I sort of felt sorry for George Will on Sunday. That was a pretty conflicted column. You could tell he didn’t want to disagree with those "conservatives" in Colorado who favor arbitrary spending limits. But he had to, because he actually is a conservative, and must therefore reject such radical measures that undermine the very concept of representative democracy.
I’d very much like to see the radicals who are inclined to follow our governor‘s similarly intemperate proposal to consider Mr. Will’s concluding words:
Is a political creed that is so monomaniacal
about taxation that it allows no latitude for tacking with shifting
fiscal winds a philosophy of governance or an ideological fetish?
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the correct, conservative answer to that question is, "the latter."
Mr. Will is far less conflicted on today’s op-ed page. He doesn’t hesitate at all to trash President Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee. And why does he do that? Once again, for true conservative reasons. Too often, people confuse conservatism with loyalty to the Republican Party, its leaders and all their works. Mr. Will is too intellectually honest for that.
Oh, by the way, I’m not endorsing his condemnation of Harriet Miers. I really haven’t formed an opinion on that score yet. And anyone who can draw fire from both the left and the right stirs a certain sense of kinship in me. But Mr. Will does make some excellent points.
Totally irrelevant postscript: I enjoy typing "Mr. Will." Each time I do so, I hear Sally Field‘s voice addressing John Malkovich‘s character in "Places in the Heart," which was a really good flick, with what would easily make my top five all-time favorite movie endings. Of course, I enjoyed Mr. Malkovich more in "In the Line of Fire," my favorite Clint Eastwood vehicle. But I digress…
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You can keep track of the conservative bloodlust at Bench Memos on National Review Online.
Among the critiques of Will’s column, this is the only one so far to offer even a little baseball lingo. It has the added benefit of being informative.
One really great thing about conservatives is that they tend to cite history correctly and often. Where else but a conservative site would one find a reference to Roman Hruska and why he should be remembered for all time:
One cheer for Roman Hruska.
I guess it’s possible that Bush may have settled on Miers in part because Senate Minority Harry Reid likes her and her story and recommended her to Bush as a candidate. In his campaign against cronyism Reid specifically excluded Miers from that charge. Stranger things have happened.
As a non-conflicted conservative (I think), the attacks on Ms. Miers annoy me, especially attacks from the right. Over the next few weeks, the complete argument over this will turn to the abortion issue. She could be defeated if the pro-choice GOPers like Specter, Snowe, and others turn on her. Now that she is turning into the underdog nomination, I would tend to support her. An interesting contrast, evangelical Christian and she ran the Texas Lottery Commission. Take that, bible thumpers.
I’ve been trying to figure out why our President nominated his close personal friend, Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Ms. Miers was his attorney when Bush was CEO of the Texas Rangers, and profited from taxpayers subsidies for stadium building etc. I reckon if rich Republican pols and businessmen use the public till to get richer it is good “conservatism”.
Anyway, it appears that Ms. Miers was a bootlicker at one of the big conservative corporate law firms in Dallas and became the first woman lawyer there. I had some experience with a few of the big oil and banking conservatives in Dallas when I ran George Wallace’s campaign in Texas in 1967/68. H.L Hunt and his son, Bunker Hunt were big Wallace supporters and Ms. Mier’s law firm is located in the Republic Bank building. H.L. Hunt was the principal owner of Republic Bank. The Hunt’s made most of their money in the oil business.
I remember helping to organize and attending a big fundraiser at Bunker’s mansion in Highland Park and meeting some of these very conservative lawyers, bankers and oil men. They were into oil and war profiteering and the Hunts were reported to have given the Wallace campaign a million dollars in return for Wallace putting Gen. Curtis “Bombs-Away” LeMay on our ticket as Vice-President. LeMay had advocated “nuking” Hanoi during the war in South-East Asia. By then, Wallace was turning against the war and had begun to say, “we should get out of this no-win war”. The Hunts and their close friends in the so-called defense industry wanted to keep the war going, because as is the case with Halliburton et. al. today the war profits were very good.
I just read a very interesting article about our President’s probable involvement in a criminal conspiracy and how getting Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court might help him avoid going to jail if he is indicted and convicted.
Sadly, poor and working class folks go to jail every day for a lot less killing and stealing than this conspiracy in the White House and upper echelons of our government get away with in pursuit of war, oil and health care industry profits for themselves and their corrupt corporate cronies.
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1005-25.htm
Published on Wednesday, October 5, 2005 by The Free Press
Will Harriet Miers Vote to Overturn Bush’s Conspiracy Conviction?
by Harvey Wasserman
“An angry groundswell has risen against the appointment of George W. Bush’s personal attorney to the US Supreme Court.
One key question must be asked: as a Justice, would she soon be asked to rule on a conspiracy conviction against her present boss?
In light of the new indictments against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the question may not be so far fetched.
DeLay was originally indicted on charges of violating campaign finance law. His lawyers have quickly raised serious technical challenges.
But now two additional charges have been filed by a second grand jury. Conspiracy is involved, taking things to a whole other level, including the possibility of jail time.
The prospect of “The Hammer” duck-walking in orange polyester to a Texas prison cell may warm progressive hearts everywhere. But there’s a much deeper message here about the case of Valerie Plame.
At some point, “someone” in the Bush White House made the decision to retaliate against Joseph Wilson. Wilson exposed as utter nonsense the Bush claim that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium in Africa. Wilson’s op ed in the New York Times blew an unfillable in the neocon case for an attack on Iraq.
To punish Wilson, Team Bush decided to out his wife Valerie Plame, by now the least covert operative in CIA history.
The legal gravity of this crime is up for grabs. Chicago-based prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s mandate to investigate it runs out at the end of this month. He says he was awaiting testimony from Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who just emerged from jail.
Nobody knows what Fitzgerald will do. Many speculate that an indictment of Karl Rove or “Scooter” Libby might be hard to make stick. That particular case might depend on the depth of Plame’s cover and other arcane considerations.
Indeed, the labyrinthian complications of the Plame case multiply the odds overshadowing any simple case against any single individual from the White House.
But conspiracy would be a different story. It would seem patently obvious that outing Plame had to have been discussed in some form by the very top of the Bush junta.
That Bush himself knew Plame was a CIA agent has long since been established. That Libby, Rove and Cheney knew is also beyond doubt.
So how the knowledge of Plame’s status somehow leapt to the ears of columnist Robert Novak and the likes of Judith Miller may be more important than the outing itself.
If Bush, Cheney, Rove and Libby did discuss such a retaliation, and then found a way to make it happen, we are suddenly out of the playoffs and into the World Series.
In Watergate, the coverup became the crime of importance. In Iran-Contra, it was who knew what when. In the Plame case, it could well be who discussed what with whom when.
Whatever the call, this case is certain to end at the US Supreme Court. And here we may or may not find Harriet Miers.
George W. Bush took the White House with the most blatant case of cronyism in US judicial history. The infamous Bush v. Gore decision that stopped the Florida 2000 recount was absolutely baseless in law. The use of the Fourteenth Amendment’s “Equal Protection” clause was such an obvious non-sequitur that even the Justices who wrote the opinion held their noses and urged history to disregard it as precedent.
The five judges who rendered that heinous decision did so for strictly partisan reasons. William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra O’Conner had one agenda item: put George W. Bush in the White House.
Scalia and Thomas had blatant and obvious conflicts of interest involving employment of their offspring, among other things. But it did not phase them. Honor, propriety and the law demanded they recuse themselves. But they simply refused. They held themselves and their partisan interest and that of the Republican Party above all else.
Congress must now ask: what would Harriet Miers do? She is known only to be fiercely loyal to the persona of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. As David Sirota and others have pointed out, her sole qualification for the Supreme Court seems to be her position as a “de facto member of Bush’s immediate family.”
That may be sufficient for many now in Congress. But what happens when a case involving the Bush family comes to her?
Given Bush v. Gore and all else we know about this administration, the answer is obvious: regardless of the law, regardless of two hundreds years of precedent, regardless of what is moral and right, Harriet Miers will do what suits the short-term interests of George W. Bush.
As Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy and O’Connor showed in Bush v. Gore, American jurisprudence at its highest level is now defined by the immediate demands of the Republican Party.
Today we hear much hype about how little we know of Harriet Miers’s personal beliefs.
But if ever there were a Supreme Court nominee who is a sure bet to put personal and partisan loyalty above the law, it is Harriet Miers. If ever George W. Bush comes in front of her with a case concerning conspiracy or some other violation of the law, we all know how she will vote.
That’s why Bush chose her. That’s why the Senate must reject her.”
Harvey Wasserman’s ‘History of the US’ is at http://www.harveywasserman.com.
Wasserman is college professor in Columbus, Ohio and was a guest on my radio show a couple of times last year. By the way, our friend Brad Warthen was also a guest on our show and we had a very civil and informative discussion of public policy.
Tom Turnipseed
Tom, I know it may be convenient to ignore facts but several newspapers researched the Florida vote count and here is a newsflash, Bush won the statewide vote. Even liberal papers now confirm that. And then the out of control Florida Supreme Court disregarded official state law and changed the end date of the election. That court had an agenda that was pathetically apparent. Thank the good Lord the USSC was there to stop the litigated coup.
It is almost comical that Joe Wilson (a consensus liar) posed with his “secret agent” wife on the cover of Vanity magazine. By the way, she was a low level clerk at the CIA, for what that is worth. One of the past heroes of the left, Sen. Frank Church, led the effort to decimate the capabilities of the CIA and NSA. In large part we have 9-11 and other terrorist acts to thank for that endeavor.
When Bill Clinton delegated the National Health Care initiative to Hillary, I wonder if you were posting bootlicker comments then about the nepotism. I doubt it.
Miers will likely be confirmed by the Senate and if not there are numerous other conservative leaning candidates. And, if and when the left manages to find a judge with an anti-Bush agenda, the majority of the country will be very happy when she assists in booting the next coup out of court.
As for the defense industry, let’s be grateful that our defense contractors are profitable. When the day comes that we are no longer the most powerful nation on earth, our days as a free nation will be limited.
Spending limits are no more arbitrary than unlimited spending is arbitrary.
At least there are those who want to limit the misbehavior of politicians and those who seek to enrich themselves by acquiring tax monies.
The size of government has to be strictly limited at the constitutional level, or it will expand to satisfy the appetites of ambitious, greedy individuals who will see politics as the easiest road to amashing personal wealth.
David, I must object strenuously to even the faintest hint of trying to pin 9/11 on the Church Committee. Sure, let’s go back to the good ol’ days of domestic political surveillance and COINTELPRO. Why tie the CIA’s hands at all? No sir, to me the Church Committee’s work is one of the good stories in American history, proof that our democracy can be self-correcting along the way.
Hillary Clinton was named to chair a national task force on health care reform. She wasn’t named to head a federal agency like FEMA, nor did Bill name her to the Supreme Court (in retrospect, of course, it was certainly a political mistake to use her in that task force role, but that’s another story, nothing to do with cronyism).
Do other countries who are NOT the most powerful nations on earth worry as much about their days of freedom being limited? I’ll check back with you in 20 years as regards China. Surely that’s not all we have going for us to encourage freedom and democracy around the world, our unchallenged military supremacy?
Mike understandably takes pride in conservatives’ knowledge of history. Any student of history would have to bet that our days as a free nation ARE limited, eventually. No nation has lasted forever. Let’s just hope we postpone that day a long, long time. Your fear, David, is that we will not be militarily strong enough to fend off an attack on our freedom from the outside. My fear is that when our freedoms are lost, it will be because we voluntarily and happily surrendered them, without a shot. It has happened to democracies before. What are we teaching our children about freedom, when a recent Knight Foundation study shows only 51% of high school agreeing with the proposition “Newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.”-?
http://firstamendment.jideas.org/downloads/future_final.pdf
And that brings me back to my first point, about the Church committee on covert activities. If our strength as a nation is so hollow that some terrorist attacks will send us eagerly trading off civil liberties for “security” at every opportunity, then truly the War on Terror will eventually be lost. The original idea of “America” will be surrendered.
PHillip, Our military power and superiority is the mechanism for our ability to sustain our freedom. Yes, our constitution sets the stage for our laws and form of governance and without that charter we could lose our basic rights as we know them. Without our military might, free trade, for example, would not be proliferating as it is. Most would agree that our lifestyles would be much different without the global trading that we benefit from today. Our dollar is essentially the world standard in large part to our military strength.
As for other countries and their concern for remaining free, I would cite Venezuela as the most recent nation that is moving from an elected democracy to a dictatorship. South Korea and Taiwan have a lot of worry about their freedom if nto for us. Russia, a nation struggling with democracy and freedom, is in question also.
We have seen the results of having leaders who would weaken and yes, even feminize, our military. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, most recently. This same type of leadership, including Church, moved in that same direction to weaken our national security capabilities internally. In this age of permissiveness and thinking that there is no right, no wrong, etc. we have handcuffed ourselves so that even Wahabbi Islam can be spread on our own soil. Even the British have taken moves to crush the enemy within that if done here would bring the likes of Biden, Kennedy, and many other leftists to the Senate floor screaming facsism. So this is truly as a result of the doings of Frank Church, Carl Levin, and a cast of others.
The communist party was officially “outlawed” after WWII in this nation. It is time to also outlaw Muslim anti-American affiliation in the same way. If we are to do this, we will need a rock solid Supreme Court comprised of American patriots, not global appeasers.
We are the world’s beacon of freedom and liberty, but without that infrastructure of our military, it would be a false beacon to all.
While I agree that Jimmy Carter was a poor President in his military policy, he at least served his country honorably in the submarine service, rather than defending bars in Greater Houston or working on “other priorities”. It will be interesting to see what shape the U.S. military after Cheney (Tweedledum) and Rumsfeld (Tweedledumdum) get through with it.
Steve, What do you have against “real” men leading the military? I assume you preferred the Madeline “Not So” Bright and the Al “No Controlling Legal Authority” Gore. A good friend of mine had dinner with Jimmy Carter one night just last week. He gave me some initial feedback and I am very anxious to hear the details. You may laugh but I voted for Jimmy to help get him elected. I cast my vote for him because I knew he was extremely honest and I just liked him. How sad that he failed us all miserably, with his Misery Index, and performed so weakly as our leader.
AS for defending bars in Houston, did you ever wear the uniform of the military like W did? Can you fly a jet that travels at 800 MPH or faster and land it on a moving aircraft carrier. The man served his country and even if he didnt spend 120 days in Vietnam, like John Kerry, and then request to go home with his paper cut scratches, you and everyone else should respect the service he put in. Anyway, you and I agree on some things about Jimmy, so that is good.
Actually, I don’t think W. ever landed any aircraft he was piloting on an aircraft carrier. He was not a naval aviator. His Dad was, though — in the pre-jet era, of course.
Not that there’s anything easy about flying an F-102 (I can’t do it), but W. did have a big, wide, stationary planet to land it on, not a pitching, heaving speck on the ocean.
Brad –
Thanks for the F-102 reference. It helped me find and re-file in my PIM this letter to the editor from a guy who served with Bush for a time in TANG.
Think I should email it to Rather, Mapes, and Kalb?
BTW, I think you’ll find that the only tail-hook (arrested) landing Bush ever experienced was for the “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003. Note that he was in the co-pilot’s seat of the Navy S-3B Viking for the touchdown.
That he arrived on the carrier aboard a fixed-wing aircraft instead of a chopper stirred up a minor storm. The USS Lincoln may have been too far away for the chopper, or it may not have been. But naval aviators have told me that Air Force pilots can do everything they can except land on a carrier, and that’s why the Zoomies are so jealous. Anybody who’s ever been a pilot dreams of landing on a carrier.
I just saw what the original topic was.
If you’re interested, here’s a quite perceptive — thought-provoking? — preview of the Miers confirmation hearings.
BTW, I think you’ll find that the only tail-hook (arrested) landing Bush ever experienced was for the “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003
A political stunt that will live in infamy.
One really great thing about conservatives is that they tend to cite history correctly and often.
Yes, and they’re so well-versed in the classics:
WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush delighted an intimate gathering of White House dinner guests Monday, regaling the coterie of dignitaries, artists, and friends with a spirited, off-the-cuff discussion of the Roman poet Virgil’s lesser-known works.
*******
According to guests, the subject of Virgil arose serendipitously, when a servant opened a window in the Red Room, to which the group had retired for after-dinner drinks. Noticing the breeze, Bush raised his glass and delivered a toast to the changing of the seasons. He then apologized to “lovely Winter,” explaining that he “meant no slight against her.”
“The first blush of Spring always reminds me of Virgil’s words,” Bush said. “In early spring-tide, when the icy drip / Melts from the mountains hoar, and Zephyr’s breath / Unbinds the crumbling clod, even then ’tis time / Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox / And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.”
“Book One of The Georgics, of course,” Bush added.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31077
Dave: In answer to your question about my military service, Yes, two years (1967-1969), fortunately stateside. But I never asked anyone to vote for me for President.
Steve, I commend you for your service and even if you had not served I was wrong to pose that question. Many people I know never served and I don’t think any less of them. I do get carried away on that subject at times. One interesting item not widely known, of the 52,000 plus Americans who died in Vietnam, about 10%, or over 5,000 were Reserves and Guard.
KC – When W did what you call a political stunt, the military personnel present gave him a rousing reception of approval. Quite a stunt indeed, and, it helped him win the election over JFK.
All the big politicians and their supporters like to brag about the macho/manliness of the politician’s time in the miltary.
I was in the U.S. Army for 2 years-1955-57-and rose to the exalted rank of PFC. I went through basic training at Ft. Jackson and loved the calisthenics and physical training because I was 19 years old and was in good shape, having previously been a high school and junior college football player. It was fun to do with ease the rough/tough stuff that some of the big city Yankee boys struggled with in my basic training company.
I learned two profound things about the military in basic training.
We had cadre/trainers who had recently been involved in the hand-to-hand, kill-or-be-killed combat of Korea. We were told that we were going to find out what “the army is really all about” the day we did our bayonet training. We attached our bayonets to our rifles and lined up in front of a dummy hanging from a tree and were told the dummy was the enemy and that our job as soldiers was to kill the enemy. They told us it is kill-or-be-killed. We had to scream Kill-Kill-Kill as loud as we could and repeatedly stick the bayonet into the dummy as hard as we could to simulate the killing of the enemy. If we did not holler loud enough, or thrust the bayonet forcefully enough, we had to repeat the exercise. That was when I realized the military was not not a good thing for me because I did not want ot kill anyone or be killed by anyone.
The second essential lesson I learned about the military from basic training was when we learned to shoot 30 and 50 calibre machine guns out at the Leesburg ranges. After we had completed our training we trainees were waiting on the trucks to take us back to the barracks. While we waited the cadre/trainers shot up several boxes of expensive rounds of ammunition without even looking at the targets. When I asked one of them why they were wasting all that expensive ammo. that cost us taxpayers a lot of money I was told to “shut up young soldier, this is the Army way”.
I served my time and got to go to Germany and see much of Europe but was delighted to complete my 2 years in the Army.
Howard Zinn, noted historian and author of “A People’s History of the United States” is my friend and was a frequent guest on my radio show. Even though Howard was a bombardier in the U.S. Army Air Force in WWII he says, “War itself is the most extreme form of terrorism”.
That pretty well sums up my feelings about it also.
Tom Turnipseed
Tom, Interesting experiences that you noted above. The Kill drills you mentioned were still in use in ’71 when I had Army boot at Ft. Dix, NJ. We also did the hand to hand combat with the pugil sticks and for that I ended up with a cracked front tooth and later on a real expensive crown (at my expense, not Uncle Sam). The DI’s were nearly all nasty Viet Vets who had been sent stateside to teach us greenhorns how to really kill. So I never got sent overseas anyway so my kill training went for naught. I still believe that we better have lots of warrior types to defend our freedoms here so hopefully the training continues. And I finished out my time as a reservist and fulfilled my obligation rather uneventfully. Enough about me.
As for the wasted ammo, I saw a lot of that too but the way the military works is, you get what you ordered last year, plus an increment of 2 or 3%. So, if they didnt shoot up the ammo, they have to do something with it. Still waste is waste. I watched sargents and others filling their gas tanks (during the 70’s fuel shortages) by siphoning out of our jeeps and trucks. Also, ordering tons of food, serving hot dogs to the troops, and then pilfering the hams and roasts etc for private profit. Seeing a lot of this shaped my opinions about the government, ownership, authority, and other issues as a young person.
I don’t recall W ever “bragging” about his service time. As for Zinn’s quote about war being the worst form of terrorism, in the context I take it that would be a strange interpretation. Even the Catholic church recognizes the concept of a just war. I think flying innocent civilians on a passenger jet, blowing oneself up on a crowded school bus filled with innocent kids, and decapitating civilian captives the true “worst” form of terrorism. But, sua cuique voluptas.
Tom –
Interesting comments on your time in defense of the Fatherland. I did my part 1971-1977 in West Berlin and various locations in the US.
For a look at today’s Army, there’s not much better than Michael Yon, an independent journalist who’s spent a fair amount of time in and around Mosul. Especially interesting is his Gates of Fire report, wherein he vividly describes the gamut of emotions one encounters when under fire, the punch in the gut when one’s buddies are shot, the bravery and coolness of America’s fighting man. Take a gander at the post and look at the photos he snapped during the engagement. See how CSM Robert Prosser treats the insurgent who tried to kill him with his teeth and bare hands — the blood on Prosser’s trousers are the insurgent’s, not Prosser’s. LTC Kurilla was wounded, but is recovering nicely.
Yon’s report The Battle For Mosul IV — Soldiers, Spies, and Sheep is required reading for those who care about how the Iraqis are going to win, why our patience will eventually pay off, and what the pitfalls are. The market sheep are only for eating.
As for killing, that’s what this enemy– these terrorists — are all about. Unless, of course, we pay heed to their grievances and adopt them as our own:
I too am for peace, but I think that there’s a wrong way and a right way to achieve and guarantee it.
I am morally opposed to deliberate, retributive killing for any reason. Where is the just-ness in war? War is collective killing and always involves collateral casualties of innocent people like women and children and non-combatants as well as the wanton destruction of other species of life.
There is no just war in my view, and that concept is used to keep us from attempting to work things out peacefully. Folks accept war as an answer because it has been romanticized in their culture, or because they are told we should kill them because they are about to kill us, or that we must attack them because they attacked us.
Many of the initial reasons for war are fabricated by warmongering political figures and their war-profiteering friends. Some instances among many are: The Poles have invaded Germany to justify the Nazi invasion of Poland; The phoney Gulf of Tonkin attacks on U.S. forces to justify broadening the war in Southeast Asia; and the lie that Saddam Hussein/Iraq were involved in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. and had weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to invade Iraq.
The most egregious warmongering is pitting good versus evil in the context of religious beliefs.
A few weeks ago I wrote an essay titled Ecocide that focused on this and the “just war” concept of religious warriors.
Published on Friday, July 22, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Ecocide
by Tom Turnipseed
“Ecocide means destroying our ecosystem by actions of the human species. Human activity like war and the profligate use of our ecosystem’s resources is ecocidal.
War’s destruction of life is a stark example of ecocide. War is a crime against God and nature. Usually motivated by greed and the desire for the spoils of empire, war is often glorified as God’s will. Leaders of both sides in our present never-ending war on terror call on God to help wage war and bring victory over “evil” enemies, asking God to bless the violation of his sixth Commandment to us, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”.
Though Islam and Christianity are both derived from the same God of the prophet Abraham, religious fundamentalist leaders on both sides declare the terror war to be holy and heroic. They justify the killing by invoking the Almighty to sanction the violence and grant them the victory.
The Christian tradition of God as the warrior began in A.D. 312 with the Roman Emperor Constantine. After a major victory in battle against legions of his brother-in-law, Constantine said he had prayed for divine help before the engagement and then had a vision of a cross in the sky above his soldiers as they marched into the fray. This mystical event led to his Christian conversion.
Christianity was declared the religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine, and the image of Christ as the Prince of Peace became conveniently interchangeable with Christ as the warrior God. Previously, the Roman Empire had persecuted the Christians because they were pacifists, taught not to serve in the military or use violence against others.
It had been unlawful for a Christian to be a soldier in the Roman army, but Constantine’s conversion abruptly allied Christianity with Rome’s military and by A.D. 416 it was compulsory for all Roman soldiers to be Christians. Constantine’s army carried a cross as a standard that was a spear with a bar across it, exchanging the symbol of Jesus’ death as an innocent victim of oppression for a symbolic weapon of the oppressor. The church took up the sword, and Christian participation in many wars and crusades since has been done in the name of God. The nonviolent image of Christ the peacemaker was transformed into the martial God.
The church of the one who drove the moneychangers out of the temple also became the church of great power and wealth. Jesus’ social action against materialism and the marketplace in the house of the Lord led directly to the conspiracy to crucify him. However, churches now have amassed vast amounts of property and wealth. Individual congregants, preachers and politicians who boast that God has blessed them to have more than others seem to have forgotten that a homeless Jesus had “nowhere to lay his head”. Constantine’s conversion led to the church’s acceptance of state control of religion; the dominance of the wealthy and powerful; the veneration of war and the use of violence for the glory of God.
The Arabic word jihad is often translated as “holy war”. According to Islamic scholars, the first use of the term “holy war” was by Europeans in the Crusades to refer to the war against the Muslims. These scholars point out that in the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, jihad’s primary meaning is an effort for the benefit of the community and self improvement. Jihad is a religious duty. Military action is only one means of jihad, and is very rare.
In the First Crusade the forces representing the Catholic Church of Western Europe captured Jerusalem in 1099 and slaughtered the population establishing Christian rule there. In 1187, a Muslim jihad led by Saladin recaptured the holy city of Jerusalem. Many Muslims blame crusaders for today’s hostile Western invasions, occupations and deaths of the faithful and the loss of the holy city of Jerusalem.
The concept of jihad has been hijacked by many political and religious groups over the ages in a bid to justify various forms of violence against the established Islamic order. Scholars say this misuse of jihad contradicts Islamic teaching and most calls for violent jihad are not sanctioned by Islam.
Some hard line Muslims would take back the leadership of the world from the materialists of the modern, decadent West. The present call for jihad by Islamic fundamentalists against the United States and its allies in our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is based on their struggle against the materialism and imperialism of our continuing foreign policy focus on the tremendous oil reserves of the Middle East.
The worship of materialism is ecocidal. Our economy is fueled by oil and other fossil fuels like coal. Burning fossil fuels creates excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and is a principal cause of global warming, contributing to “more extreme weather, rising sea levels, changing precipitation patterns, ecological and agricultural dislocations and the increased spread of human disease.” according to the leading climatologists in the US and UK. Despite overwhelming scientific and political support throughout the world for the Kyoto accords, designed to reduce such emissions, ecocidal U. S. policymakers refuse to support them.
World wide weather is becoming more extreme and the habitat of all forms of life is being destroyed by our ecocidal species. An article outlining the impact of this destruction, published in 2004 in the science journal Nature, was co-authored by 18 eminent scientists. These researchers, working independently in six bio-diversity rich regions around the world from Australia to South Africa, all have concluded that global warming will doom a million species by 2050.
As it is with war, it is ecocidal to raise global temperatures with human-induced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that will send so many of Earth’s land-dwelling plants and animals to extinction. For top-of-the-food-chain humans, ecocide could finally include our own extinction.”
As my friend Howard Zinn says, “War itself is the most extreme form of terrorism”. It is also ecocide.
Tom Turnipseed
Michael Yon is an “independent journalist” like I’m an NFL linebacker. I read his report, then Googled him to learn more. I gave up after scrolling through EIGHT solid pages of gushing citations from nothing but right-wing blog sites.
Tom –
That’s interesting. I’ll make doubly sure that I recycle.
Phillip –
Yon is a freelance journalist who finances his activities by selling articles and photos and through contributions via PayPal. He’s one of the few journalists still embedded with a combat unit.
You see a lot of positive remarks on right-wing sites because those folks like the depth and detail of his reporting. They probably chip in a couple of bucks as they can so afford. There are not a lot of embedded reporters roaming around. Many of the MSM reporters sit in the Green Zone and collect info secondhand.
I am not surprised that you found no accolades on left-wing websites. Heck, I’ve not seen many lefty accolades for the excellent reporting that San Diego’s North County Times‘ reporters embedded with the Marines in Fallujah did; look at the reports here, here, here, and here.
You’ve seen Yon’s reporting. Do you find it interesting or informative? Or do you dismiss it because I find it interesting and informative?
Phillip –
The point I want to make is that with war news, the right-wingers, middle-of-the-roaders, and pro-war left are more likely to seek out detailed reporting to get the pulse of how US forces are doing in Iraq. They support the war and need to continually assess their support – they are starving for front-line reporting.
They don’t trust the overview or after-action reports featured on TV or in most newspapers, not because of bias, but because there’s little firsthand knowledge evident. So they share what they regard as good resources. That’s why the blobosphere is wonderful, and that’s why Yon’s name pops up. You’ll find the same with another freelance journalist, Steven Vincent, but he was murdered in Basra in August. His stuff appeared in the NYT, Christian Science Monitor, and other right-wing rags.
Antiwar folks are probably not interested in details; some expressed glee when they read of Vincent’s death. I suppose they didn’t buy Vincent’s book either.
Come now, Mike–I don’t dismiss anything just because you like it–on the contrary, if anything! Yes Yon’s writing is interesting and informative in a sense but let’s not kid ourselves, it’s written from a definite point of view. Michael Yon is an ex-Green Beret whose sympathies understandably are with the troops with whom he’s embedded. He still uses that word “Coalition”—ahh, if that had only been true. His method of financing speaks for itself. “You see a lot of positive remarks on right-wing sites because those folks like the depth and detail of his reporting”–They like his angle and his conclusions.
I totally agree with you and conservatives in general that more needs to be written about the heroism of our troops in the field, and the good-news accomplishments like hospitals, schools etc. that Yon and Steven Vincent before his murder wrote about. To that extent I have no problem with Yon’s reporting. But nothing he writes (I confess I only read the one post you referenced) contradicts the reality that A) the Bush administration either never expected things to be where they’re at now, or did expect it and lied to us, and B) even a positive outcome in Iraq will not prevent the US from being a target of terror in a unipolar world.
Phillip –
I’m working haphazardly on a blog entry on the MSM and lying reporters, so I appreciate the issues of viewpoint, context, and accuracy. While I will deal primarily with the straightforward incidents like the NYT’s Jason Blair, the WaPo’s Janet Cooke, and the like, I do touch on a reporter’s knowledge and attitude as expressed in his writing and whatever shading is evident.
Whatever Yon’s experience, he does appear to accurately recount what he sees. Yes, he is clearly on the side of the US, but so were Ernie Pyle and Bill Mauldin. I don’t detect a political bias in his analyses of US – Iraqi interaction, but rather a studied appreciation for the methods selected given the possibilities. I find your objection of his use of the word “coalition” to be without merit, since the US and coalition partners describe their relationship as, well, a coalition. They even put out newsletters (they’re downloading rather slowly tonight) that feature snippets about the various partners. Number 26 has articles about the Pakistan navy (who knew?), Canadians assuming command in Kandahar, Danes doing a great job in Iraq, ditto for the Bulgarians and Romanians, and even a glimpse of the French in Tajikistan. You can click on the flags in the last link and find out what each country is up to. Even the Mongolians are still in Iraq. I can’t find the link now, but one Brit newspaper reported that the Mongols needed an assist with summer uniforms and felt that the menu, while good, offered too many vegetables. My point is that Yon’s use of the word “coalition” is accurate, not a sign of bias.
Reporting aside, opinion columnists get wide latitude in my book as long as they get their facts right, something Paul Krugman, to take three examples, has problems with.
I’ll not debate A) with you now since that’s another iron I have in the fire. As for B), I do agree that a positive outcome in Iraq will not prevent the US from being a target of terror. There’s a lot more we are doing. The US has forces engaged in operations and training in something like 63 nations, from the Horn of Africa to the Philippines. Who knows what else we are up to? (I hope we are up to even more.) The real tricky thing is that we have to battle, capture, or kill the really bad actors preparing to move against us and our allies while Muslim nations gradually move toward moderation.
What Tom does not appreciate, and you may not either, is that that knucklehead Tancredo accurately described what the public would demand if the US suffered a truly massive terrorist attack. No matter if the president were Kucinich or McCain or Rice or Clinton, he or she would be under tremendous pressure to launch cruel retribution against a full set of targets in the Islamic world if a nuke destroyed Chicago, New York, or LA. A lot of folks were worried after 9/11/2001 that Bush would do something stupid; some were worried that he’d be too easy. Instead the US mounted an effective attack against the known perpetrator. We’ll likely not have that knowledge should one of our cities be destroyed; Congress and the populace will demand blood, and they’ll get it. That’s why it’s better that we take them on now wherever we find them, and hope that we find all of them before the can launch a massive attack: more innocents will survive.
OK, I’m promise to leave this subject for awhile, sitting back to await the outcome of the constitutional vote, etc., hoping for the best. (Seems every blog thread ends up in Iraq now…)
1. Of course the “US and coalition partners describe their relationship as a coalition.” It’s in the US’s interest to deflect attention from the fact that the Iraq invasion was a pre-emptive unilateral attack. No disrespect to those from other nations who have lost their lives, but 90% of the combat deaths have been Americans. The average Iraqi civilian would term this an American (and British) occupation, not some kind of WWII-style Alliance.
2. “folks were worried after 9/11/2001 that Bush would do something stupid…Instead the US mounted an effective attack against the known perpetrator.” Reverse the order of that and you have it right–we first launched an effective response against the known perpetrator, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, where the Taliban harbored them. THEN Bush did the, I prefer to say, tragic thing.
3. “That’s why it’s better that we take them on now wherever we find them.” A lot of anti-war people point out correctly that our invasion of Iraq served as a kind of magnet, drawing in thousands of insurgents/terrorists to take on “the great Satan.” Ironically, I think this might actually be one of the best arguments for the Iraq war, though not exactly the one Bush and pals made. The problem is that since this is a fluid phenomenon we’re facing, not a state enemy as in past wars, we could just as easily be inspiring the next generation of terrorists, not really making ourselves any safer.
4. As far as a massive nuke strike on a major city (American or otherwise), I think it’s more likely to come from North Korea than Islamic terrorists, though I don’t discount the “dirty bomb” scenario. I hope you’re right about “more innocents will survive.” Even the most conservative estimates cite at least 25,000-30,000 civilian casualties in Iraq since combat operations began. Some estimates are hugely higher. Regardless of how many of those are the insurgents’ responsibility, there’s going to have to be one heckuva terrorist attack to equal that. It’s a lot of innocent lives to play with for the sake of a theory.
Phillip –
1. You may assert that calling it a coalition is a canard because of the way it looks, waddles, and quacks. The folks involved continue to call it a coalition. A reporter is not incorrect to call it a coalition.
2. We’re trying, perhaps not succeeding, to not make it look like an occupation. That’s why a lot of us try to keep up with the Iraqi bloggers, reporters like Yon, friends and family over there, etc.
3. The “magnet” or “flypaper” aftermath is, in software engineering lingo, a feature, not a bug. It gives us a chance to kill bad guys who would otherwise be scheming against us and our allies instead of leaving it up to the B team as appears to be the case now. It also gives the Iraqi army a chance to develop its confidence and prove its mettle, and for the divergent groups to figure out the game of politics and gain consensus. The bad guys are well aware of the stakes in this endeavor and the importance of public opinion in both the US and Iraq, as Mr. Zawahiri told Mr. Zarqawi in his letter:
We do have a next generation to worry about – the madrasahs have been in operation for over forty years, but if we and our friends are viewed by some as the strong horse and by others as good buddies helpful to have around, we can prevail during the remaining decades of this war.
4. The NorKs are so poor that they’ve hooked up with the Irish Republican Army to manufacture and distribute high-quality counterfeit $100 “supernotes.” (These bad guys must have some kind of club where they relax, talk shop, exchange tips, etc.) I’d not put it past them to try to sell a nuke to some big spender who’s intent on a terrorist act inside the US. (In fact, the genesis for the Proliferation Security Initiative lay in countering the NorK threat with a full court press. That it caught Libya later is good too.) The problem is, we would not be able to tell who really did it, but there would be a number of folks who’d claim credit. A president under pressure would be forced to retaliate against the usual suspects as well as those who so promptly raised their hands.
You can find a really great example of folks’ frustration with the MSM here. The New York Times just can’t stand good news.