:: PROLEGOMENA ::

:: Friday, April 30 ::

LOVE THAT FREE SPEECH
:: michael parker Friday, April 30, 2004 [+] ::
...

LIBERALS STRENGTHENING THE MISSILE DEFENSE ARGUMENT

The wish is nice, but it does not look the enemy in the eye any more than it acknowledges the enemy's existence:

Russia and the U.S. are now self- described allies in their fight against global terrorism. Their first duty in this effort should be immediate and rapid bilateral nuclear disarmament, accompanied by the other six nuclear nations (France, Britain, China, India, Pakistan and Israel), along with U.N. Security Council action to ensure that no other nations — particularly Iran and North Korea — acquire nuclear weapons.

This won’t happen entirely without the intervention of God Himself.
However:
• American activity in Asia has motivated India and Pakistan to talk about Kashmir instead of waving nukes in the air.
• South Africa was the first nation to do away with theirs (although this was cynically dismissed as an effort to keep blacks from getting the bomb).
• Qadafi's Libya is becoming swiftly open.
• The change in Iraq should bring on needed change in Iran by strengthening Iran’s significant student democracy movement. Iran will open.

Still,
• Communist China eyes the natural gas of the Spratleys, wants the national pride in taking back democratic Taiwan, will not give up Tibet, seizes territory from northeast India, and specifically threatened the incineration of Los Angeles in 1995. China’s population may require eastern Russia.
• North Korea, besides specifically threatening the US, has already launched a missile over Japan, which may also belong on that has-nukes list, and which seeks missile defense capability.
• Back to that list, compare the number of China’s nuclear-capable neighbors compared to ours.

Tell me about the stabilizing effect of Chinese foreign policy.

Ironically, McNamara and Caldicott give strength to the argument for missile defense.

The earliest idea of atomic weaponry I am aware of is the Nazi aspiration to develop the bomb. Naturally, the Allied west would have to beat them to it to deter.

Soviet Russia, with openly stated aspirations for world domination and subsequent atomic espionage, had to be deterred.

China would not be on the above list for another 20+ years were it not for the deliberately relaxed security during the Clinton administration. (Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary actually disallowed the forced display of clearance-level badges at Los Alamos because she deemed them “discriminatory.” Too bad if she had to enforce non-discrimination she didn’t do it instead in hospital operating rooms – ultimately less people would die.)

Pakistan would not be on the above list were it not for Chinese help. North Korea should be on the above list thanks to Pakistan’s help.

India, the world’s largest democracy, faces aggression from China and from a Muslim world that detests its varied religions. If the Muslim world’s dream for an annihilated Israel came to be, India would get on its Great Satan list as much as America at that time.

If it were not for the United States, Israel would not possess some 400 warheads. If it were not for those warheads, would the 57 nations who gave standing ovation last year to Mahathir Mohamad’s “arm-against-the Jews” speech by now have accomplished their dream?

France will do whatever the hell it wants to do. Britain may as well be us. But combined, and combined with the rest of Europe, the continent is still militarily significantly weaker, but while combined is industrially more productive than the US, which will lead to increased jealousy and hatred from the unfree and backwards nations. Europe will depend on the deterrent power of the French, and especially British, arsenal, and, of course, ours.

:: michael parker Wednesday, April 28, 2004 [+] ::
...

WHERE'S THE SLOGAN?

Tony Blankley bluntly asks where the message is in Kerry's campaign:

Losers, also, usually have a campaign theme. George McGovern wanted to end the war in Vietnam (a perennial favorite). Walter Mondale wanted to raise taxes (Yes, it was only 20 years ago that liberal tax raisers openly and honestly ran on their convictions.) Al Gore was going to be for the people and against the powerful. (Bad call; the meek may inherit the Earth, but they rarely win elections. But at least Mr. Gore had a theme.)

Certainly, Howard Dean had a mission: End the war in Iraq, and crush Washington politicians like they were cockroaches. He would have been the sentimental favorite on the second point, and might yet have won on the first one.

Quickly, think of the phrase that catches John Kerry's theme. ... I can't either. Only two phrases come to mind at all: Bring It On, and Work With Our Allies in Europe and the U.N. Who amongst us will put down our beers (or cognacs) and remote controls on Nov. 2 to go to the polls and vote for either of those phrases?

He also does a fine job defining a key difference in Americans:

The rhetoric of American politics is binary, not gradational: Give me liberty or give me death; our nation cannot exist half slave and half free; are you pro life or pro choice; are you for or against capital punishment; pro or anti-war; for or against tax cuts.

Some cultures admire subtlety of thought and expression in their politicians. No, not just the French. The Chinese, the Hindus, the old Persian culture all admire such traits in their leaders. But the Anglo-Saxon cultures, and preeminently we Americans, admire decisiveness and clarity. We instinctively suspect deceit or indecision where we hear subtlety. We are often right to do so.

:: michael parker Wednesday, April 28, 2004 [+] ::
...

LOCAL THOUGHTS LEAD TO THE BIG PICTURE

Topekans descended on Asheville yesterday, and our churches delivered a pre-emptive rebuke in yesterday's paper:

Today, members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., will be in Asheville to protest at six of our city churches. This group, coming of its own volition with no provocation from any of us, brings with it a message of hate masked as religious values, and seeks to confuse and publicly criticize church communities who do not follow the dictates of the gospel as they understand it.

They are known for their intolerant attitudes toward churches and individuals who differ with them on matters of theology and politics. They are not interested in civil conversation about how the church may share the grace and love of Jesus Christ and the gift of Christian community with all people. Instead they view the recognition of diversity and complexity as "compromise" of the gospel message and they condemn any individual or group, which seeks to understand and minister to people of diverse attitudes and lifestyles.

We, the pastors of the six churches targeted for protest here in Asheville, have come together to show our solidarity in the faith we share in Jesus Christ and to make clear to the people we serve, as well as the broader community, that we believe:

* "Hate" can never be used as a means to describe the action(s) of God in relation to people or circumstances in our world.

* The gospel compels all believers to embrace and share the love of God we find in Christ Jesus the Lord in our attitudes, our ideals, our openness and our hospitality to others.

* Our Christian faith admonishes us to see the presence of God in every heart and lifetime and to proclaim the good news that God's gift of salvation is never exclusive or mediated by human judgment.

We invite all people of faith and good will to pray with us especially on April 25 as we gather peacefully in prayer and song, as every Sunday, with our congregations. Pray that hatred will be turned to love, emptiness to forgiveness, and all that confuses and deadens will be turned to Life.

In the same opinion section a local got her thoughts printed as well:

I've lived in Asheville for 25 years. I would like to ask you how these books and magazines come up with rating Asheville as one of the best places to live and that Asheville is gay friendly.

I know I wasn't asked my opinion and neither were any of the natives that I know. Everyone I've spoken to does not like what's happening to this town. We are not gay friendly. We would like for most of the transplants to go somewhere else. We don't appreciate the crazy arts that don't make sense to us. (We do have wonderful, native artists and musicians).

I do not like to take my family into town because I never know what I am going to have to explain to my children. There are rude, half-clothed, weird looking people, some aggressively wanting a handout. These people have not been born and bred here.

I'll bet that if whoever was doing those surveys would have asked the common folks who have lived here forever their opinion of their town they would have said, "It's going downhill." Please understand: We are not gay friendly or weirdo friendly. We want Asheville the way it was.

The local smartass responds on impulse, but will they print the unedited version?:

“A better label for Asheville”

On April 25, an AC-T letter argued “Magazines don’t represent native’s opinion of Asheville”. The writer decried the “best place” and “gay friendly” labels in a surprising claim best paraphrased as “We don’t want them here.”

Ironically, “gay unfriendly” people from Topeka that very day came to Asheville to protest allegedly “gay friendly” churches. A lovely guest column by 6 pastors rebuked their intolerance on the next page.

I agree that magazines need to drop the trite “gay friendly” label, but for a different reason: it is incomplete. Asheville is in fact “all-walks-of-life friendly." That is how a conservative activist (yours truly) can always have a drink and great talks with a Kucinich activist, a quirky artist, or a Rastafarian.

The writer claims to shelter her family from downtown’s “rude, half-clothed, weird-looking people” and “crazy arts.” Additionally, she wants Asheville “the way it was.”

That’s a depressing vision: the majority of downtown spaces vacant; almost all independent restaurants gone; the transplants and the entrepreneurs investing and creating jobs elsewhere.

Be encouraged, timid writer, your family has a better chance of staying in its home town because “all walks of life” are here.

An outrageous alternative magazine at Rutgers called The Medium posts a terrific picture of "the way it was." Scroll to the bottom of the page to the photo of blacks and a billboard.

:: michael parker Monday, April 26, 2004 [+] ::
...

PRIVILEGED TO BE SERVED

Peggy Noonan again demonstrates tact:
"Privileged to Serve -In this war, not only the sons of the poor are enlisting. "

The Ranger website provides even more great fact:

Often forgotten is that Tillman's younger brother, Kevin, who played baseball at ASU and was in the Cleveland Indians organization, enlisted with him. When people approach their father, attorney Pat Tillman Sr., and praise the sacrifice his celebrated son has made, he holds up two fingers.

"He and his brother are doing well and have risen to every challenge presented to them," said Elsi Jackson, a civilian public affairs officer at Fort Benning, Ga.

Just yesterday was some kind of news about more (foolish) draft talk. Today we read that enlistment and re-enlistment are higher than expected.

...So, Secretary Shalala, are we sending "our best and brightest" this time?



:: michael parker Friday, April 23, 2004 [+] ::
...

US lawmakers pass 'doomsday bill'

Wow, serious work on the Hill. The best sentence in the whole report is the quote by Brian Baird about the great work of Todd Beamer and company aboard Flight 93.

The final statement in this report surprised the hell out of me:

The US House of Representatives has approved a "doomsday bill" allowing for special elections to be held speedily in case terrorists target Congress.
The elections would have to be held within 45 days, in the event that 100 or more members were killed.

It is suspected that the Congress building may have been the intended target of one of the four airliners hijacked on 11 September 2001.

The plane crashed in Pennsylvania after some passengers challenged the captors.

"Those passengers gave their lives to give us a second chance," said Brian Baird, a Washington state Democrat.

Rival bid

The bill was supported by a majority of 306 representatives in the 435-seat body.

Some members argued it was inadequate, leaving the House of Representatives with too many empty seats for a long time in the event that an attack causes mass fatalities.

They advocated a rival bill allowing temporary appointments, but this would require an amendment to the US Constitution.

Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner criticised the proposal, saying "democratic principles must be preserved at all costs".

Constitutional amendments in the US require a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the Congress and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.

The Congress has discussed, but never acted on, the continuity question during the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s.

:: michael parker Friday, April 23, 2004 [+] ::
...

QUICK - SEND IN JIMMY!

The train exploded Thursday afternoon, hitting Ryongchon, a manufacturing center, with the force of a small nuclear bomb, raining debris over a 10-mile radius and sending acrid smoke over the nearby border with China.

:: michael parker Friday, April 23, 2004 [+] ::
...

IF A MAN CANNOT CONTROL HIS FAMILY ....

(isn't that what they said about the Bush twins?)

Kerry Says His 'Family' Owns SUV, Not He

:: michael parker Friday, April 23, 2004 [+] ::
...

WHERE DID FRIEDMAN LEARN CHESS?

Thomas Friedman rants in the NYT in "Kicking over the Chessboard":

I'm fed up with the Middle East, or more accurately, I'm fed up with the stalemate in the Middle East.

Good, now maybe he can shut up about it.

His chessboard is interesting, too: the Palestinian pawns come to mind first. The teens and pre-teens strapped in dynamite, and the civilians amongst whom the terrorists hide.

The Israeli pawns, well, aren't pawns by comparison, although the Palestinians seem to think all 16 pawns are theirs.

The rules of movement are clearly different. Thinking back to Oslo, Israel moves back, Arafat moves forward. Israel complies, Arafat doesn't and gets a pass. Where is Maddie Albright when you need her?

And while I was at it, I also thought I'd write that it is an abomination for Mr. Bush to say that Palestinians had to recognize "the new realities on the ground" in the West Bank — the massive Israeli settlement blocks — without even mentioning the fact that those "new realities" were built in defiance of stated U.S. policy and they have been just devastating to Palestinian civilians, who've seen their lands confiscated, olive groves uprooted and community fragmented.

Fragmented is an interesting choice of word, and accurately describes not just the teenagers and women bearing explosive vests, but the Israeli citizens, Arab and Jew, in cafes, on buses, and celebrating the Passover meal wherever you find equally fragmented Palestinian hate agents after their so-called martyrdom is accomplished.

Fragmented describes the Palestinian family whose mother decided her two sons having a mother was less important than her "knocking on the door of heaven with the skull of a Jew." Fragmented describes the Palestinian family who lost their son to Palestinian gunfire because - oops - they thought he was a Jew.

Perhaps the fragmented Palestinians build unity by naming streets after their suicide bombers and letting their children trade "martyr cards" since thbaseballll bats are in the Palestinian arsenal.


:: michael parker Thursday, April 22, 2004 [+] ::
...

TALKING POINTS, O - RAMA

Diana West paraphrases Victor Davis Hanson on the accomplishments of George W Bush:

Thanks to George W. Bush, the Taliban are gone.
So is Saddam Hussein.
Yasser Arafat is isolated, restricted to the wretched confines of his Ramallah compound.
American troops no longer stake their lives guarding the terror kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and
Europeans finally feel a righteous American heat over their cold accountings of anti-Semitism and their largesse to Islamic terror organizations.

Thanks also to Bush, Islamofascist "charities" have been shuttered in this country.
Al Qaeda is in splinters around the world, desperately seeking a new state-haven.
In one of the great diplomatic coups of our time, Pakistan has been turned, as Hanson put it, from "a de facto foe to a scrutinized neutral."
Just this week, India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, publicly credited the U.S.-led war in Iraq with pushing nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to set about resolving their dispute over Kashmir.
Bush has further pressured Libya, Iran and Pakistan to come clean on nuclear cheating; and
where the Middle East once feared Iraq's military, the president has had reason lately to lament its ineffectualness.
Then there's always the fact that he has "so far avoided another September 11 -- and promises that he is not nearly done yet."

Victor Davis Hanson, back in February, dressed the kettle in black so the pot could pretend to have something to say. "just imagine the following:"

That Pakistan, Iran, and Libya, either in fear or out of admiration, bowed to pressure from the EU and the UN to release information about their WMD programs.

That Saudi Arabia is now hunting down al Qaedists due to belated sympathy and concern about 9/11.

That Syria and Iran believe that the United States is in a "quagmire" in Iraq, and that because of such failure there they are now more bold and aggressive in their relationships with America.

That in accordance with the angry themes of the Arab state-run media, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia will shortly announce that they can no longer allow their citizens to visit such a satanic place as the United States.

That had Mr. Carter been allowed to employ his patented Nobel-Prize winning Korean model of curbing nuclear proliferation with Muammar Khaddafi, Libya would now be free of nukes.

and...

That because Mr. Kerry voted against the 1991 war, he opposed sending troops under U.N. auspices to the Middle East; that because he voted for the 2003 deployment, he advocated sending American troops without the U.N. to the Middle East; and that because he later voted in 2003 to deny funds to troops in the field, he opposed U.S. deployment unless it was under the auspices of the U.N.

and...

That the newly created intelligence commission finds that Mr. Bush is too gullible and ignores inferences from raw intelligence and thus is culpable for September 11 ? and that Mr. Bush is too hair-triggered and over interprets inferences from raw intelligence and thus is culpable for invading Iraq.

Sheikh 'Atiyyah Saqr, who in the past issued a Fatwa declaring Jews "apes and pigs," was asked the following question in March in an online chat room: "What, according to the Qur'an, are the Jews' main characteristics and qualities?":

2) "They love to listen to lies. Concerning this Allah says: 'And of the Jews: listeners for the sake of falsehood, listeners on behalf of other folk.' (Al-Ma'idah: 41)
3) "Disobeying Almighty Allah and never observing His commands. Allah says: 'And because they broke their covenant, We have cursed them and hardened their hearts.' (Al-Ma'idah: 13)
14) "It is easy for them to slay people and kill innocents. Nothing in the world is dearer to their hearts than shedding blood and murdering human beings. They never give up this trait even with the Messengers and the Prophets. Allah says: '? And [they] slew the prophets wrongfully.' (Al-Baqarah: 61)
17) "They rush hurriedly to sin and compete in transgression. Allah says: 'They restrained not one another from the wickedness they did. Verily, evil was what they used to do!' (Al-Ma'idah: 79)

Jeff Jacoby writes about the willingness of Jews to cling to their faith in the Ghettos amid Nazi murder:

What is stunning is that men and women in the throes of such hideous suffering and brutality were still concerned about adhering to Jewish law. In the lowest depths of the Nazi hell, in a place of terror and savagery that most of us cannot fathom, here were human beings who refused to relinquish their faith -- who refused even to violate a religious precept without first asking if it was allowed.

Violence, humiliation, and hunger will reduce some people to animals willing to do anything to survive. The Jews who sought out Rabbi Oshry -- like Jews in so many other corners of Nazi Europe -- were not reduced but elevated, reinforced in their belief, determined against crushing odds to walk in the ways of their fathers.

:: michael parker Tuesday, April 20, 2004 [+] ::
...

OUR IMMINENT ELECTION DANGER

Spain Set to Pull Iraq Troops; Marines Killed Near Syria

Perhaps the post-election bombs on the Spanish train tracks were needed after all. There was the declaration of troop removal after the bomb-influenced election, but it took, I suppose, just a couple more to bring home the soldados.

We are in danger here. Our enemy will strike, and, worshiping death, will not fear our response. Add to that the American mobs that take busloads of people to the private homes of conservative leaders, beat on the windows, and terrify the occupants. The mentality is in place, and the time is soon.

In the meantime:

Spain's prime minister says he does not believe the United Nations will be able to take over the occupation of Iraq.

So, Senator Kerry, if Spain did the right thing by electing the terrorists' choice, are they right about the UN you say should be more involved? What is the message from the Left today anyway? or will it finally be that 20+ million ordinary Iraqis really aren't worth the effort?

The terrorists certainly agree about the worthlessness of people. That message, buried inside the bigger message from the Left, is what the bombers are counting on.

:: michael parker Monday, April 19, 2004 [+] ::
...

HELLO, POT... MEET KETTLE

North Korea slams Cheney as 'mentally deranged'

:: michael parker Monday, April 19, 2004 [+] ::
...

TRANSLATION: CLINTON WOULD ACCEPT VP NOMINATION

Clinton says she would not accept VP slot


TO BRING DOWN THE COURT-APPOINTED PRESIDENT

Air America Radio To Be Back On In Chicago Today Thanks To Judge

:: michael parker Friday, April 16, 2004 [+] ::
...

WAY TO GO, HUNGARY

More good work from one of the Gang of Eight.

Hungary Thwarts Plot to Kill Israeli President

An Arab bomb plot for the opening of the Holocaust museum. Imagine that. "If only you had done it, Brother..."

:: michael parker Tuesday, April 13, 2004 [+] ::
...

AMERICA PRESERVED, FOR A LITTLE LONGER

Dogs Maintain Pickup Rights in Tennessee

"After much howling in the Legislature, senators decided that dogs can continue riding free in the backs of pickup trucks."

It amazes how something like this, legal as long as there have been pickups, suddenly for some people needs to become illegal. I wonder what Al Gore's position would have been. Would his ability to hypnotize chickens have any influence on his position?

:: michael parker Tuesday, April 13, 2004 [+] ::
...

APPROPRIATE

Convention seen yielding a net loss
Study says business productivity will take a $23.8 million hit

...so reports the Boston Globe about the upcoming Democratic Party convention, which of course will be followed by the Globe's endorsement of the party's nominee.

:: michael parker Tuesday, April 13, 2004 [+] ::
...

RICE TESTIMONY MANIPULATION AND THE VALUE OF THE BLOGGERS

via Spot On, via Instapundit, via Protein Wisdom (the guy who posted the X-ray, who's finally back):

Road Kill Diaries puts the transcripts side-by-side to prove manipulation by the mainstream media.

and...

Fuck you, Bob Kerry:

"Let me say at the beginning I'm very impressed, indeed, I'd go so far as to say moved by your story, the story of your life and what you've accomplished. It's quite extraordinary."

Is this really the kind of attention that ordinary black Americans want? At least Kerry's pander didn't tell the country that blacks are stupid, which was the Al Gore's message after some 3000 people in south Florida screwed up their punch-ballots in the 2000 election. Still, when is this going to end?

Let's parse Bob Kerry's statement:

"L I B, Dr. Clarke - ah - Ms. Rice, the Democrats of Jim Crow Alabama just couldn't keep some smart brown sugar like you down. And my fellow Democrat Lee Hamilton is right, you sure are articulate, you think you can get your boss to talk as good as you do?

If only you didn't act so white and betray your race into thinking they don't have to vote as a herd. If you were the right kind of black, we should have seen you here thirteen years ago."

:: michael parker Friday, April 09, 2004 [+] ::
...

THE BA'ATHIST WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

The US Agency for International Development posts its report on Iraqi mass graves.

The photos published with the report are bearable. They are not the images of the incinerated, hacked with shovels and hung from the bridge in Fallujah. They do not feature the reveling of the wicked, but instead they show evidently civilized Iraqi people going through the bones.

I have read elsewhere about the women excavated still clutching their water jugs - clearly not expecting death when they were simply off to fetch a pail of water. That image would have added to this report, but there is an image of one victim's skull with his blindfold still intact. Then there the stories of the survivors, Ali, Muhaned, and Hamid.

This report and its images will not sway the Bush-haters. They do not care about the mass-murdered any more than they cared about the women in Afghanistan or the homosexuals who are desperate to flee Palestine. To them, Bush is the wrong person to earn credit for their liberation - and even that gives them too much credit. In what could be almost irreffutably argued as leftist racism, their protests make their case clearly that these mass murdered and their survivors are not worth the effort. In the meantime, they bemoan the alleged theocracy of a dreadfully Christian President who had the nerve to make a moral case for this war.

:: michael parker Thursday, April 08, 2004 [+] ::
...

OBSESSION WITH IRAQ AND THE LOOK ON CONDI'S FACE

Although this National Security Presidential Directive was originally a highly classified document, we arranged for portions to be declassified to help the Commission in its work, and I will describe some of those today. The strategy set as its goal the elimination of the al-Qaida network. It ordered the leadership of relevant U.S. departments and agencies to make the elimination of al-Qaida a high priority and to use all aspects of our national power - - intelligence, financial, diplomatic, and military - - to meet this goal. And it gave Cabinet Secretaries and department heads specific responsibilities. For instance:

* It directed the Secretary of State to work with other countries to end all sanctuaries given to al-Qaida.

* It directed the Secretaries of the Treasury and State to work with foreign governments to seize or freeze assets and holdings of al-Qaida and its benefactors.

* It directed the Director of Central Intelligence to prepare an aggressive program of covert activities to disrupt al-Qaida and provide assistance to anti-Taliban groups operating against al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

* It tasked the Director of OMB with ensuring that sufficient funds were available in the budgets over the next five years to meet the goals laid out in the strategy.

* And it directed the Secretary of Defense to - - and I quote - - "ensure that the contingency planning process include plans: against al-Qaida and associated terrorist facilities in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control-communications, training, and logistics facilities; against Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control, air and air defense, ground forces, and logistics; to eliminate weapons of mass destruction which al-Qaida and associated terrorist groups may acquire or manufacture, including those stored in underground bunkers." This was a change from the prior strategy -- Presidential Decision Directive 62, signed in 1998 - - which ordered the Secretary of Defense to provide transportation to bring individual terrorists to the U.S. for trial, to protect DOD forces overseas, and to be prepared to respond to terrorist and weapons of mass destruction incidents.

I love this part:

Within a month of taking office, President Bush sent a strong, private message to President Musharraf urging him to use his influence with the Taliban to bring Bin Laden to justice and to close down al-Qaida training camps. Secretary Powell actively urged the Pakistanis, including Musharraf himself, to abandon support for the Taliban. I met with Pakistan's Foreign Minister in my office in June of 2001. I delivered a very tough message, which was met with a rote, expressionless response.

"Within a month." - We already knew that Clarke was a liar, not because of the release of his book, but because of giving contradictory testimonies before the Congress. There was no doubt which testimony was a lie. The only damning thing I find is Condoleezza Rice taking, in her own words, the "unusual step" of keeping Clarke at his post. We all know now that the look Clarke described on Rice's face could only have been one of contempt for him, and the rote, expressionless response was actually on the face of an Islamist sympathizer who certainly preferred Clarke over Rice.


LET'S GO BACK TO 1998

From inside Rice's above statement: "Presidential Decision Directive 62, signed in 1998 - - which ordered the Secretary of Defense to provide transportation to bring individual terrorists to the U.S. for trial, to protect DOD forces overseas, and to be prepared to respond to terrorist and weapons of mass destruction incidents. "

To be prepared to respond to incidents - here is the root of the pre-emptive strike argument. Clintonian leadership, with this take, went far enough to decide that we RESPOND to weapons of mass destruction incidents. In other words, not prevent. (Is it any damn wonder the Chinese got our mass weapons technologies?)

So that's it. Do nothing to prevent because terrorists will strike anyway. Do not fight because terrorists will strike anyway. Welcome to Spain.

:: michael parker Thursday, April 08, 2004 [+] ::
...

DICTIONARY BADLY NEEDED

In the last two hours of sleep I had truly surreal dreams. The highway I was on began to warp and tilt up like the deck of the Titanic. Then it morphed into something like an aircraft carrier combined with Battlestar Galactica. I could detatch body parts and hold them in my hands. My age changed.

And I woke up hearing John Kerry speaking the word "unilateral" on NPR. It was the Bob Edwards interview.

Just as the professional radio and TV speakers have been pointing out, his campaign is almost entirely a Bush-bash and almost completely without the details of Kerry's own plans. And that word "unilateral". The British should be expressing insult at Kerry and Carter's dismissal of their contributions. Further, Kerry lies when he calls it unilateral, but the country, even knowing better, shows an absurd faith in the nuances.

:: michael parker Wednesday, April 07, 2004 [+] ::
...

BUSH - IT'S A WAR ON TERROR

US General Vows to 'Destroy' Sadr's Militia

Iraq Coalition Aims to `Destroy' Rebel Mahdi Army, Kimmitt Says

KERRY - IT SHOULD BE A LAW ENFORCEMENT MISSION

Convicted Sept. 11 suspect leaves prison

:: michael parker Wednesday, April 07, 2004 [+] ::
...

DRILL !

Alaska's governor has expressed the "will of Alaska" by declaring an OK to drilling for oil in the Beaufort Sea, outside of the ANWR, where drilling does not require an act of Congress.

Environmentalists are balking, because, with good reason, they do not believe would actually take place there for being too expensive. Native Alaskans, who support drilling into the land, fear an offshore operation with good reason: they are whalers. You don't have to travel there, as I have, to figure out that growing crops is impossible. Of course they do not want, and should not have, a vital food source put at risk.

Still, again, native Alaskans favor drilling the land. For all the fuss, the environmentalists whose global-warming models we are supposed to accept without question, demonstrate in Alaska their extremely poor math skills in two key ways:

proposed drilling area: 2000 acres
ANWR's area: the size of South Carolina
ANWR's part of Alaska: a mere fraction

change in population of caribou over last 20 years: + 800% (that's an increase)

Again, we are not to question their eco-enviro-science claims, even in the face of them proving their own mathematic disability.

:: michael parker Friday, April 02, 2004 [+] ::
...

TAKE THE MARK, AND THE BEAST WILL STILL KILL YOU

Spain 2004: perhaps the Spaniards should march for a re-vote:

Bomb Found on Rail Line in Spain

And so soon after the election.
What is the Spanish word for Limburg? Maybe the same as the French word for "sucker."

:: michael parker Friday, April 02, 2004 [+] ::
...

"We've had similar discussions throughout the war" in how to handle such raw footage, said Steve Capus, executive producer of "NBC Nightly News."

In this case, it is "very disturbing, it's awful. Quite honestly, it doesn't need to be seen in full in order to convey the horrors of this despicable act," Capus said.

The photos of the crime in Fallujah were more complete at Yahoo News Photos yesterday. The charred bodies strung from the overhead beams of the bridge, and the bodies that were being hacked to pieces with shovels, are images that actually do need to be seen. I was disturbed all day yesterday after viewing them via a Drudge link, but, like the video of the beheading of Richard Pearl, I think I had a responsibility to view them.

They are the images of the enemy that must be viewed, and studied, because of the vast number of people who are still in denial about the complete evil of the Ba'athist regime and why it had to be stopped. Radio news has done a so-so job with descriptions, but there is no mention of the shovels. Some refer to dragging and leave out the stringing-up, I haven't heard the radio describe the involvement of the young boys.

Still, the images were tempting me to decide that all those people over there are animals and do not deserve our help. Pull out and let them die.

But that thought gets it totally backwards. The enemy in yesterday's photos is different from the millions of innocents in the rest of Iraq. We, the world's richest country, have sacrificed to help those innocents because that is right to do.

Annihilation is called for, however, of the enemy in Fallujah. Like the people of the West Bank and of Gaza, who I repeated see dancing at the news of dead Americans and Jews, whose children trade suicide bomber cards when not themselves are being sent to explode, who parade in bomb belts and vests, and who name their streets after suicide bombers, these people in Fallujah, rotten with hate, young and old, may simply need to be wiped out.

Genocide? - Is that what we call the bombing of Nazi Germany's cites? Japan's? Or was it the necessity in war to smash the enemy?
Is it possible to take these indoctrinated minds by the hundreds of thousands, sing Kum-ba-ya, and convert them? When Christ comes and does it Himself...

:: michael parker Thursday, April 01, 2004 [+] ::
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