Posted on 09/06/2002 2:29:10 AM PDT by kattracks
In one morally bankrupt sentence, low-wattage actor Woody Harrelson recently defined the self-hating American: "The war against terrorism is terrorism."Unfortunately, the star is not alone in despising his country for defending itself. Or in seeing no moral distinction between provocateur and protector.
Prominent Columbia University historian Eric Foner spoke for self-loathers everywhere when he proclaimed himself unsure which is "more frightening, the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House."
Too many literati, glitterati and academicians share that view - that America the beautiful is really America the ugly. They reflexively oppose American use of power and cringe when their country exercises its military might. They believe we must study the frustrations of the Arabs, Al Qaeda's grievances, the root causes of their behavior and, hence, their victimhood at our hands.
And out of this comes the wrongheaded conclusion that the U.S. must act as punching bag for those who hate us because terrorism and defense against terrorism are morally equal acts. To buy into this fallacy is to equate victims with murderers and murderers with victims.
Charter members of the I-hate-America brigade include:
- Novelist Norman Mailer. He suggested that maybe the Sept. 11 "perpetrators were right, and we were not." As if mass killers could have been right.
- Actor Richard Gere. He pleaded with his fellow citizens to "identify with everyone who's suffering." The poor terrorists are hurting because of the "negativity of the karma" and should be treated with "love and compassion." Try telling that to the victims' families.
- Rutgers University English Prof. Barbara Foley. She taught that "whatever the proximate cause of Sept. 11, the ultimate cause is the fascism of U.S. foreign policy over many decades." Really? And I thought the cause was hard-core Islamic fascism's plot to annihilate Americans.
- Director Robert Altman. In January, in London, he sneered that when "I see an American flag flying, it's a joke." The three firefighters who hoisted Old Glory at Ground Zero were not chuckling.
- Writer Katha Pollitt. She wrote in The Nation that when her daughter, a Stuyvesant High School student, wanted to fly a flag from their window, she put her foot down: "Definitely not ... the flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war." Not freedom?
The legacy of Vietnam conditioned a generation's elite to believe that their country could do no right. It was a message spread for 35-plus years in movies made in Hollywood, books written in Brooklyn Heights, seminars held in Morningside Heights.
But even as today's self-hating American struts the stage, there is hope for the breed's passing. If the anti-Vietnam movement gave rise to a loss of faith in the country, Sept. 11 could prove the historical moment that dethrones moral equivalence and gives birth, in the next generation, to the unabashed patriot.
What some now perceive as America the ugly will again become America the beautiful.
A.M. Rosenthal is on vacation.
I don't care if he knows what we know. Let him know it. What is he going to do once we declare war on him? It is *far* more important that we the people be convinced of the necessity of going to war than Saddam might learn that we have some goods on him.
Saddam can't stop us in an outright war, especially not without weapons of mass destruction, and not even with them if we're determined. The question, to me, is one of convincing the American people to go to war. Once that is done, Saddam's fate is sealed.
Tuor
I, for one, don't have a problem with a country developing weapons of mass destruction. If I were the leader of Iraq, I would be doing the very same thing, only I would be doing it to provide a means of defending my country, much as the US and Russia used the theory of MAD during the Cold War.
I realize that Saddam might not use such weaponry merely as a defense or deterance, but as an aggressive weapon of conquest. *This* is the information I really want to see, and it will go very very far in convincing me of the need to attack Iraq.
A nuke or other WMDs that can't be delivered aren't something I worry about. A method of delivery and an intent to use them aggressively *is* something to be worried about, IMO.
Tuor
Then read about Islam. Islam teaches (much as the PC media doesn't want to admit it) that you are judged by your good works vs. your bad works. You can be a good Muslim, following all the rules, and still go to hell. Muslims live in fear of, not tempered by love and intimacy with, Allah. If you are a good Muslim but still your sins out weigh the good you have done, you will go to hell. Only one thing erases the negative scales, and that is martyrdom in a formal jihad.
This is what I heard direct from the mouth of a former Sunni (the 'nice guys') Muslim whose father was a Muslim 'cleric' or elder in the Mosque, and who with his three brothers was disowned when they converted away from Islam.
Go here to order his book "Unveiling Islam" and/or a video or audio tape of his speech about his testimony and his thoughts on 9-11:
I notice he is giving another talk on Sept 27th, probably in the Minneapolis area.
I have both, am in the process of reading the book which spends a lot of time on the rise of Islam and its teachings. Mohammed was a very screwed up guy, and these people say it's ok because since he was the prophet, he was above the law.
That's the kind of thinking that we're dealing with. Islam is bent on conquering, not just "surviving" and "defending" its borders.
Go there to read an interview with Caner. You may not like the interviewER but that's beside the point.
Wrong. We the people, as in *the country as a whole* should sit in judgement. Not just me. *We* are the ones who run this country, and all that the government does is *our* responsibility, good and bad. That's what I meant.
Tuor
2) There may be those who are willing to sacrifice their lives to attack the US. If so, I think we have had a hand in creating these people, but, of course, in the end, each of us are responsible for our own action.
3) I don't believe Saddam is a madman. I think he is ruthless in his desire to stay alive and stay in power. I think, like many men in history, he desires to increase his own power by taking over countries weaker than his own and that the only thing he respects his power greater than his own. We have shown him we possess that, and if we'd stopped there, or simply eliminated him in 1991, all would've been well.
We didn't and we didn't. If you corner an animal it will fight, even if it can't win. Saddam has no where to run. We've stated repeatly we want him dead. What do you *think* he's going to do? What would anyone do? I know what I would do, and that is exactly what he is doing right now: find a means to get someone far more powerful than you are to back down, and WMDs are the only way to do that.
We wouldn't be in this mess if we didn't stick our nose into everyone else's business and pretend that *we* are responsible for the 'security' for the whole world. But we did and we are. Sadly, I see little recourse besides following through and destroying Saddam. However, that said, *for our own good*, we need to make sure that we follow the proper procedures that *we* have in place for such an action, namely those provided by the US Constitution, which requires a declaration of war: I don't see anything in it that says otherwise and the intent of the Founding Fathers is made pretty clear in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere.
In short, I don't trust our government one little bit. If they tell me the sky is blue, I'll run outside and check, and if it is night at the time, I'll wait till the sun is up to make sure. The repeated and clear failures of the government to follow through on its responsibilities (namely the Senate in this case declaring war, and not some blank check BS 'resolution') and it assuming powers that it was not delegated by the People (that's us) namely the Executive Branch starting a war on another power.
You seem to think this is all a simple 1, 2, 3, matter. In some respects, I suppose it is. Your points are true partly because the actions of our government have *made* them true. At the very least, we have exacerbated the situation by our shameless manipulation of foreign powers.
Repeatedly, you said 'do I think'? I think, but I don't know. I want to know. More specifically, I want to know what the government knows (at least enough to make a informed decision). I want *all* of us to know it.
Finally, I don't hate America. I love it enough to want to see its fundamental documents obeyed in word and spirit. I feel it is our *duty* to know the what's and why's of our government actions insofar as knowing wont get a lot of our people killed, but maybe even then if it represents the whole country going to war. We are not sheep. We are not drones. The government doesn't rule the country. We do not wait around at their pleasure for whatever scraps of knowledge they deem fit to tell us, but rather the opposite *should* be true. Yes, there is a place for secrecy, but any secrecy should be kept to what is absolutely and clearly necessary, least our government use that as an excuse to keep us in the dark.
Tuor
I think if he didn't have the intent before, we've provided him with it by our actions. So, regardless of who is responsible, I would say that he has the intent at least of deterring us from attacking, and maybe so far as to attack us using human missles.
As for as capability, I don't think he has it yet. If he was going to build a bunch of rockets and launch them at other countries, it would be a relatively easy thing to observe, inform the American people of, and then take whatever action we deemed necessary.
Let me also make clear that I don't think Saddam and the WTC terrorists are directly connected. Bush has *not* made such a case that I have seen. If Iraq is a danger to us, it is a danger unrelated to terrorist activities: if he sends people here with biological weapons, they wouldn't be terrorists, but enemy forces sent by a recognized government, just as the planes of Japan were.
For me, this is more of a matter of *how* our government is going about things, not whether or not it ultimately is the right thing to do to attack Iraq. Our government can be a *far* greater threat to our nation than Saddam. We should all be demanding the proper forms are followed, according to our Constitution, and not allow our emotionalism to allow the government to do whatever it wants when it wants, and to tell us things whenever it seems convenient.
Yes, in war (which we have *not* declared at the moment), there is a need for secrecy, particularly when it comes to future operations and sources of intelligence. However, there is also a need for the citizenry to be informed, particularly when it comes to defining the reasons to go to war in the first place and what our goals are. The 'war on terrorism' is dangerous, IMO, precisely because everything is kept vague with no concrete goals and no means of winning or even of losing.
To get back to your original question, before I started to ramble on: Saddam may now have intent, but I haven't been convinced he has the capacity. All I want is the government to make a case for him having these things with some convincing evidence to back it up. Then, we should declare war, wipe out the Iraqi government, fix things if necessary (as we did with Japan and Germany after WWII, though I have my doubts we have wise enough people to manage that), and then *get out*.
Tuor
IMO, Saddam, like many American politicians, uses religion to motivate his people. I doubt he truly believes in anything besides the rule of the jungle himself. Also, I am a Christian, and God told me to judge people by their actions. It doesn't matter at all to me what Saddam thinks, but what he does and what those actions imply about future actions he may take.
We should remember what Jesus said about judging according to actions rather than trying to read what lies in a person's heart, which God alone can do. Our system of justice used to be based nearly entirely on actions, not on feelings or beliefs. If a person *does* something wrong, then they should be punished appropriately, but they can think wrong thoughts all day if they wish.
So, with respect to the religion of Islam, I don't have a problem with a person believing it to their heart's content, but the moment they begin to act on their beliefs by starting a Jihad and trying to kill or convert the rest of the world, those who attempt this can be judged and punished as appropriate, both those who act and their accomplices.
I can see a case for obliterating the religon, if those who follow it continually act on its teachings of Jihad and forced conversion. It isn't something we can tolerate. Eventually, I imagine that we will have to fight the entire Moslem world (or most of it) because they have become incorrigible, much like I think of the Palestinian population.
However, a case must be made, and yes, I would accept the teachings of Islam as part of the evidence insofar as they use it to justify their acts. I don't think Saddam is driven by Islam, but by age old dreams of power and dominance. His followers, OTOH, may be, and the WTC terrorists definitely were.
Tuor
You don't need to go to religion to provide a source for desperation. Statements by US officials and our actions in the region are more than enough reason to bring about desperation.
Tuor
Yes. I disagree with the UN. Gasp! Oh no! I guess the communist/socialist/liberals must hate me to because I think the UN is a joke. It is strange mixture of communism on small issues, and US mouthpiece on large ones...most of the time. Who cares what it has to say? I don't.
As for using a WMD against 'human beings' in the past. Well, we nuked two Japanese cities and I'm glad we did. Are we now crazed lunatics? The French, British, and Germans, and God knows whom else used chemical warfare on one another extensively during WWI. Are they crazed psychopaths because of that?
If Saddam is a danger, it is because of what he has done or is going to do, not by whether or not he has used chemical (not biological) weapons on people in the past. If he has used biologicals in the past, I'd like to hear more about it. As it is, I only know of the chemical stuff he's used against the Kurds and perhaps against the Iranians.
I guess it makes you feel good to think of me as an America-hater. Then you can dismiss me without a thought. If my asking our own government to follow the document it is based on makes me an America-hater, then I guess we live in seperate countries with the same name.
Tuor
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