an Islamic Web site.

EGYPT SUSPECTS ISRAEL OF HOTEL BOMBINGS
Money quote: But in his sermon Friday, he said the "evil phenomenon" of terrorism "stems from the policy of arrogance (by the United States and Israel)."

At a small mosque in Cairo's Heliopolis suburb, the Friday preacher appealed to his congregation, trying to explain the proper meaning of "jihad" - a word often translated as "holy war" but more broadly meant as a "struggle" for Islam against oppression.

IRAN NEWS AGENCY SAYS ISRAEL BEHIND IRAQ AND LONDON BOMBINGS
Money quote: A news agency run by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed that Israel was “using the mask of Al-Qaeda and [Abu Musab] Zarqawi to hunt down diplomats based in Iraq” and that “the London bombings were also part of the mischief by Israel”.

“Israel is now in control of religious extremists, particularly the Wahabis and the Salafis, in Arabia and North Africa”, it claimed.

LEBANESE MUFTI DR.MUHAMMAD ALI AL-JOZO: 9/11, LONDON ATTACKS BY U.S. OR ZIONISTS --NOT BIN LADEN
Money quote: Al-Jozo: "America and Israel... There is no doubt that Israel plays a major role in distorting the image of Islam. Even in London – I said that Zionists are involved in that operation – they want to distort the image of Islam in Britain and Europe, and to drive a wedge between Muslims and the West. This is obvious.

What really is obvious is that there are many leaders and followers of Islam who are living in a paranoid delusion of massive proportions.

Ask yourself what function a delusion like this serves for the user--what painful truths it serves to cover up, and what unacceptable thoughts or feelings it disguises--and you will understand why both paranoia and denial are powerful and immature/psychotic psychological defense mechanisms that are completely out of touch with reality.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:59 PM |

Manipulation

Two perspectives that are remarkably similar on how the media distort reality. The first from Neo-neocon:

Kundera has described a great deal of what drives public opinion today, and how public opinion in turn shapes the perception of reality in a circular feedback loop facilitated by polling. He doesn't mention the MSM directly here (he does get to it later), but of course it's a big part of this loop.

I found his analysis of why it is possible for the process to work this way particularly compelling; the scale of modern life makes it impossible to know about things in the way people in a village used to know what was going on in that small arena. And so we are dependent on image shapers and the media to construct a reality for us, and we are often none the wiser that it is a distorted reality.

And now Dymphna at the Gates of Vienna, who demonstrates how the media distort reality by what they DON'T report:

Sources say Hamas operations coordinators in Gaza use the station to provide terrorists with directions such as the exact coordinates in and near Gaza City from which to launch the rockets and mortars and the trajectory to be used in firing the Qassam missiles.

But the best part is the punchline. Want to know why Hamas and the Voice of Al Aqsa are coordinating this effort? Because then Hamas can say it drove the Israelis from Gaza, rather than the truth of it, which is that the Israelis decided to unilaterally withdraw from the area.
Analysts expect the rocket attacks to increase as the evacuation date gets closer so that Hamas, popular in the Gaza Strip, can claim to its Palestinian supporters it drove Israel from the area.

That’s Islamofascist manly warrior priniciples in action, folks. The kind of military that indoctrinates its kindergartners in Jew-hatred and trains them with toy missle launchers. The same people who make their women hide weapons in their underwear.

There is no question that Manipulation is a powerful tool to control the masses. Distorting what is said and carefully choosing what is not said is a part and parcel of that process. One that the MSM appears to have perfected since the unfortunate series of events that led to a Republican president.

Robert J Lifton in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China, identifies 8 basic requirements for total thought control and manipulation:

1. Milieu Control, or the control of communication.

2. "Mystical Manipulation" or extensive personal manipulation that seeks to provoke specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that these will appear to have arisen spontaneously. A good example of this is the pervasive and obsessive use of POLLS by the media to demonstrate the unpopularity of causes or people to whom the MSM are opposed. Any dissenting polls are minimized or simply not reported. Thus people are continually pressued to go along with the opinions of the group that runs the MSM. I might mention that the use of polls and and opinion data are interestingly selective, of course, and are often very carefully worded to obtain the response desired. Wouldn't want people to get the incorrect message (a good example is the fact that most people are not even aware of how resiliant and robust the economy is right now. Somehow all the positive economic indicators have not made it to the MSM outlets).

3. The Demand for Purity - this encompasses the insistence that people they don't like be completely perfect in every way; that wars need to be completely perfect in every way --otherwise they are not "moral"; that everything, everywhere must turn out perfectly otherwise it is a "failed" policy--except of course for the policies of which they approve, which have considerable leeway for imperfection.

4. The Cult of Confession - the constant calls to confess sins--especially sins one hasn't committed; to admit mistakes; and to bow before the altar of ideological purity.

5. Reference to "Sacred Science" - "an aura of sacredness around its basic dogma, holding it out as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence. This sacredness is evident in the prohibition (whether or not explicit) against the questioning of basic assumptions, and in the reverence which is demanded for the originators of the Word, the present bearers of the Word, and the Word itself. While thus transcending ordinary concerns of logic, however, the milieu at the same time makes an exaggerated claim of airtight logic, of absolute "scientific" precision. Thus the ultimate moral vision becomes an ultimate science; and the man who dares to criticize it, or to harbor even unspoken alternative ideas, becomes not only immoral and irreverent, but also "unscientific." In this way, the philosopher kings of modern ideological totalism reinforce their authority by claiming to share in the rich and respected heritage of natural science."

6. Loading the Language-"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis. In [Chinese Communist] thought reform, for instance, the phrase "bourgeois mentality" is used to encompass and critically dismiss ordinarily troublesome concerns like the quest for individual expression, the exploration of alternative ideas, and the search for perspective and balance in political judgments." We see this manipulation of language everywhere in the MSM in the hopes that we won't notice that the word "bomber" or "insurgent" has replaced the word "terrorist".

7. Doctrine over Person - which means the subordination of human experience to the claims of doctrine. This is perfectly exemplified in Neo-neocon's post by Kundera's description of the Communist's rage over reality: "For example, communists used to believe that in the course of capitalist development the proletariat would gradually grow poorer and poorer, but when it finally became clear that all over Europe workers were driving to work in their own cars, [the communists] felt like shouting that reality was deceiving them." Actually, though the voices in the MSM, they are still shouting it and actively trying to cover-up reality by resorting to the old slogans and empty rhetoric--hoping perhaps that reality will simply go away.

8. The Dispensing of Existence - this is seen in all totalitarian regimes: drawing a sharp line between those whose right to existence can be recognized, and those who possess no such right. In the MSM this is implemented by what they choose not to tell, as well as which special interests they promote over others. For example, speaking out against Islam is taboo; but raving aboutCatholicism is perfectly appropriate. Trashing Islam is harassment; but trashing Christianity or Judaism is OK because they had it coming. You can see this in many other areas besides religious preferences (e.g., speaking of "The Federalist Society" as if it were a secret cult of black magic intent on destroying all freedoms. Fortunately, for the reading public, the MSM has not yet achieved the power to determine who shall live and die--but just remember that the "pen is mightier than the sword"; and when the pen is in the hands of a totalitarian thug or apologist, it can be pretty powerful.

Interesting, isn't it, how similar are the tactics used by the so-called "free" press to those used by the Communist Chinese (the subjects of Lifton's analysis) to control their large population?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:54 PM |

The Boo is Back !

My husband and I travelled up to the Petosky area last night so we could pick up the Boo this morning! They let parents in the gate at 11:00 sharp.

As you can see, I survived her first extended stay away from home--though it felt like I wouldn't when she first left! Miracle of miracles, we actually received THREE letters from her and they all said exactly the right thing ("Hi Mom and Dad. I miss you, but I'm having a fabulous time!")

I missed her terribly, but on the other hand there wasn't nearly so much laundry; the bathroom stayed spotless; and I was finally able to clean my way through to the bed in her room, removing weeks old trash, debris and unmentionable crud (How can teens live like this? I've consulted with other parents and they all give me reason to believe the Boo might actually spend more time cleaning her ~~cave~~ room, than their kids do! Hard to believe.)

But she is coming home now, and all seems right with the world!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:34 AM |

The Council Has Spoken !

This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher's site. Every week the Council nominates posts from the blogs of the Council members, and posts from around the blogsphere. The Council then votes to select the "Best" of all these posts.

BEST COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place

History and Fantasy Right Wing Nut House

Second Place

Responses to Nuclear Terrorism The Glittering Eye

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place

Anonymous Rectal Intercourse Hog on Ice

Second Place

And Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep The Belmont Club

Be sure to check out all the winners at the Watcher's site!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:33 AM |

Friday, July 29, 2005

Yet More Glorification of "Martyrdom"

This should be shocking, but since I no longer believe that Islam is a religion of peace, I'm immune from the stunning revelation from the President-elect of Iran on Al-Arabiya TV:

Ahmadi-Nejad on the Art of Martyrdom

The following are excerpts from a speech by Iranian President-Elect Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, which aired July 25, 2005 on Iranian Channel 1. In it, he praises martyrdom operations and states that Islam will conquer the world. (To view this clip, visit http://memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=782.)

Ahmadi-Nejad: "We want art that is on the offensive. Art on the offensive exalts and defends the noble principles, and attacks principles that are corrupt, vulgar, ungodly, and inhuman.

"Art reaches perfection when it portrays the best life and best death. After all, art tells you how to live. That is the essence of art. Is there art that is more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom? A nation with martyrdom knows no captivity. Those who wish to undermine this principle undermine the foundations of our independence and national security. They undermine the foundation of our eternity.

"The message of the [Islamic] Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. It is a human message, and it will move forward.

"Have no doubt... Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world."

We have been adequately warned.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:02 PM |

Infinitely Less Stupid

As I sit here watching on FoxNews the latest British raid on a flat to take one of the London bomb terrorists, I am also reading an excellent column at Townhall.com by Charles Krauthammer:

Britain is now desperately trying to correct its never-neverland hospitality to agitators and inciters. It is proud of its long history of harboring exiles, misfits and revolutionaries from just about everywhere. After all, Karl Marx lived, wrote and died in London. But 52 dead and the near-miss two weeks later are helping Britain place necessity above nostalgia.

The American response to tightening up after London has been reflexive and idiotic: random bag checks in the New York subways. Random meaning that the people stopped are to be chosen numerically. One in every 5 or 10 or 20.

This is an obvious absurdity and everyone knows it. It recapitulates the appalling waste of effort and resources we see at airports every day when, for reasons of political correctness, 83-year-old grandmothers from Poughkeepsie are required to remove their shoes in the search for jihadists hungering for paradise.

The only good thing to be said for this ridiculous policy is that it testifies to the tolerance and good will of Americans, so intent on assuaging the feelings of minority fellow citizens that they are willing to undergo useless indignities and tolerate massive public waste.

Assuaging feelings is a good thing, but hunting for terrorists in this way is simply nuts. The fact is that jihadist terrorism has been carried out from Bali to Casablanca to Madrid to London to New York City to Washington by young Islamic men of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asian origin.

This is not a stereotype. It is a simple statistical fact

Krauthammer proposes that we follow logic instead of PC and specifically scrutinize young Islamic males of North African, Middle Eastern, or Southeast Asian origin.

You object that either plan -- giving special scrutiny to young Islamic men, or, more sensitively, just eliminating certain demographic categories from scrutiny -- will simply encourage the jihadists to start recruiting elderly, Norwegian women.

OK. We can handle that. Let them try recruiting converts, women and non-usual suspects for suicide missions. That will require a huge new wasteful effort on their part. And, more important, by reducing the pool of possible terrorists from the hundreds of millions to the, at most, tens of thousands, we will have reduced the probability of an attack by a factor of 10,000. Those are far better odds at far less cost to us in money and effort. And infinitely less stupid.

Sounds good to me.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:50 AM |

Harry Potter and US History

What does Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince have to do with American history as it is taught in schools today? Read this excellent piece by David Broder to find out!

Broder's thoughts about what our schools are NOT teaching matches remarkably well with my own.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:44 AM |

Bogus

The Counterterrorism Blog says that the "fatwa" issued by American Muslim leaders is bogus.

The terms "hudna" and "taqiyya" come to mind. The former is a truce entered into by Muslims in order to give themselves time to rearm and prepare for when the truce is called off (see history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for numerous examples of this tactic used in modern times). The latter is the deliberate deception about Islam to non-believers for the purpose of preventing harassment, while remaining true to the faith.

It is rather disheartening to think that these are some of the fundamental principles of Islamic discourse. Especially because we really really want to believe good of everyone.

May I remind all of you about the natural history of many battered women? After the woman is brutally beaten, the apologies, remorse and promises of good behavior come pouring from the abuser. I remember one woman whose hospital room was filled with flowers, balloons and cards from the husband who had made her face black and blue and caused her to have to undergo major surgery to stop the internal bleeding from his "love". I talked about her in this post when I was discussing Islam's oppression of women. Her case is equally appropriate to consider here, when we might fall for the same kind of false sincerity.

Words are cheap. If the fatwa is part of of a strategy of hudna or taqiyya, then the words of these "leaders" are meaningless --no matter how much we wish they actually reflected the "true" Islam.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:35 AM |

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Sad, But True....

Consider this opinion by Michael Graham in Jewish World Review (and you ought to read the entire thing):

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is outraged that I would dare to connect the worldwide epidemic of terrorism with Islam. They put it down to bigotry, asserting that a lifetime of disinterest in Islam has suddenly become blind hatred. They couldn't be more wrong.

Not to be mean to the folks at CAIR, but I don't: Care, that is. I simply don't care about Islam, its theology, its history — I have no interest in it at all. All I care about is not getting blown to smithereens when I board a bus or ride a plane. I care about living in a world where terrorism and murder/suicide bombings are rejected by all.

And the reason Islam has itself become a terrorist organization is that it cannot address its own role in this violence. It cannot cast out the murderers from its members. I know it can't, because "moderate" Muslim imams keep telling me they can't. "We have no control over these radical young men," one London imam moaned to the local papers.

Can't kick 'em out of your faith? Can't excommunicate them? Apparently Islam does not allow it.

Islam cannot say that terrorism is forbidden to Muslims. I know this because when the world's Muslim nations gathered after 9/11 to state their position on terrorism, they couldn't even agree on what it was. How could they, when the world's largest terror sponsors at the time were Iran and Saudi Arabia — both governed by Islamic law.

I must agree with the author. I DON'T CARE ABOUT ISLAM except insofar that people of that faith want to destroy me, my family, my country and my way of life. For more than 50 years of my life, Islam and I got along famously. I completely ignored it; and praise be to Allah, it completely ignored me.

After September 11th, I no longer had that option.

This reminds me that there used to be cute little rabbits that gamboled and cavorted in my peaceful neighborhood. I was able to safely pay no attention to them--until they started to eat my garden. Then steps had to be taken. I found to my dismay that my neighbors also were victims of their interminable ravaging for food; so we combined forces and eventually got rid of the nuisance.

Poor rabbits. They have no free will and were doomed by their nature, so I feel sorry for the poor critters. I still feel they would be welcome in my neck of the woods, if they could refrain from getting into my garden and destroying it.

A friend just today sent me this article, which says in part that American Muslim scholars have issued a "fatwa" against terrorism. But, the article also says:

Many Muslim leaders overseas have issued similar condemnations in recent weeks, but some have left an opening for violence to be used. British Muslim leaders who denounced the July 7 attacks in London said suicide bombings could still be justified against an occupying power.

Sorry, but as long as there is an "opening" it won't be good enough. The rabbits used to sneak through, under or over whatever fencing I put up, too.

Islam has been welcome in my neighborhood, along with all other faiths and religions-- but not under these current conditions and not under Jihad. If they can't control what is being done in their name to all the gardens of the world, then I MUST pay attention. And it will not go well for them, I guarantee it.

Sad, but true.

(cartoon hat tip: Indonesian blogger, Indcoup )

UPDATE: Then there's this, from the Internation Herald Tribune:

Most commentators argue that Islamic terrorism is a fanatical perversion of Islam which deviates from its true teachings. They call for a Western-style modernization of the Muslim world, hoping thereby that radical Islam will be tamed.

This analysis misses the point. The nature of the terrorist threat is unambiguously Islamic and is not so much a deviation from Muslim tradition as an appeal to it. Al Qaeda's ideology draws on two traditions to legitimize itself: one classical, the other modern.

Read it all.

UPDATE: Michael Graham has been suspended w/o pay for writing the column quoted above. Michelle Malkin has the details. Meanwhile, we will wait for civil libertarians like Michael Moore to protest this outrage. (7/29/05 2:00pm)

UPDATE II: A blogwave of support has started for Michael Graham and Free Speech. Check it out at the Strata-Sphere.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:25 PM |

An Alternative to the Unthinkable?

ShrinkWrapped has an excellent post up that discusses an alternative to the Tancredo response to a nuclear attack on the U.S. by Islamic Jihadists. My thoughts are here.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:12 PM |

LAFTA OUT LOUD

"House Passes LAFTA: Relieving Liberal Guilt"

Check out Scrappleface!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:39 PM |

Reality is the Ultimate Rorschach Test

Rand Simburg at Transterrestrial Musings mentions a well-known psychological test that can still provide useful information and uses it for understanding current issues: "A Political Rorschach Test"

There's an old diagnostic tool in psychology--the ink-blot test, named the Rorschach test for the man who invented it. In it, the test subject is asked to look at a series of randomly produced ink splotches (usually made on a folded paper for symmetry) and describe what he or she sees--a mother cradling a baby, a man stabbing a woman, or perhaps nothing at all. The answer tells us nothing, of course, of the actual nature of the ink blot (the same could be done with clouds), but does provide some insight into what's going on in the person's mind.
Similarly, many seemingly seek to look into the mind of a terrorist and his actions, and see what they want to see: anger at Israel, anger at the apparent impotence of the Arab world against the west, frustration at the inability to raise your children as properly Islamic in a secular West, even the desire for the reestablishment of the Caliphate.
Sadly, I agree that all of the above are motivating the bombers, and many of the people who agree with them. But if these are the grievances, they cannot be assuaged, they cannot be appeased. They are what we call in American divorce courts, "irreconcilable differences."

Some look at the Rorschach of the terrorists and see a people struggling for justice. I look at it and see one struggling for injustice, with a desire to spread it throughout the world, and to return us to a medievel dreamworld of their imagination that is centuries old.

The Rorschach is an example of what is called a "projective test" (there are a number of them I have used over the years--Sentence Completion Test; the Thematic Aperception Test etc.), where the examinee "projects" his own thoughts or feelings or conflicts/issues onto a neutral image.

It is one thing to do this in a testing situation, where one is being asked to do it deliberately so that the examiner might get some idea of the preoccupying thoughts, conflicts etc. It is another thing to routinely do it when facing reality.

In the latter case, the behavior is an example of the psychological defense mechanism we call "Projection"--a primitive form of paranoia; where one's own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, conflicts etc. are externalized onto another individual or group in the real world. As a way of coping with the world, Projection is an abysmal defense, which is why after childhood, most psyche's give it up in the main and only resort to it in extremis if there are really serious conflicts that the individual cannot resolve.

To a certain extent, we all project our selves and our personal issues and conflicts onto reality. But that does not make reality an amorphous ink blot. Reality exists independently of any of our thoughts, feelings, issues and/or conflicts. To the extent that we can see and appreciate what is real without the distortion of the unresolved emotional baggage we all carry around--then we are psychologically healthy. The more we project onto reality--instead of seeing it for what it really is-- the more we become immersed in a fantasyland that is made up of our internal desires and wishes; and the more we distance ourselves from the real world.

For example. I really want things to work out in Iraq. I am pleased to find many instances of really good things happening there and real progress against the terrorists who reject freedom and democracy. But I am also cognisant of many of the challenges and roadblocks that Iraqis face in embracing democracy; and that we face in helping them. I cannot fail to notice the continued deaths of innocent Iraqis, and hope that a solution or strategy will be implemented to diminish them.

Dymphna suggests that we should back off on our demands that the Iraqis hurry up with their constitution and that it should be perfect in every way:

It would be salutary to remember at this point that our constitution was a very long process. From the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781 to the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788 was a long and winding road. In the process, the question of slavery got shelved just so we could be done with it and get on to making a country. Thus our hurry and our fear led us to a bloody and ruinous Civil War seventy three years later. We are still feeling the effects of that “hurry-up” back in the years from the Declaration of Independence to the final states’ ratification. We left out Negroes because we were afraid and we are still paying for our cowardice.

We had 7 years to write our constitution, and we made a BIG mistake and didn't end slavery until 73+ years later. Just as in our country in the 1780's there were factions with mutually exclusive non-negotiable demands; so in Iraq are there competing visions of what their country should look like. Let's let them sort it out and they can both learn from our mistakes and then from their own. And isn't that what having freedom is all about?

So, when I contemplate the situation in Iraq, I try to put things in perspective. Things will happen that are bad; and things might happen more slowly than we would like; but overall, I observe that we have started in the direction of freedom and democracy in Iraq. Undoubtedly there will be setbacks. But for good or ill, it is in their hands now, and all we can do is protect the nacent process that has begun there.

Contrast this perspective with that of people who demand instaneous democracy in Iraq or "all is lost!" Or those who maintain that the "insurgency is growing stronger!" despite the lack of support from Iraqi citizens and considerable evidence to the contrary. Or those who look at terrorist bombings and lay the blame on BushBlairHoward and/or the victims (e.g. "little eichmans") instead of the terrorists; or those that blame America for all the terrorist activity, then in the same breath maintain that terrorism is an illusiion. Or those that say Islam is a religion of peace, as its imams refer to Jews a pigs and women of the west as whores. Or those who liken the deliberate targeting of civilians as an act of war to the attempts to minimize such targeting during a war. Or those who constantly shout "BUT THERE WERE NO WMD'S" or "SADDAM HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11"; Or those who are outraged about someone's lack of support for Gay marriage, but are silent when homosexuals are slaughtered because they committed a sin against Allah. And so on, ad nauseum.

What do all these people have in common? They refuse to actually look directly at REALITY and instead, project their hatred of Bush and Republicans and their desire for them to "fail" in Iraq; More than that, they are letting that hatred and the need for Bush to be wrong completely distort what is going on in the world.

All this internal mishmash of anger, rage, hatred is unacceptable to them, so they purify themselves and identify with the aggressor terrorist (who would kill them if they could, just as easily as they would be willing to kill anyone); they use the actions of a Timothy McVeigh--as one of the commenters on this blog did--who was most certainly a delusional murderer given the ultimate punishment for his crimes, to point out the deficiencies in the American system; falsely reasoning that that we can't possibly take the moral high ground and that we are as bad as the terrorists.

Or they bring up the fact that Christianity 1000 years ago crusaded against the "infidel" Muslims to prove... what? That the terrorists are no better or worse than we are? Just because Christianity was infected with an evil virus 1000 years ago and brought death and destruction, does not mean I cannot condemn Islam now, since it is the religion doing it today. If Christianity were doing today what it did centuries ago, then I would be condemning Christianity. If McVeigh were alive and part of Al Qaeda, I'd be condemning Al Qaeda (just as I judged McVeigh when he committed his vile act).

The refusal to look at what is happening now; the evasions and distortions is part and parcel of a pattern of projection and denial.

Who is saying that American society is perfect? No one that I know. We make lots of mistakes. But we ARE moral. We ARE compassionate. We have the rule of law. We can change our leadership if we don't care for the policies. And may I gently remind many of the naysayers, that we just had that opportunity less than a year ago to change course and that THEIR CANDIDATE LOST? Too bad. So sorry. But that is the reality.

The point is that we ARE better than those barbarian, murdering thugs that have declared jihad and use their religion as a justification for indiscriminant murder and mayhem.

What we are seeing when we witness the constant and repetitive talking points, distortions, and evasions of the Left/Democrats/enablers of terrorism--no matter what evidence is presented to them, is their inability to come to terms with their own unacceptable feelings or rage and hatred so they attribute those feelings to Bush et al. We are witnessing the Left's own inability to come to terms with their intense fear that their ideology is dead and --even worse--doesn't, and has never worked.

The same emotion that motivates the battered woman to defend or minimize the actions her batterer; or any victim to identify and enable his tormentor is at work here.

Ask yourself what emotions, conflicts and issues these people are using to filter the reality of the Islamic Jihadists-- who would indiscriminantly and joyfully kill a million people in this country if they could?

Reality is the ultimate Rorschach Test, isn't it?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:15 AM |

TERRORISLAM

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:24 AM |

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Anticipation

Anticipation is a mature psychological defense mechanism that involves the realistic planning for future inner discomfort. It also includes goal-directed and premature planning behavior for a variety of future scenarios.

George Vaillant has this to say about Anticipation:

As a coping mechanism, anticipation permits the user to become affectively aware of an event before it happens, and thus attenuates anxiety and depression. In some ways, anticipation is synonymous with what psychiatrists call "insight."

An alternative method of coping with with a threatening event is Denial. As a psychological defense mechanism, Denial is one of the most primitive (sometimes called "psychotic") and immature mechanisms available to the psyche. Its goal is identical to Anticipation, which is to attenuate anxiety and depression about a future event.

So, while both psychological mechanisms have a similar goal and are effective in mediating anxiety and depression, the two have markedly different long-term consequences.

Jeff Jacoby's column today discusses "Failures of Intelligence" and provides an excellent example of how the outcomes can differ:

THREE WEEKS before the London bombings of July 7, Britain’s Joint Terrorist Analysis Center advised policymakers that ‘‘at present there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the UK.’’ That reassuring message from the country’s top intelligence and law enforcement officials, The New York Times reported last week, prompted the British government to lower its terror alert. Less than a month later, 52 people were murdered and 700 wounded when three subway trains and a bus were blown up in the worst act of terrorism the United Kingdom has experienced since the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.

Obviously this was a serious intelligence failure. Undoubtedly there will be investigations into the cause of the blunder. Perhaps heads will roll for failing to ‘‘connect the dots’’ in time to prevent the 7/7 atrocities. (Or perhaps not: CIA Director George Tenet not only retained his job long after Sept. 11, 2001, he was even awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.) Whatever is ultimately learned, we can safely assume, will promptly become political fodder for British partisans of every stripe.

But the botched terror assessment raises a question for us, too: Which kind of intelligence failure is better — the kind that badly understates a threat, such as the one in London, or the kind that overstates a threat, such as the insistent warnings before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons of mass destruction?

Another way to say this, of course, is to ask, is it better to downplay, understate, and even deny a threat; or to take potential threats perhaps overly seriously, but to aggressively anticipate them?

Jacoby goes on to pose this extremely relevant question:

So what kind of culture do we want intelligence agencies to foster among their operatives and analysts: one that tends to be overly focused on possible threats, or one that is more likely to downplay them? In general, would we rather take action to eliminate a danger that turns out to have been overstated — or take no action, and then be stunned when the enemy strikes?

Then, as any mature, reasonable and psychologically healthy person would, Jacoby answers that question this way:

If intelligence failures are inevitable — and in a world of human fallibility, they are — we are better off worrying too much about our enemies and taking steps to defeat them than worrying too little and being caught, unready, when they attack. Worrying too much led the United States and Britain to topple a brutal tyrant. Worrying too little led to 9/11 and 7/7.

Those who continue to scream that Bush "lied" about intelligence regarding Iraq; and vociferously maintain (despite all evidence to the contrary) that Saddam had no WMD; and even heatedly insist that worries about terrorism are being deliberately overblown to "frighten" the masses--these are the people who are living in a fantasy world of Denial.

By forcing themselves not to face reality, they are, after a fashion, decreasing momentarily the anxiety and depression that the horrendous events of our age quite naturally have stimulated. But, unlike those who, with grim determination, are planning for the worse and using Anticipation to do the best they can to prevent the worse while psychologically preparing for it; the Deniers will be stunned and paralyzed when the worse happens. They will also be the first to blame those who tried to prevent it for not doing enough--all the while they actively impeded the Anticipaters from doing anything (this is another psychological defense called Displacement, but we'll talk about that later).

There is no guarantee that using Anticipation and developing insight will successfully prevent or even prepare us adequately for the unthinkable kinds of things that our enemies wish to inflict upon us. Using Denial, we can put off feeling bad and anxious for a while. And for that time we might even feel intellectually superior and enlightened compared to those stupidly worked-up people who prepare for the worse. But in the end, the denial of reality can only lead to grief, victimhood, despair, hopelessness, and even death.

That's why psychiatrists refer to it as "primitive", "psychotic", and "immature", after all.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:05 PM |

Spreading Darkness To Every Corner of The Earth

What do terrorists want? Daniel Pipes has a chilling answer:

In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic law, the Shari'a. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."

Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming the "caliphate or death." A biography of one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's Rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate.

Bin Laden himself spoke of ensuring that "the pious caliphate will start from Afghanistan." His chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also dreamed of re-establishing the caliphate, for then, he wrote, "history would make a new turn, God willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government." Another Al-Qaeda leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, publishes a magazine that has declared "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon," to be followed by the creation of a caliphate.

Or, as Mohammed Bouyeri wrote in the note he attached to the corpse of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker he had just assassinated, "Islam will be victorious through the blood of martyrs who spread its light in every dark corner of this earth."

Bruce Thornton at VDH Private Papers also discusses this theme:

The jihadist enemy, on the other hand, is operating on principles and values squarely in the tradition of Islam, and thus unlike fascism and communism is expressing a spiritual need and an orthodox religious mandate: to fulfill by force the will of Allah that all the world be subject to Islam and an Islamic state, the caliphate, ruled by sharia, Islamic religious law. Those conquered infidels who refuse to convert are reduced to dhimmi, subordinated and humiliated peoples whose restricted rights, diminished lives, and circumscribed behavior testify to the superiority of their Muslim overlords and their divine right to oppress the infidel and exploit him economically. This dynamic of jihad and dhimmitude has been extensively documented by Bat Ye'or and other scholars, and is apparent on every page of Islamic jurisprudence, theology, and history from the eighth century to today.

Those who, like Hadley and Townsend,[article referenced in the piece- PS] suggest otherwise are contradicting not just that history but also the beliefs and sentiments of millions of contemporary Muslims, who understand clearly what their own religion teaches and how it should be practiced. How else do we make sense of the continued widespread support for homicide bombings and Al Qaeda visible in poll after poll of Muslims worldwide? Even so-called “moderates” and Westernized Muslims can't help letting slip their true beliefs even as they try to spin the latest terrorist murder. Dr. Azzam Tamimi, a senior member of the Muslim Association of Britain and a Hamas member who is frequently featured on the BBC, has made clear his support for Palestinian Arab murder of Israelis, his belief that Islamic religious law (sharia) should not be compromised to coexist with liberal democracy, his admiration of the Taliban, and his desire to see Israel destroyed.

Inayat Bunglawla, another “moderate” spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, has been all over CNN since the bombings in London. In a recent BBC4 interview, this is how he “condemned” homicide bombings: “Let me make clear then, once and for all, we condemn the killing of all innocent people wherever they are, human lives everywhere are of equal value, whether they are British, American, Iraqi, or Palestinian. Jewish lives are not worth more than Palestinian lives, all are worth equal, and it's been quite nauseating over the past week to see how Israel and its highly-placed supporters in the media have been trying to make political capital out of last week's atrocities against Londoners. It is shameful on them and shameful upon those who are trying to help Israel improving its PR image after the brutalities it commits against the Palestinian people.”

Here is a classic example of so-called “moderate” double-talk. Notice how Jews are left out of the list of “human lives” that have “equal value.” Notice how the statement “Jewish lives are not worth more than Palestinian lives” is not followed by the logical corollary, “Palestinian lives are not worth more than Jewish lives.” And finally, notice the usual hysterical smokescreen of alleged Israeli “brutalities” to shift the focus away from Muslim murder of innocents by concentrating on its supposed causes.

While one of the definitions of the word "martyr" is a person who sacrifices their life for a principle, in practice the entire Islamic concept of martyrdom is quite bizarre. If there is an underlying principle, then it is hatred, pure and simple.

Traditionally -- in Christianity, at least--a "martyr" was someone persecuted and killed by others for their religion's sake. In the lives of many martyrs, their shining love for their religion was so inspiring that it might even convert those who were responsible for the martyr's death.

But in Islam a "martyr" is a person who persecutes and kills others for their religion. Note the difference. By any rational definition, a person in this latter group is a monster. The indiscriminant slaughter of innocent lives inspires only the utmost revulsion in normal people. Converting to a religion that supports and encourages martyrs like that would be the height of insanity and self-delusion.

The blood of that kind of "martyr" can only spread an awareness of the fundamental darkness of the Islamic soul that that created it; and will bring only darkness and misery to every corner of the earth.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:25 AM |

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

This is REALLY COOL!

I am using for the first time the Verizon Air Card with broadband access all across the U.S. to blog from my car on the way to Detroit! It's fabulous, it's fast; it's easy! I love it.

After my vacation, I became determined never again to be dependent on hotels or cafes for internet connection.

Isn't technology wonderful?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:31 PM |

Shall We Dance ?

Check out the Cotillion Ball! Also posted at Fistful of Fortnights; My Vast Rightwing Conspiracy, e-Claire, and Who Tends The Fires. It's a conglomeration of fabulous posts by conservative lady bloggers!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:26 PM |

The New Pied Piper

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:26 PM |

Monday, July 25, 2005

Before Iraq There Was Jihad

For those who are arguing that Iraq is responsible for the London bombings, a splash of cold water in the face from Wahid Phares:

Back in November of 1999, I was on a trip to meet leading members of the House of Lords in London to discuss the “Jihad threat to minorities in the Middle East” and make few presentations on the subject in different locations in England. My travel across the country was very informative, and I was able to compare the findings with my previous trips in the 1980s. My observations that year found them very troubling: The Salafi Jihadi presence in Britain was on the rise, six years before the London bombings, four years before the Iraq war, and two years before September 11.

This post is from the invaluable Counterterrorism Blog. I wonder why it so hard for some people to understand that the Jihadis are using psychological ops against us; and that the knee-jerk response--that the latest barbaric Islamofascist outrage simply must be because of the Iraq war-- of so many on the Left is exactly what they are going for?

Before London there was Jihad. Before Iraq there was Jihad. Before Madrid there was Jihad. Before 9/11 there was Jihad.

Stop letting Islam off the hook and making excuses for terrorism.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:59 PM |

Fizzled

Michael Barone:

This summer, one big story is replaced by another -- the London bombings July 7, the speculation that Karl Rove illegally named a covert CIA agent, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, more London bombings last week. But beneath the hubbub, we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media -- The New York Times, etc., etc. -- to delegitimize yet another Republican administration.

This project has been ongoing for more than 30 years. Richard Nixon, by obstructing investigation of the Watergate burglary, unwittingly colluded in the successful attempt to besmirch his administration. Less than two years after carrying 49 states, he was compelled to resign. The attempt to delegitimize the Reagan administration seemed at the time reasonably successful. Reagan was widely dismissed as a lightweight ideologue, and the rejection of his nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 contributed to the impression that his years in office were, to take the title of a book by a first-rate journalist, "the Reagan detour." As time went on, as the Berlin Wall fell and Bill Clinton proclaimed that the era of big government was over, it became clear that Reagan was a successful transformational president -- something the mainstream media grudgingly admitted when he died in 2004 after a decade out of public view.

You think they'd learn. But for the past five years, the same folks have been trying to undermine the presidency of George W. Bush.

Read the whole thing. I can almost hear the screaming of the trolls at the merest suggestion that the person they despise so much is weathering their incoherent rage --and not only that--his policies are thriving!

I feel your pain. (NOT)

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:25 PM |

Wake-Up Calls

Mark Steyn says it all so clearly:

And yet, The Age's editor Andrew Jaspan still lives in another world. You'll recall that it was Jaspan who objected to the energy and conviction of certain freed Australian hostage, at least when it comes to disrespecting their captors: "I was, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood's use of the 'arsehole' word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through ... As I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive."

And heaven forbid we're insensitive about terrorists. True, a blindfolded Wood had to listen to his jailers murder two of his colleagues a few inches away, but how boorish would one have to be to hold that against one's captors? A few months after 9/11, National Review's John Derbyshire dusted off the old Cold War mantra "Better dead than red" and modified it to mock the squeamishness of politically correct warfare: "Better dead than rude". But even he would be surprised to see it taken up quite so literally by Andrew Jaspan.

Usually it's the hostage who gets Stockholm Syndrome, but the newly liberated Wood must occasionally reflect that in this instance the entire culture seems to have caught a dose. And, in a sense, we have: multiculturalism is a kind of societal Stockholm Syndrome. Atta's meetings with Bryant are emblematic: He wasn't a genius, a master of disguise in deep cover; indeed, he was barely covered at all, he was the Leslie Nielsen of terrorist masterminds - but the more he stuck out, the more Bryant was trained not to notice, or to put it all down to his vibrant cultural tradition.

That's the great thing about multiculturalism: it doesn't involve knowing anything about other cultures - like, say, the capital of Bhutan or the principal exports of Malaysia, the sort of stuff the old imperialist wallahs used to be well up on. Instead, it just involves feeling warm and fluffy, making bliss out of ignorance. And one notices a subtle evolution in multicultural pieties since the Islamists came along.

Read it all, and while you're at it, read this piece by Irshad Manji, a person I greatly admire for her courage, who asks a Muslim community in denial: "Is Islam to Blame?"

believe thursday's bombings in London, combined with the first wave of explosions two weeks ago, are changing something for the better. Never before have I heard Muslims so sincerely denounce terrorism committed in our name as I did on my visit to Britain a few days ago. We're finally waking up.

Except on one front: the possible role of religion itself in these crimes.

Even now, the Muslim Council of Britain adamantly insists that Islam has nothing to do with the London attacks. It cites other motives — "segregation" and "alienation," for instance. Although I don't deny that living on the margins can make a vulnerable lad gravitate to radical messages of instant belonging, it takes more than that to make him detonate himself and innocent others. To blow yourself up, you need conviction. Secular society doesn't compete well on this score. Who gets deathly passionate over tuition subsidies and a summer job?

Which is why I don't understand how moderate Muslim leaders can reject, flat-out, the notion that religion may also play a part in these bombings. What makes them so sure that Islam is an innocent bystander?

What makes them sound so sure is literalism. That's the trouble with Islam today. We Muslims, including moderates living here in the West, are routinely raised to believe that the Koran is the final and therefore perfect manifesto of God's will, untouched and immutable.

This is a supremacy complex. It's dangerous because it inhibits moderates from asking hard questions about what happens when faith becomes dogma. To avoid the discomfort, we sanitize.

While silly artists in the U.S. paint pictures of America in the john; the reality is that Islam as a religion is being flushed down the toilet by all this sick behavior done in its name. It may never recover, and most of the rest of us don't much care anymore.

From all around the globe, you can hear the din of all the voices finally shouting at those who deny, placate, enable and sanitize: FOR GOD'S SAKE, WAKE UP!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:35 AM |

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT !

Oh, dear! This morning I woke up to find that I have evolved in the TTLB Ecosystem up to Playful Primate, and that my ranking is #97 ! I've been a Large Mammal for so long, that it sort of feels funny to evolve like this....

Actually, like many of you who have blogs, I have absolutely no idea how the algorithm works for the Ecosystem, or why I'm suddenly a Playful Primate instead of a Large Mammal. Additionally, it could be likely that tomorrow it will all be updated and I'll drop back down again. But today, TODAY! all my bad blogging habits have been positively reinforced!

This is very very bad news for my family who rarely see me now without my laptop in hand!

Thank you to all my readers! Have I mentioned that monetary DONATIONS (see side bar) are also a very good positive reinforcement?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:13 AM |

Denial and Delusion, Part II

From the Jerusalem Post:

We, the nations of the world, are in a strange war. It is strange because its outcome hinges primarily on whether the side being attacked will admit that war has been declared against it and decides to fight back.

The 9/11 attacks were the culmination of years of Western denial, despite devastating attacks over many years directed at Americans and others. If the pre-9/11 level of denial was, in retrospect, surprising, the post-9/11 refusal to recognize the war that we are in is even more striking.

How many "9/11s" does the world have to experience before we get it? A seemingly offhand sentence in The New York Times news report of the horrific bombings in Sharm e-Sheikh yesterday, killing over 80 people, perhaps inadvertently illustrates how widely the current conflict is misunderstood.

"The bombings provided a gruesome coda to a week in which suicide bombers had threatened cities from Iraq to Britain to Egypt, lending to the impression of a rising tide of terror spilling from the conflicts of the region." [emphasis added].

Yes, the terror epidemic seems to have returned.

But in reality, it never left. And it is not spillover from "conflicts in the region" but from the refusal to systematically address a particularly potent epidemic: of the symbiotic/parasitic relationship between militant Islam and the dictatorships of the Muslim world

Just what I was saying the other day. Shall we decide that we are all in this together, unite for victory and and fight back with all that we have? Or will some persist in their denial and delusion?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:28 AM |

Sunday, July 24, 2005

DESECRATION ?

Noah Shachtman writes from Iraq about a truck bomb that went off, killing the driver and ripping the truck to pieces (go see the other pictures and read Shachtman's account of the incident and of the troop's feelings about the news coverage). It was likely a botched suicide bomb attack, since the truck did not make it into the base. Lying nearby was this Koran, shredded by the blast. (hat tip: J.O.)

Desecration? It's a good question. But what struck me in the account was the added worry and concern that our soldiers must deal with every day as they wonder what kind of news is being reported on the front pages of newspapers and in the ledes of CNN et al.

I could care less about a Koran ripped apart by a suicide blast. What worries me is the disrespect the media routinely demonstrates toward the soldiers on the frontlines of a war that threatens our very way of life. Here they are doing a difficult task and facing a cowardly enemy that only knows hate from their religion. What worries them the most is how the media is reporting their work, and how their loved ones must feel when they see the news that makes it seem like everything is falling apart all the time.

Like today in the NY Times. A story on the front page above the fold that starts out; "THEY JUST KEEP GETTING STRONGER" Isn't that marvelous? They are, of course, talking about the terrorists in Iraq and how resourceful and determined they are. Clearly they believe we should just give up and go home in the face of such resourcefulness, determination, and sassiness!

I should mention that none of the military sources I read believe that this is actually the true state of affairs; and that repeatedly it is emphasized that the US cannot be beaten militarily by the terrorists in Iraq. But, who cares! It sounds good to say it and it saps the will and determination of those at home. The MSM knows it can win this war; that it has the ultimate power, and that that power is psychological, not military. How strong they must feel to wield such power without any limits! Imagine in WWII after all the defeats inflicted on the US and its allies, the news reporting that the Japaness just "keep on getting stronger" and how hopeless the war was? Would the media have changed the course of history?

As LGF notes-- the media have become the enemy. They fight alongside the terrorists, cheering them on; egging them on. They care nothing for the Truth, since they define Truth as what they report and how they report it.

That is the real desecration.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:30 PM |

Carnival of the Insanities

Time for the weekly insanity udate, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). Calling all bloggers! Be sure to send in your entries to the Carnival, which will be posted every Sunday. Entries need to be in by 8 pm on Saturday to make their way into the list that week. This week we have a record number of insanities thanks to all the submissions and the way the world turns. SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!

1. Yeah, that's what she said about Clarence Thomas too. And here's another absurd response.

2. And while we're on the Supreme Court nomination topic, read this "generic" Critical Urgent Community Action Bulletin from Iowahawk!

3. Funniest sentence ever printed in the NY Times. Hands down.

4. A disturbance in the Force? No, just Windows

5. What Ted should have known....

6. Pet hoarding?

7. Brain dominance and political views (hat tip: My Vast Right Wing Consipiracy). I'd take this kind of research with a grain of salt--but it is interesting.

8. Maybe it's someone's idea of paradise, but most people won't be too enthusiastic about it!

9. Guess who's responsible for the London Bombings?

10. Those crazy crazy Canadians.

11. Remember the song, "Teach your children well..."? I wonder what this kid is learning in school? And then there's this bit of idiocy reported by Shamalama.

12. Was Glenn correct, or not? Except for his post, I saw NOTHING about this on the news.

13. The Bank of Bin Laden.

14. California tax dollars at work.

15. Does this explain whay all those blue-staters are so miserable? Not really. They just think they're intelligent.

16. The Midnight Ride of Hilary Clinton?

17. Till Life Do Us Part. Or until I get bored.

18. You must remember this....a kiss is still a kiss--or is it?

19. Can someone PLEASE get this woman some psychiatric help?

20. Well this is jolly. Would they be willing to tell us what the motive is?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:06 AM |

A Ticking Suicide Bomb

I think this cartoon from Cox and Forkum captures the essential aspect of the connection between Islamofascist terrorism and those who enable and support them.

Of course, they think they do it out of "good" motives; because they are caring and compassionate people.

The Islamofascists think they do it because they are stupid and weak.

I think they are doing it because they can't come to grips with their own hostility and anger and need the image of being universally caring and compassionate to cover that up. (Who after all keeps bringing up homosexuality as an issue and "outing" various people they don't like? Who caricatures all minorities as "Uncle Toms" if they don't behave according to a prescribed set of "authorized" minority scripts? They aren't very caring and compassionate to anyone who disagrees with them.) That they refuse to recognize reality, even when it hits them over the head is blatant stupidity. That they have no real insight into their own motivations and inner conflicts is their great weakness.

This may be the only situation where the Islamic extremists and I might come to a similar conclusion.

And Cox and Forkum are absolutely correct in thinking that this kind of enabling behavior and political correctness represents a ticking suicide bomb in the middle of western culture.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:46 AM |

Saturday, July 23, 2005

You Never Know What's Going to Happen Yesterday

The Belmont Club examines the notion of the Left that international terrorism is an "illusion":

Although the proposition that organized international terrorism does not exist may seem funny, many writers on the Left seriously believe that terrorism is a derivative phenomenon with no independent existence of its own. It is simply a reaction to Western, and particularly American oppression. It is the shadow, as it were, of the USA, which would cease to exist once the solid being that gave rise to it vanished. According to this point of view, it is entirely correct to refer to terrorists as 'insurgents', 'resistants', 'militants' or even 'freedom fighters', because they have no actual violent goals arising from their consciousness except as are suggested to them by their oppressor; entirely correct refer to them as 'phantoms' because they do not exist of themselves, except as emergent phenomenon in relation to the United States.

Thomas Joscelyn spends two whole pages in the Weekly Standard article The Four-Day War reminding us that after President Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox in 1999 to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction the press widely reported that Hussein had turned to Osama Bin Laden to exact revenge on the United States.
[....]
Recalling the recent past inconveniently undermines the thesis that an "organised terrorist network is an illusion". It is data that would be swept out of sight without the vigilance of writers like Joscelyn. (And it didn't used to be hard, at least in the days before the Internet. One Soviet historian working in the days of Stalin complained of the difficulty of his task because "You never know what's going to happen yesterday".) It would then be harder to deny the existence to an international terrorist network with actual goals of its own, with a will to power of its own, acting in the world today. Then we might have to conclude that the skein running through today's headlines is terrorism; that it is warring on us and that we might have to return the favor.

The Left calls international terrorism an "illusion." I call the the views of the Left "delusional". Thier illusion is a concoction of wishful thinking, projection, and outright denial of reality.

What we see in the delusion that "terrorism does not exist", is a desperate attempt by the Left to explain-- in terms they can understand, their own fall from power and influence in the world. They would rather believe this illusional "nightmare enemy gives so many groups new power and influence in a cynical age - and not just politicians"; rather than to deal with the fact that they no longer have the power and influence they once had, prefering to believe that it has been stolen away from them by vague conspiratorial forces.

Additiionally, they unknowingly demonstrate the typical cold grandiosity and arrogance of the true paranoid, by asserting that their own superior intellect allows them to see beyond the obvious facts that we mere mortals must deal with.

Although I don't know what's going to happen yesterday, I have a fairly good idea of what will happen in the near future: I will get dozens of angry emails regarding this pst--all people claiming that by pointing out this behavior that I am the one who is coldly arrogant and grandiose; and that I am delusional.

Further projection and paranoia are fairly common when one attempts to confront delusion. The confronter almost always becomes incorporated into the delusional "plot" in the eyes of the paranoid (that is why so many on the Left accuse Right-leaning bloggers of being "paid off" by the Republicans or that they are merely regurgitating the "talking points" of thw Administration--as if we don't have independent thinking faculties that have logically brought us to the same conclusions).

If I were dealing with a patient, I wouldn't bother to confront him so directly, as it doesn't work very often in inducing them to change. The stakes are too high because their sense of Self is on the line. And for those on the extreme end, that identity would shatter into a million pieces without the glue of delusional fantasies.

But we are not dealing with a single patient. We are dealing with a delusional group whose committment to the group delusion varies. No, it is with the hope that there are some Democrats and others on the Left who still retain enough rational capability; and who are not inextricably tied to the failed ideologies of the 20th century--whose adherents are desperately attempting to regain the power and influence they accuse others of stealing from them--it is with the hope of reaching them, that I bother to write about these issues at all.

As much as the Left would like us to believe that "terrorism" doesn't exist, the objective proof exists in the world around us; and anyone who opens their eyes can see it. Just as they would like us to believe that the U.S. is "responsible" for something that doesn't exist in the first place; the refutation of that is the historical record that anyone can investigate (and which one often must investigate for one's self, since history is constantly being distorted in our news media at the moment).

So, to them I say: open your eyes. Check the facts. Check the history. Go back and read what was said then versus what is being said now.

I dare you.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:53 AM |

Friday, July 22, 2005

They Should Be Proud....

I just saw Elian Gonzalez on Fox as an 11 year old graduating sixth grade. He said, " Long live Fidel!"; "Long live communism!" to a cheering Fidel Castro, who presented him with a book and uses him as a symbol of the effectiveness of his putrid system.

How nice.

Janet Reno and Bill Clinton should be very proud of the way this child's future in freedom was sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.

I, on the other hand, feel sick.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:42 PM |

The Council Has Spoken !

This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher's site. Every week the Council nominates posts from the blogs of the Council members, and posts from around the blogsphere. The Council then votes to select the "Best" of all these posts.

BEST COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place

Is Britain Too Decadent to Survive? Gates of Vienna

Second Place

In for the Long Haul: What Needs to Happen in the War on Terror The Glittering Eye

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS

First Place

Apologists Among Us Normblog

Second Place

Not Getting It Department Vodkapundit

Check out all the winners at the Watcher's site!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:08 PM |

NASA Sets Shuttle Launch

NASA has set the next try to launch Discovery on Tuesday of next week.

NASA will try to launch Discovery on the first shuttle mission in more than two years next Tuesday, after tracing last week's fuel gauge failure to, most likely, an electrical grounding problem lurking inside the spacecraft.

Shuttle program manager Bill Parsons (search) said the only way to thoroughly check the system is to fuel Discovery and have all its equipment running.

"We believe the best way to go through this is to do a countdown," he said. "If the sensors (gauges) work exactly like we think they will, then we'll launch on that day. If anything goes not per the plan that we've laid out in front of us, then we'll have a scrub and we'll have to talk about it." (emphasis mine)

Well, this sounds an awful lot like faith/magic rather than science.... Perhaps they better call in a consultant?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:25 PM |

Islamic Totalitarianism

If this analysis by Reuel Marc Gerecht is correct, it is very bad news for the hope that "moderate" Islam will rise to stop the Jihad mentality:

Quite likely the British will reach the same conclusion the French already have, to wit: Islamic terrorism on European soil has its roots in the Middle East. "British Islam"--the behavior and spiritual practice of Muslims in the United Kingdom--it will be said, is by and large a progressive force standing against pernicious and retrograde ideas emanating from the Middle East. There are big problems of acculturation at home in mother England, all will confess, but the holy-warrior mentality is imported.

This view, however, may turn out to be dead wrong. What was once unquestionably an import has gone native, mutated, and grown. Some of what the Europeans are now confronting--and for the United States this is very bad news--is probably a locally generated Islamic militancy that is as retrograde and virulent as anything encountered in the Middle East. "European Islam" appears to be an increasingly radicalizing force intellectually and in practice. The much-anticipated Muslim moderates of Europe--the folks French scholar Gilles Kepel believes will produce "extraordinary progress in civilization," a new "Andalusia" (the classical Arabic word for Moorish Spain) that will save us from Osama bin Laden's jihad--have so far not developed with the same gusto as the Muslim activists who have dominated too many mosques in "Londonistan" and elsewhere in Europe. Moderates surely represent the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Europe, but like their post-Christian European counterparts, they usually express their moderation in detachment from religious affairs.

Though Europeans often fail to see it, the secularization of the Muslims living in their midst has been, by and large, a great success. It explains why Muslim activists gain so much attention, be they arch-conservatives, like the devotees of the Tabligh movement in Britain and on the continent who espouse segregation in Europe, or "progressives," like the Switzerland-based intellectual Tariq Ramadan, who refuses forthrightly to declare the Muslim Holy Law null and void as a political testament for Muslims in a European democracy. The moderates have abandoned the field. They have become European. The militants, who perhaps should be seen as deviants from a largely successful process of secularization, are the only ones left ardently praying.

This analysis seems to be spot on. It obviously explains why the so-called "moderate" Muslim has not taken up opposition to the extremists with the ferver that the West anticipated. Gerecht goes on to say:

In Europe as elsewhere, Westernization is the key to the growth and virulence of hard-core Islamic radicalism. The most frightening, certainly the most effective, adherents of bin Ladenism are those who are culturally and intellectually most like us. The process of Westernization liberates a Muslim from the customary sanctions and loyalties that normally corralled the dark side of the human soul. Respect for one's father, an appreciation for the human need to have fun, a toleration of eccentricity and naughty personal behavior, the love of art and folk music--all are characteristics of traditional mainstream Muslim society wiped away by the arrival of modernity and the simultaneous spread of sterile, esthetically empty, angry, Saudi-financed Wahhabi thought. In this sense, bin Ladenism is the Muslim equivalent of Western totalitarianism. This cleaning of the slate, this break with the past, is probably more profound in the Muslim enclaves in Europe--what Gilles Kepel called les banlieues de l'Islam--than it is in the urban sprawl of Cairo, where traditional mores, though under siege and badly battered by modernity, nevertheless retain considerable force. Cairo gave us Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's great intellectual; it's not unreasonable to fear that London or Paris or Berlin will give us his successor.

There is so much insight in this article, that I urge you to read it all. Gerecht is correct in asserting that the rise of the Muslim Jihadist fills a gaping hole made by the almost total eradication of the lethal leftist totalitarianisms of the 20th century. As he says, they represent the Muslim equivalent of Western totalitarianism--and they are the natural heirs to all those monsters throughout human history who have sought power in order to enslave other humans to their desires.

The only way to fight this mentality is to continue the slow march toward universal human freedom and democratic nations that embrace life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:41 AM |

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Battered-Left Syndrome

The diagnosis: Battered-Left Syndrome (hat tip: gumshoe)

The aftermath of the London terrorist bombings has demonstrated that the antiwar Left is severely afflicted by the political equivalent of battered-wife syndrome. With each new beating, the scarred and bruised victims of spousal abuse tend to excuse and rationalize the actions of their tormentors. A stubborn unwillingness to accept the proposition that their partners are violent louts plunges these woeful women into a morass of self-deception that spawns only further violence.

The far Left has similarly proved unable to liberate itself from the web of rose-tinted delusions that it has spun about the nature of Islamic extremism. After each al Qaeda outrage, leftist ideologues are quick to castigate their own countrymen for a catalogue of sins, both real and imagined. With a perverse combination of self-loathing and adoration of the enemy, the radical Leftist mantra preaches that if only we were nicer, the jihadists could not fail to love us. It’s our own fault if Osama bin Laden doesn’t realize what good people we are.

And all the while, these “progressive” academics, pundits, and politicians engage in ridiculous intellectual contortions designed to mitigate the guilt of the terrorist perpetrators. When push comes to shove, some intellectuals believe that Islamism is simply an understandable reaction to what they describe as “Western imperialism.”

The streets of Britain’s capital city were still damp with innocent blood when the same obscene dance of political self-flagellation began. Within hours of the explosions on the Underground, author Tariq Ali was blaming these attacks on George Bush and Tony Blair. The architects of the London bombings were exercising their just entitlement to vengeance for the “violence being inflicted on the people of the Muslim world,” he wrote.

Journalist Robert Fisk rushed to sing from the same song-sheet in the left-wing British daily The Independent. “It was crystal clear Britain would be a target ever since Tony Blair decided to join George Bush’s ‘war on terror,’” Fisk thundered. The true arch-terrorists of our time, he argued, could be found in the White House and 10 Downing Street.

And if the causes of Islamist terrorism were being falsely diagnosed by leftist ideologues, then the policy proposals being advanced by these same voices were morally bankrupt as well. Rather than pursue the fanatics had who visited such death upon the innocent of London, George Galloway, a radical member of Parliament, urged Britain to adopt the Spanish model of crumpling under pressure.

Lapkin, the author of this article hits the nail on the head, I think. You must read the whole thing.

Let me tell you about my experience with many Battered Women. I wrote about it previously on this blog , when I discussed the complacency many Muslim women show with their own oppression under Islamic law.

When I started my career in psychiatry, one of my earliest and most difficult cases was a woman--I'll call her Alice--who was seen frequently in the ER because her husband used to beat her fairly regularly. She had been hospitalized several times because of internal injuries from these beatings, but despite our trying to convince her to get help, Alice vehemently refused, claiming that she loved her husband and that he loved her. Her hospital room would be filled with flowers and cards from the repentant spouse. Both Alice and her husband would have nothing to do with us, and denied they even had a problem.

The last time I saw Alice, she was unconscious and being wheeled into the operating room after a particularly savage beating from her loving husband. She never made it off the operating table. I thought of how we tried desperately to warn her that the violence would not stop unless something changed. We literally had pleaded with her to let us help her the last time she was discharged from the medical unit.

Rarely since then have I felt so helpless or impotent as a professional. Rarely have I felt so angry about the kind of psychopathology and lack of insight that lead to situations like Alice's.

Since then I have come to realize you cannot force someone to change psychologically. The professional part of me understands that Alice had many opportunities to make a change in the toxic relationship she had with her husband. She had the opporutnity to get help; she could have stopped accepting his way of expressing his "love". She could have faced the reality of her situation. But she didn't, and now she was dead. The husband was convicted of her murder. And Alice, who was without doubt a tragic victim of domestic abuse, was at the same time a willing accomplice to her own murder.

The behavior of the Left, as Lapkin notes, is very similar to cases like Alice: denial; distortion of reality; appeasement; enabling behavior; and ultimately, the willing accomplices to their own murder.

Will they change? Can they change? Before that crocodile gets around to eating them?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:50 PM |

Trainee Terrorists?

Michael Yon continues his excellent reporting from Iraq and tells us about progress made in Mosul. Along the way, he makes an excellent observation:

Part of the persistence of the insurgency results from a staggering availability of fighting materials. There are tons of explosives and munitions here in Mosul, with more streaming in every day, though mounting evidence strongly suggests this flow is abating. For example, the street price of 60mm "mortar bombs" was about $3/shot 9 months ago. Now it’s up nearly seven-fold to over $20. Car bomb incidents in Mosul, while still causing major damage to both military and civilians, have been declining. Whether this is a temporary dip or steady trend remains to be seen. Even if the ongoing flow were completely cut off, there is still a deep well of material on hand.

Even Zarqawi and Bin Laden are subject to the laws of supply and demand.

Meanwhile, Chrenkoff has "A Postcard from A Quagmire":

A majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq say morale is low, according to an Army report that finds psychological stress is weighing particularly heavily on National Guard and Reserve troops.

Which is true, except that the report actually notes improvements on all accounts compared with a similar study one year earlier:

Wednesday's report said the number of suicides in Iraq and Kuwait declined from 24 in 2003 to nine last year...

The overall assessment said 13 percent of soldiers in the most recent study screened positive for a mental health problem, compared with 18 percent a year earlier. Symptoms of acute or post-traumatic stress remained the top mental health problem, affecting at least 10 percent of all soldiers checked in the latest survey.

In the anonymous survey, 17 percent of soldiers said they had experienced moderate or severe stress or problems with alcohol, emotions or their families. That compares with 23 percent a year earlier.

And what about the morale?

The report said 54 percent of soldiers rated their units' morale as low or very low. The comparable figure in a year-earlier Army survey was 72 percent.
So, as the US sinks ever deeper in the Iraqi quagmire, the mental health and morale of its troops are actually improving.

I guess that's actually bad news as far as the media is concerned.

Whether we call it the "Media Insurgency" or "Media Terrorism"; it still adds up to a concerted effort by many in the MSM to minimize the positive and accentuate the negative. One can even catch a whiff of admiration for the terrorists.This, from a "trainee journalist" at the Guardian, who also happens to be a member in good standing of a violent Islamic group.

People like Yon and Chrenkoff provide an objective assessment of what is going on in Iraq; without all the pandering to and enabling of the murderous thugs that are indiscriminantly blowing up fellow Muslims and "occupiers" alike.

Perhaps we should refer to some of the MSM journalists as mere "trainee terrorists"?

UPDATE: Maybe I'm being too kind to journalists. Glenn Reynolds says what he really thinks about their assinine questions to Blair and Howard. And here is Howard's response also.
The terrorists who tried to kill more people in London today are pathetic, incompetent losers. BUT SO ARE THE JOURNALISTS WHOSE BEHAVIOR ENABLES AND ENCOURAGES THEM.

You've got to wonder what is the matter with these people? To figure out the answer, simply look at the agenda these journalists advocate. In trying to lay the blame for terrorism on those who are actively fighting it (and they have tried to do this repeatedly and every chance they get), they manage to distort and deny the last 10 years of history; exonerate the Islamofascists who carry out the brutal and psychopathic acts; and demonstrate what a completely useless source of information their so-called "reporting" represents.

So the answer is: (1) they are filled with hatred toward the current leaders of the West and would prefer that the West lose the war on the Islamofascist terrorists, who are more compatible with their own world view. In order to accomplish that goal, they --consciously or unconsciously (does it really matter? Their behavior says it all)--strive to support anyone who might make the objects of their hatred look bad. How mature. How objective. How disgusting.

What they are doing is usually referred to as bias. But these "trainee terrorists" are oblivious to the implications of their own behavior. They are in reality suicidally biased; and like the suicide bombers they feel grudging awe and admiration for, they explode their venom in measured, calculated explosions that will do the most harm. (2:41 pm 7/21/05)

UPDATE II: Check out the Anchoress, who has a eries of photos that answer most of the dumbass reporter questions that imply Iraq is the "cause" of terror attacks. She visually shows us everything that came before Iraq. (2:55 pm 7/21/05)

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:48 AM |

Reverse Psychology?

Do you suppose that this report might well be an instance of the kind of reverse psychology one might use with children....?

Let's see if it works!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:41 AM |

“The Hell of Israel is better than the paradise of Arafat.”

Here is what the Palestinians get to look forward to after the "oppressive" Israelis leave them to their own devices:

Some have noticed though: among them Khaled al-Haroub, a Palestinian residing in the UK, who wrote a column for the daily Al Hayat entitled “Let’s prevent Hamas to become Gaza’s Talibans.” Also the Kuwaiti daily Al Qabas has been reporting that, in the past few months, numerous Islamic style honor crimes have been committed in Gaza most likely by Hamas members.

But what has been the real eye-opener was the atrocious murder of Yousra al-Azzami on April 8 in Gaza. She was traveling home with her husband, her sister and her sister’s fiancé, when their car was attacked and rippled with bullets. The assailers then proceeded to beat up violently the two couples including Yousra, who had been hit by a bullet in the head and was lying motionless on the ground bleeding to death. Palestinian police arrested two of the five killers and recognized right away that they were Hamas members and had received their orders from their superior, Yusuf Dayah. He had reportedly told them: ”There are some ‘insolent’ couples on the beach. Teach them a lesson.”
[...]
Hamas is trying to control every aspect of the life of the people of Gaza. As an example, in the past eight months, Hamas' religious police is behind the burning of tens of cyber cafes, which are viewed as “vice outlets.” And that’s why, were Hamas to seize power in Gaza, a Taliban-style regime could easily come to power.

The Palestinians aren't going to get a state. They are going to get a hell on earth, courtesy of Islam.

I'm very happy for them. But somehow I doubt that the suicide bombings and mass murders and such will be much detered by Israel's clever withdrawal from the lands of these blighted people. They (and their supporters) will still need someone to blame for their pathetic lives in a prison of their own making. Guess who?

Allah be praised.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:10 AM |

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Out of This World !

While NASA is forced to go fly a kite...

...and the media remains obsessed with leaks;

I suggest you blast off with a good book!

ShrinkWrapped has a great psychological review, comparing Harry Potter with The Lord of the Rings. I won't give away the ending, but I had tears in my eyes--both for what happened and for the fact that I WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR JK ROWLING TO FINISH THE 7TH BOOK TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS!!!! Patience has never been one of my virtues, sadly.

Buy the book by clicking on the link:

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:35 PM |

"And All The Children Are Above Average..."

...so none of them should fail according to professional teachers:

The Professional Association of Teachers will be told at its meeting next week that the label of failure could undermine pupils' enthusiasm.

Delegates will also hear a condemnation of the phrase "happy slapping". (NOTE: they want to condemn the words--not the action??)

The term is used to describe bullying where assaults are filmed on mobile phones.

Liz Beattie, a retired teacher, will call on the association's annual gathering in Buxton, Derbyshire, to "delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'".

She argues that repeated failure, such as in exams, can damage pupils' interest in learning.

So we begin to see why editors and journalists believe we should never use that awful word "terrorist" and should select less pejoritive words (wouldn't want to hurt their poor feelings, would we?) to decribe them! Perhaps we can refer to suicide bombers as "deferred living specialists" so as not to damage their interest in life, perhaps?

Well, if you want to truly damage pupils' interest and enthusiasm in learning --not to mention their genuine self-esteem--then parents should encourage this kind of tripe in their local schools.

As our children's education is taken over more and more by the guardians of multiculturalism and the priests of political correctness, we parents can happily watch as student scores drop even further and further into the toilet, secure in the knowledge that at least their self-esteem hasn't suffered from the trials and tribulations of objective reality. If we are really really lucky, they will remain children their whole life and simply defer success entirely!

This nonsensical and not-so-subtle attempt at political correctness which distorts language and thus distorts the ability to think rationally, is just what our children need, don't you think?

A modest suggestion: if you want to keep kids interested in school, give them an intellectual challenge and some good teachers who live in the same world you and I inhabit. Do not--I repeat, do not--give them teachers who are so dim that they are willing to sacrifice Truth and Reality on the altar of feel-good, happy talk.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:38 PM |

Guilty Pleasure

Powerline wonders how they will attack John Roberts, Bush's pick for Supreme Court.

As for me, when it was mentioned that Senators Kennedy, Durbin, and Schumer were the only senators on the committee who voted against his nomination to the lower court, I realized that there was probably nothing that would prevent me from liking this candidate.

If those ~~idiots~~ learned and reasonable men are opposed to him, he must certainly be a brilliant choice! I look forward to the usual grandstanding and hope the triumvirate will proceed to make utter fools of themselves, as they seem to enjoy doing.

Yes, I know this isn't entirely objective and fair on my part...but I get so much pleasure out of watching hysterical men act foolishly.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:18 AM |

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

An Islamist Apology

Daniel Pipes has been issued an apology. It was extracted via a libel suit, but it is an apology nonetheless.

It is perhaps a good sign. Perhaps some insight and self-awareness is developing? Maybe it is even the beginnings of acting responsibly? Like Daniel Pipes, I certainly hope so.

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred have more thoughts. One of the commenters quoted in the post cites a 45 year old alcoholic who still blames his parents for his alcoholism, and says, "At some point, you need to be accountable for your own action."

Yes. You do.

At some point, Islam must grow up and accept responsibility for what is going on in its name. It cannot hold the West responsible, when their own holy book has passages that justify and exculpate mass murder, enslavement, and oppression of others.

Once, in its early days, Islam was a vibrant and creative force for its followers. Those days have been over for a thousand years. Yet, like the 45 year old alcoholic, the blame for the sorry state most Muslim countries are in is laid at the feet of the West.

It won't work. You may find some countries (e.g. Spain) willing to take the blame. But it will do you no good in the long run. You won't get better; your lives won't improve; your societies will remain barbaric--until and unless you begin to take responsibility for what you believe, say and do.

I am not foolish enough to think even for a moment that the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will end the anger and rage of the Muslim/Arab world. What I see clinically all the time is that if you change the circumstances that the patient claims is the source of their failure in life; they will only find yet another circumstance that can be pointed to as the new reason they don't get better and are unable to have happiness and success. It will always be someone else's fault that they cannot reach the happiness they just know is right around the corner.

No one can change the past. An accumulation of injustices and grievances is a surefire way to establish permanent victimhood. And a victim will remain a victim--until the courage is found to take responsibility for one's own life and future.

Recognizing what you are doing to contribute to and perpetuate your own victimhood is a good first step to ending it. A second step is to take responsibility for the consequences of your own actions.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:11 PM |

Thinking The Unthinkable

In light of the recent remarks by Congressman Tancredo, it is perhaps a good idea to go back and read this post from The Belmont Club, which discusses the issue in some detail: The Three Conjectures:

Even if Islam killed every non-Muslim on earth they would almost certainly continue to kill each other with their new-found weaponry. Revenge bombings between rival groups and wars between different Islamic factions are the recurring theme of history. Long before 3,000 New Yorkers died on September 11, Iraq and Iran killed 500,000 Muslims between them. The greatest threat to Muslims is radical Islam; and the greatest threat of all is a radical Islam armed with weapons of mass destruction.

Conjecture 3: The War on Terror is the 'Golden Hour' -- the final chance

It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat. While American arms have proven irresistible, much of Europe, as well as moderates in the Islamic world, remain blind to the danger and indeed increase it. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad recently "told an international conference of young Muslim leaders ... (that) ... Muslims must acquire skills and technology so they can create modern weapons and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies". Fecklessness and gunpowder are a lethal combination. The terrible ifs accumulate.

You will have to read the entire piece to fully understand why the attainment of Nuclear weapons by the Islamic radicals may well be the final nail in the coffin of Islam (at least according to this analysis).

However, I am somewhat taken aback at the hysteria unleased by both the Left and Right on Tancredo, who is surely expressing something that many people are feeling right now.

I am not saying that the course he suggests is the correct action in response to a nuclear attack on the US by the Islamofascists. Frankly, I don't know what an effective response would be, since there is no "nation" of Islam that can take responsibility for such an atrocity if it occurs.

But I daresay--human nature being what it is--the likelihood of Conjecture #2 in Wretchard's analysis coming to be once the nuclear threshold is crossed, is not at all unlikely. Tancredo's emotionally honest openness about the "unthinkable" is not dismaying as much as it is sobering --for both sides, one hopes.

All the more reason why we must continue to take this war against Islamofascism seriously, and why those elusive "moderates" of Islam need to take back control of their religion.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:09 AM |

Cotillion Carousel

Welcome aboard Dr. Sanity's Cotillion Carousel! Dr. Sanity is honored to be one of the hosts for the weekly Cotillion Ball, but frankly, she's exhausted from dancing and just wants to sit for a while! So, let's take a ride on a merry-go-round of conservative ladies' blogs!

On our first carousel horse we have Jane at Armies of Liberation whose post today is about Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani, Yemen’s main democracy advocate and reformer, who was recently released from jail, and targeted by the Yemeni government again along with the Popular Forces Union, his political party.

Right behind her is Raven from And Rightly So, who is pleased to point out, "Osama, yo mama, you out!", as OBL's standing in the Muslim world plummets to a new low.

Then there is Oddybobo the boboblogger, who thinks that Hell is too kind a place for the murderous fanatics who killed in cold blood 18 Shiite babies. And who can blame her?

Atlas Shrugs reminds us that the road to hell is paved with Live 8, which is "all rock and no action."

And as the carousel goes round and round, we can hear Baldilocks commenting about the Plame affair -- otherwise known as Nadagate.

Janette at Common Sense Run Wild entertains us with a book review and he book under scrutiny is Jesus by Leith Anderson. The painted ponies go up and down as we learn about the Safe Community Alert Network (SCAN) over at An American Housewife ; and Absinthe and Cookies discusses a recent movie that cashes in on two common stereotypes about weddings: that women hate attending nuptials alone, and that men, realizing how vulnerable weddings make single women feel, use the occasions to their advantage.

And check out this fabulous audio device brought to you by Are You Conservative. It's the Gitmo-terro-Gator! You can decide what is torture and what isn't!

Annika at Annika's Journal tells us about her most popular post, due in large part to the mysterious intracies and craziness of the GOOGLE search engine..

Kathy at The Cake Eater's Chronicles ia urging everyone to Walk For Diabetes at her blog; and tells the moving story of her young nephew James who lives with Type I diabetes.

And finally, over at A Mom and Her Blog there is a wonderful recipe for a cheesecake to die for! Now that's something that might make me get off the carousel!

Crossposted at The Cotillion!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:00 AM |

Monday, July 18, 2005

Singing A Different Tune to the Court

A brilliant essay by Andrew McCarthy at NRO about how the media have misled and misdirected us from the beginning of the Plame affair--now referred to a "Nadagate":

With each passing day, the manufactured "scandal" over the publication of Valerie Plame's relationship with the CIA establishes new depths of mainstream-media hypocrisy. A highly capable special prosecutor is probing the underlying facts, and it is appropriate to withhold legal judgments until he completes the investigation over which speculation runs so rampant. But it is not too early to assess the performance of the press. It's been appalling.

Is that hyperbole? You be the judge. Have you heard that the CIA is actually the source responsible for exposing Plame's covert status? Not Karl Rove, not Bob Novak, not the sinister administration cabal du jour of Fourth Estate fantasy, but the CIA itself? Had you heard that Plame's cover has actually been blown for a decade — i.e., since about seven years before Novak ever wrote a syllable about her? Had you heard not only that no crime was committed in the communication of information between Bush administration officials and Novak, but that no crime could have been committed because the governing law gives a person a complete defense if an agent's status has already been compromised by the government?

No, you say, you hadn't heard any of that. You heard that this was the crime of the century. A sort of Robert-Hanssen-meets-Watergate in which Rove is already cooked and we're all just waiting for the other shoe — or shoes — to drop on the den of corruption we know as the Bush administration. That, after all, is the inescapable impression from all the media coverage. So who is saying different?

The organized media, that's who. How come you haven't heard? Because they've decided not to tell you. Because they say one thing — one dark, transparently partisan thing — when they're talking to you in their news coverage, but they say something completely different when they think you're not listening.

To us, the reading, news-hungry public, the media are saying one thing. To a court they are singing another tune. If you want to have your jaw drop, go see what 36 news organizations (all the one's calling for Karl Rove's head) joined together to write in a brief filed as a friend-of-the-court in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

Believe me, this is truly astonishing and repellant. The hypocrisy is unbelievable...except, this is the mainstream media we are speaking of, after all.

I suppose I shouldn't be so shocked.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:10 PM |

Multicultural Humor

This was sent to me from the internet--it's multicultural, but probably not PC:

On a chain of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of South Pacific,
the following people are stranded:

Two Italian men and one Italian woman.
Two French men and one French woman.
Two German men and one German woman.
Two Greek men and one Greek woman.
Two British men and one British woman.
Two Bulgarian men and one Bulgarian woman.
Two Japanese men and one Japanese woman.
Two Chinese men and one Chinese woman.
Two Irish men and one Irish woman.
Two American men and one American woman.

One month later, on these absolutely stunning deserted islands in the
middle of nowhere, the following things have occurred:

One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.

The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a
ménage a trois.

The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits
with the German woman.

The two Greek men are sleeping together and the Greek woman is cooking
and cleaning for them.

The two British men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the
British woman.

The two Bulgarian men took one look at the Bulgarian woman and started
swimming to another island.

The two Japanese have faxed Tokyo and are awaiting instructions.

The two Chinese men have set up a pharmacy, liquor store, restaurant,
and laundry, and have gotten the woman pregnant in order to supply
employees for their stores.

The two Irish men divided the island into north and south and set up a
distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it
gets somewhat foggy after a few liters of coconut whiskey. However,
they're satisfied because the British aren't having any fun.

The two American men are contemplating suicide, because the American
woman will not shut up and complains relentlessly about her body, the
true nature of feminism, what the sun is doing to her skin, how she can
do anything they can do, the necessity of fulfillment, the equal
division of household chores, how sand and palm trees make her look fat,
how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than
they do, and how her relationship with her mother is the root cause of
all her problems, and why didn't they bring a damn cell phone so they
could call 911 and get them all rescued off this Godforsaken deserted
island in the middle of freaking nowhere so she can get her nails done
and go shopping.

As an American woman, I resemble that remark!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:17 PM |

The Axis of Cluelessness

I thought this was an interesting interview by Hugh Hewitt with Victor Davis Hanson on Radioblogger. Here is an excerpt:

HH: Professor Hanson, you talked about the left in the article at National Review.com today. Our first hindrance is moral equivalence. Our second shackle is utopian pacifism. The third restraint is multiculturalism. The question, and it's a very serious question, is can the left be rescued from these three chains?

VDH: I don't know. It was rescued before in the 50's, remember. There was a strain, the Henry Wallace Party. And a group of concerned, sophisticated Democrats decided that was not where to go, and got tough on the Soviet Union, were the architects of the Cold War, and produced people like Scoop Jackson, Harry Truman, JFK. And then Vietnam started that detour again, and we haven't really gone back yet. We've tried to, a little bit sometimes with Bill Clinton's middle course. But I think what's happened is they've come very close...they won the popular election in 2000. They came within three or four points in the last election. But they have no political power, in the sense of no majority in the House, none in the Senate, no presidency, no Supreme Court, no majority of state legislatures or governors. And that creates a frustration. And rather than to do the hard work of laying out an agenda, that would give the American people a clear-cut choice, they just look for an Abu Ghraib scandal, a Koran flushed at Guantanamo, a Karl Rove, any little scandal they think that can get them in power on the cheap. And it's not going to work. Not in a time of war.

Hanson discusses a number of things, but particularly what is needed to win the war. He is absolutely correct about the current strategy of the Democratic Party--a strategy that is unconcerned with this war, and which in fact is tied up in the three chains that Hewitt queries Hanson about: moral equivalence,, utopian pacifism, and multiculturalism.
Let's just call the three together the "axis of cluelessness". All three styles of "thinking" are actually representative of an ideology that provides a shortcut to doing the hard work of living: rational thinking and making judgements about the real world. Two crucial faculties that are necessary for human survival.

It is one thing to say, "live and let live" -- which is the essence of tolerance. It is quite another to say that we are no better than the people trying to kill us because we choose to defend ourselves. That their culture is just as good as ours; and that peace is worth any price (except fighting for it). That is sheer idiocy. That is utter cluelessness. That is suicidal.

That is what is being embraced by the Democratic Party and most of the Left today.

Noone seems to wonder --if these three psychological strategies have any merit or truth in them at all--then why do their proponents (1) give priority to all cultures-- except for Western culture (which is inherently inferior to any primitive culture on the face of the planet according to the Left); (2) perceive worth and give understanding to all actions no matter how misguided or in error--except our own actions; and (3) strive for "peace" by being behaving violently?

Until we can confront the very real danger that these three convenient and easy thought shortcuts present to rational thought, then we cannot possibly achieve a victory over the forces that threaten Western Civilization.

We won't even be allowed to name them.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:36 AM |

Dem Darn Leaks

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:01 AM |

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Mountain out of Molehill, Part II

John Podhoretz says that the Karl Rove portion of the Plame Affair is over:

"So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'WMD'? Yes."

Translation: Did Karl Rove break any laws? No. Did he do anything wrong? No - because saying someone worked for the CIA on WMD is not in any way wrong. Nor was there anything wrong with Cooper learning that Mrs. Joseph Wilson may have arranged a little Nigerien jaunt for her has-been, lame-o hubby -- perhaps because she knew he needed some Dry Look hair spray and could use the Duty Free Discount at Dulles. Or perhaps because she wanted him out of the hosue because he was so annoying. Or because they could use a little more scratch and he was presumably reimbursed to some extent for his travels. Or perhaps because she's his wife and loves him and wanted to throw him a bone to salve an ego that is roughly the size of the Goodyear Blimp.

Are the people who are going after Karl Rove's throat with precious little evidence and even less reason now going to hang their heads and blush with shame because they all but convicted a man for a felony he didn't commit in the public prints?

Are you kidding?

The Karl Rove portion of the story is over. The Judy Miller portion continues. And here the question is: Who's in real trouble -- somebody in the administration or somebody in the media? Or maybe somebody in the Wilson family? Or, as is most likely, nobody?

It would be very interesting to see exactly who or what Judith Miller is protecting in all this. But, I could live without knowing. There are a lot of more important things going on in the world right now--even if the Democrats haven't noticed in their crazed pursuit of Rove.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:25 PM |

Carnival of the Insanities

Time for the weekly insanity udate, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). Calling all bloggers! Be sure to send in your entries to the Carnival, which will be posted every Sunday. Entries need to be in by 8 pm on Saturday to make their way into the list that week. This week we have a record number of insanities thanks to all the submissions and the way the world turns. SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!

1. Terrorists just wanna have fun.

2 The debasement of women serving in the United States military at Gitmo? Give me a f***ing break, please.

3. Crooks and Liars and Morons, Oh My!

4. The latest in automobile satellite radio technology!

5. Homer Simpson is right about donuts--they can do anything!

6. Just a few "minor" errors from Juan Cole via Tim Blair.

7. How to trick a liberal.

8. I find it hard to believe the Olympics prefers this sport over Baseball or Softball. It's inexplicable!

9. Sometimes you can be too environmentally friendly.

10. This could be described as genocide in the insect world. Pretty awful.Watch the entire video.

11. Too bad he's not available instead of Oliver Stone.

12. Now where would they get the bizarre idea that multiculturalism was failing??? Imagine that.

13. A real innovation in bicycle design.

14. So this is what it will take to get the blue states to support the WOT! I didn't realize....

15. This is the kind of controlled demolition that is taking down the brains of the apologists for mass murder.

16. Oh yes, this was a perfectly understandable mistake. Any journalist could have made it.

17. No IFS, ANDS, or BUTTS

18. Multiple Mentality finds very little gray in the DU cesspool after the London Bombings.

19. Stuck in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi? What a horrible thought!

20 As seen on Al-Jazeera. Really!

21. Did you know that racism is OK as long as it come from the Left?

22. As if we needed more proof after watching the the Tour de France.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:38 AM |

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Off To Camp And Places Unknown....

The Boo went off to summer camp for TWO WHOLE WEEKS today! She has never been away from home for more than one night. She is handling it in a very mature and excited fashion.

I, on the other hand, am a nervous wreck. My little baby has grown up and is spreading her wings. Things will never be the same again...

Of course, I knew it was coming. For the last two years, since the Boo was in middle school, there have been lots of signs that this was coming. I had to walk several steps behind her at the mall so it didn't look like we were together. She was usually embarassed to be seen with me at school. She started saying things like, "Oh, Mother!" and "I don't want you to do that anymore" in an exasperated and disgusted tone of voice. She'd roll her eyes when I would say just about anything. And she would frequently respond to my attempts to console her when she was upset at something with, "you just don't understant!"

I think I managed to convey how excited I was for her to be going away and what a wonderful time she was going to have: swimming, horseback riding, water-skiing and doing lots and lots of fun things with her friends. I managed to be enthusiastic when she decided to pack for herself and requested that I trust her to get everything ready on her own. At the last minute, she decided to take her favorite blankie--the one that she's had since she was born and which she sleeps with every night, but had been considering leaving behind for the two weeks.

She gave me and her father a quick hug and a smile as she got into the car that would drive her 450 miles away. I smiled brightly back and waved until the car was out of sight. Then I went in the house and cried for a long time.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:44 PM |

Terminal Tolerance

Are you a fan of multiculturalism? Then don't read this article as you will have to face some hard facts about reality. And we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?

Nevertheless, here's an excerpt:

Only one faith on earth may be more messianic than Islam: multiculturalism. Without it — without its fanatics who believe all civilizations are the same — the engine that projects Islam into the unprotected heart of Western civilization would stall and fail. It's as simple as that. To live among the believers — the multiculturalists — is to watch the assault, the jihad, take place, unrepulsed by our suicidal societies. These societies are not doomed to submit; rather, they are eager to do so in the name of a masochistic brand of tolerance that, short of drastic measures, is surely terminal.
I'm not talking about our soldiers, policemen, rescue workers and, now, even train conductors who bravely and steadfastly risk their lives for civilization abroad and at home. I'm instead thinking about who we are as a society at this somewhat advanced stage of war. It is a strange, tentative civilization we have become, with leaders who strut their promises of "no surrender" even as they flinch at identifying the foe. Four years past September 11, we continue to shadow-box "terror," even as we go on about "an ideology of hate." It's a script that smacks of sci-fi fantasy more than realpolitik. But our grim reality is no summer blockbuster, and there's no special-effects-enhanced plot twist that is going to thwart "terror" or "hate" in the London Underground, any more than it did on the roof of the World Trade Center. Or in the Bali nightclub. Or on the first day of school in Beslan. Or in any disco, city bus or shopping mall in Israel.

It has been said repeatedly by those who know, that the United States cannot be defeated militarily in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and anywhere we go to fight the "War on Terror". I am not a military expert, but their assessment of the battlefield situation concurs with my own limited knowledge and seems straightforward and a true appraisal to me.

What concerns me as a psychiatrist is the fact that America’s (and civilization’s) victory over this terror seems to hang on a tenuous psychological thread. The question of the hour is: Will American’s resolve to win this war continue to erode as time goes on – as the enemy hopes and believes? Will the voices of those who relentlessly criticize, impede, and otherwise undermine efforts to achieve victory prevent us defeating an enemy that intends to muffle the voices of everyone?

Or, will America stand fast and unite for victory against ....whom?

The enemies of civilization must be named. How can people remain psychologically involved in the struggle when there is a overt attempt on the part of our leaders; our press and a good portion of the population to disguise who and what we are fighting?

Under the umbrella of "Political Correctness" and the multiculturalist's code of conduct; and out of fear of offending those who would kill us with a backward glance, we have failed to explicitly name who we are fighting against.

This omission on our part has a significant psychological impact. By merely referring to the enemy as “terrorists” we invite the substitution of numerous, less pejorative nouns (e.g. militants, insurgents, freedom-fighters, bombers, etc.) which, in fact, precisely is what has happened in the mainstream media—who we can safely list for the most part in the camp of enemy enablers. Slogans like, "one man's 'terrorist' is another man's 'freedom fighter'" are just another way to obscure the issue.

Since the early days of of human speech, the act of naming of a thing has always given one tremendous psychological power over that thing.

By our reluctance to name the enemy we face – whether we call them Islamic Jihadists, Islamofascists, or Islamic Fundamentalists, (are all good, descriptive and comprehensive names that could be used)— we have ceded considerable psychological advantage and power. The Jihadists are perfectly clear about who they are fighting. I refer you to Bin Laden’s 1998 Declaration of War:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.
[....]
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God." (emphasis mine)

Let us stop pussyfooting around the truth and take the cure for terminal tolerance by calling the "terrorists" by their real name. One immediate result would be that a line will be drawn in the sand and everyone will have to step onto one side or the other.

Then perhaps we can begin to focus on victory in this war.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:49 AM |

Friday, July 15, 2005

"ABC Lied And People Died?"

Ace has a tape from a 1999 ABC Newscast documenting the relationship between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Did you get that? 1999. When Clinton was President. There was a clear, demonstrable connection between Osama and Saddam. There was a well-known and clear connection between Saddam and attempts to get WMD. There was explicit documentation--that everybody knew about-- that Saddam had harbored the most notorious terrorists in the world.

Somehow, according to the Left, this well-known, documented, fully discussed and reported, open information had disappeared and evaporated into thin air as soon as Bush became President of the US.

Go and listen. Then tell all the the nuts on the Left that, obviously, "ABC Lied and People Died." Maybe they can organize a protest march or something.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:29 PM |

The Council Has Spoken !

This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher's site. Every week the Council nominates posts from the blogs of the Council members, and posts from around the blogsphere. The Council then votes to select the "Best" of all these posts.

BEST COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place

I Despair. The Sundries Shack

Second Place

A Functional Philosophical Structure Must Have an Understanding of Evil Gates of Vienna

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS

First Place

Al Qaeda Attacks: A Flash Presentation Winds of Change

Second Place

Rhythms, Part 8 Neptunus Lex

Be sure to check out all the winners at the Watcher's site!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:07 PM |

Haloscan Not Working Properly Today

The Haloscan commenting system seems not to be working properly. Sorry for the inconvenience!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:05 PM |

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

That is my advice to the mainstream Press at the moment. They are so thick-headed that they don't even realize yet that--not only have they cleared Karl Rove, but they have identified the culprit in the Valerie Plame "outing"--and is is....the PRESS!

For verification of this, read the NY Times article here.

Read the Anchoress' assessment of the NY Times article here.

Read Ace, Captain Ed,, Polipundit -- or, heck, just go read the entire blogsphere and see if you don't agree.

What's fascinating is that the Press is far too clueless to even realize they have damned themselves.

Sweet.

UPDATE: And don't miss Roger Simon's comments about a certain "fatuous creep." I love it!

UPDATE II: An emailer asks why I haven't written about this before. Well, to be honest, with various and sundry other issues on my mind--like Terrorism etc. (and maybe baseball)-- I just didn't care about the whole issue. I figured it would get sorted out in the end, and that the rising hysteria in the media was pretty nonsensical (which is usually the case in these situations). As the implications of the latest information sink in, we should see a pretty fast retreat from the issue once the press realizes that they have yet another scandal on their hands (a la CBS etc.) and my hope is that we shall hear no more about this non-issue -- or from Wilson and Plame themselves -- for evermore.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:01 AM |

Union With An Evil God

A glimpse into the mind of a suicide bomber.

Did you know that the doors to heaven can be opened by a detonator?

How did you feel when you heard that you’d been selected for martyrdom?” I asked.

“It’s as if a very high, impenetrable wall separated you from Paradise or Hell,” he said. “Allah has promised one or the other to his creatures. So, by pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise — it is the shortest path to Heaven.”
[....]
What is the attraction of martyrdom?” I asked.

“The power of the spirit pulls us upward, while the power of material things pulls us downward,” he said. “Someone bent on martyrdom becomes immune to the material pull. Our planner asked, ‘What if the operation fails?’ We told him, ‘In any case, we get to meet the Prophet and his companions, inshallah.’

“We were floating, swimming, in the feeling that we were about to enter eternity. We had no doubts. We made an oath on the Koran, in the presence of Allah — a pledge not to waver. This jihad pledge is called bayt al-ridwan, after the garden in Paradise that is reserved for the prophets and the martyrs. I know that there are other ways to do jihad. But this one is sweet — the sweetest. All martyrdom operations, if done for Allah ’s sake, hurt less than a gnat’s bite!”

I wonder if in his religious ecstasy experience there is room for a consideration of the possible pain of his victims?

Probably not. The essence of religious ecstasy occurs when one's Self is perfectly united to the elusive omnipotent object of one's infancy; and this fusion has little room in the crowded psyche for the consideration of of those outside the fusion. It is just one's own pathetic little Self and God.

Usually, this is not so bad as experiences go; and many who are caught up in this incredible ecstasy are led to new understanding and appreciation of their own humanity; their Self is strengthened and renewed; and they may feel a benevolence and peace toward all other human beings. Fusion with a benign and caring god can even provoke monumental spiritual changes for the good in some individuals.

But this is not the case when one unites with a brutal, bloodthirsty, compassionless god like Allah the Merciful (what a misnomer!). The Allah of the gentleman quoted in the article above is hardly benign and demands not only your death, but that you commit murder in his name. The perfect union is still perceived ecstatically, even if the Self undergoes medieval torture; for it is still the desired Oneness that the developing Self lost early on in life. Allah the omnipotent object remains omnipotent--just evil-- and the result is a profound loss of humanity and a rejection of the good.

It is possible,though, that Allah may be getting a bum rap. In the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", Jessica Rabbit--who is always responded to as a wanton sex kitten--exclaims in frustration at this depiction of her, "I'm not bad! I'm just drawn that way!"

Allah may not be so bad. Perhaps he's just drawn that way...?

UPDATE: And then again, what can one say about a god who would tolerate and encouorage a horde of Jack the Rippers? Wretchard comments:

It is not enough, as the British Army has done, to look on at this mayhem from the outside in, blinded by the illusion that these executions are just one more quaint ethnic practice that the guilt-ridden West has no right to criticize; that it is one more expression of identity that one is obliged to tolerate, whether these sanguinary events happen in British-patrolled Basra or the British city of Leeds.The wellsprings of terrorism arise from certain tendencies within Islamic society itself; and unless the weeds are pruned the flowers will never grow, until we find ourselves alone at midnight in the Garden of Evil.

UPDATE II: ShrinkWrapped and Dr. Sanity have been thinking on the same wavelength. He has a post that has an elaboration and extension of some of the points in this one. Well worth reading!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:22 AM |

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Iraqis March Against Terror

Did you see this in your newspaper today? No, I didn't either. The photo below and numerous others are posted at Blackfive.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:49 PM |

Interpreting the Defense - II

ShrinkWrapped analyzes the psychological defenses of the PC mindset:

In the face of all this evidence, it is still possible for a reasonable person to disagree with taking the war into the Iraq theater; it is certainly possible to disagree with the execution of the war; it is possible to disagree with the strategy and tactics of the entire war. However, most of the anti-war opponents never do any such things. They tend to look toward the past and accuse the Bush administration of lying, or misleading us into war, or accuse us of creating more terrorists by going into Iraq. What has been lacking has been any suggestion of how better to prosecute the war on terror. What could be behind this?

I would suggest that the anti-war, PC-thought, point of view, is a defensive structure which serves to protect a person form the reality of the threat we are facing.

The defensive nature of the structure is revealed by its lack of involvement with the mass of facts that counter their point of view, and their inability to articulate any alternative approach that can be supported by any reading of the situation. For example, the idea of turning to the UN, which was bruited about during the fall and has now disappeared, could only be held by denying that the UN has failed in every arena in which it has tried to protect innocent people or halt hostilities. The idea of getting out of Iraq as quickly as possible via training Iraqis to perform their own security is a non-sequitor; it is exactly what we have been doing. Thus, the divorce from reality and the essential non-involvement with contravening arguments (ad hominem arguments do not constitute arguments) reveals the defensive nature of the argument as a rationalization or intellectualization. This further implies that the defense has its roots in the unconscious and is directed at an unconscious threat or threats.

Read all of it. ShrinkWrapped is analyzing the defense of those who continue to be oblivious to what is happening in the real world. As he says, there is plenty of room for disagreement on the way the war has been managed and the strategy and tactics being used. But the reason that Democrats and many on the Left are unable to articulate any rational alternatives is because they are divorced from the real world. They remain in denial about the threat and are too emotionally invested in their ideology--and that ideology has become an extension of their sense of Self--to be able to adapt or cope effectively with reality.

ShrinkWrapped will get no disagreement from me.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:03 PM |

The Apologists Among Us

Normblog has an excellent post. Please read it.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:01 AM |

Moments of Despair

Little Miss Attila ponders on the long, dark teatime of the soul when dealing with the everyday insanity of our world.

I empathize completely.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:10 AM |

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Shall We Dance?

The ladies of the Cotillion invite you to their latest Cotillion Ball. Every week this coalition of lady bloggers get together and link to all the member's best posts. Go and check them out!

Shall we dance?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:49 PM |

"Roots" And The Sea In Which The Terror Swims

We have heard it all before from the apologists and enablers and the paranoid delusional.

It's poverty,unemployment, hopelessness, despair that motivates them. It's the Palistinian-Israeli conflict; It's Bush's policies; It's Sharon and Blair. It's American imperialism, capitalism, exploitation that has made them the way they are. It's our intolerance, hatred and our racism that causes them to hate us. These acts are the only way an oppressed victimized people can stand up for themselves. If we don't provoke them, they'll leave us alone. Islam is a religion of peace. Muslims don't do things like this. It is a plot by Israel to discredit Islam. 9/11 was a plot by the Bush Administration. A plane never hit the pentagon. America deserved what it got. Britain deserved what it got. Palestinian suicide bombers are justified because of Israeli oppression. Bush is a Nazi. Blair is a Nazi. Guantanamo is a gulag. Guantanamo is a Nazi gulag. Terrorists are militants, insurgents, freedom fighters, bombers, poor misunderstood ickle babies. All we need is love, peace is the answer, make love not war and we support the troops when they shoot their officers, yada yada yada.

And what about those always-invoked root causes of terrorism (or should I say "bombers"?)

Cal Thomas on Terrorism's Root Causes:

These are not Muslims without a future. These are bright and educated students who, if they wished, could be productive and prosperous members of British society. But many are embracing a false theology and a god who requires them to kill "infidels."

No amount of G8 aid to the "Palestinians," nor a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, will pacify these current and potential killers. Even if Israel were obliterated (the goal of much of the Muslim world), the terror would continue until the entire non-Islamic world is under their control.

This is not the belief of an "Islamophobic" bigot. This is what they say in their sermons and media, teach in their schools, and believe in their hearts. It matters little that "the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists," to quote a familiar Western mantra. It matters a great deal that most terrorists are Muslims. The sooner Western leaders and Western media begin stating what is obvious to most people; the quicker the real root cause can be dealt with.

The excuses given by Westerners and many Muslim clerics for terrorism are just that: excuses.

There seems to be a pervasive belief (encouraged, I must add, by many people in the mental health field) that all bad behavior by adults can be explained by earlier abuse or trauma; and therefore adults who have been traumatized should not be held responsible for their own behavior, and are, in fact, the helpless victims of circumstance. Or, to paraphrase from West Side Story: they're depraved on acount of they're deprived.

This remarkable attitude has never been an aspect of a psychiatry or psychology that I am familiar with and is a perversion of the desire to understand and explain the root causes of behavior--NOT to excuse such behavior.

While the scientific side of psychiatry and the behavioral sciences searches for the underlying biological causes of dysfunctional behavior, the clinical side strives to help people learn how to control their behavior and deal with the conflicted feelings that motivate that behavior. Some of our patients may indeed be real victims of horrible abuse or trauma--and when that is the case, the reality must be acknowledged and dealt with. But, if we want our patients to move toward psychological health, we may empathize with their feelings, but under no circumstances should we encourage victimhood. Psychological health requires that adults take full responsibility for their behavior and actions.

If the moderate believers in Islam want to continue to excuse terrorists and their fellow Muslims, they must recognize that they are condoning murder in the name of their religion. When they and members of the Left resort to intricate conspiracy theories to further justify the behavior of the Islamofascists in their midst, then they are not only encouraging terror, but must assume reponsibility for its cultivation and spread.

Reader Solomon2 brought this post by Melanie Phillips to my attention, where she is replying to a Muslim upset by her views:

It would be futile to try here to correct the distortions and inappropriate comparisons contained in these remarks, which I’m sure were written in the very sincere belief that they are all true and entirely valid. To try to do so would be to pit oneself against a whole culture which misrepresents both the past and the present and insists that falsehood is truth.

While mainstream Muslims persist in subscribing to such a morally warped victim culture constructed on untruth, error, denial of responsibility and, in particular, gross ignorance and prejudice on the subject of Israel and the Jews, they will alas continue to provide, however inadvertently and however much they may deny this in genuine horror, the sea in which terror swims.

Let me only add that the same is true for all the enablers and apologists for terrorism.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:01 PM |

Advice From A Friend...

or perhaps just a soulmate:

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:43 AM |

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Joel Stein Is An Old , Old Man

With so much insanity going on in the world, it seems a bit of a waste of time to spend any energy dealing with a supercilious LA Times writer/intellectual/book critic/idiot. But as I sit here reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for about the 20th time in preparation for the soon to be released 6th novel in the series, I can't help feeling somewhat irritated that Joel Stein presumes to pronounce me intellectually deficient because I simply read the books. If he knew that I sometimes even go to mugglenet.com to discuss theories about the book, I'm sure that he would consider me intellectually and emotionally retarded. Here is a sample of his condescending tripe, titled "Hogwarts fans you are stupid, stupid, stupid": (hat tip: Sense of Soot)

Next Saturday, when the sixth Harry Potter book comes out, at the very least I want you to stammer excuses when I see "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" on your nightstand. I want you to claim you're reading it to make sure it's OK for your kids, or your future kids, or even, if you have to, for kids in general.

I don't want you to tell me how well J.K. Rowling writes, or that academics are writing papers about it, or that Harry Potter can be read on many levels. "Clifford the Big Red Dog" can be read on many levels too: One, he's a big red dog; two, if you read it after you're 4, you're a moron.

No, my dear Mr. Stein. If there is a moron present, I somehow think that it is more likely to be the person who deems himself the arbiter of good taste and the high inquisitor appointed to oversee quality in literature.

Mr. Stein, you probably believe that just because the NY Times changed its entire book ranking system so it could exclude the Harry Potter books from the best- seller list (except for the "Children's Books" listing) that this gives you the moral authority to denigrate the audience of the book. You probably suppose that by your supercilious sneering, you are demonstrating your intellectual superiority over the lowly commoners who think it is a damn fine story and can't wait to find out what happens next. You probably imagine that your lofty ridicule shows the depth of your sensitivity and awareness of reality.

You would be wrong on all counts. JK Rowling appears to understand people like you very well. You would feel right at home playing the part of the reporter Rita Skeeter; or trying to take over Hogwarts like Professor Umbridge.

When I first read Lord of the Rings in the 60's--much the same as what you wrote was said of Tolkien. Yet somehow Tolkien's "children's story" was ranked one of the best books of the 20th century. And decades after he wrote them, their themes of Friendship, Loyalty, Duty, Honor, Choices and Resistance to Evil--still provide meaning and inspiration to those who read them.

I daresay that Harry Potter will do the same. It is a marvelous book--incredibly creative; masterfully told; and carefully plotted. It has similar themes to LOTR; and remarkable depth and understanding of human nature. If Rowling manages to pull it all together by the 7th book (it is a septology), then I would lay you odds it will be one of the great books of the 21st century.

And what makes a great book? Mr. Stein would likely say that a "great" book is one that has little commercial success. Phooey. Most (not all, certainly) modern "literature" is a waste of the reader's time. That's why people can't be convinced to buy all those wonderfully highly acclaimed "literary" works of fiction. Commercial success is not a guarantee of greatness, but it is hardly an impediment to it. Frankly, some of the best, deepest, and most innovative writing today is being sold for "children". Books like Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy; or Madeleine L'Engle and many other authors I could name. These books aren't written for children--they are written for intelligent readers who look to literature to give them the emotional fuel to work through issues of good and evil; to help them understand and make sense of the world; and to hold onto the best within themselves.

Tom Robbins, another very fine writer (in addition to JK Rowling) and one of my favorites, said in one of his books, "you're never too old to have a happy childhood."

Apparently, Joel Stein is.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:57 PM |

PC Insanity

The religion of Islam is seriously--perhaps irreversibly-- psychologically ill. It is not hate which makes me say this. It is a statement made based on the facts of the literally thousands of people all over the world acting in its name.

For example, here, here, here, here, here, here -- to link to just a bare minimum of evidence from ONLY the last two days. Yet, many people will maintain that I am "hate-filled" and "racist" if I dare to suggest that there is something hostile and poisonous to human physical and mental health contained in the "holy" words of Muhammed.

Yet, a law has now been passed in Britain, that makes it a "hate-crime" to say bad things about Islam. Even, apparently, if they are true.

Meanwhile, the BBC journalists edit out the word "terrorist" when applied to the mass murderers who set off bombs in London--because they want to be fair and not imflame any prejudices; but other journalists feel free to use it to describe Bush and Blair. Nice, huh?

Yesterday, Dymphna had a great post up about being in the elevator with Nancy Pelosi and coined the term "Ideaphobia" to describe the deliberate and forced supression of rational thought processes in the name of political correctness. I completely concur with her assessment and would like to offer a name for this diagnosis:

PCphrenia

Criteria for the diagnosis of PCphrenia are:

A. Characteristic Symptoms (2 or more of the following must be present, including #5)):
(1) Inability to call a spade a spade without fear of reprisals
(2) Exquisite sensitivity to hurting someone's (anyone's) feelings
(3) Gross sense of intellectual and moral superiority
(4) Emotional lability/hostility when confronted with truth
(5) Fear of thinking (ideaphobia)

B. For a significant time since the onset of the disturbance, the individual is unable to think rationally when he/she does think; leading to the development of one or both of the following:
(1) psychological denial or distortion of reality
(2) psychological projection of his/her own feelings onto others
(3) complete and total cluelessness about their own motivations and the consequences of their actions

Unfortunately, there's an awful lot of truth to the above criteria--although when I started I meant them to be funny.

For more sober analysis of the PC phenomenon, ShrinkWrapped has a series of posts on PC up: PC Kills, and Political Correctness and the Denial of Reality, Parts I, II, and III.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:51 PM |

Posting will be light...

as I try to catch up on things today! Back from vacation and reality has hit hard... More tonight with a bit of luck.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:06 AM |

Monday, July 11, 2005

NO SURRENDER

Christopher Hitchens explains why we cannot surrenderto the Jihadis (read the whole thing):

The preachers of this faith have taken care to warn us that they love death more than we love life. Their wager is that this makes them unstoppable. Well, we shall have to see. They certainly cannot prove their point unless we assist them in doing so.

My American friends have been impressed by the composure of the Londoners they have seen on the screen: I bet London Transport runs again rather sooner than US airlines resumed flying after 9/11.

I remember living in London through the Provisional IRA bombing in the 70s. I saw the very first car-bomb explode against the Old Bailey in 1972. There was no warning that time, but after a while a certain etiquette developed.

And, even as I detested the people who might have just as soon have blown me up as anyone else, I was aware there were ancient disputes involved, and that there was a potential political solution.

Nothing of the sort applies in this case. We know very well what the "grievances" of the jihadists are.

The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won't abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art. The grievance of the existence of Hinduism. The grievance of East Timor's liberation from Indonesian rule. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way.

Their grievances are in many ways similar to the many grievances I hear each day from my patients in jail. It is always someone else's fault that they are not successful or happy or that they are incarcerated. There is a plot to keep them down--to prevent them from achieving their goals. Rarely do any of them look within themselves to try to discover the source of their repeated failures; or to question their own choices. Blame is always externalized. Victimhood is always embraced. Innocence is always maintained. Anger and resentment are not only their emotions, they become a way of life.

So it seems to be with those who would like to blame the West--especially America-- for their own inadequacies and shortcomings. If they spent as much effort and time devoted to improving their individual and collective status in their own countries; if they would examine the rage that seems to motivate them; then there might be some hope to deal rationally with them. But this has not happened, and there can be no surrender to the evil these murderous fanatics are willing to contemplate, instead of taking responsibility for their own lives.

Meanwhile, Wretchard, commenting on the finding of the last missing Navy Seal, and the fact that in response to losses, the Americans sent in even more troops; and were not prepared to surrender the battle:

Bin Laden understood and accepted that American logistics, technology and science would be superior to his own. What he was less prepared to believe was the possibility that their fighting spirit would be equal or greater than his. Sixty two years ago the Imperial Japanese Navy fought the USN for three straight days and nights in the waters surrounding Guadalcanal, from November 12-15, 1942. Both sides fought at point-blank range in some cases. Two USN Admirals, Scott and Callahan, died in a single night. Still the IJN and USN came on. Only after the USS Washington sank the battlecruiser Kirishima on November 15th did the Japanese break off. But it was not the material loss that shocked the Japanese: losses were about even on both sides; it was the realization that USN would not give up.

It is the canonical assumption of those who set out to conquer the world that all men are not created equal: that there are ubermensch and untermensch, men of divine descent and mongrel races, jihadis and infidels; that somehow these differences in quality will allow the chosen few to dominate the many. Yet in each case these beliefs have proven wrong, whether in the snows of Russia, the waters of Ironbottom Sound, or in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Read both articles, and you will begin to understand why there can be no surrender to Bin Laden, Zarqawi, or Islam and all the jihadi thugs it seems to generate.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:07 PM |

If You Play It, You Can't Come

How in the world did this happen?

Baseball and softball are out of the Olympics as of 2012, in a vote that surprised even longtime International Olympic Committee members.
"There were a lot of people that said they supported us and obviously didn't," said Don Porter, president of the International Softball Federation.

Baseball joined the Olympics in 1992 and softball in 1996. (Related items: Major leaguers upset | Sadness, anger in Latin America)

Friday's secret vote reflected a heavy European influence of the IOC, which claims a near majority of European members. The popularity of baseball and softball are limited primarily to the Americas, Canada and Asia. Both sports were founded in the U.S.

Baseball also suffers from its failure to reach an agreement with Major League Baseball that would send the top players to the Olympics. "The problem is not only one problem," said Aldo Notari, head of the International Baseball Federation. "The problem is we need further development in the world."

Porter, who said he was devastated, has been concerned all along that members linked baseball and softball too closely.

The other 26 sports were retained.

"I think they've made a big, big mistake," said Tommy Lasorda, the former Dodgers manager who managed the U.S. to its only gold medal, at the Sydney Games in 2000.

"Baseball is played by all countries now and softball, too. I think that's really going to hurt the Olympics. I don't want to knock the other sports, but I think this is a big mistake. I am very disappointed.

"I was fortunate enough to coach the U.S. Olympic team in Australia. The parks were full at all times. How can they take away a sport like that?"

You don't know how obsessed my family is with baseball. I just got back from vacation with them and my brother Paul, has the MLB TV subscription and TV's all over the house and yard--and everyone tuned to a baseball game somewhere! The Yankees are on almost every day.

I've lived and breathed baseball since I was born. My father played pro ball for a time and was in Triple-A as a coach. My Uncle Clem just had a baseball field named after him in Plainfield, NJ after a 50 year career in coaching kids in baseball. My nephew B.K. dreams of playing in the majors--and is good enough to do it.

How sad that synchronized swimming and badminton (and some sports I've never even heard of) get to stay in but a truly competitive team sport like baseball struck out.

I guess we won't be buying any Olympic tickets in the near future.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:17 PM |

The Toxic Side-Effects

The Interociter has a Democratic Nomination Translation Table And everything translates to "ABORTION".

The translation is unfortunately accurate, and this brings me to an article by Thomas Sowell: Judicial Havoc - Part II.

When it comes to judicial nominees, especially nominees to the Supreme Court, you might think that the only thing that matters -- the thing that trumps all other considerations -- is whether the nominee is for or against legalized abortions.

Many people are too young to realize that there was never a federal ban against abortions before Roe v. Wade created a "Constitutional right" to abortion out of thin air. Before that, the federal government had nothing to say about the subject and the various states had a variety of laws regulating abortions.

Political hype has long since drowned out the truth on this subject, as on so many other subjects.

What is even more dangerous than this political fixation on abortion is the underlying notion that judicial nominees are to be confirmed or voted down on the basis of how they might rule on particular policy issues.

The Roe v. Wade decision stands as the most divisive, painful, and controversial judicial decision in the nation's history. It was the beginning of national policy that abruptly terminated an ongoing debate that might have--if the Supreme Court had not intervened--ended in a compromise that would not have polarized the country.

As it is, the ruling took away that possibility by judicial fiat. It was a revelation for the Liberal Left. With Roe, they found a way of foisting their morality on everyone else (they said it was for Women's Rights, but now the same technique is being used to force Gay marriage on a population that is not ready to accept it.

These are the kind of morality laws we very much could have done without as a nation. The toxic side-effects of that judicial ruling still reverberate 30+ years later, and have resulted in a nation perpetually wounded. Torn apart over abortion--and wounded further by the judicial decisions about gay marriage.

If only...if only we had not had the moral police of the Left dictating to Americans about what they should believe. If only the American fondness for individual rights--both for and against abortion; for and against Gay marriage--had been allowed to play out and one side's beliefs not forced down the throat of the equally principled other side....

Well, we'll never know what might have happened, will we?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:41 AM |

Sunday, July 10, 2005

There Are None So Blind...

Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn have an article in the Weekly Standard that thoroughly documents the Iraq - Al Qaeda connection--"The Mother of All Connections":

Indeed,
more than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this relationship not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the war--documents that have been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community long hostile to the very idea that any such relationship exists.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.

All of this is new--information obtained since the fall of the Hussein regime. And yet critics of the Iraq war and many in the media refuse to see it.

The article is a long and detailed one that I urge everyone to read. What is most astonishing to me is how this information is not just being downplayed, but is being totally ignored by the major media in this country. You can hear their mantra repeated over and over again--from the TV screen to the Lefty blogs, to the robotic trolls commenting in blogs that try to bring up the points that Hayes has been making for a while (he wrote The Connection, documenting the Iraq - Al Qaeda link over a year ago). "There is NO connection," they shout, as if they have definitive proof that Saddam could not possibly have any ties with Osama.

You can understand their fanatical determination to discredit all evidence and insist that no connection ever could possiblyunder any circumstances have existed--particularly since the proof offered by Hayes completely undermines their ENTIRE argument against the war in Iraq. And they can't possibly want that war to be justified, because then the evil Bushitler would have done the right thing by taking Saddam out. Unfortunately for them, Bush did exactly the right thing in taking Saddam out even if there hadn't been a connection. But they will never admit that.

There are none so blind as those who will not see, or hear, or read, or think.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:57 PM |

Allies of Our Own Gravediggers

Neo-neocon has a great post up today about how the West has been, and continues to be "allies of our own gravediggers", and asks how much should we adjust:

How very ironic and paradoxical: the terrorists in Britain pracice a sort of non-gentle type of jujitsu, using the opponent's own strength and redirecting it back at him in order to try to bring him down. The opponents--the British and American systems of government, rights, law enforcement, and intelligence--must be nimble and flexible, not rigid, in order to strike back and win. How much do we need to adjust our legal systems to fight this particular menace effectively? How little is too little? How much is too much?

I think this is an extremely important point. How much is too little? How much is too much?? There has been no serious debate on this issue because everything the Bush Administration tries to do is met with hyperbole and hysteria, rather than a rational discussion of our objectives and the compromises that must be made.

The rather insane rantings about the imminent apocalypse of the Patriot Act is a simple example. But we are in new territory here; fighting against an enemy that does not follow the rules of war or of any civilized nation. How do we save humanity from the barbarians at the door, without ourselves permanently becoming the barbarians? How can we preserve our values without having to commit suicide and become the allies of our own grave diggers?

It's a question that all reasonable people should ponder. And it is a debate that should be ongoing among our leaders.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:13 PM |

Carnival of the Insanities

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:25 PM |

I Hate, Therefore I Am

An interesting psychological piece by Roger Scruton in the London Times:

APOLOGISTS for terrorism (and they are not in short supply) argue that it is a weapon used by people who despair of achieving their goals in any other way. It is a cry from the depths by those deprived of a voice in the political process. The terrorist is not an aggressor but a victim, and we must disarm him not by violence but by addressing the grievance that motivates his deeds. This argument has been used to excuse Palestinian suicide bombers, IRA kneecappers, Red Brigade kidnappers, and even the mass murderers of September 11. Its main effect is to blame the victim and excuse the crime.
If you look at the actual condition of terrorists down the ages, however, you will soon discover that the excuse does not match the reality. Some terrorists have been poor and some have been victims of injustice. But those are the exceptions. The Jacobins, who unleashed the original Terror, were for the most part privileged members of the rising elite. The Russian anarchists of the 19th century were no worse off from the point of view of material and social privileges than you or me, and with grievances that were more the work of the imagination than the result of either observing or sympathising with the ordinary people of Russia. There is no evidence that Osama bin Laden’s entourage is any different, and even the IRA, which purports to represent the “oppressed” Catholics of Ulster, is very far from recruiting from those whose oppressed condition it loudly advertises. As for the Islamist terrorists who have targeted our cities, they tend to be well educated, specialists in medicine, engineering or computer science, people who might have helped to provide the Middle East with the stable middle class that it so badly needs, but instead have chosen another and faster route to glory.

The targets of terrorism are groups, nations or races. And they are distinguished by their worldly success — either material or social. The original Terror was directed against the French aristocracy — soon supplemented by all kinds of real and imaginary groups supposed to be aiding them. The Russian anarchists targeted people with wealth, office or power. The Great Terror of Stalin, initiated by Lenin, was directed against groups alleged to be profiting from the system that impoverished the rest. The Nazi terror picked on the Jews, because of their undoubted material success, and the ease with which they could be assembled as a group. Even the nationalist terrorists of the IRA and Eta variety are targeting nations thought to enjoy wealth, power and privilege, at the expense of others equally entitled. Islamic terrorists bomb the cities of Europe and America because those cities are a symbol of the material and political success of the Western nations, and a rebuke to the political chaos and deep-rooted corruption of the Muslim world.

The entire identity of terrorists is tied up in their resentment of those who have been successful, argues Scruton. And he is right, but it is not exclusive to the Islamofascist terrorist. Like people filled with resentment and hatred everywhere, they are those who choose not to create their own wealth or take charge of their own destiny; but to steal, appropriate, control or destroy that which is created by others. This behavior on their part affirms their own sense of victimhood and entitlement. Such people will naturally make common cause with the terrorist and/or enable them, since they share similar motivations in life.

Their motto is (to paraphrase Descartes) "I hate, therefore I am."

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:39 AM |

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Home Again, Home Again

I will be traveling all day until late tonight, so blogging will be very light until tomorrow! It's been a great vacation but we are all eager to get home.

Meanwhile, this seems like good news. Maybe Arabs will finally take some control over the Islamofascism rampant in their midst. We can hope.

Cheers!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:13 AM |

Friday, July 08, 2005

In Remembrance

Police officers raise a British flag in front of the State Department in Washington, D.C., Thursday, July 7, 2005, in remembrance of those killed in the London bombings. (AP Photo/Yuri Gripas) (hat tip: Keith, Indy)

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:56 PM |

There's No Free Lunch -- Even For Bin Laden

Ponder this:

The inevitable question then is 'why could Bin Laden not find the means to attack 30 trains?' The answer it seems to me, must be Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and hundred other places where he is engaged without quarter by US forces. Resources, whether Jihadi or no are not infinite. They do not have some magical machine that allows them to be everywhere at once, to sustain losses yet grow. There's no free lunch, not even, and especially not for Bin Laden. If it were true that Islamism would shrivel faster were it pursued more passively, then pre-911 policy should have finished it by now. But what we empirically observe is that ignoring them allowed them to mount 911-scale attack. Hit them continuously and in four years they could scrape together enough to blow up a London bus and some subway trains.

I realize that this is not the unassailable proof that Patrick Belton seeks. I cannot provide that. But the practice of engaging an enemy on one front to weaken him on another has been tested from antiquity and is more natural than the alternative. The idea that fighting the enemy makes him stronger everywhere is a curious one and I've often wondered about the battlefield arithmetic that would make it possible. There are many who accept without question the proposition that the US Armed forces are being 'bled dry' in Iraq; that it has become over extended. They would accept, without reservation, the idea that using the US Army in Iraq would weaken it with respect to Korea. One Swedish researcher kept writing to me privately, 'proving' from all kinds of weird arithmetic that the USMC had been annihilated in Fallujah. Yet the very same persons will vehemently reject the idea that Al Qaeda can also be spread thin; that its cadres are subject to death as wastage; it is as if one set of natural laws operated for the Jihad and another for the blundering Americans. But mental honesty will compel us to accept that this can't be true: that the sun rises and sets on one man as for another: that if we thought about it really hard, everyone who lives peacefully in a Western city owes it to the men out on patrol tonight.(Emphasis mine)

I think he is absolutely correct.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:52 AM |

A Divine Duty To Control or Kill

Amir Taheri has a great editorial in the Times of London, about "why they did it" :

Moments after yesterday’s attacks my telephone was buzzing with requests for interviews with one recurring question: but what do they want? That reminded me of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker, who was shot by an Islamist assassin on his way to work in Amsterdam last November. According to witnesses, Van Gogh begged for mercy and tried to reason with his assailant. “Surely we can discuss this,” he kept saying as the shots kept coming. “Let us talk it over.”

Van Gogh, who had angered Islamists with his documentary about the mistreatment of women in Islam, was reacting like BBC reporters did yesterday, assuming that the man who was killing him may have some reasonable demands which could be discussed in a calm, democratic atmosphere.

But sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you. (Emphasis mine)

The reason why many on the Left find common cause with such an ideology is quite simple. It is all about obtaining power over others. This motivation resonates deeply in the souls of totalitarians everywhere.

So, if you find it difficult today to find any lefty blogs or opinion pieces by Lefty ideologues that resolutely condemn the terrorist bombings in London yesterday--as opposed to pieces mocking Fox News (here also) or those who do actually condemn them--let me know.

I was totally appalled, but hardly surprised when my daily tour of the blogsphere only came up with the usual diatribes against Bush, Blair, Rove, etc. etc.--andnumerous posts and commenters pleading for love, peace,understanding and rational discourse.

They should perhaps, direct their BS toward the relatives and friends of Theo van Gogh or those whose bodies are still trapped in the subways of London.

In the years since 9/11 there has not been one, single indication that any of the perpetrators of such obscenities are open to rational discourse. And that is the hallmark of those whose only goal is to achieve complete power over others. It is all about their will, their desires, their quest for omnipotence. If you don't submit to them, they have no use for you.

Any dictator or thug can tell you that.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:33 AM |

The Council Has Spoken !

This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher's site. Every week the Council nominates posts from the blogs of the Council members, and posts from around the blogsphere. The Council then votes to select the "Best" of all these posts.

BEST COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place

Border Freebies: Using the Race Card To Get an Education The Education Wonks

Second Place ( A 4-Way Tie!!)

Happy Independence Day e-Claire

A Brief History Lesson Dr. Sanity

Just Say "NO" To Journalistic Privilege Rhymes With Right

America's "Love Battle" Right Wing Nut House

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place

Today I Leave for the War The Makaha Surf Report

Second Place

Nostalgia Is a Mental DiseaseVarifrank

Don't forget to check out all the winners at the Watcher's Site!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:40 AM |

Thursday, July 07, 2005

"Better Shar'ia Than No Me-a?"

Wretchard has it exactly right:

The Al Qaeda have characterized the attack on London as 'punishment' for Britain's temerity to resist the inevitability of Islam. It is the kind of punishment these self-ordained masters of the universe are accustomed to meting out against harem women and insolent slaves. A few administered licks, and no doubt the cowardly kuffar will crawl back to his place. The tragedy is that Al Qaeda's perception is perfectly correct when applied to the Left, for whom no position is too supine, no degradation too shameful to endure; but incorrect for the vast majority of humans, in whom the instinct for self-preservation has not yet been extinguished. It will result in history's greatest case of mistaken identity; the mismatch that should never have happened. The enemy is even now dying at our feet, where we should kick him and kick him again.

In coming to this conclusion, he also makes some interesting points about the decline of Al Qaeda over the last 4 years, so read it all. But his remarks about the Left are truly on-target. The "better red than dead" crowd needs to come up with a clever appeasement slogan, now that there is a newer enemy to bow to.

Perhaps "better shar'ia than no me-a"?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:50 PM |

WE ARE ALL INFIDELS

Watching the coverage today of the London terrorist attacks, it came to me as I heard many people saying "Today We Are All Britons", as they tried to express their sympathy for the British losses.

Yes. But even more than that:

TODAY, WE ARE ALL INFIDELS....

Remember that.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:44 PM |

Interpreting the Defense

What will the voices of appeasement do after this? Will they continue to believe that peace is possible with those who kill indiscriminantly in the name of Allah?

Will the terrorist attacks in London awaken them from their self-induced sleep and will they now recognize the real enemy that has no regard for human life or human freedom?

Or,

Will they continue down the path of deliberate suicide by urging appeasement and accommodation of an enemy that wants to destroy all that the West stands for; and blame Bush and Blair for the actions of the "Religion of Peace"?

Unfortunately, the latter response has already begun--just read the words of the disgusting George Galloway.

A frequent reader of this blog, gumshoe, asks:

what's the HEALTHY(psychological) response to this human frailty??
(aside from common sense and the rational decision to defend
oneself). How do people's concerns about "projection"(which we can recognize as
a human weakness that can escalate into a human evil) avoid degenerating into "navel gazing" resulting in culturally suicidal ideas like "the US deserved it" ...or hysterics like "BUSH LIES and SOLDIERS DIE"??

In psychiatry, particularly in psychoanalysis, the psychological defenses --such as projection and denial--often stand in the way of a person being able to understand the source of their dysfunction and to deal with reality. When these unconscious mechanisms act to protect the individual from reality by distorting that reality, the appropriate thing to do (as I try to do repeatedly) is to interpret the defense.

That is why I sound like a broken record and talk about PROJECTION and DENIAL and PARANOIA (see here and here for example)over and over again. Each time I observe such defenses, I work to get those who are using them to be conscious of what they are doing. Only then can they change their behavior.

Ultimately, an individual must CHOOSE to deal with reality. Noone can make anyone face a terrible truth they wish to avoid. One of the purposes of this blog is to "shine a psychological spotlight" on the maladaptive responses to the realities of our world.

I will keep trying to do this in the hope that--by interpreting the psychological defense--the users will decide to abandon their primitive coping strategies and join the rest of us in the real world. We could use their help in defeating the enemies of our way of life.

UPDATE: ShrinkWrapped looks at the responses over at Daily Kos. Meanwhile, a DU commenter (complete with upside down American Flag as her logo) writes this:

pointed out that this is nothing new. vietcong targeted cafes and so has every resistance movement. they are just fighting a superior force any way they can. We give them the ammunition and excuse by invading and killing their people so it looks like only payback to them, not an atrocity.
The speaker I heard pointed out that imperialism never works and invading Iraq is imperialism whether we want to admit it or not.
He also pointed out that we deal with non-democratic regimes in the area while demanding democracy in the regimes we wish to topple. The hypocrisy of it all.

Ah yes. Moral relativism. The hypocrisy of it all. As the lawyers say, I rest my case.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:23 AM |

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Best of Times, Worst of Times

Thomas Sowell, one of my favorites, has an interesting article on Townhall.com describing the "best of times" and "worst" and who is responsible for them:

When we look at which people and institutions have produced the best of times and which have produced the worst, we can see the irony that many of those who have created economic, technological, and medical advances are less likely to be lionized and more likely to be sued.

Meanwhile, many of the signs of social degeneration can be traced to the courts that are supposed to be upholding law and order but which have too often become places for judges to indulge their egos and impose fashionable theories as the law of the land.

Some judges and Supreme Court justices may flatter themselves that they are helping the poor and the disadvantaged but their arbitrary notions often hurt the less fortunate most of all.

Whose homes are going to be bulldozed to make way for a new shopping mall or hotel complex under the Supreme Court's expanded notion of eminent domain? Mansions in Beverly Hills? Condos on Park Avenue? Or working class homes and apartment buildings?

The fact that the NAACP and the AARP filed briefs on the side of the homeowners should be a clue.

When a handful of hoodlums can prevent a whole class from learning, as a result of judicial rulings that make it more dangerous to the school to crack down on classroom disrupters than to tolerate their destroying all the other children's education, whose children are most likely to see their whole future lost this way?

Discussion has become so polarized over the years, I wonder if anyone remembers that the fundamental differences between Democrats and Republicans has to do with how they approach the same problems. Democrats believe that the Federal Government can and should be the source of all solutions to problems. There is no problem which cannot be solved by simply allocating more money; passing new laws, or making sure that no one has an "unfair" advantage over anyone else.

The Republicans, generally think that the solutions to the very same problems, are dealt with more at local levels; that laws and taxes should be used very infrequently, and while agreeing to equality of opportunity; that there are very real differences between the capabilities of individuals. In order to assist those with fewer capabilities, they do not think that those with more should be handicapped.

These fundamental differences in the way certain problems are approached has devolved into a shouting match, with one side in particular getting shriller and shriller, as their hyperbole extends into surrealistic realms.

Which brings me to this post on the "hatred gap" (hat tip: LGF). You absolutely must read the entire thing, but let me excerpt:

Do I hate the people in comment threads like this, at Daily Kos and Democratic Underground? That would be a stretch. I might be said to despise them, but that's not the same thing—I abhor the things they say, and I find it repugnant that they tend to celebrate a lot of sentiments and ideals that I disagree with firmly. But primarily my reaction upon reading the stuff I see there, like what's quoted above, is sadness and futility. How can I even talk to people who say these things so blithely, so earnestly, like they're desperately working out some kind of deeply held passion? How much mileage lies between their opinions of, say, George W. Bush and a discussion that would involve statements like "Well, I disagree with his policy on such-and-such issue, for the following reasons"? I'm not even asking for consensus on issues like the war—just a common ground of rational discourse, something that doesn't involve conspiracies of power-drunk idiot madmen in thrall to Satanic oil companies (yet, for some reason, stumping for nuclear power). How do you weigh the pros and cons of an issue in a calm manner with someone who thinks he's being a brave representative of the "reality-based community" by saying I AM a Bush hater, I hate that man and everything he stands for, just as I hate Saddam and Stalin, and yes, Jefferson Davis and all the slave traders and owners he represented. It is good to hate evil? What kind of forum is it where—far from pointing out that even a politician from the far opposite side of the aisle from where you stand has human constituents and is trying to support them as best he can—merely expressing the idea that Iowahawk's original parody was funny gets you banned?

It is with a great deal of wonder that I have read emails and the like from people who clearly disagree with my postitions, but all they can summon up to say is that I am so "hate-filled." Wonder, because that is not what I feel at all, but seems to be so obviously what they are feeling.

It is with a great deal of amazement that I watch the warriors of Truth and Free Speech throw pies and utilize other violent methods to disrupt and terminate the free speech of anyone they disagree with, all the while calling themselves "non-violent".

It is with a great deal of amusement that I listen to the rants against the Christian Right (who, as far as I have been able to ascertain have not yet gained control over the planet), berating them for their rigid ideology; all while the masters of political correctness weed out the non-believers wherever they find them.

As a psychiatrist it is interesting to note that this increasingly shrill response by the Left and the Democrats to the fact that their social programs DON'T WORK, and more often than not make the problem worse; that their wonderful, feel-good concerts DON'T END WORLD HUNGER; that their self-satisfied feeling of intellectual and moral superiority are a complete joke; and that their political correct fantasies are the core of a new totalitarianism--that their shrill response and intense hatred comes about because of a simple psychological mechanism that I have written about over and over. PROJECTION.

They simply cannot deal with the hatred they feel toward the Republicans and the Right for exposing their failures and threatening their socialist/totalitarian ideology. So, to keep themselves "pure" and unsullied they simply project those feeling they cannot possibly be having, onto the object of their hatred. A simple and elegantly psychotic solution to facts that they don't happen to like.

To put it bluntly: they have had their chance and their policies haven't worked. As a foreign policy unconditional love has left us vulnerable and caused us to be attacked; as a social philosophy, rob from the rich to give to the poor just makes everyone poor; as a political strategy, painting everything your opposition does as motivated by greed and pure evil only manages to announce to the world your own motivational inner workings.

In my younger days, I gave the Left the benefit of the doubt and even though I despised their programs and their philosophy, I never used to question that their stated motives that they wanted the best for this country and truly wanted to erase poverty and injustice.

Sadly, I can no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. The 20th Century was as good a testing ground for their theories as any in history, and all it wielded was millions of deaths and the glorification of human misery. They'd like to blame capitalism and the policies of the Republicans, but the facts are there for anyone with enough of a brain to see.

Sigh. But they won't. They stopped using their brains and have only their emotions now. They will go on blindly hating Bush--a flawed, but genuinely good person; demonizing him and Cheney and Rove and inventing conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory; while flirting more and more with true paranoia; which is the inevitable result of the psychological projection that animates them.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:14 PM |

Supreme Musings

I'm beginning to feel really sorry for whoever is nominated by President Bush for the Supreme Court.

And then there's this from the inimitable Scrappleface, who gets it completely right:

Kennedy Slams Unnamed Supreme Court Nomineeby Scott Ott

(2005-07-02) -- Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, today criticized President George Bush's as-yet-unnamed replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as a "brutal, Bible-thumping, right-wing ideologue who hates minorities, women and cocker spaniels."

And finally, an observation from Brit Hume on Fox News on July 5th, who wonders,

"When did it become the job of a [judicial] nomination to unite the country?"

Indeed. One wonders if it is even possible to unite congress (except, of course on the issue of their own pay raises)?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:21 PM |

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Modern vs. Medieval

From the Arab News:

An associate professor of Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh has objected to the hiring of a Muslim woman as a pilot.

In a statement issued in response to a full-page advertisement by Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, chairman of Kingdom Holding Co., congratulating Capt. Hanadi Zakariya Hindi for becoming the first Saudi woman to get a commercial pilot’s license, Sheikh Yousuf Al-Ahmad said the appointment was un-Islamic.

Al-Ahmad, who teaches Shariah law at the university, said the job would require her to travel without a male guardian and would therefore lead to her mixing with men.

Prince Alwaleed, who has employed Capt. Hindi to work for his company’s fleet of private jets, recently bought advertising space paying tributes to the first Saudi woman pilot in several local papers. The advertisements have elicited a negative response from religious conservatives.

In his statement, Al-Ahmad said the contract given to Capt. Hindi was unlawful as women should never be allowed to work as either pilots or airhostesses. For this reason, he said, even the advertisements were unlawful.

Several Internet sites operated by conservative Islamic groups have sharply criticized plans to let a woman pilot an aircraft. Al-Ahmad’s statement may thus have the tacit support of many.

Capt. Hindi, 24, obtained her commercial pilot’s license earlier this year. Her success led to a 10-year contract with the Kingdom Holding Company.

Last week a petition asking for an end to the ban on women driving in the Kingdom was submitted to the National Society for Human Rights. The signatories included 60 Saudi women.

A poll conducted recently in Riyadh, however, found that 88 percent of Saudi women refuse to drive cars. According to the women, driving is not a priority for a majority of Saudi women; most women believe the main women’s issues have to do with their right to work, marriage, divorce and domestic abuse.

In another poll, the chief researcher at the Academic Center for Women’s Studies said Saudi women who were in favor of women driving saw it as a requirement for modern life. (emphasis mine)

Two things that struck me about this article. The first is how the medieval theocrats are willing and able to use modern technology to forward their agenda. Of course, we knew this already from the ongoing attempts to obtain modern weapons of mass destruction with which they can carry out their Islamic conquests.

The second point also relates to the modern vs. medieval mindset and how when the two are stirred together the outcome is a particularly unappetizing blend of idiocy and sanctimony. Women in the magic kingdom are appropriately more concerned about the basics of elementary individual freedom--such as being able to work, marry and divorce; and not having to be subject to abuse by men--to be much concerned about the issue of driving.

In point of fact, obtaining "permission" to drive when they aren't able to live in any other way as free human beings is a perfect example of a Pyrrhic victory.

I look at my daughter and try to imagine what kind of life she would have under this oppression. It makes me shudder. A commenter here (a woman, I think) made following point:

What about women in the western world that are constantly conditioned to be sex objects? How are they effective role models for their children when, by and large, their depiction in mass media, focuses on their image and 'sexual' status/ability?
The cosmetics industry, one example, is geared to insinuate that a woman (their customer) needs 'improvement' in order to be attractive to the opposite sex. It's not as extreme as the Taliban or other suppressive political/religious movements but it's just as effective in cases where women have developed some form of obsessive compulsive disorder/disease that manifests itself as bulimia or anorexia nervosa.

I've seen comments like this several times, all saying basically the same thing. If anyone agrees with this comment, I urge them to feel free to go live under the Taliban somewhere and see how liberated from oppression they will be. I urge them to live in Saudi Arabia, where the police would rather allow young girls to perish in a fire, rather than to rescue them when they might not be fully covered and therefore "decent" according to the law of Islam.

To compare buying cosmetics (which is a CHOICE that women are free to make or not in the West) with the Taliban is and unbelievable distortion and can only come from someone who has been thoroughly brainwashed. You may not agree with being a "sexual object", but again, that is a CHOICE women make here in this part of the world. Sexuality is a healthy part of each individual and important in normal development.

I wouldn't trade the "sexualized" culture of the West for a culture that is uniformly hostile and predatory toward women under the guise of "protecting" them. It is that culture which is sexually obsessed--far more than any Western country. If the mere sight of a woman's body is so threatening to a man that it must be hidden so as not to inflame his passions--what does that say about the man? Check out this post from Dymphna at the Gates of Vienna (or here, also) If the mere thought of a woman driving a car or flying an airplane is so outrageous to Islamic consciousness, what does that say about the health of Islam? Some of the female apologizers for the oppression of women under Islam like to point out Western cultural flaws, but they never seem to be concerned the rampant coercion of women and fear of female sexuality in their own cultures.

I wish for for my daughter to have freedom and take whatever risks she desires in her life. You are suggesting that I lock her in a closet--or shapeless clothing that covers her face and dehumanizes her and obscures her individuality-- to protect her from the predators; but the predators in Islamic society are even more determined to destroy her if they can't mold her to their will.

Yes, there are perverts, predators, and rapists in the West. Psychopaths like that sadly exist in all societies. But under the medieval worldview of Islam, such psychopaths can legally act out their desire for power over women and brutally enforce the rules that humiliate and oppress them.

In modern Western culture such persons are generally considered criminals and are locked up.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:55 PM |

Complete Insanity

Here is a perfect example of the "hysterical caterwauling" I was referring to in a previous post. It is absolutely inconceivable that any rational person could take Rall's rant seriously--except of course, for the usual suspects.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:24 AM |

Blog Anniversary

Exactly one blogyear ago, Dr. Sanity was born. I made a pledge to my self that I would try to post at least once a day. As I go back over the year, I realize that I have averaged 3-4 posts per day.

Dr. Sanity has grown beyond my wildest imaginings. I find that I have become addicted to blogging, and I am rarely without my laptop nearby!

Thanks to all who have come by to read what I have to say. You all inspire me to keep it up (even trolls have their uses!).

I remain on vacation until this Sunday, so posting will continue to be fairly light. CHEERS!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:52 AM |

Monday, July 04, 2005

9 Analogies and 1 Lesson

... Brian Williams didn't mention them, but Protein Wisdom has the scoop !

and Victor Davis Hanson has the lesson that should be learned from comparing Iraq to Vietnam:

The perception of American weakness prompted communist adventurism from Afghanistan to Central America. Few in the Middle East thought there were any consequences to taking American hostages, or killing American soldiers and diplomats. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein alike little feared "the pitiful, helpless giant" (Richard Nixon's phrase).

There are lessons here. When the United States has stayed on after fighting dictatorial enemies — admittedly for decades in Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea and the Balkans — progress toward democracy and prosperity ensued. Disengagement from unresolved messy problems — whether from Europe after World War I, Vietnam in 1973, Beirut after the Marine barracks bombings, Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat, or Iraq in 1991 — only left murderous chaos or the "peace" of dictators.
[...]
This present war is not just about the Sunni Triangle, but whether reformers of the Arab world will step forward to emulate a fragile democratic Iraq that survives the jihadist counterassault. For the last three decades, Middle East autocratic regimes either attacked their neighbors or reached understandings with Islamic terrorists to shift blame for their own failures onto an apparently unconcerned United States.

That deeper pathology was at the root of the September 11, 2001, attacks on America. If not stopped now, it will result in many more attacks to come here at home.

The 9 analogies demonstrate the quicksand of moral equivalancy into which the Left has eagerly jumped headfirst. And, VDH's lesson is apparently the one thing these same people neglected to learn from Vietnam (you should read the entire piece).

The Left has never admitted that millions suffered and died so that they could "take out" Richard Nixon and make America look bad in Vietnam. But then again, they have never taken responsibility for the millions who died in the gulags of the Soviet Union and the purges of Stalin; and the true imperialism of their favorite ideology.

Likewise, they are unlikely to take any responsibility for the implementation of their policies of appeasement and defeat now.

Their histrionic caterwauling should be completely ignored for the worthless drivel it is, until and unless they can come up with some relevant suggestions for defeating the islamofascists, who--whether we like it or not--have declared war on us and will not be signing a peace treaty in the near future.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:05 PM |

The Pursuit of Happiness

From Ed Cone: (hat tip: Instapundit)

The first two enumerated rights, life and liberty, are straightforward enough, but this business about the pursuit of Happiness is more complex. Note that it is a right to the pursuit of Happiness, not to Happiness itself, and that despite the messages of our consumer culture, Happiness is not always the same thing as Fun. And nothing makes some people unHappier than the prospect of other people being Happy in a way that does not suit them. Yet this right to a personal definition of Happiness, and the right to pursue it, remains at the core of what Americans want their country to be. It is the Declaration's most profound idea.

On this Independence Day, go on out into the world and pursue your happiness! Follow your bliss (as Joseph Campbell would say) and enjoy your freedom to do so. Remember that no one (especially not the government) owes you happiness--you are responsible for achieving it on your own.

But that's the beauty of it! Every human's happiness is his or her own personal quest, and it is different from every other human being's.

And as each of you pursues your dreams, you can be thankful that you were born or came to live in the best, most moral and most free country in the history of the world.

God, I love this country!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:59 AM |

Happy Birthday, America !

HAVE A GREAT 4th of July! And to get you in the spirit of '76:

WHEN in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. --And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:40 AM |

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Carnival of the Insanities

Time for the weekly insanity udate, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). Calling all bloggers! Be sure to send in your entries to the Carnival, which will be posted every Sunday. Entries need to be in by 8 pm on Saturday to make their way into the list that week. This week we have a record number of insanities thanks to all the submissions and the way the world turns. SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!

THIS WEEK THE CARNIVAL IS COMING TO YOU LIVE FROM FRESNO, CALIFORNIA (where Dr. Sanity is on vacation!)

1. Batman would end, before he could really begin--thanks to the litigation culture!

2. Wacky Ward. I guess he wasn't getting enough attention lately, so he had to do something about it. Watch and see how a master narcissist goes about it. He must be doing a remake of "The Nutty Professor".

3. Waving bye-bye to Earth.

4. Searchlight Crusade wants to hold Bush and Rumsfeld accountable for all the GOOD they have done in freeing millions of people. Geez. What a concept!

5. Saddam Hussein, Philanthopist.

6. Fido of the Dead!

7. I hardly know what to say about this picture....I'm too busy laughing.

8. IED, IUD, QED --whatever.

9. War of the Worlds, The Lost Version.

10. Is anybody listening? Certainly not on one side of the political aisle.

11. An example of Canadian humor!

12. Baseball team ousted for being too good?

13. Have you ever thought of a career in creative taxidermy?I think it has some potential!

14. People who have recently staying in a Holiday Inn Express: Tom Cruise, Nancy Pelosi, and Ellen Tauscher (D CA)

15. Sharp as a Marble has a handy list of cowards, and their hypocrisies.

16. Moon mystery.

17. Another rejection slip! It's just sooooo hard to get published these days--you have to have a big name already.

18. Bad Example wants to set a good example.

19. Mr. Satire is x-rated (well, not the satire, just the photos around the site). Now, if that doesn't make you want to look, I don't know what will!

20. And for you Star Trek fans--everything this guy knows, he learned from that estimable show.

21. Rice Pilaf, again?????? How horrible.

22. One suggestion for who might replace Sandra Day O'Connor.

23. Wow! Gratuitously politically correct and America-bashing all in one article!

24. Harrison gives 'em the finger!(hat tip: Garfield Ridge)

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:10 AM |

Saturday, July 02, 2005

The Quagmire of George W.

Great 4th of July reading:

Philadelphia, the American Colonies, July 4, 1776 — Leaders of the self-described “American patriots” movement gathered in this Pennsylvania city today to sign an official declaration of their political intentions, despite widespread criticism of a failing war policy and complaints that their military action was launched under false pretenses.

“Here it is, July of 1776, and George W. and his lackeys are just now getting around to declaring what this war is supposedly all about?” complained Loyalist playwright Michael LeMoore. “Washington and his neo-congressionalists rushed us into war at Lexington and Concord, before anyone had ‘declared’ a single word about independence. Face it: George lied, and people died.”

LeMoore was referring to what patriots call “The shot heard 'round the world,” when colonial forces fired on British soldiers in violation of accepted international rules of military engagement.

Supporters of George Washington and the so-called “war for independence” dispute claims from the antiwar movement that their actions are unlawful, and they point to their formal “Declaration of Independence” as proof.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” reads the Declaration in part, “that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The document was reportedly written by Thomas Jefferson, a white, southern slave-owner, and one of the architects of the “patriot” movement.

Critics quickly noted the hypocrisy of Jefferson's reference to “unalienable rights” of liberty and the author's own record of slave-ownership.

“If they really believed in spreading ‘freedom,’ they would free their own slaves instead of killing the British and shelling innocent civilian Loyalist women and children in Boston and New York,” said Howard Deanne, head of the Loyalist National Committee. “And what of the recently uncovered Commonwealth Avenue memos, which would seem to indicate that those closest to Washington were planning for war after the Boston Tea Party back in '73? I'm telling you, the colonists of America have been misled into war!”

Read it all (and this time I've managed to include the link!).

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:31 PM |

The Story Behind the Story?

The Belmont Club speculates about the missing Recon team.... Read it and see what you think.

Just as an aside--this is exactly the kind of in-depth expertise that is missing from all the news reports. All we get is a series of almost gleeful stories about the casualties and deaths. These soldiers are dying for a reason, and you can't evaluate what is going on without understanding that reason. It would be as if--after the 30,000 American casualties and 6000 American deaths on Iwo Jima, the newspapers covering the story failed to mention why that little piece of rock was important at the time.

My father was proud to have fought on Iwo, and it was one of the proudest achievements of his life. He never once complained that the military objective for taking that tiny place of land was not worth the price he and other brave men paid (it probably wasn't--but the military didn't know that beforehand). "That's part of war," he would say.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:35 PM |

Trouble Blogging!

I thought my troubles blogging would be over once I got to Fresno, but as Murphy's Law says--if anything can go wrong, it will! I should be able to get back in business by this evening. Otherwise, you may consider this post an open thread....

And, BTW, enjoy the 4th of July Weekend!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:45 AM |

Friday, July 01, 2005

Worthless Lives

This is truly horrible. While I was browsing MEMRI (an invaluable resource about what is being said in Middle Eastern Countries), I came across this transcript and video. I am going to excerpt two parts, the first is Dr. Basima Al-Haqawi, a professor of social psychology (!!!)from Morocco:

I want to say in this matter that our families have been lacking a role model. The mother is no longer a role model for our boys and our girls, and neither are the father and the eldest son. The events in Palestine have given us an opportunity to turn the martyrs and (suicide bombers) martyrs in Palestine into the role model that our sons sought. Because they have not found a role model, they have turned Michael Jackson, Sophie Marceau and other actors and artists into role models. (The child) had no goal. Now there is a goal, because we have a cause. Now when we imitate our Palestinian brothers, our role model is that (suicide bomber) martyr in Jerusalem, and the new Palestinian Khansaa, who utters cries of joy [Khansaa - an ancient poet who thanked Allah for the martyrdom of her four sons in battle] when informed of the martyrdom of her son, and says to her son, 'Don't come back unless you are martyred.'
Such events have revived the role models in us, created goals on our horizon, and given life a goal instead of a worthless life.

and here is the second from Sheikh Abd Al-Hakim from Lebanon:

My daughter is nearly four and a half. She regularly sees these sights on television. I always develop in her a hatred of the Jews. (I tell her): 'These are little children, see how the Jews are killing them, see how the Jews are massacring. See how the Jews demolish homes, see how the Jews...' Now, although she is small, every time she sees someone on the television news she says to me: 'Daddy, is that a Jew or a Muslim?' This queen has begun to hate the Jews because the Jews are our enemies...

These two excerpts are from a program called "Life is Sweet", if you can believe it. When another person was horrified and tried to intervene by commenting that such images of violence on TV were psychologically destructive of children, this was the response of the interviewer:

Anyone who differentiates between Jews and Zionists and says that there are among the Jews good and gentle people - this is merely maneuvering.
The truth is that every Jew is a Zionist inside.

It is truly astonishing for those of us who live in a society that values life and liberty to listen to the perversity and hatred that is a common, every-day occurrence in the Middle East. It is as if they have been infected with a virulent disease that has rendered their rational faculties unusable. The paranoia and projection are so...banal and matter-of-fact. They go through their thoroughly worthless lives uttering these things and they have no doubt of their absolute and irrevocable truth.

The Palestinian suicide bombers are role models.
Suicide bombers have given the people of Islam a purpose and goal in life.
Mothers should tell their children, "Don't come back unless you are martyred."
Suicide bombing is all that makes life worthwhile.
Always develop in children a hatred of the Jews.
There are no good and gentle Jews.
Be proud of your toddler if he/she hates the Jews.

Please note that this is a regular TV show. Please note that these people are from Morocco and Lebanon. The one person who put up a protest at such attitudes was from Jordan.

There is something profoundly disconcerting to me to listen to these attitudes (and believe me, as a psychiatrist for 25+ years, I have heard everything; I have seen and witnessed profound evil and been a witness to most of the depravity that the human spirit is capable of). Yet, this kind of thing routinely bowls me over in disbelief.

This is a culture and religion that --whatever it has been in the past--has evolved into a death cult that worships a ruthless and horrible god. Like the Kali cult of India that celebrated death and suffering, the same rot is eating the souls of the followers of Islam.

What else can one conclude except that they are under the influence of a religiously-induced drug that dulls the rational faculty and converts individuals to frenzied and mindless mass murderers. In this, and this alone, perhaps Marx was right about the opiate of the masses; but he should have specifically mentioned Islam as the quintessential modern-day religion that exemplifies his point.

Their lives in such a religious stupor are most certainly completely worthless.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:56 PM |

Realism, Liberal Internationalism, and Neoconservatism

Charles Krauthammer has a perceptive article in Commentary:

Then came another radical change. By a fluke or a miracle, depending on your point of view, because of the confusion of a few disoriented voters in Palm Beach, Florida, this has been the decade of neoconservatism. Bismarck once said that God looks after fools, drunkards, children, and the United States of America. Given the 2000 presidential election, it is clear that He works in very mysterious ways.

In place of realism or liberal internationalism, the last four-and-a-half years have seen an un-ashamed assertion and deployment of American power, a resort to unilateralism when necessary, and a willingness to preempt threats before they emerge. Most importantly, the second Bush administration has explicitly declared the spread of freedom to be the central principle of American foreign policy. Bush’s second inaugural address last January was the most dramatic and expansive expression of this principle. A few weeks later, at the National Defense University, the President offered its most succinct formulation: “The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom.”

The remarkable fact that the Bush Doctrine is, essentially, a synonym for neoconservative foreign policy marks neoconservatism’s own transition from a position of dissidence, which it occupied during the first Bush administration and the Clinton years, to governance. Neoconservative foreign policy, one might say, has reached maturity. That is not only a portentous development, requiring some rethinking of principles and practice, but a rather unexpected one.

It is unexpected because, only a year ago, neoconservative foreign policy was being consigned to the ash heap of history. In the spring and summer of 2004, in the midst of increasing difficulties in Iraq, it was very widely believed that neoconservative policies had been run to the ground, that the administration that had purveyed them would soon be thrown out of office, and that internecine recriminations were about to begin over who lost the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and indeed the reins of American foreign policy. One prominent columnist, speaking for the conventional wisdom of the moment, called the Bush project in Iraq “a childish fantasy.” And this, from a friend of neoconservatism.

As for the liberals who had come on board the project of liberating Iraq, they took its perceived foundering as an opportunity to engage in a mass jumping of ship. Some justified their abandonment of the Bush Doctrine on the grounds that it was they who had been betrayed—by an administration whose incompetence, mendacity, political opportunism, and various other crimes had ruined a policy that would already have been crowned with success if only they had been in charge of postwar Iraq, calibrating brilliantly precise troop levels, calculating to three decimal places the required degree of de-Baathification, and overseeing just about every other operational detail according to the dictates of their own tactical genius.

That was just an excerpt--read it all. Krauthammer discusses the convergence of the three schools of American foreign policy over the last decade.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:50 PM |

The Council Has Spoken !

This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher's site. Every week the Council nominates posts from the blogs of the Council members, and posts from around the blogsphere. The Council then votes to select the "Best" of all these posts.

BEST COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place

The Left's "Word Deficit" Right Wing Nut House

Second Place A Two-way Tie!

Pimping Misery Gates of Vienna

The Consequences of Enabling Terror Dr. Sanity

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place

Ehrlich's Wit and Wisdom MaxedOutMama (Hooray!!)

Second Place

Truth In Labeling: Calling Fascists What They Are Dean's World

Be sure to check out all the winners at the Watcher's Site!

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:38 PM |

A Brief History Lesson

Melanie Phillips on "The Big Lie":

The anti-western left has, over the course of history, fallen time after time for the propaganda of murderous tyrants who offered a handy platform for bashing the home society by providing the alibi of conscience. The investment of personal, political and moral identity that this represents is so immense that after a short while such gullible dupes are simply incapable of recognising reality even when it stares them in the face. Hence their stupefaction when confronted with the enormities of Robespierre, Stalin or Mao. To that list must now be added the Islamic jihad and Saddam Hussein. The difference is that this time these useful idiots have taken the middling people of Britain and Europe – and increasingly, it seems, of America – with them into the land of deluded wishful thinking. The result could be that this war against the jihadi terror could be lost -- at home. (Emphasis Mine)

This is a picture that the Left wants you to forget. They scream in hysterical rage whenever it is mentioned or alluded to. They want you to believe that what happened in this picture has nothing to do with what the US is now doing in Iraq. They could not be more wrong.

This image is the closest many will come to visualizing pure evil; and it is extremely important that we do not forget the thousands who died that day, and the meaning of their death. They were the victims of a war that began in 1996, although we did not realize it at the time.

And every time you are tempted to forget and put away this image into some dusty unused corner of your mind, remember that we have slept peaceably in our beds these last four years because our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have successfully engaged the Islamofascists on their home turf and not on ours.

To suggest otherwise is just another variation on the big lie.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:03 AM |

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