Mr. President, What About This Draft?

[In the I forgot-to-ask-you-first file, I found this draft of the speech that President Bush should have made on Tuesday night. I believe the entire text was drafted by that most articulate speech writer, some guy here at Contratimes.]

My fellow Americans,

This evening America faces a continuous threat to its national security, a threat that is relentless in its animosity; and relentless in its distortions. It is neither a new threat, nor is it unfamiliar. The threat is America itself, or, more specifically, it is that set of American citizenry intent on distorting America's purposes, and this Administration's aims, in executing the War on Terror.

For clarity, let me once again state that I, as your President, never once said that 9/11, that monstrous day in American history, was directly caused by Saddam Hussein. The 9/11 Commission, in fact, reported that there was no "collaborative" connection between Hussein and the 9/11 terrorists; and the same commission was adamant that it did NOT say there was NO connection at all. Its adamantine remarks were made immediately following the release of the Commission's own report. Why so adamant, and why so swift? Because the Commission's findings were instantly presented in newspapers with the erroneous headlines that the Commission had concluded that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Sadly, the Commission attempted to set its own record straight, but the damage was done.

However, in the face of these two facts, the American media, most of it, and most of my colleagues who claim allegiance to the Democratic Party, continue this very hour to assert that the connection to Hussein and 9/11 was not just tenuous, but fictitious, so much fearmongering by this Administration.

Did you know that there was in fact a connection between Saddam Hussein and the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993? You did not know that, because your favorite newspapers are not telling you all that you need to know. Shame on them. And did you know that Osama bin Laden had indeed declared fatwa on this great country of ours? Perhaps you did, but it is my impression, based not only the polls I've examined, but also in the editorials I've read, that few Americans understand why Osama bin Laden declared a holy war with us. Osama bin Laden declared fatwa upon America - 3 years before I was sworn into office - because, and I quote:

"First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation. ..."

It is important for each American to understand that this fatwa was declared in 1998, during the height of the Clinton Administration's second term. But there is a more important point I must make: the fatwa was declared in large part because of our on-going struggle with the Iraqi regime. How anyone could attempt to contradict this fact is frankly beyond the scope of explanation. Hence, there was indeed no collaborative relationship with the 9/11 terrorists and Hussein; but there was indeed a CAUSAL relationship, which is far more important, between Osama bin Laden's acts and Saddam Hussein's regime.

Let me repeat myself: There was a causal connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Osama bin Laden said so in 1998.

Because of our continued struggle with the Iraqi regime through the 1990s, beginning with our defense of Kuwait in 1991; on through our repeated dogfights in the air, cruise missile launches, and various other military responses to the Iraqi regime's recalcitrance; and on through our support of UN resolutions and weapons inspection, to all of which Saddam Hussein failed to comply; because of these things we were attacked on 9/11. Moreover, it was my own father, George H. W. Bush, in order to build a broad coalition of support in 1991 to venture into Kuwait and part-way into Iraq, guaranteed the world that his military deployments would not liberate Baghdad. That decision, wise at the time and our only option for building international consensus, eventually resulted in a protracted set of skirmishes, stand-offs and various other struggles that emboldened Hussein and his tyrannical regime. And it also kept America deeply entrenched in the Middle East, leaving American soldiers vulnerable to retaliatory strikes for our Mideast presence. The bombing of the USS Cole was exactly one of those strikes.

Hence, as a result of a broad, consensus-building position taken by my father and his international coalition; maintained and even broadened during the Clinton Administration; and handled in a protracted and at times even corrupt manner by UN officials; as a result of all these things, Osama bin Laden issued his fatwa, recruited soldiers for al Qaida, trained them for terrorism, and unleashed his fanatical fury upon America on September 11, 2001, ten years after our conflict in Kuwait.

If we should blame anyone other than Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein for 9/11, we should blame all the countries that supported only a partial rebuff of Hussein's tyranny in 1991. That would include America.

But we do not blame ourselves, or our allies, for we did not first attack a neighbor in violation of international law. Iraq did, and, in 1991, we attempted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. Unfortunately, our partial success there made Osama bin Laden successful elsewhere.

Please recall, my fellow citizens, that I have never described two wars: I have not declared one war in Afghanistan, another in Iraq. I have only referred to ONE war: the War on Terror. It is that war that this Administration wages; and it is the same war that we will continue to wage, and we will continue to win. And the war we fight is the very war the US Congress, including many of my critics, approved, supported and funded.

It is America's intent to so demoralize fanatical Muslims by the strength of our resolve, and the pure power of liberty and democracy, that Muslims who embrace a faith of tolerance and understanding toward other cultures and peoples will be empowered to resist the aberrant and more vicious forces that dwell among them; forces that even kill and maim their own brothers and sisters. Moreover, it is our intent, and my intent as your President and the Commander-in- Chief, to break the stranglehold fanaticism and hate have on our neighbors in the Middle East. Only in this way, by breaking the back of a fanatical, recalcitrant regime as we have done with Saddam Hussein, shall we know peace not only in that region, but also in our own country. That is my conviction; those are my motives.

Lastly, fanatical Muslims respect strength. Overwhelming force combined with overwhelming goodness and sacrifice will serve America as an able defense for generations to come. We are defending ourselves against an enemy and a threat; a real yet elusive and tenacious one. How sorrowful that at this time of America's difficult struggle, she finds herself in a battle with a portion of its citizenry bent on lying about what America is all about; what I am all about; and what our enemies are all about.

Thank you, good night, and may God bless America.

[See? That wasn't so hard, was it Mr. President? But they'll probably hang you for using the feminine pronoun to describe America. Some might even call the use of the female pronoun a "sexist atrocity."]

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

See No Good, Hear No Good

Yesterday, in another one of my fine email exchanges with a leftist, I came out bruised and battered. Not because I was scoffingly described as insane. (The insane can't be offended by being called insane, after all.) I came out bruised because I was half-hearted, half-interested. In short, I commented on a topic about which I was poorly informed. But now, after a day of putting myself on the right track, I am not so ignorant.

The topic at hand was Vice President Dick Cheney's May 30 remarks given during a Larry King interview. In that interview, Cheney said that he believed the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes." [full quote in a moment]

Now, as most of you know, and as sharper minds have pointed out, the Democratic Party has been struggling to get political traction for a long time (even before the November elections). It has attempted to turn President Bush's military records, the Abu Ghraib scandal, Social Security reform, in short, ANYTHING, into an advantageous tool to use against the Bush administration and the Republican Party. OK. That's fair and that's fair politics. But what the Democrats have resorted to, over the last few months, congealing together in so much vitriol, is an all-out attempt to convince you that Vietnam and Iraq are militarily and politically synonymous. What we are witnessing is the "Vietnamization" of Iraq for political gain.

With that in mind, it is unsurprising that the leftists would swirl in cacophonous derision around Cheney's remarks. He, to many of our fellow citizens, is sounding like Nixon or McNamara: He's lying through his teeth about America's military and strategic advantage. He is an idiot, a buffoon, as are his neo-con minions bolstering his assessment.

But the fact is (and this is a fact), Cheney's remark was really quite harmless. Read it yourself [For the entire transcript, click here]:

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there [in Iraq] over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency. We've had reporting in recent days, Larry, about Zarqawi, who's sort of the lead terrorist, outside terrorist, al Qaeda, head of al Qaeda for Iraq, may well have been seriously injured. We don't know. We can't confirm that. We've had reporting to that effect.

So I think we're making major progress. And, unfortunately, as I say, it does involve sending young Americans in harm's way. But America will be safer in the long run when Iraq and Afghanistan as well are no longer safe havens for terrorists or places where people can gather and plan and organize attacks against the United States."

(Ooh, bad Cheney, bad.)

Cheney's remarks contain three important features. First, his belief that the insurgency is in its "last throes" is based, clearly, on the assumption insurgency-leader Zargawi is injured, perhaps seriously. That this assumption was later proven wrong (most likely), explains in part why Cheney's later defense seemed rather comical (see below), even unfortunate.

Second, Cheney clearly qualified his remarks with a "if you will." This is short for, "If you will permit me to use this expression, inaccurate as it is, since I am thinking quickly on my feet and can't think of a better phrase." It is another way of saying, "So to speak." In other words, Cheney did not mean to have his statements taken literally. He said, "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." IF YOU WILL.

(The literalist left can't handle such nuance. They hang on Cheney's every other word, and then they hang him with a rope of broken sentences.)

Third, Cheney said that the insurgency was, IF YOU WILL, in its last throes in a military sense. He didn't say it was not a socio-political threat in Iraq. And his reasoning is clear: the vast majority of those dead and injured in Iraq over the last few months are Iraqi civilians. And these are killed not in military skirmishes, but insurgency bombings. But the number of bombs and mortars tossed into Army barracks have diminished, have they not? It's Iraqi civilians who have become targets. That is where the insurgency is focused, and not on the US military. (And if these acts were happening in the United States, the Democrats would be declaring these incidents criminal and not military acts, no doubt.)

But what is most important is this: The media want you to think that the most important thing Vice President Cheney told Larry King was that the Iraq War was a cake-walk. But the fuss over the "last throes" comment is a mere red herring dragged across the trail to distract you from finding the truth. And the truth is found in this exchange between King and Cheney:

"KING: Amnesty International condemns the United States. How do you react?

D. CHENEY: I don't take them seriously.

KING: Not at all?

D. CHENEY: No. I -- frankly, I was offended by it. I think the fact of the matter is, the United States has done more to advance the cause of freedom, has liberated more people from tyranny over the course of the 20th century and up to the present day than any other nation in the history of the world. Think about what we did in World War I, World War II, throughout the Cold War. Just in this administration, we've liberated 50 million people from the Taliban in Afghanistan and from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, two terribly oppressive regimes that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their own people. For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."

Bingo! THIS is what pissed off the left, and it is remarks like these that the left does not want you to consider. In short, by focusing on Cheney's remarks about "last throes", by OVERSIMPLIFYING his statements (remember my post, Ockham's Razor Leaves Us Bleeding), the left intends to "bury the lead", to conceal from you the good news which is in Iraq and Afghanistan. They want you to be blind and deaf. They want you to be suspicious of Bush and Cheney; they want you to believe they are reckless and incompetent.

But you are not blind and deaf. Nor are you mute.

Lastly, in closing, I would point you to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. After my email exchange mentioned above, I ventured to CrooksandLiars.com, a leftist (or so it appears) video-blog, replete with video and audio clips showing the buffoonery of conservatives. On that site I found this clip (if the clip does not come up on this link, scroll down the Crooks and Liars page until you find The Daily Show and the Last Throes). It is a swaggering, glib and righteous piece (but it IS funny) about Cheney's "last throes" remark and the attempts to explain it by his colleagues. My conviction is that Cheney and Rumsfeld should have made no attempt to explain themselves at all, as they fell, I believe, right into the trap set by the leftist literalists poised to mock them for their allegedly lubricious rhetoric. There is no winning this battle of words, for words are elastic; malleable; tricky. Cheney said, "..if you will." But no one gives a crap about those kinds of words.

But the Jon Stewart piece is telling, because it was nearly parroted in full by a man I spoke with about this subject. The man brought up Clinton-speak, about the meaning of IS; about the "mismanagement" of Iraq. He derided Cheney and Rumsfeld for their spinning and tongue-twisting. But he never mentioned The Daily Show. It is clear he had seen it, and that it had influenced him completely.

Did you know that something like 80% of Americans between 18-24 get most of their news from this Comedy Channel hit? So please, check out the clip. Watch it. And shake your head. For this show is the source of information for a lot of people you know. That's a scary thing, indeed, though undoubtedly funny, in a tragic sort of way.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

What If You Could, Would You?

Imagine that you are traveling in some distant land, hiking through forgotten hills, and you find a box buried beneath slag. And in that box you find proof, definitive, incontrovertible proof that a religion, let's say, Islam, was false, phony, so much batooey. What would you do with it? Would you publish your findings in your own name? Would you write a book or create a documentary? I mean, what I am asking is serious: What if you could destroy the foundations of Islam, would you?

Let's look at this differently. Imagine that you could destroy Judaism and Christianity. Imagine that you could lay waste to the ideas of YHWH and Moses, Exodus, King David and Elijah and the "Chosen People"; and that you could prove that Jesus was still in his tomb, or that he was just a teacher, or even that he never existed. Would you do it?

Perhaps you'd be reluctant to destroy a religion - be it Islam or Buddhism or Shintoism - that not only inspires millions, but inspires millions of good deeds. Why destroy something beautiful for the mere sake of truth, or historical accuracy? Why make something so lovely crooked by setting the record straight?

But I beg you to ask yourself if your reluctance to destroy Christianity or Judaism would have anything to do with fearing for your life. Do you think Rome would set a hit squad on you? Do you think Jerry Falwell would wish you dead? Do you think Jerusalem's Hasidim would wrap themselves in C-4 and blow your proofs to bits?

What if you could destroy Buddhism? Do you think the Dalai Lama would spear you with a lance? What of Hinduism? Do you think people would call for your death because you proved that the caste system was man-made, and therefore escapable? Perhaps yes, to all. But I tend to think that fear of death does not strike at many of us when considering the power of Buddha or Christ. At least most of the time.

Of course, we know that periodically people in all major religions have turned violent. This is less a testimony to the poverty of religion as it is proof of the poverty of humanity. But there is a difference, today, between faiths. For when a Hans Küng writes critically of the Catholic Church, Rome may denounce his opinions, but it does not call for his death. But when a Salman Rushdie writes unflatteringly about Islam in a work of fiction, there is a bounty placed on his head. In fact, one cannot off-the-cuff recall an equivalent declaration of death toward any writer criticizing a religion, particularly his own religion. Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa on Rushdie has no modern analogue.

So, then, with that in mind, would you post on your website an argument that could disprove that "Allah is One and Muhammad is his prophet?" Would you go on Nightline or Hardball to unveil your evidence? Would you shout your findings from a mountaintop?

Here is a curious thing: much of Islam, if not all, pretty much believes that Islam is living proof that Judaism and Christianity are not only wrong, they are scourges on the earth. They are the holdouts of infidels. They are loathsome in their unrepentance. They are flat out wrong. And yet, there is no call from Christian clerics or Jewish rabbis to bring the sword down on Mecca. However, chillingly, there is this fatwa you should read, issued against those of us in the West (in 1998, by Osama bin Laden, et al):

'...On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims

'The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

'This is in addition to the words of Almighty God "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated and oppressed--women and children, whose cry is 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"

'We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

'Almighty God said "O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."

'Almighty God also says "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things."

'Almighty God also says "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."'

I beg you to find any religious leaders in Christendom or Judaism who have made such claims against a people, any people. Even George Bush has declared that the war on terrorism is not against Islam, though it surely feels like such a war to many of us. And he has never stated that the war is against Iraq or Iraqis. It is a war against a "regime", the regime of Saddam Hussein. The scope of America's fight is selective, and not general: It is not against "infidel" Muslims, but "terrorists" and "extremists". The very language chosen by this administration is an effort NOT to sound like a fatwa has been declared against Mecca. There is reticence in America's voice. And, I believe, reverence.

But there is nothing particularly reverent in Osama bin Laden's fatwa: We are just plain bad.

What I am ultimately saying is not that Islam is wrong. I am saying that to the Westerner, Islam is scary and confusing. We hear of peace, and yet the peace seems so much like hate. How do we come to terms with it, particularly when there is a fatwa on each of our heads? Where do we go to meet our accuser "along the way," as Jesus taught, so that we might make "peace with our enemy?" To whom do we address our petitions, since there is no heirarchy, no authoritative structure, and no holy seat of Islamic power? How can we make peace when our enemies conceal themselves, making no effort to extend the hand of friendship?

This is the confusion and fear many of us have for Islam. We know the Pope, we have his Church's catechism; we can have audience with his underlings. That is why we do not fear the Catholic Church with mortal fear. But the Islam of Osama bin Laden, hidden and concealed, and yet viciously angry at our infidelity, is like a serpent in the rocks; a spider in the bloom; a bomb in the seat next to us. We do not know how to make peace, when peace is not an option given us.

Would you make peace, if you could?

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

(This Just In ...): No More Swearing, Please!†

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, like the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, have nothing on me. I at least recognize the implications of their efforts to eradicate from the public square any vestige of Christian symbolism or influence. I wonder if the more liberal among us are similarly aware.

An anecdote will help elucidate what I mean. Two winters ago, while placing postage stamps on Christmas cards in an otherwise vacant post office lobby, I heard from behind the service desk a very loud outburst.

“Jesus Christ!” shouted a man, a US postal clerk, from behind the counter.

I turned to look at what might be causing such consternation. It seems there was some sort of problem with postages on sundry packages.

As I left that postal facility, descending its steps and turning to cross its lawn, I was struck with something more philosophical than one usually considers during simple chores. It went something like this:

When the postal clerk shouted the name of the Christian deity, he was doing one of three things. He was either praying aloud, invoking the name of Christ for intervention. Or he was blaspheming, profaning the Name billions of Christians hold dear, invoking it as a curse. As for the third option, I will mention that in a moment.

How is it that it is against the law, or at least decency, for a Christian crèche to be erected on the lawn of a federal post office, and yet it is not wrong for a federal employee to either pray or defile the name of Jesus Christ, all while in a federal uniform, on federal property, on the federal dollar? Is not the employee’s act a breach in the wall between church and state? And if we dismiss the employee’s act not as prayer but as swearing, and somehow tolerable, how does the state defend its right to permit the profanation of Christianity on state property and yet not the promotion of it? Is the employee’s speech protected by the Constitution?

And if the US Postal Service is not per se federal, then what about other federal officials in other federal offices? Are they entitled to besmirch Christianity with the oft-heard “Jesus Christ?” How so?

The third option, that the federal employee was merely using a name that is so grossly misused in the public square that it has become a completely secular expression, begs several questions. Who decides that something is completely secular; and is not meant as a religious slur? The state? And if it is the case that Jesus Christ’s name has a secular value as an expression of disgust, how is it that a crèche is exempt from possessing a secular value, such as “renewal,” or “humble beginnings are oft advantageous,” or “sacrifice for the sake of one’s fellow citizens is noble"? Surely these lessons are inherently trans-religious, readily secular, and could be easily commended and protected by the state. In fact, such values are part of the very mythology of the American Dream. How is it that promoting these values with a crèche is not constitutionally protected?

So, then, the legal implications are quite important for the secularist. If there is no secular but only a religious value to Jesus Christ’s name, then of course, all federal and state employees, and all those receiving state funds, who use this name, must cease and desist. This would include teachers, politicians, military, fire and police personnel; and those novelists, playwrights, poets and filmmakers who receive federal grants.

Moreover, it could be argued that the US postal service has no business printing religious postage stamps of any kind, primarily those promoting Christianity, nor should federal employees be utilized for the shipping and delivery of religious gift packages during holy days. All that should be left to the private sector. (Of course, the financial impact of this would be grotesque.)

Really, if the secularists are going to secularize, by all means let them go all the way. But how many of us are willing to live in such a world? For this is not a brave new world the secularists are conjuring, but a cowardly old one.

Let’s fight them with all we have.

Peace!

Bill Gnade

†[Please note, dear reader, that only an hour-and-a-half ago I wrote that today would be an off day for me; that my essay was not (nor would be) issue-driven. Let me inform you, then, that there are TWO posts today, the first being a (barely) vulnerable piece about writing for you on a nearly daily basis.

THIS post, however, is as immediate as one can create. Moments ago I read two amazing news items, first, that the US Supreme Court, in agreement with the ACLU, decided 5-4 that the posting of the Ten Commandments in courthouses was an unconstitutional act. Then, I read that, in a separate decision, the same court said it was OK for religious displays on government property.

I will not venture to examine the nuances of these decisions at the moment. Suffice it to say that I have already written a response to the whole separation of church and state issue, and due to the urgency of the moment, which is a truly momentous occasion in American jurisprudence and culture, I share it with you now. Please read my essay above titled, "No More Swearing, Please!" Mull it over. It's important. Really. Send it to the highest places.]

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

A Writer Retreats

Blogging is unique, and though I do not claim to have a unique blog, I at least have a new sense of what it is I am doing herein. Blogging is more vital than a book or novel; it is more dynamic, precisely because unlike a book, it need not ever remain fixed. A book is edited and re-edited, then finally bound and shipped here and there. Only the luckiest authors have two, three, or even a dozen tries at perfection, in multiple printings, proofs that their works are desirable and perhaps enduring. But the blog is more alive than any printed book; for it is never perfect, nor is it ever complete.

Thus, in a roundabout form of apology to my readers, I confess to having re-worked some of my recent posts in order to purge them of inanities (and insanities); and sundry manglings and misspellings. My own pride at my prowess notwithstanding, I've been mystified by the inexplicable appearance of several horrifically drafted sentences and paragraphs in my recent posts, replete with mispelled words and dubious logic. OK. So I wish I were infallible; omniscient. But the veil has been pulled away from my eyes. I see my own slovenliness in humbling clarity. I am fallen.

A note about this blog, if one can call it a blog. It is more a collection of essays; a digital portmanteau in which I carry my writings from one manic episode to the next. Alright. So I am not really manic. Nor am I saying anything injudicious about mania. In fact, I even have friends who are manic. ...

But back to the blog. Please note that today marks a turning point. I have posted a photograph in my profile box (and what a picture it is). For those who know me, the photo should inspire a chuckle or two. For it at least reveals something about me: It shows something that I wish to reveal about myself; as surely as it shows what I want to conceal. I'll let the reader guess. But, should anyone be squeamish in the presence of such raw art, I promise that the picture will be periodically updated with other photos even more revelatory (though hopefully not more revolting).

Furthermore, I will be introducing photographs into the body of my blogs, beginning, well soon. My intent is to make the blog less "gray", as we say (or used to say) in the newspaper business. The pictures posted will be entirely irrelevant to my essays, but they will at least give you something to look at before you quickly hit the 'back' button on your browser.

Lastly, as you can tell, today's post is not issue-driven. I need a break from all that, in part because I am rethinking my place in commentary. Writing mostly about politics might be a pleasant indulgence, but it is an indulgence nonetheless. Besides, there are plenty of other voices out there, voices belonging to sharper minds and quicker wits. For a conservative, one look at National Review, for example, serves as a reminder that there are deep and agile thinkers around, men and women who have complete mastery of subject and word. Why bother with my layman's approach? And for a liberal, you pretty much have the world at your fingertips: The New York and LA Times; the Washington Post; CBS, ABC, PBS, NBC, CNN, NPR, Link-TV, and the NASCAR channel (purely for derision, of course). Why bother here?

OK. So I am thinking aloud, so to speak. I am not going anywhere. I will be here, tapping at keys like so many hands knocking on doors; like mendicants in the street, tapping cups on concrete, looking for something that will give them hope. I am the beggar. I beg not only for your pardon and patience. I beg that clarity of voice and vision will come my way.

Peace to you, this day.

Contratimes

Karl Roving Through W(h)ine Country

Karl Rove. The very name strikes fear and loathing in the hearts of Democrats everywhere. To them, he's the mad genius who connived to get Bush into the White House in 2000, stealing an election from the "rightful" winner, Al Gore. Rove is the guy who took down John Kerry at the knees, buckling his presidential campaign with numerous low-blows, like telling everyone that Kerry was a privileged dandy, or that his Purple Heart awards were hardware for an opportunist; finally calling out the Swift Boat Veterans to undermine reality. Karl Rove (and Dick Cheney?) is the real force of darkness in the White House. Democrats' wine glasses shake at the very mention of his name.

But the great thing is that Karl Rove has finally gotten Democrats to spill their wine (pray that it is not a 1959 Chateau Latour) all over the place. What, pray tell, did he say that so offended their liberal etiquette? Well, prepare yourself, for it is truly horrifying:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

Rove made these comments Wednesday last, while speaking to the Conservative Party of New York. As most of you know, Rove is not an elected official. He is not a representative of a Congressional district; he is not a Senator from New Hampshire or Utah; he is not a head of a political party. He is a private citizen serving as an appointee in the White House.

But the wine-spilling is not about his position in government, but his position on Democrats. Rove's fastidious critics are calling for an apology from him and the White House. But their cries for contrition, sackcloth and ashes, and two days in pillory on the White House lawn, have produced nary a word from the Oval Office, or from Rove himself.

The real outrage in all this is that Democrats are calling Rove to apologize for a comment the truth of which is rooted in historical fact; while the same folks are silent about an elected official's remarks about Nazism and American troops - remarks which not only contradict history but abuse it - from the hallowed floor of the US Senate. Rove, you see, is a threat to America; while Sen. Dick Durbin is a patriot for his courage.

Here are a few facts that are worth noting. Regarding the claim that liberals "wanted to prepare indictments" after 9/11, please recall exactly what happened when Muslim terrorists successfully detonated a 1600-pound bomb beneath the World Trade Center in 1993. Remember that, or did you forget? The Clinton administration, rather than alarming the US citizenry by declaring the event an act of war, chose instead to view it as a criminal and not a military act. Thus, rather than involving the Pentagon, the Clinton administration chose to use the FBI, and did in fact bring indictments (and convictions) down on most of the perpetrators. President Clinton, it is worth noting, even though he traveled to the tri-state area shortly after the bombing, never visited the bombing site for a tour of the damage, apparently believing that a visit would give too much political significance to the bombing.

But the bombing was hugely significant, partly because of how close the bombing came to fully succeeding. For had the WTC tower toppled, as was intended, the death toll on THAT day would have made 9/11 seem like a fender-bender.

Moreover, according to Richard Miniter's interesting book Losing Bin Laden, a Clinton advisor - Laurie Mylroie? - later concluded that there was most likely a relationship between the 1993 bombing AND Saddam Hussein (some speculated Hussein supported the attack as retaliation for the Gulf War and subsequent sanctions against Iraq). Read Miniter's book and weep.

It is not beyond the realm of credulity that liberals wanted to indict, arrest and convict, the 9/11 terrorists. Likewise, it is not beyond credulity to currently hear liberals speak of indicting bin Laden, or Guantanamo Bay detainees, or Saddam Hussein.

As for Rove's claim that liberals wanted to "offer therapy" to the 9/11 terrorists, I've no evidence other than one small anecdote, drawn entirely from memory. It was an article I read, a tribute really, in American Photo magazine. It was written by a world-famous photojournalist in memory of Bill Biggart, the only photojournalist killed working the scene at Ground Zero in 2001. In that article, there was a line which spoke of irony. It went something like this:

"Little did the Arabs aiming their planes into the WTC realize that below them, working his cameras, was a man who could empathize with their cause."

It is a perfectly understandable comment to make, considering the circumstances. But latent in the American Photo writer's words, is a sentiment that is entirely liberal: Americans brought this on themselves. Moreover, post-9/11 there was plenty of soul-searching in America. And there was plenty of sentimentally-driven arguments for "understanding" and "empathy"; for "self-understanding".

Do you remember, too, that right after 9/11, liberals (and conservatives) were miffed that reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell suggested that 9/11 was, in part, retribution for America's sins, like homosexuality and abortion? Remember that both men apologized? But did you ever notice that the left has never apologized for its claims that the 9/11 attacks were due to other American sinners, like greedy capitalists, neo-conservatives like Donald Rumsfeld, and theocrats like Jerry Falwell. America was terrorized not because Americans were Americans, but because Americans were fat, or greedy; arrogant or just plain ignorant. In short, Americans were attacked because America was not more thoroughly liberal; European; globally-conscious; or more sensitive to the Islamic mind. Americans, to the liberal observer, were sinners of a socio-political sort. They were not immoral, like Robertson suggested, for embracing carnality or other sexual vices. They were immoral for being politically stupid. America deserved 9/11 not because of moral depravity. It deserved it because of Christians like Pat Robertson.

Hence, people on the street chanted mantras saturated with liberal sentiments, with a sort of typical "can't-we-all-just-get-long, make-love-not-war, create-jobs-not-bombs" kind of earnestness. In many ways, it was perfect water-cooler talk, bending each other's minds toward understanding our "enemies", who were not threats, only friends who misunderstood us, and we had failed to understand.

Of course, I know that I am over-simplifying. Post-9/11, there were many hawkish folks who had, up until then, been rather dove-like. But there remains the fact that liberals continue to be less bellicose, unless their target is Republican bellicosity, than their conservative peers. I mean, how many Republicans are holding up traffic and placards, protesting war and calling for retreat? How many Republicans would choose round-table diplomacy, or who would rather indict and convict Islamic terrorists? How many Republicans believe that America deserves to be hated, even by its former allies who reproach Bush and Co. for their alleged "imperial aggression"?

What Karl Rove said was right on target; he was not inaccurate. There is indeed a difference between the way conservatives and liberals view terrorism, which was Rove's broader point. If there is no difference, then liberals might as well support the conservatives. But the pertinent argument is not whether he was right. What matters is which methodology is right in dealing with terrorism: the in-your-front yard-not-our's fighting of the Republicans, or the retreatist let's-talk-this-over-and-reach-an-accord of the Democrats (the more liberal ones, of course).

I don't not know, really, nor do I claim to know. But what I do know is this: Karl Rove's remarks do not require anything resembling an apology, though he his likely to give one. But there is no umbrage among liberals when a Senator speaking on behalf of America likens us to a Nazi prison camp. Go figure.

There is indeed wine spilled at the name of Karl Rove. But it is cheap wine. That's why it is so easy to disregard. Pray that other wine is not spilled as a result of liberal passivity and misplaced blame. You know, the wine of blood, vintage the beginning of time.

Contratimes

PS. Have you heard anyone stick up for those conservatives, and I count myself among them, who did not want to do battle against radical Islam after 9/11? Perhaps Rove was actually flattering, in an inept way, Democrats by referring to them as the therapeutic party. Why this sudden rush by liberals to sound like warriors? "We support war, too, you know?!"

[I did hear one liberal counter-argument to Rove's remarks that it was the Democrats who proposed the Department of Homeland Security, thus proving that Democrats were not "soft" on terror. Unless I am mistaken, the Dept. of Hom. Sec. is not a military department: It does not declare or engage in war. It is a department that would "indict", I believe. So there are no guts to this particular counter-argument at all. Am I wrong? Please, let me know.]

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Ockham’s Razor Leaves Us Bleeding

[Update: Some readers have pointed out that Ockham should be spelled "Occam." But either spelling is correct.]

You’ve heard of Ockham’s Razor. It’s the philosophic (epistemological) concept – posited by the 14th-century theologian William of Ockham - that the complexity in any given explanation need not be “multiplied beyond what is necessary.” In the words of World Book Encyclopedia, “...a problem should be stated in its basic and simplest terms. In science, the simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected.”

It is a seductive idea, this one of simplicity. One recalls the wild speculations of cosmologists confronted with anomalies in the rotation of the heavens in the geo-centric model of the universe, heaping complex “epicycles” upon the orbits of planets around the earth to explain away a problem. It was not until the Copernican Revolution with its shift to a helio-centric paradigm – the solar system – that a simpler explanation was embraced. And that explanation is something of a relief, though seductively so, inviting us to believe that we’ve finally understood and explicated a mystery that too long evaded comprehension.

But the fact remains that though a sun-centered planetary system may be a simple model, the solar system is not a simple place. Similarly, the attractiveness of Ockham’s Razor too often blinds us to the complexity that marks any given issue. In fact, it may bias us against complexity, inuring us to the idea that the world is a challenging mystery. After all, humans are busy people, busy working and following sundry dreams. Hence, a simple explanation, easy to comprehend and manage, is perhaps preferred for its utility, and not for its breadth or nuance. Laziness loves simplicity, (at least intellectual laziness loves simplicity). People are too busy to think.

Perhaps no greater source of oversimplification in matters political comes from my liberal peers. I am not suggesting that conservatives are not overly-simplistic, only that conservatives are far less so. Please indulge me as I list the examples.

Liberals think that the war in Iraq is “just about oil”; about securing favors for “corporations.” Liberals think Iraq is a “quagmire”, proven so by its difficulty; and by the lack of an “exit-strategy.” They believe it to be “illegal” and “illegitimate.”

Liberals view American foreign policy, at least that which is drafted by Republicans, as being solely about “corporate imperialism” and “greed.”

Liberals believe, regarding sexuality, that heterosexual marriage is all about “love” and “choice”; about the freedom to be with whomever one desires; concluding that homosexual marriage is no big deal (for virginity and sex and yes, even marriage, are ultimately to the liberal no big deal).

Liberals believe that tax cuts “only benefit the rich.”

Liberals believe that George W. Bush "stole" the 2000 election.

Liberals believe, blind to their own religiosity, that the “religious right is trying to create a theocracy.”

Liberals reduce abortion to nothing more than “choice.”

Liberals reduce history to two struggles: the economic struggle for dominance; and the political struggle for power. To a liberal, there are no other motives, no other forces, unfurled in the world of men and women.

Of course, there are other such reductions. Critics of pro-gay arguments are simply “homophobes”. Gun rights advocates are "rednecks." Opponents to affirmative action are patently "racist." President Clinton’s impeachment was just about “sex”, about the “invasion of privacy.”

You get the picture. But it is not merely the reductionism that is disconcerting. It is the delivery of the reduced, over-simplified beliefs to the masses that is most frightening. Let me explain with a passage from the late-Allan Bloom, written in his outstanding volume,The Closing of the American Mind. It has to do with freedom, freedom of the mind:

"Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense there is an outside. It is not feelings or commitments that will render a man free, but thoughts, reasoned thoughts. …Much in democracy conduces to the assault on the awareness of difference."[emphasis added]

Bloom’s point is trenchant, and it applies to liberalism. The liberal propaganda machine, reducing everything to the simplest possible terms, presents information as if there is not only no reasonable alternative; there is no alternative at all. (One perfect pop-culture example is the gratuitous simplicity of argument presented in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, in which Moore will not brook a dissenting point-of-view.) And those of us who dare question the liberal gospel have witnessed the highbrow incredulity with which our counter-arguments are greeted. It is all reminiscent of a 1970s film, Midnight Express, in which an incarcerated man in a Turkish prison begins to walk around a dungeon post against the tide of prisoners habituated in a counter-clockwise course: He is urged to turn around and join the party as it trods a path to psychological hell.

You see, Bloom is right: leftists make it “seem inconceivable that other ways are viable.” (Again, I know that some conservatives do this, but it is not pervasive). According to Brit Hume, news anchor for Fox News, the New York Times did not once report the outrageous statements made by Democratic Party National Chair Howard Dean until Dean recently appeared on television to explain himself. Why the silence? Because the NYT does not want you to have knowledge which might lead to your liberation from the NYT. (For more on Dean, see my post Howard Dean IS.) [FYI: Hume was citing a report by National Review's Byron York.]

Reductionism, in a sense, is endemic to the science-driven culture. Some philosophers of science refer to this tendency as “nothing buttery”. You know - gravity is “nothing but” the result of mass and motion; color is “nothing but” reflected wavelengths of light; mankind is “nothing but” evolved chimpanzees with larger brains; death is “nothing but” the cessation of brain activity; God is “nothing but” the wishful psychological extension of an earthly father's care. Science is wildly reductionistic. And its conceit is the conceit of the liberal classes of thinkers who dismiss mystery and complexity with a sweep of the hand, as if even the least capable liberal mind grasps with ease and facility all that is real knowledge.

All this amounts to the loss of freedom, the freedom to think about reality in divergent and complex ways; and yes, even in ways that conclude certain ideas are wrong. The imprisoned man is he who limits himself to seeing the world as a loosely linked chain of “nothing buts.” The free man does not so limit his mind. The liberal reduces water to H2O; and the conservative looks beyond the molecule to the mystery it portends: That there is a molecule of water in the first place is cause for altars and cathedrals; and that existence itself, and consciousness, are mysteries far beyond the crush of reductionism.

Ockham’s Razor has its place, but in the hands of presumptuous intellectuals, it is just mere slashing at the complexity of life. We are too great to see life so simplistically. The razor is gutting us of our awe, humility, circumspection; it is bleeding us of our respect for one another; it is inuring us to the fact of our own ignorance; it does not give us an advantageous but a disadvantageous perspective. For failing to think is really a condition of wanting not to work too hard. It is also the stubborn resistance of humility. It is laziness and pride that reduces things to over-simplified assertions; and we must not forget that it is the lazy person who ends up working the hardest.

Do not be manipulated by their mastery, these gross simplifiers. For they are not masters, but slaves, hoping to hold you down, with them, in the slippery realm of "nothing buttery."

You, however, are too good and too complex for that.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Language 101 - For Smart Students Only

Those of us who live in rural, sylvan areas, where wetlands abound, and have hiked through swamp and marsh, understand the dangers of the wet, bog-like places that vibrate with life. Mud and silt are remarkably deep in even the shallowest ponds; and even firm ground can give way beneath one's step. While getting trapped is always a possibility for the solo hiker, wetland hiking might not pose much mortal threat, though humans' tendency to avoid such places might indicate a passed-on trait given graciously by God or evolution; and thus explains why so few die in mud up to their ears. Bayous and the Everglades are not hospitable places save for the most informed and equipped adventurers.

The etymology of the word "quagmire" most assuredly includes the history of people describing why swamps are dangerous: one can easily get stuck therein, and, at times, it is impossible to escape from their mucky grasp. (Perhaps there is a relation to quahogs, clams stuck in the mud.)

That Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, should once again dredge the ditches and pull up in all its frothy mass the word "quagmire" during yesterday's Senate hearings on Iraq, makes those of us wince who understand the simple facts. And the simple facts are these: The United States military, at the drop of a hat, could and can leave Iraq, even today. There is nothing military preventing them from leaving; they are not stuck in a dog-fight; they are not surrounded; they have not lost strongholds or air superiority; they have not lost the seas or the streets (though some are problematic); they are not screaming for supplies and air support. The United States controls a foreign country thousands of miles from its own shores. And, though there are pockets of difficulty in Iraq, just as there are pockets of difficulty in the United States, there is no military reason the United States is stuck, trapped, or sunk in a quagmire. For "quagmire" connotes entrapment and paralysis; and the United States is entirely in control of its own destiny in Iraq. It owns Iraq, really. And it is trying to give it back.

That does not mean that there are not socio-political reasons why the US military must not leave Iraq. I have spelled out why the US's fight in Iraq has been slow, arduous (at times) and clinical in my essay, Trees from the forest, (posted in April), and it all has to do with "regime change", which was and remains the MAIN reason the United States entered Iraq in the first place. Regime change is not synonymous with "deposing" or "toppling" a dictator; it is much more comprehensive and outcome-oriented than the simplifiers among us perceive. For to change a regime is to also install one, one that is stable and permanent. And, ultimately, the goal is to install a regime that is an ally of America's fight against its broader, more elusive and fanatical threats.

Even if we grant that the insurgency is not in its "last throes", as Vice President Dick Cheney recently said, but that the insurgency situation is escalating at worst or "static" at best; the United States is not anchored militarily by that insurgency; it is not mired down and caught in its grip. Again, the US can always leave that insurgency behind, and my guess is that it in fact will, leaving its suppression for the new Iraqi regime to handle and define. That there might remain a wildly successful insurgency active when the US does finally withdraw its troops, does not prove failure or loss, if the regime is indeed changed. But I doubt any insurgency will be wildly successful; at least as a result of US failures.

What is clear is this: that critics of the war, Sen. Kennedy tallest among them, who believe that the difficulty of regime change proves that the war is a mistake, commit the fallacy of oversimplification. The converse of their argument is that the legitimacy of the war would be proven if the war were easy. But the legitimacy of the war might be proven by its difficulty, and not disproven by it. That there are pockets of resistance, that there are reported setbacks, does not discredit the war, just like setbacks in cancer treatments, or chess playing, do not prove the illegitimacy of either medicine or Kasparov's conceding a bishop to a pawn.

This is the reality: language is abused daily in this spin-war called politics, and it is most enthusiastically abused by the Democratic Party and its minions in the mainstream media. Understanding the word "quagmire" requires not merely aptitude, but humility, for the most learned are always the humblest: they can only learn if they admit their ignorance. And the smartest among us understand that using "quagmire" to mean "something that superficially looks difficult and protracted", is an abuse of language, and is so much double-speak. It is obfuscation and prevarication; it is bastardizing Babel-speak. Don't accept it. Ever.

And do not be deceived by the fallacious "If there is no exit-strategy, how is that not a quagmire?" For it is illogical to the core. An exit-strategy is always elastic; its plasticity is always necessary to ensure survival amidst the infinite variables of life. People enter into all kinds of relationships. We do not ask, "You've entered into courtship with James; what is your exit-strategy?" We do not ask, "Doctor, now that you've opened up the patient, what exactly is your exit-strategy, considering that there are complications you did not expect?" Nor do we conclude that the doctor is in a "quagmire"; nor that he is performing an "illegitimate operation." We do not ask, "Coach Belichek, if you get pinned down deep in your end of the football field, what is your exit-strategy?" Nor do we conclude that Coach Belichek's team is stuck in the mud should he say that he does not have an exit-strategy.

Not having an exit-strategy doth not a quagmire make. In fact, following a pre-conceived idea or plan may actually create a quagmire: read Black Hawk Down and learn how rapidly adherence to an exit-strategy devolves into a quagmire.

In battle, as in life, it is the combination of rigidity and flexibility in proper balance that most often guarantees success and survival. But the rigidity of thought, its constant and intransigent pounding on the podium by Sen. Kennedy and like-minded critics, is remarkably deadening.

If you want to see a quagmire, look at the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate. Talk about going nowhere, spinning ceaselessly in the same tired ruts, grinding gears down the same abandoned roads.

Too bad they don't have an exit-strategy. (Maybe we voters can give them one.)

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Paying Attention to the Zeitgeist; and Getting It Right

The last two posts at Contratimes merit some further consideration, if for no other reason than that there is validating evidence that I am on the right track (and that readers are not wasting their time).

On Tuesday, I wrote in A Naughty New Trend, that feminism was really nothing more than gross masculinism, with more earning and political power for women. I posited that feminist views of sexuality merely reinforced among women behaviors that were akin to the most debased behaviors of lecherous - albeit charming - men. If the men are empowered by shallow and frequent sex, then women must emulate. Or so feminist logic has played out. In the end, instead of women being women, they are men with different body parts.

For an interesting discussion about this very thing, see today's interview with writer and Harvard Law student Ben Shapiro on Frontpagemag.com. The interview is done by FPM.com editor Jamie Glazov. This section is fascinating:

FP: You blame radical feminists in particular for the rapid decline of our culture. Why?

Shapiro: Radical feminists were correct about one thing: throughout history, men acted badly, and throughout history, women were held to a higher standard. But instead of telling men to act with more virtue, feminists told women to debase themselves. And so you have disgusting human beings like Madonna being upheld as feminist icons, because she's aggressive about sex and refuses to be held to moral standards. It's ironic that the women who are most willing to cater to the basest of male desires are considered the pinnacle of feminine achievement by radical feminists.

The most recent manifestation of the radical feminist ideal can be seen by watching "Sex and the City." The show is insanely popular (now in syndication with TBS), and revolves around the promiscuous sex lives of four single women in New York. A female classmate from Harvard Law told me that the "Sex and the City" idea of femininity has now taken over among "porn generation" women. The biggest problem with this phenomenon is that sex is not the same for women as it is for men; it is unquestionably more emotional for women than for men. As she stated, "Definitely at Harvard, and I think at other colleges as well, there's this idea that feminism is about women being allowed to do whatever they want and being able to act like men. Talk about sex like it's not a big deal, talk about how to enjoy it, have one-night stands. It becomes a chatty thing to talk about. I was a part of a female social club at Harvard, and that was the topic du jour, sex. It made people feel empowered, cool. I was not used to that at all, coming from a small town, and coming from a family that didn't talk like that at all. I always thought that it was a little hollow. That in the end, women don't think about sex the way that men do, and that people get hurt a lot. But you were supposed to act like you don't care. I think that women biologically do care. And that women can't maintain these no-commitment relationships without getting hurt."

Men in general are quite willing to go along with the radical feminist interpretation of the female ideal - how many men are going to complain about promiscuous women who are aggressive about sex? The radical feminists cater to the lowest common denominator for both genders.

About That Apology, Mr. Durbin

Yesterday I opined in A New Sort of Holocaust Denial that Mr. Durbin "apologized, sort of" for his comparing, from the Senate floor no less, that American interrogation methods were reminiscent of wanton abuses by such regimes as the Nazi and Soviet regimes. I wish to clarify, and I believe my essay intimates this, though insufficiently, that I do NOT believe Mr. Durbin actually apologized. It is clear that he did not. He is merely sorry that some may construe his remarks as offensive. The problem is with his listeners, and not with his actual speech. At least that is what he believes.

But in a very disturbing confirmation of my claim that the anti-Bush, Bush-is-a-Nazi-bastard disease is endemic to the Democratic Party, I must refer to a truly repugnant statement posted on Amazon.com by a book "reviewer" who writes under the moniker OKIGUESSSO.

In David Horowitz's blog, "Hate Beyond Comprehension", which I read last night, Horowitz refers to OKIGUESSSO's "review" of his latest book, The End of Time, as posted at Amazon, in which the reviewer describes Horowitz as "worse than a Nazi". But following OKIGUESSSO's own link to all his Amazon reviews, I later found this gem, unbelievably attached to On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, a book by discredited leftist professor Ward Churchill:

"A very excellent book exposing how the U.S. has ALWAYS stood for racism, genocide and oppression. People around the world increasingly understand that the main obstacle to peace, justice and freedom on this planet is the "evil empire," the U.S.A. With the coming inauguration of the Fourth Reich--the Christian Fascist second term of Fuehrer Bush [sic], a venal and evil leader a 100 times worse than Hitler, the growing resistance around the world will heighten, as it inevitably will here at home.

"One of the most excellent books ever written by a heroic voice for freedom and justice, and brave leader in the struggle to expose the U.S., the Nazi Germany of today. Buy ten copies of this book to support the author, give them to friends, family, and school libraries and students. Together, one day we will be free of this rotten system which imposes tyranny and death on the people of the world at the point of a gun."

And what else do we know from this little foray into the reviewer's Amazon netherworld? That "41 of 77 people" found OKIGUESSSO's review of Churchill's book "helpful". Now, talk about the end of time. It seems that there are few days left, if the majority of those who read OKIGUESSSO's review find it worthy enough to describe it as "helpful."

THAT is some pretty sick and scary stuff.

OK. I recognize two things. One, we do not know OKIGUESSSO's identity. Perhaps it's Ward Churchill. We simply do not know. But it is clearly someone who hates David Horowitz with a visceral, personal hate. Two, we do not know how many people ACTUALLY found OKIGUESSSO's review helpful. Perhaps OKIGUESSSO him/herself found the review helpful 41 times, merely to prop himself up. Irrespective, this is GROSS stuff. (And I shall not balk at reporting this gross stuff, no matter how despicable.)

But in the end, my claim in yesterday's post that the abuse of language coming from the left regarding the Holocaust and Nazism is a shameless abuse of Jews the world over is verified by OKIGUESSSO. I remain stymied that any Jewish leftist could countenance this excrement; or that any one should be seduced by this deception. But I must remain compassionate and patient, for I do not want to hurl any guilt or undue criticism towards my Jewish neighbors. They have endured enough, and I know that they will see their way out of this. While there is no excuse that Durbin and his supporters can offer for their crass misuse of Nazism and Holocaust history, I know that, in these confusing times, all of us, myself included, must not damn one another when we do not react as strongly or as immediately to deception as we perhaps should.

Contratimes

For a great read, see today's column by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe. Jacoby is pretty much the only conservative columnist at the Globe. He also happens to be Jewish (at least, I believe he is). And he is a great fighter against the left. Please, I beg you, read his column now, for he is inspired (click here.)

A New Sort of Holocaust Denial

It is good to hear that Sen. Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, has apologized, sort of, for his remarks of last week comparing the Guantanamo Bay terrorist holding facility to Hitler, Stalin, and other such masters of hell. That it comes a little late is a bit surprising, as history and fact quickly raised their voices in angry retort that Durbin's comparisons betrayed logic and compassion.

History does indeed prove the case that the Bush administration's treatment of enemy combatants in a prison camp is not equivalent to Hitler's eugenically-driven purgation of the earth of a whole race; nor does it compare to Stalin's purges of neighborhoods filled with dissenters in the intellectual class. Guanatamo Bay is a difficult thing to countenance, no doubt, particularly among America's more decorous classes, who condescend to offer advice on hosting incarcerated terrorists. But it is a reality of Muslim extremism where even those for whom the persnickety beg "mercy" would gladly lop the heads off the most sincere and accomodating hosts. There is no middle ground here, particularly when it is known that Guantanamo Bay detainees are housed and fed better than a large portion of the human race; and have been shown commendable hospitality. Been offered a free Koran lately on the street or in the airport by a Muslim evangelist? No, but you'll surely get whatever religious text you demand if you were living in Gitmo. Leftists squirm about national security when they witness detainees in leg irons; and then rebuke their opponents for not dealing with "real threats" like North Korea or Saudi Arabia. There is so much squeamishness about the wrong things.

What is happening in all of this political ranting from Democrats, and there is no real doubt about this, is the denial of the Holocaust. I don't mean that anyone is suggesting that the Holocaust did not happen. What I am saying is that Durbin's remarks deny the actual severity of the Holocaust; and the severity of Stalin's horrific measures. Durbin loses a frame of reference; and thus cannot be taken seriously as an intellectual, though he must be taken seriously as an Orwellian revisionist. For he is rewriting history to a particularly harmful degree, all for political gain, finding an equivalence where there is none. He is saying that if you want to understand Auschwitz, look at Guantanamo.

And Durbin's remarks are not peripheral to the Democratic Party of which he is a member. His remarks, and the revisionism they represent, are endemic to the soul of the party, pervading it to the very marrow (with one qualifier, to which I will speak in a moment). Calling Bush a Hitler, or Hitler-lite, is not unique to a rogue few. He's been called that before; the comparison has been made all too frequently. Bumper stickers proclaim as much ("Bush-Cheney '04: Sieg Heil!"); and the fear-mongering around Bush's alleged dictatorship is profound.

Thus, it is the soul of the party not only to obfuscate history, concealing facts, it is the soul of the party to abuse language. Calling Guantanamo a "gulag"; calling Abu Ghraib's sins "atrocities"; calling Bush's presidency "fraudulent", "tyrannical", "illegitimate" and "stolen"; calling Iraq a "quagmire"; each of these indicates abuse of language, as well as the abuse of those who would hear and read such rhetoric.

And don't think for an instant that those who wince at war and its accidents also wince at being vicious in their rhetoric. One look at Richard Cohen's op-ed from Tuesday's Washington Post is telling in its shamelessness. Called "Piling on Dick Durbin", Cohen's piece elevates umbrage to rage, finding offense in Durbin's critics, who are, to Cohen, too surly in their reproval of Durbin. Durbin, at least to Cohen, is being victimized, battered, and even intimidated in a manner unbecoming to America. But the offense that should disturb Cohen is the title of his piece, which is a gratuitous and shameless reference to the Abu Ghraib photos of piled, naked detainees. To Cohen, Durbin is the target of abuse: Calling American leadership Nazis is acceptable, at worst unfortunate, but calling for an apology is repugnant.

Undeniably one can be assured that Durbin's supporters believe his heart is in the right place, even if his words are not.

Let's put it all in the simplest terms: Death toll - Soviet gulags and sundry purges, 20-40 million; - Hitler's Germany, in camps, 6 million; - Guantanamo, the new "gulag", 0.

Durbin's apology, by the way, is really only an admission of disappointment that not everyone agrees with him. For, as his words clearly imply, he would not be sorry if no one was offended. Durbin is incapable of seeing the intrinsic erroneousness and harmfulness of his comments. The following quote from Durbin's apparent apology is revealing: "Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them I extend my heartfelt apologies." In other words, if some overly-sensitive people DID NOT believe his remarks were hyperbolic, he would NOT be sorry.

It's really everyone else's fault, isn't it Mr. Durbin?

And there is a suggestion, in his first statement found on his website, that what he was really doing was rebuking the Bush administration, and that he would contine to do so: "My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration which add to the risk our soldiers face. ...I will continue to speak out when I disagree with this Administration." And, to Durbin, the Administration is so vile he will continue to speak out against it even if he must apologize to those who can't stomach the strength of his criticisms.

But it all amounts to an attack, a real attack, not only on language, but on suffering, particularly the suffering of those murdered by Nazis in death and labor camps. How any Jewish voter can be silent about Durbin's remarks; how there can be any Jews who would countenance the Democratic Party, which generally prefers the Palestinian position to the Israeli, stymies me. Perhaps there are liberal Jews who resist the temptation toward anti-Semitism too often accepted by liberals. Perhaps there are some in the Democratic Party who see the Durbin's latent disregard for the hallowed place the Holocaust holds in Jewish history, painful and tragic as it is. But where is the public outrage? Where is the shock? Perhaps the American Jewish voice is quiet because the left has succeeded in painting Bush as Hitlerian, and hence Jewish voters are wary of Bush in all matters. (Plus, Durbin's remarks appear to be encoded warnings to Muslims, suggesting that Hitler has indeed been reincarnated, only this time he's after Muslims.) Regardless, there is a tolerance of Durbin's views that is ominous in its silence.

That, at least, is a tenable reading of Durbin's recklessness. That Durbin has the temerity to suggest that the Bush administration's use of Guantanamo Bay has jeopardized America's soldiers around the world is ridiculous: "More than 1700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country's standing in the world community has been badly damaged by ... Guantanamo." It is Durbin's remarks that this is Nazism repackaged that jeopardize American soldiers. That kind of abuse of power from the Senate floor is unconscionable.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade/2005/Contratimes

[For a perfect essay on Durbin's remarks, read the National Review editorial regarding the matter.]

A Naughty New Trend?

I sat in the beauty salon waiting for my son. He, and several of his friends, had recently taken to Jan, a woman who cuts hair for a living and is the mother of one of my son's classmates. But this particular day his haircut, and my gnawing on a tuna sandwich in the waiting area, were not in any sense of the word metrosexual, that new label for fastidious and needy men who demand perfection from clothes to coiffures. Such fussiness is strange to me, raised as I was believing that men were to be ready for action - a scurry off the pavement at any moment - while women were to be elevated to the status of the beautiful. My son and I are clearly not sidewalk or pavement-dwellers, where every step from sun-up to sundown is made on the contraceptive macadam that is truly metro. No, we live in the grass and the dirt; and our very skin is made for gravel (for exfoliation). Many women, and the men who fuss along with the them (in what seems like so much gratuitous indulgence) in salons, do not live so dangerously close to the earth, separated as they are from soil and sand by the courtesy of sidewalks.

Though I know the rural-sexual dirt beneath my fingernails is enough to send paroxysms of revulsion through the refined sets, I permitted myself, as Jan washed my son's hair, to touch one of those scintillating journals that deal with self-conscious fashion. There I read the cover of that finest of literary fare, Marie Claire magazine, with something like incredulity; muttering to myself between bites of tuna and onion. Of course, the journal made me entirely self-conscious, though only briefly, about my own personhood. I imagined I looked like a a retired bus mechanic taking a breather on a chaise lounge inside the Ritz-Carlton. At any moment, I would be urged to move along. But only after a concierge spotted me wiping mayonnaise on my pants.

As I perused that somewhat gaudy magazine cover, one headline caught my eye; it lingered there, and shook my usually solid sense of what humans are supposed to be about. It read, "Sex With Strangers: the NAUGHTY new trend you need to know."

At first, I felt like I had read the mere obvious: "We are all strangers to one another," I muttered to myself. But I checked my cynical spirit and reflected on where we've come in our culture, when sex with strangers is now deemed an exciting distraction from the mundanity of sex with someone a person loves. And I thought about the article to which this headline referred, complete, no doubt, with warnings about safety and exploitation, and yet offering, with proper qualifications, quotes from experts and celebrants describing the delicious benefits sex with strangers provides. Not that sex with strangers is new. I've heard wives in lengthy marriages complain that they feel like they've been "having sex with a stranger" when they've had sex with their own husbands. (Perhaps that's what the naughty new trend is, a dress-up conjugality between spouses where the "stranger" motif is embraced and not resisted.) And then there's the whole one-night stand thing where sex is mere sport and hobby; a playtime that's been practiced by many for a long time, with joy and innocence greeting such lovers with every sunrise, I am certain.

But never have such practices been elevated to high culture, if one can call it either high or culture. Women are encouraged to be exactly what the more disgusting men among us have fought for: women like them, detached from the emotional and spiritual, in a carnal rubbing of parts for the part of a night; living as functional fragments of total humanity. This is feminism par excellence, where women define who they are by the successes and powers of men; embracing standards of achievement, meaning, power, leisure and sexuality defined by the men deemed to be on top.

How is it that women have been so duped into thinking that being on the summit of male-created industries, for instance, somehow makes them more complete women, and not male-derivatives with different body parts? For to be eager to celebrate and participate in one-night stands is not feminine, it is cheaply masculine, and thus women who engage in such prove that men, once again, rule the world. There is no feminism that is not just masculinism for women, where women merely become higher-earning sex objects with power, more sexually available and elastic in the corporate cultures that remain male in spirit and fact.

I tossed down the magazine in my own sense of revulsion. And I thought how curious it is that many of the more disgusting, lecherous men celebrated in our world are the ones with the cleanest fingernails.

There's the real result of feminism.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade/2005/Contratimes

It Is Worth Noting

Happy Belated Fathers' Day to each of you fathers out there. I hope you had a blessed day.

Just a brief note before I get back to writing (tomorrow), having taken a brief hiatus from my duties.

The Downing Street Memo is heating up in the United States, particularly in a small congressional caucus, and is thus heating up the blogosphere. Rushing to and fro are the accusers, some suggesting the memo is enough to impeach the president; others, that the memo is a fraud.

To the latter group, that the memo is a fraud, I would point out what seems to be a blog-fixation on the genesis or origins of the memo: who wrote it? why? on what kind of paper? etc. That it is reported by the AP that the London Times reporter who first brought the memo to public scrutiny confessed to having copied originals using a typewriter, and then destroyed the originals to protect the identity of his source, deserves serious analysis, and even lends merit to suspicion. But the fixation on the external rather than the internal problems with the memo seems too easy, too predictable and maybe even too headstrong. The memo, as I suggested on May 22 in Daniel Schorr and the Downing Street Memo, contains sufficient internal problems to justify a healthy suspicion. No doubt, the AP report is important, but the internal dimensions of the memo strike me as more revealing than any other report thus far. Who knows?

It's going to be fun to see where this all leads.

Contratimes

Unholy Alliance, Unholy Devotion

The other morning I had an email exchange with an important personage, well-known, well-connected. It was brief and to the point, and was more than cordial.

I'll spare you the details, and the personage shall remain unnamed. But I made an embarrassing gaffe in that letter, a letter with which I intended to impress (I will not reveal why, but it has to do with impressing someone with the sincerity of my gratitude). In writing, I accidently referred to David Horowitz' powerful book Unholy Alliance as Unholy Devotion. That my little gaffe should have sneaked beneath my editing radar is partly excusable, since the latter was indeed a book I read (in 1984), and was written by the dean of chapel at my alma mater. But the gaffe was made, and there is little one can do to repair the damage - no matter how slight - that such a simple mistake may cause. Besides, good editing, accurate writing, proper spelling and fine punctuation are not gross mechanical rules; they are the emblems of loving one's literary neighbor: there is hardly a less loving gift than a poorly, sloppily written letter to a fellow human being.

However, there is something truly ironic about my gaffe, I think, or at the very least, the coincidence is interesting. For the same day I made my gaffe, Mr. Horowitz's blog addressed the indoctrination of today's youth by a cultic left. At the same time Mr. Horowitz was blogging, I was labelling one of his works Unholy Devotion without noticing my cluelessness. But the ironic thing is that the real book by that title, written by Harold Busséll, was subtitled "Why Cults Lure Christians." In other words, it had to do with the targets and machinations of cult recruiters.

Horowitz writes in his blog that young people, even the very young, are targeted by leftists, and he is correct, as the Khmer Rouge (among others) proved to the world. And it is easy to see why young people are targeted: they represent the membership of the incipient new world order, and they easily submit to authority. Curiously, Horowitz's criticism is identical to Busséll's, though Busséll is referring largely to Christian young people.

If memory serves me well, Busséll lists a variety of fascinating reasons why cult recruiters, like those of the Hare Krishna or Children of God variety, are successful, particularly with older teens. In large part, they exploit the late-high school to early college student because of the normal developmental anxieties common to that cohort: Anxiety about leaving home; about career, self, direction, and even survivability; anxieties set against severing ties with mom and dad. Cults pounce on kids in this point in their lives, and cults excel at exploiting kids' distrust of, or rebellion from, their parents. In fact, cults usually succeed by categorizing parents and their parental wisdom (which is usually some form of religio-ethnic tradition), as satanic, repressive or duly unenlightened.

That any of this should sound familiar is due to the prophetic warnings delivered by people like Horowitz. For American children are indeed set against their parents and their traditions in American schools, particularly in colleges and universities. And it is the cultic left, seizing the opportunity youth provides for exploitation and redirection, which is setting son against father; daughter against mother; and student against the Church (yes, against the Church).

But Busséll describes other characterisitics of cults. For one, cults are anti-authoritarian, but nonetheless possess a new authoritarianism that is largely undetected because it is new, progressive, fresh. Another characteristic is that cults tend to replace sacred texts, deemed repressive and foolish (like the Bible), with other sacred texts (think L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology writings, for example). Yet another is that cults are almost entirely dependent on a charismatic leader, or set of leaders, who appear to transcend the common herd in which they were born and raised; and now appear to embody the powerful ideals that transform (eg. Scientology's Tom Cruise). Lastly, there is a new nomenclature, a new way of speaking, with familiar terms that take on new and almost esoteric meaning: It is secret code, perhaps; a language meant for insiders of the cognoscenti.

The parallels then, to the leftists, are quite telling. For leftists are anti-authoritarian (eg. anti-Catholic; anti-patriarchal; anti-Bush) but nonetheless are authoritarian (even more so). For they are pro-World Court; pro-matriarchal (apotheosizing feminism) and pro-Mandela (who is as dogmatic and pompous as they come). Leftists decry the hegemony of the US, but have nothing to say about the hoped-for hegemony of the UN, which is composed solely (in most cases) of only the most elite people from each member country. Leftists mock the authoritarianism of Ann Coulter's reportage by referring to Noam Chomsky's infallibility. Leftists snicker at Fox News and yet encourage each other to watch The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and to read the always infallible The Nation or always enlightened New York Times. Leftists decry the idol-worship of George Bush (which is only perceived as such by the left), but have no qualms (as U2's Bono did) of calling Nelson Mandela "The world's president." Leftists dismiss the charisma of Ronald Reagan (or they just reduce him to his charisma), but love to talk about the "handsome and charismatic" Bill Clinton (who is never reduced to his charisma by the left OR by the right, for the left adores him and the right NEVER saw him as charismatic).

Furthermore, there is leftist lingo about tolerance and freedom and patriotism, and many other things, which all sounds so innocuous and safe, until one realizes that such nomenclature is so much snarling teeth. To the left, for instance, 'tolerance' is not tolerance, and, though this fact is well known, the left's intolerance is concealed behind PC window-dressing. 'Homophobe' to a leftist does not mean that a person is fearful of his own perceived homosexuality, or his fear of homosexual behavior. For those 'in the know,' a homophobe is a hate-monger, and thus is a sub-species of human. 'Homophobia', 'tolerance', 'progress', 'conservative,' 'Abu Ghraib'; each of these are part of the left's lexicon, carrying meanings reserved solely for those who embrace the leftist faith.

But the one tactic that cults and leftists share without qualification is the power of fear, utilizing it for hidden, secret ends. For cults exploit the fear of not looking sufficiently evolved, advanced, or enlightened, describing a dark hell agape beneath one's feet for failure to make the grade. Death is paraded before them, either physical or spiritual, and the only passkey through the portals of death is found in each cult's promises, where fear is finally abated. Leftists, however, use fear (the fear of war for oil; the fear of losing abortion rights, the fear of getting bashed by vigilante homophobes, the fear of the rich getting richer, and the loss of government subsidies) to congregate the worried in rallies and protesting mobs, mobs as large as those wherein marriage is conferred on thousands by Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church (where men and women gather for fear that a good marriage might elude them without the guarantees conferred by an alleged earthly deity). Democrats across the country are searching high and low for a deliverer who will save them from the fearful tyranny of the Bush regime; and the repression which is the Patriot Act. But such deliverance can only come from the left, and the abatement of fear can only be guaranteed by the Democrats' removal of the bad rightists around them.

Not that the right does not use fear; not that the right does not indoctrinate. But the difference between the two is that the left conceals from the world that it uses fear and indoctrination; that it uses cult-like powers of persuasion. Instead, the left merely points at the bogey-man right, telling children repeatedly that such a monster will indeed consume them if they do not rise up against it.

Plus, the kind of indoctrination envisioned by the right is not only more transparent, it is more balanced. Horowitz's own efforts in calling for an academic bill of rights, wherein children are indoctrinated by a balanced and complete picture of the world, is a typical rightist conviction. Leftists want to tell only one side of a story. Leftists want to reject the Pledge of Allegiance and only tell about the Flag's repressions of humans; whereas the right wants to say the Pledge of Allegiance and study, in real scholarship, America's failures and successes among the countless humans knocking on America's doors. Leftists tout freethought, and then use freethought to ban thinking for oneself outside the prescribed box; rightists just want every voice to have a chance to be heard; and to set minds 'a-thinking for themselves, without some infallible leftist professor prescribing otherwise.

Both left and right are interested in indoctrination, but the left's scope of inquiry and discussion is far narrower than the right's. That I believe, firmly.

Thus, my gaffe regarding Horowitz's amazing book Unholy Alliance nevertheless speaks directly to Horowitz's point: the left wants our children - from the earliest ages and right on through college - in order to indoctrinate them like so much cult activity, all in an effort to direct humanity who-knows-where. It is the Left's wont, it is its agenda, and Horowitz is trying to stand in its way.

Who better than to fight them, since he was rescued from their cult, and knows their wily ways?

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

PS. For a great read, check out Ann Coulter's newest essay. Man, what a great last paragraph, and that last line is just stupendous. Good for her. [Anyone interested in Harold Busséll's Unholy Devotion will have trouble finding a copy, as it is out of print, though it was reprinted under the title By Hook Or By Crook.]

The Poverty of Being Frank Rich, Part II

In Part II of our examination of poor Frank Rich, whose journalistic candor and value, as was said yesterday, is neither frank (he conceals things) nor rich, let's begin with this quote from his essay of June 12 published in the New York Times:

"In the most recent example, all the president's men slimed and intimidated Newsweek by accusing it of being an accessory to 17 deaths for its errant Koran story; led by Scott McClellan, they said it was unthinkable that any American guard could be disrespectful of Islam's holy book. These neo-Colsons easily drowned out Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, both of whom said that the riots that led to the 17 deaths were unrelated to Newsweek. Then came the piéce de résistance of Nixon mimicry: a Pentagon report certifying desecrations of the Koran by American guards was released two weeks after the Newsweek imbroglio, at 7:15 p.m. on a Friday, to assure it would miss the evening newscasts and be buried in the Memorial Day weekend's little-read papers.

First, a timeline. Rich claims the report about "desecrations of the Koran" was released on Friday, May 27, at 7:15 p.m., the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend. The report, dubbed the "Hood Report", was actually released on Friday, June 3. Thus, the report was never "buried in the Memorial Day weekend's little-read papers." Moreover, even if we grant that a Friday night release is somehow indicative of truth repression, as Rich insinuates, there are two facts to consider. For example, Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, director of Guantánamo Bay's detention center where abuses of the Koran allegedy occurred, held a considerably detailed press conference on May 26, the Thursday before Memorial Day. And on Wednesday, May 25, the ACLU released FBI documents apparently detailing allegations made by Gitmo detainees of said abuses.

OK. So Hood's press conference was only an "interim report", and he refused to give details about alleged mishandlings. But Rich is both wrong and deceptive. Contrary to Rich's reportage (which is ironic since his piece is largely about integrity in reporting), there was considerable transparency to the whole process; plenty of time for the press to inquire and study; and plenty of time during the news-cycle for people to read about Guantánamo. There was no Memorial Day burial of the lead; just the typical celebrations of the sacrifices of the buried dead. Besides, does Rich think the Pentagon would be so stupid as to release something that might sully the military's image on the eve of Memorial Day?

Also, it is important to note that Rich claims the Pentagon report certifies that the Koran was "desecrated." Here's what CNN.com wrote about the report's contents:

"[T]he report did find four confirmed incidents in which U.S. personnel at the base mishandled the Quran, including guards kicking a detainee's Quran; a guard's urine "splashed" a detainee and his holy book after coming through an air vent; and guards got in a water balloon fight that resulted in two detainees' Qurans getting wet."

To Rich, this all adds up to admissions of desecrating something wildly holy.

Alas, there is more. Check out this May 17, 2005 exchange during a White House press briefing between a reporter and Scott McClellan, White House press secretary:

"Q: Back on Newsweek. Richard Myers, last Thursday -- I'm going to read you a quote from him. He said, "It's a judgment of our commander in Afghanistan, General Eichenberry, that in fact the violence that we saw in Jalalabad was not necessarily the result of the allegations about disrespect for the Koran." He said it was "more tied up in the political process and reconciliation that President Karzai and his cabinet were conducting." And he said that that was from an after-action report he got that day.

So what has changed between last Thursday and today, five days later, to make you now think that those -- that that violence was a result of Newsweek?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, clearly, the report was used to incite violence by people who oppose the United States and want to mischaracterize the values and the views of the United States of America. The protests may have been pre-staged by those who oppose the United States and who may be opposed to moving forward on freedom and democracy in the region, but the images that we have seen across our television screens over the last few days clearly show that this report was used to incite violence. People lost their lives --

Q: But may I just follow up, please? He didn't say "protest," he said -- he used the word very specifically, "violence." He said the violence, as far as they know from their people on the ground -- which is something that you always say you respect wholeheartedly -- it was not because of Newsweek.

MR. McCLELLAN: Dana, I guess I'm not looking at it the same way as you do, and I think the Department of Defense has spoken to this issue over the last few days. But the facts are very clear that this report was used in the region by people opposed to the United States to incite violence and to portray a very negative image of the United States, one that runs contrary to everything that we value and believe, and it has done some serious damage to our image.

Q: You don't think there's any way that perhaps you're looking at it a little bit differently, now that you understand that the Newsweek report is false?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you can go look at just about every news report that has covered this and they have pointed out that this report, itself, helped spark some violence in the region."

Is McClellan right when he says "just about every news report" suggests that violence was indeed incited? Here's what CNN.com reported on Monday, June 6:

"The investigation was prompted after a Newsweek article citing unnamed sources made such a claim -- prompting violent protests in Afghanistan and other parts of the Muslim world that left more than a dozen people dead." (For more details, go here.)

I'll grant that the second CNN.com link reports on protests throughout the Muslim community that followed Brig. Gen. Hood's admission that though no Korans had been flushed down toilets, there were five instances in which the Koran had been mishandled. But that raises an important question. If a general's admission that Korans were not desecrated but only mishandled sparks protests the world over, how much more a Newsweek article that suggests America treated the Koran like feces? Moreover, as of last week, CNN.com is not retracting its own reportage that "more than a dozen" died as a result of Newsweek's article. Or so I find no such evidence.

I don't think it can be argued that the Newsweek article did not and does not have a deleterious effect on America's standing in the world. And it is reporting like Frank Rich's that serves the enemy well. Someone died because of Newsweek's carelessness, and the press in general does not want to face the deadly consequences reckless journalism can inflame.

And inflame is what Frank Rich is intending to do, with impunity, it seems. For he is attempting to generate outrage among "the people" against our President and Defense Department, and even against Chuck Colson once again (and the "neo-Colsons" he apparently spawned). But Rich is not using truth to inflame. He is using allegations, insinuations, and downright misinformation.

It's a true poverty that leads a man to such ends.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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