Fundamentally flawed

Dinesh D'Souza would like to blame the American, secular left for inspiring those who resort to terrorism around the world, but can't figure out why he's taking so much heat. While his theories place him with such hallowed company as Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell, he insists his Hoover institute background should allow critics to weigh his arguements more heavily than the the other fundamentalist wingnuts. He is mistaken.

While "some" may have had the desire to annihilate all terrorists in response to the 9/11 attacks, many more had the sense to realize how futile that attempt would be. Killing all the terrorists everywhere is not any more feasible than eradicating all drugs from everywhere. Both could theoretically be accomplished, but only by killing thousands of innocents in the process. While the terrorists have no ethical qualms with such gambits, Americans are supposed to. Those of us that protest Bush are not trying to forfeit the 'war on terror', we just don't agree with his methods. Our "enemies in Iraq" have only surfaced since the invasion began. The "kill all the terrorists" mentality is creating more terrorists. Certainly there are more causes, but to blame Planned Parenthood is a pretty lame argument. Has Bin Laden actually railed against use of the infidels' contraceptives? Since the radical Islamists hate such secular organizations as Human Rights Watch, we should collectively abandon the pursuit of universal human rights - that all men (and women) are created equally? It is American fundamentalists who are playing the terrorists' game by answering their provocations with the indiscriminate, brute force they know will further their cause.

Last throes

Liz Cheney takes a cue from mumsly's rip into Wolf Blitzer and asks our nation to accept nothing short of victory.

And what is victory? How are we to accept nothing short of VICTORY when we dont know what VICTORY means? Ms. Cheney has nothing to offer there and even her fathers boss tells us not to expect a big ceremony on a battleship when the mission is accomplished. Yes we are all aware of the stakes and your dire predictions about the consequences of retreat. Forgive us if we dont take you so seriously after your father, Last Throes Dick, lied to us so many times before.

This colossal mistake wrapped in illusion should have been the sole responsibility of its sociopathic instigators. Yet those very leaders now seek counsel from those citizens they initially deemed unpatriotic for warning them about the colossal mistake wrapped in illusion they were about to embark upon. Ms. Cheney is now just one of the few poor pathetic saps still buying into her daddys hollow death machine.

Dirty Words

In case you missed the mostly hyper-boring Senate Judiciary Hearings last Thursday, the most important thing you may have missed was that His Royal Majesty Alberto Gonzales is under the impression that an explicit Constitutional right is not really a right these days. Let's take the clocks back to the year 1214, so as to better understand his rationale:

GONZALES: [T]here is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away. But it's never been the case, and I'm not a Supreme...

SPECTER: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away, except in the case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, unless there is an invasion or rebellion?

GONZALES: I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesn't say, "Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas." It doesn't say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except by...

SPECTER: You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General.

GONZALES: Um...

Is that how we should expect an Attorney General to interpret the law? Even the American Spectator and Rolling Stone can agree that it is not.

Urge to Surge

There is much talk about sending some 35,000 more troops to Iraq (or really, just extending the deployment of those already there) despite the warning from Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker that current deployment levels, surge or not, will "break the Army." Bush has repeatedly stated that he listens to his generals when it comes to crafting Iraq 'strategery', yet the very man behind the surge plan admits that that has not and will not be the case. Fred Kagan, whose American Enterprise Institute has been a leading advocate of shaking up the entire Middle East, offered this particulary disturbing quote to the BBC:

The amazing thing about George Bush is that on every occasion, he has done what he thought was the right thing to do and he has not worried about polls and he has remained committed to courses that were wildly unpopular. I don't see any sign of that changing - it's a core element of his personality and it is the only thing that has kept us in the fight thus far, even with the problems in strategy.

The facts are not is dispute when it comes to just how wildly disasterous those courses of action have been. Even the truest believers will no longer frame this failed effort in terms of national security or even national interest. What is really just plain sad is that in Kagan we have an advocate of throwing more lives on the fire who is insinuating that from the beginning, Bush has instigated and conducted this war not by strategy, but by faith. Lives are being sacrificed in ever increasing numbers solely because a formerly besotted frat boy has some vague, born-again notion that it is "the right thing to do." God help us all.