A Congress of Captain Queegs

In 1951 Herman Wouk wrote a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel entitled ''The Caine Mutiny,'' starring the fictional Captain Phillip Francis Queeg. The 1954 film starring Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg received seven Oscar nominations. If you haven't read the book, or seen the movie in the last few years, it's worth a trip to the bookstore or the movie store to refresh your memory.

In ''The Caine Mutiny,'' Captain Queeg is a Navy captain of the U.S.S. Caine DMS-18, a fictional destroyer mine sweeper, in the Pacific war against Japan in World War II. Captain Queeg is, unfortunately, a captain unclear on the concept. He is far more concerned about his own safety, and the safety of his ship, and about who ate his strawberries, than he is about fighting and winning a war. When ordered to escort a Marine landing craft in an island invasion, he withdraws before coming within range of enemy fire, leaving the Marines unescorted, and, of course, without bringing his own guns within range of the enemy, thus defeating the purpose of having guns, or a warship, or a Navy, at all.

Captain Queeg kept two steel balls in his pocket, and when having an anxiety attack, nervous, and indecisive, which was much of the time, would take them out and roll them around in his hand, an image which evokes a certain symbolism that was apparently lost on most reviewers, but probably not on Herman Wouk.

Today, Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006, Michael Youssef, Ph.D., in an article at World Net Daily entitled ''The Beginning of the End of Western Civilization,'' writes: ''Western Civilization--life as we know it--is under attack, and indeed has even reached a very dangerous point. Some may even think it is a point of no return . . . Throughout their history, the followers of Islam have attempted to practice the very core of their religious worldview--namely, to see to it that their religion, which they view as superior to all other religions, overwhelms the followers of all other religions . . . In days gone by when they had no political or military (terrorist) voice, they were biding their time. But now, as confirmed daily in our newscasts, we know that they command numerous foot soldiers and cells in Europe and North America. Surely, they feel their day has come. The day of successfully intimidating and gaining more concessions, and thus more ground toward realizing their 1,400 year old dream of world domination, is within their reach.''

''O Believers! make not friends of your fathers or your brethren if they love unbelief above faith: and whoso of you shall make them his friends, will be wrong-doers . . . Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures (Koran) have been given as believe not in God (Allah), or in the last day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostles have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the truth (Islam), until they pay tribute out of hand, or they be humbled . . . The Jews say, 'Ezra is a son

of God'; and the Christians say, 'The Messiah is a son of God.' Such the sayings of their mouths! They resemble the sayings of the Infidels of old! How are they misguided! . . . He it is who has sent His Apostle with the Guidance and a religion of the truth, that He may make it (Islam) victorious over every other religion . . .''

In the last week, Iran has announced it will soon have 100,000 centrifuges, a cascade more than large enough to enrich weapons-grade uranium for nuclear bombs, and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared, publicly and often, that Israel and America will be destroyed. In Lebanon, the anti-Syrian cabinet minister, Pierre Gemayel, was assassinated, the fifth anti-Syrian Lebanese politician to be assassinated, and pro-Syrian Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, vows to lead ''peaceful demonstrations'' to overthrow the independent Lebanese government and restore the rule of Syria, or Hezbollah, in Lebanon, forming an Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Hezbollah axis along the border of much of northern Israel, with Hamas in Gaza, putting the pincers in place.

In the new book, ''America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It,'' Canadian author Mark Steyn keenly documents the demographic change that will, with near certainty, result in the emergence of an Islamic Europe, England, France, Germany, and Spain. The ''old Europeans'' are not reproducing fast enough, their populations are aging, and shrinking, and emigrating, while the Muslim immigrant population is growing across much of Europe, and within a few decades will become a plurality or a majority in several Western European countries, countries that are, for now, members of NATO, countries that have nuclear weapons.

In Mexico this year, the Marxist candidate of the PRD, the party of the Democratic Revolution, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, lost the presidential election by 0.5% - one half of one percent of the vote, and has now declared himself ''President of Mexico,'' president of his own shadow government, and has pledged to lead demonstrations for the next six years to keep President-elect Calderon from governing effectively. If in the next election, six years from now, Mexico elects Obrador, who greatly admires Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, then Mexico may quickly become a revolutionary, Marxist, anti-American state aligned with Venezuela and Iran. Last April, in a column titled ''Mexico's Hugo Chavez,'' Dick Morris pointed out that because Mexico and Venezuela supply about 1/3 of America's oil imports, they, acting in concert, ''could be the final piece in their grand plan to bring the United States to its knees before the newly resurgent Latin left.''

And a revolutionary Marxist Mexico aligned with Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, could give the Iranian Jihad the chance to position small nuclear weapons on the tips of medium-range cruise missiles mounted on mobile launching platforms (trucks) throughout northern Mexico within range of America's cities near its 2,000 mile border with Mexico: San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Phoenix, Tucson, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Austin, Dallas, Ft. Worth. And if Mexico then cuts its oil shipments, and announces it has nuclear weapons in position ready to launch, and demands repatriation of Aztlan, the American southwest, to Mexican sovereignty, what will we do? How will the president, whoever he or she, is then, respond?

In the San Francisco Chronicle of Sunday, November 19, page A17, Michael Mainville (Chronicle Foreign Service) in ''Russia Has a Muslim Dilemma'' reports that while Russia has had a Muslim population for centuries, it is growing, and growing restive. Moscow alone has 2.5 million Muslims, the largest Muslim population of any European city. While the ethnic Russian population is declining by some 700,000 per year, the Muslim population is growing, and if the current trend continues Russia will be more than 50% Muslim by mid-century, '' . . . a religious transformation that will be of even greater consequence for the international community than the collapse of the Soviet Union,'' said Paul Goble, an expert on Islam in Russia at the University of Tartu in Estonia. Russia's 25 million Muslims already made up a fifth of the population and a majority of its conscript army. ''If nothing changes, in 30 years people of Muslim descent will definitely outnumber ethnic Russians,'' Goble said. And if the Russian Muslims are, by then, radicalized by the spread of Jihadism, then Russia too will become a Jihadic state with nuclear weapons.

In Baghdad, Iraqi comedian Walid Hassan hosted a hugely popular radio talk show poking fun at poor security, long gas lines, electricity blackouts, ineffective policemen, and everything else in sight, and on Monday, November 20, he was assassinated, a Shiite, found in a Sunni neighborhood with multiple bullet to his back and his head. The Jihad will not be joked about.

For those with ears to hear and eyes to see, it is plain that Europe is being invaded and overtaken by Islamization, and Israel and America are being slowly encircled by Islamization, and the momentum behind the Islamization of the world, now, today, is Jihadism, the ideology that openly declares its ambition to conquer all other religions, cultures, civilizations, and replace them all with Islamic Jihadism. Anyone who doubts this should watch the movies ''Obsession'' (www.ObssessionTheMovie.com) and ''The Blood of My Brother,'' available at Blockbuster, a newly released independent documentary filmed in Baghdad, mostly in Arabic with subtitles.

The new Democratic majority in Congress will take office in just over a month, and they are more worried about anyone eating their strawberries (the political power that comes from a successful election) than they are about defending the ship, or taking the fight to an enemy that plots to destroy the intellectual, religious, and political freedom of the world to be anything but Muslim. They promise to be a Congress of Captain Queegs, rolling their steel balls about in their hands while running away from the fight, while the ship of state flounders in the typhoon.

In USA Today, November 21, 2006, on page 11A. Richard Wolf writes that ''Dems Return to Power With a Long Wish List.'' And what are their wishes? He cites six:

Security: Democrats want to withdraw like a turtle from Iraq into the shell of Fortress America, doubling the size of Special Forces (but, apparently, not using them, except perhaps in Darfur), securing our borders and ports, and screening containers. I.e., the Democrats' strategic vision is to retreat from the fight with Jihadism in Iraq, ten thousand miles away, and then cower like Captain Queeg behind our last line of defense, our own border, while Jihadism, like Nazism and Communism before, expands across the world to surround America with impunity, and without opposition.

Jobs: To raise the minimum wage, and eliminate tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas. It does not matter to Democrats, it seems, that the globalization of trade is critical to American national security, for by expanding trade with and stimulating the economic growth of India, China, Mexico, and other countries, we give them a bigger stake in the game, more to lose if America falters, or falls, and thereby make them allies in the war on Jihad, a strategic consideration apparently quite beyond the ken of the Nancy Pelosi crowd.

Education: Democrats plan to cut interest rates on student loans and make college tuition tax deduction--ideas with which I agree--but which are mere Band-Aids on a life-threatening wound. So far, they apparently have no plans at all to address the content of education in America's high schools and colleges that is far too often openly anti-American, and which must be reformed to teach a civic philosophy of American exceptionalism if America is survive the next half century as a light of freedom, civility, and prosperity to the world. America cannot degenerate into a Balkanized continent of un-integrated, unassimilated cultural tribes--White, Black, East Asian, Indian, Muslim, Latino, all competing for parochial advantage. And American cannot also sustain its prosperity, identity, security, and freedom, in the face of encroaching Jihadism. American citizens and residents must be Americans first, and whatever else they are second. And if this principal is not taught in America's schools and embedded in the character of Americans, the nation cannot survive this century, not as the America it is and has been.

Energy: Nancy Pelosi has declared her goal to make America ''energy independent in five years,'' although she is conspicuously vague about the details. We shall see. I think it's a wonderful idea, if technologically improbable (Congress has been debating whether or not to drill for oil in ANWR much longer than that already, and it may take ten years to develop the ANWR oil field when, or if, it is ever approved). As far as I can recall, not one single Democrat has offered a single piece of major legislation to develop an energy-independent America at any time since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, not once in the last fourteen years. And as far as I can recall, only the Democrats have opposed President Bush's energy bills, precisely because they would open ANWR to drilling, which is a necessary and critical step in achieving energy independence. Indeed, energy independence, at least from all outside sources except Canada, and perhaps Mexico, is a necessary and critical step in the War on Jihad--to cut off the hundreds of billions of dollars a year paid to OPEC countries that are hostile to America for oil that sustains their economies and their ability to support and project Islamic Jihad throughout the world. But energy independence will require that America embrace all sources of energy within its borders and territorial waters, and this its Democrats are not willing to do. Not yet.

Health Care: America already delivers more health care to more people than any other country on earth. If America succumbs to the predations of Islamic Jihad, it will get much worse, not better.

Retirement: Having blocked President Bush's plan to re-organize Social Security by introducing private investment accounts (like putting part of your Social Security taxes in a personal 401k), Democrats now propose to ''expand personal savings and investment incentives'' (whatever that means) while blocking private investment accounts in Social Security--the message, intended or not, is that private investment accounts are good for rich people, but not for poor people who are only allowed to have Social Security. But if the American economy is defeated and deflated by the Jihad, the prosperity necessary to sustain both private investment accounts and Social Security benefits can vanish overnight.

Now, I am looking at a picture in the November 16 issue of San Francisco Chronicle, page A16, of Senator Hillary Clinton, with no military experience, looking irritated, peeved, tired, bitter, as General John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee that a premature withdrawal from Iraq would be disastrous. It is not what she wanted to hear. America's Democrats, most of them, and perhaps some Republicans too, do not want to hear or know the truth about the War in Iraq, the first major battle embedded in the much larger and longer War on Jihad, or the second, after Afghanistan, the long war which has only just begun.

There are only two options for America in the War in Iraq, as in the War on Jihad: victory or defeat. Anything less than the defeat and destruction of Islamic Jihad as a globalized religious-political-military-terrorist ideological force that intends to replace Judeo-Christian Civilization, Euro--Anglo-American Western Civilization, with a global empire of Islamic Jihadism--is defeat for America. If America cannot muster its strength and vision and clarity of purpose, and that of its allies, to defeat Jihadism, then the American vision of a nation dedicated to the freedom of its citizens, intellectual freedom, religious freedom, political freedom, economic freedom, a country ''of the people, by the people, and for the people,'' will come to an end, with either a bang or a whimper.

If you wish to know what an America defeated by Jihadism will be like, in a hundred years, or fifty, look to the countries of the Middle East today. That is the culture that Islam made.

If you want to know what ''victory'' means, it means a world in which intellectual freedom, religious freedom, political freedom, free speech, freedom of the press, and economic freedom and prosperity, are no longer threatened by Islamic Jihad. And that victory will take however long it takes, and whatever commitment of purpose, treasure, and blood, it takes. And we cannot know how long it will take, or how much it will cost, until it is won.

I have an article here by General Wesley Clark, USA (Ret.), in USA Today, November 21, page 23A, ''Next Move in Iraq,'' in which General Clark, tragically, displays his own failure to grasp the truth of Jihad. ''Instead of cutting and running, or staying the course,'' he writes, ''it is time for us to begin to redeploy. But how can we do this and improve our prospects for success?''

''Here's how to do this . . . Establish an effective sustained, shuttle diplomacy within the region . . .''

He continues: ''U.S. interests include dissuading Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons and its hegemonic aspirations, providing security assurances for the rapidly developing Arab Gulf states, and working with our friends in the Middle East to assure access to oil resources and regional stability.'' His recipe for all this? ''A permanent Gulf regional security dialogue could emerge that includes Syria and Iran, and the United States could undertake a role as regional security guarantor . . . In terms of diplomacy, our team would engage each state and party, solicit its views and challenge it to participate in moving forward . . . Carrots and sticks could be employed. For instance, the factions could vow certain actions in return for U.S. assistance or troop deployments, or redeployments, and possible assistance from neighboring states.''

The enemy wants a fight, the enemy wants our blood, your blood, the enemy wants a victory and our defeat, and you want to sit down and talk about it.

General Clark's ideas could work--IF--and this is the big IF, of course, if all the parties were more or less equally interested in peace. What he describes is a sort of high-level mediation. But General Clark does not appear to understand that mediation only works if all the parties have similar goals, if everybody involved wants peace. If one party (America) wants peace, but another (Iran, Jihad) wants war, and the destruction of Israel and America, there are no common goals, and no diplomacy can bridge that chasm, except the diplomacy that comes from the barrel of guns. Reduced to simplest terms, if one guy in the bar wants to relax, and the other guy wants a fight, you have a fight, and the guy who wants peace either fights back or gets whacked. Nations behave just the same.

America, and Jihadism, have irreconcilable differences. And talking about it won't change them.

America wants a world of freedom and peace. Jihadism wants a world of Islamic domination and war. If Jihadism wants war, and America wants peace, America has two options, like the guy in the bar. America can fight back, or get whacked.

General Clark, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and most of the Democrats who are about to take over Congress in January seem to have wilfully failed and refused to face this unpleasant reality. They want a neat, quick, simple resolution to this war, but none is possible. Like Captain Queeg, they are more worried about protecting their strawberries, earmarks, perks, their facetime on CNN, and their hopes for the White House in 2008 from the appetites of mess stewards, or Republican politicians, than they are about defeating a sworn enemy that intends to conquer the liberal democracies and replace them all with a Jihadic vision of Islamic Imperialism that is the complete antithesis of liberal democracy. Unless they awaken to the reality that America is engaged in a war that it cannot disengage from, because the war is not only in Iraq, but everywhere, a war that it cannot avoid, a war for the future of civilization and freedom it can only win, or lose, for the next two years at least our ship of state will be commanded by a Congress of Captain Queegs.

If you agree with the ideas expressed in the article above, please print five copies. Send one to President Bush, one to each of your state senators, one to your representative, and one to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

About the Writer: Raymond Kraft is a lawyer and writer living and working in Northern California. Raymond receives e-mail at rskraft@vfr.net.

Captain Queeg: This is the captain speaking. Some misguided sailors on this ship still think they can pull a fast one on me. Well, they're very much mistaken. Since you've taken this course, the innocent will be punished with the guilty. There will be no liberty for any member of this crew for three months. I will not be made a fool of! Do you hear me?

*** If you haven't read the book, or seen the movie in the last few years, it's worth a trip to the bookstore or the movie store to refresh your memory. ***

No thanks. We have lived it. We had a plant manager who fit this profile perfectly.

When he died we hoped the family would bury him here so we wouldn't have to charter a bus to go p!$$ on his grave.

General Clark, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and most of the Democrats who are about to take over Congress in January...and the ignorant political correctness that will intensify from them....

WILL EVENTUALLY GET US ALL KILLED

....We, the people...(all who are willing)...are most likely going to have to get directly involved in this "war"...I don't know what this involvement would look like, but it will have to be direct, decisive and final.

General Clark, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and most of the Democrats who are about to take over Congress in January seem to have wilfully failed and refused to face this unpleasant reality.

Not quite right. The Congressional Democrats are not Captain Queegs, but Quislings. These people and their fellow travellers in big media, academia, Hollywood and elsewhere want America's defeat. They believe the United States is all that's wrong with the world -- all that stands between them and a Marxist utopia. They believe that if America is defeated, and they achieve world government through the UN and/or Euro Union-style regional mega governments, that there will be no more war -- and, of course, they will have all the centralized power to run the world.

So for now they make common cause with the Islamofacists, thinking -- falsely -- that when America is defeated the Islamofacists will no longer feel the need to be warlike. In reality, the Islamofacists have their number. To the Islamofacists, the American and European Left are useful idiots who will be the first swept aside if the Jihadists win.

The recent election exposed another truth, that the American right is as much a bunch of Quislings as the American left.

Well there is at least one real Captain Queeg in the new Congress, or should I say Admiral Queeg.

Well known by those in the Navy, but not voters in PA, VADM Sestak is an unmitigated @$$hole of the first order. When the current CNO took his post he fired Setstak within the first 24 hours of being on the job. When you are relieved for "command climate" at that level that means you are the number one SOB in the Navy and unfit for anything.

Wow. This is not a very cheerful column.

One question - - this passage from the Koran:

"He it is who has sent His Apostle with the Guidance and a religion of the truth, that He may make it (Islam) victorious over every other religion . . .'' "

Is this referring to the pedophile, Muhammed? Anybody know?

There is NO Fortress America. 9/11 exploded that age old isolationist fantasy forever. The Democrats apart from being ready to open a Congress Of Captain Queegs, are still the Party Of 9/10. Even that would be too kind as their leftist leadership still appears to be stuck in Vietnam.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

The point is Europe is dying from the disease called socialism and Russia is also on its deathbed. In the next 40 years we may see emergent Muslim powers with nuclear weapons. Burying our heads in the sand is not going to contribute to our survival.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

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