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Archive for March 15th, 2007

Rejecting Gandhi’s way

Posted by Richard on March 15, 2007

Sen. Mitch McConnell isn't the only Republican displaying a bit of spine and spunk for a change. Former Senator, actor, and possible Presidential candidate Fred Thompson sat in for Paul Harvey this morning, and he commented on the anti-war group Code Pink, which is camped out on Rep. Nancy Pelosi's lawn demanding that she defund the troops in Iraq.

Code Pink's encampment features a giant statue of Gandhi, and the organization was founded on Gandhi's birthday. Thompson noted that prior to the toppling of Saddam, the anti-war movement distributed a poster that read, "What would Gandhi do?" NRO has the transcript:

And that's a pretty good question. At what point is it okay to fight dictators like Saddam or the al Qaeda terrorists who want to take his place?

It turns out that the answer, according to Gandhi, is NEVER. During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the holocaust was known, he criticized Jews who had tried to escape or fight for their lives as they did in Warsaw and Treblinka. "The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife," he said. "They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs." "Collective suicide," he told his biographer, "would have been heroism."

The so-called peace movement certainly has the right to make Gandhi's way their way, but their efforts to make collective suicide American foreign policy just won't cut it in this country. When American's think of heroism, we think of the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives to prevent another Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein.

Gandhi probably wouldn't approve, but I can live with that.

I'm stunned by those quotes. I've never read all that much about Gandhi, but they don't entirely jibe with what I thought I knew about him. I certainly never deified the man, as many on the left have, but I also never suspected him of such vile thoughts.

Thank you, Fred Thompson, for clearly identifying Gandhi's way. All sane and decent people must forcefully reject it.

George Orwell, one of my favorite socialists, rejected Gandhi's way during World War II. I strongly recommend Orwell's essay, Pacifism and the War, which includes this (emphasis added):

Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. … Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be "objectively pro-British".' But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom' station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

UPDATE (3/19/07): Orwell's 1949 Partisan Review essay, "Reflections on Gandhi," is available online at ReadPrint. Quite interesting.

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Timetables are bad

Posted by Richard on March 15, 2007

At least on one issue, one Republican leader is showing a bit of spine and spunk. Sen. Mitch McConnell, speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, forcefully rejected the Reid Resolution (which calls for troop withdrawals to begin in 4 months, with all combat troops out of Iraq within a year). McConnell reminded the Democrats that they once rejected as foolish the course they now want to impose (emphasis added):

"This is the memo our enemies have been waiting for.

"Osama Bin Laden and his followers have repeatedly said that the U.S. does not have the stomach for a long fight with the terrorists. Passage of the Reid Joint Resolution will be the first concrete sign since Sept. 11, 2001, that he was right on target.

"Timetables are bad. But don't just take my word for it.

"Speaking at the National Press Club in 2005, my good friend the Majority Leader himself said this: ‘As for setting a timeline, as we learned in the Balkans, that's not a wise decision, because it only empowers those who don't want us there, and it doesn't work well to do that.'

"Six months after that, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden, said this: ‘A deadline for pulling out … will only encourage our enemies to wait us out' … it would be ‘a Lebanon in 1985. And God knows where it goes from there.' That was our friend, Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"And three months later, Senator Clinton made the same point when she said, ‘I don't believe it's smart to set a date for withdrawal,' said Senator Clinton. ‘I don't think you should ever telegraph your intentions to the enemy so they can await you.' "That's the Majority Leader, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and a prominent Democrat presidential candidate.

"Surely Senators Reid, Biden, and Clinton have not changed their minds about who would benefit the most if we set a date certain for withdrawal. They know just as well as I do that this is what the terrorists have been waiting for – and just what our allies in Iraq, and the entire region of the world have feared.

"Setting a date certain for withdrawal will send a chill up the spine of every Iraqi who has dared to stand with America. Millions of good men and women have helped us in this fight. Since we arrived in Iraq, nearly 120,000 Iraqis have volunteered to serve in their army. More than 8,000 Iraqis have died in uniform to defend the fledgling Democracy over there. And recently, in Anbar province, we're told that roughly 1,000 Sunnis volunteered for the police force over a period of a couple weeks.

"These brave men and women, Mr. President, are watching what we do here: They know, as we do, that chaos will engulf Iraq and the rest of the region on that day. They know they and their families will likely face a firing squad soon after we leave. And the message we send them with this resolution is this: good luck. 

Thank you, Sen. McConnell, for reminding your colleagues that there are many, many lives at stake.

If the Democrats have their way on Iraq, not only will U.S. interests and the long-term prospects for world peace be severely damaged, but — just in case it matters to the self-styled humanitarians on the left — there will likely be a bloodbath in Iraq to rival what happened in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

Of course, the left pretty much tried to ignore that one, too.

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Cashing in on carbon credit scam

Posted by Richard on March 15, 2007

It's long been obvious to me that the environmental fear-mongers are chiefly interested in power — their solution to every perceived problem, whether it's overpopulation, pollution, cooling, warming, or whatever, is always less freedom and more government compulsion. And it's been equally clear that many of them are hypocrites, lecturing us for not being green enough while they live in humongous mansions and jet to their second and third homes in their private Gulfstreams.

It turns out that some of them are also greedy money-grubbers using climate-change hysteria to enrich themselves (emphasis added):

The two cherub like choirboys singing loudest in the Holier Than Thou Global Warming Cathedral are Maurice Strong and Al Gore.

This duo has done more than anyone else to advance the alarmism of man-made global warming.

With little media monitoring, both Strong and Gore are cashing in on the lucrative cottage industry known as man-made global warming.

Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as "the world's first and North America's only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil."

Gore buys his carbon off-sets from himself–the Generation Investment Management LLP, "an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C." of which he is both chairman and founding partner.

There's a fine compendium of information about Gore, Knight, and the GIM carbon credit scam at The Global Warming Hoax. Interest in Gore's carbon credit firm grew after the Tennessee Center for Policy Research discovered that Gore's 10,000-square-foot mansion near Nashville used $30,000 worth of electricity and natural gas in 2006. Here's a photoshop picture of the mansion (from FreakingNews.com; used with permission):

Al Gore's mansion, per FreakingNews.com

This isn't the first time Gore and Strong have cashed in on the environment. Back when Gore was Veep, he praised and promoted Molten Metal Technology Inc. (MMTI), which supposedly was developing innovative recycling technology. MMTI got over $30 million in DOE grants, and its stock soared to $35. The company was largely owned and run by Maurice Strong and several Gore associates. Just before news that the technology didn't exist and that the DOE was cutting off funding, Strong and his pals cashed out to the tune of $15 million.

Strong is a piece of work. A wealthy Canadian businessman, U.N. diplomat, and father of the Kyoto Protocol, he was lined up to become U.N. Secretary General before being implicated in the Oil for Food scandal. In 2002, Canadian papers carried a book excerpt profiling Strong and his desire to change the world:

He told Maclean's magazine in 1976 that he was "a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology." He warns that if we don't heed his environmentalist warnings, the Earth will collapse into chaos.

Strong has always courted power – but not through any shabby election campaign. He was a Liberal candidate in the 1979 federal election, but pulled out a month before the vote.

How could a mere MP wield the kind of international control he had tasted in Stockholm? Journalist Elaine Dewar, who interviewed Strong, described why he loved the UN.

"He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, control the agenda," wrote Dewar.

"He told me he had more unfettered power than a cabinet minister in Ottawa. He was right: He didn't have to run for re-election, yet he could profoundly affect lives."

Strong prefers power extracted from democracies, and kept from unenlightened voters. Most power-crazed men would stop at calling for a one world Earth Charter to replace the U.S. Constitution, or the UN Charter.

But in an interview with his own Earth Charter Commission, Strong said "the real goal of the Earth Charter is it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments. It will become a symbol of the aspirations and commitments of people everywhere." Sounds like Maurice was hanging out at his spirit ranch without his sunhat on.

In 1990, Strong told a reporter a fantasy scenario for the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland – where 1,000 diplomats, CEOs and politicians gather "to address global issues."

Strong, naturally, is on the board of the World Economic Forum. "What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude the principal risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?…

In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?"

Strong may still want to bring down the rich Western industrial democracies. He and George Soros, with whom he's worked on both political goals and business ventures, are pouring money into the Chinese automobile industry, with the goal of flooding the U.S. market with cheap Chinese cars. Strong lives in China these days, and he wants to help China overtake the U.S. economically and become the world's dominant superpower. Never mind what that does to China's "carbon footprint." 

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Clinton chutzpah, continued

Posted by Richard on March 15, 2007

Today, Rush Limbaugh echoed practically everything I said in Clinton chutzpah, including the suggestion that Sen. Clinton pledge not to fire any U.S. Attorneys if elected President. He quoted extensively from today's excellent Wall Street Journal editorial, which argued that any inquiry into "the politicization of our prosecutorial system" should call Hillary and her good friend Web Hubbell as the star witnesses:

As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno–or Mr. Hubbell–gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.

At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.

The Journal noted the troubling connection to the Rostenkowski investigation that I mentioned, but they remembered another potential motive that I'd forgotten:

Also at the time, allegations concerning some of the Clintons' Whitewater dealings were coming to a head. By dismissing all 93 U.S. Attorneys at once, the Clintons conveniently cleared the decks to appoint "Friend of Bill" Paula Casey as the U.S. Attorney for Little Rock. Ms. Casey never did bring any big Whitewater indictments, and she rejected information from another FOB, David Hale, on the business practices of the Arkansas elite including Mr. Clinton. When it comes to "politicizing" Justice, in short, the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons.

And it may be this very amateurism that explains how the current Administration has managed to turn this routine issue of replacing Presidential appointees into a political fiasco. There was nothing wrong with replacing the eight Attorneys, all of whom serve at the President's pleasure. Prosecutors deserve supervision like any other executive branch appointees.

It's not just amateurism and ineptness. I saw Attorney General Gonzales being grilled by George Stephanopoulos, and I heard clips of him being hammered by Matt Lauer. Inept certainly describes his performance in both interviews, but there's a deeper problem, and it's endemic throughout the Republican leadership. When they're attacked by Democrats or especially the media, no matter how unfair or nasty or easily refuted the attack is, the Republicans' first impulse seems to be to cower and grovel. "Please don't hate me! I'm not a bad person, really I'm not!"

Today's Democrats are perpetually outraged. Today's Republicans are perpetually apologetic. 

The Journal went on to describe some of the background to the firings. It sounds like McKay of Washington state and Iglesias of New Mexico should have been sacked long ago. The less clear-cut cases — policy differences over the death penalty, disputed managerial skills, and the like — rate a shrug, followed by "It's the President's call."

When Democrats and the media started trying to make a fuss about these firings, Republicans should have been falling all over each other to call press conferences and get in front of microphones. They should have expressed outrage that Democrats would try to interfere with the President's prerogatives regarding these appointments. They should have been contemptuous of these absurd calls for investigations. They should have cried, "How dare you, Sen. Clinton!"

The current GOP leadership consists primarily of spineless wusses with a Rodney King approach to politics: "Can't we all just get along?" No, we can't. And nobody's going to stand by you if you won't stand up for yourselves.

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