Vox Popoli

Michael Ledeen barks up a storm on NRO:

The clear strategic conclusion remains what it should have been long before Coalition troops entered Saddam’s evil domain: No matter how strongly we wish it to be otherwise, we are engaged in a regional war, of which Iraq is but a single battlefield. The war cannot be won in Iraq alone, because the enemy is based throughout the region and his bases and headquarters are located beyond our current reach. His power is directly proportional to our unwillingness to see the true nature of the war, and our decision to limit the scope of our campaign.

The true nature of the war exposes yet another current myth: that we are at greater risk because we failed to send sufficient troops into Iraq. More troops would simply mean more targets for the terrorists, since we are not prepared — nor should we be — to establish a full-scale military occupation and to “seal off” the borders with Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Hell, we can’t even seal off the Mexican border with the United States, an area we know well. How can we expect to build a wall around Iraq?

No, we can only win in Iraq if we fully engage in the terror war, which means using our most lethal weapon — freedom — against the terror masters, all of them. The peoples of Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are restive, they look to us for political support. Why have we not endorsed the call for political referenda in Syria and Iran? Why are we so (rightly and honorably) supportive of free elections in the Ukraine, while remaining silent about — or, in the disgraceful case of outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell, openly hostile to — free elections in Iran and Syria? Why are we not advancing both our values and our interests in the war against the terror masters?

Hmmmm… now Ledeen is saying what people like me were saying from the start… Iraq is just a sideshow. But the neocon cabal wasn’t interested in taking on the entire Middle East back when it was a matter for a debate, (although to be fair, Ledeen has always had his crosshairs set on Iran), instead the uncomfortable fact that Saudi Arabia and Iran were far more involved in terrorism than Iraq was swept under the rug in favor of focusing on the more “doable”.

What’s particularly strange about this is the idea that since we don’t have enough troops to secure Iraq against its neighbors, we should attack four more countries. Now, this would have been viable if we stuck to my favored strategy – go in, break things, get out – but it is not feasible given the nation-building mandate that is the administration’s only justification for the present Iraqi Occupation.

For the neocons, it seems that even the realization of the danger inherent to getting what you asked for isn’t enough to prevent them from asking for more. Are Americans really up for occupying Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria as well as Iraq? I don’t think so. And if Ledeen tries to insist that he’s not actually advocating attacking and occupying these countries, then one must ask why American troops are still in Iraq if free elections can be created by the simple fact of the US requesting them.

From Escape Artist magazine

The US media is now admitting that more people are currently leaving the United States of America than at any time in US history. Those familiar with this website can probably surmise that I am not very much surprised by this admission – – I did however have an experience the day before yesterday that very much surprised me.

I was sitting at a sidewalk cafe here in Buenos Aires enjoying a lunch with some friends when a young lady walked up to the table and said, ‘You’re Roger Gallo, aren’t you?’

I confessed that I was and asked how she knew. She replied that she recognized me from my photograph on the website, and that EscapeArtist.com is the ‘in’ website on campus at Chapel Hill. She explained that she was from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and she was in Argentina to buy an organic farm.

I was dumbfounded. Chapel Hill, a college with high academic standards, has been involved in the process of preparing its students for law, medicine and communications since 1795. It was the first public university in the United States to open its doors and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century. Why would some of America’s best and brightest students from one of America’s oldest and most respected universities be looking at a website that focused on international relocation? …and then it came to me.

The students were trying to figure out how to move overseas after their graduation.

I noticed this beginning to happen in the software industry about ten years ago. You’d be surprised at how many successful American entrepeneurs live in the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and other economically freer locations. The Internet is destroying the ability of national tax authorities to prey on those stuck living where they work, which is one reason why there is such a determined focus on creating supernational entities with supernational powers.

There is a natural tendency to say “good riddance” to such people, but the flight of the best and brightest, even if one considers them to be disloyal rats, is not a healthy sign for a nation.

Zink, (President, VQPF), wonders when it will be over:

Will America just pull up stakes and leave the Iraqis to sort their mess out?

Yes, I believe that once Iran tests its nuclear weapon, we will have to pull out. If the neocons had been successful in winning deep and wide support for the Iraqi Occupation, then we would have widened the war into Iran already. Once Iran has nukes, that option is lost as the North Korean example shows that we will not risk conflict with a nuclear power.

The fact that Kristol and his world democratic revolution crowd are attempting to throw Rumsfeld under the train suggests that they are growing increasingly desperate and fearful that the president will declare mission accomplished after the Iraqi elections – as it is and he should – and pull most of our troops out leaving nothing but a face-saving rear guard behind.

But if our purpose is to instill democracy, then the elections will indicate that our job is done. If the Iraqi people will not fight to keep their “freedom”, then they should not keep it. Certainly, we have not fought to keep the many freedoms we have lost. As for the would-be love children of Leon Trotsky and Woodrow Wilson, dismiss Pat Buchanan’s criticisms at your own risk. His analysis of the death of Europe is the most cogent out there and it is possible that as with his assertion of the culture war in 1988, what looks like insanity is more often than not early recognition. I often don’t agree with him, but I am always careful to have another look at my own thinking when I find it directly in conflict with his.

From Debka:

Blair bowed head and paused before Arafat’s grave when he arrived in Ramallah for talks with Palestinian candidate Abbas. This was compromise after he refused to lay wreath at tomb.

One has to give Blair a little credit for refusing to kowtow to the late murderer’s memory. But how great would it have been if Blair had shown Arafat the only form of commemoration his history commands… zzzip

Ah well, a man can dream….

For the first time, a major U.S. contractor has dropped out of the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Iraq, raising new worries about the country’s growing violence and its effect on reconstruction.Contrack International Inc., the leader of a partnership that won one of 12 major reconstruction contracts awarded this year, cited skyrocketing security costs in reaching a decision with the U.S. government last month to terminate work in Iraq.

You don’t hear a lot of comparisons to Germany and Japan anymore, do you. With the neocons starting to scramble around to make sure that Rumsfeld takes the blame for the situation in Iraq, big contractors pulling out and the level of violence failing to abate, I find it difficult to believe that Americans are going to maintain even the lukewarm level of support for the Iraqi adventure that they have hitherto expressed.

Burt Prelusky tells it like it is:

One of the very few points for which I was specifically taken to task was for referring to America as a Christian nation. To those people, I pointed out that Christians of one denomination or another compose 94 percent of America’s population. That is 14 percent higher than the percentage of Jews in Israel, but I am willing to wager that none of my critics would deny that Israel is a Jewish state.

The sad fact is that the American Civil Liberties Union is made up in large part of Jews, and it is that organization and its lawyers who are leading the assault against Christmas. What makes it particularly unfortunate is that most Jews are not only opposed to the policies of the ACLU, but are embarrassed and ashamed of the organization.

As one of my respondents put it: “An anti-Semite used to be someone who hated Jews, but it’s become someone whom Jews hate.

It’s true, the current definition of anti-Semite no longer means Jew hater, but rather someone who is opposed to a political position supported by an American Jew. If you oppose the Wilsonian nation-building demanded by the neocons, you’re an anti-Semite. If you question the billions of dollars sent to Israel, you’re an anti-Semite. If you point out that the least important of the seven major Jewish holidays is in no way the equivalent of Christmas, you’re an anti-Semite.

Are the Jews so popular that they need to invent enemies?

The point about Israel being a Jewish nation, (or India being a Hindu nation, or Turkey being a Muslim nation) is particularly salient. Either the United States is a Christian nation or there is no such thing as a nation modified by a religious adjective except the Vatican and those countries where sharia reigns supreme.

Zink can’t find the plot:

How can you say the socialists/homosexuals/secularlists are winning in America when Bush and the GOP have just had HUGE victories?

Because the president and the GOP leadership are neosocialists who believe in big government – albeit only for the right purposes (rolling eyes) – who are generally more comfortable with secularists despite their toothless religious proclamations and are more concerned with appeasing ACT-UP than advancing any conservative Christian agenda.

I find it strange to have to repeatedly remind adults of this, but it is not exactly uncommon for people, especially politicians, to say things they do not mean. George Bush actually speaks more truthfully than most, which is why his conservative supporters are often explaining to people like me that he DOESN’T mean what he says.

The victories that Bush and company have had are electoral. The victories the socialists and secularists have had are substantive. The first can lead to the latter but the two should not be confused and the relationship is not necessarily causal.

AJ cracks me up:

I completely agree with you that children are not meant to be missionaries. Does God sometimes speak through the mouth of a babe? Yes, but he has also spoken through the mouth of a donkey and no one has suggested using donkeys for missionaries. To go with your meat-grinder analogy – I could play Russian roullette with my child…but why would I want to?!?

If you publish future columns regarding home schooling I would love to see some personal testimonies used. My husband always discounts statistics as being easily manipulated, but perhaps he’d put a little more stock in actual experience.

If anyone has short vignettes of their own personal experiences in the public schools and doesn’t mind them potentially seeing print sometime in the future, put them here in the comments. Keep them short and within one comment. Alternatively, I’m interested in hearing from kids who are either presently being homeschooled or were prior to finishing school.

Here’s mine: In sixth grade, I rode the bus to public middle school. One day, Geraldine, the blonde class beauty of the ninth grade, was sitting two rows behind me trying to explain to my friend Joey’s older brother that she did not wish to have sex with his best friend, as he had requested, but only wanted to have sex with him. (At the time I thought he was being uncommonly generous, but in retrospect, I suspect he was simply trying to dump her off on his friend so he could pursue another girl.)

Her exact words were: “I don’t want to fuck with him, I only want to fuck with you.” And I have to say, this socialization was not only eye-opening, but very helpful in learning how to become a respectably successful predator in time.

John Derbyshire relates a personal experience:

Interesting new angle on this at the weekend. Boris was taking me for my daily walkies when, coming towards me, I saw three persons. Two of them were “nodding neighbors” — I mean, we smile and greet each other, know each other’s names, but have no other intercourse. The husband is a college professor, the wife I don’t know. They are very “blue” and their car bumper still sported a Kerry sticker last time I looked. The third member of their party was a guy I do not know, but whose turn-out fairly screamed “ACADEMIC!” Beard, long hair, open plaid shirt, fuzzy sweater, jeans pitched at just the right level of college-teacher scruffiness, sneakers ditto.

Well, as they came up to me the husband & wife both smiled & said “Hello!” I chirped back: “Hello! Merry Christmas!”

Stony silence. Smiles vanished.

All I have to say is this: make the Holly Haters work. You hate Christmas, then you get to work that day. And Christmas Eve. And the day after Christmas… assuming they’re all weekdays, of course. You don’t have to be a Christian to celebrate Christmas, but how can anyone expect time off for something they’re not only not celebrating, but downright oppose?

“Happy Holidays” is not a polite and inclusive gesture, it’s simply the latest PC fascism brought to you by the thought police.

Diane West quotes Eric Hoffer:

“It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around … As a matter of fact, a dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.”

This is what is happening and why the otherwise minor aspect of “Happy Holidays” versus “Merry Christmas” is significant as a visible symptom of the cancer devouring the remnants of America’s moral foundation. There is a term for when a minority has the power to impose its will on the majority, it is “oligarchal dictatorship”.

Only a fool could deny that something strange is going on when Christian demonstrators who are doing nothing more than exercising their right to free speech in a public place are being arrested and threatened with potential jail terms of 47 years while radical homosexual activists regularly trespass and destroy private property without being charged with anything. Now that Christianity – NOT religion – has been eradicated from the government schools, government property is the current zone of conflict. The next step, it is clear, will be private actions in public.

Those who are skeptical and cite the large majority of Christians in America need only look to Europe, where two generations ago, there were once large Christian majorities as well. This is no longer the case and now their populations are dying… one need only look at the birth rate of Christian women in America versus non-Christian women in America to see where this is going.

Of course, secularists can console themselves with the reminder that they can always import large numbers of Muslims from the third world, that seems to be working really well in Denmark, France, Holland and the United Kingdom.