Ten Random, Politically-Incorrect Thoughts
by Victor Davis Hanson
Pajamas Media
Four years of high-school Latin would dramatically arrest the decline in American education. In particular, such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the ‘role model’ diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles’s Antigone in Greek or Thucydides’ dialogue at Melos). After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies — indeed, anything “studies” — were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.2. Hollywood is going the way of Detroit. The actors are programmed and pretty rather than interesting looking and unique. They, of course, are overpaid (they do to films what Lehman Brothers’ execs did to stocks), mediocre, and politicized. The producers and directors are rarely talented, mostly unoriginal — and likewise politicized. A pack-mentality rules. Do one movie on a comic superhero — and suddenly we get ten, all worse than the first. One noble lion cartoon movie earns us eagle, penguin and most of Noah’s Arc sequels. Now see poorer remakes of movies that were never good to begin with. I doubt we will ever see again a Western like Shane, The Searchers, High Noon, or The Wild Bunch. If one wishes to see a fine film, they are now usually foreign, such as Das Boot or Breaker Morant. Watching any recent war movie (e.g., Iraq as the Rape of Nanking) is as if someone put uniforms on student protestors and told them to consult their professors for the impromptu script.3. All the old media brands of our youth have been tarnished and all but discredited. No one picks up Harpers or Atlantic expecting to read a disinterested story on politics or culture. (I pass on their inane accounts of ‘getaways’ and food.) The New York Times and Washington Post are as likely to have op-eds as news stories on the front page. Newsweek and Time became organs for paint-by-numbers Obamism, teased with People Magazine-like gossip pieces (at least, their editors still cared enough to seem hurt when charged with overt bias). NBC, ABC, and CBS would now make a Chet Huntley or Eric Sevareid turn over in his grave. A Keith Olbermann would not have been allowed to do commercials in the 1950s. Strangely, the media has offered up fashionably liberal politics coupled with metrosexual elite tastes in fashions, clothes, housing, food, and the good life, as if there were no contradictions between the two. No wonder media is so enthralled with the cool Obama and his wife. Both embody the new nexus between Eurosocialism in the abstract and the hip aristocratic life in the concrete.4. After the junk bond meltdown, the S&L debacle, and now the financial panic, in just a few years the financial community destroyed the ancient wisdom: deal in personal trust; your word is your bond; avoid extremes; treat the money you invest for others as something sacred; don’t take any more perks than you would wish others to take; don’t borrow what you couldn’t suddenly pay back; imagine the worse case financial scenario and expect it may very well happen; the wealthier you become the more humble you should act. And for what did our new Jay Goulds do all this? A 20,000 square-foot mansion instead of the old 6,000 sq. ft. expansive house? A Gulfstream in lieu of first class commercial? You milk your company, cash in your stock bonuses, enjoy your $50 million cash pile, and then get what — a Rolex instead of a reliable Timex? A Maserati for a Mercedes, a gold bathroom spout in preference to brushed pewter? The extra splurge was marginal and hardly worth the stain of avarice on one’s immortal soul.5. California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries — and squandered that gift within a generation. Compare the vast gulf from old Governor Pat Brown to Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. We did not invest in many dams, canals, rails, and airports (though we use them all to excess); we sued each other rather than planned; wrote impact statements rather than left behind infrastructure; we redistributed, indulged, blamed, and so managed all at once to create a state with about the highest income and sales taxes and the worst schools, roads, hospitals, and airports. A walk through downtown San Francisco, a stroll up the Fresno downtown mall, a drive along highway 101 (yes, in many places it is still a four-lane, pot-holed highway), an afternoon at LAX, a glance at the catalogue of Cal State Monterey, a visit to the park in Parlier — all that would make our forefathers weep. We can’t build a new nuclear plant; can’t drill a new offshore oil well; can’t build an all-weather road across the Sierra; can’t build a few tracts of new affordable houses in the Bay Area; can’t build a dam for a water-short state; and can’t create even a mediocre passenger rail system. Everything else — well, we do that well.6. Something has happened to the generic American male accent. Maybe it is urbanization; perhaps it is now an affectation to sound precise and caring with a patina of intellectual authority; perhaps it is the fashion culture of the metrosexual; maybe it is the influence of the gay community in arts and popular culture. Maybe the ubiquitous new intonation comes from the scarcity of salty old jobs in construction, farming, or fishing. But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female. How indeed could one make Westerns these days, when there simply is not anyone left who sounds like John Wayne, Richard Boone, Robert Duvall, or Gary Cooper much less a Struther Martin, Jack Palance, L.Q. Jones, or Ben Johnson? I watched the movie Twelve O’clock High the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded liked they were from another planet. I confess over the last year, I have been interviewed a half-dozen times on the phone, and had no idea at first whether a male or female was asking the questions. All this sounds absurd, but I think upon reflection readers my age (55) will attest they have had the same experience. In the old days, I remember only that I first heard a variant of this accent with the old Paul Lynde character actor in one of the Flubber movies; now young men sound closer to his camp than to a Jack Palance or Alan Ladd.7. We have given political eccentricity a bad name. There used to be all sorts of classy individualists, liberal and conservative alike, like Everett Dirksen, J. William Fulbright, Margaret Chase Smith, or Sam Ervin; today we simply see the obnoxious who claim to be eccentric like a Barbara Boxer, Al Franken, Barney Frank, or Harry Reid. The loss is detectable even in diction and manner; Dirksen was no angel, but he was witty, charming, insightful; Frank is no angel, but he merely rants and pontificates. Watch the You Tube exchange between Harvard Law Graduate Frank and Harvard Law Graduate Raines as they arrogantly dismiss their trillion-dollar Fannie/Freddie meltdown in the making. I suppose it is the difference between the Age of Belief and the Age of Nihilism.8. Do not farm. There is only loss. To the degree that anyone makes money farming, it is a question of a vertically-integrated enterprise making more in shipping, marketing, selling, packing, and brokering than it loses on the other end in growing. No exceptions. Food prices stay high, commodity prices stay low. That is all ye need to know. Try it and see.9. As I wrote earlier, the shrill Left is increasingly far more vicious these days than the conservative fringe, and about like the crude Right of the 1950s. Why? I am not exactly sure, other than the generic notion that utopians often believe that their anointed ends justify brutal means. Maybe it is that the Right already had its Reformation when Buckley and others purged the extremists — the Birchers, the neo-Confederates, racialists, the fluoride-in-the-water conspiracists, anti-Semites, and assorted nuts — from the conservative ranks in a way the Left has never done with the 1960s radicals that now reappear in the form of Michael Moore, Bill Ayers, Cindy Sheehan, Moveon.org, the Daily Kos, etc. Not many Democrats excommunicated Moveon.org for its General Betray-Us ad. Most lined up to see the premier of Moore’s mythodrama. Barack Obama could subsidize a Rev. Wright or email a post-9/11 Bill Ayers in a way no conservative would even dare speak to a David Duke or Timothy McVeigh — and what Wright said was not all that different from what Duke spouts. What separated Ayers from McVeigh was chance; had the stars aligned, the Weathermen would have killed hundreds as they planned.10. The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.Well, with that done — I feel much better.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Be an Angel to Those Who Have Bled for Our Freedoms
Be an Angel to Those Who Have Bled for Our Freedoms
Posted By C. Blake Powers On November 27, 2008 @ 12:28 am In . Column2 04, Media, US News No Comments
One can scarcely turn on the news today without hearing the latest breathless take on the damage done by the current economic crisis. The refrain, from [1] Canada, the [2] trotted out almost every time there is a hiccup, much less a real economic problem.
What we are experiencing has truly created the effects of a storm, however, as people prepare for the worst and react as if the worst were already here. One of the first casualties of any economic downturn are charities, and it is [3] easy [4] to [5] find [6] stories [7] about real or anticipated drops in contributions.
Yet, if history is any guide, Americans will continue to give and could even increase donations as noted by [8] the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which even has a [9] special guide on philanthropy in troubled times. Americans have traditionally voluntarily given to others in times of crisis, be it a natural disaster or an economic downturn. This history and spirit of giving to those truly in need is a cultural foundation of our nation and its people.
It is with pleasure that we at [10] Soldiers’ Angels report that despite the economy, that most major programs are continuing with the generosity of individual and corporate donors. Things are tight, but with the continued generosity of the public towards those who have served and are serving, Soldiers’ Angels will continue to be able to meet the demand.
“Soldiers’ Angels is very fortunate to have its direct mail program which has allowed us to keep care packages flowing out to deployed, backpacks to the combat support hospitals, vet packs to our VA hospitals,” notes Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldiers’ Angels. This program has grown out of the base of initial individual contributors, who helped the charity grow. Building off that base, the direct mail campaigns have reached out to a wider audience and brought in contributions that have allowed a second stage of growth for the charity.
The company behind them creates the mailings, provides the incentives, and raises the funds in exchange for a flat fee per piece mailed. It is important to note that the two companies doing the direct mail fund-raising believe in Soldiers’ Angels mission and have contracted for a smaller fee than for their other clients, so that Soldiers’ Angels gets more for their work.
Additionally, the direct mail campaign not only brings in significant funds to the charity, it also serves the purpose of advertising the mission of Soldiers’ Angels and opens doors to yet another level of donations. With this funding and more than 200,000 volunteers, Soldiers’ Angels now has the resources to pursue significant corporate sponsorships and participation in events such as the Combined Federal Campaign and other planned giving opportunities.
The individual donors who helped Soldiers’ Angels get off the ground remain the cornerstone of its economic foundation. Those who already know about the charity can, and do, make contributions directly to it for that purpose.
They are also an integral part of [11] Project Valour-IT, which provides voice-activated/adaptive laptops and other technology to wounded or disabled veterans. In addition to the laptops, which are the heart of the project, WII game consoles and GPS units are provided as well. The WII systems work the whole body, and as such, increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists. The GPS and/or PDA units build self-confidence and independence by providing compensation for short-term memory loss and challenges related to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
All the equipment is given only at the request of therapists and caseworkers, and never frivolously. The success of this program has resulted in the development of a direct partnership between Soldiers’ Angels and the Department of Defense. Soldiers’ Angels donates the laptops directly to the soldier and DOD provides voice activated software and technical training to the wounded warrior. Since the soldier receives his own personal laptop, he is able to take it with him when he is discharged and thus maintain continuity with the hospital to his home.
This very special project has always been completely Internet and word-of-mouth driven in its fund-raising. Traditionally, an annual fundraiser kicks off on Veterans’ Day and ends on Thanksgiving, and a friendly competition between the services provides the means to raise a goal of $250,000.00.
Sad to say, this year finds us barely more than 27% to that goal. There are a variety of factors at work, and the economy and worries about the future are a part of that. The problem is, as Patti notes, “Without these needed funds, someone who fought for us will go without and that is heartbreaking. PTSD is on the rise and we are far from training a public on how they can help. After all It will take a Nation to heal a War. These laptops, GPS , WII’s and the like truly help these men and women feel special, important, that someone cares and that can mean a lot.”
You can help Soldiers’ Angels and the various teams meet their goal even at this late date. You can donate directly to [12] Valour-IT and know that one hundred percent of the monies raised go to the technology provided and not to overhead or other costs. Or, if you would like to get something more than knowing that you’ve had a direct and positive impact on a wounded or disabled service member, you can get as you give via [13] the charity auction.
This auction of signed books, and one special fleece blanket, was made possible by the generosity of seven authors: David Weber, John Ringo, David J. Williams, Travis “Doc” Taylor, David Drake, Dean Ing, and Mark L. Van Name. Each of them have donated signed books to be auctioned in support of Valour-IT. David J. WIlliams has even added maps of the world of his books to go with each of the volumes he donated.
One of the most humbling moments of my life was being asked to present some of these laptops at Walter Reed on my way home from my first embed in Iraq. Some of the most rewarding moments of this last year, if not my life, came when talking to recipients and hearing from them how much the laptops and technology had helped them and meant to them.
This year will see us examine how we want to meet the challenges for Project Valour-IT fundraising. With your help, we can still meet our goals and provide a direct and tangible benefit for those who have paid a blood price for us and our country. I ask you today to do what we have always done in times of crisis, and help those in need.
Posted By C. Blake Powers On November 27, 2008 @ 12:28 am In . Column2 04, Media, US News No Comments
One can scarcely turn on the news today without hearing the latest breathless take on the damage done by the current economic crisis. The refrain, from [1] Canada, the [2] trotted out almost every time there is a hiccup, much less a real economic problem.
What we are experiencing has truly created the effects of a storm, however, as people prepare for the worst and react as if the worst were already here. One of the first casualties of any economic downturn are charities, and it is [3] easy [4] to [5] find [6] stories [7] about real or anticipated drops in contributions.
Yet, if history is any guide, Americans will continue to give and could even increase donations as noted by [8] the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which even has a [9] special guide on philanthropy in troubled times. Americans have traditionally voluntarily given to others in times of crisis, be it a natural disaster or an economic downturn. This history and spirit of giving to those truly in need is a cultural foundation of our nation and its people.
It is with pleasure that we at [10] Soldiers’ Angels report that despite the economy, that most major programs are continuing with the generosity of individual and corporate donors. Things are tight, but with the continued generosity of the public towards those who have served and are serving, Soldiers’ Angels will continue to be able to meet the demand.
“Soldiers’ Angels is very fortunate to have its direct mail program which has allowed us to keep care packages flowing out to deployed, backpacks to the combat support hospitals, vet packs to our VA hospitals,” notes Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldiers’ Angels. This program has grown out of the base of initial individual contributors, who helped the charity grow. Building off that base, the direct mail campaigns have reached out to a wider audience and brought in contributions that have allowed a second stage of growth for the charity.
The company behind them creates the mailings, provides the incentives, and raises the funds in exchange for a flat fee per piece mailed. It is important to note that the two companies doing the direct mail fund-raising believe in Soldiers’ Angels mission and have contracted for a smaller fee than for their other clients, so that Soldiers’ Angels gets more for their work.
Additionally, the direct mail campaign not only brings in significant funds to the charity, it also serves the purpose of advertising the mission of Soldiers’ Angels and opens doors to yet another level of donations. With this funding and more than 200,000 volunteers, Soldiers’ Angels now has the resources to pursue significant corporate sponsorships and participation in events such as the Combined Federal Campaign and other planned giving opportunities.
The individual donors who helped Soldiers’ Angels get off the ground remain the cornerstone of its economic foundation. Those who already know about the charity can, and do, make contributions directly to it for that purpose.
They are also an integral part of [11] Project Valour-IT, which provides voice-activated/adaptive laptops and other technology to wounded or disabled veterans. In addition to the laptops, which are the heart of the project, WII game consoles and GPS units are provided as well. The WII systems work the whole body, and as such, increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists. The GPS and/or PDA units build self-confidence and independence by providing compensation for short-term memory loss and challenges related to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
All the equipment is given only at the request of therapists and caseworkers, and never frivolously. The success of this program has resulted in the development of a direct partnership between Soldiers’ Angels and the Department of Defense. Soldiers’ Angels donates the laptops directly to the soldier and DOD provides voice activated software and technical training to the wounded warrior. Since the soldier receives his own personal laptop, he is able to take it with him when he is discharged and thus maintain continuity with the hospital to his home.
This very special project has always been completely Internet and word-of-mouth driven in its fund-raising. Traditionally, an annual fundraiser kicks off on Veterans’ Day and ends on Thanksgiving, and a friendly competition between the services provides the means to raise a goal of $250,000.00.
Sad to say, this year finds us barely more than 27% to that goal. There are a variety of factors at work, and the economy and worries about the future are a part of that. The problem is, as Patti notes, “Without these needed funds, someone who fought for us will go without and that is heartbreaking. PTSD is on the rise and we are far from training a public on how they can help. After all It will take a Nation to heal a War. These laptops, GPS , WII’s and the like truly help these men and women feel special, important, that someone cares and that can mean a lot.”
You can help Soldiers’ Angels and the various teams meet their goal even at this late date. You can donate directly to [12] Valour-IT and know that one hundred percent of the monies raised go to the technology provided and not to overhead or other costs. Or, if you would like to get something more than knowing that you’ve had a direct and positive impact on a wounded or disabled service member, you can get as you give via [13] the charity auction.
This auction of signed books, and one special fleece blanket, was made possible by the generosity of seven authors: David Weber, John Ringo, David J. Williams, Travis “Doc” Taylor, David Drake, Dean Ing, and Mark L. Van Name. Each of them have donated signed books to be auctioned in support of Valour-IT. David J. WIlliams has even added maps of the world of his books to go with each of the volumes he donated.
One of the most humbling moments of my life was being asked to present some of these laptops at Walter Reed on my way home from my first embed in Iraq. Some of the most rewarding moments of this last year, if not my life, came when talking to recipients and hearing from them how much the laptops and technology had helped them and meant to them.
This year will see us examine how we want to meet the challenges for Project Valour-IT fundraising. With your help, we can still meet our goals and provide a direct and tangible benefit for those who have paid a blood price for us and our country. I ask you today to do what we have always done in times of crisis, and help those in need.
Pat Buchanan to Obama
Buchanan to Obama
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America .
Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.
This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new ‘ladders of opportunity’ for blacks.
Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for ‘deserving’ white kids.
Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white America ’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence.
Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard adnauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. Be a better friend,
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America .
Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.
This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new ‘ladders of opportunity’ for blacks.
Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for ‘deserving’ white kids.
Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white America ’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence.
Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard adnauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. Be a better friend,
Terrorist Women Turn Themselves In
Women Bite Dogs in Iraq
Posted By Michael Ledeen On November 26, 2008 @ 7:51 pm In Uncategorized 7 Comments
Here is one of the biggest stories to come out of the Middle East in quite some time. You probably can’t find it in the New York Slimes or the Washington Compost (copyright, Mark Levin), but rather on [1] the exceptionally useful web site of our military Voila’:
TIKRIT, Iraq – Eighteen females in northern Iraq who were associated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq suicide bombing cells turned themselves into Coalition forces on Nov. 26.
The females were persuaded by their mullahs and fathers to cease their training in suicide operations and reconcile.
Today, these women took the first step in reconciliation by turning themselves in and signing a reconciliation pledge.
Individuals who turn themselves into CF and want to demonstrate their willingness to cease attacks against the Government of Iraq, Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and CF can enter the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) process. Eligible petitioners provide weapons and information on insurgent groups and sign a pledge to cease attacks and declare their support for the GoI.
Let’s start with the dateline: Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town. How good is that? Then comes the really good part: these women were talked out of terrorism by their fathers and by their mullahs. So we’re talking about Shi’ites, and the menfolk in their town, whether religious or “just dads,” got wind of their daughters’ intentions and talked them out of it.
Which is an important datum in the important ongoing debate over the nature of Islam, isn’t it? For this means that at least some Islamic religious leaders–the mullahs referenced above–are opposed to suicide terrorism, whether against Americans or Iraqis, civilians or military. And they acted on it. And, to use our legalese, they got the women to turn state’s evidence against those who were training them to blow themselves up.
Yes, I’d like to know a lot more about this story. I’d like to know how old the women are, I’d like to know where and how they were recruited, and I’d love to know the evidence they provided to our guys. But meanwhile, it’s worth a glass of good Sicilian red.
Or two…
Before the third glass, an additional point: this is singularly bad news for the mullahs across the road, the ones in Iran, the ones who are forever hailing “martyrdom.” If we had a Voice of America worthy of the name (we don’t, alas), this story would be broadcast in Farsi around the clock, because it will encourage the brave women of Iran to continue their struggle against the sexist barbarians who rule their country. If the Iraqis can do it, so can they. Eventually they’re gonna win.
Which of course brings me to the final point: at the end of the day, the women of the Middle East are the strongest revolutionary force in the region. We should be supporting them in every imaginable way. Maybe Miss Hillary will move forward with that mission?
Posted By Michael Ledeen On November 26, 2008 @ 7:51 pm In Uncategorized 7 Comments
Here is one of the biggest stories to come out of the Middle East in quite some time. You probably can’t find it in the New York Slimes or the Washington Compost (copyright, Mark Levin), but rather on [1] the exceptionally useful web site of our military Voila’:
TIKRIT, Iraq – Eighteen females in northern Iraq who were associated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq suicide bombing cells turned themselves into Coalition forces on Nov. 26.
The females were persuaded by their mullahs and fathers to cease their training in suicide operations and reconcile.
Today, these women took the first step in reconciliation by turning themselves in and signing a reconciliation pledge.
Individuals who turn themselves into CF and want to demonstrate their willingness to cease attacks against the Government of Iraq, Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and CF can enter the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) process. Eligible petitioners provide weapons and information on insurgent groups and sign a pledge to cease attacks and declare their support for the GoI.
Let’s start with the dateline: Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town. How good is that? Then comes the really good part: these women were talked out of terrorism by their fathers and by their mullahs. So we’re talking about Shi’ites, and the menfolk in their town, whether religious or “just dads,” got wind of their daughters’ intentions and talked them out of it.
Which is an important datum in the important ongoing debate over the nature of Islam, isn’t it? For this means that at least some Islamic religious leaders–the mullahs referenced above–are opposed to suicide terrorism, whether against Americans or Iraqis, civilians or military. And they acted on it. And, to use our legalese, they got the women to turn state’s evidence against those who were training them to blow themselves up.
Yes, I’d like to know a lot more about this story. I’d like to know how old the women are, I’d like to know where and how they were recruited, and I’d love to know the evidence they provided to our guys. But meanwhile, it’s worth a glass of good Sicilian red.
Or two…
Before the third glass, an additional point: this is singularly bad news for the mullahs across the road, the ones in Iran, the ones who are forever hailing “martyrdom.” If we had a Voice of America worthy of the name (we don’t, alas), this story would be broadcast in Farsi around the clock, because it will encourage the brave women of Iran to continue their struggle against the sexist barbarians who rule their country. If the Iraqis can do it, so can they. Eventually they’re gonna win.
Which of course brings me to the final point: at the end of the day, the women of the Middle East are the strongest revolutionary force in the region. We should be supporting them in every imaginable way. Maybe Miss Hillary will move forward with that mission?
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