I found these pictures of two Lebanese women in an AP article about Lebanon refusing any direct contact with Israel. If they let Hezbollah (I like that name; apparently you can’t misspell it) take over the country, I don’t think the alluring young woman will be walking around dressed like that. She’ll probably be dressed more like the woman smoking a cigarette. Oh well, it’ll be their loss. 

From time to time I will post a collection of questions that come to mind or just thoughts that I have. Occasionally I might expand on one of the questions or thoughts in a future post.
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Why are the people who want to celebrate diversity and embrace multiculturalism not willing to accept Southern Rednecks? They definitely have a culture that is unique — at least in some ways. And a good representation of Southern Rednecks would certainly contribute to diversity. They include Muslims in their fold, but not Southern Rednecks. Yet Muslims and Southern Rednecks are a lot alike. They are both very conservative. They both tend to be fundamentalist in regard to their religion. They both can be quite fierce when they have to defend their culture.
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More seriously, why do liberals defend Islam and fiercely attack Christianity? It doesn’t seem to matter to them that Muslims tend to be much more fundamental in their beliefs and practices than Christians, even those that we consider to be moderate Muslims. Surely they don’t believe that Muslims are going to support their liberal policies. A Muslim is not any more likely to vote for homosexual marriage than a Christian. A Muslim is much less likely to support women’s rights than a Christian. On the whole I see Muslims as more conservative than Christians.
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There are people who believe that it was horribly wrong for Europeans to come here and occupy the land inhabited by Native Americans. There are people who condone the arrival here of millions of illegal immigrants bent on occupying the land that we now inhabit. They are, in most cases, the same people. And they don’t seem compelled to justify their conflicting positions. In my simple mind it seems that if it was wrong in the first case then it is wrong in the second case. I could easier justify it being right in the first case and wrong in the second case. The Europeans occupied land that was extremely sparsely populated by numerous disparate and competing native tribes. The illegal immigrants are occupying land that is densely populated by citizens of a rather cohesive nation. Plus, there’s the fact that descendants of the Native Americans are still here. How can it be right for them to be invaded again if it was wrong the first time?
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Do you actually take some special precaution when the National Weather Service posts a tornado watch? Do you know anyone who does? I don’t to both questions. I don’t take any special precaution even when they post a tornado warning. I don’t have a storm cellar. I suppose I could climb into the bathtub, but then I could get fried by lightning. So why do they post the watches and have the TV stations stick that annoying patch over your program? They seem to do it every time a thunderstorm begins to form. I suppose they do it so that if someone gets hurt they can say “I told you so.”

There is a lot of disagreement about whether a moderate form of Islam exists. Lawrence Auster believes that there is no Moderate Islam. He defends his position in a very lengthy article at Front Page Magazine. The article attempts to refute Daniel Pipes’ belief that there is a moderate form of Islam and that our one chance of successfuly defending ourselves from Islam depends on finding and encouraging the moderates (you will find links to Pipes’ articles in Auster’s article). Some agree with Auster because we don’t hear these moderates condemning the actions of the ‘radical’ Muslims. Others say the moderates aren’t condemning the radicals because they are afraid of repercussions. I don’t know. But I do know that what we call radical Islam is incompatible with our culture and laws.

What can we do if radical Islam comes to our country? (I’m not talking about terrorist activity. I’m talking about the actual practice of the religion.) With our present laws there is nothing we can do until they break one of those laws. That is because the Supreme Court has interpreted the free exercise clause of the First Ammendment to mean that we cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, but we may with practices. From the Find Law web site:

The Belief-Conduct Distinction. While the Court has consistently affirmed that the Free Exercise Clause protects religious beliefs, protection for religiously motivated conduct has waxed and waned over the years. The Free Exercise Clause ”embraces two concepts– freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be.” In its first free exercise case, involving the power of government to prohibit polygamy, the Court invoked a hard distinction between the two, saying that although laws ”cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices.”

This contradicts the somewhat simplistic view of Thomas Jefferson that we have erected “a wall of separation between church and state.”

So, despite our freedom-of-religion guarantees we can punish certain religious practices when those practices break our laws. But what can we do if the prospect of punishment does not deter illegal religious practices? Is there some way to preempt the illegal practices? Getting answers to these questions will require more research — or help from readers.

According to the Associated Press, Rob Reiner, better know as Meathead, has proclaimed that “Mel Gibson’s apology for his drunken anti-Semitic remarks isn’t enough to redeem him. He must acknowledge that his work reflects anti-Semitism.” The article also stated that “some critics attacked Gibson’s movie (The Passion of the Christ) as portraying Jews as evil.”

Some, like me, might be surprised if Gibson cares what Meathead’s conditions are for his redemption. Meathead is probably envious of Gibson’s success as a director. After enjoying some early success, Meathead’s career has slowed considerably.

So what if Gibson showed some Jews in a bad light, or even as evil? Are we to believe that there are no evil Jews? Hollywood has made tons of movies that show Italian Americans, Latin Americans, Middle Easterners, Southern whites, African Americans, and others as evil. Are we to believe that they meant to imply that all members of those groups are evil? That’s not what I got from those movies.

I think that it is quite reasonable to assume that at some point in the history of the Jewish people that there just could have been a few, or even many, Jews who behaved badly.

Stifle Meathead!

Since about two months after our invasion of Iraq and overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, there has been an outcry, mostly from the President’s political foes, for an exit strategy. Some of those demanding an exit strategy seem to be talking about a plan for withdrawal — a specific timeline for pulling all our troops and equipment out of Iraq and bringing them home. Others seem to want discrete measurable criteria specified as a basis for the withdrawal rather than a specific timeline; that is, a results based strategy. What the latter group is asking for is closer to an actual strategy than the former group, but even they are demanding too much specificity. A strategy should be simple enough to be stated in one or two sentences and it should be goal oriented. A plan, including a timeline, is the instrument for executing a strategy. Stated more specifically, an exit strategy is a definition of the conditions that trigger the execution of a withdrawal plan, not the plan itself.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a military strategy as “the science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.” Wikipedia says that an exit strategy “is a means of escaping one’s current situation, typically an unfavorable situation. An organization or individual without an exit strategy may be in a quagmire. At worst, an exit strategy will save face; at best, an exit strategy will peg a withdrawal to the achievement of an objective worth more than the cost of continued involvement.” Both support my contention that a strategy is distinctly different from a plan.

Any military force that initiates an operation of the magnitude of the Iraq invasion should most definitely have an exit strategy in hand. And it should have at least the basics of a plan to execute the exit, but it is not necessary to make the exit plan public. In fact, there are very good reasons not to make it public. Contrary to his political opponents’ constant dissembling, President Bush has clearly stated his exit strategy from the beginning of the operation: We will withdraw from Iraq when the Iraqis have a stable government in place and are able to provide their own security. That is all the public needs to know. The method of determining when those criteria are met should be closely held.

Some might argue, justifiably, that Bush’s exit strategy doesn’t cover the possibility that we never meet its conditions. That doesn’t mean, of course, that he hasn’t considered that possibility; it just means that he chooses not to talk about it. Does any rational person think that he should be publicly stating this exit strategy?: We will withdraw from Iraq when the Iraqis have a stable government in place and are able to provide their own security, or when we’ve been there five years. How foolish would that be?

On a humorous note, George Saunders at Slate proposed an exit strategy, or at least a strategy to subvert Bush’s exit strategy. In essence he recommends that we just convince the insurgents to stop killing us long enough for us to get out. He wrote this over a year ago so now he would probably agree that we also have to convince them to stop killing one another.

We hear a lot about Iran supplying armament to Iraqi insurgents and a lot about foreign fighters entering Iraq to join the insurgency. My question is, why do we let them? Why are we allowing armament to cross the border? Why do we let any foreigners into Iraq, fighters or not?

I realize that Iraq has a very long border. The CIA’s World Factbook says that it covers 2,267 miles. I also realize that we can’t seem to manage our own border with Mexico, which is similar in length (but that’s a subject for another post). It seems to me, though, that if we expect to make any headway in eliminating the insurgency, we have to stop the flow of armament and personnel across the border. It is reported that the insurgents have large reserves of weapons, ammunition and explosives — much of it left over from Saddam’s army — but what is gained by finding and destroying these caches if they are constantly being replaced from across the border?

It is clear that the Pentagon was at least concerned about controlling the border. As early as February 2004 Rumsfeld said:

“My impression is that the border with Kuwait is very secure, and the border with Jordan and with Turkey is secure, while the borders with Syria and Iran are not secure. Part of the reason for that situation is that we’re not getting good cooperation by Syria or Iran, and part of it is that we need more border patrol — Iraqi border patrol — to help do that job.”

It is now clear that they didn’t achieve that control. I hope that’s not because they continued to expect cooperation from Syria and Iran. He didn’t mention Saudi Arabia. I hope he has noticed it in the meantime. Rumsfeld said that we need more Iraqi border patrol. According to a May 2006 article by the American Forces Press Service we did make some progress on that:

“The (Iraqi) border police are based in 258 forts along all of Iraq’s borders. There are about 21,000 members of the service, and it will grow to about 28,000 by the end of the year, said officials traveling with (Lt Gen Peter) Chiarelli. The border police are an integral part of the strategy to end the insurgency in Iraq.”

So, it looks like they are getting a lot of boots on the ground but they apparently aren’t that effective yet. Maybe this will help: Female Marines Train for Iraq Border Security.

We must stop all people from entering Iraq.  We should let anyone leave that wants to, but not let anyone in. General Chiarelli said (in the article referenced above):

“The cooperation among the security forces has already proven its worth with the nearly violence-free Ashura festival. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian Shiia Muslims journeyed to Karbala and Najaf for the religious observance.”

I wonder how many went back to Iran after the festival?

We also must limit cargo entering Iraq to food and other life essentials. That, of course, means that every truck or train(?) must be thoroughly searched. We must control all the border, not just the major entry points.

The most likely explanation for not being able to control the border is lack of personnel. We must use advanced technology, like small remotely piloted aircraft, to offset the shortage of personnel.

I know that it’s a very difficult job, but if we can’t control the border how can we defeat the insurgents and secure the country? (Hmmm? Why does my mind keep drifting back to our own border problem?)

According to Phyllis Schlafly, in a column on Townhall.com, ”a Spanish company, Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A., has bought the right to operate a toll road through Texas and collect tolls for the next 50 years.  Called the Trans-Texas Corridor, TTC, on which construction is planned to begin next year, this highway would bisect Texas from Oklahoma to its border with Mexico. Plans call for a 10-lane limited-access highway to parallel Interstate 35. It would have three lanes each way for passenger cars, two express lanes each way for trucks, rail lines both ways for people and freight, plus a utility corridor for oil and natural gas pipelines, electric towers, cables for communication, and telephone lines.”

She says that this “will be the first leg of what has been dubbed the NAFTA Super Highway to go through heartland America all the way to Canada. This would be a major lifeline of the plan to merge the United States into a North American Community.”  And she says that the Bush Administration is on board with this.

I don’t know much about this yet, but it does sound ominous.  They are also talking about a common currency.  Sounds a lot like the EU to me.  Read the whole column here.

I’ve never understood Al Sharpton’s appeal. If anyone does, please explain it to me. I can’t figure out if he actually takes himself seriously. I think he might be just putting us on. He and his closest associates probably have a big laugh after each instance of pandering by some politician or other well placed person. They probably rolled in the floor last night.

Bill O’Reilly had him on his show last night along with Juan Williams from National Public Radio and Fox News. Williams has written a book in which he claims that Sharpton is a shakedown artist. He says that Sharpton takes money from corporations and others in return for favorable treatment — or something like that. The best that I could tell, Sharpton denied this. He never completed a whole sentence. He tried to say a lot of things, but I think the gist of his reply was that people just give him money voluntarily — and, I suppose, expect nothing in return. Does that make him a charity?

I usually don’t agree with Williams’ politics because he leans quite strongly to the left. But I have tons more respect for him and what he says than I do for Sharpton. At least Williams is articulate. I have no idea if Williams’ charges against Sharpton are true or false. But I tend to believe that he has some strong evidence or he wouldn’t have put it in his book.

For Carlos and Luis there was no work in Mexico,
So to America they decided they would go.

They had heard that opportunities abound,
If across the border a way could be found.

Their mother raised an exasperated voice
That her young sons faced such a choice.

The risks they would face were widely known,
But now the seeds of hope were already sown.

They argued that Uncle Miguel had taken the chance,
Now his family gets money for their lifestyle to advance.

So they departed after being bid farewell
Only to enter what became a living hell.

They survived the trip with the thought of how grand
They would find the opportunities in the new land.

They found Uncle Miguel working on a road
And he helped them find a job and a humble abode.

They were happy in the new land for the time they had spent,
But now they were hearing growing voices of dissent.

They heard that learning English was a burden too great to bear,
And their status as ‘illegals’ was believed by most to be unfair.

They heard some Mexicans call for resistance to assimilation,
That Mexicans should take back the land for their own nation.

They asked Uncle Miguel about the things they were hearing
And he told them that a new culture they should not be fearing.

He reminded them of the opportunities in this new place
And the situation in the homeland they could no longer face:

Where is the wisdom in resisting a new way of life
When the one you had was so full of strife?

The culture here fills you with hope and tends to inspire,
While the culture there deprives you of the things you desire.

Go learn the language and it will set you apart from the crowd
Of those who don’t and find advancement won’t be allowed.

Prepare yourselves to become an American now,
Because someday the government might show you how.

Better yet, take what you learn and all those like you pair,
And go back home to lead your country out of despair.

I’ve heard a lot of claims in the last few months about one or another ethnic group having a right to some particular piece of the world. Sometimes it is claimed that they have a legal right to the land. When that doesn’t seem supportable it is claimed that they have a moral right to the land.

Some Arab groups claim that they have a right to the land occupied by Israel, while the Jewish, and other, citizens of Israel believe that they are the rightful owners. Each side states that the history of the land supports their claim.

The Kurds in Iraq claim that part of Turkey belongs to them — or that it belongs to their fellow Kurds in Turkey. In either case they believe that the Kurds of Iraq and the Kurds of Turkey should be united along with the lands on which they reside. Of course the government of Turkey vehemently disputes their claim. And the new government of Iraq doesn’t favor relinqushing its Kurdish territory.

Back in 1990 Saddam Hussein staked a claim on the region known as Kuwait, and set about to reacquire it. A major military offensive by a coalition of more rational governments around the world convinced him that he could get along very well without Kuwait.

Various apologists for the natural actions of the human race claim that the ‘Native Americans’ had their lands stolen from them and that it should all be given back to them. Some of it has been. Congress is now trying to create another nation within a nation for ‘Native Hawaiians’.

More recently some Mexicans have staked a claim to major parts of the United States. And millions of them have come here illegally. Most of them have done so to find work so they can send money home to their families. But some of them, along with their supporters here, are engaged in promoting their claim to our land — using catchy slogans like “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”.

It’s hard not to see the absurdity of such claims. We can’t roll back time. We can’t right wrongs that occurred hundreds of years ago. We can throw Saddam out of Kuwait when he’s only been there a few months, but we can’t give the lands of the United States back to the ‘Native Americans’ and the Mexicans. It would create more problems than it would solve. For instance, how would the ‘Native Americans’ and the Mexicans then resolve their conflicting claims?

Most parts of the world have been occupied and ruled by different ethnic groups and by different empires at various times in the history of the earth. I suppose we can all agree that we don’t have to give Europe back to the Neanderthals. And it seems likely that the Ottoman Empire is not going to assert any claim to the territories of Israel/Palestine. But the Jews and the Arabs are quite clearly willing to defend their claims to the same territory. Does either one, and only one, of them have a convincing legal and/or moral right to the territory? I’m convinced that the answer is no. There is precedent throughout time and the world for conquered or settled lands to be considered the legal property of the conquerors or the settlers. So what can be done?

I suppose it’s at least theoretically possible to move all the Israelis to Wyoming and let the Arabs have ‘Palestine’, but it’s not going to happen. We have to do one of two things: We either have to come up with a solution that the Arabs and the Israelis can forever live with, or we have to let them fight it out to the finish. It is clear to me that the former option is going to take a better crop of leaders than we have today or have had in the past. How many more peace prizes will it take before someone realizes that UN resolutions and cease fires and appeasement are not working?