The Hopelessness of Neil Cavuto

[Caveat lector: There is a photograph below that can properly be considered offensive. It is included here to illustrate a point, not to cater to prurient interests. ]


Nature played a vicious trick on Neil Cavuto by making him a near clone of Eddie Munster. Being victimized by a cruel caprice of that kind should be sufficient hardship for one lifetime. But Mr. Cavuto has also had to contend with both cancer and multiple sclerosis, beating the former and enduring the latter with commendable grace.

I suspect that there is a decent and knowledgeable man behind Mr. Cavuto's television persona. Tragically, the corporate (and corporatist) culture of Fox News apparently requires him to keep those facets well-hidden, as befits someone cast in the role of a media herd-poisoner.

His calling is to fling State-glorifying slogans and sound-bites at his audience, and, where appropriate, to act as a kind of media prosecutor when dealing with public figures who threaten to infect the public with unauthorized opinions.

It was in that latter role that Cavuto attempted to put Ron Paul on the defensive regarding a $500 donation to the Paul presidential campaign by white supremacist Don Black, who operates the Stormfront neo-Nazi website.

By focusing on this one aberrant contribution, Cavuto – or, most likely, those who sign his paycheck and determine the specific length of his leash – wanted to convey the impression that the significance of that donation eclipses the Paul campaign's accomplishment of collecting roughly $18 million, most of it in very small individual amounts, in a fund-raising drive that is being carried out almost entirely by volunteers.

A related assumption here is that a $500 contribution from a marginalized, malodorous crank somehow trumps the huge donations the Paul campaign has received from active-duty and retired military personnel, who see the candidate as an heir to the patriotic foreign policy of Washington, Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Robert Taft.


Does Cavuto, or the other adolescents peddling this complaint, really believe that Ron Paul's allegiance could somehow be purchased by a white supremacist for a mere $500 investment? Of course not.

Apart from the mathematics of the proposition, Dr. Paul is either renowned or notorious for being inhospitable to lobbyists who seek to purchase his support in exchange for far larger blandishments. While other congress-entities are being plied with expensive lunches charged to K Street expense accounts, the abstemious Dr. Paul (who at 72 still has the physique of a state track champion) can be found in his Capitol Hill office eating an austere meal while working at his desk.

Rarely, if ever, has American politics produced a statesman less compatible with the politics of rent-seeking, or more thoroughly “over” himself, than Ron Paul. In tribute to his near-incorruptibility, the lobbyists who swarm the Imperial Capital, Dr. Paul have more or less written him off, their absence from his office being a singularly eloquent testimony to his character.

Mr. Paul does have standards regarding the money he'll accept. He will not vet private donors regarding their worldview, and will take their money as long as it is honestly and legally earned. He will not receive stolen property, however, which is why he won't accept "matching contributions" from the federal government.


Mr. Cavuto must have known at least some of this when he raised the issue of the tainted donation. He appeared to be a little ashamed and reluctant to broach the issue. And when he did, he fell victim to one of the most thorough and humiliating forensic demolitions ever captured on film – an experience that must have been made all the more painful by the polite and earnest way in which Dr. Paul applied the scalpel. (See below.)

We are taught by the Source of all wisdom that it is pointless and self-destructive to obsess over the mote in a neighbor's eye while our own vision is occluded by a beam. In this case, the comparison is not between a mote and a beam, but rather between a sub-microscopic particle of matter and an obstruction roughly the size of the Sears Tower.

Ron Paul's supposed offense was to accept an unsolicited donation – a minuscule amount, delivered in perfectly legal fashion – from a deservedly obscure figure who reeks of wretched opinions. His moral auditor is a figure who was among the most conspicuous supporters of an illegal, immoral war that has cost tens of thousands of lives, and the better part of a trillion dollars.

Neil Cavuto, moral tutor: In keeping with the corporate priorities of his employer, the Fox "News" personality interviews two largely non-biodegradable participants in the "Lingerie Bowl."


In April 2003, Cavuto addressed a “Common Sense” segment to “all those who opposed the liberation [sic] of Iraq." At the time, Fox "News" was emitting a gale-force wind of flatulent flackery promoting the Dear Leader and his war. Cavuto did his part by regurgitating a thick slurry of partially digested triumphalist buzzwords.

“I want to show you all the joyous scene in downtown Baghdad today,” he declared. “People oppressed. Now people free. People once hopeless. Now hopeful. People you forgot. But we remembered. If you had things your way, they'd still be under the thumb of a dictator. And you were fine with that. We were not. You had no problem telling them, live with it. We had a big problem telling them, get over it. Look at their faces. See their smiles. Feel their joy. Their freedom. Their fervor. How do you feel now? Still sure going the extra mile for them wasn't worth it? I don't think they'd agree.”

“You were sickening then,” Cavuto concluded, referring to pre-war opposition to the invasion. “You're sickening now.”

Even at the time it was clear that "liberated" Iraq was about to descend into unalloyed barbarism. By now, four and a half years after Cavuto composed and recited his juvenile philipic, any honest and rational person would admit that the critics and opponents of the war at the very least had a point. There's no point in expecting as much from Cavuto, of course.

As someone who has done nothing to promote or advance Don Black's views, Ron Paul has no responsibility to apologize for them. Had he returned the check, Dr. Paul would not have placated those who feign offense over the donation. Instead, he would have given them fresh ammunition: The next talking point would be that the Paul campaign "had to return a donation from a neo-Nazi."


In this instance, the association was chosen by Black, who did so on Ron Paul's terms, rather than the reverse. Rather than inferring that Paul has been influenced by Black, it may be reasonable to hope that Black, after decades of devotion to bigotry, might succumb to the appeal of a movement (not just a candidate, a movement) that promotes liberty, prosperity, and peace for all people.


I grant that this is an anorexically slender hope. But on the available evidence, Don Black is more susceptible to reason than Neil Cavuto.




Dum spiro, pugno!

Beware the War Propheteers

Playing the Christian "Bass" with the skill of Cream-era Jack Bruce: Like his notorious predecessor in Arkansas, Mike Huckabee is a high-viscosity politician advised by Dick Morris. Like too many other Republicans, he's a Christian "pro-lifer" not unduly burdened by the death of thousands of children in needless foreign wars.

One is a former Southern Baptist Pastor, the other a one-time Mormon Bishop. One established a niche as a hard-line social conservative who is surprisingly “progressive” on welfare state issues; the other began his political career trying to out-flank Ted Kennedy to the left on abortion and gay rights, only to re-tool himself into the very model of a modern moral majoritarian.

There's a polygamy joke in here somewhere: A low-res photo of Mitt Romney with Reich-wing succubus Ann Coulter.

They are separated by a vast political gulf and have followed very different political vectors, but GOP presidential aspirants Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are now the chief contenders for the support of the Christian Right. The only authentic conservative in the race, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, disqualified himself in the Christian Right's eyes by taking the teachings of the Prince of Peace too literally, and applying the Golden Rule to foreign policy. The Mullahs of the Mega-Churches, and many of their followers, are mortally offended by the notion that decades of bellicose interventionism by Washington might have something to do with the antagonisms that breed and feed anti-American terrorism.

Romney has already received an unction from some prominent Evangelicals, largely on the strength of his unqualified commitment to continue (and most likely to escalate) Bush the Lesser's war against the Islamic world. But as Romney faces the prospect of being eclipsed by the more orthodox Huckabee, he has made a pilgrimage to holy ground – the George H.W. Bush presidential library – to offer a speech on “Faith in America.” Romney's purpose is to assuage concerns that a follower of Joseph Smith would be an unsuitable vessel for the political purposes of the Christian Right.This isn't quite like Henry IV standing bare-headed in the snow outside Canossa, but Romney's gesture displays an element of plaintive desperation nonetheless.

On this day (December 5) when Romney's theological convictions and religious affiliation take center stage, we would do well to consider some of Huckabee's baggage – specifically, his attachment to the Rev. John Hagee, Pastor of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, Founder and Director of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and the most impassioned advocate of open-ended war with the Israeli government's enemies, beginning with Iran.

Hagee almost seems to be a genetically engineered caricature of the televangelist culture. As orotund as he is rotund, Hagee looks like a late middle-aged version of JB's Big Boy and behaves a bit like Elmer Gantry. Both his physique and lifestyle testify that Hagee is a stranger in the house of self-restraint. And this is quite odd, given the fact that he ardently believes in the Rapture, during which believers would be taken away to heaven, leaving behind all material encumberances, including the clothes they would be wearing at the time.

As C.S. Lewis noted, wealth knits a man to this world. Despite repeatedly admonishing his flock to prepare for the fast-approaching Rapture, Hagee remains thoroughly enmeshed with the world. He may well be the wealthiest of the war-obsessed clergymen we could call War Propheteers.

Stephen Strang is the human vinculum between Huckabee and Hagee. Strang, a long-time friend and business associate of Hagee, presides over a Pentecostal publishing empire; among Strang's imprints is Front Line books, which has published several of Hagee's books, including his latest, In Defense of Israel.

Late last Summer, a cover story in Strang's New Man magazine anointed Huckabee as the heir apparent to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. In recent weeks, Huckabee has tapped Strang to serve on his “Faith and Values Coalition,” which is intended to attract money from, and consolidate support within, the Christian Right. Strang served a similar role in the early days of Bush the Lesser's first presidential campaign.

Strang is also a regional director of Hagee's Christians United for Israel, a pressure group that describes itself – without a detectable hint of irony – as a “Christian AIPAC,” as if one such organization weren't a sufficient burden and blight upon our land. Each year CUFI holds a "Night to Honor Israel" in dozens of cities nation-wide, events often organized in cooperation with the Israeli government. And each summer since its founding CUFI has dispatched thousands of its members to Washington to lobby Congress on behalf of a foreign power that is hardly without its own influence in the Imperial Capital.

Whatever one thinks of AIPAC and its works (which include espionage), the attachment of American Jews to the nation-state of Israel is organic and understandable. Hagee's devotion is largely abstract and theological, and colored with more than a hint of opportunism.

The Reverend is more or less a standard-issue radical dispensationalist of a familiar variety, but distinguishes himself by the near-monomania he displays in promoting the interests of Israel – at least as he and some Israeli factions perceive them. And there is a certain duplicity at work here, since the eschatology embraced by Hagee dictates that Jews have an obligation to gather into Israel as a prelude to an apocalyptic war in which most of them will be slaughtered.

By this time, as Hagee foresees it, he and his brethren will have been evacuated from the earth via the Rapture, and thus be able to observe the bloodbath from the safety of a celestial skybox.

Although he stoutly denies it, Hagee's convictions dictate that he do what he can to foment war, rather than promote peace. For several years he has been urging that the US wage a war of aggression against Iran for the purpose of preempting its nuclear program.

Rev. Hagee makes the case for endless bloodshed to Texas Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose voting records suggest they were a receptive audience.

Hagee would doubtless insist that the recently published National Intelligence Estimate, which concludes that Iran froze its nuclear program in 2003 (the year Tehran offered to re-open diplomatic relations with Washington), was ghost-written by Satan. Other key voices of the War Lobby, such as Norman Podhoretz and Rush Limbaugh, are content to posit a wide-ranging conspiracy of “wreckers” in the CIA who produced the NIE, thereby undermining the drive for war. Only Hagee has the courage and insight to stalk the truth to its demonic lair: This is nothing less than a vast conspiracy led by the Devil himself.

For indeed, is it not written that the heathen will rage, the people imagine a vain thing, and the kings rulers of the world will take counsel together against the Lord and His anointed? Most Christians understand that passage from the second Psalm to be a prophecy of the advent of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we worship as the Christ, or messiah. Rev. Hagee, however, has repeatedly and passionately insisted that Jesus is not, and never claimed to be, the messiah.

Hagee visits General Ariel Sharon during one of his many trips to Israel.

There is “not one verse of Scripture in the New Testament that says Jesus came to be the Messiah,” writes Hagee in his new book In Defense of Israel (page 136), reporting a discovery unique in Christian history. Even “after his resurrection,” Hagee continues, Jesus made “repeated denials” that he was or would be the Messiah (page141).

All of this would be quite startling to the countless thousands of Christian believers -- including those who embraced the Gospel in the early first century -- who could have spared themselves the pains of martyrdom if they had been willing to disavow the Messianic status of Jesus of Nazareth.

After elaborating on this notion at length, Hagee makes passing reference to the fact that he and a long-time friend, Orthodox Rabbi Aryeh Schienberg, “agree to disagree” regarding “the nature and identity of the Messiah” (page 171), and that “when we stand in the streets of Jerusalem and see the Messiah walking toward us, one of us will have a major theological adjustment to make!”

Similar disingenuous comments are sprinkled through Hagee's book, intended to inspire a knowing chuckle from Christians and reassure Jews. But I think Hagee himself would also have to make a radical theological adjustment under the circumstances he describes, since he is careful only to insinuate that Jesus is the Messiah, and refuses to announce that conclusion clearly and unambiguously.


Arab Christians celebrate the birth of their Messiah at the Church of the Nativity in Gaza: From Hagee's perspective, these folks must not be considered "true" Christians.


It's also significant that a large section of In Defense of Israel consists of lambasting the Christian Church -- beginning with the New Testament itself -- for what he describes as history of relentless anti-Jewish persecution. Hagee describes the purported beliefs of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a collection of classic anti-Jewish notions, including the view that Jews "are essentially scheming to take over the world.... [and] are responsible for every negative situation in the world and that they are behind every international event or crisis, including the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany."


"If this sounds familiar, it is," he concludes. "It is no different than the teachings of the Christian church prior to the Holocaust." (Page 74.)


One of the reasons why Mitt Romney is unappetizing to many conservative Christians is the Mormon teaching that historic Christianity, prior to the advent of Joseph Smith, was hopelessly mired in apostasy. John Hagee teaches exactly the same thing, while placing the UN-created nation-state of Israel in a central position akin to that occupied by Joseph Smith in the Mormon view of history. This might help explain, among other things, why the Rev. Hagee has little if any sympathy for Arab Christians residing in the West Bank and Gaza.


How closely would Hagee be tied to Huckabee, were the latter to win the White House? During the reign of Bush the Lesser, Hagee has been on the presidential speed-dial. He has been among the most passionate defenders of the doctrine of the all-powerful president who can make war according to his sovereign whims. In an interview with the estimable Charles Goyette, Hagee declared: "We do not have a war declaration for Iraq, and neither does the president need one to expand it [the war] into Iran."


I suspect that if Mitt Romney is elected president, Hagee would have no difficulty reaching across the theological divide -- as long as Romney remains true to the gospel of militarist bloodshed. If Huckabee makes it to the Oval Office, it's likely that Hagee would be part of the Inner Court. Either prospect would be troubling to the Christian Right, were it more interested in defending Christian principles than in accumulating and preserving political power.


Dum spiro, pugno!

"Diplomacy" As The Art Of Cultivating Conflict

The purpose of diplomacy is to protect our independence and security through means other than war.

Those occupying the upper echelons of the Bush Regime define diplomacy as the practice of removing impediments to war. Indeed, for Dick Cheney and his cohorts, manufacturing pretexts for war is the highest form of diplomacy.

But then again, as Stephen Kinzer documents extensively in his fascinating (and infuriating) book Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, that type of perverse “diplomacy” has long been the Power Elite's stock-in-trade.

Of John Foster Dulles, scion of a family deeply rooted in the Anglo-American Elite, one biographer noted that “it was not too difficult ... for threats and interests to merge in [his] mind,” leading him to the conclusion “that the United States might actually have an interest in being threatened, if through that process Americans could be goaded into doing what was necessary to preserve their way of life.” Thus Dulles and his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, arranged the 1953 Iranian coup that deposed Mohammad Mossadegh, thereby creating the conditions for several decades of stimulating conflict in the Persian Gulf that may well culminate in an apocalyptic war.

I hasten to clarify that the “way of life” referred to above is one in which the bulk of the American population dutifully submits to the benevolent supervision of the likes of Dulles – the anointed Guardians of the Bipartisan Consensus. Keeping the population perpetually alarmed over some foreign threat is a vital part of maintaining that sinister stability; absent such a perpetual crisis, at least some of the people would start agitating for a smaller, less expensive, and less invasive government.

So threat cultivation is necessary in order to ensure a rich harvest of government power. This is hardly a secret; it's been the common practice of rulers for as long as they have afflicted humanity. But the Bush Regime has distinguished itself somewhat by its vulgar, transparent lust for war, and its dogmatic refusal to explore alternatives. It's not their wealth that's being wasted, or their own flesh and blood being rent, by the needless wars they pursue.

To get some sense of just how alienated the Regime is from reality as the rest of us experience it, consider this: The administration's eagerness to go to war with Iran has alarmed Fareed Zakaria.

A little more than a decade ago, Mr. Zakaria – at the time managing editor of the Council on Foreign Relations journal Foreign Affairs – kicked off his career as foreign affairs columnist for Newsweek with an essay entitled “Thank Goodness for a Villain.” The piece contained this breathtaking specimen of Establishment “wisdom”:

“If Saddam Hussein did not exist, we would have to invent him. He is the linchpin of American policy in the Mideast…. If not for Saddam, would the Saudi royal family, terrified of being seen as an American protectorate (which in a sense it s), allow American troops on their soil? Would Kuwait house more than 30,000 pieces of American combat hardware, kept in readiness should the need arise? Would the king of Jordan, the political weather vane of the region, allow the Marines to conduct exercises within his borders?… The end of Saddam Hussein would be the end of the anti-Saddam coalition. Nothing destroys an alliance like the disappearance of the enemy.”

Of course, the Power Elite Zakaria spoke for did indeed create Saddam, for precisely the purposes Zakaria describes. As I've said before, rational people understand that sometimes it is necessary to create alliances to confront enemies; the depraved, power-intoxicated people Zakaria communes with prefer to create enemies in order to justify entangling alliances.

However, at some point Zakaria seems to have retrieved his conscience, or at least recovered his sense of the absurd. With the administration and its supposed Democratic antagonists lusting for war with Iran, and the Regime's media minions depicting Iran as a world-historic menace, Zakaria has taken up the unfamiliar role of dissident.

“Iran has an economy the size of Finland and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion,” he wrote in a recent Newsweek contribution. “It has not invaded a country since the late 18^th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?”

“We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us – just as Iraq had become in 2003.”

Zakaria cites the account of James Dobbins, who served as Bush's representative to the international donor's conference in Bonn following the eviction of the Taliban. Dobbins recalls that the Iranians “were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful.” After dipping their toes in the mysterious waters of Washington-centered diplomacy, the Iranians wanted to take the full plunge, offering additional cooperation in Afghanistan and wide-ranging talks with the US on a variety of issues.

“Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence,” recounts Zakaria. “The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, `looked down and rustled his papers.' No reply was every sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They're mad.”

The current issue of Esquire offers a similar account of Bu'ushist "diplomacy" toward Iran.

In April 2003, State Department official Hillary Mann received a detailed four-page fax from the Iranian government. The document, which was sent through the Swiss embassy in Tehran (through which Iran and the US have maintained back-channel contacts) contained “a detailed proposal for peace in the Middle East, approved at the highest levels in Tehran.”

The Iranians offered to recognize Israel, cut off all support for the terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, banish or imprison all international terrorists residing in Iran, and to end its nuclear program. The message urged Washington to re-open formal diplomatic channels that have been closed for decades.

The Bush administration refused even to acknowledge the overture from Tehran. Former National Security Council official Flint Leverett (who resigned in digust following the needless invasion of Iraq) protested that the rejection would mean “an Iran that has nuclear weapons and no dialogue with the United States.”

Odd as this result might seem to those familiar with conventional diplomacy, it makes perfect sense once it's understood, once again, that the purpose of Bush/Cheney-style diplomacy is to facilitate, rather than mitigate, conflict.

As the estimable Charley Reese observes with characteristic concision, “The reason our so-called diplomacy hasn't worked [as most people would understand the term `worked'] is because the Bush administration position is this: Iran, unless you stop what you are legally entitled to do (enrich uranium for nuclear fuel), we won't talk to you about not doing what you are legally entitled to do. You can't have talks if your position is that the other side must give in to your demands as a precondition.”

But once again, talking with the Iranians is exactly what the Bush Regime wants to avoid. Direct talks with the Iranians, after all, might lead to a solution other than the war Washington craves -- and what responsible leader would run such a risk?

Briefly Considered: A Prediction Partially Fulfilled

"Dr. Bob Jones III, chancellor of the fundamentalist Christian university in Greenville that bears his name, is looking past his religious differences with Gov. Mitt Romney and endorsing the Mormon for the Republican nomination for president, he told The Greenville News this afternoon.

`This is all about beating Hillary,'Jones said. `And I just believe that this man has the credentials both personally and ideologically in terms of his view about what American government should be to best represent the rank and file of conservative Americans.'....

Asked whether Romney’s religion was a stumbling block for him, Jones replied, `What is the alternative, Hillary’s lack of religion or an erroneous religion?... `As a Christian I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism,' he said. `But I’m not voting for a preacher. I’m voting for a president. It boils down to who can best represent conservative American beliefs, not religious beliefs.'"

Greenville (North Carolina) News, October 16, 2007


"I venture this prediction: If the Republicans lose control of the House on November 7, Romney will be the 2008 Republican nominee. Christian Right leaders accustomed to a `seat at the table' of political power will wrestle with their collective conscience, and win."

Pro Libertate, October 22, 2006

"Politically conservative Mormons and Evangelical Christians are divided by serious disputes over doctrine, but presidential aspirant Mitt Romney has found a way to bridge that chasm: He stands `foursquare behind the president' regarding his supposed authority to order summary imprisonment and torture of anybody upon whom he chooses to visit such treatment."

Pro Libertate, September 26, 2006


If "beating Hillary" were the real objective, Rev. Jones would be supporting the only authentic constitutional conservative in the presidential field, the stalwart and principled Rep. Ron Paul.


But the grim, unyielding reality is that Dr. Paul -- a man who is Christian to his chromosomes, and loves freedom with every molecule of his being -- is disqualified in the eyes of Jones and his ilk for theological reasons: The God Ron Paul serves is Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace and Sovereign Lord of all creation, not the supposedly almighty State.




Mitt Romney, a man so empty he makes Peer Gynt's onion look like an over-stuffed calzone, worships only power. So despite differences over doctrine -- you know, relatively inconsequential stuff dealing with where and how we'll spend eternity, as well as how we're supposed to treat each other during mortality -- Romney and Rev. Jones are on the same page of scripture. To wit: An adulterated version of Romans Chapter 13.


I don't know what dwells within the heart of Rev. Jones or the other pulpit whores who have joined the GOP's seraglio. It is clear that where political matters are concerned, people of that ilk are entirely fixated on power -- obtaining it, retaining it, exercising it, cultivating it, serving it. Their kingdom is entirely of this world. They eagerly promote war and bloodshed, tyranny and torture.














A map, courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, graphically illustrating the geographic concentrations of Ron Paul's donor base.


Today, as he picked up Rev. Jones' endorsement, Mitt "Double Guantanamo" Romney also expanded his campaign team to include a national security adviser who blithely says he would commit or order torture "in a heartbeat." That fellow will be in suitable company with Mel Sembler, Robert Lichfield, and other prominent Romney backers who have profited from the torture of American teenagers.


A Personal Note

My friends -- those of you who are people of faith -- please, please pray on behalf of Korrin. She once again is seriously, dangerously ill, and I'm entirely at a loss in trying to help her. At present she's not in the hospital again (as I write, she's sleeping and we're receiving visits from a medical professional), but absent a dramatic turn-around, she's headed there once more.

This morning she was convinced that she was going to die. Please, keep her in your prayers.

In making that request I do not mean to slight or demean those of you, my friends, who are not believers. My faith is integral to who I am and how I view the world; it's why I am utterly obsessed with the matter of individual freedom and dignity, and why I detest war and tyranny to the uttermost depths of my soul. And at times like this my faith is the most important source of strength and solace.

I invite others to share it, but I have no right to impose it, even if that were possible: Each individual has to find it for himself. It's my hope that this is understood by those who share my passion for freedom but not my convictions about God.


Please be sure to visit The Right Source and the Liberty Minute archive.

UPDATED -- Briefly Considered: Gen. Petraeus -- US Security Not An "Objective" in Iraq

[The following transcribed excerpts have been updated and corrected from the first version, thanks to a suggestion from a reader -- WNG.]

Senator John Warner: "[I]f we continue what you have laid before the Congress here as a strategy [to continue the war in Iraq], do you feel that that is making America safer?"

General David Petraeus: "Sir, I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq."

Warner: "Does that make America safer?"

Petraeus: "Sir, I, I don't know, actually. I have not sat down and sorted in my own mind. What I have focused on, and been riveted on, is how to accomplish the mission...."

Notes David Corn of The Nation: "Warner did not press the general any further on this point. The senator's time was up. That was quite a statement from the fellow who is supposed to save Bush's war. He advocates pursuing Bush's course of action in Iraq but he cannot attest that this effort is crucial for America's safety. Is that being a good soldier?"

Bear in mind that David Petraeus -- the Bush Regime's military messiah du jour -- wasn't in danger of a perjury charge, since the Regime refused to permit the General to testify under oath. (This is standard operating procedure for the Bu'ushists, incidentally.) Yet even under those conditions, Petraeus wasn't willing to claim that the continuing "war of choice" in Iraq is making the United States safer and more secure.

The unalloyed truth is that the war is radically undermining our national security:

*It has abetted the growth of Jihadist radicalism;
*It has provided Jihadis-in-training with an invaluable training ground;
*It is rapidly depleting our wealth (the plunder of domestic wealth through taxes and inflation is the chief war aim of any regime, of course);
*The Regime's ineptly disguised grab for Middle East energy resources has provoked the creation of new and potentially dangerous anti-US coalitions -- something that may lead to a painful illustration of how subjects inevitably get the worst of fights their rulers pick on their behalf;
*It has left the military depleted and over-committed -- a good thing, in the sense that an overtaxed military is less suitable as an instrument of domestic tyranny, a bad thing in the event the coalitions referred to above decide they want a piece of us.


Custom poster courtesy of William Wallace Grigg, age 9.


Outside of the ranks of those who have succumbed to the self-inflicted handicap called "Hannitization" -- you know, mouth-breathing neo-Brownshirts of the sort gathered today for the last of this year's Cornpone Nuremberg Rallies -- nobody believes that the Iraq war is anything other than a world-historic strategic catastrophe. Only a few have the honesty and character to admit as much, and urge an end to the needless bloodshed. The rest are willing to abide additional thousands of deaths in order to save the prestige of the Regime that led our nation into this disaster.

Well, thanks to Gen. Petraeus, we now have a perfect argument to throw in the face of anyone who's willing to listen:

By the tacit admission of the general in command, the war has nothing to do with the safety and security of the United States.

So ending the war is not a defeat.

Q.E.D.


UPDATE, 9/12

Four years ago, as noted in this story from the utterly indispensable McClatchy Newspapers service (the only wire service that specializes in journalism, rather than stenography, where the Iraq war is concerned), Gen. Petraeus was willing to express open skepticism regarding the wisdom of, and strategy behind, the invasion of Iraq. Today, as our military desperately tries to tread quicksand, Petraeus is choking down the key questions he was willing to ask back then, if only in rhetorical fashion.

At yesterday's Capitol Hill hearing, "there was one question that Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, couldn't, or wouldn't, answer. It was the question that Petraeus himself posed rhetorically back in 2003 when he led the Army's 101st Airborne Division into Iraq: `Tell me how this ends.'"

As noted above, that wasn't the only question Petraeus (and Crocker, who may as well have been an animatronic mannequin) refused to answer. The combination of the two ducked questions leaves us with this: The military in Iraq is pursuing a course unrelated to our national security, under civilian and military leadership with no idea of how to end the war.


Obiter Dicta

This time I mean it! My new book, Liberty In Eclipse: The War on Terror and the Rise of the Homeland Security State, is about to go to press. I'll let you know as soon as it's available.

Meanwhile, I'm about three chapters into my contribution to another book project (I just finished the draft of a chapter today), about which I'll have more to say later.

Please stay abreast of critical stories at The Right Source, and check out the Liberty Minute archives.

The Last Full Measure ... Of Murderous Opportunism

An armored vehicle patrols "liberated" Fallujah.


"If the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it...."


John Kreisel of Vadnais Heights, Minnesota lost both of his legs in Fallujah last December. A roadside bomb detonated beneath his Humvee, killing two of Kreisel's buddies, Spc. Bryan McDonough, and Spc. Corey Rystad. Kreisel is a man in his mid-20s; he has a lovely wife, Katie, and two disarmingly cute sons, Elijah and Broden. A foundation has been established to help Sgt. Kreisel's family, which will have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a handicapped-accessible home.

Thanks to a newly inaugurated ad campaign, Sgt. Kreisel will soon become a national celebrity of sorts. A Republican front group calling itself Freedom's Watch has created a campaign featuring Kreisel -- along with other wounded Iraq veterans, and relatives of troops lost in Iraq -- intended to fortify support for continuing the war.

The ads will not be directed at the unpersuaded public: Most of them will run on Fox "News" and national radio programs that already retail the White House line -- such as Sean Hannity's daily three-hour "You're A Great American" circle-jerk. The purpose of the campaign is to pressure wavering Republicans in Congress to resist any effort to end the occupation of Iraq.

At the end of the ads viewers and listeners are provided with a toll-free number (1-877-222-8001). When I called it, I heard the following recorded message: "Thank you for calling Freedom's Watch. Our operators are currently helping Americans call Congress in support of our war on terror. We will get to you as soon as possible."

An activist who actually contacted a live operator has reported that once this happens "you're expected to take part in a survey before she puts you through to Congress. But there's a catch. The question asked goes something like this: Do you believe the Iraq war is important to the war on terror?... If you say no, the operator immediately thanks you but doesn't connect you to Congress."

The "Freedom's Watch" campaign is fronted by former White House spokesliar Ari Fleischer and funded by, among others, Mel Sembler (a major Republican fundraiser who headed the Scooter Libby Defense Fund and also founded a chain of "drug rehab" clinics that specialized in child torture). It is being conducted as a counterpoint to the anticipated release of the report documenting the "success" of the "surge," which will be presented by the Military Messiah du jour, David Petraeus -- even though it is being composed by the White House propaganda directorate.

It is a reflection of George W. Bush's omnivorous sense of entitlement, and the depraved ingenuity of the War Party's propagandists, that this campaign's first advertisement features Sgt. Kreisel, who displays the same misplaced devotion to Bush that Nicolas Chauvin purportedly demonstrated toward Bonaparte. By using Kreisel and others who have suffered in this needless war, Bush and his handlers are neatly inverting the warning from Henry V: The cause must be good, precisely because men have lost their limbs, minds, and lives in its service.

It wasn't enough that these corrupt, craven creatures -- none of whom has ever sacrificed anything on behalf of anybody -- staged an unnecessary, immoral war that deprived Kreisel of his legs, thereby leaving his young sons with an invalid father. Now they wish to extract from Kreisel's tragedy the last full measure of political advantage by using him to reinforce the prejudices of the Dear Leader's dwindling cohort of cult followers:





This squalid exercise perfectly encapsulates "Freedom" as defined by the Bushcisti:

Freedom consists in adhering to the Dear Leader's will in all things -- at whatever cost to you and your family; and since only those who echo the Dear Leader's voice are truly free, they alone should be allowed to participate. The purpose of the legislature is to ratify the Leader's decisions, and to appropriate money to carry them out.

Every totalitarian movement -- and by now it is clear to any honest and rational person that Bush-era "conservatism" deserves that description -- depends on the eager and energetic participation of the willfully ignorant; as the doxology of Orwell's dystopia recognized, "Ignorance is strength." The invincibly ignorant people who compose Bush's core constituency will have no difficulty swallowing and regurgitating the refrain "They attacked us" as a rationale for continuing the war on a country that had no connection whatsoever with 9-11. The only connection between Iraq and 9-11 is the outrage provoked in the Arab world as that country absorbed ten years of war (including criminal attacks on civilian infrastructure), bombing campaigns, and murderous sanctions dealt out by Washington.

As Orwell -- who understood the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- pointed out: "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

Because of the White House agitprop campaign, millions of people who already support the Dear Leader's war will "know" that Sgt. Kreisel lost his legs in a "terrorist" attack in Fallujah. Not one in ten thousand of them will know, or care about, the thousands of families living in that city who have been killed by American weapons since February 1991.


Hey, cheer up, kid -- you're being liberated!

An Iraqi child, oddly ungrateful for America's generosity and sacrifice, laments the death of his friends from a U.S. airstrike against Fallujah.

For such people, outrage over the roadside bomb that mangled Kreisel and killed two of his friends cannot co-exist with disapproval of the indiscriminate killing of Fallujans in 2004 in a campaign to "pacify" the city. That act of "liberation" included the use of White Phosphorus as what an official Defense Department essay called "a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents...."

White Phosphorus is a hideous high-yield chemical weapon: A WP munition can create a kill zone as much as a quarter of a mile wide, within which victims are burned and suffocated. A U.S. soldier who witnessed the use of that weapon in Fallujah recounted: "It seemed like just a massive killing of Arabs.... Burned bodies. Burned children. Burned women. White Phosphorus kills indiscriminately."


They made a desert and called it "liberation":

Fallujah, as seen from space, shortly after "Freedom" arrived in the form of White Phosphorus bombs and other high-performance explosives.


In the Bu'ushist lexicon, it is "terrorism" to employ improvised weapons against occupation troops in Fallujah, while the use of high-yield chemical weapons by occupation forces against the city's civilians is "liberation." Just before commencing the "liberation" of the city, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, a Marine commander in Fallujah, explained the matter with admirable concision: "What is coming is the destruction of anti-coalition forces in Fallujah. They have two choices: Submit or die."

It is in the service of that vision of "freedom" that Sgt. Kreisel lost his legs.


(My thanks to Eric Larsen for providing me with the indispensable term "Bushcisti.")

Please be sure to visit The Right Source and the Liberty Minute archive.

Flesh For War Fantasies

One significant problem with being an Empire: Everything is supposedly "our" business.

To my considerable shame, I just realized that it had been a long time since I had thought of Angola. In fact, it occurs to me that I really don't have a feeling toward that country one way or another.

How utterly scandalous this is. I obviously suffer from a severely parochial worldview, if not outright bigotry. All decent people are required to take an interest in Angolan affairs, and to work on behalf of that nation's survival.

Whoops – I made a mistake. It was Austria I had forgotten, not Angola – an easy mistake, I suppose, given that the names of those countries are similar, if little else about them is. Austria is the nation that is supposed to hold captive all of my waking thoughts, and dominate the dreams that come once my eyes surrender to weariness at day's end.

Oh. Sorry. My bad.

It turns out that the small foreign country I'm morally obliged to care about is Guatemala, where I lived for a little more than a year in the 1980s --

Now, this has become simply obnoxious. Sierra Leone, that tragic land, scene of some of the most horrific atrocities of recent memory, is the country that should always be uppermost in my thoughts, lest I be accused of indifference to genocide.

Admittedly, it's difficult to keep track of which distant, unfamiliar country should by the focus of my concerns – to such an extent that I would be willing to surrender the blood of my children in its defense.

Perhaps the issue could be clarified if the regime running that country could stage a PR campaign in which its government shamelessly pimps several young female military veterans by having them pose in borderline pornographic photo spreads for Maxim magazine.

We have a winner! The nation in question is, of course, Israel.

Like much of the evil done in this world, the idea of a Maxim photo feature on Israeli women (starring former Miss Israel Gal Gadot) originated in New York, more specifically at the Israeli consulate, “where research showed that Israel meant little to young American men” in the all-important 18-35 demographic, reports the AP.

Former Miss Israel Gal Gadot, featured in the Israeli regime's quasi-porn propaganda campaign, seen here in suitable attire.

“Males that age have no feeling toward Israel one way or another, and we view that as a problem, so we came up with an idea that would be appealing to them,” explains an Israeli government media adviser named David Dorfman. Thus Maxim was contacted by the Israeli consulate and asked to take part in “reshaping Israel's public image.”

What neither the Dorfster nor any of his allies in this effort would explain is this: Why is it obligatory for American males of any age -- let alone those in an age bracket targeted for military recruitment -- to have feelings of any sort about a country to which they have no organic connection or moral responsibility?

Israel can expect the allegiance of its citizens, and for understandable reasons Jews in every nation take an interest in its survival. But I cannot think of a compelling reason why the typical American should take a greater interest in Israel than he does in Angola, Austria, Guatemala, or Sierra Leone.

Ecclesio-Leninists of John Hagee's ilk would insist that Christians have a God-prescribed duty to support the Israeli government, to the point of mass bloodshed, if necessary. Since Hagee considers it just and meet to kill on Israel's behalf, I wonder if he would consider it appropriate to peddle quasi-porn, and consume the same, in that cause. (I'm suddenly afflicted with a mental image of Hagee poring over the pages of the July installment of Maxim, his wattles quivering and his eyes distended as he succumbs to a combination of sanctimony and salacity).

Hagee is precisely the kind of "friend to Israel" whose preferred policies would kill a lot of Israelis and other innocent people. He really should pause and ask himself if a government that would exploit prurient interests in this fashion (not to mention sponsoring "Gay Pride" parades) is really the Zion longed for by prophets and saints of ages past. From where I sit, that government appears no better or worse than any of a dozen others I could name, our own most definitely included.

While the Israeli consulate in New York prepares to fire the Maxim gun in its propaganda arsenal, the War Party is pursuing a somewhat subtler approach in preparing the public for a US/Israeli attack on Iran. Yesterday (June 20) the House of Representatives passed a resolution demanding that the UN Security Council “charge Iranian President Maumoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide,” and that the Council consider unspecified “measures” to “prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons....”

The resolution regurgitates the claim, which has been canonized through repetition although patently and demonstrably false, that Ahmadinejad “called for Israel to be `wiped off the map'.” While the Iranian president is a certifiable maniac guilty of many crimes against decency, that phrase was not uttered by him: He was, in fact, calling for what is now “regime change” by calling for an end to the Israeli government, not the annihilation of the Israeli people. If calling for “regime change” is now to be considered an incitement to genocide, the entire staff of the American Enterprise Institute should be seized and extradited to stand trial before the UN International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Only two congressmen, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), voted against the resolution. Kucinich “attempted to have read into the record alternate translations of Ahmadinejad's remarks that suggest the Iranian leader was calling Israel to come to an end through democratic means, and not through violence,” reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

While describing himself as “unequivocal in my support for the security and survival of Israel” and possessed of “serious concerns with the remarks made by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” Kucinich denounced the resolution, correctly describing it as an attempt to “lay the groundwork for an offensive, unprovoked war” -- one in which Israelis, as well as Americans and Iranians, would be killed, and that will probably ignite a broader conflict lasting for years or even decades.

And that is an obscenity far greater than anything available in the pages of Maxim.

Please be sure to visit The Right Source.