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.
And my point is that since we're both operating from ignorance, it's impossible to make a judgement of worth on the matter. However, I find it difficult to believe that dealing with the compromised asset would be quite as simple as relocating them to the US. At minimum, you'd produce a chilling affect on recruiting other resources in an area where, according to my reading, it's not all that easy to get them.
Also, since you mentioned my comments about a declaration of war: only the Senate, not the whole congress, has that power.
I'd suggest you re-research that, sir. I'd checked my Constitution before I wrote that, and Section 8 seemed pretty explicit that "the Congress shall have Power...to declare War." Since I'm also tired, I did a little Google research myself, and the WWII resolutions you mentioned all were joint resolutions voted on by both House and Senate. Perhaps you were thinking about treaty approval?
Again, I'd also like some sort of formal declaration, and personally I'd like to have a better idea of what's going on. I'm just not convinced that:
Cyrano
You can't just assume that in dealing with someone who is motivated by a passion for revenge rather than rationally reacting to current threats only. When President Clinton took office he said to Saddam in a New York Times interview (Jan 13 1993) "If you want a different relationship with me, you can begin by observing the UN requirements and change your behavior. I am not obsessed...I am a Baptist. I believe in deathbed conversions." On Feb 26 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed.
The mastermind of the plot was Ramzi Yousef who arrived in this country with an Iraqi passport but left on a Pakistani passport which he obtained fraudulently. In order to get the Pakistani consulate in New York to issue him a passport in the name of Abdul Basit, he claimed that he had lost his passport and submitted photocopies of the 1984 and 1988 passports of Abdul Basit. The real Abdul Basit was a Kuwaiti who studied in Britain and then returned to Kuwait in June of 1989. He disappeared along with his parents and was most likely killed during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Ramzi Yousef altered or falsified key personal information on the 1988 passport and witheld other information. The gain in height for Abdul Basit and Ramzi yousef to be the same person is biologically impossible. The passport ends with a departure stamp from Britain marked June 22 1989. What is missing is an entry sta mp into Kuwait for June 22 '89 as well as a kuwaiti residency visa. Also missing is entry stamp to match Basit's departure from England on 3/16/89 and a departure stamp to match his entry into England on 4/7/89. In addition the Iraqis tampered with Abdul Basit's files in Kuwait. Copies of the front page of Basit's passport which would include his photo are missing. Ramzi Yousef's fingerprints were also inserted into Basit's file in Kuwait. It is reasonable to conclude that Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent travelling under a stolen identity.
The man who mixed the chemicals to make the bomb was Abdul Rahman Yasin. After the bombing the FBI made the mistake of thinking that Yasin was cooperating with the investigation and did not arrest him. On March 5 he fled the country and has been living in Baghdad under Saddam's protection ever since. He was interviewed on 60 minutes on June 2 2002. So we can say that Iraq is harboring a terrorist. The bomb contained Sodium Cyanide which can react to form Hydrogen Cyanide gas. The idea is that anyone who was not killed by the collapse of one tower into the other would be asphyxiated by the gas. Hydrogen Cyanide is also the active ingredient in Zyklon B which the Nazis used in concentration camps. Iraq used sodium cyanide in it's chemical weapons program and imported one million dollars worth of Sodium cyanide from a British company illegaly after international export controls on the chemical had been imposed.
In addition the Iraqis had a scheme to manufacture sodium cyanide in Boca Raton Florida. Artificial cherry flavoring is made from a bitter almond oil which comes from peach and apricot pits. A byproduct of the manufacture of this oil is ferric ferrocyanide which is used as a metal cleaner and is found in Drano. Louis Champon, an American invented this process and wanted to build a factory. An Iraqi buisnessman by the name of Ihsan Barbouti offered to invest 5.3 million dollars into the Champon's buisness. Ihsan hired a plant manager who was an expert in the manufacture of hydrogen cyanide for a Swiss company Ceiba Geigy in Louisiana. The plant manager then made a change in the production process which resulted in sodium cyanide being produced instead of the ferric ferrocyanide which would have been less dangerous. Shortly after production began, 1500 pounds worth of sodium cyanide were shipped abroad. The chemicals were labeled as the personal effects of an Iraqi diplomat in Washington and were therefore exempt from customs inspection. It travelled from Florida to Houston to Baltimore to Europe to the Jordanian port of Aqaba and then was trucked into Iraq. No one knows what happened to the rest of the sodium cyanide produced at that plant.
Ihsan Barbouti was also considered to be the linchpin of the Libyan chemical weapons at Rabat and told an Israeli by the name of Moshe Tal that he was trying to build a factory in Libya to make heavy water for a nuclear bomb which could be used against the United States. The plan which fortunately did not get very far was to put the bomb in a shipping container. So we know that an Iraqi who was involved in both the Iraqi and Libyan chemical weapons program was manufacturing the same chemical which was intended to poison people in the '93 wtc bomb at a factory inside the U.S.
Really? I must've missed the part where a foreign military attacked us. You know, with their own uniforms, planes, etc., and working for a government we could declare war against.
We declared war against Germany because they made no secret they were allied with Japan, unlike WWI where there were lots of secret treaties that ended up sucking all of Europe into a war over something relatively minor.
Comparing our actions today against those of the US at the start of WWII is a bad comparison. These are terrorists, not soldiers. They are more similar to pirates than enemy combatants, and should be treated similarly. Letters of Marque should be reinstated, and any government that *knowingly* gives them harbor should be dealt with agressively. The Taliban, for example, signed their own warrant by giving shelter to the Al-Queda, the media's blurring of the two organizations notwithstanding.
Our actions towards Iraq has virtually nothing to do with the attacks against us on 9/11. If you want to convince me we need to attack Iraq, you'll have to do so on other grounds, such as an imminant attack by Iraq using chemicals or biologicals (as they don't possess any nukes).
Tuor
You may well be right. I may feel that whatever evidence they provide will be like the movie Capricorn One, where the government fabricated a trip to Mars. As you said, they could do this. Hopefully, any evidence provided will be something that can be verified by a third party.
It is a quandry that has caused me intellectual problems, because I *want* to know the truth, and if the truth is that Iraq truly is a threat, then I *want* us to go in and wipe out that threat, even if it means obliterating all of Iraq.
If it were only myself who felt this way, it would be something that the rest of you could easily write off: who cares if one man disagrees with our national policies? But I think it likely that there are many who feel similar to the way I do. It is not one person whistling in the dark, but several -- how many I do not know.
How can the government regain our trust? Not just my trust, but the trust of those who only half-believe what they are told? How can the cynicism which increasingly is gripping this country be abated? Only by repeatedly demonstrating honesty in its conduct, I would guess, and that doesn't seem likely to me. When everyone in government appears to only care about their personal (or by extension party) power, and not what is best for the country, it is only natural that many will come to the conclusion that they cannot be trusted.
I'm not just distrustful of the administration, but of government in general, and the federal government in particular. I guess this makes me a whacko and a paranoid. In my mind, it makes me realistic and clear-sighted: I do not cling to a false optimism about what our government is really trying to do. OTOH, it is very possible that I am excessively negative when someone in government (rarely) actually tries to do their job honestly. We all make trade-offs based on our worldview. I accept those I've had to make.
Tuor
Do you think I'm alone in this? If I were, you're right: no one would care. But I'm not alone in this, and you almost certainly know that.
And why shouldn't people care about what I want? Don't I have a hand in running the country? Isn't that the whole point of democracy? Don't you think We the People have a duty to keep an eye on the activities of the governments who are supposed to serve us (not the other way around)?
You might as well say: No one cares what Martin Luther King has to say (not that I'm claiming similarity to his stature by any means) because he is only one man, one voice, one vote. However, he spoke for others, and provided an inspiration for many. I may not be in anything like the same league as MLK, but the premise is the same: individuals ought to speak out if they feel something is wrong. They ought to make their opinions known. You are very free to listen or to blow me off. If no one cares, then no one does, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't speak out anyway, even in this limited sort of fashion.
Your comment seems to me to be a sort of off-handed way of stiffling any dissention. That seems to me to be un-American, as we cherish the right of other people voicing their opinions, even if we disagree with them. Happily, I'll do what I feel best regardless of whether you, or anyone else, cares about what I have to say.
Tuor
This is the only citation which I feel has any bearing on the overall matter of attacking Iraq. It seems to have been verified (though not in a court of law, of course). We should tell Iraq to hand this man over or suffer the consequences, much as we told the Taliban to do with Bin Laden, and with the same results for non-compliance.
Tuor
Gassing his own people: the Kurds are *not* his own people, they merely live in territory he controls. Take a look at how Turkey is dealing with this very same ethnic group -- do you hear us complaining to the Turkish government about it?
I don't believe Saddam is supporting terrorism, though I can be convinced otherwise and have heard some evidence that makes me think that he might be, but nothing conclusive.
The election in Iraq: Lots of nations do the very same thing, including Pakistan, which is our supposed ally in our War on Terrorism.
Going back to DU: Maybe you should take a look at how long I've been here -- longer than you by far, and longer than DU (which I've never been to) has been around.
Tuor
This statement appears out of step with the nature of America's government. As a representative democracy, elected officials are entrusted with deciding these issues, and both the House and Senate have voted affirming the commitment to enforce the conditions under which the Gulf War hostilities were suspended.
Open discussion of some kinds of sensitive information despoils the ability to gather such info, and in many cases it gets people killed. While I don't trust politicians, I have a hard time believing that a wide cross-section of Representatives and Senators (who are privy to sensitive information in the course of their duties) would vote to authorize even the possibility of war without having seen convincing evidence.
Lastly, I would posit that your position as stated above is completely illogical. From this point of view, every business decision in every company in the country would be a committee vote that includes everyone from the CEO all the way down to the mail room. I'm afraid that just doesn't make any sense to me.
Eventually we'll have to deal with China.
Gassing his own people: the Kurds are *not* his own people, they merely live in territory he controls
Their not his own people so we'll just dismiss what he did because Turkey is being mean to them too?
I don't believe Saddam is supporting terrorism, though I can be convinced otherwise and have heard some evidence that makes me think that he might be, but nothing conclusive
Let me know when you get convinced. I'd like to know what it takes.
The election in Iraq: Lots of nations do the very same thing, including Pakistan, which is our supposed ally in our War on Terrorism.
Since lots of other nations force their people to vote for someone they don't want, that's another thing we'll let Saddam slide on?
Going back to DU: Maybe you should take a look at how long I've been here -- longer than you by far, and longer than DU (which I've never been to) has been around.
You haven't learned much here have you?
What third party would you trust? What do you think about the report out of the Czech republic that Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence just before 9/11?
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