Live From New York, It’s...

By William A. Mayer

On Saturday evening April 26, 2003 former comedian Al Franken, now auditioning for the role of public ass [you might remember him as the unfunny, big headed guy with horn rimmed glasses from an after-its-heyday iteration of Saturday Night Live] accosted members of the Fox News team at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Hurling invective, he was eventually sent packing, albeit with a bloody chin.

We can’t help but observe that his is becoming typical behavior among an increasing number of Democrats.

Shorn of its theatrics, you can see similar displays by angry lefty stars and starlets, gaunt cheeked anti-war street demonstrators, fraudulent junior Senators from New York and the like.

Aside from showing an intolerance that is rather surprising - considering that most of them are card-carrying supporters of the ACLU and wear diversity like a boutonniere – their behavior underlines a tendency in the party towards an absolute and unconditional loyalty that borders on fanaticism.

Though some in this crowd might argue that the ability to hold fast to a position, regardless of its utter intellectual bankruptcy, is somehow an elevating principle, it is in reality a primary characteristic of something a bit darker – the totalitarian mindset.

Upon reflection it seems that that this is a point capable of defining an important difference between the major parties.

The GOP, despite a more than occasional lapse into muddleheaded thinking, has in a positive manner, materially differentiated itself along these lines as compared to the Democrats.

Despite the contemporary nature of Franken’s buffoonery, this is not a recent development. It is illustrative of a deeper, more unsettling problem.

As long as thirty years ago, Republicans were more than willing to place even mistaken honor above party, to the extent of allying themselves, in 1974, with the Democrat leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Peter Rodino, in a successful effort to drive Richard Nixon from the presidency over crimes which seem in hindsight rather puny.

Not only that but to facilitate what was thought to be relief from a potentially cataclysmic “constitutional crisis” - as Ben Bradley and the "get Nixon" contingent at the Washington Post blared every day on page one, in 100 point type - a contingent of Republican Senators, led by Mr. Conservative himself, Barry Goldwater, along with other Republican leaders, persuaded the besieged president that the game was over; that resignation was his only patriotic option.

Nowhere in the examination of the recent history of the Democrat party, can any similar action be found - examine the sorry partisan record demonstrated during the Clinton impeachment.

On the Senate side only Russ Feingold broke ranks with his party, which seemed more intent on preserving a united, though mistaken, front than holding a misbehaving chief executive accountable.

In the House of Representatives only 5 Democrats broke with the Democrats to support the first of two successful articles of impeachment, not so remarkably, a similar number of Republicans voted with the Democrats.

Compare that performance with the Republicans actively working behind the scenes to convince Richard Nixon to resign for the good of the nation.

At nearly every opportunity where one would think that partisanship might be sacrificed to some greater common good, the Democrats have failed to deliver.

During the food fight surrounding illegal campaign contributions made by the Chinese communists, among many others, to the Clinton-Gore 1996 campaign we saw a consistent stonewalling of the investigation by the Democrats who wanted no part of being seen as disloyal to their maximum leader.

What we did witness, however were claims of “no controlling legal authority” “they all do it” and an inability to remember precisely what occurred as if the Democrats had contracted mass, but selective, Alzheimer’s on the subject, while hundreds of Democrat contributors slithered out of the country to avoid prosecution.

Along the way we were treated to pictures of a pudgy Albert Gore Jr. raising money in Buddhist Temples, later seeming unclear as to who the little bald guys in silk robes full of greenbacks, were exactly.

The same can be observed with regard to racially blasphemous statements made by former Klansman Senator Robert Byrd, whose use of the highly [at least when it is allegedly used by the other party] charged word “nigger” should have landed him back in his civies before night fell.

Byrd and his nasty little lapse(s) into Klan-speak - by sole virtue of his party affiliation – are shielded; his statements incapable of “rising to the stature” whereby censure of any kind is deemed appropriate.

On the contrary, Senator Lott’s far less injurious comments nearly got him sent to Siberia with Republicans bailing from his defense in nearly the same number as Democrats - while the national media piled on.

When it comes to war, the contrast between the parties is stunning.

Clinton’s Iraqi war resolutions - which were in large part actually written by Republicans – were overwhelmingly accepted by both houses of congress, however the sanctioning authority for Operation Iraqi Freedom found a petulant Democrat party bitterly siding with the obstructionist tactics of France, Germany and Russia.

Extreme partisanship - the type we see every day from Pelosi, Daschle, Schumer and Barbara Lee - and misplaced, unconditional loyalty go hand in hand.

They are the same thing.

What motivates this inability to differentiate between hanging together against unjustified outward attacks and dumping one’s conscience down a Democrat sewer?

Maybe Reichfuhrer, Heinrich Himmler, put it best during his motivational speeches to the SS in the late 1930s, when he succinctly stated - “My honor is my loyalty.”

As Hanna Arendt suggested in her groundbreaking work “Totalitarianism” the translation of that phrase from the German “Mein Ehrre heisst Treue,” though expressive, does not even give it its proper due - as she observed - because those words “transcend the meaning of mere discipline or personal faithfulness.”

And that is precisely what we have been witnessing - now for well nigh approaching half a century - a party somehow convinced that its badge of honor is a lockstep mentality, one echoed in the mainstream press not so surprisingly.

Arendt’s work is illustrative because of its acuity in getting to the heart of why true totalitarianism is so relatively rare and yet so dangerous.

It differs from “mere” dictatorial and terror regimes in that the seed for it is planted deep within each citizen who considers himself or herself a member of the party.

The convert is strongly swept up in what they perceive to be either a manifest historical [in the case of Bolshevism] or natural [in the case of State Socialism] irresistible process, of which they have the privilege to serve.

Everything, every calculation, becomes sublimated to absolute fealty - to the ultimate extreme as was witnessed in the Soviet show trials - where totally innocent parties confessed to high crimes just to prove their loyalty to the cause beyond all doubt.

Of course it has not reached, and will hopefully never reach, this point in the United States, but the Democrat party, being heir to a murderous socialist revolutionary spirit that preceded and at times still walks alongside it, gives it a special responsibility and standard against which it must constantly held to account.

So far its performance has been questionable.

The Democrat party continues to inspire a rigid party line mentality while at the same time encouraging policies, which hasten to create an atomized and classless society. From such incubators, totalitarian movements spring up, malevolent and threatening, as a matter of natural course.

The mantra of diverse multiculturalism, embraced by left-wing politicians and enforced with Prussian efficiency in newsrooms across the nation has already done yeoman’s duty along those lines. Witness the shattered societal relationships that used to bind people together.

These binding forces, now furiously under attack, were termed “prescription” by the Scottish born father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke. They are the very gravity, which holds nations together. Absent such, ancient passions rise among an easily inflamed public. Mobocracy, in the 18th century vernacular - the democracy of the least common denominator - follows unhesitatingly.

A favorite delivery vehicle of these culture based weapons of mass destruction are the Democrat’s “stock in trade” - demagogic attacks on the so-called rich, special interests and other historically validated whipping boys. Under such a fusillade, even the middle class becomes a target of exploitation for the bullies from the DNC.

Ominous also, is the rise of and deliberate use by the party leadership of street gang demonstrators created to strike fear in the [Republican] ruling classes. Not surprisingly these thugs are organized by old line Stalinists. What is new is the degree to which radical lefty foundations - and people who should know better - infuse them with cash.

Not to be overlooked is the movement’s adoption of new grammatical usages, “neocon” for example. As used by the left it’s merely a pejorative, a code word for a supporter of Israel, a Zionist more precisely. Such references are ethnically and culturally offensive but cleverly designed to give the user cover, thus skirting the left’s proscription against less abstract language. Such coarseness would immediately dredge up troubling memories - anti-Zionist pogroms in the Soviet Union and anti-Juden terror campaigns in Nazi Germany.

It is clear that some of the most prominent voices within the party are, at least culturally, members of the group now being demeaned by it. That such bigoted tactical language would tacitly be endorsed by those that most suffered during the worst days of the ‘30s & 40s is further evidence of the power contained within the twin dialectics representing the two brands of socialism. It provides additional illustration, a window into understanding why one would continue to adhere to a philosophy as it turns inward against itself.

The sanctioning of mob violence, the equating of lock step orthodoxy with a tortuous version of patriotism and now the ominous rise of ethnic scapegoats are warning signs that must not be ignored.

Such analysis is deemed uncivilized, a low blow by many conservative opinion makers even among those who call the shots on the “Fair & Balanced” network

And that is precisely the difference between the modern left and right.

The left is all too willing to employ whatever tactic works, the right adheres to a loftier, less confrontational code of conduct which when given full rein, accounts for the majority party in the Senate’s unwillingness to mug pip-squeaks like Tom Daschle and turncoats like Jeffords.

This is our intellectual burden because no matter how seductive it may seem, becoming like your enemy to gain advantage is both morally repugnant and in the long term, an ineffective strategy.

What the right posits is not an alternative take, an all-encompassing conservative version of the Marxist or fascist historical imperatives. It's less heady and probably for that reason less attractive to the type of personalities now being forged in government schools.

Totalitarian fanaticism is a blow torch whereas the call for a return to traditionalism, to a smaller, less intrusive government is a candlelight in the darkness - symbolically powerful yet immensely fragile.

© 2003 - PipeLineNews, all rights reserved.

The Troika Of Duplicity

By William A. Mayer

Now that Saddam’s regime has been pounded back into the desert sand – brought about by what is likely the most stunningly effective use of military power in modern history - an awesomely updated lightning war - it is becoming clear that aside from ending Iraq’s participation in the Islamic terror network, the key prize that is emerging is intelligence - detailed and verifiable - on the inner workings of this nebulous, world-wide irregular army of fanatics, tacticians, planners, arms merchants and financiers.

Indeed, hard copy evidence is now becoming available, which will radically redefine the nature of our relationships with many governments previously thought to be allies.

Documents are leaking out of captured Iraqi locations faster than they can either be reported on or really comprehended. At first blush, what they show is a pattern of relationships between the governments of Russia, France, Germany and the Iraqi regime. The nature of these associations demonstrates a malignant intent far beyond the petty bellicosity demonstrated by them during the UN Security Council's debates leading up to the “grande impasse.”

This increasing disclosure, in small part shows why “Old Europe” - to use Donald Rumsfeld's evocative phrase - was so eager to prevent real inspectors - the U.S. - from probing Saddam’s secrets.

The behavior, which is being chronicled, is damning. The treasure-trove coming out of places like the Iraqi Intelligence Service indicates a reciprocal affiliation between these three countries and Iraq that brands them as enablers of terror rather than as allies. It conjures up parallels between them and the cold war Soviet Union.

Ethically, it may actually be worse, because throughout its existence - pre and post World War II - even the Soviets never had the audacity to claim our friendship.

When you consider the amount of national treasure - including the blood of our young - wasted in rescuing them from a fight of their own making, it’s a little hard to handle.

Over the years many tens of billions of dollars of aid and arms were made available by these countries to the Iraqi dictator. Given his government’s limited ability to pay - in any straightforward manner - these arms were used to curry favor as much as swell national coffers.

France: Anti-war for oil

The French will always be French, just about guaranteeing that the picture will never be soothing on the eyes or sensibilities.

For starters let’s dispense with all the smoke and mirrors that fall so glibly from the lips of Dominique de Villepin. Until the war, the French oil conglomerate TotalFinaElf held Iraq's largest oil lease, guaranteeing it exclusivity in developing the large Majnoon and Bin Umar, oil fields.

Total reserves?

26 billion barrels - A figure difficult to explain away and one, which goes directly to the heart of Chirac's disingenuous breast-beating.

Richard Perle stated in February of this year that the deal was awarded solely as a result of French support for the Iraqi regime, he also gave the following review of the reasons behind France's attempts to shield Saddam - "The French interest in the propagation of contracts that will only go forward with this regime is perfectly obvious."

That Chirac's trade agreements with the deposed despot are now of dubious legality is a fitting reward for a nation who would knowingly deal with a regime that fed its enemies to hungry Dobermans. It shouldn't be surprising really, France has a history of subordinating human rights issues for mere commercial gain, witness their underwriting of the Hutu genocide against the Tutsis in Ruanda in which at least 500,000 were butchered.

The French participation in the arming of Saddam is sordid; having had a huge stake in building his war machine over the last 25 years, selling Baghdad hundreds of Mirage jets, helicopters, Super Entendard aircraft, anti-ship missiles and additional hardware.

The Iraqi's have a French telephone system - Alcatel, drive French cars -Peugeot and Renault, use French electrical equipment - Schneider Electric, use French water pumps - Hydrokit etc.

France is the largest supplier of goods to Iraq, period.

At the start of the war Iraq had at least 50 F-1 Mirage fighters and an unknown number of Gazelle attack helicopters. To keep them battle ready, the French also funneled spare parts for these two platforms - as late as January of this year - into the regime via an as yet undetermined French trading company, which then laundered the transaction through the Al Tamoor Trading Company, based in Dubai, according to a Washington Times report. US intelligence sources indicate that French armaments have made their way into Iraq - consistently - since the post Gulf War sanctions were in place.

A not insignificant consideration is that France built the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak, the same one the Israeli’s bombed in 1981.

Chirac claimed Hussein "was a personal friend"

Chirac, then French Prime Minister, was instrumental in seeing that Iraq received the help it needed.

Chirac [far right] hosting Saddam [second from left] at French nuclear facility

No lesser authority than Dr. Khadir Hamza - known today as “Saddam’s bomb maker” said:

"I went to France in 1974 to buy a reactor…for a plutonium bomb…It was a long-range project. The reactor would be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the French would be there...Just before the Gulf War, the crash program was ongoing to make one bomb from the French fuel” Speech to the Carnegie Endowment - September, 2000

Hamza fleshed out the arrangement in an October, 2001 Frontline interview:

"We made a device, actually, minus the core...we sat down and did calculations...We would have had a small, probably 2 to 4 kiloton, explosion at the time...”

Iraq already owes France an estimated 4 billion for arms previously delivered.

But this is just scraping the surface - another hint at what is involved was recently outlined by William Safire [The French Connection, March 14, 2003] and involves a complicated scheme involving collusion between China, Syria and the French to provide a key missile component [in this case an advanced missile fuel - hydroxy terminated polybutadiene or HTPB] to the Iraqis while attempting to conceal its true nature, the country of origin and its eventual destination.

The “French Connection” angle as Safire termed it, was that the above deal was put together by a well-known Parisian broker – CIS Paris - that has a long history of arms dealings with Baghdad. Officials at CIS Paris admit to "knowing of the deal" but deny any involvement, French telligence is apparently aware of the details.

Subterfuge aside, the very idea of an Iraqi missile fueled by such cutting edge technology strongly underlines Saddam's intent to project power far beyond the confines of his own country. To make such a threat believable such a weapon would of necessity have a warhead of an advanced chemical, biological or nuclear design.

At this point in history and considering their political system, maybe we shouldn’t reasonably expect much from the Chinese communists, however this type of behavior coming from a European partner whose relationship with us goes back over 200 years is another matter entirely.

Russia - Masque Of The Red Death

Vladimir Putin has been hailed perhaps as the pivotal post cold war Russian leader. He has executed a skillful dog and pony show, convincing both the Bush and Blair administrations that the former Soviet Union was not only no longer a military threat to the West but was indeed now becoming a close ally.

Obviously Russia's cooperation with the French and German UN delegation's intransigence in dealing with Iraq has done much to throw cold water on this heretofore-budding union.

It's important to note that such a relationship offered hope, though ultimately unfounded, of something really new and remarkable both as to its breadth and depth - to the degree that Mr. Bush had publicly voiced that he had "looked into his [Putin's] soul" and not found it wanting.

However disappointing might Russia's UN behavior have been to the Bush team, it could not be viewed as a reason for totally repudiating the “new start.”

Until recently a reasonable case could be made to continue pursuing it - with perhaps less evangelical fervor - all the while being cognizant that Putin was obviously more pragmatic than had been believed and that the reality was that though Russia had come a long way, it had much further to go before being considered reliable in any global sense.

At the outbreak of the war, Iraq owed Russia at least 8 and possibly as much as 12 billion dollars for arms already supplied. As was the case with France, this credit was extended - having been bet on the come line - against much hoped for oil and other commercial considerations.

[As a side note it must be pointed out that Russia has no qualms about dealing with other regimes hostile to the US. They have provided the Chinese with a withering array of technologies. DEBKAfile has reported that the Russian state arms merchant Rosoboroneksport has provided state of the art ship-borne air defense systems for heavy cruisers and other blue water naval vessels. This system is to become the primary defensive shield for a fleet of 10,000 ton heavy cruisers and modern aircraft carriers with which it intends to have the capability to assault Taiwan, maybe as soon as 2005 or 2006.]

Russia has supplied Saddam with military technology running the gamut of its capabilities - from retro T-72 tanks and BTR troop transports, to highly sophisticated weaponry. After hostilities in Iraq had commenced they supplied such items as night vision equipment, GPS jamming devices that could cause some of the Allies' precision guided weapons systems to be rendered ineffective and anti-tank Kornet rockets considered pivotal in the disabling of at least 2 M -1 Abrams tanks – the first time they have ever been destroyed in battle.

In an article written for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty by Gregory Feifer:

"Independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said that, although he has seen no concrete evidence of how the Kornets got to Baghdad, Iraqi forces "would not have been able to put up any resistance" were it not for violations of United Nations sanctions on the country. "Over the past 12-plus years that the sanctions have been in place, Russia, like Ukraine and Belarus, has taken part in violating them. During all those 12-plus years, military materiel and weaponry have been sent to Iraq," Felgenhauer said."

As it proceeded to Baghdad, the Army's Third Infantry Division came upon a Republican Guard run factory set up to refurbish Russian military heavy equipment, according again to Radio Free Europe, this time by imbedded correspondent Ron Synovitz:

"The letter [detailing current Russian - Iraqi arms dealing], dated July 2001 and written in broken English, is signed by Colonel General Vladislav Achalov, who identifies himself as a representative of a Moscow-based company, FTW Systems Ltd.

At this time there are no means to ascertain whether the letter was in fact sent by Achalov. The Associated Press, citing the Interfax-Military news agency, recently reported that Achalov, a former Soviet deputy defense minister, said he had repeatedly visited Iraq just before the war and had found Iraqi defenses to be strong.

AP also cited Achalov as saying Soviet military advisers had been based in Baghdad until the early 1990s and had made a "significant contribution" to the Iraqi armed forces.

The letter apparently signed by Achalov says it is in response to an Iraqi request for the "delivery of equipment." It offers 50 new gun barrels for T-72 tanks at the price of $124,000 each -- a total of $6.2 million. It also offers 400 new engines for BTR troop carriers at $7,500 each -- an additional $3 million."

The Secret Intelligence War

Perhaps most chilling, in US and British eyes, is Russia's apparent involvement in intelligence sharing with Saddam. From a ground breaking article, "Revealed: Russia spied on Blair for Saddam" by David Harrison of the Daily Telegraph UK.

"Top secret documents obtained by The Telegraph in Baghdad show that Russia provided Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations between Tony Blair and other Western leaders."

"Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West and details of arms deals to neighboring countries. The two countries also signed agreements to share intelligence, help each other to "obtain" visas for agents to go to other countries and to exchange information on the activities of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader."

On April 6, 2003 a convoy of Russian diplomats was hit in an attack originally termed as a friendly fire incident. Allegedly the Russian Ambassador to Iraq, Vladimir Titorenko, was injured in the attack, as was Ilya Morgunov a member of the party.

An Australian SAS patrol came upon the scene shortly after the shooting stopped and rendered first aid assistance. They offered to airlift the diplomats out of harm’s way, which seemed reasonable given the circumstances.

"We treated the ambassador of Russia and his colleagues from the embassy courteously and professionally, and after the appropriate checks ... they were allowed to go on their way," Australian Prime Minister John Howard

The Russians inexplicably refused the offer, despite the serious condition of a member of the party, and proceeded on to Syria, of all places and from there Titorenko was flown back to Moscow.

By Wednesday April 9 Titorenko was back in Baghdad, the Russian evacuation of the Baghdad embassy cancelled.

Why this madcap flight across the desert through a hail of American lead?

Speculation is pointing in the direction that the Russians were using the convoy as a cover to remove highly classified and potentially highly embarrassing Iraqi Special Services documents to a safer environment.

The Russian newspaper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, reported on April 9th that the convoy was carrying secret Iraqi archives and that U.S. forces had fired on it as part of a CIA attempt to seize the documents. It is speculated that U.S. commandos had tried to stop the convoy without hurting its passengers, the newspaper claimed, but their attempt to seize the archives was “foiled” when accompanying Iraqi forces returned fire

The US denies that any attack was launched against the convoy, which may or may not be the case.

Regardless, the degree of already substantiated or strongly suspected cooperation between Russia, Belarus, other fragments of the former Soviet empire along with France and Germany in enabling Saddam's war making capacity - of times even after Operation Iraqi Freedom began - is so disturbing as to cast a severe pall on any future dealings with these governments.

“He [Assad] is trying to achieve this by placing Iraq’s entire chemical and biological weapons arsenal in a safe repository, also placing the scientists and officials employed on Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs out of reach in hidden locations. In this clandestine operation he was almost certainly assisted by Russian and French intelligence services, which share Assad’s ambition to deny the United States any proof that its war on Iraq was just.” - DEBKAfile

Germany - Springtime For Gerhardt

There have been rumors for years of German firms actively aiding Iraq in its quest for nuclear weaponry; there are even murky stories about secret flights to South America where German high-tech firms demonstrated small concealable nuclear processing equipment. The International Herald Tribune was reporting this as far back as November, 1990:

"...These were the machines. needed to make the centrifuges that enrich uranium. Iraq brought in engineers from Germany to install and run the centrifuge-making machines, and imported from German firms the special steel needed to make centrifuge parts. The German government has also investigated charges that the engineers supplied the centrifuge blueprints from which Iraq has been ordering parts. The German government does not dispute the widely reported fact that it licensed all of the material and equipment for export, despite the fact that it was on international control lists.

To see German-style centrifuges in action, Iraqi engineers visited a secret site in Brazil."

A yet classified but leaked UN arms report lists 80 German companies [including Siemens and Daimler-Chrysler] which have supplied arms to Iraq, much of it in the last 10 years.

The left wing Berlin newspaper, Tages Zeitung, broke the story, as recounted here by Deutsche Welle:

"The most contentious piece of news for Germany is that the report names it as the number one supplier of weapons supplies to Iraq...They have delivered technical know-how, components, basic substances and even entire technical facilities for the development of atomic, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction to Iraq right since 1975...conventional military and technical dealings between Germany and Iraq are said to date till 2001, ten years after the second Gulf war and a time when international sanctions against Saddam Hussein are still in place...the dossier contains several indications of cases, where German authorities right up to the Finance Ministry tolerated the illegal arms cooperation and also promoted to it to an extent."

Fueling speculation, the German government has turned a blind eye to the exporting of "medical devices" sold to Iraq that have set off alarms among the US national security community.

“American weapons experts have recently voiced concern that the German Government has permitted Siemens to sell Baghdad at least eight medical devices which contain components that are vital for nuclear weapons. The machines, known as "lithotripters", use ultrasound to destroy kidney stones in patients. However, each machine contains an electronic switch that can be used as a detonator in an atomic bomb, according to US experts. Iraq was reported to have requested an extra 120 switches as "spare parts" during the initial transaction.” Independent UK Dec 18, 2002

It's inconceivable that while Saddam was engaged in systematically starving his own population, in an attempt to convince the world that US led sanctions were actually causing the misery, that providing lithotripters, out of "humanitarian" concern, would be of any interest to him at all.

On the chemical weapon front, BND [the German Intelligence Service] director, August Hanning, put it this way:

“The BND's warnings didn't stop with that report. In April 2001, Hanning told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that Iraq was developing a new class of chemical weapons, reiterated his alert on Iraq's missile and nuclear programs, and said that several German companies had continued to deliver to Baghdad components needed for the production of poison gas. In March 2002, he told the New Yorker magazine that, "It is our estimate that Iraq will have an atomic bomb in three years." Asia Times February 5, 2003.

One might have thought that considering Germany's history, they would be especially sensitive to the politically charged subject of poison gas and nerve agents.

So there you have it, an outline at least of the reality behind the sophistry.

Chemical, biological, nuclear and conventional weapons, precursors, components, hardware, software, manufacturing know how and technology often coordinated by freelancing intelligence agencies operating wholly beyond the bounds of civilized behavior - all brought to bear against the security of free world in general and the US in particular by three dissembling countries which should indebted to America, in perpetuity, for services already rendered at incalculable cost.

It is a rancid state of affairs to be sure and one which will only grow even more disquieting as the evidence mounts.

That a wholesale re-assessment of our relationship with this Troika will present one of the greatest challenges since these alignments were forged during World War II is a given.

Added to post 9/11 security realities, the charge falling upon the shoulders of the Bush administration becomes even more acute - fortunately the foreign policy acumen of the current team is nonpareil.

In the best of all possible worlds maybe the not-so-loyal opposition in Congress would put aside their, now even more dangerous, gamesmanship and join in a united front committed to destroying the terror network.

That prospect - considering the moral midgets running the Democrat machine - renders such hope more a pipedream than a real possibility.

© 2003 - PipeLineNews, all rights reserved.

Baghdad Nancy And Other Traitorous Fools

By William A. Mayer

See Nancy speak.

Spin, Nancy, spin...

Nancy Pelosi the "for the underdog" House Minority Leader - who just happens to live in a Saddam size palace bigger than most airplane hangars - is having a rough time of it.

The stunning success of Bush's war effort has caught her and her comrades flat footed and spitting spin faster than that which used to come out of the Iraqi Ministry of Disinformation - at least Baghdad Bob had that nifty French beret as a prop.

I can't take it any more - the time is long past due to ask a few basic questions regarding the patriotism of the "progressives" - a term we must use now so as to include Pelosi's Marxist marching buddies in ANSWER and the Worker's World Party.

Oh I know, I can hear it now - "It's American to protest...But I support the troops...I answer to a higher moral authority...blah...blah...blah...blah...blah..."

For all intents and purposes the left is playing a duplicitous semantic game full of partisan deception. They are so blinded by a genetic disgust for America [brought about by generation upon generation of lefties breeding lefties] and a razor sharp - stick in your eye - hate for George Walker Bush that they have knotted logic and language into a pretzel that nearly stymies understanding.

We now stand only a little more than 18 months past a terrorist first-strike on our mainland, which killed more US civilians than were killed in all of World War II. This attack was driven by radical Islam and coordinated by a shady network of anti-American, anti-Christian and anti-Jewish outlaw nations - all controlled by dictators - acting purposefully in an attempt to destroy this nation.

It was an act of war and we are still feeling its repercussions, have you flown lately? Have you traversed a bridge and observed soldiers with locked and loaded M16s? Do you think the F15s flying low over your city are sightseeing?

Iraq, Iran, Syria and a whole panoply of sub-national groups and interlocking associations - many created and funded during the 1960's by the Soviets - acted in conjunction to make it a reality. And yet the Democrat leadership - along with their new street enforcers - argue that the entire idea of a war of pre-emption is somehow tainted, that we must absorb another first strike before taking action against clear and defined enemies.

Have we so totally lost the meaning of the language - become so politically correct - that we can't state categorically that it is un-American to give aid and comfort to our enemies and that it is un-patriotic to use the mechanism of government to block efforts to prosecute the war on terror?

We no longer care nor will we observe such niceties - such people, masquerading under whatever guise they may choose, are traitors.

Their words and actions are intentionally calculated to diminish the authority of the Commander in Chief during a time of war, their efforts seek only so forge petty partisan advantage - the consequences be damned.

Let's peel Pelosi's onion, so to speak.

In a question and answer session immediately following a rhetoric-strewn pedantic speech before the Council on Foreign Relations in March of this year, Nancy Pelosi - showing her true colors - uttered the following:

"I do not believe that going to war now is the best way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction...Before going to war, we must exhaust all alternatives, such as the continuation of inspections, diplomacy and the leverage provided by the threat of military action...If the Democrats had spoken out more clearly in a unified vote five months ago in opposition to the resolution, if the people had gone on to the streets five months ago in these numbers in our country and throughout the world, I think we might have been in a different place today,"

A "different place" being presumably a nation rendered immobile and laid bare to potential chemical, biological and nuclear attack - please carefully note the solidarity she admits between her street thug army and Das Party.

Funny thing was, on June 18, 1997, Nancy was singing a different tune entirely - as she stated on the House floor:

“I would like to also call to the attention of my colleagues the statement by the Office of Naval Intelligence: Discoveries after the Gulf war clearly indicate that Iraq maintained an aggressive weapons of mass destruction procurement program.”

During the Clinton impeachment bombing of Iraq, on December 16, 1998, Pelosi returned to the floor with this statement, completing the loop:

“As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process…I believe in negotiated solutions to international conflict. This is, unfortunately, not going to be the case in this situation where Saddam Hussein has been a repeat offender, ignoring the international community's requirement that he come clean with his weapons program.“

Curious - before Bush - we find Pelosi dressed in the flag, ever the patriot - standing tall against the threat posed by Saddam. After Bush - the sniveling appeaser bowing towards Baghdad - ethics balanced on the fulcrum of opportunism - using every method at her disposal to prevent the defense of this nation.

Dare we not call this what it is, treason?

Of course Nancy is not alone in her zealotry.

On January 28, 1998, Senate concurrent resolution 71 was introduced:

“...[it] Condemns in the strongest possible terms the continued threat to international peace and security posed by Iraq's refusal to meet its international obligations and end its weapons of mass destruction programs…Urges the President to take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction”

What is this? Democrats calling for "all necessary and appropriate actions" against WMD?

Oh, silly me, no Bush to be seen.

The Democrat sponsors of the above? - Daschle, Leahy, Dodd, Torricelli, Kerry, Byrd, Moynihan, Conrad & Robb. The Republican Minority Leader, Trent Lott acting with patriotic fervor set the tone for the loyal opposition as a co-sponsor.

Further giving the lie to the cliché that "they all do it", the Republicans -despite deep reservations as to the pre-impeachment Clinton's motives - put country before concerns of the party.

On August 3, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives joined the U.S. Senate in passing S.J 54, by a vote of 406 to 7 in a Republican dominated Congress.

S.J.Res. 54 - Iraqi Breach of International Obligations - Declared that by evicting weapons inspectors, Iraq was in "material breach" of its cease-fire agreement. Urged the President to take "appropriate action in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations."

And then there was (H.R. 4655) - the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which declared that it should be the policy of the United States to "support efforts" to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and replace him with a democratic government. Authorized the President to provide the Iraqi democratic opposition with assistance for radio and television broadcasting, defense articles and military training, and humanitarian assistance.

Representative Benjamin Gilman (R - NY) introduced this bill on September 29, 1998. It passed in the House of Representatives on a 360-38 vote October 5, and the Senate approved it by unanimous consent on October 7.

President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law October 31, 1998.

Quite a contrast, isn't it?

They all don't do it!

Only America's haters do it - only traitors do it, and Nancy has feet in both camps.

Fast forward...adding insult to injury and executing yet another messy 180 severe enough to wreak havoc on her already over-taught face job:

"I worry about the ramifications of ousting Saddam Hussein -- making him a hero in the Arab world," Pelosi with pal Diane Feinstein - January 20, 2003

Sure Nancy, just throw this stuff around and see if some of it sticks. Poll test it, go for broke. If you don’t mind looking like a traitor, why stop there? Looking like a mere fool shouldn't concern you.

It continues...facing humiliation outside of her home turf - the 49 urine-soaked square miles of San Francisco - Pelosi is now advancing the canard that credit for the rapid advance on Baghdad [which she opposed] must be laid at the feet of...guess who?

Why William Jefferson Clinton, of course - despite the fact that he decimated force size, morale and failed to introduce a single major weapons system during his 8 years in office.

Can you say Mo-ga-di-shu?

I am gagging, these people have no shame whatsoever.

We are not quite done, Pelosi is so uncaring about the most elemental components of national security that she - ever groveling to the demi-god of perverse multicultural diversity - actually advocates that Matricula Consular identification cards, issued by corrupt Mexican authorities and only of use to illegal aliens, should be accepted to gain access to all SF Federal buildings thereby allowing potential terrorists free right of entry.

Why not just hand them bombs on the way in and be done with the whole mess?

Where is my blood pressure medication?

So many fools...

Eason Jordan is the chief news executive at CNN, on Friday April 11, 2003 he wrote an article [The News We Kept To Ourselves] which appeared in the New York Times detailing his sordid 13 year history of spiking anti-Saddam stories - allowing his correspondents to suffer hideous tortures while he remained mum.

That CNN is already roundly considered an extremely biased source of information is a given - Jordan’s piece merely adds punctuation; his confession however goes far beyond the pale.

What he admits to is so morally reprehensible and unforgivable that it's really surprising it ever saw the light of day in the first place. That the piece was published on Friday - traditionally the slowest news day of the week - should not come as a major surprise.

Why did Jordan commit this grievous sin against the First Amendment?

Because if he had simply allowed the broadcasting of what his reporters were telling him, the faltering cable network would have been booted from Iraq.

So I guess the moral we draw from this is that journalism, the modern variety anyway, is merely a euphemism for churning out whatever lies the host country demands - in another venue, much like Dan Rather's kneepad interview of Saddam.

If followed to its natural conclusion we must assume that every word generated by CNN - and the "Big 3" for that matter - is crafted to standards set not by stringent reportorial criteria but by the whims of dictators afraid of the light of day.

Obviously CNN has been veracity defective for a very long time - as any long time watcher who is familiar with the antics of former chief & long-time Clinton buddy, Rick Kaplan, would attest.

Kaplan, for the uninitiated, transferred his pro-Democrat, pro-liberal anti-conservative bias from ABC to Ted Turner’s former fiefdom, spiking stories, issuing edicts about the mere use of the word "scandal" when referring to the anointed one ad nauseum...talk about a weird place - even for Kaplan - it has been reported by Vanity Fair, that he was greeted at CNN for the first time by multiculturalist el-supremo Turner with this, possibly bourbon induced, observation:

“Are you sure you're a Jew? You are the biggest goddamn Jew I have ever seen.”

That this happened at CNN, that people who so vehemently hold others to the dictates of absolute political correctness could work in an atmosphere this poisoned, this dysfunctional, is amazing...but I digress, if ever so slightly.

What Kaplan did, what Jordan has done - and is still presumably doing in his other foreign news bureaus - what Pelosi and her party is doing and what the rest of the "legitimate" press continues to do in abusing their constitutional mandates, is corrosively un-American.

It is just one step between what this type of behavior and attitude produces and the Banana Republic - or far worse - because these people and forces shape public policy and mold opinion.

For better or worse they form society to their image and likeness and the image we are witnessing is far from pretty.

A truly independent press is vital as an offset, a counterweight, to corruption at all levels of society, both private and in the public sector. But the natural guarantors of this cleansing effect have become captive - a political arm of the Democrat party - which is itself so corrupt that nothing can save it.

Our type of government is surprisingly fragile in many ways, deprived of checks and balances it cannot long stand. At some point evil forces become too strong to resist. We are not there yet, but if left unattended we will be there, rest assured, it's only a matter of time.

© 2003 - PipeLineNews, all rights reserved.

Pelosi/Baghdad Bob Image Morph © 2003 - Chris Brown - Feralco/Barking Walleye Studios, all rights reserved

Load Up, Load Up, Load Up The Rubber Bullets

By William A. Mayer

Leftist bullies got a dose of reality Monday as Oakland's finest, admirably backed by Mayor Jerry Brown, dispensed a bit of street justice; thus setting an example for the much larger - but pussy whipped - SF Police Department, which is so mired in new age multiculturalist manure that it has become ineffective.

Displaying cool professionalism the Oaktown PD cautiously but forcefully used a variety of non-lethal weapons, routing the socialist misfits intent on shutting down the Port of Oakland hoping to negatively impact the shipment of much needed supplies to US forces in Iraq.

The attempted riot, organized by Direct Action To Stop The War, part of the Stalinist totalitarian network responsible for organizing the overwhelming majority of anti-war demonstrations, was crushed before it really got going.

As Americans rise in support of the undeniably just global war against terror - now centered in Iraq - they must also learn the bitter truth about what is going on just under the surface on America's streets.

A criminal conspiracy is being carried out under the guise of freedom of speech by paid Marxist organizers, left leaning labor unions and anti-American politicians. This conspiracy has one clear purpose, to loose on America the same horror inflicted on the world by Mao, Stalin and their henchmen.

It's a war of many fronts, but has really crystallized as President Bush has made it clear that defending the interests of the United States is his primary focus and that the UN, France, Germany or Russia - or any other country for that matter - will never be allowed to determine where our true security concerns lie.

The placards, banners and speeches are varied; they may urge freeing cop killers like Mumia, alleging racism and other disingenuous charges - they may just as easily advocate and end to "militarism" [only the US variety] "sexism" [never in Islamic or African countries of course] the "patriarchy" [whose efficiencies fuel the young-uns trust funded excesses] or whatever can be made to sound non-threatening and vaguely progressive, just as long as it can be couched in phony-patriotism - a tactic they learned long ago from other professional insurrectionists like the ACLU. .

"The SEIU [the corrupt Service Employees and Institutional Workers Union - which has in times past been placed under federal receivership because it was so dominated by organized crime] action opens the door to the support of the entire 14 million-member AFL-CIO, a powerful potential ally in Abu-Jamal's struggle against the state and federal authorities that seek his execution...The San Francisco event was endorsed by more than 100 national, regional, and local groups-including six of the seven San Francisco Bay Area central labor councils and scores of local unions...A rally at San Francisco's Civic Center featured representatives from Amnesty International; the ACLU; the National Lawyers Guild; Tom Ammiano, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; Dolores Huerta of the United Farmworkers Union; Leo Seidlitz of the San Francisco Labor Council; and youthful leaders who have emerged as important organizers of Abu-Jamal's defense efforts..."Socialist Action leader Carole Seligman addressed the rally, as did Gloria La Riva of the Workers World Party, Tod Cretien of the International Socialist Organization, and Bob Price, Freedom Socialist Party. - Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action Website. Mackler is the National Secretary of Socialist Action, Co-Coordinator of The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a National Coordinator of Mumia's defense.

These are the people the elite media refuses to mention in covering the anti-war demonstrations - why they do so we will leave to the good judgment of our readership.

These are the people who are using the administration's war on terror to ratchet their movement ever higher. They get their support - their feet in the street - from outright and long time socialist organizations but much of the funding comes from fifth column tax-exempt foundations.

"But TrueMajority.com, an Internet activism group founded during the summer by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, boasts of its fund-raising prowess. TrueMajority.com says it is bringing in substantial amounts of money thanks to high-profile newspaper ads. These started in November, when 150 members of its related nonprofit corporation, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities Inc., ran a $40,000 antiwar ad in the New York Times.

That brought in $80,000, partly because "we had the foresight to include a coupon," executive director Gary Ferdman says. That revenue helped pay for a $170,000 ad in the Jan. 13 Wall Street Journal national edition and later a $40,000 ad in the Journal's New York metro edition. Thanks to the Turner Foundation and the San Francisco-based Plowshares Fund, TrueMajority.com says, its $1.5 million operating budget helps pay for five full-time staff and six consultants." Julia Duin April 2, 2003, "Foundation cash funds antiwar movement" The Washington Times.

Many of the largest direct organizers of these seditious activities refuse to disclose the source and amount of their funding [the Worker's World Party - which primary demonstration organizer ANSWER fronts for these days - has not disclosed its funding since 1990 according to Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation].

One would think that they would want to prove that it was not coming from Bin Laden, Hamas or the billions salted away by Saddam, but with such little pressure coming from the formerly legit press, why should they even bother? They can continue to call their little street sieges, demonstrations, suckering tens of thousands of ignorant middle class dupes into believing they are doing the Lord's work.

The WWP are flaming, reds, unabashed communists. Anyone who thinks that not the case will have to explain their support Kim Il Jong II, Saddam Hussein, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the brutal repression of Hungary in 1956 and nearly everything associated with Stalin, Mao & Marx/Engels.

It is stupefying when observing the anti-war demonstrations - as we have done up close and personal - that this reality somehow never manages to be broached by the non-cable, big three television networks.

When faced by such sheer intentional obfuscation one must really give pause to ponder Benjamin Franklin's warning when leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787. When asked about what form of government had been adopted he sagely warned "A republic, if you can keep it."

And keeping it is precisely what the current "preemptive strike" against Saddam is all about. What this world understands and respects is power. Our hand has been forced, we are not - by either tradition or psychology - a violent aggressive nation but we are supremely resolute in safeguarding what hundreds of thousands of young men have died for over the last 200 plus years.

Those red stripes on the flag are there for a reason.

The greatest lesson we have learned over the past 18 or so months is that if the outside world doesn't like us at least they can be forced, at gunpoint if necessary, to respect us; bullets - copper and lead in the land of the evildoers, the rubber type here on the home front against the totalitarian left - will silence them and their nasty little apologists every single time.

Nowhere is it written in the Constitution that people bent on toppling republican democracy in the United States have a right to simply shut the system down, to create barricades keeping workers from their jobs, to deny access to city streets and public transportation, to block entrances to military bases and the like.

Their "right" to protest ends where our rights begin. To expect this society to tolerate its own destruction in pursuit of the spuriously elevated demands of professional revolutionaries is sheer insanity.

All The News That Fits...Their Agenda

By William A. Mayer

In what reads like a stupid April Fools joke, Bernard Weinraub and Thom Shanker are continuing Howell Raines’ and his New York Times’ war on the Bush administration and in particular on Operation Iraqi Freedom [the entire Time’ lead page is veritably reeking with negativity and sophomoric second guessing] with an article entitled Rumsfield’s Plan For War Criticized On Battlefield.

The piece creates a mood of despair, an impression that battlefield leaders are in near rebellion against the Pentagon and that the Joint Chiefs are fractured along intricate lines of fissure - that the Army is fighting the Air Force and the Marines almost as hard as it is fighting the enemy.

Based primarily on “anonymous” alleged sources – who would want to be sourced for drivel like this - this screed alleges friction between the US Army Chief, General Shinseki – a Clinton appointee [heavily promoted by RINO turncoat William “The Poet” Cohen] and holder of an Master’s Degree in literature from Duke – and his civilian boss, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, over the conduct of the war.

Shinseki is the same buffoon who thought that the US Army morale could be strengthened by allowing all Army soldiers to wear the black beret heretofore the sacred and solitary privilege of the elite Army Rangers [keep in mind that the new contract for the berets went, not surprisingly, to the Bancroft Cap Company in – of all places – Arkansas].

This diversity promoted, quota General is also the mastermind behind that mind-blowing conception “Army of One” [as long dead DIs spin in their graves] and the guy who wants to abandon tracked heavy armor in favor of lightly armored wheeled vehicles – a suggestion which has knowledgeable members of the ranks doing more than scratching their heads and making sure their life insurance premiums are paid.

While we actually hope that there is friction – serious friction - between the Secretary and this bootlicking Clinton sycophant, we would never take the Times’ word for it without independent confirmation.

Regardless, and despite the foreboding headline, the article in question is merely a re-hash of ignorant suppositions made by fellows intent on spreading disinformation apparently at the behest of Mr. Raines, who has carried on his little vendetta against George Bush ever since he took over the helm at the Times just before September 11 - apparently chagrined that his doyen - Mr. Gore, whom Raines endorsed - went down in flames.

Under Raines’ tutelage the Times’ news coverage has been rendered a marionette to its editorial position – their recent misquoting and mischaracterization of Henry Kissinger – as detailed by numerous left of center publications - including the august Washington Post – as opposing Bush’s “preemptive” war is only additional fodder to support the contention that the Times is using its news operation as an editorial bully pulpit, with the bulbous Raines doing the bullying.

Actually it is more than bullying - the methodology being employed is transparently fraudulent; the non-sourced statement, the bald faced lie, the insinuation not backed by fact, the suborning of personal vendettas to skew perceptions.

It's insidious and corrosively ruinous to the underpinnings of a republican form of government - the ghost of William Randolph Hearst lives!

It seems to be America's burden at this crossroad that such left-wing partisan jerks are in no short supply…

Let's be clear from the get go - Bush had it spot on, but he didn't go far enough...

David Gregory, Helen Thomas, Peter Arnett, Christiane Amanpour, Wolf Blitzer, Adam Clymer, R.W "Johnny" Apple, Bill Plante, Andy Rooney, Dan Rather & Mike Wallace and a whole gaggle of their ilk, too numerous to chronicle here, are all major league anal apertures.

But it is more than that, more than just cheap shilling - jockeying for narrow partisan advantage.

They represent the head of a snake; a Puff-Adder - coiled and menacing – forked tongue flicking this way and that.

They are doctrinaire Bush haters whose loathing has consumed whatever vestige of objectivity they might once, however briefly, have harbored. They hate America and now function solely as de-facto disseminators of misinformation targeted at shattering the overwhelming US public support for the war effort - as such maybe they should merely be shipped off to the radical Islamic regime of their choice where they could then set about to pursue their trade more honestly.

Imagine what they could accomplish with a cadre of AK armed Feydayeen Saddam behind them?

Unfortunately the Iraqi Ministry of Disinformation was flattened a few days ago - so sad.

That Arnett was even able to land a gig - anywhere in the field of journalism - is almost beyond belief in light of his seditious and totally fallacious claim that the US intentionally bombed a baby formula factory during the Gulf War, when all the facts at the time indicated that the factory actually was a laboratory engaged in the manufacture of chemical and biological weaponry.

That NBC would be the party to give Arnett still another chance is worrisome in the extreme, they apparently being perfectly willing to also overlook Arnett’s specious claim [1998, while working for CNN] that US forces routinely used nerve gas during the Vietnam War.

That this campaign is being undertaken by some of the most venerated member of the elite media is simply beyond comprehension.

Unless, of course, what those of us on the right have been saying all along is correct - that these conduits of opinion are knowingly and in a cold-blooded premeditated manner intending to damage America's long-term interests..

This is a hard and serious charge.

It is nonetheless manifestly true. This is no accident - these people are not composed of the dull rejects from journalism 101 at Boise State.

This is a calculated scheme to turn what has so far been the most successful ground war in history into a stinking albatross around the neck of Bush and the Republican Party.

It’s an effort composed of many pieces; during the run up to that first strike against Saddam’s Baghdad bunker it centered on the rabid “anti-war” movement – all the way intentionally overlooking its Marxist organizers, it then shifted to the size and composition of the coalition - as if any country outside the US and the UK even mattered. Now hands are being dramatically wrung over supposed deviance from some grand unchangeable plan delivered - as if by Moses from atop the Washington Monument - and shortly it will morph again - this time to supposed concerns over civilian casualties, the dangers of urban warfare of “humanitarian crises of untold proportions” ad infinitum.

The “concerns” will never end, even after the war there will be the matter of land mines, depleted uranium ordnance, UN involvement and whatever else they feel may gain traction.

All will be gauged against the same unattainable standard that these folks now use to measure the progress of the war:

The war should be over before it begins.

The allies must only fight by the Marquis of Queensbury’s rules.

The cost of the war must not exceed “x” dollars, “x” being substantially less than whatever it actually costs.

No civilians must die in the conflict, especially if they are intentionally killed by Saddam’s forces and then offered up by Peter Arnett on Saddam-O-Vision as evidence of Yankee evil.

France, Germany and Russia, in close cooperation with Kofi Annan and the March Hare, must be allowed to call the shots and determine the battle plan – America and Britain will be relegated to do the bleeding.

It would merely be ridiculous if it were not so deadly serious.

The ball is now in their court, they stand accused of aiding abetting the enemy in a time of war. This is traitorous activity. Whatever efforts they deem worthy of expending to reclaim at least a shard of credibility now falls on their narrow and tremulous shoulders.

It will be a tough sell with such self indulgent journalistic pro-terrorist excuses as Christine Amanpour [who along with her then Clinton State Department hubby, James Rubin, fed the public bilge that allowed her handlers in the Clinton WH to conduct a pro-Islamic fundamentalist air war in Eastern Europe of unprecedented proportions] leading the pack.

Bound By Language – Pragmatic Conservatism Undermined

By William A. Mayer

In a thought provoking, April 7, 2003 NRO article Unpatriotic Conservatives David Frum includes Justin Raimondo in a list of unpatriotic anti-war conservatives.

While I have a beef with many of those included in that list being labeled as conservative – populist throwback P.J. Buchanan among them [what was he thinking making Lenora Fulani his 2000 Campaign Co-Chair?] - I hurl at the mere mention of Justin Raimondo, even in this company.

Not because he is incorrectly characterized as being unpatriotic - he most certainly is - but conservative?

Even neo-conservative?

The head swims, the heart grows faint.

Frum is thoroughly correct and effective in castigating these people, but in doing so he wreaks considerable violence to the language of politics, couching the argument in the manner so chosen.

Of course he is really not to be blamed at all, we all do it to a greater or lesser extent, using the shorthand parlance of classical political science.

Regardless, it does not advance the cause of understanding.

But how to segregate, to glean the differences while assigning labels, somehow meaningful?

Some of Frum’s listees are libertarian certainly, anti-imperialist or anti-militarist possibly, even isolationist, but most of them are not primarily conservative.

Some of them seem to have much more in common with a cobbled together form of limited anarchism than conservatism.

Llewellyn Rockwell the anarchist?

Why not?

Frum, delves deep into the mini-maelstrom, which has flared anew over who is the rightful successor to the ancien-conservatism.

This bloodless battle being waged between the “paleos” and the “neos” raises hackles only among those of us – myself included - whose political blood boils, courses and turns upon nuances wholly unimportant to most.

Nuances often only inferred - and self consciously, at that.

The standard argument is that the neo’s, disillusioned with their support of socialism, turned the equation on its head - eventually pushing Nelson Rockefeller and his green trousered country clubbers, bent on accommodation with high government intrusion - off a cliff, thus producing Barry Goldwater and eventually Ronald Reagan.

Wish it were that simple.

The paleo-neo nexus actually continues to swirl about, drawing in late-to-the-dance former lefties like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz who, having rejected their former ideological blinders, did so only in response to the effectiveness of forces marshaled by William F. Buckley and his iconoclastic 1955 debuted magazine, National Review, long before the term "hard copy" was added to the everyday parlance.

One major point of disagreement in this debate, centers upon a conception of America’s place in the world and upon that most divisive issue among conservatives – empire.

Empire in fact or concept is anathema to libertarians, but then libertarians are not really conservatives.

Advocacy of drug legalization is a radical concept, it may or may not be wise, but calling it conservative is just plain wrong.

Conservatism in the classical sense is not only the preservation of the institutions of the status quo but there is also a moral, even religious imperative that argues for Mosaic-like standards of behavior and deportment.

Old time - 4,000 year old - old time religion, standards of basic behavior for the ages.

Maybe we trace modern conservatism to the founding of this republic?

Do we simply, non-critically and more importantly incorrectly, excerpt from George Washington’s farewell address delivered on May 15, 1796, and use it to justify a head in the sand isolationism?

Aside from the fact that this brilliant goodbye from the man who could have – if he had wanted to - been king, is quoted to argue against “entangling foreign alliances” - that exact juxtaposition of those words was not part of that speech, quite to the contrary:

“…union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter…To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced…Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.".

In much the same way that elocution “separation of church and state” is nowhere to be found within the US Constitution.

Yet the Washington non quote, is popularly quoted, and by people of high purpose and intellect, but they get both fact and intent wrong; not to mention the problem of reconciling a new-born wilderness/agrarian society with what Horowitz used to call the “Free World Colossus.”

But what does this have to do with Raimondo and his ilk?

Not much really, he simply uses language, like a truncheon, to justify tying America’s hands in matters vital to her survival.

Oh, that and...he is an anti-Semitic, unreconstructed Marxist-Leninist, whose website leaks anti-American pus. He also regularly writes for that most conservative of publications, Pravda - a site replete with such warm and friendly reminders as:

"Boycott Zionism, Boycott Jewish Businesses, Boycott Jewish Products, Boycott Israel" & "World Peace Through Atheism."

Amid Raimondo's own vituperative site content, there does exist some comic relief however - his ridiculously contrived Bogart-esque PR image - cigarette precariously dangling from half-cocked, swarthy lips.

Hell, he even looks like a terrorist, will someone please notify John Ashcroft?

If Raimondo is a conservative - of any conceivable stripe or persuasion - so also are the tens of thousands of wolverine-like demonstrators who are currently trashing this nation's cities.

There now, that feels better…back to the books...

The very term conservatism is a misnomer, its root is obviously “conserve” and can intelligently apply to both supporters of monarchy, supporters of the welfare state and supporters of capitalism – all of which represent the status quo in various societies.

In a Burkean sense, traditional conservatism is a quasi-philosophical term which acknowledges the present but gives due honor to the past, weighing change against certain fairly rigid and rigorous moral imperatives - in his case arguing for an English accommodation with her rebellious colonies in America.

In and of itself it is bereft of meaning.

In this light, opposing the rise of modern American democratic statism - represented by Roosevelt’s New Deal - is not conservative, it’s reactionary – seeking to reverse a historical trend already in play.

Deconstructing the alphabet soup concept of government is revolutionary today - just advocate the abolition of the EPA or the Department of Education at a university tea and watch the fur fly.

It seems pointless and more precisely, disingenuous, to try to hammer the sometimes maddeningly intricate differences between political perspectives into such time worn, intellectually charged yet essentially meaningless terminological forms.

It does not enlighten but tends to obfuscate the process of real understanding.

Much as it does to invoke the classical far left versus far right in the simplistic terms of communism and fascism – both are socialistic - differing in such minor ways as to be almost indistinguishable.

How does that promote understanding or facilitate analysis?

Would you rather be oppressed by Stalin or Il Duce?

Would you rather slide down a razor blade into a bath of alcohol or………you get the picture.

It has been argued that over emphasis on intellectual consistency is the refuge of a limited intellect; that human affairs can not be ordered such that every contingency can be covered by simple, universally applicable rules.

Would you continue to support a ban on abortion in all cases, even if a family member becomes pregnant due to a rape?

Some would, some would not, but such monkey wrenches wreak havoc within the confines delimited by those seeking a grand unified theory, which by necessity, is still bound by an earthly political calculus.,

So how does this bear on what the Bush Administration is doing in the Middle East, which is after all the focus of the inappropriately named anti-war movement?

Is traipsing around the world slaying terrorist dragons conservative, imperialistic, reactionary or…?

I think in the final analysis assigning a term to it may be less important than attempting to assess whether it is the right, the correct thing to do.

An acquaintance of mine, Geoff Metcalf, cautions that it is not important who is right necessarily, but what is right.

Doing the right thing, taking the proper tack is what makes a difference and separates hoary philosophy from effective statecraft.

It is precisely the indeterminate, open ended nature of this puzzle that makes what seems a sure solution at the time look pretty damn stupid the next morning - or 12 years down the road.

That I can accept, just don’t tell me Raimondo is a conservative and you will prevent such outbursts in the future – that is not a iron-clad guarantee, but it's all you are going to get.

©2003 PipeBombNews, all rights reserved.

Rambling As We Get Ready To Rumble

By William A. Mayer

For 12 years Saddam Hussein, has thumbed his considerable nose at the United Nations.

He has done this because the UN has become an assembly of corrupt little tinhorn regimes, much more concerned with being invited to lavish Georgetown suppers than actually forging peace, a pursuit that sometimes requires courage and resolve.

The UN’s response has been two-fold:

They have generated a profusion of resolutions, going all the way back to 1990 – 660, 661, 678, 686, 687, 688, 707, 715, 986, 1284, 1382 & 1441 - just to hit the highpoints - in total, Saddam is currently in violation of 18 UN resolutions.

Along the way they have also generated enough methane to single-handedly require a Kyoto like solution.

The past decade has featured a whirlwind of change, encompassing events ranging from the fall of the Soviet Union through Clinton’s malfeasance to Al Qaeda’s cowardly attack on the United States and now to a land war in the Mid East, designed to once and for all remove Saddam.

Very soon, Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles will be thundering across the desert. The air will be filled with Blackhawks, F-14s, 15s, 18s, and B2s.

The Gulf is swimming in testosterone, bravery and American armor - it feels good.

Forgotten now are the goose-steppers, the quiche-eaters and Putin’s mafiosi.

Today they are irrelevant laughing stocks, sitting on a whoopee cushion of their own rendering.

The UN still stands, but it no longer casts a shadow of any consequence.

Out of the mouth of......Germans?

In a brilliant piece [Rumblings of War] of political reporting, four journalists from Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine, recently spent a week following the UN diplomats as they feverishly expended enormous time and energy seeking to block the hand of George Bush.

I call the piece brilliant not because it in any straightforward way affirms America’s right to determine its own foreign policy, but rather it shows the real lines along which this issue divides the world and how “Old” Europe really feels.

I say restraining the hand of George Bush because it is indeed that personal – a few quotes.

“…Privately, politicians and strategists in the chancelleries of the Old Europe speak of a junta gone crazy that has apparently taken over power in Washington…Anyone walking through the U.N. building can hear grumbling about the arrogant manner in which the U.S. wants to draw the rest of the world into a war. If the Security Council will not finally punish Saddam by military means, then the U.N. will have lost "its last chance for credibility," George W. Bush told the international representatives the week before the vote…At stake is whether, after fifty years, the unity of the western community of nations will come to an end, and whether the global security system of the United Nations will now be replaced by an international power system dominated by the U.S…”

So in their minds, America has been subject to a junta – the Clintonistas would certainly agree, but not to digress – and this “illegitimate” government is riding roughshod over all that the UN has accomplished.

There might be a case to be made here, if and only if the UN had ever, in its 50-year history, done anything important along the lines of establishing a “global security system.”

Unfortunately, since its founding it has been nothing but a mouthpiece for the Soviets, for Mao, for nasty little wars of “national liberation”, anti Semitism, anti-Americanism and for Palestinian and Islamic hate.

The UN is the voice of terror, all cleaned up, dressed in $2000 dollar suits [or crazy Dashiki like tribal robes, seemingly dusted off props from Queen For A Day] and given the keys to chauffeured BMW 745s, just like Kofi Annan’s.

“If George W. Bush were to win, it would mean an end to the concept that international law brings about and preserves peace. It also does away with Europe's favorite idea that submission to international law can prevent wars between nations much more effectively than military force.”

Equating the elevating aspect of international law with what the UN does is ridiculous, saying that it was Europe’s “idea” is preposterous in the wake of what actually took place there over the last 100 years.

“…A world in which the center of events is not a slate gray building on the East River in New York, but a place simply called the White House located in a city on the Potomac….Goodbye, New York. Good morning, Vietnam.”

Gratuitous references to Vietnam, ignoring the fact that we were not militarily defeated but politically hamstrung to the point where bringing the troops home became imperative, are a sure sign of intellectual defeat.

The ultimate truth to be gleaned here is that time, circumstances and obstructionist tactics by the Germans, French and Russians, have left the UN in the dust, what remains is pure jealousy, envy and greed.

While these three emotions are destructive, they are more than enough to stoke future UN actions and policies, with one very big caveat - without the US the UN is less than nothing.

Having it both ways

There seems to be an effort among the Democrat party to resurrect the Vietnam era dodge that supporting the troops can be done while opposing the mission, which is perfidy.

How does one support soldiers and oppose the war they are being sent to? What kind of message does this send?

It sends a number of messages.

It sends the message of weakness to our enemy, the guys who will be trying to kill our troops.

It sends a message to our troops that their Commander in Chief does not have the support needed for them to confidently direct that M16 - that politics is more important than national unity in a time of war.

It emboldens Al Qaeda, the radical Islamists and disruptive nations like France, Germany and Russia.

In short it is exactly what it appears to be, an evasion of responsibility representing a desire to continue mindless political attacks on the administration while trying not to lose the support of their rapidly shrinking voter base.

Last Word On "Peace" Demonstrations

On Sunday evening about 15 ad-hoc counter-protesters, including myself, confronted a candlelight vigil of approximately 200 in Walnut Creek, California - the candle people apparently unconcerned that this and other such get togethers were being organized by the Socialist Workers Party.

That morning the far left Contra Costa Times - another Knight Ridder monstrosity - actively and enthusiastically promoted the event, erroneously stating that it was organized by the Sierra Club and the NAACP.

Note: the "diversity" crowd does not really appreciate diversity when it is their ox that is being gored.

These aging, all white, upper-middle-class hippies and their nasty, foul mouthed kids (some of which were actually advocating that the President of the United States should be assassinated) just couldn't get into the "can't we all just get along" spirit.

No sireee!

Our side moved with military precision (or what could pass for that given the fact that the vigil-ists seemed unfamiliar with the whole process) we had signs [large signs, professionally lettered, 12 and 16 feet square, screwed to 8 and 10 foot 2 x 2s] We also had chants - "hey hey, ho ho, Saddam Hussein has got to go" - we had the pledge of allegiance - and we had songs "All We Are Saying Is Give WAR A Chance".

They had few small signs, no microphones and not much spirit - they did have candles however - which were constantly blowing out and spilling hot wax over tender hands.

We had taken the high ground very early, right in front of the park's flag and a contingent of Walnut Creek's banker-like gendarmes.

Throughout the event (approximately 2 hrs) severe looking people approached us, dripping candles in hand (isn't that against about 57 different EPA regulations?) to ask us to please pipe down. We were ruining their carefully crafted karma, which was the point after all - we were there not only to lend support to the upcoming mission but also to tweak these clown's noses.

What was striking was the level of pure animus and hate, particularly by the young women in the crowd, one of which (an obvious stoner chick, bleary eyes red as coals) actually wanted to fight us "let's start the war right now."

I had the opportunity to "discuss" the issues with many of these young women. They could not be described as anything but ignorant, arrogant, aggressive little bitches, most likely cast in the mold of their parents - filled with hate engendered in part by similarly raised government school teachers.

They knew nothing about the complexities of the positions they held and had no respect for anything but their own ideas.

Selfish children begotten by selfish parents.

Bottom line – if these vigil-people are the foundation of this country then liberty has no future - fortunately such arrogance, ignorance and self righteousness is primarily concentrated in the multi-cultural morasses in an around the nation's media centers.

Thank you, mssrs Rather, Jennings and Brokaw - thank goodness, the time for talking has ended.

LOCK 'N LOAD - LET’S ROLL!

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