Wednesday, May 31, 2006
In defense of intelligence
I hate to write this article; long I have sought to see the demise of the FBI, the CIA, and, in the Clinton years, the DEA. It used to be one of the rare issues that I looked at and agreed with liberals: our country has no business formulating agencies trying to destroy other governments or the freedom of our own citizens. I ask the question: would we be better off not having these agencies at all?
But my article today is not along this plotline at all; instead it is supportive of the intelligence, particularly of the CIA, concerning Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Today it is common truth that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Virtually all commentators say that the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction was wrong.
But let me take the opposing view here and actually support agencies whose history I despise. We know that Saddam refused entry for UN inspectors for years. We know that while the UN inspectors were left at the front gate, trucks lined up and something was loaded on those trucks before the UN inspectors were allowed into the facility. We know that this happened over and over, and we know there were weapons which Saddam was hiding from inspectors.
Israel has satellite pictures which show the truck convoys going from Iraq to Syria, wherever and whatever it was that Saddam was hiding. And that is the million dollar question: what is it that Saddam was hiding? What is left in Syria now? The only mistake in intelligence that I, as an outside observer, can see is that evidently Saddam had to hide it all. We presumed he had not gotten rid of it all yet. In fact his own soldiers assumed WMDs were to be used against coalition forces, and they were surprised when Saddam informed them there were no WMDs to be used. We know this now from recently released papers and testimony from Saddam’s subordinates.
So I think the two questions we should be better focused on are 1) what did he hide, 2) and where did he hide them? It is not as partisan hacks charge with their infamous charge: Clinton lied and nobody died. As an article I recently read so aptly put it: Important assumptions turned out wrong; but mistakenly relying on faulty intelligence is a world apart from lying about it.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
The Last Last Word
The Last Last Word
Excuse me, but William F. Buckley just wrote a marvelous article titled The Last Word, a book review about an author named Meachem. But in it he made a most curious statement. “There are no grounds for believing in the pietistic notion that the will of God had anything whatever to do with the advent of Hitler.” Actually I believe that there are plenty of grounds, Biblically, for so stating. God claimed that those who rejected his Son would be subject to the most severe judgments, but he warned us who were gentiles that we ought not to presume at all, for He who cut out the Jews from salvation was also able to graft them back in again. He warned again and again of what would happen to those who reject His Son. I would submit that, in some awful fashion, that He allowed Hitler to become great that peoples all over the world might be judged- including specifically His own chosen people- the Jews.
I would submit that God knowingly allowed Hitler full sway. Perhaps we might look at Job here and gain a fuller understanding. God allowed the awful circumstances to befall Job- though we who are privy to the book learn the lesson- yet Job is never given that grace. Instead he just must love his Creator as he is, and accept his fate.
But I would also submit that the God who raised up Hitler also raised up Churchill, without whom we might not have a free world left at all. Others tell me that Churchill was in no way Christian; neither was Hitler, though he memorized great chapters of scripture and absolutely idolized Luther. This I do know, God is capable of working through men, with or without their knowledge, to perform His good aims. In the terrible awful event of WW2, which Churchill spent so many years trying to prevent, I would submit that God was even there, making His will to happen.
Gosh, I just wish I could send this to Buckley, who perhaps might elucidate what he meant by his so wrong statement.
Pat
Excuse me, but William F. Buckley just wrote a marvelous article titled The Last Word, a book review about an author named Meachem. But in it he made a most curious statement. “There are no grounds for believing in the pietistic notion that the will of God had anything whatever to do with the advent of Hitler.” Actually I believe that there are plenty of grounds, Biblically, for so stating. God claimed that those who rejected his Son would be subject to the most severe judgments, but he warned us who were gentiles that we ought not to presume at all, for He who cut out the Jews from salvation was also able to graft them back in again. He warned again and again of what would happen to those who reject His Son. I would submit that, in some awful fashion, that He allowed Hitler to become great that peoples all over the world might be judged- including specifically His own chosen people- the Jews.
I would submit that God knowingly allowed Hitler full sway. Perhaps we might look at Job here and gain a fuller understanding. God allowed the awful circumstances to befall Job- though we who are privy to the book learn the lesson- yet Job is never given that grace. Instead he just must love his Creator as he is, and accept his fate.
But I would also submit that the God who raised up Hitler also raised up Churchill, without whom we might not have a free world left at all. Others tell me that Churchill was in no way Christian; neither was Hitler, though he memorized great chapters of scripture and absolutely idolized Luther. This I do know, God is capable of working through men, with or without their knowledge, to perform His good aims. In the terrible awful event of WW2, which Churchill spent so many years trying to prevent, I would submit that God was even there, making His will to happen.
Gosh, I just wish I could send this to Buckley, who perhaps might elucidate what he meant by his so wrong statement.
Pat
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Okay I am tired of this stuff
Okay, I am tired of the blather, so tired that if I were not Christian I would use another term other than blather. We have lived through a crisis of attacking Iraq, and what do we know as fact:
1) We know that President Bill Clinton told us not to disregard the intelligence of Bush with regard to Iraq, that it was good, and that we needed to act upon it. This comment is on national television and not disputable, despite later gainsaying of Mr. Clinton.
2) We know that Dems lie totally when they say that Bush lied and soldiers died; Bush acted responsibly on the available intelligence.
3) We know that we have a very strong economy, compared to the last thirty years it is better, and we know that the MSM is not reporting this as they should.
4) Iraq is disappointing, having been heralded as a democratic future in the vision of Bush. William Buckley says it is never to be, and with that I totally agree, though I do not think they have a condition of civil war as yet; rather I think they suffer from a violent minority which they never may be able to control. It is the chief reason that I had for opposing the original imposition of troops in Iraq. I simply thought that a people who herald from old had the government that they deserve, and that no matter how we tried to improve them they would fall from that improvement. I welcomed Bush’s vision because it was more than mine, and I would rejoice if I found it true.
5) We know that Hussain refused UN admission into his sites even as trucks lined up in the back gates of the inspected sites. We know that Israel has satellite pictures of truck convoys leading into Syria. I always dismissed the reports of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction because I correctly discerned the only weapons that mattered were those that were nuclear. He did have other weapons which evidently he diverted to Syria, and I do allow that they fit the definition of weapons of mass destruction. But he was never a national threat in my opinion except in the singular sense, dismissed by Dems, that he did indeed sponsor terrorism. How is it that a country can decide to assassinate a president and send terrorists to do the diabolical act, and this not be seen as an act of terrorism?
So let me sum it up succinctly. We do know the President Bush has acted responsibly (though I would never have gone into Iraq, thinking it a loss from the beginning). We know that President Clinton praised his intelligence in acting thus. We know that Hussain did have weapons that would destroy masses, and evidently he trucked these out to Syria. Unfortunately I think no one will bother to check these facts: and therefore I fear the next election. I do not trust the electorate. Churchill said that the best argument against democracy was to talk to the average citizen for five minutes. Let us hope that he is not right.
1) We know that President Bill Clinton told us not to disregard the intelligence of Bush with regard to Iraq, that it was good, and that we needed to act upon it. This comment is on national television and not disputable, despite later gainsaying of Mr. Clinton.
2) We know that Dems lie totally when they say that Bush lied and soldiers died; Bush acted responsibly on the available intelligence.
3) We know that we have a very strong economy, compared to the last thirty years it is better, and we know that the MSM is not reporting this as they should.
4) Iraq is disappointing, having been heralded as a democratic future in the vision of Bush. William Buckley says it is never to be, and with that I totally agree, though I do not think they have a condition of civil war as yet; rather I think they suffer from a violent minority which they never may be able to control. It is the chief reason that I had for opposing the original imposition of troops in Iraq. I simply thought that a people who herald from old had the government that they deserve, and that no matter how we tried to improve them they would fall from that improvement. I welcomed Bush’s vision because it was more than mine, and I would rejoice if I found it true.
5) We know that Hussain refused UN admission into his sites even as trucks lined up in the back gates of the inspected sites. We know that Israel has satellite pictures of truck convoys leading into Syria. I always dismissed the reports of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction because I correctly discerned the only weapons that mattered were those that were nuclear. He did have other weapons which evidently he diverted to Syria, and I do allow that they fit the definition of weapons of mass destruction. But he was never a national threat in my opinion except in the singular sense, dismissed by Dems, that he did indeed sponsor terrorism. How is it that a country can decide to assassinate a president and send terrorists to do the diabolical act, and this not be seen as an act of terrorism?
So let me sum it up succinctly. We do know the President Bush has acted responsibly (though I would never have gone into Iraq, thinking it a loss from the beginning). We know that President Clinton praised his intelligence in acting thus. We know that Hussain did have weapons that would destroy masses, and evidently he trucked these out to Syria. Unfortunately I think no one will bother to check these facts: and therefore I fear the next election. I do not trust the electorate. Churchill said that the best argument against democracy was to talk to the average citizen for five minutes. Let us hope that he is not right.
Monday, May 08, 2006
liberal intolerance
The intolerance of the so-called liberal party is wondrous. I cannot fathom why more people are not writing on the topic these days. The liberal party is become wondrously intolerant. The Republican Party, which I always believed in despite its lack of embracing the other, has now become the party which embraces acceptance and tolerance. Gone forever are the days when we will listen to the dronings of a man who drowned his girlfriend and tried to run for president in the name of liberalism.
What is liberalism? Not surely the rantings of a former KKK member of the senate. How can the dems possibly proclaim tolerance? Who do they tolerate? They stand for the fetus aborted at the last moment- for the health of the mother- though none in the US can figure out what that means. Meanwhile the neocons are giving education everything, despite the hatred of the educators. As an educator and an independent I do hate that. I deplore the part of Bush which cries for greater government, but will I ever vote against the party of Ted, Hillary, and John. Not in this lifetime.
What is liberalism? Not surely the rantings of a former KKK member of the senate. How can the dems possibly proclaim tolerance? Who do they tolerate? They stand for the fetus aborted at the last moment- for the health of the mother- though none in the US can figure out what that means. Meanwhile the neocons are giving education everything, despite the hatred of the educators. As an educator and an independent I do hate that. I deplore the part of Bush which cries for greater government, but will I ever vote against the party of Ted, Hillary, and John. Not in this lifetime.
I am an angry independent
I am an angry independent. I do not like our two party system to say the least. It presumes that there are always two answers to every problem, that there are only two answers to every problem, and that every responsible citizen must choose between these two choices, one good and one evil. It is not so!
Yet having said that I always vote conservative, except when the conservative is not- then I have been known to vote libertarian. I do strongly believe that government is at best a necessary evil, and it must be taken in the smallest possible doses. For those Democrats who would turn away let me remind you that your self-proclaimed father, Thomas Jefferson, said that government which governs least governs best. I do believe in freedom, and that means of necessity, governments fading from the picture.
I actually predict that the coming 06 election will be disappointing for Dems, but not only on these grounds. Will the American people really trust themselves to a party which says quit the fight against terrorism? I think not, surely I hope not. If they have modest gains I will be surprised but we do live in alarming times. Their recent rantings about wanting to impeach Bush after the election only confirms my prediction. Let them keep it up; they will become, as Churchill said, the government of the duds, by the duds, and for the duds. I do predict the salesmen will not be able to sell their soap this time.
Yet having said that I always vote conservative, except when the conservative is not- then I have been known to vote libertarian. I do strongly believe that government is at best a necessary evil, and it must be taken in the smallest possible doses. For those Democrats who would turn away let me remind you that your self-proclaimed father, Thomas Jefferson, said that government which governs least governs best. I do believe in freedom, and that means of necessity, governments fading from the picture.
I actually predict that the coming 06 election will be disappointing for Dems, but not only on these grounds. Will the American people really trust themselves to a party which says quit the fight against terrorism? I think not, surely I hope not. If they have modest gains I will be surprised but we do live in alarming times. Their recent rantings about wanting to impeach Bush after the election only confirms my prediction. Let them keep it up; they will become, as Churchill said, the government of the duds, by the duds, and for the duds. I do predict the salesmen will not be able to sell their soap this time.
yesterday, today and tomorrow
Although we can but plan for an uncertain future, we must live with the concreted past, even while we dwell in the flitting present.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Marriage Charter
To our esteemed President, the Supreme Court and the Honorable Congress of the United States:
Be it known to you:
We the people hold marriage to be an unalienable right emanating from our Creator. No state organization or court may define marriage any other way other than that which has been handed down to us from our forefathers through the religions of the Jew, the Moslem, and the Christian. We do not wish to oppress any nor uplift any in our assertion of this unalienable right; rather we wish to succinctly state that which is obvious from the historical record: marriage is an institution rendered by our Creator and is therefore inviolate. It can not be altered from its basic definition of a man and a woman enjoining for the purpose of living their lives before society.
Further,
Since we hold this right to be unalienable, we do not recognize the right of the state to alter or subtract from it in any way. We do advise you therefore of our concern on the part of some to redefine marriage. We consider such altering as tampering with that over which you have no recognized power. Respectfully we ask that you do recognize the sacrament of marriage as such a right. Governments are instituted among men to secure those unalienable rights, and when governments begin to stray, it is the duty and solemn obligation of the governed to revoke their consent of governance. Be it known to you that we will treat any usurpation of the sacrament of marriage with the utmost suspicion and will hold such usurpation in the lowest regard.
Be it known to you:
We the people hold marriage to be an unalienable right emanating from our Creator. No state organization or court may define marriage any other way other than that which has been handed down to us from our forefathers through the religions of the Jew, the Moslem, and the Christian. We do not wish to oppress any nor uplift any in our assertion of this unalienable right; rather we wish to succinctly state that which is obvious from the historical record: marriage is an institution rendered by our Creator and is therefore inviolate. It can not be altered from its basic definition of a man and a woman enjoining for the purpose of living their lives before society.
Further,
Since we hold this right to be unalienable, we do not recognize the right of the state to alter or subtract from it in any way. We do advise you therefore of our concern on the part of some to redefine marriage. We consider such altering as tampering with that over which you have no recognized power. Respectfully we ask that you do recognize the sacrament of marriage as such a right. Governments are instituted among men to secure those unalienable rights, and when governments begin to stray, it is the duty and solemn obligation of the governed to revoke their consent of governance. Be it known to you that we will treat any usurpation of the sacrament of marriage with the utmost suspicion and will hold such usurpation in the lowest regard.
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