Eye to Eye with the Storm
If this is the person that the Democratic Party is hoping will lead them out of the desert, then they are in very deep trouble. Cindy Sheehan in her gentle, loving way expresses what--to her-- is the most significant feature of the horrible tragedy unfolding in New Orleans:

"George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego, so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his environmental policies and his killing policies have caused."

She is not alone in her intense hatred--just check out a few of the usual Bush-hating blogs for more venom, rage, and wildly bizarre accusations and that truly exploit the disaster for political gain. I have often thought that how one responds to a crisis is the truer measure of one's soul than almost anything else.

It would be hilarious, if there weren't real people suffering on the Gulf Coast. Mother Sheehan's "absolute moral authority" can't sink much lower.

Glenn Reynolds has a list of places to contribute. Keep checking Michelle Malkin and The Anchoress for updates and other links.

American generosity is second to none. Please donate to your favorite charity to help with this disaster.


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:08 PM |

 
Marx Strikes Again !
I am referring to Karl and not Groucho, unfortunately.

File this tidbit under "They Won't Be Happy Unless There Is A Draft". Thomas Kilgannon writes a letter to Eleanor Clift because she made this ridiculous comment:

"But I think what we're coming to grips with is the fact that we actually have a mercenary Army. And it doesn't have a nice ring to it. We call it 'volunteers,' but we're basically paying people to serve their country.

So, let me get this right. If we have an all volunteer army they are a bunch of "mercenaries"? If we have an army of those forced to serve (i.e., draftees) they are the poor helpless victims of capitalist oppression?

She doesn't mention the fact that, if we don't pay them, then we can reasonably refer to them as either volunteer "slaves" or draftee "slaves".

How crazy is that?

This is just another example of Marxist theory in all its brilliance. According to that discredited theory, which has trickled down into the deep unconscious realms of the Left's right brain; everyone can be divided up into either VICTIM or OPPRESSOR. The Left would love to go back to the military draft so that they could maintain they are "supporting the troops" as they capitalize on their victimhood. They are most comfortable with this formulation of our military.

But, hey! If they won't fit into the victimhood template, then they must be the evil oppressors! They can deal with that formulation, too. Though it is a bit harder to claim that they are "supporting" the military.

Groucho once said, "Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others." Perhaps he was speaking for the Left?
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:05 AM |

 
9/11 Commission Omissions
Ed Morrissey on the 9/11 Commission ommissions:

Whether that ignorance came from inept investigation, the reliance on predetermined assumptions, or something more sinister may never get answered, unless Congress holds their creation responsible in public hearings for these oversights. The sudden discovery of the trove of data left out of the Commission's report and apparently their deliberations clearly shows that the report and its conclusions can only be called incomplete in the most charitable interpretation of events.

As Hayes points out, the problem with the charitable interpretation is that it ignores a certain pattern of "ignorance". The Commission appears to have included every data point that supports the popular notion (even before their start) that the 9/11 attacks came with almost no state support other than the Taliban in Afghanistan, and even then only in sheltering the al-Qaeda strategists who ordered the attacks. The "dots" that the Commission excluded from even a mention -- if only just to debunk them -- all seem to point to state assistance from either Iran, Iraq, or both. Most of them show that the intelligence community actually did uncover some interesting data, on which the bureaucracy either explicitly blocked further investigation or discouraged action. Why would the Commission want to do that? Could it be that the collection of bureaucrats that comprised the panel wanted to believe that the bureacracy could save America, and that the intelligence communities needed more constraints, post-9/11? Or could they have wanted to underscore the meme, during a presidential election, that our "unilateral" approach to policy regarding the two potential state actors had no basis in national-security requirements?

ShrinkWrapped first called them the "9/11 Omission", and the name is becoming more appropriate every day.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:03 AM |

 
Delaying Tactics
Wretchard, in comparing the "True Believers" of the Left and their reluctance to condemn Communism in the last century; and their more recent reluctance to condemn Osama Bin Laden and the Islamists, makes the following observation:

But more poignant yet was the refusal of some Party members, exiled to Magadan, the worst camp of the Gulag, to smuggle news to their comrades of their fate. One said, 'at least now they still have hope in Communism. If I let them know the truth then they will have nothing'. Even in Magadan the Left's deepest need was to believe. Having abolished the God of their forefathers and finding themselves prostrate before the false god they fashioned for themselves, as between extinction and despair they chose extinction.

This is essentially the same point I made in a post yesterday:

During Vietnam, the media; academics, intellectuals, many public figures, entertainers, and the antiwar protesters of the time consistently and stubbornly refused to see Communism for what it really was. They steadfastly ignored the millions of deaths in the Soviet Union and elsewhere and instead focused their attention on the United States as the center of all evil in the world.

Today we have the very same people consistently and adamantly refusing to acknowledge Islam and the Jihadis for what they are. Again, they prefer to ignore the barbaric ideology that promotes enslavement and death. With tedious and infinitely repetitive talking points, they again subscribe to the comforting notion that the US is the cause of the mayhem and butchery and ignore the real butchers. The deluded women's movement is more interested in forcing science to acknowledge that women are identical to men in every way possible, than they are in helping the women in the Middle East get out from under the oppression of Islam.In other words, the MSM's Vietnam "template" is actually nothing more than that primitive and immature psychological defense mechanism known as DENIAL.
[...]
the Left has consistently perceived America as the threat to the world, and ignored to the point of complete hysterical blindness the real oppressors of human freedom and dignity.

When belief in any idea become a matter of faith--and one's own identity is defined by that faith--then the psyche will do anything necessary to distort or deny any truth that contradicts that belief.

This has nothing to do with reason or logic. In such psychologically devastating situations, reason and logic are frequently trashed so that the belief may be preserved in spite of reality.

Distortion and denial, when used by otherwise mentally healthy individuals, are merely delaying tactics that the psyche uses to give the Self some time to adjust to an uncomfortable reality. Eventually, the truth must be faced if psychological health is to be maintained.

Take a common example that most people can relate to. When informed of bad news--the death of a loved one or something awful that has happened--the immediate reaction for almost all people is to shout, "NO!"--or some other word of denial. There is total and complete disbelief and an unwillingness to accept the truth. This immediate rejection of the truth/reality is actually quite normal.

But, if weeks later, the individual is still maintaining denial and refusing to acknowledge the reality, almost everyone then recognizes that something is dreadfully wrong and concludes that the individual requires some aggressive intervention to return them to mental health. Grief--and reality-- may be exquisitely painful, but experiencing it and working through it is a far better option psychologically and permits a person to truly "move on". Failure to do so can be catastrophic since reality does not honor one's false beliefs.

It is, of course, extremely comforting to believe that your loved one is still alive; or that a tragic event did not happen; that everyone is lying to you and there are conspiracies and plots behind the bad news. But these comforting delusions are embraced at quite a long-term psychological cost to the individual. In the case of the example quoted at The Belmont Club, sometimes extinction is preferred over truth.

I fear that is the choice that those on the Left are making right now, although they like to imagine that those of us who are fighting against the new threats to human freedom and dignity are the ones suffering from delusion. That is an example of yet another delaying tactic called "projection", and sadly--like denial and distortion-- it only works until reality comes crashing down.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:10 PM |

 
And Now For Something Completely Different: Good News
Chrenkoff posts his 34th in a series of good news from Iraq. This particular news was most interesting:

In entertainment news, two thousand hopefuls sign up for the Iraqi
Idol:

Many Iraqis already obsessively watch "American Idol", a version of
the original British "Pop Idol" franchise, and a glitzy Lebanese copy called "Arab Superstar" on free-to-air Arabic satellite channels.But "Iraq Star" is a brave indigenous effort to perk up the spirits of a depressed nation. The studio set is spartan and drab, and there is no studio audience, though viewers are being promised tinseltown touches when the finale is held in Beirut."We are trying to lighten the load and problems Iraqis are going through," said director Wadia Nader during recording of an episode this weekend in a Baghdad hotel."We had shows like this in the 1960s when people were discovered on television. But since then, with so many wars, Iraqis couldn't see this kind of thing," he added.

Another show entertains and helps fight the insurgency at the same time:

Shattered glass, body parts, a blood-splattered blue sedan: the grainy video pans over the scene as Iraqi officers comb the site of a drive-by assassination.

It's "Cops" Iraqi-style, minus the "Bad Boys" soundtrack but otherwise roughly modeled after the American TV show.

Created to make government more transparent, "The Cops Show" featuring Kirkuk officers in action is the first of its kind in the country and is breaking new ground in Iraqi television. A live call-in portion gives the public the chance to praise the security forces or gripe about them.

Screened weekly on Kirkuk Television, which broadcasts in this northern city of nearly 1 million people, "The Cops Show" has opened the floodgates in a community long suppressed.

"During Saddam Hussein's time, it was very different," station manager Nasser Hassan Mohammed said. "You were unable to ask questions. You couldn't say anything bad about police.

"Now people can call in directly. Anyone has the right to do this. This is the difference now. This is freedom."

The call-in portion, initially a novelty, has become a staple of the show, and panelists field up to 30 calls per segment, Mohammed said. And because Kirkuk is ethnically mixed, the show switches among the languages spoken by Kurds, Arabs, Turkomen or Assyrians.

It took Iraqis a while to master the art of the phone-in.

"But after more than a year, they understand very well," Mohammed said.

I would think that many people would find these developments in Iraq extremely encouraging. Too bad most of this information won't find its way into the MSM.

Read it all.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:39 PM |

 
Mischief?
I'd call it "doing the job he was asked to do". Let's be honest here, folks. Asking the UN to come up with a plan to reform itself is like asking the fox to suggest security improvements at the hen house.

However, we know exactly where the LA Times stands on this issue. Such a surprise.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:08 AM |

 
The Media's Vietnam Template
Scott Johnson from Power Line has a powerful column in this week's Weekly Standard:

Many have noted the media's efforts to portray the the current war in Iraq as a replay of Vietnam. These efforts date back to R.W. Apple's invocation of Vietnam on day 24 of the campaign in Afghanistan:

Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous word "quagmire" has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and abroad. Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam?

This drum of defeatism has not stopped beating. This past week, for example, Knight Ridder reporter Tom Lasseter portrayed the situation in Iraq's Anbar province as a repeat of Vietnam. Lasseter 's article is a troubling piece with relevant quotes from officers in the thick of the action.

But the Vietnam invoked by most journalists is the media's Vietnam: the Vietnam which Braestrup exposed as a false media construct. (David Brooks's column yesterday
is a notable exception.) The elite media organs covered in Braestrup's book didn't get it right the first time around; it would be nice if they took a timeout for some introspection regarding past errors before superimposing the Vietnam template (as Austin Bay calls it) on the current conflict.

If only one could put Lasseter in touch with the Power Line reader who served in Vietnam and last week wrote in from his current post in Iraq. He finds only one similarity: "[T]he deplorable way the mainstream media with their left-leaning bias have reported the two wars."

There is another similarity, although the Left won't like it. During Vietnam, the media; academics, intellectuals, many public figures, entertainers, and the antiwar protesters of the time consistently and stubbornly refused to see Communism for what it really was. They steadfastly ignored the millions of deaths in the Soviet Union and elsewhere and instead focused their attention on the United States as the center of all evil in the world.

Today we have the very same people consistently and adamantly refusing to acknowledge Islam and the Jihadis for what they are. Again, they prefer to ignore the barbaric ideology that promotes enslavement and death. With tedious and infinitely repetitive talking points, they again subscribe to the comforting notion that the US is the cause of the mayhem and butchery and ignore the real butchers. The deluded women's movement is more interested in forcing science to acknowledge that women are identical to men in every way possible, than they are in helping the women in the Middle East get out from under the oppression of Islam.

In other words, the MSM's Vietnam "template" is actually nothing more than that primitive and immature psychological defense mechanism known as DENIAL.

In two major wars, the Left has consistently perceived America as the threat to the world, and ignored to the point of complete hysterical blindness the real oppressors of human freedom and dignity. During Vietnam they deluded themselves into thinking that Communism was okay(some even believed it to be superior to a free society) as long as you didn't provoke it. And now they prefer the same delusion about Iraq and the homicide bombers of the religion of peace.

They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:32 PM |

 
Elusive Chart from Able Danger Found in Video
Here's the news. Here's the video (scroll down to May 23, 2002). (hat tip: The Corner). Captain Ed has more. As does the Strata-Sphere.

This story is NOT going to go away. It is absolutely essential that we understand the events and the failures that played a role in the US being blind-sided by 9/11. Otherwise, how can we be sure that we are doing the absolute best we can to prevent another attack?

We can now conclude that the 9/11 Commission was woefully inadequate and inept since it included none of this information. Their deliberations were politically tainted from the beginning--particularly since they occurred during a presidential campaign; and tended to be theater, more than anything else.

Able Danger is too important to be ignored. If we can sort out the PC maneuvering; the structural impediments and turf battles; the bureaucratic incompetence; the political covering up; and the psychological denial that squandered the intelligence opportunity that Able Danger presented; then we will have come a long way to understanding what needs to be done for the future.

Of course, certain people are petrified that the full disclosure of this information will be devastating to someone or to certain groups-- but frankly that is secondary and not particularly helpful (except for Sandy Berger--if his behavior at the National Archives is at all related to trying to suppress this information then he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law).

As an American citizen, I want the truth--all of it. I had hoped to get that truth from the 9/11 Commission, but they have let me down if they ignored this information. Let's get to the bottom of Able Danger and allow the chips fall where they may.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:43 PM |

 
Classic Gals and Guys
I blame The Anchoress for this. She wrote about this site that determines what kind of "classic dame" you are (or "classic man" as the case may be). I am simply incapable of passing things like this up. The results are below. I always thought I was more witty though....

You can check it out here for gals; and here for guys.

Barbara Stanwyck

You scored 35% grit, 14% wit, 47% flair, and 26% class!



You're a tough dame, a bit of a spitfire, and you can even be a little dangerous, but you do it with such flair that almost all is forgiven (and even when it's not, you're still the most interesting woman in the room). You can be witty and charming, all right, but you have a tough streak that keeps you focused and sometimes deadly. You've had quite a climb to get where you are, but you're a hard worker and you mostly deserve all you get...and then some. You might end up destroying everything around you, but you must admit...you've got style. Your leading men include Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, and when you forget yourself, Gary Cooper.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on grit
You scored higher than 0% on wit
You scored higher than 99% on flair
You scored higher than 50% on class
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:22 PM |

 
The Palestinian Peace Process
...can best be appreciated in this story from yesterday.

Twenty-one people were wounded Sunday, two seriously, in a suicide bombing at a central bus station in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba, Israeli officials said.

It was the first such attack by Palestinian militants since Israel's historic pullout from Gaza and the West Bank.

No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

The Left will completely sweep this little atrocity under the rug and keep on supporting the pitiful human beings who run the PA ;continue to denounce Israel and continue to blame the Jewish state for the failure of Peace; and for the "plight" of the poor abused Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians know they will never be called to account for statements like this, this or this by their adoring public.

More thoughts on "Life After Gaza" here.

The Palestinians don't want a state. They just want to live in hate. Like many of the psychopaths and substance abusers given a "second chance" to turn their lives around by the court, the Palestinian leadership has cynically used numerous opportunities to act out the essential deadness within their souls. At the present time, their national mental state--paranoia, psychotic delusions, suicidal and homicidal behavior; unrepentant aggression and hatred-- is unlikely to result in a good prognosis for the future of the Palestinians.

And it doesn't take a psychiatrist to come to that conclusion.

UPDATE: From the Jerusalem Post today:

A 14-year-old Palestinian was arrested after he was caught carrying three pipe bombs through the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus Monday afternoon.

The teenager set off the alarm of the metal detector positioned at the crossing, alerting soldiers manning the position.

He was found to be carrying in a bag three pipe bombs that were to be activated by a friction type detonator. The bombs were packed with explosives, as well as shrapnel and glass balls.

All part of the Palestinian Peace Process.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:47 AM |

 
Liberals Finally Declare War!


Gosh, these guys are tough. But can they stay the course? Or are they already in a quagmire with public opinion against them?
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:58 PM |

 
Book Review - THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO ISLAM
I have just finished reading The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, by Robert Spencer. Spencer is also the blogger responsible for Jihad Watch.



From the cover of the book:

Did you know that:
- Islam teaches that Muslims must wage war to impose Islamic law on non-Muslim states?
-American Muslim groups are engaged in a huge cover-up of Islamic doctrine and history?
-Today's jihad terrorists have the same motives and goals as the Muslims who fought the Crusaders?
-Muslim persecution of Christians has continued for 13 centuries--and still goes on?
Here is an excerpt from the book that will give you an idea of what Spencer is trying to address:

The window of free speech in America is closing--at least regarding Islam.

The white washing of Islam and jihad goes father than tendentious propaganda. Honest investigations of the causes of Islamic terrorism are increasingly termed "hate speech" by the PC establishment. CAIR has filed numerous lawsuits against those who say things about Islam that it doesn't like--making for a chilling effect on those who speak the truth about the religion. "There's no doubt that CAIR understands this," notes National Review's John Derbyshire. "They have Saudi oil money behind them and finance is no issue at all to them. They essentially have infinite funds. They will shut up everyone. On the topic of Islam, free speech is dead."

Meanwhile, Islamic Jihadists have their own methods of silencing critics, as the murder of Theo van Gogh last year on the streets of Amsterdam illustrates.

Spencer himself is irreverent, fearless, and articulate about Islam. He does not avoid any of the "holy" topics that Islam aggressively discourages anyone from discussing--e.g., Mohammed, the Qur'an, Jihad and the myths of the Crusades.

In the politically correct fantasy world of today, where Islam is regarded a religion of peace and given billing with other major religions, it is refreshing to hear someone actually taking seriously what the Qur'an says; what Mohammed did; and what Islam is doing.

There was once a time when the world considered the USSR one of the major powers of the world and as advanced as the US. I still remember my first impression when I visited Moscow in the mid 1980's when it was still under the dictatorship of the proletariat. It can best be summarized by the realization that, far from being and economic and political superstar, the Soviet Union had tricked the world and was, in fact, a third world country.

Islam today is like the old Soviet Union. It has tricked the world into thinking that it is a major religion, when in fact it is a third-rate dogma that enslaves all who are unfortunate to be born into it. It has nothing to offer humanity anymore, and its spread is like a cancer on the human spirit. Where Islam flourishes, there you will also find poverty, misogyny, ignorance, and oppression.

If you think this is too harsh a judgement, then you haven't been paying attention to what is going on in the world for the last decade or so. Islam refuses to be reformed and its intolerance is spreading fast. Fusing it with democracy and freedom may help ameliorate its most obnoxious aspects as they did for Christianity, but that remains to be seen; and Islam is not going to be reconciled to either Western value easily.

It is time that some light was shed on the reality. Robert Spencer has illuminated the real Islam for those who are willing to look.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:08 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. Only one post entry per blogger, please. Thanks for all the submissions. SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!

1. He'll have a job waiting at the NY Times when he's done with Journalism School. Maybe he could aspire to these heights of professionalism. Or, even aspire to the integrity of the subject of this piece.

2. An extremely unfortunate headline.

3. Extremely politically incorrect research. Here's the correct methodology to find the crrect answer to these kind of research questions. And speaking of extremely politically incorrect...and racist...and also funny.

4. The ultimate mammal exhibit.

5. Suicide baby bombers?

6. Cindy's world. He'll fit right in too. VDH discussed these alliances here.

7. "Accept good advice gracefully--as long as it doesn't interfere with what you intended to do in the first place." -- Gene Brown .

8. Ummmmm. Yeah. If you say so.

9. This is offensive on so many levels...and so is this. So I can't possibly link to them, can I? (You guess which one is satire).

10. The religion of peace in Gaza.

11. Anti-terrorism cartoons in the Arab press. Really!

12. ICE madness. And this blogger's not talking about hockey!

13. Beer for kids?

14. Bra shortage. Tit for tat in the EU.

15. I didn't realize Kos was so ginormous an idiot! Check this solid piece of "thinking" for example.

16. Doesn't this remind you of a scene from an old comedy routine? How about this one?

17. Was this really so unexpected?

18. Bwahahahaha. Everything is going according to plan. Even this.

19. Employee failure.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:47 AM |

 
Aren't You Sick of All the Iraq/Vietnam Comparisons?
Via The Anchoress, a letter to the editor says:

Iraq is just like Vietnam except: We occupy Hanoi. We’ve captured Ho Chi Minh. The North Vietnamese have just held a free and democratic election. The North Vietnamese are working on a new constitution. Yes, Iraq is just like Vietnam.

However, Jane Fonda today is just as bad as Jane Fonda then, if it's any consolation to the Left.

Meanwhile, read Christopher Hitchens piece in the Weekly Standard: "A War To Be Proud Of":

THERE IS, first, the problem of humorless and pseudo-legalistic literalism. In Saki's short story The Lumber Room, the naughty but clever child Nicholas, who has actually placed a frog in his morning bread-and-milk, rejoices in his triumph over the adults who don't credit this excuse for not eating his healthful dish:

"You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my bread-and-milk; there was a frog in my bread-and-milk," he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician who does not intend to shift from favorable ground.

Childishness is one thing--those of us who grew up on this wonderful Edwardian author were always happy to see the grown-ups and governesses discomfited. But puerility in adults is quite another thing, and considerably less charming. "You said there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam had friends in al Qaeda. . . . Blah, blah, pants on fire." I have had many opportunities to tire of this mantra. It takes ten seconds to intone the said mantra. It would take me, on my most eloquent C-SPAN day, at the very least five minutes to say that Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center attack in 1993, subsequently sought and found refuge in Baghdad; that Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, Saddam's senior physicist, was able to lead American soldiers to nuclear centrifuge parts and a blueprint for a complete centrifuge (the crown jewel of nuclear physics) buried on the orders of Qusay Hussein; that Saddam's agents were in Damascus as late as February 2003, negotiating to purchase missiles off the shelf from North Korea; or that Rolf Ekeus, the great Swedish socialist who founded the inspection process in Iraq after 1991, has told me for the record that he was offered a $2 million bribe in a face-to-face meeting with Tariq Aziz. And these eye-catching examples would by no means exhaust my repertoire, or empty my quiver. Yes, it must be admitted that Bush and Blair made a hash of a good case, largely because they preferred to scare people rather than enlighten them or reason with them. Still, the only real strategy of deception has come from those who believe, or pretend, that Saddam Hussein was no problem.

Of course, you must read it all!
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:55 AM |

 
What Ever Happened to Fallujah?
You know. That place in Iraq where the US Marine "killers" were pitted against a brave, determined "insurgency" (according to the NY Times, anyway). We heard a lot about how challenging it was and how determined the "insurgency" there was. Where the media eagerly capitalized on a comparison to Vietnam. Where doom and gloom was unanimously predicted.

Then, of course, when the Marines fully captured the city, there was much sneering, and the pundits who predicted defeat now wanted to know what good did it do us?

We haven't heard anything from the MSM lately about Fallujah, have we?

Check it out now.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:17 AM |

 
Soccer Mom Duty
The Boo, my spouse and I are up in Bay City, Michagan at a big soccer tournament today. The only problem is that it is pouring buckets of rain! The Boo played in her first game and now we are trying to find a dryer to get her uniform presentable for the second game this afternoon.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like it's gonna let up soon. This was the first game that her team has played together. They lost 1-0, but looked fairly good out there. The tournament will give them some practice together as a team before the regular season starts in two weeks.

Anyway, duty calls! More blogging tonight.

UPDATE: The rain has stopped!! Hallejulah! Next game will be played in the sun at least.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:40 PM |

 
Funda-MENTAL-ist

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:49 AM |

 
ABLE DANGER UPDATE
Fox News is reporting that a third source has come forward to verify claims that Atta was identified by the Able Danger team:

A third person has now come forward to verify claims made by a military intelligence unit that a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it had information showing that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta (search) and other terrorists were identified as being in the United States.

J.D. Smith, a defense contractor who claims he worked on the technical side of the unit, code-named "Able Danger" (search), told reporters Friday that he helped gather open-source information (search), reported on government spending and helped generate charts associated with the unit's work. Able Danger was set up in the 1990s to track Al Qaeda activity worldwide.

"I am absolutely positive that he [Atta] was on our chart among other pictures and ties that we were doing mainly based upon [terror] cells in New York City," Smith said.

Smith said data was gathered from a variety of sources, including about 30 or 40 individuals. He said they all had strong Middle Eastern connections and were paid for their information. Smith said Able Danger's photo of Atta was obtained from overseas.

Rep. Curt Weldon (search), R-Pa., arranged the media roundtable with Smith. Weldon drew attention to Able Danger by speaking about it on the House floor months ago and has publicly called for the Sept. 11 commission to explain why the intelligence information wasn't detailed in its final report.

Besides Smith, Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer (search) and Navy Captain Scott Philpott (search) have also gone on the record, saying they were discouraged from looking further into Atta, and their attempts to share their information with the FBI were thwarted because Atta was a legal foreign visitor at the time.

"This story needs to be told. The American people need to be told what could have been done to prevent 3,000 people from losing their lives," Weldon told FOX News this week.

Shaffer and Philpott claim that in October 2003, they told Sept. 11 commission staffers of the presence of Al Qaeda operatives in the United States in 2000 yet little was included in the panel's final report about those conversations.

During Friday's roundtable with Smith, he was asked by reporters about Atta, who was using another name during 1999-2000. Smith said the charts Able Danger was using had identified him through a number of name variations, one being "Atta."

Two sources familiar with Able Danger told FOX News that part of its investigative work focused on mosques and the religious ties between known terrorist operatives such as Omar Abdul Rahman (search), who was part of the first World Trade Center bombing plot in 1993.

Isn't it interesting that so far no paper trail has been found of this? This could of course be for one of several reasons:
1. There was no paper trail because the three sources are mistaken / lying
2. There was a paper trail and it was a)lost; or b)destroyed

It seems to me that with three people saying the same thing #1 looks unlikely. In the case of #2a, if papers were lost, then there is some possibility that they could be "found" at some point.

In the case of #2b, if the papers were destroyed the question becomes: who destroyed them; and why?


At the present state of knowledge, I have heard nothing yet that invalidates this theory.

AJStrata and Mickey Kaus have more.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:48 AM |

 
The Prime Directive
Victor Davis Hanson writes today about "The Paranoid Style":

Yes, the long corrupt and murderous Middle East is aflame. But that is precisely because after Iraq, the Syrians have left Lebanon, the Egyptians are convulsed over novel elections, democratic Iraqis and Afghans are killing terrorists, a no longer secure al Qaeda is fragmented after losing Afghanistan, we are pressuring Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Libya to reform, and after 25 years of somnolence the United States is finally fighting back against Islamic fascism. By Meyerson's logic, 1942 was far more disastrous than 1939, when the sway of prewar autocracies was unquestioned and we were at peace.

How odd that Meyerson, a vice chairman of a national socialist organization, has become a harsh critic of American support for democratic reform in the Middle East.

But then we remember that the prime directive of the hard Left is to be against anything that Bush is for — even if it means praising the hyper-capitalist, commodities speculator George Soros, whose machinations once nearly ruined the Bank of England along with its small depositors. In Meyerson's gushing praise: "[Soros] made his money the old-fashioned way, on Wall Street."

I also plead guilty to Meyerson's other two charges: Abu Ghraib really was blown way out of proportion and was not simply, as Ted Kennedy slurred, a continuation under new management of Saddam's gulag where tens of thousands perished.

And, yes, Iraq can craft a constitutional government as it is now doing, and that will make the Middle East both a more humane place and less a risk to the security of the United States. The only flickers of hope right now in the Middle East for an end to the old autocracy and fanaticism are in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt — and all such movement is due solely to the United States' removal of the Taliban and Saddam and pressure on Mubarak.

Aflame? Perhaps, but at least there is hope where there was none before.

Hanson goes on to discuss the coalition that has formed between the paranoid left and the paranoid right, so read it all. He is absolutely correct that the glue that holds this misalliance together is a shared paranoid style.

There is a reason that human beings experience suspicion, distrust and hypervigilance. That reason is because there is REAL danger in the world. Our ancestors in the caves knew this to be true. They lived with continual danger just to survive every minute of every day. Those who did not have the psychological capacity to perceive the danger in the environment surely died out long ago.

But this important psychological trait which senses danger and strives to protect the ego; and which is accentuated in children and early in life, is appropriately balanced out by the development of the rational faculty--the intellect. As that faculty develops, the ego mostly abandons paranoia and projection because they are extremely maladaptive in almost all cases in an adult trying to deal with reality.

The tools of the Paranoid are denial, distortion, and projection. These psychological tools are almost always pathological when used to cope with the real world. For the user these three primitive psychological defenses permit a rearrangement of external reality (so that actual reality may be avoided); for the beholder, the users of these mechanisms frequently appear crazy or insane. These are known as the "psychotic" defenses, common in overt psychosis, in dreams, and throughout childhood.

Denial is a refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening. There are examples of denial being adaptive (for example, it might be adaptive for a person who has a terminal illness to use some degree of denial). But for the most part, denial is only useful as a short-term strategy, to permit a person to come to terms with reality. As a long-term strategy to protect self-identity, it is potentially lethal--since the person or group that uses it extensively is blinded to the real danger that might be out there.

Distortion is a gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs. Hinchey's bizarre accusations against the evil genius Rove are a perfect example. It is more acceptable to believe that some evil person has tricked you, than it is to believe that you behaved stupidly.

Delusional Projection occurs when an individual or group have delusions about external reality, usually of a persecutory nature.

It is easy to see how all these psychological manipulations work together to keep a person or a group insulated from reality. In truth, we witness such behavior all around us.

One of the most common psychological defenses we have been witnessing over the last four years is Projection.

Projection is never a good long-term strategy--nor is it healthy--in an adult; and using such a defense mechanism represents a primitive attempt to shirk the responsibility for one's own feelings, thoughts, and actions. It causes and has caused much human misery, death, destruction and some of the most horrific acts that humans are capable of. When entire countries subscribe to a projected delusion (e.g., the "Jews" are to blame; the "Blacks" are the cause of all of our problems; "Republicans" are evil) it can lead to genocide and other behaviors that are paranoid and psychotically delusional. Full-blown paranoia occurs when one's mind severs the connection with reality entirely. Paranoia is a symptom of mental illness.

The Prime Directive of the Left --as Hanson notes --is a nothing more than a desperate psychological strategy to deny the reality of Islamofascist terror; distort the struggle to eliminate it and to blame America for its very existence.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:20 PM |

 
Pass It On
OK. Here's my idea. Every single person reading this blog sends an email to his/her entire address book with this message:

TO: Everyone on my email list

Subject: Iraq War

Message: Whether you are for or against the Iraq War and the Bush Administration's Policies in the Global War on Terror, I respectfully ask you to go to this site and read what is really happening in Iraq and exactly what our soldiers are doing.

http://www.michaelyon.blogspot.com/

I think you will find it surprising and awe-inspiring. If it moves you, please pass it on to your friends.

Thank you.

There must be SOME way to get the truth about our military and the war they are fighting for us out into the general public. The mainstream media is failing the American public. Badly.

Pass it on.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:43 PM |

 
The Council Has Spoken !
This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher of Weasels. 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
An Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan Gates of Vienna
(an incredibly moving piece by Dymphna)

Second Place
Shame, the Arab Psyche, and Islam Dr. Sanity

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place
Israeli Pride; Israeli Angst Alpha Patriot

Second Place
Turning Iraq Into Vietnam Villainous Company

Be sure to check out all the winners at the Watcher's Site!
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:10 PM |

 
What Do They Know That We Don't?
Fact #1:

Schoomaker said recruiting problems are offset by high retention among active divisions, especially in units that have served or are serving in Iraq. He said the Army has exceeded its personnel retention goal by 9 percent, with soldiers in the Third Infantry Division -- now on its second tour in Iraq -- reenlisting at 112 percent of the goal. The First Cavalry Division has the highest reenlistment rate, at 138 percent of the goal, according to the Army. All 10 of the Army's divisions are surpassing retention estimates.

In other words, the military personnel actually fighting in Iraq are re-enlisting by the droves.

Fact #2 from the same source, and as headlined in numerous MSM sources here and here, for example:

The Army National Guard, a cornerstone of the U.S. force in Iraq, missed its recruiting goal for at least the ninth straight month in June and is nearly 19,000 soldiers below its authorized strength, military officials said Monday.

The Army Guard was seeking 5,032 new soldiers in June but signed up only 4,337, a 14 percent shortfall, according to statistics released Monday by the Pentagon. It is more than 10,000 soldiers behind its year-to-date goal of almost 45,000 recruits, and has missed its recruiting target during at least 17 of the last 18 months.

In other words, on the home front new recruitments have been down.

In my humble opinion, Fact #2 might have something to do with this kind of relentless distortion about the miliary in the media and this behavior by the anti-American antiwar forces. Of course, to the MSM it has to do with this:

Recruiting has become more difficult over the past year as public attitudes about the war in Iraq have shifted and as those the Army calls "influencers"-- such as parents and coaches -- are less frequently suggesting the military as an option for young Americans...

Gee, I wonder why public attitudes have shifted? Could it possibly be connected with the completely negative doom and gloom war coverage by the mainstream media?

Because, the question that arises from the two facts outlined above is this: what do the people who are actually fighting the war in Iraq know that the average citizen (who gets their information secondhand, as it were) does't know?

Hmmmmm.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:40 AM |

 
Real History
My God, can Michael Yon write.

Read the post above, "Gates of Fire" and then read the pap in the NY Times and most other MSM coverage. What Yon writes is the real history of this war: the good, the bad--the TRUTH.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:12 PM |

 
Lost in the 60's

(click to enlarge the cartoon)
Jeff Jacoby in his column today:

IRAQ WAR skeptics and critics have been invoking Vietnam almost from the day the fighting began. So Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska was hardly breaking new ground when he joined the invokers on Sunday. ''We are locked into a bogged-down problem," he said on ABC's ''The Week," ''not . . . dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam."

Run-of-the-mill stuff on the the Democratic left, but since Hagel is a Republican, his words instantly leaped to the top of the news cycle. ''GOP Senator Says Iraq Looking Like Vietnam," was the headline on AP's widely reprinted story.

Yet in so many ways, Iraq doesn't look like Vietnam at all. Vietnam was never the central battleground of the Cold War, while Iraq has become the focal point of the war on terrorism. Americans had no reason to feel that their own security was at risk in Vietnam, whereas 9/11 made it clear that the enemy we face today poses a lethal threat here at home as well. The jihadis in Iraq don't have the backing of superpowers; North Vietnam and the Viet Cong were armed to the teeth by China and the Soviet Union. In South Vietnam, the United States was allied to an unpopular and incompetent regime; in Iraq, the United States toppled a brutal tyranny and is trying to nurture a democracy in its place.

But of all the ways in which the Iraq war is not like Vietnam, perhaps the most telling is the attitude of the troops.

''When I was in Vietnam," retired Army Colonel Jack Jacobs, a 1969 Medal of Honor recipient who had just returned from a fact-finding trip to the Sunni Triangle, told NBC News in May, ''if you asked anybody what he wanted more than anything else in the world, he'd say: to go home. We asked . . . hundreds of soldiers, low-ranking soldiers, in both Afghanistan and Iraq . . . the same question. And the response, to a man and a woman, was, 'To kill bad guys.' . . . The morale is just over the top -- just really, really enthused about what they're doing. And I think the reason is they perceive that they're making progress. Success will do a lot to morale."

Indeed it will, as the ''Today" show's Matt Lauer discovered when he visited Baghdad last week. He tried valiantly to coax some Vietnam-style disillusionment out of the soldiers he met, but as NBC's transcript makes clear, the troops weren't having any of that:

Lauer: We've heard so much about the insurgent attacks, so much about the uncertainty as to when you folks are going to get to go home. How would you describe morale?

Chief Warrant Officer Randy Kergiss: My unit morale's pretty good. . . . People are ready to execute their missions, and they're pretty excited to be here.

Lauer: How much does that uncertainty of knowing how long you're going to be here impact morale?

Sergeant Jamie Wells: Morale's always high. Soldiers know they have a mission, they like taking on the new objectives and taking on the new challenges. . . . They're motivated, ready to go.

Lauer: Don't get me wrong, I think you guys are probably telling me the truth, but there might be a lot of people at home wondering how that could be possible with the conditions you're facing and with the insurgent attacks . . .

Captain Sherman Powell: Well, sir, I tell you -- if I got my news from the newspapers also, I'd be pretty depressed as well.

Lauer: What don't you think is being correctly portrayed?

Powell: Sir, I know it's hard to get out and get on the ground and report the news. . . . But for of those who've actually had a chance to get out and go on patrols . . . we are very satisfied with the way things are going here.

How terribly shocking! The Troops believe in the mission! The Troops are satisfied with the way things are going!

I'm sure that the response of the antiwar, anti-American Left is one of sympathy and horror: Why those poor deluded men and women! Don't they read the newspapers? Don't they listen to CNN? Don't they know that we are in a quagmire? That the "insurgents" are winning? That there is iminent civil war among the Iraqis? That the body count just keeps going up?

But you see, the Troops are actually IN Iraq. They are actually fighting the battles there; building the schools; interacting with the people. Right now--today--in 2005.

They are not the one's traped forever in a '60's mental timewarp.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:47 PM |

 
No More
Read this article by Jack Kelly to discover the amazing process by which good news is transmuted into bad news by the "objective" and "neutral" reporters of the mainstream media.

How much more of this kind of distortion are we citizens going to take from these so-called journalists and news outlets? When are we going to say 'no more' to their lies, distortions, slants, and propaganda presented as news?

(I could have saved this for the weekly Carnival of the Insanities--but you know, this sort of thing is just not amusing anymore.)

UPDATE: Katherine Kersten: The big picture in Iraq tells quite a different story :

Since early August, Cindy Sheehan and her band of antiwar activists have seized the spotlight in America's major news outlets. Last week, celebrity protesters in Crawford, Texas, included Minnesota's state Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, and DFL Second District congressional candidate Coleen Rowley.

Lourey used the major media megaphone to broadcast her over-the-top antiwar views far and wide. On her return, she accused America of invading Iraq to grab oil and profits.

The Crawford campout is a quintessential media event. Its purpose is to gain attention for a small group of people, far out of proportion to their numbers or their knowledge of conditions in Iraq. While protesters win headlines, soldiers with on-the-ground experience have no forum to express their strong support for our cause there.

The major media's love affair with the Crawford protest is no surprise. It's consistent with the focus on body counts and funerals we've come to expect: "Troop Carrier Flips; Four Dead,"Roadside Bomb Kills Two." The media rarely give us the context we need to understand the fighting that produces these casualties -- the purpose and outcome of the missions the lost soldiers were engaged in. When that information is given, it's often buried in articles that focus on death.

Without this big picture, any war would appear a meaningless disaster. What if Americans had seen the casualty lists from Omaha Beach or Okinawa -- hills of sand -- without hearing about the objectives for which those bloody battles were fought?

Read it all.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:38 PM |

 
A Spreading Disease
Whether you think of Islamism as a virus or a cancer on the world; it most certainly is a terminal disease.

Yet both London and the transportation arteries of the Malay barrier were or subsequently became terror targets purely because of their value to the malignancy. The process is similar to angiogenesis in cancer, where a tumor takes over control of the body's ability to produce blood vessels for the sole purpose of nourishing itself. One way doctors spot tumors is by finding unusual concentrations of blood vessels feeding the growing malignancy. Sensing's comparison of Islamic terrorism to a virus, if correct, makes a nonsense of claims that that Islamic militants are infiltrating the West in retaliation for Iraq or even the supposed provocations of Israel. The infiltration is occuring for entirely independent reasons: to provide nutrients for the malignancy or to turn ordinary systems to their purposes.

If the comparison to of Islamic terrorism to disease had any validity, one would expect to see a growing use of the world's own "healthy" systems for the pathogenic purposes. And we do: for example, what would normally be regarded as a mode of transportation, such as a widebodied airplane, Islamic terrorism sees as a bomb.

Also noted in the post:

One of the most far-reaching benefits to Al Qaedaism of its alliance with the Left is how easily it allowed it to move astride the media, the academe and the liberal religious establishment.

The treatment of choice must be surgical excision at the primary site, followed by radiation or chemotherapy on the metastases in the media, academe and the liberal religious establishment.

Unfortunately, the disease is widespead and the prognosis doesn't seem good unless aggressive therapy is implemented as quickly as possible.

Note: Doctors cannot afford to be appeasing a serious disease when the life of their patient is at stake.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:15 AM |

 
Liberal "Think" Tanks Doomed To Fail
See why here.

The author cites some very good reasons why liberal think tanks will fail, which I appreciate. However, the simplest explanation is that the Liberal agenda no longer produces or encourages "thinking". On the contrary, the leaders of the Left simply require a worshipful obeisance of those old ideas from the 30's and 40's. To consider changing or improving them based on rational thought is considered "haraam." (to use a religious term).

Liberalism is a religion now, and its followers must accept it and defend it on faith. Usually they are too busy chastising the Christian community to notice that they treat their own ideas as holy and sacrosanct relics that are above scrutiny. criticism and intelligent discussion.

Liberals critiquing their ideology are about as common as Saudi imams dissing the Koran.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:59 AM |

 
Inappropriate Behavior?
In psychiatry when we are assessing patients who are dealing with serious stressors in their life, we look for some kind of dissonance between their expressed mood and their affect. When the affect does not support the mood, we refer to it as "inappropriate," meaning that the mood and affect are in conflict and don't make sense.
With that in mind, it's nice to know that the world's most famous grieving war mom, who has been beset by tragedy:(1) the loss of her beloved son; (2) recently divorced by her husband; and (3) recently dealing with the serious illness of her own mother; is able to party and enjoy herself while there is a antiwar movement going on.

Otherwise, one might think her behavior somewhat inappropriate. Why, it's almost like she's on vacation and trying to enjoy herself or something!

Of course, far be it from me to discourage vacations, but I understand that she and her friends don't believe that President Bush should take one.

(Photo hat tip: LGF)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:53 AM |

 
A Nation that Stands for Nothing Deserves a Media that Believes in Nothing
Here is an excellent point from Power Line:

Sometimes it becomes necessary to state the obvious: being a soldier is a dangerous thing. This is why we honor our service members' courage. For a soldier, sailor or Marine, "courage" isn't an easily-abused abstraction--"it took a lot of courage to vote against the farm bill"--it's a requirement of the job.
Even in peacetime. The media's breathless tabulation of casualties in Iraq--now, over 1,800 deaths--is generally devoid of context. Here's some context: between 1983 and 1996, 18,006 American military personnel died accidentally in the service of their country. That death rate of 1,286 per year exceeds the rate of combat deaths in Iraq by a ratio of nearly two to one.

That's right: all through the years when hardly anyone was paying attention, soldiers, sailors and Marines were dying in accidents, training and otherwise, at nearly twice the rate of combat deaths in Iraq from the start of the war in 2003 to the present. Somehow, though, when there was no political hay to be made, I don't recall any great outcry, or gleeful reporting, or erecting of crosses in the President's home town. In fact, I'll offer a free six-pack to the first person who can find evidence that any liberal expressed concern--any concern--about the 18,006 American service members who died accidentally in service of their country from 1983 to 1996.

The point? Being a soldier is not safe, and never will be. Driving in my car this afternoon, I heard a mainstream media reporter say that around 2,000 service men and women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq "on President Bush's watch." As though the job of the Commander in Chief were to make the jobs of our soldiers safe. They're not safe, and they never will be safe, in peacetime, let alone wartime.

I find it astonishing that there are people who seem to believe that being a soldier is a "safe" occupation. I find it incredible to think that the goal of the military must be to "protect" soldiers.

Putting aside the fact that the military have fewer deaths in many areas than the general public (e.g., fewer automobile accidents as noted here), what could possibly be the point of a national military that is so risk averse that the death of some of its soldiers (in truth the most astonishing LOW death rate in history of major conflict) is widely perceived as a hopeless quagmire, and conclusive proof that we are losing the war.

What we are losing is will. What we are losing is perspective. What we are losing is common sense.

Our media are so perverse and twisted that they refuse to see that it is their continued unrelenting attacks on the President; on the Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; their continued glorification of the enemy that has done the most harm to our nation and our military. Take a look at this, which left me utterly speechless:

Unlike earlier wars, nearly all Arlington National Cemetery gravestones for troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are inscribed with the slogan-like operation names the Pentagon selected to promote public support for the conflicts.

Families of fallen soldiers and Marines are being told they have the option to have the government-furnished headstones engraved with "Operation Enduring Freedom" or "Operation Iraqi Freedom" at no extra charge, whether they are buried in Arlington or elsewhere. A mock-up shown to many families includes the operation names.

The vast majority of military gravestones from other eras are inscribed with just the basic, required information: name, rank, military branch, date of death and, if applicable, the war and foreign country in which the person served.

Slogans? PR? To inscribe "Operation Iraqi Freedom" onto the tombstone of a fallen hero? What kind of morons write articles like this?

My father who died last year was proud, proud, proud that he fought not just in WWII, but on Iwo Jima. At his funeral, a Marine talked about the battle of Iwo Jima and the thousands who died there.

This was not public relations. This was not a "slogan" or military propaganda. This was a profoundly humbling and moving honor to my father, who considered his service to this country as one of the most significant and important parts of his life.

That such an article could question this honor; or deride the motivation to honor those who have fallen; only further confirms the anti-American agenda of those who claim to be "objective" and "neutral", but who are virulently antiwar and anti-American . They are the ones with the slogans ("all the news that's fit to print" is one I recall). They are the one's reporting without comment or perspective on the propaganda that regularly comes from various organizations of the Left and from the Islamofascists we are fighting. I don't see anyone in the media questioning those words as propaganda or PR.

But if it hurts the President it will pass muster in the newsroom. If it causes more troops to die by tying the hands of soldiers fighting to protect us, then it has served its purpose. If it make soldiers look like evil oppressive occupiers, or helpless, passive victims (depending on the point the media want to get across that particular day), then it will be on the front page.

WWII was won at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. The same evil our parents and grandparents fought has risen again in the Middle East. It claimed the lives of thousands of Americans before we even knew what that evil intended. We now know even more clearly what they stand for as they continue to butcher innocents and mindlessly destroy in the name of a religion.

The question is, what do WE stand for? Do we stand for Civilization, Human Dignity, and Freedom? Do we stand against those who want to destroy all of these values?

Or, do we stand for nothing?

If it is the latter, then by all means let us not risk any lives at all for such dubious reasons--even the lives of those who believe it is their job to put their lives at risk. And let's propose that those tombstones have nothing at all written on them; or perhaps a name and rank, with "I stood for nothing" carved in neat lettering underneath.

It is a slogan; and in keeping with the antiwar propaganda of the MSM-- but somehow, I think they would appreciate it anyway.

UPDATE: If you want to see what real journalism that believes in something (e.g., truth, honesty, integrity) then check out Michael Yon's post "Gates of Fire". It is important to note that most journalists during WWII passionately wanted the Allies to win the war, yet--somehow--they were able to report on actually what was happening. These days, most journailsts seem to passionately want the US and its allies to lose; and seem incapable of reporting on anything other than the most recent death tolls and/or commenting on how clever and resourceful the enemy is.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:19 PM |

 
Palestinian Cultural Values
What passes for equal rights in Gaza. (hat tip: The Corner)

Hamas revealed over the weekend that dozens of women in the Gaza Strip have joined its armed wing, Izzaddin Kassam, and were preparing to carry out attacks on Israel.

Pictures posted on the Hamas-affiliated Palestine Information Center Web site showed masked women, dressed in military fatigues and armed with Kalashnikov rifles and pistols, receiving training at a secret location in the Gaza Strip.

According to Hamas, the women were being trained in planting roadside bombs, firing rockets and mortars and infiltrating Jewish settlements.

"Jihad has been imposed on all Muslims, males and females alike," one of the women explained. "This is particularly true in Palestine, and here we are obeying the call for jihad. We have the honor to compete with men in the jihad."

Sure doesn't sound like they are planning for peace.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:21 AM |

 
Iraqi Constitution Not Bad?
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iraq-constitution-text,0,3024472.story?page=1&coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlinesMichael Ledeen is not feeling too bad about the Iraqi constitution (and neither am I):

I've been reading the Italian press on the Iraqi constitution, and some of the smarter commentators point out some things I think we've missed. First, there is hardly a country in the region without some language acknowledging Sharia as either "the" or "a major" basis for national legislation. But Iran, for example, says that Allah is the sole source of authority, while the Iraqi constitution says that the people are the only legitimate source of authority. This in itself is a revolutionary event. Big celebrations were under way among Kurds and Shi'ites, when the 3-day holiday was announced. These celebrations included lots of women, happy with the Bill of Rights that guaranteed freedom of religious choice, freedom for minorities, etc. The new constitution makes Iraq a Federal Republic, NOT an "Arab Republic," which is again revolutionary. And the federal nature of the new republic is revolutionary for the whole region. My favorite newspaper, il Foglio, comments: "All the neighboring countries (Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia) and also more distant ones (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria) have trouble facing the spread of a democratic Iraq, of a Constitution born from true multiparty elections, and now a new innovation has been added: the...decentralization of power."

So, while I'm still waiting for the final text, I'm feeling a lot better. I think Constitutions matter a lot. In the modern world where judges and lawyers rule, the written law is enormously important.

The text of the Constitution is here.

And, Rick Brookheiser (also at The Corner) has this note:

The first American constitution (the Articles of Confederation) took over a year to write (July 1776-November 1777), over three years to ratify (the 13th state, Maryland, did not sign on until March 1781), and about five and half years before roughly half the country realized it had to be junked. We had some harder problems than Iraq has--thirteen prickly sovereignties, a war against the world's greatest superpower--but we also had great advantages--more than a century of experience of home rule in some places. Some of our circumstances were comparable (e.g., one third of the country disaffected in the early stages).

Update: From Powerline's Paul Mirengoff:

...the draft constitution appears to follow the Afghanistan constitution on issues of religion and personal rights. Like that document, the draft provides that no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam, but also contains strong human rights protections. (In Afghanistan these protections are facilitating the emergence of a peaceful and vibrant democracy; whether the same words would yield the same result in Iraq remains to be seen, but not because the words are defective).The Iraqi draft states that "no law shall be enacted that contradicts [Islam’s] established provisions, the principles of democracy, [or] the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this constitution." This, I understand, is actually a better formulation than Afghanistan’s model. Moreover, when it comes to stipulating the basic freedoms, the same provision apparently protects "all the religious rights of all individuals in the freedom of belief and religious practice." And Islam is declared to be "a" – not "the"– source of legislation. I don't see how, from a secularist standpoint, one could expect better language in a country like Iraq.

Sounds good to me!
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:07 PM |

 
The Plot Thickens
Captain Ed has the latest on the Able Danger story:

The second source for the Able Danger story, the somewhat mysterious Navy captain that tried to get the 9/11 Commission to look into the data-mining project at the last minute, has shed his anonymity and pushed the ID of Mohammed Atta even earlier than first thought. Captain Scott Philpott now says that Able Danger identified Atta as an al-Qaeda operative in January-February 2000.

Weldon is following through and providing witnesses, and we will have to see where this all leads. All we can be sure of now, is that the 9/11 Commission was seriously flawed and incredibly inept.

The plot is thickening. Stay tuned.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:15 AM |

 
Don't Bother
Jane Galt at Assymetrical Information has as good a discussion as I have seen on the Merck / Vioxx case.

Every successful big lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company reduces the capital available to the industry, and the willingness of the industry to spend capital on developing new drugs, rather than novel ways to package things already on the market that they haven't been sued for. As Richard Epstein says, it's no good saying you only want to target the bad companies; investors have no way of telling, in advance, which companies jurors will decide are "bad". This case was widely viewed as a slam dunk for Merck, given that the plaintiff's deceased husband had neither the use profile, nor the cause of death, associated with Vioxx's problems. In the case of companies that are misbehaving, that is a cost we have to bear. But there seems to have been little evidence that Merck was misbehaving, and no scientific evidence that the drug caused the death the plaintiff was suing over.

This case is disturbing on so many levels, it is hard to know where to begin to discuss it.

I wonder what will happen when companies like Merck are forced out of business by lawsuits that refuse to recognize that every drug on the market has risks to the consumer? There was no negligence on Merck's part. The scientific evidence was clear--just not to the jury, who apparently couldn't be bothered to do their homework and were predisposed (probably by the unrelentingly negative media) to think that businesses in general, and evil capitalists in particular, deliberately set out to kill their customers.

Of course, we all know that without government intervention, those capitalists would have probably killed off every single American citizen by now and our standard of living would have plummetted way below Europe....

Juries and plaintiffs in cases like this have become less interested in truth than in "sending a message" to companies that dare to want to profit from products that take decades to develop; and that ease the suffering of the vast majority of people who use them.

Unfortunately, the message they send is loud and clear: Don't Bother.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:06 AM |

 
Slogans and Dust
This news report inspired me to rewrite the lyrics to an old Baez song.

SLOGANS AND DUST

I'll be damned, here comes your ghost again
but that's not unusual
it's just that the moon is full
and and the moonbats are out

And there you sit, singing that melody
with the same vocal clarity
from a couple of light years ago
with the same sincere pout

As I remember your songs were sad and forlorn
Your poetry was lousy I thought
Where are you singing now?
A small town in Texas
Forty years ago I bought your album
And bought into a movement
that only amounted to
Empty Slogans and Dust

Now I see you standing with Sheehan and folk of her ilk
Now you're smiling and your voice sounds like silk
Your songs once stood for for peace and it showed in your face
Speaking strictly for me
What your songs support now's a disgrace

Now you're telling me you're still for peace
why not sing to Bin Laden then?
Crush Zarqawi with songs--
but your music's gone vague

Do you really need that vagueness now, when terror's made clear
They'll kill you without flinching, my dear?
and if you're offering me Slogans and Dust
I've grown up since then.

And that's all your new cause is
only Slogans and Dust
yes that's all your new cause is
only Slogans and Dust
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:13 AM |

 
Those Who Forget History....
History is repeating itself (scroll down at the link for more pictures):



When thuggish dictators collaborate, any evil is possible....
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:17 PM |

 
Hearts and Minds
Please read this piece at RealClearPolitics by Michael Barone about the important changes that are occurring because of Iraq:

George W. Bush has proclaimed that we are working to build democracy in Iraq not just for Iraqis, but in order to advance freedom and defeat fanatical Islamist terrorism around the world. Now comes the Pew Global Attitudes Project's recent survey of opinion in six Muslim countries to tell us that progress is being made in achieving that goal.

Minds are being changed, and in the right direction.

Most importantly, support for terrorism in defense of Islam has "declined dramatically," in the Pew report's words, in Muslim countries, except in Jordan (which has a Palestinian majority) and Turkey, where support has remained a low 14 percent. It has fallen in Indonesia (from 27 percent to 15 percent since 2002), Pakistan (from 41 percent to 25 percent since 2004) and Morocco (from 40 percent to 13 percent since 2004), and among Muslims in Lebanon (from 73 percent to 26 percent since 2002).

Change is happening in the Middle East. It's sad that just as this kind of profound transformation is taking place, Americans appear to be losing interest.

Do we have a too short an attention span? Are we no longer a people who can stay the course and do what needs to be done?

The 4th anniversary of September 11th is almost upon us. No matter what the naysayers proclaim; no matter how gloomy the antiwar protestors; no matter how deep in quagmire territory are the MSM; and no matter what comes in the days ahead--President Bush has defended the homeland and prevented another attack for these last 4 years.

I am not saying that we will not be attacked again. No. In fact, in the days after 9/11 it seemed to me that there was no way we wouldn't be attacked again on our soil.

But we haven't been.

Mark my words. Bush will get no credit for this. The perversity of the Left is such that when we are attacked again (and there is no doubt we will be) he will be loudly blamed for it. We will hear cries that it was his policies that led to it.

This will just be the Left's desperate attempt to maintain the fiction that we were never attacked in the first place. That 9/11 was a terrible "tragedy" and should not be used for "political purposes".

I, for one, am truly grateful that Pearl Harbor was used "for political purposes" and that a mere generation before mine we found it within our national soul to stand up for what was right and fight the evil that threatened to take over and enslave the world.

The resolve of this generation is now questionable. Is it to be exemplified by the courageous men and women who have gone to Afghanistan and Iraq and whose actions have initiated a wave of freedom and democracy movements around the world?

Or will it be exemplified by the unkempt "compassionate" coalition of doom, whose only sacrifice is truth; and whose courage is to bravely run away from any confrontation with the latest incarnation of that evil?

This War on Islamofascism is really the anti-Vietnam. In this war, we are winning the battle of hearts and minds. But it won't matter to the Left because--just as in Vietnam--they are firmly on the side of the enemy; and their only goal is the defeat, destruction and humiliation of the greatest, most prosperous, and most free country in the history of the world.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:16 PM |

 
Holding Back The Years
Coming from an academic environment where the Left rules supreme, I have always found their cloying condescension in political matters to be extremely annoying and often hilarious. Pauline Kael's bewilderment over Nixon beating McGovern: "How can that be, she reportedly asked, I don't know anyone who voted for Nixon."

The astonishing narcissism and intrinsic elitism displayed in a comment like that shrieks of condescension and unquestioned feelings of superiority.

Those same endearing qualities can be found in the antiwar Left's carefully crafted framing of American soldiers. One might refer to their strategy as the" infantilization" of the military". It is, of course, a subset of the rampant infantilization stereotypes that the minions of the Left project onto all sorts of groups, effectively relegating them to the status of children who must be closely guarded lest they do something stupid and/or dangerous.

Naturally, this leads to the firm belief that members of such groups lack moral, intellectual, or physical maturity -- or all three. According to this image, the children are too irresponsible to make correct decisions; too immature to be permitted to act on their own and therefore must remain dependent on the "more mature" and superior elites for guidance to live their lives or even to survive.

American Blacks have had to live with stereotyping of this sort for a long time. The epithet "boy" remains as a vestige of the infantilization of the slave in the "paternalistic" South.

In the same manner, women before the liberation movement of the 1960's were often called "baby," "girl," "honey," and "sweety." Again--as any modern-day feminist can tell you--a remnant of the "paternalism" of American society.

The Left objects stridently and aggressively to these kind of paternalistic stereotypes.

But they appear to be incapable of appreciating the maternalistic stereotypes that they favor instead, which have as their goal exactly the same control and power over others that were objected to in the paternalistic stereotypes.

And both are equally insulting when directed at an adult.

Mark Steyn has this to say:

They're not children in Iraq; they're grown-ups who made their own decision to join the military. That seems to be difficult for the left to grasp. Ever since America's all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterize them as "children." If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that's her decision and her parents shouldn't get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the broadloom in Bill Clinton's Oval Office, she's a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year-old is serving his country overseas, he's a wee "child" who isn't really old enough to know what he's doing.

I get many e-mails from soldiers in Iraq, and they sound a lot more grown-up than most Ivy League professors and certainly than Maureen Dowd, who writes like she's auditioning for a minor supporting role in ''Sex And The City.''

The infantilization of the military promoted by the left is deeply insulting to America's warriors but it suits the anti-war crowd's purposes. It enables them to drone ceaselessly that "of course" they "support our troops," because they want to stop these poor confused moppets from being exploited by the Bush war machine.

"Good Mother Sheehan trying to protect the poor children" as well as "Evil Father Bush forcing the poor children to go to war in Iraq" are both variations on the same infantilizing maxim.

The Left's antiwar strategy of condescension and infantilization mouthed by FEMALES (of any color or sexual persuasion)is hardly an improvemnt over those attitudes when used by those infamous WHITE HETEROSEXUAL MALES.

Grown-up adults do not need either Mom to protect them or Dad to tell them what to do. They make those decisions on their own for their own reasons. Sometimes their decisions have nothing to do with either of their parents.


Holding back the years
Thinking of the fear I've had so long
When somebody hears
Listen to the fear that's gone
Strangled by the wishes of pater
Hoping for the arms of mater
Get to me the sooner or later

Holding back the years
Chance for me to escape from all I've known
Holding back the tears
Cause nothing here has grown
I've wasted all my tears
Wasted all those years
And nothing had the chance to be good
Nothing ever could yeah

I'll keep holding on
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:22 PM |

 
The Pope's Message to Muslims
Pope Benedict dares to appeal to Muslims to combat the spread of terrorism. Wretchard analyzes its potential significance.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:50 AM |

 
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. Only one post entry per blogger, please. Thanks for all the submissions. SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!

1. Oh goody. I can hardly wait.

2. Intelligent Falling Theory? Why not?

3. Bathing Beauties. More here (scroll down) .

4. The Presbyterian church and Al Qaeda agree that Tom Lehrer was right about the Jews.

5. Everyone knows he was such a gentleman with the ladies

6. A new documentary about Nessie ... and a £100,000 television stunt .

7. Undoubtedly one of those despicable plots by the evil Karl Rove to make her look bad. And, just for the record, it doesn't seem to me that she's having any problem being heard.

8. Maybe. But he also would have felt his pain.

9. Who says crime doesn't pay? Your tax dollars at work.

10. Just beat it.

11. The fox guarding the henhouse, MSM version.

12. News so fake, you'll think it comes from the MSM! How's that for a blog motto?

13. How low can the ACLU go? . See here, here and here for examples. Long ago, I thought they stood for something....

14. Bovine extradition?

15. There's not much more pathetic than an author who insults his readers. Talk about tacky.

16. Scenes from a Presidential Race and the Tour de Crawford.

17. Not historically significant.

18. Arnold--eat your heart out!

19. I'm waiting for the installment on gin rummy.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:36 AM |

 
Just Wondering

Why is Cindy Sheehan's grief over her son's death more newsworthy than Beth Holloway Twitty's grief over the death of her daughter?

The former gets unlimited coverage because her grief can potentially hurt the President; and a free pass from the press on her somewhat controversial comments about Bush, the WOT, Iraq, Israel, and Afghanistan. Questioning her political views is considered "smearing" her.

Ms. Sheehan's non-stop media circus coverage is considered "appropriate" and "meaningful"; while coverage of Ms. Twitty's grief over the murder of her daughter on foreign soil is is "sensationalist journalism", and garners cheers and applause from journalists when a CNN anchor refuses to participate in a show highlighting the Holloway case. Isn't Natalee Holloway enough of a victim for the enlightened media? Are some mother's children not worthy of their attention?

Isn't a mother's grief morally unimpeachable?

Just wondering.

UPDATE: The Anchoress has answered my question.

UPDATE II: And read about the Left's "grief-based politics"; something I earlier referred to as "histrionics as a determinant for national policy."
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:15 PM |

 
Book Burning in the Socialist Paradise
I just came acroos this column by Nat Hentoff from a few days ago on Fidel Castro's book burning policies in Cuba:

I was recently talking with one of my heroes, Ray Bradbury, a persistent, lively defender of the essential individual rights of conscience, free speech and, most famously, in his novel "Fahrenheit 451" the right to read — especially in a country whose government burns dissenting books.

We were talking about Fidel Castro's recurring crackdowns on those remarkably courageous Cubans who keep working to bring democracy to that grim island where dissenters, including independent librarians, are locked in cages, often for 20 or more years. Bradbury knew about the crackdowns, but until I told him, was not aware of Castro's kangaroo courts (while sentencing the "subversives") often ordering the burning of the independent libraries they raid, just like in "451."

For example, on April 5, 2003, after Julio Antonio Valdes Guevara was sent away, the judge ruled: "As to the disposition of the photographic negatives, the audio cassette, medicines, books, magazines, pamphlets and the rest of the documents, they are to be destroyed by means of incineration because they lack usefulness." Hearing about this, Bradbury authorized me to convey this message from him to Fidel Castro: "I stand against any library or any librarian anywhere in the world being imprisoned or punished in any way for the books they circulate.

"I plead with Castro and his government to immediately take their hands off the independent librarians and release all those librarians in prison, and to send them back into Cuban culture to inform the people."

Among the books destroyed through the years by Fidel's arsonists have been volumes on Martin Luther King Jr., the U.S. Constitution, and even a book by the late Jose Marti, who organized, and was killed in, the Cuban people's struggle for independence.

Whether or not the Cuban dictator ever heard of Bradbury's message to him, Castro is resolute in his repression of his people. As Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) reports: "In a renewed government crackdown on dissidents in Cuba, authorities arrested at least 57 peaceful democracy and human rights advocates," between July 13 and July 22. Three of those still imprisoned will be prosecuted under Castro's notorious Law 88, which mandates up to 20 years in prison and possible confiscation of property.

Meanwhile, Nebraska Gov. David Heineman conducted a trade mission to Havana in August that, as the Aug. 10 New York Sun reported, "is to negotiate the purchase of Nebraska-grown dry beans — one of the state's largest exports — by the Cuban government."

Republican members of Congress Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wrote Gov. Heineman, telling him his mission would be "sending the appalling signal that the cash of tyrants is more important than the lives of pro-democracy leaders." These members of Congress asked the governor to at least meet with leaders of the pro-democracy movement, as well as some of the political prisoners.

Heineman's spokesman Aaron Sanderford told Meghan Clyne of The New York Sun — one of the few American newspapers keeping tabs on the story of this heroic resistance to Castro — that the governor would not meet with any dissidents, and would "certainly not engage in the politics of the day."

Replied Lincoln Diaz-Balart: "It's like saying politics is not part of a trip to Hitler's Germany in the 1930s. It's not a question of politics — it's a question of elemental human decency."

Now that China has become a strong supporter of Robert Mugabe, the tyrant of Zimbabwe, and is bolstering the economy that Mugabe shattered, maybe Heineman can lead a trade mission to that brutalized nation, and sell more Nebraska-brown dry beans. How about a side trip to the Sudan government in Khartoum?

The list of books banned in Cuba is quite telling and include those by Vaclav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa, Orwell, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.

In 1998 Fidel Castro declared, "There are no banned books in Cuba, only those which we have no money to buy." His statement led to a new form of defiance in the socialist paradise:

So when Ramon Humberto Colas, a psychologist in Las Tunas, heard Castro's words, he and his wife Berta Mexidor decided to put them to the test. They designated the 800 or so books in their home as a library and invited friends and neighbors to borrow them for free. And so was born the first of Cuba's independent libraries -- independent of state control, of censorship, and of any ideology save the conviction that it is no crime to read a book.

The men and women who run these humble libraries risk government retaliation; several have been threatened, interrogated, raided by the police -- or worse. Colas and Mexidor were evicted from their home, denounced in the (state-owned) press, and repeatedly arrested. Their books were confiscated. They were fired from their jobs. Their daughter was expelled from school. Government persecution eventually drove them from Cuba, but the seed they planted bore fruit. Today there are more than 100 independent libraries in homes across the country, each one a little island of intellectual freedom.

As of the end of 2004, there were 10 librarians sitting in Castro's prison for lending out books of which Castro disapproves ( 1984 was one of them).

As I searched around the internet for more information on this story, I found that Nat Hentoff has been writing columns on it for several years, trying to call attention to the problem, and to spotlight yet another serious bit of oppression by the Castro regime.

As of today, the American Library Association (ALA) has refused to condemn Castro for his actions in jailing librarians and banning/burning books, although such an action is within their charter.

For every one totalitarian dictator, there are thousands of appeasers, apologists, and enablers who make that dictator's life so much easier and more pleasant.

File this in the "Evil and its Enablers" Folder.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:51 PM |

 
The Palestinian Con
These people are completely hopeless:

Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas said on Saturday it would fight to drive Israel out of the West Bank and Jerusalem after the Jewish state completes its withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip this year.

"Gaza is not Palestine," a masked spokesman for Hamas's armed wing told a news conference in Gaza City.

"As for Jerusalem and the West Bank, we will seek to liberate them by resistance just as the Gaza Strip was liberated," said the spokesman, surrounded by gunmen and militants with rocket launchers.

Note to the rest of the world: DO YOU SEE NOW? ARE YOU BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND?

No?

How about this (hat tip: The Corner):

Buried in several of Hammoudeh's conversations with an "unidentified male" in October 2000 is surprising inside information on the private views of Palestinian Authority's leader Yasser Arafat about ongoing peace negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Despite what Arafat was saying publicly about supporting the negotiations, Hammoudeh's telephone conversations tell a different story, according to the prosecution's evidence. Unidentified Male: "Abu Ammar (Arafat) told me that everything has been screwed up . . . Since February (he) has been hopeless, finished. From February . . . eight months ago . . . (Arafat) has had a closing with this Barak . . . I sat with (Arafat) in his room and he told me: 'It's useless.' But he doesn't say this on television. He says 'my partner.'

"We sat with (Arafat) . . . and he told me that it was over . . . and we should seek other avenues. . . . "Do whatever you see fit. Military action if you want to, or whatever. . . . I will not interfere.' " He offered this summary of Arafat's private words to him: "Proceed and do not be afraid. Anything I do or say, ignore me."

(emphasis mine)

If only the world would ignore their continual whining and perpetual victimhood; and appreciate the con game the Palestinians have been playing for decades. If only the world would call them to account for undermining every peace process; breaking every truce. If only the world would focus on the murderous rage and suicidal anger the Palestinians project; instead of focusing on and blaming the objects of that projection.

When I look at the Palestinian situation, I see a bottomless cesspool of swirling self-destructive rationalizations. How many times will Israel have to make honest concessions and take the first step toward peace? How many times will Israelis have to demonstrate their goodwill and willingness to live in peace with these maniacs? How many truces, treaties, aggreements, must be broken-- before the world sees the Palestinians for the cheap con artists they are?

They don't want peace. They don't want to live in their own state if Israel exists. They don't care about the suffering of innocent people - Israeli or Palestinian. They don't care, because they have no honor. They are incapable of goodwill. They have no leader with any integrity. They have nothing but their hatred.

And as they parade and dance around with their UN-funded banners, pretending that they are real men; shooting guns in the air and setting things on fire; preparing their children for future suicide missions; I know without the shadow of a doubt that they will squander this new opportunity as they have squandered so many over the years.

When do you suppose the rest of the world will figure out that they are being conned?
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:43 PM |

 
Iraq, Paper, Scissors


Let's remember that while scissors cut paper and paper covers Iraq, IRAQ BREAKS SCISSORS....
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:18 PM |

 
A Textbook Example of DISPLACEMENT
Psychological Displacement is defined as:

The separation of intense emotion from its real object and its redirection toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is frightening or threatening. The purpose of displacement is to avoid having to cope with the actual reality that is too painful. Instead, by using displacement, an individual is able to still experience his or her anger, but it is directed at a less threatening target than the real cause. In this way, the individual does not have to be responsible for the consequences of his/her anger and feels more safe.

Here is a textbook example of this defense mechanism.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:29 AM |

 
"This Is The Car Daddy Blew Up"
This filled me with a deep sense of revulsion. It is an excerpt from a Hamas and Islamic Jihad video which aired on an Al-Arabiya TV program on the culture of martyrdom.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah: "These martyrdom operations are the shortest way to Allah. They are the must exalted and magnificent way of martyrdom in our generation. The martyrdom operation is the weapon Allah gave this nation, and no one can take it from us. They can take away our cannons, our tanks, and our planes, but they cannot take away our spirit, which yearns for Allah and which is determined to achieve martyrdom."
[...]
Reporter: "Salah Ghandour a soldier in Hizbullah's martyrdom army..."

Maha Ghandour, Salah Ghandour's widow: "I met Salah in 1990 and we got engaged seven months later. We were married in 1991, early 1991. Even in his final days he stayed at home with us and told me: 'Say goodbye to me. I am bidding this world farewell.' From when I just married him, I expected his martyrdom at any minute. When we had three children I told him that he was taking his time. I didn't expect to live with him for five years."

Interviewer: "Was it important to you that he worked for the resistance?"

Maha Ghandour: "Of course. Of course. If we had not defended our land, who would have liberated it? Unless women sacrificed their husbands and brothers, this land would never have been liberated. Praise Allah, our homeland was liberated by the blood of the martyrs and the efforts of the mujahideen, some of which are fighting the Jihad to this day."

Reporter: "Hizbullah filmed Salah's operation and final message, and the entire program was aired on Al-Manar TV, which belongs to Hizbullah."

Salah Ghandour's son: "This is the operation that daddy carried out. This is the convoy that came from here, from Palestine. This is his operation..."

Salah Ghandour's daughter: "This is the place of the operation in which he was gone."

Salah Ghandour's son: "This is the car daddy blew up."

Maha Ghandour: "Of course I miss him and remember his words. Sometimes it saddens me, but I love to watch him."

She loves to watch him blow himself up??? She let's her kids watch Daddy blow up??

What a devoted Palestinian mother.

It is disturbing to think that this woman is representative of the people who will be in control of Gaza now that Israel has withdrawn. They have a chance to make a real life--a real country for themsleves. Do you think they will? Do you imagine that these children will grow up to be psychologically healthy and productive individuals in the new Palistinian state?

No, I don't have much hope for that either.

But they will only have themselves to blame when their own finely-honed, and cultivated hatred fully detonates and irrevocably shatters what little is left of their society.

Maha Ghandour will love to watch that, too, I'm sure.

UPDATE: Neo-neocon quotes from a Egyptian psychiatrist.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:05 PM |

 
TWO ATTA THEORY ?
That's two too many.


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:25 PM |

 
Krugman's PEST
I used to get irritated by people like Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd. OK, let me be honest. People who have absolutely no regard for the truth make me very, very angry.

So, I basically stopped reading their columns long ago.

Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that Krugman has blatantly lied yet again (is the sky blue?) and John Podhoretz at the The Corner noticed.

This just gives further proof that the "intellectuals" of the Left have never really been able to get over the 2000 election. Remember PEST? PEST was one way to describe the psychopathology of the Left after the 2004 election results came in giving Bush a decisive win. I considered it yet another way that they could wallow in their victimhood, a state they enjoy being in, for the most part.

But the 2004 election only added insult to injury. The contested results of the 2000 election were singularly traumatic because the Democrats, having rarely read the U.S. Constitution, were stunned to discover that the Founding Father's had provided a way to prevent geographically small, but populous parts of the country from dictating to the rest.

But the Left also desperately wanted to cling to the belief that Gore really "won" in Florida. Many said that when the matter was studied it would prove this belief.

Of course, when the matter was studied, it proved the opposite.(also here) That is why news accounts of the results didn't make it to the front pages. What paranoid wants their precious delusion proven wrong? The Democrats and the Left moved on, with an completely new set of delusions to keep them occupied and victimized, never having admitted the truth even to themselves.

Somewhere in the deep, dark reaches of Krugman's addled brain, there must be just the teensiest flicker of shame over the fact that such a bald-faced lie would make it into his column. I know I maintained that we are primarily a "guilt culture" rather than a "shame culture"--but jeez, experiencing just a little shame at such a blatant distortion of the facts would be soooo psychologically healthy.

I won't hold my breath waiting for it.

UPDATE: Podhoretz has more here and here. One quote:

Merely by pulling up the New York Times's own electronic morgue at his desk, Krugman could have avoided making the mistake of claiming that Gore was ruled the winner in two independent media counts. If he didn't, he's lazy. If he he did, he's spectacularly dishonest. And he doesn't strike me as lazy.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:46 PM |

 
The Council Has Spoken -- And Dr. Sanity Wins !
This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher of Weasels. 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
A Motive For Berger's Bizarre Behavior? Dr. Sanity

Second Place
Able Danger, Busting Loose, Update XV The Strata-Sphere

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS

First Place
A Message to Cindy Sheehan Iraq the Model

Second Place
Agitators Varifrank

Be sure to check out all the winners at the Watcher's Site! This week they are fantastic! AJ Strata's excellent round-ups of Able Danger are a must read. And Iraq the Model and Varifrank both have posts that are stunningly good. Don't miss them.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:15 AM |

 
SHAME, THE ARAB PSYCHE, AND ISLAM
General Comments about Shame
Shame is often an underappreciated psychological state. Particularly in the modern world, but also throughout history, shame-- in limited quantities and small doses--has facilitated civilized conduct and made both individuals and cultures behave more appropriately. But healthy shame, on the other hand, keeps us in touch with reality, and reminds us of our limitations, faults, and humanity. When experiencing healthy shame an individual may not be very happy to have embarrassing weaknesses and defects made obvious, but this awareness is insightful and humbling. As long as an individual is capable of self-doubt and self-reflection about his behavior; he is able to remain open-minded and willing to search for a better understanding of himself and others.

Excessive or inappropriate shame is another thing altogether, communicating forcibly to the individual that he or she is worthless. Shame can be an exceedingly devastating and painful experience

Children who live with constant hostility and criticism learn to defend against the bad feelings and shame within; and to externalize blame onto others. Projection and paranoia, which are both external assignments of blame, are psychological defenses against shame.

Often this excessive shame is dealt with by humiliating someone perceived as weaker or more worthless than the shamed person (e.g., the family pet, women, Gays, or outside groups serve this function for both individuals and cultures).


Guilt is an emotion that rises after a transgression of one's own or cultural values. Guilt is about actions or behavior; while shame is about the self. There is an important psychological difference in saying to someone that their behavior is bad; as contrasted with saying that they are bad. The former leads to guilt; the latter to shame.

The purpose of guilt is to stop behavior that violates a self, family or societal standard. Guilt keeps score on excesses or deficits of behavior deemed undesirable and is expressed in regret and remorse.

Eventually for the shame-avoidant person, reality itself must be distorted in order to further protect the self from poor self-esteem. Blaming other individuals or groups for one's own behavior becomes second nature, and this transfer of blame to someone else is an indicator of internal shame.

Most psychological theorists (Erikson, Freud, Kohut) see shame as a more “primitive” emotion (since it impacts one’s basic sense of self) compared to guilt, which is developed later in the maturation of the self. Without the development of guilt there is no development of a real social conscience.

Guilt Cultures vs. Shame Cultures

In thinking about how the concepts of guilt and shame apply in a culture, it is helpful to refer to a seminal work that was originally published by Benedict in 1946, where she discussed the collectivist culture of Japan during WWII and distinguished it from American culture. Japan had a “shame culture”, while the U.S. and most of the West subscribe to a “guilt culture”. Each type of culture has its own set of rules with regard to wrong-doing and they are determined by the beliefs of the individual and other people regarding guilt, and summarized in the two matrix tables below:

In both cultures there is no problem if both parties believe that the individual is NOT GUILTY. If both parties believe that the individual is GUILTY, again there is agreement and in that case the guilt is punished.

The difference in the two societies lies in the other two boxes in the matrix (in red).

In a guilt culture, when an individual believes he is NOT GUILTY, he will defend his innocence aggressively despite the fact that others believe he is guilty. In this case, the individual self is strong and able to maintain an independent judgement even if every other person is convinced of his guilt. The self is able to stand alone and fight for truth, secure in the knowledge that the individual is innocent.

The guilt culture is typically and primarily concerned with truth, justice, and the preservation of individual rights. As we noted earlier, the emotion of guilt is what keeps a person from behavior that goes against his/her own code of conduct as well as the culture’s. Excessive guilt can, of course, also be pathological. I am solely referring to a psychologically healthy appreciation of guilt.



In contrast, a typical shame culture (e.g., Japan as discussed by Benedict; or the present focus of this discussion: Arab/Islamic culture) what other people believe has a far more powerful impact on behavior than even what the individual believes. As noted by Gutman in his writings, the desire to preserve honor and avoid shame to the exclusion of all else is one of the primary foundations of the culture. This desire has the side-effect of giving the individual carte blanche to engage in wrong-doing as long as no-one knows about it, or knows he is involved.

Additionally, it may be impossible for an individual to even admit to himself that he is guilty (even when he is) particularly when everyone else considers him to be guilty because of the shame involved. As long as others remain convinced he is innocent, the individuals does not experience either guilt or shame. A great deal of effort therefore goes into making sure that others are convinced of your innocence (even if you are guilty).

In general, it has been noted that the shame culture works best within a collectivist society, although it can exist in pockets even within a predominant guilt culture.

Let us now turn to Arab/Islamic culture.

This piece by David Gutmann is one of the best psychological analyses of shame and the Arab psyche I have read, and because it deals with something so critically important, I am going to quote a rather large excerpt:

The Arab world is suffering a crisis of humiliation. Their armies are routed not only by Americans, but also by tiny, Jewish Israel; and as Arthur Koestler once remarked, the Arab world has not, in the last 500 years or so, produced much besides rugs, dirty postcards, elaborations on the belly-dance esthetic (and, of course, some innovative terrorist practices). They have no science to speak of, no art, hardly any industry save oil, very little literature, and portentous music which consists largely of lugubrious songs celebrating the slaughter of Jews.

Now that the Arabs have acquired national consciousness, and they compare their societies to other nations, these deficiencies become painfully evident, particularly to the upper-class Arab kids who attend foreign universities. There they learn about the accomplishments of Christians, Jews, (Freud, Einstein, for starters) and women. And yet, with the exception of Edward Said, there is scarcely a contemporary Arab name in the bunch. No wonder, then, that major recruitment to al-Qaeda's ranks takes place among Arab university students. And no wonder that suicide bombing becomes their tactic of choice: it is a last-ditch, desperate way of asserting at least one scrap of superiority—a spiritual superiority—over the materialistic, life-hugging, and ergo shameful West.

But this tactic is not, I suggest, a product of Islam. Rather, it is a product of the bruised Arab psyche. Remember that the Japanese also turned to suicide tactics in WWII to evade the humiliation of defeat. Though their religion was Shinto rather than Muslim, they too constituted a paradigm shame/honor culture, and defeat brought about, as with the Arabs, a furiously suicidal/homicidal response. After their armies had been defeated, their fleets sunk, their cities set aflame, and their home islands invaded, they launched the kamikaze bomber offensive, thereby committing a hi-tech form of hara-kiri, their usual remedy against intolerable shame. It is in this way that the modern Arab world resembles the Japan of World War II. In both cases it is not religions but psychic wounds, the wounds inflicted by defeat and evident inferiority, that inspire suicide bombers.

It is often asserted that the changes set in train by modernization are particularly toxic to the Arabs. No doubt this is true. But if we are going to be therapeutic, our diagnoses need to be more specific; we need to identify the particular pathogens that are released by modernization. Besides sharpening their sense of inferiority relative to the West, modernization threatens to bring about the liberation of women (as in Afghanistan and Iraq). I say "threatens," because the self-esteem of Arab males is in large part predicated on the inferior position of their women. The Arab nations have for the most part lost their slaves and dhimmis, the subject peoples onto whose persons the stigmata of shame could be downloaded. But anyone who has spent time among them knows that Arab males have not lost their psychological need for social and sexual inferiors. In the absence of slaves and captive peoples, Arab women are elected for the special role of the inferior who, by definition, lacks honor. Arab men eradicate shame and bolster their shaky self-esteem by imposing the shameful qualities of the dhimmi, submission and passivity, upon women. Trailing a humbled woman behind them, Arab men can walk the walk of the true macho man.

Hence the relative lack of material achievement by Arabs: the Arab world has stunted the female half of its brain pool, while the men acquire instant self-esteem not by real accomplishment, but by the mere fact of being men, rather than women. No wonder, then, that the Arab nations feel irrationally threatened by the very existence of Israel. Like America, the Jews have brought the reality of the liberated woman into the very heart of the Middle East, into dar al-Islam itself. Big Satan and Little Satan: the champions of Muslim women.

I contend that female liberation is the most hopeful development in the Middle East, greater even than the first stirrings of democracy. I believe that Arab women have a greater stake in liberal democracy than Arab men, and as they acquire political power, they will fight for it. As for suicide bombings, jihadism and the macho posturing of Arab men, they are desperate remedies against further humiliation, against the perceived threat of “castration,” by their own women. Until Arab women achieve freedom and independence, we can expect, at least for awhile, to see Arab men cling to these remedies.

Even then, some Arab men will probably backslide to even greater suicidal/homicidal tantrums. Others, (perhaps even a majority) no longer able to project their deficiencies onto Arab women, will begin to recognize the flaws in themselves. These converts would adopt the self-critical stance that is already showing up among some daring Arab intellectuals and even religious leaders. And when Arab men can no longer acquire instant self-esteem by demeaning their women, some of them might even turn to the arts of peace, and try to acquire the sense of self-worth via instrumental rather than illusory psychological means.

We cannot, in the end, correct all the distortions of the Arab shame/honor ethos. But by pledging our support for Arab women's liberation—for instance, by advocating expanded liberties for women in the text of the new Iraqi constitution—we can hasten its erosion.

Gutmann takes pains to separate the toxic aspects of the Arab psyche from Islam. This is the only part of his argument that I do not find compelling.

it seems to me that the Arab psyche has had centuries to be slowly absorbed by Islam and that in many cases, and in most important aspects, the two are now inseparable. We can see this in the fact that even in Indonesia, Thailand and non-Arab locales where Islam has been embraced it retains both Arab misogyny and intolerance.

Alternatively, it might be argued, that Islam takes root and grows best when it is in the toxic nutrients of Arab-shame/honor cultures.

It is also important to remember that Mohammad himself was Arab and most of the Koran is pretty consistent with what is known about his personality and style.

On the other hand, it is only in the fairly recent history of Islam (e.g. in the last century) that Islam appears to have fully embraced the subjugation of women under the guise of "protecting" them and preserving honor.

This earlier article by Gutmann also discusses shame in the Arab world:

In regard to military history, the Arab's preference for guerrilla over conventional war reflects a long tradition, one that began in antiquity, with the Bedouin raiders. Their way of war- brilliantly described by T.E. Lawrence in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom – is based on hit and run forays by camel-mounted Bedouin who appear suddenly out of the desert, tear up an unsuspecting enemy camp, and then disappear back into the waste, carrying "honorable" loot: thoroughbred horses, camels and women.

The traditional Bedouin created a nearly pure "Shame" culture, whose goal was to avoid humiliation, and to acquire sharraf - honor. Thus, the goal of the Bedouin raid is not to finally win a war, for such inter-tribal conflict is part of the honorable way of life, and should never really end. The essential goals of the raid are to take wealth – not only in goods, but also in honor - and to impose shame on the enemy. Any opponent worth fighting is by definition honorable, and pieces of his honor can be ripped from him in a successful raid, to be replaced by figments of the attacker's shame. The successful attacker has "exported" some personal shame to the enemy, and the enemy's lost honor has been added to the raider's store.

This calculus of shame and sharraf is an important element in all Arab warfare, whether waged by Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat, or a Bedouin sheik. In particular, that same dynamic drives the Arab preference for irregular over conventional war.

Irregular tactics - spiced with Terror – have on occasion defeated regular armies; but win, lose, or draw in the military sense, terror tactics can be a far more efficient means of meeting psychological goals - i.e., shedding shame and capturing honor - than all-out war.

Let me be clear that I am not excusing the behavior of Islam and Arabs toward women, Jews, Christians, and other cultures. I am merely trying to understand those elusive "root causes" that everyone talks about.

As stated earlier in this essay, one of the ways that those who fear shame protect their fragile self is to subjugate those who he perceives as weaker. By doing so, he can rationalize that he is superior to the subjugated individual. In fact, this is the only way he can maximize his honor. In Arab/Islamic culture, women are one of the primary instruments of achieving honor. Hence the bizarre and distorted attitude that the culture has toward women and the exaggerated means by which "honor" must be maintained. So strong is the cultural pressure, even women buy into the delusion (as eloquently demonstrated by Dymphna in this post)

Honor killings of women are all too common in Arab culture, and importantly are not dissuaded by the tenets of Islam.

Other expressions of the shame culture that are obvious is the rampant psychological projection and refusal to accept responsibility for the atrocities committed in the name of Islam. Not only are we regularly subjected to imams, religious leaders, and leaders of Muslim states stating even now that 9/11 or the London bombings were not committed by Muslims; they also regularly blame the Jews for such acts. In this way they can avoid the shame that taking responsibility for evil.

Additionally, the emphasis by CAIR and other Muslim organizations in demanding that any statement that criticizes or even suggests blame or responsibility by Islam for terror, be retracted or apologized for, is also just a part of the shame-avoidant dance that leads the culture into the blurry realms of delusion.

Finally, it is not surprising that the most murderous thugs espousing religious ideals as they brutally cut off the heads of infidels are hidden behind masks and dare not reveal themselves to the world. I suspect that on some deep level they know that their "pride" in their sick behavior would be more difficult to boast about if they were not anonymous. "If no one knows it is me committing these acts, then I am not shamed," after all.

While psychological health and self-esteem depend to some extent on overcoming shame and progressing to a level where taking responsibility for one's actions and accepting that there is an objective truth out there that is not determined by other people's opinions; both shame and guilt can be important reality checks to an individual--or to a culture.

When a culture determines that the avoidance of shame is necessary no matter what the cost, the result is a culture of fanaticism, bizarre behavior in the name of "honor"; and simultaneously the cultural oppression, subjugation, and humiliation of women and others perceived as "weak" (and therefore "shameful"). It also inevitably results in the projection of one's own unacceptable behavior and shameful feelings onto another individual or an outside group.

Some of the earlier pieces I have written on these topics include:

NARCISSISM AND SOCIETY:
Narcissism and Society, Parts I,II, III

WOMEN AND ISLAM:
Where Have All the Mothers Gone?
Yes, This Is Islam
International Women's Day in Iran
Modern vs. Medieval
Institutionalized Misogyny
The Psychopathology of Terrorism

PROJECTION AND PARANOIA:
Islamic Delusion
Paranoia and Projection
Psychological Defense Mechanisms
Paranoia Strikes Deep
Denial and Delusion
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:45 PM |

 
Yes, Yes, Yes !
You tell 'em, John. That's why we wanted you there.

More, please.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:01 PM |

 
The Duct Tape is in The Palestinians' Court












From Sigmund, Carl and Alfred:

The evacuation of Israelis from Gaza will bring neither peace nor progress for the region. The reasons are many and myriad, but in the end, it is the sharply contrasted collective character of the peoples that tell the truth. Engaged in what is a civil war of sorts, Israeli soldiers, faced with evicting their brethren, are reduced to tears. Rage is expressed in angry exchanges of words, not exchanges of gunfire. Israeli soldiers do not drag other Israelis our into the streets, where they are summarily executed. Palestinians are only too happy to shoot each other in their unannounced civil war, fought to secure control in the Palestinian Authority- and fought to secure the billions in aid that will be stolen by corrupt regimes.

Israelis have built a life and an economy in Gaza. Settler industries were Gaza’s largest employers. Those jobs will now be gone for good. Still, the realities cannot be changed. The Israeli settlements in Gaza are untenable. Nevertheless, it is the timing of the removal of settlements that remains troubling.

Occupations are ended when there is peace. We did not leave Germany or Japan before they had secure and democratic governments and were well on their way to building productive societies. We are staying the course in Iraq until a government can prove it’s inclusiveness and stability, and we will not leave until violence is subdued by Iraq troops, if not entirely ended.

The Israelis are being asked to end their occupation before any promise or guarantee of peace with her neighbors. Indeed, Palestinian factions are promising more violence and the ‘slaughter of Jews’ in the future.

This entire human tragedy is displayed on TV for us. I heard a tearful Israeli woman crying as she was being led from her house, "...isn't there any sympathy in the world for us?"

Sadly, no.

I am hopeful that the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will clarify for the whole world the real motives of the Palestinians. I don't believe that their leaders really want their own Palestinian state--they could have had that long ago. What they want, pure and simple is the destruction of Israel, even if it means continued suffering for their own people.

At least the suffering of these settlers in being evicted from homes they have lived in for decades will make it easier to Israel to defend itself without all the irrational screams of "occupiers!" being hurled their way from the rest of the world.

Ok, maybe that's is too much to hope for. Nevertheless, what the Palestinians do with this gift will be revealing. Like SC&A I believe they will squander it in order to continue to express their hatred of the Jews. That hatred has been the dominant focus in their culture for some time, and they are not about to give it up for a Palestinian state-- or for Peace.

Perhaps the rest of the world will begin to notice that.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:15 AM |

 
How To Get Depressed in One Easy Lesson
Soldiers in Iraq certainly understand how a person could get depressed. Yes, they do:

Mark Finkelstein over at Newsbusters reported this morning that Matt Lauer got a surprise answer from a soldier on a recent trip to Iraq. After asking about morale, a few soldiers told him that morale was good. Like any good morning TV show journalist, Lauer was skeptical:

LAUER: Don't get me wrong, I think you're probably telling the truth, but there might be a lot of people at home wondering how that might be possible with the conditions you're facing and with the insurgent attacks you're facing... What would you say to people who doubt that morale could be that high?

CAPTAIN SHERMAN POWELL: Well sir, I'd tell you, if I got my news from the newspapers I'd be pretty depressed as well.

Thank goodness I have had access to blogs like this and this (and many others) that can provide a balanced and objective perspective.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:10 PM |

 
What Wasn't in Sandy's Pants
The American Thinker has an article up about the memo that didn't make it into the Bergler's pants or socks:

A very interesting memo from former US Attorney for Manhattan Mary Jo White apparently escaped being smuggled out of the National Archives in Sandy Burglar's pants. It turns out that White, who aggressively prosecuted terrorists responsible for the first WTC attack, told Jamie Gorelick that the infamous wall she built between intelligence and criminal justice would lead to disaster.

"This is not an area where it is safe or prudent to build unnecessary walls or to compartmentalize our knowledge of any possible players, plans or activities," wrote White, herself a Clinton appointee.

"The single biggest mistake we can make in attempting to combat terrorism is to insulate the criminal side of the house from the intelligence side of the house, unless such insulation is absolutely necessary. Excessive conservatism . . . can have deadly results."

She added: "We must face the reality that the way we are proceeding now is inherently and in actuality very dangerous."

In fact, the memo made it to the 9-11 Commission, but nobody took much note of it. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have a person implicated in the memo sitting on the Commission. Conflict of interest is obvious here.

According to National Archive officials, Berger supposedly only took copies of original material. So, if he didn't take the White memo original, he could have easily taken a copy that had notations or other information on it.

What we need to know most importantly in light of Able Danger and all this new information that is coming out is, what was in Mr. Bergers pants?

Of course I ask that in the most respectful sense possible.

UPDATE: Over at Americans for Freedom there are some specifics from the WaPo about what Berger stole from the Archives. Here's an excerpt:

The after-action memo was written by then-White House counterterrorism adviser Richard A. Clarke and contained 29 recommendations about improving homeland security, including beefing up protections at the nation's ports and borders. The review pointed out flaws in the nation's counterterrorism efforts.
A source knowledgeable about the contents of the review said that it is classified "codeword" because it contains information about sensitive intelligence operations. The memo also contains sensitive fruits of wiretaps, intelligence sources said.

The WaPo article was written in July '04 and I have been unable to find any further specifics. So we will wait and see if further information is released.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:32 PM |

 
THE UNITED NATIONS - PIRATES OF THE MODERN WORLD
In light of continuing revelations about the depth and breadth of the ever-expanding UN Oil-For-Food Scandal (UNSCAM) --see recent articles here and here, for example); and the anti-Israeli, anti-American agenda of the U.N. (see here, for example) I have decided to reprise my knock-off song from the Pirates of Penzance. Sung to the tune of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General".

Little did WS Gilbert realize that he would be accurately describing the antics of that crazy, fun-loving group over at the United Nations. It is important to remember that these modern-day pirates deserve to be given no moral authority by any nation that supports freedom and democracy.


I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A SECRETARY GENERAL

SECRETARY GENERAL ANNAN:
I am the very model of a Secretary-General,
I specialize in matters both nefarious and criminal,
I know the heads of every state, preferring those inimical
to all the freedom-loving institutions democratical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters philosophical,
And implementing Marxist theories surely is most practical;
About Oil-for-Food, I'll stonewall anything that's new,
And keep on hiding facts about the way we scammed the lot of you!

ALL:
And keep on hiding facts about the way we scammed the lot of you!
And keep on hiding facts about the way we scammed the lot of you!
And keep on hiding facts about the way we scammed the lot of you!

SECRETARY GENERAL:
I'm very good at making statements quite ridiculous;
Pretending that the money from Saddam was quite miraculous;
In short, in matters both nefarious and criminal,
I am the very model of a Secretary General.

ALL:
In short, in matters both nefarious and criminal,
He is the very model of a Secretary General!

SECRETARY GENERAL:
In fact, when I know what is meant by "integrity" and "honesty",
When I can mumble all my lies with obvious sincerity,
And keep the free world all locked up in its myopathy,
And when I know precisely what they mean by my "psychopathy";
When progress has been made treating antisocial personality,
When I know more of leadership than Kerry knows reality--
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental management,
This Secretary General will say much more than "no comment".

ALL:
This Secretary General will say much more than "no comment"!
This Secretary General will say much more than "no comment"!
This Secretary General will say much more than "no comment"!

SECRETARY GENERAL:
Though my knowledge of dictatorships is sly and somewhat dastardly,
I think I will support them with great joy in this new century;
And still, in matters both nefarious and criminal,
I am the very model of a Secretary General!

ALL:
But still, in matters both nefarious and criminal,
He is the very model of Secretary General!
------------------------------------------------
And while I'm at it, here is a little ditty based on the Dr. Seuss book, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN, KOFI!

The time has come.
The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
GO!
We don't care how.

You can go to hades.
You can go ker-plow!
Kofi Annan, will you please go now!

You can go to Iraq
You can march with the Lebanese
You can go to Iran or Sudan,
But please go. Please!

We don't care.
You can take a hike.
You can go on a political retreat if you like.
If you like you can go visit Kojo in a zoo.
Jut go, go, GO!
Please do, do, DO!

Kofi Annan, we don't care how.
Kofi Annan, will you please GO NOW!

We said GO and GO we shout....
The time has come.
SO...
Kofi, get OUT!
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:01 PM |

 
ABLE DANGER STILL LIVES - Bump I
SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES.

This from skeptic John Podhoretz at The Corner:

Liberal blogger Laura Rozen, who is an open-minded skeptic, has some interesting news on the matter: "Delco Times columnist Gil Spencer, who has long covered Curt Weldon's Pennsylvania district, has just interviewed the Able Danger official who is going public tonight on Fox News. Spencer is the first journalist I am aware of to reveal the identity of the Able Danger official who originally briefed the 9/11 commission staff about Able Danger's findings back in October 2003 at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. That official is DIA Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer. He served in a liaison capacity between Able Danger and the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Florida, and he flew into Afghanistan with special ops in a boots on the ground capacity....t's still a bit vague as to what exactly on Atta and the 'Brooklyn cell' the Able Danger team came up with, but Shaffer did tell Spencer that the Able Danger team briefed Pete Schoomaker on their findings. Shaffer also told Spencer that he was meeting with Pentagon intel czar Stephen Cambone today about the Able Danger issue, so clearly the Pentagon is paying attention. Stay tuned."

This should be interesting.

UPDATE: Captain's Quarters has a good update on Able Danger. Also, there will be an interview on Fox News' Fox Report tonight with the anonymous source, an intelligence agent with 22 years experience.(5:30 pm 8/16)

UPDATE II: On Special Report Catherine Herrige interviewed the intelligence agent involved in briefing the 9/11 Commission, who stands by the statement that he briefed the Commission staff on Able Danger and Atta.

Two tidbits. The security clearance of this agent was suspended basically over the Able Danger material (going outside his chain of command and something about phone records?), but he was recently promoted to Lt. Col. by the Army. So, we will have to evaluate his information accordingly. I was disappointed that we didn't get to hear him or any portion of the interview--only Herridge reporting on the interview. Maybe the entire interview will air later?(6:30 pm 8/16)

UPDATE III: Podhoretz again (and read his entire analysis of the interview (original interview here):

If he's telling the truth, then the entire history of the last five years needs to be rewritten. His name is Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and he's one of the two military intelligence officers alleging that the Defense Department had located Mohammed Atta and other hijackers in America in 2000.

He's now gone public on cable television and in this interview with the New York Times.

What's perfectly credible about what Shaffer says is that his unit, Able Danger, developed information about an Al Qaeda cell in Brooklyn and that Pentagon lawyers thrice blocked meetings between his unit and the FBI because they feared being accused of spying illicitly inside the United States. (He was not an intelligence analyst, but rather Able Danger's liaison with the Defense Intelligence Agency.)

But Shaffer does not have proof that Atta and three others were among those named. To be fair, he should NOT have proof because any such documentation would be classified material that should not be in his possession.

So now we have some manifest contradictions:

He says he told 9/11 commission staffers about this in Afghanistan in 2003. They dispute it. So somebody isn't telling the truth.

The Able Danger papers shown to the 9/11 Commission at the Pentagon after the Afghanistan meeting did not feature anything mentioning Atta. So the 9/11 Commission says. So either the Commission staff is lying. Or no paper mentioned Atta and Shaffer is just wrong. Or the Defense Department misplaced the paperwork mentioning Atta. Or somebody at the Defense Department deliberately didn't give the Commission the material.

In the first case, if the 9/11 commission staff is lying, the hell to be paid is going to be colossal. Among other things, it could shake the current State Department to its foundations, since the 9/11 commission staff director, Philip Zelicow, is one of Condi Rice's most trusted aides.

Podhoretz concludes that it all comes down to the "wall"--and Jamie Gorelick. I would agree with this analysis and add that if Lt. Col. Shaffer is telling the truth, then the 9/11 Commission will be of "no historical significance".

The story continues. (6:30 am 8/17)

UPDATE IV: The Anchoress has some thoughts; as does Captain Ed--both have been all over this story.

UPDATE VI: Wretchard makes an extremely interesting point in his post "Law vs. War" about Clinton's remarks:

What's striking is the use of the word "officially", which suggests President Clinton may have 'known' Osama Bin Laden was a danger with intellectual certainty without being able to assert it officially. That in turn suggests that Osama Bin Laden was implicitly or even subconsciously provided with the protection of due process by a President who felt he would have to defend any action he took against OBL. Those who followed the Army War College monograph will have seen the distaste of legal scholars for applying the concept of war to counterterrorism because it implies action on a "switch that is either on or off." The legal ideal is "violence on a dimmer switch." (page 7) Clinton it would seem, at least subconsciously preferred the dimmer switch.

(emphasisi mine)(7:27 am 8/17)

If we always seem to lag a step or two behind Bin Laden in this war, the reason why is clearly stated above.

UPDATE V: Deborah Orin of the NY POST:

PRESIDENT Bill Clinton's team ignored dire warnings that its approach to terrorism was "very dangerous" and could have "deadly results," according to a blistering memo just obtained by The Post.

Then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote the memo as she pleaded in vain with Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick to tear down the wall between intelligence and prosecutors, a wall that went beyond legal requirements.

Looking back after 9/11, the memo makes for eerie reading — because White's team foresaw, years in advance, that the Clinton-era wall would make it tougher to stop mass murder.

"This is not an area where it is safe or prudent to build unnecessary walls or to compartmentalize our knowledge of any possible players, plans or activities," wrote White, herself a Clinton appointee.

(7:30 am 8/17)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:47 AM |

 
One Picture is Worth A Thousand Protests

Blogs for Bush has this interesting photo of President Bush kissing Cindy Sheehan, and asks:

Gee, wonder why she had the picture removed from the family web site and is now only available in a cached Google version.

I can't possibly imagine why.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:50 PM |

 
The Empty Rationalizations of Depraved Criminals
Michael Yon has this to say about homicide bombers:

Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers “martyrs” is like calling a man "customer" because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. There's no need to whisper. I hear the bombs every single day. Not some days, but every day. We're talking about criminals who actually volunteer and plan to deliberately murder and maim innocent people. What reservoir of feelings or sensibilities do we fear to assault by simply calling it so? When murderers describe themselves as "martyrs" it should sound to sensible ears like a rapist saying, “she was asking for it.” In other words, like the empty rationalizations of a depraved criminal.

If you haven't checked out Yon's site yet, you should. He has recently been reporting on the Battle of Mosul and his writting is gripping and accurate. His reporting from the front lines of Iraq will give you an excellent perspective about what is going on there and how things are going from the soldier's perspective. You
can even subscribe for online updates.

You won't get this sort of information from the MSM, who are more interested in the opinions of those who oppose the war; instead of those who are fighting it. Austin Bay has a good discussion of the Associated Press's reporting in Iraq. Quoting from a NY Times article:

Rosemary Goudreau, the editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune, has received the same e-mail message a dozen times over the last year.
“Did you know that 47 countries have re-established their embassies in Iraq?” the anonymous polemic asks, in part. “Did you know that 3,100 schools have been renovated?”
“Of course we didn’t know!” the message concludes. “Our media doesn’t tell us!”
Ms. Goudreau’s newspaper, like most dailies in America, relies largely on The Associated Press for its coverage of the Iraq war. So she finally forwarded the e-mail message to Mike Silverman, managing editor of The A.P., asking if there was a way to check these assertions and to put them into context. Like many other journalists, Mr. Silverman had also received a copy of the message.
Ms. Goudreau’s query prompted an unusual discussion last month in New York at a regular meeting of editors whose newspapers are members of The Associated Press. Some editors expressed concern that a kind of bunker mentality was preventing reporters in Iraq from getting out and explaining the bigger picture beyond the daily death tolls.
“The bottom-line question was, people wanted to know if we’re making progress in Iraq,” Ms. Goudreau said, and the A.P. articles were not helping to answer that question…

But you see, if people don't know that we are making significant progress in Iraq, then they are more likely to
(a) blame Bush's policies, and give him a poor job approval
(b) believe the Iraq War accomplished nothing except to cause American soldiers to die
(c) believe we should get out of Iraq now because it is a quagmire like Vietnam
(d) all of the above

Of course those are precisely the outcomes that the terror enablers and bush haters would like to see.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:31 PM |

 
Shall We Dance?

Check out the Cotillion Ball! - a fabulous conglomeration of posts by conservative lady bloggers. Our motto is: "Everyone's Entitled to Our Opinion...!"

Shall we dance?
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:26 PM

 
Intellectual Pluralism
Nat Hentoff is shining a spotlight on academic freedom and diversity of ideas (what a concept!):

Selective definitions of "diversity" can exclude some of its vital meanings. On college campuses, for obvious example, the goal of "diversity" has most urgently been focused on racial diversity. But at last, leaders of the higher-education establishment -- headed by the American Council on Education -- have finally recognized the fundamental basis for all education is diversity of ideas.
The present domination by liberal opinion on many college faculties (often verging on this majority's intolerant orthodoxies) was revealed in a recent study, "Politics and Professional Advancement among Faculty," by Stanley Rothman, emeritus professor of government at Smith College; S. Robert Lichter, a professor of communications at George Mason University; and Neil Nevitte, a political science professor at the University of Toronto.
As summarized in the June 24-26 New York Sun, the result of this study, confirmed in previous reports in the widely respected, nonpartisan weekly, the Chronicle of Higher Education, reveals that campus liberal professors "outnumber conservatives 5-to-1. It also concludes that conservatives get worse jobs than liberals."
In some of these classrooms, conservative students are intimidated into silence, ignored or occasionally ridiculed. Accordingly, although belatedly, the June 23 "Statement of Academic Rights and Responsibilities," led by the American Council on Education, may finally awaken college trustees and alumni to the degree of indoctrination instead of free inquiry that characterizes much of higher education, particularly in the more elite institutions.

Read it all. This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, having been on the faculties of UCLA, University of Wisconsin, University of Texas and the University of Michigan. Previous posts about this issue (I really need to get a better indexing system!):

Liberal Groupthink
Festering Bias
Report from the Academic Front
Academic Freedom vs. Academic Accountability
Academic Groupthink
Life in Academia: Who are we to judge Saddam Hussein?
The Bizarro World of Academia
Mocking the Minions of the Left's Intellectual Elite


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:39 AM |

 
What Kind Of Person....?


NOTICE ANY SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE TERRORISTS IN THESE TWO GROUPS?



Varifrank does, and has written an excellent post titled "Agitators". It is a wonderful analogy comparing the "insurgency" in Iraq to the "insurgency" in the South after the Civil War, which was spearheaded by the terrorist group we know as the KKK.

Now, what kind of person would look at the Klan and say they were justified because of the illegal occupation of their country by the foreign troops? What kind of person would say that the African Americans who were killed by the Klan didn’t deserve our protection? What kind of person would look at men like James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner and say that they are the very reason that the Klan exists? And that if we wanted the Klan to go away, we had better leave the south and not antagonize them? What kind of person would say that church bombings were in retaliation for our lack of respect for the culture of the south?

What kind of person would turn their back on black people in the south?

It’s the same kind of person that thinks the insurgents are justified in killing American troops and Iraqi Civilians.

Yes, it is.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:49 PM |

 
I'm An Anti-Socialist Hooligan !
Just for fun, you can go here to see the Dear Leader randomly generate insults.

He honored me with the following insult:

"You anti-socialist hooligan, you have glaringly revealed your true colours!"

That's me all right!

(hat tip: The Corner)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:19 PM |

 
Grieving Parents in War
Neo-neocon has begun a multi-part post on Parents in War. In Part I, she focuses on Kathe Kollwitz, the artist, who lost her son in WWI and her grandson in WWII. Here is a little bit from the end:

Grief-striken parents are a tragic given in war. Whether they consider the sacrific worthwhile or not, the tragedy, as Kollwitz herself said, leaves a wound which will never really heal--nor should it.

But this sort of angry activism on the part of a mourning parent such as Cindy Sheehan seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. What is driving it? Why are we seeing it and hearing about it now, as opposed to previous wars? My attempt to answer these questions will be the subject of Part II.

Go and read all of Part I. Kollwitz is a fascinating person to write about in comparison to Sheehan. I am eagerly looking forward to Part II.

Also, Michelle Malkin and the Anchoress both have pieces on Newsweek's description of Bush consoling grieving families.

Newsweek is certainly to be commended for this piece, which allows some little sense of balance to the manipulative, Michael Moore-ish production now going on in Crawford, Texas. Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas bring us an unflinching story, gleaned from interviews with grieving families who have met with President Bush. Some support him, some do not, but none of the families report the sick sort of joviality and cold indifference with which Mrs. Sheehan now charges President Bush. Because the president does not exploit the these people’s grief for politically expedient “photo-ops” (see how much he cares! Watch him bite his lip!) the press is always barred from witnessing the meetings.

Ask any real leader and they will tell you that one of the hardest parts of the job--especially in a war--is the burden of responsibility that one must carry for other's lives. It is not one taken lightly by a real leader; a real commander in chief.

Having consoled many people and families after the death of a loved one myself--and this was when illness or disease carried off their loved ones; not as a consequence of actions that I initiated--I can tell you that it is draining, emotionally powerful work.

This little insight into the President, convinces me more than ever that he is a real leader who cares about the consequences of his decisions and is willing to take responsibility for them; but who is determined to do what is right and not what happens to be expedient. That denotes a person of character.

I honor him greatly for this.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:59 AM |

 
Every Day A New Outrage from the Left...
...and from the MSM, their enablers. For the latest, I will just direct you to LGF which has the links to someone who is on the verge of collapse because several counter demonstrators showed up to the Sheehan circus, and carried signs honoring Casey Sheehan saying "Freedom isn't Free" and "Casey Sheehan, American Hero". Their rage over this obvious insensitivity is palpable. One of the commenters even said that "Cindy Sheehan is more of a hero than her son."

If Cindy Sheehan is entitled to speak her mind, then why can't those who believe that her son's sacrifice should be honored? Shouldn't his choice to serve in the military also be honored?


Instead, as many have noted, the entire event is being manipulated by the high priests of the cult of victimhood. I once felt sorry for Sheehan and could sympathize with her grief; but now she is just another priestess in that cult. My sympathy is with her son, whose memory is being dishonored in so many ways; and for all the other courageous soldiers whose service to our country is being trashed by these hysterical rantings.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:30 PM |

 
The Truth, and Nothing But The Truth
John Podhoretz thinks that Curt Weldon should put up or shut up about Able Danger:

The 9/11 Commission has put out a very detailed memo defending itself that basically says Rep. Curt Weldon and the unnamed Navy officers who have made a big stink about Able Danger are stretching it bigtime. The basis of their charge is two-fold:

First, that 9/11 staffers met with folks in Afghanistan in 2003 who told them about Able Danger and that Mohammed Atta had been identified by that military-intelligence operation. Here's what the commission says: "As with their other meetings, Commission staff promptly prepared a memorandum for the record. That memorandum, prepared at the time, does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11. Nor do any of the three Commission staffers who participated in the interview, or the executive branch lawyer, recall hearing any such allegation."

What's more, in February 2004, commission staff members read Able Danger documents at the Pentagon: "None of the documents turned over to the Commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers. Nor do any of the staff notes on documents reviewed in the DOD reading room indicate that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers were mentioned in any of those documents."

That's about as strong a denial as there can be, and it sounds credible to me.
[...]
As for Curt Weldon, remember that he's trying to sell a book. It's now up to him to put up or shut up. Can he or anyone else supply evidence stronger than the evidence presented to date about this that the Pentagon was in possession of Mohammed Atta's name a year before the attacks?

Yes, let's see the documents. Let's put everything on the table and look at it. Many of us were not happy with the way the 9/11 Commission staged it's hearings. 3-Ring Circuses displayed more decorum and less grandstanding.

All of this needs fresh air to wash away the stink of partisan politics on both sides.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DESERVED BETTER.

To be specific, we deserved the honest and open deliberations of persons whose major goal was to get at the truth; and not persons who may have reasons to obscure it. And not persons who were unable to get at it without bloviating on and on about their personal opinions.

We deserve to get everything now out in the open. I don't trust the staff notes. I want to see the documents. I want to know exactly and precisely what documents Sandy Berger "lost" and which ones he lifted. I want Jamie Gorelick to testify about the wall that was put up to prevent intelligence from freely being passed around. I want to have a discussion of White's memo cautioning about that wall.

I don't want these things because I care to blame those people--whether any were incompetent, malicious, or not. I'm tired of the blame game. I just want to find out what happened that caused the enormous disaster in our intelligence services before we were attacked on 9/11.

In other words, I want the whole truth, and nothing but.

UPDATE: Jack Kelly has an excellent piece in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. And Mark Steyn weighs in here. I particularly agreed with this part:

Readers may recall that I never cared for the commission. There were too many showboating partisan hacks -- Richard ben Veniste, Bob Kerrey -- who seemed more interested in playing to the rhythms of election season. There was at least one person with an outrageous conflict of interest: Clinton Justice Department honcho Jamie Gorelick, who shouldn't have been on the commission but instead a key witness appearing in front of it. And there were far too many areas where the members appeared to be interested only in facts that supported a predetermined outcome.

UPDATE II: AJStrata of Strata-Sphere is all over the story and has a good follow-up with extra links. Go and check out his site. (8:30 pm)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:35 PM |

 
GAZA PULLOUT PHOTO BLOG
Charles Johnson at LGF is keeping a photoblog of the Gaza pullout by Israel. Check it out, if you haven't done so already. GazaWatch.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:36 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. Only one post entry per blogger, please. Thanks for all the submissions. SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!

1. Hamas sandwich.

2. Someone is definitely going to hell for this!

3. Not surprisingly, many think the ACLU is the bigger threat. For example, this blog.

4. Different River ponders the double standard for "ethnic cleansing."

5. "Your soldiers are just a bunch of poor, dumb suckers that have been swindled out of their right to choose between good and evil." How low can the they sink? Well, here is another letter dripping with the kind and peaceful thoughts that exemplify the antiwar crowd.

6. France's Secret North American Invasion Plot Revealed!

7. Uh-Oh. This is a bit disturbing. Maybe I should cut back?

8. Aiming for a "spectacular loss"!

9. Greg Gutfeld apologizes to Joan Collins and all celebrities.

10. Just a little unclear on the "superhero" concept... superpropaganda is more like it.

11. The Department of Natural Resources: Here to help.

12. Judging a book by its cover!

13. Knowing this guy, it was probably in a vat of acid.

14. Sounds like they're just jealous.

15. Get on board the "Peace Train"!

16. The real reason men never listen. Who knew they had defective brains?

17. Blackjack = Life?

18. Jo tells nasty commentors to "get your fracking prozac filled!" I can sympathize, but think Risperdal would be a better drug choice.

19. All in the family. It would make a good sitcom.

20. "Not historically significant." I am, of course, referring to the 9/11 Commission.

21. A new twist on a well-known syndrome.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:51 AM |

 
ShrinkWrapped Enters the Fray!
ShrinkWrapped has entered the buzz in the blogsphere on Able Danger and has a lot to say about Political Correctness and Reality Testing. My favorite psychoanalyst has coined the new name for the 9/11 Commission -- the "9/11 Omission". A fitting tribute to the performance of said committee.

He also has a great series of posts up on PC. Check out his sidebar and give them a read.

Here are my own thoughts on PC in visual form-- and taking into account the revelations about Able Danger (and we shall see if they stand up); and in honor of the PC "Wall" that the Clinton Adminstration placed on sharing intelligence information. And, isn't PC a way of saying, "we don't want to hear any evil, see any evil, or speak any evil"?

So here is an artistic monument that could be dedicated in honor of those basic tenets of political correctness:



And here is the real-life, living monument to political correctness:

(h/t Communists for Kerry)

And the Left refers to Bush as a chimp???
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:57 PM |

 
HYSTERICAL GRAND SLAM !
Oh, and while we are listening to what the Islamofascists are actually saying (see the previous post here), check out this from the Washington Post editorial pages:

"The judicial court of the Organization of al Qaeda in Iraq has ruled that it is a duty to uphold God's law and kill those who have declared themselves God's partners in drafting this constitution."-- Abu Musab Zarqawi

WITH THAT statement, which appeared on an al Qaeda Web site Thursday, Iraq's al Qaeda network at last made explicit the goals of the Iraqi insurgency: to prevent a freely elected, constitutional government from taking power and to promulgate a totalitarian Islamic republic instead.

In a certain sense, this death threat should bring comfort to Americans fighting in Iraq and to the Iraqis struggling to finish their delayed constitution, which is supposed to be ready on Monday. Had al Qaeda set out to prove to a growing number of doubters that the war in Iraq really is about democracy -- and not about oil, hubris or imperialism -- its leaders couldn't have done so more clearly. The statement also underlined the growing gap between those Islamic clerics who want a constitution and those who want dictatorship.

.
I hope the Left reads it and weeps. However, it is much more likely that they will use ad hominem attacks to continue on their path of denial and delusion--as in this post at Daily Kos. I don't usually link to such places, but really! You need to go and read what the post says to understand the depth of the psychological pathology the Left has to resort to in order to maintain their delusion.

Deaf, Dumb, Blind, and they can't read ! It's an hysterical GRAND SLAM!
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:55 PM |

 
Keep Quiet, and Listen...
Victor Davis Hanson:

“You will find that the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world. The Jews are behind the suffering of the nations.”

When and where did that venom come from?

This last May — and out of the hateful mouth of a prominent Palestinian cleric, Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris. He was broadcast on a Palestinian Authority station.

The televised Sheik finished with an even more frightening thought: “The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews — even the stones and trees which were harmed by them…The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.”

Nothing could be clearer than that promise of another holocaust — and promised explicitly on state-run Palestinian television, a public megaphone of the Palestinian Authority, itself the beneficiary of past and apparently promised future American financial aid.

Still, don’t hold your breath that the passive/aggressive sheik is about to lead a pan-Islamic army a few miles across the border to “finish off every Jew,” since he might then end up like Sheik Ahmed Yassin, whose threats of death earned him instead an early paradise.

Throughout this war we have an understandable, if ethnocentric, habit of ignoring what our enemies actually say. Instead we chatter on, don’t listen, and in self-absorbed fashion impart our own motives for their hatred. We live on the principles of the Enlightenment and so worship our god Reason, thus assuming that even our adversaries accept such rational protocols as their own.

So they talk on and on of beheading, suicide bombing, another holocaust, and blowing thousands of us up, while we snooze, now and again waking in the midst of a war to regurgitate Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, flushed Korans, the abusive Patriot Act, and the latest quip of Donald Rumsfeld.

But again keep quiet, and listen to radical Islam.

But then again, there seems to be an epidemic of hysterical deafness, as well as hysterical blindness.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:08 AM |

 
The Council Has Spoken !
This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher of Weasels. 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
Washington's Wasteful Ways: Alaskan Pork Chops The Education Wonks
Second Place
Guess What? Anatomy Is Destiny Gates of Vienna

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place
Planned Parenthood Fantasizes About Blowing Up "Anti-Choicers" The Dawn Patrol

Second Place
The Final Campaigns of WWII Alpha Patriot

Be sure to check out all the winners at the Watcher's Site!
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:57 AM |

 
An Iraqi Response to Cindy Sheehan
Mrs. Sheehan, here is why we are in Iraq (from Iraq the Model):

Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.
Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families.
Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.

Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.

We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.

We cried out of joy the day your son and his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil and we went to the streets not believing that the nightmare is over.
We practiced our freedom first by kicking and burning the statues and portraits of the hateful idol who stole 35 years from the life of a nation.
For the first time air smelled that beautiful, that was the smell of freedom.

The mothers went to break the bars of cells looking for the ones they lost 5, 12 or 20 years ago and other women went to dig the land with their bare hand searching for a few bones they can hold in their arms after they couldn't hold them when they belonged to a living person.

I recall seeing a woman on TV two years ago, she was digging through the dirt with her hands. There was no definite grave in there as the whole place was one large grave but she seemed willing to dig the whole place looking for her two brothers who disappeared from earth 24 years ago when they were dragged from their colleges to a chamber of hell.

Her tears mixed with the dirt of the grave and there were journalists asking her about what her brothers did wrong and she was screaming "I don't know, I don't know. They were only college students. They didn't murder anyone, they didn't steal, and they didn't hurt anyone in their lives. All I want to know is the place of their grave".

Why was this woman chosen to lose her dear ones? Why you? Why did a million women have to go through the same pain?

We did not choose war for the sake of war itself and we didn't sacrifice a million lives for fun! We could've accepted our jailor and kept living in our chains for the rest of our lives but it's freedom ma'am.
Freedom is not an American thing and it's not an Iraqi thing, it's what unites us as human beings. We refuse all kinds of restrictions and that's why we fought and still fighting everyday in spite of the swords in the hands of the cavemen who want us dead or slaves for their evil masters.

Read his entire message. Perhaps, instead of camping out in Crawford, Texas, Mrs. Sheehan should go to Iraq and see for herself what her son's sacrifice is all about. It might give her some closure, some perspective...and maybe even some pride in her courageous son.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:02 AM |

 
Oh Yeah?
Well, I decry the media's role in promoting Antiwar Activists.

So there.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:35 PM |

 
enABLEing DANGER
If you haven't seen them, here are some excerpts from op-ed pieces about the Able Danger and 9/11 Commission cover-up:

Michael Ledeen, "Intelligence? You Kidding Me?":

At first I thought there was a short circuit in the ouija board, because there were sparks coming out of the thing, just when I thought I’d finally connected with my old friend, the late James Jesus Angleton, former head of CIA counterintelligence. But then I realized that it was, indeed, Angleton, cursing and sputtering (his poetic side — the side that made him the editor of The Yale Literary Review when he was an undergraduate in New Haven — somehow got lost when he got angry).

ML: Hey! That used to be my ear...

JJA: Sorry, sorry, but this latest business is just too much.

ML: You mean the Curt Weldon story about how some Army intel guys figured out — from open sources — that Mohammed Atta was part of an al Qaeda cell inside the United States, but then they weren’t permitted to pass it on to the FBI?

JJA: Damn right, but that’s not even the half of it. All these stories, all this faux shock, oh my gosh, we knew it but we couldn’t act on it, they just make me sick.

ML: But they’re true enough, aren’t they?

JJA: Half true, except for the original reaction from those phonies at the 9/11 Commission, that bunch who think they’re the first eternal commission in American history, all those pompous moralists who pronounce on everything that happens. They just lied.

ML: So it seems. They said they never heard about it, but then it turns out that they had, but they ignored it.

Deborah Orrin, "Commission Coverup?":

IT'S starting to look as if the 9/11 Commission turned a blind eye to key questions that could embarrass one of its own members — Clinton-era Justice Department honcho Jamie Gorelick..

Investors.com, "Atta Boy, Democrats":

The knowledge that Mohammed Atta was affiliated with al-Qaida was known at least a year before Sept. 11, but political correctness and walls between agencies built by Democrats kept it a secret.

It was Curt Weldon, R-Pa., who first announced in a floor speech in June that a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger" had tagged Atta in 1999. But his remarks attracted little attention, unlike the media feeding frenzy over a presidential daily briefing that allegedly warned President Bush of an imminent attack.

From the AP, "Atta Details Omitted from 9/11 Report":

According to Pentagon documents, the information was not shared because of concerns about pursuing information on ''U.S. persons,'' a legal term that includes U.S. citizens as well as foreigners legally admitted to the country.

Felzenberg said an unidentified person working with Weldon came forward Wednesday and described a meeting 10 days before the panel's report was issued last July. During it, a military official urged commission staffers to include a reference to the intelligence on Atta in the final report.

Felzenberg said checks were made and the details of the July 12, 2004, meeting were confirmed. Previous to that, Felzenberg said it was believed commission staffers knew about Able Danger from a meeting with military officials in Afghanistan during which no mention was made of Atta or the other three hijackers.

Staff members now are searching documents in the National Archives to look for notes from the meeting in Afghanistan and any other possible references to Atta and Able Danger, Felzenberg said.

Many bloggers have terrific updates and more news and speculation (especially Strata-Sphere, The Anchoress, Captain Ed, PowerLine, and many, many others.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is the most important story of the year (perhaps the last several years). Here, for the first time the issue of the Enabling Behavior that facilitates, encourages, apologizes, denies, dismisses, and finally covers-up for terrorists and terrorism is finally being discussed openly and in the context of the 9/11 attacks.

This exposure is long past overdue and should have been the purview of the 9/11 Commission. But that Commission chose to continue the Democrat's and Left's enabling behavior and let the American people down yet again.

The press rage against the "outing" of a CIA employee listed in "Who's Who"; but say little about a National Security Advisor who illegally takes classified documents from the National Archives, hides them in his pants, and then "loses" some of them.

File this under "enABLEing DANGER".
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:27 PM |

 
Why Was Berger's Sentencing Postponed?
Curiouser and curiouser. Back in July when Sandy Berger was scheduled to be sentenced after pleading guilty to charges of removing classified documents from the National Archives, this was what the Free Republic news report had to say:

Sentencing for former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who pled guilty in April to stealing and destroying top secret terrorism documents from the National Archives, has been delayed, NewsMax.com has learned.

Asked why Berger wasn't sentenced as scheduled on Friday, July 8, a Justice Department spokesman told NewsMax on Tuesday that Berger's sentencing has been postponed till September.

The spokesman declined to offer an explanation for the delay. Repeated calls asking about the postponement to Berger's lawyer, Washington, D.C. attorney Lanny Breuer, went unreturned.

Federal District Court's U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson, who is presiding over the Berger case, also did not return a call inquiring about its disposition.
After Justice Department prosecutor Noel Hillman allowed Berger to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, he requested what some consider an extraordinarily light sentence given the gravity of the crime - a $10,000 fine, a three-year suspension of Berger security clearance and no jail time.

The recommendation for leniency was in stark contrast to the comments of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who suggested after the document theft story broke that Berger could be headed to jail.

"We take issues of classified information very, very seriously," Comey told reporters, before adding, "All felonies in the federal system bring with them the promise of jail time, that's all I can say about that."

Prosecutor Hillman's recommendation would still have to be approved by Magistrate Robinson, a prospect that is expected but not assured.

Under Justice Department guidelines, Berger's misdemeanor plea could still yield a $100,000 fine and a year in prison.

Since the announcement of Berger's light sentence, several online petitions have sprung up, urging Magistrate Robinson to impose a stiffer penalty.

It's not clear whether the delay in Berger's sentencing has anything to do with a reluctance on Robinson's part to accept Hillman's recommendation.

What is extremely interesting is that there are no mainstream media links from googling "berger sentencing postponed" and they all come from the same source (like the one above). It was not reported in any MSM newspaper that I could discover. No one involved in the case would answer any questions (which goes against the idea that this was a mere procedural postponement).

Why was his sentencing postponed? Why was he scheduled to get such a light sentence, when his actions were tantamount to espionage/treason in time of war--even though he claimed that stuffing classified documents into his pants and socks was "an honest mistake"? What kind of deal has been struck for his cooperation--and why?

It is astonishing how UNcurious the media have been about this.

UPDATE: Sigmund, Carl & Alfred have done a little digging, and sent me the following information in an email:

I found this- http://sayanythingblog.com/2005/03/31/remember-sandy-berger/ a story, which references an AP story on Berger's sentencing delay. It is an AP story that was linked to CNN (click on dateline/location)- and that CNN page is no longer available (which is interesting in itself, as CNN keeps everything!)

(2:28 pm)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:39 AM |

 
HISTRIONICS AS A DETERMINANT OF NATIONAL POLICY
(Note: this piece was originally written in late 2004, but in light of the Cindy Sheehan media circus and here and here), I thought it was perfectly applicable today)

Let me start by saying that I passionately support the rights of the individual over the rights of the state. When it comes to choosing between them, I almost always will go with "the needs of the one" as opposed to the "needs of the many" (to borrow a theme from Star Trek).

Yet, I am deeply troubled by the press's attitude that our foreign policy as a nation should be held hostage to grief stricken mothers, fathers, family and miscellaneously bereaved individuals.

Anyone's death diminishes me, as the poem says, and death--while something we all must face in time--is always a tragedy when it occurs. The death of a loved one is particularly difficult to handle, and grief is a multilayered and deeply personal journey. Professionally I deal with the emotional after-effects of death and dying all the time. I work closely with people who must grapple with despair and lonliness after their son or daughter, mother or father, husband or wife has died. Some deal with it better than others; and every journey is unique.

I was the Crew Surgeon for the NASA Challenger space mission. It had a profound effect on me because I was personally acquainted with the crew and families of that mission. But, since it was a NASA Shuttle mission, there was an important aspect of the disaster--separate from the personal grief ofthe families; and separate from the outpouring of grief and disbelief by the entire country--and that was the question of how national space policy should change based on what had occurred.

That larger aspect leads to what we in medicine call the "morbidity and mortality" conference or others might call the "Fact-Finding Commission". After the grief; after all the emotion has died down, it is the dispassionate analysis of what went wrong and how do we fix it for the future. (I will not go into how this process actually played out at NASA, where there was tremendous denial that anything was broken and strong resistance to "fixing" anything--but that is another story/post).

I may be a Libertarian, but I am not an anarchist. There are reasons for people to come together into a nation for that common defense and to constuct a government in order to provide for that defense. Our national foreign policy must be made using the same dispassionate analysis of facts and data, combined with an assessment of the "common good". That combined focus must be grounded in a logical understanding of both short and long-term tactics within an overal strategy and an appreciation of the costs (whether in dollars or lives) as well as the potential benefits. Of course there must be debate and discussion of both tactics and strategy, as well as whatexactly and precisely is in our best interest as a group of people united in freedom and democracy.

What we do not need is a public flogging of our elected officials by the bereaved and mourning families of 9/11; or by the histrionic mothers of soldiers who made their own choices to be in the military; by the angry fathers who are deeply distressed that their sons did not politically agree with them and chose to go into danger. Our national policies are far too important to be held hostage by the emotions of any individuals, let alone those who have an emotional axe to grind.

Important lessons can be learned from the 9/11 attacks, which I believe could not have been imagined, let alone predicted by any civilized mind. We can improve intelligence and mobilize resources that might significantly aid us in the event of another another attack; or possibly decrease the probability of another attack. But how does it help us as a nation to succumb to the belief that anyone else but the terrorists and their supporter were the ones responsible?

Crucial decisions and tactical adjustments can be made by a death or deaths in a war; sometimes even the overall strategy can be fine-tuned, or even abandoned if necessary when looked at in the spirit of determining what our national and security interests demand. But none of these actions can or should be made simply because of grief; or anger; or resentment; or fear.

Let's face the truth: that the purpose of maintaining an army/navy/air force is to provide for the common defense. Those individuals who CHOOSE to join the military do so (one hopes) with a full awareness of what their job description entails in war, as well as in peacetime. Their death or injury while performing a dangerous, but crucial job on our behalf, should make all of us at home, safe, desperately grateful that they chose to serve their country in this manner. How does it help us to say that there is nothing worth sacrifice; nothing that is worth fighting for?

I feel a deep compassion for their mothers and fathers; and for their families and friends of those lost in war. The enormity of the sacrifice their loved ones made for us is reflected in the intense grief of those who mourn them. Perhaps for a while, they as individuals will bear a disproportionate amount of the sacrifice that comes with any war. I sincerely hope that all who grieve will come to peace with that reality and be able to go on with their lives. But I do not think their grief should hold us hostage. I do not believe that their grief gives them a better insight into what our country's policies should be (in truth, I think their grief can easily cloud their judgement). I do not believe that they should automatically be given a platform --either individually or as a group--by the media until they have resolved their grief and have constructive and rational proposals to bring to the national debate. Because of their emotional lability, it can be relatively easy for their suffering to become manipulated by unscrupulous individuals who want to use the raw emotion to further their own political or economic agendas.

By all means, let us have a discussion of the issues; the pros and cons; the costs as well as the benefits. But let us not determine our best common interests while watching the emotional and histrionic rantings of those who are in the grip of an unresolved grief reaction.Their emotional suffering does not automatically give them moral or intellectual superiority (except insofar as the MSM sees ALL victims as morally superior--but that is another issue). And, we will not win this war without that superiority.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:09 AM |

 
Omitting Obliterating Truth
John Podhoretz at The Corner writes about the 9/11 Commission:

It behaved disgracefully and in a nakedly partisan fashion, with former officials of the Clinton administration attempting to use the platform to damage the president's reelection chances. Then, after months of ludicrous conduct, out of nowhere came the brilliantly conceived and written report that set a new standard of eloquence and coherence for government documents, became a major bestseller and redeemed the commission's reputation.

Well, that didn't last long.

In a story filed at 7:10 PM, the Associated Press is now confirming all the particulars of what will now forever be called the Able Danger disaster. The 9/11 Commission staff did hear about intelligence-gathering efforts that hit pay dirt on the whereabouts of Mohammed Atta -- in 1999 -- and deliberately chose to omit word of those efforts.

And why? Because to do so might upset the timeline the Commission had established on Atta.

And why is that significant? Because the Mohammed Atta timeline established by the Commission pointedly insisted Atta did not meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague.

And why is that significant? Because debunking the Atta-Iraq connection was of vital importance to Democrats, who had become focused almost obsessively on the preposterous notion that there was no relation whatever between Al Qaeda and Iraq -- that Al Qaeda and Iraq might even have been enemies.

I was very skeptical of this Able Danger stuff about Atta, thought it was just sme way Rep. Curt Weldon was trying to sell a book. No longer. This is clearly becoming the biggest story of the summer -- the fact that, as Andy McCarthy alluded to, the "intelligence wall" set up by 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick when she was in the Justice Department did, in fact, cause the linchpin of the 9/11 attacks to evade capture by American law enforcement.

Yes, this most certainly is big. Watergate pales by comparison. But it is important to remember that the responsibility for 9/11 lies squarely with the murderous animals who perpetrated it. The moral of this sad story and sad truth about the two-bit players in the drama--including Clinton, Gorelick, Berger et al; and the entire 9/11 Commission-- is that those who are willfully blind and refuse to acknowledge reality are the enablers, appeasers, and apologists for terrorism.

Podhoretz is absolutely correct. The Commission did not set out to find Truth; they set out to make it; disguise it; or obliterate it.

I can barely contain the contempt I feel--particularly toward those people who were in a position of power in politics and the media-- who deliberately and repeatedly place our country; our freedom; our soldiers and our citizens in mortal danger without a second thought. And for what? For the sake of their petty narcissistic whims and ego gratification. For the sake of a rabid, unquenchable hatred that only serves to erode their own pathetic souls, and severs an already tenuous connection with reality.

UPDATE: Link fixed! (thanks to those who wrote me)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:18 AM |

 
It's A Free Country - So Far
I am day or two behind on this (and I didn't notice anything in the MSM about it) but Iraq the Model has a post and pictures up about women protesting in Iraq for a civil constitution. Go check it out and see Iraqi women standing up for themselves --and some other women who clearly prefer the usual Islamic-style obliteration of individuality--but hey! It's a free country now, and hopefully will continue to be.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:22 PM |

 
Berger and Able Danger- Speculation, Part II
Here are three other things to contemplate in light of my previous post (here):

1. Berger's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, especially this:

You asked how effective key agencies were at implementing the Clinton
administration’s counterterrorism strategy. Certainly, the level of interagency cooperation was greater than ever before. I believe the CIA was seriously focused on the counterterrorism mission. I discussed the matter incessantly with Director Tenet and I believe he shared my sense of urgency and priority. I certainly believed at the time that the CIA was pressing 100% toward the objective of dismantling al Qaeda cells,disrupting plots, and getting bin Laden and his key lieutenants -- and I had no reason to think they were “holding back” from all they could do. I know that the President and I approved every request they made for counterterrorism authority to take action.
What we have learned since 9/11, however, makes clear that the FBI was not
focused as sharply on counterterrorism as the CIA. The overall impression that the
Bureau conveyed to us, until the very end of our time in office, was that al Qaeda had a limited capacity to operate in the U.S. and that its presence here was under surveillance. The stream of threat information we received each day pointed repeatedly to attacks on U.S. interests abroad, not at home. And because that was the daily threat picture, that was where we focused most of our attention. Nonetheless, when presented with specific domestic threats – such as during the Millennium period – we protected the homeland/

(emphasis mine)

Burger was not publicly questioned by Gorelick or other 9/11 Commission members that I was able to find. What is interesting about his statement is the transfer of responsibility to the FBI, who were "not focused as sharply on counterterrorism as the CIA", according by Berger.

2. Condi Rice's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, particularly her interaction with Jamie Gorelick: -- and I urge you to read the entire exchange in light of the existence of Able Danger (scroll down the link until you come to the Gorelick/Rice bit); and in light of our knowledge of the fact that Gorelick herself was key in promoting the lack of communication between the CIA and the FBI (and perhaps military intelligence and the FBI?)

3. This little tidbit, where NSA Berger and Jamie Gorelick (at the time in the private sector) were on a panel together in January, 2001 discussing cyberterrorism:

Gorelick: Now, cyber terrorism may be a new issue to many Americans, but it's not new to me and it's not new to this administration. In 1995, our Attorney General asked me to chair a critical infrastructure working group that brought together Justice and Defense and the intelligence community to begin to address what we saw as a new and emerging threat. The President then appointed a commission on critical infrastructure protection whose advisory board I co-chaired.

In response to his commission's work, last year the President signed two directives -- to strengthen U.S. readiness to meet unconventional threats to our nation, and to protect our critical infrastructures. He appointed a national coordinator, Dick Clarke, to review and handle and coordinate security infrastructure protection and counterterrorism, and a national plan is under development to ensure that America can defend itself in cyberspace.

All this tidbit tells us is that (1)Gorelick was indeed in a position to know many people at the DoD in the intelligence community. (2) that as late as January, 2001, (when Bush was just taking office) she was aggressively defending and highlighting the steps the Clinton Adminstration had been talking against Terrorism; and (3) that She and Sandy Berger were in contact even though she was at the time with Fannie Mae and in the private sector. This conference was less than 8 months before 9/11.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters has the latest; and also check out The Anchoress. Many people in the blogsphere have picked up this particular ball and are running with it. Let's see what information comes out.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:34 AM |

 
A Motive For Berger's Bizarre Behavior?
This is a stunning revelation about the Clinton administration's role in preventing intelligence from passing from the military to law enforcement concerning the 9/11 hijackers:

"The Sept. 11 commission (search) did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell," said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "Had we learned of it obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation."

Hamilton's remarks Tuesday followed findings by Rep. Curt Weldon (search), R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, that made front-page news.

In June, Weldon displayed charts on the floor of the U.S. Senate showing that Able Danger identified the suspected terrorists in 1999. The unit repeatedly asked for the information to be forwarded to the FBI but apparently to no avail. Various news outlets picked up on the story this week.

Weldon told FOX News on Wednesday that staff members of the Sept. 11 commission were briefed at least once by officials on Able Danger, but that he does not believe the message was sent to the panel members themselves. He also said some phone calls made by military officials with Able Danger to the commission staff went unreturned.

"Why weren't they briefed? Was there some deliberate attempt at the staff level of the 9/11 commission to steer the commissioners away from Able Danger because of where it might lead?" Weldon asked. "Why was there no mention of Able Danger?"

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Sept. 11 commission looked into the matter during its investigation of government missteps leading to the attacks and chose not to include it in the final report.
{....]
According to Weldon, Able Danger identified Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi (search), Khalid al-Mihdar (search) and Nawaf al-Hazmi (search) as members of a cell Able Danger code-named "Brooklyn" because of some loose connections to New York City.
Weldon said that in September 2000, the unit recommended on three separate occasions that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists." However, Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation, arguing that Atta and the others were in the country legally so information on them could not be shared with law enforcement.

"Lawyers within the administration — and we're talking about the Clinton administration, not the Bush administration — said 'you can't do it,'" and put post-its over Atta's face, Weldon said. "They said they were concerned about the political fallout that occurred after Waco ... and the Branch Davidians."

Of course, the first thing that lept to my mind was that, if true, this could possibly have been the motive behind former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy "docs in his socks" Berger's inexplicable actions in removing classified documents at the National Archives at about the same time as the 9/11 Commission was reviewing documents associated with terrorism.

I know this is a loose association on my part, but it seems to me that if anyone in the Clinton adminsitration knew about Able Danger, it would have been Mr. Berger as National Security Advisor. A revelation that he was behind the decision not to allow military intelligence to pass on information to law enforcement officials about a terror cell that included Atta and other 9/11 murderers provides the first, possibly significant motive for Berger's bizarre behavior in spring of 2004. It would have to be something sensational like this to have made the Clinton official do something that egregiously antithetical to his professional reputation. His actions in stuffing documents into his clothing were those of a person in a state of panic, or high emotion (e.g. fear).

One other point. Berger's sentencing after he pleaded guilty was postponed from this July to September. Isn't it interesting that this new information is coming out in August?

I, for one, would like a lot more information about precisely what Berger was up to when he was caught removing documents from the Archive, particularly in light of this new information.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I would really like to know what Berger knew about Able Danger; and if he wrote a memo, or signed off on one, that specifically related to Able Danger; and that prevented the dissemination of information that might have led to the arrest of the 9/11 hijackers before they could carry out their plans. And, could that memo--or copies--have been in the National Archives?

It is, of course, unlikely in the extreme that it still exists after his foray into the archives.

UPDATE: Here is a timeline that I have quickly put together:

2002 - 9/11 Commission set up by Congress

March, 2003 - 9/11 Commission begins first hearings. One of its members is Jamie Gorelick, the person most responsible for the legal firewall between FBI/CIA and sharing intelligence information

Fall, 2003 - Briefing given to four 9/11 staff members by defense intelligence officials during an overseas trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia

Oct, 2003 - Sandy Berger observed by Archives staff removing documents

March, 2004 -Madeleine Albright testifies before 9/11 Commission, and defends the Clinton administration's handling of Al-Qaeda and terrorism

April, 2004 - Condi Rice testifies before 9/11 Commission; states that there was serious problem in sharing intelligence information prior to 9/11

May, 2004 - Berger testifies before the 9/11 Commission; completely overshadowed by the fact that Richard Clark and George Tenet also testified on the same day (testimony is here)

July, 2004 - Berger steps down as an advisor to the Kerry campaign after it is revealed that he was being investigated for removing classified documents from the National Archive

July, 2004 - 9/11 Commission report issued without any mention of the Able Danger information

April, 2005 - Berger pleads guilty to removing classified documents

July, 2005 - Berger's sentencing is delayed to September, 2005.

August, 2005 -News breaks about the existence of Able Danger and its ID of 9/11 hijackers in 1999 and attempts to pass this information to law enforcement

UPDATE II: The Strata-Sphere has a good post about Able Danger, Jamie Gorelick and 9/11

UPDATE III: I was interested to discover that Jamie Gorelick was not only deputy attorney general of the United States under Clinton, a position she assumed in March 1994 and held until 1997; but from May 1993 until she joined the Justice Department, Gorelick also served as general counsel of the Department of Defense. These dates are not relevant except possibly to point out that Gorelick was familiar with and worked in the DoD. She is someone else that I have wished the press were more curious about.

UPDATE IV: The Jawa Report has more information to consider. Also, a commentor at Roger Simon's blog asks, what's the point if Berger has destroyed all evidence? Well, we don't know that is the case. There may be evidence to disprove my theory; and there may still be documentation out there to prove it--if anyone is willing to look. (10:30 pm)

UPDATE V: I notice that the first report I cited from Fox states that DoD personnel briefed 9/11 staffers in the "fall of 2003" on Able Danger. However, in the NY Times this AM (here) there was a second briefing given to 9/11 staffers on July 12, 2004. That should be added to the timeline.(9:59 am, 8/11/05)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:14 PM |

 
Time for Plan B
(from Cox and Forkum)

There are limits to diplomacy....particularly when dealing with a totalitarian government in the axis of evil that is only interested in its own aggrandizement and power. Combine the breakdown in nuclear talks with the recent news reports that Iran is also in the business of supplying explosives etc. to the terrorists in Iraq.

I hope we have a Plan B.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:33 AM |

 
The Cult of the Victim
Thomas Sowell notices a very interesting point that I don't believe has been mentioned before about the way the media treat our soldiers as victims:

The unrelenting quest for stories depicting American troops as victims -- including even front-page stories about the financial problems of some National Guardsmen called to active duty -- has created a virtual reality in the media that has no place for heroes.

Senator John Kerry has called the activation of reservists and National Guardsmen "a backdoor draft," as if joining the reserves or the National Guard is supposed to mean an exemption from ever having to fight. The theme of troops as victims has been a steady drumbeat in the media, because of the way the media have chosen to filter the news, filtering out heroes, among other things.

This virtual reality can become more important than any facts. Even a young lady interviewer on Fox News Channel -- of all places -- recently asked a guest how long the American people will be able to continue supporting the war in Iraq with all the casualties.

All the American deaths in Iraq since the war began are not even half of the deaths of U.S. Marines taking the one island of Iwo Jima in a couple of months of fighting. And Iwo Jima was just one battle in a war that was raging on other fronts around the world simultaneously and continuing for nearly four long years.

It is not the casualties which are unprecedented but the media filtering and the gullibility of those who accept the virtual reality created by the media.

I admit that I have not thought of this perspective, but Sowell is absolutely correct. Victimhood in all its glory and neverending ability to attract readers, has been the overarching theme of Leftist media for many years. It is not surprising that they now apply the same tried and true formula to the American troops.

This is why they can say with a straight face that they "support the troops" --because they view them as poor, helpless victims of the evil and warlike Bush Administration. This is the only way the media, as exemplified by the NYT, can rationalize support for the troops--if they cast them in the same role as all other "oppressed" minorites. They have forgotten that the U.S. military of the present is made up of dedicated professionals--not high school kids snatched from their poor mama's arms by the devil draft.

This appears to be the only way the press can conceptualize military service. Following the socialist template that servicemen and women must be either victims or oppressors (or both depending on the point trying to be made). The result is that we Americans have been subjected to is a steady diet of both themes on the front pages of the print media and on TV and radio.

The somber photos of soldiers in coffins; the exploitations of grieving families--even angry mothers who behave as if their grown children were incapable of making choices in their life and were forced into military service; simultaneously shown next to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. In this worldview there is no room--or need for heroes.

On the contrary, the MSM reserves that role for themselves alone. They see a reprise of their dirty and despicable behavior during Vietnam, where they helped to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and the Left sanctified them as heroes. They desperately desire a reprise of those glorious days.

The real heroes are fighting a war that is just and honorable. The real heroes are every day risking their lives for freedom and democracy. The real heroes are proud and courageous men and women of integrity, who have freely chosen to serve their country and defend liberty.

Contrast real-live heroes with the hypocritical high priests and priestesses of the cult of victimhood who possess neither honor nor integrity.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:56 PM |

 
Capitalism Is Good For The Soul
One cannot escape noticing that the intellectual trend in the West is to continually bash capitalism, business, and free trade; while simultaneously enjoying the benefits of them.

Our academics rail against business. Our government constantly seeks to control it. Our youth are propagandized to death about its evils. Popular culture refrains from painting Islamofascists as the villians in movies out of political correctness, but does not hesitate to make big businessmen evil and grandiose.

One harmful result of this sorry situation is that there are few people--even among those who stalwartly defend the free market, who understand and appreciate the essential morality of capitalism.

The foundation of capitalism is human freedom in its most classical, liberal tradition.

Contrary to the many articles and books written about it through history by economists and scholars, capitalism's incredible production of wealth is only a side-effect that occurs when political freedom is present. It has been argued, and I agree, that both captialism and freedom themselves are prerequisites for moral behavior.

The moral case for capitalism is not taught at our universities, nor is it argued much in our culture. In fact it has been more or less universally accepted that systems such as communism and socialism are morally superior to capitalism--even though in practice such systems have led to the death and enslavement of millions, and to those unlucky enough not to die from them, they have led to the most horrible shrinking and wasting of the human soul. Neither socialism nor communism nor any kind of religious fundamentalism is compatible with morality.

If one's actions are coerced by the state or religion or both; if human activity is legislated and regulated or ordained down to the last minute detail--particularly to the degree we see in other countries of the world (e.g., Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.),then how can it be argued that one's arctions are moral? They are not voluntary, but coerced.

Morality, however, is a matter of choice, not mandate. One cannot hold a person responsible for actions that are coerced or forced from him. Morality can only exist when freedom of action exists. Moral actions in any field of human endeavor require freedom.

Conduct may only be thought of as moral or immoral when it is freely chosen by the individual. It is only then that the moral significance of the action can be assessed. It is only when we are free to act that we can exercise moral judgement.

Which brings us to a capitalist system. Only in a free economic system within a free political system is it possible to be moral, since benevolence toward others, compassion, charity, and generosity cannot exist without freedom. Benevolence, generosity, charity, and compassion that are mandated by the state; or by a religion (on pain of death or other consequence); or by any regulations on behavior; or by force--are meaningless insofar as individual morality is concerned.

In a previous series of posts on Narcissism and Society, I stated:

We have seen that the development of a Cohesive Self is dependent on two separate, equal and parallel developmental lines that arise originally from the biological and psychological fusion of the Infant and Mother early in life. If each of these lines are not interrupted in their normal evolution the Infant will eventually become an Adult with both narcissistic poles adequately developed and be able to function in the world in a healthy way—both in his attitude toward his own physical and psychic self; and in his attitude toward other human beings.

In some ways, the rise of human civilization from the cave to the present day has resulted because of attempts through the Rule of Law and social controls to set limits on the unrestrained Grandiose Self. This is primarily due to the destructiveness of the Narcissistic Rage generally associated with that part of the Self.

Because of this, the Grandiose Self has received a bad reputation philosophically, morally, and politically. The natural development of Governments and Religions (which ultimately are an expression of the Idealized Parent Image/Omnipotent Other side of the Self)have all too often attempted to ruthlessly suppress the Grandiose Self--much to the detriment of the individual AND the success of the particular society or religion.

In fact, despite the obvious truth that governments, nations, and religions are in a much better position to wreak far more systemized misery and death on human populations, it is almost always the Grandiose Self that gets the blame. As Wretchard at The Belmont Club pointed out in a recent post, a review of the 20th century, for example, shows that all the "people's revolutions" supported by the Left and purportedly for the purpose of "freeing" large populations of people; resulted instead in enslaving them and increasing authoritarian rule.

Without a political or economic framework that is able to incorporate what we refer to as "human nature" into its calculations, all so-called "perfect" societies and ideologies will at best simply fail in the real world; and at worse cause untold human suffering. With the best of intentions (this is perhaps debatable), the social engineers of philosophy, political science, and economics have caused so much more slavery, misery and death on a grand scale--that the grandiose CEO's of the largest corporations can be considered mere pikers by comparison.

When we talk about the individual versus society; or the individual versus the state; or indeed any discussion of individual rights versus the rights of a group, we are also referring to the psychological tension between the two poles of the Self. Any political or economic system that expects to succeed in the real world will have to accommodate that tension, and find a way to optimally negotiate the needs of BOTH sides of the Self--that is, they will have to take into account human nature.

A perusal of any list of economic systems will demonstrate that ALMOST ALL OF THEM are relatively extreme expressions of the Idealized Parent Image/Omnipotent Object. Almost all emphasize the group, the community, the collective, the nation, the state, or god at the expense of the individual. Examples are numerous. Socialism and Communism; fascism and religious fundamentalism.

The major exception is Capitalism, where the individual and the individual's needs are emphasized over the the group.

All other economic systems besides capitalism routinely mouth moral platitudes about ending poverty; bringing justice etc. etc. But, the only economic system that is capable of doing just that is the one constantly accused of causing poverty and injustice--capitalism.

The WSJ put it thusly (from a previous post of mine):

Policy makers who pay lip service to fighting poverty would do well to grasp the link between economic freedom and prosperity. This year the Index finds that the freest economies have a per-capita income of $29,219, more than twice that of the "mostly free" at $12,839, and more than four times that of the "mostly unfree." Put simply, misery has a cure and its name is economic freedom.

The reason that systems such as socialism and communism don't work in the real world and are ultimately destructive of the individual self; and of the human soul, is that they remove moral action and judgement from the individual and place it in the collective. The individual is not permitted to make his/her own moral judgements, and must obey the mandates of the collective. This can only work when the individual is stripped of all freedom to act independently and fears reprisals for doing so.

Thus political freedom and economic freedom go hand in hand. Capitalism cannot exist for long inside an oppressive regime. Since it is more compatible with human nature than any other economic system, it will cause any totalitarian regime that permits it to some degree to last longer (China is a good example), but that can only be a temporary state. Without true political freedom, economic freedom cannot last and will either wither away slowly; or, alternatively cause individuals living under the oppression to demand more political freedom.

You can't be a "little bit" free because human nature will always demand more and more freedom once it has had a taste of it; until the despot who rules is finally deposed, or he totally crushes those who oppose him. In situations where the latter happens, you will always find the worse scenarios of poverty, oppression,misery, death, genocide and/or human degredation.

Likewise, true political freedom cannot last, and in the end is meaningless, where there is no economic freedom. Think for a minute about what money really is. Anti-capitalist intellectuals are rather fond of the phrase "money is the root of all evil", but, in truth, money is the most efficient method of allowing individuals to make moral judgements. The phrase "put your money where your mouth is" is actually a more meaningful insight for understanding the importance of money and its relationship to freedom.

This is, of course not to say that everyone will make good and/or moral decisions. Nor do all people necessarily spend or even earn their money wisely. They clearly don't. But that is neither here nor there. That is why political freedom demands a rule of law, and the protection of individual and property rights from other individuals and from the state.

Capitalism is good for the soul. It is the only system where the soul and the self can flourish, where individuals have a right to their own life and liberty, and can make the specific choices in the pursuit their own particular happiness.

UPDATE: Not only is capitalism good for the soul, but it will also keep you healthier. Sigmund, Carl and Alfred discuss the failure of socialized medicine in Canada.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:35 PM |

 
Calling All Paranoids!
This is reassuring, simply because I need to know that the government is planning what to do when we are attacked again:

The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans.

The classified plans, developed here at Northern Command headquarters, outline a variety of possible roles for quick-reaction forces estimated at as many as 3,000 ground troops per attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage and the abilities of civilian response teams.

The possible scenarios range from "low end," relatively modest crowd-control missions to "high-end," full-scale disaster management after catastrophic attacks such as the release of a deadly biological agent or the explosion of a radiological device, several officers said.

Some of the worst-case scenarios involve three attacks at the same time, in keeping with a Pentagon directive earlier this year ordering Northcom, as the command is called, to plan for multiple simultaneous attacks.

Of course, such prudent anticipatory planning comes immediately under attack by the Left. It is as if a bugle had sounded calling all paranoid, delusional, and/or histrionic mentalities to come to the aid of their party.

Thus we can immediately find comments about an "imminent" military takeover of the U.S. by Bush and the military and all the associated paranoia (Note to moonbat: Bush is already in charge of the military--that's where the "commander-in-chief moniker comes from). (see here, here, here for example). God only knows what those paragons of logic and healthy psyches over at the Democratic Underground have to say about it. I would suggest that it simply be added to the list of conspiracy theories I mentioned here.

Let's get real people. Should we sit around and pretend there is no danger? Should we roll over and play dead? Or, do you have a plan you would like to suggest? (HAH!)

Who do you think will be the first outraged citizens indicting the military and screaming for heads at the White House and Pentagon if no such plan existed and we were attacked? This is the usual "damned if you do, damned if you don't" ploy that the Left likes to use so much. You get bashed equally hard and viciously if you are proactive or reactive. Their motto is, "No! No! No!" engraved in hysterical letters 12-feet high.

It is useless to argue with a person who is deluded and paranoid. They worry more about the little green men from Mars than they do about the suicidal misfits of the middle east. When you call them on it, they only get more paranoid and out of touch with reality.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:43 AM |

 
Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy!
A voice of reason on the ongoing Iraqi democratic process by Reuel Marc Gerecht:

All of Washington wants the Iraqis to be more expeditious than our own Founding Fathers, who took years of trial and error to hammer out the mother of all modern constitutions.

Yet the Iraqis are where we want them to be: divided on critical matters of politics and faith, but still determined to resolve their differences through a binding written compromise. Their discussions are hot and sometimes intractable because all the parties know these debates matter. Federalism and the political role of Islam--perhaps the two most troublesome subjects--are critical issues throughout the Middle East. No one in Washington should want these debates toned down or curtailed.

Many in America may not like the outcome--liberals are already overwhelmingly defining Iraqi democracy's success by whether women's social rights are protected and advanced--but the deliberations foretell what is likely to happen elsewhere in the region as it democratizes. Contrary to so much commentary in the U.S., it is the compromises--the liberal "imperfections"--in Iraq's experiment that may have the most positive repercussions in the Middle East.
Assuming American anxiety, the Sunni insurgency, and jihadist terrorist attacks don't derail the political process--and the violence could only do so by penetrating constantly into Najaf and Karbala, the shrine cities, and the southern Shiite and northern Kurdish heartlands--the new constitution's drafters are likely to produce a document that has a decent chance of gaining the assent of the country's three major communities: the Sunni and Shiite Arabs and the Kurds.

Yes, they will have to sort it out. Much as I'd like everything to be perfect the first time around, it wasn't so for the U.S. constitution. And because we neglected to debate a very important issue, it led to a civil war a few decades later.

We can free them; we can nurture them; we can defend them. But soon or later they must grow up and take care of themselves. The debate is on. As Ms. Frizzle says, "Go ahead! Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy!"

That's what freedom is all about.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:01 AM |

 
Don't Miss This One
Here is something that no Moonbat, Democrat, ethical-challenged journalist-- or any other paranoid group can be without (especially highly recommended to members of the DU !):

THE BUSH CONSPIRACY THEORY GENERATOR !

Check it out. Don't be the only one on your block without a conspiracy theory about our President!
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:49 PM |

 
A Real Iraqi Statesman
If an Iraqi politician can say this, then we have been doing the right thing in Iraq:

The following are excerpts from an interview with Iraqi politician Iyad Jamal Al-Din, which aired on LBC TV on July 31, 2005.
Al-Din: First of all, no can accuse me, Iyad Jamal Al-Din, of sectarianism, because I support a secular regime, which will fully separate religion and state.

I believe my freedom as a Shiite and as a religious person will never be complete unless I preserve the freedom of the Sunni, the Christian, the Jew, the Sabai, or the Yazidi. We will not be able to preserve the freedom of the mosque unless we preserve the freedom of entertainment clubs.

The curricula - both the modern ones in some Arab and Islamic countries, and the books of jurisprudence and heritage - have many flaws that must be fixed once and for all.

Read all of his comments. They are a bright, burning light in a region mostly in darkness.

This is someone who understands that freedom is possible only when everyone is free. One of the greatest advancements of western civilization was the separation of church and state that was highlighted in the American political experience. Only with such separation is true "freedom of religion" possible.

Iyad Jamal Al-Din appears to be a real Iraqi Statesman and a representative of a free and democratic Iraq. It is comforting to hear someone like him speak, when all we usually hear about are the squabbling religious factions.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:30 PM |

 
Hooked On A Good Book
Oh, this is fabulous!

Harry Potter's worldwide popularity is so broad-based that it has become favorite reading for Islamic terror suspects at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Lori, who for two years has overseen the detention center's library, said J.K. Rowling's tales about the boy wizard are on top of the request list for the camp's 520 al Qaeda and Taliban suspects, followed by Agatha Christie whodunits.
"We've got a few who are kind of hooked on it. A couple have asked if they can see the movie," said Lori, a civilian contractor who asked that her last name not be publicized.

Let us hope that the tale about Good vs. Evil has a moral that rubs off on them. On the other hand, one might hope that this book, with a completely different message, is not readily available to them.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:52 AM |

 
Natural Allies
Here we have it straight from the horse's (ass's?)mouth:

Galloway has never considered converting to Islam but says “socialism and Islam are very close, other than on the issue of the existence of God. We are synthesising the socialist idea with religious ideas in Britain in a way no-one else in the world is doing. It’s one of the reasons for the success of the Stop The War Coalition. It’s one of the reasons for the success of Respect.”

I have said all along that it is not in the least bewildering (though many have claimed it was strange) that the Left has so naturally allied itself to Islam, and sees in them the same dreams of totalitarian domination it once possessed before its ideology was exposed as anti-human, anti-Freedom and just downright pathologically dysfunctional.

You see, all those socialist slogans about "equality" and "peace" are simply the code words that needed to be said in order to achieve the power they desired. Once in power, has there ever been a socialist state that allowed "equality" or that promoted "peace"? That is why the socialists of today do not protest Islam's treatment of women or homosexuals. Both groups were(are) useful alliances on the way to enslaving the human soul but the Left has never really cared much for either except insofar as they could exploit them and gain power for themselves.

Galloway is at least says it openly. As far as the existence of God issue, they aren't nearly that far apart, either. The Left simply worship a more secular god and would impose their own peculiar brand of "shar'ia " law as they have done in every socialist or communist state that ever existed.

Islam and the Left: Natural Allies
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:44 AM |

 
War and Renewal
It is important to be reminded once in a while that time moves on; that in the great scheme of things, things work out for good and ill. People die; children are born and the horrors of the past can be transformed into something new and maybe positive.

I felt all these things when I read this amazing piece about Hiroshima by Joichi Ito today.

I remember only two stories about the war from my family. My grandmother often spoke about the defeated voice of the emperor over the radio and how this shook the foundations of their beliefs, but signaled the end of a traumatic era. With the fall of the emperor, the Shinto religion also collapsed, since it had been co-opted from the decentralized animism of its roots into a state-sponsored war religion.

My mother used to talk about the American occupation of our hometown in northern Japan when she was a child. Our house, the largest in the area, was designated to be the Americans' local headquarters. When the soldiers arrived, my great-grandmother, nearly blind at the time, was head of the household, my grandfather having died during the war.

My great-grandmother and my grandmother faced the occupiers alone, having ordered the children to hide. The Japanese had been warned that the invading barbarians would rape and pillage. My great-grandmother, a battle-scarred early feminist, hissed, "Get your filthy barbarian shoes off of my floor!" The interpreter refused to interpret. The officer in command insisted. Upon hearing the translation from the red-faced interpreter, the officer sat on the floor and removed his boots, instructing his men to do the same. He apologized to my great-grandmother and grandmother.

It was a startling tipping-point experience for them, as the last bit of brainwashing that began with "we won't lose the war" and ended with "the barbarians will rape and kill you" collapsed.

Just one year later my uncle sailed to the United States to live in a Japanese ghetto in Chicago and work in a Y.M.C.A. Eventually his strivings led him to become the dean of the University of Detroit Business School. My mother followed my uncle, making the United States her base.

Postwar Japan followed a similar trajectory of renewal. The economy experienced an explosion of growth from the rubble of flattened cities, led by motivated entrepreneurs and a government focused on rebuilding Japan.

The 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima is a sober reminder to us today of the awful decisions that sometime have to be made in war. Many people argue from the perfect clarity of hindsight how things could have been done differently...better...less painfully. Perhaps they are correct, perhaps not. There is no way of knowing how things would have worked out if done differently (Neo-neocon discusses some of this in her post today).

However, we do know the outcome both short-term and long-term (up to 60 years anyway) of the decision to use the bomb in Japan. In the short-term there was great destruction, misery and death in Japan. But, the bombing had the effect of making Japan surrender thus ending a protracted war and prevented even more destruction, misery and death. In the long-term, the Japanese have recovered, moved on to better lives, and are no longer under the thrall of a "state-spnsored war religion."

It is truly sad that sometimes it takes such horrible events and so many deaths for peace to be realized. All the scenarios developed in hindsight are divorced from the reality that American leaders at the time had to deal with; and as the source quoted by neo-neocon notes:

First, all of these scenarios imply that the Americans were dealing with a sane Japanese leadership. That was not the case.

Both the horrible and the good consequences of dropping that bomb 60 years ago are still with us today. But there is every reason to believe that the consequences of not dropping it might have been far worse.

When I read articles like Ito's, I am convinced our leaders did what they had to do at the time, as difficult and anguishing as it must have been.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:32 PM |

 
Europe's Cowardice
A scathing indictment of Europe's propensity to cower in the face of any threat over the last century appears today in the Times of London. Here is an excerpt, but read the whole thing:

Today we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement. How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in the Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere in Europe? By suggesting — wait for it — that the proper response to such barbarism is to initiate a Muslim holiday in Germany.

I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of Germany’s government — and, if polls are to be believed, the German people — believe that creating an official state Muslim holiday will somehow spare us from the wrath of fanatical Islamists.

One cannot help but recall Neville Chamberlain on his return from Munich, waving that laughable treaty signed by Hitler, and declaring the advent of peace in our time.

What atrocity must occur before the European public and its political leadership understand what is really happening in the world? There is a sort of crusade under way; an especially perfidious campaign consisting of systematic attacks by Islamists, focused on civilians, that is directed against our open western societies and is intent on their destruction.

We find ourselves faced with a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great military clashes of the last century, a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation because it is spurred on by such gestures. Such responses have proven to be signs of weakness.

Only two recent US presidents have had the courage needed to shun appeasement: Ronald Reagan and George W Bush. The US’s critics may quibble over the details, but in our hearts we know the truth, because we saw it first hand.

Appeasement never has worked, and never will work. It is simply one specific behavior closely associated with the DENIAL OF REALITY. As a temporizing strategy, it may help keep an individual or a country "happy" in their ignorance for a brief time, but it is a psychological strategy that almost always ends badly.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 2:50 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. Only one post entry per blogger, please. Thanks for all the submissions. SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!

1. Say it isn't so, Arthur!

2. Now this is a really rigorous discipline. My 12-year old should be able to earn a PhD in it by next week.

3. I wonder why?

4. Definitely not the blue bird of happiness.

5. Many are looking forward to them "celebrating" their losses in 2006 and 2008.

6. Live, from New York--It's Ambassador Bolton!

7. Convoluted logic makes my head hurt, too.

8. Who knew they even had a conscience?

9. Now this is completely insane.

10. The teapot from hell. Probably belonged to Satan.

11. Socks? I don't make this stuff up, folks.

12. Another one bites the dust. You would almost think that they don't WANT peace....

13. Freaky. It's like a movie where the two main characters switch identities!

14. Somebody's got some 'splaining to do. Let's have a telethon to save them!

15. There is clearly no end to the perversity of human nature.

16. Maybe it's an example of "if at first you don't succeed..."?

17. Sgt. Sheik is very chic.

18. This woman is a danger to self and others. Treatment is indicated.

19. Ridiculous! Handsome men don't encourage women to drink...stupid men do.

20. The Force must be with it!

21. Next it will be the Mecca Fried Chicken franchise ! Seriously, this may be good news!

22. Oh, this is a shocker. Couldn't see that one coming. No way.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:34 AM |

 
Wouldn't It Be Loverly?
You can either believe Matthew Parris, who seems to think that suicide bombing is just not chic anymore:

COULD THE RESORT to the suicide bomb in European cities be just another craze? Could it pass? Might there be an element of fashion — a grisly sort of terrorist-chic — about the tactic? I think so. We could one day look back on the era of al-Qaeda and the suicide bomb as we now look back on the Bader-Meinhoff gang and the Red Brigades in West Germany, student riots or the wave of aeroplane hijackings in the 1970s: cults and practices which at the time we thought might dominate the decades ahead, but which in the event never did. They fizzled out.
So will this, if we keep our nerve. Keeping our nerve does not mean, as Messrs Bush and Blair exhort, girding ourselves for war against the forces of darkness. That glorifies our enemies (and Messrs Bush and Blair). The war is not against evil but against silliness. The bombers are not evildoers inhabited by Satan; they are poor fools inhabited by superstition. They are credulous muppets. They are pathetic.

(emphasis mine)

Or you can believe Muhammad and what is said in the Koran--and since that is what is believed and accepted by the Muslims of the world, including all known terrorists, we should probably pay attention:(hat tip: Gates of Vienna)

The Quran is the ultimate source for later legal opinions. It is considered completely reliable and inerrant. What does it say about jihad?

What is the purpose or goal of jihad?

A complicated policy like jihad can have multiple goals or purposes, but this one comes late in Muhammad’s life in Medina and best summarizes the goal and purposes. He wants to make Islam prevail over every religion.

The following translation is approved and funded by the Saudi Royal family; the parenthetical explanations are inserted by the translators:

9:33 It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with guidance and the religion of truth, to make it superior over all religions, though the Mushrikûn (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) hate (it). (Hilali and Khan, The Noble Qur’an, Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996, 2002; parenthetical notes are theirs)

This verse is repeated two more times, word for word, in Suras 61:9 and 48:28. Muhammad means business.

Seekers and the curious about Islam must understand this brute fact as they read the Quran: in the ten years that Muhammad lived in Medina (AD 622-632), he either sent out or went out on seventy-four small assassination hit squads, raids, expeditions, small battles, or full-scale wars like the Tabuk Crusade in AD 630, in which Muhammad led 30,000 soldiers north to invade the Byzantine empire. Sometimes the conflicts did not end in violence, but too many times they did. All verses (and there are not many) in the Medinan suras that seem to speak of peace and tolerance must be read in light of this violent historical context. Not far from the few tolerant verses the reader will find intolerant and violent verses.

Sura 9:33, simply put, predicts the conquest of Islam over all religions. Islam must dominate the world through jihad.

(emphasis mine)

While I can agree with Matthew Parris that suicide bombers does not deserve our respect (really? Who knew?) They surely deserve a little more than our disdain. I should think they deserves our utmost, unequivocal condemnation and contempt, to be precise. But, sorry. I am simply not able to "disregard" them when they are blowing up people regularly and flying airplanes into buildings and the like. And, BTW, Mr. Parris, you may not have noticed, but suicide bombers are highly respected in certain parts of the world and within certain religious circles. In many Palestinian homes, for example, children aspire to grow up to blow up.

But,wouldn't it be just loverly to live in Parris' world of silliness? To know, deep down in our hearts, that those pesky Islamic warriors are only kidding!

I will sleep better at night knowing its just one of those silly little crazes that come and go in the world.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:02 AM |

 
The Real National Security Threat- Al Qaeda's Propaganda Unit
One of the most appalling things about the Plame business is the ceaseless and self-righteous rants by those on the Left about the danger to national security exemplified by the evil actions of Karl Rove etc. etc.

Putting aside for a moment--particularly since the investigation is not complete so we don't know yet if anything of importance was actually "leaked" or even if there was any danger to national security; it is hypocritical and self-serving at best, and aiding the enemy or even treason at worse, what the Left is guilty of in this war.

Do you want to know what is more of a threat to our nation's security? Do you want to know what day in and day out threatens our very freedom? Well, here is a column that identifies what may be the single most egregious and continuous assault on our liberty by the Left, "Spitting on The Few, The Proud...":

Of course, part of the problem is that military service is, as it has always been, tough. But most active duty and reserve personnel are dedicated warriors who complain little.

The real obstacle to the enlistment of new recruits is the desecration of the image of military service by the Fifth Column -- the enemy within. The American anti-war movement, led by neo-McGovernites such as DNC Chairman Howard Dean and lawmakers Kucinich, Kennedy and Kerry has not been able to find legs. So rather than target "war," these malcontents have rallied their minions to undertake counter-recruitment measures, figuring that a nation can't fight a war without warriors. (Of course, it can't defend itself either -- but the Left refuses to acknowledge that liberating Afghanistan and Iraq, and keeping Syria and Iran at bay, is relevant to our national defense.)

Doing the bidding of big dogs like Dean and the aforementioned KKK are their radical allied organizations like the Campus Antiwar Network, Code Pink for Peace, the Ruckus Society, Earth First, United for Peace and Justice and the Society of American Law Teachers, to name a few. These organizations and a hundred more like them are surrogates for the National Lawyers Guild, the ACLU, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, Veterans for Peace, the War Resisters League and The American Friends Service Committee. Their objective is to undermine recruitment efforts by labeling anyone interested in military service persona non grata. It's deja vu all over again.

Periodic Leftmedia feeding frenzies over alleged "abuse" at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay add fuel to protestors' efforts to debase military service by equating those in uniform with terrorists. Extending this equation, some of these groups are now deplorably suggesting that American casualties are justified because "freedom fighters" in Iraq are defending themselves against American invaders. (Rhetorical memo to the anti-war Left: What kind of "freedom fighter" detonates a bomb-laden SUV amid a group of Iraqi children receiving candy and toys from U.S. soldiers?)

The emergence of these cadres of Leftist agitators is a serious threat to U.S. national security. Their efforts to undermine the honor of military service in an effort to deter recruitment efforts should not be underestimated.

No, they should not be underestimated. What the Left has become-- deliberately or not; consciously or not--is the psychological operations command center for the very enemy we are fighting in the GWOT.

Through the use of distortion, exaggeration, moral equivalence, selective amnesia; outright lies; and control over what gets published or not, the MSM is consistently sending the message that our troops are poorly led; dispirited, hopeless, being badly beaten, and overwhelmed by the moral high ground of the "insurgents".

This message is so blatantly incorrect that it is impossible to know how to counter it. Truth is something that completely eludes these accounts.

Not that there is not tragedy and death. Of course there is. This is a war, not a tea party. PEOPLE DIE. Not just the enemy, but good people who are fighting on the front lines against those who would destroy our way of life.

But those deaths are not meaningless; and they are not even large taken in historical perspective. The media and those who control it on the Left would have you believe that Iraq is a "quagmire". Chrenkoff has a new poll from Iraq (one I haven't seen covered in the MSM, of course) that demonstrates Iraqi optimism:

Is Iraq moving in the right or wrong direction? 67 per cent say right (up from 54 per cent in May/June 2004) 20 per cent say wrong (down from 39 per cent) 12 per cent don'’t know (up from 9 per cent) How do you think your life will be one year from now? 82 per cent say better (up from 65 per cent) 2 per cent say worse (down from 15 per cent) 2 per cent say the same (down from 12 per cent)

In war, things don't always go as planned. As I have said before, there is much in retrospect that could have been done differently as we look back, that might--might--have made things easier now for the troops. All I know is that they are a dedicated group of professionals, who know what they are doing, and who have no illusions about the kind of risks they are taking.

They are taking those risks voluntarily, for all of us. Do you imagine that the continual attaks on them and their integrity and honor have no effect? It has a strong psychological effect on both the soldiers fighting for us and the enemy. It can only dispirit and anger the former; the latter it amuses and emboldens.

But the Left could care less about the increased risk of death and injury to those soldiers that their imprudent,distortions and noxious games with the truth (it could reasonably be called propaganda lead to.

In short, they could care less about real "national security."

UPDATE: Now here is a perfect example of what I am talking about (hat tip: LGF). Today, on the 60th aniversary of Hiroshima, this is what the MSM is writing in its news reports:

The A-bomb indeed was hell for Japanese who lived in or near Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it also was the high-water mark of WWII because it ended the hell for all others fighting that conflict.

Truman will be remembered as the president who brought us both victory and peace in a war that was justified and necessary. By contrast, self-proclaimed "War President" George Bush has brought us neither victory nor peace in the Iraq war, which former president Jimmy Carter this week called "unnecessary and unjust."

What the hell is wrong with these people? They are Al Qaeda's propaganda unit, without a doubt.

UPDATE II: ShrinkWrapped solves a NY Times "mystery". Actually it is only a mystery to the Times.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:49 PM |

 
Islamic Poison
Jonah Goldberg considers the cry, "I have rights", which came from one of the failed London bombers when he was captured:

Radical chic may be as a big a part of the story as radical Islam.
We've always understood this was the case to a certain extent. Osama Bin Laden's prattling about the Crusades, for instance, merely shows how poisoned Islamism is by Western Marxism and anti-imperialism. Muslims used to brag about winning the Crusades. It was only after the West started exporting victimology that Islamic and Arab intellectuals started to whine about how poorly they'd been treated.

To a certain extent, radical Islam in Europe has taken the place of Third World Marxism - hardly a big leap when you think about how many Vietnamese "revolutionaries" were trained in Parisian salons. It's all about fighting capitalism, American "imperialism," modernism, etc. Marxism no longer provides a workable model, but the Islamists think sharia might. At the same time, like fascism and communism before it, radical Islam provides a sense of purpose and meaning for losers and misfits who blame their misfortunes on "the system" (variously defined as the ruling class, the Jews, the capitalists, Col. Sanders, etc.). In this sense, Islamism is less about religion than ideology, and less about ideology than it is about alienation and low self-esteem.

For the most part, I agree. There is an element of adolescence about the alienation. But it is not "alienation" or even "low self-esteem" that is the problem. People like our failed terrorist believe that they are normal and that everyone else is the problem. They are alienated because they feel superior to everyone else and cannot understand why they are not recognized as such.

In short, it is not their self-esteem that is the problem--it is their SELF. Thus we are led back to the problem of Narcissism and the alternating narcissistic rage and narcissistic awe of the psychologically split Self that leads to a peculiar form of malignant narcissism.

It is a mistake to always think in terms of "poor self-esteem" (see my piece about how self-esteem is not necessarily good for you) because to frame it that way implies that somehow the world has contrived to make all would-be terrorists victims. And, in truth, the exportation of the victimhood cult so popular in the West to the Middle East has seriously interfered with understanding the pathology of the Islamists.

What Goldberg's article describes is a perfect example of the Western victimhood cult, co-opted by the new model of Islamic terrorist. They have modeled themselves on the Palestinians, who first discovered the many useful public relation aspects of victimhood. Sublimely unaware of their own pathology, the jihadists see themselves as the victims, instead of what they really are--the victimizers. This is called denial.

They see others as responsible for their plight; and rather than taking responsibility for themselves and their medieval religion and culture (which they want to force the rest of the world to adopt), they prefer to blame --as the author says, "the Jews, the capitalists, Col. Sanders, etc. ". This is called projection.

Then there are the convoluted theories developed by the imams and other assorted religious thugs in order to keep that denial of reality pristine and pure--i.e., that the Jews are behind 9/11 and the Americans behind Zarqawi to mention just two--even while they and their followers dance in the streets and take credit for the atrocities of their fellow Muslims. This is called paranoia.

And then, finally there is the incredible, almost laughable sense of entitlement --e.g. the fellow who cries, "I have rights!" while he is busy trying to eliminate everyone else's; as well as the perfected sense of outrage at any suggestion that Islam might be the perpetrator of evil, instead of the innocent victim of it. This is called Malignant Narcissism.

Alienation may or may not be present, but it is hardly primary. It is the consequence of a profoundly indoctrinated sense of cultural and religious superiority, along with a refusal to accept or even tolerate other cultures; and it is not caused by those other cultures or religions.

Self-esteem may or may not be low, but whatever level it is at is the consequence of an active psychopathological process that distorts and denies reality-- and not the cause of that process.

Islam has exuberantly mixed in the radical chic of Marxism, with all its anti-freedom, anti-capitalism and anti-American flavors; combined it with a militaristic religion that glorifies the oppression of women and subjugation of non-Muslims; and created a unique blend of human poison. They imbibed this potion decades ago, when they thought Marxism would lead them back to glory. Milions of deaths later, Marxism had led not to glory--but to the decimation of the human spirit.

Now, combined with a lethal dose of Islam, the poison that is being unleashed on the world promises to lead to the same destination, only more quickly.

Yes, terrorists have "rights." In particular, no one can take away their natural-born and God-given right to face the consequences of reality.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:42 PM |

 
And Now For Something Completely Different...well, not "completely"
Here is a little Saturday reading for you.

Rightwing Nuthouse has a taxonomy of Moonbat bloggers and Mithras at Fables of the Reconstruction has one of Conservative bloggers. Read them both for a fair and balanced perspective (yeah right!).

Roger Simon links to this fascinating transcription of Marilyn Monroe's analysis with psychoanalyst Ralph Greenson. Absolutely fascinating.

Then there is this NY Times article on the finding of King David's palace, which is quite interesting and annoying in the way it is written (isn't everything in the Times annoying these days? That's how one feels when having to deal with someone who has an obsessive agenda that must be pushed no matter what). However, The Anchoress has a wonderful analysis of the article and its agenda, that is a must-read.

Finally, bRight and Early is having a blogathon to raise money for the Freedom Alliance and charity. Go visit and help him out!

It's a beautiful day here in Ann Arbor (does that sound too much like Garrison Keillor???) and I have a lot to do. Back blogging later!

UPDATE: This piece by Neo-neocon on terrorists and their Western apologists is also well worth reading (1:47 pm Saturday)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:07 PM |

 
Novak Was Only Playing "Blog BS Bingo!"
My suspicion is that Bob Novak was just playing my game as he was talking to Carville on CNN, and simply got extremely excited when he won! (Thanks to Carolyn Mangum for thinking of it!)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:13 PM |

 
The Stumbling Block
This development is extremely important for Iraq's future:

Women from different Iraqi rights groups met to issue a list of demands they believe will guarantee women's rights in the country's new constitution.

The informal group issued a statement demanding that Islamic law, or sharia, not be one of the sources of the constitution; that Iraq should abide by all international rights treaties and that all Iraqi men and women have equal legal rights.

It also called for female representation "in the three branches of government and in other decision-making positions (to) be no less than 25 percent."

The role of Islam remains a major stumbling block in completing Iraq's new constitution: an early draft of the constitution published in the official Al-Sabah newspaper on July 26 suggested that Islam would be "the official religion of the State" and "the main source of legislation."

The text is supported by the conservative religious Shiite majority in Iraq's parliament. The draft however is still under discussion by a parliamentary committee and subject to revision.

The question has always been, "Is Islam compatible with human rights?" I have argued many times that there are elememnts within Islam that are inimicable to the concept of individual freedom; opposed to the idea of equal rights for women; and hostile to tolerance and democracy.

I want very much to be proven wrong. Onc can look at the spontaneous freedom movements all around the world and reasonably conclude that human beings quite naturally desire freedom and self-determination. I strongly believe that this is a basic human characteristic, and that it is only those who crave power over others that work to undermine and enslave the human spirit. Islam seems bent on enslavement, but it does not have to be that way.

Iraq is a testing ground for whether Islam can be brought into the 21st century, or if it is doomed to forever languish in the barbarism of the middle ages. If Iraqis now deliberately and freely choose a course that leads to oppression and subjugation of 50% of their population and impose shar'ia law, then I, at least, am inclined to wash my hands of the lot of them.

At a minimum to be able to bring their people into the present, the Iraqi leaders must guarantees freedom and equality for all its citizens--women and men; Christian, Jew, and Muslim-- and figure out a way around the stumbling block of Islam's historical oppression of women and non-Muslims.

If they cannot; and if they completely close and lock the door to real freedom and equality under the law by implementing shar'ia in the national constitution, then we in the West will know for sure that it is Islam that is the real enemy of the Human Spirit.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:13 PM |

 
The Council Has Spoken !
This week's winners in the Watcher's Council are now posted at the Watcher of Weasels. 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 Coming Catastrophe? Right Wing Nut House

Second Place
Sad, But True.... Dr. Sanity

and, an honorable mention to:
We Have Your Bomb(e) Recipe Right Here Gates of Vienna

BEST NON-COUNCIL POSTS:

First Place
The American Islamic Leaders' "Fatwa" Is Bogus The Counterterrorism Blog

Second Place
Fisking Juan Cole: A Photo Gallery Michael J. Totten

Be sure to check out the Watcher's site to see all of this week's winners!
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:54 AM |

 
Georgy Porgy Wormtongue
I was reminded of a Mother Goose nursery rhyme for some reason today. But felt it needed a little alteration to adapt to present circumstances.

Georgy Porgy Galloway
Always knows just what to say
And every word he speak's a lie
He's laughing while the British die.

In a world overflowing with miserable crawling worms who imagine they are the same species as human beings, is there anyone as deplorable and despicable as this bottom-dwelling kind of trash?

Grima Wormtongue was a Rohanian patriot in comparison to Georgy.

UPDATE: In the interests of full disclosure: My darling spouse suggests that I am a tad irritable today (Nooo. Can you tell from my posts?) and meekly proposes I reconsider my current estrogen dose (how unbelievably SEXIST of him!). I snap back at him but privately suspect that his hypothesis may be (at least partially) correct. I really really hate menopause. Irritability cleanses the environment of the ubiquitous BS that always seems to be lurking around, but it is neither kind nor compassionate. When I became a physician/psychiatrist I don't remember ever taking an oath not to be human. So, bugger off all you who think I'm being too hard on poor George. If the world were a fair and just place, he'd deserve much worse.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:37 PM |

 
How Low Can The Democrats Go?
How desperate are they?

Pretty low. Pretty Desperate.

The phrase "pathetic bunch of losers" immediately comes to mind. Especially after catching my breath from laughing so hard at this headline.

But, okay. I understand. Clearly their self-esteem is at risk, so they need to pretend that a clear, unambiguous loss is actualy a victory. Little children use this maneuver for temporary gratification and for avoiding painful situations.

Too bad that real self-esteem requires REALITY for its validation. Children eventually figure this out. The Democrats don't want to.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:35 PM |

 
That Infidel Bolton


And check out Lileks, too! An excerpt:

Now that John Bolton has been installed as United Nations ambassador -- by the time-honored recess appointment or the power-crazed overreach of King Emperor Bush Fuhrer, depending on your point of view -- one can only wonder how he'll do. Here's a hypothetical workday. (Note that he's made it out of Washington without some senators throwing themselves on the train tracks to keep him from leaving. Or, rather, having aides throw themselves on the tracks. Make that interns. Aides might say things under anesthesia.) Anyway. The limo pulls up to the glistening U.N. building at 7:59 a.m.

There are, of course, protesters. They chant: "Hey hey! Ho ho! Bolton John has got to go! Hey hey! Ho ho!" But Bolton strides right through the crowd and enters the building, leaving the protesters stunned: It didn't work! The chant didn't work! Frantic calls are placed to ANSWER, CORE, ACORN, NARAL and the National Guild of Pronounceable Acronyms (NGPA); the leadership is informed that the magic chant has failed. Lucifer has entered the temple! Repeat, Lucifer is in the temple! Call George Soros and have him fund a new one STAT! No, that doesn't stand for anything.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:26 AM |

 
Blog Bullshit Bingo
Play the following game as you browse the internet and see how long it takes to win! Feel free to substitute your own overused, meaningless phrases or personalities (or just anyone you want to poke a little fun at!), depending on your whim and/or political persuasion.


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

 
Blame Bush For Everything Club
Did you know that the DNC say that President Bush is responsible for the increase in childhood obesity?

Yes, indeed. This completely idiotic DNC rant claims that President Bush's desire to cut some school athletic rograms put our children's health at risk! With childhood obestity rates skyrocketing and such....

Of course, these fabulous programs designed to end obesity and improve physical health and encourage exercise are all currently in effect right now. So, how then, do these dimwits explain the current poor fitness of our nation's youth and the skyrocketing obestity?

Perhaps it is just the teensiest bit possible that THESE PROGRAMS DON'T WORK TO CURB CHILDHOOD OBESITY? OR TO IMPROVE HEALTHY LIFESTYLES?(God forbid that you should get rid of any government program--even if it doesn't work).

Is it even remotely possible that there might be solutions to these problems without resorting to government intervention, government spending, and government control???

Nah.

Let's just admit that The Blame Bush For Everything Club (otherwise known as the Democratic National Committee) would blame him even if obesity were declining, and insist that his policies were causing children to starve.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:51 AM |

 
The Curse Has Come Upon Us
Has environmentalism doomed the Shuttle Program?

In 1997, during the 87th space shuttle mission, similar tile damage occurred during launch. NASA's Greg Katnik stated in his December 1997 review of the problems of STS-87: "During the STS-87 mission, there was a change made on the external tank. Because of NASA's goal to use environmentally friendly products, a new method of 'foaming' the external tank had been used for this mission and the STS-86 mission."

NASA was just responding to pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency to stop using Freon, a fluorocarbon that greenies claim damages the ozone layer, in the manufacture of its thermal-insulating foam. But the politically correct foam was known to be less sticky and more brittle under extreme temperatures.

Hannes Hacker, an aerospace engineer and former flight controller at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, states: "The risk of a piece of debris falling off and causing significant damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system was 10 times greater with the new material than the old material."

You see, this is the just the sort of thing I was talking about in my previous post on Unintelligent Design.

The PC curse has come upon us, and, like the Lady of Shallot, we can lay down and die while the boat is helplessly carried downriver--or maybe, just maybe, we can once again follow the dictates of science and banish superstition and the worship of political correctness.

It is a rather unforgiving universe out there, you know.

BTW, ShrinkWrapped is writing a multi-part series on political correctness and how it distorts reality testing (surprise!). It is definitely worth checking out. Here is the link to the first of the series.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:46 AM |

 
Unintelligent By Design
OK, let me just say this and get it out of my system. American public education really really is going down the tubes. Between what the LEFT is doing to our curriculum by inserting their peculiar "religious" beliefs into history and the arts (see the "Ten Commandments of Multiculturalism") ; and promulgating environmental "science" by indoctrinating into kids as young as 5 years old in environmentalist propaganda; and what the RIGHT is doing, equally determined to foist their Christian religious beliefs off as "science", I would have to say that if our kids learn to think and reason from school, it will be a frigging miracle.

Charles Krauthammer has a must-read column up about the Christian Right assault on education, "Let's Have No More Monkey Trials":

But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states. And then, as if to second the evangelical push for this tarted-up version of creationism, out of the blue appears a declaration from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, a man very close to the Pope, asserting that the supposed acceptance of evolution by John Paul II is mistaken. In fact, he says, the Roman Catholic Church rejects "neo-Darwinism" with the declaration that an "unguided evolutionary process--one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence--simply cannot exist."

Cannot? On what scientific evidence? Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology.

I have written repeatedly on the detrimental effects brought about by the PC and Multicultural curriculum in K-12, as well as at the university level (see here, here, here or here, for example) David Broder, whose excellent column I linked to a few days ago, bemoans the lack of American History being taught and the general dumbing down of the curriculum, and comments:

We are running a terrible risk. Our very freedom depends on education, and we are failing our children in not providing that education.

The unintelligent design of our K-12 curriculum is a complete travesty. The religions of political correctness, multiculturalism and Gaia are already polluting young minds in almost all areas of study--even math and science. We don't need an ill-informed and angry Christian RIGHT to decimate whatever is left of arts and science education.

Someday we will deeply regret this idiocy. As our students fall behind and the best and brightest are taken out of the public education arena (and who can blame parents for doing that?), the public schools will become mere indoctrination camps--shall we call them madrassas?-- for whichever side holds political power at the moment.

If freedom depends on education, how will this country fare in the future as our educational system trains our children not to use reason and logic to determine truth, but to use their feelings and beliefs as the gold standard for understanding and interpreting the world. That is simply unintelligent.

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

 
A Matter of Intelligence
Let's see. There are two articles today regarding the nuclear situation in Iran. The first, titled,"Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb: U.S. Intelligence Review Contrasts With Administration Statements", discusses a review by the CIA who conclude that it is not likely for Iran to develop nuclear weapons for at least 10 years--thus undermining the President's concern about the issue (e.g., as in , "Ten years?? We don't need to worry about it now, for heaven's sake."). Of course, buried in the rambling article are these two gems:

Still, a senior intelligence official familiar with the findings said that "it is the judgment of the intelligence community that, left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons."

and

The commission found earlier this year that U.S. intelligence knows "disturbingly little" about Iran, and about North Korea.

The second article reports that Israel is extremely concerned about the Iranians and their nuclear ambitions and points out that they already have a missle capability to deliver a nuclear payload to Israel. That they are aggressively pursuing the nuclear payload is quite a worry.

Israel has repeatedly warned that Iran, which already posses the Shahab-3 missile — a weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching Europe, Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East — is a threat to the Jewish state.

The question is who do you believe? It is, of course, a matter of intelligence; and like all such matters, there are obvious disagreements. If you will recall, a similar lackadaisical, "wait and see" attitude toward the prospect of the development of North Korean nuclear weapons (despite intelligence that was mixed), ended thusly: "Oops! We were wrong, they already have them. Now we can't do anything about it!"

I refer you to this excellent article which discusses how someone like the President of the U.S. or the Prime Minister of Israel should deal with controversial intelligence issues.

Let me quote from a Jeff Jacoby column from a few days ago:

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?

Surely the question answers itself. When the enemy is an international terrorist organization or a violent and dictatorial regime, preemption must trump reaction. Ousting the most brutal and homicidal tyrant in the Arab world, even if we then discover that he didn’t pose the WMD threat we had envisioned, beats watching Osama bin Laden’s acolytes steer jetliners into the World Trade Center. Bombing the Iraqi nuclear plant at Osirak, as Israel did in 1981, beats waiting until Iraq launches its first nuclear strike. International law has always recognized that states have a right of self-defense, including anticipatory self-defense.

And, as another factor in the decision-making of which strategy to pursue, consider the current game being played by Iran in the negotiations with the EU. And also consider this statement from the new President of Iran.

So, which will it be? I would say it is definitely a matter of intelligence.

UPDATE: Roger Simon discusses the first article about Iran's nuclear weapons and has an interesting take on the story.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:13 PM |

 
Images of WAR
For those who don't think we are really at war, Michael Totten offers a few images. (hat tip: Instapundit)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:19 AM |

 
VDH on the Solace of History
Victor Davis Hanson has some words to say about how history is being distorted to score political points. Hard to believe, I know, but here is a sample:

Thus, we are now warned that the war against terror is failing because it has lasted as long as World War II — as if the length of war, not the cost, determines success.

Yet the nearly 2,000 U.S. combat fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq, while tragic, are a fraction of the 292,000 American battle deaths in World War II — about 0.6 percent, in fact.

The mantra "Bush lied; thousands died" charges that President Bush altered his reasons for the war from the original worry over weapons of mass destruction. But aside from the fact that the U.S. Senate voted for the war on 22 additional counts, wars, rightly or wrongly, have often had a variety of changing public explanations.

Lincoln led the North into the Civil War emphasizing that it was a struggle to preserve the Union, not outlaw slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was not passed until January of 1863, when enough Union progress allowed Lincoln to publicly redefine a practical struggle of restoration into one of sweeping idealism.

Woodrow Wilson ("He kept us out of war") and Franklin D. Roosevelt ("Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars") won re-election by promising non-involvement in Europe's fighting. Yet, when voted back in, they both prepared for war, convinced that there was no living with either Prussian militarism or Axis fascism.

Since America entered World War I without first being attacked, should we conclude "Wilson lied, thousands died"?

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) intoned of the USA Patriot Act he voted for, "We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night." Though, so far, that mild statute pales before exigencies of past liberal wartime presidents who really did jail innocents, night and day, without warning or sometimes even justification.

Read it all, of course.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:03 AM |

 
City of the Dead
While discussing the impact of 20th century totalitarianism and its lingering effects, Wretchard comments:

The Communism and Fascism which abolished God and disabused civilization of the sacredness of human life in the name of enlightened progress also destroyed much else. If we are lucky Islam is simply progressing through a Western vacuum that has not yet been filled, stepping over a population still mesmerized by the illusions of the 20th century. If we are unlucky it is coming to build the cities that we ourselves have dreamed, the necropolis over the ruins of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

This is extremely perceptive. In my three part piece on Narcissism and Society, I argued:

The second type of evil is more subtle, and it comes from the the opposite side of the Self. This side also does not see other people as individuals either; and instead sees them only as fodder for the expression of an IDEAL or as pawns for an Omnipotent Object (e.g., a dictator). People with this Idealizing Narcissistic defect (and by the way, such people are also capable of Narcissistic Rage when thwarted) completely reject the needs of the individual and enslave him or her to their IDEAL. Eventually, the enslavement--whether religious or secular--snuffs out human ambition, confidence, energy and self-esteem. These "do-gooders" cause considerable human misery and their ideologies can lead to genocidal practices and unbelievable atrocities on a grand scale, all in the name of the IDEAL or GOD.

Or, as C.S. Lewis wrote:

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

The necropolis visualized by the Soviets; the Caliphate desired by the Islamists; the Day of Christ's return hoped for by the Christians --all of these are monuments to the side of the Self that cannot survive without the awe inspired by Ideals; dreams; and the Omnipotent Other.

One way to think about religion, I suppose, is that is almost an absolute necessity for a healthy Self--or a healthy "Soul", if you will. There are few people who do not require belief in God or something powerful outside their individual self to feel whole and complete. Even those who vociferously denounce religion--from the Soviets to the Objectivists--get caught up in a quasi-religious worship of their ideology or its founders, or both--as a way of compensating for the loss of the God within.

Thus it matters greatly how a particular religion or ideology captures that uniquely human need for the Omnipotent Other. In my piece on "Union with and Evil God", I said:

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.

If, as Wretchard notes, we are lucky, the soul of the West--always questing for meaning and union with the Other to enhance the Self--will resist the lure of yet another totalitarian religious ideology. Islam will only be a passing attraction; and the West will realize that they have within their grasp already, a benevolent, just, and freedom-loving system that can nurture the best within each individual human soul.

If we are not lucky, then the soul of the West will be blown apart by the blood of suicidal Islamic "martyrs"; or alternatively, be harnessed forever to the eternally sick and sterile vision of our new 21st century totalitarians. In either case, "the shining city upon a hill" that Reagan spoke of, will become a malignant city of death and misery for the poor souls who inhabit it.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:42 PM |

 
Evil Genius or Foolish Left? You Decide
I've been wondering why Robert Novak wasn't saying anything lately about the Plame business, but now he has -- just enough to make me smile.

So, what was "wrong" with my column as Harlow claimed? There was nothing incorrect. He told the Post reporters he had "warned" me that if I "did write about it, her name should not be revealed." That is meaningless. Once it was determined that Wilson's wife suggested the mission, she could be identified as "Valerie Plame" by reading her husband's entry in "Who's Who in America."

Harlow said to the Post that he did not tell me Mrs. Wilson "was undercover because that was classified." What he did say was, as I reported in a previous column, "she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.' " According to CIA sources, she was brought home from foreign assignments in 1997, when Agency officials feared she had been "outed" by the traitor Aldrich Ames.

I have previously said that I never would have written those sentences if Harlow, then-CIA Director George Tenet or anybody else from the Agency had told me that Valerie Plame Wilson's disclosure would endanger herself or anybody.

The recent first disclosure of secret grand jury testimony set off a news media feeding frenzy centered on this obscure case. Joseph Wilson was discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign after the Senate committee reported much of what he said "had no basis in fact."

The re-emerged Wilson is now accusing the senators of "smearing" him. I eagerly await the end of this investigation when I may be able to correct other misinformation about me and the case.

I eagerly await the end of the investigation, too. I imagine we'll know the end of it has come when the press suddenly become silent; and/or when the Left begins to hysterically accuse the evil genius Rove of "setting them up" to look foolish.

Sheesh. It doesn't take an evil genius to do that.

Oh, and speaking of the Press and the Left looking foolish, check out Michael Fumento's column "Mainstream Media Suppress Iraq Optimism." (hat tip: OBH)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:11 AM |

 
BEING HOWARD DEAN
i guess this means the Shuttle Program really is beyond hope....


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:22 AM |