← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Ed Toner
Thread ID: 14390 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2004-07-01
2004-07-01 19:09 | User Profile
[url]http://tinyurl.com/22mba[/url] published Atlantic Highlands Herald 1 July 2004 READER'S WRITE Archive
BUSH IS LEADING US DOWN A DANGEROUS PATH
Gordon Bishop seems to think Pres. Bush is a Conservative, comparing him with Kerry as a Liberal. Certainly, Kerry is a liberal, but how does Pres. Bush qualify as a Conservative?
He has run up a budget deficit of $87 Billion since he took office. That is clearly not the action of a Conservative. Under Bush, the once stable US Dollar has fallen 35% since Bush took office. As Bishop pointed out, Bush has an MBA from Harvard. Does Harvard teach weak dollar is good business?
He lied to the people about the need to invade and destroy Iraq, just as his father did before him. No weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Quaida, no threat to anyone except the oil interests. Saddam saw the decline of the dollar, and switch to the EU as a wise move for his country.
Bush is taking us down a dangerous path, outlined even before his election in a document called the Project for the New American Century. It calls for US dominance in world affairs through a huge military, starting and conducting wars as it sees fit too, regardless of world opinion, or the will of the American people. Many PNAC members now hold key positions in the White House, Defense and State Departments, among them Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, Lewis Libby, and John Bolton, along with others in lesser positions. William Kristol, writer for the conservative magazine, the Weekly Standard, is chairman of the group. They offered an eerie prophecy on page 52 of that document about how it might be accomplished, "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor." Their dream of a catalyzing event could not have been better actualized than in the events of 9/11.
Although there could have been many responses to the tragedy of 9/11, the Bush administration seized upon that event to mold public opinion into accepting many ideas embodied in "RAD". The overthrow of Saddam Hussein, was being proposed by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz ONE DAY after 9/11, even before anyone knew who was responsible for the attacks, and Ehud Barak appeared in the BBC studio just minutes after the final attack with a pre-prepared 30 minute speech. Something is very fishy about all of this war on terror, if you ask me, and what makes it a Catch 22 is the fact that Kerry does not propose any real change in it.
Ed Toner Brick, NJ
2004-07-01 20:56 | User Profile
[COLOR=DarkRed]Great letter Ed.....however.....
David Frum and Richard Perle are leading Bush and the rest of us down a more dangerous, dangerous path. Read this and be informed of what's coming with George W Bush's second term as POTUS:[/COLOR]
[QUOTE] [url]http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_9705.shtml[/url]
Instead of arguing with Frum and Perle, an activity that is not worthwhile if your opponent is not willing to use intellectually honest arguments, I want to instead highlight some of the more blunt policy statements that they make. There is much in this book that needs to be publicized, which is why I'd encourage you to get the book, read it, and give it to a friend and tell them to pass it on. Until then, here are some of the most important quotes in this book:
[U][B]On Domestic Repression[/B][/U]
To stop terrorists before they strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country. (pg 63 - 64)
We ought to learn a lesson from the most effective anticrime program the United States has ever seen: Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's crack down in New York. Giuliani's core insight was this: People who break one law will break other laws. You want to catch a guy who's skipped out on a manslaughter arrest warrant? Stop every turnstile jumper and inspect his ID. You want to find the killer who left his fingerprints on a knife that stabbed a kid to death yesterday? Scan the fingerprints of everybody you catch smoking marijuana in the park today. (pg 68)
And there is only one system that will do the job: a national identity card that registers the bearer's name and biometric data, like fingerprints or retinal scans or DNA, and that indicates whether the bearer is a citizen, a permanent resident, or a temporary resident... (pg 70)
Law-abiding citizens value privacy. Terrorists require invisibility. The two are not the same, and they should not be confused. (pg 71)
Right now, American law bars the admission of aliens suspected of terrorist activity - but not of terrorist sympathies. (pg 74)
We may be so eager to protect the right to dissent that we lose sight of the difference between dissent and subversion... (pg 74)
A free society is not an unpoliced society. A free society is a self-policed society. (pg 77)
Nor should we exclude the possibility that Islamic terrorism may begin to make common cause with Western political extremists of the far Left and far Right. (pg 80)
New data assembly techniques can pull together inside a computer an individual's credit history, his recent movements, his immigrations status and personal background, his age and sex, and a hundred other pieces of information and present them to the analyst - without the analyst or any other human being ever knowing the individual's identity. (pg 82)
Noncitizen terrorist suspects are not members of the American national community, and they have no proper claim on the rights Americans accord one another. (pg 222)
But even a nation of laws must understand the limits of legalism. Between 1861 and 1865, the government of the United States took tens of thousands of American citizens prisoner and detained them for years without letting any one of them see a lawyer. (pg 229)
[U][B]Domestic Political Reorganization[/B][/U]
The transformation must begin with the single worst performer among those institutions: the FBI. But it must extend much farther: to the CIA, the armed forces, and, perhaps above all, the Department of State. (pg 196)
The determination of the State Department to reconcile the irreconcilable, to negotiate the unnegotiable, and to appease the unappeasable is an obstacle to victory. (pg 221)
The FBI must return to the job it does best: catching criminals. It should be fired from the counterterrorism job it has bungled, and its counterterrorism units and employees should be reassigned to a new domestic intelligence agency. This new domestic intelligence agency should report not to the attorney general, but to the secretary of homeland security. (pg 222)
George Tenet has been the director of central intelligence since 1997, time enough to have changed the Agency's culture. He has failed. He should go. (pg 223)
It may be time to bring all of these secret warriors ["CIA personnel involved in paramilitary operations"] into a single paramilitary structure ultimately answerable to the secretary of defense... (pg 224)
No operational commander should have to assign a soldier a task that could be done as well by a computer, a remote sensor, or an unmanned airplane. (pg 226)
Next, we should increase sharply the number of political appointees in the State Department and expand their role. (pg 227)
Comments on Islam and Islamic Organizations
Militant Islamic groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR]... (pg 75)
People who live next door to a storefront mosque in Brooklyn, New York, will almost certainly observe more things of interest to counterterrorism officials than will people who live next door to a Christian Science church in Brookline, Massachusetts. (pg 79)
The lax multiculturalism that urges Americans to accept the unacceptable from their fellow citizens is one of this nation's greatest vulnerabilities in the war on terror. (pg 93)
The administration's solicitude for Muslim sensitivities might well have been interpreted by many Muslims as a vindication of bin Laden's methods. (pg 149)
...clerics whose own minds contain nothing but medieval theology and a smattering of third world nationalist self-pity. (pg 161)
... the social and sexual frustrations of unemployment may explain much of the fury that Muslim radicals direct toward women who dress too temptingly - and it may also explain the eagerness with which they seize on emotionally intense distractions, like terrorism. (pg 177)
The CIA is blinded, too, by the squeamishness that many liberal-minded people feel about noticing the dark side of third world cultures. (pg 201)
The CIA's reports on the Middle East today are colored by similar ideological biases - exacerbated by poor understanding of the region's culture and a politically correct disinclination to acknowledge unflattering facts about non-Western peoples. (pg 204)
Saudi-funded religious schools drill boys to memorize the Koran in its original Arabic language, a language few of them will ever understand. They learn no trade or skills, no math, no science, no Western language - only deadening rituals and murderous prejudice. [...] By the time they "graduate," they are unemployable, deformed personalities. Meanwhile, in city slums and unelectrified villages, Saudi-funded imams preach jealousy and rage to populations baffled by their country's backward slide and repeated military defeats. (pg 259-260)
[U][B]Policy Towards "Enemies"[/B][/U]
Iran is itself a terrorist state, the world's worst. North Korea has committed terrorist atrocities, too [...] Both regimes are nightmarishly repressive; both regimes present intolerable threats to American security. We must move boldly against them both and against all other sponsors of terrorism as well: Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. And we don't have much time. (pg 98)
Any new agreement with North Koreans must begin by acknowledging that North Korea cannot be trusted to honor its promises. (pg 102)
We fear that the North Korean leadership craves a nuclear arsenal even more desperately than it hungers for international approval or American aid. If those fears are correct, then the United States must ready itself for the hard possibility that our choices really shrink to two: tolerate North Korea's attempts to go nuclear - or take decisive action to stop it. Decisive action would begin with a comprehensive air and naval blockade of North Korean, cutting it off from all sea borne traffic, all international aviation, and all intercourse with the South. (pg 103)
Next, we must accelerate the redeployment of our ground troops on the Korean peninsula so they are beyond the range of North Korean artillery and short-range rockets. President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld have already begun to do this. (pg 103)
Third, as we reposition troops, we should develop detailed plans for a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities. (pg 103-104)
It may be that the only way out of the decade-long crisis on the Korean peninsula is the toppling of Kim Jong Il and his replacement by a North Korean communist who is more subservient to China. If so, we should accept that outcome. (pg 104)
In time, all of Korea will be united in liberty. (pg 104)
Iran wants a lot more than blackmail from us - and so poses a much larger danger than North Korea. (pg 105)
The mullahs are pursuing a bomb. Our idea of common sense is to stop them. (pg 110)
In any event, the problem in Iran is much bigger than weapons. The problem is the terrorist regime that seeks the weapons. The regime must go. (pg 110)
Above all, Iran's dissidents need the consistent and vocal support of the United States. They need us to make clear that we regard Iran's current government as illegitimate and intolerable and that we support the brave souls who are struggling to topple it. (pg 112)
If all our problems were as easy as Syria, the war on terror would have ended a year ago. Here is a regime that is surrounded by U.S. and allied forces; that depends for fuel on oil exports from Iraq; and whose economy is a pitiful shambles. Really, there is only one question to ask about Syria: Why have we put up with it as long as we have? (pg 114)
Libya should be regarded and treated as what it is: an implacably hostile regime. (pg 117)
National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform the role of a government forfeits the rights of a government. (pg 120)
The reason our policy towards Saudi Arabia has been so abject for so long is not mere error. Our policy has been bought and paid for by the Saudis - or else are looking forward to the day when they will be bought and paid for. (pg 141)
In the last chapter, we argued that we should apply every possible pressure to halt Saudi Arabia's campaign to spread its murderous version of Islam - including, if necessary, encouraging the secession of the kingdom's oil-producing Eastern Province. (pg 152)
In the Middle East, democratization does not mean calling immediate elections and then living with whatever happens next. (pg 162)
We can train Iraqi soldiers to combat insurgencies while respecting human rights, as we have trained armies in the Philippines and Latin America. (pg 165)
We had come to Iraq to liberate it from Baathism. We had zero interest in delivering power to the imams. And romantic as some might find the tribal sheikhs, they were not the men to govern a nation of 70 percent whose people lived in cities. (pg 166)
[U][B]Former Allies, Now Enemies[/B][/U]
The jealousy and resentment that animate the terrorists also affect many of our former cold war allies. (pg 236)
The same European governments that hesitated to confront terrorists were more than prepared to oppose us. (pg 240)
They [Europeans] resent America's ability to be generous, and they resent their need for that generosity. (pg 245)
First, Acknowledge that a more closely integrated Europe is no longer an unqualified American interest. (pg 247)
We should insist that all important NATO business be conducted by NATO's military council, on which France does not sit. (pg 249)
We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington. (pg 249)
We must do our utmost to preserve our British ally's strategic independence from Europe. (pg 250)
Few governments in the world, for example, praise human rights more ardently than does the government of France, and few have a worse record of supporting tyrants and killers... (pg 268)
The UN is not an entirely useless organizations. [...] It creates employment for the less employable relatives of presidents for life. It gives smaller countries a feeling that their views count. And when the chamber is empty and touring schoolchildren walk the halls, the extravagant building can for a quiet moment seem to give substance to the age-old dream of a world without war. (pg 269-270)
..., the UN must endorse our "inherent" right to defend ourselves against new threats just as forcefully as we are entitled to defend ourselves against old threats. If not, we should formally reject the UN's authority over our war on terror. (pg 271)
But if the UN cannot or will not revise its rules in ways that establish beyond question the legality of the measures the United States must take to protect the American people, then we should unashamedly and explicitly reject the jurisdiction of these rules. (pg 272)
[U][B]Conclusion[/B][/U]
The next four years, at least, will be a challenge for the movement. As is clear from An End to Evil the neoconservative movement is devoted to further domestic repression and continued war. Now is the time to read Frum and Perle's book and decide whether theirs is the future you want to live in. If not, make a commitment to act against them - and soon.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.why-war.com/commentary/2004/01/anendtoevil.html[/url]
2004-07-01 23:36 | User Profile
No more dangerous road than the post-1965 immigration to the US and loss of the predominant Anglo culture, right, xmetalhead. I'll take a try at this. Es eso veraz?
2004-07-02 00:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=All Old Right]No more dangerous road than the post-1965 immigration to the US and loss of the predominant Anglo culture, right, xmetalhead. I'll take a try at this. Es eso veraz?[/QUOTE]
Je pense que tu voulait ecrire "?es verdad?" en espangol? Meme je sait ca!Mais non, tu ne sait rien de les langues d'European, mais tu pense toi-meme un haut "ayran"? Alors, tu echoues. Qu'est-ce que tu veux me dire? Je ne parle pas l'espagnol, ni toi. Parle en l'anglais, mon ami. Tu a l'air un imbecile.
2004-07-02 01:11 | User Profile
為什麼沒有崗位用中文因此我們不會被指責或種族主義?
所有在厚待認為是