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What They've Thought
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What They Thought April 2, 2006 Alan
Caruba Click here for columnist bios |
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It’s bad enough that the Middle East has us over a barrel of oil thanks to our continued dependency on access to its huge reservoirs of crude, but largely unknown to most Americans, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Islamic Development Bank have a long-term goal of replacing the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency for world trade. In March the Iranians will open an Iran Oil Bourse that will trade oil and products in the Euro, not the dollar. They will not be alone in pegging their nation’s currency to the Euro. Syria already does and Venezuela, another major oil producer, has announced plans to do so as well. As David J. Jonsson, the author of “Clash of Ideologies,” pointed out in a recent article, the United States “relies on approximately 70 percent of all foreign-exchange currency to be held in dollars because we sell Treasury debt into that foreign-exchange market.” A flight of foreign-exchange reserves away from the dollar would depress its value and, conversely potentially increase the value of the Euro by 20 to 40 percent. This is extremely bad news for the United States and for the West in general. While Americans focus on the shooting war in Iraq, we are in an even more serious economic war with an axis that spreads from South America to the Middle East. Bear in mind that many South American nations have been electing Socialist governments and that some Middle Eastern nations have flirted with socialism for decades. The Baathist Party in Saddam’s Iraq is an example of this. Calls for oil independence in the U.S. have been largely ignored for the three decades we have known about the vast reserves in Alaska’s ANWR or those trapped in shale in Utah and Colorado. Congress has blocked ANWR drilling and in known offshore reserves despite the increasingly volatile Middle Eastern situation. The economy of the United States is, in many ways, quite fragile. Just how broke is America? A new book, “Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis”, by Addison Wiggin and Bill Bonner, answers that question saying, “It is deeply unpleasant to consider the fact that the U.S. continues to rack up another $80 million of debt every hour, or that our trade deficit has hit an all time high of $725.8 billion.” That represents a significant vulnerability. The authors note that, “The renowned Levy Institute estimates that the United States will owe foreigners $8 trillion by 2008, a breathtaking 60 percent of our gross domestic product.“ That level of financial vulnerability is frightening enough, but key elements of our economy are also vulnerable. As Jonsson points out, the high cost of natural gas, the key component in the production of ammonia and urea, the “fertilizers that drive the agricultural sector of the United States and the rest of the Western nations”, has caused the shutdown of ammonia production here and seen it move to nations with lower costs such as those in the Middle East. Today, more than half of the urea used for U.S. agricultural production is imported. In the United Kingdom, nearly a third of its power generation depends on natural gas. In 15 years, the UK will be dependent on Russia for 90 percent of its imported gas. Japan is almost totally dependent on imported energy sources and is heavily invested in Iran’s Azadegan oil field. China has major investments in Iran, importing 13.6 percent of its oil requirements from that nation and, overall, 45 percent of its oil imports from the Middle East. China is also investing in Canadian tar sands projects. At present, three-quarters of China’s currency reserves are invested in U.S. Treasury bills and other dollar-dominated assets. If the U.S. dollar begins to slip in value versus the Euro, guess where China’s money will go. Currently, its reserves “are growing at an average rate of $15 billion every month.” The strategy is there for anyone to see. Control the oil and eliminate the U.S. dollar as the world’s currency of choice. The Islamic-Socialist coalition is well on its way to putting a choke-hold in the New York Mercantile Exchange and London’s International Petroleum Exchange, currently the world’s leading commodity markets for energy. Jonsson calls it “the currency bomb.” About the only good news is that such efforts have been tried in the past and failed. This time, though, European nations will, thanks to the Iranian Oil Bourse, not have to buy and hold U.S. dollars to secure the payment for oil. Right now, thanks to the indebtedness of the U.S., many in the financial world are anticipating a devaluation of the dollar. Jonsson believes it could fall as much as 40 percent or more, if that occurs. If the United States does not embark on an aggressive program to find and develop its own energy sources, and to develop its own production of liquid fuels, natural gas, and fertilizers, it is going to find itself in deep trouble. The good news is that we have centuries of coal and still untapped oil, and gas hydrates. We could accelerate the building of more nuclear energy facilities. We could do much to insure a greater degree of energy independence if we have the will and foresight to do so. However, the federal budget for fiscal 2007 “cuts overall funding for natural gas research” in order get the independent oil and natural gas companies to pick up the tab. “President Bush is proposing to zero out the entire natural gas technology program, which includes gas hydrates.” This is the same President who told the nation that America is “addicted to oil.” America is at a critical crossroads for its financial and energy policies and, so far, it appears to be making some very bad choices. It seems to this observer that it is depending heavily on its military strength to threaten and/or transform the Middle East. That option may prove to be an illusion if Iran is permitted to become a nuclear power. Ultimately, as Jonsson points out, “If regimes like those in Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Burma, Sudan and Nigeria have the benefit of $60 oil for ten years, the democratic process, which occurred in post-Cold War years, will end. The totalitarian regimes with the most repressive governments will control the energy infrastructure and the access to freedom and liberty.” The American Empire is running out of cheap energy and easily borrowed money. |
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One of the lessons that the left could use right now is the story about crying wolf. It never seems to fail anymore and it hasn’t for about thirty-five years now. If you don’t get your way, say it’s racism or sexism. If you get into trouble over something, say it’s racism or sexism. If anything at all happens to you that you just plain don’t like, say it’s racism or sexism. This is true for McKinny, that radical leftist poster child from Atlanta who allegedly hit a Capitol Hill Policeman, as well as for our mid-eastern terrorist apologists. The sad part is that all too often this kind of a charge is considered to be serious and worthy of attention. We even see this type of thinking in our illegal immigrants and their vocal apologists. Part of the problem is the way we tend to deal with even the seemingly smallest of issues these days. The natural inclination is to look away so as to save our self any of the attendant difficulties we might experience if we get involved. There is a simple little word for it…cowardice. There I said it. Too often those who do get involved find they are suddenly embroiled in counter charges from the guilty. Who cares what the corrupt mind thinks of you? Why should you care in any manner other than to deal directly and honestly with them? Scumbags have a lot of difficulty dealing with you when you answer their charges with the truth. For too long we have allowed those who lie to run the show, and it is our silence that invites their lies and their noise. There is a term for it that was bandied about a great deal during the First Gulf War. That term is ‘power vacuum’. When the truth isn’t spoken lies will flow in to fill the empty space. What did all of us learn in school about a substance that rushes in to fill all available space? That’s right it’s a gas. Part of the problem with most of us not being willing to deal with the dishonesty of others is that we tend to provide that extra space for the gas to creep in. It starts out as a little problem, but it always gets bigger. There is another way to look at it and that is as a form of tyranny. The limits of all tyrants are provided by the oppressed. Or when the going gets tough the tough get going. As you look around you notice those who are cheating on their spouses, those who are fudging on the figures they provide to superiors or to the public. There are some who do a small version of stealing, but it’s stealing nonetheless. To some it’s just a minor problem. Unfortunately in the long run the problems get bigger and bigger. Those things I just mentioned are only the symptoms of a greater problem. The real problem is cowardice. It is cowardice on our part that we listen to any of these gas-like charges and claims. I’m hoping that McKinny gets charged to the fullest extent of the law. What kind of a message does it send to the public when someone like that gets away with hitting an officer? Why, that’s just like a President redefining a word in a lame attempt to avoid perjury charges in a sexual harassment case. As is usually the case though, it is a liberal creating this mess again. I believe that it is quite possible that we may be on the verge of discovering a new energy source. All we need to do now is see if we can find a use for unnatural gas. We don’t even need to go the mid-east for our source and or processing facility. The wellhead and processing plant for this valuable new resource is none other than the New York Times. I hope that experts in this new energy field are about to come forward so that the liberals will not have to worry about upsetting the caribou with that annoying drilling project in their back yard. I am also pleased the liberals are quite possibly going to be a solution to a problem for the first time in history. Think of the pride it will instill in them. For the first time ever they will have something real to be proud of, and it won’t just be some silly little gesture-based act. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m really pumped over this new concept. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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I like how the cool thing in pro-war circles right now is to say that Iraq is going quite well, but that it’s the media’s fault for focusing on the bad stuff. Maybe if journalists spent more time checking and balancing the government than ducking claims of Red or Blue bias, we wouldn’t’ve gone to war over faulty intelligence, and there wouldn’t be any bad stuff to focus on in the first place. Three years ago, Americans were led to believe Saddam Hussein’s weapons were a given — that “everyone in the world” believed he had them and planned to use them. Now we know the intelligence was wrong. But our assumptions were dead wrong, too. In fact, there were people who said Saddam didn’t have weapons. And there were people who said he wasn’t a threat. Not all of these people were anti-Bush liberals. Some worked for Bush’s father. But you wouldn’t’ve known that as the great snowball of war gained momentum in the media, because Fox News slapped an American flag behind their logo and turned the debate into a pep rally. Anti-war became anti-pro-war. And anti-pro-war became synonymous with anti-Bush or anti-American. All forms of dissent were then passed off as crazy talk — like Martin Sheen stumbling down the street with tape on his mouth. I blame Fox for drowning us in their simpleton politics. But I blame the rest of the media for going along with Fox’s Red/Blue mentality. The war debate should never have been about which party you supported, or about how much you loved or hated the president. But instead of challenging Fox, many news outlets decided to compete with them. And instead of challenging the government, the press decided to help them, by turning the war into a partisan issue — instead of a program that proposed to kill people (which is what war ultimately is). As far as I’m concerned, the media are to blame for what we’re seeing in Iraq right now. But not for showing us beheadings and bombings. For failing to stop them. I blame the media for failing to ask any questions. I blame them for failing to let us know whether the war was well researched, so we could make an educated decision whether or not to support it. I blame the media for putting ratings and commercial success ahead of their role within the country. I blame them for being shortsighted. And I blame them for being dumb. If the media were doing their job — if they had any self-respect whatsoever — they would go back and address the WMD issue. They would dissect Colin Powell’s U.N. speech. And they would draw some kind of connection between those post-9/11 anthrax letters and the fact that they landed in the laps of major newsmen who sat back as we marched into a WMD-inspired war. If the media were doing their job, Washington would never get away with dramatically altering our constitutional republic. If they were doing their job, domestic spying wouldn’t magically become “terrorist surveillance.” The New York Times wouldn’t be cowed into covering up warrantless searches before an election. And war supporters wouldn’t get away with pounding their chests every time they discover new, unitary powers in their literal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Over the last few years, Washington has churned out fable after fable about soldiers like Jessica Lynch and NFL superhero Pat Tillman. They’ve passed PR pieces off as legitimate news stories. They’ve paid Op-Ed writers. They’ve slapped “Made in the USA” labels on Chinese boxes at press conferences. And the press hasn’t connected the dots on any of this. America has introduced itself to something called Free Speech Zones. We’ve seen political speech suppressed in the name of campaign finance reform. And the press hasn’t tied any of that into the big picture, either. Torture, rendition, and the suspension of due process have all been inserted into public discourse, as if they have any reasonable place being there. A war has been launched against a country that never attacked us, that had no plans to attack us, that didn’t even have the means to attack us, while Usama bin Laden — like OJ’s real killers — got away. And still the media act as if this is perfectly normal. Still they fail to connect the dots, still they fail to question the changing war motives, and still they fail to wonder how this war made us safer when Saddam didn’t even have weapons to hurt us with. Yeah, I blame the media, all right. I blame the media for being completely and utterly clueless. I blame them for giving Bush a pass on the stuff he’s actually done wrong while harassing him over a hurricane that wouldn’t’ve been so damaging if New Orleans’ idiot mayor had bused his subjects out of town before the buses were covered in water. I blame the media for letting Republicans squander our goodwill after 9/11. I blame them for letting Democrats roll over and wait for a belly rub. And I blame them for marginalizing any third party whose candidates aren’t already entrenched in the two-party system. I blame the media for letting Ann Coulter get away with writing a book called Treason. I blame them for letting Michael Savage call people who disagree with him “enemies.” And I blame them for letting third-rate, me-too pundits like Ben Shapiro say we should try Al Gore for “sedition.” Twenty-one percent of Americans think the First Amendment guarantees them the right to own pets, and, meanwhile, no one sees anything wrong with bulldozing Dixie Chicks CDs, tape recording teachers, and using stupid, entirely empty phrases like “undermining the president” and “hiding behind free speech.” These things just scream The Greatest Hits of Joseph Goebbels, and if the media hadn’t spent the last 12 years covering white Ford Broncos and mildly attractive missing white females, none of these things would have happened, because none of them would’ve gone unchallenged. You want to blame this stuff on George Bush? You want to blame it on some left- or right-wing conspiracy? Go ahead. But the media are the enablers here. The media are the ones who waste your time telling you about Red States and Blue States and Ben Affleck’s love life. The media are the ones who glorify political shenanigans with their fair and balanced, good guy/bad guy, world-championship-of-professional-wrestling “news” coverage. And the media are the ones who have thoroughly failed you and consistently let you down. As long as Americans still believe journalism’s job is to defend their favorite candidates — and make no mistake: liberals and conservatives alike do — the media will continue being good for nothing but Breaking News alerts and poorly constructed, he-said-this, she-said-that political soap operas. This might be interesting if you’ve only got two brain cells. But if you’ve got any interest in stopping the parties from raping our wallets and dismantling our system of government, it’s time to ditch the old media guards, and time for some major change. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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The top Neo-Con of the twentieth century was Woodrow Wilson. His supposed idealism, symbolized in the slogan “Make the world safe for democracy,” resulted in untold destruction and death across the world for many decades. His deceit and manipulation of the pre-war intelligence from Europe dragged America into an unnecessary conflict that cost the world and us dearly. Without the disastrous Versailles Treaty, World War II could have been averted-- and the rise to power of Communists around the world might have been halted. We seem to never learn from our past mistakes. Today’s neo-cons are as idealistically misled and aggressive in remaking the Middle East as the Wilsonian do-gooders. Even given the horrendous costs of the Iraq War and the unintended consequences that plague us today, the neo-cons are eager to expand their regime change policy to Iran by force. The obvious shortcomings of our regime change and occupation of Afghanistan are now readily apparent. The Taliban was ousted from power, but they have regrouped and threaten the delicate stability that now exists in that country. Opium drug production is once again a major operation, with drugs lords controlling a huge area of the country outside Kabul. And now the real nature of the government we created has been revealed in the case of Abdul Rahman, the Muslim who faced a possible death sentence from the Karzai administration for converting to Christianity. Even now that Mr. Rahman is free due to western pressure, his life remains in danger. Our bombs and guns haven’t changed the fact that the new puppet Afghan government still follows Sharia law. The same loyalty to Sharia exists in Iraq, where we’re trying so hard to stabilize things. And all this is done in the name of spreading democracy. The sad fact is that even under the despicable rule of Saddam Hussein, Christians were safer in Iraq than they are today. Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister was a practicing Christian. Today thousands of Christians have fled Iraq following our occupation, to countries like Jordan and Syria. Those Christians who have remained in Iraq fear for their lives every day. That should tell us something about the shortcomings of a policy that presumes to make the world safe for democracy. The Muslim world is not fooled by our talk about spreading democracy and values. The evidence is too overwhelming that we do not hesitate to support dictators and install puppet governments when it serves our interests. When democratic elections result in the elevation of a leader or party not to our liking, we do not hesitate for a minute to undermine that government. This hypocrisy is rarely recognized by the American people. It’s much more comfortable to believe in slogans, to believe that we’re defending our goodness and spreading true liberty. We accept this and believe strongly in the cause, strongly enough to sacrifice many of our sons and daughters, and stupendous amounts of money, to spread our ideals through force. Pointing out the lack of success is taboo. It seems of little concern to many members of Congress that we lack both the moral right and constitutional authority to impose our will on other nations. The toughest task is analyzing what we do from their perspective. We should try harder to place ourselves in the shoes of those who live in the Arab countries where our efforts currently are concentrated. We are outraged by a Muslim country that would even consider the death penalty for a Christian convert. But many Muslims see all that we do as a reflection of western Christianity, which to them includes Europe and America. They see everything in terms of religion. When our bombs and sanctions kill hundreds of thousands of their citizens, they see it as an attack on their religion by Christians. To them our actions represent a crusade to change their culture and their political systems. They do not see us as having noble intentions. Cynicism and realism tell them we’re involved in the Middle East to secure the oil we need. Our occupation and influence in the holy lands of the Middle East will always be suspect. This includes all the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Naively believing otherwise will guarantee continuing hostilities in Iraq. Our meddling will remain an incitement for radicals to strike us here at home in future terrorist attacks. All the intelligence gathering in the world will serve little purpose if we don’t come to understand exactly why they hate us-- despite the good intentions that many Americans hold dear. Rep. Ron Paul Web Site Back to Top |
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Twice in the last couple of months I’ve had the privilege of listening to two WWII veterans speak of their experiences in the war. The first, Michael Kuryla, Jr. spoke about his struggle to survive after the U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk on the ship’s return from delivering a secret cargo, intended to save lives and shorten the war. He and the other men abandoning ship spent five days in the water before their eventual rescue. Their experience was immortalized in the movie “Jaws” when captain Quint recalled,
At the end of his presentation, Mr. Kuryla’s wife, perhaps best known as “Grambo” during her enlistment in the armed forces, reminded the 8th grade students at Darien, Illinois’ Cass Junior High School, freedom is not free and that they should consider thanking a soldier for serving our country. The second veteran, Abner S. Ganet, discussed his role in the D-Day landing at Normandy Beach, the Battle of the Bulge, and liberating the prisoners at Buchenwald. It was only eleven years ago he discovered one of the survivors was Eli Wiesel, perhaps best known for the book, “Night.” Mr. Wiesel expressed his gratitude for Mr.Ganet’s bravery all those years ago and explained that if their arrival had taken place just one day later, he would have been just another victim, gassed and cremated. Although many veterans of WWII do not like to talk about their experiences, Mr. Wiesel convinced Mr.Ganet the importance of telling the world of the atrocities that took place under Hitler’s reign of terror. As painful as it has been, Mr. Ganet began and continues to speak about his tour of duty. During Mr. Kuryla’s presentation, the depiction of the U.S.S. Indianapolis sinking, shark infested waters, and the eventual rescue of the survivors was quite striking. More inspiring was to learn of the courage each sailor displayed in the face of such adversity. Mr. Ganet’s account of “taking care of business” when nature called in the midst of a snowing battlefield, carrying additional machine gun artillery, which weighed more than him, after his compatriots were killed, digging trenches, liberating starving prisoners, and experiencing dry heaves over corpses stacked like cordwood and depictions of nature painted on human skin, were graphic and compelling. However, what finally brought tears to my eyes was the effect each presenter had on the students and watching an individual student hug Mr. Ganet and thank him for sharing with her. They were both visibly moved during the exchange. Social Studies teachers, like Mr. Bleuher*, whose lessons exemplify “best practice,” utilizing primary sources while instilling gratitude for those who fight for freedom in the name of our country, are a rarity. Recently, Opinion Journal contributor, Peggy Noonan, in her column, “Patriots, Then and Now” conveyed the following thoughts:
We have the opportunity to raise a “We Generation” that understands the true history of the United States, the reasons why — although history will judge us imperfect — immigrants flock to this country and why we must defend our unique system of government which has protected our freedoms for over 200 years. As Thomas Jefferson admonished so long ago, “If a nation expect to be ignorant and free…it expect what never was and never will be.” History must be taught and judged in context. Only then can the citizens of our country commit to the fundamental values and principles of our political heritage, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, and the “I Have a Dream” speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. In the words of
Thomas Paine, “We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free,
and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.”
Unless teachers allow students to develop the knowledge and skills required
to come to their own positions, they are violating student’s rights
to freedom of belief, conscience, and choice, incompatible with the
proper role of public education in a free society. Next on Mr.
Bleuher’s syllabus; Acts of Genocide since the Holocaust. Reference Links: Center for Civic Education, “Papers & Speeches” Charles N. Quigley Abner S. Ganet Memorable Quotes from Jaws (1975) Nancy
Salvato
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©2004-2006 by their respective authors. Reprinted by permission. |
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