An example of this tactic was presented on December 6 when the Hudson Institute hosted a day-long conference on the "global character of the new defense industry." The think tank was up front about who was paying for this particular take on national security. The invitation stated that the event was "sponsored by the global aerospace and defense company Finmeccanica." Yet, this was still a bit misleading. While Finmeccanica seeks to operate on a global scale, it is very much a nationalistic Italian firm. A keynote speech was made by Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, Chairman and CEO of Finmeccanica. Additional speeches were given by Giovanni Castellaneta, Italy's Ambassador to the United States and Lt. Gen. Carmine Pollice, Vice Director of National Armaments for the Italian Ministry of Defense. And the identified target of the program was "legislation (‘Buy American' Acts) that limit Pentagon purchases of military equipment from non-U.S. manufacturers, particularly restrictions on military procurement from companies based in allied countries."

That an American think tank, especially one with Hudson's long pedigree on defense issues going back to its founder, renowned nuclear strategist Herman Kahn, would sell itself as a platform for a foreign corporation to attack aspects of U.S. policy is disturbing. Unfortunately, there were also plenty of Americans present to support "free trade " in defense systems. To a large extent, the six big American prime defense contractors have become assemblers ("system integrators") of components outsourced around the world. Their focus is on corporate planning, not on national requirements. It should never be forgotten – as it conveniently was at this conference, that the only reason the defense industry exists is to serve national requirements. The tone of the conference was that national policy should change to serve corporate interests.

Lockheed Martin apparently used its budding relationship with Hudson to open the door for Finmeccania's program. Lockheed Martin supplies avionics and propulsion gear to the Italian C-27J tactical cargo plane, whose manufacturer is vying for a 145-aircraft order to equip the U.S. Air Force and Army. Its main rival is the C-295 built by a French-German-Spanish alliance led by EADS. However, according to Defense News (Dec. 5, 2005), Lockheed Martin first became involved in the C-27J project as a defense “offset ” for its sale of C-130J aircraft to Italy.

The U.S. Interagency Offsets Steering Committee has defined offsets as "industrial compensation practices required as a condition of purchasing defense articles and services." Such offsets include mandatory co-production, licensed production, subcontractor production, technology transfer, counter trade, and foreign investment. The object is for the buyer to recoup as much as possible from the seller. According to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, which publishes an annual report on offsets, Italy received offsets equal to 93.8% of its purchases of U.S. military equipment over the period 1993-2004. The Italian government and its defense firms clearly do not follow the same "open" trading philosophy they want the United States to adopt. In 2005, Italy ran a $19.5 billion trade surplus with the United States, up from $17.4 billion in 2004. Italy is clearly not a victim of U.S. trade policy.

The most egregious example of an American firm giving cover to the foreign penetration of the U.S. defense industry is Northrup Grumman's role in promoting EADS against Boeing for the next generation of USAF refueling tankers. Northrup Grumman has been running ads in industry journals, but their early version gave the game away. A February ad opened with the claim that "for nearly a century Northrup Grumman has been creating and leveraging innovative technologies" but was now promoting "a cost-effective system based on EADS' commercially successful A330." The A330 is one of the Airbus models. The ads being run today have dropped any mention of EADS, though they continue to show the same artist conception of the A330 painted in USAF colors. It has become a true/false flag campaign. The Hudson conference morning session was on "obstacles to cooperation between allies on the research and development of new weapons and systems" though this quickly moved from R&D to the actual movement of production overseas. The afternoon session was focused on technology transfers and export controls, with an emphasis on needed "reforms" that would make it easier for foreign firms to get their hands on American technology.

There was very little real discussion, as Hudson earned its pay by stacking all the panels with globalists endorsing Finmeccanica's agenda. Still, occasionally something slipped out to warm the heart of an economic nationalist. Lisa Bronson, a professor at the National Defense University, argued that Defense Department acquisition culture is "not designed to share." It seeks the best weapon systems to meet American needs, and worries about "sharing" with allies only as an after thought. And this is a problem for whom? She also noted that European firms and governments were often more interested in gaining technology and a share of the production work, than in the performance of the military system in terms of mutual security.

One of the best speakers was not an American, but Gerald Howarth, a Member of Parliament who is also in the Conservative Party's shadow cabinet. As a Tory, he upheld that control of one's own defense industry and technical capabilities was a core attribute of sovereignty. He also acknowledged that with the UK spending only 2.3% of GDP on defense, and most of continental Europe spending not much more than 1% (compared to 4.5% of GDP in the United States), it was going to be difficult to maintain a European defense industry. Thus, European firms are looking to America to keep themselves in business.

Howarth noted that British Aerospace (BAE) already employs more people in the United States (38,000) than in the UK (32,000), and is the Pentagon's 6th largest supplier– but without acknowledging that it is "buy America" policies and preferences that have forced BAE to move facilities to the United States.

Policies that bolster such "in sourcing" by foreign firms should be strengthened, as they bring new capital and technology into the American economy, as opposed to "out sourcing" industrial capacity and future advances by importing goods from overseas. Many speakers noted that America does not have a monopoly on new ideas, but the aim of policy should be to capture ideas and add them to the U.S. industrial base.

Howarth argued that even though the UK cannot afford to maintain a full spectrum defense industry, it cannot just buy American weapons off the shelf because as a matter of sovereignty, it must keep certain critical industries protected at home. It must also gain full "sovereign" control over foreign technology embedded in the weapons it buys, as in the contentious case of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter being sold by Lockheed. This is true of every major nation, but especially for the United States if it wants to remain the world's leader.

One of Howarth's points was also made by Vago Muradian, editor of Defense News, the leading publication in the field. He asked, if the Europeans are not willing to fight, or maintain adequate military forces, why do they need a defense industry? And how can they be expected to keep up with new technology when the United States spends seven times as much on military R&D as does the European Union ? Given the collapse of defense spending in the EU, Lt. Gen. Pollice's claim that without a better trade balance with America, a self-reliant "fortress Europe" would emerge seems an empty threat.

But Muradian did not take the next step and ask why should the United States bail out European firms whose home markets have collapsed? And an even more important question needs to be considered. How can the United States risk allowing its defense systems to become dependent on European partners who may not be able to survive over time? Italy may be a close ally at the moment, having sent troops to Iraq, but the weapon systems American is buying today will be in service for 20, 30, or more years. It is impossible to foresee what changes may occur in the international environment over such a long period. All we know is that America will continue to need a strong military built on a secure economic base.

One of the worst speakers was John Douglass, head of the Aerospace Industries Association, whose leading members (such as Boeing) favor increased freedom to outsource research and production, so as to operate their defense sectors on the same hollow basis as their commercial sectors. He claimed that the new Democratic Congress would be "more enlightened" than the outgoing Republicans (at least in the House) about working with Europe!

The European model which many Democrats have embraced is one opposed to "unilateral" actions to protect American interests, that embraces the United Nations, and which cuts defense spending to the bone. Will Douglass still be happy if the new high-tech systems his member companies are developing are scrapped by a new Congressional majority favoring higher spending on urban poverty programs instead?

Douglass was proud that the U.S. exports 40% of its aerospace production, making it one of the very few sectors of American industry that runs a trade surplus. But he misses the fact that the objective of the Europeans is to reduce this surplus. The U.S.-based defense industry is a success story, providing the country with military capabilities that no one else on the planet can match, so why the desire to change it? Yet, Douglass proclaimed that the AIA was going to make "free trade" an issue in the 2008 election, and wanted the Europeans to work with AIA in making its case!

Robert H. Trice, Senior Vice President of Lockheed Martin, made a positive contribution by being one of the few people to talk of the "800 pound gorilla in the room, China." He said that a major concern in Washington regarding American companies working with European partners is fear that technology would be passed through Europe to China. While it is important to share technology with allies in order to bolster American exports, there must be firewalls against further proliferation.

Italy is lobbying the European Union to lift the arms embargo on China, so it was not surprising that Stephen Bryen, President of Finmeccanica's U.S. affiliate, would proclaim that Beijing is not a threat. Finmeccanica is already very active in doing business in China that violates the spirit (if not the letter) of the EU ban. The ease with which corporate money can overcome concerns about national security is always disturbing. Bryen was Deputy Under Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration. He was responsible for technology security policy and worked to formulate national policies to protect U.S. military and commercial products, know-how and intellectual property. Now he works for foreign interests trying to undo all he had once honorably worked to build.

Another former official also spoke in favor of ignoring China. Suzanne Patrick served as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Industrial Policy in President George W. Bush's first term. She argued that we should not treat China as an enemy, or we will turn Beijing into one. It is a good thing she left the Pentagon, since this year's Quadrennial Defense Review states, "Of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time off set traditional U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter strategies....The pace and scope of China's military build-up already puts regional military balances at risk."

Just before Thanksgiving, a new spy story broke involving Beijing's attempts to steal U.S. military technology. It was reported that China obtained secret stealth technology used on the B-2 strategic bomber from a Hawaii-based spy ring headed by former defense contractor Noshir Gowadia. Meanwhile, AIA, the National Association of Manufacturers, and other globalized business groups are lobbying against attempts by the Commerce Department to tighten up security restrictions on trade with China.

A common theme of the globalist speakers was that policies meant to maintain a strong, domestic defense industry are Cold War relics. A number of speakers, including Douglass and Bryen, claimed that the only perils now were terrorists and perhaps a few backward rogue states. This is the view of a harmonious world that was popular in the 1990s, and which formed the setting for commercial globalization. Any realistic look around the world makes nonsense of this utopian concept. It is especially foolish when held by those in the defense industry. The reason America needs a defense industry to support a powerful military is because the world is not harmonious and stable. In the long run, the United States cannot outsource its security without putting its survival at risk.

William R. Hawkins is Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council.
http://americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=2649

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Bluster aside, Carter's chief complaint seems to be that anyone who identifies with Israel, whether in the form of individual support or in a more organized capacity, is incapable of grappling honestly with the issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Carter is poorly placed to make this claim. If such connections alone are sufficient to discredit his
critics, then by his own logic Carter is undeserving of a hearing. After all, the Carter Center, the combination research and activist project he founded at Emory University in 1982, has for years prospered from the largesse of assorted Arab financiers.

Especially lucrative have been Carter's ties to Saudi Arabia. Before his death in 2005, King Fahd was a longtime contributor to the Carter Center and on more than one occasion contributed million-dollar donations. In 1993 alone, the king presented Carter with a gift of $7.6 million. And the king was not the only Saudi royal to commit funds to
Carter's cause. As of 2005, the king's high-living nephew, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has donated at least $5 million to the Carter Center.

Meanwhile the Saudi Fund for Development, the kingdom's leading loan organization, turns up repeatedly on the center's list of supporters. Carter has also found moneyed allies in the Bin Laden family, and in 2000 he secured a promise from ten of Osama bin Laden's brothers for a $1 million contribution to his center. To be sure, there is no evidence that the Bin Laden’s maintain any contact with their terrorist relation. But applying Carter's own standard, his extensive contacts with the Saudi elite must make his views on the Middle East suspect.

High praise for Carter's work -- and not inconsiderable financial support -- also comes from the United Arab Emirates. In 2001, Carter even traveled to the country to accept the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the late UAE potentate and former president-for-life. Having claimed his $500,000 purse, Carter enthused that the "award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter also hailed the UAE as an "almost completely open and free society" -- a surreal depiction of a rigidly authoritarian country where the government handpicks a select group of citizens to vote and strictly controls the editorial content of the newspapers and where Islamic Sharia courts judge "sodomy" punishable by death. (To appreciate the depth of Carter's cynicism, one need only compare his gushing encomia to the emirates with his likening of Israel, the most modern and democratic country in the entire Middle East, with the racist "apartheid" of South Africa.)

On top of these official honors, Carter was offered a forum at the Abu Dhabi-based Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow Up, the country's official "think-tank." For his part, Carter declared his intention to forge a "partnership" with the center; in a 2002 letter, Carter praised its efforts to "promote peace, health, and human rights around the
world."

Inconveniently for Carter, the center has since become famous for a different reason: It has repeatedly played host to anti-Semitic speakers who have denied the Holocaust, supported terrorism, and alleged an international conspiracy of Jews and Zionists to dominate the world. (Harvard University, in contrast to Carter's enthusiasm for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, rejected a $2.5 million from the ruler in 2004 due to his ties to the Zayed Center.)

Nor does this exhaust the list of Carter's backers in the Arab world. Still other supporters include Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who sits atop Oman's absolute monarchy. An occasional host to Carter, the sultan has also made generous contributions to his center. Prior to inviting Carter for a "personal visit" in 1998, the sultan pledged $1 million to the Carter Center, promising additional support in the future. Similarly, Morocco's Prince Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah, the second in line to the kingdom's throne, has in the past partnered with Carter on the center's initiatives.

On its face, there is nothing objectionable about these contacts. What has raised critics' eyebrows is Carter's immense chutzpah: In securing the financial support of assorted Arab leaders, Carter has gradually come to parrot their anti-Israel political agenda -- even as he styles himself as a dispassionate mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This was nowhere more evident than in Carter's credulous support for the late Yasir Arafat. Although Carter had championed Araft as a committed peacemaker since his presidency, in the face of ample evidence to the contrary, his apologies for the terrorist chieftain became particularly shameless in the 1990s. When Arafat and his PLO backed Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, thereby loosing the support and -- more important for the corrupt Arafat -- the funding of neighboring Sunni Arab powers, Carter embarked on a Middle East publicity tour to revive Arafat's diminishing fortunes. As recorded by Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley, "together [Carter and Arafat] strategized on how to recover the PLO's standing in the United States." In desperation, Carter turned up in Saudi Arabia on what Brinkley called "essentially a fund-raising mission for the PLO," pleading with King Fahd to restore Arafat to the Saudi dole.

Now that Arafat's Fatah has been replaced with Hamas, Carter has again proven himself a reliable ally of Palestinian extremism. Scarcely had the terrorist group ascended to power last January than Carter launched a media blitz urging the United States to circumvent its own laws against financing terrorism in order to fund Hamas. As the New York Times put with exquisite finesse, Carter called on Western nations to "redirect their relief aid to United Nations organizations and nongovernmental organizations to skirt legal restrictions" -- that is, to launder money to a terrorist group. When American policymakers declined to heed his advice, and Israel proved unwilling to bankroll the enemy seeking its destruction, Carter promptly denounced the both countries for their "common commitment to eviscerate the government of elected Hamas."

With its relentless disparagement of Israel and its reckless abuse of the historical record, Carter's latest book may fairly be seen as the logical culmination of his many years of anti-Israel incitement. There was of course no shortage of clues about Carter's sympathies in his earlier books. In his 2004 memoir Sharing Good Times, for instance, Carter recalled the trips he has taken over the years to Arab dictatorships in Syria and Saudi Arabia and noted with evident satisfaction that he was "always greeted with smiles and friendship."

Readers may be forgiven for finding nothing shocking in this admission. Carter may still harbor illusions of grandeur, seeing himself as an instrument of peace in the Middle East. But an altogether different element explains his enduring popularity in Arab capitals: Not for all the millions they have sunk into the Carter Center over the years could Arab elites have hoped to purchase such a prominent and willing propaganda tool.

Hat tip: David R.

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"Some of our cleverest leaders solved that. First, we passed a law requiring that everyone care for their guns and store them properly. We instituted a massive educational campaign to stress the importance of this.

"That helped, but of course there were still people who didn’t comply.

"The way we ultimately solved the problem was for the government to provide citizens with the service of taking care of their guns for them.

"We built huge buildings in every community and hired firearm experts to work there. We passed a new law requiring everyone to drop off their guns at the building closest to them every morning, and then pick them up in the early evening. Some complained this was inconvenient for them, so we created a system to pick the guns up at each home every morning and return them to the owners in the evenings.

"Having the guns all day gives our government-trained firearms experts a chance to modify those that don’t comply with gun regulations, in addition to making sure they are cleaned and stored safely.

"It’s a win-win. Folks really appreciate this service!

"A great side effect that we didn’t anticipate was that it gives more freedom to everyone! No longer do citizens worry about what might happen to their guns if they left them at home during the day, so they can go to work or run their errands in peace.

"They know their guns are safe and well-cared-for. And of course they appreciate not having to do the hard work of taking care of their guns themselves."

Councilman Brown interrupts with a question: "Have you encountered any problems with this system?"
"Not really." Ms. Smith pauses. "Well, some people complain that the government experts don’t do a good job. Some say that their guns don’t work as well as they used to, or that they prefer to take care of them themselves, for whatever reasons.

"No problem. To appease these complainers, we allow them to take their guns to private, licensed companies that provide the same service. Of course, not many people take advantage of these private services, because after all they have to PAY for them, whereas the tax-funded government service is free.

Councilman Jones: "Sounds great! This is something I think we should consider here."

I look around at the mostly conservative and libertarian crowd – who, predictably go ballistic.

"You’ve got to be kidding!" says a man on the front row. "You’ll never see that here!" says another.

"You’ll take my guns when you pry them from my cold dead fingers!" shouts a man in the back row, and soon the crowd is on its feet – echoing his statement and booing the politicians.

Whew! It’s clear we won’t see this sort of thing in my community any time soon.

As I nod in agreement with the crowd, I notice an image out of the corner of my eye – a bright yellow school bus is passing by the window.

And suddenly I realize that just about everyone in the room allows government workers to come every day and take away something – something far more precious than any piece of metal.

That big yellow school bus takes our children to huge government buildings where most of their waking hours are spent. Where each day begins with an invocation of loyalty to the state. Where their most treasured spiritual values and symbols are banished. Where peer pressure replaces family values. Where the truly important questions of life can’t be asked, much less answered. Where pop culture surpasses the classics. Where socialism is taught – both in theory and by example. Where conformity and indoctrination are far more important than thinking or reading…

Libertarians and most conservatives boldly and nobly take a stand for our right to keep and bear arms. Not so we can go duck hunting, but so we can defend ourselves and our families from invasion. And so we can, if necessary, defend our liberty from the possibility of a tyrannical state.

But what if the tyranny we fear comes to pass – grown and nurtured in our very homes?

Until we have equal passion for defending our children from the invasion of their MINDS – unless we take a bold and noble stand for the separation of SCHOOL and state – we will continue to allow our children to be taken from our warm, loving arms.

by Sharon Harris

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/harris-sharon1.html

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Political correctness in this country reached an entirely new level of absurdity some years ago. But occasionally, and the situation at Sea-Tac is just such an occasion, we exceed ourselves. The militant fundamentalist rabbi so flummoxed Sea-Tac management with his threat and their perceived obligation to be "politically correct" that, rather than think rationally or simply tell him to stuff it, they started hacking away at all those artificial Christmas trees and quickly descended into a public relations nightmare in which they managed to offend reason, cultural values and the vast majority of Americans.

As CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin told me, "The Supreme Court has held since 1984, the famous 'Reindeer Rule,' that if a symbol of Christmas is mostly secular, like a reindeer or a Christmas tree or Santa Claus, that is not a violation of the separation of church and state."

The irony that escaped the rabid rabbi and the timid Sea-Tac management team is that the Christmas tree's likely origin dates back to pre-Christian pagan cultures. The Christmas tree is not by any means a religious symbol, and when we're honest about it, the tree's become a purely commercial symbol more closely associated with shopping, roasting chestnuts and guzzling eggnog than a nativity scene with baby Jesus.

And hang on, Christians, because you're in 21st Century America, and our culture celebrates your holiest day of the year with such insensitive gusto that our economy would suffer a serious setback if your religious sensibilities were as easily offended as those of the litigious rabbi.

More than 140 million shoppers spent an average of about $360 on Black Friday alone, the day after Thanksgiving and the unofficial kickoff to the Christmas shopping season, according to the National Retail Federation. And all those Christmas shoppers are expected to spend nearly a half-trillion dollars this shopping season.

Now if I were a fundamentalist Christian, that might strike me as a little politically incorrect. And I think all of you folks should think about suing somebody. You know, get in the spirit of the season.

This mindless movement of political correctness at all costs is one of the most un-American and crazy twists in our culture as anything we've witnessed. Remember, we're Americans, and we have freedom of speech, that whole life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing. Or at least we did.

And I hope you'll celebrate the Christmas season by offending someone. If you're Jewish, how about a hearty "Happy Hanukkah" to a good Christian? If they're offended you've revealed a fool, not such a good Christian and someone you shouldn't waste your expression of good will upon. But get ready for a few robust "Merry Christmas" calls to be thrown your way as well.

The operators of the Seattle-Tacoma airport quickly righted a potentially dreadful wrong. The rabbi decided not to file a suit, Christmas trees have sprung back up throughout the concourse, and no, not a single menorah has been spotted. I can only hope this is the beginning of a major movement in America, one that regards thinking as paramount to phony feelings and heightened self-centered sensitivities. Common sense and judgment should always reign supreme over political correctness, no matter what the current trend.

And, my gosh, even Wal-Mart this year has abandoned its generic, politically correct "Happy Holidays" greeting in favor of "Merry Christmas." I'm starting to think this may be the season to be jolly after all. Ho, ho, ho.

To all, a Merry Christmas. OK, and a Happy Hanukkah, too.

Lou Dobbs
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/Dobbs.Dec13/index.html
Editor's note: Lou Dobbs' commentary appears every Wednesday on CNN.com

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Would John Danforth or his successors—and for that matter, any and all of our elected representatives—have to defend our Constitution against enemies within our own country? Yes, they will—or they had better—because the enemy is upon us already.

In 2006, our country is again gripped and increasingly bound by tyrants—not regents and despots from afar, but by cancerous growths from within. Long ago it was prophesied by objective observers that America was too strong to be defeated by outside forces, but it could someday rot and crumble from within and go the way of all the other great nation-states, succumbing in the slime of selfishness, greed, immorality, and abuse of its own freedoms.

It’s happening all around us. Our valiant ship of state is listing, springing dangerous leaks in vital places, threatening after only 230 years to sink into the abyss of history. Fellow citizens, we won our first revolution under God; now, because of the inroads that have been made already against many of the values we hold dear, I call for a new revolution!

What are the powerful forces steadily binding us all around, like a sleeping Gulliver in Lilliput Land, robbing us of the very liberty to perpetuate the vision of our Founding Fathers? There are several, and they are pernicious, relentless, and eventually fatal. I’ll list the most obvious:

Ignorance, which is appalling, pervasive, and increasing daily. Basic literary and math skills diminish. Newspapers choose 4th grade vocabulary and short, shallow stories to cater to the lowest possible denominator. They’ve discovered that the median reading comprehension level in America today is at the 4th grade level. American history is abbreviated and given short shift, taught very selectively according to prevailing “political correctness” and intellectual bias. Left-leaning media and even liberal church groups abandon “first principles” and historic guidelines, constantly brainwashing the masses, cutting them adrift from ancient moorings into a sea of aimless relativism.

Apathy. America grew huge and strong on the near-unanimous involvement of its citizens. In war or peace, every vote counted and every voice could be heard. From each ward to each city hall to each county board to each state house and to each legislature to the very halls of Congress, the citizens took part, debated, came to majority agreements, and moved forward. Today, too often half or more of our citizens who are eligible don’t even vote! They feel left out, unnecessary, distracted, cynical, and alienated—and, of course, ignorant of the issues—so they stay home and grouse. This has to stop! Citizens, this new revolution must overthrow the bonds and blindness of ignorance and disinvolvement. Our country must be stirred and called to action!

Materialism/Need. I’m combining these two because I believe they are related. Greed, corporate and personal, combined with inevitable dishonesty (the Bible says “the love of money is the root of all evil”) widen the gap between multimillionaires and the multi-millions of hard-working families and retired seniors—not to mention the physically and emotionally handicapped and ill—who can’t pay all their bills or even afford their medicines, even if they work two or three jobs. Well-intentioned politicians keep calling on Big Brother government (the groaning taxpayers, namely, us) to solve the problems with bureaucracy.

Citizens, socialism is not the answer! Social responsibility is—individual, local, and active response to our brother’s needs. And the new revolution must have the sensitivity and heart and will to voluntarily use our vast resources to meet our human needs. The early colonists who gave us this nation knew how to do that; we’ve got to learn how all over again.

Humanism, Immorality, and Godlessness—an unholy trinity. Most Christians believe in a triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Many Old Testament scriptures foreshadow each of these three distinct persons in the same Godhead. But today in America, we are confronted and threatened by an unholy trinity that has sunk its roots deep down into our society: godlessness, immorality, and humanism.

Remove God from public life (as a number of perverse, determined, and well-funded activist groups are doing very effectively), and a cancerous spirit of immorality seeps relentlessly across the land like a poison gas, corrupting all forms of entertainment, encouraging drugs and violence and rampant promiscuity in the streets, in schools, homes, businesses, politics, and even some churches, with the inevitable surrender to humanism. Man rules his own destiny, God is dead, and “if it feels good, do it!” Radio personalities wince when they’re fined for obscenity and sacrilege by the Federal Communications Commission and rail at the President demanding their “First Amendment rights.” But they’re not seeking “free speech”; they’ve had that their whole lives and careers. No, they want “freedom of filth.” Our Founding Fathers would have had them tarred and feathered and whipped in the public square.

In 1952, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Douglas declared, “The First Amendment does not say that in every respect there shall be a separation of church and state. That is the common sense of the matter. Otherwise, the state and religion would be aliens to each other-hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We cannot read into the Bill of Rights such a philosophy of hostility to religion.”

Wise old Ben Franklin, certainly no religious fanatic, said “only a moral and virtuous people are capable of freedom; the more corrupt and vicious a society becomes, the more it has need of masters.”

George Washington clearly and bluntly stated, “religion and morality are the twin pillars of freedom!” And our fourth president, James Madison, to whom many refer as the “father of the Constitution,” said this, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of the government, far from it. We have staked the future of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us…to govern ourselves according to the commandments of God. The future of America is not in the Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this constitution is founded.”

Citizens, the enemy within has already subverted the Constitution and bound us with ever strengthened cords of immorality and indecency and godlessness. We must mount a new revolution and throw them into the sea! Judicial Activism—lawmaking judges, Wyatt Earps who shoot not from the hip but from the bench.

Thomas Jefferson warned us: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” Jefferson didn’t fear the executive or legislative branches of government; he knew they would obey the citizens who elected them. But we would have to be very watchful lest unelected jurists bind upon us their views, not the expressed will of the people. And look: In just two or three decades, renegades in black robes, ignoring or perverting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, have been responsible for taking prayer from school children, taking every mention of God from the public square, authorizing 40 million abortions, dictating severe reversals of states’ rights and individual freedoms, and even now they are redefining the institution of “marriage,” flying in the face of all recorded history and the very foundations of society.

Citizens, we need a new Boston Tea Party. Only this time, let’s not waste perfectly good tea. Let’s heave a bunch of black robes into the harbor with some of those vigilante judges in them. It won’t hurt the robes, and the defrocked jurists can swim out and reenroll in Constitution 101!

Fellow citizens, fellow Americans: Our forefathers, the early colonists, were decent, hardworking, ordinary people who rose to the challenge that confronted them, threw off the yoke of British bondage and unfair taxation, and established a new republic. Like trichinosis in pork, our muscles and our will have been sapped and weakened by insidious forces from within. Do we still have the will, the vision, the zeal—and the plain old gumption— to stand up to these invaders, root them out, overturn their unconstitutional rulings, and reestablish our republic that represents not just all its citizens, but our traditional morals and guidelines? If we do, let the revolution begin! And God bless America one more time!

Delivered at the Heritage Foundation, November 29, 2006 by Pat Boone.

Pat Boone is a recording artist, entertainer, bestselling author, and a national spokesman for the 60 Plus Association (www.60plus.org).

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A day after the Democrats won both houses of Congress, President Bush accepted the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. The nomination for Rumsfeld’s replacement as secretary of Defense was Robert Gates, a cathartic election’s first fruits. Last week, Gates was confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan vote that saw only two senators vote against him: Senator Bunning and myself.

The many failings of the administration in Iraq are well known. Ignored is the larger failing of our country’s leaders: their unwillingness to define, with clarity, honesty, and consistency, the enemy we face and the complex and enormous threat it poses to the lives and freedoms of all Americans.

If America were not at war, I would have deferred to the president’s judgment in his choice for secretary of Defense. Gates is a competent and experienced nominee. But we are at war, and we need exceptional leadership and insight. Gates unfortunately shares the view of the Iraq Study Group that we cannot win the battle in Iraq; at this point, our best option is to withdraw slowly and to negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran has been at war with us since 1979, and is today the principle instigator of systematic murder in Iraq; to negotiate a truce with that country at this point would be to negotiate our terms of surrender. This would be seen as an historic defeat for America – most assuredly, and notably, in the eyes of the radical Islamic world..

The Iraq Study Group and Secretary Gates see clearly the problems in Iraq and the contributions Iran makes to these problems. They do not think we can win in Iraq because they do not think that we can win in Iran; or, at least, they do not think that we must win in Iran. We must confront Iran to win in Iraq, and, more than that, we must confront Iran if we are to defeat Islamic fascism all over the world. The president’s nomination of Gates, and the Senate’s passive and overwhelming support of him, shows that our leaders have not understood the peril we are in and are not prepared to win the war that is being waged against us.

How could it be that a bitterly divided Washington has suddenly come to a consensus that will surely lead us on a path to failure in Iraq, and then to even more disastrous consequences? Can our country’s leaders really have concluded that the public’s discontent with the war in Iraq changes even one bit the nature of the threat our enemy poses to us? These are questions well worth asking our politicians, and first of all, our commander-in-chief, lest he contemplate changing his mind about the enemy we face.

The president is not unaware of the situation in Iran, but his view of the country is informed by the advisers who surround him, a collection of people from the various sectors of the foreign-policy establishment. His intelligence team, led by the director of National Intelligence, will advise him that the opposition in Iran is weak and divided and that there is no legitimate exile community; thus we have no real alternative to either bombing the country or establishing by diplomacy a modus vivendi. The Pentagon will advise the president that our already stretched forces are unable to engage in another conflict. The State Department and our new secretary of Defense do not think that there is a casus belli and that our best hope for mitigating the many crises of that region is to negotiate with Iran.

So, if we should not expect the president to explain why we must confront Iran, what of the Congress?

The Democrats of course would never confront Iran because they attribute their wins in November to America’s growing dissatisfaction with Iraq. If continued instability in Iraq works to their political benefit, why would they change the subject to Iran, particularly when they have no solution to propose and have always been skeptical that military force will do anything to stop Islamic terrorism?

Many Republicans understand the problems that Iran is causing in Iraq, but they have no wish to be portrayed as warmongers by the media and the Democratic Party. If Americans have had enough with Iraq, it would be only too easy to characterize any confrontation with Iran as the United States becoming hopelessly and dangerously entangled in a region whose ills defy remedy.

Iraq is only one front in a larger war being waged against the Western world. We are under siege by people with an ideology, a plan, hundreds of millions of dollars, and an ever increasing presence on virtually every continent. Yet none of the decision makers in Washington is willing to confront Iran; the threat that Iran poses, as the standard-bearer of Islamic fascism, goes unacknowledged.

This is undoubtedly an unpopular war. Those who define the enemy as radical Islamic fascism are ridiculed by the media and others; the term is dismissed as inflammatory and inapt. It is not inapt, and thus it is not inflammatory. The term “Islamic fascism” is no harsher than those we used to describe our enemies in the Second World War. And just as we did not call all Italians “fascists” then, so too we do not call all Muslims “fascists” now.

Words define the enemy we confront. They help the American people comprehend what motivates the enemy. Without clear, accurate words, we cannot fight effectively: our own people become confused and divided, and the fascists are encouraged to believe that we fear them. When we fail to recognize the connection between Iraq and Iran, we postpone the day when we define a strategy to win the war, instead of a list of steps to retreat from the Iraqi theater.

The Gates nomination and confirmation show that our leaders do not understand the true dimensions of the war. So long as they do not understand this, how can we ever expect to win? (Emphasis added)

Rick Santorum is the outgoing junior Republican senator from Pennsylvania.

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To David R.:

You're concerns seem well placed. If we were to project your sentiments into the future, we’re forced to deal with some unpleasant scenarios. For example:

Six Arab nations, Islamic regimes with terrorist intent and teeming with fanatics, not unlike fire ants and Africanized bees, have apparently told the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency that they also plan to pursue, acquire and master nuclear technology. The threat of nuclear weapons held by Iran is quickly becoming only the first outwardly visible canker sore on the backside of humanity.

The cause of this ugly condition is intransigent ideology (religious and cultural). The current instability in parts of the world, and the Middle East in particular, seems the proximate result of decades of ill-advised and toxic appeasement diplomacy by the United States and Europe. We find ourselves in one of those situations in history where failed diplomacy can't be reversed, the genie can't be put back in a bottle, the cancer has metastasized, and the human condition may now be inoperable. Yes, some human beings will survive, but there ample reason to question how much of civilization as we know it will survive?

When Islamic terrorist-sponsor nations like Saudi Arabia can even think of making such a declaration of intent to acquire nuclear weapons, it could not become a reality except as a consequence of America's appeasement-ridden foreign policy. For decades (excepting maybe the Reagan Administration), U.S. foreign policy has been founded on liberalism and impotent policies that only encouraged new threats and aggression – both within our own domestic society and throughout the world.

The United States’ foreign policy toward Iran and North Korea has made those two ugly sister-regimes stronger and far worse of a threat to all earth-bound humanity. For decades the United States and its allies submitted to the juvenile extortion by North Korea, appeasing that hostile regime. During the 1990’s, the United States showered North Korea with technology and subsistence in return for Chinese money in the form of campaign contributions. North Korea has succeeded in going nuclear not despite, but thanks to Western liberalism and failed appeasement diplomacy.

America's foreign policy toward Iran, and our nation’s profoundly fading support of Israel, has only emboldened the Arab states. How could it not? The United States’ groveling diplomatic overtures toward Iran and North Korea has demonstrated to every nation on Earth that the United States is willing to provide economic 'incentives,' essentially, to pay “protection money,” along with Europe, to hostile regimes bent on arming themselves.

What malignant regime would not be encouraged to seek nuclear weapons and ideological dominance after witnessing the spectacle of the United States, the lone superpower, repeatedly prostrating itself at the feet of its enemies, taxing its citizens and paying for protection in the form of Foreign Aid?

Those who are unfamiliar with the term “dihimnitude” would do well to learn its meaning, various forms and implications. Rest assured, when Islamic nations acquire nuclear weapons, whether by engineering competence or commerce, deploying them against infidels and non-believers through terrorist proxies is a foregone conclusion. France, Germany and the Soviets will likely facilitate Islamic terrorist efforts.

Evil is the necessary result of rewarding evil and liberals throughout history have defiantly refused to learn that lesson, claiming relativism in ideological defense. If you take nothing else from this article, remember that greater evil is the necessary result of rewarding evil, a universal truth in human history from its origins.

Maybe the big picture would be easier to grasp if we shrink the stage from international in scope to something the size of an American city. Does any American think that their community’s safety and security is improved by negotiating with, and paying protection money to a violent street gang which espouses an extremist ideology (willing to kill you if you are not a member of their gang and refuse to join) – and encouraging the members of the street gang to arm themselves with all manner of weapons – and not hold them accountable for their unrelenting criminal acts and atrocities in the community – and make no effort to stop their expanding territory of dominance - and be unwilling to stop the flow of drugs and human smuggling across international borders – and being afraid to disarm them for fear of what others will think? If so, you are a prime candidate for the next foreign policy post in charge of Middle Eastern affairs at the U.S. State Department.

Arguably what is going on in American cities is only a microcosmic perspective of what is going on in the Middle East. Turning the coin over and looking at the obverse, the Middle East is only a reflection of the disintegration of American culture within our own cities. The cockroaches of humanity are on the move, no longer fearful of extermination. If we can’t stop fire ants and Africanized bees – mere insects, what makes anyone think an appeasement-oriented secular society can stop either illegal alien migration or a militant religious jihad?

The United States needs a radically different foreign policy, a policy that puts American self-interest first, solely on moral principles. The United States today could easily be a tragic Shakespearian incarnation of the cowardly lion, the tin man and the scarecrow. The United States needs to find a heart, a brain, and courage. Being loyal, staying loyal and living loyal requires one crucially innate human trait not found in liberals – courage.

“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” - Winston Churchill

In the words of another famous intellectual: “Courage!
What makes a king out of a slave? Courage!
What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage!
What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? Courage!
What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!
What makes the Sphinx the Seventh Wonder? Courage!
What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage!
What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the ape in ape-ricot?
Courage! “

Can you guess who the famous intellectual was?

Cowardly Lion

Being loyal, staying loyal, and living loyally, requires one indispensable human trait. Courage! Loyalty takes courage doesn't it? And who among liberals is loyal to anyone or anything? "Self" is the only focus.

If a man cannot be loyal to his faith, he cannot be loyal to anybody or anything, even himself. A man without a faith would neither understand nor know what it means to live loyally. Even a Muslim understands faith and loyalty. American secular liberals do not have a clue, and that includes all those who claim a personal faith but live outside its ethical and moral commandments.

However, the likelihood that we will punish hostile regimes, such as Iran and North Korea, instead of rewarding them through liberal appeasement and income redistribution on an international scale, is but the dimmest of lights in the White House and the Bush Administration. If only the lights in Washington, D.C. weren't so dim, consumed with self-interest instead of the nation’s welfare? The solution is so simple if only someone would turn on the lights.

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If the Baker commission is the K-Mart version of the Congress of Vienna, its influence may prove no less pernicious. Baker is the dean emeritus of a reactionary school of diplomats--inaccurately labeled "realists"--whose support of the shah of Iran, the Saudi royal family, Anwar Sadat, then Hosni Mubarak, and, not least, Saddam Hussein delivered short-term stability that proved illusory in the long run. It was the "realist" elevation of stability above all other strategic factors--echoing Prince Metternich--that gave us not only the radical regime in Iran, but, ultimately, al Qaeda and 9/11.

The leading modern practitioner of this profoundly reactionary approach to international relations was, of course, Henry Kissinger, whose doctoral thesis championed the diplomats and heads of state who redivided Europe into reform-school states after Napoleon's defeat. A classic revisionist, Kissinger ignored the wisdom of 19th century observers who recognized that the oppression sponsored by the Congress of Vienna created only a mockery of peace. The century of Biedermeier sensibilities and Victorian manners was, in fact, punctuated by a long series of failed--and often grisly--revolutions that radicalized those who found the status quo unbearable. The Staats ordnung of the day created the cult of political assassinations that haunts us still. Metternich and his peers induced the social forced labor that gave birth to Marx and all the utopian extremists who came afterward. From the lesser figures, such as Kropotkin or Bakunin, down to Lenin and Hitler, the political distortions of the "orderly" 19th century led to the unprecedented bloodbaths of the 20th century.

The Kissinger school amplified our Cold War support for authoritarian and even dictatorial regimes, deforming the Middle East as Metternich, Talleyrand, Nesselrode, Castlereagh, Wellington, and their lesser contemporaries crippled Europe. For his part, Baker argued--wrongly--that Saddam Hussein should be spared in the wake of Desert Storm; tried to persuade the Soviet Union to remain whole after its comprehensive collapse; and pretended against the increasingly gory evidence that Yugoslavia could be preserved as a unified state. He tolerated Saddam's savage suppression of a Shia revolt we incited, and only grudgingly--and belatedly--acquiesced in our protection of Kurdish refugees.

One of the many tragedies of our experience in Iraq is that the incompetence of the Bush administration's occupation policy has obscured the necessity of igniting change in the Middle East. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was both an intelligent act and a moral one. But the aftermath was so badly botched that many in Washington now long--as did those powdered cynics in Vienna--for the status quo antebellum. They would renew our commitment to Saudi Arabia and other autocracies, while quietly selling out the Lebanese, the Kurds, and the region's moderates in order to get us out of Iraq. We would return to a version of the old order and might gain a brief respite from our troubles in the region. But the greater effects of a renewed stability-über-alles doctrine would play into the recruitment schemes of the most radical Islamist elements in the region, while instigating human rights violations on a breathtaking scale. We would throw away any hope of a better future for a brief timeout today.

Stability at any price isn't the answer. Stability imposed from above empowered Khomeini and bin Laden as surely as it did the 19th century revolutionaries and nihilists who became the 20th century's nationalists, demagogues, and mass murderers. Terror is an inevitable by-product of all grand clampdowns.

The statesmen of the Congress of Vienna sought to turn back history's tide, and their philosophical heirs on the Baker panel are trying to do the same. Democrat or Republican, superficially liberal or conservative, the Iraq Study Group is deeply reactionary. Its recommendations, which will be couched in terms of "sensible" Realpolitik, envision an impossible restoration of a peaceful Middle East that never existed. No matter the politically correct language in which it may be couched, the group's fundamental recommendation will be to return to a foreign policy in which the quest for stability trumps freedom, ignores human rights, frustrates the will of ordinary people, and violates elementary decency. By resisting change, the study group will only make the changes that do come to the Middle East even more explosive and anti-American.

The Middle East problem was difficult enough when the Bush administration stood for a benevolent revolution in possibilities against a range of reactionary enemies, from al Qaeda and Shia militias to various Baathist regimes and the apocalyptic nihilists ruling Iran. For all of the administration's practical ineptitude, its recognition that the Middle East could not continue in its current state was correct. Now we verge on a new clash of civilizations that will oppose our reactionaries to their reactionaries. It is a formula not for stability and peace, but for brutal conflict and spectacular terrorism.

The 19th century was far bloodier within Europe than historical glosses pretend, yet the political order the Congress of Vienna sought to preserve in amber did last, more or less, until 1914, when the inevitable explosion came on a massive scale. But history marches double time today, and any attempt to effect a restoration of rigid, top-down order in the Middle East will fail far more rapidly than did the Concert of Europe. Yesterday's solutions--Jim Baker's solutions--didn't work yesterday. They certainly won't work today.

Since the end of the Cold War, every one of our military engagements has come in response to failing states and flawed borders: Desert Storm, Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq . . . we send our men and women in uniform to defend a world designed in Berlin and Versailles according to the macabre political philosophy of Metternich. The greatest democracy in history has been conned by its own political elite into fighting for the carto graphic legacy of dead czars, kings, kaisers, and emperors.

The Iraq Study Group's members will assure each other of their conscientiousness, while carefully guarding their legacies for future biographers and historians. And the group's recommendations will suggest, in one form or another, a return to the ancien régime.

Of course, the salient difference between the Congress of Vienna and the Iraq Study Group is obvious: The diplomats of the former had just achieved a military victory, while the members of the latter seek to avert a strategic defeat. The freedom of action that the Baker commission might imagine for itself is illusory.

There are no good solutions to Iraq, but some "solutions" are markedly worse than others. Any formula that attempts to extend the lives of dictatorships and oligarchies at the expense of already restive populations will end in disaster--even should it promise us the illusion of a "decent interval."

Ralph Peters is a retired military intelligence officer, columnist, and the author of 21 books, including the recent Never Quit the Fight.

Hat tip: David R.

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But justice, in Mr. Ahmadinejad's eyes, has little to do with the concept as we know it in America, or indeed, the Western world. Instead, it's all about Islamization of the entire world. In making his case, Mr. Ahmadinejad does not position himself as president of Iran, but attempts to set himself up as a spokesman for all Muslims.

Iran itself barely figures in the letter. Instead, Mr. Ahmadinejad focuses on U.S. support for Israel, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the Bush administration's "moral corruption," or as he puts it, the administration pursuit of "darkness, deceit, lies and distortion."

Students of recent Iranian history will recall that the "crime" most often used to justify a death sentence by Islamic Republic revolutionary courts during the early years of the revolution was "corruption on Earth." This was how the regime simply eliminated its opponents or those who rejected absolute clerical rule.

Media commentators in the U.S. have picked up on the "public relations" side of the letter. Mr. Ahmadinejad calls on the U.S. to bring the troops home from Iraq, to cut off support for Israel, and to stop "kidnapping presumed opponents from across the globe" and holding them in secret prisons. He even has some advice for the new Democrat majority in Congress: bend to the Muslim agenda, or you will be tossed out of power.

Mr. Ahmadinejad repeatedly tries to appeal to Americans as people of faith, who share Islamic values. "We, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people," he drones. "Persistent aggressions by the Zionists are making life more and more difficult for the rightful owners of the land of Palestine."

Certainly, Americans are aggrieved by the unnecessary killing of innocent civilians, which is why most of us have little sympathy for Palestinian imams and political leaders who teach their children to strap explosives to their bodies and blow up Jews.

Mr. Ahmadinejad can't help but trot out his old anti-Semitic saw, claiming "the Zionists" control America "because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors."

But to focus on these parts of his letter, however silly and objectionable, would be to miss the main point. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the Hugo Chavez of the Persian Gulf. He knows he soon will have his finger on the nuclear trigger.

Citing from the Koran at the close of his letter, he says that if Americans "repent" of their "injustice," they will be blessed with many gifts. "We should all heed the divine Word of the Holy Koran," he says.

The context of this particular verse (28:67-28, Sura "Al-Qasas," or The Narration), is very clear. It follows a graphic description of destruction and devastation that will befall those who fail to repent of their injustice, i.e., support for Israel and refusal to adopt Islam.

It also sets out the terms of the traditional Muslim warning to the enemies of Allah. "And never will your Lord destroy the towns until He sends to their mother town a Messenger reciting to them Our Verses." This is precisely what Mr. Ahmadinejad does in his letter.

Dump George W. Bush, allow the Muslims to destroy Israel, and adopt Islam -- or else you will be destroyed. This is Mr. Ahmadinejad's message.

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Kenneth R. Timmerman is the author of "Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran" (Crown Forum) and president of Middle East Data Project, Inc.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20061202-102122-5483r.htm

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