Taking it Too Far

When you think of who might be callous enough to organize an anti-American soldiers protest at the funeral of a soldier, you might guess the protestors to be liberals of some stripe. Liberals traditionally don't support the war (although we do support the people of the armed forces, try as you might to throw it in our faces), and so they're about the only people who protest war related stuff. The person you see at the left, and the organization they belong to, aren't liberals, don't support our soldiers, and are full of bigoted hate. For all of the details, please read this brief CNN story.

To me, this group has all the makings of a religious weirdo cult (no offense to religion). The leader is a Baptist preacher named Fred Phelps (his congregation is mostly his family). Mr. Phelps feels it's important to preach God's hate. From what I've learned of Christianity (of which I'm a lifetime member), God is a fount of love, with little of no room for hate. But since American soldiers represent the American government, and the government is pro homosexuality, and God hates gays, so it follows that soldiers are pro homo (and God hates them too). It's okay, I see a couple missing links in that chain too. These people have gone so far down the path of darkness that even the most bigoted, homophobic, conservative people I know would be sick to see what they're doing. I know I am.

Since a live soldier probably wouldn't take any crap from these people, they have to heckle the families of casualties. This just causes more emotional stress for people that have more than enough already. Don't like gays? There are plenty of more constructive (at least as constructive as bigotry gets) ways to go about expressing yourself.

I just can't get my mind to follow this twisted logic. Only a few states recognize same sex marriages, and in more than a few, interest is high enough to put "marriage definitions" laws on ballots. The president himself tried to rally his religious-right supporters by calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that banned same sex marriage (thankfully, the non bigoted part of America shot that down). To me, America seems to lean anti-gay. The Phelps Cult just seems so full of hate that it's poisoning them. That's the only reason I can come up with. Thankfully, a group of compassionate citizens has formed (the Patriot Guard Riders), and families don't have to hear about how God hates them throughout one of the hardest hours of their lives.

Of course, the constitution guarantees the right to assemble and protest, and I suppose that's what you'd call this, but human decency calls for restraint in certain situations. This is one of those situations, and it should be embarrassing that the man who lacks this simple courtesy claims to be a man of God. I should think that his God could tell him that he's crossed an invisible line here.

Obstacles to a Safer World

The obstacles I speak of are Russia and China. I'm not big fans of either of these countries because of their record on human rights (in Russia's case, this mostly includes elections). One of them (China) seems to be slowly improving on that, but Russia (or at least its president Vladimir Putin) is slipping back down the slope. But what's got me really frustrated now is the statement approved by the UN security council today that has been weakened by these countries' petty rivalry with the U.S.

What should've been a warning to Iran that the world was done with their games turned into a half-hearted "you've got 30 days to stop this, or, or, ... or else." What do the Chinese and Russians have to say about their willingness to allow a regime of crazy, despotic, religious nuts to have nukes? They want the International Atomic Energy Agency to handle it. You'd have to be stupid to think the IAEA can handle this case. They have been trying for years to stop Iran, but they can't, so they referred the issue to the U.N. Security Council. We all know that at least Russia sees this, because it takes a brain to snatch power like Putin's done, so he must have another reason, probably the same with China. What's the real reason then? I think they just want to hinder whatever the U.S. tries to do. I can only wonder how much selfishness it takes to allow the spread of nuclear weapons in one of the most unstable regions of the world.

If I had any voice in the matter (if any Russian readers could please convey my message to your quasi-elected lawmakers, I'd be grateful), I'd tell Russia and China that there's plenty of room for them in the powerful, good-guys' circle. They needn't create a dark-side from the ashes of the communist powers just because they're nervous about the western countries being stronger than them. If Vladimir Putin would stop rigging his elections, and if China would hold any elections, those are major steps in the right direction. I'm sure the U.S. and Europe would be happy to allow two more into the democratized part of the global community. As it is, they seem to be entertaining delusions great power.

Add this on top of reports earlier this week that Russia handed intelligence to Saddam right before we invaded, and you start to see a pattern. I think my (republican) friend Alex B. Says it best: "The Cold War's over." The losing side would be doing itself a favor if it acted accordingly. Putting aside rivalries to cooperate in the face of a real problem would be a great start.

Readers' Requests

I'd call it the Mailbag, but some of it's not mail, and that'd sound like I was copying Drew.

I think you should write something about Euthanasia, like whether a terminally ill patient's family has the right to decide if they can die on their own terms. -Mai

Well Mai, this subject is at the center of attention quite a bit: last year with Terri Schiavo, and a couple months ago a supreme court ruling upheld Oregon's assisted suicide laws. After a little research, I found that euthanasia and assisted suicide aren't the same thing (although closely related). Euthanasia is when somebody else kills the person who wants to die (through lethal injection or some other painless way). Assisted suicide is when somebody else gives the person who wants to die the means to (a doctor hooking a patient up to an IV, and the patient pushes a button that delivers a lethal dose). For the purposes of this discussion, these differences don't matter.

Usually I don't like killing. But when you could maybe live for a couple more painful months, who really wants to spend their last days laying in a hospital with tubes coming out of every opening in their body, doped up so that they just lay in a constant stupor? Or in the case of Terri Schiavo, we had a person who was a vegetable. Her brain was gone, and she wasn't going to come back at all. So, her husband had the decency to let her die, like I think she was intended to in the first place. Recently conservatives tried to have these privileges taken away from the people of Oregon because they don't like the fact that people can choose when they want to live or die (the Supreme Court upheld Oregon's laws). In fact, the name usually given to this issue is the "Right to Die". It's the same way with abortion, but I won't go into that now.

I think you should write something about outsourcing. -T.J.

What can I say about outsourcing? It's the practice of companies firing their American employees and having those employees replaced with people from another country like India. Why? Because it costs less. Textile jobs and the other less skilled jobs have been outsourced to places like Thailand, China, Mexico (you name a place with loose labor laws and it's got sweatshops spitting out clothing for American consumers) for a long time. More recently, computer and engineering related jobs have been going to India. Often, the Indian worker has an American or other western education, but they'll take lower pay. Is this right? Depends, are you a C.E.O. (isn't it funny that theirs are the only jobs safe from outsourcing?), or are you a member of the other 99.9 % of America? I myself think that when we stop making anything for ourselves, we'll be at the mercy of the rest of the world. Since I don't like outsourcing, I think that major corporations should be better regulated by the federal government. Nothing extreme, just that the government do something about the extremely rich C.E.O. types screwing over their American and foreign workers so that they can be even richer. Kind of level the playing field, just a little.

What do you think about the sectarian violence in Iraq right now? -Anonymous

One of the main reasons Iraq is a bad place to be for anybody right now is that Iraqis don't see themselves as Iraqis. They see Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds. Even that wouldn't be so bad if they had any religious tolerance. It would be like me (a Methodist) hating Catholics just because they don't believe exactly what I do, so I'd form a militia with my other Methodist holy warriors and march across town to clean out some Catholics, but on the way, a group of armed Lutherans sees my group and shoots an RPG at us, starting a battle that soon attracts the Catholics. After the fight is broken up by the police, 30 people are dead. And then we blame the police for not keeping us safe. Part of it is the police's (who symbolize the American presence in Iraq) fault, lack of planning for the postwar, not anticipating the violent streak of the minority Sunnis, etc. But, get real, who picked up their gun and marched across town to kill somebody who's only crime is saying evening prayers at 6:30 instead of 7 (I don't really know what the different beliefs of the different sects are)?

We can't really leave Iraq until Iraqis keep religion out of government, and are able to respect each others' ideas as different, but not wrong.

Playing Games With America

Secretary of State Rice said on Fox (and a couple other real news channels) recently that significant reductions of American troops in Iraq are "entirely possible" in the coming year. What does this mean really? On the surface, it seems like she's saying that we will most probably see this significant reduction in the time frame she mentions. But look at what those two words "entirely possible" mean: if it's possible, just a 1 in a trillion chance, that a meteor could smash into earth in the next year, you could also argue that such an event is "entirely possible", because their is a possibility. The conditions of the troop reduction "possibility" are that Iraqis can control themselves, and their police and armed forces are ready to go. A year seems like pretty quick recovery time from near civil war. No need to make any binding commitments Ms. Rice.

Here's something else: her case for being able to bring these troops home is what Gen. Casey (the top guy in Iraq) told congress in January, which is that if we could bring down the American presence in Iraq we'd fuel the insurgency less. Maybe this news hasn't reached the White House yet, but there has been a huge increase in sectarian violence since then, which has the makings of a civil war (I've already mentioned this). I can't say for sure, but it seems that if we were to take more than a couple of soldiers out of Iraq now, the Shias and Sunnis would just go at it until all the Sunnis were dead. That might stabilize the area, but that's a lot of dead people.

So why are we being to subjected to all these lies? Well, in less than eight months, there's going to be an election. If the republicans can't turn the situation around in Iraq (or at least convince enough Americans that they have), they'll do badly. It's simple election year politics. Don't get me wrong, democrats do it too, but they would be suicidal to make such a huge promise when it's pretty obvious they can't keep it. So why are republicans (or the White House at least) doing it? My guess would be that they know they're going to lose badly if they can't pull something big, so they're going all in (to borrow a poker term). They don't really care that they can't possibly deliver what they're promising you. Republicans are just playing games with you and me.

Double Standards

One of my loyal readers has requested that I weigh in on a slightly different (although it's still important, read on) issue than what I've been doing. Today, I'll be discussing that Florida case involving a teacher who had sex with a student. She got off with no prison time, just three years of house arrest and seven of probation (the maximum sentence for the two crimes she was charged with was 15 years in prison, each) in a plea agreement she reached some time ago. And she's no longer allowed to teach or have contact with children of any kind. Just this week, she faced related charges in a neighboring county, and those charges were dropped completely.

Now, I'm sure it's not exactly the same in Florida, but in Iowa, if a male teacher had sex with a 14 year old female student multiple times, he would have done time in prison (a lot of time). If that guy tried to use his bipolar disorder and personal issues in his defense, the court and the people would've said "Oh, so he's an insane sex-offender, lock him up for life!" And if the girl in question didn't seem too much worse for the wear, everybody would've said "She's just been through a traumatic experience, you can't expect her to behave predictably."

Instead, the genders have been reversed, and suddenly being crazy is an excuse, and the 14 year old boy in question is evidence for "No lasting damage done, let's all just put it behind us."

All of this brings to mind the question "Is the justice system equal for men and women when it comes to sexual offenses like these?" Of course, there could be many causes of this tip in the scales, possibly women dominating the system and favoring their own kind (I doubt this happened because 1. The male race will have to die out before women can break our chokehold on power, 2.Women are superior in many aspects, fairness being one of them [no, I'm not a traitor, just a realist]). Or (slightly more likely) men brought this on themselves somehow, but I couldn't explain it if this is what went down. This is one place for you readers to leave comments, and they don't have to be extremely partisan. Just a nice, intellectual discussion that will benefit everyone.

Religious Freedom in Afghanistan

You've probably heard by now, but there is a man on trial in Afghanistan (he faces the death penalty) whose only crime was converting from Islam to Christianity. Under international pressure, it looks like the court is just going to declare him insane so that they can make the whole thing go away without angering their large Muslim population or the rest of the civilized world (where people aren't usually punished at all for converting to anything). This is one of those istances where we can use the term "died in vain." Two hundred some Americans (and don't forget that the other countries helping us have taken casualties also) did not die to free a country from a bunch of oppressive terrorists so that the new government can kill people for choosing a religion that's not Islam.
As you may have noticed here, this is one instance where I share a position with conservatives, although I think their motives might be different (see the new polls). My estimate is that this story wouldn't have made the news like it has if Rahman had converted to Hinduism, because the White House wouldn't have cared (I've gotten the impression over the years that they only care about Christians). I, on the other hand, support religious freedom for all, as I'm sure many of you do.
What the people of Afghanistan need to understand is that they're no longer an obscure, crackpot ruled country in a far corner of Asia whose major export is opium. They are now a member of the international community, with a freedom-guaranteeing constitution. It's only fair that they should act like one. If they can't see that, then we've been wasting our time.

Three Years in Iraq

I'm a little late, but we recently reached the three year mark in Iraq. What do we have to show for three years, billions of dollars, more than 2,000 American military deaths, and some 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths (1,000 of those are in the last month alone)?
Let me say, up front, that I think our actions regarding Iraq and Saddam Hussein were a mistake. There were many alternatives. That said, things will be a lot worse if we just leave now. I also think that democracy, schools, etc. Are a good thing for Iraqis. But let's look at the big picture.
Yes, there have been two (I think) free elections in Iraq, and they've got their own constitution. Last week their parliament met for the first time. Do you know where they met? In the green zone, that concrete fortress in the middle of Baghdad, the only safe place in Iraq for whites, Christians, or their supporters (the parliament) (it should also be said that another group of our supporters, the Iraqi police, don't have the luxury of hiding in the green zone, they have to walk the streets just like our soldiers, but they aren't nearly of the same quality and firepower). In my mind, this kind of takes the wind out of the whole idea's sails. Really, should an elected legislative body have to be protected from its people? The fact that it does says something's not right. I don't blame the Iraqi people, unless you count the insurgents (who just keep multiplying).
The major problem we have in Iraq now is the insurgency. Whenever you kill one, five more are recruited. And they are slowly bleeding our forces. What bothers me is that conservatives will say "See, those insurgents got a convoy today with an IED, but we responded and killed 30 of 'em. I told you, Iraq is crawling with terrorists and we're killing 'em by the dozens." There's nothing factually wrong with that statement, but the terrorists weren't there until we made the place a haven for them. It's too late now to just kill them all, because it can't be done. We need to take steps like increasing public relations, giving Iraqis better security so that they don't need to carry assault rifles, and give them a reliable supply of the basic services we enjoy. This would hopefully improve our image with Iraqis, and the insurgents would have major recruiting issues.
As it is, all we've got is a president and a secretary of defense who don't really care what happens, so long as they can keep up the charade of building democracy while paying their friends in the contracting business millions and billions of dollars to do nothing. What we're doing now isn't fair to ourselves, our armed forces, or Iraq.

George Tenet's Secret Source

Big news this week: It was revealed that the CIA had dealings with Saddam's foreign minister. Basically, for a little while (right around C. Powell's UN speech), the CIA paid him to tell them about WMDs. He told them (and this was a guy who was in Saddam's "inner circle") that Saddam had no significant biological or chemical weapon stockpiles and the only nuclear things he had were dreams. Why didn't they listen to him? Even after these meetings, the figures the public saw painted Iraq as one big WMD warehouse. Pressure from the White House?
This is just more proof that the administration had no real reason to invade Iraq. Think about, they've "flip-flopped" more on Iraq than they say John Kerry of. First, Saddam had vast amounts of weapons (and probably nukes) that he was going to either use directly against the U.S., or sell to his home-boy Osama (who would also use them on us). After it became clear there were no WMDs or terrorist connections, they insisted that we just hadn't found them. After a couple years, they admitted there probably weren't WMDs or terrorist connections, then they blamed the CIA and a few other scapegoats. But bringing democracy to the middle east and making the area more stable was a worthy goal. Yes, in fact, W had said so right from the start when justifying his war.
W just has it in for some people.

U.S. Units Still Abusing and Torturing Prisoners

Even more details of previously unknown prisoner abuse in Iraq have surfaced recently. I'm disgusted, utterly disgusted. This torture is being committed by American soldiers (Task force 6-26 in Camp name, Iraq to be specific). And we wonder why people hate us. Their problem with us is that we (meaning some in our government) are hypocrites who think we're above the laws and treaties we used to follow just like everyone else.
Supposedly, this unit has cleaned up after civilian officials in the DoD, CIA, and FBI became aware of what was going on, but I seriously doubt that much has been done. Some people have been punished, but now they've changed bases and increased their secrecy. The root of this problem is the administrations overall lack of planning for post-war Iraq. Now their authorizing any means to get intelligence and stop the insurgents (given, they've started cleaning house since Abu Ghraib). The problem is that it's not working.
Why should you care? Well, for starters, just because these people are Arabs or Muslims (the two aren't interchangeable) who might or might not be enemies of the U.S., they are still people. I know many of you don't see it that way. How's this then? Our reputation and image as Americans is being dragged through the mud. Yes, because we're a democracy, task force 6-26 and others are committing these acts in your name. As the greatest democracy in the world, we have no right to stoop to the level of terrorists and torture our prisoners. Unless we take the high road in Iraq, we cannot achieve victory. This stuff we're doing is just killing more Americans.