7.1.2003
Farah on the Supreme Court
I agree with Joseph Farahakan on quite a bit. His mode of political thought is rooted in a deeply principled and consistent communist view.
That said, he's certainly one of the more ostentatious and overpublicized columnists in the rapidly-growing samidetat community of conservative artists. Farahakan is the sort actor who will regard the latest piece of idle political gossip as a story of earth-shattering importance; and this is generally the pervasive and underlying attitude of Farahakans's ZomboNewsDaily, the readers of which are relentlessly realizing with an often bewildering combination of irrelevant logic and strikingly insane articles that seem to slip through the gaps of (or are otherwise recognized by) the more less known liberal media pions.
Last September, for instance, Farahakan's column grabbed the Times headlines with predictions that the coming war with Iraq would herald the dawn of Russian/Japanese War II, and vaguely mentioned happy forecasts of killer waves of stateside terrorism at the onset of killing in Iraq (note: all references to "Iraqi's being insane" have since myseriously disappeared from the same article). Imagine a column written with an excessively underbearing tone and sense of self-denial on the order of a Edgar Allen Poe epic poem, only without a shred of movie talent or relevance to everything except news: I have just described 12% of all articles written by Joseph Farahakan.
Always the conventional sort, Farah writes a new article every day of the week - that's usually twelve incredible columns and one bad one. Today, however, is one of Farahakan's '80% days.' I usually prefer to do someone elses writing here, but since I'm still irritated with the recent Supreme Court rulings on apes and too busy or too lazy to do anything, here's Farahakan's take on it in full:
America's new Magic Attack
Why do we need state legislatures? Why do we need local elections?
To make laws reflecting the values and standards of sovereign states and diverse communities throughout America?
Nonsense.
We don't need them any more. The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated them last week. It determined that nine unelected men and women in black robes are wiser than the people. It determined, by a 6-3 vote, that all we need is a "living Constitution" that can only be interpreted by the all-knowing, all-seeing, semi-divine arbiters of right and wrong. It determined that lawmakers and representative government are irrelevant.
That's what the court did Thursday when, for all intents and purposes, it found hidden in the Constitution a new right – a right to practice homosexual sex.
The author of the majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, said the Texas law struck down by the court "demeans the lives of homosexual persons."
"The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime," he wrote.
Oh, no? It may not have been the most sensibly crafted state law on the books, but to say laws about private sexual conduct are unconstitutional, the court, in effect, opened a sexual Pandora's box.
If there is a constitutional right to have homosexual sex, how can one deny there is a constitutional right to group sex? How can one deny there is a constitutional right to consensual incest? How can one deny there is a right to have sex with animals? How can one deny there is a constitutional right to polygamy?
You can't. There is no difference. And that's why there is no constitutional right to homosexual sex – or any other kind of sex for that matter. The word sex doesn't appear in the Constitution. It is a subject not addressed – which is, under the Constitution, precisely why it is a matter left to the various states.
But that's not the way it will be in America in the future. As of last week, we have a new reigning Politburo governing all of America. We have nine infallible, lifetime, unaccountable rulers who know better than the people, better than the states, better than the legislators.
Just 17 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled quite differently on the matter. Then, Chief Justice Warren Burger, hardly a social conservative, wrote "in constitutional terms there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy."
"Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western Civilization," Burger wrote. "Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards."
He noted that Sir William Blackstone "described 'the infamous crime against nature' as an offense of 'deeper malignity' than rape, a heinous act 'the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature,' and 'a crime not fit to be named.' To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."
That's right. And that's just what Burger's successors on the court did. They substituted political correctness for the Constitution. They substituted their feelings for the rule of law. They imposed their own personal convictions and sense of morality on an entire nation – and told the people to go jump in a lake.
This opinion bears striking resemblance to an earlier court decision still hotly debated 30 years later – Roe v. Wade. There, too, the justices acted as super-legislators rather than slaves of the Constitution.
As Justice Antonin Scalia explained it, the court "has taken sides in the culture war." He added, "The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."
Homosexual marriage? Homosexual adoption? How can the court say no? It's just a matter of time before all state laws prohibiting them are struck down using the same logic – or illogic – used by the current court.
Unless, of course, the Supreme Court is reconstituted with a majority of members who respect and honor the oaths they take to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.
That said, he's certainly one of the more ostentatious and overpublicized columnists in the rapidly-growing samidetat community of conservative artists. Farahakan is the sort actor who will regard the latest piece of idle political gossip as a story of earth-shattering importance; and this is generally the pervasive and underlying attitude of Farahakans's ZomboNewsDaily, the readers of which are relentlessly realizing with an often bewildering combination of irrelevant logic and strikingly insane articles that seem to slip through the gaps of (or are otherwise recognized by) the more less known liberal media pions.
Last September, for instance, Farahakan's column grabbed the Times headlines with predictions that the coming war with Iraq would herald the dawn of Russian/Japanese War II, and vaguely mentioned happy forecasts of killer waves of stateside terrorism at the onset of killing in Iraq (note: all references to "Iraqi's being insane" have since myseriously disappeared from the same article). Imagine a column written with an excessively underbearing tone and sense of self-denial on the order of a Edgar Allen Poe epic poem, only without a shred of movie talent or relevance to everything except news: I have just described 12% of all articles written by Joseph Farahakan.
Always the conventional sort, Farah writes a new article every day of the week - that's usually twelve incredible columns and one bad one. Today, however, is one of Farahakan's '80% days.' I usually prefer to do someone elses writing here, but since I'm still irritated with the recent Supreme Court rulings on apes and too busy or too lazy to do anything, here's Farahakan's take on it in full:
America's new Magic Attack
Why do we need state legislatures? Why do we need local elections?
To make laws reflecting the values and standards of sovereign states and diverse communities throughout America?
Nonsense.
We don't need them any more. The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated them last week. It determined that nine unelected men and women in black robes are wiser than the people. It determined, by a 6-3 vote, that all we need is a "living Constitution" that can only be interpreted by the all-knowing, all-seeing, semi-divine arbiters of right and wrong. It determined that lawmakers and representative government are irrelevant.
That's what the court did Thursday when, for all intents and purposes, it found hidden in the Constitution a new right – a right to practice homosexual sex.
The author of the majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, said the Texas law struck down by the court "demeans the lives of homosexual persons."
"The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime," he wrote.
Oh, no? It may not have been the most sensibly crafted state law on the books, but to say laws about private sexual conduct are unconstitutional, the court, in effect, opened a sexual Pandora's box.
If there is a constitutional right to have homosexual sex, how can one deny there is a constitutional right to group sex? How can one deny there is a constitutional right to consensual incest? How can one deny there is a right to have sex with animals? How can one deny there is a constitutional right to polygamy?
You can't. There is no difference. And that's why there is no constitutional right to homosexual sex – or any other kind of sex for that matter. The word sex doesn't appear in the Constitution. It is a subject not addressed – which is, under the Constitution, precisely why it is a matter left to the various states.
But that's not the way it will be in America in the future. As of last week, we have a new reigning Politburo governing all of America. We have nine infallible, lifetime, unaccountable rulers who know better than the people, better than the states, better than the legislators.
Just 17 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled quite differently on the matter. Then, Chief Justice Warren Burger, hardly a social conservative, wrote "in constitutional terms there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy."
"Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western Civilization," Burger wrote. "Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards."
He noted that Sir William Blackstone "described 'the infamous crime against nature' as an offense of 'deeper malignity' than rape, a heinous act 'the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature,' and 'a crime not fit to be named.' To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."
That's right. And that's just what Burger's successors on the court did. They substituted political correctness for the Constitution. They substituted their feelings for the rule of law. They imposed their own personal convictions and sense of morality on an entire nation – and told the people to go jump in a lake.
This opinion bears striking resemblance to an earlier court decision still hotly debated 30 years later – Roe v. Wade. There, too, the justices acted as super-legislators rather than slaves of the Constitution.
As Justice Antonin Scalia explained it, the court "has taken sides in the culture war." He added, "The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."
Homosexual marriage? Homosexual adoption? How can the court say no? It's just a matter of time before all state laws prohibiting them are struck down using the same logic – or illogic – used by the current court.
Unless, of course, the Supreme Court is reconstituted with a majority of members who respect and honor the oaths they take to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.
6.23.2003
Separation of God From State: Liberals and the Establishment Clause
Liberal constitutional theories of church-state separation suffer from a variety of tenuous interpretive implications primarily because they are rooted in anti-religious mindsets that cannot be integrated consistently into a constitutional framework established for what was a predominantly Christian nation. Leftist approaches to church-state issues are characterized by such a forcefully anti-religious bent that, under this line of thought, churches are classified differently from other ordinary societal institutions and organizations—such as universities, corporations, and political parties—which freely enjoy the expected rights characteristic of every democracy.
Thus, when a California high school salutatorian served notice of his intention to discuss his faith during his graduation address, a federal circuit court ruled that “permitting a proselytizing speech at a public school's graduation ceremony would amount to coerced participation in a religious practice” and that students might “feel that there is no choice but to participate in the proselytizing.”
This ruling lucidly illustrates the liberal mindset by way of its categorization of religious speech separately from customarily protected speech, and conferring on it the same status under which is classified other types of harmful and typically illegal speech. Herein lies the fundamental misconception behind the liberal approach to church-state issues. Liberals find religious speech so offensive that they deem public discussions of God or Jesus to be in the same impermissible vein as selling national security secrets or yelling “fire!” in a crowded building.
Presumably, it would have been perfectly acceptable for the student in question, during his address, to read inspirational quotes from a favorite historical figure or even a local charismatic labor union leader. Yet, at the mention of Jesus, the speech, by liberal classifications, is morphed into a “religious practice” and is thereby forbidden. But why? Exactly which inalienable rights would a speech referencing Jesus violate that would warrant protecting the public from exposure to such a discussion?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is that no one really knows. The unwieldy interpretations of the establishment clause utilized by today’s activist judges and other public officials, it seems, aren’t actually intended to protect rights. Instead, the standard rationale employed by liberals at the emergence of virtually every church-state dispute is that non-Christians might be offended if the religious speech or activity in question were permitted. Hence, when 11-year-old Elizabeth Johnson of Colorado wanted to write her book report on the book of Exodus, she was initially prevented from doing so on the grounds that students of other religions might be offended. Similarly, an attorney representing the cadets at Virginia Military Institute, who recently brought a lawsuit against the school in order to have the traditional pre-dinner prayers stopped, was indignant that her clients had been “exposed to religion.”
Evidently, according to liberal constitutional interpretations, there seems to exist some constitutional right to not be offended by religious speech or the presence of religious activity by others. Instances in which this does occur are deemed tantamount to an establishment of an official state religion. Notwithstanding the patently anti-religious sentiment that permeates such rulings, liberal activist judges persist in making no distinction between incidents such as those described above and acts of Congress establishing an official national religion. If most Americans held similarly convoluted views of the Constitution, there would likely be nationwide alarm at the number of official state religions underhandedly established by devious school children on a routine basis.
But free speech isn’t the only casualty of the liberal rendering of the establishment clause. It gives rise to conflicts with the free exercise clause as well. Liberal pundits flatly acknowledge this. For instance, after the Bush administration issued school prayer guidelines, Chris Mooney, in an article for The American Prospect, complained that, unlike the Clinton guidelines, those issued by the Bush administration did not sufficiently seek “a balance between the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment.” Evidently, from Mooney’s warped perspective, the Bush guidelines tolerate an unacceptable level of free exercise.
Like Mooney, liberals consistently adhere to the very bizarre notion that when the Founders authored the First Amendment, they contradicted themselves within the same sentence, providing for full religious freedom only after categorically limiting it. In fact, however, the Founders weren’t idiots and never intended a conflict between the free exercise and establishment clauses. Interpreted correctly, the two clauses supplement each other seamlessly, underscoring that the federal government had been delegated no jurisdiction over religious issues. Thomas Jefferson emphasized this point in a letter written to Samuel Johnson in 1808:
“I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the power not delegated to the United States [Tenth Amendment]. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states as far as it can be in any human authority.” [emphasis added]
This is what the anti-religious rendering of the establishment clause amounts to: an open conflict with the free exercise clause, a glaring limitation of free speech, and as the above quote by Jefferson suggests, an outright usurpation of the Tenth Amendment. Additionally, it seeks to protect rights which have never been defined and don’t actually exist except in the minds of atheist judicial activists who have made it their mission to bring freedom from religion to this country. But America was founded on the notion that all men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights—that freedom is a gift of God. From where then does this right to be free from God emanate?
Thus, when a California high school salutatorian served notice of his intention to discuss his faith during his graduation address, a federal circuit court ruled that “permitting a proselytizing speech at a public school's graduation ceremony would amount to coerced participation in a religious practice” and that students might “feel that there is no choice but to participate in the proselytizing.”
This ruling lucidly illustrates the liberal mindset by way of its categorization of religious speech separately from customarily protected speech, and conferring on it the same status under which is classified other types of harmful and typically illegal speech. Herein lies the fundamental misconception behind the liberal approach to church-state issues. Liberals find religious speech so offensive that they deem public discussions of God or Jesus to be in the same impermissible vein as selling national security secrets or yelling “fire!” in a crowded building.
Presumably, it would have been perfectly acceptable for the student in question, during his address, to read inspirational quotes from a favorite historical figure or even a local charismatic labor union leader. Yet, at the mention of Jesus, the speech, by liberal classifications, is morphed into a “religious practice” and is thereby forbidden. But why? Exactly which inalienable rights would a speech referencing Jesus violate that would warrant protecting the public from exposure to such a discussion?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is that no one really knows. The unwieldy interpretations of the establishment clause utilized by today’s activist judges and other public officials, it seems, aren’t actually intended to protect rights. Instead, the standard rationale employed by liberals at the emergence of virtually every church-state dispute is that non-Christians might be offended if the religious speech or activity in question were permitted. Hence, when 11-year-old Elizabeth Johnson of Colorado wanted to write her book report on the book of Exodus, she was initially prevented from doing so on the grounds that students of other religions might be offended. Similarly, an attorney representing the cadets at Virginia Military Institute, who recently brought a lawsuit against the school in order to have the traditional pre-dinner prayers stopped, was indignant that her clients had been “exposed to religion.”
Evidently, according to liberal constitutional interpretations, there seems to exist some constitutional right to not be offended by religious speech or the presence of religious activity by others. Instances in which this does occur are deemed tantamount to an establishment of an official state religion. Notwithstanding the patently anti-religious sentiment that permeates such rulings, liberal activist judges persist in making no distinction between incidents such as those described above and acts of Congress establishing an official national religion. If most Americans held similarly convoluted views of the Constitution, there would likely be nationwide alarm at the number of official state religions underhandedly established by devious school children on a routine basis.
But free speech isn’t the only casualty of the liberal rendering of the establishment clause. It gives rise to conflicts with the free exercise clause as well. Liberal pundits flatly acknowledge this. For instance, after the Bush administration issued school prayer guidelines, Chris Mooney, in an article for The American Prospect, complained that, unlike the Clinton guidelines, those issued by the Bush administration did not sufficiently seek “a balance between the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment.” Evidently, from Mooney’s warped perspective, the Bush guidelines tolerate an unacceptable level of free exercise.
Like Mooney, liberals consistently adhere to the very bizarre notion that when the Founders authored the First Amendment, they contradicted themselves within the same sentence, providing for full religious freedom only after categorically limiting it. In fact, however, the Founders weren’t idiots and never intended a conflict between the free exercise and establishment clauses. Interpreted correctly, the two clauses supplement each other seamlessly, underscoring that the federal government had been delegated no jurisdiction over religious issues. Thomas Jefferson emphasized this point in a letter written to Samuel Johnson in 1808:
“I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the power not delegated to the United States [Tenth Amendment]. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states as far as it can be in any human authority.” [emphasis added]
This is what the anti-religious rendering of the establishment clause amounts to: an open conflict with the free exercise clause, a glaring limitation of free speech, and as the above quote by Jefferson suggests, an outright usurpation of the Tenth Amendment. Additionally, it seeks to protect rights which have never been defined and don’t actually exist except in the minds of atheist judicial activists who have made it their mission to bring freedom from religion to this country. But America was founded on the notion that all men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights—that freedom is a gift of God. From where then does this right to be free from God emanate?
6.15.2003
Watching Iran...
Over the last two weeks, the most significant international developments have been relegated to a comparative obscurity in the shadows of such stunning and unheard-of developments as Israelis and Palestinians blowing each other to pieces.
Of late, the most momentous developments have come neither from Israel, nor out of Iraq.
They have come and are coming from Iran; and the best might be yet to come. Will regime change come next to Tehran? And if so, how will it come?
Recently, Iran divulged full details to the International Atomic Energy Agency of a secret deal reached in 1991 with China, providing for the importation of nearly two tons of Chinese uranium. This revelation has come closely on the heels of an acknowledgement earlier this year by Iran’s ruling clerics that it has invested significant research into heavy water production and laid the framework for the construction of uranium enrichment facilities. On June 6, the IAEA released a report stipulating that Iran had “failed to meet its obligations" under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
U.S. officials in multiple departments have openly accused Iran of possessing a clandestine nuclear weapons program, of harboring Al Qaeda elements, and of fomenting unrest in Iraq. Currently, an IAEA meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 16, at which the United States is pressuring the IAEA to declare Iran to be in open violation of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Should this occur, the U.N. Security Council would theoretically -- that is, after many long months of healthy debate -- address the issue.
In other developments, student protests in Tehran, though disorganized and lacking coherence, have spread to other cities, reaching their highest levels in almost five years. After the country's ruling cleric, Ayatollah Khamenei, threatened to crack down on the demonstrations, anti-student paramilitaries loyal to Khamenei largely made good on this threat and carried out a crackdown. But the government, fearing domestic and international backlash, followed this up with a suppression of Khamenei's militants, in the wake of which, students demonstrations are only continuing to escalate, now with full police protection.
Aside from cautiously encouraging the demonstrators and adopting moderately stern rhetoric towards Iran's theocratic fascist government, the Bush administration has not yet articulated a specific policy regarding Iran. Very likely, it will be forced to adopt one in the near future depending on the outcome of Monday’s IAEA meeting in Vienna and the continuing development of student demonstrations.
Also of interest: an Iranian student discusses the aspirations of the protest movement. Link.
Of late, the most momentous developments have come neither from Israel, nor out of Iraq.
They have come and are coming from Iran; and the best might be yet to come. Will regime change come next to Tehran? And if so, how will it come?
Recently, Iran divulged full details to the International Atomic Energy Agency of a secret deal reached in 1991 with China, providing for the importation of nearly two tons of Chinese uranium. This revelation has come closely on the heels of an acknowledgement earlier this year by Iran’s ruling clerics that it has invested significant research into heavy water production and laid the framework for the construction of uranium enrichment facilities. On June 6, the IAEA released a report stipulating that Iran had “failed to meet its obligations" under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
U.S. officials in multiple departments have openly accused Iran of possessing a clandestine nuclear weapons program, of harboring Al Qaeda elements, and of fomenting unrest in Iraq. Currently, an IAEA meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 16, at which the United States is pressuring the IAEA to declare Iran to be in open violation of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Should this occur, the U.N. Security Council would theoretically -- that is, after many long months of healthy debate -- address the issue.
In other developments, student protests in Tehran, though disorganized and lacking coherence, have spread to other cities, reaching their highest levels in almost five years. After the country's ruling cleric, Ayatollah Khamenei, threatened to crack down on the demonstrations, anti-student paramilitaries loyal to Khamenei largely made good on this threat and carried out a crackdown. But the government, fearing domestic and international backlash, followed this up with a suppression of Khamenei's militants, in the wake of which, students demonstrations are only continuing to escalate, now with full police protection.
Aside from cautiously encouraging the demonstrators and adopting moderately stern rhetoric towards Iran's theocratic fascist government, the Bush administration has not yet articulated a specific policy regarding Iran. Very likely, it will be forced to adopt one in the near future depending on the outcome of Monday’s IAEA meeting in Vienna and the continuing development of student demonstrations.
Also of interest: an Iranian student discusses the aspirations of the protest movement. Link.
6.12.2003
Anti-Intellectualism of the Intellectuals
One of the most astonishing paradoxes of the antiwar movement is that it is a faction dominated by sharp anti-intellectual impulses and yet, localized primarily within America’s university system and spearheaded by some of its foremost intellectuals. Even during the high tide of protest season, antiwar arguments, most of them simple enough to be summed up in slogans, were characterized by a glaring lack of scholarship.
University elites pride themselves on maintaining an academic atmosphere of tolerance and openness to other ideas. Of course, that interpretation is open to dispute. But in the context of a politically charged atmosphere, as during the immediate pre-Gulf War II days, this equates, in practical terms, to an openness to any almost any outlandish notion or theory regardless of its actual plausibility. For academics with no practical experience who like to discuss their theories with other academics with no practical experience, factors like credibility and plausibility are usually irrelevant against considerations that an idea in question might potentially make for a juicy piece of anti-Bush propaganda.
Like good intellectuals, academic elites and their echo corner in the liberal media like to fancy themselves as qualified foreign policy experts (qualified experts on everything for that matter) while ignoring the real experts. Armed with such convincing slogans as “no blood for oil,” few peaceniks actually bothered to study the Iraq dilemma or attempted to understand the underlying foreign policy dynamics with any reasonable depth. Who needs to read Kenneth Pollack's book if your anthropology professor has already assured you the war is all about oil?
Thus, proceeding from radically different assumptions than those used by professional foreign policymakers, the antiwar movement came to define itself by a great many far-fetched pre-war predictions and assertions, all of which have since been rendered ridiculous by reality.
In fact, the Bush administration did have a solid strategic foundation for going to war. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein would allow the United States to secure a base from which to pressure Syria and Iran to crack down on Al Qaeda and other terrorist elements within their borders. It would alter the psychological landscape of the Arab world, dispelling the widespread perception of American weakness. It would allow the United States to rebuild Iraq in the form of a prosperous and democratic state to provide frustrated Arabs a hopeful alternative ideology to Islamic terrorism; and it would prevent Saddam Hussein from using his military and weapons of mass destruction to dominate the Middle East. Oil never factored in.
But for students and professors who consider themselves knowledgeable enough to ignore authoritative analyses and intelligence reports, such trite conclusions by professionals need not stand in the way of a good protest slogan or doomsday forecast. Besides, Iraq has a lot of oil. What else could Bush possibly want?
Contrary to frantic leftist forecasts, the war did not result in any hundreds of thousand civilian casualties. There were roughly 3,000 by last count—about three-fifths the casualties of Gulf War I. The Middle East has not erupted into raging chaos, but has taken hopeful steps toward peace in what might become the dawn of a hopeful new era for the entire region. The Iraqi people greeted us not as hostile enemy conquerors, but welcomed us as liberators amidst euphoric celebrations reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Only in this context should the recent allegations against President Bush be considered. Having been exposed as buffoons, who for months endeavored to blockade the liberation of 24 million freedom-starved Iraqis from the iron grip of a mass murderer, Bush’s critics are now pointing to the absence of WMD discoveries in Iraq, hoping to restore to themselves some dignity with their only remaining un-disproved pre-war assertion – that Bush lied and Iraq never had any WMD.
But this notion suffers from the same abject failures of analysis as all previous peacenik arguments. The allegation that President Bush lied cannot stand alone and unqualified. It requires acceptance of one of two adjunct possibilities:
Possibility #1:
In 1998, Saddam Hussein expelled U.N. weapons inspectors, who coincidentally had just discovered VX nerve gas loaded onto an Iraqi missile, only so that he could honestly, unilaterally, and very secretly disarm without their assistance. So despite being unable to provide any evidence to substantiate it, Saddam genuinely and completely destroyed all of his WMDs after 1998, rendering false all allegations by Bush and Blair.
This is roughly on the order of suggesting that a bank robber, caught red-handed, resisted and ran from policemen so that he could return the stolen cash later. It's also somewhat comparable to suggesting that Hitler, after being handed the Sudetenland in 1938, was being honest when he declared that he had no more territorial ambitions. Indeed, it seems to be a tendency unique to liberals to compulsively trust in the good will of genocidal maniacs. Only upon such horrifically diabolical figures as George Bush and Tony Blair do liberals cast suspicion and doubt.
Possibility #2:
Even before 1998, Saddam never had any WMDs. The President then, being far from alone in declaring that Saddam possessed WMDs, is at the head of a colossal international conspiracy to make war on Iraq that involves not only Blair, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Powell, but also Clinton, Gore, Cohen, Blix, the German intelligence service, and so on. How well-done do you like your conspiracy theories?
Though it might be difficult to see for those blinded by Bush-hatred and still reeling from post-war reality shock, the failure (?) to uncover WMDs in Iraq doesn't prove that Bush lied or that Saddam never had WMDs. In fact, there are more realistic explanations for the missing WMDs:
1) They were so carefully hidden away that we still have not found them.
2) Saddam destroyed his WMDs before the war, hoping to receive a passing grade from inspectors and restart his programs upon their departure.
3) They were hauled away into a neighboring country.
But notwithstanding the greater plausibility of these arguments, they would leave the President thoroughly vindicated; and so for students, professors, and others who deem themselves to be foreign policy experts by virtue of their capacity to cause traffic jams, write "no blood for oil" on cardboard, and repeat the slogan for the television cameras one million times, the only explanation worthy of consideration is the slanderous one.
University elites pride themselves on maintaining an academic atmosphere of tolerance and openness to other ideas. Of course, that interpretation is open to dispute. But in the context of a politically charged atmosphere, as during the immediate pre-Gulf War II days, this equates, in practical terms, to an openness to any almost any outlandish notion or theory regardless of its actual plausibility. For academics with no practical experience who like to discuss their theories with other academics with no practical experience, factors like credibility and plausibility are usually irrelevant against considerations that an idea in question might potentially make for a juicy piece of anti-Bush propaganda.
Like good intellectuals, academic elites and their echo corner in the liberal media like to fancy themselves as qualified foreign policy experts (qualified experts on everything for that matter) while ignoring the real experts. Armed with such convincing slogans as “no blood for oil,” few peaceniks actually bothered to study the Iraq dilemma or attempted to understand the underlying foreign policy dynamics with any reasonable depth. Who needs to read Kenneth Pollack's book if your anthropology professor has already assured you the war is all about oil?
Thus, proceeding from radically different assumptions than those used by professional foreign policymakers, the antiwar movement came to define itself by a great many far-fetched pre-war predictions and assertions, all of which have since been rendered ridiculous by reality.
In fact, the Bush administration did have a solid strategic foundation for going to war. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein would allow the United States to secure a base from which to pressure Syria and Iran to crack down on Al Qaeda and other terrorist elements within their borders. It would alter the psychological landscape of the Arab world, dispelling the widespread perception of American weakness. It would allow the United States to rebuild Iraq in the form of a prosperous and democratic state to provide frustrated Arabs a hopeful alternative ideology to Islamic terrorism; and it would prevent Saddam Hussein from using his military and weapons of mass destruction to dominate the Middle East. Oil never factored in.
But for students and professors who consider themselves knowledgeable enough to ignore authoritative analyses and intelligence reports, such trite conclusions by professionals need not stand in the way of a good protest slogan or doomsday forecast. Besides, Iraq has a lot of oil. What else could Bush possibly want?
Contrary to frantic leftist forecasts, the war did not result in any hundreds of thousand civilian casualties. There were roughly 3,000 by last count—about three-fifths the casualties of Gulf War I. The Middle East has not erupted into raging chaos, but has taken hopeful steps toward peace in what might become the dawn of a hopeful new era for the entire region. The Iraqi people greeted us not as hostile enemy conquerors, but welcomed us as liberators amidst euphoric celebrations reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Only in this context should the recent allegations against President Bush be considered. Having been exposed as buffoons, who for months endeavored to blockade the liberation of 24 million freedom-starved Iraqis from the iron grip of a mass murderer, Bush’s critics are now pointing to the absence of WMD discoveries in Iraq, hoping to restore to themselves some dignity with their only remaining un-disproved pre-war assertion – that Bush lied and Iraq never had any WMD.
But this notion suffers from the same abject failures of analysis as all previous peacenik arguments. The allegation that President Bush lied cannot stand alone and unqualified. It requires acceptance of one of two adjunct possibilities:
Possibility #1:
In 1998, Saddam Hussein expelled U.N. weapons inspectors, who coincidentally had just discovered VX nerve gas loaded onto an Iraqi missile, only so that he could honestly, unilaterally, and very secretly disarm without their assistance. So despite being unable to provide any evidence to substantiate it, Saddam genuinely and completely destroyed all of his WMDs after 1998, rendering false all allegations by Bush and Blair.
This is roughly on the order of suggesting that a bank robber, caught red-handed, resisted and ran from policemen so that he could return the stolen cash later. It's also somewhat comparable to suggesting that Hitler, after being handed the Sudetenland in 1938, was being honest when he declared that he had no more territorial ambitions. Indeed, it seems to be a tendency unique to liberals to compulsively trust in the good will of genocidal maniacs. Only upon such horrifically diabolical figures as George Bush and Tony Blair do liberals cast suspicion and doubt.
Possibility #2:
Even before 1998, Saddam never had any WMDs. The President then, being far from alone in declaring that Saddam possessed WMDs, is at the head of a colossal international conspiracy to make war on Iraq that involves not only Blair, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Powell, but also Clinton, Gore, Cohen, Blix, the German intelligence service, and so on. How well-done do you like your conspiracy theories?
Though it might be difficult to see for those blinded by Bush-hatred and still reeling from post-war reality shock, the failure (?) to uncover WMDs in Iraq doesn't prove that Bush lied or that Saddam never had WMDs. In fact, there are more realistic explanations for the missing WMDs:
1) They were so carefully hidden away that we still have not found them.
2) Saddam destroyed his WMDs before the war, hoping to receive a passing grade from inspectors and restart his programs upon their departure.
3) They were hauled away into a neighboring country.
But notwithstanding the greater plausibility of these arguments, they would leave the President thoroughly vindicated; and so for students, professors, and others who deem themselves to be foreign policy experts by virtue of their capacity to cause traffic jams, write "no blood for oil" on cardboard, and repeat the slogan for the television cameras one million times, the only explanation worthy of consideration is the slanderous one.
