June 16, 2005
(by Oliver North, HumanEventsOnline.com) - The “Blame America First” crowd is wielding the whip. The target: Camp Delta, the U.S. Military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Spurred by a false story in Newsweek and then Amnesty International’s unsupported charge that it is the “gulag of our times,” Guantanamo and the people it houses have become the left’s latest “cause celeb.” Kofi Annan, Old Europe’s old leaders, Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and most of the so-called mainstream media have now declared that the facility must be closed.
President Bush, apparently smarting under the lash, has said such a move is “under consideration.” If the White House goal is to make the pain go away, the Bush administration ought to think again. Before shutting down the Guantanamo facility and sending its 547 occupants to their home countries or, as some have suggested, a country of their choice, the administration ought to first try telling the American people more about what “Gitmo” is really like and why it’s needed.
First, a truth check. When confronted with the facts, Amnesty International, once respected for holding the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes accountable for human rights abuses, backed away from its accusation. “Clearly, this is not an exact or a literal analogy,” offered William Schulz, head of AI’s U.S. branch. “In size and in duration, there are not similarities between U.S. detention facilities and the gulag. … People are not being starved. They’re not being subjected to forced labor.” He could and should have gone further.
Here’s Amnesty’s “gulag:” Upon arrival at Camp Delta, detainees are issued a blanket, a sheet, two orange jump suits, flip-flops, a foam sleeping pad, two bath towels, a washcloth, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, a prayer rug and a Koran. They are allowed two 15-minute showers per week; they get recreation time and three culturally sensitive meals per day. Schedules are respectful of Islamic traditions, prayer calls are broadcast five times a day, and arrows painted on the floors point to Mecca. Their regular quarters include a flushing toilet, running water and an off-the-floor bed. Detainees who ask for them are provided with soccer balls, playing cards, chessboards and paperback books. All of this courtesy of the American taxpayers the detainees have sworn to kill.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted this week that our military has a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) governing every aspect of detainee treatment, including how Korans are to be handled, observing that he has not seen this brief document reproduced by the major media. Rules for handling the Koran include the requirement to wear “clean gloves,” and instruct that “two hands will be used at all times when handling the Koran in a manner signaling respect and reverence” and to “handle the Koran as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art.”
Add to these regulations stringent rules of engagement, the Geneva Conventions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, hours of sensitivity training and allowing camera crews — like mine with FOX News — to tag along on combat missions, and it’s apparent that ours is the most scrutinized, examined and professional force for justice and peace on earth. According to the Department of Defense, more than 68,000 terror suspects have been in U.S. custody at one point or another, and more than half a million young Americans have served overseas since Sept. 11. Yet, only 371 credible allegations of misconduct have been leveled against U.S. troops, and fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of American service members have been found guilty of abuse or mistreatment.
The second challenge, responding to those like Jacques Chirac, Joe Biden and Fidel Castro who want to “release the detainees,” should be even easier. Gen. Dick Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week: “If you release them or let them go back to their home countries, they would turn around and try to slit our throats, our children’s throats. These are the people who took four airplanes and flew them into three buildings on Sept. 11.”
Though some in the media immediately charged the general with hyperbole, he’s right. Of the 247 detainees who have been released thus far, 25, more than 10 percent, are believed to have returned to the jihad.
One of them, Abdullah Mehsud, spent two years in Guantanamo after being captured fighting with the Taliban. He was released after convincing U.S. interrogators that he was an innocent Afghan tribesman. Last October, after returning to Pakistan, his “country of choice,” he kidnapped two Chinese engineers. He claims that he and his followers will “fight America and its allies until the very end.”
Mullah Shahzada spent two years at a special “seaside house” with fellow teenage detainees. There, he was taught English, played sports and watched videos designed to make him “like us.” After swearing an oath against violence, he was returned to Afghanistan. Just weeks later, he became one of 12 former detainees confirmed killed by coalition forces while fighting with terrorist units.
According to the Pentagon, Guantanamo detainees have provided useful information on locations of training compounds and safe houses, terrain features, travel patterns and routes used for smuggling people and equipment, as well as for identifying potential supporters and opponents. Evidence is also being collected on terrorist plans and operations in the United States and Europe.
As for all of the allegations of abuse: An Al Qaeda training manual captured by British intelligence instructs those who are captured, “at the beginning of the trial …the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison.”
This is an enemy that refuses to observe any conventions, treaties or rules of warfare. They lie, cheat and violate agreements. They slice off heads like raw meat. They murder women and children. They fly airplanes into buildings.
But we’re the bad guys.
Lt. Col. North (Ret.) is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of the FOX News/Regnery book, War Stories: Heroism in the Pacific.
Reprinted here with permission from Human Events. Visit the website at humanevents.com.
June 9, 2005
The following is excerpted from Mr. Chrenkoff’s June 6, 2005 article on OpinionJournal.com:
(BY ARTHUR CHRENKOFF, OpinionJournal.com) - Over the last few weeks, Afghanistan has been in the news again–unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons. The media pack has made a brief reappearance in Afghanistan to report on carefully staged “spontaneous” riots, which briefly erupted around the country, ostensibly in protest over a report in Newsweek (later retracted) about desecration of Koran by the American military personnel at Guantanamo Bay.
Sadly, in the rush of commentary about Afghanistan’s slide into anarchy and America’s deteriorating position in Kabul, most of the international media again missed or downplayed many other stories, some of them arguably far more consequential than an antigovernment rampage whipped up by opponents of President Hamid Karzai.
Below, then, the past five weeks’ worth of stories that were yet again completely overshadowed by terrorism and violence:
A new youth movement aims to put aside past conflict and build a better future for the country:
Hundreds of young men, fed up with the ethnic animosities that have long divided Afghanistan, are traveling the country preaching peace and brotherhood. “Just yesterday our youngsters were trying to kill one another, but today they’re thinking about national unity and they want to live as brothers,” said Haji Sarajuddin, a teacher from Kandahar province.
Sarajuddin recently accompanied about 200 senior high school students from the traditional Pashtun stronghold in the south to Mazar-e-Sharif in the north, in an area where ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks are in the majority.
The two regions came to symbolise the deep divisions that marked the years of strife of the Nineties.
But in April, nearly 300 students in Mazar-e-Sharif warmly embraced their fellow countrymen from Kandahar when they met at a local hotel.
The students, all in their teens or early twenties, were too young to have participated in the years of civil war.
“We know that due to the conflicts, a lot of distance has come between the peoples of Afghanistan,” Mohammad Nazar, 23, told IWPR. “You can’t bring about national unity by just talking, so about 30 of us at schools in Kandahar got together and decided to do something practical.”
From the core group of 30, the unity movement boomed, said Nazar.
The young men say they have no political agenda other than reconciliation. They have taken their message not only to Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, but also to other northern regions such as Parwan, Baghlan, Takhar and Kunduz, to Paktia and Zabul in the south, and to the capital Kabul and the nearby Wardak province.
While a woman’s lot in Afghanistan is still a difficult and often dangerous one, many previously unheard-of opportunities are opening up for the long forgotten majority of the population. An Afghan province, for example, is slowly adjusting itself to the first female governor:
High in the snow-capped Hindu Kush, visitors stream to see the new governor. A huddle of turbaned men carrying plastic sunflowers in a gold vase nod respectfully. The British ambassador flies in from Kabul. By morning’s end, the office is filled with 25 bouquets of fake flowers, and a calf is tethered outside.
Nothing unusual, then, in a culture that prizes deference to authority, except for one thing: The new boss is a woman.Habiba Sarobi is Afghanistan’s first female governor, a major advance in a society where only four years ago, under the Taliban, women were denied everything from school lessons to lipstick.
Afghanistan’s independent media are thriving in a climate freer than anything the country has experienced in its recent history. Afghan TV has just undergone modernization:
The Afghan National Television . . . switched over to a new digital system. The conversion from analogue to a digital system took two years and was finalised with financial assistance of $7.44 million from the government of Japan.
In the unfinished business department:
Afghan health workers battling polio will set off into remote mountains next week hoping to reach about two million children who missed an immunization drive because they were cut off by heavy snow. Afghanistan is on the verge of eradicating polio with only one case reported so far this year compared with 27 in 2000.
An antismallpox vaccination drive is also under development.
The communications network keeps expanding throughout the country, bringing Afghanistan into the 21st century:
Before the fall of the Taliban in November 2001, 27 million Afghan citizens had to make do with approximately 20,000 working telephone lines. Domestic connections were spotty, while only a handful of expensive satellite phones could dial internationally.
Today, through the extraordinary efforts of the Afghan Wireless Communication Company and its parent company, Telephone Systems International (TSI), more than 300,000 citizens subscribe to the Afghan wireless network, with coverage in twenty cities and an additional twenty cities slated for service by the end of the summer.
There are also plenty of small-scale projects to electrify Afghanistan. For example, thanks to the Aga Khan Foundation, villagers in Khenjan district, 30 miles south of the northern Baghlan province, are now getting electricity from two hydroelectric and diesel-electric generators.
And some infrastructure initiatives are the result of local private charity: “An Afghan businessman has donated more than 19 million afghanis (about $400,000) for a water supply project in a village of Guzra district in the western Herat province.”
Coalition troops.
Throughout Afghanistan, coalition forces continue not only to provide security but also assist with the reconstruction of the country and provision of humanitarian aid.
In southern Afghanistan, the troops are building the first road linking Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces:
Creating the first road to directly connect the remote city of Tarin Kowt with the southern city of Kandahar is a monumental task no matter how you look at it.
No one knows that better than the Soldiers of Task Force Sword, the engineers of Combined Joint Task Force-76.
“Everything has to be trucked or flown in,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Scott Walden, Task Sword’s operations sergeant major. “The areas through which this road is being constructed are so remote that many of the items our soldiers need have to be flown in.”
The project is expected to be finished before September.
Near Kabul, the troops from the Indiana National Guard are trying to help the locals rebuild their lives:
Children are one of the Guard’s key focuses. The troops tell News 8 that one in four Afghan children will not live to the age of 10. The need can be overwhelming. . . . One orphanage News 8 visited is home to nearly 700 children. Even more take classes there. One teenager, Kalimullah, said the kids were happy to see American soldiers. “All of children want you here because they bring security, they bring peace, all of the children like [you],” he said.
Members of the Indiana National Guard also bring jobs to the locals. When News 8 was at the orphanage, people were being hired to lay blacktop. The commander emergency relief program provides the money to pay for projects that rebuild Afghanistan. LtCol Paul Grube of New Albany, Indiana is in charge. “The reality is if they can’t feed their families then Taliban will pay someone $20 to fire a rocket. And so we’ve got to put the economy back together and once the economy is together then the quality of life is better and they’re not so willing to go to war,” he said.
The United States is spending $87,000 to fund a new kitchen going up at a teaching hospital. At the moment, all they have is a makeshift stove.
The troops are also winning local support through some less than usual projects:
The American Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the eastern city of Jalalabad . . . completed rebuilding a main mosque costing $29,000.
The spacious Spin Jumaat (White Mosque) in the city center can house thousands of worshippers, said Nangarhar Governor Haji Din Mohammad, who lauded the American PRT’s gesture.
Although foreigners themselves did not offer prayers, he observed, “their rebuilding of the mosque is a good lesson for terrorists, whose propaganda campaign against American presence here knows no end.”
Air Ambulance personnel are regularly flying medical evacuation missions for Afghan civilians. And sometimes, medical help can have important security side effects:
An Afghan boy whose father received treatment from a visiting U.S. military medical team last week turned a cache of ammunition and drugs over to coalition forces April 21.
The boy led Afghan National Army and coalition forces to a house in a village 10 kilometers away from Ghazni. The ANA approached the house’s owner, who claimed he had no weapons inside. Afghan and coalition forces searched the dwelling and discovered a cache of 13 rocket-propelled grenades, a Russian-manufactured machine gun, a mortar round, several improvised-explosive-device components, plastic explosives, numerous rounds of ammunition and two bags of opium.
The war on drugs is progressing across the country:
Last year at this time, the southeastern Afghan province of Nangrahar was covered with pink and white poppies, producing a quarter of the nation’s opium crop. This year, after President Hamid Karzai announced a jihad or holy war against drugs, Nangrahar is almost 80 percent free of poppies.
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Mr. Chrenkoff is an Australian blogger. He writes at chrenkoff.blogspot.com.
For the complete report of good news from Afghanistan, click here.
June 2, 2005
(by Michael C. Carlson, OpinionJournal.com) - “I Want to be remembered for the things I accomplished”.
(Editor’s note: Sgt. Carlson, of St. Paul, Minn., was killed on Jan. 24, 2005, when his Bradley fighting vehicle overturned in Mohammed Sacran, Iraq. He was 22. This is adapted from a “credo paper” he wrote in 12th grade, on May 11, 2000.)
I was born in Wisconsin. We lived in a town called Webster, on a road called Lavern Lane. Since then many things have changed, but many more remain the same. We no longer live in the country, we only go to church once or twice a year, and we no longer struggle to make ends meet. Today we live in the city, but we still have a JunkYard, my dad still works 16 hours a day, everyday. Today I am a man not a seven-year-old child. There are still cars everywhere. We own over 90. About 20 of them still run and 12 of those we store in the city. No we don’t have a parking lot. What we do is borrow our neighbors unused stalls for fixing their cars and doing other little things for them.
I admire my Father more than any other person on this planet, not for being a mechanic, not for being a tough guy. I admire my father for his ambition. For 30 years he has gone to work everyday, for 30 years he has come home, gone to the garage and worked 10 more hours. I don’t know how he does it but I do know why. He does it for us. He wants my brother and me to have everything we need and most of what we want. Lots of people say that the best way to learn is by the example of others. Well, then I have one of the best teachers there is on how to be a man, how to treat others, and the work ethic. I mean he is not perfect by any means but is anyone really perfect! I think that he is pretty close.
Sometimes I wonder if my dad ever thought of college. I wonder if he’s happy. I sometimes even feel sorry for him. What I mean by that is that I look at him and see a guy that has spent his entire life working. That is what he does. He works. If my mom never brought up the idea of a vacation he would never think twice. He would work to the day he died. I love hard work, but how do you go to the same dead end job everyday knowing that you will be doing it forever.
Every now and then someone that had my dad fix their car will stop by and need something, and every time I talk to them they start talking about my dad’s work. They compliment him on paint jobs he did 20 years ago that still look like they are brand new. That reminds me of another trait I have taken from my dad besides my hard work ethic. “If you are going to do a job, do it right the first time, because a job not done well is a job not worth doing,” so the saying goes. I take that personally. If someone has an honest complaint about my workmanship, I will bend over backwards to make it right. If people are going to pay you good money to do something then you had better do a darn good job. That is why I usually work alone, then, if there is a problem I know whom I can blame.
My dad hasn’t taught me everything though, a lot of it I have learned on my own too. I still got a lot to learn still, but I have figured out things like how to deal with people you don’t like or those that don’t like you. I also learned why when cutting a frozen bagel you cut away from yourself, I got the scar to prove it. My dad calls this type of learning “the school of hard knocks.” Some of the knocks are harder than others.
I love sports. I love football, wrestling, weight lifting, skiing and hockey. I love the thrill of competition, the roar of the crowds, the agony on the faces of your opponents as the final seconds tick off the clock. However, I don’t want to do it as a profession. I think it would be fun for a while then it would get boring. I guess the point that I am trying to make is that when I am on my deathbed what am I going to look back on? Will it be 30 years of playing a game that in reality means nothing, or will it be 30 years of fighting crime and protecting the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
I want my life to account for something more than just a game. In life there are no winners, everyone eventually loses their life. I only have so much time; I can’t waste it with a game. I don’t want those close to me to look at me and tell me that I was good at a game. I want to be good at life; I want to be known as the best of the best at my job. I want people to need me, to count on me. I am never late; I am either on time or early. I want to help people. I want to fight for something, be part of something that is greater than myself. I want to be a soldier or something of that caliber, maybe a cop or a secret service agent.
I want to live forever; the only way that one could possibly achieve it in this day and age is to live on in those you have affected. I want to carve out a niche for myself in the history books. I want to be remembered for the things I accomplished. I sometimes dream of being a soldier in a war. In this war I am helping to liberate people from oppression. In the end there is a big parade and a monument built to immortalize us in stone. Other times I envision being a man you see out of the corner of your eye, dressed in black fatigues, entering a building full of terrorists. After everything is completed I slip out the back only to repeat this the next time l am called. I might not be remembered in that scenario, but I will have helped people.
I guess what I want most of all is to be a part of the real world, not an entertainer. I want to have an essential role in the big picture. I want adventure, challenge, danger, and most of all I don’t want to be behind a counter or desk. Maybe when I am a 100 years old I will slow down and relax. Till then, I have better things to do.
Reprinted here with permission from Opinion Journal. Visit the website at opinionjournal.com.
May 26, 2005
(by Marvin Olasky, HumanEventsOnline.com) WEST POINT, N.Y. - Two hundred and seventy-two.
That was the number my birth date drew in a national lottery that meant something, the draft lottery of 1969.
It was sufficiently high that I didn’t have to serve. My Yale roommates had low numbers but found ways to avoid military time. We all went to antiwar rallies and looked down on soldiers.
People often ask how often it takes me to write the weekly columns that I’ve been producing for the past dozen years. With research and writing, typically a day, but it all depends on whether I can approach a subject with an easy conscience or a distressed one.
Here at the U.S. Military Academy, shortly before Memorial Day, plaques like this one are hard to miss: “In memory of those classmates who gave their lives in the service of our country while serving in the Republic of Vietnam.” My conscience is not easy, because (dare I write this?) U.S. casualty reports were good news for my comrades and myself. U.S. deaths in Iraq work the same way for some among the left today.
Here at this majestic site on a cliff above the Hudson, it seems that people should measure up to at least this part of the Cadet Prayer: “Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.” I did not: I chose a wrong not only easier but vile. So did the United States in its post-Watergate twitching, as we suddenly withheld arms from our Southeast Asian allies and were thus complicit in the creation of killing fields.
Here, in sight of statues of Eisenhower, Patton and MacArthur, Cadet Jon Hendershott explained one of his reasons for entering West Point and planning to serve in the Army for at least five years after graduation: “In a lot of occupations, you don’t get a sense that you’re helping. In Iraq, we’re helping people, solving problems, spreading democracy.”
“Helping.” It’s not a word most people would associate with those generals, but they did lead armies that freed Europeans and Asians from fascism. West Point graduates tried to save the people of Indochina from communism, and they have led the way in freeing Iraqis from Saddam Hussein. So it’s true: In a fallen world where terrorists and dictators aim to hurt and enslave innocent people, the United States Army is a helper.
Who are the 4,000 helpers-to-be now bunking in these massive stone buildings? To get here, they need to be much more mature than the typical high school senior. By benches labeled “courage,” “perseverance” and “determination,” Kelsey Tardieu — 15 percent of the students are now women — mentioned that she was valedictorian at her Oregon high school and, along with submitting mountains of paperwork and winning her congressman’s recommendation, had to be interviewed by a panel of 10 retired generals and colonels.
To stay here, they need to be disciplined. Students are expected to know the day’s lesson before class begins. Since classes are small, they can’t hide at the back of a lecture hall. With students and most professors living on campus, even heavy snowfalls don’t create class cancellations. And the honor code stipulates that “a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do.”
The Academy, unlike most U.S. secular universities now, is not hostile to theistic belief, and students report that they aren’t, either. Maybe one reason for religious sensitivity is that many of my 20-year-old Texas students think they have at least 50 years before it’s time to think about death. The realization of students here that they may face it in not more than five concentrates the mind wonderfully.
So this hard-to-write column is in honor of West Point and those who died to protect me not only now when I’m grateful, but also a third of a century ago when I was at my worst. And isn’t that how Christ dies for sinners?
Mr. Olasky is editor in chief of World magazine and a professor at The University of Texas.
Reprinted here with permission from Human Events. Visit the website at humanevents.com and Mr. Olasky’s site at worldmag.com.
May 19, 2005
(by Dennis Prager, Townhall.com) – Newsweek magazine published a scoop last week.
Based on an unnamed source, Newsweek informed the world that American interrogators of suspected Islamic terrorists at Guantanamo Bay had flushed pages of the Koran down a toilet.
If this were true, the interrogators would be both morally wrong and stupid. The words of the Koran and the pages on which they are written are considered intrinsically holy to Muslims.
As it happens, it was not true. Like Dan Rather and CBS News, Newsweek put politics and craving a scoop ahead of truth, not to mention ahead of America’s security.
As I said on my radio show days before Newsweek revealed that its report was baseless, even if the report were true, the magazine was highly irresponsible when it published the report. It could have only one effect: inflaming the wrath of hundreds of millions of Muslims against America.
If an American interrogator of Japanese prisoners desecrated the most sacred Japanese symbols during World War II, it is inconceivable that any American media would have published this information. While American news media were just as interested in scoops in 1944 as they are now, they also had a belief that when America was at war, publishing information injurious to America and especially to its troops was unthinkable.
Such a value is not only not honored by today’s news media, the opposite is more likely the case. The mainstream media oppose the war in Iraq and loathe the Bush administration. Whatever weakens the war effort and embarrasses the president raises a news source’s prestige among its domestic, and especially foreign, peers.
Newsweek is directly responsible for the deaths of innocents and for damaging America. As a typical member of the American news media, Newsweek’s primary loyalties are to profits and to its political/social agenda. We are very fortunate that in America, at least, we now have talk radio and the Internet; the mainstream news media are no longer Americans’ only sources of news. Europe and the rest of the world still rely almost exclusively on news media for their understanding of the world, which is a major reason for their anti-Americanism.
And now a word about the rioters. They have desecrated their religion and their holy text far more than the alleged flushers of Koranic pages.
Did any Buddhists riot and murder when the Taliban Muslims blew up the irreplaceable giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan?
Did any Christians riot and murder when an “artist” produced “Piss Christ” — a crucifix immersed in a jar of the “artist’s” urine? When all Christian services and even the wearing of a cross were banned in Saudi Arabia? When Christians are murdered while at prayer in churches by Muslims in Pakistan?
Have any Jews rioted in all the years since it was revealed that Jordanian Muslims used Jewish tombstones in Old Jerusalem as latrines? Or after Palestinians destroyed Joseph’s Tomb in 2000 and set fire to the rebuilt tomb in 2003?
It is quite remarkable that many Muslims believe that an American interrogator flushing pages of the Koran is worthy of rioting, but all the torture, slaughter, terror and mass murder done by Muslims in the name of the Koran are unworthy of even a peaceful protest.
Nevertheless, one will have to search extensively for any editorials condemning these primitives in the Western press, let alone in the Muslim press. This is because moral expectations of Muslims are lower than those of other religious groups. Behavior that would be held in contempt if engaged in by Christians or Jews is not only not condemned, it is frequently “understood” when done by Muslims.
That, not phony reports about an American desecrating Koranic pages, should really upset Muslims. It won’t. Just as the CBS and Newsweek debacles won’t upset the American news media.
The lowest of the Muslim world and the elite of the Western world: Anti-Americanism makes strange bedfellows.
©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Reprinted here with permission from Dennis Prager and Townhall.com. Visit the websites at DennisPrager.com and Townhall.com.
May 12, 2005
(by Star Parker, May 9, 2005, Townhall.com) – The use of the Senate filibuster to block floor votes on judicial nominees, as Democrats have been doing, is a distortion of good government in the United States. I fully endorse Senate Republican leader Bill Frist’s pushing the “nuclear” button to change Senate rules so this can no longer be done.
Even if you buy the argument that the filibuster is an important procedure to protect minority interests in the Senate, this still should not apply to judicial nominations.
Why?
Because the nominating process is fundamentally different from the legislative process.
The checks and balances and institutional bias toward deliberation in government is critical in our free country. Although, as result, we rarely get legislation that makes anyone completely happy, this is the price of freedom and a participatory democracy. We have a process of give-and-take and compromise.
But nominees up for confirmation cannot be put into the same kind of sausage-making machine that produces legislation. A controversial bill can be debated, amended, tweaked and, yes, filibustered. There always remains the opportunity for another nip and tuck. If the president doesn’t like what ultimately gets sent to him, he can veto it and then Congress still gets another vote on the vetoed bill.
Unlike legislation, we can’t take human beings apart and then put them back together to create a new product that will pass the consensus test. Either you take them as they are or reject them. Nominations, then, that pass out of committee should be submitted for a simple up-or-down floor vote.
Furthermore, legislative initiatives are capricious. We don’t have to have new bills. However, we do have to have the federal bench staffed. The president has an obligation to nominate judges and the Senate has an obligation to vote on the nominees.
It seems pretty clear to me that the point of the process of advice and consent in the Senate, which defines its review of the president’s nominees, is to ensure that we have qualified candidates. It should not be about having senators insert personal political opinions regarding a nominee’s views on particular subject matter.
By definition, because it is the responsibility of the president to nominate judges, and because the people of the nation democratically elect the president, it is only reasonable to expect the judges that get nominated to reflect the worldview of our president.
The American people, last November, elected a Republican president and a Republican Senate. If we don’t believe that the American people know what they are doing when they go to the polls, our way of life is in bad shape. We have to assume that a Republican-dominated federal government reflects a conservatively oriented electorate. It is only logical to expect that judicial nominees will reflect this orientation and we can only conclude that this is the result of a healthy democracy. Procedural games that undermine this process reflect a sick democracy.
The Janice Rogers Brown nomination is a good case in point.
There is no conceivable argument that can be made that she is not an eminently qualified candidate for a seat on a federal court. She is an associate justice on the California Supreme Court and was re-elected to this position by a compelling 76 percent of the vote. Her background before this position is stellar, including stints as a law-school professor, legal-affairs secretary to then-California Gov. Pete Wilson, an associate justice on a California district court of appeals, and a practicing attorney.
On a personal note, Brown is a black woman who is a role model for both blacks as well as whites. Her life is proof that achievement in America is the result of character and hard work. She grew up in rural Alabama, the daughter of sharecroppers. As a single mother, she worked her way through Cal State and UCLA law school.
Don’t the Democrats allege to be the party looking out for the interests of the common folks? How in the world does this claim wash with Democratic opposition to Brown’s nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia?
The answer is that Democrats are not for folks of humble origins making it in America if those folks happen to turn out to be conservatives, as Brown is.
Star Parker is president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education and author of the newly released book ‘Uncle Sam’s Plantation.’
©2005 Star Parker
Reprinted here with permission from Star Parker and Townhall.com. Visit the websites at UrbanCure.org and Townhall.com.
May 5, 2005
(by Thomas Sowell, HumanEventsOnline.com) - Social Security used to be called the third rail of politics but illegal immigration is the real third rail that both political parties are afraid to touch.
Cops who find illegal aliens are under orders not to turn them in to the feds. And the federal government’s own border guards have their hands tied by the higher-ups as well.
Now that Hispanics are the largest minority in the country, and with the country closely divided politically, neither party wants to risk alienating the Hispanic vote by enforcing immigration laws.
Many other Americans may be outraged at the way illegal aliens are handled with kid gloves — and, in some places, even given rights normally reserved for citizens — but so long as this outrage is directed at both parties, neither party wants to be the one to risk losing the Hispanic vote.
America’s weakness in controlling its borders has only promoted contempt for the United States on the part of the Mexican government, which publishes instructions to help people illegally get into this country and offers helpful hints on how to take advantage of American welfare state benefits.
When some Americans living near the border in Arizona organized themselves to watch that border and report on people crossing it illegally, the media immediately demonized them as “vigilantes,” even though these observers used no violence and inflicted no punishment.
When California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he would welcome such observers on California’s borders, there was another media outcry against him.
There is a reason why illegal immigration is the third rail of politics. Not only is there a fear of losing the Hispanic vote, there is a fear of being demonized in the media and therefore losing other votes as well.
Among the intelligentsia, there have long been those who think of themselves as citizens of the world, and who think of national borders as just arbitrary lines drawn on a map. In addition to those with these liberal attitudes, there are some conservatives who think that we need workers from Mexico to do work that Americans will not do.
Virtually every job in the country is work that Americans will not do, if the pay is below a certain level. And the pay will not rise to that level so long as illegal immigrants — “undocumented workers” — are available to work for less.
Even those who write editorials about how we need Mexicans to do work that Americans will not do would not be willing to write editorials for a fraction of what they are being paid. If Mexican editorial writers were coming across the border illegally and taking their jobs, maybe the issue would become clearer.
You cannot discuss jobs without discussing pay, if you are serious. And, if you are really serious, you need to discuss all the welfare state benefits available to Americans who won’t work.
You might also want to consider the attitudes being promoted by the intelligentsia and the activists that people should do only “meaningful work” and not accept “chump change” but should insist on some arbitrarily defined “living wage,” even if that is more than their labor is worth.
When you say that Americans have a “right” to have their “basic needs” met, you are saying that when some people refuse to supply themselves with food and shelter, other Americans should be forced to supply it for them.
If you subsidize workers when they won’t work and subsidize employers by making illegal aliens available to them, then under those particular conditions it may well be true that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that Americans won’t do. But such statements conceal more than they reveal.
Hard-working immigrants may indeed be a godsend, not only to farmers and other employers, but also to families looking for someone to take care of children or an aged or ill member of the family. But Americans worked as farm laborers and as maids before there were “undocumented workers” to turn these chores over to.
If it has been done before, it can be done again. All that prevents it is the welfare state and the attitudes it spawns.
Dr. Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of ”Applied Economics” and “The Housing Boom and Bust.”
Reprinted here with permission from Human Events. Visit the website at HumanEvents.com.
April 28, 2005
NOTE: Nationally syndicated talk show host Rusty Humphries is on assignment in Iraq. He is speaking with troops and reporting live to his U.S. audiences. He offers his observations to the TownHall.com audience.
(by Rusty Humphries, Townhall.com) Dateline: Baghdad, more specifically one of Saddam’s Palaces in Camp Victory - Before I get into what I did and saw in Fallujah, I must tell you about Saddam’s “Palace.” There are many more of these palaces than I thought. They are everywhere. Some are within blocks of each other. I stayed in one of his palaces that have been turned into a hotel for visiting dignitaries. I would think that (if it were real), Disney’s Haunted Mansion may have been a magnificent place a long time ago, that’s how the palace I stayed in was. The guy who had this place built had a lot of money and zero taste. Big ugly gold fixtures are everywhere, nice marble floors, a lot of rooms but the best word to describe it all is tacky! The military has turned this palace and others into make shift hotels. Nothing works but hey, it’s better than the tent I stayed in last night. Note to Disney, once this war is over, you guys could come out here, gut this place and turn it into a great amusement park. The resort is here, there’s a beautiful lake, lots of sand, and sunshine. Fix it up, I’d come back. Now, the Al-Fam Palace where we have put the multi-national HQ — now that’s a palace! Too bad Saddam’s new home is smaller than his palace bathroom.
On with the good stuff, and there is plenty good to report. I took a midnight helicopter ride from Camp Victory to Camp Fallujah and was in Fallujah for 24 hours. That city has a chance, should they decide to take the opportunity. If you’ve ever been to Israel, and seen the Palestinian areas, you’ve seen Fallujah. It’s amazing how similar the areas are. Dirty, dusty, garbage in the streets, graffiti as far as the eye can see. As we drove through the streets in our convoy, the resident came out to give us the thumbs up. Lining the streets as if we were in a parade – men, women, and children, all showing their support for our troops, everywhere! It was so heartwarming and was much more prevalent than I had expected. Yes, there are those who don’t like us, but they aren’t showing their faces. The ones who have seen the promise of a new day are out in the open and plentiful.
I’ve met so many wonderful members of the armed forces. I had dinner with a young man, Maj. Chris Phelps from Shawnee, Kansas. He’s a Civil Affairs Team Commander. This is the kid you dream your daughter brings home. Movie star good looks, smart, funny and with a strong character. His father is a Vietnam veteran who returned to duty and is now in his unit, stationed in Iraq. He outranks his father, (Daddy drop and give me 20!). Major Phelp’s job is to go out and work with the people of Iraq on a daily basis. He sees it all, and tells stories of Iraqis who thank us on a daily basis for the freedoms they are starting to see. He told me, “The Iraqis want the same thing we want in America, security, an opportunity to live, prosper, and have a good job. They want to raise their children to live in an environment that gives them the opportunity to have something better than they had.”
One Iraqi I met is a young man who serves as Maj. Phelps’ interpreter, Musapha. He tells me, “These guys are my heroes. They have changed the lives of so many in my family and in my country. My dreams are becoming real now. Most Iraqis have been living without any faith. Trust me, this is the truth. Saddam not only killed many people, but tried to kill the souls of the rest of us. We are now coming back; Freedom is like air, and water. We need it to survive; the American’s have brought an abundance of it. I want to give thanks to the American people, thanks to everybody. You have given Iraq a chance to live and grow again.”
Reconstruction is evident and everywhere. It is a success story that we should all be proud of.
Next installment — back to Baghdad, then on to a secret country, on a secret base, with weapons that don’t exist.
Rusty Humphries is a nationally syndicated talk show host of Talk Radio Network. He has been ranked by Talkers Magazine as one of the Top 10 most listened to talk-radio hosts in America. He is currently broadcasting from Iraq and reporting his findings via satellite phone to his audiences back home. Listen to the Rusty Humphries shows to hear these and other exclusives insights from Iraq. Also check out his website for pictures and audio blogs.
©2005 Rusty Humphries. Reprinted here with permission from Rusty Humphries and Townhall.com. Visit the websites at talktorusty.com and townhall.com.
April 21, 2005
(by Walter E. Williams, Townhall.com) - Several airport security screeners have sent me polite letters criticizing some of my comments in my last two columns, prompting this question to you: In managing our personal security, should we guard against possible or probable threats? Consider the measures and the resource expenditures I might take to guard Mrs. Williams and me against all possible threats to our security.
Even though I live in Pennsylvania, well outside of tornado alley, I’d construct a tornado shelter because it’s possible for a tornado to strike anywhere. I’d no longer get into my car and drive off without doing a thorough check of my car’s hydraulic brake system for leakage. I’d build an iron-reinforced roof to guard against the possibility of a meteor. I’d also purchase a metal detector to do sweeps of my property, to guard against the possibility someone might have buried a land mine. I’d hire a detective and forensic accountant. Even though Mrs. Williams and I have been married 45 years, it is possible that she might be stashing some of my money into a Swiss bank account.
Were I to take those measures, I’m sure the average person would label me as either paranoid or stupid. Why? It would take resources away from guarding against more probable threats to our security, such as burglary. While my focusing on all possible threats wouldn’t be smart, it would make me a prime candidate to become a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) official. Their vision of airport security is to focus on the possible as well as the probable.
It is indeed possible for an 88-year-old man crippled with debilitating arthritis to be a terrorist. It’s possible that one of our Marines returning from Iraq for stateside reassignment, carrying ID and official reassignment orders, is also a member of al Qaeda ready to take out an airplane. It’s possible for a mother accompanied by her four children, or a 92-year-old woman, to be “mules” paid by terrorists to bring something on board to blow up the plane. It is also possible that a pilot plans to blow his plane up with a shoe bomb. That’s reason for making him take his shoes off. It’s possible that a blind person carrying a cigarette lighter will give it to a terrorist accomplice to light a shoe bomb in flight. There are other possible security threats. Women’s stockings and underwear, as well as men’s ties and belts, can be used as garrotes for strangulation. Soda straws can be used to blow poison darts.
While these are all possible threats, the question is, how probable are they? Resource expenditure on security threats just because they are possible means that those same resources cannot be spent on those far more probable. Moreover, if there were full implementation of the program to permit pilots to be armed, the more probable threats would become less so. In other words, arming pilots and some crew members would lessen a whole class of security threats.
The TSA’s determined opposition to passenger profiling is in itself a threat to airport security. Take their additional screening. They have every incentive to be politically correct. But suppose the TSA had to pay $1,000 to each passenger they selected for additional screening who was found to be no security threat. You can bet they’d develop a screening method that made more sense, and it would include some sort of passenger profiling, including racial profiling. And, by the way, liberals shouldn’t fret, because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in several affirmative action cases that provided there’s a compelling state interest, race can be used in decision making.
It’s my opinion that sensible TSA security measures would allow us to reallocate resources away from policing against possible but improbable threats to policing the far more probable source of threats — one being our border with Mexico.
©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Reprinted here with permission from Walter E. Williams and townhall.com. Dr. Williams is a nationally syndicated columnist, former chairman of the economics department at George Mason University, and author of More Liberty Means Less Government.
April 14, 2005
The following is excerpted from Mr. Chrenkoff’s April 11 article on OpinionJournal.com:
(by Arthur Chrenkoff, OpinionJournal.com) - What a difference two years can make. Commenting on the news that Saddam Hussein’s nemesis, leader of the people Saddam liked to gas, has now been elected President of Iraq, Mohammed Saleh, a 42-year old Kurd interviewed by the media on the streets of Kirkuk, had this to say: “Today Jalal Talabani made it to the seat of power, while Saddam Hussein is sitting in jail. . . . Who would have thought.” ...
But while the momentous political events once again monopolized the headlines for the past two weeks, a lot of other positive developments have been taking place across Iraq, mostly out of the media spotlight. Here are some of these stories:
This Iraqi action aims to do good and bring people together at the same time:
Shiites and Sunnis sat side byside as blood filled bags through plastic tubes, hoping their donation will help whoever needs it. Dozens of Iraqis, from all walks of life with different sectarian and ethnic backgrounds, lined up Sunday outside a blood donation station set at the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party which initiated the blood donation campaign.
“The goal of such a blood drive is to achieve the unity of the Iraqi people, under humanitarian actions,” [said] doctor Alaa Maki, also a member of the party. . . . “The donated blood will be distributed to all Iraqis no matter who they are and we also call for other Iraqi parties and humanitarian institutions to do the same to save the lives of Iraqi patients and wounded people while living together in peace,” said Maki while busy helping the donors.
The Iraqi National Center for Blood Donation is facing an acute shortage of blood since the tide of violence in the already war-ravaged country sees no sign of easing away. The Iraqi hospitals are also in need of medicine and medical appliances. The blood donation campaign, designated to help address the problem, is expected to last for several days. “Nothing can better fraternize the divided Iraqis than blood,” [said] doctor Abdul Wadod Khaled.
Bryon Johnson from Camp Speicher near Tikrit reports: “These folks, they’re incredible. …They’re doing some really cool stuff here. Just in this area alone, I counted 93 schools that they’re working on. They have 22 electrical plants or power stations. Seventeen railroads. Nine health clinics. Eight fire stations. Four court houses. That’s just what I know about.”
Task Force Baghdad is meanwhile working together with local contractors on a variety of projects. Local roads are being widened not only to improve traffic, but also make it more difficult for the insurgents to plant roadside bombs; in other areas a water station is being renovated and water pipes laid in order to provide water to several neighborhoods.
The troops are also assisting with the development of the education infrastructure:
Millions of dollars in Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Funds are being spent to repair and reconstruct schools throughout Iraq. The majority of the reconstruction work is being done by local Iraqi companies.
“The future of any country lies with its children,” said Linda Carter, construction representative for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Kirkuk area office. “Schools are instrumental in the proper development of our children. It’s difficult to learn in buildings that are overcrowded and in disrepair.”
Currently, over $2 million is being spent on 38 school renovations in the province of Kirkuk. There is an additional $1.4 million available that is expected to be used on eight more schools. That contract is currently out for bid. So far, three schools have been completed, and an additional eight are scheduled for completion this month.
The schools being reconstructed were selected from a priority list provided by the province’s Director General of Education. The DG provided a list of 80 schools in need of renovation and repair. The plan is to do as many schools as possible with the available $3.4 million.
Support for Iraqi health services also continues:
The four Humvees rumbled down the street and turned into an empty lot. The soldiers dismounted, scrutinized the dirt and rocks for hidden bombs, and scanned windows and rooftops for hidden gunmen.
Then, one Humvee pulled up to a driveway and backed up to a building where some men and boys were waiting. The building was a clinic, and inside the Humvee were boxes of medical supplies.
“They go through 100 syringes a day,” said Dr. (Capt.) Mike Tarpey of the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment.
Supporting health care is a priority for the 42nd Infantry Division, which began its one-year deployment to Iraq in February. While U.S. troops provide most of the muscle and means, they also try to bring local Iraqis into the mix. The men at the clinic were local officials and clinic workers, who it is hoped will get some credit for the delivery.
Here’s a similar action:
As the convoy pulled into the Janain neighborhood, people started to come out of their houses. The speakers on top of the psychological operation’s Humvee announced the Soldiers’ arrival. The message was simple–the Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, were there to provide medical assistance to the residents. The medics set up a makeshift aid station to treat the residents as an area was cordoned off with concertina wire March 9.
The Army Corps of Engineers is managing the renovation and rebuilding of hospitals in the south of the country. As one of its recent projects, under a $10 million contract a 260-bed maternity and pediatrics hospital in Tallil will be thoroughly renovated. “Every portion of the 260-bed hospital will be touched,” says Bob Hanacek, a resident engineer. “The contract also includes new operating suites, tons of new medical equipment, and many donated medical supplies. We are re-equipping the entire facility.”
There is also time for private humanitarian initiatives, such as this fine effort to help those with missing limbs:
One day last year, while driving a Humvee along the dusty roads of Baghdad’s Green Zone, Capt. Steve Lindsley spotted two young Iraqi men, both amputees and tottering on makeshift crutches. And so, Lindsley found the first two patients for Operation Restoration, his makeshift prosthetics clinic for Iraqi civilians funded in part by Plymouth, Minn.-based Otto Bock HealthCare.
Ali, 14, had lost his right leg above the knee in a hit-and-run traffic accident seven years earlier. And Taleb, 20, was a child when his leg was amputated below the knee, because of complications from a cancerous tumor. Neither had ever received proper prosthetic care.
Lindsley, of Monroe, La., was deployed to Iraq as a logistics officer with the Mississippi Army National Guard’s 112th Military Police Battalion. But his civilian job as clinical manager at the prosthetics and orthotics clinic at Mississippi Methodist Rehabilitation Center was never far from his mind.
“While in the Green Zone, I started seeing Iraqis walking around; some of them didn’t have limbs. That was where I decided that I needed to try to help,” he said.
So Lindsley and his friend, Sgt. Chris Cummings, set up a free clinic in the huge basement kitchen of one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. “The palace has been bombed and wasn’t in very good condition, the lighting was poor, the electrical substandard,” Lindsley recalled. “We made do.”
The helping doesn’t stop when the troops go home:
When Joseph Yorski was serving a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq, he noticed Iraqi police had little protection compared to his peers in the New Britain [Conn.] Police Department. Upon his return, the officer decided to help fellow law enforcement officials by spearheading a movement to outfit Iraqi police with old, surplus equipment instead of following regular procedure, which calls to destroy it.
Yorski, a member of the 143rd Military Police Company and an 11-year veteran of the Police Department, oversees property. He said he took matters into his own hands when asked by acting Chief William Gagliardi to destroy surplus police equipment, which ranges from riot gear to reflective vests.
Teaming up with America Supporting Americans–a nonprofit organization that encourages law enforcement agencies and individuals to donate used police equipment–Yorski collected an extensive amount of gear that will be shipped to Baghdad.
As the Iraqi Minister for human rights, Bakhtiar Amin, said about the proceedings of the National Assembly: “There will be a place in jail for Saddam and the 11 to watch the TV to understand their time is finished, there is a new Iraq and that they are no longer ruling the country; so they can understand that in the new Iraq, people are elected and they are not coming to power by a coup d’état.”
The reaction? “Saddam Hussein watched the televised election of Iraq’s new president from his jail cell yesterday and was ‘clearly upset,’ a senior official said.”
Wasn’t it all worth it for that alone?
Mr. Chrenkoff is an Australian blogger. He writes at chrenkoff.blogspot.com
Go to OpinionJournal.com for the complete article.
