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What They've Thought
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What They Thought July 24, 2005 Alan
Caruba Click here for columnist bios |
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For anyone who is not Lebanese, trying to understand what is happening in a nation long regarded as an example of how Christians and Muslims could work together to govern and prosper remains a confusing matrix of competing religious factions. Lebanon, i.e. Beirut, was the Paris of the Middle East. It was modern and cosmopolitan. It was a financial hub. It was a place where a Muslim could go and enjoy its secular pleasures. Osama bin Laden reportedly sowed a few wild oats there in his youth. That was, of course, prior to its fifteen year civil war from 1975 to 1990. It was triggered by an influx of heavily armed Palestinian refugees, many of whom arrived after being driven out of Jordan followed a failed attempt to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy. Today, Lebanon is the misbegotten child of French colonialism and its present troubles are usually dated to its independence in 1943. Prior to that it was a French protectorate, “carved out of the Ottoman province of Syria in the 19th century,” notes Gwynne Dyer, a London-based journalist. In modern terms Lebanon has been a sovereign nation only since the last century, but its nationhood goes back thousands of years, having been mentioned at least sixty-six times in the Torah, Judaism’s holy book. “Nobody alive today is to blame for the fact that every Lebanese is defined politically by his or her religion—not just as Muslim or Christian, but as a Shia, Sunni, or Druze Muslim or a Maronite, Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox Christian,” says Dyer. This was a practice of the Ottoman Empire which the French adapted in order to impose a government in which half the seats in its parliament would permanently be reserved for Christians and the Lebanese president would always be a Maronite Christian while its prime minister would always be a Sunni Muslim. It seemed to work but it is also the reason there hasn’t been a census in Lebanon for more than seventy years. Much of the former Christian population has either been killed or emigrated to North America, Europe, and Australia. As a result, the vast bulk of the population is Muslim. In a recent election held in southern Lebanon, the Shia Muslim parties, Hezbollah and Amal, won all 23 seats. A previous election in the north gave all 19 Beirut seats to an alliance headed by Saad al-Hariri, son of the assassinated former prime minister, Rafik al Hariri. It was that assassination in February of this year that led to the forced withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after massive demonstrations in the streets of Beirut. The real problem Lebanon faces can be summed up in one word, Syria. A close observer of events, Ziad Abdelnour, founder of the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, says bluntly, “Nothing is really going to change in Lebanon until the current President Emile Lahoud, a total Syrian puppet, is evicted.” The Bush administration agrees. In mid-July, National Security Council spokesman, Frederick L. Jones II, charged that Lahoud, a Syrian ally whose term was extended by three years under pressure from Damascus, was “preventing the will of the Lebanese people from being carried out.” Syria has also been busy undermining Lebanon’s economy, blocking its exports so that millions of dollars in produce rots at the Lebanese-Syrian border. Trucks that would normally carry agricultural and other goods imported through Beirut’s port on the Mediterranean to Syria, Iraq, and Gulf countries have been stopped. The closure, noted Robin Wright of the Washington Post, threatens “50,000 jobs in Lebanon” and had cost Lebanon $1.5 million by mid-July, an estimated $300,000 a day. In a nation of some 3.5 million people, everyone is affected. Abdelnour, along with countless other Lebanese knows that, so long as Bashar Assad runs Syria’s Baath regime, Lebanon’s progress toward true independence will be blocked. A pragmatist, he notes that, “Lebanon has got to sign a peace treaty with Israel.” The likelihood of that is unlikely due to the grip Hezbollah holds on much of the nation. Designated a terrorist organization by the US, it has not ceased from its attacks on Israel. In an effort to defend itself, Israel had occupied southern Lebanon for twenty-two years, ending it in May 2000. A United Nations Security Council Resolution, 1559, sponsored by the United States and France, and adopted in September 2004, calls for all of the militias in Lebanon to disband and disarm. Hezbollah has made it clear it has no intention of doing that. It’s worth noting that Hezbollah is funded by Iran. As such, it poses a threat to the stability of Lebanon, though a significant portion of its population sees it primarily as a political organization. As we have seen in the past, fifteen years of similar UN resolutions regarding Iraq were finally enforced by the US invasion and the subsequent efforts to reform that beleaguered nation. To understand Lebanon’s dilemma, one needs to stand back and look at the entire Middle East which is still in the grip of despots like Syria’s Assad, Muslim revolutionaries like the Iranian mullahs, or monarchies like the Saudis. The larger, strategic US goal of changing the Middle East will only be achieved when democracy is imposed and protected by the armed might of the United States. In Lebanon, the old ways of governance must give way to the reality of a Muslim majority population. If they can demonstrate tolerance for Lebanon’s Christian population; if they can establish the rule of secular law; if they can make peace with Israel, tiny Lebanon has a chance to become a real nation again. As things stand now, the prospects are not good, but the Lebanese people may yet surprise everyone. |
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Before I get to the point in this commentary, I want to frame it properly. In order to do that, as well as keep it short and to the point, I’ll first summarize rather briefly: The Moslems were killing the Christians, so Clinton pushed an arms embargo against them. When the Christians began killing the Moslems Clinton wouldn’t lift the embargo. He did get a man to let the Iranians know we would look the other way if they smuggled weapons in to the Moslems. (It was another of the definition of "is" things for which he was so well known.) This deal broker later had to fall on his sword for Caligula on the Potomac when he was nominated to run the CIA by Clinton and that deal he brokered came out. A new force was born in the region called the KLA. They were, in many cases, trained in "special" camps in Afghanistan. The KLA was a big supplier of heroin to both the western and eastern European nations. That was their source of funding. That — and the numerous murders and assassination plots — was why Milosovic got fed up with them. Bill Clinton allowed the Iranians to extend their influence into that region, and the result was Yugoslavia running the troublemakers out. Russia had actually started to fall apart for real and there had been a few interesting attempts internally to topple them. None of them amounted to much, but attempts they were. China was suffering from drought, and food problems were starting to emerge. In short, both nations were in serious trouble. That was the case until Bill Clinton decided to get NATO to attack a Russian ally. By the time it was over, we had used a defensive force to attack a Russian ally and the people now had an external enemy causing them to unite. When we hit a Chinese Embassy during that same war, the same phenomenon occurred in China. And we did all of this to help a bunch of drug dealers become legitimate leaders. This is the same war that liberals rave about with a wild-eyed ecstasy as they go on about how selfless it was. Before I continue with some of the fruit of his folly, I would like to point out that they never did find the mass graves in that region. They did find a lot of them in Iraq, however. The media won’t show that to you, though. The fruit of Bill’s Folly is as follows: During this timeframe, al-Qaeda developed some very strong ties to the Albanian Mafia, or KLA. Most of the funding for al-Qaeda is coming from opium and other types of drug sales. There are also rumblings that the Albanian Mafia has had a part in obtaining nukes for al-Qaeda. But this isn’t the only betrayal to come out of this region. It came out in an Agence France Presse release that there is a Russian defector who claims that al-Zawahari was trained by the FSB, or the new and improved KGB. I also read where al-Zawahari claimed pretty much the same thing in an Al Jazeera interview. This is yet another example of Russia having foreknowledge and a hand in al-Qaeda’s activities. What is my point? We are at war with Russia, and probably China as well. They are using third parties to do their dirty work like they always do. Russia’s KGB created Yassir Arafat and they created Osama’s second in command. I think that we might want to handle the war on drugs in a more open and direct manner. Since drug smugglers are the primary source of funding for our enemies they should be sunk, shot down, and otherwise dealt with as enemy combatants. It really is that simple. I’m tempted to add that maybe we should be treating drug users as collaborators while we’re at it, but before you go through the ceiling and cause another burn mark on your carpet, don’t worry. We as a nation seem to be having a lot of difficulty seeing anything clearly any more. Many people are inclined to blame the government for the ills we are experiencing. We elect them, and we keep buying the leftist rags called newspapers, so the onus is on us and those around us. It is time to clean up our schools while we still have the time to get a generation in this country that hasn’t been given an indoctrination instead of an education. I do see some hope, though. There are a lot of volunteers in Iraq who are doing a darn good job in spite of the endless leftist attacks against them. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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Most Hollywood remakes suck. This news shouldn’t take you by surprise. But it’s pertinent because adaptations of old shows, movies, books, and even comics have flooded theaters this summer, with no end in sight. The Bad News Bears. Bewitched. Herbie. The Honeymooners. War of the Worlds. Even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The list goes on and on. If history is any indication, some of these remakes will delight old fans while scoring legions of new ones. But most of them will suck. Hard. So why is this? People think remakes flop because Hollywood lacks originality. Nice as that sounds, it doesn’t explain why old ideas are being pillaged and plundered so poorly. The truth is, the remake makers have no clue how human beings relate to culture. They film movies for viewers—not fans. Take me, for example. I’m a guy. And like most guys, I can quote ruthlessly from a catalogue of well over six thousand films. In fact, I’ve made it through whole dinners just quoting Rocky III, Old School, and Gandhi (though the last one provided me with decidedly little material). Sometimes, this works against me. I’ve quoted from Spaceballs so many times that I can’t watch the movie anymore. Yet, to this day, I still enjoy quoting from it. The reason for this inconsistency? The experience of Spaceballs has transcended Spaceballs itself. I took the things that I liked and made them my own. I could never go back now. It would be like watching a rough draft. The way an audience receives a work of art is just as important as the work of art itself. This fact separates the remakes that soar from the remakes that suck. A prime example is Godzilla. By most accounts, the original was a classic (even after being diluted for American audiences). But when they remade it in 1998, it featured Matthew Broderick, a souped up dinosaur, and a Puff Daddy update on Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir (which may have been the worst song ever recorded). It followed the standard hire-a-star, buy-fancy-graphics, slap-together-a-soundtrack formula. And it stunk. Their mistake was trying to recreate Godzilla instead of trying to recapture it. On the other hand, 1995’s Brady Bunch Movie succeeded because the people who made it realized they could never outdo the original program. Instead, they satirized it through the prism of anachronistic fandom, placing the ‘70s Bradys in ‘90s America. This warmed a lot of hearts. I look forward to the Dukes of Hazzard movie, but I doubt it’ll surpass the Family Guy episode where Peter paints his station wagon like the General Lee and attempts to get it airborne. This is something only a Dukes fan would consider doing. And if I had to guess, it’s something most Dukes fans have considered doing. You see, it wasn’t just the airborne General that made that show special. It was how the airborne General made you feel—how it worked with your imagination, instead of at it. The Dukes built on the cultural experience of moonshine runners, and, likewise, the Family Guy builds on the cultural experience of the Dukes. In so doing, it creates a cultural experience of its own—like ancient stories passed down, and added to, through oral tradition. So if you think remakes suck because Hollywood lacks originality, you might want to think again. Americana is a culture; and as one of its stewards, Hollywood shouldn’t give up that remade ship. What they should do, however, is try making remakes that capture the context in which the originals were enjoyed. After all, that’s the whole point of remaking old shows and movies to begin with. In closing, here’s a gratuitous list of things that wouldn’t suck: 1. Arnold vs. Webster: Remakes of Diff’rent Strokes and Webster are inevitable. Instead, Arnold Jackson and Webster Long should face off like Alien vs. Predator. This would allow them to settle the age old question: Who was the better short black kid adopted by white folks in a 1980s sitcom? Bonus points if the Gooch, Mr. T, or Nancy Reagan run in for a screwjob ending. 2. A Nightmare on Elm Street: This one’s been done to death. In the remake, instead of random teens, Elm Street should be populated by the Brat Pack (i.e., Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, etc.). Freddy Krueger should haunt the sets of St. Elmo’s Fire and The Breakfast Club, killing the actors and their dreams (instead of killing them in their dreams). Bonus points if it ends with Freddy filming a B-rated Phantom of the Opera before killing Robert Englund’s career. More bonus points if it fails to resemble Scream in any way. 3. Charles In Charge: In the show, Charles lived with a family and watched their kids. A few years later, the family moved out and a new one moved in, but, somehow, Charles stuck around and kept his job. What was he, an appliance or something? Did he come with the house? In the remake, the Pembrokes and Powells should live in parallel worlds, which collide and cause trouble for Charles. Bonus points if he double-books dinners with both families and runs back and forth between the tables while inexplicably changing his outfit. More bonus points if he quadruple-books dinners with his boss and Gwendolyn Pierce. Points deducted if worlds colliding fails to create multiple Buddy Lembecks. 4. The Facts of Life: When this show started, it took place in an all-girls prep school. Then it evolved into a few of the girls living in a house with their RA, Mrs. Garrett, who was later replaced by some other lady, who eventually turned the house into a store. The remake should explain why those girls felt the need to live with a substantially older woman after they graduated. Bonus points if the remake’s never made. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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It was discovered in Munich, during the 1972 Olympic Games, that terrorists could not be dissuaded from carrying out heinous acts of cold blood against innocents when motivated by ethnic hatred or religious fanaticism. It also became apparent that the rest of the world could and would carry on as though the fedayeen's (men of sacrifice) acts of barbarism were of no particular cause for concern. To emphasize this, The Olympic Games continued with full media coverage after the murder of 11 members of the Israeli team by PLO affiliates referred to as "Black September." Although Israel absolutely refused to negotiate with terrorists, they were willing to send Israeli commandos, or '"sayeret," to conduct the hostage rescue. "The sayeret are elite trained reconnaissance forces drawn from the ranks of the Israeli Special Forces and experienced in hostage rescue techniques." 1 Germany refused their offer and instead sent out an inexperienced team of snipers who were ill equipped, small in number and pathetically unprepared to take part in a mission against the specially trained hostage takers. They botched the rescue which led to the deaths of all the Israeli athletes. During the incident, Israel was portrayed as unyielding, but the reality was that they determined no Israeli anywhere in the world would be safe if they were to negotiate with the terrorists. Yet instead of focusing on the unreasonable demands of these terrorists who in that particular instance demanded the release of 234 jailed Palestinians in Israel, Israel was condemned by the UN Security Counsel for retaliating against PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon. To rub salt in the wound, Germany negotiated the release of three of the hostage takers that survived. To make a stand, the Israeli Mossad implemented an antiterrorist campaign to assassinate anyone associated with the Black September massacre. "Golda Meir wanted to send the message that Israel would not let terrorist acts against Israeli citizens go unanswered or unpunished. There would be a price to pay for any attack on Israeli citizens anywhere in the world." 2 Instead of learning from Israel's experience with terrorism, each new act of violence since then has been rationalized by pacifists as deserved retaliation for some catalyst or another. Instead of determining to beat them at their own game, guerillas are given more and more recognition; legitimized if you will. They have been given roles in the United Nations, representation at the Olympics, and invitations to meet with world leaders who hope to appease their unmitigated demands. Arafat was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. As John Howard, Australia's Prime Minister stated after the recent London bombings, "Those who think terrorism is incident specific don't understand the terrorist mind." This is because ideological terrorism won't stop until its enemies are brought to their knees. There is no respect for human dignity, infrastructure which helps sustain our existence, or for freedom. And each time fault is pinned on the subjects of attack or a rationale is used to justify an act of terror, terrorists are given a stronger platform from which to base their aggression. The killing of innocents does not recognize boundaries or individuality. As Vladimir Putin said, "Terrorism has once again shown it is prepared deliberately to stop at nothing in creating human victims. An end must be put to this. As never before, it is vital to unite forces of the entire world community against terror." Like it or not, the United States has been thrust into a war against radical Islamist terrorism. This form of terrorism is not aimed at any one country or any one set of people. It is a religious mindset which dictates all life is expendable when the goal is to eliminate the infidels, or those who tolerate those who do not submit to Allah. Although there are many in this country who don't want to see the body count rise in any particular theater, what needs to be understood is that there is no alternative. Israel has known this for decades. Instead of vilifying those who determine that a stand must be taken and that we must fight for our continued right to self determination, we need to keep in mind the words of Paul Wolfowitz who remarked, "I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism. And that's why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign." One only needs to experience religious or political oppression to understand that freedom is more valuable than life itself. Ask immigrants who have personally taken part in fighting tremendous odds to escape dictatorships, theocracies or communism. Rather than condemning a way of life that allows imagination and hard work to prosper, our country's imperfections are seen as small obstacles to the pursuit the American Dream. 1 COUNTERING
TERRORISM 2 One
Day in September Nancy Salvato Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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In a quintessential cover story in the American Conservative - Death of Manufacturing - Pat Buchanan exposes the fraud of Free Trade. This is a must read, especially for those Libertarians who cling to the abstract notion that intellectual possibilities are viable and practical in the real world. Notwithstanding their fantasies, self interest and national economic independence is the supreme basis for economic policy that benefits citizens. Those who strive to generate profit upon unholy alliances are at best, befuddled accessories or worse case, greedy traitors. As the saying goes the devil is in the details. The score card is the trade deficit. The burden is carried by those who are unemployed. And the final casualty is the autonomy of the nations economy. Is economic primacy important to you and your countrymen? A Free Trade Policy has regard only for the business venture. National concerns and the best long term interests of the average American has no stature in a game of systematic dismantling of the self sufficiency. The Buchanan thesis rest upon the worth of maintaining America as a free society. It’s easy to be deluded into thinking that freedom is enhanced with the vast array of consumer items offered for sale at your local discount outlet. Nevertheless, cheap prices from foreign producers only feeds the trade shortfall. How backward does one need to be to avoid the inevitable? When production leaves for off shore havens based upon a playing field that is rigged to serve only the monopolists, how free can we remain as a people? The conclusion from this essay is clear: “Free trade is a bright shining lie. Free trade is the Trojan Horse of world government. Free trade is the murderer of manufacturing and the primrose path to the loss of national sovereignty and the end of our independence.” The NAFTA swindle is a transparent scam. Here is Pat’s summary, the only one you need to remember: “ NAFTA has helped to convert California into Mexifornia and the Golden State into a Third-World country. Ten years after its passage, Mexico’s leading export continues to be Mexicans.” In the end, the social cost from a conscious dissemblance of manufacturing within our own borders means the loss of high scale livable wage jobs. Let’s be honest and admit the truth. Americans no longer have a work ethic of previous generations nor does the average worker have the stomach to labor for subsistent level pay. However, that is only a consequence of the larger issue. The political decisions to vacate domestic manufacturing from our own people is analogous to running a closed shop that benefits only venture monopolists, international bankers, global money launders, stateless managers and governmental hacks. The flight out of California illustrates this civic price being paid, but this same syndrome also applies to other former bastions of industry. According to the Census Bureau Report - State by State Migration Flows: 1995-2000 - California, New York and Illinois served as "a trio of gateway states that simultaneously lost migrants to other states while gaining migrants from abroad." The surrender of manufacturing employment as a sacrifice to the Free Traders, has forced this mass exodus of layed-off Americans - our own displaced persons. If you believe this is an intrinsic result, inevitable and unalterable; your confidence in political elites and their distortion of economic self-interest must mean you only buy Chinese. National suicide is not natural. But for the Free Trader mesmerized by visions of bountiful prosperity, produced under the illusion of backwater cheap labor, just what happens when the cash runs out because jobs left for overseas? The big picture is confirmed by Pat Choate and cited by Mr Buchanan in his flagship magazine: “In the 1970s, [the United States]mounted a decades-long deficit of $75 billion. . . . In the 1980s, the deficit soared to $843 billion as Japan began to take away our industries. . . . In the 1990s, that trade deficit doubled to $1.7 trillion. . . . At this pace, we’re probably going to have a $6 trillion cumulative deficit in this decade - and that’s probably an understated number given the pace we are losing our manufacturing base.” NAFTA is the conveyance upon which the outflow hits home in the most visible way. The virtual bankruptcy of California has a fundamental linkage to the damage done by NAFTA. The best test of loyalty to real Americans is demonstrated by one’s attitude about the Free Trade rip-off. Politicians need to follow the wisdom of the economic miracle that built our country. SELF Interest in national economic independence and self sufficiency. If you want solutions, stop the outflow, rebuild U.S. industry and create domestic jobs.
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©2004-2005 by their respective authors. Reprinted by permission. |
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