James Cameron, the director of the Terminator and Titanic, claims to have unearthed a tomb in Jerusalem containing the remains of Jesus Christ, Jesus’ wife, Mary Magdalene, and their child. My response to Mr. Cameron is brief: Bunk!

Mr. Cameron, whatever remains you may possess are not those of Jesus Christ, because there are no remains to be found. Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans and laid in tomb, where He remained for three days. However, unlike the make believe of Hollywood, something happened then in real life which some poor souls seem unable to grasp: Christ rose from the dead! You see, Mr. Cameron, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit of God in a virgin, Mary. And notice Mr. Cameron, I did not write that Jesus "was" the Son of God, because sir, Jesus Christ is not dead. No, Mr. Cameron, after Jesus Christ arose from the dead He appeared to His disciples, and to many other witnesses. Some initially doubted - you may have heard about Thomas - but all saw and all believed.

You may have heard about the disciples Mr. Cameron. They are the guys who were tortured and murdered because they proclaimed something known as the Gospel, i.e, the Truth. You see Sir, the Romans really wanted to produce the body of the man Jesus, whom they had crucified, to put an end to His movement which so annoyed them. But the Romans could never produce a body! Christ’s disciples know why. You see, they were eyewitnesses to something not seen before or since. The man Jesus, He had been crucified, but He was alive! He was dead, but He had arisen! The disciples, not noted for being a particularly courageous group before, went to their death proclaiming Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the holy sacrifice who borne all of the sins of the world. Many thousands have followed them, counting it a blessing to die for their faith.

I hate to disappoint you Mr. Cameron, but what you have may be remains, but not of Jesus Christ. He is not to be found among the remains of the dead in caverns beneath Jerusalem. No, Mr. Cameron, Jesus Christ is found in the hearts of men and women around the world. You know, the people who feed the hungry, tend to the sick and elderly, and care for poor. The ones who won’t try to have you killed because you attack their faith.

No, Mr. Cameron, what disciples of Jesus Christ we would like for you to know what we know, have what we have. We know the risen Savior, we know the joy and peace serving a loving and forgiving God who sacrificed His Son for our sins, and we possess the assurance of eternal life. We’d love to have you with us Mr. Cameron. More importantly, your creator wants you with Him. That’s why Jesus came, suffered, died, and arose.   

Oh, by the way, Jesus Christ also sits at the right hand of God.

Conservatives have long known that the "driveby media" and Hollywood are biased to the extreme left.   The result has been the growth of talk radio, FoxNews and blogs to offer some alternative to the daily propagandizing of the New York Times, Washington Post, the big three networks, CNN, Time, Newsweek, and on and on.   In times of peace this one-sided debate would be frustrating but in time of war the liberal leftist strangle hold on the largest media outlets and the entertainment industry is extremely damaging to the nation.    Even in these latter days the majority of Americans get most of their information from left to left-leaning media.    Understanding this, how can not expect their views on Iraq and the war on terror to be negatively impacted?   Frankly it's remarkable the president and the war effort have as much support at each does.


During the Civll War President Lincoln didn't hesitate to shut down newspapers he deemed inimical to the Union War effort.    He reasoned, quite correctly in my view, that freedom of the press meant little if the nation which guaranteed that freedom disappeared.    When the New York Times and Washington Post publish details of secret programs implemented by the United States government to track and impede the communications and activities of terrorists and their allies, these newspapers impede the nation's war effort and provide assistance ot the enemies of the United States.   The First Amendment is not a shield to prosecution and punishment for sedition.    These newspapers, the responsible editors and reporters, and any other media should be held accountable, not just in the court of public opinion, but  by criminal and civil penalties.    Finally, if the media persists in the practice that its right to report supersedes the national interest, I would encourage this or a future president to emulate President LIncoln, and physically shut down the offender. 

Freedom of the press or any other liberty guaranteed by the Constitution is for naught if the nation does not survive.  

I do not expect the current administration to take this action.   It has demonstrated a notable lack of backbone in comfronting the domestic fifth column and there is no reason to believe this will change.   However, the time is long overdue for conservatives to call for a meaningful accounting and punitive measures against irresponsible media outlets.     If it is necessary for Americans in uniform to sacrifice their lives for defense of the nation, then members of the media are not exempt from limitations on their freedom of action.

 

This Congress is the first in American history dedicated to the defeat of an American Army in the field.  Routed not by a foreign army but by political polls, the majority of the Congress is prepared to stab the American solider in Iraq in the back and convey to the world and our enemies the abject cowardice and lack of will the political class brings to the fight against barbarians seeking to impose a 7^th century society on the world.

Conservatives will not forgive or forget a vote by any Republican in favor of a resolution opposing reinforcement of American forces in Iraq, in an effort to obtain victory in that country. We long ago gave up on the Democrat Party, which has become the anti-America party, invested in American defeat at all costs. However, Republicans are expected to uphold the national interest and stand against irresponsible acts which undermine national security. Instead we have witnessed perhaps the most disgraceful, poll-driven retreat in the history of Congressional politics. At a moment in our history when foresight and courage are most needed, we instead have pusillanimity. The document may be a resolution opposing President Bush’s plan to reinforce our troops in Iraq, but these are the words which history will write: "Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting."

Heaven help our president and our brave troops. Upon success in Iraq rides much more than simply the establishment of a democratic state in Iraq, but perhaps the very soul of the American nation.

No president since Lincoln has ever been as assailed by a surrender lobby as George W. Bush. The stampede of Democrats and Republicans to embrace defeat in Iraq is the disgraceful episode that I have witnessed in my lifetime. Never had I thought to see elected American representatives positively determined that the United States retreat from a battlefield in defeat and no matter the consequences.

Cowardice in any form is repulsive, and the political cowardice of being displayed by Republicans in this instant is particularly repellant. One expects defeatism from the Democrats, who long ago threw in with the enemy in the desire that the U.S. bug out from Iraq. Republicans like Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith have displayed an equally shameless capacity to dress betrayal as an act of faith.

Perhaps the Congress reflects the majority of the American people. If so, it is a remarkably short-sighted mindset, as it ignores the terrible consequences that a U.S. withdrawal in defeat from Iraq will have. The president understands this, which explains his decision to reinforce our troops in Iraq in an attempt to suppress insurgent sponsored violence. That an apparent majority of Congress is so spooked by the transient passions of the American people is an abdication of responsibility to the country.

What is at stake in Iraq is nothing less than whether the United States will remain the world’s preeminent power, which has momentous consequences for the balance of power world wide. If the U.S. cuts and runs from Iraq then it is finished as the world’s superpower and a vacuum will arise, a vacuum which will be filled by one or more nations, dependent on the region and the convergence of forces in the area. The United States will be viewed, correctly, as a paper tiger unwilling to pay the price necessary to prosecute a military conflict to victory. Since the bad actors of this world are ultimately only deterred by the likely prospect of being vanquished by military conflict, the recognition that the one power which assuredly could bring about that result lacks the will to do so will embolden these bad actors and lead to aggression against their neighbors. Think of a city where the police force flees the streets; very soon the streets belong to the criminals. The United States, for better or worst, has served as the world policemen, and are leaving Iraq will be a clarion call to the criminals of this world that the law has left town and will not be returning.

The American people and George Bush deserve better than the Surrender stampede in the Congress. While I think the Iraq war was the dominant reason a Democrat Congress was elected, I believe the voters desired a new strategy, not cut and run. Of course, if that is the voters wanted, our problem is even bigger than the Iraq war.

 

Words are inadequate to express the contempt deserved by Senator Chuck Hagel and other pusillanimous Republican senators and congressmen who have deserted President Bush and joined the braying jackasses of the Democrat party and its amen corner in the media.

One expects relentless negativity from the latter but to see Republican "cut and run" from supporting the president’s decision to reinforce American forces in Iraq is simply too much.

The shortsightedness of most of these "cut and run" Republicans stems from political cowardice of the first order. Exhibit A is Senator Norm Coleman, who is anticipating a tough reelection campaign in the blue state of Minnesota in 2008. Rather than demonstrating some political courage and supporting the president, Coleman has stuck licked finger to the wind and decided to throw in with the Congressional surrender caucus. Me thinks that Senator Coleman may find that two years down the road his cut and running in face of fickle public opinion will prove very embarrassing.

Republicans are supposed to the grownups when it comes to national security so it is immensely discouraging to patriots when Republican members of Congress join the surrender caucus. With Democrats united in their desire to lose the war in Iraq, the mainstream media a Niagara of "retreat and defeat" commentary, and elite opinion outside government having always opposed the Iraq invasion, President Bush must feel extremely lonely right now. Probably Lincoln felt the same way when the Northern press was crucifying him and General Grant during the long summer and fall that Grant lay siege to Richmond and suffered enormous casualties in a series of battles with Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee. Thank goodness Lincoln was spared CNN!

If the polls are accurate, most Americans oppose President Bush’s decision to reinforce our forces. However, the polls don’t reflect how these respondents would fix the problem. Democrats, if they had the courage of their inner convictions, would leave Iraq now without regard to the consequences. They long ago made common cause (at least in spirit) with the jihadists in the desire for an American defeat. So deep and pathological is their hatred for all things George W. Bush they truly desire the defeat and humiliation of the United States in Iraq. This, of course, makes them traitors in any meaningful sense, and if we lived in a time where men of courage actually ran the Republican party, someone would brand the Democrats appropriately. Alas, neither the president or any prominent Republican has the moral courage to point out the shared goals of the Democrat Party and the Iraqi insurgents, and call the Democrats what they are.

We can only pray that the American solider will be successful in Iraq and yet again pull our chestnuts out of the fire. Don’t bet on the media reporting it, however. Peace and tranquillity could break out in Iraq and the media will work overtime to spin the story to report the situation as a illusion and disaster just around the corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A pizza chain in Dallas now accepts Mexican pesos as payment for pizza. Patrons can pay in pesos and receive dollars in change, making the restaurant a convenient medium of currency exchange for illegal aliens passing through. This is first time I’ve heard of a foreign currency being accepted inside the American heartland as payment for purchases. Perhaps Canadian dollars are passed along the north border with that country and maybe pesos have been traded along the southern border, but Dallas is a few hundred miles from the Mexican border. Will the pizza chain accept Euros or Yen also?

This is yet another sign that the invasion of our country by Mexico is progressing every day to the point that one day, in the not too distance future, what was once American territory will be in all but name a province of Mexico, overwhelmingly populated by Mexicans, dominated by Mexican culture, and where pesos will be a currency as equally accepted as the gingo currency.

If there is an issue on which President Bush can be said to deserve impeachment and removal from office, it is his willful, abject refusal to enforce the laws of the United States regarding illegal aliens by expelling those here illegally and prosecuting businesses who give jobs to them. Instead he acts as if he were president of Mexico and advocates policies (guest worker/amnesty) which will make the problem much worse by encouraging even more persons to enter out country unlawfully. In this the president has betrayed his country and sowed the seeds for civil conflict and disunion.

Republican government has broken down on the issue of immigration. Our elected representatives have ignored the will of the people by a de facto abolition of the international border between Mexico and the United States. One day we will wake up and discover that the border may have moved north.

 

Senator Edward Kennedy wants the Congress to vote to prohibit funding for additional American troops to be sent to Iraq, as President Bush is expected to announce soon. For once, I agree with Teddy; the Congress should vote, for I think it useful for the representatives of the American people to go on record in whether they support an effort to win in Iraq.

President Bush should embrace having a vote. However, he should make clear what the effect of a negative vote would be. He should declare that the status quo in Iraq cannot continue, that the only options are for the U.S. to increase its forces in an effort to win the conflict, or for a rapid pullout. The president should state that demanding our military sacrifice lives in continuing the status quo which everyone agrees is unacceptable is not an option.

While the president cannot state this, it should also be understood that the effort of a negative vote will not only announce the beginning of end of United States involvement in Iraq but also mark the end of the U.S. as the preeminent world power. Only a nation led by fools would rely on the assurances of the U.S., whose political leadership will have demonstrated that the country cannot sustain a commitment in the face of even minimal casualties or opposition. The United States will be exposed for the world to see as a paper tiger, a cowardly lion unwilling to put in the effort to back up its warnings.

Additionally, having a vote will accelerate the Democrats dropping the mask of "supporting the troops" and allow them to declare their true feelings about what the U.S. should do in Iraq, that is, cut and run. It’s obvious how uncomfortable they are maintaining the fiction of moderation regarding the Iraq conflict, when so many of the members of their base are foaming at the mouth to quit the field at once. Let the Democrat base call in their chips and find out who really is with them. A vote will reveal if the Democrats really would vote to betray an American army in the field, to belittle their sacrifice and denigrate their mission.

Having a vote will smoke out those cowardly Republicans who have joined the defeat and retreat chorus. Let the vote identify them. Let them join the Democrats in an act of infamy, an abdication of responsibility, a betrayal of trust with consequences at once so terrible and damaging to the people of Iraq, the credibility of the United States, and the national security of the American people as to stagger the mind. Lets know them by name.

The United States is living in a period of maximum danger while being lead by a Congress dominated by a political party whose leadership embraces a philosophy of surrender and a few Republican "girlie men." Better to sort out the patriots from the gutless blowhards now rather than later.

So, by all means, lets have a vote.

 President Bush seems poised to increase the American troop presence in Iraq. The only question appears to be by how many. Already the Democrat leaders of the Congress, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, have declared their opposition. This view is apparently shared by most Democrats and a shocking number of Republicans. Even more disturbing, apparently many of our generals question the measure.

What has become of the political and military leadership in the nation? When and why has it become acceptable in America to admit defeat and walk away from a fight, leaving our allies to the tender mercies of our enemies? It there something in the air or water of Washington that emasculates people? The advocates of the troop increase or "surge," contend that the increase must be substantial and committed for as long as it takes. Sending a few thousand more troops for a limited period is not sufficient. Yet we hear it reported that our generals belief that the United States military cannot sustain a substantial increase. Good grief! If the U.S. Army is incapable of maintaining a army in the field of only 160,000 men for an extended period then the people has been ill-served by the hundreds of billions of dollars which it has expended for that service. How in the world does the Army expect to defend North Korea? Taiwan? Doesn’t the military plan for fighting two wars simultaneously?

One gets the sneaky suspicion that these generals who question the efficacy of sending more troops simply resist the hard necessary to subdue an insurgency. Quick in, quick out, no hard fighting, no casualties. Extended campaigns expose substandard commanders and highlight deficiencies in doctrine and material. Too many generals are invested in standard operating procedure and don’t want reality to intrude on their world. The spirit of George McClellan still lives in some parts of the Army.

Other than the president and Senators McCain and Leiberman, hardly any elected official seems willing to pay the price to secure victory in Iraq. I’m not sure that the president will be able to stand up politically to the pressure to just quit and bring the troops home. Certainly, if all he intends to do is a modest increase below the levels called for by the advocates of the surge in troops, he ensures the mission will fail by starving it of the strength it needs. Unless President Bush is prepared to go the whole way and increase troops levels to the number needed to destroy the insurgency, then by all means don’t send any more troops. And bring home the ones there. There is no purpose in more of our brave men and women dying if the political leadership at home is too cowardly to take the steps necessary to defeat the enemy.

Losing in Iraq will end America’s role as the preeminent power in the world. We will be exposed as a fraud, a paper tiger, a country with the capacity to defeat any enemy but without will to use its power. The cowardice and moral bankruptcy of our political and military elite will plunge us into a internal civil war which will make the recriminations and malaise that followed Vietnam seem tame by comparison. And do not suppose that the enemy will leave us alone. Our blood will be in the water, and the jihadist shark pack will follow the trail here, across the unprotected southern border, to wage war against us on our own soil.

How tragic it is that at this moment in history, when it is so needed, that our well of courageous military and political leadership seems to have run dry. Our only hope is that God in His mercy, as He has so often in the past, will permit a leader of imagination and fortitude to come forth and rally the nation to meet the threats we face.

 

 

 

 

 Is a free press compatible with the national ability to wage war?  

By 'free," I mean the liberties now allowed the media in communicating information to the public at large, which in this day are age are greater and broader than ever before in history.

It is beyond dispute that media coverage of the American military and overseas military operations has changed dramatically since World War II.  Throughout that conflict, in print and via newsreels and radio, the domestic media portrayed the American fighting man of that conflict as heroic and the American cause as noble.  Opposition, such as it was, was almost totally ignored.

How far we have traveled since.  Contemporary press coverage of the military in Iraq, while purporting to extol the individual soldier, in practice has slandered him as engaging in murder and excess, comparing him to the worst butchers of the Saddam regime. As for cause for which he fights, i.e., the mission to liberate and establish a democratic government in Iraq, the media coverage has been relentlessly hostile.

Our enemy and the media share common cause in the desire to undermine the military’s mission in Iraq. The enemy plays on this hostility in the media, which allows itself to be manipulated to spread the terrorists message and propaganda. Knowing how negative press coverage contributed to America quitting Vietnam in defeat, the terrorists are counting on the same process obtaining the same result in Iraq.

That negative media coverage undermines domestic support of the military and military operations is without question. The American public receives images and opinions about the Iraq War through the media’s prism of negativity. Night after night, day and day, story after story, the negative is emphasized. It is clear, beyond any reasonable dispute, that the media has taken it upon itself to use its reporting to convince the American people that the Iraq war is a mistake, that the American military has conducted atrocities in Iraq, that the United States has no business in Iraq, that the mission there is a failure, and on and on. The positive stories the media has reported from Iraq are so few and far between that one is shocked when such a story is aired.

Victory is the objective of military operations. Achieving victory in war is often a bloody business, because people, regrettably including innocent people, wind up getting killed. If CNN correspondents had aired reports from Berlin or Tokyo in 1945 the pictures of the carnage would not have been pretty. Nevertheless, the waging of total war against both Germany and Japan, the necessity for destroying each nation utterly in order to achieve total victory, was in the national interest.    Accordingly,  the government and military practiced a modest form of censorship during the war.   Media reports were monitored to ensure that military secrets were preserved and information which might discourage the American public was either withheld or softened to maintain domestic morale.  It was understood that the national interest in maximizing the nation’s ability to wage war to total victory outweighed the temporary withholding of truthful information from the press.   And this was in a time when the media coverage of the war was almost exclusively positive.

Today, as the United States faces an enemy equally as odious as the Nazis, and one intent on our destruction,  we have a media indifferent to the wartime objectives of the nation and overwhelmingly hostile to the means employed to gain those objectives.    Yet the media enjoys more access to military personnel and information than at any time in American history.    I believe this practice is inimical to the nation's ability to wage war.   It is akin to allowing a fifth colum to function in the rearward areas of the army in the field.    Reporters are not using their unprecedented access to communicate positive stories back home but to find everything negative they can, blowing it up beyond all proportion, and transmitting around the world to diminish morale in the U.S. and damage our image in other nations.   This does the work of the terrorists - in far greater circulation than the terrorists are capable of if left to their own devices.     The one-sided nature of the reporting takes its toll on public support for the war; like water eroding granite, eventually a fissure opens between the public and the men in uniform.   This is the way to defeat.

The contemporary media is a cancer to the ability of the nation to make war successfully.  Populated by leftists schooled in the curriculum of the "hate America" dominant on university campuses,  hostile to any use of their country's power,  the reporting of  todays media on the war against Islamic fascists is the equivalent of Dr. Goebbel's Nazi propaganda.   It tears away at the soul of those subject to it, all the while corrupting and diminishing the practioner.  

The "free" press of today is incompatible with the nation's ability to wage war successfully, if the press is overwhelmningly hostilte to the war and the war's objectives.   Lincoln recognized this during the Civil War when he shutdown newspapers in the North hostile to the Union's war measures.   Today we would condemn such acts as unconstitutional.   Yet, as Lincoln noted in another context, of what use is any particular protection of the constitution, if the nation should perish?  

The question should be pondered as the media continues to report from Iraq and points to be determined in the war against the terrorists.

 What if the liberals long march through American institutions has successfully gutted the soul of America?

The question is relevant because seldom in American history has the nation faced more grave present and potential threats than today. The Islamic fascists have demonstrated the willingness to kill on a massive scale, without regard to noncombatant status. The president of Iran gives every indication of he will use a nuclear weapon as soon as that country develops one. And these are but two of the external threats. At home the Congress will soon be in control of the Democrats, whose every instinct is to retreat from the world’s challenges and delegate American security to the United Nations. Illegal immigration continues unabated and the border between the United States and Mexico is wide open to infiltration by terrorists.

How will Americans react? In times past our forefathers found it within themselves to meet and overcome threats to the nation. But today Americans are different from their ancestors. The present generation has been inculcated in the gospel of multiculturalism, which interprets American history as one long period of racist, imperialistic dark age, and believes the world would be a better place if the United States no longer was the world’s leading power. Americans today have been subjected to a relentless propaganda campaign blaming them for most of the world’s ills and teaching them that they should harbor a sense of guilt about their country’s history and actions. For a society to sustain itself in a conflict which may take many years, its people must be convinced their cause is just.

Every generation has a rendezvous with destiny. Our nation cannot escape the future but only can shape it with the decisions made today. Continuing to teach school children the revisionist history that denigrates America and Americans is both bad history and societal suicide. Refusing to label conduct as sedition when plainly that is what it is, is cowardice. And we are long overdue for the president and leaders in and out of government to inform the American people that we can not continue to live at home as if no war exists abroad. Americans must be challenged to sacrifice.

As for the portends of how we will handle the challenges destiny has placed before us, signals are mixed. Unquestionably, millions of Americans are prepared and eagar to fight the battles, out of love of country, pride in its history, and faith in its people and institutions. Unfortunately, there are other millions of Americans who seem to be indifferent to their nation’s fate or actively hostile to its interests.

Only time will tell which group determines the direction the United States takes. Perhaps we have already crossed an awful tipping point. Perhaps too many of our fellow Americans desire their country’s defeat and disgrace. Perhaps too many Americans simply don’t care. Perhaps our national vitality has been expended and all that sustains us is some sort of historical/cultural momentum, a momentum which must inevitably diminish until, one day, it stops and the American moment in history ends.

Then again, we may yet experience a "new birth of freedom." The love of country may be too stubborn a thing to be washed from the soul of Americans by the leftovers from the 60’s and their progeny. The American moment in history may have more chapters.

As we turn the page into the year of our Lord 2007, we can hope for a revival of spirit, a renewal of pride in the nation, and an increasing determination that no matter what comes, we shall overcome.

 

 

 

 Is it me or has this Christmas season seen a new low in television and entertainment product specific to Chrismas?   Where are the Christmas specials with singers crooning carols?   Where are the series' Christmas episodes?   Is the secularists' long march through American society showing itself in less recognition of the season in entertainment?

Sometimes it seems that rather than celebrating the birth of God's son who came to redeem the world from sin, the focus is on the negative:  the homeless, the depressed, the poor, anything other than the reason for the season and the fact, in the year of our Lord 2006, Americans are experiencing more prosperity than at any time in human history.    The relentless commercialization of Christmas has without question drained some of the joy from people.   The relentless acquisition of material goods is no substitute for the sweet spirit God grants those who turn to Him through his Son, Jesus Christ,   For the Christian,  everyday is Christmas, and the Christmas season an opportunity for the whole world to understand what happened 2000 or so years ago in that little plot of ground in the Middle East.   

As prophesied by the apostle Paul, the world rejects the Way of love and hope God sent.    In fact, it seems to make some people angry  that Christians exist.   In the United States we witness continued attacks on Christianity.   The American Civil Liberties Union, which seems to exist to attack Christian faith and symbols, aid and abetted by a secular judiciary,  wages an unrelenting legal effort to scrup every sign of our Christian heritage from the public square.   Multi-culturalism and his offspring, political correctness,  assidiously wages war through the public schools, institutions, business, and entertainment to denigrate and marginize people of faith.  The logic of political correctness precludes holding that faith is supeior to no faith, or that one faith is better than another.   The road to Hell is populated with people afraid of  offending others by even uttering a "Merry Christmas."   Not to long in the future, to express faith in God, in Jesus Christ, will be deemed "hate speech."    Perhaps believers will be treated as mentally ill and confined to institutions?   In the meatime our soceity devolves further into amoral confusion and chaos.

What is called the civilized world is under attack by barbarism.   The barbarians have their own religion, which commands its adherents to convert the nonbelievers by violence.    There is no room for free will or deviation from what they called the  true faith.   How ironic that militant Islam and miitant multi-culturalism hold so much in common, each determined to stamp out and silence hose who deviate from the faith.    

In a world where this barbarism is advancing,  the greater the need for people to see take hold of the hand that God has extended to them.   Only a people of faith in the true God, reconciled to Him through His only begotten Son,  will have the fortitude to repel the attack of the barbarians.    People who lack faith in One greater than themselves will not sustain and prevail in a conflict with a foe who believes himself doing the work of his god, even it if a false god and cult faith.    

We need Christmas programs with people singing carols.   We need Christmas episodes of TV series, as bad as some of them are.  We need Nativity scense back on public squares.   We need carols piped through sound systems in stores and buildings.  We need to wish people "Merry Christmas" and not "Happy Holidays."  People need to be reminded, in ways both direct and subtle, that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of a virgin, who died for the sins of the world.   Christmas is the time to reflect on the simple unassailable fact, that, in the words of the apostle John, "For God so love the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

 The six party talks regarding the North Korean nuclear program have reconvened.    They will go nowhere.    By

The lack of meaningful reaction by the United States and the U.N. to the explosion of a nuclear device by the North Koreans has emboldened the North Korean leadership.    Negotiation with thugs is an oxymoron; such people understand only the language of force.     Sensing correctly that no one has the stomach to aggressively confront them, we can expect the North Koreans to soon up the ante by exploding one or more additional nuclear devices and export their knowledge to other rogue regimes.   Such is one consequence of the failure of nerve which has infected the American government.

Today comes the assertion by the Iranian president that Iran is a nuclear power.     It seems inevitable that Iran will test a nuclear device in the near future.    Soon, then, a regime lead by a certifiable lunatic who daily speaks of a future in which the United States has disappeared and threatens to wipe Israel from the map will possess nuclear weapons.   Unlike other nuclear powers, and even the North Koreans, Iran is more than likely to use a nuclear bomb.

For years Iran has ignored and brushed aside warnings concerning its nuclear program, which have uttered by the United States, the European Union and Israel.    President Bush has said repeatedly that an Iran with nuclear weapons is unacceptable.   Yet the United States has abdicated dealing with the Iranians to the Europeans and the United Nations, with the predictable result that nothing has happened to retard the Iranian program.    The President betrayed American national interest by subcontracting this issue to parties who lacked the leverage or will to effective deal with the problem.

George Bush now has a decision to make.    The Iranians are counting on the president's domestic opponents and his preoccupation with Iraq preventing him from taking aggressive action to eliminate or significantly setback their nuclear program.   Bush has said that a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable.    Will he act, or will the Iranians join the North Koreans in demonstrating the hollowness of American warnings?

 

President Bush is the first president in American history to be fighting simultaneous wars abroad against and foreign enemy and at home against a domestic one. Abroad the enemy is Islamic fascism; at home it is the combination of the defeatist media, ultra leftist academia and entertainment industry, and the bulk of the Democrat party. What these enemies have in common is a desire for American defeat and disgrace in Iraq and around the world.

About the media, what more can be said? The media reports from and about Iraq have been filtered through the prism of sedition and defeat virtually from the beginning. And these reports have inevitably taken a toll on the morale of the public and the support for the effort in Iraq. I have personally heard comments from individuals whom I know to be solid conservatives, who have become convinced that Iraq is another Vietnam and we are should expend no more lives or treasure there.

The Democrat Party has been relentless in undermining the administration. Far from being the loyal opposition, Democrats are invested in American defeat. Leading Democrat politicians have compared our military’s conduct to the worst of Sadam’s regime. Part of the opposition can be attributed to Bush hatred but it is primarily motivated by an article of faith among leftists, that the United States is a force of oppression and evil in the world and deserves to be defeated. For these people, American defeat in Iraq is to be desired for its own sake and in order to discourage future administrations from being proactive in defending American interests abroad. Perversely, the American people have elected a Congress whose liberal leadership shares many of the feelings and beliefs of those who wish the United States defeated.

The Islamic fascists have openly stated their desire to force the United States to cut and run from Iraq and the entire Middle East. At this juncture in history that goal is shared by the Russians and Chinese, who have their own fish to fry in the region, as well France and most members of the European Union, our so-called allies, who simply wish to see the United Stated humbled. It is a remarkable collection, former communists turned totalitarians, communists turned capitalists, dying socialist societies and socialist wannabes, along with seventh century Moslem fanatics, united only in a common desire to humiliate and defeat the United States of America. If they are successful in destroying the American will to win, not just in Iraq but anywhere, the consequences will be calamitous.

President Bush has one final chance to turn the tide of defeatism and retreat taking hold in this country. What is at stake is more than simply winning in Iraq; it is the soul of America. If he fails, if we fail in Iraq, the United States is finished as the preeminent power in the world.

 

 

 

 Christmas trees are going back up in the Seattle/Tacoma Airport.    The commission responsibile for operating the airport had removed the trees under threat of a federal lawsuit from a Jewish rabbi, who complained that no menorah was displayed.   During the few days the trees were absent the rabbi denied that his objective was to force removal of the Christmas trees.   An attack of common sense apparently occurred and the commission voted to return the trees.   

The whole affair is a minor example of the confusion caused by wrongheaded Federal court decisions on religion/state issues intermixing with the secular faith of multiculturalism, with its prime tenet, political correctness.    In a more sane time,  no one contemplated for a moment that Christmas trees on public property posed any constitutional issue.   However, over the last 50 years a succession of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court have thoroughly mangled the interpretation of the establishment of the First Amendment to the extent that now most public officials and bodies take the safe course of stripping any contact with or mention of religion in a public activity.    The court decision's have empowered the malcontent, effectively giving him a veto over the government giving anything more than the most passing and petty nod to the religious feelings of the majority of the populace.   Combined with the hypersensitivity of public officials these days to any perceived slight of a minority of any type,  the inevitable result is to slight and denigrate the majority faith.   Perversely,  polictical correctness, touted an the expression of "tolerance,"  in fact tolerates only those opinions and faiths which do not command majority allegiance, and suppresses the opinions and faith of the majority.

None of this would matter but for the malpractice in this area by the U.S. Supreme Court, with its nonsense that the First Amendment commands a "wall of separation" between church and states.   No matter how many times they say it,  it doesn't make it so.   Noting in the language of the First Amendment , the views of the drafter or of the members of the ratifying Congress and states legislatures,  or the tradition and practice of the American government and people for the first 170 years of our  history supports the view that the First Amendment requires a wall of separation between religion and state.     When the Court makes a decision which is untethered from the text and history of the Constitution then that decision is illegitimate and the other branches of government nor the public should defer to or respect the decision.     The time is long, long past for the Court to be put in its proper place in the Constitutional order and if doing so requires outright defiance, so be it.

In the meantime, I'm happy the Christmas trees are returning to the Seattle airport.    The trees should be joined by a nativity scene with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, along with a banners stating, "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men,"    and "Jesus in the Reason for the Season."   If some malcontent is going to object to Christmas trees, why not give him something to really get worked up over.

 

In a fight to the death, the terms of the conflict will devolve to the tactics employed by the most ruthless, remorseless side. If one side insists on fighting by a higher, more moral standard, that side can win battles and manage a stalemate in the conflict for a time if it has overwhelming superiority. However, in a prolonged conflict, even the superior power will be defeated if it refuses to adopt its own version of the tactics employed by the other side.

At the beginning of World War II, the British refused to bomb German factories and other civilian sites because they considering doing so to violate the rights of the property owners. The Germans, on the other hand, had no reluctance in bombing British and French cities and noncombatants. As the fighting progressed and after France fell to the German invasion, the British understood the stakes involved in the conflict and the evil nature of the enemy. They recognized that victory at all cost and by all means by morally justifiable not only to preserve England as a free society, but to spare other peoples the horror of a Nazi victory. Hence, as their war papers reveal, the British were prepared to use poison gas against German troops as a last resort should the Germans successfully obtain beachheads in an invasion of Great Britain. We almost know that Great Britain and the United States pursued a bombing campaign against the German homeland that devastated whole cities and killed hundreds of thousands. None of this was a particularly moral way of making war and would have shocked and horrified people if the tactics had been suggested but a few years earlier. However, the war was won, an achievement for which the whole world can be thankful.

The United States has refused to employ the same tactics of its opponents in wars since Korea. As a result, we have not won a war since (the incursion in Panama and the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait were not wars but battles involving no long term commitment). Our military has been restricted in the means by which it is to obtain its objectives and now operates under so many rules that military lawyers are proliferating. Our opponents are not so impaired. Their objective is not to win "right" but simply to win, which they define succinctly as killing us. In the meantime we have almost reached the stage that our troops will have to read prisoners "Miranda rights" before they can be interrogated. Our society’s obsession with "rights’ and legalism has infected the armed services, to the detriment of the nation’s ability to defend itself. We discourage aggression and promote caution in war making, an oxymoron in concept and execution.

It is no accident that the United States won all its wars until we accepted a draw in Korea. In all conflicts up to then, it was understood and expected that the military would kill people and destroy property and in the course thereof ugly, ruthless things would have to be done to obtain victory. War, to paraphrase General Sherman, was "hell" and there was no time to brood over or complain about the tactics used to defeat the enemy. Whether it concerned the preservation of the nation or the union, all means which advanced the cause of ultimate victory were acceptable, because the thing to be accomplished by victory was far preferable to alternative.

The bottom line is that in order to defeat the jihadists we must jettison the effete ethos that war can be fought clinically and by legal code. Effective war against the jihadists will result in the unfortunate deaths of noncombatants. Our opponents have conclusively demonstrated they regard the murder of innocents or the wanton destruction of property as perfectly legitimate means of warfare. We must demonstrate that we are fully capable of the ruthless killing of them and their sanctuaries, wherever found, even if in the midst of cities or in mosques or if they gather at a funeral. These barbarians can be allowed no safe havens anywhere, anytime.

Currently the United States it not yet ready to fight. We have not reached the point that we believe ourselves sufficiently at risk to wage total war against the Jihadist threat. Our "kid gloves" conduct of the Iraqi campaign, the court rulings which circumscribe our handling of terrorists we have incarcerated, the uproar over modest surveillance programs of terrorist communications, bespeak a society still in a peacetime frame of mind. I fear it will take a death of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, before we awake from our delusion this threat can be managed as it has been.