[MineralMan]

This is interesting, because of the connection between the names Lincoln and Ed Stanton:

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In the Johnson impeachment, the principal charge was that the President had fired Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's popular Secretary of War

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That's the Andrew Johnson impeachment, you see. The pseudonym used in this "email" is way too clever, IMO, and should be seen as a point against this email's veracity.

[KasigiYabuSama]

"The pseudonym used in this 'email' is way too clever, IMO, and should be seen as a point against this email's veracity."

That is indeed a point, but it's largely irrelevant to the wider context beyond the article itself, to wit: The ethics of making donations to a country that is openly aligned with al-Qaida and hostile to America and Western Civilization on the one hand, and the pressing question of the continued viability of the International Tyrants' Day Care Center, Manhattan Branch, on the other. D'OH! - I should probably call it "the U.N."

I concur with others here on the rather obvious point that we the United States should have discontinued all further aid to Indonesia immediately following their demand that our soldiers be disarmed while on Indonesian soil. It really doesn't matter whether it's cold, hard cash or direct supplies - supplies are marketable and therefore readily transferable into currency, at which point we lose all control as to recipient organizations - al-Qaida, f'rinstance.

And it seems almost pathologically redundant to say that the United States needs to take decisive action in either reforming the ITDCC Manhattan, er, UN, or to withdraw from it completely and permanently along with our allies, including booting it off of American shores, completely and permanently.

We should send that pack of rats an ultimatum, something along the lines of:

"Dear Kofi, Boys and Girls: If you do not wish the United States to sever all ties with your organization including the Manhattan real estate it currently occupies, you must henceforth require of all member nations without exception the core recognition of Individual Rights, including but not limited to:

- the freedom of conscience;
- of speech;
- of press;
- of private property;
- of association;
- of trade;
- of due process, trial by jury and a prohibition of all cruel and unusual punishment;
- of internal migration and emigration;
- of representative government and pluralism."

You'll notice that a.) these demands are not in themselves unreasonable in the slightest and b.) since there's not a hockey player's chance in hell of this list being agreed to by that organization in whole or in part, this proposal may be construed as being rigged toward the withdrawal option.

This is intentional. 8^]